the doctor to have a tooth taken out which had caused her much
suffering. Then when about to claim the shilling from her mother, which
was the accustomed reward for the unpleasant operation, she remembered
the agreement was a shilling for a tooth with fangs, sixpence for a
tooth without them. She did so want the larger sum to spend on Christmas
presents; so, finding a fang left in her jaw, she went back to the
doctor, had it extracted, and staggered home once more, very giddy but
very happy, with the tooth and the fang safe in a pill box!
"Moralists say a great deal about pain treading so very closely on the
heels of pleasure in this life, but they are not always wise or grateful
enough to speak of the pleasure which springs out of pain. And yet there
is a bliss which comes just when pain has ceased, whose rapture rivals
even the high happiness of unbroken health.
"Relief is certainly one of the most delicious sensations which poor
humanity can enjoy."
Madam Liberality often suffered terrible pain from quinsy. Thus we read
sympathetically of her heroic efforts one Christmastide, when nearly
suffocated with this relentless disease, to go on with her preparations
to get her little gifts ready for the family. And how we rejoice when a
cart rumbles up to the door and brings a load of beautiful presents,
sent by a benevolent lady who has known Madam Liberality's desire to
make purchases for her brothers and sisters, and has determined to give
her this delightful surprise.
* * * * *
The story of Madam Liberality, from childhood to maturity, is, we think,
written in Mrs. Ewing's best manner, though, perhaps, it has never
gained the widespread popularity of "Jackanapes," and "The Story of a
Short Life," or "A Flat Iron for a Farthing."
Of the last-named story Mrs. Bundle is almost the central figure. In the
childhood of Reginald Dacre, who writes his own reminiscences, she
played a prominent part. Loyal and true, she held the old traditions of
faithful service; her master's people were her people, and she had but
few interests apart from them.
The portrait of Reginald's mother hung in his father's dressing-room,
and was his resort in the early days of his childish sorrows. Once when
his dog Rubens had been kicked by a guest in his father's house,
Reginald went to that picture of his golden-haired mother and wept out
his plaintive entreaties that "Mamma would come back to Rubens and to
him--they were so miser-ra-ble." "Then," he says, "in the darkness came
a sob that was purely human, and I was clasped in a woman's arms and
covered with tender kisses and soothing caresses. For one wild moment,
in my excitement and the boundless faith of childhood, I thought my
mother had heard me and come back. But it was only Nurse Bundle!"
Then, passing over many years, when Reginald Dacre brought his bride to
his old home, this faithful friend, after giving her loving welcome to
the new Mrs. Dacre, went, in the confusion and bewilderment of old age,
with its strange mingling of past and present, to the room where the
portrait of her lost lady with the golden hair still hung; and there,
the story goes on to say, "There, where years before she had held me in
her arms with tears, I, weeping also, held her now in mine--quite dead!"
This is one of the most pathetic incidents in all Mrs. Ewing's works,
told without the least exaggeration and with the simplicity which is one
of the characteristics of her style.
"Lob Lie by the Fire" contains some of the author's brightest flashes of
humour, and yet it closes with a description of Macalister's death,
drawn with the tender hand with which that solemn mystery is ever
touched by Mrs. Ewing, beautiful in its pathetic simplicity. Nothing in
its way can be more profoundly touching than the few words which end
this story:--
"After a while Macalister repeated the last word, '_Home_.' And as he
spoke there spread over his face a smile so tender and so full of
happiness that John Broom held his breath as he watched him. As the
light of sunrise creeps over the face of some rugged rock, it crept from
chin to brow, and the pale blue eyes shone, tranquil, like water that
reflects heaven. And when it had passed, it left them still open--but
gems that had lost their ray."
* * * * *
"Jackanapes" is so well known, almost the best known of the author's
charming stories, that we will not dwell on the pathos of that last
scene, when Jackanapes, like one in the old allegory, heard the trumpets
calling for him on the other side--the gallant boy who had laid down his
life for his friend. But the character of the Gray Goose, who slept
securely with one leg tucked up under her on the green, is so
delightfully suggestive that we must give some of her wisdom as a
specimen of the author's humorous but never unkindly hits at the
weaknesses to which we are all prone.
"The Gray Goose and the big Miss Jessamine were the only elderly
persons who kept their ages secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never
mentioned any one's age, or recalled the exact year in which anything
had happened. The Gray Goose also avoided dates. She never got farther
than 'last Michaelmas,' 'the Michaelmas before that,' and 'the
Michaelmas before the Michaelmas before that.' After this her head,
which was small, became confused, and she said 'Ga-ga!' and changed the
subject."
Then again:
"The Gray Goose always ran away at the first approach of the caravans,
and never came back to the green till nothing was left of the fair but
footmarks and oyster-shells. Running away was her pet principle; the
only system, she maintained, by which you can live long and easily, and
lose nothing.
"Why in the world should any one spoil the pleasures of life, or risk
his skin, if he can help it?
'What's the use?
Said the goose.'
Before answering which one might have to consider what world, which
life, and whether his skin were a goose skin. But the Gray Goose's head
would never have held all that."
* * * * *
Major Ewing was stationed at Aldershot in 1869, and during the eight
years Mrs. Ewing lived there her pen was never idle. _Aunt Judy's
Magazine_ for 1870 was well supplied with tales, of which "Amelia" is
perhaps one of the best.
To her life at Aldershot we owe the story which had for its motto
"Loetus sorte mea," and which is full of the most graphic descriptions
of the huts and the soldiers' life in camp. As in the story of Madam
Liberality we have glimpses of the author's childhood with all its
little cares and joys, so in the "Story of a Short Life" we have the
actual experience of a soldier's life in camp.
O'Reilly, the useful man of all trades, with his warm Irish heart, and
his devotion to the Colonel's wife, his erratic and haphazard way of
performing his duties, his admiration for the little gentleman in his
velvet coat and lace collar, who stood erect by his side when the
funeral passed to the music of the Dead March, imitating his soldierlike
bearing and salute, is a vivid picture touched by the skilled hand of a
word painter.
So also is the figure of the V.C., who in his first talk with the
crippled child, stands before us as the ideal of a brave soldier, who
sets but little store on his achievements, modest as the truly great
always are, and encouraging the boy to fight a brave battle against
irritable temper and impatience at the heavy cross of suffering laid
upon him.
"'You are a V.C.,' Leonard is saying, 'and you ought to know. I suppose
nothing--not even if I could be good always from this minute right away
till I die--nothing could ever count up to the courage of a V.C.?'
"'God knows it could, a thousand times over,' was the V.C.'s reply.
"'Where are you going? Please don't go. Look at me. They're not going to
chop the Queen's head off, are they?'
"'Heaven forbid! What are you thinking about?'
"'Why because--look at me again--ah! you've winked it away; but your
eyes were full of tears, and the only other brave man I ever heard of
crying was Uncle Rupert, and that was because he knew they were going to
chop the poor king's head off.' That was enough to make anybody cry."
They were in the room where the picture of the young cavalier ancestor
of Leonard hung. He always called him "Uncle Rupert," and he would
meditate on the young face with the eyes dim with tears--eyes which
always seemed to follow him, and, as he fancied, watched him
sorrowfully, now no longer able to jump about and play with the Sweep,
but lying helpless on his couch, or limping about on his crutches, often
with pain and difficulty.
This conversation between the V.C. and Leonard was the beginning of a
strong friendship which was put to the test one Sunday when Leonard lay
dying in the hut of his uncle, the barrack-master.
The V.C. hated anything like display or bringing himself into notice.
Thus it cost him something to take up his position outside the iron
church in the camp, that Leonard might hear the last verses of the
tug-of-war hymn. The V.C.'s attachment to his little friend triumphed
over his dislike to stand alone singing,
"The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain."
The melodious voice of the gallant young soldier rang through the air
and reached the dying ears of little Leonard. The soldiers loved this
hymn, and the organist could never keep them back. The soldiers, the
story says, had begun to tug. In a moment more the organ stopped, and
the V.C. found himself with over three hundred men at his back, singing
without accompaniment and in unison:
"A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Saviour's throne rejoice
In robes of white arrayed."
Even now, as the men paused to take breath after their "tug," the organ
spoke again softly but seraphically. Clearer and sweeter above the
voices behind him rose the voice of the V.C. singing to his little
friend:
"They climbed the steep ascent to Heaven
Through peril, toil and pain."
The men sang on, but the V.C. stopped as if he had been shot. For a
man's hand had come to the Barrack Master's window _and pulled down the
blind_!
Here, again, we have an instance of this author's power to touch her
readers, even to tears, by the true pathos which needs but few words to
bring it home to many hearts.
Taken as a whole, "The Story of a Short Life" has, it may be, some
faults of construction, which arose from its being written in detached
portions. The history of St. Martin, though it is not without its
bearing on the story of the beautiful and once active child's bruised
and broken life, and his desire to be a soldier, rather spoils the
continuity of the narrative.
"The Story of a Short Life" was not published in book form until four
days before the author's death; but it was not her last work, though
from its appearance at that moment the title was spoken of by some
reviewers as singularly appropriate.
Mrs. Ewing's love for animals may be seen in all her stories--Leonard's
beloved "Sweep," Lollo the red-haired pony on which Jackanapes took his
first ride, and the dog in the blind man's story dying of grief on his
grave, are all signs of the author's affection for those who have been
well called "our silent friends." Her own pets were indeed her
friends--from a pink-nosed bulldog called Hector, to a refugee pup saved
from the common hang-man, and a collie buried with honours, his master
making a sketch of him as he lay on his bier.
Mrs. Ewing was passionately fond of flowers, and "Mary's Meadow" was
written in the last years of her life as a serial for _Aunt Judy's
Magazine_. Her very last literary work was a series of letters from a
Little Garden, and the love of and care for flowers is the theme.
* * * * *
Much of Mrs. Ewing's work cannot be noticed in a paper which is
necessarily short. But enough has been said to show what was her
peculiar gift as a writer for children.
It is sometimes said that to write books for children cannot be
considered a high branch of literature. We venture to think this is a
mistake. There is nothing more difficult than to arrest the attention of
children. They do not as a rule care to be _written down_ to--they can
appreciate what is good and are pleased when their elders can enter into
and admire the story which has interested and delighted them.
To write as Mrs. Ewing wrote is undoubtedly a great gift which not many
possess, but a careful study of her works by young and old authors and
readers alike cannot be without benefit. She was a perfect mistress of
the English language; she was never dull and never frivolous. There is
not a slip-shod sentence, or an exaggerated piling up of adjectives to
be found in her pages. She knew what she had to say, and she said it in
language at once pure, forcible, and graceful.
We must be grateful to her for leaving for us, and for our children's
children, so much that is a model of all that tends to make the
literature of the young--yes, and of the old also--attractive, healthy,
and delightful.
[Signature: Emma Marshall]
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
London & Edinburgh
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER NOTES:
Punctuation has been normalized without note.
The following have been corrected:
page 45: "beween" changed to "between" (discriminate between them)
page 48: "esipodes" changed to "episodes" (of the episodes in her
own life)
page 70: "of of" changed to "of" (part of a woman's virtue)
page 97: "Shakespeare" changed to "Shakspere" for consistency (did
not Shakspere make Hector)
page 100: "Sorel" chanaged to "Sorrel" (and who Hetty Sorrel) page
185: "mon s" changed to "monks" (to make the old monks)
page 298: "Melchoir's" changed to "Melchior's" ("Melchior's Dream
and Other Tales")