There was one person, however, whom Julie found less easy to deal with, and that was an Aunt, whose liberality even exceeded her own. When Greek met Greek over Christmas presents, then came the tug of war indeed! The Aunt's ingenuity in contriving to give away whatever plums were given to her was quite amazing, and she generally managed to baffle the most careful restrictions which were laid upon her; but Julie conquered at last, by yielding—as often happens in this life!

"It's no use," Julie said to me, as she got out her bit of cardboard (not for a needle-book this time!)—"I must make her happy in her own way. She wants me to make her a sketch for somebody else, and I've promised to do it."

The sketch was made,—the last Julie ever drew,—but it remained amongst the receiver's own treasures. She was so much delighted with it, she could not make up her mind to give it away, and Julie laughed many times with pleasure as she reflected on the unexpected success that had crowned her final effort.

I spoke of "Melchior's Dream" and must revert to it again, for though it was written when my sister was only nineteen, I do not think she has surpassed it in any of her later domestic tales. Some of the writing in the introduction may be rougher and less finished than she was capable of in after-years, but the originality, power, and pathos of the Dream itself are beyond doubt. In it, too, she showed the talent which gives the highest value to all her work—that of teaching deep religious lessons without disgusting her readers by any approach to cant or goody-goodyism.

During the years 1862 to 1868, we kept up a MS. magazine, and, of course, Julie was our principal contributor. Many of her poems on local events were genuinely witty, and her serial tales the backbone of the periodical. The best of these was called "The Two Abbots: a Tale of Second Sight," and in the course of it she introduced a hymn, which was afterwards set to music by Major Ewing and published in Boosey's Royal Edition of "Sacred Songs," under the title "From Fleeting Pleasures."

The words of this hymn, and of two others which she wrote for the use of our Sunday school children at Whitsuntide in the respective years 1864 and 1866 have all been published in vol. ix. of the present Edition of her works.

Some years after she married, my sister again tried her hand at hymn-writing. On July 22, 1879, she wrote to her husband:

"I think I will finish my hymn of 'Church of the Quick and Dead,' and get thee to write a processional tune. The metre is (last verse)—

My sister published very few of the things which she wrote to amuse us in our MS. "Gunpowder Plot Magazine," for they chiefly referred to local and family events; but "The Blue Bells on the Lea" was an exception. The scene of this is a hill-side near our old home, and Mr. Andre's fantastic and graceful illustrations to the verses when they came out as a book, gave her full satisfaction and delight.

In June 1865 she contributed a short parochial tale, "The Yew Lane Ghosts," to the Monthly Packet, and during the same year she gave a somewhat sensational story, called "The Mystery of the Bloody Hand,"[8] to London Society. Julie found no real satisfaction in writing this kind of literature, and she soon discarded it; but her first attempt showed some promise of the prolific power of her imagination, for Mr. Shirley Brooks, who read the tale impartially, not knowing who had written it, wrote the following criticism: "If the author has leisure and inclination to make a picture instead of a sketch, the material, judiciously treated, would make a novel, and I especially see in the character and sufferings of the Quaker, previous to his crime, matter for effective psychological treatment. The contrast between the semi-insane nature and that of the hypocrite might be powerfully worked up; but these are mere suggestions from an old craftsman, who never expects younger ones to see things as veterans do."

In May 1866 my Mother started Aunt Judy's Magazine for Children, and she called it by this title because "Aunt Judy" was the nickname we had given to Julie whilst she was yet our nursery story-teller, and it had been previously used in the titles of two of my Mother's most popular books, "Aunt Judy's Tales" and "Aunt Judy's Letters."

After my sister grew up, and began to publish stories of her own, many mistakes occurred as to the authorship of these books. It was supposed that the Tales and Letters were really written by Julie, and the introductory portions that strung them together by my Mother. This was a complete mistake; the only bits that Julie wrote in either of the books were three brief tales, in imitation of Andersen, called [9]"The Smut," "The Crick," and "The Brothers," which were included in "The Black Bag" in "Aunt Judy's Letters."

Julie's first contribution to Aunt Judy's Magazine was "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances," and between May 1866 and May 1867 the three first portions of "Ida," "Mrs. Moss," and "The Snoring Ghosts," came out. In these stories I can trace many of the influences which surrounded my sister whilst she was still the "always cayling Miss Julie," suffering from constant attacks of quinsy, and in the intervals, reviving from them with the vivacity of Madam Liberality, and frequently going away to pay visits to her friends for change of air.

We had one great friend to whom Julie often went, as she lived within a mile of our home, but on a perfectly different soil to ours. Ecclesfield stands on clay; but Grenoside, the village where our friend lived, is on sand, and much higher in altitude. From it we have often looked down at Ecclesfield lying in fog, whilst at Grenoside the air was clear and the sun shining. Here my sister loved to go, and from the home where she was so welcome and tenderly cared for, she drew (though no facts) yet much of the colouring which is seen in Mrs. Overtheway—a solitary life lived in the fear of God; enjoyment of the delights of a garden; with tender treasuring of dainty china and household goods for the sake of those to whom such relics had once belonged.

Years after our friend had followed her loved ones to their better home, and had bequeathed her egg-shell brocade to my sister, Julie had another resting-place in Grenoside, to which she was as warmly welcomed as to the old one, during days of weakness and convalescence. Here, in an atmosphere of cultivated tastes and loving appreciation, she spent many happy hours, sketching some of the villagers at their picturesque occupations of carpet-weaving and clog-making, or amusing herself in other ways. [10]This home, too, was broken up by Death, but Mrs. Ewing looked back to it with great affection, and when, at the beginning of her last illness, whilst she still expected to recover, she was planning a visit to her Yorkshire home, she sighed to think that Grenoside was no longer open to her.

On June 1, 1867, my sister was married to Alexander Ewing, A.P.D., son of the late Alexander Ewing, M.D., of Aberdeen, and a week afterwards they sailed for Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he was to be stationed.

A gap now occurred in the continuation of "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances." The first contributions that Julie sent from her new home were, "An Idyl of the Wood," and "The Three Christmas Trees."[11] In these tales the experiences of her voyage and fresh surroundings became apparent; but in June 1868, "Mrs. Overtheway" was continued by the story of "Reka Dom."

In this Julie reverted to the scenery of another English home where she had spent a good deal of time during her girlhood. The winter of 1862-3 was passed by her at Clyst St. George, near Topsham, with the family of her kind friend, Rev. H.T. Ellacombe, and she evolved Mrs. Overtheway's "River House"[12] out of the romance roused by the sight of quaint old houses, with quainter gardens, and strange names that seemed to show traces of foreign residents in days gone by. "Reka Dom" was actually the name of a house in Topsham, where a Russian family had once lived. Speaking of this house, Major Ewing said:—On the evening of our arrival at Fredericton, New Brunswick, which stands on the river St. John, we strolled down, out of the principal street, and wandered on the river shore. We stopped to rest opposite to a large old house, then in the hands of workmen. There was only the road between this house and the river, and, on the banks, one or two old willows. We said we should like to make our first home in some such spot. Ere many weeks were over, we were established in that very house, where we spent the first year, or more, of our time in Fredericton. We called it "Reka Dom," the River House.

For the descriptions of Father and Mother Albatross and their island home, in the last and most beautiful tale of "Kerguelen's Land," she was indebted to her husband, a wide traveller and very accurate observer of nature.

To the volume of Aunt Judy's Magazine for 1869 she only sent "The Land of Lost Toys,"[13] a short but very brilliant domestic story, the wood described in it being the "Upper Shroggs," near Ecclesfield, which had been a very favourite haunt in her childhood. In October 1869, she and Major Ewing returned to England, and from this time until May 1877, he was stationed at Aldershot.

Whilst living in Fredericton my sister formed many close friendships. It was here she first met Colonel and Mrs. Fox Strangways. In the society of Bishop Medley and his wife she had also great happiness, and with the former she and Major Ewing used to study Hebrew. The cathedral services were a never-failing source of comfort, and at these her husband frequently played the organ, especially on occasions when anthems, which he had written at the bishop's request, were sung.

To the volume of Aunt Judy's Magazine for 1870 she gave "Amelia and the Dwarfs," and "Christmas Crackers," "Benjy in Beastland," and eight[14] "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales." "Amelia" is one of her happiest combinations of real child life and genuine fairy lore. The dwarfs inspired Mr. Cruikshank[15] to one of his best water-colour sketches: who is the happy possessor thereof I do not know, but the woodcut illustration very inadequately represents the beauty and delicacy of the picture.

Whilst speaking of the stories in this volume of Aunt Judy's Magazine, I must stop to allude to one of the strongest features in Julie's character, namely, her love for animals. She threw over them, as over everything she touched, all the warm sympathy of her loving heart, and it always seemed to me as if this enabled her almost to get inside the minds of her pets, and know how to describe their feelings.[16]

Another Beast Friend whom Julie had in New Brunswick was the Bear of the 22nd Regiment, and she drew a sketch of him "with one of his pet black dogs, as I saw them, 18th September, 1868, near the Officers' Quarters, Fredericton, N.B. The Bear is at breakfast, and the dog occasionally licks his nose when it comes up out of the bucket."

The pink-nosed bull-dog in "Amelia" bears a strong likeness to a well-beloved "Hector," whom she took charge of in Fredericton whilst his master had gone on leave to be married in England. Hector, too, was "a snow-white bull-dog (who was certainly as well bred and as amiable as any living creature in the kingdom)," with a pink nose that "became crimson with increased agitation." He was absolutely gentle with human beings, but a hopeless adept at fighting with his own kind, and many of my sister's letters and note-books were adorned with sketches of Hector as he appeared swollen about the head, and subdued in spirits, after some desperate encounter; or, with cards spread out in front of him, playing, as she delighted to make him do, at "having his fortune told."[17] But, instead of the four Queens standing for four ladies of different degrees of complexion, they represented his four favourite dishes of—1. Welsh rabbit. 2. Blueberry pudding. 3. Pork sausages. 4. Buckwheat pancakes and molasses; and "the Fortune" decided which of these dainties he was to have for supper.

Shortly before the Ewings started from Fredericton they went into the barracks, whence a battalion of some regiment had departed two days before, and there discovered a large black retriever who had been left behind. It is needless to say that this deserted gentleman entirely overcame their feelings; he was at once adopted, named "Trouvé," and brought home to England, where he spent a very happy life, chiefly in the South Camp, Aldershot, his one danger there being that he was such a favourite with the soldiers, they over-fed him terribly. Never did a more benevolent disposition exist, his broad forehead and kind eyes, set widely apart, did not belie him; there was a strong strain of Newfoundland in his breed, and a strong likeness to a bear in the way his feathered paws half crossed over each other in walking. Trouvé appears as "Nox" in "Benjy," and there is a glimpse of him in "The Sweep," who ended his days as a "soldier's dog" in "The Story of a Short Life." Trouvé did, in reality, end his days at Ecclesfield, where he is buried near "Rough," the broken-haired bull-terrier, who is the real hero in "Benjy," Amongst the various animal friends whom Julie had either of her own, or belonging to others, none was lovelier than the golden-haired collie "Rufus," who was at once the delight and distraction of the last year of her life at Taunton, by the tricks he taught himself of very gently extracting the pins from her hair, and letting it down at inconvenient moments; and of extracting, with equal gentleness from the earth, the labels that she had put to the various treasured flowers in her "Little Garden," and then tossing them in mid-air on the grass-plot.

A very amusing domestic story, called "The Snap Dragons," came out in the Christmas number of the Monthly Packet for 1870.

"Timothy's Shoes" appeared in Aunt Judy's volume for 1871. This was another story of the same type as "Amelia," and it was also illustrated by Mr. Cruikshank. I think the Marsh Julie had in her mind's eye, with a "long and steep bank," is one near the canal at Aldershot, where she herself used to enjoy hunting for kingcups, bog-asphodel, sundew, and the like. The tale is a charming combination of humour and pathos, and the last clause, where "the shoes go home," is enough to bring tears to the eyes of every one who loves the patter of childish feet.

The most important work that she did this year (1871) was "A Flat-Iron for a Farthing," which ran as a serial through the volume of Aunt Judy's Magazine. It was very beautifully illustrated by Helen Paterson (now Mrs. Allingham), and the design where the "little ladies," in big beaver bonnets, are seated at a shop-counter buying flat-irons, was afterwards reproduced in water-colours by Mrs. Allingham, and exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours (1875), where it attracted Mr. Ruskin's attention.[18] Eventually, a fine steel engraving was done from it by Mr. Stodart.[19] It is interesting to know that the girl friend who sat as a model for "Polly" to Mrs. Allingham is now herself a well-known artist, whose pictures are hung in the Royal Academy.

The scene of the little girls in beaver bonnets was really taken from an incident of Julie's childhood, when she and her "duplicate" (my eldest sister) being the nearest in age, size, and appearance of any of the family, used to be dressed exactly alike, and were inseparable companions: their flat-irons, I think, were bought in Matlock. Shadowy glimpses of this same "duplicate" are also to be caught in Mrs. Overtheway's "Fatima," and Madam Liberality's "Darling." When "A Flat-Iron" came out in its book form it was dedicated "To my dear Father, and to his sister, my dear Aunt Mary, in memory of their good friend and nurse, E.B., obiit 3 March, 1872, æt. 83;" the loyal devotion and high integrity of Nurse Bundle having been somewhat drawn from the "E.B." alluded to. Such characters are not common, and they grow rarer year by year. We do well to hold them in everlasting remembrance.

PART II.

During 1871, my sister published the first of her Verses for Children, "The Little Master to his Big Dog"; she did not put her name to it in Aunt Judy's Magazine, but afterwards included it in one of her Verse Books. Two Series of these books were published during her life, and a third Series was in the press when she died, called "Poems of Child Life and Country Life"; though Julie had some difficulty in making up her mind to use the term "poem," because she did not think her irregular verses were worthy to bear the title.

She saw Mr. André's original sketches for five of the last six volumes, and liked the illustrations to "The Poet and the Brook," "Convalescence," and "The Mill Stream" best.

To the volume of Aunt Judy's Magazine for 1872 she gave her first "soldier" story, "The Peace Egg," and in this she began to sing those praises of military life and courtesies which she afterwards more fully showed forth in "Jackanapes," "The Story of a Short Life," and the opening chapters of "Six to Sixteen." The chief incident of the story, however, consisted in the Captain's children unconsciously bringing peace and goodwill into the family by performing the old Christmas play or Mystery of "The Peace Egg." This play we had been accustomed to see acted in Yorkshire, and to act ourselves when we were young. I recollect how proud we were on one occasion, when our disguises were so complete, that a neighbouring farmer's wife, at whose door we went to act, drove us as ignominiously away, as the House-keeper did the children in the story. "Darkie," who "slipped in last like a black shadow," and "Pax," who jumped on to Mamma's lap, "where, sitting facing the company, he opened his black mouth and yawned, with ludicrous inappropriateness," are life-like portraits of two favourite dogs.

The tale was a very popular one, and many children wrote to ask where they could buy copies of the Play in order to act it themselves. These inquiries led Julie to compile a fresh arrangement of it, for she knew that in its original form it was rather too roughly worded to be fit for nursery use; so in Aunt Judy's Magazine (January 1884) she published an adaptation of "The Peace Egg, a Christmas Mumming Play," together with some interesting information about the various versions of it which exist in different parts of England.

She contributed "Six to Sixteen" as a serial to the Magazine in 1872, and it was illustrated by Mrs. Allingham. When it was published as a book, the dedication to Miss Eleanor Lloyd told that many of the theories on the up-bringing of girls, which the story contained, were the result of the somewhat desultory, if intellectual, home education which we had received from our Mother. This education Miss Lloyd had, to a great extent, shared during the happy visits she paid us; when she entered into our interests with the zest of a sister, and in more than one point outstripped us in following the pursuits for which Mother gave us a taste. Julie never really either went to school or had a governess, though for a brief period she was under the kind care of some ladies at Brighton, but they were relations, and she went to them more for the benefit of sea breezes than lessons. She certainly chiefly educated herself by the "thorough" way in which she pursued the various tastes she had inherited, and into which she was guided by our Mother. Then she never thought she had learned enough, but throughout her whole life was constantly improving and adding to her knowledge. She owed to Mother's teaching the first principles of drawing, and I have often seen her refer for rules on perspective to "My Childhood in Art,"[20] a story in which these rules were fully laid down; but Mother had no eye for colour, and not much for figure drawing. Her own best works were etchings on copper of trees and landscapes, whereas Julie's artistic talent lay more in colours and human forms. The only real lessons in sketching she ever had were a few from Mr. Paul Naftel, years after she was married.

One of her favourite methods for practising drawing was to devote herself to thoroughly studying the sketches of some one master, in order to try and unravel the special principles on which he had worked, and then to copy his drawings. She pursued this plan with some of Chinnery's curious and effective water-colour sketches, which were lent to her by friends, and she found it a very useful one. She made copies from De Wint, Turner, and others, in the same way, and certainly the labour she threw into her work enabled her to produce almost facsimiles of the originals. She was greatly interested one day by hearing a lady, who ranks as one of the best living English writers of her sex, say that when she was young she had practised the art of writing in just the same way that Julie pursued that of drawing, namely, by devoting herself to reading the works of one writer at a time, until her brain was so saturated with his style that she could write exactly like him, and then passing on to an equally careful study of some other author.

The life-like details of the "cholera season," in the second chapter of "Six to Sixteen," were drawn from facts that Major Ewing told his wife of a similar season which he had passed through in China, and during which he had lost several friends; but the touching episode of Margery's birthday present, and Mr. Abercrombie's efforts to console her, were purely imaginary.

Several of the "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" which Julie wrote during this (1872) and previous years in Aunt Judy's Magazine, were on Scotch topics, and she owed the striking accuracy of her local colouring and dialect, as well as her keen intuition of Scotch character, to visits that she paid to Major Ewing's relatives in the North, and also to reading such typical books as Mansie Wauch, the Tailor of Dalkeith, a story which she greatly admired. She liked to study national types of character, and when she wrote "We and the World," one of its chief features was meant to be the contrast drawn between the English, Scotch, and Irish heroes; thanks to her wide sympathy she was as keenly able to appreciate the rugged virtues of the dour Scotch race, as the more quick and graceful beauties of the Irish mind.

The Autumn Military Manoeuvres in 1872 were held near Salisbury Plain, and Major Ewing was so much fascinated by the quaint old town of Amesbury, where he was quartered, that he took my sister afterwards to visit the place. The result of this was that her "Miller's Thumb"[21] came out as a serial in Aunt Judy's Magazine during 1873. All the scenery is drawn from the neighbourhood of Amesbury, and the Wiltshire dialect she acquired by the aid of a friend, who procured copies for her of Wiltshire Tales and A Glossary of Wiltshire Words and Phrases, both by J.Y. Akerman, F.S.A. She gleaned her practical knowledge of life in a windmill, and a "Miller's Thumb," from an old man who used to visit her hut in the South Camp, Aldershot, having fallen from being a Miller with a genuine Thumb, to the less exalted position of hawking muffins in winter and "Sally Lunns" in summer! Mrs. Allingham illustrated the story; two of her best designs were Jan and his Nurse Boy sitting on the plain watching the crows fly, and Jan's first effort at drawing on his slate. It was published as a book in 1876, and dedicated to our eldest sister, and the title was then altered to "Jan of the Windmill, a Story of the Plains."

Three poems of Julie's came out in the volume of Aunt Judy's Magazine for 1873, "The Willow Man," "Ran away to Sea," and "A Friend in the Garden"; her name was not given to the last, but it is a pleasant little rhyme about a toad. She also wrote during this year "Among the Merrows," a fantastic account of a visit she paid to the Aquarium at the Crystal Palace.

In October 1873, our Mother died, and my sister contributed a short memoir of her[22] to the November number of Aunt Judy's Magazine. To the December number she gave "Madam Liberality."

For two years after Mother's death, Julie shared the work of editing the Magazine with me, and then she gave it up, as we were not living together, and so found the plan rather inconvenient; also the task of reading MSS. and writing business letters wasted time which she could spend better on her own stories.

At the end of the year 1873, she brought out a book, "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales," consisting of five stories, three of which—"Timothy's Shoes," "Benjy in Beastland," and "The Peace Egg,"—had already been published in Aunt Judy's Magazine, whilst "Old Father Christmas" had appeared in Little Folks; but the first tale of "Lob" was specially written for the volume.[23]

The character of McAlister in this story is a Scotchman of the Scotch, and, chiefly in consequence of this fact, the book was dedicated to James Boyn McCombie, an uncle of Major Ewing, who always showed a most kind and helpful interest in my sister's literary work.

He died a few weeks before she did, much to her sorrow, but the Dedication remained when the story came out in a separate form, illustrated by Mr. Caldecott. The incident which makes the tale specially appropriate to be dedicated to so true and unobtrusive a philanthropist as Mr. McCombie was known to be, is the Highlander's burning anxiety to rescue John Broom from his vagrant career.

"Lob" contains some of Julie's brightest flashes of humour, and ends happily, but in it, as in many of her tales, "the dusky strand of death" appears, inwoven with, and thereby heightening, the joys of love and life. It is a curious fact that, though her power of describing death-bed scenes was so vivid, I believe she never saw any one die; and I will venture to say that her description of McAlister's last hours surpasses in truth and power the end of Leonard's "Short Life"; the extinction of the line of "Old Standards" in Daddy Darwin; the unseen call that led Jan's Schoolmaster away; and will even bear comparison with Jackanapes' departure through the Grave to that "other side" where "the Trumpets sounded for him."

In order to appreciate the end, it is almost necessary, perhaps, to have followed John Broom, the ne'er-do-weel lad, and McAlister, the finest man in his regiment, through the scenes which drew them together, and to read how the soldier, who might and ought to have been a "sairgent," tried to turn the boy back from pursuing the downward path along which he himself had taken too many steps; and then learn how the vagrant's grateful love and agility enabled him to awaken the sleeping sentinel at his post, and save "the old soldier's honour."

Death-beds are not the only things which Julie had the power of picturing out of her inner consciousness apart from actual experience. She was much amused by the pertinacity with which unknown correspondents occasionally inquired after her "little ones," unable to give her the credit of describing and understanding children unless she possessed some of her own. There is a graceful touch at the end of "Lob," which seems to me one of the most delicate evidences of her universal sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men,—and women! It is similar in character to the passage I alluded to in "Timothy's Shoes," where they clatter away for the last time, into silence.

In 1874 Julie wrote "A Great Emergency" as a serial for the Magazine, and took great pains to corroborate the accuracy of her descriptions of barge life for it.[24] I remember our inspecting a barge on the canal at Aldershot, with a friend who understood all its details, and we arranged to go on an expedition in it to gain further experience, but were somehow prevented. The allusions to Dartmouth arose from our visit there, of which I have already spoken, and which took place whilst she was writing the tale; and her knowledge of the intricacies of the Great Eastern Railway between Fenchurch Street Station and North Woolwich came from the experience she gained when we went on expeditions to Victoria Docks, where one of our brothers was doing parochial work under Canon Boyd.

During 1874 five of her "Verses for Children" came out in the Magazine, two of which, "Our Garden," and "Three Little Nest-Birds," were written to fit old German woodcuts. The others were "The Dolls' Wash," "The Blue Bells on the Lea," and "The Doll's Lullaby." She wrote an article on "May-Day, Old Style and New Style," in 1874, and also contributed fifty-two brief "Tales of the Khoja,"[25] which she adapted from the Turkish by the aid of a literal translation of them given in Barker's Reading-Book of the Turkish Language, and by the help of Major Ewing, who possessed some knowledge of the Turkish language and customs, and assisted her in polishing the stories. They are thoroughly Eastern in character, and full of dry wit.

I must here digress to speak of some other work that my sister did during the time she lived in Aldershot. Both she and Major Ewing took great interest in the amateur concerts and private musical performances that took place in the camp, and the V.C. in "The Story of a Short Life," with a fine tenor voice, and a "fastidious choice in the words of the songs he sang," is a shadow of these past days. The want that many composers felt of good words for setting to music, led Julie to try to write some, and eventually, in 1874, a book of "Songs for Music, by Four Friends,"[26] was published; the contents were written by my sister and two of her brothers, and the Rev. G.J. Chester. This book became a standing joke amongst them, because one of the reviewers said it contained "songs by four writers, one of whom was a poet," and he did not specify the one by name.