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diff --git a/old/63618-0.txt b/old/63618-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 493db82..0000000 --- a/old/63618-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6650 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little House in War Time, by -Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Little House in War Time - -Author: Agnes Castle - Egerton Castle - -Illustrator: Charles Robinson - -Release Date: November 3, 2020 [EBook #63618] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE HOUSE IN WAR TIME *** - - - - -Produced by Clarity, Paul Clark and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - -A LITTLE HOUSE IN WAR TIME - - - - - TO THE - REV. ST. GEORGE K. HYLAND, D.D. - “_Guide, philosopher, and friend_” - -_September, 1915_ - -[Illustration: _The Little House_ - -CHARLES ROBINSON] - - - - - A LITTLE HOUSE - IN WAR TIME - - BY - AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE - - AUTHORS OF - “THE STAR-DREAMER,” “INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS,” - “OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN,” ETC. - - - “God gave all men all earth to love, - But, since our hearts are small, - Ordained for each one spot should prove - Beloved over all; - That, as He watched Creation’s birth, - So we, in God-like mood, - May of our love create our earth - And see that it is good.” - - RUDYARD KIPLING - - - NEW YORK - E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY - 681 FIFTH AVENUE - 1916 - - - - - PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - A FOREWORD vii - - I. THE VILLINO IS PINCHED 1 - - II. OUR LITTLE BIT 29 - - III. OUR MINISTERING ANGELS 62 - - IV. “CONSIDER THE LILIES” 92 - - V. DEATH IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 119 - - VI. BABIES: CHINESE AND OTHERS 141 - - VII. OUR GARDEN IN JUNE 163 - - VIII. OUR BLUE-COAT BOYS 191 - - IX. IT’S A FAR CRY TO PERSIA 217 - - X. A THREE DAYS’ CHRONICLE 244 - - - - -A FOREWORD - - “... thoughts by England given; - Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; - And laughter learnt of friends; and gentleness, - In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.” - - RUPERT BROOKE. - - -A little chronicle of a great time may have an interest of its own -quite incommensurate from its intrinsic worth. These pages do not -pretend to any merit beyond faithfulness; but they are the true record -of the everyday life of an average family during the first year of -the war of wars; what we have felt, what we have seen; the great -anxieties; the trivial incidents and emotions which have been shared -by thousands of our fellow-countrymen. This home has been so far -exceptional that it has had few hostages to give to fortune, and that -it has mercifully been spared the supreme sacrifice demanded with such -tragic universality, and given with such a glorious resignation: but, -infinitesimal pulse, it has beaten with the great arteries, the whole -mighty heart of the British Empire. - -Annals enough there are, and will be, of the soul-stirring events -of 1914: the proud rise of the nation, its struggles, its failures, -its appalling blunders, and the super-heroism that has saved the -consequences. If Armageddon be not the end of the world; if there be -generations coming after to carry the sheaves of that seed sown with -blood and tears to-day, there will be no dearth of evidence to enable -our children’s children to feed upon the story of England’s glory. They -will be able to read and learn and look back, out of the peace won for -them, to examples almost beyond the conception of idealism. Should, -by some freak of chance, this humble book survive, it may not then be -without an interest of its own. - -This was how the quiet stay-at-home family felt and thought in the days -of the titanic conflict; these were the little things that happened in -a little country house. No great moral lesson certainly, no revelation -of out-of-the-way philosophy; just the way we hoped and feared; the way -we still laughed and talked, gardened and worked, the way we were led -on from day to day and made to find, after all, what seemed unbearable, -bearable, brought to see light where there was apparently no issue. - -Being, as we say--so far--singularly unstricken in the midst of -so much mourning, we have been able to enjoy the lighter side of -existence, the humours, the quaintnesses, which relieve, blessedly for -poor humanity, the most complicated and the most desperate situations. -Perhaps, therefore, these random jottings, turned, many of them, to -the lighter side of life, may, in some stray hour of relaxation, amuse -here and there one actively engaged in the stern actions which the time -demands. Perhaps the breath of the garden may be grateful to a mind -upon which the wind from the trenches has blown so long. - -There is a great deal of laughter about our country, even now. The -troops go singing down the roads in the early dawn, and come tramping -back to camp, with tired feet, but with joking tongues, after the long -days. We know there is much laughter in the fighting-line; innocent, -childish pleasantries, catchwords that run with grins from lip to lip. -There is no laughter so genuine as that which springs from a good -conscience. And so there is laughter in the hospitals also, thank God! - -We trust our pages may add a little mirth more to the gallant spirit -abroad; beguile the fancy of one wounded man, or the oppression of one -anxious heart. Then, indeed, they will not have been written in vain. - -Would only that through them we could convey an impression of the -surroundings in which we write; would we could bring our readers the -atmosphere of these Surrey heights; of the rolling moorland, of the -winds, sweet with heather, aromatic with the pine-woods, charged with -the garden scents that blow about us; then truly would they find -refreshment! Would we could show them our terraced borders where -now the roses are breaking into wonderful bloom, pink, crimson, -cream, fire-carmine, and yellow; where the delphiniums are arrayed, -noble phalanxes in every shade of enamel blue and purple--spires -marshalled together like some fantastic cathedral town, viewed in -impossible moonlight, out of a Doré dream; where the canterbury bells -are beginning to shake out their cups, tinted like the colours in a -child’s paint-box; and the campanulas, with their tones of mountain -wildness--of snow and blue distance--bring coolness into the hotter -tints of the border. - -We look down on this July richness from the small white house with -its green blinds, which, though compact, round-windowed, comfortably -Georgian, has yet an absurd Italian look. - -On the upper terrace wall the ornamental pots, each with its little -golden cypress, begin to foam with lobelia and creeping geranium; -between two clumps of cypress-trees, Verocchio’s little smiling boy -grips his fish against a tangle of blush rambler. And that’s a bit of -Italy for you, even with the ultimate vision of wild moor! - -The terraces run down the hill, tier below tier. On the other side of -the valley the woods rise between the shouldering heather-clad hills, -to the east; the wide, long view spreads to the south-west, where the -hills begin to lift again, and distant pine-woods march across the sky. - -Would we could but give to mere words the sense of altitude, of great -horizons which our high-perched position gives us! - -“You’re in a kind of eyrie,” says one visitor. And another: “Oh, I do -like all this sky! It’s so seldom one really gets the sky about one.” - -“You have,” said an exile--an old Belgian religious--after tottering -solemnly along the terrace walk, “you have here an earthly paradise. A -spot God has wonderfully blessed.” - -Besides the startling contrasts and the fairness of its prospect, the -little place has a special charm of its own, which is not possible to -describe, yet which everyone feels who comes within its precincts. -We quite wait for the phrase now, upon the lips of guests under the -red-tiled roof: “It’s so extraordinarily peaceful.” - -Peace! Peace in the midst of the boom of the war tocsin, echoing all -round! Peace, in spite of the newspapers, the letters, the rumours, the -perpetual coming and going of troops, the distant reverberations of gun -practice, the never-relaxing grip of apprehension! Yes, in spite of all -the world being at war--there is peace in the Villino. - -Some of us believe it wells out from a little chamber, where, before -the golden shrine, the Donatello angels hold up never-extinguished -lamps. Or a visitor may say wonderingly: “I think it must be because -you’re all so united.” Or, perhaps, as the old monk had it, there is an -emanation from the place itself: so beautiful a spot of God’s earth, so -high up, so apart between the moor and the valley! Whatever the reason, -we wish that some of the peace that lingers here may reach out from -these pages, and touch with serenity any unquiet heart or restless -spirit that comes their way. - -And since the soldiers we have written about wanted toys, like sick -children, their mascot to hug--here comes a procession of our little -fur folk walking vividly before your mental eye. - -Here is Loki, the first and oldest of the pets. Loki, growing grey -about the muzzle, elderly already by reason of his six years of life; -with his immense coat, tawny, tufted, plumed, fringed; with his -consequential gait; his “quangley” ways: so easily offended, in his own -strong sense of dignity; with his over-loving heart; his half-human, -half-lion eyes; Loki, with his clockwork regularity of habit; his -disdainful oblivion, except on certain rare occasions, of the smaller -fur fry; Loki, making windmill paws to the Master of the Villino, till -he has succeeded in dragging him away from his pipe and his arm-chair -for a walk on the moors; or yet frantically and mutely imploring the -mystified visitor to go away and cease from boring him. - -And here is Mimosa, the most Chinese of little ladies, hued like a ripe -chestnut, with dark orbs so immense and protuberant as almost to seem -to justify the legend that Pekinese will drop their eyes about if you -don’t take care. Very sleek and sinuous and small is she, a creature -of moods and freaks, fastidious to the point of never accepting a meal -with the other dogs; with all kinds of tricksy, pretty ways of play, -shrilly barking and dancing for bread pills, which she will fling in -the air and catch again, throw over her shoulder and waltz round to -pounce upon, more like a kitten than a little dog. - -And the puppy, Loki’s own contemned daughter, the colour of a -young lion cub--the puppy, with her irrepressible enthusiasms, her -unsnubbable demonstrations, her “pretty paws,” her coal-black muzzle, -her innocent countenance--“Plain Eliza”--whose heart, like her -father’s, is so much too big and tender and faithful, that happening -the other day to see, over the garden hedge, a member of the family in -whose house she was born, she rent the air with such shrieks of ecstasy -that the whole Villino establishment rushed to the spot, thinking she -was being murdered. - -Then there is Arabella, the lavrock setter. “Perverse, precise, -unseasonable Pamela,” cries Mr. B. in Richardson’s celebrated novel, -when having pursued the virtuous damsel to her last refuge, she not -unnaturally misunderstands the purport of his next advance. - -When she does understand she exclaims: “Mr. B. is the noblest of men, -he has offered me marriage.” - -To come back to Arabella. We wish we could find a union of epithets -as telling as that of Mr. B. in the exasperation of his conscious -rectitude. Inane, inert, inconvenient Arabella, fairly well describes -our sentiments towards her. She is a bore and a burden. She feels the -heat and goes out and takes mud-baths, and comes in and shakes herself -in the drawing-room. She cannot understand why she should not lie in -our laps as well as the puppies. She howls mournfully outside the -kitchen door unless she is invited in to assist in the cooking. She has -destroyed three arm-chair covers in the servants’ hall, preferring that -resting-place to her basket. “Fond” is the word that might best be used -to qualify our feelings towards her. We don’t know what to do with her, -but we should not like to be without her. - -Then there is the black Persian, “Bunny,” our kind dead Adam’s cat. You -will meet him circling round the garden. He will raise his huge bushy -tail when he sees you, and fix his inscrutable amber eyes upon you, -questioningly. Then he will pass on with a soundless mew. He is looking -for his master, and you can watch him slink away, superb, stealthy, -pursuing his fruitless quest. - -The fur children come first, being the Villino’s own family, but -there are other kinds with us now. The little Belgians run about the -paths calling to each other with their quaint pattering intonation, -so that long before you hear the words you know by the sound of -the voices coming up the hill that these are the small exiles. -Brown-haired Marthe, with her childish ways and her serious mind, -her ripe southern-tinted face, and Philippe, with his shock of fine -hair, hazel-colour, cut medieval fashion, and his little throat, which -bears his odd picturesque head as a flower-stem its bloom. And sturdy -Viviane, stumping up with her solemn air, precisely naming the flowers -as she comes: - -“Sweet Will-li-yam! Del-phi-ni-um! Canterry bells!” - -Soon Thierry, the schoolboy, will be here too. The garden is full of -Easter holiday memories of him; a little perspiring boy, squaring a -tree-trunk with boxing-gloves five times too large for him, under the -grand-paternal tuition of the Master of the Villino. It would have been -difficult to say who was the more pleased, child or man. And Thierry -can box with a right good will; a very excellent little boy this, with -a bursting patriot’s heart under his shy, reserved ways. No doubt he -fancied he was hitting a German with each of those well-directed blows. - -It is nice to have the children about the Villino; and that they are -exiles adds pathos to the sound of their happy laughter in our ears, -and a tenderness to the pleasure with which our eyes watch their -unconscious gaiety. - -Perhaps, however, if anyone wanted to have a really poetic impression -of our little house, they should see it by moonlight, or--which, of -course, nobody does except by accident--in the summer dawn. Whether -it is because of an unconscious appreciation of the limits of our own -intellect, or whether from some inherent vulgarity, human nature is -prone to depreciate all that is laid out very plainly before it. We -demand mystery in everything if it is to mean beauty to us. - -Some such idea as this Mr. Bernard Shaw expresses--in one of -his uncanny leaps of the spirit out of his own destructive -philosophy--when he makes the Christian martyr retort to the Pagan who -accuses her of not understanding her God: “He wouldn’t be my God if I -could!” - -To pass from the infinite to the atom: when the Villino garden and its -prospects are but imperfectly revealed on a moonlight night the view, -with mystery added to its fairness, becomes wonderful in its loveliness. - -On such a night as this the valley holds mist in its bosom, and the -distant moor ridges in their pine-woods might be the Alps, for the air -of distance they assume, the remote dignity with which they withdraw -themselves, pale and ethereal, into the serene sky. It may be the moon -is rising over the great wooded hill in front of the Villino. The white -radiance pours full upon us. We know all that is revealed, and yet -all is different. Each familiar object has a strange and transfigured -face. The little cypress-trees, rimmed in silver, cast black shadows -on the grass, silver-cobwebbed. The great moors are exquisite ghost -wildernesses, their hollows full of cloudy secrets. And you can hear -the night-jar spinning out its monotonous, mysterious song, a song -which does not break the grand restfulness, but only accompanies it. -We have no running streams--there is nothing perfect here below, it is -a great want! But the song of the night-jar makes up a little for the -voice of water in the night-time. It is the hearing of some such sound, -lost in the turmoil of day, that emphasizes the incomparable silence. - -Our heights in the sunrise show once again a world transfigured; a -sparkling, coloured, other-worldly world. - - “Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day - Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.” - -The saffrons and yellows begin to gather over the moors, and the crests -of the hills and the tree-tops are tipped with light. Each flower has -its shimmering aureole; each has taken a hue never seen in the garish -fulness of the sunshine, enamel, stained-glass-window hues, difficult -to describe. There is a curious look of life about everything. It is -the exquisite hour of the earth, untroubled by man; garden and woods, -hill and valley, unfold their secrets to the sky and hold commune with -the dawn-angels. There is a freshness, a vividness, almost a surprise -about the world, as if all things were made new again. An immense -difference in the scene compared to the night’s grave mysteries. The -latter is a canto from the Divine Comedy as against Fra Angelico’s -dance of Paradise. And to this innocent joy of the waking earth -you have the songs of the birds. Some ecstatic thrush, or liquid -slow-chanting blackbird, will have begun the hymns at the first glimmer -of dawn, and hold the world spell-bound till the lesser chorus spreads -a tangled web of sound from end to end of the valley and the garden -heights, and the moor silence is reached. - -Morning after morning of this glorious summer of the war, the pageant -of sunrise marches, for those who have eyes to see, and night after -night the mystery gathers in the moonlight. All England holds some -such fair visions. Does it not seem a dream that it should be so? The -horror, the devastation, the noise, the fire, the bloodshed, the agony, -the struggle, only a couple of hundred miles away, are they the only -realities in this red year? To us in England’s heart, still mercifully -unwounded, these sometimes seem the dream, the dream of evil, and our -peace the reality. - -Dream, or reality, it is our peace we want to bring to you. - - - - -A LITTLE HOUSE IN WAR TIME - - - - -I - -THE VILLINO IS PINCHED - - “Prepare, prepare the iron helm of war, - Bring forth the lots, cast in the spacious orb; - The Angel of Fate turns them with mighty hands, - And casts them out upon the darkened earth! - Prepare, prepare!” - - W. BLAKE. - - -The most usual remark that people make after a visit to our little -house on the hill is this: “How peaceful!” - -Even in the ordinary course of life--those times that now seem -extraordinary to a world already accustomed to the universal -struggle--when everyone in England was in peace, except where their own -unquiet spirits may have marred it, even then this nest of ours seemed -peace within peace. We do not know now whether the contrast is not the -more acute. One of the thousands of homes dedicated to the quiet joys -and innocencies of life, where no one ever wanted to quarrel, because -all found the hours so full of sweet content, we do not flatter -ourselves that we are singular: only typical. The shadow of the great -cloud cast at first a hideous, unnatural darkness over our harmless -ways. - -All during the long golden summer, when we looked out across the moor -basking in the radiance; when our roses bloomed and the garden rioted -in colour, and the valley slowly turned from green to russet; when the -harvest-moon went up like a huge brass platter in silver skies, the -very beauty of it all clutched one’s heart the fiercer. How fares it -with our boys over there in the heat and the stress? How much worse it -must be for them that the sun should blaze upon them, marching, firing, -rushing forward, lying wounded, wanting water!... Oh, dear lads of -England, how we at home agonized with you! - -The little house, bought in a light-hearted hour, furnished with -infinite zest in happy days out of distant Rome, was a sort of toy to -us from the beginning; and kind friends surveyed it with indulgent -and amused, yet admiring, glances, such as one would bestow upon an -ingenious and pretty plaything. We called it the Villino, partly in -memory of the Italian sojourn, and partly because, though it is -bounded by wild moors, it contrives a quaintly Italianate air. It -stands boldly on the lip of the hill, and the garden runs down in -terraces to a deep valley. Across the valley to the east the moors -roll, curve upon curve. South, facing us, the trees begin their march; -and westward the valley spreads, rising into moors again, where again -the fir-trees sentinel the sky. The view from the terrace rather takes -your breath away. It is unexpected and odd, and unlike anything, except -Italy and Scotland mixed: the wildness, and the trim terraced garden -with its calculated groups of cypress, its vases brimming with flowers, -its stone steps, its secret bowery corners. - -“Mount Ecstasy” an artist friend has dubbed it. “Is it possible,” she -asked us in the middle of this radiant October of the war, “that the -wind ever blows here? Do you ever hear it shrieking round the house?” - -We gave her a vivid description of what the wind could do when it -liked; when it came up the valley with the rain on its wings. She -looked incredulous. - -“Is it possible?” she repeated softly. - -She had come straight from the great camp at Lyndhurst, where the 7th -Division, gallant as ill-fated, had gathered in all its lusty strength -before embarking for the bloody struggle in Flanders. She had just -said good-bye to her eldest son; the call of the bugle, the march -of thousands in unison, was in her ears; the vision of the crowded -transport vivid in her mind. Yet here she would not believe that even -the winds could break our peace. - -This was very much what we felt ourselves when the Storm burst; it was -incredible with this placidity all about us. - -One tries to think what it would be had the Villino sprung to life in -Belgian soil, or did the Hun succeed in landing, and come pouring, a -noxious tide, across our country roads, taking the poor little place -on its way. The first refugee from that heroic and devastated land who -found shelter here was very smiling and brave until she came out into -the garden. Then she began to cry. - -“I had such pretty flowers too.” - -All our moors are turning into camps; they grew like mushrooms in a -day, it seems. We hear the soldiers marching by in the dead of the -night, singing, poor boys! to give themselves heart--such nights, too, -as they are this autumn, deluged with rain and blown through with -relentless wind! We stand between two hospitals; and Belgian refugees -overflow in the villages. We read of the bombardment of the coast and -the dropping of bombs, and yet we do not realize. We still feel as in a -nightmare from which we must wake up. - -Yet the effects of war are beginning to stamp themselves, even in the -Villino and in its garden. We are, some of us, naturally inclined -to luxuries. The mistress of the Villino is certainly a spendthrift -where bulbs and tubers and seeds are concerned; and for three out of -the four years since she owned the little property, the spring garden -has justified impenitence. Oh! the crocuses running through the grass -of that third terrace called the Hemicycle! Oh! the scyllas making -miniature skies under the almond-trees! Oh! the tulips swaying jewel -chalices over the mists of blue forget-me-not: glories of the past, -this coming spring, how shall the garden miss you! - -It must be explained that our soil--green-sand--our -position--high-perched--our general tendency--sloping down-hill--make -us charmingly dry and healthy, but disagree with the bulb. It is -impossible to naturalize anything less hardy than the daffodil. The -snowdrop declines to live with us. Therefore our autumn bulb lists -were copious and varied, and the results ephemeral and lovely. This -year there has been no bulb list; who could think of this completely -personal and selfish gratification when it is the flower of our manhood -that is being mown down out yonder? when all that can be spared must be -spared to help! There is so little one can do, and so appallingly much -to be done. - -And inside, too, we are being pinched; not badly, not cruelly, but just -as if the war monster had reached out one of its myriad hands--quite a -small and rather weak one--and had hold of us, enough to nip, not to -strangle. - -It will not surprise any garden owner to learn that this is the year -of all others in which Adam, the Villino gardener, had an “accident” -with the cuttings, and that therefore those bushes of chrysanthemums, -which look so well on our grey and orange landings, have not been -forthcoming. Another year it would not have mattered. We should have -gaily replenished the Italian pots from the local nursery, where -chrysanthemums are a speciality. But as it is--we go without. - -In a hundred other items the nipping fingers produce the same -paralyzing result. The footman, who, we regret to say, gibbered at -the thought of enlisting, and avowed to a horrified kitchen circle -that he might perhaps be able to help to carry a wounded man, but face -a bullet--“Never, never!”--found his post untenable in a household -chiefly composed of the fair and patriotic sex. We conceived that the -times demanded of us to bring the garden-boy into the house, thus -reducing our establishment without inflicting hardship. - -Such, however, was not the opinion of Juvenal, our eccentric butler. -This strange being, from certain aspects of his character, might -have been, as the Italian prelate said of a distinguished Jesuit -preacher, “born in a volcano.” He is devoted to the dogs, and has a -genius for settling flowers; and he has become altogether so much a -part of the establishment--the _famiglia_--that the Villino would -lose half its charm without him. Nevertheless, he is volcanic! And -though at first he took the substitution of four-foot in buttons for -six-foot in livery with an angelic resignation, Vesuvius broke forth -with unparalleled vigour and frequency after a couple of weeks of the -regimen. Unfortunately, Juvenal is not sustained by patriotic ardour. -He deliberately avoids afflicting himself with thoughts about the war. -“I never could bear, miss, to see anything that was hurt! And as for -anything dying, miss, even if it was only a little animal--why, there, -I couldn’t as much as look at my poor old father!” Here is his point of -view as expressed tersely to the Signorina of the Villino. - -This being the case, he succeeds so thoroughly in blocking his mind -against all facts connected with war time (except the entertaining -of “a nice young fellow from the camp”) that he has found himself -injured to the core by our attempts at economy. And when it came to -our unexpectedly inviting a refugee lady into his dining-room, and his -having to lay three extra places for her and her children, the lava -overflowed into the upper regions. We with difficulty extricated “Miss -Marie” from the burning flood. - -We are all slightly overwrought these days, and instead of pretending -not to notice, which is the only possible way where Juvenal is -concerned, we suggested that he should look for another situation. -It would be difficult to say whether outraged feeling or amazement -predominated in him. Of course, we all deeply repented our hasty -action, and then ensued four uncomfortable weeks of cross purposes in -which neither side would “give in.” Finally the poor volcano departed -in floods of tears, with twenty-four bird-cages and a Highland terrier. - -“Don’t you take on, Mr. Juvenal,” said Mrs. MacComfort, the cook; -“you’ll be back in no time!” - -There ensued a dreadful interlude with an anæmic young butler unfit -for military service, who promptly developed toothache and a bilious -attack, and whom all the servants regarded as a spy for the convincing -reasons that he sat and rolled his eyes and said nothing. - -He was, however, non-volcanic, and placidly accepted Jimmy, the -promoted garden-boy. This was not reciprocal, for Jimmy, who displayed -a degree of conscientiousness, peculiar indeed in the light of -after-events, could not reconcile himself to the change. - -He would canter heavily, smothered to the chin in six-foot’s pantry -apron, into the drawing-room to announce with a burst of tears to the -young housekeeper: - -“Please, miss, ’e won’t suit! ’E won’t do nuthin’ I tell him! Oh, -please, miss, he’s putting the cups--the mistress’s own cup--in the -wrong cupboard, and”--with a howl--“he ain’t washed it, miss! And when -I tell him, ’e says it doesn’t matter!” - -We didn’t think he would suit, ourselves. We had all said so often that -Juvenal was perfectly dreadful, and couldn’t be endured another minute, -and every member of the _famiglia_ had so frequently declared with -tears that if Mr. Juvenal remained she could not possibly stay; she had -borne it as long as she could, not to make unpleasantness, but---- - -We were unanimous now in regrets. - -“God be with poor Juvenal!” said Mrs. MacComfort, the dear, soft-spoken -Irish cook; and added darkly: She wouldn’t like to be saying what she -thought of the new butler. - -However, _à quelque chose malheur est bon_, for had the following -incident taken place under Juvenal’s dog-loving eye, as Juvenal himself -subsequently remarked, there would certainly have been murder done. We -ourselves had been inclined to consider Jimmy an agreeable member of -the domestic circle. Nobody minded telling him to take out the dogs, no -matter how bad the weather was, and Jimmy always responded with that -smile of cheerful alacrity that so endeared him. - -The tale which is here narrated may seem irrelevant to the share which -the Villino has had to take in the universal and terrible cataclysm, -but nevertheless the incidents therein set forth directly issued from -it; and, in spite of a dash of comedy, they were tragic enough for -those chiefly concerned, namely, the youngest “fur-child” and Jimmy -himself. If we had not taken Jimmy into the house, Jimmy would not have -been told to walk the dogs; and if Jimmy had not walked the dogs, the -singular drama of the phantom dog-stealers and the baby Pekinese would -never have occurred. - -There were then three fur-children: Arabella, the Lavroch -setter--lovely, dull, early Victorian, worthy creature; Loki, -the beloved, chief of all the little dumb family, first in our -affections--a quaint, saturnine, very Chinese little gentleman, with -crusty and disconcerting ways, and almost a human heart; and Mimi, the -heroine of this adventure--Mimosa on solemn occasions--really a beauty, -with all the engaging Pekinese oddities and that individuality of -character which each one seems to possess; spoilt, imperious, vivid! - -It was a very wet day, and Jimmy had been ordered to don his master’s -mackintosh cape and take the fur-children up the moor. The first -peculiar incident was that Mimi ran three times headlong from his -guardianship. As fast as she was coaxed down one stairs she was up the -other, with her tail between her legs. It might have made us pause, -but it didn’t. We said: “Poor Mimi doesn’t like getting her feet wet.” -Anyone who had heard the boy cooing to his charges in tones of the most -dulcet affection would have been as dense as we were. - -That evening the dark adventure took place. Jimmy came running into the -kitchen, more incredibly mud-encrusted than any living creature outside -an alligator is ever likely to be again; and, bursting into loud wails, -declared that he had been set upon by two men and robbed of Mimi. - -“Run, run,” cried Mrs. MacComfort, “and tell the master!” - -Jimmy ran, working himself up as he went, so that it was what our -Irish nurse used to call “roaring and bawling” that he rushed into the -library and poured out his dreadful news. The master dashed in pursuit -of the miscreants, led by the hero, who cantered him uphill a good -half-mile. He was followed by the cook and her Cinderella, valiantly -brandishing sticks. Having reached the post-office, the chase was given -up, and the master of the Villino was returning dejectedly when a -yapping behind the hedge that skirted the road was recognized by Mrs. -MacComfort as unmistakably Mimi’s voice. - -Mimi was extracted, none the worse for her emotions, but with the -remnants of a torn pocket-handkerchief tied round her neck. - -Whether it was the abnormal layers of mud on Jimmy’s countenance; or -the curious fact that, in spite of the horrible treatment which he -vowed had been inflicted upon him in a hand-to-hand struggle with -two men, under the mud there was not a scratch upon his ingenious -countenance; or whether it was that, although the conflict was supposed -to have taken place within our own courtyard, no sound reached anyone -in the house--there and then Jimmy’s master came to this conclusion: “I -believe he’s made it all up.” But he didn’t say so. The boy was only -cross-examined. - -“Why didn’t you shout?” asked Mrs. MacComfort. - -“I couldn’t. They stuffed something soft into my throat--a handkerchief, -I think it was.” - -“Where did you get all that mud?” asked the gardener next morning. “You -never picked that up in here. You couldn’t, not if you’d scraped the -ground.” - -It was then that Jimmy discovered that the assault had taken place -outside the gates. - -Jimmy’s mistress questioned him next, and she instantly saw that he was -lying. To point the moral and adorn the tale she sent for the policeman. - -“Why didn’t you ’oller?” said the policeman. - -Jimmy’s knees shook together. - -“I couldn’t ’oller,” he maintained doggedly. “They’d stuffed something -down me throat.” - -“Oh, indeed!” said the policeman. “Maybe it was this ’ankercher, was -it?” - -He produced a dreadful rag that had been picked up on the road. It -fitted neatly with the other rag that had been round Mimi’s neck: awful -_pièces de conviction_! - -“I say it’s your ankercher. Don’t go for to deny it. I say it’s your -ankercher; I ’appen to know it’s your ankercher. I say you did it all -yerself!” - -When a six-foot, black-moustached policeman, with boring eye, rolls out -such an accusation in tremendous crescendo, what can a little criminal -do but collapse? Jimmy collapsed. It was his ankercher. He ’ad done it. -There never ’ad been no men. He never ’ad been knocked down. He ’ad -rolled in the mud on purpose, in the ditch where it was thickest. He -’ad tried to ’urt Mimi. - -“Why?--why?--why?” - -Even our local Sherlock Holmes couldn’t extract anything like a -plausible reason. Loki’s mistress had to piece one together for herself. - -Jimmy hadn’t liked taking the dogs out on a wet day. He had therefore -planned to strangle Mimi and throw her over the hedge, believing that -if he showed himself unable to protect the dogs he would not be sent -out with them any more. - -The two immediate results of this event, extraordinary indeed in the -annals of the Villino, where a St. Francis-like love of our little fur -and feather brothers and sisters dominates, was the prompt restoration -of Jimmy to the arms of Mrs. Mutton, his washerwoman mamma, and the -summoning of Juvenal to the telephone. He was staying with his brother, -a postmaster. We communicated the awful attempt. Juvenal averred, on -the other side of the wire, that you could have knocked him down with -a feather. Having thus re-established communications, we wrote, and, -tactfully cloaking our own undignified yearnings with the innocence of -the fur-children, we told him that the dogs missed him very much. He -was swift to seize the “paw of friendship,” and, following our artful -lead, responded by return of post that Betty had been “that fretted,” -he did not know what to do with her--“_wine_ she did from morning till -night!” - -It was obvious that anyone with a grain of decent feeling must -instantly remedy such a state of affairs. Juvenal returned with the -twenty-four bird-cages and Betty the terrier. - -We have compounded with an assistant parlourmaid; it is by no means -an economy, but four-foot in buttons is in such demand that Jimmy is -irreplaceable. - -After all, so little has that war-pinch nipped us, that, if it was -not to laugh at them, one would be ashamed to set these infinitesimal -bruises down at all. And, thank God! now one can laugh a little again; -the days are gone by when it seemed as if every small natural joy had -been squeezed out of life, that existence itself was one long nightmare -of apprehension. - -We do not yet know what the future may have in store for us; but, pray -heaven, those mornings may never dawn again when one could scarcely -open the paper for the beating of one’s heart. - -It is not, we hope, that we are accustomed to agony, though no doubt -there is something of habit that takes the edge off suspense and grief. -We are also better prepared; we have got, as it were, into our second -wind, and we are, after our English fashion, perhaps even a little more -determined than we were to start with. When it all began, with what -seemed merely an insensate crime in a half-civilized country, no one -would have thought that England, much less our little house, would be -affected. Though, indeed, personally, the murder of the Archduchess -touched the mistress of the Villino a little more nearly than most, -for as children they had played together. It was, and is, a very vivid -memory. - -She and her sisters had been brought to Brussels for their education, -and Sophie was one of the youngest, if not the last, in the nursery -of the Austro-Hungarian Legation in that city. The Chotek family used -to come to the _parc_; a tribe of quaint, fair-haired children. They -wore short black velvet coats and caps, and plaid skirts, rather long. -The Signora can see little Sophie before her now; a Botticelli angel, -with an aureole of fair curls, silver-gold, standing out all round her -small, pale, delicate face; a serious child, with lustrous eyes and -immense black lashes, and a fine, curling mouth. She thought her lovely -and longed to cuddle her, with the maternal instinct early developed. - -“Have you much sister?” said the tiny Austrian, addressing her English -friend upon their introduction with great solemnity. - -Who could have thought what a destiny lay before her, and in what a -supreme act of self-devotion the soul, already luminous in that frail, -exquisite little envelope, was to pass away? We have been told on some -excellent authority that she was not popular in her anomalous position, -at least in her own class. But her singular romance nevertheless was -crowned by so true a married happiness that it can leave one in no -doubt that she was worthy of the sacrifice made for her by the Imperial -heir. He was--it is no uncharity to mention so well-known a fact--a -man of bad life; she was his mother’s lady-in-waiting, appointed to -that post because of destitution, no longer in the first freshness -of her youth, supposed to be a person of small significance--one of -those colourless shadows that haunt the chairs of the great. But she -captivated the most important Prince in her country, barring the -Emperor; and, what is more, her spell never lost its power. To that -last breath, which, greatly favoured in their awful tragedy, they drew -together, they adored each other. She made of him a model husband, a -model father, a man of rectitude and earnestness. They had children, -and these were all their joy. It was one of the reproaches cast upon -her by the indignant royalties of the Vienna Court that the Duchess of -Hohenberg was so economical she would go down to her kitchen and see -the things given out. If she wanted to save money, it was for those -children, cut off from their natural inheritance by the cast-iron laws -that debarred their mother from a share in her husband’s rank. - -An invited guest at the wedding of the present young hereditary -Archduke to the Princess Zita has given us a description of an incident -which well illustrates the treatment which the non-royal wife of the -Heir Apparent received at the hands of her royal relatives. When the -Duchess of Hohenberg entered, her long, narrow train caught in some -projecting obstacle as she swept up the little chapel. The place was -full of Archdukes and Archduchesses, in their wedding attire. Not one -of these high-born beings budged. Each looked straight at the altar, -absorbed in pious prayer. The ostracized lady had to disengage herself -as best she could, and advance, blushing hotly, to her appointed -place, unescorted. A few minutes after a belated Archduchess, entering -swiftly, met with the same mishap. Instantly she was surrounded with -politely assisting Hoheiten. - -The friend to whom we owe the anecdote remarked that it had been “a -dreadful moment,” and that one could not help feeling sorry for the -poor Duchess. But it is to be remarked that she herself--delightful, -cultivated, large-minded creature though she was--had been among the -stony ones, and there had even been a glint of pleasure in her eyes -under the compassion as she told the story. - -Sophie was of those who are hated; but, after all, what did it matter? -Was she not loved? - -Our daughter’s Hungarian godmother--a most fairy and entrancing lady, -with all the spirit of her race under the appearance of a French -Marquise--like most Magyars, championed the cause of one whom they -intended to make their future Queen. She gave us a pretty account of -the great pleasure it was to the common people in Vienna to watch their -Archduke and his wife at the theatre. They sat in the royal box, not -formally, one at each end, as is the etiquette, but close, so close -that everyone knew they were holding each other’s hands. They would -look into each other’s faces with smiles, to share the interest and joy -of what they beheld and heard. So the lesser folk were fond of her, -though the fine Court circle could not forgive. - -When she went to Berlin, the astute William received her with a -tremendous parade of honour, which made him very popular with the -Archduke, as well as with the multitude that espoused his cause. -But it was only a hollow show of recognition after all--a banquet -elaborately arranged with little round tables, so as to avoid any -question of precedence under the cloak of the most friendly intimacy. -Our simpler-minded court had to decline her visit at the Coronation on -account of this same difficulty of precedence. Whatever might be done -in Austria, this was insulting from England. “But she is of better -family than many of your royalties,” said a Bohemian magnate to us -across the table at a dinner-party, his blue eyes blazing. “She is of -very good family. She is”--tapping his capacious shirt-front with a -magnificent gesture--“she is related to me!” - -The petty malice of those whose prerogatives had been infringed pursued -her to her bloodstained and heroic grave. To the last she was denied -all those dignities which appertained to her husband’s rank. Her -morganatic dust could not be allowed to commingle with that of royalty -in the Imperial vault. The two who had loved beyond etiquette were -given a huddled and secret midnight funeral; and beside the Archduke’s -coffin, covered with the insignia of his state, that of his wife was -marked only by a pair of white kid gloves and a fan. - -Such a pitiful triumph of tyranny over the majestic dead! Horrible -juxtaposition of the ineptitude of pomposity and the most royal of -consummations! Sophie and her mate must have smiled upon it from their -enfranchisement. - -Perhaps if the doomed pair had not yielded themselves to those Berlin -blandishments their fate might have been less tragic. There are -sinister rumours as to whose hand really fired the revolver. We in -England to-day may well have come to believe that those whom the -Kaiser most smiles upon are his chosen victims. The laborious grin of -the crocodile to the little fishes is nothing to it; but England is -rather a big mouthful. - -Already one is able to say that any death has been merciful which has -spared an Austrian the sight of his country’s dissolution. We are glad -that our fairy godmother has not lived to have her heart torn between -England, her adopted country, and her passionately loved Hungary. - -The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand in the clear sky--shadow of -the mailed fist--we looked at it from over here with that stirring -of surface emotions that is scarcely unpleasant! How horrible! we -said. How wicked, how cruel! The little bloodstained cloud! it hung -in horizons too far off to menace our island shores. We were very -sorry for the old Emperor, pursued to the last, it seemed, by the -inexplicable, unremitting curse. “I have been spared nothing,” he is -reported to have said when the news of the Archduke’s murder was broken -to him. Was he then in his own heart sheltering the deadly spark that -was to kindle the whole world? We thought of the playmate of Brussels -days with a romantic regret, and envied her a little. Since one must -die, what a good way it was to go with one’s only beloved! And then, in -the full summer peace, the clouds suddenly massed themselves, darkened, -and spread. - -“Austrian Ultimatum to Servia! World’s Peace Threatened!” so read the -newspaper headlines, like the mutter of thunder running from pole to -pole. We saw without conviction. It seemed too inconceivable that such -a crime could be committed in our century; and the folly of it too -manifest in face of the Slav menace. And next came the crack and the -lightning glare--hideous illumination over undreamt-of chasms! - -Will any of us ever forget that Saturday to Monday? War was declared -on Russia; war on France. Luxemburg territory was violated, and rumour -raced from one end of England to the other: “We are going to stand -aside; the peace party is too strong!... We are not bound by deed to -France, only by an understanding. England means to let her honour go -down on a quibble....” - -We had guests in the house--a brother, retired after hard service in -the army; a slow-spoken, gentle-eyed man of law, who hid the fiercest -fire of British pugnacity under this deliberately meek exterior. They -were both pessimistic, the soldier angrily so in his anxiety. “I’ll -never lift my head again in England!--I’ll never go into a foreign -country again! I’d be ashamed!--Upon my word, I’ll emigrate!” - -And the other gloomily: “From my experience of this Government, it’s -sure to do the worst possible thing. I haven’t the least hope.” - -In our own hearts we had resolved, with the soldier, that we would give -up home and country. Our thoughts turned to Canada. - -The relief was proportionate to the hideousness of the doubt. What -though the cloud had spread and spread till it reached right across the -sky, there was brilliant sunshine over England--the light of honour. - -Two ardent young patriots had visited us unexpectedly in their car that -Sunday night. They brought small items of consolation. They had been -to Portsmouth. It was ready for war. Fixed bayonets gleamed at every -corner; the port was closed. Both these youths were full of martial -plans. One was hurrying to the London Scottish, the other northwards -to put all affairs in order before joining too. The London Scottish boy -obligingly kept us _au courant_ of the turn of events by telephone. -During the length of Sir Edward Grey’s speech perverted extracts -reached us and plunged us into ever deeper gloom: “We are only to -intervene if French ports are bombarded....” - -Then at midnight on Monday the bell rang. “Belgian neutrality had been -violated; general mobilization was ordered.” It was war. And we slept -on the tidings with a strange peace. - -Perhaps the universal feeling was most impressively voiced by a -Franciscan monk, who said to us later (during the agonizing suspense -between Mons and the Marne): “Nothing can be so bad as those days when -we did not know what the Government would do. Whatever happens now, -nothing can compare to that. Shall I ever forget how we prayed?” - -Little Brothers of Peace and Poverty, humble, self-despoiled servants -of the rule most rigid in its tenderness, clamouring at the throne -of God for a thing of pride, a priceless possession--their country’s -honour! Paradox can scarcely go further, it would seem. Yet, even -before Mr. Chesterton pointed it out, most of us had long ago accepted -the fact that the deeper the truth the more breathless the paradox. Is -there an Englishman among us who would lift his voice to-day against -the sacred precept: _He that loses his life shall save it_? - - - - -II - -OUR LITTLE BIT - - “‘J’entends des paroles amies - Que je ne comprends pas. - Je me sens loin, bien loin, de la patrie.... - D’où vient que ces voix me semblent familières?’ - ‘Mon père, nous sommes en Angleterre.’” - - CAMMAERTS. - - -It is frequently said in letters from the front, by the officer -praising his men, or _vice versa_: “A dozen things are being done every -day that deserve the Victoria Cross.” But if you speak to one of these -heroes of their own deeds, you will invariably get the same answer: “I -just did my little bit.” - -How immense a satisfaction it must be to feel you’ve done your little -bit! And how out of it are the stay-at-homes! Yet we also have our part -to play--infinitesimal in comparison, but still, we hope, of use--the -minute fragment that may be wanted in the fitting together of the great -jigsaw puzzle. - -Our first little bit at the Villino when we woke to activity after -the stunning of the blow, was obviously to house refugees. We wrote -to a friend prominent among the receiving committee, and offered, -as a beginning, to undertake twelve peasants out of the thousands of -unfortunates flying from the face of the Hun. From that charming but -harassed lady we received a grateful acceptance, announcing the arrival -of our families that afternoon--hour to be fixed by telegram. We -feverishly prepared for their reception. We were ready to shelter five; -kind neighbours proposed to take in the other seven. We had a fleet -of motor-cars in readiness, and Mrs. MacComfort, our cook, concocted -large jars of coffee and other articles of food likely to be relished -of the Belgian palate. No telegram arrived; but to make up for it, our -telephone rang ceaselessly with anxious inquiries from the assisting -neighbours--inquiries which very naturally became rather irate as the -hours went by, while we took upon ourselves the apologies of the guilty. - -Next day we ventured to address an inquiry to the harassed lady. That -was Saturday. On Monday we received a distraught telegram: “Will wire -hour of train.” It reminded us of the overdriven shop-assistant in the -middle of a seething Christmas crowd: “Will attend to you in a minute, -madam.” We felt the desire to oblige; but it left us just where we were -before. - -On Wednesday an unknown Reverend Mother telegraphed from an unknown -convent: “Are you prepared to receive two Belgian families five o’clock -to-day?” - -This message was supplemented by another from an equally unknown Canon -of Westminster Cathedral: “Sending twelve Belgians to-day. Please meet -four-twenty train.” - -We had scarcely time to clutch our hair, for it was already past three -when a third despatch reached us, unsigned, from Hammersmith: “Two -Belgian ladies seven children arriving this afternoon five-five train. -Please attend station.” - -The question was, were we to expect twelve or thirty-six? - -We rang up the devoted neighbours. We increased our preparations -for refreshment. We spread out all the excellent cast-off garments -collected for the poor destitutes; and we “attended” at the first train. - -Before proceeding any further with the narration of our thrilling -experiences, we may mention that eighteen Belgians appeared in all, -whom we succeeded in housing after singular developments; the most -unexpected people showing a truly Christian charity, while others, -ostentatiously devoted to good works, bolted their doors and hearts -upon the most frivolous excuse. - -A neighbour of ours, in precarious health, with a large family, a son -lost in Germany, a son-in-law at the front, and an infant grandchild -in the nursery, would, we think, have given every room and bed in her -house to the exiles. - -“Only, please, do let me have a poor woman with a baby,” she said. “I’d -love to have something to play with our little Delia.” - -Another, a widow lady, with a large house and staff of servants to -match, and unlimited means, was horrified at the idea of admitting -peasants anywhere within her precincts; and as to a small child--“I -might be having the visit of a grand-nephew, and he might catch -something,” she declared down the telephone, in the tone of one who -considers her reason beyond dispute. - - * * * * * - -About five-thirty the Villino opened its portals to its first refugees. -The two ladies with the seven children were fed, and half the party -conveyed farther on, we undertaking a mother and three children, -under three, and a sprightly little _bonne_. The Villino is a small -house, and we had prepared for peasant women. A bachelor’s room and -a gay, double-bedded attic--it has a paper sprawling with roses and -big windows looking across the valley--were what we had permanently -destined for the sufferers. Matters were not facilitated by discovering -that our guests belonged to what is called in their own land the -high-burgherdom; and that they, on their side, had been told to expect -in us the keepers of a “family pension.” - -We do not know whether the unknown Church dignitary, the mysterious -Lady Abbess, or the nameless wirer from Hammersmith were responsible -for the mistake. We do not think it can have been our high-minded but -harassed friend of the Aldwych, as some six weeks later we received -a secretarial document from that centre of activity, asking whether -it was true that we had offered to receive Belgians, and if so: what -number and what class would we prefer to attend to? By that time, we -may mention, we had been instrumental in establishing about sixty of -every variety in the environs. - -However, we had reason not to regret the misunderstanding which brought -Madame Koelen under our roof. - -It was “Miss Marie,” the Villino’s Signorina, who went down to meet -her, accompanied by those kindly neighbours. Madame Koelen descended -from the railway-carriage in tears. - -“Poor young thing,” we said, “it is only natural she must be -heart-broken--flying from her home with her poor little children!” - -The first bombardment of Antwerp had been the signal for a great exodus -from that doomed city. - -“We were living in cellars, _n’est-ce pas?_ and it was not good for the -children, _vous savez_, so my husband said: ‘You must go, _vite, vite_; -the last boats are departing.’ We had not half an hour to pack up.” - -It was a piteous enough spectacle. She had a little girl not three, -another not two, and a three-months-old baby which she was nursing. -We thought of the poor distracted husband and father; and the forlorn -struggle on the crowded boat; and the dreadful landing on unknown -soil, herded together as they were, poor creatures! like a huddled -flock of sheep; and our hearts bled. - -Towards evening, however, when calm settled down again on the -astonished Villino, and Madame Koelen, having left her children asleep, -was able to enjoy Mrs. MacComfort’s choice little dinner, she became -confidential to the young daughter of the house. She began by telling -us that we must not imagine that because a name had a German sound that -her husband’s family had the remotest connection with the land of the -Bosch. On the contrary, he was of Italian extraction; descended, in -fact, from no less a race than the Colonnas! Having thus established -her credentials, she embarked on long rambling tales of the flight, -copiously interlaced with the name of an Italian gentleman; “a friend -of my husband”; a certain Monsieur Mérino. - -“When my husband was putting us on the _remorqueur_ at Flushing, we saw -him standing on the quay, _vous savez_, and then he said, _n’est-ce -pas_: ‘Ah, Mérino, are you going to England? Then look after my wife!’” - -And Monsieur Mérino had been so good, and Monsieur Mérino had amused -the children, and Monsieur Mérino was so anxious to know how they were -established, and Monsieur Mérino would probably come down to see for -himself, and Monsieur Mérino was so droll! - -We are very innocent people, and we accepted Monsieur Mérino in all -good faith. We announced ourselves as happy to receive him; we were -touched by his solicitude. Madame Koelen had surprisingly cheered, but -there was yet a cloud upon her brow. - -“Still,” she said, “I do not think it was right of my cousin to have -accepted to dine alone with Monsieur Mérino, and to have passed the -night in London in the same hotel with only her little brother to -chaperon her--a child of eight, _n’est-ce pas?_--and she only eighteen, -_vous savez_, and expected in Brighton.” - -We quite concurred. Monsieur Mérino’s halo grew slightly paler in our -eyes. Monsieur Mérino ought not to have asked her, we said, with great -propriety. - -Madame Koelen exploded. - -“Ah, if you had seen the way she went on with him on the boat! She was -all the time trying to have a flirt with him. Poor Monsieur Mérino! -and God knows what _blague_ she has told him, for he was never at the -station to see us off, and he had promised to be there, _n’est-ce pas?_ -Oh, I was so angry! _Cette Jeanne_, she prevented him! I cried all the -way down in the train.” - -Certainly she had been crying when we first beheld her; and we who had -thought!---- - -Madame Koelen was a handsome, sturdy creature, who would have made the -most splendid model for anyone wishing to depict a _belle laitière_. -Short, deep-chested, and broad-hipped, her strong, round neck supported -a defiant head with masses of blue-black hair; she had a kind of frank -coarse beauty--something the air of a young heifer, only that heifers -have soft eyes, and her eyes, bright brown, were hard and opaque; -something the air of a curious child, with a wide smile that displayed -faultless teeth, and was full of the joy of life; the kind of joy the -milkmaid would appreciate! We could quite understand that Monsieur -Mérino should find her attractive. - -Before the next day had elapsed we began to understand her view of -the situation also. Like so many other Belgian women whom we have -known, she had been married practically from the convent, only to pass -from one discipline to another. The husband in high-burgherdom, as -well as in the more exalted class, likes to pick out his wife on the -very threshold of the world, so that he can have the moulding of her -unformed nature; so that no possible chance can be afforded her of -drawing her own conclusions on any subject. The horizon of the Belgian -_nouvelle-mariée_ is rigidly bound by her home, and the sole luminary -in her sky is her husband. She must bask on his smiles, or not at all. -And if the weather be cloudy, she must resign herself and believe -that rain is good for the garden of her soul. Presently the lesser -luminaries appear in the nursery, and then her cup of happiness is -indeed full; the fuller the happier! - -“_Il ne me lâche pas d’une semelle!_” said an exasperated little lady -to us one day, referring to the devoted companionship of a typical -husband. - -No wonder, when Monsieur Mérino flashed across the widening horizon of -Madame Koelen with comet-like brilliancy, that the poor little woman -should be thrilled and dazzled. - -When, on the morning after her arrival, the papers announced an -intermittent bombardment of Antwerp, she screamed: “Ah, _par exemple_, -it is I who am glad not to be there!” without the smallest show of -anxiety on the score of the abandoned Koelen. We realized that, to -quote again our frank and charming friend: “_Ce n’était pas l’amour de -son mari qui l’étouffait!_” And when she next proceeded to hang on to -the telephone, and with many cackles and gurgles to hold an animated -conversation with the dashing Mérino, we began to hope that that -gentleman might not make his appearance at the Villino. - -He did, however, next day; and, under pretence of visiting houses, -carried away the emancipated Madame Koelen for a prolonged motor -drive, leaving the three-months-old baby to scream itself into fits in -the attic room upstairs; she was tied into her crib while the little -_bonne_ promenaded the other two in the garden. - -The Villino is a tender-hearted place, and the members of the -_famiglia_ vied with each other in endeavouring to assuage the agonies -of the youngest Miss Koelen, but nobody could provide the consolation -she required. - -Madame Koelen and her _cavaliere servente_ returned for a late tea, no -whit abashed; indeed, extremely pleased with themselves. He had a great -deal to say in an assured and airy manner, and she hung on his words -with her broad smile and many arch looks from those brilliant opaque -red-brown orbs. - -Monsieur Mérino was tall, quite good-looking; with a smooth olive face, -fair hair, and eyes startlingly blue, in contrast to the darkness of -his skin. He gave us a great deal of curious information. Summoned from -Antwerp, where he had a vague business, he was on his way to join the -Italian colours, but, calling on the Italian Ambassador in London, the -latter had given him leave to defer his departure for another ten days. -He was, therefore, able to devote his entire attention to the interests -of Madame Koelen, which he felt would be most reassuring to her husband. - -We rather wondered why the Italian Ambassador to the Court of St. -James’s should occupy himself with the movements of a casual Italian -merchant _en route_ from Antwerp; or by what curious intermingling -of international diplomatic arrangements he should be able to give -military leave to a reservist; but we were too polite to ask questions. - -Monsieur Mérino departed with many bows and scrapes and hand-shakes; -and Madame Koelen evidently found that existence by comet light was -worth having. - -In the course of the evening she was very communicative on the subject -of this gentleman, and several anecdotes of his drollery on board ship -were imparted to us. She had found out that he was married--that was a -funny thing, _n’est-ce pas?_ She had always heard of him about Antwerp -as a bachelor. - -“We thought he was a friend of your husband’s,” we faltered. - -“Oh, a friend--a coffee-house acquaintance, _tout au plus_!... - -“It was very droll. It came about this way. He was playing with little -Maddy, and I said to him: ‘Oh! the good Papa that you will make when -you marry.’ Judge of my astonishment when he looks at me and says: ‘I -am married already! Yes,’ he said, ‘I am married, and my wife lives -at Sorrento; I see her once in six weeks when I make my voyage of -business. _J’ai des idées sur le mariage,’ il dit, comme ça._” - -These ideas she next began to develop. - -“‘I do not think one ought to be bound,’ he says. ‘Do you not agree -with me, Madame, a man ought to be free?’ Oh, he was comic!” - -“But,” we said, “we do not think that is at all nice.” The Villino is -very moral. Its shocked atmosphere instantly made itself felt on Madame -Koelen. Her bright eye became evasive. - -“Of course I made him _la leçon_ at once. Ah! I very well made him -understand I do not approve of these _façons_. My husband teases me; I -am so serious, so rigid!” - -Before we separated that evening she told us in a disengaged voice that -she would spend the next day in London. Monsieur Mérino could not rest, -it transpired, knowing her in such dangerous surroundings; so far from -a station, in a place so likely, from its isolated inland position, to -be the objective of the first German raid. He was, therefore, going -to occupy himself about another home for her; and at the same time he -would take the opportunity of conducting her to the Consul, for “it -seems,” she said, “that I shall have to pay a _grosse amende_ if I do -not go immediately in person to register myself in London.” - -“But the baby,” we faltered. - -“Oh, the baby!”--she flicked the objection from her--“the baby will get -on very well with Justine. Justine knows how to manage her.” - -Justine was the minute _bonne_ who had tied the infant into the cot. - -Then there was Monsieur Mérino. The more we thought of it, the less we -felt that Monsieur Mérino was to be trusted. Luridly our imagination -worked; we saw ourselves left with three small Koelens in perpetuity; -we pictured that baby screaming itself into convulsions. We thought -it quite probable that we might never hear of its Mama again. And -poor Papa Koelen, the brave Anversois Garde Civique, dodging bombs in -ignorance of the horrible happening! - -The Master of the Villino was prevailed upon to speak; in fact, to -put his foot down. Next morning he spoke, and crushed the incipient -elopement with a firm metaphorical tread. - -“Madame, this plan seems to be rash in the extreme. I cannot permit -it to take place from under my roof. I feel, justly or unjustly, a -mediocre confidence in Monsieur Mérino. You will, if you please, wire -to him that you are prevented from meeting him.” - -Madame Koelen became very white, and though her opaque eyes flashed -fury, she gave in instantly; being a young Belgian wife, she was -accustomed to yield to masculine authority. - -Again she hung on the telephone. We were too discreet to listen, but -radiance returned to her countenance. - -After lunch she explained the cause. Next morning she and her whole -family would depart. Monsieur Mérino would himself convey them to -Brighton. - -The mistress of the Villino is occasionally troubled with an -inconvenient attack of conscience--sometimes she wonders if it is only -the spirit of combativeness. In this instance, however, she felt it her -duty to warn Madame Koelen. - -It was a brief but thrilling conversation. Madame Koelen, her eldest -little daughter on her knee, occasionally burying her handsome -countenance in the child’s soft hair, was as cool and determined, as -silky and evasive as a lusty young snake. She had a parry for every -statement; that she ate up her own words and manifestly lied from -beginning to end did not affect her equanimity in the least. It was the -Signora who was nonplussed. There is nothing before which the average -honest mind remains more helpless than the deliberate liar. - -Monsieur Mérino was her husband’s oldest friend. He was intimate with -her whole family. She herself had known him for years. She was under -his charge by her husband’s wishes. She had probably been aware of -his marriage, but it had merely slipped her memory--not having his -wife with him in Antwerp made one forget it. He was perfectly right to -invite her young cousin to dine with him, since she had her brother to -chaperon her. Certainly the brother was grown up and able to chaperon -her! How extraordinary of us to imagine anything different! - -“You are young, and you do not know life, my dear,” said the Signora at -last, succeeding in keeping her temper, though with difficulty. - -Madame Koelen bit into Maddy’s curls. It was quite evident she meant -to know life. She had got her chance at last, and would not let it -escape. - -“I do not think,” said the unhappy hostess, firing her final shot, -“that your husband would approve.” - -The wife wheeled with a sudden savage movement, not unlike that of a -snake about to strike. - -“_Ah, voilà qui m’est bien égal!_ That is my own affair!” - -There was nothing more to be said. We wondered whether the Garde -Civique had ever had such a glimpse of the real Geneviève Koelen as had -just been revealed to us. Even to us it was startling. - -An extraordinary hot afternoon it turned out. The sun was too blazing -for us to venture beyond the shadow of the house. We sat on the -terrace, and Madame Koelen wandered restlessly up and down, biting at a -rose. The master of the Villino suddenly appeared among us, all smiles. - -“A telegram for you, Madame. I have just taken it down on the -telephone. It is from your husband. He is coming here to-day.” - -He was very glad; it was the burden of responsibility lifted. Not so, -however, Madame Koelen. - -“From my husband? How droll!” - -She snapped the sheet of paper and walked away, conning it over. - -We sat and watched her. - -The garden was humming with heat. The close-packed heliotrope beds in -the Dutch garden under the library window were sending up gushes of -fragrance. In the rose-beds opposite, the roses--“General MacArthur,” -“Grüss aus Teplitz,” “Ulrich Brunner,” “Barbarossa” (we hope these -friendly aliens will soon be completely degermanized), crimson carmine, -velvet scarlet, glorious purple--seemed to be rimmed with gold in the -sun-blaze. It was a faultless sky that arched our world, and the moor, -already turning from silver amethyst to the ardent copper of the burnt -heather, rolled up towards it, like a sleeping giant wrapped in robes -of state. - -On such a day the inhabitants of the Villino would, in normal times, -have found life very well worth living indeed; basking in the sun and -just breathing in sweetness, warmth, colour--aspiring beauty, if this -can be called living! But in war time the subconsciousness of calamity -is ever present. Inchoate apprehension of bad news from the front is -massed at the back of one’s soul’s horizon, so that one lives, as it -were, under the perpetual menace of the storm. - -The wonderful summer was being rent, laid waste, somewhere not so -very far away; and the sun was shining, even as it was shining on -these roses, on blood outpoured--the best blood of England! In the -hot Antwerp streets, we pictured to ourselves some tired man going -to and fro; the weight of the gun on his shoulder, the weight of his -heavy heart in his breast; thinking of his wife and little children, -hunted exiles in a strange country, while duty kept him, their natural -protector, at his post in the fated city. - -To have seen what we read on that young wife’s face would have been -horrible at any time: it was peculiarly at variance with the peace of -the golden afternoon, and the lovely harmony of the garden. But in view -of her country’s desolation and her husband’s share in its splendid and -hopeless defence, it was hideous. We do not even think she had the -dignity of a _grande passion_ for the fascinating Mérino; it was mere -vanity, the greed of a pleasure-loving nature free to indulge itself at -last. She was only bent on amusing herself, and the unexpected arrival -of her husband interfered with the little plan. Therefore she stood -looking at his message with a countenance of ugly wrath. - -“_Ah, ça, qu’il est ennuyeux!_... What has taken him to follow me like -this?” - -The thoughts were printed on her face. - -“Is it not delightful?” said the guileless master of the Villino, who -never can see evil anywhere. - -“Ah, yes, indeed,” said she; “delightful!” - -She could no more put loyalty into her tone than into her features. - -“Heaven help Koelen!” thought the Signora, and was heartily sorry for -the unknown, but how glad, how indescribably thankful, that the planned -expedition had been prevented! - -Dramatically soon after his telegram Monsieur Koelen arrived--an -exhausted, pathetic creature. He had stood twelve hours in the steamer -because it was so packed with exiled humanity that there was not room -to sit down. He had exactly two hours in which to see his wife, having -to catch the night boat again from Harwich. He had given his word of -honour to return to Antwerp within forty-eight hours. - -We did not, of course, witness the meeting, but it was a very, very -_piano_ Madame Koelen who brought Koelen down to tea; and it was a -cold, steely look which his tired eyes fixed upon her between their -reddened eyelids. Whether he really came to put his valuables in the -bank, whether he was driven by some secret knowledge or suspicion of -his wife’s character, we shall never know. We naturally refrained -from mentioning the name of Monsieur Mérino. The host deemed his -responsibility sufficiently met by a single word of advice: - -“Madame is very young; we hope you will place her with people you know.” - -Monsieur Mérino was mentioned, however, by the husband himself. It -transpired Madame owed him money. She wished to see him again to pay -him. - -“I will pay him,” said Monsieur Koelen icily; “I will call at his hotel -on my way.” - -Madame’s head drooped. - -“_Bien, mon chéri_,” she murmured, in a faint voice. - -In a turn of the hand, as they would have said themselves, her affairs -were arranged. She was to go to Eastbourne, under the care of some -elderly aunts, Monsieur Koelen presently announced. - -We had thought he looked like a hunted hare. He had that expression -of mortal agony stamped on his face, which is often seen--more shame -for us!--on some poor dumb creature in terror for its life; but he had -still enough spirit in him to reduce Madame Koelen to abject submission. - -We could see he was oppressed with melancholy: that his heart was -bursting over the children. We understood that this parting was perhaps -worse for him than those first rushed farewells. - -He seemed scarcely to have arrived before he was gone again. The young -wife must have had some spark of feeling left--perhaps, after all, -under the almost savage desire for a fling she had a stratum of natural -affection, common loyalty--for she wept bitterly after his departure, -and, that night, for the first time, came into the little chapel and -prayed. - -We met the nurse with the children in the garden, just as the father -was being driven away: a small, upright creature this, with flax-blue -eyes and corn-coloured hair, which she wore in plaits tightly wound -round her head. She did not look a day more than sixteen, but she had -the self-possession of forty; and possessed resource also, as was -demonstrated by her dealings with Baby. - -“Monsieur is so sad. Madame is so sad, because of Antwerp, _n’est-ce -pas?_” she said to us, and by the sly look in those blue eyes we saw -that she was in her mistress’s confidence. - -It was true that he was sad for Antwerp; if the word “sad” can be used -to describe that bleak despair which we have noticed in so many Belgian -men who have found shelter in this country. - -“It is impossible that Antwerp should hold out,” he said to us; “the -spies and traitors have done their work too well. The spies are waiting -for them inside our walls. They know every nook in every fort, every -weak spot better than we do ourselves.” - -That was mid September, and we put his opinion down to a very natural -pessimism. No one knew then of the concrete platform under the gay -little villa outside the walls, built by the amiable German family who -was so well known and respected at Antwerp; and we have since heard, -too, of the shells supplied by Krupp and filled with sand; and the last -Krupp guns made of soft iron, which crumpled up after the first shot. - -Alas, he was justified in his gloomy prophecy! But we do not think -that it was as much the sense of national calamity that overwhelmed -him as the acute family anxiety. Yet, honest, good, severe, ugly -little man--worth a hundred plausible, handsome, lying scamps such as -Mérino--he was a patriot before all else! He would have had a very -good excuse, we think, for delaying another twelve hours to place his -volatile spouse in safety with the elderly relations at Eastbourne--but -he had given his word. Had he arrived at the Villino only to find that -she had tripped off to London, with that chance acquaintance of cafés, -Monsieur Mérino (to whose care he had in a distraught moment committed -her); had he thereafter been assailed by the most hideous doubts; -had he believed, as we did, that she meant to abandon husband and -babes at this moment of all others; or had he--scarcely less agonizing -surmise!--trembled for her, innocent and lost in London, the prey of a -villain, we yet believe that he would have kept his word. - -“_J’ai donné ma parole d’honneur!_” - -What a horrible, tragic story it might have been, fit for the pen of a -Maupassant! We shall never cease to be thankful that it did not happen. -That is why we are glad to have received Madame Koelen at the Villino. - - * * * * * - -Our next refugees came to us quite by accident, and then only for a -meal. A home had already been prepared for them in the village, but the -excellent Westminster Canon, who seemed to be the channel through which -the stream of refugees was pouring to us, announced five, and casually -added a sixth at the last minute, with the result that the party were -not recognized at the station. The name of the Villino having become -unaccountably associated with every refugee that arrives in this part -of the world, the Van Heysts landed _en masse_ at our doors, demanded -to have their cab paid, and walked in. - -We all happened to be out, and Juvenal, our eccentric butler, -acquiesced. Standing on one leg afterwards, he explained that, being -aware of our ways, he didn’t know, he was sure, but what we might have -meant to put them somewhere. - -Weary, tragic creatures, we weren’t sorry, after all, to speed -them on their road! The three fair-haired children were fed with -bread-and-butter, and the young mother talked plaintively in broken -French, while the old grandfather nodded his head corroboratively. -But the father: he was like a creature cast in bronze--would neither -eat nor speak. He sat staring, his chin on his hand, absorbed in the -contemplation of outrage and disaster. - -They were from Malines. - -“And then, mademoiselle, it was all on fire, and the cannon were -sending great bombs; and we fled as quick as we could, _n’est-ce pas?_ -I with the littlest one in my arms, and the other two running beside -me. For five hours we walked. Yes, mademoiselle, the two little girls, -they went the whole way on foot, and that one there always crying, -‘_Plus vite, maman! plus vite, maman!_’ and pulling at my apron.” - -The young husband sat staring. Was he for ever beholding his little -house in flames, or what other vision of irredeemable misery? He -remains inconsolable. Poor fellow! he has heart disease; he thinks he -will never see his native land again. And there is yet another little -one expected. Alas! alas! - - * * * * * - -Of quite another calibre are the Van Sonderdoncks; a very lively, -cheery family this! There are, of course, a grandpapa, a maiden aunt, -a couple of cousins, as well as the bustling materfamilias, the quaint -wizened papa, the well-brought-up Jeanne, who can embroider so nicely, -and the four little pasty boys with red hair and eyes like black beads. -They are comfortably established in a very charming house lent by a -benevolent lady, who also feeds them. - -On the Signorina’s first visit she found Madame Van Sonderdonck in a -violent state of excitement. She had received such extraordinary things -in the way of provisions “_de cette dame_.” If mademoiselle would -permit it, she would like to show her something--but something--she -could not describe it; it was _trop singulier_. “One moment, -mademoiselle.” - -She fled out of the room and returned with--a vegetable marrow! - -She was rather disappointed to find that mademoiselle was intimately -acquainted with this freak of nature, which she surveyed from every -angle with intense suspicion and curiosity. Politeness kept her from -expressing her real feelings when she was assured of its excellence -cooked with cheese and onion and a little tomato in a flat dish, but -her countenance expressed very plainly that she was not going to risk -herself or her family. - -Having failed to impress with the marrow, she repeated the effect with -sago. She had eaten it raw. Naturally, having thus become aware of its -real taste, she could not be expected to believe it would be palatable -in any guise. Nevertheless, she was indulgent to our eccentricities. If -anyone remembers the kind of amused, condescending interest that London -society took in the pigmies, when those unfortunate little creatures -were on show at parties a few years ago, they can form some idea of -Madame Van Sonderdonck’s attitude of mind towards England. - -Good humour reigned in the family as we found it. - -Though papa Sonderdonck had a bayonet thrust through his neck--he had -been in the Garde Civique--and they had already had a battle-royal with -the Belgian family who shared the house, they seemed to view the whole -situation as a joke. As they had routed their fellow refugees--the -latter only spoke Flemish, Madame Van Sonderdonck only French, and an -interpreter had to be found to convey mutual abuse--and furthermore -obtained in their place the sister-in-law and the two cousins, -unaccountably left out of the batch, they had some substantial reasons -for satisfaction. - - * * * * * - -Monsieur and Madame Deens are once more of the heart-rending order. -She, a pathetic creature always balanced between tears and smiles, with -pale blue eyes under her braided soft brown hair, looks extraordinarily -young to be the mother of two strapping children. He is the typical -Belgian husband, devoted but grinding. - -Our first visit there was painful. Madame Deens was like a bewildered -child, and the husband, a stalwart handsome fellow, who had been chief -engineer on the railway at Malines, was torn between a very natural -indignation at finding himself beggared after years of honest hard -work, and bitter anxiety about his wife, who was in the same condition -as Madame Van Heyst. - -He beckoned us outside the cottage to tell us in a tragic whisper that -he had good reason to believe that “all, all the family of my wife,” -her father, mother, and the invalid sister, had been murdered by the -Germans; and their farm burned. - -“How can I tell her, and she as she is? It will kill her too! And she -keeps asking me and asking me! I shall have to tell her!” - -The tears rolled down his cheeks. Yet he was a hard man; it galled -him to the quick to be employed as a common labourer and receive only -seventeen shillings a week. - -They had been given a gardener’s house: the most charming, quaint -abode. It had an enormous kitchen, with a raftered ceiling, and one -long window running the whole length of the room, opening delightfully -on the orchard. The walls were all snowy white. He might have made -himself very happy in such surroundings for the months of exile, with -the consciousness of friends about him, the knowledge of safety and -care for the wife in her coming trial, and the splendid healthy air for -the children. But Deens was not satisfied. - -“I had just passed my examinations, _n’est-ce pas?_ monsieur, madame, -and had received my advancement, and we had just got into the little -house I had built with my savings. Now it is burnt--burnt to the -ground. And these wages, for a man like me, mademoiselle, it is -something I cannot bring myself to. _Je ne puis pas m’y faire, savez -vous._” - -“But Madame Deens is so well here, and we will look after her,” said -Mademoiselle. - -“Ah, but I could earn more money elsewhere! I might have something to -bring back to my own country.” - -Of course he has had his way. A bustling lady got him into a motor -factory, and he dragged his weeping but resistless spouse to a townlet, -where they are lodged in one room; where the only person we could -think of to interest in their favour was the old parish priest, who -turned out to be queer in his head, but where Deens is in receipt of -thirty-two shillings a week. We are sure that what can be saved is -being saved for the _retour au pays_, and meanwhile the poor little -woman’s hour of trouble is approaching, and she must get through it as -best she can, unbefriended. We feel anxious. - -Before she left, with many tears, she gave the Signorina, who had -sympathized with her, the only gift she could contrive out of her -destitution. It was the youngest child’s little pair of wooden shoes! - - - - -III - -OUR MINISTERING ANGELS - - “Chi poco sa, presto lo dice!” - - _Wisdom of Nations._ - - -Of course we are not behindhand in our village in the Red Cross -movement. - -Nearly every woman, whatever her views, fancies herself nowadays -in the rôle of ministering angel. It may be doubted whether an -existence devoted to the Tango and its concomitants has been a useful -preparation for a task which demands the extreme of self-devotion; -and we have heard odd little tales of how a whole body of charming -and distinguished amateurs rushed into the cellars at the whiz of a -shell, abandoning their helpless patients; and how the fair chief of a -volunteer ambulance staff fainted at the sight of the first wounded man. - -Yet there may be many, even among what is odiously called “the smart -set,” who only find their true vocation at such a moment as this, when -unsuspected qualities, heroic capacities spring into life at the -test. It is not enough to say that times of great calamity sift the -good from the bad, the strong from the futile: they give the wasters -in every class of life their chance of self-redemption--in numberless -instances not in vain. While freely admitting, however, that there may -be a good proportion of society women who are drawn to work among the -wounded by a genuine desire to help, and have therefore taken care to -qualify themselves for the task, who can deny that with others nursing -is merely a new form of excitement, the last fashionable craze? It was -the same in the South African War. Indeed, the episode of the wounded -soldier who put up a little placard with the inscription, “Much too ill -to be nursed to-day,” has, we see, been revived in connection with the -present conflict. It may be taken as the classic expression of Tommy’s -feelings towards this particular form of attention. We do not suppose, -however, that the case of the tender-hearted but unenlightened lady who -went about Johannesburg feeding the enteric patients with buns will -be allowed to repeat itself at Boulogne or Calais. We well remember -reading her letter to the papers, in which she innocently vaunted her -fatal ministrations, inveighing against the monstrous fashion in which -“our poor sick soldiers” were being starved. We believe eleven victims -of her charity died. - -A late distinguished general had a genial little anecdote anent the -energies of a batch of fair nurses who landed in Egypt during the last -campaign. Happening to go round the hospital one morning shortly after -their arrival, he saw one of these enchanting beings, clad in the most -coquettish of nursing garbs, bending over a patient. - -“Wouldn’t it refresh you if I were to sponge your face and hands, my -man?” she inquired, in dulcet tones. - -The patient, who was pretty bad, rolled a resigned but exhausted glance -at her. - -“If you like, mum. It’s the tenth time it’s been done this morning!” - -Perhaps, like the war itself, everything is on too tremendous a scale -now to permit of such light-hearted playing with the dread sequels of -combat. We can no more afford to make a game of nursing than a game of -fighting in this world struggle. It is possible that only such of our -_mondaines_ as have the necessary knowledge and devotion are permitted -to have charge of those precious lives, and that the others confine -themselves to post-cards and coffee-stalls, and dashing little raids -into the firing-lines with chocolates and socks. We trust it may be so. -We confess that what we ourselves beheld of the local amateur Red Cross -fills us with some misgiving. - -Of course, as has been said, being a very enlightened community, we -were not going to be left behind. A special series of lectures was -announced almost within a week of the declaration of war. The daughter -of the household determined to join. - -On her arrival, a little late, at the village hall, she was met by -the secretary of the undertaking; a charming and capable young lady, -looking, however, at this particular moment distraught to the verge of -collapse. - -“Oh, _do_ you know anything about home nursing? _Do_ you think you -could teach a little class how to take temperatures? You could easily -pick up what you want to learn afterwards, couldn’t you? There are such -a lot of them, and they’re all so, so----” She substituted “difficult -to teach” for the word trembling on her lips. “Nurse Blacker doesn’t -know which way to turn.” - -“Oh, I can certainly teach them to take temperatures,” said the -Signorina. Nurses, like poets, are born, not made; and she is of those -who have the instinct how to help. Besides this she has had experience. - -She was disappointed, however. She had come to learn, not to teach. It -seemed to her, moreover, almost inconceivable that any female who had -arrived at years of discretion and was of normal intellect should not -be able to take a temperature; but she swallowed her feelings, after -the example of the secretary, and went briskly in to begin her task. - -She was provided with a jug of warm water, several thermometers, and -a row of various women, ranging from the spinster of past sixty to -the red-cheeked sixteen-year old daughter of the local vet--who ought -to have known how to take a temperature, if it was only a dog’s! -There were also two fluttering beribboned summer visitors from the -neighbouring hotel; these were doing the simple life, with long motor -veils and short skirts and a general condescending enthusiasm towards -our wild moorland scenery, which they were fond of qualifying as “too -sweet!” - -“Perhaps,” said the secretary to the Signorina as she hurried away, -“you could teach them to take a pulse also. They can practise on each -other. It would be _such_ a help.” - -The Signorina felt a little shy. It did seem somewhat presuming for -anything so young as she was to be instructing people who were all, -with the exception of the vet’s daughter, considerably older, and, -therefore, obviously considerably richer in experience than herself. -It added to her embarrassment that the summer visitors should fix two -pairs of rapt eyes upon her with the expression of devotees listening -to their favourite preacher. - -However, she summoned her wits and her courage, and gave a brief -exposition of the mysteries of thermometer and pulse, patiently -repeating herself, while the students took copious notes. Certainly -there was something touching in this humble ardour for useful -knowledge. Then the thrilling moment of practice began. - -The spinster first monopolized the instructress’s attention. Her white -hairs and her years entitled her to precedence. - -“Of course,” she remarked, with the air of one whose scientific -education has not been altogether neglected, as she balanced her -thermometer over the jug, “the water won’t really make it go up, will -it, no matter how hot it is?” - -The Signorina did not think she could have understood. - -“I mean,” said the maiden lady, waving the little tube, “it’s not heat -that will ever make the thermometer go up. It’s fever, isn’t it?” - -“But fever is heat,” mildly asserted the “home-nurse.” - -“Oh no, I don’t mean _that_” said the spinster loftily. “Of course, I -know you’re hot with fever; but it’s something _in_ you, isn’t it, that -affects the thermometer? It wouldn’t go up, even if I put it on the -stove, would it?” - -“Put it into the jug and try,” said the Signorina, who did not believe -that language would be much use here. - -“Oh, I think,” interpolated a summer guest who was much impressed by -the spinster’s grasp of the situation, “I’d rather try my thermometer -on my cousin, please! I think one would learn better. It would be more -like hospital practice, wouldn’t it?” - -The spinster turned from the jug with alacrity. - -“I’m sure you are right,” she cried. Then wheeling on her neighbour: -“Oh, would you mind?” she pleaded. - -The neighbour, a tailor-made lady with a walking-stick, who looked -on with a twisted smile--we suspect she was a suffragette, pandering -to the weakness of a world distracted from the real business of -life--submitted to be made useful. Her smile became accentuated. - -“Shouldn’t mind if it was a cigarette,” she remarked in a deep bass, -and thereafter was silent, while the spinster laboriously prepared to -take two minutes on her watch. - -“Please, dear child,” cried one of the motor-veiled ladies in her -impassioned tone of interest, “will you explain to me again, what is -normal? _I’d better take it out, dear! There’s no use doing it wrong, -is there?_ You said something about a little red line--or is that for -fever? How silly I am--red would be for fever, wouldn’t it? No? _Red -is normal, darling. Oh, I do hope you’re normal!_ What did you say, -ninety-eight, point four? I never could do arithmetic and I’m so -stupid. My husband always says--_doesn’t he, Angela?_--‘You won’t do -much adding up, Birdie’--he calls me ‘Birdie,’--‘but I can trust you to -subtract all right,’ dear, naughty fellow! He loves me to spend, you -know, _doesn’t he, Angela?_ Oh dear, it hasn’t moved at all! Is that -very bad? _Angela, darling!_” - -“But you didn’t leave it in two minutes,” said the persevering teacher. -“Supposing you were to put it in your mouth now, and your cousin were -to take you?” - -“Will you, Angela?” The summer visitor’s eyes became pathetic. “I’m -sure I’ve been feeling quite dreadful with all this anxiety.” - -“Your temperature,” said the spinster triumphantly to the suffragette, -“is a hundred and twenty-eight.” - -The Signorina started. - -“But that’s quite impossible! Look here, let me show you. It won’t mark -over a hundred and ten.” - -For the first time the spinster was flustered. - -“Oh, perhaps I read it wrong! Let me look again.” - -After much fumbling and peering she became apologetic. - -“I see I did make a mistake. It’s twenty-six.” - -“Perhaps,” said the little lecturer hopelessly, “if I just went over -the readings of the thermometer with you all once more----” - -But she was interrupted. - -“Would you mind”--the harassed secretary seized her by the elbow--“would -you mind coming to superintend the bed-making? I’ve got to take the -bandage class, and Nurse Blacker can’t really manage more than twenty -with the compresses.” - -The whole room was full of the clapper of excited female tongues. -The Signorina was not sorry to leave the jug of warm water and the -extraordinary fluctuating temperatures. She was followed by the summer -visitors, motor veils and ribbons flying. - -As she left, a cheerful, red-faced lady was heard to announce casually, -as she dropped the fat wrist of the veterinary’s daughter, that there -was no use her trying to take that pulse, as the girl hadn’t got any. - -The clamorous group surrounded the camp-bed, upon which was stretched -a sardonic boy-scout, fully clothed, down to his clumping boots. He -was aged about twelve, and assisted in the education of the “lidies” -by commenting from time to time on their efforts in hoarse tones of -cynicism. After one impulsive neophyte had seemed to be practising -tossing him in a blanket, he remarked into space: “Nurses are not -suppowsed to move the pytient.” - -And to another who jerked his heels up: “Down’t you forget, miss, I’m a -bad caise!” - -The Signorina had never been taught how to make beds in the true -hospital fashion before, and was painstakingly absorbed in the -intricacies of rolling sheets without churning the “bad caise,” when -she was seized upon by one of the flutterers from the hotel. - -“We’re going now; it’s been _so_ interesting, we _have_ enjoyed it. I -shan’t forget all you told me about temperatures. I feel quite able to -look after our dear fellows already. Oh! I _must_ tell you. You’ve got -such a sympathetic face. I’m sure you will understand. I had a most -_wonderful_ revelation the other day, in church--in London, you know. -I had such an extraordinary feeling--just as if something came over -me--and I thought the church was full of dead soldiers; and a voice -seemed to say to me: ‘Pray.’ I felt quite uplifted. And then in a -minute it was all gone. Wasn’t it wonderful? That kind of thing makes -one feel so _strong_, doesn’t it? Oh, I knew you would understand. -The last news is _very_ disquieting, isn’t it? What a darling little -fellow!” - -The “bad caise” scowled at her horribly; but the sweetness of her smile -was quite unimpaired, as she fluttered out of the hall. - - * * * * * - -“It is very important,” said Nurse Blacker to the compress class, “that -the nurse should wash her hands before touching the patient’s wounds.” - -“Now, tell me, Sister,” interposed a meek voice, “is that precaution -for the nurse’s sake or for the patient’s? I mean, I suppose it’s in -case the nurse should incur any infection from the wound?” - -This point of view--that of the White Queen in “Alice Through the -Looking-Glass”--had not apparently struck Nurse Blacker before. - -It all seems too ridiculous to be true, but yet the facts are here set -down as they actually occurred. - -We think there are a good many women about the world of the type of the -spinster and her sisters, and we are also convinced that it would be -quite impossible to succeed in impressing upon such minds even the most -rudimentary notions of nursing; yet it is likely enough they may all -have been granted certificates eventually. Professionals are dreadfully -bored in dealing with amateurs, and are often glad to take the shortest -road to deliverance. - -We were once witness, in pre-war days, of the examination of a Red -Cross class in the north of England. There was a weary doctor on the -platform with a bag of bones; and a retired hospital nurse, very -anxious to be on good terms with the delightful family who were the -chief organizers of the movement, had charge of the “show.” - -The doctor gave a brief address upon dislocation. It ran somewhat in -this fashion. - -“Dislocation is the misplacement of a joint. It is indicated by the -symptoms of swelling, redness, pain, and inability to move the limb. -There is no crepitation as in a fracture. As to treatment: my advice to -you, ladies, when you meet a case of this kind, is--ahem--to leave it -severely alone and to send for a medical man.” - -The class took copious notes. The doctor dropped the two bones with -which he had been demonstrating into the bag again, leant back in his -chair and closed his eyes. His part of the transaction was concluded. -It had been most illuminating, the ladies agreed, and the Signorina’s -chauffeur, who has a yearning towards general self-improvement, -remarked to her on the way home: - -“Ow”--like the boy scout, he has a theatrically cockney accent--“I -am glad to know what to do for discollation. I’d never studied that, -loike, before.” - -While the doctor leant back and rested, the hospital nurse examined -each student privately on the subject of the previous instructions. The -Signorina happened to be quite close to a little old lady with bonnet -and strings, and a small, eager, withered, agitated face under bands -of frizzled grey hair--the kind of little old lady who is always ready -to respond to the call of duty, and who is in the van of knitters for -“our dear, brave soldiers” or “our gallant tars.” - -“What,” said the hospital nurse tenderly, “would you do for a bed-sore?” - -The little old lady began to twitter and flutter: - -“I would first wash the place with warm water, and--oh, dear me, dear -me, I _did_ know, I knew quite well a minute ago--with, with something -to disinfect.” - -“It is something to disinfect, quite right,” approved the nurse. - -“A salt, I think--I’m sure it was. I could get it at the chemist----” - -“Certainly,” said the nurse, as if she were speaking to a child of two -years old, “the chemist would be sure to keep it. It’s quite a simple -thing. But you would have to know what to ask for, wouldn’t you?” - -“Oh, dear me, yes. P--p-- or did it begin with an I?” - -“Perchloride of mercury,” said the nurse, smothering a yawn. - -“Oh yes,” cried the little old lady, delighted, “that’s it.” - -“Well, now you know it, don’t you,” said the nurse brightly, wrote -“Passed” in her notebook, and turned to the next. - -“How much liquid nourishment would you give a typhoid patient at a -time?” - -This to a village girl, who looked blank, not to say terrified, and -wrung her hands in her lap. - -“I mean,” helped the questioner, “if the patient were put on milk--a -milk diet, very usual in typhoid cases--how much milk would you give at -a time?” - -The girl’s face lit up. - -“Two quarts, miss,” she said with alacrity. - -“Not at a time, I think,” corrected the examiner, quite unruffled. “Two -quarts, perhaps, in the twenty-four hours, if you could get the patient -to take it--that would be splendid. Typhoid is a very weakening malady. -It’s a good thing to keep the strength up--if you _can_, you know.” - -The Signorina heard this optimist make her report a little later to the -charming daughter of the charming family, who had herself studied to -good purpose, but was too modest to undertake the instructions. - -“They’ve all answered beautifully. Look at my notebook----” - -It was “Passed,” “Passed,” to every name. - -“That _is_ good,” said the gratified organizer. “We _have_ done well -to-day.” - - * * * * * - -No doubt one occasionally comes across odd specimens even among -professionals. Certainly, during a long illness with which the Signora -was afflicted a couple of years ago, three of the five nurses who -succeeded each other in attendance upon her cannot be said to have -lightened the burthen. - -The first, sent for at eleven o’clock at night, distinguished herself -by instantly upsetting a basin of hot water into the patient’s bed. -As she repeated the process next night, and greeted the accident with -shrieks of laughter, it could scarcely be regarded as the exceptional -breach which proves the rule of excellence. - -The Signora, who was not supposed to be moved at all, has, fortunately, -the sense of humour which helps one along the troublesome way of -life, in sickness as in health. She laughed too. The nurse, who was -an Irishwoman, immediately thought herself rather a wag. She was a -little, vivacious creature, ugly, but bright-eyed. She was extremely -talkative, and perhaps the most callous person the Signora has ever -come across. It is our experience that all nurses are talkative. If the -patient wants to make life endurable at all, the talk must be guided -into the least disagreeable channels. - -The Signora’s dread is the tale of operations--“of practice in the -theatre,” which one of the nurses of her youth told her she considered -“an agreeable little change.”--This particular Dorcas’s favourite topic -was deathbeds. The patient was quite aware that the supreme experience -was a not at all impossible event for herself in the near future, -so she had a certain personal interest in the matter. Anyhow, she -permitted the discourse. - -She heard at full length the narration of Nurse MacDermott’s first -deathbed in private nursing. It was a horrible anecdote, which might -have formed a chapter in a realistic novel. “A gentleman at Wimbledon -it was,” evidently of the well-to-do merchant class, and he seemed, -poor man! to have been the unhappy father of a family as cold-blooded -and heartless as the wife in Tolstoi’s painful story of death. But -here there was no one to care, not even a poor servant lad--not even -the nurse whose vocation it was to help him through the final agony. -She arrived at ten o’clock, and at eleven the doctor warned the family -that the patient would not pass the night. Thereupon everyone--the -wife, two daughters, and a son--retired to bed, and left the dying -man in charge of the newly arrived attendant, who sat down to watch, -reading a novel. About two o’clock the moribund began to make painful -efforts to speak. - -“Charlie, Charlie,” he kept saying. - -“Ah, the poor fellow!” said the little nurse, as she recounted -the story, “he had a son who was a scapegrace, it seems, off away -somewhere, and he wanted to send him a message. I ran and called the -wife out of her bed--what do you think? She’d put her hair in crimpers! -Upon my word, she had; they were bristling all round the head of her. -Well, I didn’t want to have him die on me while I was out of the room, -so I rushed back. And he made signs to me. The power of speech was -gone from him. He wanted to write. I had a bit of pencil, but there -wasn’t a scrap of paper that I could see, so there was nothing I could -give him but the fly-leaf of the book I was reading; and ah! the poor -fellow, it was only scrawls he could make after all. And sure, he was -dead before his wife came in. And she just gave one look at him, and, -‘I’m going back to bed,’ says she, and back to bed she went. But it was -the hair-curlers that did for me. I never can forget them.” - -She was sitting at the end of the Signora’s bed, and doubled herself up -with laughter as she spoke. We have no doubt but that she went back to -her novel, scrawled with the dying father’s last futile effort. - -We never knew anyone quite so frankly unmoved by the awful scenes it -was her trade to witness. She found vast amusement in the wanderings -of delirious patients. Whenever she wanted to cheer the other nurses -up, she informed us, in the Home where they dwelt together, she could -always make them laugh with little anecdotes from the typhoid ward; and -the “wanderings” from the different beds. - -She tried to cheer the Signora up on these lines; and the Signora, -on wakeful nights, has to force her mind away from the “humorous” -memories. She infinitely preferred the story of Nurse McDermott’s -love affairs. Like many ugly people, the young woman believed herself -irresistible, and paid a great deal of attention to the conservation -of her charms. Once, having settled her patient for the night, she -reappeared unexpectedly _en robe de chambre_. - -“I have just come to tell you how many creams I have put on myself,” -she cried to the bewildered lady. “I know it will amuse you! There’s -the pomade for my hair, and Valaze for my face, and the lanoline for my -neck. I do hate the mark of the collar--for evening dress, you know--it -gives one away so! And there’s the salve for my lips, and the cold -cream for my hands, and the polish for my nails----” - -She went away in a hurry to a bad case at Liphurst, jubilating because -we were paying her journey, and she would get it out of the other lady -also, and the doctor had offered to send her in his car. - -Of quite another type was Nurse Vischet. No one could say that she was -unaffected by her patient’s symptoms. They had the power of flinging -her into frenzy. Capable enough when things were going fairly well with -her charge, the first shadow of a change for the worse produced in her -what can only be described as fury. Her face would become convulsed, -her eyes would flame, she would knock the furniture about as she moved, -and could barely restrain herself from insulting the sufferer. - -At first the Signora, who was very ill and weaker than it is possible -to describe, could not at all understand these outbursts. “What can -have annoyed Nurse?” she would wonder feebly to herself. But presently -she understood. It was really a mixed terror of, and repulsion from, -the sight of suffering. Why such a woman should have become a nurse, -and how she could continue in the service of the sick, feeling as she -did, remains a mystery. The key to her extraordinary behaviour was -given one day by a little dog, who happened to be seized with a very -common or garden fit of choking through the nose; such as affects -little dogs with slight colds in their heads. Nurse Vischet started -screaming. - -“He’s all right,” said the Signora. “He only wants his nose rubbed. -Carry him over to me if you won’t do it yourself.” - -“Ugh!” shrieked Nurse Vischet. “I think it’s dying. I wouldn’t touch it -for the world!” - -One of the symptoms of the human patient’s illness were agonizing -headaches, during which she could scarcely bear a ray of light in -the room. In spite of frequent requests, Nurse Vischet always seized -the occasion to turn the ceiling electric light full on the bed, and -when at last forbidden to do so, she declined to enter a room in -which she could not see her way. The Signora gave her the name of -her “ministering devil.” She was a rabid Socialist, and had peculiar -theories, one of which we remember was that condemned criminals should -be handed over to the laboratories for vivisection. - -She had also to an acute degree the hospital nurse’s capacity for -upsetting the household. Our butler, a hot-tempered man, happened to -drop a stray “damn” in the hearing of the under-housemaid, and Vischet, -hanging on the landing over the kitchen regions, as she was fond of -doing, overheard the dread word. The whole establishment was turned -upside down. Maggie was told that she “owed it to her womanhood” not to -allow foul language in her presence. Maggie gave notice, but being, -after all, an Irish girl with a sense of humour, was as easily soothed -down as she had been worked up. Certainly, however, if we had kept -Nurse Vischet, we should have lost, one by one, our excellent staff of -servants. Besides playing on their feelings against each other, she had -a horrible trick of telling them they were at the last gasp upon the -smallest ailment. She did not like her patient to have symptoms; but -she encouraged the domestics to fly to her with theirs. - -Irish Maggie had an indigestion. Vischet declared her condition to be -of extreme gravity. She rushed to the Signora with her tale. Maggie was -ordered to bed. Vischet produced an immense tin of antiphlogistine with -which to arrest “the mischief.” - -The daughter of the house went up to visit the sick girl, and came down -laughing to console her mother. - -“You needn’t worry about Maggie,” she said, and gave a pleasant little -description of the scene and the invalid’s remarks. - -“Ah, sure I’m all right, miss. It’s all along of a bit of green apple. -Sure, Mrs. MacComfort has just given me a drop of ginger, and it’s -done me a lot of good already. Do you see what Nurse is after bringing -me? God bless us all, wouldn’t I rather die itself than be spreading -that putty on me! I’ll be up for tea, miss.” - -“She looks as rosy as possible,” went on the comforter, “and ever so -nice with her hair in a great thick plait tied with ribbons, grass -green, for Ireland.” - -Through one recollection Vischet will always remain endeared to the -mind of her victim; and that was for her singular pronunciation. There -was a story to which the Signora was fond of leading up relating to -por-poises, (pronounced to rhyme with noises), and another connected -with a tor-toise, which happened to be the pet of a recent “case.” -There was also a little tale of a dog: “I was out walking on the -embankment,” said Vischet, “and I saw a man coming along leading -two dogs--one was a great bulldog, and the other was one of those -queer creatures you call a dashun” (the Signora prides herself on -her intelligence for instantly discovering that the narrator meant a -dachshund). “And there was running about loose the queerest animal ever -I saw,” went on the nurse; “it had the head of a bulldog and the legs -of a dashun.” - -The third nurse was very different. The daughter of an officer, who was -seeking the most genteel way to make her living, she frankly handed -over the chief of the attendance to the Signora’s own devoted maid; -which, on the Signora becoming aware of her incapacity, she was on the -whole glad that she should do. Nurse Fraser was a tall, handsome girl, -who was fond of sitting on the sofa at the foot of the patient’s bed, -her hands clasped round her knees, staring into space. She was by no -means unamiable, but she was bored; and the Signora, who rather liked -her, was not averse to screening her deficiencies. When the doctor -inquired after the temperature that had never been taken, she herself -would declare it had been normal; and she was amused when Nurse Fraser -would next vouch for a “splendid breakfast.” She not having appeared in -her patient’s room till noon. - -She made no attempt to conceal her complete inefficiency in the -treatment of the case. - -“Oh, _do_ tell me what I’m to do,” she had cried on arrival to the -district nurse who had come in as a stopgap. “I’m sure if I ever knew -anything about the illness I’ve quite forgotten.” - -One day--she, too, was garrulous--she informed her patient that her -mother had shares in Kentish Mines. “If ever they work out, we may get -a lot of money, and then,” she cried, quite unconscious of offence, “no -more beastly sick people for me!” - -She left us in tears. She had enjoyed herself very much. - -It would seem as if our experience had been unfortunate, and yet it is -not so; for surely to have known two perfect nurses one after another -is sufficient to re-establish the balance. Chief of these, first and -dearest, was Nurse Dove. She was the district nurse, called in, as we -have said, in a moment of emergency. How Miss Nightingale would have -loved her! Blessed little creature, it was enough to restore anybody’s -heart to see her come into the sick-room, quiet, capable, tender, her -eyes shining with compassion for the sufferer and eagerness to relieve. -She was as gentle as she was skilful: to anyone who did not know her -it would be impossible to convey the extent of the virtue contained -in this phrase. The Signora would have placed herself, or, what -means a great deal more, her nearest and dearest, with the completest -confidence in her hands alone, in any dangerous illness. - -Among the poor she was an apostle. It seemed to have been her fate -that, during her brief stay in our village, several young mothers found -themselves in mortal extremity. She never lost a life. We think now -with longing of what she would have been among the wounded. Alas! we -were not destined to keep such perfection with us. It was Cupid, not -death, that robbed us of this treasure--if Cupid, indeed, it can be -called, the dingy, doubtful imp that took her away from her wonderful -work among us. Alas! charming, devoted, exquisite being as she was, she -had a very human side. We fear there was a touch of “pike,” as the old -gardener had it, in the business, but in spite of all our efforts a -“coloured gentleman,” an invalid to boot, a shifty elderly fellow with -an Oriental glibness of tongue, carried her off away with him back to -India. She has since written to us describing her palatial abode on the -borders of a lake with a horde of servants and a private steam-launch, -but we strongly suspect that if the pen was the pen of Nurse Dove, the -words were the words of the coloured gentleman. - -The individual was a Baboo, a clerk in the Madras Post Office, and had -already been invalided out of the service before he left England. We -cannot believe that the pension of an underling in the Indian Civil -Service runs to these Rajah-like splendours. Moreover, there was a -tragic little postcard, sent to a humble friend, which did not at all -correspond with the highflown letter above-mentioned: “The world is a -very sad place; we must all be prepared for disappointments.” - -There is one thing quite certain--wherever she goes she will be doing -good. - -Curiously enough, the second perfect nurse resembled her in dark pallor -of skin, splendour of raven tresses, and thoughtful brilliance of brown -eyes; but she was younger and more timid. She will want a few more -years of experience and self-reliance before she can develop into a -Nurse Dove. - -But nevertheless, resembling her in countenance, she had the same -deep womanly heart for her patients. Suffering in their sufferings, -she would spare no pains to relieve them. And she had the touch of -imaginative genius and the courage to act on her own responsibility -which made her presence in a house of sickness a comfort and a -strength. In fact, the life was to her a vocation. She nursed to help -others, not herself. She had not grown callous through the sight of -agonies, only more urgent to be of use. - -God send many such to our men in their need to-day! - - - - -IV - -“CONSIDER THE LILIES” - - “For the first time the Lamb shall be dyed red....” - - _Brother Johannes’ Prophecy._ - - -“Consider the lilies, how they grow....” - -The sad thing is that with us they decline to grow. When we bought the -small, high-perched house and grounds on the Surrey hills there is -no doubt that the thought of lilies in those terraced gardens was no -unimportant part of the programme. Oddly, the little house had from the -first an Italian look, which we have not been slow to cultivate. - -Now we were haunted by a picture of an Italian garden: a -pergola--vine-covered, it was--with two serried ranks of Madonna -lilies growing inside the arches; flagged as to pathway, with probably -fragrant tufts of mint and thyme between the stones. In the land of its -conception this vision of shadowy green and exquisite white, cool yet -shining, as if snow-fashioned, must have given upon some stretch of -quivering, heat-baked country. - -Without being able to provide such an antithesis, the -garden-plotter--she means the dreadful quip--otherwise the mistress of -the English Villino, with a vivid and charming picture in her mind’s -eye, fondly imaged a very effective outlook upon the great shouldering -moors that rise startlingly across the narrow valley at the bottom of -her garden. But the lilies refused to grow. - -She tried them in border after border. She set clumps of Auratums under -the dining-room between the heliotrope and the Nicotianas, which swing -such gushes of fragrance into the little house all the hot summer days. -She got monster bulbs of Madonnas from the first specialist in the -kingdom, and put them singly between the red and white roses against -the upper terrace wall. She ran amok upon luscious spotted darlings; -Pardelinum and Monadelphum, Polyphyllum and Parryi, and had them placed -in a cool, shady walk against a background of delphiniums. She thrust -Harrisi under the drawing-room bow; and the glorious scarlet-trumpeted -Thunbergianum where they would flame in the middle distance. They -showed many varied forms of disapproval, but were unanimous in -declining to remain with us. Some were a little more polite than -the others. The great trumpets blew fiercely for one season, almost -as with a sound of glorious brass, in their dim nook; and a single -exquisite, perfect stem of Krameri rose intact amid a dying sisterhood, -and swayed, delicately proud, faintly flushed, a very princess among -flowers, one long, golden September fortnight. But such meteors only -make our persistent gloom, where lilies are concerned, the more signal. - -The pergola had to go the way of so many cherished dreams. Yet there is -an exception. With just an occasional threat of disease, there is one -border favoured by the tiger-lily. She is not a very choice creature, -of course; she has neither the fragrance nor the mystic grace of her -cousins; but such as she is, she is welcome in our midst. On our third -terrace there is a stretch of turf, curved outwards like a half-moon, -against a new yew hedge: we call it the Hemicycle. In spring it is a -jocund pleasaunce for crocus and scylla and flowering trees--almond, -_Pyrus floribunda_, and peach; in summer the weeping standards hold -the field, set between the pots of climbing geraniums. That is on the -outward curve. A rough wall, overhung with Dorothy Perkins, clothed -from the base with Rêve d’Or, runs straightly on the inner side. It is -in the border underneath this wall that the tiger-ladies condescend to -us. - -Last year, by a somewhat accidental development of seeds, we had a -marvellous post-impressionist effect along the line, for all the stocks -there planted, between the Tigrinum, turned out to be purple and mauve. -They grew tall, with immense heads of bloom: drawn up by the wall, we -think. Over the orange and violet row the Dorothy Perkins showered -masses of vivid pink. A narrow ribbon of bright pale yellow violas ran -between the border and the turf. To connect this mass of startling -colour, an intermediate regiment of lavender-bushes and the cream hues -of the Rêve d’Or roses against their grey-green foliage acted very -successfully. It is not a scheme that one would perhaps have tried -deliberately, but we could not regret it. It does one good sometimes to -steep the senses in such a fine tangle of elementary colour. The shock -is bracing, as of a sea wave; like the march of a military band, we -could enjoy it, in the open air and sunshine, just where it was placed; -away from the house, with its distant background of fir-trees and moors. - -Yet it is a mistake to use the word “post-impressionist” in connection -with our border; for that movement, with all its pretended revival of -the old pagan spirit of joy, was only an effort to conceal fundamental -misery. The tango is no dance of gods and nymphs, but a dreadful -merry-go-round of lost souls. The post-impressionist painting is not -a flag of radiant defiance--youth challenging the unbelieved gloom of -life--but a kind of outbreak as of disease: something spotty, fungoid, -shaped like germs under the microscope. - -Let us come back to the lilies. Come out of the fever-room into the -garden. - -We once tried to make a field of lilies. Our lowest garden has a -different kind of soil fortunately from the greensand which makes the -upper terrace beds such rapacious devourers of manure and fertilizers, -and all the other necessary and unfragrant riches. The Signora took -thought with herself and made a kind of nursery plantation at one end -of the vegetable garden, to the meek despair of our gardener, who, -like all other gardeners, cherishes a cabbage-patch with a passionate -preference. She invested in a good three thousand bulbs, among others, -hundreds of Candidums. Was it a punishment for her extravagance? Many -years of life and experience have taught her that where we sin we are -punished, by as inevitable a law as that of cause and effect. Or was it -just the cursed spite of those wandering devils who, Indian and Irish -folk alike believe, are always hovering ready to pounce upon success? -Whether justice or malice, it is immaterial; the result was disaster. -They had sent up straight spikes of vivid green, untouched by a trace -of the horrible bilious complexion that bespeaks the prevalent disease, -when the May frost came and laid them flat and seared. - -After all, they would hardly have been much use in that especial spot, -as far as garden perspective is concerned; and except for the hall and -staircase lilies are not indoor flowers. The Signora loves the warm -fragrance to gush up diffused through the house, but in any room it -becomes overwhelming, almost gross. She does not even care for them -pictorially at close quarters, meaning here the larger kind, including -Candidum. They are essentially open-air flowers; they need the sun and -the wind about them, background and space. It seems almost blasphemous -to say so, but on the nearer sight their appearance becomes like their -scent, a little coarse. - -On an altar, once again, they assume their proper proportions; and, -carved in stone, they are decorative and satisfying. But the Arum -lily, which is not a lily at all, long-stemmed, in a vase, with its -own gorgeous leaves about it, is something to sit and gaze at with -ever-increasing content! - -The nearest thing to a field of lilies the Signora ever saw was a whole -gardenful at the back of a little house in Brussels. She was only a -child at the time, a weary, bored, depressed small person at that, in -the uncongenial surroundings of a detested private school. But one -Sunday morning, for some unremembered reason, she was taken after Mass -by the second mistress (an ugly, angry woman, inappropriately baptized -Estelle), and brought out of the dust of the scorching street into -this, to all appearance trivial, not to say sordid, little house. - -“Would Mademoiselle like to look at my garden?” said its owner. - -She was old and wizened and yellow-faced; but she had kind eyes, and it -was certainly a kindly thought. - -The whole of that garden, some forty by twenty feet, was filled with -Madonna lilies, growing like grass in a field, with only a narrow path -whereby to walk round them. - -“Consider the lilies how they grow.... Not Solomon in all his glory was -arrayed as one of these!” - -The child that saw them was too unyeared and ignorant to apply these -wonderful words if she had ever heard them. She could not feel her -pleasure sharpened by the exquisite sensation of having the vision -phrased in language as beautiful as itself. But she has carried away -the memory, as sacredly as Wordsworth that of his daffodils-- - - “I gazed--and gazed--but little thought - What wealth the show to me had brought: - - “For oft, when on my couch I lie - In vacant or in pensive mood, - They flash upon that inward eye - Which is the bliss of solitude, - And then my heart with pleasure fills - And dances with the Daffodils.” - -Wordsworth, notably among poets, has the gift of expressing the -inexpressible, of clothing in language some fleeting sensation which -seems, of its exquisiteness and illusiveness, undefinable. There are -lines of his that follow one like a phrase of music. - - “The sounding cataract haunted me like a passion.” - - “The light that never was on sea or land.” - - “... Old, unhappy, far-off things, - And battles long ago.” - -The first effect of any sight of surpassing beauty, indeed of any -strong emotion of admiration, is an instant desire of expression; then -comes the pain of inarticulateness to most of us--there is a swelling -of the soul and no outlet! That is why, when someone else may have -perfectly said what for us is inexpressible, there is a double joy in -discoveries. - -To wander from our lilies to flowers of speech and description: the -perfect phrase has in itself a delight that almost equals that of the -perfect thought. - -For those who, like ourselves, work in words, however humbly--poor -stone-breakers compared to such as make the marble live--the mere -art in the setting of the words themselves has a fascination of its -own. It is not only the idea--it is sometimes not even the idea that -enchants. There is a magic of cadence alone. Sometimes, indeed, just a -conjunction of two words seems to make a chord. - -To go further, a single word may ring out like a note upon the mind. -The Italian _Amore_, for instance--who can deny that it echoes richly -and nobly? It is a sound of gravity and passion mixed. It is like -the first vibrating stroke of a master-hand on the ’cello. Did not -the resonance of the word itself go as far as the meaning to inspire -Jacopone with his ecstatic hymn wherein he plays upon it like a -musician upon a note which calls, insists, repeats itself, for ever -dominates or haunts the theme?-- - - “Amore, amore, che si m’hai ferito - Altro che amore non posso gridare: - Amore, amore, teco so unito....” - -You could not take the word “love” and ring the changes in this way, -not even upon the kindred-sounding _Amour_, losing in its “ou” exactly -the tone of solemnity that makes the Italian equivalent so royal. - -In a delightful series of musical sketches recently published, the -author remarks, speaking of Tschaikowski’s “Symphonie Pathétique”: - -“For those who have the score there is an added joy in the titles, -‘Incalzando,’ ‘feroce,’ ‘affretando,’ ‘saltando,’ ‘con dolcezza e -flebile,’ ‘con tenerezza e devozione’; it makes most interesting -reading. But the most splendid title of all is that of the last -movement, ‘Adagio Lamentoso’--can’t you hear it? What a lot our -language misses by the clipped and oxytone ‘lament’! Even ‘lamentation’ -is a mere shadow beside the full roll of the Latin tongues, the -ineffable melody that sounds in ‘lamentabile regnum.’” - -We do not, however, agree with this pleasant writer on the subject of -“clipped and oxytone lament.” To us the English word is infinitely -keener reaching than any added vowel could make it! “Lamentable” we -grant to be pompous and middle Victorian. It is eloquent of the -conventional mourning of the funeral mute, while _lamentoso_ has to our -ear a horrible wobble like the howl of a lonely dog. - -We defy the most poetical and profound scholar to render in any other -tongue the _guai_ of Dante. Who could give the value of the hopeless -cry of sorrow culminating in that line of which _guai_ is the central -wail! - - “Cosi vid’ io venir, traendo guai - Ombre portate della detta briga.” - -This is not to insist on the obvious that Italian is a musical language -and Dante a star apart. Every language that has served literature -will be found to hold its own words of magic. It is not the moment to -quote German, but we think _Trauer_ tolls across the senses like the -passing-bell, while the French _Glas_ falls upon the soul with a frozen -misery indescribable outside itself. - -Those fortunate scholars who have mastered as much of the secrets of -Greek as the modern can master, tell us that it is impossible to convey -in any other tongue the richness, the value, the wide meaning and -exquisite shades of the ancient Greek language. We know that they had -words in each of which a whole picture could be set before the mind. -To read Gilbert Murray’s fascinating “Ancient Greek Literature” is, -however, to find a revelation which severer and more extensive writings -fail to convey. A poet, he alone has caught and interpreted the echo of -those lyres still ringing across the ages. And he, too, computes his -impressions in terms of music. “Many lovers of Pindar,” he says, “agree -that the things which stay in one’s mind, stay not as thoughts but as -music.” - -Of course, the Greeks wedded words and music after a fashion unknown to -us, who merely set words to be sung to music in our operas and songs. -It is a lost art. - -But it seems conceivable that there may be an actual music hidden in -language itself, something that the senses of the mind apprehend, -quite apart from the idea incorporated. The late Sir Henry Irving, -just before his famous production of Macbeth, discussing his intention -of introducing music at the moments of crisis, defended this much -criticized point by saying: “I mean to do it, because music carries the -soul beyond words, even beyond thought.” - -We are not sure that he was right, except in so far as the appeal -to the gallery was concerned, which, after all, every actor-manager, -however artistic and perceptive, is bound to consider first of all. In -fact, we are quite certain that he was wrong. The music of Shakespeare -should not have been overlaid by any sound of violin or trumpet. - -We can conceive no sorrow of muted strings which could intensify the -poignancy of Macduff’s cry: “All my pretty ones, did you say all?” A -cry, too, so spontaneous in its truth and simplicity that, according to -a current phrase in the theatrical profession, the part of Macduff acts -itself. - -Who would want to add more melody to the following - - “That strain again--it had a dying fall: - O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet south - That breathes upon a bank of violets, - Stealing, and giving odour....” - -Will anyone deny that there is music in these lines, that the singular -impression produced by them is due not only to the perfection of a -thought perfectly expressed, to the scent of violets exquisitely and -instantly evoked by the cunning of genius, but to the actual words? -The phrase rises and falls. Read or heard, it is the same, a strain of -melody. - -To one of the writers the two words, “Scarlet Verbena,” have always -produced the impression as of a trumpet blast. Hoffmann used to say -that he never smelt a red carnation without hearing the winding of a -horn. - -No doubt the senses are indefinably intermixed. - - “Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, - Rings Eden thro’ the budded quicks, - O tell me where the senses mix, - O tell me where the passions meet”-- - -cries Tennyson to the nightingale. - -Nevertheless, must one not believe that there are distinct senses of -the soul and mind which are called into action by the spoken or written -word? It is trite to say there are moments when one is gripped by the -throat by a mere phrase, not, mind you, because of its dramatic force, -but rather from some inherent spell of beauty or sorrow. There are -others when one seems to lay hold of a set of words; as it were, to be -able to touch and feel them as though they had been modelled. - -And again, who has not felt an actual pain, as of a delicate blade -being thrust into the heart, by some phrase of scarcely analyzable -pathos. Heine had that weapon. The art of it, we suppose, is that of -extreme simplicity combined with selection, but the emotion is quite -incommensurate with the importance of the theme, the value of the -expressed idea. - -To use another simile, it is like a wailing air on some primitive -instrument, which by its very artlessness pierces to the marrow of the -consciousness. - - “Ces doux airs du pays, au doux rythme obsesseur, - Dont chaque note est comme une petite sœur,” - -as Rostand has it. - -Think of the effect in “Tristran” of the shepherd’s pipe at the -beginning of the last act. - -It comes to this after all, that however one may study, however perfect -the technique of writing, however one may inspire oneself from the -springs of genius, it is artlessness, not art, that reaches home. It -might be truer to say that it takes a consummate art to touch the right -note of artlessness; yet we all know how curiously we can sometimes be -affected by the words that fall from childish lips. - -A Belgian babe of two, a dimpled, radiant creature, seemingly untouched -by the storm which had flung her from her own luxurious nurseries into -a bare English lodging, was found, two days after her arrival in exile, -kissing and talking to the little crucifix which hung round her neck. -Her mother bent to listen. - -“Dear Jesus,” the child was saying, “poor wounded soldier!” - -The profound and mystic consolation of the link between the human agony -and the Divine had somehow dawned upon the infant mind, and found this -tender expression. - -A little boy we knew said to his mother one evening as she tucked him -up in his cot: - -“Oh, mammie, I die a little every night, I love you so.” Here, with an -exquisite directness, the inevitable pain of a deep tenderness is laid -bare by the lips of innocence. - - * * * * * - -It is this quality of simplicity and directness--yes, we are not afraid -to say it, of innocence--which makes the stories of our soldiers so -infinitely touching. - -“Tell daddie and mammie,” said a dying Irish lad to the comrade who -bent over him to take his last message, “’twas against their will I -’listed; tell them I’m not sorry now I did it.” - -No fine-sounding phrase, no stirring oration, could more piercingly set -forth the triumph of the ultimate sacrifice of patriotism. _Dulce et -decorum est pro patria mori._ - -Our men are like children in their gaiety--pleased with little things -as a child with a toy; joking, making believe, making a game out of -their very danger; unconscious of their own heroism, as the best kind -of boy, who risks his neck for a nest; blindly confident in their -leaders. If it had not been for this complete trust in what their -officers told them, could the retreat from Mons have ended in anything -but disaster? Yet we know that--like children--whole regiments burst -into tears when ordered to give up the positions they had won. - -A war correspondent ends a terrible account of the further withdrawal -from Tournai by a description of a night in a barn where scatterers had -taken refuge. - -“And all night long,” he says, “there were the sobs of a big corporal -of artillery, weeping for his horses.” - -In the throes of the great struggle, this side of humanity--call it the -childish, if you will, we have Divine authority for believing that it -is akin to the spiritual--asserts itself, nay, becomes paramount. To be -more precise, the real man is stripped of his conventions, sophistries, -and pretences. Only the things that matter are the things that count. - -When the Emperor Frederick was dying, his last message was this: “Let -my people return to their faith and simplicity of life.” - -If he had been spared to his own land, it would be a different world -to-day. Under the dreadful test of war the German soldiery as a mass, -indeed the whole people, have sunk below the level of the brute. It is -the English who have come back to faith and simplicity. - -The Rev. W. Forest, Catholic Chaplain of the Expeditionary Force, -writes: “It is true to say that the German Kaiser is fighting a -community of saints--converted, if you like--but with not a mortal sin -scarcely to be found among them.” The special correspondent of the -_Sunday Times_ has a touching testimony in a recent issue to men of all -denominations: “To be at the front,” he declares, “is to breathe the -air of heroes. The Church of England chaplains, in accordance with the -general wish among the men, are giving Early Communion Services. It is -a marvellous sight,” continues the journalist, “to see the throngs of -soldiers kneeling in the dawn, the light on their upturned faces. They -go forth strengthened, ready for anything, feeling that the presence of -Christ is amongst them.” - -With our French Allies, too, the spirit of faith has reawakened. An -English officer writes to the _Evening Standard_: “The French soldiers -go into the trenches, each with his little medal of Our Lady hung round -his neck--they pray aloud in action, not in fear, but with a high -courage and a great trust.” - -“On All Souls’ Day,” he adds, “I saw the village _curé_ come out -and bless the graves of our poor lads. The graves, mark, of rough -Protestant soldiers, decorated with chrysanthemums by the villagers. -These poor dead were blessed, and called the faithful departed, and -wept over and prayed for.” - -“And thine own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts -thoughts may be revealed.” - -If one may reverently paraphrase Simeon’s prophecy to the mother of the -Man of Sorrows, can one not say that the soul of the world is pierced -to-day, and the thoughts of the nations revealed? - -A neutral diplomat, recently arrived in England from Vienna, via Paris, -has told us of the singular indifference of the Austrian capital to -the tragedy in which her own sons are taking part. “Vienna,” he says, -“has shown only one moment of emotion, and that was when the little -breakfast rolls were condemned. No one cares in Vienna. Life is--how -shall I say?--it is all one ‘Merry Widow.’ It is not that they have any -confidence in their own army. They shrug their shoulders and spread out -their hands, but in Germany--they have the faith of the hypnotized! -Nothing can happen to Germany, therefore Austria is safe.” - -Recently an order was issued to have the cafés closed at one o’clock -in the morning. It was not agreeable to the public, but they have -contrived a substitute for their _petits pains_ which is some slight -compensation. - -“I shall return,” he added pensively--“I shall return with how much -regret to the indecent carnival that is Vienna!” - -His impression of France was very different. He could not sufficiently -express his astonishment at the change that had come over the country. -The dignity of France, the quiet strength of France, the spiritual -confidence of France! In the army was only one apprehension: lest -they should not be upheld by the civilians in their determination to -fight to the very end. The churches were crowded; men and women have -alike returned to the faith of their fathers. There was no unseemly -merrymaking there, no unworthy attempt in café or theatre to forget the -agonizing struggle. - -At a recent entertainment in a very poor quarter a pretty girl dressed -as France appeared arm-in-arm with an actor got up like a British -soldier, and there was immense applause; but when she started the tango -with her companion she was hissed off the stage. - -As for Paris: “Tenez,” said our friend, in conclusion, “I will give you -a little instance. I was walking down the Rue de la Paix, when I heard -a woman laugh out loud. Everyone in the street turned round to look at -her.” - -Of the thoughts of Germany what can be said? They need no pointing -out. They are written in blood and fire from end to end of Belgium, -and in a long stretch of once smiling France; in Servia, carried out -by Hungarians and Austrians, under German orders; in Poland. They are -written in the German Press for all the world to read: blasphemy, -brag, bluster, hysterical hatred, insanity of futile threat, shameless -asseveration of self-evident falsehood. “Do nations go mad?” an -American paper has asked. Germany presents the appalling spectacle of -a nation run to evil. It is not only the war party, the soldiery, the -press, the learned professors. It is the very population itself. The -soul of Germany is revealing its thoughts. - - * * * * * - -The lily-garden in the little Brussels by-street on the way to the Bois -de la Cambre, if it is still in existence, must have ceased blooming -before the Germans entered Brussels. Otherwise it is not likely that -it should have escaped the fury of destruction which seizes them at the -sight of anything pure and noble and beautiful. - -“Consider the lilies.” - -We know how the Uhlan officers deliberately rode backwards and forwards -over the blooming flower-beds in the great _Place_ upon the day of -their entrance march. - -We know how they stabled their horses in the world-famous conservatories -of the Palace of Laecken--a custom they have practised at nearly -every château in the country; how in that orgy which will for ever -disgrace the name of the Duke of Brunswick the portrait of the young -Queen of the Belgians, that royal flower of courage and devotion, was -unspeakably insulted. - -We know how whole regiments have trampled over straggling children in -the village streets--these little flower blossoms, as the Japanese call -them. - -And those humble lilies of the cloister that have fallen into -sacrilegious grasp, we know how they have been considered; how Rheims, -with its hawthorn porch, blossoming in stone flower of all the -Christian shrines of all the world, stately lily of the days of faith, -has fared at the hand of the German. - -“_Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint_,” says the Spirit of Evil in -Goethe’s “Faust.” - -It has always seemed a marvellous definition; the negation of good, the -spirit that ever denies. But the demon of present-day Germany comes -from a deeper pit than Goethe’s intellectual mocking devil. It is the -spirit that forever destroys. - -The struggle has not brutalized but spiritualized our men. Through -the appalling conditions in which they fight they reach out to the -mystic side of things. When they speak of death they call it “going -west.” It is the old, old Celtic thought of the Isle beyond the Sunset. -They “talk of God a great deal,” as the soldiers’ letters tell us. -The Irish Guards fell on their knees at Compiègne before making their -famous attack up the hill. As they charged, “our men crossed the plain, -hurrahing and singing, while many of them had a look of absolute joy -on their faces.” They have their visions. A soldier lying wounded and -helpless on the field and gazing agonized on the breach in our line, -saw the Germans rush and then fall back; and beheld St. George standing -in his armour in the gap; then heard the Lancastrians cry, as they -dashed on: “St. George for England!” - -What yet more august revelation did he have, that dying French -sergeant, who, looking profoundly upon the surgeon who was ministering -to him, replied to his encouragement: - -“Mon Major, je suis déjà avec Dieu,” and instantly expired. - -Every regiment must have its emblem; the minds of the men turn -naturally to the symbolic. - -“I’d like to look at the colours,” said a mortally wounded gunner to -his Captain. - -“Look at the guns, my man, those are the gunners’ colours!” - -And the boy was uplifted to look, till his eye glazed. - -We do not take the colours into action now, but we know what the -Standard means to our Allies. It seems a pity that political revolution -should have displaced the ancient lilies of France. There is something -so grand in tradition. Dignity of noble ancestry is not confined to -man alone. Houses possess it, and lands, and surely nations. Are not -our soldiers to-day the heirs of the yeomen and bowmen of Agincourt? - -“O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts!” is the prayer on the -lips of all of us; and we feel through all, even as Harry the King, -the same proud confidence in the good blood that cannot lie. Shall not -those who stay at home “hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks” -of Mons, or Ypres, or--of those glories yet to come? - -Thus, in a way, it seems to us that if France fights in her body under -the Tricolour, in her soul she is fighting under the Lilies. It is -the old France again, the France of the days of faith. In one of Joan -of Arc’s visions she saw Charlemagne and St. Louis kneeling before -the throne, pleading for the land they had loved and served. She who -carried the Oriflamme may now form the third in that shining company -and look down, perhaps, considering the lilies growing out of the -field of blood. Perhaps she may say: “Not Solomon in all his glory was -arrayed as one of these.” - - - - -V - -DEATH IN THE LITTLE GARDEN - - “O Saul, it shall be - A face like my face that receives thee, a man like to me - Thou shalt love and be loved by for ever! A hand like this hand - Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ - stand.” - - ROBERT BROWNING. - - -_March._--We bought the small place on the Surrey highlands and -furnished it out of Rome; and set statues and cypresses and vases -overflowing with flowers about the quaint terraces that run down to -the valley; and we have a bit of Italy between pine-woods and wild -moorland. We have called it the Villino. - -The idea started as a week-end cottage. Gradually, however, we came to -pay the flying visits to the London house and spend the most of our -time in the country. Since the war began we have settled altogether on -the span of earth which has become so endeared to us. Never was any -home established in such a spirit of lightheartedness. - -The new property has been our toy; something to laugh at while we enjoy -it. It is absurd and apart and beloved and attractive; and though the -great shadow that rose in August overcast the brightness of the Villino -garden and all its prospects, we could yet look out upon the peace -and the fairness and take comfort therefrom; turn with relief to the -growing things and all the innocent interests that surround and centre -in a country life. - -It never dawned upon us that the garden itself could become a point -of tragedy; that every pushing spike of bulb and every well-pruned -rose-tree would have their special pang for our hearts, yet so it is. -Never again shall we be able to look with the eyes of pure enjoyment on -terrace and border, rose-arch and woodland. - -Adam, the kindly gardener of our special plot of earth, has been struck -down; hurled, by an inscrutable decree of Providence in the zenith of -his activities, from life to death. - -He was as much a part of the Villino as we ourselves; a just and kindly -man, not yet forty; one of the handsomest of God’s creatures, and the -most gentle-hearted. We cannot see the meaning of such a blow; we can -only bow the head. - -“Doesn’t it seem hard,” cried the daughter of the Villino, “that in -these days there should be one unnecessary widow!” - -The last time the Signora saw him alive was about a week before the -tragedy. He had come into the funny little Roman drawing-room--all -faint gay tints and flamboyant Italian gilt carved wood--carrying a -large pot of arum lilies. He scarcely looked like an Englishman with -his dark, rich colouring and raven hair prematurely grey; though he was -so all-English, of England’s best, in his heart and mind. - -A little Belgian child, on a visit to us, rushed up to him, chattering -incomprehensibly. She is just three and very friendly; something in -Adam’s appearance must have attracted her, for she left everything she -had been playing with to run to him the moment he appeared. - -This is how the Signora will always remember him, standing, big and -gentle, looking down at the child with those kind, kind eyes. - -There was never anyone so good to little animals. We used to say he was -a true if unconscious brother of St. Francis, and loved all God’s small -folk. Never was a sick cat or dog but Adam would have the nursing of it. - -One would see him walking about the garden wheeling his barrow, with a -great black Persian coiled round his neck like a boa. Nearly two years -ago a little daughter was born to him here, to his great joy. She was -always in her father’s arms during the free hours of the day; and not -the least piteous incident of the tragedy was the way this baby, just -beginning to babble a few words, kept calling for “Daddy, daddy,” while -he lay next door in the tiny sitting-room he had taken such pleasure -in, like a marble effigy, smiling, beautiful, awful, for ever deaf to -her appeal. - -He had been slightly ailing since an attack of influenza; but on the -morning of his death he said to his wife that he felt as if he could -do the work of six men that day. The kind of cruel light-heartedness -which the Scotch call “being fey” was upon him. Like Romeo before -the great catastrophe, “his bosom’s lord sat lightly on his throne.” -Strange freaks of presentiment never to be explained on this side of -the grave! There are those who feel the shadow of approaching fatality -cloud their spirits--we have heard a hundred instances of certain -forebodings of death during the present war--but this mysterious gaiety -of the doomed is rarer and more awful. Yet Adam must have had his -secret sad warnings too, for his poor wife found, to her astonishment, -his insurance cards, his accounts made up to the end of the week on the -Thursday of which he died, the ambulance badge he had been so proud -of--all laid ready to her hand. He had set his house in order before -the summons came. We have every reason to think that in a deeper, -graver sense he was equally prepared. - -“‘Whatever time my Saviour calls me, I shall be ready to go....’ Often -and often,” Mrs. Adam told us, as her tears fell, “he has said those -words to me.” - -Like many another active, hard-working man, the thought of failing -health, debility, old age, was abhorrent to him. - -“He never could have borne a long illness.” Thus the widow tries to -console herself--pitiful scraps of self-administered comfort with which -poor humanity always attempts to parry the horror of an unmitigated -tragedy! - -There are strange secrets between the soul and God. Among the many -wonders of the City of Light will be the simple solving of the riddles -that have been so dark and tormenting to our earthly minds. From the -very beginning of the war this honest Englishman had wanted to go -out and serve his country. He was over age. His wife and two children -depended on his labours, yet the longing never left him. - -“I doubt but I’ll have to go yet,” was a phrase constantly on his lips. - -He had joined the Ambulance Corps and, indeed, was on his way to that -errand of mercy when he was stricken. Did he in those inner communes -of the soul with God breathe forth his desire to give his life for his -country, and was it somehow mystically accomplished? For death smote -him and he fell and lay in his blood, as a soldier might. Who knows -that the sacrifice was not accepted? - -It was terrible for us--it seemed an unbelievable addition to her -burthen of sorrow for the woman who loved him--but for him it may have -been the glory and the crown. - -When all human aid is unavailing, when everything that science can do -to assist or relieve has been accomplished and fellow-creatures must -stand aside and watch the relentless law of nature accomplish itself, -then the value of religion is felt, as perhaps never before, even by -the most devout. - -Had poor Adam but belonged to the Old Faith the call for the priest -would have been more urgent yet than the call for the doctor; we would -have had the consolation of hearing the last Absolution pronounced -over the unconscious form. The soul would have taken flight from the -anointed body, strengthened by the ultimate rites; the child of the -Church would have gone forth from the arms of the Church--from the arms -of the earthly mother, to the mercy and justice of the heavenly Father. - -We did what we could, his own clergyman being away. Never were we more -impressed with the value of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. It is -all very well to say that we must live so as to be ready to die; that -as the tree grows so shall it fall. Here are trite axioms that will -not stand a moment before the facts of life and the needs of humanity. -They make no account of the mercy of the Creator on one side nor of the -weakness of the failing spirit on the other. They forget the penitent -thief on the cross, bidden to enter into Paradise upon the merit of -a single cry. If the Church of our ancestors watches anxiously over -the whole existence of her children; if she hovers about the cradle, -how does she not hang over the deathbed to catch the faintest sigh of -repentance; nay, how does she not “prevent” the least effort, pouring -forth graces and supplications, anointing, absolving, pursuing the -departing spirit beyond the very confines of the world, sublimely -audacious, to the throne of God itself! - -She has caught the precious soul, for whom the Lord died, before the -infant mind was even aware of its own existence. She is not going to be -robbed of her treasure at the end, if she can help it. - -But our poor, dying Adam was not of this fold, and could have no such -aid and sanctification for his passing. Even his afflicted wife quailed -from the fruitless agony of witnessing his last moments. “Since I -couldn’t do anything, ma’am, it’s more than I can bear.” - -She went down to her cottage at the bottom of the garden to prepare a -fit resting-place for the body, while in the garage the soul of her -dearest accomplished its final and supreme act on earth. - -We read the great prayers to ourselves--those wonderful prayers -commensurate in dignity and grandeur to the awful moment. We cried -upon the Angels and Archangels, upon the Thrones, the Cherubim and -Seraphim; we bade the Patriarchs and the Prophets, the Doctors and -Evangelists, the Confessors and Martyrs, the Holy Virgins and all the -Saints of God to rush to his assistance. We supplicated that his place -this day should be in peace and his abode in Holy Sion; we cast his -sins upon the multitudes of the Divine mercies, and strong through -the merits of Christ our appeal rose into triumph. With confidence we -summoned the noble company of the Angels to meet him, the court of the -Apostles to receive him, the army of glorious Martyrs to conduct him, -the joyful Confessors to encompass him, the choir of blessed Virgins to -go before him. We conjured Christ, his Saviour, to appear to him with -a mild and cheerful countenance. And, with this great name upon our -lips, we “compassed him about with angels, so that the infernal spirits -should tremble and retire into the horrid confusion of eternal night.” - -All the household, except the very young servants, knelt round him -praying silently, since we did not dare obtrude our own tenets about -the deathbed of another faith. The Master stood with his hand on his -dying servant’s head; and so the end came very peacefully. - -A belated curate appeared at the cottage as the daughter of the house -went down to tell Mrs. Adam that all was over; but he fled before the -sad burthen was carried in. - -We had often noticed it before, but never so forcibly, this shying -away of some excellent religious people from any contemplation of the -immediate experience of the soul after death. Beyond sentences of -comfort as stereotyped as they are vague, which place the departed -“safe in the arms of Jesus,” one would almost believe that the average -man had no very vivid sense of the future life at all. How otherwise -explain the remarks, so frequently heard, that a sudden death is such a -desirable end; that it was “such a comfort so-and-so didn’t know he was -going”; how explain the attitude at the sick-bed, where the sufferer to -the last is deluded with false hopes that he may be spared--what? the -knowledge that he is summoned to the house of God, the last opportunity -of preparation. - -Even when Mrs. Adam’s clergyman came to see her, chief among his -consolations was the remark, made in all sincerity: “That’s the kind of -death I should prefer to die.” - -Good Adam was ready to go, we know that; but can any man with a true -sense of his own soul bring himself to wish to be taken in like manner? -It is, after all, to wish for one’s self the death one would want for -one’s dog. Without even belonging to a Church where the last stage is -hallowed and made a culminating act of precious resignation and the -highest virtue, it seems to us that the instinctive nobility of man -should rebel against the craven doctrine that death is a thing to be -huddled through, a step to be taken drugged and blindfolded, that the -consciousness is to be chloroformed against the anguish of dissolution. -It is to rob humanity of its supremest quality--the triumph of the -spirit over the flesh, the noble acceptance of our lot, the dignity of -the last renunciation. - -Browning, the most virile of our poets, cries: - - “I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, - The best and the last! - I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forebore, - And bade me creep past. - No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, - The heroes of old.” - -Yet this curious evasion of the inevitable is only the natural outcome -of a looseness of theology which, while it admits the dogma of right -and wrong, of free will and human responsibility, hurls the perfect and -the imperfect, the saint and the sinner alike, into the same heaven -without an instant’s transition. As very few now believe in hell, it -is no unfair conclusion to draw that the mere fact of death seems, in -the eyes of most people, to qualify the soul for eternal bliss. It is -idle to ask what becomes of the generally accepted doctrine of moral -responsibility, why, if all are alike and certain to be saved, anyone -should put himself to the disagreeable task of resisting temptation, -much less strive after perfection here below; but failure to provide -help for the dying is the direct consequence of the denial of future -expiation. - -“What man is there among you who, if his son shall ask bread, will he -reach him a stone?” - -The Viaticum, the bread of life, is denied to the passing soul, and the -draught of comfort of devout prayer withheld from the beloved in the -fires of expiation; but the tombstone will be considered with loving -thought, and erected over the insensible dust. - -The Old Faith shows a profound knowledge of and tenderness for the -mere human side in its hour of anguish, even while providing for the -paramount needs of the soul. There is one, one only comfort for the -bereaved--to be able to help still, and of that they are deprived. - -“It isn’t as if I could do any good,” said poor Mrs. Adam, when she -turned away from her husband’s deathbed. - -She had the power to do such infinite good if she had only known it. -What prayer could be so far-reaching as that of the cry of the wife for -the chosen one, from whom God alone reserved Himself the right to part -her? What act of resignation could be so meritorious as that of her who -was making the sacrifice of her all? - -“I sent down to tell them to ring the passing-bell,” said the widow. -She was eager to accomplish every detail of respectful ceremony that -had been left to her. - -The passing-bell! Touching institution of the ages of belief, the call -for prayers for the soul in its last struggle, the summons to friend -and stranger, kindly neighbour and stray passer-by, the cry of the -mother for the last alms for her child! - -“Oh,” exclaimed our daughter that night, reflecting on these things, -“my heart burns when I think how the poor have been robbed of their -faith!” - -And the mighty lesson which the ancient Church taught by her attitude -to the dying is that by calmly turning the eyes of the faithful towards -the need for preparation, the duty of warning the sick in time, the -immeasurable gain of the last Sacraments as compared to the loss of -an unfounded earthly hope, she is giving the only possible comfort -alike to the living and the dying; she is placing within reach of the -mourners just the one factor that makes their grief bearable--the power -of being of use. - -Mrs. MacComfort, our Irish cook, who is as near a saint herself as one -can ever hope to meet, said to us, the tears brimming in her soft eyes: -“Oh, doesn’t it make us feel ashamed of ourselves when we see what our -holy religion is, and how little we live up to it!” - -And, indeed, that our poor fellow-countrymen are so good without these -helps is at once a wonder and a rebuke to us. Mrs. Adam made her -sacrifice with a most touching submission: “God must know best.” - -“When they came down and told me there’d been an accident, my hands -were in the washtub, miss,” she told one of us later, “and as I ran up -the garden drying them in my apron, I was praying God all the while -that he would give me strength to bear what I might have to see.” - -God never refuses such a prayer as that. Adam was an example. It is -astonishing the effect the death of this simple gardener has made in -the district, and the testimonies of his worth keep coming in. It shows -how wide the influence one good man can exercise in any class of life-- - - “The very ashes of the just - Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.” - -In a narrower sense we shall ourselves always feel that something of -him has gone into the soil of our little garden, for which he worked so -faithfully. Some of the fragrance of that humble soul will rise up from -the violet beds and hang about the roses. - - * * * * * - -We have been the more disposed to draw these parallels between the Old -Faith and its substitute because, by a curious coincidence, Adam’s was -the second death to fling sadness over the Villino. - -The first was not a personal loss, like that of a servant in the house. -It concerned, indeed, a being whom only one of us had seen. It happened -far away in the bloody swamps of the Yser; yet, none the less, the -tidings filled the little household with mourning. - -Among the many exiles flying to our shores from the horror of the -advancing Hun were two young mothers with their children--two charming, -delicately nurtured, high-born, high-minded women, whose husbands were, -one, an officer in the Belgian army, the other, a volunteer working -in the ambulance at Calais. The soldier’s wife, the niece of an old -friend of ours, a gay, courageous creature, who twice had gone into -the line of fire to see her husband, was never tired of speaking to us -of “Charley.” He seemed in the end to have become almost a familiar -among us. We knew by his photographs that he was handsome, and, by the -portions of his letters which she read to us, that he was tender and -deep-feeling and strong of courage. - -Some weeks ago Charley’s wife left to live with her sister; her cousin -still remained with us. It was the latter who was sent for to the -telephone that evening when the shadow of death rolled up suddenly and -hung over the little house. - -An unforgettable moment when she turned from the instrument, crying in -accents that pierced one: “_Charley tué! Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, Charley -tué!_” - -It was when we afterwards learnt the details of the tragedy, which were -piteous in the extreme as far as it affected the wife, that the noble -consolations of our religion emerged in all their beauty. - -The officer had announced an approaching leave, and the joyful -anticipation of his little family was commensurate to the love they -bore him. As one instance of that love, let it be noted here that his -small son, only six years old, could never hear the name of his absent -father without tears. - -The wife was alone in the garden, resting from the fatigues of a -morning spent in preparing for that visit, when a telegram arrived, -badly transcribed, in French. She could at first only make out her -husband’s name, her brother’s signature, and the words, “Shall be at -Calais to-day.” - -She danced into the house in ecstasy, crying to the children: “Papa is -coming; papa and Uncle Robert are coming.” - -And it was only on the stairs that a second glance at the sheet in her -hand revealed the fatal word “_tué_.” - -A cousin--another young exiled wife and mother--who lived in close -proximity, was summoned by the distracted maid, and writes in simple -language of the scene of agony: “As soon as I got into the little -house,” she says, “I heard her dreadful sobs; I ran to her. ‘Charley is -killed, Charley is killed!’ she cried to me. I have never seen anyone -in such a state. She was almost in convulsions. I put my arms about -her. ‘Make your sacrifice; offer it up for the good of his soul,’ I -said to her. ‘No, no! I cannot,’ she said. At first she could not, but -I held her close, and after a little I said to her: ‘Say the words -after me: “O my God, I accept your will for the good of his soul.”’ And -once she had said it she did not go back on it. From that moment she -was calm.” - -So calm, indeed, that the unhappy young creature had the strength of -mind to go in to her children, terrified at the sound of her weeping, -and smilingly reassure them, talk and play with them, till their -bedtime. She meant to start that night for Calais, and did not wish her -little ones to know of their loss till her return. - -All her energies were strained to the single purpose--to see him once -again before he was laid to rest. She had her desire. The journey was -an odyssey of physical and mental pain, but by sheer determination she -won through, and found her brother, who had obtained leave of absence -from his regiment to meet her. By him she was conveyed to a little -village at the back of the Belgian line, where, in a chapel belonging -to a convent, the dead man lay. - -It had been his last day in the trenches. The next was to begin his -brief holiday. He had been posted in that celebrated Maison du Passeur, -among the slimy waters, destined to be the scene of one more tragedy. -There was an alarm that certain enemy snipers were lurking about, and a -small patrol had been ordered to take stock of them. - -“I will not,” said the young officer, “allow my men to go into danger -without me.” - -It was not his duty--it was scarcely even advisable--but he took up a -soldier’s carbine and went forth with it. He was actually taking aim -when the sergeant beside him saw him fail and slowly collapse. There -was, perhaps, a noise of cannon to confuse the man’s senses, for he -heard no shot. There was certainly no start or shock apparent. He -called out: “_Mon lieutenant, qu’avez vous?_” believing it was a sudden -attack of weakness. When he went to his lieutenant he found that he was -dead. He had been struck by a bullet under the eye, so well and truly -aimed that it had instantly ended the young, vigorous life, as far as -this world is concerned. The only mark on his calm face, when his wife -saw it, was that small purple spot, where the wound had closed again. - - “’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as - A church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve.” - -We have seen a snapshot taken of him as he lay wrapped in his country’s -flag. It is a noble, chiselled countenance, looking younger than the -thirty-two years of his life, set in a great serenity, with yet that -stamp of austere renunciation, of supreme sacrifice, measured and -accepted, which we sometimes behold in the face of the dead. - -The whole regiment congregated in the little chapel the afternoon -of the day which brought the widow to her calvary. The building was -decorated with groups of flags, and about the bier were heaped the -wreaths of his brother officers, dedicated nearly all in the same words: - - “To the comrade fallen on the field of honour,” - - “To the comrade who has given his life for his country.” - -In the midst of a profound silence the Colonel read _L’Ordre du Jour_, -which, by King Albert’s command, conferred upon the fallen _Guide_ -the Order of Leopold--for valour--and the bereaved wife was given -the decoration to pin over the cold heart that had been so warmly -hers. There was a muffled roll of drum, and all present sang the -“Brabançonne.” So much for the comfort which the world could still give. - -Next morning the funeral Mass was said at the altar. The bier lay at -the foot of the step, so close that each time the priest turned round -to say _Dominus vobiscum_, his hands were uplifted over the dead. And -the widow and all the officers of the regiment kneeling round received -Holy Communion for, and in memory of, the slain. - -It is not possible--although we know her grief to be as ardent as was -her attachment to him--that this widow can mourn as those who have no -hope. - -The chaplain of the regiment told her that her husband had been to -Confession and Holy Communion the morning he had entered into the -trenches, three days before. “Have no fear, my child,” said the priest, -“he made his Confession as he did everything, with all his heart.” - -Blessed religion, which across the deathbed shows us the heavens -opening for the departed soul, and bids the holy angel guard even the -grave where rests the body, hallowed for the resurrection! - - - - -VI - -BABIES: CHINESE AND OTHERS - - “In how several ways do we speak to our dogs, and they answer - us!”--MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE. - - -The war-baby was very dear and downy when we first saw her. - -She is the daughter of a Chinaman (an important member of the -household), and a neighbouring lady. The Chinaman was, in fact, so -important that the usual matrimonial procedure was reversed in his -case; and the family of the lady made unabashed and persevering -advances for his favour before he could be induced to condescend to the -alliance. - -Anyone familiar with Oriental calm will not be surprised to learn that -the potentate received with imperturbability the announcement that his -lady wife was likely to present him with a family. It was, however, -perhaps pushing Eastern reserve a little too far to walk away from his -infants with every appearance of disgust, and to threaten to bite those -officious friends who sought to extract some show of parental feeling -from him by turning him round once more to confront the seething -cradle-full. - -The cradle was a flat basket, in which the babies maintained a -ceaseless movement, crawling one over the other, with a total disregard -of such sensitive portions of the anatomy as eyes and noses. They were -extraordinarily ill matched as to size--we do not know if this is usual -with triplets--looking more like a job lot of Teddy-bears than anything -else. There was one as large as the other two put together; there was -a very lively medium one; and a very small third, who lay and feebly -squirmed under the others vigorous toes. They all had beautiful black -noses and little cream-coloured tails tightly curled over their backs. -The intelligent reader will by this time have perceived that we are -not referring to mere humanity. The war-babies belong to the race of -Pekinese, being, in fact, the offspring of the celebrated and priceless -Loki, master of the Villino of that name, who fame has already spread -far and wide. - -His consort was Maud, a chestnut-haired lady, who, we regret to say, -had already contracted a _mésalliance_ with a highlander, to the -despair of her family. We are convinced that the union is regarded by -Loki as a mere matter of politics, but what Western would ever dare to -penetrate the barrier of relentless reserve which the Manchu raises -between his domestic affairs and the foreign devil? We fear, by his -expression and the looks of reproach with which he has since regarded -us, that we have already gravely infringed his ideas of decorum by -bringing his daughter to dwell in his house. - -She is the only daughter of the trio, the two extremes having run to -the masculine gender. We chose her on account of her perkiness and her -engaging manner of waving her paws in supplication or allurement. - -These little dogs have all of them more or less the gift of -gesticulation. It is not necessary to teach them either to beg or pray. -The puppy--Plain Eliza--will dance half the length of the room on her -hind-legs, frantically imploring with her front paws the while, with a -persistency and passion that would melt a heart of stone. - -The other day, when the butler walked on the paw of Mimosa, the Peky -nearest to her in age, who rent the air with her yells, Plain Eliza -instantly rose on her hind-legs and added her lamentations. One can -truly say that at the same time she wrung her paws in distress over her -playmate’s suffering. She has a very feeling heart. - -These two adore each other, which is a very good thing, because Mimosa -is really a little Tartar. She is the first fur-child to bring discord -into the happy family at Villino Loki, and to break the Garden of Eden -spell by which cats and dogs of all sizes and tempers dwell together -in the most complete amity and sympathy. A small, imperious person of -a vivid chestnut hue, with devouring dark eyes and the most approved -of snub noses, we flatter ourselves that Mimosa will become a beauty -when she gets her full coat. But she will not stand cats, still less a -kitten, anywhere within the kitchen premises, and Mrs. MacComfort, the -queen of those regions, has actually banished the beloved Kitty and -her offspring to the greengrocer’s shop in order to pander to Mimosa, -who regarded them much as the honest Briton the alien Hun--something -darkly suspicious, to be eliminated from the community at all costs. -Mimosa, indeed, has taken matters into her own paws, as the man in the -street has done, and Mrs. MacComfort has acted like the Government. -Discovering the youngest kitten completely flattened under Mimosa--the -latter, her mane bristling, endeavouring to tear off all her victim’s -fur--it was decided to remove the alien element for its own benefit. - -Harmony is now restored to kitchen dominions. The other morning -the young lady of the Villino found the two little dogs solemnly -seated each side of the hearth, their eyes fixed on an infinitesimal -earthenware pan which was simmering on a carefully prepared fire. - -“They’re just watching me cooking their breakfast, miss,” said Mrs. -MacComfort in her soft voice. “They’re very partial to chicken liver.” - -It was sizzling appetizingly in its lilliputian dish. - -From the moment of Plain Eliza’s entrance upon the scene, squirming in -a basket, Mimosa showed a profound and affectionate interest in her. We -were, if truth be told, a little afraid to trust these demonstrations, -fearing they might be of a crocodile nature, but never was suspicion -more unjust. The elder puppy has completely adopted the younger one, -and is full of anxiety and distress if she is not in her company. She -will come bustling into the room, talking in her Peky way, saying as -plainly as ever a little dog did: “Has anyone seen Baby? It’s really -not safe to let the child go about by herself like that.” - -When she discovers her, the two small things kiss and embrace; after -which Mimosa abdicates her grown-up airs, and romping becomes the order -of the day. - -The name of Plain Eliza is the one which has stuck most distinctively -to the great Mo-Loki’s daughter. It seemed appropriate to her, in the -opinion of the mistress of the Villino, and arose out of a reminiscence -of her Irish youth. There happened to be in Dublin society in those -far-back days a young lady of guileless disposition, not too brilliant -intellect, and what Americans would call “homely” appearance. -Presenting herself at a reception at a house which boasted of a very -pompous butler, and having announced her name as Eliza Dunn, he -forthwith attempted to qualify her with a title. - -“Lady Eliza Dunn?” - -“No, no,” quoth she. “Plain Eliza.” - -Rumour would have it that he thereupon announced in stentorian tones: -“Plain Eliza.” - -It is not so much the uncomeliness of the Baby’s countenance as the -guileless trustfulness with which she turns it upon the world which -seems to make the name appropriate. Anyhow, it has come to stay. - -The little children that run about Villino Loki these days--war-exiles, -most of them--have scarcely crossed the threshold before their voices -are uplifted, calling: - -“Plain! Plain! Where is Plain Eliza?” And when the favourite is found -there is much cooing and fond objurgations of: “Darling Plain! My sweet -little Plain! Dear, darling, Plain Eliza!” - -She is the only one of the Pekies that can be allowed with perfect -safety in the hands of the children. Mimosa is uncertain, and may turn -at any moment with a face of fury, her whole body bristling. She is -secretly very jealous of the children. And Loki is not uncertain at -all. He has never hidden his dislike of them, and his lip begins to -curl the instant a small hand is outstretched towards him. But Plain -Eliza, if bored, remains patient and gentle; and however “homely” she -may seem to her attached family, she is all beauty and charm in the -eyes of their little visitors. - -Recently a most attractive child was for ten days, with her charming -young mother and baby brother, the guest of the Villino. To console her -on departure she was promised another Plain Eliza, should such a one -ever be vouchsafed the world. Her mother writes: “She prays and makes -me pray for the new Plain Eliza every day, and I think fully expects to -see her come shooting down from Heaven.” - -A very dear child this, with a heart and mind almost too sensitive for -her four years. Many delicately pretty sayings are treasured of her. -She must have been about three when her first religious instruction was -given her. It made a profound impression. For months afterwards she -would date her experiences from the day of this enlightenment. - -“You know, mammy, that was before Jesus was born to me!” - -Her father is at the front. He has not yet seen his little son, the -arrival of whom was so much desired. This baby, an out-of-the-way -handsome, healthy child, is a prey to the terrors which it will be -yet mercifully many years before he can understand. He cannot bear to -be left alone a moment, and wakes from a profound sleep in spasms of -unconscious apprehension. Then nothing can soothe him but being clasped -very close, the mother’s hand upon the little head, pressing it to -her cheek. “He is nothing,” said the doctor, “to some of the babies I -have seen this year.” It is not astonishing; but how pathetic! These -little creatures, carried so long under an anguished heart, come into -the world bearing the print of the universal mystery already stamped on -their infant souls. - -When will the dawn arise over a world no longer agonized and -disrupted? When will the wholesome joys and the natural sorrows -resume their preponderance in our existence? Surely every man’s own -span holds enough of trouble to make him realize that here is not our -abiding-place, and long for the security of the heavenly home. Perhaps -it was not so. Perhaps we had all fallen away too much from faith and -simplicity, and we needed this appalling experience of what humanity -can inflict upon humanity, when Christ and His cross are left out of -the reckoning. - -“The world has become profoundly corrupt. There will surely come some -great scourge. It will be necessary to have a generation brought up by -mourning mothers and in a discipline of tears,” said a man of God in -what seemed words of unbearable severity, a year before the war broke -out. - -So it may be that we are not only fighting for our children, to deliver -them from the intolerable yoke of the Hun, but that we are also -suffering for our children, to deliver them from the punishment of our -own sins. - - * * * * * - -We meant to call this chapter “War-babies,” only for the newspaper -discussion which has made even innocence itself the subject of -passionate and unpleasant discussion. - -There have been a good many war-babies in the neighbourhood as well as -Plain Eliza. The Signorina of the Villino has already acted godmother -several times to infant exiles. These little ones, we thank Heaven, -have arrived surprisingly jolly and unimpressed. Yet the poor mothers -had, most of them, fled from the sound of the cannon and the menace -of the shells, happy if they saw nothing worse than the flames which -were consuming their homes and all that those homes held and meant for -them. The Signorina is very particular that the girls should be called -Elizabeth and the boys Albert, with due loyalty to a sovereignty truly -royal in misfortune. - -“Mademoiselle,” writes one young woman, “I have the happiness to -announce to you that I have the honour to have become the mother of a -beautiful little daughter.” - -She meant what she said--marvellous as it may seem not to regard the -event in such circumstances as an added anguish! - -We have heard of the birth of a child to a widow of eighteen--a peasant -girl in Brussels--who was forced by the invaders not only to watch her -father and husband and both brothers struck down under her eyes, but to -assist in burying them while they were still breathing. - -“It is a very ugly little baby,” writes the kind lady who is its -godmother, “and the poor mother is very ill. When she gets better it -will be a comfort to her.” - -In these days, when the lid of hell has been taken off--as Mr. -Elbert Hubbard, one of the victims of the _Lusitania_, graphically -declared--when legions of devils have been let loose upon an -unsuspecting world, the case of the eighteen-year-old peasant woman in -the Brussels _asile_ is by no means the most to be pitied. Her child -will be a comfort to her. Not so will it be with the many unfortunate -Belgian village mothers--to whom children are being, we hear, born -maimed in awful testimony of the mutilations which the wives have been -forced to witness deliberately inflicted on their husbands. War-babies, -indeed! Stricken before birth, destined to bear through a necessarily -bitter existence the terrible mark of the barbarian foe. - -Let us get back to the fur children. It is such a comfort to be able -to turn one’s eyes upon something that can never understand the horror -about one. - -Plain Eliza’s only trick is to put her front paws together, palm to -palm, in an attitude of prayer, and wave them. This is called in the -family “making pretty paws.” When the children plunge for her and clasp -her close, the first cry is always: “Plain Eliza, make pretty paws! -Dear Plain Eliza, make pretty paws!” - -She will not do it for them every day. Little dogs know very well that -human puppies have no real authority over them. Perhaps it is because -of the rarity of her condescension in this direction, or perhaps -because of the wonderful emphasis of her supplication when she does -so condescend, that the youngest of the small exiles, three-year-old -Viviane, regards this accomplishment as the very acme of expression. -She is a pious babe, and is fond of paying visits to the little Oratory -in the Villino. One day her governess observed her wringing and waving -her dimpled hands before the altar. When she came out she confided in -tones of devout triumph: “I have been making pretty paws to little -Jesus.” - -Viviane, the most satisfactory type of sturdy childhood it is possible -to imagine, combines a great determination, an understanding as solid -as her own little person, with an extremely tender heart. She quite -realizes the advantages of the good manners which her English governess -inculcates, and she can be heard instructing herself in a deep _sotto -voce_ when she sits at tea with grown-up entertainers. - -“Vivi not speak with her mouth full. Vivi wait. Now Vivi can speak.” - -“Good-bye, my little girl,” said her mother to her the other day, -sending the child home in advance to her early supper. “I hope you will -be good.” - -“Vivi good,” was the prompt response, “good, obedient, nice manners at -table.” - -She walked out of the room with her peculiarly deliberate gait, -murmuring the admonition to herself. - -During the terribly dry weather in the beginning of May we had a great -fire on our moor; whether caused by incendiarism or not remains a moot -point. The first hill that rolls up from our valley is now charred -half-way. Viviane was much concerned. - -“Poor moor burnt! Poor moor burnt!” she lamented. Then, with a -delicious impulse qualified by characteristic caution, “Vivi kiss it -where it is not black; kiss it and make it well!” - -When her cousin and playmate’s father was tragically killed on the -Yser, the little creature, who is devoted to her own father, was deeply -concerned. The latter is heroically devoting himself to ambulance work -at Calais. For many nights after the news of the young officer’s death -was received, Viviane would anxiously inform everyone who came into her -nursery that Papa was quite safe, pointing out his photograph on the -chimney-piece at the same time. - -“Vivi got her Papa quite safe,” in a confused association of ideas. - -Though she has only seen him once for a very short time all these nine -months, the child’s affectionate memory of him remains as distinct as -ever, and returning the other day from a morning walk with a scratched -knee, she declared pathetically she wished it had been a wound, for -then Vivi’s father would have had to come and nurse her. - -The spirit of the Belgian children is one of the most remarkable things -of the war. As soon as they can understand anything at all they seem to -grasp the situation of present valiant endurance and future glory. They -know what sacrifices have been demanded of their parents. There is not -a child that we have seen but measures the cost and its honour. - -Upon the arrival of the _Faire part_ of that same young officer above -mentioned, with its immense black edge and unending list of sorrowing -relatives, Viviane’s eldest brother, a boy of nine, asked to read it. -When he came to the words: _Mort pour la patrie_, he looked up, his -face illuminated. - -“_Oh, Maman, comme c’est beau!_” - -Not the least among the miscalculations of the Germans in Belgium -has been their insane attempt to stifle the courage of the little -country by ferocity. But Germany has never counted with souls, and it -is by the power of the soul that this huge monster of materialism, -with its gross brutality and gross reliance on masses and mechanism, -will be overthrown. There is not a _gamin_ of the Brussels streets -that does not mock the German soldiery, finely conscious that, by the -immortal defiance of the spirit, Prussian brutality itself is already -vanquished. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!... - -There was humour as well as heroism in the heart of the oppressed -Antwerp Belgian on that afternoon of his King’s birthday, when he sent -the three little girls to walk side by side through the streets dressed -in black, orange, and red. The Hun stood helpless before the passage -of the living flag, not daring to face the ridicule which would fall -upon him all the world over were the babes arrested and taken to the -Commandatur. It was a superb defiance, flung in the face of the despot, -flung by the little ones! The whole history of Belgium’s glory and -Germany’s shame is in it. - - * * * * * - -It is just the feeling that they are blessedly ignorant of the -universal suffering that makes the company of our pets so soothing to -us now. - -“My dog is my one comfort,” cried a friend to us, surveying her Peky -as he sat, fat and prosperous, his lip cocked with the familiar -Chinese smile, triumphant after the feat of having silently bitten his -mistress’s visitor. “He is the only person that hasn’t changed!” - -The bite of a Pekinese does not hurt, it may be mentioned, and the -visitor quite shared his owner’s feelings. - -It may be something of the same sensation that makes the wounded -soldiers in the hospital near us long for the forbidden joy of -something alive for a mascot. They picked up a very newly hatched -pheasant in the grounds the other day, and carried it home to share -their bed and board. It was fed on extraordinary concoctions, and after -three days was discovered to have passed away. There was a strong -suspicion of the matron, who had not approved from the beginning. They -consoled themselves by a military funeral. A very handsome coffin -having been made by an expert, they went in solemn procession to lay -the infant pheasant to rest. Now there is always a wreath on the grave. - -Invited to the Villino this week to see our azaleas, they arrived, a -batch of twenty, at the odd hour of ten o’clock in the morning, to be -regaled with buns and lemonade, no tea-parties being allowed. They -enjoyed themselves very much, but the feature of the entertainment was -Mimosa, the small ruby Pekinese. She passed from embrace to embrace. -She licked them so much that they told the Sister they would not need -to have their faces washed any more. This is the kind of joke that is -really appreciated in hospitals. When Mimi returned to her devoted -Mrs. MacComfort in the kitchen, the latter remarked “she was so above -herself she couldn’t do anything with her.” - -Unfortunately all little dogs are not happy and protected like ours. -Belgian friends who passed through villages and towns after the first -wave of the invader had spread over the country tell us of a horrible -and singular byway of wanton atrocity. The soldiery slaughter the dogs -wholesale, some said to eat them, but that seems hardly credible. -Most probably it was part of the scheme of general terrorism. To burn -the houses and slay the husbands and fathers, to spear and mutilate -and trample down the children, to insult the women, it was all not -enough. The finishing touch must be given by the murder of the humble -companion, the faithful watch-dog, the children’s pet. Piles and piles -of dogs’ heads were at the corners of the streets, our friend told us. - -We know they laid hold of the poor dogs to experiment upon them with -their diabolical gas. But there was at least some reason in the latter -brutality. - -One hears many stories about the dogs of war. - -At the beginning of the conflict the trained ambulance dogs were -reported to have done splendid work in the French trenches. We do not -know if we have any such, but we do know that the men have pets among -them out there, whether mascots brought out from England or strays -picked up from the abandoned farms. The deserted dogs! A French paper -published an article upon these dumb victims, not the least pathetic -of the many side tragedies of this year of anguish. It was a poor -shop-keeper who described what he himself had seen in passing through a -devastated town within the conquered territory. - -“The dogs have remained in the town, from whence the inhabitants have -fled. The dogs have remained where there is not left a stone upon a -stone. How they do not die of hunger I cannot imagine. They must hunt -for themselves far out in the country-side, I suppose, but they come -back as quickly as they can and congregate at the entrance of the -suburb on the highroad. - -“There are two hundred, or three hundred perhaps--spaniels, sheep-dogs, -fox-terriers, even small ridiculous lap-dogs--and they wait, all of -them, with their heads turned in the same direction, with an air of -intense melancholy and passionate interest. What are they waiting for? -Oh, it is very easy to guess. Sometimes one of the old inhabitants -of the town makes up his mind to come back from Holland. The longing -to see his home, to know what is left of his house, to search the -ruins, is stronger than all else--stronger than hatred, stronger than -fear. And sometimes then one of the dogs recognizes him. His dog! If -you could see it. If you could imagine it. All that troop of dogs -who prick their ears at the first sight of a man coming along the -road from Holland, a man who has no helmet, a man not in uniform; -the instantaneous painful agitation of the animals who gaze and gaze -with all their might--dogs have not very good eyes--and who sniff and -sniff from afar, because their scent is better than their sight. And -then the leap, the great leap of one of these dogs who has recognized -his master, his wild race along the devastated road, ploughed with -the furrows by the passage of cannons and heavy traction motors and -dug with trenches; his joyous barks, his wagging tail, his flickering -tongue! His whole body is one quiver of happiness. The dog will not -leave that man any more, he is too much afraid of losing him. He will -follow close to his heels without stopping to eat; one day, two days -if needful; and in the end he goes away with him. - -“But the others? They have remained on the road. And when they see this -dog depart, having found at last what they all are seeking, they lift -up their muzzles despairingly and howl, howl as if they would never -stop, with great cries that fill the air, and re-echo until there is -nothing more to be seen upon the road. Then they are dumb, but they do -not move. They are there; they still hope.” - - - - -VII - -OUR GARDEN IN JUNE - - “Still may Time hold some golden space - Where I’ll unpack that scented store - Of song and flower and sky and face, - And count, and touch, and turn them o’er.” - - RUPERT BROOKE. - - -_June 1._--The garden in early June! Like a great many other things -the idea is very different from the reality. The first of June in the -garden represents to the mind’s eye bowers of roses, exuberance in the -borders, a riot of colour and fragrance. As a matter of fact, with us, -in our late-blooming, high-perched terraces, it means a transition -stage, and is annually very exasperating and disappointing to the -impatient spirit of the Signora. It is the time when the azaleas look -dishevelled, with their delicate blossom hanging depressingly from the -stamens. The forget-me-nots have all been cleared away, and in those -places where bulbs are preserved against the future spring, masses -of yellowing tangled leaf-spikes are an eyesore. The bedding-out -plants still look tiny on the raw borders. All our roses, except those -climbers against the house, are yet in the bud. There are just the -poppies that flaunt in the borders; and even their colour becomes an -exasperation, because they would have done so much better to wait -and join in the grand symphony, instead of blowing isolated trumpet -flourishes, prepared to relapse into sulky silence when the delphiniums -strike up their blue music. - -There is also another frightful drawback to this first week of leafy -June, and that is that it would be easier to separate Pyramus from -Thisbe than the gardener from the vegetables. A constant enervating -struggle goes on between us on the relative values of cabbages and -roses, beans and poppies. We want the roses sprayed, we want the -borders staked, we want sustenance in the shape of liquid manure and -Clay’s fertilizer copiously administered to our darlings; and he wants -to put in “that there other row of scarlet runners and set out them -little lettuces.” And when it comes to watering: he doesn’t know, he’s -sure, how he’s to get them cabbages seen to as they ought to be seen -to; a deal of moisture _they_ want, if they’re to do him any justice. - -Meanwhile our terraces are panting. The climbing roses up the -house--and this year they would have been glorious--are pale and -brittle in petal and foliage, as if they had been actually blasted. - -The master of the Villino, after due representations from the Padrona, -has seen the necessity of sacrifice, and assiduously waters the garden -every evening--and himself! The hose is defective; being war time we -cannot afford a new one. Two jets break out at the wrong angle and take -you in the eye and down the waistcoat at the most unexpected moments; -and though amenable to persuasion, the Padrone’s devotion has its -limits, and he positively declines the remanipulation of the tube which -will bring it--after having done service in the Dutch garden--to the -end of the Lily Walk. So that, as it is two yards short, the deficiency -has to be made up by hand watering, and two obsolete bath-cans are -produced out of the house, which seems, for some unexplained reason, -easier than using the proper garden furniture. These cans are generally -left, forgotten, where they were last used, unless the piercing eye of -the mistress of the Villino happens to dart in that direction. - -Yesterday we had visitors--in eighteenth-century parlance, a General -and his Lady--and of course the two cans stood in the middle of the -path, confidingly, nose to nose. Being war time nobody minded. It is -the blessing and the danger of war time that nobody minds anything. And -the General’s Lady, being tactful, kept her eye on the buddleia. - -Death having come to the little garden and taken Adam away; and greed -of gain having deprived us of Reginald Arthur in favour of the post -office; and patriotism having rendered the local young man as precious -as he is scarce, we were five weeks--five invaluable, irreplaceable -weeks--gardenerless, odd-manless at the Villino. Nothing this year will -ever restore the lost time. No amount of pulling and straining will -draw the gap together. - -Japhet, Adam’s successor, is worn, as the Americans say, very nearly -“to a frazzle.” He is a deeply conscientious man, and peas and beans -and cabbages are to him the very principles upon which all garden -morality is built up. He was much grieved the other day when someone -“passed a remark” on the subject of weeds in the back-garden. - -Weeds! We should think there were! It was so blatantly self-evident -a fact that we wondered that anyone should have thought it worth -while to pass a remark upon it. But Japhet was hurt to his very soul: -considering his vocation, it would perhaps be more in keeping to -say--his marrow. - -Professional pride is a very delicate and easily bruised growth. -When the Padrona was in her teens the whole of her mother’s orderly -establishment was convulsed one June--a hot June it was too--because -the professional pride of the family butler had been wounded by the -footman’s presuming to hand a dish which it was not his business to -touch. His sense of dignity was doubtless sharpened to a very fine edge -by the fact that, the June weather being so hot, an unusual amount of -cooling beer had been found necessary. This may seem a curious mixture -of metaphors, nevertheless the facts are exact. - -Reilly--that was his name--was very deeply and, in the opinion of the -rest of the household, justifiably incensed when Edmund lifted the -entrée dish with the obvious intention of offering it to his mistress; -and though it was regarded as an exaggeration of sensitiveness for -him to knock the footman down immediately after lunch in the seclusion -of the pantry, to kneel upon his chest and endeavour to strangle him -with his white tie; and though the cook deemed it incumbent upon her -to draw the attention of the authorities to the drama by seizing a -broom and brushing it backwards and forwards across the row of bells; -all the sympathies of the establishment remained with Reilly, and “the -mistress” was regarded as extremely hard-hearted for dismissing him -from her service. The footman was a shock-headed, snub-nosed youth, and -we will never forget his appearance when, released from his assailant, -he burst into the dining-room, collarless, his white tie protruding -at an acute angle behind his left ear, with a mixture of triumph, -importance, and suffering upon his scarlet countenance. - -So we were compassionate with Japhet when he waxed plaintive over his -underling’s house duties, and even forbore having the windows cleaned -for several weeks, and endured tortures at the sight of her spattered -panes, out of regard for his difficulties. - -The underling is aptly named Fox. He has red hair and long moustaches -and a furtive eye and a general air of alertness and slyness which -show that if he had ever belonged to the animal kingdom in a previous -state of existence, Vulpus he certainly was. But we did not expect him -to develop garden susceptibilities too. This, however, it seems he has -done. - -“I’ve very bad news for you,” said Japhet sombrely to his master last -week, when he came into the long, book-lined room to receive his -Saturday pay. He has naturally a lugubrious countenance. - -His master’s thoughts flew to Zeppelins, spotted fever, and other -national dangers. - -“Indeed, Japhet. What is it?” - -“Fox, he says, he can’t put up with the couch-grass and the docks in -the lower garden. They seem to have got on his mind, like. He don’t see -how he can go on dealing with them. They _’ave_ got a strong hold,” -concluded Japhet with a sigh, as if he too were overwhelmed by the -enemy. - -Well, it was tragic enough, for the precious Fox had been caught after -long hunting, and had made his own bargain--a foxy one--with every eye -to the main chance. We want to keep him, but have a guilty sensation -too, he being young and strong, and obviously the right stuff for -enlisting; though, indeed, if docks and couch-grass daunt him, how -would he stand shrapnel and gas? - -The daughter of the house, who is extremely tactful, and who is -generally trusted with delicate situations, interviewed him on the -spot. She found him in a condition only to be described as one of -nerve-shock. His long, red moustaches quivered. All he could reply, in -a broken voice, was: - -“It don’t do me no credit. It won’t never do me no credit.” - -Japhet, consulted, gave it as his opinion that it was not a question -of his subordinate’s bettering himself; but said “Fox had always been -a sensitive worker.” Nevertheless, we should not be surprised to hear -that war prices have something to do with it. - - * * * * * - -It is only now, after nearly five years, that we are beginning to -reap some benefit of our constant planting. The Signora wonders if -her irritable mind had allowed her to leave undisturbed those divers -perennials and bushes which she had rooted up after a year’s trial from -beds and borders, how might she not now be gathering the reward of -longanimity. - -The Léonie Lamesche roses, for instance. She hunted them out of the -middle of the Dutch garden; out of the beds before the entrance arches -into the rose-garden; into that corner of the kitchen-garden where the -derelicts gather. And just now the child of the house has brought into -her bunch after bunch of little orange-crimson pompoms, delicious and -quaint to look at, and delicious and quaint to smell, with their faint -tartness, as of apples, mixed with an aromatic herbiness as of myrtles. - -“There’s quantities more,” says the Signorina. Poor little things! -they have been allowed to settle and spread their roots, and one would -not know them for the nipped, disreputable, guttersnipe objects that -hitherto called down the master of the Villino’s scorn. - -We do not regret them in the Dutch garden after all. It is too near the -house not to have its garland for every season; and the forget-me-nots, -hyacinths, and tulips are too precious and beautiful in the spring. -But under the rose-arches now there are gaps; and this year, between -the loss of our poor Adam and war scruples, these gaps have not been -filled. - -If the Signora had left Léonie Lamesche where she was, all those nice -varnished green leaves and all those darling rosettes of bloom with -their odd colour and fragrance would be in their right place, instead -of in the waste ground from which Japhet, with the zeal of the new -broom, is already preparing to sweep them next autumn--not, be it said, -with any special disapprobation for Léonie, but because he declares he -wants to get rid of all that there stuff which hadn’t no right to be in -a vegetable garden at all. - -The moral is--as has been said long ago in the “Sentimental -Garden”--that chief among the many virtues a garden inculcates is -patience. If the Signora had had patience, she would not have turned -all the Standard Soleil d’Or and Conrad Meyers out of the Lily Walk, -because the shadow of the buddleias interfered with their bloom. For -behold! this winter’s snow has cast the great honey-trees sideways, -and the united efforts of Japhet and Fox, who pulled and propped and -strained in vain, have left them sideways, and sideways, in the opinion -of these experts, they will for ever after remain. And the Lily Walk is -in full sunshine. Had we but left the standards, who, of course, will -be sulky in their new positions for a couple of years more! - -_June 15._--The complaint begun in the first week of our transitional -garden has already been reproved by the mid-month’s splendours. In -spite of the drought and the desiccating south-east winds (which by -some inscrutable decree of Providence have been sent to us this year -when so much depends upon field, orchard, and garden), the roses are -magnificent and of unusual promise. - -Our peony beds--the mistress of the garden did know that peonies are -slow ladies and will take their time--are beginning to reward her -forbearance. Such a basketful as came into her bedroom to-day with -the Polyantha roses!--those large, pink, scented beauties which are -so satisfying to settle in big bowls. We have put them in the chapel -against boughs of the service-tree. The effect is all one could wish. - -The service-tree bloomed this year as never it bloomed before. It -looked like the bridal bouquet of a fairy giantess! We trust this -daring hyperbole will enable our readers to represent to themselves -something at once immense and ethereal, misty grey, and delicate -silver-white. It is of huge size and beautiful shape, and grows a -little higher on the slope than the greater of the two beech-trees. For -colour effect we know nothing more soul-filling than the way it stands -between the ardent tawny glories of the Azalea Walk and the young jewel -green of its cousin--the beech above mentioned. Put the shoulder of the -moor at the back in its May mantle of coppery mauve heather not yet in -bud--that is a picture to gaze upon under a blue sky, thanking God for -the loveliness of the earth! - -This last May, which will be ever memorable as one of the most -tragic months of the war, hazard--or that _slithy tove_, the alien -Hun--provided us with a background approximately _macabre_ for the -radiant youthful joy. Our moor has been burnt--five fires started -simultaneously one day of high east wind, and the first great swelling -hill is covered with a garment as of hell. The scattered fir-trees -here and there are of a livid, scorched brown. To look out on the -scene and see them stand in the slaty black, casting mysterious shadows -under the dome of relentless brightness we have had of late, is like -looking upon a circle of Dante’s Inferno, out of one of the cool, -bowery regions of his upper Purgatorio. Our daughter finds a wilder -beauty in our blossom and verdure against the savage gloom beyond; but -not so the Padrona. She laments the tapestry of her peaceful, rolling -heights. Now, past mid-June, bracken is creeping slowly through the -charred roots of the heather, and she does not want a bracken hill. It -is spreading democracy, taking the place of some royal line; the rule -of the irresponsible, the coarse, the mediocre; though she grants there -will be beauty in the autumn when it all turns golden. And perhaps -there’s a lesson to be drawn somewhere, but she will have none of it, -for there is nothing so tiresome as the unpalatable moral. - - * * * * * - -Fox has condescended to remain another week, so we need not feverishly -search garden chronicles for the quite impossible he, who shall be -strong, sturdy, ineligible for the army, and willing to take a place as -under-gardener at something less than the honorarium of an aniline dye -expert! All those who want places are head-gardeners, “under glass”; -except “a young Dutchman speaking languages perfectly” who fills our -souls with doubt. In every district it is the same story; we wish we -could think it was all patriotic ardour, but we are afraid that the -high wages offered by camps and greengrocers are responsible for a good -deal of the shortage of labour in our part of the world. - -One of the Villino quartette--we call ourselves the lucky -clover-leaf--writes from Dorset that they have an aged man of past -seventy-two who comes in to help in the flowery, bowery old garden -of the manor-house where she is staying. In justice to simple rural -Dorset, it may be mentioned parenthetically that there the response -to the country’s need has been extraordinary in its unanimity. So the -superannuated labourers who have grown white and wise over the soil, -instead of sitting by the chimney-corner and enjoying their old-age -pensions, come tottering forth to do their little bit, in the place -of the young stalwartness that has gone out to fight and struggle and -perhaps die for England. - -Our Dorset clover petal writes: “Old Mason is very sad at having to -water the borders. ‘Ye mid water and water for days and days,’ he -declares, ‘and it not have the value of a single night’s rain. There, -miss, as I did say to my darter last night, my Father, I says, he do -water a deal better than I do.’” - -Yesterday there came a box of white pinks from that Dorset garden; -these have been put all together into an immense cut-glass bowl, with -an effect of innocent, white, overflowing freshness that is perfect of -its kind. And the scent of them is admirably fitted to the sweet clean -wonder of their looks. It is a quintessence of all simple fragrance, -a sort of intensified new-mown hay smell. That is another thing the -heavenly Father has done very well--the delicate matching of attributes -in His flower children. A tea-rose looks her scent, just as does her -deep crimson sister. - -“How it must have amused Almighty God,” said our daughter one day last -winter, lifting the cineraria foliage to show the purple bloom of the -lining which exactly matched the note of the starry flower, “how it -must have amused Him to do this.” - -And surely a violet bears in her little modest face the promise of her -insinuating and delicate perfume. - -And if the big pink peonies had had bright green instead of shadowy -grey foliage they might have been vulgar. - -And if you had put lily leaves to an iris instead of their own romantic -sword-blades, how awkward and wrong it would have been; whereas the -lily-stalk, with its conventional layers, is perfection in support of -the queenly head of the Madonna or the Auratum. It is not association, -but recognition of a Great Artist, in all reverence be it said: “He -hath done all things well.” - -To come back to the walled enclosure about the old Dorset manor house. -Here, looking down our wind-swept terraces, we sometimes hanker for the -sunny seclusion of that walled garden, though apparently all is not -perfect even there, for the last message from it says: - -“The strong sun takes all the strength out of the pinks after the -first day or two. It has been very hot in the early afternoon, and as -the garden faces west all the poor little things are drawn in a long -slant towards the setting sun. Some of the long-stemmed ones have got -positive wriggles in their stalks from so much exercise; it is really -bad for their systems.” - -In a previous letter she writes less pessimistically: - -“I can’t tell you the loveliness of the garden. It is like Venus -rising from the sea--Venus and her foam together--roses, pinks, -sweet-williams, everything leaping into bloom and over the walls. I -have given up trying to harmonize colours. There is nothing so wilful -as an old garden. The plants simply walk about, much as our ‘Pekies’ -do. I planted nigella last year, which didn’t do very well; however it -skipped across a path of its own accord this year, and there is a patch -of it in a forbidden corner which shames the sky. One looks on and -laughs helplessly, as one does with ‘Pekies.’” - - * * * * * - -The Penzance briar hedge dividing the new rosary from the reserve -garden promises very well. It is already breaking into many coloured -stars, carmine, pink, amber, and the fashionable khaki. Is this the -musk-rose of the “Midsummer Night’s Dream”? - -To contradict our statement of a page or two back, the Creator has made -here one of the exceptions to His rule of rich and delicate balance, -and it is the unsuspected fragrance of the sweetbriar that adds so -extraordinarily to its attraction in a garden. No one would credit it -with the scent, its evanescent fragile bloom gives no indication of it. -And, like the perfectly saintly, its fragrance has nothing to do with -youth or beauty. You pass an unimportant-looking green bush, and all at -once you are assailed with the breath of Heaven. There is a mystery, -almost a mysticism, about the perfection of this sweetness, this -intangible, invisible beauty. One is reminded of Wordsworth’s lines: - - “quiet as a nun - Breathless with adoration.” - -It is the image of a pure soul exhaling itself before God, in a rapture -of ecstatic contemplation. - -The June scents of the Villino garden are very wonderful, peculiarly -so this year, under the searching brilliancy of the unclouded heavens. -There is the sweetbriar, and there are the pinks, and there is one -long border all of nepeta--against the Dorothy Perkins hedge still -only green--with its pungent, wholesome savour. And there is the gum -cistus, that smells exactly as did the insides of the crimson Venetian -bottles which stood in the great white and blue and gold drawing-room -in the Signora’s Irish home. It was an old custom to put a drop of -attar of roses at the bottom of these favourite ornaments in those -days when the Signora was a little girl, and it was one of her great -joys to be allowed to lift the stopper and sniff. The strange far-off -Eastern incense that hangs about the rather uncomely straggling -shrub--another instance of the Almighty’s exceptions--brings the -mistress of the Villino back with a leap to her childhood; to the late -Georgian drawing-room, with its immense plate-glass windows hung with -curtains of forget-me-not blue brocade which cost a hundred pounds -a pair--people spent solid money then for solid worth; the white -marble chimney-piece, with its copy of a fraction of the Parthenon -frieze--Phaeton driving his wild, tossing horses; the immense cut-glass -chandelier sparkling and quivering with a thousand elfin rainbow -lights; the white and gold panels, the plastered frieze of curling -acanthus leaves; and the smiling face of the adored mother looking down -upon the little creature in the stiff piqué frock, who was the future -Padrona. No child analyzes its mother’s countenance. It is only in -later years that the beauty of that smile was recognized by her. It was -a beauty that endured to the very last of those eighty-five years of a -life that was so well filled. It was a smile of extraordinary sweetness -and, to that end, full of youth. That’s what the gum cistus brings -back; a fragrance of memory, poignant and beloved. Everyone knows that -through the sense of smell the seat of memory is most potently reached. -The merest whiff of a long-forgotten odour will bring back so vividly -some scene of the past that it is almost painful. It is to be wondered -why ghosts do not more often choose this form of return to the world. -The story told by Frederick Myers in his “Human Personality” of the -phantom scent of thyme by which a poor girl haunted the field where -she had been murdered is, we believe, unique; but we know another -record. This was not the struggle of any reproachful shade to bring -itself back to human recollection, but the ghost of a fragrance itself. -The late Bret Harte told the tale to a friend of ours. On a visit to -an old English castle he was lodged in a tower room. Every afternoon -he used to withdraw for literary labours, and at a certain hour the -whole of the old chamber would be filled with the penetrating vapour of -incense. He sought in vain for some explanation of the mystery. There -was nothing within or without, beneath or above, which could produce -such a phenomenon. Then he bethought himself of investigating the past, -and found that his room was exactly over what had once been the chapel -in the days of our ancient Faith, and that it had been the custom to -celebrate Benediction at the hour when the incense--that wraith of a -bygone lovely worship--now seemed to surround him. - -A few steps beyond the gum cistus the buddleia trees this June have -their brief splendour of bloom and their intoxication of perfume. It -is as if all the honey of clover and gorse, with something of a dash -of clove spice, was burning in a pyre of glory to the sunshine. What -wonder that the bees gather there and chant the whole day long! Happy -bees, drunk with bliss in the midst of their labour! - -It is all very well to speak of bees as a frugal, hard-working -community, to hold them up to the perpetual emulation of the young. Few -people seem to remember how extremely dissipated they become when they -come across a good tap of honey. Who has not seen them--so charged with -the luxuriance that they can scarcely stagger out of the calyx--buzz -away, blundering, upon inebriated wing? - -Greatly favoured by Nature, the bees combine the extreme of laudable -activity with the extreme of self-indulgence. Anyone who wants to -hear their pæan of rapture at its height, let him provide them with -_Buddleia globosa_. - -We have by no means exhausted the list of scents in the June garden. -There are the irises! All Florence is in the sweetness that flows -from them: a sweetness, by the way, not adapted to rooms, where, -to be unpoetical, it assumes something faintly catty. The way the -perfume of irises rolls over Florence in May is something not to be -described to anyone who has not breathed it. We were once the guests -of a kindly literary couple, who dwelt in one of those charming, -quaint, transmogrified farmhouses outside the city that makes us--even -we who own the Villino Loki--hanker. It was called Villa Benedetto. -One drove out from Florence along a road now only vaguely remembered. -It skirted the river, and there were wild slopes on one side and -poplar-trees; then one darted aside into the Italian hills and up a -steep ascent--this vision is also vague; but we remember the little -garden-gate and the narrow brick path and the irises! Irises and China -roses! It is a lovely mixture for colour; and as for scent! anyone who -knows anything about scent (and we wonder why there are not artists in -it, as well as for music and painting) anyone who knows anything about -scent, we repeat, is quite aware that orris, the pounded iris root, -is the only possible fragrance to keep constantly about. It combines -the breath of the mignonette and the subtle delight of the violet. -It preserves, too, its adorable freshness of impression. You never -sicken of it, you never tire of it. Of course it has the fault of its -delicacy, it is evanescent; but, then, it is never stale. Any woman -who wishes an atmosphere of poetry should use nothing but orris, the -pure pounded root without any addition, and that perpetually renewed. -Precious quality, it cannot be overdone. - -The odour of the flower itself in the sunshine is a different thing, -far more piercing and far more pronounced. It must be enjoyed in the -sunshine, or after a spring storm. Those other incomparable banquets -to the sense which a bean-field or a clover-meadow will spread for you -cannot be captured and refined in the same manner. More’s the pity! - -Lafcadio Hearn declares that human beings have lamentably failed -to cultivate the rich possibilities of the sense of smell. In this -respect, he says, dogs are infinitely superior. Who can tell, he asks, -what ecstasy of combination, what chords, what symphonies of harmony -and contrast, might we not be able to serve ourselves? But we do not -think the idea will bear development, and certainly many suffer enough -from an over-sensitiveness of nostril already to prevent them from -desiring any further cultivation of its powers. - -The Villino in June smells very good, however, and that is gratifying. -And to complete the catalogue there are the new pine shoots delicious -and aromatic, stimulating and healthy; a perfect aroma on a hot day. - -“Tell me your friends and I will tell you what you are,” says the sage; -it sounds like a dog, but the Padrona feels that with one sniff she can -sum up a character. - -When Tréfle Incarnat, or its last variant, takes you by the throat, you -needn’t look to see what kind of young woman is sitting beside you at -the theatre. - -And when a portly friend, resplendent in gorgeous sables, heralds -her approach with a powerful blast of Napthaline, you know the kind -of woman _she_ is, and that the word “friend,” just written, is -misapplied; for you never could make a friend of anyone so stuffily and -stupidly careful. - -And when you go to tea with an acquaintance--probably literary, living -in Campden Hill and fond of bead blinds--and the smell of joss-stick -floats upon the disgusted nostril from the doorway, you know the kind -of party you are going to have. Your hostess will have surrounded -herself with long-haired and dank-handed young men, the Postlethwaites -of the period, and brilliant young females who wear a mauvy powder over -rather an unwashed face, and curious garments cut square at the neck, -and turquoise matrix ear-rings, very much veined with brown! Besides -the joss-sticks there is cigarette smoke, and the atmosphere, morally -as well as physically, is fusty! - -Then there is the female who produces a bottle of Eau-de-Cologne on -board ship. If it isn’t a German governess, it is a heated person with -something purple about her and kid gloves--why pursue the horrid theme! - -Let us end this divagation by a little anecdote as true as it is -charming. It happened to a member of our own family. She was hurrying -along one foggy November morning to the Brompton Oratory rather -early; and the dreadful acrid vapour and the uncertain struggle of -a grimy dawn contended against the glimmer of the gas-lamps. As she -approached the steps of the church somebody crossed her, and instantly -the whole air was filled with an exquisite fragrance as of violets. -Involuntarily she started to look round, and her movement arrested, -too, the passer-by. For a second they stood quite close to each other, -and to our relative’s astonishment she saw only a small, meek-faced old -lady in an Early Victorian bonnet wrapped in a very dowdy dolman. - -The old lady gave a little smile and went her way. There was certainly -no adornment of real violets about her, and to look at her was enough -to be assured that artificial scents could never approach her. - -The incident seemed strange enough to be worth making investigations, -and the explanation was simple. The little old lady was very well -known; mother of priests, a ceaseless worker among the poor; nearly -eighty, and every day at seven o’clock Mass. Many people had remarked -the scent of violets about her, and her friends thought, laughingly, it -was because she was something of a saint. - -This sweet-smelling saint died as she had lived. She had received the -Last Sacraments; she knew her moments were numbered, but she sat up, -propped by pillows, and went on knitting for the poor till the needles -fell from her hands. - -If the story of the violets had not happened to a member of the family, -the Signora would be quite ready to believe it on hearsay, because -of the delicious simplicity and certain confidence of that placid -deathbed. - - - - -VIII - -OUR BLUE-COAT BOYS - - “Ils ont le bras en écharpe, et un bandeau sur l’œil, - Mais leur âme est légère et ils sourient ... - Ils s’en vont, grisés de lumière, - Etourdis par le bruit, - Traînant la jambe dans la poussière - Le nez au vent, le regard réjoui....” - - CAMMAERTS. - - -We asked them to tea; the Sister said that “the Matron said they -couldn’t do that”; but they could come for morning lunch about -half-past ten o’clock, and have bread-and-butter and see the garden. -And they would like to come very much indeed, preferably next day. The -Matron further opined about twelve would feel well enough to avail -themselves of our hospitality. - -It gave us very little time for preparation, and the baker declined -to provide us with buns so early. But it was very hot, fortunately; -so Mrs. McComfort set to work at dawn to prepare lemonade and fruit -salad, and immense slices of bread-and-jam. And we were very glad she -had been so lavish in her Irish generosity when we heard the sound of -voices and the tramping of feet in the courtyard: it seemed as if there -were a regiment of them! In reality there were only twenty--twenty -smiling, stalwart “blue-coat boys.” Some with an arm in a sling; two -or three limping along with the help of a stick; one with a bandaged -head; three, in spite of a brave front, with that look of strain and -tragedy in the eyes which stamps even those who have been only slightly -“gassed.” - -They are very much amused at the little outing, as pleased and -as easily diverted as children, not anxious to talk about their -experiences, but answering with perfect ease and simplicity any -question that is made to them on the subject. They are chiefly excited -over our little dogs. We wish that we had twenty instead of only -three; or that we had borrowed from a neighbour’s household for the -occasion. Every man wants to nurse a dog, and those who have secured -the privilege are regarded with considerable envy by the others. - -The younger members of the _famiglia_ are in a desperate state of -excitement, and there is a great flutter of aprons, and cheeks flame -scarlet under caps pinned slightly crooked in the agitation of the -moment. - -Miss Flynn the housemaid, Miss O’Toole the parlourmaid, are stirred to -rapture to discover an Irish corporal, wounded at Ypres. We think they -talk more of Tipperary--it really is Tipperary--than of Flanders. Miss -Flynn, a handsome, black-eyed, black-haired damsel, with a colour that -beats the damask roses on the walls of the Villino, has been born and -bred in England. She is more forthcoming than Miss O’Toole, who has the -true Hibernian reserve; who looks deprecatingly from under her fair -aureole of hair, and expects and gives the utmost respectfulness in all -her relations with the opposite sex. - -They say this lovely sensitive modesty of the Irish girl is dying out. -The penny novelette, the spread of emancipation and education--save the -mark!--facilities of communication, have done away with it. More’s the -pity if this be true, for it was a bloom on the womanhood of Ireland no -polish can replace; it added something incommunicably lovable to the -grace of the girls, something holy, almost august, to the tenderness of -the mothers. - -When the Signora was a child in Ireland the peasant wife still spoke -of her husband as “the master”; and in the wilds of Galway, quite -recently, she has seen the women in the roads pull their shawls over -their faces at the approach of a stranger. The humble matron of the -older type will still walk two paces behind her husband. These are, -of course, but indications of the austere conception of life which -an unquestioning acceptance of her faith kept alive in the breast of -the Irishwoman. When she promised to love and honour him, the husband -became _de facto_ “the master.” Yet the influence of the Irish wife -and mother in her own home in no way suffered from this conception of -her duty. She was as much “_herself_” upon the lips of her lord as he -“_himself_” upon hers. It used to be a boast that the purity of the -Irish maiden and the Irish mother was a thing apart, inassailable. The -Signora’s recollections of Ireland, of a childhood passed in a country -house that kept itself very much in touch with its poor neighbours and -dependants, bring her back many instances of drunkenness among the -men, alas! and the consequent fights and factions; of slovenliness -among the women, and hopeless want of thrift and energy; in one or two -instances, indeed, of flagrant dishonesty; but she never remembers a -single occasion marked by the shocked whisper, the swift and huddled -dismissal, or any of the other tokens by which a fall from feminine -virtue is mysteriously conveyed to the child mind. - -Among all the poor cottage homes, the various farms, great and small, -prosperous or neglected, each with their strapping brood of splendid -youth, never one can she recollect about whose name there was a -silence; never a single one of these dewy-eyed, fresh-faced girls that -did not carry the innocence of their baptism in the half-deprecating, -half-confident looks they cast upon “the quality.” - -Naturally there must have been exceptions; and naturally, too, this -state of affairs could not have applied to some of the more miserable -quarters of the towns. Nevertheless, the Ireland of a quarter of a -century ago had not forgotten she had once been called the Island of -Saints; and her mothers and daughters kept very preciously the vestal -flame alive in their pure breasts. - -Times have changed, and more’s the pity, as we have said. But now and -again a flower blooms as if upon the old roots, and though Mary O’Toole -is transplanted to England, we trust that she may keep her infantile -innocence and her exquisite--there is no English equivalent--_pudeur_. - -It was a picture to see her in her cornflower-blue cotton frock, with -her irrepressible hair tucked as tidily as nature would allow beneath -her white cap, staggering under the weight of a tray charged with -refreshments for the wounded. She is about five-foot nothing, with a -throat the average male hand could encircle with a finger and thumb, -but among the twenty soldiers, all of different ages, classes, and, of -course, dispositions, who visited us that day, there was not one but -regarded her with as much respect as if she had been six foot high and -as ill-favoured as Sally Brass--we hope, however, with considerably -more pleasure. - -When the blue-coat boys have been duly refreshed, they wander out into -the garden. They remind one irresistibly of a school, and there is -something tenderly droll in their complete submission to the little -plump sister, who orders them about with a soft voice and certain -authority. - -“No. 20, come out of the sun. No. 15, I’d rather you didn’t sit on the -grass.” - -Then she turns apologetically to us: “It isn’t that I don’t know it’s -quite dry.” (We should think it was, on our sandy heights, after five -weeks’ drought!) “But I never know quite where I am with the gassed -cases. That’s the worst of them. They’re perfectly well one day, and we -say, ‘Thank goodness, _that’s_ all over,’ and the next day its up in -his eyes, perhaps!” - -“I’ll never be the same man again,” suddenly exclaims a short, -saturnine young Canadian, who has not--a marked exception to the -others--once smiled since he came, and who keeps a dark grudge in his -eyes. He seems perfectly well, except for that curious expression, to -our uninitiated gaze, but his voice is weak and there is a languor -about his movements extraordinarily out of keeping with his build, -which is all for strength, like that of a young Hercules. - -“I’ll never be the same man again; I feel that. It’s shortened my life -by a many years. So it has with them over there.” He jerks his thumb -towards his comrades in misfortune. “They’ll none of them ever be the -same men again.” - -The Signora tries feebly to protest, but the nurse acquiesces placidly. -It is the hospital way, and not a bad way either; misfortunes are not -minimized, they are faced. - -The Signora has an unconquerable timidity where other people’s -reticences are concerned, and was far from emulating the amiable -audacity of a close relative--at present on a visit to the -Villino--whose voice she hears raised in the distance with query after -query: “Where was it? In your leg? Does it hurt? Do you mind? Do you -want to go back again?” But when she sees that the men indubitably like -this frank attack, and respond, smiling and stimulated, the silence of -her Canadian begins to weigh upon her. She tries him with a bashful -question: - -“Is your home in a town in Canada?” - -“No, not in a town. Three hundred and eighty miles away from the -nearest of any importance.” - -“Oh, dear! Then it must take you a long time to hear from your people.” - -The young harsh face darkens. - -The post only comes to his home out yonder once a week, anyhow, but -he hasn’t heard but once since he left. Not at all since he came to -England wounded. - -“Oh, dear!” exclaimed the Signora again, scenting a grievance. “But if -it’s so far away, you couldn’t have heard yet.” - -The lowering copper-hued countenance--it is curiously un-English, -and reminds one vaguely of those frowning black marble busts in the -Capitol: young Emperors already savagely conscious of their own -unlimited power--takes a deeper gloom. - -He could have heard. No. 9 had had a letter that morning, and _his_ -home was forty miles further north. - -“Had No. 9 a letter?” asks the little Sister. - -She sits plump and placid in her cloak, and looks like a dove puffing -out her feathers in the sunshine. We have said she has a cooing voice. - -“Yes, he had,” says the Canadian, and digs a vindictive finger into the -dry grass. - -The Signora, fearing the conversation is going to lapse, plunges into -the breach. - -“What was your work at home? Farming, I suppose.” - -This remark meets with an unexpected success. The poor, fierce -eyes--that seem never to have ceased from contemplation of unpardonable -injury since that day at Ypres when the fumes of hell belched up before -them--brighten. - -“Wa-al! I do sometimes this and sometimes that. I can do most things. -It’s just what I happen to want to put my hand to. I’m master of half a -dozen trades, I am. I’ve been on the farm, and I’m a blacksmith, and an -engineer on the railway; and a barber, and a butcher.” - -“Dear me!” says the little Sister. - -Her gaze is serenely fixed on the smiling green path. From the shadow -in which we sit, it leads to a slope out into the blaze of the -sunshine, where a cypress-tree rises like an immense green flame, -circled with a shimmer of light. But perhaps her tone conveys rebuke, -for our Canadian suddenly relapses into silence, from which we cannot -again entice him. - -A little further away a friend who is staying with us, and the relative -above mentioned, are listening with intense interest to the talk of a -tall, black-moustached soldier. His face is very pale under its bronze; -he is the worst of the three gas victims who have come to-day. It is -only what are called the very slight cases that are treated in the -hospital close by. - -A much older man this, who has been many years in the army and came -over with the Indian division. He has a gentle, thoughtful face. There -is no resentment in his eyes--only the look of one who has seen death -very close and does not forget--and a great languor, the mark of the -gas. He is talking very dispassionately of our reprisals. - -“Oh yes, we have used our gas, the freezing-gas! But it don’t seem -hardly worth while. It draws their fire so.” Then, with an everyday -smile and no more emotion in his tone than if he were descanting on a -mousetrap, he goes on to describe the incredibly sudden effect of what -he calls the freezing-gas, which we suppose to be the French Turpinite. -“It freezes you up, so to speak, right off on the spot. You see a -fellow standing, turning his head to talk to a fellow near him. He -lifts his hand, maybe, in his talk like; then comes along the gas, and -there he stands. You think he’s going on talking. He’s frozen dead, -his arm up, looking so natural-like, same as might be me this minute. -Oh, it’s quick! what you call instantaneous. But it ain’t ’ardly worth -while. The Germans, you see, it draws their fire so. Two or three times -we got it in among our own men--oh, by mistake, miss, of course!” This -in response to the horrified ejaculation of his interlocutor. “And that -didn’t seem ’ardly worth while.” - -Beyond this group, again, the daughter of the house, seated on a -croquet-box, is surrounded by three sprawling blue soldiers. One of -them is talking earnestly to her. The others are so much engaged in a -game of “Beggar my Neighbour” with three-year-old Vivi, the Belgian -baby, that they do not pay the smallest attention to their companion, -and yet what he is saying is horrible enough, startling enough, God -knows! The speaker is a fair, pleasant-looking boy with a cocked nose, -tightly curling auburn hair, and an air of vitality and energy that -makes it difficult to think of him as in anything but the perfection of -health. He is a territorial, and evidently belongs to that thinking, -well-educated, working class that has made such a magnificent response -to the country’s call. - -“No, miss, we are not taking many prisoners now. No, we’re not likely -to. Well, think of our case. Just one little bit out of the whole long -line. They caught our sergeant--the sergeant of my company. We were -all very fond of him. Well, miss, they put him up where we could all -see him--top of their trench--and tortured him. Yes, miss, all day -they tortured him in sight of us, and all day we were trying to get -at them and we couldn’t. And when in the evening we did get at them, -he was dead, miss. We were all very fond of him. We weren’t likely -to give much quarter after that. And our officers”--here he smiles -suddenly--“well, miss, we’re Territorials, you see. Our officers just -let us loose. We’re Territorials,” he repeated. “They can’t keep us -as they keep the regulars. Not in the same military way. No, miss, we -didn’t give much quarter!” - -Our daughter groans a little. She understands, she sympathizes, yet she -regrets. She would like our men to be as absolutely without reproach as -they are without fear. - -“But you wouldn’t bring yourself down to the level of the Germans,” she -says; “you wouldn’t cease doing right because they do wrong?” - -He fixes her with bright blue eyes, and they are hard as steel. - -“Your British blood will boil,” he says slowly. - -It seems impossible to associate such a dark and awful tragedy with -this slim English boy and his unconquerable air of joyous youth. The -Signorina remembers the repeated phrase, “We were all very fond of -him,” and she sickens from the thought of that hellish picture of -cruelty and agony on one side, of the impotent grief and rage on the -other. - -To change the subject, she says: - -“How were you wounded?” - -And then it transpired he had been carrying in the British wounded at -the end of that day. He had been hit in the leg without knowing it, and -just as he was starting off to help to carry in the German wounded, he -collapsed. - -_To help to carry in the German wounded!_ Those Germans who had -tortured his own comrade all day! Dear Tommy! Dear, straight, noble, -simple British soldier! How could one ever have mistrusted your rough -justice or your Christian humanity? - -Real boy that he is, he warms up to the glee of narrating his -audacities when out at night with a party on listening-post duty. - -“Rare fun it was,” he declares. - -He used to creep up to the enemy’s trench and bayonet what came handy. - -“I couldn’t fire, you see, miss, nor do anything likely to make a -noise, so it had to be done on the quiet. But I got a good many that -way.” - -Baby Vivi is tired of her game of cards. For a while past she has been -amusing herself by boxing the two sitting soldiers. Very well-delivered -vigorous thumps she applies on their chests with her little fists, -and they obligingly go over backwards on the grass. She now comes to -exercise her powers on the Territorial. He catches her in his arms. - -The men all look at the little girl with strange, troubled, tender -eyes. One knows what is at the back of their thought. One of them -expresses it presently. - -“To think that anyone could ever hurt a little creature like that!” - -Vivi’s young mother sits with her small group further away. She has -told them how she has fled out of her castle in the Ardennes at dawn, -without having had time even to pack her children’s clothes. They had -thought themselves safe with the pathetic hopefulness that filled poor -Belgium from the moment when the French troops and the English appeared -in strength upon the soil. “Now all is well,” they said; “now we are -safe.” - -A French General and his staff lodged in the château, and the men -camped in the park. On the vigil of the day fixed for their intended -advance, the General took her on one side. An old man, he had been -through the whole of the war of ’70. He solemnly warned her of the -folly of remaining in her home, as she intended. - -“Madame, I know the Germans. I know of what they are capable. I have -seen them at work; I have not forgotten.” - -Should the invader reach a certain point within ten miles of the -district she must fly. - -All that night the aviators kept coming with messages, and in the early -dawn they started. She was up and saw the cavalcade winding away -through the park. She stood in the porch to wish them God-speed. The -young men were full of ardour. They were going forth to meet the enemy. -The General was grave. When he had reached the public road, he sent -one of his aide-de-camps riding back at a gallop. Was it a premonition -of disaster, or had secret news reached him by some emissary from the -field of conflict? The message to her was, that she was to be gone at -once with her family. At once! - -The young husband had already departed at break of day in their -automobile. He and his machine had been offered to the service of the -country and accepted. The mother, with her four little children--among -them the sturdy, two-year-old Viviane--had to walk to the station, with -what luggage could be got together and trundled down in a wheelbarrow. -Luckily it was not far--their own station just outside the park-gates. -They got the last train that ran from that doomed spot. The German guns -were within earshot as they steamed away. - -In their hurry they had forgotten to bring any milk or water for the -baby girl. The heat was suffocating. The only thing that could be laid -hold of was a bottle of white wine which someone had thrust into a -bag. Vivi clamoured, and they gave her half a glassful in the end. She -enjoyed it very much, and it did not disagree with her at all. - -The men in their blue garb listen to some of this story with profound -attention. They have a very touching, respectful, earnest way of -talking to the Belgian lady, and are very anxious to impress upon her -that soon they will have her country cleared of the enemy. - -“You tell her that, miss. She do believe it, don’t she? We’re going to -sweep them out in no time. Tell her that, miss. That’s what we’re over -there for. She’ll soon be able to get back there--back in her own home.” - -One of them gazes at her for a while in a kind of brooding silence, and -then says huskily: - -“Isn’t it a mercy you got away, ma’am--you and your little children!” - -He knows. He has seen. - -Then Viviane is called upon to sing “Tipperary.” - -Though only just three, this child, as has been said before, she looks -a sturdy four. The most jovial solid, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, smiling, -curly-haired little girl that it is possible to imagine. Her mother -says that she never lost her balance and tumbled down even when she -first began to toddle; and one can well believe it. There is a mixture -of strength and deliberation in everything she does that makes one -regret she is not a boy. But she has pretty, coaxing, coquettish ways -that are quite feminine. - -She now puts her head on one side, and ogles with her blue eyes -first one soldier and another, and smiles angelically as she pipes -“Tipperary.” - -This is a favourite song among the infant population these days. The -child of a friend of ours calls it her hymn, and sings it in church. - -There is something really engaging in Viviane’s roll of the “r’s.” -Her Tipperary is very guttural and conscientious, and her “Good-bye, -Piccadeely” always provokes the laughter of admiration. - -Encouraged by applause, she bursts into, “We don’t want to lose you, -but we think you ought to go.” And is quite aware, the little rogue, -of the effect she will presently produce when, upon an incredibly high -note, she announces, “We will _keess_ you.” - -After this, she breaks into piety with, “Paradise, oh! Paradise.” - -The little plump nurse gets up and shakes out her cloak. It is getting -quite late, and they must go back to the hospital. She marshals her -charges up on the terrace. They obey her just as if they were very good -little boys in charge of their schoolmistress. - -“Now say good-bye, and thank you. I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed -yourselves. No. 20, where’s your hat? Go down and get your hat, No. 20. -No; his poor leg’s tired. You go down and get it, No. 13.” - -“I seen it a while ago,” No. 13 announces obligingly. - -They say “good-bye” and “thank you” with the conscientiousness of their -simple hearts. We shake, one after the other, those outstretched hands -that grip back so cordially. - -A guest of the Villino--an honoured guest, who is not only one of the -most distinguished women artists of the day, but has lived all her -married life within sound of the drum; who has been always inspired -by the sights and scenes, the high glories and noble disasters of -warfare--expresses the feeling struggling in our hearts as she retains -the hand of the last of the file of blue-coats in hers: “What an honour -to shake the hand of a British soldier!” - -We hear them troop away through the little courtyard, laughing and -talking. We think, as the small nurse said, that they have had a -pleasant time. - - * * * * * - -One of the small side amusements in life is to hear other people’s -reflections upon experiences that one has lived through together, and -to measure the distance that lies between different points of view. It -makes one realize how extraordinarily difficult it must be to obtain -reliable evidence. - -A neighbour has obligingly come in to help us with the entertainment. -She is the pleasant, middle-aged Irish widow of an Irish doctor, -and her good-humour is as pronounced as her brogue. Finding herself -alone on the terrace with the Signorina after the departure of the -convalescents, she mystified her with the following remark: - -“How frightened the poor old lady was!” - -The poor old lady? The Signorina was all at sea. There was no one -answering to such a description among us to-day. - -“The poor old lady,” repeated the other firmly. “Yes, Lady ----. -I was talking to her, and oh! anybody could see how terrified she -was. Nervous, you know; trembling at the mention of the war, upset, -shrinking away. And no wonder, I’m sure,” she concluded genially. -“Hasn’t she got a son out there?” - -She betook herself down the steps towards her cottage. Our daughter -watched the purple-spotted blouse meandering downwards from terrace to -terrace till it disappeared. She was too astounded even to be able to -remonstrate. - -And, indeed, of what use would it have been? That Lady ----, -distinguished, humorous, with her figure erect and slender as a girl’s, -and her refined, delightful face stamped with genius on the brow, and -with the most delicate humour about the mouth; that this incomparable -woman, actually in the zenith of her power, personal as well as -artistic, a being whom it seems that age can never touch, to whom the -years have so far only brought a maturing of all kinds of excellence, -should have appeared to anyone as the _poor old lady_! And that she -should be further classed among the frightened! She who more than any -fighter of them all sees the romance of war, the high lesson of war; -who only the day before, speaking of a discontented soldier friend, had -said to us in tones of wonder: - -“He’s not enjoying war! It seems so strange.” - -There was nothing for it but to laugh. But what an insight into the -manner in which “other people see us.” - -In the Signora’s early teens her family indulged in a Dublin season, -during which a very worthy prelate, the Cardinal Archbishop of her -Church, died. He was full of years and good works, but at no moment of -his existence remarkable for good looks. - -A sprightly housemaid of the establishment demanded permission to go -and visit the church where he was laid out in state. On her return the -Padrona’s mother inquired how the sight had impressed her, expecting a -duly pious response. - -Quoth the damsel, with her brisk Dublin accent: - -“Well, really, ’m, I thought the Cawdinal looked remawkably well!” - -As a rule, however, the Irish lower classes are more quick to seize -shades of feeling, refinements of emotion, than the poor of other -races; especially--to hark back to a former page--that peasantry of the -older type in which a vivid spirituality was kept alive by their faith. -A chaplain has written to us from the Isle of Wight speaking of the -immense consolation he had had in the presence of some Irish soldiers -among the troops stationed there. “Their faith made me ashamed.” - -But indeed the feeling of religion among all our men, of whatever -creed, and from whatever part of the British Isles they have come, is -not one of the least remarkable manifestations of the war. - -“I knew I would not be killed,” said a wounded soldier beside whose bed -we sat the other day. “But I knew I’d come back a better man, and I -think I have.” - -Then he added that the only thing that troubled them, lying in -hospital, was the thought of the comrades in the thick of it, and not -being able to help them. - -“Of course,” he went on thoughtfully, “we can pray. We all do that, of -course; we do pray, and we know that helps.” - -This man was neither Irish nor Catholic. - -Infinitely touching are the remarks they make, these dear fellows; -beautiful sometimes in their unconscious heroism. - -“Well, at least,” said the Signorina to a man permanently crippled by -shrapnel, saddened by the decision that he could never go back to the -front. “At least you know you’ve done your little bit.” - -“Ah, but you see, miss,” he answered in all simplicity, “among us -the saying goes, no one has really done his little bit till he’s -underground.” - -“Will you mind going back?” said a rather foolish friend of ours to an -exhausted, badly wounded sufferer in a Dublin hospital. He had seen -Mons and its horrors, all the brutality of war with little of its -concomitant glory. The eyes in his drawn face looked up at her steadily. - -“If it’s my dooty, lady, I’m ready to go.” - -“I’d give my other leg to go back,” said a maimed lad to Lady ----. He -was in a hospital at Lyndhurst, a fair, splendid boy, not yet eighteen. - -“Don’t make me too soft, Sister,” pleaded an Irish Fusilier with five -bullet wounds in his back, to his kindly nurse in the little convent -hospital near here. “I’ve got to finish my job out there.” - -At a recent lecture delivered on “Five Months with the British -Expeditionary Force”--his own experience--Professor Morgan made use of -these remarkable words: “Our men count no cost too high in the service -of the nation. They greet death like a friend, and go into battle as to -a festival.” - -What wonder, then, that there should be such an unshakable spirit of -confidence throughout the whole of our army, for with conscience at -peace, and eyes fixed on their high ideal, they go forth to fight, -knowing that, as a great preacher has said, those who do battle in a -just cause already carry the flame of victory on their foreheads. - - - - -IX - -IT’S A FAR CRY TO PERSIA - - “Come, my tan-faced children, - Follow well in order, get your weapons ready! - Have you your pistols?--Have you your sharp-edged axes? - - * * * * * - - For we cannot tarry here--we must march, my darlings; - we must bear the brunt of danger! - - * * * * * - - O resistless, restless race! O beloved race in all! O, my breast - Aches with tender love for all! - O, I mourn and yet exult. I am rapt with love for all!” - - WALT WHITMAN. - - -The master of the Villino got the telegram when he was shaving, that -morning of October 26. - - “Slightly wounded. Going London.--H.” - -He came straight in to the Signora, who instantly read all kinds of -sinister meanings into the reticent lines. - -Slightly wounded! H. would be sure to say that whatever had happened. -Even if he had lost an arm or a leg he might very well try and break it -to us in some such phrase. There were certainly grounds for consolation -in the fact that he should be “going London,” but were not the papers -full of accounts of the felicitous manner in which the transport of -very serious cases was being daily accomplished? - -The only brother and very precious! Always in the Signora’s -mind--stalwart, middle-aged man as he is--doubled by and impossible -to dissociate from a little fair-haired boy, the youngest of the -family, endeared by a thousand quaint, childish ways. That he should be -wounded, suffering Heaven knew what unknown horror of discomfort and -pain, was absurdly, but unconquerably to her heart, the hurting of the -child. Alas! if an elder sister feels this, what must the agony of the -mothers be all through the world to-day! - -We telephoned to the clearing station at Southampton, and found that -the ambulance train had already started. Then the master of the -Villino, and the sister whose home is with us, determined to leave for -London themselves and endeavour to trace our soldier. - -It was late in the afternoon when a comforting telegram came through to -those left behind; it told us that H. had been run to earth; that the -wound was indeed favourable; that he was well in health, and that we -might expect him here to be nursed in a couple of days. - -Very glad the Villino was to have him, very proud of its own soldier, -deeply thankful to be granted the care of him! - -The Signorina immediately instituted herself Red Cross nurse, the local -lectures having borne fruit after all. The wound was for us and for him -a very lucky one, but the doctor called it dreadful, and, indeed, one -could have put one’s hand into it; and Juvenal, summoned to assist at -the first dressing, fainted at the sight. But it had not touched any -vital point, and though the muscle under the shoulder-blade was torn in -two, it has left no weakness in the arm. - -Like all soldiers we have met, he will not hear of the suggestion that -it was inflicted by a dum-dum bullet. Nevertheless, it is a singular -fact that where the bullet went in the hole is the ordinary size of -the missile, and where it came out it is the size of a man’s fist. -Something abnormal about that German projectile there must have been. -But we were ready to go down on our knees and thank God fasting for -a good man’s life; and it was clear that it would take a long time to -heal! - -Anyone who knows our soldiers knows the perfectly simple attitude -of their minds as far as their own share in the great struggle is -concerned. Further, they have an everyday, common-sense, unexaggerated -manner of speaking of their terrible experiences which helps us -stay-at-homes very much--we who are apt to regard the front as a -nightmare, hell and shambles mixed. - -“We were a bit cut up that day, but we got our own back with the -bayonet.” - -“Well, they took our range rather too neatly, but man for man Tommy’s a -match for the Hun any day, even if we were short of shells.” - -“Poor lads! they had to trot off before they’d had their breakfast--a -six-mile walk and stiff work to follow--after three days and three -nights of it below Hollebeke. We’d been sent back for a rest when the -message came; but the men didn’t mind anything, only the loss of the -breakfast. ‘Such a good breakfast as it was, sir,’ as one of them said -to me. Six o’clock in the morning and a six-mile march! A few of the -fellows clapped their bacon into their pockets. The line was broken -and the Germans coming in. Someone had to drive them out, and the -Worcesters came handy.” - -“Oh yes, we did it all right; running like smoke they were, -squealing--they can’t stand the bayonet!” - -That was the “little bit” where our soldier got his wound. - -“It’s nothing at all, me child.” - -His sergeant dressed it first at the back of the firing-line, then he -walked into Ypres. He went to the hospital, found it crowded--‘Lots -of fellows worse than I was’--so he strolled away and had his hair -cut!--“A real good shampoo and a shave, and a bath, and then a jolly -good dinner!” And then he proceeded to look up some nice fellows of the -Irish Horse. And in the end he went back to the hospital, and they “did -him up!” - -When one thinks that in peace time, if anyone had accidentally received -such a wound, what a fuss there would have been! What a sending for -doctors and nurses! what long faces! what lamentations, precautions, -and misgivings! It makes one understand better the state of things over -there. How splendidly indifferent our manhood has become to suffering! -How gloriously cheap it holds life itself! - -H. is happily not among those unfortunate brave men who suffer nervous -distress from the sights, the scenes, and the strain of warfare, but he -has a keen, almost a poetic, sensibility to the romance and tragedy of -his experiences. - -As he sat, those November days, in one of the deep arm-chairs before -the great bricked hearth in the Villino library, a short phrase here -and there would give us a picture of some episode which stamped itself -upon the memory of the listener. - -“Lord, it was jolty, driving along in the ambulance to the station! The -poor boy next to me--badly wounded, poor chap! lost a lot of blood--he -got faint and lay across my breast; went to sleep there in the end.” - -“Shells? ’Pon me word, it was beautiful to see them at night! Oh, -one’s all right, you know, if one keeps in one’s trenches. One of my -subalterns--ah, poor lad! I don’t know what took him--he got right -out of the trench and stood on the edge, stretching himself. A shell -came along and bowled him over. We dug him out. He was an awfully -good-looking boy. There wasn’t a scratch on him, but he was stone dead; -his back broken. And there he lay as beautiful as an angel. The Colonel -and I, we buried him. He was twenty-three; just married. The Colonel -and I used to bury our men at night.” - -Suddenly the speaker’s shoulders shook with laughter. - -“Those shells! One of my fellows had one burst within a yard of him. -Lord, I thought he was in pieces! He was covered in earth and rubbish! -‘Has that done for you?’ I called out to him. ‘I think it has, sir,’ he -said, and you should have seen him clutching himself all over! And then -there was a grin. ‘No, sir, it’s only a bruise!’ Oh, you get not to -mind them, except one kind; that does make a nasty noise--a real nasty -noise; it was just that noise one minded. Ugh, when you heard it coming -along! Spiteful, it was!” - -In the private London hospital where he spent three days the bed next -to him was occupied by a Major of Artillery, wounded in the head. - -“There was not much wrong with him, poor old chap! but he had got a -bit of nerve-strain. Lord, he never let me get a wink, calling out all -night in his sleep: ‘D---- that mist! I can’t see the swine. A bit more -to the left. Now, now, boys, now we’ve got them! Oh, damn that mist! -Ha! we got them that time--got the swine!’” - -The doctors who saw our soldier were rather surprised to find him so -calm in his mind. They could scarcely believe he should sleep so sound -at nights--that the human machine should be so little out of gear. Yet -there were days when he called himself “slack,” looked ill enough, and -one could see that even a short walk was a severe trial of strength. - -We shall not lightly forget a funny little incident which happened upon -an afternoon when he seemed peculiarly exhausted. He was sitting in his -arm-chair close to the fire, looking grey and drawn, declaring that -the north-east wind never agreed with him. A kindly clerical neighbour -rushed in upon us. He had just heard that fifty thousand Germans had -landed at Sheringham. All the troops were under orders. Despatch riders -had galloped from Aldershot to stop the billeting of a regiment just -arrived here. The men had started up in the middle of their dinners and -begun to pack again. They were to go back to Aldershot and concentrate -for the great move. Further--indisputable authority!--the Chief -Constable of the county had private information of the invasion. - -You should have seen our soldier! He was up out of his chair with a -spring, his blue eyes blazing. All the languor, the unacknowledged -stiffness and ache of his wound, were gone. If ever there was a -creature possessed with the pure joy of battle it was he. How much the -womenkind miss who have never seen their men leading a charge! What a -vital part of a man’s character lies dormant in times of peace! - -There is, we believe, a large number of people who regard this fighting -spirit as a purely animal quality; recently, indeed, a certain -professor delivered a lecture on the subject of wild dogs and wolves -who fight in packs, with special reference to the present state of -humanity. These thinkers, sitting at ease in their armchairs, placid -materialists, who have never known their own souls, much less do they -know those of their countrymen. What we saw in our soldier’s eyes was, -we swear, the leap of the spirit--the fine steel of the soul springing -out of the scabbard of the body, the fire from the clay. Carlyle has -somewhere a lovely phrase anent that spark of heroism that will burn in -the heart of the lowest British soldier, the poorest, dullest peasant -lad, and make of him hero and martyr, enable him to face long agony and -death, endure as well as charge. - -So H. flung off his languor and dashed out of his armchair and sprang -to the telephone to order himself a car, and presently departed, -already invisibly armed, in search of--this time--an invisible foe. For -the foe was invisible! - -No one knew whence the scare had come; whether there were any real -justification for the preparations which were certainly ordered. The -regiment which had had to pack up again just as it had got into its -billets, and go back to Aldershot in the very middle of its dinner, was -kept under arms all night; but there was never the point of a single -_Pickelhaube_ visible on the horizon at Sheringham or elsewhere. And -on examination it turned out that the “Chief Constable” of the county, -that unimpeachable and alarming authority, had been none other than -the local policeman, which was a comedown indeed! But the thrill was -not altogether unpleasant, and we like to remember the sick soldier -springing up, that St. Michael fire in his blue eyes. - - * * * * * - -In a short account written for his school magazine, H. summarizes the -experiences of his own regiment at Ypres thus: - -“All the officers in my company are wounded or invalided. The men are -very cheerful under all the hardships and losses, and their behaviour -under fire is splendid. The Brigade (5th) has been taken three times -at least to ‘mend the line’ where the Germans had broken through. -From October 24 to November 5 my regiment lost about 450 officers and -men--mostly, thank God, wounded. The Germans can’t shoot for nuts, but -their artillery fire is accurate and _incessant_, and the machine-guns -very deadly.” - - * * * * * - -There is nothing more touching than the devotion of the officers to -their men. They feel towards them truly as if they were their children. - -“No officer,” said the widow of a great general to us the other day, -“ever thinks of himself in action, ever casts a thought to the bullets -flying about him. Indeed, the officers don’t seem to believe they can -get hit; they’re so occupied in looking after their men. All the time -they’re looking at their men.” - -Even as we write these lines we see the death, in the Dardanelles, of -a young officer who had been under H. when he was training reserves -during his recent period of convalescent home service. This youth was, -in our brother’s eyes, the perfection of young manhood. He prophesied -for him great things. He told us many stories of his quaint humour and -incisive wit. One anecdote remains. Among their recruits were between -twenty and thirty extremely bad characters--slack, undisciplined -fellows, worthless material belonging almost to the criminal classes. -After working in vain with all his energy to endeavour to put some kind -of soldierly discipline into them, young W. paraded them in the barrack -yard, and addressed them in the following language: - -“His Majesty’s Government cannot afford nowadays to spend money -uselessly. You are a dead waste to the nation. You are not worth the -food you get nor the clothes you wear. It has been decided, therefore, -to send you to the front; and, as every man is bound to do his utmost -to help his country in the present crisis, it is earnestly to be hoped -that you will, each one of you, endeavour to get himself shot as soon -as possible.” - -We understand that the result of this stringent discourse on that “bad -hat” squad was miraculous, although the sergeant-major was so overcome -with mirth that he had to retire to give vent to it. - -This boy had been serving in the East in a wild and difficult district, -and had distinguished himself so remarkably that he was summoned to the -Foreign Office to advise upon an expedition which it was proposed to -send to those regions. Never was there any life so full of promise. Gay -and gallant youth, it seems a cruel decree that the bullet of some vile -Turk should have had the power to rob England of a son so likely to do -her signal honour and service in the future. “It is the best that are -taken”--a phrase sadly familiar just now that finds only too true an -echo in everyone’s experience. - -There was another, whom we had known from the time when he was an -apple-cheeked little boy in petticoats--a sunny, level-headed child, -who gave the minimum of trouble and the maximum of satisfaction to -his parents from the moment of his appearance on this earth. All his -short life always busy, always happy. His mother said that she had -never seen a frown of discontent on his face. Head boy at Harrow, where -the authorities begged to be allowed to keep him on another year for -the sake of the good example he gave; writer of the prize essay three -years running; winner of all the cups for athletics; champion boxer -and fencer--with these brilliant qualities he had--rare combination -indeed!--a steady, well-balanced mind. With high ideals he had a sober -judgment. He was but twenty. With all these achievements--splendid -lad!--he fell leading his platoon of Highlanders at Aubers upon that -most ill-fated, most tragic 9th of May. - -“I always wanted my son to be just like Keith”--more than one friend -gave this tribute to the stricken father. - -Characteristic of the unchanged romantic mysticism that lies deep in -the hearts of the Scots--Scots of the glens and hills--are the words in -which the local paper refers to the loss which had befallen the country -in the death of the gallant young officer: “He died like a Stewart: he -dreed his weird, he drank the cup of his race!” - -It is the fine flower of our young manhood that is being mown down. -What is to become of England, robbed of her best? It seems such waste -and loss; we who cannot fight feel at times as if the pressure of -such calamity “doth make our very tears like unto bloode.” But we -must believe that it is not waste, but seed; that the nations who sow -in tears will reap in joy; that each of these young lives, so gladly -given, shares in the redemption of the country; that, in all reverence, -in all faith, that they are mystically united to Calvary; and that -their glory will be presently shown forth even as in the glory of -resurrection! - -A correspondent writing from the front describes the expression in the -eyes of the friendly officer, who has been his guide, as he pointed out -the myriad crosses of the burial-ground. “He looked envious,” he says, -and adds that he noticed that all out there “speak with envy of the -dead.” - -Is not the nation’s honour sharpened to its finest point when the ideal -of its manhood is to die for the country? _Dulce et decorum...._ - -We were very glad, nevertheless, when, in spite of his repeated -applications to return to his own men, H. was ordered to take a command -in the Persian Gulf. The link that binds a man to comrades with whom -he has shared every possible danger and hardship, to those who have -faced death with him, whom he has himself led on to peril and agony, -the while they have been to him as his children--such a link is indeed -one that is hard to break! Their peril has been his; their glory is his -pride. - -“If I can single out one regiment for special praise,” said the -Commander-in-Chief, “it is the Worcesters.” - -And again: - -“I consider the Worcesters saved Europe on that day.” - -It is no wonder that H. should be proud of them; that the thousand -fibres should draw him back to them. - -But, when the summons came, he was told “to prepare for a hot climate.” -And then, of all strange things, or so it seemed to us, we found -that his destination was Persia. The Garden of Eden! Further, it was -rumoured, the objective was likely to be Bagdad. It sounded like a -fairy tale. He promised us Attar of Roses; and indeed, we think, -carpets. And a flippant niece wrote to him that she was sure that by a -little perseverance he could find a magic one, and come sailing across -the sky some night after duty, like the merchant in the Arabian nights. -She added: “And do bring me a hanging garden, if you can.” But when the -parting came it was a very cruel reality. It’s a far cry to Persia! - -He started on the day of the sinking of the _Lusitania_; a date branded -on the history of the world till the end of all time. The two who had -gone to fetch him and brought him home--so contented in their tender -anxiety that he was safely wounded--saw him on board the great liner. - -Many Indians returning to Bombay, a few officers ordered to his own -destination, a batch of nurses for Malta, and one or two ladies -hurrying to their sons wounded in the Dardanelles--these were all his -fellow-passengers. - -It somewhat restored our confidence, shaken by the facile success of -the monstrous crime, to know that they were to be convoyed a certain -way, and that they had a gun on board. Nevertheless, they were not to -escape menace. - -“The evening we started,” he wrote, “I asked the steward if they had -seen any submarines about. ‘No, sir,’ he admitted reluctantly. Then -brightened up, anxious to oblige, ‘But we have seen a lot of luggage -floating about--trunks and clothes, sir.’” - -(It was obvious no passenger need give up hope; and, indeed, the letter -posted at Gibraltar continues):-- - -“I have had no occasion to use your lifesaving waistcoat yet, though, -as a matter of fact, we _had_ a small-sized adventure with a submarine. -At dinner on Monday we felt that they had suddenly altered the ship’s -course. It appears that a submarine was spotted about five hundred -yards away. The captain slewed the vessel round to bring our one gun to -bear on her. However, the smoke obscured our view, and the submarine -must have seen our gun, as she disappeared.” - -Then comes an anecdote, dreadfully characteristic of our happy-go-lucky -English ways, a comedy that might have been--for this house, at least, -God knows!--the direst tragedy. - -“Next day,” he continues, “we had gun practice, but it turned out that -none of the gun’s crew knew how to work her; and after fumbling for -about two hours, a passenger came along and showed them how to manage -her, and fired her off. We all cheered.” - -The next stage on that lengthening journey that is to take him so -unrealizably far away from us is Malta. The place laid its spell upon -him, though at first he writes: - -“From the ship both islands looked most unprepossessing: dry, arid, -khaki-coloured lumps, full of khaki-coloured buildings. Once on shore -one begins to love the place. The buildings, fortifications, and -general spirit are most inspiring and grandiose. One expects to see -some proud old Templar riding down the gay streets, looking neither to -the right nor left. I had no time to do any of the right Cathedrals, -where there are wonderful paintings by Michael Angelo, etc., nor -the Grand Master’s Palace Armoury, with the knight’s armour, nor the -Inquisitor’s Palace. I went off to look for wounded Worcesters from the -Dardanelles. I had no time to see anything else as the hospital was a -long way off. - -“Every hole and corner is turned into a beautiful garden, with lovely -flowers and ‘penetrating scents,’ fountains, and shady palms and trees. - -“How you would revel in the churches! They are more numerous than in -Rome, and quite beautiful. The people, too, are intensely religious. - -“There are many French shops here, and the French women look tawdry -beside the Maltese, with their wonderful black cloaks and reserved -aristocratic air. - -“I am sending you a weird map full of quaint spelling, given to me -by a wounded Worcestershire (4th Batt.) sergeant, at the hospital at -Malta, and a rough idea of the difficulties of the landing. Early on -one Monday morning, about 1 a.m., the ships got into position round the -promontory, with the troop lighters behind. About 4 a.m. the latter -were towed off during a bombardment such as never has been heard or -seen before in the history of the world. - -“The Turks did not reply till the boats got quite close to shore and -the ships’ guns could not fire on the located maxims (which were sunk -in deep, narrow slips close to the shore). As far as I gathered, the -Lancashire Fusiliers were the first actually to get on shore on the -extreme left at Tekki Barna, where they charged with the bayonet and -the Turks retired. They were able to enfilade a good portion of the -ground, and enabled the Essex and 4th Worcesters, both of whom had -suffered very heavily from Maxim fire, to land and drive the Turks -back. Three boatloads of Dublin Fusiliers were wiped out by gun and -Maxim fire near Ish Messarer point. The Lancashire Fusiliers suffered -rather badly from the fire of some of our ships’ guns, which, of -course, could not be helped. - -“The Worcesters were sent up to help the Essex, and advanced against -some barbed wire, which a young subaltern called Wyse volunteered to -cut. He rolled over sideways till he got under the wire and cut it from -strand to strand upwards. As he got to the last strand a sniper shot -off two fingers in successive shots. - -“The snipers had their faces painted green to harmonize with the -surroundings, and were calmly surrendering as we advanced, having -picked off numbers of men. They were all shot, however, _pour -encourager les autres_. - -“My sergeant was shot in the hip that evening, but he told me that by -Wednesday the troops had secured Envedos, a most important position, -and the safe landing of stores and guns was thus secured. - -“He said the Turks either ran from the bayonet or surrendered. The -prisoners said they did not want to fight, but were forced to do so by -the Germans. - -“The ships are in their more or less correct position in the map, the -sergeant says, as he took trouble to find out from a naval chart.” - -From Malta to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Aden, and from thence to -Bombay. His letters mark each point of his Odyssey. And at Alexandria -he is fascinated with the movement and colour; he goes on shore and -visits the shops; he parts from the delightful American lady who has -been the life and soul of the ship; she whose wounded son awaits her -in Cairo. At Aden, the heat striking at them from the shore prevents -him from landing; an unattractive torrid spot. Here they take in a -young Indian Government official, who gives an interesting detail upon -his destination: - -“He knew Wilcox very well, the man who was going to make the barrage -on the Euphrates and Tigris, and convert Mesopotamia into the richest -country in the world. Wilcox said he found all the details given in the -Bible about the various depths and breadths of the rivers absolutely -accurate--curious after all these centuries!” - -At Bombay he has a pleasant time; a brother officer having wired to -relations who take him about and show him what is most worth seeing -in his short stay. He puts up at the Bombay Yacht Club, “wonderful -place, like fairyland, with palms and fountains and music, with cool, -quiet rooms looking out over wide and lovely views.” He goes on long -drives “under trees that grow for miles and miles along the sea coast, -where the graceful-moving natives in their bright colours look awfully -picturesque.” - -He sees the famous towers of silence where, with effective, but no -doubt quite unconscious, alliteration, he describes “the ghoulish -vultures sitting grimly in the glorious gold mohur trees.” - -His last letter says: “I start on Sunday for Bosra.” - -He believes that they will remain at Bosra, and makes little of the -fact that the heat is terrible there just now. - -“We will live in cool underground rooms,” he says, “and be all right!” - -And now we know that we shall not have news of him again for a long -time. A thousand anxieties assail us, for which we can have no -reassurance. We picture him in that strange region, but realize that of -its strangeness we can form no real image. - -He will see the dead cities and the great desert wastes and the -swamps--it is in those swamps under the merciless sun that our terror -lies; he will deal with a fierce and treacherous people whose thoughts -are not as our thoughts, whose motives and beliefs are irreconcilably -alien; and this dangerous race is fermenting under the influences, the -money, the lies, the ceaseless open and secret poison leaven of a race -more treacherous, more dangerous still. - -Blinding sunshine, black shadows, arid stretches of dried earth and -mud and burnt vegetation; the colour of the Eastern crowd, the river -waters and the harbour stretch; the Arab and the Kurd, the Turk, the -Armenian, and the Jew, sights and scenes and creatures that have been -but as names to us, are about him. He has followed the drum from Cape -Town to Magaliesburg, from Bloemfontein to Bethlehem, from Gibraltar to -Cork, from Soupir to Ypres, from Ypres to Plymouth, and from Plymouth -to the Euphrates; he has left his cool, green Ireland, his hunting and -his fishing, his own wide acres and the rural life among his beasts for -this picturesque, unknown, uncertain destiny! - -Often in the long hot hours will not his mind go back to those -stretches of shady, luxuriant park land where his cattle feed; to the -great lime avenue with the voice of the bees; the circle of the purple -hills, the woods, those incomparable woods of our old home with their -cool depths of bracken, silver green; the dells, the climbing roads, -the view over the “deer-park” to the sunset, which impressed even our -childish imaginations; the voice of the wild pigeons through the trees; -and the immense white house--empty--which before this war broke out, he -was about to furnish; the corridors, the vast rooms full of memories; -latterly, to us, of hopes. His heart will be there, we know. - -And his home is guarded by his faithful Spanish servant, who followed -him, out of love, from those far Gibraltar days of his young soldier’s -life; who, when a legacy made of him a comparatively rich man, refused -to profit of it, and sent the money back to a distant relative in -Spain, saying: “What do I want of it? You, my master, you, my father, -you, my mother, you, my country, you, all I want!” Pedro, by a singular -freak of fate, ruling this Irish land with an equal zeal and ability, -writes to us: “I pray my dere master may come home safe. I have great -hope in Our Lady, the Mother of God.” - -What is left to us, too, but a similar trust? We can but commend him to -the Father of All that He may overshadow him with His shoulders; that -the sun should not burn him by day, nor the moon by night; that he may -be guarded from the arrow that flieth by day, from the assault of the -evil one in the noontide! - - - - -X - -A THREE DAYS’ CHRONICLE - - “Happy in England! I could be content - To see no other verdure than its own: - To feel no other breezes than are blown - Through the tall woods with high romances blent; - Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment - For skies Italian....” - - KEATS. - - -_June 29, 1915._--The feast of Peter and Paul comes round with a -new significance. In war time we learn the meaning of so much that -has seemed unimportant; of things hidden away at the back of our -consciousness--things neglected, unknown, or even despised--and we -learn, too, the worthlessness of so much that has seemed paramount and -necessary, desirable and precious. War is a stern master. He teaches -above all the relative values; how to weigh the greater against the -less; how to fling away with one superb gesture the whole sum of human -possessions for a single imperishable prize. - -“What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the -loss of his own soul?” - -He who spoke these words gently to a handful of poor Jews now seems to -cry them with a voice of thunder from end to end of the earth. - -Thus, this, their festival day, brings the two great champions of the -Cross--and it is for Christ and the Cross that every son of England -is fighting to-day--before our minds with a singular vividness and -nearness: Peter, type of the natural man, untutored; sure of himself -and of his own good impulses, of the honest purpose of his guileless -heart; impetuous, loving, weak, with all purely human weakness, even -to betrayal; and--divinely strengthened--Peter the rock, Peter the -fisherman who conquered the world! Paul, the Patrician, the apostle -born out of due time, whose ardour is all of the intellect, keen as -a blade and burning as a flame; the little man of Tarsus upon whose -spirit the teaching of all Christianity reposes as firmly to-day as -does the Church upon the stone of Peter; Paul, whom the Captain, Christ -Himself, enlisted by the miraculous condescension of a personal appeal. -Has not every Christian, whatever his creed, vowed them reverence -throughout all the ages? To-day, may not the eyes of the believer look -up to them with a new confidence? - -The Signora, lying through a wakeful night and thinking of these -things, went with a rush of memory back to Rome, to scenes and -experiences and thoughts dominated by the memories of the two chief -apostles. - -There is nothing more characteristic of their lives than the different -manners of their death. Peter is Peter to the end; first yielding to -the natural impulse, then, by virtue of the grace of God, returning -upon himself and leaping to the highest altitude of superhuman -sacrifice. In the whole tradition of the Church there is no legend -more touching than that which tells us how Peter, flying out of Rome, -met the Christ carrying the Cross. It is the original Peter in all -his guilelessness who, unstartled by the vision, with the perfect -simplicity of his faith, asks: “_Domine quo vadis?_” And it is the -sublime founder of the Church of God who, unquestioning, accepts the -Master’s rebuke, and retraces his steps to face his Lord’s torment with -the added agony his own holy humility demands. - -Every pilgrim to Rome has knelt or stood, prayed or pondered at the -tomb of Peter in the golden twilight of the great Basilica, by the -vastness of which, as Marion Crawford says, “mind and judgment are -dazed and staggered.” Who has not leant on the marble balustrade of -the confession and looked down upon the ninety-five gilded lamps -that burn there day and night, upon the kneeling white figure of the -Seventh Pius?--a vision in which the whole linked grandeur and piety of -the Church of Rome seems epitomized. In St. Peter’s, Simon, the poor -fisherman, is little thought of; it is Peter, saint and pontiff, who -is paramount; he who has miraculously fed the lambs and fed the sheep -from that hour on the sea of Galilee to this day. And very few remember -the old man, too weak and aged to bear his cross, who had climbed -half-way to the Janiculum, when his executioners, seeing that he could -not advance any further, planted his gibbet in the deep yellow sand and -crucified him then and there--head downwards, as he begged them. This -is the ancient tradition, and it further tells us that he was followed -by but few of the faithful, who stood apart, weeping. - -Impressive as are these hallowed spots, these glorious memorials of -the Eternal City; however full, to the believer, of the atmosphere of -the days of faith--oases in the great desert of life, where the palms -of the martyrs are still green and throw a grateful shade--there is -nothing, to our minds, in all the grandeur of Rome, even under the dome -of Peter, comparable to the effect produced upon the mind by a visit to -Tre Fontane. - -As Peter was led to die the death of the lowest criminal--the death of -his Master--Paul was brought forth to the death of the sword, reserved -for the Patrician. - -To go to Tre Fontane and visit the spot of his martyrdom is to return -to the primitive ages of the Church. The fisherman lies in a tomb such -as no king or emperor, no hero or conqueror or best beloved of the -world’s potentates ever had. And Paul sleeps in that great pillared -church _fuori le mura_, in a severity and dignity of magnificence very -well befitting the stern fire of the apostle’s zeal. But the memory of -his martyrdom is consecrated in a curious isolation of poverty, one -might almost say, aloofness; an earnest purity that reminds one, as -we have said, of early Christian times. You have all the splendours; -the golden glory, the marble, the mosaic, the sculpture and the jewels; -the movement, the colour and the crowd of Rome behind, and you come out -into the sweeping solitudes of the Campagna. For those who know and -love those strange, arid, melancholy spaces, there is no more potent -spell than the hold they lay upon the spirit. The gem-like distances -of the mountains, the radiant arch of the Italian sky, the movement -of light and shadow over the immense waste, the romance of each of -the historic ways, the mystery of the secrets they hold--better pens -than ours have striven to embody the charm and failed! Why should we -try? It is like a strain of music the meaning of which is lost to us. -We hear; we cannot understand. It is too full of messages. It is sad -and beautiful and haunting, and withal intensely human. Here you have -nature at her wildest and most untrammelled; and yet, never was city so -peopled, so thick with memories of all races and all histories; endless -streams of pilgrims have traversed the long roads; the centuries have -come and gone upon them; the blood, the tears, the strivings and hopes -of all humanity are here. - -One looks forward towards wave upon wave of low-lying ground, bordered -by the mountain barriers; and each time one looks back, the dome of -Peter hangs pearl-like against the sky. - -Speaking of the memory of our drive to Tre Fontane, the Signorina is -reminded that she has jotted down her impressions in an old diary. - -“We drove to the Trappist Monastery,” she wrote, “where St. Paul was -beheaded. His head is said to have rebounded three times as it struck -the earth, and on each of those three hallowed spots there sprang up a -miraculous jet of water. The first spring is still warm as if with the -glow of the great spirit that there left its mortal frame; the second -spring is tepid; the third cold as death. - -“The drive is a beautiful one; through the Campagna stretching wide and -green on either side, bounded by the mountains, some now snow-capped. -The first sight of the monastery breaks on one from the top of a little -hill. The huddled buildings appear suddenly at the foot in a deep -valley, shrouded by eucalyptus groves. On the right of the convent the -ground rises again, covered with a perfect forest of the same trees. It -is one of the saddest and most impressive places I ever saw. It strikes -chill, even when the rest of the Campagna is warm, and the continual -shuddering of the eucalyptus leaves makes an uncanny murmur. We drove -through an avenue of them, grey-green all over, trunks and leaves; and -then came to an arched gateway closed by an iron gate. - -“We dismounted from our carriage, already quite impressed, and pulled -the bell, which echoed with a deep and beautiful note through the -monastery grounds. - -“A porter opened and we walked into the garden, still under the -eucalyptus (mingled here with palms and lemons), and made more -beautiful still by the fragments of antique sculpture that border the -walks--marble capitols and broken acanthus leaves and pieces of old -pavements wonderfully worked in scrolls and twists. - -“Papa particularly lost his heart to a lion’s head, with a dear flat -nose! He could not tear himself away from it; he wanted it so badly -for our new little garden in Surrey! - -“As there are three fountains, so there are three churches, but -the miraculous springs are all under one roof. This is a fine, -comparatively modern church, situated at the end of an avenue of -eucalyptus and marble fragments. It has a classic pavement (pagan) -representing the four seasons. - -“Opposite the entrance are the fountains--built in, now, and covered -over, but each with a little opening where the attendant friar will let -down a ladle and draw up the water for the faithful. Over each fountain -is an altar, with the head of St. Paul, in bas-relief, sculptured by -Canova: - - “‘A la première, l’âme vient à l’instant même de s’échapper du - corps. Ce chef glorieux est plein de vie! A la seconde, les ombres - de la mort couvrent déjà ses admirables traits; à la troisième, le - sommeil éternel les a envahis, et quoique demeurés tout rayonnants - de beauté, ils disent, sans parler, que dans ce monde ces lèvres ne - s’entr’ouvriront plus, et que ce regard d’aigle s’est voilé pour - toujours.’ - -“In the right-hand corner of the first altar is the pillar which marks -the actual spot of the martyrdom of the fiery-hearted saint. The -ancient Via Lorentina passed along this very place, and here stood the -mile-stone, whereat St. Paul was beheaded. - -“‘This is absolutely certain,’ said the monk who conducted us. ‘Even -protestants acknowledge the death to have taken place here. For the -rest,’ indicating the three fountains, ‘there is only the legend. You -may believe it or not, as you like.’ - -“He looked so happy, this monk. He had been thirty years at Tre -Fontane, but there was no sign of age on his face. It was, perhaps, a -trifle withered, like a ripe apple that has lain long on a shelf, but -that was all. And yet he said that, for the first fifteen years, he had -suffered continuously from malarial fever. He had superintended, and -even worked at, the planting of the eucalyptus groves which have so -purified the district that there has not been one case of the sickness -since. - -“The other two churches are close to one another. The first is very old -and utterly bare, and, in a strange, mournful way, deeply impressive. -It dates from the sixth century, and is lofty and vaulted and almost -Gothic in its spirit. It has several rose-windows, and there are many -round holes in the walls also. These are now either empty or fitted -with common glass, but they were once filled with thin slices of -alabaster, or other precious transparencies. At present it seems the -embodiment in stone of the Trappist order, ‘la piu severa ordine della -chiesa Cattolica,’ as our monk described it. The church is as cold as a -well. - -“The last of the three churches is of a much gayer mood: quite -Romanesque, perched on a pretty flight of rounded steps. It has a crypt -over the bodies of St. Zeno and two thousand and more companions, -martyred Christians, who built the Baths of Diocletian.” - -The drive through that eucalyptus wood here described remains one of -the most curious impressions of those Roman days. It was like passing -through a Dante circle--the first circle of all, of Limbo, where Virgil -met the poet; an unsubstantial wraith-like world, full of a perpetual -whisper and murmur: - - “Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare, - Non avea pianto, ma che di sospiri, - Che l’aura eterna facevan tremare: - - E cio avvenia di duol senza martiri, - Ch’avean le turbe, ch’eran molte e grandi, - E d’infanti, e di femmine e di vivi.” - -Whether the sky became really overcast as we entered into these -mysterious precincts, or whether the height of the trees shadowed the -narrow way, certainly there was a dimness about us; not a positive -darkness but a negation of light, even as the chill that enfolded us -was not so much a cold as a cessation of heat. - -But through the gates of the monastery courtyard we saw sunshine again, -and white pigeons strutting about the cobbles, picking and preening -themselves--a wonderful picture of peace. It is a consecrated spot; a -place the most aloof, the most severe, the most denuded of all earthly -joys that we have ever seen; a stage on the arid way of pilgrims -forging determinedly by the shortest cut to heaven. And yet it is full -of sweetness. As from a mountain ledge, the world must lie so far below -these Trappists that it is no longer seen, scarcely divined behind its -own vapours. No use looking down: looking up--there is the blue sky, -and there are the peaks pointing heavenward, still to be conquered. -There is very little comfort for the traveller, but he has a strange -gladness. He is cradled in ethereal silences. The balm of majestic -solitude bathes his soul; his spirit is cheered by an air as pure as -it is vivifying, and he knows that he will climb the peaks. - -_July 4._--Mrs. McComfort, our cook, has a brother on the Clyde. He -writes an extraordinary account of the effort expected of, and given -by, the able workman. - -“It may be, miss,” says Mrs. McComfort to the Signorina, her chief -confidant, “he’ll be called up for a job on a ship that’s just come in, -and that’ll mean that he and the rest of them will be at it from seven -in the morning till eight the next morning. Yes, miss, all night, as -well as all day. And then they’ll come home, and it’s too weary to eat -they are, and they’ll just roll themselves up and fall asleep, as tired -as dogs; and when they’ve slept a bit, maybe they can get a little food -down. And then it’s off back again to work! And that’ll go on till -the job’s done. And when the battleships come in, the steamers do be -waiting all night upon the Clyde, to take the men up to them, it’s that -urgent. And, oh, miss, how they do love the ships they’ve built! And -when one is lost, you’d never believe the grief there is, with the men -crying and saying: ‘It’s my old lady’s gone, my poor old lady!’” - -They need no comment, such stories as these. Here are humble heroes, -martyrs of duty; here is the poor heart of humanity, with its infinite -power of attachment. We have scarcely heard of anything more touching -than the tears of these rough men for their “poor old lady.” - -We saw a letter the other day from a transport driver describing, -to a relative in England, the meeting with an old friend on the -bloodstained, shell-battered road at the back of Arras. This man had -been the driver of a motor omnibus in a country district at home. - -“What do you think?” he writes. “You’ll never believe! If I didn’t come -across old Eliza! Me that drove her for more than three years. I knew -her at once, poor old girl! knocked about as she was; I’d have known -her anywhere, by the shape of her, knowing her in and out as I did -those years, every bit of her. She was a bit the worse for wear, but -she was fit for a lot yet; a trifle rattley; but there’s a deal of life -in her. I can’t tell you what I felt when I came across her so sudden. -There, I couldn’t help patting her and patting her! Poor old Eliza! To -think of her and me meeting again like that, both of us doing our bit, -like!” - - * * * * * - -This fourth day of July brings us the third of the rain and thunder -squalls which have followed the great drought. - -Japhet says, relaxing to something approaching a smile, that he doesn’t -see why this should not end by being a nice garden, and that the earth -is in very good heart. - -Dear English earth, it has need to be in good heart! Who knows what it -may yet have to bear and give? - -The Villino garden wears the war-time stamp, at least to its owners’ -eye! The Signora, who has always hitherto plunged at a horticultural -list the moment there was a gap in her borders that needed filling -or a mistake that needed repairing, which could not be done to her -sense of perfection “out of stock,” has had to teach economy to -wait on necessity, and ingenuity on both. The result is not really -gratifying. In all her long experience economy has never been -gratifying in any branch of life. But even if the money were there for -extravagance--which it isn’t--thrift has become a positive instead of -a negative virtue. - -“Thou shalt not spend” is now nearly as urgent a commandment as “Thou -shalt not steal.” - -It has set her mind to work more and more, however, upon the -desirability of permanence in the garden. - -In the borders of the terraces round the house she has decided to put -a foot-deep edging of Mrs. Simkins pinks. These are adorable in their -time of bloom, and the grey-green foliage is tidy, and a pretty bit of -colour all the year round. - -This year the lobelia, scantily planted, and the climbing geraniums, -pathetically subdivided, will take considerable time before forming -the show of flower and foliage without which the Villino garden is a -failure. But it is a very good thing for individuals as well as nations -to be forced to stop and examine their manner of life. Hideous as the -struggle is--dead loss of life and happiness and money--good comes out -of the evil at many points. Not the least beneficial lesson is that -which teaches us now what an extraordinary amount of money and energy -one has frittered away by easy-going ways, the amount of items one -can put down in a household without being the worse--rather, indeed, -the better! Even in a little household, what waste, what excess, -what follies of mere show! And if this seems a flat contradiction to -the remark upon economy passed a little while ago, let it be noted -that conscience and inclination are for ever waging war, and that -conscience, as is proper, must have the last word. Moreover, once the -domination of conscience is established, the results are, in nine cases -out of ten, surprisingly bearable. Frugality combines very well with -refinement, and simplicity with dignity. One can be as happy with a -three-course lunch and a three-course supper-dinner as one was with -an endless array of dishes--those dishes which took so much time and -material to prepare, and were so often barely touched! The contents -disappeared--thrown away, perhaps, or, what was certainly the case in -our household, disposed of as _hors d’œuvres_ between the dining-room -and the pantry. - -“Why does your butler always come in chewing?” asked an observant -relative. - -Juvenal, indeed, despite a certain foreign disregard for his -meal-times, made such a practice of snatching morsels in transit that -the sixteen-year old footman--chief of the many grievances which -determined our separation--who outstayed him, has had to be severely -reprimanded for making a clean sweep of the dishes that caught his -young fancy, with a special partiality for roast chicken. - -The new regimen--agreeable this hot weather--of soup, one cold-meat -dish, salad, vegetable, sweet, and dessert--supper, in fact, instead -of dinner--has, besides its intrinsic economy, the further advantage -of diminishing the expenditure of kitchen coal to an almost incredible -degree. - -We who have to render an account hereafter, even of every idle word, -shall we have to answer, we wonder, for all that unconscious waste -which mere convention has induced in our homes? How many poor families -might have been fed from the agglomeration of the Signora’s years of -housekeeping! She did not think. No one thought. It has taken this -scourge to make us stop in our easy course, to make us look into -ourselves, into our ways. - -“What can we do? What can we do without?” These must be now the mottoes -written large round our house of life; and, indeed, the first includes -the second, for it takes considerable energy to abstain. - -“There is none that thinketh in his heart, therefore they shall go down -alive into hell.” - -A very disagreeable text, which comes disagreeably to the mind this -Sunday morning, for the _famiglia_ have just come back from church, -where what is vulgarly called a “hell-fire sermon” was delivered by a -Welsh preacher, who, though a Franciscan, is, one of his congregation -declared, a revivalist lost to his native hills. - -“You ought to go down into hell in spirit every day, me brethren,” he -thundered, “or ye’ll very likely find yourselves there in the end. And -what an off-ful thing that ’ud be! And there’s thousands and thousands -of soa-ouls there this minute, better than you are!” - -This was neither comforting, nor, we believe, theological, for the -congregation was small, and, on the whole, devout. But no doubt there -is a type of mind before which it is necessary to hold up a threat of -everlasting punishment; the type of person whom conscription alone can -move to serve his country before it is too late. - -Not the least remarkable result of the German brutality is that the -great majority of its opponents find themselves forced back into the -old simplicity of belief. We can no longer afford to deny the existence -of demons and their power; and if reason is to keep her balance and the -soul her ultimate faith in Divine justice, acceptance of the doctrine -of hell and adequate punishment must logically follow. - -A celebrated, if rather medievally minded, preacher, whom we once heard -lashing the vices of the day, cried sarcastically: “You’ll meet the -very best society in hell.” - -Holy man, we doubt if he would have made the same remark to-day! The -resort in question must have become so overwhelmingly German. - -_July 8._--The Signora had been a whole year at the Villino--perhaps -the longest time in all her life in one place--but circumstances -had summoned her family to London for a few days, and she could not -contemplate their being exposed to Zeppelins without her. - -The little London house which was our home so long, and--to use nursery -parlance--the nose of which has been so completely put out of joint by -the Villino, seemed glad to see us again. - -How curious is the atmosphere of place! These walls that enfold us, -that have seen our swift joys and our great sorrows, our merry hours -and our sad ones, become fond of us, as we of them. We are convinced -that there is a spirit in inanimate things, something that gives back, -that keeps. Do not old places ponder? Are they not set with memories? -Do they not know their own? Do they not withhold themselves and suffer -from the stranger? Who has not seen the millionaire striving to make -himself at home in the great house that will have none of him? Who has -not felt what an accident he is, how little he belongs, how little he -or his race will ever belong to the stones he has bought, and which he -will never own? - -And even a little London house in a street may become individual to -oneself; and you may feel as the Signora did, that it has missed you, -that through long absence you have been unkind; that if you finally -separate yourself from it, it will always want you, and you it. -And, after all--it is with houses, as with people--the link is not -necessarily that of the blood relationship or long acquaintance. You -need not have inherited your affinity. You are in sympathy, or you are -not. The Villino claimed us upon our first meeting, but we impressed -ourselves upon the town dwelling. It is still home to us; not _the_ -home, _a_ home. - -We sat in the high-ceilinged drawing-room, with its rather delicate -Georgian air, and found old familiar emotions waiting for us. And we -thought of all the kind and dear friends we had seen between these -walls; of our gay little parties and the music-makers who had made -music to us; hours that seemed to belong to another life. Here the -great Pole, whose magic hands have refused themselves to the notes ever -since his people have been in anguish, made the night wonderful with -his incomparable art. We do not think the small London house can ever -forget the echoes of that music. It was always a feast for it when -he, with whose friendship we feel ourselves so deeply honoured, came -to its board. Loki--he was in his puppyhood then--decorated with the -Polish colours, would dance towards him on his hind-legs. The genius -would come in like sunshine, happy himself in the immense pleasure his -presence gave. Certainly this rare being seemed to give forth light. - -“When he leaves the room,” said a friend of his to us, “it is as if the -light went out.” - -If one had the gift of beholding auras, what a halo of fire would one -not have seen about that wonderful head? We once said this to him. - -“Do you believe in it?” we asked. - -He smiled. “I think everyone has got his flame to cultivate. I think I -have cultivated mine.” - -Most truly, indeed, has he done so; and not only in the divine way of -his art, for year by year the selflessness and the magnanimity of his -character seem to deepen and extend; and so, too--inevitable tragedy -of years--the sadness. Impossible for any perfectly noble mind not to -gather melancholy as life goes on!--a melancholy culminating in his -case with the burthen of agony which the present sufferings of his own -race have laid upon his shoulders. - -Therefore these memories of the days when he was as a young god, the -days when a celebrated painter could find no truer way of expressing -him than by flinging on the canvas the radiant vision of an Apollo, are -poignant memories. We are glad that we should have them, yet they bring -a stab of pain for that lost high spirit which life inevitably dashes. - -With us all, the good ship Youth sets forth merrily with sails taut and -pennons fluttering, filling to the wind and breasting the waves! We -know that inevitably the storm winds must catch her; that she will be -beaten by breakers; drawn out of her course by false currents; that if -she become not a derelict, if she does not founder with all hands, she -must--too often--cast much of her treasure overboard, furl her white -wings, and come creeping into a cold harbour. Even those who, like our -rare and wonderful friend, have gathered glory and dignity and power, -as they plough a mighty course, have passed from under radiant skies -into the gloom of the storm. A sombre thing, the human span, at the -best, and most blest nowadays. - -What can we say of the fair craft that founders almost as soon as -launched? Ah! the young ghosts in that London drawing-room! The -sound of the children’s voices yet ringing in our ears! There is -“Mustard-Seed,” the splendid little fair boy, who had been the -favourite of our Shakesperian revels nine years ago--not yet nineteen, -not a month a soldier--shot through the head on that Flanders field, -the graveyard of England’s choicest! And the little Scotch lad, who -used to prance about in his black velvet suit, with cheeks that shamed -the apple--no one knows where he lies to-day; only two or three saw him -fall. And his graver, gentler brother--a prisoner, even as we write in -the first agony of the grief which has befallen him in the loss of his -life-companion! - -And out of a merry group of Irish children, irresponsible, -high-spirited, noisy, two brothers sleep in that alien earth--now for -ever English--“where their young dust lies,” as the poet who wrote so -prophetically of his own fate has beautifully said. And yet another -is wounded, and another invalided; and the once merry sister, whose -gallant husband was left wounded on the field and was missing long -weeks, still mourns him as a prisoner. - -Of the rest of the company, those companions of our daughter’s own -unclouded childish days, some are widows; and some can scarce meet the -morning for apprehension of its news, or return to their homes for -fear of that orange envelope that may lie on the hall table, or sleep -in the night for listening for the sound of the bell. And some are in -the Dardanelles, under skies of brass, treading on earth of iron, and -some are in those trenches, deep-dyed and battered a hundredfold. Two -more brothers--the elder twenty and the younger nineteen--fell within a -month of each other. A few are still on English soil, light-heartedly -preparing for the great fray, straining like hounds at the leash, -staring with bright, impatient eyes towards that goal with its unknown -and terrible possibilities; cursing the slow flight of time. Of these -one thinks, perhaps, with a heart more tightened than of all the rest! - -The reaper has come forth to reap out of season, and the young corn is -mown down in the green ear, and all the poppies and the pretty flowers -go down with it. - -Sitting in rooms which we had not revisited since before the war, these -are sad thoughts that the crowded recollections bring. - -London itself, however, seemed little changed; even that much-discussed -night-darkness hardly noticeable. Driving in the daytime we -instinctively counted, with frowning glance, the number of stalwart -young men out of uniform, and wondered how any girl could walk with -them, much less smile upon them. And our eyes followed the soldiers -with pride as they marched by, singing popular catches to inspire -themselves in default of the band which the stern necessities of this -war forbid. What fine fellows they are--so well set up, looking out -with such steady vision upon the future which they have chosen! And the -lilt of the merry tune, with what a deep note of pathos it strikes upon -the ear! - -Of course there are a great many soldiers about London, yet no more -than in Jubilee time, and there is no greater excitement among them, -and a good deal less among those who watch them pass, than in the days -when it was all pomp and circumstance, and no warfare. - -London does not carry the stamp of war about her, but we carry it each -one of us in our hearts. That is why we sicken from the music-hall -posters; why wrath and grief mingle in our minds at the sight of that -bold-eyed community with its whitened face, its vulgar exaggeration -of attire, and its unchecked and unashamed hunting of its prey; a -prey sometimes visibly unwilling, sometimes pathetically, innocently -flattered! - -The Zeppelin menace has created no sense of apprehension in the town. -The first night of our arrival we conscientiously prepared amateur -respirators for ourselves and such of the _famiglia_ as accompanied us. -Pads of cotton-wool, soaked in a strong solution of soda, were placed -within easy reach of the bedside. The next night we said “Bother!” -and the third night we forgot all about it. Though the Signora, lying -awake, had occasionally a half-amused speculation whether the throbbing -passage of some more than usually loud traction-engine, or the distant -back-firing of a belated taxicab, might not be the bark of the real -wolf at last! - -Our little white-haired housemaid, generally left alone to mind the -London house, possesses this philosophic indifference. She made herself -a respirator. We doubt whether she ever thinks of placing it handy. We -believe she shares the view of the old nurse of a friend of ours into -whose garden a bomb really and truly did drop during the recent raid on -Southend. - -“Frightened, miss? Lord bless you, no! I knew it was only them Germans!” - -Nevertheless, though London is neither alarmed nor depressed, we set -our faces towards the Villino again with a sense of relief. These days -it is better to be in one’s own place; and in London we feel only -visitors now. Yet, strangely, the country is far more full of the war -than the town. - -Beginning at Wimbledon, we meet motorcars filled to overflowing with -bandaged, bronze-faced young men, who smile and wave their hands as we -whizz by. Dear lads! Some from that greater England beyond the sea, -more closely our brothers now than ever before, with ties cemented by -the shedding of blood. _Blut-Bruderschaft_, indeed, you have pledged -with us: a Teutonic rite put into practice after a fashion our enemies -thought out of the range of possibility. - -And presently we come to the camps. Here, where the pine-woods solitary -marched, where the heather was wont to spread, crimsoning and purpling -to the line of blue distance--a wonderful vision of wild scenery--here -is a brown waste, peopled with a new town. Rows and rows of wooden -huts run in parallel lines. Where the trees stood you cannot even -guess; but once and again there is the smell of the raw wood, and you -see a giant lying lopped of his branches. And the whole place swarms -in activity. We pass hundreds of ammunition and gun carriages--the -two-wheeled carts for the new howitzers--some already with the guns -in place; long sheds where half a dozen smiths are busy shoeing, with -groups of patient horses, shoulder by shoulder, waiting outside; we -hear the clank of iron upon iron from within; we catch the vision of -red fire upon the sleek flank and the brawny arms wielding the hammer. -Horses everywhere, it seems--lines of them, picketed; horsemen coming -and going: detachments riding up and down among the thickest dust -that you have ever imagined; and waggons lumbering, some charged with -fodder, some, as we pass, with loaves fresh from the baking. And now a -traction-engine, filling the air with noise and smoke, driven by two -grimy Tommies who shout at each other as they throb and bumble along, -has to be dodged and left behind. - -This is an artillery camp--a marvellous place which gives one a more -vivid impression of England’s strength, of England’s new army, than any -words can describe. These splendid, happy, vigorous, busy men; these -rows of howitzer and ammunition carts; these thousands of sleek, lively -horses; this untiring, determined movement of work and preparation ... -all for the Dardanelles, we hear. - -We get out of the dust and the noise and the gigantic stir, and along -the green roads again; and then into another camp. A curious stillness -here: the myriad huts are all shut up, the sheds empty, even the new -shops seemingly untenanted; only here and there stands a stray khaki -figure to emphasize the loneliness. They left for the front the day -before yesterday. To-morrow twenty thousand new men are expected, like -a new swarm of bees, to take their place in the vacated hives. - - * * * * * - -Home again in the Villino, with all the fur babies washed and waiting -for us. Rather a silent group of dogs, a little offended because we -went away. Loki, who generally screams with rapture, has certainly a -reservation in the ecstasy of his greetings; but Mimosa clings to us -with two little paws, like a child hugging a recovered treasure, and -offers kisses, of which she is not generally prodigal. Plain Eliza is -shy. She has grown perceptibly in three days. - -The garden is full of sweet scents. The dawn, the coronation, and the -crimson ramblers are bursting into lovely bloom beside the blue of the -delphiniums. - -There was always a special kind of joy in the old days about -home-coming to the Villino. We used to go from room to room, taking -stock of the dear, queer little place; greeting the serene, smiling -Madonnas; the aloof angels folded into their prayers; pagan, pondering -Polyhymnia in her corner of the drawing-room, brooding upon the glory -of times that will never be again.... It is all just as it used to be: -bowery, without and within, as usual. - -Everything is scrubbed to the last point of daisy freshness and -polished to spicy gloss against the Padrona’s return, and smiling -damsels await compliments on the stairs. Other years, as we say, these -were moments of unalloyed light-heartedness. It was always unexpectedly -nicer than we had imagined. - -“Isn’t it dearer than ever?” we would say, then, to each other. “Don’t -you love it? Aren’t we happy here?” - -This year it is another cry that rises to our lips. - -“Oh, how happy we might be, if only----” - - - BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND - - - - -Transcriber's Note: - -Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as -possible. - -Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. - -The following is a list of changes made to the original. -The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one. - -Page 13 - - by Mrs. MacComfort as umistakably Mimi’s - by Mrs. MacComfort as unmistakably Mimi’s - -Page 21 - - surrounted with politely assisting Hoheiten. - surrounded with politely assisting Hoheiten. - -Page 46 - - “_Ah, voilà qui m’est bien egal!_ That is my own - “_Ah, voilà qui m’est bien égal!_ That is my own - -Page 70 - - up, Birdie’--he calls me ‘Birdie,’--but I can - up, Birdie’--he calls me ‘Birdie,’--‘but I can - -Page 130 - - ontclusion to draw that the mere fact of death - conclusion to draw that the mere fact of death - - cheem, in the eyes of most people, to qualify - seems, in the eyes of most people, to qualify - - ses soul for eternal bliss. It is idle to ask whaf - the soul for eternal bliss. It is idle to ask what - - becomes of the generally accepted doctrine fo - becomes of the generally accepted doctrine of - - certain to be saved, anyone should put himselt - certain to be saved, anyone should put himself - -Page 151 - - of a beautiful little daughter. - of a beautiful little daughter.” - -Page 178 - - Artist, in all reverence be it said. “He hath - Artist, in all reverence be it said: “He hath - -Page 191 - - Trainant la jambe dans la poussière - Traînant la jambe dans la poussière - -Page 197 - - there is a langour about his movements extraordinarily - there is a languor about his movements extraordinarily - -Page 206 - - To think that anyone could ever hurt a - “To think that anyone could ever hurt a - -Page 224 - - the swine!” - the swine!’” - -Page 225 - - blazing. All the langour, the unacknowledged - blazing. All the languor, the unacknowledged - -Page 240 - - terrible there just now - terrible there just now. - -Page 265 - - It is still home to us; not _the_ home, _a_ home - It is still home to us; not _the_ home, _a_ home. - -Page 269 - - bell. And some are in the Dardenelles, under - bell. And some are in the Dardanelles, under - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little House in War Time, by -Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE HOUSE IN WAR TIME *** - -***** This file should be named 63618-0.txt or 63618-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/6/1/63618/ - -Produced by Clarity, Paul Clark and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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