Mrs. Smith was decorated with the medal of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem. She was reported, in the application that was made on her
behalf, to have been 'unremitting in her attention to the wounded and
dying soldiers during the action, and that her conduct while living
under canvas was beyond all praise. She did the utmost to relieve the
sufferings of the men in hospital, and soothed the last moments of many
a poor soldier, while sharing their privations to the full.'
After a time Mrs. Smith's whereabouts became unknown to the
authorities; they did not in fact know whether she were alive, and
consequently she was not recommended for the Red Cross. Mrs. Fox and
Mrs. Maistre received the coveted decoration, but the former did not
long survive the honour. She died in January, 1888, at Cambridge
Barracks, Portsmouth, and in making her death known to the regiment the
colonel said:--'Mrs. Fox died a soldier's death, as her fatal illness
was the result of a wound received in action, and aggravated in
consequence of her noble self-devotion afterwards.'
The Commander-in-Chief--H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge--ordered that
military honours should be paid to the dead woman. It was a very
unusual thing, but the honour was well-merited, and crowds lined the
streets to see the coffin borne past on a gun carriage. Over the
coffin was laid a Union Jack, and on this was placed the brave woman's
Red Cross. The men who bore her from the gun carriage to her grave in
Southsea Cemetery were six non-commissioned officers who had been
wounded in the fight of December 20, 1880, and whom she had nursed.
* It is interesting to note that the publication of this volume quickly
led to Mrs. Smith (now Mrs. Jeffreys) being traced; and, in response to
an appeal to the War office, the authorities awarded the heroine the
coveted decoration of the Royal Red Cross.
IV.
BRAVE DEEDS OF SELF-SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION
ELIZABETH ZANE, A FRONTIER HEROINE
'The Indians are coming!'
It was on September 1, 1782, that a scout employed to watch the
movements of the Red Indians rushed into the West Virginian village of
Wheeling, shouting the dreaded warning of the savages' approach.
Instantly the inhabitants took refuge in the fort, and prepared to
offer a determined resistance. The fort had no regular garrison, it
being the duty of the settlers to defend it. Colonel Silas Zane took
command, and felt confident that, although he had only twenty men under
him, he would be able to beat off the savages.
The Governor of Wheeling was Colonel Ebenezer Zane, and with two white
men he decided to remain in his private residence, which was about
forty yards from the fort, to prevent the ammunition which was stored
there from falling into the hands of the Indians. The scout who had
brought the news of the Indians' approach was soon followed by the
savages themselves, who, brandishing their tomahawks and waving their
scalping-knives, instantly demanded the surrender of the white men.
The reply they received was a volley fired at the standard which they
bore aloft. With a terrible war-whoop the Indians rushed to the
assault, but the men in the fort and in the house were good shots, and
it was rarely that one of them missed his mark. Happily, there was a
good stock of arms in both strongholds, and taking advantage of this,
the women loaded the muskets and handed them to the men, who were thus
enabled to fire quickly and were spared the fatigue of loading.
Again and again the Indians attacked the house and the fort, but on
every occasion they were driven back. When darkness came on the
attacks ceased, but the white men did not grow less vigilant, for they
were confident that before daybreak the savages would make an attempt
to surprise them. And this proved to be the case. In the dead of
night one of the defenders espied an Indian crawling towards the house.
He watched him until he rose to his feet and kindling a torch that he
carried, attempted to set fire to the building. Then the watcher
fired, and the Indian dropping his torch fled, wounded.
At daybreak it was seen that the Indians were still surrounding the
fort and the house, and that they were evidently unusually excited.
Could they have captured any of the defenders? Enquiries shouted from
the fort to the house elicited the assurance that no one was missing.
Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion at the spot when the Indians
were thickest, and the surprised white men could see that several of
the enemy had been killed and many injured. The explosion was caused
in this way: On the preceding evening, after the firing had ceased,
some of the Indians surprised a boat ascending the river with cannon
balls for the fort. The boatman escaped, but the cannon balls fell
into the hands of the Indians, who believed that all they now wanted to
demolish the house and fort was a cannon. Therefore they decided to
make one. They procured a log of wood, bound it tightly with chains,
and then made a hole in it large enough to admit the ball. Then they
charged it heavily, and when it was pointed towards the fort the match
was applied. Instantly the cannon burst, killing many of the men who
stood near and injuring others.
This accident did not, as one might suppose, dishearten the Indians.
On the contrary, it excited them to further efforts to capture the
whites. Maddened with excitement they rushed boldly forward to the
attack, but the steady, deadly fire which the defenders maintained
drove them back time after time.
But now the defenders in the fort began to get anxious, for their stock
of gunpowder was nearly exhausted. There was a plentiful supply at the
house, and someone would have to undertake the perilous task of running
to it and returning under fire with a keg of powder. There were plenty
of volunteers for this dangerous undertaking, but among them was a
woman--Elizabeth Zane, the youngest sister of the two Colonels Zane.
She had been educated in Philadelphia, and until her arrival at
Wheeling, a few weeks previously, had experienced none of the hardships
of frontier life. But now, in the hour of danger, she was brave as if
she had been brought up in the midst of stirring scenes.
It was pointed out to her that a man would run less risk than she, from
the fact of his being able to run faster; but she answered that if he
were shot in the act, his loss would be severely felt. 'You have not
one man to spare, she declared. 'A woman will not be missed in the
defence of the fort.'
The men did not like the idea of allowing her to run so great a risk,
but she overcame their objections, and started on her perilous journey.
The moment the gate was opened she bounded through, and ran at full
speed towards the house. Surprised at her sudden appearance in the
open, the Indians seized their muskets, but quickly recognizing that
she was a woman they exclaimed, 'Only a squaw,' and did not fire.
Arriving at the house she announced to Colonel Ebenezer Zane the object
of her journey, whereupon he fastened a table-cloth around her waist,
and emptied a keg of powder into it.
The moment that she appeared again in the open, the Indians noticed the
table-cloth around her waist, and, guessing at once that she was
carrying to the fort something that was necessary for its defence;
promptly opened fire on her. Undeterred by the bullets which whizzed
past her Elizabeth Zane ran quickly towards the fort; and reached it in
safety. It is needless to say that the brave young woman received an
enthusiastic greeting from the garrison who had witnessed with
admiration her daring act.
The defenders of the fort, their stock of ammunition replenished,
fought with renewed confidence when the Indians again attacked, and
repulsed them with a deadly fire. As time went on the assaults became
less frequent, and on the third night they finally ceased. The task of
massacring the settlers of Wheeling had, contrary to the Indians'
expectation, been too formidable for them, and therefore they raised
the siege and crept quietly away by night. Their losses had been
great, but during the three days' fighting the casualties of the
defenders were only two men wounded.
NELLIE AMOS, A FRIEND IN NEED
In the tiny cabin of a canal-boat which had but recently started on its
long journey from the Midlands to London, lay a woman seriously ill.
And by her side lay her two days' old baby. Her husband was on deck
steering the boat, but every few minutes he hurried down to see if
there were anything he could do to make his wife comfortable. He could
do but little, however.
Never before had he felt so helpless; never had he experienced so
acutely the isolation of barge-life. The district through which he was
travelling was thinly populated, and to obtain a doctor the bargeman
would have to trudge some miles across country, leaving his wife alone
on the canal. He could not leave her unattended, and consoled himself
with the hope that before long he would meet someone whom he could send
for a doctor. But he was disappointed; he met no one.
At last he arrived at Stoke Bruerne, in Northamptonshire, and, having
tied up his barge, hurried to the post-office--a little general shop
kept by Mrs. Nellie Amos, who was well-known to the canal boatmen. He
told her of his wife's illness, and asked her if she would be good
enough to come to his barge and see if she could discover the nature of
her illness. Without the slightest hesitation Mrs. Amos accompanied
the man to his barge, and found his wife very feverish.
Mrs. Amos could not discover what was the matter with the invalid, but
one thing was very plain to her--the poor woman could not be expected
to get well in her present quarters. The cabin was low-roofed, about
eight feet by six in size, and near the door stood the stove in which
the meals were cooked. In such close quarters the sick woman had
little chance of recovery, and Mrs. Amos did not conceal this fact from
the husband. She told him also that if a doctor would certify that she
could be removed with safety, she would take her to her house and nurse
her and the baby. As soon as the bargeman hurried away to fetch a
doctor, Mrs. Amos made the sick woman some beef-tea, tidied the bed,
and took charge of the baby.
The doctor was soon with the patient, and, having examined her, gave
his permission for her removal to Mrs. Amos's house, to which she was
quickly taken. Mrs. Amos had a husband and six children, and her house
was a small one; but nevertheless she was able to give the mother and
baby a comfortable room. Day after day she nursed them tenderly, but
to her surprise the mother did not show any signs of improvement. The
doctor came regularly to see her, and one day, when he had been
attending her for about a week, he announced that she was suffering
from small-pox.
For a few minutes Mrs. Amos was overcome with horror at the danger to
which she had unintentionally subjected her six children. Nearly all
of them had nursed the baby and waited on the sick woman, and it seemed
to her certain that they would be stricken down with the disease. It
would probably spread through the village, and she would be the cause
of the sorrow that would ensue.
These fears she soon overcame, and bravely faced the danger. She
declared that she would not have the poor creature removed from the
house unless the doctor insisted upon it, and that she would continue
to nurse her. The patient was allowed to remain, but steps were, of
course, taken to guard against the disease spreading. The shop was
closed, and Mrs. Amos's only means of earning a living was gone, at any
rate for a time. Her children were sent away, and watched carefully
for any signs of the disease appearing in them. Anxiety concerning her
own family and the loss occasioned by the suspension of her business
might well have made her willing to hand over to the local medical
authorities the innocent cause of her trouble. But Mrs. Amos would not
relinquish her self-imposed duty. She nursed mother and child as
tenderly as if they had been her relatives, and if it had been possible
to save their lives they would have been saved. The child died, and a
week later the woman herself passed away. Happily, neither Mrs. Amos
nor any of her children contracted the disease.
'I prayed earnestly that God would spare the village,' Mrs. Amos told
the writer of this book, 'and He did. Not one case resulted from it.'
It was some time before the little shop was re-opened, but many people,
hearing of Mrs. Amos's bravery, came forward to help her tide over her
difficulties. The landlord set a good example by sending her a receipt
for rent which she had been unable to pay, and several Brentford
ladies, having been told of her conduct by Mr. R. Bamber, the London
City missionary to bargemen, presented her with a tea and coffee
service.
ANNA GURNEY, THE FRIEND OF THE SHIPWRECKED
Anna Gurney was a cripple from her birth. Unable to walk, and
consequently debarred nearly all the pleasures of childhood, it would
not have been surprising had she become a sad, peevish woman. The fact
that her parents were rich, and able to supply her with comforts such
as poor cripples could not receive, may have prevented her from
becoming depressed, but it must be remembered also that the knowledge
that they were in a position to give her every reasonable pleasure a
girl could desire might well have caused her to be continually
deploring her crippled condition.
She did not, however, brood over her infirmity, and although she was
never entirely free from pain, she was always bright and happy.
Intellectually clever, she was ever anxious for self-improvement, and
her knowledge of languages was remarkable. No sooner had she become
thoroughly conversant with one than she began to learn another.
Early in life she became deeply interested in foreign missions, and in
after years was a generous supporter of them. Her desire to do good
was not, however, satisfied by the money she gave to various societies,
and being unable to offer herself as a missionary to the heathen, she
found a sphere of usefulness in working to improve the moral and
spiritual condition of the poor of Cromer. She invited the mothers to
her home, North Repps Cottage, and held classes for young men, young
women and children. Humble visitors were continually calling to tell
her of their joys or sorrows, and were never refused admittance. She
might be busy in her library or suffering acute pain, but with a bright
smile she would wheel herself forward in her mechanical chair to greet
her visitor.
The fishermen along the coast regarded her with reverence, for she was
their friend, adviser and patron. For many years she could be seen
almost daily on the foreshore with a little group of weather-beaten men
around her. She knew the dangers and disappointments of their calling,
and was genuinely delighted whenever she heard that the fleet had
returned with a good catch. And when the boats were out and a storm
sprang up, she was anxious as any fish-wife for their safety. At her
own expense she provided a lifeboat and complete apparatus for saving
life, and, with the thoroughness characteristic of her, she made
herself at once acquainted with the proper working of it.
Whenever there was a shipwreck, she would be down on the shore giving
directions for the rescue of the people aboard the vessel. No matter
the weather or the hour, she was always on the spot. Many a time the
news came to her in the middle of the night that there was a ship in
distress, and in a few minutes her man was wheeling her quickly down to
the shore. The wind might be howling, the rain falling in torrents,
but this did not deter her from being at her self-appointed post. When
she first came out in rough weather, the fishermen begged her to return
home, but they soon discovered that she was determined to remain.
When the boat had been launched she would remain in the cold, waiting
anxiously for its return. Often she was in great pain, but only her
attendant was aware of this. To the fisher-folk she would be cheerful,
and express confidence that her lifeboat would rescue all aboard the
ship. And when the lifeboat did return with the rescued people, who
were sometimes half dead from exposure, there was more self-imposed
work for her. She superintended the treatment of the shipwrecked folk,
and arranged where they were to be taken. Many were removed to her own
house, and kept there until they were able to proceed to their homes or
to London. So kindly were the rescued people treated, that it became a
saying along the East Coast, that to be taken care of by Miss Gurney,
it was worth while being shipwrecked.
Anna Gurney died at Cromer in June, 1857, aged sixty-one. She was
buried in Overstrand Churchyard, being carried to her last
resting-place by fishermen who had known and loved her for many years.
The news of her death had spread rapidly along the coast, and over a
thousand fishermen were present at her funeral. Their sorrow was
great, and they were not ashamed to show it.
The following lines, written by Anna Gurney on the death of a friend
whom she dearly loved, might truly have been her own epitaph;--
Within this frame, by Jesu's grace,
High gifts and holy held their place;
A noble heart, a mighty mind,
Were here in bonds of clay confined.
GRIZEL HUME, THE DEVOTED DAUGHTER
There was rejoicing at Redbraes Castle, Berwickshire, in February,
1676, for Sir Patrick Hume had returned home after seventeen months'
imprisonment in Stirling Castle.
No one was more delighted at his return than his little ten years' old
daughter, Grizel, who loved him dearly, and was proud that he had
suffered imprisonment for conscience sake. He had been imprisoned as
'a factious person,' because he refused to contribute to the support of
the soldiers stationed in the country for the suppression of the
meetings of the Covenanters.
Grizel was a very intelligent child, and surprised her father by her
knowledge of the political events of the day, and her detestation of
the Government. Some men would have been simply amused at her interest
in politics, but Sir Patrick saw that she was an exceptionally clever
child, and told her many things which he would have confided to few of
her seniors. One thing that he told her was of his desire to get a
letter conveyed to his friend Robert Baillie of Jerviswoode, who was
confined in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for rescuing a minister--his
brother-in-law--from the hands of the Government's servants.
Grizel at once volunteered to take the letter, and having overcome her
father's objections to sending her on such a dangerous mission, she
started on her long journey to Edinburgh, which she reached without
mishap.
Being at Edinburgh she had now to devise some means of getting into
Robert Baillie's prison. For a child of her age to outwit the prison
officials one would think an impossibility; but she did. Joanna
Baillie states that she slipped in, noiselessly and unobserved, behind
the jailer, and hid in a dark corner until he withdrew, when she
stepped forward and presented the letter to the astonished prisoner.
Whether or not this be true, it is a fact that she gained admission to
the prison, delivered her letter, and escaped with the reply.
Two years later, Sir Patrick Hume was again arrested, and although he
was neither tried nor told of what he was accused, he was kept in
prison for fifteen months. At first he was confined at Edinburgh, but
afterwards he was removed to Dumbarton Castle.
At both of these places Grizel was allowed to visit him, but the
authorities never suspected that such a child would be used as a
political messenger. In the presence of the jailer she would give Sir
Patrick news of home. She showered kisses upon him, and delivered
loving messages from her mother, sisters, and brothers. But when the
jailer had withdrawn she gave her father an account of the movements of
his political friends, and delivered many important verbal messages,
which they had entrusted to her. By her means Sir Patrick was kept
informed of his friends' actions, and was able to assist them by his
advice.
On being released from Dumbarton Castle he returned to his home in
Berwickshire, and for a time led a peaceful life, conscious that the
Government would have him arrested again if they could find a pretext
for doing so.
In October, 1683, information was brought to him that his friend,
Robert Baillie, had been arrested in London, and imprisoned for alleged
connection with the Rye House Plot. Sir Patrick's friendship for
Robert Baillie was well known, and Grizel feared that her father would
soon be arrested on a similar charge. Sir Patrick was of the same
opinion, but the Government did not act with the promptitude he had
expected.
It was not until nearly a year had elapsed that a lady sent word to him
that soldiers had arrived at her house, and that she had discovered
that they were on their way to arrest him. Instant flight was
imperative, for there was no place in Redbraes Castle in which he could
conceal himself from soldiers skilled in searching for enemies of the
Government. His wife and Grizel--the only people in the castle who
knew of his danger--discussed with him the most likely means of
escaping detection, and finally it was decided that he should hide in
the family vault in Polwarth Church, which stood about a mile and a
half from Redbraes Castle.
In the middle of the night Grizel and a carpenter named Winter carried
bed and bedding to the vault. It was a weird hiding-place for Sir
Patrick, as the vault was littered with the skulls and bones of his
ancestors. Grizel shuddered at the sight, but she knew that the vault
was the only place which the soldiers would be unlikely to search.
They arrived at Redbraes Castle confident that they would find Sir
Patrick there, and great was their surprise when they searched it from
cellar to turret without finding him. Even then they would not believe
that he had escaped them, so they made a second and still more thorough
search. Every cottage, stable, and shed in the neighbourhood of the
castle was searched, but no one examined the vaults in Polwarth Church.
Sir Patrick Hume was safe from discovery in his gruesome hiding-place,
but he could not live without food, and the difficulty was to convey it
to him without being detected.
This dangerous task Grizel, now nineteen years of age, undertook, and
every night, when all in the castle but herself were asleep, she crept
out with a stock of provisions for her father, and trudged the mile and
a half of country which lay between the castle and Polwarth Church.
It was a trying journey for Grizel, for not only had she to fear being
seen by the soldiers, or some villager out late on poaching bent, but
she believed implicitly in ghosts--as did the majority of people in
those days. Frequently she was startled by the cry of a bird aroused
by her footsteps, and on several occasions a dog detected her, and
barked furiously.
It can easily be understood that Grizel's visits were a great comfort
to Sir Patrick, for she was the only person who ventured to go to him.
She would spread out on the little table in the vault the provisions
which she had brought him, and while he ate his supper she amused him
by humorously relating the difficulties she met in obtaining them.
Lady Hume, Winter and herself were the only people who knew that Sir
Patrick was in the neighbourhood. Grizel's brothers and sisters and
the servants believed that he had fled from the country, and Grizel was
very anxious that they should not be undeceived, for the children might
unintentionally divulge the secret, and among the servants there were,
possibly, some who would be ready to earn a reward by betraying their
master.