_THE DAYS OF CHILDHOOD_
Romantic Journeys from Lea Hurst to Embley Park--George Eliot
Associations--First Patient--Love of Animals and Flowers--Early
Education.
The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day.
MILTON.
There is a lesson in each flower;
A story in each stream and bower;
On every herb o’er which you tread
Are written words which, rightly read,
Will lead you from earth’s fragrant sod,
To hope and holiness and God.
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
The childhood of Florence Nightingale, begun, as we have seen, in
the sunny land of Italy, was subsequently passed in the beautiful
surroundings of her Derbyshire home, and at Embley Park, Hampshire,
a fine old Elizabethan mansion, which Mr. Nightingale purchased when
Florence was about six years old.
The custom was for the family to pass the summer at Lea Hurst, going
in the autumn to Embley for the winter and early spring. And what an
exciting and delightful time Florence and her sister Parthe had on
the occasions of these alternative “flittings” between Derbyshire
and Hampshire in the days before railroads had destroyed the romance
of travelling! Then the now quiet little town of Cromford, two miles
from Lea Hurst, was a busy coaching centre, and the stage coaches
also stopped for passengers at the village inn of Whatstandwell, just
below Lea Hurst Park. In those times the Derby road was alive with the
pleasurable excitements of the prancing of horses, the crack of the
coach-driver’s whip, the shouts of the post-boys, and the sound of the
horn--certainly more inspiring and romantic sights and sounds than the
present toot-toot of the motor-car, and the billows of dust-clouds
which follow in its rear.
Sometimes the journey from Lea Hurst was made by coach, but more
frequently Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale with their two little girls drove
in their own carriage, proceeding by easy stages and putting up at inns
_en route_, while the servants went before with the luggage to prepare
Embley for the reception of the family.
How glorious it was in those bright October days to drive through the
country, just assuming its dress of red and gold, or again in the
return journey in the spring, when the hills and dales of Derbyshire
were bursting into fresh green beauty. The passionate love for nature
and the sights and sounds of rural life which has always characterised
Miss Nightingale was implanted in these happy days of childhood. And
so, too, were the homely wit and piquant sayings which distinguish her
writings and mark her more intimate conversation. She acquired them
unconsciously, as she encountered the country people.
In her Derbyshire home she lived in touch with the life which at the
same period was weaving its spell about Marian Evans, when she visited
her kinspeople, and was destined to be immortalised in _Adam Bede_
and _The Mill on the Floss_. Amongst her father’s tenants Florence
Nightingale knew farmers’ wives who had a touch of Mrs. Poyser’s
caustic wit, and was familiar with the “Yea” and “Nay” and other quaint
forms of Derbyshire speech, such as Mr. Tulliver used when he talked
to “the little wench” in the house-place of the ill-fated Mill on the
Floss. She met, too, many of “the people called Methodists,” who in
her girlhood were establishing their preaching-places in the country
around Lea Hurst, and she heard of the fame of the woman preacher,
then exercising her marvellous gifts in the Derby district, who was
to become immortal as Dinah Morris. In Florence Nightingale’s early
womanhood, Adam Bede lived in his thatched cottage by Wirksworth Tape
Mills, a few miles from Lea Hurst, and the Poysers’ farm stood across
the meadows.
The childhood of our heroine was passed amid surroundings which
proved a singularly interesting environment. Steam power had not then
revolutionised rural England: the counties retained their distinctive
speech and customs, the young people remained on the soil where they
were born, and the rich and the poor were thrown more intimately
together. The effect of the greater personal intercourse then existing
between the squire’s family and his people had an important influence
on the character of Florence Nightingale in her Derbyshire and
Hampshire homes. She learned sympathy with the poor and afflicted,
and gained an understanding of the workings and prejudices of the
uneducated mind, which enabled her in after years to be a real friend
to those poor fellows fresh from the battlefields of the Crimea, many
of whom had enlisted from the class of rural homes which she knew so
well.
When quite a child, Florence Nightingale showed characteristics
which pointed to her vocation in life. Her dolls were always in a
delicate state of health and required the utmost care. Florence would
undress and put them to bed with many cautions to her sister not to
disturb them. She soothed their pillows, tempted them with imaginary
delicacies from toy cups and plates, and nursed them to convalescence,
only to consign them to a sick bed the next day. Happily, Parthe did
not exhibit the same tender consideration for her waxen favourites,
who frequently suffered the loss of a limb or got burnt at the nursery
fire. Then of course Florence’s superior skill was needed, and she
neatly bandaged poor dolly and “set” her arms and legs with a facility
which might be the envy of the modern miraculous bone-setter.
The first “real live patient” of the future Queen of Nurses was Cap,
the dog of an old Scotch shepherd, and although the story has been many
times repeated since Florence Nightingale’s name became a household
word, no account of her childhood would be complete without it. One day
Florence was having a delightful ride over the Hampshire downs near
Embley along with the vicar, for whom she had a warm affection. He took
great interest in the little girl’s fondness for anything which had to
do with the relief of the sick or injured, and as his own tastes lay
in that direction, he was able to give her much useful instruction.
However, on this particular day, as they rode along the downs, they
noticed the sheep scattered in all directions and old Roger, the
shepherd, vainly trying to collect them together.
“Where is your dog?” asked the vicar as he drew up his horse and
watched the old man’s futile efforts.
“The boys have been throwing stones at him, sir,” was the reply, “and
they have broken his leg, poor beast. He will never be any good for
anything again and I am thinking of putting an end to his misery.”
“Poor Cap’s leg broken?” said a girlish voice at the clergyman’s side.
“Oh, cannot we do something for him, Roger? It is cruel to leave him
alone in his pain. Where is he?”
“You can’t do any good, missy,” said the old shepherd sorrowfully.
“I’ll just take a cord to him to-night--that will be the best way to
ease his pain. I left him lying in the shed over yonder.”
“Oh, can’t we do something for poor Cap?” pleaded Florence to her
friend; and the vicar, seeing the look of pity in her young face,
turned his horse’s head towards the distant shed where the dog lay.
But Florence put her pony to the gallop and reached the shed first.
Kneeling down on the mud floor, she caressed the suffering dog with her
little hand, and spoke soothing words to it until the faithful brown
eyes seemed to have less of pain in them and were lifted to her face in
pathetic gratitude.
That look of the shepherd’s dog, which touched her girlish heart on
the lonely hillside, Florence Nightingale was destined to see repeated
in the eyes of suffering men as she bent over them in the hospital at
Scutari.
The vicar soon joined his young companion, and finding that the dog’s
leg was only injured, not broken, he decided that a little careful
nursing would put him all right again.
“What shall I do first?” asked Florence, all eagerness to begin nursing
in real earnest.
“Well,” said her friend, “I should advise a hot compress on Cap’s leg.”
Florence looked puzzled, for though she had poulticed and bandaged her
dolls, she had never heard about a compress. However, finding that
in plain language it meant cloths wrung out of boiling water, and
laid upon the affected part, she set nimbly to work under the vicar’s
directions. Boiling water was the first requisite, and calling in the
services of the shepherd’s boy, she lighted a fire of sticks in the
cottage near by, and soon had the kettle boiling.
Next thing, she looked round for cloths to make the compress. The
shepherd’s clean smock hung behind the door, and Florence seized it
with delight, for it was the very thing.
“If I tear it up, mamma will give Roger another,” she reasoned, and,
at an approving nod from the vicar, tore the smock into suitable
lengths for fomentation. Then going back to the place where the dog
lay, accompanied by the boy carrying the kettle and a basin, Florence
Nightingale set to work to give “first aid to the wounded.” Cap offered
no resistance--he had a wise confidence in his nurse--and as she
applied the fomentations the swelling began to go down, and the pain
grew less.
Florence was resolved to do her work thoroughly, and a messenger having
been despatched to allay her parents’ anxiety at her prolonged absence,
she remained for several hours in attendance on her patient.
In the evening old Roger came slowly and sorrowfully towards the shed,
carrying the fatal rope, but no sooner did he put his head in at the
door than Cap greeted him with a whine of pleasure and tried to come
towards him.
“Deary me, missy,” said the old shepherd in astonishment, “why, you
have been doing wonders. I never thought to see the poor dog greet me
again.”
“Yes, doesn’t he look better?” said the youthful nurse with pardonable
pride. “You can throw away that rope now, and help me to make
compresses.”
“That I will, missy,” said Roger, and stooping down beside Florence and
Cap, he was initiated into the mysteries.
“Yes,” said the vicar, “Miss Florence is quite right, Roger--your dog
will soon be able to walk again if you give it a little rest and care.”
“I am sure I can’t thank your reverence and the young lady enough,”
replied the shepherd, quite overcome at the sight of his faithful dog’s
look of content and the thought that he would not lose him after all;
“and you may be sure, sir, I will carry out the instructions.”
“But I shall come again to-morrow, Roger,” interposed Florence, who had
no idea of giving up her patient yet. “I know mamma will let me when I
tell her about poor Cap.” After a parting caress to the dog, and many
last injunctions to Roger, Florence mounted her pony and rode away with
the vicar, her young heart very full of joy. She had really helped to
lessen pain, if only for a dumb creature, and the grateful eyes of the
suffering dog stirred a new feeling in her opening mind. She longed
to be always doing something for somebody, and the poor people on her
father’s estates soon learned what a kind friend they had in Miss
Florence. They grew also to have unbounded faith in her skill, and
whenever a pet animal was sick or injured, the owner would contrive to
let “Miss Florence” know.
She and her sister were encouraged by Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale in
a love of animals, and were allowed to have many pets. It was
characteristic of Florence that her heart went out to the less favoured
ones, those which owing to old age or infirmity were taken little
notice of by the servants and farm-men. She was particularly attached
to Peggy, an old grey pony long since past work, who spent her days in
the paddock at Lea Hurst. Florence never missed a morning, if she could
help it, without going to talk to Peggy, who knew her footstep, and
would come trotting up to the gate ready to meet her young mistress.
Then would follow some good-natured sport.
“Would you like an apple, poor old Peggy?” Florence would say as she
fondled the pony’s neck; “then look for it.”
At this invitation Peggy would put her nose to the dress pocket of her
little visitor and discover the delicacy. Or it might be a carrot,
held well out of sight, which Peggy was invited to play hide-and-seek
for. If the stable cat had kittens, it was Florence who gave them a
welcome and fondled and played with the little creatures before any
one else noticed them. She had, too, a quick eye for a hedge-sparrow’s
nest, and would jealously guard the brooding mother’s secret until
the fledgelings were hatched and ready to fly. Some of the bitterest
tears of her childhood were shed over the broken-up homes of some of
her feathered friends. The young animals in the fields were quickly
won by her kind nature, and would come bounding towards her. Out in
those beautiful Lea Hurst woods she made companions of the squirrels,
who came fearlessly after her as she walked, to pick up the nuts
mysteriously dropped in their path. Then, when master squirrel least
expected it, Florence turned sharp round and away raced the little
brown creature up the tall beech, only to come down again with a
quizzical look in his keen little eye at nuts held too temptingly for
any squirrel of ordinary appetite to resist. With what delight she
watched their funny antics, for she had the gift to make these timid
creatures trust her.
[Illustration: EMBLEY PARK, HAMPSHIRE.
(_From a drawing by the late Lady Verney._)
[_To face p. 32._
]
Then in spring-time there was sure to be a pet lamb to be fed, and
Florence and her sister were indeed happy at this acquisition to the
home pets. The pony which she rode and the dog which was ever at
her side were of course her particular dumb friends. I am not sure,
however, that she thought them dumb, for she and they understood
one another perfectly. The love of animals, which was so marked a
characteristic in Florence Nightingale as a child, remained with her
throughout life and made her very sympathetic to invalids who craved
for the company of some favourite animal. Many nurses and doctors
disapprove of their patients having pets about them, but, to quote
the Queen of Nurses’ own words, “A small pet animal is often an
excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially.
An invalid, in giving an account of his nursing by a nurse and a dog,
infinitely preferred that of the dog. ‘Above all,’ he said, ‘it did not
talk.’”
It was a great source of pleasure to Florence in her early years to
be allowed to act as almoner for her mother. Mrs. Nightingale was
very kind and benevolent to the people around Lea Hurst and Embley,
and supplied the sick with delicacies from her own table. Indeed,
she made her homes centres of beneficence for several miles around,
and, according to the best traditions of those times, was ready with
remedies for simple ailments when the doctor was not at hand. Owing
to the fact that Florence had never had measles and whooping cough,
her parents had to exercise great caution in permitting her to visit
the cottage people; however, she could call at the doors on her pony
and leave jelly and puddings from the basket at her saddle-bow without
incurring special risk. And she could gather flowers from the garden to
brighten a sick-room, or in the lovely spring days load her basket with
primroses and bluebells and so carry the scent of the woods to some
delicate girl who, like Tennyson’s May Queen, was pining for the sight
of field and hedgerow and the flowers which grew but a little distance
from her cottage door.
Such attentions to the fancies of the sick were little thought of
in those times, before flower missions had come into vogue, or the
necessity for cheering the patients by pleasing the eye, as well as
tending the body, was recognised, but in that, as in much else, our
heroine was in advance of her time. Her love of flowers, like fondness
for animals, was a part of her nature: it came too as a fitting
heritage from the city of flowers under whose sunny sky she had been
born.
Both at Embley and Lea Hurst, Florence and her sister had their own
little gardens, in which they digged and sowed and planted to their
hearts’ delight, and in summer they ran about with their miniature
watering cans, bestowing, doubtless, an almost equal supply on their
own tiny feet as on the parched ground. In after years this early love
of flowers had its pathetic sequel. When, after months of exhausting
work amongst the suffering soldiers, Florence Nightingale lay in a hut
on the heights of Balaclava, prostrate with Crimean fever, she relates
that she first began to rally after receiving a bunch of flowers from
a friend, and that the sight of them beside her sick couch helped her
to throw off the languor which had nearly proved fatal. She dated her
recovery from that hour.
In every respect the circumstances of Florence Nightingale’s childhood
were calculated to fit her for the destiny which lay in the future.
Not only was she reared among scenes of exceptional beauty in both
her Derbyshire and her Hampshire homes and taught the privilege of
ministering to the poor and sick, but she was mentally trained in
advance of the custom of the day. Without that equipment she could not
have held the commanding position which she attained in the work of
army nursing and organisation.
She and her sister Parthe, being so near in age, did their lessons
together. Their education was conducted entirely at home under a
private governess, and was assiduously supervised by their father. Mr.
Nightingale was a man of broad sympathies, artistic and intellectual
tastes, and much general cultivation, and, having no sons, he made a
hobby of giving a classical education to his girls, and found a fertile
soil in the quick brain of his daughter Florence. He was a strict
disciplinarian, and none of the desultory ways which characterised the
home education of young ladies in the early Victorian days was allowed
in the schoolrooms at Embley and Lea Hurst. Rules were rigidly fixed
for lessons and play, and careless work was never passed unpunished.
It was in the days of childhood that the future heroine of the
Crimea laid the foundation of an orderly mind and a habit of method
which served her so admirably when suddenly called to organise the
ill-regulated hospital at Scutari.
As a child Florence excelled in the more intellectual branches of
education and showed a great aptitude for foreign languages. She
attained creditable proficiency in music and was clever at drawing,
but in these artistic branches her elder sister Parthe excelled most.
From her father Florence learned elementary science, Greek, Latin, and
mathematics, and under his guidance, seated in the dear old library at
Lea Hurst, made the acquaintance of standard authors and poets. But
doubtless the sisters got an occasional romance not included in the
paternal list and read it with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes in a
secluded nook in the garden.
If study was made a serious business, the sisters enjoyed to the full
the healthy advantages of country life. They scampered about the park
with their dogs, rode their ponies over hill and dale, spent long days
in the woods amongst the bluebells and primroses, and in summer tumbled
about in the sweet-scented hay. During the summer at Lea Hurst, lessons
were a little relaxed in favour of outdoor life, but on the return to
Embley for the winter, schoolroom routine was again enforced on very
strict lines.
Mrs. Nightingale supervised the domestic side of her little girls’
education, and before Florence was twelve years old she could hemstitch
and seam, embroider bookmarkers, and had worked several creditable
samplers. Her mother trained her too in matters of deportment, and
nothing was omitted in her early years which would tend to mould her
into a graceful and accomplished girl.