Title: How Jack Mackenzie won his epaulettes
Author: Stables, Gordon
Language: English
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EPAULETTES ***



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



[Illustration: Cover art]



[Frontispiece: He dashed the stone into the dying embers.]



  HOW JACK MACKENZIE
  WON HIS EPAULETTES


  By
  GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M.



  THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
  LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN
  AND NEW YORK
  1906



PREFACE.

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."

* * * * * *

"Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war."


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.



_CONTENTS._


Book First.

_IN PIPING TIMES OF PEACE._


_I. Wee Johnnie Greybreeks_

_II. Life in Summer Loaning_

_III. Mrs. Malony's Wedding-ring_

_IV. "I'll be a Sailor or a Soldier"_

_V. "Hullo, Johnnie Greybreeks!  I'm your Uncle"_

_VI. "The Old Lady had a Woman's Heart after all"_

_VII. "Hard a-Port!"_

_VIII. Jack's Sea-daddy_

_IX. In the good old "_Gurnet_"_

_X. Paddy's Adventure--Fred Harris proves himself a Hero_

_XI. A Tragedy--Auld Reikie pursues Science under Difficulties_

_XII. Tom Finch and the Shark--Shooting in the Dismal Swamp--Death
and Promotion_

_XIII. Paddy's Hybrid--"A quare, quare Baste, Sorr"--Tricky
Niggers--Black Man as Cook--War declared_



Book Second.

_FOR HONOUR AND GLORY._

_I. "Blow, Good Wind, and waft us East"_

_II. A Ghastly Adventure--The Embarkation--A Stormy Landing_

_III. A field of Heroes--"On, Lads, On!"--Brave Codrington--Panic and
Terror_

_IV. The Kilted Warriors of the North--The Terrible Struggle for
Kourgané Hill--The Impetuous 93rd--Victory!_

_V. A Walk across the Battle-field--Ghastly Sights--Brave Surgeon
Thompson of the 44th--Jack's Strange Adventure_

_VI. The First Great Bombardment--Ships versus Forts--Poor Boy
Harris--"Tell 'em I died like a Thousand o' Bricks"_

_VII. The Victorious Charge of the Heavy Brigade--The Scotch Wife and
the Turks--The Light Brigade and their Awful Charge_

_VIII. The Truth from a Russian--Parable of the Stoat and the Wild
Cat--Day-dawn of the Memorable Fifth_

_IX. The Battle of Inkermann--The Soldiers' Own_

_X. The Awful Gale--In Camp before Sebastopol--Letters from Home_

_XI. The Horrors of Scutari_

_XII. Pelissier to the Front--Death of Lord Raglan_

_XIII. The Russian Bear at Bay--The Last Act of the Tragic War_

_XIV. "Remember, we shall all meet again some Christmas Eve on High"_



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


_He dashed the stone into the dying embers_ . . . _Frontispiece_

_He threw up his arms, and fell flat on his face_ . . . _Vignette_
[missing from source book]

_He crept nearer and nearer to the window_

"_This is Jack_"

_He felt a weight on his back_

_He has seized the colours, and his wild slogan can be heard high
above the roar_

_She laid about her right and left_

"_Maggie!_"--"_Jack!_"



HOW JACK MACKENZIE WON HIS EPAULETTES.



Book First.

_IN PIPING TIMES OF PEACE._


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,--

  "Here we go round and round and round,
  Here we go round the Christmas tree."


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."

The big man laughed.

"Me know you!  Well, that's good.  But what were you doing?"

"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.

"I wish my mother and Siss lived in there."

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?"

"Because I'm talking to a gentleman."

"But can't you speak broad Scotch?"

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

"And what does your father do?"

[Illustration: He crept nearer and nearer to the window.]

"Oh, father's gone to heaven, you know, sir.  He's going to stop
there always."

"Does your mother--er--wash or char or anything?"

"Oh no, sir; mother's a real lady."

Mr. Tom Morgan--for that was his name--smiled.

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

Jack drew back hesitatingly.

"I hope, sir," he said, with tears in his voice, "I haven't done any
harm?"

"No, no, lad; I'm going to give you supper and send you off.  Come."

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.

Then the snow began to fall, and we know the rest.

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.

"What on earth--" began one elderly gentleman.

"As I live---" exclaimed the other.

Neither got any further, but both burst into a hearty fit of laughing.

Mrs. Morgan, Tom's mother, found voice first.

"Tom," she cried, "who or what have you gotten there?"

"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."

"In the grounds, Tom!  Oh, do you think he was after the spoons, or--

"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."

"Droll boy.  What is his name?  Jack?--When did you see fairies?"

"When I was a god, big lady."

"When you were what?"

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

"Oh yes.--Are you a good boy?"

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

The elderly men-people behind laughed loudly and heartily.

"What do you think of that, Dawson?" said one, nudging the other in
the ribs.

"Good, good!--Capital, Mrs. Morgan!"

But Miss Scraggs said, "Dreadful!"

"What are you going to be when you grow up to manhood?" continued
Mrs. Morgan.

"I'm not quite sure, big lady.  I think I'd like to be a bu'glar."

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.

"Ulric's clothes will just fit him, cook," said Tom.

"Yes, sir; but--"

"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'm not going to go away with all these grand things on, am I, sir?"
he asked.

"Oh yes, you are."

"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.

"Now, Johnnie Greybreeks--" began Tom Morgan.

"Oh, if you please, sir," said Johnnie, "that is only my _sobriquet_."

"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?"

Jack's heart was too full to speak, and there were tears in his eyes.

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."

"Violet!" screamed Miss Scraggs; "come here this instant."

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?"

"'Pon honour, Dawson, I never did!"

"Why, Violet and that little fellow might be sister and brother!"

Same contour, same hair, same eyes, same everything.

"Hush! hush!" said Mr. Morgan the elder; "remember the boy's station
in life."

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.

"Take me away now," he beseeched; "I'm tired."

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."

Yes, this may have been the case long, long ago; but now, alas! the
change.

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.

The two became engaged.

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.

"Good-bye."

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,--

"O dear Mrs. Malony, how good you are to me!  I'm sure I don't
deserve it."

"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.

"I don't think," he said, "we can keep her."

"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."

"I fear," he said, "she cannot last long."

"And is there no physic ye can think av at all, at all, that--"

"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."

Poor Maggie had been crying, but she now did as she was told.

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

"Och and och," she said to herself, "they won't go far at all, at
all."

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.

Then her eyes fell upon her stubby left hand.

"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.

Then the tears sprang afresh to her eyes, and she told him all the
story.

"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.

Was as this indeed death?



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.

Then a faint smile stole over her lips.

"I had such a happy dream!" she whispered.

"Hush, dear; don't spake another word."

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."

"Do, sorr; and may heaven be your portion evermore!"

* * * * *

"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?"

"Oh," cried Maggie, "I would be so delighted."

"All right then; I'll see about it at once."

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."

This was very good of the skipper, and Mrs. Malony gladly accepted
the offer.

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.


* Mouth of the court.


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.

"Ye'll tak a wee skyte, Malony; winna ye?"

But Malony shook his head.

"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.

"You feel better to-day, mother?"

"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'."

Johnnie felt sorry for Peter, so to comfort him he made answer,--

"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.

Then they came sadly away.

"Which is it now?" said Peter.

"Oh, a soldier; but I'll have to wait till I grow."

"Unless you learn the drum, Johnnie Greybreeks, Then you could go at
once."

But Johnnie only shook his head.

"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,--

  "There is a divinity that shapes our ends,
  Rough-hew them how we will."



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.

"Why did you never come and see me?"

"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?"

Johnnie told him.

"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?"

"Fairly good."

"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."

Tom Morgan laughed.

"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.

Mr. Dawson and Tom Morgan exchanged glances.

"Tell us more about your father, Johnnie."

"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."

"I think so too; indeed, I'm sure of it."

"How pleased the old lady will be:'

"If there is any 'please' in her."

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

"She is extremely orthodox, Mr. Dawson."

"True; and conservative to a degree."

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."

Then she noticed Johnnie.

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.

"Aren't they like now!" said Tom.

"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."

Miss Gibb laughed.

"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.

So Snowball went and reported the circumstance to his mistress.

"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.

The letter bearing the mother's reply came in due course.

"Oh, certainly, my dear."

That was the gist of it when shorn of its studied and stately
verbiage.

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

Mr. Dawson went through at once to Drumglen.  He arrived early in the
afternoon.

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.

"My daughter is going to be married, Mr. Dawson," she said.

Dawson bowed and smiled.

But Mrs. Mackenzie brought him up with a round turn.

"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?"

"To have and to hold, my dear lady; to do absolutely what you please
with."

"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."

And Mr. Dawson had obeyed her orders to the very letter.

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.

Half a year after this Dawson was once more summoned to Drumglen.

"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."

"I will do my best, madam," said Dawson.

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."

"_Veni, vidi, vici_" (I came, I saw, I conquered).

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.

"This is Jack," said Dawson, leading the boy, who was looking shy,
forward.

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.

Even Dawson was affected, and wisely withdrew.

Old Mrs. Mackenzie had a woman's heart then, after all.

* * * * *

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

  "The never-failing vice of fools."

Says Goldsmith,--

  "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.

[Illustration: "This is Jack."]

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?"

"Yes, grandma; but I love work."

"How terrible!"

Jack bent down to smooth an old grimalkin that snoozed upon the rug.

"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?"

Jack looked up at her now with glowing, happy face.

"Oh yes, indeed, grandma!"

"And what have you thought of?--the church?"

"Oh no, grandma."

"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."

"I daresay I'm not good enough," said Jack simply.

"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."

"Well, Jack, what would you like to be?"

"I would like, grandma, to be a Highland soldier, and wear a feather
bonnet."

Grandma smiled sadly, and for a time gazed silently at the fire.

"No, Jack, no.  I would not like you to be a soldier.  Anything else?"

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

"Perhaps so, dear, perhaps."

"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, Mr. Dawson?"

"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."

"Oh, thanks.  You quite anticipate what I was going to say."

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

"That is it."

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

"Agreed."

"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."

"It certainly is more satisfactory.  How about the man-o'-war ship,
then?"

"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.

"Dear grandma," he said, "you are so good to me."

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.

Jack's mother, too, was looking well.

"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.

For this evening Jack's mother felt that her heart was full to
overflowing.



CHAPTER VII.

"HARD A-PORT!"

"Eep--peep--peep--eep--eep--ee!"

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.

"Eep--peep--eep--ee!"

First forward, then further aft amidships.

"All hands shorten sail!"

"Tumble up, my lads--tumble up; it's going to blow a buster."

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.

"All hands shorten sail!"

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.

And she on a lee-shore!

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.

"Where in a' the warld are you goin' to, laddie?"

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.

"Where were you off to, eh?  Are you going daft?"

"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."

"Well," said Jack, mournfully, "I suppose I must do as I'm told."

"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."

"Thank you very much, sir."

"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."

This was indeed true; although reefed, the maintopsail had gone.

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."

"You don't think we're going to be shipwrecked, do you, sir?"

"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.

"I told you what was coming, sir," said Dr. Reikie.

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

"Just shave Finisterre, won't we, sir?"

"Just shave it! why, we can walk ten miles to windward of it."

"Well, the _Gurnet_ is a beauty anyhow, I will admit that; but still,
sir--"

"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.

He stuck himself right in the doorway, spreading his elbows to steady
himself.

"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."

"I say, Sturdy," cried the doctor.

"Yes."

"I'd get up steam if I were you."

"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.

"O Mr. Sturdy," said Captain Gillespie, who was still on deck; "here
you are."

"Yes, sir.  Been bending my foul-weather gear, you see."

"Quite right.  Well, I think the old _Gurnet_ is safe."

"As safe as can be, sir."

"Looks beastly thick to windward, though.  Think we should get up
steam?"

"As you please, sir."

"I was asking you."

"Well, I wouldn't.  We'll keep her up a point or two; she'll weather
anything."

"There!"

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.

"That'll do good."

"Eh?"

"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."

"I'll be with you, sir."

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,--

                    "'I am Sir Oracle,
  And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!'

--Well, sir, what was Dr. Reikie teaching 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 silent.

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."

"If you'll sing 'Tom Bowling.'"

"Oh, I'll sing anything."

"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."

"_Mr. Dr._ Reikie will be delighted, sir."

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.

Hark to that shout!

It is three bells in the morning watch, and the senior midshipman's
watch too.

Shoal water ahead.

"Hard a-port!"

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.

Jack was asleep and dreaming.

* * * * *

But a terrible time of anxiety was being passed by those on deck.

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,--

"Stand by to man and lower boats!"

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.

Sturdy bends towards him.  He catches the words.

"Saved!" he cries, creeping back towards the captain.

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,

  "The flag that braved a thousand years
    The battle and the breeze."


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?"

Sturdy laughed.

"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."

"Shy his boot at me!  Would he, sir?"

"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?"

"Yes."

"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."

"Nearly fourteen," said Jack proudly.  "Yes, I have a
sweetheart--just one."

"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."

"And are you going to marry her?"

"Oh yes, I suppose so."

"He, he!  Well, it's a long time to look forward to."

"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."

"What, sir?"

"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."

"I'm afraid, sir, I didn't hear you aright; did I, sir?"

"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."

"Oh yes, I see, sir.  Then I couldn't marry Tottie, could I, sir?"

"No; you'd get out of that engagement."

"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."

"Don't talk, Jack.  Why, you haven't been a dog-watch* in the
service."


* 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.


"No, sir, I didn't know there was a dog on board."

"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."

"Don't you like cats, sir?"

"Not cats with nine tails.  But heave round, Jack."

"Heave what round, sir?"

"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."

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"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."

"Yes?"

"Well, then, I went downstairs again and--"

"Yes, you went below and--"

"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!"

Ring-ding, ring-ding, ring-ding, ring-ding.

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.

"I accept your apology, doctor," he said.

"Apology, Tomfoozle?  I didn't make one."

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

"Synonymous?"

"That's the word.  I called you a bear to-day, doctor, but I meant a
brick."

"Oh, he meant a brick, did he?" chimed in the A.P.*


* A.P. is the abbreviation for assistant-paymaster.


"Mr. Sturdy, please take note; Lord Tomfoozle meant a brick."

"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--"

"Next what?" said the mid.

"Next gale of wind."

"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[dagger] are
like midden creels."[double dagger]


* "Waur," worse.

[dagger] "Lugs," ears.

[double dagger] "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.

"Bring that man before me to-morrow forenoon, quartermaster."

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!"

Well, it was time to pipe down after this.

_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.

"That would be Mount Etna," said Jack.

"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."

"Oh yes, tell me."

"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.

"But it wasn't that.

"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!


[Illustration: Mountain]

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

"Then he took the glass from his eye and shouted to the commander,--

"'Heave her to, Mr. Deadlight; we must see the end of this.'

"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.

"Haul taut above!" he shouted.

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.

"Now lower away from aloft!" he shouted.

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

He was partially insensible, but otherwise intact.

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

Jack begged him to explain.

"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.

When he went on board again, he told his adventures to his messmates.

"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--"

"Before what, Mister Learned Scot?"

"Before--  Steward, another cup of tea."

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.

He lowered his brows, and demanded to know where the others were.

"Only gone up to drink the Queen's health, God bless her!" said Paddy
O'Rayne.

"But I gave them strict orders not to leave 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."

Away went Paddy.

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.

"In bow!"

"Way enough!  Oars!"

The bow stood up, boat-hook in hand.

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.

Our young hero made his report very sadly; but Sturdy only laughed.

"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.

Just one little story here concerning Paddy O'Rayne.

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.

"It's me, sorr," he said, "and sorra a one else."

"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."

But he spoke as if the stove had been lying on his face for quite a
long time.

Dr. Reikie forgave him.

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."

This was quickly followed by the bos'n's pipe--"Away, lifeboat's
crew."

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.

What a long pull it seems to be!  But they reach the beacon light at
last.

No soul is clinging there!

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.

"Pull easy, men--pull easy."

The poor fellows were terribly pumped.

"Hark!" cried the first-class boy Harris.  "Did you hear that cry,
sir?"

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

"Hark, sir, there it is again!"

"Lie on your oars, men.--You must have 'cute ears, boy.  I heard
nothing."

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.

But never a sound.

"Hark again!" cried Harris.

Yes; every one heard it now--far down to leeward.

"It is but the cry of a bird," said the officer.

"It's only a Mother Carey's chicken," said the stroke.

"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.

After pulling for some time, they could hear the cries ahead
distinctly enough.

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

They ceased entirely after a time.

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."

Well, as regards these, one might go further and fare worse.

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.

The _Gurnet_ next went to Ceylon.

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.

It was a case for a detective.

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."

"Thank you, Reikie," drawled Fitzgerald.

"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."

And Auld Reikie was right.

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

  "The wee short oor ayont the twal."


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.

"Who is it?  What do you want?"

"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."

"All right, Bisset.  Let us be friends.  I bear no ill-will."

He held out his right hand as he spoke.

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.

So ended that tragedy.

* * * * *

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.

[Illustration: He felt a weight on his back.]

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--

"Good-morning, sir.  Glad to see you on my domains."

"Thank you; but really, sir--"

"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?"

"Ah! there come the rascals."

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

"Oo--ah--ee!" they cried.

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.

How greatly every one was mistaken events will show.

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."

"What! and the shark didn't swallow him?"

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

"Well, sir, how did he manage?"

"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."

"But," said Jack, "weren't there other sharks about as well as the
tame one?"

"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.

"'"An' did the shark come back, Tom?" said old Sally.

"'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?"

"'"On with you then," says he, "if you've got it."

"'"Lie round on your side then, Mr. Shark, and open your pretty
little mouth."

"'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.

"'Then he winked to me.

"'"More!" he cries,

"'I flung the other piece as far as I could fling it.

"'"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.

"'"Are you quite ready?" I cries.

"'"Quite ready, Tom."

"'"You're sure?"

"'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.

"'"More! more! more!"

"'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.

"'A light glimmered, and a black sentry appeared.

"'I threw the bag to my friend the shark.

"'"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.

Then all sat round the camp fire smoking and yarning just as sailors
will.

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."

"And what is it, Paddy?"

"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."

"Well, turn it out, Paddy, and don't excite my curiosity any more."

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.

Sturdy, Jack, and even Captain Gillespie crowded round.

"Ugh!" said the latter; "I wouldn't touch it for the world."

Dr. Reikie was delighted.

"Paddy," he said, "you're a jewel."

"Me mother says the same, sorr."

"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.

"Dere is some bery good pea to eat heah, gentlemans," they said.

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.

"I sellee you cheap," he said, "some bery good turkey."

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.

Sambo met them.  He was grinning good-naturedly from ear to ear.

"Ah, massa," he cried, "you hab one bery good dinnah to-day."

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!

* * * * *

Just one other example of negro cookery and negro innocence.

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.

"Have you got an idea, Paddy?" said the doctor.

"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!

"Him done now, massa," he said.

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.

"Man," said Dr. Reikie, "isn't it fine?"

"Oh, it is charming!" cried Jack, with enthusiasm.

"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.



END OF BOOK FIRST.



Book Second.

_FOR HONOUR AND GLORY._



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.

And we were in the right, too.  So everybody believed, so everybody
said.

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."

"To reform her with the sword?"

"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."

"The Russians must be very ambitious and aspiring."

"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!" said Jack.

"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."

"And what did the Sultan do? bastinado the Prince?"

"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."

"Acceded to Russia's demands?"

"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!"'

"It was time," said Jack.

"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."

"Terrible, isn't it, sir?"

"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?

Meanwhile the _Gurnet_ speeds on, and so do events in the East.

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.

[Illustration: Map of Black Sea and surroundings]

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.

War! war! war!

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,--

  "War's a game which, were their subjects wise,
  Kings would not play at."


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."

"What do they look like?" asked Sturdy.

"I can't quite make out, sir.  Perhaps they are the survivors from
some boat that has been capsized."

"Very well, Jack; lower the first whaler."

"Can I go myself, sir?"

"Certainly.  The quartermaster is on deck?"

"Yes."

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.

"Them's cholera corpses, sir.  Hadn't we better put back?"

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."

"I hope so," said Reikie; "but I very much doubt it."

"Ah! well, don't frighten us, anyhow," said Llewellyn.

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?"

"Oh yes; that is part of the programme of this grand picnic."

"And mother and sister?" said Jack.

"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."

"My little sweetheart?"

"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."

"God bless her!"

"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.

On the 15th the British landed.

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.

But the night passed quietly by.  The hour of battle had not yet
arrived.



CHAPTER III.

  A FIELD OF HEROES--"ON, LADS, ON!"--BRAVE
  CODRINGTON--PANIC AND TERROR.

It was nearly ten o'clock next day when the allies again moved
forward.

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."

And this was so.

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.

[Illustration: Map of Heights of Alma]

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.

[Illustration: 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.

"On, lads, on!"

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?

So we answer our general with a blood-rousing cheer.

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_.

A few minutes more and our supports would have been on the field of
battle.

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!"

"Thank Heaven!" he afterwards said, "I disobeyed orders."

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.

But here we are among the Highlanders; and is it not true what Scott
says?--

  "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.

"Now, lads," cries Campbell, waving his sword, "up and at them."

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.

"Go on, Scotties," cries some one in the square.  "You can do the
work."

Sir Colin and his regiments do rush on.

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!"

There is an answering cheer.

That brave voice seems to turn the whole tide of battle.

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."

And up we go.

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.

And yet the odds is terrible.

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.

So much for the glory of war; how about its ghastliness?

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.

There were some wounded men dying even as the doctor bent over them.

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.

"Can I do anything for you?" said the young officer.

"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.

But enough of this picture--enough of the ghastliness of war.

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 story of the doctor's heroism ends briefly thus:

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.

But Grant and Llewellyn smiled.  They smiled heartily.

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.

"You feel confident you will succeed?"

"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."

The admiral laughed.

"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.

More and more bottle! more merriment!

Jack greatly feared they were going to make a night of it, but did
not dare to stir.

Further applications of the bottle; then one fellow volunteered a
song.

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.

Jack hoped it would be by hook.

The sergeant placed the wallet on the moss behind him, and very handy
for Jack.

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.

Nearer and nearer!

He was just about to pick up the wallet, when one man awoke with a
growl like that of a wolf.

There was no more time for ceremony.

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.

Jack flew also.

It was time.

But he had that wallet safe enough.

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.

Jack grasped revolver and wallet still more firmly and ran on.



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."

His lordship laughed in his good-natured, fatherly way, and gave in.

After this, Jack saw and shook hands with Sir Colin Campbell.

"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."


* "Birkie," a brave young fellow.


"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."

"And tore the flesh?"

"Only a little.  Come on.  And what made you take this adventure in
hand?"

"Why, Llew I took it in hand just to please mother and sister, and
the old lady, and--"

Jack blushed.

"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.


"She always was.  Well, I'm so pleased we've met again."

"Yes; where next, I wonder?"

"Oh, at Balaklava.  We're going to help you to batter the place down."

"Batter it down we must not.  That must be our seaport, Jack
Mackenzie."

* * * * *

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.

[Illustration: Map of Balaklava town and harbour]

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 Malakoff, the Redan, and Mamelon are all seen on the plan.

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_.

"What do you think of it, sir?" said Jack.

"Think of it! think of what?"

"Why, our chance of success against the forts?"

"Humph!" said Sturdy.  "What would you think of a man who tried to
break a cocoa-nut by shying rotten pears at it?"

"Why, I'd think him a fool."

"Well, our admiral is--ahem!"

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.

[Illustration: She laid about her right and left.]

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?"

Dr. Reikie shook his head.

"I'll sit up with you," he said, "and---see."

"Ah yes, I understand."

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.

He never woke again.



CHAPTER VII.

  THE VICTORIOUS CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE--THE
  SCOTCH WIFE AND THE TURKS--THE LIGHT BRIGADE,
  AND THEIR AWFUL CHARGE.

Meanwhile, where was Menschikoff?

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 thought it was time to return now and see what we were about.

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.

These had soon, however, to retreat for want of ammunition.

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.

But clear now, the Heavy Brigade charged in earnest.

And such a charge!

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."

"Look, then," cried Llewellyn; "here they come!"

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.

She laid about her right and left.  Like Roderick Dhu, she

  "Showered her blows like wintry rain."

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."

"Kokona! kokona!"* cried the Turks.  "Mercy, mercy!"


* Lady, lady.


"Bravo, Betty!" shouted a soldier.  "Let them tak that, as they can
tak no snuff."

The 93rd were indeed glorious soldiers, but just a trifle wild and
impetuous.

* * * * *

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."

Lord Lucan rode off to Cardigan.

"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."

"The brigade will advance!" shouted Cardigan, and in a loud voice.

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.

The Russians themselves must have thought them mad.

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 done their duty!

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.

But a greater battle than all was soon to follow Balaklava.



CHAPTER VIII.

  THE TRUTH FROM A RUSSIAN--PARABLE OF THE
  STOAT AND THE WILD CAT--DAY-DAWN OF THE
  MEMORABLE FIFTH.

    "Remember, remember
    The fifth of November--
  Gunpowder, treason, and shot."

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.

"What is that out yonder on our weather-bow?" says Jack.

"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?"

"Yes, sir, lots, if you ask me."

"Then I think I'll crack on."

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.

"Give her one now," cried Captain Gillespie--"straight."

"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."

The gunner wasn't particular about his grammar.

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.

"Bravo, sweetheart!" said the gunner to his pet as the boat went
speeding away.

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.

"Ha! ha!" he said joyously, "she is a very goot schnapp."

Even Sturdy smiled now; but he bluntly refused the "very goot
schnapp," and went straight to business.

"What is your beastly ship's name?"

"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."

"Cloves!--What do you think the fellow means, doctor?"

"Clothes, I believe," said Reikie.

"Clothes?  Certainly, it must be that."

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.

He told the officers about Balaklava first.  They had not heard of it
before.

"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."

"He laughs best," said Sturdy, "who laughs last."

"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."

Sturdy laughed again.

"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."

Let us now return, to the field, reader.

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.

[Illustration: Plan of Inkermann area]

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 hope," said Jack to Dr. Reikie, "that we won't be sent back."

"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.

Codrington's forces and the marines numbered only 1,500, or rather
less.

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.

Then the fight might have been said to commence.



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."

"Yes," said Jack, "as snug and snugger; but think of the honour and
glory."

"Oh, bother your honour and glory, let us have breakfast."

"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."


* The Beetle tribe.


"Oh no, thanks; not then."

"Beauties they are, I assure you, and prettily bronzed; and some in
uniform, you might say--in navy-blue with gold and white facings."

"Indeed!"

"Ay, indeed; and this, it seems to me, is a provision of nature to
enliven the ghastly duty they perform."

"Ghastly duty, doctor?"

"Ay, ay, just.  They bury the dead!"


By this time Jack was nearly ready, and it was almost daylight.

"Why, Dr. Reikie, you're wounded!"

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?"

Yes, a big gun it was; and Soimonoff was at it hammer and tongs.

"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?"

"Troth am I, sorr.  A jaily-jar, ye said."

"Yes; and it contains beautiful beetles all alive."

"All alive, sorr."

"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.

But Pennefather's force now amounted to 3,000 men and eighteen
field-guns.

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.

Alas!  Cathcart himself was among the slain.

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.

But another terrible attack was soon made by the persistent foe.

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.

O'Rayne and Jack had both been searching for him.

"An' sure here you are at last, sorr.  Troth, I thought it was dade
entoirely you were."

"I'm all right," said Dr. Reikie, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"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.

"Paddy," he cried, "I forgot to ask you what about the specimens."

"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]."

"I know you are tired, poor Auld Reikie," said Sturdy as they shook
hands.

"What way that, man?"

"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."

"Terrible!"

"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."

"And is cholera still raging?"

Reikie pointed to a wretched apology for a tent at some distance from
the rest.

"Look for yoursel', Sturdy."

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?"

"Yes; and they don't seem unhappy.  Where are they off to?"

"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."

* * * * *

Things grew ten times worse in the British camps before very long.

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.

"Well," said Jack, "how do we look this time?"

"You look old and worn, Jack, I assure you.  I'm sorry for you.  How
about your honour and glory, lad?"

[Illustration: "Maggie!"--"Jack!"]

Jack shook his head somewhat sadly, then burst into a merry laugh.

"O Mr. Sturdy, that is all to come.  At present, I must admit, we are
just pretty miserable, you know."

"Well, your cheeks look pretty hollow, anyhow."

"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."

Jack laughed heartily.

"No, Mr. Sturdy, it did no good, because it was all in broad Scotch."

"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.

Llewellyn halted his men, and gave the doctor and his party a hearty
welcome.

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."

"Well, I wish you luck, Llewellyn."

"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."

"Good-bye till we meet."

"Good-bye, good-bye."

Jack and his party were some distance off, when Llewellyn ran after
them.

"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.

He had a letter in his hand.

"We are off," he said.

"Who are off, and off what?"

"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."

"Jack isn't sick?"

"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.

Then the horses often slipped, and more than one fell.

As gently as possible the men were lifted off on their arrival at
Balaklava, and conveyed on board the _Gurnet_.

Here Reikie made them all as comfortable as circumstances would
permit.

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.

Scutari at last!

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!

* * * * *

"Maggie!"

"Jack!"

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.

Dr. Reikie got up at last.

"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.

The war, indeed, seemed to wax more determined and bitter as the time
flew by.



CHAPTER XII.

  PELISSIER TO THE FRONT--DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN.

"The king is dead!  Long live the king!"

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.

New men came to the front in the French army, and new theories were
advanced.

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.

The Kertch expedition was a very pretty little affair.

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.

The enemy was thus once more driven back to the rear of his former
lines.

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.

But now the great and final tug of war must shortly come.

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.

This was to be the last stand of the Bear at bay--in the open, that
is.

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--"

"Yes, as I said, Sturdy, _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.*


* True, but the name of this young hero I have altered.--AUTHOR.


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.

Paddy O'Rayne, the doctor's red marine, was the same old Paddy.

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.


* A shawl or plaid pin.


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?"

Hale and hearty old Dawson smiled.

"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.

The greetings were joyous and mutual.

"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!"

"And the Malonies?"

"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."

This was true.  But Violet was very shy.

"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."

"Oh, religiously," said Jack, laughing,--"in the fire of my heart."

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.

Jack sighed.  "What a change," he thought, "a few years has made!"

* * * * *

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.

Poor Gribble was drowned at sea.

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."

Fitzgerald is over fifty, but he says he'll hunt for thirty years to
come yet.

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."

But as for Sturdy, he stuck to the service, and erelong became a
post-captain.

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.

And so my story ends, and the curtain falls.



THE END.





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