The Project Gutenberg eBook of How Jack Mackenzie won his epaulettes, by Gordon Stables

[Transcriber's note: WARNING: some words and language in this book may be offensive to modern readers.]

HOW JACK MACKENZIE
WON HIS EPAULETTES

There is a glamour and romance about war that appeals to the heart of every young man worthy of the name in these islands. This is as it should be. We are a nation of sailors, it is true, but many a blood-red field can bear witness that we are soldiers also, when we have the right man to lead us.

A weapon, however, that is left too long in its scabbard is apt to rust therein. This was the state in which we found the British sword when the fiery cross was sent round in 1853. We had not been at war for forty years before this, and even many of our generals had forgotten all about the art. Hence the terrible muddle and mismanagement witnessed in the Crimea. Our poor fellows were positively sent off as empty-handed as if going to a grand parade or soldiers' picnic, and indeed but for individual courage, and good luck, the invasion would have ended in national disaster and disgrace, for us as well as for our brave allies the French.

I have no desire to dispel the romance that surrounds as with a halo the noble and necessary art of war. But I think every young fellow should know that to be a real soldier it is necessary for him to be not only a fighting man and a brave man in the field, but a perfect camp's-man also; and he can never learn to be so in barracks, but on the tented field, in times of peace.

It is for this reason that the sailor, if I may be allowed to say a word in favour of the service to which I belong, makes the best soldier. Captain Peel's brigade proved this in the trenches.

In the second book of this story, the youthful reader will find fighting and bloodshed enough, and horrors too. But the tale is all true, sadly, terribly true. Hear what Sir Evelyn Wood says: "It may be asked, Why recall these dismal stories? Because ...... to the present generation our hideous sacrifice of soldiers in the Crimea is but little more known than the sufferings of our troops at Walcheren and in the Peninsula. I believe in the advantage of telling those who elect parliamentary representatives what has happened and what may happen again, unless a high standard of administrative efficiency is maintained. This cannot be attained unless the necessary departments are practised in their duties during peace."

In my first book, then, I have endeavoured to give a sketch of the sailor's life in the piping times of peace, and most of the sketches and little adventures and yarns are drawn from the life. Dr. Reikie, who is constantly in the pursuit of science under difficulties, was a real character. So were Sturdy, Gribble, Fitzgerald, Captain Gillespie, and the marine Paddy O'Bayne.

He threw up his arms, and fell flat on his face . . . Vignette
[missing from source book]

CHAPTER I.

WEE JOHNNIE GREYBREEKS.

It was what is called a real old-fashioned Yuletide. The snow had been falling, falling, falling all day long; it had begun at grey daylight in the morning, in little pellets like millet seed, which lay white and unmelted on the frozen pavements. But as the hours went by, these were changed for flakes as big and broad as butterflies' wings, that fell fast and "eident" all the day; and that night the more aristocratic thoroughfares of Glasgow were as silent as a city of the dead.

Not that they were deserted by any means, for passengers flitted about in garments draped with snow, and snow-laden cabs drove past, but not a sound could be heard from hoof of horse or foot of man.

It was not cold, however. There was no high wind to powder the flakes or grind them into ice-dust, or raise wreaths along the pathways; and so pure was the air, that but to breathe it for a little while was to purify every drop of blood in one's body from heart to head and heels, to heighten the vital flame, and to make one feel as happy and contented as one should ever be about a Christmas time.

From the windows of many a beautiful villa in this picture of a winter's night there shone, directly out upon the snow-clad lawns and ghost-like bushes, the ruddy light of cosily-furnished rooms, where rosy children romped and played, while around the fire sat their elders, "doucely" talking about the days of "auld lang syne."

One room in a villa of larger size and more pretentious architecture than its fellows looked particularly bright and cheerful. It was tastefully furnished, and here and there in corners stood tall lamps with coloured shades, while in the centre was placed a lordly Christmas tree. No wonder that the ring of prettily-attired children around gazed with admiration on this masterpiece of decoration. It was indeed very beautiful, its green and spreading branches laden with light and the sunshine of a hundred toys.

But listen! the music of a piano and harp strikes up, and now the children, big and little, join hands and go daftly dancing round the tree. Till one wee toddler tumbles; then the ring is broken, and half a dozen at least are piled on top of her. The very house seems to shake now with the sound of mirth and laughter, the shrill treble of the youngsters receiving a deep and hearty bass in the voices of two jolly-looking elderly gentlemen, who are standing on the hearth with their backs to the fire.

But once again the ring is formed, once again the music that had been partially interrupted is heard, and once again the children dance jubilantly round, madder and wilder now than ever, singing,—

The elderly gentlemen who stood with their backs to the fire were spectators of all this fun, frolic, and jollity. But they were not the only ones.

For past the broad and open gate, as he had been creeping through the snow—oh so slowly and wearily—a tiny boy, attracted by the sound of the gladsome voices, had paused to listen. Listening or looking is such a cheap pleasure that even the very poorest can indulge in it. The snowflakes had for a time ceased falling, and from behind a mass of clouds the moon was struggling. But the red rays from the window more than rivalled its splendour, and very inviting indeed did they appear to the little wanderer. He first looked in through the gate, then he crept in through it. Nearer and nearer to the window, closer and closer to the joy within, till the lamplight shone directly on his white, pinched face, and glittered in his dark and wondering eyes, as he stood there keeping hold of a snowy branch with one hand, as if afraid of falling.

To listen and to look on while the rich enjoy themselves—oh yes, these are the privileges of the very poor! But somehow on the present occasion little Jack Mackenzie was doing more than simply listening and looking. Quite unintentionally, remember. He was associating himself with all the games and pleasure inside the room. He was no longer a thinly-clothed, bare-footed laddie, shivering in the winter's snow; he was one of that prettily-dressed crowd of beautiful children playing around the Christmas tree. Fairies he called them in his own mind; for he had once been treated to a gallery seat at a pantomime, and this was just like that, only ever so much more beautiful and natural. No wonder he felt interested and entranced, or that several times his lips parted to give utterance to the exclamation "Oh!" though he always restrained himself in time.

Was it any wonder this poor, half-starved boy was delighted with the scene before him? It was, he thought, as different from what he was used to behold in that part of the city he called his home, as the heaven his mother often spoke about must be from earth—that heaven to which his father had gone, long, long, long ago, so long ago that he couldn't remember him, and always thought of him only as a saint Up Yonder somewhere, where he himself would go one day if he was good.

So completely are Jack Mackenzie's senses enthralled, that he does not hear the sound of a manly voice singing adown the broad terrace, but coming nearer and nearer every moment,—

"'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which seek through the world is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, etc.

"An exile from home, splendour dazzles in vain:
O give me my lowly thatched cottage again!"

No, Jack doesn't hear the song. Nor does he see the singer, until he is suddenly caught by one shoulder and wheeled right round to confront a well-dressed and handsome man with a huge brown beard, on which melted snow-flakes sparkle like diamonds.

"Hullo! hullo! so I've caught you, have I?" The new-comer had bent down, and was gazing straight into Jack's face.

"Caught me, sir!" replied the boy, with fearless innocence; "did—did you want to catch me, sir?"

"Want to catch you, you young rascal! Come, give an account of yourself. What are you? A burglar's boy, eh?"

Jack looked a little puzzled. He put his hand up as if to feel that his cap was on. It was only a little old glengarry, with a hole where the top used to be, and through which a lock of the lad's hair always straggled.

"No, sir, I'm nothing yet. Was you looking for somebody to be a burglar's boy, sir? I would be it if it was nice. I want to work for mother and Siss, you know. But what do burglars do, sir? Mind, I'm not afraid of work, and I might get shoes and stockings then."

As he spoke, he held up one red and swollen foot. Not that he was courting sympathy. Oh no; only standing in the snow had made his feet cold.

"O you poor wee ragamuffin, are you really so destitute as all that, and on Christmas eve too? Come now, tell me your name and what you were after, and if it is all right I'll give you a penny and let you go."

"My name is Jack Mackenzie, sir; but mebbe, sir, you would know me better as little Johnnie Greybreeks, because that's what the boys all call me."

"Oh," cried the lad ecstatically, "I was looking in there at the fairies. O sir, isn't it grand and beautiful? If you stand here you can have a see too. They won't notice us."

"Ha, ha! Well, but suppose I don't want to have a 'see,' as you call it; suppose I live here?"

Johnnie didn't answer immediately. He heaved a big, double sort of a sigh, and on his eyelashes something appeared that glittered in the light like the melted snow-flakes on the stranger's brown beard.

There was a ring of genuine sadness and pathos in the boy's voice that went straight to that tall man's heart, and he would not have trusted himself to speak just then for a good deal. He felt certain in his own mind that this poor, ragged lad was speaking the truth. Then he pictured to himself the contrast between the very poor and the rich in such a city as this. How could he help doing so, when he glanced from the white and weary face before him to the happy children at their innocent gambols within?

"It is a contrast," he murmured to himself, "that Heaven permits for some good purpose, though it is all dark, dark to my limited mental vision."

But, happy thought! he could do something even to-night to soothe the sorrows and sufferings of this one wee waif before him. It was Christmas eve too.

"Tell me, boy," he said first, "how comes it that you can talk such good English?"

"Bonnie yon, to the wee callants on the street. But mother makes us—Siss and me—speak English at home."

"Now show me your hands. Why, they are quite clean! There, give me one, and now march along with me."

Somehow, lines from Thorn's beautiful poem "The Mitherless Bairn" were borne to Mr. Morgan's mind, as he led the boy round through the garden to the back door of the villa.

Jack was not mitherless, but in other respects he resembled the subject of the sad song.

"Oh speak him not harshly—he trembles the while—
He bends to your bidding and blesses your smile:
In their dark hour o' anguish the heartless shall learn
That God deals the blow for the mitherless bairn."

When little Johnnie Greybreeks had left his mother's room that evening, he had been on business bent. Business of a very important description, I can assure you, reader. Important to Johnnie, at all events. A few weeks before this, when wandering in the western outskirts of the town, which at the time our story commences—namely, away back in 1849—were beautifully wooded and with very few houses indeed to be seen, he had come upon the ruined walls of a mansion that had been destroyed by fire. It was open to the road, and probably people as poor as Johnnie had been here before, for every rag and piece of wood had been carried away. But to the boy's delight he had come across an ash heap, over which a large elder tree drooped, half hiding it, and here were at least two dozen medicine-bottles, many smashed but many whole. What a find if they could only be his! Next day he had wandered that way again, and was glad to find a man there who was about to clear the heap. The man laughed when Johnnie volunteered his assistance, but for sake of company, he said, permitted the boy to help him. The job was finished in a couple of hours, and Johnnie had the bottles as his wages.

He took as many as he could down to the burn and washed them, then came back for more, and by-and-by they were all nice and clean and hidden away where he was sure no one could find them but himself. Then a good-natured chemist in the street where the boy lived had promised him ninepence for the lot. Ninepence! what a fortune! He had never seen so much money before. When he got it, he tied it up in a handkerchief—it was all in pennies and half-pennies—and resolved not to tell his mother till Christmas eve, when he would go quietly out and purchase something nice for next day's dinner.

And it was with the view of making these purchases that Johnnie had come out to-night. He had come too early though, for in the shops he was to favour with his custom, things were never at their very cheapest till nearly closing-time. So he had treated himself to a walk in the west end.

Mr. Tom Morgan had his reasons for taking Johnnie in by the back door and through the kitchen. He really wanted to know if the boy was in the slightest degree presentable.

He was better pleased with his appearance than he had expected to be. Johnnie's nether garments of hodden grey were patched at the knees and tattered and short at the ankles; his jacket was torn, too, and out at the elbows; but the lad was clean, even to his shirt, which left neck and red chest exposed to the weather.

Johnnie's features were regular and far from unpleasant, but his dark eyes were very large and sad.

"You'll do, lad, you'll do. Come along; it is Christmas eve, and mother is kind anyhow."

CHAPTER II

LIFE IN SUMMER LOANING.

"O children," cried old Mrs. Morgan during a lull in the frolicsome riot, "here comes your uncle Tom. I can hear his voice in the hall. Now we'll have a song and a dance!"

She rose and walked towards the drawing-room door, and the bairns crowded after, with joyful, expectant faces.

But when the door was opened, and they found Uncle Tom standing there holding little ragged Johnnie by the hand, astonishment and wonder seemed to deprive everybody of speech. Miss Scraggs, an elderly spinster, nearly fainted.

"Well, mother, I couldn't say—at least, not exactly. He is a sort of mitherless bairn—well, not exactly that either, because he has a mother, but no father. And you see how poor the child is. Look at his naked feet, mother and children all, and we so happy and jolly and everything. And this Christmas eve, too, mother. I thought we might—that is, I might—do some little thing for him—a supper, or anything like that—and then send him home."

"My own good-hearted Tom!" said the old lady, smiling. "And did you pick him up in the street?"

"No, not exactly in the street, mother. Fact is, he was in the grounds, and looking in at the window."

"No, no, dear mother," interrupted the stalwart son. "He was peeping in at the dancing and the Christmas tree. He said the children were just like fairies."

"He means," said Mr. Tom Morgan, "when he had a seat in the gallery of the theatre at a pantomime, I suppose."

"No, ma'am; very wicked. For 'there is none that doeth good and sinneth not, no, not one.'"

It is no wonder that Miss Scraggs screamed, or that "big lady" lifted up her hands.

"Oh, take the dreadful creature away!" cried Miss Scraggs; "he may kill us all before morning."

But when Tom Morgan laughingly explained that poor little Jack knew not what he was saying, and had no idea what a burglar was, he was restored to favour.

"Well, Tom," said the elder Mr. Morgan, who was Tom's father, "take your little sans-culotte away and give him a feed. I'll warrant he won't say 'no' to that on a Christmas eve."

"And some dood tlothes too," lisped a wee maiden of six—"some dood tlothes, Uncle Tom."

Then Jack made a bow such as he had seen actors outside caravans in the Green make. He took off the remains of his glengarry solemnly with his right hand, put his left hand to his heart, and bent his body low.

"I say, Morgan," cried Dawson, as Tom led Jack off, "that isn't any ordinary boy. Blame me if I don't think there are the makings of a little gentleman about him. What think you?"

"Well, Dawson, you never can tell what a boy of that age may turn to or be. He might turn out a burning and a shining light in church or state, he might become a leader of armies, or he might give—Jack Ketch a job."

Young Tom Morgan—for he was not above four-and-twenty, although his beard was so big and strong—was the younger of two sons who both lived with their parents, the house being very large. The elder son, Grant Morgan, was married, and occupied the northern wing with his wife and three children. The wee lass who had proposed that Jack or Johnnie should have "dood tlothes" was the youngest; then there was a boy of eight and one of eleven.

When Tom returned to the servants' hall, he succeeded in interesting every one there, even the somewhat supercilious butler, in Johnnie Greybreeks; and between the lot of them they succeeded in working quite a transformation in the boy. In fact, they took great fun in doing it.

"Oh, bother the 'but'! this is Christmas eve, cook. There, now; you take him into your own room and see to his hair and his poor little feet. I'll be back in a minute."

Half an hour after this nobody would have taken Johnnie for the same boy, but for his pale face and sad, dark, wondering eyes.

"I can go to church now!" cried Jack jubilantly. "I tried one time before; but they thought I'd come after the coppers, and chased me away. O sir, mother and Sissie will be pleased; you've made such a happy boy of me!"

Johnnie began bundling up his old clothes in his red handkerchief as he spoke; and when he departed, about an hour after this, he took that bundle with him, and another too, containing more provisions and nice things than would do for several days' dinner.

"Well, Jack, then," laughed Tom, "I'm going to take you to have a look at the Christmas tree, and it is just possible you may have something off it for your Siss—eh?"

Everybody said that Miss Scraggs was cocking her cap at young Tom Morgan, though everybody took care to add that she was old enough to be his grand—well, his aunt at least. Tom could not stand her. Not that he hated her—he was too good-hearted to hate anybody—but he just gave her a wide berth, as we say at sea.

But when he returned to the drawing-room with the intention of placing his little protégé in a corner to look at the fun for a few minutes, Tom had his revenge, for he had not felt pleased at the way Miss Scraggs talked to or at the poor ragged boy.

The spinster lady happened to be standing near to the door when Tom entered. She did not see Jack just at once, but as soon as she did she smiled most condescendingly on him.

"How do you do, my little friend? I know your face, but can't recollect where I've had the pleasure of seeing you before.—Oh, goodness gracious!" she cried immediately after; "it's the horrid little burglar boy!"

It was rude of Mr. Dawson and Tom Morgan to laugh so loudly, but they could not help it. As for poor Jack, he crimsoned to the very roots of his hair. I think there is always some good about a boy who can blush. However, Jack never forgot Miss Scraggs. But he thought no more about it for the present, because wee Violet Morgan tripped up to speak to him. There was no pride about Violet.

"So," she said, "you's dot you dood tlothes on. You is so pletty now I tould almost tiss you."

But Violet had a will of her own; besides, it was Christmas eve, and she had a right to do whatever she pleased.

"I won't tome there this instant," she said, stamping her tiny foot; "this is Tlismas eve, and 'ittle dirls can do as they pleases, Miss Staggs."

But all eyes were now drawn towards Violet and Jack, and there was momentary silence.

"I say, Morgan," cried Dawson, loud enough for every one to hear, "did ever you, in all your life, see such a remarkable resemblance?"

Jack drew back into his corner a little abashed. Half an hour afterwards, when Tom went round that way, the child stole his hand softly into the brown-bearded big man's.

The fun was then getting fast and furious; but Tom and the boy slipped out as quietly as they had come, and in a few minutes more Johnnie Greybreeks found himself once more out in the snow. As he passed through the gate, he paused to look back.

"Heigh-ho!" he sighed; "I've been in fairy-land. What a story I should have to tell mother and Siss! only, long before I get home I shall wake and find it is all a dream."

Then away he went, feathering through the snow, and keeping a good hold on his bundle, but nevertheless expecting every minute to awake and find himself in his own bed.

It is needless to say that Jack didn't awake, and that his adventure wasn't a dream; and it is quite impossible to describe the astonishment of his mother and sister when he told all his wonderful story.

That Christmas dinner, next day, was the best and most delightful ever Jack or his little sister Maggie could remember partaking of since they had come to reside at No. 73 Summer Loaning.

Summer Loaning, indeed! what a cruel misnomer! Well, to be sure, there might have been a time away back in the past when this street was a kind of loaning, or even a lover's lane leading right away out into the cool country. Green hedges might have grown where now stood houses gaunt and grey and grim; hedges of wild hawthorn, trailed over in summer-time with dog-roses pink and red; hedges in which birds in early spring may have sung—the sweet wee linnet, the spotted mavis, the mellow blackbird, or madly-lilting chaffinch. Trees, too, may have waved their branches over Summer Loaning—the rustling ash and the oak and chestnut, and the spreading rowan to which the poet sings and says,—

"Thy leaves were aye the first o' spring,
Thy flowers the simmer's pride;
There wasna sic a bonnie tree
In a' the country-side."

Summer Loaning went straggling up a hill, or brae, for fully half a mile, and one glance at the street would have convinced you that, although not a slum by any means, it was the abode of the hard-working poor. People lived here on landings and flats, many families occupying but two rooms, many having to content themselves with only one. The common stairways, generally of stone, went winding up and up from closes—called in England courts—often five or even six stories high. If the landlord of these tenements happened to be a good sort of a fellow, then the staircases might be lighted in winter by tiny jets of gas no bigger than farthing rush-lights; but as often as not they were shrouded in darkness and gloom, and the dwellers in these stone castles had to "glamp" their way up, as it is called, by feeling along the damp, cold walls.

There was poverty enough, though, in Summer Loaning when sickness came, or when the want of work induced it; for trouble haunts the abodes of the hungry and needful. Many a little coffin, in times like these, was manoeuvred down those steep stone stairs, and borne quietly away to the cemetery or Necropolis, which was not a great distance off. Usually a few neighbours went along, and then a kind of funeral procession would be formed. But often, when the coffin was very tiny indeed, the father himself would trudge along with it under his arm, accompanied, perhaps, by his sad-eyed wife; both dressed in black clothes that, more than likely, had been borrowed from kindly neighbours for the occasion. Yes, I said kindly neighbours; for the poor to the poor are ever kind.

This was the sort of neighbourhood in which Jack Mackenzie had hitherto spent most of his young days. And hard indeed his life had been, pinched for food, ragged in clothes, and often cold as well as hungry. Jack had never been to school in his life; but his mother, though in poverty now, had seen far better days, and right well she knew the advantage of a good education in enabling either boy or man to do battle with the world, and so she spent half her time in teaching her two children. It was stitch, stitch, stitch with her now all day long just to get ends to meet. From her poor, thin face you might have said she was not long for this world, and that while sewing at a shirt she was making her shroud. But even while at work, Jack and his sister would be busy at their books, or with their slates.

They lived in one room, and every article in it betokened poverty, although all was cleanly. The ferns and flowers in the window above the "jaw-box," where water was drawn and toilets performed, threw a little of nature into this poor apartment, and a solitary canary made it even cheerful, for he sang as joyously as if his cage had been of gilded wire and all his surroundings the best in the city. Neither of the children was unhappy, and they dearly loved their mother. They never grumbled, either, at their scanty fare—and, O dear reader, it was scanty enough at times. A little oatmeal porridge washed down with a halfpennyworth of blue skimmed milk was all their breakfast; and their supper, too, was much the same.

But Jack was a brave provider, and a capital hand at marketing. No one knew better than he how to make a bargain, or how far six or seven pence would go in the purchase of meal, coals, herrings, and a little tea and sugar for mother. In fact, the whole outdoor management of the family devolved upon little Johnnie Greybreeks, as everybody on the great staircase called him. And very proud indeed he was to be looked upon as purser or paymaster. Often his sister went out with him on his foraging expeditions; but although she was some years older than Johnnie, she had not the boy's knowledge of the world and of mankind. It seems almost ridiculous to talk of a boy of eight years of age knowing anything about the world; but poverty sharpens the wits, I do assure you.

It is said that poverty is a hard taskmaster. Well, perhaps,—and doubtless it is a very exacting one; but, nevertheless, some of the greatest geniuses, generals, statesmen, and thinkers have been brought up in just such schools as Johnnie's, and have been all the better for it. So poor boys must never let down their hearts, but just work, work, work; read, read, read; and think, think, think. Remember the story of Dick Whittington. It is only a kind of fairy romance, you may tell me. Ah! but there is a deal of truth in it; and some very poor lads have become presidents even of the great American republic, and a president is a cut above Lord Mayor of London. So, hurrah! who cares for poverty? Don't forget those spirited lines of Robbie Burns, the great Scottish poet. Yes, Scottish poet, but the British people's poet as well, and the poet of the people of every country where true freedom reigns.

"Is there for honest poverty
    That hides his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
    We dare be poor for a' that!
* * * *
"What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
    Wear hodden grey, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
    A man's a man for a' that!
        For a' that, and a' that;
            Their tinsel show, and a' that;
        The honest man, though e'er so poor,
            Is king o' men for a' that!"

CHAPTER III.

MRS. MALONY'S WEDDING-RING.

Poor Mrs. Mackenzie's story had been a very sad one. And it was one that is, alas! too common. It does not take long to tell.

She had been well educated and delicately reared in the lap of wealth and luxury. She was an old man's only child, and her father considered there was nothing on earth too good for her. When the girl was about sixteen, her father was in the heyday of success in life. A speculator he was, and lived in a beautiful house on the Borders, and on the banks of the winding Tweed. He was very much looked up to, as wealthy men generally are, simply because they are wealthy. But to have seen Mr. Noble's house and grounds, his retinue of servants and his carriages and horses, would have caused you to think, as everybody else thought, "Here is a man that can never be moved."

At this time, or soon after, he had a winter establishment in Edinburgh, and used to give as good parties as any lord in the city; and Euphemia—his daughter, and she had no mother—used to be the presiding goddess. She was very beautiful; she is beautiful even as we know her now, though poverty and want have hollowed her cheeks, and given a lustre to her dark eyes that her good neighbours on the stair say is hardly "canny."

Euphemia, when only seventeen, had several suitors for her hand, and might have made what is called a very good match. But there was one she cared for above them all. He was a dashing young officer of a Highland regiment at that time stationed in the Castle.

Lieutenant Mackenzie was of very good family, and would one day be wealthy; only just at that time he had nothing but his pay, his prospects, and the allowance his mother made him. He couldn't afford to marry for some time. What did that matter? they were both young, and could wait.

So away went the gallant 93rd to India, and with it went Lieutenant Donald Mackenzie, with hope and love to buoy up his heart.

He had not been away a year before a crisis came, and then a crash—oh, such a terrible crash! I suppose Mr. Noble had got too daring, or too something or other, in his speculations. I really do not know all the outs and ins of the matter, but I do know that his house and all his property, down even to Euphemia's pet canaries, were sold, and that after this poor Mr. Noble—poor now indeed—had barely enough to pay the passage-money for himself and daughter to America, where, with the help of some friends or distant relatives, he intended to start afresh. Just think of it—an old man of seventy starting life afresh!

Well, the end seemed to have come, indeed, when Euphie's father died. She was a brave Scotch lassie, however, and would not give in; so she wrote to India to Donald—her Donald now no longer—releasing him from his engagement, then she hired herself out as a governess.

Donald's regiment fought in Afghanistan and the borders of India, and he was wounded. He lost his left arm, brave fellow, and was sent home to be invalided, and retired.

A whole year passed away, and Donald lived at his mother's Highland home—Drumglen—an estate that had been left entirely to her, to will or to do with it as she pleased. Donald was the only son, and a very great favourite. She, the mother, too, was exceedingly jealous of his attentions to any fair maiden that she did not approve of. In fact, she had her eye upon a lady who would make a capital wife for her son. A little older, it is true. What did that matter, the mother told herself; she would be all the more fitted to advise and guide her son through life. Rather dark and stately, too, she was, not to say forbidding. But she owned broad Highland acres, and moorlands, forests, and glens. The absence of beauty, Donald's mother thought, would be an advantage rather than otherwise, for Donald could not well be jealous of a wife ugly enough to stop the church clock.

But, woe is me! Donald still languished and prayed for Euphemia Noble. And one day in Glasgow, lo, he met her! She was only a governess to some very young children. What of that? All Donald's love returned in double force, and he determined to marry her.

It is the old story: the girl consented at last. Then Donald tried to win his mother over. But that stern Highland dowager was inexorable. If he married this wretched governess—doubtless some designing minx and hussy—he should never again darken the doors of Drumglen.

Donald looked at her in sadness and sorrow, and though one sleeve was empty, a very gallant and soldierly man he was. But there was no relenting in his tall, stern, and dignified mother.

That was all Donald either said or sighed. He just turned on his heel and walked away as he was—and never once looked back.

The mother gazed after him through the window, till the trees hid him from her view; then she shut herself up in her rooms for days, and no one, not even her maid, knew all that proud woman suffered during this time.

After her marriage with her one-armed soldier, Euphemia and he lived in a tiny cottage down the Clyde. They were so poor that it was difficult indeed to get ends to meet, even in a semi-genteel kind of way. But they were rich in each other's love. And so they struggled on and on for years.

Alas that I should have to tell it! Lieutenant Mackenzie in an evil hour was induced to enter the betting ring. From that hour his downfall may have been dated. It is too sad a story to tell. Instead of the pretty little cottage on the banks of the romantic Clyde, his wife and he were soon occupying rooms in a somewhat squalid quarter of great Glasgow.

How it happened I do not know, but one evening Donald was missing, and he did not return all the next day; but in the gloom of the gloaming a strange man called on Mrs. Mackenzie, and when she saw him she burst at once into an agony of grief that cannot easily be described.

It ended in her leaving her two children to the charge of a neighbour and going away in a cab with the stranger—to a mortuary.

Yes, that was he—that was Donald, pale and draggled and dead; her Donald, with his poor, empty sleeve pinned across his breast!

Oh the pity of it! oh the anguish! But there, the curtain drops on that act, and I am glad it does. Let me just add that ill-health after this reduced Mrs. Mackenzie more and more, till we find her living in this one room, her boy and girl alone to cheer her, and give her some little excuse for hanging on to life.

But compared with many of the large houses in many parts of Glasgow, No. 73 Summer Loaning was very quiet.

Yes, it was quiet, except perhaps on a Saturday night, when, it must be conceded, one or two working-men did come up the long stone stair singing to themselves. Although a lady by birth and education, Mrs. Mackenzie, in her one room, did not keep all her neighbours at bay. They called her the "shuestress," which is a kind of Scotch for dressmaker. They knew she had seen far better days, and that she was poorer now than any of them, because she was unable to do much work. As the song says,—

"The poor make no new friends,
But ah! they love the better far
The few the Father sends."

Now, it might be thought by some that, for sake of her children, Mrs. Mackenzie ought to have written to her late husband's mother or rich relations, and asked for help.

Asked for help? No, a thousand times no; that would have been begging! Mrs. Mackenzie was far too proud to do that. Sooner would she die. But her pride did not forbid her from courting the companionship of the neighbours on the stair. If they were, like herself, poor, or not so poor, they were honest. And really neighbours like these need to be friendly. If you are in the grip of grim poverty, and sick and ill, you will find few more attentive to you, and few whose attentions you will more readily suffer, than those of neighbours who are just as poor as you.

Well-meaning ladies sometimes called upon the Mackenzies with bundles of tracts and Pharisaical advice, and out of politeness Mrs. Mackenzie suffered them. When, however, about a year and two months after little Jack's adventure at the Morgans', his poor mother fell sick, and was confined for weeks to bed, it wasn't to her rich visitors in sealskin sacks and gloves of kid she had to look for comfort and help.

Luckily, in expectation of just such an illness as this, Mrs. Mackenzie had saved a little money. But there lived on the stair immediately below a Mrs. Malony, whose husband was a blacksmith, who sometimes, sad to say, took a dram. He wasn't by any means a bad fellow, however, and often took Johnnie Greybreeks off with him for a whole day to the smithy to see the sparks fly, and always shared his dinner with Johnnie. The blacksmith had no family, and his wife used sometimes to go out charing, so her hands were hard and rough. But her heart wasn't.

Mrs. Malony would often come up to borrow a flat-iron or a "brander," or even a red herring for her man's supper, when hard up. On the other hand, if she happened to make a good bargain down town on a Saturday night, she would never forget to bring "the shuestress" some portion of it—a piece of fish, a few potatoes, a couple of sausages, or a bundle of greens. Often, too, in the long, dreary winter forenights, Mrs. Malony would spend hours in her neighbour's room. She would at times bring her husband also, when he was washed and tidied up; and he did nothing but sit in a corner and smoke and smile. But Johnnie and his sister would "hurkle" down by the fire, nursing the cat between them while they listened to Mrs. Malony's wonderful tales of Ireland and the down-trodden Irish. Evenings like these passed pleasantly enough away.

The children had a younger neighbour, though, a pale-faced, roll-shouldered boy who lived in the garret with his old mother, and used to play the fiddle on the street to support her. Very sweetly he did play, too, though his airs were very sad.

Little Peter, as he was called, used to come downstairs frequently to tea, and bring his fiddle. Well, the tea was almost an imaginary entertainment. It was a delightful sort of a make-belief. To be sure, there was bread and a scraping of butter, and thin, thin tea, with but little milk and less sugar; but then there were oyster-shells and round "chuckie-stanes" to take the place of cakes and currant-buns and all kinds of nice things. And with Maggie presiding in such a dignified and lady-like way, it was quite easy for Little Peter to imagine that an oyster-shell was a slice of delicious tea-cake, or a "chuckie-stane" a pasty.

Then there were really more laughing and fun at these make-believe tea-parties than if everything had been edible.

But that fiddle of Little Peter's was real. There was no mistake about the musical part of the entertainment. But when poor Mrs. Mackenzie fell ill, the sealskin-sack people came but seldom. It might be something catching, you know. The young minister was kind, however, though somewhat too solemn for a sick-room.

It would have been a sad and dreary time, then, for the little family but for their kindly neighbours. Poor Mrs. Malony, with her rough, red hand and her plain face, became a sort of a saint. She allowed Malony to take his "pick" of dinner out of doors, and made him always take Johnnie Greybreeks with him, and keep him all day—there were no Board schools in those days, you know. Malony had also to make his own cup of coffee when he returned at night, buying a polony and a roll on the way to eat with it. But Malony had his pipe, and took things very easy. How gentle Mrs. Malony was with the poor invalid; how softly she spread the bed and softened the hard, small pillows! Ah, it was indeed a treat to have her there. She was very plain-spoken, however. Here, for example, was a specimen of the kind of verbal comfort she used to give Mrs. Mackenzie:—

"An' sure, Mrs. Mackenzee, ye needn't be throublin' yourself aboot dyin' at all. For whin ye're dead and in the soilent grave, it's meself and Malony will be lookin' after the childer. Indade I'll bring thim up as me own, and it's the beautiful blacksmith that Johnnie will make; so niver be grievin', but die whin ye plaze wid an aisy mind, an' sure it's the angels will be waitin' for ye evermore."

Was it any wonder that as she listened to consolation like this, and her mind reverted to her father's beautiful home, or to her life with Donald in the wee cottage by the banks of the bonnie Clyde, tears stole down her pale cheeks? But then she would say to herself, "Oh, how ungrateful I am!" and so she would seize and press Mrs. Malony's kindly hand, and cry,—

"Is it good ye're sayin', Mrs. Mackenzee? Sure I need all me goodness. An' after all, isn't it the same you'd be doin' for me if I was sick and ill? There now, don't cry. Indade it's just as wake [weak] as a baby ye are."

The young doctor was very attentive, but one evening he left the bedside looking more thoughtful than usual. Mrs. Mackenzie seemed to be dozing, so after keeping his fingers on her pale wrist for a time, he had let the hand drop gently on the coverlet. He looked at Mrs. Malony as he passed out, and she followed him to the landing.

"Och and och!" cried Mrs. Malony, with her rough apron to her eyes. "Och and och, dhoctor dear, is it come to this?—so soon and sudden."

"Oh, hang physic!" cried the doctor. "It isn't physic she wants, Mrs. Malony, but good wine and beef-tea."

"An' would the tay and the wine take her from the bhrink av the grave, dhoctor dear?"

"It would give her a chance. Don't leave her, Mrs. Malony; don't leave her! I fear I can do little more."

Mrs. Malony went back to the quiet room. Her patient seemed sleeping, and so she moved about like a mouse, lest she should disturb her.

The spring sun was shining in through the window and falling on a bunch of early flowers that Little Peter had brought the invalid, because he knew she loved them. It fell also on the canary's cage. Even Dick had given up singing lately, as if he knew there was sadness and grief in the air.

Mrs. Malony drew the blind a little way down, then left the room. She stole downstairs on tiptoe. Maggie was there, keeping house.

"Go up," said Mrs. Malony, "as quate as a weasel, and sit by your mother till I come back."

Mrs. Malony went straight to her cupboard, now her clothes-cupboard, and very soon made up a bundle.

They were the woman's Sunday clothes for all that, and she meant to take them to the poor man's banker at the sign of the three golden balls.

"Set you up wid a gold ring indade, Mrs. Malony," she said, "when a brass one would do for a toime! Ill-luck? I won't belave it."

A tear fell on the ring nevertheless, for it brought back memories of happy days of the half-forgotten past. No wonder then she sighed as she screwed it off.

"You've been crying, Mrs. Malony," said the burly pawnbroker as she laid the ring on the counter.

"Put that ring back on your finger again this moment, Mrs. Malony," said the man. "I'm going to let you have just double on the dresses. Oh yes, they're worth it. I won't lose by it. Now off you go and buy the wine."

"Lord love you, Mr. Grant," said the poor woman as she picked up the money. "An' I belave it's yourself that's saved a loife this blissid day."

When Mrs. Malony returned, she found Maggie silently weeping by her mother's bed. Then a great fear got possession of her heart. Had her sacrifice been all in vain? Was the invalid gone? She hastily deposited her purchases on the little table and approached the bed.

Mrs. Mackenzie looked very still and beautiful. She might have been made of wax, or her features chiselled from purest marble.

Mrs. Malony touched her hand that still lay on the coverlet. It was cold. She bent over her, and could hear no breathing.

CHAPTER IV.

"I'LL BE A SAILOR OR A SOLDIER."

As she bent over the bed in grief and sorrow, Mrs. Malony was rewarded and startled at the same time. For the poor patient heaved a sigh, and slowly opened her eyes.

It wasn't the first, nor the second patient either, that Mrs. Malony had nursed, so she had all her wits about her.

She knew that at this very moment Mrs. Mackenzie's life was hanging by the merest thread, and there was no time to lose.

She quickly squeezed some of the juice of the meat into a saucer, and mixing it with a little wine, put it tea-spoonful after tea-spoonful into her patient's mouth.

Mrs. Mackenzie slept after this, a real not a dreamful sleep, and towards evening she awoke refreshed. A cupful of warm beef-tea was ready, and she smiled her thanks as she sipped it.

All that night Mrs. Malony sat up and nursed her, and when next day the doctor came, he was more than satisfied.

"She will do now," he told Mrs. Malony on the landing—"do for a time. If she could only be got down the Clyde to a cottage hospital I know of—Well, I'll do what I can."

"I'll tell you how I think it can be managed," said Dr. Gregory, a few days after this. "There is a cottage hospital, or rather a home for poor convalescents, down the water. It is partly supported by voluntary contributions, but the patients have to pay a little themselves."

"But," interrupted Mrs. Malony, "the crayture here is as poor as a church-mouse, sorr, and not able to pay. Och, and och!"

"Wait a minute, Mrs. Malony. I have noticed how deft and handy little Maggie here is. She seems really cut out for a nurse. Now, at the home they want just such a wee lass, and she would have food and keep, and wages enough to maintain her mother at the hospital.—Would you like to go, dear?"

And the doctor did see about it. For a fortnight, however, if not more, Mrs. Mackenzie was not strong enough to be moved. But during all this time she was slowly improving. This was perhaps as much from the fact that she now had hope as from the extra nourishment she received.

Little Johnnie Greybreeks, however, much to his sorrow, was to remain in Glasgow, and live for a time with the Malonies.

Johnnie kept up very bravely, though. He wouldn't have shed a tear before his mother or sister, not even when the day of parting came, for anything. But when in his little bed at night—ah! then I must confess the lad did give way to grief. We must remember he was little more than a child after all.

"I'm going to learn to be a big man," he told his mother proudly on the last evening, "and Mr. Malony says I'll soon be able to shoe a horse. And, O mother," he added, rather sadly, "shoeing horses is a fine thing, but I would rather be a Highland soldier and wear a feather bonnet, like what father wears in his picture."

"Dear boy," replied his mother, "we must all try to do our duty in the line of life God has appointed us to."

Mrs. Malony had a friend who was skipper of a small sailing schooner. Old Skipper Ross used to pride himself in the beauty and sailing qualities of his little craft, and had rebaptized her Queen of the Clyde.

When this honest, red-faced seaman heard the story of poor Mrs. Mackenzie, he took his pipe from his mouth, and his face puckered with smiles under the blue Kilmarnock night-cap he always wore.

"Dear Mrs. Malony," he said, "instead of the puir lady gaun doon the Clyde in a smoke-jack steam-boat, I'll tak her mysel'. Splinter my jib-boom if I dinna."

Malony himself got a day off. They were all to go down the Clyde together, and make a kind of pleasure-trip of it. They would even take Little Peter with them, to give them music during the voyage.

Well, it wasn't very often that a cab was seen to draw up at 73 Summer Loaning, so when the jarvey stopped and turned his horse at the "close mou',"* young and old flocked out and lined the pavement. When the poor wan invalid was got inside, many a rough voice wished her God-speed, and they even raised a cheer as the cab drove off and away.

It was a lovely spring morning when the Queen of the Clyde caught the light breeze, and began manoeuvring down the river, Skipper Ross himself holding the tiller. The old man declared he could steer his ship through a hundred herring-boats and never run foul of anything.

Mrs. Mackenzie and party had seats on the deck. And everything was as clean and tidy, too, as the duke's yacht itself, not a rope's end or belaying-pin out of place, and the paint-work as bright as a gipsy's caravan.

The invalid heaved a sigh of relief when at long last the great noisy ship-building yards were left behind, with the awful din of their ringing hammers, and the bonnie river began to open out before them broad and wide, with the sunshine glittering on its bosom, and the greenery of trees and far-off hills bounding the horizon.

Mrs. Mackenzie was thinking sadly of her dear departed husband, who was buried at the lovely town of Helensburgh, and Maggie and Jack were seated on deck at her feet. Then Peter drew out his fiddle.

"Ah! man, ay," cried the skipper. "Play up, lad, do. Sweeter to me is the soond o' the fiddle and its lang-drawn melody than the cry o' the sea-birds, sailin' tack and half-tack roond ma wee bit shippie. Play, laddie, play!"

So down the Clyde they dropped, floating as easily as cormorant on the wave, past villages, past towns, and wilds and woodlands green, and it was quite near eventide when the Queen at last got alongside the pier.

They had indeed enjoyed the voyage. And Jack had spread the banquet on the white planks of the deck, and everybody enjoyed that also.

Just after it was done and cleared away, Skipper Ross drew out a black bottle from a handy locker.

"I've sworn off," he said. "Indade, it's the truth that I'm tellin' ye. For this wee lad here has now to look on Patrick Malony as his father. But thank ye all the same."

The parting was over, and Mrs. Mackenzie was alone in a delightful little ward with her daughter Maggie. They had brought the canary, and he began to sing the very next morning. And no wonder; for everything around was sweet and white and clean, and honeysuckle waved its dark-green foliage around the window, while afar off were the grand old purple hills, with many a glen and wood between.

The cottage home was near to the sea too, for flocks of gulls and rooks together could be seen out in the fields yonder.

"Yes, dearie; I feel I shall get well now. But, child, I dread to think of the future."

"Ah! that is only because you are ill, you know. God provides for the rooks and gulls yonder, mother, and he won't forget us surely."

Maggie spoke cheerfully and sincerely. She was not one of your old-old-fashioned children, nor was she given to preaching either. The girl was tall and ladylike, though very young, and pretty besides; but she had a thoughtful and serious look in her eyes, that showed she had not been reared in the stern school of poverty and adversity in vain.

Maggie's faith was very simple. Her little Bible had for many a day been her friend and companion. She went to it for consolation and guidance at all times and under all circumstances, opening it at random, and believing that the very first verse her eyes fell upon was an answer to the thoughts that filled her mind.

There really is much to be said for this simplicity of faith, often present not only in the very young but in their elders. Science as yet is but groping in the dark, although it seems inspired, and may be. But here, in this Book, we have all we appear to want for our happiness laid down in a way that goes straight to the heart. It was concerning such simple wee folks as Maggie, surely, that our Saviour spoke when he said, "Suffer little children to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

When little Johnnie Greybreeks returned to Glasgow, he found life for a time very dull indeed, though the kind-hearted Mrs. Malony and her husband did all they could to cheer him up. But he used to lie in his bed at night, awake and thinking, till long past twelve. What should he be? That was the question that puzzled him to answer.

To tell the truth, Johnnie, as for the time being we may continue to call him, was just a trifle ambitious. At all events, working in the blacksmith's shop was very monotonous, although he did all he could, and really earned his food. He didn't like it though, and told himself so every night of his life, he considering himself dreadfully ungrateful to the good people with whom he lived for doing so.

Whenever Johnnie had an hour or so to spare, Little Peter and he used to go wandering away down by the Broomielaw to look at the ships. Our young hero was better clad now; for since good Tom Morgan had given him that Sunday's suit, his former Sunday's clothes became his week-day wear, and he looked by no means a gutter-snipe or tatterdemalion.

Little Peter was as fond of ships as Johnnie, and as he always took his fiddle with him, the Jackie-tars used to invite him on board sometimes, to play to them while they danced or sang.

"O Johnnie," said Peter one day, as they were going back towards Summer Loaning, "if I wasna a miserable little hunchback, I'd be a sailor mysel'."

"Well, Peter, if I could play the fiddle as well as you, I wouldn't care what my back was like. Anyhow, I've made up my mind either to be a sailor or a soldier. I'd like to wear a feather bonnet.—Hark!" he continued. "Peter, here come the Highlanders. Can't you hear them?"

"Ay, fine can I hear them. The skirl o' the bagpipes maks my bluid run dancin' through ilka vein in my body, and if I had a sword and was big enough, I could fight to music like that."

A few minutes after, the Highlanders came marching and swinging along, their glittering bayonets flashing in the evening sunshine high above their nodding plumes. Even Peter pulled himself an inch taller as the two lads marched side by side with the regiment all the way to the barracks.

"No, no, Peter," he said; "I must be a real fighting soldier, just as poor father was."

Little did Johnnie know that at that very time there was a tidal wave advancing towards him that might lead on to fortune. Or on to death, who could tell? So true is it what Shakespeare says,—

CHAPTER V.

"HULLO, JOHNNIE GREYBREEKS! I'M YOUR UNCLE."

"Hullo, Johnnie Greybreeks! Why, my little man, I've been looking for you for the last six months."

It was Tom Morgan himself the two friends had run up against at the corner of Jamaica Street—big Tom Morgan, brown waving beard and all.

"Please, sir, mother wouldn't let me. You see, sir, you were very good to me that Christmas eve, and mother said if I went back it would look just like—begging, you know, sir."

"Fiddlesticks, Johnnie Greybreeks! But talking about fiddlesticks, who is your little friend here carrying the fiddle?"

"Now, come along, both of you," said Tom. "I know an eating-house near here where they have such capital beef."

And a splendid feed Tom ordered them; and it seemed to do the honest fellow's heart good to see them eat.

"Now," said Tom, "will you play me a tune, Peter? and then I'll be off, for time is precious."

Peter gladly did as suggested; but I am sure that big Tom Morgan merely asked him to play that he might have an excuse for giving the poor lad that half-crown.

"Now, Peter, you can run home; but I want to take Johnnie Greybreeks with me for an hour or so. Good-bye, Peter. See you again.—Come on, Johnnie."

In about a quarter of an hour's time Tom Morgan reached a tall, handsome building in a quiet street; and upstairs the two went together, and entered a room without knocking. It was a well-furnished office, and at a table, littered with papers and bundles of documents tied up with red tape, sat a white-haired, elderly gentleman, with a very pleasant face of his own.

When he looked up with a smile, Johnnie could see it was Mr. Dawson, whom he had met on that Christmas eve at the house of the Morgans.

"Come along, Tom, and take a seat. Ha! so you've found little Johnnie Greybreeks at last, have you?—How do you do, my little man?—I say, Tom, how is business?"

"Well, lad, let me tell you this: it will soon be better, or it will get a send back that will astonish us all."

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Dawson. There must always be ships on the sea, and it is father's business to float them."

"True, true, Tom; but being a lawyer, you know, I perhaps can see farther off than you. Now, believe me, Tom Morgan, when I tell you we are drifting into war with Russia, and our country isn't prepared for it."

"We've got the money and the ships, the sailors and the soldiers. Why, Mr. Dawson, let war come, and we'll flog the Russians on shore, and whip them off the seas."

"Well, I'm not so sure; but then I'm getting old, you know. But you'll see. The Russian privateers and legalized pirates will cover the ocean, and British commerce won't have a show."

"Did you see that noble Highland regiment march past, Mr. Dawson? Man, that's the stuff!—Did you see them, Johnnie?"

"O yes, sir; me and Peter marched all the way with them. O sir, I want to be a soldier or a sailor, and help to whip the Russians. Dear father was a soldier, you know," he added sadly.

"Oh, I don't know much. I hardly remember father; but poor mother has his picture, and, O sir, he looks so noble, with his kilt and his sword and his feather bonnet. He only had one arm, you know, and—and he was drowned in the Clyde."

"Now tell us about your mother and sister. Where are they, and what do they do?"

Then Johnnie told all the sad story of sickness, of struggle, and of poverty that the reader already knows. More than once the tears stole into his eyes as he spoke, and very patiently indeed did the two gentlemen listen to all he said.

"Tom," said Mr. Dawson, when Johnnie had finished, "I think we're on the right lay."

"Well, she has some strange ways with her; but I think that she really means well."

All this was Greek to little Johnnie Greybreeks, who sat there on a high stool waggling his legs, and looking from one to the other, uncertain whether he ought to smile or not. Ever feel in that position, reader? I have.

"Weren't you struck with the remarkable resemblance between Johnnie here and your brother's wee lassie, on the night you brought the boy home?"

"That, indeed, I was," said Tom Morgan; "and so was every one else, especially my father. So, you see," continued Tom, figuring the sentence out on his fingers, "if my oldest brother married Johnnie's father's eldest and only sister—

"That sounds rather Irish, Tom," interrupted Mr. Dawson; "but go on, my boy. Johnnie's father's eldest and only sister—"

"Well, I never was good at counting kin, as it is called, but my brother Fred did marry Johnnie's father's sister—all the world knows that: so little Tottie—Violet, you know—is Johnnie's cousin—no wonder she is like him; and my brother Fred's wife would be Johnnie's aunt; and—and—why, Dawson, I myself am Johnnie's uncle.—Hullo, Johnnie Greybreeks! I'm your uncle. I'm your uncle Tom; shake hands, old man."

At this moment Johnnie really could not have affirmed whether his head or his heels were uppermost, or whether this big, jolly gentleman with the big brown beard wasn't having a joke at his expense. However, he shook hands almost mechanically.

"Hush!" cried Tom; "there are little footsteps on the stairs, and the sound of childish laughter. I believe it is Violet and her governess. Talk of angels, and they appear."

Next moment in rushed Violet, screaming with delight. She kissed Uncle Tom somewhere about the beard.

"Oh," she cried, "doverness has been so dood, and buyed me such a lot of pletty fings."

She stuck one finger in her mouth thoughtfully, but recovering her self-possession almost immediately, she advanced and held out her wee chubby hand.

"I fink," she said, "you is Dohnnie Dleybleeks? How d'ye do, little boy? You and me has met before."

Johnnie jumped off the stool and shook hands as politely as a nobleman would have done.

"Miss Gibb," he continued, addressing the governess, "we—that is, Mr. Dawson chiefly—have made a wonderful discovery. This boy you see before you, and who is called Jack Mackenzie, is my niece—no, I mean nephew—by the brother's side, as it were, and consequently first cousin-german to—I say, Mr. Dawson, bother it all, I'm getting a bit mixed again."

"So you's my fist tousin, 'ittle boy, is you?—Miss Dibb, tiss my fist tousin for me; I can't be boddled tissing 'ittle boys."

Miss Gibb dutifully did as she was told; at which condescension Johnnie was more puzzled than ever. He would have given three of his best marbles at that moment to any one who could have told him where he was in particular, and what day of the week it was.

But the interview was soon brought to an end; and when Johnnie went back to his home in Summer Loaning, a very droll story indeed he had to tell Mrs. Malony.

"Och, sure," she cried, "I always tould Malony that poor dear Mrs. Mackenzie wasn't the same as us at all, at all; that she was a lady under a cloud, sure enough. And troth and I'm roight. And it's a foine gintleman you'll be, Johnnie, some day entoirely."

Old Mrs. Mackenzie of Drumglen in Perthshire was certainly all that Tom and Mr. Dawson had said. She was nothing if not orthodox and conservative to a degree.

She belonged to a very old and aristocratic family in the north of Inverness-shire. The family, however, had the misfortune to be somewhat poor, and ill-natured people did say that when Miss Stuart married Mr. Mackenzie, a Jamaica merchant, it was more from love of money and what it could bring than from love of Mac himself. But, of course, ill-natured people will say anything, and charity is a flower that is not half so well cultivated as it ought to be.

Never mind. Miss Stuart was at the time of her wedding stately, tall, and handsome, and—a stanch Jacobite. Mr. Mackenzie, on the other hand, was on the weather-side of forty, and though wiry enough, he was about the same colour as a cake of gingerbread. That is what Jamaica and the West Indies had done for him.

He took his bride out with him at first to the beautiful islands of the West. She admitted they were very beautiful, but she didn't like life there, and she went in a constant state of fear and horror of the creepie-creepies. The flowers were gorgeous, but often from the very centre of a lovely bouquet brought by her black maid a centiped as long as a penholder would wriggle. In the centre of huge bunches of luscious fruit little wicked snakes would be asleep, and even as she stood admiring the fruit, one would protrude a tiny triangle of a head and venomously hiss in her face. Oh, it wasn't nice.

Fire-flies were pretty flitting about among the bushes at night, like stars that had lost their way; but she found creatures indoors even in her bedroom that were not fire-flies, and whose perfume was not like that of attar of roses. She even found things in the soup that the chef couldn't account for, and cockroaches' legs are not the thing in a cup of coffee.

So she told Mackenzie, gently but firmly, that she was going home; that she would not give one glimpse of the purple heather for all the beauty and wealth of the Indian Isles.

Mac was very fond of his aristocratic bride. If she had asked him to live in Kamschatka or build her a mansion in lonely Spitzbergen, he would have done so. Therefore, like a dutiful husband, he came home.

He brought with him a black servant-man, or boy who eventually became a man, just to remind him of those sunny isles in the beautiful West; and soon after his return he bought the mansion-house and broad lands of bonnie Drumglen.

Not long after Johnnie's father was born, Mr. Mackenzie died one wild, stormy winter's morning. After being so long in the tropics, I suppose, the climate of the Scottish Highlands hardly suited him. He was found asleep in his library chair, with his hands folded, his toes on the fender, and a red bandana laid as usual over the bald patch on his crown.

His black servant shook him—once, twice, thrice. It was the laird's last sleep, and shaking was unavailing.

"Pore massa done gone dead, I fink, milady. I shakee he, one, two, tree time, but he not sware at me. I fink, milady, he nebber wake no mo' in dis world."

It was somewhat strange that Mrs. Mackenzie never seemed to take to her daughter, who was about five years older than Donald her boy—Johnnie's father. Her whole life and love seemed bound up in her son.

Under the plea of giving her the best education it was possible to obtain, the girl was sent to a school in Edinburgh. There she lived and grew up, only coming home at holiday-time.

It was at Edinburgh, too, that Flora met Fred Morgan, the son of the wealthy ship-broker. Flora, of course, asked her mother's consent to marry Fred—meaning to marry him, anyhow, for the Mackenzies had always been a self-willed race.

At the same time that Sambo, alias Snowball, posted this letter, he dropped one into the box for Mr. Dawson, the family solicitor.

But "milady" was as politely reticent as a Mohawk Indian. She said nothing about business that day.

He dined in state—with Snowball behind his high-backed chair, arrayed in a crimson waistcoat and immaculate coat and neckerchief.

Next morning Mrs. Mackenzie accorded her solicitor an interview within the gloomy precincts of the library. The lady came to the point at once, and with as much force and precision as Malony made use of when beating a red-hot horse-shoe.

"No palaver, Mr. Dawson, please," she jerked out. "My daughter is going to be married. She did me the courtesy of asking my leave—a mere matter of friendly formality, of course. She is going to marry a Morgan. The Morgans are Welsh. I don't like the Welsh; they are mere business people. I don't like that. I believe a daughter of mine might have married a lord. N'importe; it is no fault of mine. But, Mr. Dawson, these Morgans are said to be wealthy Welsh. Well, my estate is my own, is it not?"

"Well, Mr. Dawson, I can leave all to my dear boy if he continues to love and obey his mother as he does now; but I come of a very independent family, and, if I choose, I can leave my riches to build an hospital, or, what is even more needed, a new ship of war. Now, sir, make out a cheque for £5,000 to my daughter, and I will sign it. Write also a letter, couched in friendly but not too friendly terms, to accompany this cheque. I want my daughter, or rather the Morgans, to understand that there is a gulf fixed between the mansion-house of Drumglen and their shop in Glasgow."

He had, however, always since then managed to keep on the very best terms with the Morgans, as well as with Mrs. Mackenzie herself.

Long, long years, as we know, had gone by since that day when Mrs. Mackenzie turned her soldier son out to face the wide world and poverty, and the stern old dame had somewhat softened as she grew older.

Perhaps if Donald had gone to Drumglen and begged her forgiveness, she would have relented and received him into favour once more. But the same proud blood ran in the veins of both mother and son.

Mr. Dawson went very often to Drumglen, and sometimes spent weeks fishing or shooting on the estate. He enjoyed this, although the house itself and the company were hardly free and easy enough to suit the jolly solicitor.

Dawson was summoned rather hastily once. This was after the body of poor Lieutenant Donald Mackenzie, her son, had been found in the river.

The solicitor found her looking older than ever he had seen her. She seemed broken, not as to physique, but mentally.

She talked a deal about her younger days and her married life, and Dawson guessed rightly that she was working the subject round to her late son.

"O Mr. Dawson," she said at last, "I don't mind confessing to you that I have been just a little too hasty, and that if poor Donald were alive again I—I might consider the whole subject. But there, Mr. Dawson, my regrets are vain; and now I wish you to make my will, for I feel I must soon follow my husband to the grave."

"Why, Mrs. Mackenzie, you are not at all old yet, However," he added, "it is as well we should all be prepared."

"Yes, and that was just what good Mr. M'Thump, our minister, said in the pulpit yesterday. His text was, 'For ye know not the day nor the hour.' A good man and a learned is Mr. M'Thump, and he'll dine with you to-night, Mr. Dawson."

I fear the solicitor did not look overmuch pleased at the information. However, he proceeded to take pencil notes of the lady's will, and that very evening he drew it up.

It was brief in the extreme. She left all she possessed to build a new ship of war, to assist in protecting the freedom of her beloved country.*

* It would be a good thing if wealthy millionaires who have no family would follow the old lady's example. Britain stands sadly in need of more ships of war.—AUTHOR.

Years flew by. The old dame appeared to have renewed her age, as she certainly had her sternness and aristocratic composure. She never mentioned her son now; but Dawson took good care to tell her all about the discovery of little Johnnie Greybreeks, and how strangely he had turned up at the Christmas party. He told the story so feelingly that more than once during the recital he fancied he saw a tear in the stately lady's eyes.

"I had a strange dream last night," she told him. "I thought I saw Donald my boy. He held his little son by the hand, and looked at me, oh, so pleadingly. Heigh-ho! I suppose I am old and soft and silly; but, Mr. Dawson, I am not sure I should not like to see that boy Jack you spoke about—just for once, if you can find him."

Dawson, however, was not much of a detective, else he might have found Johnnie before that day on which Tom Morgan met him accidentally near the bridge.

And now we shall see what this accidental meeting led to as far as Johnnie was concerned.

CHAPTER VI.

"THE OLD LADY HAD A WOMAN'S HEART AFTER ALL."

So said Cæsar of old, by way of describing the ease with which he gained a victory against his enemies.

"Veni, vidi, vici," Johnnie Greybreeks might have said, after his first interview with that stately and aristocratic dame his grandmother.

But wait a minute, reader. I fear I must call our little hero Johnnie Greybreeks no longer—at least not while he is under the lordly roof-tree of Drumglen. He must be Jack.

Well, it was Dawson himself who brought Johnnie—no, I mean Jack—to the mansion-house, and led him into the presence of his grandma.

Johnnie—that is Jack; you see I can't get into the swing of it all at once—was very neatly dressed in Highland tweeds, and brave he looked. The old lady sat erect in her high-backed chair. She could not but notice the striking resemblance between the boy and her Donald of the olden days; yet she had meant to receive him most soberly and stately.

The grandam drew herself up. She looked at Jack once. She looked at him twice. Then she opened wide her arms; and as Jack flew like a bird to her embrace, she pressed him to her heart and fairly burst into tears.

What a long, delightful letter that was Jack wrote to his mother and sister next day! It did both their hearts good.

Mrs. Mackenzie, junior, was glad, for her boy's sake, that he had found a friend that would advance him in life. For her own part, she would have died at the foot of a pine tree rather than accept a favour from the proud owner of Drumglen, albeit she was her late husband's mother.

Ah! pride, and especially Scotch pride, is a bitter feeling, and often even a cruel. Pride has been called the devil's darling sin, and by Pope

"Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by."

Well, I do believe that with Grandam Mackenzie the stream of life now began to run backwards for a time. She had invited Jack to stay but for a week or two; but the sweet summer-time was coming on, and the boy required no second invitation to make Drumglen his home for a time. The words "for a time" are Mrs. Mackenzie's own, and perhaps she hardly knew the full meaning of them herself.

Jack wasn't going to forget old friends, however, and he wrote to Mrs. Malony, and to Little Peter also, and promised to write again.

I think that young Jack had not been at Drumglen for even a week before the rigidity of the mansion began to thaw.

Jack was jolly, but never with a jollity approaching to vulgarity. Indeed, in company and at table, thanks to his mother's tuition, the boy behaved himself like a little lord. But he often said droll things that made everybody laugh, and caused even the orthodox Mr. M'Thump to smile.

As a rule, the ladies and gentlemen who assembled at a dinner-party here were as stiff and straight in the back, physically and morally, as the chairs in which they sat.

When the ladies retired, however, the men folks did unbend, and some of them drew Jack out; and Jack—he did not require a very great deal of encouragement—gave his ideas about life and things in general in such a comically philosophical way, that old-fashioned lairds thumped the table and laughed aloud.

There was just one subject, however, on which Jack was wisely silent—namely, his sad life of poverty and distress in stony-hearted Glasgow.

Some things are better left unsaid, some stories better left untold. And Jack knew this instinctively as it were, and held his peace—for his grandma's sake.

Moreover he kept his own counsel concerning the whereabouts of his mother and sister, even when so eminent and dignified an individual as the Rev. Mr. M'Thump endeavoured to draw him out.

In this, again, Jack pleased his grandma very much. Drumglen mansion-house was in itself a somewhat antiquated and dreary abode, although situated in the midst of the most beautiful Highland scenery—hill and dale, river, loch, scaur, and wild wood.

The weeping birch trees were nowhere of sweeter, softer green in early spring than on the banks and braes around here; and among their branches the mavis and blackbirds trilled their songs with a joy that seemed half hysterical, while from far aloft, skimming the clouds, the laverock showered his notes of love. Nowhere did the primroses grow bigger, cooler, sweeter, than by the banks of the bickering burn that went singing over the stones on its way to the loch, forming many a clear pool wherein the minnows darted hither and thither, and where the crimson-ticked trout loved to bask in the sunshine. Then in autumn the hills around were purpled and encrimsoned with heather and heath high up their sides, till their rugged heads were lost in the clouds.

But the garden walls of Drumglen were high and strong, and the gates of ponderous iron. It seemed as if they had been built to stand a siege in the stormy days of old.

Inside these walls the garden itself was wide and wild, and away aloft, in the black and gloomy foliage of the pine trees, the hoody crow had his nest, and eke that bird of ill-omen the magpie.

The walls of the house itself were very thick and the windows small. Not a sound did your footsteps make as you glided about the rooms. So silent did you move on the thick, soft carpets, that you could scarce help thinking at times that you were your own ghost.

The furniture of this gloomy house seemed a thousand years old at least. The stairs were of oak; and when Jack first beheld his grandmother's bed, he gazed at it with a feeling of awe. It was a huge, dark, and curtained edifice, with drapery of the snowiest white. To have slept under such a weight as that would have made a stranger dream he was about to be smothered alive.

The old dame's servants had always been chosen for their solemnity, one would have said, and their reverential stateliness. They had never been heard to laugh till Jack went to reside at the mansion.

But now things were a little bit altered. For the boy moved about the house like a ray of sunshine, and you could no more have kept him from laughing, or singing the fag-ends of old Scotch songs, than you could have prevented a lark from trilling his love-lilts in May.

I may tell you that Jack knew well enough that his grandam wished him to keep his place if ever he entered the servants' hall. So he did; and yet his presence there never failed to bring sunshine, light, and music, and oftentimes now the dark oak ceilings re-echoed the mirth of servants who had ever before been as sad and solemn as church beadles or funeral mutes.

With all her orthodox conservativeness, however, Mrs. Mackenzie seemed to know that boys like Jack cannot live without amusement, and so at no time was she averse to the visits of youngsters of his own age. She even gave entertainments, and invited to them the children of neighbouring lairds, so that on the whole Jack's life was not so solemn an affair as it might otherwise have been.

In the evenings when alone together, the old lady used to make him draw his low stool up close beside her knee and talk to her. She would even encourage him to tell her about life in what might well be called the lower regions of the great city of Glasgow.

The disinterested kindness of Mrs. Malony and poor Little Peter, the hunch-backed fiddler boy, visibly affected Jack's grandmother.

"I did not think," she said, "that the poor could be so kind to each other as that. I will send Mrs. Malony, and Peter too, a Christmas-box when the time comes round. And so they were going to make a blacksmith of my brave boy, were they?"

"Malony wasn't so very terrible, though," he said; "and I suppose, grandma, if nobody was a smithy-John, nobody's horses would have any shoes to wear."

"True, my dear, quite true. As the potter makes his wares, some to honour and some to dishonour, so are we too made, and we should do our duty in the station of life which God has appointed us to fill."

Jack didn't reply. He was gazing into the bright fire of peats and coal that blazed so cheerfully on the low hearth, and wondering what station in life it would be his to fill.

"Jack," she said, after a pause, "did it ever occur to you that you would like to be something?"

"But think of the honour and glory of serving Him even in this world, and the richness of the reward hereafter. Think of our minister, the Rev. Titus M'Thump. He has ere now been honoured by dining even with royalty."

"Well, child, the law affords facilities for rising to eminence in the world. Mr. Dawson, my own solicitor, is both a great and a good man. But," she added, as Jack did not reply, "how would you like to be a leech?"

Jack looked up astonished, with eyes about as big as billiard-balls. He had seen Malony apply a leech once to his sister's neck when she was ill of quinsy, and did not know that "leech" was the old name for physician.

"A leech, grandma! a nasty, black, creepie-crawlie, blood-sucking leech! Oh no, grandma. You are making fun, aren't you?"

"Well," said the old dame gravely, "you are quite right. I don't care for the profession myself. Your strictures on the leech are probably somewhat severe, however. I had one to dine with me a few months back, and really he seemed fairly intelligent."

"Dine with a leech!" thought Jack; "why, grandmother must be going out of her mind."

"Oh yes," replied the boy, eagerly enough. "You see, grandma, Mr. Dawson says there is going to be a big, big war with Russia."

"Well, sailors fight as well as soldiers, and dress all in blue and gold, for I've seen some. They don't have feather bonnets, though—only just cocked hats and long swords. Well, I would like to be a sailor like that; and I'm sure when I grow bigger I could cut off an enemy's head beautifully."

"O boy, boy, how horrible! Well, I'll think about it; and if your mother will let you stay with me for a time, I will get you a good and clever tutor."

Jack did not answer, but he took his grandma's soft hand in both his, and leaned his cheek upon it in a gently caressing way.

"Strange," thought old Mrs. Mackenzie; "that is the way poor Donald used to caress my hand when he was quite a boy. Surely the Lord has given me this child's love to cheer my old age, and to prove that he has forgiven me."

Dawson and Mrs. Mackenzie the elder had a consultation soon after this. The subject to be considered was this: How best could she do something for her daughter-in-law that would not wound her pride?

"I felt sure," said the solicitor, with straightforwardness, "that you would put this question to me, and I have thought it well out. The doctor has told me that she is now almost well, but that if she returns to her life of poverty and hard work in Glasgow, she will soon find her last home in the mools."

"Well, my dear madam, the cottage hospital down the Clyde is turning a great success; if you could add two beds to it—"

"Nothing would please me better. I will build a small additional wing to it, with a little cottage and garden near for the matron."

"Yes—that my daughter-in-law could be appointed manageress, with Jack's sister as nurse."

"Well, it is as good as accomplished. Only let it be between ourselves. No one is to know who the donor is."

"It is to be our little secret, Mr. Dawson; and, after all, I think one may just as well do good with one's money while alive as after death."

"Ah! that is another subject I hope to discuss with you one day. Perhaps—but—well, the matter needs further consideration, so for the present we shall dismiss it."

Jack stayed all the summer at Drumglen; but when the autumn came round, his grandmother, one evening as they sat by the fire, opened the conversation by saying,—

"My dear boy, your tutor, Mr. Newington, tells me you have been working very hard, and made capital progress in your studies; so I am going to send you home for six whole weeks to your mother and sister, at the Cottage Hospital. I hear there has been a new wing built to it, and a little house and garden for the matron, and that your mother has been appointed to that position. Well, dear boy, write and tell them you are coming; and I'll give you an envelope with something in it, so that you can pay your way, and be quite the little gentleman."

Jack took her hand in the old caressing way; but he did even more—he drew her arm right round his neck and nestled more closely up to her knee.

Mrs. Malony was busy making her husband's supper one evening about a week after this, when the door opened, and in bounced Jack.

"Och, sure," she cried, "and is it me own dear bhoy, Johnnie Greybreeks? Indade and indade it was only this blissed morning I was talking to Phatrick about ye. An' how well you are looking, alanna! troth it's the foine young gintleman ye are already entoirely. See there, the very cat knows ye; and won't Peter be plazed!"

And so she rattled on. By-and-by the husband himself came in, smiling all over his black and smutty face, and right heartily Johnnie shook his hard and brooky fist.

After supper Peter came down, and brought the fiddle too. That was one of the happiest nights ever Johnnie remembered spending.

Next day he went to see Mr. Dawson and the Morgans, but only for a hurried visit. Then the steamer Iona took him down stream, and at sunset he was seated beside his mother's cottage fire, with the dearest ones on earth beside him—one on each side.

How cosy and home-like everything looked around him! even the canary and the cat seemed as if they had been specially ordained for the cheerful room. There were flowers, too, everywhere, inside and out; but Maggie Mackenzie was the sweetest flower of all—so even her brother Jack thought.

She was dressed primly, it is true, as became her position as a nurse, but that did not detract in the slightest degree from her lady-like appearance.

"Strange how things come about, dear boy," she said. "You see the Lord heard our prayers, and has raised us up friends. For ever blessed be his name!"

As she spoke she wiped away a tear with her white apron. It was a tear of joy and gratitude, however.

CHAPTER VII.

"HARD A-PORT!"

It was the bos'n's pipe sounding loud and shrill high over the howling of a nor'-wester and the song of the storm-stirred waves.

And hardly had the last notes of the pipe ceased as quickly as if they had been cut off clear and sharp by the wind, than the men came rattling up the ladders to duty.

There was every need for haste too, for the storm had suddenly increased to almost the force of a tornado. The sun was sinking red and angrily away in the west-sou'-west, his last rays luridly lighting up the foam and spume of each breaking billow, and casting rusty rays even on the spray that was now dashing inboard high as the top of the funnel itself. There was no steam up, however, nor were there even banked fires, albeit the ship was not very far off land.

The Gurnet—for that was her name—was a screw gunboat of the very largest build then on the list, with six good Armstrongs on her deck, besides a monster pivot-gun forward.

She was a model. I don't say that because, many a long year after the date of my story, I myself sailed in her. But a model of beauty the Gurnet was, as good as ever sailor would care to look upon. Low in the water, with none too much freeboard, perhaps; rakish as to masts; bows like a clipper, without any merchant-service flimsiness about them though; and jib-boom like part of a picture. Solid and strong was she though, and as black all over as the wing of a rook, except where, just on the edges, her ports were picked out with vermilion.

Yes; and it is indeed time, with the wind howthering like that, tearing at the sails with angry jerks, and trying the strength of the sturdy ship from stem to stern, from bowsprit to rattling rudder-chains.

Yes: the Gurnet had crossed the Bay of Biscay on the wings of a beautiful wind a trifle abaft the beam. She had passed the Gulf of Corunna, and was now just off Cape Finisterre, or Land's End as we would call it; but nobody, two hours ago, could have believed that the wind would pop round a point or two and come on to blow like this.

It was the doctor who spoke—Dr. Reikie, assistant-surgeon in charge—and as he sang out these words he caught young Midshipman Mackenzie by the lower part of his uniform, as he was struggling up the companion-ladder.

The clutch that he made at him was a very unceremonious one indeed, but a most effectual, for he hauled the middie right back and down into the steerage.

"Why, sir, it's all hands on deck, isn't it?" said Jack Mackenzie, for it was he. "Mustn't I keep my watch, and help to reef topsails?"

Dr. Reikie laughed loud enough to be heard high above the trampling of feet and shouting of orders on deck.

"Ha! ha! ha! Well, I declare, that's about the best thing I've heard for many a day. Man," he added, leading Jack straight off into the cosy little ward-room, "what use d'ye think a vision of a thing like you would be on deck? No more use, man, than a cat in front of a carriage and four. Sit down on the locker there, or, what is better still, lie down, and thank your stars you've gotten a countryman o' your ain to look after you."

"I'll take care you do, youngster. You may disobey anybody else in the mess, but if you dinna do as I tell you, man, I'll lay you across the table and lunner the riggin' o' you. But there," he added, more kindly, "I'm only in fun, or half in fun, you know. Only, dinna forget I'm senior in this mess, and sit at the head o' the table. If I hadn't hauled you down the companion, you'd have been washed half-way to Finisterre afore now."

"Well, mind you're a kind of in the sick-list, and never a watch do you keep—except that bonnie gowd one in your pocket that your granny gave you—till I give you leave."

"Thank you, sir," said Jack again. "But what is supposed to be the matter with me?"

"A touch of sea-sickness—your gills are as white as a haddock's.—Inexperience, and the want o' sea-legs.—Hark! listen! We've carried away something."

I could not say how many ribbons it was rent into, but the noise those ribbons made was indescribable. It was like the rattling of platoon-firing when a regiment of soldiers is being drilled.

"I told the skipper the glass was going down like tea and scandal, and he only laughed at me. If a man refuses to obey the dictates of science, well, he deserves to lose his ship—that's all I've got to say."

"Laddie, how can I tell? If the wind changes, and we don't get up steam in time, our ribs may be dang in on the rocks before mornin'. But don't be afraid. I daresay it will all come right. I'm going on deck to see how her neb is pointing. Keep quiet, and think about your mammy."

And away the doctor went, steadying himself by bulkheads or anything he could lay hold on.

It was now getting very dusk indeed, but so quickly had the men aloft done their duty, that the ship was already snug, and all hands had come below. The captain, Commander Gillespie, was himself on the quarter-deck. He was comparatively a young man, probably not thirty, or about three years the surgeon's senior. He was a smart enough officer, but he had good friends in England in high quarters, and this had got him a separate command; so he walked his own planks, lord of all he saw.

The surgeon and he were already very friendly, only the captain did not put much faith in the weather prognostications advanced by the worthy Scotch medico.

"Um—yes—well, I think you did mention something about the glass. But we're all right."

"Look here, doctor: come down below and dine with me—eh?—and we'll have a jolly good talk, and leave service alone; shan't we?"

This was a very pretty way of telling the doctor to mind his own business; and he wisely took the hint, and went off down below to put on his mess-jacket.

The good fellow, however, was not altogether easy in his mind. He did not like the look of the glass, nor—as he told the lieutenant, whom he met as he passed through the ward-room to reach his cabin—the look of things in general. The clouds this evening were racing across the sky, although it was now almost too dark to see them; the wind was unsteady, though very high; and there was a jerkiness in the motion of the brave little ship that Dr. Reikie did not half like.

Lieutenant Sturdy was putting on an oilskin coat and a sou'-wester. He was a rough-looking sea-dog at the best, but arrayed in this style, his round, red, clean-shaven face smiling rather grimly as the doctor spoke to him, he looked more like a North Sea pilot than the first officer of a British man-of-war.

Sturdy was a year or two older than the captain, but he had no great friends at head-quarters, nor anywhere else for the matter of that. He came of a good, honest Newcastle family. His father owned quite a small fleet of coal-steamers that plied between that great city of the north and London or elsewhere. In fact, these coal-ships coasted everywhere, going high up as far as Aberdeen, and south even to Plymouth itself.

There was a larger steamer in which, being fond of the sea, Mr. Sturdy, senior, had himself coasted for years. His wife was a tiny, delicate bit of a body, and feared to venture much upon the ocean; but Lieutenant Ben Sturdy here had sailed with his father from the time when he was hardly as tall as the binnacle. It was a rough kind of a school to learn in, but it made him a sailor, and even in the royal navy an officer is none the worse of being a sailor. What do you think, reader?

Well, Sturdy had entered the service before he was fourteen, and had not been a deal on shore in England since, because he had no interest to get him nice ships that had only a three years' commission. Sturdy's ships had mostly been rotten old tubs that were kept on a station may be for five years and then recommissioned, two or three of the officers being left out in them, perhaps. So you see the service is not all a bed of roses, but it is the best service in the world for all that. An old sailor like myself may be excused for thinking so, at all events.

Sturdy was a good-natured fellow anyhow, although sea-beaten and rough. His daily life and intercourse with his messmates proved that.

"That's right," said the doctor, patronizingly; "you're dressing up to fight the weather, I see."

"Dressing up to fight fiddlesticks, Reikie. It's going to be a bit of a blow, that's all, and I want to be snug. See!—Hullo, little man!" he added, patting Jack on the head; "a bit squeamish, eh? No? All right; keep below for a few days."

Mr. Gribble, the assistant-paymaster, was entering the ward-room dressed in a uniform pilot-jacket, with his cap well reefed, and his hands fathoms deep in his trousers pockets.

"Hullo!" he said, screwing his mouth and eyebrows about as if his face were india-rubber—"hullo! Who are you? Hey?"

"Gangway, Mr. Cheek," answered Sturdy, "unless you want me to give you a fair wind down the hatchway there. You'd look nice riding stride legs on the shaft."

"Why, my blessed eyes, if it ain't you yourself, Lieutenant Benjamin Sturdy! Blow me sky-high if I didn't think it was old Neptune come on board. I say, young man," he continued, "do you know that a yellow oilskin and sou'-wester ain't uniform? I'll be obliged to take notice of it. Sea-boots and all!"

Sturdy lifted a huge brown fist and made pretence he was going to cut Gribble clean through the steerage.

Gribble dodged. "Don't hit a little chap," he cried. "I'll let you off this time."

"Humph!" grunted Sturdy from the depths of his capacious chest; then he went stumping up the ladder singing to himself,—

"Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the billows howling,
For death hath broached him to."

It did everybody good to hear Ben Sturdy singing; but on the quarter-deck, except at night, this jolly officer could be as polite as in a drawing-room.

It was a bright flash of lightning that illuminated everything on deck, till brass-work stood out like burnished gold.

This was followed by a peal of thunder that appeared to roll the ship up and crush her from stem to stern as one would an empty match-box.

"It'll bring rain, and rain will lay the wind and sea. Hail will anyhow, and there it comes."

And there it did come too. It was early spring; but for as long as he had been to sea, Sturdy had never before seen such hail as this. In a few minutes' time the decks were covered inches deep. The Gurnet might have been a ship in the Greenland seas. The lightning, too, was incessant, and hail or snow never looks more beautiful than when lit up in this way.

The thunder rolled on almost incessantly, but the wind now seemed less in force, and the sea for the time being was as smooth as if covered with oil.

The man at the wheel cowered beneath the terrible storm, while the hands forward were fain to seek the protection of the weather-bulwarks.

"I'll go below now," said the captain when the sky cleared once more and the thunder went muttering away to leeward. "Come down, Mr. Sturdy, when your watch is over, and have a glass of port."

At eight o'clock he was as good as his word. Dinner was over, but there were biscuits and dessert.

"Come along, Mr. Sturdy. The doctor and I have been having long arguments on scientific subjects. Sit down."

"Ahem!" said the surgeon. "But, Captain Gillespie, 'argument' is the wrong word. I was expatiating."

"Expawsheeatin'," mimicked Sturdy, as he helped himself to the biscuit. "You wouldn't listen to argument, eh, from such as us? You are learned. You must just expawsheeate. Says you,—

"Oh," said the captain, laughing, "just as you came down we were away somewhere in the star depths—beyond the nebulæ, I think."

Sturdy had poured himself out a glass of rum in a tumbler—a sort of bos'n's nip, four fingers high. This was a chance for the doctor to have a shot at the lieutenant.

"I say, Sturdy," he said, "talking about nebulæ, if you drink all that rum you'll have a nebulous noddle in the mornin'."

"Yes," continued the captain, "we were off and away into the vastness of the star depths. We had got far beyond Sirius, and never gone once on shore. The doctor was telling me that light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles a second! I say, Mr. Sturdy, how many knots is that an hour?"

"Computations like that, sir," said Reikie, trying another shot, "it would be in vain for Sturdy to attempt in his present condition. Wait, sir, till he has another nip."

Sturdy was hungry. The biscuits disappeared before him as if by magic. Then he attacked the nuts, and presently settled quietly down to the raisins.

Captain Gillespie's cabin was right abaft the wardroom, with a separate staircase to it, and a steward's pantry at the foot thereof. It was very tastefully furnished—at his own expense of course—and at one end stood a small but good piano, and hanging near it a fiddle. The captain was very fond of music, and so was the surgeon; and the fiddle belonged to the latter.

"Do play, sir," said Sturdy now, "to drown the raging of the storm.—Come, Auld Reikie," he continued, "screw up your Cremona."

"By the way, sir," said Sturdy, after he had finished that glorious song, which has never yet been beaten, "would you mind me asking poor little Mackenzie in for half-an-hour? I am taking a great liberty, but—"

"Not at all, my good fellow.—Mr. Reikie, will you run for him? you're the younger."

This was a shot at the captain himself. Reikie really was a doctor of medicine, and he was just young enough and Scotch enough to resent being deprived of his title.

Jack was a little shy at first, but he soon brightened up, and his pleasant and innocent chatter enlivened the little company. Jack even sung a song.

"Well," said the captain at last, "this is only our second night at sea, though I have known you two gentlemen before. Well, we've spent a very pleasant evening, and if I can have my wish it won't be the last by a long way. We are going on particular service, and are likely to be shipmates for a long time. Why, Midshipman Jack here will be a man before he gets back to his mother."

Jack really fancied he had been a man for over three weeks—ever since, in fact, he had set foot on the Gurnet in Plymouth Sound.

"Well, gentlemen, I like to begin a cruise on commission as we hope to end it—every one doing his duty, every one pleasant, and loving his neighbour as himself. So, good-night. See you all in the morning."

But the wind grew wilder and wilder, and at seven bells in the first watch it was found necessary to get up steam.

The night was very clear now. A half or three-quarter moon had arisen, and every star shone like a diamond.

Not a man fore or aft that did not hear that shout, not a man fore or aft that did not spring at once from cot or hammock.

And yet there was neither panic, fear, nor confusion; and if every one did hasten on deck even before the bos'n's pipe commenced to sound, it was only because he knew he would be needed, and because he wanted to know as speedily as possible the extent of the danger, and the chance, if any, of safety.

CHAPTER VIII.

JACK'S SEA-DADDY.

Midshipman Jack was among the first on deck. All he could see was the star-lit, wind-tossed waves that, at each dip of the good ship's prow, rose like mountains right ahead, or, as she leaned to leeward, seemed ready to engulf her.

But away on the port bow he could now and then catch a glimpse of huge black boulders, over which spume was dashing white and high. These boulders were the rocks on which the good Gurnet might soon be dashed, and go to pieces.

In each lull of the gale, even already, the boom of the breaking waves could be heard—a sound that had been to many and many a sailor ere now the last he had ever heard on earth.

Jack began to say his prayers, and to think of those at home. One and all of his friends and relations seemed to rise up before his mind's eye at this moment, and seemed to speak to him, to beckon to him, to pray for him.

Poor Jack! his brain was all in a whirl, but suddenly he remembered that he was guilty of a breach of faith. He had no business on deck. The surgeon had given him orders to remain below. He must hasten down, therefore, though it did seem dreadful to be drowned in the dark—drowned like a rat in a drain. The companionship of even those brightly-shining stars would have made death appear less terrible. But—yes, he must go below. The first duty of sailor or soldier is obedience.

He found his way at last into the ward-room, in which the lamp was still burning, and threw himself down on the sofa.

He could pray; ah! there was comfort in that. After he had said his prayers—no, but prayed his prayers; for there is a deal of difference between saying a prayer and praying it: in the one it comes welling up from the heart itself, in the other it is but lip-worship—after he had prayed, he began to repeat a psalm to himself, one that he had learned at his mother's knee:—

"God is our refuge and our strength,
    In straits a present aid;
Therefore, although the earth remove,
    We will not be afraid:
Though hills amidst the seas be cast;
    Though waters roaring make."

It was just at this line that the young sailor boy's thoughts were wafted away and away to hills and glens and streams and woods, all basking in the sweet light of the summer sun.

The captain and Sturdy himself were both on the little three-plank bridge, hanging on to the rope-rail as if to a life-line.

Again and again Sturdy had shouted down the tube, "Get up steam as fast as possible!" Yet down there he knew the engineer and stokers were fighting like furies in the fierce heat of the engine-room. Well they knew how precious every minute, nay, every second, was. Bacon and even bladders of lard were put into the fire, but apparently without any result, although the flames roared high, and there was even danger of firing the padding betwixt boilers and bunkers.

Nearer and nearer loom the black rocks. Can they weather them? All that brave ship can do the Gurnet is doing. She is sailing as close to the wind as gull or frigate-bird. All that brave men can think of to save her has been done.

Again and again they imagine that they have passed the worst; again and again whale-back rocks rise ominously further ahead.

The captain, and even Sturdy, are now in despair, and the last command is given,—

In such a case this would be the sailor's last resort. In such a sea it would be all but hopeless.

Sturdy draws closer to the captain, and pointing with one arm ahead, shouts in his ear, "We can't weather it. Our only chance is to keep her away and try to sail between the rocks into the open water beyond."

The captain is about to assent, when a dark figure is seen struggling up through the companion-hatch. He is waving his hands aloft and shouting. But the wind cuts the words short off; they cannot be heard. He rushes now to the bridge-ladder and clutches the rope and shouts again.

Saved? I doubt it. The ship's fore-part even now touches ground, and the waves leap madly over her.

But the screw is revolving at last, and slowly the good ship begins to forge ahead. It is a fight now, and a hard one, betwixt wind and steam, and for a time no one can tell which will be victor.

But, hurrah, science has conquered! The useless sails are taken in, and in less than half an hour the Gurnet is clear, and away from the terrible reef.

There was nothing talked about at breakfast next morning except the danger the ship had come through. But what signifies danger to sailors, especially when it is past? The wind and sea had now gone down, the fires were banked, and all sail was being made for Gibraltar, that impregnable fortress whose splendid story may never all be told, and the possession of which is begrudged to us by almost every civilized nation on the globe.

Britain means to hold it nevertheless, as long at least as she rides mistress of the seas; as long as there floats over us, in sea-fight or in tempest,

By the time the Gurnet reached the Rock, Jack was permitted to keep his watch. He was attached to Sturdy's, luckily for him. Under this brave fellow he would learn seamanship, a science that I am sorry to say naval officers of our day do not know too much about.

But Jack's hopes of spending a day on shore on the historical Rock were doomed to disappointment. For the Gurnet had not a clean bill of health. One or two cases of cholera had taken place, it was said, at Plymouth before she sailed. She had therefore come from an infected port, and no one would be allowed to set foot on shore. The utmost indulgence permitted was to post their letters. A boat came alongside for these. They were handed over the side and taken with a pair of tongs, being soon after fumigated with tobacco smoke and the fumes of burning brimstone.

Fruit, however, was handed up, and many other dainties from shore. The money received was immediately plunged into a vase containing some acid disinfectant. Well, all this was provoking enough, especially as there was not a sick man on board.

From the place where they lay waiting for important documents, etc., they could see the soldiers on the Rock and the promenaders near to the shore, and at morn and eventide the sound of music stole sweetly over the waters from military bands in garrison or barracks.

Early though the season was, everything in and around Gibraltar looked semi-tropical, and Jack Mackenzie would have given a good deal, he thought, to be allowed to land. The sky was blue, and the sea and scenery far and near lay quivering in the glorious sunshine all day long.

When Jack turned out to keep the middle watch for the first time, although rather sleepy when aroused, he speedily pulled himself together, dressed, and went on deck. The stars were shining, but no moon, and afar off was the town with its twinkling lights, rising higher and higher up the hill. Lower down, closer to the water's edge, the lights were more abundant; for sailing ships and steamers lay there, and not far away a man-o'-war or two.

But the lights in the town grew fewer and fewer, and the silence greater, till, after a time, little was to be heard except the sentries calling, bells solemnly tolling the hour, and now and then a wild, unearthly yell which Jack could not account for.

He was leaning over the bulwarks, gazing towards the great looming Rock, when a hand was placed on his shoulder, and he looked quickly up to find it was Sturdy's.

"Am I doing right?" said Jack. "You see, I'm not up to keeping watch yet. Should I keep constantly tramping up and down?"

"You'd soon have Auld Reikie using language if you did. It is while lying at anchor like this that sailors sleep most lightly, and Reikie is nothing if not a sailor. Perhaps if you did much of the tramping business, he'd come up the hatch and shy a boot at you."

"Well, I didn't say his boot, but a boot. I daresay Auld Reikie would just as soon shy somebody else's, because when one does this sort of thing the boot nearly always flies overboard.—But come and sit down here on the skylight. In keeping your watch, you know, the main thing is to keep your weather eye lifting, and to note what goes on high and low, fore and aft. See?"

"Well, now, let us yarn. Tell me about your brothers and sisters, mother and aunts, and—oh, but of course you are far too young to have a sweetheart."

"Well, one at a time is all I ever have—in the same port, I mean. And what is your young lady's name?"

"She is the first young lady ever I spoke to in all my life. She is my cousin, eight years old, and her name is Tottie Morgan. Tottie isn't her baptismal name, you know, only her brothers and sisters call her that. Her mother calls her Violet."

"Tottie's oldest brother is a perfect man; Llewellyn is his name. He is sixteen, and going to be a soldier, and wear a feather bonnet."

"Fine fun that'll be. Well, Jack, they say we'll soon have war. Then you will meet your cousin Llewellyn, if he isn't killed in the first off-go. Young fellows often are, because they are so foolishly rash. Soon may it come."

"Why, the war. I want my promotion; and if we had plenty of fighting, in two or three years' time, Jack, you too would win your epaulettes, and exchange your toothpick for a cheese-knife."

"Exchange your dirk, I mean, for a long sword; that is, if we didn't have to expend a hammock on you—bury you at sea, that is."

"Well, sir, I thought once I would like to be a soldier, and wear a feather bonnet like father did; but grandma said 'No!' so I had to be a sailor. But I feel sure I shall like the sea."

* The two shortest watches on board ship, from 4 to 6, and 6 to 8 p.m., are so called. They are thus arranged that the same men should not come on deck always at the same hours.

"Ha, ha, ha! Well, we have an old sea-dog in the shape of a bos'n, and we have a cat too, a beauty, but I don't like to see her taken out."

"O Jack, you'll be the death of me. I mean heave round with your yarn. Tell me all about your people while I light my pipe. Never you learn to smoke, Jack," he continued, lighting a match, and holding it to the bowl of his meerschaum. Puff, puff, puff. "It is one of the worst habits out"—puff—"it weakens the heart"—puff—"weakens the nerves"—puff, puff—"and I don't know what all it doesn't do, but Dr. Reikie could tell you"—puff, puff. "Heave round, lad!"

Jack kept Lieutenant Sturdy interested for hours. Somehow the boy felt that he had found in this straightforward English sailor a true friend, and so he never hesitated to tell him all the events of his young life—all his trials and sufferings, and even his aspirations.

And Sturdy listened attentively, sometimes patting the boy's hand with true sympathy.

"Well, well, well," said the lieutenant at last. "I thought I had roughed it in my young days, but your story has the weather-gauge of mine, Jack—the weather-gauge of mine.

"Ah! well, dear lad, I hope the worst is past. You've just got to do your duty now, keep your weather eye aloft, obey orders, and trust in God. Your life afloat won't be all beer and skittles, I assure you. But a sailor's life isn't a bad one after all. I love it, Jack, oh yes, dearly. You've got to rough it now and then, but then you are here, there, and everywhere, over all the world. You see so much and you learn so much, so that in many ways sailors are far wiser than landsmen.

"Well, as long as you and I are shipmates, Jack, just look upon me as your sea-daddy. Come to me if you have any difficulty, and I'll show you how to steer out of it; and what you want to know about the ship I'll tell you."

"Thank you, sir. You are so good I shall always look upon you as my sea-father."

"Right; and if you want a sea-uncle—and that is handy too at times—why, there's the bos'n. He is a roughish old swab like myself, but his heart is as soft as a girl's. He'll put you up to the ropes, and show you how to splice and reef and steer. Never despise knowledge, no matter where it comes from; and if you keep your place without being uppish, if you are brave and bright, depend upon it, the men will love you and respect you. But I say, Jack, weren't you a bit afraid the other night when it was blowing big guns?"

"Well, you see, sir, at first when all hands were called to shorten sail, I thought I should go upstairs and help."

"I was just going up, sir, when Dr. Reikie caught me by—by a part of my dress, sir, and pulled me down. He made me a prisoner. But I did escape when I thought we were all going to be drowned."

"Well, sir, I fear I was very wicked; for I began to say my prayers, and fell asleep in the middle of them."

"Why, Jack, it's eight bells—four o'clock.—Forward there! Eight bells! Call the watch!"

Jack went quickly down below, and began to undress. He felt tired and sleepy now, and could almost have gone to bed with his boots on.

His chest—it was not a large one—stood outside the dispensary door. There Jack knelt to pray.

Then he quickly caught hold of a ring in a beam, and swung himself into his hammock. He could do so now without tumbling out again at the other side.

I think his head had hardly touched the pillow when he was fast asleep—a happy, dreamless, sailor's slumber.

CHAPTER IX.

IN THE GOOD OLD "GURNET."

Before Jack Mackenzie came to sea, he had received, as far as any boy could, a thoroughly theoretical education. His grandmother had seen to that. Much she would have liked to have the boy constantly with her, but she knew that this would not be to his advantage; for when the very best has been said about the system of what I may call fireside education under a tutor, it must be confessed that there is no emulation about it. So Jack had been sent to one of the best schools in Glasgow, and had private tutors as well, one of them being an old naval commander, who saw nothing derogatory in coaching a few young fellows who were to serve afloat. For six months every year Jack had been in Glasgow; the rest of the time he spent at Drumglen and his mother's pretty cottage.

While in Glasgow, as was only to be expected, he had spent many a pleasant day and evening at the villa of his uncle and cousins the Morgans. On Sunday he never failed to put in an appearance dressed and ready for church. But the Sabbath evenings he had used to spend as often as not with Mrs. Malony and Little Peter.

During his intercourse with his cousins, independent of his falling in love, as he termed it, with the tiny but old-fashioned Tottie, he had cemented a close and enduring friendship with the elder boy, Llewellyn.

Ah, reader! friendships like these are very sweet. Wherever in all the wide world we roam, we never, never forget them.

Llewellyn at sixteen was very tall and handsome, and in every way, one would say, cut out for a soldier. If his father was Welsh, his mother was a true Scot; he was therefore Celtic to the core. It is no wonder, then, that he should prefer a cadetship in a Highland regiment to that in any other. The 93rd is most assuredly one of the grandest and gallantest of our Scottish regiments, and has maintained its high renown on many a blood-stained field.

Just one thing I must say in favour of Jack's conservative old grandma. Although then she neither loved the Welsh nor liked business people, she did not now go the whole length of ostracizing her daughter and her family. I suppose old age has a softening effect upon the heart, for she even went so far as to invite her daughter and children now and then to Drumglen. The latter went frequently to see the old lady, but her daughter very seldom, for the simplest and best of reasons—namely, that her husband had not been included.

However, Llewellyn became a special favourite with this stern old dame, and so did Baby Morgan—that is, Jack's wee sweetheart, Tottie or Violet. What glorious days the two boys had spent together on the loch, by the riverside, in the forests—dark even in daylight—or wandering over the purple hills! Never, never would they forget these dear days while in camp or field, in the trenches, or far away on the lone blue sea.

There had been tears of genuine grief coursing down Jack's cheeks when he bade Llewellyn farewell at last; and though older, it must be confessed that the young cadet was glad in a measure when the parting was over, for there was a big lump in his throat that he had tried in vain to swallow.

Little Tottie, now nearly nine years of age, was not, truth compels me to say, so very much affected at bidding her lover good-bye as Jack, who had a large spice of romance in him, would have liked. She did not cry—not she. Her last words, as the train was starting and Jack was leaning over the window, might have been said to smack of selfishness and gore.

"Mind, Johnnie," she cried, "to bring me home somefing very nice, and don't fo'get to kill lots and lots of dead sailors."

There was no naval instructor on board the Gurnet, of course; but Jack determined to study, nevertheless, theoretically as well as practically. Well, he found himself among good friends, always willing to help him out of a hole. There were the doctor and second master down below, and there was Lieutenant Sturdy, his sea-dad, on deck, and the rough but kindly bos'n forward.

Mr. Fitzgerald, the senior midshipman, was a tall, lanky young fellow, the younger son of a lord, and though no doubt clever enough after a fashion, he did not see the fun, he said, of studying anything in particular. "Zeal for the service!" he told Sturdy once; "I haven't got any. There is no extra screw for that; and if my brother dies, I shall go on shore and keep my hunters."

Mr. Gribble, the assistant-paymaster, was the tease of the mess. He could sing a rattling good comic song, however, and spin good yarns—all true, he said, because he himself had made them up. So he was rather a favourite in the little mess.

On the whole, the members of the ward-room mess were fairly well met, and lived as jolly a life as the same number of young fellows could live anywhere.

From Gibraltar they went cruising away down the Mediterranean, for the Gurnet carried important dispatches for Malta. They were not put in quarantine here. They just escaped that, having been detained at sea by contrary winds. Yes, they might have steamed; but Captain Gillespie's orders had been to save coals if possible, and never to light fires if there was wind enough to carry the ship along.

At Malta, then, much to his delight, Jack got on shore. The doctor, who was assistant-surgeon in charge, and could do very much as he liked, took Jack with him.

What long letters our little hero had to write about this strange town, with its streets of stairs, its quaintly-dressed inhabitants, its bumboat men and women, its churches, with bells that jangle-jangled on for ever and ever; its bazaars and fortifications and ships, and its hill, or rather brae, on which a wood was said to exist. Dr. Reikie went to this wood on a butterfly expedition, and in search of fossils. Well, the wood itself seemed a fossil, a most forlorn and dilapidated belt of trees indeed. But the doctor and Jack came back laden with specimens, white with dust, and with faces that seemed to have been rubbed with a wet brick.

The only thing worth seeing about Malta, said Lord Tomfoozle, as the doctor called Fitzgerald, the senior mid, was the opera. So he did not miss that for a single night of the ten days the Gurnet lay in Malta. I fear that in one respect Fitzgerald rather gave himself away, as the Yankees express it; for he assured everybody before coming to Malta that he could speak Italian. Well, when he aired this language for the first time at a good hotel kept by a native of sunny Italia, the landlord shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"De Rooshian langwidge," he said, "I not can; but de Engleese mooch plenty, sare."

Dr. Reikie, who was there, guffawed. It was very rude. Fitzgerald turned red in the face, then he called the doctor a bear, and left the hotel.

But the doctor, or doctor's mate as some old tars on board would call him, was too good a fellow to take offence at being called a bear by young Tomfoozle; so at dinner that day he was extra civil to him, and asked him twice if he would have some more pudding. Dr. Reikie knew the mid's weakness, and what would soften his heart; so presently my lord smiled.

"Oh yes, you did. You asked me twice to have pudding. Pudding and apology are—er—"

"Shut up, you A.P.," cried the mid, "or rather you APE. I'm talking to a gentleman.—Yes, doctor, I did mean a brick; so there!"

"I say, doctor, you look out," said the mischievous quill-driver. "Old Tomfoozle expects you to put him on the sick-list next—"

"Avast heaving now, you youngsters," put in Sturdy.—"That's the worst of having babies in the mess, doctor."

"I didn't heave anything," said Fitzgerald; "but if the biscuits had been handy, Mr. A.P., without the E, would have had to duck his somewhat empty head."

I cannot say that Jack Mackenzie was over-well pleased with the city of the Templars. It was foreign enough and romantic enough, and military enough also, but it lacked greenness and vegetation. True, the orange-trees bloomed bonnie in many of the gardens, and flowers too, rich and rare, but on the whole it was a parched and sunburnt town. The sea all around, however, was very blue and beautiful, and perhaps no one was sorry when the Gurnet was once more off and away on the bosom of the broad Levant, and bound for Alexandria.

The ship was now all that a little ship of war should be. Sturdy took a pride in her. And he would have her clean alow and aloft, outside and in; and the men seeing this, did all they could to please their good lieutenant. The principal warrant or non-commissioned officers on board the Gurnet were the bos'n, who was so good a friend to Jack, the quartermaster, and sergeant of marines. There were ten at least of these redcoats on board; and although they were very plainly dressed indeed on week-days—just sloped about anyhow, as the bos'n phrased it—still, drawn up on the ivory-white deck on a Sunday morning in line with the blue-jackets, all with rifles and white bayonets ready for inspection, the effect was very pretty.

On the Sabbath morning, as Dr. Reikie solemnly called this holy day, divisions of course formed quite an event. The officers were all in frock-coats and swords, except Jack, who was lashed to his dirk. The best and biggest flag floated gaily aloft, and if a breeze was blowing, the Gurnet, with every white sail bellying out before it, looked indeed a thing of life and beauty. Down below on deck there wasn't a rope's end out of place; the hammocks were neatly arranged above the bulwarks, and the brass-work shone like the inside of a good gold watch.

Solemnly along the line of sailors and marines marched the captain, followed by Sturdy, followed in his turn by Dr. Reikie, and there was nothing that escaped the eagle eyes of any of the three. The men's very faces and ears came in for inspection, and even the cut and length of their hair, the hang of their knives, the lay of their lanyards; and if a bluejacket's collar was badly and carelessly spread, or if it were too broad or too narrow, the quartermaster's attention was drawn thereto.

To appear with a dirty face on a Sunday morning was indeed a crime. The captain would call attention to it, perhaps as follows: "Is that man's face clean and wholesome, Dr. Reikie?"

"It's waur* than a brookie's, sir; and look, his lugs† are like midden creels."‡

‡ "Midden creels," baskets used in the Highlands of Scotland for carrying manure to the fields.

There were times, you see, when the English language would hardly meet the demands of the case, and then the honest doctor permitted himself to drift into his dearly-beloved native dialect.

That man would next day be planked accordingly, and perhaps his grog stopped for a week, or, if the ship were in harbour, his leave stopped.

A milder punishment for milder offences was three-water grog. In this case the men to be punished were drawn up amidships, each with a basin in his hand; and into this was poured his grog, very much diluted indeed. Then came the command, "Caps off. Queen!"

"Queen!" each man would repeat, and thus toasting Her Gracious Majesty, toss off his three-water grog.

I have already said there was no naval instructor on board, neither was there a parson. Now, the duty of reading prayers in such cases devolves, I think, on the captain himself, but on board the saucy Gurnet it was turned over to the first lieutenant. He had a deep, strong voice, which he could make singularly impressive when reading the lessons.

It was rather more than impressive on one particular occasion, shortly after the ship sailed from Malta. It was a very lovely day indeed, and church service was, as usual, held on the upper deck abaft the mainmast.

Sturdy stood by the capstan reading, and more than one officer had been noticing the antics of Fred Harris, a young blue-jacket, a first-class boy, who was doing all he could to make his comrades laugh. His conduct had evidently given Lieutenant Sturdy the fidgets; for, much to everybody's surprise, the service did not conclude that morning with the simple "Amen," but Amen with a pennant to it, as a sailor would say. It ran thus, all in one breath, mind you: "Amen!—Harris, confound you, sir, I've been watching you all the time. You'll have the cat for your shocking irreverence, as sure as my name's Sturdy.—Pipe down!"

N.B.—The above anecdote is perfectly true, but any reader who doesn't like the tone of it is welcome to skip it.

If the reader will take a glance at the map, he will notice that Sicily is a large island lying to the south and west of the extreme end of Italy, which good-naturedly curls round as if to meet it and bid it welcome. Sicily is principally celebrated, Mr. Sturdy told Jack one night in the middle watch, for good fruit, bad garlic, fried fish, brigands, and a burning mountain.

"Yes, old Jack; that's her name. There is a navy yarn told about that mountain which I'm not sure I should tell you, although I was told it myself by a priest."

"Well, it's a warning to all contractors anyhow, who sometimes supply very bad biscuits to England's fighting navy. Once upon a time, then, when the gallant Roarer, a shoudy-boudy old seventy-four, and terribly badly found in the matter of hard tack—her biscuits being half dust, half weevils—was cruising around here, the officer of the watch, one dark night in the middle watch, called all hands to witness a terrible but somewhat ridiculous sight.

"The ship was sailing close past Sicily, and not far from Etna, which had been in eruption for some weeks; only they appeared to be burning up the slack and the cinders in the crater just then, because there was plenty of light but not much smoke.

"Well, all hands came tumbling up, thinking perhaps a Frenchman was bearing down upon them, and that they wouldn't have any more sleep till they sent her to Davy Jones's locker.

"The captain himself stood on the poop, with his battered old telescope to his eye, and turned towards the mountain top.

"The eyes of all the crew were now bent in the same direction. No wonder that they stared in astonishment, rubbed their eyes, and stared again. For there, on the very brink of the crater, stood two tall figures, wrestling, as it were, for the mastery. One was speedily made out to be Mr. Pipeclay, a baker of Portsmouth, who supplied biscuits to the royal navy—biscuits that had been once or twice on a voyage round the world in the merchant service.* The other figure was soon discovered by the captain to be none other than Auld Nickie Ben himself.

* I know for a fact that, not longer ago than the sixties, old ship-biscuits that had been several cruises in whalers and sealers to the Arctic regions, and condemned, were bought up and sold to the navy. Poor Jack!

"'Yes,' shouted the captain, 'it is Nick himself. I can distinctly make out the cloven hoof.—Bravo, Nick, that's got him!'

"The ship was hove to very quickly indeed, and the crew lined the bulwarks and hung like bees to the rigging, and meanwhile the terrible struggle on the mountain top went on.

"Now, Britons are proverbially lovers of fair-play, and in this case they extended their patronage to the baker and Nick without favour.

"The baker was evidently trying to pull away from the crater, while the object of the other combatant was to get his antagonist down the awful pit.

"On board the ship there was wild shouting or cheering, as one or other seemed to gain an advantage, with loud cries of 'Pull, baker, pull,' or 'Pull, Nick, pull,' as the case might be.

"But at last, terrible to relate, the baker was floored and flung in; Auld Nickie Ben, with an eldritch scream, dived after him, the last portion of him seen being his hoof.

"A clap of thunder followed, and soon after that it came on to blow such a fearful gale that for four-and-twenty hours the good ship Roarer was scudding under bare poles, and it is just a wonder that she survived to tell the tale."

CHAPTER X.

PADDY'S ADVENTURE—FRED HARRIS PROVES
HIMSELF A HERO.

Though far wilder scenes and adventures must soon engage our attention, I shall linger just a little longer in the blue Levant before we sail away south and round the world. Alexandria, then, where Jack was permitted to land and enjoy himself pretty much as he pleased, he liked, probably on this very account. Our hero was certainly not allowed an unlimited amount of pocket-money, but he had enough; besides, you know, it was impossible to spend any at sea, for no card-playing for money was permitted on board the Gurnet.

An Egyptian offered to be his guide, and Jack accepted his services. A lithe and saucy-looking tatterdemalion he was, from his greasy skull-cap to his bare brown toes. He took Jack everywhere, and showed him all the sights. At Pompey's Pillar he met a crowd of blue-jackets not belonging to his own ship. They had flown a kite over the pillar and drawn a rope up, and several sailors went hand over hand up to the top. They danced on the top, and they drank on the top. It made Jack's head giddy to look at them, for he could not help noticing that some of them were not perfectly sober.

Presently he was horrified to see one young sailor lose his balance and topple over. What followed illustrated the presence of mind of a British tar in a way that I think has never been beaten. He was standing near Jack when the man fell.

Then in the twinkling of an eye he loosened the rope below. It is no exaggeration to say that in less than two seconds he had full command of the line, and in two seconds more he had coiled a bight of it round the falling sailor.

The man had been caught by body and legs when about half-way down, and was now lowered easily to the ground.

"That's the way we catches Cape pigeons," said the man who had so cleverly saved his shipmate's life.

"Why, young sir," he said, "it's simple enough. Near the Cape, you know, and up the 'Bique, the birds come sailing round astern of the ship to pick up the crumbs. Well, we just tie a line to a chunk o' wood and pitches it overboard. When a bird flies near it, we loosens the line like, and a turn of the wrist entangles him; then on board he comes straight off the reel."

In a hotel in one of the beautiful squares Jack dined that day in solitary grandeur.

"I say, little 'un," said Gribble, the assistant-paymaster, "you're getting on. I thought I was a bit of a liar myself, but— Steward, another cup o' tea."

"Well," said Jack, in a disheartened kind of way, "I don't see the value of truthfulness if one isn't to be believed."

"Bravo, Jack!" cried Dr. Reikie. "I believe you. What you have told us is doubtless true. The clever feat is scientifically possible; but, alas! to talk science to Gribble there is like throwing pearls before—"

The advantages of temperance are nowadays well recognized by the men themselves in the royal navy; but in those times it was nothing unusual to find the men come off in the liberty-boat "fechtin' fou," as Dr. Reikie called it—that is, to put it plain, "fighting drunk." Sometimes they had to be put in irons on account of their violence. This was not perhaps so much owing to the amount they disposed of as to the vile nature of the stuff they drank.

When Midshipman Jack was one day sent on shore with a boat's crew and some letters at Alexandria, he felt himself a very important officer indeed. He had orders also to make a call and wait for a reply, but to be off again within two hours. He got down to his boat in plenty of time, singing to himself. He sang another song, though, when he found only one man at the boat.

"Bhoys will be bhoys, yer honor. But if you'll stand by her head here, sorr, troth I'll bring them all in a minute."

In an hour's time, and when Jack was almost in tears, down came two men—they were singing. Then came Paddy—he was reeling. Then two more—one with a black eye. Jack would wait no longer, but shoved off.

Three times did the stroke oar catch a crab; the third time he couldn't get up, and Paddy took his place.

In order to get alongside safely and gracefully, he made a kind of admiral's sweep, much to the amusement of Dr. Reikie and Lieutenant Sturdy, who were both on the quarter-deck.

He tried to do so very gracefully—too gracefully in fact; for in reaching out to catch on, he lost his balance. He was fished out after a time; and so Jack and his merry men got up the side.

"I merely sent you," he said, "to give you experience. Sailors are just like babies, you know, and want a lot of watching to keep them out of mischief."

"That's true," said Reikie. "Why, I remember once when in the old gunboat Rattler, on the coast of Africa, having ten men down with sickness all in one day. I thought we were struck with cholera till I made inquiry, and found it was 'pine-apple ailment.' They had all been on shore at Zanzibar, and pine-apples were cheap. Well, Sturdy, would you believe, one man told me that 'sure, he'd only eaten nine!'"

In two months' time the Gurnet was at anchor at Constantinople. This was Jack's first visit to the capital of the Turk, but it wasn't to be his last by any means.

Paddy was a sailor-soldier, you must know; in other words, he was a red marine. He belonged to the R.M.L.I., or Royal Marine Light Infantry. They are called infantry, not to distinguish them from cavalry—for there are no horse marines—but from the R.M.A., or Royal Marine Artillery. These red marines are really splendid fellows, and, as a rule, men of grand physique. It is said that they take up as much room on parade as the "gallant Forty-twa," though my own opinion is that the Highlanders could give them yards and beat them. Never mind, Paddy was a capital specimen; and he "did for the doctor"—that is, he was the worthy surgeon's servant, and sometimes even assisted in the sick-bay.

As regards drinking, Dr. Reikie had always considered him fairly temperate, and had never missed a drop out of his own bottle of rum, which was taken up for him once a week.

"I never saw you the worse of drink yet," said the doctor to him one day, by way of compliment.

"Indade! thin, sorr," said Paddy, "the raison is just this: I niver dhrink more than one glass at a time. Sure, sorr, me mouth wouldn't hould a dhrop more."

But, alas! during this visit to Constantinople proof was forthcoming that even Paddy was not invariably infallible.

Paddy was granted a day's leave then to go on shore and see the "unspakeable Turk." He was as natty as a new pin when he passed over the side to take his place in the liberty-boat.

But when that same boat came off with the liberty-men at night, behold Paddy was not there. Nor did he appear next day, nor till the middle of the next, when he came on board. His appearance as he came in over the side was, to say the least, sufficient to make him the cynosure of all eyes. He had nothing on at all except a pair of old blue drawers and a brass cavalry helmet. His face was fearfully disfigured. But heedless of the peals of laughter that greeted him from all hands, he marched boldly aft to where Dr. Reikie stood on the quarter-deck, saluted, and reported himself.

"Well, Paddy, I wouldn't have known you. Get down at once to the sick-bay, and I'll see you there."

There were three parallel scars on Paddy's face—brow, nose, and chin—thus 3 bars

. The excuse he pleaded, when asked how he managed to injure himself, was as droll as Paddy himself.

"You, see, sorr, it was like this. I was aslape on the floor as innocent as an unborn lamb, sorr, and when I awoke I found the stove had thrown itself down and the bars had burnt me face."

The officers of the Gurnet managed to enjoy themselves very much at Constantinople, and were everywhere well received. There were other ships here too, and so the fun was pretty general.

After leaving the Turkish capital, the Gurnet returned to Alexandria and Malta and Gibraltar.

The reason was that there was then no Suez Canal, else the saucy craft would have steamed right away through into the Indian Ocean.

Round the Cape she must go therefore, but nobody minded this. The Cape of Good Hope is rather a pleasant station than otherwise; and, besides, time is of no object with a ship just newly commissioned, for throe or four years being a very long time to look forward to, no one thinks of looking.

The ship touched at Madeira, then stood straight away south—with not much easterly in it—for Ascension and St. Helena.

After many days' sailing they sighted the beautiful Canary Islands, and then the Cape de Verd Islands, getting pretty close to one which I think was St. Antonio. But they did not land, for the breeze was a spanking trade, and carried them on and on all day and all night, as if their ship had been a fairy ship and the sea around a fairy sea.

There was certainly not much in the shape of adventure, however, and not a deal to be seen; although Dr. Reikie, ever busy in the pursuit of science, found much in that deep-blue sparkling ocean to interest him: for he trailed little open gauze nets overboard, and the animalcules that he caught thus and spread out on black card-board with the aid of needles were extremely beautiful to behold. It needed good eyes to see some of the worthy medico's specimens, however. Here, for instance, were tiny transparent fishes, seemingly, all perfect and complete, yet so small they could have swum easily through the eye of a bodkin; little star-fish too, and the drollest and daftest looking shrimps you could imagine, and these were no bigger than the head of an old-fashioned pin. Under a large magnifying-glass, however, you could see even the hearts of these little fishes beating.

"Oh, isn't it wonderful!" Dr. Reikie would say; "and to think that God made them all, and every tiny blood-vessel in their bits of bodies."

One night about five bells in the first watch there was a cry of, "Man overboard."

But who was it? Everybody looked about on deck or below to see if they missed a messmate.

Rattle-rattle, rumble-tumble, how those good fellows fly on deck! Hardly a minute elapses ere the boat reaches the water on a level keel and with a dull plash. Then there are the swish of the oars, and the clunk-clunk in the rowlocks, as she speeds away astern.

The life-buoy has been lit and let go, and is burning brightly enough far away astern yonder, and as speedily as possible the ship is hove to.

For that life-buoy the men are now steadily pulling as if their own lives depended on the strength of their brawny arms, while the sub-lieutenant himself as coxswain stands tiller in hand in the stern sheets.

But a huge shark appears for a moment in the bright starlight, swims half-way round the buoy, and disappears with an ugly plash.

"Ah, lads," says the officer, "that tiger of the seas has had his supper. We can do no more. Stand by to ship the buoy."

This was got inboard and steadied forward in the bows, and after pulling around slowly for a short time, the lifeboat was headed once more for the now distant ship.

It was the same lad who had been planked by Sturdy for skylarking in church: a bold and fearless young fellow he was.

There wasn't a sound now except the "jabble" or lapping of the water as the boat moved slowly up and down. The night was delightfully clear; the stars so bright and near it seemed as though they were not many oars' lengths overhead. The Southern Cross was particularly brilliant. No clouds in the sky except a few rock-and-tower-shaped ones low down on the western horizon, behind which the tropical lightning played intermittently.

"Round with her, lads," cried Sub-Lieutenant Wilson. "Give way port. Off she dances. We'll soon see."

The beacon light was out, but a lantern was hung up, and away went the lifeboat. Though I say life-boat, reader, remember she was but an ordinary whaler.

They answered with a vigorous shout, and redoubled their efforts, for the cries were unmistakably those of a drowning man.

The good crew were in despair. They listened and listened in vain, and were just putting about, when Harris dropped his oar, to the astonishment of everybody, and sprang overboard like a flash.

In the side of a dark curling wave he had seen a white face. Next minute he was ploughing along back towards the boat with one hand, while with the other he supported the form of the drowned or drowning man.

It was the doctor himself. While hauling in his net as he sat in the dinghy that hung from the davits astern, he had somehow slued it and gone head foremost into the sea.

For a long time he gave no signs of life. But his wet clothing was speedily taken off, and he was laid on the men's coats. After fully half an hour of rubbing and rolling, he gave a sigh and opened his eyes. A little flask of brandy was held to his lips, a portion of which he managed to swallow. He speedily revived now, and by the time they got him on board he was able to tell his story. He did not swim to the life-buoy, he said, because it was watched by a demon shark that would undoubtedly have taken him down.

Next day he was able to resume his duties; but that boy Fred Harris was the hero of the ship for many a week after this strange adventure.

CHAPTER XI.

A TRAGEDY—AULD REIKIE PURSUES SCIENCE
UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

For nine months, if not longer, the Gurnet cruised around the Cape, and along the east coast of Africa, as high up as the tropics, and as low down as Algoa Bay. She took a run round once as far as Simon's Bay.

Jack Mackenzie felt himself now to be a boy no longer. He had grown taller, broader, and, I may add, browner.

Who could have foretold that the little ragged guttersnipe boy whom big Tom Morgan found on that snowy Christmas eve, and took pity upon, would have developed into so manly a young officer, walking the quarter-deck of one of Her Majesty's cruisers, and feeling fit almost to keep a watch all by himself.

We next find the Gurnet at anchor in Bombay roadstead or harbour. She looked small, indeed, beside some of the great East Indiamen lying here, and almost hidden in the forest of masts everywhere around her.

At this time the walls of Bombay were still standing, and a ditch ran round a great portion of it. The British town was therefore far more gloomy than it is now, and the native town perhaps a deal dirtier, if that were possible. Nevertheless, Jack used to enjoy a run on shore with his friend the doctor, for there was much to be seen and much to study from a natural history point of view. So they never came off without specimens of some kind.

"If I had a year to myself," said Dr. Reikie, "I would spend it in studying anthropology and zoology in the old and new towns of Bombay."

But every creature and human being, except restless Europeans, seemed calm and contented here. The doctor and Jack, after a time, got into a habit of just wandering about in the glorious sunshine and looking at things, or they would hire a buggy and make the buggy-wallah drive slowly about. A palkee or palanquin was another method of progression the two sometimes adopted. They made the bearers walk abreast, so that they could converse from their respective windows, or ports, as Dr. Reikie called them.

A palanquin is really a kind of sedan chair, borne along on a long bamboo pole by half-naked natives; only, instead of sitting you lie at full length. My own experience of palkees leads me to say that in such a mode of travelling one enjoys the dolce far niente to perfection, and people and things flit past you as if they were part and parcel of a beautiful dream, or the transformation scene in a pantomime. The natives are picturesque in the extreme—turbanned Arabs; swarthy Parsees; fat Hindus; native servants of every description; lazy blue-dressed native policemen; British soldiers in scarlet coats; British blue-jackets; solemn-looking little cows with humps and gilded horns; rings of workmen squatting on the foot-path smoking opium; droll-looking birds called adjutants, that, assisted by the bluebottle flies, do all the scavenging; and, last but not least, rows of pretty maidens, dressed in rolls of silk of various colours; with here and there bevies of beautiful children. The whole forms a picture that never passes from the mind away.

While on her voyage thither some stock-taking was done, and, to Captain Gillespie's astonishment, the rum was short.

Who could the thief be? No one could get into the spirit-room without the assistant-paymaster's orders or Lieutenant Sturdy's. It was extremely puzzling. A watch was kept on the door, nevertheless; but nothing was found out. Still the rum disappeared—more, that is, than was taken out honestly. A small cask was taken up every day at twelve. The bung was started, and the spirit drawn off with a siphon. Then the cask was returned.

And that detective was forthcoming in the person of Auld Reikie, as his messmates frequently called the honest doctor.

"I have it, Sturdy, I have it," he cried one forenoon, rushing into the ward-room. "Man, there is nothing in a' the warld to beat the glorious licht o' science."

"Well, heave round," said Sturdy, lighting a cigar; "show your glorious 'licht,' as you call it."

"I'll do that, man. Listen, Sturdy; listen, my Lord Tomfoozle, for I'll mak the truth apparent to even your feckless noddle."

"Every day, then, the siphon is carried away full. You've only to put your thumb on it and the thing's done. Watch the morn, Sturdy, and you'll put your thumb on the culprits."

But the trick was so simple and yet so clever that the culprits were allowed to escape with only a nominal punishment.

The bos'n was such a good fellow that no one could have believed he had an enemy on board. He was, however, a strict-service man, and nobody at sea can do his duty strictly without making at least one foe.

It was Christmas time then, and the Gurnet was still lying at Bombay. Extra liberty had been granted to the men, which they did not abuse more than usual; and as for the officers, many of them spent nights on shore at entertainments got up in their behalf by rich European merchants.

Jack himself was unusually happy on the Christmas eve, because only the day before he had received a whole bundle of letters from home—from his grandma, his mother, his sister, big Uncle Tom himself, and his little cousin Violet, or Tottie as he liked to call her. He had received a long, delightful letter also from Llewellyn. His regiment, or a part of it, was then at Fort George.

Probably the memory of a long-gone-by Christmas eve tended to make Jack all the brighter and happier on this particular night, but certainly he had never felt brighter or more joyful.

The moon was shining brightly on the water as Dr. Reikie and he came alongside and got quietly on board, for it was now

They turned in almost immediately, but not before Jack had knelt beside his chest and prayed for all the dear ones so far away.

It must have been well on towards six bells in the same watch when the bos'n in his cabin was startled by hearing his curtain drawn back.

There was a feeble light outside, and he could just make out the figure of a tall man in the doorway.

"It's me, sir; it's Jack Bisset, the man you reported to the commander. You were quite right, and though we haven't been friends since, I couldn't sleep to-night of all nights—for it is Christmas morning—till I came to shake hands and make it up."

This the sailor grasped tightly with his left, then aimed a murderous blow at the poor bos'n's skull, with an iron bar or huge file.

The bos'n fell back; and thinking he had done his murderous work, Bisset dropped the piece of iron and rushed up the ladder. He flew past the sentry, and reaching the forecastle, leaped at once into the sea.

Once again the shout of "Man overboard!" rang fore and aft, and every one was aroused.

But the would-be murderer was seen but for a moment in the moonlight. He threw up his arms as if making one last appeal to Heaven, then sank like a stone.

The bos'n was not killed. The man's blow had missed the skull, but cut the ear almost off.

At Bombay one of Dr. Reikie's friends had made him a present of a photographic apparatus. This was a somewhat recent invention in those days, and Auld Reikie was delighted beyond measure.

There would be no end to the scenes he might now depict. I believe the possession of that lens and camera kept him awake for several nights before he reached Ceylon.

There he refused all offers of sport. Elephant-hunting, anyhow, was brutally cruel, he said, and he would find plenty of enjoyment with his camera.

The worthy surgeon, on the ship's arrival at Trincomalee, formed a resolve to astonish his messmates. He would give them a pleasant surprise. He had already taken portraits on glass of the captain himself, of Sturdy, a group of men, the ship's cat, and the mongoose. He should now do something extra and special. Well, pleasant surprises are always welcome, more particularly to officers on foreign stations. So Dr. Reikie betook himself to the woods or bush. There would be plenty of scope here for an effective picture—a lovely bit of scenery, a treescape, with the sea and ships beyond, perhaps. The pictures would aid the advance of science, and prove even to Gribble, the assistant-paymaster, that mankind with the sword of knowledge was moving onwards, ever onwards, conquering and to conquer the world, ay, and the universe itself. Mind, he had told his messmates a thousand times over, was not matter in motion, as some shallow-minded philosophers would try to make out. The soul was as high above the merely material as Sirius was beyond the earth. The mind made use of matter only as a carpenter made use of a tool.

He went on shore, carrying his camera himself. He would not permit even Jack Mackenzie to accompany him to-day. For to-day his pictures would probably be little more than mere experiments. Even science must advance by gradual steps and slow. When he became a little more expert in the use of the camera, he—well, there is no saying what he might not do.

He found at last the spot that suited him—a charming bit of scenery: trees, rhododendrons just bursting into bloom, early though it was, great masses of dark foliage, the bend of a stream, a rustic bridge, and a distant mountain peak. He felt triumphant already. How tenderly he handled his apparatus, how gingerly he set it up, and how carefully he placed his head and shoulders under the black cloth! Yes, there was the picture, upside down of course, but in colouring complete—the most lovely miniature that ever his eyes had beheld. And yonder—oh!

The "oh" was an expression of pain. Something had struck him from behind. He tore off the black cloth and looked round, rubbing himself as he did so. There was a huge nut lying near him; but who could have thrown it? There was no one in sight, and no nut-tree from which it could have fallen. It was strange, but he refused to be discouraged, So he once more enveloped his head in the dark cloth, when whiz! bump! another and another. It was serious; he must be already black and blue.

What could it mean? The place was very lonesome. Not a sound was to be heard except the ripple of the stream and the piping of a bird in a bush near by. He was just a trifle superstitious, and he began to think the wood must be haunted. He dismissed the idea at once, however, as unworthy to be harboured by any scientific thinker.

To prove to himself that he was not afraid, he once more hid himself, and began to make sure of his focus. He had got it as nearly perfect as possible, when suddenly the black cloth was seized from behind and rolled about his head. He felt a weight on his back, a cold and tiny hand on the nape of his neck, and in the struggle to free himself the tripod got mixed up with his legs, and down he rolled, camera and all.

He was white in the face with fear—yes, there is no other word for it—when he at length succeeded in disentangling himself and getting up. The matter was serious. There were more things in heaven and earth and the woods of Ceylon than he had dreamt of in his philosophy. He determined to retire, and that right speedily too. So he bundled his things up hurriedly. He would never come here alone again, he told himself.

But the cap of the camera could nowhere be found. Dr. Reikie was a man of method and regularity, and he made sure he had laid it down just there. Well, it must have been spirited away.

He was bending down to pick up a strap, when crack! upon his bare head came the missing cap. His astonishment now knew no bounds; but on looking up, behold an old, very old man with a long white beard bearing down towards him, staff in hand, through a neighbouring glade.

Was this, then, the evil spirit of the place that had wrought all the mischief? Was this—

"Perhaps you would like to come up to my bungalow and drink a glass of sherbet. It is quite close. I am a sailor, like yourself, and a naturalist. I have quite a menagerie up here, and was just coming to look for two mischievous rascals of baboons that have escaped."

"Baboons!" said the doctor, rubbing himself once more; "did you say baboons, sir?"

Next moment two splendid specimens of the agile gibbon (Hylobates agilis) came bounding from a tree with screams of delight.

They stood nearly four feet high, and their faces were a study of blended fun and mischief. Such droll-looking apes Dr. Reikie had never seen before.

He told the stranger all about his adventure, and as they walked towards the naturalist's bungalow they had a hearty laugh over it.

Mr. Starley, as he was called, had a wonderful collection of curios and pets, and at his house Dr. Reikie and Jack also became constant visitors all the time the ship lay here.

CHAPTER XII.

TOM FINCH AND THE SHARK—SHOOTING IN THE
DISMAL SWAMP—DEATH AND PROMOTION.

It took the Gurnet a year and a half more to complete even two-thirds of her circuit, and this was in reality a voyage round the world of a far more complete nature than any offered by ocean racers nowadays, that do little more than touch at a port, hurry the passengers through the sights, and go off again. There is a vast deal of difference, as every man-o'-war sailor could tell you, between "doing" the world and "seeing" the world. Perhaps the best way to see the world would be to have a yacht of one's own, and to forget there is any such word as "time" in the dictionary. But, alas! few of us are born with silver spoons in our mouths, so we must be content to stay at home and read.

But the Gurnet sailed for the Chinese seas from Ceylon, then visited Java, and next straight away for Australia and New Zealand. After this she steered east and by south straight for stormy Cape Horn, rounding which, amid terrible dangers owing to a gale that drove her—after an accident to her machinery—among the icebergs, she bore up along the coast of South America till past Pernambuco, when the course was changed to north-north-west; and so we find her at long last safe at anchor at Port Royal, Jamaica.

Except for the breakdown in the machinery off the Horn, the Gurnet had not met with a single mishap since she had left the China seas. All had gone well. All hands—thanks perhaps to Dr. Reikie's care and attention, and to the first lieutenant's regard for cleanliness and hygiene—were happy and healthy.

It was now the commencement of what may well be called an unhappy year for Britain—1854—in which we entered upon the war in the Crimea; a war which proved, if anything ever did, that Britain's sons can hold their own, can fight and suffer and die by the sword or by sickness, no matter how badly affairs may be managed by those who sit at ease at home and pull the strings that move great fleets and armies.

But war had not yet been declared; and although it seemed to be known at headquarters here, in garrison and on board ship, that it was looming in the near distance, no one considered that it would be otherwise than simply an affair of a few months, a mere military parade and picnic, a little outing for our troops, with just enough fighting for them and our blue-jackets to give it zest and flavour.

Things still went on on board the old Gurnet, as she was now endearingly called, much in the same way as before. Dr. Reikie, though never relaxing his duties on board, nor neglecting a single patient, however humble, found plenty of time to continue the pursuit of science, often, it must be confessed, under the greatest and drollest difficulties.

The camera, however, he had given up. He had found it unsuitable for his purposes, and so it lay in the obscurity of a locker beneath his cot. But just think for a moment, reader, what a power this instrument has become in our day, what an aid to science and art, in war as well as peace, and even to the advancement of that greatest of all sciences, though only in its infancy, astronomy! For by its assistance myriads of stars beyond the ken of the most powerful telescopes have been revealed.

Well, as the Gurnet must lie here for a few months, her officers settled down to take things pretty easy, each according to his own taste or bent.

There were excursions to be made by land and by sea—these would suit the doctor at all events; there were parties and balls afloat and ashore—Jack and the junior officers, including Gribble the A.P., would go in for these; and there were whist parties and dinners, at which both the captain and his first lieutenant were sure to be present.

Jack's great ambition was to catch a shark. He expected to see them basking in the sunshine or green transparent sunlit water all around the ship.

"In the olden times," he asked Sturdy, who had been here before, "didn't there used to be a very large shark borne on the hooks of the flag-ship and fed with a ration of pork every day, to prevent the men from swimming on shore?"

"Yes," said Sturdy, laughing; "though it wasn't in my day. But at the little village of Twyford in England, in the almshouse, there used to live, and I think lives till this day, an old sailor who, being desirous to go a-boozing, as it is called, swam on shore alongside the shark nearly all the way."

"No; I reckon he didn't, Jack, else he would hardly be alive to tell the story every Christmas evening."

"Oh, simply enough. He chose a clear moonlight night, when you could have seen down to the very bottom of the harbour. The sentry was in the know, though not in the swim. In fact, Tom Finch promised to smuggle him off a drop of grog if he turned his back and kept looking astern while the daring sailor dropped quietly over the bows.

"Tom Finch was a splendid swimmer, and he had not burdened himself with a superfluity of garments; but he had three necessaries of life, as he called them: item—a pretty-well-lined purse; item—a big canvas bag containing pieces of pork for the government shark; and item—a big, sharp dagger, with which, he told his messmates, he would rip that tiger of the seas open from stem to stern if he didn't play fair."

"He wasn't tame, Jack, by any means; but he was king of the water, and when he sailed round, all the others kept at a respectful distance. So Tom Finch could have had no better convoy.

"Well, Tom struck out. But he soon found that this swim of his was going to be no child's play. The distance hadn't looked very insurmountable from the fo'c's'le-head, nor was it; but Tom hadn't considered the tidal current.

"He had swum probably fifty yards, when, as silently as a ghost, there slid up to his very side a great shark. Tom could just see it with the tail of his eye. Indeed, he says its cold, smooth nose touched the back of his hand. At the same moment he made the horrible discovery that this was not the shark.

"Thinking it was all up with him, he was just about to draw his knife, when dashing through the water came the ship's shark himself. There was no mistaking him. He made straight for the first comer.

"'That's Tom Finch,' he seemed to say. 'He's my man and my meat, if he's anybody's.'

"There was no fight between the two sharks, but there must have been a long race, for it was some time before the huge monster returned.

"Now, Jack," continued Sturdy, "I must tell you the rest of the story as old Tom Finch himself related it to the ancient dames in the almshouse not four years ago. I must premise, however, that the poor people are allowed a drop of beer at Christmas, and Tom Finch had drunk his own and had a sup from everybody else's mug.

"'Ah! that he did, Sally, and I was main glad to see him too. There was pork enough in my bag for him, but not for a score, you know.

"'"Good-evening," says Mr. Shark, quite polite like. "It is Tom Finch, isn't it?"

"'"That's me," says I. "I hopes I sees you. How's the wife and all the little 'uns?"

"'You see, ladies, I wanted to keep him talking as long as I could, to make the pork last.

"'"They're all nicely," he says. "But now, Tom, I must do my duty. I mustn't take the Queen's bounty for nothing. I've got to make a meal of you!"

"'"Duty's duty," I replies, swimming as hard as I knew how to; "and a very toothsome meal I'll make. But, my dear friend, how would a nice bit of pork do to begin with?"

"'Round he lies as docile as a cat, and opens a mouth as big as the almshouse door there. I could have slit him down the stomach then and there; but Tom Finch never did a mean thing—thank you, ladies, I will taste again—so I just pitched him a piece of pork, and he caught it like a dog would a morsel of biscuit.

"'"Don't do that again, Tom," he says, "else I'll have to begin at the other end of the banquet."

"'My heart began to quake a little now, and the shore seemed a longer way off than ever. I tell you what, ladies, I was getting a bit funky. But there was nothing for it but heave another bit o' pork.

"'The shark lashed the water with his tail, and I knew he was losing his temper; so I sung out, "Play!" and threw the pork.

"'La! ladies, I began to sweat with fear. The pork wouldn't hold out much longer, and then I knew as well what would happen, Sally, as I know what's in your pewter pot—thanks. So I threw and threw, and was soon down to the last morsel.

"'"I'm going to give you bag and all this time, Mr. Shark," says I; "you'll find the bag toothsome and tasty."

"'"Heave away," he cries; and I whips off the bag and takes out my knife at the same time. The struggle would soon begin. But as good luck would have it, I now found myself not far off the steps.

"'"Who goes dere free times?" shouted the sentry. Bang went the musket immediately. The bullet tore up the water; but as the sentry had fired at me, of course he didn't touch me.*

* The black sentries on duty at night in or near the dockyards at Jamaica had orders to challenge "Who goes there?" three times, and to fire in the event of not receiving an answer. Their plan, however, was to shout, "Who goes dere free times?" and immediately fire.

"'"Good-bye, Tom," says the shark; "I'm off. Good luck to you till we meet again!"

"'"And may all the bad weather go with you, you ugly beast," says I. "But I'm safe now, and hurrah for a jolly time of it!"

"'I landed further down, and—that's all the story. Well, here's your good health again, ladies.'"

But Jack saw plenty of sharks after a time, and more than one was captured. It is about as poor sport, however, and as cruel as shooting alligators in the swamps.

I have now to describe a rather melancholy event which occurred here at Jamaica on board the Gurnet, which no one deplored more than Jack Mackenzie, although it led indirectly to his promotion.

We must go back a few weeks in our narrative, however, to describe how it happened, or rather to give you, as Dr. Reikie would have said, the primary cause of the sad affair.

The Gurnet, then, had called at Grey Town, Central America, and had been detained there for about a fortnight; so to pass the time a picnic and big pigeon-shoot were determined upon.

On the swampy island on which the party landed—the party consisting of the A.P. Gribble, the sub-lieutenant, Dr. Reikie, and Jack himself, with a boat's crew, and plenty of prog and grog—there were any number of pigeons on the trees, and almost an equal number of alligators in the swamps. As sly as sin these horrid brutes looked—they seemed to watch every movement of the sportsmen; and slow in movement though they appeared to be at the edge of the water, had any one fallen in they would have darted on him from every point of the compass with lightning speed, and torn him limb from limb more quickly than could be described.

The gunning went on all the forenoon, and by mid-day a very big bag had been made. The exercise, too, had made the sportsmen hungry; so what more natural than that they should light a fire and have a good dinner? Pork and roasted pigeons go well together, and neither biscuits, butter, nor the salt had been forgotten. The birds were spitted on ramrods and done to a turn, and all hands admitted it was the best meal they had eaten since they had left old England.

But suddenly the sky began to grow dark; the wind began to moan, and drive the smoke and fire about. A brilliant flash of lightning followed, and a startling peal of thunder. Then big drops of rain commenced to fall, and in a minute more a tropical shower burst over them in all its fury. Dr. Reikie was fain to confess that this shower beat all the showers ever he had known, including even a Scotch mist. There was no shelter, and in a few minutes' time every one was drenched to the skin.

Almost as speedily as they had banked up did the clouds go drifting away seaward, and once again the sun blazed out with redoubled fury.

Now, to permit one's clothes to dry on one's back in cases of this kind is not the best of policy. But what were they to do? Well, there was only one alternative, and that was adopted. They speedily built up a huge fire therefore, though being wet the wood took some time to ignite; then they stripped to the skin, retaining only a kind of kilt or cummerbund depending from the waist, and while the clothes were drying they all ran off to the woods and spent the time in playing at being savages.

The result of this shooting expedition in the dismal swamp was, that in a few days all who had taken part in it were down with ague.

The doctor himself and Jack soon threw off their attack, but on the arrival of the ship at Port Royal, both the A.P. and sub-lieutenant had to be sent to hospital.

Gribble got better from the day he entered, but it was soon apparent to every one that the sub-lieutenant would not get over it, and one forenoon Dr. Reikie returned on board with the melancholy intelligence that the poor fellow was no more.

This cast a gloom over the ship—for all liked the brave young fellow—that it took some time to dispel.

Sorrow, however, is a plant that thrives but badly in a climate like that of Jamaica, and I think the same may be said for other tropical climates—notably, perhaps, that of India. For six weeks I myself lay ill in Bombay of rheumatic fever, but during all that time I never had a single fit of depression or lowness of spirits.

Things then soon resumed their usual level on board the Gurnet. Gribble came back from hospital; Mr. Fitzgerald, alias Lord Tomfoozle, was appointed acting sub-lieutenant; and Jack Mackenzie became senior, because sole midshipman, of the ship.

CHAPTER XIII.

PADDY'S HYBRID—"A QUARE, QUARE BASTE, SORR"—TRICKY
NIGGERS—BLACK MAN AS COOK—WAR DECLARED.

I think there is no more grateful man than your honest blue-jacket or marine if he receives a favour; and Paddy O'Rayne never forgot Dr. Reikie's kindness to him after that accident of his at Constantinople, when he went on shore to visit the "unspakeable Turk."

"He might have planked me for it," he told his messmates more than a dozen times, "and got my grog and my leave stopped for months, sure. But my jewel av a master didn't; and troth it's meself that lives in the hope of seeing him in the clutches of the lion or tiger, or drowning in the deep say before my very eyes, just that I may have the pleasure of saving his loife entoirely."

This might have been, and doubtless was intended as a good wish; still it was a somewhat strange one. Only Paddy meant it.

And the honest fellow, too, was constantly trying to do little things to please his master.

Knowing the fondness that the doctor had for getting hold of all kinds of natural history curios, never a time did Paddy go on shore without bringing him something. But most of these were of little use, and speedily found their way overboard.

One day, for example, Paddy came off from shore in great glee. He and a messmate had been spending the day in the woods.

"You'll niver guess, sorr, what I've brought you to-day. Sure, I'd have caught it alive if I could; but he wouldn't stop, so I shot it, and I've got it here in my cap right enough."

"It's what they calls a hybrute [hybrid], sorr, and it's neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. It's got the body of a snake, and two legs like a lizard. Och, sure, sorr, it's a quare, quare baste indade."

Paddy did as he was told, and carefully opened his cap on top of the skylight, and out dropped what certainly looked like a "very quare baste indeed." It was getting dusk, so this added to the uncanny appearance of the creature.

"Gentlemen," said the doctor, "I have all along been a believer in hybrids. Granted, they may be accidental, even unnatural. Nevertheless, here you have a specimen before you—a hybrid between the snake and the lizard. You see the long body; you see the legs near the creature's shoulder—two legs only. Dissection may probably reveal two rudimentary limbs farther aft. This specimen, gentlemen, shall grace the museum at Edinburgh, and I—"

Here he picked the creature up by the tail, when, lo and behold, out tumbled a frog from the mouth of a snake. The latter had swallowed the frog, all but the hind quarters. Everybody roared with laughter, and the doctor's face grew a fathom long, more or less. The frog was alive, and rubbing one of its eyes; the snake was dead: but the doctor was never allowed to forget his hybrid.

Having in a former book described the scenery, the tree-scapes, and mountains and glens in Jamaica, and the beautiful ocean around—beautiful even in the grandeur of its storms—I have no desire to repeat, but I must say that Jack Mackenzie lost no opportunity of going on shore with Dr. Reikie. A day with him in the woods and wilds, if it were merely bird, beetle, or butterfly hunting, was a picnic never to be forgotten; and our young hero learned something every time, and was soon convinced that natural history is the most pleasant of all earthly studies. Nor did a day spent on shore ever pass without some little adventure or other worth remembering. Many of these were rather comical than otherwise.

During their escapades inland the two friends saw a good deal of black men's life. Dr. Reikie found some of these fellows handy in carrying specimens; they also acted as guides when the two explorers went far inland. As regards the ethics of these men, I think they were what the doctor called them—"honest with good looking after."

They were fond of "a dram," too, and would drink the white Jamaica rum fresh and hot from the stills. It used to make their eyes start almost out of their sockets. They liked it for that very reason. But Dr. Reikie had on board a dram, which he gave them when they helped him off with his curios, that they liked even better than this—namely, what is called "Cape smoke," about the strongest and vilest spirit there is. The surgeon found it handy for keeping small specimens in.

"Ah, dat is good, massa," a nigger would say as soon as he had recovered his breath after swallowing half a tumblerful neat—"dat is good; it makes me say 'Huh!'"

Fond of a good joke some of those niggers were, too. They seemed to know that man-o'-war sailors will eat almost anything.

One day when the cotton was in "pod" some niggers enticed a party of blue-jackets into a plantation.

The jackie-tars did not require a second invitation, but began tearing the "pods" open. When, however, they got the fluff among their teeth, and the niggers began to laugh, they soon desisted, and the darkies had to fly.

Was it love of fun or love for cash, I wonder, that was to account for the following? The John Crow or Turkey buzzard (Vultur aura) is, like all his race, one of the most filthy and disgusting of birds. But one day, as an Irish merchant skipper was about to sail, a nigger boarded him.

The head of this horrid buzzard, I should tell you, is very like that of the turkey, and the nigger had plucked the bodies.

After attempting to beat the man down in his price for a minute or two, the skipper bought these "turkeys," and the nigger came on shore chuckling to himself.

What the end of the story was I cannot say, but I should have liked to see that skipper's face when the buzzards were cooked and served up.

In his pursuit of science—as usual under difficulties—Dr. Reikie and his young friend Jack went once upon a cruise among some small tropical islands. They took with them a nigger who assured them he was an excellent cook.

They took the man on his own recommendation. On the first day this black cook presented them with an excellent fry of sea-gull and pork. I suppose the nigger must have skinned the gulls, for if not so treated they are apt to taste somewhat peculiar.

On the second day they returned to the beach, where they had pitched their little camp, hungrier than on the previous evening. The doctor had been successful in making a capital bag, and securing many specimens that he believed, when placed in Edinburgh Museum, would hand down his name to posterity. They were looking forward, therefore, to a good feed.

So it was served. You will believe me it was a failure when I inform you that Sambo had made a kind of Irish stew of sea-gulls, pork, fish, and roots all boiled up together!

In the grounds of Jamaica hospital there were some fine tamarind trees, in which the very smallest known species of humming-bird used to build its nest and rear its tiny young. I do not say it was not cruel of Dr. Reikie to shoot these birds, but he wanted some specimens very much. But the smallest shot blew the birds to the back of the north wind apparently, and the doctor was in despair.

Paddy O'Rayne stood by him. Paddy was scratching his poll in a considering kind of way.

"Indade and I have, sorr. If ye want to kill the burds, sorr, widout injuring them at all, troth it's a pinch of gunpowder and a thrifle of sago you must be after using."

Paddy was right for once. But now came a new difficulty. How should he preserve the lovely creatures? They were far too tiny to skin. He got over this by simply wrapping them in brown paper, and drying or desiccating them on the hob of the hospital kitchen.

Well, one day he gave three nicely-shot and beautiful specimens to the nigger cook to do for him. What were his surprise and disgust to have them brought to him by the black fellow on a plate!

Yes, indeed, they were done, for he had removed the paper and cooked them, feathers and all.

There is a species of dove or pigeon out in Jamaica that the niggers themselves consider rather delicate eating, or at all events are very fond of. It (Zenaida amabilis) suffers much from the biting of mosquitoes. Well, the niggers know this, and so they make a fire under a tree and heap green wood thereon to make a smoke. This drives the insects off; and well the doves know it does, for they soon come and settle on the tree, preferring the smoke to the mosquito bites. But, alas! they are out of the frying-pan into the fire, as they speedily fall victims to the guns of the niggers.

But cases of cholera were getting rife, and so the Gurnet was ordered to sea at last. She now bore up for the lone Bermudas, a group of islands that lie many degrees to the north and east of the West Indies.

The Bermudas are said to be the loveliest islands on this earth. They are certainly very beautiful; but, strange to say, one always seems to think every group of tropical islands he comes to, while sailing here and there across the ocean, more lovely and fairy-like than the last. The words of the poet rise to my mind, however, as I think of Bermuda:—

"Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song,—
'What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?'"

There are more than a hundred islands here, great and small; but at the time of the visit thereto of the Gurnet, probably not more than a dozen were inhabited.

Steam was up in the ship when she first sighted lights, about four bells in the middle watch; and owing to the number of rocks and shoals about, it was deemed advisable to keep well off until morning.

Dr. Reikie and Jack were both on deck early, and the scene that met their view seemed like one of enchantment. Some of those verdant isles seemed to be floating in the clouds. But dark rocks were seen here and there like the backs of monster whales, and over these the sea-green water broke and moaned and boomed in long lines of snow-white surf. Farther off to the right and left the ocean was basking in the sunlight, a deep and cerulean blue, with here and there a patch of opal or green where the coral or weedy bottom showed through.

"And," added the doctor, "if we only stay here for a month, let alone two, as Captain Gillespie expects, the Edinburgh Museum will hardly be able to docket all my specimens."

"But see, on the flag-staff on the fort yonder they are making signals," said Jack Mackenzie.

"Ay, Jack; but no' to us. They're speaking to that wee vision of a gunboat far away yonder. I guess they'll talk to us presently."

For once in a way Dr. Reikie was disappointed, and the Edinburgh Museum must have been a very great loser indeed. For when Captain Gillespie returned from the flag-ship, the news he brought was very exciting indeed, not to say startling.

War had been declared against Russia, and the very gunboat they had seen had orders for the Gurnet—which her commander (a lieutenant he was) had not expected to meet here—to proceed eastwards with all speed, and wait further orders at Gibraltar.

CHAPTER I.

"BLOW, GOOD WIND, AND WAFT US EAST."

War, war, war! Yes; war was the cry, from Land's End to John o' Groat's. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, war, war, war! In the drawing-rooms of the wealthy, in the humblest cottar's hut far away on Highland hillsides, you heard that song; it was sung by prince and peer and peasant, in theatre and concert and gutter. And even in churches, bishops, in their sleeves of lawn, prayed to Heaven to bless our arms, and for the "God of battle" to fight on our behalf.

Oh, Britain was valiant, Britain was brave in those days, just as she would be were war to be declared to-morrow against any nation, no matter which.

Turkey, for this once at all events, was a poor, down-trodden country; Russia the cowardly, Russia the aggressive and grasping, had her heel upon her neck.

"Holy Russia!" Yes, there were many who made use of those two little words, and spoke them with a sneer. Holy, indeed! Was she not the vilest, the most ignorant and tyrannical nation on earth—a nation of slaves and serfs domineered over by an emperor who, if he could find no one else to trample under foot, would make war upon his own people, would throw them into prison if they but dared to call their heads their own; who tore the newly-married wife from the arms of her husband, lacerated her tender flesh with the knout, and sent her in chains to die amidst the snows of Siberia?

Holy Russia, indeed! Nay, but Russia the despot. Every portion of her bygone history was raked up to help to fill the bill against her—so far, that is, as Britons knew anything about it; all that poets told us about poor Poland for instance, and sang to us about Warsaw's last champion; all about Ivan the Terrible, and goodness knows what else. And Russia was the same now—just as cruel, just as dark-hearted, as blood-thirsty, and tyrannical as ever. Down with her! Back with her to her own Siberian wilds! Crush her, annihilate her!

Yes, certainly; and after we had done all this we should return thanks to Him who had given us the victory—feast and fête our brave soldiers and sailors, or what remained of them—make a kind of a Christmas-time of it, even though it should be midsummer, and eat and drink until we should be ill. Hurrah for war!

But was Russia wholly to blame for the sad Crimean War? And was Russia really so bad as she was called? Did we not rather jump to the conclusion that this great kingdom was all vile and evil, just because we knew nothing at all about it? When I say "we," I of course refer to the ordinary British public.

Nowadays, be it remembered, dear reader, what with school boards, county councils, extra newspapers, and so on and so forth, the public is becoming more enlightened; and if we were going to war now, the people would probably ask their leaders, political and otherwise, what the quarrel was about, and why they were ordered to peel off their spare clothes and go for the enemy pell-mell. And their leaders would feel it incumbent upon them to supply the desired information—that is to say, if they themselves knew anything about it. But in old Crimean times the people were more easily pleased, and took everything for granted that was told them. They were led by the nose, not by the intellect. If you had asked any body of British workmen in those days why the country was going to war, their answer would have been, "'Cause we are. The Russians want whopping—the papers all say so—and we're going to whop them."

Then if you had said, "But what have they done? what have they done?" the workmen would have repeated, "Why, what is it they haven't done? What is it they ain't always a-doing of? Just read the Parleymintary reports for yourself. Is it likely we would go to war if we didn't oughter to? Anyhow we're goin' to fight. Fetch 'em out. Hurray!"

I am told—though personally I was but a boy then—that the ignorance displayed in what is called society, or the "upper circles," was about on a par with that of the British workman concerning the causes that led to the war, and that even some so-called statesmen were densely ignorant on this subject. They had to read up quite a deal before they dare submit themselves to a "heckling" at dinner-parties or over the walnuts and the wine.

Over the walnuts and wine, indeed, some of those great statesmen were less nervous, and could speak more freely, knowing from their own experience that very little of what was said would be remembered next day.

And now—although I should be very sorry indeed to hamper this story of mine by talking politics—it will do you, reader, no harm to know that at this time the Russian peasant or artisan in town or country was—and probably is even yet—an ignorant, good-natured, frequently drink-besotted, credulous, hard-working "sumph," with a good deal of poetry and romance in his nature, nevertheless, and not a little real piety. He lived, perhaps, very much the same sort of life as our own peasantry did before the days of education dawned and the press began to guide and sway public opinion. Next to things heavenly, this people considered it their duty to obey the behests of their emperor and those in authority above them. When I add that ignorance caused them to have just the same erroneous impressions of us as we had of them, I think I have said enough to bring the quality of the Russian peasant before your mind's eye. It was from his ranks that the soldiery were drawn; only after they joined their regiments they were led to believe that Britain was a nation of savages, and that the true faith was not in it; rather, indeed, would its people trample on the most holy things, murder priests at their altars, and desecrate and burn temples and shrines. The Russian soldier, if he thought at all, looked upon his country as a kind of Holy Land, and he himself as a soldier of the Faith and of the Cross.

Well, my own opinion is that the next best thing to fighting an enemy is to respect him, and I am quite sure that if we—the Russians and the British—had known more of each other in those old days, we would have loved each other a little more, even while cutting each other's throats. This reads a little paradoxical, does it not? But if my theory is carried a little further, how then? Why, we should have no bloody wars at all. For the more nations know each other, the more they sympathize with each other; sympathy makes us charitable, even to our neighbours' shortcomings; sympathy begets love, and love makes us sheathe the sword: so war becomes impossible. It is love of this kind that is to lead the millennium in; but knowledge has got to go before—we must not forget that.

"I say, sir," said Jack Mackenzie to Mr. Sturdy one night, as they sat together on the skylight, while the good ship Gurnet was speeding onwards and eastwards over the Atlantic, with every stitch of canvas drawing that she could bear, and stun'-sails alow and aloft,—"I say, sir, what is our immediate cause of quarrel with Russia?"

"A very pretty question, Jack; a parson couldn't have put it in better English. But really, lad, a parson might be a fitter man to answer it than a rough sailor like me. Seems to me, however, and from what I learned on board the Limpet, that Russia thinks it is high time to reform Turkey."

"Ay, ay, lad—the old fashion. To improve the greatest portion of her off the face of the earth, and to sweep all the Turks who won't turn Christian back into the land of heathendom—that is, clean out of Europe into Asia."

"Seems very mindful of Russia, doesn't it, sir? And if successful, does she expect no reward?"

"Reward? why, yes; and a proud reward too. She, and she alone, is to rule where Turkey now rules; to have complete possession of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles—take a look at your map, lad, when you go below—and thus have the freedom of the Mediterranean, and a sea-board on the warmer and sunnier southern climes. No wonder that such a prospect dazzles the Czar, and even his people.

"And no more fitting time, he believes, could be than the present, Jack. Russia, you see, is trying her hand at the construction of a new map of Europe. It would be a very handy map for the Czar, but a very expensive one for other Powers. If we—the British, for instance—desired to hold our own, to keep Malta, Alexandria, or to open up a near route to our possessions in India, we should have then to maintain a fleet in the Mediterranean at least three times as large as it now is. But France, to say nothing of Prussia and Italy, has also interests to protect. It would suit neither to see Russia acquiring a splendid new capital—namely, Constantinople—and therefore holding the key of the Mediterranean."

"Ahem!" said Jack. "Of course I don't know enough to argue on either side. But, sir, doesn't it seem a little rough on Russia to be locked up in the icy north, and to have no outlet to the southern seas?"

"She might have, lad—she might have, if she could be trusted. But she won't play fair. She wants to eat all the pie, and give nobody else a plum. As for Austria, if Russia gets hold on Turkey, she gets command of the Danube at the same time, and would in time, no doubt, turn that country, nolens volens, into a province of her own."

"Yes; and now the Czar, having, as he thinks, made a friend of the youthful or boyish Emperor of Austria, believes the time has come for a coup de main. Well, Jack, if one man desires to pick a quarrel with another, and to hit him across the bows, some excuse very soon presents itself. And so war between these two countries—Turkey and Russia—has been hinged upon some dispute concerning the holy places of Palestine."

"Holy Russia may be right enough, Jack, as far as the innocent people are concerned; but I believe the Emperor Nicholas to be a sly, underhand dog. The dispute was of a very simple nature, lad. There are in Palestine a Greek Church and a Latin Church. Russia is champion of the Greek, France favours the Latin Church, and the question came to be which of these should hold the key of the Church of Bethlehem; and the Turks, in trying to please both Powers, so offended Holy Russia that she sent south two great army corps to the Danubian Principalities, and at the same time dispatched Prince Menschikoff as an envoy to Constantinople to intimidate, if not to coerce, the Sultan."

"That might certainly have precipitated matters. But the Turks are an indolent, easy-minded kind of a people, who fight well, but only when forced; so they caved in, as we call it."

"That's better English. But listen, lad. The Czar, seeing now that he couldn't get ends to meet in one way, tried another. There are a very large number of Christians in Turkey, and over these the Emperor of all the Russias next demanded a complete protectorate!

"It was the delusion, Jack, therefore, that we did not see through his ultimate designs, and that the British lion was harnessed to the plough-stilts, and never likely to lift an angry paw, which led the Czar to be so threatening towards Turkey as to cause that country to declare war against Russia, which she did on the twenty-third of October 1853. The next thing that happened was that, with the view of protecting their interests, France and Britain sent their combined fleets off to the Bosphorus.

"'If,' thought the Czar to himself, 'we can get Britain to keep quiet, we may snap our fingers at the other Powers, and crush Turkey up like an empty egg-shell. And John Bull is far too busy attending to trade and making money to bother about the Ottoman Empire. If John Bull does, why, I can suggest his having Egypt and Candia.'

"The despatch of the fleets to the Bosphorus was not a declaration of war, but a kind of a display of physique under the title of moral suasion, just as when two men peel to fight, Jack.

"Meanwhile, you see the people of our isle have been watching the manoeuvres of the big bully. To begin with, they didn't like the insolent arrogance of Menschikoff in Constantinople; but when news came that the Russians, with six line-o'-battle ships, had attacked a squadron of light Turkish vessels at anchor in the harbour of Sinope in the Black Sea, and utterly destroyed them and their crews—a holocaust, my boy, of between 4,000 and 5,000 men—then Britain cried 'Shame!"'

"Yes; and we now brought our moral suasion to bear even on the boy Kaiser of Austria. Russia must evacuate the Danubian Principalities. This demand was made by united Britain and France in February of this year, Jack (1854). At this time it was supposed that the war would be one on the Danube. But the Kaiser moved 50,000 men up to the frontier, which the Czar had seized—showing plainly that she means to join the scrimmage if need be.

"Well, Jack, of course we can't tell what is doing now out there, but very likely they are all at it hammer and tongs, for in March the French and British declared war."

"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking," said bold Sturdy; "only, you see, war means promotion for you and me. As far as I am concerned, lad, promotion has been a jolly long time of coming, and I'm not going to say a word against the war now that I see my captaincy heaving in sight above the horizon, Meanwhile, Jack—blow, good wind, and waft us east; for whatever happens, I should, I must confess, like to see a little of the fighting and a bit of the fun."

Lieutenant Sturdy was in all respects a true sailor, and a warrior at that. It is, indeed, a blessing for our country that our navy—which is still the best in the world, though far inferior, indeed, to what it ought to be—is manned by thousands of hearts as brave as his.

Fear the British sailor does not know—even death has few terrors for him; because Jack is really a thinking man, and he counts his chances, and he knows, too, that he has only once to die.

Where, then, can he die better than with cutlass or rifle in hand, fighting for his dearly-beloved country, either afloat or ashore?

In order to understand the first plan of campaign that the Russians had laid down for themselves, quite relying upon the acquiescence of Austria, I pray you to take a glance at the skeleton map of the Black Sea and its surroundings.

When I was a youngster myself I did not like maps, and remembering this, I have placed neither town, river, bay, nor cape that is unnecessary in this present map of mine, specially made for you, reader.

Well, you will easily find out Sinope, where the Russians massacred the Turkish sailors. I want you to remember that their fleet had sallied forth from Sebastopol for this purpose. Now, note the river Danube. It was by this route that the Russians had meant to make their advance against Turkey. Further south you will observe Silistria and Shumla, and south still the Balkan Mountains. It was through the passes of these that the Russians were to extend their march, and so on to Constantinople.

Our army and that of the French were therefore at first landed at Varna, and went into camp between that place and Shumla. It was believed at this time that the Russians would fight us here by land.

But after having laid siege to Silistria, which the Turks bravely defended, and being hard pressed by Austria, who seemed now determined to join the allied armies and declare war, the Czar withdrew his forces and recrossed the frontier.

The truth is that Russia had counted all along upon the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of Austria. As soon as the Russians had left the Principalities, the territory was occupied by the Austrians. They certainly had the most interest in the threatened invasion and conquest of Turkey by the Czar, and it is believed that even at this late date the whole business might have been settled without war, and that Russia could have been compelled, from the pressure put upon her, to indemnify Turkey for the injuries done her.

But Britain had not the slightest intention of so inglorious an ending to the great "weapon-show" she had commenced. Were our splendid troops, eager and burning for fight, to return to their own country and homes, with, figuratively speaking, their fingers in their mouths, and without having once drawn a trigger? Perish the thought!

The Russian Bear must be crushed and humbled, his fleet in the Black Sea must be destroyed, and Sebastopol, Russia's strongest fortress in this sea, laid in ashes.

When I come to think of it now, reader, I don't altogether blame the people of Great Britain for desiring to humble the overbearing Emperor Nicholas. Even the Queen herself saw that he was in the wrong, and talked of the ambition and selfishness of one man and his immediate subordinates as being the cause of our having to draw the sword. On the other hand, I do not think that any one who has read the history of this great war could help pitying the Czar's subjects. The poet Cowper says,—

But the sufferings of our own poor soldiers and sailors, all brought on by mismanagement, strike closer home to our hearts. We can pity these still more, while we cannot but be angry with those who were to account for all their misery, and for all the trials they so bravely bore.

We gained experience in the Crimea, however, and one might almost say that this is cheap at any price.

CHAPTER II.

A GHASTLY ADVENTURE—THE EMBARKATION—A
STORMY LANDING.

As soon as it was known in Britain that the Russians had retreated from the Danube, and that their forces would in all likelihood be poured into the Crimea to reinforce that great stronghold, every scrap of news from the seat of war was welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm. Every one, too, seemed to be listening breathlessly and in silence for the first shot to be fired. It was a silence, all made sure, that would soon be broken by the pæans of victory. Our soldiers near Varna were not idle. True, they were waiting for embarkation, and what a wearisome wait it was! It would have been irksome in the extreme had our troops not been kept busy collecting wood and manufacturing gabions and bastions for the siege-works before Sebastopol.

Even already, then, it will be noted that a siege was in contemplation. Nobody, however, had any idea it would be a long one. The allied fleets had complete possession of the Black Sea. In a manner of speaking, Sebastopol was already besieged or blockaded. Our object was, or rather ought to have been, to isolate the Crimea from Russia. (Vide map.) Seeing that the neck of land that joins it to the mainland is of no great width, this ought to have presented but few difficulties. We should thus have effectually prevented enforcements from pouring into Sebastopol.

But difficulties arose long before the allies were ready for embarkation that no one had dreamt of. While the French troops were still on their voyage from Marseilles, some cases of that terrible disease the cholera had broken out among the troops. The doctors made as light of it as they could, assuring those in command that, as soon as the army had landed and commenced active service, the plague would be stayed.

This was very far indeed from being the case. The cholera grew even more virulent after the men got under canvas. Here was an enemy, then, that seemed to fight on the side of "Holy Russia," and that, too, with terrible effect; for before the embarkation for the Crimea, the French army had about 10,000 dead or hors de combat, while nearly a thousand of our own brave soldiers had succumbed. The fleet, too, was attacked, and steamed away to sea in the hopes of safety. In vain. It was a terrible time on board some of our vessels; for the virulence of the plague seemed to know neither bounds nor limits, and the healthy part of the crews was engaged all day ministering to the sick, laying out the dead, or committing their bodies to the deep.

It was about this time that one beautiful morning—the sunshine glittering on the sea and casting a glamour over the greenery of hill and dale and woodland—our old friend the Gurnet steamed into the Bay of Balchik, some distance north of Varna. Embarkation was here busily going on, amidst a scene of such confusion and bustle as no one on board the Gurnet had ever before witnessed. The bay was covered with ships of every size and description—an immense forest of masts bearing flags of all kinds and colours, conspicuous among which were the British, French, and Turkish ensigns. In and out among the shipping plied the boats, with which the bay was so filled that scarcely could the water be seen. The noise and din were indescribable.

Well, if the embarkation of our troops was not conducted in so orderly a manner as one could wish to see, that of the French and Turks was confusion worse confounded.

Early that morning, before the Gurnet got in, and ere yet the grey clouds of the dawning day had changed to purple and gold, Jack Mackenzie, whose watch it was, had gone to the first lieutenant's cabin to make a report.

"Three men, sir," he said, "are swimming about a quarter of a mile off our weather-bow."

"I can't quite make out, sir. Perhaps they are the survivors from some boat that has been capsized."

The Gurnet was hove to, and in a short time, rowed by its brawny crew, and steered by Jack himself, the whaler was bounding over the waves towards the men. Yes, men they had been; but now, horrible to relate, they were but hideous, grinning corpses. Buried they had been—that is, buried at sea, and hastily, too, with shot to sink them; but this had not been sufficient. It was a ghastly sight. The men lay on their oars for a time looking horrified. Silent, too, for a time, till one old sailor spoke out.

Jack had really been wondering whether it was not his duty to take them in tow, so that they might be properly buried. A cold shudder ran through him, however, when he learned the truth; and so the boat was put about and rowed swiftly back to the ship.

"I thought as much," said Sturdy, when Jack went below again to report. "Ah, lad! if the cholera has broken out among our troops and seamen, we'll be held in check by an enemy far more terrible than the Russians."

That evening Dr. Reikie and Jack went on shore to pay a visit to the camp of the Highlanders under the brave Sir Colin Campbell, who, years after this, became the hero of India during the awful mutiny. Everywhere they were met by troops on the march towards the hastily-constructed piers that our engineers had made to assist the embarkation. Slowly and sadly these troops marched; so weak and sickly did they appear, that scarce could they carry their knapsacks. It was but little wonder. The whole air had the odour of a charnel-house.

They found their way to the Highlanders' camp at last; and rushing out from his tent-door, the first to bid Jack welcome was his cousin Llewellyn. He had just come off duty, and had not had time to divest himself of his accoutrements.

"Duty," he said, smiling a little sadly; "why, Jack, it's all duty just at present. It is duty all day long and most of the night, and I'm never out of my war-paint. But perhaps our brave fellows have suffered as little as any from the scourge, though we have buried quite a number. At first, Jack, we used to play them to the grave with the 'Dead March,' you know. But la! lad, there is no music now.—Dr. Reikie, I have heard so much about you from Cousin Jack's letters that I appear to have known you all my life. But, bless me, boys, come under canvas. I and Lieutenant Murray are quartered here. Snug enough? Oh yes; we don't complain about anything but the delay in getting off. We want to fight. Oh, I feel sure when we get into grips with the Russians the cholera will be scared away."

That bold young Highlander certainly did not look as if anything would frighten him. How handsome and strong he was, and how brave he seemed! I'm not at all sure that Jack did not envy him his superior stature—for he bordered on six feet. Perhaps Jack was boy enough yet to covet that feather bonnet, for he was barely seventeen.

But Llewellyn threw off his Highland bonnet, and ordered his servant to bustle about and get coffee ready.

It is no wonder that the conversation turned upon home. But at this stage of the happy meeting it hardly could be called a conversation; for Llewellyn had so much to say that in telling the news his tongue could scarcely rattle on fast enough. But the gist of what he said can, after all, be given in a few words:—

"Three years and over, Jack, since you were home. Never mind, lad; we've only got to smash the Russians, to raze to earth the battlements of Sebastopol, to annihilate the defenders, to hurl back the Bear to his icy den in the north, and, having covered ourselves with honour and glory, to return, as the good ships' parsons tell us, 'in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land with the fruits of our labours.'"

"Loot, eh?" said Dr. Reikie, quietly smiling; "and we have to thrash the Russians first?"

"Both happy and beautiful. And what think you, Jack? I went down to say good-bye, of course, before my regiment left, and Uncle Tom, who has all sorts of kindly messages to you, went with me, and your sister told me that she is coming out, if the war lasts over the autumn, to help to nurse the sick and wounded! A whole lot of ladies are coming, only I don't expect there will be any sick or wounded left to nurse by the time they think of coming out. Well, then, north I went to bonnie Drumglen, where my sister Tottie is at present, you know."

"Yes: the old lady won't want her, and indeed we are all so happy to be friends again. As she gets older, Jack, she gets more forgiving and less severely aristocratic. Oh, she has a heart after all. She had tears in her eyes, Jack, when she bade me good-bye, loading me with tender messages to her own dear boy, as she still calls you."

"Yes, Jack, and Uncle Tom and I went to see the Malonies. Poor Peter is just the same, only he no longer plays on the street, for, through uncle's influence, he has adopted teaching music as a profession. The Malonies haven't altered a bit, and your old cat is still first favourite at the fireside. And Mrs. Malony told me tell you she prayed for you every morning and night of her life, and made Malony himself do the same under penalty of feeling the weight of the potato-masher in case of forgetting."

It was late that night before the doctor and Jack got back to the Gurnet; but nevertheless they found everything on board in an uproar, preparations being made to receive for passage a contingent of one of the regiments.

Storm and tempest delayed the sailing of the great armada for some time after it was quite ready. But at last it got to sea; and when once fairly away from the bay, and bearing up for the unknown land, then as Jack and Sturdy stood side by side on the quarter-deck, the brave lieutenant confessed that never in all his experience had he beheld so grand a spectacle.

The whole peninsula of the Crimea is hardly twice the size of Aberdeenshire or Yorks; and broadening out from the Isthmus of Perekop in the north, its whole length to Balaklava in the south (vide map) is not more than 120 miles as the crow flies. The entire population of the Crimean peninsula at the time of the invasion is said to have numbered about 220,000. But looking at a map, although it gives one a good idea of the lie of the land and water, is not very instructive as far as the features of the country are concerned; so, just in a sentence or two, let me tell you what these are like. The northern and the middle portions, then, are a kind of barren prairie land or steppes, and but sparsely inhabited by Tartars, who dwell in tumble-down little villages, and tend their flocks and herds. Not so peacefully, however, as do our Highland shepherds. Those Tartars may be simple in their ways, but they are wild and uncouth in nature. But proceeding southward from Perekop, we come to a far more beautiful or bountiful land. Mountains shelter it from the storms of the north, and here are hills and glens and wide smiling valleys with woods of pine and oak, under the shelter of which, and on the sunny braes, grow olive trees, the pomegranate, and even sub-tropical fruits, while green grass waves plentiful in spring and summer, and wild flowers are everywhere.

The southern end of this peninsula is hilly and cliffy. It is indented on the west by the great harbour of Sebastopol, and on the south by that of Balaklava. The capital is Simferopol, lying away to the north and east of the virtual capital, Sebastopol.

It was on the north and west of the peninsula that the allied armies landed and commenced their memorable march upon the great Russian stronghold. In the map you will note the streams or rivers they had to cross. The first is the Bulganak, and is but a "drumlie" rivulet or burn. The hills that range here with valleys between are from 400 to 500 feet high.

Well, the Bulganak flows west, so does the Alma seven miles further on, and also the Katcha and Belbek, the latter being nearest to Sebastopol. But the Tchernaya, I wish you to observe, runs north and west, and falls into the head of the harbour of the great stronghold.

There is but one other point I wish to draw your attention to, and that is what is called the Upland between Sebastopol and Balaklava. The extreme western point is called Cape Kherson.

The distance from Varna to Sebastopol is about 300 miles, and had this city been made, in every sense of the word, a base of supplies, much of the suffering during the terrible winter of 1854-55 would have been spared our ill-starred soldiers.

The coast had been well reconnoitred by H.M.S. Caradoc and Agamemnon, on board of which were not only Lord Raglan himself, the one-armed hero and commander of the British forces, but General Canrobert and Sir John Burgoyne.

At last the beach to the north of Bulganak was selected as a landing-place, owing to its position; being defended inland by two small lakes, so that the enemy, had they wished to attack, could only have done so by the narrow strip of beach betwixt these lakes and the sea.

The French and Turks were first got on shore on the fourteenth day of September; and they landed unopposed by the enemy, but not by the elements, for a heavy swell tumbled roaring in upon the beach, and the surf and breakers were so high that boats and rafts were dashed to pieces.

Had a terrible gale from the west come on, this allied fleet might have suffered as disastrous a fate as the Spanish Armada of olden times.

How small in comparison with the forces and huge armies of the present day was the whole combined force! The Turks numbered but 7,000—they had sixty-eight guns, but no cavalry; the French were infantry, 28,000 in all; and we ourselves had but 26,000, added to which was that brave and splendid Light Brigade of cavalry 1,000 strong. Ah! we shall hear of them again.

The knapsacks of our brave fellows were left on board, for many were so low and ill that they could not have carried them. Nothing, indeed, was carried that could be dispensed with—not even tents, bar those for the sick and for the head officers. Blankets to cover them they had, and in these were wrapped up only the bare necessaries of life.

Nor was there any available transport landed save a few horses. The army, however, soon captured country carts from the Tartars to the number of about 400, and they drove in all the live stock that they could find.

But on the whole, instead of being prepared for a long and exhausting war, our soldiers stood on the beach hardly equipped for a review or picnic.

Providence probably fought on our side, else the Russians, who had a free hand and a very large force of cavalry, might have terribly harassed us and rendered our victories impossible. The whole army of the allies was, be it remembered, a "movable column." It had no base behind it to which it could send back its sick or wounded. These must be carried onwards day after day, or left to the tender mercies of a foe that, under the circumstances, one cannot marvel at being implacable. Moreover, a movable line of battle must hurry on to death or victory; for if it be harassed by the enemy's cavalry, and by guerilla bands of the peasantry, and people whose country is invaded, the limited supplies are soon exhausted, and there is nothing to fall back upon.

The march of the allied armies, then, onwards to Sebastopol, a distance of about twenty-five miles, was indeed a daring and adventuresome one. But the many hopes of the invading army lay in at once inflicting upon the Russians a defeat that should stagger and paralyze their whole force.

On the afternoon of the nineteenth of September, our forces in battle array reached the first of the streams, the Bulganak, and here, for sake of water, they bivouacked for the night.

It might have been said that the whole force slept upon their arms; for on the hills, at no great distance beyond them, the Russians were espied, apparently about 10,000 strong in all, and well supplied with horses and artillery.

CHAPTER III.

A FIELD OF HEROES—"ON, LADS, ON!"—BRAVE
CODRINGTON—PANIC AND TERROR.

Every heart beat high as the order was given to advance, for it was known all along the line that the day of battle had dawned. Yes, every heart beat high; but long ere eventide many of those brave fellows would be lying still and stark on the bare hillsides.

The enemy had indeed withdrawn from the ridges in front; but no one doubted that he lay further on awaiting the attack, and on ground that had been carefully selected.

On and on and on they marched, tired enough already, many faint and obliged to fall out.

In the regiment of brave Highlanders, the 93rd, in which Llewellyn Morgan held his commission, every man seemed burning for the fray. The certainty of battle had raised their spirits, and even those among them that but the day before had felt weak and sickly, now marched on with heads erect. Llewellyn was certain in his own mind that, were it not for the fact that they had to keep in alignment with the vast army which stretched from their right away towards the sea, the Highlanders would soon have been far in advance.

It was not, however, until nearly noon that the sound of great guns came booming towards them from the west.

"What do you make of it, Grant?" said Llewellyn to a lieutenant who marched by his side.

"Oh," said Grant, "those are the guns of the allied fleet. They have found the enemy on the heights beyond the river Alma, and have opened fire. How do you feel, Morgan?" he added.

Llewellyn smiled. "Well," replied the brave young fellow, "I cannot say that I feel afraid; but I suppose what I do feel is something very like it. I am burning with anxiety, and now and then my heart goes pit-a-pat."

Grant laughed. "You are very candid," he said; "and your feelings are just mine. Confound those French fellows! why don't they come on?"

"Well, a short while ago they had to halt for us. Come, Grant, time about is fair play."

"Yes, halt the beggars did to make their coffee. But now when we get to the top of this grassy slope we shall see the river Alma, and see the enemy also."

I wish, reader, we could remain with bold young Llewellyn and his friend Grant throughout all the fearful battle of Alma. But we must take a glance at the whole field.

The plain on which the allies made their last halt swept smooth and green down to the winding river side. (Vide plan.)

If a small boat at sea were sailing north from the direction of Sebastopol, she would find on her right a high wall of rugged rocks. Well, on coming to and entering the river, these cliffs are still continued up the south side of the stream for a mile and a half. After this the wall of rocks ends in a range of hills or heights, subsides into these, as it were, and the braes are now climbable even to Englishmen, and far more so, of course, to the Scottish mountaineers.

Now for the villages on the northern bank of the stream. The first is Alma Tamak, higher up is Bourliouk, and higher up still the little village of Tarkhanlar. As to the roads leading up through the cliffs or up the hills, the first is near to the mouth of the stream, which is here fordable, and the path goes up the cliff. At Alma Tamak there is, when you get over the river, a road up a kind of glen in the wall of rocks, and along this guns may be taken with difficulty. Further up still, and near to a farm, is a third road; then a better and wider one not far from Bourliouk, which takes the traveller right away up to Telegraph Hill.

Having ascended the wall of rocks through the gaps, or climbed the braelands, our troops would find themselves on a rugged tableland which stretched south and away as far as the next river—Katcha—which, with Belbek, lay between them and the goal of their expectations, Sebastopol.

The disposition of the forces is plainly laid down in the plan herewith presented, so I need not describe it in the text. As to the fleets, the Turkish squadron was farthest south, then came the French, and next the British.

It will be noticed that the whole front of battle fell to the share of the British, the French having undertaken to reach the heights between the enemy and the sea, and so turn the Russian left flank. But the main portion of the enemy's forces was massed to the east of the road from Eupatoria to Sebastopol. Observe, please, their batteries, their cavalry stretching along from Kourgané Hill, and note the position of the Vladimir Regiment. When you have done so, we are ready for the great fight.

Lord Raglan himself, in company with brave St. Arnaud, reconnoitred the enemy's position during the last halt, and after that, towards one o'clock, the signal for battle was given. We must follow the French, for they had the honour of commencing this bloody affray.

General Bosquet's division, then, which had been hugging the sea-shore, was divided into two brigades. One of these was ordered to leave their knapsacks behind—alas! many a poor fellow never saw knapsack more—and, fording the stream, ascend the first path I have mentioned. This brigade was followed by the Turks. The other brigade ascended opposite Alma Tamak, and the artillery were taken up this road also. Farther inland, General Canrobert's division got on by the road opposite the farm, and, next to Canrobert's, Prince Napoleon's division.

But note this early: that the seaside brigade of Bosquet's and the Turks never got near enough to the enemy to fire a shot. So that disposes of them. Indeed, if you imagine the field of Alma to be a chess-board, you can suppose this brigade and the Turks as useless.

Canrobert's guns had to follow Bosquet's left brigade a mile to the west of him, and he himself was a mile to the west of Telegraph Hill.

He has seized the colours, and his wild slogan can
be heard high above the roar.

Well, now, many of my readers will at once ask the question: Why didn't the Russian general destroy, block up, or defend these roads? Perhaps he forbore to defend them because he would have placed himself within reach of the ships' guns; but a little engineering skill might have rendered them entirely impassable, to artillery at all events.

While the French were ascending to the right then, even as it was, the guns of their fleet were throwing their shot and shell far on to the plateau beyond them.

And now the British began to move onwards to take up the ground they were to occupy. There were, therefore, confronting our British soldiers at least 21,000 men, with eighty-four guns on hastily-constructed batteries.

I should be sorry to ask the reader to burden his memory unnecessarily; but as the Second Division and Light Division took such a prominent part in the battle, it is well to remember of what regiments they were made up.

The Second Division, then, which was on the right, with the Light on the left, was composed of the 30th, 55th, and 95th regiments, under Pennefather; and the 41st, 47th, and 49th, under Adams. It was commanded by Sir De Lacy Evans, who was a true hero and a good soldier. He had fought in the Peninsula, in America, and at Waterloo.

The Light Division (Sir George Brown's) had also six regiments—the 7th, 23rd, and 33rd, under brave Codrington; and the 19th, 77th, and 88th, under Buller.

Between the villages of Bourliouk and Tarkhanlar were many enclosed gardens, their stone walls running towards the river. Many of these were all a-tangle with vines. Right opposite, on the other side of the river, was the famous Kourgané Hill, and its batteries some distance back.

Our skirmishers, going on at the double, first encountered the Russian fire from the village of Bourliouk and those vineyards; but the enemy was driven from there after setting fire to the little town, the flames and smoke of which added much to the terrible character of the scene. Our Light and Second Divisions began to deploy as the shot and shell from the Kourgané battery tore through their ranks and burst over them. There was here another delay, owing, I believe, to our right being too close to and hampered by the French.

This delay, it is said, was not accidental but part of the plan, and our divisions were waiting to let the French artillery get up by the road I have already mentioned. For Canrobert's infantry and Prince Napoleon's division could not advance without the support of its guns.

Soon, however, and before the proper time, a staff officer rode from the French commander asking Lord Raglan to push on.

Then, indeed, the tug of war began in deadly earnest; for the order to advance was given, and on dashed our troops.

About the same time Lord Raglan, singularly enough, with a few of his staff, rode round the right of the village, crossed the Alma, and stationed himself on a height well within the enemy's lines, from which, while he could observe what was going on, he could scarcely be expected to issue orders. Moreover, he was in a position of danger. This certainly proved him a brave man, but was not quite in accordance with the tactics of the best generals.

But come, reader, you and I shall, for a time, join Brown's command on the left, for it is the first to advance; and like Llewellyn yonder with his Highlanders, we are burning to fight. He, however, has not the chance afforded him yet. We have, so hurrah!

Here we are at the first low wall, which we leap nimbly, and find ourselves among the tanglement of bushes and vines. We must cut and fight our way through these till we reach the river. Did ever you pause on the banks of a stream and wonder whether it was fordable or not, or whether it would be unadvisable to wet your feet! Whiz! That was a round shot, that flew close over us; and shells are now tearing up the vineyard behind us, and shattering the stone walls. The bullets from above are pattering on the water, and men are falling here and there. So we hesitate not, but dash into the stream. The swords of our brave young officers are pointing onwards. Yonder is the hill. Up we must charge!

Now over the stream, we find a little shelter, for a few moments only, under the opposite bank. Some of us, weak from illness, are already pumped. All are glad to have this breathing spell. We look back across the stream. Yonder is the blazing village, flames leaping in tongues high in air through the clouds of smoke and sparks that roll slowly to leeward. Evans's men, their belts and accoutrements glittering here and there in the sunshine, are half hidden by the smoke, but soon they too reach the stream and commence to ford.

It is the bold voice of Sir George Brown, who, on horseback, is the first to clamber up the bank. We draw a deep breath, and nerve ourselves to follow. Nay, but it needs but little power of will to get up nerve. Are we not Englishmen?

We are up! The fight is raging now all around us. Last night, as we lay under the stars wrapped in our humble blankets, we wondered if in the heat of battle we should experience aught of fear. Fear? no, no, here is none of it. We hardly know just at present what is going on. We hear no orders. The din of battle—the shouts of rage or agony, the clash of arms, and the roar of artillery—deafens us. The air is filled with smoke and flame. At times we are in touch with our companies, and charging two deep against the four-deep masses of the grey-clad foe in front of us; but as often as not do we find ourselves in no line at all, only fighting in daring groups. We in the Light Division, though at present we know it not, are supported by the 95th, one of Codrington's regiments.

This is awful work! Not three hundred yards ahead and above, the shot from the Russians' greatest battery is tearing through our ranks. Again and again we stumble, sometimes on the blood-slippery glacis, sometimes over a fallen friend. Yet on we dash towards the fiery mouths of those roaring guns. Away to our right the 7th Regiment is hurling all its force against the left wing of the Kazan Regiment. That was indeed a terrible tulzie!

Hurrah! It is a wilder shout than ever. Just for a moment we see the impetuous Codrington urging his regiment even to greater speed. It was their war-cry we heard, and it steels our every nerve.

But see, the guns above us give no longer voice. Have we won? We know not. The guns, however, are rapidly being withdrawn. And we know afterwards that a greater mistake could not have been made by our surly foe. Yet every gun is valuable, and I suppose they knew we would take them anyhow.

But bravery is not everything in battle. The guns, it is true, hurl no more their deadly missiles, to decimate our ranks, but there are now rushing on to meet our four regiments the brave Vladimir Regiment, supported by a field battery, and another great regiment, with the right wing of the Kazan.

Can we stand it? Our men are falling on every side—officers, sword in hand, sergeants, rank and file, piled here and there, or crawling in agony and writhing in anguish and pain.

How hot the fire! how wild the din! We are being annihilated. Where are our supports, and why do they not make haste to help us? We know not. We do not know that the Guards are even then hurrying up to our support. Yet Codrington seems to have done about all a brave man could do.

He is outnumbered—beaten and flying. Ah! there was no fear before, but now as we are hurled down the hills, something more than fear, and akin to the nightmare terror that seizes a runaway horse, fills our breast, and it is sauve qui peut.

There come the Guards. They have advanced in good order. They have forded the stream, and are bravely rushing on up the hill thus:—

Left Battalion. | Centre Battalion. | Right Battalion.
THE COLDSTREAMS. | SCOTS FUSILIERS. | GRENADIERS.

Now, what happens? Alas! our broken and retreating ranks sweep down on that centre battalion, and carry it right before us to the banks of the stream.

Are we beaten? Is the battle lost? These questions we may put to ourselves, even to each other, but we cannot answer.

Personally—that is, as far as our four regiments are concerned, to say nothing of the Scots Fusiliers that were hurled back by us—we are defeated. There is no other name for it.

Our losses, though we are ignorant of this at present, are fifty commissioned officers, about the same number of sergeants, not including twelve officers of the daring 7th. In rank and file altogether over one thousand men lie dead or wounded.

But see, although the Scots Fusiliers are swept down by our pell-mell retreat, the Coldstreams and Grenadiers continue their advance in splendid lines and quite unbroken.

Ah! there is something in bravery and daring that at times leads on to victory against odds too fearful for the mere tactician to contemplate.

CHAPTER IV.

THE KILTED WARRIORS OF THE NORTH—THE TERRIBLE
STRUGGLE FOR KOURGANÉ HILL—THE IMPETUOUS
93RD—VICTORY!

At this stage of the battle all our available forces were being hurried into action.

The three regiments that had remained with Evans were terribly cut up in attempting to hurl back the Russian infantry, supported by batteries that disputed possession of the post-road.

The 41st and 49th were advancing towards the eminence on which Lord Raglan and his staff were situated; while the Third Division, under General England, with six regiments and two field batteries, was crossing the Alma to their support.

But we must leave General Codrington doing his best to rally his regiments and form another division to advance, while we seek adventure farther to the left. Not, however, till I tell you one incident of this heroic fight. As I have already said, then, the centre battalion of the Guards—namely, the Scots Fusiliers—was hurled back with Codrington's beaten men, and with, alas! a loss to the Scots of Lord Clinton and three sergeants killed, ten officers and thirteen sergeants wounded, and 154 rank and file lying dead or wounded on the brae side. This left a gap between the Grenadiers and the Coldstreams. Well, having got together some of his brigade, Codrington sent forward to ask Colonel Hood of the Grenadiers if he should place his newly-formed men between the two battalions to fill up this gap.

One cannot help feeling for Codrington, for the answer from Hood was a snappish one. "No; certainly not," he said.

Colonel Hood, with his now-open left bravely advancing to the attack, was in reality disobeying the last order he had received. This was that he should conform to any movement on his left.

"Mercy!" he exclaimed, when the centre battalion was swept down the hill, "the movement on my left is defeat and retreat. Am I to conform to that? I'll be hanged if I do. On, men. Forward!"

So might our sailor-hero Nelson have said, for he disobeyed orders, and put the glass to his blind eye.

Let Hood continue to advance with his Grenadiers; and the cool, courageous, precise Coldstreams go onwards too. Both have deadly work before them.

"Ne'er in battle-field throbbed heart more brave
Than that which beats beneath the Scottish plaid."

And now they were going into action—to do or to die. Yes, to do or to die. They have never been in battle before—that is, in a real fight like this. But it never occurred to them that they might or could be beaten. They were nearly all young soldiers those kilted warriors of the north—of the 42nd or Black Watch, the 93rd or Sutherland Highlanders, and the 79th or Camerons. Most of them spoke their native Doric, broad and harsh, yet kindly even in the ear of an Englishman, or the Gaelic; and many of them had left the plough-stilts or the flail, to flail the Russians in another fashion, with that bravest of soldier-Scots, Sir Colin Campbell, at their head.

These men were strong and tough as the heather on their native hills, lithesome too, swinging in step, and with no end of courage, go, and stay.

No wonder that Campbell was proud of his Highlanders on this day of all days; and it was a leader like him they needed, and nothing else, to take them straight forward into the cauldron of fire and death.

But not only was Campbell proud of them, but the whole army also, just as they were of the Guards.

It will be observed, too, that theirs was the most select situation in the battle—that is, as a brave soldier would select it. For what more likely than that the Russians should mass on their own right, and with cavalry, infantry, and artillery attempt, when opportunity offered, to turn the left of our whole formation.

And on we dash towards the hills. We, you and I, reader, are attached to the 93rd. Our three regiments find it not easy to get through the rough ground and over the river.

We are across now, though. Our formation is figured below. It is in échelon, the 42nd leading.

                                                                                    ——————
                                                                                    Black Watch.
                                        ———————
                                Sutherland Highlanders.
——————
    Camerons.

We pass the 88th, who are in square, as if expecting a charge of cavalry; also the 77th, in line. Both are falling back.

Sir Colin cannot restrain his indignation at what he looks upon as arrant cowardice. His Scotch blood leaps in all his veins, and he shouts something like a command to the 88th to form line and advance.

The hero of the day soon has the 42nd in alignment with, and in advance of, the Guards. Our regiment and the Camerons, still in echelon, are rapidly hurrying up.

The left of the Coldstreams have their staff officers near to where the grenadier company of the 42nd now are, with Sir Colin at their head.

Down below the hill the discomfited regiments that Codrington is getting into order again are firing at random, up hill, on the redoubt.

It is the most critical part of the battle. In fact, since the Highlanders and Guards began to climb the heights we may call it a new battle.

Something tells us that we will not be beaten this time, but that we may leave our bodies on the field. See, yonder is brave and stalwart young Llewellyn. The ensign-bearer has fallen, but he has seized the colours; and his wild slogan can be heard high above the roar of battle as he urges us on. How gallant he looks! No wonder we follow.

But it is just at this moment that Sir Colin hears the voice of some staff officer of the Coldstreams advising the retreat of that fine regiment. The odds, he thought, were far too great.

"The brigade of the Guards," he cried, "will be cut to pieces. They should retire and recover their formation."

Then comes Sir Colin's answer, uttered in the wildness of angry passion, and sounding far and near over the field. "Better, sir," he shouts, "that every soldier in Her Majesty's Guards should lie dead upon the field, than that they should for a single moment turn their backs upon the foe!"

Then Sir Colin speaks to H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge. "I counsel your Grace," he said, "to go straight on with the Guards. I will move up with the 42nd and turn the redoubt."

From the bridge over the Alma, for about a mile and a half, there now stretched all along that thin red line of mostly two deep that so astonished the Russians and eventually led to victory.

Where all fought so well it is almost unfair to say which was the bravest part of the line. But the Russians fought like furies, too; markedly the Vladimir and Kazan columns, with which our Guards had most to do in this second struggle for Kourgané Hill and victory. But you and I, reader, are with the Highlanders, and we want no braver companions.

See, Sir Colin rides forward quickly and alone to reconnoitre. Terrible seems the odds against him. He is upon a ridge abreast of the now empty redoubt, from which the enemy had fled. Bullets whiz and ping around him. Twice is his horse struck, but falls not. He quickly takes in the situation, and is in a position to lead his troops to the best advantage up that formidable hill.

It is to the Black Watch that Sir Colin shouts, "We'll have nane but Highland bonnets here." We of the 93rd are more impetuous. Wildly so. Hark how our slogans ring over the field! We feel nothing but a burning desire to be breast to breast with the foe.

With three battalions Sir Colin is to meet and fight no less than twelve. Our battalions, however, are in line; those of the enemy are massed together in five columns. We are Highlanders; they are Russians. No, no; we do not despise our enemies, they are men of solid, ay and stolid courage, but—

The 42nd he allowed to attack two columns by itself, unaided; in the hollow, too, betwixt him and the hill, he himself being at its head.

It is a critical moment now, for a column of Russians of great strength comes marching on, evidently with the intention to attack the 42nd's flank. Then just as he is preparing to receive it with a front of five companies, the 93rd come wildly charging to the crest. This is a regiment of regiments in the Crimea, filled with dare-devils from regiments left at home, who desire to see war and fighting at its best or worst. It is under the fire of the advancing column. Hardly is it dressed up, hardly in formation; and hence the danger. It may hurl itself on this steady, strong column, and literally be dashed to pieces like a ship that strikes a rock. Sir Colin is quick to see the peril, and gallops on towards us. His voice can check an assault as surely as it can lead one, so perfect is the trust his Highlanders put in him; and so the regiment soon recovers its disordered formation, and once more moves on.

Colin's horse is again shot now, and gently slides down beneath him—dead. Poor horse! But once more our hero is mounted.

Onwards and onwards we advance, vomiting forth fire and smoke. Our great stature, our determined visages, our kilts and waving plumes, we learn afterwards from the wounded Russians, struck a strange terror to their inmost hearts. The two regiments effect this; but when still another—the 79th—comes bounding onwards, the columns of the enemy give way, and all along the hillsides rise our cheers of victory, mingled with the wailing of the defeated foe. The Ouglitz battalions are still to be defeated. But once more the Highland brigade—one and all of us—being re-formed, pours in its volleys, and the Ouglitz column is forced to flee.

Our victory was most complete, though our losses had everywhere been very great—that is, on the side of the British; the French suffered nothing in comparison with what we did.

Brave Sir Colin was everything to his men and officers. Indeed they fought as if the great master's eye was ever on them, and it is true that few acts of heroism escaped his notice.

Llewellyn's heart was filled therefore with a pride that positively brought tears to his eyes, when his chief complimented him on his valour.

"But," added Sir Colin with a kindly smile, as he placed his hand on the young soldier's shoulder, "one must always in battle be calm as well as brave, and at one time to-day I really thought my gallant boys of the 93rd had lost their heads."

Victory! Yes, a glorious victory! When the news came to England, and to Scotland, Ireland, and Wales—for did we not all take our share in this memorable battle?—people went positively daft with joy. Yet I fear there was a good deal of braggadocio mixed up with the general rejoicing.

The bells were set a-ringing; there were more balls and parties over it than if it had been Christmas, and thanksgiving was heard in every pulpit throughout the land.

But those who had sons, brothers, husbands, or fathers at the far-off war, went in anxious suspense for the account of the killed and wounded. And sorrow came at last, and there was weeping and wailing in many a family.

Well, the glory that Alma brought us was "real real," as a Yankee would say. I do not know exactly what the weight of glory is, nor am I acquainted with its exact value per square inch. Anyhow in this case the French praised us, and we patted and praised the French, while even the Russians allowed they had been fairly beaten—by force of numbers.

Had the Russians, however, defended the roads and passes, or obliterated them; had they used their cavalry and reserves, and not pulled away their guns, it is evident that our victory would have been a far more costly one to us, even if it had not ended in disaster.

At the time that Codrington's beaten regiments swept their supports—the Fusiliers—down the hill, it was touch and go.

Had not Colin Campbell with his brigade of heroes come in the nick of time, defeat, it seems to me, would have been ours.

If the Russians made mistakes, so did we. For there was an utter absence of concerted action, no unity of purpose, nor were the regiments in action supported as they should have been.

Ah! we shall hug the glory of Alma to our hearts all our lives nevertheless; for our gallant fellows—English, Irish, and Welsh, as well as Scots—were, in a manner of speaking, Johnnie Raws (I say it in no disrespectful way)—good soldiers, and clever in peace and on parade. But we had not been to war for forty years before, so I think we did very well, considering everything.

And to tell you the truth, reader mine, whenever I go along the Strand, or enter a club room, or pass the door of a great book emporium, or even clothier's shop, and see a straight, sturdy, grey-haired commissionnaire with a silver medal and a clasp or two on his breast bearing the sacred names of Alma, Inkermann, Balaklava, I feel very much inclined to lift my hat to him. Don't you?

CHAPTER V.

A WALK ACROSS THE BATTLE-FIELD—GHASTLY
SIGHTS—BRAVE SURGEON THOMPSON OF THE
44TH—JACK'S STRANGE ADVENTURE.

Ah! well, the glory, I suppose, is abiding; the ghastliness is soon hidden in the grave.

But oh, reader mine, is it not dreadful to read that on the very night that followed the battle men were sickening and dying with cholera in numbers as great as before?

It is no wonder, methinks, that as I write that sentence, tears that I fain would repress make dim the lines before me. Because I know something of the horror that cholera brings in its train, and the agony, despair, and suffering—a suffering so great that many times and oft the surgeon breathes a prayer of thankfulness to Heaven when his patient's eyes are closed in death. And, horrible to relate, even after death cramps and spasms sometimes come on, so that the ignorant would believe that the subject had once more come to life.

We naval and army surgeons are called non-combatant officers. Heaven help us! we have as many dangers, in ship or field, to encounter, as the men who, sword in hand, march at the head of their companies; and when the field is won our work is only beginning. And they, the so-called combatants, get nearly all the glory.

After the battle of Alma, fain would some of the generals have had their troops come down and bivouac beside the river, for sake of the water. But that plucky old soldier Raglan must have them sleep on the heights, in the field they had covered with glory—and dead.

The men were for the most part tired to excess, war-worn, and thirsty, yet seeming to want sleep more even than water, which they felt too far gone to drag uphill.

Llewellyn and Grant had escaped without injury, and together, in the cool of the evening, they strolled down to the river's bank. As far as the stripping of the wounded (which takes place after European battles by the ghastly hordes that hover in the rear intent on plunder) was concerned, it was conspicuous only by its absence. But here was a sight that caused the blood of those two young men almost to curdle with horror.

There were many men lying, or even sitting, dead, in the very position they had assumed just before the messenger of death came singing towards them. Many were lying on their backs, with arms upstretched as if appealing to Heaven for help or mercy. Llewellyn and his friend were standing near a corpse which lay in this position, with the musket across the chest, when their own surgeon came up.

"No," said the latter, with a sad kind of smile; "that man passed away painlessly, and at once. His arms are but outstretched as if still holding his gun."

Here was a headless trunk. Blood and brains had been spattered over the clothes and faces of other men who also had been killed. Here a dead body, with both legs torn off and flung to a distance. Here another, with one arm lying by its side, broken perhaps; the other, but a shattered and bloody stump, held aloft. Both eyes were open, and the face had a scared and awful look.

But for one dead man that Llewellyn saw there were at least a dozen wounded, and those for the most part lay sick and uncomplaining, as still almost as the dead. Or they would simply try to raise themselves on their arms and plead for a little water; sometimes the words would be but a whisper. Even as they did so it was no uncommon thing to note a spasm of agony come over the face, and a jerk to one side, then hands that drooped and eyes half shut, and gradually the placidity of death.

Llewellyn tried to raise one poor fellow, whose whole shoulder had been torn away by part of a shell, and who seemed struggling to sit.

"Yes: tell her to come, and bring baby. I want to see baby. Where is the light?"

Ah! indeed, where was the light? His head drooped like a wounded bird's, the spirit fled, and Llewellyn laid him gently back.

Some of the faces of the wounded were so disfigured, so shot away I might call it, that they were fearful to behold. Some, they said, had scarcely mouths to eat or drink with, the lower jaws being carried clean away. Faces these were to live in one's dreams for ever and aye.

The allied armies, who, some say, might have marched directly into Sebastopol on the day after their great victory, did not resume their advance until the 23rd.

The wounded of the enemy had at first been in great distress, and when our army went on, Dr. Thompson, assistant-surgeon of the 44th, volunteered to stay behind and look after them. And his servant, M'Grath, stayed also.

Thus was this brave fellow left behind in an enemy's country with 500 wounded Russians. An act like this surely speaks for itself, and tells of the true heroism and kind-heartedness which combined seem to belong specially to the medical staff of our army. The doctor and his servant, I may add, had neither tent nor accommodation of any kind.

The wounded were dying on his hands day after day, and he and M'Grath struggled hard to bury them; but when, on the 26th, Captain Lushington of the Albion and his blue-jackets arrived, they had to remove about forty dead before they could reach the living. These latter were nearly all carried on board ship, when a force of the enemy appeared, and they were obliged to abandon their task. The Russian wounded were sent under flag of truce to Odessa.

There was much disappointment shown among the officers of Llewellyn's regiment when it was found that they were not to follow up the victory on the day after it, and march right to attack the northern forts.

Perhaps no one was more disappointed than Sir Colin Campbell, though he did not show it.

Neither Grant nor Llewellyn Morgan, however, took any pains to conceal their chagrin.

"May we ask what it means, sir?" Llewellyn took the liberty of saying. "Does Lord Raglan—"

"Hush, my young friend, hush!" said Sir Colin. "Lord Raglan is bold enough to have gone on even last night, but Marshal St. Arnaud thinks the armies are too tired."

"Too tired!" cried Grant. "Confound the fellow, let him speak for his own troops. They may be tired, tired looking on—it was all they did; but we fought, and will fight again."

"Yes, true; and if I were commander-in-chief, St. Arnaud should not rule me. I'd leave him to rest. But, my dear fellows, we must obey; obedience is a duty—when expedient."

The last words were spoken sotto voce, and more to himself than to the junior officers.

All along the route to the river Belbek, the arms and accoutrements, the dead and the struggling wounded, showed how complete the rout of the Russians had been, and how great their haste to escape.

At the mouth of the Belbek river the Scots Greys and another regiment were disembarked, and soon after the march was resumed.

Meanwhile, Menschikoff, who was an able tactician, sunk seven ships of war across the harbour mouth of Sebastopol, thus preventing our vessels from getting in, while those of his ships safely inside could pour a deadly fire upon the northern forts should they be attacked.

It is said by some that Lord Raglan consulted his chief engineer, Sir John Burgoyne, as to the feasibility of such an attack. This is denied by others.

However, a grand flank march was now determined upon, and a reconnaissance in some force was sent onwards to M'Kenzie's Farm, the army following on. The march was continued now to Traktir Bridge on the Balaklava road.

On the banks of the river our troops bivouacked for the night, and soon after, from the light in the sky, it was evident the French had occupied the M'Kenzie heights that we had just left.

Menschikoff, strangely enough, had passed our army without knowing it, within five miles or less of M'Kenzie's Farm. In fact, many of his last waggons, containing baggage, were captured. Still he did not know we were making that historical flank march. He was on his way to the upper part of the river Belbek, with the intention of keeping open the communications with Southern Russia, and receiving reinforcements. Cathcart's division, I wish you to note, had been left to cover the rear of our march, and to send the sick and wounded on to the mouth of the Katcha, where they would be embarked on the French and British ships.

Now the object of this flank march was to seize Balaklava town, and it was desirable that our ships should co-operate there with us.

And it is just here that I wish to tell you about Jack Mackenzie's adventure—that is, his first real adventure on Crimean soil.

The Gurnet was a handy little craft, and consequently had all kinds of work to do.

Bold Dr. Reikie was as busy as busy could be, and though he had to take many a cargo of sick to the large ships or transports, luckily enough the cholera had not yet broken out on board of this gunboat.

Both he and Jack were ashore at the mouth of the Katcha when Admiral Lyons wished to open up communication with Lord Raglan, now on the Tchernaya. Who would volunteer to take a message? Many would; but our brave hero Jack was recommended by Captain Gillespie, who was loud in the young fellow's praises.

"No doubt of it, sir," said Jack boldly. "I'm young, sir, and active. I'm also an excellent hockey-player, and not too tall."

"As to hockey," he said, "I don't know if that be any recommendation. Well, I will trust you, and you must bring an answer as soon as possible without killing yourself."

"Good-bye, doctor," said Jack, when he was ready for the march. "I'm so glad. I'll see Cousin Llewellyn too, if he is not among the slain."

"Good-bye, old man. Bon voyage. You're a lucky dog. Don't come back with your head under your arm, and your promotion is certain."

Jack determined to make a record. He took no arms with him save a revolver and his dirk. To support his strength, the provision he made was simple in the extreme—namely, a couple of ship biscuits and a bottle of water. The biscuits were so full of weevils that he wouldn't want for fresh meat anyhow.

He started in the afternoon, and in less than two hours he had reached the Belbek. He had crossed hill and dell and grassy slope very much as the crow flies; but having reached the river, he went onwards up the banks. He must strike the trail of the allied armies, for if he lost the road it would be indeed a poor record he should make.

After striking the trail of the army, he crossed the river by a ford. The river looked rather deep, but if the worst came to the worst he could swim. The water did look deep though, so he did what many a Scotsman has done before him: he partially undressed and waded through bravely. After getting inside his clothes again, he sat down to rest, and to munch a biscuit. The sun was getting very low, however, so he soon got up and hurried on again. He had six miles to go before he could reach M'Kenzie's Farm, and nearly the same distance before he came to the British camp on the Tchernaya. But what was that to a young fellow like him, and a hockey-player to boot? The path he followed now was very rough. He hugged the waggon tracks.

The country was a wooded or at least a bush-covered one, but all silent and deserted. When night fell it found him still struggling on, and he knew by the stars that the road was now taking him more inland. When he came near a hill at last, he left the trench, and climbed it to have a look around. What a scene! Far away beneath him glinted the lights of Sebastopol harbour, doubled and tripled as they sparkled on the water; and still farther off was the darkness of the star-lit sea itself. But yonder in the south-east a moon was struggling with a bank of clouds, low down on what appeared to be a woody horizon.

Jack was preparing to descend and resume his journey, when not far in his rear he heard voices. He had barely time to get into hiding under a friendly bush, when four men, evidently Russian soldiers, passed almost close by him. Jack afterwards learned that, like himself, these men had come from the Belbek, but from the upper regions thereof. In fact they were emissaries from Menschikoff, on their way to Sebastopol to obtain news as to the whereabouts of the invaders.

Jack was glad enough when they had passed. But, lo, they had not gone twenty yards away when they threw themselves on the ground to rest. Then they proceeded leisurely to light a fire.

As this burned up, Jack crept further back under the shadow of the bush—a species of dwarf yew—lest his face or figure might be seen. He was so close to them that he could hear every word they said. As, however, they spoke in the Russian language, this was not of much advantage to Jack.

Probably I myself am no born linguist, though I can manage to bless myself in two or three tongues; but the Russian, whenever I attempted it, always seemed to loosen all my teeth.

The greybacks had laid down their arms, and proceeded to make themselves very comfortable indeed. They had their toes towards the fire and pipes between their teeth—the stalks of the pipes at all events. Now and then they laid aside their pipes to stuff their maws with coarse bread. Then they made many applications to black bottles, and seemed to get jollier every minute.

When these fellows laughed, they opened great black cavernous mouths, and threw their legs straight out in front of them, as if afraid of the cramp. No wonder that the very night-birds screamed and flew flapping away from the neighbouring trees at the sounds.

Jack greatly feared they were going to make a night of it, but did not dare to stir.

Neither words nor music appealed to Jack, who was hoping the man would choke. The melody—save the mark!—was like the rattling of a lot of pebbles in a frying-pan. The words were a kind of Irish stew or pan-hagglety of German, Chinese, Turkish, and Sanscrit, with a little Gaelic and broad Scotch thrown in to give it smoothness.

But now from a wallet the soldier who seemed in command drew forth some papers. He looked at and counted them, then put them carefully away again. They appeared to Jack to be plans, and he at once formed the daring resolve of possessing himself of them by hook or by crook.

Then the sergeant had another drink. The man next him said something while he drank; upon which, without for a moment taking the bottle from his lips, the officer let out from the shoulder with his left, and the soldier rolled back on the moss. The others guffawed, and the boisterous merriment continued.

Jack was getting uneasy, for time was important, and it was now well on in the night.

As he was moving round a little to ease his position, his hand rested on a stone of considerable size. This might come in handy, he thought, so he rolled it towards him.

The men, after another drink or two, turned quiet. They seemed to doze. But they had drawn their rifles quite close up to their knees in readiness.

Presently they appeared to be talking Russian through their noses. Jack allowed them to snore for fully ten minutes. Then he slowly arose.

The fire had burned rather low. The stars away in the west burned very brightly, but the moon cast no shadow. Clutching the big stone, and making sure his dirk and revolver were handy, Jack stalked out into the open, listening like a thief at every step.

He could have brained the sergeant with the stone he carried, but he had no wish to do that.

He was just about to pick up the wallet, when one man awoke with a growl like that of a wolf.

Jack imitated the Highland slogan, and with all his might he dashed the stone into the dying embers. Dust and fire flew in all directions.

For a moment the men's energies seemed paralyzed. Speedily they recovered, however, and took up the running, firing after Jack at random.

The country had become more open, and when our hero looked about presently, there was but one man in pursuit. The others had been shaken off.

Luckily for Jack, who, hockey-player though he was, felt almost pumped out, the moon gave a little more light just then. He stopped. On came the man with a hoop of rejoicing; but Jack's revolver rang out twice, sharp and clear on the night air, and the pursuer rejoiced no more. He threw up his arms, and fell fiat on his face.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FIRST GREAT BOMBARDMENT—SHIPS VERSUS
FORTS—POOR BOY HARRIS—"TELL 'EM I DIED LIKE A
THOUSAND O' BRICKS."

The bold young hockey-player ran on and on; first as hard as he could fly, then only in a swinging sort of trot that he felt he could keep up long enough. Once or twice he lost himself, but soon got on the track again. He was guided now as much by a glare in the sky—which he knew must be the French camp—as by the rough tracks through the bush.

And long before he came near the camp he was hailed by the outpost sentry. Jack answered in very questionable French but in a very short time he was telling the story of his adventures to Marshal Canrobert himself.

Yes, this general was now in command of the French forces, and poor St. Arnaud was dying. He had turned faint some days before, and fallen off his horse. The moment they saw him the doctors had given him up for lost. He was plague-stricken.

Early next morning Jack was in the British camp, and had delivered his message and handed over the wallet. This contained important letters from Menschikoff himself, but whether they were of any utility or not I cannot say, only Lord Raglan complimented Jack very highly indeed, and even found time in a letter he sent back to Admiral Lyons to recommend our young hero for promotion.

Lord Raglan offered Jack an escort back, but this was politely but pluckily declined.

"One man, my lord"—the reader will note that Jack talked of himself as a man—"one man can move along more quickly and make less noise than half a dozen."

"Man, you're a birkie,"* said Sir Colin. "I like you. Don't be rash, though. Study war, if study it you must, as an exact science. Not that 'go' and 'movement' don't count, for they do. Before the battle you must be a lynx; during the fight you may be a bull. Good-morning. Good-luck to you, lad. We may meet again."

"Well, I declare!" cried stalwart young Llewellyn, who had his left hand in a sling. "Why, you turn up at the oddest times and in the drollest ways. By this and by that, Jack, I am glad to see you. But how haggard and hungry you look! Come and have breakfast. Grant will be glad to see you. My arm? Oh, nothing, only a chip of a Russian shell tore my coat."

"Why, Llew I took it in hand just to please mother and sister, and the old lady, and—"

"Ah, you old rascal, I do believe you'll end by marrying Tottie.* But I am told she will soon not be Tottie but Tott-o. She is growing tall and very pretty."

* The termination ie in Scotch means "small;" it is also "endearing." The termination o means "great" or "large:" thus we say, man, mannie, man-o.

Jack reached the admiral's ship in safety, but not without a further adventure. This was only part of the last, however. For sitting against a tree, and looking very faint and weak, was the very Russian he had shot.

Jack shared his water with him, and bound up his wound, which was through the right biceps. Then he left beside him a portion of the food he had brought for himself, and hoping his friends would speedily find him, went trotting off once more.

The question whether or not Sebastopol could have been carried by assault during the last days of September is one we need not pause to consider now, but Cathcart was in favour of it, and even the clever Russian, Colonel Todleben, one of the historians of the war, admits that the assault might have been successful.

It was on the Upland to the south of Sebastopol that most of the fighting and suffering would now take place, or around it.

The town and harbour of Balaklava itself had soon fallen into our possession, and the allies were encamped on the plateau above it (vide plan), formerly called the Chersonese, and now, as I have said, "the Upland."

An attack on the north side of Sebastopol, you will perceive, was never seriously contemplated, though Todleben had made every preparation to repel it.

Early in the morning of the second of October, the women, children, and non-combatants left Sebastopol, with as much of their goods and chattels as they could conveniently carry. A dreary journey away north lay before them, but it was imperative. War knows no sentiment where her interests are concerned. Bellona is indeed a stern mistress. But thus relieved, the great and wise engineer, Todleben, found himself quite unshackled in the defence. The mere drones had left the great hive, and so he bent all his energies to strengthening the works and forts.

Balaklava itself was but a very insignificant place indeed, but it would gain importance henceforward, and be the base of our supplies.

The "town" of Balaklava and its old ports had very quickly been silenced by a few shots from one of our ships; and when our army appeared on the heights, we found that communication with the fleets was already open.

But having taken it, we were graciously permitted by the French to retain it, and with it the right side of the allied line. I believe that in those days the French could see as far through a milestone as most people. Anyhow, with Balaklava and the right we chose much sorrow, and an amount of suffering to our troops that not even the pen of Kinglake has overdrawn.

A glance or two at the plan (p. 294) will give the reader as good an idea of Sebastopol's outer and inner harbour as pages of text can.

The following brief sentences, however, from the pen of General Sir Edward Hamley, K.C.B.,* may be read with interest:—"The roadstead of Sebastopol is a creek about four miles long from the point where it breaks, nearly at right angles, the coast-line to its extremity where the Tchernaya flows into it. It maintains a great depth throughout, even close to the shore. On the points that mark the entrance stood two forts—that on the north named Constantine; on the south, Alexander.

* This gentleman's succinct and clever book, "The War in the Crimea." Lecky and Co., publishers.

"After entering the roadstead ...... and about a mile from the entrance, the inner or man-o'-war harbour ran for a mile and a half into the southern shore. On the two points that mark this inlet stood two other forts, Nicholas and Paul. On the west shore of this inner creek stood the city of Sebastopol.

"The plateau or plain where the allied armies stood—the Upland—was marked off from the Tchernaya by a wall of cliff, which, following up that stream southward for about a mile from its mouth, turns round south-west and defines the valley of Balaklava, passing about a mile north of that place, and joining the sea-cliffs."

The French had the left of the Upland, and made the inlets near Cape Kherson, called Kazatch and Kamiesch Bays, their base; and the latter was speedily filled with their shipping, which landed their tents and stores on a temporary raft. There was around this bay quite a town of tents. Moreover, the French made a well-paved road from it all along the rear of their division, facing Sebastopol. It will be seen, therefore, that our Gallic allies knew how to make themselves snug.

The Upland is divided from south to north by the great ravine, separating the French and English at first, but afterwards taken possession of by the French siege-corps.

The plan shows where the cliffs sweep round to the north of Balaklava, and these the French fortified.

Crossing the great ravine, you would have found first the Third and Fourth English Divisions, then the Light Division, with, on its right, the Careenage Creek; and on the other side of this ravine the Second Division, looking towards the Inkermann heights, and in its rear the First Division, about a hundred yards back, and also resting its right on the rocky edge of the Upland.

One vulnerable point in the British line was the valley of Balaklava. A reference to the plan will show the Woronzoff Road, which goes to the left up the cliff and thence to Sebastopol. Another branch of this road goes on to M'Kenzie heights, and away north and west towards Southern Russia. This road ought to have been strongly fortified from Balaklava to the Upland. As it was, the Russians could get to Balaklava out of reach of the guns on the edge of the Upland, and we must descend to the valley to repel them.

On the north-east of Balaklava were the heights of Kamara, and a row of heights crossed the valley from here to the Upland. On these some works were made carrying twelve-pounder guns and manned by Turks. Below these heights, and between them and Balaklava harbour, the 93rd Highlanders were posted. Marines—over a thousand, with guns brought from the ships—were placed to the right of the harbour on the heights, while cavalry were also stationed below the cliffs of the Upland, and not far from the Highlanders.

The siege of Sebastopol was now begun in earnest, under the supervision of Burgoyne. The French, taking advantage of a stormy night, threw up their first trench on Mount Rodolph. This was 1,100 yards in length. Then on the next two nights we opened our first on Green Hill and Mount Woronzoff. Although the Russians by their cannonade succeeded in doing considerable mischief to our trenches by day, at night they were repaired and pushed on. On the 16th these were ready and mounted for siege.

It was agreed that a simultaneous attack should be made by land and sea, although the strength of the great stone forts did not appear very promising for our wooden ships. The proposal emanated from Lord Raglan, and Admiral Dundas gave a kind of unwilling consent to it.

The fifteenth of October was a big and a busy day with the fleets, for a great naval conference assembled, and boats were flying from ship to ship, busily enough, with officers in cocked hats, and in their "war-paint," as Dr. Reikie called it.

Sturdy and his friend Jack Mackenzie watched the scene with great interest from the deck of the saucy Gurnet.

"Humph!" said Sturdy. "What would you think of a man who tried to break a cocoa-nut by shying rotten pears at it?"

I am not going to say whether it was Dundas or Lyons that Sturdy referred to, though I think I know. Anyhow this honest sailor had a habit of saying just exactly what he thought.

"Ah, well," said Jack, somewhat dolefully, "I suppose there won't be much chance of my winning my epaulettes during the bombardment."

"Humph!" again grunted Sturdy. "I don't know about epaulettes; but if a Russian shell or a bigger shot than usual catches us between wind and water, it'll be a halo you'll soon be wearing, instead of epaulettes, lad."

The first great cannonade, then, between our land forces and Sebastopol began on the seventeenth of October, as early as half-past six. The bombardment, the great fight betwixt trench and fort, was fearful, and lasted for four hours—a perfect feu d'enfer.

We—the British—silenced Malakoff Tower and damaged other Russian works. But the French were far less successful; for about ten o'clock the magazine of Mount Rodolph was exploded by a Russian shell, killing and wounding nearly a hundred men, and by half-past ten the batteries of the French were completely silenced.

Our guns, however, kept on: we not only silenced the batteries round the Malakoff, but by three o'clock we had partly destroyed the parapets of the famous Redan, blowing up a magazine, with a loss to the Russians, as we afterwards discovered, of over a hundred men. We had avenged the poor French therefore.

The calamity, however, which they had fallen under prevented the intended assault on the Flagstaff Bastion, which they were to have made side by side with us. Compared with the French, our losses in this bombardment were but slight—under fifty in all—while in killed and wounded the Russians lost over a thousand.

But alas for Jack Mackenzie's hopes of glory either in the shape of epaulettes or a halo—by the way, though, I do not think that he was particularly anxious about the halo; he said he didn't want to be caught out in his first innings—for neither our own bold ships nor those of the French effected anything worth speaking of, although in all they had brought 1,100 guns into action. The Russians lost but 140 men, the French over 200, and our fleet 320.

"I told you," said Sturdy to Jack, when the Gurnet, with the rest of the ships, had been withdrawn—"I told you we would be beaten. A beastly waste of gunpowder, I call it, and honest fellows' lives."

How very busy the Russians had been that night may be inferred from the fact that the dawn of the eighteenth day of October saw their breaches repaired, more guns mounted, and all the effects of the terrible bombardment entirely effaced.

On the twenty-third of October, the Gurnet being round at Balaklava, Dr. Reikie received from the trenches, among other wounded, our old friend the boy Harris. He had belonged to Peel's naval brigade, and very gallantly he had fought. Before the fighting had commenced, some weeks indeed, he had been one of the very merriest among our blue-jackets who helped to tow the guns up to the heights.

He had been cut down by a piece of shell which completely carried away his right arm. He had begged very hard to be sent on board the Gurnet, and although the surgeon who attended him believed from the first the case was hopeless, he had yielded to his request. He was placed under the awning in a hammock amidships.

"Ah!" he said, "I can die a kind o' easy now. Bother my wig, though, I should have liked to have seen the last of it. Ain't there any hope, doctor, sir?"

He lay still for a few minutes. Then he asked for his ditty-box—a small box possessed by every young sailor in which to keep his trinkets and valuables.

"Doctor, sir," he said, "you'll send this little box to my mother and father, won't you? Here is the old couple. I'll keep this as long as I last. Tell them that I died like a thousand o' bricks."

That was his last joke. He fell quietly to sleep with the little case containing his parents' portrait on his breast.

CHAPTER VII.

THE VICTORIOUS CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE—THE
SCOTCH WIFE AND THE TURKS—THE LIGHT BRIGADE,
AND THEIR AWFUL CHARGE.

That question may well begin a fresh chapter. He had gone north, as I have said, to keep the communications open, and he did so most effectually. Not only did he get 12,000 troops around him that had not yet been in action, but soon received reinforcements from Russia, in addition to these, till his army swelled to 22,000, besides 3,500 horsemen and 78 guns.

He was careful not to show his great resources. This might have frightened us into action sooner than was desirable.

Spies were very busy; nor was there much difficulty in such espionage, and it was soon found out that, bar the somewhat weak works manned by Turks on the range of heights I have already mentioned as stretching from Kamara Hills to the Upland across the valley of Balaklava, there was nothing much to fear between them and our camp. The 93rd were certainly something, but they could easily crush them by sheer force of numbers; and as for the Turks and marines round the harbour of Balaklava, well, they were too far away to take into account.

The height nearest to Kamara was called Canrobert's Hill. That was speedily taken, and so was the next one to it. The Turks with their twelve-pounders had done all they could, and artillery had also been hurried up to help them, supported by the Scots Greys.

The Turks were beaten back, and fled, after a stubborn resistance, towards Balaklava.

At first Lord Raglan—it was early on the morning of the twenty-fifth of October—was not fully apprised of the real nature of the onslaught. I do not think the allies expected that the Russians would assume the offensive. But now the Fourth and First British Divisions were speedily turned out, and with them two brigades of the French.

And then a mistake was made on our part; for instead of the First Division being taken down to the plain by the Woronzoff Road, where they could have hurled the Russians back, they were marched along the Upland edge to the more southerly road leading down to Kadikoi.

In the valley next the Tchernaya was the Light Cavalry Brigade, commanded by Lord Cardigan, and on the other side of the ridge and captured heights was the Heavy Brigade. This, which had lately joined our forces, was commanded by General Scarlett. It was made up of the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards, with the Scots Greys, Royals, and Inniskillings.

The Light Brigade was, at the time of the terrible attack made by the Russians on the Heavy, remaining on the defensive on the other side of the captured ridge; and the whole was commanded by Lord Lucan.

Lord Raglan on the heights, among his marching divisions, saw the advance of the Russian army en masse on the Heavy Brigade. As they came on they threw out a line on each flank with artillery to play on our troops on the Upland. Their shot, however, fell short.

The Heavy Brigade were at first, in a measure, taken by surprise, and, moreover, embarrassed somewhat by their own lines, and so were a little time in getting clear.

Meanwhile, some Turkish guns on the edge of the Upland began to play on the Russian cavalry, which soon galloped off.

It was a scene that Lord Raglan could not have forgotten till his dying day. Here was in reality the very romance of war itself. Nothing was wanting in effect or colour—our prancing horses, the splendid uniforms of the troopers, the lightning glitter of sabres, and the thunder of the charging feet. On and on they dash; and now foe meets foe, and every horseman becomes the single centre of crowds of the enemy. But, apart from this front and terrible pell-mell charge, behold the 4th Dragoons—held back for a time—gallop thundering up now and attack the enemy's flank.

What Russian force can stand it? What can the enemy do but turn and fly? And in less time than it takes me to tell it, they have swept back over the slope whence they had come, leaving the ground flecked with their bleeding dead and wounded.

In the next tableau of this eventful battle Llewellyn's regiment took part; for during the charge of the Heavy Brigade, some squadrons of the Russian cavalry made straight for the entrance to the harbour.

They reckoned without their host for once in a way. That host was Sir Colin himself, with the 93rd Highlanders, who were lying down concealed behind a slope.

"Ah! it is one thing," said Grant, "for these grey-backs to send a parcel of slatternly old Turks down from their heights harbour-way here; let them come down this way themselves."

Nearer and nearer thundered the Russian horse. Then at the word of command up sprang the wild Highlanders and showed their tartans and plumes on the hillock.

Next moment the whole regiment would have charged, and probably been cut up. But the shout from their leader quelled them at once.

"Ninety-third! Ninety-third!" cried Sir Colin; "hang all such eagerness! Stand fast! Fire!"

There was a rattling volley. The Russian squadron was checked, but attempted now to outflank Sir Colin.

But that hero quickly placed his grenadiers round, and again the squadron paused, and finally fled.

It takes greater bravery and pluck to wait inactive on hillside or in wood for the advance of a foe than it does to repel a charge. If ever soldiers are really frightened, it is while waiting thus. But in the 93rd Regiment there was none of this excessive nervousness. In their broad Doric they laughed and chaffed, as they used to at night when safe in camp. And when the Turks came flying harbourwards in despair, and a few of them rushed into the camp of the Highlanders, a scene took place that caused every officer and man in this gallant regiment to laugh aloud. For, thinking that these men were about to pillage the camp, out from one of the tents, porridge-stick in hand, rushed a tall and powerful Highlander's wife.

Whack, whack, whack rang the blows; and the woman's tongue was by no means idle the while. Whack, whack. "De'il rot ye, for a lot o' rievin' rascals. You'll no come here to steal while oor gudemen's awa."

"Bravo, Betty!" shouted a soldier. "Let them tak that, as they can tak no snuff."

But a charge more terrible than that of the good Scot's wife was soon to be made. This was the world-famous charge of the 600—the charge of the Light Brigade.

This brigade, it will be remembered, consisted of the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, the 17th Lancers, and 8th and 11th Hussars, and was commanded by Lord Cardigan. I have already told you where it was stationed.

The terrible charge, through two flanking fires, to capture guns at the other end of the valley, was the result of a mistake.

For a full and detailed account of it—and it reads like a romance of the olden time—I must refer the reader to the great Crimean historian Kinglake.

The mistake seems to have been made by Lord Raglan, who thought the enemy were in full retreat, and that they were about to carry away the guns from the heights they had first captured.

Twice he sent orders in writing to Lord Lucan to advance the cavalry rapidly to the front, and prevent the enemy from carrying away these guns.

Captain Nolan took this order to Lord Lucan. Lord Lucan, as the enemy was not retreating, naturally asked Nolan, "What guns?"

Nolan answered, almost disrespectfully and tauntingly, "There, my lord, is the enemy," pointing towards the valley; "there are your guns."

"You are to charge right down the valley with your brigade. The Heavies will follow in support."

He looked at Lucan. His very look seemed to imply that there must be some mistake.

"This means death—annihilation," he thought; "but it is Lord Raglan's orders. A soldier's first duty is obedience."

And right down that valley of death they charged upon the twelve guns in front. A splinter from the very first shell killed Captain Nolan, who was waving his sword and riding obliquely across the front of this mad attack. Why he was there or what he meant may never be guessed. Back through the ranks of the 13th flew his startled horse, bearing the body of his master—lifeless.

In a very short time Cardigan and his brave brigade were in the thick of it—death on every side, death in front, shattering shells, roaring shot overhead, and saddles emptied every second; horses and riders falling together, horses galloping riderless into the still more awful fire that poured upon them when they neared the twelve guns. The valley was strewed with the dead and the wounded—the latter, whether horses or men, sometimes rising, but to fall dead next moment.

Yet that brave brigade knew no fear, no faltering; straight into the ranks of the foe rode they, and smoke and fire for a time swallowed them up. The Russian gunners were cut down where they stood, or driven from their guns, and our men even charged the enemy's cavalry.

They had obeyed orders as they had been understood. But alas, and yet alas! when the brigade returned the whole numbered but 195!

The Russians were certainly beaten at Balaklava, and no clasp glitters with greater honour on the Crimean medal that adorns the breasts of our sturdy veterans; but we lost ground by it.

It might have been well for us had we chosen as our base the bay of Kamiesch, in conjunction with the French.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRUTH FROM A RUSSIAN—PARABLE OF THE
STOAT AND THE WILD CAT—DAY-DAWN OF THE
MEMORABLE FIFTH.

Cut out the word "treason" from the last line, and the old-fashioned Guy Fawkes doggerel does very well as a heading for this chapter.

Guy Fawkes had intended to blow up the Houses of Parliament, I believe—that is if my memory serves me aright. Well, reader, boys like you and me don't take much note of politics, do we? For my own part, I think golf is far better, or that grandest athletic game in the world, curling. But politics—faugh! it is cold work, and insincere besides. Didn't Carlyle say something about a House (give it a capital letter, printer, for goodness' sake)—about a House wherein six hundred jackasses bray? So that, as jackasses are plentiful enough—the human sort, I mean—everywhere, the loss of six hundred in a House could very soon be got over. But how about the six hundred hero-hearts that took part in the memorable charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, so few of whom came back to tell the tale?

Give me the hero, I say, and you may do what you please with your politicians and your members of Parliament, hundreds of whom have no more heart and brains than the snow-man which my bairnies are at this moment setting up on the lawn out yonder, and are of just as little use.

This is a digression, is it? Call me to order, then; but I shall digress if I choose, and after a wild fight like Balaklava, and with another still more awful battle hanging over my head, it is no wonder that I should want a very brief breathing-spell. Well, where can men breathe better, I should like to know, than on the ocean wave? So let us get afloat again, if only for a day.

Look at her there, on this bright morning in late October, bobbing and courtesying to every dark-blue wave that goes singing past her dark sides—our own bonnie Gurnet once again. There is a spanking breeze blowing; the wake astern of her is hardly any length at all, for the rippling, racing seas soon obliterate every bubble. There is life, there is health in this jolly breeze; it braces one up, pulis one together, till there isn't a loose tendon or nerve anywhere about one's whole system.

Six bells in the morning watch, but Midshipman Mackenzie is on deck already, and walking the quarter-deck with Sturdy. Rapidly fore and aft they tread, sometimes beating their gloved hands to instil a little extra glow into them, sometimes stowing them away in the outside pockets of their uniform reefing jackets. The ship has been cruising off Odessa, but is now making all sail south for the port of Balaklava.

"A sail, and a Russian, too," replies Sturdy, after a squint through his glass. "Wonder what the dickens she wants in our Black Sea. Come, we'll luff, and see what her game is. Can we carry a bit more canvas?"

At eight o'clock the sail sighted became a chase. She had put about, and was going full before the wind. As fleet as an ocean greyhound was she, so the good Gurnet had to get up steam, for the wind began to fail.

An hour after breakfast the Gurnet was near enough to fire a shot over her, then another, but with no effect.

"Ay, ay, sir," replied the gunner.—"Now, lass," he said, patting the breach of the great pivot-gun—"now, lass, it's you and me."

Brr-rr-rang! Hurr-rsh! The great shot tore clean through the Russian's mizzentop, and brought rigging, mast, and sail down, and these hung about her like a broken wing on a badly-shot wild duck. She hove to now smartly enough.

Sturdy and Dr. Reikie boarded her with an armed boat. It was humane to let "Auld Reikie" go in the boat, for there might be blood about or broken bones.

Sturdy was in a temper. The skipper of the barque came up bowing and scraping, as ungainly-looking a heap of old clothes, Sturdy thought, as ever loafed along a ship's deck. Our brave first lieutenant hadn't enough Russian to bless himself with, so he stuck to plain English—very plain English, for he exploded thus,—

"Why the Harry didn't you haul your rotten old foreyard aback before? Think we want to expend good shot and shell over a lubber like you?"

The Russian skipper had a mouth like a haddock, and now he seemed to smile all the way down to his short and "gurkie" neck. He made a rush aft a little, and pulled out a black bottle and a cracked tumbler. He half filled it, laughed, and nodded towards the Gurnet, and drank it off. Then he half filled it again, and held it towards Sturdy.

Even Sturdy smiled now; but he bluntly refused the "very goot schnapp," and went straight to business.

"Ah yes. Goot!" Here the skipper proceeded to pour the liquor back cautiously into the bottle; but spilling a drop or two to begin with, he evidently thought it would be a saving to swallow it. "Huh!" he cried, with water in his eyes.

"Your ship's name, sir!" roared Sturdy, stamping his foot, and laying a hand upon his sword. "Name and cargo?"

"Yes, yes. Goot. Ha! ha! My sheep's name is Skrrovotchstriarrky. Loaded I am with cloves."

Sturdy felt pleased now. Part of the cargo was had on deck. The doctor was right. Truly a glorious cargo—stockings, gloves, blankets, jackets, boots! All had been made, apparently, to fit Greenland bears Never mind, they were warm.

So a prize crew was put on board under command of Sub-Lieutenant Fitzgerald, alias Lord Tomfoozle. Then all sail was set, and away south went the Gurnet with her prize.

But a stranger had come on board from the barque—namely, a Russian gentleman and his daughter, a rather pretty young lady, to whom, with her maid, Captain Gillespie at once gave up his cabin.

This Russian gentleman himself was singularly communicative and remarkably free and candid. He spoke about the war, and in very good English; and what is more, he spoke the truth.

"It was a well-fought field," he said, "but hardly a battle. No; Alma was a battle. I was there; I was on Telegraph Hill. Ah! how well your fellows fought. But your French—bah! they are only fit to sell tape and ribbons. Soldiers! no, no, not now, and never will be again. But you and your allies made the grand mistake in not seizing Sebastopol when you could have done so."

"It isn't too late yet, mon ami," laughed the captain. "We're going to take Sebastopol, and we shan't leave one stone standing on top of another."

"My friend, do not think it cruel of me to speak the truth. The fruits of your Alma which your Highlanders won, your Raglan permitted to escape. Your bombardment was a waste of good gunpowder. The part your ships took in it made us laugh."

"True; and it will be the Russians. Listen. You are going to Balaklava. Before you reach that port a battle will be fought that shall decide the war—fought, and won by us. Ah, you may smile, but it is true. Already is the proud Eagle of Russia sweeping down from the north. There are armies on the way that will crush you if you were twice as strong and great. You fight as fights the stoat when the wild cat has seized her—a long, red, and vicious line; but strength triumphs at last—the stoat dies. Where will you be when our armies reach the Chersonese (the Upland)? The weight and strength of our thousands will cause even proud Britain to rock and reel, till, backward hurled across the plains, vainly supported by lazy Turk and gassy French, our artillery and wild horsemen will sweep you out of existence. With nothing to fall back upon except the bleak sea-shores, your defeat will mean annihilation, for you will die sword in hand, we doubt not. The few of you who are taken prisoners will return to your defeated and degraded nation sadder and wiser men. Your fate will be a lesson to the world, and it is but the fate that God in his justice hangs over all pirates and adventurers."

"Your parable of the stoat and the wild cat," he said, "is not inapt. But don't forget, my friend, that we have Russia now by the neck just as the stoat had the cat. The stoat holds on; so shall we. It is life or death, for verily this is a war to the dagger's hilt."

There was a good deal of blunt and honest truth in what that Russian prisoner said; and even while he spoke, the hordes of the enemy were coming down on us from the north, and it would soon be decided whether they or we should gain a battle, the loss of which would be for them defeat, but for us disaster and degradation as a nation.

There was much anxiety, nevertheless, on board the Gurnet; for, laugh as Sturdy might at the bold, almost bragging Russ, neither he nor any one else could deny that the danger to our arms was now very extreme.

"What will they say in England," said Captain Gillespie to Sturdy a day or two after the Russian had told them of the reinforcements pouring into the Crimea from the north—"what will they say in England if we are beaten?"

"Ah, what indeed, sir? But though the crisis is coming, we'll get over it. It really seems to me, however, that we should smash Menschikoff and his general Liprandi before the other army arrives."

If we take the Russian Todleben as our best authority—and he was no mean one; very fair, I think, though he does blab out truths that are not over palatable to burly John Bull—the forces to be marshalled against us at Mount Inkermann were most formidable.

Listen. The allies, including seamen and marines, were barely 65,000; and Menschikoff had an army of 115,000 to confront us with, not counting seamen.

Of the Russians who were actually engaged in the great fight, General Soimonoff commanded 20,000 inside Sebastopol, and General Pauloff had 16,000 on the hills above and beyond Tchernaya. These would combine, and independent of fifty guns in bastions or batteries, they would have eighty or more field-guns.

Then there was the great force of Liprandi, that we had hurled back from the valley of Balaklava, which lay on the Fedioukine heights, from the hills they had captured from the Turks to the Tchernaya valley.

The Russians, therefore, had a terrible army, and if praying could have done it, they would have conquered us.

We prayed as much and probably as sincerely as they did, though not with the same show and ceremony. God is the judge of what is right, however, and He who heareth in secret can openly reward.

A glance at the plan we have given will give the reader a rough notion of the lie of the land on which the memorable battle of Inkermann was fought.

Kinglake devotes a whole volume to a description of the fight. It is unlikely any one will read so much about it. The world moves far too fast, and the coming of every fresh event obscures the memory of those that went before.

Menschikoff's general orders were like the mist that at one time of the morning enveloped the land—somewhat hazy. There was this much to be said for them, however—each general was free to interpret them as he pleased. Whether this was to the advantage of the cause is not so plain.

Anyhow, Soimonoff and Pauloff were to lead the main attacks, and Gortschakoff and Sebastopol were to help and support.

But this wasn't quite all; for Menschikoff had not left the former-named generals quite so free a hand as what I have said may lead you to suppose. These two officers were ordered to unite, or effect a junction as it is termed; and having done so, General Dannenberg was to command the two.

Just three days before the battle, to his inexpressible joy, Jack Mackenzie was sent on shore with an escort of marines, including the sergeant, Paddy O'Rayne, and the doctor himself, from Balaklava, where the Gurnet had arrived. Jack had to march straight to head-quarters with a letter from Captain Gillespie reporting the news he had heard of the excessive business of the Russians up north, and of the speed they were making to send along reinforcements before the bad weather came on.

If the services of the marines and the two officers were needed, they were to remain.

Jack had therefore an opportunity of once more seeing the gallant 93rd, who were, as usual, spoiling for a fight, and also taking a hurried luncheon in his cousin's tent.

Balaklava had been temporarily fortified by Sir Colin, in his own slap-dash but soldierly fashion.

"I'm sure I won't be, man," said the doctor. "I fear, Jack, that surgeons will be more needed than even middies."

"Never mind, old man," said Jack, laughing; "we middies may sometimes make work for doctors to do."

But neither Jack nor the surgeon and marines were sent back—in truth, some of the red-jackets, poor fellows, never went back—so that honest Dr. Reikie, surgeon and naturalist, and his bold friend Jack, burning for honour, glory, and epaulettes, were present at the battle.

Now let me remind you that General Soimonoff was inside Sebastopol with his army, and that his orders were to issue therefrom near the mouth of the Careenage glen or ravine (vide plan), and effect a junction with Pauloff, who was to march his army from the heights beyond Tchernaya, across the causeway and the bridge over the river, and so meet and unite with the former. In fact, Menschikoff seemed to have known very little at all about the chasm or ravine with its inaccessible sides, and gave his orders as if it hadn't existed.

As for our forces, we had the Second Division, 3,000 men, lying ready to meet the wild cat. On the Victoria ridge was Codrington's Brigade, and with it marines—Dr. Reikie and Jack with his men both got stationed here; near to them was the Naval Battery, with its one gun—the others had been withdrawn where they could be used in the siege-batteries.

About 1,000 yards to the rear of our Second Division were the sturdy Guards, 1,400 or nearly.

Buller's Brigade stood on a slope adjoining Codrington's, and the Third and Fourth Divisions were on the heights behind our siege-batteries; while two miles in the rear of the Second Division, Bosquet's French troops were placed around the south and east sides of the Upland.

Before day-dawn of this memorable fifth of November, Soimonoff, disregarding altogether the orders to join Pauloff, left Sebastopol, crossed the Careenage Ravine, and climbing the northern heights of Mount Inkermann, drew himself up in battle array.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BATTLE OF INKERMANN—THE SOLDIERS OWN.

"What a morning!" said Dr. Reikie to Jack about six o'clock on the 5th. "I can't help thinking we'd just be as snug, and a wee bit snugger, on board the old Gurnet. We can hardly see our neighbour's nose with the dark and the fog."

"What have you got in that jar, doctor—something to eat? Looks like a jelly-jar."

"And a jelly-jar it is, Jack, but you wouldn't care to eat what's inside. It's some rare specimens of the Coleoptera,* Jack. I spotted them ayont the hill last night, so I just rubbed the inside of this jar with butter, and stuck it in a bush. I've now been to fetch it, and it's about half full. I'll show them to you at breakfast."

"Beauties they are, I assure you, and prettily bronzed; and some in uniform, you might say—in navy-blue with gold and white facings."

"Ay, indeed; and this, it seems to me, is a provision of nature to enliven the ghastly duty they perform."

The worthy surgeon's left arm was bound round with a blood-stained handkerchief.

"Oh, that's nothing. When I was stooping down and 'mooling' round the bush, a sentry hailed me. I didn't know he was crying to me, and took no heed, till bang went his rifle, and ower I went on my hinder en'. I wouldn't have cared for the skin wound, Jack; but, man, the dashed bullet has torn the sleeve of my best coat! But come on; the specimens are cheap at any price, and in Edinburgh Museum—Listen! wasn't that a big gun?"

"Come on, Jack, come on," cried Reikie; "it's quarters, I suppose. And take my advice, just ram a biscuit in your pocket; you may come over a hungry hillock before darkening; but—there it goes again. Why, old General Soonenough, or whatever his stupid name is, must be jumbled in his judgment to begin fighting before decent folk have their breakfast.—Ah! here you come with my sword, Paddy. Look, lad, look; this is a jelly-jar. Are you listening?"

"Burial beetles, so you must keep them safe, and not break the paper; for if they swarm out in your pocket, Paddy, why, they'll bury you alive."

"All right, sorr; I'll take 'em, and if one of my mates is killed, I'll give 'em to him. Sure, sorr, it won't matter much if a dead man is buried aloive. But the grace o' God be about us, sorr, on this raw, misty morning."

Soimonoff—or Soonenough, as Dr. Reikie called him—with 300 skirmishers in front, came on in a line of 6,000 men, supported by 3,000. These covered his batteries of twenty guns brought from the great fortress, and they were soon posted on Shell Hill and adjoining buttresses. It was these large batteries that opened fire about seven in the morning, their guns reverberating from hill to hill. The general's lighter guns and 9,000 men came on behind his first advance, which now began to descend from the higher ground.

You will note, if you glance at the plan, that a road goes on past the camp of the Second Division to Quarry Ravine, which is nearly met at its head by a portion or gully of Careenage Ravine. This naturally narrows the plateau above. Here our pickets had built a wall of loose stones between two copses, and called it the Barrier. Our pickets numbered about 500, and were driven in; but Pennefather, who commanded instead of Evans (sick), advanced to their support, leaving the crest (plan) supported only by a dozen guns and a body of infantry.

The fire of the Russian guns reached this crest, tore through the camp in its rear, and killed men and horses there.

On the narrow plateau, then, Soimonoff could not advance with so broad a line, else he would have attacked us all along our position. His troops were more or less massed therefore, and did not seem to us so numerous.

One of his battalions attacked a wing of the 49th, and were driven back in beautiful style, pell-mell, almost to the slopes of Shell Hill.

Then the Russian general himself came on with 9,000 men, leading in person, and a column of sailors advanced at the same time up the Careenage Ravine itself, where of course the fog lay thickest. Had we been Russians attacked in this terrible position, I don't hesitate to say we would have fled at once.

Let us take a look at the Russian sailors who are coming up the ravine. Their object was to get to the plateau in our rear, and Heaven only knows how things would have gone if they had succeeded, for the masses of the enemy had already driven back the 88th near the crest.

But Buller himself arrived opportunely, and with a company of the Guards and the 77th attacked this ravine column so vigorously that it was driven back and seen no more.

The battle now raged hot and terrible, the 47th and 77th charging in beautiful style, and finally driving two Russian battalions helter-skelter off the field. Other three battalions close by were disheartened, and they too joined the rout.

General Soimonoff was killed, so his name will bother us no more. General Buller also had his horse killed under him, and he himself was wounded, and therefore placed hors de combat.

The other six battalions charged our centre, and the battle continued for a time to rage along both sides of the road leading to Quarry Ravine. They caught it hot also, and soon their ranks, sadly thinned, were swept off the ground.

But where was the other general with the more pronounceable name, Pauloff? He was all too quickly to the fore. The broken and flying battalions of the slain General Soimonoff had joined Pauloff's first eight battalions at the head of the Quarry Ravine, and had formed in front of our right, their own right being across the road there, and their left on what was called the Sand-bag Battery. This was a battery that had been thrown up by General Evans in opposition to one that the Russians had constructed after the twenty-sixth of October. It had a parapet and two embrasures of sand-bags. But after having unshipped the enemy's guns, ours had been taken away. Well, this "Sand-bag Battery" was to-day the centre of terrible conflict, and was taken and retaken about half a dozen times in all.

As Pauloff's regiment on the right advanced towards the Barrier, one of the grandest and hottest charges of the day was made by the 30th. They were but 200 in all, but leaped the Barrier and dashed into the advancing foe, and although we had officers and men cut down—too many, alas!—the Russian regiment was hurled back towards Shell Hill and down the Quarry glen.

Then the other regiments were attacked with vim and vigour; the end of this part of the battle being the utter rout of Pauloff's army of 15,000 by little more than 3,000 dashing Englishmen.

Pauloff might easily have been excused for believing after this that our gallant fellows had large supports behind them.

A new battle, however, may be said to have begun at half-past seven o'clock, when General Dannenberg himself arrived. Pauloff's army was soon swelled again to 19,000.

Ours had been reinforced by the Guards, by men from the First Division batteries, and by Cathcart with 2,000 men from the siege works. But those troops of ours that had so bravely defended the Barrier had to fall back, overpowered by force of numbers. The Russians, however, were soon dislodged by the 63rd, the 21st, and Rifles. Ten thousand of Pauloff's troops now attacked our centre, Dannenberg himself assuming full command.

Dannenberg's first attack was on Adams, against whose poor brave 700 no less than 4,000 troops were hurled. The fight was desperate, the enemy now rushing on like demons. It raged about the slopes of the Fore Ridge and Sand-bag Battery. The Guards rushed now from the crest to the support of Adams, and again and again were the Russians hurled backwards with fearful slaughter; our fellows, however, not pursuing, but standing on the defensive, till back rushed the foe, only to meet further repulse and greater slaughter.

But when Cathcart came up, things assumed a different aspect; for this brave man, though possessed now of only 400 men—the rest being lent, so to speak, here and there over the field wherever needed—descended the slope to the right, and took the offensive. At first his attack was successful, and the enemy fled in confusion. But, alas! it ended in disaster; for a body of Russians had broken through our front, and descended on him from the very height he had quitted. His brave little corps was scattered, and only returned fighting in groups against fearful odds, and strewing the ground with their dead and wounded.

This part of the battle ended in a series of independent fights, which broke our line of continuity, and enabled the Russians for a time to occupy the Fore Ridge. A French regiment came now to the rescue, outflanked the enemy, and drove them back.

Once more their great guns, about a hundred in all, ploughed the crest with shot and shell; once more our centre was attacked by the columns that rushed up from the Quarry Ravine. And this fight was the most desperate of all.

For a time the Russians were so far successful that they not only took and occupied the crest, but drove our troops back from the head of Careenage Ravine, capturing and spiking some of our guns.

The main column of the Russians meanwhile came on after, and passing our troops at the Barrier, hurried on to support their front lines. But these had been driven back by the French, and so the main body had to encounter victors.

Bloody and terrible was the stand the foe made, however, and fearful were the losses they encountered. They reeled, they struggled, and finally fell back.

For a time after this the fight raged all about the head of the Quarry Ravine and Sand-bag Battery, and once the French themselves were all but beaten, and lost ground. They were reinforced in time, however, and soon after this the battle was in a measure decided. We got bigger guns to bear now upon Shell Hill, and a great artillery fight took place. This and a daring attack by our infantry caused Dannenberg to retreat at last. And neither our troops nor those of the French were in a position to follow up his retreat.

So ended this bloody battle: Dannenberg sullenly retiring; the allies too weak, too exhausted to follow up their victory by a final and triumphant charge.

They say that so utterly worn out were our brave fellows, and the French as well, that no wild spirit of exultation followed victory; and when the gloaming of that sad day fell upon the field of battle, there was little to break the silence—now that the enemy had fled back to the great fortress—save the mournful moaning of the wounded.

The carnage on this field was fearful, especially all about the Fore Ridge and between that and the cliffs, where we are told the dead lay in swathes. So numerous were they that it was difficult to walk, far less to ride, through these lines without stumbling over the bodies of the slain.

The Russians lost altogether 256 officers and 12,000 men in killed and wounded. We lost in killed 597 officers and men, and had nearly 2,000 wounded.

The battle of Inkermann may well be called the soldiers' own battle, for never before, perhaps, since the days of old was there so much hand-to-hand fighting, and so much display of courage and determination both in officers and in men, individually, in small groups, and shoulder to shoulder in line.

I wish I had space in which to speak and tell you of the many deeds of valour done this day single-handed. I shall—because I must—resist the temptation to do so, merely adding that nowhere in the open field, either in regiments or single-handed, did the Russians prove themselves any match for the British, and God grant they never may.

Long after nightfall our doctors were busy indeed. Our own wounded must first be seen to, and then those of the enemy—for the British are ever merciful. Neither Jack nor Dr. Reikie nor Paddy O'Rayne was wounded; and although the worthy Scotch surgeon's arm was stiff and painful, hardly did he close an eye that night, so much had he to do. Jack and O'Rayne both helped him, but sank at last with exhaustion, so Reikie plodded on in his good work until day began to dawn. Nature would be resisted no longer, and the poor fellow fell asleep on the battle-field itself. He did not wake for hours.

"An' sure here you are at last, sorr. Troth, I thought it was dade entoirely you were."

"And it's as plazed as the pigs we both are, sorr, for that same. Sure we belaved some wounded Russian had kilt you."

Dr. Reikie got up now and gave himself a bit of a shake as a collie dog might have done. That was all his toilet.

"I kaipt them for you, sorr, as safe as the apple av me eye. And here they are, sorr, if they're any use to you to bury the dead."

CHAPTER X.

THE AWFUL GALE—IN CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL—LETTERS
FROM HOME.

Few, if any, of our Crimean heroes are likely to forget the terrible gale of hurricane force that came raging from the south on the fourteenth day of November.

Jack Mackenzie and Dr. Reikie were still stationed on shore, where they were to remain till the close of the war.

The Gurnet had been to Varna on special duty—luckily for her—and just one day at sea on her return voyage, when early in the morning it came on to blow. It was Sturdy's watch at the time, and even at six bells it was dark—dark, and dirty as well; and several times when the lieutenant looked at his watch by the glimmer of the binnacle lamp, he thought it must surely have stopped. It was cold too, bitterly cold; and though it had fallen calm about the middle watch, it now began to blow again, while a weight seemed to lie on the cloud-laden air that oppressed every one on board. The glass, too, boded no good; and not knowing what might happen, the lieutenant thought it his duty, even before calling Mr. Fitzgerald and his watch, to close-reef top-sails and set a storm-jib.

Hardly had he done so before the hurricane came down on the ship, with a force that for a time seemed to threaten her with destruction.

Sturdy himself could not remember ever being afloat in a more terrible storm. And the strength of it had come on with the suddenness of a white squall in the Indian Ocean. For a short time he tried to keep the course, but speedily found that the best thing he could do was to lie to. The Gurnet, however, was a strong little craft, and so long as there was plenty of sea-room neither Captain Gillespie nor his lieutenant feared anything.

Considering everything, the vessel was not driven so far out of her course after all, nor had steam been got up until the violence of the cyclone—for cyclone it was—had passed away.

Just two days after this the Gurnet was at anchor near Balaklava harbour, and her officers then found that the destruction caused by the storm was fearful to contemplate.

The Gurnet could scarcely have made her way into the harbour itself, had it been desirable to do so, owing to the quantities of wreckage that floated about and filled it. Even when Sturdy landed on duty, the boat had a difficulty in getting through. It was pitiful to see those boxes of stores, but above all the trusses of hay—irretrievably damaged by the salt water—floating in the sea. Sturdy got news of the storm here in Balaklava before he went on to the front. Of ships or vessels of one sort and another no less than twenty-one had been wrecked, and ten more damaged. The saddest thing of all was the total destruction of the fine steamer Prince, which was laden with a splendid cargo of everything that could be of use to our poor troops in enabling them to stand the rigours of the winter as they lay before Sebastopol. Stores of ammunition too were lost.

So much for the destruction of life and valuables along the shore. But when our good lieutenant at last found himself on the Upland and near our camps, he opened his eyes in astonishment. Here were misery and wretchedness past description. I said "near our camps," but near to the places where our camps had been would be more in accordance with facts.

The wind and the rain together had weighted and blown down the tents in every direction; scattered them wholesale, indeed, in every direction. Neither food, fire, nor shelter therefore remained for the men. Poor fellows who had been working in the trenches returned tired and weary, to lie down, hungry and cold, literally in the mud and slush.

Snow, too, had fallen, to make matters worse, and ground that had been hard and solid before was now little better than a mire.

The first to meet Sturdy after his return from the general's quarters was Dr. Reikie, and with him was his servant Paddy O'Rayne.

"Why," cried the doctor in his broadest Doric, "wha wad hae thocht o' seein' you here, Sturdy man? A sicht o' you is guid for sair een [sore eyes]."

"Because when you're tired you always talk broad Scotch; secondly, because you don't seem to have shaved for a week; and thirdly, because you're as dirty as any old tramp."

"Ah! goodness help us, Sturdy," replied the doctor, "it is tramp, tramp all day and all night here. I haven't had my shoes off since the hurricane, nor poor Paddy here either; and as for Jack, he's working in the trenches now with the naval brigade at the big guns. And when he comes back, after he has a mouthful of food, he just sets to and helps me. Man, it's a comfort to have friends around you in a time like this. Look, see, I've got the hospital tents a kind of rigged again. But, dear Sturdy, I declare that if I were to tell you one-half of what my poor sick and wounded have suffered these last two or three days, it would bring tears to your eyes, rough old sea-dog though you are."

"Ay is it, Sturdy. Myself and the other doctors were getting a nice lot of things stored away for the patients. But, man, the tents were blown down, and the food and stores and lint and bandages all destroyed. When we got the tents off the creatures, we found dozens dead in bed; and from the rest, with their poor wounded limbs and necks and heads, the very blankets were torn by the strength of the gale. Sturdy, my friend, it's the truth I tell you: only those of the wounded that are deid and awa' [dead and gone] are to be envied. I won't ask you to come to the hospital, the sichts are far ower sickenin'. Talk o' the glory o' war! Man, it's yonder under those drippin' tents you could see all its ghastliness."

Two and two in single file, each pair with a ghastly burden between them, fully eighteen men were marching away from the camp.

"It's burial-time, that's all," said Reikie, then abruptly changed the subject. "Do you see those men yonder scattering themselves over the Upland?"

"They are going to dig roots for fuel, then light their fires if they can. They are running to keep themselves warm; they are laughing and chaffing to keep up each other's hearts. Ah! there are no soldiers like the British."

"Poor beggars!" said Sturdy, "Why, we were never so badly off as that even at sea, Reikie."

"Well, how we are to get through the dismal winter the good Lord only knows, my friend."

I have no desire to draw a harrowing picture of the sufferings of our soldiers and sailors, but the reader should know a little of what war is at its worst. Though most of the poor men that languished in pain and misery through the next two or three months before Sebastopol are dead and gone, one feels pity even now when thinking of their wretchedness, and one feels burning with anger also to think that the greater part of all they underwent might have been prevented by ordinary care and good management on the part of those who held the reins of authority at home.

Sturdy paid another visit to the front in December. Again he met Reikie, but this time in Balaklava, and with him were Jack Mackenzie, and a few marines to carry back stores. Both the surgeon and Jack had burdens to bear.

"You look old and worn, Jack, I assure you. I'm sorry for you. How about your honour and glory, lad?"

"O Mr. Sturdy, that is all to come. At present, I must admit, we are just pretty miserable, you know."

"The best proof that I can give you," said Jack, "that we are not living in clover is, that the doctor here has ceased to look for specimens in his idle moments."

"Idle moments!" laughed the surgeon. "A lot of those we have. O Jack, Jack, I believe you would have your joke if we were taking you to the grave to bury you.—Been down for stores," he continued, in reply to a question of Sturdy's. "Yes, Sturdy, I've had to fight, too, for all I've got. But, man, the suffering of my poor fellows is so dreadful that—hang me if I wouldn't steal for them."

It wasn't often that honest Reikie made use of a questionable word; and as the tears stood in his eyes as he spoke, I think we must forgive him.

"I've been giving it to the fellows here all round," he added, "right and left, but I don't think it did much good."

"I'd no time to speak English. But, dear Sturdy, I could save hundreds, and the other doctors more, if we had only medical comforts and stores. Man, it would draw tears from a nether millstone to hear the poor fellows beggin' for a little soup or sago. Jack can tell you of the sufferings his men undergo in the trenches. My place is with the sick."

"And mine too," said Paddy O'Rayne. "And it's meself that belaves that my master here is killing himself for the want av slape, sorr, and I wish you'd spake to him. Faith, it would be the sorrowful day for us all if he was kilt entoirely. As for staling, sorr," he added, "I've tried it meself, so the surgeon shouldn't soil his sleeves."

"Yes," laughed Reikie, "I must say that Paddy does find a bit on the sly sometimes."

"Thrue for you, doctor, sorr; but it isn't always stolen it is. There was the other day, you know, when just across the lines that pony was shot with a bit of a shell: who had a better roight than our patients to it? But sure the loife was barely out av the baste when he was surrounded wid Frenchies, and if I hadn't learned to twirl a good shillalah in ould Oirland, it's sorra a hind leg av that pony I'd have had at all. 'Git off wid ye,' I cried, 'ye durty frog-atin' spalpeens!' They didn't understand a word I said; but troth they felt the whacks all the same. Well, sorr, as I was staggerin' back wid my beautiful hind leg av pony, who should I meet but a squad o' blue-jackets. 'Hullo, Paddy!' says one, 'down wid your leg; it's share and share alike.' But bless you, sorr, when I tould them the mate wasn't for myself at all, and that I'd just been after staling the leg av a horse to make a drop av beef-tea for the sick, sure they left in a body, and wouldn't have touched a morsel to save their lives; and it's nothing but the blessed truth I'm telling you, sorr."

"Talking about horses, Sturdy," said Reikie, "man, their sufferings are terrible! I don't think there are five hundred alive in the camp now, and these are only kept together by their skins. They used to have to come all the way down here for forage; but now if there was forage for them they couldn't carry it. We've had frost and snow on the Upland, and after every extra cold night, Sturdy, we have extra bodies to bury next day, both men and horses."

"And it's never a burial the horses get ayther," said Paddy, "and never a much the men, poor, dear sowls."

"But here come our fellows with the scanty stores," said Reikie.—"Now, Jack, we're ready for the march."

On their way up they were met by Llewellyn and a party of Highlanders returning from the army head-quarters, where they had been with biscuit.

It would have been difficult to say which looked in the sorrier plight, Jack's marines or Llewellyn's Highlanders. Both had high cheek-bones now, telling of want of sleep and scanty fare; but many had cheeks that were touched with a hectic flush, eyes all too bright, and the ringing cough that spoke of fever within. Death had already marked them for his victims. But Death had been so busy of late that he hardly knew where to turn.

The Highlanders' legs were red and bleeding round and above the knees. When a kilt gets wet, the greater part of the moisture sinks to the lower part; and when this is frozen, it always cuts. Their shoes or boots were holed, their stockings too, and some had bare cut feet bound round with rags.

But during the short time that the two parties halted, the privates became very friendly, and food was freely "swapped" for morsels of tobacco.

"So you see," said Llewellyn, "my Highlanders are pack-horses now. We carry siege material as well as biscuit and food; for, Mr. Sturdy, we are going to have another go at the Russians before long. The Redan and Barrack Battery are both to be taken in fine style."

"It is fighting we want," said the young soldier. "Bother it all, our fellows might as well have stayed at home and ploughed the fields, as come here to play at being pack-horses and shore porters."

"Jack, old cousin," he said, "a mail-boat has just come in; I've seen the signal. Now for letters from home."

I think the news with which Jack's cousin had hurried after them lightened every heart in that little party, and so they struggled on, talking gaily enough till they reached the Upland. Sturdy insisted on carrying his share of the medical stores; and indeed he was the hardiest and strongest man of the lot.

The road to-day, Dr. Reikie told the lieutenant, was even less cut up and sticky than usual. "Sometimes, man," he said, "the mud is so deep and tenacious that it sucks the very boots off the poor soldiers' feet—a perfect quagmire."

On their way to the front, Sturdy, hardy sailor though he was, was sickened at the horrible sights he saw on each side of the road. There were men lying there whom it was impossible for the time to assist, struck down with cholera or dysentery on their way back with their bundles from Balaklava.

There were horses dying, horses dead, skeletons of bullocks, some wholly exposed, some half buried, and here and there skeletons even of men, protruding from their all too shallow graves; and although the winter air to-day was crisp and keen, and snow lay on the hillocks that had not been trodden, the stench that filled the air was at times almost unbearable.

Pitiable sight, too, were the Turks whom they met, and who salaamed as they passed, albeit they were carrying their dead on stretchers, or even on their backs, to be buried in one common grave down near to Balaklava.

Sturdy, at his own request, was permitted to spend a few days in camp and in the trenches, so he soon found out something of the terrible life our poor fellows had to endure there.

Badly fed, clothed in rags, with at night scarcely a blanket to cover them from the rain or melting snow, that poured in through the tattered tents; hardly any fuel; no means of cooking their scanty rations; on night duty or day duty, on the march, or under fire in the drains called trenches,—was it any wonder that even those who were not killed or wounded were dying day by day, like braxied sheep, as Dr. Reikie put it?

I am glad, indeed, to drop the curtain over this part of my story, for horrors like these are but little to my taste.

The scene changed as far as our principal heroes were concerned, when one evening Reikie met Sturdy.

"Why, your ship is ordered to Scutari, with a cargo of sick for hospital there. I am going in charge of them. You are ordered to join the Gurnet at once, and I myself have ordered Jack to come with us."

"No; but Jack has been working too hard, and he isn't well, so I've recommended the change."

The transport of the sick and wounded to Balaklava was in itself a sad and terrible picture.

I do not know whether it would not have been even more humane to permit them to die in the mud of the hospital tents.

Sturdy shuddered as he looked at those poor mummies of men, that were gently lifted in their blankets and placed on horseback—the poor horses themselves staggering under the weight.

There was little complaining heard from the pallid sufferers: many seemed even dying as they were hoisted to the backs of the steeds.

Some moaned, others showed by their faces that they were suffering agonies of pain; and although their messmates were as gentle with them as if they had been sick infants, every now and then one could hear such expressions as—"Gently, Jack, gently!" "Mind my leg, Bill!" "Yes; now I'm easier, thanks, thanks!"

These last words were indeed spoken by a poor soldier of the 77th, whose head drooped back the very next moment—the man was dead.

The march to Balaklava of Dr. Reikie's detachment of sick was far more sad than any funeral procession ever seen.

The movements of the horses, gingerly though the poor wise brutes tried to step, as if sensible of the weary load they had to bear, caused the wounded to moan and groan; but many lay with closed eyes as if dead, while others, horrible to relate, were attacked by fits of wild delirium on the march, and had to be held down by force.

As gently as possible the men were lifted off on their arrival at Balaklava, and conveyed on board the Gurnet.

But do not think, reader, that their sufferings were ameliorated when the Gurnet, after considerable delay, got off to sea. No, it was increased tenfold; for these sick were packed on the decks side by side, with hardly room for the attendants to step between.

Alas! the attendance they got was but little, though every one, from the doctor downwards, tried to do what they could for them.

To their other miseries were added all the horrors of sea-sickness; for a storm had come on, and although the vessel was under steam, she made all too little headway. She shipped seas at times, or the spray dashing inboard cold and white soaked the wretched patients to the skin.

Next day, however, the sea went down, and the sun shone out; but many were dead, and with scant ceremony and short service were lowered over the side, to float or sink, for there was no shot that could be spared to carry them to the bottom.

The word passed from mouth to mouth along the decks, and the poor fellows who heard it smiled in hopefulness. Now they would have rest, they believed; now they would be safe, and soon get well. Then ships would bear them back once more to their own far-off homes in well-beloved England.

But for Jack that name Scutari had a charm it could possess for none of the others.

Those letters from home had brought good news to many, but to no one more than to Jack Mackenzie. For his sister, whom he had not seen for so many long years, was coming out to Scutari as a nurse. His mother, too, was well, and so were his cousins and Uncle Tom.

There was also a precious little missive from Violet—that is Tottie. Well, I should not like to call it a love-letter. What do little girls of twelve know about such a thing as love, except for ice-cream and chocolate drops? This letter was not even grammatical, the spelling was somewhat original, and the caligraphy just anyhow. But Jack—well, I won't tell you.

Then there was that letter from Drumglen, so orthodox, so prim, that, as he read it, the old grandam herself seemed to be sitting there before our hero in her high-backed chair. But the letter was affectionate enough for all that; so on the whole Jack was happy.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HORRORS OF SCUTARI.

When Maggie Mackenzie, then barely twenty years of age, volunteered to go out to Scutari to nurse the sick and the wounded, in company with many other ladies, some young and others not quite so young, little did she think or know of all she would see, suffer, and endure. But she was a brave Scotch lassie, and, as she phrased it herself, "having once taken hold of the plough, she had no intention of looking back."

All the ladies who had gone out, however, were not so determined. Many had left their homes for the very romance of the thing, others from mere sentiment or to gain notoriety; but the few had gone to do all the good they could, and—all honour to them—did it.

It is quite unnecessary to say a single word about the soldiers' guardian angel, Miss Nightingale. It was under her immediate generalship that Maggie and the others were placed when they first reached Scutari. Every Board School boy has heard the name of this hospital. It had originally been a large barrack, but was given up by the Turks for a hospital. At first, and long after Maggie went there, it was in a condition the very reverse of sanitary, and the scenes and suffering within its walls are past all chance of description.

Gradually, however, as the winter wore on, Miss Nightingale's sway was less controlled, and great improvements were made in every way; especially, perhaps, in the cookery for the sick.

Maggie Mackenzie was well established in her quarters—and, indeed, they were very humble, and contained not a vestige of furniture that was indispensable. Nevertheless, the room, which she shared with another young lady, was in a tower; therefore it had one advantage—namely, fresh air. The view from the two windows, when these amateur nurses had a moment to spare to look at it, was very beautiful indeed, looking up the Bosphorus and towards romantic Constantinople—romantic only at a distance. The room was even reasonably quiet, except at early morning, when the strange sound of the muezzins' call for prayer fell upon the ear; but this had no disturbing effect, rather quite the reverse.

In coming out to Scutari, Maggie had roughed it—rather, she roughed it in landing; and here the troubles of herself and the other sisters only seemed to begin, and they were chiefly of a domestic character. Women folks like to be tidy and clean in their dresses and apartments, so very much shocked indeed they were to find that insects of various kinds, some unmentionable, were everywhere, and that rats and mice were so tame that they not only persisted in sharing the ladies' rooms, but looked upon the ladies as intruders.

Nevertheless Maggie soon schooled herself to look upon all these troubles as part and parcel of her present not enviable existence. "Never mind," she told herself over and over again; "I am doing some good."

Then she would sigh as she thought of the awful tide of human misery and wretchedness that rolled in and out of this great hospital every day under her eyes, and which she could do so little to stem.

The tide that rolled in was that which brought the sick and the wounded from the seat of war; that which rolled out was more solemn than sad, for it carried on its bosom the dead that were borne away to their long homes in this foreign land.

Just think of it, reader: nearly one hundred of our poor fellows breathed their last in this huge and comfortless hospital daily; and day after day, we are told, the sick were carried in faster than the dead were carried out!

Yes, Jack had come; and I do think it was not altogether tears of joy that his sister was now shedding. In fact, that fit of weeping did Maggie a deal of good. She had had much need of it before now, but never any excuse to indulge in so sweet an extravagance.

"Come into our drawing-room, Jack," she said at last; "and you also, Dr. Reikie. We are no strangers, you know, doctor; I have heard so much about you."

"Drawing-room!" thought Jack. "Why, sister must be better off than I had imagined. I wonder if she has a Turkey carpet and a piano."

They went upstairs. A big deal door opened into a portion of the corridor partitioned off, and used as a kind of omniorum storehouse. A curtain was now pulled back, and lo! Jack and Reikie found themselves in Maggie's drawing-room.

A rickety old table, surely on its last legs, bales and boxes and barrels, did duty as seats and furniture; but there was a sofa, and to this Maggie pointed, and Jack and Reikie sat down, and felt as if they had come to anchor on a bagful of broken saucepans.

But there was a delightful window to this room, looking away over the dark-blue Sea of Marmora.

"This is Sister Mary," said Maggie, introducing a tall, dark lady, who was sitting in a corner busily mending a pair of soldier's stockings.

Mary bowed and smiled, and would have left the room had Maggie permitted her, which she would not.

Then what a long, delightful talk they all had about home and old times! And what a number of questions had to be asked and answered, only those who have been in a somewhat similar position could believe or understand.

"No, Jack," he said; "don't you leave for a short time. I'm going on duty, and to have a look round the wards. I'll call for you shortly. What I shall see, Jack, would not interest although it might horrify you."

Jack Mackenzie gladly stayed behind with his sister, who was at that time off duty.

"Wards" Dr. Reikie had called the chambers where lay the sick and wounded. This was for courtesy's sake, perhaps, for they really were long halls or corridors. The doctor had seen many a hospital, he had done duty at Malta and in Haslar at home, but never had he seen anything approaching to the horrors he now witnessed in those abodes of misery, pain, gloom, despair, and death.

Those poor soldiers lay in two long rows almost side by side, the feet of one row to the feet of the other, with a passage for doctor and nurse between.

Cap in hand, and accompanied by an army surgeon, he walked silently along corridor after corridor.

Oh the horror and the sorrow of it! Oh the agony and the anguish displayed on nearly every second face, when it could be seen! for some were so swathed in bandages and plasters that nothing was visible save the mouth and the sunken eyes. Here and there were patients who groaned—at times some of these started in shrieking terror and delirium; but, for the most part, they lay still and silent, and grateful for the slightest comfort or sympathizing word.

Many of them had been stricken down with dysentery; others were plague-stricken, with pinched, blue, contracted features, and cold, thin hands, like claws of birds—moribund; and others, again, were dead and stiff.

If anything could add to the horror of this terrible scene, it was the sickening odour that permeated every nook and corner of the hospital. Dr. Reikie, although he stopped here and there to inquire kindly how some of his own patients felt, and to give them a few words of hope and consolation, was himself glad when he stood once more in the open air; his heart was sore and sad to think that many of the poor fellows, now so low and sick unto death, had been among the bravest of the brave in action and the merriest of the merry around the camp-fire.

For nearly a fortnight the Gurnet lay here; and although it was meant to be a kind of health-holiday for both Jack and himself, neither was idle.

Yet every day the two friends found time to visit the hospital; and when at last the time of final departure came round, poor Maggie treated herself once more to a hearty cry as she bade her brother adieu.

Neither he nor honest Reikie went away empty-handed; for Maggie and Sister Mary had managed to knit three pairs of warm stockings for them, although to do so they had to work even at the bedsides of the patients.

I have said nothing at all about one other part of this great barrack-hospital into which it had been Dr. Reikie's privilege to have a peep. This was the ward or wards set apart for the wives of soldiers who had been permitted to come to the Black Sea with their husbands. The wretchedness, suffering, and misery of these poor women could never be graphically told. They are dead and gone long ago, so what need is there to resuscitate even the memory of the agonies they endured?

The Gurnet was less crowded on her return voyage to Balaklava, for few, indeed, of the men or officers sent to Scutari ever went back. If they did not die, they were invalided home.

The ship was detained for some time by contrary winds, Captain Gillespie being desirous of saving his precious coals; for the winter was severe enough on the Upland, and fuel so scarce that well did coals merit the name of black diamonds.

But though the sea was rough and the breezes keen and cold, every hour on the ocean seemed to strengthen both Jack and Dr. Reikie; and when they once more landed at Balaklava, they felt men again in every sense of the word.

In hardship and in suffering, then, did the weary winter of 1854-55 drag on. But meanwhile, both by the besieged and the besiegers, the great game of war was being steadily and steadfastly played; and our poor men, now reduced in numbers by cold, by famine, wounds, and pestilence, to little over 11,000, were never out of danger from bullet-shot and shell.

The war was even carried on underground, and mines were met by counter-mines; by sorties of the enemy too, which, however, were repulsed with great slaughter. The Russians, moreover, succeeded in pushing out their works beyond their trenches, and the allied armies extended their lines, till they almost met.

CHAPTER XII.

PELISSIER TO THE FRONT—DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN.

Yes, the proud and ambitious Emperor Nicholas breathed his last on the second of March 1855, and Alexander the Second reigned in his stead. I do not mean to judge the dead emperor harshly, as many have done. De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent motto; but, independent of this, I cannot but believe that in endeavouring vi et armis to cut his way to the sunny Mediterranean, Nicholas was following the traditional policy of his forbears, and that he believed he was doing the best he could for his country.

The emperor probably died half heart-broken: the victories not only of our troops and those of the French in the Crimea, but of the Turks, who in February drove the Russians from the gates of Eupatoria, had told upon his health; even the winter, with its hardships, its diseases, its death, had not annihilated our armies, and hope itself seemed to desert the heart of the great Czar. Heigh-ho! death is no respecter of persons; but even in the last moments of his life, Nicholas found strength to send a message to his troops. He was passing away into life eternal, but even from on high he would bend down to bless his warriors for their unequalled constancy and valour!

If any one expected that the war would now cease, he was much mistaken; for Alexander was as determined as his father had been.

But a few months more and summer would be in its prime and glory, the roads would no longer be sealed against the influx of troops, and the allied armies would be crushed out of existence and driven into the sea by sheer force of numbers, Sebastopol relieved, and victory won.

Well, this would certainly have been for us a national disaster of the gravest kind, and for the French also; but would it have put an end to the war? Would we, because the Crimea was lost, have stood quietly by and seen the northern Bear establish himself at Constantinople, complacently licking his paws as he saw his ships of war pass majestically to or from the Mediterranean? Undoubtedly not. The relief of Sebastopol by the Russians, and our destruction on the Upland, would have been but the commencement of a greater war that might have raged for years, despite the fact that it would have anastomosed with the terrible rebellion in India.

Gortschakoff was now general over the Russian army in the Crimea instead of Menschikoff. That was the second change.

Many changes were taking place at home that affected the carrying on of the war considerably—splits in the cabinet, the resignation of a cabinet, councils of war, and indignation meetings.

The Emperor of the French himself, who probably had a hankering after military glory, had a theory. Everybody had a theory; though, as Jack told his friend Dr. Reikie, speaking perhaps from his early experience in Malony's shop, theory never bent a red-hot horse-shoe. There is no good standing and looking at it till it begins to get cold; the plan is to go at it hammer and tongs.

General Neil was, against Canrobert's wishes, appointed engineer vice General Bizot, killed in the cannonade.

Canrobert, indeed, was far from very resolute, and therefore might do more harm than good. Good he might have done had he taken the bull by the horns, and resolved on a grand assault after the terrible bombardment. This assault was to have taken place on the 28th of April; but on the 25th, orders had been given to the French admiral to get ready all his ships at once to embark the army of reserves at Constantinople. So this news determined Canrobert not to make the attack. He thought it safer and wiser to wait for these reinforcements, and Lord Raglan had to give an unwilling assent.

An expedition had been despatched to attack Kertch, for through this place the Russians were receiving all their supplies. It had sailed on May 3; but Canrobert recalled the French portion of it by a fast steamer, on receiving a telegram from the Emperor of the French to the effect that an expedition must be made at once against the Russian army. In the middle of May, the emperor's plans in detail were laid before Canrobert by an officer direct from France. He, Canrobert, was to command the field army, General Pelissier to take sole charge of the siege-works with a force of Turks and French, and the British to take to the field.

To this plan there were insuperable objections, though it might have looked very pretty on paper to the eyes of the French emperor, who, by the way, was never a Buonaparte.

So it fell through. Canrobert resigned, and General Pelissier was made commander-in-chief of the French army.

Pelissier was a bold and a daring man, and a most persistent. He had his own ideas about carrying on war, and didn't care even for offending his emperor. I suppose he thought that after all there was nothing so successful as success.

Pelissier determined to do two things—to capture an important new outwork of Todleben's, and to send an expedition to Kertch to crush the Russians there, and stop Gortschakoff's supplies. He was successful in both.

Jack Mackenzie and Dr. Reikie, whose services for the time being could be spared from the trenches, both found themselves once more on board the Gurnet.

On the map you will notice the position of Kertch on the straits of that name. These straits, you will note, are narrow, and connect the Black Sea with the Sea of Azof. Into this latter the Don pours its floods, and bears on its bosom the products of immense villages if not towns that line its banks. The largest town is Taganrog, near the entrance of the Don to this inland ocean.

The Straits of Kertch were well lined with batteries, and General Wrangel, who commanded them, had it in his power to make a splendid demonstration against our forces. But if he was Wrangel by name, he certainly was not wrangle by nature; and so he not only cut and run, but destroyed his batteries and burned his ships of war.

If there was a disappointed man on board the saucy Gurnet, it was Jack Mackenzie. He had looked forward to seeing and participating in a real sea-fight of the good old-fashioned sort.

Small though the Gurnet was, it could have run alongside a Russian man-o'-war and boarded; then, once on deck, the tulzie would have been terrible. It could only have ended, Jack believed, in our killing or wounding about half the defending crew, and chasing the others below. He even fancied himself hauling down the enemy's flag, and hoisting in its place the brave old Union Jack, while cheers of victory rang from stem to stern.

But, alas! there was to be no such thing. It was not to be in this way that Jack should win honour and glory and those epaulettes—or the halo.

No doubt Sturdy was disappointed also. However, the whole business was a walk-over. A very sad one, however, for the Russ. For the whole of the stores intended for Gortschakoff, as well as the vessels supplying them, were captured and destroyed. It was only the smaller vessels that could get through the straits, but they did execution enough. Even at Taganrog they destroyed the stores and depots on the beach, and they also bombarded and took the fortress of Arabat.

The larger ships outside the straits made for the coast of Circassia, and without a struggle destroyed the fortified places at Anapa and Soujouk-kale.

By the end of June all the work was done: the chief support of the Russian army was cut, and thus Sebastopol was invested more easily and with far less loss of life than could have been done by any amount of trenching.

The stage was now being rapidly cleared for the last and final act in this drama of war. Already Canrobert had driven the enemy from Tchorgoum, and utterly demolished their camp.

It is somewhat galling to learn from Todleben that the Flagstaff Bastion and other works in front of the town had several times been so reduced by our fire that had they been assaulted our success or that of the French would have been certain, and that Sebastopol must then have fallen.

Pelissier, and with him Raglan, persisted in his one and main object, and that was the capture of the Mamelon, the White Works, and the Quarries, and these fortifications must be carried by storm. The emperor himself stormed in another fashion. He stormed by telegraph. Pelissier tore the telegrams up and let them blow, while he coolly acted according to his own judgment and that of Lord Raglan.

On the sixth of June a cannonade of tremendous proportions was turned upon the Russian works, and carried on till darkness, doing terrible damage. It was resumed on the 7th. About six the same evening the French and Turks carried the Mamelon by storm; and after desperate fighting, which lasted, on and off, throughout the night, the British Light Division and Second Division captured and held the Quarries.

How fierce the fighting had been may be judged from the fact that the French had lost 5,440 men, the British 693, and the Russians over 5,000.

On the 18th, Pelissier and our own forces made a terrible assault upon the Malakoff and Redan. It is not, dear reader, because we were defeated in this attempt (which, had not the French general been so headstrong, would never have been undertaken) that I do not here give any detailed account of the fighting and the slaughter—for one should never be ashamed to own one's faults and defeats—but because the facts are all too well known to the veriest school-boy.

I may add, however, that after these failures I should not have cared to stand in Pelissier's shoes, seeing that he was acting entirely contrary to his emperor's plans.

But Pelissier persisted—he could not very well withdraw now—and so the siege went on, but more methodically and prudently.

Pelissier was a kind-hearted man in the main, as well as a resolute, daring, and determined. The soft or gentle side of his character is well seen at the death-bed of poor Lord Raglan. The general's health had no doubt been weakened by chagrin and grief at the reverses he had met with. In such a condition as this one is more apt to fall a victim to disease, and Raglan was attacked by cholera, and quietly passed away on the twenty-eighth of June. And Pelissier, we are told, stood by the bedside for upwards of an hour crying like a child.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RUSSIAN BEAR AT BAY—THE LAST ACT OF THE
TRAGIC WAR.

Nearer and nearer to the great fortress crept now the works of the allied armies. The grip of death was tightening on the brave defenders of Sebastopol.

Brave? ah yes; give them their due. Their sufferings at this time were greater even than our own, and under our fire at least two hundred of them fell every day.

Around and in the ruined heaps of their batteries the unburied dead still lay in heaps, and sickness, too, was rife.

Could nothing be done even yet by their field forces? This is the question the enemy asked himself.

A council of war was held on the ninth of August, and at this it was determined to attack our allies on the upper part of the river Tchernaya.

The French had 18,000 men and 48 guns on the heights of Fedioukine; the Italians or Sardinians—our new allies—were near Tchorgoum, with 9,000 men and 36 guns; in the valley to the rear were the Turks, with a reserve of 10,000.

The Russians, under Gortschakoff, held the M'Kenzie heights, and on the night of the fifteenth of August they were reinforced by regiments from the Belbek.

The Russian army was divided into two. One wing, of 13,000 infantry, 2,000 horse, and 62 guns, was under command of General Read, and was on the right. It moved on to attack the French. General Liprandi had the left wing, divided into two columns, one of which followed Read; the other, commanded by Belgrade, was ordered to descend in another direction, and halt on the road to Tchorgoum.

Next day, at sunrise, the battle was commenced by the driving in of the Sardinian outposts. Things opened fairly well for Gortschakoff. But the goddess Fortuna had surely deserted the Russian cause; for General Read, mistaking an order, suddenly advanced upon the French without their position having been cannonaded.

Both his divisions were driven back with great slaughter, and although the battle raged long after this, as soon as Gortschakoff saw that the French reserves, as well as the Turks, were being hurried up for action, he knew that all hope was past, and so retreated.

The losses on the French and Sardinian sides amounted to nearly 2,000 killed and wounded; but those of the Russians showed how terrible had been the slaughter entailed by General Read's mistake. Three general officers and 36 others were killed, 160 officers were wounded, and of the rank and file over 6,000 were killed or wounded. Would Gortschakoff, now that he saw his game was almost lost, give up Sebastopol?

At first he was greatly disheartened by the result of the battle, and evidently intended to do so; but he changed his mind, after a visit to the interior of the fortress itself.

This visit of Russia's great general to Sebastopol would have been called by sailors an inspection.

The only marvel is that, after the ghastly sights he witnessed therein, he did not, if only out of pity for the poor, brave defenders, give up the place at once.

The city proper had been demolished, houses were in ruins, public buildings destroyed, whole streets reduced to chaos. Dismounted guns could not be replaced even at night, owing to the fire of our mortar batteries; the embrasures could not be repaired; nor could the parapets that, cracked and broken, lay in the ditches, be rebuilt. But, worst of all, the poor wounded men that had fallen by day had to lie amidst heaps of slain till night permitted their being removed. It is needless to say that the hospitals were crowded with sick and wounded; for the death-rate at that time, from shot and shell and sickness, must have been from 700 to 800 every day.

And in spite of all this, Gortschakoff determined to re-garrison with half his army from M'Kenzie heights, and defend the works to the very last extremity, as "the only honourable course that remained to him."

The last words are the tactician's own. And yet he knew that in—at the outside—six weeks' time he must succumb, and yield up Sebastopol. So these tactics were surely unwise; nor was Gortschakoff's resolve in accordance with true honour.

I need say nothing about the saving of life that the capitulation of Sebastopol, just after the battle of Tchernaya, would have effected to the allies. The Russian general could not have been expected to think of these, except to wish them utterly annihilated. But what I do say—and I believe that my young readers will agree with me—is that, in abandoning the great fortress at this time, Gortschakoff could have sheathed a sword of honour; while, by continuing the contest, the sword which he finally sheathed was one incrusted with murder.

The bombardment was now continued, and erelong the Malakoff tower and the works adjoining were silenced.

Our trenches were difficult to work, and their advancement towards the Redan was soon put an end to by the rocks. As the French soil was soft, they had worked up to within about forty yards of the Malakoff. Further they could not get.

It was now agreed at a council of war that the time had come for the final and grand assault. That chosen by Pelissier for the advance of the French was exactly at noon, at which hour he knew the relief of the works he had to take was always carried out—one garrison being first marched out, and then the other or fresh one marched in. At noon, therefore, the Malakoff would have fewer defenders.

A glance, at the map or plan will show you the work the French had before them, which was certainly no child's play. One division was told off to attack the Malakoff, a second the Curtain, and a third the Little Redan. These would be supported by brigades.

The Central Bastion was to be attacked by no less than four divisions well supported. These were to break through the rear of the bastion or works near it, and capture the Flagstaff Bastion.

Everything being arranged, the cannonade was once more resumed on the fifth of September.

It continued on the 6th and 7th, the mortars roaring on all night. It was, indeed, a circle of fire—a feu d'enfer.

Todleben tells us that a mortar set fire to a line-of-battle ship on the night of the 7th, which burned till nearly morning, and that the blue and ghastly light from which—for the ship contained a large cargo of spirits—shone along the ramparts, making on the minds of the brave defenders a most painful impression.

Our own special work was the capture of the Redan, and it was, considering our isolated position and want of cover, almost a forlorn hope, being undertaken chiefly, we are told, as a mere distraction of the enemy in favour of the French.

General Codrington himself was deputed to make the attack with his Light Division, and with the Second Division, commanded by Markham—the whole numbering about 3,000 men. Other parts of the same division, and also the Third and Fourth Divisions, were held in reserve in the third parallel.

Hardly had it gone twelve o'clock on the eighth of September when Bosquet's first line made a wild dash for the Malakoff. Pelissier had certainly chosen his time right well, for not a shot was fired upon Bosquet's men, so completely taken by surprise were the Russians. The Zouaves were first in the attack, and right quickly did they rush the ditch and mount the escarp; those within were speedily put to sword or bayonet, and this end of the great fort was thus taken completely.

But they were not to have such easy work after all, for each traverse or cross-work, running for 380 yards behind the tower, had to be fought for separately and taken singly.

The Russians had been living in caves and holes dug beneath the batteries, and they quickly came to the defence of the fort. The struggle was terrible and bloody in the extreme. Often when the Zouaves had taken a traverse they were hurled back; only, however, to rest for a minute, and again to dash in.

Meanwhile MacMahon's forces had stormed the place from the eastern face, and broken in at the rear of the traverses. Attacked thus, both in front and rear, soon the whole was in possession of our French allies.

But again and again Russian reserves were hurried up to retake this fort. But all in vain; and so, seeing the hopelessness of the attempt, Gortschakoff finally caused his troops to retire.

This fearful tulzie had lasted for four hours, and deeply and dearly had the brave Frenchmen paid for their victory, over 3,000 having been killed and wounded.

The brigades sent against the Little Redan and the Curtain were not so successful; for though they stormed and took the first lines of these works, they found other lines of defence stretching behind, and these were so strongly defended by the Russian field batteries and by the ships, that the French were decimated, and obliged at last to withdraw to their trenches, which by this time were crowded with their wounded. So ended the chief French attacks.

But how about our own attack upon the Redan? The question must be faced. It is asked; let it be answered. We were beaten. Certainly we may put the blame on the mismanagement of the attack, and on the forces and difficulties against us. And we can point to the bravery of our soldiers and sailors in crossing the open space, amidst a feu d'enfer of grape shot, round shot, case, and musketry. We even got into the work; but the reserves did not come to time, and so we retreated—I fear not in the best of order—suffering as much in the retreat as in the advance.

Had not the French spiked the guns in the Malakoff which commanded the Redan, but turned them against that fort, things might have ended in a different way.

As soon as possible after regaining their trenches, the British, beaten out of the Redan, recommenced their fire against that fort. The capture of it was postponed till next day, when, English regiments having failed to dispose of it, Sir Colin Campbell and his brave and indomitable Highlanders were to have had a chance. Being myself a Scot and a Celt, may I be forgiven, even by those of my readers who dwell south of the Tweed, for believing that the kilties would have been a little more successful?

The left wing of the French, I should inform the reader, failed in all their attacks on the flanking works of the Central Bastion, and were finally ordered by General Pelissier to desist in their fruitless efforts.

Meanwhile, even before sunset, Gortschakoff was withdrawing his forces across a bridge that had purposely been built, and by means of boats to the north and therefore safe side of the great harbour. He had begun to retreat early in the afternoon, and before next day the whole army was across, and with them as many of the wounded as could be borne.

But what a night of terror and suffering that must have been to 2,000 desperately-wounded men, who were left behind in a huge hospital all helpless and alone! For throughout the darkness of night explosion after explosion of the magazines took place—thirty-five in all were blown up by the enemy—and the city took fire in every place where there was anything to burn, adding to the scene a terror that is indescribable. The last explosion was the loudest and most dreadful of all, and with it the very earth shook all around. It was the blowing up of the bridge.

Our losses were very great, those of the French treble, while altogether the Russians lost over 13,000 men.

But about those 2,000 wounded men? Ah! one's heart bleeds to think of their sad story. The doctors must, in many cases, have rushed in panic from the poor wretches without completing their operations; for when, forty-eight hours after the great day of battle, the Russian vessel Vladimir, under a flag of truce, came over to beg for the rest of their wounded, only 500 of them were found alive—many whose limbs were but half amputated being found lying face down in their own blood on the floor, where they had died in agony unutterable.

All the ships of war that had not been sunk were burned by the Russians themselves, and as their blackened and fiery hulls sunk hissing beneath the water, the curtain may have been said to drop on the last scene of this tragic and terrible war.

CHAPTER XIV.

"REMEMBER, WE SHALL ALL MEET AGAIN SOME
CHRISTMAS EVE ON HIGH."

Captain Gillespie of H.M.S. Gurnet was a somewhat shy man. Some sailors are. But all sailors are gallant; therefore when at Scutari, on her way home viâ Malta and Gibraltar, the Gurnet lay for a few days, and the worthy commander heard from Jack one evening that his sister and Sister Mary were waiting passage home, he looked over to Sturdy, who, with our young hero, was dining with him that night.

"I say, Sturdy, you know," he said, "though I think petticoats are very much out of place on board a man-o'-war, still—"

"I know what you're going to say, sir, and I quite agree with you. I myself, Captain Gillespie, both on shore and afloat, always port my helm if I see a lady; but still—"

Nothing more definite was said about the matter. Nevertheless, when at last the Gurnet steamed down the Bosphorus, she had on board not only Jack's sister and Sister Mary, but Cousin Llewellyn also. The ladies had Captain Gillespie's cabin, and Jack gave up his little place to his cousin. Poor Llewellyn had been severely wounded in a brave attempt at saving the life of his friend Grant. This promising young officer, however, was shot through the heart in Llewellyn's arms; it was the same bullet, the surgeon said, that killed the one and wounded the other. There is a sad story connected with the life of young Grant and with his death.*

When the war was declared, his father had forced him against his will to become a soldier, even rating him as deficient in courage because he hung back.

"As you think I lack courage," he had replied, "I'll go; but mind I have no hankering after a soldier's life."

Poor fellow! a score of times he had proved how brave he was, and it was while leading a charge against fearful odds that he fell, only wounded at first, but slain by another bullet as Llewellyn was trying to drag him into shelter.

The saddest thing about it is this. A letter he had some time before received from his parents was pierced by the bullet and stained with the hero's life-blood. This was sent home to the father. Surely a sad memento.

Away down the beautiful Mediterranean sailed the Gurnet on the wings of a spanking breeze. The weather was everything that could be desired, and every stitch of canvas that could be carried was set. After the first few days, even Sturdy got used to the desecrating innovation of chairs upon the quarter-deck. But it had seemed odd and dreadful at first. Yet, than Sister Mary and Maggie Mackenzie, no more interesting or pretty persons had surely ever sat on the deck of a man-o'-war.

Dr. Reikie devoted himself specially to Maggie, and a score of times a day Paddy O'Rayne was sent to see if she wanted anything.

All the time he had been out, although constantly in danger in the trenches and attending to the sick and wounded, he had, to use his own expression, "never been sick nor sorry, sorr." I must tell you, however, that he was slightly disappointed because he hadn't had an opportunity of saving Dr. Reikie's life.

"Troth sure," he told our old friend the bos'n, "it was the bad luck was in it entoirely. It's niver out av danger the dhoctor was, but niver a chance did I have to show me gratitude. If a cannon-ball had only taken his leg off, I'd have nursed him like a baby; but no such luck for poor Paddy O'Rayne."

I daresay Paddy O'Rayne could see as far through a mile-stone as a mason, so he was not long in discovering that Dr. Reikie had lost his heart to bonnie Maggie, as this Scottish surgeon called her—I mean as he called her when talking to his pillow. But having made what he considered a very interesting discovery, Paddy O'Rayne thought he could see his way to do the doctor a good turn, and pave the road, as it were, for the advancement of his suit. So frequently, when he found Maggie reading by herself, either leaning over the bulwarks or in her chair, he would advance respectfully and salute military fashion. Then he would address her in a form of which the following is merely a specimen:—

"If ye plaze, miss, the dhoctor sends me to inquire if there's anything in the wide worrld you stand in nade av. Nothing at all, at all, miss? Sure and you'd better think again. There's nothing my master wouldn't do to plaze you. A dhrop o' wine and a biscuit, miss, a pill or a plaster, or a taste o' quinine in a tay-cup? Well, well, miss, but sure you're not to be shy, and it's swate my master is on you altogether. Well, I'm going, miss; but he'd shave his head if ye tould him to, and it's the blissed truth I'm telling ye."

One day while standing aft near the binnacle, Sister Mary let fall her book, a volume of Burns. Sturdy, who was walking near with his telescope, man-o'-war fashion, under his left arm, stooped to pick it up. As she smiled her thanks, Sturdy "took two observations," as he phrased it. First he noticed how red her lips were, and secondly that she had a very white wee hand.

Next day—all by chance, I suppose—he found himself walking on the weather side of Sister Mary. The day after, Dr. Reikie saw him deliberately place her chair on the sunny side of the mizzen, and put a camp-stool beside it for himself. Sailors, you may say, are very daring. Yes, granted, but then Sturdy had begun to see the beauties of Burns, and there were many words and expressions in it that were a stumbling-block to him; what more natural, then, than that he should ask this Scotch lassie to help him to their meaning? And so day after day—but there, I won't go any further.

While Sturdy was studying Burns, honest Dr. Reikie took every opportunity of showing Miss Mackenzie his specimens. For during all the time he was in the Crimea, hardly a day passed that this born naturalist did not add to his collection. And now he and she dragged the sea together with little gauze nets, and she showed herself most deft in arranging microscopic creatures on cards.

A.P. Gribble, down in their own mess, poked lots of fun at Auld Reikie, and now and then Lord Tomfoozle had a shot at the doctor also in the way of chaff; but Reikie told them both he didn't care a boddle preen* what they said.

Tomfoozle—Fitzgerald, you know—was in fine form. I'm afraid he was somewhat worldly; for about six months ago he had heard of his brother's death, and was now determined to leave the service and keep hunters.

I'm greatly afraid, also, that Robert Burns, the ploughman-poet, and the study of natural history and arranging of specimens, had much to account for; because before the Gurnet had reached the stormy Bay of Biscay, Sturdy was engaged to Sister Mary, and Auld Reikie was brother-in-law-to-be to our hero, Jack Mackenzie.

Out of respect, perhaps, to the ladies on board, the Bay of Biscay was not on this particular occasion by any means stormy. It was smiling and sweet-tempered, just as if the deep sea-bottom of it were not bedded with men's bones.

"I say, Dawson," said Tom Morgan one day, "I hear that the Gurnet has passed Gibraltar, and may be expected in Plymouth Sound in a week. Suppose we take a run down and meet Jack?"

"I'm with you, lad," he said. "It will do us both good. But first and foremost I must write to the old lady and tell her we are going. She will be delighted, I'm sure."

And thus, reader, it happened that when Jack Mackenzie and his friend Reikie were passing the door of the Mount Edgecombe Hotel—let us call it—just a day after the Gurnet had arrived, who should be standing smoking a cigar at the door thereof but big, brown-bearded Tom Morgan.

"But why, Jack lad, I should never have known you. Big and strong, and as brown as the back of Little Peter's fiddle. Won't your mother be proud!"

"By the way," said Jack, a minute or two after, "how is my old friend Little Peter?"

"Oh, beautiful. He is teaching classes, and doing well. Won't he be glad to see you!"

"Never better; in fact, never so well. For Malony has been a changed man since he took the pledge. They have a nice little house now in the suburbs, and Peter lives with them as a lodger."

That very evening there was a large dinner-party given at the Mount Edgecombe, both Reikie and Jack being guests. I need hardly say that Maggie and Sister Mary were there also, and that everybody was happier than everybody else. Paddy O'Rayne himself waited behind the doctor's chair, and paid particular attention to the ladies.

But just a fortnight after this, a much larger and a much merrier party was held at Tom's father's house.

It was Christmas time once more—Christmas eve, in fact. There never had been so large a party of friends and relations at Morgan's mansion before. And—will it be believed?—old Mrs. Mackenzie of Drumglen was there herself, and, you may be sure, occupied a place of honour.

The grandam had indeed softened as she had grown older, and was nearing the end of her journey here below. "In my Father's house are many mansions," said our Saviour. May it not be that, figuratively speaking, as we draw closer that house on high, a glimmering ray of light falls from the windows thereof, to cheer and soften the hearts of weary pilgrims heavenward bent?

Mrs. Mackenzie after dinner had the biggest chair in the cosiest corner by the drawing-room fire.

"Come and sit by me, dear," she said to Jack's mother. "Take the stool there, and give me your hand in my lap. You are still young and beautiful. Ah! I wish I had known you long, long ago. And you dearly loved my boy?"

There were tears in Jack's mother's eyes and a lump in her throat, so she could not answer.

"Ah, machree, what you must have suffered! But look," added the old lady, by way of changing the subject—"look at our young sailor, your boy. See, he is making love in a quiet way to little Tottie."

"What nonsense!" she was saying, with a bonnie blush. "I used to write you when a baby. I hope you burned all my silly letters."

They were standing by the window, the very window that looked out upon the lawn where, years and years ago, he, Jack, a barefooted, ragged lad, had stood in the snow looking in at the fairies, as he had called them, dancing round the Christmas tree. The snow was falling there now; the lawn was white, and the bushes draped like statues.

Yes, dear reader mine, time works changes on us all. In a few years' time you—but there! I will neither preach nor moralize.

Only let me draw up the curtain once more before its final fall on this my "ower true" story.

It is years after. Where now are all our heroes and heroines? Well, they are scattered somewhat, and some are dead and gone. Let me speak of the dead before the living.

Just one year, then, after that happy reunion at Morgan's house, the old grandam breathed her last in her tall four-post bed at Drumglen, and in the presence of the Morgans and her son Donald's wife. Her last words were these,—"Remember, we shall all meet again some Christmas eve on high."

Jack and Llewellyn had both taken part in the Indian Mutiny. Poor Llewellyn was killed at Lucknow, and died a hero's death.

Jack for his services to his country won not only his epaulettes, but the Victoria Cross. He was severely wounded, however, and had to retire from the service on his laurels.

Dr. Reikie is now a practising physician in Glasgow, and Paddy O'Rayne is his servant. He married Maggie, and so, it is needless to say, he is a frequent visitor at Drumglen, where Jack and his wife—née Violet Morgan—are avowedly the best Highland laird and lady in all the wide Highlands.

Fitzgerald still keeps his hunters, and has grown very stout. I saw him only yesterday. "Sixteen stone and over." he said, laughing. "It takes a good horse to carry me."

As for Sturdy, he married Sister Mary; or, to use his own English, he got spliced. When Captain Gillespie heard of it, he sighed.

"Heigh-ho!" he said. "Another good man gone wrong. When an officer gets married, what I say is this: he is of no further use in the service."

Jack did not forget the friends of his boyhood. He found for Malony a comfortable shop of his own in the neighbouring village to Drumglen, and Mrs. Malony renewed her age.

As for Little Peter, well, he is as prosperous as any teacher of music in great Glasgow; but twice a year he spends a whole month at the mansion-house of bonnie Drumglen.

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