past hour came back to me, and I had to close my eyes again, for I felt
sick and giddy with the sheer memory of it all.
But presently I felt stronger and looked around me again. Jean and Andre
were squatting in a corner close by, gazing wide-eyed at the group of
men in filthy, ragged clothing who sat round a deal table in the centre
of a small, ill-furnished room.
Maman was lying on a horse-hair sofa at the other end of the room, with
Marguerite beside her, and papa sat in a low chair by her side holding
her hand.
The voice I loved was speaking in its quaint, somewhat drawly cadence:
"You are quite safe now, my dear Monsieur Lemercier," it said. "After
Madame and the young people have had a rest some of my friends will find
you suitable disguises, and they will escort you out of Paris, as they
have some really genuine passports in their possession, which we obtain
from time to time through the agency of a personage highly placed in
this murdering Government, and with the help of English banknotes. Those
passports are not always unchallenged, I must confess," added my hero,
with a quaint laugh, "but to-night every one is busy murdering in one
part of Paris, so the other parts are comparatively safe."
Then he turned to one of his friends and spoke to him in English:
"You had better see this through, Tony," he said, "with Hastings and
Mackenzie. Three of you will be enough: I shall have need of the
others."
No one seemed to question his orders. He had spoken and the others made
ready to obey. Just then papa spoke up:
"How are we going to thank you, sir?" he asked, speaking broken English,
but with his habitual dignity of manner.
"By leaving your welfare in our hands, Monsieur," replied our gallant
rescuer quietly.
Papa tried to speak again, but the Englishman put up his hand to stop
any further talk.
"There is no time now, Monsieur," he said, with gentle courtesy. "I must
leave you, as I have much work yet to do."
"Where are you going, Blakeney?" asked one of the others.
"Back to the Abbaye prison," he said; "there are other women and
children to be rescued there!"
[Illustration
[Illustration]
WHAT CAN A LITTLE CHAP DO?
BY JOHN OXENHAM
_Painting by_ EUGENE HASTAIN _and Drawings by GORDON BROWNE, R.I._
_WHAT can a little chap do
For his country and for you?
What_ CAN _a little chap do?_
He can fight like a Knight
For the Truth and the Right--
_That's one good thing he can do._
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
"He can march in the queue
Of the Good and the Great,
Who battled with fate
And won through."
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by Eugene Hastain_]
[Illustration]
He can shun all that's mean,
He can keep himself clean,
Both without and within--
_That's another good thing he can do_.
His soul he can brace
Against everything base,
And the trace will be seen
All his life in his face--
_That's a very fine thing he can do_.
He can look to the Light,
He can keep his thought white,
He can fight the great fight,
He can do with his might
What is good in God's sight--
_Those are excellent things he can do_.
[Illustration]
Though his years be but few,
He can march in the queue
Of the Good and the Great,
Who battled with fate
And won through--
_That's a wonderful thing he can do_.
And--in each little thing
He can follow The King.
Yes--in each smallest thing
He can follow The King--
He can follow The Christ, The King.
[Illustration
[Illustration]
ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT
BY W. PETT RIDGE
_Painting by_ M. E. GRAY _and Drawings by_ LEWIS BAUMER
I KNEW a child who----
Some friends of mine have a daughter, and she----
Not very many years ago, I remember hearing----
Once upon a time--that is the proper way to begin this story--once upon
a time there was a little girl, of about the usual age, who lived near
to St. John's Wood Road Station, handy to Lord's cricket ground, and not
far from the Zoological Gardens. You would think that any one who, in
the summer, could look out of her window and see Mr. P. F. Warner
batting, and in the winter was able to go any afternoon she liked, to
watch the lions and tigers take high tea at four, ought to have been as
happy as the days were long; cheerful even when the days were short. Yet
she was not entirely satisfied; it may be said that her one failing was
a spirit of discontent. When grown-ups are discontented, it is called
ambition; but that is another matter.
On a certain Tuesday evening in November it happened that she felt quite
pleased with the world until about seven o'clock. Seven in the evening
was the hour that frequently made her peevish.
Nurse left her alone for a minute to see if everything was ready
upstairs, and in that minute the little girl jumped on a chair and moved
back the long hand. She was reading her picture-book with great interest
when nurse returned.
[Illustration]
"Bless my soul!" cried nurse. "Quite thought it wanted ten to seven, and
here it is only ten past six. I shall find myself in Colney Hatch before
I'm much older."
The little girl wanted to assure Nanna there was no good reason to
assume that mental decay had set in, but she did not do this at once,
and afterwards it seemed too late. So nurse was allowed to chat on, and
tell her very best story about the time when she was a child, and a good
one at that, and when the clock, having been compelled to go over the
ground twice, again gave the time as ten to seven, nurse said,
"Now my dearie!"
Upstairs, the little girl devoted a few minutes to instructing her dolly
in the art of going off nicely to bye-byes.
She was left alone, with just a mere star of gas-light for company
shining above the dressing-table, and at the moment when she was about
to go to sleep conscience woke up. Conscience became wide-awake.
Conscience insisted upon talking, and the little girl had to listen. She
was aware it is useless to cry when one is by oneself with nobody
looking on; not only useless but wasteful, because you may want those
tears on more important and more public occasions. So the little girl
did not weep, but, oh! she felt troubled. She did feel troubled.
"A silly, stupid world!" she cried aloud. "It ought--it ought to be
changed. I'd very much love it to be altogether different."
A knock at her door, and she answered, "Please come in, Nanna!" Not
nurse. Certainly the tall lady with diamonds sparkling in her hair, and
a white chiffon kind of costume, and a long silver stick in the right
hand, was as unlike nurse as any one could be. The little girl said,
"Oh, I beg pardon!" in her politest manner.
"It is for me to beg yours," answered the tall lady with severity. "I am
exceedingly sorry to disturb you."
"Pray don't mention it."
"I wish to mention it," insisted the lady. "I claim the right to mention
it. I decline to allow any one to dictate to me what I shall or what I
shall not mention. I am a good fairy."
The little girl opened her mouth with surprise.
"A good fairy, and I am here to do you a favour. When a good fairy
wishes to do a favour, it is only necessary for a wish to be expressed,
and----"
[Illustration: "Bless my soul!" cried nurse]
"Thank you," said the child nervously, "but really I would so much
rather you did not take the trouble."
"The trouble," replied the good fairy, striking the floor with her
silver stick in an impatient way, "is no concern of yours. You mustn't
haggle."
"I don't know what that means," declared the other earnestly, "and if I
did, I wouldn't do it, ma'am, I wouldn't really. Good evening, and, of
course, thank you ever so much for calling."
"Dress!" ordered the good fairy.
On the instant something happened which the little girl had often
thought about; more than once she had talked it over with nurse. She
found herself, in the space of less time than it takes to click your
finger and thumb, fully and completely costumed, boots laced up, hair
taken out of curlers and properly brushed, hat set at the correct angle,
parasol in hand, gloves buttoned, and everything ready for a walk out of
doors. She gave a cry of delight and astonishment.
"I am about to give you the great treat of your life," said the fairy,
"something that no one has ever yet experienced, something that will
give you a subject to talk about for the rest of your days. Nobody will
believe you, but that must be endured. You are about to see the world as
nobody else has seen it. And if you ask me why you have been selected
for this high and special honour----"
"Please, I don't!"
"My answer is," taking no notice of the interruption, "that you are
receiving the award for your wonderful discovery."
"But I have discovered nothing."
"Nothing!" echoed the lady, with amazement. "You call it nothing to have
found out the secret that has puzzled clever people for thousands and
thousands of years? How often folk have said, 'If only I could live some
part of my life over again!' and they never have been able to do it.
You, child, were the first."
The staircase had always gone straight down until it neared the next
landing, where it took a slight curve; now it was all curves and had
nothing about it that could be called straight. It went up, it went
down, it went to the left, it went to the right, so that wherever you
put your foot expecting to find a step, you did not find it, and
wherever you put your foot expecting to find nothing, you hurt your
toes.
"This is very strange, ma'am!"
"That," replied the other, "should be its great attraction. Don't lag.
We shall get to the end of the staircase in less than ten minutes."
Going out of the street doorway proved one of the most difficult tasks.
The fairy did not seem to mind, but the child found it extremely odd
that when you pulled at the door it opened outwards, and that when you
pushed at it it came in. The iron gate which led to the pavement had
another form of behaviour. Determined not to be bothered here, she gave
a touch with her boot, and instantly the iron gate offered her boot a
pinch; she placed her hand upon it and the gate gripped it, much in the
way that Uncle Henry did when he said "How do you do?" She put her back
against it, and the iron gate gave her a clutch around the waist, and
said, in rasping tones, as it waltzed to the pavement,
"Do you reverse?"
It was then that she perceived the fairy had left her.
[Illustration]
A pavement is expected to behave in a calm and demure manner; even when
it takes you up-hill it does this in the gentlest way. But this
pavement, so soon as the little girl set foot upon it, at once changed
to something like a switchback, and a switchback, mark you, she enjoyed
when seated on a trolley at Shepherd's Bush Exhibitions; it was less
agreeable to try to walk up and down the uneven parts here. Other people
did not seem to experience her difficulties, and this she failed to
understand until she observed that they went along on their hands and
toes, pretending to have four legs; she tried the same method and found
it made her back ache; discovered, too, that she could not see so much
as when walking in the old way. Thus it was that she had reached the end
of the road, where a steep ascent occurred that was like the side of a
mountain, ere she noticed something strange and peculiar about the
houses.
"How very foolish of them to build in that way!" she cried. "They must
be out of their senses."
[Illustration]
It was the more eccentric in that her own house so far as she had
observed had not changed; thinking it over, though, she could not be
quite sure. Here at any rate was every house upside down with the front
door right away at the top, Virginia creepers growing downwards; at one
house the painters were seeing to the front and their ladders came from
the roof (which was the basement) nearly to the basement (which was the
roof). A neat lawn hung out over the top of each house; it made her feel
giddy to think of the risks of playing croquet there; she could not see
how one would be able to make even the first hoop.
Other things claimed her attention.
There were carts with horses pushing them--she had often heard her
father reprove her eldest brother for doing this in argument--the horses
stood upright and wore silk hats in a rakish sort of way, sometimes
lifting these on meeting another horse and taking cigars out of mouths.
She spoke to a constable, who wore a helmet on each hand, and put an
urgent inquiry.
"Miaow!" said the policeman.
"You didn't quite understand," remarked the little girl patiently. "I
asked you if you would kindly tell me the way to get home to Wellington
Road."
"Ba, ba!"
"Do please listen to me," she begged, "and tell me what I want to know.
I think I've lost my way, and I'm so afraid that I'm going to cry."
"Moo--oo!" said the constable.
[Illustration: Instructing her dolly in the art of going off nicely to
by-byes.
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by M. E. Gray_]
"Please, please," she cried, "please don't be silly. Why do you keep
making noises like that instead of giving me a proper answer?"
"Missy," he explained, "I'm a comic policeman. I'm not here to tell folk
the way or to lock them up, or anything of that kind; I'm here to make
people laugh."
"You are not amusing me!"
"Not when I make a noise like a dog?" he asked, with surprise. "Why,
that nearly always sends people into a good temper. You wait till I give
you my imitation of a railway engine. Hark!"
He set his teeth together and began to say "Isha--isha--isha," but the
little girl turned away. She felt so indignant that she determined to
tell her father about it at the very first opportunity, and see whether
something could not be done. More than once her father had helped to
straighten out tangled matters by simply writing a letter to the
newspapers, and signing himself "An Indignant Ratepayer."
[Illustration]
And at the very moment along came her father. He, too, walked on all
fours as other people did, and the little girl thought it caused him to
look particularly undignified, but she did not trouble about this, for,
stout as he was, she was really glad to see him.
"How do you do," he said respectfully. "Can you give me a penny to buy
some sweeties?"
"Daddie, dear!" she cried with distress. "Don't you begin to be funny,
please."
"I'm not," he said.
"But you are my parent, you know."
"Yes," he sighed, "I'm aware of that. But under the new rules--you must
have heard all about them--under the new rules parents have to be
obedient to their children, and do everything their children tell them
to do."
"Not a bad idea," decided the little girl, after giving it
consideration. "I think if you don't mind I will get you to come along
now to Finchley Road and buy for me the mechanical rocking-horse that
has been talked about for some time."
"Under the old arrangement," he replied readily, "I should have been
only too pleased, but the new rules say that children must buy presents
for their father and mother."
"How can we," getting rather cross, "how in the world can we when we
have no money?"
"I think," he said, "that it is expected you should go to work and earn
some."
"Never heard such nonsense in the whole course of my life," she
declared, using a grown-up remark. "It's perfect rubbish. Do you mean to
say that I shall have to go to concerts and sing as mamma does?"
"That's the idea, I believe."
"But I can't sing. I can't sing nearly well enough to earn money."
"Well," said her father, after considering the matter, "what about going
out as charwoman? You'd get two shillings a day and your lunch."
She stood there for a few minutes, not daring to speak, and overcome
with cares and responsibilities. Some one touched her on the shoulder,
and she looked up.
"Good fairy!" she cried.
"Do you like the altogether different you asked for?"
"No," she answered, "I don't like it at all. I wish now I hadn't put
back the hands of the clock."
"You mean to say that that was how you did it? You dare to tell me it
was nothing cleverer than that? Now, just to punish you," said the
fairy, speaking with stern decision, "I shall send you away to the old
sort of world, and you'll simply have to make the best of it."
* * * * *
The bedroom door opened, and nurse came in. The little girl, snuggling
down into her warm, comfortable bed, kept her eyes shut.
"Bless her!" said nurse to herself. "Sleeping as sound as a top. That's
what comes of having nothing on your mind to worry you!"
[Illustration
THE ESCAPE
_A GIRL'S STORY FROM GALLANT BELGIUM_
BY ANNIE S. SWAN
_Drawings by_ HAROLD EARNSHAW
Not a sound broke the exquisite hush of the early morning.
[Illustration]
The old courtyard, with its tiled pavement, its cool fountain, and its
cooing doves, the dog asleep in the sunshine, made a picture of perfect
peace.
The house, once the Chateau of a great family that had fallen on evil
days, was grey and old, and beautiful still, though now merely _une
pension de demoiselles_.
It was August, when, as a rule, all the merry throng had scattered from
the Chateau to their respective homes, leaving it to its former dignity
and quiet. Mademoiselle usually went to England, perhaps seeking fresh
pupils, or to enjoy the sea breezes on the Normandy coast.
La Royat, in the village of Coutane, was inland from the sea, about
fifteen miles from Brussels. It was a sweet spot, beloved of the
understanding traveller, and many came to look at the fine old church,
whose spire and windows were among the treasures known to lovers of the
beautiful all over the world. Mademoiselle Ledru had nothing to complain
of in her lot, with which she had been hitherto content. Success had
flowed in upon her earnest efforts, though looking at her anxious face
that summer morning one would have thought her oppressed by care. She
was an elderly woman now, with the remains of beauty still on her face.
The place where she stood that morning, before her household was astir,
was certainly unusual, being the square tower of the Chateau, from whose
low ramparts she was sweeping the horizon with a powerful glass. It was
all very peaceful and beautiful, a wide rolling plateau, with fields
white to harvest, not a hint of approaching desolation on its smiling
face.
It was very early, hardly an hour past daybreak, but already some of the
thrifty peasants were busy in the fields. Far away on the red horizon
there was a slight haze, regarding which Mademoiselle seemed more than a
little curious. Again and again she focused her glass, until confident
that the haze was not altogether stationary, but moved and broke and
thickened again. Then with a sickening apprehension at her heart, she
turned and fled down the stairs and went to open the big door of the
Chateau. Jules, the fat and sleepy porter, was undoing the bolts as she
got down.
[Illustration]
"Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Some one is at the gate, an early visitor." He
chuckled as he undid the last bolt, and threw wide the door. When he
would have hobbled across the courtyard to open the gate his mistress
was before him. When she undid the bolts the Cure, bareheaded, stood
before her.
"Ah, Mademoiselle, it is bad news," he said in a firm voice, though his
face was tense with apprehension. "They come, the barbarians. I have
information, now it behoves us to consult what we will do."
Mademoiselle whitened to the lips, and drew him in and shut the door.
She signed to Jules to depart, but the Cure intervened.
"Let him stay. It will save a twice-told tale. I have certain news that
they are not more than a couple of hours' march away, and for sure they
will come this way to Brussels. What shall we do?"
"I will remain at my post," answered Julie Ledru firmly. "I have no fear
for myself, but my charges, Father--Rosalie and Biddy, with whom their
English parents have trusted me. My spirit fails! What must we do with
them?"
"It will not be safe to leave them here, Mademoiselle, nor even for you
to stay. We will take you to the crypt of the church, where, with a
little food and drink, you will be safe until they have passed through.
We have no treasure here in Coutane, and are simple folk. Perhaps we
shall be beneath their notice."
Julie Ledru clasped her hands in an ecstasy of apprehension. They had
been without newspapers for four days, but chance travellers from the
East had brought strange and appalling tales of the invaders' desolating
march. They told of ruined villages and burning homes, and helpless
people mercilessly shot down in places as simple and as unimportant as
Coutane. Julie Ledru looked round her little domain with a kind of sad
pride. It did not contain many treasures, it is true, but it was her
home, enshrined by many sweet memories. It contained her all.
"Now, Father?" she asked feverishly. "Do you think we should come now?"
"Without a moment's delay," he answered. "Go and get your charges roused
and bring all with you; a little food also in a basket, lest you have to
stop there several days."
[Illustration: Fleur-de-Lis
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by Carlton A. Smith, R.I._]
"You will be with us, Father?" said Julie anxiously.
He shook his head.
"My place is in the open street with such of my people as feel strong
and brave in their innocence and faith. But you have English charges. If
it was known, Mademoiselle, believe me, nothing would save them or you.
Their fury against the English is so great."
"Shall we take Jules? Besides him, there is only our faithful Babette."
Before the Cure could reply Jules intervened, scratching his old grey
head.
"I hide not from them, Mademoiselle; I will stay and guard the Chateau
and keep them out, if I can, barbarians that they are, making war on
women and children."
"They will shoot you, Jules, if you are so foolish," his mistress
reminded him. His answer was a shrug of the shoulders.
"A man dies but once--that is to say, a good man, who has faith in God
and does his duty."
So saying, Jules went back to take up his waiting duty.
The Cure departed the way he had come, and Julie Ledru, with a feeling
of strange calm upon her, hurried indoors to make her few simple
preparations. Babette, the elderly servant, one of the best of the old
Brabant type, was cool and ready for any emergency, and in an incredibly
short time they had packed some food and a few necessaries in two
considerable baskets. Then Mademoiselle Ledru essayed the task she
dreaded--that of awaking her two young charges, and preparing them for
the ordeal through which they had to pass.
They were still asleep, in two beds side by side, in one of the
pleasantest rooms of the Chateau. Rosalie Bentham, fair and rosy, like
an English flower, her golden hair lying on her pillow like an aureole,
and Biddy Connaught, the dark-eyed Irish girl, whose long black lashes
swept her cheek, while her dimpled chin was in her open palm, as she
smiled over some passing imagery of her dream. Something caught Julie
Ledru's throat as she regarded these two pictures of innocence and
beauty, and reflected on the greatness of her charge. Both were only
children, entrusted to her care in the holidays, because their parents,
both in the exercise of duty, could not take them home. But with a
strong effort she controlled herself and awakened them gently. It was a
process of some length, because the sleep of youth is sound and deep,
but at last they were sitting up, drinking in her news.
"We have to run away and hide in the crypt until the Germans have
marched through the village. Do you hear, Biddy?" called Rosalie, as
she sprang from her bed and began to get into her clothes. "But how
ripping! What lots we shall all have to write about and to tell them
when we get home!"
Julie Ledru faintly, tremulously, smiled, and with her own hands she
assisted them to make a hasty toilet. Some coffee was ready for them
downstairs, for Babette was a methodical person, not easily upset. Thus
fortified, they left the Chateau presently, leaving Babette and Jules in
charge. Babette made the same excuse--some one must stay to guard the
place, and surely when they found nobody but two simple old servants
they would pass on.