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[Illustration: _Painted for Princess Mary's Gift Book by J. J. Shannon,
R.A._
Mary.]
[Illustration]
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
_I desire to express my very best thanks to the Authors and Artists who
have so generously contributed to my Gift Book._
Mary.
PRINCESS MARY'S GIFT BOOK
[Illustration]
All profits from sale are given to
THE QUEEN'S "WORK FOR
WOMEN" FUND
which is acting in conjunction with
The National Relief Fund
HODDER & STOUGHTON
LONDON . NEW YORK . TORONTO
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
H.R.H. PRINCESS MARY _Frontispiece_
_Painting by_ J. J. SHANNON, R.A.
PAGE
A HOLIDAY IN BED _J. M. Barrie_ 1
Author of "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens."
_Painting by_ W. RUSSELL FLINT, A.R.W.S., _and
Drawings by_ C. E. BROCK
THE SPY _G. A. Birmingham_ 9
_Drawings by_ H. R. MILLAR Author of "General John Regan."
CHARLIE THE COX _Hall Caine_ 17
_Painting by_ CHARLES NAPIER HEMY, R.A., _and_ Author of
"The Manxman."
_Drawings by_ ARCH WEBB
CANADA'S WORD _Ralph Connor_ 22
_Drawings by_ A. J. GOUGH Author of "The Sky Pilot."
BIMBASHI JOYCE _A. Conan Doyle_ 23
Author of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."
_Painting and Drawings by_ R. TALBOT KELLY, R.I.
THE ANT-LION _J. H. Fabre_ 31
_Painting and Drawings by_ E. J. DETMOLD
("The Insects' Homer").
AN ANGEL OF GOD _Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler_ 35
_Drawings by_ STEVEN SPURRIER, R.I. Author of "Concerning
Isabel Carnaby."
A MODEL SOLDIER _Charles Garvice_ 43
_Drawings by_ J. H. HARTLEY Author of "Nance."
THE LAND OF LET'SPRETEND _Lady Sybil Grant_ 57
Author of "The Chequer Board."
_Painting and Drawings by_ ARTHUR RACKHAM, R.W.S.
MAGEPA THE BUCK _H. Rider Haggard_ 63
_Drawings by_ J. BYAM SHAW, A.R.W.S. Author of "She."
TRUE SPARTAN HEARTS _Beatrice Harraden_ 75
Author of "Ships that Pass in the Night."
_Painting and Decorations by_ EDMUND DULAC
BIG STEAMERS _Rudyard Kipling_ 79
Author of "The Jungle Book."
_Painting and Drawings by_ NORMAN WILKINSON, R.I.
A TRUE STORY FROM CAMP _The Bishop of London_ 81
_Drawings by_ JOSEPH SIMPSON, R.B.A.
THE EBONY BOX _A. E. W. Mason_ 83
_Painting and Drawings by_ W. B. WOLLEN, R.I. Author of
"The Turnstile."
A SPELL FOR A FAIRY _Alfred Noyes_ 101
Author of "A Tale of Old Japan."
_Painting and Drawings by_ CLAUDE A. SHEPPERSON, A.R.W.S.
OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH: A PIMPERNEL
STORY _Baroness Orczy_ 105
_Painting by_ A. C. MICHAEL _and_ Author of "The Scarlet
Pimpernel."
_Drawings by_ H. M. BROCK, R.I.
WHAT CAN A LITTLE CHAP DO? _John Oxenham_ 112
_Painting by_ EUGENE HASTAIN _and_ Author of "Barbe of
Grand Bayou."
_Drawings by_ GORDON BROWNE, R.I.
ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT _W. Pett Ridge_ 115
_Painting by_ M. E. GRAY _and_ Author of "Mord Em'ly."
_Drawings by_ LEWIS BAUMER
THE ESCAPE _Annie S. Swan_ 123
_Drawings by_ HAROLD EARNSHAW Author of "Mary Garth."
FLEUR-DE-LIS _Kate Douglas Wiggin_ 130
Author of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."
_Painting by_ CARLTON A. SMITH, R.I., _and_
_Drawings by_ EDMUND J. SULLIVAN, A.R.W.S.
SPARTAN HEARTS, by Beatrice Harraden, was first
published in a volume entitled "Untold Tales of the
Past"; BIG STEAMERS, by Rudyard Kipling, in "A History
of England," by C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling;
BIMBASHI JOYCE, by Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Green
Flag, and other Stories"; and we have to thank Messrs.
William Blackwood & Sons, The Oxford University Press,
and Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for permission to
include these contributions in Princess Mary's Gift
Book.
With these exceptions the poems and stories in this
book have not previously been issued in volume form.
The illustrations have all been specially painted and
drawn, and an exhibition of the work of the artists
who have thus contributed to Princess Mary's Gift Book
will be held at the Leicester Galleries, Leicester
Square, W.C., and the originals sold in aid of the
Queen's "Work for Women" Fund.
A Holiday in Bed by J.M. Barrie
[Illustration: _Painting by_ W. RUSSELL FLINT, A.R.W.S., _and Drawings
by_ C. E. BROCK]
PEOPLE have tried a holiday in bed before now, and found it a failure,
but that was because they were ignorant of the rules. They went to bed
with the open intention of staying there, say, three days, and found to
their surprise that each morning they wanted to get up. This was a novel
experience to them; they flung about restlessly, and probably shortened
their holiday. The proper thing is to take your holiday in bed with a
vague intention of getting up in another quarter of an hour. The real
pleasure of lying in bed after you are awake is largely due to the
feeling that you ought to get up. To take another quarter of an hour
then becomes a luxury. You are, in short, in the position of the man who
dined on larks. Had he seen the hundreds that were ready for him, all
set out on one monster dish, they would have alarmed him; but getting
them two at a time, he went on eating till all the larks were gone. His
feeling of uncertainty as to whether these might not be his last two
larks is your feeling that, perhaps, you will have to get up in a
quarter of an hour. Deceive yourself in this way, and your holiday in
bed will pass only too quickly.
Sympathy is what all the world is craving for, and sympathy is what the
ordinary holiday-maker never gets. How can we be expected to sympathise
with you when we know you are off to Perthshire to fish? No; we say we
wish we were you, and forget that your holiday is sure to be a hollow
mockery; that your child will jam her finger in the railway carriage,
and scream to the end of the journey; that you will lose your luggage;
that the guard will notice your dog beneath the seat, and insist on its
being paid for; that you will be caught in a Scotch mist on the top of a
mountain, and be put on gruel for a fortnight; that your wife will fret
herself into a fever about the way the servant, who has been left at
home, is treating her cousins, the milkman, and the policeman; and that
you will be had up for trespassing. Yet, when you tell us you are off
to-morrow, we have never the sympathy to say, "Poor fellow, I hope
you'll pull through somehow." If it is an exhibition you go to gaze at,
we never picture you dragging your weary legs from one department to
another, and wondering why your back aches. Should it be the seaside, we
talk heartlessly to you about the "briny," though we must know, if we
would stop to think, that if there is one holiday more miserable than
all the others, it is that spent at the seaside, when you wander along
the weary beach and fling pebbles at the sea, and wonder how long it
will be till dinner-time. Were we to come down to see you, we should
probably find you, not on the beach, but moving slowly through the
village, looking in at the one milliner's window, or laboriously reading
what the one grocer's labels say on the subject of pale ale, compressed
beef, or vinegar. There was never an object that called aloud for
sympathy more than you do, but you get not a jot of it. You should take
the first train home and go to bed for three days.
To enjoy your holiday in bed to the full, you should let it be vaguely
understood that there is something amiss with you. Don't go into
details, for they are not necessary; and, besides, you want to be dreamy
more or less, and the dreamy state is not consistent with a definite
ailment. The moment one takes to bed he gets sympathy. He may be
suffering from a tearing headache or a tooth that makes him cry out; but
if he goes about his business, or even flops in a chair, true sympathy
is denied him. Let him take to bed with one of those illnesses of which
he can say with accuracy that he is not quite certain what is the matter
with him, and his wife, for instance, will want to bathe his brow. She
must not be made too anxious. That would not only be cruel to her, but
it would wake you from the dreamy state. She must simply see that you
are "not yourself." Women have an idea that unless men are "not
themselves" they will not take to bed, and as a consequence your wife is
tenderly thoughtful of you. Every little while she will ask you if you
are feeling any better now, and you can reply, with the old regard for
truth, that you are "much about it." You may even (for your own
pleasure) talk of getting up now, when she will earnestly urge you to
stay in bed until you feel easier. You consent; indeed, you are ready to
do anything to please her.
[Illustration: And wonder how long it will be till dinner-time]
The ideal holiday in bed does not require the presence of a ministering
angel in the room all day. You frequently prefer to be alone, and point
out to her that you cannot have her trifling with her health for your
sake, and so she must go out for a walk. She is reluctant, but finally
goes, protesting that you are the most unselfish of men, and only too
good for her. This leaves a pleasant aroma behind it, for even when
lying in bed, we like to feel that we are uncommonly fine fellows. After
she has gone you get up cautiously, and, walking stealthily to the
wardrobe, produce from the pocket of your greatcoat a good novel. A
holiday in bed must be arranged for beforehand. With a gleam in your eye
you slip back to bed, double your pillow to make it higher, and begin to
read. You have only got to the fourth page, when you make a horrible
discovery--namely, that the book is not cut. An experienced
holiday-maker would have had it cut the night before, but this is your
first real holiday, or perhaps you have been thoughtless. In any case
you have now matter to think of. You are torn in two different ways.
There is your coat on the floor with a knife in it, but you cannot reach
the coat without getting up again. Ought you to get the knife or to give
up reading? Perhaps it takes a quarter of an hour to decide this
question, and you decide it by discovering a third course. Being a sort
of an invalid, you have certain privileges which would be denied you if
you were merely sitting in a chair in the agonies of neuralgia. One of
the glorious privileges of a holiday in bed is that you are entitled to
cut books with your fingers. So you cut the novel in this way, and read
on.
[Illustration: You are in the middle of a chapter--]
Those who have never tried it may fancy that there is a lack of incident
in a holiday in bed. There could not be a more monstrous mistake. You
are in the middle of a chapter, when suddenly you hear a step upon the
stairs. Your loving ears tell you that the ministering angel has
returned, and is hastening to you. Now, what happens? The book
disappears beneath the pillow, and when she enters the room softly you
are lying there with your eyes shut. This is not merely incident; it is
drama.
What happens next depends on circumstances. She says, in a low voice:
"Are you feeling any easier now, John?"
No answer.
"Oh, I believe he is sleeping."
Then she steals from the room, and you begin to read again.
[Illustration: A Holiday in Bed
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by Russell Flint, A.R.W.S._]
[Illustration: --Suddenly you hear a step]
During a holiday in bed one never thinks, of course, of analysing his
actions. If you had done so in this instance, you would have seen that
you pretended sleep because you had got to an exciting passage. You love
your wife, but, wife or no wife, you must see how the passage ends.
Possibly the little scene plays differently, as thus:
"John, are you feeling any easier now?"
No answer.
"Are you asleep?"
No answer.
"What a pity! I don't want to waken him, and yet the fowl will be
spoilt."
"Is that you back, Marion?"
"Yes, dear; I thought you were asleep."
"No, only thinking."
"You think too much, dear. I have cooked a chicken for you."
"I have no appetite."
"I'm so sorry, but I can give it to the children."
"Oh, as it's cooked, you may as well bring it up."
[Illustration: You are lying there with your eyes shut]
In that case the reason of your change of action is obvious. But why do
you not let your wife know that you have been reading? This is another
matter that you never reason about. Perhaps it is because of your
craving for sympathy, and you fear that if you were seen enjoying a
novel the sympathy would go. Or perhaps it is that a holiday in bed is
never perfect without a secret. Monotony must be guarded against, and so
long as you keep the book to yourself your holiday in bed is a healthy
excitement. A stolen book (as we may call it) is like stolen fruit,
sweeter than what you can devour openly. The boy enjoys his stolen apple
because at any moment he may have to slip it down the leg of his
trousers and pretend that he has merely climbed the tree to enjoy the
scenery. You enjoy your book doubly because you feel that it is a
forbidden pleasure. Or do you conceal your book from your wife lest she
should think you are over-exerting yourself? She must not be made
anxious on your account? Ah, that is it.
People who pretend (for it must be pretence) that they enjoy their
holiday in the country, explain that the hills or the sea give them such
an appetite. I could never myself feel the delight of being able to
manage an extra herring for breakfast, but it should be pointed out that
neither mountains nor oceans give you such an appetite as a holiday in
bed. What makes people eat more anywhere is that they have nothing else
to do, and in bed you have lots of time for meals. As for the quality of
the food supplied, there is no comparison. In the highlands it is ham
and eggs all day till you sicken. At the seaside it is fish till the
bones stick in your mouth. But in bed--oh, there you get something worth
eating. You don't take three big meals a day, but twelve little ones,
and each time it is something different from the last. There are
delicacies for breakfast, for your four luncheons and your five dinners.
You explain to your wife that you have lost your appetite, and she
believes you, but at the same time she has the sense to hurry on your
dinner. At the clatter of dishes (for which you have been lying
listening) you raise your poor head, and say faintly:
"Really, Marion, I can't touch food."
"But this is nothing," she says, "only the wing of a partridge."
You take a side glance at it, and see that there is also the other wing
and the body and two legs. Your alarm thus dispelled, you say:
"I really can't."
"But, dear, it is so beautifully cooked."
"Yes, but I have no appetite."
"But try to take it, John, for my sake."
Then for her sake you say she can leave it on the chair, and perhaps you
will just taste it. As soon as she has gone you devour that partridge,
and when she comes back she has the sense to say:
"Why, you have scarcely eaten anything. What could you take for supper?"
You say you can take nothing, but if she likes she can cook a large
sole, only you won't be able to touch it.
[Illustration: "But try to take it, John, for my sake"]
"Poor dear," she says, "your appetite has completely gone," and then she
rushes to the kitchen to cook the sole with her own hands. In half an
hour she steals into your room with it, and then you (who have been
wondering why she is so long) start up protesting:
"I hope, Marion, this is nothing for me."
"Only the least bit of a sole, dear."
"But I told you I could eat nothing."
"Well, this is nothing, it is so small."
You look again, and see with relief that it is a large sole.
"I would much rather that you took it away."
"But, dear----"
"I tell you I have no appetite."
"Of course I know that; but how can you hope to preserve your strength
if you eat so little? You have had nothing all day."
You glance at her face to see if she is in earnest, for you can remember
three breakfasts, four luncheons and two dinners; but evidently she is
not jesting. Then you yield.
"Oh, well, to keep my health up I may just put a fork into it."
"Do, dear; it will do you good, though you have no caring for it."
Take a holiday in bed, if only to discover what an angel your wife is.
[Illustration: The chances are that he won't understand your case]
There is one thing to guard against. Never call it a holiday. Continue
not to feel sure what is wrong with you, and to talk vaguely of getting
up presently. Your wife will suggest calling in the doctor, but
pooh-pooh him. Be firm on that point. The chances are that he won't
understand your case.
[Illustration]
THE SPY
BY G. A. BIRMINGHAM
_Drawings by_ H. R. MILLAR
_Copyright in the U.S.A. by G. A. Birmingham_
OUR village used to be one of the quietest in England. We prided
ourselves that nothing ever happened there to excite or worry us in any
way. Colonel Challenger, of the Royal Engineers, retired, often
congratulated the vicar, who is upwards of sixty-five years of age, on
the unbroken peace which we enjoyed. The vicar used to remind me, once a
fortnight or so, that we owed our happiness largely to the fact that we
were eight miles from a railway station. When I met Hankly, a retired
Indian judge, in the post office I invariably pointed out to him that
our lot would be much less pleasant if we lived in a neighbourhood where
tennis parties were rife or among people who expected us to turn out in
the evenings after dinner to play cards. Lord Manby, who owns the
village and all the country round it, used to pay a visit to his home
every year and ask us each to lunch with him once. We all accepted these
invitations, but we told each other that they were a horrible nuisance
and a most disagreeable break in the monotony of our lives. I think we
were all quite honest and really believed that we were perfectly happy.
Then Mrs. Clegg C. Mimms rented the Manor House from Lord Manby, and all
peace came to an end for us. She described herself on her visiting cards
as "the Honourable Mrs. Mimms," and that disturbed us to begin with. We
had to meet each other pretty frequently to discuss how she could be the
Honourable Mrs. anything. She was plainly and unmistakably an American,
and the vicar was of opinion that, since there are no titles in the
American Republic, neither Mrs. Mimms nor her late husband could be the
descendant of a lord. Hankly, who has seen a great deal of the world,
told us that American ambassadors are styled the Right Honourable, and
that Mrs. Mimms's husband might have been an ambassador. The Colonel
maintained that ambassadors are like bishops and cannot share their
official titles with their wives, particularly after they are dead. My
own view was that if Mrs. Mimms wanted to be styled "the Honourable" it
would be discourteous to deny her the title.
We had hardly settled down again after deciding this point when Mrs.
Mimms upset us still more seriously. She gave a Christmas Tree to the
village children. At first we thought that this would not matter to any
one except the vicar. We were mistaken about that. Mrs. Mimms made us
all help. The Colonel and I spent a long afternoon on a step-ladder
sticking candles on the branches. Hankly, who is a lean, yellow little
man, was made to dress himself up as "Father Christmas." We got no
dinner on the evening of the party, and very nearly had to dance with
the children afterwards. The presents which Mrs. Mimms distributed to
the children were of the most gorgeous and expensive kind. We all agreed
that she must be enormously rich, and the Colonel said that she would
demoralise the whole village.
She certainly demoralised us. We found ourselves invited to dinner at
the Manor House twice, sometimes three times, a week, and had a standing
invitation to supper every Sunday night. It was no use refusing the
invitations. I tried that twice; but Mrs. Mimms simply came round to my
house in her motor and fetched me. The Colonel complained bitterly. He
has been writing a book on Chhota Nagpur ever since I knew him, and he
said that he hated being interrupted in the evenings. He only dined with
Mrs. Mimms in order to avoid unpleasantness with his wife, who wanted to
go. Hankly said plainly that Mrs. Mimms had a very good cook, and we all
came in the end to accept that as our excuse for dining with her.
It is, I know, scarcely credible, but last Easter she dragged us into
private theatricals. By that time we had agreed that Mrs. Mimms, in
spite of her annoying lack of repose, was a very kind-hearted woman, and
we did not wish to snub her in any way. My own part in the play let me
in for a love scene with Mrs. Challenger, the most grotesquely absurd
thing imaginable, for the lady is sixty at least and enormously fat. I
should never have agreed to do it, however good-hearted Mrs. Mimms might
be, if Hankly had not been cast for the part of an heroic Christian
curate, and I knew he would look even more foolish than I did when I
kissed Mrs. Challenger's left ear. Hankly hated being an heroic
Christian curate and did not do the part at all well. We got through the
theatricals in June, and after that, except for a couple of picnics
every week, we had a comparatively quiet time until the war broke out.
Mrs. Mimms broke out at the same time. All festivities, even picnics,
stopped at once, of course, and we all began to take life very
strenuously. Mrs. Mimms outdid us easily in every form of activity.
She began by erecting a flag-staff at the Manor House gates and hoisting
an enormous American flag on it, the largest American flag I have ever
seen. The Colonel, who had his motor decorated with a French and a
Belgian flag as well as a Union Jack, said that Mrs. Mimms's Stars and
Stripes were, under the circumstances, rather bad form. Hankly and I
agreed with him, and we made the vicar speak to her about it. She
explained to him that she had hoisted it entirely for our good. It was,
so she told the vicar, and he told us, the only flag in the world which
the Germans would respect, and that when the Uhlans entered our village
we could all congregate in perfect safety under its folds. The Colonel
was furious--we were all rather angry--at the idea that the Germans
would ever set foot in England; but there was no denying that Mrs. Mimms
meant to be kind when she hoisted the flag. Besides, she is a difficult
woman to argue with, and we did not quite see how we could make her take
the thing down.
Hankly and I more or less forgave her, though, as it appeared, the
Colonel did not, when she came forward at a meeting summoned by the
vicar and offered to turn the Manor House into a hospital for wounded
soldiers. The generosity of her proposal actually staggered us. She
intended, so she said--and I quite believe it--to turn out all the
existing furniture of the house, fit the place up with the latest
sanitary devices, hire two surgeons and a competent staff of nurses who
should be under her own personal supervision. We at once wired to the
War Office and expected to be thanked gratefully. As a matter of fact we
never got any official acknowledgment of the offer at all. What we did
get--or rather what Mrs. Mimms got--was a letter from Lord Manby's
solicitor pointing out that the agreement under which she had taken the
Manor House did not allow of her getting rid of the furniture or using
the place in any way except as an ordinary dwelling.
I thought that Lord Manby was a little unsympathetic, and that the War
Office might very well have replied to our telegram, but the Colonel
took quite a different line. He said that Mrs. Mimms was an interfering
old woman who deserved to be snubbed. We all hoped that after this
set-back she would be a little subdued and allow us to manage our own
war in our own way.
[Illustration: Charlie the Cox
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by Charles Napier Hemy, R.A._]
For a time she kept tolerably quiet. She contented herself with making
shirts and subscribing to various funds like any ordinary woman. She
was, so my wife told me, an amazingly rapid worker, and could turn out
three shirts while any other woman in the village was making two. Her
subscriptions were very generous. Gradually the whole activities of our
village centred in the Manor House. Mrs. Mimms put up another flag-staff
and flew a large Red Cross from it. Working parties went on in her
dining-room from morning to night, and hardly a day passed without a
committee meeting. The vicar, Colonel Challenger, Hankly, and I were the
committee, and we met whenever Mrs. Mimms summoned us. The vicar was
supposed to preside, but it was Mrs. Mimms who suggested the things we
did. The Colonel objected, in private, to every suggestion she made, but
he never succeeded in carrying a point against her. Once or twice she
got us into trouble. There was, for instance, a lot of ill feeling when
we sealed up the village pump and set my chauffeur to keep guard over it
with a gun, only allowing people to draw water for an hour in the
morning and an hour in the evening. Mrs. Mimms had a theory that a
German might come in an aeroplane and poison our water supply. That
would have been a horrible thing: but the people in the village made a
fuss about not being able to get at the pump. Tompkins, the innkeeper,
who was particularly objectionable, said that he only used the water for
washing and would rather have it poisoned than do without it.
We all began to get rather tired of being rushed into doing things we
didn't want to do; but we were none of us able to withstand Mrs. Mimms.
The Colonel said that we ought to drive her out of the village
altogether, but he never succeeded in suggesting any practical way of
doing it.
Fortunately she got tired of making shirts and holding committee
meetings after about a month. Then she said she was going up to London
to get a few families of Belgian refugees. We were all greatly pleased,
for we felt that her energies might be turned into a channel which would
save us from making fools of ourselves. I saw her off at the station,
and we waited with the greatest curiosity to see what would happen. I
suppose the Belgian Consul felt doubtful about Mrs. Mimms when he met
her. At all events she came back without a single refugee. Most women
would have been a little disappointed at a failure like that, but Mrs.
Mimms was as full of energy as ever. She had, it appeared, called at
several public offices in London and had been immensely impressed by the
Boy Scouts whom she saw waiting about the doors.
[Illustration: We sealed up the village pump and set my chauffeur to
keep guard]
"They're the cutest things I've seen in England," she said, "and their
bare knees are just sweet. I could kiss them all day. I simply must
have a couple to stand on guard while the working parties are going on."
I talked to the vicar, Hankly, and the Colonel about this. I did not see
how we could possibly provide Mrs. Mimms with Boy Scouts, for there were
none in the parish. The vicar said he was sorry that he had not started
the organisation long ago, but supposed it was too late to do so now. To
my surprise the Colonel, who up to that time had been getting angrier
and angrier with Mrs. Mimms, took her side and said that if she wanted
Boy Scouts she ought to have them. He proposed that we should enrol four
choir boys at once, and offered to buy uniforms for them himself. The
vicar was a little doubtful, but Hankly and I backed up the Colonel. We
were very tired of the constant committee meetings, and we hoped that if
Mrs. Mimms got really interested in Boy Scouts she might let us alone.
We acted promptly, and in a week had four boys ready to stand on guard
at the doors of the Manor House.
The Colonel gave them a talking to at their first parade. He impressed
on them the fact that discipline and strict obedience to orders are the
essence of a military manhood. He quoted Tennyson, and made the boys
repeat the lines after him:
"Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why."
He succeeded in inspiring them with a tremendous sense of their own
importance. My idea was that he was trying to prepare them for having
their knees kissed by Mrs. Mimms.
For a time everything went well. The boys got off going to school and
were immensely pleased. Mrs. Mimms fed them with dainties at odd hours
of the day, and always had a basket of apples in the porch from which
they could help themselves. So far as I knew she never attempted to kiss
either their knees or any other part of them. The Colonel kept on
exhorting them. He paid them a visit every morning, and insisted on
their reporting themselves at his house when they went off duty in the
evening.
About a fortnight after the boys first went on guard Mrs. Mimms
complained to the vicar that she had found one of them concealed under
the dining-room table while she was at luncheon. She said that she did
not like the feeling that she might kick a boy every time she stretched
her leg while she was at meals. The vicar, of course, promised to speak
to the boy.
The next day Mrs. Mimms made another complaint. One of the boys had
climbed up by some creepers, and was found by her maid sitting on the
window-sill of a bedroom early in the morning. It was not Mrs. Mimms's
bedroom, but, as she explained, it might have been. She had no
particular objection, so she told the vicar, to a Boy Scout in her
bedroom at any reasonable hour, but she did not want the child to break
his neck.
Then the postmaster gave me a hint that Mrs. Mimms's letters, which were
posted every day by one of the Scouts, showed signs of having been
opened and closed again before they came into his hands. He said that if
this was being done by the Colonel's orders it was all right, but he
thought he ought to tell me about it. I met the vicar in the street
immediately afterwards and said I thought the Scouts were getting out of
hand and ought to be disbanded at once. He agreed with me.
While we were discussing the matter Hankly came up to us and said he
heard that Mrs. Mimms was to be arrested at once as a German spy.
"Tompkins," he said, "is going about the village saying that she ought
to be shot."
Tompkins always blamed Mrs. Mimms for the sealing up of the village
pump, and had never spoken a good word about her since. The vicar was
greatly put out.
"Tut--tut!" he said; "arrested! shot! Nonsense. Mrs. Mimms is a most
estimable lady."
"I'm not so sure about that," said Hankly. "Those boys have been
watching her lately, and there are several things which look
suspicious."
I suppose the vicar and I showed our surprise. Hankly went on to
explain.
"She gives the boys peaches and grapes," he said, "and cakes and
meringues. Now I put it to you--the apples of course I understand. I
might give a boy an apple myself, but I put it to you, vicar, would
anybody give boys like that hothouse grapes and peaches unless--well,
unless there was something to conceal. It's not a natural thing to do."
"Now I come to think of it," said the vicar, "I did meet one of them
yesterday with a peach in his fist."
"There you are," said Hankly triumphantly, "and, anyhow, the police
inspector is coming over to-day to look into the matter."
Mrs. Mimms was not actually arrested. The police inspector--acting on
information received from the Boy Scouts, Tompkins, and indeed almost
every one in the village--made a lot of inquiries about her. He did not
succeed in finding out why she called herself "the Honourable," but the
questions he asked her made her so angry that she packed up her trunks
and left the village at once.
I met the Colonel the day after she left, and told him I was afraid we
should all miss her. The Colonel chuckled in a self-satisfied way.
"I told you we ought to get rid of her," he said, "and we have."
"You don't mean to say you think she was really a spy?" I said.
"She was a good deal worse," said the Colonel; "she was a public
nuisance."
Later on the Colonel took a kindlier view of Mrs. Mimms.
"Only for her," he said to me a week ago, "we shouldn't have had Boy
Scouts here. We have quite a good company now. She did us that much
good, anyhow."
The Colonel did her no more than bare justice. Our Scouts, though they
have caught no more spies, have improved the general tone of the
village. The Colonel is their commanding officer, and, though I do not
say so in public, they have done him a lot of good.
[Illustration
[Illustration]
CHARLIE THE COX
_A LIFE POEM_
BY HALL CAINE
_Painting by_ CHARLES NAPIER HEMY, R.A.
_Drawings by_ ARCH. WEBB
CHARLIE was the cox of our Peel lifeboat. A braver spirit never sailed
the sea.
Years ago, in a terrific gale, a ship from Norway, the _St. George_,
came dead on for the wildest part of our coast, the fierce headland that
lies back of the old Castle rock. The sound signal was fired, and
Charlie and his brave comrades went out to her. She was reeling on the
top of a tremendous sea, and there was no coming near to her side.
It was an awful task to get the crew aboard the lifeboat, but Charlie
saved every soul, and lost not a hand of his own. When the "traveller"
was rigged and the "breeches" were ready, and the crew of the doomed
ship were at the bulwarks waiting to leave her, Charlie sang out over
the clamour of the sea:
"How many are you?"
"Twenty-four," came back as answer.
Then Charlie cried, "I can see only twenty-three."
"The other man is hurt. He's dying. No use saving him," the Norseman
shouted.
"You'll bring the dying man on deck before a soul of you leaves the
ship," cried Charlie.
There was a woman among them, and when the carpenter came scudding down
the rope he had a canvas bag on his back.
"No tools here," shouted Charlie.
"It's the child," said the man.
The captain came next. He had left everything else behind him--his
money, his instruments, his clothes, his ship--but out of his pocket
there peeped the head of a baby's doll.
[Illustration]
It was a thrilling rescue, but to see it in all its splendour you must
have a drop of our Manx blood in you. Our forefathers were from Norway,
our first Norse king was named Gorry. He landed on this island, not far
from this spot. And on that day of the wreck of the _St. George_ his
children's children rescued from the sea the children's children of the
kinsmen he had left at home.
Most of our men had Norse names. One of them was a Gorry, lineal
descendant beyond doubt of the old sea king. The Norwegian Government
felt the touch of great things in this incident. It was not merely that
the bravery of the rescue fired their gratitude. Something called to
them from that deep place where blood answers to the cry of blood. They
sent medals for Charlie and his crew, and the Governor of the island
distributed them inside the roofless walls of the old castle of the
"Black Dog." It was like grasping hands with the past across the space
of a thousand years.
The other day we had another great wind and another brave rescue. The
sun had gone down overnight in a sullen red, very fierce and angry in
his setting, and out of the black north-east the storm had come up while
we slept. In the heavy grey of the dawn the sound-signal fired its
double shot over our little town. A Welsh schooner, which had run in for
shelter during the dark hours, was riding to an anchor in the bay and
flying her ensign for help.
The sea was terrific--a slaty grey, streaked with white foam, like
quartz veins. It was coming over the breakwater in sheets that hid it.
Sometimes it was flying in clouds to the top of the round tower of the
castle. The white sea-fowl were like dark specks darting through it, but
no human ear could hear the cry of their thousand throats in the
thunderous quake of the breakers on the cavernous rocks.
A crowd of men answered the call, and there was no shortness of hands to
man the lifeboat. The big, slow-legged fellows who had been idling on
the quay the day before when the sea was calm were struggling, chafing,
and quarrelling to go out on it now that it was in storm, for the blood
of the old Vikings is in our Manxmen still.
[Illustration]
It was a splendid rescue. The crew of the Welshman were brought ashore.
Then the abandoned schooner rode three hours longer in the gale, and a
hundred men stood and watched her, talking of other winds and other
wrecks, and of Peel boys who were out on the sea. At last the ship
parted her cables and went rolling like a blinded porpoise dead on for
the jagged coast.
Seven men took an open fishing-boat and went after her, and we climbed
the Head to look at them. The wind smote us there like an invisible
wing, sometimes swirling us out of our course, often bringing us to our
knees, and whipping our ears with our hair like rods. Sheets of spray
were coming up to us from below and running along the cliffs like driven
rain. The sun, which had broken in fierce brilliance from a green rent
in the sky, made rainbows in the flying foam.
From the heights we watched the seven men and the open boat. They rose
and fell, appeared and disappeared, but they overtook the Welshman
before she had drifted on to the coast, boarded her with difficulty, let
go another anchor and made her tight. There was nothing else to do, for
she was disabled, and her sails were torn to shreds. The new anchor held
the ship an hour longer, and then there was no help left for her. She
was within a hundred feet of the rocks, and she fell on them with the
groan of a living creature.
The instant her head was down the white lions of the sea leapt over her,
the water swirled through her bulwarks and plunged down her hatch; her
helm was unshipped, her sails were torn from their gaskets, and the
floating home wherein men had sailed and sung and slept and laughed and
jested was a broken wreck in the heavy wallowings of the waves.
When it was over and we were coming back, drenched through and green
with the drift of the sea foam caked thick on our faces, some of us
began to think of Charlie. He had not been there that day. A year or
more ago, in the prime of a splendid manhood, he was stricken by heart
disease. He kept a good heart, nevertheless, and by indomitable will
held on for some time. First a little work, then no work at all, only a
sail now and then if the sea was calm, but of late hardly ever well
enough to take the open air. The old hulk of his poor body had been
anchored deep, but she was parting her cables at last.
[Illustration]
Charlie lay dying while this second rescue was being made. He had not
answered the signal for the lifeboat, but he had heard it in the fierce
light of morning, and they could not keep him in bed. The soul of the
old sea dog leapt to the call, but his ailing body held him down. He
wanted to go out. Wasn't he cox? Had the boat ever gone out without him?
[Illustration]
His house is one of the little places like children's Noah's arks which
dot the line of this hungry shore. He could hear everything and see a
good deal. Often he could hardly keep himself from crying and shouting
aloud. In spirit he was out on the boiling surf, dipping, rising,
stooping, going over, righting again, clambering back, exulting,
glorying, getting nearer the ship, standing off her, rigging the
"traveller," and fetching men aboard in the "breeches." And then away
from the rolling hulk, and sing ho, my lads, and haul through the white
waves for home. But his poor dying body was down on the bed and his face
was sickly scarlet.
Charlie's volcanic soul did not go off to the deep of deeps on the big
breakers and through the wild noises of the storm. He died later. After
the great wind there came a great calm. The air was quiet and full of
the odour of seaweed; banks of seaweed were on the shore, and the broken
schooner was covered with brown wrack, like any rock of the coast; the
sky was round as the inside of a shell, and pale pink like the shadow of
flame; the water was smooth, and land and sea lay like a sleeping child.
In this broad and steady weather our little town was startled by the
double shot again. We went to the windows in surprise, and saw the red
flag over the rocket house, which is the signal for the lifeboat.
Charlie was dead. He had just breathed his last, and his rugged
comrades, who know nothing of poetry, but are poets nevertheless to the
deepest grain of them, had run up the flag mast-high (not half-mast) as
signal to the Great Cox of all that here was a soul in the troubled
waters of death waiting for the everlasting lifeboat to bear him to the
eternal shore.
[Illustration]
The sea takes some of our bravest and best. Charlie it did not take. Not
so sure is it that he who lives by the sword will perish by the sword,
as that he who baulks the sea the sea will surely have for its prey.
Charlie had battled with the giant time and again, but he has gone to
sleep on the land.
We buried him to-day in the little cemetery looking on to the grey water
that was more than half his element. The funeral was beautiful in its
old simplicity. First a hymn at the door of the house in the little
alley by the beach, "Safe in the arms of Jesus," with the coffin on the
ground and all standing round; the sea quiet, hardly a breeze as soft as
human breath moving its tranquil surface; the deadly rival in its
everlasting coming and going making no triumphant clamour now the
sea-warrior was down. Then the companions of his dangers, the crew of
his boat, a group of stalwart fellows who have never known what it is to
be afraid, carrying him up the hill, shoulder high, each in his red
stocking cap and his life-belt, emblems of how they had fought the sea
and beaten it.
There were some of us whose eyes were wet, but if these brave boys wept
at all, it was only for the helpless little ones left behind. For
Charlie they did not weep. His spirit is not dead for them--it cannot
die. When brave deeds have to be done, they will see its light, like a
beacon that does not fail, over the mountains of the fiercest storm;
they will hear its voice above the thunder of the loudest waves.
A full moon is shining to-night on the place of Charlie's rest, and if
the old Norse story is true, that while the body lies in sight of the
sea the spirit lives in the winds above it, Charlie is not done with his
old enemy yet. He will come back to this sea-bound land in warning
whispers of the mighty and mysterious power that lures men to itself.
[Illustration
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CANADA'S WORD
BY RALPH CONNOR
_Drawings by_ A. J. GOUGH
O CANADA! A voice calls through the mist and spume
Across the wide wet salty leagues of foam
For aid. Whose voice thus penetrates thy peace?
Whose? Thy Mother's, Canada, thy Mother's voice.
O Canada! A drum beats through the night and day,
Unresting, eager, strident, summoning
To arms. Whose drum thus throbs persistent?
Whose? Old England's, Canada, Old England's drum.
O Canada! A sword gleams, leaping swift to strike
At foes that press and leap to kill brave men
On guard. Whose sword thus gleams fierce death?
Whose? 'Tis Britain's, Canada, Great Britain's sword.
O Canada! A prayer beats hard at Heaven's gate,
Tearing the heart wide open to God's eye,
For righteousness. Whose prayer thus pierces Heaven?
Whose? 'Tis God's prayer, Canada, Thy Kingdom come!
O Canada! What answer make to calling voice and beating drum,
To sword flash and to pleading prayer of God
For right? What answer makes my soul?
"Mother, to thee! God, to Thy help! Quick! My sword!"
[Illustration
[Illustration]
BIMBASHI JOYCE
BY A. CONAN DOYLE
_Painting and Drawings by_ R. TALBOT KELLY, R.I.
[Illustration]
IT was in the days when the tide of Mahdism, which had swept in such a
flood from the Great Lakes and Darfur to the confines of Egypt, had at
last come to its full, and even begun, as some hoped, to show signs of a
turn. At its outset it had been terrible. It had engulfed Hicks's army,
swept over Gordon and Khartoum, rolled behind the British forces as they
retired down the river, and finally cast up a spray of raiding parties
as far north as Assouan. Then it found other channels to east and west,
to Central Africa and to Abyssinia, and retired a little on the side of
Egypt. For ten years there ensued a lull, during which the frontier
garrisons looked out upon those distant blue hills of Dongola. Behind
the violet mists which draped them lay a land of blood and horror. From
time to time some adventurer went south towards those haze-girt
mountains, tempted by stories of gum and ivory, but none ever returned.
Once a mutilated Egyptian and once a Greek woman, mad with thirst and
fear, made their way to the lines. They were the only exports of that
country of darkness. Sometimes the sunset would turn those distant mists
into a bank of crimson, and the dark mountains would rise from that
sinister reek like islands in a sea of blood. It seemed a grim symbol in
the southern heaven when seen from the fort-capped hills by Wady Halfa.
Ten years of lust in Khartoum, ten years of silent work in Cairo, and
then all was ready, and it was time for Civilisation to take a trip
south once more, travelling as her wont is in an armoured train.
Everything was ready, down to the last pack-saddle of the last camel,
and yet no one suspected it, for an unconstitutional Government has its
advantage. A great administrator had argued, and managed, and cajoled; a
great soldier had organised and planned, and made piastres do the work
of pounds. And then one night these two master spirits met and clasped
hands, and the soldier vanished away upon some business of his own. And
just at that very time, Bimbashi Hilary Joyce, seconded from the Royal
Mallow Fusiliers, and temporarily attached to the Ninth Soudanese, made
his first appearance in Cairo.
Napoleon had said, and Hilary Joyce had noted, that great reputations
are only to be made in the East. Here he was in the East with four tin
cases of baggage, a Wilkinson sword, a Bond's slug-throwing pistol, and
a copy of "Green's Introduction to the Study of Arabic." With such a
start, and the blood of youth running hot in his veins, everything
seemed easy. He was a little frightened of the general; he had heard
stories of his sternness to young officers, but with tact and suavity he
hoped for the best. So, leaving his effects at "Shepherd's Hotel," he
reported himself at headquarters. It was not the general, but the head
of the Intelligence Department who received him, the chief being still
absent upon that business which had called him. Hilary Joyce found
himself in the presence of a short, thick-set officer, with a gentle
voice and a placid expression which covered a remarkably acute and
energetic spirit. With that quiet smile and guileless manner he had
undercut and outwitted the most cunning of Orientals. He stood, a
cigarette between his fingers, looking at the newcomer. "I heard that
you had come. Sorry the chief isn't here to see you. Gone up to the
frontier, you know."
"My regiment is at Wady Halfa. I suppose, sir, that I should report
myself there at once?"
"No; I was to give you your orders." He led the way to a map upon the
wall, and pointed with the end of his cigarette. "You see this place.
It's the Oasis of Kurkur--a little quiet, I am afraid, but excellent
air. You are to get out there as quick as possible. You'll find a
company of the Ninth, and half a squadron of cavalry. You will be in
command."
Hilary Joyce looked at the name, printed at the intersection of two
black lines without another dot upon the map for several inches around
it. "A village, sir?"
"No, a well. Not very good water, I'm afraid, but you soon get
accustomed to natron. It's an important post, as being at the junction
of two caravan routes. All routes are closed now, of course, but still
you never know who _might_ come along them."
"We are there, I presume, to prevent raiding?"
[Illustration]
"Well, between you and me, there's really nothing to raid. You are there
to intercept messengers. They must call at the wells. Of course you have
only just come out, but you probably understand already enough about the
conditions of this country to know that there is a great deal of
disaffection about, and that the Khalifa is likely to try and keep in
touch with his adherents. Then, again, Senoussi lives up that way"--he
waved his cigarette to the westward--"the Khalifa might send a messenger
to him along that route. Anyhow, your duty is to arrest every one coming
along, and get some account of him before you let him go. You don't talk
Arabic, I suppose?"
"I am learning, sir."
"Well, well, you'll have time enough to study there. And you'll have a
native officer, Ali something or other, who speaks English, and can
interpret for you. Well, good-bye--I'll tell the chief that you reported
yourself. Get on to your post now as quickly as you can."
[Illustration]