Chapter LIX: Section VIII: Realistic Stories (3)

"Where are your bow and arrows, my little man?" said her ladyship to Hal, as she reviewed her Lilliputian regiment. "You can't march, man, without your arms!"

Hal had dispatched a messenger for his forgotten bow, but the messenger returned not; he looked from side to side in great distress. "Oh, there's my bow coming, I declare!" cried he; "look, I see the bow and the ribands; look now, between the trees, Charles Sweepstakes, on the Hot-well Walk; it is coming."

"But you've kept us all waiting a confounded time," said his impatient friend.

"It is that good-natured poor fellow from Bristol, I protest, that has brought it to me; I'm sure I don't deserve it from him," said Hal to himself, when he saw the lad with the black patch on his eye running quite out of breath towards him with his bow and arrows.

"Fall back, my good friend, fall back," said the military lady, as soon as he had delivered the bow to Hal: "I mean stand out of the way, for your great patch cuts no figure amongst us. Don't follow so close, now, as if you belonged to us, pray."

The poor boy had no ambition to partake the triumph; he _fell back_ as soon as he understood the meaning of the lady's words. The drum beat, the fife played, the archers marched, the spectators admired. Hal stepped proudly, and felt as if the eyes of the whole universe were upon his epaulettes, or upon the facings of his uniform; whilst all the time he was considered only as part of a show. The walk appeared much shorter than usual; and he was extremely sorry that Lady Diana, when they were half way up the hill leading to Prince's Place, mounted her horse, because the road was dirty, and all the gentlemen and ladies who accompanied her, followed her example. "We can leave the children to walk, you know," said she to the gentleman who helped her to mount her horse. "I must call to some of them, though, and leave orders where they are to _join_."

She beckoned: and Hal, who was foremost, and proud to show his alacrity, ran on to receive her ladyship's orders. Now, as we have before observed, it was a sharp and windy day; and though Lady Diana Sweepstakes was actually speaking to him, and looking at him, he could not prevent his nose from wanting to be blown; he pulled out his handkerchief, and out rolled the new ball, which had been given to him just before he left home, and which, according to his usual careless habits, he had stuffed into his pocket in a hurry. "Oh, my new ball!" cried he, as he ran after it. As he stooped to pick it up, he let go his hat, which he had hitherto held on with anxious care; for the hat, though it had a fine green and white cockade, had no band or string round it. The string, as we may recollect, our wasteful hero had used in spinning his top. The hat was too large for his head without this band; a sudden gust of wind blew it off--Lady Diana's horse started and reared. She was a _famous_ horse-woman, and sat him to the admiration of all beholders; but there was a puddle of red clay and water in this spot, and her ladyship's uniform-habit was a sufferer by the accident.

"Careless brat!" said she. "Why can't he keep his hat upon his head?"

In the meantime, the wind blew the hat down the hill, and Hal ran after it, amidst the laughter of his kind friends, the young Sweepstakes, and the rest of the little regiment. The hat was lodged at length, upon a bank. Hal pursued it: he thought this bank was hard. But, alas! the moment he set his foot upon it, the foot sank. He tried to draw it back, his other foot slipped, and he fell prostrate, in his green and white uniform, into the treacherous bed of red mud. His companions, who had halted upon the top of the hill, stood laughing spectators of his misfortune.

It happened that the poor boy with the black patch upon his eye, who had been ordered by Lady Diana to "_fall back_" and to "_keep at a distance_," was now coming up the hill; and the moment he saw our fallen hero, he hastened to his assistance. He dragged poor Hal, who was a deplorable spectacle, out of the red mud; the obliging mistress of a lodging-house, as soon as she understood that the young gentleman was nephew to Mr. Gresham, to whom she had formerly let her house, received Hal, covered as he was with dirt.

The poor Bristol lad hastened to Mr. Gresham's for clean stockings and shoes for Hal. He was unwilling to give up his uniform; it was rubbed and rubbed, and a spot here and there was washed out; and he kept continually repeating, "When it's dry it will all brush off; when it's dry it will all brush off, won't it?" But soon the fear of being too late at the archery meeting began to balance the dread of appearing in his stained habiliments; and he now as anxiously repeated, while the woman held the wet coat to the fire, "Oh, I shall be too late; indeed I shall be too late; make haste; it will never dry: hold it nearer--nearer to the fire. I shall lose my turn to shoot. Oh, give me the coat; I don't mind how it is, if I can but get it on."

Holding it nearer and nearer to the fire dried it quickly, to be sure, but it shrank it also, so that it was no easy matter to get the coat on again.

However, Hal, who did not see the red splashes, which, in spite of all the operations, were too visible upon his shoulders and upon the skirts of his white coat behind, was pretty well satisfied to observe that there was not one spot upon the facings. "Nobody," said he, "will take notice of my coat behind, I dare say. I think it looks as smart almost as ever!" and under this persuasion our young archer resumed his bow--his bow with green ribands now no more! And he pursued his way to the Downs.

All his companions were far out of sight. "I suppose," said he to his friend with the black patch, "I suppose my uncle and Ben had left home before you went for the shoes and stockings for me?"

"Oh, yes, Sir; the butler said they had been gone to the Downs a matter of a good half hour or more."

Hal trudged on as fast as he possibly could. When he got on the Downs, he saw numbers of carriages, and crowds of people, all going towards the place of meeting, at the Ostrich. He pressed forwards; he was at first so much afraid of being late, that he did not take notice of the mirth his motley appearance excited in all beholders. At length he reached the appointed spot. There was a great crowd of people. In the midst, he heard Lady Diana's loud voice betting upon some one who was just going to shoot at the mark.

"So then, the shooting is begun, is it?" said Hal. "Oh, let me in; pray let me into the circle! I'm one of the archers--I am, indeed; don't you see my green and white uniform?"

"Your red and white uniform, you mean," said the man to whom he addressed himself: and the people, as they opened a passage for him, could not refrain from laughing at the mixture of dirt and finery which it exhibited. In vain, when he got into the midst of the formidable circle, he looked to his friends, the young Sweepstakes, for their countenance and support: they were amongst the most unmerciful of the laughers. Lady Diana also seemed more to enjoy than to pity his confusion.

"Why could you not keep your hat upon your head, man?" said she, in her masculine tone. "You have been almost the ruin of my poor uniform-habit; but I've escaped rather better than you have. Don't stand there in the middle of the circle, or you'll have an arrow in your eye presently, I've a notion."

Hal looked round in search of better friends. "Oh, where's my uncle?--where's Ben," said he. He was in such confusion, that, amongst the number of faces, he could scarcely distinguish one from another; but he felt somebody at this moment pull his elbow, and, to his great relief, he heard the friendly voice, and saw the good-natured face, of his cousin Ben.

"Come back; come behind these people," said Ben, "and put on my great-coat; here it is for you."

Right glad was Hal to cover his disgraced uniform with the rough great-coat, which he had formerly despised. He pulled the stained, drooping cockade out of his unfortunate hat; and he was now sufficiently recovered from his vexation to give an intelligible account of his accident to his uncle and Patty, who anxiously inquired what had detained him so long, and what had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking the hat-band to spin his top had nothing to do with his misfortune; and he was at the same time endeavoring to refute his uncle's opinion, that the waste of the whipcord that tied the parcel, was the original cause of all his evils, when he was summoned to try his skill with his _famous_ bow.

"My hands are numbed; I can scarcely feel," said he, rubbing them, and blowing upon the ends of his fingers.

"Come, come," cried young Sweepstakes, "I'm within one inch of the mark; who'll go nearer, I should like to see. Shoot away, Hal; but first, understand our laws: we settled them before you came on the green. You are to have three shots, with your own bow and your own arrows; and nobody's to borrow or lend under pretence of other bows being better or worse, or under any pretence. Do you hear, Hal?"

This young gentleman had good reasons for being so strict in these laws, as he had observed that none of his companions had such an excellent bow as he had provided for himself. Some of the boys had forgotten to bring more than one arrow with them, and by his cunning regulation, that each person should shoot with his own arrows, many had lost one or two of their shots.

"You are a lucky fellow; you have your three arrows," said young Sweepstakes. "Come, we can't wait whilst you rub your fingers, man--shoot away."

Hal was rather surprised at the asperity with which his friend spoke. He little knew how easily acquaintances, who call themselves friends, can change, when their interest comes, in the slightest degree, in competition with their friendship. Hurried by his impatient rival, and with his hand so much benumbed that he could scarcely feel how to fix the arrow in the string, he drew the bow. The arrow was within a quarter of an inch of Master Sweepstakes' mark, which was the nearest that had yet been hit. Hal seized his second arrow. "If I have any luck," said he but just as he pronounced the word _luck_ and as he bent his bow, the string broke in two, and the bow fell from his hands.

"There, it's all over with you," cried Master Sweepstakes, with a triumphant laugh.

"Here's my bow for him and welcome," said Ben.

"No, no, Sir; that is not fair; that's against the regulation. You may shoot with your own bow, if you choose it, or you may not, just as you think proper but you must not lend it, Sir."

It was now Ben's turn to make his trial. His first arrow was not successful. His second was exactly as near as Hal's first.

"You have but one more," said Master Sweepstakes: "now for it!"

Ben, before he ventured his last arrow prudently examined the string of his bow; and as he pulled it to try its strength, it cracked.

Master Sweepstakes clapped his hands with loud exultations, and insulting laughter. But his laughter ceased when our provident hero calmly drew from his pocket an excellent piece of whipcord.

"The everlasting whipcord, I declare!" exclaimed Hal, when he saw that it was the very same that had tied up the parcel.

"Yes," said Ben, as he fastened it to his bow, "I put it into my pocket to-day, on purpose, because I thought I might happen to want it."

He drew his bow the third and last time.

"O Papa," cried little Patty, as his arrow hit the mark, "it's the nearest, is not it the nearest?"

Master Sweepstakes, with anxiety, examined the hit. There could be no doubt. Ben was victorious! The bow, the prize bow, was now delivered to him; and Hal, as he looked at the whipcord, exclaimed, "How _lucky_ this whipcord has been to you, Ben!"

"It is _lucky_ perhaps you mean, that he took care of it," said Mr. Gresham.

"Ay," said Hal, "very true; he might well say, 'Waste not, want not'; it is a good thing to have two strings to one's bow."

382

Only a few of those who have written
immediately for children have produced work
distinguished by the same high artistic
qualities found in the work of writers for
readers of mature minds. Of these few one is
Mrs. Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885). Edmund
Gosse has said that of the numerous English
authors who have written successfully on or for
children only two "have shown a clear
recollection of the mind of healthy childhood
itself. . . . Mrs. Ewing in prose and Mr.
Stevenson in verse have sat down with them
without disturbing their fancies, and have
looked into the world of 'make-believe' with
the children's own eyes." They might lead, he
thinks, "a long romp in the attic when nurse
was out shopping, and not a child in the house
should know that a grown-up person had been
there." This is very high praise indeed and it
suggests the reason for the immense popularity
of "Jackanapes," "The Story of a Short Life,"
"Daddy Darwin's Dovecot,"
"Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire," "Mrs. Overtheway's
Remembrances," and many another of the stories
that delighted young readers when they first
appeared in the pages of _Aunt Judy's
Magazine_. The preeminence of "Jackanapes"
among these many splendid stories may at least
partly be accounted for by the fact that it
grew out of the heat of a great conviction
about life. Early in 1879 the news reached
England of the death of the Prince Imperial of
France, who fell while serving with the English
forces in South Africa during the war with the
Zulus. Perhaps the present-day reader needs to
be reminded that the Prince Imperial was the
only son of the ex-Empress Eugenie, who, with
her husband Napoleon III had taken refuge in
England after the loss of the French throne at
the close of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
Napoleon's death shortly after made the young
prince a central figure in all considerations
of the possible recouping of the fortunes of
the Napoleonic dynasty. Full of the spirit of
adventure and courage, he had joined the
English forces to learn something of the
soldier's profession. Unexpectedly ambushed,
the prince was killed while the young officer
who had been assigned to look after him escaped
unhurt. There immediately ensued a wide
discussion of the action of this young officer
in saving himself and, apparently, leaving the
Prince to his fate. Now, Mrs. Ewing was a
soldier's wife and believed in the standard of
honor which would naturally be reflected in
military circles on such an incident. But
hearing the rule of "each man for himself" so
often emphasized in other circles, she was
moved to write the protest against such a view
which forms the central motive in "Jackanapes."
There is no argument, however, no undue
moralizing. With the finest art she embodies
that central doctrine in a great faith that the
saving of a man's life lies in his readiness to
lose it. It was Satan who said, "Skin for skin,
yea, all that a man hath will he give for his
life." The pathos in the story is naturally
inherent in the situation and is never
emphasized for its own sake. Mrs. Ewing was
always a thoroughly conscientious artist. She
believed that the laws of artistic composition
laid down by Ruskin in his _Elements of
Drawing_ applied with equal force to
literature. "For example," says her brother in
an article on her methods, "in the story of
'Jackanapes' the law of Principality is very
clearly demonstrated. Jackanapes is the one
important figure. The doting aunt, the
weak-kneed but faithful Tony Johnson, the
irascible general, the punctilious postman, the
loyal boy-trumpeter, the silent major, and the
ever-dear, faithful, loving Lollo,--all and
each of them conspire with one consent to
reflect forth the glory and beauty of the
noble, generous, recklessly brave, and gently
tender spirit of the hero 'Jackanapes.'" As to
the laws of repetition and contrast: "Again and
again is the village green introduced to the
imagination. It is a picture of eternal peace
and quietness, amid the tragedies of our
ever-changing life which are enacted around
it."

JACKANAPES

JULIANA HORATIA EWING