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+Project Gutenberg's The Red Book of Heroes, by Leonora Blanche Lang
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Book of Heroes
+
+Author: Leonora Blanche Lang
+
+Editor: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2006 [EBook #19078]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED BOOK OF HEROES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Colin Bell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "'Go back,' he said."]
+
+THE RED BOOK OF HEROES
+
+BY MRS. LANG
+
+EDITED BY ANDREW LANG
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WITH 8 COLOURED PLATES AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
+BY A. WALLIS MILLS
+
+LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
+NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
+
+1909
+
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+'Life is not all beer and skittles,' said a reflective sportsman, and
+all books are not fairy tales. In an imperfect state of existence, 'the
+peety of it is that we cannot have all things as we would like them.'
+Undeniably we would like all books to be fairy tales or novels, and at
+present most of them are. But there is another side to things, and we
+must face it. '"Life is real, life is earnest," as Tennyson tells us,'
+said an orator to whom I listened lately, and though Longfellow, not
+Tennyson, wrote the famous line quoted by the earnest speaker, yet there
+is a good deal of truth in it. The word 'earnest,' like many other good
+words, has been overdone. It is common to sneer at 'earnest workers,'
+yet where would we be without them, especially in our climate?
+
+In a Polynesian island, where the skies for ever smile, and the blacks
+for ever dance, earnestness is superfluous. The bread-fruit tree
+delivers its rolls punctually every morning, strawberries or other
+fruits, as nice, spring beneath the feet of the dancers; the cavern in
+the forest provides a roof and shelter from the sun; the sea supplies a
+swimming-bath, and man, in time of peace, has only to enjoy himself, eat
+and drink, laugh and love, sing songs and tell fairy tales. His drapery
+is woven of fragrant flowers, nobody is poor and anxious about food,
+nobody is rich and afraid of losing his money, nobody needs to think of
+helping others; he has only to put forth his hand, or draw his bow or
+swing his fishing-rod, and help himself. To be sure, in time of war, man
+has just got to be earnest, and think out plans for catching and
+spearing his enemies, and drill his troops and improve his weapons, in
+fact to do some work, or have his throat cut, and be put in the oven and
+eaten. Thus it is really hard for the most fortunate people to avoid
+being earnest now and then.
+
+The people whose stories are told in this book were very different from
+each other in many ways. The child abbess, M�re Ang�lique, ruling her
+convent, and at war with naughty abbesses who hated being earnest, does
+not at once remind us of Hannibal. The great Montrose, with his poems
+and his scented love-locks, his devotion to his cause, his chivalry, his
+death, to which he went gaily clad like a bridegroom to meet his bride,
+does not seem a companion for Palissy the Potter, all black and shrunk
+and wrinkled, and bowed over his furnaces. It is a long way from gentle
+Miss Nightingale, tending wounded dogs when a child, and wounded
+soldiers when a woman, to Charles Gordon playing wild tricks at school,
+leading a Chinese army, watching alone at Khartoum, in a circle of cruel
+foes, for the sight of the British colours, and the sounds of the
+bagpipes that never met his eyes and ears.
+
+But these people, and all the others whose stories are told, had this in
+common, that they were in earnest, though we may be sure that they did
+not go about with talk of earnestness for ever in their mouths. It came
+natural to them, they could not help it, they liked it, their hearts
+were set on two things: to do their very best, and to keep their honour.
+The Constant Prince suffered hunger and cold and long imprisonment all
+'to keep the bird in his bosom,' as the old Cavalier said, to be true to
+honour. 'I will carry with me honour and fidelity to the grave,' said
+Montrose; and he kept his word, though his enemies gave him no grave,
+but placed his head and limbs on spikes in various towns of his country.
+But now his grave, in St. Giles's Church in Edinburgh, is the most
+beautiful and honourable in Scotland, adorned with his stainless
+scutcheon, and with those of Napiers and Grahams, his kindred and his
+friends.
+
+        "The grave of March, the grave of Gwythar,
+        The grave of Gugann Gleddyvrudd,
+        A mystery to the world, the grave of Arthur,"
+
+says the old Welsh poem, and unknown as the grave of Arthur is the grave
+of Gordon. The desert wind may mingle his dust with the sand, the Nile
+may sweep it to the sea, as the Seine bore the ashes of that martyr of
+honour, the Maid of France. 'The whole earth is brave men's common
+sepulchre,' says the Greek, their tombs may be without mark or monument,
+but 'honour comes a pilgrim grey' to the sacred places where men cannot
+go in pilgrimage.
+
+We see what honour they had of men; the head of Sir Thomas More, the
+head of Montrose, were exposed to mockery in public places, the ashes of
+Jeanne d'Arc were thrown into the river, Gordon's body lies unknown; but
+their honour is eternal in human memory. It was really for honour that
+Sir Thomas More suffered; it was not possible for him to live without
+the knowledge that his shield was stainless. It was for honour rather
+than for religion that the child Ang�lique Arnauld gave up amusement and
+pleasure, and everything that is dear to a girl, young, witty,
+beautiful, and gay, and put on the dress of a nun. Later she worked for
+the sake of duty and religion, but honour was her first mistress, and
+she could not go back from her plighted word.
+
+These people were born to be what they were, to be examples to all of us
+that are less nobly born and like a quiet, easy, merry life. We cannot
+all be Gordons, Montroses, Ang�liques, but if we read about them and
+think about them, a touch of their nobility may come to us, and surely
+our honour is in our own keeping. We may try never to do a mean thing,
+or a doubtful thing, a thing that Gordon would not have been tempted to
+do, though we are tempted, more tempted as we grow older and see what
+the world does than are the young. I think honour is the dearest and the
+most natural of virtues; in their own ways none are more loyal than boys
+and girls. Later we may forget that no pleasure, no happiness, not even
+the love that seems the strongest force in our natures, is worth having
+at the expense of a stain on the white rose of honour. Had she been a
+few years older, Ang�lique might have failed to keep the word which was
+extorted from her as a child, but, being young, she kept it the more
+easily. What we have to do is to try to be young always in this matter,
+to be our natural selves and unspotted from the world. Certainly some
+people are a little better, and so far a little happier, because they
+have seen the light from Charles Gordon's yet living head, and been half
+heart-broken by his end, so glorious to himself, so inglorious to his
+fellow countrymen. For his dear sake we may all do a little, sacrifice a
+little, to help the Homes for Boys which have been built to his memory,
+and to help the poor boys whom he used to help, making himself poor, and
+giving his time for them.
+
+We read in the book, 'A Child's Hero,' how the brave Havelock won the
+heart of a little child who never saw him. She heard the words 'Havelock
+is dead,' and laid her head against the wall and burst into tears. Other
+children may feel the same devotion for these splendid people, for
+Hannibal, so far away from us, giving his whole heart and whole genius
+and his life for his wretched country, for men who would not understand,
+who would not aid him:
+
+        "Their old art statesmen plied,
+        And paltered, and evaded, and denied"
+
+till their country was vanquished. Bad as that country was, for
+Hannibal's own sake we are all on the side of Hannibal, as we are on the
+side of Hector of Troy. 'Well know I this in heart and soul,' said
+Hector to his wife, when she would have kept him out of the battle,
+'that the day is coming when holy Ilios shall perish, and Priam, and the
+people of Priam of the ashen spear, my father with my mother, and my
+brothers, many and brave, dying in the dust at the hands of our foemen;
+but most I sorrow for thee, my wife, when they lead thee weeping away, a
+slave to weave at thy master's loom and bear water from thy master's
+well, and the passers-by, as they see thee weeping, shall say, "This was
+the wife of Hector, the foremost in fight of the men of Troy, when they
+fought for their city." But may I be dead, and the earth be mounded
+above me, ere I hear thy cry and the tale of thy captivity.'
+
+So he went back into the battle, and never again saw his wife and child.
+It was in the spirit of Hector that Hannibal planned and fought and
+toiled, till as an old man he bit on the poison ring, and died, and was
+free from the Roman captivity that threatened him.
+
+Honour and courage were the masters of the men and women whose stories
+are told in this book, but of them all none dared a risk so horrible as
+brave Father Damien in the Isle of Lepers. For his adventure among
+dreadful people who must give him their own dreadful disease, a Montrose
+or a Havelock might have had little heart, for his task had none of the
+excitement and glitter of the soldier's duty in war. But they are all,
+these men and women, good to live with, good to know, good to go with,
+weary camp followers as we are of the Noble Army of Martyrs, and
+unworthy of a single leaf from the laurel crown.
+
+                                                                A. Lang.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                PAGE
+
+ The Lady-in-Chief                                1
+
+ Prisoners and Captives                          25
+
+ Hannibal                                        43
+
+ The Apostle of the Lepers                       95
+
+ The Constant Prince                            109
+
+ The Marquis of Montrose                        135
+
+ A Child's Hero                                 169
+
+ Conscience or King                             222
+
+ The Little Abbess                              246
+
+ Gordon                                         281
+
+ The Crime of Theodosius                        334
+
+ Palissy the Potter                             352
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+COLOURED PLATES
+
+(Engraved and Printed by Andr� & Sleigh, Ltd., Bushey.)
+
+'Go back!' he said [See page 350]        Frontispiece
+
+                                          to face p.
+Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day            74
+
+Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely
+  place by the sea                              106
+
+A great army of Irishmen have swooped down
+  on the Atholl country                         150
+
+The place was swarming with rats                208
+
+She took all her nuns for a solemn walk         258
+
+They saw a man in uniform shining with gold
+  flying towards them                           316
+
+A jar of water in the figure's right hand
+  emptied itself on his head                    364
+
+
+FULL-PAGE PLATES
+
+                                          to face p.
+Roger could hardly believe his eyes               6
+
+She came forth with a golden circlet round
+  her head                                       44
+
+Hannibal was determined not to stir until
+  the elephants were safely over                 58
+
+Under the eyes of the army the combat began      68
+
+In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till
+  the fatal hour was past                       114
+
+About thirty or forty of our honestest
+  women did fall a railing on Mr. William
+  Annan                                         140
+
+'You will soon have no caste left yourself'     194
+
+Often ... he had felt that a terrible death
+  was very near                                 218
+
+Sir Thomas sat silent                           232
+
+'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered             240
+
+'You are mistaking me for somebody else'        248
+
+The archers set a ladder against the wall,
+  which the lady instantly threw down           274
+
+Gordon found time to attend to an old dying
+  woman                                         310
+
+A shot ended his life                           330
+
+'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it
+  will be too late'                             338
+
+'Let him die!' he said                          344
+
+The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved     354
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
+
+                                                PAGE
+'Tell me what you want to say, and I will
+  say it'                                        17
+
+They sprang on the food like wolves              28
+
+He brushed down the walls without hindrance
+  from anyone                                    41
+
+All three were apt pupils                        51
+
+The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting
+  and screaming with delight                     56
+
+He found right in front of him a huge
+  precipice                                      64
+
+The whole four thousand climbed the ridge        77
+
+'Let me release the Romans from their
+  anxiety,' he said                              93
+
+He found the Prince lying unconscious on
+  the ground                                    130
+
+For two days they sought in vain for a road
+  to take them to Caithness                     162
+
+He managed to crawl over the floor              179
+
+The Captain obligingly did as he was asked      183
+
+Suddenly the table began to rock                189
+
+In another moment he would have been trampled
+  under the feet of the Afghan cavalry          191
+
+Not one of their movements passed unnoticed
+  by her                                        201
+
+A tired horseman rode into camp                 204
+
+The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in
+  arguing                                       213
+
+Erasmus was astonished to notice More present
+  Prince Henry with a roll                      228
+
+'Go away! you have no business here.'           253
+
+She fell fainting to the ground                 266
+
+He told them stories from English history       303
+
+He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and
+  stared                                        314
+
+Fancy poor Madame Palissy's feelings            359
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY-IN-CHIEF
+
+
+Everybody nowadays is so used to seeing in the streets nurses wearing
+long floating cloaks of different colours, blue, brown, grey, and the
+rest, and to having them with us when we are ill, that it is difficult
+to imagine a time when there were no such people. In the stories that
+were written even fifty years ago you will soon find out what sort of
+women they were who called themselves 'nurses.' Any kind of person seems
+to have been thought good enough to look after a sick man; it was not a
+matter which needed a special talent or teaching, and no girl would have
+dreamed of nursing anybody outside her own home, still less of giving up
+her life to looking after the sick. It was merely work, it was thought,
+for _old_ women, and so, at the moment when the patient needed most
+urgently some one young and strong and active about him, who could lift
+him from one side of the bed to the other, or keep awake all night to
+give him his medicine or to see that his fire did not go out, he was
+left to a fat, sleepy, often drunken old body, who never cared if he
+lived or died, so that _she_ was not disturbed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The woman who was to change all this was born in Florence in the year
+1820 and called after that city. Her father, Mr. Nightingale, seems to
+have been fond of giving his family place-names, for Florence's sister,
+about a year older than herself, had the old title of Naples tacked on
+to 'Frances,' and in after life was always spoken of as 'Parthy' or
+'Parthenope.' By and by a young cousin of these little girls would be
+named 'Athena,' after the town Athens, and then the fashion grew, and I
+have heard of twins called 'Inkerman' and 'Balaclava,' and of an
+'Elsinora,' while we all know several 'Almas,' and may even have met a
+lady who bears the name of the highest mountain in the world--of course
+you can all guess what _that_ is?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale did not stay very long in Italy after
+Florence's birth. They grew tired of living abroad, and wanted to get
+back to their old home among the hills and streams of Derbyshire. Here,
+at Lea hall, Florence's father could pass whole days happily with his
+books and the beautiful things he had collected in his travels; but he
+looked well after the people in the village, and insisted that the
+children should be sent to a little school, where they learned how to
+read and write and count for twopence a week. If the poor villagers were
+ill or unhappy, his wife used to visit them, and help them with advice
+as well as with money, and we may be quite sure that her little
+daughters often went with her on her rounds.
+
+So the early years of Florence's childhood passed away amidst the
+flowery fields and bare hills that overlooked the beautiful river
+Derwent. The village, built of stone like so many in the North Country,
+lay far below, and on Sundays the two little girls, dressed in their
+best tippets and bonnets, used to walk with their father and mother
+across the meadows to the tiny church at Dethick. Here nearly two
+hundred and fifty years ago one Anthony Babington knelt in prayer,
+though his thoughts often wandered to the beautiful Scottish queen, shut
+up by order of Elizabeth in Wingfield manor, only a few miles away. Of
+course Parthy and Florence knew all about him, and their greatest treat
+was a visit to his house, where they could see in the kitchen a
+trap-door leading to a large secret chamber, in which a conspirator
+might live for weeks without being found out. A great deal of the house
+had been pulled down or allowed to fall into decay, but the bailiff, who
+lived in the rest, was always glad to see them, and would take them to
+all kinds of delightful places, and up little dark narrow winding
+stairs, at the end of which you pushed up another trap-door and found
+yourself in your bedroom. What a fascinating way of getting there, and
+how very, very silly people are now to have wide staircases and straight
+passages and stupid doors, which you _know_ will open, instead of never
+being sure if the trap-door had not stuck, or some enemy had not placed
+a heavy piece of furniture upon it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But much as the Nightingales, big and little, loved Lea hall, it was
+very bare and cold in winter, and Florence's father determined to build
+a new house in a more sheltered place. Lea Hurst, as it was called, was
+only a mile from the hall, and, like it, overlooked the Derwent; but
+here the hills were wooded and kept out the bitter winds which had
+howled and wailed through the old house. Mr. Nightingale was very
+careful that all should be done exactly as he wished, therefore it took
+some time to finish, and _then_ the family could not move in till the
+paint and plaster were dry, so that Florence was between five and six
+when at last they took possession.
+
+No doubt the two little girls had much to say about the laying out of
+the terraced gardens, and insisted on having some beds of their own, to
+plant with their favourite flowers. They were greatly pleased, too, at
+discovering a very old chapel in the middle of the new house, and very
+likely they told each other many stories of what went on there. Then
+there was a summer-house, where they could have tea, and if you went
+through the woods in May, and could make up your mind to pass the
+sheets of blue hyacinths without stopping to pick them till you were too
+tired to go further, you came out upon a splendid avenue, with a view of
+the hills for miles round. This was the walk which Florence loved best.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seems, however, that Mr. Nightingale could not have thought Lea Hurst
+as pleasant as he expected it to be, for a few months later he bought a
+place called Embley, near the beautiful abbey of Romsey, in Hampshire.
+Here they all moved every autumn as soon as the trees at Lea Hurst grew
+bare; and when the young leaves were showing like a green mist, they
+began the long drive back again, sometimes stopping in London on the
+way, to see some pictures and hear some music, and have some talk with
+many interesting people whom Mr. Nightingale knew. And when they got
+home at last, how delightful it was to ride round to the old friends in
+the farms and cottages, and listen to tales of all that had happened
+during the little girls' absence, and in their turn to tell of the
+wonderful sights they had witnessed, and the adventures that had
+befallen them! Best of all were the visits to the families of puppies
+and kittens which had been born during their absence, for Florence
+especially loved animals, and was often sent for by the neighbours to
+cure them when they were ill. The older and uglier they were, the
+sorrier Florence was for them, and she would often steal out with sugar
+or apples or carrots in her pocket for some elderly beast which was
+ending its days quietly in the fields, stopping in the woods on the way
+to play with a squirrel or a baby rabbit. The game was perhaps a little
+one-sided, but what did that matter? As the poet Cowper says,
+
+        Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods
+          To share her home caresses,
+        And looked up to her human eyes
+          With sylvan tendernesses.
+
+Beasts and birds were Florence's dear friends, but dearest of all were
+her ponies.
+
+While she was at Embley, the vicar, who was very fond of her, used often
+to take her out riding when he went on his rounds to see his people.
+Florence enjoyed this very much; she knew them all well, and never
+forgot the names of the children or their birthdays. Her mother would
+often give her something nice to carry to the sick ones, and when the
+flowers came out, Florence used to gather some for her special
+favourites, out of her own garden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day when she and the vicar were cantering across the downs, they saw
+an old shepherd, who was a great friend of both of them, attempting to
+drive his flock without the help of his collie, Cap, who was nowhere to
+be seen.
+
+'What has become of Cap?' they asked, and the shepherd told them that
+some cruel boys had broken the dog's leg with a stone, and he was in
+such pain that his master thought it would be more merciful to put an
+end to him.
+
+Florence was hot with indignation. 'Perhaps _I_ can help him,' she said.
+'At any rate, he will like me to sit with him; he must feel so lonely.
+Where is he?'
+
+'In my hut out there,' answered the shepherd; 'but I'm afraid it's
+little good you or anyone else can do him.'
+
+But Florence did not hear, for she was galloping as fast as she could to
+the place where Cap was lying.
+
+'Poor old fellow, poor old Cap,' whispered she, kneeling down and
+stroking his head, and Cap looked up to thank her.
+
+'Let me examine his leg,' said the vicar, who had entered behind her;
+'he does not hold it as if it were broken. No, I am sure it is not,' he
+added after a close inspection. 'Cheer up, we will soon have him well
+again.'
+
+Florence's eyes brightened.
+
+'What can I do?' she asked eagerly.
+
+'Oh, make him a compress. That will take down the swelling,' replied the
+vicar, who was a little of a doctor himself.
+
+'A compress?' repeated Florence, wrinkling her forehead. 'But I never
+heard of one. I don't know how.'
+
+'Light a fire and boil some water, and then wring out some cloths in it,
+and put them on Cap's paw. Here is a boy who will make a fire for you,'
+he added, beckoning to a lad who was passing outside.
+
+While the fire was kindling, Florence looked about to find the cloths.
+But the shepherd did not seem to have any, and her own little
+handkerchief would not do any good. Still, cloths she must have, and
+those who knew Miss Nightingale in after years would tell you that when
+she _wanted_ things she _got_ them.
+
+'Ah, there is Roger's smock,' she exclaimed with delight. 'Oh, _do_ tear
+it up for me; mamma will be sure to give me another for him.' So the
+vicar tore the strong linen into strips, and Florence wrung them out in
+the boiling water, as he had told her.
+
+'Now, Cap, be a good dog; you know I only want to help you,' she cried,
+and Cap seemed as if he _did_ know; for though a little tremble ran
+through his body as the hot cloth touched him, he never tried to bite,
+nor even groaned with the pain, as many children would have done. By and
+by the lump was certainly smaller, and the look of pain in Cap's eyes
+began to disappear.
+
+Suddenly she glanced up at the vicar, who had been all this time
+watching her.
+
+'I can't leave Cap till he is _quite_ better,' she said. 'Can you get
+that boy to go to Embley and tell them where I am? Then they won't be
+frightened.' So the boy was sent, and Florence sat on till the setting
+sun shot long golden darts into the hut.
+
+Then she heard the shepherd fumbling with the latch, as if he could not
+see to open it; and perhaps he couldn't, for in his hand he held the
+rope which was to put an end to all Cap's sorrows. But Cap did not know
+the meaning of the rope and only saw his old master. He gave a little
+bark of greeting and struggled on to his three sound legs, wagging his
+tail in welcome.
+
+Roger could hardly believe his eyes, and Florence laughed with delight.
+
+'Just look how much better he is,' she said. 'The swelling is very
+nearly gone now. But he wants some more compresses. Come and help me
+make them.'
+
+'I think we can leave Roger to nurse Cap,' said the vicar, who had just
+returned from some of the neighbouring cottages. 'Your patient must have
+some bread and milk to-night, and to-morrow you can come to see how he
+is.'
+
+'Yes, of course I shall,' answered Florence, and she knelt down to kiss
+Cap's nose before the vicar put her up on her pony.
+
+[Illustration: Roger could hardly believe his eyes.]
+
+Now, though Florence was so fond of flowers and animals and everything
+out of doors, she was never dull in the house on a wet day. In the first
+place, nothing was ever allowed to interfere with her lessons, and
+though the little girls had a good governess, their father chose the
+books they were to read and the subjects they were to study. Greek,
+Latin, and mathematics he taught them himself, and besides he took care
+that they could read and speak French, German, and Italian. They were
+fond of poetry, and no doubt some of the earliest poems of young Mr.
+Tennyson were among their favourites, as well as 'Lycidas' and the
+songs of the cavaliers. Parthy was a better artist and a cleverer
+musician than Florence, though _she_ could sing and sketch; but both
+were good needlewomen, and could make samplers as well as do fine work
+and embroidery. When school-time was over and the rain was still coming
+down, they would run away to their dolls, who, poor things, were always
+ill, so that Florence might have the pleasure of curing them. And though
+before Cap's accident she had never heard of a compress, she could make
+nice food for them at the nursery fire, and bandage their broken arms
+and legs while Parthy held the wounded limb steady.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they grew older, they went abroad now and then with their parents,
+but Florence liked best being at home with her friends in the village,
+who were very proud of her wishing to take their pictures with her new
+photographic camera. If they had only known it, the children in their
+best clothes standing up very stiff and straight did not look half as
+pretty as the baskets of kittens with eyes half-innocent, half-wise, or
+the funny little pups, so round and fat. But the parents thought the
+portraits of their children the most beautiful things in the world, and
+had them put into hideous gilt frames and hung on the walls, where
+Florence could see them on her frequent visits.
+
+Welcome as she was to all, it was the sick people who awaited her coming
+the most eagerly. She was so quiet in her movements, and knew so exactly
+what to do without talking or fussing about it, that the invalids grew
+less restless in her presence, and believed so entirely that she really
+_could_ cure them that they were half cured already! Then before she
+left she would read them 'a chapter' or a story to make them laugh, or
+anything else they wished for; and it was always a pleasure to listen to
+her, for she never stammered, or yawned, or lost her place, or had any
+of the tricks that often make reading aloud a penance to the victim.
+
+For the young people both in Derbyshire and Hampshire she formed singing
+classes, and some of her 'societies' continue to-day. She was full of
+interest in other people's lives, and not only was _ready_ to help them
+but _enjoyed_ doing so, which makes all the difference.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is much nonsense talked in the world about 'born' actors, and
+'born' artists, and 'born' nurses. No doubt some are 'born' with greater
+gifts in these matters than others, but the most famous artists or
+actors or nurses will all tell you that the only work which is lasting
+has been wrought by long hours of patient labour. Miss Nightingale knew
+this as well as anybody, and as soon as she began to think of doing what
+no modern lady had ever done before her, and devoting her life to the
+care of the sick, she set about considering how she could best find the
+training she needed. She tried, to use her own words, 'to qualify
+herself for it as a man does for his work,' and to 'submit herself to
+the rules of business as men do.'
+
+So she spent some months among the London hospitals, where her quick eye
+and clever fingers, aided by her cottage experience, made her a welcome
+help to the doctors. From the first she 'began at the beginning,' which
+is the only way to come to a successful end. A sick person cannot get
+well where the floor is covered with dirt, and the dust makes him cough;
+therefore his nurse must get rid of both dirt and dust before her
+treatment can have any effect. After London, Miss Nightingale went to
+Edinburgh and Dublin, and then to France and Italy, where the nursing
+was done by nuns; and after that she visited Germany, where at the town
+of Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine, she found what she wanted.
+
+The hospital of Kaiserswerth, where Miss Nightingale had decided to do
+her training, had been founded about sixteen years earlier by Pastor
+Fliedner, who was a wise man, content with very small beginnings. At the
+time of her arrival it was divided into a number of branches, and there
+was also a school for the children, who were taught entirely by some of
+the sisters, or deaconesses, as they were called. On entering, everyone
+had to go through the same work for a certain number of months, whether
+they meant to be hospital nurses or school teachers. All must learn to
+sew, cook, scrub, and read out clearly and pleasantly; but as Miss
+Nightingale had practised most of these things from the time she was a
+child, she soon was free to go into the hospital and attend to the sick
+people. The other nurses were German peasant women, but when they found
+that she could speak their language, and was ready to work as hard as
+any of them, they made friends at once. In her spare hours Miss
+Nightingale would put on her black cloak and small bonnet, and go round
+to the cottages with Mr. Fliedner, as long ago she had done with the
+vicar of Embley, and we may be sure any sick people whom she visited
+were always left clean and comfortable when she said good-bye.
+
+But at Kaiserswerth Miss Nightingale had very little chance of learning
+any surgery, so she felt that she could not do better than pass some
+time in Paris with the nursing sisterhood of St. Vincent de Paul, which
+had been established about two hundred years earlier. Here, too, she
+went with the sisters on their rounds, both in the hospitals and in the
+homes of the poor, and learnt how best to help the people without
+turning them into beggars. Every part of the work interested her, but
+the long months of hard labour and food which was often scanty and
+always different from what she had hitherto had, began to tell on her.
+She fell ill, and in her turn had to be looked after by the sisters,
+and no doubt in many ways she learned more of sick nursing when she was
+a patient than she did when she was a nurse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was quite clear that it would be necessary for her to have a good
+rest before she grew strong again, and so she went back to Embley, and
+afterwards to Lea, and tried to forget that there was any such thing as
+sickness. But it is not easy for people who are known to be able and
+willing to have peace anywhere, and soon letters came pouring in to Miss
+Nightingale begging for her help in all sorts of ways. As far as she
+could she undertook it all, and often performed the most troublesome of
+all tasks, that of setting right the mistakes of others. In the end her
+health broke down again, but not till she had finished what she had set
+herself to do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in March 1854 that war broke out between England, France, and
+Turkey on the one side, and Russia on the other. The battle-ground was
+to be the little peninsula of the Crimea, and soon the Black Sea was
+crowded with ships carrying eager soldiers, many of them young and quite
+ignorant of the hardships that lay before them.
+
+At first all seemed going well; the victory of the Alma was won on
+September 20, 1854, and that of Balaclava on October 25, the anniversary
+of Agincourt. But while the hearts of all men were still throbbing at
+the splendid madness of the charge when, owing to a mistaken order, the
+Light Brigade rode out to take the Russian guns and were mown down by
+hundreds, the rain began to fall in torrents and a winter of unusual
+coldness was upon them. Nights as well as days were passed in the
+trenches that had been dug before the strong fortress of Sebastopol,
+which the allies were besieging, and the suffering of our English
+soldiers was far greater than it need have been, owing to the
+wickedness of many of the contractors who had undertaken to supply the
+army with boots and stores, and did not hesitate to get these so cheap
+and bad as to be quite useless, while the rest of the money set aside
+for the purpose was put into their pockets. The doctors gave themselves
+no rest, but there were not half enough of them, while of nurses there
+were none. The men did what they could for one another, but they had
+their own work to attend to, and besides, try as they would it was
+impossible for them to fill the place of a trained and skilful woman. So
+they, as well as their dying comrades lying patiently on the sodden
+earth, looked longingly at the big white caps of the French sisters, who
+for their part would gladly have given help and comfort had not the
+wounded of their own nation taken all their time. One or two of the
+English officers had been followed to the Crimea by their wives, and
+these ladies cooked for and tended the sick men who were placed in rows
+along the passages of the barracks, but even lint for bandages was
+lacking to them, and after the Alma they wrote letters to their friends
+in England entreating that no time might be lost in sending out proper
+aid.
+
+These letters were backed by a strong appeal from the war correspondent
+of the _Times_, Dr. W. H. Russell, and from the day that his plain
+account of the privations and horrors of the suffering army appeared in
+the paper, the War Office was besieged by women begging to be sent to
+the Crimea by the first ship. The minister, Mr. Sidney Herbert, did not
+refuse their offers; though they were without experience and full of
+excitement, he saw that most of them were deeply in earnest and under a
+capable head might be put to a good use. But where was such a head to be
+found? Then suddenly there darted into his mind the thought of Miss
+Nightingale, his friend for years past.
+
+It was on October 15 that Mr. Sidney Herbert wrote to Miss Nightingale
+offering her, in the name of the government, the post of Superintendent
+of the nurses in the East, with absolute authority over her staff; and,
+curiously enough, on the very same day _she_ had written to _him_
+proposing to go out at once to the Black Sea. As no time was to be lost,
+it was clear that most of the thirty-eight nurses she was to take with
+her must be women of a certain amount of training and experience. Others
+might follow when they had learnt a little what nursing really meant,
+but they were of no use now. So Miss Nightingale went round to some
+Church of England and Roman Catholic sisterhoods and chose out the
+strongest and most intelligent of those who were willing to go, the
+remainder being sent her by friends whose judgment she could trust. Six
+days after Sidney Herbert had written his letter, the band of nurses
+started from Charing Cross.
+
+When after a very rough passage they reached the great hospital of
+Scutari, situated on a hill above the Bosphorus, they heard the news of
+the fight at Balaclava and learnt that a battle was expected to take
+place next day at Inkerman. The hospital was an immense building in the
+form of a square, and was able to hold several thousand men. It had been
+lent to us by the Turks, but was in a fearfully dirty state and most
+unfit to receive the wounded men who were continually arriving in ships
+from the Crimea. Often the vessels were so loaded that the few doctors
+had not had time to set the broken legs and arms of the men, and many
+must have died of blood poisoning from the dirt which got into their
+undressed wounds. Oftener still they had little or no food, and even
+with help were too weak to walk from the ship to the hospital. And as
+for rats! why there seemed nearly as many rats as patients.
+
+The first thing to be done was to unpack the stores, to boil water so
+that the wounds could be washed, to put clean sheets on the beds, and
+make the men as comfortable as possible. The doctors, overworked and
+anxious as they were, did not give the nurses a very warm welcome. As
+far as their own experience went, women in a hospital were always in the
+way, and instead of helpers became hinderers. But Miss Nightingale took
+no heed of ungracious words and cold looks. She did her own business
+quietly and without fuss, and soon brought order out of confusion, and a
+feeling of confidence where before there had been despair. If an
+operation had to be performed--and at that time chloroform was so newly
+invented that the doctors were almost afraid to give it, Miss
+Nightingale, 'the Lady-in-Chief,' was present by the side of the wounded
+man to give him courage to bear the pain and to fill him with hope for
+the future. And not many days after her arrival, her coming was eagerly
+watched for by the multitudes of sick and half-starved soldiers who were
+lying along the walls of the passages because the beds were all full.
+
+It is really hardly possible for us to understand all that the nurses
+had to do. First the wards must be kept clean, or the invalids would
+grow worse instead of better. Then proper food must be cooked for them,
+or they would never grow strong. Those who were most ill needed special
+care, lest a change for the worse might come unnoticed; and besides all
+this a laundry was set up, so that a constant supply of fresh linen
+might be at hand. In a little while, when some of the wounds were
+healing and the broken heads had ceased to ache, there would come shy
+petitions from the beds that the nurse would write them a letter home,
+to say that they had been more fortunate than their comrades and were
+still alive, and hoped to be back in England some day.
+
+'Well, tell me what you want to say, and I will say it,' the nurse would
+answer, but it is not very easy to dictate a letter if you have never
+tried, so it soon ended with the remark,
+
+'Oh! nurse, _you_ write it for me! You will say it much better than I
+can.'
+
+[Illustration: 'Tell me what you want to say, and I will say it.']
+
+Would you like to know how the nurses passed their days? Well, first
+they got up very early, made their beds, put their rooms tidy, and went
+down to the kitchen, where they had some bread, which was mostly sour,
+and some tea without milk. Then arrowroot and beef tea had to be made
+for the men, and when the night nurses took their turn to rest, those
+who were on duty by day went into the wards and stayed there from
+half-past nine till two, washing and dressing and feeding the men and
+talking over their illnesses with the doctors, who by this time were
+thankful for their aid. At two the men were left to rest or sleep while
+their tired nurses had their dinner, and little as they might like it,
+they thought it their duty to swallow a plateful of very bad meat and
+some porter. At three some of them often took a short walk, but that
+November the rains were constant and very heavy at Scutari as well as in
+the Crimea, and as Miss Nightingale would allow no risk of catching
+cold, on these days the nurses all stayed in the hospital, where there
+was always something to be done or cooked for the patients, who required
+in their weak state to be constantly fed. At half-past five the nurses
+left the wards and went to their tea, but that did not take long, and
+soon they were back again making everything comfortable for the night,
+which began with the entrance of the night nurses at half-past nine.
+
+It was a hard life, and when one remembers how bad their own food was,
+it is a marvel that any of them were able to bear it for so long. But,
+as Shakespeare says, 'Nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so,'
+and it is wonderful how far a brave spirit will carry one. Still, heavy
+though the nurses' work was, that of Miss Nightingale was far more of a
+strain. It was she on whom everything depended, who had to think and
+plan and look forward, and write accounts of it all to Mr. Sidney
+Herbert in London, and lord Raglan, the Commander-in-Chief, at the
+Crimea. The orderlies of the regiment gave her willing aid, but they
+needed to be taught what to do, and no doubt the Lady-in-Chief often
+found that it is far quicker and easier to do things oneself than to
+spend time in training another person. Luckily she was prompt to see the
+different uses to which men and women could be put, so that there were
+no wasted days or weeks, caused by setting them tasks for which they
+were unfitted, and in a very short while the hospital, which had been a
+scene of horror on her arrival from England, was a well-arranged and
+most comfortable place.
+
+But not only were there soldiers to be cared for, there were also their
+wives and children, who were almost forgotten and huddled together in a
+corner of the barracks, with few clothes and hardly any food. Miss
+Nightingale took them under her charge, and placed them in a clean house
+close by, giving some of the women work in her laundry and finding
+employment for the rest, with the help of the wife of one of the
+chaplains. The children were taught for several hours in the day, and
+thus their mothers were left free to earn money to support them, while
+the widows were given clothes and money, and as soon as possible sent
+home.
+
+One morning, as the Lady-in-Chief went her rounds, the men noticed that
+her face was brighter than usual and looked as if something had pleased
+her very much. So it had, and in the afternoon, when they were all
+resting comfortably, they knew what it was. One of the chaplains went
+from ward to ward reading a letter which Queen Victoria had written to
+Mr. Sidney Herbert, and this was how it ran:--
+
+                                       Windsor Castle, December 6, 1854.
+
+'Would you tell Mrs. Herbert that I begged she would let me see
+frequently the accounts she received from Miss Nightingale or Mrs.
+Bracebridge, as I hear no details of the wounded, though I see so many
+from officers, &c., about the battlefield, and naturally the former must
+interest me most.
+
+'Let Mrs. Herbert also know that I wish Miss Nightingale and the ladies
+would tell those poor noble wounded and sick men that no one takes a
+warmer interest or feels more for their sufferings or admires their
+courage and heroism more than their queen. Day and night she thinks of
+her beloved troops. So does the Prince.
+                                                             'Victoria.'
+
+'God save the Queen,' said the chaplain when he had finished, and from
+their hearts the men raised a feeble shout, 'God save the Queen.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon another detachment of nurses arrived from home and undertook the
+charge of other hospitals along the shores of the Bosphorus. They were
+led by Miss Stanley, sister of the famous dean of Westminster, and the
+band consisted partly of ladies who gave their services and partly of
+nurses who were paid. Some Irish sisters of mercy also accompanied them,
+and these were allowed to wear their nun's dress, but the others must
+have looked very funny in the Government uniform--loose gowns of grey
+tweed, worsted jackets, short woollen cloaks, and scarves of brown
+holland with 'Scutari Hospital' in red letters across them. They were
+all made the same size, and 'in consequence,' adds sister Mary Aloysius,
+who was thankful that _she_ did not need to present such an odd figure,
+'the tall ladies appeared to be attired in short dresses, and the short
+ladies in long.'
+
+Clad in these strange clothes they reached their destination and were
+placed by Miss Nightingale wherever she thought they were most needed.
+Cholera was now raging and the rain in the Crimea had turned to bitter
+cold, so that hundreds of men were brought in frost-bitten. Often their
+garments, generally of thin linen, were frozen so tightly to their
+bodies that they had first to be softened with oil and then cut off. The
+stories of their sufferings are too terrible to tell, but scarcely one
+murmured, and all were grateful for the efforts to ease their pain. If
+death came, as it often did, Miss Nightingale was there to listen to
+their last wishes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All through the spring the cholera raged, and at length some of the
+nurses, weakened by the strain on mind and body, and the lack of
+nourishing food, fell victims. One of them was a personal friend of Miss
+Nightingale's, others were Irish nuns working in Balaclava, and their
+graves were kept gay with flowers planted by the soldiers. Thus the
+Lady-in-Chief found them when in May 1855 she set out to inspect the
+hospitals in the Crimea.
+
+What a rest it must have been to be able to lie on deck and watch the
+blue waters without feeling that every moment of peace was stolen from
+some duty. She had several nurses with her; also her friend Mr.
+Bracebridge, whose wife had taken charge of the stores at Scutari, and a
+little drummer of twelve, called Thomas, who got amusement out of
+everything and kept up their spirits when the outlook seemed gloomiest.
+
+The moment she landed Miss Nightingale, accompanied by a train of
+doctors, went at once to the hospitals, thus missing lord Raglan who
+came to give her a hearty welcome. Next day, when as in duty bound she
+returned his visit, she had the pleasure once more of feeling a horse
+under her, and old memories came back and it seemed as if she was again
+a child riding with the vicar. As we are told by a Frenchman that she
+wore a regular riding-dress, she probably borrowed this from one of the
+four English ladies then in the Crimea, for she is not likely to have
+had a habit of her own. Her horse was fresh and spirited and nervous,
+after the manner of horses, and the noise and confusion of the road that
+led to the camp was too much for his nerves. He plunged and kicked and
+reared and bucked, and did all that a horse does when he wants to be
+unpleasant, but Miss Nightingale did not mind at all--in fact she quite
+enjoyed it.
+
+All day long the Lady-in-Chief went about, visiting the hospitals and
+even penetrating into the trenches while sharp firing was going on. The
+weather was intensely hot--for it is the greatest mistake to look on
+the Crimea, which is as far south as Venice or Genoa, as being always
+cold--and one day Miss Nightingale was struck down with sudden fever.
+She was at once taken to the Sanatorium on a stretcher, which was
+followed by the faithful Thomas, and great was the dismay and sorrow of
+the whole camp. Fortunately after a fortnight she began to recover,
+thanks to the care that was taken of her, but she absolutely refused to
+go home, as the doctors wished her to do, and, weak though she was,
+returned to Scutari, where soon afterwards she heard of her friend lord
+Raglan's death, which was a great shock to her. It was some time before
+she was strong enough to go back to her work, and she spent many hours
+wandering about the cypress-planted cemetery at Scutari, where so many
+English soldiers lay buried, and in planning a memorial to them which
+was afterwards set up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In September Sebastopol fell and the war was over, but the sick and
+wounded were still uncured. It was hard for them to hear of their
+comrades going home proud and happy in the honours they had won, while
+_they_ were left behind in pain and weariness, but it would have been
+infinitely harder without the knowledge that Miss Nightingale would bear
+them company to the end. After all they stood on English ground before
+she did, as when she was well enough she sailed a second time for the
+Crimea to finish the work which her illness had caused her to leave
+undone.
+
+All through the winter of 1855 she stayed there, driving over the
+snow-covered mountains in a little carriage made for the purpose, which
+had been given her as a present. Sick soldiers there were in plenty in
+the hospitals, and for some time there was an army also, to keep order
+until the peace was signed. In order to give the soldiers occupation and
+amusement, she begged her friends at home to send out books and
+magazines to them, and this the queen and her mother, the duchess of
+Kent, were the first to do. Nothing was too small for the Lady-in-Chief
+to think of; she arranged some lectures, got up classes for the children
+and for anyone who wanted to learn; started a _caf�_, in hopes to save
+the men from drinking; and kept a money-order office herself, so that
+the men could, if they wished, send part of their pay home to their
+families. And when in July 1856 the British army set sail for England,
+Miss Nightingale stayed behind to see a white marble cross twenty feet
+high set up on a peak above Balaclava. It was a memorial from her to the
+thousands who had died at the mountain's foot, in battle or in the
+trenches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Honours and gifts showered on Miss Nightingale on all sides, and
+everybody was eager to show how highly they valued her self-sacrificing
+labours. If money had been wanted, it would have poured in from all
+quarters; but when the queen had made inquiries on the subject a year
+before Miss Nightingale's return, Mr. Sidney Herbert replied that what
+the Lady-in-Chief desired above everything was the foundation of a
+hospital in which her own special system of nursing could be carried
+out. The idea was welcomed with enthusiasm, but none of the sums sent
+were as dear to Miss Nightingale's heart as the day's pay subscribed by
+the soldiers and sailors. The fund was applied to founding a home and
+training school for nurses, attached to St. Thomas' hospital, and Miss
+Nightingale helped to plan the new buildings opposite the Houses of
+Parliament, to which the patients were afterwards moved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Nightingale came home with her aunt, Mrs. Smith, calling herself
+'Miss Smith' so that she might travel unrecognised, but that disguise
+could not be kept up when she got back to Lea Hurst. Crowds thronged to
+see her from the neighbouring towns, and the lodge-keeper had a busy
+time. However, her father would not allow her to be worried. She needed
+rest, he said, and she should have it; and if addresses and plate and
+testimonials should pour in (as they did, in quantities) someone else
+could write thanks at her dictation. All round Lea Hurst her large
+Russian dog was an object of reverence, and as for Thomas the
+drummer-boy--well, if you could not see Miss Nightingale herself, you
+might spend hours of delight in listening to Thomas, who certainly could
+tell you far more thrilling tales than his mistress would ever have
+done.
+
+We should all like to know what became of Thomas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Nightingale is still living, but the privations and over-work of
+those terrible months had so broken her down that for the last forty
+years she has been more or less of an invalid. Still, her interest is as
+wide as ever in all that could help her fellows, and though she was
+unable to go among them as of old, she was ready to help and advise,
+either personally or by letter. If she had given her health and the
+outdoor pleasures that she loved so much in aid of the sick and
+suffering, she had won in exchange a position and an influence for good
+such as no other woman has ever held.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since this little account was written, the king has conferred on her the
+highest honour he could bestow on a woman, the Order of Merit, while the
+lord mayor of London and the corporation have given her the freedom of
+the City. Thus her life will end in the knowledge that she has gained
+the only honours worth having, those which have not been sought.
+
+
+
+
+PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES
+
+
+I am afraid you will think this a sad story, and so it is, but things
+would have been sadder still but for the man I am going to tell you
+about. His name was John Howard, and if you were to ask, 'Which John
+Howard?' the answer would be, 'John Howard the Philanthropist,' which
+means 'a lover of men.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a great title for anyone to win, and no one ever earned it more
+truly than this son of the rich upholsterer of Smithfield, born in
+Clapton, then a country village of the parish of Hackney, in 1727. As
+you will see by and by, Howard spent the last seventeen years of his
+life in fighting three giants who were very hard to beat, named
+Ignorance, Sloth, and Dirt; and it is all the more difficult to overcome
+them because they are generally to be met with together. Unfortunately,
+they never can be wholly killed, for when you think they are left dead
+on the field after a hard struggle, they always come to life again; but
+they have never been quite so strong since the war waged on them by John
+Howard, who died fighting against them in a Russian city.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Howard had always been a delicate boy, which made it all the more
+wonderful that he could bear the fatigue of the long journeys which he
+undertook to help people who could not help themselves. He was married
+twice, but neither of his wives lived long, and he had only one little
+boy to look after. But when the child was four years old, Howard felt
+that it was dull for him to be alone with his father, and without any
+play-fellows, so he sent him to a small school kept by some ladies,
+where little John, or 'Master Howard,' as it was the fashion to call
+him, would be well taken care of.
+
+Howard was a quiet man, and very religious, but, what was rare in those
+times, he did not believe everybody in the wrong who thought differently
+from himself. He lived quietly among his books on a small estate he
+owned near Bedford, called Cardington, where he studied astronomy and
+questions about heat and cold, and when only twenty-nine was elected a
+Fellow of the Royal Society. Medicine always interested him, and he
+learned enough of it to be very useful to him during his travels;
+indeed, it was owing to his fame as a doctor that he was summoned to see
+a young Russian lady dying of fever, which, according to many, infected
+him, and caused his own death. In his studies and in the care of his
+tenants many peaceful years passed away. The man who afterwards became
+known as the champion of 'prisoners and captives, and all who were
+desolate and oppressed,' did not allow his own tenants to live in
+unhealthy and uncomfortable cottages crowded together in tiny rooms with
+water dropping on to their beds from the badly thatched roofs, like many
+other landlords both in his day and ours. He opened schools for the
+children, and drew up rules for them. The girls were taught reading and
+needlework, the boys reading and a little arithmetic. Writing does not
+seem to have been thought necessary, as none of the girls learned it,
+and only a few of the boys--probably the cleverer ones. On Sundays they
+were all expected to go to church or chapel, whichever their parents
+preferred.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In spite of the generosity which made John Howard ready to give money or
+time to any scheme that seemed likely to be of use to the poor, he was
+not popular with his neighbours, and saw very little of them. They
+thought him 'odd' because he did not care for races, or cock-fights, or
+long dinners that lasted far into the night, where the gentlemen often
+drank so much that they could not get home at all. Year by year Howard
+was teaching himself to do without things, and by and by he was able to
+live on green tea and a little bread and vegetables, with fruit now and
+then as a great treat. No wonder he was considered eccentric by the
+Bedfordshire country gentlemen!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But, in spite of his quiet ways, Howard had a passion for travelling,
+and when a youth threw up the position of grocer's apprentice which his
+father had obtained for him, and started for France and Italy.
+Immediately after the death of his first wife he determined to go for a
+change to Lisbon, then lying in ruins after the recent earthquake.
+Before, however, his ship was out of the English Channel it was attacked
+and overpowered by a French privateer, and both crew and passengers were
+left without anything to eat or drink for nearly two days. They were
+then taken to the prison at Brest, thrown into a dark and horribly dirty
+dungeon, and apparently forgotten. Besides hunger and thirst, they went
+through terrible pangs, fearing lest they were to be left to starve; but
+at length the heavy bolts of the iron door were shot back, and a leg of
+mutton was thrust inside. Nobody had a knife, every weapon had been
+taken from them, and if they had, they were all too hungry to wait to
+use it. They sprang on the food like wolves and gnawed it like dogs.
+
+For a week they all remained in their dungeon, and then Howard, at any
+rate, was allowed to leave it, and was sent first to Morlaix and then to
+Carpaix, where he was kindly treated by the gaoler, in whose house he
+lived. Howard gave his word that he would not try to escape, and for
+two months he remained there--a prisoner on parole, as it is
+called--writing letters to prisoners he had left behind him, who had not
+been so fortunate as himself. From what he had gone through he could
+easily guess what they were suffering, and determined that when once he
+got back to England he would do everything in his power to obtain their
+freedom.
+
+[Illustration: They sprang on the food like wolves.]
+
+In two months Howard was informed by his friend the gaoler that the
+governor had decided that he should be sent to England, in order that he
+might arrange to be exchanged for a French naval officer, after swearing
+that in case this could not be managed, he would return as a prisoner to
+Brest. It was a great trial of any man's good faith, but it was not
+misplaced, and happily the exchange was easily made. No sooner were his
+own affairs settled than Howard set about freeing his countrymen, and
+very shortly some English ships were sent to Brest with a cargo of
+French prisoners and came back with an equal number of English ones, all
+of whom owed their liberty to Howard's exertions.
+
+His captivity in France first gave him an idea of the state of prisons
+and the sufferings of prisoners, but eighteen years were to pass before
+the improvement of their condition became the business of his life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Howard was appointed high sheriff for the county of Bedford in 1773,
+and as such had the prisons under his charge. The high sheriffs who had
+gone before him were of course equally bound to see that everything
+inside the gaol was clean and well-ordered, but nobody really expected
+them to trouble their heads about the matter, and certainly they never
+did. However, Mr. Howard's notion of his duty was very different. He at
+once visited the county prison in Bedford, and the misery that he found
+there was repeated almost exactly in nearly every prison in the British
+Isles. The gaoler in Bedford--and in many other places--had no salary
+paid him, and therefore screwed all he could out of his prisoners; and
+no matter if a man were innocent or guilty, if a jury had condemned him
+or not, he must pay fifteen shillings and fourpence to the gaoler, and
+two shillings to the warder who brought him his food--when he had
+any--before he was set free. If, as often happened, the prisoners could
+not find the money, well, they were locked up till they died, or till
+the fees were paid.
+
+When Howard informed the magistrates of what he had found, they were as
+much shocked as if it had not been their business to have known all
+about it.
+
+'A dreadful state of things, indeed!' they said, 'and they were greatly
+obliged to Mr. Howard for having discovered it. Yes, certainly, the
+criminals and those who had been confined for debt alone ought to be
+placed in different parts of the prison, and the men and women should be
+separated, and an infirmary built for the sick. Oh! they were quite
+willing to do it, but the cost would be very heavy, and the people might
+decline to pay it, unless the high sheriff could point to any other
+county which supported its own gaol.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the moment, the high sheriff could not, but he had no doubt that such
+a county would be easily found, so he at once started on a visit to some
+of the prisons, but, to his surprise, he did not discover _one_ in which
+the gaoler was paid a fixed salary. And the more he saw of the prisons,
+the more he was grieved at their condition. Almost all had dungeons for
+criminals built underground, dark, damp, and dirty, and sometimes as
+much as twenty feet below the surface; and often these dungeons were
+very small and very crowded. Mats or, in a few of the better-managed
+prisons, straw was given the prisoners to lie on, but no coverings, and
+those who were imprisoned for debt were expected to pay for their own
+food or go without it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sick at heart with all that he had seen, Howard went home for a short
+rest, and then set out again on one of those tours on which he spent
+the remaining years of his life, never thinking that the work was done
+when he had reported on the terrible evils of the prison system, but
+always returning to make sure that his advice had been carried out,
+which it often was not. Curious to say, there are few instances of
+difficulties being put in the way of his inspecting the prisons in any
+of the countries which he visited, while about six months after his
+labours began, he was called to the bar of the House of Commons, and
+publicly thanked for his services in behalf of those who could not help
+themselves.
+
+Mr. Howard was pleased and touched at the honour done him, and at the
+proof that
+
+        Evil is wrought by want of Thought,
+          As well as by want of Heart;
+
+but he was much more gratified by two laws that were passed during that
+session, one for relieving innocent prisoners from paying fees, and the
+other for insisting on certain rules being carried out which were
+necessary to keep the prisoners in good health.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This last Act was greatly needed. The bad air, the dirt, and the
+closeness of the rooms constantly produced an illness called gaol fever,
+from which numbers of prisoners died yearly, one catching it from the
+other. Nominally, a doctor was attached to every prison, but instead of
+being ready, as doctors generally are, to risk their lives for their
+patients, these men usually showed great cowardice. In Exeter, the
+doctor when appointed had it set down in writing that he should not be
+obliged to attend anyone suffering from gaol fever; in the county gaol
+for Cornwall, every prisoner but one was ill of this disease when Howard
+paid his first visit there. And no wonder, for here the prison consisted
+of only one room with a small window, and three 'dungeons or cages,'
+the one for women being only five feet long. The food was let down to
+them through a hole in the floor of the room above.
+
+In Derby, Howard was thankful to see that things were far more what they
+ought to be. The rooms were larger and lighter, there was an infirmary
+for the sick, 'a neat chapel,' and even a bath, 'which the prisoners
+were required occasionally to use.' Here the debtors, instead of being
+nearly starved, were given the same allowance of food as the criminals.
+They were also supplied with plenty of straw, and had fires in the
+winter. Newcastle was still better managed, and here the doctor gave his
+services free; but the Durham gaol was in a terrible state, and when
+Howard went down into the dungeon he found several criminals lying there
+half-starved and chained to the floor. The reason of these differences
+probably lies in the fact that before Howard's time nobody had ever
+taken the trouble to visit the prisons or to see if the rules were
+carried out. If, as sometimes happened, the doctor and gaoler were
+kind-hearted men, anxious to do their duty, then the prisoners were
+tolerably well cared for. If, on the other hand, they were careless or
+cruel, the captives had to suffer. This Howard saw, and was resolved, as
+far as possible, to put the prisoners out of the power of the gaolers,
+who should be made to undergo a severe punishment for any neglect of
+duty. For in Howard's mind, though it was, of course, needful that men
+should learn that if they chose to commit crimes they must pay for them,
+yet he considered that so much useless misery only made the criminals
+harder and more brutal, and that the real object of punishment was to
+help people to correct their faults, and once more to become honest men
+and women.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having satisfied himself of the state of the English prisons, and done
+what he could to improve them, Howard determined to discover how those
+in foreign countries were managed. Paris was the first place he stopped
+at, and the famous Bastille the first prison he visited. Here, however,
+he was absolutely refused admittance, and seems, according to his friend
+Dr. Aikin, to have narrowly escaped being detained as a prisoner
+himself. But once outside the walls he remembered having heard that an
+Act had been passed in 1717, when Louis XV. was seven years old and the
+duke of Orleans was regent, desiring all gaolers to admit into their
+prisons any persons who wished to bestow money on the prisoners, only
+stipulating that whatever was given to those confined in the dungeons
+should be offered in the presence of the gaoler.
+
+Armed with this knowledge and a quantity of small coins, Howard called
+on the head of the police, who received him politely and gave him a
+written pass to the chief prisons in Paris. These he found very bad,
+with dungeons in some of 'these seats of woe beyond imagination horrid
+and dreadful,' yet not apparently any worse than many on this side of
+the Channel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Howard's dismal experiences in England, Scotland, Ireland, and
+France, it must have given him heartfelt pleasure to visit the prisons
+in Belgium, which, with scarcely an exception, were 'all fresh and
+clean, no gaol distemper, no prisoners in irons.' The bread allowance
+'far exceeds that of any of _our_ gaols. Two pounds of bread a day, soup
+once, with a pound of meat on Sunday.' This was in Brussels, but when he
+went on to Ghent, things were better still.
+
+Like most of the large towns of Flanders, Ghent had a stirring history,
+and its townspeople were rich and prosperous. At the time of Howard's
+visit, it was part of the dominions of the emperor Joseph II., brother
+of Marie Antoinette, and by his orders a large prison was in course of
+building. Though not yet finished, it already contained more than a
+hundred and fifty men, and Howard felt as if he must be dreaming when he
+saw that each of these prisoners had a room to himself, a bedstead, a
+mattress, a pillow, a pair of sheets, with two blankets in winter and
+one in summer. Everything was very clean, and the food plentiful and
+wholesome. But, besides all this, Howard noted with a feeling of envy
+two customs which so far he had tried in vain to introduce into England.
+One was that the men and the women should be kept apart, and the other,
+that they should be given useful work to employ their time. In England,
+a prisoner was sometimes condemned to 'hard labour,' but this was a mere
+form. There was no system arranged beforehand for the employment of
+convicts, and indeed, till more light was admitted into the English
+prisons, it was too dark to work at anything, so they just sat with the
+other criminals in the dark, stifling dungeons, with nothing to do and
+nothing to think of!
+
+A more horrible punishment could not have been invented, and if the
+criminal left the prison at all, he was sure to come out even worse than
+he went in. And how was anything else possible?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now in Ghent, and in most of the Flemish prisons, it was all as
+different as could be. The women sat in work-rooms of their own, when
+they had finished cleaning and cooking, mending all their own and the
+men's clothes, which it was part of their duty to wash. This done, wool
+in what is called its 'raw state' was served out to them--that is, wool
+as it had been taken off the sheep's fleece--and they had to comb out
+all the tangles, and spin it into long skeins. Then the skeins were
+taken to the men, many of whom were weavers by trade, and by them it was
+woven into cloth which was sold.
+
+Thus, in doing work in which they could occupy themselves and take a
+pride, the prisoners unconsciously ceased to think all day of the bad
+lives they had led, and longed to lead again; and when they had served
+the time of their sentences and were discharged, they had a trade to
+fall back on, and, what was still more important, the _habit_ of
+working.
+
+Besides this, the method of 'hard labour' carried out in the Ghent
+prison had another great advantage for the prisoners. Every day each
+person's work, which would take him a certain number of hours to finish,
+was dealt out, and when it was done, and done _properly_, the prisoners
+were allowed, if they chose, to go on working, and the profits of this
+work were put aside to be given them when they were discharged. And in
+Ghent the criminals were not left, as in England, to the mercy of the
+gaoler, nobody knowing and nobody caring what became of them, for the
+city magistrates went over the prison once every week, and also arranged
+what meals the prisoners were to have till the next meeting.
+
+In a gaol in the beautiful old city of Bruges, the contrast between the
+care taken of the sick criminals and the numberless deaths from gaol
+fever in his own country filled Howard with the deepest shame. In
+Bruges, the doctors did not make stipulations that they should not be
+expected to visit infectious patients, but they wrote out their
+prescriptions in a book for the magistrates to read. Thus it was
+possible for the rulers of the city to judge for themselves how ill a
+man might be, and how he was being treated; and as long as the doctor
+considered him in need of it, fourteen pence daily--a much larger sum
+then than now--was allotted to provide soup and other nourishing food
+for the sick person.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Howard passed from Belgium to Holland he found the same care,
+though here the rules respecting the gaolers were stricter, because
+they were responsible for the orderly state of the prison and the
+conduct of the prisoners.
+
+The gaolers were forbidden, on pain of a fine, to be seen drinking in
+public-houses, to quarrel with the prisoners, and to use bad language to
+them, and, greatest difference of all from the prisons he was accustomed
+to, no strong drink was allowed to be sold within the walls! Debtors
+were few, while in England they were more numerous than the criminals;
+and in Amsterdam not a single person had been executed for ten years,
+whereas in Britain sheep-stealing and all sorts of petty offences were
+punished by hanging.
+
+From Holland Mr. Howard travelled to Germany, where, as a whole, the
+same sort of rules prevailed; and in Hamburg, the wives of the
+magistrates went to the prisons every Saturday to give out the women's
+work. In some places the men were set to mend the roads, clean the
+bridges, clear away the snow, or do whatever the magistrates desired,
+and a guard with fixed bayonets always attended them. But they much
+preferred this labour, hard though it often was, to being shut up
+indoors, and looked healthy and cheerful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After three months Mr. Howard returned home and inspected the prison at
+Dover, to find to his dismay everything exactly as before; and when,
+after a little rest, he set out on a second English tour, scarcely
+anywhere did he perceive an improvement. One small prison in the Forest
+of Dean was inhabited by two sick and half-starved men, who had been
+kept in one room for more than a year almost without water or fire or
+any allowance for food. In another, at Penzance, which consisted of two
+tiny rooms in a stable-yard, was one prisoner only, who would have died
+of hunger had it not been for a brother, even poorer than himself, who
+brought him just enough to keep him alive. Again and again Howard paid
+out of his own pocket the debts of many of those miserable people, which
+sometimes began by being no more than a shilling, but soon mounted up,
+with all the fees, to several pounds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With only short intervals for rest, Howard went on travelling and
+inspecting, now in the British Isles and now abroad, and by slow degrees
+he began to see an improvement in the condition of the prisoners in his
+own country, whether criminals or debtors in gaols or convicts in the
+'hulks,' as the rotten old ships used as prisons were called. He was
+careful never to leave a single cell unvisited, and spoke his mind
+freely both to the keepers and to the magistrates. The House of Commons
+always listened with eagerness to all he had to tell, and passed several
+Bills which should have changed things much for the better. But the
+difficulty lay, not in making the law, but in getting it carried out.
+
+It is wonderful how, during all these travels and the hours spent in the
+horrible atmosphere of the prisons, a delicate man like Howard so seldom
+was ill. Luckily he knew enough of medicine to teach him to take some
+simple precautions, and he never entered a hospital or prison before
+breakfast. Dresden and Venice appear to have been the two cities on the
+Continent where the prisoners were the worst treated, many of them
+wearing irons, and few of them having enough food.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would be impossible to give an account of all Howard's journeys,
+which included Italy, Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, and Holland, but
+I have told you enough for you to understand what a task he had
+undertaken. When he was abroad he was sometimes entreated to attend
+private patients, so widely had his fame spread; and though he did not
+pretend to be a doctor, he never refused to give any help that was
+possible, and it was through this kindness that he lost his life. Once,
+during a visit to Constantinople, he received a message from a man high
+in the Sultan's favour, begging him to come and see his daughter, as she
+was suffering great pain and none of the doctors could do anything to
+relieve her. Howard asked the girl some questions, and felt her pulse,
+and then gave some simple directions for her treatment which soon took
+away the pain, and in a few days she was nearly well. Her father was so
+grateful that he offered Howard a large sum of money, just as he would
+have done to one of his own countrymen, and was struck dumb when Howard
+declined the gift, and asked instead for a bunch of the beautiful grapes
+that he had seen hanging in the garden. As soon as the official had made
+sure that his ears had not deceived him, he ordered a large supply of
+the finest grapes to be sent to Howard daily as long as he stayed in
+Constantinople.
+
+So for a whole month we can imagine him enjoying the Pasha's grapes, in
+addition to the vegetables, bread, and water which formed his usual
+meals, taken at any hour that happened to be convenient. If he wished to
+go to visit a prison or hospital or lazaretto, there was no need to put
+it off because 'it would interfere with his dinner-hour,' for his dinner
+could be eaten any time. Not that there were any hospitals, properly
+speaking, in Constantinople; for though there was a place in the Greek
+quarter to which sick people were sent, hardly a single doctor could be
+found to attend them, and the only real hospital in the capital was for
+the benefit of cats.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now in most of the great seaport towns along the Mediterranean,
+lazarettos, or pest-houses, were built, so that passengers on arriving
+from plague-stricken countries should be placed in confinement for forty
+days, till there was no fear of their infecting the people. In England,
+in spite of her large trade with foreign lands, there were no such
+buildings, and it is only wonderful that the plague was so little heard
+of. Howard determined to insist on the wisdom and necessity of the
+foreign plan; but as he always made his reports from experience and not
+from hearsay, he felt that the time had come when he should first visit
+the lazarettos, and then go through the forty days' quarantine himself.
+
+This experiment was more dangerous than any he had yet tried, so instead
+of taking a servant with him, as had generally been his habit, he set
+out alone in November 1785.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As regards lazarettos, he found, as he had found with regard to prisons
+and hospitals, that their condition depended in a great degree on the
+amount of care taken by the ruler of the city. In Italy there were
+several that were extremely well managed, especially in the dominions of
+the grand duke of Tuscany; but he had made up his mind that when the
+moment came for his quarantine it should be undergone in Venice, the
+most famous lazaretto of them all. He took ship eastwards, and visited
+the great leper hospital at the Island of Scio, where everything was
+done to make the poor creatures as comfortable as possible. Each person
+had his own room and a garden of his own, where he could grow figs,
+almonds, and other fruit, besides herbs for cooking.
+
+From Scio Howard sailed to Smyrna, and then changed into another vessel,
+bound for Venice, which he knew would be put in quarantine the moment it
+arrived in the city. The winds were contrary and the voyage slow, and
+off the shores of Greece they were attacked by one of the 'Barbary
+corsairs' who infested the Mediterranean. The Smyrna crew fought hard,
+for well they knew the terrors of the fate that awaited them if
+captured, and when their shot was exhausted they loaded their biggest
+gun with spikes and nails, and anything else that came handy. Howard
+himself aimed it, and after it had fired a few rounds, the enemy spread
+his black sails and retired.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length, after two months, Venice was reached, and as a passenger on
+board a ship from an infected port, Howard was condemned to forty days'
+quarantine in the new lazaretto. His cell was as dirty as any dungeon in
+any English prison, and had neither chair, table, nor bed. His first
+care was to clean it, but it was so long since anyone had thought of
+doing such a thing that it was nearly as long before the dirt could be
+made to disappear, and meanwhile he was attacked by the same headache
+which had always marked his visit to such places, and in a short time
+became so ill that he was removed to the old lazaretto. Here he was
+rather worse off than before, for the water came so close to the walls
+that the stone floor was always wet, and in a week's time he was given a
+third apartment, this time consisting of four rooms, but all without
+furniture and as dirty as the first.
+
+Ordinary washing was again useless to remove the thick coating of filth
+of all kinds, and at length Howard felt himself getting so ill that by
+the help of the English consul he was allowed to have some brushes and
+lime, which by mixing with water became whitewash. He then brushed down
+the walls without hindrance from anyone, though he had made up his mind
+that if the guard tried to stop him, he would lock him up in one of the
+rooms. Almost directly he grew better, and was able to enjoy his tea and
+bread once more.
+
+The rules for purification of the infected ships were most strict, but
+it depended on the prior, or head of the lazaretto, whether they were
+carried out or not. All woollen, cotton, and silk materials, which were
+specially liable to carry infection, were carefully cleansed. The bags
+in which they were packed were all emptied, and the men belonging to the
+lazaretto were strictly forbidden to touch them with their hands, and
+always used canes to turn over the contents of the bags. This was done
+daily for forty days, when they were free from infection. Other things
+were kept in salt water for forty-eight hours, and short-haired animals
+were made to swim ashore.
+
+[Illustration: He brushed down the walls without hindrance from anyone.]
+
+On November 20, Howard was set free, his health having suffered from the
+lack of air and exercise, and from anxiety about his son, whom he had
+left in England. However, he still continued his tour of inspection, and
+it was not till February 1787 that he reached home. After a short time
+given to his own affairs, in making the best arrangements that he could
+for his son, now completely out of his mind, he was soon busily employed
+in putting a stop very vigorously to the erection of a statue to his
+honour. The subscriptions to it had been large, for everybody felt how
+much the country owed to his unwearied efforts in the cause of his
+fellow-men, carried out entirely at his own cost. But Howard would not
+listen to them for one moment.
+
+'The execution of your design would be a cruel punishment to me,' he
+says in a letter to the subscribers. 'I shall always think the reform
+now going on in several of the gaols of this kingdom, which I hope will
+become general, the greatest honour and most ample reward I can possibly
+receive.'
+
+It was Howard who was right, and his friends who were wrong, for though
+after his death they would no longer be denied, it is not the picture of
+the statue in St. Paul's which rises before us at the name of John
+Howard, but that of the prison cell.
+
+
+
+
+HANNIBAL
+
+
+If we could go back more than three thousand years, and be present at
+one of the banquets of Egypt or of the great kingdoms of the East, we
+should be struck by the wonderful colour which blazed in some of the
+hangings on the walls, and in the dresses of the guests; and if,
+coveting the same beautiful colour for our own homes, we asked where it
+came from, the answer would be that it was the famous Tyrian purple,
+made at the prosperous town of Tyre, off the coast of Palestine,
+inhabited by the Phoenician race.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Phoenicians were celebrated traders and sent their goods all over
+the world. Ships took them to the mouth of the Nile, to the islands in
+the Cornish sea, to the flourishing cities of Crete almost as civilised
+as our own; while caravans of camels bore Phoenician wares across the
+desert to the Euphrates and the Tigris, most likely even to India
+itself. Soon the Phoenicians began to plant colonies which, like Tyre
+their mother, grew rich and beautiful, and far along the north African
+coast--so runs the old story--the lady Dido founded the city of
+Carthage, whose marble temples, theatres, and places of assembly were by
+and by to vie with those of Tyre itself.
+
+But before these were yet completed, a wanderer, tall and strong and
+sun-burned, towering nearly a head over the small Phoenician people,
+landed on the coast and was brought before the queen, as Dido was now
+called.
+
+His name, he said, was �neas, and he had spent many years in fighting
+before the walls of Troy for the sake of Helen, whom he thought the
+loveliest woman in the world, till he had looked on Dido the queen.
+After the war was ended he had travelled westwards, and truly strange
+were the scenes on which his eyes had rested since he had crossed the
+seas.
+
+Dido listened, and as she had talked with many traders from all
+countries she understood somewhat of his speech, and bade him stay
+awhile and behold the wonders of the city she was building. So �neas
+stayed, and the heart of the queen went out to him; but as the days
+passed by he tired of rich food and baths made sweet with perfumes, and
+longed for wild hills and the flocks driven by the shepherds. Then one
+morning he sailed away, and Dido saw his face no more; and in her grief
+she ordered a tall pyre to be reared of logs of sandalwood and cedar.
+When all was prepared she came forth with a golden circlet round her
+head, and a robe of scarlet falling to her feet, till men marvelled at
+her fairness, and laid herself down on the top of the pyre.
+
+'I am ready,' she said to the chief of her slaves, who stood by, and a
+lighted torch was placed against the pile, and the flames rose high.
+
+In this manner Dido perished, but her name was kept green in her city to
+the end.
+
+[Illustration: She came forth with a golden circlet round her head.]
+
+But though Dido was dead, her city of Carthage went on growing, and
+conquering, and planting colonies, in Sicily, Spain, and Sardinia. Not
+that the Carthaginians themselves, though a fierce and cruel people,
+cared about forming an empire, but they loved riches, and to protect
+their trade from other nations it was needful to have strong fleets and
+armies. For some time the various Greek states were her most powerful
+enemies; but in the third century before Christ signs appeared to
+those with eyes to read them that a war between Carthage and Rome was at
+hand.
+
+Now it must never be forgotten for a moment that neither then, nor for
+over two thousand years later, was there any such thing as Italy, as
+_we_ understand it.
+
+The southern part of the peninsula was called 'Greater Greece,' and
+filled, as we have said, by colonies from different Greek towns. In the
+northern parts, about the river Po, tribes from Gaul had settled
+themselves, and in the centre were various cities peopled by strange
+races, who for long joined themselves into a league to resist the power
+of Rome. But by the third century B.C. the Roman empire, which was
+afterwards to swallow up the whole of the civilised world from the
+straits of Gibraltar to the deserts of Asia, had started on its career;
+the league had been broken up, the Gauls and Greeks had been driven
+back, and the whole of Italy south of the river Rubicon paid tribute to
+the City of the Seven Hills on the Tiber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having made herself secure in Italy, Rome next began to watch with
+anxious eyes the proceedings of Carthage in Spain and in Sicily. The
+struggle for lordship was bound to come, and to come soon. As to her
+army, Rome feared nothing, but it was quite clear that to gain the
+victory over Carthage she must have a fleet, and few things are more
+striking in the great war than the determination with which Rome, never
+a nation of sailors, again and again fitted out vessels, and when they
+were destroyed or sunk gave orders to build more. And at last she had
+her reward, and the tall galleys, with high carved prows and five banks
+of oars, beat the ships which had been hitherto thought invincible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 263 B.C. that the war at last broke out in Sicily, and after
+gaining victories both by land and sea, Rome in the eighth year of the
+contest sent an army to Africa, under the consuls Regulus and Volso,
+with orders to besiege Carthage. The invading army consisted of forty
+thousand men, and was joined as soon as it touched the African shore by
+some tributary towns, and also by twenty thousand slaves--for Carthage
+was hated by all who came under her rule because of her savage cruelty.
+At the news of the invasion the people seemed turned into stone. Then
+envoys were sent to beg for peace, peace at any price, at the cost of
+any humiliation. But the consuls would listen to nothing, and Carthage
+would have fallen completely into her enemy's hands had the Romans
+marched to the gates. But at this moment an order arrived from the Roman
+senate, bidding Volso with twenty-four thousand men return at once,
+leaving Regulus with only sixteen thousand. With exceeding folly Regulus
+left the strongly fortified camp, which in Roman warfare formed one of
+the chief defences, and arrayed his forces in the open plain. There
+Carthage, driven to bay, gave him battle with her hastily collected
+forces. The Carthaginians, commanded by Xanthippus, a better general
+than Regulus, won the day, and only two thousand Romans escaped
+slaughter. The victory gave heart to the men of Carthage, and when news
+came from Sicily that Rome had been driven back and her fleets
+destroyed, their joy knew no bounds. In her turn Rome might have lain at
+the feet of the conqueror, but Carthage had no army strong enough to act
+in a foreign land, and contented herself with destroying during the war
+seven hundred five-banked Roman ships, which were every time replaced
+with amazing swiftness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The war had raged for sixteen years when Hamilcar Barca, father of the
+most famous general before C�sar (except Alexander the Great), was given
+command over land and sea. He was a young man, not more than thirty, and
+belonged to one of the oldest families in Carthage. Unlike most of his
+nation, he valued many things more highly than money, and despised the
+glitter and show and luxury in which all the Carthaginians delighted. A
+boy of fourteen when the first Punic war began (for this is its name in
+history), his strongest passion was hatred of Rome and a burning desire
+to humble the power which had defied his own beloved city. It did not
+matter to Hamilcar that his ships were few and his soldiers
+undisciplined. The great point was that he had absolute power over them,
+and as to their training he would undertake that himself.
+
+So, full of hope he began his work, and in course of time, after hard
+labour, his raw troops became a fine army.
+
+Hamilcar's first campaign in Sicily--so often the battleground of
+ancient Europe--was crowned with success. The Romans were hemmed in by
+his skilful strategy, and if he had only been given a proper number of
+ships it would have been easy for him to have landed in Italy, and
+perhaps marched to Rome. But now, as ever in the three Punic wars,
+Carthage, absorbed in counting her money and reckoning her gains and
+losses, could never understand where her real interest lay. She waited
+until Rome, by a supreme effort, built another fleet of two hundred
+vessels, which suddenly appeared on the west coast of Sicily, and gave
+battle to the Carthaginian ships when, too late, they came to the help
+of their general. The battle was lost, the fleet destroyed, and Hamilcar
+with wrath in his soul was obliged to make peace. Sicily, which Carthage
+had held for four hundred years, was ceded to Rome, and large sums of
+money paid into her treasury for the expenses of the war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bitterly disappointed at the failure forced on him when victory was
+within his grasp, Hamilcar was shortly after summoned back to Carthage
+to put down a rebellion which the government by its greed and folly had
+provoked. The neighbouring tribes and subject cities joined the foreign
+troops whose pay had been held back, and soon an army of seventy
+thousand men under a good general was marching upon Carthage. So
+widespread was the revolt that it took Hamilcar, to whom the people had
+insisted on giving absolute power, three years to quell the revolt; but
+at length he triumphed, punishing the leaders, and pardoning those who
+had only been led.
+
+Peace having been restored, Hamilcar was immediately despatched to look
+after affairs in Spain, where both Carthage and Rome had many colonies.
+Strange to say, he took with him his three little boys, Hannibal,
+Hasdrubal, and Mago, and before they sailed he bade Hannibal, then only
+nine, come with him into the great temple, and swear to the gods that he
+would be avenged on Rome.
+
+If you read this story you will see how Hannibal kept his oath.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As this is a history of Hannibal, and not of his father, I have not room
+to tell you how Hamilcar took measures to carry out the purpose of his
+life, namely, the destruction of Rome. To this end he fortified the
+towns that had hitherto only been used as manufactories or store-houses,
+turned the traders into steady soldiers, sent for heavy armed African
+troops from Libya, and the celebrated light horse from Numidia, made
+friends with the Iberian (or Spanish) tribes, and ruled wisely and well
+from the straits of Gibraltar to the river Ebro. But, busy as he might
+be, he always had time to remember his three boys, and saw that they
+were trained in the habits and learning of a soldier. All three were apt
+pupils, and loved flinging darts and slinging stones, and shooting with
+the bow, though in these arts they could not rival their masters from
+the Balearic isles, however much they practised.
+
+[Illustration: All three were apt pupils.]
+
+When Hannibal was eighteen, Hamilcar was killed in a battle with some of
+the native tribes who had refused to submit to the sway of Carthage. In
+spite of the hatred that he cherished for everything Roman, he had
+earned the undying respect of the noblest among them. 'No king was
+equal to Hamilcar Barca,' writes Cato the elder, and the words of Livy
+the historian about Hannibal might also be applied to his father.
+
+'Never was a genius more fitted to obey or to command. His body could
+not be exhausted nor his mind subdued by toil, and he ate and drank only
+what he needed.' He had failed in his aim, but, dying, he left it as a
+heritage to his son, who, on the point of victory, was to fail also.
+
+Under Hamilcar's son-in-law, Hasdrubal, the work of training the army,
+encouraging agriculture, and fostering trade was carried on as before.
+It was not long before Hasdrubal made his young brother-in-law commander
+of the cavalry, and often sought counsel from him in any perplexity.
+Hannibal was much beloved, too, by his soldiers of all nations, and to
+the end they clung to him through good and ill. He gave back their
+devotion by constant care for their comfort--very rare in those
+days--seeing that they were fed and warmed before entering on a hard
+day's fighting, and arranging that they had proper time for rest. To the
+Iberians he was bound by special ties, for before he quitted Spain for
+his death-struggle with Rome he married a Spanish princess, little
+thinking, when he started northwards in May 218 B.C., that he was
+leaving her and her infant son behind him for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this time Rome had been growing both in her influence and her
+dominions, when for a while her very existence was threatened by the
+sudden invasion of seventy thousand Gauls, who poured in from the north.
+They were defeated in a hard-fought battle and beaten back, but the
+struggle with the barbarians was long and fierce, and Rome remained
+exhausted. Her attention was occupied with measures needful for her own
+defence and in raising both men and money, and except for warning the
+Carthaginians not to cross the Ebro, she left them for a time pretty
+much to themselves, thinking vainly that, as long as her navy gave her
+command of the sea, she had no need to trouble herself about affairs in
+Spain or Africa. Indeed, after the severe strain of the Gallic war, the
+Roman senate thought that they were in so little danger either from
+Carthage or from Greece that their troops might take a sorely needed
+rest, and the army was disbanded.
+
+This was Hannibal's chance, and with the siege and fall of the Spanish
+town of Saguntum in 218 B.C. began the second Punic war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For years the young general had been secretly brooding over his plans,
+and had prepared friends for himself all along the difficult way his
+army would have to march. Unknown to Rome, he had received promises of
+help from most of the tribes in what is now the province of Catalonia,
+from Philip of Macedon, ruler in the kingdom of Alexander the Great, and
+from some of the Gauls near the Rhone and along the valley of the Po.
+Many of these proved broken reeds at the time of trial, when their help
+was most needed, and even turned into enemies, and Hannibal was too wise
+not to have foreseen that this might happen. Still, for the moment all
+seemed going as he wished; war was declared, and Rome made ready her
+fleet for the attack by sea which she felt was certain to follow.
+
+In our days of telephones and telegrams and wireless telegraphy, it is
+very nearly _impossible_ for us to understand how an army of ninety
+thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, and thirty-seven elephants could
+go right through Spain from Carthagena in the south-east to the Pyrenees
+in the north, and even beyond them, without a whisper of the fact
+reaching an enemy across the sea. Yet this is what actually occurred.
+Rome sent a large force under one consul into Sicily, the troops were
+later to embark for Carthage, another to the Po to hold the Gauls in
+check, while a third, under Publius Scipio, was shortly to sail for
+Spain and there give battle to the Carthaginians. That Hannibal was
+fighting his way desperately through Catalonia at that very moment they
+had not the remotest idea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not only did Hannibal lose many of his men in Catalonia, but he was
+obliged to leave a large body behind, under Hanno, his general, to
+prevent the Catalans rising behind him, and cutting off his
+communications with Spain.
+
+The Pyrenees were crossed near the sea without difficulty, and for a
+time the march was easy and rapid along the great Roman road as far as
+Nismes, and then on to the Rhone between Orange and Avignon. By this
+time the consul, Publius Scipio, who had been prevented for some reason
+from going earlier to Spain, and was now sailing along the gulf of Genoa
+on his way thither, heard at Marseilles that Hannibal was advancing
+towards the river Rhone. The Roman listened to the news with incredulity
+and little alarm. How could Hannibal have got over the Pyrenees and he
+not know it? A second messenger arrived with the same tale as the first,
+but Scipio still refused to believe there was any danger. Why, the late
+rains had so swollen the river that it was now in high flood, and how
+could any army ford a stream so broad and so rapid? And if it _did_, had
+not the envoy said that some Gallic troops were drawn up on the other
+side to prevent the enemy landing? So Scipio disembarked his troops in a
+leisurely manner, and contented himself with sending out a scouting
+party of horse to see where the Carthaginians might be encamped--if they
+really were there at all!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now all the way along his line of march Hannibal had followed his usual
+policy, and had gained over to his side most of the Gauls who lay in his
+path, and when they seemed inclined to oppose him, a bribe of money
+generally made matters smooth. But on reaching the right bank of the
+river he found the Gallic tribes, of whom Scipio had heard, assembled in
+large numbers on the left bank, just at the very place where he wished
+to cross. He knew at once that it was useless to persist in making the
+passage here, and some other plan must be thought of.
+
+The first thing Hannibal did was to buy at their full value all the
+boats and canoes used by the natives in carrying their goods down to the
+mouth of the Rhone, there to be sold to foreign traders. The people,
+finding that the army of strange nations with dark skins and curious
+weapons did not intend to rob them, but to pay honestly for all they
+took, became ready to help them, and offered themselves as guides if
+they should be needed. And to prove their good will, they began to help
+the soldiers to cut down trees from the neighbouring forests, and to
+scoop them into canoes, one for every soldier.
+
+It was the third night after the Carthaginians had reached the river
+when Hannibal ordered Hanno, one of his most trusted generals, to take a
+body of his best troops up the stream, to a place out of sight and sound
+of the Gallic camp, where one of the friendly guides had told him that a
+passage might be made. The country at this point was lonely, and the
+detachment met with no enemies along the road, and no one hindered them
+in felling trees and making rafts to carry them to the further bank.
+Early next morning they all got across, and then by Hannibal's express
+orders rested and slept, for he never allowed his soldiers to fight when
+exhausted. Before dawn they started on their march down the left bank,
+sending up, as soon as it was light, a column of smoke to warn Hannibal
+that everything had gone smoothly, and that he might now begin to cross
+himself.
+
+His men were all ready, and without hurry or confusion took their
+places. The heavy-armed cavalry, with their corselets of bronze, and
+swords and long spears, entered the larger vessels; two men, standing in
+the stern of every boat, holding the bridles of three or four horses
+which were swimming after them. It must have required great skill on the
+part of the oarsmen to allow sufficient space between the boats, so that
+the horses should not become entangled with each other, but no accident
+happened either to the larger vessels or to the canoes which contained
+the rest of the foot.
+
+[Illustration: The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting and screaming
+with delight.]
+
+Exactly as Hannibal expected, for he always seemed to know by magic the
+faults that his enemy would commit, at the sight of the Carthaginian
+army on the river the Gauls poured out of their camp, and crowded to the
+bank, shouting and screaming with delight and defiance. There they
+stood, with eyes fixed on the advancing boats, when suddenly Hanno's men
+came up and attacked them from behind. They turned to grapple with this
+unexpected enemy, thus giving Hannibal time to land his first division
+and charge them in the rear. Unable to stand the twofold onslaught, the
+Gauls wavered, and in a few minutes disappeared in headlong flight.
+
+When the rest of the army was safe on the left bank a camp was pitched,
+and orders given for the morrow. Hannibal's great anxiety was for the
+passage of the elephants, still on the other side, for the great
+creatures on whose help he counted, perhaps more than he should, were
+terribly afraid of water. But no man ever lived who was cleverer at
+forming schemes than Hannibal, and at last he hit on one which he
+thought would do. Five hundred of his light-armed horsemen from the
+African province of Numidia were despatched down the river to find out
+how many soldiers Scipio had with him, the number and size of the ships
+that had arrived, and, if possible, the consul's future plans. Then the
+general chose out some men who were specially fitted to manage the
+elephants, and bade them recross the river immediately, giving them
+exact directions what they were to do when they were once more on the
+right bank.
+
+The plan Hannibal had invented for the passage of the elephants was
+this.
+
+The men whom he had left on the other side of the Rhone were ordered to
+cut down more trees as fast as possible, and chop them into logs, which
+were bound firmly together into rafts about fifty feet broad; when
+finished, these rafts were standing on the bank, lashed to trees and
+covered with turf, so that they looked just like part of the land. The
+rafts stretched a long way into the river, and the two furthest from the
+bank were only tied lightly to the others, in order that their ropes
+might be cut in a moment. By this means Hannibal felt that it would be
+possible for the elephants to be led by their keepers as far as the
+outermost rafts, when the ropes would be severed, and the floating
+platform rowed towards the further shore. The elephants, seeing the
+water all round them, would be seized with a panic, and either jump into
+the river in their fright and swim by the side of the raft, guided by
+their Indian riders, or else from sheer terror would remain where they
+stood, trembling with fear. But though the rafts were to be built
+without delay, the passage was on no account to be attempted till the
+signal was given from Hannibal's camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile the Numidians on their way down the left bank of the Rhone had
+nearly reached the Roman headquarters when they met the party of cavalry
+whom Scipio, on his side, had sent out to reconnoitre. The two
+detachments at once fell upon each other and fought fiercely, and then,
+as Hannibal had directed, the Numidians retreated, drawing the Romans
+after them, till they were in sight of the Carthaginian entrenchments.
+Here the cavalry pulled up, and returned unpursued to Scipio with the
+news that they had defeated the famous Numidian horsemen in a hot
+skirmish, and that Hannibal was entrenched higher up the river.
+Immediately Scipio broke up his camp and began his march northwards,
+which was just what Hannibal wanted.
+
+But at sunrise that same morning the signal had been given for the
+passage of the elephants, and the Carthaginians had started on their way
+to the Alps, the heavy-armed infantry in front, with the cavalry in the
+rear to protect them. Hannibal himself was determined not to stir till
+the elephants were safely over, but everything fell out as he expected,
+and the whole thirty-seven were soon safe beside him on dry land,
+snorting and puffing with their trunks in the air.
+
+Then he followed his main body, and when Scipio, thirsting to give
+battle to the enemy he felt sure of conquering, arrived at the spot
+where three days before the Carthaginian army had been encamped, he
+found it empty.
+
+[Illustration: Hannibal was determined not to stir until the elephants
+were safely over.]
+
+Nothing is so necessary to the success of a campaign as having correct
+maps and information about the country through which your army has to
+pass. Hannibal, who thought of everything, had thought of this also, and
+had paid native guides well to lead him to the nearest passes over the
+Alps. For four days the Carthaginians marched along the Rhone, till they
+reached the place where the river Is�re flows into it. The Gallic chief
+of the tribes settled in this part of Gaul, being at war with his
+brother, was easily gained over by some assistance of Hannibal's in
+securing his rights, and in return he furnished the Carthaginians with
+stores from the rich lands he ruled, with new clothes and strong leather
+sandals, and, more precious than all, with fresh weapons, for their own
+had grown blunted and battered in many a grim fight since the soldiers
+left Carthagena.
+
+At the foot of the pass leading over the Mont du Chat, or Cat Mountain,
+in a lower range of the Alps, the chief bade them farewell, and returned
+to his own dominions. It was then that Hannibal's real difficulties
+began. His army consisted of many races, all different from each other,
+with different customs and modes of warfare, worshippers of different
+gods. There were Iberians from Spain, Libyans and Numidians from Africa,
+Gauls from the south of France; but they one and all loved their
+general, and trusted him completely, and followed blindly where he led.
+Still, the plunge into those silent heights was a sore trial of their
+faith, and in spite of themselves they trembled.
+
+As they began their climb they found the pass occupied by numbers of
+Gallic tribes ready to hurl down rocks on their heads, or attack them at
+unexpected places. Perceiving this, Hannibal called a halt, while his
+native scouts stole away to discover the hiding-places of the enemy,
+and, as far as possible, how they intended to make their assault.
+
+The guides came back bringing with them the important news that the
+tribes never remained under arms during the night, but retired till
+daylight to the nearest villages. Then Hannibal knew what to do. As soon
+as it was dark he seized upon the vacant posts with his light-armed
+troops, leaving the rest, and the train of animals, to follow at
+sunrise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they returned and saw what had happened in their absence the Gallic
+tribes were filled with rage, and lost no time in attacking the
+baggage-horses, which were toiling painfully over the rough ground. The
+animals, stung by their wounds, were thrown into confusion, and either
+rolled down the precipice themselves or pushed others over. To save
+worse disasters, Hannibal sounded a charge, and drove the Gauls out of
+the pass, even succeeding in taking a town which was one of their
+strongholds, and full of stores and horses.
+
+After a day's rest he started again, this time accompanied by some of
+the enemy, who came with presents of cows and sheep, pretending to wish
+for peace, and offered themselves as guides over the next pass. But
+Hannibal feared them 'even when they bore gifts,' and did not put much
+faith in their promises. He determined to keep a close watch on them,
+but guides of some sort were necessary, and no others were to be had.
+However, he made arrangements to guard as far as possible against their
+treachery, placing his cavalry and baggage train in front, and his heavy
+troops in the rear to protect them.
+
+The Carthaginian army had just entered a steep and narrow pass when the
+Gauls, who had kept pace with them all the way, suddenly attacked them
+with stones and rocks. Unlike their usual custom, they did not cease
+their onslaughts, even during the dark hours, and did great harm; but at
+sunrise they had vanished, and without much more trouble the
+Carthaginians managed to reach the head of the pass, where for two days
+the men and beasts, quite exhausted, rested amidst the bitter cold of
+the November snows, so strange to many of the army, who had grown up
+under burning suns and the sands of the desert.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cold and tired though they were, hundreds of miles from their homes, one
+and all answered to Hannibal's words, entreating them to put their trust
+in him, and they should find ample reward for their sufferings in the
+rich plains of Italy which could be seen far below them.
+
+'You are now climbing,' he said, 'not only the walls of Italy, but also
+those of Rome. The worst is past, and the rest of the way lies downhill,
+and will be smooth and easy to travel. We have but to fight one, or at
+most two, battles, and Rome will be ours.'
+
+And so perhaps it might have been if Carthage had only supported the
+greatest of her sons, and sent him help when he needed it so badly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hannibal was wrong when he told his soldiers that their difficulties
+were over, for as all accustomed to mountain-climbing could have
+informed him, it was much harder to go down the pass than it had been to
+come up it. A fresh fall of snow had covered the narrow track, but
+beneath it all was frozen hard and was very slippery. The snow hid many
+holes in the ice or dangerous rocks, while landslips had carried away
+large portions of the path. No wonder that men and beasts unused to such
+ground staggered and fell and rolled down the sides of the precipice. At
+length the path, barely passable before, grew narrower still; the army
+halted, and an active, light-armed soldier offered to go forward, and
+discover if the track became wider, and whether it was possible for even
+the men to go on. But the further he went the worse matters seemed. For
+some distance he managed, by clinging to a few small bushes which had
+wedged themselves into clefts of the rock, to lower himself down the
+side of the cliff, which was as steep as the wall of a house. Then he
+found right in front of him a huge precipice nearly a thousand feet
+deep, formed by a recent landslip, which entirely blocked what was once
+a path. As long as this rock remained standing it was plain that no man,
+still less an army, could get round it.
+
+[Illustration: He found right in front of him a huge precipice.]
+
+Climbing painfully back the way he had come, the soldier at once went
+with his report to Hannibal, who instantly made up his mind what to do.
+He carried supplies of some sort of explosive with him--what it was we
+do not know--and with this he blew up the rocks in front till there was
+a rough pathway through the face of the precipice. Then the soldiers
+cleared away the stones, and after one day's hard work the oxen, bearing
+the few stores left, and the half-starved, weary horses, were led
+carefully along, and down into a lower valley, where patches of grass
+could be seen, green amidst the wastes of snow. Here the beasts were
+turned loose to find their own food, and a camp was pitched to protect
+them.
+
+Still, though the path had proved wide enough for horses and oxen, it
+was yet far too narrow for the elephants, and it took the Numidian
+troops three more days to make it safe for the great creatures which had
+struck such terror into the hearts of the mountain tribes. But weak as
+they were, the skin hanging loose over their bones, they made no
+resistance, and soon the whole army was marching towards the friendly
+Gauls, in the valley of the Po.
+
+This was how in fifteen days Hannibal made the passage of the Little St.
+Bernard five months after he had set out from Carthagena. But the
+journey had been accomplished at a fearful cost, for of the fifty
+thousand men whom he had led from the city there remained only eight
+thousand Iberians or Spaniards, twelve thousand Libyans, and six
+thousand cavalry, though, strange to say, not one elephant had been
+lost.
+
+It was well indeed for the Carthaginians that Scipio was not awaiting
+them at the foot of the Alps, but was making his way northwards from
+Pisa to the strong fortress of Placentia on the Po.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the friendly Gallic tribe of the Insubres, to whom Hannibal was
+united by the bond of hate of Rome, the troops rested and slept, and the
+horses and elephants grew fat once more. The men had had no time to
+think of themselves during those terrible weeks, and their health had
+suffered from the bitter cold and the wet clothes, which were often
+frozen on them. To add to this, their food had been as scanty as their
+labour had been hard, for most of their stores lay buried under the
+snows of the Alps. But in the rich, well-watered plains of Italy, 'the
+country and the inhabitants being now less rugged,' as the historian
+Livy tells us, they soon recovered their strength, and besieged and took
+by assault the city of Turin, capital of the territory of the Taurini,
+who were always at war with the Gallic allies of Hannibal.
+
+With two Roman armies so near at hand the Gauls did not dare to join him
+in any great numbers, though they would gladly have flocked to his
+standard. Rome itself was filled with consternation at the news that
+Hannibal, whom they had expected to fight in Spain, was really in Italy,
+and hastily recalled the troops intended for Carthage, which were still
+at the Sicilian town of Lilyb�um. On receipt of the order, the general
+Tiberius instantly sailed with part of the men for Rome, and ordered the
+rest of the legions to proceed to Rimini on the Adriatic, bidding each
+man swear that he would reach the city by bedtime on a certain day.
+
+If you look at the map and see the distance they had to go, you will be
+amazed that they kept their oaths, and arrived at Rimini in four weeks,
+marching daily sixteen miles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Scipio was encamped in Placentia, and Hannibal, who had no
+time to lose in besieging such a strong position, was doing his best to
+tempt his enemy into the plain, where his own cavalry could have room to
+manoeuvre. But instead of remaining in Placentia, and allowing
+Hannibal to wear himself out in waiting, the Roman general left the
+town, crossed the Po, and advanced towards the river Ticino, where he
+ordered his engineers to build a bridge.
+
+It was quite clear that with the two armies so near each other a battle
+could not be long delayed, and both commanders took what measures they
+thought necessary.
+
+The way which Hannibal took to 'encourage' his army, as the Greek
+historian Polybius calls it, was rather a curious one, and reminds us of
+the manner in which lessons were taught in some of the old Bible
+stories.
+
+While crossing the Alps he had captured a number of young Gauls in the
+very act of hurling rocks on the head of his army. Most commanders, both
+in that age and for very long after, would have put them to death at
+once, but Hannibal, unlike the Carthaginians, was never unnecessarily
+cruel, though he put his prisoners in chains and took care they should
+not escape. He now ordered these young men to be brought before him and
+placed in the centre of his troops, which were drawn up all round. On
+the ground near him lay some suits of armour, once worn by Gallic
+chiefs, and a pile of swords, while horses were tethered close by.
+Making a short speech, he then offered the young men a chance of saving
+their lives with honour, or meeting an honourable death at each other's
+hands. Would they take it, or would they rather remain prisoners?
+
+A shout of joy answered him.
+
+'Well, then,' said Hannibal, 'you will each of you draw lots which shall
+fight with the other, and the victor of every pair shall be given
+armour, a horse, and a sword, and be one of my soldiers.'
+
+Pressing eagerly forward towards the urns which held the lots, the
+captives stopped to hold up their hands, as was their custom, praying to
+their gods for victory. After the lots were all drawn, they took their
+places, and under the eyes of the army the combat began. And when it was
+finished, and half the fighters lay dead on the field, it was they, and
+not the victors, who were envied by the soldiers, for having gloriously
+ended the misery of their lives. For in the old world death was welcomed
+as a friend, and seldom was a man found who dared to buy his life at the
+cost of his disgrace.
+
+[Illustration: Under the eyes of the army the combat began.]
+
+'The struggle between the captives,' said Hannibal to his army, 'is an
+emblem of the struggle between Carthage and Rome. The prize of the
+victors will be the city of Rome, and to those who fall will belong the
+crown of a painless death while fighting for their country. Let every
+man come to the battlefield resolved, if he can, to conquer, and if not
+to die.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in this spirit that Hannibal trained his troops and led them to
+battle. He never made light of the difficulties that lay before him, or
+the dogged courage of the Romans, who rose up from every defeat with
+a fresh determination to be victorious. One advantage they had over
+Hannibal, and it could hardly be valued too highly. Though the councils
+of the senate who sent forth the troops might be divided, though the
+consuls who commanded them might be jealous of each other, yet the great
+mass of the army consisted of one nation, who together had fought for
+years under the eagles of Rome.
+
+Hannibal, on the other hand, had to deal with soldiers of a number of
+different races, and his latest recruits, the Gauls, though eager and
+courageous, could not be depended upon in battle. When to this is added
+the fact that Hannibal was in a country which he did not know, among a
+people who feared Rome even while they hated her, and would desert him
+at the first sign of defeat; that he had to provide daily for the wants
+of both men and animals, and that for sixteen years he remained in Italy
+with a dwindling army, striking terror into the hearts of the bravest of
+the Romans, you may have some little idea of the sort of man he was.
+
+Well may an historian say that the second Punic war was the struggle of
+a great man against a great nation. Take away Hannibal, and the
+Carthaginian forces were at the mercy of Rome.
+
+We have no space to describe the various battles in the valley of the
+Po, in which Hannibal was always the victor. At the river Trebia he
+defeated Scipio in December 218, by aid of the strategy which never
+failed, till he taught his enemies how to employ it against himself.
+Hannibal was a man who never left anything to chance, and whether his
+generals were trusted to draw the enemy from a strong position into the
+open field, or to decoy it into an ambuscade, everything was foreseen,
+and as far as possible provided against. He took care that his troops
+and his animals should go into action fresh, well-fed, and well-armed,
+and more than once had the wounds of both horses and men washed with
+old wine after a battle. That tired soldiers cannot fight was a truth he
+never forgot or neglected.
+
+During the winter months following the victory of Trebia, Hannibal
+pitched his camp in the territories of his Gallic allies, and busied
+himself with making friendly advances to the Italian cities which had
+been forced to acknowledge the headship of Rome. 'He had not come to
+fight against them,' he said, 'but against Rome, on their behalf.' So
+the Italian prisoners were set free without ransom, while the Roman
+captives were kept in close confinement. He also sent out spies to
+collect all the information they could as to the country through which
+he had to travel. He was anxious, for other reasons, to break up his
+camp as soon as he was able, as he saw signs that the Gauls were weary
+and rather afraid of having him for a neighbour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Therefore, in the spring of 217 B.C. he marched southwards, placing the
+Spaniards and Libyans in front, with the baggage and stores behind them,
+the Gauls, whom he never quite trusted, in the centre, and the Numidian
+light horse and cavalry in the rear, under his brother Mago. There were
+no elephants to be thought of now, for they had all died of cold after
+the battle of Trebia. North of the Arno was a wide tract of marshland,
+which had to be crossed before the Apennine mountains could be reached.
+Never, during all his campaigns, did Hannibal's army have to undergo
+such suffering. In many ways it was worse than the passage of the Alps,
+for once in the midst of the morasses, swollen by the melting snows, it
+was hardly possible to snatch a moment of sleep. Many of the oxen fell
+and died, and when this happened the wearied men stretched themselves on
+their still warm bodies, and closed their eyes for a short space.
+
+At length, after three nights and four days of incessant marching, till
+the troops were nearly numb with cold, firm ground was reached, and for
+a while they rested in peace on the hill of Fiesole, above the Arno.
+
+Here Hannibal formed his plans for the next campaign. He found out that
+Flaminius the consul was a vain, self-confident man, with neither
+experience nor skill in war. It would be easy, he thought, by laying
+waste the rich country to the south, to draw the Roman general from his
+camp at Arretium; and so it proved. Flaminius, greedy of glory he could
+never gain, refused to listen to the advice of his officers and wait for
+the arrival of the other consul, and set out in pursuit of Hannibal, who
+felt that victory was once more in his hands.
+
+The place which Hannibal chose for his battle was close to lake
+Thrasymene, a reedy basin in the mountains not far from the city of
+Cortona. At this spot a narrow valley ran down to the lake, with lines
+of hills on both sides, and a very steep mountain at the opposite end of
+the lake. At the lake end the hills came so close together that there
+was only a small track through which a few men could pass at a time.
+
+Making sure that his enemy was following in his footsteps, Hannibal
+placed his steady heavy armed Spaniards and Libyans on the hill at the
+end of the valley opposite the lake, in full view of anyone who might
+approach them. His Balearic slingers and archers, and light-armed
+troops, were hidden behind the rocks of the hills on the right, and the
+Gauls and cavalry were posted in gorges on the left, close to the
+entrance of the defile, but concealed by folds in the ground. Next day
+Flaminius arrived at the lake, and, as Hannibal intended, perceived the
+camp on the hill opposite. It was too late to attack that night, but the
+next morning, in a thick mist, the consul gave orders for the advance
+through the pass. Grimly smiling at the success of his scheme, Hannibal
+waited till the Romans were quite close to him, and then gave the
+signal for the assault from all three sides at once.
+
+Never in the whole of history was a rout more sudden and more complete.
+Flaminius' army was enclosed in a basin, and in the thick fog could get
+no idea from which direction the enemy was coming. The soldiers seemed
+to have sprung right out of the earth, and to be attacking on every
+quarter. All that the Romans could do was to fight, and fight they did
+with desperation. But there was no one to lead them, for their generals,
+like themselves, were bewildered, and Flaminius speedily met with the
+fate his folly deserved. Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day in the
+fierce battle, during which even an earthquake passed unheeded.
+Multitudes were pushed back into the lake and were dragged down to the
+bottom by the weight of their armour. Some fled to the hills and
+surrendered on the promise of their lives being spared, and a few
+thousands found their way back to Rome.
+
+The victory being won, Hannibal charged the soldiers to seek for the
+body of Flaminius, so that he might give it honourable burial, by which
+nations in ancient times set special store. But, search as they might,
+they could not find it, nor was it ever known what became of him. Very
+differently did the Roman general Nero behave eleven years later on the
+banks of the Metaurus, when Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal, seeing that
+the day was lost, rode straight into the ranks of the enemy. When he
+fell, Nero, with savagery worthy of his namesake the emperor, cut off
+the head of the Carthaginian and threw it into Hannibal's camp.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day.]
+
+There was silence in Rome when bands of wounded and weary soldiers came
+flying to the gates, bearing the news of this fresh disaster. Fifteen
+thousand men slain, fifteen thousand men taken prisoners! Hardly a
+family in Rome that was not stricken, and who could tell when the
+banners of the Carthaginians might not be seen on the crests of the
+hills? But as the troubles of life show the stuff of which men are made,
+Romans were never so great as when their cause seemed hopeless. The city
+was at once put in a state of defence, every boy and old man that could
+bear arms was sent to the walls, the bridges over the Tiber were
+destroyed, and the senate, putting aside the consuls, elected a
+dictator, who for six months had absolute power over the whole state.
+
+The man who in this hour of sorest need was chosen to save the city was
+Quintus Fabius, whose policy of 'waiting' has become a proverb even to
+this day. He was already old, and was never a brilliant general, but,
+like most Romans, possessed great common-sense.
+
+Alone among the senate he saw that there was no hope of conquering
+Hannibal in a pitched battle. Rome had not then--and, except for C�sar,
+never has had--a single general with a genius equal to his; but there
+was one way, and one only, by which he might be vanquished, and that was
+to leave him where he was, in the midst of a hostile country, till his
+troops grew weary of expecting a battle which never was fought, and his
+Gallic allies became tired of inaction and deserted him.
+
+Such was the plan of warfare which Fabius proposed, but his own
+countrymen put many obstacles in the way of its success. Many times he
+was called a coward for declining a battle which would certainly have
+been a defeat; but he let such idle cries pass him by, and hung on
+Hannibal's rear, keeping his soldiers, many of whom were raw and
+untrained, under his own eye. In vain Hannibal drew up his men in order
+of battle and tried by every kind of insult to induce Fabius to fight.
+The old general was not to be provoked, and the enemy at length
+understood this and retired to his camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Immediately after the battle of Thrasymene, Hannibal, knowing quite well
+that he was not strong enough to attack Rome, had taken up his
+headquarters on the shores of the Adriatic, so as to be at hand if
+Philip of Macedon made a descent upon Italy, or Carthage sent the
+reinforcements her general had so frequently asked for. But it was as
+useless to trust to the promises of the one as to the patriotism of the
+other, and having laid waste the country nearly as far south as
+Tarentum, he suddenly crossed the Apennines to the plain on the western
+sea, where he hoped to gain over some of the cities to his cause. In
+this again he was doomed to disappointment, for the rich Campanian
+towns, notably Capua, richest of all, held aloof till they knew for
+certain who would be conqueror.
+
+In all Hannibal's campaigns nothing is more surprising than the way he
+managed to elude his enemies, who were always close to him and always on
+the look-out for him; yet he went wherever he wished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seeing that he could not hope for support in Campania, Hannibal
+determined to carry off the stores and booty he had collected into a
+safe place east of the Apennines, in order that his troops might be
+well-fed during the winter. This Fabius learned through a spy, and,
+knowing that there was only one pass through the mountains, sent a body
+of four thousand men to occupy a position in ambush from which they
+might fall upon the Carthaginians as they entered the gorge, while he
+himself encamped with a large force on a hill near at hand.
+
+We can imagine the old dictator's satisfaction when he had completed his
+arrangements for crushing the Carthaginians, and felt that _this_ time
+he would put to silence the grumblings of the people in Rome.
+
+Fabius passed the day in preparing his plan of the attack which was to
+take place on the morrow, perhaps now and then allowing his secret
+thoughts to linger a little on the triumph awaiting him at Rome. But
+that very night Hannibal ordered one of his generals to fell some trees
+and split them into faggots, which were to be piled close to where two
+thousand oxen were tethered outside the camp. The men wondered a little
+what was going to happen, but did as they were bid, and then, by
+Hannibal's directions, had supper and lay down to sleep. Very early in
+the morning they were awakened by Hannibal himself, who bade them follow
+him out of the camp and tie the faggots on to the horns of the oxen.
+This was soon done, and then the faggots were kindled by a burning
+torch, and the oxen were driven up a low ridge which stretched before
+the pass.
+
+'Help the drivers get them on to the ridge,' he said to his light
+troops, 'and then pass them, shouting and making all the noise you
+can.'
+
+The march was conducted silently for some distance, but no sooner did
+the soldiers break out into shrieks and yells than the oxen grew
+frightened and wildly rushed hither and thither. The Romans in the
+defile below heard the shouts and saw the bobbing lights, but could not
+tell what they meant. Leaving their post, the whole four thousand
+climbed the ridge, where they found the Carthaginians. But it was still
+too dark for the Romans to see what these strange lights really were, so
+they drew up on the ridge to wait till daybreak, by which time Hannibal
+and most of his army were safe through the pass, when he sent back some
+of his Spanish troops to help the force he had left behind him. The
+troops speedily defeated the entire army of Fabius, who had now come up,
+and then, joining Hannibal, pushed on to Apulia.
+
+[Illustration: The whole four thousand climbed the ridge.]
+
+A howl of rage rang through Rome at the news that they had once more
+been outwitted, and all Fabius' wise generalship was forgotten in this
+fresh defeat. Yet, had they stopped to think, the fault did not lie with
+the dictator, whose plans had been well laid, but with the commander of
+the troops in the pass, who, instead of sending out scouts to find out
+the cause of the disturbance on the ridge, moved his whole body of men,
+leaving the defile unguarded. Perhaps Hannibal, in arranging the
+surprise, had known something of the commander and what to expect of
+him; or he may merely have counted--as he had often done before--on the
+effects of curiosity. But time after time he traded on the weakness of
+man, and always succeeded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in June 216 B.C. that Hannibal gained his last great battle in
+Italy. He had remained for many months near the river Ofanto, which runs
+into the Adriatic, but in the beginning of summer he threw himself into
+the town of Cann�, used by the Romans as a storehouse for that part of
+Italy.
+
+A Roman army of ninety thousand men amply supplied was coming swiftly to
+meet him along the splendid roads, and he had only fifty thousand to
+cope with them, the greater number being Gauls, and not to be depended
+on. Of the original troops that he had brought from Spain, many were
+dead, but he was able to muster ten thousand cavalry, mostly consisting
+of the Numidian horse, and in this respect he was superior to the
+Romans. There was also to be reckoned to his advantage the fact that the
+two consuls, Varro and Paulus, hated each other bitterly, and that
+neither of them had any instinct of command, though Paulus was a capable
+soldier and a brave man.
+
+There was a custom among the Romans, dating back from ancient days, that
+when the two consuls were serving on the same campaign, each should
+command on alternate days. It seems strange that such a very practical
+nation should have made such a foolish law, but so it was; and on this
+occasion it once more led, as it was bound to do, to an utter defeat.
+Hannibal played his usual game of sending Numidians across the river to
+insult and tease his enemy, till at length Varro exclaimed in wrath that
+the next day the command would be his, and that he would give the
+Carthaginians battle and teach them something of the majesty of Rome.
+
+In vain the wiser Paulus, who had followed the counsels of Fabius,
+reasoned and protested. Varro would listen to nothing, and orders were
+given to the army to be ready on the morrow for the attack.
+
+The day before the battle Hannibal spent 'in putting the bodies of his
+troops into a fit state to fight,' as the historian tells us--that is,
+he made them rest and sleep, and prepare plenty of food for their
+breakfast. Early next morning the Romans began to cross the river, which
+took several hours, thus leaving their strong camp on the southern bank
+with only a small force to defend it, and took up their position in the
+plains, where Hannibal's cavalry had ample room to manoeuvre. And, to
+make matters worse, the consul formed his men into such close columns
+that they could not avoid being hampered by each other's movements.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two armies when facing each other in order of battle must have
+presented a curious contrast. The Roman legions and their allies,
+amounting in all to seventy-six thousand men, wore helmets and cuirasses
+and carried swords and short throwing-spears. In front, the Carthaginian
+troops looked a mere motley crowd, so various were the dress and weapons
+of the different nations. It is true that the black-skinned Libyans
+might at first sight have been taken for deserters from the Roman camp,
+as they, like their enemies, were clad in the same armour and bore the
+same arms, the spoils of many a victory; and the young men of the
+legions trembled with rage as they beheld the glittering line, and
+thought of what it betokened. But the Gauls were almost naked, and their
+swords, unlike those of the Romans, could only cut, and were useless for
+thrusting, while the Spanish troops were clothed in a uniform of short
+linen tunics striped with purple. In the van, or front of the army, were
+the small remainder of the contingent from the Balearic Isles, with
+their slings and bows.
+
+In spite of the faults committed by Varro in placing his troops,
+Hannibal's lines were once broken by the heavy-armed Roman soldiers,
+while the cavalry on the wing by the river were fighting in such deadly
+earnest that they leaped from their horses and closed man to man. But at
+Cann�, as at Trebia, the honours of the day fell to the Numidians and to
+the Spanish and Gallic horse commanded by Hasdrubal. The Romans had been
+again routed by an army weaker by thirty thousand men than their own;
+the consul Paulus, and Servilius and Atilius, consuls of the year
+before, were all dead: only Varro saved his life by a disgraceful
+flight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still Hannibal did not march to Rome, as the senate expected. Though the
+battle of Cann� decided the wavering minds of those who had been waiting
+to see on which side lay the victory; though the southern half of Italy
+and many cities of Campania were now anxious to throw in their lot with
+him; though Philip of Macedon promised once more to send ships and men
+to his support, and thousands of Gauls swarmed into his camp, the army
+on which he could actually rely was too small to besiege the city with
+any chance of success. He did, indeed, send ambassadors to Rome, with
+powers to treat for the ransoming of some Roman prisoners, but as before
+in the case of the Gauls, the envoys were not even given a hearing by
+the senate.
+
+Till he got reinforcements from Carthage, Hannibal felt he must remain
+where he was; but surely she would delay no longer when she knew that
+the moment for which Hannibal was waiting had come, and his allies were
+ready. So he sent his brother Mago to tell the story of his triumphs and
+his needs to the Carthaginian senate, never doubting that a few weeks
+would see the tall-prowed ships sailing up the coast of the Tyrrhene
+sea, where he now had his headquarters. He did not reckon on the
+jealousy of his success which filled the breasts of the rulers of his
+country, a jealousy which even self-interest was unable to overcome.
+From the first he had borne their burden alone, and owing to the
+treachery and baseness of his own nation in the end it proved too heavy
+for his shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon Hannibal began to understand that he would get help from no one,
+and from Carthage least of all, and the knowledge was very bitter. The
+Romans had gathered together a fresh army of eighty or ninety thousand
+men, and had armed a large number of their slaves, offering them
+freedom. Any check, however slight, to the Carthaginian army was the
+cause of joy and thankfulness in Rome, for, as Livy says, 'not to be
+conquered by Hannibal then was more difficult than to vanquish him
+afterwards.'
+
+In spite of Thrasymene and Cann� things were now changed, and it was
+Hannibal who was on the defensive. The Romans had learned their lesson,
+and the legions always lying at the heels of Hannibal's army were
+commanded by experienced generals, who adopted the policy of Fabius and
+were careful never to risk a battle.
+
+Thus three years passed away, and Carthage, absorbed in the difficult
+task of keeping Spain, from which she drew so much of her wealth, in her
+hands, sent thither all the troops she could muster to meet the Romans,
+who were gradually gaining ground in the peninsula.
+
+In Italy the war was shifting to the south, and about 213 B.C. Hannibal
+was besieged in the town of Tarentum by a Roman fleet which had blocked
+the entrance to the gulf on which the city was situated. The alarm in
+Tarentum was great; escape seemed impossible; but Hannibal ordered
+boards to be placed in the night across a little spit of land that lay
+between the gulf and the open sea. When darkness fell, the boards were
+greased, and ox-hides stretched tightly over them. Then one by one the
+imprisoned Tarentine fleet was dragged along the boards and launched on
+the other side, and when all the ships were afloat, they formed in a
+line and attacked the Roman vessels, which were soon sunk or destroyed.
+
+It was deeds such as these which showed the power Hannibal still
+possessed, and kept alive the Roman dread of him; yet he himself knew
+that the triumph of Rome was only a work of time, and that the kingdom
+of Carthage was slipping from her.
+
+In Sicily, which had once been hers, and even now contained many towns
+which were her allies, a strong Roman party had arisen. Syracuse in the
+south was besieged by Appius Claudius by land and by Marcellus by sea,
+and its defence is one of the most famous in history. The Greek
+engineer, Archimedes, invented all sorts of strange devices new to the
+ancient world. He made narrow slits in the walls, and behind them he
+placed archers who could shoot through with deadly aim, while they
+themselves were untouched. He taught the smiths in the city how to make
+grappling irons, which were shot forth from the ramparts and seized the
+prows of the ships. By pressing a lever the vessels were slowly raised
+till they stood nearly upright, when the grapplers were opened, and the
+ships fell back with a splash that generally upset the crew into the
+sea, or were filled with water and sunk to the bottom. Of course you
+must remember that these were not great vessels with four masts like our
+old East Indiamen, but were long, high boats, worked by banks of oars,
+the shortest row being, of course, the lowest, nearest the water.
+
+After a while the Romans got so frightened, not knowing what Archimedes
+might do next, that they thought every end of loose rope that was lying
+about hid some machine for their destruction. For a long while the
+engineer kept the enemy at bay, but in the end the power of Rome
+conquered; the beautiful marble palaces were ruined, and the paintings
+and statues which had been the glory of Syracuse were carried to Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just at this time news from Spain became more and more gloomy for the
+Carthaginians. The young Scipio, who had saved his father's life nine
+years before at the battle of the Ticinus, was, at the age of
+twenty-six, made commander-in-chief in the peninsula. Though never a
+great soldier, Scipio was a good statesman, and had the gift of winning
+men to his side. Multitudes of natives flocked to his standard, and many
+important places fell into his hands; and in his hour of victory he was
+merciful, and caused his captives as little suffering as possible. In
+the words of the people themselves, 'he had conquered by kindness.'
+
+Seeing that for the time, at any rate, all was lost in Spain, Hasdrubal
+set out with an army to join his brother Hannibal. In Auvergne, in the
+centre of Gaul, where he spent the winter, large numbers of Gallic
+tribes joined him, and in the spring he crossed the Alps by the same
+pass as Hannibal. But the difficulties of nine years earlier were now
+absent, for the mountaineers understood at last that no evil to them was
+intended, and let the Carthaginian army climb the defile without
+attempting to hurt them. Traces of Hannibal's roads remained everywhere,
+and thus the troops, consisting perhaps of sixty thousand men, marched
+easily along and descended into the plains of the Po. But it was all
+useless; before Hasdrubal could join Hannibal, who was still in Apulia,
+the consul Nero, encamped near by at the head of a considerable force,
+made prisoners some messengers sent by the general to his brother.
+
+Instantly taking steps to have the roads to the north watched by armies,
+Nero set off at night with a picked detachment to meet the consul Livius
+on the coast of the Adriatic, south of the river Metaurus. Night and day
+his men marched, eating as they went food brought them by the peasants.
+In less than ten days they had gone two hundred miles, and entered the
+camp of Livius by night, so that the Carthaginian general might know
+nothing of their arrival. Next morning Nero insisted, against the
+opinion of the other generals, that battle should be given immediately,
+as he must return and meet Hannibal at once. In vain they protested that
+his troops were too tired to fight; he shut his ears, the signal was
+sounded, and the army drawn up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Carthaginians had already taken their places at the time that the
+Romans began to form, when Hasdrubal, riding down his lines to make sure
+that everything was done according to his orders, noticed that among the
+enemy's array clad in shining armour were a band with rusty shields, and
+a bevy of horses which looked lean and ill-groomed. Glancing from the
+horses to their riders, he saw that their skins were brown with the sun
+of the south and their faces weary. No more was needed to tell him that
+reinforcements had come, and that it would be madness to risk a fight.
+He could do nothing during the day, but as soon as the night came he
+silently broke up his camp and started for the river Metaurus, hoping to
+put it between him and the Romans; but it was too late.
+
+Had the Carthaginian army only consisted of old and well-seasoned troops
+all might have gone well with it; but the large body of Gauls were
+totally untrained, and in their disappointment at not being allowed to
+give battle, seized on all the drink in the camp, and fell along the
+roadside quite unable to move. Before Hasdrubal could get his vanguard
+across the Romans were close upon him, and there was nothing left for
+him to do but to post his men as strongly as he could.
+
+For hours they fought, and none could tell with whom the victory would
+lie: then a charge by Nero decided it. When the day was hopelessly lost,
+Hasdrubal, who had always been in the fiercest of the struggle, cheering
+and rallying his men, rode straight at the enemy, and died fighting.
+Thus ended the battle of the Metaurus, the first pitched battle the
+Romans had ever gained over the Carthaginian army.
+
+The next night Nero set off again for Apulia, bearing with him the head
+of Hasdrubal, which, as we have said, he caused to be flung into
+Hannibal's tent, staining for ever the laurels he had won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the triumph of Nero, and his reception in the Rome which he had
+delivered, dates the last act of the second Punic war. At the news of
+his brother's defeat, which was a great blow to him, Hannibal retreated
+into the most southern province of Italy. His troops, whose love and
+loyalty never wavered, were largely composed of foreign levies, and had
+not the steadiness and training of his old Libyans and Spaniards. Never
+for one moment did he think of abandoning his post till his country
+called him, yet his quick eye could not fail to read the signs of the
+times. The Roman senate was no longer absorbed by the thought of war.
+Relieved by Nero's victory from the crushing dread which for so long had
+weighed it down, it was taking measures to encourage agriculture and to
+rebuild villages, to help the poor who had been ruined during these
+years of strife, to _blot out_, he felt, the traces of the victories he
+had won. And he had to watch it all and to know himself powerless,
+though he still defied Rome for three years longer, and knew that she
+still feared _him_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the year 204 B.C. that Scipio entreated the senate to allow
+him to carry the war into Africa, which he had already visited, and
+where he had already made many important allies, among them the famous
+Numidian Massinissa, whom he promised to make king over his tribe.
+Fabius, now ninety, declared it was folly to take an army to Africa
+while Hannibal remained in Italy, and a large party agreed with him. The
+people, however, who had absolute trust in the young general, insisted
+that he should have his way; and after a long and fierce debate, the
+senate with almost inconceivable foolishness consented that Scipio
+should sail for Carthage, as he so much desired it, but that he must do
+so at the head of no more than thirty thousand or forty thousand men.
+
+That so practical and sensible a nation should not have remembered the
+lesson of the defeat of Regulus, and have known the dangers which must
+be run by a small army in a foreign land, is truly surprising, and had
+Massinissa, with his priceless Numidian horse, not joined the Romans,
+Scipio's army would more than once have been almost certainly cut to
+pieces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When it became known that Scipio had landed and was besieging the old
+town of Utica, the rich and pleasure-loving citizens of Carthage were
+filled with despair. But this did not last long, for one of the leading
+men of the city, called Hanno, collected a small force, while Hasdrubal
+Gisco and Syphax the Numidian raised another, and between them both
+Scipio was forced to retreat. If only Hannibal had been there----But
+Hannibal was still in Italy, and no tidings of the struggle had reached
+him.
+
+Winter had now set in, and though it was only the mild winter of North
+Africa, Scipio entrenched himself securely on rising ground, and
+Hasdrubal Gisco with Syphax made their camps close by. The
+Carthaginians, who had several times been defeated, now wished to make
+peace, and Syphax, whom the Roman general was most anxious to gain over
+to his side, was the messenger chosen. While discussing the terms,
+Scipio suddenly learned that the Carthaginian and Numidian huts were
+built solely of wood and reeds, covered with hastily woven
+mats--materials which they had gathered from the woods and streams close
+by.
+
+'A spark would set them on fire, and _how_ they would burn,' said the
+general to himself, and the evil thought took root, till one night
+orders were given to surround the camps stealthily and put flaming
+torches against the walls. In a few minutes the country round was
+lighted up with a fierce blaze, and the Carthaginians, wakened from
+their sleep and not knowing what was happening, were cut down on all
+sides before they could defend themselves. This piece of wicked
+treachery may be said to have turned the scales in favour of Rome. A
+battle followed in a place called 'the great plains,' when Hasdrubal was
+beaten and Syphax soon after fell into the hands of the enemy. The
+Numidian chief was sent to Rome, and Sophonisba, his wife, took poison
+rather than bear the humiliation of walking behind the triumphal car of
+the Roman victor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Massinissa obtained the reward promised for his help--or his
+treason--and was made king of Numidia. Again Scipio offered peace, and
+the terms he proposed were as good as Carthage had any right to expect;
+but, favourable as they were, a few citizens were left to reject them
+with scorn. The fastest ship in the Carthaginian navy was sent to Italy
+to summon Hannibal from Bruttium and Mago from Milan. When the message
+arrived, Mago was already dead, but his troops embarked immediately and
+joined Hannibal and his twenty-five thousand men who had landed in
+Africa.
+
+It was in this way that Hannibal came back to his native city, after an
+absence of thirty-six years. When he had last seen it he had been a boy
+of nine, and the events that had since happened crowded into his memory.
+
+Notwithstanding his recent defeats, he had 'left a name at which the
+world grew pale,' and during the sixteen years he had spent in Italy
+none had dared to molest him. Single-handed he had fought; was it
+possible that at last his hour of triumph was at hand?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now that Hannibal, whom they had deserted and betrayed, was really in
+Africa the weak and foolish citizens of Carthage sent orders to him to
+fight without delay. For answer he bade the messengers 'confine their
+attention to other matters, and leave such things to him, for he would
+choose for himself the time of fighting,' and without more ado he began
+collecting a number of elephants and all the Numidian horse that had not
+gone over to Rome with Massinissa.
+
+He was labouring night and day at this task when again his plans were
+spoilt by some citizens of Carthage, who broke the truce which had been
+made by seizing some Roman ships. Scipio lost no time in avenging
+himself by burning all the towns and villages on the plain, and
+occupying the passes on a range of mountains where Hannibal had hoped to
+take up his position. Baulked in this project, Hannibal sent to Scipio
+to beg for an interview, and tried to obtain for Carthage better terms
+than the Roman was inclined to grant.
+
+'You have broken the truce by capturing the vessel containing the Roman
+envoys,' he said, 'and now you and your country must throw yourselves on
+our mercy, or else conquer us.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the armies drew up opposite each other on the field of Zama, on the
+bright spring morning of 202 B.C. which was to decide whether
+Carthaginians or Romans were to be masters of the world. Hannibal had
+about five thousand men more than his enemy, but he was weak in cavalry,
+and the eighty elephants which he had placed in front were young and
+untrained. The cavalry of the Romans was under the command of Massinissa
+and of L�lius, friend of the historian Polybius, and it was this strong
+body of Numidian horse which ultimately turned the fate of the day. As
+for the elephants, the sound of the Roman trumpets frightened them
+before the battle had begun, and threw them into confusion. They charged
+right into the middle of the Carthaginian cavalry, followed by
+Massinissa and by L�lius, who succeeded in breaking the ranks of the
+horse and putting them to flight. For a moment it seemed as if the heavy
+armed foreign troops which Hannibal then brought up would prevail
+against the Roman legions, but at length they were forced back on to
+their own lines, which took them for deserters.
+
+With a cry of 'Treachery!' the foreign soldiers fell on the
+Carthaginians, and fighting hard they retreated on Hannibal's reserve,
+the well-trained Italians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this point there was a pause, and both commanders made use of it to
+re-form their armies. Then the battle began afresh, and the generals
+left their posts and fought for hours in the ranks of the common
+soldiers. At last the cavalry returned from pursuit and threw itself on
+the rear of the Carthaginians. This time they gave way, and Hannibal,
+seeing that the battle was lost, quitted the field, in the hope that
+somehow or other he might still save his country from destruction.
+
+How bitter, in after years, must have been his regret that he had not
+died fighting among his men at Zama!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though Hannibal and the Romans hated each other so much, they were alike
+in many respects, and in nothing more than in the way that no defeat
+ever depressed them or found them without some plan to turn it into
+victory. In truth, in spite of his love for his country, which was
+dearer to him than wife or child, Hannibal was far, far more of a Roman
+than a Carthaginian.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peace was made, and, as was inevitable, the terms were less favourable
+than when the fate of both countries hung in the balance. Naturally, the
+Carthaginians threw the blame on Hannibal, and naturally also, being
+filled with the meanest qualities that belong to mankind, when they
+found that all was in confusion and no one knew where to turn, they sent
+for the man they had abandoned and abused, and bade him set them on
+their feet again. In a moment all the wrongs he had suffered at their
+hands were forgotten; he accepted the position of dictator or _suffete_,
+he caused more humane laws to be passed, and not only saved the people
+from ruin and enabled the merchants again to sell their goods, but paid
+the large sum demanded as a war indemnity by Rome within the year.
+
+Having done what no other man in Carthage, probably no other man in his
+age, could possibly have done, it is needless to remark that his
+fellow-citizens grew jealous of him, and listened without anger to
+Rome's demand for his surrender, made, it is just to say, in spite of
+the indignation of Scipio. To save himself from the people for whom he
+had 'done and dared' everything he escaped by night, leaving a sentence
+of banishment to be passed on him and the palace of his fathers to be
+wrecked. Perhaps--who knows?--he may have wished to save his country
+from the crowning shame of giving him up to walk by the chariot wheels
+in the triumph of Scipio Africanus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The remaining years of his life--nearly twenty-five, it is said--are so
+sad that one can hardly bear to write about them. The first place at
+which he sought refuge was at Ephesus, with Antiochus the Great, lord,
+at least in name, of a vast number of mixed races from Asia Minor to the
+river Oxus. Here, still keeping in mind the master passion of his life,
+he tried to induce Antiochus to form a league by which Rome could be
+attacked on all sides. But the king, who had little in him of greatness
+but his name, made war before his preparations were half finished, and
+gave the chief commands to incapable men, leaving Hannibal to obey
+orders instead of issuing them. One by one the allies forsook the king
+and joined Rome--even Carthage sending help to the Roman fleet. In 196
+B.C. the battle of Magnesia put an end to the war, and the dominions of
+Antiochus became a Roman province.
+
+Once more the surrender of Hannibal was made one of the terms of the
+treaty, and once more he escaped and spent some time first in Crete, and
+then in Armenia, and finally, for the last time, returned to Asia Minor
+on the invitation of Prusias, king of Bithynia.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hearty welcome of Prusias gave Hannibal a feeling of pleasure and
+rest that he had not known for long; but he was never destined to be at
+peace, and soon after a Roman envoy arrived at the palace of Prusias and
+demanded that the enemy of Rome should instantly be given up. To a brave
+soldier like Flaminius the mission was highly distasteful, which is
+another proof, if one were wanted, how great even in his downfall was
+the dread the Carthaginian inspired. 'Italy will never be without war
+while Hannibal lives!' had been the cry long, long ago, and it still
+rang proudly in his ears. He knew, and had always known, that his life
+would end by his own hand, and most likely he was not sorry that the
+moment had come.
+
+'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety, since they cannot wait
+for the death of one old man,' he said, when he heard that soldiers had
+surrounded his house, and drawing from his tunic some poison that he
+carried, he swallowed it and fell back dead. He had escaped at last.
+
+[Illustration: 'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said.]
+
+His last words had told truly the story of his life. It was the one old
+man who had held at bay the whole of the great nation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On reading the tale of his steadfastness, his unselfishness, his
+goodness to his soldiers, and the base ingratitude and wickedness with
+which his countrymen treated him, more than ever do we instinctively
+long that the lost cause had proved the winning one, and again and again
+we have to remind ourselves of the terrible evil it would have been to
+the world if Carthage had overcome Rome. For Carthage was possessed of
+almost every bad quality which could work ill to the human race. Greed
+for money was her passion, and in order to obtain wealth she proved
+herself fickle, short-sighted, lawless, and boundlessly cruel. The
+government of Rome, which the Eternal City handed on to the countries
+she conquered, was founded not only on law, but on common-sense.
+Considering the customs of the world during the thousand years of her
+greatest glory, she was seldom cruel, and her people were ready at all
+times to sacrifice themselves for the good of the state.
+
+So it was well for us now and here that Hannibal was overthrown at Zama,
+and was banished from Carthage; yet our hearts will always cry out with
+Othello, 'Oh, the pity of it!'
+
+
+
+
+THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS
+
+
+No one can travel through the countries of the East or sail about the
+lovely islands of the South Seas without constantly seeing before him
+men and women dying of the most terrible of all diseases--leprosy. The
+poor victims are cast out from their homes, and those who have loved
+them most, shrink from them with the greatest horror, for one touch of
+their bodies or their clothes might cause the wife or child to share
+their doom. Special laws are made for them, special villages are set
+apart for them, and in old times as they walked they were bound to utter
+the warning cry,
+
+'Room for the leper! Room!'
+
+From time to time efforts have been made to help these unfortunate
+beings, and over two hundred years ago a beautiful island in the �gean
+Sea, called Leros, was set apart for them, and a band of nuns opened a
+hospital or lazar-house, as it was called, to do what they could to
+lessen their sufferings, and sooner or later to share their fate.
+Nobody, except perhaps the nuns' own relations, thought much about
+them--people in those days considered illness and madness to be shameful
+things, and best out of sight. The world was busy with discoveries of
+new countries and with wars of conquest or religion, and those who had
+no strength for the march fell by the wayside, and were left there.
+Nowadays it is a little different; there are more good Samaritans and
+fewer Levites; the wounded men are not only picked up on the road, but
+sought out in their own homes, and are taken to hospitals, where they
+are tended free of cost.
+
+It is the story of a man in our own times, who gave himself up to the
+saddest of lives and the most lonely of deaths, that I am now going to
+tell you.
+
+On a cold day in January 1841 a little boy was born in the city of
+Louvain, in Belgium, to Monsieur and Madame Damien de Veuster. He had
+already a brother a few years older, and for some time the children grew
+up together, the younger in all ways looking up to the elder, who seemed
+to know so much about everything. We have no idea what sort of lives
+they led, but their mother was a good woman, who often went to the big
+church in the town, and no doubt took her sons with her, and taught them
+that it was nobler and better to serve Christ by helping others and
+giving up their own wills than to strive for riches or honours. Their
+father, too, bade them learn to endure hardness and to bear without
+complaints whatever might befall them. And the boys listened to his
+counsel with serious faces, though they could be merry enough at times.
+
+The lessons of their early years bore fruit, and one day the elder boy
+informed his parents that he wished to become a priest. It was what both
+father and mother had expected, and most likely hoped, and they at once
+agreed to his desire. Arrangements were soon made for his entering a
+training college, where he would have to live until he was old enough to
+be ordained.
+
+Joseph, the younger, missed his brother greatly. He loved his father and
+mother dearly, but they seemed far too old to share the thoughts and
+dreams which came to him in the night-time, or during the quiet moments
+that he passed in church. Yet, from what we know of his after-life, we
+may be quite certain that he was no mere dreamer, standing aloof from
+his fellows. He was fond of carpentering and building; he watched with
+interest while the workmen were laying down the pipes which were to
+carry the water from the river to some dry field; he noted how the
+doctor bound up wounds and treated sores; and indeed no sort of
+knowledge that a man may gather in his everyday existence came amiss to
+young Damien. As to what he would do when he was a man, he said nothing,
+and his parents said nothing either.
+
+On January 3, 1860, Joseph was nineteen, and Monsieur Damien proposed to
+take him as a birthday treat to see his brother, and to leave the two
+together while he went to the town on some business. It was a long time
+since they had met, and there was much to ask and hear. We do not know
+exactly what took place, but when Monsieur Damien returned to fetch
+Joseph, his son told him that he had made up his mind to follow in his
+brother's steps, and to be a priest also.
+
+Monsieur Damien was not surprised; he had long seen whither things were
+tending. He would perhaps have liked to keep one son with him, but
+Joseph was old enough to judge for himself and he did not intend to make
+any objection. Still, he was hardly prepared for the boy's announcement
+that farewells were always painful, and that he thought he would best
+spare his mother by remaining where he was until she had grown
+accustomed to doing without him. Then he would beg permission to come to
+see her for the last time before he became a priest.
+
+Very reluctantly Monsieur Damien gave his consent to this plan. He tried
+in vain to induce Joseph to think it over and to go back with him; but
+the young man was firm, and at length the father took leave of both his
+sons, and with a heavy heart returned home to break the news to his
+wife.
+
+In this way Joseph Damien set about the work which was by and by to make
+his name so famous, though to that he never gave a thought. He does not
+seem to have dreamed dreams of greatness, like so many boys, or of
+adventures of which he was always the hero. As far as we can guess,
+Joseph Damien just did the thing that came next and lay ready to his
+hand, and thus fitted himself unconsciously for what was greater and
+better. Just now he had to study hard, and as soon as his father had
+written to say that neither he nor his mother wished to hold back their
+son from the life he had chosen, Joseph entered the same college where
+his brother had received his training for the priesthood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some time--we do not know if it was years or only months--Joseph
+studied hard, hoping that the harder he worked the sooner he would be
+ready to go forth on 'active service' against the sin and misery of the
+world. His brother's plans were already formed. He was to make one of a
+band of priests starting for the islands in the South Seas, which more
+than forty years before had been visited by a band of American
+missionaries.
+
+It was a strange state of things that prevailed in the lovely group of
+the Sandwich Islands when the missionaries arrived there. The isles had
+been discovered during the eighteenth century by Captain Cook, but from
+the white men, chiefly merchants and traders, who followed him the
+natives learned nothing but evil, and fell victims to horrible diseases
+hitherto unknown there. To the Americans, who had left snow and ice
+behind them, the islands of Hawaii--to use their native name--appeared
+fairyland itself. Though the sun beat fiercely on them, cool streams
+rushed down the mountain-side, and in the great forests there was
+silence as well as darkness. Here the trees were bound together by ropes
+of flowery creepers, while outside, in the light and air, were groves of
+towering cocoa palms, standing with their roots almost in the water, and
+sheltering the huts, which could hardly be seen for the huge clusters
+of heliotropes, roses, and lilies that overshadowed them. But the sea!
+the sea! it was there that the greatest marvels were to be found!
+Fishes, orange, blue and scarlet; corals, seaweeds of every colour,
+creatures of every form and shape, whose names no white man knew.
+Afterwards, the missionaries learned that volcanoes were scattered over
+the islands, some extinct and only showing wide black mouths, others
+still blazing and throwing up jets of burning lava, which even in the
+sunshine take on a scarlet hue, and in the night gleam a yellowish
+white. Besides these wonders, there were also the curious customs of the
+people to be studied; and it was very necessary to know these, or a man
+might break the law and incur the penalty of death without having the
+slightest idea that he was doing any harm. For instance, he might go to
+pay a friendly visit to a chief, on whom the shadow of the visitor might
+fall; he might lose his way, and seeing a hut surrounded by a palisade
+would hasten to ask the shortest road to his tent, not guessing that he
+was entering the sacred home of a chieftain. If he offered a tired child
+a drink of cocoa-nut milk or a ripe banana, and she took it, he had
+brought about her death as certainly as if he had put the rope round her
+neck. But shortly before the arrival of the Americans a great king had
+abolished these iron rules, though no doubt they still lingered in
+out-of-the-way places.
+
+The reigning monarch, son of the late king, was bathing in the
+marvellous blue sea with his five wives when a messenger brought him
+word that the white strangers had landed. Full of politeness, like all
+the islanders, the king at once hastened to greet them, followed by the
+ladies. The missionaries felt a little awkward, which was foolish, as
+the Hawaiians seldom wore clothes, being more comfortable without them;
+but the king noticed that his guests were ill at ease, and determined
+that he would be careful not to hurt their feelings again. So when they
+had taken leave of him, he sent for one of his servants and bade him
+seek for some clothes belonging to a trader who had died in the palace.
+A pair of silk stockings was found and a tall and curly brimmed hat,
+such as in pictures you may see the duke of Wellington wearing after the
+battle of Waterloo. The king smiled and nodded, and the very next
+afternoon he put on the hat and the stockings, and highly pleased with
+himself set out to call upon his visitors. The missionary whose tent he
+entered was sitting inside with his wife, having just put up in one
+corner a bed which they had brought with them. They were so amazed at
+the sight of this strange figure that they stood silently staring; but
+when, in the act of greeting them, Liholiho's glance fell upon the bed,
+he completely forgot the object of his visit. 'What a delicious
+soft-looking thing, to be sure!' he said to himself, and with a spring
+he landed upon the bed, and jumped up and down, while the tall hat
+rolled away and settled in a corner.
+
+Like many people, when once he had begun to imitate the customs of other
+nations, king Liholiho was very particular in seeing that he was not put
+to shame by his own family. The missionary's wife wore clothes, and it
+was necessary, therefore, that his own ladies should not go uncovered;
+so orders were given accordingly, and when the white lady came to pay
+her respects at the palace--a somewhat larger hut than the rest--she
+found the brown ladies sitting up in great state to receive her, one of
+the widows of the late king being dressed in a garment made of seventy
+thicknesses of bark from the trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such were the islands to which Joseph's elder brother longed to go. His
+own Church had sent out missionaries over twenty years before, who had
+now written home appealing for helpers. He had given in his name among
+the first, and had been accepted, when he was suddenly stricken with
+fever, and forbidden by the doctor to think of carrying out his plan. In
+vain did he argue and entreat; the doctor was firm. 'You would be a
+hindrance, and not a help,' he said, and in a paroxysm of grief the
+young man hid himself among the bedclothes, where Joseph found him.
+
+'Yes, the doctor is right; you cannot go,' sighed the boy, when his
+brother had poured out the tale of his disappointment. 'You might get
+the fever again, you know, and only strong men are wanted there. But let
+_me_ go instead; I dare say I shall not do as well, but, at any rate, I
+will do my best.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now there was a strict rule in the college that no student should post a
+letter without the superior having first read it. Joseph knew this as
+well as anyone, but was far too excited and too much afraid of what the
+superior might say to pay any attention to it. So he wrote secretly to
+the authorities who were preparing to send out the missionaries, and
+begged earnestly that he might be allowed to take his brother's place,
+although he had not yet passed the usual examinations for the
+priesthood. Perhaps candidates for the South Sea Islands were not very
+plentiful just then, or there may have been something uncommon about
+Joseph's letter. At all events he was accepted, and when the news was
+told him by the superior he could not contain his delight, but rushed
+out of doors, running and jumping in a manner that would have greatly
+astonished his bishop, could he have seen it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For several years he worked hard among the islands making friends with
+the people, to whom he soon was able to talk in their own language. The
+young priest knew something about medicine, and could often give them
+simple remedies, so that they learned to look up to him, and were
+willing to listen to his teaching of Christianity. He was sociable and
+pleasant, and always ready to help in any way he could, and he was
+welcomed by many whose religious views differed from his own. Of course
+he had not been long there without finding out that the disease of
+leprosy was terribly common, and that the Government had set apart the
+island of Molokai as a home for the lepers, in order to prevent the
+spread of the disease; but the work given him to do lay in other
+directions, and in spite of the intense pity he felt for these poor
+outcasts he did not take any part in actual relief.
+
+In the year 1873 Father Damien happened to be sent to the island of
+Maui, where the great volcano has burnt itself out, and while he was
+there the bishop came over to consecrate a chapel which had just been
+built. In his sermon he spoke of the sad condition of the colony at
+Molokai, and how greatly he wished to spare them a priest who would
+devote himself entirely to them. But there was much to do elsewhere, and
+it was only occasionally that one could go even on a visit. Besides,
+added the bishop, life in Molokai meant a horrible death in a few years
+at latest, and he could not take upon himself to send any man to that.
+
+Father Damien heard, and a rush of enthusiasm came over him. He had done
+the work which he had been given faithfully and without murmuring, and
+now something higher and more difficult was offered. Without a moment's
+hesitation he turned to the bishop, his face glowing as it had done more
+than ten years before, when the letter which had decided his career had
+come to him.
+
+'Some fresh priests have arrived at Hawaii,' he said; 'they can take my
+place. Let _me_ go to Molokai.'
+
+And he went, without losing an hour, for a cattle-boat was sailing that
+very day for the island of the outcasts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every Monday a small steamer left Honolulu for Molokai, bearing any
+fresh cases of leprosy that had broken out since the departure of the
+last boat. On the shore were the friends and relations of the doomed
+passengers, weeping tears as bitter as those of the Athenians in the old
+story, when the ship each ninth year left the port with the cargo of
+youths and maidens for the Minotaur. Molokai was only seven hours
+distance from Hawaii, and on the north side, where the two leper
+villages lie situated, are high precipices guarded by a rough sea.
+Inland there are dense groves of trees, huge tree-ferns, and thick
+matted creepers. Here brilliant-plumaged birds have their home, while
+about the cliffs fly the long-tailed white bo'sun birds; but as a whole
+Molokai cannot compare in beauty with the islands which Father Damien
+had left behind him.
+
+A hospital had been built for the worst cases, and when Father Damien
+arrived it was quite full. He at once went to see the poor people and
+did all he could to relieve them a little; and when that was impossible,
+he sat by their bedsides, speaking to them of the new life they were
+soon to enjoy, and often he dug their graves, if nobody else could be
+found to do so. The rest of the lepers had taken fright, and had built
+themselves wretched houses, or, rather, sheds, of branches of the
+castor-oil trees, bound together with leaves of sugar-cane or with
+coarse grass. They passed their time in playing cards, dancing, and
+drinking, and very rarely took the trouble to wash either themselves or
+their clothes. But this was not altogether their fault. Molokai, unlike
+many of the other islands, was very badly off for water, and the lepers
+had to carry from some distance all that they used. Under these
+circumstances it was perhaps natural that they should use as little as
+possible.
+
+Such was the state of things when Father Damien reached Molokai, and in
+spite of his own efforts, aided sometimes by a few of the stronger and
+more good-natured of the lepers, such it remained for many months. The
+poor creatures seem to have grown indifferent to their miseries, or only
+tried to forget them by getting drunk. Happily the end was at hand; for
+when a violent gale had blown down all their huts it was plain, even to
+them, that something must be done, and Father Damien wrote at once to
+Honolulu the news of the plight they were in.
+
+In a very short time a ship arrived with materials to enable the lepers
+to have comfortable houses, and carpenters to put them up. Of course
+these carpenters lived quite separate from the inhabitants of the
+island, and as long as they did not touch the lepers, or anything used
+by them, were in no danger of catching the disease; while in order to
+hasten matters the Father turned his own carpentering talents to
+advantage, and with the help of some of the leper boys built a good many
+of the simpler houses, in which the poorer people were to live. Those
+who were richer, or who had rich friends, could afford more comforts;
+but all the houses were made after one pattern, with floors raised above
+the ground, so that no damp or poisonous vapours might affect them.
+
+But while all this was being done, Father Damien knew that it was
+impossible to keep the village clean and healthy unless it had a better
+supply of water. He had been too busy since he came to the island to
+explore the country in search of springs, but now he began to make
+serious inquiries, and found to his joy that there existed at no very
+great distance a large and deep lake of cold fresh water, which had
+never been known to run dry. At his request, pipes were sent over from
+Honolulu by the next steamer, and Father Damien was never happier in
+his life than when he and some of the stronger men were laying them down
+from the lake to the villages with their own hands. Of course there were
+still some who preferred to be dirty, but for the most part the lepers
+were thankful indeed for the boon.
+
+Little by little things began to improve, and the king and queen of the
+islands were always ready and eager to do all they could to benefit the
+poor lepers and to carry out Father Damien's wishes. Regular allowances
+of good food were sent weekly to the island, a shop was opened, some
+Sisters of Mercy came to nurse the sick and look after the children, a
+doctor established himself in the island, and one or two more priests
+and helpers arrived to share Father Damien's labours and to comfort him
+when he felt depressed and sad; while from time to time a ship might be
+seen steaming into Molokai from Honolulu filled with the relations and
+friends of the poor stricken people. The sick and the healthy could not,
+of course, touch each other--_that_ was forbidden--but they might sit
+near enough to talk together, and what happiness it must have been to
+both! Late in the evening the ship weighed anchor, and good-byes were
+shouted across the water. No doubt hearts were heavy both on deck and on
+the shore, where the green cliffs remained crowded as long as the ship
+was in sight. But it gave the exiles something to look forward to, which
+meant a great deal in their lives.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now anyone would have thought that, after all Father Damien had done and
+obtained for them, the lepers of Molokai would have been filled with
+gratitude to their priest. But among the inhabitants of the island there
+was a large number who met him sullenly, with downcast faces, and spoke
+evil of him behind his back. The priest took no notice, and greeted them
+as cheerfully as he did the rest, but he knew well the cause of their
+dislike, and he could take no steps to remove it. The reason was not far
+to seek; he had tried, and at last succeeded, in putting down the
+manufacture of spirits from the ki-tree, which grew all over the island,
+and made those who drank it, not stupid, but almost mad. He had been at
+Molokai for ten years before their enmity died out, and that was only
+when they knew that he, like themselves, was a leper!
+
+For the doom, though long delayed, fell upon him. When he first
+suspected it he consulted some of the doctors then on the island, as,
+besides the one always living there, there were others who came for a
+few months to study the disease under great precautions. They laughed at
+his words, and told him that he was as strong as ever he was, and that
+no one else could have done what he had done for ten years without
+catching the disease, but as he had escaped so far he was probably safe
+to the end. Father Damien did not contradict them. He saw that they
+really believed what they stated, and were not seeking to soothe his
+fears; but he went to a German doctor who had not been present with the
+rest and told him the symptoms he had himself noticed. 'You are right,'
+said the doctor after a pause, and Father Damien went out and sat in a
+lonely place by the sea.
+
+[Illustration: Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place by the
+sea.]
+
+In a little while he had faced it all and was master of himself
+again--and more; as his condition became known he felt that he was
+working with a new power. Those who had turned a deaf ear to him before
+listened to him now; he was no longer a man apart from them, whose
+health had been preserved by some sort of charm, but one of themselves.
+And the awful curse had not fallen on him by accident, as it had fallen
+upon _them_, but he had sought it, wilfully, deliberately, for their
+sakes. Thus, out of his very distress, came a new joy to Father
+Damien.
+
+Armed with this knowledge he grew more cheerful than he had ever been
+before, till the people wondered at him. He held more frequent services
+in the churches which had sprung up, held classes for the boys, and
+taught them some of the games that he himself had played in the far-away
+days in Belgium. The boys were pleasant, well-mannered children, with
+the strangest names, some native nicknames, others picked up by their
+fathers from the white people and given to their sons, whereas often
+they should have been kept for their daughters. In the class of Father
+Conradi there were Mrs. Tompkins, The Emetic, Susan, Jane Peter, Eyes of
+Fire, The River of Truth, The First Nose, The Window; while in Honolulu,
+from which many of them had come, lived their friends, Mrs. Oyster, The
+Man who Washes his Dimples, Poor Pussy, The Stomach, and The Tired
+Lizard. We should like to know what their sisters were called, but they
+were not Father Conradi's business. The Father also took the greatest
+interest in the experiments which the Sisters of Mercy were carrying on
+in their school, not only to stop the spread of the disease, but to cure
+it, for a healing oil had been discovered which had worked marvels in
+many people. He encouraged the love of music and singing which existed
+among the exiles, whose most precious possession was a kind of
+barrel-organ which could play forty tunes, a present from a Scotch lady.
+This barrel-organ was never absent from any of the entertainments which,
+with the priests and doctors for audience, the lepers got up from time
+to time. It even played its part in a performance on one Christmas Day,
+which consisted of scenes from Belshazzar's feast. Unluckily it was so
+dark that it was not easy for the audience to know exactly what was
+going on, but they _did_ perceive that the Babylonish king sat the whole
+time with his head on his arms and his arms on the table, like the
+Dormouse in the play of 'Alice in Wonderland.' However, the actors were
+intensely pleased with themselves, and that was all that mattered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Father Damien lived for nearly six years after he became a leper, and as
+long as he was able he took his part in all that was going on, even
+helping to build the churches (there were five of them now) with his own
+hands. It was only three weeks before his death that his strength gave
+out, and he laid himself on his bed, knowing that he would nevermore
+rise from it. So he died, with his friends around him and the noise of
+the sea in his ears. His task was done, for he had 'set alight a fire'
+in Molokai 'which should never be put out.'
+
+
+
+
+THE CONSTANT PRINCE
+
+
+When, some years ago, a banquet was given at the Guildhall to king
+Alfonso of Spain on the occasion of his marriage to an English princess,
+the lord mayor said in his speech that four queens of England were
+Spaniards by birth. Can any of you tell me without looking at your
+history books what were their names?
+
+Yet in different ways three out of the four are very well known to us.
+One flits through a delightful romance of the great deeds of the
+Crusaders; a second is remembered for having risked her life to save her
+husband from a speedy and painful death, and for the crosses which he
+set up on every spot which her body touched on its road to its last
+resting-place; while the fourth and latest had a troubled life and every
+kind of insult heaped on her.
+
+_Now_ can you guess?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marriages between England and
+the countries south of the Pyrenees were very frequent, for in those
+times Spain was our natural ally, and France our enemy. Two of Edward
+III.'s sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, married the daughters
+of Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, and Constance, wife of John of
+Gaunt, had the pleasure of seeing her own daughter reigning by-and-by in
+her old home, while Philippa, John of Gaunt's elder daughter by his
+first wife, became queen of Portugal.
+
+Philippa's husband had no real right to the kingdom of Portugal, for the
+legal heir was the queen of Castile, the only child of Fernando. But her
+uncle, grand master of the order of Aviz, was dear to the hearts of the
+Portuguese, who would tell their children in low voices the sad story of
+his father's first wife, the beautiful Inez de Castro, whose embalmed
+body was crowned by her husband, many years after her cruel murder. And
+besides their love for the master of Aviz, the Portuguese hated the
+Castilians, as only near neighbours _can_ hate each other, and were
+resolved to choose their own sovereign. So war followed, and John of
+Gaunt fought with his English soldiers on the side of the master of
+Aviz, or 'John I.,' against his wife's nephew, Henry III. of Castile,
+and during the war he kept his daughters with him in the peninsula.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 1378 that John I. married Philippa, the elder of the two
+princesses. According to the notions of those times the bride must have
+been 'quite old,' for she was twenty-seven, only a year younger than her
+bridegroom, and very happy they were. The queen of Portugal had been
+brought up in England amongst clever people, had heard grave questions
+discussed from her childhood, and seen her father grow uneasy as fresh
+reports of Richard II.'s follies and extravagance came to his ears. From
+her stepmother, Constance of Castile, she had learned to speak Spanish,
+and knew much of the customs of the kingdoms south of the Pyrenees; so
+that it was easy for her to fall into the ways of her new country,
+though she never ceased to love her old land, and to teach her children
+to love it too. She trained her sons to bear hardships without
+complaining, to be true to their word, and to be affectionate and
+faithful to each other, while she had them taught something of the
+histories of other countries, and saw that they could speak Latin and
+English, as well as Spanish and French. As to the art of war, and all
+knightly exercises, she left those to her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the eldest of the princes, dom Duarte, or Edward, was twenty years
+old, he came one day to the king, telling him that he and his three next
+brothers, Pedro, Enrique, and John, were burning to strike a blow
+against the infidel Moors, and besought him to lead an expedition
+against the town of Ceuta, on the African coast. In those days it was
+considered a good deed to fight against the followers of Mahomet the
+prophet, and king John agreed gladly to what his sons proposed; but he
+was more prudent than they, and did not intend to raise the standard of
+the Cross before he had made sure of defeating the Crescent. Therefore
+he took means to find out secretly the exact position of Ceuta, the
+extent of the fortifications, and other things it was needful for him to
+know, and then he laid his plans before queen Philippa, who always gave
+him good counsel. To his surprise and disappointment Philippa prayed him
+to give it all up.
+
+The country, she said, was still poor from the wars of succession with
+Castile, which had seated her husband on the throne, and if the men were
+taken away across the seas, who would till the fields and reap the
+crops?
+
+But, urged the king, he felt sure that the people would welcome the
+crusade; he had bidden one of his trusted officers to go amongst them,
+and had heard how their faces brightened at the bare idea that perhaps
+_some_ day, no doubt in the future, the golden shores of Africa might be
+snatched from the unbelievers' grasp. Oh, no, he had no fears about his
+army, though of course he would take every care to make victory certain.
+
+Queen Philippa listened, but only shook her head.
+
+'At least you will not go yourself?' she answered after a pause; 'the
+kingdom needs you'; then like a wise woman she held her peace and began
+to talk of something else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although king John did not give up his cherished scheme, he hesitated
+about carrying it out for three years longer, and then he succeeded in
+blinding the eyes of Europe as to the real object of his preparations. A
+large fleet was assembled in the mouth of the Tagus, 'to punish the
+Dutch pirates,' it was said; but, just as it was ready to sail, the
+queen caught the plague which was raging in Portugal. By this time she
+had made up her mind to the war, though she was hardly convinced of its
+wisdom, and as soon as she felt that she was nearing death she sent for
+her sons, and giving them each a splendid sword which she had ordered to
+be specially forged and beautifully inlaid, she added a few words of
+counsel. Then she bade her husband farewell, and entreated him to leave
+her, lest he also should catch the plague and be lost to his country.
+Her sons she kept with her to the end.
+
+A week later, on July 25, 1415, the fleet sailed for Ceuta.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Only two of the king's five sons remained in Portugal, and they were the
+youngest, dom John and dom Fernando. Fernando was a delicate boy of
+thirteen, versed in Latin, and, like his brother Duarte, a passionate
+lover of books, only happy when alone with some old manuscript or roll
+of illuminated prayers, yet thirsting to do his duty by ridding the
+world of as many infidels as possible. It was a blow when he found that
+he was not allowed to join the army of Africa, but, as was his way, he
+made no complaint; only when the news came of the fall of Ceuta his
+heart burned, half with envy and half with triumph. How he longed to
+make one of the group of brothers who had covered themselves with glory,
+and had been knighted by their father in the mosque, which was now
+consecrated and declared a cathedral. But he was getting stronger every
+day, and by-and-by he felt that a halo of glory would enshrine his name
+also. And so it has, and will for all time, only it was won in another
+way from those of his brothers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was soon after his return from Africa that king John's health began
+to break down, and though he lived for eighteen years longer, he left
+the government of Portugal mostly to his son Duarte, who was guided in
+military matters by the advice of his father's old friend, the constable
+of the kingdom. Fighting still went on in the neighbourhood of Ceuta,
+but though the other princes, or infantes, took part, Fernando stayed in
+Portugal.
+
+We know little as to how he passed his time. Probably he shared the
+studies of prince Duarte, who collected a large library and himself
+wrote a book of philosophical maxims, which gained him the surname of
+Duarte the Eloquent. The two brothers were bound together by the same
+tastes, and we may be sure Duarte approved when by-and-by Fernando
+refused the pope's offer of a cardinal's hat, on the ground--unheard of
+at that period--that, not being a priest, he was quite unfitted to wear
+it. For the same reason, though the cases were rather different, he
+wished also to refuse the office of grand master of the order of Aviz,
+which had been held by his father; but in the end Duarte's counsels
+prevailed, and he kept it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fernando was thirty years old when his father died, and never yet had
+his sword left its sheath, though he longed from his soul to join in the
+frequent expeditions that went out from Ceuta to attack the strongholds
+of the unbelievers scattered about the coast. But king John always
+refused to let him leave the country, thinking he was too delicate to
+bear the hardships of a soldier's life; and so Fernando stayed at home,
+making himself as happy as he could with his books and his prayers, and
+long philosophical talks with Duarte. Now Duarte was king, and perhaps
+Fernando would be able to gain his heart's desire.
+
+The new king was putting on his robes for the ceremony of his
+proclamation when his physician craved humbly an immediate audience. Dom
+Duarte wondered what could have happened which made an interview so
+necessary at that inconvenient moment, but master Guedelha was an old
+friend, so orders were given to admit him at once.
+
+'Oh, senhor,' exclaimed the physician, as soon as they were alone, 'do
+not, I beseech you, suffer yourself to be proclaimed before noon; the
+hour you have fixed on is an evil one, and the stars which rule it are
+against you.'
+
+Sad though he was, dom Duarte could hardly help smiling at the
+earnestness of the man; but he answered gravely that, greatly as he
+respected the knowledge of the stars, his faith in God was greater
+still, and nothing could befall him that was contrary to His will. In
+vain Guedelha fell on his knees and implored him to delay till the fatal
+hour was past; Duarte refused to change his plans, and at length the old
+man rose to his feet.
+
+[Illustration: In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till the fatal hour
+was past.]
+
+'I have done all I could,' he said; 'on your own head be it. The years
+of your reign will be short and full of trouble to yourself, and to
+those you love, and to the country.'
+
+Although dom Duarte had so steadily declined to listen to the prayers of
+Guedelha, he had enough 'respect,' as he had said, for the science of
+astrology, as the study of the stars was called, to feel very
+uncomfortable at the prophecy of the physician. But he could not draw
+back now, even if he wished, and 'Eduarte, king of Portugal,' was
+thrice proclaimed and the royal standard unfurled and raised. When this
+was done, the nobles and officials kissed the king's hand and swore
+allegiance to him. Then Duarte went back to his palace, and took off his
+crown and robes of state, and put on deep mourning for his father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some time dom Duarte had been governing the kingdom under the
+direction of John I., so affairs went on much as before. He and his
+brothers were the best of friends, and he often sought their counsel,
+especially that of dom Pedro, only a year younger than himself. Pedro
+was one of the wisest princes in Europe, as well as one of the best, and
+if his brothers had listened to his advice the prophecy of master
+Guedelha might have come to naught. Like the rest, he loved books, and
+even wrote poetry, and during his father's lifetime made many voyages
+along the coast of Africa, though he was no discoverer of strange lands
+like dom Enrique. But for the present his duty was in Portugal, where
+Duarte wanted him.
+
+In this way things went on for two or three years, during which the
+plague broke out in Portugal, and people died like flies, as they did in
+those days when dirt and ignorance helped infection to spread and
+prevented cure. The king and his brothers did all in their power to
+check it and assist the poor people; but nothing was of much good, and,
+as usual, the plague was left to wear itself out, which in time it did.
+
+Meanwhile the years were going by, and the physician's prophecy was
+drawing near fulfilment. And this is how the disasters came about.
+
+The infante--so the Spaniards and Portuguese formerly called their
+princes--the infante dom Fernando grew tired of remaining idle at home,
+and besought Duarte to allow him to travel and take service under some
+foreign king, most likely that of England, where his young cousin Henry
+VI. was reigning. 'Of course,' he said, 'if his own country needed him
+he would come back at once, but the Portuguese had ever been wanderers,
+and it was his turn to go with the rest.'
+
+To his surprise Duarte's face clouded as he listened, and there was a
+long pause before he spoke. Then he implored Fernando to think no more
+of his cherished plan, but to remain quietly in Portugal, else wrong
+would be done to both of them in the minds of men, for strangers would
+hold that he, the king, treated his brother so ill that Fernando was
+forced to seek his fortune elsewhere, or that Fernando was so possessed
+by desire for gain that he was ready to give up all for its sake.
+
+Fernando heard him to the end without speaking; it was plain that even
+this brother, who he thought knew him best, had judged him wrongly. For
+years the young man had kept silence about his desire to see other
+countries, and the ruins of the cities which had once given law to the
+world, and the result was that he had been held by all to be a man of no
+spirit, a bookworm, content with the little duties that every day
+brought him. Ah, no! the hour for those had gone by, and a freer life
+called to him!
+
+Seeing that his words made no impression on dom Fernando's resolve, the
+king sought dom Enrique, praying him to use his eloquence in order to
+prevail on Fernando to give up his plan. But he would have been wiser to
+have left things alone, for Enrique merely turned his brother's thoughts
+into a new and more alarming direction. Why take service under a foreign
+king when there were Moors at hand to fight? Let them cross the sea and
+deliver Tangier from the Moslem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the king heard of this new project he was nearly beside himself.
+After the long wars which seated John on the throne, and the constant
+expense of maintaining the fortress of Ceuta, the country was too poor
+to be able to undertake a fresh expedition, and then the plague had
+carried off so many men that he did not know where the army was to come
+from. But the match had been put to the wood, and Enrique secretly went
+to the queen and asked for her help to persuade the king, promising that
+when he and Fernando should have conquered the north of Africa, they
+would go and live there, and leave their possessions in Portugal to her
+children.
+
+The bait took; queen Leonor promised to use all her influence, which was
+great, with the king, but before she had a chance of doing so the wild
+scheme of the two infantes received still stronger support from an
+unexpected quarter. Some time earlier the king had asked the pope to
+give him a Bull, or papal document, allowing him to raise a crusade
+whenever he thought it would have a chance of success. At the moment the
+pope was busy with several other affairs nearer home, and returned no
+answer. When at last he had leisure to attend to the king of Portugal's
+request, and sent over an abbot with the Bull, Duarte seems to have
+forgotten all about the matter, and was filled with dismay. Of course
+his brothers were delighted and declared that the king could no longer
+resist!
+
+In spite, however, of wife, pope, and brothers, the king _did_ resist,
+though he went as far as to say that any expedition which _might_ be
+undertaken must be directed against Tangier, and that fourteen thousand
+men would be the utmost that he could furnish. But when he had yielded
+this much, it was difficult for him to refuse his consent, even though
+dom John and dom Pedro spoke strongly in a family council of the folly
+of beginning a war when the treasury was empty and the people unwilling
+to bear the burden of taxation.
+
+Dom Pedro's words found their echo in the heart of Duarte. They said
+what his own sense had told him, and he was filled with fears for the
+future, though he could not break his promise. One last effort he made,
+and this was an appeal to the pope as to whether it was lawful to impose
+a tax for the purpose of making war against the infidels. The pope and
+his cardinals decided that it was _not_, as the infidels had not made
+war upon _him_, and Duarte, though more than ever cast down, had not the
+courage to acknowledge that he had been hasty and foolish, and, bitterly
+though he repented of his weakness, he allowed Enrique to equip fleets
+in Lisbon and in Oporto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But when, at the end of August 1436, the hour of departure arrived, the
+king had recovered himself, and handed Enrique a paper of instructions
+which would probably have changed the fate of the expedition had they
+been followed. Unfortunately, Enrique was a headstrong man, and thought
+that he _must_ know better than his stay-at-home brother, who had not
+seen a battlefield for eighteen years. He had listened contemptuously to
+dom Pedro when he pointed out that African conquests were both expensive
+and useless, that the cities, even if taken, could never become part of
+Portugal, and would always need garrisons to hold them, and smiled
+scornfully at the statement that any Portuguese force besieging Tangier
+would in its turn of a surety be besieged by a Moorish host, who would
+gather men from all parts and have a supply of provisions constantly at
+hand.
+
+'Those whom the gods will to destroy they first infatuate,' says the
+proverb, and no man was ever more infatuated than the infante dom
+Enrique. The fourteen thousand men of which the king had spoken had
+dwindled down to six thousand, and these were but half-hearted. Small as
+the force was, dom Duarte had instructed Enrique to divide it into
+three, in order to prevent the Moors from concentrating large numbers
+upon one place. This counsel Enrique declined to follow, nor did he
+attempt to surprise and take Tangier by assault, which might possibly
+have been successful. Instead, he allowed the Moors to assemble a large
+army and to put the town in a state of defence. Finally, he totally
+disobeyed the wise counsel of Duarte to make his camp close to the sea,
+where his ships lay at anchor, in order that provisions and a retreat
+might be secured to them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having thus done all in his power to ensure defeat, only one thing
+remained, and that was 'to die like good men with constant souls,' in
+the words which the poet Calderon puts into the mouth of Fernando. Too
+late Enrique perceived the snare into which his folly had led them, and
+assembling his little army, gave orders that at night, when the Moorish
+camp was quiet, they should cut their way through to the ships and put
+to sea. Their attacks on Tangier had been repulsed with heavy losses, he
+told them, and if the enterprise was ever to be carried through they
+must first seek reinforcements.
+
+The men agreed with him, and prepared to sell their lives dearly.
+Silently at the appointed time they crept up to the Moorish tents,
+beyond which lay safety and the great galleons. But the chaplain,
+unluckily, had been before them. As soon as darkness fell he had
+deserted to the enemy, and the sight of the large force drawn up in
+order of battle was the first sign of warning to the Christians that
+they had been betrayed.
+
+Even Enrique felt that in the face of such numbers fighting was useless,
+but he placed his men in the best position and awaited events. All the
+next day the Moors made no sign, but on the following morning envoys
+left the ranks and proposed terms of peace. Considering all things, they
+were not hard. Ceuta must be surrendered, the Moorish captives in
+Portugal be released, and the Christian camp with everything it
+contained abandoned to the captors. But the infantes wished to deal
+directly with the kings of Fez and Morocco, in order to make sure that
+the terms offered would be loyally carried out. They were still
+expecting the return of the envoys which they had sent when the Moors,
+who had grown more and more impatient at the long wait so close to their
+enemies, could be restrained no more and fell on the Portuguese.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In spite of their small numbers, the Portuguese, commanded by dom
+Enrique and the bishop of Ceuta, fought so fiercely that after six hours
+the Moors were beaten back. After a short rest dom Enrique ordered every
+man to repair the trenches and to throw up earthworks to protect the
+camp, in case of another assault. They worked hard the whole of that
+night, which was Saturday, and when by sunrise on Sunday everything was
+finished, the soldiers sank down exhausted where they were, and cried
+for food and water. It was long in coming. Then a horrible suspicion,
+which turned the men's faces white, ran, no one knew why, from end to
+end of the camp. Was there _any_ food? and, worse still, any water?
+
+They had guessed truly; they had no provisions left, and the water had
+been cut off by the Moors. For two days they held out, then dom Enrique
+decided to accept the terms offered him. He would give up Ceuta and the
+Moorish prisoners, would abandon the camp, and would undertake that
+Portugal should sign a peace with the Barbary States lying along that
+part of the African coast for a hundred years. In return the former
+Moorish governor of Ceuta, Salat-ben-Salat, should hand over his son as
+a hostage, in exchange for four Portuguese nobles, but the pledge for
+the surrender of Ceuta was to be dom Fernando himself.
+
+Bitter were the shame and grief that filled dom Enrique when the results
+of his folly were brought home to him, and he instantly begged that he
+might be accepted as hostage instead of his brother. No doubt the Moors
+would have agreed to this; it mattered little to them which of the
+infantes remained captive, but the council of war which Enrique summoned
+would not consent. Fernando knew nothing of war, they said, but Enrique,
+their commander, could not be spared, though it is hard to see what
+Enrique had done except lead them into traps which a recruit might have
+foreseen. Dom Fernando was present with the rest of the council, and was
+the first to declare that his brother's proposal was not to be thought
+of. Then, with a heavy heart, Enrique signed the treaty, and a few hours
+later Fernando and he had parted for the last time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus ended the expedition for the taking of Tangier; and what had it
+attained? As far as Portugal was concerned, the loss, as stipulated by
+treaty, of Ceuta, by which the country set such store; the death of five
+hundred out of the six thousand men under the walls of Tangier, which
+held out in spite of the field guns used in war for the first time; the
+waste of money which had been only raised by the oppression of the
+people; and the delivery of the king's favourite brother into the hands
+of a cruel race.
+
+Such was the tale which the fugitives had to tell on their arrival at
+Lisbon. And while the king was debating the best means of rescuing the
+captive, let us see how Fernando himself was faring.
+
+Accompanied by his chaplain, his doctor, his secretary, and a few
+friends, who would seem to have gone with him of their own will, dom
+Fernando was sent by his captors to the fortress of Tangier, and closely
+imprisoned for several days. Perhaps the Moors may have been waiting
+for Enrique, who had gone to Ceuta, to deliver up the keys of the town;
+but as nothing was heard of him, the captives were taken next to the
+little town of Arzilla, further down the coast. Here the Portuguese were
+kindly treated by the governor, and Fernando, though the hardships he
+had gone through had told heavily on his health, did all he could to
+help his friends, who fared no better than himself, and devoted what
+money was left to him to ransoming those who had been for some years in
+captivity.
+
+For seven months Fernando and his companions remained in Arzilla, and
+during all that time both he and his gaoler, Salat-ben-Salat, expected
+to receive answers to the many letters the captive prince had been
+suffered to write to Enrique respecting his promise to surrender Ceuta,
+where he stayed for some time after the embarkation of the Portuguese
+army. But after five months the only news that reached Arzilla was that
+Enrique had returned to Portugal; so Fernando then wrote to the king
+himself, imploring that he would redeem his pledge and set him free. It
+seemed little to ask, seeing that a treaty is considered sacred, and
+Duarte, from every point of view, was ready to fulfil the stipulation;
+but there was a strong party in the state which held that a Christian
+city should never be delivered up to the unbelievers, and even Enrique
+advised him instead to offer a large ransom and the Moorish captives
+then in Portugal in exchange for the infante.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Always distrustful of his own opinion, and fearful of taking any decided
+action, Duarte next appealed for counsel to the pope and to the kings of
+all the countries of Europe. They sent the politest and most sympathetic
+answers to his questions. No words could express their admiration for
+dom Fernando's patience under his sufferings, and their pity for his
+hard lot, but--faith with Moslems need never be kept, and at all costs
+Ceuta must be retained.
+
+Thus, after all, it was the Christians, and not the Moslems, who failed
+to keep their word and were responsible for the death of Fernando.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length news reached Fernando that dom John was starting with a fleet
+for his rescue, and then the doom which he dreaded befell him, for he
+was sent with his fellow-captives at once to Fez, a city far in the
+interior, and delivered over to Lazuraque, the vizier of the young king,
+a man whose name was a proverb of cruelty throughout the whole of
+Barbary. On their arrival at Fez, after a journey in which the whole
+population turned out to howl at and to stone them, they were thrust
+into a tiny cell without a ray of light. The four months that they spent
+in this black hole were bad enough, but worse was yet to follow. The
+little money that Fernando had left was taken from him, and heavy chains
+were fastened to the ankles of the prisoners, while their food was
+hardly fit for dogs or enough to keep them alive. But Fernando at least
+never grumbled, and tried to keep up the hearts of his friends.
+
+One morning a warder entered the cell and roughly informed the prince
+that he was to go and clean out the vizier's stables, while the others
+were to dig up the royal garden. Of course Fernando had never done such
+a thing in his life, and now, hardly able to stand from weakness, and
+with fetters on his legs, it seemed an impossible task. Still, only to
+get out into the sunshine again was delightful to him, and he worked
+away with a will. However, he could not have done his cleansing very
+thoroughly, or else the vizier had merely wished to humiliate him, for
+the next day he was sent to the gardens with the rest. Here he was
+almost happy; he loved flowers, and he had the company of his friends,
+to whom he could talk freely, for the gaolers, satisfied that they
+could not escape, left them very much to themselves. As to food, each
+man had two loaves a day, but no meat; however, in this respect Fernando
+fared better than the others, for when the king of Fez and his wives
+walked through the gardens, as they often did, they would speak to him
+with the politeness to which he had long been a stranger, and bid their
+slaves bring him fruit and wine from their own table. It seems curious
+that king Abdallah did not insist on better treatment for the Portuguese
+prince, but he was afraid of Lazuraque, who had ruled the kingdom from
+Abdallah's childhood, and dared not interfere.
+
+When darkness fell the captives were taken back to their prison, and
+here Fernando had a cell all to himself, and, tired out with his
+labours, was glad enough to throw himself on the two sheepskins covered
+by an old carpet which served him for a bed, and lay his head on the
+bundle of hay which was his pillow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Matters had gone on in this way for a few weeks, when one day the
+captives were told that they were to work in the gardens no more;
+heavier chains were fastened to their arms and legs, and they were all
+thrust together into one tiny dungeon. Then a message came that dom
+Fernando was to be brought before the vizier. With a beating heart the
+infante gladly followed his gaoler. Surely Lazuraque would not have
+troubled to send for him unless deliverance had been at hand? But his
+hopes fell at the sight of Lazuraque's face, which was cruel and stern
+as usual.
+
+'Your brother the king of Portugal is dead,' were the words that fell
+upon Fernando's ears, and he sank fainting to the ground. When he came
+to himself, he was lying chained in his cell, with his friends anxiously
+bending over him.
+
+Dom Pedro was now regent, ruling for Duarte's little son, Alfonso V.,
+and besides the view which he had always held that the honour of the
+country demanded the surrender of Ceuta, he felt bound to carry out the
+late king's will, which directed him to deliver Fernando at any cost.
+But now it was not Ceuta that Lazuraque wanted, but a huge ransom,
+impossible for Portugal to raise, and till this was forthcoming the
+horrors of the prisoners' captivity were increased.
+
+For some days after hearing the news Fernando's grief, together with the
+stifling air of the cell, made him so ill that his companions expected
+that every hour would be his last. Well he guessed that shame at the
+result of the expedition, and sorrow for his own fate, had hastened the
+end of dom Duarte, and the infante's thoughts flew back to the day of
+the proclamation of the king, five years before, and to the prophecy of
+master Guedelha. One thing, however, did not occur to him--that it was
+Duarte's weakness in allowing the expedition which had brought about the
+fulfilment of the prophecy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a while Lazuraque saw that unless he meant his captives to die,
+which would not have suited him at all, he must free them from their
+dungeon, so they were sent back to the gardens. Slowly the years 1439
+and 1440 wore away. The hearts of the poor prisoners grew sick, but
+Fernando alone never lost his cheerfulness, and kept up the spirits of
+the others when they were bowed down with despair.
+
+It was in 1441 that hope suddenly sprang into life again, for the news
+reached them that some envoys had arrived from Portugal to treat for
+their release, and that the governor of Arzilla was using his influence
+on their behalf. Soon after they were removed from Fez near to Ceuta,
+where they could once more see the blue Mediterranean and feel
+themselves close to Portugal again. But everything came to an end
+because neither side would trust the other. Lazuraque, though he still
+preferred a ransom, part of which he could have put in his own pocket,
+dared not refuse openly to exchange the prince for Ceuta, now that the
+envoys had come for the express purpose of delivering up the fortress.
+Still, he could place many obstacles in the way of the fulfilment of the
+treaty, and declared that the keys of Ceuta must be in his possession
+before the infante could be handed over to the envoys. They, on their
+side, insisted on Fernando's release before the surrender of the
+fortress.
+
+So the poor victim of ill-faith was carried back to Fez, and set to
+break stones with his companions. Then the plague broke out among the
+Moors, and each man shrank from his sick brother, and left him to die
+alone. As far as he might, dom Fernando sought out the plague-stricken
+people and nursed them night and day, often going without his own food
+that they might be nourished. Perhaps Lazuraque had fled like other rich
+men from the city, but at all events he seems to have permitted dom
+Fernando to do as he liked till the pestilence had run its course.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in March 1442 that Fernando was again taken before Lazuraque, and
+though the prisoner always told himself that he had given up hope,
+nevertheless his heart beat faster than usual at the summons. The Moor
+did not waste words, but went at once to the point.
+
+'I have sent for you to ask what price you will pay for your freedom and
+that of your friends,' he said.
+
+Dom Fernando looked at him for an instant before he answered. Long ago
+he and his companions had talked over the matter and decided what they
+could offer, if they ever had the chance. But now that the moment had
+come on which everything depended, his voice seemed choked, and he could
+not utter a sound.
+
+'Are you deaf?' inquired Lazuraque impatiently. 'Be quick, or I shall
+raise my terms.'
+
+Then Fernando stammered out, 'Fifty thousand doubloons and fifty Moorish
+prisoners.'
+
+'Nonsense,' cried Lazuraque, with a scornful laugh. 'Fifty thousand
+doubloons for a Portuguese prince! Why, it is a beggarly sum! Take him
+away, gaoler, till he learns wisdom.' And the infante was led back to
+his dungeon.
+
+It was no more than he had expected, yet he needed all his strength of
+will to help him bear the blow. By order of Lazuraque he was allowed to
+receive his fellow-prisoners in order to take counsel with them, and at
+length it was agreed that amongst them, by the aid of the king and their
+families, they would treble their former offer, and promise one hundred
+and fifty thousand doubloons and one hundred and fifty captives. This
+the vizier agreed to accept, and when they heard the news the prisoners
+fell on each other's necks and wept for joy. But for Fernando the hour
+of happiness was soon at an end, for till the ransom was paid and the
+captives landed on Moorish soil his treatment was worse than ever.
+
+The dungeon into which he was now thrown was smaller and darker than
+before, and even his gaoler was forbidden to speak to him. The
+loneliness and silence put the finishing touch to the alternate hopes
+and fears of the last few months, and one day, when the warder brought
+his scanty supply of food, he found the prince lying unconscious on the
+ground. Fearing the anger of Lazuraque should his prisoner escape him by
+death before the money was received, he at once reported the matter, and
+orders were given to remove the captive into a larger cell, where he
+could feel the soft winds blowing and even see a ray of the sun. His
+companions, who were once more working hard, with the least possible
+allowance of sleep, were permitted to see him, and to carry him books
+of prayer, as he had been deprived of his own. Greatest boon of all, he
+was given a lamp by which he could read them.
+
+[Illustration: He found the prince lying unconscious on the ground.]
+
+Outside of his cell there was a sand-pit, in which some of the
+Portuguese came to dig sand every morning to scatter over the floor of
+the stables after they had been cleaned out. A tiny glimmer of light in
+this part of the wall showed dom Fernando that a stone was loose, and
+might with a little patience be moved away. It was hard work for one so
+weak; still, it gave him something to do and to look forward to, and
+prevented him, sitting all day in his prison, from wondering why no
+answer to his letter had ever come, and if his brothers had forgotten
+him altogether, little knowing that out of mere spite Lazuraque had kept
+back everything they had written. When these thoughts came into his head
+he worked away at the stone harder than ever, to deaden the pain which
+was almost too bad to bear. At last one day his efforts were rewarded,
+and he was able to take the stone in and out and speak to his
+fellow-captives, who, with sun and air about them, were more fortunate
+than he.
+
+Perhaps he may have heard from them (for outside a gaol news flies
+quickly) that ever since Duarte's death his wife had given great trouble
+to dom Pedro by interfering in matters of government, and that civil war
+had actually broken out in Portugal, though happily it was soon put an
+end to by the flight of the queen. The expenses entailed by all this
+would, Fernando understood, have prevented the raising of the large
+ransom required; and with the lightening of his despair at his apparent
+abandonment came suspicions of Lazuraque. It was so much easier and
+happier for him to believe that the vizier, whose cruelty he knew,
+should be playing some trick on him than that Pedro should have left him
+to die without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We cannot tell how it really happened, and why the money used by dom
+Enrique ('the Navigator' as he was called) in fitting out exploring
+expeditions was not employed in setting free the brother who had been
+made captive through Enrique's own folly. Certain it is that fifty
+thousand doubloons were all the Portuguese would offer, and now
+Lazuraque demanded four hundred thousand! This Fernando learnt after
+fifteen months of waiting, and then his last remnant of hope flickered
+out.
+
+When hope was gone he had nothing left to live for, and on June 1, 1443,
+he was too weak even to kneel at his prayers. In vain did his companions
+implore that he might be moved to a larger, healthier room; the vizier
+refused all their petitions, and if he had granted them, most likely it
+would have been too late. However, the prince's physician obtained leave
+to see him, and his chaplain and secretary watched by him alternately,
+so that he was not left alone in his last moments.
+
+Four days passed in this manner, and on the morning of June 5 he awoke
+looking happier than he had done since he bade farewell to the shores of
+Portugal five years before.
+
+'I have seen in a vision,' he said to his confessor, 'the archangel
+Michael and Saint John entreating the Blessed Virgin to have pity on me
+and put an end to my sufferings. And she smiled down on me, and told me
+that to-day the gates of heaven should be thrown open, and I should
+enter.' So saying he begged to confess his sins, and when this was done
+he turned on his side and whispered, 'Now let me die in peace,' and with
+the last rays of the sun he was free.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'He that is dead pays all his debts,' writes the poet who more than any
+man knew the best and the worst of the human heart, but Lazuraque did
+not agree with him. Fernando's body was stripped bare and hung for four
+days from the battlements of the city, where, silent and uncomplaining
+as in life, it was a prey to every insult the people could heap on it.
+Then it was taken down and placed in a box, but still remained unheeded
+on the walls. How long it might have stayed there we cannot guess, but
+shortly after Fernando's death Lazuraque was stabbed by some victim of
+his tyranny, and by-and-by the remnant of dom Fernando's fellow-captives
+obtained their release on payment of a small ransom, leaving in Fez the
+bones of three of their companions who had not long survived the
+Constant Prince. It would seem as if his courage alone had sustained
+them, and when he was gone they sank and died also.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1448 dom Pedro, who had never ceased to mourn the brother he had been
+powerless to save, exchanged an important Moorish prisoner for father
+John Alvaro, secretary to the infante. Owing to various delays, it was
+three years before Alvaro reached Portugal, but when he arrived he
+carried with him the heart of Fernando, which was borne at the head of a
+long procession clad in black to the abbey of Batalha, where John and
+Philippa, Duarte, and a little brother and sister lay buried. On the way
+they met unexpectedly dom Enrique, master of the Order of Christ,
+attended by his knights, and a messenger was sent by the prince to ask
+the meaning of the train of mourners.
+
+'Senhor, it is the heart of the saintly infante,' was the answer he
+received, and without a word Enrique turned his horse, and accompanied
+by his knights rode on to Batalha, where he laid the casket in the grave
+which awaited it.
+
+Twenty-seven years after his death Fernando's body was obtained from the
+Moors, and was carried over to Portugal. With the pomp of a king
+expecting his bride Alfonso V., surrounded by his nobles, was drawn up
+on the banks of the Tagus, and behind him were the bishops and abbots of
+Portugal and a dense throng of people.
+
+For long they watched and waited, and none that was present forgot the
+dead silence that reigned in that multitude, more solemn than prayers,
+more welcoming than the sound of guns. At length a ship came in sight
+across the bar of the river; then, baring their heads, the crowd parted,
+and the bones of the Constant Prince were borne to Batalha.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE
+
+
+Fighting was in the blood of the Grahams, and when James, hereafter to
+be known as the 'great marquis of Montrose,' was a little boy he loved
+to hear tales of the deeds of his ancestors, who had struck hard blows
+for the liberty of Scotland in days of old. One, sir John Graham, a
+friend of sir William Wallace's, had been killed at Falkirk more than
+three hundred years before; another had died on Flodden field, and a
+third had fallen at Pinkie, besides many who had taken part in less
+famous battles. James knew all about them, and was proud to belong to
+them, and did not guess that it was _his_ name and not _theirs_ which
+would be best remembered through the centuries to come.
+
+But the Grahams were not only brave soldiers; they were for the most
+part clever men. There was an archbishop among them and a bishop, while
+James's grandfather had held the highest offices of the state under king
+James VI., and was president of the Parliament when the king was far
+away in Westminster talking broad Scotch to the great nobles and
+servants of his dead cousin queen Elizabeth. Montrose's own father,
+however, had no love either for war or statesmanship, and after he lost
+his wife in 1618 stayed quietly at home in one of his many castles,
+taking care of his family, keeping accounts of every penny he spent, and
+shooting and playing golf with his friends and neighbours.
+
+James, his only son, was six years old when his mother died, but there
+were five daughters of all ages, who were always ready to play with the
+boy. To be sure, the two eldest, Lilias and Margaret, married early, and
+before two years had passed by one was lady Colquhoun and the other lady
+Napier of Merchiston. Still Dorothy and Katherine were left, and
+Beatrix, who was only three years younger than her brother, and the one
+he liked best of all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the great business of marrying his two eldest daughters was safely
+over, lord Montrose took his little boy with him on a riding tour of
+visits to his estates in Forfar, Perthshire, Dunbarton, and the
+Lothians, stopping in the houses of his many friends on the way. James
+loved horses all his life, and bills for 'shoes for naigs' were
+constantly coming in to him. He spent a good deal of time practising
+archery at the butts, and would make up matches with the boys who lived
+in the different houses where he and his father went to stay; on wet
+days they would get out their foils and fence in the hall, or even dance
+solemnly with the young ladies. Of course, he did some lessons too, when
+he was at home, probably with his sisters, but while his father only
+puts down in his accounts the items of six shillings for books and seven
+shillings for a 'pig [or stone bottle] of ink,' we read of nine
+shillings for bowstrings and three pounds for '12 goiff balls.' As for
+tobacco, the elder Montrose smoked the whole day, a new accomplishment
+in those times, and an expensive one when tobacco was sometimes as much
+as thirteen shillings and fourpence an ounce; but this habit was hated
+by James, who never could bear the smell of a pipe all his life long.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After his son's twelfth birthday lord Montrose decided that his son must
+go to college at Glasgow like other youths of his age and position. The
+news filled the little girls with awe; it seemed to make their brother
+a man at once, and they were sure he would never, never want to play
+bowls or hide and seek with them again. But James, though in his secret
+heart he may have agreed with them, was too kind to say so, and he
+comforted them with the thought of the fine things he would bring them
+from the great city, and the stories he would have to tell of its
+strange ways. And, if they wished, they might even now come and see the
+'stands' (or suits) of clothes that had been prepared for him.
+
+Drying their tears, the girls eagerly accepted his offer. The mixed grey
+cloth English clothes were passed by in scorn, but the bright trimming
+of a cloak was much admired by the young ladies, though they would have
+liked James to have been dressed in red, like his two pages and
+kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit
+they thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the door on his
+white pony, with his tutor, master Forrett, by his side, the pages and a
+valet following. Bringing up the rear were some strong, broad-backed
+'pockmanty naigs,' or baggage-horses, bearing the plate, linen and
+furniture for the large house lord Montrose had taken for his son in
+Glasgow.
+
+Gay indeed that house must have looked with its red and green and yellow
+curtains and cushions and counterpanes. As for food, it seems to have
+been simple enough, if we can judge by the bills sent in by the tutor
+for bags of oatmeal and barrels of herrings. There are also, we are glad
+to find, some bills for books, among them Raleigh's 'History of the
+World,' only recently published, a Latin translation of Xenophon, and
+Seneca's Philosophy. These last two James only read because he was
+obliged to, but he would sit half the morning poring over the pages of
+Raleigh, of whose own life and adventures master Forrett could tell him
+much.
+
+For a short time his little sister Katherine lived with him. Probably
+she had been ill, and the soft air of the west was thought good for her;
+for Glasgow was only quite a small place then, and the sky over the
+Clyde was bright and clear, instead of being dark with smoke, as it
+often is now. But in two years' time James Graham's life at Glasgow came
+to a sudden end, owing to the death of his father, and, distressed and
+bewildered at the duties of his new position, he rode swiftly away one
+November morning to Kincardine Castle, to make arrangements for the
+funeral.
+
+The ceremonies attending the burial of a great noble were of vast
+importance in the seventeenth century. The widow, if he had one, was
+expected to spend weeks, or even months, in a room hung with black, in a
+bed with black curtains and coverings, no ray of sunlight being suffered
+to creep through the cracks of the shutters. The young earl of Montrose
+had, as we are aware, no mother, but his sisters were kept carefully out
+of sight, while he prepared the list of invitations, to be despatched by
+men on horseback, to the friends and relations of the dead earl. For
+seven weeks they stayed at Kincardine, every guest bringing with him a
+large supply of game or venison, though the castle larders already held
+an immense amount of food. Poor James must have felt the days terribly
+long and dismal, and doubtless escaped, as often as he could, to take
+counsel with his brother-in-law, sir Archibald Napier, who remained his
+staunch friend to the end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length the old customs had been fulfilled; the last guest was gone,
+and in January 1627 Montrose, not yet fifteen, set out for the
+University of St. Andrews. Here he found many acquaintances, with whom
+he played golf or tennis, or, what he loved still more, practised
+archery at the butts. Bows instead of pictures hung on his walls, and
+in the second year of his residence the place of honour was given to the
+bow with which he gained the silver medal that may still be seen in the
+college. On wet days he spent his free hours in chess and cards, or in
+making verses like all young cavaliers, but he studied C�sar and other
+Latin authors under his tutor master Lambe and worked at his Greek
+grammar, so that he might read Plutarch's 'Lives' in the original
+tongue. Everybody liked him in spite of his hot temper, he was so
+kind-hearted and generous and free with his money, and though never a
+bookworm, his mind was quick and thoughtful and his speech ready. His
+vacations he either passed with the Napiers, or in visiting the houses
+of his friends in Forfar or Fife, hunting, hawking, playing billiards or
+attending races; but he never failed to go to the kirk on Sundays or
+days of preachings in his best clothes with a nosegay in his coat, for
+he was very fond of flowers, and always had them on his table.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At seventeen this pleasant college life came to an end, and Montrose
+married Magdalen Carnegie, whose father was later created earl of
+Southesk. We do not know very much about his wife, and most likely she
+was not very interesting, but the young couple remained at lord
+Carnegie's house of Kinnaird for some years, till in 1633 Montrose, now
+twenty-one, set out on his journey to Rome, leaving lady Montrose and
+two little boys behind him. In his travels 'he made it his work to pick
+up the best of the qualities' of the foreigners whom he met, and learned
+'as much of the mathematics as is required for a soldier,' but 'his
+great study was to read men and the actions of great men.'
+
+What the foreigners in their turn thought of the young man with the long
+bright brown hair and grey eyes, whose height was no more than ordinary,
+yet whose frame was strong and spare, we do not know. They must have
+admired his quickness and skill in games and exercises, and the grace of
+his dancing; but his manner kept strangers at a distance, though he was
+always kind to his servants and those dependent on him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the three years that Montrose spent abroad grave events took
+place in Scotland. Charles I., who had already excited the angry
+suspicion of his Scotch subjects by what they considered the 'popish'
+ceremonies of his coronation at Holyrood, had lately been enraging them
+still more by his measures for putting down the national Church and
+supporting bishops throughout the country. The king, in spite of many
+good qualities, could never be trusted, and was very obstinate. Also,
+what was worse both for himself and his people, he could never
+understand the signs of the times or the tempers of those with whom he
+had to deal. The gatherings held in various parts of Scotland to express
+discontent with the king's proceedings did, indeed, alarm him a little,
+but not even some strange scenes that took place in 1637 taught him how
+serious the matter really was. The Scottish Church then used no
+prayer-book, but, by the royal commands, the bishop and dean of
+Edinburgh were reading certain new prayers in the church of St. Giles'
+on Sunday, July 23, when 'the serving-maids began such a tumult as was
+never heard of since the Reformation.' This 'tumult' was no sudden burst
+of feeling, but 'the result of a consultation in the Cowgate of
+Edinburgh, when several gentlemen recommended to various matrons that
+they should give their first affront to the [prayer] book, assuring them
+that the men should afterwards take the business out of their hands.'
+
+We are not told why 'the men' did not do 'the business' to begin with,
+but the matrons and serving-maids seemed to have enjoyed themselves so
+much on this occasion that they were quite ready for a second effort
+a month later.
+
+On August 28 Mr. William Annan preached in St. Giles', defending the
+Litany, and when the news was spread about what the subject of his
+sermon was to be there arose, says the chronicler, in the town and among
+the women a great din.
+
+[Illustration: About thirty or forty of our honestest women did fall a
+railing on Mr. William Annan.]
+
+'At the outgoing of the church, about thirty or forty of our honestest
+women in one voice before the bishop and magistrates did fall a railing,
+cursing, and scolding, with clamours on Mr. William Annan. Some two of
+the meanest were taken to the Tolbooth,' or city prison, where Montrose
+in after years was himself to lie.
+
+Mr. Annan got safely to his own house, but being troubled over these
+events in his mind resolved to ask counsel of his bishop. So that
+evening, 'at nine on a mirk night,' he set out in company of three or
+four ministers to the bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had the little
+party stepped into the street than they were surrounded by 'hundreds of
+enraged women with fists and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat
+him sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all bloody wounds,
+yet he was in great danger even of killing.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This was the beginning of the struggle which was to rend Scotland for so
+many years. A bond or covenant was drawn up, part of which was copied
+from one of the reign of James VI., fifty years before, guarding against
+the establishment of 'popery.' But now new clauses were added,
+protesting against the appointment of bishops, or allowing priests of
+any sort power over the laws of the country. This document Montrose
+signed with the rest, and consented to act if necessary as one of the
+defenders of the religion and liberty of Scotland.
+
+Charles of course declined to give way on the smallest point, and
+issued a proclamation, to be read at Edinburgh, declaring all who
+opposed him to be traitors. In answer the malcontents raised a scaffold
+beside the cross, and on it stood Warriston, with a reply written by the
+nobles representing the people, which was received with shouts of
+applause. Montrose sat at Warriston's side, his legs dangling from a
+cask.
+
+'Ah, James,' cried old lord Rothes, as he saw him, 'you will never be at
+rest till you be lifted up there above the rest, with a rope.'
+
+Strange words, which were exactly fulfilled twelve years later.
+
+So the first covenant was read, and afterwards it was laid on a flat
+tombstone in Greyfriars churchyard, and signed by the earl of Sutherland
+as the first noble of Scotland, and then by others according to their
+degree. During two days it was borne round the city, followed by an
+immense crowd, sobbing and trembling with excitement; from time to time
+they all stopped for fresh signatures to be added, and copies were made
+and sent over the country, so that each man should place his mark. Next,
+subscription lists were opened, taxes apportioned, and a war committee
+chosen.
+
+And Charles heard and grew frightened, though even yet he did not
+understand.
+
+However, the king saw it was needful to do something, and, as was usual
+with him, he did the wrong thing. He chose the earl of Hamilton (in whom
+he believed blindly, though no one else did) to go down to Scotland as
+his commissioner, with leave to yield certain points when once the
+covenant had been retracted, but with secret orders to spin out as much
+time as possible, so that Charles might be able to get ready an army.
+Yet, secret as Hamilton's instructions were, old Rothes knew all about
+them, and on his side made preparations. As each week passed it became
+increasingly plain that the two parties could never agree. The General
+Assembly, which had been held in November in Glasgow Cathedral, was
+dissolved by Hamilton, who had presided over it. The covenanters
+answered by deposing the bishops, and suppressing the liturgy, and then
+dissolving itself; and the earl of Argyll, soon to be Montrose's
+deadliest enemy, joined the covenanters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One town only remained loyal, and this was Aberdeen, situated in the
+country of the Gordons, whose chief, the marquis of Huntly, was Argyll's
+brother-in-law. Huntly, like Leslie, who held a command in the
+covenanting army under Montrose, had seen much foreign service, so
+Charles appointed him his lieutenant in the north, though he bound him
+hand and foot by orders to do nothing save with Hamilton's consent.
+Chafing bitterly under these restrictions, Huntly was forced to disband
+his army of two thousand men, and had the mortification of seeing the
+covenanters enter Aberdeen the following week, wearing their badge of
+blue ribbons in their Highland bonnets.
+
+The citizens were granted easy terms, and all pillage was strictly
+forbidden. Huntly himself was given a promise of safe conduct, but was
+afterwards held as a prisoner and sent with his son to Edinburgh castle.
+It is not clear how far Montrose himself was guilty of this breach of
+faith. The covenanters had always detested Huntly, and it is possible
+that he found it difficult to act against them, but at any rate he does
+not appear to have taken any active steps to stop their proceedings, and
+in after days paid a heavy penalty for his weakness.
+
+Shortly after the English army, consisting of nineteen ships and five
+thousand men, arrived in the Firth of Forth, but so dense were the
+crowds on both shores that Hamilton, who commanded it, saw that landing
+was impossible. Suddenly the multitude gathered at Leith (the port of
+Edinburgh) parted asunder, and down the midst rode an old lady with a
+pistol in her hand. Hamilton looked with the rest and turned pale at the
+sight, for the old lady was his own mother, who in a voice that almost
+seemed loud enough to reach the vessel where her son stood, declared she
+would shoot him dead before he should set foot on land.
+
+The time was evidently not ripe for invasion, so the men encamped on the
+little islands in the Forth, and spent their days in drill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As often during Montrose's wars, Aberdeen was again the centre of
+fighting, but again the general preserved the city from pillage, against
+the express wishes, and even orders, of the covenanters. Then came the
+news that a peace, or rather truce, had been signed at Berwick, by which
+Charles had consented that a parliament should assemble in August in
+Edinburgh, though, as he insisted that the fourteen Scottish bishops
+should be present at its sittings, wise men shook their heads, and
+prophesied that no good could come of the measure. Their fears were soon
+justified. Riots broke out in the capital, and Aboyne, Huntly's son,
+narrowly escaped violence; the people refused to allow the army to be
+disbanded or the fortresses to be dismantled, as had been stipulated by
+the peace, till the king had fulfilled the promise made by Hamilton at
+the assembly at Glasgow of abolishing the bishops.
+
+This he showed no signs of doing, but merely desired a number of the
+leading covenanters to appear before him. Six only obeyed, at the risk,
+some thought, of imprisonment or death, but neither Rothes nor Montrose,
+who headed them, was given to think of peril to themselves.
+
+The old covenanter seems to have told Charles some plain truths, and the
+king in return forgot the courtesy which so distinguished him, and
+retorted that Rothes was a liar. No man was present when Montrose was
+summoned to confer with the king, and neither he nor Charles ever let
+fall a word upon the subject; but after that day his friends noted that
+he was no longer as bitter as before against his sovereign, nor so
+entirely convinced that the covenanters were right in their acts. Yet,
+whatever his feelings may have been, he strongly opposed the king's
+desire of filling the bishops' vacant places with inferior clergy at the
+meeting of Parliament, and, as might have been expected, the assembly
+was prorogued, leaving matters precisely as they were.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After this the Scotch took on themselves the management of their own
+affairs, and a Committee of Estates was formed, to which was entrusted
+absolute power both in state and army. Leslie was one of this committee;
+Montrose was another, and immediately he set about raising troops from
+his own lands, and carried out the plan of campaign that had been agreed
+on by attacking Airlie castle. On its surrender he garrisoned it with a
+few men, and went away; but shortly after Argyll arrived, turned out the
+garrison, and burned the castle, at the same time accusing Montrose of
+treason to the covenant in having spared it. But the Committee of
+Estates declared Montrose 'to have done his duty as a true soldier of
+the covenant,' and the accusation fell to the ground.
+
+Montrose, however, though entirely cleared of the charge, was not slow
+to read the signs of the times. He saw that the covenanters were no
+longer content with guarding their own liberties of church and state,
+but desired to set at naught the king's authority, perhaps even to
+depose him. So he and certain of his friends, Mar, Almond, and Erskine
+among them, formed a bond by which they swore to uphold the old covenant
+which they had signed in 1638, 'to the hazard of their lives, fortunes,
+and estates, against the particular perhaps indirect practising of a
+few.' This was the covenant to which Montrose held all his life, and
+for which he was hanged beside the city cross.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having as he hoped taken measures to checkmate Argyll, Montrose joined
+the army, which had now swelled to twenty-five thousand men, was the
+first to cross the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched straight on
+Newcastle. The town surrendered without firing a shot, and Montrose sent
+a letter to the king again professing his loyalty. When later he was
+imprisoned on a charge of treason to the covenant in so doing, he
+answered that his conscience was clear in the matter, and that it was no
+more than they had all declared in the covenant, which no man could
+deny. But soon another storm was raised on account of the famous bond
+which he and his friends had made a short time before they were put in
+prison, and the clamour was so great that even his own party was
+alarmed, and gave it up to be burned by the hangman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Montrose's next object was to induce the king to come to Edinburgh in
+order to persuade the Scotch that he was ready to keep his word, and to
+grant the country the religious and civil liberties demanded by the
+covenant. Charles came, and was gracious and charming as he knew how to
+be, even going to the Presbyterian service, which he hated. This pleased
+everyone, and hopes ran high; but the quarrel was too grave to be
+soothed by a few soft words spoken or a few titles given. Plots and
+rumours of plots were rife in Edinburgh, and the king was forced to
+employ not the men he wished, but the men whom the Parliament desired.
+In November he returned to England, first promising that he would never
+take into his service Montrose, who had just been released after five
+months spent in prison, where he had been thrown with the rest of his
+party after the discovery of the bond.
+
+To one who knew Scotland as well as he it was apparent that the Scotch
+Parliament and the English would speedily join hands, and he retired to
+one of his houses to watch the course of events. The covenanters tried
+to win him back, but Montrose felt that they disagreed among themselves,
+and that it would be impossible for him to serve under them. Meanwhile
+in England things marched rapidly: Edgehill had been fought; episcopacy
+had been abolished by Parliament in England as well as Scotland; and
+Hamilton's brother Lanark was using the Great Seal to raise a Scotch
+army against the king, for, by a treaty called the Solemn League and
+Covenant, Scotland was to fight with the English Parliament against the
+king, and England was to abolish bishops and become presbyterian like
+Scotland. England, however, did not keep her promise.
+
+It was then that Charles, in his desperation, turned to Montrose.
+Montrose was too skilful and experienced a general to think lightly of
+the struggle before him, but he formed a plan by which Scotland was to
+be invaded on the west by the earl of Antrim from Ireland, while he
+himself, reinforced by royalist troops, would fall on the Scotch who
+were on the border. But the reinforcements he expected hardly amounted,
+when they came, to one thousand one hundred men, and these being
+composed of the two nations were constantly quarrelling, which added to
+the difficulties of the commander. At Dumfries he halted, and read a
+proclamation stating that 'he was king's man, as he had been covenanter,
+for the defence and maintenance of the true Protestant religion, his
+majesty's just and sacred authority, the laws and privileges of
+Parliament, the peace and freedom of oppressed and thralled subjects.'
+Adding that 'if he had not known perfectly the king's intention to be
+such and so real as is already expressed' he would 'never have embarked
+himself in his service,' and if he 'saw any appearance of the king
+changing' from these resolutions he would continue no longer 'his
+faithful servant.'
+
+Thus he said, and thus we may believe he felt, but none the less not a
+man joined his standard as he marched along the border. He tried to
+reach prince Rupert, the king's nephew, in Yorkshire, but Marston Moor
+had been lost before he arrived there. Then, dressed as a groom, he
+started for Perthshire, and after four days arrived at the house of his
+kinsman Graham of Inchbrackie, where he learned that the whole of the
+country beyond the Tay was covenanting, with the single exception of the
+territory of the Gordons. No one knew of his presence, for he still wore
+his disguise, and slept in a little hut in the woods, where food was
+brought him. All day he wandered about the lonely hills, thinking over
+the tangled state of affairs, and waiting for the right moment to
+strike.
+
+One afternoon when he was lying on the heather, wondering if he ought
+not to come out of his hiding, and join either the Gordons or prince
+Rupert, he beheld a man running quickly over the moor, holding in his
+hand the Fiery Cross, which, as every Highlander knew, was the call to
+arms. Starting to his feet, Montrose stopped the man and asked the
+meaning of the signal, and whither he was going.
+
+[Illustration: "A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the
+Atholl."]
+
+'To Perth,' answered the messenger, 'for a great army of Irishmen have
+swooped down in the Atholl country, and Alastair Macdonald is their
+leader. I myself have seen them, and I must not tarry,' so on he sped,
+leaving Montrose with his puzzle solved. The Irishmen whom he expected
+had arrived, and he would go to meet them.
+
+There was no need for hiding any more, and glad was he to throw off his
+disguise and put on his Highland dress again. Then, accompanied by the
+laird of Inchbrackie, he walked across the hills to join Macdonald,
+bearing the royal standard on his shoulder.
+
+As soon as he reached the meeting-place where the clans and the Irish
+were already waiting, he stuck the standard in the ground, and, standing
+by it, he read aloud the king's commission to him as lieutenant-general.
+Shouts of joy made answer when he had done, and next Montrose went round
+the ranks to inspect the troops he was to fight with, and find out what
+arms they had. The numbers only amounted to about two thousand three
+hundred, and it was not long before the clans began to quarrel with each
+other, and all with the Irish. As to their weapons, the Irish had
+matchlock guns, which took a long time to load, and one round of
+ammunition apiece, while the Highlanders had seized upon anything that
+happened to be in their cottages and showed a medley of bows, pikes,
+clubs, and claymores--a kind of broad sword. As to horses, they could
+only muster three.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With this ragged army Montrose marched, and his first victory was gained
+against lord Elcho, on the wide plain of Tippermuir, near Perth. The
+covenanting force was nearly double that of the royalists, but many of
+the troops were citizens of Perth, who thought more of their own skins
+than of the cause for which they were fighting. When Montrose's fierce
+charge had broken their ranks, they all turned and fled, and many of
+them are said to have 'bursted with running' before they got safely
+within the city gates.
+
+In Perth Montrose fitted out his army with stores, arms, and clothes,
+and released some of the prisoners on their promising not to serve
+against him, while others enlisted under the royal banner. Before he set
+out for Aberdeen he was joined by his two eldest sons and their tutor,
+master Forrett; and in Forfarshire he found lord Airlie and his sons
+awaiting him, with the welcome addition of fifty horse, which formed his
+entire cavalry. These, and one thousand five hundred foot, were all the
+army he had when he crossed the Dee fifteen miles from Aberdeen, and the
+covenanters mustered a thousand more.
+
+Two miles from the town the two armies met. As was his custom, Montrose
+sent an envoy summoning the enemy to surrender, and with the envoy went
+a little drummer-boy, who was wantonly shot down by a covenanter. When
+Montrose heard of this deed of deliberate cruelty his face grew dark,
+but he began to dispose his men to the best advantage. Both sides fought
+well, and for a moment victory seemed uncertain; then Montrose brought
+up reinforcements and decided the day by one of his rapid charges.
+
+He had already bidden the magistrates of Aberdeen to bring out the women
+and children to a place of safety as he would not answer for their
+lives, but, as he had twice preserved the city from pillage, it is
+probable they looked on his words as a mere idle threat, and left them
+where they were. After the battle the sack began; houses were burned and
+robbed, and many fell victims, though the dead, including those who had
+fallen in battle, did not exceed a hundred and eighteen. But his friends
+lamented that this time also he had not restrained his soldiers, and a
+price of 20,000 l. was set on his head by the enraged covenanters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Never was Montrose's power of moving his men swiftly from one place to
+another more greatly needed than now. The Gordons were all in arms
+against him; Argyll was advancing from the south with a strong force,
+and Montrose had been obliged to send a large body of men into the west
+under Macdonald to raise fresh levies. With the remainder he retired
+into the Grampians, and turned and twisted about among the mountains,
+Argyll always following.
+
+At Fyvie Montrose suddenly learned that his enemy was within two miles
+of him. Hastily ordering all the pewter vessels that could be found in
+the castle to be melted down for bullets, he disposed his troops on a
+hill, where a few trees and some outhouses gave them cover. Here they
+waited while the covenanters gallantly made the best of their way
+upwards. Then Montrose turned to young O'Gahan, who commanded the Irish,
+and said gaily, 'Come, what are you about? Drive those rascals from our
+defences, and see we are not troubled by them again.'
+
+Down came the Irishmen with a rush which scattered the covenanters far
+and wide, and seizing some bags of powder that lay handy, the victors
+retreated up the hill again, while Montrose with some musketeers
+attacked Argyll's flank, till they retired hastily.
+
+After this defeat the covenanting leader went into Argyllshire, where
+was his strong castle of Inverary, by the sea. But Montrose crossed the
+pathless mountains, deep in snow, drove Argyll to Edinburgh, and when he
+came back with all his clan, turned on them suddenly, destroyed them at
+Inverlochy, and caused Argyll to escape in a boat.
+
+The hopes of the king's lieutenant rose high as he thought of all he had
+done with the few undisciplined troops at his command.
+
+'I trust before the end of this summer I shall be able to come to your
+majesty's assistance with a brave army,' he wrote; but meanwhile he
+dared not go to Edinburgh, where he had been sentenced to death by the
+Committee of Estates, and his property declared forfeited. But though
+the campaign had been successful beyond his expectations, yet his heart
+was heavy, for his eldest son had died of cold and exposure and the
+second was a prisoner in Edinburgh castle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was the state of things when he went west again into the country of
+the Macdonalds, who flocked to his standard. On the other hand the
+Lowlanders fell off, and began to cast longing eyes at the rewards
+promised to those who joined the covenant. If Montrose could only have
+forced a battle on Baillie, who commanded the covenanting army, another
+victory would probably have been gained, but Baillie was wise, and
+declined to fight. Then the Highlanders grew sullen and impatient, and
+every day saw them striding over the hills to their own homes. By the
+time he reached Dunkeld the royal army had shrunk to six hundred foot
+and two hundred horse.
+
+With this small force he entered Dundee, the great fortress of the
+covenant, and his men took to drinking. At that moment news was brought
+him that Baillie was at the gates, and with marvellous rapidity he
+collected his men and marched them out of the east gate as the English
+entered by the west. The Grampians were within a long march, and once
+there Montrose knew he was safe.
+
+And, far away in Sweden and in Germany, the generals who had been
+trained under Wallenstein and under Gustavus Adolphus looked on, and
+wondered at the skill with which Montrose met and defeated the armies
+and the wealth arrayed against him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But to those who had eyes to see the end was certain. It was to no
+purpose that he, with the aid of the Gordons, now once more on his side,
+gained a victory at Auldearn, between Inverness and Elgin, and another
+at Alford, south of the Don, which cost him the life and support of
+Huntly's son, lord Gordon. In vain did Ogilvies, Murrays, and Gordons
+swell his ranks, and the covenanting committee play into his hands by
+forcing Baillie to fight when the general knew that defeat was
+inevitable. The battle of Kilsyth had been won near Glasgow on August
+14, and the day was so hot that Montrose ordered his men to strip to
+their shirts so that they might have no more weight to carry than was
+strictly necessary. Baillie was not even allowed to choose his own
+ground, but though he did all that man could do, the struggle was
+hopeless, and the Fife levies were soon in flight.
+
+Only a year had passed since Montrose, now captain-general and viceroy
+of Scotland, had taken the field, and yet the whole country was subdued,
+largely by the help of the Irish, and of their leader Macdonald, whom he
+had knighted after Kilsyth. But for the royalist cause Naseby had been
+lost, Wales was wavering, Ireland was useless, and Montrose was not
+strong enough to make up for them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Kilsyth, which is near Glasgow, it was easy for Macdonald to lead
+his men across the hills and lay waste the territories of his hereditary
+enemy Argyll. He would, he said, return to Montrose if he was wanted;
+but the marquis took the words for what they were worth, and waited to
+see whose turn to desert would come next. It was young Aboyne, who was
+tired of fighting, which had not brought him any of the rewards he
+thought his due, and he took with him four hundred horse and many
+infantry. At the end there only remained five hundred of Macdonald's
+Irish, who had cast in their lot with Montrose, and about one hundred
+horsemen. With these he marched to the south, trusting in the promises
+of help freely given by the great border nobles, and hoping to enter
+England and help the king.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And doubtless these promises would have been kept had the king's cause
+showed signs of triumph, but the speedy advance of four thousand
+horsemen under David Leslie, the best cavalry officer of the day, turned
+the scale. Roxburgh and Home at once proclaimed themselves on the side
+of the covenant, and only Douglas reached Montrose's camp on the river
+Gala, and brought a few untrained and unwilling recruits with him. It
+was the best he could do, yet he knew well enough how little reliance
+could be placed on his country contingent, who had been taught to look
+on the king and Montrose as monsters of evil, seeking to destroy
+whatever they held most dear.
+
+It was on September 12 that Montrose drew up his forces at Philiphaugh
+between a line of hills and the river Ettrick, while shelter was given
+on the west by some rising ground covered with trees. Trenches had been
+made still further to protect them, and the Irish foot soldiers were
+ordered to occupy the position, which seemed secure against attack. But
+on this day, which was destined to decide whether the king or the
+covenant should rule Scotland, Montrose's military skill--even his good
+sense--deserted him; he posted his horse and best generals at
+Philiphaugh, on the other side of the river close to Selkirk, and he
+himself slept in the town. More than this, instead of placing his
+sentinels himself, as was his invariable custom, he allowed his officers
+to do it, and also to send out whatever scouts they may have thought
+necessary without orders from himself, while he sat undisturbed, writing
+despatches, little knowing that Leslie was only three miles away, at
+Sunderland Hall.
+
+So the night of the 12th passed, and Montrose took counsel with the
+three men he most trusted, the earls of Crawford and Airlie, and his
+brother-in-law, old lord Napier, as to what should be their next step
+when the battle was won. The mist was thick and heavy over the land when
+morning dawned, but in spite of the cold their hearts grew light as one
+scout after another came in, reporting that there was not a sign of an
+enemy within miles. Had they been bribed? We shall never know, yet it is
+hardly possible that they could all have overlooked the presence of
+several thousand men so close to their own camp. At that very moment
+Leslie's army was crossing the river, and it began the attack while the
+royalists were putting on their uniforms for an inspection.
+
+Montrose was at breakfast in Selkirk when a messenger burst in upon him
+with the news, but before he could ford the river with his horse his
+left wing had given way under Leslie's steady pressure. At the head of a
+handful of troopers, and followed closely by his faithful friends,
+Montrose twice charged the covenanters and forced them to retire. But a
+detachment of Leslie's men which had crossed the river higher up fell
+upon the right wing, composed of the Irish, who were placed in the wood.
+Desperate was the fight and bravely and faithfully the king's men died
+at their posts. Montrose seems to wish to die too, and bitterly he must
+later have regretted that he listened to his friends, who bade him
+remember his duty as a general, and besought him to fly. At length he
+yielded, and with fifty comrades galloped off the field, bearing the
+standards with him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the battle of Philiphaugh the cause of the king was hopelessly
+lost, and with it also the fortunes of his followers. A hundred of the
+Irish surrendered on promise of quarter, and were shot down next day,
+while their wives and children were killed on the spot, or imprisoned,
+and hanged later. Strange as it may appear to us, Montrose did not
+recognise the meaning of the defeat, and, with the dash and energy that
+marked him to the last, he collected a fresh army of Highlanders, and
+prepared to set out for the south, hoping to rescue his personal
+friends, who were now prisoners in Glasgow. Yet again his judgment
+failed him, and instead of attacking the English general who was holding
+Huntly in check in the north of Aberdeenshire, he left him alone, and
+then found that without the Gordons he was not strong enough to cope
+with Leslie's army. Once more the mountains were his refuge, and from
+their shelter he crept out to attend the burial of his wife in the town
+of Montrose. On his way he probably passed the ruins of his castles,
+which had been burned by order of the covenanters.
+
+Owing to the special desire of the Scottish rulers every possible
+degradation was heaped on the imprisoned nobles, and it was a rare
+favour indeed when they were suffered to die on the block, and not by
+the common hangman. Lord Ogilvy was saved by his sister, who, like lady
+Nithsdale sixty years later, forced him to exchange his clothes for
+hers, and remained in his cell, ready to take the consequences.
+
+Then came the rumour that the king, with cropped hair like a Puritan and
+wearing a disguise, had ridden over Magdalen bridge at Oxford, attended
+by lord Ashburnham and Hudson, his chaplain, and entered the Scottish
+camp in the hope of softening his foes by submission. He was soon
+undeceived as to the way in which they regarded him, for before he had
+even eaten or rested he was begged--or bidden--to order the surrender of
+Newark, which still held out, and to command Montrose to lay down his
+sword. Charles, whose manhood returned to him in these hours of
+darkness, positively refused; but at Newcastle he found he was powerless
+to resist, and wrote to his faithful servant to disband his army and to
+go himself to France.
+
+In the letter which the marquis sent in reply he asks nothing for
+himself, but entreats the king to obtain the best terms possible for
+those that had fought for him, and the conditions arranged by Middleton
+were certainly better than either king or general expected. The men who
+had served in Montrose's wars were given their lives and liberty, and
+also were allowed to retain whatever lands had not been already handed
+over to other people. As to Montrose himself, he, with Crawford and
+Hurry the general, was to leave Scotland before September 1 in a ship
+belonging to the Committee of Estates. Should they be found in the
+country after that date death would be the penalty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After disbanding his army--or what was left of it--in the king's name,
+and thanking them for their services, Montrose went to Forfarshire to
+await the ship which was to convey him to France. But day after day
+passed without a sign of it, and the marquis soon became convinced that
+treachery was intended, and took measures to prevent it. Leaving old
+Montrose, he went to Stonehaven, another little town on the coast, and
+settled with a Norwegian captain to lie off Montrose on a certain day.
+So when, on August 31, the covenanting captain at last appeared, and
+declared his ship would not be ready to sail for another eight days--by
+which time, of course, Montrose's life would be forfeit--he found his
+bird flown; for the exile and a friend had disguised themselves and put
+off one morning in a small boat to the larger vessel that was waiting
+for them, and in a week were safe across the North Sea at Bergen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Norway was merely a stepping-stone to Paris, where the queen of
+England was living under the protection of her sister-in-law, Anne of
+Austria, and of the young king Louis XIV. The handsome pension allowed
+her in the beginning gradually ceased when the civil war of the Fronde
+broke out in 1648, and, as we know, she was found one day by a visitor
+sitting with her little girl, whom she had kept in bed because she could
+not afford a fire. And even at this time, in 1647, she always spent
+whatever she had, so from one cause or another no money was forthcoming
+to help Montrose, who perhaps did not understand the situation, and
+thought that she was unkind and careless of her husband's welfare. As
+often before, he spoke out his feelings when he would have done better
+to be silent, and pressed on the queen advice that was not asked for,
+and may not have been possible to follow. Yet, if he felt that there was
+no place for him in the little English court, ample evidence was given
+him of the high respect in which he was held elsewhere. The all-powerful
+minister, cardinal Mazarin, desired to enlist him in the French service,
+and the greatest nobles paid court to him. Montrose, however, was not
+the sort of man to find healing for his sorrows in honours such as
+these. He gave a grateful and courteous refusal to all proposals, and
+bidding farewell to his hosts, made his way to the Prague to offer his
+sword to the emperor Ferdinand. Like the rest, the emperor received him
+warmly, and created him a field-marshal, but there was no post for
+Montrose in the Austrian army, and in the end he joined some friends in
+Brussels, whence he kept up an intimate correspondence with Elizabeth of
+Bohemia, Charles I.'s sister, who was staying at the Hague with her
+niece, Mary of Orange, and the young prince of Wales.
+
+There in February arrived the news of the king's execution, and when he
+heard it Montrose vowed that the rest of his life should be spent in the
+service of his son, and in avenging his master. Charles II. did not like
+him; he was too grave and too little of a courtier; and besides, the new
+king had listened and believed the stories to his discredit brought by
+men whose fortunes had been ruined in their own country, and who sought
+to build them up in Holland! Charles soon found for himself how untrue
+were these tales, and though the two never could become friends, he
+recognised Montrose's loyalty and ability and appointed him
+commander-in-chief of the royal forces and lieutenant-governor of
+Scotland, and gave him leave to get what mercenaries he could from
+Sweden and Denmark.
+
+Full of hope, Montrose at once set off on his recruiting journey, and
+sent off some troops to the Orkneys to be drilled under the earls of
+Kinnoull and Morton; but Morton in a very short time caught fever and
+died. Meanwhile his friend, Elizabeth of Bohemia, looked on with
+distrust and alarm at her nephew's proceedings, for well she knew--as
+did Charles himself--that the surrender of Montrose would be the first
+article of any treaty made by the covenant. She even wrote to put
+Montrose on his guard; but he, judging the king by himself, believed the
+assurances of help and support given in Charles' own letters,
+accompanied by the gift of the garter, as a pledge of their fulfilment.
+He was bidden to lose no time in opening the campaign, but one thousand
+out of the one thousand two hundred men whom he despatched went down in
+a great gale, and only two hundred reached the shore. So April had come
+before the general had collected sufficient soldiers to march
+southwards, and by that time the forces of the enemy were ready to meet
+him.
+
+It was on April 27 that Montrose's last battle was fought at Carbisdale,
+near the Kyle, where the rivers Shin and Oykel reach the sea. The earl
+of Sutherland secured the passes of the hills, while colonel Strachan
+and a large body of cavalry approached from the south. When they arrived
+within a few miles of the royalist camp at the head of the Kyle,
+Strachan ordered two divisions of his cavalry to proceed under cover of
+some woods and broken ground, and only suffered a few horse, led by
+himself, to remain visible. These were seen, as they were meant to be,
+by Montrose's scouts, who, as at Philiphaugh, were either careless or
+treacherous or very stupid, and they brought back the report that the
+covenanting force was weak. Montrose, taking for granted the truth of
+their report, disposed of his foot on a flat stretch of ground, and
+ordered his horse to advance. Then the trees and the hills 'started to
+life with armed men'; the Orkney islanders fled without striking a blow;
+and though the foreign troops made a stout resistance, they were
+overpowered by numbers, and those of their leaders who were not dead
+were taken prisoners. Montrose, who was badly wounded, fought
+desperately on foot, but at length after much entreaty accepted the
+horse ridden by Sutherland's nephew and dashed away into the hills,
+throwing away as he did so his star, sword and cloak--a fatal act, which
+brought about his discovery and death. Their horses were next abandoned,
+and Montrose changed clothes with a peasant, and with young lord
+Kinnoull and Sinclair of Caithness plunged into the wild mountains that
+lay on the west.
+
+[Illustration: For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them
+to Caithness.]
+
+Now began for the three fugitives the period of bodily anguish that was
+to cease only with their lives. The country was strange to them, and was
+almost bare of inhabitants, so that for two days they sought in vain to
+find a road which might take them to Caithness, whence they could escape
+to France or Norway. During these two days they ate absolutely nothing,
+and passed the cold nights under the stars. At length Kinnoull, who had
+always been delicate, flung himself down on the heather, and in a few
+hours died of exhaustion. There his friends were forced to leave him,
+without even a grave, and wandered on, their steps and their hearts
+heavier than before, till a light suddenly beamed at them out of the
+dusk. It was a shepherd's cottage, where they were given some milk and
+oatmeal, the first food they had eaten since the battle; but the man
+dared not take them into his hut, lest he should bring on himself the
+wrath of the covenant for harbouring royalists, even though he knew not
+who they were.
+
+The reward offered for Montrose sharpened men's eyes and ears, and in
+two days he was discovered lying on the mountain side almost too weak to
+move. It was Macleod of Assynt to whom the deadly shame of his betrayal
+is said to belong, and Montrose prayed earnestly that the mercy of a
+bullet in his heart might be vouchsafed him. But the man who for many
+years had defied all Scotland could not be dealt with like a common
+soldier, so he was put on a small Shetland pony, with his feet tied
+together underneath, and led through roaring, hissing crowds, which
+pressed to see him in every town through which they had to pass. The
+wounds that he had received in the battle were still untouched, and he
+was feverish from the pain. This was another cause of rejoicing to his
+foes; but they were careful to give him food lest he should escape them
+as Kinnoull had done. And at each halting-place there came a minister to
+heap insults and reproaches on his head, which he seldom deigned to
+answer. But though the ministers of peace and goodwill had no words bad
+enough for him, one is glad to think that Leslie the general did what he
+could, and allowed his friends to see him whenever they asked to do so,
+and also permitted him to accept and wear the clothes of a gentleman,
+which were given him by the people of Dundee. It was to Leslie also that
+he probably owed a last interview with his two little boys, when he
+stopped for the night at the castle of Kinnaird, from which he had been
+married.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Dundee the prisoner was brought by ship to Leith, and taken to the
+palace of Holyrood, where he was received by the magistrates of the city
+in their robes of office, with the provost (or mayor) at their head.
+Here the order of the Parliament was read, and he listened 'with a
+majesty and state becoming him, and kept a countenance high.' Then his
+friends, who, like himself, were prisoners, were ordered to walk,
+chained two together, through the streets, and behind came Montrose,
+seated bareheaded on a chair in a cart driven by the hangman. The
+streets of the old town were crowded by people who came to mock and
+jeer, but remained dumb with shame and pity. The cart slowly went on its
+way, and at seven the Tolbooth prison was reached, with the gallows
+thirty feet high standing as it had stood twelve years before beside the
+city cross.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last days of Montrose were disturbed by the constant visits of
+ministers, who tried to force from him a confession of treachery to the
+covenant, but in vain.
+
+'The covenant which I took,' he said, 'I own it and adhere to it.
+Bishops I care not for. I never intended to advance their interest. But
+when the king had granted you all your desires, and you were everyone
+sitting under his vine and under his fig tree--that then you should have
+taken a party in England by the hand and entered into a league and
+covenant with them against the king was the thing I judged my duty to
+oppose to the yondmost.'
+
+These words are the explanation of Montrose's conduct in changing from
+one side to another; but little he guessed that the new king, by whose
+express orders he had undertaken his present hopeless mission, had only
+a few days before, at the conference of Breda, consented to bid his
+viceroy disband his army and to leave Scotland. This knowledge, which
+would have added bitterness to his fate, was spared him; as was the
+further revelation of the baseness of Charles II., who gave orders to
+his messenger not to deliver the document if he found Montrose likely to
+get the upper hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As an act of extraordinary generosity the Parliament, which had voted to
+colonel Strachan a diamond clasp for his share in the final defeat of
+Montrose, permitted the prisoner's friends to provide him with a proper
+dress, so that he might appear suitably before them. Their courtesy did
+not, however, extend to a barber to shave him--a favour which, as he
+said, 'might have been allowed to a dog.' But he must have looked very
+splendid as he stood at the bar of the House, in black cloth trimmed
+with silver, and a deep lace collar, with a scarlet cloak likewise
+trimmed with silver falling over his shoulders, a band of silver on his
+beaver hat, and scarlet shoes and stockings.
+
+A long list of his crimes was read to him, and these one by one he
+denied. 'For the league,' he said, 'I thank God I never was in it, and
+so could not break it. Never was any man's blood spilt save in battle,
+and even then, many thousand lives have I preserved. As for my coming at
+this time, it was by his majesty's just commands'--the commands of the
+king who a week earlier had abandoned him! But of what use are words and
+denial when the doom is already fixed? The chancellor's reply was merely
+a series of insults, and then the prisoner was ordered to kneel and hear
+the sentence read by Warriston, by whose side he had stood on the
+scaffold in 1638 when the first covenant was read, and old Lord Rothes
+had made his dark prophecy.
+
+He had known beforehand what it would be--hanging, drawing, and
+quartering, with a copy of his last declaration and the history of his
+wars tied round his neck, and no burial for his body unless he confessed
+his guilt at the last. This did not trouble him. 'I will carry honour
+and fidelity with me to the grave' he had said eight years before, and
+that no grave was to be allowed him mattered little.
+
+The ceremony over, he was led back to the Tolbooth, where his gaoler
+kept him free from the ministers who would fain have thrust their
+sermons and reproaches on the dying man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soldiers were early under arms on the morning of May 21, for even now
+the Parliament greatly dreaded a rescue. With the 'unaltered
+countenance' he had borne ever since his capture Montrose heard the
+beating of drums and trumpets, and answered calmly the taunt of
+Warriston as to his vanity in dressing his hair.
+
+'My head is yet my own,' said Montrose, 'and I will arrange it to my
+taste. To-night, when it will be yours, treat it as you please.'
+
+Every roof and window in the High Street and within sight of the city
+cross was filled with people as Montrose, clad in scarlet and black,
+walked calmly down at three that afternoon. 'Many of his enemies did
+acknowledge him to be the bravest subject in the world,' writes one who
+beheld him, and he walked up the steps as quietly as if he were taking
+his place to see some interesting sight.
+
+They feared him too much to allow him to speak to the crowd, as was the
+custom, but he addressed himself to the magistrates and the ministers
+who were standing on the platform. Once more he confessed his faith and
+his loyalty, and when, in accordance with the sentence, the hangman
+suspended the two books round his neck, he said, 'they have given me a
+decoration more brilliant than the garter.' Then he mounted the ladder,
+and the hangman burst into tears as he gave the last touch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So died Montrose, and eleven years later the king who had disowned him
+bethought him of his fate. In January 1661 the Parliament, which had
+been summoned by the restored monarch, Charles II., 'thought fit to
+honour Montrose his carcase with a glorious second burial, to compensate
+the dishonour of the first.' His limbs, which had been placed over the
+gates of the cities made memorable by his victories, remained in state
+at Holyrood for four months, and May 11 was fixed to lay them where they
+now rest, in the church of St. Giles. Heralds in their many-coloured
+robes arranged the procession, and the train-bands occupied the street
+to keep off the dense crowds. The magistrates, headed by the provost,
+walked two and two in deep mourning--had any of them taken part in that
+brutal scene eleven years ago?--and behind them came the barons and the
+burgesses. Next followed the dead man's kinsmen bearing his armour, the
+order of the garter, and his field-marshal's baton, and behind the
+coffin came his two sons and most of his kindred. Middleton, as lord
+high commissioner and representative of the king, occupied the place of
+honour, and brought up the rear in a coach drawn by six horses, with six
+bareheaded gentlemen riding on each hand.
+
+Thus was Montrose lowered into his grave to the sound of the guns that
+he loved, which thundered from the castle. He has a beautiful tomb in
+the old church of St. Giles, adorned with the coats-of-arms of the
+Grahams and Napiers and his other brothers-in-arms.
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD'S HERO
+
+
+On a dark January day in the year 1858 a little girl was running quickly
+downstairs for her play-hour with her elders. Just as she reached the
+foot of the staircase the drawing-room door opened, and her brother came
+out with a grave face. 'Havelock is dead!' said he, and at the news the
+little girl laid her head against the wall and burst into tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Who was this Havelock, that a strange child should care so much about
+him? Well, he was a man who worked hard and fought hard all the days of
+his life, never shirking his duty or envious of the good luck of others.
+Again and again those who had shared the burden and heat of the day with
+Havelock got rewards to which it might seem that he had an equal claim;
+still, whatever his disappointment he showed no sign, but greeted his
+fortunate friends cheerfully, and when it was required of him served
+under them with all his might. Just at the end the chance came to him
+also, and gloriously he profited by it.
+
+But if you want to know how that came about you must begin at the
+beginning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Henry Havelock was born at Bishop's Wearmouth, close to Sunderland, on
+April 5, 1795. His grandfather was a shipbuilder in the flourishing
+seaport town, and his son, Henry's father, became a partner in the
+business. The Havelocks soon made a name in the trade, and were given a
+commission to build the _Lord Duncan_, christened after the famous
+admiral, the largest ship ever launched from the port.
+
+Money flowed in rapidly, and when Henry was about three years old his
+father determined to leave the north and to go and settle at Ingress
+Hall, near Dartford, in Kent, which became the birthplace of his two
+youngest sons, Thomas and Charles.
+
+There was no school nearer than three miles, which was too far for them
+to walk, so to the great delight of Henry and his elder brother William
+ponies were given them, and even if they had disliked their lessons
+instead of being fond of books, the pleasure of the ride through the
+lanes would have made up for everything. As it was, they were always
+hanging about the front door long before it was time to start, and the
+moment the coachman brought out the ponies from the stable they would
+spring into their saddles in a great bustle, and clatter away over the
+grass, pretending that they were very late and would get bad marks if
+they did not hurry.
+
+All through Havelock's childhood the continent of Europe was under the
+foot of Napoleon, and was forced to submit to his rule. England only had
+stood aloof and refused his advances; yet she waited, with the dread
+that accompanies the expectation whose fulfilment is delayed, for an
+invasion of her own coasts. No story was too bad to be believed of
+'Boney,' and women are said to have frightened their naughty children
+into good behaviour by threatening to send for 'Boney' to carry them
+away. No doubt Havelock heard a great deal from his parents and
+schoolfellows of the desperate wickedness of 'Boney,' but, in spite of
+the terrible pictures that were drawn, the boy devoured eagerly all the
+newspapers wrote of the ogre's campaigns and his battles, and never
+joined in the outcry against him.
+
+Before Henry had passed his tenth birthday he was sent, with his brother
+William, to the Charterhouse School in the City of London, where he
+stayed for seven years. He was always bold and daring, so the other boys
+respected him, even though he did not care much for games, and, what was
+still worse in their eyes, was fond of Greek and Latin and always did
+his work. Still, though it was, they said, very silly for a boy to do
+more than he could possibly help, it must be admitted that Havelock
+never minded risking his neck when he was dared to do so, would climb
+trees or chimneys while others looked on awe-stricken, and would endure
+any punishment sooner than betray 'a fellow' who was caught.
+
+During these years of school Havelock had many battles of Napoleon's to
+study, and we may be sure that each one in its turn was thoroughly
+discussed with the friends who afterwards became celebrated in many
+ways--the historians, Grote and Thirlwall, Eastlake the painter, Yates
+the actor, and Macnaghten, afterwards murdered at Cabul, while Havelock
+was with the force on the way to relieve him. As they grew older they
+used to talk over the future together, and not one of them doubted that
+he would be in the front rank of whatever profession he might choose.
+'My mother wants me to be a lawyer, and she is sure that one day I shall
+be lord chancellor,' said Havelock, and no doubt every other mother was
+equally convinced of her son's genius. But before his school-days were
+over Mrs. Havelock died, to Henry's great grief, and then came the news
+that their father had lost a great deal of money, and they must leave
+Ingress Hall and move to a smaller house at Clifton.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 1813--the year of the battle of Leipzig, Henry Havelock would
+have told you--that the young man took the first step towards becoming
+'lord chancellor,' and was entered at the Middle Temple. He set to work
+with his usual energy, and when he was too tired to understand any more
+of what the law books taught him, he would take down a volume of poetry
+and read till he was soothed by the music of the words. But at the end
+of a year a change came into his life. His father, whose temper seems to
+have been ruined by the loss of his money, quarrelled with him about
+some trifling matter. Henry's allowance was withdrawn, and as he could
+not live in the Temple upon nothing he was forced to bid good-bye to the
+dream of the chancellorship.
+
+At this time in his life he was perplexed and unhappy, though he never
+gave up the strong religious faith which he had inherited from his
+mother. It was necessary that he should earn his living in some way, but
+he could not see what he was to do, and things were so uncomfortable at
+home that he wished to leave it as soon as possible.
+
+Happily he had not long to wait, for William, who had joined the 43rd
+Regiment and fought at Busaco and Salamanca and Waterloo, came home on
+leave, and solved the puzzle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the great battle which finally broke the power of Napoleon, William
+Havelock had been acting as aide-de-camp to baron von Alten, who had
+succeeded to the command of general Craufurd's division. We are told
+that William 'had done the baron a service' during the engagement, and
+that the general was anxious to prove his gratitude. The special
+'service' the young soldier had rendered is not mentioned, but we may
+take it for granted that William Havelock had in some way saved his
+life. However, in answer to the general's offer of reward, William said
+that he had all he could possibly wish for, and so the matter ended for
+the moment. But when he came home, and found Henry with all his plans
+changed, and not knowing how to set about making a career for himself,
+the baron von Alten's words flashed into his mind.
+
+'You were always fond of soldiering,' he said to Henry one day, 'and I
+believe you could describe the battles I have fought in almost as well
+as I could. If the baron can give me a commission for you, will you take
+it? I am sure you would make a splendid soldier.'
+
+Henry's eyes beamed. Somehow he had never thought of that. At the
+Charterhouse he had been laughed at for his love of books, and called
+the 'Phlos.'--short for 'Philosopher'--by the boys. He had always, too,
+been very religious, and after his mother's death (which occurred when
+he was about fourteen) had gathered four of his special friends round
+him once or twice a week in the big dormitory where they all slept, in
+order that they might read the Bible together. Yet there was in Havelock
+much of the spirit of the old crusader and of his enemy, the follower of
+Mahomet the prophet, and though, unlike them, he did not deal out death
+as the punishment of a rejected faith, still he positively delighted in
+fighting, and indeed looked on it as a sacred duty.
+
+So the commission was obtained, and Henry, now second lieutenant in the
+Rifle Brigade, then called the 95th, was sent to Shorncliffe, and
+captain Harry Smith was his senior officer. The Boer war has made us
+very well acquainted with the name of this gentleman, for in after years
+it was given to the town of Harrismith in South Africa, while his wife's
+has become immortal in 'Ladysmith.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Young Havelock, who was still under twenty-one, made fast friends with
+his captain, and listened eagerly to all he could tell of the Punjaub,
+where Smith had seen much of service. How he longed to take part in such
+deeds! But his turn was slow in coming, and for eight years he remained
+inactive in England, while the nation was recovering as best it could
+from the strain of the Peninsular War. Most of his messmates grumbled
+and fretted at having 'nothing to do,' but this was never Havelock's
+way, for if he could not 'do' what he wanted, he did something else. The
+young man, only five feet six inches in height, with the long face and
+eyes which looked as if they saw things that were hidden from other
+people, spent his spare time in studying all that belonged to his
+profession. For hours he would pore over books on fortification and
+tactics, and try to find for himself why this or that plan, which seemed
+so good, turned out when tried a hopeless failure. He had always a pile
+of memoirs of celebrated soldiers round him, and often bored his
+brother-officers by persisting in talking of the campaigns of
+Marlborough or Frederick the Great, instead of discussing the balls or
+races that filled their minds. Still, though he made the best of the
+circumstances in which he found himself, he looked forward to the
+prospect of going to India, where William and Charles already were.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But to get to India it was needful to exchange into another regiment,
+and Henry was gazetted to the 13th Light Infantry. The process took some
+time, but as usual he found some work for himself, and prepared for his
+future life by taking lessons in Persian and Hindostanee.
+
+Now there is no better way of learning a language than to teach it to
+somebody else, and on the voyage out to Calcutta, which then took four
+months, some of the officers on board ship begged him to form a class in
+these two languages. Havelock had passed in London the examination
+necessary for the degree of a qualified Moonshee, or native tutor, and
+his Persian was so good that regularly throughout his life, when his
+superior officers wished to mark their appreciation of his services,
+they recommended him for an interpretership! Therefore during those
+tedious four months, when land was seldom seen, and the ship sailed on
+from St. Helena, whose great captive had not been two years dead, to the
+Cape of Good Hope and the island of Ceylon, the little band of students
+met and struggled with the strange letters of the two tongues, and by
+the time the ship _General Kyd_ arrived at Calcutta in May 1823,
+Havelock's pupils could all talk a little, and read tolerably.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first it seemed as if life in India was going to be as quiet as life
+in England, but in 1824 the king of Ava, a Burmese city, demanded that
+Eastern Bengal should be given up to him, or war would be instantly
+declared. The answer sent to the 'Lord of the Great White Elephant' was
+a declaration of war on the part of our viceroy in India. Sir Archibald
+Campbell was given the command of the invading force, and he appointed
+Havelock to be his deputy-assistant adjutant-general.
+
+It was the young man's first taste of warfare, and a very bitter one it
+proved to be. The experiences of Marlborough and Frederick on the
+battlefields of Europe were of little use in the jungle, where the
+Burmese knew a thousand hiding-places undreamed of by the English, who
+had the unhealthy climate to fight against as well. At last Havelock
+fell ill like the rest, and was sent to his brother, then stationed at
+Poonah, not far from Bombay, to recover his health.
+
+Havelock went very unwillingly; he was doing his work to the
+satisfaction of the general, and he knew it; besides, he could not help
+thinking that before he got better the war might have ended, or someone
+else might be filling his place. However, there was no help for it, and
+as soon as he was on board ship he began to feel for the first time how
+ill he had really been. Once at Poonah he soon recovered, and in June
+was able to return to the camp in Burmah.
+
+For a long while it had been Havelock's habit to hold a sort of Bible
+class for any of the men whom he could persuade to come to it; and not
+only did he give them religious teaching, but he made them understand
+that he expected them to 'live soberly, righteously, and godly,' as the
+Catechism says. They were not to quarrel, or to drink too much, or to do
+as little work as possible. They were to tell the truth, even if it got
+them into trouble, and they were to bear the hardships that fall to the
+lot of every soldier--hunger and thirst, heat and cold--without
+grumbling. And the men accepted his teaching, and tried to act up to it,
+because they saw that Havelock asked nothing of them that he did not
+practise himself.
+
+'Havelock's Saints' was their nickname among the rest of the camp, but
+sometimes even their enemies were forced to admit that 'Havelock's
+Saints' had their uses. One night sir Archibald Campbell ordered a
+sudden attack to be made on the Burmese by a certain corps. The
+messenger or orderly who was sent with the order returned saying that
+the men were too drunk to be fit for duty.
+
+'Then call out Havelock's Saints,' said the commander-in-chief; '_they_
+are always sober and to be depended upon, and Havelock himself is always
+ready.'
+
+So the night attack was made by the 'Saints,' and the position carried.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the end of the Burmese war Havelock returned to his regiment, then
+commanded by colonel Sale, who became his lifelong friend. All he had
+gained in Burmah, except experience, was the rank of a Burmese noble,
+conferred on him by the 'Golden King' on account of his services in
+making the treaty of peace. This cost the 'Lord of the White Elephant'
+nothing, and did no good to Havelock; and six months after the troops
+left Burmah he was glad to accept the adjutancy of a regiment in a
+pleasant part of India, near some friends. Here he became engaged to be
+married to Miss Marshman, daughter of a missionary, and the wedding-day
+was soon fixed. Early that morning the bridegroom received a message
+that he must go up at once to Calcutta in order to attend a
+court-martial to be held at twelve o'clock. Calcutta was a long way from
+Chinsurah, and as he was bound to be present at the military trial most
+men would have put off the marriage till the following day. But Havelock
+was different from other people. He sent one messenger to order the
+fastest boat on the river to be in waiting, and another to inform the
+bride and her father that they must get ready as quickly as possible.
+The ceremony was performed without delay, and as soon as it was over
+Havelock ran down to his boat. For several hours he sat in the stifling
+court, hearing witnesses and asking them questions as coolly as if there
+had been no marriage and no bride, and when the proceedings were ended,
+and the sentence passed, he stepped on board the boat again, and arrived
+at Chinsurah in time for the wedding dinner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After he had been at Chinsurah for four years the Government thought
+they could do without an adjutant, and thus save money. This fell hardly
+on Havelock, who was very poor, and when he went back to his regiment
+his wife and child had to live in two tiny rooms on the ramparts. Mrs.
+Havelock never complained, but in a hot climate like India plenty of
+space and air are necessary for health, and both father and mother were
+terrified lest the baby should suffer. However, very soon the new
+governor-general gave him the adjutancy of his own regiment, then at
+Agra, and things grew brighter. His days were passed in drilling and
+looking after his men, but he still took thought for their welfare in
+their spare hours, and managed to get some chapels put up for them, and
+to open a coffee-house, with games and books, which he hoped might keep
+them out of mischief.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now at this date, and for many years after, it was the custom in the
+English army that the officers should _buy_ their promotion, unless a
+vacancy occurred by death. Havelock was a poor man, and like many
+well-known Indian soldiers had to depend for luck on his 'steps,' or
+advancement. If, like Havelock, officers exchanged into other regiments,
+they were put back to the bottom of the list, and had to work their way
+up all over again.
+
+Besides this there were _two_ armies in India, one belonging to the
+English sovereign, and the other to the East India Company's Service,
+under which near a hundred years before Clive had won his battles. It
+was the officers serving under 'John Company,' as it was called, who had
+all the 'plums' of the profession; who governed large provinces, made
+treaties with the native princes, and gave orders even to the general
+himself. Outram, who afterwards entered Lucknow side by side with
+Havelock; sir Henry Lawrence, who died defending the city before Outram
+and Havelock fought their way in; John Nicholson, who was killed in the
+siege of Delhi, and hundreds of other well-known men, all wore the
+Company's colours and received rewards. For the officers of the royal
+army it was no uncommon thing for a man to wait fifty years before being
+made a general, as lord Roberts's father waited; so, although it was
+very disheartening for Havelock to see young men, with not half his
+brains but with ten times his income, become captains and majors and
+colonels over his head, he knew well what he had to expect, and also
+that he possessed thousands of companions in misfortune.
+
+By-and-by the Company's army was done away with, and India is now ruled
+in an entirely different way.
+
+It was in the autumn of 1836 that Havelock sent up his wife and little
+children for a change to a hill station called Landour. The cool air and
+quiet were very restful after the heat of the summer, and at last they
+were all able to sleep, instead of tossing to and fro through the dark
+hours, longing for the dawn.
+
+One night the moon was shining brightly, and Mrs. Havelock had stepped
+out on her verandah before she went to bed, and thought how beautiful
+and peaceful everything looked. A few hours later she was awakened by a
+dense smoke, and jumping up found that the house was on fire all round
+her. She snatched up her baby and opened the door to get to the room
+where the two little boys were sleeping with their ayah, or nurse, but
+such a rush of flames met her that she staggered back and fell. In an
+instant her thin nightdress was on fire, and she was so blinded by the
+glare and the smoke that she did not know which way to turn. Happily one
+of the native servants heard the noise, and, wrapping a wet blanket
+about him which was too damp to burn, he managed to crawl over the floor
+and drag her through the verandah to a place of safety. He then ran back
+and succeeded in reaching the two boys and putting them beside their
+mother, but not before the eldest had been badly burnt.
+
+[Illustration: He managed to crawl over the floor.]
+
+As for the baby, she died in a few days, and it was thought that her
+mother, who had been borne unconscious to the house of a neighbour,
+could hardly survive her many hours.
+
+Such was the news which reached Havelock at Kurnaul, where the regiment
+was now stationed. It was a crushing blow to him, but, with a violent
+effort to control himself, he sent a hasty request to the colonel for
+leave, and arranged the most important parts of his work, so that it
+might be carried on by another officer. He had just finished and was
+ready to start when a message was brought in from the men of his
+regiment, who were waiting below, begging that he would speak to them
+for one moment. Half dazed he hurried out to the courtyard, and then the
+sergeant stepped forward from the ranks, and in a few words told him of
+the sorrow with which all his company had heard of the terrible
+calamity, and hoped that he would accept a month of their pay to go
+towards replacing the burnt furniture.
+
+Havelock was touched to the heart, and his eyes filled with tears of
+gratitude. His voice shook as he stammered out his thanks, but he could
+not take their savings, though to the end of his life he never forgot
+the kindness of their offer. Happily Mrs. Havelock did not die, and in a
+few months was as well as ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1838, when Havelock had been twenty-three years a soldier, he
+obtained his captaincy by the death of the man above him, and in the end
+of the same year the war with Afghanistan gave him another chance of
+distinguishing himself.
+
+It was a very unfortunate and badly managed business. The native ruler,
+the Ameer or Dost Mohammed, who had for twelve years governed the
+country fairly well, was deposed, and a weak and treacherous prince,
+hated by all the Afghans, was chosen by us to replace him. This could
+only be done by the help of our troops, and although Englishmen who knew
+Cabul pointed out to the governor-general the folly of his course, lord
+Auckland would listen to no one, and the expedition which was to finish
+in disaster was prepared.
+
+Havelock's old friend sir Willoughby Cotton was given the command of the
+part of the army destined for Afghanistan itself, while the other half
+remained as a reserve in the Punjaub. Cotton appointed Havelock his
+aide-de-camp, greatly to his delight, and at the end of December 1838
+the march began. As far as the Indus things went smoothly enough, but
+after that difficulties crowded in upon them. They had deserts to cross,
+and not enough animals to drag their guns and waggons, food grew scarcer
+and scarcer, and at length the general ordered 'famine rations' to be
+served out. It was winter also, and the country was high and bitterly
+cold, and April was nearly at its close before the city of Candahar was
+reached. Here sickness broke out among the troops, and they were obliged
+to wait in the town till the crops had ripened and they could get proper
+supplies for their march to Cabul.
+
+The first step towards winning Cabul was the capture of Ghuzni, a strong
+fortress lying two hundred and seventy miles to the north of Candahar.
+This was carried by assault during the night, the only gate not walled
+up being blown open by the English. In the rush into the town which
+followed, colonel Sale was thrown on the ground while struggling
+desperately with a huge native, who was standing over him.
+
+'Do me the favour to pass your sword through the body of the infidel,'
+cried Sale, politely, to captain Kershaw, who had just come up. The
+captain obligingly did as he was asked, and the Afghan fell dead beside
+his foe.
+
+[Illustration: The captain obligingly did as he was asked.]
+
+Early in August the British army reached the town of Cabul, on the river
+of the same name, and found that the Dost Mohammed had fled into the
+mountains of the Hindu Koosh, leaving the city ready to welcome the
+British. As everything was quiet, and the army was to remain in Cabul
+for the winter, Havelock obtained permission to go back to Serampore,
+near Calcutta, in the hope of bringing out a book he had been writing
+about the march across the Indus. Unluckily this book, like the two
+others he wrote, proved a failure; which was the more unfortunate as, in
+order to get it published, Havelock had been obliged to refuse sir
+Willoughby Cotton's offer of a Persian interpretership. But he needed
+money for his boy's education, and thought he might obtain it through
+his book. Therefore this lack of a sale was a bitter disappointment to
+him.
+
+Just at that time a company of recruits had been raised for service in
+Cabul, and in June 1840 Havelock started in charge of them from
+Serampore. He had the whole width of India to cross, and at Ferozepore,
+on a tributary of the Indus, he joined general Elphinstone, the
+successor of Cotton, who was retiring. Why Elphinstone should have been
+chosen to conduct a war which the mountainous country was certain to
+render difficult is a mystery, and another mystery is why Elphinstone
+should have accepted the appointment, as he was so crippled with gout
+that he could hardly move. However, there he was, commander-in-chief of
+this part of the expedition, and from this unwise choice resulted many
+of the calamities which followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The general could not travel fast, and it was more than six months
+before they reached Cabul. Havelock, now Persian interpreter to
+Elphinstone, was much disturbed at the condition of things that they
+found on their arrival, and at the folly which had lost us the support
+of the native hill tribes, who had hitherto acted as our paid police and
+guarded the passes leading into the Punjaub. So when Sale's brigade,
+with a native regiment, a small force of cavalry and artillery, and a
+few engineers under the famous George Broadfoot, marched eastwards up
+the river Cabul, they discovered that the passes had all been blocked by
+the mountaineers, who were ready to spring out and attack the English
+from all sorts of unsuspected hiding-places.
+
+Now Havelock had not drawn his sword since the end of the Burmese war,
+and directly he saw a chance of fighting he had begged to be allowed to
+accept the appointment of staff-officer offered him by Sale. This was
+given him, and the troops had only gone a few miles from Cabul when the
+fighting began, and Sale was severely wounded.
+
+It is impossible to tell all the details of the march, but much of the
+burden of it fell on Havelock's shoulders, as Sale could not go about
+and see after things himself. Here, as always, he proved himself, as
+Kaye the historian says, 'every inch a soldier.' 'Among our good
+officers,' wrote Broadfoot at the time, 'first comes captain Havelock.
+The whole of them together would not compensate for his loss. He is
+brave to admiration, invariably cool, and, as far as I can see or
+judge, correct in his views.'
+
+All along the march up the Cabul these qualities were badly needed, for
+it was necessary to watch night and day lest the little army should be
+taken unawares by the hill tribes. At last the rocky country was left
+behind, and they halted in the rich and well-wooded town of Gundamak, to
+rest for a little and to wait Elphinstone's orders. The letters, when
+they came, told a fearful tale. The Afghans had risen in Cabul; Burnes,
+the East India Company's officer in Afghanistan, had been murdered,
+together with other men, among them Broadfoot's brother, and though
+there were five thousand British troops stationed only two miles away,
+as Havelock well knew, they had never been called out to quell the
+insurrection.
+
+Under these circumstances Elphinstone implored Sale to return without
+delay to Cabul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A council of war was held to decide what was to be done. They all saw
+that if it had been difficult to get through the passes before, it would
+be almost impossible now, when the success at Cabul had given fresh
+courage and audacity to the hill-men, and thousands who had hung back
+waiting to know if the insurrection would be successful or not would
+have rushed to the help of their country. Besides, with five thousand
+fresh troops close to the city, the English could hardly be in such
+desperate straits. So Sale decided to disobey Elphinstone's orders and
+to push on to Jellalabad further up the river.
+
+Jellalabad was not reached without much fighting, and when they entered
+the town it was clear that it would not be easy to hold, and that the
+walls stood in much need of repair. However, Broadfoot was the kind of
+man who felt that whatever _had_ to be done _could_ be done, and he
+turned out his corps, consisting of natives of every tribe, to work on
+the fortifications. Happily he had brought with him from Cabul all the
+tools that were necessary, and the Afghan fire which poured in upon them
+was soon checked by Colonel Monteath, who scattered the enemy for the
+time being.
+
+This left the garrison a chance of getting in supplies; but they were
+short of powder and shot, and orders were issued that it should not be
+used unnecessarily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the morning of January 8, 1842, three Afghans rode into the town,
+bearing a letter from Cabul, signed both by sir Henry Pottinger and
+general Elphinstone. This told them that a treaty had been concluded by
+which the English had agreed to retire from Afghanistan, and bidding
+Sale to quit Jellalabad at once and proceed to India, leaving behind him
+his artillery and any stores or baggage that he might not be able to
+carry with him.
+
+With one voice the council of war, which was hastily summoned, declined
+once more to obey these instructions, which they declared had been wrung
+out of Elphinstone by force. Jellalabad should be held at any cost, and
+the news that they received during the following week only strengthened
+their resolution. The British in Cabul were hemmed in by their enemies,
+the cantonments or barracks were deserted, and the sixteen thousand
+fugitives had been surrounded outside the city by Afghan troops led by
+the son of the Dost Mohammed. These things gave the defenders of
+Jellalabad enough to think of, and to fear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five days later some officers on the roof of a tall house were sweeping
+the horizon with their field glasses to see if there was any chance of
+an attack from the Afghans, who were always hovering about watching for
+some carelessness on the part of the besieged. But gaze as they might,
+nothing was moving in the broad valley, or along the banks of the three
+streams which watered it. They were turning away satisfied that at
+present there was no danger, when one of them uttered a sudden cry, and
+snatching the glasses from his companion, exclaimed, 'Yes, I am right. A
+man riding a pony has just come round that corner. It is the Cabul road,
+and his clothes are English. Look!'
+
+The others looked, and saw for themselves. The pony's head drooped, and
+he was coming wearily down the road, while it was clear that the rider
+was urging the poor beast to his best speed. A chill feeling of disaster
+filled the little group; they hastened down to the walls and gave a
+shout of welcome, and the man waved his cap in answer.
+
+'Throw open the gate,' said the major, and they all rushed out to hear
+what the stranger had to tell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a fearful tale. The general in Cabul had listened to the promises
+of the son of the Dost Mohammed, and had ordered the five thousand
+troops and ten thousand other hangers-on of the British army to leave
+their position, in which they were safe, and trust themselves solely to
+the Afghans. Cold, hungry, and tired they struggled to the foot of the
+mountains; then the signal was given, the Afghans fell on their victims,
+and the few who escaped were lost among the snows of the passes. Only
+Dr. Brydon had been lucky enough to strike a path where no one followed
+him, and in spite of wounds and exhaustion had managed to reach the
+walls of Jellalabad.
+
+In silence the men listened, horror in their faces. It seemed impossible
+that Englishmen should have walked blindfold into such a trap, and
+besides the grief and rage they felt at the fate of their countrymen
+another thought was in the minds of all. The Afghans would be
+intoxicated by their success, and at any moment might swoop down upon
+the ill-defended Jellalabad. Instantly the gates were closed, the
+horses saddled, and every man went to his post. At night bonfires were
+lit and bugles sounded every half-hour to guide to the city any
+fugitives that might be hiding in the woods or behind the rocks. But
+none came--none ever came save Brydon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Sale was daily expecting a relief force under Wild; but
+instead there arrived the news that Wild had been unable to fight his
+way through the terrible Khyber Pass--the scene of more than one tragedy
+in Indian history.
+
+In face of this a council of war was again held to consider what was
+best to be done. Most of the officers wished to abandon the city and
+make terms with the Afghans, in spite of the lesson that had already
+been given them of what was the fate of those who trusted to Afghan
+faith. Only Broadfoot and Havelock opposed violently this resolution,
+and in the end their views prevailed. Jellalabad was to be defended by
+the garrison till general Pollock arrived from the East.
+
+So matters went for the next three months. By this time the raw troops
+that had entered the city had become steady and experienced soldiers.
+There was a little fighting every now and then, which served to keep up
+their spirits, and though food needed to be served out carefully, they
+were able sometimes to drive in cattle from the hills, which gave them
+fresh supplies. On February 19 Sale received a letter from general
+Pollock asking how long they could hold out, and he was writing an
+answer at a table, with Havelock beside him, when suddenly the table
+began to rock and the books slid on to the ground. Then a whirlwind of
+dust rushed past the window, making everything black as night, and the
+floor seemed to rise up under their feet.
+
+[Illustration: Suddenly the table began to rock.]
+
+The two men jumped up, and, blinded and giddy as they were, made their
+way outside, where they were nearly deafened with the noise of tumbling
+houses and the cries of hurt and frightened people. It was no use to
+fly, for havoc was all round them, and they were no safer in one place
+than another. At last the earth ceased to tremble and houses to fall;
+the dust stopped dancing and whirling, and the sun once more appeared.
+
+During the first shock of the earthquake Broadfoot was standing with
+another officer on the ramparts, his eyes fixed on the defences, which
+had caused him so much labour, and were now falling like nine-pins.
+
+'This is the time for Akbar Khan,' he said, and if Akbar had not dreaded
+the earthquake more than British guns the massacre of Cabul would have
+been repeated in Jellalabad. But though Akbar feared greatly, he knew
+that his soldiers feared yet more; he waited several days till the earth
+seemed peaceful again, and then rode up to a high hill from which he
+could overlook the city.
+
+'Why, it is witchcraft!' he cried, as he saw the defences all in their
+places; for Broadfoot's men had worked so well that in a week everything
+had been rebuilt exactly as before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+March passed with some skirmishes, but when April came the senior
+officers told Sale that they strongly advised an attack on Akbar, who,
+with six thousand men, had taken up a position on the Cabul river two
+miles from Jellalabad, and had placed an outpost of three hundred picked
+men only three-quarters of a mile outside the walls. Broadfoot had been
+badly wounded in a skirmish a fortnight before, and could not fight, so
+the attacking party, consisting of three divisions of five hundred each,
+were led by Dennie, Monteath and Havelock. Dennie was mortally wounded
+in trying to carry the outpost, and Havelock halted and formed some of
+his men into a square to await Akbar's charge, leaving part of his
+division behind a walled enclosure to the right.
+
+Having made his arrangements, Havelock stood outside the square and near
+to the wall, so that he could command both parties, and told his troops
+to wait till the Afghans were close upon them before they fired; but in
+their excitement they disobeyed orders, and Havelock's horse, caught
+between two fires, plunged and threw him. In another moment he would
+have been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry had not three of
+his soldiers dashed out from the ranks and dragged him into the square.
+
+[Illustration: In another moment he would have been trampled under the
+feet of the Afghan cavalry.]
+
+The enemy were thrown into confusion and retired to re-form. They
+charged again, and were again repulsed, and by seven that morning
+Akbar's camp was abandoned and his power broken.
+
+Pollock's assistance had not been needed; the garrison of Jellalabad had
+delivered themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no room in this story to tell of the many wars in which
+Havelock took part during the next fifteen years, always doing good work
+and gaining the confidence of his commanding officers. He fought in the
+war with the Mahrattas in 1843, and was made lieutenant-colonel after
+the battle of Maharajpore. The following year he was fighting by sir
+Hugh Gough's side in the Punjaub against the Sikhs, who were the best
+native soldiers in India, and had been carefully trained by French
+officers. In this war four battles took place in fifty-five days, all
+close to the river Sutlej, but the last action at the village of Sobraon
+put an end to hostilities for two years to come.
+
+'India has been saved by a miracle,' writes Havelock, 'but the loss was
+terrific on both sides.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1849 Havelock, who had exchanged from the 13th into the 39th, and
+again into the 53rd, applied for leave of absence to join his family in
+England. It was his first visit home for twenty-six years, and
+everything was full of interest to him. His health had broken down, and
+if he had been rich enough he would certainly have retired; but he had
+never been able to save a six-pence, and there were five sons and two
+daughters to be educated and supported. Should he die, Mrs. Havelock
+would have a pension of 70 l. a year, and the three youngest children
+20 l. each till they were fourteen, when it would cease. This, in
+addition to 1,000 l. which he possessed, was all the family had to
+depend on.
+
+Therefore, leaving them at Bonn, on the Rhine, where teaching was good
+and living cheap, he returned to India in December 1851, rested both in
+mind and body, and in good spirits. To his great joy a few months later
+his eldest son was given the adjutancy of the 10th Foot, and he himself
+was promoted to various posts where the pay was good and the work light.
+Now that he had some leisure he went back to his books, and in a letter
+to his youngest son, George, on his fifth birthday, he bids him read all
+the accounts he can find of the battles that had just been fought in the
+Crimea--Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman--and when his father came home to
+England again he would make him drawings, and show him how they were
+fought. But little George had to understand the battles as best he
+might, for his father never came back to explain them to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After serving in Persia during the early part of 1857, Havelock was
+suddenly ordered to return to India to take part in the struggle which
+gave him undying fame, and a grave at Lucknow before the year was out.
+According to the testimony of Kaye the historian, for half a century he
+had been seriously studying his profession, and knew every station
+between Burmah and Afghanistan! 'Military glory,' says Kaye, 'was the
+passion of his life, but at sixty-two he had never held an independent
+command.'
+
+Now, in the mutiny which had shaken our rule to its foundation, all
+Havelock's study of warfare and all his experience were to bear fruit. A
+great many causes had led up to that terrible outbreak of the native
+soldiers, or sepoys, early in 1857. India is, as you perhaps know, a
+huge country made up of different nations, some of whom are Mahometans,
+or followers of the prophet Mahomet, and worshippers of one God, while
+most of the rest have a number of gods and goddesses. These nations are
+divided into various castes or classes, each with its own rules, and
+the man of one caste will not eat food cooked by the man of another, or
+touch him, or marry his daughter, lest he should become unclean.
+
+It is easy to see how an army composed of all these races would be very
+hard to manage, especially as it is impossible for any white man, who is
+used to changes going on about him, really to understand the minds of
+people who have followed the same customs from father to son for
+thousands of years. And if it is difficult for the English officers to
+understand the Hindoos, it is too much to expect that soldiers without
+education should do so either.
+
+The true cause of the mutiny which wrought such havoc in so short a time
+in the north of India was that the number of our British soldiers had
+been greatly reduced, and some had been sent to the Crimea, some to
+Persia, and some to Burmah. Besides this, the government had been very
+weak for many years in its dealings with the native troops. Whenever the
+sepoys chose to grumble, which was very often indeed, their grievances
+were listened to, and they were generally given what they wanted--and
+next time, of course, they wanted more. To crown all, our arsenals
+containing military stores were mostly left unprotected, as well as our
+treasuries, and from the Indus to the Ganges the native army was waiting
+for a pretext to shake off the British rule.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This they found in an order given by the commander-in-chief that a new
+sort of rifle, called the Enfield rifle, should be used throughout
+India, and it was necessary that the cartridges with which it was loaded
+should be greased. As early as the month of January an English workman
+employed in the factory of Dumdum, near Calcutta, where the cartridges
+were made, happened one day to ask a sepoy soldier belonging to the 2nd
+Grenadiers to give him some water from his brass pot. This the sepoy
+refused, saying that he did not know what caste the man was of, and his
+pot might be defiled if he drank from it. 'That is all very fine,'
+answered the workman, 'but you will soon have no caste left yourself, as
+you will be made to bite off the ends of cartridges smeared with the fat
+of pigs and cows'--animals which the Hindoos held to be unclean.
+
+[Illustration: 'You will soon have no caste left yourself.']
+
+This story speedily reached the ears of the officer in charge at Dumdum,
+and on inquiry he found that the report had been spread through the
+native army that their caste was to be destroyed by causing them to
+touch what would defile them.
+
+General Hearsey, the commander of the Bengal division, instantly took
+what steps he could to prove to the sepoys that the government had no
+intention of making them break their caste, but it was too late.
+Chupatties, little cakes which are the common food of the people, were
+sent from town to town as a signal of revolt, and on February 19, 1857,
+the first troops mutinied.
+
+This was only the beginning; the message of the chupatties spread
+further and further, but even now the government failed to understand
+the temper of the people. The regiment which had been the earliest to
+rebel were merely disarmed and disbanded, and even this sentence was not
+carried out for five weeks, while they were allowed to claim their pay
+as usual. It is needless to say that in a few weeks the whole of
+Northern India was in a flame; the king of Delhi was proclaimed emperor,
+and every European who came in the way of the sepoys was cruelly
+murdered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was the state of things found by Havelock when he landed in Bombay
+from Persia, and was immediately sent on by the governor by sea to
+Calcutta, to resume his appointment of adjutant-general to the royal
+troops in Bengal. On the way his ship was wrecked, and he had to put in
+to Madras, where he heard that the commander-in-chief was dead, and
+that sir Patrick Grant, an old friend of Havelock's, had been nominated
+temporarily to the post.
+
+As soon as possible Havelock hurried on to Calcutta in company with
+Grant, and there the news reached them that Lucknow was besieged by the
+celebrated Nana Sahib, the leader of the sepoys and a skilful general,
+and that a force was being got ready to go to its relief.
+
+'Your excellency, I have brought you the man,' said Grant to lord
+Canning as he presented Havelock, and the command of the 64th and the
+78th Highlanders was entrusted to him. These last he knew well, as they
+had been with him in Persia, and he thought them 'second to none' in the
+service.
+
+But before you can understand all the difficulties Havelock had to fight
+with I must tell you a little about the towns on his line of march.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The instructions given to Havelock were to go first to the important
+city of Allahabad, situated at the place where the Ganges joins the
+Jumna. Allahabad had revolted in May, and the English garrison now
+consisted mainly of a few artillerymen between fifty and seventy years
+of age. Benares, the 'Holy City' of the Hindoos, a little further down
+the Ganges, had been saved by the prompt measures of the resident and
+the arrival of colonel Neill with a detachment of the 1st Fusiliers. The
+soldiers had come up from Madras and were instantly ordered to Benares,
+but when they reached the Calcutta station they found that the train
+which was to take them part of the way was just starting.
+
+The railway officials declared that there was no time for the troops to
+get in, and they would have to wait for the next train--many hours
+after. For all answer Neill turned to his troops, and told them to hold
+the engine driver and stoker till the company was seated. But for this
+the soldiers could not have got to Benares in time, for that very night
+had been fixed for the revolt.
+
+Having put down the rising at Benares, Neill pushed on over the eighty
+miles that separated him from Allahabad, the largest arsenal in India
+except Delhi. For five days the sepoys had been killing and plundering
+the British. On hearing of Neill's approach, two thousand of them
+encamped near the fort in order to hold it, but an attack of the
+Fusiliers soon dispersed them, and the commander ordered a large number
+to be executed in order to strike terror into the rest.
+
+Bad as was the state of things at Allahabad, where the railway had been
+destroyed and the garrison was weak, it was still worse in Cawnpore, a
+hundred and twenty miles higher up the Ganges. Here sir Hugh Wheeler was
+in command, and having spent his whole life among the sepoys it was long
+before he would believe in the tales of their treason. Even when at
+length his faith was partly shaken by the deeds done under his eyes, he
+still did not take all the precautions that were needful. His little
+fort, which was to be the last refuge of the sick and wounded, women and
+children, in case of attack, was a couple of barracks one brick thick,
+which had hitherto been used as a hospital, and in this he gave orders
+that provisions for a twenty-five days' siege should be stored. This was
+the place for which he intended to abandon the powder magazine, where he
+could have held the enemy at bay for months.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With inconceivable carelessness nobody saw that the orders for
+provisioning the fort were properly carried out, or the works of defence
+capable of resisting an attack. By May 22, however, even sir Hugh
+Wheeler was convinced that there was danger abroad, and he directed that
+the women and children, whose numbers were now swelled by fugitives
+from Lucknow and the surrounding towns, should be placed in it.
+Altogether the refugees amounted to about five hundred, and the force of
+men to defend them was about equal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The expected siege did not begin till June 6, when the plain which
+surrounds Cawnpore was black with sepoys, led by the treacherous Nana.
+For three weeks the prisoners inside the fort underwent the most
+frightful sufferings of every kind, and had it not been for the women
+the garrison would have tried to cut their way through to the river. As
+it was they felt they must stay--till the end.
+
+So the soldiers fought on, and the women helped as best they might,
+giving their stockings as bags for grape-shot, and tearing up their
+clothes to bind up wounds, till they had scarcely a rag to cover them.
+One, the gallant wife of a private of the 32nd, Bridget Widdowson,
+stood, sword in hand, over a number of prisoners tied together by a
+rope. Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her; her gun was
+instantly levelled at the hand which was trying to untie the rope, and
+not a man of them escaped while in her charge. By-and-by she was
+relieved by a soldier, and in his care many of them got away.
+
+[Illustration: Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her.]
+
+At length hope sprung up in their hearts, for Nana offered a
+safe-conduct for the garrison down the Ganges to Allahabad, if only sir
+Hugh Wheeler would surrender the city. It was a hard blow to the old
+general, and but for the women and children he and his men would gladly
+have died at their posts. But for their sakes he accepted the terms,
+first making Nana swear to keep them by the waters of the Ganges, the
+most sacred of all oaths to a Hindoo.
+
+The following morning a train of elephants, litters and carts was
+waiting to carry the sick, the women, and children down to the river, a
+mile away, for after their terrible imprisonment they were all too weak
+to walk; and behind them marched the soldiers, each with his rifle.
+Crowds lined the banks and watched them as they got into the boats, and
+pushed off with thankful hearts into the middle of the stream, leaving
+behind them, as they thought, the place where they had undergone such
+awful suffering. Suddenly those looking towards the shore saw a blinding
+flash and heard a loud report. Nana had broken his oath and ordered them
+to be fired on.
+
+One boat alone out of the whole thirty-nine managed to float down the
+stream, and the men in it landed and took refuge in a little temple, the
+maddened sepoys at their heels. But the fourteen Englishmen were
+desperate, and drove back their enemies again and again, till the sepoys
+heaped wood outside the walls and set it on fire. It was blowing hard,
+and the wind instead of fanning the flames put them out, and the
+defenders breathed once more. But their hopes were dashed again as they
+saw the besiegers set fire to the logs a second time, and, retiring to a
+safe distance, lay a trail of powder to blow up the temple. Then the men
+knew they had but one chance, and fixing their bayonets they charged
+into the crowd towards the river.
+
+When they reached the banks, seven had got through, and flung themselves
+into the stream. Half-starved and weak as they were, they could scarcely
+make head against the swift current, and three sank and disappeared. The
+other four were stronger swimmers, and contrived to hold out till they
+arrived at the territory of an Oude rajah who was friendly to the
+English.
+
+It was while they were resting here that they heard of the awful fate of
+their countrymen. After a time Nana had desired that the women and
+children should be spared, and the remnant were brought back to
+Cawnpore. They were lodged, all of them, in two rooms, and here these
+stayed, hardly able to breathe, and almost thankful when the expected
+doom fell on them. After their sufferings death was welcome, even though
+it came by the hand of Nana Sahib.
+
+All this time Havelock (now brigadier-general), ignorant of the horrors
+that were taking place, was advancing towards Cawnpore, which he knew
+must be in the hands of the English before it was possible to relieve
+Lucknow, lying further away across the plain to the north-west of
+Allahabad. Neill had sent forward a detachment of four hundred British
+soldiers and three hundred Sikhs under major Renaud, and Havelock, who
+had arrived in the town just as they were starting, promised to follow
+in a day or two, as soon as he could get ready a larger force. Eager
+soldier though he was, he had long ago laid to heart the truth of the
+old saying, 'for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe
+the horse was lost; for want of a horse the man was lost; for want of a
+man the kingdom was lost,' and he always took care that his nails were
+in their places. Therefore he waited a few days longer than he expected
+to do, and spent the time in enlisting a body of volunteer cavalry,
+formed partly of officers of the native regiments who had mutinied, of
+ruined shopkeepers, of fugitive planters, and of anybody else that could
+be taught to hold a gun.
+
+The general was still asleep in the hot darkness of July 1 when a tired
+horseman rode into camp and demanded to see him without delay. He was
+shown at once into the general's tent, and in a few short words
+explained that he had been sent by Renaud with the tidings of the
+massacre of Cawnpore.
+
+[Illustration: A tired horseman rode into camp.]
+
+Six days later 'Havelock's Ironsides,' numbering under two thousand men,
+of whom a fourth were natives, began the march to Cawnpore, and five
+days after the start they had won about half-way to the city the battle
+of Futtehpore. It was the first time since the mutiny broke out that the
+sepoys had been beaten in the field, and it shook their confidence,
+while it gave fresh courage to sir Henry Lawrence and the heroic band
+in the residency of Lucknow. But the relief which they hoped for was
+still many months distant, and Havelock was fighting his way inch by
+inch, across rivers, over bridges, along guarded roads, with soldiers
+often half-fed, and wearing the thick clothes that they had carried
+through the snows of a Persian winter. But they never flinched and never
+grumbled--they could even laugh in the midst of it all! During a fierce
+struggle for a bridge over the Pandoo river, one of the 78th Highlanders
+was killed by a round shot close to where Havelock was standing.
+
+'He has a happy death, Grenadiers,' remarked the general, 'for he died
+in the service of his country'; but a voice answered from behind:
+
+'For mysel, sir, gin ye've nae objection, I wud suner bide alive in the
+service of ma cuntra.' And let us hope he did.
+
+The guns across the bridge were captured with a dash, and the sepoys
+retreated on Cawnpore. In spite of their victory our men were too tired
+to eat, and flung themselves on the ground where they were. Next
+morning, July 16, they set out on a march of sixteen miles, after
+breakfasting on porter and biscuits, having had no other food for about
+forty hours.
+
+At the end of the sixteen miles march, which they had performed under a
+burning sun, the bugles sounded a halt. For three hours the troops
+rested and fed, and then two sepoys who had remained loyal to their salt
+came in with the news that in front of us Nana Sahib, with five thousand
+men and eight guns, was drawn up across the Grand Trunk road, down which
+he expected our guns to pass; and doubtless they would have been sent
+that way had it not been for the timely warning. Now Havelock, with a
+strong detachment, crept round through some mango groves between the
+enemy's left flank and the Ganges, and attacked from behind; the sepoys
+wheeled round in a hurry and confusion, and the Nana dared not order his
+right and centre to fire lest they should injure his own men, and before
+he could re-form them the pipers of the 78th had struck up and the
+Highlanders were upon them, the sound of the slogan striking terror into
+the heart of the Hindoos. Once more the Scots charged, led this time by
+Havelock himself, and the position was carried.
+
+Yet the Nana was hard to beat, and on the road to Cawnpore he halted
+again, and fresh troops streamed out from the gates to his help. It was
+his last chance; but he knew that the little British army was wearied
+out, and he counted on his reinforcements from the city. But Havelock
+noted the first sign of flagging as his men were marching across the
+ploughed fields heavy with wet, and knew that they needed the spur of
+excitement. 'Come, who is to take that village, the Highlanders or the
+Sixty-fourth?' cried he, and before the words were out of his mouth
+there was a rush forwards, and the village was taken.
+
+Still, even now the battle of Cawnpore was not ended. Once more the
+sepoys re-formed, but always nearer the city, and their deadly fire was
+directed full upon us. The general would have waited till our guns came
+up to answer theirs, but saw that the men were getting restless. So
+turning his pony till he faced his troops, while the enemy's guns were
+thundering behind him, he said lightly:
+
+'The longer you look at it the less you will like it. The brigade will
+advance, the left battalion leading.'
+
+The enemy's rout was complete, even before our guns had reached the
+field of battle. Next morning the news was brought in that while the
+battle for the deliverance was being fought the women and children
+inside the walls had been shot by order of the Nana. And, as a final
+blow, when, the day after, the victor rode through the gate of Cawnpore,
+a messenger came to tell him that his old friend sir Henry Lawrence, the
+defender of Lucknow, had been struck by a shell a fortnight previously,
+and had died two days later in great agony.
+
+'Put on my tombstone,' he gasped in an interval of pain, 'here lies
+Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty, and may God have mercy on
+him.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a while it seemed to Havelock that his whole mission had been a
+failure; and indeed he is said never to have recovered the two shocks
+that followed so close on each other, though there was no time to think
+about his feelings or indulge regret. Like Lawrence, he must 'try to do
+his duty,' and the first thing was to put the town in a state of defence
+lest the Nana should return, and sternly to check with the penalty of
+death the plundering and drunkenness and other crimes of his victorious
+army. Then, leaving Neill with three hundred men in Cawnpore, he
+prepared to cross the Ganges, now terribly swollen by the late rains,
+into the kingdom of Oude, of which Lucknow is the capital.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not for a moment did Havelock make light of the difficulties that lay
+before him. They would have been great enough with a large force, and
+his was now reduced to twelve hundred British soldiers, three hundred
+Sikhs, and ten guns, while cholera had begun to make its appearance.
+However, the passage had to be made somehow, and there must be no delay
+in making it.
+
+First, boats were collected, and as the boatmen secretly sided with the
+sepoys, the hundreds of little craft generally to be seen on the river
+had vanished. At length about twenty were found concealed, and as the
+Ganges was dangerous to cross in its present state, the old boatmen were
+bribed, by promises of safe-conduct and regular pay, to pilot the troops
+to the Oude bank. Even under their skilled guidance the river was so
+broad that a boat could not perform the passage under eight hours, and a
+week passed before the whole force was over and encamped on a strong
+position in Oude.
+
+Well, they were at last on the same side as Lucknow--that was something;
+but they still had forty-five miles to march, wide rivers to cross, and
+Nana to fight, and Havelock knew that the sepoy general had an instinct
+for war as keen as his own. But Lucknow must be relieved, and the sooner
+the work was begun the better.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days after the landing of the British a battle was fought at Onao
+against the steady, well-disciplined soldiers of Oude, whose gunners
+were said to be the best in India. The fighting was fiercer than any
+Havelock had yet experienced, but in the end the enemy was beaten back
+and fifteen guns taken. The next day there was another battle and
+another victory, but the general had lost a sixth of his men and a third
+of his ammunition--and he had only gone one-third of the way. Nana Sahib
+was hovering about with a large body of troops, ready to fall on him;
+how under the circumstances was it possible for him to reach Lucknow?
+
+Therefore, with soreness of heart, he gave the order to fall back till
+the reinforcements which he had been promised came up, and to send the
+sick and wounded, of which there were now many, across to Cawnpore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deep was the gloom and disappointment of the 'Ironsides' as they marched
+back along the road they had come; but far deeper and more awful was the
+disappointment of the garrison at Lucknow. They had looked on relief as
+so near and so certain that their hardships seemed already things of the
+past. Now it appeared as if they were abandoned, and the horrors of the
+siege felt tenfold harder to bear. In the heat of an Indian summer the
+women and children were forced to leave the upper part of the residency,
+where at least there was light and air, and seek safety in tiny rooms
+almost under ground, where shot and shell were less likely to penetrate.
+These cellars were swarming with large rats, and, what was worse, there
+was a constant plague of flies and other insects. Luckily, sir Henry
+Lawrence had collected large stores before he died, and had hidden away
+a quantity of corn so securely that colonel Inglis, the present
+commander, had no idea of its existence, and not knowing how long the
+siege might last, was very careful in dealing out rations. There was no
+milk or sugar for the babies, and many of them died.
+
+[Illustration: The place was swarming with rats.]
+
+Meanwhile Neill sent over urgent requests that Havelock would come to
+his assistance in Cawnpore, as he was threatened on all sides and could
+not hold out in case of an attack. Most reluctantly the general gave
+the order to recross the Ganges, but before doing so gave battle to a
+body of troops entrenched in his rear, and caused them to retreat. This
+raised the spirits of his soldiers a little, and they entered Cawnpore
+in a better temper than they had been in since their marching orders had
+been given.
+
+It was while he was in Cawnpore that Havelock received notice that
+major-general Outram was starting from Calcutta to his assistance, and
+owing to his superior rank in the army would naturally take command over
+Havelock's head, as successor to major-general sir Hugh Wheeler. This
+Havelock quite understood, and though disappointed, felt no bitterness
+on the subject, welcoming Outram as an old friend, under whom he was
+ready to serve cheerfully.
+
+Outram's answer to the generous spirit of Havelock's reception was a
+proclamation which showed that he understood and appreciated the
+services which seemed so ill-rewarded by the government, and that he too
+would not be behindhand in generosity. Till Lucknow was taken Havelock
+should be still in command, and it was Outram himself who would take the
+lower position.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Havelock had entered Cawnpore for the second time, he gave orders
+to break down the bridges of boats which had been thrown across the
+Ganges, so as to check any pursuit from the enemy. Therefore a floating
+bridge must be built over which the troops might pass; and so hard did
+the men work, that in three days the little army, consisting, with
+Outram's reinforcements, of 3,179 soldiers, was once more in Oude.
+
+Here the sepoys were awaiting them, but they were soon put to flight and
+some guns captured. In the confusion of the retreat the defeated army
+quite forgot to destroy the bridge over the Sye, a deep river flowing
+across the plain between the Ganges and the Goomtee, so that when the
+British force arrived next day they found nothing to prevent their
+crossing at once, as even the fortifications on this further bank had
+been abandoned. Soon a faint noise, as of thunder, broke on their ears.
+The men looked at each other and said nothing, but their eyes grew
+bright and their feet trod more lightly.
+
+It was the sound of the guns of Lucknow, sixteen miles away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On September 23 the British army reached the Alumbagh, the beautiful
+park and garden belonging to the king of Oude. Opposite 12,000 sepoys
+were drawn up, the right flank being protected by a swamp. In front of
+them was a ditch filled with water from the recent heavy rains, and the
+road itself was deep in mud, so that the passage of heavy guns was a
+difficult matter. But the soldiers came along with a gallop and got
+through the ditch somehow, following our cavalry, which were already on
+the other side. On they flew, cavalry and gunners, wheeling so as to get
+behind the right of the sepoys, while Eyre's artillery, stationed in the
+road, raked with fire the centre and the left. The enemy wavered and
+showed signs of giving way, but one gun manned by Oude artillerymen
+remained steady. Then young Johnson, who led the Irregular Horse, dashed
+along the road for half a mile, followed by a dozen of his men, killed
+the gunners and threw the gun into the ditch. When he returned to his
+post the enemy was flying to the Charbagh bridge across the canal, with
+our army behind them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was no use attempting to take the bridge that day; the troops were
+exhausted and wet through, and the position strongly fortified. The
+order was given to encamp, but there were no tents and no baggage, and
+after drinking some grog which was fortunately obtained, the men lay
+down on the wet ground wrapped in their great-coats, the rain pouring
+heavily on them. But wet, weary and hungry as they were, a great shout
+of joy rent the air when Outram announced that he had just received news
+that Delhi had been recaptured by the English.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day the sun was shining, and as the baggage waggons came up the
+men changed the soaking clothes, and slept and rested while the generals
+anxiously discussed the best plan for getting into Lucknow. There were
+three ways to choose from, all full of danger and difficulty, but in the
+end it was decided to force the passage of the Charbagh bridge over the
+canal.
+
+This the enemy had evidently expected, for they had erected across it a
+barrier seven feet in height, with six guns, one a 24-pounder. Beyond
+the bridge, along the canal, were tall houses, and from every window and
+loophole a deadly fire would pour. And even supposing that the bridge
+was carried, the troops would have to pass through narrow streets and
+gardens and palaces, under showers of bullets at every step.
+
+Yet this seemed the only way to Lucknow.
+
+As for the sick and wounded, they were left with the stores and a guard
+of three hundred men at the Alumbagh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Breakfast was over by half-past eight on the morning of September 25,
+when the order was given to advance. The first opposition met with by
+the leading column, headed by Outram, was near the Yellow House, which
+lay along the road to the bridge. Here Maude, one of the best officers
+in the army, who was to win his V.C. that day, charged the two guns
+whose fire was so deadly, and silenced them, and the troops went on till
+they were close to the canal. Then Outram took the 5th Fusiliers and
+bore away to the right in order to clear the gardens of the sepoys
+hidden in them, and to draw off the attention of the enemy; lieutenant
+Arnold, with a company of the Madras Fusiliers, took his station on the
+left of the bridge with orders to fire at the houses across the canal,
+and right out in the open facing the bridge was Maude, with two light
+guns straight in front of the battery. In a bend of the road on one side
+some of the Madras Fusiliers supported him, and on the other side, a
+little way off, stood Neill and his detachment, waiting for the
+diversion to be made by Outram's movement.
+
+To Neill's surprise, not a trace of Outram was to be seen, and Maude
+stood shelterless, his gunners falling before the continuous fire from
+the bridge. Again and again the Fusiliers from behind filled their
+places, only to be swept down like the rest, and now Maude and a
+subaltern were doing the work.
+
+'You must do something,' called out Maude to young Havelock; 'I cannot
+fight the guns much longer.' Havelock nodded and rode through the fire
+that was raking the road to Neill, urging him to order a charge. But
+Neill refused. He was not in command, he replied, and could not take
+such a responsibility. The young aide-de-camp did not waste time in
+arguing, but hurried on to Fraser-Tytler, only to receive the same
+answer. Then, turning his horse's head, he galloped hard down the road,
+in the direction of the spot where his father was stationed. In a few
+minutes he was back and, reining up his horse at Neill's side, while he
+saluted with his sword, he said breathlessly:
+
+'You are to charge the bridge, sir.'
+
+It did not occur to Neill that there had not been time for young
+Havelock to have reached his father's position and come back so soon,
+and therefore that no such order could have been given by the general,
+and was simply the invention of the aide-de-camp himself. Quite
+unsuspiciously, therefore, he bade the buglers sound the advance, and
+Arnold, with twenty-five of his men, rushed on to the bridge and were
+instantly shot down. For fully two minutes Harry Havelock on his horse
+kept his position in front of the guns with only a private beside him,
+and the dead lying in heaps on all sides.
+
+'Come on! Come on!' he cried, turning in his saddle and waving his
+sword, while the fire from the houses was directed upon him, and a ball
+went through his hat.
+
+And they 'came on' with a rush, wave upon wave, till the guns were
+silenced and the barrier carried.
+
+The aide-de-camp had indeed 'done something.'
+
+[Illustration: The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The 78th Highlanders held the bridge for three hours till the whole
+force was over, and desperate fighting was going on all the time, for
+the enemy was coming up in dense numbers. At length a detachment
+advanced to a little temple further up the road, which was held by the
+sepoys, and succeeded in turning them out. But once inside, the
+Highlanders could only defend it with their swords, for the cartridges
+were so swelled by exposure to the rain that they would not go into the
+guns. After an hour, young Havelock, whose duty lay at the bridge, sent
+up some fresh cartridges, and then Webster, who from the shelter of the
+temple had been impatiently watching the action of three small cannon
+which had been firing down the Cawnpore road, exclaimed:
+
+'Who's for those guns?'
+
+'I'm for the guns!' they all shouted, and the temple door was opened and
+Webster leaped out, Macpherson, the adjutant, and the men following. The
+guns when captured were thrown into the canal, where those of the
+Charbagh bridge were already lying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps the most trying part of the whole campaign was the advance
+towards the residency through the narrow streets, where the very women
+flung down stones, and from the roofs and windows a ceaseless fire
+poured upon our men. Deep trenches had been cut along the cross-roads in
+order to make the horses stumble, and the smoke was so thick that men
+and beasts were nearly blinded. It was here that Neill fell, shot in the
+head, and Webster found a grave instead of the Victoria Cross, which
+would certainly have been given him. Then there was a rush forward, and
+they were within the gates.
+
+For the first few minutes the men did not know what they were saying or
+doing, so great was the excitement on both sides; but soon it was plain
+that the rescuing party were utterly exhausted, and needed rest, and
+what food might be forthcoming, which was neither good nor plentiful.
+Most of all they must have rejoiced in the possibility of changing their
+clothes, stiff with mud and wet, for Havelock tells us that he himself
+entered the city with one suit which had hardly been off his back for
+six weeks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Outram resumed his proper position as commander, and Havelock
+took a subordinate place as brigadier-general. But to him fell the task
+of making up his despatches and recommending certain of his men for the
+Victoria Cross. In this Havelock was especially begged by Outram to
+mention his son Harry for his gallantry on the Charbagh bridge; corporal
+Jakes, who was also worthy of the honour, had unhappily been killed
+later in the day. Unluckily, young Havelock had, against his own will,
+been previously recommended for the decoration by his father for an act
+of extraordinary bravery, but one which he had no sort of right to
+perform.
+
+In the battle of Cawnpore young Havelock, then a lieutenant in the 10th
+Foot, and aide-de-camp to his father, was sent to order the 64th, who
+had been under a heavy fire all day, and were now lying on the ground,
+to advance with some other regiments, and take a gun of twenty-four
+pounds, which was sweeping the road in front. The 64th at once formed
+up, but before they had started their major's horse was shot under him,
+and he was forced to dismount. Harry Havelock, carried away by
+excitement, never gave him time to get another, but calling on the men
+to follow him, rode straight to the mouth of the gun and stayed there
+till it was captured.
+
+Now of course this was a deed of wonderful courage, and no man denied
+it, but it is curious that so stern a supporter of discipline as
+Havelock did not see that his son had put himself in a position where he
+had no right to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery of
+the major, who except for the accident of his horse being shot would
+have led the men himself. But Havelock, full of pride in his son's
+action, insisted, to the great mortification of the 64th, on
+recommending him for the Victoria Cross, though the young man himself,
+when his excitement had calmed down, implored his father to leave out
+his name, declaring that the recommendation would be put down to
+affection. For a month he managed to delay the despatch, but in the end
+it was sent and the Cross granted. Therefore Outram's recommendation
+after the relief of Lucknow was disregarded, and only captain Maude's
+V.C. is associated with the Charbagh bridge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But although Havelock's force had successfully won its way into the
+residency of Lucknow, the town was in no way 'relieved,' for the British
+troops were few and the sepoys many. The besieging army crowded up as
+before, and bored mines under the buildings, which kept our men
+continually on the watch to hinder the town from blowing up. Every day
+Havelock went round the entrenchments, and then he returned to the
+house, to pass some hours in reading, for now that the frightful strain
+of the last six weeks was over he felt tired and broken, and unfit for
+work. Much of the time he spent in visiting the banqueting hall, which
+had months before been made into a hospital for the soldiers, but there
+was little that he or anyone else could do to help them, for all
+medicines and bandages and food suited to sick people had been used up
+long ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In this manner seven weeks went slowly by, while the garrison was
+waiting for the arrival of sir Colin Campbell, commander-in-chief in
+India, with an army of nearly five thousand men, a mere handful in
+numbers compared with the enemy, but yet enough to compass what is known
+in history as 'the second relief of Lucknow.' By November 9 news came
+that the British troops had reached the Alumbagh, but it was absolutely
+necessary that the commander-in-chief should know Outram's plans for the
+defence of the city, and tell him the manner in which he himself
+intended to attack.
+
+How was this to be done? The country lying between the two generals was
+covered with small detachments of sepoys carefully entrenched, and it
+seemed impossible for any man to pass through them. Yet without some
+knowledge of the sort and of the state of affairs in the residency the
+relief expedition could not advance without frightful loss, and might
+perhaps end in failure.
+
+Then there entered the room where Outram and Havelock were gloomily
+talking over the matter a man, Henry Cavanagh by name, who said that he
+would undertake to get through the pickets of sepoys and carry any
+message to the English camp. Outram was amazed. Brave though they all
+were, not one soldier had volunteered for this forlorn hope, not because
+they were afraid, but because if our maps and plans fell into the
+enemy's hands, the destruction of our army would certainly follow; and
+if a soldier could not do it, with all his experience of war, how could
+this man, who knew nothing of soldiering, except what he had learned
+during the siege? But when the general looked at Cavanagh's face his
+doubts vanished.
+
+Disguised as a native and speaking the language like one, Cavanagh made
+his way slowly through the lines till the open plain was reached. Here
+he breathed more freely, for, though many dangers awaited him, the worst
+risks were over. Often he had seen suspicion in the eyes of the sepoys,
+and felt that a terrible death was very near, but he had kept his head
+and got through somehow. At length he was within the Alumbagh and could
+speak with sir Colin face to face.
+
+[Illustration: Often ... he had felt that a terrible death was very
+near.]
+
+The return journey still lay before him, but now he knew better what he
+was about, and reached the residency without accident. On November 14
+the relieving force was to begin its advance on the town, and on the
+15th the general signalled that the attack would begin next day.
+
+This last fight was a desperate one for both sides, and continued far
+into the night, while at the Kaiserbagh, or king's palace, the fire was
+fiercest of all. The brave deeds that were done that day would fill a
+volume, but at length it was over, and Lucknow once more flew the
+British flag, planted on the highest tower of the mess house by the hand
+of young Roberts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Did Havelock, one asks oneself, know that this was his last fight also?
+He had been present during the whole struggle, but when it was done sank
+into the weakness which seemed daily to grow greater. The
+commander-in-chief had informed him--probably by means of Cavanagh--that
+on September 29 he had been gazetted major-general, and the somewhat
+tardily bestowed honour filled him with pleasure. If he had been able to
+see any English papers he would have known how eagerly the nation
+followed his footsteps, and how warmly they rejoiced in his success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The capture of Lucknow was only three days old when Havelock was taken
+suddenly ill. In order to get him away from the close, infected air of
+the town, he was carried in a litter to a quiet wooded place, called the
+Dilkoosha, near a bend of the river Goomtee, where a tent was pitched
+for him, but as the bullets of the enemy fell around him even here, a
+more sheltered spot had to be found for him to lie. His illness did not
+appear at first very serious, but he himself felt that he would not
+recover. Perhaps he hardly wished to, for he had 'fought a good fight,'
+and was too tired to care for anything but rest. His son, whose wound,
+received on the day of the fight for the residency, was still unhealed,
+sat on the ground by the litter, and gave him anything he wanted. For a
+time he lay quiet, and in the afternoon of the 23rd Outram came to see
+him, and holding out his hand, Havelock bade his friend good-bye.
+
+'I have so ruled my life for forty years that when death came I might
+face it without fear,' he said; and next morning death did come.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Marching on the 25th into the Alumbagh, the victorious army bore with
+them Havelock's body, still lying in the litter on which he died. They
+dug a grave for him under a mango tree, on which an H. was cut to mark
+the place--all they dared do with hosts of the enemy swarming round
+them, ready to offer insult to the dead who had defied them.
+
+Thus Henry Havelock died and was buried, though the news did not reach
+England for six weeks. So he never knew how the hearts of his countrymen
+had been stirred by his courage and his constancy, and that his queen
+had made him a baronet and Parliament had voted him a pension of
+1,000 l. a year, which was continued to his widow and to his son. But
+
+        Guarded to a soldier's grave
+        By the bravest of the brave,
+        He hath gained a nobler tomb
+        Than in old cathedral gloom.
+        Nobler mourners paid the rite
+        Than the crowd that craves a sight.
+        England's banners o'er him waved--
+        Dead, he keeps the realm he saved.
+
+
+
+
+CONSCIENCE OR KING?
+
+
+Now we come to quite another sort of hero; a man who enjoyed every day
+of his life, and loved books and music and pets of all sorts; who played
+with his children and made jokes with them; who held two of the greatest
+offices an Englishman can hold, yet laid his head on the scaffold by
+order of the king, because his conscience forbade him to swim with the
+tide and to take an oath that king demanded of him. If you try, you will
+find that this sort of heroism is more difficult than the other. There
+is no excitement about it, and no praise. Your friends talk of you with
+contempt, and call you a dreamer and a man who sacrifices his family to
+his own whims. And very often the family agree with him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'Verily, daughter, I never intend to pin my soul to another man's back,
+for I know not whither he may hap to carry it. Some may do for favour,
+and some may do for fear, and so they might carry my soul a wrong way.'
+
+These were the words of sir Thomas More to his favourite daughter when
+she came to him in prison, urging him to do as his friends had done, and
+swear to acknowledge the king as head of the church instead of the pope.
+All his life he had 'carried' his own soul himself, and that was no
+small thing to be able to say in the reign of Henry VIII., when men's
+hearts failed them for fear, not knowing from day to day what the tyrant
+might demand of them.
+
+Thomas More came of a family bred to the law, and his father, afterwards
+made a knight and a judge, seems to have been kindly and pleasant, and
+like his son in many ways, especially in his fondness for children. He
+set great store by books and learning, and taught Thomas to love them
+too. The boy was born when the Wars of the Roses were just over, and the
+country was beginning to settle down again. In London king Edward IV.
+was still the favourite of the people, and after his death, in 1483,
+Thomas, then five years old, happened to overhear a gentleman telling
+his father that it was prophesied duke Richard of Gloucester would be
+king. When the prophecy came to pass, and Richard snatched the crown for
+himself, many besides little Thomas were filled with wonder. For Richard
+had played his part so well that few guessed at what he really was, or
+that the murder of his nephews would be nothing to him, if he could
+mount the throne on their bodies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At that period boys were sent early to school, and after careful
+inquiries, John More decided to put his son under the charge of one
+Nicholas Holt, headmaster of St. Anthony's in Threadneedle Street, a
+school founded by Henry VI. Here Thomas spent most of his time in
+learning Latin, which it was necessary for a gentleman to know. Foreign
+languages were very little studied; instead, Latin was used; hence
+ambassadors addressed each other in that tongue, and in it men wrote
+letters, and often books. Thomas, who had been accustomed all his life
+to hear Latin quoted by his father and the lawyers who came to his house
+in Milk Street, soon mastered most of the difficulties, knowing well
+that he would be considered stupid and ignorant if when he left school
+he should ever make a mistake in his declensions, or forget the gender
+of a noun.
+
+When John More was satisfied with his son's progress in Latin, he got
+leave for him to enter, as was the custom, the house of cardinal Morton
+as a sort of page. Thomas was then about twelve, quick and observant,
+and though fond of joking, good-tempered and prudent, taking care to
+hurt the feelings of nobody. Morton was both a clever and a learned man,
+a good speaker and excellent lawyer, and the king, Henry VII.,
+frequently took counsel with him and profited by his experience. On his
+side, Morton took a fancy to the boy, whose sharp answers amused him.
+His keen eyes noticed that Thomas, who, with the other pages, waited at
+dinner upon the cardinal and his guests, listened to all that was being
+said, while never neglecting his own especial duties.
+
+'This child will prove a marvellous man,' Morton one day whispered to
+his neighbour, and the neighbour lived to prove the truth of his words.
+
+Thomas greatly enjoyed the two years he passed in Morton's house, and
+made many friends, both amongst his companions and with the older men.
+There was always something going on which pleased and interested him,
+for he was very sociable, and liked, above everything, a 'good
+argument.' At Christmas time all kinds of shows and pageants were to
+take place, and the young pages could hardly sleep for excitement,
+though their appetites never failed, and the huge pieces of pasty put on
+their wooden or pewter plates disappeared surprisingly quick. Of course
+they had no forks to help themselves with, but each boy possessed a
+knife of his own, in which he took great pride, and a spoon made either
+of horn or pewter. At Christmas they were given plenty of good things as
+a treat, and the cardinal, like other great men, flung open his doors,
+and feasted the poor as well as the rich. Then companies of strolling
+players would come by, and beg permission to amuse the guests by their
+acting. On this Christmas Day in 1490 the play was in full swing when
+young Thomas suddenly appeared on the stage in the great hall, and began
+to 'make a part of his own, never studying for the matter, which made
+the lookers-on more sport than all the players beside.' It must have
+been rather difficult for the poor actors to go on with their parts when
+they did not know what the boy was going to say next; but Thomas seems
+to have been as clever as he was impudent, and the play ended in
+applause and laughter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In those days boys grew into young men much earlier than they do now,
+and set about earning their living, and even getting married, at an age
+when to-day they would probably just be leaving a public school. So we
+are not surprised at hearing that when Thomas was only fourteen he was
+sent by cardinal Morton to Canterbury Hall, Oxford, a college which
+afterwards became part of Christ Church, founded by Wolsey. The elder
+More was a poor man, and Thomas was not his only child; five others had
+been born to him, but, as far as we can gather, three of these died when
+they were still babies. Thomas had been brought up from his earliest
+years to do without many things which must have seemed necessaries to
+the richer boys in Morton's house. But he cared little that his dress
+was so much plainer than theirs, and that when he went home he had what
+food was needful and no more. As long as he had books, and somebody to
+talk to about them, he was quite happy, but even he found the fare of an
+Oxford scholar rather hard to digest. However, throughout his life he
+always made the best of things, and if he ever went to bed hungry, well,
+nobody but himself was any the wiser. Law was the study his father
+wished him specially to follow, but he was eager too to learn Greek,
+which had lately been introduced into the University, and to improve his
+Latin style. He also wrote verses, as was beginning to be the fashion
+with young men, and worked out problems in arithmetic and geometry,
+while, after his regular work was done, he would carry a French or Latin
+chronicle to his small window, and pore over the history of bygone
+times. In his spare moments he would play some old music on the flute or
+practise on the viol.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After two years, when, according to his son-in-law Roper, 'he was both
+in the Greek and Latin tongues sufficiently instructed, he was then, for
+the study of the law of the realm, put to an Inn of Chancery, called New
+Inn, where for his time he prospered very well, and from thence was
+admitted to Lincoln's Inn, with very small allowance, continuing there
+his study until he was made and accounted a worthy barrister.' Like the
+other youths of his own age--Thomas was eighteen when he was admitted to
+Lincoln's Inn--he attended classes where law was taught by professors,
+or 'readers,' and took part in the proceedings of mock trials, old
+French being the language used. When the trial was over, the reader and
+other teachers gave their opinions as to the way in which the scholars
+had pleaded, and pointed out the mistakes they had made. We may be sure
+that young More delighted in this 'exercise,' and he evidently excelled
+in it, for he was soon given a 'readership' himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was during the year following his admission to Lincoln's Inn that
+More met for the first time his lifelong friend, the celebrated Erasmus.
+Erasmus, the most learned and witty man of his time, came over from
+Holland to stay with his former pupil, lord Mountjoy, in his country
+house, and while there the young lawyer was invited also to pay a visit
+and to make acquaintance with the famous scholar. In spite of the ten
+years difference in their ages--More was then twenty-one and Erasmus
+ten years older--they took pleasure in almost exactly the same things,
+and in their walks through the woods and about the neighbouring villages
+would discuss merrily, in Latin of course, all manner of subjects.[1]
+One day the two bent their steps to the place where Henry VII.'s younger
+children were living, under the care of tutors and ladies. Princess
+Margaret, the eldest, afterwards queen of Scotland, stood solemnly
+beside her brother Henry, aged nine, who received them with the grand
+manner he could always put on when he chose. Princess Mary, at that time
+four years old, was kneeling on the floor playing with her dog, and paid
+no heed to the visitors, whom she thought old and dull. Erasmus was
+astonished to notice More present prince Henry with a roll on which
+something, he could not tell what, was written. The prince took it with
+a smile, and then looked at Erasmus, who guessed directly that a similar
+offering was expected from him also; and this was confirmed by a message
+sent him by Henry while the guests were dining, to say how much he hoped
+to receive some remembrance of the visit of the great scholar. The
+Dutchman, thus pressed, returned answer that had he dreamed his highness
+would value any work from his poor pen, he would certainly have prepared
+himself, but having been taken by surprise, he could only ask grace for
+three days, by which time he would have composed a poem, however
+unworthy.
+
+[Footnote 1: On parting, they promised to write to each other, and many
+letters passed between them in the three years that Erasmus remained in
+England. Previous to his departure, they met once more in lord
+Mountjoy's house, and there their walk and talks were resumed.]
+
+The poem when written was of some length, and full of the praises of the
+king, his country, and his children. It does not sound amusing, and
+probably Henry, content with possessing what in these days we should
+call 'Erasmus's autograph,' did not trouble himself to read much of it.
+
+[Illustration: Erasmus was astonished to notice More present Prince
+Henry with a roll.]
+
+For three years More held his readership; then he seems to have had a
+wish to become a priest, and, in his son-in-law's words, 'gave himself
+to devotion and prayer in the Charterhouse of London, religiously
+living there, without vow, about four years.'
+
+Religious More remained all his life, but at the end of the four years
+he felt that his place was in the world rather than in a monastery, and
+this decision was largely helped by a visit he paid to master Colt in
+Essex, a gentleman with three daughters. 'Albeit,' says Roper, 'his mind
+most served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the
+fairest and best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both
+great grief and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister
+preferred before her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his
+fancy toward her and married her.'
+
+This was indeed being good-natured and obliging, and one hopes that the
+bride never guessed the reason why he had asked her to be his wife. The
+young couple settled down in Bucklersbury in the City, and More
+continued his studies at Lincoln's Inn and his attendance at
+Westminster, for he had been elected a member of Parliament almost as
+soon as he left the Charterhouse and before his marriage. Very early he
+had given proof that he did not intend 'to pin his conscience to another
+man's back' by refusing to vote for a large grant of money demanded by
+Henry VII. as a dowry for his eldest daughter. Chiefly owing to More,
+the grant was refused, and 'the king,' according to Roper, 'conceiving
+great indignation towards him, could not be satisfied until he had in
+some way revenged it. And for as much as he (Thomas) nothing having,
+nothing could lose, his grace (the king) devised a causeless quarrel
+against his father (the elder More), keeping him in the Tower till he
+had made him pay a hundred pounds fine.'
+
+No doubt it was very hard for the More family to raise the money, equal
+to about 1,200 l. in our day, and Thomas's heart was hot with wrath. He
+angrily spurned various attempts made to gain him over, and 'for some
+time thought of leaving England and trying his fortune in other lands.'
+In fact, he did pay a short visit both to the Low Countries and to
+Paris, but he could not make up his mind to settle in either, and
+decided that he could do better for his wife and small children by
+continuing his practice at the Bar. The next year Henry VII. died, and
+More hoped that a new era was beginning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The household in Bucklersbury was as happy as any that could have been
+found in London. Its mistress, Joan Colt, was, when she married, a
+country girl, cleverer at making possets and drying herbs than at
+reading books or playing on the viol. But More, who charmed everybody,
+easily charmed his wife, and to please him she studied whatever books he
+gave her, and worked hard at her music. But after five years she died,
+leaving him with four babies, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John, and
+in a few months More saw himself obliged to marry again. This time he
+chose a widow with a daughter of her own--a lady 'neither young nor
+handsome,' as he tells Erasmus--but an excellent housekeeper, and the
+best of mothers to his children.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+More soon became known not only as an honest man above all bribery, but
+as a generous one who would often refuse to take payment for pleading
+the cause of a poor man or a widow. His practice at the Bar increased,
+and he was made a judge, or under-sheriff, his income reaching 400 l. a
+year, which would now be reckoned about 5,000 l. He needed it all, for
+besides his own four children and his stepdaughter he had adopted
+another girl. This girl, Margaret Gigs, afterwards married a learned
+man, Dr. Clements, who lived in More's house, and probably shared with
+John Harris the duties of secretary and of tutor in Greek and Latin to
+the children. We must not forget either the 'fool,' Henry Patenson, or
+sir Thomas's special friend and confidant, William Roper, by-and-by to
+be the husband of More's favourite daughter, Margaret, and the man to
+whom his heart opened more freely than to anyone else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It naturally took a good deal of money to support this large household
+and to save something for the children, as well as to bestow a tenth
+part of his income on the poor, as was More's rule through life. His
+charity did not consist in giving to everyone that asked, thereby doing
+more harm than good, but he went himself to the cottage to make sure
+that the tale he heard was true, and then would gladly spend what was
+needed to set the family in the way of earning their own living. If they
+proved to be ill, dame Alice, whose heart was soft though her words were
+harsh, would bid one of the girls take them nourishing food or possets,
+and often the poor pensioners would be invited to the house, to share
+the family dinner. At other times the guests would be men of learning,
+such as Colet, afterwards dean of St. Paul's, and founder of St. Paul's
+School, now moved to Hammersmith; Linacre or Grocyn, old friends of long
+ago; and of course Erasmus, if he happened to be in London. Poor dame
+Alice must have had a dull time of it, for while the room rang with
+merry jests in Latin, flavoured sometimes with a little Greek, and even
+the children could join in the laughter, she alone was ignorant of the
+matter, and felt as a deaf man feels when he watches people dancing to
+music that he cannot hear. She must have welcomed the moment when they
+left the table, and she could show off the skill she had gained since
+her marriage on four musical instruments, on which, to please her
+husband, she practised daily--for no man ever lived who was as clever
+as Sir Thomas in coaxing people to do as he wished. Quite meekly, though
+she had a quick temper, she bore his teasing remarks as he watched her
+'binding up her hair to make her a fair large forehead, and with
+strait-bracing in her body to make her middle small, both twain to her
+great pain'; while she on her part was frequently vexed that he 'refused
+to go forward with the best,' and had no wish 'greatly to get upward in
+the world.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet, in spite of the modesty which vexed his wife so much, More's fame
+grew daily wider. The king, Henry VIII., who at this time was at his
+best, had always kept an eye on him, and soon bade Wolsey seek him out.
+Now More and Wolsey were so different in their ways and in their views
+that they could never have become real friends, for while Wolsey was
+ambitious, More was always content with what he had, and never desired
+to thrust himself into notice. At first he resisted the cardinal's
+advances; but rudeness was impossible to him, and as there was no means
+of checking Wolsey's persistence, he had to put aside his own feelings
+and appear both at the cardinal's house and at court. Indeed, such good
+company did Henry find him that, as quick to take fancies as he was to
+tire of them, he would hardly allow the poor man to spend an evening
+alone, so sir Thomas in despair gave up being amusing, and sat silent,
+though no doubt with a twinkle in his eye, resisting all the king's
+efforts to make him speak, till at length everyone grew weary of him,
+and his place was filled by some livelier man.
+
+How Sir Thomas laughed, and what funny stories he told about it all,
+when he had gained his object, at his own table.
+
+[Illustration: Sir Thomas sat silent.]
+
+So the years slipped by, and brought with them many unsought honours to
+sir Thomas. Several times he was sent abroad on missions which needed
+an honest man, as well as a shrewd one, to carry them through. Sometimes
+he was the envoy of the citizens of London, sometimes of the king
+himself, and he was present at the wonderful display of magnificence
+known to history as 'The Field of the Cloth of Gold'--the meeting of
+Francis of France, Henry of England, and the emperor Charles V. He had
+remained in London during the fearful time of the sweating sickness, to
+which people would fall victims while opening a window, playing with
+their children, or even lying asleep. Death followed almost at once, and
+'if the half in every town escaped it was thought great favour.' It
+spared the house in Bishopsgate in which More had for some time been
+living, and where he stayed till, four years later, he moved to a
+country place at Chelsea.
+
+Few men have held more dignities than sir Thomas More, or have earned
+greater respect in the holding. Within eight years he was
+Under-Treasurer, or, as we should say, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+Speaker of the House of Commons, and finally Lord Chancellor. Even dame
+Alice must have been satisfied; but her content only lasted three years,
+as by that time events had occurred which made it necessary either for
+sir Thomas to resign the Great Seal always entrusted to the lord
+chancellor, or else 'to tie his conscience to another man's back,' and
+that back the king's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1531 Henry had decided to divorce his wife, Katherine of Aragon, and
+to marry in her stead the beautiful Anne Boleyn. His desire met with
+violent opposition from almost all churchmen, and from many statesmen,
+among whom was sir Thomas More. The pope, of course, entirely refused
+his consent to any such violation of the law, and Henry, whom resistance
+only made more obstinate, suddenly resolved to cut himself off
+altogether from Rome, and declare that he, and not the pope, was the
+head of the English church. This meant that he could do as he pleased
+and make his own laws, and he lost no time in demanding the assent of
+Parliament to his new claim, and afterwards that of the clergy. Once
+these were obtained, there would be nothing to hinder him from divorcing
+his first wife and marrying his second. In fact, he would be his own
+pope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a year the battle raged fiercely, and More watched anxiously for the
+issue. He withdrew himself as far as possible from the king, and kept as
+much as might be to his own business. At length Henry was victorious.
+The greater part of the clergy cast off their allegiance to the pope and
+took the oath required by the king. Sir Thomas saw and understood, and
+placed his resignation as lord chancellor in the hands of his sovereign.
+
+The loss of his office left More a poor man, and to support the whole
+family in Chelsea he had only an income of 1,200 l. a year. To his
+great regret, he felt he could no longer lead the easy, happy life that
+had been so pleasant to him. So the various married men, husbands of the
+girls of the house, took away their wives and sought employment
+elsewhere. Only the Ropers remained at hand.
+
+Sir Thomas himself was glad enough to be free of his duties, and to have
+time to read books and to prepare himself for the trial of faith that
+was sure to come, though at present the king had only fair words for
+him, and the clergy had subscribed a large sum as a proof of the esteem
+in which they held him. More was much touched and pleased with this
+gift, but he refused to accept it, or to allow his family to do so;
+instead, he sold his plate and bade dame Alice be careful of her
+household expenses.
+
+If left to himself, Henry might perhaps have allowed sir Thomas, whom
+he undoubtedly liked, to remain in peace, but his absence from her
+coronation rankled deep in Anne Boleyn's heart. The late chancellor was
+a man of mark in the sight of Europe, and could count famous men of all
+nations among his friends. If he could not be gained over, he must be
+punished, for the eyes of England were upon him, and he had but to hold
+up his hand for many to follow. So he was one of the first bidden to
+take the oath, swearing to put aside the claims of the princess Mary,
+daughter of Katherine of Aragon, and to settle the crown on the children
+of the new queen.
+
+It was in April 1534 that More was summoned before the royal
+commissioners, consisting of Audley, who had succeeded him in the
+chancellorship, the abbot of Westminster, Thomas Cromwell as secretary
+of state, and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. At More's own request,
+the Act of Succession, as it was called, was given into his hand, and he
+read it through. When he had finished, he informed the commissioners
+that he had nothing to say as to the Act itself or to the people that
+took the oath, but that he himself must refuse.
+
+It was probably no more than they expected; but Audley replied that he
+was very sorry for it, as no man before had declined to swear, and that
+sir Thomas might see for himself the names of those who had already
+signed, whose consciences were perhaps as tender as his own. More
+glanced down the long roll unfolded before him, but only repeated his
+answer, nor could any persuasions induce him to give a different one. He
+was willing, it seems, to take an oath of obedience to the sovereign and
+his successors, but what he would _not_ do was to swear that the king
+was the head of the church, and some words declaring this had been
+introduced--whether carelessly or wilfully we do not know--into the Act
+of Succession, with which they had nothing to do. It was his refusal to
+take this part of the oath which caused the downfall of More.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For four days sir Thomas remained a prisoner in the care of the abbot of
+Westminster; then he was sent to the Tower. Sir Richard Southwell
+conveyed him there and placed him under the custody of the lieutenant of
+the Tower, sir Edmund Walsingham, an old friend of the More family. As
+appears to have been the custom, his cap and outside gown were taken
+from him and kept by the porter, and a man set to spy upon his actions.
+This was sorely against the wishes of his gaoler, who would fain have
+made More's captivity in the Beauchamp Tower as light as might be; but
+at first it was needful to be very strict, lest inquiries should be
+made. Later, he was for a while allowed writing materials; he went to
+church in St. Peter ad Vincula, where so many famous captives lie
+buried, and occasionally walked in the garden, or took exercise in the
+narrow walk outside his cell. By-and-by, too, occasional visits from his
+family were permitted; his stepdaughter, lady Alington, came to see him,
+and so did her mother, dame Alice, More's daughter-in-law Anne, and most
+frequently of all his daughter Margaret.
+
+With these indulgences he might have been content, for all his life he
+had made the best of things, but the expenses of his captivity weighed
+on his soul. The barest food for himself and his servant cost him
+fifteen shillings a week (over 5 l. now), and some months later, when
+he was convicted of high treason and the lands granted him by the king
+were taken from him, his wife was forced to sell her own clothes so that
+the money might be paid. But this, we may hope, she kept from sir
+Thomas, whose body was bent and broken by painful diseases, though his
+spirit was as cheerful as ever. He could even 'inwardly' laugh at dame
+Alice when she came to see him for complaining that she would die for
+want of air if she was left all night in a locked cell, when 'he knew
+full well that every night she shut her own chamber, both doors and
+windows, and what was the difference if the doors were locked or not?'
+But he durst not laugh aloud nor say anything to her, for, indeed, he
+stood somewhat in awe of her.
+
+Most of the hours were passed during the first months of his captivity
+in writing books in English or Latin; but when pen and paper were taken
+from him, and he could only scribble a few words with the end of a
+charred stick, he had plenty of time to think over his life and to
+recall the years that had been so happy. The harsh words that he had
+written about men whose religion was different from his own did not
+trouble him, nor the thought of the imprisonment to which he had
+sentenced many of them. In those days everyone held his own religion to
+be right, and any that differed from it to be wrong, and though sir
+Thomas never would, and never did, send any man to the block for his
+faith, yet he would have considered that he had failed in his duty had
+he left them at liberty to teach their 'wicked opinions.' So his mind
+did not dwell upon those things, but rather upon his coming death, which
+he well foresaw, and upon the old days in Bishopsgate and Chelsea, when
+he would examine his children in the lessons they had learned, or set
+all the girls to write letters in Latin to his friend Erasmus, that he
+might see which of them proved to have the most skill. From time to time
+during this year efforts were made to gain him over to the side of the
+king, who would have given him almost anything he asked as the price of
+his conscience. Even Margaret Roper joined with the rest, and begged him
+to consider whether it was not his duty to obey the Parliament, and to
+remember that it was possible that he might be mistaken in his refusal,
+as so many good men and true had taken the oath. But nothing would move
+sir Thomas.
+
+[Illustration: 'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered.]
+
+'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered. 'Sit not musing with some serpent
+in your breast, or some new persuasion to offer Father Adam the apple
+yet once again.'
+
+'I have sworn myself,' said she, and at this More laughed and replied:
+
+'That was like Eve, too, for she offered Adam no worse fruit than she
+had eaten herself.'
+
+Finding that his daughter's persuasions were useless, the king and
+council sent Cromwell to see if by fair words or threats he could induce
+More to declare that the king was head of the church. But, try as he
+might, nothing either treasonable or submissive could be wrung from the
+prisoner.
+
+'I am the king's true, faithful subject, and pray for his highness, and
+all his, and all the realm,' said sir Thomas. 'I do nobody none harm, I
+say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good, and if this
+be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live. And
+I am dying already, and have since I came here been many times in the
+case that I thought to die within one hour. And therefore my poor body
+is at the king's pleasure.' Then Cromwell took his leave 'full gently,'
+promising to make report to the king.
+
+Lord Cromwell having failed also, the whole council next came and put
+forth all their skill, with no better result; and it was then determined
+to bring sir Thomas out of the Tower, and to try him at Westminster on
+the charge of treason. Neither the prisoner nor the judges had any doubt
+as to what the verdict would be; but whatever his thoughts as to the
+future, More must have rejoiced to be rowing once more on the Thames,
+with the air and sunlight all around him, and after a year's confinement
+even the sight of Westminster Hall and the assembly met together, as he
+knew, to doom him would have been full of interest. He was allowed a
+chair, for his legs were so swollen that he could hardly have stood; and
+then began the trial which a late lord chancellor has called 'the
+blackest crime under the name of the law ever committed in England.' At
+the close, sentence was passed. More had been proved guilty of treason,
+and was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn.
+
+The constable of the Tower, sir William Kingston, sir Thomas's 'very
+dear friend,' conducted the condemned man back to prison, and so
+sorrowful was the constable's face that any man would have thought that
+it was he who was condemned to death. Margaret Roper was waiting on the
+wharf, and as her father landed from the barge she flung herself into
+his arms, 'having neither respect to herself, nor to the press of people
+that were about him.' He whispered some words of comfort and gave her
+his blessing, and 'the beholding thereof was to many present so
+lamentable that it made them to weep.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last shame of hanging was after all not inflicted on him, and the
+King decreed that his faithful servant and merry companion should be
+executed on Tower Hill, like the rest of the men whose bodies lie in the
+church of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower walls. The day before
+his beheading sir Thomas wrote with a charred stick to Margaret, leaving
+her the hair shirt he had always worn under his clothes, and messages
+and little remembrances to the rest of the old household. Oddly enough,
+his wife is never mentioned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very early in the morning of July 6 the king sent sir Thomas Pope to
+tell More he was to die before the clock struck nine, and to say that
+'he was not to use many words' on the scaffold, evidently fearing lest
+the minds of the crowd might be stirred up to avenge his murder.
+
+More answered that he had never meant to say anything at which the king
+could be offended, and begged that his daughter Margaret might be
+present at his burial. Pope replied that the king had given permission
+for his wife and children and any other of his friends to be there, and
+sir Thomas thanked him, and then put on a handsome dress of silk which
+had been provided on purpose by the Italian Bonvisi.
+
+But sir Thomas was not allowed to be at peace during the short walk
+between the Beauchamp Tower and the block, for he was beset first by a
+woman who wished to know where he had put some papers of hers when he
+was sent to prison, and then by a second, upbraiding him with a judgment
+he had given against her when he was chancellor.
+
+'I remember you well, and should give judgment against you still,' said
+he; but at length the crowd was kept back, and a path was kept to the
+scaffold.
+
+Roper was there, watching, and he noticed that the ladder leading to the
+platform was very unsteady. Sir Thomas noticed it too, and with his foot
+on the first step turned and said to the lieutenant of the Tower:
+
+'I pray thee see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for
+myself.'
+
+When he reached the top, he knelt down and prayed; then rising, kissed
+the executioner, and said:
+
+'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My
+neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry.' As he
+spoke, he drew out a handkerchief he had brought with him, and, binding
+it over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform and laid his
+head on the block.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus died sir Thomas More, because he would not tie his conscience to
+another man's back, for he had no enemies save those who felt that this
+courage put them to shame, and he had striven all his life to do harm to
+no one. After his death, his head, as was the custom, was placed on a
+stake, and shown as the head of a traitor on London Bridge for a month,
+till Margaret Roper bribed a man to steal it for her, and, wrapping it
+round with spices, she hid it in a safe place. It is possible that she
+laid it in a vault belonging to the Roper family, in St. Dunstan's
+Church in Canterbury, but she herself lies with her mother, in the old
+church of Chelsea, where sir Thomas 'did mind to be buried.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What the king's feelings were when he heard that the act of vengeance
+had been accomplished we know not, but the emperor Charles V. spoke his
+mind plainly to the English ambassador, sir Thomas Eliott.
+
+'My Lord ambassador, we understand that the king your master hath put
+his faithful servant sir Thomas More to death.'
+
+Whereupon sir Thomas Eliott answered 'that he understood nothing
+thereof.'
+
+'Well,' said the emperor, 'it is too true; and this we will say, that
+had we been master of such a servant, of whose doings ourselves have had
+these many years no small experience, we would rather have lost the best
+city of our dominions than such a worthy counsellor.'
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE ABBESS
+
+
+A nun!
+
+As one reads the word, two pictures flash into the mind. One is that of
+sisters of mercy going quickly through the streets, with black dresses
+and flappy white caps, to visit their poor people. If you look at their
+faces, you will notice how curiously smooth and unlined they are, even
+when they are not young any more, and their expression is generally
+quiet and contented, while the women of their own age who live in the
+world appear tired and anxious.
+
+The other picture is one that most of us have to make for ourselves, as
+few have had a chance of seeing it. This nun is also dressed in black
+robes, and has a flowing black veil, and a white band across her
+forehead, under which her hair, cut short when she takes her vows, is
+hidden away. She never leaves her convent, except for a walk in the
+garden, but she often has children to teach, for many convents are great
+Roman Catholic schools, and the nuns have to take care that they can
+tell their scholars about the discoveries of the present day: about
+wireless telegraphy, about radium, about the late wars and the changes
+in the boundaries of kingdoms, and many other things.
+
+Of course, nuns are divided into various orders, each with its own
+rules, and some, the strictest, do not admit anyone inside the convent
+at all, even into a parlour. After a girl has taken the veil, she is
+allowed to receive one visit from her friends and relations, and then
+she says good-bye to them for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if you had been living in Paris towards the end of the sixteenth
+century, when Catherine de M�dicis was queen-mother, and into the days
+when Henry IV. was king, and his son Louis succeeded him, you would have
+found this picture of a convent very far from the truth. Convents were
+comfortable and even luxurious houses, richly endowed, where poor
+noblemen and gentlemen sent their daughters for life, paying on their
+entrance what money they could spare, but keeping enough to portion one
+or two girls--generally the prettiest of the family--or to help the son
+to live in state. If, as often happened, the father did not offer
+enough, the abbess would try to get more from him, or else refuse his
+daughter altogether. If she was accepted, he bade her farewell for the
+time, knowing that he could see her whenever he chose, and that she
+would lead quite as pleasant and as amusing an existence as her married
+sister. Perhaps, too, she might even be allowed to wear coloured
+clothes, for there was one order in which the habit of the nuns was
+white and scarlet; but even if the archbishop, or the abbot, or the
+king, or whoever had supreme power over the convent, insisted on black
+and white being worn, why, it would be easy to model the cap and sleeves
+near enough to the fashion to look picturesque; and could not the dress
+be of satin and velvet and lace, and yet be black and white still?
+
+As to food, no one was more particular about it than the abbess of a
+large convent, or else the fine gentlemen and elegant ladies would not
+come from Paris or the country round to her suppers and private
+theatricals, where the nuns acted the chief parts, or to the balls for
+which she was famous. How pleasant it was in the summer evenings to sit
+with their friends and listen to music from hidden performers; and could
+anything be so amusing as to walk a little way along the road to Paris
+till the nuns reached a stretch of smooth green turf, where the monks
+from a neighbouring monastery were waiting to dance with them in the
+moonlight?
+
+No, decidedly, nuns were not to be pitied when Henry IV. was king.
+
+Yet soon all these joys were to be things of the past, and it was a girl
+of sixteen who set her hand to the work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The family of the Arnaulds were well known in French history as soldiers
+or lawyers--sometimes as both, for the grandfather of the child whose
+story I am going to tell you commanded a troop of light horse in time of
+war, and in time of peace was, in spite of his being a Huguenot--that
+is, a Protestant--Catherine's trusted lawyer and adviser. This Antoine
+Arnauld, or M. de la Mothe, as he was called, was once publicly insulted
+by a noble whose claim to some money Arnauld had been obliged to refuse.
+
+[Illustration: 'You are mistaking me for somebody else.']
+
+'You are mistaking me for somebody else,' answered M. de la Mothe,
+quietly.
+
+'What do you mean? I thought you just admitted that you _were_ M. de la
+Mothe?' replied the angry nobleman.
+
+'Oh, yes,' said the lawyer, 'so I am; but sometimes I change my long
+robe for a short coat, and once outside this court you would not dare to
+speak to me in such a manner.'
+
+At this point one of the attendants whispered in his ear that this was
+the celebrated soldier, and the nobleman, who seems to have been a
+poor-spirited creature, instantly made the humblest apologies.
+
+Many of his relatives remained Huguenots up to the end, but M. de la
+Mothe returned to the old religion after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
+in 1572. No man ever had a narrower escape of his life, for his house in
+Paris was attacked during the day, and though his servants defended it
+bravely, neither he nor his children would have been left alive had
+not a messenger wearing the queen's colours been seen pushing through
+the crowd. The leaders then called upon the mob to fall back, and the
+messenger produced a paper, signed by the queen, giving the family leave
+to come and go in safety.
+
+M. de la Mothe's son, Antoine Arnauld, had in him more of the lawyer
+than the soldier, and he was clever enough to escape detection for acts
+which _we_ should certainly call frauds. But he was an excellent husband
+to the wife of thirteen whom he married, and a very affectionate father
+to the ten out of his twenty children who lived to grow up.
+
+Monsieur Arnauld was much thought of at the French bar, and was
+entrusted with law cases by the court and by the nobles. He was a
+pleasant and clever man, and made friends as easily as money, and if he
+and his wife had chosen they might have led the same gay life as their
+neighbours. But the little bride of thirteen did not care for the balls
+and plays in which the fashionable ladies spent so much of their time,
+and her dresses were as plain as those of the nuns _ought_ to have been.
+She looked well after her husband's comfort, and saw that her babies
+were well and happy, and when everything in her own house was arranged
+for the day, she went through the door that opened into her father's
+Paris dwelling, and sat with her mother, who was very delicate and could
+scarcely leave her sofa.
+
+The summer months were passed at monsieur Arnauld's estate of Andilly,
+not far from Paris, to which they all moved in several large coaches.
+Even here the lawyer was busy most of the day over his books and papers,
+but in the evening he was always ready to listen to his wife's account
+of her visits to their own poor people, or to those of the village near
+by. At a period when scarcely anyone gave a thought to the peasants, or
+heeded whether they lived or died, Arnauld's labourers were all well
+paid, and the old and ill fed and clothed. And if monsieur Arnauld did
+not go amongst them much himself, he allowed his wife to do as she
+liked, and gave her sound advice in her difficulties.
+
+As they grew older the children used often to accompany their mother on
+her rounds, and learnt from her how to help and understand the lives
+that were so different from their own. They saw peasants in bare
+cottages contented and happy on the simplest food, and sometimes on very
+little of it. They did not think about it at the time, of course, but in
+after-years the memory of these poor people was to come back to them;
+and they no longer felt strange and shy of those whom they were called
+upon to aid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Madame Arnauld's second daughter, Jacqueline, was a great favourite with
+her grandfather, monsieur Marion, and was very proud of it. In Paris
+every morning she used to run into his house, locking the door of
+communication behind her. If, as often occurred, her brothers and
+sisters wanted to come too, and drummed on the panels to make Jacqueline
+open it, she would call out through the key-hole:
+
+'Go away! You have no business here, this house belongs to _me_,' and
+then she would run through the rooms till she found her grandfather, and
+sit chattering to him about the things she liked and the games she was
+fond of. She was quick and clever and easily interested, and it amused
+monsieur Marion to listen to her when he had no work to occupy him; but
+one fact he plainly noticed, and that was that Jacqueline was never
+happy unless she was put first.
+
+[Illustration: 'Go away! You have no business here.']
+
+In the year 1599, madame Arnauld, though only twenty-five, had eight
+children, and her father, monsieur Marion, who was already suffering
+from the disease which afterwards killed him, began to be anxious about
+their future. After talking the matter over with his son-in-law, they
+decided that it was necessary that the second and third little girls,
+Jacqueline and Jeanne, should become nuns, in order that Catherine, the
+eldest, might have a larger fortune and make a more brilliant marriage.
+Not that monsieur Marion intended that they should be common nuns. He
+would do better than that for Jacqueline, and as his majesty Henry IV.
+had honoured him with special marks of his favour, he had no doubt that
+the king would grant an abbey to each of his granddaughters.
+
+When the plan was told to madame Arnauld, she listened with dismay.
+
+'But Jacqueline is hardly seven and a half,' she said, 'and Jeanne is
+five;' but monsieur Marion only laughed and bade her not to trouble
+herself, as he would see that their duties did not weigh upon them, and
+that though he hoped they would behave better than many of the nuns, yet
+they would lead pleasant lives, and their mother could visit them as
+often as she liked.
+
+Madame Arnauld was too much afraid of her father to raise any more
+objections, but she had also heard too much of convents and their ways
+to wish her daughters to enter them. Meanwhile the affair was carried
+through by the help of the abb� of Citeaux, and as a rule existed by
+which no child could be appointed abbess, the consent of the Pope was
+obtained by declaring each of the girls many years older than she really
+was. Both Arnauld and Marion considered themselves, and were considered
+by others, to be unusually good men, yet their consciences never
+troubled them about this wicked fraud.
+
+However, by the aid of the false statement all went smoothly, and the
+old and delicate abbess of Port Royal, an abbey situated in a marshy
+hollow eighteen miles from Paris, agreed to take Jacqueline as helper or
+coadjutrix, with the condition that on the death of the old lady the
+little girl was to succeed her, while Jeanne was made abbess of
+Saint-Cyr, six miles nearer Paris, where madame de Maintenon's famous
+girls' school was to be founded a hundred years later. The duties of
+the office were to be discharged by one of the elder nuns till Jeanne
+was twenty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is always the custom that the young girls or novices should spend a
+year in the convent they wish to enter before they take the vows, which
+are for life. During that time they can find out if they really wish to
+leave the world for ever, or if it was only a passing fancy; while the
+abbess, on the other hand, can tell whether their characters are suited
+to a secluded existence, or if it would only make them--and therefore
+other people--restless and unhappy. When Jacqueline became a novice in
+1599, her father invited all his friends, and a very grand company they
+were. The child was delighted to feel that she was the most important
+person present, and no doubt amused her grandfather by her satisfaction
+at being 'first.' No such fuss seems to have been made over Jeanne on a
+similar occasion, but in a few weeks both little girls were sent for
+eight months to Saint-Cyr.
+
+Abbesses though they might be, they were still the children who had
+played in their father's garden only a few weeks before. Jacqueline and
+her elder sister Catherine, the one who was 'to be married,' and very
+unhappily, were chief in all the games and mischief. They were very
+daring, and were always quick at inventing new plays. They were very
+sensible, too, and if one of their brothers or sisters hurt themselves
+during their games, these two knew what was best to be done without
+troubling their mother. They were all fond of each other, and never had
+any serious quarrels; but Jacqueline was generally the leader, and the
+others, especially the shy and dreamy Jeanne, let themselves be ruled by
+her. At Saint-Cyr, Jacqueline, who felt no difference, and speedily
+became a favourite of the other novices, ordered her sister about as she
+had been accustomed to do, and generally Jeanne obeyed her meekly; but
+at last she rebelled and informed Jacqueline, much to her surprise, that
+it was _her_ abbey, and that if Jacqueline did not behave properly she
+might go away to her own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some months of Jacqueline's noviciate had still to run when she was sent
+to the abbey of Maubuisson, which belonged to the same order of nuns as
+Port Royal, whereas the nuns of Saint-Cyr belonged to another community.
+The abbess, Ang�lique d'Estr�es, was a famous woman, and her nuns were
+some of the worst and most pleasure-loving in the whole of France. Most
+likely madame Arnauld heard of the change with trembling, but she could
+do nothing: in October 1600, Jacqueline, then nine years old, took the
+veil and the vows of poverty and obedience in the midst of a noble
+company. She was far too excited to think about the religious ceremony
+which had bound her for life to the cloister, and certainly nobody
+else--unless her mother was present--thought about it either. Her very
+name was changed too, and instead of 'Jacqueline' she became
+'Ang�lique,' as 'Jeanne' became 'Agnes.'
+
+As soon as the little girl was a professed nun, monsieur Marion and
+monsieur Arnauld, who were not satisfied that the pope's consent already
+obtained was really sufficient, began afresh to prepare a variety of
+false papers, in order that when Ang�lique took possession of her abbey
+no one should be able to turn her out of it. Seventy years before a law
+had been passed declaring that no nun could be appointed abbess under
+forty, and though this was constantly disregarded, the child's father
+and grandfather felt that it was vain to ask the Pope to nominate a
+child of nine to the post. So in the declaration her age was stated to
+be seventeen; but even that Clement considered too young, and it
+required all the influence that monsieur Marion could bring to bear to
+induce him at last to give his consent. Permission was long in coming,
+and in the midst of the negotiations the old abbess died suddenly, and
+Ang�lique, now ten and a half, was 'Madame de Port Royal.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Ang�lique said good-bye to the nuns at Maubuisson, all of whom had
+been fond of her, her mother took her to Port Royal, fearing in her
+heart lest the customs of the convent might be as bad as in the one
+ruled by madame d'Estr�es. But she was consoled at finding the abbey far
+too poor to indulge in all the expensive amusements of Maubuisson, and
+that it contained only thirteen nuns, so that Ang�lique would not have
+so many people to govern. It was thirty years since a sermon had been
+preached within its walls, except on a few occasions when a novice had
+taken the veil, and during the carnival, just before Lent, all the
+inmates of the convent, the chaplain or confessor among them, acted
+plays and had supper parties. Like the Maubuisson sisters, the nuns
+always kept their long hair, and wore masks and gloves; but they were
+only foolish, harmless young women following the fashion, except the
+oldest of them all, whom madame Arnauld managed to get dismissed.
+
+Ang�lique was now nearly eleven, but much older in her thoughts and ways
+than most children of her age, though she was still fond of games, and
+spent part of the day playing or wandering about the garden. If it was
+wet, she read Roman history, and perhaps she may have learnt something
+of housekeeping from the prioress, who saw that all was kept in order.
+The abbess said carefully the short prayers appointed for certain hours
+of the day, and heard matins every morning at four and evensong every
+afternoon. After this was over, she did as she was bidden by her
+superior, the abbot of Citeaux, and took all her nuns for a solemn walk
+on the hills outside the abbey.
+
+[Illustration: She took all her nuns for a solemn walk.]
+
+At first the young abbess was full of self-importance, and much occupied
+with her position. After Agnes's taunts when they were both at St.
+Cyr--oh, _long_ ago now!--it was delightful to be able to send her _own_
+carriage for her, and play at the old home games in the garden. But
+by-and-by the novelty wore off, and she became very tired of her life,
+which was always the same, day after day, and would never, never be
+different. If only she could be back at Andilly with the rest! and then
+she would shut her eyes very tight so that no tears might escape them.
+
+Lively and impulsive though she was, she was not accustomed to speak of
+her feelings to others, and did her best to thrust her longing for
+freedom into the background. But she grew pale and thin in the struggle,
+and at last there came a day when a visitor, guessing what was the
+matter, hinted that as she had taken her vows before she was old enough
+to do so by law, it would be easy to get absolved from them. Something
+of the kind may have perhaps occurred to Ang�lique, but, put into words,
+the idea filled her with horror, for deep down in her mind she felt that
+though her profession had been thrust upon her before she knew what she
+was doing, she would feel ashamed and degraded all her life if she broke
+her vows. Still, she wanted to forget it all if she could, and in order
+to distract her thoughts she began to receive and pay visits in the
+neighbourhood, to the great grief of her mother, who feared this was the
+first step towards the moonlight balls of Maubuisson.
+
+Ang�lique was far too tender-hearted to withstand her mother's tears,
+and gave up paying calls; spending the time instead in reading
+Plutarch's 'Lives' and other books about ancient history, and pretending
+to herself that she was each of the heroes in turn. But even Plutarch
+was a poor substitute for home life, and when her fifteenth birthday was
+drawing near she began to wonder if she _could_ stand it any longer.
+
+'I considered,' she says herself, 'if it would be possible for me to
+return to the world, and even to get married, without telling my father
+or mother, for the yoke had become unsupportable.' Perhaps, she
+reflected, she might go to La Rochelle, where some of her Huguenot aunts
+were living, and though she had no wish to change her own religion, yet
+she was sure they would protect her. As to the difficulties of a young
+abbess travelling through France alone, they did not even occur to her,
+and she seems to have arranged her plans for escape without informing
+the good ladies of their expected visitor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day Ang�lique had fixed for her flight had almost come when she fell
+very ill of a sort of nervous fever, chiefly the result of the trouble
+of mind she had been going through, though the unhealthy marshes round
+Port Royal may have had something to do with her illness. Monsieur and
+madame Arnauld at once sent a litter drawn by horses to fetch her to
+Paris, where the best doctors awaited her. Her mother hardly left her
+bedside, and for some time Ang�lique was at rest, feeling nothing except
+that she was at home, and that the old dismal life of the convent must
+be a dream. But as she grew stronger her perplexities came back. She
+_could_ not bring such grief on her parents, who loved her so much, yet
+the sight of her aunts in their beautiful dresses with long pointed
+bodices, and the pretty hoods that covered their hair when they came to
+inquire after her, revived all her longings for the amusements of other
+girls. Again she kept silence, but secretly induced one of the maids to
+make her a pair of corsets, 'to improve her figure.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It may have been the sight of the corsets which caused monsieur Arnauld,
+whose keen eyes nothing escaped, to take alarm. At any rate, one day he
+brought a paper, so ill-written that it could hardly be read, and
+thrust it with a pen into Ang�lique's hand, saying, 'Sign this, my
+daughter.'
+
+The girl did not dare to refuse, or even to question her father, though
+she did manage to make out a word or two, which showed her that the
+paper contained a renewal of the vows she so bitterly regretted.
+
+Though custom and respect kept her silent, Ang�lique's frank and
+straightforward nature must have felt bitterly ashamed as well as angry
+at the way her father had tried to trick her, and she seems on the whole
+to have been rather glad to return to her abbey. The nuns were delighted
+to have her back again, and as she remained very delicate all through
+the winter, she was a great deal indoors, too tired to do anything but
+rest, and read now and then a little book of meditations, which one of
+the sisters had given her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just at this time an event happened which turned the whole course of
+Ang�lique's life.
+
+A Capuchin monk, father Basil by name, stopped at Port Royal one
+evening, and asked the abbess's leave to preach. At first she refused,
+saying it was too late; then she changed her mind, for she was fond of
+hearing sermons, which, even if they were bad, generally gave her
+something to think of. There does not seem to have been anything very
+striking about this one, but when it was ended 'I found myself,' says
+Ang�lique, 'happier to know myself a nun than before I had felt wretched
+at being one, and that there was nothing in the whole world that I would
+not do for God.'
+
+Now Ang�lique's inward struggles took a different turn; she no longer
+desired to be free of her vows, but rather to carry them out to the
+utmost of her power, and to persuade her nuns to do so likewise. For
+some time she met with little encouragement. Another friar of the order
+of the Capuchins, to whom she opened her heart when he came to preach on
+Whit Sunday, was a man of no sense or tact, and urged such severe and
+instant reforms that the poor nuns were quite frightened. Then the
+prioress, whom Ang�lique also consulted, told her that she was not well,
+and excited, and that in three months' time she would think quite
+differently; all of which would have been true of a great many people,
+but was a mistake as regarded Ang�lique. Thus disappointed in both her
+counsellors, the abbess longed to resign her post, and to become a
+simple nun in some distant convent; but she dared not disobey her newly
+awakened conscience, which told her to stay where she was and do her
+work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is to be noted that, unlike most reformers, Ang�lique took care that
+her reforms began at the right end--namely, with herself. Again and
+again we see that when she made a new rule or revived an old one she
+practised it secretly herself long before she asked any of her nuns to
+adopt it. At this time she was torn between the advice of two of the
+Capuchin monks, one of whom urged her to lay down her burden and to
+enter as a sister in some other convent; while the other, the father
+Bernard, who had alarmed the nuns by his zeal, at last seemed to
+understand the position of Ang�lique, and told her that, having put her
+hand to the plough, she must not draw back.
+
+Ang�lique was only sixteen and in great trouble of mind, and in her sore
+distress she did some foolish things in the way of penances which she
+afterwards looked on with disapproval, for she never encouraged her nuns
+to hurt their bodies so as to injure their minds. Indeed, her character
+was too practical for her to adopt the follies which were the fashion in
+some of the religious houses not wholly given over to worldly pleasures.
+She had no wish to become famous or to be considered a saint when she
+knew how far she was from being one, and prayed earnestly and sensibly
+never to be allowed to see visions--the visions which she was well
+aware were often the result first of fasting, and next the cause of
+vanity, with its root in the praise of men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As usual, the early autumn proved a trying season for Ang�lique, and she
+again fell ill of a fever, and spent some weeks at Andilly with her
+troop of brothers and sisters. But she could not shake off the sad
+thoughts which were pressing on her, and was glad to go back to the
+convent, taking with her little Marie Arnauld, then seven years old. The
+winter passed before she could decide what to do, and her illness was
+increased by the damp vapours arising from the ponds and marshes around
+the abbey. She was worn out by thinking, and at length the prioress was
+so alarmed by her appearance that she begged the abbess to do whatever
+she thought right, as the sisters would submit to anything sooner than
+see her in such misery.
+
+The relief to Ang�lique's mind was immense, and she instantly called on
+the whole community to assemble together. She then spoke to them,
+reminding them of the vow of poverty they had taken, and showing them
+how, if it was to be kept, they must cease to have possessions of their
+own and share all things between them. When she had finished, a nun rose
+up and silently left the room, returning in a few minutes with a little
+packet containing the treasures by which she had set so much store. One
+by one they all followed her example, and Ang�lique's first battle was
+won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In spite of the French proverb which says 'it is only the first step
+which hurts,' the second step on the road to reform was the cause of far
+more pain to Ang�lique, for she was resolved to put an end to the
+practice of permitting the relatives and friends of the nuns free
+entrance into the convent; and knew that her father, who during all
+these years had come and gone as he wished, would not submit quietly to
+his exclusion. Therefore she made certain alterations in the abbey:
+ordered a foot or two to be added to the walls, and built a parlour
+outside with only a small grated window, through which the nuns would be
+allowed now and then to talk to their families.
+
+All being ready, she again assembled the sisters, and informed them of
+the new rule which was to be carried out, and when shortly after a
+novice took the veil, and her friends were entertained outside the
+convent, many voices were raised in discontented protest, and more than
+once the murmur was heard, 'Ah! it will be a very different thing when
+monsieur Arnauld comes.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it was not. Ang�lique never made one rule for herself and another
+for her nuns, and by-and-by when her father's work was over in Paris,
+and they all moved to Andilly, the abbess knew that her time of trial
+had come. She wrote to either her mother or sister, madame le Ma�tre,
+begging them to inform her father of the new state of affairs; but this
+they do not seem to have done. At all events, on September 24, 1609,
+Ang�lique received a message from her father, saying that they would
+arrive the next morning to see her.
+
+Now the abbess of Port Royal was no hard-hearted, despotic woman,
+delighting to display her power and to 'make scenes.' She was an
+affectionate girl, easily touched and very grateful, and in her
+generosity had striven to forget her father's double dealing in the
+matter of her vows. That the coming interview would be a cause of much
+pain to both she well knew, and she entreated two or three of the
+nuns--among whom was her sister Agnes, who had resigned Saint-Cyr and
+was now at Port Royal--to spend the night in praying that her
+determination might not falter.
+
+It was at the dinner-hour, about eleven o'clock, that the noise of a
+carriage was heard in the outer court of the abbey. The abbess turned
+pale and rose from her seat, while those of the sisters whom she had
+taken into her confidence hastened away to be ready for the different
+duties she had assigned to them. Ang�lique, holding in her hands the
+keys of every outer door leading into the convent, walked to the great
+gate, against which monsieur Arnauld, who was accompanied by his wife,
+his son, and two of his daughters, was knocking loudly. He was not used
+to be kept waiting like this, and did not understand the meaning of it,
+and when the tiny window cut in the thick oak panels was suddenly thrown
+open, and his daughter's face appeared, he asked impatiently what was
+the matter that the gates were locked, and why she did not open them.
+Ang�lique replied gently that if he would go into the parlour beside the
+gate she would speak to him through the grating and explain the reason
+of the gates being shut; but her father, not believing his ears, only
+rapped the louder, while madame Arnauld reproached her daughter with
+lack of respect and affection, and monsieur d'Andilly her brother called
+her all sorts of names.
+
+The noise was so great that it reached the refectory or dining-hall,
+where the nuns were still sitting, and soon their voices were joined to
+the clamour, some few upholding the conduct of their abbess, but most of
+them condemning her.
+
+At this point monsieur Arnauld, seeing that Ang�lique would not give
+way, bethought him of a trick by which he could gain a footing inside
+the walls. If, he said, Ang�lique had lost all sense of duty and
+obedience to her parents, he would not suffer his other children to be
+ruined by her example, and Agnes and little Marie must be given up to
+him at once. No doubt he reckoned on the great door being opened for the
+girls to come out, and that then he would be able to slip inside; but,
+unfortunately, Ang�lique knew by experience of what her father was
+capable, and had foreseen his demand. She answered that his wishes
+should be obeyed, and seeking out one of the sisters whom she could
+trust, gave her the key of a little door leading from the chapel outside
+the walls, and bade her let Agnes and Marie out that way. This was done,
+and suddenly the two little nuns were greeting their father as if they
+had dropped from the skies.
+
+At length understanding that neither abuse nor tricks could move
+Ang�lique, monsieur Arnauld consented to go to the parlour, and there a
+rush of tenderness came over him, and he implored her to be careful in
+what she did, and not to ruin her health by privations and harsh
+treatment. Ang�lique was not prepared for kindness, and after all she
+had undergone it proved too much for her. She fell fainting to the
+ground, and lay there without help, for her parents could not reach her
+through the grating in the wall, and the nuns, thinking that monsieur
+Arnauld was still heaping reproaches on her head, carefully kept away.
+At last, however, they realised that help was needed, and arrived to
+find their abbess lying senseless. Her first words on recovering were to
+implore her father not to leave that day, and the visitors passed the
+night in a guest-room which she had built outside the walls, and next
+morning she had a long and peaceful talk with her family from a bed
+placed on the convent side of the grating.
+
+[Illustration: She fell fainting to the ground.]
+
+In the end the abbot of Citeaux gave permission for monsieur Arnauld
+still to inspect the outer buildings and gardens, as he had been in the
+habit of doing, while his wife and daughters had leave to enter the
+convent itself when they wished. But this was not for a whole year, as
+madame Arnauld in her anger had sworn never to enter the gates of Port
+Royal, and it was only after hearing a sermon setting forth that vows
+taken in haste were not binding that she felt at liberty once more to
+see her daughter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The income left by the founder of Port Royal was very small--about
+240 l. a year--little enough on which to support a number of people and
+find work for the poor, though, of course, it could perhaps buy as many
+things as 1,200 l. a year now.
+
+When Ang�lique first went there as abbess, monsieur Arnauld, who managed
+all the money matters, paid all that seemed necessary for the comfort of
+his daughter and the nuns. But after the day when she closed the gates
+on him Ang�lique would no longer accept his help, as she felt she could
+not honestly do so while behaving in a manner of which he disapproved.
+So she called together her little community, and they thought of all the
+things they could possibly do without. The masks and the gloves had
+already been discarded, and there seemed to be nothing for the sisters
+to give up, if they were to help the sick people and peasants who
+crowded about their doors, but their food and their firing. Not that she
+intended to support anybody in idleness; Ang�lique was far too sensible
+for that. She took counsel with her father, and found work for the men,
+and even the children, in the gardens and lands belonging to the abbey.
+Their wages were small, but each day good food was prepared in the
+kitchens--Ang�lique had no belief in bad cooking--and was wheeled out by
+the sisters in little carts as far as the garden walls, where the
+workmen could eat it while it was hot. Then some of the children or
+women were employed as messengers to carry bowls with dinners to the old
+and ill. Of course some of these were in the abbey infirmary, and were
+looked after by the nuns, and especially by Ang�lique, who took the one
+who seemed to need most care into her own room, while she slept on the
+damp floor--for half the sickness at Port Royal was due to the marshes
+that surrounded it. If it happened that she had her cell to herself,
+there was no fire to warm her, yet she often got up in the night to
+carry wood to the long dormitory where several of the nuns slept, so
+that they, at least, should not suffer from cold.
+
+All the daily expenses she saw to herself, as debt was hateful to her,
+and she and the sisters denied themselves food and wore the cheapest and
+coarsest clothes, not for the sake of their own souls, but of other
+people's bodies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In many ways, though she did not know it and certainly would have been
+shocked to hear it, Ang�lique resembled the Puritans, whose influence
+in England was daily increasing. She had a special dislike to money
+being spent on decorations and ornaments in churches, or in embroidered
+vestments for priests, and never would allow any of them in her own. She
+also invented a loose and ugly grey dress for the girls to wear who
+desired admission to the convent, instead of permitting them to put on
+the clothes they had worn at home, as had always been the custom. The
+first to wear it was her own sister Anne, who after leading the gay life
+of a Parisian young lady for a year, at fifteen resolved to abandon it
+for ever and join her three sisters at Port Royal.
+
+It is possible that monsieur Arnauld may have regretted his hastiness in
+forcing Ang�lique and Agnes to become nuns when he saw one daughter
+after another following in their footsteps. Anne he had expected to
+remain, for she was full of little fancies and vanities, and he could
+not imagine her submitting to the work which he knew the abbess loved.
+
+He would have laughed sadly enough if he could have seen how right he
+was. On the first night that Anne slept in the abbey, she laid a cloth
+on a table in her cell, and tried to make it look a little like the
+dressing-table she had left in Paris. Ang�lique happened to pass the
+open door on her way to the chapel, and, smiling to herself, quietly
+stripped the table. Some hours later she went by again, and over it was
+spread a white handkerchief. This she also removed, but, leaving Anne to
+apply the lesson, she did not make any remark, and sent her to clean out
+the fowl-house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By this time the eyes of the world had been turned to Port Royal, and to
+the strange spectacle of a girl who, possessed of every talent which
+would enable her to shine in society, had deliberately chosen the worst
+of everything, and had induced her nuns to choose it too. Possibly the
+quiet and useful life led by the Port Royal sisters may have made the
+gaieties and disorders of the other convents look even blacker than
+before; but however that may be, when Ang�lique was about twenty-six a
+most difficult and disagreeable piece of work was put into her hands.
+
+The king, Louis XIII., a very different man from his father, Henry IV.,
+had determined to put an end to the state of things that prevailed, and
+resolved to begin with Maubuisson.
+
+Now nobody had ever attempted to interfere with madame d'Estr�es, who
+was still abbess, and when the abbot of Citeaux, her superior, informed
+her that in obedience to the king's commands he proposed to come over
+and inspect Maubuisson, she was extremely angry. Without caring for the
+consequences, she locked up in a cell two monks who had brought the
+message, and kept them without food for some days; after which she
+roughly bade them return whence they came, and thought no more about the
+matter.
+
+For two years the affair rested where it was; then the king again turned
+his attention to Maubuisson, and wrote to the abbot of Citeaux inquiring
+why his previous orders had not been carried out, bidding him send an
+officer at once and obtain an exact report of the conduct of the nuns
+and the abbess.
+
+The commissioner, monsieur Deruptis, arrived with three or four men at
+Maubuisson, and congratulated themselves when they found the doors flung
+wide and they were invited to enter.
+
+'The reverend mother is too unwell to see anyone to-day,' said the nun
+who admitted them, 'but she has prepared rooms in the west tower for
+your reception, and to-morrow she hopes to be able to speak with you
+herself.' So saying she led them down several passages till she reached
+a little door, which she unlocked, and then stood back for them to pass
+in. As soon as they were all inside, making their way up the corkscrew
+stairs, she swung back the door, and before the men realised what had
+happened they heard the key turn in the lock.
+
+For four days they were kept prisoners, with nothing to eat but a very
+little bread and water; while every morning the commissioner was
+severely flogged till he was almost too weak to move. At length, driven
+to desperation, he and his companions contrived to squeeze themselves
+through a narrow window, and returned dirty and half-starved to the
+abbot.
+
+Powerful as the abbess might be, even her friends and relations thought
+she had gone too far, and they were besides very angry with her for
+allowing her own young sister, who was a novice in the convent, to be
+secretly married there. They therefore informed the abbot of Citeaux
+that as far as they were concerned no opposition would be made, and he
+instantly started for Maubuisson, sending a messenger before him to tell
+the abbess that he was on his way. For all answer the messenger came
+back saying that the abbess would listen to nothing; but the abbot, now
+thoroughly angry, only pushed on the faster, and thundered at the great
+gates. He hardly expected that madame d'Estr�es would refuse to see him
+when it came to the point, but she _did_; he then, as was his right,
+called an assembly of the nuns, and summoned her to attend. Again she
+declined; she was ill, she said, and could not leave her bed; so, fuming
+with rage, he went back to Paris and told the whole story to the king.
+
+After certain forms of law had been gone through, which took a little
+time, the Parliament of Paris issued a warrant for the seizure of the
+abbess, and for her imprisonment in the convent of the Penitents in
+Paris. On this occasion the abbot took a strong body of archers with
+him, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the scandal of carrying off the
+abbess by force, he left them at Pontoise. He went alone to the abbey,
+and for two days tried by every means he could think of to persuade the
+abbess to submit. But she only laughed, and declared she was ill, and at
+last he sent for his archers and ordered them to force an entrance.
+
+'Open, in the king's name!' cried their captain; but as the doors
+remained closed, he signed to his men to force them, and soon two
+hundred and fifty archers were in the abbey, seeking its abbess. During
+the whole day they sought in vain, and began to think that she was not
+in the house at all; at length a soldier passing through a dormitory
+noticed a slight movement in one of the beds, which proved to contain
+the rebellious abbess. The man bade her get up at once, but she told
+them that it was impossible, as she had hardly any clothes on. The
+soldier, not knowing what to do, sent for his captain, who promptly bade
+four archers take up mattress and abbess and all, and place them in the
+carriage which stood before the gates.
+
+In this manner, accompanied by one nun, madame d'Estr�es entered the
+convent of the Penitents.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is very amusing to read about, but at the time the affair made a
+great noise, and the other abbesses who were conscious of having
+neglected their vows had long felt very uneasy and watched anxiously
+what would happen next. Of course, Maubuisson could not be left without
+a head, and as soon as the abbess was removed, the abbot summoned the
+nuns before him and informed them that they might choose which of three
+ladies should take the place of madame d'Estr�es. One of the three was
+madame de Port Royal.
+
+The 'ladies of Maubuisson,' as they had always been called, trembled at
+the thought of what they might have to undergo at the hands of
+Ang�lique, yet they liked still less the other abbesses proposed. In the
+end it was she who was appointed, and a fortnight later arrived at
+Maubuisson with three of her own nuns, one being her young sister Marie.
+
+Some of the Maubuisson nuns remembered their new abbess quite well, when
+she had lived amongst them nearly seventeen years before. These she
+treated with the utmost consideration, for she knew it was unreasonable
+to expect them to give up all at once the habits of a lifetime, and she
+thought it wiser to gain permission to add thirty young novices to the
+community whom she might train herself. To these girls she taught the
+duties performed by her own nuns, and herself took part in carrying wood
+for the fires, keeping clean the chapel and other parts of the abbey,
+washing the clothes, digging up the garden, and singing the chants, for
+she had been shocked by the discordant and irreverent manner in which
+the services were conducted. She even allowed her novices to wait on the
+older nuns, replacing their own servants.
+
+For a year and a half Ang�lique struggled patiently to soften the hearts
+of the Maubuisson 'ladies,' but without success, and her courage and
+spirits began to fail her. Then, in September 1619, an event occurred
+which, unpleasant though it was, brought her back to her old self, and
+this was the sudden return of madame d'Estr�es.
+
+At six o'clock one morning the late abbess, who had managed to escape
+from the convent where she had been imprisoned, unexpectedly appeared as
+the nuns were on their way to church, having been let in secretly by one
+of the sisters.
+
+'Madame,' she said to Ang�lique, 'I have to thank you for the care you
+have taken of my abbey, and to request that you will go back to yours.'
+
+'There is nothing I long for more, madame,' replied Ang�lique, 'but I
+have been placed here by the abbot of Citeaux, our superior, and I
+cannot leave without his permission.' Upon this madame d'Estr�es
+declared that she was abbess and would take her proper position; but
+Ang�lique, merely asserting that the king and the abbot had placed her
+there, and there she must stay, walked calmly to her own seat, while
+madame d'Estr�es, not having made up her mind what to do, went off to
+see her own nuns, who seldom were present at the early service.
+
+By command of Ang�lique, everything went on as usual in the abbey,
+except that the keys of all the doors had been given up to her. But
+after dinner, to her great surprise, the chaplain came to her and
+informed her that it was her duty to give way to force, and that if she
+did not do so quietly the armed men whom madame d'Estr�es had left
+outside the walls would thrust her out. The abbess replied that she
+could not forsake her charge; but she had hardly spoken when, to her
+amazement, five soldiers with naked swords advanced towards her, and
+threatened her with violence if she did not do as they wished. But no
+Arnauld ever submitted to bullying, and Ang�lique repeated her words,
+and said that nothing but force could make her quit her post.
+
+While this conversation was going on the novices, terrified at what
+might be happening to their abbess, crowded round in order to protect
+her. They were all very much excited, and when madame d'Estr�es, who had
+entered also, happened to touch Ang�lique's veil, one of the young nuns
+turned to her and cried out indignantly:
+
+'Wretched woman! Would you dare to pull off the veil of madame de Port
+Royal?' and snatching the veil which the abbess had put on her own head,
+she tore it off and flung it in a corner.
+
+'Put madame out,' said madame d'Estr�es, turning to the gentlemen with
+her, and Ang�lique, who did not resist, was at once thrust out of the
+door and into a carriage that was waiting. In an instant the carriage
+was covered with novices as with a swarm of flies. The wheels, the
+rumble, the coach-box, all were full of them; it was astonishing how
+they got there in their heavy, cumbrous clothes. Madame d'Estr�es called
+to the coachman to whip up the horses, but he, perhaps enjoying the
+scene, replied that if he moved he was certain to crush somebody. Then
+Ang�lique left the coach, and the novices got down from their perches
+and stood around her.
+
+Finding that this plan had failed, madame d'Estr�es ordered one of her
+lackeys to stand at the gate of the abbey and to allow Ang�lique, her
+two sisters, and the two Port Royal nuns to pass out, but no one else.
+She herself took hold of Ang�lique, who was nearly torn in half between
+her friends and enemies, and pulled her out of the gate, all the novices
+pressing behind her. The moment the rival abbesses had passed through a
+strong young novice seized hold of madame d'Estr�es and forced her to
+the ground, keeping her there until every one of her companions was on
+the outside. It was in vain that the lackey tried to stop them.
+
+'If you attempt to shut that door we will squeeze you to death,' cried
+they, and each in turn gave the door behind which he stood a good push!
+
+At length they were outside, and were walking quietly down the road to
+Pontoise, where they took refuge in a church, till the inhabitants,
+hearing of their arrival, placed all they had at their disposal.
+
+Great was the indignation of the king and the abbot when, next morning,
+a letter from m�re Ang�lique informed them of what had happened.
+Instantly a warrant was issued for the arrest of madame d'Estr�es, and a
+large body of archers was sent off post-haste to Maubuisson in order to
+carry it out. But the abbess had received warning of her danger, and was
+not to be found, though her flight was so hurried that on searching her
+rooms the captain discovered several important papers that she had
+left behind her. Her friend, madame de la Serre, took refuge in a
+cupboard, which was concealed by tapestry, high up in a wall. The dust
+seems to have got into her nose, and she sneezed, and in this manner
+betrayed herself to the archers who set a ladder against the wall, which
+the lady instantly threw down. The captain then levelled his pistol at
+her, and bade his men put up the ladder again.
+
+[Illustration: The archers set a ladder against the wall, which the lady
+instantly threw down.]
+
+'I will shoot you if you do not surrender,' he said, and as she was sure
+he meant it, she gave herself up.
+
+When all was quiet in the abbey, the archers mounted their horses and
+rode to Pontoise, and under their protection Ang�lique and her nuns
+walked back to Maubuisson at ten o'clock that night, escorted by the
+people of Pontoise, and lighted by a hundred and fifty torches borne by
+the archers. For six months a guard of fifty remained there, but when
+madame d'Estr�es was at last captured and sent back for life to the
+Convent of the Penitents, at the request of Ang�lique they returned to
+their quarters, and she was left to manage the nuns herself.
+
+The last year of her residence at Maubuisson was, if possible, more
+unpleasant than the rest had been, for the title of abbess was given to
+a lady of high birth whose views were far more worldly than those of
+Ang�lique. She was very angry at the presence of the thirty poor nuns
+who had been added to the community, and declared she would turn them
+out. So Ang�lique begged them to come with her to Port Royal, small
+though her abbey was, and had them taken there in a number of carriages
+sent by madame Arnauld.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After this Ang�lique, or some of the nuns chosen by her, was often sent
+to reform other convents, and very hard work it was. She had, besides,
+her own cares at Port Royal, for the abbey, always unhealthy, was made
+worse by overcrowding and underfeeding, and the income and the
+dormitories which had been held sufficient for sixteen now had to do for
+eighty. A low fever broke out, of which many died, and soon it became
+clear that the rest would follow if they did not leave. At length, at
+the entreaty of her mother, Ang�lique applied for permission to move
+into Paris, where madame Arnauld had taken a house for them.
+
+It is not easy, of course, even in a big town, to find a ready-made
+building large enough to hold so many people, and, though Ang�lique
+added a sleeping-gallery, the refectory or dining-room was so small that
+the nuns had to dine in parties of four. Her father was dead, and she
+does not seem to have thought of consulting any of her brothers; more
+space appeared a necessity, and, much as she hated debt, in her strait
+she made up her mind that she must borrow money in order to build fresh
+dormitories, and, breaking her rule, accepted a rich boarder, who became
+the cause of infinite trouble.
+
+Just at this period the king's mother, who was in Paris, paid a visit to
+the famous abbess, and inquired if she had nothing to ask for, as it was
+her custom always to grant some favour on entering a convent for the
+first time.
+
+Ang�lique replied that she prayed her to implore the king's grace to
+allow a fresh abbess to be chosen every three years, and leave being
+granted, she and her sister Agnes, who was her coadjutor, instantly
+resigned. She meant the change to be a safeguard, so that no one nun
+should enjoy absolute power for long; but as regarded her own abbey it
+was a great mistake, for she had a gift of ruling such as belonged to
+few women, and often when a mean or spiteful sister was elected she
+would wreak her ill-temper upon the late abbess, and impose all sorts of
+absurd penances upon her, which Ang�lique always bore meekly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the years that followed Ang�lique not only had her four younger
+sisters with her, Agnes, Anne, Marie, and Madeleine, but later her
+mother and her widowed sister, madame le Ma�tre. They were all happy to
+be together, though the rule of silence laid down by Ang�lique to
+prevent gossip must have stood in the way of much that would have been
+pleasant. By-and-by her nieces almost all entered the convent, and, what
+is still more surprising, her brothers and several of her nephews, most
+of them brilliant and successful men, one by one quitted the bar or the
+army, and formed a little band known as the 'Recluses of Port Royal,'
+who afterwards did useful work in draining and repairing the abbey 'in
+the fields,' so that the nuns could go back to it.
+
+And all this was owing to the example and influence of one little girl,
+who had been thrust into a position for which she had certainly shown no
+liking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the last twenty-five years of Ang�lique's life her religious views
+underwent a change, and her confessor, St. Cyran, who shared them, was
+imprisoned, on a charge of heresy, at Vincennes. Even as a young girl
+she had left the chapel at Port Royal bare of ornaments, and later sold
+the silver candlesticks which were a gift to the altar of Port Royal de
+Paris, in order to bestow the money on the poor. Everyone looked up to
+her, but by-and-by it began to be whispered that she was 'a dangerous
+person,' who thought that the Church needed reforming as well as the
+convents, and had adopted the opinions of one Jansen, a Swiss, who
+wished to go back to the faith of early times, when St. Augustine was
+bishop.
+
+In 1654 she heard through one of her nephews that in consequence of some
+of the recluses having resisted a decree of the pope condemning a book
+of Jansen's, a resistance supposed to have been inspired by the abbess
+herself, it was reported that she was either to be sent to the Bastille
+or imprisoned in some convent. She did not take any notice, and neither
+threat was fulfilled; but the hatred which the order of the Jesuits bore
+to the 'Jansenists,' as their opponents were called, never rested, and
+later a command came for the recluses to be dispersed, and the leaders
+were forced to go into hiding. Then her schoolgirls were sent to their
+homes, 'la belle Hamilton,' a Scotch girl, among them; and after them
+went the candidates, or those who wished to take the veil. All these
+blows came thick and fast, and Ang�lique, with health broken from the
+incessant labours of over fifty years, was attacked by dropsy.
+
+The nuns were in despair, and hung about her night and day, hoping that
+she might let fall some words which they might cherish almost as divine
+commands; but Ang�lique, who, unlike her sister Agnes, had all her life
+been very impatient of sentimentality, detected this at once, and took
+care 'neither to say nor do any thing remarkable.' 'They are too fond of
+me,' she once said, 'and I am afraid they will invent all sorts of silly
+tales about me.' And in order to put a stop as far as she could to all
+the show and parade which she knew her nuns would rejoice in, as she
+felt that her end was drawing near she gave them her last order:
+
+'Bury me in the churchyard, and do not let there be any nonsense after
+my death.'
+
+
+
+
+GORDON
+
+
+Many years hence, when the children of to-day are growing old men and
+women, they will perhaps look back over their lives, as I am doing now,
+and ask themselves questions about the people they have known or have
+heard of. 'Who,' they will say, 'was the person I should have gone to at
+once if I needed help?' 'Who was the man whose talk made me forget
+everything, till I felt as if I could listen to him for ever?' 'What
+woman was the most beautiful, or the most charming?' and they will turn
+over the chapters in the Book of Long Ago and give the answers to
+themselves, or to the boys and girls who are listening for their reply.
+Well, if the question were put throughout England at this moment, 'What
+man has kindled the greatest and most undying enthusiasm during your
+life?' the answer would be given with one voice:
+
+'Gordon.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed as if from the very first Nature had intended him for a
+soldier. His father came of a clan that has a fighting record even in
+Scotch history, and he was living on Woolwich Common, within hearing of
+the Arsenal guns, when his fourth son, Charles George, was born on
+January 28, 1833. Yet, strange to say, though fearless in many ways, and
+accustomed to rough games with his numerous brothers and sisters,
+Charles as a small boy hated the roar of cannon. Unlike queen Christina
+of Sweden, who at four years old used to clap her hands when a gun was
+discharged near her, and cry 'Again!' Charles shrank away and put his
+fingers in his ears to shut out the noise. It was not lack of courage,
+for he showed plenty of that about other things, but simply that the
+sudden sound made him jump, and was unpleasant to him.
+
+His life was from the first full of change, as the lives of soldiers'
+children often are, for the Gordons were stationed in Dublin and near
+Edinburgh before they went out to the island of Corfu when Charles was
+seven. During the three years he spent there Charles grew big and strong
+and full of daring; guns might fire all day long without his moving a
+muscle, and he was always trying to imitate the deeds of boys bigger
+than himself. When he saw them diving and swimming about in the
+beautiful clear water, he would throw himself from a rock into their
+midst, feeling quite sure that somebody would help him to float. And as
+courage and confidence are the two chief qualities necessary to make a
+good swimmer, by the time he left Corfu he was as much at home in the
+sea as any of his friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After his tenth birthday his life at Corfu came to an end, and Charles
+was brought home by his mother and sent to school at Taunton, where he
+stayed for five years. He is sure to have been liked by his
+schoolfellows, for he was a very lively, mischievous boy, constantly
+inventing some fresh prank, but never shirking the punishment it
+frequently brought. At Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen,
+it was just the same. He was continually defying, in a good-humoured
+way, those who were set over him, and more than once he had a very
+narrow escape of having his career cut short by dismissal.
+
+At this period his father held the appointment of director of the
+carriage department of the Arsenal, and his whole family suffered
+greatly from the plague of mice which overran the house they lived in.
+After putting up with it for some time, Charles and his brother Henry,
+also a cadet, laid traps and caught vast numbers of the mice, and during
+the night they carried them stealthily across the road in baskets to the
+commandant's house, exactly opposite. Opening a door which they felt
+pretty sure of finding unlocked, they emptied the baskets one by one,
+and let the mice run where they would. Then the boys crept back softly
+to their own room, shaking with laughter at the thought of the
+commandant's face when he came down in the morning.
+
+The two youths were great favourites with the workmen in the Arsenal,
+who used often to leave off the work they should have been doing to make
+squirts, crossbows, and other weapons for Charles and Henry. They must
+have trembled sometimes when they heard that the windows of the
+storehouse had been mysteriously broken, or that an officer who was
+known to be disliked by the cadets had received a deluge of water down
+his neck from a hedge bordering the road. But the culprits never
+betrayed each other, and the young Gordons soon grew so bold that they
+thought they might venture on a piece of mischief which very nearly
+ended their military career.
+
+Some earthworks had been newly thrown up near a room where the senior
+cadets, known as 'Pussies,' attended lectures on certain evenings in the
+week. One night the two Gordons hid themselves behind this rampart, and
+while listening to remarks upon fortification and strategy the cadets
+were startled by a crash of glass and a shower of small shot falling
+about their ears. In an instant they were all up and out of the house,
+dashing about in the direction from which the shots had come; and so
+quick were they that if Charles and Henry had not known every inch of
+the ground and dodged their pursuers, they would certainly have been
+caught and expelled, as they richly deserved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In June 1852 Charles Gordon was given a commission as second lieutenant
+in the Engineers, and was sent to Chatham for two years. In spite of the
+mice and the crossbows and the earthworks and many other things, he had
+gained several good conduct badges, for he had worked hard, and was
+noted for being clever both at fortifications and at surveying.
+Mathematics he never could learn. So Charles said good-bye to his
+father, who was thankful to see him put to man's work--for during the
+four years his son had passed at Woolwich he had, as he expressed it,
+'felt himself sitting on a powder barrel'--and set out on the career in
+which he was to earn a name for justice and truth throughout three
+continents.
+
+It was while Gordon was learning in Pembroke Dock something of what
+fortifications really were that the Crimean war broke out, and in
+December he was ordered to Balaclava, in charge of the materials for
+erecting wooden huts for the troops. He went down to Portsmouth and put
+the planks and fittings on board some collier boats, but not wishing to
+share their voyage, he started for Marseilles, and there took a steamer
+to Constantinople. He arrived in the harbour of Balaclava on January 1,
+1855, and heard the guns of Sebastopol booming six miles away. The cold
+was bitter, men were daily frozen to death in the trenches, food was
+very scarce, and the streets of Balaclava were full of 'swell English
+cavalry and horse-artillery carrying rations, and officers in every
+conceivable costume foraging for eatables.'
+
+Soon the young engineer was sent down to the trenches before Sebastopol,
+where he and his comrades were always under fire and scarcely ever off
+duty. It was here that his friendship began with a young captain in the
+90th Foot, now lord Wolseley, who has many stories to tell of what life
+in the trenches was like. Notwithstanding all the suffering and sadness
+around them, these young men, full of fun and high spirits, managed to
+laugh in the midst of their work. At Christmas-time captain Wolseley and
+two of his friends determined to have a plum-pudding, so that they might
+feel as if they were eating their Christmas dinner in England. It is
+true that they only had dim ideas how a plum-pudding was to be made, and
+nothing whatever to make it with, but when one is young that makes no
+difference at all. One of the three consulted a sergeant, who told him
+he thought it would need some flour and some raisins, as well as some
+suet; but as none of these things could be got, they used instead butter
+which had gone bad, dry biscuits which they pounded very fine, and a
+handful of raisins somebody gave them. Stirring this mixture carefully
+by turns, they calculated how long it would have to boil--in one of
+captain Wolseley's three towels which he sacrificed for the purpose--so
+that they might be able to enjoy it at a moment when they would all be
+off duty. Five hours, they fancied, it must be on the fire, but it had
+scarcely been boiling one when the summons came to go back to their
+work. Resolved not to lose the fruits of so much labour and care, they
+snatched the plum-pudding from the pot and ate a few spoonfuls before
+running out to their posts. But Wolseley had hardly reached his place
+before he was seized with such frightful pains that he felt as if he
+would die. His commanding officer, who happened to pass, seeing his face
+looking positively green, ordered him back to his hut. But a little rest
+soon cured him, and, like the others, he spent the night in the
+trenches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You will have read in the story of the 'Lady in Chief' something about
+the hardships which the allied army of English, French, and Turks went
+through during the war with the Russians, so I will not repeat it here.
+Gordon, whose quick eye saw everything, was greatly struck with the way
+the French soldiers bore their sufferings. 'They had nothing to cover
+them,' he says, 'and in spite of the wet and cold they kept their health
+and their high spirits also.' Our men worked hard and with dogged
+determination, but, as a rule, they could not be called lively. True,
+till Miss Nightingale and her nurses came out they were left when
+wounded to the care of rough and ignorant, however kindly, comrades,
+while the French had always their own Sisters of Charity to turn to for
+help. But it is pleasant to think that the sons of the men who had
+fallen in the awful passage of the Berezina forty years before were
+worthy of their fathers, and could face death with a smile and a jest as
+well as they.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the war went on and the assaults on the town of Sebastopol became
+more frequent, the English generals learned to know of what stuff their
+young officers were made, and what special duties they were fit for.
+They marked that Gordon had some of Hannibal's power of guessing, almost
+by instinct, what the enemy was doing--a quality that rendered him
+extremely useful to his superiors. With all his untiring energy and
+eagerness--forty times he was in the trenches for twenty hours--he never
+overlooked the details that were necessary to ensure the success of any
+work he was entrusted with, and he never relaxed his watchfulness till
+the post to be won was actually taken. In his leisure moments he seems
+to have been fond of walking as far as he could without running into
+danger, and writes home in February of the grass that was springing and
+the crocuses that were flowering outside the camp. Sometimes he would go
+with a friend down to the great harbour on the north side of which the
+Russians were entrenched, and listen to them singing the sad boating
+songs of the Volga, or watch them trying to catch fish, chattering
+merrily all the while.
+
+At last the forts of the Mamelon and the Malakoff were stormed, and the
+Russians abandoned Sebastopol. Gordon, who had often narrowly escaped
+death, was mentioned by the generals in despatches; but he did not
+receive promotion, and, except a scar, the only token he carried away of
+those long months of toil and strain was the cross of the Legion of
+Honour bestowed on him by the French. But he was a marked man for all
+that, and was sent straight from the Crimea, after peace was made, to
+join a mission for fixing fresh frontiers for Russia south-west along
+the river Pruth and on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wherever he went, whether he was on the borders of Turkey, in Armenia,
+or in the Caucasus, where he proceeded after a winter in England, he
+made the best of his opportunities and saw all he could of the country
+and the people. He was as fond as ever of expeditions and adventures,
+and climbed Ararat till a blinding snowstorm came on and the guides
+refused to proceed. In the Caucasus he dined out whenever he was asked,
+and was equally surprised at the beauty of the smart ladies (who wore
+bracelets made of coal) and at the ingrained dirt of their clothes and
+their houses. On the whole, though he thoroughly enjoyed the good
+dinners they gave him, he preferred going on shooting expeditions into
+the mountains with their husbands and sons.
+
+At the end of 1858 he was ordered home again, and a few months later
+obtained his captaincy, and was made adjutant and field-work instructor
+at Chatham. But this did not last long, for in a year's time he was
+destined to undertake one of the two great missions of his life.
+
+Early in 1860 a war with China broke out, and in this also the French
+were our allies. More soldiers were needed, and volunteers were asked
+for. Gordon was one of the first to send in his name, but before he
+reached Pekin the Taku forts, at the mouth of the Tientsin River--forts
+of which in the year 1900 we were to hear so much--had been taken.
+However, the famous Summer Palace was still to be captured, and this,
+which indeed might be called the eighth wonder of the world, lay out in
+the country, eight miles away from Pekin. The grounds, covering more
+than twelve miles, were laid out with lakes, fountains, tea-houses,
+waterfalls, banks of trees, and beds of flowers, while scattered about
+were palaces belonging to different members of the royal family, all
+filled with beautiful things--china of the oldest and rarest sorts,
+silks, lacquer, cabinets, and an immense variety of clocks and watches.
+By order of the English envoy this gorgeous place was given over to
+pillage, in revenge for the ill-treatment of some French and British
+prisoners. One can form a little idea of the vast amount of treasures it
+contained from constantly seeing scattered in houses a watch or a
+lacquer box or a china bowl that, we are told, had once decorated the
+Summer Palace; they really seem to be endless. Lord Wolseley tells how
+he happened to be standing by the French general in the gardens while
+the looting was going on, and as a French soldier came out he handed to
+his chief something that he had brought expressly for him. Then, turning
+to the young English officer, he held out a beautiful miniature of a man
+wearing a dress of the time of Louis XIV.
+
+'That is for you, my comrade,' he said, smiling, and Wolseley, heartily
+thanking him, examined the gift.
+
+'How,' he thought, 'could a miniature of a French poet living two
+hundred years ago have got to Pekin?' Then he remembered that an embassy
+from China had arrived in France, bearing presents to the French court.
+Louis received them graciously, and showed them the splendours of
+Versailles and all the curious and artistic ornaments it contained. When
+the envoys left, the king gave them gifts of French manufacture as
+valuable as their own to take to their emperor, and among them was this
+miniature of Boileau, by Petitot, the greatest of French miniaturists.
+
+The imperial throne, which stands on dragon's claws, and is covered with
+cushions of yellow silk, the imperial colour, was bought by Gordon
+himself, and presented by him to Chatham, where it may still be seen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Till the large sum fixed for the expenses of the war was paid General
+Staveley was left with three thousand men in command at Tientsin, and
+Gordon remained with him. Tientsin is a dreary place in a salt plain,
+and the climate is very cold, as it is throughout North China. But
+Gordon minded cold far less than heat and mosquitoes, and besides his
+days were full from morning till night, building huts for the soldiers
+and stables for the horses, and in managing a fund which he had
+collected to help some Chinese in the neighbourhood who had been ruined
+by the war. Though very careless of his own money, and ready to give it
+away without inquiry to any beggar who asked for it, he was most
+particular about other people's, and the attention which he paid to
+small things enabled him to spend the fund in the manner that would best
+aid the poor creatures who had lost everything. Now and then he gave
+himself a day's holiday, and explored the country, as he was fond of
+doing; and once he rode out to the Great Wall, twenty-two feet high and
+sixteen wide, which runs along the north-west of China, over mountains
+and across plains, for fifteen hundred miles, and was built two thousand
+years ago by an emperor to keep out the invading hosts of the Tartars.
+At certain distances strong forts were placed, and these were garrisoned
+by Chinese soldiers. As he passed through the more remote villages the
+inhabitants would come out of their houses and stare. A white man! They
+had heard that there were such, though they had never really believed
+it. Well, he was a strange creature truly, with his hair cropped close
+and pink in his cheeks, and they did not much admire him!
+
+Nearer Pekin he met long strings, or caravans, of camels laden with tea,
+making their way to Russia. Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the
+mountains it was frightfully cold, and raw eggs were frozen so hard that
+no one could eat them; but Gordon could do with as little food as any
+man, and did not suffer from the climate. He came back strengthened and
+interested, and it was as well he had the short rest to brace him, for
+now there lay before him a very difficult task.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For quite thirty years great discontent with government had been felt by
+the peasants and lower classes in some of the central provinces of the
+empire, and a long while before the war with England broke out a peasant
+emperor had been proclaimed. The insurrection--or the Taeping rebellion,
+as it is called--could have been easily put down in the beginning, but
+ministers in China are slow to move, and it soon became a real danger to
+the empire. The great object of the rebels was to gain possession of
+Shanghai, the centre of European trade, built in the midst of canals and
+rivers, with the great Yang-tse-kiang at hand to carry into the interior
+of China the goods of foreign merchants of all countries that come to
+its harbour across the Pacific. Pirate vessels, too, haunted its shores,
+ready to pounce upon the rich traders, and when their prizes were
+captured, they went swiftly away, and hid themselves among the islands
+and bogs that stretched themselves a hundred miles to the north and
+south of the city.
+
+Thus Shanghai was a very important place both to Chinese, French, and
+English; yet for twelve years the rebellion had been allowed to go on
+unchecked, burning, pillaging, and murdering, till in 1853 the rebels
+had reached a point only a hundred miles distant from Pekin itself. Then
+soldiers were hastily collected, and the Taepings forced back; quarrels
+broke out among their leaders, and most likely the rebellion would have
+melted away altogether had it not been for the appearance four years
+later of young Chung Wang, who assumed the command, and proved himself a
+most skilful general. As long as he led the Taepings in battle victory
+was on their side; if he was needed elsewhere, they were invariably
+defeated.
+
+Inspired by his successes, Chung Wang attacked and took several rich and
+important towns in the Shanghai district, and held Nankin, the ancient
+capital of China. Shanghai trembled when the flames of burning villages
+became visible from her towers and pagodas, and even the Chinese felt
+that, if they were to be saved at all, measures must be quickly taken.
+Volunteers of all nations living in the town, Chinese as well as
+Europeans and Americans, put themselves under the command of an American
+named Ward, who drilled them, trained them, and fought with them, and,
+it is said, gave battle to the rebels on seventy different occasions
+without once being beaten. Well had his troops earned the title
+afterwards given them at Pekin, of the Ever-Victorious Army.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This was the state of things when, in May 1862, Gordon was sent to
+Shanghai in command of the English engineers who, with some French
+troops, were to assist the Chinese army in clearing the district round
+Shanghai of the dreaded Taepings. The nature of the country, almost
+encircled by water, was such that the help of a good engineer was needed
+if the expedition was to be successful, and Gordon was busy all day in
+surveying the canals or moats outside the walls of some city they were
+about to attack, to see at what point he could throw a bridge of boats
+across, or where he could best place his reserves. At the end of six
+months the enemy was forced back to a distance of forty miles; but the
+French admiral Protet had been killed in action, and Ward had fallen
+while leading an assault.
+
+By this time the emperor and his ministers at Pekin understood that if
+the Taepings were to be put down the Chinese army must be commanded by a
+general capable of opposing Chung Wang, and a request was sent to the
+English government that the post might be temporarily offered to major
+Gordon. After some hesitation, leave was granted, and permission was
+given to a certain number of officers to serve under him. The emperor
+was overjoyed--much more so than Gordon, who was promptly created a
+mandarin. He foresaw many difficulties in store before he could get his
+'rabble' of four thousand men into order, and at the outset he had much
+trouble with Burgevine, Ward's successor in command of the
+Ever-Victorious Army, but a very different man from Ward himself.
+However, by the help of the famous Li Hung Chang, Burgevine was
+ultimately got rid of, but not before he had done a great deal of
+mischief. Gordon was free to devote all his energies to building a
+little fleet of small steamers and Chinese gunboats that could go down
+the rivers and canals, and hinder the foreign traders from secretly
+supplying the rebels with arms and ammunition.
+
+The strict discipline enforced by Gordon made him very unpopular with
+his little army, and they could not understand why he made the act of
+pillage a crime, to be punished by death. But when we think how wholly
+impossible it is for any European or American to guess what is going on
+in the mind of any Asiatic, it is surprising, not that he met with
+difficulties, but that he ever succeeded in obtaining obedience. As it
+was, two thousand of his men deserted after some heavy fighting, and
+Ching, the Chinese general, was jealous of him, and incited the troops
+to oppose and annoy him in every way. Besides, Li Hung Chang was
+behindhand in paying his army, and, as Gordon felt that his own good
+faith and honour were pledged to punctual payment, he tendered his
+resignation as commander. This frightened the emperor and his ministers
+so much that the money due was quickly sent, and by the help of General
+Staveley matters were arranged.
+
+At the capture of Quinsan Gordon took prisoners about two thousand
+Taepings, whom he drilled with care and enlisted in his own army,
+turning them, he said, into much better soldiers than his old ones.
+Eight hundred of them he made his own guard, and under his eye they
+proved faithful and trustworthy. With the help of his new force he
+determined to besiege the ancient town of Soo-chow, situated on the
+Grand Canal and close to the Tai-ho, or great lake.
+
+All around it were waterways leading to the sea, but the Grand Canal
+itself, stretching away to the Yang-tse-kiang, was held by the Taeping
+general Chung Wang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now the possession of Soo-chow was of great importance to both parties,
+and Gordon at once proceeded to cut off its supplies that came by way of
+the sea and the Tai-ho, by putting three of his steamers on the lake, so
+that no provisions could get into the city except through the Grand
+Canal. On the land side fighting was going on perpetually, and by the
+help of a body of good Chinese troops Gordon gained a decisive victory
+in the open field. We can scarcely, however, realise all the
+difficulties he had to contend with in his army itself. General Ching
+not only hated him, and always tried to upset his plans, but was quite
+reckless, and if left to himself invariably got into mischief. Then the
+minister, Li Hung Chang's brother, who had been given the command of
+twenty thousand troops, was utterly without either instinct or
+experience, and continually hampered Gordon's movements by some act of
+folly. Worst of all, he could not feel sure of the fidelity of his own
+officers, and during the siege he found that one of them had actually
+given information of his plans to Chung Wang.
+
+As soon as the man's guilt was certain Gordon sent for him, and in the
+light of one whose soul had never held a thought that was not honourable
+and true the traitor must have seen himself as he really was. We do not
+know what Gordon said to him--most likely very little, but he offered
+him one chance of retrieving himself, and that was that he should lead
+the next forlorn hope.
+
+In spite of his treachery the culprit was able to feel the baseness of
+his conduct. He eagerly accepted Gordon's proposal, though he was well
+aware that almost certain death was in store. And his repentance was
+real, and not merely the effect of a moment's shame, for when, some time
+after, a forlorn hope was necessary to carry the stockades before
+Soo-chow, Gordon, whose mind had been occupied with other things, had
+entirely forgotten all about his promise. But though he did not
+remember, the officer did, and claimed his right to lead. He was the
+first man killed, but the stockades were carried, and after two months'
+siege Soo-chow was won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nowhere during Gordon's service in China was the difference between East
+and West more clearly shown than in the events that happened after the
+capture of Soo-chow. Gordon respected his enemies, who had fought
+bravely, and wished them to be granted favourable terms of surrender.
+Moh Wang in particular, the captain of the city, had shown special skill
+and courage, and before the town fell Gordon had obtained a promise
+from Li Hung Chang that the Taeping commander's fate should be placed in
+his hands. At a council held inside Soo-chow, Moh Wang desired to hold
+out, but the other Wangs (or nobles) all voted for surrender, and at
+length they began to quarrel. Moh Wang would not give way, and then Kong
+Wang caught up his dagger and struck the first blow. The rest fell upon
+Moh Wang, and dragged him from his seat, cutting off his head, which
+they sent to Ching the general as a gift.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As plunder had been strictly forbidden by Gordon, he was very anxious to
+give his soldiers two months' pay to make up; but one month's pay was
+all he could obtain, and that with great difficulty, while the troops,
+angry and disappointed, threatened to revolt and to march against Li
+Hung Chang, as governor of the province. This was, however, stopped by
+Gordon, who then went into the city to the house of Nar Wang, another
+Taeping leader, whom he wished also to gain over. On the previous day he
+had heard from Ching that at twelve o'clock on the morning of December 6
+the Wangs had arranged to meet the governor and surrender Soo-chow, as
+the emperor had consented to spare their lives and those of the
+prisoners; so Gordon started early in order to catch Nar Wang before he
+left, reaching Nar Wang's house just as he and the other Wangs were
+mounting their horses for the interview. After talking to them a little
+he bade them good-bye, and they rode away.
+
+The fate that they met with was the same as they had dealt to Moh Wang.
+It seemed ridiculous to the governor to keep faith with men who had just
+delivered themselves and their city into his hands, and almost every
+Chinaman would have agreed with him. The Wangs were all taken over to
+the other side of the river and there beheaded, their heads being cut
+off and flung aside. But somehow, though the murder was committed in
+broad daylight, it was kept a secret till the following day.
+
+This breach of faith in murdering men who had surrendered might long
+have remained unknown to Gordon but for a slight change in his plans. He
+suddenly decided that he would embark on one of his steamers on the
+Tai-ho, instead of leaving the city by another route. It was some little
+time before steam could be got up, so he went for a walk through the
+streets with Dr. Halliday Macartney, whose name will always be connected
+with China. To his surprise, crowds of imperialists were standing about,
+talking eagerly and excitedly, and it was clear to both Englishmen that
+some sort of a disturbance had taken place. Turning a corner they
+suddenly met General Ching, who grew so pale and looked so uncomfortable
+that Gordon's suspicions were aroused, and he at once inquired if the
+Wangs had seen Li Hung Chang, and what had taken place.
+
+Ching replied that they had never been to Li Hung Chang at all, which
+astonished Gordon, who answered that he had seen them starting, and if
+they had not gone there, where were they? Then Ching said they had sent
+a message to the governor stating that they wished to be allowed to keep
+twenty thousand men, and to retain half of the city, building a wall to
+shut off their own portion. Gordon was greatly puzzled by this
+information, and asked if Ching thought that the Wangs could have joined
+the Taepings again in some other place; but the Chinese general replied
+that he thought most likely that they had returned quietly to their own
+homes.
+
+To all appearance Ching was speaking the truth, yet Gordon could not
+feel satisfied. Turning to Macartney, who was standing by listening to
+the conversation, he begged him to go quickly to Nar Wang's house and
+tell him that the surrender must be unconditional, and then to return
+to him at a certain spot. When Macartney reached the house where Nar
+Wang lived he was informed by the servant who opened it that his master
+was out.
+
+'Will he be in soon, for I must see him,' inquired Macartney. 'I have
+business of the greatest importance.'
+
+The man looked at him silently, and then drew his hand slowly across his
+throat. Macartney understood the ghastly sign, and went swiftly away,
+but only just in time to avoid a crowd of pillagers, who poured into the
+house and in a few minutes had wrecked or stolen all they could lay
+hands on. He soon reached the spot which Gordon had appointed, but, long
+though he waited, Gordon never came.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Macartney had left him Gordon stayed some time talking with Ching,
+and trying to find out what had really occurred, for that some dark deed
+had taken place he became quite convinced. However, not even torture can
+wring from a Chinaman what he does not choose to tell, and at length
+Gordon gave up the attempt in despair, and hurried through crowds laden
+with plunder to Nar Wang's house in order to see and hear for himself.
+The door stood open, and he walked rapidly through the rooms. At first
+the dwelling seemed as empty as it was bare, but at length he thought he
+saw some eyes looking at him behind a pile of rubbish.
+
+'Come out,' he said; 'I am alone, you have nothing to fear'; and then an
+old man crept out, who, with many low bows and polite expressions,
+explained that in his nephew's absence the Chinese soldiers had pillaged
+his house, and begged the honourable Englishman to help him take away
+the ladies, whom he had hidden in a cellar, to his own dwelling.
+
+Gordon was furious at learning that his strict orders against pillage
+had been disobeyed, but this was not the moment to think of that. With
+some difficulty they all passed through the crowded streets, but when
+they reached the old man's house they found a guard round it, and Gordon
+was informed that he must consider himself a prisoner. Luckily for him
+the Taepings had not yet learned the fate of the Wangs, or his life
+would have been speedily taken in payment for theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that night Gordon remained locked up in one room, impatiently
+chafing at the thought of what might be going on in the city. Early in
+the morning he got leave to send an interpreter with a letter to the
+English lines, ordering his bodyguards to come to his rescue, and to
+seize Li Hung Chang as security for the Wangs. His first messenger was
+stopped and his letter torn up; but in the afternoon he was himself set
+free on a promise to send a guard to protect the Taepings in Nar Wang's
+house. This he instantly did, and in his indignation at the permission
+given in his absence to the imperialist soldiers to sack the city
+refused to see or speak to general Ching.
+
+On receiving Gordon's refusal Ching began to feel that he and Li Hung
+Chang had gone rather far, and that the day of reckoning would be a very
+uncomfortable one. Some explanation he must make, so he ordered an
+English officer to go at once to Gordon and inform him that he knew
+nothing of what had become of the Wangs, or whether they were alive or
+dead, but that Nar Wang's son was safe in his tent.
+
+'Bring him here,' said Gordon, and he waited in silence till a boy of
+fourteen entered the camp at the east gate. From him he learned what had
+happened in a few words. All the Wangs, his father among them, had been
+taken across the river on the previous day, and there cruelly murdered;
+their heads had been cut off, and their bodies left lying on the bank.
+
+Speechless with horror, Gordon set off at once for the place of the
+murder, and found the nine headless corpses lying as they had fallen.
+Englishman and soldier though he was, tears of rage forced their way
+into his eyes at the thought that by this act of treachery on the part
+of the Chinese his honour and that of his country had been trampled in
+the dust. Then, taking a revolver instead of the stick which was the
+only weapon he carried even in action, he went straight to Li Hung
+Chang's quarters, intending to shoot him dead and to bear the
+responsibility.
+
+But the governor had been warned, and took his measures accordingly. Li
+Hung Chang had escaped from his boat, and was hiding in the city. In
+vain Gordon, his anger no whit abated, sought for him high and low. No
+trace of him could be found; and at last Gordon returned to Quinsan,
+where he called a council of his English officers, and informed them
+that until the emperor had punished Li Hung Chang as he deserved he
+should decline to serve with him, and should resign his command into the
+hands of General Brown, who was stationed at Shanghai. As to Li Hung
+Chang's offer, sent by Macartney, to sign any proclamation Gordon chose
+to write, saying that he was both innocent and ignorant of the murder of
+the Wangs, he would not even listen to it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as General Brown received Gordon's letter at Shanghai he
+instantly set out for Quinsan, where Gordon remained with his troops for
+two months, while Li Hung Chang's conduct was being inquired into, or,
+rather, while the government was trying to find out how the anger of the
+English generals and the English envoy on account of the murder of the
+Wangs could best be satisfied. For Li Hung had been beforehand with us,
+guessing how much he had at stake, and had been much praised for his act
+and given a yellow jacket, or, as we should say 'the Garter.' On Gordon
+himself a medal of the highest class was bestowed, with a large sum of
+money, and, what the imperial government knew he would value much more,
+a grant for his wounded men and extra pay for the soldiers. Anything
+that tended to make his troops more comfortable Gordon, who had already
+devoted to their help his 1,200 l. a year of pay from the Chinese
+government, gladly received, but for himself he would accept nothing and
+keep nothing, except two flags, which had no connection with the Wang
+massacre. Nor did he allow anyone to remain in ignorance of the motive
+of his refusal, for he wrote a letter to the emperor himself, in which
+he stated that 'he regretted most sincerely that, owing to the
+circumstances which occurred since the capture of Soo-chow, he was
+unable to receive any mark of his majesty the emperor's recognition,'
+though he 'respectfully begged his majesty to accept his thanks for his
+intended kindness.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the taking of Soo-chow the Taeping resistance was really broken,
+and soon Nankin and Hangchow were the only important places left to
+them, though plenty of fighting was still to be done. To the great
+relief of the government Gordon was at length persuaded to resume his
+command, more from the thought that he might be able to some extent to
+check the cruelty natural to the Chinese than for any other reason. It
+is amusing to watch the slavish behaviour of the emperor towards the man
+whose help he so greatly needed, and whose anger he so deeply feared.
+Once, when Gordon in leading an attack with his wand in his hand, the
+only weapon he ever carried, received a bad wound below the knee, his
+majesty promulgated a public edict ordering Li Hung Chang to inquire
+daily after him, and the governor himself issued a proclamation, setting
+forth all the circumstances of the massacre of Soo-chow, and declaring
+in the clearest manner that Gordon had been totally ignorant of the
+whole affair.
+
+In June 1864 the British government sent an intimation to China that
+they considered the country had no further need for Gordon's services,
+and wished him set at liberty to return home. Gordon himself would
+perhaps have preferred to remain a little longer, but, as he was given
+no choice, he quietly disbanded the Ever-Victorious-Army, fearing that,
+if led by unscrupulous men, it might become a danger to the empire. He
+then visited the general besieging Nankin, whose name was Tseng-kwo-fan,
+and gave him a little advice as to the training of troops, and even took
+part in directing some of the assaults. Then he took leave of the
+general, and a few hours later he had started on his journey. Tien Wang,
+one of the Taeping commanders within the walls of Nankin, seeing that
+the cause was tottering to its fall, committed suicide in the manner
+proper to his rank by swallowing gold leaf. Shortly after the city
+itself was stormed, and Chung Wang, whose presence among the rebels was,
+said Gordon, equal to an army of five thousand men, fell into the hands
+of the victors. He was sentenced to be beheaded, but was given a week's
+respite in order to write the history of the rebellion of the Taepings,
+who had invaded sixteen out of the eighteen provinces and destroyed six
+hundred cities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By this time Gordon and Li Hung Chang had begun to know more of each
+other and to understand a little better the different views of East and
+West. Gordon had gained the trust and respect of everybody, even of the
+Taeping chiefs themselves, while the prince Kung, in the name of the
+emperor, wrote a letter of the most hearty gratitude for Gordon's
+services to the British minister at Pekin. The title of Ti-tu, the
+highest rank in the Chinese army, had been conferred on him, and also
+the yellow jacket, a distinction dating back to the coming of the
+present Manchu dynasty in the seventeenth century, and only given to
+generals who had been victorious against rebels. Gordon had besides six
+dresses of mandarins, and a book explaining how they should be worn.
+They were of course the handsomest that China could produce, and the
+buttons on the hats alone were worth 30 l. or 40 l. each. From the two
+empresses he received a gold medal specially struck in his honour; and
+by this he set great store, though not long after, having spent all his
+pay on his boys at Gravesend, he sold it for 10 l., and, smoothing out
+the inscription, sent the money to the Lancashire Famine Fund.
+
+His own government gave him a step in military rank, and it was as
+'Colonel Gordon' that he returned home early in 1865.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next six years of his life Gordon passed at home, and these years
+were, he said, the happiest he had ever spent. He first visited his
+family, who were living at Southampton, and to them he was ready to talk
+of all that he had seen and done since they last parted. Invitations
+poured in upon him from all sides, but he hated being fussed over, and
+invariably lost his temper at any attempt to show him off. He was so
+angry at a minister who borrowed from Mrs. Gordon his private journal of
+the Taeping rebellion, and then sent to have it printed for the other
+members of the Cabinet to read, that he rushed straight to the printers
+and insisted that the type should at once be destroyed. It was a very
+great loss to the world; but the minister had no business to act as he
+did without Gordon's permission, and had only himself to thank for what
+happened.
+
+Delightful though it was to be back again, Gordon soon got tired of
+being idle, so he was given an appointment to superintend the erection
+of forts at Gravesend. His leisure hours he devoted to helping the
+people round him, especially little ragged boys, whose only playground
+and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside. And it is curious that
+he, who amongst strangers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often
+tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as
+suspicious as they are acute. About himself and his own comfort he never
+thought, and if he was working would eat, when it was necessary and he
+remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a drawer of his table.
+But as he had carefully watched over the welfare of his troops in China,
+so in Gravesend he looked after that of his boys. He took into his own
+house as many as there was room for, and clothed and fed them, while in
+the evenings he taught them geography, and told them stories from
+English history and the Bible, and when he considered they had done
+lessons long enough he played games with them. By-and-by more boys came
+in from the outside and joined his classes. It did not matter to him how
+many they were, they were all welcome, and he gave them, as far as the
+time allowed, a training which was religious as well as practical,
+hoping that some day they might turn out good soldiers and sailors, and
+be a protection to the empire. Several of his boys were taken on board
+some of the many ships off Gravesend, and the 'kernel,' as they called
+him, kept a map stuck over with pins tracing their voyages all over the
+world.
+
+[Illustration: He told them stories from English history.]
+
+Most people would have considered that between military duties and boys'
+classes they were busy enough; but Gordon still found time to spare for
+the ragged schools, and money to provide hundreds of boots and suits for
+the little waifs, till he left himself almost penniless.
+
+The large garden attached to his house was of no benefit to himself, but
+was lent by him to a number of his friends, each of whom did as he liked
+with his own portion, and either kept the fruit and vegetables for his
+family, or else sold them. Of course, the 'kernel' was frequently taken
+in, and spent his money on those who had no claim to it; but the boys he
+helped were seldom a disappointment, any more than the boys of to-day
+sent out from the Gordon Boys' Homes founded in his memory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It must have been a black day indeed for many in Gravesend when Gordon
+was despatched by his government on a mission to the Danube, and then
+ordered to inspect the graves of those who had fallen in the Crimea
+seventeen years before. So he said good-bye to his friends, young and
+old, leaving to the ragged schools some gorgeous Chinese flags, which
+are still waved at the school treats amidst shouts of remembrance of
+their giver.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On his way back from the Crimea Gordon stopped at Constantinople, and
+while there a proposal was made to him, on the part of the sultan, to
+proceed to Egypt and to take service, with the queen's permission, under
+his vassal, the khedive, or ruler, as governor of the tribes in upper
+Egypt. Sir Samuel Baker had hitherto held the post, but now wished to
+resign, and Gordon, who had always laid greatly to heart the iniquity of
+the slave-trade, thought that, as governor of the provinces from which
+the supply of slaves was drawn, he might be able to put an end to it.
+Leave was granted in the autumn of 1873, and before Gordon returned to
+London to make the necessary preparations, he proceeded to Cairo to see
+the khedive, or, as he was still called, 'the lieutenant of the sultan.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Gordon accepted the position of 'governor of the equatorial
+provinces,' with a salary of �2,000 a year, instead of the �10,000
+offered him by the khedive, the country, which ten years before had been
+rich and prosperous, was in a wretched condition owing to the
+slave-trade, carried on as long as they were able by Europeans as well
+as by Arabs. At first elephant-hunting was made the pretext of their
+expeditions, but soon they found negroes a more profitable article of
+commerce, and whole villages had the strong men and women torn away from
+them, till, at the first hint of the approach of a caravan, the people
+would abandon their huts and fly off to hide themselves. At length the
+trade became so well known and so scandalous that the Europeans were
+forced to give it up; but the Arab dealers continued to grow powerful
+and wealthy, and the wealthiest and most powerful of all was Zebehr,
+whose name for ever after was closely connected with that of Gordon.
+
+The slave-dealers soon formed themselves into a sort of league, with
+Zebehr at their head, and, having created an army made up of Arabs and
+of the slaves they had taken, refused to pay tribute to the khedive, or
+to acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Constantinople, whose
+viceroy he was. The Egyptian government, which had suffered the
+slave-trade to proceed unchecked when human life only was at stake, grew
+indignant the moment it became a question of money. An army was sent
+against Zebehr, who easily defeated it, and proclaimed himself ruler of
+the Soudan or 'land of the black,' south of Khartoum, then a little
+group of three thousand mud-houses on the left bank of the Blue Nile,
+three miles from its junction with the White Nile.
+
+But, small though it was, Khartoum was the capital of the province, and
+owned a governor's house, with the Blue Nile sheltering it on one side,
+and surrounded on the other three by a deep ditch and a wall, while on
+the west side the town was only half a mile distant from the White Nile
+itself.
+
+As soon as the khedive understood that he was no match for Zebehr he
+determined to make a friend of him, and offered him an alliance with the
+title of pasha.
+
+For the moment it suited Zebehr to accept this proposal, and the two
+armies combined and conquered the province of Darfour; but directly the
+pasha wished to turn into a governor-general the khedive grew
+frightened, and declared that he was now convinced that the trade in
+slaves was wicked and must be put down. Perhaps he guessed that Europe
+was hardly likely to be convinced by this sudden change, so, instead of
+appointing an Egyptian governor of the equatorial provinces, he
+conferred the post first on Sir Samuel Baker, and, later, on Gordon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It did not take Gordon long to find out that the khedive's newly
+discovered zeal in putting down the slave-trade was 'a sham to catch the
+attention of the English people,' but the weapon had been thrust into
+his hands, and he meant to use it for the help of the oppressed tribes.
+Difficulties he knew there would be, and he was ready to fight them, but
+one difficulty he hardly made allowance for, which was that among the
+Mahometan races throughout the world it was as much a matter of course
+to have slaves as it is to us to have houses.
+
+With great care he selected the staff that was to accompany him, and a
+body of two hundred troops to inspect Khartoum. He chose five
+Englishmen, an American, an old Crimean Italian interpreter called
+Romulus Gessi, and a slave-trader named Abou Saoud, whom Gordon had
+found a prisoner in Cairo. In vain the khedive warned the new
+governor-general of the danger of taking such a villain into his
+service, and of the strange look his appointment would have in the eyes
+of Europe. To Gordon the only thing that mattered was that the man knew
+the country through which they were to travel, and as to the rest, his
+own neck must take its chance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was on March 12, 1874, that Gordon came in sight of Khartoum, where
+eleven years later he was to find his grave. He was received on the
+banks by the Egyptian governor-general, who ordered salutes to be fired
+and the brass band to play. If Gordon did not appreciate the honours
+paid to him, he was delighted at the news that a growth of grass and
+stones that had hitherto rendered the White Nile impassable had been at
+last cut away by the soldiers. Now the river was free, and instead of
+the journey to Gondokoro--his own capital, eleven hundred miles south of
+Khartoum--taking fourteen months, as in the days of Sir Samuel Baker, he
+would be able to perform it in four weeks.
+
+Every moment of the ten days that Gordon stayed at Khartoum was busily
+employed in discovering all he could as to the condition of the people
+and the state of the government. It did not take him more than a few
+hours to learn that the Egyptian government had no authority whatever
+over the people, and that the money matters of the Soudan were
+hopelessly mixed with those of Cairo. But at present he could only note
+what was wrong, and wait to set it right. His work just now lay at
+Gondokoro, and thither he must go.
+
+On the 22nd he started up the river, and at each mile, as they drew
+nearer and nearer to the equator, he found the climate more trying. It
+was, as he says, nothing but 'heat and mosquitoes day and night, all the
+year round.' But, exhausting though the climate was, he could not help
+being deeply interested in the many things that were new to him. There
+were great hippopotamuses plunging about in their clumsy way; the
+crocodiles, looking more like stone beasts than living things, basking
+motionless on the mud where the river had fallen; the monkeys that had
+their homes with the storks among the trees that covered the banks in
+places; the storks that sounded as if they were laughing, and 'seemed
+highly amused at anybody thinking of going up to Gondokoro with the hope
+of doing anything.' In a forest higher up they found a tribe, the
+Dinkas, dressed in necklaces. Their idea of greeting a white 'chief' was
+to lick his hands, and they would have kissed his feet also had not
+Gordon jumped up hastily and, snatching up some strings of gay beads he
+had brought with him for the purpose, hung them over their heads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The people of Gondokoro were filled with astonishment when Gordon's
+steamer anchored under the river banks. It was a wretched place, worse
+even than Khartoum, and inhabited by wretched people, whom ill-treatment
+had made at once revengeful and timid. But Gordon did not care how
+miserable the place was, he felt sure he could do something to help the
+people; and first he began by trying to make friends. For a time it was
+uphill work; they had given up planting their little plots of
+ground--what was the use when their harvest was always taken from them?
+Their only possession of value was their children, and these they often
+begged Gordon to buy, to save them from starvation. It seemed too good
+to be true when the white man gave them maize, which they baked in
+cakes, and fed them while they sowed their patches once more. 'He would
+see that no one hurt them,' he said, and little by little, under his
+protection, the poor people plucked up heart again and forgot their
+troubles, as nobody but negroes can.
+
+Up and down the river he went, establishing some of the forts which he
+knew to be necessary if the slave-trade was to be put down. One day Abou
+Saoud brought him some letters written by a party of slave-dealers to
+the Egyptian governor of Fashoda, on the White Nile, half-way to
+Khartoum, saying that they would shortly arrive with a gang of negroes
+whom they had captured, and with two thousand cows, which they had also
+kidnapped, as was their custom. Gordon was ready for them; the cattle he
+kept, not being able to return them to their black owners, and the
+negroes he set free. If possible they were sent home, but if that could
+not be done he bought them himself, so that no one else should have a
+claim to them. The gratitude shown by the blacks was boundless, and one,
+a chief of the Dinkas, proved useful to him in many ways. The others,
+tall, strong men, gladly served him as hewers of wood and drawers of
+water.
+
+So the weeks went on, and in the intervals of capturing more convoys of
+slaves Gordon still found time to attend to an old dying woman, whom he
+often visited himself, besides daily sending her food, and, what she
+loved better still, tobacco. The heat grew worse and worse, and no doubt
+the mosquitoes also; and Gordon's only pleasure was wading in the Nile
+morning and evening--a very dangerous amusement, as the river swarmed
+with crocodiles. But he had heard that crocodiles never attacked
+anything that was moving, and certainly he took no harm, and his health
+was good. All his white men, however, fell ill, and as there was no one
+to nurse them but himself, he would not replace them.
+
+[Illustration: Gordon found time to attend to an old dying woman.]
+
+Meanwhile the natives had learned to trust him, and under his rule
+things were looking more prosperous. He saw that his men took nothing
+from them without paying for it, whereas the Egyptian governor had
+forced them to work without pay; and finding the troops he had brought
+from Cairo both cowardly and lazy, he engaged forty Soudanese, on whom
+he could depend, and trained them to act as his body-guard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not to be expected that Gordon could carry through all these
+measures without becoming an object of hatred to the Egyptian officials,
+most of whom were in league with the slave-dealers. Soon he discovered
+that many of his men were taking bribes and plotting against him, and of
+them all, Abou Saoud was the worst. He even incited the black troops
+under him to revolt; but Gordon soon frightened the men into obedience,
+and sent their leader down the Nile to Gondokoro.
+
+Yet, in spite of fever, discontent, laziness, and open rebellion, in ten
+months (1874), writes one of his subordinates, 'he had garrisoned eight
+stations with the seven hundred men whom he had found at Gondokoro too
+frightened to stir a hundred yards outside the town, and had sent to
+Cairo enough money to pay the expenses of the expedition for this year
+and the next, while that of Baker had cost the Egyptian government
+�1,170,000.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed to Gordon that if he could establish a route from the great
+lake Victoria Nyanza, further south, at the head of the Nile, to
+Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean, trade would increase and goods be
+exchanged far more easily and quickly than if they had to be brought
+down the whole length of the Nile, which is often rendered impassable by
+shallows and cataracts. Therefore, towards the end of 1874 he set up
+posts from Gondokoro towards lake Albert Nyanza, hoping that directly
+the Nile fell the steamers he had left at Khartoum might be able to
+reach him. But here again he was beset with difficulties and dangers.
+The Arabs were lazy, the Egyptians useless and often treacherous, many
+of the tribes hostile; and to add to it all, it was almost impossible to
+get past the rapids. The boats were very strong, but liable to be upset
+at any instant by the plunging of the hippopotamuses in the river. Sixty
+or eighty men were often straining at the ropes which were to drag the
+craft along, and Gordon took his turn with the rest. Nobody in the camp
+worked so hard as the commander. He cooked his food and cleaned his gun,
+while the men stood by and stared. When there was nothing else to be
+done he mended watches and musical boxes, which he took with him as
+presents to the natives, and he kept himself well by walking fourteen
+miles daily, in spite of the heat and mosquitoes.
+
+[Illustration: He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and stared.]
+
+'I do not carry arms, as I ought to do,' he said one day, 'for my whole
+attention is devoted to defending the nape of my neck from the
+mosquitoes,' the enemies he hated most of all. Still inch by inch the
+troops fought their way along the river, till at length they reached the
+lake of Albert Nyanza. Gordon established forts as he went, though in
+the depths of his heart he knew full well that the moment his back was
+turned everything would relapse into its former state of oppression and
+lawlessness. But what happened afterwards was not _his_ business. He had
+done the work set him to the utmost of his power, and that was all for
+which he was responsible.
+
+Thus two years passed away, and having mapped out the country he started
+northwards, to resign his post to the khedive before returning to
+England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As might have been expected, he was not allowed to throw off his burden
+so easily. The khedive had no intention of loosening his hold of a man
+who sent money into his treasury instead of taking it out, but, try as
+he would, he could not wring from Gordon more than a conditional promise
+of coming back. No sooner had Gordon arrived in England than telegrams
+were sent after him imploring him to finish his work, and in spite of
+his weariness and disgust he felt that he could not leave it half done.
+In six weeks the khedive had triumphed, and Gordon was in Cairo.
+
+At his very first meeting with the khedive, when the affairs of the
+Soudan were discussed, Gordon stated clearly that he would not go back
+unless he was given undivided authority and power over the Soudan as
+well as over the other provinces. The khedive granted everything he
+asked. The governor-general of the Soudan, Ismail Pasha, was recalled,
+and Gordon took his place as ruler over the equatorial provinces,
+Darfour, the whole of the Soudan, and the Red Sea coast. He owed
+obedience to no one save the khedive, who again was responsible to the
+sultan of Turkey. The salary offered him by the khedive was �12,000 a
+year, but �6,000 was all that Gordon would accept, and later he cut it
+down to �3,000.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With 'terrific exertion' he thought it possible that in three years he
+might make a good army in his provinces, with increased trade, a fair
+revenue, and, above all, slavery suppressed. It seemed a gigantic work
+to undertake, especially when we consider that it had to be carried out
+in a district one thousand six hundred miles long and seven hundred
+broad. But nothing less would be of any use, and Gordon was not the man
+to spare himself if he could make his work permanent. So after a few
+days in Cairo he started for the south, going first, by the khedive's
+orders, to try and bring about a peace with the kingdom of Abyssinia.
+This he did to a certain extent by 'setting a thief to catch a thief,'
+that is, by holding one claimant to the throne in check by means of
+another. The state with which he was surrounded made him very cross, as
+any kind of fuss over him always did. 'Eight or ten men to help me off
+my camel, as if I were an invalid,' he writes indignantly. 'If I walk,
+everyone gets off and walks; so, furious, I get on again.'
+
+However, these pin-pricks to his temper did not last long, for soon bad
+news came from Khartoum, and he had to set out for the Soudan directly.
+His daily journey on his camel was never less than thirty, and more
+often forty miles. On his arrival at a station he received everybody,
+rich and poor, who chose to come to him, listened to all complaints, and
+settled all disputes, besides writing constant reports to the khedive of
+what he was doing. He had nobody to help him; it was far easier and
+quicker for him to do his own work than first to tell someone else what
+he wanted done, and then to make sure his instructions were properly
+carried out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length Khartoum was reached, and Gordon was duly proclaimed
+governor-general, the ceremony being, we may be sure, as short as he
+could make it. According to the wishes of the khedive, he was treated
+like a sultan in the 'Arabian Nights.' On no account was he ever to get
+up, even when a great chief came to pay his respects to him, and no one
+was allowed to remain seated in his presence. Worse than all, his palace
+was filled with two hundred servants.
+
+The first reform he wished to make was to disband a body of six thousand
+Bashi-Bazouks, or Arab and Turkish irregular troops, who pillaged the
+tribes on the frontiers that they were set to guard, and let the
+slave-dealers go free. Of course this could only be done very slowly and
+cautiously; but he managed gradually to discharge a few at a time and to
+replace them with soldiers from the Soudan, whom he always found very
+trustworthy. Then, after setting right many abuses in Khartoum itself,
+and giving the outlying houses a proper water-supply, where before the
+lack of it had caused disease and discomfort, he began a march of
+several hundred miles westwards to Darfour.
+
+Here the whole province had risen up against its new Egyptian masters,
+and those tribes which had not already broken out were preparing to
+do so. With the hopeful spirit that never deserted him, and which more
+than once had created the miracle he had expected, Gordon imagined that
+he would be able to turn his enemies into allies. As to his own life,
+his faith in God was too real and too firm for him to take that into
+consideration. Till his appointed task was finished he was perfectly
+safe, and after that he would, in his own words, 'leave much weariness
+for perfect peace.'
+
+Thus he went about his work with complete unconcern, and one day arrived
+at a discontented place an hour and a half before the few hundred
+soldiers that formed his army. Nobody expected him, and when they saw a
+man in a uniform shining with gold, flying towards them on the swiftest
+camel they had ever beheld, and with only one companion, they were
+filled with amazement. Nothing would have been easier than to kill
+Gordon; but somehow they never even thought of it, and soon the people
+of Darfour and the neighbouring tribes came in and submitted to him. On
+the way he was welcomed gladly by the garrisons of the various little
+towns, some of whom had received no pay for three years. These
+half-starved men, being in their weak condition even more useless than
+the ordinary Egyptian soldier, he sent eastwards to be disbanded, and
+with an army of five hundred untrustworthy troops, who did not possess a
+single cannon, and whose arms were old-fashioned flint-lock guns, he had
+to prepare to face the attack of thousands of rebels against the
+Egyptian government.
+
+Luckily, for some reason, the rebel army melted away without a shot
+being fired, and the danger being passed the Egyptians pushed on to
+Dara.
+
+[Illustration: They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying
+towards them.]
+
+Now came the moment to which Gordon had long been looking forward--the
+life and death struggle with the slave-dealers, headed by Suleiman, son
+of Zebehr, who had armed six thousand of his own slaves, and could
+besides summon the help of five thousand good soldiers. How thankfully,
+then, Gordon must have greeted the arrival of a powerful tribe seven
+thousand strong, who, having suffered bitterly from the slave-traders,
+were thirsting for revenge. That after a hard fight the victory remained
+with Gordon was owing only to the support of this and other friendly
+tribes, for the Egyptians 'crowded into the stockade' and hid there,
+safe, as they hoped, from stray spears or wandering bullets.
+
+It is impossible to follow all Gordon's movements during this campaign,
+when in the heat of summer, near the equator, he darted about on his
+camel from one place to another, 'a dirty, red-faced man, ornamented
+with flies,' and often by his unexpected appearance and promptitude
+carried the day, 'because he gave his enemies no time to think' or to
+plot against him. Hearing at the end of August that Suleiman was about
+to attack Dara, he at once rode straight to the spot, which he reached
+in the condition I have described.
+
+'If I had no escort of men,' he writes to his sister, 'I had a large
+escort of flies. I suppose the queen fly was among them. The people were
+paralysed at my arrival, and could not believe their eyes. At dawn I got
+up, and putting on the golden armour the khedive gave me, mounted my
+horse, and with an escort of my robbers of Bashi-Bazouks rode out to the
+camp of the other robbers, about three miles off. There were about three
+thousand of them, men and boys: they were dumbfounded at my coming among
+them.'
+
+Alone in a tent, with the chiefs, headed by Suleiman, 'a nice-looking
+lad of twenty-two,' sitting in a circle round him, Gordon informed them
+'in choice Arabic' that he was quite aware that they intended to revolt
+against the Egyptian government, and that he intended to disarm them and
+break them up.
+
+'They listened in silence and went off to consider what I had said.
+They have just now sent in a letter stating their submission, and I
+thank God for it,' he continues. 'The sort of stupefied way in which
+they heard me go to the point about their doings, the pantomime of
+signs, the bad Arabic, was quite absurd.' Then one by one the other
+slave-dealers surrendered, and though Suleiman still gave him much
+trouble, and was to give more, yet on the whole things had gone much
+better than he had feared, and by the middle of October he arrived at
+Khartoum, and after a week's hard work took a steamer and went down the
+river to Berber and Dongola. In March he very unwillingly continued his
+journey to Cairo, at the command of the khedive, who desired to create
+him president of the Finance Inquiry. But this was a great mistake;
+Gordon's views on the matter were different from those of other men, and
+he had been too long accustomed to be absolute master in any task he
+undertook to be able to work harmoniously with his equals. The khedive,
+too, failed to support him, and Gordon, seeing it was hopeless to expect
+to gain his point, and depressed and annoyed with what had taken place,
+returned to Khartoum by way of the Suez Canal and Suakim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then came the news that Suleiman had revolted, and had overrun the
+province of Bahr-el-Ghazal on the south of Darfour. Gordon's old
+follower and lieutenant Gessi was sent with some troops to put down the
+revolt; but it was a rainy season, and the country was partially under
+water. He had only one thousand troops, while daily fresh Arabs swelled
+the army of the successful leader; but he was enterprising as well as
+prudent, and in the middle of November he came up with the enemy and
+entrenched himself behind stockades on the river Dyoor. Here Suleiman
+attacked him again and again, and again and again was beaten back. Gessi
+sent repeated messages to Gordon for help and ammunition, but all that
+the governor general could spare was soon exhausted. At length Gessi
+obtained some from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and now was able to leave his
+camp and successfully attack bands of slave-dealers. At length he
+stormed a town where Suleiman was stationed, and nearly captured 'the
+Cub' himself. Finding to his disgust that the leader had escaped, Gessi
+followed him westwards through deserted villages and dense forests, and
+though he did not succeed in catching his prey, he was able to break up
+the gang of slave-dealers.
+
+Meanwhile Gordon had left Khartoum and had gone to the slave-dealers'
+headquarters at Shaka, and then back towards Khartoum, capturing many
+caravans on the way. During one week, on his way from Oomchanga to
+Toashia, he thinks he must have taken about six hundred slaves, and he
+puts down the number that had lost their lives in the last four years
+from the cruelty of the dealers to have been at least one hundred
+thousand in Darfour alone.
+
+At Toashia Gordon had a short interview with Gessi, whom he created a
+pasha and made governor of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, with a present of �2,000.
+On his way back to his province news was brought to Gessi of Suleiman's
+whereabouts. He at once started in pursuit with three hundred men, and
+came up with Suleiman during the night at Gara. The slave dealer, taken
+by surprise, surrendered, and was shot next day, and it would have been
+well for the Soudan if Suleiman's father Zebehr had paid the same
+penalty for his rebellion against the khedive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the year 1879 that the khedive Ismail was deposed at Cairo,
+and Tewfik appointed in his place. The new khedive seemed fully as
+anxious as his predecessors to make use of the one man who feared
+neither danger nor responsibility, and bore a charmed life, and Gordon
+was at once sent on a fruitless mission to Abyssinia. On his return he
+carried out the intention that he had formed for some time, and placed
+his resignation in the hands of the khedive. Well he knew that the
+Egyptian government cared nothing for the reforms he had made, or the
+slave-trade that he had broken. They never supported any of his
+measures, and he felt assured that in a few months the state of things
+would be as bad as ever.
+
+Sick at heart and worn out in body, he came home early in 1880, having
+paused on his way to see Rome. Once in London it was the old story.
+Invitations rained on him, only to be refused. To escape from them he
+rushed off to Lausanne for peace. But peace and Gordon had little to do
+with each other, and he soon received an urgent request from the
+ministers of Cape Colony to allow himself to be appointed commander of
+the colonial forces. This, however, Gordon refused at once. The war with
+the Zulus was only just over, and Gordon, who on all questions involving
+the well-being of nations, was very keen-sighted, may well have noted
+signs of unrest throughout the whole of South Africa. His health had
+been severely tried by all he had gone through, and he needed rest
+before he could take active employment.
+
+So he returned to England, and in May, much to everyone's surprise,
+accepted the post of secretary to the new viceroy of India, lord Ripon.
+But no sooner had the viceregal party reached Bombay than Gordon found
+that the work he had to do was not the sort he was suited for. Not
+because he thought that anything was beneath his dignity--the man who
+had cleaned his own gun and cooked his own food in the Soudan was never
+likely to feel that--but his career, as he ought to have known before,
+had unfitted him to cope with the minute details bound up with Indian
+life, and the immense importance given to the distinctions of caste.
+Therefore four days after the ship reached Bombay he resigned,
+expressing his regrets for the mistake he had made, and thanking lord
+Ripon most warmly for the kindness shown him. His passage money and all
+the expenses to which his appointment had put the new government--for
+the Liberals had lately come into power--he instantly repaid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later he received a telegram from sir Robert Hart, director of
+the customs in China, begging him to take the first ship to Tientsin,
+where his services were badly needed. As his request to the English War
+Office for six months' leave was refused, he replied that his object in
+going to China was to prevent a war which was likely to break out
+between that country and Russia, and therefore, if the permission asked
+was not granted, he should be forced to throw up his commission in the
+queen's service.
+
+On receipt of this message the government allowed him to go, and for
+three months he worked hard, and not only contrived, as he hoped, to
+prevent the war with Russia, but to check the revolt of Li Hung Chang,
+who desired to place the crown on his own head.
+
+Having accomplished what he intended, he found himself in London in
+October, and in 1881 went out to the island of Mauritius, in the Indian
+Ocean, to command the engineers.
+
+At last he rested from the heavy responsibilities of the last few years,
+though he worked as he always must do, and, now a major-general, in
+April 1882 set sail for the Cape, where the governor of the colony, sir
+Hercules Robinson, wanted his advice on the settlement and
+administration of Basutoland. But when Gordon arrived he found his views
+on the subject so totally different from those of the men in power that
+he resigned and left, and from London he carried out the great longing
+of his life--a visit to the Holy Land. Few people knew and loved their
+Bibles like Gordon, and every stone in Palestine was full of interest
+to him. Here he was alone and quiet, respecting the faith of others, and
+therefore causing them to respect his; talking and praying with those of
+different religions, teaching them and learning from them; preparing
+himself, as the Master whom he served had also done, for the fiery trial
+through which he was to pass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this time the king of the Belgians had been offering him the command
+of an expedition his majesty was anxious to send to the Congo, and
+continued to press the matter in spite of the refusal of Mr. Gladstone,
+then prime minister, to lend him Gordon to lead it. On January 1, 1884,
+Gordon went over to Brussels to talk over affairs with the king, and
+while he was there the English government suddenly decided to send him
+at once to the Soudan, where matters were in a very threatening state.
+
+Since Gordon had left the country, four years before, Arabi pasha had
+revolted, and been crushed at Tel-el-Kebir, and a dervish in the Soudan,
+Mohammed Ahmed by name, had made himself famous by proclaiming himself
+mahdi, the expected prophet of the whole Mahometan world. Thousands
+flocked to the standard that he raised, and his armed escort stood with
+drawn swords in his presence. The Egyptian governor-general summoned him
+to Khartoum to answer for his proceedings, but the mahdi answered that
+he was master of the country and obeyed no one. The troops despatched
+against him he always defeated, and when a new governor-general and a
+fresh army gave him battle they were utterly destroyed. Obeid in Darfour
+surrendered after a five months' siege, and, flushed with success, he
+carried all before him.
+
+In June 1883 colonel Hicks was given by the Egyptian government the
+military command at Khartoum, with ten thousand men and thirty guns;
+but he had no knowledge of the country where he had to fight, and fell
+an easy prey to the mahdi's army, which was ten times as numerous as his
+own. The tribes of the eastern Soudan joined the victor's banner, and
+here, while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, Baker pasha was defeated
+by Osman Digna, a slave-dealer of Suakim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On January 17, 1884, Gordon, who was in Brussels, received a telegram
+from lord Wolseley, bidding him come over to London by the evening
+train. He started at once, and reached London early in the morning, and
+at twelve o'clock was taken by Wolseley to the Cabinet Council.
+
+'He went in,' writes Gordon, 'and talked to the ministers, and came back
+and said, "Her majesty's government want you to undertake this. The
+government are determined to evacuate the Soudan, for they will not
+undertake to guarantee its safety. Will you go and do it?" I said,
+"Yes!" He said, "Go in." I went in and saw them. They said, "Did
+Wolseley tell you our orders?" I said, "Yes." I said, "You will not
+guarantee the future government of the Soudan, and you wish me to go up
+to evacuate now?" They said, "Yes," and it was over, and I left at
+8 P.M. for Calais.'
+
+He was seen off from the station by lord Wolseley and by lord
+Hartington, afterwards the duke of Devonshire, who always stood loyally
+by him, and repeatedly urged that help must be sent instantly, while his
+colleagues in the Cabinet waited to see how things would drift, till the
+time for help was past.
+
+On January 26, the day which a year hence was to witness his death,
+Gordon, with colonel Stewart, was in Cairo, where he spent two busy
+days. The first news that greeted him was the success of the mahdi in
+all directions, and that the Mahometans in Syria and in Arabia would
+probably rise against their rulers. Yet he does not seem to have
+understood any better than the English and Egyptian governments what a
+terrific force the man really was, not so much in himself, but because
+he stood in the minds of hundreds of thousands for the deliverer who
+would aid them to shake off a yoke under which they groaned. 'I do not
+believe in the advance of the mahdi,' says Gordon a few days later; 'he
+is nephew to my old guide in Darfour, who was a very good fellow,' and
+on several occasions he shows that he had no idea as yet of the task
+that lay before him, and considered the mahdi a mere puppet in the hands
+of the slave-owners, who had joined him to a man. While in Cairo he did
+his best to make arrangements to ensure good government. He desired to
+see Nubar pasha, of whom he thought highly, placed in power, and the
+dangerous Zebehr banished to Cyprus, but Tewfik the khedive would listen
+to neither proposal. So, to the horror of some of the anti-slavery
+societies in England, who knew nothing of the supreme difficulties of
+Gordon's position, the newly appointed governor-general of the Soudan
+asked to take Zebehr with him, and keep him under his own eye. 'He is
+the ablest man in the Soudan,' said Gordon afterwards, 'a capital
+general and a good governor, and with his help I could have crushed the
+mahdi.' But Gordon's friends at Cairo had no faith in Zebehr's loyalty,
+and much in his hatred of Gordon, and at their entreaty the plan was
+given up. Yet Gordon did not sleep one night in Khartoum without knowing
+he was right, and writing to beg for Zebehr.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Forty-eight hours after reaching Cairo Gordon started with Stewart and
+four Egyptian officers for Khartoum.
+
+'I go with every confidence and trust in God,' he wrote to Wolseley a
+few hours before he set out, in the spirit in which he lived and died,
+and in twenty days he was at Khartoum, where the whole population came
+out to welcome him.
+
+With the help of the garrison of five thousand men Gordon began to
+fortify the town, and to throw up proper defences for Omdurman, on the
+left bank of the river. Provisions were stored, and a telegraph wire
+rigged up between the outworks and his palace, where he spent hours
+every day in sweeping the horizon with his field-glass. Once at Khartoum
+he began to realise what a force the mahdi had become. In March he wrote
+to the English government, 'I shall be caught in Khartoum, and even if I
+was mean enough to escape, I've not the power.' He begs both for men and
+money, but no notice was taken of his letter; so in April he telegraphs
+to sir Evelyn Baring, the English agent in Cairo, saying that he had
+asked sir Samuel Baker to try and obtain �30,000 from English and
+American millionaires to enable him to get three thousand Turkish
+soldiers, 'who would settle the mahdi for ever. I do not see the fun of
+being caught here to walk about the streets as a dervish with sandalled
+feet,' he goes on; 'not that I shall ever be taken alive.'
+
+He had been sent expressly to evacuate the Soudan, yet he was not
+allowed to do it when it came to the point, and, as usually happens,
+attempts at compromise proved failures. An expedition was despatched to
+Suakim, and two bloody battles were fought, but the only result of these
+was to inflame the zeal of the mahdi's followers and to enable him to
+capture Berber, the key of the Soudan.
+
+In Khartoum Gordon was using all his skill to fit the place to stand a
+siege, for he speedily saw that his garrison of one thousand Soudanese
+were all he had to rely on, the three thousand Egyptians and
+Bashi-Bazouks being worse than useless. Later his troops amounted to
+about double the number, and the population which he had to feed he
+reckoned at forty thousand. The provisions, he estimated, would last for
+five months; but in the end they had to do for ten, and up to the very
+last, when all else was eaten, there was still some corn left in the
+granary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While the river was yet open, and before the Arabs had cut off all
+communication between Khartoum and the outer world, Gordon managed to
+send away some old and helpless soldiers, various government officials,
+and two thousand three hundred refugees, who had fled to the town for
+safety. Everything he could think of was done for their comfort; and in
+order to prevent the poor black women and children from feeling strange
+and frightened, he ordered colonel Duncan to ask a German woman living
+at Korosko to be ready to meet and help them. In Khartoum itself there
+were no fevers or pestilence, and food was given daily to the very poor.
+
+It was in the middle of March that the town, with its three rings of
+defence, was invested by the Arabs; but when the time came for the Nile
+to rise it was easy for Gordon to send his steamers up and down both
+branches of the river, and to attack the Arab camps. Besides those boats
+he had already, he built some new ones, and kept his men busy in the
+workshops of the arsenal. But when April came, and there were no answers
+to his appeals, he wrote home that the matter _must_ be settled before
+the Nile fell in November, when the river route would become not only
+difficult but dangerous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In this way the months went on, and in England his friends were doing
+all they could to help him, though vainly. Lord Wolseley repeatedly
+urged on the Government the need of sending out a relief force, and in a
+letter of July 24, to Gordon's brother, he writes that if he was allowed
+to start immediately he could be at Dongola by October 15, and could go
+all the way to Khartoum by the river. Lord Hartington, too, never forgot
+Gordon, but the rest of the Cabinet turned a deaf ear; they had other
+things to think about.
+
+The next move came from the French consul, monsieur Herbin, who was
+inside Khartoum. He suggested to Gordon that now that it was September,
+and the Nile had risen to its greatest height, the cataracts would be
+covered to a depth of thirty or forty feet; therefore it would be quite
+easy for a small steamer such as the _Abbas_ to make its way to Dongola,
+and from there to send on letters and despatches to Cairo. Gordon
+approved of the plan, and Stewart offered to command the little force of
+forty or fifty soldiers--all that could be spared to go with it. On
+board were some Greeks, monsieur Herbin himself, Stewart, and Power the
+'Times' correspondent, the only two friends Gordon had. How he must have
+longed to go with them. But that being impossible he put the thought out
+of his mind, and gave them most careful directions as to the precautions
+they were to take. But on their return journey Gordon's orders were
+neglected, the steamer was taken by the mahdi's troops, and all on board
+put to death, Stewart among them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus Gordon was left alone in Khartoum, without a creature to share his
+responsibility or to help him in his work. From henceforward he was
+obliged to see to everything himself, and make sure that his orders were
+carried out.
+
+From his journal and letters, which we have up to December 14, we know
+all that was going on inside the town: the measures of defence; the
+decoration which he invented to reward the soldiers for their courage or
+fidelity, an eight-pointed star with a grenade in the centre, and
+consisting of three classes, gold, silver, and pewter; the presence of
+Slatin (later the sirdar) in the mahdi's camp, and the chains put upon
+him. But in November the fighting grew fiercer; the mahdi cut all
+communication between Khartoum, stretching from the Blue to the White
+Nile, and Omdurman, on the right bank of the latter river. However,
+though he took the town, he did not keep it long, for he was shelled out
+of it; but day by day his forces crept closer, and Gordon, who had sent
+his steamers down to Shendy to meet the relieving troops which he
+thought were on their way, had no means of stopping the mahdi when he
+began to transport his army from one bank of the Nile to the other, in
+preparation for the last assault.
+
+During the summer months Gordon had been cheered by the knowledge that
+sir Gerald Graham was fighting Osman Digna and keeping him at bay, but
+this was all the consolation he had.
+
+'Up to this date,' he writes on October 29, 'nine people have come up as
+reinforcements since Hicks's defeat, and not a penny of money.' Still,
+for seven months not a man had deserted; but with the advance of the
+mahdi many of the defenders of Khartoum might be seen stealing after
+dark to his camp. He sent an envoy across the river to offer Gordon
+honourable terms if he would surrender, knowing full well from the
+papers which his spies had stolen from the steamer _Abbas_ what straits
+the garrison were in. But Gordon, putting little faith in the word of
+the mahdi, rejected the proposal and returned for answer, 'We can hold
+out twelve years.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By this time 'Relief Expedition No. 2, to save our national honour,' as
+Gordon persisted in calling it, was on its way, and many of us can
+recall with what sickening hearts we watched its daily progress. The
+obstacles which had been foretold months before by both Gordon and
+Wolseley proved even greater than they expected. The Nile had fallen,
+and its cataracts, like staircases of rocks, were of course impassable,
+and the transport of the boats was a terrible difficulty. Then, owing to
+treachery, all the useful camels were spirited away, and only enough
+could be collected to carry one thousand men across the desert. Sir
+Herbert Stewart started first, and reached the wells of Jakdul on
+January 3, and being obliged to halt there, as the camels were needed to
+bring up other troops, he occupied the time in building a fort. On the
+12th they all pushed on to Abou Klea, where they arrived on the 17th, to
+find the mahdi awaiting them. Here two fierce battles were fought, in
+one of which sir Herbert Stewart was mortally wounded. In each the mahdi
+was defeated, but he proceeded to attack Metemmeh on the 21st, the
+British force being now commanded by sir Charles Wilson, who was
+unexpectedly reinforced during the battle by some troops on board
+Gordon's four steamers, which were returning to Khartoum. Three days
+later (January 24) Wilson started in two steamers for Khartoum,
+ninety-five miles away, and the river was so low that it was necessary
+to be very cautious. On the morning of the 25th one of the boats ran on
+a rock, and could not be floated off till nine o'clock that night. As
+soon as he possibly could Wilson got up steam again, but eight miles
+from Khartoum a native hailed him from the bank. 'Khartoum has fallen!'
+he said, 'and Gordon has been shot.'
+
+Wilson would not believe it. To have failed when success was within his
+grasp seemed too terrible to think of. It must be one of the mahdi's
+devices to stop the advance of our troops, so he went on till he could
+command a proper view of the town. The masses of black-robed dervishes
+that filled the streets and crowded along the river bank told their own
+tale, and, bowing his head, Wilson gave the signal to go back down the
+river.
+
+[Illustration: A shot ended his life.]
+
+From Slatin pasha, then a captive in the mahdi's camp, we know how it
+happened. Omdurman had fallen on the 13th, but Khartoum would
+probably not have been assaulted so soon had not the mahdi suffered
+such severe defeats at Abou Klea and at Abou Kru, three days later; then
+he hurried back to Khartoum and again summoned Gordon to surrender. His
+offer was refused, and addressing his men he informed them that during
+the night they were to be conveyed across the river in boats, but that
+if victory was to be theirs, absolute silence was necessary.
+
+About half-past three in the morning they were all ready, and attacked
+at the same moment both the east and west gates. The east held out for
+some time, but the west gate soon gave way, and the rebels entered with
+a rush, murdering every man they met. In an open space near the palace
+they came up with Gordon, walking quietly in front of a little group of
+people to take refuge at the Austrian consul's house. A shot ended his
+life, and saved him from the tortures that men like the mahdi inflict on
+their captives. Death, as we know, had no terrors for him. 'I am always
+ready to die,' he had said to the king of Abyssinia nearly six years
+before, 'and so far from fearing your putting me to death, you would
+confer a favour on me, for you would deliver me from all the troubles
+and misfortunes which the future may have in store.' Now death _had_
+delivered him, yet none the less does his fate lie like a blot on the
+men who sent him to his doom, and turned a deaf ear to his prayers for
+help until it was too late. England was stricken with horror and grief
+at the news, and showed her sorrow in the way which Gordon would have
+chosen, not by erecting statues or buildings to his memory, but by
+founding schools to help the little orphan boys whom he always loved.
+But whatever bitterness may have been in the hearts of his friends
+towards those who had sacrificed him, Gordon we can be sure would have
+felt none.
+
+'One wants some forgiveness oneself,' he said, when he pardoned Abou
+Saoud, who had tried to betray him. 'And it is not a dear article.'
+
+
+
+
+THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS
+
+
+Everyone who stops to visit the town of Tr�ves, or Trier, to give it its
+German name, must be struck by the number and beauty of its ruins, which
+give us some idea of the splendour of the city at the time that Ambrose
+the Prefect lived there and ruled his province. About the city were
+hills now covered with vines, and through an opening between them ran
+the river Moselle. A wall with seven gates defended Tr�ves from the
+German tribes on the east of the Rhine, but only one, the Porta Nigra,
+or Black Gate, is left standing. Its cathedral, the oldest in Europe
+north of the Alps, was founded in 375 A.D. by Valentinian I., who often
+occupied the palace which was sacked and ruined a century later by Huns
+and Franks. A great bridge spanned the Moselle, and outside the walls,
+where the vineyards now climb the hills, was an amphitheatre which held
+30,000 people, and when these came back, tired and dusty, from chariot
+races or games, there were baths and warm water in the underground
+galleries to make them clean and comfortable.
+
+It was somewhere about the year 333 A.D. that a boy was born at Tr�ves
+in the house of the governor, and called Ambrose, after his father. He
+was the youngest of three children, his brother Satyrus being only a
+little older than himself, while Marcellina, their sister, who was
+nearly four, looked down upon the others as mere babies. Ambrose the
+elder was a very important person indeed, for the emperor Constantine
+had made him ruler, or prefect, of the whole of Europe west of the
+Rhine, that is, of Spain, Gaul or France, and Britain. The prefect was a
+good and just man, and the nations were happy under his sway; but he
+died after a few years, and his wife, unfortunately, thought it wiser to
+leave Tr�ves and take her children to Rome, where they could get the
+best teaching and would become acquainted with their father's friends.
+
+It was a long and difficult journey for a lady and two boys (Marcellina
+had already gone to a convent in Rome), though they were rich enough to
+travel in tolerable comfort. Even in summer the passage of the Alps was
+hard enough, and the towering mountains, steep precipices, and rushing
+rivers must have seemed strange and alarming to anyone fresh from the
+fertile slopes of the Rhineland. But the boys were not frightened, only
+deeply interested, and they quite forgot to be sorry at leaving their
+old home in the excitement of what lay before them.
+
+No doubt they had many adventures, or what they would have considered as
+such, before they reached the corn-covered plains of Lombardy, and
+stopped to rest in the city of Milan, whose name was hereafter to be
+bound up for all time with that of little Ambrose. But we are not told
+anything about their travels, and when they arrived in Rome they went
+straight to the old house, which had been for generations in their
+father's family. That family was famous in the annals of the city, and
+had become Christian in the time of the persecution; but nowadays
+Christians and pagans lived happily together, and divided the public
+offices between them.
+
+The children soon settled down in their new surroundings, and felt as if
+they had lived all their lives in Rome. Marcellina they seldom or never
+saw, and, however much her mother may have longed after her, she was
+forced to content herself with her two boys and to take pride in their
+success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The prefect of Rome, Symmachus by name, had taken a great fancy to
+Satyrus, in spite of the fact that the boy was brought up a Christian,
+while he himself was a pagan. Symmachus shared with the Christian Probus
+the chief authority in Rome, and while Satyrus was to be found in his
+house during most of the hours when he was not attending, with his
+brother, classes in Greek and Latin literature and in law, Ambrose was
+no less frequently in that of Probus. Though this caused their mother to
+spend many lonely evenings, she was well pleased, for both men bore a
+high character, and would be able to help her boys in many ways that
+were impossible to a woman. The two youths were very popular, pleasant,
+and well-mannered, and with strong common-sense which proved useful in
+saving them from pitfalls that might otherwise have been their ruin.
+They had friends without number, but they liked no one's company so much
+as each other's, and it was a sad moment for both when Symmachus gave
+Satyrus a post under his own son, and the two young men set sail for
+Asia Minor.
+
+For some time Ambrose remained at home, learning the duties of a prefect
+under Probus. He early showed great talent for managing men, a quick eye
+for detecting crime, impartiality in giving judgment, and firmness in
+seeing it carried out. Probus must have watched anxiously to see how far
+the young man's sense of justice and his desire for mercy would act on
+each other, but what he saw satisfied him. Ambrose knew at once what was
+the important point in every matter, and never allowed his mind to be
+confused by things that had nothing to do with the real question. This
+was his safeguard as a judge, and this was the principle he held to all
+through his life, which caused him to be such a different man from
+Hildebrand or Thomas � Becket, or many great bishops who came after him.
+To Ambrose, murder was murder, theft was theft, whether it was done by
+a Christian or a pagan, and the punishment was equally heavy for both.
+
+Perhaps the emperor Valentinian may have noted the qualities of the
+young lawyer, or perhaps he may have consulted with Probus, but in any
+case, in the year 372 Ambrose was sent off to govern the whole of North
+Italy, under the title of 'consul.' At the utmost he was only
+twenty-nine, and he may have been younger, for the date of his birth is
+uncertain. But his head was in no way turned by his position, and the
+emperor, a well-meaning but tactless man, beheld with satisfaction that
+the restless people of Milan, the capital of the north, were growing
+daily quieter under the rule of Ambrose. What his own severity had been
+powerless to accomplish Ambrose carried through without any difficulty.
+The parties, religious as well as political, into which the city was
+split up, all came to him with their grievances, and, wonderful to say,
+never murmured at his verdicts. Before he had been consul much more than
+a year, Milan was in a quieter state than it had been for half a
+century.
+
+But the death of the bishop early in 374 threatened to plunge everything
+into the old confusion. Valentinian was consulted, but refused to have
+anything to do in the matter of the election of a new prelate; it was
+not his business, he said. So the bishops streamed in to Milan from the
+cities of the north and met in the gallery of one of the large round
+churches that were built in those days. In great excitement the people
+pressed in below; so much depended on who was chosen--to which party he
+belonged. For hours and hours they waited, and every now and then a
+murmur ran through the crowd that the announcement was about to be made;
+but it died away as fast as it came, and the weary waiting began again.
+At last the strain grew too great, and it was quite plain that the
+smallest spark of disagreement would kindle a great fire.
+
+A man wiser than the rest saw this, and hastened to summon Ambrose to
+the spot.
+
+'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too late. Only you
+can keep the peace, so come at once.'
+
+[Illustration: 'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too
+late.']
+
+Ambrose needed no urging. What his friend said was true, and, besides,
+he was as a magistrate bound if possible to prevent a riot, or, if one
+had already begun, to quell it.
+
+The loud, angry voices ceased as he entered the church, and amidst a
+dead silence he begged the crowd to be patient yet a little while
+longer, and to remember that the choice of a bishop was one that
+affected them all, and could not be made in a hurry. As he spoke he
+noted that the excitement began to grow less, and by the time he had
+ended the flushed faces were calm again. Then the voice of a child rang
+through the church.
+
+'Ambrose, bishop!'
+
+'Ambrose, bishop,' echoed the people, but Ambrose stood for a moment
+rooted to the spot. It was the last thing he had expected or wished, but
+the continued cries brought him to himself, and hastily leaving the
+church he went to the hall where he gave his judgments, the crowd
+pressing on him right up to the door.
+
+Never before or since has any man been so suddenly lifted into a
+position for which he had made no previous preparation. He, a bishop!
+Why, though a Christian, in common with many of his friends and also
+with his brother, he had never even been baptized, still less had he
+studied any of the things a bishop ought to know. Oh! it was impossible.
+It was only a moment's craze, and would be forgotten as soon as he was
+out of sight; so he stole away at night and hid himself, intending to
+escape to another city. But on his way he was recognised by a man who
+had once pleaded a cause before him. A crowd speedily collected, and he
+was carried by the people back to his house within the walls, and a
+guard placed before it, while a letter was despatched to the emperor
+informing him that the lot had fallen upon Ambrose.
+
+'Vox populi, vox Dei' ('The voice of the people is the voice of God').
+Valentinian gave a sigh of surprise and relief as he read the wax
+tablets before him. Losing no time, he sent a paper, signed by himself,
+the imperial seal affixed, nominating Ambrose bishop of Milan, while to
+Ambrose he wrote privately, saying that no better choice could have been
+made, and that he would support him in everything. But by the time the
+messenger reached Milan, Ambrose had escaped again, and was hiding in
+the house of a friend outside the walls. However, this effort to avoid
+the greatness thrust upon him was as vain as the rest, and he saw that
+he must accept what fate had brought him. Within a week he had been
+baptized, ordained priest, and consecrated bishop, knowing as little as
+any man might of the studies hitherto considered necessary for his
+position. But it is quite possible that his ignorance of these may have
+been a help instead of a hindrance in the carrying out of his duties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now very often, if a man's position is changed, his character seems to
+change too, and the very qualities which caused him to be chosen for the
+new appointment sink into the background, while others, far less
+suitable, take their place. No doubt, during the first days after his
+election Ambrose must have been watched carefully by many eyes--for no
+one, however popular, is wholly without enemies--and any alteration in
+his conduct or way of life would have been noted down. Still, even the
+most envious could find no difference. Ambrose the bishop was in all
+respects the same as Ambrose the consul, except that he gave away more
+money than he had done before, and held himself to a still greater
+degree at the disposal of the people.
+
+In these days we are so used to reading of the struggle which raged for
+so many centuries between the Church and the State--the Emperor and the
+Pope--that it seems quite natural to us that after the death of the
+emperor Valentinian (which happened a few months later) the bishop
+should become the adviser and minister of his young son Gratian. To
+Ambrose, however, the situation was beset with difficulties, and both
+disagreeable and dangerous. He had not the least desire to meddle in the
+affairs of the empire--the care of the church in Milan was quite enough
+for any one man; but when the young emperor Gratian came to him for
+advice and guidance it was his duty to give it. Soon matters grew worse
+and worse. The Goths crossed the Danube, and defeated the army of the
+Eastern Empire near Adrianople; Byzantium, or Constantinople, the city
+of Constantine, lay at their mercy; and Italy might be entered through
+Hungary and the Tyrol, or by sea from the south.
+
+The tidings reached Milan through the first of the numerous fugitives
+who had managed to escape across the Alps. Every day more frightened,
+starving people arrived, and the city was taxed to the utmost to find
+them food and shelter. Yet even the lot of these poor creatures was
+happy in comparison with those who had been taken prisoners by the
+Goths, and were doomed to spend their lives in slavery unless they were
+ransomed. Ambrose set the rich citizens an example by giving all the
+money he had, but after every farthing possible had been raised the
+unredeemed captives were still many. There only remained the golden
+vessels of the church, which were the pride of Milan, and these the
+bishop brought out and melted down, so that as far as in him lay all
+prisoners might be freed.
+
+In after-years his enemies sought to use the fact as a handle against
+him. He had no right to give what was not his own, they said; but
+Ambrose paid little heed to their words; he had done what he knew was
+just, and the rest did not matter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the appointment of the general Theodosius as emperor of the East
+things began to mend. The Goths began to understand that they had a
+strong man to deal with, and Ambrose was once more left to act both as
+bishop and magistrate in his own diocese, and to give constant advice to
+the well-meaning but weak young Gratian. The legal training that Ambrose
+had received was now of the highest value, and his experience of men and
+the world acquired in Rome preserved him from making many mistakes and
+giving ear to lying stories. The cleverest rogues in Milan knew that the
+most cunning tale would never deceive the bishop, and would only earn
+for themselves a heavy fine or imprisonment. 'Some,' he writes, 'say
+they have debts; make sure that they speak truly. Others declare they
+have been robbed by brigands; let them prove their words, and show that
+the injuries were really received by them.' Under Ambrose's rule
+impostors of all kinds grew scarce.
+
+During these years the bishop's life, except for public anxieties, had
+been calm and happy, for his brother Satyrus had been with him, and had
+given him his help in many ways. At length important business took the
+elder brother to Africa, and on his return the ship in which he was
+sailing struck on a rock and sank. Luckily, they were not far from land,
+and Satyrus was a good swimmer, so with great exertions he managed to
+reach a lonely part of the coast. He was kindly cared for by the people,
+but there was no means of letting Ambrose hear of his safety, and he had
+to wait long before another ship passed that way. Then, when his friends
+had abandoned all hope, he suddenly appeared in Milan, to the speechless
+joy of the bishop. But not long were they left together. In a little
+while Satyrus fell ill, and in spite of the constant care that was given
+him, in a few days he died, leaving Ambrose more lonely than before.
+
+After this troubles crowded thick and fast on the bishop. Gratian, whom
+he had loved as a son, was treacherously murdered in Gaul by order of
+Maximus, who had been given by Gratian himself rule over the prefecture
+of Gaul with the title of emperor. The grief of Ambrose was deep; but
+besides he was forced to act for Gratian's half-brother Valentinian,
+whose mother Justina never failed to send for the bishop to help her out
+of her difficulties, and directly he had made things smooth, proceeded
+to fall back into them.
+
+Thankful indeed was he when she and her son set out for Thessalonica, to
+put themselves under the protection of Theodosius.
+
+In the long line of the emperors of the East there were few more honest
+and able than Theodosius. He found his dominions in a state of
+confusion, the prey of the barbarian hordes that were always pouring
+westwards from the wide plains of Scythia, while internally the strife
+in the church was fiercer than ever. Quietly and steadily the emperor
+took his measures. Here he pardoned, there he punished, and men felt
+that both pardon and punishment were just. He was not yet strong enough
+to fight against the rebel Maximus, as he would have liked to do, but he
+determined that, cost what it might, he would never forsake the young
+Valentinian. Maximus had snatched at some excuse to invade Milan, which
+on his entrance he had found abandoned by its chief men, save only
+Ambrose, who treated him with contempt and went his own way. The
+intruder's efforts to buy support by conciliation failed miserably, and
+in a few weeks there came the news that Theodosius was preparing to meet
+him on the borders of Hungary, or Pannonia. Then Maximus assembled
+what forces he could, and set out across the pass of the Brenner.
+
+Two battles were lost, for the legions of Maximus were but half-hearted;
+in the third he was taken prisoner and brought before the emperor.
+Theodosius was a merciful man, but his heart was hard towards the
+murderer of Gratian. 'Let him die!' he said, and without delay the order
+was carried out.
+
+[Illustration: 'Let him die!' he said.]
+
+Now that Maximus was dead the legions were quite ready to return to
+their rightful emperor, and as soon as he had settled matters Theodosius
+went on to Milan. There he and Ambrose became great friends; the bishop
+was much the cleverer of the two, but they were both honest and
+straightforward, with great common-sense, and it must have been a relief
+to Ambrose, who did not in the least care for being an important person,
+to feel that he could at last mind his own business, and leave affairs
+of state to the emperor.
+
+It was while all seemed going so smoothly that the supreme crisis in the
+lives of both men took place--the event which has linked the names of
+Ambrose and Theodosius for evermore.
+
+Thessalonica, the chief town of Macedonia, was a beautiful city, and its
+Governor, Count Botheric, a special friend of the Emperor, who
+constantly went to pay him a visit when wearied out with the cares of
+state, which pressed on him so heavily in Constantinople. The people
+were gay and light-hearted, loving shows and pageants of all sorts, but
+more especially the games of the circus. In order to celebrate the
+defeat of Maximus, Botheric had arranged a series of special displays,
+and in the chariot races most of the prizes were carried off by one man,
+who became the idol of the moment. Furious, therefore, was the
+indignation which ran through the city when, immediately after the
+festival was over, the charioteer was accused of some disgraceful crime,
+and being found guilty, was thrown into prison by Botheric. In a body
+the populace surged up to the house of the Governor and demanded his
+release. But Botheric was not the man to be turned from what he knew to
+be right by an excited crowd. He absolutely refused to give way, and
+told them that the man had deserved the punishment he had given him, and
+more too. Then the passion of the mob broke loose. They attacked the
+Governor's house and the houses of all who were in authority. The
+soldiers who were ordered out were too few to cope with their violence.
+In the struggle Botheric was killed, and many of his friends also, and
+their bodies subjected to every kind of insult that madness could
+suggest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Theodosius was in Milan when the news reached him, and after a few
+moments of stony horror he was seized with such terrific passion that it
+almost seemed as if he would die of rage. At last he spoke; to those who
+stood around the voice sounded as the voice of a stranger.
+
+'The crime was committed by the whole town,' he said, 'and the whole
+town shall suffer.' Then, and without giving himself time to change his
+mind, he sat down and wrote the order for a massacre to one of the few
+magistrates left alive.
+
+His words were probably reported to Ambrose, and no doubt the bishop
+tried his best to calm the wrath of the emperor. But Theodosius was in
+no mood to be reasoned with. He declined to see his friend, and left
+Milan, shutting himself up in silence till the terrible tale of
+vengeance was told.
+
+In obedience to his instructions, games, and especially chariot races,
+were announced to take place in the circus. We do not know if the mob
+had broken open the prison and released the charioteer in whose honour
+so much blood had been shed; but if so we may be sure that he was
+present, and was hailed with shouts of welcome. The circus was crowded
+from end to end--not a single seat was vacant. The eyes of the
+spectators were fixed on the line of chariots drawn up at the
+starting-point, and drivers and lookers-on awaited breathlessly the
+signal. In their absorption they never noticed that soldiers had drawn
+silently up and had surrounded them. A moment later, and a signal was
+indeed given, but it was the signal for one of the bloodiest massacres
+that ever shocked the ancient world. Probably the authorities who
+carried out the emperor's orders went further than he intended, even in
+the first passion of his anger. But of one thing we may be quite sure,
+and that is that remorse and shame filled his soul when the hideous
+story reached him. Not that he would confess it; to the public he would
+say he was justified in what he had done, but none the less he would
+have given all he had to undo his actions. He came back one night to
+Milan, and shut himself up again in his palace.
+
+At the time of the emperor's return Ambrose happened to be staying with
+a friend in the country, for his health had suffered from his hard work,
+and also from this last blow, and his uncertainty how best to bring
+Theodosius to a sense of his crime. When he entered Milan once more, he
+waited, in the hope that the emperor might send for him, as he was used
+to do; but as no messenger arrived, the bishop understood that
+Theodosius refused to see him, and the only course open was to write a
+letter.
+
+The occasion was not one for polite phrases, neither was Ambrose the man
+to use them. In the plainest words he set his guilt before Theodosius
+and besought him to repent. And as his sin had been public, his
+repentance must be public too. But this letter remained unanswered.
+Theodosius was resolved to brave the matter out, and next day,
+accompanied by his usual attendants, he went to the great church.
+
+At the porch Ambrose met him, and refused to let him pass.
+
+'Go back,' he said, 'lest you add another sin to those you have already
+committed. You are blinded by power, and even now your heart is hard,
+and you do not understand that your hands are steeped in blood. Go
+back.'
+
+And Theodosius went back, feeling in his soul the truth of the bishop's
+words, but prevented by pride from humbling himself.
+
+Months went on, and the two men still lived as strangers, and now
+Christmas was near. Rufinus, prefect of the palace, who was suspected of
+having inflamed the wrath of the Emperor in the matter of Thessalonica,
+upbraided his master with showing so sad a face while the whole world
+was rejoicing. Theodosius then opened his soul to him, and acknowledged
+that at length he had repented of his crime and was ready to confess it
+before the bishop and the people. Once having spoken, he would not
+delay, and there and then went on foot to the church. As before,
+Ambrose, who had been warned of his intention, met him in the porch,
+thinking that the emperor meant to force his way in, and in that case
+the bishop was prepared to put him out with his own hands.
+
+But Theodosius stood with bowed head, and in a low voice confessed his
+guilt and entreated forgiveness. 'What signs can you show me that your
+repentance is real?' asked Ambrose. 'A crime like yours is not to be
+expiated lightly.'
+
+'Tell me what to do, and I will do it,' said Theodosius.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And the proof that Ambrose demanded was neither fasting nor scourging
+nor gifts to the church. 'It was that the emperor should write where now
+he stood, on the tablets that he always took with him, an order
+delaying for thirty days the announcement of any decree passed by a
+reigning emperor which carried sentence of death or confiscation of
+property to his subjects.' Further, that after the thirty days had
+passed the sentence and the circumstances which called it forth must be
+considered over again, to make quite sure that no injustice should be
+committed. To this Theodosius willingly agreed; not only because it was
+the token of repentance imposed on him by Ambrose, but because his own
+sense of right and justice made him welcome a law by which the people no
+longer should be at the mercy of one man's rage.
+
+The law was written down and read out so that those who stood around
+might hear; then Ambrose drew back the bar across the porch, and
+Theodosius once more entered the church.
+
+
+
+
+PALISSY THE POTTER
+
+
+Four hundred years ago a little boy called Bernard Palissy was born in a
+village of France, not very far from the great river Garonne. The
+country round was beautiful at all times of year--in spring with
+orchards in flower, in summer with fields of corn, in autumn with
+heavy-laden vines climbing up the sides of the hills, down which rushing
+streams danced and gurgled. Further north stretched wide heaths gay with
+broom, and vast forests of walnut and chestnut, through which roamed
+hordes of pigs, greedy after the fallen chestnuts that made them so fat,
+or burrowing about the roots of the trees for the truffles growing just
+out of sight. When the peasants who owned the pigs saw them sniffing and
+scratching in certain places, they went out at once and dug for
+themselves, for, truffles as well as pigs, were thought delicious
+eating, and fetched high prices from the rich people in P�rigueux or
+even Bordeaux.
+
+But the forests of the province of P�rigord contained other inhabitants
+than the pigs and their masters, and these were the workers in glass,
+the people who for generations had made those wonderful coloured windows
+which are the glory of French cathedrals. The glass-workers of those
+days were set apart from all other traders, and in Italy as well as in
+France a noble might devote himself to this calling without bringing
+down on himself the insults and scorn of his friends. Still, at a time
+when the houses of the poor were generally built of wood, it was
+considered very dangerous to have glass furnaces, with the fire often
+at a white heat, in the middle of a town, and so a law was passed
+forcing them to carry on their trade at a distance. In Venice the
+glass-workers were sent to the island of Murano, where the factories
+still are; in P�rigord they were kept in the forest, where they could
+cut down the logs they needed for their kilns, and where certain sorts
+of trees and ferns grew which, when reduced to powder, were needed in
+the manufacture of the glass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whether the father of Palissy was a glass-maker or not--for nothing is
+quite certain about the boy's early years--Bernard must of course have
+had many companions among the children of the forest workers, and as he
+went through the world with his eyes always open, he soon learnt a great
+deal of all that had to be done in order to turn out the bits of glass
+that blazed like jewels when the sun shone through them. There were
+special kinds of earth, or rocks, or plants to be sought for, and when
+found the glass-maker must know how to use them, so as to get exactly
+the colour or thickness of material that he wanted. And when he had
+spent hours and hours mixing his substances and seeing that he had put
+in just the right quantity of each, and no more, perhaps the fire would
+be a little too hot and the glass would crack, or a little too cold and
+the mixture would not become solid glass, and then the poor man had to
+begin the whole process again from the beginning. Bernard stood by and
+watched, and noted the patience under failure, as well as the way that
+glass was made, and when his turn came the lesson bore fruit.
+
+But Bernard learned other things besides how to make glass. He was
+taught to read and write, and by-and-by to draw. In his walks through
+the woods or over the hills, his eyes were busy wandering through the
+fallen leaves or glancing up at the branches of the trees in search of
+anything that might be hidden there. The bright-eyed lizards he
+especially loved, and sometimes he would persuade them to stay quiet for
+a few minutes by singing some country songs, while he took out his roll
+of paper and made rough sketches of them.
+
+[Illustration: The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But after a while Palissy grew restless, and before he was twenty he
+left home and travelled on foot over the south of France, gaining fresh
+knowledge at every step, as those do who keep their wits about them. He
+had no money, so he paid his way by the help of his pencil, as he was
+later to do in the little town of Saintes, taking portraits of the
+village innkeeper or his wife, or drawing plans for the new rooms the
+good man meant to build now that business was so thriving, and measuring
+the field at the back of the house, that he thought of laying out as a
+garden of fruits and herbs. And as the young man went he visited the
+cathedrals in the towns as well as the forges and the manufactories, and
+never rested till he found out why this city made cloth, and that one
+silk, and a third wonderful patterns of wrought iron.
+
+We do not know exactly how long Palissy remained on his travels, but as
+there was no need for him to hurry and so much for him to see he
+probably was away for some years. On his return he seems to have settled
+down in the little town of Saintes, on the river Charente, where he
+supported himself by doing what we should call surveying work, measuring
+the lands of the whole department, and reporting on the kind of soil of
+which they were made, so that the government might know how to tax them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the year 1538 Palissy married, and a year later came the event which
+influenced more than any other the course of his future life. A French
+gentleman named Pons, who had spent a long while at the Italian court of
+Ferrara, returned to France, bringing with him many beautiful things,
+among others an 'earthenware cup, wonderfully shaped and enamelled.'
+Pons happened to meet Palissy, and finding that the same subjects
+interested them both, he showed him the cup. The young man could
+scarcely contain himself at the sight. For some time he had been turning
+over in his mind the possibility of discovering enamel, or glaze, to put
+on the earthen pots, and now here, in perfection, was the very thing he
+was looking for.
+
+During the next two or three years, when he was busy surveying the lands
+about Saintes, in order to support his wife and little children, his
+thoughts were perpetually occupied with the enamelled cup, and how to
+make one like it. If he could only see a few more, perhaps something
+might give him a clue; but how was he to do that? Then one day in the
+winter of 1542 a pirate boat from La Rochelle, on the coast, sailed into
+port with a great Spanish ship in tow, filled with earthenware cups from
+Venice, and plates and goblets from the Spanish city of Valencia, famous
+for its marvellously beautiful glaze. The news of the capture soon
+reached Palissy, and we may be sure he had made a study of the best of
+the pots before they were bought by the king, Francis I., and given away
+to the ladies of the French court. But the Venetian and Spanish
+treasures still kept their secret, and Palissy was forced to work on in
+the dark, buying cheap earthen pots and breaking them, and pounding the
+pieces in a mortar, so as to discover, if he could, the substances of
+which they were made.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this took a long time, and Palissy gave up his surveying in order to
+devote his whole days to this labour of love. The reward, however, was
+very slow in coming, and if he had not contrived to save a little money
+while he was still a bachelor his wife and children would have starved.
+Week after week went by, and Palissy was to be seen in his little
+workshop, making experiments with pieces of common pots, over which he
+spread the different mixtures he had made. These pieces, he tells us,
+'he baked in his furnace, hoping that some of these mixtures might, when
+hot, produce a colour'; white was, however, what he desired above all,
+as he had heard that if once you had been able to procure a fine white,
+it was comparatively easy to get the rest. Remembering how as a boy he
+had used certain chemical substances in staining the glass, he put these
+into some of his mixtures, and hopefully awaited the result.
+
+But, alas! he 'had never seen earth baked,' and had no idea how hot the
+fire of his furnace should be, or in what way to regulate it. Sometimes
+the substance was baked too much, and sometimes too little; and every
+day he was building fresh furnaces in place of the old ones which had
+cracked, collecting fresh materials, making fresh failures, and
+altogether wasting a great deal of time and money.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus passed several years, and it is a marvel how the family contrived
+to live at all, and madame Palissy had reason for the reproaches and
+hard words which she heaped on her husband. The amount of wood alone
+necessary to feed the furnaces was enormous, and when Palissy could no
+longer afford to buy it, he cut down all the trees and bushes in his
+garden, and when they were exhausted burned all the tables and chairs in
+the house and tore up the floors. Fancy poor madame Palissy's feelings
+one morning when this sight met her eyes. His friends laughed at him and
+told tales of his folly in the neighbouring town, which hurt his
+feelings; but nothing turned him from his purpose, and except for the
+few hours a week when he worked at something which _would_ bring in
+money enough to keep his family alive, every moment, as well as every
+thought, was given up to the discovery which was so slow in being made.
+
+[Illustration: Fancy poor madame Palissy's feelings.]
+
+Again he bought some cheap pots, which he broke in pieces, and covered
+three or four hundred fragments with his mixtures. These he carried,
+with the help of a man, to a kiln belonging to some potters in the
+forest, and asked leave to bake them. The potters willingly gave him
+permission, and the pieces were laid carefully in the furnace. After
+four hours Palissy ventured to examine them, and found one of the
+fragments perfectly baked, and covered with a splendid white glaze. 'My
+joy was such,' he writes, 'that I felt myself another man'; but he
+rejoiced too soon, for success was still far distant. The mixture which
+produced the white glaze was probably due to Palissy having added
+unconsciously a little more of some special substance, because when he
+tried to make a fresh mixture to spread over the rest of the pieces he
+failed to obtain the same result. Still, though the disappointment was
+great, he did not quite cease to 'feel another man.' He had done what he
+had wanted once, and some day he would do it again and always.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seems strange that Palissy did not go to Limoges, which was not very
+far off, and learn the trade of enamelling at the old-established
+manufactory there. It would have saved him from years of toil and
+heartsickness, and his family from years of poverty. But no! he wished
+to discover the secret _for himself_, and this he had no right to do at
+the expense of other people.
+
+However, we must take the man as he was, and as we read the story of his
+incessant toils we wonder that any human being should have lived to tell
+the tale. He was too poor to get help; perhaps he did not want it; but
+'he worked for more than a month night and day,' grinding into powder
+the substances such as he had used at the moment of his success. But
+heat the furnace as he might, it would not bake, and again he was
+beaten. He had found the secret of the enamel, but not how to make it
+form part of the pots.
+
+Each time victory appeared certain some fresh misfortune occurred, the
+most vexatious of all being one which seems due to Palissy's own
+carelessness. The mortar used by the potter in building his kiln was
+full of small pebbles, and when the oven became very hot these pebbles
+split, and mixed with the glaze. Then the enamel was spread over the
+earthen pots (which at last were properly baked), and the surface of
+each vessel, instead of being absolutely smooth, became as sharp as a
+razor and tore the hand of any unlucky person who touched it.
+
+To guard against such accidents Palissy invented some sort of
+cases--'lanterns' he calls them--in which to put his pots while in the
+kiln, and these he found extremely useful. He now plucked up heart and
+began to model lizards and serpents, tortoises and lobsters, leaves and
+flowers, but it was a long while before he could turn them out as he
+wished. 'The green of the lizards,' he tells us, 'got burned before the
+colour of the serpents was properly fixed,' and the lobsters, serpents
+and other creatures were baked before it suited the potter, who would
+have liked them all to take the same time. But at length his patience
+and courage triumphed over all difficulties. By-and-by he learned how to
+manage his furnace and how to mix his materials; the victory had taken
+him sixteen years to win, but at last he, and not the fire, was master;
+henceforth he could make what he liked, and ask what price he chose.
+
+And there we will leave Palissy the artist and turn to the life of
+Palissy the Huguenot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some years past the reformed religion had spread rapidly in this
+corner of France, and Palissy, always anxious to understand everything
+that came in his way, began first to inquire into the new doctrines, and
+then to adopt them. One of the converts, Philibert Hamelin, a native of
+Tours, was seized by the magistrates and condemned to death, and
+Palissy, who was his special friend, careless of any risk to himself,
+did all that was possible to obtain his pardon; when that proved
+hopeless, the potter arranged a plan of escape for the prisoner, but
+Hamelin declined to fly, and was hanged at Bordeaux in 1557.
+
+The new religion had changed life outwardly as well as inwardly at
+Saintes, as Palissy himself tells us. 'Games, dances, songs, banquets,
+smart clothes, were all things of the past. Ladies were forbidden by
+Calvin, whose word was law, even to wear ribbons; the wine shops were
+empty, for the young men passed their spare hours in the fields; girls
+sat singing hymns on the banks of the streams, and boys abandoned their
+games, and were as grave as their fathers.' The new faith spread rapidly
+in this district, but the converts did not all behave in the peaceable
+manner described by Palissy. As the party grew stronger it also grew
+more violent, and it was plain to him and to everyone else that civil
+war must shortly follow. Cruelty on one side was answered by cruelty on
+the other, and Palissy had thrown in his lot with the Huguenots, and by
+his writings as well as his words urged them to take arms against the
+Catholics. Perhaps the artist in him may have grieved to hear of the
+destruction in the beautiful churches of the carved images of the saints
+that were broken by axes and hammers; of the pictures that were burned,
+or the old illuminated manuscripts that were torn in pieces; but
+outwardly he gave his approval, and when things went against the
+Huguenots, even Palissy's powerful friends who admired his works could
+no longer shut their eyes. He was warned to change his ways, and as he
+did not the duke of Montpensier, then governor of the rebellious
+provinces, thought he would keep Palissy from greater mischief by
+putting him into prison. From Saintes he was sent to Bordeaux, where the
+magistrates, irritated at his having given the use of a tower which they
+had granted him for a studio as a meeting-place for Huguenots, ordered
+him into stricter confinement, while they debated whether the studio
+should be destroyed. But the constable of France, Anne de Montmorency,
+hearing of this proposal, hastened to the queen dowager, Catherine de
+M�dicis, who came to the rescue by appointing him potter to the royal
+household. In this manner Palissy and his studio both escaped, and soon
+afterwards the Treaty of Amboise (1563) gave peace to both parties.
+
+After this the happiest period of Palissy's life began. He was free, he
+was on the way to grow rich, and he had leisure to write down the
+thoughts and plans that had come to him long ago as a boy in his
+wanderings, or lately, in his lonely hours in prison. His children could
+be well provided for, and he need have no more anxiety about them. As to
+his wife, she appears to have been already dead when fortune at last
+visited him, and, indeed, she played but a small part in his life.
+
+Now his first book was composed, and in it we can read about the gardens
+that Palissy hoped to lay out if his rich friends, Montmorency, or
+Montpensier, or Cond�, or even the queen herself, would help him to
+carry out his designs.
+
+The garden of Palissy's thoughts was to be very large, and certainly
+would cost a great deal of money. It was to be situated under a hill, so
+that the flowers and fruits might be protected from the winds, and many
+streams were to flow through it. Broad alleys would cross the garden,
+ending in arbours, some made of trees, trained or cut into different
+shapes, and filled with statues; others of different coloured stones,
+with lizards and vipers climbing upon the walls, while on the floor
+texts would be picked out in pebbles. Plants and flowers would hang from
+the roofs of the grottos, and beside them the rivulets would broaden
+into basins where real frogs and fish would gaze with surprise at their
+stone companions on the brink. Here and there the stream would be dammed
+up into a lake covered with tiny islands, and filled with forget-me-nots
+and water-lilies and pretty yellow irises, and at the next turn of the
+path the visitor would be delighted by a beautiful statue half hidden by
+a grove of trees. Catching sight of an inscription in the left hand of
+the figure, he would not resist stepping aside to read it, and as he was
+stooping to see what was written a jar of water in the figure's right
+hand would empty itself on his head.
+
+[Illustration: A jar of water in the figure's right hands emptied itself
+on his head.]
+
+Wet and cross, the visitor would pursue his way, taking care not to go
+near another statue standing alone in a wide grassy space, with a ring
+dangling from its finger. The children or pages waiting on the lady of
+the house would, however, think that the flat lawn would be a splendid
+place in which to play at 'tilting at the ring,' and here was a ring
+just set up for the purpose. Hastily fetching their toy weapons, they
+would choose a starting-place and, holding their lances well back, run
+swiftly towards the statue, hoping to thrust the lance-point through the
+ring, as by-and-by they would have to do at the sports at a royal
+wedding or a coronation. But the moment the ring was touched a huge wet
+sponge would swing round from the back of the figure and hit the
+champion a sharp blow on the back of the head, to the great delight and
+surprise of his companions.
+
+It was not a game that could be played twice on the same person, as
+Palissy well knew; but in those days great lords with trains of
+attendants frequently stopped at each other's houses on the way to their
+own lands, so that a constant supply of fresh pages might be looked for,
+all eager to play at tilting at the ring.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 1565 that Palissy was sent for to Paris by the queen, to help
+her to decorate and lay out the gardens of the palace of the Tuileries,
+which she was now planning, close to the Louvre.
+
+The very name of the place must have sounded home-like in the ears of
+Palissy, for Tuileries means nothing more than 'tile-fields,' and for a
+long while this part of Paris had been the workshop of brick-makers and
+potters outside the walls of the old city. But in the reign of
+Catherine's father-in-law, Francis I., they were forced to move
+further away, as the king had taken a fancy to the site, and had bought
+it for his mother. Gardens were made where the furnaces had stood; but
+these were by no means fine enough to please Catherine, and she called
+in her favourite architect, Philibert Delorme, to erect a palace in
+their place, and bade Palissy, now called 'Bernard of the Tuileries' by
+his friends, to invent her a new pleasure-ground stretching away to the
+west.
+
+We may be sure that Palissy did not lose this happy chance of carrying
+into practice the 'delectable garden' of his dreams. He had his
+workshops and kilns on the spot, and a band of skilled potters who baked
+the figures of men and animals which he himself fashioned out of clay.
+Two of his sons, Nicholas and Mathurin, seem to have inherited some of
+his talent, and were his partners, as we learn from a royal account book
+of the year 1570, and it must have been pleasant to him to have their
+company. The queen herself often walked down from the Louvre close by to
+see how he was getting on, and to give her opinion as to the grouping of
+some statues or the arrangement of a grotto; and here too came his
+friends when in Paris, Montmorency, Cond�, Jarnac and others, and
+Delorme, Bullant, Filon, and all the great architects of the day. The
+ch�teau of Ecouen, belonging to Montmorency, situated about twelve miles
+from Paris, had been decorated by Palissy before he entered the service
+of the queen-mother, and had gained him great fame and many commissions.
+
+At Ecouen the long galleries and the floor of the chapel were paved with
+tiles containing pictures of subjects taken out of the Bible. In the
+garden was the first 'grotto' the potter ever made, and very proud he
+was of it, and still more so of the invention by which, at a signal from
+the host, one of the attendants would touch a spring, and streams of
+water poured over the guests. It is difficult to imagine the grave
+constable, occupied as he was with religious wars, or anxiously
+watching affairs of state, playing such rude and silly tricks on the
+gentlemen and ladies he was entertaining, and it is pleasanter to think
+of them all listening to the songs of birds which, we are told, were
+imitated to the life by means of water passing through pipes and reeds.
+Altogether, Ecouen was thought a marvel of beauty and fancy, and
+everybody who considered they had any claims to good taste made a point
+of riding out to visit it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Safe under royal protection and happy in his work, Palissy did not
+trouble himself about the fighting that still raged in the name of
+religion. When he was tired of the hot atmosphere of the kiln, he would
+wander along the banks of the river, or into the woods and hills about
+Paris, and watch the birds and the insects fluttering among the trees.
+Then, with his mind full of what he had beheld, he would return to his
+workshop, and, calling for clay, would never rise from his chair until
+he had made an exact copy of the little scene which had caught his
+fancy. First he would form his oval-shaped dish, and in the centre of it
+would lie some twisted snakes, with sprays of leaves and flowers
+scattered round them, while over the cups of the flowers bees and
+butterflies hovered gaily. Or, again, he would fashion a wavy sea,
+bordered by shells of all sorts, fishes, frogs, leaves, and butterflies,
+and in the middle a great sea-serpent wriggling gracefully across the
+dish.
+
+Everything was true to nature and beautifully executed, and in those
+days it never seemed to strike anyone that dishes were meant to hold
+food and not to be treated as pictures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Palissy had been working for eight years in Paris when the massacre of
+St. Bartholomew took place. No one sought to harm the potter, Huguenot
+though he was, and he lived on peacefully, respected by all, for some
+time longer.
+
+In 1574 Charles IX., the well-intentioned, half-mad young king, died,
+and his brother Henry, a man in every way much worse than himself, came
+to the throne. Like the rest of his family, however, he was fond of art,
+and protected the potter, and a few months later we find Palissy, quite
+unharmed, giving lectures on natural history to some of the most famous
+scientific men in Paris. If he wanted to prove a point he had a quantity
+of drawings or materials at hand to show them. He spoke well, and the
+fame of his lectures spread. The little room was soon filled to
+overflowing with lawyers, scholars, and, above all, physicians, the
+celebrated monsieur Ambroise Par�, doctor to the queen-mother, and a
+Huguenot like himself, at their head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During nine years Palissy continued to deliver these lectures every
+Lent, working steadily most of the day among his furnaces at the
+Tuileries. He was now seventy-five, and had escaped so many dangers that
+he might well think himself safe to the end, which could not be far off.
+But in 1585 Henry III. thought himself obliged to take more active
+measures against the Huguenots. Palissy had never concealed--as he had
+never obtruded--his faith, and, most likely at the instigation of
+someone who envied him, he was at once sent to the prison of the
+Bastille, and sentence of death passed upon him.
+
+Yet once again the potter's gift for making friends, perhaps the most
+valuable of all his talents in that fierce age, stood him in good stead.
+This time it was actually one of the persecuting Guises, the duc de
+Mayenne, who saved him, and prevented the decree from being carried out.
+
+For four years Palissy remained a prisoner. Mayenne desired to set him
+free, but did not dare to do so, so left him where he was till better
+times came. But Palissy had a surer friend than Mayenne, who came to his
+rescue. In spite of his strong frame, years passed in a prison of those
+days, where hunger, cold, and dirt would break any man down, proved too
+much even for Bernard Palissy, now more than eighty years of age. Little
+by little he grew weaker, watched and tended, as far as might be, by
+those who, like himself, had suffered for conscience' sake. Then one
+evening he went to sleep, and woke in the Delectable Garden.
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Red Book of Heroes, by Mrs. Lang.
+    </title>
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+
+Project Gutenberg's The Red Book of Heroes, by Leonora Blanche Lang
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Book of Heroes
+
+Author: Leonora Blanche Lang
+
+Editor: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2006 [EBook #19078]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED BOOK OF HEROES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Colin Bell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h1>THE RED BOOK OF HEROES</h1>
+
+<h3>BY<br/>
+MRS. LANG</h3>
+
+<h4>EDITED BY ANDREW LANG</h4>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW01"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw01_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw01.jpg"
+        alt = "Roundel."
+        title = "Roundel." />
+    </a>
+</div>
+
+<h6>WITH 8 COLOURED PLATES AND<br />
+NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. WALLIS MILLS<br /></h6>
+<p><br/></p>
+<h6>
+LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br />
+39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON<br />
+NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA<br />
+<br />
+1909<br />
+<i>All rights reserved</i><br />
+</h6>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMCOVER"></a>
+    <a href="images/cover_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/cover.jpg"
+        alt = "Front cover"
+        title = "Front cover" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Front cover</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC01"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour01_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour01.jpg"
+        alt = "&quot;'Go back,' he said.&quot;"
+        title = "&quot;'Go back,' he said.&quot;" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Frontispiece: "'Go back,' he said."</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>'Life is not all beer and skittles,' said a reflective
+sportsman, and all books are not fairy tales. In an
+imperfect state of existence, 'the peety of it is that we
+cannot have all things as we would like them.' Undeniably
+we would like all books to be fairy tales or
+novels, and at present most of them are. But there is
+another side to things, and we must face it. '"Life is
+real, life is earnest," as Tennyson tells us,' said an orator
+to whom I listened lately, and though Longfellow, not
+Tennyson, wrote the famous line quoted by the earnest
+speaker, yet there is a good deal of truth in it. The
+word 'earnest,' like many other good words, has been
+overdone. It is common to sneer at 'earnest workers,'
+yet where would we be without them, especially in our
+climate?</p>
+
+<p>In a Polynesian island, where the skies for ever
+smile, and the blacks for ever dance, earnestness is superfluous.
+The bread-fruit tree delivers its rolls punctually
+every morning, strawberries or other fruits, as nice,
+spring beneath the feet of the dancers; the cavern in
+the forest provides a roof and shelter from the sun; the
+sea supplies a swimming-bath, and man, in time of peace,
+has only to enjoy himself, eat and drink, laugh and love,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>
+sing songs and tell fairy tales. His drapery is woven of
+fragrant flowers, nobody is poor and anxious about food,
+nobody is rich and afraid of losing his money, nobody
+needs to think of helping others; he has only to put forth
+his hand, or draw his bow or swing his fishing-rod, and
+help himself. To be sure, in time of war, man has
+just got to be earnest, and think out plans for catching
+and spearing his enemies, and drill his troops and improve
+his weapons, in fact to do some work, or have his
+throat cut, and be put in the oven and eaten. Thus it
+is really hard for the most fortunate people to avoid
+being earnest now and then.</p>
+
+<p>The people whose stories are told in this book were
+very different from each other in many ways. The
+child abbess, M&egrave;re Ang&eacute;lique, ruling her convent, and at
+war with naughty abbesses who hated being earnest, does
+not at once remind us of Hannibal. The great Montrose,
+with his poems and his scented love-locks, his
+devotion to his cause, his chivalry, his death, to which
+he went gaily clad like a bridegroom to meet his bride,
+does not seem a companion for Palissy the Potter, all
+black and shrunk and wrinkled, and bowed over his
+furnaces. It is a long way from gentle Miss Nightingale,
+tending wounded dogs when a child, and wounded
+soldiers when a woman, to Charles Gordon playing
+wild tricks at school, leading a Chinese army, watching
+alone at Khartoum, in a circle of cruel foes, for the sight
+of the British colours, and the sounds of the bagpipes
+that never met his eyes and ears.</p>
+
+<p>But these people, and all the others whose stories are
+told, had this in common, that they were in earnest,
+though we may be sure that they did not go about with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>
+talk of earnestness for ever in their mouths. It came
+natural to them, they could not help it, they liked it,
+their hearts were set on two things: to do their very best,
+and to keep their honour. The Constant Prince suffered
+hunger and cold and long imprisonment all 'to keep the
+bird in his bosom,' as the old Cavalier said, to be true
+to honour. 'I will carry with me honour and fidelity to
+the grave,' said Montrose; and he kept his word, though
+his enemies gave him no grave, but placed his head and
+limbs on spikes in various towns of his country. But
+now his grave, in St. Giles's Church in Edinburgh, is the
+most beautiful and honourable in Scotland, adorned with
+his stainless scutcheon, and with those of Napiers and
+Grahams, his kindred and his friends.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>The grave of March, the grave of Gwythar,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The grave of Gugann Gleddyvrudd,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>A mystery to the world, the grave of Arthur</i>,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>says the old Welsh poem, and unknown as the grave of
+Arthur is the grave of Gordon. The desert wind may
+mingle his dust with the sand, the Nile may sweep it to
+the sea, as the Seine bore the ashes of that martyr of
+honour, the Maid of France. 'The whole earth is brave
+men's common sepulchre,' says the Greek, their tombs
+may be without mark or monument, but 'honour comes
+a pilgrim grey' to the sacred places where men cannot
+go in pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<p>We see what honour they had of men; the head of Sir
+Thomas More, the head of Montrose, were exposed to
+mockery in public places, the ashes of Jeanne d'Arc
+were thrown into the river, Gordon's body lies unknown;
+but their honour is eternal in human memory.
+It was really for honour that Sir Thomas More suffered;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>
+it was not possible for him to live without the knowledge
+that his shield was stainless. It was for honour
+rather than for religion that the child Ang&eacute;lique Arnauld
+gave up amusement and pleasure, and everything that is
+dear to a girl, young, witty, beautiful, and gay, and put
+on the dress of a nun. Later she worked for the sake
+of duty and religion, but honour was her first mistress,
+and she could not go back from her plighted word.</p>
+
+<p>These people were born to be what they were, to be
+examples to all of us that are less nobly born and like
+a quiet, easy, merry life. We cannot all be Gordons,
+Montroses, Ang&eacute;liques, but if we read about them and
+think about them, a touch of their nobility may come
+to us, and surely our honour is in our own keeping. We
+may try never to do a mean thing, or a doubtful thing,
+a thing that Gordon would not have been tempted to do,
+though we are tempted, more tempted as we grow older
+and see what the world does than are the young. I think
+honour is the dearest and the most natural of virtues;
+in their own ways none are more loyal than boys and
+girls. Later we may forget that no pleasure, no happiness,
+not even the love that seems the strongest force
+in our natures, is worth having at the expense of a
+stain on the white rose of honour. Had she been a few
+years older, Ang&eacute;lique might have failed to keep the
+word which was extorted from her as a child, but, being
+young, she kept it the more easily. What we have to
+do is to try to be young always in this matter, to be
+our natural selves and unspotted from the world. Certainly
+some people are a little better, and so far a
+little happier, because they have seen the light from
+Charles Gordon's yet living head, and been half heart-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>broken
+by his end, so glorious to himself, so inglorious
+to his fellow countrymen. For his dear sake we may all
+do a little, sacrifice a little, to help the Homes for Boys
+which have been built to his memory, and to help the
+poor boys whom he used to help, making himself poor,
+and giving his time for them.</p>
+
+<p>We read in the book, 'A Child's Hero,' how the brave
+Havelock won the heart of a little child who never saw
+him. She heard the words 'Havelock is dead,' and
+laid her head against the wall and burst into tears.
+Other children may feel the same devotion for these
+splendid people, for Hannibal, so far away from us, giving
+his whole heart and whole genius and his life for his
+wretched country, for men who would not understand,
+who would not aid him:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Their old art statesmen plied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And paltered, and evaded, and denied"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>till their country was vanquished. Bad as that
+country was, for Hannibal's own sake we are all on the
+side of Hannibal, as we are on the side of Hector of Troy.
+'Well know I this in heart and soul,' said Hector to his
+wife, when she would have kept him out of the battle,
+'that the day is coming when holy Ilios shall perish,
+and Priam, and the people of Priam of the ashen spear,
+my father with my mother, and my brothers, many and
+brave, dying in the dust at the hands of our foemen; but
+most I sorrow for thee, my wife, when they lead thee
+weeping away, a slave to weave at thy master's loom
+and bear water from thy master's well, and the passers-by,
+as they see thee weeping, shall say, "This was the
+wife of Hector, the foremost in fight of the men of Troy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>
+when they fought for their city." But may I be dead,
+and the earth be mounded above me, ere I hear thy cry
+and the tale of thy captivity.'</p>
+
+<p>So he went back into the battle, and never again
+saw his wife and child. It was in the spirit of Hector
+that Hannibal planned and fought and toiled, till as an
+old man he bit on the poison ring, and died, and was
+free from the Roman captivity that threatened him.</p>
+
+<p>Honour and courage were the masters of the men
+and women whose stories are told in this book, but of
+them all none dared a risk so horrible as brave Father
+Damien in the Isle of Lepers. For his adventure
+among dreadful people who must give him their own
+dreadful disease, a Montrose or a Havelock might have
+had little heart, for his task had none of the excitement
+and glitter of the soldier's duty in war. But they are all,
+these men and women, good to live with, good to know,
+good to go with, weary camp followers as we are of the
+Noble Army of Martyrs, and unworthy of a single leaf
+from the laurel crown.</p>
+
+<p class="rightalign">
+<span class="smcap">A. Lang.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<ul class="toc">
+<li><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a> <span class="ralign">v</span></li>
+<li><a href="#THE_LADY-IN-CHIEF">THE LADY-IN-CHIEF</a><span class="ralign">1</span></li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#PRISONERS_AND_CAPTIVES">PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES</a>
+  <span class="ralign">25</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#HANNIBAL">HANNIBAL</a>
+  <span class="ralign">43</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#THE_APOSTLE_OF_THE_LEPERS">THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS</a>
+  <span class="ralign">95</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#THE_CONSTANT_PRINCE">THE CONSTANT PRINCE</a>
+  <span class="ralign">109</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#THE_MARQUIS_OF_MONTROSE">THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE</a>
+  <span class="ralign">135</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#A_CHILDS_HERO">A CHILD'S HERO</a>
+  <span class="ralign">169</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#CONSCIENCE_OR_KING">CONSCIENCE OR KING</a>
+  <span class="ralign">222</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#THE_LITTLE_ABBESS">THE LITTLE ABBESS</a>
+  <span class="ralign">246</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#GORDON">GORDON</a>
+  <span class="ralign">281</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#THE_CRIME_OF_THEODOSIUS">THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS</a>
+  <span class="ralign">334</span>
+</li>
+<li>
+  <a href="#PALISSY_THE_POTTER">PALISSY THE POTTER</a>
+  <span class="ralign">352</span>
+</li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+<h4>COLOURED PLATES</h4>
+<p class="rightalign"><i>(Engraved and Printed by Andr&eacute; &amp; Sleigh, Ltd., Bushey.)</i></p>
+<ul class="toc">
+<li><a href="#IMC01">
+'<i>Go back!' he said</i> [<i>See page</i> 350]</a><span class="ralign"><i>Frontispiece</i></span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMC02">
+<i>Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day</i></a>
+<span class="ralign"><i>to face p.</i> 74</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMC03">
+<i>Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely
+place by the sea</i></a><span class="ralign">106</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMC04">
+<i>A great army of Irishmen have swooped down
+on the Atholl country</i></a>
+<span class="ralign">150</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMC05">
+<i>The place was swarming with rats</i></a><span class="ralign">208</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMC06">
+<i>She took all her nuns for a solemn walk</i></a><span class="ralign">258</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMC07">
+<i>They saw a man in uniform shining with gold
+flying towards them</i></a>
+<span class="ralign">316</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMC08">
+<i>A jar of water in the figure's right hand
+emptied itself on his head</i></a>  <span class="ralign">364</span>
+</li>
+</ul>
+<h4>FULL-PAGE PLATES</h4>
+<ul class="toc">
+<li><a href="#IMBW02"><i>Roger could hardly believe his eyes</i></a><span class="ralign"> <i>to face p.</i>6</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW06"><i>She came forth with a golden circlet round
+her head</i></a><span class="ralign">44</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW09"><i>Hannibal was determined not to stir until the
+elephants were safely over</i></a><span class="ralign">58</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW11"><i>Under the eyes of the army the combat began</i> </a><span class="ralign">68</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW14"><i>In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till
+the fatal hour was past</i> </a><span class="ralign">114</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW16"><i>About thirty or forty of our honestest women
+did fall a railing on Mr. William Annan</i> </a><span class="ralign">140</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW22"><i>'You will soon have no caste left yourself'</i>  </a><span class="ralign">194</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW26"><i>Often ... he had felt that a terrible death
+was very near</i></a><span class="ralign">218</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW28"><i>Sir Thomas sat silent</i></a><span class="ralign">232</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW29"><i>'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered</i>  </a><span class="ralign">240</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW30"><i>'You are mistaking me for somebody else'</i></a><span class="ralign">248</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW33"><i>The archers set a ladder against the wall, which
+the lady instantly threw down</i> </a><span class="ralign">274</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW35"><i>Gordon found time to attend to an old dying
+woman</i>  </a><span class="ralign">310</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW37"><i>A shot ended his life</i>  </a><span class="ralign">330</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW38"><i>'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will
+be too late'</i></a><span class="ralign">338</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW39"><i>'Let him die!' he said</i>    </a><span class="ralign">344</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW40"><i>The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved</i> </a><span class="ralign">354</span></li>
+</ul>
+<h4>ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT</h4>
+<ul class="toc">
+<li>&nbsp;<span class="ralign">PAGE</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW03">'<i>Tell me what you want to say, and I will say it</i>'</a><span class="ralign">17</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW04"><i>They sprang on the food like wolves</i>
+</a><span class="ralign">28</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW05"><i>He brushed down the walls without hindrance from
+anyone</i></a><span class="ralign">41</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW07"><i>All three were apt pupils</i> </a><span class="ralign">51</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW08"><i>The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting and
+screaming with delight</i></a><span class="ralign">56</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW10"><i>He found right in front of him a huge precipice</i>    </a><span class="ralign">64</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW12"><i>The whole four thousand climbed the ridge</i>  </a><span class="ralign">77</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW13"><i>'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said</i>   </a><span class="ralign">93</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW15"><i>He found the Prince lying unconscious on the ground</i>
+</a><span class="ralign">130</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW17"><i>For two days they sought in vain for a road to take
+them to Caithness</i> </a><span class="ralign">162</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW18"><i>He managed to crawl over the floor</i>  </a><span class="ralign">179</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW19"><i>The Captain obligingly did as he was asked</i>   </a><span class="ralign">183</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW20"><i>Suddenly the table began to rock</i> </a><span class="ralign">189</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW21"><i>In another moment he would have been trampled under
+the feet of the Afghan cavalry</i>   </a><span class="ralign">191</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW23"><i>Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her</i>    </a><span class="ralign">201</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW24"><i>A tired horseman rode into camp</i> </a><span class="ralign">204</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW25"><i>The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing</i> </a><span class="ralign">213</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW27"><i>Erasmus was astonished to notice More present Prince
+Henry with a roll</i> </a><span class="ralign">228</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW31"><i>'Go away! you have no business here.'</i>   </a><span class="ralign">253</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW32"><i>She fell fainting to the ground</i></a><span class="ralign">266</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW34"><i>He told them stories from English history</i></a><span class="ralign">303</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW36"><i>He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and stared</i>  </a><span class="ralign">314</span></li>
+<li><a href="#IMBW41"><i>Fancy poor Madame Palissy's feelings</i>  </a><span class="ralign">359</span></li>
+</ul>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_LADY-IN-CHIEF" id="THE_LADY-IN-CHIEF"></a>THE LADY-IN-CHIEF</h2>
+
+
+<p>Everybody nowadays is so used to seeing in the
+streets nurses wearing long floating cloaks of different
+colours, blue, brown, grey, and the rest, and to having
+them with us when we are ill, that it is difficult to imagine
+a time when there were no such people. In the stories
+that were written even fifty years ago you will soon
+find out what sort of women they were who called
+themselves 'nurses.' Any kind of person seems to
+have been thought good enough to look after a sick
+man; it was not a matter which needed a special talent
+or teaching, and no girl would have dreamed of nursing
+anybody outside her own home, still less of giving up
+her life to looking after the sick. It was merely work,
+it was thought, for <i>old</i> women, and so, at the moment
+when the patient needed most urgently some one
+young and strong and active about him, who could
+lift him from one side of the bed to the other, or keep
+awake all night to give him his medicine or to see
+that his fire did not go out, he was left to a fat, sleepy,
+often drunken old body, who never cared if he lived
+or died, so that <i>she</i> was not disturbed.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The woman who was to change all this was born in
+Florence in the year 1820 and called after that city.
+Her father, Mr. Nightingale, seems to have been fond
+of giving his family place-names, for Florence's sister,
+about a year older than herself, had the old title of
+Naples tacked on to 'Frances,' and in after life was
+always spoken of as 'Parthy' or 'Parthenope.' By<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+and by a young cousin of these little girls would be
+named 'Athena,' after the town Athens, and then
+the fashion grew, and I have heard of twins called
+'Inkerman' and 'Balaclava,' and of an 'Elsinora,'
+while we all know several 'Almas,' and may even
+have met a lady who bears the name of the highest
+mountain in the world&mdash;of course you can all guess
+what <i>that</i> is?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale did not stay very long in
+Italy after Florence's birth. They grew tired of living
+abroad, and wanted to get back to their old home
+among the hills and streams of Derbyshire. Here,
+at Lea hall, Florence's father could pass whole days
+happily with his books and the beautiful things he had
+collected in his travels; but he looked well after the
+people in the village, and insisted that the children
+should be sent to a little school, where they learned
+how to read and write and count for twopence a week.
+If the poor villagers were ill or unhappy, his wife used
+to visit them, and help them with advice as well as
+with money, and we may be quite sure that her little
+daughters often went with her on her rounds.</p>
+
+<p>So the early years of Florence's childhood passed
+away amidst the flowery fields and bare hills that
+overlooked the beautiful river Derwent. The village,
+built of stone like so many in the North Country, lay far
+below, and on Sundays the two little girls, dressed in
+their best tippets and bonnets, used to walk with their
+father and mother across the meadows to the tiny
+church at Dethick. Here nearly two hundred and fifty
+years ago one Anthony Babington knelt in prayer,
+though his thoughts often wandered to the beautiful
+Scottish queen, shut up by order of Elizabeth in Wingfield
+manor, only a few miles away. Of course Parthy
+and Florence knew all about him, and their greatest
+treat was a visit to his house, where they could see in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+the kitchen a trap-door leading to a large secret chamber,
+in which a conspirator might live for weeks without being
+found out. A great deal of the house had been pulled
+down or allowed to fall into decay, but the bailiff, who
+lived in the rest, was always glad to see them, and would
+take them to all kinds of delightful places, and up little
+dark narrow winding stairs, at the end of which you
+pushed up another trap-door and found yourself in
+your bedroom. What a fascinating way of getting
+there, and how very, very silly people are now to have
+wide staircases and straight passages and stupid doors,
+which you <i>know</i> will open, instead of never being sure
+if the trap-door had not stuck, or some enemy had not
+placed a heavy piece of furniture upon it!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But much as the Nightingales, big and little, loved
+Lea hall, it was very bare and cold in winter, and
+Florence's father determined to build a new house in a
+more sheltered place. Lea Hurst, as it was called, was
+only a mile from the hall, and, like it, overlooked the
+Derwent; but here the hills were wooded and kept out
+the bitter winds which had howled and wailed through
+the old house. Mr. Nightingale was very careful that
+all should be done exactly as he wished, therefore it
+took some time to finish, and <i>then</i> the family could
+not move in till the paint and plaster were dry, so that
+Florence was between five and six when at last they
+took possession.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the two little girls had much to say about
+the laying out of the terraced gardens, and insisted on
+having some beds of their own, to plant with their
+favourite flowers. They were greatly pleased, too, at
+discovering a very old chapel in the middle of the new
+house, and very likely they told each other many stories
+of what went on there. Then there was a summer-house,
+where they could have tea, and if you went
+through the woods in May, and could make up your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+mind to pass the sheets of blue hyacinths without
+stopping to pick them till you were too tired to go
+further, you came out upon a splendid avenue, with a
+view of the hills for miles round. This was the walk
+which Florence loved best.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It seems, however, that Mr. Nightingale could not
+have thought Lea Hurst as pleasant as he expected it
+to be, for a few months later he bought a place called
+Embley, near the beautiful abbey of Romsey, in Hampshire.
+Here they all moved every autumn as soon as the
+trees at Lea Hurst grew bare; and when the young
+leaves were showing like a green mist, they began the
+long drive back again, sometimes stopping in London on
+the way, to see some pictures and hear some music, and
+have some talk with many interesting people whom
+Mr. Nightingale knew. And when they got home at
+last, how delightful it was to ride round to the old friends
+in the farms and cottages, and listen to tales of all that
+had happened during the little girls' absence, and in
+their turn to tell of the wonderful sights they had
+witnessed, and the adventures that had befallen them!
+Best of all were the visits to the families of puppies
+and kittens which had been born during their absence,
+for Florence especially loved animals, and was often
+sent for by the neighbours to cure them when they were
+ill. The older and uglier they were, the sorrier Florence
+was for them, and she would often steal out with sugar
+or apples or carrots in her pocket for some elderly beast
+which was ending its days quietly in the fields, stopping
+in the woods on the way to play with a squirrel or a
+baby rabbit. The game was perhaps a little one-sided,
+but what did that matter? As the poet Cowper says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To share her home caresses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And looked up to her human eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With sylvan tendernesses.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></div></div>
+<p>
+Beasts and birds were Florence's dear friends, but
+dearest of all were her ponies.</p>
+
+<p>While she was at Embley, the vicar, who was very
+fond of her, used often to take her out riding when he
+went on his rounds to see his people. Florence enjoyed
+this very much; she knew them all well, and never
+forgot the names of the children or their birthdays.
+Her mother would often give her something nice to
+carry to the sick ones, and when the flowers came out,
+Florence used to gather some for her special favourites,
+out of her own garden.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>One day when she and the vicar were cantering
+across the downs, they saw an old shepherd, who was
+a great friend of both of them, attempting to drive
+his flock without the help of his collie, Cap, who was
+nowhere to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>'What has become of Cap?' they asked, and the
+shepherd told them that some cruel boys had broken
+the dog's leg with a stone, and he was in such pain that
+his master thought it would be more merciful to put
+an end to him.</p>
+
+<p>Florence was hot with indignation. 'Perhaps
+<i>I</i> can help him,' she said. 'At any rate, he will like
+me to sit with him; he must feel so lonely. Where
+is he?'</p>
+
+<p>'In my hut out there,' answered the shepherd; 'but
+I'm afraid it's little good you or anyone else can do
+him.'</p>
+
+<p>But Florence did not hear, for she was galloping
+as fast as she could to the place where Cap was lying.</p>
+
+<p>'Poor old fellow, poor old Cap,' whispered she,
+kneeling down and stroking his head, and Cap looked
+up to thank her.</p>
+
+<p>'Let me examine his leg,' said the vicar, who had
+entered behind her; 'he does not hold it as if it were
+broken. No, I am sure it is not,' he added after a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+close inspection. 'Cheer up, we will soon have him
+well again.'</p>
+
+<p>Florence's eyes brightened.</p>
+
+<p>'What can I do?' she asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, make him a compress. That will take down
+the swelling,' replied the vicar, who was a little of a
+doctor himself.</p>
+
+<p>'A compress?' repeated Florence, wrinkling her
+forehead. 'But I never heard of one. I don't know
+how.'</p>
+
+<p>'Light a fire and boil some water, and then wring
+out some cloths in it, and put them on Cap's paw.
+Here is a boy who will make a fire for you,' he added,
+beckoning to a lad who was passing outside.</p>
+
+<p>While the fire was kindling, Florence looked about
+to find the cloths. But the shepherd did not seem
+to have any, and her own little handkerchief would
+not do any good. Still, cloths she must have, and those
+who knew Miss Nightingale in after years would tell
+you that when she <i>wanted</i> things she <i>got</i> them.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, there is Roger's smock,' she exclaimed with
+delight. 'Oh, <i>do</i> tear it up for me; mamma will be sure
+to give me another for him.' So the vicar tore the strong
+linen into strips, and Florence wrung them out in the
+boiling water, as he had told her.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Cap, be a good dog; you know I only want to
+help you,' she cried, and Cap seemed as if he <i>did</i> know;
+for though a little tremble ran through his body as the
+hot cloth touched him, he never tried to bite, nor
+even groaned with the pain, as many children would
+have done. By and by the lump was certainly
+smaller, and the look of pain in Cap's eyes began to
+disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she glanced up at the vicar, who had been
+all this time watching her.</p>
+
+<p>'I can't leave Cap till he is <i>quite</i> better,' she said.
+'Can you get that boy to go to Embley and tell them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+where I am? Then they won't be frightened.' So the
+boy was sent, and Florence sat on till the setting sun
+shot long golden darts into the hut.</p>
+
+<p>Then she heard the shepherd fumbling with the
+latch, as if he could not see to open it; and perhaps
+he couldn't, for in his hand he held the rope which
+was to put an end to all Cap's sorrows. But Cap did
+not know the meaning of the rope and only saw his
+old master. He gave a little bark of greeting and
+struggled on to his three sound legs, wagging his tail in
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Roger could hardly believe his eyes, and Florence
+laughed with delight.</p>
+
+<p>'Just look how much better he is,' she said. 'The
+swelling is very nearly gone now. But he wants some
+more compresses. Come and help me make them.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think we can leave Roger to nurse Cap,' said the
+vicar, who had just returned from some of the neighbouring
+cottages. 'Your patient must have some bread
+and milk to-night, and to-morrow you can come to see
+how he is.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, of course I shall,' answered Florence, and she
+knelt down to kiss Cap's nose before the vicar put her
+up on her pony.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW02"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw02_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw02.jpg"
+        alt = "Roger could hardly believe his eyes."
+        title = "Roger could hardly believe his eyes." />
+    </a>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now, though Florence was so fond of flowers and
+animals and everything out of doors, she was never
+dull in the house on a wet day. In the first place,
+nothing was ever allowed to interfere with her lessons,
+and though the little girls had a good governess, their
+father chose the books they were to read and the subjects
+they were to study. Greek, Latin, and mathematics
+he taught them himself, and besides he took
+care that they could read and speak French, German,
+and Italian. They were fond of poetry, and no doubt
+some of the earliest poems of young Mr. Tennyson were
+among their favourites, as well as 'Lycidas' and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+songs of the cavaliers. Parthy was a better artist and
+a cleverer musician than Florence, though <i>she</i> could sing
+and sketch; but both were good needlewomen, and
+could make samplers as well as do fine work and embroidery.
+When school-time was over and the rain
+was still coming down, they would run away to their
+dolls, who, poor things, were always ill, so that Florence
+might have the pleasure of curing them. And though
+before Cap's accident she had never heard of a compress,
+she could make nice food for them at the nursery
+fire, and bandage their broken arms and legs while
+Parthy held the wounded limb steady.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When they grew older, they went abroad now and
+then with their parents, but Florence liked best being
+at home with her friends in the village, who were very
+proud of her wishing to take their pictures with her
+new photographic camera. If they had only known
+it, the children in their best clothes standing up very
+stiff and straight did not look half as pretty as the
+baskets of kittens with eyes half-innocent, half-wise,
+or the funny little pups, so round and fat. But the
+parents thought the portraits of their children the most
+beautiful things in the world, and had them put into
+hideous gilt frames and hung on the walls, where Florence
+could see them on her frequent visits.</p>
+
+<p>Welcome as she was to all, it was the sick people
+who awaited her coming the most eagerly. She was
+so quiet in her movements, and knew so exactly what
+to do without talking or fussing about it, that the
+invalids grew less restless in her presence, and believed
+so entirely that she really <i>could</i> cure them that they
+were half cured already! Then before she left she
+would read them 'a chapter' or a story to make them
+laugh, or anything else they wished for; and it was
+always a pleasure to listen to her, for she never stammered,
+or yawned, or lost her place, or had any of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+tricks that often make reading aloud a penance to the
+victim.</p>
+
+<p>For the young people both in Derbyshire and
+Hampshire she formed singing classes, and some of her
+'societies' continue to-day. She was full of interest
+in other people's lives, and not only was <i>ready</i> to help
+them but <i>enjoyed</i> doing so, which makes all the difference.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>There is much nonsense talked in the world about
+'born' actors, and 'born' artists, and 'born' nurses.
+No doubt some are 'born' with greater gifts in these
+matters than others, but the most famous artists or
+actors or nurses will all tell you that the only work
+which is lasting has been wrought by long hours of
+patient labour. Miss Nightingale knew this as well as
+anybody, and as soon as she began to think of doing
+what no modern lady had ever done before her, and
+devoting her life to the care of the sick, she set about
+considering how she could best find the training she
+needed. She tried, to use her own words, 'to qualify
+herself for it as a man does for his work,' and to 'submit
+herself to the rules of business as men do.'</p>
+
+<p>So she spent some months among the London
+hospitals, where her quick eye and clever fingers, aided
+by her cottage experience, made her a welcome help
+to the doctors. From the first she 'began at the beginning,'
+which is the only way to come to a successful
+end. A sick person cannot get well where the floor
+is covered with dirt, and the dust makes him cough;
+therefore his nurse must get rid of both dirt and dust
+before her treatment can have any effect. After London,
+Miss Nightingale went to Edinburgh and Dublin, and
+then to France and Italy, where the nursing was done
+by nuns; and after that she visited Germany, where at
+the town of Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine, she found
+what she wanted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The hospital of Kaiserswerth, where Miss Nightingale
+had decided to do her training, had been founded about
+sixteen years earlier by Pastor Fliedner, who was a
+wise man, content with very small beginnings. At the
+time of her arrival it was divided into a number of
+branches, and there was also a school for the children,
+who were taught entirely by some of the sisters, or
+deaconesses, as they were called. On entering, everyone
+had to go through the same work for a certain number
+of months, whether they meant to be hospital nurses
+or school teachers. All must learn to sew, cook, scrub,
+and read out clearly and pleasantly; but as Miss Nightingale
+had practised most of these things from the time
+she was a child, she soon was free to go into the hospital
+and attend to the sick people. The other nurses were
+German peasant women, but when they found that
+she could speak their language, and was ready to work
+as hard as any of them, they made friends at once. In
+her spare hours Miss Nightingale would put on her
+black cloak and small bonnet, and go round to the
+cottages with Mr. Fliedner, as long ago she had done
+with the vicar of Embley, and we may be sure any sick
+people whom she visited were always left clean and
+comfortable when she said good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>But at Kaiserswerth Miss Nightingale had very
+little chance of learning any surgery, so she felt that she
+could not do better than pass some time in Paris with
+the nursing sisterhood of St. Vincent de Paul, which
+had been established about two hundred years earlier.
+Here, too, she went with the sisters on their rounds,
+both in the hospitals and in the homes of the poor,
+and learnt how best to help the people without turning
+them into beggars. Every part of the work interested
+her, but the long months of hard labour and food
+which was often scanty and always different from what
+she had hitherto had, began to tell on her. She fell ill,
+and in her turn had to be looked after by the sisters, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+no doubt in many ways she learned more of sick nursing
+when she was a patient than she did when she was a
+nurse.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was quite clear that it would be necessary for her
+to have a good rest before she grew strong again, and
+so she went back to Embley, and afterwards to Lea, and
+tried to forget that there was any such thing as sickness.
+But it is not easy for people who are known to be able
+and willing to have peace anywhere, and soon letters
+came pouring in to Miss Nightingale begging for her help
+in all sorts of ways. As far as she could she undertook
+it all, and often performed the most troublesome of all
+tasks, that of setting right the mistakes of others. In
+the end her health broke down again, but not till she
+had finished what she had set herself to do.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in March 1854 that war broke out between
+England, France, and Turkey on the one side, and
+Russia on the other. The battle-ground was to be the
+little peninsula of the Crimea, and soon the Black Sea
+was crowded with ships carrying eager soldiers, many of
+them young and quite ignorant of the hardships that
+lay before them.</p>
+
+<p>At first all seemed going well; the victory of the
+Alma was won on September 20, 1854, and that of
+Balaclava on October 25, the anniversary of Agincourt.
+But while the hearts of all men were still throbbing at
+the splendid madness of the charge when, owing to a
+mistaken order, the Light Brigade rode out to take the
+Russian guns and were mown down by hundreds, the
+rain began to fall in torrents and a winter of unusual
+coldness was upon them. Nights as well as days were
+passed in the trenches that had been dug before the
+strong fortress of Sebastopol, which the allies were
+besieging, and the suffering of our English soldiers was
+far greater than it need have been, owing to the wicked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>ness
+of many of the contractors who had undertaken
+to supply the army with boots and stores, and did not
+hesitate to get these so cheap and bad as to be quite
+useless, while the rest of the money set aside for the
+purpose was put into their pockets. The doctors gave
+themselves no rest, but there were not half enough
+of them, while of nurses there were none. The men did
+what they could for one another, but they had their
+own work to attend to, and besides, try as they would
+it was impossible for them to fill the place of a trained
+and skilful woman. So they, as well as their dying
+comrades lying patiently on the sodden earth, looked
+longingly at the big white caps of the French sisters,
+who for their part would gladly have given help and
+comfort had not the wounded of their own nation
+taken all their time. One or two of the English officers
+had been followed to the Crimea by their wives, and
+these ladies cooked for and tended the sick men who were
+placed in rows along the passages of the barracks, but
+even lint for bandages was lacking to them, and after
+the Alma they wrote letters to their friends in England
+entreating that no time might be lost in sending out
+proper aid.</p>
+
+<p>These letters were backed by a strong appeal from
+the war correspondent of the <i>Times</i>, Dr. W.~H. Russell,
+and from the day that his plain account of the privations
+and horrors of the suffering army appeared in
+the paper, the War Office was besieged by women
+begging to be sent to the Crimea by the first ship. The
+minister, Mr. Sidney Herbert, did not refuse their
+offers; though they were without experience and full
+of excitement, he saw that most of them were deeply
+in earnest and under a capable head might be put
+to a good use. But where was such a head to be
+found? Then suddenly there darted into his mind
+the thought of Miss Nightingale, his friend for years
+past.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was on October 15 that Mr. Sidney Herbert
+wrote to Miss Nightingale offering her, in the name
+of the government, the post of Superintendent of the
+nurses in the East, with absolute authority over her
+staff; and, curiously enough, on the very same day
+<i>she</i> had written to <i>him</i> proposing to go out at once
+to the Black Sea. As no time was to be lost, it was
+clear that most of the thirty-eight nurses she was to
+take with her must be women of a certain amount of
+training and experience. Others might follow when
+they had learnt a little what nursing really meant,
+but they were of no use now. So Miss Nightingale
+went round to some Church of England and Roman
+Catholic sisterhoods and chose out the strongest and
+most intelligent of those who were willing to go, the
+remainder being sent her by friends whose judgment
+she could trust. Six days after Sidney Herbert had
+written his letter, the band of nurses started from
+Charing Cross.</p>
+
+<p>When after a very rough passage they reached the
+great hospital of Scutari, situated on a hill above the
+Bosphorus, they heard the news of the fight at Balaclava
+and learnt that a battle was expected to take place
+next day at Inkerman. The hospital was an immense
+building in the form of a square, and was able to hold
+several thousand men. It had been lent to us by the
+Turks, but was in a fearfully dirty state and most
+unfit to receive the wounded men who were continually
+arriving in ships from the Crimea. Often the vessels
+were so loaded that the few doctors had not had time
+to set the broken legs and arms of the men, and many
+must have died of blood poisoning from the dirt which
+got into their undressed wounds. Oftener still they
+had little or no food, and even with help were too weak
+to walk from the ship to the hospital. And as for rats!
+why there seemed nearly as many rats as patients.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The first thing to be done was to unpack the stores,
+to boil water so that the wounds could be washed, to put
+clean sheets on the beds, and make the men as comfortable
+as possible. The doctors, overworked and anxious
+as they were, did not give the nurses a very warm welcome.
+As far as their own experience went, women in
+a hospital were always in the way, and instead of
+helpers became hinderers. But Miss Nightingale took
+no heed of ungracious words and cold looks. She did
+her own business quietly and without fuss, and soon
+brought order out of confusion, and a feeling of confidence
+where before there had been despair. If an
+operation had to be performed&mdash;and at that time
+chloroform was so newly invented that the doctors were
+almost afraid to give it, Miss Nightingale, 'the Lady-in-Chief,'
+was present by the side of the wounded man
+to give him courage to bear the pain and to fill him with
+hope for the future. And not many days after her
+arrival, her coming was eagerly watched for by the
+multitudes of sick and half-starved soldiers who were
+lying along the walls of the passages because the beds
+were all full.</p>
+
+<p>It is really hardly possible for us to understand all
+that the nurses had to do. First the wards must be
+kept clean, or the invalids would grow worse instead of
+better. Then proper food must be cooked for them,
+or they would never grow strong. Those who were
+most ill needed special care, lest a change for the worse
+might come unnoticed; and besides all this a laundry
+was set up, so that a constant supply of fresh linen might
+be at hand. In a little while, when some of the wounds
+were healing and the broken heads had ceased to ache,
+there would come shy petitions from the beds that the
+nurse would write them a letter home, to say that they
+had been more fortunate than their comrades and were
+still alive, and hoped to be back in England some day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Well, tell me what you want to say, and I will say
+it,' the nurse would answer, but it is not very easy to
+dictate a letter if you have never tried, so it soon ended
+with the remark,</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! nurse, <i>you</i> write it for me! You will say it
+much better than I can.'</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW03"></a>
+        <a href="images/bw03_large.jpg">
+	<img src="images/bw03.jpg"
+        alt = "'Tell me what you want to say, and I will say it'"
+        title = "'Tell me what you want to say, and I will say it'" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'Tell me what you want to say, and I will say it'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Would you like to know how the nurses passed their
+days? Well, first they got up very early, made their
+beds, put their rooms tidy, and went down to the
+kitchen, where they had some bread, which was mostly
+sour, and some tea without milk. Then arrowroot and
+beef tea had to be made for the men, and when the night
+nurses took their turn to rest, those who were on duty
+by day went into the wards and stayed there from half-past
+nine till two, washing and dressing and feeding the
+men and talking over their illnesses with the doctors,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+who by this time were thankful for their aid. At two
+the men were left to rest or sleep while their tired nurses
+had their dinner, and little as they might like it, they
+thought it their duty to swallow a plateful of very
+bad meat and some porter. At three some of them
+often took a short walk, but that November the rains
+were constant and very heavy at Scutari as well as in
+the Crimea, and as Miss Nightingale would allow no risk
+of catching cold, on these days the nurses all stayed in
+the hospital, where there was always something to be
+done or cooked for the patients, who required in their
+weak state to be constantly fed. At half-past five the
+nurses left the wards and went to their tea, but that did
+not take long, and soon they were back again making
+everything comfortable for the night, which began
+with the entrance of the night nurses at half-past
+nine.</p>
+
+<p>It was a hard life, and when one remembers how
+bad their own food was, it is a marvel that any of them
+were able to bear it for so long. But, as Shakespeare
+says, 'Nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so,'
+and it is wonderful how far a brave spirit will carry
+one. Still, heavy though the nurses' work was, that of
+Miss Nightingale was far more of a strain. It was she
+on whom everything depended, who had to think and
+plan and look forward, and write accounts of it all
+to Mr. Sidney Herbert in London, and lord Raglan, the
+Commander-in-Chief, at the Crimea. The orderlies of
+the regiment gave her willing aid, but they needed to
+be taught what to do, and no doubt the Lady-in-Chief
+often found that it is far quicker and easier to do things
+oneself than to spend time in training another person.
+Luckily she was prompt to see the different uses to
+which men and women could be put, so that there were
+no wasted days or weeks, caused by setting them tasks
+for which they were unfitted, and in a very short while
+the hospital, which had been a scene of horror on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+arrival from England, was a well-arranged and most
+comfortable place.</p>
+
+<p>But not only were there soldiers to be cared for, there
+were also their wives and children, who were almost forgotten
+and huddled together in a corner of the barracks,
+with few clothes and hardly any food. Miss Nightingale
+took them under her charge, and placed them in a clean
+house close by, giving some of the women work in her
+laundry and finding employment for the rest, with the
+help of the wife of one of the chaplains. The children
+were taught for several hours in the day, and thus their
+mothers were left free to earn money to support them,
+while the widows were given clothes and money, and as
+soon as possible sent home.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, as the Lady-in-Chief went her rounds,
+the men noticed that her face was brighter than usual
+and looked as if something had pleased her very much.
+So it had, and in the afternoon, when they were all
+resting comfortably, they knew what it was. One of the
+chaplains went from ward to ward reading a letter
+which Queen Victoria had written to Mr. Sidney Herbert,
+and this was how it ran:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p class="rightalign">Windsor Castle, December 6, 1854.</p>
+
+
+<p>'Would you tell Mrs. Herbert that I begged she
+would let me see frequently the accounts she received
+from Miss Nightingale or Mrs. Bracebridge, as I hear
+no details of the wounded, though I see so many from
+officers, &amp;c., about the battlefield, and naturally the
+former must interest me most.</p>
+
+<p>'Let Mrs. Herbert also know that I wish Miss Nightingale
+and the ladies would tell those poor noble wounded
+and sick men that no one takes a warmer interest or
+feels more for their sufferings or admires their courage
+and heroism more than their queen. Day and night
+she thinks of her beloved troops. So does the Prince.</p>
+
+<p class="rightalign">'<span class="smcap">Victoria</span>.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'God save the Queen,' said the chaplain when he
+had finished, and from their hearts the men raised a
+feeble shout, 'God save the Queen.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Soon another detachment of nurses arrived from
+home and undertook the charge of other hospitals along
+the shores of the Bosphorus. They were led by Miss
+Stanley, sister of the famous dean of Westminster, and
+the band consisted partly of ladies who gave their
+services and partly of nurses who were paid. Some
+Irish sisters of mercy also accompanied them, and these
+were allowed to wear their nun's dress, but the others
+must have looked very funny in the Government uniform&mdash;loose
+gowns of grey tweed, worsted jackets,
+short woollen cloaks, and scarves of brown holland with
+'Scutari Hospital' in red letters across them. They
+were all made the same size, and 'in consequence,' adds
+sister Mary Aloysius, who was thankful that <i>she</i> did
+not need to present such an odd figure, 'the tall ladies
+appeared to be attired in short dresses, and the short
+ladies in long.'</p>
+
+<p>Clad in these strange clothes they reached their
+destination and were placed by Miss Nightingale
+wherever she thought they were most needed. Cholera
+was now raging and the rain in the Crimea had turned
+to bitter cold, so that hundreds of men were brought in
+frost-bitten. Often their garments, generally of thin
+linen, were frozen so tightly to their bodies that they
+had first to be softened with oil and then cut off. The
+stories of their sufferings are too terrible to tell, but
+scarcely one murmured, and all were grateful for the
+efforts to ease their pain. If death came, as it often
+did, Miss Nightingale was there to listen to their last
+wishes.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All through the spring the cholera raged, and at
+length some of the nurses, weakened by the strain on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+mind and body, and the lack of nourishing food, fell
+victims. One of them was a personal friend of Miss
+Nightingale's, others were Irish nuns working in
+Balaclava, and their graves were kept gay with flowers
+planted by the soldiers. Thus the Lady-in-Chief found
+them when in May 1855 she set out to inspect the
+hospitals in the Crimea.</p>
+
+<p>What a rest it must have been to be able to lie on deck
+and watch the blue waters without feeling that every
+moment of peace was stolen from some duty. She
+had several nurses with her; also her friend Mr. Bracebridge,
+whose wife had taken charge of the stores at
+Scutari, and a little drummer of twelve, called Thomas,
+who got amusement out of everything and kept up
+their spirits when the outlook seemed gloomiest.</p>
+
+<p>The moment she landed Miss Nightingale, accompanied
+by a train of doctors, went at once to the hospitals,
+thus missing lord Raglan who came to give her a
+hearty welcome. Next day, when as in duty bound she
+returned his visit, she had the pleasure once more of feeling
+a horse under her, and old memories came back and it
+seemed as if she was again a child riding with the vicar.
+As we are told by a Frenchman that she wore a regular
+riding-dress, she probably borrowed this from one of
+the four English ladies then in the Crimea, for she is
+not likely to have had a habit of her own. Her horse
+was fresh and spirited and nervous, after the manner
+of horses, and the noise and confusion of the road that
+led to the camp was too much for his nerves. He
+plunged and kicked and reared and bucked, and did all
+that a horse does when he wants to be unpleasant,
+but Miss Nightingale did not mind at all&mdash;in fact she
+quite enjoyed it.</p>
+
+<p>All day long the Lady-in-Chief went about, visiting
+the hospitals and even penetrating into the trenches
+while sharp firing was going on. The weather was
+intensely hot&mdash;for it is the greatest mistake to look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+on the Crimea, which is as far south as Venice or Genoa,
+as being always cold&mdash;and one day Miss Nightingale
+was struck down with sudden fever. She was at once
+taken to the Sanatorium on a stretcher, which was
+followed by the faithful Thomas, and great was the
+dismay and sorrow of the whole camp. Fortunately
+after a fortnight she began to recover, thanks to the
+care that was taken of her, but she absolutely refused
+to go home, as the doctors wished her to do, and, weak
+though she was, returned to Scutari, where soon afterwards
+she heard of her friend lord Raglan's death, which
+was a great shock to her. It was some time before
+she was strong enough to go back to her work, and she
+spent many hours wandering about the cypress-planted
+cemetery at Scutari, where so many English soldiers
+lay buried, and in planning a memorial to them which
+was afterwards set up.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In September Sebastopol fell and the war was over,
+but the sick and wounded were still uncured. It was
+hard for them to hear of their comrades going home
+proud and happy in the honours they had won, while
+<i>they</i> were left behind in pain and weariness, but it would
+have been infinitely harder without the knowledge that
+Miss Nightingale would bear them company to the end.
+After all they stood on English ground before she did,
+as when she was well enough she sailed a second time
+for the Crimea to finish the work which her illness had
+caused her to leave undone.</p>
+
+<p>All through the winter of 1855 she stayed there,
+driving over the snow-covered mountains in a little
+carriage made for the purpose, which had been given her
+as a present. Sick soldiers there were in plenty in the
+hospitals, and for some time there was an army also,
+to keep order until the peace was signed. In order to
+give the soldiers occupation and amusement, she begged
+her friends at home to send out books and magazines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+to them, and this the queen and her mother, the duchess
+of Kent, were the first to do. Nothing was too small
+for the Lady-in-Chief to think of; she arranged some
+lectures, got up classes for the children and for anyone
+who wanted to learn; started a <i>caf&eacute;</i>, in hopes to save
+the men from drinking; and kept a money-order office
+herself, so that the men could, if they wished, send part of
+their pay home to their families. And when in July 1856
+the British army set sail for England, Miss Nightingale
+stayed behind to see a white marble cross twenty
+feet high set up on a peak above Balaclava. It was
+a memorial from her to the thousands who had died at
+the mountain's foot, in battle or in the trenches.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Honours and gifts showered on Miss Nightingale
+on all sides, and everybody was eager to show how
+highly they valued her self-sacrificing labours. If money
+had been wanted, it would have poured in from all
+quarters; but when the queen had made inquiries on
+the subject a year before Miss Nightingale's return,
+Mr. Sidney Herbert replied that what the Lady-in-Chief
+desired above everything was the foundation of a
+hospital in which her own special system of nursing
+could be carried out. The idea was welcomed with
+enthusiasm, but none of the sums sent were as dear
+to Miss Nightingale's heart as the day's pay subscribed
+by the soldiers and sailors. The fund was applied to
+founding a home and training school for nurses, attached
+to St. Thomas' hospital, and Miss Nightingale helped
+to plan the new buildings opposite the Houses of Parliament,
+to which the patients were afterwards moved.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Miss Nightingale came home with her aunt, Mrs.
+Smith, calling herself 'Miss Smith' so that she might
+travel unrecognised, but that disguise could not be
+kept up when she got back to Lea Hurst. Crowds
+thronged to see her from the neighbouring towns,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+and the lodge-keeper had a busy time. However, her
+father would not allow her to be worried. She needed
+rest, he said, and she should have it; and if addresses
+and plate and testimonials should pour in (as they
+did, in quantities) someone else could write thanks at
+her dictation. All round Lea Hurst her large Russian
+dog was an object of reverence, and as for Thomas the
+drummer-boy&mdash;well, if you could not see Miss Nightingale
+herself, you might spend hours of delight in listening
+to Thomas, who certainly could tell you far more
+thrilling tales than his mistress would ever have done.</p>
+
+<p>We should all like to know what became of Thomas.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Miss Nightingale is still living, but the privations and
+over-work of those terrible months had so broken her
+down that for the last forty years she has been more
+or less of an invalid. Still, her interest is as wide as
+ever in all that could help her fellows, and though she
+was unable to go among them as of old, she was ready
+to help and advise, either personally or by letter. If she
+had given her health and the outdoor pleasures that she
+loved so much in aid of the sick and suffering, she had
+won in exchange a position and an influence for good such
+as no other woman has ever held.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Since this little account was written, the king has
+conferred on her the highest honour he could bestow
+on a woman, the Order of Merit, while the lord mayor
+of London and the corporation have given her the
+freedom of the City. Thus her life will end in the
+knowledge that she has gained the only honours worth
+having, those which have not been sought.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PRISONERS_AND_CAPTIVES" id="PRISONERS_AND_CAPTIVES"></a>PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES</h2>
+
+
+<p>I am afraid you will think this a sad story, and so it is,
+but things would have been sadder still but for the
+man I am going to tell you about. His name was
+John Howard, and if you were to ask, 'Which John
+Howard?' the answer would be, 'John Howard the
+Philanthropist,' which means 'a lover of men.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It is a great title for anyone to win, and no one
+ever earned it more truly than this son of the rich
+upholsterer of Smithfield, born in Clapton, then a
+country village of the parish of Hackney, in 1727. As
+you will see by and by, Howard spent the last seventeen
+years of his life in fighting three giants who were very
+hard to beat, named Ignorance, Sloth, and Dirt; and
+it is all the more difficult to overcome them because
+they are generally to be met with together. Unfortunately,
+they never can be wholly killed, for when
+you think they are left dead on the field after a hard
+struggle, they always come to life again; but they have
+never been quite so strong since the war waged on them
+by John Howard, who died fighting against them in a
+Russian city.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Howard had always been a delicate boy, which made
+it all the more wonderful that he could bear the fatigue
+of the long journeys which he undertook to help people
+who could not help themselves. He was married
+twice, but neither of his wives lived long, and he had
+only one little boy to look after. But when the child<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+was four years old, Howard felt that it was dull for
+him to be alone with his father, and without any play-fellows,
+so he sent him to a small school kept by some
+ladies, where little John, or 'Master Howard,' as it was
+the fashion to call him, would be well taken care of.</p>
+
+<p>Howard was a quiet man, and very religious, but,
+what was rare in those times, he did not believe everybody
+in the wrong who thought differently from himself.
+He lived quietly among his books on a small
+estate he owned near Bedford, called Cardington,
+where he studied astronomy and questions about heat
+and cold, and when only twenty-nine was elected
+a Fellow of the Royal Society. Medicine always
+interested him, and he learned enough of it to be very
+useful to him during his travels; indeed, it was owing
+to his fame as a doctor that he was summoned to see
+a young Russian lady dying of fever, which, according
+to many, infected him, and caused his own death.
+In his studies and in the care of his tenants many
+peaceful years passed away. The man who afterwards
+became known as the champion of 'prisoners and
+captives, and all who were desolate and oppressed,'
+did not allow his own tenants to live in unhealthy and
+uncomfortable cottages crowded together in tiny rooms
+with water dropping on to their beds from the badly
+thatched roofs, like many other landlords both in his
+day and ours. He opened schools for the children, and
+drew up rules for them. The girls were taught reading
+and needlework, the boys reading and a little arithmetic.
+Writing does not seem to have been thought necessary,
+as none of the girls learned it, and only a few of the boys&mdash;probably
+the cleverer ones. On Sundays they were
+all expected to go to church or chapel, whichever their
+parents preferred.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In spite of the generosity which made John Howard
+ready to give money or time to any scheme that seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+likely to be of use to the poor, he was not popular with his
+neighbours, and saw very little of them. They thought
+him 'odd' because he did not care for races, or cock-fights,
+or long dinners that lasted far into the night,
+where the gentlemen often drank so much that they
+could not get home at all. Year by year Howard was
+teaching himself to do without things, and by and by
+he was able to live on green tea and a little bread and
+vegetables, with fruit now and then as a great treat. No
+wonder he was considered eccentric by the Bedfordshire
+country gentlemen!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But, in spite of his quiet ways, Howard had a passion
+for travelling, and when a youth threw up the position
+of grocer's apprentice which his father had obtained for
+him, and started for France and Italy. Immediately
+after the death of his first wife he determined to go for
+a change to Lisbon, then lying in ruins after the recent
+earthquake. Before, however, his ship was out of the
+English Channel it was attacked and overpowered by
+a French privateer, and both crew and passengers were
+left without anything to eat or drink for nearly two
+days. They were then taken to the prison at Brest,
+thrown into a dark and horribly dirty dungeon, and
+apparently forgotten. Besides hunger and thirst, they
+went through terrible pangs, fearing lest they were to be
+left to starve; but at length the heavy bolts of the iron
+door were shot back, and a leg of mutton was thrust
+inside. Nobody had a knife, every weapon had been
+taken from them, and if they had, they were all too
+hungry to wait to use it. They sprang on the food like
+wolves and gnawed it like dogs.</p>
+
+<p>For a week they all remained in their dungeon,
+and then Howard, at any rate, was allowed to leave it,
+and was sent first to Morlaix and then to Carpaix, where
+he was kindly treated by the gaoler, in whose house he
+lived. Howard gave his word that he would not try<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+to escape, and for two months he remained there&mdash;a
+prisoner on parole, as it is called&mdash;writing letters to
+prisoners he had left behind him, who had not been
+so fortunate as himself. From what he had gone
+through he could easily guess what they were suffering,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+and determined that when once he got back to England
+he would do everything in his power to obtain their
+freedom.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW04"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw04_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw04.jpg"
+        alt = "They sprang on the food like wolves."
+        title = "They sprang on the food like wolves." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">They sprang on the food like wolves.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In two months Howard was informed by his friend
+the gaoler that the governor had decided that he
+should be sent to England, in order that he might
+arrange to be exchanged for a French naval officer, after
+swearing that in case this could not be managed, he
+would return as a prisoner to Brest. It was a great
+trial of any man's good faith, but it was not misplaced,
+and happily the exchange was easily made. No sooner
+were his own affairs settled than Howard set about
+freeing his countrymen, and very shortly some English
+ships were sent to Brest with a cargo of French prisoners
+and came back with an equal number of English ones,
+all of whom owed their liberty to Howard's exertions.</p>
+
+<p>His captivity in France first gave him an idea of
+the state of prisons and the sufferings of prisoners,
+but eighteen years were to pass before the improvement
+of their condition became the business of his life.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Mr. Howard was appointed high sheriff for the
+county of Bedford in 1773, and as such had the prisons
+under his charge. The high sheriffs who had gone
+before him were of course equally bound to see that
+everything inside the gaol was clean and well-ordered,
+but nobody really expected them to trouble their heads
+about the matter, and certainly they never did. However,
+Mr. Howard's notion of his duty was very different.
+He at once visited the county prison in Bedford, and the
+misery that he found there was repeated almost exactly
+in nearly every prison in the British Isles. The gaoler
+in Bedford&mdash;and in many other places&mdash;had no salary
+paid him, and therefore screwed all he could out of
+his prisoners; and no matter if a man were innocent or
+guilty, if a jury had condemned him or not, he must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+pay fifteen shillings and fourpence to the gaoler, and
+two shillings to the warder who brought him his food&mdash;when
+he had any&mdash;before he was set free. If, as
+often happened, the prisoners could not find the money,
+well, they were locked up till they died, or till the fees
+were paid.</p>
+
+<p>When Howard informed the magistrates of what
+he had found, they were as much shocked as if it had not
+been their business to have known all about it.</p>
+
+<p>'A dreadful state of things, indeed!' they said,
+'and they were greatly obliged to Mr. Howard for having
+discovered it. Yes, certainly, the criminals and those
+who had been confined for debt alone ought to be
+placed in different parts of the prison, and the men and
+women should be separated, and an infirmary built for
+the sick. Oh! they were quite willing to do it, but the
+cost would be very heavy, and the people might decline
+to pay it, unless the high sheriff could point to any other
+county which supported its own gaol.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At the moment, the high sheriff could not, but he
+had no doubt that such a county would be easily found,
+so he at once started on a visit to some of the prisons,
+but, to his surprise, he did not discover <i>one</i> in which the
+gaoler was paid a fixed salary. And the more he saw
+of the prisons, the more he was grieved at their condition.
+Almost all had dungeons for criminals built
+underground, dark, damp, and dirty, and sometimes
+as much as twenty feet below the surface; and often
+these dungeons were very small and very crowded.
+Mats or, in a few of the better-managed prisons, straw
+was given the prisoners to lie on, but no coverings, and
+those who were imprisoned for debt were expected to
+pay for their own food or go without it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Sick at heart with all that he had seen, Howard
+went home for a short rest, and then set out again on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+one of those tours on which he spent the remaining
+years of his life, never thinking that the work was done
+when he had reported on the terrible evils of the prison
+system, but always returning to make sure that his
+advice had been carried out, which it often was not.
+Curious to say, there are few instances of difficulties
+being put in the way of his inspecting the prisons in
+any of the countries which he visited, while about six
+months after his labours began, he was called to the
+bar of the House of Commons, and publicly thanked
+for his services in behalf of those who could not help
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Howard was pleased and touched at the honour
+done him, and at the proof that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Evil is wrought by want of Thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As well as by want of Heart;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but he was much more gratified by two laws that were
+passed during that session, one for relieving innocent
+prisoners from paying fees, and the other for insisting
+on certain rules being carried out which were necessary
+to keep the prisoners in good health.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>This last Act was greatly needed. The bad air, the
+dirt, and the closeness of the rooms constantly produced
+an illness called gaol fever, from which numbers
+of prisoners died yearly, one catching it from the other.
+Nominally, a doctor was attached to every prison,
+but instead of being ready, as doctors generally are, to
+risk their lives for their patients, these men usually
+showed great cowardice. In Exeter, the doctor when
+appointed had it set down in writing that he should
+not be obliged to attend anyone suffering from gaol
+fever; in the county gaol for Cornwall, every prisoner
+but one was ill of this disease when Howard paid his
+first visit there. And no wonder, for here the prison
+consisted of only one room with a small window, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+three 'dungeons or cages,' the one for women being
+only five feet long. The food was let down to them
+through a hole in the floor of the room above.</p>
+
+<p>In Derby, Howard was thankful to see that things
+were far more what they ought to be. The rooms were
+larger and lighter, there was an infirmary for the sick,
+'a neat chapel,' and even a bath, 'which the prisoners
+were required occasionally to use.' Here the debtors,
+instead of being nearly starved, were given the same
+allowance of food as the criminals. They were also
+supplied with plenty of straw, and had fires in the
+winter. Newcastle was still better managed, and here
+the doctor gave his services free; but the Durham gaol
+was in a terrible state, and when Howard went down
+into the dungeon he found several criminals lying there
+half-starved and chained to the floor. The reason
+of these differences probably lies in the fact that before
+Howard's time nobody had ever taken the trouble to
+visit the prisons or to see if the rules were carried out.
+If, as sometimes happened, the doctor and gaoler were
+kind-hearted men, anxious to do their duty, then the
+prisoners were tolerably well cared for. If, on the
+other hand, they were careless or cruel, the captives
+had to suffer. This Howard saw, and was resolved,
+as far as possible, to put the prisoners out of the power
+of the gaolers, who should be made to undergo a severe
+punishment for any neglect of duty. For in Howard's
+mind, though it was, of course, needful that men should
+learn that if they chose to commit crimes they must pay
+for them, yet he considered that so much useless misery
+only made the criminals harder and more brutal, and
+that the real object of punishment was to help people to
+correct their faults, and once more to become honest
+men and women.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Having satisfied himself of the state of the English
+prisons, and done what he could to improve them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+Howard determined to discover how those in foreign
+countries were managed. Paris was the first place he
+stopped at, and the famous Bastille the first prison he
+visited. Here, however, he was absolutely refused
+admittance, and seems, according to his friend Dr.
+Aikin, to have narrowly escaped being detained as a
+prisoner himself. But once outside the walls he
+remembered having heard that an Act had been passed
+in 1717, when Louis XV. was seven years old and the
+duke of Orleans was regent, desiring all gaolers to admit
+into their prisons any persons who wished to bestow
+money on the prisoners, only stipulating that whatever
+was given to those confined in the dungeons should be
+offered in the presence of the gaoler.</p>
+
+<p>Armed with this knowledge and a quantity of small
+coins, Howard called on the head of the police, who
+received him politely and gave him a written pass to the
+chief prisons in Paris. These he found very bad, with
+dungeons in some of 'these seats of woe beyond
+imagination horrid and dreadful,' yet not apparently
+any worse than many on this side of the Channel.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After Howard's dismal experiences in England,
+Scotland, Ireland, and France, it must have given him
+heartfelt pleasure to visit the prisons in Belgium, which,
+with scarcely an exception, were 'all fresh and clean,
+no gaol distemper, no prisoners in irons.' The bread
+allowance 'far exceeds that of any of <i>our</i> gaols. Two
+pounds of bread a day, soup once, with a pound of
+meat on Sunday.' This was in Brussels, but when he
+went on to Ghent, things were better still.</p>
+
+<p>Like most of the large towns of Flanders, Ghent
+had a stirring history, and its townspeople were rich and
+prosperous. At the time of Howard's visit, it was part
+of the dominions of the emperor Joseph II., brother
+of Marie Antoinette, and by his orders a large prison
+was in course of building. Though not yet finished, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+already contained more than a hundred and fifty men,
+and Howard felt as if he must be dreaming when he
+saw that each of these prisoners had a room to himself,
+a bedstead, a mattress, a pillow, a pair of sheets, with
+two blankets in winter and one in summer. Everything
+was very clean, and the food plentiful and wholesome.
+But, besides all this, Howard noted with a feeling of
+envy two customs which so far he had tried in vain to
+introduce into England. One was that the men and the
+women should be kept apart, and the other, that they
+should be given useful work to employ their time. In
+England, a prisoner was sometimes condemned to
+'hard labour,' but this was a mere form. There was
+no system arranged beforehand for the employment
+of convicts, and indeed, till more light was admitted
+into the English prisons, it was too dark to work at
+anything, so they just sat with the other criminals in the
+dark, stifling dungeons, with nothing to do and nothing
+to think of!</p>
+
+<p>A more horrible punishment could not have been
+invented, and if the criminal left the prison at all, he
+was sure to come out even worse than he went in.
+And how was anything else possible?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now in Ghent, and in most of the Flemish prisons,
+it was all as different as could be. The women sat in
+work-rooms of their own, when they had finished
+cleaning and cooking, mending all their own and the
+men's clothes, which it was part of their duty to wash.
+This done, wool in what is called its 'raw state' was
+served out to them&mdash;that is, wool as it had been taken
+off the sheep's fleece&mdash;and they had to comb out all the
+tangles, and spin it into long skeins. Then the skeins
+were taken to the men, many of whom were weavers
+by trade, and by them it was woven into cloth which
+was sold.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in doing work in which they could occupy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+themselves and take a pride, the prisoners unconsciously
+ceased to think all day of the bad lives they had led,
+and longed to lead again; and when they had served
+the time of their sentences and were discharged, they
+had a trade to fall back on, and, what was still more
+important, the <i>habit</i> of working.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, the method of 'hard labour' carried
+out in the Ghent prison had another great advantage for
+the prisoners. Every day each person's work, which
+would take him a certain number of hours to finish, was
+dealt out, and when it was done, and done <i>properly</i>,
+the prisoners were allowed, if they chose, to go on
+working, and the profits of this work were put aside to
+be given them when they were discharged. And in
+Ghent the criminals were not left, as in England, to
+the mercy of the gaoler, nobody knowing and nobody
+caring what became of them, for the city magistrates
+went over the prison once every week, and also arranged
+what meals the prisoners were to have till the next
+meeting.</p>
+
+<p>In a gaol in the beautiful old city of Bruges, the
+contrast between the care taken of the sick criminals
+and the numberless deaths from gaol fever in his own
+country filled Howard with the deepest shame. In
+Bruges, the doctors did not make stipulations that
+they should not be expected to visit infectious patients,
+but they wrote out their prescriptions in a book for the
+magistrates to read. Thus it was possible for the
+rulers of the city to judge for themselves how ill a
+man might be, and how he was being treated; and as
+long as the doctor considered him in need of it, fourteen
+pence daily&mdash;a much larger sum then than now&mdash;was
+allotted to provide soup and other nourishing food for
+the sick person.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Howard passed from Belgium to Holland
+he found the same care, though here the rules respecting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+the gaolers were stricter, because they were responsible
+for the orderly state of the prison and the conduct of
+the prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>The gaolers were forbidden, on pain of a fine, to be
+seen drinking in public-houses, to quarrel with the
+prisoners, and to use bad language to them, and, greatest
+difference of all from the prisons he was accustomed
+to, no strong drink was allowed to be sold within the
+walls! Debtors were few, while in England they were
+more numerous than the criminals; and in Amsterdam
+not a single person had been executed for ten years,
+whereas in Britain sheep-stealing and all sorts of petty
+offences were punished by hanging.</p>
+
+<p>From Holland Mr. Howard travelled to Germany,
+where, as a whole, the same sort of rules prevailed; and
+in Hamburg, the wives of the magistrates went to the
+prisons every Saturday to give out the women's work.
+In some places the men were set to mend the roads,
+clean the bridges, clear away the snow, or do whatever
+the magistrates desired, and a guard with fixed bayonets
+always attended them. But they much preferred this
+labour, hard though it often was, to being shut up
+indoors, and looked healthy and cheerful.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After three months Mr. Howard returned home
+and inspected the prison at Dover, to find to his dismay
+everything exactly as before; and when, after a little
+rest, he set out on a second English tour, scarcely anywhere
+did he perceive an improvement. One small
+prison in the Forest of Dean was inhabited by two
+sick and half-starved men, who had been kept in one
+room for more than a year almost without water or fire or
+any allowance for food. In another, at Penzance, which
+consisted of two tiny rooms in a stable-yard, was one
+prisoner only, who would have died of hunger had it
+not been for a brother, even poorer than himself, who
+brought him just enough to keep him alive. Again and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+again Howard paid out of his own pocket the debts of
+many of those miserable people, which sometimes began
+by being no more than a shilling, but soon mounted
+up, with all the fees, to several pounds.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With only short intervals for rest, Howard went on
+travelling and inspecting, now in the British Isles and
+now abroad, and by slow degrees he began to see an
+improvement in the condition of the prisoners in his
+own country, whether criminals or debtors in gaols or
+convicts in the 'hulks,' as the rotten old ships used as
+prisons were called. He was careful never to leave a
+single cell unvisited, and spoke his mind freely both to
+the keepers and to the magistrates. The House of
+Commons always listened with eagerness to all he had
+to tell, and passed several Bills which should have
+changed things much for the better. But the difficulty
+lay, not in making the law, but in getting it carried out.</p>
+
+<p>It is wonderful how, during all these travels and
+the hours spent in the horrible atmosphere of the
+prisons, a delicate man like Howard so seldom was ill.
+Luckily he knew enough of medicine to teach him to
+take some simple precautions, and he never entered a
+hospital or prison before breakfast. Dresden and Venice
+appear to have been the two cities on the Continent
+where the prisoners were the worst treated, many of
+them wearing irons, and few of them having enough
+food.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It would be impossible to give an account of all
+Howard's journeys, which included Italy, Russia,
+Turkey, Germany, France, and Holland, but I have
+told you enough for you to understand what a task he
+had undertaken. When he was abroad he was sometimes
+entreated to attend private patients, so widely
+had his fame spread; and though he did not pretend
+to be a doctor, he never refused to give any help that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+was possible, and it was through this kindness that he
+lost his life. Once, during a visit to Constantinople, he
+received a message from a man high in the Sultan's
+favour, begging him to come and see his daughter, as
+she was suffering great pain and none of the doctors
+could do anything to relieve her. Howard asked the
+girl some questions, and felt her pulse, and then gave
+some simple directions for her treatment which soon
+took away the pain, and in a few days she was nearly
+well. Her father was so grateful that he offered
+Howard a large sum of money, just as he would
+have done to one of his own countrymen, and was
+struck dumb when Howard declined the gift, and
+asked instead for a bunch of the beautiful grapes that
+he had seen hanging in the garden. As soon as the
+official had made sure that his ears had not deceived
+him, he ordered a large supply of the finest grapes to be
+sent to Howard daily as long as he stayed in Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>So for a whole month we can imagine him enjoying
+the Pasha's grapes, in addition to the vegetables, bread,
+and water which formed his usual meals, taken at any
+hour that happened to be convenient. If he wished to
+go to visit a prison or hospital or lazaretto, there was no
+need to put it off because 'it would interfere with his
+dinner-hour,' for his dinner could be eaten any time.
+Not that there were any hospitals, properly speaking,
+in Constantinople; for though there was a place in the
+Greek quarter to which sick people were sent, hardly a
+single doctor could be found to attend them, and the
+only real hospital in the capital was for the benefit
+of cats.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now in most of the great seaport towns along the
+Mediterranean, lazarettos, or pest-houses, were built,
+so that passengers on arriving from plague-stricken
+countries should be placed in confinement for forty days,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+till there was no fear of their infecting the people. In
+England, in spite of her large trade with foreign lands,
+there were no such buildings, and it is only wonderful
+that the plague was so little heard of. Howard determined
+to insist on the wisdom and necessity of the
+foreign plan; but as he always made his reports from
+experience and not from hearsay, he felt that the time
+had come when he should first visit the lazarettos,
+and then go through the forty days' quarantine himself.</p>
+
+<p>This experiment was more dangerous than any he
+had yet tried, so instead of taking a servant with him,
+as had generally been his habit, he set out alone in
+November 1785.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As regards lazarettos, he found, as he had found
+with regard to prisons and hospitals, that their condition
+depended in a great degree on the amount of care taken
+by the ruler of the city. In Italy there were several
+that were extremely well managed, especially in the
+dominions of the grand duke of Tuscany; but he had
+made up his mind that when the moment came for his
+quarantine it should be undergone in Venice, the most
+famous lazaretto of them all. He took ship eastwards,
+and visited the great leper hospital at the Island of
+Scio, where everything was done to make the poor
+creatures as comfortable as possible. Each person had
+his own room and a garden of his own, where he could
+grow figs, almonds, and other fruit, besides herbs for
+cooking.</p>
+
+<p>From Scio Howard sailed to Smyrna, and then
+changed into another vessel, bound for Venice, which he
+knew would be put in quarantine the moment it arrived
+in the city. The winds were contrary and the voyage
+slow, and off the shores of Greece they were attacked by
+one of the 'Barbary corsairs' who infested the Mediterranean.
+The Smyrna crew fought hard, for well they knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+the terrors of the fate that awaited them if captured,
+and when their shot was exhausted they loaded their
+biggest gun with spikes and nails, and anything else
+that came handy. Howard himself aimed it, and after
+it had fired a few rounds, the enemy spread his black
+sails and retired.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At length, after two months, Venice was reached,
+and as a passenger on board a ship from an infected
+port, Howard was condemned to forty days' quarantine
+in the new lazaretto. His cell was as dirty as any dungeon
+in any English prison, and had neither chair, table, nor
+bed. His first care was to clean it, but it was so long
+since anyone had thought of doing such a thing that
+it was nearly as long before the dirt could be made
+to disappear, and meanwhile he was attacked by the
+same headache which had always marked his visit to
+such places, and in a short time became so ill that he
+was removed to the old lazaretto. Here he was rather
+worse off than before, for the water came so close
+to the walls that the stone floor was always wet, and
+in a week's time he was given a third apartment, this
+time consisting of four rooms, but all without furniture
+and as dirty as the first.</p>
+
+<p>Ordinary washing was again useless to remove the
+thick coating of filth of all kinds, and at length
+Howard felt himself getting so ill that by the help of
+the English consul he was allowed to have some
+brushes and lime, which by mixing with water became
+whitewash. He then brushed down the walls without
+hindrance from anyone, though he had made up his
+mind that if the guard tried to stop him, he would
+lock him up in one of the rooms. Almost directly he
+grew better, and was able to enjoy his tea and bread
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>The rules for purification of the infected ships were
+most strict, but it depended on the prior, or head of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+the lazaretto, whether they were carried out or not. All
+woollen, cotton, and silk materials, which were specially
+liable to carry infection, were carefully cleansed. The
+bags in which they were packed were all emptied, and
+the men belonging to the lazaretto were strictly forbidden
+to touch them with their hands, and always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+used canes to turn over the contents of the bags. This
+was done daily for forty days, when they were free from
+infection. Other things were kept in salt water for forty-eight
+hours, and short-haired animals were made to
+swim ashore.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW05"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw05_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw05.jpg"
+        alt = "He brushed down the walls without hindrance from anyone."
+        title = "He brushed down the walls without hindrance from anyone." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">He brushed down the walls without hindrance from anyone.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>On November 20, Howard was set free, his health
+having suffered from the lack of air and exercise, and
+from anxiety about his son, whom he had left in England.
+However, he still continued his tour of inspection, and
+it was not till February 1787 that he reached home.
+After a short time given to his own affairs, in making the
+best arrangements that he could for his son, now completely
+out of his mind, he was soon busily employed in
+putting a stop very vigorously to the erection of a statue
+to his honour. The subscriptions to it had been large,
+for everybody felt how much the country owed to his
+unwearied efforts in the cause of his fellow-men, carried
+out entirely at his own cost. But Howard would not
+listen to them for one moment.</p>
+
+<p>'The execution of your design would be a cruel
+punishment to me,' he says in a letter to the subscribers.
+'I shall always think the reform now going on in several
+of the gaols of this kingdom, which I hope will become
+general, the greatest honour and most ample reward
+I can possibly receive.'</p>
+
+<p>It was Howard who was right, and his friends who
+were wrong, for though after his death they would no
+longer be denied, it is not the picture of the statue in
+St. Paul's which rises before us at the name of John
+Howard, but that of the prison cell.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="HANNIBAL" id="HANNIBAL"></a>HANNIBAL</h2>
+
+
+<p>If we could go back more than three thousand years,
+and be present at one of the banquets of Egypt or of
+the great kingdoms of the East, we should be struck
+by the wonderful colour which blazed in some of the
+hangings on the walls, and in the dresses of the guests;
+and if, coveting the same beautiful colour for our own
+homes, we asked where it came from, the answer would
+be that it was the famous Tyrian purple, made at the
+prosperous town of Tyre, off the coast of Palestine,
+inhabited by the Ph&oelig;nician race.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The Ph&oelig;nicians were celebrated traders and sent
+their goods all over the world. Ships took them to the
+mouth of the Nile, to the islands in the Cornish sea, to
+the flourishing cities of Crete almost as civilised as our
+own; while caravans of camels bore Ph&oelig;nician wares
+across the desert to the Euphrates and the Tigris,
+most likely even to India itself. Soon the Ph&oelig;nicians
+began to plant colonies which, like Tyre their mother,
+grew rich and beautiful, and far along the north African
+coast&mdash;so runs the old story&mdash;the lady Dido founded
+the city of Carthage, whose marble temples, theatres, and
+places of assembly were by and by to vie with those of
+Tyre itself.</p>
+
+<p>But before these were yet completed, a wanderer, tall
+and strong and sun-burned, towering nearly a head
+over the small Ph&oelig;nician people, landed on the coast
+and was brought before the queen, as Dido was now
+called.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His name, he said, was &AElig;neas, and he had spent
+many years in fighting before the walls of Troy for the
+sake of Helen, whom he thought the loveliest woman
+in the world, till he had looked on Dido the queen. After
+the war was ended he had travelled westwards, and
+truly strange were the scenes on which his eyes had
+rested since he had crossed the seas.</p>
+
+<p>Dido listened, and as she had talked with many
+traders from all countries she understood somewhat
+of his speech, and bade him stay awhile and behold the
+wonders of the city she was building. So &AElig;neas stayed,
+and the heart of the queen went out to him; but as
+the days passed by he tired of rich food and baths made
+sweet with perfumes, and longed for wild hills and the
+flocks driven by the shepherds. Then one morning he
+sailed away, and Dido saw his face no more; and in her
+grief she ordered a tall pyre to be reared of logs of sandalwood
+and cedar. When all was prepared she came
+forth with a golden circlet round her head, and a robe
+of scarlet falling to her feet, till men marvelled at her
+fairness, and laid herself down on the top of the
+pyre.</p>
+
+<p>'I am ready,' she said to the chief of her slaves,
+who stood by, and a lighted torch was placed against
+the pile, and the flames rose high.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner Dido perished, but her name was
+kept green in her city to the end.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW06"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw06_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw06.png"
+        alt = "She came forth with a golden circlet round her head."
+        title = "She came forth with a golden circlet round her head." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">She came forth with a golden circlet round her head.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But though Dido was dead, her city of Carthage
+went on growing, and conquering, and planting colonies,
+in Sicily, Spain, and Sardinia. Not that the Carthaginians
+themselves, though a fierce and cruel people,
+cared about forming an empire, but they loved riches,
+and to protect their trade from other nations it was
+needful to have strong fleets and armies. For some
+time the various Greek states were her most powerful
+enemies; but in the third century before Christ signs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+appeared to those with eyes to read them that a war
+between Carthage and Rome was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Now it must never be forgotten for a moment that
+neither then, nor for over two thousand years later,
+was there any such thing as Italy, as <i>we</i> understand it.</p>
+
+<p>The southern part of the peninsula was called
+'Greater Greece,' and filled, as we have said, by colonies
+from different Greek towns. In the northern parts,
+about the river Po, tribes from Gaul had settled themselves,
+and in the centre were various cities peopled
+by strange races, who for long joined themselves into a
+league to resist the power of Rome. But by the third
+century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> the Roman empire, which was afterwards
+to swallow up the whole of the civilised world from the
+straits of Gibraltar to the deserts of Asia, had started
+on its career; the league had been broken up, the
+Gauls and Greeks had been driven back, and the whole
+of Italy south of the river Rubicon paid tribute to the
+City of the Seven Hills on the Tiber.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Having made herself secure in Italy, Rome next
+began to watch with anxious eyes the proceedings of
+Carthage in Spain and in Sicily. The struggle for
+lordship was bound to come, and to come soon. As to
+her army, Rome feared nothing, but it was quite clear
+that to gain the victory over Carthage she must have
+a fleet, and few things are more striking in the great
+war than the determination with which Rome, never a
+nation of sailors, again and again fitted out vessels, and
+when they were destroyed or sunk gave orders to build
+more. And at last she had her reward, and the tall
+galleys, with high carved prows and five banks of
+oars, beat the ships which had been hitherto thought
+invincible.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in 263 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> that the war at last broke out in
+Sicily, and after gaining victories both by land and sea,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+Rome in the eighth year of the contest sent an army
+to Africa, under the consuls Regulus and Volso, with
+orders to besiege Carthage. The invading army consisted
+of forty thousand men, and was joined as soon as it
+touched the African shore by some tributary towns, and
+also by twenty thousand slaves&mdash;for Carthage was hated
+by all who came under her rule because of her savage
+cruelty. At the news of the invasion the people seemed
+turned into stone. Then envoys were sent to beg for
+peace, peace at any price, at the cost of any humiliation.
+But the consuls would listen to nothing, and Carthage
+would have fallen completely into her enemy's hands had
+the Romans marched to the gates. But at this moment
+an order arrived from the Roman senate, bidding Volso
+with twenty-four thousand men return at once, leaving
+Regulus with only sixteen thousand. With exceeding
+folly Regulus left the strongly fortified camp, which
+in Roman warfare formed one of the chief defences,
+and arrayed his forces in the open plain. There Carthage,
+driven to bay, gave him battle with her hastily
+collected forces. The Carthaginians, commanded by
+Xanthippus, a better general than Regulus, won the day,
+and only two thousand Romans escaped slaughter. The
+victory gave heart to the men of Carthage, and when
+news came from Sicily that Rome had been driven back
+and her fleets destroyed, their joy knew no bounds. In
+her turn Rome might have lain at the feet of the conqueror,
+but Carthage had no army strong enough to act
+in a foreign land, and contented herself with destroying
+during the war seven hundred five-banked Roman ships,
+which were every time replaced with amazing swiftness.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The war had raged for sixteen years when Hamilcar
+Barca, father of the most famous general before C&aelig;sar
+(except Alexander the Great), was given command over
+land and sea. He was a young man, not more than
+thirty, and belonged to one of the oldest families in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+Carthage. Unlike most of his nation, he valued many
+things more highly than money, and despised the glitter
+and show and luxury in which all the Carthaginians
+delighted. A boy of fourteen when the first Punic war
+began (for this is its name in history), his strongest
+passion was hatred of Rome and a burning desire to
+humble the power which had defied his own beloved
+city. It did not matter to Hamilcar that his ships
+were few and his soldiers undisciplined. The great
+point was that he had absolute power over them, and
+as to their training he would undertake that himself.</p>
+
+<p>So, full of hope he began his work, and in course of
+time, after hard labour, his raw troops became a fine
+army.</p>
+
+<p>Hamilcar's first campaign in Sicily&mdash;so often the
+battleground of ancient Europe&mdash;was crowned with
+success. The Romans were hemmed in by his skilful
+strategy, and if he had only been given a proper number
+of ships it would have been easy for him to have landed
+in Italy, and perhaps marched to Rome. But now, as
+ever in the three Punic wars, Carthage, absorbed in
+counting her money and reckoning her gains and losses,
+could never understand where her real interest lay. She
+waited until Rome, by a supreme effort, built another
+fleet of two hundred vessels, which suddenly appeared
+on the west coast of Sicily, and gave battle to the
+Carthaginian ships when, too late, they came to the help
+of their general. The battle was lost, the fleet destroyed,
+and Hamilcar with wrath in his soul was obliged to
+make peace. Sicily, which Carthage had held for four
+hundred years, was ceded to Rome, and large sums of
+money paid into her treasury for the expenses of the
+war.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Bitterly disappointed at the failure forced on him
+when victory was within his grasp, Hamilcar was shortly
+after summoned back to Carthage to put down a rebellion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+which the government by its greed and folly had provoked.
+The neighbouring tribes and subject cities
+joined the foreign troops whose pay had been held back,
+and soon an army of seventy thousand men under a good
+general was marching upon Carthage. So widespread
+was the revolt that it took Hamilcar, to whom the people
+had insisted on giving absolute power, three years to
+quell the revolt; but at length he triumphed, punishing
+the leaders, and pardoning those who had only been led.</p>
+
+<p>Peace having been restored, Hamilcar was immediately
+despatched to look after affairs in Spain, where
+both Carthage and Rome had many colonies. Strange
+to say, he took with him his three little boys, Hannibal,
+Hasdrubal, and Mago, and before they sailed he
+bade Hannibal, then only nine, come with him into the
+great temple, and swear to the gods that he would be
+avenged on Rome.</p>
+
+<p>If you read this story you will see how Hannibal
+kept his oath.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As this is a history of Hannibal, and not of his father,
+I have not room to tell you how Hamilcar took measures
+to carry out the purpose of his life, namely, the destruction
+of Rome. To this end he fortified the towns that
+had hitherto only been used as manufactories or store-houses,
+turned the traders into steady soldiers, sent
+for heavy armed African troops from Libya, and the
+celebrated light horse from Numidia, made friends with
+the Iberian (or Spanish) tribes, and ruled wisely and
+well from the straits of Gibraltar to the river Ebro.
+But, busy as he might be, he always had time to remember
+his three boys, and saw that they were trained
+in the habits and learning of a soldier. All three were
+apt pupils, and loved flinging darts and slinging stones,
+and shooting with the bow, though in these arts they
+could not rival their masters from the Balearic isles,
+however much they practised.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW07"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw07_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw07.png"
+        alt = "All three were apt pupils."
+        title = "All three were apt pupils." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">All three were apt pupils.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Hannibal was eighteen, Hamilcar was killed
+in a battle with some of the native tribes who had
+refused to submit to the sway of Carthage. In spite
+of the hatred that he cherished for everything Roman,
+he had earned the undying respect of the noblest among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+them. 'No king was equal to Hamilcar Barca,' writes
+Cato the elder, and the words of Livy the historian
+about Hannibal might also be applied to his father.</p>
+
+<p>'Never was a genius more fitted to obey or to
+command. His body could not be exhausted nor his
+mind subdued by toil, and he ate and drank only what he
+needed.' He had failed in his aim, but, dying, he left
+it as a heritage to his son, who, on the point of victory,
+was to fail also.</p>
+
+<p>Under Hamilcar's son-in-law, Hasdrubal, the work
+of training the army, encouraging agriculture, and
+fostering trade was carried on as before. It was not
+long before Hasdrubal made his young brother-in-law
+commander of the cavalry, and often sought counsel
+from him in any perplexity. Hannibal was much
+beloved, too, by his soldiers of all nations, and to the
+end they clung to him through good and ill. He gave
+back their devotion by constant care for their comfort&mdash;very
+rare in those days&mdash;seeing that they were fed
+and warmed before entering on a hard day's fighting,
+and arranging that they had proper time for rest. To
+the Iberians he was bound by special ties, for before
+he quitted Spain for his death-struggle with Rome he
+married a Spanish princess, little thinking, when he
+started northwards in May 218 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, that he was leaving
+her and her infant son behind him for ever.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All this time Rome had been growing both in her
+influence and her dominions, when for a while her very
+existence was threatened by the sudden invasion of
+seventy thousand Gauls, who poured in from the north.
+They were defeated in a hard-fought battle and beaten
+back, but the struggle with the barbarians was long and
+fierce, and Rome remained exhausted. Her attention
+was occupied with measures needful for her own defence
+and in raising both men and money, and except for
+warning the Carthaginians not to cross the Ebro, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+left them for a time pretty much to themselves, thinking
+vainly that, as long as her navy gave her command of
+the sea, she had no need to trouble herself about affairs
+in Spain or Africa. Indeed, after the severe strain of
+the Gallic war, the Roman senate thought that they
+were in so little danger either from Carthage or from
+Greece that their troops might take a sorely needed
+rest, and the army was disbanded.</p>
+
+<p>This was Hannibal's chance, and with the siege and
+fall of the Spanish town of Saguntum in 218 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> began
+the second Punic war.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For years the young general had been secretly
+brooding over his plans, and had prepared friends for
+himself all along the difficult way his army would have
+to march. Unknown to Rome, he had received promises
+of help from most of the tribes in what is now
+the province of Catalonia, from Philip of Macedon,
+ruler in the kingdom of Alexander the Great, and from
+some of the Gauls near the Rhone and along the valley
+of the Po. Many of these proved broken reeds at the
+time of trial, when their help was most needed, and even
+turned into enemies, and Hannibal was too wise not to
+have foreseen that this might happen. Still, for the
+moment all seemed going as he wished; war was declared,
+and Rome made ready her fleet for the attack
+by sea which she felt was certain to follow.</p>
+
+<p>In our days of telephones and telegrams and wireless
+telegraphy, it is very nearly <i>impossible</i> for us to understand
+how an army of ninety thousand foot, twelve
+thousand horse, and thirty-seven elephants could go right
+through Spain from Carthagena in the south-east to the
+Pyrenees in the north, and even beyond them, without
+a whisper of the fact reaching an enemy across the sea.
+Yet this is what actually occurred. Rome sent a large
+force under one consul into Sicily, the troops were later
+to embark for Carthage, another to the Po to hold the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+Gauls in check, while a third, under Publius Scipio, was
+shortly to sail for Spain and there give battle to the
+Carthaginians. That Hannibal was fighting his way
+desperately through Catalonia at that very moment
+they had not the remotest idea.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Not only did Hannibal lose many of his men in
+Catalonia, but he was obliged to leave a large body
+behind, under Hanno, his general, to prevent the
+Catalans rising behind him, and cutting off his communications
+with Spain.</p>
+
+<p>The Pyrenees were crossed near the sea without
+difficulty, and for a time the march was easy and rapid
+along the great Roman road as far as Nismes, and then
+on to the Rhone between Orange and Avignon. By
+this time the consul, Publius Scipio, who had been
+prevented for some reason from going earlier to Spain,
+and was now sailing along the gulf of Genoa on his way
+thither, heard at Marseilles that Hannibal was advancing
+towards the river Rhone. The Roman listened to the
+news with incredulity and little alarm. How could
+Hannibal have got over the Pyrenees and he not
+know it? A second messenger arrived with the same
+tale as the first, but Scipio still refused to believe there
+was any danger. Why, the late rains had so swollen
+the river that it was now in high flood, and how could
+any army ford a stream so broad and so rapid? And
+if it <i>did</i>, had not the envoy said that some Gallic troops
+were drawn up on the other side to prevent the enemy
+landing? So Scipio disembarked his troops in a leisurely
+manner, and contented himself with sending out a scouting
+party of horse to see where the Carthaginians might
+be encamped&mdash;if they really were there at all!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now all the way along his line of march Hannibal
+had followed his usual policy, and had gained over to
+his side most of the Gauls who lay in his path, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+when they seemed inclined to oppose him, a bribe of
+money generally made matters smooth. But on reaching
+the right bank of the river he found the Gallic
+tribes, of whom Scipio had heard, assembled in large
+numbers on the left bank, just at the very place where
+he wished to cross. He knew at once that it was useless
+to persist in making the passage here, and some other
+plan must be thought of.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing Hannibal did was to buy at their
+full value all the boats and canoes used by the natives
+in carrying their goods down to the mouth of the
+Rhone, there to be sold to foreign traders. The people,
+finding that the army of strange nations with dark
+skins and curious weapons did not intend to rob them,
+but to pay honestly for all they took, became ready to
+help them, and offered themselves as guides if they
+should be needed. And to prove their good will, they
+began to help the soldiers to cut down trees from the
+neighbouring forests, and to scoop them into canoes,
+one for every soldier.</p>
+
+<p>It was the third night after the Carthaginians had
+reached the river when Hannibal ordered Hanno, one
+of his most trusted generals, to take a body of his best
+troops up the stream, to a place out of sight and sound
+of the Gallic camp, where one of the friendly guides
+had told him that a passage might be made. The
+country at this point was lonely, and the detachment
+met with no enemies along the road, and no one hindered
+them in felling trees and making rafts to carry
+them to the further bank. Early next morning they all
+got across, and then by Hannibal's express orders rested
+and slept, for he never allowed his soldiers to fight
+when exhausted. Before dawn they started on their
+march down the left bank, sending up, as soon as it was
+light, a column of smoke to warn Hannibal that everything
+had gone smoothly, and that he might now begin
+to cross himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His men were all ready, and without hurry or confusion
+took their places. The heavy-armed cavalry, with
+their corselets of bronze, and swords and long spears,
+entered the larger vessels; two men, standing in the
+stern of every boat, holding the bridles of three or
+four horses which were swimming after them. It
+must have required great skill on the part of the oarsmen
+to allow sufficient space between the boats, so that the
+horses should not become entangled with each other,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+but no accident happened either to the larger vessels
+or to the canoes which contained the rest of the foot.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW08"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw08_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw08.png"
+        alt = "The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting and screaming with delight."
+        title = "The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting and screaming with delight." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting and screaming with delight.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Exactly as Hannibal expected, for he always seemed
+to know by magic the faults that his enemy would
+commit, at the sight of the Carthaginian army on the
+river the Gauls poured out of their camp, and crowded
+to the bank, shouting and screaming with delight and
+defiance. There they stood, with eyes fixed on the
+advancing boats, when suddenly Hanno's men came
+up and attacked them from behind. They turned
+to grapple with this unexpected enemy, thus giving
+Hannibal time to land his first division and charge
+them in the rear. Unable to stand the twofold onslaught,
+the Gauls wavered, and in a few minutes disappeared in
+headlong flight.</p>
+
+<p>When the rest of the army was safe on the left bank
+a camp was pitched, and orders given for the morrow.
+Hannibal's great anxiety was for the passage of the
+elephants, still on the other side, for the great creatures
+on whose help he counted, perhaps more than he should,
+were terribly afraid of water. But no man ever lived
+who was cleverer at forming schemes than Hannibal,
+and at last he hit on one which he thought would do.
+Five hundred of his light-armed horsemen from the
+African province of Numidia were despatched down the
+river to find out how many soldiers Scipio had with
+him, the number and size of the ships that had arrived,
+and, if possible, the consul's future plans. Then the
+general chose out some men who were specially fitted to
+manage the elephants, and bade them recross the river
+immediately, giving them exact directions what they
+were to do when they were once more on the right bank.</p>
+
+<p>The plan Hannibal had invented for the passage of
+the elephants was this.</p>
+
+<p>The men whom he had left on the other side of the
+Rhone were ordered to cut down more trees as fast as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+possible, and chop them into logs, which were bound
+firmly together into rafts about fifty feet broad; when
+finished, these rafts were standing on the bank, lashed
+to trees and covered with turf, so that they looked
+just like part of the land. The rafts stretched a long
+way into the river, and the two furthest from the bank
+were only tied lightly to the others, in order that their
+ropes might be cut in a moment. By this means
+Hannibal felt that it would be possible for the elephants
+to be led by their keepers as far as the outermost
+rafts, when the ropes would be severed, and the floating
+platform rowed towards the further shore. The
+elephants, seeing the water all round them, would be
+seized with a panic, and either jump into the river in their
+fright and swim by the side of the raft, guided by their
+Indian riders, or else from sheer terror would remain
+where they stood, trembling with fear. But though
+the rafts were to be built without delay, the passage
+was on no account to be attempted till the signal was
+given from Hannibal's camp.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Numidians on their way down the
+left bank of the Rhone had nearly reached the Roman
+headquarters when they met the party of cavalry
+whom Scipio, on his side, had sent out to reconnoitre.
+The two detachments at once fell upon each other and
+fought fiercely, and then, as Hannibal had directed, the
+Numidians retreated, drawing the Romans after them,
+till they were in sight of the Carthaginian entrenchments.
+Here the cavalry pulled up, and returned unpursued
+to Scipio with the news that they had defeated
+the famous Numidian horsemen in a hot skirmish, and
+that Hannibal was entrenched higher up the river.
+Immediately Scipio broke up his camp and began his
+march northwards, which was just what Hannibal
+wanted.</p>
+
+<p>But at sunrise that same morning the signal had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+given for the passage of the elephants, and the Carthaginians
+had started on their way to the Alps, the heavy-armed
+infantry in front, with the cavalry in the rear to
+protect them. Hannibal himself was determined not to
+stir till the elephants were safely over, but everything
+fell out as he expected, and the whole thirty-seven were
+soon safe beside him on dry land, snorting and puffing
+with their trunks in the air.</p>
+
+<p>Then he followed his main body, and when Scipio,
+thirsting to give battle to the enemy he felt sure of
+conquering, arrived at the spot where three days before
+the Carthaginian army had been encamped, he found
+it empty.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW09"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw09_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw09.png"
+        alt = "Hannibal was determined not to stir until the elephants were safely over."
+        title = "Hannibal was determined not to stir until the elephants were safely over." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Hannibal was determined not to stir until the elephants were safely over.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nothing is so necessary to the success of a campaign
+as having correct maps and information about
+the country through which your army has to pass.
+Hannibal, who thought of everything, had thought
+of this also, and had paid native guides well to lead
+him to the nearest passes over the Alps. For four days
+the Carthaginians marched along the Rhone, till they
+reached the place where the river Is&egrave;re flows into it.
+The Gallic chief of the tribes settled in this part of Gaul,
+being at war with his brother, was easily gained over by
+some assistance of Hannibal's in securing his rights,
+and in return he furnished the Carthaginians with stores
+from the rich lands he ruled, with new clothes and
+strong leather sandals, and, more precious than all,
+with fresh weapons, for their own had grown blunted
+and battered in many a grim fight since the soldiers left
+Carthagena.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the pass leading over the Mont du
+Chat, or Cat Mountain, in a lower range of the Alps,
+the chief bade them farewell, and returned to his own
+dominions. It was then that Hannibal's real difficulties
+began. His army consisted of many races, all different
+from each other, with different customs and modes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+warfare, worshippers of different gods. There were
+Iberians from Spain, Libyans and Numidians from
+Africa, Gauls from the south of France; but they one
+and all loved their general, and trusted him completely,
+and followed blindly where he led. Still, the plunge
+into those silent heights was a sore trial of their faith,
+and in spite of themselves they trembled.</p>
+
+<p>As they began their climb they found the pass
+occupied by numbers of Gallic tribes ready to hurl
+down rocks on their heads, or attack them at unexpected
+places. Perceiving this, Hannibal called a halt, while
+his native scouts stole away to discover the hiding-places
+of the enemy, and, as far as possible, how they intended
+to make their assault.</p>
+
+<p>The guides came back bringing with them the
+important news that the tribes never remained under
+arms during the night, but retired till daylight to the
+nearest villages. Then Hannibal knew what to do.
+As soon as it was dark he seized upon the vacant posts
+with his light-armed troops, leaving the rest, and the
+train of animals, to follow at sunrise.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When they returned and saw what had happened in
+their absence the Gallic tribes were filled with rage,
+and lost no time in attacking the baggage-horses,
+which were toiling painfully over the rough ground.
+The animals, stung by their wounds, were thrown into
+confusion, and either rolled down the precipice themselves
+or pushed others over. To save worse disasters,
+Hannibal sounded a charge, and drove the Gauls out
+of the pass, even succeeding in taking a town which
+was one of their strongholds, and full of stores and
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>After a day's rest he started again, this time accompanied
+by some of the enemy, who came with presents
+of cows and sheep, pretending to wish for peace, and
+offered themselves as guides over the next pass. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+Hannibal feared them 'even when they bore gifts,'
+and did not put much faith in their promises. He
+determined to keep a close watch on them, but guides
+of some sort were necessary, and no others were to be
+had. However, he made arrangements to guard as far
+as possible against their treachery, placing his cavalry
+and baggage train in front, and his heavy troops in the
+rear to protect them.</p>
+
+<p>The Carthaginian army had just entered a steep and
+narrow pass when the Gauls, who had kept pace with
+them all the way, suddenly attacked them with stones
+and rocks. Unlike their usual custom, they did not
+cease their onslaughts, even during the dark hours, and
+did great harm; but at sunrise they had vanished, and
+without much more trouble the Carthaginians managed
+to reach the head of the pass, where for two days the
+men and beasts, quite exhausted, rested amidst the
+bitter cold of the November snows, so strange to many
+of the army, who had grown up under burning suns
+and the sands of the desert.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Cold and tired though they were, hundreds of miles
+from their homes, one and all answered to Hannibal's
+words, entreating them to put their trust in him, and
+they should find ample reward for their sufferings in the
+rich plains of Italy which could be seen far below them.</p>
+
+<p>'You are now climbing,' he said, 'not only the walls
+of Italy, but also those of Rome. The worst is past,
+and the rest of the way lies downhill, and will be smooth
+and easy to travel. We have but to fight one, or at
+most two, battles, and Rome will be ours.'</p>
+
+<p>And so perhaps it might have been if Carthage had
+only supported the greatest of her sons, and sent him
+help when he needed it so badly.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Hannibal was wrong when he told his soldiers that
+their difficulties were over, for as all accustomed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+mountain-climbing could have informed him, it was
+much harder to go down the pass than it had been to
+come up it. A fresh fall of snow had covered the narrow
+track, but beneath it all was frozen hard and was very
+slippery. The snow hid many holes in the ice or
+dangerous rocks, while landslips had carried away large
+portions of the path. No wonder that men and beasts
+unused to such ground staggered and fell and rolled
+down the sides of the precipice. At length the path,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+barely passable before, grew narrower still; the army
+halted, and an active, light-armed soldier offered to go
+forward, and discover if the track became wider, and
+whether it was possible for even the men to go on. But
+the further he went the worse matters seemed. For
+some distance he managed, by clinging to a few small
+bushes which had wedged themselves into clefts of the
+rock, to lower himself down the side of the cliff, which
+was as steep as the wall of a house. Then he found right
+in front of him a huge precipice nearly a thousand feet
+deep, formed by a recent landslip, which entirely
+blocked what was once a path. As long as this rock
+remained standing it was plain that no man, still less
+an army, could get round it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW10"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw10_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw10.jpg"
+        alt = "He found right in front of him a huge precipice."
+        title = "He found right in front of him a huge precipice." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">He found right in front of him a huge precipice.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Climbing painfully back the way he had come, the
+soldier at once went with his report to Hannibal, who
+instantly made up his mind what to do. He carried
+supplies of some sort of explosive with him&mdash;what it
+was we do not know&mdash;and with this he blew up the rocks
+in front till there was a rough pathway through the face
+of the precipice. Then the soldiers cleared away the
+stones, and after one day's hard work the oxen, bearing
+the few stores left, and the half-starved, weary horses,
+were led carefully along, and down into a lower valley,
+where patches of grass could be seen, green amidst
+the wastes of snow. Here the beasts were turned loose
+to find their own food, and a camp was pitched to
+protect them.</p>
+
+<p>Still, though the path had proved wide enough for
+horses and oxen, it was yet far too narrow for the
+elephants, and it took the Numidian troops three more
+days to make it safe for the great creatures which had
+struck such terror into the hearts of the mountain
+tribes. But weak as they were, the skin hanging loose
+over their bones, they made no resistance, and soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+the whole army was marching towards the friendly
+Gauls, in the valley of the Po.</p>
+
+<p>This was how in fifteen days Hannibal made the
+passage of the Little St. Bernard five months after he
+had set out from Carthagena. But the journey had been
+accomplished at a fearful cost, for of the fifty thousand
+men whom he had led from the city there remained only
+eight thousand Iberians or Spaniards, twelve thousand
+Libyans, and six thousand cavalry, though, strange to
+say, not one elephant had been lost.</p>
+
+<p>It was well indeed for the Carthaginians that Scipio
+was not awaiting them at the foot of the Alps, but was
+making his way northwards from Pisa to the strong
+fortress of Placentia on the Po.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Among the friendly Gallic tribe of the Insubres, to
+whom Hannibal was united by the bond of hate of
+Rome, the troops rested and slept, and the horses and
+elephants grew fat once more. The men had had no
+time to think of themselves during those terrible weeks,
+and their health had suffered from the bitter cold and
+the wet clothes, which were often frozen on them.
+To add to this, their food had been as scanty as their
+labour had been hard, for most of their stores lay buried
+under the snows of the Alps. But in the rich, well-watered
+plains of Italy, 'the country and the inhabitants
+being now less rugged,' as the historian Livy tells
+us, they soon recovered their strength, and besieged
+and took by assault the city of Turin, capital of the
+territory of the Taurini, who were always at war with
+the Gallic allies of Hannibal.</p>
+
+<p>With two Roman armies so near at hand the Gauls
+did not dare to join him in any great numbers, though
+they would gladly have flocked to his standard. Rome
+itself was filled with consternation at the news that
+Hannibal, whom they had expected to fight in Spain,
+was really in Italy, and hastily recalled the troops<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+intended for Carthage, which were still at the Sicilian
+town of Lilyb&aelig;um. On receipt of the order, the general
+Tiberius instantly sailed with part of the men for
+Rome, and ordered the rest of the legions to proceed to
+Rimini on the Adriatic, bidding each man swear that he
+would reach the city by bedtime on a certain day.</p>
+
+<p>If you look at the map and see the distance they
+had to go, you will be amazed that they kept their oaths,
+and arrived at Rimini in four weeks, marching daily
+sixteen miles.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Meanwhile Scipio was encamped in Placentia, and
+Hannibal, who had no time to lose in besieging such
+a strong position, was doing his best to tempt his enemy
+into the plain, where his own cavalry could have room to
+man&oelig;uvre. But instead of remaining in Placentia, and
+allowing Hannibal to wear himself out in waiting, the
+Roman general left the town, crossed the Po, and
+advanced towards the river Ticino, where he ordered
+his engineers to build a bridge.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite clear that with the two armies so near
+each other a battle could not be long delayed, and
+both commanders took what measures they thought
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>The way which Hannibal took to 'encourage' his
+army, as the Greek historian Polybius calls it, was
+rather a curious one, and reminds us of the manner in
+which lessons were taught in some of the old Bible
+stories.</p>
+
+<p>While crossing the Alps he had captured a number
+of young Gauls in the very act of hurling rocks on the
+head of his army. Most commanders, both in that
+age and for very long after, would have put them to
+death at once, but Hannibal, unlike the Carthaginians,
+was never unnecessarily cruel, though he put his prisoners
+in chains and took care they should not escape. He
+now ordered these young men to be brought before him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+and placed in the centre of his troops, which were drawn
+up all round. On the ground near him lay some suits
+of armour, once worn by Gallic chiefs, and a pile of
+swords, while horses were tethered close by. Making
+a short speech, he then offered the young men a chance
+of saving their lives with honour, or meeting an honourable
+death at each other's hands. Would they take it,
+or would they rather remain prisoners?</p>
+
+<p>A shout of joy answered him.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, then,' said Hannibal, 'you will each of you
+draw lots which shall fight with the other, and the victor
+of every pair shall be given armour, a horse, and a sword,
+and be one of my soldiers.'</p>
+
+<p>Pressing eagerly forward towards the urns which
+held the lots, the captives stopped to hold up their
+hands, as was their custom, praying to their gods for
+victory. After the lots were all drawn, they took their
+places, and under the eyes of the army the combat
+began. And when it was finished, and half the fighters
+lay dead on the field, it was they, and not the victors,
+who were envied by the soldiers, for having gloriously
+ended the misery of their lives. For in the old world
+death was welcomed as a friend, and seldom was a man
+found who dared to buy his life at the cost of his disgrace.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW11"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw11_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw11.png"
+        alt = "Under the eyes of the army the combat began."
+        title = "Under the eyes of the army the combat began." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Under the eyes of the army the combat began.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'The struggle between the captives,' said Hannibal
+to his army, 'is an emblem of the struggle between
+Carthage and Rome. The prize of the victors will be
+the city of Rome, and to those who fall will belong the
+crown of a painless death while fighting for their country.
+Let every man come to the battlefield resolved, if he
+can, to conquer, and if not to die.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in this spirit that Hannibal trained his troops
+and led them to battle. He never made light of the
+difficulties that lay before him, or the dogged courage
+of the Romans, who rose up from every defeat with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+fresh determination to be victorious. One advantage
+they had over Hannibal, and it could hardly be valued
+too highly. Though the councils of the senate who sent
+forth the troops might be divided, though the consuls
+who commanded them might be jealous of each other,
+yet the great mass of the army consisted of one nation,
+who together had fought for years under the eagles of
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal, on the other hand, had to deal with
+soldiers of a number of different races, and his latest
+recruits, the Gauls, though eager and courageous,
+could not be depended upon in battle. When to this
+is added the fact that Hannibal was in a country which
+he did not know, among a people who feared Rome
+even while they hated her, and would desert him at the
+first sign of defeat; that he had to provide daily for the
+wants of both men and animals, and that for sixteen
+years he remained in Italy with a dwindling army,
+striking terror into the hearts of the bravest of the
+Romans, you may have some little idea of the sort of
+man he was.</p>
+
+<p>Well may an historian say that the second Punic
+war was the struggle of a great man against a great
+nation. Take away Hannibal, and the Carthaginian
+forces were at the mercy of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>We have no space to describe the various battles
+in the valley of the Po, in which Hannibal was always
+the victor. At the river Trebia he defeated Scipio in
+December 218, by aid of the strategy which never failed,
+till he taught his enemies how to employ it against
+himself. Hannibal was a man who never left anything
+to chance, and whether his generals were trusted
+to draw the enemy from a strong position into the open
+field, or to decoy it into an ambuscade, everything was
+foreseen, and as far as possible provided against. He
+took care that his troops and his animals should go
+into action fresh, well-fed, and well-armed, and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+than once had the wounds of both horses and men
+washed with old wine after a battle. That tired soldiers
+cannot fight was a truth he never forgot or neglected.</p>
+
+<p>During the winter months following the victory of
+Trebia, Hannibal pitched his camp in the territories
+of his Gallic allies, and busied himself with making
+friendly advances to the Italian cities which had been
+forced to acknowledge the headship of Rome. 'He
+had not come to fight against them,' he said, 'but against
+Rome, on their behalf.' So the Italian prisoners were
+set free without ransom, while the Roman captives were
+kept in close confinement. He also sent out spies to
+collect all the information they could as to the country
+through which he had to travel. He was anxious, for
+other reasons, to break up his camp as soon as he
+was able, as he saw signs that the Gauls were weary and
+rather afraid of having him for a neighbour.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Therefore, in the spring of 217 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> he marched southwards,
+placing the Spaniards and Libyans in front, with
+the baggage and stores behind them, the Gauls, whom
+he never quite trusted, in the centre, and the Numidian
+light horse and cavalry in the rear, under his brother
+Mago. There were no elephants to be thought of now,
+for they had all died of cold after the battle of Trebia.
+North of the Arno was a wide tract of marshland,
+which had to be crossed before the Apennine mountains
+could be reached. Never, during all his campaigns, did
+Hannibal's army have to undergo such suffering. In
+many ways it was worse than the passage of the Alps, for
+once in the midst of the morasses, swollen by the
+melting snows, it was hardly possible to snatch a
+moment of sleep. Many of the oxen fell and died, and
+when this happened the wearied men stretched themselves
+on their still warm bodies, and closed their eyes for
+a short space.</p>
+
+<p>At length, after three nights and four days of incessant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+marching, till the troops were nearly numb with cold,
+firm ground was reached, and for a while they rested in
+peace on the hill of Fiesole, above the Arno.</p>
+
+<p>Here Hannibal formed his plans for the next campaign.
+He found out that Flaminius the consul was a
+vain, self-confident man, with neither experience nor
+skill in war. It would be easy, he thought, by laying
+waste the rich country to the south, to draw the Roman
+general from his camp at Arretium; and so it proved.
+Flaminius, greedy of glory he could never gain, refused
+to listen to the advice of his officers and wait for the
+arrival of the other consul, and set out in pursuit of
+Hannibal, who felt that victory was once more in his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>The place which Hannibal chose for his battle was
+close to lake Thrasymene, a reedy basin in the mountains
+not far from the city of Cortona. At this spot a narrow
+valley ran down to the lake, with lines of hills on both
+sides, and a very steep mountain at the opposite end
+of the lake. At the lake end the hills came so close
+together that there was only a small track through
+which a few men could pass at a time.</p>
+
+<p>Making sure that his enemy was following in his
+footsteps, Hannibal placed his steady heavy armed
+Spaniards and Libyans on the hill at the end of the
+valley opposite the lake, in full view of anyone who
+might approach them. His Balearic slingers and
+archers, and light-armed troops, were hidden behind the
+rocks of the hills on the right, and the Gauls and cavalry
+were posted in gorges on the left, close to the entrance
+of the defile, but concealed by folds in the ground.
+Next day Flaminius arrived at the lake, and, as Hannibal
+intended, perceived the camp on the hill opposite. It
+was too late to attack that night, but the next morning,
+in a thick mist, the consul gave orders for the advance
+through the pass. Grimly smiling at the success of his
+scheme, Hannibal waited till the Romans were quite close<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+to him, and then gave the signal for the assault from all
+three sides at once.</p>
+
+<p>Never in the whole of history was a rout more sudden
+and more complete. Flaminius' army was enclosed in a
+basin, and in the thick fog could get no idea from which
+direction the enemy was coming. The soldiers seemed to
+have sprung right out of the earth, and to be attacking
+on every quarter. All that the Romans could do was
+to fight, and fight they did with desperation. But
+there was no one to lead them, for their generals, like
+themselves, were bewildered, and Flaminius speedily
+met with the fate his folly deserved. Fifteen thousand
+Romans fell that day in the fierce battle, during which
+even an earthquake passed unheeded. Multitudes were
+pushed back into the lake and were dragged down
+to the bottom by the weight of their armour. Some
+fled to the hills and surrendered on the promise of their
+lives being spared, and a few thousands found their
+way back to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The victory being won, Hannibal charged the soldiers
+to seek for the body of Flaminius, so that he might give
+it honourable burial, by which nations in ancient times
+set special store. But, search as they might, they could
+not find it, nor was it ever known what became of him.
+Very differently did the Roman general Nero behave
+eleven years later on the banks of the Metaurus, when
+Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal, seeing that the day was
+lost, rode straight into the ranks of the enemy. When
+he fell, Nero, with savagery worthy of his namesake
+the emperor, cut off the head of the Carthaginian and
+threw it into Hannibal's camp.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC02"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour02_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour02.jpg"
+        alt = "Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day."
+        title = "Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was silence in Rome when bands of wounded
+and weary soldiers came flying to the gates, bearing the
+news of this fresh disaster. Fifteen thousand men slain,
+fifteen thousand men taken prisoners! Hardly a family
+in Rome that was not stricken, and who could tell when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+the banners of the Carthaginians might not be seen on the
+crests of the hills? But as the troubles of life show
+the stuff of which men are made, Romans were never
+so great as when their cause seemed hopeless. The
+city was at once put in a state of defence, every boy
+and old man that could bear arms was sent to the walls,
+the bridges over the Tiber were destroyed, and the
+senate, putting aside the consuls, elected a dictator, who
+for six months had absolute power over the whole state.</p>
+
+<p>The man who in this hour of sorest need was chosen
+to save the city was Quintus Fabius, whose policy
+of 'waiting' has become a proverb even to this day.
+He was already old, and was never a brilliant general,
+but, like most Romans, possessed great common-sense.</p>
+
+<p>Alone among the senate he saw that there was no
+hope of conquering Hannibal in a pitched battle.
+Rome had not then&mdash;and, except for C&aelig;sar, never has
+had&mdash;a single general with a genius equal to his; but
+there was one way, and one only, by which he might be
+vanquished, and that was to leave him where he was, in
+the midst of a hostile country, till his troops grew weary
+of expecting a battle which never was fought, and his
+Gallic allies became tired of inaction and deserted him.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the plan of warfare which Fabius proposed,
+but his own countrymen put many obstacles in the
+way of its success. Many times he was called a coward
+for declining a battle which would certainly have been
+a defeat; but he let such idle cries pass him by, and
+hung on Hannibal's rear, keeping his soldiers, many of
+whom were raw and untrained, under his own eye. In
+vain Hannibal drew up his men in order of battle and
+tried by every kind of insult to induce Fabius to fight.
+The old general was not to be provoked, and the enemy
+at length understood this and retired to his camp.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Immediately after the battle of Thrasymene, Hannibal,
+knowing quite well that he was not strong enough to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+attack Rome, had taken up his headquarters on the
+shores of the Adriatic, so as to be at hand if Philip of
+Macedon made a descent upon Italy, or Carthage sent
+the reinforcements her general had so frequently asked for.
+But it was as useless to trust to the promises of the one
+as to the patriotism of the other, and having laid waste
+the country nearly as far south as Tarentum, he suddenly
+crossed the Apennines to the plain on the western sea,
+where he hoped to gain over some of the cities to his
+cause. In this again he was doomed to disappointment,
+for the rich Campanian towns, notably Capua, richest
+of all, held aloof till they knew for certain who would
+be conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>In all Hannibal's campaigns nothing is more surprising
+than the way he managed to elude his enemies,
+who were always close to him and always on the look-out
+for him; yet he went wherever he wished.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Seeing that he could not hope for support in
+Campania, Hannibal determined to carry off the stores
+and booty he had collected into a safe place east of the
+Apennines, in order that his troops might be well-fed
+during the winter. This Fabius learned through a spy,
+and, knowing that there was only one pass through the
+mountains, sent a body of four thousand men to occupy a
+position in ambush from which they might fall upon the
+Carthaginians as they entered the gorge, while he himself
+encamped with a large force on a hill near at hand.</p>
+
+<p>We can imagine the old dictator's satisfaction when
+he had completed his arrangements for crushing the
+Carthaginians, and felt that <i>this</i> time he would put to
+silence the grumblings of the people in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Fabius passed the day in preparing his plan of the
+attack which was to take place on the morrow, perhaps
+now and then allowing his secret thoughts to linger a
+little on the triumph awaiting him at Rome. But
+that very night Hannibal ordered one of his generals to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+fell some trees and split them into faggots, which were
+to be piled close to where two thousand oxen were tethered
+outside the camp. The men wondered a little what was
+going to happen, but did as they were bid, and then, by
+Hannibal's directions, had supper and lay down to
+sleep. Very early in the morning they were awakened
+by Hannibal himself, who bade them follow him out
+of the camp and tie the faggots on to the horns of the
+oxen. This was soon done, and then the faggots were
+kindled by a burning torch, and the oxen were driven
+up a low ridge which stretched before the pass.</p>
+
+<p>'Help the drivers get them on to the ridge,' he said
+to his light troops, 'and then pass them, shouting and
+making all the noise you can.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The march was conducted silently for some distance,
+but no sooner did the soldiers break out into shrieks and
+yells than the oxen grew frightened and wildly rushed
+hither and thither. The Romans in the defile below
+heard the shouts and saw the bobbing lights, but could
+not tell what they meant. Leaving their post, the whole
+four thousand climbed the ridge, where they found the
+Carthaginians. But it was still too dark for the Romans
+to see what these strange lights really were, so they drew
+up on the ridge to wait till daybreak, by which time
+Hannibal and most of his army were safe through the
+pass, when he sent back some of his Spanish troops
+to help the force he had left behind him. The troops
+speedily defeated the entire army of Fabius, who had
+now come up, and then, joining Hannibal, pushed on
+to Apulia.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW12"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw12_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw12.png"
+        alt = "The whole four thousand climbed the ridge."
+        title = "The whole four thousand climbed the ridge." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">The whole four thousand climbed the ridge.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A howl of rage rang through Rome at the news
+that they had once more been outwitted, and all Fabius'
+wise generalship was forgotten in this fresh defeat.
+Yet, had they stopped to think, the fault did not lie
+with the dictator, whose plans had been well laid, but
+with the commander of the troops in the pass, who,
+instead of sending out scouts to find out the cause of
+the disturbance on the ridge, moved his whole body of
+men, leaving the defile unguarded. Perhaps Hannibal,
+in arranging the surprise, had known something of the
+commander and what to expect of him; or he may
+merely have counted&mdash;as he had often done before&mdash;on
+the effects of curiosity. But time after time he traded
+on the weakness of man, and always succeeded.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in June 216 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> that Hannibal gained his last
+great battle in Italy. He had remained for many
+months near the river Ofanto, which runs into the
+Adriatic, but in the beginning of summer he threw himself
+into the town of Cann&aelig;, used by the Romans as a
+storehouse for that part of Italy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A Roman army of ninety thousand men amply supplied
+was coming swiftly to meet him along the splendid
+roads, and he had only fifty thousand to cope with them,
+the greater number being Gauls, and not to be depended
+on. Of the original troops that he had brought from Spain,
+many were dead, but he was able to muster ten thousand
+cavalry, mostly consisting of the Numidian horse,
+and in this respect he was superior to the Romans.
+There was also to be reckoned to his advantage the fact
+that the two consuls, Varro and Paulus, hated each other
+bitterly, and that neither of them had any instinct of
+command, though Paulus was a capable soldier and a
+brave man.</p>
+
+<p>There was a custom among the Romans, dating
+back from ancient days, that when the two consuls
+were serving on the same campaign, each should command
+on alternate days. It seems strange that such a
+very practical nation should have made such a foolish
+law, but so it was; and on this occasion it once more
+led, as it was bound to do, to an utter defeat. Hannibal
+played his usual game of sending Numidians across the
+river to insult and tease his enemy, till at length Varro
+exclaimed in wrath that the next day the command
+would be his, and that he would give the Carthaginians
+battle and teach them something of the majesty of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>In vain the wiser Paulus, who had followed the counsels
+of Fabius, reasoned and protested. Varro would
+listen to nothing, and orders were given to the army to
+be ready on the morrow for the attack.</p>
+
+<p>The day before the battle Hannibal spent 'in
+putting the bodies of his troops into a fit state to fight,'
+as the historian tells us&mdash;that is, he made them rest
+and sleep, and prepare plenty of food for their breakfast.
+Early next morning the Romans began to cross the
+river, which took several hours, thus leaving their
+strong camp on the southern bank with only a small
+force to defend it, and took up their position in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+plains, where Hannibal's cavalry had ample room to
+man&oelig;uvre. And, to make matters worse, the consul
+formed his men into such close columns that they
+could not avoid being hampered by each other's
+movements.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The two armies when facing each other in order of
+battle must have presented a curious contrast. The
+Roman legions and their allies, amounting in all to
+seventy-six thousand men, wore helmets and cuirasses
+and carried swords and short throwing-spears. In front,
+the Carthaginian troops looked a mere motley crowd, so
+various were the dress and weapons of the different
+nations. It is true that the black-skinned Libyans
+might at first sight have been taken for deserters from
+the Roman camp, as they, like their enemies, were clad
+in the same armour and bore the same arms, the spoils
+of many a victory; and the young men of the legions
+trembled with rage as they beheld the glittering line,
+and thought of what it betokened. But the Gauls
+were almost naked, and their swords, unlike those of the
+Romans, could only cut, and were useless for thrusting,
+while the Spanish troops were clothed in a uniform of
+short linen tunics striped with purple. In the van,
+or front of the army, were the small remainder of the
+contingent from the Balearic Isles, with their slings and
+bows.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the faults committed by Varro in placing
+his troops, Hannibal's lines were once broken by the
+heavy-armed Roman soldiers, while the cavalry on the
+wing by the river were fighting in such deadly earnest
+that they leaped from their horses and closed man to
+man. But at Cann&aelig;, as at Trebia, the honours of the
+day fell to the Numidians and to the Spanish and Gallic
+horse commanded by Hasdrubal. The Romans had
+been again routed by an army weaker by thirty thousand
+men than their own; the consul Paulus, and Servilius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+and Atilius, consuls of the year before, were all dead:
+only Varro saved his life by a disgraceful flight.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Still Hannibal did not march to Rome, as the senate
+expected. Though the battle of Cann&aelig; decided the
+wavering minds of those who had been waiting to see
+on which side lay the victory; though the southern half
+of Italy and many cities of Campania were now anxious
+to throw in their lot with him; though Philip of
+Macedon promised once more to send ships and men to
+his support, and thousands of Gauls swarmed into his
+camp, the army on which he could actually rely was
+too small to besiege the city with any chance of success.
+He did, indeed, send ambassadors to Rome, with powers
+to treat for the ransoming of some Roman prisoners,
+but as before in the case of the Gauls, the envoys
+were not even given a hearing by the senate.</p>
+
+<p>Till he got reinforcements from Carthage, Hannibal
+felt he must remain where he was; but surely she would
+delay no longer when she knew that the moment for
+which Hannibal was waiting had come, and his allies
+were ready. So he sent his brother Mago to tell the
+story of his triumphs and his needs to the Carthaginian
+senate, never doubting that a few weeks would see the
+tall-prowed ships sailing up the coast of the Tyrrhene
+sea, where he now had his headquarters. He did not
+reckon on the jealousy of his success which filled the
+breasts of the rulers of his country, a jealousy which
+even self-interest was unable to overcome. From the
+first he had borne their burden alone, and owing to the
+treachery and baseness of his own nation in the end it
+proved too heavy for his shoulders.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Soon Hannibal began to understand that he would
+get help from no one, and from Carthage least of all,
+and the knowledge was very bitter. The Romans
+had gathered together a fresh army of eighty or ninety<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+thousand men, and had armed a large number of their
+slaves, offering them freedom. Any check, however
+slight, to the Carthaginian army was the cause of joy
+and thankfulness in Rome, for, as Livy says, 'not to be
+conquered by Hannibal then was more difficult than
+to vanquish him afterwards.'</p>
+
+<p>In spite of Thrasymene and Cann&aelig; things were
+now changed, and it was Hannibal who was on the defensive.
+The Romans had learned their lesson, and the
+legions always lying at the heels of Hannibal's army were
+commanded by experienced generals, who adopted the
+policy of Fabius and were careful never to risk a battle.</p>
+
+<p>Thus three years passed away, and Carthage,
+absorbed in the difficult task of keeping Spain, from
+which she drew so much of her wealth, in her hands,
+sent thither all the troops she could muster to meet
+the Romans, who were gradually gaining ground in
+the peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>In Italy the war was shifting to the south, and
+about 213 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> Hannibal was besieged in the town of
+Tarentum by a Roman fleet which had blocked the
+entrance to the gulf on which the city was situated.
+The alarm in Tarentum was great; escape seemed
+impossible; but Hannibal ordered boards to be placed
+in the night across a little spit of land that lay between
+the gulf and the open sea. When darkness fell, the
+boards were greased, and ox-hides stretched tightly
+over them. Then one by one the imprisoned Tarentine
+fleet was dragged along the boards and launched on
+the other side, and when all the ships were afloat, they
+formed in a line and attacked the Roman vessels, which
+were soon sunk or destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>It was deeds such as these which showed the power
+Hannibal still possessed, and kept alive the Roman
+dread of him; yet he himself knew that the triumph
+of Rome was only a work of time, and that the kingdom
+of Carthage was slipping from her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In Sicily, which had once been hers, and even now
+contained many towns which were her allies, a strong
+Roman party had arisen. Syracuse in the south
+was besieged by Appius Claudius by land and by
+Marcellus by sea, and its defence is one of the most
+famous in history. The Greek engineer, Archimedes,
+invented all sorts of strange devices new to the ancient
+world. He made narrow slits in the walls, and behind
+them he placed archers who could shoot through
+with deadly aim, while they themselves were untouched.
+He taught the smiths in the city how to
+make grappling irons, which were shot forth from the
+ramparts and seized the prows of the ships. By
+pressing a lever the vessels were slowly raised till they
+stood nearly upright, when the grapplers were opened,
+and the ships fell back with a splash that generally upset
+the crew into the sea, or were filled with water and sunk
+to the bottom. Of course you must remember that
+these were not great vessels with four masts like our old
+East Indiamen, but were long, high boats, worked by
+banks of oars, the shortest row being, of course, the
+lowest, nearest the water.</p>
+
+<p>After a while the Romans got so frightened, not
+knowing what Archimedes might do next, that they
+thought every end of loose rope that was lying about
+hid some machine for their destruction. For a long
+while the engineer kept the enemy at bay, but in the end
+the power of Rome conquered; the beautiful marble
+palaces were ruined, and the paintings and statues
+which had been the glory of Syracuse were carried to
+Rome.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Just at this time news from Spain became more
+and more gloomy for the Carthaginians. The young
+Scipio, who had saved his father's life nine years before
+at the battle of the Ticinus, was, at the age of twenty-six,
+made commander-in-chief in the peninsula. Though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+never a great soldier, Scipio was a good statesman, and
+had the gift of winning men to his side. Multitudes of
+natives flocked to his standard, and many important
+places fell into his hands; and in his hour of victory he
+was merciful, and caused his captives as little suffering
+as possible. In the words of the people themselves,
+'he had conquered by kindness.'</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that for the time, at any rate, all was lost
+in Spain, Hasdrubal set out with an army to join his
+brother Hannibal. In Auvergne, in the centre of Gaul,
+where he spent the winter, large numbers of Gallic tribes
+joined him, and in the spring he crossed the Alps by
+the same pass as Hannibal. But the difficulties of
+nine years earlier were now absent, for the mountaineers
+understood at last that no evil to them was intended,
+and let the Carthaginian army climb the defile without
+attempting to hurt them. Traces of Hannibal's roads
+remained everywhere, and thus the troops, consisting
+perhaps of sixty thousand men, marched easily along
+and descended into the plains of the Po. But it was all
+useless; before Hasdrubal could join Hannibal, who was
+still in Apulia, the consul Nero, encamped near by at
+the head of a considerable force, made prisoners some
+messengers sent by the general to his brother.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly taking steps to have the roads to the north
+watched by armies, Nero set off at night with a picked
+detachment to meet the consul Livius on the coast of
+the Adriatic, south of the river Metaurus. Night and
+day his men marched, eating as they went food brought
+them by the peasants. In less than ten days they
+had gone two hundred miles, and entered the camp of
+Livius by night, so that the Carthaginian general might
+know nothing of their arrival. Next morning Nero
+insisted, against the opinion of the other generals, that
+battle should be given immediately, as he must return
+and meet Hannibal at once. In vain they protested
+that his troops were too tired to fight; he shut his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+ears, the signal was sounded, and the army drawn
+up.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The Carthaginians had already taken their places
+at the time that the Romans began to form, when
+Hasdrubal, riding down his lines to make sure that
+everything was done according to his orders, noticed
+that among the enemy's array clad in shining armour
+were a band with rusty shields, and a bevy of horses which
+looked lean and ill-groomed. Glancing from the horses
+to their riders, he saw that their skins were brown with
+the sun of the south and their faces weary. No more
+was needed to tell him that reinforcements had come,
+and that it would be madness to risk a fight. He
+could do nothing during the day, but as soon as the
+night came he silently broke up his camp and started
+for the river Metaurus, hoping to put it between him
+and the Romans; but it was too late.</p>
+
+<p>Had the Carthaginian army only consisted of old
+and well-seasoned troops all might have gone well
+with it; but the large body of Gauls were totally
+untrained, and in their disappointment at not being
+allowed to give battle, seized on all the drink in the
+camp, and fell along the roadside quite unable to move.
+Before Hasdrubal could get his vanguard across the
+Romans were close upon him, and there was nothing
+left for him to do but to post his men as strongly as he
+could.</p>
+
+<p>For hours they fought, and none could tell with
+whom the victory would lie: then a charge by Nero
+decided it. When the day was hopelessly lost, Hasdrubal,
+who had always been in the fiercest of the struggle,
+cheering and rallying his men, rode straight at the
+enemy, and died fighting. Thus ended the battle of the
+Metaurus, the first pitched battle the Romans had ever
+gained over the Carthaginian army.</p>
+
+<p>The next night Nero set off again for Apulia, bearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+with him the head of Hasdrubal, which, as we have
+said, he caused to be flung into Hannibal's tent, staining
+for ever the laurels he had won.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With the triumph of Nero, and his reception in the
+Rome which he had delivered, dates the last act of the
+second Punic war. At the news of his brother's defeat,
+which was a great blow to him, Hannibal retreated into
+the most southern province of Italy. His troops, whose
+love and loyalty never wavered, were largely composed
+of foreign levies, and had not the steadiness and training
+of his old Libyans and Spaniards. Never for one moment
+did he think of abandoning his post till his country
+called him, yet his quick eye could not fail to read the
+signs of the times. The Roman senate was no longer
+absorbed by the thought of war. Relieved by Nero's
+victory from the crushing dread which for so long had
+weighed it down, it was taking measures to encourage
+agriculture and to rebuild villages, to help the poor
+who had been ruined during these years of strife, to
+<i>blot out</i>, he felt, the traces of the victories he had won.
+And he had to watch it all and to know himself powerless,
+though he still defied Rome for three years longer, and
+knew that she still feared <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in the year 204 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> that Scipio entreated
+the senate to allow him to carry the war into Africa,
+which he had already visited, and where he had already
+made many important allies, among them the famous
+Numidian Massinissa, whom he promised to make
+king over his tribe. Fabius, now ninety, declared
+it was folly to take an army to Africa while Hannibal
+remained in Italy, and a large party agreed with him.
+The people, however, who had absolute trust in the
+young general, insisted that he should have his way;
+and after a long and fierce debate, the senate with
+almost inconceivable foolishness consented that Scipio<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+should sail for Carthage, as he so much desired it, but
+that he must do so at the head of no more than thirty
+thousand or forty thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>That so practical and sensible a nation should not
+have remembered the lesson of the defeat of Regulus,
+and have known the dangers which must be run by a
+small army in a foreign land, is truly surprising, and
+had Massinissa, with his priceless Numidian horse, not
+joined the Romans, Scipio's army would more than once
+have been almost certainly cut to pieces.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When it became known that Scipio had landed and
+was besieging the old town of Utica, the rich and
+pleasure-loving citizens of Carthage were filled with
+despair. But this did not last long, for one of the
+leading men of the city, called Hanno, collected a
+small force, while Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax the
+Numidian raised another, and between them both
+Scipio was forced to retreat. If only Hannibal had been
+there&mdash;&mdash;But Hannibal was still in Italy, and no
+tidings of the struggle had reached him.</p>
+
+<p>Winter had now set in, and though it was only the
+mild winter of North Africa, Scipio entrenched himself
+securely on rising ground, and Hasdrubal Gisco with
+Syphax made their camps close by. The Carthaginians,
+who had several times been defeated, now wished to
+make peace, and Syphax, whom the Roman general
+was most anxious to gain over to his side, was the
+messenger chosen. While discussing the terms, Scipio
+suddenly learned that the Carthaginian and Numidian
+huts were built solely of wood and reeds, covered with
+hastily woven mats&mdash;materials which they had gathered
+from the woods and streams close by.</p>
+
+<p>'A spark would set them on fire, and <i>how</i> they would
+burn,' said the general to himself, and the evil thought
+took root, till one night orders were given to surround
+the camps stealthily and put flaming torches against the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+walls. In a few minutes the country round was lighted
+up with a fierce blaze, and the Carthaginians, wakened
+from their sleep and not knowing what was happening,
+were cut down on all sides before they could defend
+themselves. This piece of wicked treachery may be
+said to have turned the scales in favour of Rome. A
+battle followed in a place called 'the great plains,'
+when Hasdrubal was beaten and Syphax soon after
+fell into the hands of the enemy. The Numidian chief
+was sent to Rome, and Sophonisba, his wife, took
+poison rather than bear the humiliation of walking
+behind the triumphal car of the Roman victor.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Massinissa obtained the reward promised for his
+help&mdash;or his treason&mdash;and was made king of Numidia.
+Again Scipio offered peace, and the terms he proposed
+were as good as Carthage had any right to expect; but,
+favourable as they were, a few citizens were left to reject
+them with scorn. The fastest ship in the Carthaginian
+navy was sent to Italy to summon Hannibal from
+Bruttium and Mago from Milan. When the message
+arrived, Mago was already dead, but his troops embarked
+immediately and joined Hannibal and his
+twenty-five thousand men who had landed in Africa.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this way that Hannibal came back to his
+native city, after an absence of thirty-six years. When
+he had last seen it he had been a boy of nine, and the
+events that had since happened crowded into his
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding his recent defeats, he had 'left a
+name at which the world grew pale,' and during the
+sixteen years he had spent in Italy none had dared to
+molest him. Single-handed he had fought; was it
+possible that at last his hour of triumph was at hand?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now that Hannibal, whom they had deserted and
+betrayed, was really in Africa the weak and foolish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+citizens of Carthage sent orders to him to fight without
+delay. For answer he bade the messengers 'confine
+their attention to other matters, and leave such things
+to him, for he would choose for himself the time of
+fighting,' and without more ado he began collecting a
+number of elephants and all the Numidian horse that
+had not gone over to Rome with Massinissa.</p>
+
+<p>He was labouring night and day at this task when
+again his plans were spoilt by some citizens of Carthage,
+who broke the truce which had been made by seizing
+some Roman ships. Scipio lost no time in avenging
+himself by burning all the towns and villages on the
+plain, and occupying the passes on a range of mountains
+where Hannibal had hoped to take up his position.
+Baulked in this project, Hannibal sent to Scipio to beg
+for an interview, and tried to obtain for Carthage
+better terms than the Roman was inclined to grant.</p>
+
+<p>'You have broken the truce by capturing the vessel
+containing the Roman envoys,' he said, 'and now you
+and your country must throw yourselves on our mercy,
+or else conquer us.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>So the armies drew up opposite each other on the
+field of Zama, on the bright spring morning of 202 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>
+which was to decide whether Carthaginians or Romans
+were to be masters of the world. Hannibal had about
+five thousand men more than his enemy, but he was
+weak in cavalry, and the eighty elephants which he had
+placed in front were young and untrained. The cavalry
+of the Romans was under the command of Massinissa and
+of L&aelig;lius, friend of the historian Polybius, and it was
+this strong body of Numidian horse which ultimately
+turned the fate of the day. As for the elephants, the
+sound of the Roman trumpets frightened them before
+the battle had begun, and threw them into confusion.
+They charged right into the middle of the Carthaginian
+cavalry, followed by Massinissa and by L&aelig;lius, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+succeeded in breaking the ranks of the horse and
+putting them to flight. For a moment it seemed as if
+the heavy armed foreign troops which Hannibal then
+brought up would prevail against the Roman legions,
+but at length they were forced back on to their own
+lines, which took them for deserters.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of 'Treachery!' the foreign soldiers fell
+on the Carthaginians, and fighting hard they retreated
+on Hannibal's reserve, the well-trained Italians.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At this point there was a pause, and both commanders
+made use of it to re-form their armies. Then
+the battle began afresh, and the generals left their
+posts and fought for hours in the ranks of the common
+soldiers. At last the cavalry returned from pursuit
+and threw itself on the rear of the Carthaginians. This
+time they gave way, and Hannibal, seeing that the
+battle was lost, quitted the field, in the hope that
+somehow or other he might still save his country from
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>How bitter, in after years, must have been his
+regret that he had not died fighting among his men at
+Zama!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Though Hannibal and the Romans hated each other
+so much, they were alike in many respects, and in
+nothing more than in the way that no defeat ever
+depressed them or found them without some plan to
+turn it into victory. In truth, in spite of his love
+for his country, which was dearer to him than wife or
+child, Hannibal was far, far more of a Roman than a
+Carthaginian.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Peace was made, and, as was inevitable, the terms
+were less favourable than when the fate of both countries
+hung in the balance. Naturally, the Carthaginians
+threw the blame on Hannibal, and naturally also, being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+filled with the meanest qualities that belong to mankind,
+when they found that all was in confusion and no
+one knew where to turn, they sent for the man they
+had abandoned and abused, and bade him set them on
+their feet again. In a moment all the wrongs he had
+suffered at their hands were forgotten; he accepted the
+position of dictator or <i>suffete</i>, he caused more humane
+laws to be passed, and not only saved the people from
+ruin and enabled the merchants again to sell their
+goods, but paid the large sum demanded as a war
+indemnity by Rome within the year.</p>
+
+<p>Having done what no other man in Carthage,
+probably no other man in his age, could possibly have
+done, it is needless to remark that his fellow-citizens
+grew jealous of him, and listened without anger to
+Rome's demand for his surrender, made, it is just to say,
+in spite of the indignation of Scipio. To save himself
+from the people for whom he had 'done and dared'
+everything he escaped by night, leaving a sentence of
+banishment to be passed on him and the palace of his
+fathers to be wrecked. Perhaps&mdash;who knows?&mdash;he may
+have wished to save his country from the crowning
+shame of giving him up to walk by the chariot wheels in
+the triumph of Scipio Africanus.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The remaining years of his life&mdash;nearly twenty-five,
+it is said&mdash;are so sad that one can hardly bear to write
+about them. The first place at which he sought refuge
+was at Ephesus, with Antiochus the Great, lord, at least
+in name, of a vast number of mixed races from Asia
+Minor to the river Oxus. Here, still keeping in mind
+the master passion of his life, he tried to induce Antiochus
+to form a league by which Rome could be attacked on all
+sides. But the king, who had little in him of greatness
+but his name, made war before his preparations were
+half finished, and gave the chief commands to incapable
+men, leaving Hannibal to obey orders instead of issuing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+them. One by one the allies forsook the king and
+joined Rome&mdash;even Carthage sending help to the Roman
+fleet. In 196 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> the battle of Magnesia put an end to
+the war, and the dominions of Antiochus became a
+Roman province.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the surrender of Hannibal was made one
+of the terms of the treaty, and once more he escaped
+and spent some time first in Crete, and then in Armenia,
+and finally, for the last time, returned to Asia Minor on
+the invitation of Prusias, king of Bithynia.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The hearty welcome of Prusias gave Hannibal a
+feeling of pleasure and rest that he had not known
+for long; but he was never destined to be at peace,
+and soon after a Roman envoy arrived at the palace of
+Prusias and demanded that the enemy of Rome should
+instantly be given up. To a brave soldier like Flaminius
+the mission was highly distasteful, which is another
+proof, if one were wanted, how great even in his downfall
+was the dread the Carthaginian inspired. 'Italy will
+never be without war while Hannibal lives!' had been
+the cry long, long ago, and it still rang proudly in his
+ears. He knew, and had always known, that his life
+would end by his own hand, and most likely he was
+not sorry that the moment had come.</p>
+
+<p>'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,
+since they cannot wait for the death of one old man,'
+he said, when he heard that soldiers had surrounded
+his house, and drawing from his tunic some poison
+that he carried, he swallowed it and fell back dead.
+He had escaped at last.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW13"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw13_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw13.png"
+        alt = "'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said."
+        title = "'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>His last words had told truly the story of his life.
+It was the one old man who had held at bay the whole
+of the great nation.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>On reading the tale of his steadfastness, his unselfishness,
+his goodness to his soldiers, and the base ingratitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+and wickedness with which his countrymen treated him,
+more than ever do we instinctively long that the lost
+cause had proved the winning one, and again and again
+we have to remind ourselves of the terrible evil it would
+have been to the world if Carthage had overcome
+Rome. For Carthage was possessed of almost every
+bad quality which could work ill to the human race.
+Greed for money was her passion, and in order to obtain
+wealth she proved herself fickle, short-sighted, lawless,
+and boundlessly cruel. The government of Rome, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+the Eternal City handed on to the countries she conquered,
+was founded not only on law, but on common-sense.
+Considering the customs of the world during
+the thousand years of her greatest glory, she was
+seldom cruel, and her people were ready at all times
+to sacrifice themselves for the good of the state.</p>
+
+<p>So it was well for us now and here that Hannibal was
+overthrown at Zama, and was banished from Carthage;
+yet our hearts will always cry out with Othello, 'Oh,
+the pity of it!'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_APOSTLE_OF_THE_LEPERS" id="THE_APOSTLE_OF_THE_LEPERS"></a>THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS</h2>
+
+
+<p>No one can travel through the countries of the East
+or sail about the lovely islands of the South Seas
+without constantly seeing before him men and women
+dying of the most terrible of all diseases&mdash;leprosy.
+The poor victims are cast out from their homes, and
+those who have loved them most, shrink from them
+with the greatest horror, for one touch of their bodies
+or their clothes might cause the wife or child to share
+their doom. Special laws are made for them, special
+villages are set apart for them, and in old times as they
+walked they were bound to utter the warning cry,</p>
+
+<p>'Room for the leper! Room!'</p>
+
+<p>From time to time efforts have been made to help
+these unfortunate beings, and over two hundred years
+ago a beautiful island in the &AElig;gean Sea, called Leros,
+was set apart for them, and a band of nuns opened
+a hospital or lazar-house, as it was called, to do what
+they could to lessen their sufferings, and sooner or later
+to share their fate. Nobody, except perhaps the
+nuns' own relations, thought much about them&mdash;people
+in those days considered illness and madness
+to be shameful things, and best out of sight. The
+world was busy with discoveries of new countries and
+with wars of conquest or religion, and those who had no
+strength for the march fell by the wayside, and were
+left there. Nowadays it is a little different; there are
+more good Samaritans and fewer Levites; the wounded
+men are not only picked up on the road, but sought out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+in their own homes, and are taken to hospitals, where
+they are tended free of cost.</p>
+
+<p>It is the story of a man in our own times, who gave
+himself up to the saddest of lives and the most lonely
+of deaths, that I am now going to tell you.</p>
+
+<p>On a cold day in January 1841 a little boy was
+born in the city of Louvain, in Belgium, to Monsieur
+and Madame Damien de Veuster. He had already
+a brother a few years older, and for some time the
+children grew up together, the younger in all ways
+looking up to the elder, who seemed to know so much
+about everything. We have no idea what sort of
+lives they led, but their mother was a good woman, who
+often went to the big church in the town, and no doubt
+took her sons with her, and taught them that it was
+nobler and better to serve Christ by helping others and
+giving up their own wills than to strive for riches or
+honours. Their father, too, bade them learn to endure
+hardness and to bear without complaints whatever might
+befall them. And the boys listened to his counsel with
+serious faces, though they could be merry enough at
+times.</p>
+
+<p>The lessons of their early years bore fruit, and one
+day the elder boy informed his parents that he wished
+to become a priest. It was what both father and
+mother had expected, and most likely hoped, and they
+at once agreed to his desire. Arrangements were soon
+made for his entering a training college, where he would
+have to live until he was old enough to be ordained.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph, the younger, missed his brother greatly.
+He loved his father and mother dearly, but they seemed
+far too old to share the thoughts and dreams which
+came to him in the night-time, or during the quiet
+moments that he passed in church. Yet, from what we
+know of his after-life, we may be quite certain that he
+was no mere dreamer, standing aloof from his fellows.
+He was fond of carpentering and building; he watched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+with interest while the workmen were laying down the
+pipes which were to carry the water from the river to
+some dry field; he noted how the doctor bound up
+wounds and treated sores; and indeed no sort of knowledge
+that a man may gather in his everyday existence
+came amiss to young Damien. As to what he would do
+when he was a man, he said nothing, and his parents
+said nothing either.</p>
+
+<p>On January 3, 1860, Joseph was nineteen, and
+Monsieur Damien proposed to take him as a birthday
+treat to see his brother, and to leave the two together
+while he went to the town on some business. It
+was a long time since they had met, and there was
+much to ask and hear. We do not know exactly what
+took place, but when Monsieur Damien returned to
+fetch Joseph, his son told him that he had made up
+his mind to follow in his brother's steps, and to be a
+priest also.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Damien was not surprised; he had long
+seen whither things were tending. He would perhaps
+have liked to keep one son with him, but Joseph was
+old enough to judge for himself and he did not intend to
+make any objection. Still, he was hardly prepared for
+the boy's announcement that farewells were always
+painful, and that he thought he would best spare his
+mother by remaining where he was until she had
+grown accustomed to doing without him. Then he
+would beg permission to come to see her for the last
+time before he became a priest.</p>
+
+<p>Very reluctantly Monsieur Damien gave his consent
+to this plan. He tried in vain to induce Joseph to
+think it over and to go back with him; but the young
+man was firm, and at length the father took leave of
+both his sons, and with a heavy heart returned home to
+break the news to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>In this way Joseph Damien set about the work which
+was by and by to make his name so famous, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+to that he never gave a thought. He does not seem
+to have dreamed dreams of greatness, like so many
+boys, or of adventures of which he was always the hero.
+As far as we can guess, Joseph Damien just did the
+thing that came next and lay ready to his hand, and
+thus fitted himself unconsciously for what was greater
+and better. Just now he had to study hard, and as soon
+as his father had written to say that neither he nor his
+mother wished to hold back their son from the life he
+had chosen, Joseph entered the same college where his
+brother had received his training for the priesthood.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For some time&mdash;we do not know if it was years or
+only months&mdash;Joseph studied hard, hoping that the
+harder he worked the sooner he would be ready to
+go forth on 'active service' against the sin and
+misery of the world. His brother's plans were already
+formed. He was to make one of a band of priests
+starting for the islands in the South Seas, which more
+than forty years before had been visited by a band
+of American missionaries.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange state of things that prevailed in the
+lovely group of the Sandwich Islands when the missionaries
+arrived there. The isles had been discovered
+during the eighteenth century by Captain Cook, but
+from the white men, chiefly merchants and traders, who
+followed him the natives learned nothing but evil,
+and fell victims to horrible diseases hitherto unknown
+there. To the Americans, who had left snow and ice
+behind them, the islands of Hawaii&mdash;to use their native
+name&mdash;appeared fairyland itself. Though the sun beat
+fiercely on them, cool streams rushed down the mountain-side,
+and in the great forests there was silence as
+well as darkness. Here the trees were bound together
+by ropes of flowery creepers, while outside, in the light
+and air, were groves of towering cocoa palms, standing
+with their roots almost in the water, and sheltering the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+huts, which could hardly be seen for the huge clusters
+of heliotropes, roses, and lilies that overshadowed them.
+But the sea! the sea! it was there that the greatest
+marvels were to be found! Fishes, orange, blue and
+scarlet; corals, seaweeds of every colour, creatures of
+every form and shape, whose names no white man
+knew. Afterwards, the missionaries learned that volcanoes
+were scattered over the islands, some extinct
+and only showing wide black mouths, others still
+blazing and throwing up jets of burning lava, which
+even in the sunshine take on a scarlet hue, and in the
+night gleam a yellowish white. Besides these wonders,
+there were also the curious customs of the people to be
+studied; and it was very necessary to know these, or a
+man might break the law and incur the penalty of
+death without having the slightest idea that he was
+doing any harm. For instance, he might go to pay a
+friendly visit to a chief, on whom the shadow of
+the visitor might fall; he might lose his way, and
+seeing a hut surrounded by a palisade would hasten to
+ask the shortest road to his tent, not guessing that he
+was entering the sacred home of a chieftain. If he
+offered a tired child a drink of cocoa-nut milk or a ripe
+banana, and she took it, he had brought about her
+death as certainly as if he had put the rope round
+her neck. But shortly before the arrival of the Americans
+a great king had abolished these iron rules, though
+no doubt they still lingered in out-of-the-way places.</p>
+
+<p>The reigning monarch, son of the late king, was
+bathing in the marvellous blue sea with his five wives
+when a messenger brought him word that the white
+strangers had landed. Full of politeness, like all the
+islanders, the king at once hastened to greet them,
+followed by the ladies. The missionaries felt a little
+awkward, which was foolish, as the Hawaiians seldom
+wore clothes, being more comfortable without them;
+but the king noticed that his guests were ill at ease,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+and determined that he would be careful not to hurt
+their feelings again. So when they had taken leave of
+him, he sent for one of his servants and bade him seek
+for some clothes belonging to a trader who had died in
+the palace. A pair of silk stockings was found and a
+tall and curly brimmed hat, such as in pictures you
+may see the duke of Wellington wearing after the
+battle of Waterloo. The king smiled and nodded, and
+the very next afternoon he put on the hat and the
+stockings, and highly pleased with himself set out to
+call upon his visitors. The missionary whose tent he
+entered was sitting inside with his wife, having just put
+up in one corner a bed which they had brought with
+them. They were so amazed at the sight of this strange
+figure that they stood silently staring; but when, in
+the act of greeting them, Liholiho's glance fell upon
+the bed, he completely forgot the object of his visit.
+'What a delicious soft-looking thing, to be sure!' he said
+to himself, and with a spring he landed upon the bed,
+and jumped up and down, while the tall hat rolled
+away and settled in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>Like many people, when once he had begun to imitate
+the customs of other nations, king Liholiho was very
+particular in seeing that he was not put to shame by
+his own family. The missionary's wife wore clothes, and
+it was necessary, therefore, that his own ladies should
+not go uncovered; so orders were given accordingly,
+and when the white lady came to pay her respects at
+the palace&mdash;a somewhat larger hut than the rest&mdash;she
+found the brown ladies sitting up in great state to
+receive her, one of the widows of the late king being
+dressed in a garment made of seventy thicknesses of
+bark from the trees.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Such were the islands to which Joseph's elder brother
+longed to go. His own Church had sent out missionaries
+over twenty years before, who had now written home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+appealing for helpers. He had given in his name
+among the first, and had been accepted, when he was
+suddenly stricken with fever, and forbidden by the
+doctor to think of carrying out his plan. In vain did
+he argue and entreat; the doctor was firm. 'You would
+be a hindrance, and not a help,' he said, and in a paroxysm
+of grief the young man hid himself among the bedclothes,
+where Joseph found him.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, the doctor is right; you cannot go,' sighed
+the boy, when his brother had poured out the tale of
+his disappointment. 'You might get the fever again,
+you know, and only strong men are wanted there. But
+let <i>me</i> go instead; I dare say I shall not do as well, but,
+at any rate, I will do my best.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now there was a strict rule in the college that no
+student should post a letter without the superior
+having first read it. Joseph knew this as well as anyone,
+but was far too excited and too much afraid of what the
+superior might say to pay any attention to it. So
+he wrote secretly to the authorities who were preparing
+to send out the missionaries, and begged earnestly
+that he might be allowed to take his brother's place,
+although he had not yet passed the usual examinations
+for the priesthood. Perhaps candidates for the South
+Sea Islands were not very plentiful just then, or there
+may have been something uncommon about Joseph's
+letter. At all events he was accepted, and when the
+news was told him by the superior he could not contain
+his delight, but rushed out of doors, running and
+jumping in a manner that would have greatly astonished
+his bishop, could he have seen it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For several years he worked hard among the islands
+making friends with the people, to whom he soon was
+able to talk in their own language. The young priest
+knew something about medicine, and could often give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+them simple remedies, so that they learned to look up
+to him, and were willing to listen to his teaching of
+Christianity. He was sociable and pleasant, and
+always ready to help in any way he could, and he was
+welcomed by many whose religious views differed from
+his own. Of course he had not been long there without
+finding out that the disease of leprosy was terribly
+common, and that the Government had set apart the
+island of Molokai as a home for the lepers, in order
+to prevent the spread of the disease; but the work
+given him to do lay in other directions, and in spite
+of the intense pity he felt for these poor outcasts he did
+not take any part in actual relief.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1873 Father Damien happened to be
+sent to the island of Maui, where the great volcano
+has burnt itself out, and while he was there the bishop
+came over to consecrate a chapel which had just been
+built. In his sermon he spoke of the sad condition
+of the colony at Molokai, and how greatly he wished
+to spare them a priest who would devote himself
+entirely to them. But there was much to do elsewhere,
+and it was only occasionally that one could go
+even on a visit. Besides, added the bishop, life in
+Molokai meant a horrible death in a few years at latest,
+and he could not take upon himself to send any man to
+that.</p>
+
+<p>Father Damien heard, and a rush of enthusiasm
+came over him. He had done the work which he had
+been given faithfully and without murmuring, and now
+something higher and more difficult was offered. Without
+a moment's hesitation he turned to the bishop, his
+face glowing as it had done more than ten years before,
+when the letter which had decided his career had come
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>'Some fresh priests have arrived at Hawaii,' he said;
+'they can take my place. Let <i>me</i> go to Molokai.'</p>
+
+<p>And he went, without losing an hour, for a cattle-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>boat was sailing that very day for the island of the
+outcasts.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Every Monday a small steamer left Honolulu for
+Molokai, bearing any fresh cases of leprosy that had
+broken out since the departure of the last boat. On
+the shore were the friends and relations of the doomed
+passengers, weeping tears as bitter as those of the
+Athenians in the old story, when the ship each ninth
+year left the port with the cargo of youths and
+maidens for the Minotaur. Molokai was only seven
+hours distance from Hawaii, and on the north side,
+where the two leper villages lie situated, are high
+precipices guarded by a rough sea. Inland there are
+dense groves of trees, huge tree-ferns, and thick matted
+creepers. Here brilliant-plumaged birds have their
+home, while about the cliffs fly the long-tailed white
+bo'sun birds; but as a whole Molokai cannot compare
+in beauty with the islands which Father Damien had
+left behind him.</p>
+
+<p>A hospital had been built for the worst cases, and
+when Father Damien arrived it was quite full. He
+at once went to see the poor people and did all he
+could to relieve them a little; and when that was
+impossible, he sat by their bedsides, speaking to them
+of the new life they were soon to enjoy, and often he
+dug their graves, if nobody else could be found to do
+so. The rest of the lepers had taken fright, and had
+built themselves wretched houses, or, rather, sheds,
+of branches of the castor-oil trees, bound together with
+leaves of sugar-cane or with coarse grass. They passed
+their time in playing cards, dancing, and drinking, and
+very rarely took the trouble to wash either themselves
+or their clothes. But this was not altogether their
+fault. Molokai, unlike many of the other islands,
+was very badly off for water, and the lepers had to
+carry from some distance all that they used. Under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+these circumstances it was perhaps natural that they
+should use as little as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of things when Father Damien
+reached Molokai, and in spite of his own efforts, aided
+sometimes by a few of the stronger and more good-natured
+of the lepers, such it remained for many
+months. The poor creatures seem to have grown
+indifferent to their miseries, or only tried to forget
+them by getting drunk. Happily the end was at hand;
+for when a violent gale had blown down all their huts
+it was plain, even to them, that something must be
+done, and Father Damien wrote at once to Honolulu
+the news of the plight they were in.</p>
+
+<p>In a very short time a ship arrived with materials
+to enable the lepers to have comfortable houses, and
+carpenters to put them up. Of course these carpenters
+lived quite separate from the inhabitants of the island,
+and as long as they did not touch the lepers, or anything
+used by them, were in no danger of catching the
+disease; while in order to hasten matters the Father
+turned his own carpentering talents to advantage, and
+with the help of some of the leper boys built a good many
+of the simpler houses, in which the poorer people were
+to live. Those who were richer, or who had rich friends,
+could afford more comforts; but all the houses were made
+after one pattern, with floors raised above the ground,
+so that no damp or poisonous vapours might affect them.</p>
+
+<p>But while all this was being done, Father Damien
+knew that it was impossible to keep the village clean
+and healthy unless it had a better supply of water.
+He had been too busy since he came to the island to
+explore the country in search of springs, but now he
+began to make serious inquiries, and found to his joy
+that there existed at no very great distance a large
+and deep lake of cold fresh water, which had never
+been known to run dry. At his request, pipes were
+sent over from Honolulu by the next steamer, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+Father Damien was never happier in his life than when
+he and some of the stronger men were laying them
+down from the lake to the villages with their own hands.
+Of course there were still some who preferred to be
+dirty, but for the most part the lepers were thankful
+indeed for the boon.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little things began to improve, and the king
+and queen of the islands were always ready and eager
+to do all they could to benefit the poor lepers and to
+carry out Father Damien's wishes. Regular allowances of
+good food were sent weekly to the island, a shop was
+opened, some Sisters of Mercy came to nurse the sick and
+look after the children, a doctor established himself in
+the island, and one or two more priests and helpers
+arrived to share Father Damien's labours and to comfort
+him when he felt depressed and sad; while from time
+to time a ship might be seen steaming into Molokai
+from Honolulu filled with the relations and friends of the
+poor stricken people. The sick and the healthy could
+not, of course, touch each other&mdash;<i>that</i> was forbidden&mdash;but
+they might sit near enough to talk together, and
+what happiness it must have been to both! Late in
+the evening the ship weighed anchor, and good-byes
+were shouted across the water. No doubt hearts were
+heavy both on deck and on the shore, where the green
+cliffs remained crowded as long as the ship was in sight.
+But it gave the exiles something to look forward to,
+which meant a great deal in their lives.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now anyone would have thought that, after all
+Father Damien had done and obtained for them, the
+lepers of Molokai would have been filled with gratitude
+to their priest. But among the inhabitants of the
+island there was a large number who met him sullenly,
+with downcast faces, and spoke evil of him behind his
+back. The priest took no notice, and greeted them as
+cheerfully as he did the rest, but he knew well the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+cause of their dislike, and he could take no steps to
+remove it. The reason was not far to seek; he had
+tried, and at last succeeded, in putting down the manufacture
+of spirits from the ki-tree, which grew all over
+the island, and made those who drank it, not stupid,
+but almost mad. He had been at Molokai for ten
+years before their enmity died out, and that was
+only when they knew that he, like themselves, was
+a leper!</p>
+
+<p>For the doom, though long delayed, fell upon him.
+When he first suspected it he consulted some of the
+doctors then on the island, as, besides the one always
+living there, there were others who came for a few
+months to study the disease under great precautions.
+They laughed at his words, and told him that he was as
+strong as ever he was, and that no one else could have
+done what he had done for ten years without catching
+the disease, but as he had escaped so far he was probably
+safe to the end. Father Damien did not contradict
+them. He saw that they really believed what they
+stated, and were not seeking to soothe his fears; but he
+went to a German doctor who had not been present with
+the rest and told him the symptoms he had himself
+noticed. 'You are right,' said the doctor after a pause,
+and Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place
+by the sea.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC03"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour03_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour03.jpg"
+        alt = "Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place by the sea."
+        title = "Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place by the sea." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place by the sea.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In a little while he had faced it all and was master
+of himself again&mdash;and more; as his condition became
+known he felt that he was working with a new
+power. Those who had turned a deaf ear to him
+before listened to him now; he was no longer a man
+apart from them, whose health had been preserved by
+some sort of charm, but one of themselves. And the
+awful curse had not fallen on him by accident, as it
+had fallen upon <i>them</i>, but he had sought it, wilfully,
+deliberately, for their sakes. Thus, out of his very
+distress, came a new joy to Father Damien.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Armed with this knowledge he grew more cheerful
+than he had ever been before, till the people wondered
+at him. He held more frequent services in the churches
+which had sprung up, held classes for the boys, and
+taught them some of the games that he himself had
+played in the far-away days in Belgium. The boys
+were pleasant, well-mannered children, with the strangest
+names, some native nicknames, others picked up by
+their fathers from the white people and given to their
+sons, whereas often they should have been kept for
+their daughters. In the class of Father Conradi there
+were Mrs. Tompkins, The Emetic, Susan, Jane Peter,
+Eyes of Fire, The River of Truth, The First Nose, The
+Window; while in Honolulu, from which many of them
+had come, lived their friends, Mrs. Oyster, The Man
+who Washes his Dimples, Poor Pussy, The Stomach, and
+The Tired Lizard. We should like to know what their
+sisters were called, but they were not Father Conradi's
+business. The Father also took the greatest interest in the
+experiments which the Sisters of Mercy were carrying
+on in their school, not only to stop the spread of the
+disease, but to cure it, for a healing oil had been discovered
+which had worked marvels in many people.
+He encouraged the love of music and singing which
+existed among the exiles, whose most precious possession
+was a kind of barrel-organ which could play forty tunes,
+a present from a Scotch lady. This barrel-organ was
+never absent from any of the entertainments which,
+with the priests and doctors for audience, the lepers got
+up from time to time. It even played its part in a
+performance on one Christmas Day, which consisted
+of scenes from Belshazzar's feast. Unluckily it was
+so dark that it was not easy for the audience to know
+exactly what was going on, but they <i>did</i> perceive that
+the Babylonish king sat the whole time with his head on
+his arms and his arms on the table, like the Dormouse
+in the play of 'Alice in Wonderland.' However, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+actors were intensely pleased with themselves, and that
+was all that mattered.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Father Damien lived for nearly six years after he
+became a leper, and as long as he was able he took his
+part in all that was going on, even helping to build the
+churches (there were five of them now) with his own
+hands. It was only three weeks before his death that
+his strength gave out, and he laid himself on his bed,
+knowing that he would nevermore rise from it. So he
+died, with his friends around him and the noise of the
+sea in his ears. His task was done, for he had 'set
+alight a fire' in Molokai 'which should never be put
+out.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_CONSTANT_PRINCE" id="THE_CONSTANT_PRINCE"></a>THE CONSTANT PRINCE</h2>
+
+
+<p>When, some years ago, a banquet was given at the
+Guildhall to king Alfonso of Spain on the occasion of
+his marriage to an English princess, the lord mayor
+said in his speech that four queens of England were
+Spaniards by birth. Can any of you tell me without
+looking at your history books what were their names?</p>
+
+<p>Yet in different ways three out of the four are very
+well known to us. One flits through a delightful
+romance of the great deeds of the Crusaders; a second
+is remembered for having risked her life to save her
+husband from a speedy and painful death, and for the
+crosses which he set up on every spot which her body
+touched on its road to its last resting-place; while the
+fourth and latest had a troubled life and every kind
+of insult heaped on her.</p>
+
+<p><i>Now</i> can you guess?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marriages
+between England and the countries south of the Pyrenees
+were very frequent, for in those times Spain was our
+natural ally, and France our enemy. Two of Edward
+III.'s sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley,
+married the daughters of Pedro the Cruel, king of
+Castile, and Constance, wife of John of Gaunt, had the
+pleasure of seeing her own daughter reigning by-and-by
+in her old home, while Philippa, John of Gaunt's
+elder daughter by his first wife, became queen of
+Portugal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Philippa's husband had no real right to the kingdom
+of Portugal, for the legal heir was the queen of Castile,
+the only child of Fernando. But her uncle, grand
+master of the order of Aviz, was dear to the hearts of
+the Portuguese, who would tell their children in low
+voices the sad story of his father's first wife, the beautiful
+Inez de Castro, whose embalmed body was crowned
+by her husband, many years after her cruel murder.
+And besides their love for the master of Aviz, the
+Portuguese hated the Castilians, as only near neighbours
+<i>can</i> hate each other, and were resolved to choose their
+own sovereign. So war followed, and John of Gaunt
+fought with his English soldiers on the side of the
+master of Aviz, or 'John I.,' against his wife's nephew,
+Henry III. of Castile, and during the war he kept his
+daughters with him in the peninsula.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in 1378 that John I. married Philippa, the
+elder of the two princesses. According to the notions
+of those times the bride must have been 'quite old,'
+for she was twenty-seven, only a year younger than her
+bridegroom, and very happy they were. The queen
+of Portugal had been brought up in England amongst
+clever people, had heard grave questions discussed
+from her childhood, and seen her father grow uneasy as
+fresh reports of Richard II.'s follies and extravagance
+came to his ears. From her stepmother, Constance of
+Castile, she had learned to speak Spanish, and knew
+much of the customs of the kingdoms south of the
+Pyrenees; so that it was easy for her to fall into the ways
+of her new country, though she never ceased to love her
+old land, and to teach her children to love it too. She
+trained her sons to bear hardships without complaining,
+to be true to their word, and to be affectionate and
+faithful to each other, while she had them taught something
+of the histories of other countries, and saw that
+they could speak Latin and English, as well as Spanish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+and French. As to the art of war, and all knightly
+exercises, she left those to her husband.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When the eldest of the princes, dom Duarte, or
+Edward, was twenty years old, he came one day to
+the king, telling him that he and his three next brothers,
+Pedro, Enrique, and John, were burning to strike a
+blow against the infidel Moors, and besought him to
+lead an expedition against the town of Ceuta, on the
+African coast. In those days it was considered a
+good deed to fight against the followers of Mahomet
+the prophet, and king John agreed gladly to what his
+sons proposed; but he was more prudent than they, and
+did not intend to raise the standard of the Cross before
+he had made sure of defeating the Crescent. Therefore
+he took means to find out secretly the exact position of
+Ceuta, the extent of the fortifications, and other things
+it was needful for him to know, and then he laid his
+plans before queen Philippa, who always gave him
+good counsel. To his surprise and disappointment
+Philippa prayed him to give it all up.</p>
+
+<p>The country, she said, was still poor from the wars
+of succession with Castile, which had seated her husband
+on the throne, and if the men were taken away across the
+seas, who would till the fields and reap the crops?</p>
+
+<p>But, urged the king, he felt sure that the people
+would welcome the crusade; he had bidden one of his
+trusted officers to go amongst them, and had heard how
+their faces brightened at the bare idea that perhaps
+<i>some</i> day, no doubt in the future, the golden shores of
+Africa might be snatched from the unbelievers' grasp.
+Oh, no, he had no fears about his army, though of
+course he would take every care to make victory
+certain.</p>
+
+<p>Queen Philippa listened, but only shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>'At least you will not go yourself?' she answered
+after a pause; 'the kingdom needs you'; then like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+wise woman she held her peace and began to talk of
+something else.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Although king John did not give up his cherished
+scheme, he hesitated about carrying it out for three
+years longer, and then he succeeded in blinding the
+eyes of Europe as to the real object of his preparations.
+A large fleet was assembled in the mouth of the Tagus,
+'to punish the Dutch pirates,' it was said; but, just as it
+was ready to sail, the queen caught the plague which
+was raging in Portugal. By this time she had made
+up her mind to the war, though she was hardly convinced
+of its wisdom, and as soon as she felt that she
+was nearing death she sent for her sons, and giving them
+each a splendid sword which she had ordered to be
+specially forged and beautifully inlaid, she added a few
+words of counsel. Then she bade her husband farewell,
+and entreated him to leave her, lest he also should catch
+the plague and be lost to his country. Her sons she
+kept with her to the end.</p>
+
+<p>A week later, on July 25, 1415, the fleet sailed
+for Ceuta.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Only two of the king's five sons remained in Portugal,
+and they were the youngest, dom John and dom
+Fernando. Fernando was a delicate boy of thirteen,
+versed in Latin, and, like his brother Duarte, a passionate
+lover of books, only happy when alone with some old
+manuscript or roll of illuminated prayers, yet thirsting
+to do his duty by ridding the world of as many infidels
+as possible. It was a blow when he found that he
+was not allowed to join the army of Africa, but, as
+was his way, he made no complaint; only when the
+news came of the fall of Ceuta his heart burned, half
+with envy and half with triumph. How he longed to
+make one of the group of brothers who had covered
+themselves with glory, and had been knighted by their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+father in the mosque, which was now consecrated and
+declared a cathedral. But he was getting stronger
+every day, and by-and-by he felt that a halo of glory
+would enshrine his name also. And so it has, and will
+for all time, only it was won in another way from those
+of his brothers.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was soon after his return from Africa that king
+John's health began to break down, and though he
+lived for eighteen years longer, he left the government
+of Portugal mostly to his son Duarte, who was guided
+in military matters by the advice of his father's old
+friend, the constable of the kingdom. Fighting still
+went on in the neighbourhood of Ceuta, but though the
+other princes, or infantes, took part, Fernando stayed
+in Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>We know little as to how he passed his time.
+Probably he shared the studies of prince Duarte, who
+collected a large library and himself wrote a book of
+philosophical maxims, which gained him the surname of
+Duarte the Eloquent. The two brothers were bound
+together by the same tastes, and we may be sure
+Duarte approved when by-and-by Fernando refused
+the pope's offer of a cardinal's hat, on the ground&mdash;unheard
+of at that period&mdash;that, not being a priest, he
+was quite unfitted to wear it. For the same reason,
+though the cases were rather different, he wished also
+to refuse the office of grand master of the order of Aviz,
+which had been held by his father; but in the end
+Duarte's counsels prevailed, and he kept it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Fernando was thirty years old when his father died,
+and never yet had his sword left its sheath, though he
+longed from his soul to join in the frequent expeditions
+that went out from Ceuta to attack the strongholds of
+the unbelievers scattered about the coast. But king
+John always refused to let him leave the country,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+thinking he was too delicate to bear the hardships
+of a soldier's life; and so Fernando stayed at home,
+making himself as happy as he could with his books and
+his prayers, and long philosophical talks with Duarte.
+Now Duarte was king, and perhaps Fernando would be
+able to gain his heart's desire.</p>
+
+<p>The new king was putting on his robes for the
+ceremony of his proclamation when his physician craved
+humbly an immediate audience. Dom Duarte wondered
+what could have happened which made an interview so
+necessary at that inconvenient moment, but master
+Guedelha was an old friend, so orders were given to
+admit him at once.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, senhor,' exclaimed the physician, as soon as
+they were alone, 'do not, I beseech you, suffer yourself
+to be proclaimed before noon; the hour you have
+fixed on is an evil one, and the stars which rule it are
+against you.'</p>
+
+<p>Sad though he was, dom Duarte could hardly
+help smiling at the earnestness of the man; but he
+answered gravely that, greatly as he respected the
+knowledge of the stars, his faith in God was greater still,
+and nothing could befall him that was contrary to His
+will. In vain Guedelha fell on his knees and implored
+him to delay till the fatal hour was past; Duarte
+refused to change his plans, and at length the old man
+rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW14"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw14_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw14.png"
+        alt = "In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till the fatal hour was past"
+        title = "In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till the fatal hour was past" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till the fatal hour was past</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'I have done all I could,' he said; 'on your own head
+be it. The years of your reign will be short and full
+of trouble to yourself, and to those you love, and to the
+country.'</p>
+
+<p>Although dom Duarte had so steadily declined to
+listen to the prayers of Guedelha, he had enough
+'respect,' as he had said, for the science of astrology,
+as the study of the stars was called, to feel very
+uncomfortable at the prophecy of the physician. But
+he could not draw back now, even if he wished, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+'Eduarte, king of Portugal,' was thrice proclaimed
+and the royal standard unfurled and raised. When
+this was done, the nobles and officials kissed the
+king's hand and swore allegiance to him. Then Duarte
+went back to his palace, and took off his crown
+and robes of state, and put on deep mourning for his
+father.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For some time dom Duarte had been governing
+the kingdom under the direction of John I., so affairs
+went on much as before. He and his brothers were
+the best of friends, and he often sought their counsel,
+especially that of dom Pedro, only a year younger
+than himself. Pedro was one of the wisest princes
+in Europe, as well as one of the best, and if his brothers
+had listened to his advice the prophecy of master
+Guedelha might have come to naught. Like the rest,
+he loved books, and even wrote poetry, and during his
+father's lifetime made many voyages along the coast
+of Africa, though he was no discoverer of strange
+lands like dom Enrique. But for the present his duty
+was in Portugal, where Duarte wanted him.</p>
+
+<p>In this way things went on for two or three years,
+during which the plague broke out in Portugal, and
+people died like flies, as they did in those days when
+dirt and ignorance helped infection to spread and
+prevented cure. The king and his brothers did all
+in their power to check it and assist the poor people;
+but nothing was of much good, and, as usual, the plague
+was left to wear itself out, which in time it did.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the years were going by, and the physician's
+prophecy was drawing near fulfilment. And this
+is how the disasters came about.</p>
+
+<p>The infante&mdash;so the Spaniards and Portuguese
+formerly called their princes&mdash;the infante dom Fernando
+grew tired of remaining idle at home, and besought
+Duarte to allow him to travel and take service under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+some foreign king, most likely that of England, where
+his young cousin Henry VI. was reigning. 'Of course,'
+he said, 'if his own country needed him he would
+come back at once, but the Portuguese had ever been
+wanderers, and it was his turn to go with the rest.'</p>
+
+<p>To his surprise Duarte's face clouded as he listened,
+and there was a long pause before he spoke. Then
+he implored Fernando to think no more of his cherished
+plan, but to remain quietly in Portugal, else wrong
+would be done to both of them in the minds of men,
+for strangers would hold that he, the king, treated his
+brother so ill that Fernando was forced to seek his
+fortune elsewhere, or that Fernando was so possessed
+by desire for gain that he was ready to give up all
+for its sake.</p>
+
+<p>Fernando heard him to the end without speaking; it
+was plain that even this brother, who he thought knew
+him best, had judged him wrongly. For years the
+young man had kept silence about his desire to see
+other countries, and the ruins of the cities which had
+once given law to the world, and the result was that
+he had been held by all to be a man of no spirit, a bookworm,
+content with the little duties that every day
+brought him. Ah, no! the hour for those had gone by,
+and a freer life called to him!</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that his words made no impression on dom
+Fernando's resolve, the king sought dom Enrique,
+praying him to use his eloquence in order to prevail
+on Fernando to give up his plan. But he would have
+been wiser to have left things alone, for Enrique merely
+turned his brother's thoughts into a new and more
+alarming direction. Why take service under a foreign
+king when there were Moors at hand to fight? Let
+them cross the sea and deliver Tangier from the Moslem.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When the king heard of this new project he was
+nearly beside himself. After the long wars which seated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+John on the throne, and the constant expense of maintaining
+the fortress of Ceuta, the country was too poor
+to be able to undertake a fresh expedition, and then
+the plague had carried off so many men that he did
+not know where the army was to come from. But the
+match had been put to the wood, and Enrique secretly
+went to the queen and asked for her help to persuade
+the king, promising that when he and Fernando should
+have conquered the north of Africa, they would go and
+live there, and leave their possessions in Portugal to
+her children.</p>
+
+<p>The bait took; queen Leonor promised to use
+all her influence, which was great, with the king, but
+before she had a chance of doing so the wild scheme
+of the two infantes received still stronger support from
+an unexpected quarter. Some time earlier the king
+had asked the pope to give him a Bull, or papal document,
+allowing him to raise a crusade whenever he
+thought it would have a chance of success. At the
+moment the pope was busy with several other affairs
+nearer home, and returned no answer. When at last
+he had leisure to attend to the king of Portugal's
+request, and sent over an abbot with the Bull, Duarte
+seems to have forgotten all about the matter, and was
+filled with dismay. Of course his brothers were delighted
+and declared that the king could no longer resist!</p>
+
+<p>In spite, however, of wife, pope, and brothers,
+the king <i>did</i> resist, though he went as far as to say that
+any expedition which <i>might</i> be undertaken must be
+directed against Tangier, and that fourteen thousand
+men would be the utmost that he could furnish. But
+when he had yielded this much, it was difficult for him
+to refuse his consent, even though dom John and dom
+Pedro spoke strongly in a family council of the folly of
+beginning a war when the treasury was empty and the
+people unwilling to bear the burden of taxation.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Pedro's words found their echo in the heart of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+Duarte. They said what his own sense had told him,
+and he was filled with fears for the future, though he
+could not break his promise. One last effort he made,
+and this was an appeal to the pope as to whether it was
+lawful to impose a tax for the purpose of making war
+against the infidels. The pope and his cardinals decided
+that it was <i>not</i>, as the infidels had not made war upon
+<i>him</i>, and Duarte, though more than ever cast down, had
+not the courage to acknowledge that he had been hasty
+and foolish, and, bitterly though he repented of his
+weakness, he allowed Enrique to equip fleets in Lisbon
+and in Oporto.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But when, at the end of August 1436, the hour of
+departure arrived, the king had recovered himself, and
+handed Enrique a paper of instructions which would
+probably have changed the fate of the expedition had
+they been followed. Unfortunately, Enrique was a
+headstrong man, and thought that he <i>must</i> know
+better than his stay-at-home brother, who had not
+seen a battlefield for eighteen years. He had listened
+contemptuously to dom Pedro when he pointed out
+that African conquests were both expensive and useless,
+that the cities, even if taken, could never become part
+of Portugal, and would always need garrisons to hold
+them, and smiled scornfully at the statement that any
+Portuguese force besieging Tangier would in its turn of
+a surety be besieged by a Moorish host, who would
+gather men from all parts and have a supply of
+provisions constantly at hand.</p>
+
+<p>'Those whom the gods will to destroy they first
+infatuate,' says the proverb, and no man was ever
+more infatuated than the infante dom Enrique. The
+fourteen thousand men of which the king had spoken
+had dwindled down to six thousand, and these were but
+half-hearted. Small as the force was, dom Duarte had
+instructed Enrique to divide it into three, in order to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+prevent the Moors from concentrating large numbers
+upon one place. This counsel Enrique declined to
+follow, nor did he attempt to surprise and take Tangier
+by assault, which might possibly have been successful.
+Instead, he allowed the Moors to assemble a large army
+and to put the town in a state of defence. Finally, he
+totally disobeyed the wise counsel of Duarte to make
+his camp close to the sea, where his ships lay at anchor,
+in order that provisions and a retreat might be secured
+to them.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Having thus done all in his power to ensure defeat,
+only one thing remained, and that was 'to die like
+good men with constant souls,' in the words which the
+poet Calderon puts into the mouth of Fernando. Too
+late Enrique perceived the snare into which his folly
+had led them, and assembling his little army, gave
+orders that at night, when the Moorish camp was quiet,
+they should cut their way through to the ships and
+put to sea. Their attacks on Tangier had been
+repulsed with heavy losses, he told them, and if the
+enterprise was ever to be carried through they must
+first seek reinforcements.</p>
+
+<p>The men agreed with him, and prepared to sell their
+lives dearly. Silently at the appointed time they crept
+up to the Moorish tents, beyond which lay safety and
+the great galleons. But the chaplain, unluckily, had
+been before them. As soon as darkness fell he had
+deserted to the enemy, and the sight of the large force
+drawn up in order of battle was the first sign of warning to
+the Christians that they had been betrayed.</p>
+
+<p>Even Enrique felt that in the face of such numbers
+fighting was useless, but he placed his men in the best
+position and awaited events. All the next day the
+Moors made no sign, but on the following morning
+envoys left the ranks and proposed terms of peace.
+Considering all things, they were not hard. Ceuta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+must be surrendered, the Moorish captives in Portugal
+be released, and the Christian camp with everything
+it contained abandoned to the captors. But the infantes
+wished to deal directly with the kings of Fez and Morocco,
+in order to make sure that the terms offered would be
+loyally carried out. They were still expecting the
+return of the envoys which they had sent when the
+Moors, who had grown more and more impatient at the
+long wait so close to their enemies, could be restrained
+no more and fell on the Portuguese.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In spite of their small numbers, the Portuguese,
+commanded by dom Enrique and the bishop of Ceuta,
+fought so fiercely that after six hours the Moors were
+beaten back. After a short rest dom Enrique ordered
+every man to repair the trenches and to throw up earthworks
+to protect the camp, in case of another assault.
+They worked hard the whole of that night, which was
+Saturday, and when by sunrise on Sunday everything
+was finished, the soldiers sank down exhausted where
+they were, and cried for food and water. It was long
+in coming. Then a horrible suspicion, which turned
+the men's faces white, ran, no one knew why, from end
+to end of the camp. Was there <i>any</i> food? and, worse
+still, any water?</p>
+
+<p>They had guessed truly; they had no provisions left,
+and the water had been cut off by the Moors. For two
+days they held out, then dom Enrique decided to accept
+the terms offered him. He would give up Ceuta and the
+Moorish prisoners, would abandon the camp, and would
+undertake that Portugal should sign a peace with the
+Barbary States lying along that part of the African coast
+for a hundred years. In return the former Moorish
+governor of Ceuta, Salat-ben-Salat, should hand over
+his son as a hostage, in exchange for four Portuguese
+nobles, but the pledge for the surrender of Ceuta was to
+be dom Fernando himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bitter were the shame and grief that filled dom
+Enrique when the results of his folly were brought
+home to him, and he instantly begged that he might
+be accepted as hostage instead of his brother. No
+doubt the Moors would have agreed to this; it mattered
+little to them which of the infantes remained captive,
+but the council of war which Enrique summoned would
+not consent. Fernando knew nothing of war, they
+said, but Enrique, their commander, could not be
+spared, though it is hard to see what Enrique had done
+except lead them into traps which a recruit might
+have foreseen. Dom Fernando was present with
+the rest of the council, and was the first to declare that
+his brother's proposal was not to be thought of. Then,
+with a heavy heart, Enrique signed the treaty, and a
+few hours later Fernando and he had parted for the last
+time.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Thus ended the expedition for the taking of Tangier;
+and what had it attained? As far as Portugal was
+concerned, the loss, as stipulated by treaty, of Ceuta,
+by which the country set such store; the death of five
+hundred out of the six thousand men under the walls of
+Tangier, which held out in spite of the field guns used
+in war for the first time; the waste of money which had
+been only raised by the oppression of the people; and
+the delivery of the king's favourite brother into the
+hands of a cruel race.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the tale which the fugitives had to tell
+on their arrival at Lisbon. And while the king was
+debating the best means of rescuing the captive, let us
+see how Fernando himself was faring.</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by his chaplain, his doctor, his secretary,
+and a few friends, who would seem to have gone with
+him of their own will, dom Fernando was sent by his
+captors to the fortress of Tangier, and closely imprisoned
+for several days. Perhaps the Moors may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+have been waiting for Enrique, who had gone to Ceuta,
+to deliver up the keys of the town; but as nothing was
+heard of him, the captives were taken next to the little
+town of Arzilla, further down the coast. Here the
+Portuguese were kindly treated by the governor, and
+Fernando, though the hardships he had gone through
+had told heavily on his health, did all he could to help
+his friends, who fared no better than himself, and
+devoted what money was left to him to ransoming those
+who had been for some years in captivity.</p>
+
+<p>For seven months Fernando and his companions
+remained in Arzilla, and during all that time both he
+and his gaoler, Salat-ben-Salat, expected to receive
+answers to the many letters the captive prince had
+been suffered to write to Enrique respecting his promise
+to surrender Ceuta, where he stayed for some time
+after the embarkation of the Portuguese army. But
+after five months the only news that reached Arzilla
+was that Enrique had returned to Portugal; so Fernando
+then wrote to the king himself, imploring that he would
+redeem his pledge and set him free. It seemed little
+to ask, seeing that a treaty is considered sacred, and
+Duarte, from every point of view, was ready to
+fulfil the stipulation; but there was a strong party
+in the state which held that a Christian city should
+never be delivered up to the unbelievers, and even
+Enrique advised him instead to offer a large ransom
+and the Moorish captives then in Portugal in exchange
+for the infante.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Always distrustful of his own opinion, and fearful
+of taking any decided action, Duarte next appealed for
+counsel to the pope and to the kings of all the countries
+of Europe. They sent the politest and most sympathetic
+answers to his questions. No words could express their
+admiration for dom Fernando's patience under his
+sufferings, and their pity for his hard lot, but&mdash;faith<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+with Moslems need never be kept, and at all costs Ceuta
+must be retained.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, after all, it was the Christians, and not the
+Moslems, who failed to keep their word and were
+responsible for the death of Fernando.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At length news reached Fernando that dom John
+was starting with a fleet for his rescue, and then the
+doom which he dreaded befell him, for he was sent
+with his fellow-captives at once to Fez, a city far in the
+interior, and delivered over to Lazuraque, the vizier of
+the young king, a man whose name was a proverb of
+cruelty throughout the whole of Barbary. On their
+arrival at Fez, after a journey in which the whole population
+turned out to howl at and to stone them, they
+were thrust into a tiny cell without a ray of light. The
+four months that they spent in this black hole were bad
+enough, but worse was yet to follow. The little money
+that Fernando had left was taken from him, and heavy
+chains were fastened to the ankles of the prisoners,
+while their food was hardly fit for dogs or enough to
+keep them alive. But Fernando at least never grumbled,
+and tried to keep up the hearts of his friends.</p>
+
+<p>One morning a warder entered the cell and roughly
+informed the prince that he was to go and clean out the
+vizier's stables, while the others were to dig up the
+royal garden. Of course Fernando had never done
+such a thing in his life, and now, hardly able to stand
+from weakness, and with fetters on his legs, it seemed
+an impossible task. Still, only to get out into the
+sunshine again was delightful to him, and he worked
+away with a will. However, he could not have done
+his cleansing very thoroughly, or else the vizier had
+merely wished to humiliate him, for the next day he was
+sent to the gardens with the rest. Here he was almost
+happy; he loved flowers, and he had the company of his
+friends, to whom he could talk freely, for the gaolers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+satisfied that they could not escape, left them very
+much to themselves. As to food, each man had two
+loaves a day, but no meat; however, in this respect
+Fernando fared better than the others, for when the
+king of Fez and his wives walked through the gardens,
+as they often did, they would speak to him with the
+politeness to which he had long been a stranger, and
+bid their slaves bring him fruit and wine from their
+own table. It seems curious that king Abdallah did not
+insist on better treatment for the Portuguese prince,
+but he was afraid of Lazuraque, who had ruled the
+kingdom from Abdallah's childhood, and dared not
+interfere.</p>
+
+<p>When darkness fell the captives were taken back
+to their prison, and here Fernando had a cell all to
+himself, and, tired out with his labours, was glad enough
+to throw himself on the two sheepskins covered by an
+old carpet which served him for a bed, and lay his head
+on the bundle of hay which was his pillow.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Matters had gone on in this way for a few weeks,
+when one day the captives were told that they were to
+work in the gardens no more; heavier chains were
+fastened to their arms and legs, and they were all thrust
+together into one tiny dungeon. Then a message came
+that dom Fernando was to be brought before the vizier.
+With a beating heart the infante gladly followed his
+gaoler. Surely Lazuraque would not have troubled to
+send for him unless deliverance had been at hand?
+But his hopes fell at the sight of Lazuraque's face,
+which was cruel and stern as usual.</p>
+
+<p>'Your brother the king of Portugal is dead,' were
+the words that fell upon Fernando's ears, and he sank
+fainting to the ground. When he came to himself, he
+was lying chained in his cell, with his friends anxiously
+bending over him.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Pedro was now regent, ruling for Duarte's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+little son, Alfonso V., and besides the view which he had
+always held that the honour of the country demanded
+the surrender of Ceuta, he felt bound to carry out the
+late king's will, which directed him to deliver Fernando
+at any cost. But now it was not Ceuta that Lazuraque
+wanted, but a huge ransom, impossible for Portugal to
+raise, and till this was forthcoming the horrors of the
+prisoners' captivity were increased.</p>
+
+<p>For some days after hearing the news Fernando's
+grief, together with the stifling air of the cell, made him
+so ill that his companions expected that every hour
+would be his last. Well he guessed that shame at the
+result of the expedition, and sorrow for his own fate,
+had hastened the end of dom Duarte, and the infante's
+thoughts flew back to the day of the proclamation of
+the king, five years before, and to the prophecy of
+master Guedelha. One thing, however, did not occur
+to him&mdash;that it was Duarte's weakness in allowing the
+expedition which had brought about the fulfilment of
+the prophecy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After a while Lazuraque saw that unless he meant
+his captives to die, which would not have suited him at
+all, he must free them from their dungeon, so they were
+sent back to the gardens. Slowly the years 1439 and
+1440 wore away. The hearts of the poor prisoners grew
+sick, but Fernando alone never lost his cheerfulness, and
+kept up the spirits of the others when they were bowed
+down with despair.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1441 that hope suddenly sprang into life
+again, for the news reached them that some envoys
+had arrived from Portugal to treat for their release, and
+that the governor of Arzilla was using his influence on
+their behalf. Soon after they were removed from Fez
+near to Ceuta, where they could once more see the
+blue Mediterranean and feel themselves close to Portugal
+again. But everything came to an end because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+neither side would trust the other. Lazuraque, though
+he still preferred a ransom, part of which he could
+have put in his own pocket, dared not refuse openly to
+exchange the prince for Ceuta, now that the envoys had
+come for the express purpose of delivering up the fortress.
+Still, he could place many obstacles in the way of the
+fulfilment of the treaty, and declared that the keys of
+Ceuta must be in his possession before the infante could
+be handed over to the envoys. They, on their side,
+insisted on Fernando's release before the surrender of
+the fortress.</p>
+
+<p>So the poor victim of ill-faith was carried back to
+Fez, and set to break stones with his companions.
+Then the plague broke out among the Moors, and each
+man shrank from his sick brother, and left him to die
+alone. As far as he might, dom Fernando sought out
+the plague-stricken people and nursed them night and
+day, often going without his own food that they might
+be nourished. Perhaps Lazuraque had fled like other
+rich men from the city, but at all events he seems to
+have permitted dom Fernando to do as he liked till the
+pestilence had run its course.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in March 1442 that Fernando was again
+taken before Lazuraque, and though the prisoner
+always told himself that he had given up hope, nevertheless
+his heart beat faster than usual at the summons.
+The Moor did not waste words, but went at once to the
+point.</p>
+
+<p>'I have sent for you to ask what price you will pay
+for your freedom and that of your friends,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Fernando looked at him for an instant before
+he answered. Long ago he and his companions had
+talked over the matter and decided what they could
+offer, if they ever had the chance. But now that the
+moment had come on which everything depended, his
+voice seemed choked, and he could not utter a sound.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Are you deaf?' inquired Lazuraque impatiently.
+'Be quick, or I shall raise my terms.'</p>
+
+<p>Then Fernando stammered out, 'Fifty thousand
+doubloons and fifty Moorish prisoners.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nonsense,' cried Lazuraque, with a scornful laugh.
+'Fifty thousand doubloons for a Portuguese prince!
+Why, it is a beggarly sum! Take him away, gaoler, till
+he learns wisdom.' And the infante was led back to his
+dungeon.</p>
+
+<p>It was no more than he had expected, yet he needed
+all his strength of will to help him bear the blow. By
+order of Lazuraque he was allowed to receive his fellow-prisoners
+in order to take counsel with them, and at
+length it was agreed that amongst them, by the
+aid of the king and their families, they would treble
+their former offer, and promise one hundred and
+fifty thousand doubloons and one hundred and fifty
+captives. This the vizier agreed to accept, and when
+they heard the news the prisoners fell on each other's
+necks and wept for joy. But for Fernando the hour
+of happiness was soon at an end, for till the ransom
+was paid and the captives landed on Moorish soil his
+treatment was worse than ever.</p>
+
+<p>The dungeon into which he was now thrown was
+smaller and darker than before, and even his gaoler
+was forbidden to speak to him. The loneliness and
+silence put the finishing touch to the alternate hopes
+and fears of the last few months, and one day, when
+the warder brought his scanty supply of food, he found
+the prince lying unconscious on the ground. Fearing
+the anger of Lazuraque should his prisoner escape him
+by death before the money was received, he at once
+reported the matter, and orders were given to remove
+the captive into a larger cell, where he could feel the
+soft winds blowing and even see a ray of the sun. His
+companions, who were once more working hard, with
+the least possible allowance of sleep, were permitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+to see him, and to carry him books of prayer, as he had
+been deprived of his own. Greatest boon of all, he was
+given a lamp by which he could read them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW15"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw15_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw15.png"
+        alt = "He found the prince lying unconscious on the ground."
+        title = "He found the prince lying unconscious on the ground." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">He found the prince lying unconscious on the ground.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Outside of his cell there was a sand-pit, in which
+some of the Portuguese came to dig sand every
+morning to scatter over the floor of the stables after
+they had been cleaned out. A tiny glimmer of light<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+in this part of the wall showed dom Fernando that
+a stone was loose, and might with a little patience be
+moved away. It was hard work for one so weak;
+still, it gave him something to do and to look forward
+to, and prevented him, sitting all day in his prison,
+from wondering why no answer to his letter had ever
+come, and if his brothers had forgotten him altogether,
+little knowing that out of mere spite Lazuraque had
+kept back everything they had written. When these
+thoughts came into his head he worked away at the
+stone harder than ever, to deaden the pain which was
+almost too bad to bear. At last one day his efforts
+were rewarded, and he was able to take the stone
+in and out and speak to his fellow-captives, who,
+with sun and air about them, were more fortunate
+than he.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he may have heard from them (for outside
+a gaol news flies quickly) that ever since Duarte's death
+his wife had given great trouble to dom Pedro by interfering
+in matters of government, and that civil war had
+actually broken out in Portugal, though happily it was
+soon put an end to by the flight of the queen. The
+expenses entailed by all this would, Fernando understood,
+have prevented the raising of the large ransom
+required; and with the lightening of his despair at his
+apparent abandonment came suspicions of Lazuraque.
+It was so much easier and happier for him to believe
+that the vizier, whose cruelty he knew, should be playing
+some trick on him than that Pedro should have left him
+to die without a word.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>We cannot tell how it really happened, and why
+the money used by dom Enrique ('the Navigator' as
+he was called) in fitting out exploring expeditions was
+not employed in setting free the brother who had been
+made captive through Enrique's own folly. Certain it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+that fifty thousand doubloons were all the Portuguese
+would offer, and now Lazuraque demanded four hundred
+thousand! This Fernando learnt after fifteen months
+of waiting, and then his last remnant of hope flickered
+out.</p>
+
+<p>When hope was gone he had nothing left to live
+for, and on June 1, 1443, he was too weak even to
+kneel at his prayers. In vain did his companions
+implore that he might be moved to a larger, healthier
+room; the vizier refused all their petitions, and if he
+had granted them, most likely it would have been too
+late. However, the prince's physician obtained leave
+to see him, and his chaplain and secretary watched by
+him alternately, so that he was not left alone in his
+last moments.</p>
+
+<p>Four days passed in this manner, and on the morning
+of June 5 he awoke looking happier than he had done
+since he bade farewell to the shores of Portugal five
+years before.</p>
+
+<p>'I have seen in a vision,' he said to his confessor,
+'the archangel Michael and Saint John entreating the
+Blessed Virgin to have pity on me and put an end to
+my sufferings. And she smiled down on me, and told
+me that to-day the gates of heaven should be thrown
+open, and I should enter.' So saying he begged to
+confess his sins, and when this was done he turned on
+his side and whispered, 'Now let me die in peace,' and
+with the last rays of the sun he was free.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>'He that is dead pays all his debts,' writes the poet
+who more than any man knew the best and the worst
+of the human heart, but Lazuraque did not agree with
+him. Fernando's body was stripped bare and hung
+for four days from the battlements of the city, where,
+silent and uncomplaining as in life, it was a prey to
+every insult the people could heap on it. Then it was
+taken down and placed in a box, but still remained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+unheeded on the walls. How long it might have stayed
+there we cannot guess, but shortly after Fernando's
+death Lazuraque was stabbed by some victim of his
+tyranny, and by-and-by the remnant of dom Fernando's
+fellow-captives obtained their release on payment of a
+small ransom, leaving in Fez the bones of three of their
+companions who had not long survived the Constant
+Prince. It would seem as if his courage alone had
+sustained them, and when he was gone they sank and
+died also.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In 1448 dom Pedro, who had never ceased to mourn
+the brother he had been powerless to save, exchanged
+an important Moorish prisoner for father John Alvaro,
+secretary to the infante. Owing to various delays, it
+was three years before Alvaro reached Portugal, but
+when he arrived he carried with him the heart of
+Fernando, which was borne at the head of a long procession
+clad in black to the abbey of Batalha, where
+John and Philippa, Duarte, and a little brother and
+sister lay buried. On the way they met unexpectedly
+dom Enrique, master of the Order of
+Christ, attended by his knights, and a messenger was
+sent by the prince to ask the meaning of the train of
+mourners.</p>
+
+<p>'Senhor, it is the heart of the saintly infante,' was
+the answer he received, and without a word Enrique
+turned his horse, and accompanied by his knights
+rode on to Batalha, where he laid the casket in the grave
+which awaited it.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-seven years after his death Fernando's
+body was obtained from the Moors, and was carried
+over to Portugal. With the pomp of a king expecting
+his bride Alfonso V., surrounded by his nobles, was
+drawn up on the banks of the Tagus, and behind him
+were the bishops and abbots of Portugal and a dense
+throng of people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For long they watched and waited, and none that
+was present forgot the dead silence that reigned in
+that multitude, more solemn than prayers, more welcoming
+than the sound of guns. At length a ship came
+in sight across the bar of the river; then, baring their
+heads, the crowd parted, and the bones of the Constant
+Prince were borne to Batalha.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_MARQUIS_OF_MONTROSE" id="THE_MARQUIS_OF_MONTROSE"></a>THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE</h2>
+
+
+<p>Fighting was in the blood of the Grahams, and
+when James, hereafter to be known as the 'great
+marquis of Montrose,' was a little boy he loved to hear
+tales of the deeds of his ancestors, who had struck hard
+blows for the liberty of Scotland in days of old. One,
+sir John Graham, a friend of sir William Wallace's,
+had been killed at Falkirk more than three hundred
+years before; another had died on Flodden field, and
+a third had fallen at Pinkie, besides many who had
+taken part in less famous battles. James knew all
+about them, and was proud to belong to them, and
+did not guess that it was <i>his</i> name and not <i>theirs</i> which
+would be best remembered through the centuries to come.</p>
+
+<p>But the Grahams were not only brave soldiers; they
+were for the most part clever men. There was an archbishop
+among them and a bishop, while James's grandfather
+had held the highest offices of the state under
+king James VI., and was president of the Parliament
+when the king was far away in Westminster talking
+broad Scotch to the great nobles and servants of his
+dead cousin queen Elizabeth. Montrose's own father,
+however, had no love either for war or statesmanship,
+and after he lost his wife in 1618 stayed quietly at
+home in one of his many castles, taking care of his
+family, keeping accounts of every penny he spent,
+and shooting and playing golf with his friends and
+neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>James, his only son, was six years old when his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+mother died, but there were five daughters of all ages,
+who were always ready to play with the boy. To be
+sure, the two eldest, Lilias and Margaret, married
+early, and before two years had passed by one was lady
+Colquhoun and the other lady Napier of Merchiston.
+Still Dorothy and Katherine were left, and Beatrix,
+who was only three years younger than her brother,
+and the one he liked best of all.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When the great business of marrying his two eldest
+daughters was safely over, lord Montrose took his
+little boy with him on a riding tour of visits to his
+estates in Forfar, Perthshire, Dunbarton, and the
+Lothians, stopping in the houses of his many friends
+on the way. James loved horses all his life, and bills for
+'shoes for naigs' were constantly coming in to him.
+He spent a good deal of time practising archery at the
+butts, and would make up matches with the boys who
+lived in the different houses where he and his father
+went to stay; on wet days they would get out their
+foils and fence in the hall, or even dance solemnly
+with the young ladies. Of course, he did some lessons
+too, when he was at home, probably with his sisters, but
+while his father only puts down in his accounts the
+items of six shillings for books and seven shillings for
+a 'pig [or stone bottle] of ink,' we read of nine shillings
+for bowstrings and three pounds for '12 goiff balls.'
+As for tobacco, the elder Montrose smoked the whole
+day, a new accomplishment in those times, and an
+expensive one when tobacco was sometimes as much
+as thirteen shillings and fourpence an ounce; but this
+habit was hated by James, who never could bear the
+smell of a pipe all his life long.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After his son's twelfth birthday lord Montrose
+decided that his son must go to college at Glasgow like
+other youths of his age and position. The news filled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+the little girls with awe; it seemed to make their brother
+a man at once, and they were sure he would never, never
+want to play bowls or hide and seek with them again.
+But James, though in his secret heart he may have agreed
+with them, was too kind to say so, and he comforted
+them with the thought of the fine things he would
+bring them from the great city, and the stories he
+would have to tell of its strange ways. And, if they
+wished, they might even now come and see the 'stands'
+(or suits) of clothes that had been prepared for him.</p>
+
+<p>Drying their tears, the girls eagerly accepted his
+offer. The mixed grey cloth English clothes were
+passed by in scorn, but the bright trimming of a cloak
+was much admired by the young ladies, though they
+would have liked James to have been dressed in red,
+like his two pages and kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo
+Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit they
+thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the
+door on his white pony, with his tutor, master Forrett,
+by his side, the pages and a valet following. Bringing
+up the rear were some strong, broad-backed 'pockmanty
+naigs,' or baggage-horses, bearing the plate,
+linen and furniture for the large house lord Montrose
+had taken for his son in Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>Gay indeed that house must have looked with its
+red and green and yellow curtains and cushions and
+counterpanes. As for food, it seems to have been
+simple enough, if we can judge by the bills sent in by
+the tutor for bags of oatmeal and barrels of herrings.
+There are also, we are glad to find, some bills for books,
+among them Raleigh's 'History of the World,' only
+recently published, a Latin translation of Xenophon,
+and Seneca's Philosophy. These last two James only
+read because he was obliged to, but he would sit half
+the morning poring over the pages of Raleigh, of
+whose own life and adventures master Forrett could
+tell him much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a short time his little sister Katherine lived with
+him. Probably she had been ill, and the soft air of the
+west was thought good for her; for Glasgow was only
+quite a small place then, and the sky over the Clyde
+was bright and clear, instead of being dark with smoke,
+as it often is now. But in two years' time James
+Graham's life at Glasgow came to a sudden end, owing
+to the death of his father, and, distressed and bewildered
+at the duties of his new position, he rode swiftly away
+one November morning to Kincardine Castle, to make
+arrangements for the funeral.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremonies attending the burial of a great
+noble were of vast importance in the seventeenth
+century. The widow, if he had one, was expected to
+spend weeks, or even months, in a room hung with
+black, in a bed with black curtains and coverings, no
+ray of sunlight being suffered to creep through the
+cracks of the shutters. The young earl of Montrose
+had, as we are aware, no mother, but his sisters were
+kept carefully out of sight, while he prepared the list
+of invitations, to be despatched by men on horseback,
+to the friends and relations of the dead earl. For
+seven weeks they stayed at Kincardine, every guest
+bringing with him a large supply of game or venison,
+though the castle larders already held an immense
+amount of food. Poor James must have felt the days
+terribly long and dismal, and doubtless escaped, as
+often as he could, to take counsel with his brother-in-law,
+sir Archibald Napier, who remained his staunch friend
+to the end.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At length the old customs had been fulfilled; the
+last guest was gone, and in January 1627 Montrose,
+not yet fifteen, set out for the University of St. Andrews.
+Here he found many acquaintances, with whom he
+played golf or tennis, or, what he loved still more,
+practised archery at the butts. Bows instead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+pictures hung on his walls, and in the second year of
+his residence the place of honour was given to the bow
+with which he gained the silver medal that may still
+be seen in the college. On wet days he spent his free
+hours in chess and cards, or in making verses like all
+young cavaliers, but he studied C&aelig;sar and other Latin
+authors under his tutor master Lambe and worked at his
+Greek grammar, so that he might read Plutarch's
+'Lives' in the original tongue. Everybody liked him
+in spite of his hot temper, he was so kind-hearted and
+generous and free with his money, and though never
+a bookworm, his mind was quick and thoughtful and
+his speech ready. His vacations he either passed with
+the Napiers, or in visiting the houses of his friends in
+Forfar or Fife, hunting, hawking, playing billiards
+or attending races; but he never failed to go to the kirk
+on Sundays or days of preachings in his best clothes
+with a nosegay in his coat, for he was very fond of
+flowers, and always had them on his table.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At seventeen this pleasant college life came to an
+end, and Montrose married Magdalen Carnegie, whose
+father was later created earl of Southesk. We do not
+know very much about his wife, and most likely she was
+not very interesting, but the young couple remained
+at lord Carnegie's house of Kinnaird for some years,
+till in 1633 Montrose, now twenty-one, set out on
+his journey to Rome, leaving lady Montrose and two
+little boys behind him. In his travels 'he made it his
+work to pick up the best of the qualities' of the foreigners
+whom he met, and learned 'as much of the mathematics
+as is required for a soldier,' but 'his great study was
+to read men and the actions of great men.'</p>
+
+<p>What the foreigners in their turn thought of the
+young man with the long bright brown hair and grey
+eyes, whose height was no more than ordinary, yet
+whose frame was strong and spare, we do not know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+They must have admired his quickness and skill in games
+and exercises, and the grace of his dancing; but his
+manner kept strangers at a distance, though he was
+always kind to his servants and those dependent on
+him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>During the three years that Montrose spent abroad
+grave events took place in Scotland. Charles I., who
+had already excited the angry suspicion of his Scotch
+subjects by what they considered the 'popish' ceremonies
+of his coronation at Holyrood, had lately
+been enraging them still more by his measures for
+putting down the national Church and supporting
+bishops throughout the country. The king, in spite of
+many good qualities, could never be trusted, and was
+very obstinate. Also, what was worse both for himself
+and his people, he could never understand the signs of
+the times or the tempers of those with whom he had to
+deal. The gatherings held in various parts of Scotland
+to express discontent with the king's proceedings did,
+indeed, alarm him a little, but not even some strange
+scenes that took place in 1637 taught him how serious
+the matter really was. The Scottish Church then used no
+prayer-book, but, by the royal commands, the bishop
+and dean of Edinburgh were reading certain new prayers
+in the church of St. Giles' on Sunday, July 23, when
+'the serving-maids began such a tumult as was never
+heard of since the Reformation.' This 'tumult' was
+no sudden burst of feeling, but 'the result of a consultation
+in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, when several
+gentlemen recommended to various matrons that they
+should give their first affront to the [prayer] book,
+assuring them that the men should afterwards take
+the business out of their hands.'</p>
+
+<p>We are not told why 'the men' did not do 'the
+business' to begin with, but the matrons and serving-maids
+seemed to have enjoyed themselves so much on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+this occasion that they were quite ready for a second
+effort a month later.</p>
+
+<p>On August 28 Mr. William Annan preached in St.
+Giles', defending the Litany, and when the news was
+spread about what the subject of his sermon was to be
+there arose, says the chronicler, in the town and among
+the women a great din.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW16"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw16_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw16.png"
+        alt = "About thirty or forty of our honestest women did fall a railing on Mr. William Annan."
+        title = "About thirty or forty of our honestest women did fall a railing on Mr. William Annan." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">About thirty or forty of our honestest women did fall a railing on Mr. William Annan.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'At the outgoing of the church, about thirty or
+forty of our honestest women in one voice before the
+bishop and magistrates did fall a railing, cursing, and
+scolding, with clamours on Mr. William Annan. Some
+two of the meanest were taken to the Tolbooth,' or city
+prison, where Montrose in after years was himself to lie.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Annan got safely to his own house, but being
+troubled over these events in his mind resolved to ask
+counsel of his bishop. So that evening, 'at nine on a
+mirk night,' he set out in company of three or four
+ministers to the bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had
+the little party stepped into the street than they were
+surrounded by 'hundreds of enraged women with fists
+and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat him
+sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all
+bloody wounds, yet he was in great danger even of
+killing.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>This was the beginning of the struggle which was to
+rend Scotland for so many years. A bond or covenant
+was drawn up, part of which was copied from one of
+the reign of James VI., fifty years before, guarding
+against the establishment of 'popery.' But now new
+clauses were added, protesting against the appointment
+of bishops, or allowing priests of any sort power over
+the laws of the country. This document Montrose
+signed with the rest, and consented to act if necessary
+as one of the defenders of the religion and liberty of
+Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>Charles of course declined to give way on the smallest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+point, and issued a proclamation, to be read at Edinburgh,
+declaring all who opposed him to be traitors. In answer
+the malcontents raised a scaffold beside the cross, and
+on it stood Warriston, with a reply written by the
+nobles representing the people, which was received with
+shouts of applause. Montrose sat at Warriston's side,
+his legs dangling from a cask.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, James,' cried old lord Rothes, as he saw him,
+'you will never be at rest till you be lifted up there
+above the rest, with a rope.'</p>
+
+<p>Strange words, which were exactly fulfilled twelve
+years later.</p>
+
+<p>So the first covenant was read, and afterwards it
+was laid on a flat tombstone in Greyfriars churchyard,
+and signed by the earl of Sutherland as the first noble
+of Scotland, and then by others according to their
+degree. During two days it was borne round the city,
+followed by an immense crowd, sobbing and trembling
+with excitement; from time to time they all stopped for
+fresh signatures to be added, and copies were made
+and sent over the country, so that each man should
+place his mark. Next, subscription lists were opened,
+taxes apportioned, and a war committee chosen.</p>
+
+<p>And Charles heard and grew frightened, though even
+yet he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>However, the king saw it was needful to do something,
+and, as was usual with him, he did the wrong thing. He
+chose the earl of Hamilton (in whom he believed blindly,
+though no one else did) to go down to Scotland as his
+commissioner, with leave to yield certain points when
+once the covenant had been retracted, but with secret
+orders to spin out as much time as possible, so that
+Charles might be able to get ready an army. Yet,
+secret as Hamilton's instructions were, old Rothes
+knew all about them, and on his side made preparations.
+As each week passed it became increasingly
+plain that the two parties could never agree. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+General Assembly, which had been held in November
+in Glasgow Cathedral, was dissolved by Hamilton, who
+had presided over it. The covenanters answered by
+deposing the bishops, and suppressing the liturgy, and
+then dissolving itself; and the earl of Argyll, soon to
+be Montrose's deadliest enemy, joined the covenanters.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>One town only remained loyal, and this was Aberdeen,
+situated in the country of the Gordons, whose chief,
+the marquis of Huntly, was Argyll's brother-in-law.
+Huntly, like Leslie, who held a command in the covenanting
+army under Montrose, had seen much foreign service,
+so Charles appointed him his lieutenant in the north,
+though he bound him hand and foot by orders to do
+nothing save with Hamilton's consent. Chafing bitterly
+under these restrictions, Huntly was forced to disband
+his army of two thousand men, and had the mortification
+of seeing the covenanters enter Aberdeen the following
+week, wearing their badge of blue ribbons in their
+Highland bonnets.</p>
+
+<p>The citizens were granted easy terms, and all pillage
+was strictly forbidden. Huntly himself was given a
+promise of safe conduct, but was afterwards held as a
+prisoner and sent with his son to Edinburgh castle.
+It is not clear how far Montrose himself was guilty of
+this breach of faith. The covenanters had always
+detested Huntly, and it is possible that he found it difficult
+to act against them, but at any rate he does not appear
+to have taken any active steps to stop their proceedings,
+and in after days paid a heavy penalty for his weakness.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the English army, consisting of
+nineteen ships and five thousand men, arrived in the
+Firth of Forth, but so dense were the crowds on both
+shores that Hamilton, who commanded it, saw that
+landing was impossible. Suddenly the multitude
+gathered at Leith (the port of Edinburgh) parted
+asunder, and down the midst rode an old lady with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+pistol in her hand. Hamilton looked with the rest
+and turned pale at the sight, for the old lady was his
+own mother, who in a voice that almost seemed loud
+enough to reach the vessel where her son stood, declared
+she would shoot him dead before he should set foot on
+land.</p>
+
+<p>The time was evidently not ripe for invasion, so
+the men encamped on the little islands in the Forth,
+and spent their days in drill.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As often during Montrose's wars, Aberdeen was
+again the centre of fighting, but again the general
+preserved the city from pillage, against the express
+wishes, and even orders, of the covenanters. Then
+came the news that a peace, or rather truce, had been
+signed at Berwick, by which Charles had consented that
+a parliament should assemble in August in Edinburgh,
+though, as he insisted that the fourteen Scottish bishops
+should be present at its sittings, wise men shook their
+heads, and prophesied that no good could come of the
+measure. Their fears were soon justified. Riots broke
+out in the capital, and Aboyne, Huntly's son, narrowly
+escaped violence; the people refused to allow the army to
+be disbanded or the fortresses to be dismantled, as had
+been stipulated by the peace, till the king had fulfilled
+the promise made by Hamilton at the assembly at
+Glasgow of abolishing the bishops.</p>
+
+<p>This he showed no signs of doing, but merely desired
+a number of the leading covenanters to appear before
+him. Six only obeyed, at the risk, some thought, of
+imprisonment or death, but neither Rothes nor Montrose,
+who headed them, was given to think of peril to
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The old covenanter seems to have told Charles some
+plain truths, and the king in return forgot the courtesy
+which so distinguished him, and retorted that Rothes
+was a liar. No man was present when Montrose was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+summoned to confer with the king, and neither he nor
+Charles ever let fall a word upon the subject; but after
+that day his friends noted that he was no longer as
+bitter as before against his sovereign, nor so entirely
+convinced that the covenanters were right in their acts.
+Yet, whatever his feelings may have been, he strongly
+opposed the king's desire of filling the bishops' vacant
+places with inferior clergy at the meeting of Parliament,
+and, as might have been expected, the assembly was
+prorogued, leaving matters precisely as they were.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After this the Scotch took on themselves the
+management of their own affairs, and a Committee of
+Estates was formed, to which was entrusted absolute
+power both in state and army. Leslie was one of
+this committee; Montrose was another, and immediately
+he set about raising troops from his own lands, and
+carried out the plan of campaign that had been agreed
+on by attacking Airlie castle. On its surrender he
+garrisoned it with a few men, and went away; but
+shortly after Argyll arrived, turned out the garrison,
+and burned the castle, at the same time accusing
+Montrose of treason to the covenant in having spared
+it. But the Committee of Estates declared Montrose
+'to have done his duty as a true soldier of the covenant,'
+and the accusation fell to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Montrose, however, though entirely cleared of the
+charge, was not slow to read the signs of the times.
+He saw that the covenanters were no longer content
+with guarding their own liberties of church and state,
+but desired to set at naught the king's authority, perhaps
+even to depose him. So he and certain of his friends,
+Mar, Almond, and Erskine among them, formed a
+bond by which they swore to uphold the old covenant
+which they had signed in 1638, 'to the hazard of their
+lives, fortunes, and estates, against the particular perhaps
+indirect practising of a few.' This was the covenant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+to which Montrose held all his life, and for which he was
+hanged beside the city cross.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Having as he hoped taken measures to checkmate
+Argyll, Montrose joined the army, which had now swelled
+to twenty-five thousand men, was the first to cross the
+Tweed at Coldstream, and marched straight on Newcastle.
+The town surrendered without firing a shot, and Montrose
+sent a letter to the king again professing his loyalty.
+When later he was imprisoned on a charge of treason to
+the covenant in so doing, he answered that his conscience
+was clear in the matter, and that it was no more
+than they had all declared in the covenant, which no
+man could deny. But soon another storm was raised on
+account of the famous bond which he and his friends had
+made a short time before they were put in prison, and
+the clamour was so great that even his own party was
+alarmed, and gave it up to be burned by the hangman.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Montrose's next object was to induce the king to
+come to Edinburgh in order to persuade the Scotch
+that he was ready to keep his word, and to grant the
+country the religious and civil liberties demanded by
+the covenant. Charles came, and was gracious and
+charming as he knew how to be, even going to the
+Presbyterian service, which he hated. This pleased
+everyone, and hopes ran high; but the quarrel was too
+grave to be soothed by a few soft words spoken or a
+few titles given. Plots and rumours of plots were rife
+in Edinburgh, and the king was forced to employ not
+the men he wished, but the men whom the Parliament
+desired. In November he returned to England, first
+promising that he would never take into his service
+Montrose, who had just been released after five
+months spent in prison, where he had been thrown
+with the rest of his party after the discovery of the
+bond.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To one who knew Scotland as well as he it was
+apparent that the Scotch Parliament and the English
+would speedily join hands, and he retired to one of his
+houses to watch the course of events. The covenanters
+tried to win him back, but Montrose felt that they
+disagreed among themselves, and that it would be
+impossible for him to serve under them. Meanwhile in
+England things marched rapidly: Edgehill had been
+fought; episcopacy had been abolished by Parliament
+in England as well as Scotland; and Hamilton's brother
+Lanark was using the Great Seal to raise a Scotch army
+against the king, for, by a treaty called the Solemn
+League and Covenant, Scotland was to fight with the
+English Parliament against the king, and England was to
+abolish bishops and become presbyterian like Scotland.
+England, however, did not keep her promise.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that Charles, in his desperation, turned
+to Montrose. Montrose was too skilful and experienced
+a general to think lightly of the struggle before him,
+but he formed a plan by which Scotland was to be
+invaded on the west by the earl of Antrim from Ireland,
+while he himself, reinforced by royalist troops, would
+fall on the Scotch who were on the border. But the
+reinforcements he expected hardly amounted, when they
+came, to one thousand one hundred men, and these
+being composed of the two nations were constantly
+quarrelling, which added to the difficulties of the
+commander. At Dumfries he halted, and read a
+proclamation stating that 'he was king's man, as he had
+been covenanter, for the defence and maintenance of
+the true Protestant religion, his majesty's just and
+sacred authority, the laws and privileges of Parliament,
+the peace and freedom of oppressed and thralled subjects.'
+Adding that 'if he had not known perfectly the king's
+intention to be such and so real as is already expressed'
+he would 'never have embarked himself in his service,'
+and if he 'saw any appearance of the king changing'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+from these resolutions he would continue no longer
+'his faithful servant.'</p>
+
+<p>Thus he said, and thus we may believe he felt,
+but none the less not a man joined his standard as he
+marched along the border. He tried to reach prince
+Rupert, the king's nephew, in Yorkshire, but Marston
+Moor had been lost before he arrived there. Then,
+dressed as a groom, he started for Perthshire, and after
+four days arrived at the house of his kinsman Graham
+of Inchbrackie, where he learned that the whole of the
+country beyond the Tay was covenanting, with the
+single exception of the territory of the Gordons. No
+one knew of his presence, for he still wore his disguise,
+and slept in a little hut in the woods, where food was
+brought him. All day he wandered about the lonely
+hills, thinking over the tangled state of affairs, and
+waiting for the right moment to strike.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon when he was lying on the heather,
+wondering if he ought not to come out of his hiding,
+and join either the Gordons or prince Rupert, he beheld
+a man running quickly over the moor, holding in his
+hand the Fiery Cross, which, as every Highlander
+knew, was the call to arms. Starting to his feet,
+Montrose stopped the man and asked the meaning of
+the signal, and whither he was going.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC04"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour04_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour04.jpg"
+        alt = "&quot;A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the Atholl&quot;."
+        title = "&quot;A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the Atholl&quot;." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">"A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the Atholl".</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'To Perth,' answered the messenger, 'for a great
+army of Irishmen have swooped down in the Atholl
+country, and Alastair Macdonald is their leader. I
+myself have seen them, and I must not tarry,' so on
+he sped, leaving Montrose with his puzzle solved. The
+Irishmen whom he expected had arrived, and he would
+go to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need for hiding any more, and glad
+was he to throw off his disguise and put on his Highland
+dress again. Then, accompanied by the laird of Inchbrackie,
+he walked across the hills to join Macdonald,
+bearing the royal standard on his shoulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As soon as he reached the meeting-place where the
+clans and the Irish were already waiting, he stuck
+the standard in the ground, and, standing by it, he read
+aloud the king's commission to him as lieutenant-general.
+Shouts of joy made answer when he had done, and
+next Montrose went round the ranks to inspect the
+troops he was to fight with, and find out what arms
+they had. The numbers only amounted to about two
+thousand three hundred, and it was not long before
+the clans began to quarrel with each other, and all with
+the Irish. As to their weapons, the Irish had matchlock
+guns, which took a long time to load, and one
+round of ammunition apiece, while the Highlanders
+had seized upon anything that happened to be in their
+cottages and showed a medley of bows, pikes, clubs, and
+claymores&mdash;a kind of broad sword. As to horses, they
+could only muster three.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With this ragged army Montrose marched, and his
+first victory was gained against lord Elcho, on the wide
+plain of Tippermuir, near Perth. The covenanting force
+was nearly double that of the royalists, but many of the
+troops were citizens of Perth, who thought more of their
+own skins than of the cause for which they were fighting.
+When Montrose's fierce charge had broken their ranks,
+they all turned and fled, and many of them are said to
+have 'bursted with running' before they got safely
+within the city gates.</p>
+
+<p>In Perth Montrose fitted out his army with stores,
+arms, and clothes, and released some of the prisoners on
+their promising not to serve against him, while others
+enlisted under the royal banner. Before he set out for
+Aberdeen he was joined by his two eldest sons and
+their tutor, master Forrett; and in Forfarshire he found
+lord Airlie and his sons awaiting him, with the welcome
+addition of fifty horse, which formed his entire cavalry.
+These, and one thousand five hundred foot, were all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+army he had when he crossed the Dee fifteen miles from
+Aberdeen, and the covenanters mustered a thousand
+more.</p>
+
+<p>Two miles from the town the two armies met.
+As was his custom, Montrose sent an envoy summoning
+the enemy to surrender, and with the envoy went a
+little drummer-boy, who was wantonly shot down by
+a covenanter. When Montrose heard of this deed of
+deliberate cruelty his face grew dark, but he began
+to dispose his men to the best advantage. Both sides
+fought well, and for a moment victory seemed uncertain;
+then Montrose brought up reinforcements and decided
+the day by one of his rapid charges.</p>
+
+<p>He had already bidden the magistrates of Aberdeen
+to bring out the women and children to a place of safety
+as he would not answer for their lives, but, as he had
+twice preserved the city from pillage, it is probable they
+looked on his words as a mere idle threat, and left them
+where they were. After the battle the sack began; houses
+were burned and robbed, and many fell victims, though
+the dead, including those who had fallen in battle, did
+not exceed a hundred and eighteen. But his friends
+lamented that this time also he had not restrained his
+soldiers, and a price of 20,000<i>l.</i> was set on his head by
+the enraged covenanters.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Never was Montrose's power of moving his men
+swiftly from one place to another more greatly needed
+than now. The Gordons were all in arms against
+him; Argyll was advancing from the south with a
+strong force, and Montrose had been obliged to send a
+large body of men into the west under Macdonald to
+raise fresh levies. With the remainder he retired into
+the Grampians, and turned and twisted about among
+the mountains, Argyll always following.</p>
+
+<p>At Fyvie Montrose suddenly learned that his enemy
+was within two miles of him. Hastily ordering all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+the pewter vessels that could be found in the castle
+to be melted down for bullets, he disposed his troops on
+a hill, where a few trees and some outhouses gave them
+cover. Here they waited while the covenanters gallantly
+made the best of their way upwards. Then Montrose
+turned to young O'Gahan, who commanded the Irish,
+and said gaily, 'Come, what are you about? Drive
+those rascals from our defences, and see we are not
+troubled by them again.'</p>
+
+<p>Down came the Irishmen with a rush which scattered
+the covenanters far and wide, and seizing some bags
+of powder that lay handy, the victors retreated up
+the hill again, while Montrose with some musketeers
+attacked Argyll's flank, till they retired hastily.</p>
+
+<p>After this defeat the covenanting leader went into
+Argyllshire, where was his strong castle of Inverary, by
+the sea. But Montrose crossed the pathless mountains,
+deep in snow, drove Argyll to Edinburgh, and when he
+came back with all his clan, turned on them suddenly,
+destroyed them at Inverlochy, and caused Argyll to
+escape in a boat.</p>
+
+<p>The hopes of the king's lieutenant rose high as he
+thought of all he had done with the few undisciplined
+troops at his command.</p>
+
+<p>'I trust before the end of this summer I shall be
+able to come to your majesty's assistance with a brave
+army,' he wrote; but meanwhile he dared not go to
+Edinburgh, where he had been sentenced to death by
+the Committee of Estates, and his property declared
+forfeited. But though the campaign had been successful
+beyond his expectations, yet his heart was heavy,
+for his eldest son had died of cold and exposure and
+the second was a prisoner in Edinburgh castle.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Such was the state of things when he went west
+again into the country of the Macdonalds, who flocked
+to his standard. On the other hand the Lowlanders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+fell off, and began to cast longing eyes at the rewards
+promised to those who joined the covenant. If Montrose
+could only have forced a battle on Baillie, who commanded
+the covenanting army, another victory would
+probably have been gained, but Baillie was wise, and
+declined to fight. Then the Highlanders grew sullen
+and impatient, and every day saw them striding over the
+hills to their own homes. By the time he reached
+Dunkeld the royal army had shrunk to six hundred
+foot and two hundred horse.</p>
+
+<p>With this small force he entered Dundee, the great
+fortress of the covenant, and his men took to drinking.
+At that moment news was brought him that Baillie was
+at the gates, and with marvellous rapidity he collected
+his men and marched them out of the east gate as
+the English entered by the west. The Grampians were
+within a long march, and once there Montrose knew he
+was safe.</p>
+
+<p>And, far away in Sweden and in Germany, the
+generals who had been trained under Wallenstein and
+under Gustavus Adolphus looked on, and wondered
+at the skill with which Montrose met and defeated the
+armies and the wealth arrayed against him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But to those who had eyes to see the end was certain.
+It was to no purpose that he, with the aid of the Gordons,
+now once more on his side, gained a victory at Auldearn,
+between Inverness and Elgin, and another at Alford,
+south of the Don, which cost him the life and support
+of Huntly's son, lord Gordon. In vain did Ogilvies,
+Murrays, and Gordons swell his ranks, and the covenanting
+committee play into his hands by forcing Baillie to
+fight when the general knew that defeat was inevitable.
+The battle of Kilsyth had been won near Glasgow on
+August 14, and the day was so hot that Montrose ordered
+his men to strip to their shirts so that they might have
+no more weight to carry than was strictly necessary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+Baillie was not even allowed to choose his own ground,
+but though he did all that man could do, the struggle
+was hopeless, and the Fife levies were soon in flight.</p>
+
+<p>Only a year had passed since Montrose, now captain-general
+and viceroy of Scotland, had taken the field,
+and yet the whole country was subdued, largely by the
+help of the Irish, and of their leader Macdonald, whom
+he had knighted after Kilsyth. But for the royalist
+cause Naseby had been lost, Wales was wavering,
+Ireland was useless, and Montrose was not strong
+enough to make up for them all.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From Kilsyth, which is near Glasgow, it was easy for
+Macdonald to lead his men across the hills and lay waste
+the territories of his hereditary enemy Argyll. He
+would, he said, return to Montrose if he was wanted;
+but the marquis took the words for what they were
+worth, and waited to see whose turn to desert would
+come next. It was young Aboyne, who was tired of
+fighting, which had not brought him any of the rewards
+he thought his due, and he took with him four hundred
+horse and many infantry. At the end there only
+remained five hundred of Macdonald's Irish, who had
+cast in their lot with Montrose, and about one hundred
+horsemen. With these he marched to the south,
+trusting in the promises of help freely given by the
+great border nobles, and hoping to enter England and
+help the king.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>And doubtless these promises would have been kept
+had the king's cause showed signs of triumph, but the
+speedy advance of four thousand horsemen under David
+Leslie, the best cavalry officer of the day, turned the
+scale. Roxburgh and Home at once proclaimed themselves
+on the side of the covenant, and only Douglas
+reached Montrose's camp on the river Gala, and brought
+a few untrained and unwilling recruits with him. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+was the best he could do, yet he knew well enough
+how little reliance could be placed on his country
+contingent, who had been taught to look on the king
+and Montrose as monsters of evil, seeking to destroy
+whatever they held most dear.</p>
+
+<p>It was on September 12 that Montrose drew up his
+forces at Philiphaugh between a line of hills and the
+river Ettrick, while shelter was given on the west by
+some rising ground covered with trees. Trenches had
+been made still further to protect them, and the Irish
+foot soldiers were ordered to occupy the position, which
+seemed secure against attack. But on this day, which
+was destined to decide whether the king or the covenant
+should rule Scotland, Montrose's military skill&mdash;even his
+good sense&mdash;deserted him; he posted his horse and best
+generals at Philiphaugh, on the other side of the river
+close to Selkirk, and he himself slept in the town. More
+than this, instead of placing his sentinels himself, as was
+his invariable custom, he allowed his officers to do it,
+and also to send out whatever scouts they may have
+thought necessary without orders from himself, while
+he sat undisturbed, writing despatches, little knowing
+that Leslie was only three miles away, at Sunderland
+Hall.</p>
+
+<p>So the night of the 12th passed, and Montrose took
+counsel with the three men he most trusted, the earls of
+Crawford and Airlie, and his brother-in-law, old lord
+Napier, as to what should be their next step when the
+battle was won. The mist was thick and heavy over
+the land when morning dawned, but in spite of the
+cold their hearts grew light as one scout after another
+came in, reporting that there was not a sign of an enemy
+within miles. Had they been bribed? We shall
+never know, yet it is hardly possible that they could
+all have overlooked the presence of several thousand
+men so close to their own camp. At that very moment
+Leslie's army was crossing the river, and it began the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+attack while the royalists were putting on their uniforms
+for an inspection.</p>
+
+<p>Montrose was at breakfast in Selkirk when a
+messenger burst in upon him with the news, but before
+he could ford the river with his horse his left wing
+had given way under Leslie's steady pressure. At
+the head of a handful of troopers, and followed closely
+by his faithful friends, Montrose twice charged the
+covenanters and forced them to retire. But a detachment
+of Leslie's men which had crossed the river higher
+up fell upon the right wing, composed of the Irish, who
+were placed in the wood. Desperate was the fight and
+bravely and faithfully the king's men died at their
+posts. Montrose seems to wish to die too, and bitterly
+he must later have regretted that he listened to his
+friends, who bade him remember his duty as a general,
+and besought him to fly. At length he yielded, and
+with fifty comrades galloped off the field, bearing the
+standards with him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With the battle of Philiphaugh the cause of the king
+was hopelessly lost, and with it also the fortunes of his
+followers. A hundred of the Irish surrendered on promise
+of quarter, and were shot down next day, while their
+wives and children were killed on the spot, or imprisoned,
+and hanged later. Strange as it may appear to us, Montrose
+did not recognise the meaning of the defeat, and,
+with the dash and energy that marked him to the last,
+he collected a fresh army of Highlanders, and prepared
+to set out for the south, hoping to rescue his personal
+friends, who were now prisoners in Glasgow. Yet again
+his judgment failed him, and instead of attacking
+the English general who was holding Huntly in check
+in the north of Aberdeenshire, he left him alone, and
+then found that without the Gordons he was not strong
+enough to cope with Leslie's army. Once more the
+mountains were his refuge, and from their shelter he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+crept out to attend the burial of his wife in the town
+of Montrose. On his way he probably passed the
+ruins of his castles, which had been burned by order of
+the covenanters.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the special desire of the Scottish rulers
+every possible degradation was heaped on the imprisoned
+nobles, and it was a rare favour indeed when
+they were suffered to die on the block, and not by the
+common hangman. Lord Ogilvy was saved by his
+sister, who, like lady Nithsdale sixty years later,
+forced him to exchange his clothes for hers, and
+remained in his cell, ready to take the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the rumour that the king, with cropped
+hair like a Puritan and wearing a disguise, had ridden
+over Magdalen bridge at Oxford, attended by lord
+Ashburnham and Hudson, his chaplain, and entered
+the Scottish camp in the hope of softening his foes by
+submission. He was soon undeceived as to the way in
+which they regarded him, for before he had even
+eaten or rested he was begged&mdash;or bidden&mdash;to order
+the surrender of Newark, which still held out, and
+to command Montrose to lay down his sword.
+Charles, whose manhood returned to him in these hours
+of darkness, positively refused; but at Newcastle he
+found he was powerless to resist, and wrote to his faithful
+servant to disband his army and to go himself to
+France.</p>
+
+<p>In the letter which the marquis sent in reply he asks
+nothing for himself, but entreats the king to obtain the
+best terms possible for those that had fought for him,
+and the conditions arranged by Middleton were certainly
+better than either king or general expected. The
+men who had served in Montrose's wars were given
+their lives and liberty, and also were allowed to retain
+whatever lands had not been already handed over to
+other people. As to Montrose himself, he, with Crawford
+and Hurry the general, was to leave Scotland<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+before September 1 in a ship belonging to the Committee
+of Estates. Should they be found in the country after
+that date death would be the penalty.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After disbanding his army&mdash;or what was left of it&mdash;in
+the king's name, and thanking them for their services,
+Montrose went to Forfarshire to await the ship which
+was to convey him to France. But day after day passed
+without a sign of it, and the marquis soon became
+convinced that treachery was intended, and took
+measures to prevent it. Leaving old Montrose, he
+went to Stonehaven, another little town on the coast,
+and settled with a Norwegian captain to lie off Montrose
+on a certain day. So when, on August 31, the
+covenanting captain at last appeared, and declared his
+ship would not be ready to sail for another eight days&mdash;by
+which time, of course, Montrose's life would be
+forfeit&mdash;he found his bird flown; for the exile and a friend
+had disguised themselves and put off one morning in a
+small boat to the larger vessel that was waiting for them,
+and in a week were safe across the North Sea at Bergen.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But Norway was merely a stepping-stone to Paris,
+where the queen of England was living under the protection
+of her sister-in-law, Anne of Austria, and of
+the young king Louis XIV. The handsome pension
+allowed her in the beginning gradually ceased when
+the civil war of the Fronde broke out in 1648, and,
+as we know, she was found one day by a visitor
+sitting with her little girl, whom she had kept in bed
+because she could not afford a fire. And even at
+this time, in 1647, she always spent whatever she
+had, so from one cause or another no money was forthcoming
+to help Montrose, who perhaps did not understand
+the situation, and thought that she was unkind
+and careless of her husband's welfare. As often before,
+he spoke out his feelings when he would have done<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+better to be silent, and pressed on the queen advice
+that was not asked for, and may not have been possible
+to follow. Yet, if he felt that there was no place for
+him in the little English court, ample evidence was
+given him of the high respect in which he was held
+elsewhere. The all-powerful minister, cardinal Mazarin,
+desired to enlist him in the French service, and the
+greatest nobles paid court to him. Montrose, however,
+was not the sort of man to find healing for his sorrows
+in honours such as these. He gave a grateful and
+courteous refusal to all proposals, and bidding farewell
+to his hosts, made his way to the Prague to offer his
+sword to the emperor Ferdinand. Like the rest, the
+emperor received him warmly, and created him a field-marshal,
+but there was no post for Montrose in the
+Austrian army, and in the end he joined some friends
+in Brussels, whence he kept up an intimate correspondence
+with Elizabeth of Bohemia, Charles I.'s
+sister, who was staying at the Hague with her niece,
+Mary of Orange, and the young prince of Wales.</p>
+
+<p>There in February arrived the news of the king's
+execution, and when he heard it Montrose vowed that
+the rest of his life should be spent in the service of his
+son, and in avenging his master. Charles II. did not
+like him; he was too grave and too little of a courtier;
+and besides, the new king had listened and believed the
+stories to his discredit brought by men whose fortunes
+had been ruined in their own country, and who sought
+to build them up in Holland! Charles soon found for
+himself how untrue were these tales, and though the
+two never could become friends, he recognised Montrose's
+loyalty and ability and appointed him commander-in-chief
+of the royal forces and lieutenant-governor of
+Scotland, and gave him leave to get what mercenaries
+he could from Sweden and Denmark.</p>
+
+<p>Full of hope, Montrose at once set off on his recruiting
+journey, and sent off some troops to the Orkneys to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+drilled under the earls of Kinnoull and Morton; but
+Morton in a very short time caught fever and died.
+Meanwhile his friend, Elizabeth of Bohemia, looked on
+with distrust and alarm at her nephew's proceedings,
+for well she knew&mdash;as did Charles himself&mdash;that the
+surrender of Montrose would be the first article of any
+treaty made by the covenant. She even wrote to put
+Montrose on his guard; but he, judging the king by
+himself, believed the assurances of help and support given
+in Charles' own letters, accompanied by the gift of the
+garter, as a pledge of their fulfilment. He was bidden
+to lose no time in opening the campaign, but one thousand
+out of the one thousand two hundred men whom he
+despatched went down in a great gale, and only two
+hundred reached the shore. So April had come before
+the general had collected sufficient soldiers to march
+southwards, and by that time the forces of the enemy
+were ready to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>It was on April 27 that Montrose's last battle was
+fought at Carbisdale, near the Kyle, where the rivers
+Shin and Oykel reach the sea. The earl of Sutherland
+secured the passes of the hills, while colonel Strachan
+and a large body of cavalry approached from the south.
+When they arrived within a few miles of the royalist
+camp at the head of the Kyle, Strachan ordered two
+divisions of his cavalry to proceed under cover of some
+woods and broken ground, and only suffered a few
+horse, led by himself, to remain visible. These were
+seen, as they were meant to be, by Montrose's scouts,
+who, as at Philiphaugh, were either careless or
+treacherous or very stupid, and they brought back the
+report that the covenanting force was weak. Montrose,
+taking for granted the truth of their report, disposed of
+his foot on a flat stretch of ground, and ordered his horse
+to advance. Then the trees and the hills 'started to
+life with armed men'; the Orkney islanders fled without
+striking a blow; and though the foreign troops made a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+stout resistance, they were overpowered by numbers,
+and those of their leaders who were not dead were taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+prisoners. Montrose, who was badly wounded, fought
+desperately on foot, but at length after much entreaty
+accepted the horse ridden by Sutherland's nephew and
+dashed away into the hills, throwing away as he did
+so his star, sword and cloak&mdash;a fatal act, which brought
+about his discovery and death. Their horses were
+next abandoned, and Montrose changed clothes with a
+peasant, and with young lord Kinnoull and Sinclair of
+Caithness plunged into the wild mountains that lay on
+the west.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW17"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw17_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw17.png"
+        alt = "For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them to Caithness."
+        title = "For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them to Caithness." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them to Caithness.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now began for the three fugitives the period of bodily
+anguish that was to cease only with their lives. The
+country was strange to them, and was almost bare of
+inhabitants, so that for two days they sought in vain
+to find a road which might take them to Caithness,
+whence they could escape to France or Norway.
+During these two days they ate absolutely nothing,
+and passed the cold nights under the stars. At length
+Kinnoull, who had always been delicate, flung himself
+down on the heather, and in a few hours died of exhaustion.
+There his friends were forced to leave him,
+without even a grave, and wandered on, their steps
+and their hearts heavier than before, till a light suddenly
+beamed at them out of the dusk. It was a shepherd's
+cottage, where they were given some milk and oatmeal,
+the first food they had eaten since the battle; but the
+man dared not take them into his hut, lest he should
+bring on himself the wrath of the covenant for harbouring
+royalists, even though he knew not who they were.</p>
+
+<p>The reward offered for Montrose sharpened men's
+eyes and ears, and in two days he was discovered lying
+on the mountain side almost too weak to move. It was
+Macleod of Assynt to whom the deadly shame of his
+betrayal is said to belong, and Montrose prayed earnestly
+that the mercy of a bullet in his heart might be vouchsafed
+him. But the man who for many years had defied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+all Scotland could not be dealt with like a common
+soldier, so he was put on a small Shetland pony, with
+his feet tied together underneath, and led through
+roaring, hissing crowds, which pressed to see him in
+every town through which they had to pass. The
+wounds that he had received in the battle were still
+untouched, and he was feverish from the pain. This
+was another cause of rejoicing to his foes; but they were
+careful to give him food lest he should escape them as
+Kinnoull had done. And at each halting-place there
+came a minister to heap insults and reproaches on his
+head, which he seldom deigned to answer. But though
+the ministers of peace and goodwill had no words bad
+enough for him, one is glad to think that Leslie the
+general did what he could, and allowed his friends to see
+him whenever they asked to do so, and also permitted
+him to accept and wear the clothes of a gentleman,
+which were given him by the people of Dundee. It
+was to Leslie also that he probably owed a last interview
+with his two little boys, when he stopped for the
+night at the castle of Kinnaird, from which he had
+been married.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From Dundee the prisoner was brought by ship to
+Leith, and taken to the palace of Holyrood, where he
+was received by the magistrates of the city in their
+robes of office, with the provost (or mayor) at their
+head. Here the order of the Parliament was read,
+and he listened 'with a majesty and state becoming
+him, and kept a countenance high.' Then his friends,
+who, like himself, were prisoners, were ordered to walk,
+chained two together, through the streets, and behind
+came Montrose, seated bareheaded on a chair in a cart
+driven by the hangman. The streets of the old town
+were crowded by people who came to mock and jeer,
+but remained dumb with shame and pity. The cart
+slowly went on its way, and at seven the Tolbooth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+prison was reached, with the gallows thirty feet high
+standing as it had stood twelve years before beside the
+city cross.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The last days of Montrose were disturbed by the
+constant visits of ministers, who tried to force from him
+a confession of treachery to the covenant, but in vain.</p>
+
+<p>'The covenant which I took,' he said, 'I own it
+and adhere to it. Bishops I care not for. I never
+intended to advance their interest. But when the
+king had granted you all your desires, and you were
+everyone sitting under his vine and under his fig tree&mdash;that
+then you should have taken a party in England
+by the hand and entered into a league and covenant
+with them against the king was the thing I judged my
+duty to oppose to the yondmost.'</p>
+
+<p>These words are the explanation of Montrose's
+conduct in changing from one side to another; but little
+he guessed that the new king, by whose express orders
+he had undertaken his present hopeless mission, had
+only a few days before, at the conference of Breda, consented
+to bid his viceroy disband his army and to leave
+Scotland. This knowledge, which would have added
+bitterness to his fate, was spared him; as was the further
+revelation of the baseness of Charles II., who gave
+orders to his messenger not to deliver the document
+if he found Montrose likely to get the upper hand.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As an act of extraordinary generosity the Parliament,
+which had voted to colonel Strachan a diamond
+clasp for his share in the final defeat of Montrose, permitted
+the prisoner's friends to provide him with a
+proper dress, so that he might appear suitably before
+them. Their courtesy did not, however, extend to a
+barber to shave him&mdash;a favour which, as he said, 'might
+have been allowed to a dog.' But he must have looked
+very splendid as he stood at the bar of the House, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+black cloth trimmed with silver, and a deep lace collar,
+with a scarlet cloak likewise trimmed with silver falling
+over his shoulders, a band of silver on his beaver hat,
+and scarlet shoes and stockings.</p>
+
+<p>A long list of his crimes was read to him, and these
+one by one he denied. 'For the league,' he said,
+'I thank God I never was in it, and so could not break
+it. Never was any man's blood spilt save in battle, and
+even then, many thousand lives have I preserved. As
+for my coming at this time, it was by his majesty's
+just commands'&mdash;the commands of the king who a
+week earlier had abandoned him! But of what use are
+words and denial when the doom is already fixed? The
+chancellor's reply was merely a series of insults, and
+then the prisoner was ordered to kneel and hear the
+sentence read by Warriston, by whose side he had stood
+on the scaffold in 1638 when the first covenant was
+read, and old Lord Rothes had made his dark prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>He had known beforehand what it would be&mdash;hanging,
+drawing, and quartering, with a copy of his
+last declaration and the history of his wars tied
+round his neck, and no burial for his body unless
+he confessed his guilt at the last. This did not trouble
+him. 'I will carry honour and fidelity with me to the
+grave' he had said eight years before, and that no
+grave was to be allowed him mattered little.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony over, he was led back to the Tolbooth,
+where his gaoler kept him free from the ministers who
+would fain have thrust their sermons and reproaches
+on the dying man.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Soldiers were early under arms on the morning of
+May 21, for even now the Parliament greatly dreaded
+a rescue. With the 'unaltered countenance' he had
+borne ever since his capture Montrose heard the beating
+of drums and trumpets, and answered calmly the taunt
+of Warriston as to his vanity in dressing his hair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'My head is yet my own,' said Montrose, 'and I will
+arrange it to my taste. To-night, when it will be yours,
+treat it as you please.'</p>
+
+<p>Every roof and window in the High Street and
+within sight of the city cross was filled with people as
+Montrose, clad in scarlet and black, walked calmly
+down at three that afternoon. 'Many of his enemies
+did acknowledge him to be the bravest subject in the
+world,' writes one who beheld him, and he walked up
+the steps as quietly as if he were taking his place to see
+some interesting sight.</p>
+
+<p>They feared him too much to allow him to speak to
+the crowd, as was the custom, but he addressed himself
+to the magistrates and the ministers who were standing
+on the platform. Once more he confessed his faith
+and his loyalty, and when, in accordance with the
+sentence, the hangman suspended the two books round
+his neck, he said, 'they have given me a decoration
+more brilliant than the garter.' Then he mounted the
+ladder, and the hangman burst into tears as he gave
+the last touch.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>So died Montrose, and eleven years later the king
+who had disowned him bethought him of his fate.
+In January 1661 the Parliament, which had been summoned
+by the restored monarch, Charles II., 'thought
+fit to honour Montrose his carcase with a glorious
+second burial, to compensate the dishonour of the
+first.' His limbs, which had been placed over the
+gates of the cities made memorable by his victories,
+remained in state at Holyrood for four months, and
+May 11 was fixed to lay them where they now rest, in
+the church of St. Giles. Heralds in their many-coloured
+robes arranged the procession, and the train-bands
+occupied the street to keep off the dense crowds. The
+magistrates, headed by the provost, walked two and two
+in deep mourning&mdash;had any of them taken part in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+brutal scene eleven years ago?&mdash;and behind them came
+the barons and the burgesses. Next followed the
+dead man's kinsmen bearing his armour, the order of the
+garter, and his field-marshal's baton, and behind the
+coffin came his two sons and most of his kindred.
+Middleton, as lord high commissioner and representative
+of the king, occupied the place of honour, and brought
+up the rear in a coach drawn by six horses, with six
+bareheaded gentlemen riding on each hand.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was Montrose lowered into his grave to the
+sound of the guns that he loved, which thundered
+from the castle. He has a beautiful tomb in the old
+church of St. Giles, adorned with the coats-of-arms of
+the Grahams and Napiers and his other brothers-in-arms.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="A_CHILDS_HERO" id="A_CHILDS_HERO"></a>A CHILD'S HERO</h2>
+
+
+<p>On a dark January day in the year 1858 a little girl
+was running quickly downstairs for her play-hour with
+her elders. Just as she reached the foot of the staircase
+the drawing-room door opened, and her brother
+came out with a grave face. 'Havelock is dead!' said he,
+and at the news the little girl laid her head against the
+wall and burst into tears.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Who was this Havelock, that a strange child should
+care so much about him? Well, he was a man who
+worked hard and fought hard all the days of his life,
+never shirking his duty or envious of the good luck of
+others. Again and again those who had shared the
+burden and heat of the day with Havelock got rewards
+to which it might seem that he had an equal claim;
+still, whatever his disappointment he showed no sign,
+but greeted his fortunate friends cheerfully, and when
+it was required of him served under them with all
+his might. Just at the end the chance came to him
+also, and gloriously he profited by it.</p>
+
+<p>But if you want to know how that came about you
+must begin at the beginning.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Henry Havelock was born at Bishop's Wearmouth,
+close to Sunderland, on April 5, 1795. His grandfather
+was a shipbuilder in the flourishing seaport town, and
+his son, Henry's father, became a partner in the business.
+The Havelocks soon made a name in the trade, and were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+given a commission to build the <i>Lord Duncan</i>, christened
+after the famous admiral, the largest ship ever launched
+from the port.</p>
+
+<p>Money flowed in rapidly, and when Henry was about
+three years old his father determined to leave the north
+and to go and settle at Ingress Hall, near Dartford, in
+Kent, which became the birthplace of his two youngest
+sons, Thomas and Charles.</p>
+
+<p>There was no school nearer than three miles, which
+was too far for them to walk, so to the great delight of
+Henry and his elder brother William ponies were given
+them, and even if they had disliked their lessons
+instead of being fond of books, the pleasure of the ride
+through the lanes would have made up for everything.
+As it was, they were always hanging about the front
+door long before it was time to start, and the moment
+the coachman brought out the ponies from the stable
+they would spring into their saddles in a great bustle,
+and clatter away over the grass, pretending that they
+were very late and would get bad marks if they did not
+hurry.</p>
+
+<p>All through Havelock's childhood the continent of
+Europe was under the foot of Napoleon, and was forced
+to submit to his rule. England only had stood aloof
+and refused his advances; yet she waited, with the dread
+that accompanies the expectation whose fulfilment is
+delayed, for an invasion of her own coasts. No story
+was too bad to be believed of 'Boney,' and women
+are said to have frightened their naughty children
+into good behaviour by threatening to send for 'Boney'
+to carry them away. No doubt Havelock heard a
+great deal from his parents and schoolfellows of the
+desperate wickedness of 'Boney,' but, in spite of the
+terrible pictures that were drawn, the boy devoured
+eagerly all the newspapers wrote of the ogre's campaigns
+and his battles, and never joined in the outcry
+against him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Before Henry had passed his tenth birthday he was
+sent, with his brother William, to the Charterhouse School
+in the City of London, where he stayed for seven years.
+He was always bold and daring, so the other boys
+respected him, even though he did not care much for
+games, and, what was still worse in their eyes, was fond
+of Greek and Latin and always did his work. Still,
+though it was, they said, very silly for a boy to do more
+than he could possibly help, it must be admitted that
+Havelock never minded risking his neck when he was
+dared to do so, would climb trees or chimneys while
+others looked on awe-stricken, and would endure any
+punishment sooner than betray 'a fellow' who was
+caught.</p>
+
+<p>During these years of school Havelock had many
+battles of Napoleon's to study, and we may be sure
+that each one in its turn was thoroughly discussed with
+the friends who afterwards became celebrated in many
+ways&mdash;the historians, Grote and Thirlwall, Eastlake
+the painter, Yates the actor, and Macnaghten, afterwards
+murdered at Cabul, while Havelock was with the
+force on the way to relieve him. As they grew older
+they used to talk over the future together, and not
+one of them doubted that he would be in the front
+rank of whatever profession he might choose. 'My
+mother wants me to be a lawyer, and she is sure that
+one day I shall be lord chancellor,' said Havelock, and
+no doubt every other mother was equally convinced
+of her son's genius. But before his school-days were
+over Mrs. Havelock died, to Henry's great grief, and
+then came the news that their father had lost a great
+deal of money, and they must leave Ingress Hall and
+move to a smaller house at Clifton.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in 1813&mdash;the year of the battle of Leipzig,
+Henry Havelock would have told you&mdash;that the young
+man took the first step towards becoming 'lord chan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>cellor,'
+and was entered at the Middle Temple. He set
+to work with his usual energy, and when he was too
+tired to understand any more of what the law books
+taught him, he would take down a volume of poetry and
+read till he was soothed by the music of the words.
+But at the end of a year a change came into his life.
+His father, whose temper seems to have been ruined by
+the loss of his money, quarrelled with him about some
+trifling matter. Henry's allowance was withdrawn,
+and as he could not live in the Temple upon nothing he
+was forced to bid good-bye to the dream of the chancellorship.</p>
+
+<p>At this time in his life he was perplexed and unhappy,
+though he never gave up the strong religious
+faith which he had inherited from his mother. It was
+necessary that he should earn his living in some way,
+but he could not see what he was to do, and things
+were so uncomfortable at home that he wished to leave
+it as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Happily he had not long to wait, for William, who
+had joined the 43rd Regiment and fought at Busaco
+and Salamanca and Waterloo, came home on leave, and
+solved the puzzle.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In the great battle which finally broke the power of
+Napoleon, William Havelock had been acting as aide-de-camp
+to baron von Alten, who had succeeded to the
+command of general Craufurd's division. We are told
+that William 'had done the baron a service' during
+the engagement, and that the general was anxious to
+prove his gratitude. The special 'service' the young
+soldier had rendered is not mentioned, but we may take
+it for granted that William Havelock had in some way
+saved his life. However, in answer to the general's
+offer of reward, William said that he had all he could
+possibly wish for, and so the matter ended for the
+moment. But when he came home, and found Henry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+with all his plans changed, and not knowing how to set
+about making a career for himself, the baron von
+Alten's words flashed into his mind.</p>
+
+<p>'You were always fond of soldiering,' he said to
+Henry one day, 'and I believe you could describe the
+battles I have fought in almost as well as I could. If the
+baron can give me a commission for you, will you take
+it? I am sure you would make a splendid soldier.'</p>
+
+<p>Henry's eyes beamed. Somehow he had never
+thought of that. At the Charterhouse he had been
+laughed at for his love of books, and called the 'Phlos.'&mdash;short
+for 'Philosopher'&mdash;by the boys. He had
+always, too, been very religious, and after his mother's
+death (which occurred when he was about fourteen)
+had gathered four of his special friends round him
+once or twice a week in the big dormitory where they
+all slept, in order that they might read the Bible together.
+Yet there was in Havelock much of the spirit of the old
+crusader and of his enemy, the follower of Mahomet the
+prophet, and though, unlike them, he did not deal out
+death as the punishment of a rejected faith, still he
+positively delighted in fighting, and indeed looked on it
+as a sacred duty.</p>
+
+<p>So the commission was obtained, and Henry, now
+second lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade, then called the
+95th, was sent to Shorncliffe, and captain Harry Smith
+was his senior officer. The Boer war has made us very
+well acquainted with the name of this gentleman, for in
+after years it was given to the town of Harrismith in
+South Africa, while his wife's has become immortal in
+'Ladysmith.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Young Havelock, who was still under twenty-one,
+made fast friends with his captain, and listened
+eagerly to all he could tell of the Punjaub, where
+Smith had seen much of service. How he longed
+to take part in such deeds! But his turn was slow in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+coming, and for eight years he remained inactive in
+England, while the nation was recovering as best it
+could from the strain of the Peninsular War. Most
+of his messmates grumbled and fretted at having
+'nothing to do,' but this was never Havelock's way,
+for if he could not 'do' what he wanted, he did something
+else. The young man, only five feet six inches in
+height, with the long face and eyes which looked as if
+they saw things that were hidden from other people,
+spent his spare time in studying all that belonged to
+his profession. For hours he would pore over books on
+fortification and tactics, and try to find for himself why
+this or that plan, which seemed so good, turned out
+when tried a hopeless failure. He had always a pile of
+memoirs of celebrated soldiers round him, and often
+bored his brother-officers by persisting in talking of the
+campaigns of Marlborough or Frederick the Great,
+instead of discussing the balls or races that filled their
+minds. Still, though he made the best of the circumstances
+in which he found himself, he looked forward
+to the prospect of going to India, where William and
+Charles already were.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But to get to India it was needful to exchange into
+another regiment, and Henry was gazetted to the 13th
+Light Infantry. The process took some time, but as
+usual he found some work for himself, and prepared for
+his future life by taking lessons in Persian and Hindostanee.</p>
+
+<p>Now there is no better way of learning a language
+than to teach it to somebody else, and on the voyage
+out to Calcutta, which then took four months, some of
+the officers on board ship begged him to form a class in
+these two languages. Havelock had passed in London
+the examination necessary for the degree of a qualified
+Moonshee, or native tutor, and his Persian was so good
+that regularly throughout his life, when his superior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+officers wished to mark their appreciation of his services,
+they recommended him for an interpretership! Therefore
+during those tedious four months, when land was
+seldom seen, and the ship sailed on from St. Helena, whose
+great captive had not been two years dead, to the
+Cape of Good Hope and the island of Ceylon, the little
+band of students met and struggled with the strange
+letters of the two tongues, and by the time the ship
+<i>General Kyd</i> arrived at Calcutta in May 1823, Havelock's
+pupils could all talk a little, and read tolerably.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At first it seemed as if life in India was going to be
+as quiet as life in England, but in 1824 the king of
+Ava, a Burmese city, demanded that Eastern Bengal
+should be given up to him, or war would be instantly
+declared. The answer sent to the 'Lord of the Great
+White Elephant' was a declaration of war on the part
+of our viceroy in India. Sir Archibald Campbell was
+given the command of the invading force, and he
+appointed Havelock to be his deputy-assistant adjutant-general.</p>
+
+<p>It was the young man's first taste of warfare, and
+a very bitter one it proved to be. The experiences
+of Marlborough and Frederick on the battlefields of
+Europe were of little use in the jungle, where the Burmese
+knew a thousand hiding-places undreamed of
+by the English, who had the unhealthy climate to
+fight against as well. At last Havelock fell ill like the
+rest, and was sent to his brother, then stationed at
+Poonah, not far from Bombay, to recover his health.</p>
+
+<p>Havelock went very unwillingly; he was doing his
+work to the satisfaction of the general, and he knew it;
+besides, he could not help thinking that before he got
+better the war might have ended, or someone else
+might be filling his place. However, there was no help
+for it, and as soon as he was on board ship he began to
+feel for the first time how ill he had really been. Once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+at Poonah he soon recovered, and in June was able to
+return to the camp in Burmah.</p>
+
+<p>For a long while it had been Havelock's habit to
+hold a sort of Bible class for any of the men whom
+he could persuade to come to it; and not only did
+he give them religious teaching, but he made them
+understand that he expected them to 'live soberly,
+righteously, and godly,' as the Catechism says. They
+were not to quarrel, or to drink too much, or to do as
+little work as possible. They were to tell the truth,
+even if it got them into trouble, and they were to bear
+the hardships that fall to the lot of every soldier&mdash;hunger
+and thirst, heat and cold&mdash;without grumbling. And
+the men accepted his teaching, and tried to act up to it,
+because they saw that Havelock asked nothing of them
+that he did not practise himself.</p>
+
+<p>'Havelock's Saints' was their nickname among the
+rest of the camp, but sometimes even their enemies
+were forced to admit that 'Havelock's Saints' had their
+uses. One night sir Archibald Campbell ordered a
+sudden attack to be made on the Burmese by a certain
+corps. The messenger or orderly who was sent with the
+order returned saying that the men were too drunk to be
+fit for duty.</p>
+
+<p>'Then call out Havelock's Saints,' said the commander-in-chief;
+'<i>they</i> are always sober and to be
+depended upon, and Havelock himself is always ready.'</p>
+
+<p>So the night attack was made by the 'Saints,'
+and the position carried.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At the end of the Burmese war Havelock returned
+to his regiment, then commanded by colonel Sale, who
+became his lifelong friend. All he had gained in
+Burmah, except experience, was the rank of a Burmese
+noble, conferred on him by the 'Golden King' on account
+of his services in making the treaty of peace. This cost
+the 'Lord of the White Elephant' nothing, and did no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+good to Havelock; and six months after the troops
+left Burmah he was glad to accept the adjutancy of a
+regiment in a pleasant part of India, near some friends.
+Here he became engaged to be married to Miss Marshman,
+daughter of a missionary, and the wedding-day was
+soon fixed. Early that morning the bridegroom received
+a message that he must go up at once to Calcutta
+in order to attend a court-martial to be held at twelve
+o'clock. Calcutta was a long way from Chinsurah,
+and as he was bound to be present at the military
+trial most men would have put off the marriage till
+the following day. But Havelock was different from
+other people. He sent one messenger to order the
+fastest boat on the river to be in waiting, and another
+to inform the bride and her father that they must get
+ready as quickly as possible. The ceremony was
+performed without delay, and as soon as it was over
+Havelock ran down to his boat. For several hours he sat
+in the stifling court, hearing witnesses and asking them
+questions as coolly as if there had been no marriage and
+no bride, and when the proceedings were ended, and the
+sentence passed, he stepped on board the boat again,
+and arrived at Chinsurah in time for the wedding dinner.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After he had been at Chinsurah for four years the
+Government thought they could do without an adjutant,
+and thus save money. This fell hardly on Havelock,
+who was very poor, and when he went back to his
+regiment his wife and child had to live in two tiny
+rooms on the ramparts. Mrs. Havelock never complained,
+but in a hot climate like India plenty of space
+and air are necessary for health, and both father and
+mother were terrified lest the baby should suffer.
+However, very soon the new governor-general gave him
+the adjutancy of his own regiment, then at Agra, and
+things grew brighter. His days were passed in drilling
+and looking after his men, but he still took thought for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+their welfare in their spare hours, and managed to get
+some chapels put up for them, and to open a coffee-house,
+with games and books, which he hoped might
+keep them out of mischief.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now at this date, and for many years after, it was the
+custom in the English army that the officers should
+<i>buy</i> their promotion, unless a vacancy occurred by death.
+Havelock was a poor man, and like many well-known
+Indian soldiers had to depend for luck on his 'steps,'
+or advancement. If, like Havelock, officers exchanged
+into other regiments, they were put back to the bottom
+of the list, and had to work their way up all over again.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this there were <i>two</i> armies in India, one
+belonging to the English sovereign, and the other to the
+East India Company's Service, under which near a
+hundred years before Clive had won his battles. It was
+the officers serving under 'John Company,' as it was
+called, who had all the 'plums' of the profession;
+who governed large provinces, made treaties with the
+native princes, and gave orders even to the general
+himself. Outram, who afterwards entered Lucknow
+side by side with Havelock; sir Henry Lawrence, who
+died defending the city before Outram and Havelock
+fought their way in; John Nicholson, who was killed
+in the siege of Delhi, and hundreds of other well-known
+men, all wore the Company's colours and received rewards.
+For the officers of the royal army it was no uncommon
+thing for a man to wait fifty years before being
+made a general, as lord Roberts's father waited; so,
+although it was very disheartening for Havelock to see
+young men, with not half his brains but with ten times
+his income, become captains and majors and colonels over
+his head, he knew well what he had to expect, and also
+that he possessed thousands of companions in misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by the Company's army was done away
+with, and India is now ruled in an entirely different way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was in the autumn of 1836 that Havelock sent
+up his wife and little children for a change to a hill
+station called Landour. The cool air and quiet were
+very restful after the heat of the summer, and at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+they were all able to sleep, instead of tossing to and
+fro through the dark hours, longing for the dawn.</p>
+
+<p>One night the moon was shining brightly, and Mrs.
+Havelock had stepped out on her verandah before she
+went to bed, and thought how beautiful and peaceful
+everything looked. A few hours later she was awakened
+by a dense smoke, and jumping up found that the house
+was on fire all round her. She snatched up her baby
+and opened the door to get to the room where the two
+little boys were sleeping with their ayah, or nurse,
+but such a rush of flames met her that she staggered
+back and fell. In an instant her thin nightdress was on
+fire, and she was so blinded by the glare and the smoke
+that she did not know which way to turn. Happily
+one of the native servants heard the noise, and, wrapping
+a wet blanket about him which was too damp to burn, he
+managed to crawl over the floor and drag her through
+the verandah to a place of safety. He then ran back
+and succeeded in reaching the two boys and putting them
+beside their mother, but not before the eldest had been
+badly burnt.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW18"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw18_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw18.jpg"
+        alt = "He managed to crawl over the floor."
+        title = "He managed to crawl over the floor." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">He managed to crawl over the floor.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As for the baby, she died in a few days, and it was
+thought that her mother, who had been borne unconscious
+to the house of a neighbour, could hardly survive
+her many hours.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the news which reached Havelock at
+Kurnaul, where the regiment was now stationed. It
+was a crushing blow to him, but, with a violent effort
+to control himself, he sent a hasty request to the colonel
+for leave, and arranged the most important parts of
+his work, so that it might be carried on by another
+officer. He had just finished and was ready to start
+when a message was brought in from the men of his
+regiment, who were waiting below, begging that he
+would speak to them for one moment. Half dazed he
+hurried out to the courtyard, and then the sergeant
+stepped forward from the ranks, and in a few words told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+him of the sorrow with which all his company had heard
+of the terrible calamity, and hoped that he would
+accept a month of their pay to go towards replacing
+the burnt furniture.</p>
+
+<p>Havelock was touched to the heart, and his eyes
+filled with tears of gratitude. His voice shook as he
+stammered out his thanks, but he could not take their
+savings, though to the end of his life he never forgot
+the kindness of their offer. Happily Mrs. Havelock
+did not die, and in a few months was as well as ever.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In 1838, when Havelock had been twenty-three
+years a soldier, he obtained his captaincy by the death
+of the man above him, and in the end of the same year
+the war with Afghanistan gave him another chance of
+distinguishing himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very unfortunate and badly managed business.
+The native ruler, the Ameer or Dost Mohammed,
+who had for twelve years governed the country fairly
+well, was deposed, and a weak and treacherous prince,
+hated by all the Afghans, was chosen by us to replace him.
+This could only be done by the help of our troops,
+and although Englishmen who knew Cabul pointed
+out to the governor-general the folly of his course,
+lord Auckland would listen to no one, and the expedition
+which was to finish in disaster was prepared.</p>
+
+<p>Havelock's old friend sir Willoughby Cotton was
+given the command of the part of the army destined
+for Afghanistan itself, while the other half remained
+as a reserve in the Punjaub. Cotton appointed Havelock
+his aide-de-camp, greatly to his delight, and at the
+end of December 1838 the march began. As far as the
+Indus things went smoothly enough, but after that
+difficulties crowded in upon them. They had deserts
+to cross, and not enough animals to drag their guns
+and waggons, food grew scarcer and scarcer, and at
+length the general ordered 'famine rations' to be served<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+out. It was winter also, and the country was high and
+bitterly cold, and April was nearly at its close before
+the city of Candahar was reached. Here sickness
+broke out among the troops, and they were obliged
+to wait in the town till the crops had ripened and they
+could get proper supplies for their march to Cabul.</p>
+
+<p>The first step towards winning Cabul was the capture
+of Ghuzni, a strong fortress lying two hundred and
+seventy miles to the north of Candahar. This was carried
+by assault during the night, the only gate not walled up
+being blown open by the English. In the rush into the
+town which followed, colonel Sale was thrown on the
+ground while struggling desperately with a huge native,
+who was standing over him.</p>
+
+<p>'Do me the favour to pass your sword through
+the body of the infidel,' cried Sale, politely, to captain
+Kershaw, who had just come up. The captain obligingly
+did as he was asked, and the Afghan fell dead beside his
+foe.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW19"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw19_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw19.png"
+        alt = "The captain obligingly did as he was asked."
+        title = "The captain obligingly did as he was asked." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">The captain obligingly did as he was asked.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Early in August the British army reached the town
+of Cabul, on the river of the same name, and found
+that the Dost Mohammed had fled into the mountains
+of the Hindu Koosh, leaving the city ready to welcome
+the British. As everything was quiet, and the army
+was to remain in Cabul for the winter, Havelock
+obtained permission to go back to Serampore, near
+Calcutta, in the hope of bringing out a book he had
+been writing about the march across the Indus. Unluckily
+this book, like the two others he wrote, proved a
+failure; which was the more unfortunate as, in order
+to get it published, Havelock had been obliged to
+refuse sir Willoughby Cotton's offer of a Persian interpretership.
+But he needed money for his boy's education,
+and thought he might obtain it through his book.
+Therefore this lack of a sale was a bitter disappointment
+to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Just at that time a company of recruits had been
+raised for service in Cabul, and in June 1840 Havelock
+started in charge of them from Serampore. He had
+the whole width of India to cross, and at Ferozepore, on
+a tributary of the Indus, he joined general Elphinstone,
+the successor of Cotton, who was retiring. Why
+Elphinstone should have been chosen to conduct a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+war which the mountainous country was certain to
+render difficult is a mystery, and another mystery is
+why Elphinstone should have accepted the appointment,
+as he was so crippled with gout that he could hardly
+move. However, there he was, commander-in-chief
+of this part of the expedition, and from this unwise
+choice resulted many of the calamities which followed.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The general could not travel fast, and it was more
+than six months before they reached Cabul. Havelock,
+now Persian interpreter to Elphinstone, was much disturbed
+at the condition of things that they found on their
+arrival, and at the folly which had lost us the support
+of the native hill tribes, who had hitherto acted as our
+paid police and guarded the passes leading into the
+Punjaub. So when Sale's brigade, with a native
+regiment, a small force of cavalry and artillery, and a
+few engineers under the famous George Broadfoot,
+marched eastwards up the river Cabul, they discovered
+that the passes had all been blocked by the mountaineers,
+who were ready to spring out and attack the English
+from all sorts of unsuspected hiding-places.</p>
+
+<p>Now Havelock had not drawn his sword since the
+end of the Burmese war, and directly he saw a chance
+of fighting he had begged to be allowed to accept the
+appointment of staff-officer offered him by Sale. This
+was given him, and the troops had only gone a few
+miles from Cabul when the fighting began, and Sale
+was severely wounded.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to tell all the details of the march,
+but much of the burden of it fell on Havelock's shoulders,
+as Sale could not go about and see after things himself.
+Here, as always, he proved himself, as Kaye the historian
+says, 'every inch a soldier.' 'Among our good officers,'
+wrote Broadfoot at the time, 'first comes captain
+Havelock. The whole of them together would not
+compensate for his loss. He is brave to admiration,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+invariably cool, and, as far as I can see or judge, correct
+in his views.'</p>
+
+<p>All along the march up the Cabul these qualities
+were badly needed, for it was necessary to watch night
+and day lest the little army should be taken unawares
+by the hill tribes. At last the rocky country was left
+behind, and they halted in the rich and well-wooded
+town of Gundamak, to rest for a little and to wait
+Elphinstone's orders. The letters, when they came,
+told a fearful tale. The Afghans had risen in Cabul;
+Burnes, the East India Company's officer in Afghanistan,
+had been murdered, together with other men, among
+them Broadfoot's brother, and though there were
+five thousand British troops stationed only two miles
+away, as Havelock well knew, they had never been
+called out to quell the insurrection.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances Elphinstone implored
+Sale to return without delay to Cabul.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A council of war was held to decide what was to be
+done. They all saw that if it had been difficult to get
+through the passes before, it would be almost impossible
+now, when the success at Cabul had given fresh courage
+and audacity to the hill-men, and thousands who had
+hung back waiting to know if the insurrection would
+be successful or not would have rushed to the help of
+their country. Besides, with five thousand fresh troops
+close to the city, the English could hardly be in such
+desperate straits. So Sale decided to disobey Elphinstone's
+orders and to push on to Jellalabad further
+up the river.</p>
+
+<p>Jellalabad was not reached without much fighting,
+and when they entered the town it was clear that it
+would not be easy to hold, and that the walls stood in
+much need of repair. However, Broadfoot was the
+kind of man who felt that whatever <i>had</i> to be done
+<i>could</i> be done, and he turned out his corps, consisting of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+natives of every tribe, to work on the fortifications.
+Happily he had brought with him from Cabul all the
+tools that were necessary, and the Afghan fire which
+poured in upon them was soon checked by Colonel
+Monteath, who scattered the enemy for the time being.</p>
+
+<p>This left the garrison a chance of getting in supplies;
+but they were short of powder and shot, and orders
+were issued that it should not be used unnecessarily.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>On the morning of January 8, 1842, three Afghans
+rode into the town, bearing a letter from Cabul, signed
+both by sir Henry Pottinger and general Elphinstone.
+This told them that a treaty had been concluded by
+which the English had agreed to retire from Afghanistan,
+and bidding Sale to quit Jellalabad at once and proceed
+to India, leaving behind him his artillery and any
+stores or baggage that he might not be able to carry
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>With one voice the council of war, which was hastily
+summoned, declined once more to obey these instructions,
+which they declared had been wrung out of Elphinstone
+by force. Jellalabad should be held at any cost, and the
+news that they received during the following week only
+strengthened their resolution. The British in Cabul
+were hemmed in by their enemies, the cantonments or
+barracks were deserted, and the sixteen thousand
+fugitives had been surrounded outside the city by
+Afghan troops led by the son of the Dost Mohammed.
+These things gave the defenders of Jellalabad enough to
+think of, and to fear.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Five days later some officers on the roof of a tall
+house were sweeping the horizon with their field glasses
+to see if there was any chance of an attack from the
+Afghans, who were always hovering about watching for
+some carelessness on the part of the besieged. But
+gaze as they might, nothing was moving in the broad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+valley, or along the banks of the three streams which
+watered it. They were turning away satisfied that at
+present there was no danger, when one of them uttered
+a sudden cry, and snatching the glasses from his companion,
+exclaimed, 'Yes, I am right. A man riding a
+pony has just come round that corner. It is the Cabul
+road, and his clothes are English. Look!'</p>
+
+<p>The others looked, and saw for themselves. The
+pony's head drooped, and he was coming wearily down
+the road, while it was clear that the rider was urging the
+poor beast to his best speed. A chill feeling of disaster
+filled the little group; they hastened down to the walls
+and gave a shout of welcome, and the man waved his
+cap in answer.</p>
+
+<p>'Throw open the gate,' said the major, and they all
+rushed out to hear what the stranger had to tell.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was a fearful tale. The general in Cabul had
+listened to the promises of the son of the Dost Mohammed,
+and had ordered the five thousand troops and ten
+thousand other hangers-on of the British army to leave
+their position, in which they were safe, and trust themselves
+solely to the Afghans. Cold, hungry, and tired
+they struggled to the foot of the mountains; then the
+signal was given, the Afghans fell on their victims, and
+the few who escaped were lost among the snows of the
+passes. Only Dr. Brydon had been lucky enough to
+strike a path where no one followed him, and in spite of
+wounds and exhaustion had managed to reach the walls
+of Jellalabad.</p>
+
+<p>In silence the men listened, horror in their faces. It
+seemed impossible that Englishmen should have walked
+blindfold into such a trap, and besides the grief and
+rage they felt at the fate of their countrymen another
+thought was in the minds of all. The Afghans would be
+intoxicated by their success, and at any moment might
+swoop down upon the ill-defended Jellalabad. Instantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+the gates were closed, the horses saddled, and every man
+went to his post. At night bonfires were lit and bugles
+sounded every half-hour to guide to the city any fugitives
+that might be hiding in the woods or behind the rocks.
+But none came&mdash;none ever came save Brydon.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Meanwhile Sale was daily expecting a relief force
+under Wild; but instead there arrived the news that
+Wild had been unable to fight his way through the
+terrible Khyber Pass&mdash;the scene of more than one tragedy
+in Indian history.</p>
+
+<p>In face of this a council of war was again held to
+consider what was best to be done. Most of the officers
+wished to abandon the city and make terms with the
+Afghans, in spite of the lesson that had already been
+given them of what was the fate of those who trusted
+to Afghan faith. Only Broadfoot and Havelock
+opposed violently this resolution, and in the end their
+views prevailed. Jellalabad was to be defended by
+the garrison till general Pollock arrived from the
+East.</p>
+
+<p>So matters went for the next three months. By
+this time the raw troops that had entered the city had
+become steady and experienced soldiers. There was
+a little fighting every now and then, which served to
+keep up their spirits, and though food needed to be
+served out carefully, they were able sometimes to drive
+in cattle from the hills, which gave them fresh supplies.
+On February 19 Sale received a letter from general
+Pollock asking how long they could hold out, and he was
+writing an answer at a table, with Havelock beside him,
+when suddenly the table began to rock and the books
+slid on to the ground. Then a whirlwind of dust rushed
+past the window, making everything black as night, and
+the floor seemed to rise up under their feet.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW20"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw20_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw20.jpg"
+        alt = "Suddenly the table began to rock."
+        title = "Suddenly the table began to rock." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Suddenly the table began to rock.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The two men jumped up, and, blinded and giddy as
+they were, made their way outside, where they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+nearly deafened with the noise of tumbling houses and
+the cries of hurt and frightened people. It was no use
+to fly, for havoc was all round them, and they were no
+safer in one place than another. At last the earth ceased
+to tremble and houses to fall; the dust stopped dancing
+and whirling, and the sun once more appeared.</p>
+
+<p>During the first shock of the earthquake Broadfoot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+was standing with another officer on the ramparts, his
+eyes fixed on the defences, which had caused him so
+much labour, and were now falling like nine-pins.</p>
+
+<p>'This is the time for Akbar Khan,' he said, and if
+Akbar had not dreaded the earthquake more than
+British guns the massacre of Cabul would have been
+repeated in Jellalabad. But though Akbar feared
+greatly, he knew that his soldiers feared yet more; he
+waited several days till the earth seemed peaceful again,
+and then rode up to a high hill from which he could
+overlook the city.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, it is witchcraft!' he cried, as he saw the
+defences all in their places; for Broadfoot's men had
+worked so well that in a week everything had been
+rebuilt exactly as before.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>March passed with some skirmishes, but when April
+came the senior officers told Sale that they strongly
+advised an attack on Akbar, who, with six thousand men,
+had taken up a position on the Cabul river two miles
+from Jellalabad, and had placed an outpost of three
+hundred picked men only three-quarters of a mile outside
+the walls. Broadfoot had been badly wounded
+in a skirmish a fortnight before, and could not fight,
+so the attacking party, consisting of three divisions
+of five hundred each, were led by Dennie, Monteath and
+Havelock. Dennie was mortally wounded in trying to
+carry the outpost, and Havelock halted and formed
+some of his men into a square to await Akbar's
+charge, leaving part of his division behind a walled
+enclosure to the right.</p>
+
+<p>Having made his arrangements, Havelock stood
+outside the square and near to the wall, so that he could
+command both parties, and told his troops to wait till
+the Afghans were close upon them before they fired;
+but in their excitement they disobeyed orders, and
+Havelock's horse, caught between two fires, plunged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+and threw him. In another moment he would have
+been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry
+had not three of his soldiers dashed out from the ranks
+and dragged him into the square.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW21"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw21_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw21.png"
+        alt = "In another moment he would have been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry."
+        title = "In another moment he would have been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">In another moment he would have been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>The enemy were thrown into confusion and retired
+to re-form. They charged again, and were again repulsed,
+and by seven that morning Akbar's camp was
+abandoned and his power broken.</p>
+
+<p>Pollock's assistance had not been needed; the
+garrison of Jellalabad had delivered themselves.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>There is no room in this story to tell of the many
+wars in which Havelock took part during the next
+fifteen years, always doing good work and gaining the
+confidence of his commanding officers. He fought in the
+war with the Mahrattas in 1843, and was made lieutenant-colonel
+after the battle of Maharajpore. The following
+year he was fighting by sir Hugh Gough's side in the
+Punjaub against the Sikhs, who were the best native
+soldiers in India, and had been carefully trained by
+French officers. In this war four battles took place in
+fifty-five days, all close to the river Sutlej, but the
+last action at the village of Sobraon put an end to
+hostilities for two years to come.</p>
+
+<p>'India has been saved by a miracle,' writes Havelock,
+'but the loss was terrific on both sides.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In 1849 Havelock, who had exchanged from the
+13th into the 39th, and again into the 53rd, applied
+for leave of absence to join his family in England. It
+was his first visit home for twenty-six years, and everything
+was full of interest to him. His health had broken
+down, and if he had been rich enough he would certainly
+have retired; but he had never been able to save a six-pence,
+and there were five sons and two daughters
+to be educated and supported. Should he die, Mrs.
+Havelock would have a pension of 70<i>l.</i> a year, and
+the three youngest children 20<i>l.</i> each till they were
+fourteen, when it would cease. This, in addition to
+1,000<i>l.</i> which he possessed, was all the family had to
+depend on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Therefore, leaving them at Bonn, on the Rhine, where
+teaching was good and living cheap, he returned to India
+in December 1851, rested both in mind and body, and in
+good spirits. To his great joy a few months later his
+eldest son was given the adjutancy of the 10th Foot,
+and he himself was promoted to various posts where the
+pay was good and the work light. Now that he had
+some leisure he went back to his books, and in a letter
+to his youngest son, George, on his fifth birthday, he
+bids him read all the accounts he can find of the battles
+that had just been fought in the Crimea&mdash;Alma, Balaclava,
+and Inkerman&mdash;and when his father came home to
+England again he would make him drawings, and show
+him how they were fought. But little George had to
+understand the battles as best he might, for his father
+never came back to explain them to him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After serving in Persia during the early part of 1857,
+Havelock was suddenly ordered to return to India
+to take part in the struggle which gave him undying
+fame, and a grave at Lucknow before the year was out.
+According to the testimony of Kaye the historian, for half
+a century he had been seriously studying his profession,
+and knew every station between Burmah and Afghanistan!
+'Military glory,' says Kaye, 'was the passion
+of his life, but at sixty-two he had never held an independent
+command.'</p>
+
+<p>Now, in the mutiny which had shaken our rule to its
+foundation, all Havelock's study of warfare and all his
+experience were to bear fruit. A great many causes had
+led up to that terrible outbreak of the native soldiers,
+or sepoys, early in 1857. India is, as you perhaps
+know, a huge country made up of different nations, some
+of whom are Mahometans, or followers of the prophet
+Mahomet, and worshippers of one God, while most of the
+rest have a number of gods and goddesses. These nations
+are divided into various castes or classes, each with its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+own rules, and the man of one caste will not eat food
+cooked by the man of another, or touch him, or marry
+his daughter, lest he should become unclean.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see how an army composed of all these
+races would be very hard to manage, especially as it is
+impossible for any white man, who is used to changes
+going on about him, really to understand the minds of
+people who have followed the same customs from father
+to son for thousands of years. And if it is difficult for
+the English officers to understand the Hindoos, it is too
+much to expect that soldiers without education should
+do so either.</p>
+
+<p>The true cause of the mutiny which wrought such
+havoc in so short a time in the north of India was that
+the number of our British soldiers had been greatly
+reduced, and some had been sent to the Crimea, some
+to Persia, and some to Burmah. Besides this, the
+government had been very weak for many years in its
+dealings with the native troops. Whenever the sepoys
+chose to grumble, which was very often indeed, their
+grievances were listened to, and they were generally
+given what they wanted&mdash;and next time, of course, they
+wanted more. To crown all, our arsenals containing
+military stores were mostly left unprotected, as well as
+our treasuries, and from the Indus to the Ganges the
+native army was waiting for a pretext to shake off the
+British rule.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>This they found in an order given by the commander-in-chief
+that a new sort of rifle, called the Enfield
+rifle, should be used throughout India, and it was necessary
+that the cartridges with which it was loaded should
+be greased. As early as the month of January an
+English workman employed in the factory of Dumdum,
+near Calcutta, where the cartridges were made, happened
+one day to ask a sepoy soldier belonging to the
+2nd Grenadiers to give him some water from his brass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+pot. This the sepoy refused, saying that he did not know
+what caste the man was of, and his pot might be defiled
+if he drank from it. 'That is all very fine,' answered
+the workman, 'but you will soon have no caste left yourself,
+as you will be made to bite off the ends of cartridges
+smeared with the fat of pigs and cows'&mdash;animals
+which the Hindoos held to be unclean.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW22"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw22_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw22.png"
+        alt = "'You will soon have no caste left yourself.'"
+        title = "'You will soon have no caste left yourself.'" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'You will soon have no caste left yourself.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This story speedily reached the ears of the officer in
+charge at Dumdum, and on inquiry he found that the
+report had been spread through the native army that
+their caste was to be destroyed by causing them to
+touch what would defile them.</p>
+
+<p>General Hearsey, the commander of the Bengal
+division, instantly took what steps he could to prove
+to the sepoys that the government had no intention of
+making them break their caste, but it was too late.
+Chupatties, little cakes which are the common food of
+the people, were sent from town to town as a signal of
+revolt, and on February 19, 1857, the first troops mutinied.</p>
+
+<p>This was only the beginning; the message of the
+chupatties spread further and further, but even now
+the government failed to understand the temper of the
+people. The regiment which had been the earliest to
+rebel were merely disarmed and disbanded, and even
+this sentence was not carried out for five weeks, while
+they were allowed to claim their pay as usual. It is
+needless to say that in a few weeks the whole of Northern
+India was in a flame; the king of Delhi was proclaimed
+emperor, and every European who came in the way of
+the sepoys was cruelly murdered.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Such was the state of things found by Havelock when
+he landed in Bombay from Persia, and was immediately
+sent on by the governor by sea to Calcutta, to resume
+his appointment of adjutant-general to the royal troops
+in Bengal. On the way his ship was wrecked, and he
+had to put in to Madras, where he heard that the com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>mander-in-chief
+was dead, and that sir Patrick Grant,
+an old friend of Havelock's, had been nominated temporarily
+to the post.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as possible Havelock hurried on to Calcutta
+in company with Grant, and there the news reached
+them that Lucknow was besieged by the celebrated
+Nana Sahib, the leader of the sepoys and a skilful
+general, and that a force was being got ready to go to
+its relief.</p>
+
+<p>'Your excellency, I have brought you the man,' said
+Grant to lord Canning as he presented Havelock, and
+the command of the 64th and the 78th Highlanders was
+entrusted to him. These last he knew well, as they had
+been with him in Persia, and he thought them 'second
+to none' in the service.</p>
+
+<p>But before you can understand all the difficulties
+Havelock had to fight with I must tell you a little
+about the towns on his line of march.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The instructions given to Havelock were to go first
+to the important city of Allahabad, situated at the
+place where the Ganges joins the Jumna. Allahabad
+had revolted in May, and the English garrison now
+consisted mainly of a few artillerymen between fifty
+and seventy years of age. Benares, the 'Holy City'
+of the Hindoos, a little further down the Ganges, had
+been saved by the prompt measures of the resident and
+the arrival of colonel Neill with a detachment of the
+1st Fusiliers. The soldiers had come up from Madras
+and were instantly ordered to Benares, but when
+they reached the Calcutta station they found that the
+train which was to take them part of the way was just
+starting.</p>
+
+<p>The railway officials declared that there was no time
+for the troops to get in, and they would have to wait
+for the next train&mdash;many hours after. For all answer
+Neill turned to his troops, and told them to hold the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+engine driver and stoker till the company was seated.
+But for this the soldiers could not have got to Benares
+in time, for that very night had been fixed for the
+revolt.</p>
+
+<p>Having put down the rising at Benares, Neill pushed
+on over the eighty miles that separated him from
+Allahabad, the largest arsenal in India except Delhi. For
+five days the sepoys had been killing and plundering the
+British. On hearing of Neill's approach, two thousand
+of them encamped near the fort in order to hold it, but
+an attack of the Fusiliers soon dispersed them, and the
+commander ordered a large number to be executed in
+order to strike terror into the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Bad as was the state of things at Allahabad, where
+the railway had been destroyed and the garrison was
+weak, it was still worse in Cawnpore, a hundred and
+twenty miles higher up the Ganges. Here sir Hugh
+Wheeler was in command, and having spent his whole
+life among the sepoys it was long before he would
+believe in the tales of their treason. Even when at
+length his faith was partly shaken by the deeds done
+under his eyes, he still did not take all the precautions
+that were needful. His little fort, which was to be the
+last refuge of the sick and wounded, women and children,
+in case of attack, was a couple of barracks one brick
+thick, which had hitherto been used as a hospital, and
+in this he gave orders that provisions for a twenty-five
+days' siege should be stored. This was the place for
+which he intended to abandon the powder magazine,
+where he could have held the enemy at bay for months.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With inconceivable carelessness nobody saw that
+the orders for provisioning the fort were properly
+carried out, or the works of defence capable of resisting
+an attack. By May 22, however, even sir Hugh Wheeler
+was convinced that there was danger abroad, and he
+directed that the women and children, whose numbers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+were now swelled by fugitives from Lucknow and the
+surrounding towns, should be placed in it. Altogether
+the refugees amounted to about five hundred, and the
+force of men to defend them was about equal.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The expected siege did not begin till June 6, when
+the plain which surrounds Cawnpore was black with
+sepoys, led by the treacherous Nana. For three weeks
+the prisoners inside the fort underwent the most frightful
+sufferings of every kind, and had it not been for the
+women the garrison would have tried to cut their way
+through to the river. As it was they felt they must
+stay&mdash;till the end.</p>
+
+<p>So the soldiers fought on, and the women helped as
+best they might, giving their stockings as bags for grape-shot,
+and tearing up their clothes to bind up wounds,
+till they had scarcely a rag to cover them. One, the
+gallant wife of a private of the 32nd, Bridget Widdowson,
+stood, sword in hand, over a number of prisoners tied
+together by a rope. Not one of their movements
+passed unnoticed by her; her gun was instantly
+levelled at the hand which was trying to untie the
+rope, and not a man of them escaped while in her
+charge. By-and-by she was relieved by a soldier, and in
+his care many of them got away.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW23"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw23_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw23.png"
+        alt = "Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her."
+        title = "Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>At length hope sprung up in their hearts, for Nana
+offered a safe-conduct for the garrison down the Ganges
+to Allahabad, if only sir Hugh Wheeler would surrender
+the city. It was a hard blow to the old general, and
+but for the women and children he and his men would
+gladly have died at their posts. But for their sakes
+he accepted the terms, first making Nana swear to keep
+them by the waters of the Ganges, the most sacred of all
+oaths to a Hindoo.</p>
+
+<p>The following morning a train of elephants, litters and
+carts was waiting to carry the sick, the women, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+children down to the river, a mile away, for after their
+terrible imprisonment they were all too weak to walk;
+and behind them marched the soldiers, each with his
+rifle. Crowds lined the banks and watched them as they
+got into the boats, and pushed off with thankful hearts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+into the middle of the stream, leaving behind them, as
+they thought, the place where they had undergone such
+awful suffering. Suddenly those looking towards the
+shore saw a blinding flash and heard a loud report.
+Nana had broken his oath and ordered them to be
+fired on.</p>
+
+<p>One boat alone out of the whole thirty-nine managed
+to float down the stream, and the men in it landed
+and took refuge in a little temple, the maddened
+sepoys at their heels. But the fourteen Englishmen
+were desperate, and drove back their enemies again and
+again, till the sepoys heaped wood outside the walls
+and set it on fire. It was blowing hard, and the wind
+instead of fanning the flames put them out, and the
+defenders breathed once more. But their hopes were
+dashed again as they saw the besiegers set fire to the
+logs a second time, and, retiring to a safe distance, lay a
+trail of powder to blow up the temple. Then the men
+knew they had but one chance, and fixing their bayonets
+they charged into the crowd towards the river.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the banks, seven had got through,
+and flung themselves into the stream. Half-starved
+and weak as they were, they could scarcely make head
+against the swift current, and three sank and disappeared.
+The other four were stronger swimmers,
+and contrived to hold out till they arrived at the
+territory of an Oude rajah who was friendly to the
+English.</p>
+
+<p>It was while they were resting here that they heard
+of the awful fate of their countrymen. After a time
+Nana had desired that the women and children should
+be spared, and the remnant were brought back to
+Cawnpore. They were lodged, all of them, in two
+rooms, and here these stayed, hardly able to breathe,
+and almost thankful when the expected doom fell on
+them. After their sufferings death was welcome, even
+though it came by the hand of Nana Sahib.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All this time Havelock (now brigadier-general), ignorant
+of the horrors that were taking place, was
+advancing towards Cawnpore, which he knew must be
+in the hands of the English before it was possible to
+relieve Lucknow, lying further away across the plain
+to the north-west of Allahabad. Neill had sent forward
+a detachment of four hundred British soldiers
+and three hundred Sikhs under major Renaud, and
+Havelock, who had arrived in the town just as they
+were starting, promised to follow in a day or two, as
+soon as he could get ready a larger force. Eager soldier
+though he was, he had long ago laid to heart the truth
+of the old saying, 'for want of a nail the shoe was lost;
+for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse
+the man was lost; for want of a man the kingdom was
+lost,' and he always took care that his nails were in their
+places. Therefore he waited a few days longer than he
+expected to do, and spent the time in enlisting a body of
+volunteer cavalry, formed partly of officers of the native
+regiments who had mutinied, of ruined shopkeepers, of
+fugitive planters, and of anybody else that could be
+taught to hold a gun.</p>
+
+<p>The general was still asleep in the hot darkness of
+July 1 when a tired horseman rode into camp and
+demanded to see him without delay. He was shown
+at once into the general's tent, and in a few short words
+explained that he had been sent by Renaud with the
+tidings of the massacre of Cawnpore.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW24"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw24_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw24.jpg"
+        alt = "A tired horseman rode into camp."
+        title = "A tired horseman rode into camp." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">A tired horseman rode into camp.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Six days later 'Havelock's Ironsides,' numbering
+under two thousand men, of whom a fourth were
+natives, began the march to Cawnpore, and five days
+after the start they had won about half-way to the city
+the battle of Futtehpore. It was the first time since
+the mutiny broke out that the sepoys had been beaten
+in the field, and it shook their confidence, while it gave
+fresh courage to sir Henry Lawrence and the heroic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+band in the residency of Lucknow. But the relief
+which they hoped for was still many months distant,
+and Havelock was fighting his way inch by inch, across
+rivers, over bridges, along guarded roads, with soldiers
+often half-fed, and wearing the thick clothes that they
+had carried through the snows of a Persian winter.
+But they never flinched and never grumbled&mdash;they
+could even laugh in the midst of it all! During a
+fierce struggle for a bridge over the Pandoo river, one
+of the 78th Highlanders was killed by a round shot
+close to where Havelock was standing.</p>
+
+
+<p>'He has a happy death, Grenadiers,' remarked the
+general, 'for he died in the service of his country'; but a
+voice answered from behind:</p>
+
+<p>'For mysel, sir, gin ye've nae objection, I wud
+suner bide alive in the service of ma cuntra.' And let
+us hope he did.</p>
+
+<p>The guns across the bridge were captured with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+dash, and the sepoys retreated on Cawnpore. In spite
+of their victory our men were too tired to eat, and
+flung themselves on the ground where they were. Next
+morning, July 16, they set out on a march of sixteen
+miles, after breakfasting on porter and biscuits, having
+had no other food for about forty hours.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the sixteen miles march, which they
+had performed under a burning sun, the bugles sounded
+a halt. For three hours the troops rested and fed, and
+then two sepoys who had remained loyal to their salt
+came in with the news that in front of us Nana Sahib,
+with five thousand men and eight guns, was drawn up
+across the Grand Trunk road, down which he expected
+our guns to pass; and doubtless they would have
+been sent that way had it not been for the timely
+warning. Now Havelock, with a strong detachment,
+crept round through some mango groves between
+the enemy's left flank and the Ganges, and attacked
+from behind; the sepoys wheeled round in a hurry and
+confusion, and the Nana dared not order his right and
+centre to fire lest they should injure his own men, and
+before he could re-form them the pipers of the 78th
+had struck up and the Highlanders were upon them,
+the sound of the slogan striking terror into the heart
+of the Hindoos. Once more the Scots charged, led
+this time by Havelock himself, and the position was
+carried.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the Nana was hard to beat, and on the road to
+Cawnpore he halted again, and fresh troops streamed out
+from the gates to his help. It was his last chance; but
+he knew that the little British army was wearied out, and
+he counted on his reinforcements from the city. But
+Havelock noted the first sign of flagging as his men were
+marching across the ploughed fields heavy with wet,
+and knew that they needed the spur of excitement.
+'Come, who is to take that village, the Highlanders
+or the Sixty-fourth?' cried he, and before the words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+were out of his mouth there was a rush forwards, and
+the village was taken.</p>
+
+<p>Still, even now the battle of Cawnpore was not ended.
+Once more the sepoys re-formed, but always nearer the
+city, and their deadly fire was directed full upon us.
+The general would have waited till our guns came up
+to answer theirs, but saw that the men were getting
+restless. So turning his pony till he faced his troops,
+while the enemy's guns were thundering behind him,
+he said lightly:</p>
+
+<p>'The longer you look at it the less you will like it.
+The brigade will advance, the left battalion leading.'</p>
+
+<p>The enemy's rout was complete, even before our
+guns had reached the field of battle. Next morning the
+news was brought in that while the battle for the
+deliverance was being fought the women and children
+inside the walls had been shot by order of the Nana.
+And, as a final blow, when, the day after, the victor rode
+through the gate of Cawnpore, a messenger came to
+tell him that his old friend sir Henry Lawrence, the
+defender of Lucknow, had been struck by a shell a fortnight
+previously, and had died two days later in great
+agony.</p>
+
+<p>'Put on my tombstone,' he gasped in an interval
+of pain, 'here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his
+duty, and may God have mercy on him.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For a while it seemed to Havelock that his whole
+mission had been a failure; and indeed he is said never
+to have recovered the two shocks that followed so close
+on each other, though there was no time to think about
+his feelings or indulge regret. Like Lawrence, he must
+'try to do his duty,' and the first thing was to put the
+town in a state of defence lest the Nana should return,
+and sternly to check with the penalty of death the
+plundering and drunkenness and other crimes of his
+victorious army. Then, leaving Neill with three hun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>dred
+men in Cawnpore, he prepared to cross the Ganges,
+now terribly swollen by the late rains, into the kingdom
+of Oude, of which Lucknow is the capital.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Not for a moment did Havelock make light of the
+difficulties that lay before him. They would have
+been great enough with a large force, and his was now
+reduced to twelve hundred British soldiers, three hundred
+Sikhs, and ten guns, while cholera had begun to make
+its appearance. However, the passage had to be made
+somehow, and there must be no delay in making it.</p>
+
+<p>First, boats were collected, and as the boatmen
+secretly sided with the sepoys, the hundreds of little
+craft generally to be seen on the river had vanished.
+At length about twenty were found concealed, and as
+the Ganges was dangerous to cross in its present state,
+the old boatmen were bribed, by promises of safe-conduct
+and regular pay, to pilot the troops to the
+Oude bank. Even under their skilled guidance the
+river was so broad that a boat could not perform the
+passage under eight hours, and a week passed before
+the whole force was over and encamped on a strong
+position in Oude.</p>
+
+<p>Well, they were at last on the same side as
+Lucknow&mdash;that was something; but they still had
+forty-five miles to march, wide rivers to cross, and Nana
+to fight, and Havelock knew that the sepoy general had
+an instinct for war as keen as his own. But Lucknow
+must be relieved, and the sooner the work was begun
+the better.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Two days after the landing of the British a battle
+was fought at Onao against the steady, well-disciplined
+soldiers of Oude, whose gunners were said to be the
+best in India. The fighting was fiercer than any
+Havelock had yet experienced, but in the end the enemy
+was beaten back and fifteen guns taken. The next day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+there was another battle and another victory, but the
+general had lost a sixth of his men and a third of his ammunition&mdash;and
+he had only gone one-third of the way.
+Nana Sahib was hovering about with a large body of
+troops, ready to fall on him; how under the circumstances
+was it possible for him to reach Lucknow?</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, with soreness of heart, he gave the order
+to fall back till the reinforcements which he had been
+promised came up, and to send the sick and wounded,
+of which there were now many, across to Cawnpore.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Deep was the gloom and disappointment of the
+'Ironsides' as they marched back along the road they
+had come; but far deeper and more awful was the
+disappointment of the garrison at Lucknow. They
+had looked on relief as so near and so certain that their
+hardships seemed already things of the past. Now
+it appeared as if they were abandoned, and the horrors
+of the siege felt tenfold harder to bear. In the heat
+of an Indian summer the women and children were
+forced to leave the upper part of the residency, where
+at least there was light and air, and seek safety in tiny
+rooms almost under ground, where shot and shell were
+less likely to penetrate. These cellars were swarming
+with large rats, and, what was worse, there was a constant
+plague of flies and other insects. Luckily, sir Henry
+Lawrence had collected large stores before he died, and
+had hidden away a quantity of corn so securely that
+colonel Inglis, the present commander, had no idea of its
+existence, and not knowing how long the siege might
+last, was very careful in dealing out rations. There was
+no milk or sugar for the babies, and many of them died.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC05"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour05_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour05.jpg"
+        alt = "The place was swarming with rats."
+        title = "The place was swarming with rats." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">The place was swarming with rats.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Neill sent over urgent requests that
+Havelock would come to his assistance in Cawnpore,
+as he was threatened on all sides and could not
+hold out in case of an attack. Most reluctantly the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+general gave the order to recross the Ganges, but before
+doing so gave battle to a body of troops entrenched
+in his rear, and caused them to retreat. This raised
+the spirits of his soldiers a little, and they entered
+Cawnpore in a better temper than they had been in since
+their marching orders had been given.</p>
+
+<p>It was while he was in Cawnpore that Havelock
+received notice that major-general Outram was starting
+from Calcutta to his assistance, and owing to his superior
+rank in the army would naturally take command over
+Havelock's head, as successor to major-general sir
+Hugh Wheeler. This Havelock quite understood,
+and though disappointed, felt no bitterness on the
+subject, welcoming Outram as an old friend, under
+whom he was ready to serve cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>Outram's answer to the generous spirit of Havelock's
+reception was a proclamation which showed that he
+understood and appreciated the services which seemed
+so ill-rewarded by the government, and that he too
+would not be behindhand in generosity. Till Lucknow
+was taken Havelock should be still in command, and
+it was Outram himself who would take the lower position.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Havelock had entered Cawnpore for the
+second time, he gave orders to break down the bridges
+of boats which had been thrown across the Ganges, so
+as to check any pursuit from the enemy. Therefore
+a floating bridge must be built over which the troops
+might pass; and so hard did the men work, that in three
+days the little army, consisting, with Outram's reinforcements,
+of 3,179 soldiers, was once more in Oude.</p>
+
+<p>Here the sepoys were awaiting them, but they were
+soon put to flight and some guns captured. In the
+confusion of the retreat the defeated army quite forgot
+to destroy the bridge over the Sye, a deep river flowing
+across the plain between the Ganges and the Goomtee,
+so that when the British force arrived next day they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+found nothing to prevent their crossing at once, as
+even the fortifications on this further bank had been
+abandoned. Soon a faint noise, as of thunder, broke
+on their ears. The men looked at each other and said
+nothing, but their eyes grew bright and their feet trod
+more lightly.</p>
+
+<p>It was the sound of the guns of Lucknow, sixteen
+miles away.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>On September 23 the British army reached the
+Alumbagh, the beautiful park and garden belonging
+to the king of Oude. Opposite 12,000 sepoys
+were drawn up, the right flank being protected by a
+swamp. In front of them was a ditch filled with
+water from the recent heavy rains, and the road itself
+was deep in mud, so that the passage of heavy guns
+was a difficult matter. But the soldiers came along with
+a gallop and got through the ditch somehow, following
+our cavalry, which were already on the other side.
+On they flew, cavalry and gunners, wheeling so as to
+get behind the right of the sepoys, while Eyre's artillery,
+stationed in the road, raked with fire the centre and
+the left. The enemy wavered and showed signs of
+giving way, but one gun manned by Oude artillerymen
+remained steady. Then young Johnson, who led the
+Irregular Horse, dashed along the road for half a mile,
+followed by a dozen of his men, killed the gunners and
+threw the gun into the ditch. When he returned to his
+post the enemy was flying to the Charbagh bridge
+across the canal, with our army behind them.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was no use attempting to take the bridge that day;
+the troops were exhausted and wet through, and the
+position strongly fortified. The order was given to
+encamp, but there were no tents and no baggage, and
+after drinking some grog which was fortunately obtained,
+the men lay down on the wet ground wrapped in their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+great-coats, the rain pouring heavily on them. But
+wet, weary and hungry as they were, a great shout of
+joy rent the air when Outram announced that he had
+just received news that Delhi had been recaptured by
+the English.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The next day the sun was shining, and as the baggage
+waggons came up the men changed the soaking clothes,
+and slept and rested while the generals anxiously
+discussed the best plan for getting into Lucknow.
+There were three ways to choose from, all full of
+danger and difficulty, but in the end it was decided
+to force the passage of the Charbagh bridge over the
+canal.</p>
+
+<p>This the enemy had evidently expected, for they had
+erected across it a barrier seven feet in height, with
+six guns, one a 24-pounder. Beyond the bridge, along
+the canal, were tall houses, and from every window
+and loophole a deadly fire would pour. And even
+supposing that the bridge was carried, the troops would
+have to pass through narrow streets and gardens and
+palaces, under showers of bullets at every step.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this seemed the only way to Lucknow.</p>
+
+<p>As for the sick and wounded, they were left with
+the stores and a guard of three hundred men at the
+Alumbagh.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Breakfast was over by half-past eight on the morning
+of September 25, when the order was given to advance.
+The first opposition met with by the leading column,
+headed by Outram, was near the Yellow House, which
+lay along the road to the bridge. Here Maude, one of
+the best officers in the army, who was to win his V.C.
+that day, charged the two guns whose fire was so deadly,
+and silenced them, and the troops went on till they
+were close to the canal. Then Outram took the 5th
+Fusiliers and bore away to the right in order to clear the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+gardens of the sepoys hidden in them, and to draw off
+the attention of the enemy; lieutenant Arnold, with
+a company of the Madras Fusiliers, took his station on
+the left of the bridge with orders to fire at the houses
+across the canal, and right out in the open facing the
+bridge was Maude, with two light guns straight in
+front of the battery. In a bend of the road on one side
+some of the Madras Fusiliers supported him, and on
+the other side, a little way off, stood Neill and his
+detachment, waiting for the diversion to be made by
+Outram's movement.</p>
+
+<p>To Neill's surprise, not a trace of Outram was to be
+seen, and Maude stood shelterless, his gunners falling
+before the continuous fire from the bridge. Again and
+again the Fusiliers from behind filled their places, only
+to be swept down like the rest, and now Maude and a
+subaltern were doing the work.</p>
+
+<p>'You must do something,' called out Maude to
+young Havelock; 'I cannot fight the guns much longer.'
+Havelock nodded and rode through the fire that was
+raking the road to Neill, urging him to order a charge.
+But Neill refused. He was not in command, he replied,
+and could not take such a responsibility. The young
+aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing, but hurried
+on to Fraser-Tytler, only to receive the same answer.
+Then, turning his horse's head, he galloped hard down
+the road, in the direction of the spot where his father
+was stationed. In a few minutes he was back and,
+reining up his horse at Neill's side, while he saluted with
+his sword, he said breathlessly:</p>
+
+<p>'You are to charge the bridge, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>It did not occur to Neill that there had not been
+time for young Havelock to have reached his father's
+position and come back so soon, and therefore that no
+such order could have been given by the general, and
+was simply the invention of the aide-de-camp himself.
+Quite unsuspiciously, therefore, he bade the buglers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+sound the advance, and Arnold, with twenty-five of his
+men, rushed on to the bridge and were instantly shot
+down. For fully two minutes Harry Havelock on his
+horse kept his position in front of the guns with only
+a private beside him, and the dead lying in heaps on all
+sides.</p>
+
+<p>'Come on! Come on!' he cried, turning in his
+saddle and waving his sword, while the fire from the
+houses was directed upon him, and a ball went through
+his hat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And they 'came on' with a rush, wave upon wave,
+till the guns were silenced and the barrier carried.</p>
+
+<p>The aide-de-camp had indeed 'done something.'</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW25"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw25_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw25.png"
+        alt = "The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing."
+        title = "The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The 78th Highlanders held the bridge for three hours
+till the whole force was over, and desperate fighting was
+going on all the time, for the enemy was coming up in
+dense numbers. At length a detachment advanced to
+a little temple further up the road, which was held by
+the sepoys, and succeeded in turning them out. But
+once inside, the Highlanders could only defend it with
+their swords, for the cartridges were so swelled by
+exposure to the rain that they would not go into the
+guns. After an hour, young Havelock, whose duty
+lay at the bridge, sent up some fresh cartridges, and then
+Webster, who from the shelter of the temple had been
+impatiently watching the action of three small cannon
+which had been firing down the Cawnpore road, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>'Who's for those guns?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm for the guns!' they all shouted, and the temple
+door was opened and Webster leaped out, Macpherson,
+the adjutant, and the men following. The guns when
+captured were thrown into the canal, where those of
+the Charbagh bridge were already lying.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Perhaps the most trying part of the whole campaign
+was the advance towards the residency through the
+narrow streets, where the very women flung down stones,
+and from the roofs and windows a ceaseless fire poured
+upon our men. Deep trenches had been cut along the
+cross-roads in order to make the horses stumble, and the
+smoke was so thick that men and beasts were nearly
+blinded. It was here that Neill fell, shot in the head,
+and Webster found a grave instead of the Victoria Cross,
+which would certainly have been given him. Then there
+was a rush forward, and they were within the gates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For the first few minutes the men did not know what
+they were saying or doing, so great was the excitement
+on both sides; but soon it was plain that the rescuing
+party were utterly exhausted, and needed rest, and what
+food might be forthcoming, which was neither good nor
+plentiful. Most of all they must have rejoiced in the
+possibility of changing their clothes, stiff with mud
+and wet, for Havelock tells us that he himself entered
+the city with one suit which had hardly been off his
+back for six weeks.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Next day Outram resumed his proper position as
+commander, and Havelock took a subordinate place as
+brigadier-general. But to him fell the task of making
+up his despatches and recommending certain of his
+men for the Victoria Cross. In this Havelock was
+especially begged by Outram to mention his son Harry
+for his gallantry on the Charbagh bridge; corporal
+Jakes, who was also worthy of the honour, had
+unhappily been killed later in the day. Unluckily,
+young Havelock had, against his own will, been previously
+recommended for the decoration by his father
+for an act of extraordinary bravery, but one which
+he had no sort of right to perform.</p>
+
+<p>In the battle of Cawnpore young Havelock, then
+a lieutenant in the 10th Foot, and aide-de-camp to his
+father, was sent to order the 64th, who had been under a
+heavy fire all day, and were now lying on the ground, to
+advance with some other regiments, and take a gun of
+twenty-four pounds, which was sweeping the road in
+front. The 64th at once formed up, but before they
+had started their major's horse was shot under him, and
+he was forced to dismount. Harry Havelock, carried
+away by excitement, never gave him time to get another,
+but calling on the men to follow him, rode straight to the
+mouth of the gun and stayed there till it was captured.</p>
+
+<p>Now of course this was a deed of wonderful courage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+and no man denied it, but it is curious that so stern a
+supporter of discipline as Havelock did not see that his
+son had put himself in a position where he had no right
+to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery
+of the major, who except for the accident of his horse
+being shot would have led the men himself. But
+Havelock, full of pride in his son's action, insisted, to
+the great mortification of the 64th, on recommending
+him for the Victoria Cross, though the young man
+himself, when his excitement had calmed down, implored
+his father to leave out his name, declaring that the
+recommendation would be put down to affection. For
+a month he managed to delay the despatch, but in the
+end it was sent and the Cross granted. Therefore
+Outram's recommendation after the relief of Lucknow
+was disregarded, and only captain Maude's V.C. is
+associated with the Charbagh bridge.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But although Havelock's force had successfully
+won its way into the residency of Lucknow, the town
+was in no way 'relieved,' for the British troops were
+few and the sepoys many. The besieging army crowded
+up as before, and bored mines under the buildings, which
+kept our men continually on the watch to hinder
+the town from blowing up. Every day Havelock went
+round the entrenchments, and then he returned to the
+house, to pass some hours in reading, for now that the
+frightful strain of the last six weeks was over he felt
+tired and broken, and unfit for work. Much of the time
+he spent in visiting the banqueting hall, which had
+months before been made into a hospital for the soldiers,
+but there was little that he or anyone else could do to
+help them, for all medicines and bandages and food
+suited to sick people had been used up long ago.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In this manner seven weeks went slowly by, while the
+garrison was waiting for the arrival of sir Colin Campbell,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+commander-in-chief in India, with an army of nearly
+five thousand men, a mere handful in numbers compared
+with the enemy, but yet enough to compass what is
+known in history as 'the second relief of Lucknow.'
+By November 9 news came that the British troops
+had reached the Alumbagh, but it was absolutely
+necessary that the commander-in-chief should know
+Outram's plans for the defence of the city, and tell him
+the manner in which he himself intended to attack.</p>
+
+<p>How was this to be done? The country lying between
+the two generals was covered with small detachments
+of sepoys carefully entrenched, and it seemed impossible
+for any man to pass through them. Yet without some
+knowledge of the sort and of the state of affairs in
+the residency the relief expedition could not advance
+without frightful loss, and might perhaps end in failure.</p>
+
+<p>Then there entered the room where Outram and
+Havelock were gloomily talking over the matter a
+man, Henry Cavanagh by name, who said that he
+would undertake to get through the pickets of sepoys
+and carry any message to the English camp. Outram
+was amazed. Brave though they all were, not one soldier
+had volunteered for this forlorn hope, not because they
+were afraid, but because if our maps and plans fell into
+the enemy's hands, the destruction of our army would
+certainly follow; and if a soldier could not do it, with all
+his experience of war, how could this man, who knew
+nothing of soldiering, except what he had learned during
+the siege? But when the general looked at Cavanagh's
+face his doubts vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Disguised as a native and speaking the language
+like one, Cavanagh made his way slowly through the
+lines till the open plain was reached. Here he breathed
+more freely, for, though many dangers awaited him,
+the worst risks were over. Often he had seen suspicion
+in the eyes of the sepoys, and felt that a terrible death
+was very near, but he had kept his head and got through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+somehow. At length he was within the Alumbagh and
+could speak with sir Colin face to face.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW26"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw26_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw26.png"
+        alt = "Often ... he had felt that a terrible death was very near."
+        title = "Often ... he had felt that a terrible death was very near." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Often ... he had felt that a terrible death was very near.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The return journey still lay before him, but now he
+knew better what he was about, and reached the residency
+without accident. On November 14 the relieving
+force was to begin its advance on the town, and on the
+15th the general signalled that the attack would begin
+next day.</p>
+
+<p>This last fight was a desperate one for both sides, and
+continued far into the night, while at the Kaiserbagh,
+or king's palace, the fire was fiercest of all. The brave
+deeds that were done that day would fill a volume, but at
+length it was over, and Lucknow once more flew the
+British flag, planted on the highest tower of the mess
+house by the hand of young Roberts.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Did Havelock, one asks oneself, know that this was
+his last fight also? He had been present during the
+whole struggle, but when it was done sank into the
+weakness which seemed daily to grow greater. The
+commander-in-chief had informed him&mdash;probably by
+means of Cavanagh&mdash;that on September 29 he had
+been gazetted major-general, and the somewhat tardily
+bestowed honour filled him with pleasure. If he had
+been able to see any English papers he would have
+known how eagerly the nation followed his footsteps,
+and how warmly they rejoiced in his success.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The capture of Lucknow was only three days old
+when Havelock was taken suddenly ill. In order to get
+him away from the close, infected air of the town, he
+was carried in a litter to a quiet wooded place, called the
+Dilkoosha, near a bend of the river Goomtee, where a
+tent was pitched for him, but as the bullets of the
+enemy fell around him even here, a more sheltered
+spot had to be found for him to lie. His illness did not
+appear at first very serious, but he himself felt that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+would not recover. Perhaps he hardly wished to, for
+he had 'fought a good fight,' and was too tired to care
+for anything but rest. His son, whose wound, received
+on the day of the fight for the residency, was still
+unhealed, sat on the ground by the litter, and gave him
+anything he wanted. For a time he lay quiet, and in the
+afternoon of the 23rd Outram came to see him, and holding
+out his hand, Havelock bade his friend good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>'I have so ruled my life for forty years that when
+death came I might face it without fear,' he said; and
+next morning death did come.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Marching on the 25th into the Alumbagh, the victorious
+army bore with them Havelock's body, still
+lying in the litter on which he died. They dug a grave
+for him under a mango tree, on which an H. was cut to
+mark the place&mdash;all they dared do with hosts of the
+enemy swarming round them, ready to offer insult to
+the dead who had defied them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Henry Havelock died and was buried, though
+the news did not reach England for six weeks. So he
+never knew how the hearts of his countrymen had been
+stirred by his courage and his constancy, and that his
+queen had made him a baronet and Parliament had
+voted him a pension of 1,000<i>l.</i> a year, which was continued
+to his widow and to his son. But</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Guarded to a soldier's grave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the bravest of the brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hath gained a nobler tomb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than in old cathedral gloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nobler mourners paid the rite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than the crowd that craves a sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">England's banners o'er him waved&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dead, he keeps the realm he saved.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CONSCIENCE_OR_KING" id="CONSCIENCE_OR_KING"></a>CONSCIENCE OR KING?</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now we come to quite another sort of hero; a man who
+enjoyed every day of his life, and loved books and
+music and pets of all sorts; who played with his children
+and made jokes with them; who held two of the greatest
+offices an Englishman can hold, yet laid his head on the
+scaffold by order of the king, because his conscience
+forbade him to swim with the tide and to take an
+oath that king demanded of him. If you try, you will
+find that this sort of heroism is more difficult than the
+other. There is no excitement about it, and no praise.
+Your friends talk of you with contempt, and call you
+a dreamer and a man who sacrifices his family to his own
+whims. And very often the family agree with him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>'Verily, daughter, I never intend to pin my soul
+to another man's back, for I know not whither he may
+hap to carry it. Some may do for favour, and some
+may do for fear, and so they might carry my soul a
+wrong way.'</p>
+
+<p>These were the words of sir Thomas More to his
+favourite daughter when she came to him in prison,
+urging him to do as his friends had done, and swear
+to acknowledge the king as head of the church
+instead of the pope. All his life he had 'carried' his
+own soul himself, and that was no small thing to be
+able to say in the reign of Henry VIII., when men's
+hearts failed them for fear, not knowing from day to
+day what the tyrant might demand of them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thomas More came of a family bred to the law, and
+his father, afterwards made a knight and a judge,
+seems to have been kindly and pleasant, and like his
+son in many ways, especially in his fondness for children.
+He set great store by books and learning, and taught
+Thomas to love them too. The boy was born when
+the Wars of the Roses were just over, and the country
+was beginning to settle down again. In London king
+Edward IV. was still the favourite of the people, and
+after his death, in 1483, Thomas, then five years old,
+happened to overhear a gentleman telling his father
+that it was prophesied duke Richard of Gloucester
+would be king. When the prophecy came to pass,
+and Richard snatched the crown for himself, many
+besides little Thomas were filled with wonder. For
+Richard had played his part so well that few guessed at
+what he really was, or that the murder of his nephews
+would be nothing to him, if he could mount the throne
+on their bodies.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At that period boys were sent early to school, and
+after careful inquiries, John More decided to put his
+son under the charge of one Nicholas Holt, headmaster
+of St. Anthony's in Threadneedle Street, a school
+founded by Henry VI. Here Thomas spent most of his
+time in learning Latin, which it was necessary for a
+gentleman to know. Foreign languages were very
+little studied; instead, Latin was used; hence ambassadors
+addressed each other in that tongue, and in
+it men wrote letters, and often books. Thomas, who
+had been accustomed all his life to hear Latin quoted by
+his father and the lawyers who came to his house in
+Milk Street, soon mastered most of the difficulties,
+knowing well that he would be considered stupid and
+ignorant if when he left school he should ever make
+a mistake in his declensions, or forget the gender of a
+noun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When John More was satisfied with his son's progress
+in Latin, he got leave for him to enter, as was the custom,
+the house of cardinal Morton as a sort of page. Thomas
+was then about twelve, quick and observant, and
+though fond of joking, good-tempered and prudent,
+taking care to hurt the feelings of nobody. Morton was
+both a clever and a learned man, a good speaker and
+excellent lawyer, and the king, Henry VII., frequently
+took counsel with him and profited by his experience.
+On his side, Morton took a fancy to the boy, whose
+sharp answers amused him. His keen eyes noticed that
+Thomas, who, with the other pages, waited at dinner
+upon the cardinal and his guests, listened to all that
+was being said, while never neglecting his own especial
+duties.</p>
+
+<p>'This child will prove a marvellous man,' Morton
+one day whispered to his neighbour, and the neighbour
+lived to prove the truth of his words.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas greatly enjoyed the two years he passed in
+Morton's house, and made many friends, both amongst
+his companions and with the older men. There was
+always something going on which pleased and interested
+him, for he was very sociable, and liked, above everything,
+a 'good argument.' At Christmas time all
+kinds of shows and pageants were to take place, and the
+young pages could hardly sleep for excitement, though
+their appetites never failed, and the huge pieces of pasty
+put on their wooden or pewter plates disappeared surprisingly
+quick. Of course they had no forks to help
+themselves with, but each boy possessed a knife of his
+own, in which he took great pride, and a spoon made
+either of horn or pewter. At Christmas they were
+given plenty of good things as a treat, and the cardinal,
+like other great men, flung open his doors, and feasted
+the poor as well as the rich. Then companies of
+strolling players would come by, and beg permission
+to amuse the guests by their acting. On this Christmas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+Day in 1490 the play was in full swing when young
+Thomas suddenly appeared on the stage in the great
+hall, and began to 'make a part of his own, never studying
+for the matter, which made the lookers-on more
+sport than all the players beside.' It must have been
+rather difficult for the poor actors to go on with their
+parts when they did not know what the boy was going
+to say next; but Thomas seems to have been as clever
+as he was impudent, and the play ended in applause and
+laughter.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In those days boys grew into young men much
+earlier than they do now, and set about earning their
+living, and even getting married, at an age when to-day
+they would probably just be leaving a public school.
+So we are not surprised at hearing that when Thomas
+was only fourteen he was sent by cardinal Morton to
+Canterbury Hall, Oxford, a college which afterwards
+became part of Christ Church, founded by Wolsey.
+The elder More was a poor man, and Thomas was not
+his only child; five others had been born to him, but, as
+far as we can gather, three of these died when they
+were still babies. Thomas had been brought up from
+his earliest years to do without many things which
+must have seemed necessaries to the richer boys in
+Morton's house. But he cared little that his dress
+was so much plainer than theirs, and that when
+he went home he had what food was needful and no
+more. As long as he had books, and somebody to talk
+to about them, he was quite happy, but even he found
+the fare of an Oxford scholar rather hard to digest.
+However, throughout his life he always made the best
+of things, and if he ever went to bed hungry, well,
+nobody but himself was any the wiser. Law was the
+study his father wished him specially to follow, but he
+was eager too to learn Greek, which had lately been
+introduced into the University, and to improve his Latin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+style. He also wrote verses, as was beginning to be the
+fashion with young men, and worked out problems in
+arithmetic and geometry, while, after his regular work
+was done, he would carry a French or Latin chronicle
+to his small window, and pore over the history of bygone
+times. In his spare moments he would play some old
+music on the flute or practise on the viol.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After two years, when, according to his son-in-law
+Roper, 'he was both in the Greek and Latin tongues
+sufficiently instructed, he was then, for the study of the
+law of the realm, put to an Inn of Chancery, called New
+Inn, where for his time he prospered very well, and
+from thence was admitted to Lincoln's Inn, with very
+small allowance, continuing there his study until he
+was made and accounted a worthy barrister.' Like the
+other youths of his own age&mdash;Thomas was eighteen
+when he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn&mdash;he attended
+classes where law was taught by professors, or 'readers,'
+and took part in the proceedings of mock trials, old
+French being the language used. When the trial was
+over, the reader and other teachers gave their opinions
+as to the way in which the scholars had pleaded, and
+pointed out the mistakes they had made. We may be
+sure that young More delighted in this 'exercise,' and
+he evidently excelled in it, for he was soon given a
+'readership' himself.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was during the year following his admission to
+Lincoln's Inn that More met for the first time his lifelong
+friend, the celebrated Erasmus. Erasmus, the most
+learned and witty man of his time, came over from
+Holland to stay with his former pupil, lord Mountjoy, in
+his country house, and while there the young lawyer
+was invited also to pay a visit and to make acquaintance
+with the famous scholar. In spite of the ten years
+difference in their ages&mdash;More was then twenty-one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+and Erasmus ten years older&mdash;they took pleasure in
+almost exactly the same things, and in their walks
+through the woods and about the neighbouring villages
+would discuss merrily, in Latin of course, all manner of
+subjects.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> One day the two bent their steps to the
+place where Henry VII.'s younger children were living,
+under the care of tutors and ladies. Princess Margaret,
+the eldest, afterwards queen of Scotland, stood solemnly
+beside her brother Henry, aged nine, who received
+them with the grand manner he could always put on
+when he chose. Princess Mary, at that time four years
+old, was kneeling on the floor playing with her dog, and
+paid no heed to the visitors, whom she thought old and
+dull. Erasmus was astonished to notice More present
+prince Henry with a roll on which something, he could
+not tell what, was written. The prince took it with
+a smile, and then looked at Erasmus, who guessed
+directly that a similar offering was expected from him
+also; and this was confirmed by a message sent him
+by Henry while the guests were dining, to say how much
+he hoped to receive some remembrance of the visit
+of the great scholar. The Dutchman, thus pressed,
+returned answer that had he dreamed his highness
+would value any work from his poor pen, he would certainly
+have prepared himself, but having been taken
+by surprise, he could only ask grace for three days, by
+which time he would have composed a poem, however
+unworthy.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> On parting, they promised to write to each other, and many
+letters passed between them in the three years that Erasmus
+remained in England. Previous to his departure, they met once
+more in lord Mountjoy's house, and there their walk and talks
+were resumed.</p></div>
+
+<p>The poem when written was of some length, and
+full of the praises of the king, his country, and his
+children. It does not sound amusing, and probably
+Henry, content with possessing what in these days we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+should call 'Erasmus's autograph,' did not trouble
+himself to read much of it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW27"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw27_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw27.jpg"
+        alt = "Erasmus was astonished to notice More present Prince henry with a roll."
+        title = "Erasmus was astonished to notice More present Prince Henry with a roll." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Erasmus was astonished to notice More present Prince Henry with a roll.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>For three years More held his readership; then he
+seems to have had a wish to become a priest, and, in
+his son-in-law's words, 'gave himself to devotion and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+prayer in the Charterhouse of London, religiously
+living there, without vow, about four years.'</p>
+
+<p>Religious More remained all his life, but at the end
+of the four years he felt that his place was in the world
+rather than in a monastery, and this decision was largely
+helped by a visit he paid to master Colt in Essex, a
+gentleman with three daughters. 'Albeit,' says Roper,
+'his mind most served him to the second daughter, for
+that he thought her the fairest and best favoured, yet
+when he considered that it would be both great grief
+and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger
+sister preferred before her in marriage, he then, of a
+certain pity, framed his fancy toward her and married
+her.'</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed being good-natured and obliging,
+and one hopes that the bride never guessed the
+reason why he had asked her to be his wife. The
+young couple settled down in Bucklersbury in the City,
+and More continued his studies at Lincoln's Inn and
+his attendance at Westminster, for he had been elected
+a member of Parliament almost as soon as he left the
+Charterhouse and before his marriage. Very early he
+had given proof that he did not intend 'to pin his
+conscience to another man's back' by refusing to vote
+for a large grant of money demanded by Henry VII. as
+a dowry for his eldest daughter. Chiefly owing to
+More, the grant was refused, and 'the king,' according
+to Roper, 'conceiving great indignation towards him,
+could not be satisfied until he had in some way revenged
+it. And for as much as he (Thomas) nothing having,
+nothing could lose, his grace (the king) devised a causeless
+quarrel against his father (the elder More), keeping
+him in the Tower till he had made him pay a hundred
+pounds fine.'</p>
+
+<p>No doubt it was very hard for the More family to
+raise the money, equal to about 1,200<i>l.</i> in our day, and
+Thomas's heart was hot with wrath. He angrily spurned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+various attempts made to gain him over, and 'for some
+time thought of leaving England and trying his fortune
+in other lands.' In fact, he did pay a short visit both
+to the Low Countries and to Paris, but he could not
+make up his mind to settle in either, and decided that
+he could do better for his wife and small children by
+continuing his practice at the Bar. The next year
+Henry VII. died, and More hoped that a new era was
+beginning.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The household in Bucklersbury was as happy as
+any that could have been found in London. Its mistress,
+Joan Colt, was, when she married, a country girl, cleverer
+at making possets and drying herbs than at reading
+books or playing on the viol. But More, who charmed
+everybody, easily charmed his wife, and to please him
+she studied whatever books he gave her, and worked
+hard at her music. But after five years she died,
+leaving him with four babies, Margaret, Elizabeth,
+Cicely, and John, and in a few months More saw himself
+obliged to marry again. This time he chose a
+widow with a daughter of her own&mdash;a lady 'neither
+young nor handsome,' as he tells Erasmus&mdash;but an
+excellent housekeeper, and the best of mothers to his
+children.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>More soon became known not only as an honest man
+above all bribery, but as a generous one who would
+often refuse to take payment for pleading the cause of
+a poor man or a widow. His practice at the Bar increased,
+and he was made a judge, or under-sheriff, his
+income reaching 400<i>l.</i> a year, which would now be
+reckoned about 5,000<i>l.</i> He needed it all, for besides
+his own four children and his stepdaughter he had
+adopted another girl. This girl, Margaret Gigs, afterwards
+married a learned man, Dr. Clements, who lived
+in More's house, and probably shared with John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+Harris the duties of secretary and of tutor in Greek and
+Latin to the children. We must not forget either the
+'fool,' Henry Patenson, or sir Thomas's special friend
+and confidant, William Roper, by-and-by to be the
+husband of More's favourite daughter, Margaret, and
+the man to whom his heart opened more freely than to
+anyone else.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It naturally took a good deal of money to support
+this large household and to save something for the
+children, as well as to bestow a tenth part of his
+income on the poor, as was More's rule through life.
+His charity did not consist in giving to everyone that
+asked, thereby doing more harm than good, but he went
+himself to the cottage to make sure that the tale he
+heard was true, and then would gladly spend what
+was needed to set the family in the way of earning
+their own living. If they proved to be ill, dame Alice,
+whose heart was soft though her words were harsh,
+would bid one of the girls take them nourishing food or
+possets, and often the poor pensioners would be invited
+to the house, to share the family dinner. At other
+times the guests would be men of learning, such as
+Colet, afterwards dean of St. Paul's, and founder of St.
+Paul's School, now moved to Hammersmith; Linacre
+or Grocyn, old friends of long ago; and of course Erasmus,
+if he happened to be in London. Poor dame Alice must
+have had a dull time of it, for while the room rang with
+merry jests in Latin, flavoured sometimes with a little
+Greek, and even the children could join in the laughter,
+she alone was ignorant of the matter, and felt as a deaf
+man feels when he watches people dancing to music
+that he cannot hear. She must have welcomed the
+moment when they left the table, and she could show off
+the skill she had gained since her marriage on four
+musical instruments, on which, to please her husband,
+she practised daily&mdash;for no man ever lived who was as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+clever as Sir Thomas in coaxing people to do as he
+wished. Quite meekly, though she had a quick temper,
+she bore his teasing remarks as he watched her 'binding
+up her hair to make her a fair large forehead, and with
+strait-bracing in her body to make her middle small,
+both twain to her great pain'; while she on her part was
+frequently vexed that he 'refused to go forward with
+the best,' and had no wish 'greatly to get upward in the
+world.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Yet, in spite of the modesty which vexed his wife
+so much, More's fame grew daily wider. The king,
+Henry VIII., who at this time was at his best, had
+always kept an eye on him, and soon bade Wolsey seek
+him out. Now More and Wolsey were so different in their
+ways and in their views that they could never have
+become real friends, for while Wolsey was ambitious,
+More was always content with what he had, and never
+desired to thrust himself into notice. At first he
+resisted the cardinal's advances; but rudeness was impossible
+to him, and as there was no means of checking
+Wolsey's persistence, he had to put aside his own feelings
+and appear both at the cardinal's house and at court.
+Indeed, such good company did Henry find him that,
+as quick to take fancies as he was to tire of them, he
+would hardly allow the poor man to spend an evening
+alone, so sir Thomas in despair gave up being amusing,
+and sat silent, though no doubt with a twinkle in his
+eye, resisting all the king's efforts to make him speak,
+till at length everyone grew weary of him, and his
+place was filled by some livelier man.</p>
+
+<p>How Sir Thomas laughed, and what funny stories
+he told about it all, when he had gained his object, at
+his own table.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW28"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw28_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw28.jpg"
+        alt = "Sir Thomas sat silent."
+        title = "Sir Thomas sat silent." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Sir Thomas sat silent.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>So the years slipped by, and brought with them
+many unsought honours to sir Thomas. Several times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+he was sent abroad on missions which needed an
+honest man, as well as a shrewd one, to carry them
+through. Sometimes he was the envoy of the citizens
+of London, sometimes of the king himself, and he was
+present at the wonderful display of magnificence known
+to history as 'The Field of the Cloth of Gold'&mdash;the
+meeting of Francis of France, Henry of England, and
+the emperor Charles V. He had remained in London
+during the fearful time of the sweating sickness, to which
+people would fall victims while opening a window,
+playing with their children, or even lying asleep. Death
+followed almost at once, and 'if the half in every town
+escaped it was thought great favour.' It spared the
+house in Bishopsgate in which More had for some time
+been living, and where he stayed till, four years later, he
+moved to a country place at Chelsea.</p>
+
+<p>Few men have held more dignities than sir Thomas
+More, or have earned greater respect in the holding.
+Within eight years he was Under-Treasurer, or, as we
+should say, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Speaker of
+the House of Commons, and finally Lord Chancellor.
+Even dame Alice must have been satisfied; but her
+content only lasted three years, as by that time events
+had occurred which made it necessary either for sir
+Thomas to resign the Great Seal always entrusted to
+the lord chancellor, or else 'to tie his conscience to
+another man's back,' and that back the king's.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In 1531 Henry had decided to divorce his wife,
+Katherine of Aragon, and to marry in her stead the
+beautiful Anne Boleyn. His desire met with violent
+opposition from almost all churchmen, and from many
+statesmen, among whom was sir Thomas More. The
+pope, of course, entirely refused his consent to any
+such violation of the law, and Henry, whom resistance
+only made more obstinate, suddenly resolved to cut
+himself off altogether from Rome, and declare that he,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+and not the pope, was the head of the English church.
+This meant that he could do as he pleased and make
+his own laws, and he lost no time in demanding the
+assent of Parliament to his new claim, and afterwards
+that of the clergy. Once these were obtained, there
+would be nothing to hinder him from divorcing his first
+wife and marrying his second. In fact, he would be
+his own pope.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For a year the battle raged fiercely, and More
+watched anxiously for the issue. He withdrew himself
+as far as possible from the king, and kept as much as
+might be to his own business. At length Henry was
+victorious. The greater part of the clergy cast off
+their allegiance to the pope and took the oath required
+by the king. Sir Thomas saw and understood, and
+placed his resignation as lord chancellor in the hands
+of his sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>The loss of his office left More a poor man, and to
+support the whole family in Chelsea he had only an
+income of 1,200<i>l.</i> a year. To his great regret, he felt
+he could no longer lead the easy, happy life that had
+been so pleasant to him. So the various married men,
+husbands of the girls of the house, took away their
+wives and sought employment elsewhere. Only the
+Ropers remained at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas himself was glad enough to be free of
+his duties, and to have time to read books and to
+prepare himself for the trial of faith that was sure to
+come, though at present the king had only fair words
+for him, and the clergy had subscribed a large sum as
+a proof of the esteem in which they held him. More
+was much touched and pleased with this gift, but he
+refused to accept it, or to allow his family to do so;
+instead, he sold his plate and bade dame Alice be
+careful of her household expenses.</p>
+
+<p>If left to himself, Henry might perhaps have allowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+sir Thomas, whom he undoubtedly liked, to remain in
+peace, but his absence from her coronation rankled
+deep in Anne Boleyn's heart. The late chancellor was
+a man of mark in the sight of Europe, and could
+count famous men of all nations among his friends.
+If he could not be gained over, he must be punished,
+for the eyes of England were upon him, and he had but to
+hold up his hand for many to follow. So he was one
+of the first bidden to take the oath, swearing to put
+aside the claims of the princess Mary, daughter of
+Katherine of Aragon, and to settle the crown on the
+children of the new queen.</p>
+
+<p>It was in April 1534 that More was summoned before
+the royal commissioners, consisting of Audley, who
+had succeeded him in the chancellorship, the abbot
+of Westminster, Thomas Cromwell as secretary of state,
+and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. At More's
+own request, the Act of Succession, as it was called,
+was given into his hand, and he read it through. When
+he had finished, he informed the commissioners that
+he had nothing to say as to the Act itself or to the
+people that took the oath, but that he himself must
+refuse.</p>
+
+<p>It was probably no more than they expected; but
+Audley replied that he was very sorry for it, as no man
+before had declined to swear, and that sir Thomas
+might see for himself the names of those who had already
+signed, whose consciences were perhaps as tender as
+his own. More glanced down the long roll unfolded
+before him, but only repeated his answer, nor could
+any persuasions induce him to give a different one.
+He was willing, it seems, to take an oath of obedience
+to the sovereign and his successors, but what he would
+<i>not</i> do was to swear that the king was the head of the
+church, and some words declaring this had been introduced&mdash;whether
+carelessly or wilfully we do not know&mdash;into
+the Act of Succession, with which they had nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+to do. It was his refusal to take this part of the oath
+which caused the downfall of More.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For four days sir Thomas remained a prisoner in
+the care of the abbot of Westminster; then he was
+sent to the Tower. Sir Richard Southwell conveyed
+him there and placed him under the custody of the
+lieutenant of the Tower, sir Edmund Walsingham, an
+old friend of the More family. As appears to have been
+the custom, his cap and outside gown were taken from
+him and kept by the porter, and a man set to spy upon
+his actions. This was sorely against the wishes of his
+gaoler, who would fain have made More's captivity in
+the Beauchamp Tower as light as might be; but at first
+it was needful to be very strict, lest inquiries should be
+made. Later, he was for a while allowed writing
+materials; he went to church in St. Peter ad Vincula,
+where so many famous captives lie buried, and occasionally
+walked in the garden, or took exercise in the narrow
+walk outside his cell. By-and-by, too, occasional visits
+from his family were permitted; his stepdaughter, lady
+Alington, came to see him, and so did her mother, dame
+Alice, More's daughter-in-law Anne, and most frequently
+of all his daughter Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>With these indulgences he might have been content,
+for all his life he had made the best of things, but the
+expenses of his captivity weighed on his soul. The
+barest food for himself and his servant cost him fifteen
+shillings a week (over 5<i>l.</i> now), and some months later,
+when he was convicted of high treason and the lands
+granted him by the king were taken from him, his wife
+was forced to sell her own clothes so that the money
+might be paid. But this, we may hope, she kept from
+sir Thomas, whose body was bent and broken by
+painful diseases, though his spirit was as cheerful as
+ever. He could even 'inwardly' laugh at dame Alice
+when she came to see him for complaining that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+would die for want of air if she was left all night in a
+locked cell, when 'he knew full well that every night she
+shut her own chamber, both doors and windows, and
+what was the difference if the doors were locked or
+not?' But he durst not laugh aloud nor say anything
+to her, for, indeed, he stood somewhat in awe of her.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the hours were passed during the first
+months of his captivity in writing books in English or
+Latin; but when pen and paper were taken from him, and
+he could only scribble a few words with the end of a
+charred stick, he had plenty of time to think over his
+life and to recall the years that had been so happy.
+The harsh words that he had written about men whose
+religion was different from his own did not trouble him,
+nor the thought of the imprisonment to which he had
+sentenced many of them. In those days everyone held
+his own religion to be right, and any that differed from
+it to be wrong, and though sir Thomas never would,
+and never did, send any man to the block for his faith,
+yet he would have considered that he had failed in his
+duty had he left them at liberty to teach their 'wicked
+opinions.' So his mind did not dwell upon those things,
+but rather upon his coming death, which he well foresaw,
+and upon the old days in Bishopsgate and Chelsea,
+when he would examine his children in the lessons they
+had learned, or set all the girls to write letters in Latin
+to his friend Erasmus, that he might see which of
+them proved to have the most skill. From time to
+time during this year efforts were made to gain him
+over to the side of the king, who would have given him
+almost anything he asked as the price of his conscience.
+Even Margaret Roper joined with the rest, and begged
+him to consider whether it was not his duty to obey
+the Parliament, and to remember that it was possible
+that he might be mistaken in his refusal, as so many
+good men and true had taken the oath. But nothing
+would move sir Thomas.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW29"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw29_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw29.jpg"
+        alt = "'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered."
+        title = "'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered. 'Sit
+not musing with some serpent in your breast, or some
+new persuasion to offer Father Adam the apple yet
+once again.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have sworn myself,' said she, and at this More
+laughed and replied:</p>
+
+<p>'That was like Eve, too, for she offered Adam no
+worse fruit than she had eaten herself.'</p>
+
+<p>Finding that his daughter's persuasions were useless,
+the king and council sent Cromwell to see if by fair words
+or threats he could induce More to declare that the king
+was head of the church. But, try as he might, nothing
+either treasonable or submissive could be wrung from
+the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>'I am the king's true, faithful subject, and pray for
+his highness, and all his, and all the realm,' said sir
+Thomas. 'I do nobody none harm, I say none harm, I
+think none harm, but wish everybody good, and if
+this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I
+long not to live. And I am dying already, and have
+since I came here been many times in the case that I
+thought to die within one hour. And therefore my
+poor body is at the king's pleasure.' Then Cromwell
+took his leave 'full gently,' promising to make report
+to the king.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Cromwell having failed also, the whole council
+next came and put forth all their skill, with no better
+result; and it was then determined to bring sir Thomas
+out of the Tower, and to try him at Westminster on
+the charge of treason. Neither the prisoner nor the
+judges had any doubt as to what the verdict would be;
+but whatever his thoughts as to the future, More must
+have rejoiced to be rowing once more on the Thames,
+with the air and sunlight all around him, and after a
+year's confinement even the sight of Westminster Hall
+and the assembly met together, as he knew, to doom
+him would have been full of interest. He was allowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+a chair, for his legs were so swollen that he could hardly
+have stood; and then began the trial which a late lord
+chancellor has called 'the blackest crime under the
+name of the law ever committed in England.' At the
+close, sentence was passed. More had been proved
+guilty of treason, and was to be hanged, drawn, and
+quartered at Tyburn.</p>
+
+<p>The constable of the Tower, sir William Kingston, sir
+Thomas's 'very dear friend,' conducted the condemned
+man back to prison, and so sorrowful was the constable's
+face that any man would have thought that it was he
+who was condemned to death. Margaret Roper was
+waiting on the wharf, and as her father landed from the
+barge she flung herself into his arms, 'having neither
+respect to herself, nor to the press of people that were
+about him.' He whispered some words of comfort and
+gave her his blessing, and 'the beholding thereof was to
+many present so lamentable that it made them to weep.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The last shame of hanging was after all not inflicted
+on him, and the King decreed that his faithful servant
+and merry companion should be executed on Tower Hill,
+like the rest of the men whose bodies lie in the church of
+St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower walls. The
+day before his beheading sir Thomas wrote with a
+charred stick to Margaret, leaving her the hair shirt he
+had always worn under his clothes, and messages and
+little remembrances to the rest of the old household.
+Oddly enough, his wife is never mentioned.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Very early in the morning of July 6 the king sent
+sir Thomas Pope to tell More he was to die before the
+clock struck nine, and to say that 'he was not to use
+many words' on the scaffold, evidently fearing lest
+the minds of the crowd might be stirred up to avenge his
+murder.</p>
+
+<p>More answered that he had never meant to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+anything at which the king could be offended, and
+begged that his daughter Margaret might be present
+at his burial. Pope replied that the king had given
+permission for his wife and children and any other of his
+friends to be there, and sir Thomas thanked him, and
+then put on a handsome dress of silk which had been
+provided on purpose by the Italian Bonvisi.</p>
+
+<p>But sir Thomas was not allowed to be at peace
+during the short walk between the Beauchamp Tower
+and the block, for he was beset first by a woman who
+wished to know where he had put some papers of hers
+when he was sent to prison, and then by a second, upbraiding
+him with a judgment he had given against
+her when he was chancellor.</p>
+
+<p>'I remember you well, and should give judgment
+against you still,' said he; but at length the crowd was
+kept back, and a path was kept to the scaffold.</p>
+
+<p>Roper was there, watching, and he noticed that the
+ladder leading to the platform was very unsteady.
+Sir Thomas noticed it too, and with his foot on the first
+step turned and said to the lieutenant of the Tower:</p>
+
+<p>'I pray thee see me safe up, and for my coming down
+let me shift for myself.'</p>
+
+<p>When he reached the top, he knelt down and prayed;
+then rising, kissed the executioner, and said:</p>
+
+<p>'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do
+thine office. My neck is very short, take heed therefore
+thou strike not awry.' As he spoke, he drew out a
+handkerchief he had brought with him, and, binding it
+over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform
+and laid his head on the block.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Thus died sir Thomas More, because he would not
+tie his conscience to another man's back, for he had no
+enemies save those who felt that this courage put them
+to shame, and he had striven all his life to do harm to
+no one. After his death, his head, as was the custom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+was placed on a stake, and shown as the head of a
+traitor on London Bridge for a month, till Margaret
+Roper bribed a man to steal it for her, and, wrapping
+it round with spices, she hid it in a safe place. It is
+possible that she laid it in a vault belonging to the
+Roper family, in St. Dunstan's Church in Canterbury,
+but she herself lies with her mother, in the old church
+of Chelsea, where sir Thomas 'did mind to be buried.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>What the king's feelings were when he heard that
+the act of vengeance had been accomplished we know
+not, but the emperor Charles V. spoke his mind plainly
+to the English ambassador, sir Thomas Eliott.</p>
+
+<p>'My Lord ambassador, we understand that the king
+your master hath put his faithful servant sir Thomas
+More to death.'</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon sir Thomas Eliott answered 'that he
+understood nothing thereof.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well,' said the emperor, 'it is too true; and this we
+will say, that had we been master of such a servant, of
+whose doings ourselves have had these many years no
+small experience, we would rather have lost the best
+city of our dominions than such a worthy counsellor.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_LITTLE_ABBESS" id="THE_LITTLE_ABBESS"></a>THE LITTLE ABBESS</h2>
+
+
+<p>A nun!</p>
+
+<p>As one reads the word, two pictures flash into the
+mind. One is that of sisters of mercy going quickly
+through the streets, with black dresses and flappy white
+caps, to visit their poor people. If you look at their
+faces, you will notice how curiously smooth and unlined
+they are, even when they are not young any more,
+and their expression is generally quiet and contented,
+while the women of their own age who live in the world
+appear tired and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>The other picture is one that most of us have to
+make for ourselves, as few have had a chance of seeing
+it. This nun is also dressed in black robes, and has a
+flowing black veil, and a white band across her forehead,
+under which her hair, cut short when she takes
+her vows, is hidden away. She never leaves her convent,
+except for a walk in the garden, but she often
+has children to teach, for many convents are great
+Roman Catholic schools, and the nuns have to take
+care that they can tell their scholars about the discoveries
+of the present day: about wireless telegraphy,
+about radium, about the late wars and the changes in
+the boundaries of kingdoms, and many other things.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, nuns are divided into various orders, each
+with its own rules, and some, the strictest, do not
+admit anyone inside the convent at all, even into a
+parlour. After a girl has taken the veil, she is allowed
+to receive one visit from her friends and relations, and
+then she says good-bye to them for ever.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But if you had been living in Paris towards the end
+of the sixteenth century, when Catherine de M&eacute;dicis was
+queen-mother, and into the days when Henry IV. was
+king, and his son Louis succeeded him, you would have
+found this picture of a convent very far from the truth.
+Convents were comfortable and even luxurious houses,
+richly endowed, where poor noblemen and gentlemen sent
+their daughters for life, paying on their entrance what
+money they could spare, but keeping enough to portion
+one or two girls&mdash;generally the prettiest of the family&mdash;or
+to help the son to live in state. If, as often happened,
+the father did not offer enough, the abbess would try
+to get more from him, or else refuse his daughter
+altogether. If she was accepted, he bade her farewell
+for the time, knowing that he could see her whenever
+he chose, and that she would lead quite as pleasant
+and as amusing an existence as her married sister.
+Perhaps, too, she might even be allowed to wear coloured
+clothes, for there was one order in which the habit of
+the nuns was white and scarlet; but even if the archbishop,
+or the abbot, or the king, or whoever had supreme
+power over the convent, insisted on black and white
+being worn, why, it would be easy to model the cap and
+sleeves near enough to the fashion to look picturesque;
+and could not the dress be of satin and velvet and lace,
+and yet be black and white still?</p>
+
+<p>As to food, no one was more particular about it
+than the abbess of a large convent, or else the
+fine gentlemen and elegant ladies would not come from
+Paris or the country round to her suppers and private
+theatricals, where the nuns acted the chief parts, or to
+the balls for which she was famous. How pleasant it
+was in the summer evenings to sit with their friends
+and listen to music from hidden performers; and could
+anything be so amusing as to walk a little way along the
+road to Paris till the nuns reached a stretch of smooth
+green turf, where the monks from a neighbouring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+monastery were waiting to dance with them in the
+moonlight?</p>
+
+<p>No, decidedly, nuns were not to be pitied when
+Henry IV. was king.</p>
+
+<p>Yet soon all these joys were to be things of the past,
+and it was a girl of sixteen who set her hand to the
+work.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The family of the Arnaulds were well known in French
+history as soldiers or lawyers&mdash;sometimes as both, for
+the grandfather of the child whose story I am going
+to tell you commanded a troop of light horse in time
+of war, and in time of peace was, in spite of his being a
+Huguenot&mdash;that is, a Protestant&mdash;Catherine's trusted
+lawyer and adviser. This Antoine Arnauld, or M. de la
+Mothe, as he was called, was once publicly insulted by
+a noble whose claim to some money Arnauld had been
+obliged to refuse.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW30"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw30_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw30.png"
+        alt = "'You are mistaking me for somebody else.'"
+        title = "'You are mistaking me for somebody else.'" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'You are mistaking me for somebody else.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'You are mistaking me for somebody else,' answered
+M. de la Mothe, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>'What do you mean? I thought you just admitted
+that you <i>were</i> M. de la Mothe?' replied the angry
+nobleman.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, yes,' said the lawyer, 'so I am; but sometimes
+I change my long robe for a short coat, and once outside
+this court you would not dare to speak to me in such
+a manner.'</p>
+
+<p>At this point one of the attendants whispered in his
+ear that this was the celebrated soldier, and the nobleman,
+who seems to have been a poor-spirited creature,
+instantly made the humblest apologies.</p>
+
+<p>Many of his relatives remained Huguenots up to the
+end, but M. de la Mothe returned to the old religion
+after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. No
+man ever had a narrower escape of his life, for his house
+in Paris was attacked during the day, and though his
+servants defended it bravely, neither he nor his children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+would have been left alive had not a messenger wearing
+the queen's colours been seen pushing through the
+crowd. The leaders then called upon the mob to
+fall back, and the messenger produced a paper, signed
+by the queen, giving the family leave to come and go
+in safety.</p>
+
+<p>M. de la Mothe's son, Antoine Arnauld, had in him
+more of the lawyer than the soldier, and he was clever
+enough to escape detection for acts which <i>we</i> should
+certainly call frauds. But he was an excellent husband
+to the wife of thirteen whom he married, and a very
+affectionate father to the ten out of his twenty children
+who lived to grow up.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Arnauld was much thought of at the
+French bar, and was entrusted with law cases by the
+court and by the nobles. He was a pleasant and
+clever man, and made friends as easily as money, and
+if he and his wife had chosen they might have led the
+same gay life as their neighbours. But the little bride
+of thirteen did not care for the balls and plays in which
+the fashionable ladies spent so much of their time,
+and her dresses were as plain as those of the nuns
+<i>ought</i> to have been. She looked well after her husband's
+comfort, and saw that her babies were well and happy,
+and when everything in her own house was arranged
+for the day, she went through the door that opened
+into her father's Paris dwelling, and sat with her mother,
+who was very delicate and could scarcely leave her
+sofa.</p>
+
+<p>The summer months were passed at monsieur
+Arnauld's estate of Andilly, not far from Paris, to which
+they all moved in several large coaches. Even here
+the lawyer was busy most of the day over his books and
+papers, but in the evening he was always ready to listen
+to his wife's account of her visits to their own poor
+people, or to those of the village near by. At a period
+when scarcely anyone gave a thought to the peasants,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+or heeded whether they lived or died, Arnauld's
+labourers were all well paid, and the old and ill fed and
+clothed. And if monsieur Arnauld did not go amongst
+them much himself, he allowed his wife to do as she
+liked, and gave her sound advice in her difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>As they grew older the children used often to accompany
+their mother on her rounds, and learnt from her how
+to help and understand the lives that were so different
+from their own. They saw peasants in bare cottages
+contented and happy on the simplest food, and sometimes
+on very little of it. They did not think about
+it at the time, of course, but in after-years the memory
+of these poor people was to come back to them; and
+they no longer felt strange and shy of those whom
+they were called upon to aid.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Madame Arnauld's second daughter, Jacqueline,
+was a great favourite with her grandfather, monsieur
+Marion, and was very proud of it. In Paris every
+morning she used to run into his house, locking the
+door of communication behind her. If, as often occurred,
+her brothers and sisters wanted to come too, and
+drummed on the panels to make Jacqueline open it,
+she would call out through the key-hole:</p>
+
+<p>'Go away! You have no business here, this house
+belongs to <i>me</i>,' and then she would run through the
+rooms till she found her grandfather, and sit chattering
+to him about the things she liked and the games she
+was fond of. She was quick and clever and easily
+interested, and it amused monsieur Marion to listen
+to her when he had no work to occupy him; but one
+fact he plainly noticed, and that was that Jacqueline
+was never happy unless she was put first.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW31"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw31_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw31.png"
+        alt = "'Go away! You have no business here.'"
+        title = "'Go away! You have no business here.'" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'Go away! You have no business here.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the year 1599, madame Arnauld, though only
+twenty-five, had eight children, and her father, monsieur
+Marion, who was already suffering from the disease which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+afterwards killed him, began to be anxious about their
+future. After talking the matter over with his son-in-law,
+they decided that it was necessary that the second and
+third little girls, Jacqueline and Jeanne, should become
+nuns, in order that Catherine, the eldest, might have a
+larger fortune and make a more brilliant marriage. Not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+that monsieur Marion intended that they should be common
+nuns. He would do better than that for Jacqueline,
+and as his majesty Henry IV. had honoured him with
+special marks of his favour, he had no doubt that the
+king would grant an abbey to each of his granddaughters.</p>
+
+<p>When the plan was told to madame Arnauld, she
+listened with dismay.</p>
+
+<p>'But Jacqueline is hardly seven and a half,' she said,
+'and Jeanne is five;' but monsieur Marion only laughed
+and bade her not to trouble herself, as he would see
+that their duties did not weigh upon them, and that
+though he hoped they would behave better than
+many of the nuns, yet they would lead pleasant
+lives, and their mother could visit them as often as
+she liked.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Arnauld was too much afraid of her father
+to raise any more objections, but she had also heard too
+much of convents and their ways to wish her daughters
+to enter them. Meanwhile the affair was carried
+through by the help of the abb&eacute; of Citeaux, and as a
+rule existed by which no child could be appointed
+abbess, the consent of the Pope was obtained by declaring
+each of the girls many years older than she really
+was. Both Arnauld and Marion considered themselves,
+and were considered by others, to be unusually good
+men, yet their consciences never troubled them about
+this wicked fraud.</p>
+
+<p>However, by the aid of the false statement all
+went smoothly, and the old and delicate abbess of
+Port Royal, an abbey situated in a marshy hollow
+eighteen miles from Paris, agreed to take Jacqueline as
+helper or coadjutrix, with the condition that on the
+death of the old lady the little girl was to succeed her,
+while Jeanne was made abbess of Saint-Cyr, six miles
+nearer Paris, where madame de Maintenon's famous
+girls' school was to be founded a hundred years later.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+The duties of the office were to be discharged by one of
+the elder nuns till Jeanne was twenty.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It is always the custom that the young girls or
+novices should spend a year in the convent they wish
+to enter before they take the vows, which are for life.
+During that time they can find out if they really wish
+to leave the world for ever, or if it was only a passing
+fancy; while the abbess, on the other hand, can tell
+whether their characters are suited to a secluded existence,
+or if it would only make them&mdash;and therefore
+other people&mdash;restless and unhappy. When Jacqueline
+became a novice in 1599, her father invited all his
+friends, and a very grand company they were. The
+child was delighted to feel that she was the most important
+person present, and no doubt amused her grandfather
+by her satisfaction at being 'first.' No such fuss
+seems to have been made over Jeanne on a similar
+occasion, but in a few weeks both little girls were sent
+for eight months to Saint-Cyr.</p>
+
+<p>Abbesses though they might be, they were still the
+children who had played in their father's garden only
+a few weeks before. Jacqueline and her elder sister
+Catherine, the one who was 'to be married,' and very
+unhappily, were chief in all the games and mischief.
+They were very daring, and were always quick at
+inventing new plays. They were very sensible, too,
+and if one of their brothers or sisters hurt themselves
+during their games, these two knew what was best to
+be done without troubling their mother. They were all
+fond of each other, and never had any serious quarrels;
+but Jacqueline was generally the leader, and the others,
+especially the shy and dreamy Jeanne, let themselves
+be ruled by her. At Saint-Cyr, Jacqueline, who felt no
+difference, and speedily became a favourite of the
+other novices, ordered her sister about as she had been
+accustomed to do, and generally Jeanne obeyed her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+meekly; but at last she rebelled and informed Jacqueline,
+much to her surprise, that it was <i>her</i> abbey, and
+that if Jacqueline did not behave properly she might go
+away to her own.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Some months of Jacqueline's noviciate had still to
+run when she was sent to the abbey of Maubuisson,
+which belonged to the same order of nuns as Port Royal,
+whereas the nuns of Saint-Cyr belonged to another community.
+The abbess, Ang&eacute;lique d'Estr&eacute;es, was a famous
+woman, and her nuns were some of the worst and most
+pleasure-loving in the whole of France. Most likely
+madame Arnauld heard of the change with trembling, but
+she could do nothing: in October 1600, Jacqueline, then
+nine years old, took the veil and the vows of poverty
+and obedience in the midst of a noble company. She
+was far too excited to think about the religious ceremony
+which had bound her for life to the cloister, and
+certainly nobody else&mdash;unless her mother was present&mdash;thought
+about it either. Her very name was changed
+too, and instead of 'Jacqueline' she became 'Ang&eacute;lique,'
+as 'Jeanne' became 'Agnes.'</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the little girl was a professed nun, monsieur
+Marion and monsieur Arnauld, who were not
+satisfied that the pope's consent already obtained was
+really sufficient, began afresh to prepare a variety of
+false papers, in order that when Ang&eacute;lique took possession
+of her abbey no one should be able to turn her out of it.
+Seventy years before a law had been passed declaring
+that no nun could be appointed abbess under forty, and
+though this was constantly disregarded, the child's
+father and grandfather felt that it was vain to ask the
+Pope to nominate a child of nine to the post. So
+in the declaration her age was stated to be seventeen;
+but even that Clement considered too young, and it
+required all the influence that monsieur Marion could
+bring to bear to induce him at last to give his consent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+Permission was long in coming, and in the midst of
+the negotiations the old abbess died suddenly, and
+Ang&eacute;lique, now ten and a half, was 'Madame de Port
+Royal.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Ang&eacute;lique said good-bye to the nuns at
+Maubuisson, all of whom had been fond of her, her mother
+took her to Port Royal, fearing in her heart lest the
+customs of the convent might be as bad as in the one
+ruled by madame d'Estr&eacute;es. But she was consoled at
+finding the abbey far too poor to indulge in all the
+expensive amusements of Maubuisson, and that it contained
+only thirteen nuns, so that Ang&eacute;lique would not
+have so many people to govern. It was thirty years
+since a sermon had been preached within its walls,
+except on a few occasions when a novice had taken
+the veil, and during the carnival, just before Lent,
+all the inmates of the convent, the chaplain or confessor
+among them, acted plays and had supper parties.
+Like the Maubuisson sisters, the nuns always kept
+their long hair, and wore masks and gloves; but they
+were only foolish, harmless young women following the
+fashion, except the oldest of them all, whom madame
+Arnauld managed to get dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>Ang&eacute;lique was now nearly eleven, but much older in
+her thoughts and ways than most children of her age,
+though she was still fond of games, and spent part
+of the day playing or wandering about the garden.
+If it was wet, she read Roman history, and perhaps she
+may have learnt something of housekeeping from the
+prioress, who saw that all was kept in order. The
+abbess said carefully the short prayers appointed for
+certain hours of the day, and heard matins every
+morning at four and evensong every afternoon. After
+this was over, she did as she was bidden by her superior,
+the abbot of Citeaux, and took all her nuns for a solemn
+walk on the hills outside the abbey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC06"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour06_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour06.jpg"
+        alt = "She took all her nuns for a solemn walk."
+        title = "She took all her nuns for a solemn walk." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">She took all her nuns for a solemn walk.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>At first the young abbess was full of self-importance,
+and much occupied with her position. After Agnes's
+taunts when they were both at St. Cyr&mdash;oh, <i>long</i> ago
+now!&mdash;it was delightful to be able to send her <i>own</i>
+carriage for her, and play at the old home games in the
+garden. But by-and-by the novelty wore off, and she
+became very tired of her life, which was always the
+same, day after day, and would never, never be different.
+If only she could be back at Andilly with the rest! and
+then she would shut her eyes very tight so that no tears
+might escape them.</p>
+
+<p>Lively and impulsive though she was, she was not
+accustomed to speak of her feelings to others, and did
+her best to thrust her longing for freedom into the
+background. But she grew pale and thin in the struggle,
+and at last there came a day when a visitor, guessing
+what was the matter, hinted that as she had taken her
+vows before she was old enough to do so by law, it
+would be easy to get absolved from them. Something
+of the kind may have perhaps occurred to Ang&eacute;lique,
+but, put into words, the idea filled her with horror, for
+deep down in her mind she felt that though her profession
+had been thrust upon her before she knew what
+she was doing, she would feel ashamed and degraded all
+her life if she broke her vows. Still, she wanted to forget
+it all if she could, and in order to distract her thoughts
+she began to receive and pay visits in the neighbourhood,
+to the great grief of her mother, who feared this was the
+first step towards the moonlight balls of Maubuisson.</p>
+
+<p>Ang&eacute;lique was far too tender-hearted to withstand
+her mother's tears, and gave up paying calls; spending
+the time instead in reading Plutarch's 'Lives' and
+other books about ancient history, and pretending to
+herself that she was each of the heroes in turn. But
+even Plutarch was a poor substitute for home life, and
+when her fifteenth birthday was drawing near she began
+to wonder if she <i>could</i> stand it any longer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'I considered,' she says herself, 'if it would be
+possible for me to return to the world, and even to get
+married, without telling my father or mother, for the
+yoke had become unsupportable.' Perhaps, she reflected,
+she might go to La Rochelle, where some of her
+Huguenot aunts were living, and though she had no
+wish to change her own religion, yet she was sure they
+would protect her. As to the difficulties of a young
+abbess travelling through France alone, they did not
+even occur to her, and she seems to have arranged her
+plans for escape without informing the good ladies of
+their expected visitor.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The day Ang&eacute;lique had fixed for her flight had almost
+come when she fell very ill of a sort of nervous fever,
+chiefly the result of the trouble of mind she had been
+going through, though the unhealthy marshes round Port
+Royal may have had something to do with her illness.
+Monsieur and madame Arnauld at once sent a litter drawn
+by horses to fetch her to Paris, where the best doctors
+awaited her. Her mother hardly left her bedside, and
+for some time Ang&eacute;lique was at rest, feeling nothing
+except that she was at home, and that the old dismal
+life of the convent must be a dream. But as she grew
+stronger her perplexities came back. She <i>could</i> not
+bring such grief on her parents, who loved her so much,
+yet the sight of her aunts in their beautiful dresses with
+long pointed bodices, and the pretty hoods that covered
+their hair when they came to inquire after her, revived
+all her longings for the amusements of other girls. Again
+she kept silence, but secretly induced one of the maids
+to make her a pair of corsets, 'to improve her figure.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It may have been the sight of the corsets which
+caused monsieur Arnauld, whose keen eyes nothing
+escaped, to take alarm. At any rate, one day he brought
+a paper, so ill-written that it could hardly be read, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+thrust it with a pen into Ang&eacute;lique's hand, saying,
+'Sign this, my daughter.'</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not dare to refuse, or even to question
+her father, though she did manage to make out a word
+or two, which showed her that the paper contained a
+renewal of the vows she so bitterly regretted.</p>
+
+<p>Though custom and respect kept her silent,
+Ang&eacute;lique's frank and straightforward nature must
+have felt bitterly ashamed as well as angry at the way her
+father had tried to trick her, and she seems on the
+whole to have been rather glad to return to her abbey.
+The nuns were delighted to have her back again, and
+as she remained very delicate all through the winter, she
+was a great deal indoors, too tired to do anything but
+rest, and read now and then a little book of meditations,
+which one of the sisters had given her.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Just at this time an event happened which turned
+the whole course of Ang&eacute;lique's life.</p>
+
+<p>A Capuchin monk, father Basil by name, stopped
+at Port Royal one evening, and asked the abbess's leave
+to preach. At first she refused, saying it was too late;
+then she changed her mind, for she was fond of hearing
+sermons, which, even if they were bad, generally gave
+her something to think of. There does not seem to
+have been anything very striking about this one, but
+when it was ended 'I found myself,' says Ang&eacute;lique,
+'happier to know myself a nun than before I had felt
+wretched at being one, and that there was nothing in
+the whole world that I would not do for God.'</p>
+
+<p>Now Ang&eacute;lique's inward struggles took a different
+turn; she no longer desired to be free of her vows, but
+rather to carry them out to the utmost of her power, and
+to persuade her nuns to do so likewise. For some time
+she met with little encouragement. Another friar of
+the order of the Capuchins, to whom she opened her heart
+when he came to preach on Whit Sunday, was a man of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+no sense or tact, and urged such severe and instant reforms
+that the poor nuns were quite frightened. Then
+the prioress, whom Ang&eacute;lique also consulted, told her that
+she was not well, and excited, and that in three months'
+time she would think quite differently; all of which
+would have been true of a great many people, but was a
+mistake as regarded Ang&eacute;lique. Thus disappointed
+in both her counsellors, the abbess longed to resign her
+post, and to become a simple nun in some distant
+convent; but she dared not disobey her newly awakened
+conscience, which told her to stay where she was and
+do her work.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It is to be noted that, unlike most reformers,
+Ang&eacute;lique took care that her reforms began at the
+right end&mdash;namely, with herself. Again and again we
+see that when she made a new rule or revived an old
+one she practised it secretly herself long before she asked
+any of her nuns to adopt it. At this time she was
+torn between the advice of two of the Capuchin monks,
+one of whom urged her to lay down her burden and to
+enter as a sister in some other convent; while the other,
+the father Bernard, who had alarmed the nuns by his
+zeal, at last seemed to understand the position of
+Ang&eacute;lique, and told her that, having put her hand to
+the plough, she must not draw back.</p>
+
+<p>Ang&eacute;lique was only sixteen and in great trouble of
+mind, and in her sore distress she did some foolish
+things in the way of penances which she afterwards
+looked on with disapproval, for she never encouraged
+her nuns to hurt their bodies so as to injure their minds.
+Indeed, her character was too practical for her to adopt
+the follies which were the fashion in some of the religious
+houses not wholly given over to worldly pleasures.
+She had no wish to become famous or to be considered
+a saint when she knew how far she was from being one,
+and prayed earnestly and sensibly never to be allowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+to see visions&mdash;the visions which she was well aware
+were often the result first of fasting, and next the cause
+of vanity, with its root in the praise of men.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As usual, the early autumn proved a trying season
+for Ang&eacute;lique, and she again fell ill of a fever, and spent
+some weeks at Andilly with her troop of brothers and
+sisters. But she could not shake off the sad thoughts
+which were pressing on her, and was glad to go back
+to the convent, taking with her little Marie Arnauld,
+then seven years old. The winter passed before she
+could decide what to do, and her illness was increased
+by the damp vapours arising from the ponds and
+marshes around the abbey. She was worn out by
+thinking, and at length the prioress was so alarmed by
+her appearance that she begged the abbess to do
+whatever she thought right, as the sisters would submit
+to anything sooner than see her in such misery.</p>
+
+<p>The relief to Ang&eacute;lique's mind was immense, and
+she instantly called on the whole community to assemble
+together. She then spoke to them, reminding them
+of the vow of poverty they had taken, and showing
+them how, if it was to be kept, they must cease to have
+possessions of their own and share all things between
+them. When she had finished, a nun rose up and
+silently left the room, returning in a few minutes with
+a little packet containing the treasures by which she
+had set so much store. One by one they all followed
+her example, and Ang&eacute;lique's first battle was won.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In spite of the French proverb which says 'it is only
+the first step which hurts,' the second step on the
+road to reform was the cause of far more pain to
+Ang&eacute;lique, for she was resolved to put an end to the
+practice of permitting the relatives and friends of the
+nuns free entrance into the convent; and knew that her
+father, who during all these years had come and gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+as he wished, would not submit quietly to his exclusion.
+Therefore she made certain alterations in the abbey:
+ordered a foot or two to be added to the walls, and
+built a parlour outside with only a small grated window,
+through which the nuns would be allowed now and then
+to talk to their families.</p>
+
+<p>All being ready, she again assembled the sisters,
+and informed them of the new rule which was to be
+carried out, and when shortly after a novice took the
+veil, and her friends were entertained outside the convent,
+many voices were raised in discontented protest, and
+more than once the murmur was heard, 'Ah! it will
+be a very different thing when monsieur Arnauld comes.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But it was not. Ang&eacute;lique never made one rule for
+herself and another for her nuns, and by-and-by when her
+father's work was over in Paris, and they all moved to
+Andilly, the abbess knew that her time of trial had
+come. She wrote to either her mother or sister, madame
+le Ma&icirc;tre, begging them to inform her father of the
+new state of affairs; but this they do not seem to have
+done. At all events, on September 24, 1609, Ang&eacute;lique
+received a message from her father, saying that they
+would arrive the next morning to see her.</p>
+
+<p>Now the abbess of Port Royal was no hard-hearted,
+despotic woman, delighting to display her power and
+to 'make scenes.' She was an affectionate girl, easily
+touched and very grateful, and in her generosity had
+striven to forget her father's double dealing in the
+matter of her vows. That the coming interview would
+be a cause of much pain to both she well knew, and
+she entreated two or three of the nuns&mdash;among whom
+was her sister Agnes, who had resigned Saint-Cyr and
+was now at Port Royal&mdash;to spend the night in praying
+that her determination might not falter.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the dinner-hour, about eleven o'clock, that
+the noise of a carriage was heard in the outer court of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+the abbey. The abbess turned pale and rose from her
+seat, while those of the sisters whom she had taken
+into her confidence hastened away to be ready for the
+different duties she had assigned to them. Ang&eacute;lique,
+holding in her hands the keys of every outer door
+leading into the convent, walked to the great gate,
+against which monsieur Arnauld, who was accompanied
+by his wife, his son, and two of his daughters, was knocking
+loudly. He was not used to be kept waiting like this,
+and did not understand the meaning of it, and when
+the tiny window cut in the thick oak panels was suddenly
+thrown open, and his daughter's face appeared,
+he asked impatiently what was the matter that the
+gates were locked, and why she did not open them.
+Ang&eacute;lique replied gently that if he would go into the
+parlour beside the gate she would speak to him through
+the grating and explain the reason of the gates being
+shut; but her father, not believing his ears, only rapped
+the louder, while madame Arnauld reproached her
+daughter with lack of respect and affection, and
+monsieur d'Andilly her brother called her all sorts of
+names.</p>
+
+<p>The noise was so great that it reached the refectory
+or dining-hall, where the nuns were still sitting, and
+soon their voices were joined to the clamour, some
+few upholding the conduct of their abbess, but most
+of them condemning her.</p>
+
+<p>At this point monsieur Arnauld, seeing that Ang&eacute;lique
+would not give way, bethought him of a trick by
+which he could gain a footing inside the walls. If, he
+said, Ang&eacute;lique had lost all sense of duty and obedience
+to her parents, he would not suffer his other children to
+be ruined by her example, and Agnes and little Marie
+must be given up to him at once. No doubt he reckoned
+on the great door being opened for the girls to come out,
+and that then he would be able to slip inside; but, unfortunately,
+Ang&eacute;lique knew by experience of what her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+father was capable, and had foreseen his demand.
+She answered that his wishes should be obeyed, and
+seeking out one of the sisters whom she could trust,
+gave her the key of a little door leading from the chapel
+outside the walls, and bade her let Agnes and Marie out
+that way. This was done, and suddenly the two
+little nuns were greeting their father as if they had
+dropped from the skies.</p>
+
+<p>At length understanding that neither abuse nor tricks
+could move Ang&eacute;lique, monsieur Arnauld consented to
+go to the parlour, and there a rush of tenderness came
+over him, and he implored her to be careful in what she
+did, and not to ruin her health by privations and harsh
+treatment. Ang&eacute;lique was not prepared for kindness,
+and after all she had undergone it proved too much for
+her. She fell fainting to the ground, and lay there
+without help, for her parents could not reach her
+through the grating in the wall, and the nuns, thinking
+that monsieur Arnauld was still heaping reproaches on
+her head, carefully kept away. At last, however, they
+realised that help was needed, and arrived to find their
+abbess lying senseless. Her first words on recovering
+were to implore her father not to leave that day, and the
+visitors passed the night in a guest-room which she had
+built outside the walls, and next morning she had a
+long and peaceful talk with her family from a bed
+placed on the convent side of the grating.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW32"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw32_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw32.jpg"
+        alt = "She fell fainting to the ground."
+        title = "She fell fainting to the ground." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">She fell fainting to the ground.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the end the abbot of Citeaux gave permission for
+monsieur Arnauld still to inspect the outer buildings and
+gardens, as he had been in the habit of doing, while
+his wife and daughters had leave to enter the convent
+itself when they wished. But this was not for a
+whole year, as madame Arnauld in her anger had sworn
+never to enter the gates of Port Royal, and it was only
+after hearing a sermon setting forth that vows taken in
+haste were not binding that she felt at liberty once
+more to see her daughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The income left by the founder of Port Royal was
+very small&mdash;about 240<i>l.</i> a year&mdash;little enough on which
+to support a number of people and find work for the
+poor, though, of course, it could perhaps buy as many
+things as 1,200<i>l.</i> a year now.</p>
+
+<p>When Ang&eacute;lique first went there as abbess, monsieur
+Arnauld, who managed all the money matters, paid all
+that seemed necessary for the comfort of his daughter
+and the nuns. But after the day when she closed the
+gates on him Ang&eacute;lique would no longer accept his
+help, as she felt she could not honestly do so while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+behaving in a manner of which he disapproved. So she
+called together her little community, and they thought
+of all the things they could possibly do without.
+The masks and the gloves had already been discarded,
+and there seemed to be nothing for the sisters to give
+up, if they were to help the sick people and peasants
+who crowded about their doors, but their food and
+their firing. Not that she intended to support anybody
+in idleness; Ang&eacute;lique was far too sensible for that.
+She took counsel with her father, and found work for
+the men, and even the children, in the gardens and lands
+belonging to the abbey. Their wages were small,
+but each day good food was prepared in the kitchens&mdash;Ang&eacute;lique
+had no belief in bad cooking&mdash;and was
+wheeled out by the sisters in little carts as far as the
+garden walls, where the workmen could eat it while
+it was hot. Then some of the children or women were
+employed as messengers to carry bowls with dinners
+to the old and ill. Of course some of these were in the
+abbey infirmary, and were looked after by the nuns,
+and especially by Ang&eacute;lique, who took the one who
+seemed to need most care into her own room, while she
+slept on the damp floor&mdash;for half the sickness at Port
+Royal was due to the marshes that surrounded it.
+If it happened that she had her cell to herself, there was
+no fire to warm her, yet she often got up in the night
+to carry wood to the long dormitory where several of
+the nuns slept, so that they, at least, should not suffer
+from cold.</p>
+
+<p>All the daily expenses she saw to herself, as debt
+was hateful to her, and she and the sisters denied themselves
+food and wore the cheapest and coarsest clothes,
+not for the sake of their own souls, but of other
+people's bodies.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In many ways, though she did not know it and
+certainly would have been shocked to hear it, Ang&eacute;lique<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+resembled the Puritans, whose influence in England
+was daily increasing. She had a special dislike to
+money being spent on decorations and ornaments in
+churches, or in embroidered vestments for priests, and
+never would allow any of them in her own. She also
+invented a loose and ugly grey dress for the girls to
+wear who desired admission to the convent, instead
+of permitting them to put on the clothes they had worn
+at home, as had always been the custom. The first
+to wear it was her own sister Anne, who after leading
+the gay life of a Parisian young lady for a year, at fifteen
+resolved to abandon it for ever and join her three sisters
+at Port Royal.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible that monsieur Arnauld may have regretted
+his hastiness in forcing Ang&eacute;lique and Agnes to
+become nuns when he saw one daughter after another
+following in their footsteps. Anne he had expected to
+remain, for she was full of little fancies and vanities,
+and he could not imagine her submitting to the work
+which he knew the abbess loved.</p>
+
+<p>He would have laughed sadly enough if he could
+have seen how right he was. On the first night that
+Anne slept in the abbey, she laid a cloth on a table
+in her cell, and tried to make it look a little like the
+dressing-table she had left in Paris. Ang&eacute;lique happened
+to pass the open door on her way to the chapel, and,
+smiling to herself, quietly stripped the table. Some
+hours later she went by again, and over it was spread a
+white handkerchief. This she also removed, but, leaving
+Anne to apply the lesson, she did not make any remark,
+and sent her to clean out the fowl-house.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>By this time the eyes of the world had been turned
+to Port Royal, and to the strange spectacle of a girl who,
+possessed of every talent which would enable her to
+shine in society, had deliberately chosen the worst of
+everything, and had induced her nuns to choose it too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+Possibly the quiet and useful life led by the Port Royal
+sisters may have made the gaieties and disorders of the
+other convents look even blacker than before; but however
+that may be, when Ang&eacute;lique was about twenty-six
+a most difficult and disagreeable piece of work was
+put into her hands.</p>
+
+<p>The king, Louis XIII., a very different man from
+his father, Henry IV., had determined to put an end
+to the state of things that prevailed, and resolved to
+begin with Maubuisson.</p>
+
+<p>Now nobody had ever attempted to interfere with
+madame d'Estr&eacute;es, who was still abbess, and when the
+abbot of Citeaux, her superior, informed her that in
+obedience to the king's commands he proposed to come
+over and inspect Maubuisson, she was extremely angry.
+Without caring for the consequences, she locked up in a
+cell two monks who had brought the message, and kept
+them without food for some days; after which she
+roughly bade them return whence they came, and
+thought no more about the matter.</p>
+
+<p>For two years the affair rested where it was; then
+the king again turned his attention to Maubuisson, and
+wrote to the abbot of Citeaux inquiring why his previous
+orders had not been carried out, bidding him send an
+officer at once and obtain an exact report of the conduct
+of the nuns and the abbess.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioner, monsieur Deruptis, arrived with
+three or four men at Maubuisson, and congratulated
+themselves when they found the doors flung wide and
+they were invited to enter.</p>
+
+<p>'The reverend mother is too unwell to see anyone
+to-day,' said the nun who admitted them, 'but she has
+prepared rooms in the west tower for your reception,
+and to-morrow she hopes to be able to speak with you
+herself.' So saying she led them down several passages
+till she reached a little door, which she unlocked, and
+then stood back for them to pass in. As soon as they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+were all inside, making their way up the corkscrew
+stairs, she swung back the door, and before the men
+realised what had happened they heard the key turn
+in the lock.</p>
+
+<p>For four days they were kept prisoners, with nothing
+to eat but a very little bread and water; while every
+morning the commissioner was severely flogged till he
+was almost too weak to move. At length, driven to
+desperation, he and his companions contrived to squeeze
+themselves through a narrow window, and returned
+dirty and half-starved to the abbot.</p>
+
+<p>Powerful as the abbess might be, even her friends
+and relations thought she had gone too far, and they
+were besides very angry with her for allowing her own
+young sister, who was a novice in the convent, to be
+secretly married there. They therefore informed the
+abbot of Citeaux that as far as they were concerned
+no opposition would be made, and he instantly started
+for Maubuisson, sending a messenger before him to tell
+the abbess that he was on his way. For all answer
+the messenger came back saying that the abbess would
+listen to nothing; but the abbot, now thoroughly angry,
+only pushed on the faster, and thundered at the great
+gates. He hardly expected that madame d'Estr&eacute;es
+would refuse to see him when it came to the point, but
+she <i>did</i>; he then, as was his right, called an assembly of
+the nuns, and summoned her to attend. Again she
+declined; she was ill, she said, and could not leave her
+bed; so, fuming with rage, he went back to Paris and
+told the whole story to the king.</p>
+
+<p>After certain forms of law had been gone through,
+which took a little time, the Parliament of Paris issued
+a warrant for the seizure of the abbess, and for her
+imprisonment in the convent of the Penitents in Paris.
+On this occasion the abbot took a strong body of archers
+with him, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the scandal of
+carrying off the abbess by force, he left them at Pontoise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+He went alone to the abbey, and for two days tried by
+every means he could think of to persuade the abbess
+to submit. But she only laughed, and declared she was
+ill, and at last he sent for his archers and ordered them
+to force an entrance.</p>
+
+<p>'Open, in the king's name!' cried their captain;
+but as the doors remained closed, he signed to his men
+to force them, and soon two hundred and fifty archers
+were in the abbey, seeking its abbess. During the
+whole day they sought in vain, and began to think
+that she was not in the house at all; at length a soldier
+passing through a dormitory noticed a slight movement
+in one of the beds, which proved to contain the
+rebellious abbess. The man bade her get up at
+once, but she told them that it was impossible, as she
+had hardly any clothes on. The soldier, not knowing
+what to do, sent for his captain, who promptly bade four
+archers take up mattress and abbess and all, and place
+them in the carriage which stood before the gates.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner, accompanied by one nun, madame
+d'Estr&eacute;es entered the convent of the Penitents.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It is very amusing to read about, but at the time
+the affair made a great noise, and the other abbesses
+who were conscious of having neglected their vows had
+long felt very uneasy and watched anxiously what would
+happen next. Of course, Maubuisson could not be
+left without a head, and as soon as the abbess was
+removed, the abbot summoned the nuns before him and
+informed them that they might choose which of three
+ladies should take the place of madame d'Estr&eacute;es. One
+of the three was madame de Port Royal.</p>
+
+<p>The 'ladies of Maubuisson,' as they had always
+been called, trembled at the thought of what they
+might have to undergo at the hands of Ang&eacute;lique, yet
+they liked still less the other abbesses proposed. In the
+end it was she who was appointed, and a fortnight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+later arrived at Maubuisson with three of her own
+nuns, one being her young sister Marie.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the Maubuisson nuns remembered their
+new abbess quite well, when she had lived amongst
+them nearly seventeen years before. These she treated
+with the utmost consideration, for she knew it was
+unreasonable to expect them to give up all at once the
+habits of a lifetime, and she thought it wiser to gain
+permission to add thirty young novices to the community
+whom she might train herself. To these girls
+she taught the duties performed by her own nuns,
+and herself took part in carrying wood for the fires,
+keeping clean the chapel and other parts of the abbey,
+washing the clothes, digging up the garden, and singing
+the chants, for she had been shocked by the discordant
+and irreverent manner in which the services were
+conducted. She even allowed her novices to wait on
+the older nuns, replacing their own servants.</p>
+
+<p>For a year and a half Ang&eacute;lique struggled patiently
+to soften the hearts of the Maubuisson 'ladies,' but
+without success, and her courage and spirits began to
+fail her. Then, in September 1619, an event occurred
+which, unpleasant though it was, brought her back to
+her old self, and this was the sudden return of madame
+d'Estr&eacute;es.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock one morning the late abbess, who had
+managed to escape from the convent where she had
+been imprisoned, unexpectedly appeared as the nuns
+were on their way to church, having been let in
+secretly by one of the sisters.</p>
+
+<p>'Madame,' she said to Ang&eacute;lique, 'I have to thank
+you for the care you have taken of my abbey, and to
+request that you will go back to yours.'</p>
+
+<p>'There is nothing I long for more, madame,' replied
+Ang&eacute;lique, 'but I have been placed here by the abbot
+of Citeaux, our superior, and I cannot leave without
+his permission.' Upon this madame d'Estr&eacute;es declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+that she was abbess and would take her proper position;
+but Ang&eacute;lique, merely asserting that the king and the
+abbot had placed her there, and there she must stay,
+walked calmly to her own seat, while madame d'Estr&eacute;es,
+not having made up her mind what to do, went off to
+see her own nuns, who seldom were present at the
+early service.</p>
+
+<p>By command of Ang&eacute;lique, everything went on as
+usual in the abbey, except that the keys of all the
+doors had been given up to her. But after dinner, to her
+great surprise, the chaplain came to her and informed
+her that it was her duty to give way to force, and that
+if she did not do so quietly the armed men whom madame
+d'Estr&eacute;es had left outside the walls would thrust her out.
+The abbess replied that she could not forsake her charge;
+but she had hardly spoken when, to her amazement,
+five soldiers with naked swords advanced towards her,
+and threatened her with violence if she did not do as
+they wished. But no Arnauld ever submitted to
+bullying, and Ang&eacute;lique repeated her words, and said
+that nothing but force could make her quit her post.</p>
+
+<p>While this conversation was going on the novices,
+terrified at what might be happening to their abbess,
+crowded round in order to protect her. They were all
+very much excited, and when madame d'Estr&eacute;es, who
+had entered also, happened to touch Ang&eacute;lique's veil,
+one of the young nuns turned to her and cried out
+indignantly:</p>
+
+<p>'Wretched woman! Would you dare to pull off the
+veil of madame de Port Royal?' and snatching the veil
+which the abbess had put on her own head, she tore it
+off and flung it in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>'Put madame out,' said madame d'Estr&eacute;es, turning
+to the gentlemen with her, and Ang&eacute;lique, who did not
+resist, was at once thrust out of the door and into a
+carriage that was waiting. In an instant the carriage
+was covered with novices as with a swarm of flies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+The wheels, the rumble, the coach-box, all were full of
+them; it was astonishing how they got there in their
+heavy, cumbrous clothes. Madame d'Estr&eacute;es called to
+the coachman to whip up the horses, but he, perhaps
+enjoying the scene, replied that if he moved he was
+certain to crush somebody. Then Ang&eacute;lique left the
+coach, and the novices got down from their perches
+and stood around her.</p>
+
+<p>Finding that this plan had failed, madame d'Estr&eacute;es
+ordered one of her lackeys to stand at the gate of the
+abbey and to allow Ang&eacute;lique, her two sisters, and the
+two Port Royal nuns to pass out, but no one else.
+She herself took hold of Ang&eacute;lique, who was nearly
+torn in half between her friends and enemies, and
+pulled her out of the gate, all the novices pressing
+behind her. The moment the rival abbesses had
+passed through a strong young novice seized hold of
+madame d'Estr&eacute;es and forced her to the ground,
+keeping her there until every one of her companions was
+on the outside. It was in vain that the lackey tried to
+stop them.</p>
+
+<p>'If you attempt to shut that door we will squeeze
+you to death,' cried they, and each in turn gave the
+door behind which he stood a good push!</p>
+
+<p>At length they were outside, and were walking
+quietly down the road to Pontoise, where they took
+refuge in a church, till the inhabitants, hearing of their
+arrival, placed all they had at their disposal.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the indignation of the king and the abbot
+when, next morning, a letter from m&egrave;re Ang&eacute;lique
+informed them of what had happened. Instantly a
+warrant was issued for the arrest of madame d'Estr&eacute;es,
+and a large body of archers was sent off post-haste to
+Maubuisson in order to carry it out. But the abbess
+had received warning of her danger, and was not to
+be found, though her flight was so hurried that on
+searching her rooms the captain discovered several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+important papers that she had left behind her. Her
+friend, madame de la Serre, took refuge in a cupboard,
+which was concealed by tapestry, high up in a wall.
+The dust seems to have got into her nose, and she
+sneezed, and in this manner betrayed herself to the
+archers who set a ladder against the wall, which the lady
+instantly threw down. The captain then levelled his
+pistol at her, and bade his men put up the ladder again.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW33"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw33_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw33.png"
+        alt = "The archers set a ladder against the wall, which the lady instantly threw down."
+        title = "The archers set a ladder against the wall, which the lady instantly threw down." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">The archers set a ladder against the wall, which the lady instantly threw down.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'I will shoot you if you do not surrender,' he said,
+and as she was sure he meant it, she gave herself up.</p>
+
+<p>When all was quiet in the abbey, the archers mounted
+their horses and rode to Pontoise, and under their
+protection Ang&eacute;lique and her nuns walked back to
+Maubuisson at ten o'clock that night, escorted by
+the people of Pontoise, and lighted by a hundred and
+fifty torches borne by the archers. For six months a
+guard of fifty remained there, but when madame
+d'Estr&eacute;es was at last captured and sent back for life
+to the Convent of the Penitents, at the request of
+Ang&eacute;lique they returned to their quarters, and she
+was left to manage the nuns herself.</p>
+
+<p>The last year of her residence at Maubuisson was, if
+possible, more unpleasant than the rest had been, for
+the title of abbess was given to a lady of high birth
+whose views were far more worldly than those of
+Ang&eacute;lique. She was very angry at the presence of
+the thirty poor nuns who had been added to the community,
+and declared she would turn them out. So
+Ang&eacute;lique begged them to come with her to Port Royal,
+small though her abbey was, and had them taken there
+in a number of carriages sent by madame Arnauld.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After this Ang&eacute;lique, or some of the nuns chosen by
+her, was often sent to reform other convents, and very
+hard work it was. She had, besides, her own cares at
+Port Royal, for the abbey, always unhealthy, was made
+worse by overcrowding and underfeeding, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+income and the dormitories which had been held sufficient
+for sixteen now had to do for eighty. A low fever broke
+out, of which many died, and soon it became clear that
+the rest would follow if they did not leave. At length,
+at the entreaty of her mother, Ang&eacute;lique applied for
+permission to move into Paris, where madame Arnauld
+had taken a house for them.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy, of course, even in a big town, to find
+a ready-made building large enough to hold so many
+people, and, though Ang&eacute;lique added a sleeping-gallery,
+the refectory or dining-room was so small that the
+nuns had to dine in parties of four. Her father was
+dead, and she does not seem to have thought of consulting
+any of her brothers; more space appeared a
+necessity, and, much as she hated debt, in her strait she
+made up her mind that she must borrow money in
+order to build fresh dormitories, and, breaking her
+rule, accepted a rich boarder, who became the cause of
+infinite trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this period the king's mother, who was in
+Paris, paid a visit to the famous abbess, and inquired if
+she had nothing to ask for, as it was her custom always
+to grant some favour on entering a convent for the first
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Ang&eacute;lique replied that she prayed her to implore the
+king's grace to allow a fresh abbess to be chosen every
+three years, and leave being granted, she and her sister
+Agnes, who was her coadjutor, instantly resigned. She
+meant the change to be a safeguard, so that no one
+nun should enjoy absolute power for long; but as
+regarded her own abbey it was a great mistake, for she
+had a gift of ruling such as belonged to few women,
+and often when a mean or spiteful sister was elected
+she would wreak her ill-temper upon the late abbess,
+and impose all sorts of absurd penances upon her,
+which Ang&eacute;lique always bore meekly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>During the years that followed Ang&eacute;lique not only
+had her four younger sisters with her, Agnes, Anne,
+Marie, and Madeleine, but later her mother and her
+widowed sister, madame le Ma&icirc;tre. They were all
+happy to be together, though the rule of silence laid
+down by Ang&eacute;lique to prevent gossip must have stood
+in the way of much that would have been pleasant. By-and-by
+her nieces almost all entered the convent, and,
+what is still more surprising, her brothers and several of
+her nephews, most of them brilliant and successful men,
+one by one quitted the bar or the army, and formed
+a little band known as the 'Recluses of Port Royal,'
+who afterwards did useful work in draining and repairing
+the abbey 'in the fields,' so that the nuns could go back
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>And all this was owing to the example and influence
+of one little girl, who had been thrust into a position
+for which she had certainly shown no liking.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In the last twenty-five years of Ang&eacute;lique's life her
+religious views underwent a change, and her confessor,
+St. Cyran, who shared them, was imprisoned, on a charge
+of heresy, at Vincennes. Even as a young girl she had
+left the chapel at Port Royal bare of ornaments, and
+later sold the silver candlesticks which were a gift to the
+altar of Port Royal de Paris, in order to bestow the
+money on the poor. Everyone looked up to her, but
+by-and-by it began to be whispered that she was 'a
+dangerous person,' who thought that the Church
+needed reforming as well as the convents, and had
+adopted the opinions of one Jansen, a Swiss, who
+wished to go back to the faith of early times, when
+St. Augustine was bishop.</p>
+
+<p>In 1654 she heard through one of her nephews that
+in consequence of some of the recluses having resisted
+a decree of the pope condemning a book of Jansen's, a
+resistance supposed to have been inspired by the abbess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+herself, it was reported that she was either to be sent
+to the Bastille or imprisoned in some convent. She
+did not take any notice, and neither threat was fulfilled;
+but the hatred which the order of the Jesuits bore to
+the 'Jansenists,' as their opponents were called, never
+rested, and later a command came for the recluses
+to be dispersed, and the leaders were forced to go
+into hiding. Then her schoolgirls were sent to their
+homes, 'la belle Hamilton,' a Scotch girl, among them;
+and after them went the candidates, or those who wished
+to take the veil. All these blows came thick and fast,
+and Ang&eacute;lique, with health broken from the incessant
+labours of over fifty years, was attacked by dropsy.</p>
+
+<p>The nuns were in despair, and hung about her night
+and day, hoping that she might let fall some words
+which they might cherish almost as divine commands;
+but Ang&eacute;lique, who, unlike her sister Agnes, had all her
+life been very impatient of sentimentality, detected this
+at once, and took care 'neither to say nor do any
+thing remarkable.' 'They are too fond of me,' she
+once said, 'and I am afraid they will invent all sorts of
+silly tales about me.' And in order to put a stop as far
+as she could to all the show and parade which she knew
+her nuns would rejoice in, as she felt that her end was
+drawing near she gave them her last order:</p>
+
+<p>'Bury me in the churchyard, and do not let there
+be any nonsense after my death.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GORDON" id="GORDON"></a>GORDON</h2>
+
+
+<p>Many years hence, when the children of to-day are
+growing old men and women, they will perhaps look
+back over their lives, as I am doing now, and ask themselves
+questions about the people they have known
+or have heard of. 'Who,' they will say, 'was the person
+I should have gone to at once if I needed help?' 'Who
+was the man whose talk made me forget everything,
+till I felt as if I could listen to him for ever?' 'What
+woman was the most beautiful, or the most charming?'
+and they will turn over the chapters in the Book of
+Long Ago and give the answers to themselves, or
+to the boys and girls who are listening for their reply.
+Well, if the question were put throughout England at
+this moment, 'What man has kindled the greatest and
+most undying enthusiasm during your life?' the answer
+would be given with one voice:</p>
+
+<p>'Gordon.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It seemed as if from the very first Nature had intended
+him for a soldier. His father came of a clan that has
+a fighting record even in Scotch history, and he was
+living on Woolwich Common, within hearing of the
+Arsenal guns, when his fourth son, Charles George, was
+born on January 28, 1833. Yet, strange to say, though
+fearless in many ways, and accustomed to rough games
+with his numerous brothers and sisters, Charles as a
+small boy hated the roar of cannon. Unlike queen
+Christina of Sweden, who at four years old used to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+clap her hands when a gun was discharged near her,
+and cry 'Again!' Charles shrank away and put his
+fingers in his ears to shut out the noise. It was not
+lack of courage, for he showed plenty of that about
+other things, but simply that the sudden sound made
+him jump, and was unpleasant to him.</p>
+
+<p>His life was from the first full of change, as the
+lives of soldiers' children often are, for the Gordons
+were stationed in Dublin and near Edinburgh before
+they went out to the island of Corfu when Charles was
+seven. During the three years he spent there Charles
+grew big and strong and full of daring; guns might
+fire all day long without his moving a muscle, and he
+was always trying to imitate the deeds of boys bigger
+than himself. When he saw them diving and swimming
+about in the beautiful clear water, he would throw
+himself from a rock into their midst, feeling quite sure
+that somebody would help him to float. And as
+courage and confidence are the two chief qualities
+necessary to make a good swimmer, by the time he
+left Corfu he was as much at home in the sea as any of
+his friends.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After his tenth birthday his life at Corfu came
+to an end, and Charles was brought home by his mother
+and sent to school at Taunton, where he stayed for five
+years. He is sure to have been liked by his schoolfellows,
+for he was a very lively, mischievous boy,
+constantly inventing some fresh prank, but never
+shirking the punishment it frequently brought. At
+Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen, it
+was just the same. He was continually defying, in a
+good-humoured way, those who were set over him, and
+more than once he had a very narrow escape of having
+his career cut short by dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>At this period his father held the appointment of
+director of the carriage department of the Arsenal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+and his whole family suffered greatly from the plague
+of mice which overran the house they lived in. After
+putting up with it for some time, Charles and his brother
+Henry, also a cadet, laid traps and caught vast numbers
+of the mice, and during the night they carried them
+stealthily across the road in baskets to the commandant's
+house, exactly opposite. Opening a door
+which they felt pretty sure of finding unlocked, they
+emptied the baskets one by one, and let the mice run
+where they would. Then the boys crept back softly
+to their own room, shaking with laughter at the thought
+of the commandant's face when he came down in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>The two youths were great favourites with the workmen
+in the Arsenal, who used often to leave off the
+work they should have been doing to make squirts,
+crossbows, and other weapons for Charles and Henry.
+They must have trembled sometimes when they heard
+that the windows of the storehouse had been mysteriously
+broken, or that an officer who was known to be
+disliked by the cadets had received a deluge of water
+down his neck from a hedge bordering the road. But
+the culprits never betrayed each other, and the young
+Gordons soon grew so bold that they thought they
+might venture on a piece of mischief which very nearly
+ended their military career.</p>
+
+<p>Some earthworks had been newly thrown up near
+a room where the senior cadets, known as 'Pussies,'
+attended lectures on certain evenings in the week.
+One night the two Gordons hid themselves behind this
+rampart, and while listening to remarks upon fortification
+and strategy the cadets were startled by a crash
+of glass and a shower of small shot falling about their
+ears. In an instant they were all up and out of the house,
+dashing about in the direction from which the shots
+had come; and so quick were they that if Charles and
+Henry had not known every inch of the ground and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+dodged their pursuers, they would certainly have been
+caught and expelled, as they richly deserved.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In June 1852 Charles Gordon was given a commission
+as second lieutenant in the Engineers, and was sent to
+Chatham for two years. In spite of the mice and the
+crossbows and the earthworks and many other things,
+he had gained several good conduct badges, for he had
+worked hard, and was noted for being clever both at
+fortifications and at surveying. Mathematics he never
+could learn. So Charles said good-bye to his father,
+who was thankful to see him put to man's work&mdash;for
+during the four years his son had passed at Woolwich
+he had, as he expressed it, 'felt himself sitting on a
+powder barrel'&mdash;and set out on the career in which he
+was to earn a name for justice and truth throughout
+three continents.</p>
+
+<p>It was while Gordon was learning in Pembroke
+Dock something of what fortifications really were that
+the Crimean war broke out, and in December he was
+ordered to Balaclava, in charge of the materials for
+erecting wooden huts for the troops. He went down
+to Portsmouth and put the planks and fittings on board
+some collier boats, but not wishing to share their
+voyage, he started for Marseilles, and there took a
+steamer to Constantinople. He arrived in the harbour
+of Balaclava on January 1, 1855, and heard the guns of
+Sebastopol booming six miles away. The cold was
+bitter, men were daily frozen to death in the trenches,
+food was very scarce, and the streets of Balaclava
+were full of 'swell English cavalry and horse-artillery
+carrying rations, and officers in every conceivable
+costume foraging for eatables.'</p>
+
+<p>Soon the young engineer was sent down to the
+trenches before Sebastopol, where he and his comrades
+were always under fire and scarcely ever off duty.
+It was here that his friendship began with a young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+captain in the 90th Foot, now lord Wolseley, who
+has many stories to tell of what life in the trenches was
+like. Notwithstanding all the suffering and sadness
+around them, these young men, full of fun and high
+spirits, managed to laugh in the midst of their work.
+At Christmas-time captain Wolseley and two of his
+friends determined to have a plum-pudding, so that
+they might feel as if they were eating their Christmas
+dinner in England. It is true that they only had dim
+ideas how a plum-pudding was to be made, and nothing
+whatever to make it with, but when one is young that
+makes no difference at all. One of the three consulted
+a sergeant, who told him he thought it would need some
+flour and some raisins, as well as some suet; but as
+none of these things could be got, they used instead
+butter which had gone bad, dry biscuits which they
+pounded very fine, and a handful of raisins somebody
+gave them. Stirring this mixture carefully by turns,
+they calculated how long it would have to boil&mdash;in
+one of captain Wolseley's three towels which he
+sacrificed for the purpose&mdash;so that they might be able
+to enjoy it at a moment when they would all be off
+duty. Five hours, they fancied, it must be on the
+fire, but it had scarcely been boiling one when the
+summons came to go back to their work. Resolved not
+to lose the fruits of so much labour and care, they
+snatched the plum-pudding from the pot and ate a
+few spoonfuls before running out to their posts. But
+Wolseley had hardly reached his place before he was
+seized with such frightful pains that he felt as if he would
+die. His commanding officer, who happened to pass,
+seeing his face looking positively green, ordered him
+back to his hut. But a little rest soon cured him, and,
+like the others, he spent the night in the trenches.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>You will have read in the story of the 'Lady in Chief'
+something about the hardships which the allied army<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+of English, French, and Turks went through during the
+war with the Russians, so I will not repeat it here.
+Gordon, whose quick eye saw everything, was greatly
+struck with the way the French soldiers bore their sufferings.
+'They had nothing to cover them,' he says,
+'and in spite of the wet and cold they kept their health
+and their high spirits also.' Our men worked hard and
+with dogged determination, but, as a rule, they could
+not be called lively. True, till Miss Nightingale and
+her nurses came out they were left when wounded to
+the care of rough and ignorant, however kindly, comrades,
+while the French had always their own Sisters
+of Charity to turn to for help. But it is pleasant to
+think that the sons of the men who had fallen in the
+awful passage of the Berezina forty years before were
+worthy of their fathers, and could face death with a
+smile and a jest as well as they.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As the war went on and the assaults on the town of
+Sebastopol became more frequent, the English generals
+learned to know of what stuff their young officers were
+made, and what special duties they were fit for. They
+marked that Gordon had some of Hannibal's power of
+guessing, almost by instinct, what the enemy was doing&mdash;a
+quality that rendered him extremely useful to his
+superiors. With all his untiring energy and eagerness&mdash;forty
+times he was in the trenches for twenty hours&mdash;he
+never overlooked the details that were necessary to
+ensure the success of any work he was entrusted with, and
+he never relaxed his watchfulness till the post to be won
+was actually taken. In his leisure moments he seems
+to have been fond of walking as far as he could without
+running into danger, and writes home in February of
+the grass that was springing and the crocuses that were
+flowering outside the camp. Sometimes he would go
+with a friend down to the great harbour on the north
+side of which the Russians were entrenched, and listen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+to them singing the sad boating songs of the Volga,
+or watch them trying to catch fish, chattering merrily
+all the while.</p>
+
+<p>At last the forts of the Mamelon and the Malakoff
+were stormed, and the Russians abandoned Sebastopol.
+Gordon, who had often narrowly escaped death, was
+mentioned by the generals in despatches; but he did not
+receive promotion, and, except a scar, the only token
+he carried away of those long months of toil and strain
+was the cross of the Legion of Honour bestowed on him
+by the French. But he was a marked man for all that,
+and was sent straight from the Crimea, after peace was
+made, to join a mission for fixing fresh frontiers for
+Russia south-west along the river Pruth and on the
+shores of the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Wherever he went, whether he was on the borders of
+Turkey, in Armenia, or in the Caucasus, where he proceeded
+after a winter in England, he made the best of his
+opportunities and saw all he could of the country and
+the people. He was as fond as ever of expeditions
+and adventures, and climbed Ararat till a blinding
+snowstorm came on and the guides refused to proceed.
+In the Caucasus he dined out whenever he was asked, and
+was equally surprised at the beauty of the smart ladies
+(who wore bracelets made of coal) and at the ingrained
+dirt of their clothes and their houses. On the whole,
+though he thoroughly enjoyed the good dinners they
+gave him, he preferred going on shooting expeditions
+into the mountains with their husbands and sons.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of 1858 he was ordered home again, and
+a few months later obtained his captaincy, and was
+made adjutant and field-work instructor at Chatham.
+But this did not last long, for in a year's time he was
+destined to undertake one of the two great missions of
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1860 a war with China broke out, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+this also the French were our allies. More soldiers
+were needed, and volunteers were asked for. Gordon
+was one of the first to send in his name, but before
+he reached Pekin the Taku forts, at the mouth of the
+Tientsin River&mdash;forts of which in the year 1900 we were
+to hear so much&mdash;had been taken. However, the famous
+Summer Palace was still to be captured, and this,
+which indeed might be called the eighth wonder of the
+world, lay out in the country, eight miles away from
+Pekin. The grounds, covering more than twelve miles,
+were laid out with lakes, fountains, tea-houses, waterfalls,
+banks of trees, and beds of flowers, while scattered
+about were palaces belonging to different members
+of the royal family, all filled with beautiful things&mdash;china
+of the oldest and rarest sorts, silks, lacquer,
+cabinets, and an immense variety of clocks and watches.
+By order of the English envoy this gorgeous place
+was given over to pillage, in revenge for the ill-treatment
+of some French and British prisoners. One can form
+a little idea of the vast amount of treasures it contained
+from constantly seeing scattered in houses a watch or a
+lacquer box or a china bowl that, we are told, had once
+decorated the Summer Palace; they really seem to be
+endless. Lord Wolseley tells how he happened to be
+standing by the French general in the gardens while the
+looting was going on, and as a French soldier came out
+he handed to his chief something that he had brought
+expressly for him. Then, turning to the young English
+officer, he held out a beautiful miniature of a man
+wearing a dress of the time of Louis XIV.</p>
+
+<p>'That is for you, my comrade,' he said, smiling, and
+Wolseley, heartily thanking him, examined the gift.</p>
+
+<p>'How,' he thought, 'could a miniature of a French
+poet living two hundred years ago have got to Pekin?'
+Then he remembered that an embassy from China had
+arrived in France, bearing presents to the French court.
+Louis received them graciously, and showed them the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+splendours of Versailles and all the curious and artistic
+ornaments it contained. When the envoys left, the
+king gave them gifts of French manufacture as valuable
+as their own to take to their emperor, and among them
+was this miniature of Boileau, by Petitot, the greatest
+of French miniaturists.</p>
+
+<p>The imperial throne, which stands on dragon's
+claws, and is covered with cushions of yellow silk, the
+imperial colour, was bought by Gordon himself, and
+presented by him to Chatham, where it may still be seen.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Till the large sum fixed for the expenses of the war
+was paid General Staveley was left with three thousand
+men in command at Tientsin, and Gordon remained with
+him. Tientsin is a dreary place in a salt plain, and the
+climate is very cold, as it is throughout North China.
+But Gordon minded cold far less than heat and mosquitoes,
+and besides his days were full from morning
+till night, building huts for the soldiers and stables for
+the horses, and in managing a fund which he had
+collected to help some Chinese in the neighbourhood
+who had been ruined by the war. Though very careless
+of his own money, and ready to give it away without
+inquiry to any beggar who asked for it, he was most
+particular about other people's, and the attention which
+he paid to small things enabled him to spend the fund
+in the manner that would best aid the poor creatures
+who had lost everything. Now and then he gave
+himself a day's holiday, and explored the country, as
+he was fond of doing; and once he rode out to the
+Great Wall, twenty-two feet high and sixteen wide, which
+runs along the north-west of China, over mountains
+and across plains, for fifteen hundred miles, and was
+built two thousand years ago by an emperor to keep
+out the invading hosts of the Tartars. At certain
+distances strong forts were placed, and these were
+garrisoned by Chinese soldiers. As he passed through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+the more remote villages the inhabitants would come
+out of their houses and stare. A white man! They had
+heard that there were such, though they had never
+really believed it. Well, he was a strange creature
+truly, with his hair cropped close and pink in his cheeks,
+and they did not much admire him!</p>
+
+<p>Nearer Pekin he met long strings, or caravans, of
+camels laden with tea, making their way to Russia.
+Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the mountains it
+was frightfully cold, and raw eggs were frozen so hard
+that no one could eat them; but Gordon could do with
+as little food as any man, and did not suffer from the
+climate. He came back strengthened and interested,
+and it was as well he had the short rest to brace him,
+for now there lay before him a very difficult task.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For quite thirty years great discontent with
+government had been felt by the peasants and lower
+classes in some of the central provinces of the empire,
+and a long while before the war with England broke
+out a peasant emperor had been proclaimed. The
+insurrection&mdash;or the Taeping rebellion, as it is called&mdash;could
+have been easily put down in the beginning, but
+ministers in China are slow to move, and it soon became a
+real danger to the empire. The great object of the
+rebels was to gain possession of Shanghai, the centre of
+European trade, built in the midst of canals and rivers,
+with the great Yang-tse-kiang at hand to carry into
+the interior of China the goods of foreign merchants
+of all countries that come to its harbour across the
+Pacific. Pirate vessels, too, haunted its shores, ready
+to pounce upon the rich traders, and when their prizes
+were captured, they went swiftly away, and hid
+themselves among the islands and bogs that stretched
+themselves a hundred miles to the north and south of
+the city.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Shanghai was a very important place both to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+Chinese, French, and English; yet for twelve years the
+rebellion had been allowed to go on unchecked, burning,
+pillaging, and murdering, till in 1853 the rebels had
+reached a point only a hundred miles distant from Pekin
+itself. Then soldiers were hastily collected, and the Taepings
+forced back; quarrels broke out among their leaders,
+and most likely the rebellion would have melted away
+altogether had it not been for the appearance four years
+later of young Chung Wang, who assumed the command,
+and proved himself a most skilful general. As long as
+he led the Taepings in battle victory was on their side;
+if he was needed elsewhere, they were invariably defeated.</p>
+
+<p>Inspired by his successes, Chung Wang attacked
+and took several rich and important towns in the
+Shanghai district, and held Nankin, the ancient capital
+of China. Shanghai trembled when the flames of
+burning villages became visible from her towers and
+pagodas, and even the Chinese felt that, if they were
+to be saved at all, measures must be quickly taken.
+Volunteers of all nations living in the town, Chinese
+as well as Europeans and Americans, put themselves
+under the command of an American named Ward,
+who drilled them, trained them, and fought with them,
+and, it is said, gave battle to the rebels on seventy
+different occasions without once being beaten. Well
+had his troops earned the title afterwards given them at
+Pekin, of the Ever-Victorious Army.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>This was the state of things when, in May 1862,
+Gordon was sent to Shanghai in command of the English
+engineers who, with some French troops, were to assist
+the Chinese army in clearing the district round
+Shanghai of the dreaded Taepings. The nature of
+the country, almost encircled by water, was such that
+the help of a good engineer was needed if the expedition
+was to be successful, and Gordon was busy all
+day in surveying the canals or moats outside the walls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+of some city they were about to attack, to see at what
+point he could throw a bridge of boats across, or where
+he could best place his reserves. At the end of six
+months the enemy was forced back to a distance of
+forty miles; but the French admiral Protet had been
+killed in action, and Ward had fallen while leading an
+assault.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the emperor and his ministers at Pekin
+understood that if the Taepings were to be put down
+the Chinese army must be commanded by a general
+capable of opposing Chung Wang, and a request was
+sent to the English government that the post might be
+temporarily offered to major Gordon. After some hesitation,
+leave was granted, and permission was given to a
+certain number of officers to serve under him. The
+emperor was overjoyed&mdash;much more so than Gordon,
+who was promptly created a mandarin. He foresaw
+many difficulties in store before he could get his 'rabble'
+of four thousand men into order, and at the outset
+he had much trouble with Burgevine, Ward's successor
+in command of the Ever-Victorious Army, but a very
+different man from Ward himself. However, by the help
+of the famous Li Hung Chang, Burgevine was ultimately
+got rid of, but not before he had done a great deal of
+mischief. Gordon was free to devote all his energies
+to building a little fleet of small steamers and Chinese
+gunboats that could go down the rivers and canals,
+and hinder the foreign traders from secretly supplying
+the rebels with arms and ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>The strict discipline enforced by Gordon made him
+very unpopular with his little army, and they could
+not understand why he made the act of pillage a crime,
+to be punished by death. But when we think how
+wholly impossible it is for any European or American
+to guess what is going on in the mind of any Asiatic,
+it is surprising, not that he met with difficulties, but that
+he ever succeeded in obtaining obedience. As it was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+two thousand of his men deserted after some heavy
+fighting, and Ching, the Chinese general, was jealous
+of him, and incited the troops to oppose and annoy him
+in every way. Besides, Li Hung Chang was behindhand
+in paying his army, and, as Gordon felt that his own
+good faith and honour were pledged to punctual payment,
+he tendered his resignation as commander. This
+frightened the emperor and his ministers so much
+that the money due was quickly sent, and by the help of
+General Staveley matters were arranged.</p>
+
+<p>At the capture of Quinsan Gordon took prisoners
+about two thousand Taepings, whom he drilled with care
+and enlisted in his own army, turning them, he said, into
+much better soldiers than his old ones. Eight hundred
+of them he made his own guard, and under his eye
+they proved faithful and trustworthy. With the help
+of his new force he determined to besiege the ancient
+town of Soo-chow, situated on the Grand Canal and close
+to the Tai-ho, or great lake.</p>
+
+<p>All around it were waterways leading to the sea, but
+the Grand Canal itself, stretching away to the Yang-tse-kiang,
+was held by the Taeping general Chung
+Wang.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now the possession of Soo-chow was of great importance
+to both parties, and Gordon at once proceeded to
+cut off its supplies that came by way of the sea and the
+Tai-ho, by putting three of his steamers on the lake,
+so that no provisions could get into the city except
+through the Grand Canal. On the land side fighting
+was going on perpetually, and by the help of a body of
+good Chinese troops Gordon gained a decisive victory
+in the open field. We can scarcely, however, realise
+all the difficulties he had to contend with in his army
+itself. General Ching not only hated him, and always
+tried to upset his plans, but was quite reckless, and if
+left to himself invariably got into mischief. Then the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+minister, Li Hung Chang's brother, who had been given
+the command of twenty thousand troops, was utterly
+without either instinct or experience, and continually
+hampered Gordon's movements by some act of folly.
+Worst of all, he could not feel sure of the fidelity of his
+own officers, and during the siege he found that one of
+them had actually given information of his plans to
+Chung Wang.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the man's guilt was certain Gordon
+sent for him, and in the light of one whose soul had
+never held a thought that was not honourable and
+true the traitor must have seen himself as he really
+was. We do not know what Gordon said to him&mdash;most
+likely very little, but he offered him one chance of
+retrieving himself, and that was that he should lead
+the next forlorn hope.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his treachery the culprit was able to feel the
+baseness of his conduct. He eagerly accepted Gordon's
+proposal, though he was well aware that almost certain
+death was in store. And his repentance was real, and
+not merely the effect of a moment's shame, for when,
+some time after, a forlorn hope was necessary to carry
+the stockades before Soo-chow, Gordon, whose mind
+had been occupied with other things, had entirely forgotten
+all about his promise. But though he did not
+remember, the officer did, and claimed his right to lead.
+He was the first man killed, but the stockades were
+carried, and after two months' siege Soo-chow was won.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Nowhere during Gordon's service in China was the
+difference between East and West more clearly shown
+than in the events that happened after the capture
+of Soo-chow. Gordon respected his enemies, who had
+fought bravely, and wished them to be granted favourable
+terms of surrender. Moh Wang in particular, the
+captain of the city, had shown special skill and courage,
+and before the town fell Gordon had obtained a promise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+from Li Hung Chang that the Taeping commander's
+fate should be placed in his hands. At a council held
+inside Soo-chow, Moh Wang desired to hold out, but the
+other Wangs (or nobles) all voted for surrender, and at
+length they began to quarrel. Moh Wang would not
+give way, and then Kong Wang caught up his dagger
+and struck the first blow. The rest fell upon Moh Wang,
+and dragged him from his seat, cutting off his head, which
+they sent to Ching the general as a gift.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As plunder had been strictly forbidden by Gordon,
+he was very anxious to give his soldiers two months'
+pay to make up; but one month's pay was all he could
+obtain, and that with great difficulty, while the troops,
+angry and disappointed, threatened to revolt and to
+march against Li Hung Chang, as governor of the
+province. This was, however, stopped by Gordon, who
+then went into the city to the house of Nar Wang,
+another Taeping leader, whom he wished also to gain over.
+On the previous day he had heard from Ching that at
+twelve o'clock on the morning of December 6 the Wangs
+had arranged to meet the governor and surrender
+Soo-chow, as the emperor had consented to spare their
+lives and those of the prisoners; so Gordon started
+early in order to catch Nar Wang before he left, reaching
+Nar Wang's house just as he and the other Wangs
+were mounting their horses for the interview. After
+talking to them a little he bade them good-bye, and
+they rode away.</p>
+
+<p>The fate that they met with was the same as they
+had dealt to Moh Wang. It seemed ridiculous to the
+governor to keep faith with men who had just delivered
+themselves and their city into his hands, and almost
+every Chinaman would have agreed with him. The
+Wangs were all taken over to the other side of the river
+and there beheaded, their heads being cut off and
+flung aside. But somehow, though the murder was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+committed in broad daylight, it was kept a secret till
+the following day.</p>
+
+<p>This breach of faith in murdering men who had
+surrendered might long have remained unknown
+to Gordon but for a slight change in his plans. He
+suddenly decided that he would embark on one of his
+steamers on the Tai-ho, instead of leaving the city by
+another route. It was some little time before steam
+could be got up, so he went for a walk through the
+streets with Dr. Halliday Macartney, whose name will
+always be connected with China. To his surprise,
+crowds of imperialists were standing about, talking
+eagerly and excitedly, and it was clear to both Englishmen
+that some sort of a disturbance had taken place.
+Turning a corner they suddenly met General Ching,
+who grew so pale and looked so uncomfortable that
+Gordon's suspicions were aroused, and he at once
+inquired if the Wangs had seen Li Hung Chang, and
+what had taken place.</p>
+
+<p>Ching replied that they had never been to Li Hung
+Chang at all, which astonished Gordon, who answered
+that he had seen them starting, and if they had not
+gone there, where were they? Then Ching said they
+had sent a message to the governor stating that they
+wished to be allowed to keep twenty thousand men,
+and to retain half of the city, building a wall to shut
+off their own portion. Gordon was greatly puzzled
+by this information, and asked if Ching thought that
+the Wangs could have joined the Taepings again in some
+other place; but the Chinese general replied that he
+thought most likely that they had returned quietly to
+their own homes.</p>
+
+<p>To all appearance Ching was speaking the truth, yet
+Gordon could not feel satisfied. Turning to Macartney,
+who was standing by listening to the conversation, he
+begged him to go quickly to Nar Wang's house and
+tell him that the surrender must be unconditional, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+then to return to him at a certain spot. When Macartney
+reached the house where Nar Wang lived he was informed
+by the servant who opened it that his master was out.</p>
+
+<p>'Will he be in soon, for I must see him,' inquired
+Macartney. 'I have business of the greatest importance.'</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at him silently, and then drew his
+hand slowly across his throat. Macartney understood
+the ghastly sign, and went swiftly away, but only
+just in time to avoid a crowd of pillagers, who poured
+into the house and in a few minutes had wrecked or
+stolen all they could lay hands on. He soon reached
+the spot which Gordon had appointed, but, long though
+he waited, Gordon never came.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>After Macartney had left him Gordon stayed some
+time talking with Ching, and trying to find out what
+had really occurred, for that some dark deed had
+taken place he became quite convinced. However,
+not even torture can wring from a Chinaman what he
+does not choose to tell, and at length Gordon gave up
+the attempt in despair, and hurried through crowds laden
+with plunder to Nar Wang's house in order to see and
+hear for himself. The door stood open, and he walked
+rapidly through the rooms. At first the dwelling seemed
+as empty as it was bare, but at length he thought he
+saw some eyes looking at him behind a pile of rubbish.</p>
+
+<p>'Come out,' he said; 'I am alone, you have nothing
+to fear'; and then an old man crept out, who, with
+many low bows and polite expressions, explained that
+in his nephew's absence the Chinese soldiers had pillaged
+his house, and begged the honourable Englishman to
+help him take away the ladies, whom he had hidden in a
+cellar, to his own dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon was furious at learning that his strict
+orders against pillage had been disobeyed, but this was
+not the moment to think of that. With some difficulty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+they all passed through the crowded streets, but when
+they reached the old man's house they found a guard
+round it, and Gordon was informed that he must consider
+himself a prisoner. Luckily for him the Taepings
+had not yet learned the fate of the Wangs, or his life
+would have been speedily taken in payment for theirs.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All that night Gordon remained locked up in one
+room, impatiently chafing at the thought of what
+might be going on in the city. Early in the morning
+he got leave to send an interpreter with a letter to the
+English lines, ordering his bodyguards to come to his
+rescue, and to seize Li Hung Chang as security for the
+Wangs. His first messenger was stopped and his letter
+torn up; but in the afternoon he was himself set free on
+a promise to send a guard to protect the Taepings in
+Nar Wang's house. This he instantly did, and in his
+indignation at the permission given in his absence to
+the imperialist soldiers to sack the city refused to
+see or speak to general Ching.</p>
+
+<p>On receiving Gordon's refusal Ching began to feel
+that he and Li Hung Chang had gone rather far, and
+that the day of reckoning would be a very uncomfortable
+one. Some explanation he must make, so he
+ordered an English officer to go at once to Gordon and
+inform him that he knew nothing of what had become
+of the Wangs, or whether they were alive or dead,
+but that Nar Wang's son was safe in his tent.</p>
+
+<p>'Bring him here,' said Gordon, and he waited in silence
+till a boy of fourteen entered the camp at the east gate.
+From him he learned what had happened in a few words.
+All the Wangs, his father among them, had been taken
+across the river on the previous day, and there cruelly
+murdered; their heads had been cut off, and their
+bodies left lying on the bank.</p>
+
+<p>Speechless with horror, Gordon set off at once for
+the place of the murder, and found the nine headless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+corpses lying as they had fallen. Englishman and
+soldier though he was, tears of rage forced their way
+into his eyes at the thought that by this act of treachery
+on the part of the Chinese his honour and that of his
+country had been trampled in the dust. Then, taking
+a revolver instead of the stick which was the only weapon
+he carried even in action, he went straight to Li Hung
+Chang's quarters, intending to shoot him dead and to
+bear the responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>But the governor had been warned, and took his
+measures accordingly. Li Hung Chang had escaped
+from his boat, and was hiding in the city. In vain
+Gordon, his anger no whit abated, sought for him high
+and low. No trace of him could be found; and at last
+Gordon returned to Quinsan, where he called a council of
+his English officers, and informed them that until the
+emperor had punished Li Hung Chang as he deserved
+he should decline to serve with him, and should resign
+his command into the hands of General Brown, who
+was stationed at Shanghai. As to Li Hung Chang's
+offer, sent by Macartney, to sign any proclamation
+Gordon chose to write, saying that he was both innocent
+and ignorant of the murder of the Wangs, he would not
+even listen to it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As soon as General Brown received Gordon's letter
+at Shanghai he instantly set out for Quinsan, where
+Gordon remained with his troops for two months,
+while Li Hung Chang's conduct was being inquired
+into, or, rather, while the government was trying to find
+out how the anger of the English generals and the
+English envoy on account of the murder of the Wangs
+could best be satisfied. For Li Hung had been beforehand
+with us, guessing how much he had at stake, and
+had been much praised for his act and given a yellow
+jacket, or, as we should say 'the Garter.' On Gordon
+himself a medal of the highest class was bestowed, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+a large sum of money, and, what the imperial government
+knew he would value much more, a grant for his
+wounded men and extra pay for the soldiers. Anything
+that tended to make his troops more comfortable Gordon,
+who had already devoted to their help his 1,200<i>l.</i> a year
+of pay from the Chinese government, gladly received,
+but for himself he would accept nothing and keep
+nothing, except two flags, which had no connection with
+the Wang massacre. Nor did he allow anyone to remain
+in ignorance of the motive of his refusal, for he wrote
+a letter to the emperor himself, in which he stated that
+'he regretted most sincerely that, owing to the circumstances
+which occurred since the capture of Soo-chow,
+he was unable to receive any mark of his majesty
+the emperor's recognition,' though he 'respectfully
+begged his majesty to accept his thanks for his intended
+kindness.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With the taking of Soo-chow the Taeping resistance
+was really broken, and soon Nankin and Hangchow were
+the only important places left to them, though plenty of
+fighting was still to be done. To the great relief of the
+government Gordon was at length persuaded to resume
+his command, more from the thought that he might
+be able to some extent to check the cruelty natural to
+the Chinese than for any other reason. It is amusing
+to watch the slavish behaviour of the emperor towards
+the man whose help he so greatly needed, and whose
+anger he so deeply feared. Once, when Gordon in leading
+an attack with his wand in his hand, the only weapon
+he ever carried, received a bad wound below the knee, his
+majesty promulgated a public edict ordering Li Hung
+Chang to inquire daily after him, and the governor
+himself issued a proclamation, setting forth all the
+circumstances of the massacre of Soo-chow, and declaring
+in the clearest manner that Gordon had been totally
+ignorant of the whole affair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In June 1864 the British government sent an
+intimation to China that they considered the country
+had no further need for Gordon's services, and wished
+him set at liberty to return home. Gordon himself
+would perhaps have preferred to remain a little longer,
+but, as he was given no choice, he quietly disbanded
+the Ever-Victorious-Army, fearing that, if led by unscrupulous
+men, it might become a danger to the
+empire. He then visited the general besieging Nankin,
+whose name was Tseng-kwo-fan, and gave him a little
+advice as to the training of troops, and even took part
+in directing some of the assaults. Then he took leave
+of the general, and a few hours later he had started on
+his journey. Tien Wang, one of the Taeping commanders
+within the walls of Nankin, seeing that the
+cause was tottering to its fall, committed suicide in the
+manner proper to his rank by swallowing gold leaf.
+Shortly after the city itself was stormed, and Chung
+Wang, whose presence among the rebels was, said
+Gordon, equal to an army of five thousand men, fell
+into the hands of the victors. He was sentenced to be
+beheaded, but was given a week's respite in order to
+write the history of the rebellion of the Taepings, who
+had invaded sixteen out of the eighteen provinces and
+destroyed six hundred cities.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>By this time Gordon and Li Hung Chang had begun
+to know more of each other and to understand a little
+better the different views of East and West. Gordon
+had gained the trust and respect of everybody, even
+of the Taeping chiefs themselves, while the prince
+Kung, in the name of the emperor, wrote a letter of
+the most hearty gratitude for Gordon's services to the
+British minister at Pekin. The title of Ti-tu, the
+highest rank in the Chinese army, had been conferred
+on him, and also the yellow jacket, a distinction
+dating back to the coming of the present Manchu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+dynasty in the seventeenth century, and only given to
+generals who had been victorious against rebels.
+Gordon had besides six dresses of mandarins, and a
+book explaining how they should be worn. They were
+of course the handsomest that China could produce,
+and the buttons on the hats alone were worth 30<i>l.</i>
+or 40<i>l.</i> each. From the two empresses he received a
+gold medal specially struck in his honour; and by this
+he set great store, though not long after, having spent
+all his pay on his boys at Gravesend, he sold it for 10<i>l.</i>,
+and, smoothing out the inscription, sent the money to the
+Lancashire Famine Fund.</p>
+
+<p>His own government gave him a step in military
+rank, and it was as 'Colonel Gordon' that he returned
+home early in 1865.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The next six years of his life Gordon passed at
+home, and these years were, he said, the happiest he had
+ever spent. He first visited his family, who were
+living at Southampton, and to them he was ready to talk
+of all that he had seen and done since they last parted.
+Invitations poured in upon him from all sides, but he
+hated being fussed over, and invariably lost his temper
+at any attempt to show him off. He was so angry at a
+minister who borrowed from Mrs. Gordon his private
+journal of the Taeping rebellion, and then sent to have it
+printed for the other members of the Cabinet to read,
+that he rushed straight to the printers and insisted that
+the type should at once be destroyed. It was a very
+great loss to the world; but the minister had no business
+to act as he did without Gordon's permission, and had
+only himself to thank for what happened.</p>
+
+<p>Delightful though it was to be back again, Gordon
+soon got tired of being idle, so he was given an appointment
+to superintend the erection of forts at Gravesend.
+His leisure hours he devoted to helping the people
+round him, especially little ragged boys, whose only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+playground and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside.
+And it is curious that he, who amongst strangers
+of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often tactless,
+was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally
+as suspicious as they are acute. About himself and
+his own comfort he never thought, and if he was
+working would eat, when it was necessary and he
+remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a
+drawer of his table. But as he had carefully watched
+over the welfare of his troops in China, so in Gravesend
+he looked after that of his boys. He took into his own
+house as many as there was room for, and clothed and
+fed them, while in the evenings he taught them geography,
+and told them stories from English history and the
+Bible, and when he considered they had done lessons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+long enough he played games with them. By-and-by
+more boys came in from the outside and joined
+his classes. It did not matter to him how many they
+were, they were all welcome, and he gave them, as far
+as the time allowed, a training which was religious as
+well as practical, hoping that some day they might
+turn out good soldiers and sailors, and be a protection
+to the empire. Several of his boys were taken on
+board some of the many ships off Gravesend, and the
+'kernel,' as they called him, kept a map stuck over with
+pins tracing their voyages all over the world.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW34"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw34_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw34.png"
+        alt = "He told them stories from English history."
+        title = "He told them stories from English history." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">He told them stories from English history.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Most people would have considered that between
+military duties and boys' classes they were busy enough;
+but Gordon still found time to spare for the ragged
+schools, and money to provide hundreds of boots and
+suits for the little waifs, till he left himself almost
+penniless.</p>
+
+<p>The large garden attached to his house was of no
+benefit to himself, but was lent by him to a number of
+his friends, each of whom did as he liked with his own
+portion, and either kept the fruit and vegetables for
+his family, or else sold them. Of course, the 'kernel'
+was frequently taken in, and spent his money on those
+who had no claim to it; but the boys he helped were
+seldom a disappointment, any more than the boys of
+to-day sent out from the Gordon Boys' Homes founded
+in his memory.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It must have been a black day indeed for many in
+Gravesend when Gordon was despatched by his government
+on a mission to the Danube, and then ordered to
+inspect the graves of those who had fallen in the Crimea
+seventeen years before. So he said good-bye to his
+friends, young and old, leaving to the ragged schools
+some gorgeous Chinese flags, which are still waved at
+the school treats amidst shouts of remembrance of their
+giver.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>On his way back from the Crimea Gordon stopped
+at Constantinople, and while there a proposal was made
+to him, on the part of the sultan, to proceed to Egypt
+and to take service, with the queen's permission,
+under his vassal, the khedive, or ruler, as governor of
+the tribes in upper Egypt. Sir Samuel Baker had
+hitherto held the post, but now wished to resign, and
+Gordon, who had always laid greatly to heart the
+iniquity of the slave-trade, thought that, as governor of
+the provinces from which the supply of slaves was drawn,
+he might be able to put an end to it. Leave was granted
+in the autumn of 1873, and before Gordon returned to
+London to make the necessary preparations, he proceeded
+to Cairo to see the khedive, or, as he was still
+called, 'the lieutenant of the sultan.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Gordon accepted the position of 'governor
+of the equatorial provinces,' with a salary of &pound;2,000 a
+year, instead of the &pound;10,000 offered him by the khedive,
+the country, which ten years before had been rich and
+prosperous, was in a wretched condition owing to the
+slave-trade, carried on as long as they were able
+by Europeans as well as by Arabs. At first elephant-hunting
+was made the pretext of their expeditions, but
+soon they found negroes a more profitable article of
+commerce, and whole villages had the strong men
+and women torn away from them, till, at the first hint of
+the approach of a caravan, the people would abandon
+their huts and fly off to hide themselves. At length
+the trade became so well known and so scandalous
+that the Europeans were forced to give it up; but the
+Arab dealers continued to grow powerful and wealthy,
+and the wealthiest and most powerful of all was Zebehr,
+whose name for ever after was closely connected with
+that of Gordon.</p>
+
+<p>The slave-dealers soon formed themselves into a
+sort of league, with Zebehr at their head, and, having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+created an army made up of Arabs and of the slaves they
+had taken, refused to pay tribute to the khedive, or to
+acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Constantinople,
+whose viceroy he was. The Egyptian government,
+which had suffered the slave-trade to proceed
+unchecked when human life only was at stake, grew
+indignant the moment it became a question of money.
+An army was sent against Zebehr, who easily defeated
+it, and proclaimed himself ruler of the Soudan or 'land
+of the black,' south of Khartoum, then a little group of
+three thousand mud-houses on the left bank of the Blue
+Nile, three miles from its junction with the White Nile.</p>
+
+<p>But, small though it was, Khartoum was the capital
+of the province, and owned a governor's house, with
+the Blue Nile sheltering it on one side, and surrounded
+on the other three by a deep ditch and a wall, while
+on the west side the town was only half a mile distant
+from the White Nile itself.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the khedive understood that he was no
+match for Zebehr he determined to make a friend of
+him, and offered him an alliance with the title of pasha.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment it suited Zebehr to accept this
+proposal, and the two armies combined and conquered
+the province of Darfour; but directly the pasha wished
+to turn into a governor-general the khedive grew
+frightened, and declared that he was now convinced
+that the trade in slaves was wicked and must be put
+down. Perhaps he guessed that Europe was hardly
+likely to be convinced by this sudden change, so, instead
+of appointing an Egyptian governor of the equatorial
+provinces, he conferred the post first on Sir Samuel
+Baker, and, later, on Gordon.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It did not take Gordon long to find out that the
+khedive's newly discovered zeal in putting down the
+slave-trade was 'a sham to catch the attention of the
+English people,' but the weapon had been thrust into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+his hands, and he meant to use it for the help of the
+oppressed tribes. Difficulties he knew there would
+be, and he was ready to fight them, but one difficulty
+he hardly made allowance for, which was that among
+the Mahometan races throughout the world it was as
+much a matter of course to have slaves as it is to us
+to have houses.</p>
+
+<p>With great care he selected the staff that was to
+accompany him, and a body of two hundred troops to
+inspect Khartoum. He chose five Englishmen, an
+American, an old Crimean Italian interpreter called
+Romulus Gessi, and a slave-trader named Abou Saoud,
+whom Gordon had found a prisoner in Cairo. In vain
+the khedive warned the new governor-general of the
+danger of taking such a villain into his service, and of
+the strange look his appointment would have in the eyes
+of Europe. To Gordon the only thing that mattered
+was that the man knew the country through which they
+were to travel, and as to the rest, his own neck must
+take its chance.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was on March 12, 1874, that Gordon came in
+sight of Khartoum, where eleven years later he was to
+find his grave. He was received on the banks by
+the Egyptian governor-general, who ordered salutes to
+be fired and the brass band to play. If Gordon did not
+appreciate the honours paid to him, he was delighted
+at the news that a growth of grass and stones that had
+hitherto rendered the White Nile impassable had been
+at last cut away by the soldiers. Now the river was
+free, and instead of the journey to Gondokoro&mdash;his own
+capital, eleven hundred miles south of Khartoum&mdash;taking
+fourteen months, as in the days of Sir Samuel
+Baker, he would be able to perform it in four weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Every moment of the ten days that Gordon stayed
+at Khartoum was busily employed in discovering all
+he could as to the condition of the people and the state<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+of the government. It did not take him more than
+a few hours to learn that the Egyptian government
+had no authority whatever over the people, and that
+the money matters of the Soudan were hopelessly mixed
+with those of Cairo. But at present he could only note
+what was wrong, and wait to set it right. His work
+just now lay at Gondokoro, and thither he must go.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22nd he started up the river, and at each
+mile, as they drew nearer and nearer to the equator,
+he found the climate more trying. It was, as he says,
+nothing but 'heat and mosquitoes day and night, all
+the year round.' But, exhausting though the climate
+was, he could not help being deeply interested in the
+many things that were new to him. There were great
+hippopotamuses plunging about in their clumsy way;
+the crocodiles, looking more like stone beasts than
+living things, basking motionless on the mud where
+the river had fallen; the monkeys that had their homes
+with the storks among the trees that covered the banks
+in places; the storks that sounded as if they were
+laughing, and 'seemed highly amused at anybody
+thinking of going up to Gondokoro with the hope of
+doing anything.' In a forest higher up they found a
+tribe, the Dinkas, dressed in necklaces. Their idea
+of greeting a white 'chief' was to lick his hands, and
+they would have kissed his feet also had not Gordon
+jumped up hastily and, snatching up some strings of
+gay beads he had brought with him for the purpose,
+hung them over their heads.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The people of Gondokoro were filled with astonishment
+when Gordon's steamer anchored under the river
+banks. It was a wretched place, worse even than
+Khartoum, and inhabited by wretched people, whom
+ill-treatment had made at once revengeful and timid.
+But Gordon did not care how miserable the place was,
+he felt sure he could do something to help the people;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+and first he began by trying to make friends. For a time
+it was uphill work; they had given up planting their
+little plots of ground&mdash;what was the use when their
+harvest was always taken from them? Their only
+possession of value was their children, and these they
+often begged Gordon to buy, to save them from starvation.
+It seemed too good to be true when the white
+man gave them maize, which they baked in cakes, and
+fed them while they sowed their patches once more.
+'He would see that no one hurt them,' he said, and
+little by little, under his protection, the poor people
+plucked up heart again and forgot their troubles, as
+nobody but negroes can.</p>
+
+<p>Up and down the river he went, establishing some
+of the forts which he knew to be necessary if the slave-trade
+was to be put down. One day Abou Saoud
+brought him some letters written by a party of slave-dealers
+to the Egyptian governor of Fashoda, on the
+White Nile, half-way to Khartoum, saying that they
+would shortly arrive with a gang of negroes whom
+they had captured, and with two thousand cows, which
+they had also kidnapped, as was their custom. Gordon
+was ready for them; the cattle he kept, not being
+able to return them to their black owners, and the
+negroes he set free. If possible they were sent home,
+but if that could not be done he bought them himself,
+so that no one else should have a claim to them. The
+gratitude shown by the blacks was boundless, and one,
+a chief of the Dinkas, proved useful to him in many
+ways. The others, tall, strong men, gladly served him
+as hewers of wood and drawers of water.</p>
+
+<p>So the weeks went on, and in the intervals of capturing
+more convoys of slaves Gordon still found time to
+attend to an old dying woman, whom he often visited
+himself, besides daily sending her food, and, what she loved
+better still, tobacco. The heat grew worse and worse,
+and no doubt the mosquitoes also; and Gordon's only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+pleasure was wading in the Nile morning and evening&mdash;a
+very dangerous amusement, as the river swarmed
+with crocodiles. But he had heard that crocodiles never
+attacked anything that was moving, and certainly he
+took no harm, and his health was good. All his white
+men, however, fell ill, and as there was no one to nurse
+them but himself, he would not replace them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW35"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw35_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw35.png"
+        alt = "Gordon found time to attend to an old dying woman."
+        title = "Gordon found time to attend to an old dying woman." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Gordon found time to attend to an old dying woman.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the natives had learned to trust him,
+and under his rule things were looking more prosperous.
+He saw that his men took nothing from them without
+paying for it, whereas the Egyptian governor had
+forced them to work without pay; and finding the troops
+he had brought from Cairo both cowardly and lazy,
+he engaged forty Soudanese, on whom he could depend,
+and trained them to act as his body-guard.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was not to be expected that Gordon could carry
+through all these measures without becoming an object
+of hatred to the Egyptian officials, most of whom were
+in league with the slave-dealers. Soon he discovered
+that many of his men were taking bribes and plotting
+against him, and of them all, Abou Saoud was the worst.
+He even incited the black troops under him to revolt;
+but Gordon soon frightened the men into obedience, and
+sent their leader down the Nile to Gondokoro.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, in spite of fever, discontent, laziness, and open
+rebellion, in ten months (1874), writes one of his subordinates,
+'he had garrisoned eight stations with the
+seven hundred men whom he had found at Gondokoro
+too frightened to stir a hundred yards outside the
+town, and had sent to Cairo enough money to pay the
+expenses of the expedition for this year and the next,
+while that of Baker had cost the Egyptian government
+&pound;1,170,000.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It seemed to Gordon that if he could establish a
+route from the great lake Victoria Nyanza, further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+south, at the head of the Nile, to Mombasa, on the Indian
+Ocean, trade would increase and goods be exchanged
+far more easily and quickly than if they had to be
+brought down the whole length of the Nile, which is
+often rendered impassable by shallows and cataracts.
+Therefore, towards the end of 1874 he set up posts from
+Gondokoro towards lake Albert Nyanza, hoping that
+directly the Nile fell the steamers he had left at Khartoum
+might be able to reach him. But here again he was
+beset with difficulties and dangers. The Arabs were lazy,
+the Egyptians useless and often treacherous, many of
+the tribes hostile; and to add to it all, it was almost
+impossible to get past the rapids. The boats were
+very strong, but liable to be upset at any instant by the
+plunging of the hippopotamuses in the river. Sixty or
+eighty men were often straining at the ropes which were
+to drag the craft along, and Gordon took his turn with the
+rest. Nobody in the camp worked so hard as the commander.
+He cooked his food and cleaned his gun,
+while the men stood by and stared. When there was
+nothing else to be done he mended watches and musical
+boxes, which he took with him as presents to the natives,
+and he kept himself well by walking fourteen miles
+daily, in spite of the heat and mosquitoes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW36"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw36_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/bw36.jpg"
+        alt = "He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and stared."
+        title = "He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and stared." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and stared.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'I do not carry arms, as I ought to do,' he said one
+day, 'for my whole attention is devoted to defending
+the nape of my neck from the mosquitoes,' the enemies
+he hated most of all. Still inch by inch the troops
+fought their way along the river, till at length they
+reached the lake of Albert Nyanza. Gordon established
+forts as he went, though in the depths of his heart he
+knew full well that the moment his back was turned
+everything would relapse into its former state of oppression
+and lawlessness. But what happened afterwards
+was not <i>his</i> business. He had done the work set him to
+the utmost of his power, and that was all for which he
+was responsible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus two years passed away, and having mapped out
+the country he started northwards, to resign his post
+to the khedive before returning to England.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As might have been expected, he was not allowed
+to throw off his burden so easily. The khedive had no
+intention of loosening his hold of a man who sent money
+into his treasury instead of taking it out, but, try as he
+would, he could not wring from Gordon more than a
+conditional promise of coming back. No sooner had
+Gordon arrived in England than telegrams were sent
+after him imploring him to finish his work, and in spite
+of his weariness and disgust he felt that he could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+leave it half done. In six weeks the khedive had
+triumphed, and Gordon was in Cairo.</p>
+
+<p>At his very first meeting with the khedive, when
+the affairs of the Soudan were discussed, Gordon stated
+clearly that he would not go back unless he was given
+undivided authority and power over the Soudan as
+well as over the other provinces. The khedive granted
+everything he asked. The governor-general of the
+Soudan, Ismail Pasha, was recalled, and Gordon took
+his place as ruler over the equatorial provinces, Darfour,
+the whole of the Soudan, and the Red Sea coast.
+He owed obedience to no one save the khedive, who
+again was responsible to the sultan of Turkey. The
+salary offered him by the khedive was &pound;12,000 a year,
+but &pound;6,000 was all that Gordon would accept, and later
+he cut it down to &pound;3,000.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With 'terrific exertion' he thought it possible that
+in three years he might make a good army in his provinces,
+with increased trade, a fair revenue, and, above
+all, slavery suppressed. It seemed a gigantic work to
+undertake, especially when we consider that it had to be
+carried out in a district one thousand six hundred miles
+long and seven hundred broad. But nothing less would
+be of any use, and Gordon was not the man to spare
+himself if he could make his work permanent. So
+after a few days in Cairo he started for the south, going
+first, by the khedive's orders, to try and bring about
+a peace with the kingdom of Abyssinia. This he did
+to a certain extent by 'setting a thief to catch a thief,'
+that is, by holding one claimant to the throne in check
+by means of another. The state with which he was
+surrounded made him very cross, as any kind of fuss
+over him always did. 'Eight or ten men to help
+me off my camel, as if I were an invalid,' he writes
+indignantly. 'If I walk, everyone gets off and walks;
+so, furious, I get on again.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>However, these pin-pricks to his temper did not
+last long, for soon bad news came from Khartoum,
+and he had to set out for the Soudan directly. His
+daily journey on his camel was never less than thirty,
+and more often forty miles. On his arrival at a station
+he received everybody, rich and poor, who chose to come
+to him, listened to all complaints, and settled all disputes,
+besides writing constant reports to the khedive
+of what he was doing. He had nobody to help him; it was
+far easier and quicker for him to do his own work than
+first to tell someone else what he wanted done, and then
+to make sure his instructions were properly carried out.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At length Khartoum was reached, and Gordon was
+duly proclaimed governor-general, the ceremony being,
+we may be sure, as short as he could make it. According
+to the wishes of the khedive, he was treated like a
+sultan in the 'Arabian Nights.' On no account was he
+ever to get up, even when a great chief came to pay his
+respects to him, and no one was allowed to remain
+seated in his presence. Worse than all, his palace
+was filled with two hundred servants.</p>
+
+<p>The first reform he wished to make was to disband
+a body of six thousand Bashi-Bazouks, or Arab and
+Turkish irregular troops, who pillaged the tribes on the
+frontiers that they were set to guard, and let the slave-dealers
+go free. Of course this could only be done very
+slowly and cautiously; but he managed gradually to discharge
+a few at a time and to replace them with soldiers
+from the Soudan, whom he always found very trustworthy.
+Then, after setting right many abuses in
+Khartoum itself, and giving the outlying houses a proper
+water-supply, where before the lack of it had caused
+disease and discomfort, he began a march of several
+hundred miles westwards to Darfour.</p>
+
+<p>Here the whole province had risen up against its
+new Egyptian masters, and those tribes which had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+not already broken out were preparing to do so. With
+the hopeful spirit that never deserted him, and which
+more than once had created the miracle he had expected,
+Gordon imagined that he would be able to turn his
+enemies into allies. As to his own life, his faith in
+God was too real and too firm for him to take that
+into consideration. Till his appointed task was finished
+he was perfectly safe, and after that he would, in his
+own words, 'leave much weariness for perfect peace.'</p>
+
+<p>Thus he went about his work with complete unconcern,
+and one day arrived at a discontented place an
+hour and a half before the few hundred soldiers that
+formed his army. Nobody expected him, and when
+they saw a man in a uniform shining with gold, flying
+towards them on the swiftest camel they had ever
+beheld, and with only one companion, they were filled
+with amazement. Nothing would have been easier
+than to kill Gordon; but somehow they never even
+thought of it, and soon the people of Darfour and the
+neighbouring tribes came in and submitted to him.
+On the way he was welcomed gladly by the garrisons
+of the various little towns, some of whom had received
+no pay for three years. These half-starved men, being
+in their weak condition even more useless than the
+ordinary Egyptian soldier, he sent eastwards to be
+disbanded, and with an army of five hundred untrustworthy
+troops, who did not possess a single cannon,
+and whose arms were old-fashioned flint-lock guns,
+he had to prepare to face the attack of thousands of
+rebels against the Egyptian government.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily, for some reason, the rebel army melted
+away without a shot being fired, and the danger being
+passed the Egyptians pushed on to Dara.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC07"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour07_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour07.jpg"
+        alt = "They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying towards them."
+        title = "They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying towards them." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying towards them.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now came the moment to which Gordon had long
+been looking forward&mdash;the life and death struggle with
+the slave-dealers, headed by Suleiman, son of Zebehr,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
+who had armed six thousand of his own slaves, and could
+besides summon the help of five thousand good soldiers.
+How thankfully, then, Gordon must have greeted the
+arrival of a powerful tribe seven thousand strong, who,
+having suffered bitterly from the slave-traders, were
+thirsting for revenge. That after a hard fight the
+victory remained with Gordon was owing only to the
+support of this and other friendly tribes, for the Egyptians
+'crowded into the stockade' and hid there, safe,
+as they hoped, from stray spears or wandering bullets.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to follow all Gordon's movements
+during this campaign, when in the heat of summer,
+near the equator, he darted about on his camel from one
+place to another, 'a dirty, red-faced man, ornamented
+with flies,' and often by his unexpected appearance and
+promptitude carried the day, 'because he gave his
+enemies no time to think' or to plot against him.
+Hearing at the end of August that Suleiman was about
+to attack Dara, he at once rode straight to the spot,
+which he reached in the condition I have described.</p>
+
+<p>'If I had no escort of men,' he writes to his sister,
+'I had a large escort of flies. I suppose the queen
+fly was among them. The people were paralysed at
+my arrival, and could not believe their eyes. At dawn
+I got up, and putting on the golden armour the khedive
+gave me, mounted my horse, and with an escort of my
+robbers of Bashi-Bazouks rode out to the camp of the
+other robbers, about three miles off. There were about
+three thousand of them, men and boys: they were
+dumbfounded at my coming among them.'</p>
+
+<p>Alone in a tent, with the chiefs, headed by Suleiman,
+'a nice-looking lad of twenty-two,' sitting in a circle
+round him, Gordon informed them 'in choice Arabic'
+that he was quite aware that they intended to revolt
+against the Egyptian government, and that he intended
+to disarm them and break them up.</p>
+
+<p>'They listened in silence and went off to consider<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
+what I had said. They have just now sent in a letter
+stating their submission, and I thank God for it,' he
+continues. 'The sort of stupefied way in which they
+heard me go to the point about their doings, the pantomime
+of signs, the bad Arabic, was quite absurd.' Then
+one by one the other slave-dealers surrendered, and
+though Suleiman still gave him much trouble, and was to
+give more, yet on the whole things had gone much
+better than he had feared, and by the middle of October
+he arrived at Khartoum, and after a week's hard work
+took a steamer and went down the river to Berber
+and Dongola. In March he very unwillingly continued
+his journey to Cairo, at the command of the khedive, who
+desired to create him president of the Finance Inquiry.
+But this was a great mistake; Gordon's views on the
+matter were different from those of other men, and he
+had been too long accustomed to be absolute master in
+any task he undertook to be able to work harmoniously
+with his equals. The khedive, too, failed to support
+him, and Gordon, seeing it was hopeless to expect to
+gain his point, and depressed and annoyed with what
+had taken place, returned to Khartoum by way of the
+Suez Canal and Suakim.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Then came the news that Suleiman had revolted, and
+had overrun the province of Bahr-el-Ghazal on the south
+of Darfour. Gordon's old follower and lieutenant
+Gessi was sent with some troops to put down the revolt;
+but it was a rainy season, and the country was partially
+under water. He had only one thousand troops, while
+daily fresh Arabs swelled the army of the successful
+leader; but he was enterprising as well as prudent,
+and in the middle of November he came up with the
+enemy and entrenched himself behind stockades on the
+river Dyoor. Here Suleiman attacked him again and
+again, and again and again was beaten back. Gessi
+sent repeated messages to Gordon for help and ammuni<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>tion,
+but all that the governor general could spare was
+soon exhausted. At length Gessi obtained some from
+the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and now was able to leave his camp
+and successfully attack bands of slave-dealers. At
+length he stormed a town where Suleiman was stationed,
+and nearly captured 'the Cub' himself. Finding to his
+disgust that the leader had escaped, Gessi followed him
+westwards through deserted villages and dense forests,
+and though he did not succeed in catching his prey,
+he was able to break up the gang of slave-dealers.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Gordon had left Khartoum and had gone
+to the slave-dealers' headquarters at Shaka, and then
+back towards Khartoum, capturing many caravans on
+the way. During one week, on his way from Oomchanga
+to Toashia, he thinks he must have taken
+about six hundred slaves, and he puts down the number
+that had lost their lives in the last four years from the
+cruelty of the dealers to have been at least one hundred
+thousand in Darfour alone.</p>
+
+<p>At Toashia Gordon had a short interview with
+Gessi, whom he created a pasha and made governor
+of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, with a present of &pound;2,000. On
+his way back to his province news was brought to
+Gessi of Suleiman's whereabouts. He at once started
+in pursuit with three hundred men, and came up with
+Suleiman during the night at Gara. The slave dealer,
+taken by surprise, surrendered, and was shot next day,
+and it would have been well for the Soudan if Suleiman's
+father Zebehr had paid the same penalty for his
+rebellion against the khedive.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in the year 1879 that the khedive Ismail
+was deposed at Cairo, and Tewfik appointed in his place.
+The new khedive seemed fully as anxious as his predecessors
+to make use of the one man who feared neither
+danger nor responsibility, and bore a charmed life,
+and Gordon was at once sent on a fruitless mission to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+Abyssinia. On his return he carried out the intention
+that he had formed for some time, and placed his resignation
+in the hands of the khedive. Well he knew that
+the Egyptian government cared nothing for the reforms
+he had made, or the slave-trade that he had broken.
+They never supported any of his measures, and he felt
+assured that in a few months the state of things would
+be as bad as ever.</p>
+
+<p>Sick at heart and worn out in body, he came home
+early in 1880, having paused on his way to see Rome.
+Once in London it was the old story. Invitations rained
+on him, only to be refused. To escape from them he
+rushed off to Lausanne for peace. But peace and
+Gordon had little to do with each other, and he soon
+received an urgent request from the ministers of Cape
+Colony to allow himself to be appointed commander of
+the colonial forces. This, however, Gordon refused at
+once. The war with the Zulus was only just over,
+and Gordon, who on all questions involving the well-being
+of nations, was very keen-sighted, may well
+have noted signs of unrest throughout the whole of
+South Africa. His health had been severely tried by
+all he had gone through, and he needed rest before he
+could take active employment.</p>
+
+<p>So he returned to England, and in May, much to
+everyone's surprise, accepted the post of secretary to
+the new viceroy of India, lord Ripon. But no sooner
+had the viceregal party reached Bombay than Gordon
+found that the work he had to do was not the sort he
+was suited for. Not because he thought that anything
+was beneath his dignity&mdash;the man who had cleaned
+his own gun and cooked his own food in the Soudan was
+never likely to feel that&mdash;but his career, as he ought to
+have known before, had unfitted him to cope with the
+minute details bound up with Indian life, and the
+immense importance given to the distinctions of caste.
+Therefore four days after the ship reached Bombay he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+resigned, expressing his regrets for the mistake he had
+made, and thanking lord Ripon most warmly for the
+kindness shown him. His passage money and all the
+expenses to which his appointment had put the new
+government&mdash;for the Liberals had lately come into
+power&mdash;he instantly repaid.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Two days later he received a telegram from sir
+Robert Hart, director of the customs in China, begging
+him to take the first ship to Tientsin, where his services
+were badly needed. As his request to the English War
+Office for six months' leave was refused, he replied that
+his object in going to China was to prevent a war which
+was likely to break out between that country and Russia,
+and therefore, if the permission asked was not granted,
+he should be forced to throw up his commission in the
+queen's service.</p>
+
+<p>On receipt of this message the government allowed
+him to go, and for three months he worked hard, and
+not only contrived, as he hoped, to prevent the war
+with Russia, but to check the revolt of Li Hung Chang,
+who desired to place the crown on his own head.</p>
+
+<p>Having accomplished what he intended, he found
+himself in London in October, and in 1881 went out to the
+island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, to command
+the engineers.</p>
+
+<p>At last he rested from the heavy responsibilities of
+the last few years, though he worked as he always must
+do, and, now a major-general, in April 1882 set sail for
+the Cape, where the governor of the colony, sir Hercules
+Robinson, wanted his advice on the settlement and administration
+of Basutoland. But when Gordon arrived
+he found his views on the subject so totally different
+from those of the men in power that he resigned and
+left, and from London he carried out the great longing of
+his life&mdash;a visit to the Holy Land. Few people knew
+and loved their Bibles like Gordon, and every stone in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>
+Palestine was full of interest to him. Here he was alone
+and quiet, respecting the faith of others, and therefore
+causing them to respect his; talking and praying with
+those of different religions, teaching them and learning
+from them; preparing himself, as the Master whom he
+served had also done, for the fiery trial through which
+he was to pass.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All this time the king of the Belgians had been
+offering him the command of an expedition his majesty
+was anxious to send to the Congo, and continued to press
+the matter in spite of the refusal of Mr. Gladstone, then
+prime minister, to lend him Gordon to lead it. On
+January 1, 1884, Gordon went over to Brussels to talk
+over affairs with the king, and while he was there the
+English government suddenly decided to send him at once
+to the Soudan, where matters were in a very threatening
+state.</p>
+
+<p>Since Gordon had left the country, four years before,
+Arabi pasha had revolted, and been crushed at Tel-el-Kebir,
+and a dervish in the Soudan, Mohammed Ahmed
+by name, had made himself famous by proclaiming
+himself mahdi, the expected prophet of the whole
+Mahometan world. Thousands flocked to the standard
+that he raised, and his armed escort stood with drawn
+swords in his presence. The Egyptian governor-general
+summoned him to Khartoum to answer for his proceedings,
+but the mahdi answered that he was master of the
+country and obeyed no one. The troops despatched
+against him he always defeated, and when a new governor-general
+and a fresh army gave him battle they were
+utterly destroyed. Obeid in Darfour surrendered after
+a five months' siege, and, flushed with success, he carried
+all before him.</p>
+
+<p>In June 1883 colonel Hicks was given by the
+Egyptian government the military command at Khartoum,
+with ten thousand men and thirty guns; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+he had no knowledge of the country where he had to
+fight, and fell an easy prey to the mahdi's army, which
+was ten times as numerous as his own. The tribes of
+the eastern Soudan joined the victor's banner, and here,
+while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, Baker pasha
+was defeated by Osman Digna, a slave-dealer of Suakim.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>On January 17, 1884, Gordon, who was in Brussels,
+received a telegram from lord Wolseley, bidding him
+come over to London by the evening train. He started
+at once, and reached London early in the morning,
+and at twelve o'clock was taken by Wolseley to the
+Cabinet Council.</p>
+
+<p>'He went in,' writes Gordon, 'and talked to the
+ministers, and came back and said, "Her majesty's
+government want you to undertake this. The government
+are determined to evacuate the Soudan, for they
+will not undertake to guarantee its safety. Will you
+go and do it?" I said, "Yes!" He said, "Go in."
+I went in and saw them. They said, "Did Wolseley
+tell you our orders?" I said, "Yes." I said, "You
+will not guarantee the future government of the Soudan,
+and you wish me to go up to evacuate now?" They
+said, "Yes," and it was over, and I left at 8 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> for
+Calais.'</p>
+
+<p>He was seen off from the station by lord Wolseley
+and by lord Hartington, afterwards the duke of Devonshire,
+who always stood loyally by him, and repeatedly
+urged that help must be sent instantly, while his colleagues
+in the Cabinet waited to see how things would
+drift, till the time for help was past.</p>
+
+<p>On January 26, the day which a year hence was to
+witness his death, Gordon, with colonel Stewart, was
+in Cairo, where he spent two busy days. The first news
+that greeted him was the success of the mahdi in all
+directions, and that the Mahometans in Syria and in
+Arabia would probably rise against their rulers. Yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+he does not seem to have understood any better than
+the English and Egyptian governments what a terrific
+force the man really was, not so much in himself, but
+because he stood in the minds of hundreds of thousands
+for the deliverer who would aid them to shake off a yoke
+under which they groaned. 'I do not believe in the
+advance of the mahdi,' says Gordon a few days later; 'he
+is nephew to my old guide in Darfour, who was a very
+good fellow,' and on several occasions he shows that
+he had no idea as yet of the task that lay before him,
+and considered the mahdi a mere puppet in the hands
+of the slave-owners, who had joined him to a man.
+While in Cairo he did his best to make arrangements to
+ensure good government. He desired to see Nubar
+pasha, of whom he thought highly, placed in power, and
+the dangerous Zebehr banished to Cyprus, but Tewfik
+the khedive would listen to neither proposal. So, to the
+horror of some of the anti-slavery societies in England,
+who knew nothing of the supreme difficulties of Gordon's
+position, the newly appointed governor-general of the
+Soudan asked to take Zebehr with him, and keep him
+under his own eye. 'He is the ablest man in the
+Soudan,' said Gordon afterwards, 'a capital general
+and a good governor, and with his help I could have
+crushed the mahdi.' But Gordon's friends at Cairo
+had no faith in Zebehr's loyalty, and much in his hatred
+of Gordon, and at their entreaty the plan was given up.
+Yet Gordon did not sleep one night in Khartoum without
+knowing he was right, and writing to beg for Zebehr.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Forty-eight hours after reaching Cairo Gordon started
+with Stewart and four Egyptian officers for Khartoum.</p>
+
+<p>'I go with every confidence and trust in God,' he
+wrote to Wolseley a few hours before he set out, in the
+spirit in which he lived and died, and in twenty days
+he was at Khartoum, where the whole population came
+out to welcome him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With the help of the garrison of five thousand men
+Gordon began to fortify the town, and to throw up
+proper defences for Omdurman, on the left bank of the
+river. Provisions were stored, and a telegraph wire
+rigged up between the outworks and his palace, where
+he spent hours every day in sweeping the horizon with
+his field-glass. Once at Khartoum he began to realise
+what a force the mahdi had become. In March he wrote
+to the English government, 'I shall be caught in
+Khartoum, and even if I was mean enough to escape, I've
+not the power.' He begs both for men and money, but
+no notice was taken of his letter; so in April he telegraphs
+to sir Evelyn Baring, the English agent in Cairo,
+saying that he had asked sir Samuel Baker to try and
+obtain &pound;30,000 from English and American millionaires
+to enable him to get three thousand Turkish soldiers,
+'who would settle the mahdi for ever. I do not see the
+fun of being caught here to walk about the streets as a
+dervish with sandalled feet,' he goes on; 'not that I
+shall ever be taken alive.'</p>
+
+<p>He had been sent expressly to evacuate the Soudan,
+yet he was not allowed to do it when it came to the
+point, and, as usually happens, attempts at compromise
+proved failures. An expedition was despatched to
+Suakim, and two bloody battles were fought, but the
+only result of these was to inflame the zeal of the mahdi's
+followers and to enable him to capture Berber, the key of
+the Soudan.</p>
+
+<p>In Khartoum Gordon was using all his skill to fit
+the place to stand a siege, for he speedily saw that his
+garrison of one thousand Soudanese were all he had
+to rely on, the three thousand Egyptians and Bashi-Bazouks
+being worse than useless. Later his troops
+amounted to about double the number, and the population
+which he had to feed he reckoned at forty thousand.
+The provisions, he estimated, would last for five months;
+but in the end they had to do for ten, and up to the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+last, when all else was eaten, there was still some
+corn left in the granary.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>While the river was yet open, and before the Arabs
+had cut off all communication between Khartoum and
+the outer world, Gordon managed to send away some
+old and helpless soldiers, various government officials,
+and two thousand three hundred refugees, who had
+fled to the town for safety. Everything he could think
+of was done for their comfort; and in order to prevent
+the poor black women and children from feeling strange
+and frightened, he ordered colonel Duncan to ask a
+German woman living at Korosko to be ready to meet
+and help them. In Khartoum itself there were no
+fevers or pestilence, and food was given daily to the
+very poor.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the middle of March that the town, with
+its three rings of defence, was invested by the Arabs;
+but when the time came for the Nile to rise it was easy
+for Gordon to send his steamers up and down both
+branches of the river, and to attack the Arab camps.
+Besides those boats he had already, he built some new
+ones, and kept his men busy in the workshops of the
+arsenal. But when April came, and there were no
+answers to his appeals, he wrote home that the matter
+<i>must</i> be settled before the Nile fell in November, when
+the river route would become not only difficult but
+dangerous.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In this way the months went on, and in England his
+friends were doing all they could to help him, though
+vainly. Lord Wolseley repeatedly urged on the Government
+the need of sending out a relief force, and in a letter
+of July 24, to Gordon's brother, he writes that if he was
+allowed to start immediately he could be at Dongola
+by October 15, and could go all the way to Khartoum
+by the river. Lord Hartington, too, never forgot Gordon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
+but the rest of the Cabinet turned a deaf ear; they had
+other things to think about.</p>
+
+<p>The next move came from the French consul, monsieur
+Herbin, who was inside Khartoum. He suggested
+to Gordon that now that it was September, and the
+Nile had risen to its greatest height, the cataracts would
+be covered to a depth of thirty or forty feet; therefore
+it would be quite easy for a small steamer such as the
+<i>Abbas</i> to make its way to Dongola, and from there to
+send on letters and despatches to Cairo. Gordon
+approved of the plan, and Stewart offered to command
+the little force of forty or fifty soldiers&mdash;all that could
+be spared to go with it. On board were some Greeks,
+monsieur Herbin himself, Stewart, and Power the 'Times'
+correspondent, the only two friends Gordon had. How
+he must have longed to go with them. But that being
+impossible he put the thought out of his mind, and gave
+them most careful directions as to the precautions they
+were to take. But on their return journey Gordon's
+orders were neglected, the steamer was taken by the
+mahdi's troops, and all on board put to death, Stewart
+among them.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Thus Gordon was left alone in Khartoum, without
+a creature to share his responsibility or to help him in
+his work. From henceforward he was obliged to see
+to everything himself, and make sure that his orders
+were carried out.</p>
+
+<p>From his journal and letters, which we have up to
+December 14, we know all that was going on inside the
+town: the measures of defence; the decoration which he
+invented to reward the soldiers for their courage or
+fidelity, an eight-pointed star with a grenade in the
+centre, and consisting of three classes, gold, silver, and
+pewter; the presence of Slatin (later the sirdar) in the
+mahdi's camp, and the chains put upon him. But in
+November the fighting grew fiercer; the mahdi cut all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
+communication between Khartoum, stretching from
+the Blue to the White Nile, and Omdurman, on the
+right bank of the latter river. However, though he
+took the town, he did not keep it long, for he was
+shelled out of it; but day by day his forces crept closer,
+and Gordon, who had sent his steamers down to Shendy
+to meet the relieving troops which he thought were on
+their way, had no means of stopping the mahdi when
+he began to transport his army from one bank of the
+Nile to the other, in preparation for the last assault.</p>
+
+<p>During the summer months Gordon had been
+cheered by the knowledge that sir Gerald Graham was
+fighting Osman Digna and keeping him at bay, but this
+was all the consolation he had.</p>
+
+<p>'Up to this date,' he writes on October 29, 'nine
+people have come up as reinforcements since Hicks's
+defeat, and not a penny of money.' Still, for seven
+months not a man had deserted; but with the advance
+of the mahdi many of the defenders of Khartoum
+might be seen stealing after dark to his camp. He sent
+an envoy across the river to offer Gordon honourable
+terms if he would surrender, knowing full well from the
+papers which his spies had stolen from the steamer
+<i>Abbas</i> what straits the garrison were in. But Gordon,
+putting little faith in the word of the mahdi, rejected
+the proposal and returned for answer, 'We can hold out
+twelve years.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>By this time 'Relief Expedition No. 2, to save our
+national honour,' as Gordon persisted in calling it, was on
+its way, and many of us can recall with what sickening
+hearts we watched its daily progress. The obstacles
+which had been foretold months before by both Gordon
+and Wolseley proved even greater than they expected.
+The Nile had fallen, and its cataracts, like staircases of
+rocks, were of course impassable, and the transport of the
+boats was a terrible difficulty. Then, owing to treachery,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>
+all the useful camels were spirited away, and only enough
+could be collected to carry one thousand men across
+the desert. Sir Herbert Stewart started first, and
+reached the wells of Jakdul on January 3, and being
+obliged to halt there, as the camels were needed to
+bring up other troops, he occupied the time in building
+a fort. On the 12th they all pushed on to Abou Klea,
+where they arrived on the 17th, to find the mahdi
+awaiting them. Here two fierce battles were fought,
+in one of which sir Herbert Stewart was mortally
+wounded. In each the mahdi was defeated, but he
+proceeded to attack Metemmeh on the 21st, the British
+force being now commanded by sir Charles Wilson,
+who was unexpectedly reinforced during the battle
+by some troops on board Gordon's four steamers,
+which were returning to Khartoum. Three days later
+(January 24) Wilson started in two steamers for
+Khartoum, ninety-five miles away, and the river was
+so low that it was necessary to be very cautious. On
+the morning of the 25th one of the boats ran on a
+rock, and could not be floated off till nine o'clock that
+night. As soon as he possibly could Wilson got up
+steam again, but eight miles from Khartoum a native
+hailed him from the bank. 'Khartoum has fallen!'
+he said, 'and Gordon has been shot.'</p>
+
+<p>Wilson would not believe it. To have failed when
+success was within his grasp seemed too terrible to
+think of. It must be one of the mahdi's devices to
+stop the advance of our troops, so he went on till he could
+command a proper view of the town. The masses of
+black-robed dervishes that filled the streets and crowded
+along the river bank told their own tale, and, bowing his
+head, Wilson gave the signal to go back down the river.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW37"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw37_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw37.png"
+        alt = "A shot ended his life."
+        title = "A shot ended his life." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">A shot ended his life.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>From Slatin pasha, then a captive in the mahdi's
+camp, we know how it happened. Omdurman had
+fallen on the 13th, but Khartoum would probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>
+not have been assaulted so soon had not the mahdi
+suffered such severe defeats at Abou Klea and at
+Abou Kru, three days later; then he hurried back to
+Khartoum and again summoned Gordon to surrender.
+His offer was refused, and addressing his men he informed
+them that during the night they were to be
+conveyed across the river in boats, but that if victory
+was to be theirs, absolute silence was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past three in the morning they were all
+ready, and attacked at the same moment both the east
+and west gates. The east held out for some time, but
+the west gate soon gave way, and the rebels entered with
+a rush, murdering every man they met. In an open
+space near the palace they came up with Gordon,
+walking quietly in front of a little group of people to
+take refuge at the Austrian consul's house. A shot
+ended his life, and saved him from the tortures that men
+like the mahdi inflict on their captives. Death, as we
+know, had no terrors for him. 'I am always ready to
+die,' he had said to the king of Abyssinia nearly six
+years before, 'and so far from fearing your putting me
+to death, you would confer a favour on me, for you
+would deliver me from all the troubles and misfortunes
+which the future may have in store.' Now death
+<i>had</i> delivered him, yet none the less does his fate lie
+like a blot on the men who sent him to his doom, and
+turned a deaf ear to his prayers for help until it was too
+late. England was stricken with horror and grief at the
+news, and showed her sorrow in the way which Gordon
+would have chosen, not by erecting statues or buildings
+to his memory, but by founding schools to help the little
+orphan boys whom he always loved. But whatever
+bitterness may have been in the hearts of his friends
+towards those who had sacrificed him, Gordon we can be
+sure would have felt none.</p>
+
+<p>'One wants some forgiveness oneself,' he said,
+when he pardoned Abou Saoud, who had tried to betray
+him. 'And it is not a dear article.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_CRIME_OF_THEODOSIUS" id="THE_CRIME_OF_THEODOSIUS"></a>THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Everyone who stops to visit the town of Tr&egrave;ves, or
+Trier, to give it its German name, must be struck by
+the number and beauty of its ruins, which give us
+some idea of the splendour of the city at the time that
+Ambrose the Prefect lived there and ruled his province.
+About the city were hills now covered with vines, and
+through an opening between them ran the river Moselle.
+A wall with seven gates defended Tr&egrave;ves from the
+German tribes on the east of the Rhine, but only one,
+the Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, is left standing. Its
+cathedral, the oldest in Europe north of the Alps, was
+founded in 375 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> by Valentinian I., who often occupied
+the palace which was sacked and ruined a century
+later by Huns and Franks. A great bridge spanned
+the Moselle, and outside the walls, where the vineyards
+now climb the hills, was an amphitheatre which held
+30,000 people, and when these came back, tired and
+dusty, from chariot races or games, there were baths
+and warm water in the underground galleries to make
+them clean and comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>It was somewhere about the year 333 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> that a
+boy was born at Tr&egrave;ves in the house of the governor,
+and called Ambrose, after his father. He was the
+youngest of three children, his brother Satyrus being
+only a little older than himself, while Marcellina, their
+sister, who was nearly four, looked down upon the others
+as mere babies. Ambrose the elder was a very important
+person indeed, for the emperor Constantine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>
+had made him ruler, or prefect, of the whole of Europe
+west of the Rhine, that is, of Spain, Gaul or France, and
+Britain. The prefect was a good and just man, and the
+nations were happy under his sway; but he died after a
+few years, and his wife, unfortunately, thought it wiser
+to leave Tr&egrave;ves and take her children to Rome, where
+they could get the best teaching and would become
+acquainted with their father's friends.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long and difficult journey for a lady and two
+boys (Marcellina had already gone to a convent in
+Rome), though they were rich enough to travel in tolerable
+comfort. Even in summer the passage of the Alps
+was hard enough, and the towering mountains, steep
+precipices, and rushing rivers must have seemed
+strange and alarming to anyone fresh from the fertile
+slopes of the Rhineland. But the boys were not
+frightened, only deeply interested, and they quite forgot
+to be sorry at leaving their old home in the excitement of
+what lay before them.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt they had many adventures, or what they
+would have considered as such, before they reached the
+corn-covered plains of Lombardy, and stopped to rest
+in the city of Milan, whose name was hereafter to be
+bound up for all time with that of little Ambrose. But
+we are not told anything about their travels, and when
+they arrived in Rome they went straight to the old
+house, which had been for generations in their father's
+family. That family was famous in the annals of the city,
+and had become Christian in the time of the persecution;
+but nowadays Christians and pagans lived happily
+together, and divided the public offices between them.</p>
+
+<p>The children soon settled down in their new surroundings,
+and felt as if they had lived all their lives
+in Rome. Marcellina they seldom or never saw, and,
+however much her mother may have longed after her,
+she was forced to content herself with her two boys and
+to take pride in their success.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The prefect of Rome, Symmachus by name, had
+taken a great fancy to Satyrus, in spite of the fact that
+the boy was brought up a Christian, while he himself
+was a pagan. Symmachus shared with the Christian
+Probus the chief authority in Rome, and while Satyrus
+was to be found in his house during most of the hours
+when he was not attending, with his brother, classes
+in Greek and Latin literature and in law, Ambrose
+was no less frequently in that of Probus. Though this
+caused their mother to spend many lonely evenings, she
+was well pleased, for both men bore a high character, and
+would be able to help her boys in many ways that were
+impossible to a woman. The two youths were very
+popular, pleasant, and well-mannered, and with strong
+common-sense which proved useful in saving them
+from pitfalls that might otherwise have been their ruin.
+They had friends without number, but they liked no
+one's company so much as each other's, and it was a sad
+moment for both when Symmachus gave Satyrus a
+post under his own son, and the two young men set sail
+for Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<p>For some time Ambrose remained at home, learning
+the duties of a prefect under Probus. He early showed
+great talent for managing men, a quick eye for detecting
+crime, impartiality in giving judgment, and firmness
+in seeing it carried out. Probus must have watched
+anxiously to see how far the young man's sense of
+justice and his desire for mercy would act on each other,
+but what he saw satisfied him. Ambrose knew at once
+what was the important point in every matter, and
+never allowed his mind to be confused by things that
+had nothing to do with the real question. This was his
+safeguard as a judge, and this was the principle he held
+to all through his life, which caused him to be such a
+different man from Hildebrand or Thomas &agrave; Becket,
+or many great bishops who came after him. To
+Ambrose, murder was murder, theft was theft, whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
+it was done by a Christian or a pagan, and the punishment
+was equally heavy for both.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the emperor Valentinian may have noted
+the qualities of the young lawyer, or perhaps he may
+have consulted with Probus, but in any case, in the
+year 372 Ambrose was sent off to govern the whole
+of North Italy, under the title of 'consul.' At the
+utmost he was only twenty-nine, and he may have been
+younger, for the date of his birth is uncertain. But his
+head was in no way turned by his position, and the
+emperor, a well-meaning but tactless man, beheld with
+satisfaction that the restless people of Milan, the capital
+of the north, were growing daily quieter under the rule
+of Ambrose. What his own severity had been powerless
+to accomplish Ambrose carried through without any
+difficulty. The parties, religious as well as political, into
+which the city was split up, all came to him with their
+grievances, and, wonderful to say, never murmured at
+his verdicts. Before he had been consul much more
+than a year, Milan was in a quieter state than it had
+been for half a century.</p>
+
+<p>But the death of the bishop early in 374 threatened
+to plunge everything into the old confusion. Valentinian
+was consulted, but refused to have anything to do in
+the matter of the election of a new prelate; it was not
+his business, he said. So the bishops streamed in to Milan
+from the cities of the north and met in the gallery of
+one of the large round churches that were built in those
+days. In great excitement the people pressed in
+below; so much depended on who was chosen&mdash;to which
+party he belonged. For hours and hours they waited,
+and every now and then a murmur ran through the
+crowd that the announcement was about to be made;
+but it died away as fast as it came, and the weary
+waiting began again. At last the strain grew too great,
+and it was quite plain that the smallest spark of disagreement
+would kindle a great fire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A man wiser than the rest saw this, and hastened
+to summon Ambrose to the spot.</p>
+
+<p>'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be
+too late. Only you can keep the peace, so come at
+once.'</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW38"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw38_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw38.png"
+        alt = "'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too late.'"
+        title = "'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too late.'" />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too late.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Ambrose needed no urging. What his friend said
+was true, and, besides, he was as a magistrate bound if
+possible to prevent a riot, or, if one had already begun,
+to quell it.</p>
+
+<p>The loud, angry voices ceased as he entered the
+church, and amidst a dead silence he begged the crowd to
+be patient yet a little while longer, and to remember that
+the choice of a bishop was one that affected them all, and
+could not be made in a hurry. As he spoke he noted
+that the excitement began to grow less, and by the time
+he had ended the flushed faces were calm again. Then
+the voice of a child rang through the church.</p>
+
+<p>'Ambrose, bishop!'</p>
+
+<p>'Ambrose, bishop,' echoed the people, but Ambrose
+stood for a moment rooted to the spot. It was the last
+thing he had expected or wished, but the continued cries
+brought him to himself, and hastily leaving the church
+he went to the hall where he gave his judgments, the
+crowd pressing on him right up to the door.</p>
+
+<p>Never before or since has any man been so suddenly
+lifted into a position for which he had made no previous
+preparation. He, a bishop! Why, though a Christian,
+in common with many of his friends and also with his
+brother, he had never even been baptized, still less
+had he studied any of the things a bishop ought to
+know. Oh! it was impossible. It was only a moment's
+craze, and would be forgotten as soon as he was out
+of sight; so he stole away at night and hid himself,
+intending to escape to another city. But on his way
+he was recognised by a man who had once pleaded a
+cause before him. A crowd speedily collected, and he
+was carried by the people back to his house within the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
+walls, and a guard placed before it, while a letter was
+despatched to the emperor informing him that the lot
+had fallen upon Ambrose.</p>
+
+<p>'Vox populi, vox Dei' ('The voice of the people is
+the voice of God'). Valentinian gave a sigh of surprise
+and relief as he read the wax tablets before him. Losing
+no time, he sent a paper, signed by himself, the imperial
+seal affixed, nominating Ambrose bishop of Milan, while
+to Ambrose he wrote privately, saying that no better
+choice could have been made, and that he would support
+him in everything. But by the time the messenger
+reached Milan, Ambrose had escaped again, and was
+hiding in the house of a friend outside the walls. However,
+this effort to avoid the greatness thrust upon him
+was as vain as the rest, and he saw that he must accept
+what fate had brought him. Within a week he had
+been baptized, ordained priest, and consecrated bishop,
+knowing as little as any man might of the studies
+hitherto considered necessary for his position. But it
+is quite possible that his ignorance of these may have
+been a help instead of a hindrance in the carrying out of
+his duties.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Now very often, if a man's position is changed, his
+character seems to change too, and the very qualities
+which caused him to be chosen for the new appointment
+sink into the background, while others, far less suitable,
+take their place. No doubt, during the first days after
+his election Ambrose must have been watched carefully
+by many eyes&mdash;for no one, however popular, is wholly
+without enemies&mdash;and any alteration in his conduct
+or way of life would have been noted down. Still, even
+the most envious could find no difference. Ambrose
+the bishop was in all respects the same as Ambrose the
+consul, except that he gave away more money than he
+had done before, and held himself to a still greater
+degree at the disposal of the people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In these days we are so used to reading of the struggle
+which raged for so many centuries between the Church
+and the State&mdash;the Emperor and the Pope&mdash;that it
+seems quite natural to us that after the death of the
+emperor Valentinian (which happened a few months later)
+the bishop should become the adviser and minister
+of his young son Gratian. To Ambrose, however,
+the situation was beset with difficulties, and both disagreeable
+and dangerous. He had not the least desire
+to meddle in the affairs of the empire&mdash;the care of the
+church in Milan was quite enough for any one man;
+but when the young emperor Gratian came to him for
+advice and guidance it was his duty to give it. Soon
+matters grew worse and worse. The Goths crossed the
+Danube, and defeated the army of the Eastern Empire
+near Adrianople; Byzantium, or Constantinople, the
+city of Constantine, lay at their mercy; and Italy might
+be entered through Hungary and the Tyrol, or by sea
+from the south.</p>
+
+<p>The tidings reached Milan through the first of the
+numerous fugitives who had managed to escape across
+the Alps. Every day more frightened, starving people
+arrived, and the city was taxed to the utmost to find
+them food and shelter. Yet even the lot of these poor
+creatures was happy in comparison with those who had
+been taken prisoners by the Goths, and were doomed
+to spend their lives in slavery unless they were ransomed.
+Ambrose set the rich citizens an example by
+giving all the money he had, but after every farthing
+possible had been raised the unredeemed captives
+were still many. There only remained the golden
+vessels of the church, which were the pride of Milan,
+and these the bishop brought out and melted down,
+so that as far as in him lay all prisoners might be
+freed.</p>
+
+<p>In after-years his enemies sought to use the fact
+as a handle against him. He had no right to give what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
+was not his own, they said; but Ambrose paid little heed
+to their words; he had done what he knew was just, and
+the rest did not matter.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With the appointment of the general Theodosius
+as emperor of the East things began to mend. The
+Goths began to understand that they had a strong man
+to deal with, and Ambrose was once more left to act both
+as bishop and magistrate in his own diocese, and to give
+constant advice to the well-meaning but weak young
+Gratian. The legal training that Ambrose had received
+was now of the highest value, and his experience of
+men and the world acquired in Rome preserved him
+from making many mistakes and giving ear to lying
+stories. The cleverest rogues in Milan knew that the
+most cunning tale would never deceive the bishop, and
+would only earn for themselves a heavy fine or imprisonment.
+'Some,' he writes, 'say they have debts; make
+sure that they speak truly. Others declare they have
+been robbed by brigands; let them prove their words,
+and show that the injuries were really received by
+them.' Under Ambrose's rule impostors of all kinds
+grew scarce.</p>
+
+<p>During these years the bishop's life, except for public
+anxieties, had been calm and happy, for his brother
+Satyrus had been with him, and had given him his help
+in many ways. At length important business took
+the elder brother to Africa, and on his return the ship
+in which he was sailing struck on a rock and sank.
+Luckily, they were not far from land, and Satyrus was a
+good swimmer, so with great exertions he managed to
+reach a lonely part of the coast. He was kindly cared
+for by the people, but there was no means of letting
+Ambrose hear of his safety, and he had to wait long
+before another ship passed that way. Then, when his
+friends had abandoned all hope, he suddenly appeared
+in Milan, to the speechless joy of the bishop. But not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
+long were they left together. In a little while Satyrus
+fell ill, and in spite of the constant care that was given
+him, in a few days he died, leaving Ambrose more
+lonely than before.</p>
+
+<p>After this troubles crowded thick and fast on the
+bishop. Gratian, whom he had loved as a son, was
+treacherously murdered in Gaul by order of Maximus,
+who had been given by Gratian himself rule over the
+prefecture of Gaul with the title of emperor. The grief
+of Ambrose was deep; but besides he was forced to act
+for Gratian's half-brother Valentinian, whose mother
+Justina never failed to send for the bishop to help her
+out of her difficulties, and directly he had made things
+smooth, proceeded to fall back into them.</p>
+
+<p>Thankful indeed was he when she and her son set
+out for Thessalonica, to put themselves under the protection
+of Theodosius.</p>
+
+<p>In the long line of the emperors of the East there
+were few more honest and able than Theodosius. He
+found his dominions in a state of confusion, the prey of
+the barbarian hordes that were always pouring westwards
+from the wide plains of Scythia, while internally
+the strife in the church was fiercer than ever. Quietly
+and steadily the emperor took his measures. Here he
+pardoned, there he punished, and men felt that both
+pardon and punishment were just. He was not yet
+strong enough to fight against the rebel Maximus, as he
+would have liked to do, but he determined that, cost
+what it might, he would never forsake the young Valentinian.
+Maximus had snatched at some excuse to
+invade Milan, which on his entrance he had found
+abandoned by its chief men, save only Ambrose, who
+treated him with contempt and went his own way.
+The intruder's efforts to buy support by conciliation
+failed miserably, and in a few weeks there came the
+news that Theodosius was preparing to meet him on
+the borders of Hungary, or Pannonia. Then Maximus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>
+assembled what forces he could, and set out across the
+pass of the Brenner.</p>
+
+<p>Two battles were lost, for the legions of Maximus
+were but half-hearted; in the third he was taken prisoner
+and brought before the emperor. Theodosius was a
+merciful man, but his heart was hard towards the
+murderer of Gratian. 'Let him die!' he said, and
+without delay the order was carried out.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW39"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw39_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw39.png"
+        alt = "'Let him die!' he said."
+        title = "'Let him die!' he said." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">'Let him die!' he said.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now that Maximus was dead the legions were quite
+ready to return to their rightful emperor, and as soon
+as he had settled matters Theodosius went on to
+Milan. There he and Ambrose became great friends;
+the bishop was much the cleverer of the two, but
+they were both honest and straightforward, with great
+common-sense, and it must have been a relief to Ambrose,
+who did not in the least care for being an important
+person, to feel that he could at last mind his own business,
+and leave affairs of state to the emperor.</p>
+
+<p>It was while all seemed going so smoothly that the
+supreme crisis in the lives of both men took place&mdash;the
+event which has linked the names of Ambrose and
+Theodosius for evermore.</p>
+
+<p>Thessalonica, the chief town of Macedonia, was a
+beautiful city, and its Governor, Count Botheric, a
+special friend of the Emperor, who constantly went to
+pay him a visit when wearied out with the cares of state,
+which pressed on him so heavily in Constantinople.
+The people were gay and light-hearted, loving shows
+and pageants of all sorts, but more especially the games
+of the circus. In order to celebrate the defeat of Maximus,
+Botheric had arranged a series of special displays,
+and in the chariot races most of the prizes were carried
+off by one man, who became the idol of the moment.
+Furious, therefore, was the indignation which ran through
+the city when, immediately after the festival was over,
+the charioteer was accused of some disgraceful crime,
+and being found guilty, was thrown into prison by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+Botheric. In a body the populace surged up to the
+house of the Governor and demanded his release. But
+Botheric was not the man to be turned from what
+he knew to be right by an excited crowd. He absolutely
+refused to give way, and told them that the man
+had deserved the punishment he had given him, and
+more too. Then the passion of the mob broke loose.
+They attacked the Governor's house and the houses
+of all who were in authority. The soldiers who were
+ordered out were too few to cope with their violence.
+In the struggle Botheric was killed, and many of his
+friends also, and their bodies subjected to every kind
+of insult that madness could suggest.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Theodosius was in Milan when the news reached him,
+and after a few moments of stony horror he was seized
+with such terrific passion that it almost seemed as if
+he would die of rage. At last he spoke; to those who
+stood around the voice sounded as the voice of a
+stranger.</p>
+
+<p>'The crime was committed by the whole town,' he
+said, 'and the whole town shall suffer.' Then, and
+without giving himself time to change his mind, he sat
+down and wrote the order for a massacre to one of the
+few magistrates left alive.</p>
+
+<p>His words were probably reported to Ambrose, and
+no doubt the bishop tried his best to calm the wrath of
+the emperor. But Theodosius was in no mood to be
+reasoned with. He declined to see his friend, and left
+Milan, shutting himself up in silence till the terrible
+tale of vengeance was told.</p>
+
+<p>In obedience to his instructions, games, and especially
+chariot races, were announced to take place in the
+circus. We do not know if the mob had broken open
+the prison and released the charioteer in whose honour
+so much blood had been shed; but if so we may be
+sure that he was present, and was hailed with shouts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>
+welcome. The circus was crowded from end to end&mdash;not
+a single seat was vacant. The eyes of the spectators
+were fixed on the line of chariots drawn up at the
+starting-point, and drivers and lookers-on awaited
+breathlessly the signal. In their absorption they never
+noticed that soldiers had drawn silently up and had
+surrounded them. A moment later, and a signal was
+indeed given, but it was the signal for one of the bloodiest
+massacres that ever shocked the ancient world. Probably
+the authorities who carried out the emperor's orders
+went further than he intended, even in the first passion
+of his anger. But of one thing we may be quite sure,
+and that is that remorse and shame filled his soul when
+the hideous story reached him. Not that he would
+confess it; to the public he would say he was justified
+in what he had done, but none the less he would have
+given all he had to undo his actions. He came back
+one night to Milan, and shut himself up again in his
+palace.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of the emperor's return Ambrose happened
+to be staying with a friend in the country, for
+his health had suffered from his hard work, and also
+from this last blow, and his uncertainty how best to
+bring Theodosius to a sense of his crime. When he
+entered Milan once more, he waited, in the hope that
+the emperor might send for him, as he was used to do;
+but as no messenger arrived, the bishop understood
+that Theodosius refused to see him, and the only course
+open was to write a letter.</p>
+
+<p>The occasion was not one for polite phrases, neither
+was Ambrose the man to use them. In the plainest
+words he set his guilt before Theodosius and besought
+him to repent. And as his sin had been public, his
+repentance must be public too. But this letter remained
+unanswered. Theodosius was resolved to brave the
+matter out, and next day, accompanied by his usual
+attendants, he went to the great church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the porch Ambrose met him, and refused to let
+him pass.</p>
+
+<p>'Go back,' he said, 'lest you add another sin to
+those you have already committed. You are blinded
+by power, and even now your heart is hard, and you do
+not understand that your hands are steeped in blood.
+Go back.'</p>
+
+<p>And Theodosius went back, feeling in his soul the
+truth of the bishop's words, but prevented by pride
+from humbling himself.</p>
+
+<p>Months went on, and the two men still lived as
+strangers, and now Christmas was near. Rufinus,
+prefect of the palace, who was suspected of having
+inflamed the wrath of the Emperor in the matter of
+Thessalonica, upbraided his master with showing so
+sad a face while the whole world was rejoicing. Theodosius
+then opened his soul to him, and acknowledged
+that at length he had repented of his crime and was
+ready to confess it before the bishop and the people.
+Once having spoken, he would not delay, and there and
+then went on foot to the church. As before, Ambrose,
+who had been warned of his intention, met him in the
+porch, thinking that the emperor meant to force his
+way in, and in that case the bishop was prepared to
+put him out with his own hands.</p>
+
+<p>But Theodosius stood with bowed head, and in a
+low voice confessed his guilt and entreated forgiveness.
+'What signs can you show me that your repentance
+is real?' asked Ambrose. 'A crime like yours is not
+to be expiated lightly.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tell me what to do, and I will do it,' said Theodosius.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>And the proof that Ambrose demanded was neither
+fasting nor scourging nor gifts to the church. 'It was
+that the emperor should write where now he stood, on
+the tablets that he always took with him, an order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+delaying for thirty days the announcement of any decree
+passed by a reigning emperor which carried sentence
+of death or confiscation of property to his subjects.'
+Further, that after the thirty days had passed the
+sentence and the circumstances which called it forth
+must be considered over again, to make quite sure
+that no injustice should be committed. To this
+Theodosius willingly agreed; not only because it was
+the token of repentance imposed on him by Ambrose,
+but because his own sense of right and justice made
+him welcome a law by which the people no longer
+should be at the mercy of one man's rage.</p>
+
+<p>The law was written down and read out so that
+those who stood around might hear; then Ambrose
+drew back the bar across the porch, and Theodosius
+once more entered the church.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PALISSY_THE_POTTER" id="PALISSY_THE_POTTER"></a>PALISSY THE POTTER</h2>
+
+
+<p>Four hundred years ago a little boy called Bernard
+Palissy was born in a village of France, not very far
+from the great river Garonne. The country round was
+beautiful at all times of year&mdash;in spring with orchards
+in flower, in summer with fields of corn, in autumn with
+heavy-laden vines climbing up the sides of the hills,
+down which rushing streams danced and gurgled.
+Further north stretched wide heaths gay with broom,
+and vast forests of walnut and chestnut, through which
+roamed hordes of pigs, greedy after the fallen chestnuts
+that made them so fat, or burrowing about the roots
+of the trees for the truffles growing just out of sight.
+When the peasants who owned the pigs saw them sniffing
+and scratching in certain places, they went out at once
+and dug for themselves, for, truffles as well as pigs,
+were thought delicious eating, and fetched high prices
+from the rich people in P&eacute;rigueux or even Bordeaux.</p>
+
+<p>But the forests of the province of P&eacute;rigord contained
+other inhabitants than the pigs and their
+masters, and these were the workers in glass, the people
+who for generations had made those wonderful coloured
+windows which are the glory of French cathedrals.
+The glass-workers of those days were set apart from all
+other traders, and in Italy as well as in France a noble
+might devote himself to this calling without bringing
+down on himself the insults and scorn of his friends.
+Still, at a time when the houses of the poor were
+generally built of wood, it was considered very dangerous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
+to have glass furnaces, with the fire often at a white
+heat, in the middle of a town, and so a law was passed
+forcing them to carry on their trade at a distance.
+In Venice the glass-workers were sent to the island
+of Murano, where the factories still are; in P&eacute;rigord they
+were kept in the forest, where they could cut down
+the logs they needed for their kilns, and where certain
+sorts of trees and ferns grew which, when reduced to
+powder, were needed in the manufacture of the glass.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Whether the father of Palissy was a glass-maker or
+not&mdash;for nothing is quite certain about the boy's early
+years&mdash;Bernard must of course have had many companions
+among the children of the forest workers, and as
+he went through the world with his eyes always open,
+he soon learnt a great deal of all that had to be done in
+order to turn out the bits of glass that blazed like jewels
+when the sun shone through them. There were special
+kinds of earth, or rocks, or plants to be sought for, and
+when found the glass-maker must know how to use them,
+so as to get exactly the colour or thickness of material
+that he wanted. And when he had spent hours and hours
+mixing his substances and seeing that he had put in
+just the right quantity of each, and no more, perhaps
+the fire would be a little too hot and the glass would
+crack, or a little too cold and the mixture would not
+become solid glass, and then the poor man had to
+begin the whole process again from the beginning.
+Bernard stood by and watched, and noted the patience
+under failure, as well as the way that glass was made,
+and when his turn came the lesson bore fruit.</p>
+
+<p>But Bernard learned other things besides how to
+make glass. He was taught to read and write, and
+by-and-by to draw. In his walks through the woods
+or over the hills, his eyes were busy wandering through
+the fallen leaves or glancing up at the branches of the
+trees in search of anything that might be hidden there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved, and sometimes
+he would persuade them to stay quiet for a few
+minutes by singing some country songs, while he took
+out his roll of paper and made rough sketches of them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW40"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw40_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw40.png"
+        alt = "The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved."
+        title = "The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But after a while Palissy grew restless, and before he
+was twenty he left home and travelled on foot over
+the south of France, gaining fresh knowledge at every
+step, as those do who keep their wits about them. He
+had no money, so he paid his way by the help of his
+pencil, as he was later to do in the little town of Saintes,
+taking portraits of the village innkeeper or his wife, or
+drawing plans for the new rooms the good man meant to
+build now that business was so thriving, and measuring
+the field at the back of the house, that he thought of
+laying out as a garden of fruits and herbs. And as the
+young man went he visited the cathedrals in the towns
+as well as the forges and the manufactories, and never
+rested till he found out why this city made cloth, and
+that one silk, and a third wonderful patterns of wrought
+iron.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know exactly how long Palissy remained
+on his travels, but as there was no need for him to hurry
+and so much for him to see he probably was away for
+some years. On his return he seems to have settled
+down in the little town of Saintes, on the river Charente,
+where he supported himself by doing what we should
+call surveying work, measuring the lands of the whole
+department, and reporting on the kind of soil of which
+they were made, so that the government might know
+how to tax them.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In the year 1538 Palissy married, and a year later
+came the event which influenced more than any other
+the course of his future life. A French gentleman
+named Pons, who had spent a long while at the Italian
+court of Ferrara, returned to France, bringing with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>
+him many beautiful things, among others an 'earthenware
+cup, wonderfully shaped and enamelled.' Pons
+happened to meet Palissy, and finding that the same
+subjects interested them both, he showed him the cup.
+The young man could scarcely contain himself at the
+sight. For some time he had been turning over in his
+mind the possibility of discovering enamel, or glaze,
+to put on the earthen pots, and now here, in perfection,
+was the very thing he was looking for.</p>
+
+<p>During the next two or three years, when he was
+busy surveying the lands about Saintes, in order to support
+his wife and little children, his thoughts were perpetually
+occupied with the enamelled cup, and how to
+make one like it. If he could only see a few more,
+perhaps something might give him a clue; but how was
+he to do that? Then one day in the winter of 1542 a
+pirate boat from La Rochelle, on the coast, sailed into
+port with a great Spanish ship in tow, filled with earthenware
+cups from Venice, and plates and goblets from the
+Spanish city of Valencia, famous for its marvellously
+beautiful glaze. The news of the capture soon reached
+Palissy, and we may be sure he had made a study of the
+best of the pots before they were bought by the king,
+Francis I., and given away to the ladies of the French
+court. But the Venetian and Spanish treasures still
+kept their secret, and Palissy was forced to work on
+in the dark, buying cheap earthen pots and breaking
+them, and pounding the pieces in a mortar, so as to
+discover, if he could, the substances of which they
+were made.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All this took a long time, and Palissy gave up his
+surveying in order to devote his whole days to this
+labour of love. The reward, however, was very slow
+in coming, and if he had not contrived to save a little
+money while he was still a bachelor his wife and children
+would have starved. Week after week went by, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+Palissy was to be seen in his little workshop, making
+experiments with pieces of common pots, over which he
+spread the different mixtures he had made. These
+pieces, he tells us, 'he baked in his furnace, hoping
+that some of these mixtures might, when hot, produce
+a colour'; white was, however, what he desired
+above all, as he had heard that if once you had been
+able to procure a fine white, it was comparatively easy
+to get the rest. Remembering how as a boy he had
+used certain chemical substances in staining the glass,
+he put these into some of his mixtures, and hopefully
+awaited the result.</p>
+
+<p>But, alas! he 'had never seen earth baked,' and had
+no idea how hot the fire of his furnace should be, or in
+what way to regulate it. Sometimes the substance was
+baked too much, and sometimes too little; and every
+day he was building fresh furnaces in place of the old
+ones which had cracked, collecting fresh materials,
+making fresh failures, and altogether wasting a great
+deal of time and money.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Thus passed several years, and it is a marvel how
+the family contrived to live at all, and madame Palissy
+had reason for the reproaches and hard words which she
+heaped on her husband. The amount of wood alone
+necessary to feed the furnaces was enormous, and when
+Palissy could no longer afford to buy it, he cut down
+all the trees and bushes in his garden, and when they
+were exhausted burned all the tables and chairs in
+the house and tore up the floors. Fancy poor madame
+Palissy's feelings one morning when this sight met her
+eyes. His friends laughed at him and told tales of his
+folly in the neighbouring town, which hurt his feelings;
+but nothing turned him from his purpose, and except
+for the few hours a week when he worked at something
+which <i>would</i> bring in money enough to keep his family
+alive, every moment, as well as every thought, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>
+given up to the discovery which was so slow in being
+made.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMBW41"></a>
+    <a href="images/bw41_large.png">
+    <img src="images/bw41.png"
+        alt = "Fancy poor Madame Palissy's feelings."
+        title = "Fancy poor Madame Palissy's feelings." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">Fancy poor Madame Palissy's feelings.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Again he bought some cheap pots, which he broke
+in pieces, and covered three or four hundred fragments
+with his mixtures. These he carried, with the help
+of a man, to a kiln belonging to some potters in the
+forest, and asked leave to bake them. The potters
+willingly gave him permission, and the pieces were laid
+carefully in the furnace. After four hours Palissy
+ventured to examine them, and found one of the fragments
+perfectly baked, and covered with a splendid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>
+white glaze. 'My joy was such,' he writes, 'that I felt
+myself another man'; but he rejoiced too soon, for success
+was still far distant. The mixture which produced the
+white glaze was probably due to Palissy having added
+unconsciously a little more of some special substance,
+because when he tried to make a fresh mixture to spread
+over the rest of the pieces he failed to obtain the same
+result. Still, though the disappointment was great, he
+did not quite cease to 'feel another man.' He had
+done what he had wanted once, and some day he would
+do it again and always.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It seems strange that Palissy did not go to Limoges,
+which was not very far off, and learn the trade of
+enamelling at the old-established manufactory there.
+It would have saved him from years of toil and heartsickness,
+and his family from years of poverty. But
+no! he wished to discover the secret <i>for himself</i>, and
+this he had no right to do at the expense of other
+people.</p>
+
+<p>However, we must take the man as he was, and as
+we read the story of his incessant toils we wonder that
+any human being should have lived to tell the tale. He
+was too poor to get help; perhaps he did not want it;
+but 'he worked for more than a month night and day,'
+grinding into powder the substances such as he had used
+at the moment of his success. But heat the furnace as
+he might, it would not bake, and again he was beaten.
+He had found the secret of the enamel, but not how to
+make it form part of the pots.</p>
+
+<p>Each time victory appeared certain some fresh
+misfortune occurred, the most vexatious of all being
+one which seems due to Palissy's own carelessness.
+The mortar used by the potter in building his kiln
+was full of small pebbles, and when the oven became
+very hot these pebbles split, and mixed with the
+glaze. Then the enamel was spread over the earthen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>
+pots (which at last were properly baked), and the surface
+of each vessel, instead of being absolutely smooth,
+became as sharp as a razor and tore the hand of any
+unlucky person who touched it.</p>
+
+<p>To guard against such accidents Palissy invented
+some sort of cases&mdash;'lanterns' he calls them&mdash;in
+which to put his pots while in the kiln, and these he
+found extremely useful. He now plucked up heart and
+began to model lizards and serpents, tortoises and
+lobsters, leaves and flowers, but it was a long while
+before he could turn them out as he wished. 'The
+green of the lizards,' he tells us, 'got burned before the
+colour of the serpents was properly fixed,' and the
+lobsters, serpents and other creatures were baked before
+it suited the potter, who would have liked them all to
+take the same time. But at length his patience and
+courage triumphed over all difficulties. By-and-by
+he learned how to manage his furnace and how to mix
+his materials; the victory had taken him sixteen years
+to win, but at last he, and not the fire, was master;
+henceforth he could make what he liked, and ask what
+price he chose.</p>
+
+<p>And there we will leave Palissy the artist and turn
+to the life of Palissy the Huguenot.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For some years past the reformed religion had spread
+rapidly in this corner of France, and Palissy, always
+anxious to understand everything that came in his
+way, began first to inquire into the new doctrines,
+and then to adopt them. One of the converts, Philibert
+Hamelin, a native of Tours, was seized by the magistrates
+and condemned to death, and Palissy, who was
+his special friend, careless of any risk to himself, did
+all that was possible to obtain his pardon; when that
+proved hopeless, the potter arranged a plan of escape
+for the prisoner, but Hamelin declined to fly, and was
+hanged at Bordeaux in 1557.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The new religion had changed life outwardly as well
+as inwardly at Saintes, as Palissy himself tells us.
+'Games, dances, songs, banquets, smart clothes, were
+all things of the past. Ladies were forbidden by Calvin,
+whose word was law, even to wear ribbons; the wine
+shops were empty, for the young men passed their spare
+hours in the fields; girls sat singing hymns on the banks
+of the streams, and boys abandoned their games, and
+were as grave as their fathers.' The new faith spread
+rapidly in this district, but the converts did not all
+behave in the peaceable manner described by Palissy.
+As the party grew stronger it also grew more violent,
+and it was plain to him and to everyone else that
+civil war must shortly follow. Cruelty on one side was
+answered by cruelty on the other, and Palissy had
+thrown in his lot with the Huguenots, and by his
+writings as well as his words urged them to take arms
+against the Catholics. Perhaps the artist in him may
+have grieved to hear of the destruction in the beautiful
+churches of the carved images of the saints that were
+broken by axes and hammers; of the pictures that were
+burned, or the old illuminated manuscripts that were
+torn in pieces; but outwardly he gave his approval, and
+when things went against the Huguenots, even Palissy's
+powerful friends who admired his works could no longer
+shut their eyes. He was warned to change his ways, and
+as he did not the duke of Montpensier, then governor
+of the rebellious provinces, thought he would keep
+Palissy from greater mischief by putting him into
+prison. From Saintes he was sent to Bordeaux, where
+the magistrates, irritated at his having given the use
+of a tower which they had granted him for a studio
+as a meeting-place for Huguenots, ordered him into
+stricter confinement, while they debated whether the
+studio should be destroyed. But the constable of France,
+Anne de Montmorency, hearing of this proposal, hastened
+to the queen dowager, Catherine de M&eacute;dicis, who came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>
+to the rescue by appointing him potter to the royal
+household. In this manner Palissy and his studio both
+escaped, and soon afterwards the Treaty of Amboise
+(1563) gave peace to both parties.</p>
+
+<p>After this the happiest period of Palissy's life began.
+He was free, he was on the way to grow rich, and he had
+leisure to write down the thoughts and plans that had
+come to him long ago as a boy in his wanderings, or
+lately, in his lonely hours in prison. His children could
+be well provided for, and he need have no more anxiety
+about them. As to his wife, she appears to have been
+already dead when fortune at last visited him, and,
+indeed, she played but a small part in his life.</p>
+
+<p>Now his first book was composed, and in it we can
+read about the gardens that Palissy hoped to lay out
+if his rich friends, Montmorency, or Montpensier, or
+Cond&eacute;, or even the queen herself, would help him
+to carry out his designs.</p>
+
+<p>The garden of Palissy's thoughts was to be very
+large, and certainly would cost a great deal of money.
+It was to be situated under a hill, so that the flowers
+and fruits might be protected from the winds, and
+many streams were to flow through it. Broad alleys
+would cross the garden, ending in arbours, some made of
+trees, trained or cut into different shapes, and filled
+with statues; others of different coloured stones, with
+lizards and vipers climbing upon the walls, while on
+the floor texts would be picked out in pebbles. Plants
+and flowers would hang from the roofs of the grottos,
+and beside them the rivulets would broaden into basins
+where real frogs and fish would gaze with surprise at
+their stone companions on the brink. Here and there
+the stream would be dammed up into a lake covered
+with tiny islands, and filled with forget-me-nots and
+water-lilies and pretty yellow irises, and at the next
+turn of the path the visitor would be delighted by a
+beautiful statue half hidden by a grove of trees. Catch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>ing
+sight of an inscription in the left hand of the figure,
+he would not resist stepping aside to read it, and as he
+was stooping to see what was written a jar of water
+in the figure's right hand would empty itself on his head.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMC08"></a>
+    <a href="images/colour08_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/colour08.jpg"
+        alt = "A jar of water in the figure's right hands emptied itself on his head."
+        title = "A jar of water in the figure's right hands emptied itself on his head." />
+    </a>
+    <p class="caption">A jar of water in the figure's right hands emptied itself on his head.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Wet and cross, the visitor would pursue his way,
+taking care not to go near another statue standing alone
+in a wide grassy space, with a ring dangling from its
+finger. The children or pages waiting on the lady of the
+house would, however, think that the flat lawn would
+be a splendid place in which to play at 'tilting at the
+ring,' and here was a ring just set up for the purpose.
+Hastily fetching their toy weapons, they would choose
+a starting-place and, holding their lances well back, run
+swiftly towards the statue, hoping to thrust the lance-point
+through the ring, as by-and-by they would have
+to do at the sports at a royal wedding or a coronation.
+But the moment the ring was touched a huge wet
+sponge would swing round from the back of the figure
+and hit the champion a sharp blow on the back of the
+head, to the great delight and surprise of his companions.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a game that could be played twice on the
+same person, as Palissy well knew; but in those days
+great lords with trains of attendants frequently stopped
+at each other's houses on the way to their own lands,
+so that a constant supply of fresh pages might be looked
+for, all eager to play at tilting at the ring.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was in 1565 that Palissy was sent for to Paris by
+the queen, to help her to decorate and lay out the
+gardens of the palace of the Tuileries, which she was
+now planning, close to the Louvre.</p>
+
+<p>The very name of the place must have sounded
+home-like in the ears of Palissy, for Tuileries means
+nothing more than 'tile-fields,' and for a long while this
+part of Paris had been the workshop of brick-makers
+and potters outside the walls of the old city. But
+in the reign of Catherine's father-in-law, Francis I.,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+they were forced to move further away, as the king
+had taken a fancy to the site, and had bought it for
+his mother. Gardens were made where the furnaces
+had stood; but these were by no means fine enough to
+please Catherine, and she called in her favourite architect,
+Philibert Delorme, to erect a palace in their place,
+and bade Palissy, now called 'Bernard of the Tuileries'
+by his friends, to invent her a new pleasure-ground
+stretching away to the west.</p>
+
+<p>We may be sure that Palissy did not lose this happy
+chance of carrying into practice the 'delectable garden'
+of his dreams. He had his workshops and kilns on
+the spot, and a band of skilled potters who baked the
+figures of men and animals which he himself fashioned
+out of clay. Two of his sons, Nicholas and Mathurin,
+seem to have inherited some of his talent, and were his
+partners, as we learn from a royal account book of
+the year 1570, and it must have been pleasant to him
+to have their company. The queen herself often walked
+down from the Louvre close by to see how he was
+getting on, and to give her opinion as to the grouping
+of some statues or the arrangement of a grotto; and
+here too came his friends when in Paris, Montmorency,
+Cond&eacute;, Jarnac and others, and Delorme, Bullant, Filon,
+and all the great architects of the day. The ch&acirc;teau
+of Ecouen, belonging to Montmorency, situated about
+twelve miles from Paris, had been decorated by Palissy
+before he entered the service of the queen-mother, and
+had gained him great fame and many commissions.</p>
+
+<p>At Ecouen the long galleries and the floor of the
+chapel were paved with tiles containing pictures of
+subjects taken out of the Bible. In the garden was the
+first 'grotto' the potter ever made, and very proud he
+was of it, and still more so of the invention by which,
+at a signal from the host, one of the attendants would
+touch a spring, and streams of water poured over the
+guests. It is difficult to imagine the grave constable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>
+occupied as he was with religious wars, or anxiously
+watching affairs of state, playing such rude and silly
+tricks on the gentlemen and ladies he was entertaining,
+and it is pleasanter to think of them all listening to the
+songs of birds which, we are told, were imitated to the life
+by means of water passing through pipes and reeds.
+Altogether, Ecouen was thought a marvel of beauty
+and fancy, and everybody who considered they had
+any claims to good taste made a point of riding out to
+visit it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Safe under royal protection and happy in his work,
+Palissy did not trouble himself about the fighting that
+still raged in the name of religion. When he was tired
+of the hot atmosphere of the kiln, he would wander
+along the banks of the river, or into the woods and hills
+about Paris, and watch the birds and the insects fluttering
+among the trees. Then, with his mind full of what
+he had beheld, he would return to his workshop, and,
+calling for clay, would never rise from his chair until
+he had made an exact copy of the little scene which
+had caught his fancy. First he would form his oval-shaped
+dish, and in the centre of it would lie some
+twisted snakes, with sprays of leaves and flowers
+scattered round them, while over the cups of the flowers
+bees and butterflies hovered gaily. Or, again, he would
+fashion a wavy sea, bordered by shells of all sorts, fishes,
+frogs, leaves, and butterflies, and in the middle a great
+sea-serpent wriggling gracefully across the dish.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was true to nature and beautifully
+executed, and in those days it never seemed to strike
+anyone that dishes were meant to hold food and not
+to be treated as pictures.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Palissy had been working for eight years in Paris
+when the massacre of St. Bartholomew took place.
+No one sought to harm the potter, Huguenot though he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+was, and he lived on peacefully, respected by all, for
+some time longer.</p>
+
+<p>In 1574 Charles IX., the well-intentioned, half-mad
+young king, died, and his brother Henry, a man in
+every way much worse than himself, came to the throne.
+Like the rest of his family, however, he was fond
+of art, and protected the potter, and a few months later
+we find Palissy, quite unharmed, giving lectures on
+natural history to some of the most famous scientific
+men in Paris. If he wanted to prove a point he had
+a quantity of drawings or materials at hand to show
+them. He spoke well, and the fame of his lectures
+spread. The little room was soon filled to overflowing
+with lawyers, scholars, and, above all, physicians, the
+celebrated monsieur Ambroise Par&eacute;, doctor to the queen-mother,
+and a Huguenot like himself, at their head.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>During nine years Palissy continued to deliver these
+lectures every Lent, working steadily most of the day
+among his furnaces at the Tuileries. He was now
+seventy-five, and had escaped so many dangers that he
+might well think himself safe to the end, which could
+not be far off. But in 1585 Henry III. thought himself
+obliged to take more active measures against the
+Huguenots. Palissy had never concealed&mdash;as he had
+never obtruded&mdash;his faith, and, most likely at the
+instigation of someone who envied him, he was at once
+sent to the prison of the Bastille, and sentence of death
+passed upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet once again the potter's gift for making friends,
+perhaps the most valuable of all his talents in that
+fierce age, stood him in good stead. This time it was
+actually one of the persecuting Guises, the duc de
+Mayenne, who saved him, and prevented the decree
+from being carried out.</p>
+
+<p>For four years Palissy remained a prisoner. Mayenne
+desired to set him free, but did not dare to do so, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>
+left him where he was till better times came. But
+Palissy had a surer friend than Mayenne, who came to his
+rescue. In spite of his strong frame, years passed in a
+prison of those days, where hunger, cold, and dirt
+would break any man down, proved too much even for
+Bernard Palissy, now more than eighty years of age.
+Little by little he grew weaker, watched and tended, as
+far as might be, by those who, like himself, had suffered
+for conscience' sake. Then one evening he went to sleep,
+and woke in the Delectable Garden.</p>
+
+<p class="rightalign">
+PRINTED BY
+SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., LONDON,
+COLCHESTER AND ETON
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <a id="IMEND"></a>
+    <a href="images/end_large.jpg">
+    <img src="images/end.jpg"
+        alt = "Endcover illustration (the characters from this book)"
+        title = "Endcover illustration" />
+    </a>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Red Book of Heroes, by Leonora Blanche Lang
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+Project Gutenberg's The Red Book of Heroes, by Leonora Blanche Lang
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Book of Heroes
+
+Author: Leonora Blanche Lang
+
+Editor: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2006 [EBook #19078]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED BOOK OF HEROES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Colin Bell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "'Go back,' he said."]
+
+THE RED BOOK OF HEROES
+
+BY MRS. LANG
+
+EDITED BY ANDREW LANG
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WITH 8 COLOURED PLATES AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
+BY A. WALLIS MILLS
+
+LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
+NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
+
+1909
+
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+'Life is not all beer and skittles,' said a reflective sportsman, and
+all books are not fairy tales. In an imperfect state of existence, 'the
+peety of it is that we cannot have all things as we would like them.'
+Undeniably we would like all books to be fairy tales or novels, and at
+present most of them are. But there is another side to things, and we
+must face it. '"Life is real, life is earnest," as Tennyson tells us,'
+said an orator to whom I listened lately, and though Longfellow, not
+Tennyson, wrote the famous line quoted by the earnest speaker, yet there
+is a good deal of truth in it. The word 'earnest,' like many other good
+words, has been overdone. It is common to sneer at 'earnest workers,'
+yet where would we be without them, especially in our climate?
+
+In a Polynesian island, where the skies for ever smile, and the blacks
+for ever dance, earnestness is superfluous. The bread-fruit tree
+delivers its rolls punctually every morning, strawberries or other
+fruits, as nice, spring beneath the feet of the dancers; the cavern in
+the forest provides a roof and shelter from the sun; the sea supplies a
+swimming-bath, and man, in time of peace, has only to enjoy himself, eat
+and drink, laugh and love, sing songs and tell fairy tales. His drapery
+is woven of fragrant flowers, nobody is poor and anxious about food,
+nobody is rich and afraid of losing his money, nobody needs to think of
+helping others; he has only to put forth his hand, or draw his bow or
+swing his fishing-rod, and help himself. To be sure, in time of war, man
+has just got to be earnest, and think out plans for catching and
+spearing his enemies, and drill his troops and improve his weapons, in
+fact to do some work, or have his throat cut, and be put in the oven and
+eaten. Thus it is really hard for the most fortunate people to avoid
+being earnest now and then.
+
+The people whose stories are told in this book were very different from
+each other in many ways. The child abbess, Mere Angelique, ruling her
+convent, and at war with naughty abbesses who hated being earnest, does
+not at once remind us of Hannibal. The great Montrose, with his poems
+and his scented love-locks, his devotion to his cause, his chivalry, his
+death, to which he went gaily clad like a bridegroom to meet his bride,
+does not seem a companion for Palissy the Potter, all black and shrunk
+and wrinkled, and bowed over his furnaces. It is a long way from gentle
+Miss Nightingale, tending wounded dogs when a child, and wounded
+soldiers when a woman, to Charles Gordon playing wild tricks at school,
+leading a Chinese army, watching alone at Khartoum, in a circle of cruel
+foes, for the sight of the British colours, and the sounds of the
+bagpipes that never met his eyes and ears.
+
+But these people, and all the others whose stories are told, had this in
+common, that they were in earnest, though we may be sure that they did
+not go about with talk of earnestness for ever in their mouths. It came
+natural to them, they could not help it, they liked it, their hearts
+were set on two things: to do their very best, and to keep their honour.
+The Constant Prince suffered hunger and cold and long imprisonment all
+'to keep the bird in his bosom,' as the old Cavalier said, to be true to
+honour. 'I will carry with me honour and fidelity to the grave,' said
+Montrose; and he kept his word, though his enemies gave him no grave,
+but placed his head and limbs on spikes in various towns of his country.
+But now his grave, in St. Giles's Church in Edinburgh, is the most
+beautiful and honourable in Scotland, adorned with his stainless
+scutcheon, and with those of Napiers and Grahams, his kindred and his
+friends.
+
+        "The grave of March, the grave of Gwythar,
+        The grave of Gugann Gleddyvrudd,
+        A mystery to the world, the grave of Arthur,"
+
+says the old Welsh poem, and unknown as the grave of Arthur is the grave
+of Gordon. The desert wind may mingle his dust with the sand, the Nile
+may sweep it to the sea, as the Seine bore the ashes of that martyr of
+honour, the Maid of France. 'The whole earth is brave men's common
+sepulchre,' says the Greek, their tombs may be without mark or monument,
+but 'honour comes a pilgrim grey' to the sacred places where men cannot
+go in pilgrimage.
+
+We see what honour they had of men; the head of Sir Thomas More, the
+head of Montrose, were exposed to mockery in public places, the ashes of
+Jeanne d'Arc were thrown into the river, Gordon's body lies unknown; but
+their honour is eternal in human memory. It was really for honour that
+Sir Thomas More suffered; it was not possible for him to live without
+the knowledge that his shield was stainless. It was for honour rather
+than for religion that the child Angelique Arnauld gave up amusement and
+pleasure, and everything that is dear to a girl, young, witty,
+beautiful, and gay, and put on the dress of a nun. Later she worked for
+the sake of duty and religion, but honour was her first mistress, and
+she could not go back from her plighted word.
+
+These people were born to be what they were, to be examples to all of us
+that are less nobly born and like a quiet, easy, merry life. We cannot
+all be Gordons, Montroses, Angeliques, but if we read about them and
+think about them, a touch of their nobility may come to us, and surely
+our honour is in our own keeping. We may try never to do a mean thing,
+or a doubtful thing, a thing that Gordon would not have been tempted to
+do, though we are tempted, more tempted as we grow older and see what
+the world does than are the young. I think honour is the dearest and the
+most natural of virtues; in their own ways none are more loyal than boys
+and girls. Later we may forget that no pleasure, no happiness, not even
+the love that seems the strongest force in our natures, is worth having
+at the expense of a stain on the white rose of honour. Had she been a
+few years older, Angelique might have failed to keep the word which was
+extorted from her as a child, but, being young, she kept it the more
+easily. What we have to do is to try to be young always in this matter,
+to be our natural selves and unspotted from the world. Certainly some
+people are a little better, and so far a little happier, because they
+have seen the light from Charles Gordon's yet living head, and been half
+heart-broken by his end, so glorious to himself, so inglorious to his
+fellow countrymen. For his dear sake we may all do a little, sacrifice a
+little, to help the Homes for Boys which have been built to his memory,
+and to help the poor boys whom he used to help, making himself poor, and
+giving his time for them.
+
+We read in the book, 'A Child's Hero,' how the brave Havelock won the
+heart of a little child who never saw him. She heard the words 'Havelock
+is dead,' and laid her head against the wall and burst into tears. Other
+children may feel the same devotion for these splendid people, for
+Hannibal, so far away from us, giving his whole heart and whole genius
+and his life for his wretched country, for men who would not understand,
+who would not aid him:
+
+        "Their old art statesmen plied,
+        And paltered, and evaded, and denied"
+
+till their country was vanquished. Bad as that country was, for
+Hannibal's own sake we are all on the side of Hannibal, as we are on the
+side of Hector of Troy. 'Well know I this in heart and soul,' said
+Hector to his wife, when she would have kept him out of the battle,
+'that the day is coming when holy Ilios shall perish, and Priam, and the
+people of Priam of the ashen spear, my father with my mother, and my
+brothers, many and brave, dying in the dust at the hands of our foemen;
+but most I sorrow for thee, my wife, when they lead thee weeping away, a
+slave to weave at thy master's loom and bear water from thy master's
+well, and the passers-by, as they see thee weeping, shall say, "This was
+the wife of Hector, the foremost in fight of the men of Troy, when they
+fought for their city." But may I be dead, and the earth be mounded
+above me, ere I hear thy cry and the tale of thy captivity.'
+
+So he went back into the battle, and never again saw his wife and child.
+It was in the spirit of Hector that Hannibal planned and fought and
+toiled, till as an old man he bit on the poison ring, and died, and was
+free from the Roman captivity that threatened him.
+
+Honour and courage were the masters of the men and women whose stories
+are told in this book, but of them all none dared a risk so horrible as
+brave Father Damien in the Isle of Lepers. For his adventure among
+dreadful people who must give him their own dreadful disease, a Montrose
+or a Havelock might have had little heart, for his task had none of the
+excitement and glitter of the soldier's duty in war. But they are all,
+these men and women, good to live with, good to know, good to go with,
+weary camp followers as we are of the Noble Army of Martyrs, and
+unworthy of a single leaf from the laurel crown.
+
+                                                                A. Lang.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                PAGE
+
+ The Lady-in-Chief                                1
+
+ Prisoners and Captives                          25
+
+ Hannibal                                        43
+
+ The Apostle of the Lepers                       95
+
+ The Constant Prince                            109
+
+ The Marquis of Montrose                        135
+
+ A Child's Hero                                 169
+
+ Conscience or King                             222
+
+ The Little Abbess                              246
+
+ Gordon                                         281
+
+ The Crime of Theodosius                        334
+
+ Palissy the Potter                             352
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+COLOURED PLATES
+
+(Engraved and Printed by Andre & Sleigh, Ltd., Bushey.)
+
+'Go back!' he said [See page 350]        Frontispiece
+
+                                          to face p.
+Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day            74
+
+Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely
+  place by the sea                              106
+
+A great army of Irishmen have swooped down
+  on the Atholl country                         150
+
+The place was swarming with rats                208
+
+She took all her nuns for a solemn walk         258
+
+They saw a man in uniform shining with gold
+  flying towards them                           316
+
+A jar of water in the figure's right hand
+  emptied itself on his head                    364
+
+
+FULL-PAGE PLATES
+
+                                          to face p.
+Roger could hardly believe his eyes               6
+
+She came forth with a golden circlet round
+  her head                                       44
+
+Hannibal was determined not to stir until
+  the elephants were safely over                 58
+
+Under the eyes of the army the combat began      68
+
+In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till
+  the fatal hour was past                       114
+
+About thirty or forty of our honestest
+  women did fall a railing on Mr. William
+  Annan                                         140
+
+'You will soon have no caste left yourself'     194
+
+Often ... he had felt that a terrible death
+  was very near                                 218
+
+Sir Thomas sat silent                           232
+
+'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered             240
+
+'You are mistaking me for somebody else'        248
+
+The archers set a ladder against the wall,
+  which the lady instantly threw down           274
+
+Gordon found time to attend to an old dying
+  woman                                         310
+
+A shot ended his life                           330
+
+'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it
+  will be too late'                             338
+
+'Let him die!' he said                          344
+
+The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved     354
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
+
+                                                PAGE
+'Tell me what you want to say, and I will
+  say it'                                        17
+
+They sprang on the food like wolves              28
+
+He brushed down the walls without hindrance
+  from anyone                                    41
+
+All three were apt pupils                        51
+
+The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting
+  and screaming with delight                     56
+
+He found right in front of him a huge
+  precipice                                      64
+
+The whole four thousand climbed the ridge        77
+
+'Let me release the Romans from their
+  anxiety,' he said                              93
+
+He found the Prince lying unconscious on
+  the ground                                    130
+
+For two days they sought in vain for a road
+  to take them to Caithness                     162
+
+He managed to crawl over the floor              179
+
+The Captain obligingly did as he was asked      183
+
+Suddenly the table began to rock                189
+
+In another moment he would have been trampled
+  under the feet of the Afghan cavalry          191
+
+Not one of their movements passed unnoticed
+  by her                                        201
+
+A tired horseman rode into camp                 204
+
+The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in
+  arguing                                       213
+
+Erasmus was astonished to notice More present
+  Prince Henry with a roll                      228
+
+'Go away! you have no business here.'           253
+
+She fell fainting to the ground                 266
+
+He told them stories from English history       303
+
+He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and
+  stared                                        314
+
+Fancy poor Madame Palissy's feelings            359
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY-IN-CHIEF
+
+
+Everybody nowadays is so used to seeing in the streets nurses wearing
+long floating cloaks of different colours, blue, brown, grey, and the
+rest, and to having them with us when we are ill, that it is difficult
+to imagine a time when there were no such people. In the stories that
+were written even fifty years ago you will soon find out what sort of
+women they were who called themselves 'nurses.' Any kind of person seems
+to have been thought good enough to look after a sick man; it was not a
+matter which needed a special talent or teaching, and no girl would have
+dreamed of nursing anybody outside her own home, still less of giving up
+her life to looking after the sick. It was merely work, it was thought,
+for _old_ women, and so, at the moment when the patient needed most
+urgently some one young and strong and active about him, who could lift
+him from one side of the bed to the other, or keep awake all night to
+give him his medicine or to see that his fire did not go out, he was
+left to a fat, sleepy, often drunken old body, who never cared if he
+lived or died, so that _she_ was not disturbed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The woman who was to change all this was born in Florence in the year
+1820 and called after that city. Her father, Mr. Nightingale, seems to
+have been fond of giving his family place-names, for Florence's sister,
+about a year older than herself, had the old title of Naples tacked on
+to 'Frances,' and in after life was always spoken of as 'Parthy' or
+'Parthenope.' By and by a young cousin of these little girls would be
+named 'Athena,' after the town Athens, and then the fashion grew, and I
+have heard of twins called 'Inkerman' and 'Balaclava,' and of an
+'Elsinora,' while we all know several 'Almas,' and may even have met a
+lady who bears the name of the highest mountain in the world--of course
+you can all guess what _that_ is?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale did not stay very long in Italy after
+Florence's birth. They grew tired of living abroad, and wanted to get
+back to their old home among the hills and streams of Derbyshire. Here,
+at Lea hall, Florence's father could pass whole days happily with his
+books and the beautiful things he had collected in his travels; but he
+looked well after the people in the village, and insisted that the
+children should be sent to a little school, where they learned how to
+read and write and count for twopence a week. If the poor villagers were
+ill or unhappy, his wife used to visit them, and help them with advice
+as well as with money, and we may be quite sure that her little
+daughters often went with her on her rounds.
+
+So the early years of Florence's childhood passed away amidst the
+flowery fields and bare hills that overlooked the beautiful river
+Derwent. The village, built of stone like so many in the North Country,
+lay far below, and on Sundays the two little girls, dressed in their
+best tippets and bonnets, used to walk with their father and mother
+across the meadows to the tiny church at Dethick. Here nearly two
+hundred and fifty years ago one Anthony Babington knelt in prayer,
+though his thoughts often wandered to the beautiful Scottish queen, shut
+up by order of Elizabeth in Wingfield manor, only a few miles away. Of
+course Parthy and Florence knew all about him, and their greatest treat
+was a visit to his house, where they could see in the kitchen a
+trap-door leading to a large secret chamber, in which a conspirator
+might live for weeks without being found out. A great deal of the house
+had been pulled down or allowed to fall into decay, but the bailiff, who
+lived in the rest, was always glad to see them, and would take them to
+all kinds of delightful places, and up little dark narrow winding
+stairs, at the end of which you pushed up another trap-door and found
+yourself in your bedroom. What a fascinating way of getting there, and
+how very, very silly people are now to have wide staircases and straight
+passages and stupid doors, which you _know_ will open, instead of never
+being sure if the trap-door had not stuck, or some enemy had not placed
+a heavy piece of furniture upon it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But much as the Nightingales, big and little, loved Lea hall, it was
+very bare and cold in winter, and Florence's father determined to build
+a new house in a more sheltered place. Lea Hurst, as it was called, was
+only a mile from the hall, and, like it, overlooked the Derwent; but
+here the hills were wooded and kept out the bitter winds which had
+howled and wailed through the old house. Mr. Nightingale was very
+careful that all should be done exactly as he wished, therefore it took
+some time to finish, and _then_ the family could not move in till the
+paint and plaster were dry, so that Florence was between five and six
+when at last they took possession.
+
+No doubt the two little girls had much to say about the laying out of
+the terraced gardens, and insisted on having some beds of their own, to
+plant with their favourite flowers. They were greatly pleased, too, at
+discovering a very old chapel in the middle of the new house, and very
+likely they told each other many stories of what went on there. Then
+there was a summer-house, where they could have tea, and if you went
+through the woods in May, and could make up your mind to pass the
+sheets of blue hyacinths without stopping to pick them till you were too
+tired to go further, you came out upon a splendid avenue, with a view of
+the hills for miles round. This was the walk which Florence loved best.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seems, however, that Mr. Nightingale could not have thought Lea Hurst
+as pleasant as he expected it to be, for a few months later he bought a
+place called Embley, near the beautiful abbey of Romsey, in Hampshire.
+Here they all moved every autumn as soon as the trees at Lea Hurst grew
+bare; and when the young leaves were showing like a green mist, they
+began the long drive back again, sometimes stopping in London on the
+way, to see some pictures and hear some music, and have some talk with
+many interesting people whom Mr. Nightingale knew. And when they got
+home at last, how delightful it was to ride round to the old friends in
+the farms and cottages, and listen to tales of all that had happened
+during the little girls' absence, and in their turn to tell of the
+wonderful sights they had witnessed, and the adventures that had
+befallen them! Best of all were the visits to the families of puppies
+and kittens which had been born during their absence, for Florence
+especially loved animals, and was often sent for by the neighbours to
+cure them when they were ill. The older and uglier they were, the
+sorrier Florence was for them, and she would often steal out with sugar
+or apples or carrots in her pocket for some elderly beast which was
+ending its days quietly in the fields, stopping in the woods on the way
+to play with a squirrel or a baby rabbit. The game was perhaps a little
+one-sided, but what did that matter? As the poet Cowper says,
+
+        Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods
+          To share her home caresses,
+        And looked up to her human eyes
+          With sylvan tendernesses.
+
+Beasts and birds were Florence's dear friends, but dearest of all were
+her ponies.
+
+While she was at Embley, the vicar, who was very fond of her, used often
+to take her out riding when he went on his rounds to see his people.
+Florence enjoyed this very much; she knew them all well, and never
+forgot the names of the children or their birthdays. Her mother would
+often give her something nice to carry to the sick ones, and when the
+flowers came out, Florence used to gather some for her special
+favourites, out of her own garden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day when she and the vicar were cantering across the downs, they saw
+an old shepherd, who was a great friend of both of them, attempting to
+drive his flock without the help of his collie, Cap, who was nowhere to
+be seen.
+
+'What has become of Cap?' they asked, and the shepherd told them that
+some cruel boys had broken the dog's leg with a stone, and he was in
+such pain that his master thought it would be more merciful to put an
+end to him.
+
+Florence was hot with indignation. 'Perhaps _I_ can help him,' she said.
+'At any rate, he will like me to sit with him; he must feel so lonely.
+Where is he?'
+
+'In my hut out there,' answered the shepherd; 'but I'm afraid it's
+little good you or anyone else can do him.'
+
+But Florence did not hear, for she was galloping as fast as she could to
+the place where Cap was lying.
+
+'Poor old fellow, poor old Cap,' whispered she, kneeling down and
+stroking his head, and Cap looked up to thank her.
+
+'Let me examine his leg,' said the vicar, who had entered behind her;
+'he does not hold it as if it were broken. No, I am sure it is not,' he
+added after a close inspection. 'Cheer up, we will soon have him well
+again.'
+
+Florence's eyes brightened.
+
+'What can I do?' she asked eagerly.
+
+'Oh, make him a compress. That will take down the swelling,' replied the
+vicar, who was a little of a doctor himself.
+
+'A compress?' repeated Florence, wrinkling her forehead. 'But I never
+heard of one. I don't know how.'
+
+'Light a fire and boil some water, and then wring out some cloths in it,
+and put them on Cap's paw. Here is a boy who will make a fire for you,'
+he added, beckoning to a lad who was passing outside.
+
+While the fire was kindling, Florence looked about to find the cloths.
+But the shepherd did not seem to have any, and her own little
+handkerchief would not do any good. Still, cloths she must have, and
+those who knew Miss Nightingale in after years would tell you that when
+she _wanted_ things she _got_ them.
+
+'Ah, there is Roger's smock,' she exclaimed with delight. 'Oh, _do_ tear
+it up for me; mamma will be sure to give me another for him.' So the
+vicar tore the strong linen into strips, and Florence wrung them out in
+the boiling water, as he had told her.
+
+'Now, Cap, be a good dog; you know I only want to help you,' she cried,
+and Cap seemed as if he _did_ know; for though a little tremble ran
+through his body as the hot cloth touched him, he never tried to bite,
+nor even groaned with the pain, as many children would have done. By and
+by the lump was certainly smaller, and the look of pain in Cap's eyes
+began to disappear.
+
+Suddenly she glanced up at the vicar, who had been all this time
+watching her.
+
+'I can't leave Cap till he is _quite_ better,' she said. 'Can you get
+that boy to go to Embley and tell them where I am? Then they won't be
+frightened.' So the boy was sent, and Florence sat on till the setting
+sun shot long golden darts into the hut.
+
+Then she heard the shepherd fumbling with the latch, as if he could not
+see to open it; and perhaps he couldn't, for in his hand he held the
+rope which was to put an end to all Cap's sorrows. But Cap did not know
+the meaning of the rope and only saw his old master. He gave a little
+bark of greeting and struggled on to his three sound legs, wagging his
+tail in welcome.
+
+Roger could hardly believe his eyes, and Florence laughed with delight.
+
+'Just look how much better he is,' she said. 'The swelling is very
+nearly gone now. But he wants some more compresses. Come and help me
+make them.'
+
+'I think we can leave Roger to nurse Cap,' said the vicar, who had just
+returned from some of the neighbouring cottages. 'Your patient must have
+some bread and milk to-night, and to-morrow you can come to see how he
+is.'
+
+'Yes, of course I shall,' answered Florence, and she knelt down to kiss
+Cap's nose before the vicar put her up on her pony.
+
+[Illustration: Roger could hardly believe his eyes.]
+
+Now, though Florence was so fond of flowers and animals and everything
+out of doors, she was never dull in the house on a wet day. In the first
+place, nothing was ever allowed to interfere with her lessons, and
+though the little girls had a good governess, their father chose the
+books they were to read and the subjects they were to study. Greek,
+Latin, and mathematics he taught them himself, and besides he took care
+that they could read and speak French, German, and Italian. They were
+fond of poetry, and no doubt some of the earliest poems of young Mr.
+Tennyson were among their favourites, as well as 'Lycidas' and the
+songs of the cavaliers. Parthy was a better artist and a cleverer
+musician than Florence, though _she_ could sing and sketch; but both
+were good needlewomen, and could make samplers as well as do fine work
+and embroidery. When school-time was over and the rain was still coming
+down, they would run away to their dolls, who, poor things, were always
+ill, so that Florence might have the pleasure of curing them. And though
+before Cap's accident she had never heard of a compress, she could make
+nice food for them at the nursery fire, and bandage their broken arms
+and legs while Parthy held the wounded limb steady.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they grew older, they went abroad now and then with their parents,
+but Florence liked best being at home with her friends in the village,
+who were very proud of her wishing to take their pictures with her new
+photographic camera. If they had only known it, the children in their
+best clothes standing up very stiff and straight did not look half as
+pretty as the baskets of kittens with eyes half-innocent, half-wise, or
+the funny little pups, so round and fat. But the parents thought the
+portraits of their children the most beautiful things in the world, and
+had them put into hideous gilt frames and hung on the walls, where
+Florence could see them on her frequent visits.
+
+Welcome as she was to all, it was the sick people who awaited her coming
+the most eagerly. She was so quiet in her movements, and knew so exactly
+what to do without talking or fussing about it, that the invalids grew
+less restless in her presence, and believed so entirely that she really
+_could_ cure them that they were half cured already! Then before she
+left she would read them 'a chapter' or a story to make them laugh, or
+anything else they wished for; and it was always a pleasure to listen to
+her, for she never stammered, or yawned, or lost her place, or had any
+of the tricks that often make reading aloud a penance to the victim.
+
+For the young people both in Derbyshire and Hampshire she formed singing
+classes, and some of her 'societies' continue to-day. She was full of
+interest in other people's lives, and not only was _ready_ to help them
+but _enjoyed_ doing so, which makes all the difference.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is much nonsense talked in the world about 'born' actors, and
+'born' artists, and 'born' nurses. No doubt some are 'born' with greater
+gifts in these matters than others, but the most famous artists or
+actors or nurses will all tell you that the only work which is lasting
+has been wrought by long hours of patient labour. Miss Nightingale knew
+this as well as anybody, and as soon as she began to think of doing what
+no modern lady had ever done before her, and devoting her life to the
+care of the sick, she set about considering how she could best find the
+training she needed. She tried, to use her own words, 'to qualify
+herself for it as a man does for his work,' and to 'submit herself to
+the rules of business as men do.'
+
+So she spent some months among the London hospitals, where her quick eye
+and clever fingers, aided by her cottage experience, made her a welcome
+help to the doctors. From the first she 'began at the beginning,' which
+is the only way to come to a successful end. A sick person cannot get
+well where the floor is covered with dirt, and the dust makes him cough;
+therefore his nurse must get rid of both dirt and dust before her
+treatment can have any effect. After London, Miss Nightingale went to
+Edinburgh and Dublin, and then to France and Italy, where the nursing
+was done by nuns; and after that she visited Germany, where at the town
+of Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine, she found what she wanted.
+
+The hospital of Kaiserswerth, where Miss Nightingale had decided to do
+her training, had been founded about sixteen years earlier by Pastor
+Fliedner, who was a wise man, content with very small beginnings. At the
+time of her arrival it was divided into a number of branches, and there
+was also a school for the children, who were taught entirely by some of
+the sisters, or deaconesses, as they were called. On entering, everyone
+had to go through the same work for a certain number of months, whether
+they meant to be hospital nurses or school teachers. All must learn to
+sew, cook, scrub, and read out clearly and pleasantly; but as Miss
+Nightingale had practised most of these things from the time she was a
+child, she soon was free to go into the hospital and attend to the sick
+people. The other nurses were German peasant women, but when they found
+that she could speak their language, and was ready to work as hard as
+any of them, they made friends at once. In her spare hours Miss
+Nightingale would put on her black cloak and small bonnet, and go round
+to the cottages with Mr. Fliedner, as long ago she had done with the
+vicar of Embley, and we may be sure any sick people whom she visited
+were always left clean and comfortable when she said good-bye.
+
+But at Kaiserswerth Miss Nightingale had very little chance of learning
+any surgery, so she felt that she could not do better than pass some
+time in Paris with the nursing sisterhood of St. Vincent de Paul, which
+had been established about two hundred years earlier. Here, too, she
+went with the sisters on their rounds, both in the hospitals and in the
+homes of the poor, and learnt how best to help the people without
+turning them into beggars. Every part of the work interested her, but
+the long months of hard labour and food which was often scanty and
+always different from what she had hitherto had, began to tell on her.
+She fell ill, and in her turn had to be looked after by the sisters,
+and no doubt in many ways she learned more of sick nursing when she was
+a patient than she did when she was a nurse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was quite clear that it would be necessary for her to have a good
+rest before she grew strong again, and so she went back to Embley, and
+afterwards to Lea, and tried to forget that there was any such thing as
+sickness. But it is not easy for people who are known to be able and
+willing to have peace anywhere, and soon letters came pouring in to Miss
+Nightingale begging for her help in all sorts of ways. As far as she
+could she undertook it all, and often performed the most troublesome of
+all tasks, that of setting right the mistakes of others. In the end her
+health broke down again, but not till she had finished what she had set
+herself to do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in March 1854 that war broke out between England, France, and
+Turkey on the one side, and Russia on the other. The battle-ground was
+to be the little peninsula of the Crimea, and soon the Black Sea was
+crowded with ships carrying eager soldiers, many of them young and quite
+ignorant of the hardships that lay before them.
+
+At first all seemed going well; the victory of the Alma was won on
+September 20, 1854, and that of Balaclava on October 25, the anniversary
+of Agincourt. But while the hearts of all men were still throbbing at
+the splendid madness of the charge when, owing to a mistaken order, the
+Light Brigade rode out to take the Russian guns and were mown down by
+hundreds, the rain began to fall in torrents and a winter of unusual
+coldness was upon them. Nights as well as days were passed in the
+trenches that had been dug before the strong fortress of Sebastopol,
+which the allies were besieging, and the suffering of our English
+soldiers was far greater than it need have been, owing to the
+wickedness of many of the contractors who had undertaken to supply the
+army with boots and stores, and did not hesitate to get these so cheap
+and bad as to be quite useless, while the rest of the money set aside
+for the purpose was put into their pockets. The doctors gave themselves
+no rest, but there were not half enough of them, while of nurses there
+were none. The men did what they could for one another, but they had
+their own work to attend to, and besides, try as they would it was
+impossible for them to fill the place of a trained and skilful woman. So
+they, as well as their dying comrades lying patiently on the sodden
+earth, looked longingly at the big white caps of the French sisters, who
+for their part would gladly have given help and comfort had not the
+wounded of their own nation taken all their time. One or two of the
+English officers had been followed to the Crimea by their wives, and
+these ladies cooked for and tended the sick men who were placed in rows
+along the passages of the barracks, but even lint for bandages was
+lacking to them, and after the Alma they wrote letters to their friends
+in England entreating that no time might be lost in sending out proper
+aid.
+
+These letters were backed by a strong appeal from the war correspondent
+of the _Times_, Dr. W. H. Russell, and from the day that his plain
+account of the privations and horrors of the suffering army appeared in
+the paper, the War Office was besieged by women begging to be sent to
+the Crimea by the first ship. The minister, Mr. Sidney Herbert, did not
+refuse their offers; though they were without experience and full of
+excitement, he saw that most of them were deeply in earnest and under a
+capable head might be put to a good use. But where was such a head to be
+found? Then suddenly there darted into his mind the thought of Miss
+Nightingale, his friend for years past.
+
+It was on October 15 that Mr. Sidney Herbert wrote to Miss Nightingale
+offering her, in the name of the government, the post of Superintendent
+of the nurses in the East, with absolute authority over her staff; and,
+curiously enough, on the very same day _she_ had written to _him_
+proposing to go out at once to the Black Sea. As no time was to be lost,
+it was clear that most of the thirty-eight nurses she was to take with
+her must be women of a certain amount of training and experience. Others
+might follow when they had learnt a little what nursing really meant,
+but they were of no use now. So Miss Nightingale went round to some
+Church of England and Roman Catholic sisterhoods and chose out the
+strongest and most intelligent of those who were willing to go, the
+remainder being sent her by friends whose judgment she could trust. Six
+days after Sidney Herbert had written his letter, the band of nurses
+started from Charing Cross.
+
+When after a very rough passage they reached the great hospital of
+Scutari, situated on a hill above the Bosphorus, they heard the news of
+the fight at Balaclava and learnt that a battle was expected to take
+place next day at Inkerman. The hospital was an immense building in the
+form of a square, and was able to hold several thousand men. It had been
+lent to us by the Turks, but was in a fearfully dirty state and most
+unfit to receive the wounded men who were continually arriving in ships
+from the Crimea. Often the vessels were so loaded that the few doctors
+had not had time to set the broken legs and arms of the men, and many
+must have died of blood poisoning from the dirt which got into their
+undressed wounds. Oftener still they had little or no food, and even
+with help were too weak to walk from the ship to the hospital. And as
+for rats! why there seemed nearly as many rats as patients.
+
+The first thing to be done was to unpack the stores, to boil water so
+that the wounds could be washed, to put clean sheets on the beds, and
+make the men as comfortable as possible. The doctors, overworked and
+anxious as they were, did not give the nurses a very warm welcome. As
+far as their own experience went, women in a hospital were always in the
+way, and instead of helpers became hinderers. But Miss Nightingale took
+no heed of ungracious words and cold looks. She did her own business
+quietly and without fuss, and soon brought order out of confusion, and a
+feeling of confidence where before there had been despair. If an
+operation had to be performed--and at that time chloroform was so newly
+invented that the doctors were almost afraid to give it, Miss
+Nightingale, 'the Lady-in-Chief,' was present by the side of the wounded
+man to give him courage to bear the pain and to fill him with hope for
+the future. And not many days after her arrival, her coming was eagerly
+watched for by the multitudes of sick and half-starved soldiers who were
+lying along the walls of the passages because the beds were all full.
+
+It is really hardly possible for us to understand all that the nurses
+had to do. First the wards must be kept clean, or the invalids would
+grow worse instead of better. Then proper food must be cooked for them,
+or they would never grow strong. Those who were most ill needed special
+care, lest a change for the worse might come unnoticed; and besides all
+this a laundry was set up, so that a constant supply of fresh linen
+might be at hand. In a little while, when some of the wounds were
+healing and the broken heads had ceased to ache, there would come shy
+petitions from the beds that the nurse would write them a letter home,
+to say that they had been more fortunate than their comrades and were
+still alive, and hoped to be back in England some day.
+
+'Well, tell me what you want to say, and I will say it,' the nurse would
+answer, but it is not very easy to dictate a letter if you have never
+tried, so it soon ended with the remark,
+
+'Oh! nurse, _you_ write it for me! You will say it much better than I
+can.'
+
+[Illustration: 'Tell me what you want to say, and I will say it.']
+
+Would you like to know how the nurses passed their days? Well, first
+they got up very early, made their beds, put their rooms tidy, and went
+down to the kitchen, where they had some bread, which was mostly sour,
+and some tea without milk. Then arrowroot and beef tea had to be made
+for the men, and when the night nurses took their turn to rest, those
+who were on duty by day went into the wards and stayed there from
+half-past nine till two, washing and dressing and feeding the men and
+talking over their illnesses with the doctors, who by this time were
+thankful for their aid. At two the men were left to rest or sleep while
+their tired nurses had their dinner, and little as they might like it,
+they thought it their duty to swallow a plateful of very bad meat and
+some porter. At three some of them often took a short walk, but that
+November the rains were constant and very heavy at Scutari as well as in
+the Crimea, and as Miss Nightingale would allow no risk of catching
+cold, on these days the nurses all stayed in the hospital, where there
+was always something to be done or cooked for the patients, who required
+in their weak state to be constantly fed. At half-past five the nurses
+left the wards and went to their tea, but that did not take long, and
+soon they were back again making everything comfortable for the night,
+which began with the entrance of the night nurses at half-past nine.
+
+It was a hard life, and when one remembers how bad their own food was,
+it is a marvel that any of them were able to bear it for so long. But,
+as Shakespeare says, 'Nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so,'
+and it is wonderful how far a brave spirit will carry one. Still, heavy
+though the nurses' work was, that of Miss Nightingale was far more of a
+strain. It was she on whom everything depended, who had to think and
+plan and look forward, and write accounts of it all to Mr. Sidney
+Herbert in London, and lord Raglan, the Commander-in-Chief, at the
+Crimea. The orderlies of the regiment gave her willing aid, but they
+needed to be taught what to do, and no doubt the Lady-in-Chief often
+found that it is far quicker and easier to do things oneself than to
+spend time in training another person. Luckily she was prompt to see the
+different uses to which men and women could be put, so that there were
+no wasted days or weeks, caused by setting them tasks for which they
+were unfitted, and in a very short while the hospital, which had been a
+scene of horror on her arrival from England, was a well-arranged and
+most comfortable place.
+
+But not only were there soldiers to be cared for, there were also their
+wives and children, who were almost forgotten and huddled together in a
+corner of the barracks, with few clothes and hardly any food. Miss
+Nightingale took them under her charge, and placed them in a clean house
+close by, giving some of the women work in her laundry and finding
+employment for the rest, with the help of the wife of one of the
+chaplains. The children were taught for several hours in the day, and
+thus their mothers were left free to earn money to support them, while
+the widows were given clothes and money, and as soon as possible sent
+home.
+
+One morning, as the Lady-in-Chief went her rounds, the men noticed that
+her face was brighter than usual and looked as if something had pleased
+her very much. So it had, and in the afternoon, when they were all
+resting comfortably, they knew what it was. One of the chaplains went
+from ward to ward reading a letter which Queen Victoria had written to
+Mr. Sidney Herbert, and this was how it ran:--
+
+                                       Windsor Castle, December 6, 1854.
+
+'Would you tell Mrs. Herbert that I begged she would let me see
+frequently the accounts she received from Miss Nightingale or Mrs.
+Bracebridge, as I hear no details of the wounded, though I see so many
+from officers, &c., about the battlefield, and naturally the former must
+interest me most.
+
+'Let Mrs. Herbert also know that I wish Miss Nightingale and the ladies
+would tell those poor noble wounded and sick men that no one takes a
+warmer interest or feels more for their sufferings or admires their
+courage and heroism more than their queen. Day and night she thinks of
+her beloved troops. So does the Prince.
+                                                             'Victoria.'
+
+'God save the Queen,' said the chaplain when he had finished, and from
+their hearts the men raised a feeble shout, 'God save the Queen.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon another detachment of nurses arrived from home and undertook the
+charge of other hospitals along the shores of the Bosphorus. They were
+led by Miss Stanley, sister of the famous dean of Westminster, and the
+band consisted partly of ladies who gave their services and partly of
+nurses who were paid. Some Irish sisters of mercy also accompanied them,
+and these were allowed to wear their nun's dress, but the others must
+have looked very funny in the Government uniform--loose gowns of grey
+tweed, worsted jackets, short woollen cloaks, and scarves of brown
+holland with 'Scutari Hospital' in red letters across them. They were
+all made the same size, and 'in consequence,' adds sister Mary Aloysius,
+who was thankful that _she_ did not need to present such an odd figure,
+'the tall ladies appeared to be attired in short dresses, and the short
+ladies in long.'
+
+Clad in these strange clothes they reached their destination and were
+placed by Miss Nightingale wherever she thought they were most needed.
+Cholera was now raging and the rain in the Crimea had turned to bitter
+cold, so that hundreds of men were brought in frost-bitten. Often their
+garments, generally of thin linen, were frozen so tightly to their
+bodies that they had first to be softened with oil and then cut off. The
+stories of their sufferings are too terrible to tell, but scarcely one
+murmured, and all were grateful for the efforts to ease their pain. If
+death came, as it often did, Miss Nightingale was there to listen to
+their last wishes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All through the spring the cholera raged, and at length some of the
+nurses, weakened by the strain on mind and body, and the lack of
+nourishing food, fell victims. One of them was a personal friend of Miss
+Nightingale's, others were Irish nuns working in Balaclava, and their
+graves were kept gay with flowers planted by the soldiers. Thus the
+Lady-in-Chief found them when in May 1855 she set out to inspect the
+hospitals in the Crimea.
+
+What a rest it must have been to be able to lie on deck and watch the
+blue waters without feeling that every moment of peace was stolen from
+some duty. She had several nurses with her; also her friend Mr.
+Bracebridge, whose wife had taken charge of the stores at Scutari, and a
+little drummer of twelve, called Thomas, who got amusement out of
+everything and kept up their spirits when the outlook seemed gloomiest.
+
+The moment she landed Miss Nightingale, accompanied by a train of
+doctors, went at once to the hospitals, thus missing lord Raglan who
+came to give her a hearty welcome. Next day, when as in duty bound she
+returned his visit, she had the pleasure once more of feeling a horse
+under her, and old memories came back and it seemed as if she was again
+a child riding with the vicar. As we are told by a Frenchman that she
+wore a regular riding-dress, she probably borrowed this from one of the
+four English ladies then in the Crimea, for she is not likely to have
+had a habit of her own. Her horse was fresh and spirited and nervous,
+after the manner of horses, and the noise and confusion of the road that
+led to the camp was too much for his nerves. He plunged and kicked and
+reared and bucked, and did all that a horse does when he wants to be
+unpleasant, but Miss Nightingale did not mind at all--in fact she quite
+enjoyed it.
+
+All day long the Lady-in-Chief went about, visiting the hospitals and
+even penetrating into the trenches while sharp firing was going on. The
+weather was intensely hot--for it is the greatest mistake to look on
+the Crimea, which is as far south as Venice or Genoa, as being always
+cold--and one day Miss Nightingale was struck down with sudden fever.
+She was at once taken to the Sanatorium on a stretcher, which was
+followed by the faithful Thomas, and great was the dismay and sorrow of
+the whole camp. Fortunately after a fortnight she began to recover,
+thanks to the care that was taken of her, but she absolutely refused to
+go home, as the doctors wished her to do, and, weak though she was,
+returned to Scutari, where soon afterwards she heard of her friend lord
+Raglan's death, which was a great shock to her. It was some time before
+she was strong enough to go back to her work, and she spent many hours
+wandering about the cypress-planted cemetery at Scutari, where so many
+English soldiers lay buried, and in planning a memorial to them which
+was afterwards set up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In September Sebastopol fell and the war was over, but the sick and
+wounded were still uncured. It was hard for them to hear of their
+comrades going home proud and happy in the honours they had won, while
+_they_ were left behind in pain and weariness, but it would have been
+infinitely harder without the knowledge that Miss Nightingale would bear
+them company to the end. After all they stood on English ground before
+she did, as when she was well enough she sailed a second time for the
+Crimea to finish the work which her illness had caused her to leave
+undone.
+
+All through the winter of 1855 she stayed there, driving over the
+snow-covered mountains in a little carriage made for the purpose, which
+had been given her as a present. Sick soldiers there were in plenty in
+the hospitals, and for some time there was an army also, to keep order
+until the peace was signed. In order to give the soldiers occupation and
+amusement, she begged her friends at home to send out books and
+magazines to them, and this the queen and her mother, the duchess of
+Kent, were the first to do. Nothing was too small for the Lady-in-Chief
+to think of; she arranged some lectures, got up classes for the children
+and for anyone who wanted to learn; started a _cafe_, in hopes to save
+the men from drinking; and kept a money-order office herself, so that
+the men could, if they wished, send part of their pay home to their
+families. And when in July 1856 the British army set sail for England,
+Miss Nightingale stayed behind to see a white marble cross twenty feet
+high set up on a peak above Balaclava. It was a memorial from her to the
+thousands who had died at the mountain's foot, in battle or in the
+trenches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Honours and gifts showered on Miss Nightingale on all sides, and
+everybody was eager to show how highly they valued her self-sacrificing
+labours. If money had been wanted, it would have poured in from all
+quarters; but when the queen had made inquiries on the subject a year
+before Miss Nightingale's return, Mr. Sidney Herbert replied that what
+the Lady-in-Chief desired above everything was the foundation of a
+hospital in which her own special system of nursing could be carried
+out. The idea was welcomed with enthusiasm, but none of the sums sent
+were as dear to Miss Nightingale's heart as the day's pay subscribed by
+the soldiers and sailors. The fund was applied to founding a home and
+training school for nurses, attached to St. Thomas' hospital, and Miss
+Nightingale helped to plan the new buildings opposite the Houses of
+Parliament, to which the patients were afterwards moved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Nightingale came home with her aunt, Mrs. Smith, calling herself
+'Miss Smith' so that she might travel unrecognised, but that disguise
+could not be kept up when she got back to Lea Hurst. Crowds thronged to
+see her from the neighbouring towns, and the lodge-keeper had a busy
+time. However, her father would not allow her to be worried. She needed
+rest, he said, and she should have it; and if addresses and plate and
+testimonials should pour in (as they did, in quantities) someone else
+could write thanks at her dictation. All round Lea Hurst her large
+Russian dog was an object of reverence, and as for Thomas the
+drummer-boy--well, if you could not see Miss Nightingale herself, you
+might spend hours of delight in listening to Thomas, who certainly could
+tell you far more thrilling tales than his mistress would ever have
+done.
+
+We should all like to know what became of Thomas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Nightingale is still living, but the privations and over-work of
+those terrible months had so broken her down that for the last forty
+years she has been more or less of an invalid. Still, her interest is as
+wide as ever in all that could help her fellows, and though she was
+unable to go among them as of old, she was ready to help and advise,
+either personally or by letter. If she had given her health and the
+outdoor pleasures that she loved so much in aid of the sick and
+suffering, she had won in exchange a position and an influence for good
+such as no other woman has ever held.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since this little account was written, the king has conferred on her the
+highest honour he could bestow on a woman, the Order of Merit, while the
+lord mayor of London and the corporation have given her the freedom of
+the City. Thus her life will end in the knowledge that she has gained
+the only honours worth having, those which have not been sought.
+
+
+
+
+PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES
+
+
+I am afraid you will think this a sad story, and so it is, but things
+would have been sadder still but for the man I am going to tell you
+about. His name was John Howard, and if you were to ask, 'Which John
+Howard?' the answer would be, 'John Howard the Philanthropist,' which
+means 'a lover of men.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a great title for anyone to win, and no one ever earned it more
+truly than this son of the rich upholsterer of Smithfield, born in
+Clapton, then a country village of the parish of Hackney, in 1727. As
+you will see by and by, Howard spent the last seventeen years of his
+life in fighting three giants who were very hard to beat, named
+Ignorance, Sloth, and Dirt; and it is all the more difficult to overcome
+them because they are generally to be met with together. Unfortunately,
+they never can be wholly killed, for when you think they are left dead
+on the field after a hard struggle, they always come to life again; but
+they have never been quite so strong since the war waged on them by John
+Howard, who died fighting against them in a Russian city.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Howard had always been a delicate boy, which made it all the more
+wonderful that he could bear the fatigue of the long journeys which he
+undertook to help people who could not help themselves. He was married
+twice, but neither of his wives lived long, and he had only one little
+boy to look after. But when the child was four years old, Howard felt
+that it was dull for him to be alone with his father, and without any
+play-fellows, so he sent him to a small school kept by some ladies,
+where little John, or 'Master Howard,' as it was the fashion to call
+him, would be well taken care of.
+
+Howard was a quiet man, and very religious, but, what was rare in those
+times, he did not believe everybody in the wrong who thought differently
+from himself. He lived quietly among his books on a small estate he
+owned near Bedford, called Cardington, where he studied astronomy and
+questions about heat and cold, and when only twenty-nine was elected a
+Fellow of the Royal Society. Medicine always interested him, and he
+learned enough of it to be very useful to him during his travels;
+indeed, it was owing to his fame as a doctor that he was summoned to see
+a young Russian lady dying of fever, which, according to many, infected
+him, and caused his own death. In his studies and in the care of his
+tenants many peaceful years passed away. The man who afterwards became
+known as the champion of 'prisoners and captives, and all who were
+desolate and oppressed,' did not allow his own tenants to live in
+unhealthy and uncomfortable cottages crowded together in tiny rooms with
+water dropping on to their beds from the badly thatched roofs, like many
+other landlords both in his day and ours. He opened schools for the
+children, and drew up rules for them. The girls were taught reading and
+needlework, the boys reading and a little arithmetic. Writing does not
+seem to have been thought necessary, as none of the girls learned it,
+and only a few of the boys--probably the cleverer ones. On Sundays they
+were all expected to go to church or chapel, whichever their parents
+preferred.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In spite of the generosity which made John Howard ready to give money or
+time to any scheme that seemed likely to be of use to the poor, he was
+not popular with his neighbours, and saw very little of them. They
+thought him 'odd' because he did not care for races, or cock-fights, or
+long dinners that lasted far into the night, where the gentlemen often
+drank so much that they could not get home at all. Year by year Howard
+was teaching himself to do without things, and by and by he was able to
+live on green tea and a little bread and vegetables, with fruit now and
+then as a great treat. No wonder he was considered eccentric by the
+Bedfordshire country gentlemen!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But, in spite of his quiet ways, Howard had a passion for travelling,
+and when a youth threw up the position of grocer's apprentice which his
+father had obtained for him, and started for France and Italy.
+Immediately after the death of his first wife he determined to go for a
+change to Lisbon, then lying in ruins after the recent earthquake.
+Before, however, his ship was out of the English Channel it was attacked
+and overpowered by a French privateer, and both crew and passengers were
+left without anything to eat or drink for nearly two days. They were
+then taken to the prison at Brest, thrown into a dark and horribly dirty
+dungeon, and apparently forgotten. Besides hunger and thirst, they went
+through terrible pangs, fearing lest they were to be left to starve; but
+at length the heavy bolts of the iron door were shot back, and a leg of
+mutton was thrust inside. Nobody had a knife, every weapon had been
+taken from them, and if they had, they were all too hungry to wait to
+use it. They sprang on the food like wolves and gnawed it like dogs.
+
+For a week they all remained in their dungeon, and then Howard, at any
+rate, was allowed to leave it, and was sent first to Morlaix and then to
+Carpaix, where he was kindly treated by the gaoler, in whose house he
+lived. Howard gave his word that he would not try to escape, and for
+two months he remained there--a prisoner on parole, as it is
+called--writing letters to prisoners he had left behind him, who had not
+been so fortunate as himself. From what he had gone through he could
+easily guess what they were suffering, and determined that when once he
+got back to England he would do everything in his power to obtain their
+freedom.
+
+[Illustration: They sprang on the food like wolves.]
+
+In two months Howard was informed by his friend the gaoler that the
+governor had decided that he should be sent to England, in order that he
+might arrange to be exchanged for a French naval officer, after swearing
+that in case this could not be managed, he would return as a prisoner to
+Brest. It was a great trial of any man's good faith, but it was not
+misplaced, and happily the exchange was easily made. No sooner were his
+own affairs settled than Howard set about freeing his countrymen, and
+very shortly some English ships were sent to Brest with a cargo of
+French prisoners and came back with an equal number of English ones, all
+of whom owed their liberty to Howard's exertions.
+
+His captivity in France first gave him an idea of the state of prisons
+and the sufferings of prisoners, but eighteen years were to pass before
+the improvement of their condition became the business of his life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Howard was appointed high sheriff for the county of Bedford in 1773,
+and as such had the prisons under his charge. The high sheriffs who had
+gone before him were of course equally bound to see that everything
+inside the gaol was clean and well-ordered, but nobody really expected
+them to trouble their heads about the matter, and certainly they never
+did. However, Mr. Howard's notion of his duty was very different. He at
+once visited the county prison in Bedford, and the misery that he found
+there was repeated almost exactly in nearly every prison in the British
+Isles. The gaoler in Bedford--and in many other places--had no salary
+paid him, and therefore screwed all he could out of his prisoners; and
+no matter if a man were innocent or guilty, if a jury had condemned him
+or not, he must pay fifteen shillings and fourpence to the gaoler, and
+two shillings to the warder who brought him his food--when he had
+any--before he was set free. If, as often happened, the prisoners could
+not find the money, well, they were locked up till they died, or till
+the fees were paid.
+
+When Howard informed the magistrates of what he had found, they were as
+much shocked as if it had not been their business to have known all
+about it.
+
+'A dreadful state of things, indeed!' they said, 'and they were greatly
+obliged to Mr. Howard for having discovered it. Yes, certainly, the
+criminals and those who had been confined for debt alone ought to be
+placed in different parts of the prison, and the men and women should be
+separated, and an infirmary built for the sick. Oh! they were quite
+willing to do it, but the cost would be very heavy, and the people might
+decline to pay it, unless the high sheriff could point to any other
+county which supported its own gaol.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the moment, the high sheriff could not, but he had no doubt that such
+a county would be easily found, so he at once started on a visit to some
+of the prisons, but, to his surprise, he did not discover _one_ in which
+the gaoler was paid a fixed salary. And the more he saw of the prisons,
+the more he was grieved at their condition. Almost all had dungeons for
+criminals built underground, dark, damp, and dirty, and sometimes as
+much as twenty feet below the surface; and often these dungeons were
+very small and very crowded. Mats or, in a few of the better-managed
+prisons, straw was given the prisoners to lie on, but no coverings, and
+those who were imprisoned for debt were expected to pay for their own
+food or go without it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sick at heart with all that he had seen, Howard went home for a short
+rest, and then set out again on one of those tours on which he spent
+the remaining years of his life, never thinking that the work was done
+when he had reported on the terrible evils of the prison system, but
+always returning to make sure that his advice had been carried out,
+which it often was not. Curious to say, there are few instances of
+difficulties being put in the way of his inspecting the prisons in any
+of the countries which he visited, while about six months after his
+labours began, he was called to the bar of the House of Commons, and
+publicly thanked for his services in behalf of those who could not help
+themselves.
+
+Mr. Howard was pleased and touched at the honour done him, and at the
+proof that
+
+        Evil is wrought by want of Thought,
+          As well as by want of Heart;
+
+but he was much more gratified by two laws that were passed during that
+session, one for relieving innocent prisoners from paying fees, and the
+other for insisting on certain rules being carried out which were
+necessary to keep the prisoners in good health.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This last Act was greatly needed. The bad air, the dirt, and the
+closeness of the rooms constantly produced an illness called gaol fever,
+from which numbers of prisoners died yearly, one catching it from the
+other. Nominally, a doctor was attached to every prison, but instead of
+being ready, as doctors generally are, to risk their lives for their
+patients, these men usually showed great cowardice. In Exeter, the
+doctor when appointed had it set down in writing that he should not be
+obliged to attend anyone suffering from gaol fever; in the county gaol
+for Cornwall, every prisoner but one was ill of this disease when Howard
+paid his first visit there. And no wonder, for here the prison consisted
+of only one room with a small window, and three 'dungeons or cages,'
+the one for women being only five feet long. The food was let down to
+them through a hole in the floor of the room above.
+
+In Derby, Howard was thankful to see that things were far more what they
+ought to be. The rooms were larger and lighter, there was an infirmary
+for the sick, 'a neat chapel,' and even a bath, 'which the prisoners
+were required occasionally to use.' Here the debtors, instead of being
+nearly starved, were given the same allowance of food as the criminals.
+They were also supplied with plenty of straw, and had fires in the
+winter. Newcastle was still better managed, and here the doctor gave his
+services free; but the Durham gaol was in a terrible state, and when
+Howard went down into the dungeon he found several criminals lying there
+half-starved and chained to the floor. The reason of these differences
+probably lies in the fact that before Howard's time nobody had ever
+taken the trouble to visit the prisons or to see if the rules were
+carried out. If, as sometimes happened, the doctor and gaoler were
+kind-hearted men, anxious to do their duty, then the prisoners were
+tolerably well cared for. If, on the other hand, they were careless or
+cruel, the captives had to suffer. This Howard saw, and was resolved, as
+far as possible, to put the prisoners out of the power of the gaolers,
+who should be made to undergo a severe punishment for any neglect of
+duty. For in Howard's mind, though it was, of course, needful that men
+should learn that if they chose to commit crimes they must pay for them,
+yet he considered that so much useless misery only made the criminals
+harder and more brutal, and that the real object of punishment was to
+help people to correct their faults, and once more to become honest men
+and women.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having satisfied himself of the state of the English prisons, and done
+what he could to improve them, Howard determined to discover how those
+in foreign countries were managed. Paris was the first place he stopped
+at, and the famous Bastille the first prison he visited. Here, however,
+he was absolutely refused admittance, and seems, according to his friend
+Dr. Aikin, to have narrowly escaped being detained as a prisoner
+himself. But once outside the walls he remembered having heard that an
+Act had been passed in 1717, when Louis XV. was seven years old and the
+duke of Orleans was regent, desiring all gaolers to admit into their
+prisons any persons who wished to bestow money on the prisoners, only
+stipulating that whatever was given to those confined in the dungeons
+should be offered in the presence of the gaoler.
+
+Armed with this knowledge and a quantity of small coins, Howard called
+on the head of the police, who received him politely and gave him a
+written pass to the chief prisons in Paris. These he found very bad,
+with dungeons in some of 'these seats of woe beyond imagination horrid
+and dreadful,' yet not apparently any worse than many on this side of
+the Channel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Howard's dismal experiences in England, Scotland, Ireland, and
+France, it must have given him heartfelt pleasure to visit the prisons
+in Belgium, which, with scarcely an exception, were 'all fresh and
+clean, no gaol distemper, no prisoners in irons.' The bread allowance
+'far exceeds that of any of _our_ gaols. Two pounds of bread a day, soup
+once, with a pound of meat on Sunday.' This was in Brussels, but when he
+went on to Ghent, things were better still.
+
+Like most of the large towns of Flanders, Ghent had a stirring history,
+and its townspeople were rich and prosperous. At the time of Howard's
+visit, it was part of the dominions of the emperor Joseph II., brother
+of Marie Antoinette, and by his orders a large prison was in course of
+building. Though not yet finished, it already contained more than a
+hundred and fifty men, and Howard felt as if he must be dreaming when he
+saw that each of these prisoners had a room to himself, a bedstead, a
+mattress, a pillow, a pair of sheets, with two blankets in winter and
+one in summer. Everything was very clean, and the food plentiful and
+wholesome. But, besides all this, Howard noted with a feeling of envy
+two customs which so far he had tried in vain to introduce into England.
+One was that the men and the women should be kept apart, and the other,
+that they should be given useful work to employ their time. In England,
+a prisoner was sometimes condemned to 'hard labour,' but this was a mere
+form. There was no system arranged beforehand for the employment of
+convicts, and indeed, till more light was admitted into the English
+prisons, it was too dark to work at anything, so they just sat with the
+other criminals in the dark, stifling dungeons, with nothing to do and
+nothing to think of!
+
+A more horrible punishment could not have been invented, and if the
+criminal left the prison at all, he was sure to come out even worse than
+he went in. And how was anything else possible?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now in Ghent, and in most of the Flemish prisons, it was all as
+different as could be. The women sat in work-rooms of their own, when
+they had finished cleaning and cooking, mending all their own and the
+men's clothes, which it was part of their duty to wash. This done, wool
+in what is called its 'raw state' was served out to them--that is, wool
+as it had been taken off the sheep's fleece--and they had to comb out
+all the tangles, and spin it into long skeins. Then the skeins were
+taken to the men, many of whom were weavers by trade, and by them it was
+woven into cloth which was sold.
+
+Thus, in doing work in which they could occupy themselves and take a
+pride, the prisoners unconsciously ceased to think all day of the bad
+lives they had led, and longed to lead again; and when they had served
+the time of their sentences and were discharged, they had a trade to
+fall back on, and, what was still more important, the _habit_ of
+working.
+
+Besides this, the method of 'hard labour' carried out in the Ghent
+prison had another great advantage for the prisoners. Every day each
+person's work, which would take him a certain number of hours to finish,
+was dealt out, and when it was done, and done _properly_, the prisoners
+were allowed, if they chose, to go on working, and the profits of this
+work were put aside to be given them when they were discharged. And in
+Ghent the criminals were not left, as in England, to the mercy of the
+gaoler, nobody knowing and nobody caring what became of them, for the
+city magistrates went over the prison once every week, and also arranged
+what meals the prisoners were to have till the next meeting.
+
+In a gaol in the beautiful old city of Bruges, the contrast between the
+care taken of the sick criminals and the numberless deaths from gaol
+fever in his own country filled Howard with the deepest shame. In
+Bruges, the doctors did not make stipulations that they should not be
+expected to visit infectious patients, but they wrote out their
+prescriptions in a book for the magistrates to read. Thus it was
+possible for the rulers of the city to judge for themselves how ill a
+man might be, and how he was being treated; and as long as the doctor
+considered him in need of it, fourteen pence daily--a much larger sum
+then than now--was allotted to provide soup and other nourishing food
+for the sick person.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Howard passed from Belgium to Holland he found the same care,
+though here the rules respecting the gaolers were stricter, because
+they were responsible for the orderly state of the prison and the
+conduct of the prisoners.
+
+The gaolers were forbidden, on pain of a fine, to be seen drinking in
+public-houses, to quarrel with the prisoners, and to use bad language to
+them, and, greatest difference of all from the prisons he was accustomed
+to, no strong drink was allowed to be sold within the walls! Debtors
+were few, while in England they were more numerous than the criminals;
+and in Amsterdam not a single person had been executed for ten years,
+whereas in Britain sheep-stealing and all sorts of petty offences were
+punished by hanging.
+
+From Holland Mr. Howard travelled to Germany, where, as a whole, the
+same sort of rules prevailed; and in Hamburg, the wives of the
+magistrates went to the prisons every Saturday to give out the women's
+work. In some places the men were set to mend the roads, clean the
+bridges, clear away the snow, or do whatever the magistrates desired,
+and a guard with fixed bayonets always attended them. But they much
+preferred this labour, hard though it often was, to being shut up
+indoors, and looked healthy and cheerful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After three months Mr. Howard returned home and inspected the prison at
+Dover, to find to his dismay everything exactly as before; and when,
+after a little rest, he set out on a second English tour, scarcely
+anywhere did he perceive an improvement. One small prison in the Forest
+of Dean was inhabited by two sick and half-starved men, who had been
+kept in one room for more than a year almost without water or fire or
+any allowance for food. In another, at Penzance, which consisted of two
+tiny rooms in a stable-yard, was one prisoner only, who would have died
+of hunger had it not been for a brother, even poorer than himself, who
+brought him just enough to keep him alive. Again and again Howard paid
+out of his own pocket the debts of many of those miserable people, which
+sometimes began by being no more than a shilling, but soon mounted up,
+with all the fees, to several pounds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With only short intervals for rest, Howard went on travelling and
+inspecting, now in the British Isles and now abroad, and by slow degrees
+he began to see an improvement in the condition of the prisoners in his
+own country, whether criminals or debtors in gaols or convicts in the
+'hulks,' as the rotten old ships used as prisons were called. He was
+careful never to leave a single cell unvisited, and spoke his mind
+freely both to the keepers and to the magistrates. The House of Commons
+always listened with eagerness to all he had to tell, and passed several
+Bills which should have changed things much for the better. But the
+difficulty lay, not in making the law, but in getting it carried out.
+
+It is wonderful how, during all these travels and the hours spent in the
+horrible atmosphere of the prisons, a delicate man like Howard so seldom
+was ill. Luckily he knew enough of medicine to teach him to take some
+simple precautions, and he never entered a hospital or prison before
+breakfast. Dresden and Venice appear to have been the two cities on the
+Continent where the prisoners were the worst treated, many of them
+wearing irons, and few of them having enough food.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would be impossible to give an account of all Howard's journeys,
+which included Italy, Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, and Holland, but
+I have told you enough for you to understand what a task he had
+undertaken. When he was abroad he was sometimes entreated to attend
+private patients, so widely had his fame spread; and though he did not
+pretend to be a doctor, he never refused to give any help that was
+possible, and it was through this kindness that he lost his life. Once,
+during a visit to Constantinople, he received a message from a man high
+in the Sultan's favour, begging him to come and see his daughter, as she
+was suffering great pain and none of the doctors could do anything to
+relieve her. Howard asked the girl some questions, and felt her pulse,
+and then gave some simple directions for her treatment which soon took
+away the pain, and in a few days she was nearly well. Her father was so
+grateful that he offered Howard a large sum of money, just as he would
+have done to one of his own countrymen, and was struck dumb when Howard
+declined the gift, and asked instead for a bunch of the beautiful grapes
+that he had seen hanging in the garden. As soon as the official had made
+sure that his ears had not deceived him, he ordered a large supply of
+the finest grapes to be sent to Howard daily as long as he stayed in
+Constantinople.
+
+So for a whole month we can imagine him enjoying the Pasha's grapes, in
+addition to the vegetables, bread, and water which formed his usual
+meals, taken at any hour that happened to be convenient. If he wished to
+go to visit a prison or hospital or lazaretto, there was no need to put
+it off because 'it would interfere with his dinner-hour,' for his dinner
+could be eaten any time. Not that there were any hospitals, properly
+speaking, in Constantinople; for though there was a place in the Greek
+quarter to which sick people were sent, hardly a single doctor could be
+found to attend them, and the only real hospital in the capital was for
+the benefit of cats.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now in most of the great seaport towns along the Mediterranean,
+lazarettos, or pest-houses, were built, so that passengers on arriving
+from plague-stricken countries should be placed in confinement for forty
+days, till there was no fear of their infecting the people. In England,
+in spite of her large trade with foreign lands, there were no such
+buildings, and it is only wonderful that the plague was so little heard
+of. Howard determined to insist on the wisdom and necessity of the
+foreign plan; but as he always made his reports from experience and not
+from hearsay, he felt that the time had come when he should first visit
+the lazarettos, and then go through the forty days' quarantine himself.
+
+This experiment was more dangerous than any he had yet tried, so instead
+of taking a servant with him, as had generally been his habit, he set
+out alone in November 1785.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As regards lazarettos, he found, as he had found with regard to prisons
+and hospitals, that their condition depended in a great degree on the
+amount of care taken by the ruler of the city. In Italy there were
+several that were extremely well managed, especially in the dominions of
+the grand duke of Tuscany; but he had made up his mind that when the
+moment came for his quarantine it should be undergone in Venice, the
+most famous lazaretto of them all. He took ship eastwards, and visited
+the great leper hospital at the Island of Scio, where everything was
+done to make the poor creatures as comfortable as possible. Each person
+had his own room and a garden of his own, where he could grow figs,
+almonds, and other fruit, besides herbs for cooking.
+
+From Scio Howard sailed to Smyrna, and then changed into another vessel,
+bound for Venice, which he knew would be put in quarantine the moment it
+arrived in the city. The winds were contrary and the voyage slow, and
+off the shores of Greece they were attacked by one of the 'Barbary
+corsairs' who infested the Mediterranean. The Smyrna crew fought hard,
+for well they knew the terrors of the fate that awaited them if
+captured, and when their shot was exhausted they loaded their biggest
+gun with spikes and nails, and anything else that came handy. Howard
+himself aimed it, and after it had fired a few rounds, the enemy spread
+his black sails and retired.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length, after two months, Venice was reached, and as a passenger on
+board a ship from an infected port, Howard was condemned to forty days'
+quarantine in the new lazaretto. His cell was as dirty as any dungeon in
+any English prison, and had neither chair, table, nor bed. His first
+care was to clean it, but it was so long since anyone had thought of
+doing such a thing that it was nearly as long before the dirt could be
+made to disappear, and meanwhile he was attacked by the same headache
+which had always marked his visit to such places, and in a short time
+became so ill that he was removed to the old lazaretto. Here he was
+rather worse off than before, for the water came so close to the walls
+that the stone floor was always wet, and in a week's time he was given a
+third apartment, this time consisting of four rooms, but all without
+furniture and as dirty as the first.
+
+Ordinary washing was again useless to remove the thick coating of filth
+of all kinds, and at length Howard felt himself getting so ill that by
+the help of the English consul he was allowed to have some brushes and
+lime, which by mixing with water became whitewash. He then brushed down
+the walls without hindrance from anyone, though he had made up his mind
+that if the guard tried to stop him, he would lock him up in one of the
+rooms. Almost directly he grew better, and was able to enjoy his tea and
+bread once more.
+
+The rules for purification of the infected ships were most strict, but
+it depended on the prior, or head of the lazaretto, whether they were
+carried out or not. All woollen, cotton, and silk materials, which were
+specially liable to carry infection, were carefully cleansed. The bags
+in which they were packed were all emptied, and the men belonging to the
+lazaretto were strictly forbidden to touch them with their hands, and
+always used canes to turn over the contents of the bags. This was done
+daily for forty days, when they were free from infection. Other things
+were kept in salt water for forty-eight hours, and short-haired animals
+were made to swim ashore.
+
+[Illustration: He brushed down the walls without hindrance from anyone.]
+
+On November 20, Howard was set free, his health having suffered from the
+lack of air and exercise, and from anxiety about his son, whom he had
+left in England. However, he still continued his tour of inspection, and
+it was not till February 1787 that he reached home. After a short time
+given to his own affairs, in making the best arrangements that he could
+for his son, now completely out of his mind, he was soon busily employed
+in putting a stop very vigorously to the erection of a statue to his
+honour. The subscriptions to it had been large, for everybody felt how
+much the country owed to his unwearied efforts in the cause of his
+fellow-men, carried out entirely at his own cost. But Howard would not
+listen to them for one moment.
+
+'The execution of your design would be a cruel punishment to me,' he
+says in a letter to the subscribers. 'I shall always think the reform
+now going on in several of the gaols of this kingdom, which I hope will
+become general, the greatest honour and most ample reward I can possibly
+receive.'
+
+It was Howard who was right, and his friends who were wrong, for though
+after his death they would no longer be denied, it is not the picture of
+the statue in St. Paul's which rises before us at the name of John
+Howard, but that of the prison cell.
+
+
+
+
+HANNIBAL
+
+
+If we could go back more than three thousand years, and be present at
+one of the banquets of Egypt or of the great kingdoms of the East, we
+should be struck by the wonderful colour which blazed in some of the
+hangings on the walls, and in the dresses of the guests; and if,
+coveting the same beautiful colour for our own homes, we asked where it
+came from, the answer would be that it was the famous Tyrian purple,
+made at the prosperous town of Tyre, off the coast of Palestine,
+inhabited by the Phoenician race.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Phoenicians were celebrated traders and sent their goods all over
+the world. Ships took them to the mouth of the Nile, to the islands in
+the Cornish sea, to the flourishing cities of Crete almost as civilised
+as our own; while caravans of camels bore Phoenician wares across the
+desert to the Euphrates and the Tigris, most likely even to India
+itself. Soon the Phoenicians began to plant colonies which, like Tyre
+their mother, grew rich and beautiful, and far along the north African
+coast--so runs the old story--the lady Dido founded the city of
+Carthage, whose marble temples, theatres, and places of assembly were by
+and by to vie with those of Tyre itself.
+
+But before these were yet completed, a wanderer, tall and strong and
+sun-burned, towering nearly a head over the small Phoenician people,
+landed on the coast and was brought before the queen, as Dido was now
+called.
+
+His name, he said, was AEneas, and he had spent many years in fighting
+before the walls of Troy for the sake of Helen, whom he thought the
+loveliest woman in the world, till he had looked on Dido the queen.
+After the war was ended he had travelled westwards, and truly strange
+were the scenes on which his eyes had rested since he had crossed the
+seas.
+
+Dido listened, and as she had talked with many traders from all
+countries she understood somewhat of his speech, and bade him stay
+awhile and behold the wonders of the city she was building. So AEneas
+stayed, and the heart of the queen went out to him; but as the days
+passed by he tired of rich food and baths made sweet with perfumes, and
+longed for wild hills and the flocks driven by the shepherds. Then one
+morning he sailed away, and Dido saw his face no more; and in her grief
+she ordered a tall pyre to be reared of logs of sandalwood and cedar.
+When all was prepared she came forth with a golden circlet round her
+head, and a robe of scarlet falling to her feet, till men marvelled at
+her fairness, and laid herself down on the top of the pyre.
+
+'I am ready,' she said to the chief of her slaves, who stood by, and a
+lighted torch was placed against the pile, and the flames rose high.
+
+In this manner Dido perished, but her name was kept green in her city to
+the end.
+
+[Illustration: She came forth with a golden circlet round her head.]
+
+But though Dido was dead, her city of Carthage went on growing, and
+conquering, and planting colonies, in Sicily, Spain, and Sardinia. Not
+that the Carthaginians themselves, though a fierce and cruel people,
+cared about forming an empire, but they loved riches, and to protect
+their trade from other nations it was needful to have strong fleets and
+armies. For some time the various Greek states were her most powerful
+enemies; but in the third century before Christ signs appeared to
+those with eyes to read them that a war between Carthage and Rome was at
+hand.
+
+Now it must never be forgotten for a moment that neither then, nor for
+over two thousand years later, was there any such thing as Italy, as
+_we_ understand it.
+
+The southern part of the peninsula was called 'Greater Greece,' and
+filled, as we have said, by colonies from different Greek towns. In the
+northern parts, about the river Po, tribes from Gaul had settled
+themselves, and in the centre were various cities peopled by strange
+races, who for long joined themselves into a league to resist the power
+of Rome. But by the third century B.C. the Roman empire, which was
+afterwards to swallow up the whole of the civilised world from the
+straits of Gibraltar to the deserts of Asia, had started on its career;
+the league had been broken up, the Gauls and Greeks had been driven
+back, and the whole of Italy south of the river Rubicon paid tribute to
+the City of the Seven Hills on the Tiber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having made herself secure in Italy, Rome next began to watch with
+anxious eyes the proceedings of Carthage in Spain and in Sicily. The
+struggle for lordship was bound to come, and to come soon. As to her
+army, Rome feared nothing, but it was quite clear that to gain the
+victory over Carthage she must have a fleet, and few things are more
+striking in the great war than the determination with which Rome, never
+a nation of sailors, again and again fitted out vessels, and when they
+were destroyed or sunk gave orders to build more. And at last she had
+her reward, and the tall galleys, with high carved prows and five banks
+of oars, beat the ships which had been hitherto thought invincible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 263 B.C. that the war at last broke out in Sicily, and after
+gaining victories both by land and sea, Rome in the eighth year of the
+contest sent an army to Africa, under the consuls Regulus and Volso,
+with orders to besiege Carthage. The invading army consisted of forty
+thousand men, and was joined as soon as it touched the African shore by
+some tributary towns, and also by twenty thousand slaves--for Carthage
+was hated by all who came under her rule because of her savage cruelty.
+At the news of the invasion the people seemed turned into stone. Then
+envoys were sent to beg for peace, peace at any price, at the cost of
+any humiliation. But the consuls would listen to nothing, and Carthage
+would have fallen completely into her enemy's hands had the Romans
+marched to the gates. But at this moment an order arrived from the Roman
+senate, bidding Volso with twenty-four thousand men return at once,
+leaving Regulus with only sixteen thousand. With exceeding folly Regulus
+left the strongly fortified camp, which in Roman warfare formed one of
+the chief defences, and arrayed his forces in the open plain. There
+Carthage, driven to bay, gave him battle with her hastily collected
+forces. The Carthaginians, commanded by Xanthippus, a better general
+than Regulus, won the day, and only two thousand Romans escaped
+slaughter. The victory gave heart to the men of Carthage, and when news
+came from Sicily that Rome had been driven back and her fleets
+destroyed, their joy knew no bounds. In her turn Rome might have lain at
+the feet of the conqueror, but Carthage had no army strong enough to act
+in a foreign land, and contented herself with destroying during the war
+seven hundred five-banked Roman ships, which were every time replaced
+with amazing swiftness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The war had raged for sixteen years when Hamilcar Barca, father of the
+most famous general before Caesar (except Alexander the Great), was given
+command over land and sea. He was a young man, not more than thirty, and
+belonged to one of the oldest families in Carthage. Unlike most of his
+nation, he valued many things more highly than money, and despised the
+glitter and show and luxury in which all the Carthaginians delighted. A
+boy of fourteen when the first Punic war began (for this is its name in
+history), his strongest passion was hatred of Rome and a burning desire
+to humble the power which had defied his own beloved city. It did not
+matter to Hamilcar that his ships were few and his soldiers
+undisciplined. The great point was that he had absolute power over them,
+and as to their training he would undertake that himself.
+
+So, full of hope he began his work, and in course of time, after hard
+labour, his raw troops became a fine army.
+
+Hamilcar's first campaign in Sicily--so often the battleground of
+ancient Europe--was crowned with success. The Romans were hemmed in by
+his skilful strategy, and if he had only been given a proper number of
+ships it would have been easy for him to have landed in Italy, and
+perhaps marched to Rome. But now, as ever in the three Punic wars,
+Carthage, absorbed in counting her money and reckoning her gains and
+losses, could never understand where her real interest lay. She waited
+until Rome, by a supreme effort, built another fleet of two hundred
+vessels, which suddenly appeared on the west coast of Sicily, and gave
+battle to the Carthaginian ships when, too late, they came to the help
+of their general. The battle was lost, the fleet destroyed, and Hamilcar
+with wrath in his soul was obliged to make peace. Sicily, which Carthage
+had held for four hundred years, was ceded to Rome, and large sums of
+money paid into her treasury for the expenses of the war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bitterly disappointed at the failure forced on him when victory was
+within his grasp, Hamilcar was shortly after summoned back to Carthage
+to put down a rebellion which the government by its greed and folly had
+provoked. The neighbouring tribes and subject cities joined the foreign
+troops whose pay had been held back, and soon an army of seventy
+thousand men under a good general was marching upon Carthage. So
+widespread was the revolt that it took Hamilcar, to whom the people had
+insisted on giving absolute power, three years to quell the revolt; but
+at length he triumphed, punishing the leaders, and pardoning those who
+had only been led.
+
+Peace having been restored, Hamilcar was immediately despatched to look
+after affairs in Spain, where both Carthage and Rome had many colonies.
+Strange to say, he took with him his three little boys, Hannibal,
+Hasdrubal, and Mago, and before they sailed he bade Hannibal, then only
+nine, come with him into the great temple, and swear to the gods that he
+would be avenged on Rome.
+
+If you read this story you will see how Hannibal kept his oath.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As this is a history of Hannibal, and not of his father, I have not room
+to tell you how Hamilcar took measures to carry out the purpose of his
+life, namely, the destruction of Rome. To this end he fortified the
+towns that had hitherto only been used as manufactories or store-houses,
+turned the traders into steady soldiers, sent for heavy armed African
+troops from Libya, and the celebrated light horse from Numidia, made
+friends with the Iberian (or Spanish) tribes, and ruled wisely and well
+from the straits of Gibraltar to the river Ebro. But, busy as he might
+be, he always had time to remember his three boys, and saw that they
+were trained in the habits and learning of a soldier. All three were apt
+pupils, and loved flinging darts and slinging stones, and shooting with
+the bow, though in these arts they could not rival their masters from
+the Balearic isles, however much they practised.
+
+[Illustration: All three were apt pupils.]
+
+When Hannibal was eighteen, Hamilcar was killed in a battle with some of
+the native tribes who had refused to submit to the sway of Carthage. In
+spite of the hatred that he cherished for everything Roman, he had
+earned the undying respect of the noblest among them. 'No king was
+equal to Hamilcar Barca,' writes Cato the elder, and the words of Livy
+the historian about Hannibal might also be applied to his father.
+
+'Never was a genius more fitted to obey or to command. His body could
+not be exhausted nor his mind subdued by toil, and he ate and drank only
+what he needed.' He had failed in his aim, but, dying, he left it as a
+heritage to his son, who, on the point of victory, was to fail also.
+
+Under Hamilcar's son-in-law, Hasdrubal, the work of training the army,
+encouraging agriculture, and fostering trade was carried on as before.
+It was not long before Hasdrubal made his young brother-in-law commander
+of the cavalry, and often sought counsel from him in any perplexity.
+Hannibal was much beloved, too, by his soldiers of all nations, and to
+the end they clung to him through good and ill. He gave back their
+devotion by constant care for their comfort--very rare in those
+days--seeing that they were fed and warmed before entering on a hard
+day's fighting, and arranging that they had proper time for rest. To the
+Iberians he was bound by special ties, for before he quitted Spain for
+his death-struggle with Rome he married a Spanish princess, little
+thinking, when he started northwards in May 218 B.C., that he was
+leaving her and her infant son behind him for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this time Rome had been growing both in her influence and her
+dominions, when for a while her very existence was threatened by the
+sudden invasion of seventy thousand Gauls, who poured in from the north.
+They were defeated in a hard-fought battle and beaten back, but the
+struggle with the barbarians was long and fierce, and Rome remained
+exhausted. Her attention was occupied with measures needful for her own
+defence and in raising both men and money, and except for warning the
+Carthaginians not to cross the Ebro, she left them for a time pretty
+much to themselves, thinking vainly that, as long as her navy gave her
+command of the sea, she had no need to trouble herself about affairs in
+Spain or Africa. Indeed, after the severe strain of the Gallic war, the
+Roman senate thought that they were in so little danger either from
+Carthage or from Greece that their troops might take a sorely needed
+rest, and the army was disbanded.
+
+This was Hannibal's chance, and with the siege and fall of the Spanish
+town of Saguntum in 218 B.C. began the second Punic war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For years the young general had been secretly brooding over his plans,
+and had prepared friends for himself all along the difficult way his
+army would have to march. Unknown to Rome, he had received promises of
+help from most of the tribes in what is now the province of Catalonia,
+from Philip of Macedon, ruler in the kingdom of Alexander the Great, and
+from some of the Gauls near the Rhone and along the valley of the Po.
+Many of these proved broken reeds at the time of trial, when their help
+was most needed, and even turned into enemies, and Hannibal was too wise
+not to have foreseen that this might happen. Still, for the moment all
+seemed going as he wished; war was declared, and Rome made ready her
+fleet for the attack by sea which she felt was certain to follow.
+
+In our days of telephones and telegrams and wireless telegraphy, it is
+very nearly _impossible_ for us to understand how an army of ninety
+thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, and thirty-seven elephants could
+go right through Spain from Carthagena in the south-east to the Pyrenees
+in the north, and even beyond them, without a whisper of the fact
+reaching an enemy across the sea. Yet this is what actually occurred.
+Rome sent a large force under one consul into Sicily, the troops were
+later to embark for Carthage, another to the Po to hold the Gauls in
+check, while a third, under Publius Scipio, was shortly to sail for
+Spain and there give battle to the Carthaginians. That Hannibal was
+fighting his way desperately through Catalonia at that very moment they
+had not the remotest idea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not only did Hannibal lose many of his men in Catalonia, but he was
+obliged to leave a large body behind, under Hanno, his general, to
+prevent the Catalans rising behind him, and cutting off his
+communications with Spain.
+
+The Pyrenees were crossed near the sea without difficulty, and for a
+time the march was easy and rapid along the great Roman road as far as
+Nismes, and then on to the Rhone between Orange and Avignon. By this
+time the consul, Publius Scipio, who had been prevented for some reason
+from going earlier to Spain, and was now sailing along the gulf of Genoa
+on his way thither, heard at Marseilles that Hannibal was advancing
+towards the river Rhone. The Roman listened to the news with incredulity
+and little alarm. How could Hannibal have got over the Pyrenees and he
+not know it? A second messenger arrived with the same tale as the first,
+but Scipio still refused to believe there was any danger. Why, the late
+rains had so swollen the river that it was now in high flood, and how
+could any army ford a stream so broad and so rapid? And if it _did_, had
+not the envoy said that some Gallic troops were drawn up on the other
+side to prevent the enemy landing? So Scipio disembarked his troops in a
+leisurely manner, and contented himself with sending out a scouting
+party of horse to see where the Carthaginians might be encamped--if they
+really were there at all!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now all the way along his line of march Hannibal had followed his usual
+policy, and had gained over to his side most of the Gauls who lay in his
+path, and when they seemed inclined to oppose him, a bribe of money
+generally made matters smooth. But on reaching the right bank of the
+river he found the Gallic tribes, of whom Scipio had heard, assembled in
+large numbers on the left bank, just at the very place where he wished
+to cross. He knew at once that it was useless to persist in making the
+passage here, and some other plan must be thought of.
+
+The first thing Hannibal did was to buy at their full value all the
+boats and canoes used by the natives in carrying their goods down to the
+mouth of the Rhone, there to be sold to foreign traders. The people,
+finding that the army of strange nations with dark skins and curious
+weapons did not intend to rob them, but to pay honestly for all they
+took, became ready to help them, and offered themselves as guides if
+they should be needed. And to prove their good will, they began to help
+the soldiers to cut down trees from the neighbouring forests, and to
+scoop them into canoes, one for every soldier.
+
+It was the third night after the Carthaginians had reached the river
+when Hannibal ordered Hanno, one of his most trusted generals, to take a
+body of his best troops up the stream, to a place out of sight and sound
+of the Gallic camp, where one of the friendly guides had told him that a
+passage might be made. The country at this point was lonely, and the
+detachment met with no enemies along the road, and no one hindered them
+in felling trees and making rafts to carry them to the further bank.
+Early next morning they all got across, and then by Hannibal's express
+orders rested and slept, for he never allowed his soldiers to fight when
+exhausted. Before dawn they started on their march down the left bank,
+sending up, as soon as it was light, a column of smoke to warn Hannibal
+that everything had gone smoothly, and that he might now begin to cross
+himself.
+
+His men were all ready, and without hurry or confusion took their
+places. The heavy-armed cavalry, with their corselets of bronze, and
+swords and long spears, entered the larger vessels; two men, standing in
+the stern of every boat, holding the bridles of three or four horses
+which were swimming after them. It must have required great skill on the
+part of the oarsmen to allow sufficient space between the boats, so that
+the horses should not become entangled with each other, but no accident
+happened either to the larger vessels or to the canoes which contained
+the rest of the foot.
+
+[Illustration: The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting and screaming
+with delight.]
+
+Exactly as Hannibal expected, for he always seemed to know by magic the
+faults that his enemy would commit, at the sight of the Carthaginian
+army on the river the Gauls poured out of their camp, and crowded to the
+bank, shouting and screaming with delight and defiance. There they
+stood, with eyes fixed on the advancing boats, when suddenly Hanno's men
+came up and attacked them from behind. They turned to grapple with this
+unexpected enemy, thus giving Hannibal time to land his first division
+and charge them in the rear. Unable to stand the twofold onslaught, the
+Gauls wavered, and in a few minutes disappeared in headlong flight.
+
+When the rest of the army was safe on the left bank a camp was pitched,
+and orders given for the morrow. Hannibal's great anxiety was for the
+passage of the elephants, still on the other side, for the great
+creatures on whose help he counted, perhaps more than he should, were
+terribly afraid of water. But no man ever lived who was cleverer at
+forming schemes than Hannibal, and at last he hit on one which he
+thought would do. Five hundred of his light-armed horsemen from the
+African province of Numidia were despatched down the river to find out
+how many soldiers Scipio had with him, the number and size of the ships
+that had arrived, and, if possible, the consul's future plans. Then the
+general chose out some men who were specially fitted to manage the
+elephants, and bade them recross the river immediately, giving them
+exact directions what they were to do when they were once more on the
+right bank.
+
+The plan Hannibal had invented for the passage of the elephants was
+this.
+
+The men whom he had left on the other side of the Rhone were ordered to
+cut down more trees as fast as possible, and chop them into logs, which
+were bound firmly together into rafts about fifty feet broad; when
+finished, these rafts were standing on the bank, lashed to trees and
+covered with turf, so that they looked just like part of the land. The
+rafts stretched a long way into the river, and the two furthest from the
+bank were only tied lightly to the others, in order that their ropes
+might be cut in a moment. By this means Hannibal felt that it would be
+possible for the elephants to be led by their keepers as far as the
+outermost rafts, when the ropes would be severed, and the floating
+platform rowed towards the further shore. The elephants, seeing the
+water all round them, would be seized with a panic, and either jump into
+the river in their fright and swim by the side of the raft, guided by
+their Indian riders, or else from sheer terror would remain where they
+stood, trembling with fear. But though the rafts were to be built
+without delay, the passage was on no account to be attempted till the
+signal was given from Hannibal's camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile the Numidians on their way down the left bank of the Rhone had
+nearly reached the Roman headquarters when they met the party of cavalry
+whom Scipio, on his side, had sent out to reconnoitre. The two
+detachments at once fell upon each other and fought fiercely, and then,
+as Hannibal had directed, the Numidians retreated, drawing the Romans
+after them, till they were in sight of the Carthaginian entrenchments.
+Here the cavalry pulled up, and returned unpursued to Scipio with the
+news that they had defeated the famous Numidian horsemen in a hot
+skirmish, and that Hannibal was entrenched higher up the river.
+Immediately Scipio broke up his camp and began his march northwards,
+which was just what Hannibal wanted.
+
+But at sunrise that same morning the signal had been given for the
+passage of the elephants, and the Carthaginians had started on their way
+to the Alps, the heavy-armed infantry in front, with the cavalry in the
+rear to protect them. Hannibal himself was determined not to stir till
+the elephants were safely over, but everything fell out as he expected,
+and the whole thirty-seven were soon safe beside him on dry land,
+snorting and puffing with their trunks in the air.
+
+Then he followed his main body, and when Scipio, thirsting to give
+battle to the enemy he felt sure of conquering, arrived at the spot
+where three days before the Carthaginian army had been encamped, he
+found it empty.
+
+[Illustration: Hannibal was determined not to stir until the elephants
+were safely over.]
+
+Nothing is so necessary to the success of a campaign as having correct
+maps and information about the country through which your army has to
+pass. Hannibal, who thought of everything, had thought of this also, and
+had paid native guides well to lead him to the nearest passes over the
+Alps. For four days the Carthaginians marched along the Rhone, till they
+reached the place where the river Isere flows into it. The Gallic chief
+of the tribes settled in this part of Gaul, being at war with his
+brother, was easily gained over by some assistance of Hannibal's in
+securing his rights, and in return he furnished the Carthaginians with
+stores from the rich lands he ruled, with new clothes and strong leather
+sandals, and, more precious than all, with fresh weapons, for their own
+had grown blunted and battered in many a grim fight since the soldiers
+left Carthagena.
+
+At the foot of the pass leading over the Mont du Chat, or Cat Mountain,
+in a lower range of the Alps, the chief bade them farewell, and returned
+to his own dominions. It was then that Hannibal's real difficulties
+began. His army consisted of many races, all different from each other,
+with different customs and modes of warfare, worshippers of different
+gods. There were Iberians from Spain, Libyans and Numidians from Africa,
+Gauls from the south of France; but they one and all loved their
+general, and trusted him completely, and followed blindly where he led.
+Still, the plunge into those silent heights was a sore trial of their
+faith, and in spite of themselves they trembled.
+
+As they began their climb they found the pass occupied by numbers of
+Gallic tribes ready to hurl down rocks on their heads, or attack them at
+unexpected places. Perceiving this, Hannibal called a halt, while his
+native scouts stole away to discover the hiding-places of the enemy,
+and, as far as possible, how they intended to make their assault.
+
+The guides came back bringing with them the important news that the
+tribes never remained under arms during the night, but retired till
+daylight to the nearest villages. Then Hannibal knew what to do. As soon
+as it was dark he seized upon the vacant posts with his light-armed
+troops, leaving the rest, and the train of animals, to follow at
+sunrise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they returned and saw what had happened in their absence the Gallic
+tribes were filled with rage, and lost no time in attacking the
+baggage-horses, which were toiling painfully over the rough ground. The
+animals, stung by their wounds, were thrown into confusion, and either
+rolled down the precipice themselves or pushed others over. To save
+worse disasters, Hannibal sounded a charge, and drove the Gauls out of
+the pass, even succeeding in taking a town which was one of their
+strongholds, and full of stores and horses.
+
+After a day's rest he started again, this time accompanied by some of
+the enemy, who came with presents of cows and sheep, pretending to wish
+for peace, and offered themselves as guides over the next pass. But
+Hannibal feared them 'even when they bore gifts,' and did not put much
+faith in their promises. He determined to keep a close watch on them,
+but guides of some sort were necessary, and no others were to be had.
+However, he made arrangements to guard as far as possible against their
+treachery, placing his cavalry and baggage train in front, and his heavy
+troops in the rear to protect them.
+
+The Carthaginian army had just entered a steep and narrow pass when the
+Gauls, who had kept pace with them all the way, suddenly attacked them
+with stones and rocks. Unlike their usual custom, they did not cease
+their onslaughts, even during the dark hours, and did great harm; but at
+sunrise they had vanished, and without much more trouble the
+Carthaginians managed to reach the head of the pass, where for two days
+the men and beasts, quite exhausted, rested amidst the bitter cold of
+the November snows, so strange to many of the army, who had grown up
+under burning suns and the sands of the desert.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cold and tired though they were, hundreds of miles from their homes, one
+and all answered to Hannibal's words, entreating them to put their trust
+in him, and they should find ample reward for their sufferings in the
+rich plains of Italy which could be seen far below them.
+
+'You are now climbing,' he said, 'not only the walls of Italy, but also
+those of Rome. The worst is past, and the rest of the way lies downhill,
+and will be smooth and easy to travel. We have but to fight one, or at
+most two, battles, and Rome will be ours.'
+
+And so perhaps it might have been if Carthage had only supported the
+greatest of her sons, and sent him help when he needed it so badly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hannibal was wrong when he told his soldiers that their difficulties
+were over, for as all accustomed to mountain-climbing could have
+informed him, it was much harder to go down the pass than it had been to
+come up it. A fresh fall of snow had covered the narrow track, but
+beneath it all was frozen hard and was very slippery. The snow hid many
+holes in the ice or dangerous rocks, while landslips had carried away
+large portions of the path. No wonder that men and beasts unused to such
+ground staggered and fell and rolled down the sides of the precipice. At
+length the path, barely passable before, grew narrower still; the army
+halted, and an active, light-armed soldier offered to go forward, and
+discover if the track became wider, and whether it was possible for even
+the men to go on. But the further he went the worse matters seemed. For
+some distance he managed, by clinging to a few small bushes which had
+wedged themselves into clefts of the rock, to lower himself down the
+side of the cliff, which was as steep as the wall of a house. Then he
+found right in front of him a huge precipice nearly a thousand feet
+deep, formed by a recent landslip, which entirely blocked what was once
+a path. As long as this rock remained standing it was plain that no man,
+still less an army, could get round it.
+
+[Illustration: He found right in front of him a huge precipice.]
+
+Climbing painfully back the way he had come, the soldier at once went
+with his report to Hannibal, who instantly made up his mind what to do.
+He carried supplies of some sort of explosive with him--what it was we
+do not know--and with this he blew up the rocks in front till there was
+a rough pathway through the face of the precipice. Then the soldiers
+cleared away the stones, and after one day's hard work the oxen, bearing
+the few stores left, and the half-starved, weary horses, were led
+carefully along, and down into a lower valley, where patches of grass
+could be seen, green amidst the wastes of snow. Here the beasts were
+turned loose to find their own food, and a camp was pitched to protect
+them.
+
+Still, though the path had proved wide enough for horses and oxen, it
+was yet far too narrow for the elephants, and it took the Numidian
+troops three more days to make it safe for the great creatures which had
+struck such terror into the hearts of the mountain tribes. But weak as
+they were, the skin hanging loose over their bones, they made no
+resistance, and soon the whole army was marching towards the friendly
+Gauls, in the valley of the Po.
+
+This was how in fifteen days Hannibal made the passage of the Little St.
+Bernard five months after he had set out from Carthagena. But the
+journey had been accomplished at a fearful cost, for of the fifty
+thousand men whom he had led from the city there remained only eight
+thousand Iberians or Spaniards, twelve thousand Libyans, and six
+thousand cavalry, though, strange to say, not one elephant had been
+lost.
+
+It was well indeed for the Carthaginians that Scipio was not awaiting
+them at the foot of the Alps, but was making his way northwards from
+Pisa to the strong fortress of Placentia on the Po.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the friendly Gallic tribe of the Insubres, to whom Hannibal was
+united by the bond of hate of Rome, the troops rested and slept, and the
+horses and elephants grew fat once more. The men had had no time to
+think of themselves during those terrible weeks, and their health had
+suffered from the bitter cold and the wet clothes, which were often
+frozen on them. To add to this, their food had been as scanty as their
+labour had been hard, for most of their stores lay buried under the
+snows of the Alps. But in the rich, well-watered plains of Italy, 'the
+country and the inhabitants being now less rugged,' as the historian
+Livy tells us, they soon recovered their strength, and besieged and took
+by assault the city of Turin, capital of the territory of the Taurini,
+who were always at war with the Gallic allies of Hannibal.
+
+With two Roman armies so near at hand the Gauls did not dare to join him
+in any great numbers, though they would gladly have flocked to his
+standard. Rome itself was filled with consternation at the news that
+Hannibal, whom they had expected to fight in Spain, was really in Italy,
+and hastily recalled the troops intended for Carthage, which were still
+at the Sicilian town of Lilybaeum. On receipt of the order, the general
+Tiberius instantly sailed with part of the men for Rome, and ordered the
+rest of the legions to proceed to Rimini on the Adriatic, bidding each
+man swear that he would reach the city by bedtime on a certain day.
+
+If you look at the map and see the distance they had to go, you will be
+amazed that they kept their oaths, and arrived at Rimini in four weeks,
+marching daily sixteen miles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Scipio was encamped in Placentia, and Hannibal, who had no
+time to lose in besieging such a strong position, was doing his best to
+tempt his enemy into the plain, where his own cavalry could have room to
+manoeuvre. But instead of remaining in Placentia, and allowing
+Hannibal to wear himself out in waiting, the Roman general left the
+town, crossed the Po, and advanced towards the river Ticino, where he
+ordered his engineers to build a bridge.
+
+It was quite clear that with the two armies so near each other a battle
+could not be long delayed, and both commanders took what measures they
+thought necessary.
+
+The way which Hannibal took to 'encourage' his army, as the Greek
+historian Polybius calls it, was rather a curious one, and reminds us of
+the manner in which lessons were taught in some of the old Bible
+stories.
+
+While crossing the Alps he had captured a number of young Gauls in the
+very act of hurling rocks on the head of his army. Most commanders, both
+in that age and for very long after, would have put them to death at
+once, but Hannibal, unlike the Carthaginians, was never unnecessarily
+cruel, though he put his prisoners in chains and took care they should
+not escape. He now ordered these young men to be brought before him and
+placed in the centre of his troops, which were drawn up all round. On
+the ground near him lay some suits of armour, once worn by Gallic
+chiefs, and a pile of swords, while horses were tethered close by.
+Making a short speech, he then offered the young men a chance of saving
+their lives with honour, or meeting an honourable death at each other's
+hands. Would they take it, or would they rather remain prisoners?
+
+A shout of joy answered him.
+
+'Well, then,' said Hannibal, 'you will each of you draw lots which shall
+fight with the other, and the victor of every pair shall be given
+armour, a horse, and a sword, and be one of my soldiers.'
+
+Pressing eagerly forward towards the urns which held the lots, the
+captives stopped to hold up their hands, as was their custom, praying to
+their gods for victory. After the lots were all drawn, they took their
+places, and under the eyes of the army the combat began. And when it was
+finished, and half the fighters lay dead on the field, it was they, and
+not the victors, who were envied by the soldiers, for having gloriously
+ended the misery of their lives. For in the old world death was welcomed
+as a friend, and seldom was a man found who dared to buy his life at the
+cost of his disgrace.
+
+[Illustration: Under the eyes of the army the combat began.]
+
+'The struggle between the captives,' said Hannibal to his army, 'is an
+emblem of the struggle between Carthage and Rome. The prize of the
+victors will be the city of Rome, and to those who fall will belong the
+crown of a painless death while fighting for their country. Let every
+man come to the battlefield resolved, if he can, to conquer, and if not
+to die.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in this spirit that Hannibal trained his troops and led them to
+battle. He never made light of the difficulties that lay before him, or
+the dogged courage of the Romans, who rose up from every defeat with
+a fresh determination to be victorious. One advantage they had over
+Hannibal, and it could hardly be valued too highly. Though the councils
+of the senate who sent forth the troops might be divided, though the
+consuls who commanded them might be jealous of each other, yet the great
+mass of the army consisted of one nation, who together had fought for
+years under the eagles of Rome.
+
+Hannibal, on the other hand, had to deal with soldiers of a number of
+different races, and his latest recruits, the Gauls, though eager and
+courageous, could not be depended upon in battle. When to this is added
+the fact that Hannibal was in a country which he did not know, among a
+people who feared Rome even while they hated her, and would desert him
+at the first sign of defeat; that he had to provide daily for the wants
+of both men and animals, and that for sixteen years he remained in Italy
+with a dwindling army, striking terror into the hearts of the bravest of
+the Romans, you may have some little idea of the sort of man he was.
+
+Well may an historian say that the second Punic war was the struggle of
+a great man against a great nation. Take away Hannibal, and the
+Carthaginian forces were at the mercy of Rome.
+
+We have no space to describe the various battles in the valley of the
+Po, in which Hannibal was always the victor. At the river Trebia he
+defeated Scipio in December 218, by aid of the strategy which never
+failed, till he taught his enemies how to employ it against himself.
+Hannibal was a man who never left anything to chance, and whether his
+generals were trusted to draw the enemy from a strong position into the
+open field, or to decoy it into an ambuscade, everything was foreseen,
+and as far as possible provided against. He took care that his troops
+and his animals should go into action fresh, well-fed, and well-armed,
+and more than once had the wounds of both horses and men washed with
+old wine after a battle. That tired soldiers cannot fight was a truth he
+never forgot or neglected.
+
+During the winter months following the victory of Trebia, Hannibal
+pitched his camp in the territories of his Gallic allies, and busied
+himself with making friendly advances to the Italian cities which had
+been forced to acknowledge the headship of Rome. 'He had not come to
+fight against them,' he said, 'but against Rome, on their behalf.' So
+the Italian prisoners were set free without ransom, while the Roman
+captives were kept in close confinement. He also sent out spies to
+collect all the information they could as to the country through which
+he had to travel. He was anxious, for other reasons, to break up his
+camp as soon as he was able, as he saw signs that the Gauls were weary
+and rather afraid of having him for a neighbour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Therefore, in the spring of 217 B.C. he marched southwards, placing the
+Spaniards and Libyans in front, with the baggage and stores behind them,
+the Gauls, whom he never quite trusted, in the centre, and the Numidian
+light horse and cavalry in the rear, under his brother Mago. There were
+no elephants to be thought of now, for they had all died of cold after
+the battle of Trebia. North of the Arno was a wide tract of marshland,
+which had to be crossed before the Apennine mountains could be reached.
+Never, during all his campaigns, did Hannibal's army have to undergo
+such suffering. In many ways it was worse than the passage of the Alps,
+for once in the midst of the morasses, swollen by the melting snows, it
+was hardly possible to snatch a moment of sleep. Many of the oxen fell
+and died, and when this happened the wearied men stretched themselves on
+their still warm bodies, and closed their eyes for a short space.
+
+At length, after three nights and four days of incessant marching, till
+the troops were nearly numb with cold, firm ground was reached, and for
+a while they rested in peace on the hill of Fiesole, above the Arno.
+
+Here Hannibal formed his plans for the next campaign. He found out that
+Flaminius the consul was a vain, self-confident man, with neither
+experience nor skill in war. It would be easy, he thought, by laying
+waste the rich country to the south, to draw the Roman general from his
+camp at Arretium; and so it proved. Flaminius, greedy of glory he could
+never gain, refused to listen to the advice of his officers and wait for
+the arrival of the other consul, and set out in pursuit of Hannibal, who
+felt that victory was once more in his hands.
+
+The place which Hannibal chose for his battle was close to lake
+Thrasymene, a reedy basin in the mountains not far from the city of
+Cortona. At this spot a narrow valley ran down to the lake, with lines
+of hills on both sides, and a very steep mountain at the opposite end of
+the lake. At the lake end the hills came so close together that there
+was only a small track through which a few men could pass at a time.
+
+Making sure that his enemy was following in his footsteps, Hannibal
+placed his steady heavy armed Spaniards and Libyans on the hill at the
+end of the valley opposite the lake, in full view of anyone who might
+approach them. His Balearic slingers and archers, and light-armed
+troops, were hidden behind the rocks of the hills on the right, and the
+Gauls and cavalry were posted in gorges on the left, close to the
+entrance of the defile, but concealed by folds in the ground. Next day
+Flaminius arrived at the lake, and, as Hannibal intended, perceived the
+camp on the hill opposite. It was too late to attack that night, but the
+next morning, in a thick mist, the consul gave orders for the advance
+through the pass. Grimly smiling at the success of his scheme, Hannibal
+waited till the Romans were quite close to him, and then gave the
+signal for the assault from all three sides at once.
+
+Never in the whole of history was a rout more sudden and more complete.
+Flaminius' army was enclosed in a basin, and in the thick fog could get
+no idea from which direction the enemy was coming. The soldiers seemed
+to have sprung right out of the earth, and to be attacking on every
+quarter. All that the Romans could do was to fight, and fight they did
+with desperation. But there was no one to lead them, for their generals,
+like themselves, were bewildered, and Flaminius speedily met with the
+fate his folly deserved. Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day in the
+fierce battle, during which even an earthquake passed unheeded.
+Multitudes were pushed back into the lake and were dragged down to the
+bottom by the weight of their armour. Some fled to the hills and
+surrendered on the promise of their lives being spared, and a few
+thousands found their way back to Rome.
+
+The victory being won, Hannibal charged the soldiers to seek for the
+body of Flaminius, so that he might give it honourable burial, by which
+nations in ancient times set special store. But, search as they might,
+they could not find it, nor was it ever known what became of him. Very
+differently did the Roman general Nero behave eleven years later on the
+banks of the Metaurus, when Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal, seeing that
+the day was lost, rode straight into the ranks of the enemy. When he
+fell, Nero, with savagery worthy of his namesake the emperor, cut off
+the head of the Carthaginian and threw it into Hannibal's camp.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day.]
+
+There was silence in Rome when bands of wounded and weary soldiers came
+flying to the gates, bearing the news of this fresh disaster. Fifteen
+thousand men slain, fifteen thousand men taken prisoners! Hardly a
+family in Rome that was not stricken, and who could tell when the
+banners of the Carthaginians might not be seen on the crests of the
+hills? But as the troubles of life show the stuff of which men are made,
+Romans were never so great as when their cause seemed hopeless. The city
+was at once put in a state of defence, every boy and old man that could
+bear arms was sent to the walls, the bridges over the Tiber were
+destroyed, and the senate, putting aside the consuls, elected a
+dictator, who for six months had absolute power over the whole state.
+
+The man who in this hour of sorest need was chosen to save the city was
+Quintus Fabius, whose policy of 'waiting' has become a proverb even to
+this day. He was already old, and was never a brilliant general, but,
+like most Romans, possessed great common-sense.
+
+Alone among the senate he saw that there was no hope of conquering
+Hannibal in a pitched battle. Rome had not then--and, except for Caesar,
+never has had--a single general with a genius equal to his; but there
+was one way, and one only, by which he might be vanquished, and that was
+to leave him where he was, in the midst of a hostile country, till his
+troops grew weary of expecting a battle which never was fought, and his
+Gallic allies became tired of inaction and deserted him.
+
+Such was the plan of warfare which Fabius proposed, but his own
+countrymen put many obstacles in the way of its success. Many times he
+was called a coward for declining a battle which would certainly have
+been a defeat; but he let such idle cries pass him by, and hung on
+Hannibal's rear, keeping his soldiers, many of whom were raw and
+untrained, under his own eye. In vain Hannibal drew up his men in order
+of battle and tried by every kind of insult to induce Fabius to fight.
+The old general was not to be provoked, and the enemy at length
+understood this and retired to his camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Immediately after the battle of Thrasymene, Hannibal, knowing quite well
+that he was not strong enough to attack Rome, had taken up his
+headquarters on the shores of the Adriatic, so as to be at hand if
+Philip of Macedon made a descent upon Italy, or Carthage sent the
+reinforcements her general had so frequently asked for. But it was as
+useless to trust to the promises of the one as to the patriotism of the
+other, and having laid waste the country nearly as far south as
+Tarentum, he suddenly crossed the Apennines to the plain on the western
+sea, where he hoped to gain over some of the cities to his cause. In
+this again he was doomed to disappointment, for the rich Campanian
+towns, notably Capua, richest of all, held aloof till they knew for
+certain who would be conqueror.
+
+In all Hannibal's campaigns nothing is more surprising than the way he
+managed to elude his enemies, who were always close to him and always on
+the look-out for him; yet he went wherever he wished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seeing that he could not hope for support in Campania, Hannibal
+determined to carry off the stores and booty he had collected into a
+safe place east of the Apennines, in order that his troops might be
+well-fed during the winter. This Fabius learned through a spy, and,
+knowing that there was only one pass through the mountains, sent a body
+of four thousand men to occupy a position in ambush from which they
+might fall upon the Carthaginians as they entered the gorge, while he
+himself encamped with a large force on a hill near at hand.
+
+We can imagine the old dictator's satisfaction when he had completed his
+arrangements for crushing the Carthaginians, and felt that _this_ time
+he would put to silence the grumblings of the people in Rome.
+
+Fabius passed the day in preparing his plan of the attack which was to
+take place on the morrow, perhaps now and then allowing his secret
+thoughts to linger a little on the triumph awaiting him at Rome. But
+that very night Hannibal ordered one of his generals to fell some trees
+and split them into faggots, which were to be piled close to where two
+thousand oxen were tethered outside the camp. The men wondered a little
+what was going to happen, but did as they were bid, and then, by
+Hannibal's directions, had supper and lay down to sleep. Very early in
+the morning they were awakened by Hannibal himself, who bade them follow
+him out of the camp and tie the faggots on to the horns of the oxen.
+This was soon done, and then the faggots were kindled by a burning
+torch, and the oxen were driven up a low ridge which stretched before
+the pass.
+
+'Help the drivers get them on to the ridge,' he said to his light
+troops, 'and then pass them, shouting and making all the noise you
+can.'
+
+The march was conducted silently for some distance, but no sooner did
+the soldiers break out into shrieks and yells than the oxen grew
+frightened and wildly rushed hither and thither. The Romans in the
+defile below heard the shouts and saw the bobbing lights, but could not
+tell what they meant. Leaving their post, the whole four thousand
+climbed the ridge, where they found the Carthaginians. But it was still
+too dark for the Romans to see what these strange lights really were, so
+they drew up on the ridge to wait till daybreak, by which time Hannibal
+and most of his army were safe through the pass, when he sent back some
+of his Spanish troops to help the force he had left behind him. The
+troops speedily defeated the entire army of Fabius, who had now come up,
+and then, joining Hannibal, pushed on to Apulia.
+
+[Illustration: The whole four thousand climbed the ridge.]
+
+A howl of rage rang through Rome at the news that they had once more
+been outwitted, and all Fabius' wise generalship was forgotten in this
+fresh defeat. Yet, had they stopped to think, the fault did not lie with
+the dictator, whose plans had been well laid, but with the commander of
+the troops in the pass, who, instead of sending out scouts to find out
+the cause of the disturbance on the ridge, moved his whole body of men,
+leaving the defile unguarded. Perhaps Hannibal, in arranging the
+surprise, had known something of the commander and what to expect of
+him; or he may merely have counted--as he had often done before--on the
+effects of curiosity. But time after time he traded on the weakness of
+man, and always succeeded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in June 216 B.C. that Hannibal gained his last great battle in
+Italy. He had remained for many months near the river Ofanto, which runs
+into the Adriatic, but in the beginning of summer he threw himself into
+the town of Cannae, used by the Romans as a storehouse for that part of
+Italy.
+
+A Roman army of ninety thousand men amply supplied was coming swiftly to
+meet him along the splendid roads, and he had only fifty thousand to
+cope with them, the greater number being Gauls, and not to be depended
+on. Of the original troops that he had brought from Spain, many were
+dead, but he was able to muster ten thousand cavalry, mostly consisting
+of the Numidian horse, and in this respect he was superior to the
+Romans. There was also to be reckoned to his advantage the fact that the
+two consuls, Varro and Paulus, hated each other bitterly, and that
+neither of them had any instinct of command, though Paulus was a capable
+soldier and a brave man.
+
+There was a custom among the Romans, dating back from ancient days, that
+when the two consuls were serving on the same campaign, each should
+command on alternate days. It seems strange that such a very practical
+nation should have made such a foolish law, but so it was; and on this
+occasion it once more led, as it was bound to do, to an utter defeat.
+Hannibal played his usual game of sending Numidians across the river to
+insult and tease his enemy, till at length Varro exclaimed in wrath that
+the next day the command would be his, and that he would give the
+Carthaginians battle and teach them something of the majesty of Rome.
+
+In vain the wiser Paulus, who had followed the counsels of Fabius,
+reasoned and protested. Varro would listen to nothing, and orders were
+given to the army to be ready on the morrow for the attack.
+
+The day before the battle Hannibal spent 'in putting the bodies of his
+troops into a fit state to fight,' as the historian tells us--that is,
+he made them rest and sleep, and prepare plenty of food for their
+breakfast. Early next morning the Romans began to cross the river, which
+took several hours, thus leaving their strong camp on the southern bank
+with only a small force to defend it, and took up their position in the
+plains, where Hannibal's cavalry had ample room to manoeuvre. And, to
+make matters worse, the consul formed his men into such close columns
+that they could not avoid being hampered by each other's movements.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two armies when facing each other in order of battle must have
+presented a curious contrast. The Roman legions and their allies,
+amounting in all to seventy-six thousand men, wore helmets and cuirasses
+and carried swords and short throwing-spears. In front, the Carthaginian
+troops looked a mere motley crowd, so various were the dress and weapons
+of the different nations. It is true that the black-skinned Libyans
+might at first sight have been taken for deserters from the Roman camp,
+as they, like their enemies, were clad in the same armour and bore the
+same arms, the spoils of many a victory; and the young men of the
+legions trembled with rage as they beheld the glittering line, and
+thought of what it betokened. But the Gauls were almost naked, and their
+swords, unlike those of the Romans, could only cut, and were useless for
+thrusting, while the Spanish troops were clothed in a uniform of short
+linen tunics striped with purple. In the van, or front of the army, were
+the small remainder of the contingent from the Balearic Isles, with
+their slings and bows.
+
+In spite of the faults committed by Varro in placing his troops,
+Hannibal's lines were once broken by the heavy-armed Roman soldiers,
+while the cavalry on the wing by the river were fighting in such deadly
+earnest that they leaped from their horses and closed man to man. But at
+Cannae, as at Trebia, the honours of the day fell to the Numidians and to
+the Spanish and Gallic horse commanded by Hasdrubal. The Romans had been
+again routed by an army weaker by thirty thousand men than their own;
+the consul Paulus, and Servilius and Atilius, consuls of the year
+before, were all dead: only Varro saved his life by a disgraceful
+flight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still Hannibal did not march to Rome, as the senate expected. Though the
+battle of Cannae decided the wavering minds of those who had been waiting
+to see on which side lay the victory; though the southern half of Italy
+and many cities of Campania were now anxious to throw in their lot with
+him; though Philip of Macedon promised once more to send ships and men
+to his support, and thousands of Gauls swarmed into his camp, the army
+on which he could actually rely was too small to besiege the city with
+any chance of success. He did, indeed, send ambassadors to Rome, with
+powers to treat for the ransoming of some Roman prisoners, but as before
+in the case of the Gauls, the envoys were not even given a hearing by
+the senate.
+
+Till he got reinforcements from Carthage, Hannibal felt he must remain
+where he was; but surely she would delay no longer when she knew that
+the moment for which Hannibal was waiting had come, and his allies were
+ready. So he sent his brother Mago to tell the story of his triumphs and
+his needs to the Carthaginian senate, never doubting that a few weeks
+would see the tall-prowed ships sailing up the coast of the Tyrrhene
+sea, where he now had his headquarters. He did not reckon on the
+jealousy of his success which filled the breasts of the rulers of his
+country, a jealousy which even self-interest was unable to overcome.
+From the first he had borne their burden alone, and owing to the
+treachery and baseness of his own nation in the end it proved too heavy
+for his shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon Hannibal began to understand that he would get help from no one,
+and from Carthage least of all, and the knowledge was very bitter. The
+Romans had gathered together a fresh army of eighty or ninety thousand
+men, and had armed a large number of their slaves, offering them
+freedom. Any check, however slight, to the Carthaginian army was the
+cause of joy and thankfulness in Rome, for, as Livy says, 'not to be
+conquered by Hannibal then was more difficult than to vanquish him
+afterwards.'
+
+In spite of Thrasymene and Cannae things were now changed, and it was
+Hannibal who was on the defensive. The Romans had learned their lesson,
+and the legions always lying at the heels of Hannibal's army were
+commanded by experienced generals, who adopted the policy of Fabius and
+were careful never to risk a battle.
+
+Thus three years passed away, and Carthage, absorbed in the difficult
+task of keeping Spain, from which she drew so much of her wealth, in her
+hands, sent thither all the troops she could muster to meet the Romans,
+who were gradually gaining ground in the peninsula.
+
+In Italy the war was shifting to the south, and about 213 B.C. Hannibal
+was besieged in the town of Tarentum by a Roman fleet which had blocked
+the entrance to the gulf on which the city was situated. The alarm in
+Tarentum was great; escape seemed impossible; but Hannibal ordered
+boards to be placed in the night across a little spit of land that lay
+between the gulf and the open sea. When darkness fell, the boards were
+greased, and ox-hides stretched tightly over them. Then one by one the
+imprisoned Tarentine fleet was dragged along the boards and launched on
+the other side, and when all the ships were afloat, they formed in a
+line and attacked the Roman vessels, which were soon sunk or destroyed.
+
+It was deeds such as these which showed the power Hannibal still
+possessed, and kept alive the Roman dread of him; yet he himself knew
+that the triumph of Rome was only a work of time, and that the kingdom
+of Carthage was slipping from her.
+
+In Sicily, which had once been hers, and even now contained many towns
+which were her allies, a strong Roman party had arisen. Syracuse in the
+south was besieged by Appius Claudius by land and by Marcellus by sea,
+and its defence is one of the most famous in history. The Greek
+engineer, Archimedes, invented all sorts of strange devices new to the
+ancient world. He made narrow slits in the walls, and behind them he
+placed archers who could shoot through with deadly aim, while they
+themselves were untouched. He taught the smiths in the city how to make
+grappling irons, which were shot forth from the ramparts and seized the
+prows of the ships. By pressing a lever the vessels were slowly raised
+till they stood nearly upright, when the grapplers were opened, and the
+ships fell back with a splash that generally upset the crew into the
+sea, or were filled with water and sunk to the bottom. Of course you
+must remember that these were not great vessels with four masts like our
+old East Indiamen, but were long, high boats, worked by banks of oars,
+the shortest row being, of course, the lowest, nearest the water.
+
+After a while the Romans got so frightened, not knowing what Archimedes
+might do next, that they thought every end of loose rope that was lying
+about hid some machine for their destruction. For a long while the
+engineer kept the enemy at bay, but in the end the power of Rome
+conquered; the beautiful marble palaces were ruined, and the paintings
+and statues which had been the glory of Syracuse were carried to Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just at this time news from Spain became more and more gloomy for the
+Carthaginians. The young Scipio, who had saved his father's life nine
+years before at the battle of the Ticinus, was, at the age of
+twenty-six, made commander-in-chief in the peninsula. Though never a
+great soldier, Scipio was a good statesman, and had the gift of winning
+men to his side. Multitudes of natives flocked to his standard, and many
+important places fell into his hands; and in his hour of victory he was
+merciful, and caused his captives as little suffering as possible. In
+the words of the people themselves, 'he had conquered by kindness.'
+
+Seeing that for the time, at any rate, all was lost in Spain, Hasdrubal
+set out with an army to join his brother Hannibal. In Auvergne, in the
+centre of Gaul, where he spent the winter, large numbers of Gallic
+tribes joined him, and in the spring he crossed the Alps by the same
+pass as Hannibal. But the difficulties of nine years earlier were now
+absent, for the mountaineers understood at last that no evil to them was
+intended, and let the Carthaginian army climb the defile without
+attempting to hurt them. Traces of Hannibal's roads remained everywhere,
+and thus the troops, consisting perhaps of sixty thousand men, marched
+easily along and descended into the plains of the Po. But it was all
+useless; before Hasdrubal could join Hannibal, who was still in Apulia,
+the consul Nero, encamped near by at the head of a considerable force,
+made prisoners some messengers sent by the general to his brother.
+
+Instantly taking steps to have the roads to the north watched by armies,
+Nero set off at night with a picked detachment to meet the consul Livius
+on the coast of the Adriatic, south of the river Metaurus. Night and day
+his men marched, eating as they went food brought them by the peasants.
+In less than ten days they had gone two hundred miles, and entered the
+camp of Livius by night, so that the Carthaginian general might know
+nothing of their arrival. Next morning Nero insisted, against the
+opinion of the other generals, that battle should be given immediately,
+as he must return and meet Hannibal at once. In vain they protested that
+his troops were too tired to fight; he shut his ears, the signal was
+sounded, and the army drawn up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Carthaginians had already taken their places at the time that the
+Romans began to form, when Hasdrubal, riding down his lines to make sure
+that everything was done according to his orders, noticed that among the
+enemy's array clad in shining armour were a band with rusty shields, and
+a bevy of horses which looked lean and ill-groomed. Glancing from the
+horses to their riders, he saw that their skins were brown with the sun
+of the south and their faces weary. No more was needed to tell him that
+reinforcements had come, and that it would be madness to risk a fight.
+He could do nothing during the day, but as soon as the night came he
+silently broke up his camp and started for the river Metaurus, hoping to
+put it between him and the Romans; but it was too late.
+
+Had the Carthaginian army only consisted of old and well-seasoned troops
+all might have gone well with it; but the large body of Gauls were
+totally untrained, and in their disappointment at not being allowed to
+give battle, seized on all the drink in the camp, and fell along the
+roadside quite unable to move. Before Hasdrubal could get his vanguard
+across the Romans were close upon him, and there was nothing left for
+him to do but to post his men as strongly as he could.
+
+For hours they fought, and none could tell with whom the victory would
+lie: then a charge by Nero decided it. When the day was hopelessly lost,
+Hasdrubal, who had always been in the fiercest of the struggle, cheering
+and rallying his men, rode straight at the enemy, and died fighting.
+Thus ended the battle of the Metaurus, the first pitched battle the
+Romans had ever gained over the Carthaginian army.
+
+The next night Nero set off again for Apulia, bearing with him the head
+of Hasdrubal, which, as we have said, he caused to be flung into
+Hannibal's tent, staining for ever the laurels he had won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the triumph of Nero, and his reception in the Rome which he had
+delivered, dates the last act of the second Punic war. At the news of
+his brother's defeat, which was a great blow to him, Hannibal retreated
+into the most southern province of Italy. His troops, whose love and
+loyalty never wavered, were largely composed of foreign levies, and had
+not the steadiness and training of his old Libyans and Spaniards. Never
+for one moment did he think of abandoning his post till his country
+called him, yet his quick eye could not fail to read the signs of the
+times. The Roman senate was no longer absorbed by the thought of war.
+Relieved by Nero's victory from the crushing dread which for so long had
+weighed it down, it was taking measures to encourage agriculture and to
+rebuild villages, to help the poor who had been ruined during these
+years of strife, to _blot out_, he felt, the traces of the victories he
+had won. And he had to watch it all and to know himself powerless,
+though he still defied Rome for three years longer, and knew that she
+still feared _him_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the year 204 B.C. that Scipio entreated the senate to allow
+him to carry the war into Africa, which he had already visited, and
+where he had already made many important allies, among them the famous
+Numidian Massinissa, whom he promised to make king over his tribe.
+Fabius, now ninety, declared it was folly to take an army to Africa
+while Hannibal remained in Italy, and a large party agreed with him. The
+people, however, who had absolute trust in the young general, insisted
+that he should have his way; and after a long and fierce debate, the
+senate with almost inconceivable foolishness consented that Scipio
+should sail for Carthage, as he so much desired it, but that he must do
+so at the head of no more than thirty thousand or forty thousand men.
+
+That so practical and sensible a nation should not have remembered the
+lesson of the defeat of Regulus, and have known the dangers which must
+be run by a small army in a foreign land, is truly surprising, and had
+Massinissa, with his priceless Numidian horse, not joined the Romans,
+Scipio's army would more than once have been almost certainly cut to
+pieces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When it became known that Scipio had landed and was besieging the old
+town of Utica, the rich and pleasure-loving citizens of Carthage were
+filled with despair. But this did not last long, for one of the leading
+men of the city, called Hanno, collected a small force, while Hasdrubal
+Gisco and Syphax the Numidian raised another, and between them both
+Scipio was forced to retreat. If only Hannibal had been there----But
+Hannibal was still in Italy, and no tidings of the struggle had reached
+him.
+
+Winter had now set in, and though it was only the mild winter of North
+Africa, Scipio entrenched himself securely on rising ground, and
+Hasdrubal Gisco with Syphax made their camps close by. The
+Carthaginians, who had several times been defeated, now wished to make
+peace, and Syphax, whom the Roman general was most anxious to gain over
+to his side, was the messenger chosen. While discussing the terms,
+Scipio suddenly learned that the Carthaginian and Numidian huts were
+built solely of wood and reeds, covered with hastily woven
+mats--materials which they had gathered from the woods and streams close
+by.
+
+'A spark would set them on fire, and _how_ they would burn,' said the
+general to himself, and the evil thought took root, till one night
+orders were given to surround the camps stealthily and put flaming
+torches against the walls. In a few minutes the country round was
+lighted up with a fierce blaze, and the Carthaginians, wakened from
+their sleep and not knowing what was happening, were cut down on all
+sides before they could defend themselves. This piece of wicked
+treachery may be said to have turned the scales in favour of Rome. A
+battle followed in a place called 'the great plains,' when Hasdrubal was
+beaten and Syphax soon after fell into the hands of the enemy. The
+Numidian chief was sent to Rome, and Sophonisba, his wife, took poison
+rather than bear the humiliation of walking behind the triumphal car of
+the Roman victor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Massinissa obtained the reward promised for his help--or his
+treason--and was made king of Numidia. Again Scipio offered peace, and
+the terms he proposed were as good as Carthage had any right to expect;
+but, favourable as they were, a few citizens were left to reject them
+with scorn. The fastest ship in the Carthaginian navy was sent to Italy
+to summon Hannibal from Bruttium and Mago from Milan. When the message
+arrived, Mago was already dead, but his troops embarked immediately and
+joined Hannibal and his twenty-five thousand men who had landed in
+Africa.
+
+It was in this way that Hannibal came back to his native city, after an
+absence of thirty-six years. When he had last seen it he had been a boy
+of nine, and the events that had since happened crowded into his memory.
+
+Notwithstanding his recent defeats, he had 'left a name at which the
+world grew pale,' and during the sixteen years he had spent in Italy
+none had dared to molest him. Single-handed he had fought; was it
+possible that at last his hour of triumph was at hand?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now that Hannibal, whom they had deserted and betrayed, was really in
+Africa the weak and foolish citizens of Carthage sent orders to him to
+fight without delay. For answer he bade the messengers 'confine their
+attention to other matters, and leave such things to him, for he would
+choose for himself the time of fighting,' and without more ado he began
+collecting a number of elephants and all the Numidian horse that had not
+gone over to Rome with Massinissa.
+
+He was labouring night and day at this task when again his plans were
+spoilt by some citizens of Carthage, who broke the truce which had been
+made by seizing some Roman ships. Scipio lost no time in avenging
+himself by burning all the towns and villages on the plain, and
+occupying the passes on a range of mountains where Hannibal had hoped to
+take up his position. Baulked in this project, Hannibal sent to Scipio
+to beg for an interview, and tried to obtain for Carthage better terms
+than the Roman was inclined to grant.
+
+'You have broken the truce by capturing the vessel containing the Roman
+envoys,' he said, 'and now you and your country must throw yourselves on
+our mercy, or else conquer us.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the armies drew up opposite each other on the field of Zama, on the
+bright spring morning of 202 B.C. which was to decide whether
+Carthaginians or Romans were to be masters of the world. Hannibal had
+about five thousand men more than his enemy, but he was weak in cavalry,
+and the eighty elephants which he had placed in front were young and
+untrained. The cavalry of the Romans was under the command of Massinissa
+and of Laelius, friend of the historian Polybius, and it was this strong
+body of Numidian horse which ultimately turned the fate of the day. As
+for the elephants, the sound of the Roman trumpets frightened them
+before the battle had begun, and threw them into confusion. They charged
+right into the middle of the Carthaginian cavalry, followed by
+Massinissa and by Laelius, who succeeded in breaking the ranks of the
+horse and putting them to flight. For a moment it seemed as if the heavy
+armed foreign troops which Hannibal then brought up would prevail
+against the Roman legions, but at length they were forced back on to
+their own lines, which took them for deserters.
+
+With a cry of 'Treachery!' the foreign soldiers fell on the
+Carthaginians, and fighting hard they retreated on Hannibal's reserve,
+the well-trained Italians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this point there was a pause, and both commanders made use of it to
+re-form their armies. Then the battle began afresh, and the generals
+left their posts and fought for hours in the ranks of the common
+soldiers. At last the cavalry returned from pursuit and threw itself on
+the rear of the Carthaginians. This time they gave way, and Hannibal,
+seeing that the battle was lost, quitted the field, in the hope that
+somehow or other he might still save his country from destruction.
+
+How bitter, in after years, must have been his regret that he had not
+died fighting among his men at Zama!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though Hannibal and the Romans hated each other so much, they were alike
+in many respects, and in nothing more than in the way that no defeat
+ever depressed them or found them without some plan to turn it into
+victory. In truth, in spite of his love for his country, which was
+dearer to him than wife or child, Hannibal was far, far more of a Roman
+than a Carthaginian.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peace was made, and, as was inevitable, the terms were less favourable
+than when the fate of both countries hung in the balance. Naturally, the
+Carthaginians threw the blame on Hannibal, and naturally also, being
+filled with the meanest qualities that belong to mankind, when they
+found that all was in confusion and no one knew where to turn, they sent
+for the man they had abandoned and abused, and bade him set them on
+their feet again. In a moment all the wrongs he had suffered at their
+hands were forgotten; he accepted the position of dictator or _suffete_,
+he caused more humane laws to be passed, and not only saved the people
+from ruin and enabled the merchants again to sell their goods, but paid
+the large sum demanded as a war indemnity by Rome within the year.
+
+Having done what no other man in Carthage, probably no other man in his
+age, could possibly have done, it is needless to remark that his
+fellow-citizens grew jealous of him, and listened without anger to
+Rome's demand for his surrender, made, it is just to say, in spite of
+the indignation of Scipio. To save himself from the people for whom he
+had 'done and dared' everything he escaped by night, leaving a sentence
+of banishment to be passed on him and the palace of his fathers to be
+wrecked. Perhaps--who knows?--he may have wished to save his country
+from the crowning shame of giving him up to walk by the chariot wheels
+in the triumph of Scipio Africanus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The remaining years of his life--nearly twenty-five, it is said--are so
+sad that one can hardly bear to write about them. The first place at
+which he sought refuge was at Ephesus, with Antiochus the Great, lord,
+at least in name, of a vast number of mixed races from Asia Minor to the
+river Oxus. Here, still keeping in mind the master passion of his life,
+he tried to induce Antiochus to form a league by which Rome could be
+attacked on all sides. But the king, who had little in him of greatness
+but his name, made war before his preparations were half finished, and
+gave the chief commands to incapable men, leaving Hannibal to obey
+orders instead of issuing them. One by one the allies forsook the king
+and joined Rome--even Carthage sending help to the Roman fleet. In 196
+B.C. the battle of Magnesia put an end to the war, and the dominions of
+Antiochus became a Roman province.
+
+Once more the surrender of Hannibal was made one of the terms of the
+treaty, and once more he escaped and spent some time first in Crete, and
+then in Armenia, and finally, for the last time, returned to Asia Minor
+on the invitation of Prusias, king of Bithynia.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hearty welcome of Prusias gave Hannibal a feeling of pleasure and
+rest that he had not known for long; but he was never destined to be at
+peace, and soon after a Roman envoy arrived at the palace of Prusias and
+demanded that the enemy of Rome should instantly be given up. To a brave
+soldier like Flaminius the mission was highly distasteful, which is
+another proof, if one were wanted, how great even in his downfall was
+the dread the Carthaginian inspired. 'Italy will never be without war
+while Hannibal lives!' had been the cry long, long ago, and it still
+rang proudly in his ears. He knew, and had always known, that his life
+would end by his own hand, and most likely he was not sorry that the
+moment had come.
+
+'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety, since they cannot wait
+for the death of one old man,' he said, when he heard that soldiers had
+surrounded his house, and drawing from his tunic some poison that he
+carried, he swallowed it and fell back dead. He had escaped at last.
+
+[Illustration: 'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said.]
+
+His last words had told truly the story of his life. It was the one old
+man who had held at bay the whole of the great nation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On reading the tale of his steadfastness, his unselfishness, his
+goodness to his soldiers, and the base ingratitude and wickedness with
+which his countrymen treated him, more than ever do we instinctively
+long that the lost cause had proved the winning one, and again and again
+we have to remind ourselves of the terrible evil it would have been to
+the world if Carthage had overcome Rome. For Carthage was possessed of
+almost every bad quality which could work ill to the human race. Greed
+for money was her passion, and in order to obtain wealth she proved
+herself fickle, short-sighted, lawless, and boundlessly cruel. The
+government of Rome, which the Eternal City handed on to the countries
+she conquered, was founded not only on law, but on common-sense.
+Considering the customs of the world during the thousand years of her
+greatest glory, she was seldom cruel, and her people were ready at all
+times to sacrifice themselves for the good of the state.
+
+So it was well for us now and here that Hannibal was overthrown at Zama,
+and was banished from Carthage; yet our hearts will always cry out with
+Othello, 'Oh, the pity of it!'
+
+
+
+
+THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS
+
+
+No one can travel through the countries of the East or sail about the
+lovely islands of the South Seas without constantly seeing before him
+men and women dying of the most terrible of all diseases--leprosy. The
+poor victims are cast out from their homes, and those who have loved
+them most, shrink from them with the greatest horror, for one touch of
+their bodies or their clothes might cause the wife or child to share
+their doom. Special laws are made for them, special villages are set
+apart for them, and in old times as they walked they were bound to utter
+the warning cry,
+
+'Room for the leper! Room!'
+
+From time to time efforts have been made to help these unfortunate
+beings, and over two hundred years ago a beautiful island in the AEgean
+Sea, called Leros, was set apart for them, and a band of nuns opened a
+hospital or lazar-house, as it was called, to do what they could to
+lessen their sufferings, and sooner or later to share their fate.
+Nobody, except perhaps the nuns' own relations, thought much about
+them--people in those days considered illness and madness to be shameful
+things, and best out of sight. The world was busy with discoveries of
+new countries and with wars of conquest or religion, and those who had
+no strength for the march fell by the wayside, and were left there.
+Nowadays it is a little different; there are more good Samaritans and
+fewer Levites; the wounded men are not only picked up on the road, but
+sought out in their own homes, and are taken to hospitals, where they
+are tended free of cost.
+
+It is the story of a man in our own times, who gave himself up to the
+saddest of lives and the most lonely of deaths, that I am now going to
+tell you.
+
+On a cold day in January 1841 a little boy was born in the city of
+Louvain, in Belgium, to Monsieur and Madame Damien de Veuster. He had
+already a brother a few years older, and for some time the children grew
+up together, the younger in all ways looking up to the elder, who seemed
+to know so much about everything. We have no idea what sort of lives
+they led, but their mother was a good woman, who often went to the big
+church in the town, and no doubt took her sons with her, and taught them
+that it was nobler and better to serve Christ by helping others and
+giving up their own wills than to strive for riches or honours. Their
+father, too, bade them learn to endure hardness and to bear without
+complaints whatever might befall them. And the boys listened to his
+counsel with serious faces, though they could be merry enough at times.
+
+The lessons of their early years bore fruit, and one day the elder boy
+informed his parents that he wished to become a priest. It was what both
+father and mother had expected, and most likely hoped, and they at once
+agreed to his desire. Arrangements were soon made for his entering a
+training college, where he would have to live until he was old enough to
+be ordained.
+
+Joseph, the younger, missed his brother greatly. He loved his father and
+mother dearly, but they seemed far too old to share the thoughts and
+dreams which came to him in the night-time, or during the quiet moments
+that he passed in church. Yet, from what we know of his after-life, we
+may be quite certain that he was no mere dreamer, standing aloof from
+his fellows. He was fond of carpentering and building; he watched with
+interest while the workmen were laying down the pipes which were to
+carry the water from the river to some dry field; he noted how the
+doctor bound up wounds and treated sores; and indeed no sort of
+knowledge that a man may gather in his everyday existence came amiss to
+young Damien. As to what he would do when he was a man, he said nothing,
+and his parents said nothing either.
+
+On January 3, 1860, Joseph was nineteen, and Monsieur Damien proposed to
+take him as a birthday treat to see his brother, and to leave the two
+together while he went to the town on some business. It was a long time
+since they had met, and there was much to ask and hear. We do not know
+exactly what took place, but when Monsieur Damien returned to fetch
+Joseph, his son told him that he had made up his mind to follow in his
+brother's steps, and to be a priest also.
+
+Monsieur Damien was not surprised; he had long seen whither things were
+tending. He would perhaps have liked to keep one son with him, but
+Joseph was old enough to judge for himself and he did not intend to make
+any objection. Still, he was hardly prepared for the boy's announcement
+that farewells were always painful, and that he thought he would best
+spare his mother by remaining where he was until she had grown
+accustomed to doing without him. Then he would beg permission to come to
+see her for the last time before he became a priest.
+
+Very reluctantly Monsieur Damien gave his consent to this plan. He tried
+in vain to induce Joseph to think it over and to go back with him; but
+the young man was firm, and at length the father took leave of both his
+sons, and with a heavy heart returned home to break the news to his
+wife.
+
+In this way Joseph Damien set about the work which was by and by to make
+his name so famous, though to that he never gave a thought. He does not
+seem to have dreamed dreams of greatness, like so many boys, or of
+adventures of which he was always the hero. As far as we can guess,
+Joseph Damien just did the thing that came next and lay ready to his
+hand, and thus fitted himself unconsciously for what was greater and
+better. Just now he had to study hard, and as soon as his father had
+written to say that neither he nor his mother wished to hold back their
+son from the life he had chosen, Joseph entered the same college where
+his brother had received his training for the priesthood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some time--we do not know if it was years or only months--Joseph
+studied hard, hoping that the harder he worked the sooner he would be
+ready to go forth on 'active service' against the sin and misery of the
+world. His brother's plans were already formed. He was to make one of a
+band of priests starting for the islands in the South Seas, which more
+than forty years before had been visited by a band of American
+missionaries.
+
+It was a strange state of things that prevailed in the lovely group of
+the Sandwich Islands when the missionaries arrived there. The isles had
+been discovered during the eighteenth century by Captain Cook, but from
+the white men, chiefly merchants and traders, who followed him the
+natives learned nothing but evil, and fell victims to horrible diseases
+hitherto unknown there. To the Americans, who had left snow and ice
+behind them, the islands of Hawaii--to use their native name--appeared
+fairyland itself. Though the sun beat fiercely on them, cool streams
+rushed down the mountain-side, and in the great forests there was
+silence as well as darkness. Here the trees were bound together by ropes
+of flowery creepers, while outside, in the light and air, were groves of
+towering cocoa palms, standing with their roots almost in the water, and
+sheltering the huts, which could hardly be seen for the huge clusters
+of heliotropes, roses, and lilies that overshadowed them. But the sea!
+the sea! it was there that the greatest marvels were to be found!
+Fishes, orange, blue and scarlet; corals, seaweeds of every colour,
+creatures of every form and shape, whose names no white man knew.
+Afterwards, the missionaries learned that volcanoes were scattered over
+the islands, some extinct and only showing wide black mouths, others
+still blazing and throwing up jets of burning lava, which even in the
+sunshine take on a scarlet hue, and in the night gleam a yellowish
+white. Besides these wonders, there were also the curious customs of the
+people to be studied; and it was very necessary to know these, or a man
+might break the law and incur the penalty of death without having the
+slightest idea that he was doing any harm. For instance, he might go to
+pay a friendly visit to a chief, on whom the shadow of the visitor might
+fall; he might lose his way, and seeing a hut surrounded by a palisade
+would hasten to ask the shortest road to his tent, not guessing that he
+was entering the sacred home of a chieftain. If he offered a tired child
+a drink of cocoa-nut milk or a ripe banana, and she took it, he had
+brought about her death as certainly as if he had put the rope round her
+neck. But shortly before the arrival of the Americans a great king had
+abolished these iron rules, though no doubt they still lingered in
+out-of-the-way places.
+
+The reigning monarch, son of the late king, was bathing in the
+marvellous blue sea with his five wives when a messenger brought him
+word that the white strangers had landed. Full of politeness, like all
+the islanders, the king at once hastened to greet them, followed by the
+ladies. The missionaries felt a little awkward, which was foolish, as
+the Hawaiians seldom wore clothes, being more comfortable without them;
+but the king noticed that his guests were ill at ease, and determined
+that he would be careful not to hurt their feelings again. So when they
+had taken leave of him, he sent for one of his servants and bade him
+seek for some clothes belonging to a trader who had died in the palace.
+A pair of silk stockings was found and a tall and curly brimmed hat,
+such as in pictures you may see the duke of Wellington wearing after the
+battle of Waterloo. The king smiled and nodded, and the very next
+afternoon he put on the hat and the stockings, and highly pleased with
+himself set out to call upon his visitors. The missionary whose tent he
+entered was sitting inside with his wife, having just put up in one
+corner a bed which they had brought with them. They were so amazed at
+the sight of this strange figure that they stood silently staring; but
+when, in the act of greeting them, Liholiho's glance fell upon the bed,
+he completely forgot the object of his visit. 'What a delicious
+soft-looking thing, to be sure!' he said to himself, and with a spring
+he landed upon the bed, and jumped up and down, while the tall hat
+rolled away and settled in a corner.
+
+Like many people, when once he had begun to imitate the customs of other
+nations, king Liholiho was very particular in seeing that he was not put
+to shame by his own family. The missionary's wife wore clothes, and it
+was necessary, therefore, that his own ladies should not go uncovered;
+so orders were given accordingly, and when the white lady came to pay
+her respects at the palace--a somewhat larger hut than the rest--she
+found the brown ladies sitting up in great state to receive her, one of
+the widows of the late king being dressed in a garment made of seventy
+thicknesses of bark from the trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such were the islands to which Joseph's elder brother longed to go. His
+own Church had sent out missionaries over twenty years before, who had
+now written home appealing for helpers. He had given in his name among
+the first, and had been accepted, when he was suddenly stricken with
+fever, and forbidden by the doctor to think of carrying out his plan. In
+vain did he argue and entreat; the doctor was firm. 'You would be a
+hindrance, and not a help,' he said, and in a paroxysm of grief the
+young man hid himself among the bedclothes, where Joseph found him.
+
+'Yes, the doctor is right; you cannot go,' sighed the boy, when his
+brother had poured out the tale of his disappointment. 'You might get
+the fever again, you know, and only strong men are wanted there. But let
+_me_ go instead; I dare say I shall not do as well, but, at any rate, I
+will do my best.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now there was a strict rule in the college that no student should post a
+letter without the superior having first read it. Joseph knew this as
+well as anyone, but was far too excited and too much afraid of what the
+superior might say to pay any attention to it. So he wrote secretly to
+the authorities who were preparing to send out the missionaries, and
+begged earnestly that he might be allowed to take his brother's place,
+although he had not yet passed the usual examinations for the
+priesthood. Perhaps candidates for the South Sea Islands were not very
+plentiful just then, or there may have been something uncommon about
+Joseph's letter. At all events he was accepted, and when the news was
+told him by the superior he could not contain his delight, but rushed
+out of doors, running and jumping in a manner that would have greatly
+astonished his bishop, could he have seen it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For several years he worked hard among the islands making friends with
+the people, to whom he soon was able to talk in their own language. The
+young priest knew something about medicine, and could often give them
+simple remedies, so that they learned to look up to him, and were
+willing to listen to his teaching of Christianity. He was sociable and
+pleasant, and always ready to help in any way he could, and he was
+welcomed by many whose religious views differed from his own. Of course
+he had not been long there without finding out that the disease of
+leprosy was terribly common, and that the Government had set apart the
+island of Molokai as a home for the lepers, in order to prevent the
+spread of the disease; but the work given him to do lay in other
+directions, and in spite of the intense pity he felt for these poor
+outcasts he did not take any part in actual relief.
+
+In the year 1873 Father Damien happened to be sent to the island of
+Maui, where the great volcano has burnt itself out, and while he was
+there the bishop came over to consecrate a chapel which had just been
+built. In his sermon he spoke of the sad condition of the colony at
+Molokai, and how greatly he wished to spare them a priest who would
+devote himself entirely to them. But there was much to do elsewhere, and
+it was only occasionally that one could go even on a visit. Besides,
+added the bishop, life in Molokai meant a horrible death in a few years
+at latest, and he could not take upon himself to send any man to that.
+
+Father Damien heard, and a rush of enthusiasm came over him. He had done
+the work which he had been given faithfully and without murmuring, and
+now something higher and more difficult was offered. Without a moment's
+hesitation he turned to the bishop, his face glowing as it had done more
+than ten years before, when the letter which had decided his career had
+come to him.
+
+'Some fresh priests have arrived at Hawaii,' he said; 'they can take my
+place. Let _me_ go to Molokai.'
+
+And he went, without losing an hour, for a cattle-boat was sailing that
+very day for the island of the outcasts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every Monday a small steamer left Honolulu for Molokai, bearing any
+fresh cases of leprosy that had broken out since the departure of the
+last boat. On the shore were the friends and relations of the doomed
+passengers, weeping tears as bitter as those of the Athenians in the old
+story, when the ship each ninth year left the port with the cargo of
+youths and maidens for the Minotaur. Molokai was only seven hours
+distance from Hawaii, and on the north side, where the two leper
+villages lie situated, are high precipices guarded by a rough sea.
+Inland there are dense groves of trees, huge tree-ferns, and thick
+matted creepers. Here brilliant-plumaged birds have their home, while
+about the cliffs fly the long-tailed white bo'sun birds; but as a whole
+Molokai cannot compare in beauty with the islands which Father Damien
+had left behind him.
+
+A hospital had been built for the worst cases, and when Father Damien
+arrived it was quite full. He at once went to see the poor people and
+did all he could to relieve them a little; and when that was impossible,
+he sat by their bedsides, speaking to them of the new life they were
+soon to enjoy, and often he dug their graves, if nobody else could be
+found to do so. The rest of the lepers had taken fright, and had built
+themselves wretched houses, or, rather, sheds, of branches of the
+castor-oil trees, bound together with leaves of sugar-cane or with
+coarse grass. They passed their time in playing cards, dancing, and
+drinking, and very rarely took the trouble to wash either themselves or
+their clothes. But this was not altogether their fault. Molokai, unlike
+many of the other islands, was very badly off for water, and the lepers
+had to carry from some distance all that they used. Under these
+circumstances it was perhaps natural that they should use as little as
+possible.
+
+Such was the state of things when Father Damien reached Molokai, and in
+spite of his own efforts, aided sometimes by a few of the stronger and
+more good-natured of the lepers, such it remained for many months. The
+poor creatures seem to have grown indifferent to their miseries, or only
+tried to forget them by getting drunk. Happily the end was at hand; for
+when a violent gale had blown down all their huts it was plain, even to
+them, that something must be done, and Father Damien wrote at once to
+Honolulu the news of the plight they were in.
+
+In a very short time a ship arrived with materials to enable the lepers
+to have comfortable houses, and carpenters to put them up. Of course
+these carpenters lived quite separate from the inhabitants of the
+island, and as long as they did not touch the lepers, or anything used
+by them, were in no danger of catching the disease; while in order to
+hasten matters the Father turned his own carpentering talents to
+advantage, and with the help of some of the leper boys built a good many
+of the simpler houses, in which the poorer people were to live. Those
+who were richer, or who had rich friends, could afford more comforts;
+but all the houses were made after one pattern, with floors raised above
+the ground, so that no damp or poisonous vapours might affect them.
+
+But while all this was being done, Father Damien knew that it was
+impossible to keep the village clean and healthy unless it had a better
+supply of water. He had been too busy since he came to the island to
+explore the country in search of springs, but now he began to make
+serious inquiries, and found to his joy that there existed at no very
+great distance a large and deep lake of cold fresh water, which had
+never been known to run dry. At his request, pipes were sent over from
+Honolulu by the next steamer, and Father Damien was never happier in
+his life than when he and some of the stronger men were laying them down
+from the lake to the villages with their own hands. Of course there were
+still some who preferred to be dirty, but for the most part the lepers
+were thankful indeed for the boon.
+
+Little by little things began to improve, and the king and queen of the
+islands were always ready and eager to do all they could to benefit the
+poor lepers and to carry out Father Damien's wishes. Regular allowances
+of good food were sent weekly to the island, a shop was opened, some
+Sisters of Mercy came to nurse the sick and look after the children, a
+doctor established himself in the island, and one or two more priests
+and helpers arrived to share Father Damien's labours and to comfort him
+when he felt depressed and sad; while from time to time a ship might be
+seen steaming into Molokai from Honolulu filled with the relations and
+friends of the poor stricken people. The sick and the healthy could not,
+of course, touch each other--_that_ was forbidden--but they might sit
+near enough to talk together, and what happiness it must have been to
+both! Late in the evening the ship weighed anchor, and good-byes were
+shouted across the water. No doubt hearts were heavy both on deck and on
+the shore, where the green cliffs remained crowded as long as the ship
+was in sight. But it gave the exiles something to look forward to, which
+meant a great deal in their lives.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now anyone would have thought that, after all Father Damien had done and
+obtained for them, the lepers of Molokai would have been filled with
+gratitude to their priest. But among the inhabitants of the island there
+was a large number who met him sullenly, with downcast faces, and spoke
+evil of him behind his back. The priest took no notice, and greeted them
+as cheerfully as he did the rest, but he knew well the cause of their
+dislike, and he could take no steps to remove it. The reason was not far
+to seek; he had tried, and at last succeeded, in putting down the
+manufacture of spirits from the ki-tree, which grew all over the island,
+and made those who drank it, not stupid, but almost mad. He had been at
+Molokai for ten years before their enmity died out, and that was only
+when they knew that he, like themselves, was a leper!
+
+For the doom, though long delayed, fell upon him. When he first
+suspected it he consulted some of the doctors then on the island, as,
+besides the one always living there, there were others who came for a
+few months to study the disease under great precautions. They laughed at
+his words, and told him that he was as strong as ever he was, and that
+no one else could have done what he had done for ten years without
+catching the disease, but as he had escaped so far he was probably safe
+to the end. Father Damien did not contradict them. He saw that they
+really believed what they stated, and were not seeking to soothe his
+fears; but he went to a German doctor who had not been present with the
+rest and told him the symptoms he had himself noticed. 'You are right,'
+said the doctor after a pause, and Father Damien went out and sat in a
+lonely place by the sea.
+
+[Illustration: Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place by the
+sea.]
+
+In a little while he had faced it all and was master of himself
+again--and more; as his condition became known he felt that he was
+working with a new power. Those who had turned a deaf ear to him before
+listened to him now; he was no longer a man apart from them, whose
+health had been preserved by some sort of charm, but one of themselves.
+And the awful curse had not fallen on him by accident, as it had fallen
+upon _them_, but he had sought it, wilfully, deliberately, for their
+sakes. Thus, out of his very distress, came a new joy to Father
+Damien.
+
+Armed with this knowledge he grew more cheerful than he had ever been
+before, till the people wondered at him. He held more frequent services
+in the churches which had sprung up, held classes for the boys, and
+taught them some of the games that he himself had played in the far-away
+days in Belgium. The boys were pleasant, well-mannered children, with
+the strangest names, some native nicknames, others picked up by their
+fathers from the white people and given to their sons, whereas often
+they should have been kept for their daughters. In the class of Father
+Conradi there were Mrs. Tompkins, The Emetic, Susan, Jane Peter, Eyes of
+Fire, The River of Truth, The First Nose, The Window; while in Honolulu,
+from which many of them had come, lived their friends, Mrs. Oyster, The
+Man who Washes his Dimples, Poor Pussy, The Stomach, and The Tired
+Lizard. We should like to know what their sisters were called, but they
+were not Father Conradi's business. The Father also took the greatest
+interest in the experiments which the Sisters of Mercy were carrying on
+in their school, not only to stop the spread of the disease, but to cure
+it, for a healing oil had been discovered which had worked marvels in
+many people. He encouraged the love of music and singing which existed
+among the exiles, whose most precious possession was a kind of
+barrel-organ which could play forty tunes, a present from a Scotch lady.
+This barrel-organ was never absent from any of the entertainments which,
+with the priests and doctors for audience, the lepers got up from time
+to time. It even played its part in a performance on one Christmas Day,
+which consisted of scenes from Belshazzar's feast. Unluckily it was so
+dark that it was not easy for the audience to know exactly what was
+going on, but they _did_ perceive that the Babylonish king sat the whole
+time with his head on his arms and his arms on the table, like the
+Dormouse in the play of 'Alice in Wonderland.' However, the actors were
+intensely pleased with themselves, and that was all that mattered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Father Damien lived for nearly six years after he became a leper, and as
+long as he was able he took his part in all that was going on, even
+helping to build the churches (there were five of them now) with his own
+hands. It was only three weeks before his death that his strength gave
+out, and he laid himself on his bed, knowing that he would nevermore
+rise from it. So he died, with his friends around him and the noise of
+the sea in his ears. His task was done, for he had 'set alight a fire'
+in Molokai 'which should never be put out.'
+
+
+
+
+THE CONSTANT PRINCE
+
+
+When, some years ago, a banquet was given at the Guildhall to king
+Alfonso of Spain on the occasion of his marriage to an English princess,
+the lord mayor said in his speech that four queens of England were
+Spaniards by birth. Can any of you tell me without looking at your
+history books what were their names?
+
+Yet in different ways three out of the four are very well known to us.
+One flits through a delightful romance of the great deeds of the
+Crusaders; a second is remembered for having risked her life to save her
+husband from a speedy and painful death, and for the crosses which he
+set up on every spot which her body touched on its road to its last
+resting-place; while the fourth and latest had a troubled life and every
+kind of insult heaped on her.
+
+_Now_ can you guess?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marriages between England and
+the countries south of the Pyrenees were very frequent, for in those
+times Spain was our natural ally, and France our enemy. Two of Edward
+III.'s sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, married the daughters
+of Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, and Constance, wife of John of
+Gaunt, had the pleasure of seeing her own daughter reigning by-and-by in
+her old home, while Philippa, John of Gaunt's elder daughter by his
+first wife, became queen of Portugal.
+
+Philippa's husband had no real right to the kingdom of Portugal, for the
+legal heir was the queen of Castile, the only child of Fernando. But her
+uncle, grand master of the order of Aviz, was dear to the hearts of the
+Portuguese, who would tell their children in low voices the sad story of
+his father's first wife, the beautiful Inez de Castro, whose embalmed
+body was crowned by her husband, many years after her cruel murder. And
+besides their love for the master of Aviz, the Portuguese hated the
+Castilians, as only near neighbours _can_ hate each other, and were
+resolved to choose their own sovereign. So war followed, and John of
+Gaunt fought with his English soldiers on the side of the master of
+Aviz, or 'John I.,' against his wife's nephew, Henry III. of Castile,
+and during the war he kept his daughters with him in the peninsula.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 1378 that John I. married Philippa, the elder of the two
+princesses. According to the notions of those times the bride must have
+been 'quite old,' for she was twenty-seven, only a year younger than her
+bridegroom, and very happy they were. The queen of Portugal had been
+brought up in England amongst clever people, had heard grave questions
+discussed from her childhood, and seen her father grow uneasy as fresh
+reports of Richard II.'s follies and extravagance came to his ears. From
+her stepmother, Constance of Castile, she had learned to speak Spanish,
+and knew much of the customs of the kingdoms south of the Pyrenees; so
+that it was easy for her to fall into the ways of her new country,
+though she never ceased to love her old land, and to teach her children
+to love it too. She trained her sons to bear hardships without
+complaining, to be true to their word, and to be affectionate and
+faithful to each other, while she had them taught something of the
+histories of other countries, and saw that they could speak Latin and
+English, as well as Spanish and French. As to the art of war, and all
+knightly exercises, she left those to her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the eldest of the princes, dom Duarte, or Edward, was twenty years
+old, he came one day to the king, telling him that he and his three next
+brothers, Pedro, Enrique, and John, were burning to strike a blow
+against the infidel Moors, and besought him to lead an expedition
+against the town of Ceuta, on the African coast. In those days it was
+considered a good deed to fight against the followers of Mahomet the
+prophet, and king John agreed gladly to what his sons proposed; but he
+was more prudent than they, and did not intend to raise the standard of
+the Cross before he had made sure of defeating the Crescent. Therefore
+he took means to find out secretly the exact position of Ceuta, the
+extent of the fortifications, and other things it was needful for him to
+know, and then he laid his plans before queen Philippa, who always gave
+him good counsel. To his surprise and disappointment Philippa prayed him
+to give it all up.
+
+The country, she said, was still poor from the wars of succession with
+Castile, which had seated her husband on the throne, and if the men were
+taken away across the seas, who would till the fields and reap the
+crops?
+
+But, urged the king, he felt sure that the people would welcome the
+crusade; he had bidden one of his trusted officers to go amongst them,
+and had heard how their faces brightened at the bare idea that perhaps
+_some_ day, no doubt in the future, the golden shores of Africa might be
+snatched from the unbelievers' grasp. Oh, no, he had no fears about his
+army, though of course he would take every care to make victory certain.
+
+Queen Philippa listened, but only shook her head.
+
+'At least you will not go yourself?' she answered after a pause; 'the
+kingdom needs you'; then like a wise woman she held her peace and began
+to talk of something else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although king John did not give up his cherished scheme, he hesitated
+about carrying it out for three years longer, and then he succeeded in
+blinding the eyes of Europe as to the real object of his preparations. A
+large fleet was assembled in the mouth of the Tagus, 'to punish the
+Dutch pirates,' it was said; but, just as it was ready to sail, the
+queen caught the plague which was raging in Portugal. By this time she
+had made up her mind to the war, though she was hardly convinced of its
+wisdom, and as soon as she felt that she was nearing death she sent for
+her sons, and giving them each a splendid sword which she had ordered to
+be specially forged and beautifully inlaid, she added a few words of
+counsel. Then she bade her husband farewell, and entreated him to leave
+her, lest he also should catch the plague and be lost to his country.
+Her sons she kept with her to the end.
+
+A week later, on July 25, 1415, the fleet sailed for Ceuta.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Only two of the king's five sons remained in Portugal, and they were the
+youngest, dom John and dom Fernando. Fernando was a delicate boy of
+thirteen, versed in Latin, and, like his brother Duarte, a passionate
+lover of books, only happy when alone with some old manuscript or roll
+of illuminated prayers, yet thirsting to do his duty by ridding the
+world of as many infidels as possible. It was a blow when he found that
+he was not allowed to join the army of Africa, but, as was his way, he
+made no complaint; only when the news came of the fall of Ceuta his
+heart burned, half with envy and half with triumph. How he longed to
+make one of the group of brothers who had covered themselves with glory,
+and had been knighted by their father in the mosque, which was now
+consecrated and declared a cathedral. But he was getting stronger every
+day, and by-and-by he felt that a halo of glory would enshrine his name
+also. And so it has, and will for all time, only it was won in another
+way from those of his brothers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was soon after his return from Africa that king John's health began
+to break down, and though he lived for eighteen years longer, he left
+the government of Portugal mostly to his son Duarte, who was guided in
+military matters by the advice of his father's old friend, the constable
+of the kingdom. Fighting still went on in the neighbourhood of Ceuta,
+but though the other princes, or infantes, took part, Fernando stayed in
+Portugal.
+
+We know little as to how he passed his time. Probably he shared the
+studies of prince Duarte, who collected a large library and himself
+wrote a book of philosophical maxims, which gained him the surname of
+Duarte the Eloquent. The two brothers were bound together by the same
+tastes, and we may be sure Duarte approved when by-and-by Fernando
+refused the pope's offer of a cardinal's hat, on the ground--unheard of
+at that period--that, not being a priest, he was quite unfitted to wear
+it. For the same reason, though the cases were rather different, he
+wished also to refuse the office of grand master of the order of Aviz,
+which had been held by his father; but in the end Duarte's counsels
+prevailed, and he kept it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fernando was thirty years old when his father died, and never yet had
+his sword left its sheath, though he longed from his soul to join in the
+frequent expeditions that went out from Ceuta to attack the strongholds
+of the unbelievers scattered about the coast. But king John always
+refused to let him leave the country, thinking he was too delicate to
+bear the hardships of a soldier's life; and so Fernando stayed at home,
+making himself as happy as he could with his books and his prayers, and
+long philosophical talks with Duarte. Now Duarte was king, and perhaps
+Fernando would be able to gain his heart's desire.
+
+The new king was putting on his robes for the ceremony of his
+proclamation when his physician craved humbly an immediate audience. Dom
+Duarte wondered what could have happened which made an interview so
+necessary at that inconvenient moment, but master Guedelha was an old
+friend, so orders were given to admit him at once.
+
+'Oh, senhor,' exclaimed the physician, as soon as they were alone, 'do
+not, I beseech you, suffer yourself to be proclaimed before noon; the
+hour you have fixed on is an evil one, and the stars which rule it are
+against you.'
+
+Sad though he was, dom Duarte could hardly help smiling at the
+earnestness of the man; but he answered gravely that, greatly as he
+respected the knowledge of the stars, his faith in God was greater
+still, and nothing could befall him that was contrary to His will. In
+vain Guedelha fell on his knees and implored him to delay till the fatal
+hour was past; Duarte refused to change his plans, and at length the old
+man rose to his feet.
+
+[Illustration: In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till the fatal hour
+was past.]
+
+'I have done all I could,' he said; 'on your own head be it. The years
+of your reign will be short and full of trouble to yourself, and to
+those you love, and to the country.'
+
+Although dom Duarte had so steadily declined to listen to the prayers of
+Guedelha, he had enough 'respect,' as he had said, for the science of
+astrology, as the study of the stars was called, to feel very
+uncomfortable at the prophecy of the physician. But he could not draw
+back now, even if he wished, and 'Eduarte, king of Portugal,' was
+thrice proclaimed and the royal standard unfurled and raised. When this
+was done, the nobles and officials kissed the king's hand and swore
+allegiance to him. Then Duarte went back to his palace, and took off his
+crown and robes of state, and put on deep mourning for his father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some time dom Duarte had been governing the kingdom under the
+direction of John I., so affairs went on much as before. He and his
+brothers were the best of friends, and he often sought their counsel,
+especially that of dom Pedro, only a year younger than himself. Pedro
+was one of the wisest princes in Europe, as well as one of the best, and
+if his brothers had listened to his advice the prophecy of master
+Guedelha might have come to naught. Like the rest, he loved books, and
+even wrote poetry, and during his father's lifetime made many voyages
+along the coast of Africa, though he was no discoverer of strange lands
+like dom Enrique. But for the present his duty was in Portugal, where
+Duarte wanted him.
+
+In this way things went on for two or three years, during which the
+plague broke out in Portugal, and people died like flies, as they did in
+those days when dirt and ignorance helped infection to spread and
+prevented cure. The king and his brothers did all in their power to
+check it and assist the poor people; but nothing was of much good, and,
+as usual, the plague was left to wear itself out, which in time it did.
+
+Meanwhile the years were going by, and the physician's prophecy was
+drawing near fulfilment. And this is how the disasters came about.
+
+The infante--so the Spaniards and Portuguese formerly called their
+princes--the infante dom Fernando grew tired of remaining idle at home,
+and besought Duarte to allow him to travel and take service under some
+foreign king, most likely that of England, where his young cousin Henry
+VI. was reigning. 'Of course,' he said, 'if his own country needed him
+he would come back at once, but the Portuguese had ever been wanderers,
+and it was his turn to go with the rest.'
+
+To his surprise Duarte's face clouded as he listened, and there was a
+long pause before he spoke. Then he implored Fernando to think no more
+of his cherished plan, but to remain quietly in Portugal, else wrong
+would be done to both of them in the minds of men, for strangers would
+hold that he, the king, treated his brother so ill that Fernando was
+forced to seek his fortune elsewhere, or that Fernando was so possessed
+by desire for gain that he was ready to give up all for its sake.
+
+Fernando heard him to the end without speaking; it was plain that even
+this brother, who he thought knew him best, had judged him wrongly. For
+years the young man had kept silence about his desire to see other
+countries, and the ruins of the cities which had once given law to the
+world, and the result was that he had been held by all to be a man of no
+spirit, a bookworm, content with the little duties that every day
+brought him. Ah, no! the hour for those had gone by, and a freer life
+called to him!
+
+Seeing that his words made no impression on dom Fernando's resolve, the
+king sought dom Enrique, praying him to use his eloquence in order to
+prevail on Fernando to give up his plan. But he would have been wiser to
+have left things alone, for Enrique merely turned his brother's thoughts
+into a new and more alarming direction. Why take service under a foreign
+king when there were Moors at hand to fight? Let them cross the sea and
+deliver Tangier from the Moslem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the king heard of this new project he was nearly beside himself.
+After the long wars which seated John on the throne, and the constant
+expense of maintaining the fortress of Ceuta, the country was too poor
+to be able to undertake a fresh expedition, and then the plague had
+carried off so many men that he did not know where the army was to come
+from. But the match had been put to the wood, and Enrique secretly went
+to the queen and asked for her help to persuade the king, promising that
+when he and Fernando should have conquered the north of Africa, they
+would go and live there, and leave their possessions in Portugal to her
+children.
+
+The bait took; queen Leonor promised to use all her influence, which was
+great, with the king, but before she had a chance of doing so the wild
+scheme of the two infantes received still stronger support from an
+unexpected quarter. Some time earlier the king had asked the pope to
+give him a Bull, or papal document, allowing him to raise a crusade
+whenever he thought it would have a chance of success. At the moment the
+pope was busy with several other affairs nearer home, and returned no
+answer. When at last he had leisure to attend to the king of Portugal's
+request, and sent over an abbot with the Bull, Duarte seems to have
+forgotten all about the matter, and was filled with dismay. Of course
+his brothers were delighted and declared that the king could no longer
+resist!
+
+In spite, however, of wife, pope, and brothers, the king _did_ resist,
+though he went as far as to say that any expedition which _might_ be
+undertaken must be directed against Tangier, and that fourteen thousand
+men would be the utmost that he could furnish. But when he had yielded
+this much, it was difficult for him to refuse his consent, even though
+dom John and dom Pedro spoke strongly in a family council of the folly
+of beginning a war when the treasury was empty and the people unwilling
+to bear the burden of taxation.
+
+Dom Pedro's words found their echo in the heart of Duarte. They said
+what his own sense had told him, and he was filled with fears for the
+future, though he could not break his promise. One last effort he made,
+and this was an appeal to the pope as to whether it was lawful to impose
+a tax for the purpose of making war against the infidels. The pope and
+his cardinals decided that it was _not_, as the infidels had not made
+war upon _him_, and Duarte, though more than ever cast down, had not the
+courage to acknowledge that he had been hasty and foolish, and, bitterly
+though he repented of his weakness, he allowed Enrique to equip fleets
+in Lisbon and in Oporto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But when, at the end of August 1436, the hour of departure arrived, the
+king had recovered himself, and handed Enrique a paper of instructions
+which would probably have changed the fate of the expedition had they
+been followed. Unfortunately, Enrique was a headstrong man, and thought
+that he _must_ know better than his stay-at-home brother, who had not
+seen a battlefield for eighteen years. He had listened contemptuously to
+dom Pedro when he pointed out that African conquests were both expensive
+and useless, that the cities, even if taken, could never become part of
+Portugal, and would always need garrisons to hold them, and smiled
+scornfully at the statement that any Portuguese force besieging Tangier
+would in its turn of a surety be besieged by a Moorish host, who would
+gather men from all parts and have a supply of provisions constantly at
+hand.
+
+'Those whom the gods will to destroy they first infatuate,' says the
+proverb, and no man was ever more infatuated than the infante dom
+Enrique. The fourteen thousand men of which the king had spoken had
+dwindled down to six thousand, and these were but half-hearted. Small as
+the force was, dom Duarte had instructed Enrique to divide it into
+three, in order to prevent the Moors from concentrating large numbers
+upon one place. This counsel Enrique declined to follow, nor did he
+attempt to surprise and take Tangier by assault, which might possibly
+have been successful. Instead, he allowed the Moors to assemble a large
+army and to put the town in a state of defence. Finally, he totally
+disobeyed the wise counsel of Duarte to make his camp close to the sea,
+where his ships lay at anchor, in order that provisions and a retreat
+might be secured to them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having thus done all in his power to ensure defeat, only one thing
+remained, and that was 'to die like good men with constant souls,' in
+the words which the poet Calderon puts into the mouth of Fernando. Too
+late Enrique perceived the snare into which his folly had led them, and
+assembling his little army, gave orders that at night, when the Moorish
+camp was quiet, they should cut their way through to the ships and put
+to sea. Their attacks on Tangier had been repulsed with heavy losses, he
+told them, and if the enterprise was ever to be carried through they
+must first seek reinforcements.
+
+The men agreed with him, and prepared to sell their lives dearly.
+Silently at the appointed time they crept up to the Moorish tents,
+beyond which lay safety and the great galleons. But the chaplain,
+unluckily, had been before them. As soon as darkness fell he had
+deserted to the enemy, and the sight of the large force drawn up in
+order of battle was the first sign of warning to the Christians that
+they had been betrayed.
+
+Even Enrique felt that in the face of such numbers fighting was useless,
+but he placed his men in the best position and awaited events. All the
+next day the Moors made no sign, but on the following morning envoys
+left the ranks and proposed terms of peace. Considering all things, they
+were not hard. Ceuta must be surrendered, the Moorish captives in
+Portugal be released, and the Christian camp with everything it
+contained abandoned to the captors. But the infantes wished to deal
+directly with the kings of Fez and Morocco, in order to make sure that
+the terms offered would be loyally carried out. They were still
+expecting the return of the envoys which they had sent when the Moors,
+who had grown more and more impatient at the long wait so close to their
+enemies, could be restrained no more and fell on the Portuguese.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In spite of their small numbers, the Portuguese, commanded by dom
+Enrique and the bishop of Ceuta, fought so fiercely that after six hours
+the Moors were beaten back. After a short rest dom Enrique ordered every
+man to repair the trenches and to throw up earthworks to protect the
+camp, in case of another assault. They worked hard the whole of that
+night, which was Saturday, and when by sunrise on Sunday everything was
+finished, the soldiers sank down exhausted where they were, and cried
+for food and water. It was long in coming. Then a horrible suspicion,
+which turned the men's faces white, ran, no one knew why, from end to
+end of the camp. Was there _any_ food? and, worse still, any water?
+
+They had guessed truly; they had no provisions left, and the water had
+been cut off by the Moors. For two days they held out, then dom Enrique
+decided to accept the terms offered him. He would give up Ceuta and the
+Moorish prisoners, would abandon the camp, and would undertake that
+Portugal should sign a peace with the Barbary States lying along that
+part of the African coast for a hundred years. In return the former
+Moorish governor of Ceuta, Salat-ben-Salat, should hand over his son as
+a hostage, in exchange for four Portuguese nobles, but the pledge for
+the surrender of Ceuta was to be dom Fernando himself.
+
+Bitter were the shame and grief that filled dom Enrique when the results
+of his folly were brought home to him, and he instantly begged that he
+might be accepted as hostage instead of his brother. No doubt the Moors
+would have agreed to this; it mattered little to them which of the
+infantes remained captive, but the council of war which Enrique summoned
+would not consent. Fernando knew nothing of war, they said, but Enrique,
+their commander, could not be spared, though it is hard to see what
+Enrique had done except lead them into traps which a recruit might have
+foreseen. Dom Fernando was present with the rest of the council, and was
+the first to declare that his brother's proposal was not to be thought
+of. Then, with a heavy heart, Enrique signed the treaty, and a few hours
+later Fernando and he had parted for the last time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus ended the expedition for the taking of Tangier; and what had it
+attained? As far as Portugal was concerned, the loss, as stipulated by
+treaty, of Ceuta, by which the country set such store; the death of five
+hundred out of the six thousand men under the walls of Tangier, which
+held out in spite of the field guns used in war for the first time; the
+waste of money which had been only raised by the oppression of the
+people; and the delivery of the king's favourite brother into the hands
+of a cruel race.
+
+Such was the tale which the fugitives had to tell on their arrival at
+Lisbon. And while the king was debating the best means of rescuing the
+captive, let us see how Fernando himself was faring.
+
+Accompanied by his chaplain, his doctor, his secretary, and a few
+friends, who would seem to have gone with him of their own will, dom
+Fernando was sent by his captors to the fortress of Tangier, and closely
+imprisoned for several days. Perhaps the Moors may have been waiting
+for Enrique, who had gone to Ceuta, to deliver up the keys of the town;
+but as nothing was heard of him, the captives were taken next to the
+little town of Arzilla, further down the coast. Here the Portuguese were
+kindly treated by the governor, and Fernando, though the hardships he
+had gone through had told heavily on his health, did all he could to
+help his friends, who fared no better than himself, and devoted what
+money was left to him to ransoming those who had been for some years in
+captivity.
+
+For seven months Fernando and his companions remained in Arzilla, and
+during all that time both he and his gaoler, Salat-ben-Salat, expected
+to receive answers to the many letters the captive prince had been
+suffered to write to Enrique respecting his promise to surrender Ceuta,
+where he stayed for some time after the embarkation of the Portuguese
+army. But after five months the only news that reached Arzilla was that
+Enrique had returned to Portugal; so Fernando then wrote to the king
+himself, imploring that he would redeem his pledge and set him free. It
+seemed little to ask, seeing that a treaty is considered sacred, and
+Duarte, from every point of view, was ready to fulfil the stipulation;
+but there was a strong party in the state which held that a Christian
+city should never be delivered up to the unbelievers, and even Enrique
+advised him instead to offer a large ransom and the Moorish captives
+then in Portugal in exchange for the infante.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Always distrustful of his own opinion, and fearful of taking any decided
+action, Duarte next appealed for counsel to the pope and to the kings of
+all the countries of Europe. They sent the politest and most sympathetic
+answers to his questions. No words could express their admiration for
+dom Fernando's patience under his sufferings, and their pity for his
+hard lot, but--faith with Moslems need never be kept, and at all costs
+Ceuta must be retained.
+
+Thus, after all, it was the Christians, and not the Moslems, who failed
+to keep their word and were responsible for the death of Fernando.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length news reached Fernando that dom John was starting with a fleet
+for his rescue, and then the doom which he dreaded befell him, for he
+was sent with his fellow-captives at once to Fez, a city far in the
+interior, and delivered over to Lazuraque, the vizier of the young king,
+a man whose name was a proverb of cruelty throughout the whole of
+Barbary. On their arrival at Fez, after a journey in which the whole
+population turned out to howl at and to stone them, they were thrust
+into a tiny cell without a ray of light. The four months that they spent
+in this black hole were bad enough, but worse was yet to follow. The
+little money that Fernando had left was taken from him, and heavy chains
+were fastened to the ankles of the prisoners, while their food was
+hardly fit for dogs or enough to keep them alive. But Fernando at least
+never grumbled, and tried to keep up the hearts of his friends.
+
+One morning a warder entered the cell and roughly informed the prince
+that he was to go and clean out the vizier's stables, while the others
+were to dig up the royal garden. Of course Fernando had never done such
+a thing in his life, and now, hardly able to stand from weakness, and
+with fetters on his legs, it seemed an impossible task. Still, only to
+get out into the sunshine again was delightful to him, and he worked
+away with a will. However, he could not have done his cleansing very
+thoroughly, or else the vizier had merely wished to humiliate him, for
+the next day he was sent to the gardens with the rest. Here he was
+almost happy; he loved flowers, and he had the company of his friends,
+to whom he could talk freely, for the gaolers, satisfied that they
+could not escape, left them very much to themselves. As to food, each
+man had two loaves a day, but no meat; however, in this respect Fernando
+fared better than the others, for when the king of Fez and his wives
+walked through the gardens, as they often did, they would speak to him
+with the politeness to which he had long been a stranger, and bid their
+slaves bring him fruit and wine from their own table. It seems curious
+that king Abdallah did not insist on better treatment for the Portuguese
+prince, but he was afraid of Lazuraque, who had ruled the kingdom from
+Abdallah's childhood, and dared not interfere.
+
+When darkness fell the captives were taken back to their prison, and
+here Fernando had a cell all to himself, and, tired out with his
+labours, was glad enough to throw himself on the two sheepskins covered
+by an old carpet which served him for a bed, and lay his head on the
+bundle of hay which was his pillow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Matters had gone on in this way for a few weeks, when one day the
+captives were told that they were to work in the gardens no more;
+heavier chains were fastened to their arms and legs, and they were all
+thrust together into one tiny dungeon. Then a message came that dom
+Fernando was to be brought before the vizier. With a beating heart the
+infante gladly followed his gaoler. Surely Lazuraque would not have
+troubled to send for him unless deliverance had been at hand? But his
+hopes fell at the sight of Lazuraque's face, which was cruel and stern
+as usual.
+
+'Your brother the king of Portugal is dead,' were the words that fell
+upon Fernando's ears, and he sank fainting to the ground. When he came
+to himself, he was lying chained in his cell, with his friends anxiously
+bending over him.
+
+Dom Pedro was now regent, ruling for Duarte's little son, Alfonso V.,
+and besides the view which he had always held that the honour of the
+country demanded the surrender of Ceuta, he felt bound to carry out the
+late king's will, which directed him to deliver Fernando at any cost.
+But now it was not Ceuta that Lazuraque wanted, but a huge ransom,
+impossible for Portugal to raise, and till this was forthcoming the
+horrors of the prisoners' captivity were increased.
+
+For some days after hearing the news Fernando's grief, together with the
+stifling air of the cell, made him so ill that his companions expected
+that every hour would be his last. Well he guessed that shame at the
+result of the expedition, and sorrow for his own fate, had hastened the
+end of dom Duarte, and the infante's thoughts flew back to the day of
+the proclamation of the king, five years before, and to the prophecy of
+master Guedelha. One thing, however, did not occur to him--that it was
+Duarte's weakness in allowing the expedition which had brought about the
+fulfilment of the prophecy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a while Lazuraque saw that unless he meant his captives to die,
+which would not have suited him at all, he must free them from their
+dungeon, so they were sent back to the gardens. Slowly the years 1439
+and 1440 wore away. The hearts of the poor prisoners grew sick, but
+Fernando alone never lost his cheerfulness, and kept up the spirits of
+the others when they were bowed down with despair.
+
+It was in 1441 that hope suddenly sprang into life again, for the news
+reached them that some envoys had arrived from Portugal to treat for
+their release, and that the governor of Arzilla was using his influence
+on their behalf. Soon after they were removed from Fez near to Ceuta,
+where they could once more see the blue Mediterranean and feel
+themselves close to Portugal again. But everything came to an end
+because neither side would trust the other. Lazuraque, though he still
+preferred a ransom, part of which he could have put in his own pocket,
+dared not refuse openly to exchange the prince for Ceuta, now that the
+envoys had come for the express purpose of delivering up the fortress.
+Still, he could place many obstacles in the way of the fulfilment of the
+treaty, and declared that the keys of Ceuta must be in his possession
+before the infante could be handed over to the envoys. They, on their
+side, insisted on Fernando's release before the surrender of the
+fortress.
+
+So the poor victim of ill-faith was carried back to Fez, and set to
+break stones with his companions. Then the plague broke out among the
+Moors, and each man shrank from his sick brother, and left him to die
+alone. As far as he might, dom Fernando sought out the plague-stricken
+people and nursed them night and day, often going without his own food
+that they might be nourished. Perhaps Lazuraque had fled like other rich
+men from the city, but at all events he seems to have permitted dom
+Fernando to do as he liked till the pestilence had run its course.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in March 1442 that Fernando was again taken before Lazuraque, and
+though the prisoner always told himself that he had given up hope,
+nevertheless his heart beat faster than usual at the summons. The Moor
+did not waste words, but went at once to the point.
+
+'I have sent for you to ask what price you will pay for your freedom and
+that of your friends,' he said.
+
+Dom Fernando looked at him for an instant before he answered. Long ago
+he and his companions had talked over the matter and decided what they
+could offer, if they ever had the chance. But now that the moment had
+come on which everything depended, his voice seemed choked, and he could
+not utter a sound.
+
+'Are you deaf?' inquired Lazuraque impatiently. 'Be quick, or I shall
+raise my terms.'
+
+Then Fernando stammered out, 'Fifty thousand doubloons and fifty Moorish
+prisoners.'
+
+'Nonsense,' cried Lazuraque, with a scornful laugh. 'Fifty thousand
+doubloons for a Portuguese prince! Why, it is a beggarly sum! Take him
+away, gaoler, till he learns wisdom.' And the infante was led back to
+his dungeon.
+
+It was no more than he had expected, yet he needed all his strength of
+will to help him bear the blow. By order of Lazuraque he was allowed to
+receive his fellow-prisoners in order to take counsel with them, and at
+length it was agreed that amongst them, by the aid of the king and their
+families, they would treble their former offer, and promise one hundred
+and fifty thousand doubloons and one hundred and fifty captives. This
+the vizier agreed to accept, and when they heard the news the prisoners
+fell on each other's necks and wept for joy. But for Fernando the hour
+of happiness was soon at an end, for till the ransom was paid and the
+captives landed on Moorish soil his treatment was worse than ever.
+
+The dungeon into which he was now thrown was smaller and darker than
+before, and even his gaoler was forbidden to speak to him. The
+loneliness and silence put the finishing touch to the alternate hopes
+and fears of the last few months, and one day, when the warder brought
+his scanty supply of food, he found the prince lying unconscious on the
+ground. Fearing the anger of Lazuraque should his prisoner escape him by
+death before the money was received, he at once reported the matter, and
+orders were given to remove the captive into a larger cell, where he
+could feel the soft winds blowing and even see a ray of the sun. His
+companions, who were once more working hard, with the least possible
+allowance of sleep, were permitted to see him, and to carry him books
+of prayer, as he had been deprived of his own. Greatest boon of all, he
+was given a lamp by which he could read them.
+
+[Illustration: He found the prince lying unconscious on the ground.]
+
+Outside of his cell there was a sand-pit, in which some of the
+Portuguese came to dig sand every morning to scatter over the floor of
+the stables after they had been cleaned out. A tiny glimmer of light in
+this part of the wall showed dom Fernando that a stone was loose, and
+might with a little patience be moved away. It was hard work for one so
+weak; still, it gave him something to do and to look forward to, and
+prevented him, sitting all day in his prison, from wondering why no
+answer to his letter had ever come, and if his brothers had forgotten
+him altogether, little knowing that out of mere spite Lazuraque had kept
+back everything they had written. When these thoughts came into his head
+he worked away at the stone harder than ever, to deaden the pain which
+was almost too bad to bear. At last one day his efforts were rewarded,
+and he was able to take the stone in and out and speak to his
+fellow-captives, who, with sun and air about them, were more fortunate
+than he.
+
+Perhaps he may have heard from them (for outside a gaol news flies
+quickly) that ever since Duarte's death his wife had given great trouble
+to dom Pedro by interfering in matters of government, and that civil war
+had actually broken out in Portugal, though happily it was soon put an
+end to by the flight of the queen. The expenses entailed by all this
+would, Fernando understood, have prevented the raising of the large
+ransom required; and with the lightening of his despair at his apparent
+abandonment came suspicions of Lazuraque. It was so much easier and
+happier for him to believe that the vizier, whose cruelty he knew,
+should be playing some trick on him than that Pedro should have left him
+to die without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We cannot tell how it really happened, and why the money used by dom
+Enrique ('the Navigator' as he was called) in fitting out exploring
+expeditions was not employed in setting free the brother who had been
+made captive through Enrique's own folly. Certain it is that fifty
+thousand doubloons were all the Portuguese would offer, and now
+Lazuraque demanded four hundred thousand! This Fernando learnt after
+fifteen months of waiting, and then his last remnant of hope flickered
+out.
+
+When hope was gone he had nothing left to live for, and on June 1, 1443,
+he was too weak even to kneel at his prayers. In vain did his companions
+implore that he might be moved to a larger, healthier room; the vizier
+refused all their petitions, and if he had granted them, most likely it
+would have been too late. However, the prince's physician obtained leave
+to see him, and his chaplain and secretary watched by him alternately,
+so that he was not left alone in his last moments.
+
+Four days passed in this manner, and on the morning of June 5 he awoke
+looking happier than he had done since he bade farewell to the shores of
+Portugal five years before.
+
+'I have seen in a vision,' he said to his confessor, 'the archangel
+Michael and Saint John entreating the Blessed Virgin to have pity on me
+and put an end to my sufferings. And she smiled down on me, and told me
+that to-day the gates of heaven should be thrown open, and I should
+enter.' So saying he begged to confess his sins, and when this was done
+he turned on his side and whispered, 'Now let me die in peace,' and with
+the last rays of the sun he was free.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'He that is dead pays all his debts,' writes the poet who more than any
+man knew the best and the worst of the human heart, but Lazuraque did
+not agree with him. Fernando's body was stripped bare and hung for four
+days from the battlements of the city, where, silent and uncomplaining
+as in life, it was a prey to every insult the people could heap on it.
+Then it was taken down and placed in a box, but still remained unheeded
+on the walls. How long it might have stayed there we cannot guess, but
+shortly after Fernando's death Lazuraque was stabbed by some victim of
+his tyranny, and by-and-by the remnant of dom Fernando's fellow-captives
+obtained their release on payment of a small ransom, leaving in Fez the
+bones of three of their companions who had not long survived the
+Constant Prince. It would seem as if his courage alone had sustained
+them, and when he was gone they sank and died also.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1448 dom Pedro, who had never ceased to mourn the brother he had been
+powerless to save, exchanged an important Moorish prisoner for father
+John Alvaro, secretary to the infante. Owing to various delays, it was
+three years before Alvaro reached Portugal, but when he arrived he
+carried with him the heart of Fernando, which was borne at the head of a
+long procession clad in black to the abbey of Batalha, where John and
+Philippa, Duarte, and a little brother and sister lay buried. On the way
+they met unexpectedly dom Enrique, master of the Order of Christ,
+attended by his knights, and a messenger was sent by the prince to ask
+the meaning of the train of mourners.
+
+'Senhor, it is the heart of the saintly infante,' was the answer he
+received, and without a word Enrique turned his horse, and accompanied
+by his knights rode on to Batalha, where he laid the casket in the grave
+which awaited it.
+
+Twenty-seven years after his death Fernando's body was obtained from the
+Moors, and was carried over to Portugal. With the pomp of a king
+expecting his bride Alfonso V., surrounded by his nobles, was drawn up
+on the banks of the Tagus, and behind him were the bishops and abbots of
+Portugal and a dense throng of people.
+
+For long they watched and waited, and none that was present forgot the
+dead silence that reigned in that multitude, more solemn than prayers,
+more welcoming than the sound of guns. At length a ship came in sight
+across the bar of the river; then, baring their heads, the crowd parted,
+and the bones of the Constant Prince were borne to Batalha.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE
+
+
+Fighting was in the blood of the Grahams, and when James, hereafter to
+be known as the 'great marquis of Montrose,' was a little boy he loved
+to hear tales of the deeds of his ancestors, who had struck hard blows
+for the liberty of Scotland in days of old. One, sir John Graham, a
+friend of sir William Wallace's, had been killed at Falkirk more than
+three hundred years before; another had died on Flodden field, and a
+third had fallen at Pinkie, besides many who had taken part in less
+famous battles. James knew all about them, and was proud to belong to
+them, and did not guess that it was _his_ name and not _theirs_ which
+would be best remembered through the centuries to come.
+
+But the Grahams were not only brave soldiers; they were for the most
+part clever men. There was an archbishop among them and a bishop, while
+James's grandfather had held the highest offices of the state under king
+James VI., and was president of the Parliament when the king was far
+away in Westminster talking broad Scotch to the great nobles and
+servants of his dead cousin queen Elizabeth. Montrose's own father,
+however, had no love either for war or statesmanship, and after he lost
+his wife in 1618 stayed quietly at home in one of his many castles,
+taking care of his family, keeping accounts of every penny he spent, and
+shooting and playing golf with his friends and neighbours.
+
+James, his only son, was six years old when his mother died, but there
+were five daughters of all ages, who were always ready to play with the
+boy. To be sure, the two eldest, Lilias and Margaret, married early, and
+before two years had passed by one was lady Colquhoun and the other lady
+Napier of Merchiston. Still Dorothy and Katherine were left, and
+Beatrix, who was only three years younger than her brother, and the one
+he liked best of all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the great business of marrying his two eldest daughters was safely
+over, lord Montrose took his little boy with him on a riding tour of
+visits to his estates in Forfar, Perthshire, Dunbarton, and the
+Lothians, stopping in the houses of his many friends on the way. James
+loved horses all his life, and bills for 'shoes for naigs' were
+constantly coming in to him. He spent a good deal of time practising
+archery at the butts, and would make up matches with the boys who lived
+in the different houses where he and his father went to stay; on wet
+days they would get out their foils and fence in the hall, or even dance
+solemnly with the young ladies. Of course, he did some lessons too, when
+he was at home, probably with his sisters, but while his father only
+puts down in his accounts the items of six shillings for books and seven
+shillings for a 'pig [or stone bottle] of ink,' we read of nine
+shillings for bowstrings and three pounds for '12 goiff balls.' As for
+tobacco, the elder Montrose smoked the whole day, a new accomplishment
+in those times, and an expensive one when tobacco was sometimes as much
+as thirteen shillings and fourpence an ounce; but this habit was hated
+by James, who never could bear the smell of a pipe all his life long.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After his son's twelfth birthday lord Montrose decided that his son must
+go to college at Glasgow like other youths of his age and position. The
+news filled the little girls with awe; it seemed to make their brother
+a man at once, and they were sure he would never, never want to play
+bowls or hide and seek with them again. But James, though in his secret
+heart he may have agreed with them, was too kind to say so, and he
+comforted them with the thought of the fine things he would bring them
+from the great city, and the stories he would have to tell of its
+strange ways. And, if they wished, they might even now come and see the
+'stands' (or suits) of clothes that had been prepared for him.
+
+Drying their tears, the girls eagerly accepted his offer. The mixed grey
+cloth English clothes were passed by in scorn, but the bright trimming
+of a cloak was much admired by the young ladies, though they would have
+liked James to have been dressed in red, like his two pages and
+kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit
+they thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the door on his
+white pony, with his tutor, master Forrett, by his side, the pages and a
+valet following. Bringing up the rear were some strong, broad-backed
+'pockmanty naigs,' or baggage-horses, bearing the plate, linen and
+furniture for the large house lord Montrose had taken for his son in
+Glasgow.
+
+Gay indeed that house must have looked with its red and green and yellow
+curtains and cushions and counterpanes. As for food, it seems to have
+been simple enough, if we can judge by the bills sent in by the tutor
+for bags of oatmeal and barrels of herrings. There are also, we are glad
+to find, some bills for books, among them Raleigh's 'History of the
+World,' only recently published, a Latin translation of Xenophon, and
+Seneca's Philosophy. These last two James only read because he was
+obliged to, but he would sit half the morning poring over the pages of
+Raleigh, of whose own life and adventures master Forrett could tell him
+much.
+
+For a short time his little sister Katherine lived with him. Probably
+she had been ill, and the soft air of the west was thought good for her;
+for Glasgow was only quite a small place then, and the sky over the
+Clyde was bright and clear, instead of being dark with smoke, as it
+often is now. But in two years' time James Graham's life at Glasgow came
+to a sudden end, owing to the death of his father, and, distressed and
+bewildered at the duties of his new position, he rode swiftly away one
+November morning to Kincardine Castle, to make arrangements for the
+funeral.
+
+The ceremonies attending the burial of a great noble were of vast
+importance in the seventeenth century. The widow, if he had one, was
+expected to spend weeks, or even months, in a room hung with black, in a
+bed with black curtains and coverings, no ray of sunlight being suffered
+to creep through the cracks of the shutters. The young earl of Montrose
+had, as we are aware, no mother, but his sisters were kept carefully out
+of sight, while he prepared the list of invitations, to be despatched by
+men on horseback, to the friends and relations of the dead earl. For
+seven weeks they stayed at Kincardine, every guest bringing with him a
+large supply of game or venison, though the castle larders already held
+an immense amount of food. Poor James must have felt the days terribly
+long and dismal, and doubtless escaped, as often as he could, to take
+counsel with his brother-in-law, sir Archibald Napier, who remained his
+staunch friend to the end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length the old customs had been fulfilled; the last guest was gone,
+and in January 1627 Montrose, not yet fifteen, set out for the
+University of St. Andrews. Here he found many acquaintances, with whom
+he played golf or tennis, or, what he loved still more, practised
+archery at the butts. Bows instead of pictures hung on his walls, and
+in the second year of his residence the place of honour was given to the
+bow with which he gained the silver medal that may still be seen in the
+college. On wet days he spent his free hours in chess and cards, or in
+making verses like all young cavaliers, but he studied Caesar and other
+Latin authors under his tutor master Lambe and worked at his Greek
+grammar, so that he might read Plutarch's 'Lives' in the original
+tongue. Everybody liked him in spite of his hot temper, he was so
+kind-hearted and generous and free with his money, and though never a
+bookworm, his mind was quick and thoughtful and his speech ready. His
+vacations he either passed with the Napiers, or in visiting the houses
+of his friends in Forfar or Fife, hunting, hawking, playing billiards or
+attending races; but he never failed to go to the kirk on Sundays or
+days of preachings in his best clothes with a nosegay in his coat, for
+he was very fond of flowers, and always had them on his table.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At seventeen this pleasant college life came to an end, and Montrose
+married Magdalen Carnegie, whose father was later created earl of
+Southesk. We do not know very much about his wife, and most likely she
+was not very interesting, but the young couple remained at lord
+Carnegie's house of Kinnaird for some years, till in 1633 Montrose, now
+twenty-one, set out on his journey to Rome, leaving lady Montrose and
+two little boys behind him. In his travels 'he made it his work to pick
+up the best of the qualities' of the foreigners whom he met, and learned
+'as much of the mathematics as is required for a soldier,' but 'his
+great study was to read men and the actions of great men.'
+
+What the foreigners in their turn thought of the young man with the long
+bright brown hair and grey eyes, whose height was no more than ordinary,
+yet whose frame was strong and spare, we do not know. They must have
+admired his quickness and skill in games and exercises, and the grace of
+his dancing; but his manner kept strangers at a distance, though he was
+always kind to his servants and those dependent on him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the three years that Montrose spent abroad grave events took
+place in Scotland. Charles I., who had already excited the angry
+suspicion of his Scotch subjects by what they considered the 'popish'
+ceremonies of his coronation at Holyrood, had lately been enraging them
+still more by his measures for putting down the national Church and
+supporting bishops throughout the country. The king, in spite of many
+good qualities, could never be trusted, and was very obstinate. Also,
+what was worse both for himself and his people, he could never
+understand the signs of the times or the tempers of those with whom he
+had to deal. The gatherings held in various parts of Scotland to express
+discontent with the king's proceedings did, indeed, alarm him a little,
+but not even some strange scenes that took place in 1637 taught him how
+serious the matter really was. The Scottish Church then used no
+prayer-book, but, by the royal commands, the bishop and dean of
+Edinburgh were reading certain new prayers in the church of St. Giles'
+on Sunday, July 23, when 'the serving-maids began such a tumult as was
+never heard of since the Reformation.' This 'tumult' was no sudden burst
+of feeling, but 'the result of a consultation in the Cowgate of
+Edinburgh, when several gentlemen recommended to various matrons that
+they should give their first affront to the [prayer] book, assuring them
+that the men should afterwards take the business out of their hands.'
+
+We are not told why 'the men' did not do 'the business' to begin with,
+but the matrons and serving-maids seemed to have enjoyed themselves so
+much on this occasion that they were quite ready for a second effort
+a month later.
+
+On August 28 Mr. William Annan preached in St. Giles', defending the
+Litany, and when the news was spread about what the subject of his
+sermon was to be there arose, says the chronicler, in the town and among
+the women a great din.
+
+[Illustration: About thirty or forty of our honestest women did fall a
+railing on Mr. William Annan.]
+
+'At the outgoing of the church, about thirty or forty of our honestest
+women in one voice before the bishop and magistrates did fall a railing,
+cursing, and scolding, with clamours on Mr. William Annan. Some two of
+the meanest were taken to the Tolbooth,' or city prison, where Montrose
+in after years was himself to lie.
+
+Mr. Annan got safely to his own house, but being troubled over these
+events in his mind resolved to ask counsel of his bishop. So that
+evening, 'at nine on a mirk night,' he set out in company of three or
+four ministers to the bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had the little
+party stepped into the street than they were surrounded by 'hundreds of
+enraged women with fists and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat
+him sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all bloody wounds,
+yet he was in great danger even of killing.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This was the beginning of the struggle which was to rend Scotland for so
+many years. A bond or covenant was drawn up, part of which was copied
+from one of the reign of James VI., fifty years before, guarding against
+the establishment of 'popery.' But now new clauses were added,
+protesting against the appointment of bishops, or allowing priests of
+any sort power over the laws of the country. This document Montrose
+signed with the rest, and consented to act if necessary as one of the
+defenders of the religion and liberty of Scotland.
+
+Charles of course declined to give way on the smallest point, and
+issued a proclamation, to be read at Edinburgh, declaring all who
+opposed him to be traitors. In answer the malcontents raised a scaffold
+beside the cross, and on it stood Warriston, with a reply written by the
+nobles representing the people, which was received with shouts of
+applause. Montrose sat at Warriston's side, his legs dangling from a
+cask.
+
+'Ah, James,' cried old lord Rothes, as he saw him, 'you will never be at
+rest till you be lifted up there above the rest, with a rope.'
+
+Strange words, which were exactly fulfilled twelve years later.
+
+So the first covenant was read, and afterwards it was laid on a flat
+tombstone in Greyfriars churchyard, and signed by the earl of Sutherland
+as the first noble of Scotland, and then by others according to their
+degree. During two days it was borne round the city, followed by an
+immense crowd, sobbing and trembling with excitement; from time to time
+they all stopped for fresh signatures to be added, and copies were made
+and sent over the country, so that each man should place his mark. Next,
+subscription lists were opened, taxes apportioned, and a war committee
+chosen.
+
+And Charles heard and grew frightened, though even yet he did not
+understand.
+
+However, the king saw it was needful to do something, and, as was usual
+with him, he did the wrong thing. He chose the earl of Hamilton (in whom
+he believed blindly, though no one else did) to go down to Scotland as
+his commissioner, with leave to yield certain points when once the
+covenant had been retracted, but with secret orders to spin out as much
+time as possible, so that Charles might be able to get ready an army.
+Yet, secret as Hamilton's instructions were, old Rothes knew all about
+them, and on his side made preparations. As each week passed it became
+increasingly plain that the two parties could never agree. The General
+Assembly, which had been held in November in Glasgow Cathedral, was
+dissolved by Hamilton, who had presided over it. The covenanters
+answered by deposing the bishops, and suppressing the liturgy, and then
+dissolving itself; and the earl of Argyll, soon to be Montrose's
+deadliest enemy, joined the covenanters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One town only remained loyal, and this was Aberdeen, situated in the
+country of the Gordons, whose chief, the marquis of Huntly, was Argyll's
+brother-in-law. Huntly, like Leslie, who held a command in the
+covenanting army under Montrose, had seen much foreign service, so
+Charles appointed him his lieutenant in the north, though he bound him
+hand and foot by orders to do nothing save with Hamilton's consent.
+Chafing bitterly under these restrictions, Huntly was forced to disband
+his army of two thousand men, and had the mortification of seeing the
+covenanters enter Aberdeen the following week, wearing their badge of
+blue ribbons in their Highland bonnets.
+
+The citizens were granted easy terms, and all pillage was strictly
+forbidden. Huntly himself was given a promise of safe conduct, but was
+afterwards held as a prisoner and sent with his son to Edinburgh castle.
+It is not clear how far Montrose himself was guilty of this breach of
+faith. The covenanters had always detested Huntly, and it is possible
+that he found it difficult to act against them, but at any rate he does
+not appear to have taken any active steps to stop their proceedings, and
+in after days paid a heavy penalty for his weakness.
+
+Shortly after the English army, consisting of nineteen ships and five
+thousand men, arrived in the Firth of Forth, but so dense were the
+crowds on both shores that Hamilton, who commanded it, saw that landing
+was impossible. Suddenly the multitude gathered at Leith (the port of
+Edinburgh) parted asunder, and down the midst rode an old lady with a
+pistol in her hand. Hamilton looked with the rest and turned pale at the
+sight, for the old lady was his own mother, who in a voice that almost
+seemed loud enough to reach the vessel where her son stood, declared she
+would shoot him dead before he should set foot on land.
+
+The time was evidently not ripe for invasion, so the men encamped on the
+little islands in the Forth, and spent their days in drill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As often during Montrose's wars, Aberdeen was again the centre of
+fighting, but again the general preserved the city from pillage, against
+the express wishes, and even orders, of the covenanters. Then came the
+news that a peace, or rather truce, had been signed at Berwick, by which
+Charles had consented that a parliament should assemble in August in
+Edinburgh, though, as he insisted that the fourteen Scottish bishops
+should be present at its sittings, wise men shook their heads, and
+prophesied that no good could come of the measure. Their fears were soon
+justified. Riots broke out in the capital, and Aboyne, Huntly's son,
+narrowly escaped violence; the people refused to allow the army to be
+disbanded or the fortresses to be dismantled, as had been stipulated by
+the peace, till the king had fulfilled the promise made by Hamilton at
+the assembly at Glasgow of abolishing the bishops.
+
+This he showed no signs of doing, but merely desired a number of the
+leading covenanters to appear before him. Six only obeyed, at the risk,
+some thought, of imprisonment or death, but neither Rothes nor Montrose,
+who headed them, was given to think of peril to themselves.
+
+The old covenanter seems to have told Charles some plain truths, and the
+king in return forgot the courtesy which so distinguished him, and
+retorted that Rothes was a liar. No man was present when Montrose was
+summoned to confer with the king, and neither he nor Charles ever let
+fall a word upon the subject; but after that day his friends noted that
+he was no longer as bitter as before against his sovereign, nor so
+entirely convinced that the covenanters were right in their acts. Yet,
+whatever his feelings may have been, he strongly opposed the king's
+desire of filling the bishops' vacant places with inferior clergy at the
+meeting of Parliament, and, as might have been expected, the assembly
+was prorogued, leaving matters precisely as they were.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After this the Scotch took on themselves the management of their own
+affairs, and a Committee of Estates was formed, to which was entrusted
+absolute power both in state and army. Leslie was one of this committee;
+Montrose was another, and immediately he set about raising troops from
+his own lands, and carried out the plan of campaign that had been agreed
+on by attacking Airlie castle. On its surrender he garrisoned it with a
+few men, and went away; but shortly after Argyll arrived, turned out the
+garrison, and burned the castle, at the same time accusing Montrose of
+treason to the covenant in having spared it. But the Committee of
+Estates declared Montrose 'to have done his duty as a true soldier of
+the covenant,' and the accusation fell to the ground.
+
+Montrose, however, though entirely cleared of the charge, was not slow
+to read the signs of the times. He saw that the covenanters were no
+longer content with guarding their own liberties of church and state,
+but desired to set at naught the king's authority, perhaps even to
+depose him. So he and certain of his friends, Mar, Almond, and Erskine
+among them, formed a bond by which they swore to uphold the old covenant
+which they had signed in 1638, 'to the hazard of their lives, fortunes,
+and estates, against the particular perhaps indirect practising of a
+few.' This was the covenant to which Montrose held all his life, and
+for which he was hanged beside the city cross.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having as he hoped taken measures to checkmate Argyll, Montrose joined
+the army, which had now swelled to twenty-five thousand men, was the
+first to cross the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched straight on
+Newcastle. The town surrendered without firing a shot, and Montrose sent
+a letter to the king again professing his loyalty. When later he was
+imprisoned on a charge of treason to the covenant in so doing, he
+answered that his conscience was clear in the matter, and that it was no
+more than they had all declared in the covenant, which no man could
+deny. But soon another storm was raised on account of the famous bond
+which he and his friends had made a short time before they were put in
+prison, and the clamour was so great that even his own party was
+alarmed, and gave it up to be burned by the hangman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Montrose's next object was to induce the king to come to Edinburgh in
+order to persuade the Scotch that he was ready to keep his word, and to
+grant the country the religious and civil liberties demanded by the
+covenant. Charles came, and was gracious and charming as he knew how to
+be, even going to the Presbyterian service, which he hated. This pleased
+everyone, and hopes ran high; but the quarrel was too grave to be
+soothed by a few soft words spoken or a few titles given. Plots and
+rumours of plots were rife in Edinburgh, and the king was forced to
+employ not the men he wished, but the men whom the Parliament desired.
+In November he returned to England, first promising that he would never
+take into his service Montrose, who had just been released after five
+months spent in prison, where he had been thrown with the rest of his
+party after the discovery of the bond.
+
+To one who knew Scotland as well as he it was apparent that the Scotch
+Parliament and the English would speedily join hands, and he retired to
+one of his houses to watch the course of events. The covenanters tried
+to win him back, but Montrose felt that they disagreed among themselves,
+and that it would be impossible for him to serve under them. Meanwhile
+in England things marched rapidly: Edgehill had been fought; episcopacy
+had been abolished by Parliament in England as well as Scotland; and
+Hamilton's brother Lanark was using the Great Seal to raise a Scotch
+army against the king, for, by a treaty called the Solemn League and
+Covenant, Scotland was to fight with the English Parliament against the
+king, and England was to abolish bishops and become presbyterian like
+Scotland. England, however, did not keep her promise.
+
+It was then that Charles, in his desperation, turned to Montrose.
+Montrose was too skilful and experienced a general to think lightly of
+the struggle before him, but he formed a plan by which Scotland was to
+be invaded on the west by the earl of Antrim from Ireland, while he
+himself, reinforced by royalist troops, would fall on the Scotch who
+were on the border. But the reinforcements he expected hardly amounted,
+when they came, to one thousand one hundred men, and these being
+composed of the two nations were constantly quarrelling, which added to
+the difficulties of the commander. At Dumfries he halted, and read a
+proclamation stating that 'he was king's man, as he had been covenanter,
+for the defence and maintenance of the true Protestant religion, his
+majesty's just and sacred authority, the laws and privileges of
+Parliament, the peace and freedom of oppressed and thralled subjects.'
+Adding that 'if he had not known perfectly the king's intention to be
+such and so real as is already expressed' he would 'never have embarked
+himself in his service,' and if he 'saw any appearance of the king
+changing' from these resolutions he would continue no longer 'his
+faithful servant.'
+
+Thus he said, and thus we may believe he felt, but none the less not a
+man joined his standard as he marched along the border. He tried to
+reach prince Rupert, the king's nephew, in Yorkshire, but Marston Moor
+had been lost before he arrived there. Then, dressed as a groom, he
+started for Perthshire, and after four days arrived at the house of his
+kinsman Graham of Inchbrackie, where he learned that the whole of the
+country beyond the Tay was covenanting, with the single exception of the
+territory of the Gordons. No one knew of his presence, for he still wore
+his disguise, and slept in a little hut in the woods, where food was
+brought him. All day he wandered about the lonely hills, thinking over
+the tangled state of affairs, and waiting for the right moment to
+strike.
+
+One afternoon when he was lying on the heather, wondering if he ought
+not to come out of his hiding, and join either the Gordons or prince
+Rupert, he beheld a man running quickly over the moor, holding in his
+hand the Fiery Cross, which, as every Highlander knew, was the call to
+arms. Starting to his feet, Montrose stopped the man and asked the
+meaning of the signal, and whither he was going.
+
+[Illustration: "A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the
+Atholl."]
+
+'To Perth,' answered the messenger, 'for a great army of Irishmen have
+swooped down in the Atholl country, and Alastair Macdonald is their
+leader. I myself have seen them, and I must not tarry,' so on he sped,
+leaving Montrose with his puzzle solved. The Irishmen whom he expected
+had arrived, and he would go to meet them.
+
+There was no need for hiding any more, and glad was he to throw off his
+disguise and put on his Highland dress again. Then, accompanied by the
+laird of Inchbrackie, he walked across the hills to join Macdonald,
+bearing the royal standard on his shoulder.
+
+As soon as he reached the meeting-place where the clans and the Irish
+were already waiting, he stuck the standard in the ground, and, standing
+by it, he read aloud the king's commission to him as lieutenant-general.
+Shouts of joy made answer when he had done, and next Montrose went round
+the ranks to inspect the troops he was to fight with, and find out what
+arms they had. The numbers only amounted to about two thousand three
+hundred, and it was not long before the clans began to quarrel with each
+other, and all with the Irish. As to their weapons, the Irish had
+matchlock guns, which took a long time to load, and one round of
+ammunition apiece, while the Highlanders had seized upon anything that
+happened to be in their cottages and showed a medley of bows, pikes,
+clubs, and claymores--a kind of broad sword. As to horses, they could
+only muster three.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With this ragged army Montrose marched, and his first victory was gained
+against lord Elcho, on the wide plain of Tippermuir, near Perth. The
+covenanting force was nearly double that of the royalists, but many of
+the troops were citizens of Perth, who thought more of their own skins
+than of the cause for which they were fighting. When Montrose's fierce
+charge had broken their ranks, they all turned and fled, and many of
+them are said to have 'bursted with running' before they got safely
+within the city gates.
+
+In Perth Montrose fitted out his army with stores, arms, and clothes,
+and released some of the prisoners on their promising not to serve
+against him, while others enlisted under the royal banner. Before he set
+out for Aberdeen he was joined by his two eldest sons and their tutor,
+master Forrett; and in Forfarshire he found lord Airlie and his sons
+awaiting him, with the welcome addition of fifty horse, which formed his
+entire cavalry. These, and one thousand five hundred foot, were all the
+army he had when he crossed the Dee fifteen miles from Aberdeen, and the
+covenanters mustered a thousand more.
+
+Two miles from the town the two armies met. As was his custom, Montrose
+sent an envoy summoning the enemy to surrender, and with the envoy went
+a little drummer-boy, who was wantonly shot down by a covenanter. When
+Montrose heard of this deed of deliberate cruelty his face grew dark,
+but he began to dispose his men to the best advantage. Both sides fought
+well, and for a moment victory seemed uncertain; then Montrose brought
+up reinforcements and decided the day by one of his rapid charges.
+
+He had already bidden the magistrates of Aberdeen to bring out the women
+and children to a place of safety as he would not answer for their
+lives, but, as he had twice preserved the city from pillage, it is
+probable they looked on his words as a mere idle threat, and left them
+where they were. After the battle the sack began; houses were burned and
+robbed, and many fell victims, though the dead, including those who had
+fallen in battle, did not exceed a hundred and eighteen. But his friends
+lamented that this time also he had not restrained his soldiers, and a
+price of 20,000 l. was set on his head by the enraged covenanters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Never was Montrose's power of moving his men swiftly from one place to
+another more greatly needed than now. The Gordons were all in arms
+against him; Argyll was advancing from the south with a strong force,
+and Montrose had been obliged to send a large body of men into the west
+under Macdonald to raise fresh levies. With the remainder he retired
+into the Grampians, and turned and twisted about among the mountains,
+Argyll always following.
+
+At Fyvie Montrose suddenly learned that his enemy was within two miles
+of him. Hastily ordering all the pewter vessels that could be found in
+the castle to be melted down for bullets, he disposed his troops on a
+hill, where a few trees and some outhouses gave them cover. Here they
+waited while the covenanters gallantly made the best of their way
+upwards. Then Montrose turned to young O'Gahan, who commanded the Irish,
+and said gaily, 'Come, what are you about? Drive those rascals from our
+defences, and see we are not troubled by them again.'
+
+Down came the Irishmen with a rush which scattered the covenanters far
+and wide, and seizing some bags of powder that lay handy, the victors
+retreated up the hill again, while Montrose with some musketeers
+attacked Argyll's flank, till they retired hastily.
+
+After this defeat the covenanting leader went into Argyllshire, where
+was his strong castle of Inverary, by the sea. But Montrose crossed the
+pathless mountains, deep in snow, drove Argyll to Edinburgh, and when he
+came back with all his clan, turned on them suddenly, destroyed them at
+Inverlochy, and caused Argyll to escape in a boat.
+
+The hopes of the king's lieutenant rose high as he thought of all he had
+done with the few undisciplined troops at his command.
+
+'I trust before the end of this summer I shall be able to come to your
+majesty's assistance with a brave army,' he wrote; but meanwhile he
+dared not go to Edinburgh, where he had been sentenced to death by the
+Committee of Estates, and his property declared forfeited. But though
+the campaign had been successful beyond his expectations, yet his heart
+was heavy, for his eldest son had died of cold and exposure and the
+second was a prisoner in Edinburgh castle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was the state of things when he went west again into the country of
+the Macdonalds, who flocked to his standard. On the other hand the
+Lowlanders fell off, and began to cast longing eyes at the rewards
+promised to those who joined the covenant. If Montrose could only have
+forced a battle on Baillie, who commanded the covenanting army, another
+victory would probably have been gained, but Baillie was wise, and
+declined to fight. Then the Highlanders grew sullen and impatient, and
+every day saw them striding over the hills to their own homes. By the
+time he reached Dunkeld the royal army had shrunk to six hundred foot
+and two hundred horse.
+
+With this small force he entered Dundee, the great fortress of the
+covenant, and his men took to drinking. At that moment news was brought
+him that Baillie was at the gates, and with marvellous rapidity he
+collected his men and marched them out of the east gate as the English
+entered by the west. The Grampians were within a long march, and once
+there Montrose knew he was safe.
+
+And, far away in Sweden and in Germany, the generals who had been
+trained under Wallenstein and under Gustavus Adolphus looked on, and
+wondered at the skill with which Montrose met and defeated the armies
+and the wealth arrayed against him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But to those who had eyes to see the end was certain. It was to no
+purpose that he, with the aid of the Gordons, now once more on his side,
+gained a victory at Auldearn, between Inverness and Elgin, and another
+at Alford, south of the Don, which cost him the life and support of
+Huntly's son, lord Gordon. In vain did Ogilvies, Murrays, and Gordons
+swell his ranks, and the covenanting committee play into his hands by
+forcing Baillie to fight when the general knew that defeat was
+inevitable. The battle of Kilsyth had been won near Glasgow on August
+14, and the day was so hot that Montrose ordered his men to strip to
+their shirts so that they might have no more weight to carry than was
+strictly necessary. Baillie was not even allowed to choose his own
+ground, but though he did all that man could do, the struggle was
+hopeless, and the Fife levies were soon in flight.
+
+Only a year had passed since Montrose, now captain-general and viceroy
+of Scotland, had taken the field, and yet the whole country was subdued,
+largely by the help of the Irish, and of their leader Macdonald, whom he
+had knighted after Kilsyth. But for the royalist cause Naseby had been
+lost, Wales was wavering, Ireland was useless, and Montrose was not
+strong enough to make up for them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Kilsyth, which is near Glasgow, it was easy for Macdonald to lead
+his men across the hills and lay waste the territories of his hereditary
+enemy Argyll. He would, he said, return to Montrose if he was wanted;
+but the marquis took the words for what they were worth, and waited to
+see whose turn to desert would come next. It was young Aboyne, who was
+tired of fighting, which had not brought him any of the rewards he
+thought his due, and he took with him four hundred horse and many
+infantry. At the end there only remained five hundred of Macdonald's
+Irish, who had cast in their lot with Montrose, and about one hundred
+horsemen. With these he marched to the south, trusting in the promises
+of help freely given by the great border nobles, and hoping to enter
+England and help the king.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And doubtless these promises would have been kept had the king's cause
+showed signs of triumph, but the speedy advance of four thousand
+horsemen under David Leslie, the best cavalry officer of the day, turned
+the scale. Roxburgh and Home at once proclaimed themselves on the side
+of the covenant, and only Douglas reached Montrose's camp on the river
+Gala, and brought a few untrained and unwilling recruits with him. It
+was the best he could do, yet he knew well enough how little reliance
+could be placed on his country contingent, who had been taught to look
+on the king and Montrose as monsters of evil, seeking to destroy
+whatever they held most dear.
+
+It was on September 12 that Montrose drew up his forces at Philiphaugh
+between a line of hills and the river Ettrick, while shelter was given
+on the west by some rising ground covered with trees. Trenches had been
+made still further to protect them, and the Irish foot soldiers were
+ordered to occupy the position, which seemed secure against attack. But
+on this day, which was destined to decide whether the king or the
+covenant should rule Scotland, Montrose's military skill--even his good
+sense--deserted him; he posted his horse and best generals at
+Philiphaugh, on the other side of the river close to Selkirk, and he
+himself slept in the town. More than this, instead of placing his
+sentinels himself, as was his invariable custom, he allowed his officers
+to do it, and also to send out whatever scouts they may have thought
+necessary without orders from himself, while he sat undisturbed, writing
+despatches, little knowing that Leslie was only three miles away, at
+Sunderland Hall.
+
+So the night of the 12th passed, and Montrose took counsel with the
+three men he most trusted, the earls of Crawford and Airlie, and his
+brother-in-law, old lord Napier, as to what should be their next step
+when the battle was won. The mist was thick and heavy over the land when
+morning dawned, but in spite of the cold their hearts grew light as one
+scout after another came in, reporting that there was not a sign of an
+enemy within miles. Had they been bribed? We shall never know, yet it is
+hardly possible that they could all have overlooked the presence of
+several thousand men so close to their own camp. At that very moment
+Leslie's army was crossing the river, and it began the attack while the
+royalists were putting on their uniforms for an inspection.
+
+Montrose was at breakfast in Selkirk when a messenger burst in upon him
+with the news, but before he could ford the river with his horse his
+left wing had given way under Leslie's steady pressure. At the head of a
+handful of troopers, and followed closely by his faithful friends,
+Montrose twice charged the covenanters and forced them to retire. But a
+detachment of Leslie's men which had crossed the river higher up fell
+upon the right wing, composed of the Irish, who were placed in the wood.
+Desperate was the fight and bravely and faithfully the king's men died
+at their posts. Montrose seems to wish to die too, and bitterly he must
+later have regretted that he listened to his friends, who bade him
+remember his duty as a general, and besought him to fly. At length he
+yielded, and with fifty comrades galloped off the field, bearing the
+standards with him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the battle of Philiphaugh the cause of the king was hopelessly
+lost, and with it also the fortunes of his followers. A hundred of the
+Irish surrendered on promise of quarter, and were shot down next day,
+while their wives and children were killed on the spot, or imprisoned,
+and hanged later. Strange as it may appear to us, Montrose did not
+recognise the meaning of the defeat, and, with the dash and energy that
+marked him to the last, he collected a fresh army of Highlanders, and
+prepared to set out for the south, hoping to rescue his personal
+friends, who were now prisoners in Glasgow. Yet again his judgment
+failed him, and instead of attacking the English general who was holding
+Huntly in check in the north of Aberdeenshire, he left him alone, and
+then found that without the Gordons he was not strong enough to cope
+with Leslie's army. Once more the mountains were his refuge, and from
+their shelter he crept out to attend the burial of his wife in the town
+of Montrose. On his way he probably passed the ruins of his castles,
+which had been burned by order of the covenanters.
+
+Owing to the special desire of the Scottish rulers every possible
+degradation was heaped on the imprisoned nobles, and it was a rare
+favour indeed when they were suffered to die on the block, and not by
+the common hangman. Lord Ogilvy was saved by his sister, who, like lady
+Nithsdale sixty years later, forced him to exchange his clothes for
+hers, and remained in his cell, ready to take the consequences.
+
+Then came the rumour that the king, with cropped hair like a Puritan and
+wearing a disguise, had ridden over Magdalen bridge at Oxford, attended
+by lord Ashburnham and Hudson, his chaplain, and entered the Scottish
+camp in the hope of softening his foes by submission. He was soon
+undeceived as to the way in which they regarded him, for before he had
+even eaten or rested he was begged--or bidden--to order the surrender of
+Newark, which still held out, and to command Montrose to lay down his
+sword. Charles, whose manhood returned to him in these hours of
+darkness, positively refused; but at Newcastle he found he was powerless
+to resist, and wrote to his faithful servant to disband his army and to
+go himself to France.
+
+In the letter which the marquis sent in reply he asks nothing for
+himself, but entreats the king to obtain the best terms possible for
+those that had fought for him, and the conditions arranged by Middleton
+were certainly better than either king or general expected. The men who
+had served in Montrose's wars were given their lives and liberty, and
+also were allowed to retain whatever lands had not been already handed
+over to other people. As to Montrose himself, he, with Crawford and
+Hurry the general, was to leave Scotland before September 1 in a ship
+belonging to the Committee of Estates. Should they be found in the
+country after that date death would be the penalty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After disbanding his army--or what was left of it--in the king's name,
+and thanking them for their services, Montrose went to Forfarshire to
+await the ship which was to convey him to France. But day after day
+passed without a sign of it, and the marquis soon became convinced that
+treachery was intended, and took measures to prevent it. Leaving old
+Montrose, he went to Stonehaven, another little town on the coast, and
+settled with a Norwegian captain to lie off Montrose on a certain day.
+So when, on August 31, the covenanting captain at last appeared, and
+declared his ship would not be ready to sail for another eight days--by
+which time, of course, Montrose's life would be forfeit--he found his
+bird flown; for the exile and a friend had disguised themselves and put
+off one morning in a small boat to the larger vessel that was waiting
+for them, and in a week were safe across the North Sea at Bergen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Norway was merely a stepping-stone to Paris, where the queen of
+England was living under the protection of her sister-in-law, Anne of
+Austria, and of the young king Louis XIV. The handsome pension allowed
+her in the beginning gradually ceased when the civil war of the Fronde
+broke out in 1648, and, as we know, she was found one day by a visitor
+sitting with her little girl, whom she had kept in bed because she could
+not afford a fire. And even at this time, in 1647, she always spent
+whatever she had, so from one cause or another no money was forthcoming
+to help Montrose, who perhaps did not understand the situation, and
+thought that she was unkind and careless of her husband's welfare. As
+often before, he spoke out his feelings when he would have done better
+to be silent, and pressed on the queen advice that was not asked for,
+and may not have been possible to follow. Yet, if he felt that there was
+no place for him in the little English court, ample evidence was given
+him of the high respect in which he was held elsewhere. The all-powerful
+minister, cardinal Mazarin, desired to enlist him in the French service,
+and the greatest nobles paid court to him. Montrose, however, was not
+the sort of man to find healing for his sorrows in honours such as
+these. He gave a grateful and courteous refusal to all proposals, and
+bidding farewell to his hosts, made his way to the Prague to offer his
+sword to the emperor Ferdinand. Like the rest, the emperor received him
+warmly, and created him a field-marshal, but there was no post for
+Montrose in the Austrian army, and in the end he joined some friends in
+Brussels, whence he kept up an intimate correspondence with Elizabeth of
+Bohemia, Charles I.'s sister, who was staying at the Hague with her
+niece, Mary of Orange, and the young prince of Wales.
+
+There in February arrived the news of the king's execution, and when he
+heard it Montrose vowed that the rest of his life should be spent in the
+service of his son, and in avenging his master. Charles II. did not like
+him; he was too grave and too little of a courtier; and besides, the new
+king had listened and believed the stories to his discredit brought by
+men whose fortunes had been ruined in their own country, and who sought
+to build them up in Holland! Charles soon found for himself how untrue
+were these tales, and though the two never could become friends, he
+recognised Montrose's loyalty and ability and appointed him
+commander-in-chief of the royal forces and lieutenant-governor of
+Scotland, and gave him leave to get what mercenaries he could from
+Sweden and Denmark.
+
+Full of hope, Montrose at once set off on his recruiting journey, and
+sent off some troops to the Orkneys to be drilled under the earls of
+Kinnoull and Morton; but Morton in a very short time caught fever and
+died. Meanwhile his friend, Elizabeth of Bohemia, looked on with
+distrust and alarm at her nephew's proceedings, for well she knew--as
+did Charles himself--that the surrender of Montrose would be the first
+article of any treaty made by the covenant. She even wrote to put
+Montrose on his guard; but he, judging the king by himself, believed the
+assurances of help and support given in Charles' own letters,
+accompanied by the gift of the garter, as a pledge of their fulfilment.
+He was bidden to lose no time in opening the campaign, but one thousand
+out of the one thousand two hundred men whom he despatched went down in
+a great gale, and only two hundred reached the shore. So April had come
+before the general had collected sufficient soldiers to march
+southwards, and by that time the forces of the enemy were ready to meet
+him.
+
+It was on April 27 that Montrose's last battle was fought at Carbisdale,
+near the Kyle, where the rivers Shin and Oykel reach the sea. The earl
+of Sutherland secured the passes of the hills, while colonel Strachan
+and a large body of cavalry approached from the south. When they arrived
+within a few miles of the royalist camp at the head of the Kyle,
+Strachan ordered two divisions of his cavalry to proceed under cover of
+some woods and broken ground, and only suffered a few horse, led by
+himself, to remain visible. These were seen, as they were meant to be,
+by Montrose's scouts, who, as at Philiphaugh, were either careless or
+treacherous or very stupid, and they brought back the report that the
+covenanting force was weak. Montrose, taking for granted the truth of
+their report, disposed of his foot on a flat stretch of ground, and
+ordered his horse to advance. Then the trees and the hills 'started to
+life with armed men'; the Orkney islanders fled without striking a blow;
+and though the foreign troops made a stout resistance, they were
+overpowered by numbers, and those of their leaders who were not dead
+were taken prisoners. Montrose, who was badly wounded, fought
+desperately on foot, but at length after much entreaty accepted the
+horse ridden by Sutherland's nephew and dashed away into the hills,
+throwing away as he did so his star, sword and cloak--a fatal act, which
+brought about his discovery and death. Their horses were next abandoned,
+and Montrose changed clothes with a peasant, and with young lord
+Kinnoull and Sinclair of Caithness plunged into the wild mountains that
+lay on the west.
+
+[Illustration: For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them
+to Caithness.]
+
+Now began for the three fugitives the period of bodily anguish that was
+to cease only with their lives. The country was strange to them, and was
+almost bare of inhabitants, so that for two days they sought in vain to
+find a road which might take them to Caithness, whence they could escape
+to France or Norway. During these two days they ate absolutely nothing,
+and passed the cold nights under the stars. At length Kinnoull, who had
+always been delicate, flung himself down on the heather, and in a few
+hours died of exhaustion. There his friends were forced to leave him,
+without even a grave, and wandered on, their steps and their hearts
+heavier than before, till a light suddenly beamed at them out of the
+dusk. It was a shepherd's cottage, where they were given some milk and
+oatmeal, the first food they had eaten since the battle; but the man
+dared not take them into his hut, lest he should bring on himself the
+wrath of the covenant for harbouring royalists, even though he knew not
+who they were.
+
+The reward offered for Montrose sharpened men's eyes and ears, and in
+two days he was discovered lying on the mountain side almost too weak to
+move. It was Macleod of Assynt to whom the deadly shame of his betrayal
+is said to belong, and Montrose prayed earnestly that the mercy of a
+bullet in his heart might be vouchsafed him. But the man who for many
+years had defied all Scotland could not be dealt with like a common
+soldier, so he was put on a small Shetland pony, with his feet tied
+together underneath, and led through roaring, hissing crowds, which
+pressed to see him in every town through which they had to pass. The
+wounds that he had received in the battle were still untouched, and he
+was feverish from the pain. This was another cause of rejoicing to his
+foes; but they were careful to give him food lest he should escape them
+as Kinnoull had done. And at each halting-place there came a minister to
+heap insults and reproaches on his head, which he seldom deigned to
+answer. But though the ministers of peace and goodwill had no words bad
+enough for him, one is glad to think that Leslie the general did what he
+could, and allowed his friends to see him whenever they asked to do so,
+and also permitted him to accept and wear the clothes of a gentleman,
+which were given him by the people of Dundee. It was to Leslie also that
+he probably owed a last interview with his two little boys, when he
+stopped for the night at the castle of Kinnaird, from which he had been
+married.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Dundee the prisoner was brought by ship to Leith, and taken to the
+palace of Holyrood, where he was received by the magistrates of the city
+in their robes of office, with the provost (or mayor) at their head.
+Here the order of the Parliament was read, and he listened 'with a
+majesty and state becoming him, and kept a countenance high.' Then his
+friends, who, like himself, were prisoners, were ordered to walk,
+chained two together, through the streets, and behind came Montrose,
+seated bareheaded on a chair in a cart driven by the hangman. The
+streets of the old town were crowded by people who came to mock and
+jeer, but remained dumb with shame and pity. The cart slowly went on its
+way, and at seven the Tolbooth prison was reached, with the gallows
+thirty feet high standing as it had stood twelve years before beside the
+city cross.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last days of Montrose were disturbed by the constant visits of
+ministers, who tried to force from him a confession of treachery to the
+covenant, but in vain.
+
+'The covenant which I took,' he said, 'I own it and adhere to it.
+Bishops I care not for. I never intended to advance their interest. But
+when the king had granted you all your desires, and you were everyone
+sitting under his vine and under his fig tree--that then you should have
+taken a party in England by the hand and entered into a league and
+covenant with them against the king was the thing I judged my duty to
+oppose to the yondmost.'
+
+These words are the explanation of Montrose's conduct in changing from
+one side to another; but little he guessed that the new king, by whose
+express orders he had undertaken his present hopeless mission, had only
+a few days before, at the conference of Breda, consented to bid his
+viceroy disband his army and to leave Scotland. This knowledge, which
+would have added bitterness to his fate, was spared him; as was the
+further revelation of the baseness of Charles II., who gave orders to
+his messenger not to deliver the document if he found Montrose likely to
+get the upper hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As an act of extraordinary generosity the Parliament, which had voted to
+colonel Strachan a diamond clasp for his share in the final defeat of
+Montrose, permitted the prisoner's friends to provide him with a proper
+dress, so that he might appear suitably before them. Their courtesy did
+not, however, extend to a barber to shave him--a favour which, as he
+said, 'might have been allowed to a dog.' But he must have looked very
+splendid as he stood at the bar of the House, in black cloth trimmed
+with silver, and a deep lace collar, with a scarlet cloak likewise
+trimmed with silver falling over his shoulders, a band of silver on his
+beaver hat, and scarlet shoes and stockings.
+
+A long list of his crimes was read to him, and these one by one he
+denied. 'For the league,' he said, 'I thank God I never was in it, and
+so could not break it. Never was any man's blood spilt save in battle,
+and even then, many thousand lives have I preserved. As for my coming at
+this time, it was by his majesty's just commands'--the commands of the
+king who a week earlier had abandoned him! But of what use are words and
+denial when the doom is already fixed? The chancellor's reply was merely
+a series of insults, and then the prisoner was ordered to kneel and hear
+the sentence read by Warriston, by whose side he had stood on the
+scaffold in 1638 when the first covenant was read, and old Lord Rothes
+had made his dark prophecy.
+
+He had known beforehand what it would be--hanging, drawing, and
+quartering, with a copy of his last declaration and the history of his
+wars tied round his neck, and no burial for his body unless he confessed
+his guilt at the last. This did not trouble him. 'I will carry honour
+and fidelity with me to the grave' he had said eight years before, and
+that no grave was to be allowed him mattered little.
+
+The ceremony over, he was led back to the Tolbooth, where his gaoler
+kept him free from the ministers who would fain have thrust their
+sermons and reproaches on the dying man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soldiers were early under arms on the morning of May 21, for even now
+the Parliament greatly dreaded a rescue. With the 'unaltered
+countenance' he had borne ever since his capture Montrose heard the
+beating of drums and trumpets, and answered calmly the taunt of
+Warriston as to his vanity in dressing his hair.
+
+'My head is yet my own,' said Montrose, 'and I will arrange it to my
+taste. To-night, when it will be yours, treat it as you please.'
+
+Every roof and window in the High Street and within sight of the city
+cross was filled with people as Montrose, clad in scarlet and black,
+walked calmly down at three that afternoon. 'Many of his enemies did
+acknowledge him to be the bravest subject in the world,' writes one who
+beheld him, and he walked up the steps as quietly as if he were taking
+his place to see some interesting sight.
+
+They feared him too much to allow him to speak to the crowd, as was the
+custom, but he addressed himself to the magistrates and the ministers
+who were standing on the platform. Once more he confessed his faith and
+his loyalty, and when, in accordance with the sentence, the hangman
+suspended the two books round his neck, he said, 'they have given me a
+decoration more brilliant than the garter.' Then he mounted the ladder,
+and the hangman burst into tears as he gave the last touch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So died Montrose, and eleven years later the king who had disowned him
+bethought him of his fate. In January 1661 the Parliament, which had
+been summoned by the restored monarch, Charles II., 'thought fit to
+honour Montrose his carcase with a glorious second burial, to compensate
+the dishonour of the first.' His limbs, which had been placed over the
+gates of the cities made memorable by his victories, remained in state
+at Holyrood for four months, and May 11 was fixed to lay them where they
+now rest, in the church of St. Giles. Heralds in their many-coloured
+robes arranged the procession, and the train-bands occupied the street
+to keep off the dense crowds. The magistrates, headed by the provost,
+walked two and two in deep mourning--had any of them taken part in that
+brutal scene eleven years ago?--and behind them came the barons and the
+burgesses. Next followed the dead man's kinsmen bearing his armour, the
+order of the garter, and his field-marshal's baton, and behind the
+coffin came his two sons and most of his kindred. Middleton, as lord
+high commissioner and representative of the king, occupied the place of
+honour, and brought up the rear in a coach drawn by six horses, with six
+bareheaded gentlemen riding on each hand.
+
+Thus was Montrose lowered into his grave to the sound of the guns that
+he loved, which thundered from the castle. He has a beautiful tomb in
+the old church of St. Giles, adorned with the coats-of-arms of the
+Grahams and Napiers and his other brothers-in-arms.
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD'S HERO
+
+
+On a dark January day in the year 1858 a little girl was running quickly
+downstairs for her play-hour with her elders. Just as she reached the
+foot of the staircase the drawing-room door opened, and her brother came
+out with a grave face. 'Havelock is dead!' said he, and at the news the
+little girl laid her head against the wall and burst into tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Who was this Havelock, that a strange child should care so much about
+him? Well, he was a man who worked hard and fought hard all the days of
+his life, never shirking his duty or envious of the good luck of others.
+Again and again those who had shared the burden and heat of the day with
+Havelock got rewards to which it might seem that he had an equal claim;
+still, whatever his disappointment he showed no sign, but greeted his
+fortunate friends cheerfully, and when it was required of him served
+under them with all his might. Just at the end the chance came to him
+also, and gloriously he profited by it.
+
+But if you want to know how that came about you must begin at the
+beginning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Henry Havelock was born at Bishop's Wearmouth, close to Sunderland, on
+April 5, 1795. His grandfather was a shipbuilder in the flourishing
+seaport town, and his son, Henry's father, became a partner in the
+business. The Havelocks soon made a name in the trade, and were given a
+commission to build the _Lord Duncan_, christened after the famous
+admiral, the largest ship ever launched from the port.
+
+Money flowed in rapidly, and when Henry was about three years old his
+father determined to leave the north and to go and settle at Ingress
+Hall, near Dartford, in Kent, which became the birthplace of his two
+youngest sons, Thomas and Charles.
+
+There was no school nearer than three miles, which was too far for them
+to walk, so to the great delight of Henry and his elder brother William
+ponies were given them, and even if they had disliked their lessons
+instead of being fond of books, the pleasure of the ride through the
+lanes would have made up for everything. As it was, they were always
+hanging about the front door long before it was time to start, and the
+moment the coachman brought out the ponies from the stable they would
+spring into their saddles in a great bustle, and clatter away over the
+grass, pretending that they were very late and would get bad marks if
+they did not hurry.
+
+All through Havelock's childhood the continent of Europe was under the
+foot of Napoleon, and was forced to submit to his rule. England only had
+stood aloof and refused his advances; yet she waited, with the dread
+that accompanies the expectation whose fulfilment is delayed, for an
+invasion of her own coasts. No story was too bad to be believed of
+'Boney,' and women are said to have frightened their naughty children
+into good behaviour by threatening to send for 'Boney' to carry them
+away. No doubt Havelock heard a great deal from his parents and
+schoolfellows of the desperate wickedness of 'Boney,' but, in spite of
+the terrible pictures that were drawn, the boy devoured eagerly all the
+newspapers wrote of the ogre's campaigns and his battles, and never
+joined in the outcry against him.
+
+Before Henry had passed his tenth birthday he was sent, with his brother
+William, to the Charterhouse School in the City of London, where he
+stayed for seven years. He was always bold and daring, so the other boys
+respected him, even though he did not care much for games, and, what was
+still worse in their eyes, was fond of Greek and Latin and always did
+his work. Still, though it was, they said, very silly for a boy to do
+more than he could possibly help, it must be admitted that Havelock
+never minded risking his neck when he was dared to do so, would climb
+trees or chimneys while others looked on awe-stricken, and would endure
+any punishment sooner than betray 'a fellow' who was caught.
+
+During these years of school Havelock had many battles of Napoleon's to
+study, and we may be sure that each one in its turn was thoroughly
+discussed with the friends who afterwards became celebrated in many
+ways--the historians, Grote and Thirlwall, Eastlake the painter, Yates
+the actor, and Macnaghten, afterwards murdered at Cabul, while Havelock
+was with the force on the way to relieve him. As they grew older they
+used to talk over the future together, and not one of them doubted that
+he would be in the front rank of whatever profession he might choose.
+'My mother wants me to be a lawyer, and she is sure that one day I shall
+be lord chancellor,' said Havelock, and no doubt every other mother was
+equally convinced of her son's genius. But before his school-days were
+over Mrs. Havelock died, to Henry's great grief, and then came the news
+that their father had lost a great deal of money, and they must leave
+Ingress Hall and move to a smaller house at Clifton.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 1813--the year of the battle of Leipzig, Henry Havelock would
+have told you--that the young man took the first step towards becoming
+'lord chancellor,' and was entered at the Middle Temple. He set to work
+with his usual energy, and when he was too tired to understand any more
+of what the law books taught him, he would take down a volume of poetry
+and read till he was soothed by the music of the words. But at the end
+of a year a change came into his life. His father, whose temper seems to
+have been ruined by the loss of his money, quarrelled with him about
+some trifling matter. Henry's allowance was withdrawn, and as he could
+not live in the Temple upon nothing he was forced to bid good-bye to the
+dream of the chancellorship.
+
+At this time in his life he was perplexed and unhappy, though he never
+gave up the strong religious faith which he had inherited from his
+mother. It was necessary that he should earn his living in some way, but
+he could not see what he was to do, and things were so uncomfortable at
+home that he wished to leave it as soon as possible.
+
+Happily he had not long to wait, for William, who had joined the 43rd
+Regiment and fought at Busaco and Salamanca and Waterloo, came home on
+leave, and solved the puzzle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the great battle which finally broke the power of Napoleon, William
+Havelock had been acting as aide-de-camp to baron von Alten, who had
+succeeded to the command of general Craufurd's division. We are told
+that William 'had done the baron a service' during the engagement, and
+that the general was anxious to prove his gratitude. The special
+'service' the young soldier had rendered is not mentioned, but we may
+take it for granted that William Havelock had in some way saved his
+life. However, in answer to the general's offer of reward, William said
+that he had all he could possibly wish for, and so the matter ended for
+the moment. But when he came home, and found Henry with all his plans
+changed, and not knowing how to set about making a career for himself,
+the baron von Alten's words flashed into his mind.
+
+'You were always fond of soldiering,' he said to Henry one day, 'and I
+believe you could describe the battles I have fought in almost as well
+as I could. If the baron can give me a commission for you, will you take
+it? I am sure you would make a splendid soldier.'
+
+Henry's eyes beamed. Somehow he had never thought of that. At the
+Charterhouse he had been laughed at for his love of books, and called
+the 'Phlos.'--short for 'Philosopher'--by the boys. He had always, too,
+been very religious, and after his mother's death (which occurred when
+he was about fourteen) had gathered four of his special friends round
+him once or twice a week in the big dormitory where they all slept, in
+order that they might read the Bible together. Yet there was in Havelock
+much of the spirit of the old crusader and of his enemy, the follower of
+Mahomet the prophet, and though, unlike them, he did not deal out death
+as the punishment of a rejected faith, still he positively delighted in
+fighting, and indeed looked on it as a sacred duty.
+
+So the commission was obtained, and Henry, now second lieutenant in the
+Rifle Brigade, then called the 95th, was sent to Shorncliffe, and
+captain Harry Smith was his senior officer. The Boer war has made us
+very well acquainted with the name of this gentleman, for in after years
+it was given to the town of Harrismith in South Africa, while his wife's
+has become immortal in 'Ladysmith.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Young Havelock, who was still under twenty-one, made fast friends with
+his captain, and listened eagerly to all he could tell of the Punjaub,
+where Smith had seen much of service. How he longed to take part in such
+deeds! But his turn was slow in coming, and for eight years he remained
+inactive in England, while the nation was recovering as best it could
+from the strain of the Peninsular War. Most of his messmates grumbled
+and fretted at having 'nothing to do,' but this was never Havelock's
+way, for if he could not 'do' what he wanted, he did something else. The
+young man, only five feet six inches in height, with the long face and
+eyes which looked as if they saw things that were hidden from other
+people, spent his spare time in studying all that belonged to his
+profession. For hours he would pore over books on fortification and
+tactics, and try to find for himself why this or that plan, which seemed
+so good, turned out when tried a hopeless failure. He had always a pile
+of memoirs of celebrated soldiers round him, and often bored his
+brother-officers by persisting in talking of the campaigns of
+Marlborough or Frederick the Great, instead of discussing the balls or
+races that filled their minds. Still, though he made the best of the
+circumstances in which he found himself, he looked forward to the
+prospect of going to India, where William and Charles already were.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But to get to India it was needful to exchange into another regiment,
+and Henry was gazetted to the 13th Light Infantry. The process took some
+time, but as usual he found some work for himself, and prepared for his
+future life by taking lessons in Persian and Hindostanee.
+
+Now there is no better way of learning a language than to teach it to
+somebody else, and on the voyage out to Calcutta, which then took four
+months, some of the officers on board ship begged him to form a class in
+these two languages. Havelock had passed in London the examination
+necessary for the degree of a qualified Moonshee, or native tutor, and
+his Persian was so good that regularly throughout his life, when his
+superior officers wished to mark their appreciation of his services,
+they recommended him for an interpretership! Therefore during those
+tedious four months, when land was seldom seen, and the ship sailed on
+from St. Helena, whose great captive had not been two years dead, to the
+Cape of Good Hope and the island of Ceylon, the little band of students
+met and struggled with the strange letters of the two tongues, and by
+the time the ship _General Kyd_ arrived at Calcutta in May 1823,
+Havelock's pupils could all talk a little, and read tolerably.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first it seemed as if life in India was going to be as quiet as life
+in England, but in 1824 the king of Ava, a Burmese city, demanded that
+Eastern Bengal should be given up to him, or war would be instantly
+declared. The answer sent to the 'Lord of the Great White Elephant' was
+a declaration of war on the part of our viceroy in India. Sir Archibald
+Campbell was given the command of the invading force, and he appointed
+Havelock to be his deputy-assistant adjutant-general.
+
+It was the young man's first taste of warfare, and a very bitter one it
+proved to be. The experiences of Marlborough and Frederick on the
+battlefields of Europe were of little use in the jungle, where the
+Burmese knew a thousand hiding-places undreamed of by the English, who
+had the unhealthy climate to fight against as well. At last Havelock
+fell ill like the rest, and was sent to his brother, then stationed at
+Poonah, not far from Bombay, to recover his health.
+
+Havelock went very unwillingly; he was doing his work to the
+satisfaction of the general, and he knew it; besides, he could not help
+thinking that before he got better the war might have ended, or someone
+else might be filling his place. However, there was no help for it, and
+as soon as he was on board ship he began to feel for the first time how
+ill he had really been. Once at Poonah he soon recovered, and in June
+was able to return to the camp in Burmah.
+
+For a long while it had been Havelock's habit to hold a sort of Bible
+class for any of the men whom he could persuade to come to it; and not
+only did he give them religious teaching, but he made them understand
+that he expected them to 'live soberly, righteously, and godly,' as the
+Catechism says. They were not to quarrel, or to drink too much, or to do
+as little work as possible. They were to tell the truth, even if it got
+them into trouble, and they were to bear the hardships that fall to the
+lot of every soldier--hunger and thirst, heat and cold--without
+grumbling. And the men accepted his teaching, and tried to act up to it,
+because they saw that Havelock asked nothing of them that he did not
+practise himself.
+
+'Havelock's Saints' was their nickname among the rest of the camp, but
+sometimes even their enemies were forced to admit that 'Havelock's
+Saints' had their uses. One night sir Archibald Campbell ordered a
+sudden attack to be made on the Burmese by a certain corps. The
+messenger or orderly who was sent with the order returned saying that
+the men were too drunk to be fit for duty.
+
+'Then call out Havelock's Saints,' said the commander-in-chief; '_they_
+are always sober and to be depended upon, and Havelock himself is always
+ready.'
+
+So the night attack was made by the 'Saints,' and the position carried.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the end of the Burmese war Havelock returned to his regiment, then
+commanded by colonel Sale, who became his lifelong friend. All he had
+gained in Burmah, except experience, was the rank of a Burmese noble,
+conferred on him by the 'Golden King' on account of his services in
+making the treaty of peace. This cost the 'Lord of the White Elephant'
+nothing, and did no good to Havelock; and six months after the troops
+left Burmah he was glad to accept the adjutancy of a regiment in a
+pleasant part of India, near some friends. Here he became engaged to be
+married to Miss Marshman, daughter of a missionary, and the wedding-day
+was soon fixed. Early that morning the bridegroom received a message
+that he must go up at once to Calcutta in order to attend a
+court-martial to be held at twelve o'clock. Calcutta was a long way from
+Chinsurah, and as he was bound to be present at the military trial most
+men would have put off the marriage till the following day. But Havelock
+was different from other people. He sent one messenger to order the
+fastest boat on the river to be in waiting, and another to inform the
+bride and her father that they must get ready as quickly as possible.
+The ceremony was performed without delay, and as soon as it was over
+Havelock ran down to his boat. For several hours he sat in the stifling
+court, hearing witnesses and asking them questions as coolly as if there
+had been no marriage and no bride, and when the proceedings were ended,
+and the sentence passed, he stepped on board the boat again, and arrived
+at Chinsurah in time for the wedding dinner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After he had been at Chinsurah for four years the Government thought
+they could do without an adjutant, and thus save money. This fell hardly
+on Havelock, who was very poor, and when he went back to his regiment
+his wife and child had to live in two tiny rooms on the ramparts. Mrs.
+Havelock never complained, but in a hot climate like India plenty of
+space and air are necessary for health, and both father and mother were
+terrified lest the baby should suffer. However, very soon the new
+governor-general gave him the adjutancy of his own regiment, then at
+Agra, and things grew brighter. His days were passed in drilling and
+looking after his men, but he still took thought for their welfare in
+their spare hours, and managed to get some chapels put up for them, and
+to open a coffee-house, with games and books, which he hoped might keep
+them out of mischief.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now at this date, and for many years after, it was the custom in the
+English army that the officers should _buy_ their promotion, unless a
+vacancy occurred by death. Havelock was a poor man, and like many
+well-known Indian soldiers had to depend for luck on his 'steps,' or
+advancement. If, like Havelock, officers exchanged into other regiments,
+they were put back to the bottom of the list, and had to work their way
+up all over again.
+
+Besides this there were _two_ armies in India, one belonging to the
+English sovereign, and the other to the East India Company's Service,
+under which near a hundred years before Clive had won his battles. It
+was the officers serving under 'John Company,' as it was called, who had
+all the 'plums' of the profession; who governed large provinces, made
+treaties with the native princes, and gave orders even to the general
+himself. Outram, who afterwards entered Lucknow side by side with
+Havelock; sir Henry Lawrence, who died defending the city before Outram
+and Havelock fought their way in; John Nicholson, who was killed in the
+siege of Delhi, and hundreds of other well-known men, all wore the
+Company's colours and received rewards. For the officers of the royal
+army it was no uncommon thing for a man to wait fifty years before being
+made a general, as lord Roberts's father waited; so, although it was
+very disheartening for Havelock to see young men, with not half his
+brains but with ten times his income, become captains and majors and
+colonels over his head, he knew well what he had to expect, and also
+that he possessed thousands of companions in misfortune.
+
+By-and-by the Company's army was done away with, and India is now ruled
+in an entirely different way.
+
+It was in the autumn of 1836 that Havelock sent up his wife and little
+children for a change to a hill station called Landour. The cool air and
+quiet were very restful after the heat of the summer, and at last they
+were all able to sleep, instead of tossing to and fro through the dark
+hours, longing for the dawn.
+
+One night the moon was shining brightly, and Mrs. Havelock had stepped
+out on her verandah before she went to bed, and thought how beautiful
+and peaceful everything looked. A few hours later she was awakened by a
+dense smoke, and jumping up found that the house was on fire all round
+her. She snatched up her baby and opened the door to get to the room
+where the two little boys were sleeping with their ayah, or nurse, but
+such a rush of flames met her that she staggered back and fell. In an
+instant her thin nightdress was on fire, and she was so blinded by the
+glare and the smoke that she did not know which way to turn. Happily one
+of the native servants heard the noise, and, wrapping a wet blanket
+about him which was too damp to burn, he managed to crawl over the floor
+and drag her through the verandah to a place of safety. He then ran back
+and succeeded in reaching the two boys and putting them beside their
+mother, but not before the eldest had been badly burnt.
+
+[Illustration: He managed to crawl over the floor.]
+
+As for the baby, she died in a few days, and it was thought that her
+mother, who had been borne unconscious to the house of a neighbour,
+could hardly survive her many hours.
+
+Such was the news which reached Havelock at Kurnaul, where the regiment
+was now stationed. It was a crushing blow to him, but, with a violent
+effort to control himself, he sent a hasty request to the colonel for
+leave, and arranged the most important parts of his work, so that it
+might be carried on by another officer. He had just finished and was
+ready to start when a message was brought in from the men of his
+regiment, who were waiting below, begging that he would speak to them
+for one moment. Half dazed he hurried out to the courtyard, and then the
+sergeant stepped forward from the ranks, and in a few words told him of
+the sorrow with which all his company had heard of the terrible
+calamity, and hoped that he would accept a month of their pay to go
+towards replacing the burnt furniture.
+
+Havelock was touched to the heart, and his eyes filled with tears of
+gratitude. His voice shook as he stammered out his thanks, but he could
+not take their savings, though to the end of his life he never forgot
+the kindness of their offer. Happily Mrs. Havelock did not die, and in a
+few months was as well as ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1838, when Havelock had been twenty-three years a soldier, he
+obtained his captaincy by the death of the man above him, and in the end
+of the same year the war with Afghanistan gave him another chance of
+distinguishing himself.
+
+It was a very unfortunate and badly managed business. The native ruler,
+the Ameer or Dost Mohammed, who had for twelve years governed the
+country fairly well, was deposed, and a weak and treacherous prince,
+hated by all the Afghans, was chosen by us to replace him. This could
+only be done by the help of our troops, and although Englishmen who knew
+Cabul pointed out to the governor-general the folly of his course, lord
+Auckland would listen to no one, and the expedition which was to finish
+in disaster was prepared.
+
+Havelock's old friend sir Willoughby Cotton was given the command of the
+part of the army destined for Afghanistan itself, while the other half
+remained as a reserve in the Punjaub. Cotton appointed Havelock his
+aide-de-camp, greatly to his delight, and at the end of December 1838
+the march began. As far as the Indus things went smoothly enough, but
+after that difficulties crowded in upon them. They had deserts to cross,
+and not enough animals to drag their guns and waggons, food grew scarcer
+and scarcer, and at length the general ordered 'famine rations' to be
+served out. It was winter also, and the country was high and bitterly
+cold, and April was nearly at its close before the city of Candahar was
+reached. Here sickness broke out among the troops, and they were obliged
+to wait in the town till the crops had ripened and they could get proper
+supplies for their march to Cabul.
+
+The first step towards winning Cabul was the capture of Ghuzni, a strong
+fortress lying two hundred and seventy miles to the north of Candahar.
+This was carried by assault during the night, the only gate not walled
+up being blown open by the English. In the rush into the town which
+followed, colonel Sale was thrown on the ground while struggling
+desperately with a huge native, who was standing over him.
+
+'Do me the favour to pass your sword through the body of the infidel,'
+cried Sale, politely, to captain Kershaw, who had just come up. The
+captain obligingly did as he was asked, and the Afghan fell dead beside
+his foe.
+
+[Illustration: The captain obligingly did as he was asked.]
+
+Early in August the British army reached the town of Cabul, on the river
+of the same name, and found that the Dost Mohammed had fled into the
+mountains of the Hindu Koosh, leaving the city ready to welcome the
+British. As everything was quiet, and the army was to remain in Cabul
+for the winter, Havelock obtained permission to go back to Serampore,
+near Calcutta, in the hope of bringing out a book he had been writing
+about the march across the Indus. Unluckily this book, like the two
+others he wrote, proved a failure; which was the more unfortunate as, in
+order to get it published, Havelock had been obliged to refuse sir
+Willoughby Cotton's offer of a Persian interpretership. But he needed
+money for his boy's education, and thought he might obtain it through
+his book. Therefore this lack of a sale was a bitter disappointment to
+him.
+
+Just at that time a company of recruits had been raised for service in
+Cabul, and in June 1840 Havelock started in charge of them from
+Serampore. He had the whole width of India to cross, and at Ferozepore,
+on a tributary of the Indus, he joined general Elphinstone, the
+successor of Cotton, who was retiring. Why Elphinstone should have been
+chosen to conduct a war which the mountainous country was certain to
+render difficult is a mystery, and another mystery is why Elphinstone
+should have accepted the appointment, as he was so crippled with gout
+that he could hardly move. However, there he was, commander-in-chief of
+this part of the expedition, and from this unwise choice resulted many
+of the calamities which followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The general could not travel fast, and it was more than six months
+before they reached Cabul. Havelock, now Persian interpreter to
+Elphinstone, was much disturbed at the condition of things that they
+found on their arrival, and at the folly which had lost us the support
+of the native hill tribes, who had hitherto acted as our paid police and
+guarded the passes leading into the Punjaub. So when Sale's brigade,
+with a native regiment, a small force of cavalry and artillery, and a
+few engineers under the famous George Broadfoot, marched eastwards up
+the river Cabul, they discovered that the passes had all been blocked by
+the mountaineers, who were ready to spring out and attack the English
+from all sorts of unsuspected hiding-places.
+
+Now Havelock had not drawn his sword since the end of the Burmese war,
+and directly he saw a chance of fighting he had begged to be allowed to
+accept the appointment of staff-officer offered him by Sale. This was
+given him, and the troops had only gone a few miles from Cabul when the
+fighting began, and Sale was severely wounded.
+
+It is impossible to tell all the details of the march, but much of the
+burden of it fell on Havelock's shoulders, as Sale could not go about
+and see after things himself. Here, as always, he proved himself, as
+Kaye the historian says, 'every inch a soldier.' 'Among our good
+officers,' wrote Broadfoot at the time, 'first comes captain Havelock.
+The whole of them together would not compensate for his loss. He is
+brave to admiration, invariably cool, and, as far as I can see or
+judge, correct in his views.'
+
+All along the march up the Cabul these qualities were badly needed, for
+it was necessary to watch night and day lest the little army should be
+taken unawares by the hill tribes. At last the rocky country was left
+behind, and they halted in the rich and well-wooded town of Gundamak, to
+rest for a little and to wait Elphinstone's orders. The letters, when
+they came, told a fearful tale. The Afghans had risen in Cabul; Burnes,
+the East India Company's officer in Afghanistan, had been murdered,
+together with other men, among them Broadfoot's brother, and though
+there were five thousand British troops stationed only two miles away,
+as Havelock well knew, they had never been called out to quell the
+insurrection.
+
+Under these circumstances Elphinstone implored Sale to return without
+delay to Cabul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A council of war was held to decide what was to be done. They all saw
+that if it had been difficult to get through the passes before, it would
+be almost impossible now, when the success at Cabul had given fresh
+courage and audacity to the hill-men, and thousands who had hung back
+waiting to know if the insurrection would be successful or not would
+have rushed to the help of their country. Besides, with five thousand
+fresh troops close to the city, the English could hardly be in such
+desperate straits. So Sale decided to disobey Elphinstone's orders and
+to push on to Jellalabad further up the river.
+
+Jellalabad was not reached without much fighting, and when they entered
+the town it was clear that it would not be easy to hold, and that the
+walls stood in much need of repair. However, Broadfoot was the kind of
+man who felt that whatever _had_ to be done _could_ be done, and he
+turned out his corps, consisting of natives of every tribe, to work on
+the fortifications. Happily he had brought with him from Cabul all the
+tools that were necessary, and the Afghan fire which poured in upon them
+was soon checked by Colonel Monteath, who scattered the enemy for the
+time being.
+
+This left the garrison a chance of getting in supplies; but they were
+short of powder and shot, and orders were issued that it should not be
+used unnecessarily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the morning of January 8, 1842, three Afghans rode into the town,
+bearing a letter from Cabul, signed both by sir Henry Pottinger and
+general Elphinstone. This told them that a treaty had been concluded by
+which the English had agreed to retire from Afghanistan, and bidding
+Sale to quit Jellalabad at once and proceed to India, leaving behind him
+his artillery and any stores or baggage that he might not be able to
+carry with him.
+
+With one voice the council of war, which was hastily summoned, declined
+once more to obey these instructions, which they declared had been wrung
+out of Elphinstone by force. Jellalabad should be held at any cost, and
+the news that they received during the following week only strengthened
+their resolution. The British in Cabul were hemmed in by their enemies,
+the cantonments or barracks were deserted, and the sixteen thousand
+fugitives had been surrounded outside the city by Afghan troops led by
+the son of the Dost Mohammed. These things gave the defenders of
+Jellalabad enough to think of, and to fear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five days later some officers on the roof of a tall house were sweeping
+the horizon with their field glasses to see if there was any chance of
+an attack from the Afghans, who were always hovering about watching for
+some carelessness on the part of the besieged. But gaze as they might,
+nothing was moving in the broad valley, or along the banks of the three
+streams which watered it. They were turning away satisfied that at
+present there was no danger, when one of them uttered a sudden cry, and
+snatching the glasses from his companion, exclaimed, 'Yes, I am right. A
+man riding a pony has just come round that corner. It is the Cabul road,
+and his clothes are English. Look!'
+
+The others looked, and saw for themselves. The pony's head drooped, and
+he was coming wearily down the road, while it was clear that the rider
+was urging the poor beast to his best speed. A chill feeling of disaster
+filled the little group; they hastened down to the walls and gave a
+shout of welcome, and the man waved his cap in answer.
+
+'Throw open the gate,' said the major, and they all rushed out to hear
+what the stranger had to tell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a fearful tale. The general in Cabul had listened to the promises
+of the son of the Dost Mohammed, and had ordered the five thousand
+troops and ten thousand other hangers-on of the British army to leave
+their position, in which they were safe, and trust themselves solely to
+the Afghans. Cold, hungry, and tired they struggled to the foot of the
+mountains; then the signal was given, the Afghans fell on their victims,
+and the few who escaped were lost among the snows of the passes. Only
+Dr. Brydon had been lucky enough to strike a path where no one followed
+him, and in spite of wounds and exhaustion had managed to reach the
+walls of Jellalabad.
+
+In silence the men listened, horror in their faces. It seemed impossible
+that Englishmen should have walked blindfold into such a trap, and
+besides the grief and rage they felt at the fate of their countrymen
+another thought was in the minds of all. The Afghans would be
+intoxicated by their success, and at any moment might swoop down upon
+the ill-defended Jellalabad. Instantly the gates were closed, the
+horses saddled, and every man went to his post. At night bonfires were
+lit and bugles sounded every half-hour to guide to the city any
+fugitives that might be hiding in the woods or behind the rocks. But
+none came--none ever came save Brydon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Sale was daily expecting a relief force under Wild; but
+instead there arrived the news that Wild had been unable to fight his
+way through the terrible Khyber Pass--the scene of more than one tragedy
+in Indian history.
+
+In face of this a council of war was again held to consider what was
+best to be done. Most of the officers wished to abandon the city and
+make terms with the Afghans, in spite of the lesson that had already
+been given them of what was the fate of those who trusted to Afghan
+faith. Only Broadfoot and Havelock opposed violently this resolution,
+and in the end their views prevailed. Jellalabad was to be defended by
+the garrison till general Pollock arrived from the East.
+
+So matters went for the next three months. By this time the raw troops
+that had entered the city had become steady and experienced soldiers.
+There was a little fighting every now and then, which served to keep up
+their spirits, and though food needed to be served out carefully, they
+were able sometimes to drive in cattle from the hills, which gave them
+fresh supplies. On February 19 Sale received a letter from general
+Pollock asking how long they could hold out, and he was writing an
+answer at a table, with Havelock beside him, when suddenly the table
+began to rock and the books slid on to the ground. Then a whirlwind of
+dust rushed past the window, making everything black as night, and the
+floor seemed to rise up under their feet.
+
+[Illustration: Suddenly the table began to rock.]
+
+The two men jumped up, and, blinded and giddy as they were, made their
+way outside, where they were nearly deafened with the noise of tumbling
+houses and the cries of hurt and frightened people. It was no use to
+fly, for havoc was all round them, and they were no safer in one place
+than another. At last the earth ceased to tremble and houses to fall;
+the dust stopped dancing and whirling, and the sun once more appeared.
+
+During the first shock of the earthquake Broadfoot was standing with
+another officer on the ramparts, his eyes fixed on the defences, which
+had caused him so much labour, and were now falling like nine-pins.
+
+'This is the time for Akbar Khan,' he said, and if Akbar had not dreaded
+the earthquake more than British guns the massacre of Cabul would have
+been repeated in Jellalabad. But though Akbar feared greatly, he knew
+that his soldiers feared yet more; he waited several days till the earth
+seemed peaceful again, and then rode up to a high hill from which he
+could overlook the city.
+
+'Why, it is witchcraft!' he cried, as he saw the defences all in their
+places; for Broadfoot's men had worked so well that in a week everything
+had been rebuilt exactly as before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+March passed with some skirmishes, but when April came the senior
+officers told Sale that they strongly advised an attack on Akbar, who,
+with six thousand men, had taken up a position on the Cabul river two
+miles from Jellalabad, and had placed an outpost of three hundred picked
+men only three-quarters of a mile outside the walls. Broadfoot had been
+badly wounded in a skirmish a fortnight before, and could not fight, so
+the attacking party, consisting of three divisions of five hundred each,
+were led by Dennie, Monteath and Havelock. Dennie was mortally wounded
+in trying to carry the outpost, and Havelock halted and formed some of
+his men into a square to await Akbar's charge, leaving part of his
+division behind a walled enclosure to the right.
+
+Having made his arrangements, Havelock stood outside the square and near
+to the wall, so that he could command both parties, and told his troops
+to wait till the Afghans were close upon them before they fired; but in
+their excitement they disobeyed orders, and Havelock's horse, caught
+between two fires, plunged and threw him. In another moment he would
+have been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry had not three of
+his soldiers dashed out from the ranks and dragged him into the square.
+
+[Illustration: In another moment he would have been trampled under the
+feet of the Afghan cavalry.]
+
+The enemy were thrown into confusion and retired to re-form. They
+charged again, and were again repulsed, and by seven that morning
+Akbar's camp was abandoned and his power broken.
+
+Pollock's assistance had not been needed; the garrison of Jellalabad had
+delivered themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no room in this story to tell of the many wars in which
+Havelock took part during the next fifteen years, always doing good work
+and gaining the confidence of his commanding officers. He fought in the
+war with the Mahrattas in 1843, and was made lieutenant-colonel after
+the battle of Maharajpore. The following year he was fighting by sir
+Hugh Gough's side in the Punjaub against the Sikhs, who were the best
+native soldiers in India, and had been carefully trained by French
+officers. In this war four battles took place in fifty-five days, all
+close to the river Sutlej, but the last action at the village of Sobraon
+put an end to hostilities for two years to come.
+
+'India has been saved by a miracle,' writes Havelock, 'but the loss was
+terrific on both sides.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1849 Havelock, who had exchanged from the 13th into the 39th, and
+again into the 53rd, applied for leave of absence to join his family in
+England. It was his first visit home for twenty-six years, and
+everything was full of interest to him. His health had broken down, and
+if he had been rich enough he would certainly have retired; but he had
+never been able to save a six-pence, and there were five sons and two
+daughters to be educated and supported. Should he die, Mrs. Havelock
+would have a pension of 70 l. a year, and the three youngest children
+20 l. each till they were fourteen, when it would cease. This, in
+addition to 1,000 l. which he possessed, was all the family had to
+depend on.
+
+Therefore, leaving them at Bonn, on the Rhine, where teaching was good
+and living cheap, he returned to India in December 1851, rested both in
+mind and body, and in good spirits. To his great joy a few months later
+his eldest son was given the adjutancy of the 10th Foot, and he himself
+was promoted to various posts where the pay was good and the work light.
+Now that he had some leisure he went back to his books, and in a letter
+to his youngest son, George, on his fifth birthday, he bids him read all
+the accounts he can find of the battles that had just been fought in the
+Crimea--Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman--and when his father came home to
+England again he would make him drawings, and show him how they were
+fought. But little George had to understand the battles as best he
+might, for his father never came back to explain them to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After serving in Persia during the early part of 1857, Havelock was
+suddenly ordered to return to India to take part in the struggle which
+gave him undying fame, and a grave at Lucknow before the year was out.
+According to the testimony of Kaye the historian, for half a century he
+had been seriously studying his profession, and knew every station
+between Burmah and Afghanistan! 'Military glory,' says Kaye, 'was the
+passion of his life, but at sixty-two he had never held an independent
+command.'
+
+Now, in the mutiny which had shaken our rule to its foundation, all
+Havelock's study of warfare and all his experience were to bear fruit. A
+great many causes had led up to that terrible outbreak of the native
+soldiers, or sepoys, early in 1857. India is, as you perhaps know, a
+huge country made up of different nations, some of whom are Mahometans,
+or followers of the prophet Mahomet, and worshippers of one God, while
+most of the rest have a number of gods and goddesses. These nations are
+divided into various castes or classes, each with its own rules, and
+the man of one caste will not eat food cooked by the man of another, or
+touch him, or marry his daughter, lest he should become unclean.
+
+It is easy to see how an army composed of all these races would be very
+hard to manage, especially as it is impossible for any white man, who is
+used to changes going on about him, really to understand the minds of
+people who have followed the same customs from father to son for
+thousands of years. And if it is difficult for the English officers to
+understand the Hindoos, it is too much to expect that soldiers without
+education should do so either.
+
+The true cause of the mutiny which wrought such havoc in so short a time
+in the north of India was that the number of our British soldiers had
+been greatly reduced, and some had been sent to the Crimea, some to
+Persia, and some to Burmah. Besides this, the government had been very
+weak for many years in its dealings with the native troops. Whenever the
+sepoys chose to grumble, which was very often indeed, their grievances
+were listened to, and they were generally given what they wanted--and
+next time, of course, they wanted more. To crown all, our arsenals
+containing military stores were mostly left unprotected, as well as our
+treasuries, and from the Indus to the Ganges the native army was waiting
+for a pretext to shake off the British rule.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This they found in an order given by the commander-in-chief that a new
+sort of rifle, called the Enfield rifle, should be used throughout
+India, and it was necessary that the cartridges with which it was loaded
+should be greased. As early as the month of January an English workman
+employed in the factory of Dumdum, near Calcutta, where the cartridges
+were made, happened one day to ask a sepoy soldier belonging to the 2nd
+Grenadiers to give him some water from his brass pot. This the sepoy
+refused, saying that he did not know what caste the man was of, and his
+pot might be defiled if he drank from it. 'That is all very fine,'
+answered the workman, 'but you will soon have no caste left yourself, as
+you will be made to bite off the ends of cartridges smeared with the fat
+of pigs and cows'--animals which the Hindoos held to be unclean.
+
+[Illustration: 'You will soon have no caste left yourself.']
+
+This story speedily reached the ears of the officer in charge at Dumdum,
+and on inquiry he found that the report had been spread through the
+native army that their caste was to be destroyed by causing them to
+touch what would defile them.
+
+General Hearsey, the commander of the Bengal division, instantly took
+what steps he could to prove to the sepoys that the government had no
+intention of making them break their caste, but it was too late.
+Chupatties, little cakes which are the common food of the people, were
+sent from town to town as a signal of revolt, and on February 19, 1857,
+the first troops mutinied.
+
+This was only the beginning; the message of the chupatties spread
+further and further, but even now the government failed to understand
+the temper of the people. The regiment which had been the earliest to
+rebel were merely disarmed and disbanded, and even this sentence was not
+carried out for five weeks, while they were allowed to claim their pay
+as usual. It is needless to say that in a few weeks the whole of
+Northern India was in a flame; the king of Delhi was proclaimed emperor,
+and every European who came in the way of the sepoys was cruelly
+murdered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was the state of things found by Havelock when he landed in Bombay
+from Persia, and was immediately sent on by the governor by sea to
+Calcutta, to resume his appointment of adjutant-general to the royal
+troops in Bengal. On the way his ship was wrecked, and he had to put in
+to Madras, where he heard that the commander-in-chief was dead, and
+that sir Patrick Grant, an old friend of Havelock's, had been nominated
+temporarily to the post.
+
+As soon as possible Havelock hurried on to Calcutta in company with
+Grant, and there the news reached them that Lucknow was besieged by the
+celebrated Nana Sahib, the leader of the sepoys and a skilful general,
+and that a force was being got ready to go to its relief.
+
+'Your excellency, I have brought you the man,' said Grant to lord
+Canning as he presented Havelock, and the command of the 64th and the
+78th Highlanders was entrusted to him. These last he knew well, as they
+had been with him in Persia, and he thought them 'second to none' in the
+service.
+
+But before you can understand all the difficulties Havelock had to fight
+with I must tell you a little about the towns on his line of march.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The instructions given to Havelock were to go first to the important
+city of Allahabad, situated at the place where the Ganges joins the
+Jumna. Allahabad had revolted in May, and the English garrison now
+consisted mainly of a few artillerymen between fifty and seventy years
+of age. Benares, the 'Holy City' of the Hindoos, a little further down
+the Ganges, had been saved by the prompt measures of the resident and
+the arrival of colonel Neill with a detachment of the 1st Fusiliers. The
+soldiers had come up from Madras and were instantly ordered to Benares,
+but when they reached the Calcutta station they found that the train
+which was to take them part of the way was just starting.
+
+The railway officials declared that there was no time for the troops to
+get in, and they would have to wait for the next train--many hours
+after. For all answer Neill turned to his troops, and told them to hold
+the engine driver and stoker till the company was seated. But for this
+the soldiers could not have got to Benares in time, for that very night
+had been fixed for the revolt.
+
+Having put down the rising at Benares, Neill pushed on over the eighty
+miles that separated him from Allahabad, the largest arsenal in India
+except Delhi. For five days the sepoys had been killing and plundering
+the British. On hearing of Neill's approach, two thousand of them
+encamped near the fort in order to hold it, but an attack of the
+Fusiliers soon dispersed them, and the commander ordered a large number
+to be executed in order to strike terror into the rest.
+
+Bad as was the state of things at Allahabad, where the railway had been
+destroyed and the garrison was weak, it was still worse in Cawnpore, a
+hundred and twenty miles higher up the Ganges. Here sir Hugh Wheeler was
+in command, and having spent his whole life among the sepoys it was long
+before he would believe in the tales of their treason. Even when at
+length his faith was partly shaken by the deeds done under his eyes, he
+still did not take all the precautions that were needful. His little
+fort, which was to be the last refuge of the sick and wounded, women and
+children, in case of attack, was a couple of barracks one brick thick,
+which had hitherto been used as a hospital, and in this he gave orders
+that provisions for a twenty-five days' siege should be stored. This was
+the place for which he intended to abandon the powder magazine, where he
+could have held the enemy at bay for months.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With inconceivable carelessness nobody saw that the orders for
+provisioning the fort were properly carried out, or the works of defence
+capable of resisting an attack. By May 22, however, even sir Hugh
+Wheeler was convinced that there was danger abroad, and he directed that
+the women and children, whose numbers were now swelled by fugitives
+from Lucknow and the surrounding towns, should be placed in it.
+Altogether the refugees amounted to about five hundred, and the force of
+men to defend them was about equal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The expected siege did not begin till June 6, when the plain which
+surrounds Cawnpore was black with sepoys, led by the treacherous Nana.
+For three weeks the prisoners inside the fort underwent the most
+frightful sufferings of every kind, and had it not been for the women
+the garrison would have tried to cut their way through to the river. As
+it was they felt they must stay--till the end.
+
+So the soldiers fought on, and the women helped as best they might,
+giving their stockings as bags for grape-shot, and tearing up their
+clothes to bind up wounds, till they had scarcely a rag to cover them.
+One, the gallant wife of a private of the 32nd, Bridget Widdowson,
+stood, sword in hand, over a number of prisoners tied together by a
+rope. Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her; her gun was
+instantly levelled at the hand which was trying to untie the rope, and
+not a man of them escaped while in her charge. By-and-by she was
+relieved by a soldier, and in his care many of them got away.
+
+[Illustration: Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her.]
+
+At length hope sprung up in their hearts, for Nana offered a
+safe-conduct for the garrison down the Ganges to Allahabad, if only sir
+Hugh Wheeler would surrender the city. It was a hard blow to the old
+general, and but for the women and children he and his men would gladly
+have died at their posts. But for their sakes he accepted the terms,
+first making Nana swear to keep them by the waters of the Ganges, the
+most sacred of all oaths to a Hindoo.
+
+The following morning a train of elephants, litters and carts was
+waiting to carry the sick, the women, and children down to the river, a
+mile away, for after their terrible imprisonment they were all too weak
+to walk; and behind them marched the soldiers, each with his rifle.
+Crowds lined the banks and watched them as they got into the boats, and
+pushed off with thankful hearts into the middle of the stream, leaving
+behind them, as they thought, the place where they had undergone such
+awful suffering. Suddenly those looking towards the shore saw a blinding
+flash and heard a loud report. Nana had broken his oath and ordered them
+to be fired on.
+
+One boat alone out of the whole thirty-nine managed to float down the
+stream, and the men in it landed and took refuge in a little temple, the
+maddened sepoys at their heels. But the fourteen Englishmen were
+desperate, and drove back their enemies again and again, till the sepoys
+heaped wood outside the walls and set it on fire. It was blowing hard,
+and the wind instead of fanning the flames put them out, and the
+defenders breathed once more. But their hopes were dashed again as they
+saw the besiegers set fire to the logs a second time, and, retiring to a
+safe distance, lay a trail of powder to blow up the temple. Then the men
+knew they had but one chance, and fixing their bayonets they charged
+into the crowd towards the river.
+
+When they reached the banks, seven had got through, and flung themselves
+into the stream. Half-starved and weak as they were, they could scarcely
+make head against the swift current, and three sank and disappeared. The
+other four were stronger swimmers, and contrived to hold out till they
+arrived at the territory of an Oude rajah who was friendly to the
+English.
+
+It was while they were resting here that they heard of the awful fate of
+their countrymen. After a time Nana had desired that the women and
+children should be spared, and the remnant were brought back to
+Cawnpore. They were lodged, all of them, in two rooms, and here these
+stayed, hardly able to breathe, and almost thankful when the expected
+doom fell on them. After their sufferings death was welcome, even though
+it came by the hand of Nana Sahib.
+
+All this time Havelock (now brigadier-general), ignorant of the horrors
+that were taking place, was advancing towards Cawnpore, which he knew
+must be in the hands of the English before it was possible to relieve
+Lucknow, lying further away across the plain to the north-west of
+Allahabad. Neill had sent forward a detachment of four hundred British
+soldiers and three hundred Sikhs under major Renaud, and Havelock, who
+had arrived in the town just as they were starting, promised to follow
+in a day or two, as soon as he could get ready a larger force. Eager
+soldier though he was, he had long ago laid to heart the truth of the
+old saying, 'for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe
+the horse was lost; for want of a horse the man was lost; for want of a
+man the kingdom was lost,' and he always took care that his nails were
+in their places. Therefore he waited a few days longer than he expected
+to do, and spent the time in enlisting a body of volunteer cavalry,
+formed partly of officers of the native regiments who had mutinied, of
+ruined shopkeepers, of fugitive planters, and of anybody else that could
+be taught to hold a gun.
+
+The general was still asleep in the hot darkness of July 1 when a tired
+horseman rode into camp and demanded to see him without delay. He was
+shown at once into the general's tent, and in a few short words
+explained that he had been sent by Renaud with the tidings of the
+massacre of Cawnpore.
+
+[Illustration: A tired horseman rode into camp.]
+
+Six days later 'Havelock's Ironsides,' numbering under two thousand men,
+of whom a fourth were natives, began the march to Cawnpore, and five
+days after the start they had won about half-way to the city the battle
+of Futtehpore. It was the first time since the mutiny broke out that the
+sepoys had been beaten in the field, and it shook their confidence,
+while it gave fresh courage to sir Henry Lawrence and the heroic band
+in the residency of Lucknow. But the relief which they hoped for was
+still many months distant, and Havelock was fighting his way inch by
+inch, across rivers, over bridges, along guarded roads, with soldiers
+often half-fed, and wearing the thick clothes that they had carried
+through the snows of a Persian winter. But they never flinched and never
+grumbled--they could even laugh in the midst of it all! During a fierce
+struggle for a bridge over the Pandoo river, one of the 78th Highlanders
+was killed by a round shot close to where Havelock was standing.
+
+'He has a happy death, Grenadiers,' remarked the general, 'for he died
+in the service of his country'; but a voice answered from behind:
+
+'For mysel, sir, gin ye've nae objection, I wud suner bide alive in the
+service of ma cuntra.' And let us hope he did.
+
+The guns across the bridge were captured with a dash, and the sepoys
+retreated on Cawnpore. In spite of their victory our men were too tired
+to eat, and flung themselves on the ground where they were. Next
+morning, July 16, they set out on a march of sixteen miles, after
+breakfasting on porter and biscuits, having had no other food for about
+forty hours.
+
+At the end of the sixteen miles march, which they had performed under a
+burning sun, the bugles sounded a halt. For three hours the troops
+rested and fed, and then two sepoys who had remained loyal to their salt
+came in with the news that in front of us Nana Sahib, with five thousand
+men and eight guns, was drawn up across the Grand Trunk road, down which
+he expected our guns to pass; and doubtless they would have been sent
+that way had it not been for the timely warning. Now Havelock, with a
+strong detachment, crept round through some mango groves between the
+enemy's left flank and the Ganges, and attacked from behind; the sepoys
+wheeled round in a hurry and confusion, and the Nana dared not order his
+right and centre to fire lest they should injure his own men, and before
+he could re-form them the pipers of the 78th had struck up and the
+Highlanders were upon them, the sound of the slogan striking terror into
+the heart of the Hindoos. Once more the Scots charged, led this time by
+Havelock himself, and the position was carried.
+
+Yet the Nana was hard to beat, and on the road to Cawnpore he halted
+again, and fresh troops streamed out from the gates to his help. It was
+his last chance; but he knew that the little British army was wearied
+out, and he counted on his reinforcements from the city. But Havelock
+noted the first sign of flagging as his men were marching across the
+ploughed fields heavy with wet, and knew that they needed the spur of
+excitement. 'Come, who is to take that village, the Highlanders or the
+Sixty-fourth?' cried he, and before the words were out of his mouth
+there was a rush forwards, and the village was taken.
+
+Still, even now the battle of Cawnpore was not ended. Once more the
+sepoys re-formed, but always nearer the city, and their deadly fire was
+directed full upon us. The general would have waited till our guns came
+up to answer theirs, but saw that the men were getting restless. So
+turning his pony till he faced his troops, while the enemy's guns were
+thundering behind him, he said lightly:
+
+'The longer you look at it the less you will like it. The brigade will
+advance, the left battalion leading.'
+
+The enemy's rout was complete, even before our guns had reached the
+field of battle. Next morning the news was brought in that while the
+battle for the deliverance was being fought the women and children
+inside the walls had been shot by order of the Nana. And, as a final
+blow, when, the day after, the victor rode through the gate of Cawnpore,
+a messenger came to tell him that his old friend sir Henry Lawrence, the
+defender of Lucknow, had been struck by a shell a fortnight previously,
+and had died two days later in great agony.
+
+'Put on my tombstone,' he gasped in an interval of pain, 'here lies
+Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty, and may God have mercy on
+him.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a while it seemed to Havelock that his whole mission had been a
+failure; and indeed he is said never to have recovered the two shocks
+that followed so close on each other, though there was no time to think
+about his feelings or indulge regret. Like Lawrence, he must 'try to do
+his duty,' and the first thing was to put the town in a state of defence
+lest the Nana should return, and sternly to check with the penalty of
+death the plundering and drunkenness and other crimes of his victorious
+army. Then, leaving Neill with three hundred men in Cawnpore, he
+prepared to cross the Ganges, now terribly swollen by the late rains,
+into the kingdom of Oude, of which Lucknow is the capital.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not for a moment did Havelock make light of the difficulties that lay
+before him. They would have been great enough with a large force, and
+his was now reduced to twelve hundred British soldiers, three hundred
+Sikhs, and ten guns, while cholera had begun to make its appearance.
+However, the passage had to be made somehow, and there must be no delay
+in making it.
+
+First, boats were collected, and as the boatmen secretly sided with the
+sepoys, the hundreds of little craft generally to be seen on the river
+had vanished. At length about twenty were found concealed, and as the
+Ganges was dangerous to cross in its present state, the old boatmen were
+bribed, by promises of safe-conduct and regular pay, to pilot the troops
+to the Oude bank. Even under their skilled guidance the river was so
+broad that a boat could not perform the passage under eight hours, and a
+week passed before the whole force was over and encamped on a strong
+position in Oude.
+
+Well, they were at last on the same side as Lucknow--that was something;
+but they still had forty-five miles to march, wide rivers to cross, and
+Nana to fight, and Havelock knew that the sepoy general had an instinct
+for war as keen as his own. But Lucknow must be relieved, and the sooner
+the work was begun the better.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days after the landing of the British a battle was fought at Onao
+against the steady, well-disciplined soldiers of Oude, whose gunners
+were said to be the best in India. The fighting was fiercer than any
+Havelock had yet experienced, but in the end the enemy was beaten back
+and fifteen guns taken. The next day there was another battle and
+another victory, but the general had lost a sixth of his men and a third
+of his ammunition--and he had only gone one-third of the way. Nana Sahib
+was hovering about with a large body of troops, ready to fall on him;
+how under the circumstances was it possible for him to reach Lucknow?
+
+Therefore, with soreness of heart, he gave the order to fall back till
+the reinforcements which he had been promised came up, and to send the
+sick and wounded, of which there were now many, across to Cawnpore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Deep was the gloom and disappointment of the 'Ironsides' as they marched
+back along the road they had come; but far deeper and more awful was the
+disappointment of the garrison at Lucknow. They had looked on relief as
+so near and so certain that their hardships seemed already things of the
+past. Now it appeared as if they were abandoned, and the horrors of the
+siege felt tenfold harder to bear. In the heat of an Indian summer the
+women and children were forced to leave the upper part of the residency,
+where at least there was light and air, and seek safety in tiny rooms
+almost under ground, where shot and shell were less likely to penetrate.
+These cellars were swarming with large rats, and, what was worse, there
+was a constant plague of flies and other insects. Luckily, sir Henry
+Lawrence had collected large stores before he died, and had hidden away
+a quantity of corn so securely that colonel Inglis, the present
+commander, had no idea of its existence, and not knowing how long the
+siege might last, was very careful in dealing out rations. There was no
+milk or sugar for the babies, and many of them died.
+
+[Illustration: The place was swarming with rats.]
+
+Meanwhile Neill sent over urgent requests that Havelock would come to
+his assistance in Cawnpore, as he was threatened on all sides and could
+not hold out in case of an attack. Most reluctantly the general gave
+the order to recross the Ganges, but before doing so gave battle to a
+body of troops entrenched in his rear, and caused them to retreat. This
+raised the spirits of his soldiers a little, and they entered Cawnpore
+in a better temper than they had been in since their marching orders had
+been given.
+
+It was while he was in Cawnpore that Havelock received notice that
+major-general Outram was starting from Calcutta to his assistance, and
+owing to his superior rank in the army would naturally take command over
+Havelock's head, as successor to major-general sir Hugh Wheeler. This
+Havelock quite understood, and though disappointed, felt no bitterness
+on the subject, welcoming Outram as an old friend, under whom he was
+ready to serve cheerfully.
+
+Outram's answer to the generous spirit of Havelock's reception was a
+proclamation which showed that he understood and appreciated the
+services which seemed so ill-rewarded by the government, and that he too
+would not be behindhand in generosity. Till Lucknow was taken Havelock
+should be still in command, and it was Outram himself who would take the
+lower position.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Havelock had entered Cawnpore for the second time, he gave orders
+to break down the bridges of boats which had been thrown across the
+Ganges, so as to check any pursuit from the enemy. Therefore a floating
+bridge must be built over which the troops might pass; and so hard did
+the men work, that in three days the little army, consisting, with
+Outram's reinforcements, of 3,179 soldiers, was once more in Oude.
+
+Here the sepoys were awaiting them, but they were soon put to flight and
+some guns captured. In the confusion of the retreat the defeated army
+quite forgot to destroy the bridge over the Sye, a deep river flowing
+across the plain between the Ganges and the Goomtee, so that when the
+British force arrived next day they found nothing to prevent their
+crossing at once, as even the fortifications on this further bank had
+been abandoned. Soon a faint noise, as of thunder, broke on their ears.
+The men looked at each other and said nothing, but their eyes grew
+bright and their feet trod more lightly.
+
+It was the sound of the guns of Lucknow, sixteen miles away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On September 23 the British army reached the Alumbagh, the beautiful
+park and garden belonging to the king of Oude. Opposite 12,000 sepoys
+were drawn up, the right flank being protected by a swamp. In front of
+them was a ditch filled with water from the recent heavy rains, and the
+road itself was deep in mud, so that the passage of heavy guns was a
+difficult matter. But the soldiers came along with a gallop and got
+through the ditch somehow, following our cavalry, which were already on
+the other side. On they flew, cavalry and gunners, wheeling so as to get
+behind the right of the sepoys, while Eyre's artillery, stationed in the
+road, raked with fire the centre and the left. The enemy wavered and
+showed signs of giving way, but one gun manned by Oude artillerymen
+remained steady. Then young Johnson, who led the Irregular Horse, dashed
+along the road for half a mile, followed by a dozen of his men, killed
+the gunners and threw the gun into the ditch. When he returned to his
+post the enemy was flying to the Charbagh bridge across the canal, with
+our army behind them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was no use attempting to take the bridge that day; the troops were
+exhausted and wet through, and the position strongly fortified. The
+order was given to encamp, but there were no tents and no baggage, and
+after drinking some grog which was fortunately obtained, the men lay
+down on the wet ground wrapped in their great-coats, the rain pouring
+heavily on them. But wet, weary and hungry as they were, a great shout
+of joy rent the air when Outram announced that he had just received news
+that Delhi had been recaptured by the English.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day the sun was shining, and as the baggage waggons came up the
+men changed the soaking clothes, and slept and rested while the generals
+anxiously discussed the best plan for getting into Lucknow. There were
+three ways to choose from, all full of danger and difficulty, but in the
+end it was decided to force the passage of the Charbagh bridge over the
+canal.
+
+This the enemy had evidently expected, for they had erected across it a
+barrier seven feet in height, with six guns, one a 24-pounder. Beyond
+the bridge, along the canal, were tall houses, and from every window and
+loophole a deadly fire would pour. And even supposing that the bridge
+was carried, the troops would have to pass through narrow streets and
+gardens and palaces, under showers of bullets at every step.
+
+Yet this seemed the only way to Lucknow.
+
+As for the sick and wounded, they were left with the stores and a guard
+of three hundred men at the Alumbagh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Breakfast was over by half-past eight on the morning of September 25,
+when the order was given to advance. The first opposition met with by
+the leading column, headed by Outram, was near the Yellow House, which
+lay along the road to the bridge. Here Maude, one of the best officers
+in the army, who was to win his V.C. that day, charged the two guns
+whose fire was so deadly, and silenced them, and the troops went on till
+they were close to the canal. Then Outram took the 5th Fusiliers and
+bore away to the right in order to clear the gardens of the sepoys
+hidden in them, and to draw off the attention of the enemy; lieutenant
+Arnold, with a company of the Madras Fusiliers, took his station on the
+left of the bridge with orders to fire at the houses across the canal,
+and right out in the open facing the bridge was Maude, with two light
+guns straight in front of the battery. In a bend of the road on one side
+some of the Madras Fusiliers supported him, and on the other side, a
+little way off, stood Neill and his detachment, waiting for the
+diversion to be made by Outram's movement.
+
+To Neill's surprise, not a trace of Outram was to be seen, and Maude
+stood shelterless, his gunners falling before the continuous fire from
+the bridge. Again and again the Fusiliers from behind filled their
+places, only to be swept down like the rest, and now Maude and a
+subaltern were doing the work.
+
+'You must do something,' called out Maude to young Havelock; 'I cannot
+fight the guns much longer.' Havelock nodded and rode through the fire
+that was raking the road to Neill, urging him to order a charge. But
+Neill refused. He was not in command, he replied, and could not take
+such a responsibility. The young aide-de-camp did not waste time in
+arguing, but hurried on to Fraser-Tytler, only to receive the same
+answer. Then, turning his horse's head, he galloped hard down the road,
+in the direction of the spot where his father was stationed. In a few
+minutes he was back and, reining up his horse at Neill's side, while he
+saluted with his sword, he said breathlessly:
+
+'You are to charge the bridge, sir.'
+
+It did not occur to Neill that there had not been time for young
+Havelock to have reached his father's position and come back so soon,
+and therefore that no such order could have been given by the general,
+and was simply the invention of the aide-de-camp himself. Quite
+unsuspiciously, therefore, he bade the buglers sound the advance, and
+Arnold, with twenty-five of his men, rushed on to the bridge and were
+instantly shot down. For fully two minutes Harry Havelock on his horse
+kept his position in front of the guns with only a private beside him,
+and the dead lying in heaps on all sides.
+
+'Come on! Come on!' he cried, turning in his saddle and waving his
+sword, while the fire from the houses was directed upon him, and a ball
+went through his hat.
+
+And they 'came on' with a rush, wave upon wave, till the guns were
+silenced and the barrier carried.
+
+The aide-de-camp had indeed 'done something.'
+
+[Illustration: The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The 78th Highlanders held the bridge for three hours till the whole
+force was over, and desperate fighting was going on all the time, for
+the enemy was coming up in dense numbers. At length a detachment
+advanced to a little temple further up the road, which was held by the
+sepoys, and succeeded in turning them out. But once inside, the
+Highlanders could only defend it with their swords, for the cartridges
+were so swelled by exposure to the rain that they would not go into the
+guns. After an hour, young Havelock, whose duty lay at the bridge, sent
+up some fresh cartridges, and then Webster, who from the shelter of the
+temple had been impatiently watching the action of three small cannon
+which had been firing down the Cawnpore road, exclaimed:
+
+'Who's for those guns?'
+
+'I'm for the guns!' they all shouted, and the temple door was opened and
+Webster leaped out, Macpherson, the adjutant, and the men following. The
+guns when captured were thrown into the canal, where those of the
+Charbagh bridge were already lying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps the most trying part of the whole campaign was the advance
+towards the residency through the narrow streets, where the very women
+flung down stones, and from the roofs and windows a ceaseless fire
+poured upon our men. Deep trenches had been cut along the cross-roads in
+order to make the horses stumble, and the smoke was so thick that men
+and beasts were nearly blinded. It was here that Neill fell, shot in the
+head, and Webster found a grave instead of the Victoria Cross, which
+would certainly have been given him. Then there was a rush forward, and
+they were within the gates.
+
+For the first few minutes the men did not know what they were saying or
+doing, so great was the excitement on both sides; but soon it was plain
+that the rescuing party were utterly exhausted, and needed rest, and
+what food might be forthcoming, which was neither good nor plentiful.
+Most of all they must have rejoiced in the possibility of changing their
+clothes, stiff with mud and wet, for Havelock tells us that he himself
+entered the city with one suit which had hardly been off his back for
+six weeks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Outram resumed his proper position as commander, and Havelock
+took a subordinate place as brigadier-general. But to him fell the task
+of making up his despatches and recommending certain of his men for the
+Victoria Cross. In this Havelock was especially begged by Outram to
+mention his son Harry for his gallantry on the Charbagh bridge; corporal
+Jakes, who was also worthy of the honour, had unhappily been killed
+later in the day. Unluckily, young Havelock had, against his own will,
+been previously recommended for the decoration by his father for an act
+of extraordinary bravery, but one which he had no sort of right to
+perform.
+
+In the battle of Cawnpore young Havelock, then a lieutenant in the 10th
+Foot, and aide-de-camp to his father, was sent to order the 64th, who
+had been under a heavy fire all day, and were now lying on the ground,
+to advance with some other regiments, and take a gun of twenty-four
+pounds, which was sweeping the road in front. The 64th at once formed
+up, but before they had started their major's horse was shot under him,
+and he was forced to dismount. Harry Havelock, carried away by
+excitement, never gave him time to get another, but calling on the men
+to follow him, rode straight to the mouth of the gun and stayed there
+till it was captured.
+
+Now of course this was a deed of wonderful courage, and no man denied
+it, but it is curious that so stern a supporter of discipline as
+Havelock did not see that his son had put himself in a position where he
+had no right to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery of
+the major, who except for the accident of his horse being shot would
+have led the men himself. But Havelock, full of pride in his son's
+action, insisted, to the great mortification of the 64th, on
+recommending him for the Victoria Cross, though the young man himself,
+when his excitement had calmed down, implored his father to leave out
+his name, declaring that the recommendation would be put down to
+affection. For a month he managed to delay the despatch, but in the end
+it was sent and the Cross granted. Therefore Outram's recommendation
+after the relief of Lucknow was disregarded, and only captain Maude's
+V.C. is associated with the Charbagh bridge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But although Havelock's force had successfully won its way into the
+residency of Lucknow, the town was in no way 'relieved,' for the British
+troops were few and the sepoys many. The besieging army crowded up as
+before, and bored mines under the buildings, which kept our men
+continually on the watch to hinder the town from blowing up. Every day
+Havelock went round the entrenchments, and then he returned to the
+house, to pass some hours in reading, for now that the frightful strain
+of the last six weeks was over he felt tired and broken, and unfit for
+work. Much of the time he spent in visiting the banqueting hall, which
+had months before been made into a hospital for the soldiers, but there
+was little that he or anyone else could do to help them, for all
+medicines and bandages and food suited to sick people had been used up
+long ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In this manner seven weeks went slowly by, while the garrison was
+waiting for the arrival of sir Colin Campbell, commander-in-chief in
+India, with an army of nearly five thousand men, a mere handful in
+numbers compared with the enemy, but yet enough to compass what is known
+in history as 'the second relief of Lucknow.' By November 9 news came
+that the British troops had reached the Alumbagh, but it was absolutely
+necessary that the commander-in-chief should know Outram's plans for the
+defence of the city, and tell him the manner in which he himself
+intended to attack.
+
+How was this to be done? The country lying between the two generals was
+covered with small detachments of sepoys carefully entrenched, and it
+seemed impossible for any man to pass through them. Yet without some
+knowledge of the sort and of the state of affairs in the residency the
+relief expedition could not advance without frightful loss, and might
+perhaps end in failure.
+
+Then there entered the room where Outram and Havelock were gloomily
+talking over the matter a man, Henry Cavanagh by name, who said that he
+would undertake to get through the pickets of sepoys and carry any
+message to the English camp. Outram was amazed. Brave though they all
+were, not one soldier had volunteered for this forlorn hope, not because
+they were afraid, but because if our maps and plans fell into the
+enemy's hands, the destruction of our army would certainly follow; and
+if a soldier could not do it, with all his experience of war, how could
+this man, who knew nothing of soldiering, except what he had learned
+during the siege? But when the general looked at Cavanagh's face his
+doubts vanished.
+
+Disguised as a native and speaking the language like one, Cavanagh made
+his way slowly through the lines till the open plain was reached. Here
+he breathed more freely, for, though many dangers awaited him, the worst
+risks were over. Often he had seen suspicion in the eyes of the sepoys,
+and felt that a terrible death was very near, but he had kept his head
+and got through somehow. At length he was within the Alumbagh and could
+speak with sir Colin face to face.
+
+[Illustration: Often ... he had felt that a terrible death was very
+near.]
+
+The return journey still lay before him, but now he knew better what he
+was about, and reached the residency without accident. On November 14
+the relieving force was to begin its advance on the town, and on the
+15th the general signalled that the attack would begin next day.
+
+This last fight was a desperate one for both sides, and continued far
+into the night, while at the Kaiserbagh, or king's palace, the fire was
+fiercest of all. The brave deeds that were done that day would fill a
+volume, but at length it was over, and Lucknow once more flew the
+British flag, planted on the highest tower of the mess house by the hand
+of young Roberts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Did Havelock, one asks oneself, know that this was his last fight also?
+He had been present during the whole struggle, but when it was done sank
+into the weakness which seemed daily to grow greater. The
+commander-in-chief had informed him--probably by means of Cavanagh--that
+on September 29 he had been gazetted major-general, and the somewhat
+tardily bestowed honour filled him with pleasure. If he had been able to
+see any English papers he would have known how eagerly the nation
+followed his footsteps, and how warmly they rejoiced in his success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The capture of Lucknow was only three days old when Havelock was taken
+suddenly ill. In order to get him away from the close, infected air of
+the town, he was carried in a litter to a quiet wooded place, called the
+Dilkoosha, near a bend of the river Goomtee, where a tent was pitched
+for him, but as the bullets of the enemy fell around him even here, a
+more sheltered spot had to be found for him to lie. His illness did not
+appear at first very serious, but he himself felt that he would not
+recover. Perhaps he hardly wished to, for he had 'fought a good fight,'
+and was too tired to care for anything but rest. His son, whose wound,
+received on the day of the fight for the residency, was still unhealed,
+sat on the ground by the litter, and gave him anything he wanted. For a
+time he lay quiet, and in the afternoon of the 23rd Outram came to see
+him, and holding out his hand, Havelock bade his friend good-bye.
+
+'I have so ruled my life for forty years that when death came I might
+face it without fear,' he said; and next morning death did come.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Marching on the 25th into the Alumbagh, the victorious army bore with
+them Havelock's body, still lying in the litter on which he died. They
+dug a grave for him under a mango tree, on which an H. was cut to mark
+the place--all they dared do with hosts of the enemy swarming round
+them, ready to offer insult to the dead who had defied them.
+
+Thus Henry Havelock died and was buried, though the news did not reach
+England for six weeks. So he never knew how the hearts of his countrymen
+had been stirred by his courage and his constancy, and that his queen
+had made him a baronet and Parliament had voted him a pension of
+1,000 l. a year, which was continued to his widow and to his son. But
+
+        Guarded to a soldier's grave
+        By the bravest of the brave,
+        He hath gained a nobler tomb
+        Than in old cathedral gloom.
+        Nobler mourners paid the rite
+        Than the crowd that craves a sight.
+        England's banners o'er him waved--
+        Dead, he keeps the realm he saved.
+
+
+
+
+CONSCIENCE OR KING?
+
+
+Now we come to quite another sort of hero; a man who enjoyed every day
+of his life, and loved books and music and pets of all sorts; who played
+with his children and made jokes with them; who held two of the greatest
+offices an Englishman can hold, yet laid his head on the scaffold by
+order of the king, because his conscience forbade him to swim with the
+tide and to take an oath that king demanded of him. If you try, you will
+find that this sort of heroism is more difficult than the other. There
+is no excitement about it, and no praise. Your friends talk of you with
+contempt, and call you a dreamer and a man who sacrifices his family to
+his own whims. And very often the family agree with him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'Verily, daughter, I never intend to pin my soul to another man's back,
+for I know not whither he may hap to carry it. Some may do for favour,
+and some may do for fear, and so they might carry my soul a wrong way.'
+
+These were the words of sir Thomas More to his favourite daughter when
+she came to him in prison, urging him to do as his friends had done, and
+swear to acknowledge the king as head of the church instead of the pope.
+All his life he had 'carried' his own soul himself, and that was no
+small thing to be able to say in the reign of Henry VIII., when men's
+hearts failed them for fear, not knowing from day to day what the tyrant
+might demand of them.
+
+Thomas More came of a family bred to the law, and his father, afterwards
+made a knight and a judge, seems to have been kindly and pleasant, and
+like his son in many ways, especially in his fondness for children. He
+set great store by books and learning, and taught Thomas to love them
+too. The boy was born when the Wars of the Roses were just over, and the
+country was beginning to settle down again. In London king Edward IV.
+was still the favourite of the people, and after his death, in 1483,
+Thomas, then five years old, happened to overhear a gentleman telling
+his father that it was prophesied duke Richard of Gloucester would be
+king. When the prophecy came to pass, and Richard snatched the crown for
+himself, many besides little Thomas were filled with wonder. For Richard
+had played his part so well that few guessed at what he really was, or
+that the murder of his nephews would be nothing to him, if he could
+mount the throne on their bodies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At that period boys were sent early to school, and after careful
+inquiries, John More decided to put his son under the charge of one
+Nicholas Holt, headmaster of St. Anthony's in Threadneedle Street, a
+school founded by Henry VI. Here Thomas spent most of his time in
+learning Latin, which it was necessary for a gentleman to know. Foreign
+languages were very little studied; instead, Latin was used; hence
+ambassadors addressed each other in that tongue, and in it men wrote
+letters, and often books. Thomas, who had been accustomed all his life
+to hear Latin quoted by his father and the lawyers who came to his house
+in Milk Street, soon mastered most of the difficulties, knowing well
+that he would be considered stupid and ignorant if when he left school
+he should ever make a mistake in his declensions, or forget the gender
+of a noun.
+
+When John More was satisfied with his son's progress in Latin, he got
+leave for him to enter, as was the custom, the house of cardinal Morton
+as a sort of page. Thomas was then about twelve, quick and observant,
+and though fond of joking, good-tempered and prudent, taking care to
+hurt the feelings of nobody. Morton was both a clever and a learned man,
+a good speaker and excellent lawyer, and the king, Henry VII.,
+frequently took counsel with him and profited by his experience. On his
+side, Morton took a fancy to the boy, whose sharp answers amused him.
+His keen eyes noticed that Thomas, who, with the other pages, waited at
+dinner upon the cardinal and his guests, listened to all that was being
+said, while never neglecting his own especial duties.
+
+'This child will prove a marvellous man,' Morton one day whispered to
+his neighbour, and the neighbour lived to prove the truth of his words.
+
+Thomas greatly enjoyed the two years he passed in Morton's house, and
+made many friends, both amongst his companions and with the older men.
+There was always something going on which pleased and interested him,
+for he was very sociable, and liked, above everything, a 'good
+argument.' At Christmas time all kinds of shows and pageants were to
+take place, and the young pages could hardly sleep for excitement,
+though their appetites never failed, and the huge pieces of pasty put on
+their wooden or pewter plates disappeared surprisingly quick. Of course
+they had no forks to help themselves with, but each boy possessed a
+knife of his own, in which he took great pride, and a spoon made either
+of horn or pewter. At Christmas they were given plenty of good things as
+a treat, and the cardinal, like other great men, flung open his doors,
+and feasted the poor as well as the rich. Then companies of strolling
+players would come by, and beg permission to amuse the guests by their
+acting. On this Christmas Day in 1490 the play was in full swing when
+young Thomas suddenly appeared on the stage in the great hall, and began
+to 'make a part of his own, never studying for the matter, which made
+the lookers-on more sport than all the players beside.' It must have
+been rather difficult for the poor actors to go on with their parts when
+they did not know what the boy was going to say next; but Thomas seems
+to have been as clever as he was impudent, and the play ended in
+applause and laughter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In those days boys grew into young men much earlier than they do now,
+and set about earning their living, and even getting married, at an age
+when to-day they would probably just be leaving a public school. So we
+are not surprised at hearing that when Thomas was only fourteen he was
+sent by cardinal Morton to Canterbury Hall, Oxford, a college which
+afterwards became part of Christ Church, founded by Wolsey. The elder
+More was a poor man, and Thomas was not his only child; five others had
+been born to him, but, as far as we can gather, three of these died when
+they were still babies. Thomas had been brought up from his earliest
+years to do without many things which must have seemed necessaries to
+the richer boys in Morton's house. But he cared little that his dress
+was so much plainer than theirs, and that when he went home he had what
+food was needful and no more. As long as he had books, and somebody to
+talk to about them, he was quite happy, but even he found the fare of an
+Oxford scholar rather hard to digest. However, throughout his life he
+always made the best of things, and if he ever went to bed hungry, well,
+nobody but himself was any the wiser. Law was the study his father
+wished him specially to follow, but he was eager too to learn Greek,
+which had lately been introduced into the University, and to improve his
+Latin style. He also wrote verses, as was beginning to be the fashion
+with young men, and worked out problems in arithmetic and geometry,
+while, after his regular work was done, he would carry a French or Latin
+chronicle to his small window, and pore over the history of bygone
+times. In his spare moments he would play some old music on the flute or
+practise on the viol.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After two years, when, according to his son-in-law Roper, 'he was both
+in the Greek and Latin tongues sufficiently instructed, he was then, for
+the study of the law of the realm, put to an Inn of Chancery, called New
+Inn, where for his time he prospered very well, and from thence was
+admitted to Lincoln's Inn, with very small allowance, continuing there
+his study until he was made and accounted a worthy barrister.' Like the
+other youths of his own age--Thomas was eighteen when he was admitted to
+Lincoln's Inn--he attended classes where law was taught by professors,
+or 'readers,' and took part in the proceedings of mock trials, old
+French being the language used. When the trial was over, the reader and
+other teachers gave their opinions as to the way in which the scholars
+had pleaded, and pointed out the mistakes they had made. We may be sure
+that young More delighted in this 'exercise,' and he evidently excelled
+in it, for he was soon given a 'readership' himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was during the year following his admission to Lincoln's Inn that
+More met for the first time his lifelong friend, the celebrated Erasmus.
+Erasmus, the most learned and witty man of his time, came over from
+Holland to stay with his former pupil, lord Mountjoy, in his country
+house, and while there the young lawyer was invited also to pay a visit
+and to make acquaintance with the famous scholar. In spite of the ten
+years difference in their ages--More was then twenty-one and Erasmus
+ten years older--they took pleasure in almost exactly the same things,
+and in their walks through the woods and about the neighbouring villages
+would discuss merrily, in Latin of course, all manner of subjects.[1]
+One day the two bent their steps to the place where Henry VII.'s younger
+children were living, under the care of tutors and ladies. Princess
+Margaret, the eldest, afterwards queen of Scotland, stood solemnly
+beside her brother Henry, aged nine, who received them with the grand
+manner he could always put on when he chose. Princess Mary, at that time
+four years old, was kneeling on the floor playing with her dog, and paid
+no heed to the visitors, whom she thought old and dull. Erasmus was
+astonished to notice More present prince Henry with a roll on which
+something, he could not tell what, was written. The prince took it with
+a smile, and then looked at Erasmus, who guessed directly that a similar
+offering was expected from him also; and this was confirmed by a message
+sent him by Henry while the guests were dining, to say how much he hoped
+to receive some remembrance of the visit of the great scholar. The
+Dutchman, thus pressed, returned answer that had he dreamed his highness
+would value any work from his poor pen, he would certainly have prepared
+himself, but having been taken by surprise, he could only ask grace for
+three days, by which time he would have composed a poem, however
+unworthy.
+
+[Footnote 1: On parting, they promised to write to each other, and many
+letters passed between them in the three years that Erasmus remained in
+England. Previous to his departure, they met once more in lord
+Mountjoy's house, and there their walk and talks were resumed.]
+
+The poem when written was of some length, and full of the praises of the
+king, his country, and his children. It does not sound amusing, and
+probably Henry, content with possessing what in these days we should
+call 'Erasmus's autograph,' did not trouble himself to read much of it.
+
+[Illustration: Erasmus was astonished to notice More present Prince
+Henry with a roll.]
+
+For three years More held his readership; then he seems to have had a
+wish to become a priest, and, in his son-in-law's words, 'gave himself
+to devotion and prayer in the Charterhouse of London, religiously
+living there, without vow, about four years.'
+
+Religious More remained all his life, but at the end of the four years
+he felt that his place was in the world rather than in a monastery, and
+this decision was largely helped by a visit he paid to master Colt in
+Essex, a gentleman with three daughters. 'Albeit,' says Roper, 'his mind
+most served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the
+fairest and best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both
+great grief and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister
+preferred before her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his
+fancy toward her and married her.'
+
+This was indeed being good-natured and obliging, and one hopes that the
+bride never guessed the reason why he had asked her to be his wife. The
+young couple settled down in Bucklersbury in the City, and More
+continued his studies at Lincoln's Inn and his attendance at
+Westminster, for he had been elected a member of Parliament almost as
+soon as he left the Charterhouse and before his marriage. Very early he
+had given proof that he did not intend 'to pin his conscience to another
+man's back' by refusing to vote for a large grant of money demanded by
+Henry VII. as a dowry for his eldest daughter. Chiefly owing to More,
+the grant was refused, and 'the king,' according to Roper, 'conceiving
+great indignation towards him, could not be satisfied until he had in
+some way revenged it. And for as much as he (Thomas) nothing having,
+nothing could lose, his grace (the king) devised a causeless quarrel
+against his father (the elder More), keeping him in the Tower till he
+had made him pay a hundred pounds fine.'
+
+No doubt it was very hard for the More family to raise the money, equal
+to about 1,200 l. in our day, and Thomas's heart was hot with wrath. He
+angrily spurned various attempts made to gain him over, and 'for some
+time thought of leaving England and trying his fortune in other lands.'
+In fact, he did pay a short visit both to the Low Countries and to
+Paris, but he could not make up his mind to settle in either, and
+decided that he could do better for his wife and small children by
+continuing his practice at the Bar. The next year Henry VII. died, and
+More hoped that a new era was beginning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The household in Bucklersbury was as happy as any that could have been
+found in London. Its mistress, Joan Colt, was, when she married, a
+country girl, cleverer at making possets and drying herbs than at
+reading books or playing on the viol. But More, who charmed everybody,
+easily charmed his wife, and to please him she studied whatever books he
+gave her, and worked hard at her music. But after five years she died,
+leaving him with four babies, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John, and
+in a few months More saw himself obliged to marry again. This time he
+chose a widow with a daughter of her own--a lady 'neither young nor
+handsome,' as he tells Erasmus--but an excellent housekeeper, and the
+best of mothers to his children.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+More soon became known not only as an honest man above all bribery, but
+as a generous one who would often refuse to take payment for pleading
+the cause of a poor man or a widow. His practice at the Bar increased,
+and he was made a judge, or under-sheriff, his income reaching 400 l. a
+year, which would now be reckoned about 5,000 l. He needed it all, for
+besides his own four children and his stepdaughter he had adopted
+another girl. This girl, Margaret Gigs, afterwards married a learned
+man, Dr. Clements, who lived in More's house, and probably shared with
+John Harris the duties of secretary and of tutor in Greek and Latin to
+the children. We must not forget either the 'fool,' Henry Patenson, or
+sir Thomas's special friend and confidant, William Roper, by-and-by to
+be the husband of More's favourite daughter, Margaret, and the man to
+whom his heart opened more freely than to anyone else.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It naturally took a good deal of money to support this large household
+and to save something for the children, as well as to bestow a tenth
+part of his income on the poor, as was More's rule through life. His
+charity did not consist in giving to everyone that asked, thereby doing
+more harm than good, but he went himself to the cottage to make sure
+that the tale he heard was true, and then would gladly spend what was
+needed to set the family in the way of earning their own living. If they
+proved to be ill, dame Alice, whose heart was soft though her words were
+harsh, would bid one of the girls take them nourishing food or possets,
+and often the poor pensioners would be invited to the house, to share
+the family dinner. At other times the guests would be men of learning,
+such as Colet, afterwards dean of St. Paul's, and founder of St. Paul's
+School, now moved to Hammersmith; Linacre or Grocyn, old friends of long
+ago; and of course Erasmus, if he happened to be in London. Poor dame
+Alice must have had a dull time of it, for while the room rang with
+merry jests in Latin, flavoured sometimes with a little Greek, and even
+the children could join in the laughter, she alone was ignorant of the
+matter, and felt as a deaf man feels when he watches people dancing to
+music that he cannot hear. She must have welcomed the moment when they
+left the table, and she could show off the skill she had gained since
+her marriage on four musical instruments, on which, to please her
+husband, she practised daily--for no man ever lived who was as clever
+as Sir Thomas in coaxing people to do as he wished. Quite meekly, though
+she had a quick temper, she bore his teasing remarks as he watched her
+'binding up her hair to make her a fair large forehead, and with
+strait-bracing in her body to make her middle small, both twain to her
+great pain'; while she on her part was frequently vexed that he 'refused
+to go forward with the best,' and had no wish 'greatly to get upward in
+the world.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet, in spite of the modesty which vexed his wife so much, More's fame
+grew daily wider. The king, Henry VIII., who at this time was at his
+best, had always kept an eye on him, and soon bade Wolsey seek him out.
+Now More and Wolsey were so different in their ways and in their views
+that they could never have become real friends, for while Wolsey was
+ambitious, More was always content with what he had, and never desired
+to thrust himself into notice. At first he resisted the cardinal's
+advances; but rudeness was impossible to him, and as there was no means
+of checking Wolsey's persistence, he had to put aside his own feelings
+and appear both at the cardinal's house and at court. Indeed, such good
+company did Henry find him that, as quick to take fancies as he was to
+tire of them, he would hardly allow the poor man to spend an evening
+alone, so sir Thomas in despair gave up being amusing, and sat silent,
+though no doubt with a twinkle in his eye, resisting all the king's
+efforts to make him speak, till at length everyone grew weary of him,
+and his place was filled by some livelier man.
+
+How Sir Thomas laughed, and what funny stories he told about it all,
+when he had gained his object, at his own table.
+
+[Illustration: Sir Thomas sat silent.]
+
+So the years slipped by, and brought with them many unsought honours to
+sir Thomas. Several times he was sent abroad on missions which needed
+an honest man, as well as a shrewd one, to carry them through. Sometimes
+he was the envoy of the citizens of London, sometimes of the king
+himself, and he was present at the wonderful display of magnificence
+known to history as 'The Field of the Cloth of Gold'--the meeting of
+Francis of France, Henry of England, and the emperor Charles V. He had
+remained in London during the fearful time of the sweating sickness, to
+which people would fall victims while opening a window, playing with
+their children, or even lying asleep. Death followed almost at once, and
+'if the half in every town escaped it was thought great favour.' It
+spared the house in Bishopsgate in which More had for some time been
+living, and where he stayed till, four years later, he moved to a
+country place at Chelsea.
+
+Few men have held more dignities than sir Thomas More, or have earned
+greater respect in the holding. Within eight years he was
+Under-Treasurer, or, as we should say, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+Speaker of the House of Commons, and finally Lord Chancellor. Even dame
+Alice must have been satisfied; but her content only lasted three years,
+as by that time events had occurred which made it necessary either for
+sir Thomas to resign the Great Seal always entrusted to the lord
+chancellor, or else 'to tie his conscience to another man's back,' and
+that back the king's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1531 Henry had decided to divorce his wife, Katherine of Aragon, and
+to marry in her stead the beautiful Anne Boleyn. His desire met with
+violent opposition from almost all churchmen, and from many statesmen,
+among whom was sir Thomas More. The pope, of course, entirely refused
+his consent to any such violation of the law, and Henry, whom resistance
+only made more obstinate, suddenly resolved to cut himself off
+altogether from Rome, and declare that he, and not the pope, was the
+head of the English church. This meant that he could do as he pleased
+and make his own laws, and he lost no time in demanding the assent of
+Parliament to his new claim, and afterwards that of the clergy. Once
+these were obtained, there would be nothing to hinder him from divorcing
+his first wife and marrying his second. In fact, he would be his own
+pope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a year the battle raged fiercely, and More watched anxiously for the
+issue. He withdrew himself as far as possible from the king, and kept as
+much as might be to his own business. At length Henry was victorious.
+The greater part of the clergy cast off their allegiance to the pope and
+took the oath required by the king. Sir Thomas saw and understood, and
+placed his resignation as lord chancellor in the hands of his sovereign.
+
+The loss of his office left More a poor man, and to support the whole
+family in Chelsea he had only an income of 1,200 l. a year. To his
+great regret, he felt he could no longer lead the easy, happy life that
+had been so pleasant to him. So the various married men, husbands of the
+girls of the house, took away their wives and sought employment
+elsewhere. Only the Ropers remained at hand.
+
+Sir Thomas himself was glad enough to be free of his duties, and to have
+time to read books and to prepare himself for the trial of faith that
+was sure to come, though at present the king had only fair words for
+him, and the clergy had subscribed a large sum as a proof of the esteem
+in which they held him. More was much touched and pleased with this
+gift, but he refused to accept it, or to allow his family to do so;
+instead, he sold his plate and bade dame Alice be careful of her
+household expenses.
+
+If left to himself, Henry might perhaps have allowed sir Thomas, whom
+he undoubtedly liked, to remain in peace, but his absence from her
+coronation rankled deep in Anne Boleyn's heart. The late chancellor was
+a man of mark in the sight of Europe, and could count famous men of all
+nations among his friends. If he could not be gained over, he must be
+punished, for the eyes of England were upon him, and he had but to hold
+up his hand for many to follow. So he was one of the first bidden to
+take the oath, swearing to put aside the claims of the princess Mary,
+daughter of Katherine of Aragon, and to settle the crown on the children
+of the new queen.
+
+It was in April 1534 that More was summoned before the royal
+commissioners, consisting of Audley, who had succeeded him in the
+chancellorship, the abbot of Westminster, Thomas Cromwell as secretary
+of state, and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. At More's own request,
+the Act of Succession, as it was called, was given into his hand, and he
+read it through. When he had finished, he informed the commissioners
+that he had nothing to say as to the Act itself or to the people that
+took the oath, but that he himself must refuse.
+
+It was probably no more than they expected; but Audley replied that he
+was very sorry for it, as no man before had declined to swear, and that
+sir Thomas might see for himself the names of those who had already
+signed, whose consciences were perhaps as tender as his own. More
+glanced down the long roll unfolded before him, but only repeated his
+answer, nor could any persuasions induce him to give a different one. He
+was willing, it seems, to take an oath of obedience to the sovereign and
+his successors, but what he would _not_ do was to swear that the king
+was the head of the church, and some words declaring this had been
+introduced--whether carelessly or wilfully we do not know--into the Act
+of Succession, with which they had nothing to do. It was his refusal to
+take this part of the oath which caused the downfall of More.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For four days sir Thomas remained a prisoner in the care of the abbot of
+Westminster; then he was sent to the Tower. Sir Richard Southwell
+conveyed him there and placed him under the custody of the lieutenant of
+the Tower, sir Edmund Walsingham, an old friend of the More family. As
+appears to have been the custom, his cap and outside gown were taken
+from him and kept by the porter, and a man set to spy upon his actions.
+This was sorely against the wishes of his gaoler, who would fain have
+made More's captivity in the Beauchamp Tower as light as might be; but
+at first it was needful to be very strict, lest inquiries should be
+made. Later, he was for a while allowed writing materials; he went to
+church in St. Peter ad Vincula, where so many famous captives lie
+buried, and occasionally walked in the garden, or took exercise in the
+narrow walk outside his cell. By-and-by, too, occasional visits from his
+family were permitted; his stepdaughter, lady Alington, came to see him,
+and so did her mother, dame Alice, More's daughter-in-law Anne, and most
+frequently of all his daughter Margaret.
+
+With these indulgences he might have been content, for all his life he
+had made the best of things, but the expenses of his captivity weighed
+on his soul. The barest food for himself and his servant cost him
+fifteen shillings a week (over 5 l. now), and some months later, when
+he was convicted of high treason and the lands granted him by the king
+were taken from him, his wife was forced to sell her own clothes so that
+the money might be paid. But this, we may hope, she kept from sir
+Thomas, whose body was bent and broken by painful diseases, though his
+spirit was as cheerful as ever. He could even 'inwardly' laugh at dame
+Alice when she came to see him for complaining that she would die for
+want of air if she was left all night in a locked cell, when 'he knew
+full well that every night she shut her own chamber, both doors and
+windows, and what was the difference if the doors were locked or not?'
+But he durst not laugh aloud nor say anything to her, for, indeed, he
+stood somewhat in awe of her.
+
+Most of the hours were passed during the first months of his captivity
+in writing books in English or Latin; but when pen and paper were taken
+from him, and he could only scribble a few words with the end of a
+charred stick, he had plenty of time to think over his life and to
+recall the years that had been so happy. The harsh words that he had
+written about men whose religion was different from his own did not
+trouble him, nor the thought of the imprisonment to which he had
+sentenced many of them. In those days everyone held his own religion to
+be right, and any that differed from it to be wrong, and though sir
+Thomas never would, and never did, send any man to the block for his
+faith, yet he would have considered that he had failed in his duty had
+he left them at liberty to teach their 'wicked opinions.' So his mind
+did not dwell upon those things, but rather upon his coming death, which
+he well foresaw, and upon the old days in Bishopsgate and Chelsea, when
+he would examine his children in the lessons they had learned, or set
+all the girls to write letters in Latin to his friend Erasmus, that he
+might see which of them proved to have the most skill. From time to time
+during this year efforts were made to gain him over to the side of the
+king, who would have given him almost anything he asked as the price of
+his conscience. Even Margaret Roper joined with the rest, and begged him
+to consider whether it was not his duty to obey the Parliament, and to
+remember that it was possible that he might be mistaken in his refusal,
+as so many good men and true had taken the oath. But nothing would move
+sir Thomas.
+
+[Illustration: 'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered.]
+
+'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered. 'Sit not musing with some serpent
+in your breast, or some new persuasion to offer Father Adam the apple
+yet once again.'
+
+'I have sworn myself,' said she, and at this More laughed and replied:
+
+'That was like Eve, too, for she offered Adam no worse fruit than she
+had eaten herself.'
+
+Finding that his daughter's persuasions were useless, the king and
+council sent Cromwell to see if by fair words or threats he could induce
+More to declare that the king was head of the church. But, try as he
+might, nothing either treasonable or submissive could be wrung from the
+prisoner.
+
+'I am the king's true, faithful subject, and pray for his highness, and
+all his, and all the realm,' said sir Thomas. 'I do nobody none harm, I
+say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good, and if this
+be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live. And
+I am dying already, and have since I came here been many times in the
+case that I thought to die within one hour. And therefore my poor body
+is at the king's pleasure.' Then Cromwell took his leave 'full gently,'
+promising to make report to the king.
+
+Lord Cromwell having failed also, the whole council next came and put
+forth all their skill, with no better result; and it was then determined
+to bring sir Thomas out of the Tower, and to try him at Westminster on
+the charge of treason. Neither the prisoner nor the judges had any doubt
+as to what the verdict would be; but whatever his thoughts as to the
+future, More must have rejoiced to be rowing once more on the Thames,
+with the air and sunlight all around him, and after a year's confinement
+even the sight of Westminster Hall and the assembly met together, as he
+knew, to doom him would have been full of interest. He was allowed a
+chair, for his legs were so swollen that he could hardly have stood; and
+then began the trial which a late lord chancellor has called 'the
+blackest crime under the name of the law ever committed in England.' At
+the close, sentence was passed. More had been proved guilty of treason,
+and was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn.
+
+The constable of the Tower, sir William Kingston, sir Thomas's 'very
+dear friend,' conducted the condemned man back to prison, and so
+sorrowful was the constable's face that any man would have thought that
+it was he who was condemned to death. Margaret Roper was waiting on the
+wharf, and as her father landed from the barge she flung herself into
+his arms, 'having neither respect to herself, nor to the press of people
+that were about him.' He whispered some words of comfort and gave her
+his blessing, and 'the beholding thereof was to many present so
+lamentable that it made them to weep.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last shame of hanging was after all not inflicted on him, and the
+King decreed that his faithful servant and merry companion should be
+executed on Tower Hill, like the rest of the men whose bodies lie in the
+church of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower walls. The day before
+his beheading sir Thomas wrote with a charred stick to Margaret, leaving
+her the hair shirt he had always worn under his clothes, and messages
+and little remembrances to the rest of the old household. Oddly enough,
+his wife is never mentioned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very early in the morning of July 6 the king sent sir Thomas Pope to
+tell More he was to die before the clock struck nine, and to say that
+'he was not to use many words' on the scaffold, evidently fearing lest
+the minds of the crowd might be stirred up to avenge his murder.
+
+More answered that he had never meant to say anything at which the king
+could be offended, and begged that his daughter Margaret might be
+present at his burial. Pope replied that the king had given permission
+for his wife and children and any other of his friends to be there, and
+sir Thomas thanked him, and then put on a handsome dress of silk which
+had been provided on purpose by the Italian Bonvisi.
+
+But sir Thomas was not allowed to be at peace during the short walk
+between the Beauchamp Tower and the block, for he was beset first by a
+woman who wished to know where he had put some papers of hers when he
+was sent to prison, and then by a second, upbraiding him with a judgment
+he had given against her when he was chancellor.
+
+'I remember you well, and should give judgment against you still,' said
+he; but at length the crowd was kept back, and a path was kept to the
+scaffold.
+
+Roper was there, watching, and he noticed that the ladder leading to the
+platform was very unsteady. Sir Thomas noticed it too, and with his foot
+on the first step turned and said to the lieutenant of the Tower:
+
+'I pray thee see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for
+myself.'
+
+When he reached the top, he knelt down and prayed; then rising, kissed
+the executioner, and said:
+
+'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My
+neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry.' As he
+spoke, he drew out a handkerchief he had brought with him, and, binding
+it over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform and laid his
+head on the block.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus died sir Thomas More, because he would not tie his conscience to
+another man's back, for he had no enemies save those who felt that this
+courage put them to shame, and he had striven all his life to do harm to
+no one. After his death, his head, as was the custom, was placed on a
+stake, and shown as the head of a traitor on London Bridge for a month,
+till Margaret Roper bribed a man to steal it for her, and, wrapping it
+round with spices, she hid it in a safe place. It is possible that she
+laid it in a vault belonging to the Roper family, in St. Dunstan's
+Church in Canterbury, but she herself lies with her mother, in the old
+church of Chelsea, where sir Thomas 'did mind to be buried.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What the king's feelings were when he heard that the act of vengeance
+had been accomplished we know not, but the emperor Charles V. spoke his
+mind plainly to the English ambassador, sir Thomas Eliott.
+
+'My Lord ambassador, we understand that the king your master hath put
+his faithful servant sir Thomas More to death.'
+
+Whereupon sir Thomas Eliott answered 'that he understood nothing
+thereof.'
+
+'Well,' said the emperor, 'it is too true; and this we will say, that
+had we been master of such a servant, of whose doings ourselves have had
+these many years no small experience, we would rather have lost the best
+city of our dominions than such a worthy counsellor.'
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE ABBESS
+
+
+A nun!
+
+As one reads the word, two pictures flash into the mind. One is that of
+sisters of mercy going quickly through the streets, with black dresses
+and flappy white caps, to visit their poor people. If you look at their
+faces, you will notice how curiously smooth and unlined they are, even
+when they are not young any more, and their expression is generally
+quiet and contented, while the women of their own age who live in the
+world appear tired and anxious.
+
+The other picture is one that most of us have to make for ourselves, as
+few have had a chance of seeing it. This nun is also dressed in black
+robes, and has a flowing black veil, and a white band across her
+forehead, under which her hair, cut short when she takes her vows, is
+hidden away. She never leaves her convent, except for a walk in the
+garden, but she often has children to teach, for many convents are great
+Roman Catholic schools, and the nuns have to take care that they can
+tell their scholars about the discoveries of the present day: about
+wireless telegraphy, about radium, about the late wars and the changes
+in the boundaries of kingdoms, and many other things.
+
+Of course, nuns are divided into various orders, each with its own
+rules, and some, the strictest, do not admit anyone inside the convent
+at all, even into a parlour. After a girl has taken the veil, she is
+allowed to receive one visit from her friends and relations, and then
+she says good-bye to them for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if you had been living in Paris towards the end of the sixteenth
+century, when Catherine de Medicis was queen-mother, and into the days
+when Henry IV. was king, and his son Louis succeeded him, you would have
+found this picture of a convent very far from the truth. Convents were
+comfortable and even luxurious houses, richly endowed, where poor
+noblemen and gentlemen sent their daughters for life, paying on their
+entrance what money they could spare, but keeping enough to portion one
+or two girls--generally the prettiest of the family--or to help the son
+to live in state. If, as often happened, the father did not offer
+enough, the abbess would try to get more from him, or else refuse his
+daughter altogether. If she was accepted, he bade her farewell for the
+time, knowing that he could see her whenever he chose, and that she
+would lead quite as pleasant and as amusing an existence as her married
+sister. Perhaps, too, she might even be allowed to wear coloured
+clothes, for there was one order in which the habit of the nuns was
+white and scarlet; but even if the archbishop, or the abbot, or the
+king, or whoever had supreme power over the convent, insisted on black
+and white being worn, why, it would be easy to model the cap and sleeves
+near enough to the fashion to look picturesque; and could not the dress
+be of satin and velvet and lace, and yet be black and white still?
+
+As to food, no one was more particular about it than the abbess of a
+large convent, or else the fine gentlemen and elegant ladies would not
+come from Paris or the country round to her suppers and private
+theatricals, where the nuns acted the chief parts, or to the balls for
+which she was famous. How pleasant it was in the summer evenings to sit
+with their friends and listen to music from hidden performers; and could
+anything be so amusing as to walk a little way along the road to Paris
+till the nuns reached a stretch of smooth green turf, where the monks
+from a neighbouring monastery were waiting to dance with them in the
+moonlight?
+
+No, decidedly, nuns were not to be pitied when Henry IV. was king.
+
+Yet soon all these joys were to be things of the past, and it was a girl
+of sixteen who set her hand to the work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The family of the Arnaulds were well known in French history as soldiers
+or lawyers--sometimes as both, for the grandfather of the child whose
+story I am going to tell you commanded a troop of light horse in time of
+war, and in time of peace was, in spite of his being a Huguenot--that
+is, a Protestant--Catherine's trusted lawyer and adviser. This Antoine
+Arnauld, or M. de la Mothe, as he was called, was once publicly insulted
+by a noble whose claim to some money Arnauld had been obliged to refuse.
+
+[Illustration: 'You are mistaking me for somebody else.']
+
+'You are mistaking me for somebody else,' answered M. de la Mothe,
+quietly.
+
+'What do you mean? I thought you just admitted that you _were_ M. de la
+Mothe?' replied the angry nobleman.
+
+'Oh, yes,' said the lawyer, 'so I am; but sometimes I change my long
+robe for a short coat, and once outside this court you would not dare to
+speak to me in such a manner.'
+
+At this point one of the attendants whispered in his ear that this was
+the celebrated soldier, and the nobleman, who seems to have been a
+poor-spirited creature, instantly made the humblest apologies.
+
+Many of his relatives remained Huguenots up to the end, but M. de la
+Mothe returned to the old religion after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
+in 1572. No man ever had a narrower escape of his life, for his house in
+Paris was attacked during the day, and though his servants defended it
+bravely, neither he nor his children would have been left alive had
+not a messenger wearing the queen's colours been seen pushing through
+the crowd. The leaders then called upon the mob to fall back, and the
+messenger produced a paper, signed by the queen, giving the family leave
+to come and go in safety.
+
+M. de la Mothe's son, Antoine Arnauld, had in him more of the lawyer
+than the soldier, and he was clever enough to escape detection for acts
+which _we_ should certainly call frauds. But he was an excellent husband
+to the wife of thirteen whom he married, and a very affectionate father
+to the ten out of his twenty children who lived to grow up.
+
+Monsieur Arnauld was much thought of at the French bar, and was
+entrusted with law cases by the court and by the nobles. He was a
+pleasant and clever man, and made friends as easily as money, and if he
+and his wife had chosen they might have led the same gay life as their
+neighbours. But the little bride of thirteen did not care for the balls
+and plays in which the fashionable ladies spent so much of their time,
+and her dresses were as plain as those of the nuns _ought_ to have been.
+She looked well after her husband's comfort, and saw that her babies
+were well and happy, and when everything in her own house was arranged
+for the day, she went through the door that opened into her father's
+Paris dwelling, and sat with her mother, who was very delicate and could
+scarcely leave her sofa.
+
+The summer months were passed at monsieur Arnauld's estate of Andilly,
+not far from Paris, to which they all moved in several large coaches.
+Even here the lawyer was busy most of the day over his books and papers,
+but in the evening he was always ready to listen to his wife's account
+of her visits to their own poor people, or to those of the village near
+by. At a period when scarcely anyone gave a thought to the peasants, or
+heeded whether they lived or died, Arnauld's labourers were all well
+paid, and the old and ill fed and clothed. And if monsieur Arnauld did
+not go amongst them much himself, he allowed his wife to do as she
+liked, and gave her sound advice in her difficulties.
+
+As they grew older the children used often to accompany their mother on
+her rounds, and learnt from her how to help and understand the lives
+that were so different from their own. They saw peasants in bare
+cottages contented and happy on the simplest food, and sometimes on very
+little of it. They did not think about it at the time, of course, but in
+after-years the memory of these poor people was to come back to them;
+and they no longer felt strange and shy of those whom they were called
+upon to aid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Madame Arnauld's second daughter, Jacqueline, was a great favourite with
+her grandfather, monsieur Marion, and was very proud of it. In Paris
+every morning she used to run into his house, locking the door of
+communication behind her. If, as often occurred, her brothers and
+sisters wanted to come too, and drummed on the panels to make Jacqueline
+open it, she would call out through the key-hole:
+
+'Go away! You have no business here, this house belongs to _me_,' and
+then she would run through the rooms till she found her grandfather, and
+sit chattering to him about the things she liked and the games she was
+fond of. She was quick and clever and easily interested, and it amused
+monsieur Marion to listen to her when he had no work to occupy him; but
+one fact he plainly noticed, and that was that Jacqueline was never
+happy unless she was put first.
+
+[Illustration: 'Go away! You have no business here.']
+
+In the year 1599, madame Arnauld, though only twenty-five, had eight
+children, and her father, monsieur Marion, who was already suffering
+from the disease which afterwards killed him, began to be anxious about
+their future. After talking the matter over with his son-in-law, they
+decided that it was necessary that the second and third little girls,
+Jacqueline and Jeanne, should become nuns, in order that Catherine, the
+eldest, might have a larger fortune and make a more brilliant marriage.
+Not that monsieur Marion intended that they should be common nuns. He
+would do better than that for Jacqueline, and as his majesty Henry IV.
+had honoured him with special marks of his favour, he had no doubt that
+the king would grant an abbey to each of his granddaughters.
+
+When the plan was told to madame Arnauld, she listened with dismay.
+
+'But Jacqueline is hardly seven and a half,' she said, 'and Jeanne is
+five;' but monsieur Marion only laughed and bade her not to trouble
+herself, as he would see that their duties did not weigh upon them, and
+that though he hoped they would behave better than many of the nuns, yet
+they would lead pleasant lives, and their mother could visit them as
+often as she liked.
+
+Madame Arnauld was too much afraid of her father to raise any more
+objections, but she had also heard too much of convents and their ways
+to wish her daughters to enter them. Meanwhile the affair was carried
+through by the help of the abbe of Citeaux, and as a rule existed by
+which no child could be appointed abbess, the consent of the Pope was
+obtained by declaring each of the girls many years older than she really
+was. Both Arnauld and Marion considered themselves, and were considered
+by others, to be unusually good men, yet their consciences never
+troubled them about this wicked fraud.
+
+However, by the aid of the false statement all went smoothly, and the
+old and delicate abbess of Port Royal, an abbey situated in a marshy
+hollow eighteen miles from Paris, agreed to take Jacqueline as helper or
+coadjutrix, with the condition that on the death of the old lady the
+little girl was to succeed her, while Jeanne was made abbess of
+Saint-Cyr, six miles nearer Paris, where madame de Maintenon's famous
+girls' school was to be founded a hundred years later. The duties of
+the office were to be discharged by one of the elder nuns till Jeanne
+was twenty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is always the custom that the young girls or novices should spend a
+year in the convent they wish to enter before they take the vows, which
+are for life. During that time they can find out if they really wish to
+leave the world for ever, or if it was only a passing fancy; while the
+abbess, on the other hand, can tell whether their characters are suited
+to a secluded existence, or if it would only make them--and therefore
+other people--restless and unhappy. When Jacqueline became a novice in
+1599, her father invited all his friends, and a very grand company they
+were. The child was delighted to feel that she was the most important
+person present, and no doubt amused her grandfather by her satisfaction
+at being 'first.' No such fuss seems to have been made over Jeanne on a
+similar occasion, but in a few weeks both little girls were sent for
+eight months to Saint-Cyr.
+
+Abbesses though they might be, they were still the children who had
+played in their father's garden only a few weeks before. Jacqueline and
+her elder sister Catherine, the one who was 'to be married,' and very
+unhappily, were chief in all the games and mischief. They were very
+daring, and were always quick at inventing new plays. They were very
+sensible, too, and if one of their brothers or sisters hurt themselves
+during their games, these two knew what was best to be done without
+troubling their mother. They were all fond of each other, and never had
+any serious quarrels; but Jacqueline was generally the leader, and the
+others, especially the shy and dreamy Jeanne, let themselves be ruled by
+her. At Saint-Cyr, Jacqueline, who felt no difference, and speedily
+became a favourite of the other novices, ordered her sister about as she
+had been accustomed to do, and generally Jeanne obeyed her meekly; but
+at last she rebelled and informed Jacqueline, much to her surprise, that
+it was _her_ abbey, and that if Jacqueline did not behave properly she
+might go away to her own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some months of Jacqueline's noviciate had still to run when she was sent
+to the abbey of Maubuisson, which belonged to the same order of nuns as
+Port Royal, whereas the nuns of Saint-Cyr belonged to another community.
+The abbess, Angelique d'Estrees, was a famous woman, and her nuns were
+some of the worst and most pleasure-loving in the whole of France. Most
+likely madame Arnauld heard of the change with trembling, but she could
+do nothing: in October 1600, Jacqueline, then nine years old, took the
+veil and the vows of poverty and obedience in the midst of a noble
+company. She was far too excited to think about the religious ceremony
+which had bound her for life to the cloister, and certainly nobody
+else--unless her mother was present--thought about it either. Her very
+name was changed too, and instead of 'Jacqueline' she became
+'Angelique,' as 'Jeanne' became 'Agnes.'
+
+As soon as the little girl was a professed nun, monsieur Marion and
+monsieur Arnauld, who were not satisfied that the pope's consent already
+obtained was really sufficient, began afresh to prepare a variety of
+false papers, in order that when Angelique took possession of her abbey
+no one should be able to turn her out of it. Seventy years before a law
+had been passed declaring that no nun could be appointed abbess under
+forty, and though this was constantly disregarded, the child's father
+and grandfather felt that it was vain to ask the Pope to nominate a
+child of nine to the post. So in the declaration her age was stated to
+be seventeen; but even that Clement considered too young, and it
+required all the influence that monsieur Marion could bring to bear to
+induce him at last to give his consent. Permission was long in coming,
+and in the midst of the negotiations the old abbess died suddenly, and
+Angelique, now ten and a half, was 'Madame de Port Royal.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Angelique said good-bye to the nuns at Maubuisson, all of whom had
+been fond of her, her mother took her to Port Royal, fearing in her
+heart lest the customs of the convent might be as bad as in the one
+ruled by madame d'Estrees. But she was consoled at finding the abbey far
+too poor to indulge in all the expensive amusements of Maubuisson, and
+that it contained only thirteen nuns, so that Angelique would not have
+so many people to govern. It was thirty years since a sermon had been
+preached within its walls, except on a few occasions when a novice had
+taken the veil, and during the carnival, just before Lent, all the
+inmates of the convent, the chaplain or confessor among them, acted
+plays and had supper parties. Like the Maubuisson sisters, the nuns
+always kept their long hair, and wore masks and gloves; but they were
+only foolish, harmless young women following the fashion, except the
+oldest of them all, whom madame Arnauld managed to get dismissed.
+
+Angelique was now nearly eleven, but much older in her thoughts and ways
+than most children of her age, though she was still fond of games, and
+spent part of the day playing or wandering about the garden. If it was
+wet, she read Roman history, and perhaps she may have learnt something
+of housekeeping from the prioress, who saw that all was kept in order.
+The abbess said carefully the short prayers appointed for certain hours
+of the day, and heard matins every morning at four and evensong every
+afternoon. After this was over, she did as she was bidden by her
+superior, the abbot of Citeaux, and took all her nuns for a solemn walk
+on the hills outside the abbey.
+
+[Illustration: She took all her nuns for a solemn walk.]
+
+At first the young abbess was full of self-importance, and much occupied
+with her position. After Agnes's taunts when they were both at St.
+Cyr--oh, _long_ ago now!--it was delightful to be able to send her _own_
+carriage for her, and play at the old home games in the garden. But
+by-and-by the novelty wore off, and she became very tired of her life,
+which was always the same, day after day, and would never, never be
+different. If only she could be back at Andilly with the rest! and then
+she would shut her eyes very tight so that no tears might escape them.
+
+Lively and impulsive though she was, she was not accustomed to speak of
+her feelings to others, and did her best to thrust her longing for
+freedom into the background. But she grew pale and thin in the struggle,
+and at last there came a day when a visitor, guessing what was the
+matter, hinted that as she had taken her vows before she was old enough
+to do so by law, it would be easy to get absolved from them. Something
+of the kind may have perhaps occurred to Angelique, but, put into words,
+the idea filled her with horror, for deep down in her mind she felt that
+though her profession had been thrust upon her before she knew what she
+was doing, she would feel ashamed and degraded all her life if she broke
+her vows. Still, she wanted to forget it all if she could, and in order
+to distract her thoughts she began to receive and pay visits in the
+neighbourhood, to the great grief of her mother, who feared this was the
+first step towards the moonlight balls of Maubuisson.
+
+Angelique was far too tender-hearted to withstand her mother's tears,
+and gave up paying calls; spending the time instead in reading
+Plutarch's 'Lives' and other books about ancient history, and pretending
+to herself that she was each of the heroes in turn. But even Plutarch
+was a poor substitute for home life, and when her fifteenth birthday was
+drawing near she began to wonder if she _could_ stand it any longer.
+
+'I considered,' she says herself, 'if it would be possible for me to
+return to the world, and even to get married, without telling my father
+or mother, for the yoke had become unsupportable.' Perhaps, she
+reflected, she might go to La Rochelle, where some of her Huguenot aunts
+were living, and though she had no wish to change her own religion, yet
+she was sure they would protect her. As to the difficulties of a young
+abbess travelling through France alone, they did not even occur to her,
+and she seems to have arranged her plans for escape without informing
+the good ladies of their expected visitor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day Angelique had fixed for her flight had almost come when she fell
+very ill of a sort of nervous fever, chiefly the result of the trouble
+of mind she had been going through, though the unhealthy marshes round
+Port Royal may have had something to do with her illness. Monsieur and
+madame Arnauld at once sent a litter drawn by horses to fetch her to
+Paris, where the best doctors awaited her. Her mother hardly left her
+bedside, and for some time Angelique was at rest, feeling nothing except
+that she was at home, and that the old dismal life of the convent must
+be a dream. But as she grew stronger her perplexities came back. She
+_could_ not bring such grief on her parents, who loved her so much, yet
+the sight of her aunts in their beautiful dresses with long pointed
+bodices, and the pretty hoods that covered their hair when they came to
+inquire after her, revived all her longings for the amusements of other
+girls. Again she kept silence, but secretly induced one of the maids to
+make her a pair of corsets, 'to improve her figure.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It may have been the sight of the corsets which caused monsieur Arnauld,
+whose keen eyes nothing escaped, to take alarm. At any rate, one day he
+brought a paper, so ill-written that it could hardly be read, and
+thrust it with a pen into Angelique's hand, saying, 'Sign this, my
+daughter.'
+
+The girl did not dare to refuse, or even to question her father, though
+she did manage to make out a word or two, which showed her that the
+paper contained a renewal of the vows she so bitterly regretted.
+
+Though custom and respect kept her silent, Angelique's frank and
+straightforward nature must have felt bitterly ashamed as well as angry
+at the way her father had tried to trick her, and she seems on the whole
+to have been rather glad to return to her abbey. The nuns were delighted
+to have her back again, and as she remained very delicate all through
+the winter, she was a great deal indoors, too tired to do anything but
+rest, and read now and then a little book of meditations, which one of
+the sisters had given her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just at this time an event happened which turned the whole course of
+Angelique's life.
+
+A Capuchin monk, father Basil by name, stopped at Port Royal one
+evening, and asked the abbess's leave to preach. At first she refused,
+saying it was too late; then she changed her mind, for she was fond of
+hearing sermons, which, even if they were bad, generally gave her
+something to think of. There does not seem to have been anything very
+striking about this one, but when it was ended 'I found myself,' says
+Angelique, 'happier to know myself a nun than before I had felt wretched
+at being one, and that there was nothing in the whole world that I would
+not do for God.'
+
+Now Angelique's inward struggles took a different turn; she no longer
+desired to be free of her vows, but rather to carry them out to the
+utmost of her power, and to persuade her nuns to do so likewise. For
+some time she met with little encouragement. Another friar of the order
+of the Capuchins, to whom she opened her heart when he came to preach on
+Whit Sunday, was a man of no sense or tact, and urged such severe and
+instant reforms that the poor nuns were quite frightened. Then the
+prioress, whom Angelique also consulted, told her that she was not well,
+and excited, and that in three months' time she would think quite
+differently; all of which would have been true of a great many people,
+but was a mistake as regarded Angelique. Thus disappointed in both her
+counsellors, the abbess longed to resign her post, and to become a
+simple nun in some distant convent; but she dared not disobey her newly
+awakened conscience, which told her to stay where she was and do her
+work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is to be noted that, unlike most reformers, Angelique took care that
+her reforms began at the right end--namely, with herself. Again and
+again we see that when she made a new rule or revived an old one she
+practised it secretly herself long before she asked any of her nuns to
+adopt it. At this time she was torn between the advice of two of the
+Capuchin monks, one of whom urged her to lay down her burden and to
+enter as a sister in some other convent; while the other, the father
+Bernard, who had alarmed the nuns by his zeal, at last seemed to
+understand the position of Angelique, and told her that, having put her
+hand to the plough, she must not draw back.
+
+Angelique was only sixteen and in great trouble of mind, and in her sore
+distress she did some foolish things in the way of penances which she
+afterwards looked on with disapproval, for she never encouraged her nuns
+to hurt their bodies so as to injure their minds. Indeed, her character
+was too practical for her to adopt the follies which were the fashion in
+some of the religious houses not wholly given over to worldly pleasures.
+She had no wish to become famous or to be considered a saint when she
+knew how far she was from being one, and prayed earnestly and sensibly
+never to be allowed to see visions--the visions which she was well
+aware were often the result first of fasting, and next the cause of
+vanity, with its root in the praise of men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As usual, the early autumn proved a trying season for Angelique, and she
+again fell ill of a fever, and spent some weeks at Andilly with her
+troop of brothers and sisters. But she could not shake off the sad
+thoughts which were pressing on her, and was glad to go back to the
+convent, taking with her little Marie Arnauld, then seven years old. The
+winter passed before she could decide what to do, and her illness was
+increased by the damp vapours arising from the ponds and marshes around
+the abbey. She was worn out by thinking, and at length the prioress was
+so alarmed by her appearance that she begged the abbess to do whatever
+she thought right, as the sisters would submit to anything sooner than
+see her in such misery.
+
+The relief to Angelique's mind was immense, and she instantly called on
+the whole community to assemble together. She then spoke to them,
+reminding them of the vow of poverty they had taken, and showing them
+how, if it was to be kept, they must cease to have possessions of their
+own and share all things between them. When she had finished, a nun rose
+up and silently left the room, returning in a few minutes with a little
+packet containing the treasures by which she had set so much store. One
+by one they all followed her example, and Angelique's first battle was
+won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In spite of the French proverb which says 'it is only the first step
+which hurts,' the second step on the road to reform was the cause of far
+more pain to Angelique, for she was resolved to put an end to the
+practice of permitting the relatives and friends of the nuns free
+entrance into the convent; and knew that her father, who during all
+these years had come and gone as he wished, would not submit quietly to
+his exclusion. Therefore she made certain alterations in the abbey:
+ordered a foot or two to be added to the walls, and built a parlour
+outside with only a small grated window, through which the nuns would be
+allowed now and then to talk to their families.
+
+All being ready, she again assembled the sisters, and informed them of
+the new rule which was to be carried out, and when shortly after a
+novice took the veil, and her friends were entertained outside the
+convent, many voices were raised in discontented protest, and more than
+once the murmur was heard, 'Ah! it will be a very different thing when
+monsieur Arnauld comes.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it was not. Angelique never made one rule for herself and another
+for her nuns, and by-and-by when her father's work was over in Paris,
+and they all moved to Andilly, the abbess knew that her time of trial
+had come. She wrote to either her mother or sister, madame le Maitre,
+begging them to inform her father of the new state of affairs; but this
+they do not seem to have done. At all events, on September 24, 1609,
+Angelique received a message from her father, saying that they would
+arrive the next morning to see her.
+
+Now the abbess of Port Royal was no hard-hearted, despotic woman,
+delighting to display her power and to 'make scenes.' She was an
+affectionate girl, easily touched and very grateful, and in her
+generosity had striven to forget her father's double dealing in the
+matter of her vows. That the coming interview would be a cause of much
+pain to both she well knew, and she entreated two or three of the
+nuns--among whom was her sister Agnes, who had resigned Saint-Cyr and
+was now at Port Royal--to spend the night in praying that her
+determination might not falter.
+
+It was at the dinner-hour, about eleven o'clock, that the noise of a
+carriage was heard in the outer court of the abbey. The abbess turned
+pale and rose from her seat, while those of the sisters whom she had
+taken into her confidence hastened away to be ready for the different
+duties she had assigned to them. Angelique, holding in her hands the
+keys of every outer door leading into the convent, walked to the great
+gate, against which monsieur Arnauld, who was accompanied by his wife,
+his son, and two of his daughters, was knocking loudly. He was not used
+to be kept waiting like this, and did not understand the meaning of it,
+and when the tiny window cut in the thick oak panels was suddenly thrown
+open, and his daughter's face appeared, he asked impatiently what was
+the matter that the gates were locked, and why she did not open them.
+Angelique replied gently that if he would go into the parlour beside the
+gate she would speak to him through the grating and explain the reason
+of the gates being shut; but her father, not believing his ears, only
+rapped the louder, while madame Arnauld reproached her daughter with
+lack of respect and affection, and monsieur d'Andilly her brother called
+her all sorts of names.
+
+The noise was so great that it reached the refectory or dining-hall,
+where the nuns were still sitting, and soon their voices were joined to
+the clamour, some few upholding the conduct of their abbess, but most of
+them condemning her.
+
+At this point monsieur Arnauld, seeing that Angelique would not give
+way, bethought him of a trick by which he could gain a footing inside
+the walls. If, he said, Angelique had lost all sense of duty and
+obedience to her parents, he would not suffer his other children to be
+ruined by her example, and Agnes and little Marie must be given up to
+him at once. No doubt he reckoned on the great door being opened for the
+girls to come out, and that then he would be able to slip inside; but,
+unfortunately, Angelique knew by experience of what her father was
+capable, and had foreseen his demand. She answered that his wishes
+should be obeyed, and seeking out one of the sisters whom she could
+trust, gave her the key of a little door leading from the chapel outside
+the walls, and bade her let Agnes and Marie out that way. This was done,
+and suddenly the two little nuns were greeting their father as if they
+had dropped from the skies.
+
+At length understanding that neither abuse nor tricks could move
+Angelique, monsieur Arnauld consented to go to the parlour, and there a
+rush of tenderness came over him, and he implored her to be careful in
+what she did, and not to ruin her health by privations and harsh
+treatment. Angelique was not prepared for kindness, and after all she
+had undergone it proved too much for her. She fell fainting to the
+ground, and lay there without help, for her parents could not reach her
+through the grating in the wall, and the nuns, thinking that monsieur
+Arnauld was still heaping reproaches on her head, carefully kept away.
+At last, however, they realised that help was needed, and arrived to
+find their abbess lying senseless. Her first words on recovering were to
+implore her father not to leave that day, and the visitors passed the
+night in a guest-room which she had built outside the walls, and next
+morning she had a long and peaceful talk with her family from a bed
+placed on the convent side of the grating.
+
+[Illustration: She fell fainting to the ground.]
+
+In the end the abbot of Citeaux gave permission for monsieur Arnauld
+still to inspect the outer buildings and gardens, as he had been in the
+habit of doing, while his wife and daughters had leave to enter the
+convent itself when they wished. But this was not for a whole year, as
+madame Arnauld in her anger had sworn never to enter the gates of Port
+Royal, and it was only after hearing a sermon setting forth that vows
+taken in haste were not binding that she felt at liberty once more to
+see her daughter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The income left by the founder of Port Royal was very small--about
+240 l. a year--little enough on which to support a number of people and
+find work for the poor, though, of course, it could perhaps buy as many
+things as 1,200 l. a year now.
+
+When Angelique first went there as abbess, monsieur Arnauld, who managed
+all the money matters, paid all that seemed necessary for the comfort of
+his daughter and the nuns. But after the day when she closed the gates
+on him Angelique would no longer accept his help, as she felt she could
+not honestly do so while behaving in a manner of which he disapproved.
+So she called together her little community, and they thought of all the
+things they could possibly do without. The masks and the gloves had
+already been discarded, and there seemed to be nothing for the sisters
+to give up, if they were to help the sick people and peasants who
+crowded about their doors, but their food and their firing. Not that she
+intended to support anybody in idleness; Angelique was far too sensible
+for that. She took counsel with her father, and found work for the men,
+and even the children, in the gardens and lands belonging to the abbey.
+Their wages were small, but each day good food was prepared in the
+kitchens--Angelique had no belief in bad cooking--and was wheeled out by
+the sisters in little carts as far as the garden walls, where the
+workmen could eat it while it was hot. Then some of the children or
+women were employed as messengers to carry bowls with dinners to the old
+and ill. Of course some of these were in the abbey infirmary, and were
+looked after by the nuns, and especially by Angelique, who took the one
+who seemed to need most care into her own room, while she slept on the
+damp floor--for half the sickness at Port Royal was due to the marshes
+that surrounded it. If it happened that she had her cell to herself,
+there was no fire to warm her, yet she often got up in the night to
+carry wood to the long dormitory where several of the nuns slept, so
+that they, at least, should not suffer from cold.
+
+All the daily expenses she saw to herself, as debt was hateful to her,
+and she and the sisters denied themselves food and wore the cheapest and
+coarsest clothes, not for the sake of their own souls, but of other
+people's bodies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In many ways, though she did not know it and certainly would have been
+shocked to hear it, Angelique resembled the Puritans, whose influence
+in England was daily increasing. She had a special dislike to money
+being spent on decorations and ornaments in churches, or in embroidered
+vestments for priests, and never would allow any of them in her own. She
+also invented a loose and ugly grey dress for the girls to wear who
+desired admission to the convent, instead of permitting them to put on
+the clothes they had worn at home, as had always been the custom. The
+first to wear it was her own sister Anne, who after leading the gay life
+of a Parisian young lady for a year, at fifteen resolved to abandon it
+for ever and join her three sisters at Port Royal.
+
+It is possible that monsieur Arnauld may have regretted his hastiness in
+forcing Angelique and Agnes to become nuns when he saw one daughter
+after another following in their footsteps. Anne he had expected to
+remain, for she was full of little fancies and vanities, and he could
+not imagine her submitting to the work which he knew the abbess loved.
+
+He would have laughed sadly enough if he could have seen how right he
+was. On the first night that Anne slept in the abbey, she laid a cloth
+on a table in her cell, and tried to make it look a little like the
+dressing-table she had left in Paris. Angelique happened to pass the
+open door on her way to the chapel, and, smiling to herself, quietly
+stripped the table. Some hours later she went by again, and over it was
+spread a white handkerchief. This she also removed, but, leaving Anne to
+apply the lesson, she did not make any remark, and sent her to clean out
+the fowl-house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By this time the eyes of the world had been turned to Port Royal, and to
+the strange spectacle of a girl who, possessed of every talent which
+would enable her to shine in society, had deliberately chosen the worst
+of everything, and had induced her nuns to choose it too. Possibly the
+quiet and useful life led by the Port Royal sisters may have made the
+gaieties and disorders of the other convents look even blacker than
+before; but however that may be, when Angelique was about twenty-six a
+most difficult and disagreeable piece of work was put into her hands.
+
+The king, Louis XIII., a very different man from his father, Henry IV.,
+had determined to put an end to the state of things that prevailed, and
+resolved to begin with Maubuisson.
+
+Now nobody had ever attempted to interfere with madame d'Estrees, who
+was still abbess, and when the abbot of Citeaux, her superior, informed
+her that in obedience to the king's commands he proposed to come over
+and inspect Maubuisson, she was extremely angry. Without caring for the
+consequences, she locked up in a cell two monks who had brought the
+message, and kept them without food for some days; after which she
+roughly bade them return whence they came, and thought no more about the
+matter.
+
+For two years the affair rested where it was; then the king again turned
+his attention to Maubuisson, and wrote to the abbot of Citeaux inquiring
+why his previous orders had not been carried out, bidding him send an
+officer at once and obtain an exact report of the conduct of the nuns
+and the abbess.
+
+The commissioner, monsieur Deruptis, arrived with three or four men at
+Maubuisson, and congratulated themselves when they found the doors flung
+wide and they were invited to enter.
+
+'The reverend mother is too unwell to see anyone to-day,' said the nun
+who admitted them, 'but she has prepared rooms in the west tower for
+your reception, and to-morrow she hopes to be able to speak with you
+herself.' So saying she led them down several passages till she reached
+a little door, which she unlocked, and then stood back for them to pass
+in. As soon as they were all inside, making their way up the corkscrew
+stairs, she swung back the door, and before the men realised what had
+happened they heard the key turn in the lock.
+
+For four days they were kept prisoners, with nothing to eat but a very
+little bread and water; while every morning the commissioner was
+severely flogged till he was almost too weak to move. At length, driven
+to desperation, he and his companions contrived to squeeze themselves
+through a narrow window, and returned dirty and half-starved to the
+abbot.
+
+Powerful as the abbess might be, even her friends and relations thought
+she had gone too far, and they were besides very angry with her for
+allowing her own young sister, who was a novice in the convent, to be
+secretly married there. They therefore informed the abbot of Citeaux
+that as far as they were concerned no opposition would be made, and he
+instantly started for Maubuisson, sending a messenger before him to tell
+the abbess that he was on his way. For all answer the messenger came
+back saying that the abbess would listen to nothing; but the abbot, now
+thoroughly angry, only pushed on the faster, and thundered at the great
+gates. He hardly expected that madame d'Estrees would refuse to see him
+when it came to the point, but she _did_; he then, as was his right,
+called an assembly of the nuns, and summoned her to attend. Again she
+declined; she was ill, she said, and could not leave her bed; so, fuming
+with rage, he went back to Paris and told the whole story to the king.
+
+After certain forms of law had been gone through, which took a little
+time, the Parliament of Paris issued a warrant for the seizure of the
+abbess, and for her imprisonment in the convent of the Penitents in
+Paris. On this occasion the abbot took a strong body of archers with
+him, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the scandal of carrying off the
+abbess by force, he left them at Pontoise. He went alone to the abbey,
+and for two days tried by every means he could think of to persuade the
+abbess to submit. But she only laughed, and declared she was ill, and at
+last he sent for his archers and ordered them to force an entrance.
+
+'Open, in the king's name!' cried their captain; but as the doors
+remained closed, he signed to his men to force them, and soon two
+hundred and fifty archers were in the abbey, seeking its abbess. During
+the whole day they sought in vain, and began to think that she was not
+in the house at all; at length a soldier passing through a dormitory
+noticed a slight movement in one of the beds, which proved to contain
+the rebellious abbess. The man bade her get up at once, but she told
+them that it was impossible, as she had hardly any clothes on. The
+soldier, not knowing what to do, sent for his captain, who promptly bade
+four archers take up mattress and abbess and all, and place them in the
+carriage which stood before the gates.
+
+In this manner, accompanied by one nun, madame d'Estrees entered the
+convent of the Penitents.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is very amusing to read about, but at the time the affair made a
+great noise, and the other abbesses who were conscious of having
+neglected their vows had long felt very uneasy and watched anxiously
+what would happen next. Of course, Maubuisson could not be left without
+a head, and as soon as the abbess was removed, the abbot summoned the
+nuns before him and informed them that they might choose which of three
+ladies should take the place of madame d'Estrees. One of the three was
+madame de Port Royal.
+
+The 'ladies of Maubuisson,' as they had always been called, trembled at
+the thought of what they might have to undergo at the hands of
+Angelique, yet they liked still less the other abbesses proposed. In the
+end it was she who was appointed, and a fortnight later arrived at
+Maubuisson with three of her own nuns, one being her young sister Marie.
+
+Some of the Maubuisson nuns remembered their new abbess quite well, when
+she had lived amongst them nearly seventeen years before. These she
+treated with the utmost consideration, for she knew it was unreasonable
+to expect them to give up all at once the habits of a lifetime, and she
+thought it wiser to gain permission to add thirty young novices to the
+community whom she might train herself. To these girls she taught the
+duties performed by her own nuns, and herself took part in carrying wood
+for the fires, keeping clean the chapel and other parts of the abbey,
+washing the clothes, digging up the garden, and singing the chants, for
+she had been shocked by the discordant and irreverent manner in which
+the services were conducted. She even allowed her novices to wait on the
+older nuns, replacing their own servants.
+
+For a year and a half Angelique struggled patiently to soften the hearts
+of the Maubuisson 'ladies,' but without success, and her courage and
+spirits began to fail her. Then, in September 1619, an event occurred
+which, unpleasant though it was, brought her back to her old self, and
+this was the sudden return of madame d'Estrees.
+
+At six o'clock one morning the late abbess, who had managed to escape
+from the convent where she had been imprisoned, unexpectedly appeared as
+the nuns were on their way to church, having been let in secretly by one
+of the sisters.
+
+'Madame,' she said to Angelique, 'I have to thank you for the care you
+have taken of my abbey, and to request that you will go back to yours.'
+
+'There is nothing I long for more, madame,' replied Angelique, 'but I
+have been placed here by the abbot of Citeaux, our superior, and I
+cannot leave without his permission.' Upon this madame d'Estrees
+declared that she was abbess and would take her proper position; but
+Angelique, merely asserting that the king and the abbot had placed her
+there, and there she must stay, walked calmly to her own seat, while
+madame d'Estrees, not having made up her mind what to do, went off to
+see her own nuns, who seldom were present at the early service.
+
+By command of Angelique, everything went on as usual in the abbey,
+except that the keys of all the doors had been given up to her. But
+after dinner, to her great surprise, the chaplain came to her and
+informed her that it was her duty to give way to force, and that if she
+did not do so quietly the armed men whom madame d'Estrees had left
+outside the walls would thrust her out. The abbess replied that she
+could not forsake her charge; but she had hardly spoken when, to her
+amazement, five soldiers with naked swords advanced towards her, and
+threatened her with violence if she did not do as they wished. But no
+Arnauld ever submitted to bullying, and Angelique repeated her words,
+and said that nothing but force could make her quit her post.
+
+While this conversation was going on the novices, terrified at what
+might be happening to their abbess, crowded round in order to protect
+her. They were all very much excited, and when madame d'Estrees, who had
+entered also, happened to touch Angelique's veil, one of the young nuns
+turned to her and cried out indignantly:
+
+'Wretched woman! Would you dare to pull off the veil of madame de Port
+Royal?' and snatching the veil which the abbess had put on her own head,
+she tore it off and flung it in a corner.
+
+'Put madame out,' said madame d'Estrees, turning to the gentlemen with
+her, and Angelique, who did not resist, was at once thrust out of the
+door and into a carriage that was waiting. In an instant the carriage
+was covered with novices as with a swarm of flies. The wheels, the
+rumble, the coach-box, all were full of them; it was astonishing how
+they got there in their heavy, cumbrous clothes. Madame d'Estrees called
+to the coachman to whip up the horses, but he, perhaps enjoying the
+scene, replied that if he moved he was certain to crush somebody. Then
+Angelique left the coach, and the novices got down from their perches
+and stood around her.
+
+Finding that this plan had failed, madame d'Estrees ordered one of her
+lackeys to stand at the gate of the abbey and to allow Angelique, her
+two sisters, and the two Port Royal nuns to pass out, but no one else.
+She herself took hold of Angelique, who was nearly torn in half between
+her friends and enemies, and pulled her out of the gate, all the novices
+pressing behind her. The moment the rival abbesses had passed through a
+strong young novice seized hold of madame d'Estrees and forced her to
+the ground, keeping her there until every one of her companions was on
+the outside. It was in vain that the lackey tried to stop them.
+
+'If you attempt to shut that door we will squeeze you to death,' cried
+they, and each in turn gave the door behind which he stood a good push!
+
+At length they were outside, and were walking quietly down the road to
+Pontoise, where they took refuge in a church, till the inhabitants,
+hearing of their arrival, placed all they had at their disposal.
+
+Great was the indignation of the king and the abbot when, next morning,
+a letter from mere Angelique informed them of what had happened.
+Instantly a warrant was issued for the arrest of madame d'Estrees, and a
+large body of archers was sent off post-haste to Maubuisson in order to
+carry it out. But the abbess had received warning of her danger, and was
+not to be found, though her flight was so hurried that on searching her
+rooms the captain discovered several important papers that she had
+left behind her. Her friend, madame de la Serre, took refuge in a
+cupboard, which was concealed by tapestry, high up in a wall. The dust
+seems to have got into her nose, and she sneezed, and in this manner
+betrayed herself to the archers who set a ladder against the wall, which
+the lady instantly threw down. The captain then levelled his pistol at
+her, and bade his men put up the ladder again.
+
+[Illustration: The archers set a ladder against the wall, which the lady
+instantly threw down.]
+
+'I will shoot you if you do not surrender,' he said, and as she was sure
+he meant it, she gave herself up.
+
+When all was quiet in the abbey, the archers mounted their horses and
+rode to Pontoise, and under their protection Angelique and her nuns
+walked back to Maubuisson at ten o'clock that night, escorted by the
+people of Pontoise, and lighted by a hundred and fifty torches borne by
+the archers. For six months a guard of fifty remained there, but when
+madame d'Estrees was at last captured and sent back for life to the
+Convent of the Penitents, at the request of Angelique they returned to
+their quarters, and she was left to manage the nuns herself.
+
+The last year of her residence at Maubuisson was, if possible, more
+unpleasant than the rest had been, for the title of abbess was given to
+a lady of high birth whose views were far more worldly than those of
+Angelique. She was very angry at the presence of the thirty poor nuns
+who had been added to the community, and declared she would turn them
+out. So Angelique begged them to come with her to Port Royal, small
+though her abbey was, and had them taken there in a number of carriages
+sent by madame Arnauld.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After this Angelique, or some of the nuns chosen by her, was often sent
+to reform other convents, and very hard work it was. She had, besides,
+her own cares at Port Royal, for the abbey, always unhealthy, was made
+worse by overcrowding and underfeeding, and the income and the
+dormitories which had been held sufficient for sixteen now had to do for
+eighty. A low fever broke out, of which many died, and soon it became
+clear that the rest would follow if they did not leave. At length, at
+the entreaty of her mother, Angelique applied for permission to move
+into Paris, where madame Arnauld had taken a house for them.
+
+It is not easy, of course, even in a big town, to find a ready-made
+building large enough to hold so many people, and, though Angelique
+added a sleeping-gallery, the refectory or dining-room was so small that
+the nuns had to dine in parties of four. Her father was dead, and she
+does not seem to have thought of consulting any of her brothers; more
+space appeared a necessity, and, much as she hated debt, in her strait
+she made up her mind that she must borrow money in order to build fresh
+dormitories, and, breaking her rule, accepted a rich boarder, who became
+the cause of infinite trouble.
+
+Just at this period the king's mother, who was in Paris, paid a visit to
+the famous abbess, and inquired if she had nothing to ask for, as it was
+her custom always to grant some favour on entering a convent for the
+first time.
+
+Angelique replied that she prayed her to implore the king's grace to
+allow a fresh abbess to be chosen every three years, and leave being
+granted, she and her sister Agnes, who was her coadjutor, instantly
+resigned. She meant the change to be a safeguard, so that no one nun
+should enjoy absolute power for long; but as regarded her own abbey it
+was a great mistake, for she had a gift of ruling such as belonged to
+few women, and often when a mean or spiteful sister was elected she
+would wreak her ill-temper upon the late abbess, and impose all sorts of
+absurd penances upon her, which Angelique always bore meekly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the years that followed Angelique not only had her four younger
+sisters with her, Agnes, Anne, Marie, and Madeleine, but later her
+mother and her widowed sister, madame le Maitre. They were all happy to
+be together, though the rule of silence laid down by Angelique to
+prevent gossip must have stood in the way of much that would have been
+pleasant. By-and-by her nieces almost all entered the convent, and, what
+is still more surprising, her brothers and several of her nephews, most
+of them brilliant and successful men, one by one quitted the bar or the
+army, and formed a little band known as the 'Recluses of Port Royal,'
+who afterwards did useful work in draining and repairing the abbey 'in
+the fields,' so that the nuns could go back to it.
+
+And all this was owing to the example and influence of one little girl,
+who had been thrust into a position for which she had certainly shown no
+liking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the last twenty-five years of Angelique's life her religious views
+underwent a change, and her confessor, St. Cyran, who shared them, was
+imprisoned, on a charge of heresy, at Vincennes. Even as a young girl
+she had left the chapel at Port Royal bare of ornaments, and later sold
+the silver candlesticks which were a gift to the altar of Port Royal de
+Paris, in order to bestow the money on the poor. Everyone looked up to
+her, but by-and-by it began to be whispered that she was 'a dangerous
+person,' who thought that the Church needed reforming as well as the
+convents, and had adopted the opinions of one Jansen, a Swiss, who
+wished to go back to the faith of early times, when St. Augustine was
+bishop.
+
+In 1654 she heard through one of her nephews that in consequence of some
+of the recluses having resisted a decree of the pope condemning a book
+of Jansen's, a resistance supposed to have been inspired by the abbess
+herself, it was reported that she was either to be sent to the Bastille
+or imprisoned in some convent. She did not take any notice, and neither
+threat was fulfilled; but the hatred which the order of the Jesuits bore
+to the 'Jansenists,' as their opponents were called, never rested, and
+later a command came for the recluses to be dispersed, and the leaders
+were forced to go into hiding. Then her schoolgirls were sent to their
+homes, 'la belle Hamilton,' a Scotch girl, among them; and after them
+went the candidates, or those who wished to take the veil. All these
+blows came thick and fast, and Angelique, with health broken from the
+incessant labours of over fifty years, was attacked by dropsy.
+
+The nuns were in despair, and hung about her night and day, hoping that
+she might let fall some words which they might cherish almost as divine
+commands; but Angelique, who, unlike her sister Agnes, had all her life
+been very impatient of sentimentality, detected this at once, and took
+care 'neither to say nor do any thing remarkable.' 'They are too fond of
+me,' she once said, 'and I am afraid they will invent all sorts of silly
+tales about me.' And in order to put a stop as far as she could to all
+the show and parade which she knew her nuns would rejoice in, as she
+felt that her end was drawing near she gave them her last order:
+
+'Bury me in the churchyard, and do not let there be any nonsense after
+my death.'
+
+
+
+
+GORDON
+
+
+Many years hence, when the children of to-day are growing old men and
+women, they will perhaps look back over their lives, as I am doing now,
+and ask themselves questions about the people they have known or have
+heard of. 'Who,' they will say, 'was the person I should have gone to at
+once if I needed help?' 'Who was the man whose talk made me forget
+everything, till I felt as if I could listen to him for ever?' 'What
+woman was the most beautiful, or the most charming?' and they will turn
+over the chapters in the Book of Long Ago and give the answers to
+themselves, or to the boys and girls who are listening for their reply.
+Well, if the question were put throughout England at this moment, 'What
+man has kindled the greatest and most undying enthusiasm during your
+life?' the answer would be given with one voice:
+
+'Gordon.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed as if from the very first Nature had intended him for a
+soldier. His father came of a clan that has a fighting record even in
+Scotch history, and he was living on Woolwich Common, within hearing of
+the Arsenal guns, when his fourth son, Charles George, was born on
+January 28, 1833. Yet, strange to say, though fearless in many ways, and
+accustomed to rough games with his numerous brothers and sisters,
+Charles as a small boy hated the roar of cannon. Unlike queen Christina
+of Sweden, who at four years old used to clap her hands when a gun was
+discharged near her, and cry 'Again!' Charles shrank away and put his
+fingers in his ears to shut out the noise. It was not lack of courage,
+for he showed plenty of that about other things, but simply that the
+sudden sound made him jump, and was unpleasant to him.
+
+His life was from the first full of change, as the lives of soldiers'
+children often are, for the Gordons were stationed in Dublin and near
+Edinburgh before they went out to the island of Corfu when Charles was
+seven. During the three years he spent there Charles grew big and strong
+and full of daring; guns might fire all day long without his moving a
+muscle, and he was always trying to imitate the deeds of boys bigger
+than himself. When he saw them diving and swimming about in the
+beautiful clear water, he would throw himself from a rock into their
+midst, feeling quite sure that somebody would help him to float. And as
+courage and confidence are the two chief qualities necessary to make a
+good swimmer, by the time he left Corfu he was as much at home in the
+sea as any of his friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After his tenth birthday his life at Corfu came to an end, and Charles
+was brought home by his mother and sent to school at Taunton, where he
+stayed for five years. He is sure to have been liked by his
+schoolfellows, for he was a very lively, mischievous boy, constantly
+inventing some fresh prank, but never shirking the punishment it
+frequently brought. At Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen,
+it was just the same. He was continually defying, in a good-humoured
+way, those who were set over him, and more than once he had a very
+narrow escape of having his career cut short by dismissal.
+
+At this period his father held the appointment of director of the
+carriage department of the Arsenal, and his whole family suffered
+greatly from the plague of mice which overran the house they lived in.
+After putting up with it for some time, Charles and his brother Henry,
+also a cadet, laid traps and caught vast numbers of the mice, and during
+the night they carried them stealthily across the road in baskets to the
+commandant's house, exactly opposite. Opening a door which they felt
+pretty sure of finding unlocked, they emptied the baskets one by one,
+and let the mice run where they would. Then the boys crept back softly
+to their own room, shaking with laughter at the thought of the
+commandant's face when he came down in the morning.
+
+The two youths were great favourites with the workmen in the Arsenal,
+who used often to leave off the work they should have been doing to make
+squirts, crossbows, and other weapons for Charles and Henry. They must
+have trembled sometimes when they heard that the windows of the
+storehouse had been mysteriously broken, or that an officer who was
+known to be disliked by the cadets had received a deluge of water down
+his neck from a hedge bordering the road. But the culprits never
+betrayed each other, and the young Gordons soon grew so bold that they
+thought they might venture on a piece of mischief which very nearly
+ended their military career.
+
+Some earthworks had been newly thrown up near a room where the senior
+cadets, known as 'Pussies,' attended lectures on certain evenings in the
+week. One night the two Gordons hid themselves behind this rampart, and
+while listening to remarks upon fortification and strategy the cadets
+were startled by a crash of glass and a shower of small shot falling
+about their ears. In an instant they were all up and out of the house,
+dashing about in the direction from which the shots had come; and so
+quick were they that if Charles and Henry had not known every inch of
+the ground and dodged their pursuers, they would certainly have been
+caught and expelled, as they richly deserved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In June 1852 Charles Gordon was given a commission as second lieutenant
+in the Engineers, and was sent to Chatham for two years. In spite of the
+mice and the crossbows and the earthworks and many other things, he had
+gained several good conduct badges, for he had worked hard, and was
+noted for being clever both at fortifications and at surveying.
+Mathematics he never could learn. So Charles said good-bye to his
+father, who was thankful to see him put to man's work--for during the
+four years his son had passed at Woolwich he had, as he expressed it,
+'felt himself sitting on a powder barrel'--and set out on the career in
+which he was to earn a name for justice and truth throughout three
+continents.
+
+It was while Gordon was learning in Pembroke Dock something of what
+fortifications really were that the Crimean war broke out, and in
+December he was ordered to Balaclava, in charge of the materials for
+erecting wooden huts for the troops. He went down to Portsmouth and put
+the planks and fittings on board some collier boats, but not wishing to
+share their voyage, he started for Marseilles, and there took a steamer
+to Constantinople. He arrived in the harbour of Balaclava on January 1,
+1855, and heard the guns of Sebastopol booming six miles away. The cold
+was bitter, men were daily frozen to death in the trenches, food was
+very scarce, and the streets of Balaclava were full of 'swell English
+cavalry and horse-artillery carrying rations, and officers in every
+conceivable costume foraging for eatables.'
+
+Soon the young engineer was sent down to the trenches before Sebastopol,
+where he and his comrades were always under fire and scarcely ever off
+duty. It was here that his friendship began with a young captain in the
+90th Foot, now lord Wolseley, who has many stories to tell of what life
+in the trenches was like. Notwithstanding all the suffering and sadness
+around them, these young men, full of fun and high spirits, managed to
+laugh in the midst of their work. At Christmas-time captain Wolseley and
+two of his friends determined to have a plum-pudding, so that they might
+feel as if they were eating their Christmas dinner in England. It is
+true that they only had dim ideas how a plum-pudding was to be made, and
+nothing whatever to make it with, but when one is young that makes no
+difference at all. One of the three consulted a sergeant, who told him
+he thought it would need some flour and some raisins, as well as some
+suet; but as none of these things could be got, they used instead butter
+which had gone bad, dry biscuits which they pounded very fine, and a
+handful of raisins somebody gave them. Stirring this mixture carefully
+by turns, they calculated how long it would have to boil--in one of
+captain Wolseley's three towels which he sacrificed for the purpose--so
+that they might be able to enjoy it at a moment when they would all be
+off duty. Five hours, they fancied, it must be on the fire, but it had
+scarcely been boiling one when the summons came to go back to their
+work. Resolved not to lose the fruits of so much labour and care, they
+snatched the plum-pudding from the pot and ate a few spoonfuls before
+running out to their posts. But Wolseley had hardly reached his place
+before he was seized with such frightful pains that he felt as if he
+would die. His commanding officer, who happened to pass, seeing his face
+looking positively green, ordered him back to his hut. But a little rest
+soon cured him, and, like the others, he spent the night in the
+trenches.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You will have read in the story of the 'Lady in Chief' something about
+the hardships which the allied army of English, French, and Turks went
+through during the war with the Russians, so I will not repeat it here.
+Gordon, whose quick eye saw everything, was greatly struck with the way
+the French soldiers bore their sufferings. 'They had nothing to cover
+them,' he says, 'and in spite of the wet and cold they kept their health
+and their high spirits also.' Our men worked hard and with dogged
+determination, but, as a rule, they could not be called lively. True,
+till Miss Nightingale and her nurses came out they were left when
+wounded to the care of rough and ignorant, however kindly, comrades,
+while the French had always their own Sisters of Charity to turn to for
+help. But it is pleasant to think that the sons of the men who had
+fallen in the awful passage of the Berezina forty years before were
+worthy of their fathers, and could face death with a smile and a jest as
+well as they.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the war went on and the assaults on the town of Sebastopol became
+more frequent, the English generals learned to know of what stuff their
+young officers were made, and what special duties they were fit for.
+They marked that Gordon had some of Hannibal's power of guessing, almost
+by instinct, what the enemy was doing--a quality that rendered him
+extremely useful to his superiors. With all his untiring energy and
+eagerness--forty times he was in the trenches for twenty hours--he never
+overlooked the details that were necessary to ensure the success of any
+work he was entrusted with, and he never relaxed his watchfulness till
+the post to be won was actually taken. In his leisure moments he seems
+to have been fond of walking as far as he could without running into
+danger, and writes home in February of the grass that was springing and
+the crocuses that were flowering outside the camp. Sometimes he would go
+with a friend down to the great harbour on the north side of which the
+Russians were entrenched, and listen to them singing the sad boating
+songs of the Volga, or watch them trying to catch fish, chattering
+merrily all the while.
+
+At last the forts of the Mamelon and the Malakoff were stormed, and the
+Russians abandoned Sebastopol. Gordon, who had often narrowly escaped
+death, was mentioned by the generals in despatches; but he did not
+receive promotion, and, except a scar, the only token he carried away of
+those long months of toil and strain was the cross of the Legion of
+Honour bestowed on him by the French. But he was a marked man for all
+that, and was sent straight from the Crimea, after peace was made, to
+join a mission for fixing fresh frontiers for Russia south-west along
+the river Pruth and on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wherever he went, whether he was on the borders of Turkey, in Armenia,
+or in the Caucasus, where he proceeded after a winter in England, he
+made the best of his opportunities and saw all he could of the country
+and the people. He was as fond as ever of expeditions and adventures,
+and climbed Ararat till a blinding snowstorm came on and the guides
+refused to proceed. In the Caucasus he dined out whenever he was asked,
+and was equally surprised at the beauty of the smart ladies (who wore
+bracelets made of coal) and at the ingrained dirt of their clothes and
+their houses. On the whole, though he thoroughly enjoyed the good
+dinners they gave him, he preferred going on shooting expeditions into
+the mountains with their husbands and sons.
+
+At the end of 1858 he was ordered home again, and a few months later
+obtained his captaincy, and was made adjutant and field-work instructor
+at Chatham. But this did not last long, for in a year's time he was
+destined to undertake one of the two great missions of his life.
+
+Early in 1860 a war with China broke out, and in this also the French
+were our allies. More soldiers were needed, and volunteers were asked
+for. Gordon was one of the first to send in his name, but before he
+reached Pekin the Taku forts, at the mouth of the Tientsin River--forts
+of which in the year 1900 we were to hear so much--had been taken.
+However, the famous Summer Palace was still to be captured, and this,
+which indeed might be called the eighth wonder of the world, lay out in
+the country, eight miles away from Pekin. The grounds, covering more
+than twelve miles, were laid out with lakes, fountains, tea-houses,
+waterfalls, banks of trees, and beds of flowers, while scattered about
+were palaces belonging to different members of the royal family, all
+filled with beautiful things--china of the oldest and rarest sorts,
+silks, lacquer, cabinets, and an immense variety of clocks and watches.
+By order of the English envoy this gorgeous place was given over to
+pillage, in revenge for the ill-treatment of some French and British
+prisoners. One can form a little idea of the vast amount of treasures it
+contained from constantly seeing scattered in houses a watch or a
+lacquer box or a china bowl that, we are told, had once decorated the
+Summer Palace; they really seem to be endless. Lord Wolseley tells how
+he happened to be standing by the French general in the gardens while
+the looting was going on, and as a French soldier came out he handed to
+his chief something that he had brought expressly for him. Then, turning
+to the young English officer, he held out a beautiful miniature of a man
+wearing a dress of the time of Louis XIV.
+
+'That is for you, my comrade,' he said, smiling, and Wolseley, heartily
+thanking him, examined the gift.
+
+'How,' he thought, 'could a miniature of a French poet living two
+hundred years ago have got to Pekin?' Then he remembered that an embassy
+from China had arrived in France, bearing presents to the French court.
+Louis received them graciously, and showed them the splendours of
+Versailles and all the curious and artistic ornaments it contained. When
+the envoys left, the king gave them gifts of French manufacture as
+valuable as their own to take to their emperor, and among them was this
+miniature of Boileau, by Petitot, the greatest of French miniaturists.
+
+The imperial throne, which stands on dragon's claws, and is covered with
+cushions of yellow silk, the imperial colour, was bought by Gordon
+himself, and presented by him to Chatham, where it may still be seen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Till the large sum fixed for the expenses of the war was paid General
+Staveley was left with three thousand men in command at Tientsin, and
+Gordon remained with him. Tientsin is a dreary place in a salt plain,
+and the climate is very cold, as it is throughout North China. But
+Gordon minded cold far less than heat and mosquitoes, and besides his
+days were full from morning till night, building huts for the soldiers
+and stables for the horses, and in managing a fund which he had
+collected to help some Chinese in the neighbourhood who had been ruined
+by the war. Though very careless of his own money, and ready to give it
+away without inquiry to any beggar who asked for it, he was most
+particular about other people's, and the attention which he paid to
+small things enabled him to spend the fund in the manner that would best
+aid the poor creatures who had lost everything. Now and then he gave
+himself a day's holiday, and explored the country, as he was fond of
+doing; and once he rode out to the Great Wall, twenty-two feet high and
+sixteen wide, which runs along the north-west of China, over mountains
+and across plains, for fifteen hundred miles, and was built two thousand
+years ago by an emperor to keep out the invading hosts of the Tartars.
+At certain distances strong forts were placed, and these were garrisoned
+by Chinese soldiers. As he passed through the more remote villages the
+inhabitants would come out of their houses and stare. A white man! They
+had heard that there were such, though they had never really believed
+it. Well, he was a strange creature truly, with his hair cropped close
+and pink in his cheeks, and they did not much admire him!
+
+Nearer Pekin he met long strings, or caravans, of camels laden with tea,
+making their way to Russia. Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the
+mountains it was frightfully cold, and raw eggs were frozen so hard that
+no one could eat them; but Gordon could do with as little food as any
+man, and did not suffer from the climate. He came back strengthened and
+interested, and it was as well he had the short rest to brace him, for
+now there lay before him a very difficult task.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For quite thirty years great discontent with government had been felt by
+the peasants and lower classes in some of the central provinces of the
+empire, and a long while before the war with England broke out a peasant
+emperor had been proclaimed. The insurrection--or the Taeping rebellion,
+as it is called--could have been easily put down in the beginning, but
+ministers in China are slow to move, and it soon became a real danger to
+the empire. The great object of the rebels was to gain possession of
+Shanghai, the centre of European trade, built in the midst of canals and
+rivers, with the great Yang-tse-kiang at hand to carry into the interior
+of China the goods of foreign merchants of all countries that come to
+its harbour across the Pacific. Pirate vessels, too, haunted its shores,
+ready to pounce upon the rich traders, and when their prizes were
+captured, they went swiftly away, and hid themselves among the islands
+and bogs that stretched themselves a hundred miles to the north and
+south of the city.
+
+Thus Shanghai was a very important place both to Chinese, French, and
+English; yet for twelve years the rebellion had been allowed to go on
+unchecked, burning, pillaging, and murdering, till in 1853 the rebels
+had reached a point only a hundred miles distant from Pekin itself. Then
+soldiers were hastily collected, and the Taepings forced back; quarrels
+broke out among their leaders, and most likely the rebellion would have
+melted away altogether had it not been for the appearance four years
+later of young Chung Wang, who assumed the command, and proved himself a
+most skilful general. As long as he led the Taepings in battle victory
+was on their side; if he was needed elsewhere, they were invariably
+defeated.
+
+Inspired by his successes, Chung Wang attacked and took several rich and
+important towns in the Shanghai district, and held Nankin, the ancient
+capital of China. Shanghai trembled when the flames of burning villages
+became visible from her towers and pagodas, and even the Chinese felt
+that, if they were to be saved at all, measures must be quickly taken.
+Volunteers of all nations living in the town, Chinese as well as
+Europeans and Americans, put themselves under the command of an American
+named Ward, who drilled them, trained them, and fought with them, and,
+it is said, gave battle to the rebels on seventy different occasions
+without once being beaten. Well had his troops earned the title
+afterwards given them at Pekin, of the Ever-Victorious Army.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This was the state of things when, in May 1862, Gordon was sent to
+Shanghai in command of the English engineers who, with some French
+troops, were to assist the Chinese army in clearing the district round
+Shanghai of the dreaded Taepings. The nature of the country, almost
+encircled by water, was such that the help of a good engineer was needed
+if the expedition was to be successful, and Gordon was busy all day in
+surveying the canals or moats outside the walls of some city they were
+about to attack, to see at what point he could throw a bridge of boats
+across, or where he could best place his reserves. At the end of six
+months the enemy was forced back to a distance of forty miles; but the
+French admiral Protet had been killed in action, and Ward had fallen
+while leading an assault.
+
+By this time the emperor and his ministers at Pekin understood that if
+the Taepings were to be put down the Chinese army must be commanded by a
+general capable of opposing Chung Wang, and a request was sent to the
+English government that the post might be temporarily offered to major
+Gordon. After some hesitation, leave was granted, and permission was
+given to a certain number of officers to serve under him. The emperor
+was overjoyed--much more so than Gordon, who was promptly created a
+mandarin. He foresaw many difficulties in store before he could get his
+'rabble' of four thousand men into order, and at the outset he had much
+trouble with Burgevine, Ward's successor in command of the
+Ever-Victorious Army, but a very different man from Ward himself.
+However, by the help of the famous Li Hung Chang, Burgevine was
+ultimately got rid of, but not before he had done a great deal of
+mischief. Gordon was free to devote all his energies to building a
+little fleet of small steamers and Chinese gunboats that could go down
+the rivers and canals, and hinder the foreign traders from secretly
+supplying the rebels with arms and ammunition.
+
+The strict discipline enforced by Gordon made him very unpopular with
+his little army, and they could not understand why he made the act of
+pillage a crime, to be punished by death. But when we think how wholly
+impossible it is for any European or American to guess what is going on
+in the mind of any Asiatic, it is surprising, not that he met with
+difficulties, but that he ever succeeded in obtaining obedience. As it
+was, two thousand of his men deserted after some heavy fighting, and
+Ching, the Chinese general, was jealous of him, and incited the troops
+to oppose and annoy him in every way. Besides, Li Hung Chang was
+behindhand in paying his army, and, as Gordon felt that his own good
+faith and honour were pledged to punctual payment, he tendered his
+resignation as commander. This frightened the emperor and his ministers
+so much that the money due was quickly sent, and by the help of General
+Staveley matters were arranged.
+
+At the capture of Quinsan Gordon took prisoners about two thousand
+Taepings, whom he drilled with care and enlisted in his own army,
+turning them, he said, into much better soldiers than his old ones.
+Eight hundred of them he made his own guard, and under his eye they
+proved faithful and trustworthy. With the help of his new force he
+determined to besiege the ancient town of Soo-chow, situated on the
+Grand Canal and close to the Tai-ho, or great lake.
+
+All around it were waterways leading to the sea, but the Grand Canal
+itself, stretching away to the Yang-tse-kiang, was held by the Taeping
+general Chung Wang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now the possession of Soo-chow was of great importance to both parties,
+and Gordon at once proceeded to cut off its supplies that came by way of
+the sea and the Tai-ho, by putting three of his steamers on the lake, so
+that no provisions could get into the city except through the Grand
+Canal. On the land side fighting was going on perpetually, and by the
+help of a body of good Chinese troops Gordon gained a decisive victory
+in the open field. We can scarcely, however, realise all the
+difficulties he had to contend with in his army itself. General Ching
+not only hated him, and always tried to upset his plans, but was quite
+reckless, and if left to himself invariably got into mischief. Then the
+minister, Li Hung Chang's brother, who had been given the command of
+twenty thousand troops, was utterly without either instinct or
+experience, and continually hampered Gordon's movements by some act of
+folly. Worst of all, he could not feel sure of the fidelity of his own
+officers, and during the siege he found that one of them had actually
+given information of his plans to Chung Wang.
+
+As soon as the man's guilt was certain Gordon sent for him, and in the
+light of one whose soul had never held a thought that was not honourable
+and true the traitor must have seen himself as he really was. We do not
+know what Gordon said to him--most likely very little, but he offered
+him one chance of retrieving himself, and that was that he should lead
+the next forlorn hope.
+
+In spite of his treachery the culprit was able to feel the baseness of
+his conduct. He eagerly accepted Gordon's proposal, though he was well
+aware that almost certain death was in store. And his repentance was
+real, and not merely the effect of a moment's shame, for when, some time
+after, a forlorn hope was necessary to carry the stockades before
+Soo-chow, Gordon, whose mind had been occupied with other things, had
+entirely forgotten all about his promise. But though he did not
+remember, the officer did, and claimed his right to lead. He was the
+first man killed, but the stockades were carried, and after two months'
+siege Soo-chow was won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nowhere during Gordon's service in China was the difference between East
+and West more clearly shown than in the events that happened after the
+capture of Soo-chow. Gordon respected his enemies, who had fought
+bravely, and wished them to be granted favourable terms of surrender.
+Moh Wang in particular, the captain of the city, had shown special skill
+and courage, and before the town fell Gordon had obtained a promise
+from Li Hung Chang that the Taeping commander's fate should be placed in
+his hands. At a council held inside Soo-chow, Moh Wang desired to hold
+out, but the other Wangs (or nobles) all voted for surrender, and at
+length they began to quarrel. Moh Wang would not give way, and then Kong
+Wang caught up his dagger and struck the first blow. The rest fell upon
+Moh Wang, and dragged him from his seat, cutting off his head, which
+they sent to Ching the general as a gift.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As plunder had been strictly forbidden by Gordon, he was very anxious to
+give his soldiers two months' pay to make up; but one month's pay was
+all he could obtain, and that with great difficulty, while the troops,
+angry and disappointed, threatened to revolt and to march against Li
+Hung Chang, as governor of the province. This was, however, stopped by
+Gordon, who then went into the city to the house of Nar Wang, another
+Taeping leader, whom he wished also to gain over. On the previous day he
+had heard from Ching that at twelve o'clock on the morning of December 6
+the Wangs had arranged to meet the governor and surrender Soo-chow, as
+the emperor had consented to spare their lives and those of the
+prisoners; so Gordon started early in order to catch Nar Wang before he
+left, reaching Nar Wang's house just as he and the other Wangs were
+mounting their horses for the interview. After talking to them a little
+he bade them good-bye, and they rode away.
+
+The fate that they met with was the same as they had dealt to Moh Wang.
+It seemed ridiculous to the governor to keep faith with men who had just
+delivered themselves and their city into his hands, and almost every
+Chinaman would have agreed with him. The Wangs were all taken over to
+the other side of the river and there beheaded, their heads being cut
+off and flung aside. But somehow, though the murder was committed in
+broad daylight, it was kept a secret till the following day.
+
+This breach of faith in murdering men who had surrendered might long
+have remained unknown to Gordon but for a slight change in his plans. He
+suddenly decided that he would embark on one of his steamers on the
+Tai-ho, instead of leaving the city by another route. It was some little
+time before steam could be got up, so he went for a walk through the
+streets with Dr. Halliday Macartney, whose name will always be connected
+with China. To his surprise, crowds of imperialists were standing about,
+talking eagerly and excitedly, and it was clear to both Englishmen that
+some sort of a disturbance had taken place. Turning a corner they
+suddenly met General Ching, who grew so pale and looked so uncomfortable
+that Gordon's suspicions were aroused, and he at once inquired if the
+Wangs had seen Li Hung Chang, and what had taken place.
+
+Ching replied that they had never been to Li Hung Chang at all, which
+astonished Gordon, who answered that he had seen them starting, and if
+they had not gone there, where were they? Then Ching said they had sent
+a message to the governor stating that they wished to be allowed to keep
+twenty thousand men, and to retain half of the city, building a wall to
+shut off their own portion. Gordon was greatly puzzled by this
+information, and asked if Ching thought that the Wangs could have joined
+the Taepings again in some other place; but the Chinese general replied
+that he thought most likely that they had returned quietly to their own
+homes.
+
+To all appearance Ching was speaking the truth, yet Gordon could not
+feel satisfied. Turning to Macartney, who was standing by listening to
+the conversation, he begged him to go quickly to Nar Wang's house and
+tell him that the surrender must be unconditional, and then to return
+to him at a certain spot. When Macartney reached the house where Nar
+Wang lived he was informed by the servant who opened it that his master
+was out.
+
+'Will he be in soon, for I must see him,' inquired Macartney. 'I have
+business of the greatest importance.'
+
+The man looked at him silently, and then drew his hand slowly across his
+throat. Macartney understood the ghastly sign, and went swiftly away,
+but only just in time to avoid a crowd of pillagers, who poured into the
+house and in a few minutes had wrecked or stolen all they could lay
+hands on. He soon reached the spot which Gordon had appointed, but, long
+though he waited, Gordon never came.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Macartney had left him Gordon stayed some time talking with Ching,
+and trying to find out what had really occurred, for that some dark deed
+had taken place he became quite convinced. However, not even torture can
+wring from a Chinaman what he does not choose to tell, and at length
+Gordon gave up the attempt in despair, and hurried through crowds laden
+with plunder to Nar Wang's house in order to see and hear for himself.
+The door stood open, and he walked rapidly through the rooms. At first
+the dwelling seemed as empty as it was bare, but at length he thought he
+saw some eyes looking at him behind a pile of rubbish.
+
+'Come out,' he said; 'I am alone, you have nothing to fear'; and then an
+old man crept out, who, with many low bows and polite expressions,
+explained that in his nephew's absence the Chinese soldiers had pillaged
+his house, and begged the honourable Englishman to help him take away
+the ladies, whom he had hidden in a cellar, to his own dwelling.
+
+Gordon was furious at learning that his strict orders against pillage
+had been disobeyed, but this was not the moment to think of that. With
+some difficulty they all passed through the crowded streets, but when
+they reached the old man's house they found a guard round it, and Gordon
+was informed that he must consider himself a prisoner. Luckily for him
+the Taepings had not yet learned the fate of the Wangs, or his life
+would have been speedily taken in payment for theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that night Gordon remained locked up in one room, impatiently
+chafing at the thought of what might be going on in the city. Early in
+the morning he got leave to send an interpreter with a letter to the
+English lines, ordering his bodyguards to come to his rescue, and to
+seize Li Hung Chang as security for the Wangs. His first messenger was
+stopped and his letter torn up; but in the afternoon he was himself set
+free on a promise to send a guard to protect the Taepings in Nar Wang's
+house. This he instantly did, and in his indignation at the permission
+given in his absence to the imperialist soldiers to sack the city
+refused to see or speak to general Ching.
+
+On receiving Gordon's refusal Ching began to feel that he and Li Hung
+Chang had gone rather far, and that the day of reckoning would be a very
+uncomfortable one. Some explanation he must make, so he ordered an
+English officer to go at once to Gordon and inform him that he knew
+nothing of what had become of the Wangs, or whether they were alive or
+dead, but that Nar Wang's son was safe in his tent.
+
+'Bring him here,' said Gordon, and he waited in silence till a boy of
+fourteen entered the camp at the east gate. From him he learned what had
+happened in a few words. All the Wangs, his father among them, had been
+taken across the river on the previous day, and there cruelly murdered;
+their heads had been cut off, and their bodies left lying on the bank.
+
+Speechless with horror, Gordon set off at once for the place of the
+murder, and found the nine headless corpses lying as they had fallen.
+Englishman and soldier though he was, tears of rage forced their way
+into his eyes at the thought that by this act of treachery on the part
+of the Chinese his honour and that of his country had been trampled in
+the dust. Then, taking a revolver instead of the stick which was the
+only weapon he carried even in action, he went straight to Li Hung
+Chang's quarters, intending to shoot him dead and to bear the
+responsibility.
+
+But the governor had been warned, and took his measures accordingly. Li
+Hung Chang had escaped from his boat, and was hiding in the city. In
+vain Gordon, his anger no whit abated, sought for him high and low. No
+trace of him could be found; and at last Gordon returned to Quinsan,
+where he called a council of his English officers, and informed them
+that until the emperor had punished Li Hung Chang as he deserved he
+should decline to serve with him, and should resign his command into the
+hands of General Brown, who was stationed at Shanghai. As to Li Hung
+Chang's offer, sent by Macartney, to sign any proclamation Gordon chose
+to write, saying that he was both innocent and ignorant of the murder of
+the Wangs, he would not even listen to it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as General Brown received Gordon's letter at Shanghai he
+instantly set out for Quinsan, where Gordon remained with his troops for
+two months, while Li Hung Chang's conduct was being inquired into, or,
+rather, while the government was trying to find out how the anger of the
+English generals and the English envoy on account of the murder of the
+Wangs could best be satisfied. For Li Hung had been beforehand with us,
+guessing how much he had at stake, and had been much praised for his act
+and given a yellow jacket, or, as we should say 'the Garter.' On Gordon
+himself a medal of the highest class was bestowed, with a large sum of
+money, and, what the imperial government knew he would value much more,
+a grant for his wounded men and extra pay for the soldiers. Anything
+that tended to make his troops more comfortable Gordon, who had already
+devoted to their help his 1,200 l. a year of pay from the Chinese
+government, gladly received, but for himself he would accept nothing and
+keep nothing, except two flags, which had no connection with the Wang
+massacre. Nor did he allow anyone to remain in ignorance of the motive
+of his refusal, for he wrote a letter to the emperor himself, in which
+he stated that 'he regretted most sincerely that, owing to the
+circumstances which occurred since the capture of Soo-chow, he was
+unable to receive any mark of his majesty the emperor's recognition,'
+though he 'respectfully begged his majesty to accept his thanks for his
+intended kindness.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the taking of Soo-chow the Taeping resistance was really broken,
+and soon Nankin and Hangchow were the only important places left to
+them, though plenty of fighting was still to be done. To the great
+relief of the government Gordon was at length persuaded to resume his
+command, more from the thought that he might be able to some extent to
+check the cruelty natural to the Chinese than for any other reason. It
+is amusing to watch the slavish behaviour of the emperor towards the man
+whose help he so greatly needed, and whose anger he so deeply feared.
+Once, when Gordon in leading an attack with his wand in his hand, the
+only weapon he ever carried, received a bad wound below the knee, his
+majesty promulgated a public edict ordering Li Hung Chang to inquire
+daily after him, and the governor himself issued a proclamation, setting
+forth all the circumstances of the massacre of Soo-chow, and declaring
+in the clearest manner that Gordon had been totally ignorant of the
+whole affair.
+
+In June 1864 the British government sent an intimation to China that
+they considered the country had no further need for Gordon's services,
+and wished him set at liberty to return home. Gordon himself would
+perhaps have preferred to remain a little longer, but, as he was given
+no choice, he quietly disbanded the Ever-Victorious-Army, fearing that,
+if led by unscrupulous men, it might become a danger to the empire. He
+then visited the general besieging Nankin, whose name was Tseng-kwo-fan,
+and gave him a little advice as to the training of troops, and even took
+part in directing some of the assaults. Then he took leave of the
+general, and a few hours later he had started on his journey. Tien Wang,
+one of the Taeping commanders within the walls of Nankin, seeing that
+the cause was tottering to its fall, committed suicide in the manner
+proper to his rank by swallowing gold leaf. Shortly after the city
+itself was stormed, and Chung Wang, whose presence among the rebels was,
+said Gordon, equal to an army of five thousand men, fell into the hands
+of the victors. He was sentenced to be beheaded, but was given a week's
+respite in order to write the history of the rebellion of the Taepings,
+who had invaded sixteen out of the eighteen provinces and destroyed six
+hundred cities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By this time Gordon and Li Hung Chang had begun to know more of each
+other and to understand a little better the different views of East and
+West. Gordon had gained the trust and respect of everybody, even of the
+Taeping chiefs themselves, while the prince Kung, in the name of the
+emperor, wrote a letter of the most hearty gratitude for Gordon's
+services to the British minister at Pekin. The title of Ti-tu, the
+highest rank in the Chinese army, had been conferred on him, and also
+the yellow jacket, a distinction dating back to the coming of the
+present Manchu dynasty in the seventeenth century, and only given to
+generals who had been victorious against rebels. Gordon had besides six
+dresses of mandarins, and a book explaining how they should be worn.
+They were of course the handsomest that China could produce, and the
+buttons on the hats alone were worth 30 l. or 40 l. each. From the two
+empresses he received a gold medal specially struck in his honour; and
+by this he set great store, though not long after, having spent all his
+pay on his boys at Gravesend, he sold it for 10 l., and, smoothing out
+the inscription, sent the money to the Lancashire Famine Fund.
+
+His own government gave him a step in military rank, and it was as
+'Colonel Gordon' that he returned home early in 1865.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next six years of his life Gordon passed at home, and these years
+were, he said, the happiest he had ever spent. He first visited his
+family, who were living at Southampton, and to them he was ready to talk
+of all that he had seen and done since they last parted. Invitations
+poured in upon him from all sides, but he hated being fussed over, and
+invariably lost his temper at any attempt to show him off. He was so
+angry at a minister who borrowed from Mrs. Gordon his private journal of
+the Taeping rebellion, and then sent to have it printed for the other
+members of the Cabinet to read, that he rushed straight to the printers
+and insisted that the type should at once be destroyed. It was a very
+great loss to the world; but the minister had no business to act as he
+did without Gordon's permission, and had only himself to thank for what
+happened.
+
+Delightful though it was to be back again, Gordon soon got tired of
+being idle, so he was given an appointment to superintend the erection
+of forts at Gravesend. His leisure hours he devoted to helping the
+people round him, especially little ragged boys, whose only playground
+and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside. And it is curious that
+he, who amongst strangers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often
+tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as
+suspicious as they are acute. About himself and his own comfort he never
+thought, and if he was working would eat, when it was necessary and he
+remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a drawer of his table.
+But as he had carefully watched over the welfare of his troops in China,
+so in Gravesend he looked after that of his boys. He took into his own
+house as many as there was room for, and clothed and fed them, while in
+the evenings he taught them geography, and told them stories from
+English history and the Bible, and when he considered they had done
+lessons long enough he played games with them. By-and-by more boys came
+in from the outside and joined his classes. It did not matter to him how
+many they were, they were all welcome, and he gave them, as far as the
+time allowed, a training which was religious as well as practical,
+hoping that some day they might turn out good soldiers and sailors, and
+be a protection to the empire. Several of his boys were taken on board
+some of the many ships off Gravesend, and the 'kernel,' as they called
+him, kept a map stuck over with pins tracing their voyages all over the
+world.
+
+[Illustration: He told them stories from English history.]
+
+Most people would have considered that between military duties and boys'
+classes they were busy enough; but Gordon still found time to spare for
+the ragged schools, and money to provide hundreds of boots and suits for
+the little waifs, till he left himself almost penniless.
+
+The large garden attached to his house was of no benefit to himself, but
+was lent by him to a number of his friends, each of whom did as he liked
+with his own portion, and either kept the fruit and vegetables for his
+family, or else sold them. Of course, the 'kernel' was frequently taken
+in, and spent his money on those who had no claim to it; but the boys he
+helped were seldom a disappointment, any more than the boys of to-day
+sent out from the Gordon Boys' Homes founded in his memory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It must have been a black day indeed for many in Gravesend when Gordon
+was despatched by his government on a mission to the Danube, and then
+ordered to inspect the graves of those who had fallen in the Crimea
+seventeen years before. So he said good-bye to his friends, young and
+old, leaving to the ragged schools some gorgeous Chinese flags, which
+are still waved at the school treats amidst shouts of remembrance of
+their giver.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On his way back from the Crimea Gordon stopped at Constantinople, and
+while there a proposal was made to him, on the part of the sultan, to
+proceed to Egypt and to take service, with the queen's permission, under
+his vassal, the khedive, or ruler, as governor of the tribes in upper
+Egypt. Sir Samuel Baker had hitherto held the post, but now wished to
+resign, and Gordon, who had always laid greatly to heart the iniquity of
+the slave-trade, thought that, as governor of the provinces from which
+the supply of slaves was drawn, he might be able to put an end to it.
+Leave was granted in the autumn of 1873, and before Gordon returned to
+London to make the necessary preparations, he proceeded to Cairo to see
+the khedive, or, as he was still called, 'the lieutenant of the sultan.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Gordon accepted the position of 'governor of the equatorial
+provinces,' with a salary of L2,000 a year, instead of the L10,000
+offered him by the khedive, the country, which ten years before had been
+rich and prosperous, was in a wretched condition owing to the
+slave-trade, carried on as long as they were able by Europeans as well
+as by Arabs. At first elephant-hunting was made the pretext of their
+expeditions, but soon they found negroes a more profitable article of
+commerce, and whole villages had the strong men and women torn away from
+them, till, at the first hint of the approach of a caravan, the people
+would abandon their huts and fly off to hide themselves. At length the
+trade became so well known and so scandalous that the Europeans were
+forced to give it up; but the Arab dealers continued to grow powerful
+and wealthy, and the wealthiest and most powerful of all was Zebehr,
+whose name for ever after was closely connected with that of Gordon.
+
+The slave-dealers soon formed themselves into a sort of league, with
+Zebehr at their head, and, having created an army made up of Arabs and
+of the slaves they had taken, refused to pay tribute to the khedive, or
+to acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Constantinople, whose
+viceroy he was. The Egyptian government, which had suffered the
+slave-trade to proceed unchecked when human life only was at stake, grew
+indignant the moment it became a question of money. An army was sent
+against Zebehr, who easily defeated it, and proclaimed himself ruler of
+the Soudan or 'land of the black,' south of Khartoum, then a little
+group of three thousand mud-houses on the left bank of the Blue Nile,
+three miles from its junction with the White Nile.
+
+But, small though it was, Khartoum was the capital of the province, and
+owned a governor's house, with the Blue Nile sheltering it on one side,
+and surrounded on the other three by a deep ditch and a wall, while on
+the west side the town was only half a mile distant from the White Nile
+itself.
+
+As soon as the khedive understood that he was no match for Zebehr he
+determined to make a friend of him, and offered him an alliance with the
+title of pasha.
+
+For the moment it suited Zebehr to accept this proposal, and the two
+armies combined and conquered the province of Darfour; but directly the
+pasha wished to turn into a governor-general the khedive grew
+frightened, and declared that he was now convinced that the trade in
+slaves was wicked and must be put down. Perhaps he guessed that Europe
+was hardly likely to be convinced by this sudden change, so, instead of
+appointing an Egyptian governor of the equatorial provinces, he
+conferred the post first on Sir Samuel Baker, and, later, on Gordon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It did not take Gordon long to find out that the khedive's newly
+discovered zeal in putting down the slave-trade was 'a sham to catch the
+attention of the English people,' but the weapon had been thrust into
+his hands, and he meant to use it for the help of the oppressed tribes.
+Difficulties he knew there would be, and he was ready to fight them, but
+one difficulty he hardly made allowance for, which was that among the
+Mahometan races throughout the world it was as much a matter of course
+to have slaves as it is to us to have houses.
+
+With great care he selected the staff that was to accompany him, and a
+body of two hundred troops to inspect Khartoum. He chose five
+Englishmen, an American, an old Crimean Italian interpreter called
+Romulus Gessi, and a slave-trader named Abou Saoud, whom Gordon had
+found a prisoner in Cairo. In vain the khedive warned the new
+governor-general of the danger of taking such a villain into his
+service, and of the strange look his appointment would have in the eyes
+of Europe. To Gordon the only thing that mattered was that the man knew
+the country through which they were to travel, and as to the rest, his
+own neck must take its chance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was on March 12, 1874, that Gordon came in sight of Khartoum, where
+eleven years later he was to find his grave. He was received on the
+banks by the Egyptian governor-general, who ordered salutes to be fired
+and the brass band to play. If Gordon did not appreciate the honours
+paid to him, he was delighted at the news that a growth of grass and
+stones that had hitherto rendered the White Nile impassable had been at
+last cut away by the soldiers. Now the river was free, and instead of
+the journey to Gondokoro--his own capital, eleven hundred miles south of
+Khartoum--taking fourteen months, as in the days of Sir Samuel Baker, he
+would be able to perform it in four weeks.
+
+Every moment of the ten days that Gordon stayed at Khartoum was busily
+employed in discovering all he could as to the condition of the people
+and the state of the government. It did not take him more than a few
+hours to learn that the Egyptian government had no authority whatever
+over the people, and that the money matters of the Soudan were
+hopelessly mixed with those of Cairo. But at present he could only note
+what was wrong, and wait to set it right. His work just now lay at
+Gondokoro, and thither he must go.
+
+On the 22nd he started up the river, and at each mile, as they drew
+nearer and nearer to the equator, he found the climate more trying. It
+was, as he says, nothing but 'heat and mosquitoes day and night, all the
+year round.' But, exhausting though the climate was, he could not help
+being deeply interested in the many things that were new to him. There
+were great hippopotamuses plunging about in their clumsy way; the
+crocodiles, looking more like stone beasts than living things, basking
+motionless on the mud where the river had fallen; the monkeys that had
+their homes with the storks among the trees that covered the banks in
+places; the storks that sounded as if they were laughing, and 'seemed
+highly amused at anybody thinking of going up to Gondokoro with the hope
+of doing anything.' In a forest higher up they found a tribe, the
+Dinkas, dressed in necklaces. Their idea of greeting a white 'chief' was
+to lick his hands, and they would have kissed his feet also had not
+Gordon jumped up hastily and, snatching up some strings of gay beads he
+had brought with him for the purpose, hung them over their heads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The people of Gondokoro were filled with astonishment when Gordon's
+steamer anchored under the river banks. It was a wretched place, worse
+even than Khartoum, and inhabited by wretched people, whom ill-treatment
+had made at once revengeful and timid. But Gordon did not care how
+miserable the place was, he felt sure he could do something to help the
+people; and first he began by trying to make friends. For a time it was
+uphill work; they had given up planting their little plots of
+ground--what was the use when their harvest was always taken from them?
+Their only possession of value was their children, and these they often
+begged Gordon to buy, to save them from starvation. It seemed too good
+to be true when the white man gave them maize, which they baked in
+cakes, and fed them while they sowed their patches once more. 'He would
+see that no one hurt them,' he said, and little by little, under his
+protection, the poor people plucked up heart again and forgot their
+troubles, as nobody but negroes can.
+
+Up and down the river he went, establishing some of the forts which he
+knew to be necessary if the slave-trade was to be put down. One day Abou
+Saoud brought him some letters written by a party of slave-dealers to
+the Egyptian governor of Fashoda, on the White Nile, half-way to
+Khartoum, saying that they would shortly arrive with a gang of negroes
+whom they had captured, and with two thousand cows, which they had also
+kidnapped, as was their custom. Gordon was ready for them; the cattle he
+kept, not being able to return them to their black owners, and the
+negroes he set free. If possible they were sent home, but if that could
+not be done he bought them himself, so that no one else should have a
+claim to them. The gratitude shown by the blacks was boundless, and one,
+a chief of the Dinkas, proved useful to him in many ways. The others,
+tall, strong men, gladly served him as hewers of wood and drawers of
+water.
+
+So the weeks went on, and in the intervals of capturing more convoys of
+slaves Gordon still found time to attend to an old dying woman, whom he
+often visited himself, besides daily sending her food, and, what she
+loved better still, tobacco. The heat grew worse and worse, and no doubt
+the mosquitoes also; and Gordon's only pleasure was wading in the Nile
+morning and evening--a very dangerous amusement, as the river swarmed
+with crocodiles. But he had heard that crocodiles never attacked
+anything that was moving, and certainly he took no harm, and his health
+was good. All his white men, however, fell ill, and as there was no one
+to nurse them but himself, he would not replace them.
+
+[Illustration: Gordon found time to attend to an old dying woman.]
+
+Meanwhile the natives had learned to trust him, and under his rule
+things were looking more prosperous. He saw that his men took nothing
+from them without paying for it, whereas the Egyptian governor had
+forced them to work without pay; and finding the troops he had brought
+from Cairo both cowardly and lazy, he engaged forty Soudanese, on whom
+he could depend, and trained them to act as his body-guard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not to be expected that Gordon could carry through all these
+measures without becoming an object of hatred to the Egyptian officials,
+most of whom were in league with the slave-dealers. Soon he discovered
+that many of his men were taking bribes and plotting against him, and of
+them all, Abou Saoud was the worst. He even incited the black troops
+under him to revolt; but Gordon soon frightened the men into obedience,
+and sent their leader down the Nile to Gondokoro.
+
+Yet, in spite of fever, discontent, laziness, and open rebellion, in ten
+months (1874), writes one of his subordinates, 'he had garrisoned eight
+stations with the seven hundred men whom he had found at Gondokoro too
+frightened to stir a hundred yards outside the town, and had sent to
+Cairo enough money to pay the expenses of the expedition for this year
+and the next, while that of Baker had cost the Egyptian government
+L1,170,000.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed to Gordon that if he could establish a route from the great
+lake Victoria Nyanza, further south, at the head of the Nile, to
+Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean, trade would increase and goods be
+exchanged far more easily and quickly than if they had to be brought
+down the whole length of the Nile, which is often rendered impassable by
+shallows and cataracts. Therefore, towards the end of 1874 he set up
+posts from Gondokoro towards lake Albert Nyanza, hoping that directly
+the Nile fell the steamers he had left at Khartoum might be able to
+reach him. But here again he was beset with difficulties and dangers.
+The Arabs were lazy, the Egyptians useless and often treacherous, many
+of the tribes hostile; and to add to it all, it was almost impossible to
+get past the rapids. The boats were very strong, but liable to be upset
+at any instant by the plunging of the hippopotamuses in the river. Sixty
+or eighty men were often straining at the ropes which were to drag the
+craft along, and Gordon took his turn with the rest. Nobody in the camp
+worked so hard as the commander. He cooked his food and cleaned his gun,
+while the men stood by and stared. When there was nothing else to be
+done he mended watches and musical boxes, which he took with him as
+presents to the natives, and he kept himself well by walking fourteen
+miles daily, in spite of the heat and mosquitoes.
+
+[Illustration: He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and stared.]
+
+'I do not carry arms, as I ought to do,' he said one day, 'for my whole
+attention is devoted to defending the nape of my neck from the
+mosquitoes,' the enemies he hated most of all. Still inch by inch the
+troops fought their way along the river, till at length they reached the
+lake of Albert Nyanza. Gordon established forts as he went, though in
+the depths of his heart he knew full well that the moment his back was
+turned everything would relapse into its former state of oppression and
+lawlessness. But what happened afterwards was not _his_ business. He had
+done the work set him to the utmost of his power, and that was all for
+which he was responsible.
+
+Thus two years passed away, and having mapped out the country he started
+northwards, to resign his post to the khedive before returning to
+England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As might have been expected, he was not allowed to throw off his burden
+so easily. The khedive had no intention of loosening his hold of a man
+who sent money into his treasury instead of taking it out, but, try as
+he would, he could not wring from Gordon more than a conditional promise
+of coming back. No sooner had Gordon arrived in England than telegrams
+were sent after him imploring him to finish his work, and in spite of
+his weariness and disgust he felt that he could not leave it half done.
+In six weeks the khedive had triumphed, and Gordon was in Cairo.
+
+At his very first meeting with the khedive, when the affairs of the
+Soudan were discussed, Gordon stated clearly that he would not go back
+unless he was given undivided authority and power over the Soudan as
+well as over the other provinces. The khedive granted everything he
+asked. The governor-general of the Soudan, Ismail Pasha, was recalled,
+and Gordon took his place as ruler over the equatorial provinces,
+Darfour, the whole of the Soudan, and the Red Sea coast. He owed
+obedience to no one save the khedive, who again was responsible to the
+sultan of Turkey. The salary offered him by the khedive was L12,000 a
+year, but L6,000 was all that Gordon would accept, and later he cut it
+down to L3,000.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With 'terrific exertion' he thought it possible that in three years he
+might make a good army in his provinces, with increased trade, a fair
+revenue, and, above all, slavery suppressed. It seemed a gigantic work
+to undertake, especially when we consider that it had to be carried out
+in a district one thousand six hundred miles long and seven hundred
+broad. But nothing less would be of any use, and Gordon was not the man
+to spare himself if he could make his work permanent. So after a few
+days in Cairo he started for the south, going first, by the khedive's
+orders, to try and bring about a peace with the kingdom of Abyssinia.
+This he did to a certain extent by 'setting a thief to catch a thief,'
+that is, by holding one claimant to the throne in check by means of
+another. The state with which he was surrounded made him very cross, as
+any kind of fuss over him always did. 'Eight or ten men to help me off
+my camel, as if I were an invalid,' he writes indignantly. 'If I walk,
+everyone gets off and walks; so, furious, I get on again.'
+
+However, these pin-pricks to his temper did not last long, for soon bad
+news came from Khartoum, and he had to set out for the Soudan directly.
+His daily journey on his camel was never less than thirty, and more
+often forty miles. On his arrival at a station he received everybody,
+rich and poor, who chose to come to him, listened to all complaints, and
+settled all disputes, besides writing constant reports to the khedive of
+what he was doing. He had nobody to help him; it was far easier and
+quicker for him to do his own work than first to tell someone else what
+he wanted done, and then to make sure his instructions were properly
+carried out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length Khartoum was reached, and Gordon was duly proclaimed
+governor-general, the ceremony being, we may be sure, as short as he
+could make it. According to the wishes of the khedive, he was treated
+like a sultan in the 'Arabian Nights.' On no account was he ever to get
+up, even when a great chief came to pay his respects to him, and no one
+was allowed to remain seated in his presence. Worse than all, his palace
+was filled with two hundred servants.
+
+The first reform he wished to make was to disband a body of six thousand
+Bashi-Bazouks, or Arab and Turkish irregular troops, who pillaged the
+tribes on the frontiers that they were set to guard, and let the
+slave-dealers go free. Of course this could only be done very slowly and
+cautiously; but he managed gradually to discharge a few at a time and to
+replace them with soldiers from the Soudan, whom he always found very
+trustworthy. Then, after setting right many abuses in Khartoum itself,
+and giving the outlying houses a proper water-supply, where before the
+lack of it had caused disease and discomfort, he began a march of
+several hundred miles westwards to Darfour.
+
+Here the whole province had risen up against its new Egyptian masters,
+and those tribes which had not already broken out were preparing to
+do so. With the hopeful spirit that never deserted him, and which more
+than once had created the miracle he had expected, Gordon imagined that
+he would be able to turn his enemies into allies. As to his own life,
+his faith in God was too real and too firm for him to take that into
+consideration. Till his appointed task was finished he was perfectly
+safe, and after that he would, in his own words, 'leave much weariness
+for perfect peace.'
+
+Thus he went about his work with complete unconcern, and one day arrived
+at a discontented place an hour and a half before the few hundred
+soldiers that formed his army. Nobody expected him, and when they saw a
+man in a uniform shining with gold, flying towards them on the swiftest
+camel they had ever beheld, and with only one companion, they were
+filled with amazement. Nothing would have been easier than to kill
+Gordon; but somehow they never even thought of it, and soon the people
+of Darfour and the neighbouring tribes came in and submitted to him. On
+the way he was welcomed gladly by the garrisons of the various little
+towns, some of whom had received no pay for three years. These
+half-starved men, being in their weak condition even more useless than
+the ordinary Egyptian soldier, he sent eastwards to be disbanded, and
+with an army of five hundred untrustworthy troops, who did not possess a
+single cannon, and whose arms were old-fashioned flint-lock guns, he had
+to prepare to face the attack of thousands of rebels against the
+Egyptian government.
+
+Luckily, for some reason, the rebel army melted away without a shot
+being fired, and the danger being passed the Egyptians pushed on to
+Dara.
+
+[Illustration: They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying
+towards them.]
+
+Now came the moment to which Gordon had long been looking forward--the
+life and death struggle with the slave-dealers, headed by Suleiman, son
+of Zebehr, who had armed six thousand of his own slaves, and could
+besides summon the help of five thousand good soldiers. How thankfully,
+then, Gordon must have greeted the arrival of a powerful tribe seven
+thousand strong, who, having suffered bitterly from the slave-traders,
+were thirsting for revenge. That after a hard fight the victory remained
+with Gordon was owing only to the support of this and other friendly
+tribes, for the Egyptians 'crowded into the stockade' and hid there,
+safe, as they hoped, from stray spears or wandering bullets.
+
+It is impossible to follow all Gordon's movements during this campaign,
+when in the heat of summer, near the equator, he darted about on his
+camel from one place to another, 'a dirty, red-faced man, ornamented
+with flies,' and often by his unexpected appearance and promptitude
+carried the day, 'because he gave his enemies no time to think' or to
+plot against him. Hearing at the end of August that Suleiman was about
+to attack Dara, he at once rode straight to the spot, which he reached
+in the condition I have described.
+
+'If I had no escort of men,' he writes to his sister, 'I had a large
+escort of flies. I suppose the queen fly was among them. The people were
+paralysed at my arrival, and could not believe their eyes. At dawn I got
+up, and putting on the golden armour the khedive gave me, mounted my
+horse, and with an escort of my robbers of Bashi-Bazouks rode out to the
+camp of the other robbers, about three miles off. There were about three
+thousand of them, men and boys: they were dumbfounded at my coming among
+them.'
+
+Alone in a tent, with the chiefs, headed by Suleiman, 'a nice-looking
+lad of twenty-two,' sitting in a circle round him, Gordon informed them
+'in choice Arabic' that he was quite aware that they intended to revolt
+against the Egyptian government, and that he intended to disarm them and
+break them up.
+
+'They listened in silence and went off to consider what I had said.
+They have just now sent in a letter stating their submission, and I
+thank God for it,' he continues. 'The sort of stupefied way in which
+they heard me go to the point about their doings, the pantomime of
+signs, the bad Arabic, was quite absurd.' Then one by one the other
+slave-dealers surrendered, and though Suleiman still gave him much
+trouble, and was to give more, yet on the whole things had gone much
+better than he had feared, and by the middle of October he arrived at
+Khartoum, and after a week's hard work took a steamer and went down the
+river to Berber and Dongola. In March he very unwillingly continued his
+journey to Cairo, at the command of the khedive, who desired to create
+him president of the Finance Inquiry. But this was a great mistake;
+Gordon's views on the matter were different from those of other men, and
+he had been too long accustomed to be absolute master in any task he
+undertook to be able to work harmoniously with his equals. The khedive,
+too, failed to support him, and Gordon, seeing it was hopeless to expect
+to gain his point, and depressed and annoyed with what had taken place,
+returned to Khartoum by way of the Suez Canal and Suakim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then came the news that Suleiman had revolted, and had overrun the
+province of Bahr-el-Ghazal on the south of Darfour. Gordon's old
+follower and lieutenant Gessi was sent with some troops to put down the
+revolt; but it was a rainy season, and the country was partially under
+water. He had only one thousand troops, while daily fresh Arabs swelled
+the army of the successful leader; but he was enterprising as well as
+prudent, and in the middle of November he came up with the enemy and
+entrenched himself behind stockades on the river Dyoor. Here Suleiman
+attacked him again and again, and again and again was beaten back. Gessi
+sent repeated messages to Gordon for help and ammunition, but all that
+the governor general could spare was soon exhausted. At length Gessi
+obtained some from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and now was able to leave his
+camp and successfully attack bands of slave-dealers. At length he
+stormed a town where Suleiman was stationed, and nearly captured 'the
+Cub' himself. Finding to his disgust that the leader had escaped, Gessi
+followed him westwards through deserted villages and dense forests, and
+though he did not succeed in catching his prey, he was able to break up
+the gang of slave-dealers.
+
+Meanwhile Gordon had left Khartoum and had gone to the slave-dealers'
+headquarters at Shaka, and then back towards Khartoum, capturing many
+caravans on the way. During one week, on his way from Oomchanga to
+Toashia, he thinks he must have taken about six hundred slaves, and he
+puts down the number that had lost their lives in the last four years
+from the cruelty of the dealers to have been at least one hundred
+thousand in Darfour alone.
+
+At Toashia Gordon had a short interview with Gessi, whom he created a
+pasha and made governor of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, with a present of L2,000.
+On his way back to his province news was brought to Gessi of Suleiman's
+whereabouts. He at once started in pursuit with three hundred men, and
+came up with Suleiman during the night at Gara. The slave dealer, taken
+by surprise, surrendered, and was shot next day, and it would have been
+well for the Soudan if Suleiman's father Zebehr had paid the same
+penalty for his rebellion against the khedive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the year 1879 that the khedive Ismail was deposed at Cairo,
+and Tewfik appointed in his place. The new khedive seemed fully as
+anxious as his predecessors to make use of the one man who feared
+neither danger nor responsibility, and bore a charmed life, and Gordon
+was at once sent on a fruitless mission to Abyssinia. On his return he
+carried out the intention that he had formed for some time, and placed
+his resignation in the hands of the khedive. Well he knew that the
+Egyptian government cared nothing for the reforms he had made, or the
+slave-trade that he had broken. They never supported any of his
+measures, and he felt assured that in a few months the state of things
+would be as bad as ever.
+
+Sick at heart and worn out in body, he came home early in 1880, having
+paused on his way to see Rome. Once in London it was the old story.
+Invitations rained on him, only to be refused. To escape from them he
+rushed off to Lausanne for peace. But peace and Gordon had little to do
+with each other, and he soon received an urgent request from the
+ministers of Cape Colony to allow himself to be appointed commander of
+the colonial forces. This, however, Gordon refused at once. The war with
+the Zulus was only just over, and Gordon, who on all questions involving
+the well-being of nations, was very keen-sighted, may well have noted
+signs of unrest throughout the whole of South Africa. His health had
+been severely tried by all he had gone through, and he needed rest
+before he could take active employment.
+
+So he returned to England, and in May, much to everyone's surprise,
+accepted the post of secretary to the new viceroy of India, lord Ripon.
+But no sooner had the viceregal party reached Bombay than Gordon found
+that the work he had to do was not the sort he was suited for. Not
+because he thought that anything was beneath his dignity--the man who
+had cleaned his own gun and cooked his own food in the Soudan was never
+likely to feel that--but his career, as he ought to have known before,
+had unfitted him to cope with the minute details bound up with Indian
+life, and the immense importance given to the distinctions of caste.
+Therefore four days after the ship reached Bombay he resigned,
+expressing his regrets for the mistake he had made, and thanking lord
+Ripon most warmly for the kindness shown him. His passage money and all
+the expenses to which his appointment had put the new government--for
+the Liberals had lately come into power--he instantly repaid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later he received a telegram from sir Robert Hart, director of
+the customs in China, begging him to take the first ship to Tientsin,
+where his services were badly needed. As his request to the English War
+Office for six months' leave was refused, he replied that his object in
+going to China was to prevent a war which was likely to break out
+between that country and Russia, and therefore, if the permission asked
+was not granted, he should be forced to throw up his commission in the
+queen's service.
+
+On receipt of this message the government allowed him to go, and for
+three months he worked hard, and not only contrived, as he hoped, to
+prevent the war with Russia, but to check the revolt of Li Hung Chang,
+who desired to place the crown on his own head.
+
+Having accomplished what he intended, he found himself in London in
+October, and in 1881 went out to the island of Mauritius, in the Indian
+Ocean, to command the engineers.
+
+At last he rested from the heavy responsibilities of the last few years,
+though he worked as he always must do, and, now a major-general, in
+April 1882 set sail for the Cape, where the governor of the colony, sir
+Hercules Robinson, wanted his advice on the settlement and
+administration of Basutoland. But when Gordon arrived he found his views
+on the subject so totally different from those of the men in power that
+he resigned and left, and from London he carried out the great longing
+of his life--a visit to the Holy Land. Few people knew and loved their
+Bibles like Gordon, and every stone in Palestine was full of interest
+to him. Here he was alone and quiet, respecting the faith of others, and
+therefore causing them to respect his; talking and praying with those of
+different religions, teaching them and learning from them; preparing
+himself, as the Master whom he served had also done, for the fiery trial
+through which he was to pass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this time the king of the Belgians had been offering him the command
+of an expedition his majesty was anxious to send to the Congo, and
+continued to press the matter in spite of the refusal of Mr. Gladstone,
+then prime minister, to lend him Gordon to lead it. On January 1, 1884,
+Gordon went over to Brussels to talk over affairs with the king, and
+while he was there the English government suddenly decided to send him
+at once to the Soudan, where matters were in a very threatening state.
+
+Since Gordon had left the country, four years before, Arabi pasha had
+revolted, and been crushed at Tel-el-Kebir, and a dervish in the Soudan,
+Mohammed Ahmed by name, had made himself famous by proclaiming himself
+mahdi, the expected prophet of the whole Mahometan world. Thousands
+flocked to the standard that he raised, and his armed escort stood with
+drawn swords in his presence. The Egyptian governor-general summoned him
+to Khartoum to answer for his proceedings, but the mahdi answered that
+he was master of the country and obeyed no one. The troops despatched
+against him he always defeated, and when a new governor-general and a
+fresh army gave him battle they were utterly destroyed. Obeid in Darfour
+surrendered after a five months' siege, and, flushed with success, he
+carried all before him.
+
+In June 1883 colonel Hicks was given by the Egyptian government the
+military command at Khartoum, with ten thousand men and thirty guns;
+but he had no knowledge of the country where he had to fight, and fell
+an easy prey to the mahdi's army, which was ten times as numerous as his
+own. The tribes of the eastern Soudan joined the victor's banner, and
+here, while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, Baker pasha was defeated
+by Osman Digna, a slave-dealer of Suakim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On January 17, 1884, Gordon, who was in Brussels, received a telegram
+from lord Wolseley, bidding him come over to London by the evening
+train. He started at once, and reached London early in the morning, and
+at twelve o'clock was taken by Wolseley to the Cabinet Council.
+
+'He went in,' writes Gordon, 'and talked to the ministers, and came back
+and said, "Her majesty's government want you to undertake this. The
+government are determined to evacuate the Soudan, for they will not
+undertake to guarantee its safety. Will you go and do it?" I said,
+"Yes!" He said, "Go in." I went in and saw them. They said, "Did
+Wolseley tell you our orders?" I said, "Yes." I said, "You will not
+guarantee the future government of the Soudan, and you wish me to go up
+to evacuate now?" They said, "Yes," and it was over, and I left at
+8 P.M. for Calais.'
+
+He was seen off from the station by lord Wolseley and by lord
+Hartington, afterwards the duke of Devonshire, who always stood loyally
+by him, and repeatedly urged that help must be sent instantly, while his
+colleagues in the Cabinet waited to see how things would drift, till the
+time for help was past.
+
+On January 26, the day which a year hence was to witness his death,
+Gordon, with colonel Stewart, was in Cairo, where he spent two busy
+days. The first news that greeted him was the success of the mahdi in
+all directions, and that the Mahometans in Syria and in Arabia would
+probably rise against their rulers. Yet he does not seem to have
+understood any better than the English and Egyptian governments what a
+terrific force the man really was, not so much in himself, but because
+he stood in the minds of hundreds of thousands for the deliverer who
+would aid them to shake off a yoke under which they groaned. 'I do not
+believe in the advance of the mahdi,' says Gordon a few days later; 'he
+is nephew to my old guide in Darfour, who was a very good fellow,' and
+on several occasions he shows that he had no idea as yet of the task
+that lay before him, and considered the mahdi a mere puppet in the hands
+of the slave-owners, who had joined him to a man. While in Cairo he did
+his best to make arrangements to ensure good government. He desired to
+see Nubar pasha, of whom he thought highly, placed in power, and the
+dangerous Zebehr banished to Cyprus, but Tewfik the khedive would listen
+to neither proposal. So, to the horror of some of the anti-slavery
+societies in England, who knew nothing of the supreme difficulties of
+Gordon's position, the newly appointed governor-general of the Soudan
+asked to take Zebehr with him, and keep him under his own eye. 'He is
+the ablest man in the Soudan,' said Gordon afterwards, 'a capital
+general and a good governor, and with his help I could have crushed the
+mahdi.' But Gordon's friends at Cairo had no faith in Zebehr's loyalty,
+and much in his hatred of Gordon, and at their entreaty the plan was
+given up. Yet Gordon did not sleep one night in Khartoum without knowing
+he was right, and writing to beg for Zebehr.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Forty-eight hours after reaching Cairo Gordon started with Stewart and
+four Egyptian officers for Khartoum.
+
+'I go with every confidence and trust in God,' he wrote to Wolseley a
+few hours before he set out, in the spirit in which he lived and died,
+and in twenty days he was at Khartoum, where the whole population came
+out to welcome him.
+
+With the help of the garrison of five thousand men Gordon began to
+fortify the town, and to throw up proper defences for Omdurman, on the
+left bank of the river. Provisions were stored, and a telegraph wire
+rigged up between the outworks and his palace, where he spent hours
+every day in sweeping the horizon with his field-glass. Once at Khartoum
+he began to realise what a force the mahdi had become. In March he wrote
+to the English government, 'I shall be caught in Khartoum, and even if I
+was mean enough to escape, I've not the power.' He begs both for men and
+money, but no notice was taken of his letter; so in April he telegraphs
+to sir Evelyn Baring, the English agent in Cairo, saying that he had
+asked sir Samuel Baker to try and obtain L30,000 from English and
+American millionaires to enable him to get three thousand Turkish
+soldiers, 'who would settle the mahdi for ever. I do not see the fun of
+being caught here to walk about the streets as a dervish with sandalled
+feet,' he goes on; 'not that I shall ever be taken alive.'
+
+He had been sent expressly to evacuate the Soudan, yet he was not
+allowed to do it when it came to the point, and, as usually happens,
+attempts at compromise proved failures. An expedition was despatched to
+Suakim, and two bloody battles were fought, but the only result of these
+was to inflame the zeal of the mahdi's followers and to enable him to
+capture Berber, the key of the Soudan.
+
+In Khartoum Gordon was using all his skill to fit the place to stand a
+siege, for he speedily saw that his garrison of one thousand Soudanese
+were all he had to rely on, the three thousand Egyptians and
+Bashi-Bazouks being worse than useless. Later his troops amounted to
+about double the number, and the population which he had to feed he
+reckoned at forty thousand. The provisions, he estimated, would last for
+five months; but in the end they had to do for ten, and up to the very
+last, when all else was eaten, there was still some corn left in the
+granary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While the river was yet open, and before the Arabs had cut off all
+communication between Khartoum and the outer world, Gordon managed to
+send away some old and helpless soldiers, various government officials,
+and two thousand three hundred refugees, who had fled to the town for
+safety. Everything he could think of was done for their comfort; and in
+order to prevent the poor black women and children from feeling strange
+and frightened, he ordered colonel Duncan to ask a German woman living
+at Korosko to be ready to meet and help them. In Khartoum itself there
+were no fevers or pestilence, and food was given daily to the very poor.
+
+It was in the middle of March that the town, with its three rings of
+defence, was invested by the Arabs; but when the time came for the Nile
+to rise it was easy for Gordon to send his steamers up and down both
+branches of the river, and to attack the Arab camps. Besides those boats
+he had already, he built some new ones, and kept his men busy in the
+workshops of the arsenal. But when April came, and there were no answers
+to his appeals, he wrote home that the matter _must_ be settled before
+the Nile fell in November, when the river route would become not only
+difficult but dangerous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In this way the months went on, and in England his friends were doing
+all they could to help him, though vainly. Lord Wolseley repeatedly
+urged on the Government the need of sending out a relief force, and in a
+letter of July 24, to Gordon's brother, he writes that if he was allowed
+to start immediately he could be at Dongola by October 15, and could go
+all the way to Khartoum by the river. Lord Hartington, too, never forgot
+Gordon, but the rest of the Cabinet turned a deaf ear; they had other
+things to think about.
+
+The next move came from the French consul, monsieur Herbin, who was
+inside Khartoum. He suggested to Gordon that now that it was September,
+and the Nile had risen to its greatest height, the cataracts would be
+covered to a depth of thirty or forty feet; therefore it would be quite
+easy for a small steamer such as the _Abbas_ to make its way to Dongola,
+and from there to send on letters and despatches to Cairo. Gordon
+approved of the plan, and Stewart offered to command the little force of
+forty or fifty soldiers--all that could be spared to go with it. On
+board were some Greeks, monsieur Herbin himself, Stewart, and Power the
+'Times' correspondent, the only two friends Gordon had. How he must have
+longed to go with them. But that being impossible he put the thought out
+of his mind, and gave them most careful directions as to the precautions
+they were to take. But on their return journey Gordon's orders were
+neglected, the steamer was taken by the mahdi's troops, and all on board
+put to death, Stewart among them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus Gordon was left alone in Khartoum, without a creature to share his
+responsibility or to help him in his work. From henceforward he was
+obliged to see to everything himself, and make sure that his orders were
+carried out.
+
+From his journal and letters, which we have up to December 14, we know
+all that was going on inside the town: the measures of defence; the
+decoration which he invented to reward the soldiers for their courage or
+fidelity, an eight-pointed star with a grenade in the centre, and
+consisting of three classes, gold, silver, and pewter; the presence of
+Slatin (later the sirdar) in the mahdi's camp, and the chains put upon
+him. But in November the fighting grew fiercer; the mahdi cut all
+communication between Khartoum, stretching from the Blue to the White
+Nile, and Omdurman, on the right bank of the latter river. However,
+though he took the town, he did not keep it long, for he was shelled out
+of it; but day by day his forces crept closer, and Gordon, who had sent
+his steamers down to Shendy to meet the relieving troops which he
+thought were on their way, had no means of stopping the mahdi when he
+began to transport his army from one bank of the Nile to the other, in
+preparation for the last assault.
+
+During the summer months Gordon had been cheered by the knowledge that
+sir Gerald Graham was fighting Osman Digna and keeping him at bay, but
+this was all the consolation he had.
+
+'Up to this date,' he writes on October 29, 'nine people have come up as
+reinforcements since Hicks's defeat, and not a penny of money.' Still,
+for seven months not a man had deserted; but with the advance of the
+mahdi many of the defenders of Khartoum might be seen stealing after
+dark to his camp. He sent an envoy across the river to offer Gordon
+honourable terms if he would surrender, knowing full well from the
+papers which his spies had stolen from the steamer _Abbas_ what straits
+the garrison were in. But Gordon, putting little faith in the word of
+the mahdi, rejected the proposal and returned for answer, 'We can hold
+out twelve years.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By this time 'Relief Expedition No. 2, to save our national honour,' as
+Gordon persisted in calling it, was on its way, and many of us can
+recall with what sickening hearts we watched its daily progress. The
+obstacles which had been foretold months before by both Gordon and
+Wolseley proved even greater than they expected. The Nile had fallen,
+and its cataracts, like staircases of rocks, were of course impassable,
+and the transport of the boats was a terrible difficulty. Then, owing to
+treachery, all the useful camels were spirited away, and only enough
+could be collected to carry one thousand men across the desert. Sir
+Herbert Stewart started first, and reached the wells of Jakdul on
+January 3, and being obliged to halt there, as the camels were needed to
+bring up other troops, he occupied the time in building a fort. On the
+12th they all pushed on to Abou Klea, where they arrived on the 17th, to
+find the mahdi awaiting them. Here two fierce battles were fought, in
+one of which sir Herbert Stewart was mortally wounded. In each the mahdi
+was defeated, but he proceeded to attack Metemmeh on the 21st, the
+British force being now commanded by sir Charles Wilson, who was
+unexpectedly reinforced during the battle by some troops on board
+Gordon's four steamers, which were returning to Khartoum. Three days
+later (January 24) Wilson started in two steamers for Khartoum,
+ninety-five miles away, and the river was so low that it was necessary
+to be very cautious. On the morning of the 25th one of the boats ran on
+a rock, and could not be floated off till nine o'clock that night. As
+soon as he possibly could Wilson got up steam again, but eight miles
+from Khartoum a native hailed him from the bank. 'Khartoum has fallen!'
+he said, 'and Gordon has been shot.'
+
+Wilson would not believe it. To have failed when success was within his
+grasp seemed too terrible to think of. It must be one of the mahdi's
+devices to stop the advance of our troops, so he went on till he could
+command a proper view of the town. The masses of black-robed dervishes
+that filled the streets and crowded along the river bank told their own
+tale, and, bowing his head, Wilson gave the signal to go back down the
+river.
+
+[Illustration: A shot ended his life.]
+
+From Slatin pasha, then a captive in the mahdi's camp, we know how it
+happened. Omdurman had fallen on the 13th, but Khartoum would
+probably not have been assaulted so soon had not the mahdi suffered
+such severe defeats at Abou Klea and at Abou Kru, three days later; then
+he hurried back to Khartoum and again summoned Gordon to surrender. His
+offer was refused, and addressing his men he informed them that during
+the night they were to be conveyed across the river in boats, but that
+if victory was to be theirs, absolute silence was necessary.
+
+About half-past three in the morning they were all ready, and attacked
+at the same moment both the east and west gates. The east held out for
+some time, but the west gate soon gave way, and the rebels entered with
+a rush, murdering every man they met. In an open space near the palace
+they came up with Gordon, walking quietly in front of a little group of
+people to take refuge at the Austrian consul's house. A shot ended his
+life, and saved him from the tortures that men like the mahdi inflict on
+their captives. Death, as we know, had no terrors for him. 'I am always
+ready to die,' he had said to the king of Abyssinia nearly six years
+before, 'and so far from fearing your putting me to death, you would
+confer a favour on me, for you would deliver me from all the troubles
+and misfortunes which the future may have in store.' Now death _had_
+delivered him, yet none the less does his fate lie like a blot on the
+men who sent him to his doom, and turned a deaf ear to his prayers for
+help until it was too late. England was stricken with horror and grief
+at the news, and showed her sorrow in the way which Gordon would have
+chosen, not by erecting statues or buildings to his memory, but by
+founding schools to help the little orphan boys whom he always loved.
+But whatever bitterness may have been in the hearts of his friends
+towards those who had sacrificed him, Gordon we can be sure would have
+felt none.
+
+'One wants some forgiveness oneself,' he said, when he pardoned Abou
+Saoud, who had tried to betray him. 'And it is not a dear article.'
+
+
+
+
+THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS
+
+
+Everyone who stops to visit the town of Treves, or Trier, to give it its
+German name, must be struck by the number and beauty of its ruins, which
+give us some idea of the splendour of the city at the time that Ambrose
+the Prefect lived there and ruled his province. About the city were
+hills now covered with vines, and through an opening between them ran
+the river Moselle. A wall with seven gates defended Treves from the
+German tribes on the east of the Rhine, but only one, the Porta Nigra,
+or Black Gate, is left standing. Its cathedral, the oldest in Europe
+north of the Alps, was founded in 375 A.D. by Valentinian I., who often
+occupied the palace which was sacked and ruined a century later by Huns
+and Franks. A great bridge spanned the Moselle, and outside the walls,
+where the vineyards now climb the hills, was an amphitheatre which held
+30,000 people, and when these came back, tired and dusty, from chariot
+races or games, there were baths and warm water in the underground
+galleries to make them clean and comfortable.
+
+It was somewhere about the year 333 A.D. that a boy was born at Treves
+in the house of the governor, and called Ambrose, after his father. He
+was the youngest of three children, his brother Satyrus being only a
+little older than himself, while Marcellina, their sister, who was
+nearly four, looked down upon the others as mere babies. Ambrose the
+elder was a very important person indeed, for the emperor Constantine
+had made him ruler, or prefect, of the whole of Europe west of the
+Rhine, that is, of Spain, Gaul or France, and Britain. The prefect was a
+good and just man, and the nations were happy under his sway; but he
+died after a few years, and his wife, unfortunately, thought it wiser to
+leave Treves and take her children to Rome, where they could get the
+best teaching and would become acquainted with their father's friends.
+
+It was a long and difficult journey for a lady and two boys (Marcellina
+had already gone to a convent in Rome), though they were rich enough to
+travel in tolerable comfort. Even in summer the passage of the Alps was
+hard enough, and the towering mountains, steep precipices, and rushing
+rivers must have seemed strange and alarming to anyone fresh from the
+fertile slopes of the Rhineland. But the boys were not frightened, only
+deeply interested, and they quite forgot to be sorry at leaving their
+old home in the excitement of what lay before them.
+
+No doubt they had many adventures, or what they would have considered as
+such, before they reached the corn-covered plains of Lombardy, and
+stopped to rest in the city of Milan, whose name was hereafter to be
+bound up for all time with that of little Ambrose. But we are not told
+anything about their travels, and when they arrived in Rome they went
+straight to the old house, which had been for generations in their
+father's family. That family was famous in the annals of the city, and
+had become Christian in the time of the persecution; but nowadays
+Christians and pagans lived happily together, and divided the public
+offices between them.
+
+The children soon settled down in their new surroundings, and felt as if
+they had lived all their lives in Rome. Marcellina they seldom or never
+saw, and, however much her mother may have longed after her, she was
+forced to content herself with her two boys and to take pride in their
+success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The prefect of Rome, Symmachus by name, had taken a great fancy to
+Satyrus, in spite of the fact that the boy was brought up a Christian,
+while he himself was a pagan. Symmachus shared with the Christian Probus
+the chief authority in Rome, and while Satyrus was to be found in his
+house during most of the hours when he was not attending, with his
+brother, classes in Greek and Latin literature and in law, Ambrose was
+no less frequently in that of Probus. Though this caused their mother to
+spend many lonely evenings, she was well pleased, for both men bore a
+high character, and would be able to help her boys in many ways that
+were impossible to a woman. The two youths were very popular, pleasant,
+and well-mannered, and with strong common-sense which proved useful in
+saving them from pitfalls that might otherwise have been their ruin.
+They had friends without number, but they liked no one's company so much
+as each other's, and it was a sad moment for both when Symmachus gave
+Satyrus a post under his own son, and the two young men set sail for
+Asia Minor.
+
+For some time Ambrose remained at home, learning the duties of a prefect
+under Probus. He early showed great talent for managing men, a quick eye
+for detecting crime, impartiality in giving judgment, and firmness in
+seeing it carried out. Probus must have watched anxiously to see how far
+the young man's sense of justice and his desire for mercy would act on
+each other, but what he saw satisfied him. Ambrose knew at once what was
+the important point in every matter, and never allowed his mind to be
+confused by things that had nothing to do with the real question. This
+was his safeguard as a judge, and this was the principle he held to all
+through his life, which caused him to be such a different man from
+Hildebrand or Thomas a Becket, or many great bishops who came after him.
+To Ambrose, murder was murder, theft was theft, whether it was done by
+a Christian or a pagan, and the punishment was equally heavy for both.
+
+Perhaps the emperor Valentinian may have noted the qualities of the
+young lawyer, or perhaps he may have consulted with Probus, but in any
+case, in the year 372 Ambrose was sent off to govern the whole of North
+Italy, under the title of 'consul.' At the utmost he was only
+twenty-nine, and he may have been younger, for the date of his birth is
+uncertain. But his head was in no way turned by his position, and the
+emperor, a well-meaning but tactless man, beheld with satisfaction that
+the restless people of Milan, the capital of the north, were growing
+daily quieter under the rule of Ambrose. What his own severity had been
+powerless to accomplish Ambrose carried through without any difficulty.
+The parties, religious as well as political, into which the city was
+split up, all came to him with their grievances, and, wonderful to say,
+never murmured at his verdicts. Before he had been consul much more than
+a year, Milan was in a quieter state than it had been for half a
+century.
+
+But the death of the bishop early in 374 threatened to plunge everything
+into the old confusion. Valentinian was consulted, but refused to have
+anything to do in the matter of the election of a new prelate; it was
+not his business, he said. So the bishops streamed in to Milan from the
+cities of the north and met in the gallery of one of the large round
+churches that were built in those days. In great excitement the people
+pressed in below; so much depended on who was chosen--to which party he
+belonged. For hours and hours they waited, and every now and then a
+murmur ran through the crowd that the announcement was about to be made;
+but it died away as fast as it came, and the weary waiting began again.
+At last the strain grew too great, and it was quite plain that the
+smallest spark of disagreement would kindle a great fire.
+
+A man wiser than the rest saw this, and hastened to summon Ambrose to
+the spot.
+
+'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too late. Only you
+can keep the peace, so come at once.'
+
+[Illustration: 'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too
+late.']
+
+Ambrose needed no urging. What his friend said was true, and, besides,
+he was as a magistrate bound if possible to prevent a riot, or, if one
+had already begun, to quell it.
+
+The loud, angry voices ceased as he entered the church, and amidst a
+dead silence he begged the crowd to be patient yet a little while
+longer, and to remember that the choice of a bishop was one that
+affected them all, and could not be made in a hurry. As he spoke he
+noted that the excitement began to grow less, and by the time he had
+ended the flushed faces were calm again. Then the voice of a child rang
+through the church.
+
+'Ambrose, bishop!'
+
+'Ambrose, bishop,' echoed the people, but Ambrose stood for a moment
+rooted to the spot. It was the last thing he had expected or wished, but
+the continued cries brought him to himself, and hastily leaving the
+church he went to the hall where he gave his judgments, the crowd
+pressing on him right up to the door.
+
+Never before or since has any man been so suddenly lifted into a
+position for which he had made no previous preparation. He, a bishop!
+Why, though a Christian, in common with many of his friends and also
+with his brother, he had never even been baptized, still less had he
+studied any of the things a bishop ought to know. Oh! it was impossible.
+It was only a moment's craze, and would be forgotten as soon as he was
+out of sight; so he stole away at night and hid himself, intending to
+escape to another city. But on his way he was recognised by a man who
+had once pleaded a cause before him. A crowd speedily collected, and he
+was carried by the people back to his house within the walls, and a
+guard placed before it, while a letter was despatched to the emperor
+informing him that the lot had fallen upon Ambrose.
+
+'Vox populi, vox Dei' ('The voice of the people is the voice of God').
+Valentinian gave a sigh of surprise and relief as he read the wax
+tablets before him. Losing no time, he sent a paper, signed by himself,
+the imperial seal affixed, nominating Ambrose bishop of Milan, while to
+Ambrose he wrote privately, saying that no better choice could have been
+made, and that he would support him in everything. But by the time the
+messenger reached Milan, Ambrose had escaped again, and was hiding in
+the house of a friend outside the walls. However, this effort to avoid
+the greatness thrust upon him was as vain as the rest, and he saw that
+he must accept what fate had brought him. Within a week he had been
+baptized, ordained priest, and consecrated bishop, knowing as little as
+any man might of the studies hitherto considered necessary for his
+position. But it is quite possible that his ignorance of these may have
+been a help instead of a hindrance in the carrying out of his duties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now very often, if a man's position is changed, his character seems to
+change too, and the very qualities which caused him to be chosen for the
+new appointment sink into the background, while others, far less
+suitable, take their place. No doubt, during the first days after his
+election Ambrose must have been watched carefully by many eyes--for no
+one, however popular, is wholly without enemies--and any alteration in
+his conduct or way of life would have been noted down. Still, even the
+most envious could find no difference. Ambrose the bishop was in all
+respects the same as Ambrose the consul, except that he gave away more
+money than he had done before, and held himself to a still greater
+degree at the disposal of the people.
+
+In these days we are so used to reading of the struggle which raged for
+so many centuries between the Church and the State--the Emperor and the
+Pope--that it seems quite natural to us that after the death of the
+emperor Valentinian (which happened a few months later) the bishop
+should become the adviser and minister of his young son Gratian. To
+Ambrose, however, the situation was beset with difficulties, and both
+disagreeable and dangerous. He had not the least desire to meddle in the
+affairs of the empire--the care of the church in Milan was quite enough
+for any one man; but when the young emperor Gratian came to him for
+advice and guidance it was his duty to give it. Soon matters grew worse
+and worse. The Goths crossed the Danube, and defeated the army of the
+Eastern Empire near Adrianople; Byzantium, or Constantinople, the city
+of Constantine, lay at their mercy; and Italy might be entered through
+Hungary and the Tyrol, or by sea from the south.
+
+The tidings reached Milan through the first of the numerous fugitives
+who had managed to escape across the Alps. Every day more frightened,
+starving people arrived, and the city was taxed to the utmost to find
+them food and shelter. Yet even the lot of these poor creatures was
+happy in comparison with those who had been taken prisoners by the
+Goths, and were doomed to spend their lives in slavery unless they were
+ransomed. Ambrose set the rich citizens an example by giving all the
+money he had, but after every farthing possible had been raised the
+unredeemed captives were still many. There only remained the golden
+vessels of the church, which were the pride of Milan, and these the
+bishop brought out and melted down, so that as far as in him lay all
+prisoners might be freed.
+
+In after-years his enemies sought to use the fact as a handle against
+him. He had no right to give what was not his own, they said; but
+Ambrose paid little heed to their words; he had done what he knew was
+just, and the rest did not matter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the appointment of the general Theodosius as emperor of the East
+things began to mend. The Goths began to understand that they had a
+strong man to deal with, and Ambrose was once more left to act both as
+bishop and magistrate in his own diocese, and to give constant advice to
+the well-meaning but weak young Gratian. The legal training that Ambrose
+had received was now of the highest value, and his experience of men and
+the world acquired in Rome preserved him from making many mistakes and
+giving ear to lying stories. The cleverest rogues in Milan knew that the
+most cunning tale would never deceive the bishop, and would only earn
+for themselves a heavy fine or imprisonment. 'Some,' he writes, 'say
+they have debts; make sure that they speak truly. Others declare they
+have been robbed by brigands; let them prove their words, and show that
+the injuries were really received by them.' Under Ambrose's rule
+impostors of all kinds grew scarce.
+
+During these years the bishop's life, except for public anxieties, had
+been calm and happy, for his brother Satyrus had been with him, and had
+given him his help in many ways. At length important business took the
+elder brother to Africa, and on his return the ship in which he was
+sailing struck on a rock and sank. Luckily, they were not far from land,
+and Satyrus was a good swimmer, so with great exertions he managed to
+reach a lonely part of the coast. He was kindly cared for by the people,
+but there was no means of letting Ambrose hear of his safety, and he had
+to wait long before another ship passed that way. Then, when his friends
+had abandoned all hope, he suddenly appeared in Milan, to the speechless
+joy of the bishop. But not long were they left together. In a little
+while Satyrus fell ill, and in spite of the constant care that was given
+him, in a few days he died, leaving Ambrose more lonely than before.
+
+After this troubles crowded thick and fast on the bishop. Gratian, whom
+he had loved as a son, was treacherously murdered in Gaul by order of
+Maximus, who had been given by Gratian himself rule over the prefecture
+of Gaul with the title of emperor. The grief of Ambrose was deep; but
+besides he was forced to act for Gratian's half-brother Valentinian,
+whose mother Justina never failed to send for the bishop to help her out
+of her difficulties, and directly he had made things smooth, proceeded
+to fall back into them.
+
+Thankful indeed was he when she and her son set out for Thessalonica, to
+put themselves under the protection of Theodosius.
+
+In the long line of the emperors of the East there were few more honest
+and able than Theodosius. He found his dominions in a state of
+confusion, the prey of the barbarian hordes that were always pouring
+westwards from the wide plains of Scythia, while internally the strife
+in the church was fiercer than ever. Quietly and steadily the emperor
+took his measures. Here he pardoned, there he punished, and men felt
+that both pardon and punishment were just. He was not yet strong enough
+to fight against the rebel Maximus, as he would have liked to do, but he
+determined that, cost what it might, he would never forsake the young
+Valentinian. Maximus had snatched at some excuse to invade Milan, which
+on his entrance he had found abandoned by its chief men, save only
+Ambrose, who treated him with contempt and went his own way. The
+intruder's efforts to buy support by conciliation failed miserably, and
+in a few weeks there came the news that Theodosius was preparing to meet
+him on the borders of Hungary, or Pannonia. Then Maximus assembled
+what forces he could, and set out across the pass of the Brenner.
+
+Two battles were lost, for the legions of Maximus were but half-hearted;
+in the third he was taken prisoner and brought before the emperor.
+Theodosius was a merciful man, but his heart was hard towards the
+murderer of Gratian. 'Let him die!' he said, and without delay the order
+was carried out.
+
+[Illustration: 'Let him die!' he said.]
+
+Now that Maximus was dead the legions were quite ready to return to
+their rightful emperor, and as soon as he had settled matters Theodosius
+went on to Milan. There he and Ambrose became great friends; the bishop
+was much the cleverer of the two, but they were both honest and
+straightforward, with great common-sense, and it must have been a relief
+to Ambrose, who did not in the least care for being an important person,
+to feel that he could at last mind his own business, and leave affairs
+of state to the emperor.
+
+It was while all seemed going so smoothly that the supreme crisis in the
+lives of both men took place--the event which has linked the names of
+Ambrose and Theodosius for evermore.
+
+Thessalonica, the chief town of Macedonia, was a beautiful city, and its
+Governor, Count Botheric, a special friend of the Emperor, who
+constantly went to pay him a visit when wearied out with the cares of
+state, which pressed on him so heavily in Constantinople. The people
+were gay and light-hearted, loving shows and pageants of all sorts, but
+more especially the games of the circus. In order to celebrate the
+defeat of Maximus, Botheric had arranged a series of special displays,
+and in the chariot races most of the prizes were carried off by one man,
+who became the idol of the moment. Furious, therefore, was the
+indignation which ran through the city when, immediately after the
+festival was over, the charioteer was accused of some disgraceful crime,
+and being found guilty, was thrown into prison by Botheric. In a body
+the populace surged up to the house of the Governor and demanded his
+release. But Botheric was not the man to be turned from what he knew to
+be right by an excited crowd. He absolutely refused to give way, and
+told them that the man had deserved the punishment he had given him, and
+more too. Then the passion of the mob broke loose. They attacked the
+Governor's house and the houses of all who were in authority. The
+soldiers who were ordered out were too few to cope with their violence.
+In the struggle Botheric was killed, and many of his friends also, and
+their bodies subjected to every kind of insult that madness could
+suggest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Theodosius was in Milan when the news reached him, and after a few
+moments of stony horror he was seized with such terrific passion that it
+almost seemed as if he would die of rage. At last he spoke; to those who
+stood around the voice sounded as the voice of a stranger.
+
+'The crime was committed by the whole town,' he said, 'and the whole
+town shall suffer.' Then, and without giving himself time to change his
+mind, he sat down and wrote the order for a massacre to one of the few
+magistrates left alive.
+
+His words were probably reported to Ambrose, and no doubt the bishop
+tried his best to calm the wrath of the emperor. But Theodosius was in
+no mood to be reasoned with. He declined to see his friend, and left
+Milan, shutting himself up in silence till the terrible tale of
+vengeance was told.
+
+In obedience to his instructions, games, and especially chariot races,
+were announced to take place in the circus. We do not know if the mob
+had broken open the prison and released the charioteer in whose honour
+so much blood had been shed; but if so we may be sure that he was
+present, and was hailed with shouts of welcome. The circus was crowded
+from end to end--not a single seat was vacant. The eyes of the
+spectators were fixed on the line of chariots drawn up at the
+starting-point, and drivers and lookers-on awaited breathlessly the
+signal. In their absorption they never noticed that soldiers had drawn
+silently up and had surrounded them. A moment later, and a signal was
+indeed given, but it was the signal for one of the bloodiest massacres
+that ever shocked the ancient world. Probably the authorities who
+carried out the emperor's orders went further than he intended, even in
+the first passion of his anger. But of one thing we may be quite sure,
+and that is that remorse and shame filled his soul when the hideous
+story reached him. Not that he would confess it; to the public he would
+say he was justified in what he had done, but none the less he would
+have given all he had to undo his actions. He came back one night to
+Milan, and shut himself up again in his palace.
+
+At the time of the emperor's return Ambrose happened to be staying with
+a friend in the country, for his health had suffered from his hard work,
+and also from this last blow, and his uncertainty how best to bring
+Theodosius to a sense of his crime. When he entered Milan once more, he
+waited, in the hope that the emperor might send for him, as he was used
+to do; but as no messenger arrived, the bishop understood that
+Theodosius refused to see him, and the only course open was to write a
+letter.
+
+The occasion was not one for polite phrases, neither was Ambrose the man
+to use them. In the plainest words he set his guilt before Theodosius
+and besought him to repent. And as his sin had been public, his
+repentance must be public too. But this letter remained unanswered.
+Theodosius was resolved to brave the matter out, and next day,
+accompanied by his usual attendants, he went to the great church.
+
+At the porch Ambrose met him, and refused to let him pass.
+
+'Go back,' he said, 'lest you add another sin to those you have already
+committed. You are blinded by power, and even now your heart is hard,
+and you do not understand that your hands are steeped in blood. Go
+back.'
+
+And Theodosius went back, feeling in his soul the truth of the bishop's
+words, but prevented by pride from humbling himself.
+
+Months went on, and the two men still lived as strangers, and now
+Christmas was near. Rufinus, prefect of the palace, who was suspected of
+having inflamed the wrath of the Emperor in the matter of Thessalonica,
+upbraided his master with showing so sad a face while the whole world
+was rejoicing. Theodosius then opened his soul to him, and acknowledged
+that at length he had repented of his crime and was ready to confess it
+before the bishop and the people. Once having spoken, he would not
+delay, and there and then went on foot to the church. As before,
+Ambrose, who had been warned of his intention, met him in the porch,
+thinking that the emperor meant to force his way in, and in that case
+the bishop was prepared to put him out with his own hands.
+
+But Theodosius stood with bowed head, and in a low voice confessed his
+guilt and entreated forgiveness. 'What signs can you show me that your
+repentance is real?' asked Ambrose. 'A crime like yours is not to be
+expiated lightly.'
+
+'Tell me what to do, and I will do it,' said Theodosius.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And the proof that Ambrose demanded was neither fasting nor scourging
+nor gifts to the church. 'It was that the emperor should write where now
+he stood, on the tablets that he always took with him, an order
+delaying for thirty days the announcement of any decree passed by a
+reigning emperor which carried sentence of death or confiscation of
+property to his subjects.' Further, that after the thirty days had
+passed the sentence and the circumstances which called it forth must be
+considered over again, to make quite sure that no injustice should be
+committed. To this Theodosius willingly agreed; not only because it was
+the token of repentance imposed on him by Ambrose, but because his own
+sense of right and justice made him welcome a law by which the people no
+longer should be at the mercy of one man's rage.
+
+The law was written down and read out so that those who stood around
+might hear; then Ambrose drew back the bar across the porch, and
+Theodosius once more entered the church.
+
+
+
+
+PALISSY THE POTTER
+
+
+Four hundred years ago a little boy called Bernard Palissy was born in a
+village of France, not very far from the great river Garonne. The
+country round was beautiful at all times of year--in spring with
+orchards in flower, in summer with fields of corn, in autumn with
+heavy-laden vines climbing up the sides of the hills, down which rushing
+streams danced and gurgled. Further north stretched wide heaths gay with
+broom, and vast forests of walnut and chestnut, through which roamed
+hordes of pigs, greedy after the fallen chestnuts that made them so fat,
+or burrowing about the roots of the trees for the truffles growing just
+out of sight. When the peasants who owned the pigs saw them sniffing and
+scratching in certain places, they went out at once and dug for
+themselves, for, truffles as well as pigs, were thought delicious
+eating, and fetched high prices from the rich people in Perigueux or
+even Bordeaux.
+
+But the forests of the province of Perigord contained other inhabitants
+than the pigs and their masters, and these were the workers in glass,
+the people who for generations had made those wonderful coloured windows
+which are the glory of French cathedrals. The glass-workers of those
+days were set apart from all other traders, and in Italy as well as in
+France a noble might devote himself to this calling without bringing
+down on himself the insults and scorn of his friends. Still, at a time
+when the houses of the poor were generally built of wood, it was
+considered very dangerous to have glass furnaces, with the fire often
+at a white heat, in the middle of a town, and so a law was passed
+forcing them to carry on their trade at a distance. In Venice the
+glass-workers were sent to the island of Murano, where the factories
+still are; in Perigord they were kept in the forest, where they could
+cut down the logs they needed for their kilns, and where certain sorts
+of trees and ferns grew which, when reduced to powder, were needed in
+the manufacture of the glass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whether the father of Palissy was a glass-maker or not--for nothing is
+quite certain about the boy's early years--Bernard must of course have
+had many companions among the children of the forest workers, and as he
+went through the world with his eyes always open, he soon learnt a great
+deal of all that had to be done in order to turn out the bits of glass
+that blazed like jewels when the sun shone through them. There were
+special kinds of earth, or rocks, or plants to be sought for, and when
+found the glass-maker must know how to use them, so as to get exactly
+the colour or thickness of material that he wanted. And when he had
+spent hours and hours mixing his substances and seeing that he had put
+in just the right quantity of each, and no more, perhaps the fire would
+be a little too hot and the glass would crack, or a little too cold and
+the mixture would not become solid glass, and then the poor man had to
+begin the whole process again from the beginning. Bernard stood by and
+watched, and noted the patience under failure, as well as the way that
+glass was made, and when his turn came the lesson bore fruit.
+
+But Bernard learned other things besides how to make glass. He was
+taught to read and write, and by-and-by to draw. In his walks through
+the woods or over the hills, his eyes were busy wandering through the
+fallen leaves or glancing up at the branches of the trees in search of
+anything that might be hidden there. The bright-eyed lizards he
+especially loved, and sometimes he would persuade them to stay quiet for
+a few minutes by singing some country songs, while he took out his roll
+of paper and made rough sketches of them.
+
+[Illustration: The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But after a while Palissy grew restless, and before he was twenty he
+left home and travelled on foot over the south of France, gaining fresh
+knowledge at every step, as those do who keep their wits about them. He
+had no money, so he paid his way by the help of his pencil, as he was
+later to do in the little town of Saintes, taking portraits of the
+village innkeeper or his wife, or drawing plans for the new rooms the
+good man meant to build now that business was so thriving, and measuring
+the field at the back of the house, that he thought of laying out as a
+garden of fruits and herbs. And as the young man went he visited the
+cathedrals in the towns as well as the forges and the manufactories, and
+never rested till he found out why this city made cloth, and that one
+silk, and a third wonderful patterns of wrought iron.
+
+We do not know exactly how long Palissy remained on his travels, but as
+there was no need for him to hurry and so much for him to see he
+probably was away for some years. On his return he seems to have settled
+down in the little town of Saintes, on the river Charente, where he
+supported himself by doing what we should call surveying work, measuring
+the lands of the whole department, and reporting on the kind of soil of
+which they were made, so that the government might know how to tax them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the year 1538 Palissy married, and a year later came the event which
+influenced more than any other the course of his future life. A French
+gentleman named Pons, who had spent a long while at the Italian court of
+Ferrara, returned to France, bringing with him many beautiful things,
+among others an 'earthenware cup, wonderfully shaped and enamelled.'
+Pons happened to meet Palissy, and finding that the same subjects
+interested them both, he showed him the cup. The young man could
+scarcely contain himself at the sight. For some time he had been turning
+over in his mind the possibility of discovering enamel, or glaze, to put
+on the earthen pots, and now here, in perfection, was the very thing he
+was looking for.
+
+During the next two or three years, when he was busy surveying the lands
+about Saintes, in order to support his wife and little children, his
+thoughts were perpetually occupied with the enamelled cup, and how to
+make one like it. If he could only see a few more, perhaps something
+might give him a clue; but how was he to do that? Then one day in the
+winter of 1542 a pirate boat from La Rochelle, on the coast, sailed into
+port with a great Spanish ship in tow, filled with earthenware cups from
+Venice, and plates and goblets from the Spanish city of Valencia, famous
+for its marvellously beautiful glaze. The news of the capture soon
+reached Palissy, and we may be sure he had made a study of the best of
+the pots before they were bought by the king, Francis I., and given away
+to the ladies of the French court. But the Venetian and Spanish
+treasures still kept their secret, and Palissy was forced to work on in
+the dark, buying cheap earthen pots and breaking them, and pounding the
+pieces in a mortar, so as to discover, if he could, the substances of
+which they were made.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this took a long time, and Palissy gave up his surveying in order to
+devote his whole days to this labour of love. The reward, however, was
+very slow in coming, and if he had not contrived to save a little money
+while he was still a bachelor his wife and children would have starved.
+Week after week went by, and Palissy was to be seen in his little
+workshop, making experiments with pieces of common pots, over which he
+spread the different mixtures he had made. These pieces, he tells us,
+'he baked in his furnace, hoping that some of these mixtures might, when
+hot, produce a colour'; white was, however, what he desired above all,
+as he had heard that if once you had been able to procure a fine white,
+it was comparatively easy to get the rest. Remembering how as a boy he
+had used certain chemical substances in staining the glass, he put these
+into some of his mixtures, and hopefully awaited the result.
+
+But, alas! he 'had never seen earth baked,' and had no idea how hot the
+fire of his furnace should be, or in what way to regulate it. Sometimes
+the substance was baked too much, and sometimes too little; and every
+day he was building fresh furnaces in place of the old ones which had
+cracked, collecting fresh materials, making fresh failures, and
+altogether wasting a great deal of time and money.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus passed several years, and it is a marvel how the family contrived
+to live at all, and madame Palissy had reason for the reproaches and
+hard words which she heaped on her husband. The amount of wood alone
+necessary to feed the furnaces was enormous, and when Palissy could no
+longer afford to buy it, he cut down all the trees and bushes in his
+garden, and when they were exhausted burned all the tables and chairs in
+the house and tore up the floors. Fancy poor madame Palissy's feelings
+one morning when this sight met her eyes. His friends laughed at him and
+told tales of his folly in the neighbouring town, which hurt his
+feelings; but nothing turned him from his purpose, and except for the
+few hours a week when he worked at something which _would_ bring in
+money enough to keep his family alive, every moment, as well as every
+thought, was given up to the discovery which was so slow in being made.
+
+[Illustration: Fancy poor madame Palissy's feelings.]
+
+Again he bought some cheap pots, which he broke in pieces, and covered
+three or four hundred fragments with his mixtures. These he carried,
+with the help of a man, to a kiln belonging to some potters in the
+forest, and asked leave to bake them. The potters willingly gave him
+permission, and the pieces were laid carefully in the furnace. After
+four hours Palissy ventured to examine them, and found one of the
+fragments perfectly baked, and covered with a splendid white glaze. 'My
+joy was such,' he writes, 'that I felt myself another man'; but he
+rejoiced too soon, for success was still far distant. The mixture which
+produced the white glaze was probably due to Palissy having added
+unconsciously a little more of some special substance, because when he
+tried to make a fresh mixture to spread over the rest of the pieces he
+failed to obtain the same result. Still, though the disappointment was
+great, he did not quite cease to 'feel another man.' He had done what he
+had wanted once, and some day he would do it again and always.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seems strange that Palissy did not go to Limoges, which was not very
+far off, and learn the trade of enamelling at the old-established
+manufactory there. It would have saved him from years of toil and
+heartsickness, and his family from years of poverty. But no! he wished
+to discover the secret _for himself_, and this he had no right to do at
+the expense of other people.
+
+However, we must take the man as he was, and as we read the story of his
+incessant toils we wonder that any human being should have lived to tell
+the tale. He was too poor to get help; perhaps he did not want it; but
+'he worked for more than a month night and day,' grinding into powder
+the substances such as he had used at the moment of his success. But
+heat the furnace as he might, it would not bake, and again he was
+beaten. He had found the secret of the enamel, but not how to make it
+form part of the pots.
+
+Each time victory appeared certain some fresh misfortune occurred, the
+most vexatious of all being one which seems due to Palissy's own
+carelessness. The mortar used by the potter in building his kiln was
+full of small pebbles, and when the oven became very hot these pebbles
+split, and mixed with the glaze. Then the enamel was spread over the
+earthen pots (which at last were properly baked), and the surface of
+each vessel, instead of being absolutely smooth, became as sharp as a
+razor and tore the hand of any unlucky person who touched it.
+
+To guard against such accidents Palissy invented some sort of
+cases--'lanterns' he calls them--in which to put his pots while in the
+kiln, and these he found extremely useful. He now plucked up heart and
+began to model lizards and serpents, tortoises and lobsters, leaves and
+flowers, but it was a long while before he could turn them out as he
+wished. 'The green of the lizards,' he tells us, 'got burned before the
+colour of the serpents was properly fixed,' and the lobsters, serpents
+and other creatures were baked before it suited the potter, who would
+have liked them all to take the same time. But at length his patience
+and courage triumphed over all difficulties. By-and-by he learned how to
+manage his furnace and how to mix his materials; the victory had taken
+him sixteen years to win, but at last he, and not the fire, was master;
+henceforth he could make what he liked, and ask what price he chose.
+
+And there we will leave Palissy the artist and turn to the life of
+Palissy the Huguenot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some years past the reformed religion had spread rapidly in this
+corner of France, and Palissy, always anxious to understand everything
+that came in his way, began first to inquire into the new doctrines, and
+then to adopt them. One of the converts, Philibert Hamelin, a native of
+Tours, was seized by the magistrates and condemned to death, and
+Palissy, who was his special friend, careless of any risk to himself,
+did all that was possible to obtain his pardon; when that proved
+hopeless, the potter arranged a plan of escape for the prisoner, but
+Hamelin declined to fly, and was hanged at Bordeaux in 1557.
+
+The new religion had changed life outwardly as well as inwardly at
+Saintes, as Palissy himself tells us. 'Games, dances, songs, banquets,
+smart clothes, were all things of the past. Ladies were forbidden by
+Calvin, whose word was law, even to wear ribbons; the wine shops were
+empty, for the young men passed their spare hours in the fields; girls
+sat singing hymns on the banks of the streams, and boys abandoned their
+games, and were as grave as their fathers.' The new faith spread rapidly
+in this district, but the converts did not all behave in the peaceable
+manner described by Palissy. As the party grew stronger it also grew
+more violent, and it was plain to him and to everyone else that civil
+war must shortly follow. Cruelty on one side was answered by cruelty on
+the other, and Palissy had thrown in his lot with the Huguenots, and by
+his writings as well as his words urged them to take arms against the
+Catholics. Perhaps the artist in him may have grieved to hear of the
+destruction in the beautiful churches of the carved images of the saints
+that were broken by axes and hammers; of the pictures that were burned,
+or the old illuminated manuscripts that were torn in pieces; but
+outwardly he gave his approval, and when things went against the
+Huguenots, even Palissy's powerful friends who admired his works could
+no longer shut their eyes. He was warned to change his ways, and as he
+did not the duke of Montpensier, then governor of the rebellious
+provinces, thought he would keep Palissy from greater mischief by
+putting him into prison. From Saintes he was sent to Bordeaux, where the
+magistrates, irritated at his having given the use of a tower which they
+had granted him for a studio as a meeting-place for Huguenots, ordered
+him into stricter confinement, while they debated whether the studio
+should be destroyed. But the constable of France, Anne de Montmorency,
+hearing of this proposal, hastened to the queen dowager, Catherine de
+Medicis, who came to the rescue by appointing him potter to the royal
+household. In this manner Palissy and his studio both escaped, and soon
+afterwards the Treaty of Amboise (1563) gave peace to both parties.
+
+After this the happiest period of Palissy's life began. He was free, he
+was on the way to grow rich, and he had leisure to write down the
+thoughts and plans that had come to him long ago as a boy in his
+wanderings, or lately, in his lonely hours in prison. His children could
+be well provided for, and he need have no more anxiety about them. As to
+his wife, she appears to have been already dead when fortune at last
+visited him, and, indeed, she played but a small part in his life.
+
+Now his first book was composed, and in it we can read about the gardens
+that Palissy hoped to lay out if his rich friends, Montmorency, or
+Montpensier, or Conde, or even the queen herself, would help him to
+carry out his designs.
+
+The garden of Palissy's thoughts was to be very large, and certainly
+would cost a great deal of money. It was to be situated under a hill, so
+that the flowers and fruits might be protected from the winds, and many
+streams were to flow through it. Broad alleys would cross the garden,
+ending in arbours, some made of trees, trained or cut into different
+shapes, and filled with statues; others of different coloured stones,
+with lizards and vipers climbing upon the walls, while on the floor
+texts would be picked out in pebbles. Plants and flowers would hang from
+the roofs of the grottos, and beside them the rivulets would broaden
+into basins where real frogs and fish would gaze with surprise at their
+stone companions on the brink. Here and there the stream would be dammed
+up into a lake covered with tiny islands, and filled with forget-me-nots
+and water-lilies and pretty yellow irises, and at the next turn of the
+path the visitor would be delighted by a beautiful statue half hidden by
+a grove of trees. Catching sight of an inscription in the left hand of
+the figure, he would not resist stepping aside to read it, and as he was
+stooping to see what was written a jar of water in the figure's right
+hand would empty itself on his head.
+
+[Illustration: A jar of water in the figure's right hands emptied itself
+on his head.]
+
+Wet and cross, the visitor would pursue his way, taking care not to go
+near another statue standing alone in a wide grassy space, with a ring
+dangling from its finger. The children or pages waiting on the lady of
+the house would, however, think that the flat lawn would be a splendid
+place in which to play at 'tilting at the ring,' and here was a ring
+just set up for the purpose. Hastily fetching their toy weapons, they
+would choose a starting-place and, holding their lances well back, run
+swiftly towards the statue, hoping to thrust the lance-point through the
+ring, as by-and-by they would have to do at the sports at a royal
+wedding or a coronation. But the moment the ring was touched a huge wet
+sponge would swing round from the back of the figure and hit the
+champion a sharp blow on the back of the head, to the great delight and
+surprise of his companions.
+
+It was not a game that could be played twice on the same person, as
+Palissy well knew; but in those days great lords with trains of
+attendants frequently stopped at each other's houses on the way to their
+own lands, so that a constant supply of fresh pages might be looked for,
+all eager to play at tilting at the ring.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in 1565 that Palissy was sent for to Paris by the queen, to help
+her to decorate and lay out the gardens of the palace of the Tuileries,
+which she was now planning, close to the Louvre.
+
+The very name of the place must have sounded home-like in the ears of
+Palissy, for Tuileries means nothing more than 'tile-fields,' and for a
+long while this part of Paris had been the workshop of brick-makers and
+potters outside the walls of the old city. But in the reign of
+Catherine's father-in-law, Francis I., they were forced to move
+further away, as the king had taken a fancy to the site, and had bought
+it for his mother. Gardens were made where the furnaces had stood; but
+these were by no means fine enough to please Catherine, and she called
+in her favourite architect, Philibert Delorme, to erect a palace in
+their place, and bade Palissy, now called 'Bernard of the Tuileries' by
+his friends, to invent her a new pleasure-ground stretching away to the
+west.
+
+We may be sure that Palissy did not lose this happy chance of carrying
+into practice the 'delectable garden' of his dreams. He had his
+workshops and kilns on the spot, and a band of skilled potters who baked
+the figures of men and animals which he himself fashioned out of clay.
+Two of his sons, Nicholas and Mathurin, seem to have inherited some of
+his talent, and were his partners, as we learn from a royal account book
+of the year 1570, and it must have been pleasant to him to have their
+company. The queen herself often walked down from the Louvre close by to
+see how he was getting on, and to give her opinion as to the grouping of
+some statues or the arrangement of a grotto; and here too came his
+friends when in Paris, Montmorency, Conde, Jarnac and others, and
+Delorme, Bullant, Filon, and all the great architects of the day. The
+chateau of Ecouen, belonging to Montmorency, situated about twelve miles
+from Paris, had been decorated by Palissy before he entered the service
+of the queen-mother, and had gained him great fame and many commissions.
+
+At Ecouen the long galleries and the floor of the chapel were paved with
+tiles containing pictures of subjects taken out of the Bible. In the
+garden was the first 'grotto' the potter ever made, and very proud he
+was of it, and still more so of the invention by which, at a signal from
+the host, one of the attendants would touch a spring, and streams of
+water poured over the guests. It is difficult to imagine the grave
+constable, occupied as he was with religious wars, or anxiously
+watching affairs of state, playing such rude and silly tricks on the
+gentlemen and ladies he was entertaining, and it is pleasanter to think
+of them all listening to the songs of birds which, we are told, were
+imitated to the life by means of water passing through pipes and reeds.
+Altogether, Ecouen was thought a marvel of beauty and fancy, and
+everybody who considered they had any claims to good taste made a point
+of riding out to visit it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Safe under royal protection and happy in his work, Palissy did not
+trouble himself about the fighting that still raged in the name of
+religion. When he was tired of the hot atmosphere of the kiln, he would
+wander along the banks of the river, or into the woods and hills about
+Paris, and watch the birds and the insects fluttering among the trees.
+Then, with his mind full of what he had beheld, he would return to his
+workshop, and, calling for clay, would never rise from his chair until
+he had made an exact copy of the little scene which had caught his
+fancy. First he would form his oval-shaped dish, and in the centre of it
+would lie some twisted snakes, with sprays of leaves and flowers
+scattered round them, while over the cups of the flowers bees and
+butterflies hovered gaily. Or, again, he would fashion a wavy sea,
+bordered by shells of all sorts, fishes, frogs, leaves, and butterflies,
+and in the middle a great sea-serpent wriggling gracefully across the
+dish.
+
+Everything was true to nature and beautifully executed, and in those
+days it never seemed to strike anyone that dishes were meant to hold
+food and not to be treated as pictures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Palissy had been working for eight years in Paris when the massacre of
+St. Bartholomew took place. No one sought to harm the potter, Huguenot
+though he was, and he lived on peacefully, respected by all, for some
+time longer.
+
+In 1574 Charles IX., the well-intentioned, half-mad young king, died,
+and his brother Henry, a man in every way much worse than himself, came
+to the throne. Like the rest of his family, however, he was fond of art,
+and protected the potter, and a few months later we find Palissy, quite
+unharmed, giving lectures on natural history to some of the most famous
+scientific men in Paris. If he wanted to prove a point he had a quantity
+of drawings or materials at hand to show them. He spoke well, and the
+fame of his lectures spread. The little room was soon filled to
+overflowing with lawyers, scholars, and, above all, physicians, the
+celebrated monsieur Ambroise Pare, doctor to the queen-mother, and a
+Huguenot like himself, at their head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During nine years Palissy continued to deliver these lectures every
+Lent, working steadily most of the day among his furnaces at the
+Tuileries. He was now seventy-five, and had escaped so many dangers that
+he might well think himself safe to the end, which could not be far off.
+But in 1585 Henry III. thought himself obliged to take more active
+measures against the Huguenots. Palissy had never concealed--as he had
+never obtruded--his faith, and, most likely at the instigation of
+someone who envied him, he was at once sent to the prison of the
+Bastille, and sentence of death passed upon him.
+
+Yet once again the potter's gift for making friends, perhaps the most
+valuable of all his talents in that fierce age, stood him in good stead.
+This time it was actually one of the persecuting Guises, the duc de
+Mayenne, who saved him, and prevented the decree from being carried out.
+
+For four years Palissy remained a prisoner. Mayenne desired to set him
+free, but did not dare to do so, so left him where he was till better
+times came. But Palissy had a surer friend than Mayenne, who came to his
+rescue. In spite of his strong frame, years passed in a prison of those
+days, where hunger, cold, and dirt would break any man down, proved too
+much even for Bernard Palissy, now more than eighty years of age. Little
+by little he grew weaker, watched and tended, as far as might be, by
+those who, like himself, had suffered for conscience' sake. Then one
+evening he went to sleep, and woke in the Delectable Garden.
+
+PRINTED BY
+SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., LONDON
+COLCHESTER AND ETON
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Red Book of Heroes, by Leonora Blanche Lang
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:54:52 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:54:52 -0700
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