Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
The carat character (^) indicates that the following letter is
superscripted (example: y^e).
* * * * *
The Quiver 11/1899
[Illustration: MOTHERHOOD.
_After the Picture by_ MISS IDA LOVERING.]
LADY DOCTORS IN HEATHEN LANDS
By the Author of "The Child Wives and Widows of India," Etc.
A garrison of snow-capped mountains; a valley smiling in Oriental
luxuriance; the gorgeous, romantic loveliness described in
"Lalla Rookh"--such are the general impressions of the land of
Kashmir. Dirt, disease, and degradation summed up its prevailing
characteristics in the eyes of an Englishman, who, in October, 1872,
toiled wearily over the Pir Panjal, 11,900 feet above the level of
the sea.
This was Dr. Elmslie's last journey. He hardly realised, as he
dragged his weary limbs over rough but familiar paths, that one
object for which he had struggled for years was practically
accomplished. He sank from exhaustion on the way, and the day
after his death Government granted permission for missionaries to
spend the winter in the Valley of Kashmir. Still farther was he
from knowing of another result of his labours. He had appealed to
Englishwomen to bring the gifts of healing to suffering and secluded
inmates of zenanas. Dr. Elmslie had found a direct way to the hearts
of prejudiced heathen men. The sick came to him for healing, and
learnt the meaning of his self-denying life.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Elliott and Fry._)
THE LATE DR. FANNY BUTLER.
(_At the time she went to India._)]
"Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life,"
are ancient words of wisdom; but this rule has exceptions. To Hindu
women, at least, caste is dearer than life. It would be as easy
to restore the down to a bruised butterfly's wing as to give back
self-respect, and with it all that makes life worth living, to a
zenana lady who has been exposed to the gaze or touch of a man other
than a near relation. Custom of the country debars a respectable
woman from receiving ministry to body, soul, or mind, unless it
comes from one of her own sex. Dr. Elmslie's appeal resulted in Miss
Fanny Butler's offer of service to the Indian Female Normal School
and Instruction Society. She was the first enrolled student of the
London School of Medicine, which had just been transferred from
Edinburgh, and passed second out of one hundred and twenty-three
candidates, one hundred and nineteen of whom were men, in the
Preliminary Arts Examination. She went to India in October, 1880,
the first fully qualified medical missionary to women.
Seventeen years after Dr. Elmslie's death Dr. Fanny Butler obtained
another concession for Kashmir, the permission for missionaries to
live within the city of Srinagar. She saw the foundations of a new
hospital for women begun within the city, and fourteen days after
she also laid down what, an hour before her death, she described
as a "good long life," in the service of Kashmiri people. The age
of thirty-nine, she said to the friends who surrounded her, and
who felt that she of all others could not be spared, was "not so
very young to die," and she sent an earnest plea to the Church of
England Zenana Society, the division of the old society to which
she belonged, to send someone quickly to take her place. The new
hospital was the gift of Mrs. Bishop (Miss Isabella Bird) in memory
of her husband. She had seen the dirty crowd of suffering women at
the dispensary door overpower two men, and the earliest arrivals
precipitated head foremost by the rush from behind, whilst numbers
were turned away in misery and disappointment.
Hospitals and dispensaries have rapidly increased since the day
of pioneers. Absolute necessity has forced medical work on many
missionaries in the field. The most elementary knowledge of nursing
and hygiene appears miraculous to women sunk in utter ignorance. A
white woman too modest to give them remedies for every ailment is
usually regarded as unkind. A neglected missionary dispensary is
practically unknown.
[Illustration: (_Photo supplied by the Church of England Zenana
Missionary Society._)
OUTSIDE THE VERANDAH OF THE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL AT TARN TARAN.
(_Showing some of the patients placed out to spend the hot night in
the open._)]
At the time when the Countess Dufferin started her admirable
scheme for providing medical aid for Indian women a well-known
Anglo-Indian surgeon stated publicly that, whatever other
qualification was required in a candidate, two were absolutely
necessary: she must be a lady in the highest sense of the word,
and she must be a Christian, and he proceeded to give good reasons
for what he said. The experience of every woman who has taken up
this work would bear out his sentiments. Without courtesy and
ready intuition of the feelings of others it would be hard to
get an entrance into zenanas, and nothing but love and devotion
to her Master would enable a woman to persevere in spending her
life amongst sick heathen women, in spite of sights, scenes, and
vexations beyond conception in England.
[Illustration: (_From a Photograph._)
THE DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT'S HOSPITAL, PESHAWUR.]
The greatest difficulties are probably met in high-caste zenanas.
There, in the midst of unhealthy surroundings, the friends and
neighbours have grand opportunities of undoing any good that may
have been accomplished. It is grievous to a medical missionary to
find her fever patient dying from a douche of cold water, because
the white woman has defiled her high caste by feeling her pulse.
It is enough to make her give up a case in despair if, after she
has explained that quiet is absolutely necessary, the friends and
neighbours decide that the evil spirit supposed to be in possession
must be driven out by the music of tom-toms. A Hindu man is said
to "sin religiously," and a Hindu woman excels him in devotion to
her creed. A fever patient in the Punjab refused to drink milk--the
one thing of all others that her medical woman ordered her--because
she said, if it were the last thing she swallowed, her soul would
pass into the body of a cobra. One medical missionary found a
woman, who was in a critical state, lying on a mat, whilst an old
woman, supposed to be learned in sickness, stood on her body, or
patrolled up and down like a sentinel, as far as the length would
admit. This was kindly meant. Another found one suffering seriously
from the effect of a linseed poultice. She had carefully explained
the mysteries of making and applying it, but in her absence the
patient's friends had spread dry linseed over her chest and poured
boiling water over it.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Baness Bros._)
WAITING THEIR TURN.
(_Patients outside the Tarn Taran Hospital Dispensary._)]
Happily, all the women in India are not secluded in zenanas. By
far the largest proportion live in the villages, but their notions
of propriety are very strict. The hard-working field-women will hide
themselves on the suspicion of a _sahib_ being within reach. When
once they are satisfied that the visitor belongs to their own sex
and is harmless, crowds beset the missionary encampments. Many tales
of suffering are poured into sympathising ears.
"I am blind from crying for my only son" is not an infrequent
complaint. Nothing can be done in this case.
"There is no god or goddess to love a Hindu woman. Whatever
offerings we make her, the goddess of small-pox smites us, and then
the men say the women have not offered enough, and are angry." This
was the reply of a Punjabi woman, who spoke for her friends and
neighbours.
One Bengali woman told a missionary of the death of a precious baby
boy. There did not seem much the matter, but the _hakim_ (a native
quack) first gave him something burning to swallow, and then applied
a red-hot iron to each side in turn; and the child only drew one or
two breaths after this treatment. This also, one hopes, was kindly
meant. The Hindus are by no means wanting in humanity, but ignorance
is often as fatal as cruelty.
Many patients find an excuse for coming again and again to the
dispensaries. There they hear of blessings in this world and the
next which they say seem too good to be true. They see love shining
in the earnest faces, and feel it in the touch of hands that will
not shrink from dressing repulsive sores.
The majority of cases in dispensaries are ordinary fevers or skin
diseases resulting from dirt, and other scourges that follow
defiance of elementary rules of health.
Patients discharged as cured often return. "Tell me again that Name
that I can say when I pray," one of them asked, to explain the
reappearance of her shrivelled old face; "I forget so soon." And she
went on her way repeating the Name that even some of the heathen
realise must be exalted above all others.
"I know that your Jesus must reign over our land," a Punjabi woman
said to a lady who had opened a dispensary at Tarn Taran, a sacred
city of the Sikhs; "I know it, because your religion is full of
love and ours has none at all."
The mission hospital at this city, with the name which literally
means "The Place of Salvation," and the dispensary seen in the
illustration, came mainly into being through the determination
of the inhabitants. A suffering baby might claim a share in its
existence. This infant's mother brought it to a missionary whose
training as a nurse had made her a friend in sickness. The child's
sight was hopelessly gone. The mother said that the _hakim_ had told
her alum was good for sore eyes, so she had put it under the lids.
"You have used it in such a way as to blind your baby," the
missionary said; "and I could have told you what to do."
"How should I know?" the woman replied, using a common phrase to
express helplessness or lethargy; but she told the story to her
friends, and other mothers, whose babies' eyes were suffering, soon
proved that the white woman had made no empty boast. Ophthalmia
is terribly common in India, and its marvellous cures began to be
famous.
One day a family party carried an invalid into the verandah of the
Tarn Taran mission house. The missionary looked inside the _doolie_;
she was not a doctor, and declined to undertake such a serious case,
and told the men to take their invalid to the Amritsar Hospital.
They were determined to take no such trouble. To show that she was
equally determined to make them, she went inside the house and shut
the doors and blinds. Who would hold out the longest? The result was
a foregone conclusion. The Punjabis, armed with a greater disregard
for a woman's life, gained the victory by the simple method of
beating a retreat, leaving the helpless woman behind them. In common
humanity she could not be left to die. In a few days her family
returned to inquire, and were gratified to find her progressing
towards recovery. The white woman's celebrity was now secured, and
to her consternation and embarrassment she found her verandah full
of patients, and, from overwork, was soon herself added to the
number. The people of Tarn Taran afterwards gave the building for a
Women's Mission Hospital, and a new one is now in the charge of a
fully qualified lady doctor.
Hospitals are by far the most satisfactory part of medical
missions. In zenanas and dispensaries it is one thing to prescribe
and give advice, and another for orders to be obeyed, especially
if they are contrary to rules of caste or custom. It is well known
that a Hindu soldier, who will follow his British officer into the
fiercest _mêlée_, and, if necessary, die for him, if true to his own
creed, will not receive a cup of water at his hands. When wounded
his parched lips will close tightly, lest his caste should suffer.
The same principle debars his womenfolk from accepting physic in
a liquid form from Englishwomen. They may, however, take powders.
Written directions are generally useless, and verbal ones often
misunderstood. It is little wonder if dispensary patients make slow
progress.
"Are you sure you took the medicine I gave you?" inquired a medical
missionary of one who made no advance at all.
"Quite sure, Miss Sahiba."
"How did you take it?"
"I ate the paper and threw away the dust."
This mistake was not astonishing under the circumstances. One
Mohammedan specific is to swallow a paper pellet with the name of
God written in Arabic; another, for the _mullah_ to write an Arabic
inscription on a plate, and for the water that washes it off to be
the dose.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF WORKERS AT THE DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT'S
HOSPITAL.
(_Dr. Wheeler stands at the left-hand side of group._)]
It is well when superstition and misconception stop short at
swallowing paper and inky water. A woman, seriously injured from
an accident, was carried into the Duchess of Connaught Hospital,
Peshawur. Her husband accompanied her, and saw the medical
missionary in charge carefully attend to fractures and bruises. Rest
and sleep and quiet were doing their work, and the man was left to
watch. A sudden crash startled the ward. The husband had turned
the bedstead over on its side, and flung his wife down. He fancied
she was dying, and said it would imperil her soul if it departed
whilst she lay on anything but the floor. He had the satisfaction
of knowing that she died where he placed her. This was a case
of a Hindu "sinning religiously." It would be harder to forgive
the frequent sacrifice of life to superstition, if there were no
ennobling element underlying it of honest desire for some vague
spiritual good.
The Duchess of Connaught Hospital is a permanent memorial of her
Royal Highness's kind interest in the women of India. Whilst on the
North-Western Frontier she went through the Dispensary and Nursing
Home which represented the first effort to bring medical aid to the
Afghan women, and allowed it to be called after her name. A new and
much larger building, of which a drawing has been reproduced, has
taken the place of the native quarters, where Mohammedan bigotry
was by slow degrees overcome. For years the ladies of the Church of
England Zenana Missionary Society, who had charge of this hospital,
were the only Europeans living within the walls of Peshawur.
Every night the great city gates closed them in, and separated
them from other missionaries and from Government servants. They
chose to be in the midst of their work, and though outbreaks of
Mohammedan fanaticism repeatedly checked teaching in schools and
zenanas, ministry to the sick continued, and never lost the friendly
confidence of Peshawuris.
[Illustration: (_Photo supplied by the Church of England Zenana
Missionary Society._)
STAFF AND PATIENTS OF ST. CATHERINE'S HOSPITAL, AMRITSAR.]
In its early and humbler days, the fame of this hospital reached
far-away Khorassan. A lady of that country who was suffering
terribly, caused herself to be carried the fifteen days' journey to
Peshawur. Miss Mitcheson, who opened the first dispensary, and is
now the head of the hospital, saw that her case was critical and
required an operation of a far more serious kind than she had ever
attempted, and begged her to allow the civil surgeon to see her.
"I would rather die," the patient answered. The combined forces of
suffering, fear of death, and persuasion, were powerless to move
her. The Englishwoman, of whose powers she had heard in her own
country, might do what she liked with her, but no man should come
near her. Happily Miss Mitcheson successfully accomplished what was
necessary, and the Khorassan lady made a good recovery. When the
time came for parting from her new friends, she promised to use in
her own country the knowledge she had gained in Peshawur. She kept
her word, as more visitors from Khorassan testified, and they said
she had not forgotten the benefits she had received in the mission
hospital.
[Illustration: (_Photo supplied by the Church Missionary Society._)
BACK VIEW OF NEW WOMEN'S HOSPITAL, HANGCHOW.]
During Miss Mitcheson's absence in England Dr. Charlotte Wheeler,
who with her fellow-workers, in the illustration on p. 102, stands
in the verandah of the old building, superintended the medical work.
On Miss Mitcheson's return, Miss Wheeler opened a medical mission
amongst the women in Quetta. This work extended rapidly on and
beyond the frontier, so that in November, 1896, when it was a year
old, eight different languages were spoken on the same day in the
dispensary waiting room.
Institutions for training Christian girls of India as doctors or
nurses have come into existence as the number of candidates has
increased and the necessity has arisen. The North India School
of Medicine has been established at Ludhiana with this object.
Many of the mission hospitals also have training classes. St.
Catherine's Hospital, Amritsar, under the superintendence of Miss
Hewlett, who has had nineteen years' experience, has provided very
valuable assistant medical missionaries for stations in the Punjab
and Bengal. At the last census a hundred Christian women--counting
missionaries, assistants, patients, nurses and students--were within
its walls. An illustration shows the inmates mustering before going
to church.
One student in St. Catherine's Hospital, who had gained a
scholarship, gave promise of a brilliant career. Before the time
of study in which she delighted was over, the lady superintendent
became suspicious of what this young girl described as broken
chilblains on her fingers. A doctor was called in, and confirmed
her impression that it was leprosy. An Eastern girl knows, what in
Europe is only faintly imagined, of the horrors of this loathsome
disease. One cry of anguish only escaped her when she was told
the verdict. Then she rose above the trial, and resigned herself
cheerfully to the will of God. She was prepared to start the next
day for the Leper Settlement near Calcutta without meeting her
friends or fellow-students for a word of farewell.
"What comforts me," she said to the Clerical Secretary of the Church
of England Zenana Missionary Society, who was in Amritsar at the
time, "is that I may go as a missionary rather than as a patient."
She went to that place of death and banishment, to live out the rest
of her days in ministry for others. In her case the days lingered
into years, and the disease took a severe form, but her devotion
and courage never failed. When death came to her as a friend, and
her work was done, the memory of the "superior girl," who had lived
among the afflicted people as a missionary rather than a patient,
remained. Perhaps her fellowship in suffering gave her the final
qualification to be a missionary to lepers.
India is the land which above all others cries out for lady medical
missionaries; but other Eastern countries have also a claim.
Wherever Islam has planted its iron heel, women are jealously
guarded in harems, and it is very unusual for a man to be allowed
entrance on any pretext. In China, also, women of superior class are
hidden within the high walls that surround their houses. Those free
to go out gain little but suffering from the barbarous attentions of
native surgeons. In the East the knowledge which brings relief from
pain is a power to overcome obstacles to Christianity that resist
every other force.
The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society has sent out a
qualified lady doctor to Foochow, and in 1894 the Church Missionary
Society opened a hospital for women in Hangchow with one large
and six smaller wards. One patient who was brought into this
building--of which two views are given--suffering from diseased
bones, has gone out to devote her recovered health and new knowledge
to the service of God and her own countrywomen.
[Illustration: (_Photo supplied by the Church Missionary Society._)
INTERIOR OF NEW WOMEN'S HOSPITAL, HANGCHOW]
There is scarcely a mission hospital or dispensary that cannot
tell of similar results of the double ministry to body and soul.
Each year justifies the increased number of women with medical
qualifications sent into the mission field. Some, like Mrs.
Russell Watson, of the Baptist Mission at Chefu, are the wives of
missionaries, others have been sent out by various missions, such
as the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, or by the women's branches
(added during the close of the present century), to the more
venerable societies.
Dr. Henry Martyn Clark, of Amritsar, once asked a friendly Hindu
what department of foreign missions his people considered most
dangerous.
"Why should I reveal our secrets to the enemy?" the Hindu responded.
But he yielded to persuasion. "We do not very much fear your
preaching," he said, "for we need not listen; nor your schools, for
we need not send our children; nor your books, for we need not read
them. But we do fear your women, for they are gaining our homes; and
we very much fear your medical missions, for they are gaining our
hearts. Hearts and homes gone, what shall we have left?"
What may be expected when medical and women's missions are combined?
According to the friendly Hindu, the very citadels of idolatry and
superstition might tremble at the advance of this double force to
rescue the captives.
D. L. WOOLMER.
[Illustration: OUR ROLL OF HEROIC DEEDS]
This month we devote our space to a pictorial representation of an
heroic act by James Williamson, a fisherman of Whalsay, Shetland.
During a heavy storm he waded out to the succour of two companions,
who had been pinned on the rocks by their capsized boat and were
in imminent danger of drowning. Williamson was at first carried
away by a heavy sea, but was returned by the next. Then with an
extraordinary effort he lifted the side of the boat, seized the men,
and, with one under each arm, fought his way through the boiling
surf to dry land. For this conspicuous act of bravery Williamson was
awarded the Silver Medal of THE QUIVER Heroes Fund.]
[Illustration: PLEDGED]
PLEDGED
By Katharine Tynan, Author of "A Daughter of Erin," Etc.
CHAPTER IV.
YOUTH AT THE PROW.
"And then, old fellow," went on Sir Anthony's letter to Jack Leslie,
of the Blues, his particular chum, "I stood staring, with my eyes
watering and a little scratch on my nose bleeding where the old
rooster--for a rooster it was--struck me with his spurs as he flew.
He might have knocked out my eye, the brute! The second missile (an
invention they call a sun-bonnet, I believe, made of pink calico and
horribly stiffened) lay crumpled at my feet. And there in front of
me stood the culprit herself, looking half-ashamed and half-inclined
to follow the example of the other sun-bonnet which had buried
itself in a big chair at the end of the room, and made scarcely a
pretence of stifling its peals of laughter. I felt no end of a ninny
I can tell you, especially as the owner of the first sun-bonnet was
by long chalks the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen.
"I'm no good at describing a girl's charms, but even at the first
glance her beautiful violet eyes struck me. Blue eyes and black
lashes and eyebrows--it is a thing happens over here sometimes,
they tell me. Then, though she'd been rushing about after the
ancient barnyard fowl who was to have graced the table in my honour,
she had no more colour than a white rose; and yet she looked the
picture of health and life--so different from fine ladies. This was
Miss Pamela--Pam for short--as I discovered later. To finish her
description, her charming head is covered with a mass of short black
curls. She had a very shabby frock on, which didn't take a bit from
her loveliness. I couldn't help wondering what the mater would have
thought if she could have seen her. She would surely have called her
'a young woman,' with that superb contempt of hers.
"However, the breeding tells. Nothing could have been finer than the
little air with which she pulled herself together, and said, as if
it were an every-day thing to blind and maim your visitors:
"'You must be Sir Anthony Trevithick. I am so sorry. That wretched
fowl flew in through the open window, and we've been three-quarters
of an hour chasing him round. It was so unfortunate his flying out
just at that moment, and still more unfortunate that I should have
flung my bonnet after him. But you've no idea how he had aggravated
us.'
"I assure you the mater couldn't have done it better, if one could
conceivably imagine the mater under such circumstances.
"I could think of nothing to do but to pick up the bonnet and hand
it to her, muttering some idiocy about it not mattering a bit. While
this was going on the laughter in the chair was dying off in sobs of
enjoyment.
"But before we could get any further Mr. Graydon himself made his
appearance. I suppose something about my looks struck him--for a
cucumber wasn't in it for coolness with Miss Pam--because he said,
'Why, bless me, Sir Anthony! what's the matter? What's the matter,
Pam? Why, Sir Anthony, your nose is bleeding!'
[Illustration: "The old rooster struck me with his spurs."--_p._
107.]
"'Why, so it is!' said Miss Pam, calmly. 'Sir Anthony was trying
to catch the red cock, papa, with a view to his dinner, but he's
escaped, I'm sorry to say, and the dinner with him. It will be
days before he comes home after the alarm we've given him. I'm
so sorry you're wounded, Sir Anthony. Can I get you a little
sticking-plaster?'
"'I never know where I shall find the fowls in this house,' said
Mr. Graydon, a little irascibly, I thought; 'but the drawing-room
at least ought to be kept free from them. Why, Sylvia, what are you
doing there, child? Come here, and speak to Sir Anthony.'
"I expected a small child to come out of the big chair in answer to
the summons; but, lo and behold! out of the sun-bonnet there looked
another satin-cheeked damsel, almost as beautiful as the first. She
made her bow demurely, and, I assure you, there wasn't a feather out
of her after her fits of laughter at my expense. She had rather an
ecstatic look, and her eyes were a bit moist--that was all. I can
tell you I never felt so small in my life as when I stood up before
those impudent girls, for I could see that the pair of them were
hugely delighted at the whole affair.
"'Get some tea for Sir Anthony, girls,' said the father, 'and see
that he has hot water taken to his room; he's had a long journey.
Sit down, my lad--that is, if there's a chair in the room without a
dog on it. Here, Mark Antony, you lazy animal, come off that sofa.'
This to the fattest bulldog I ever saw--with such a jowl. He's Miss
Sylvia's, and an amiable dog, despite his looks.
"Then the eldest daughter came in--not a patch on the others for
beauty, but a Madonna of a creature, with a beautiful voice and a
rather sad expression. She was greatly concerned about my scratched
nose. But all the time she was talking I noticed that she looked at
her father steadily reproachful. At last he noticed it too, for he
suddenly blurted out:
"'Why, bless my soul! Molly, I forgot all about it,' and then he
stopped and laughed. Miss Pamela has told me since that they had
instructed their father to keep me on the way as long as possible.
"You'll gather that it is a rather rummy place. It is. The windows
in my bedroom are mended with brown paper, and there are holes in
the floor you could put your foot through. Not that my father's son
need mind little hardships. But I am amused to think of what the
mater would say, with her notions of things.
"By the way, if you're in Brook Street any time, don't repeat
what I've told you. The mater hated my coming here. She has some
extraordinary prejudice against Graydon, though he scarcely seems
to remember her. But as I've given up my desire for soldiering to
please her, it's my turn now to please myself by reading for this
Foreign Office grind with my father's old friend.
"A word more and I am done. You'll think me as long-winded as
some of those old women at the clubs. But their ways here are too
delicious. The establishment is managed by one old woman--Bridget,
who seems mistress, maid, and man rolled, in one. Well, the morning
after I came, when I rang for my shaving water there was no
response. At last I heard a foot go by my door, and I looked out
cautiously. It was Bridget, and to her I made my request. 'Why,
bless the boy!' she said, staring at me, 'You haven't been pullin'
that old bell that's never rung in the memory of man?' I assured her
I had. 'Well, then,' she said, 'goodness help your little wit! An'
so ye want shavin' water, do ye? Sure, I thought ye wor a bit of a
boy, that never wanted shavin' at all, at all!' However, she brought
me the water obligingly, in an extraordinary piece of kitchen
crockery. 'I suppose you're used to valetin',' she said. ''Twas
Misther Mick spoiled me entirely for other young gentlemen. He'd
dart down for his shavin' water--aye, many a time before I had the
kitchen fire lit.' Mr. Mick was apparently a former pupil; I often
hear of him.
"There's any amount of sport here, but I won't tantalise you. I like
Graydon better every day; he's a dear old boy, and though he's in
the clouds half the time when he's supposed to be coaching me, I can
see that he knows more than half the tutors in London put together.
He's a delightful companion out of doors, a good sportsman, and as
young as the youngest.
"It's a mystery his being buried here. But I've no time to try to
unriddle it now, and you'll never get as far as this, I expect.
Good-bye, old fellow--I'm extremely well satisfied with my present
quarters, and pity you in Knightsbridge. I suppose town is getting
empty."
* * * * *
When this enormous epistle was finished and sealed, the young
gentleman put it in his pocket and went downstairs. His pace was
hastened by the fact that he could hear the joyful yelping of dogs
in the hall, from which he gathered that someone besides himself was
bent on outdoor exercise. Indeed, as he reached the hall and caught
his hat from one of the dusty antlers, he saw the two younger Miss
Graydons setting out amid their leaping and yelping escorts. He
hurried after and overtook them.
"May I come with you?" he asked eagerly. "I've a very important
letter to post, and if you're going to the village you might perhaps
point out the post-office. I'm such a duffer at finding out things
for myself."
"But we're turning our backs on the village," said Miss Sylvia,
"going in exactly the opposite direction."
"Oh, well, then, it doesn't matter; the letter can wait till another
time."
"Though it is so important. Oh, but you must post it. We'll put you
on the way for the village. You turn to the right and we to the left
when we reach the gate; then you'll walk straight into the arms of
the post-office."
Pamela, who had not yet spoken, turned her heavenly-coloured eyes
on her sister, but without speaking. Something in the look made the
young fellow's heart throb suddenly.
"Ah, Miss Sylvia," he said imploringly, "don't put difficulties in
my way. I want to come for a walk, if you will have me, and the
letter can wait. I'm not contemplative enough to enjoy a country
walk alone; and it will be a pleasure to walk with you and your
sister."
"And the dogs?"
"And the dogs. The joys of a country walk are doubled in the society
of dogs."
"I hope you'll think so when you have the felicity of fishing them
out of a bog-hole. They will chase every beast they see; and our
neighbour, Jack Malone's black cow, Polly, always leads them such a
dance, ending up deservedly in a bog-hole."
"I'll try to endure even that, Miss Sylvia."
"Then if Mark Antony gets a thorn in his paw, as he almost
invariably does, you'll have to carry him home."
"He must weigh three stone, Miss Sylvia."
"About that, Sir Anthony."
"Then it is better I should carry him than you."
"Oh, if you're bent on it, Sir Anthony."
"If you're not bent against it, Miss Sylvia."
"Well, come along then, for this is the parting of the ways."
They had arrived at the gate by this time.
"Sylvia should have told you, Sir Anthony, that though we turn our
backs on the village, yet we pass a wall letter-box, which the
postman empties on his way to Lettergort."
It was Pamela speaking for the first time, and in this less
hoydenish mood of hers she had a likeness to her gentle elder sister.
"I'm not surprised to hear it, Miss Pamela. I guessed Miss Sylvia
was only piling up the difficulties to tease me. But I was not to be
put off."
"You are really a most persistent person, Sir Anthony."
"I know when I want a thing and mean to get it, Miss Sylvia."
"Did you ever see anything more beautiful than the rose-light on
that mountain, Sir Anthony?"
"I have seen more beautiful things, Miss Pamela."
He spoke with the utmost simplicity, but the girl blushed
nevertheless, and was furious with herself for blushing.
"See how rosy the peak is," she went on in some confusion, "but the
woods are purple at the base. If we were over there where the road
winds round the hill-foot, we should hear nothing but the singing of
little streams. They are chattering through the bracken everywhere,
and spilling into the road, where they make little channels for
themselves, clear as amber."
"They make your boots very wet and your skirt draggle-tailed,"
remarked Sylvia.
"I see chimneys rising above the wood," said Sir Anthony. "Is there
a house there, then?"
"There is, but it is empty at present. It belongs to Lord Glengall,
who is away just now. It has a queer story attached to it."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. Lord Glengall went to Australia as a boy, and was unheard
of for years. His mother lived there, with one old servant, in
the bitterest poverty. She was so proud no one dared to interfere,
until, it having been noticed that the chimneys were smokeless
for days, the house was entered by force, and mistress and maid
were found dying of starvation side by side. The house was full of
valuables--lace and plate, and all kinds of lovely things--but they
were heirlooms, and the old lady would rather starve than sell them,
and the old servant was quite of the same mind."
"What happened then?"
"They were taken off to the Rectory by old Mr. Rogers, who died last
year. And in the nick of time Lord Glengall, whom everyone said was
dead, turned up safe and sound to nurse his old mother. 'I kept the
things together for you, my boy,' she said as soon as she recognised
him.
"And the next thing she said," went on Sylvia, taking up the tale,
"was, 'Where's that cat?' The faithfulness of animals, Sir Anthony!
Old Tib, with whom they had shared all their short-commons, had, it
seems, stolen the very last drop of milk that stood between them and
starvation, and had then escaped through a window into the woods. 'I
should like to give him a good hiding before I die.' That was the
second speech of the indomitable old lady."
"What a chance for the novelist this country of yours presents!"
said Sir Anthony.
"But that fortunately he never comes our way," replied Pamela.
"Your father promised me you would take me fishing one day." He
spoke to Sylvia, but his eyes turned from her to Pamela.
"So we shall," said Sylvia readily.
"The river runs quite close to the house?"
"Yes, but if you want the pleasantest fishing, you must climb for
it. Up there in the hills are little golden-brown trout-streams
running through the valleys under the shadow of woods, and they are
full of trout spoiling to be caught."
"You know the best places, Miss Sylvia."
"Don't let her guide you, Sir Anthony. I'll tell you a story about
her. She was always tantalising Mick St. Leger, an old pupil of
papa's, who is in India now, with stories of a wonderful pike which
inhabited one of the big holes in the Moyle. Well, poor Mick used
to sit and fish for hours, now and then catching a little fish by
accident, for his heart wasn't in it for thinking of Sylvia's big
pike. And Sylvia used to sit by watching him, apparently full of
sympathy. One day he was fishing the big hole as usual, when he
gave a long whistle. 'What is it, Mick?' Sylvia cried, running to
him. 'It feels like a twenty-pounder,' said poor Mick, very red in
the face. 'Oh, Mick, do let me help!' cried Sylvia. And then, with
an immense deal of carefulness, and poor Mick holding on like grim
death, they reeled up an old tin can full of stones, in the handle
of which Mick's line was caught."
"Mick would never have known," said Sylvia dispassionately, "if
little Patsy Murray hadn't come running after me a week later,
calling out, 'Where's that apple ye promised me for sinkin' me
mother's ould can in the river?' Mick never believed in me as an
honest angler afterwards."
"No wonder! But to think your father should have suggested you as my
guide, Miss Sylvia!"
"Pam's just as bad, Sir Anthony. I generally do the things, but Pam
encourages me."
Pamela again turned those eyes of heaven's own colour in mute
reproach upon her sister.
"I'll have faith in you, Miss Pam," said Sir Anthony impulsively,
"no matter what your sister says to the contrary."
And he meant his rash promise.
[Illustration: "The letter can wait till another time."--_p._ 109.]