O litil white feet,

congratulates

Peele maliciously.

Nat

"Thou'rt in truth a happy shepherd now, Natty Downes,' says he. "Thy mistress turns kind at last, Natty Downes. Thou shalt enjoy her thou'st sighed for, Natty Downes. A blessing on thee and thy Bess!"

"Ha' done!" groans Nat, and confesses ruefully that he never loved Mistress Wynne nor pretended to until the day he first met Peele.

"And, O George, she is seven years my elder and hath a wall eye!"

George chuckles, "I ha' seen

blacke-thorne blossome,

Thogh ye come at the last

With bare thornes to trample the hart in my bosome,

fool," says George, his mouth humorously awry, "why in Jesu his name didst light on Mistress Wynne for a sweetheart? A dozen comelier were to hand."

Shamefacedly Nat explains the kindly notion that has resulted so unfortunately; "but I neuer didd thinck shee would heare of it, nor I knowe nott how shee came to."

"Why, I told her," says George, and the truth outs.

He was not, it seems, asleep to the philanderings of Nat and his lovely Annys, and they were little to his taste. So off he posts to Nat's old home to seek out Bess, that unknown cruelty, and make her serve his turn. He takes Nat's verses with him (whether in print or manuscript is not clear), and we are left to conjecture which party was the more dumfounded-George by the lady for whom Nat professed his consuming passion, or the lady and her brother by the

tale of it. Nat, who was beaten out of the village, might once have been laughed at as a match for his master's sister. But husbands are scarce for ladies of crooked looks, Elizabeth was getting on, Jonathan presumably jumped at being quit of her, and George cracked up Nat's fame and fortune with all the ardour of a poet's imagination. Both the Wynnes vow Bess's alleged denial of Nat a flat falsehood; if Nat says other of her he miscalls her. What! the honest name of Elizabeth Wynne bandied about the stews of London by this young cockerel? If he be making a jest of her, let him look to it! if he be in earnest, let him ask for her like a man! or Jonathan will know the reason why. This, the gist of Peele's story, explains the letter. "And so to Sussex with thee, lad."

"But if I will not go?" cries Nat.

"Then Jonathan will come fetch thee."

And George, very blandly: "He is in the next room." "God ha' mercy! then I'll run now."

Over my dead body, intimates George, planted at the door. 66 What, was it for nothing I brought him from Sussex and let him pay my bills by the way? Nay, Natty, thou shalt go back under brother Jonathan's arm."

"O!" protests Natty, "why all this, why?"

Then George turns serious and answers him. 66 Because,

the

will break his cudgel with thy poll and thy poll with his fist. I have seen both cudgel and fist, and I say go home." Then he claps Nat on shoulder something kindly, his "eie twinkells," and he adds, "Natty, shalt forgive me this one day. I never did love a man but some time I made him my victim."

And Nathaniel Downes went home to Sussex and married wall-eyed Elizabeth Wynne. We do not hear of his writing any verse afterwards.

ELEANOR FARJEON.

THOSE who met Colonel Cherryhinton for the first time. were always in a state of perplexed wonderment how it was that he had ever got command of a regiment. The most astonishing people get into places of authority by virtue of passing examinations, or because their parents have distinguished themselves in the world. The British elector sometimes chooses freaks to represent him in the House of Commons, and there are those who think that anybody is good enough to be a Justice of the Peace, even though he may be a passable representative of necessity which knows no law. But the command of a regiment is quite a different thing. General Butler had a very outspoken contempt for the War Office, but there are ordinarily, at any rate, several candidates for a regimental command, and it does not seem judicious to choose a crank for the post and then send the regiment on active service.

There was no possible doubt about Colonel Cherryhinton's eccentricity. He was quite qualified in that way to be chosen by those who dislike the obvious for a position of authority in a service where steady stolid common form and strict attention to business are usually desirable. He might have been useful as a member of a borough council, or as the drafter of a Finance Act, or as the composer of the

VOL. CXC.-NO. MCLIII.

libretto of a musical play, but as the colonel of a regiment on service he seemed out of place.

His regiment was one of those which formed part of the Expeditionary Force in the Third Burmese War. During the procession up the Irrawaddy to Mandalay his little foibles did not matter, for there was very little to do, and that was arranged by those higher in command, but later his regiment was one of those sent out to reduce the country to order. Now this was enough in itself to have driven the ordinary man mad, for there was no regimental transport, and there were no roads, and no maps, and no tents, and no mounted infantry to scout, and there were the most dubious chances of getting food forage from the country. There was, moreover, no enemy ever visible, though there was never any lack of information about him, and and occasional active proof of his existence in considerable and destructive bands. Several quite goodhumoured commanders columns became soured and violent in their temper. The sufferers were the junior officers, who were quite as much annoyed themselves, apart from this unnecessary worry. There were others, who were ordinarily quite commonplace in their language, but now developed a startling habit of swearing, not ordinary justi2 R

of

fiable bad language at definite object, or for an obvious cause, such as a golfball or a missed place-kick at goal, but simply general, vague cursing at large, on account of the relief that resulted.

Colonel Cherryhinton, however, did neither the one nor the other. This was in itself ground, perhaps weak, but still plausible, for arguing an illbalanced mind. He never cursed anybody or anything. He never appeared ruffled in his temper, not even when he and all the regiment had marched all night long on a night with no moon, most of the time on tiptoe, without speaking or smoking or halting, only to find some smouldering ashes and holes in the ground, which they were assured were the rebels' fireplaces.

All that the Colonel said was that system was wanted. Everything would go well if there were system. The headquarters staff, the civil administration, the transport service, commissariat, guides, informers, and the officers and men of the column itself, none of them had any system. He was troubled with insomnia, and he thought he might as well get over the unpleasantnesses of this and make his officers what he called workmanlike by giving them night lectures when the weather was cool and there was nothing else to do but sleep, which he found no system could get him into the way of doing. So he commenced having all his officers assembled at his bedside at three in the morning, read them extracts from the

'Soldier's Pocket-book,' subjected all these to destructive criticism, and then invited discussion. Most of the fieldofficers frankly yawned, and some of them kept themselves awake by seeing that the others did not go on sleeping when Cherry hinton had finished his reading and begun his dissertations. The subalterns, from a spirit of mischief mixed with resentment, tried to get as much fun as they could out of the matter, and developed what they called live problems out of recent developments not dealt with in the Soldier's Pooket-book,' such as how an enemy was to be disposed of who would not fight and could never be found, who had no sporting instincts and yet destroyed all local supplies and had no respect for commanding officers. The Colonel's invariable reply was that such inconveniences were only to be overcome by system. Another "useful question for the practical soldier" in the dry zone of Burma, which occupied an hour and a quarter in the debating, arose from the junior subaltern's inquiry as to the Colonel's personal experiences in the relative utility of champing pebbles or hard berries as a means of overcoming thirst when water was not to be had, and what was to be done when there were neither hard berries nor suitable pebbles available? The Colonel's opinion was that the systematic soldier would as a matter of habit and discipline never drink anything in cantonments but soup and an occasional cup of coffee in the