This fragment at any rate serves to show what a strong impression the picture had made upon Julie's mind, so it will readily be imagined how intensely delighted she was when she unexpectedly made the acquaintance, at Manchester, of Mr. Galloway, who proved to have bought Mr. Watson's work, and he was actually kind enough to lend the treasure to her for a considerable time, so that she could study it thoroughly, and make a most accurate copy of it. Mr. Galloway's friendship, and that of some other people whom she first met at Bowdon, were the brightest spots in Julie's existence during this period.

In September 1878 the Ewings removed to Fulford, near York, and, on their arrival, Julie at once devoted herself to adorning her new home. We were very much amused by the incredulous amazement betrayed on the stolid face of an elderly workman, to whom it was explained that he was required to distemper the walls of the drawing-room with a sole colour, instead of covering them with a paper, after the manner of all the other drawing-rooms he had ever had to do with. But he was too polite to express his difference of taste by more than looks;—and some days after the room was finished, with etchings duly hung on velvet in the panels of the door,—the sole-coloured walls well covered with pictures, whence they stood out undistracted by gold and flowery paper patterns—the distemperer called, and asked if he might be allowed, as a favour, to see the result of Mrs. Ewing's arrangements. I forget if he expressed anything by words, as he stood in the middle of the room twisting his hat in his fingers—but we had learned to read his face, and Julie was fully satisfied with the fresh expression of amazement mixed with admiration which she saw there.

One theory which she held strongly about the decoration of houses was, that the contents ought to represent the associations of the inmates, rather than the skill of their upholsterer; and for this reason she would not have liked to limit any of her rooms to one special period, such as Queen Anne's, unless she had possessed an old house, built at some date to which a special kind of furniture belonged. She contrived to make her home at York a very pretty one; but it was of short duration, for in March 1879 Major Ewing was despatched to Malta, and Julie had to begin to pack her Lares and Penates once more.

It may, perhaps, be wondered that she was allowed to spend her time and strength on the labour of packing, which a professional worker would have done far better,—but it is easier to see the mistakes of others than to rectify our own! There were many difficulties to be encountered, not the least of these being Julie's own strong will, and bad though it was, in one sense, for her to be physically over-tired, it was better than letting her be mentally so; and to an active brain like hers, "change of occupation" is the only possible form of "rest." Professional packers and road and rail cars represent money, and Julie's skill in packing both securely and economically was undeniably great. This is not surprising if we hold, as an old friend does, that ladies would make far better housemaids than uneducated women do, because they would throw their brains as well as muscles into their work. Julie did throw her brains into everything, big or little, that she undertook; and one of her best and dearest friends,—whose belief in my sister's powers and "mission" as a writer were so strong that she almost grudged even the time "wasted" on sketching, which might have been given to penning more stories for the age which boasts Gordon as its hero,—and who, being with Julie at her death, could not believe till the very End came that she would be taken, whilst so much seemed to remain for her to do here,—confessed to me afterwards she had learned to see that Julie's habit of expending her strength on trifles arose from an effort of nature to balance the vigour of her mind, which was so much greater than that of her body.

During the six months that my sister resided in York she wrote a few contributions for Aunt Judy's Magazine. To the number for January 1879 she gave "Flaps," a sequel to "The Hens of Hencastle."

The latter story was not written by her, but was a free adaptation which Colonel Yeatman-Biggs made from the German of Victor Blüthgen. Julie had been greatly amused by the tale, but, finding that it ended in a vague and unsatisfactory way, she could not be contented, so took up her pen and wrote a finale, her chief aim being to provide a happy ending for the old farm-dog, Flaps himself, after whom she named her sequel. The writing is so exactly similar to that of "The Hens," that the two portions can scarcely be identified as belonging to different writers. Julie used often to reproach me for indulging in what John Wesley called "the lust of finishing," but in matters concerning her own art she was as great an offender on this score as any one else!

Julie gave a set of verses on "Canada Home" to the same number as "Flaps," and to the March (1879) number she gave some other verses on "Garden Lore." In April the second part of "We and the World" began to appear, and a fresh character was introduced, who is one of the most important and touching features of the tale. Biddy Macartney is a real old Irish melody in herself, with her body tied to a coffee-barrow in the Liverpool Docks, and her mind ever wandering in search of the son who had run away to sea. Jack, the English hero, comes across Biddy in the docks just before he starts as a stowaway for America, and his stiff, crude replies to her voluble outpourings are essentially British and boy-like:—

There is another new character in the second part of "We," who is also a fine picture:—Alister the blue-eyed Scotch lad, with his respect for "book-learning," and his powers of self-denial and endurance; but Julie certainly had a weakness for the Irish nation, and the tender grace with which she touches Dennis O'Moore and Biddy shines conspicuously throughout the story. In one scene, however, I think she brings up her Scotch hero neck-and-neck, if not ahead, of her favourite Irishman.

This is in Chapter VII., where an entertainment is being held on board ship, and Dennis and Alister are called upon in turn to amuse the company with a song. Dennis gets through his ordeal well; he has a beautiful voice, which makes him independent of the accompaniment of a fiddle (the only musical instrument on board), and Julie describes his simpatico rendering of "Bendemeer's Stream" from the way in which she loved to hear one of our brothers sing it. He had learned it by ear on board ship from a fellow-passenger, and she was never tired of listening to the melody. When this same brother came to visit her whilst she was ill at Bath, and sang to her as she lay in bed,—"Bendemeer's Stream" was the one strain she asked for, and the last she heard.

Dennis O'Moore's performance met with warm applause, and then the boatswain, who had a grudge against Alister, because the Scotch Captain treated his countryman with leniency, taunted the shy and taciturn lad to "contribute to the general entertainment."

The description of Alister's song, as well as that of Dennis, was to some extent drawn from life, Julie having been accustomed to hear "Scots, wha hae" rendered by a Scot with more soul than voice, who always "moved the hearts of the people as one man" by his patriotic fire.

My sister was greatly aided by two friends in her descriptions of the scenery in "We," such as the vivid account of Bermuda and the waterspout in Chapter XI., and that of the fire at Demerara in Chapter XII., and she owed to the same kind helpers also the accuracy of her nautical phrases and her Irish dialect. Certainly this second part of the tale is full of interest, but I cannot help wishing that the materials had been made into two books instead of one. There are more than enough characters and incidents to have developed into a couple of tales.

Julie had often said how strange it seemed to her, when people who had a ready pen for writing consulted her as to what they should write about! She suffered so much from over-abundance of ideas which she had not the physical strength to put on paper.

Even when she was very ill, and unable to use her hands at all, the sight of a lot of good German wood-cuts, which were sent to me at Bath, suggested so many fresh ideas to her brain, that she only longed to be able to seize her pen and write tales to the pictures.

Before we turn finally away from the subject of her liking for Irish people, I must mention a little adventure which happened to her at Fulford.

There is one parish in York where a great number of Irish peasants live, and many of the women used to pass Julie's windows daily, going out to work in the fields at Fulford. She liked to watch them trudging by, with large baskets perched picturesquely on the tops of their heads, but in the town the "Irishers" are not viewed with equal favour by the inhabitants. One afternoon Julie was out sketching in a field, and came across one of these poor Irish women. My sister's mind at the time was full of Biddy Macartney, and she could not resist the opportunity of having a chat with this suggestive "study" for the character. She found an excuse for addressing the old woman about some cattle which seemed restless in the field, but quickly discovered, to her amusement, that when she alluded to Ireland, her companion, in the broadest brogue, stoutly denied having any connection with the country. No doubt she thought Julie's prejudices would be similar to those of her town neighbours, but in a short time some allusion was inadvertently made to "me father's farm in Kerry," and the truth leaked out. After this they became more confidential; and when Julie admired some quaint silver rings on her companion's finger, the old woman was most anxious to give her one, and was only restrained by coming to the decision that she would give her a recipe for "real Irish whisky" instead. She began with "You must take some barley and put it in a poke—" but after this Julie heard no more, for she was distracted by the cattle, who had advanced unpleasantly near; the Irish woman, however, continued her instructions to the end, waving her arms to keep the beasts off, which she so far succeeded in doing, that Julie caught the last sentence—

"And then ye must bury it in a bog."

"Is that to give it a peaty flavour?" asked my sister, innocently.

"Oh, no, me dear!—it's because of the excise-man."

When they parted, the old woman's original reserve entirely gave way, and she cried: "Good luck to ye! and go to Ireland!"

Julie remained in England for some months after Major Ewing started for Malta, and as he was despatched on very short notice, and she had to pack up their goods; also—as she was not strong—it was decided that she should avoid going out for the hot summer weather, and wait for the healthier autumn season. Her time, therefore, was now chiefly spent amongst civilian friends and relations, and I want this fact to be specially noticed, in connection with the next contributions that she wrote for the Magazine.

In February 1879, the terrible news had come of the Isandlwana massacre, and this was followed in June by that of the Prince Imperial's death. My sister was, of course, deeply engrossed in the war tidings, as many of her friends went out to South Africa—some to return no more. In July she contributed "A Soldier's Children" to Aunt Judy, and of all her child verses this must be reckoned the best, every line from first to last breathing how strong her sympathies still were for military men and things, though she was no longer living amongst them:

The humour and pathos in the lines are so closely mixed, it is very difficult to read them aloud without tears; but they have been recited—as Julie was much pleased to know—by the "old Father" of the "Queer Fellows" to whom the verses were dedicated, when he was on a troopship going abroad for active service, and they were received with warm approbation by his hearers. He read them on other occasions, also in public, with equal success.

The crowning military work, however, which Julie did this year was "Jackanapes." This she wrote for the October number of Aunt Judy: and here let me state that I believe if she had still been living at Aldershot, surrounded by the atmosphere of military sympathies and views of honour, the tale would never have been written. It was not aimed, as some people supposed, personally at the man who was with the Prince Imperial when he met his death. Julie would never have sat in judgment on him, even before he, too, joined the rank of those Dead, about whom no evil may be spoken. It was hearing this same man's conduct discussed by civilians from the standard of honour which is unhappily so different in civil and military circles, and more especially the discussion of it amongst "business men," where the rule of "each man for himself" is invariable, which drove Julie into uttering the protest of "Jackanapes." I believe what she longed to show forth was how the life of an army—as of any other body—depends on whether the individuality of its members is dead; a paradox which may perhaps be hard to understand, save in the light of His teaching, Who said that the saving of a man's life lay in his readiness to lose it. The merging of selfish interests into a common cause is what makes it strong; and it is from Satan alone we get the axiom, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." Of "Jackanapes" itself I need not speak. It has made Julie's name famous, and deservedly so, for it not only contains her highest teaching, but is her best piece of literary art.

There are a few facts connected with the story which, I think, will be interesting to some of its admirers. My sister was in London in June 1879, and then made the acquaintance of Mr. Randolph Caldecott, for whose illustrations to Washington Irving's "Bracebridge Hall" and "Old Christmas" she had an unbounded admiration, as well as for his Toy Books. This introduction led us to ask him, when "Jackanapes" was still simmering in Julie's brain, if he would supply a coloured illustration for it. But as the tale was only written a very short time before it appeared, and as the illustration was wanted early, because colours take long to print, Julie could not send the story to be read, but asked Mr. Caldecott to draw her a picture to fit one of the scenes in it. The one she suggested was a "fair-haired boy on a red-haired pony," having noticed the artistic effect produced by this combination in one of her own nephews, a skilful seven-year-old rider who was accustomed to follow the hounds.

This coloured illustration was given in Aunt Judy's Magazine, with the tale, but when it was republished as a book, in 1883, the scene was reproduced on a smaller scale in black and white only.

"Jackanapes" was much praised when it came out in the Magazine, but it was not until it had been re-issued as a book that it became really well known. Even then its success was within a hair's-breadth of failing. The first copies were brought out in dull stone-coloured paper covers, and that powerful vehicle "the Trade," unable to believe that a jewel could be concealed in so plain a casket, refused the work of J.H.E. and R.C. until they had stretched the paper cover on boards, and coloured the Union Jack which adorns it! No doubt "the Trade" understands its fickle child "the Public" better than either authors or artists do, and knows by experience that it requires tempting with what is pretty to look at, before it will taste. Certainly, if praise from the public were the chief aim that writers, or any other workers, strove after, their lives for the most part would consist of disappointment only, so seldom is "success" granted whilst the power to enjoy it is present. They alone whose aims are pointed above earthly praise can stand unmoved amidst neglect or blame, filled with that peace of a good conscience which the world can neither give nor take away.

PART IV.

Julie now consulted Sir William Jenner about her health, and, seeing the disastrous effect that travelling had upon her, he totally forbade her to start again for several months, until she had recovered some strength and was better able to bear fatigue. This verdict was a heavy blow to my sister, and the next four years were ones of great trial and discomfort to her. A constant succession of disappointed hopes and frustrated plans, which were difficult, even for Madam Liberality, to bear!

She hoped when her husband came home on leave at Christmas, 1879, that she should be able to return with him, but she was still unfit to go; and then she planned to follow later with a sister, who should help her on the journey, and be rewarded by visiting the island home of the Knights, but this castle also fell to the ground. Meantime Julie was suffering great inconvenience from the fact that she had sent all her possessions to Malta several months before, keeping only some light luggage which she could take with her. Amongst other things from which she was thus parted, was the last chapter of "We and the World," which she had written (as she often did the endings of her tales) when she was first arranging the plot. This final scene was buried in a box of books, and could not be found when wanted, so had to be rewritten and then my sister's ideas seem to have got into a fresh channel, for she brought her heroes safely back to their Yorkshire home, instead of dropping the curtain on them after a gallant rescue in a Cornish mine, as she originally arranged. Julie hoped against hope, as time went on, that she should become stronger, and able to follow her Lares and Penates, so she would not have them sent back to her, until a final end was put to her hopes by Major Ewing being sent on from Malta to Ceylon, and in the climate of the latter place the doctors declared it would be impossible for her to live. The goods, therefore, were now sent back to England, and she consoled herself under the bitter trial of being parted from her husband, and unable to share the enjoyment of the new and wonderful scenes with which he was surrounded, by thankfulness for his unusual ability as a vivid and brilliant letter-writer. She certainly practised both in days of joy and sorrow the virtue of being lætus sorte meâ; which she afterwards so powerfully taught in her "Story of a Short Life." I never knew her fail to find happiness wherever she was placed, and good in whomsoever she came across. Whatever her circumstances might be they always yielded to her causes for thankfulness, and work to be done with a ready and hopeful heart. That "lamp of zeal," about which Margery speaks in "Six to Sixteen," was never extinguished in Julie, even after youth and strength were no longer hers:—

In spite, however, of my sister's contentment with her lot, and the kindness and hospitality shown to her at this time by relations and friends, her position was far from comfortable; and Madam Liberality's hospitable soul was sorely tried by having no home to which she could welcome her friends, whilst her fragile body battled against constantly moving from one house to another when she was often unfit to do anything except keep quiet and at rest. She was not able to write much, and during 1880 only contributed two poems to Aunt Judy's Magazine, "Grandmother's Spring," and "Touch Him if You Dare."

To the following volume (1881) she again was only able to give two other poems, "Blue and Red; or the Discontented Lobster," and "The Mill Stream"; but these are both much longer than her usual Verses for Children—and, indeed, are better suited for older readers—though the former was such a favourite with a three-year-old son of one of our bishops that he used to repeat it by heart.

In November 1881, Aunt Judy's Magazine passed into the hands of a fresh publisher, and a new series was begun, with a fresh outside cover which Mr. Caldecott designed for it. Julie was anxious to help in starting the new series, and she wrote "Daddy Darwin's Dovecot" for the opening number. All the scenery of this is drawn from the neighbourhood of Ecclesfield, where she had lately been spending a good deal of her time, and so refreshed her memory of its local colouring. The story ranks equal to "Jackanapes" as a work of literary art, though it is an idyll of peace instead of war, and perhaps, therefore, appeals rather less deeply to general sympathies; but I fully agree with a noted artist friend, who, when writing to regret my sister's death, said, "'Jackanapes' and 'Daddy Darwin' I have never been able to read without tears, and hope I never may." Daddy had no actual existence, though his outward man may have been drawn from types of a race of "old standards" which is fast dying out. The incident of the theft and recovery of the pigeons is a true one, and happened to a flock at the old Hall farm near our home, which also once possessed a luxuriant garden, wherein Phoebe might have found all the requisites for her Sunday posy. A "tea" for the workhouse children used to be Madam Liberality's annual birthday feast; and the spot where the gaffers sat and watched the "new graft" strolling home across the fields was so faithfully described by Julie from her favourite Schroggs Wood, that when Mr. Caldecott reproduced it in his beautiful illustration, some friends who were well acquainted with the spot, believed that he had been to Ecclesfield to paint it.

Julie's health became somewhat better in 1882, and for the Magazine this year she wrote as a serial tale "Lætus Sorte Meâ; or, the Story of a Short Life." This was not republished as a book until four days before my sister's death, and it has become so well known from appearing at this critical time that I need say very little about it. A curious mistake, however, resulted from its being published then, which was that most of the reviewers spoke of it as being the last work that she wrote, and commented on the title as a singularly appropriate one, but those who had read the tale in the Magazine were aware that it was written three years previously, and that the second name was put before the first, as it was feared the public would be perplexed by a Latin title. The only part of the book that my sister added during her illness was Leonard's fifth letter in Chapter X. This she dictated, because she could not write. She had intended to give Saint Martin's history when the story came out in the Magazine, but was hindered by want of space.[32] Many people admire Leonard's story as much as that of Jackanapes, but to me it is not quite so highly finished from an artistic point of view. I think it suffered a little from being written in detachments from month to month. It is, however, almost hypercritical to point out defects, and the circumstances of Leonard's life are so much more within the range of common experiences than those of Jackanapes, it is probable that the lesson of the Short Life, during which a V.C. was won by the joyful endurance of inglorious suffering, may be more helpful to general readers than that of the other brief career, in which Jackanapes, after "one crowded hour of glorious life," earned his crown of victory.

On one of Julie's last days she expressed a fear to her doctor that she was very impatient under her pain, and he answered, "Indeed you are not; I think you deserve a Victoria Cross for the way in which you bear it." This reply touched her very much, for she knew the speaker had not read Leonard's Story; and we used to hide the proof-sheets of it, for which she was choosing head-lines to the pages, whenever her doctors came into the room, fearing that they would disapprove of her doing any mental work.

In the volume of Aunt Judy for 1883 "A Happy Family" appeared, but this had been originally written for an American Magazine, in which a prize was offered for a tale not exceeding nine hundred words in length. Julie did not gain the prize, and her story was rather spoiled by having to be too closely condensed.

She also wrote three poems for Aunt Judy in 1883, "The Poet and the Brook," "Mother's Birthday Review," and "Convalescence." The last one and the tale of "Sunflowers and a Rushlight" (which came out in November 1883) bear some traces of the deep sympathy she had learned for ill health through her own sufferings of the last few years; the same may, to some extent, be said of "The Story of a Short Life." "Mother's Birthday Review" does not come under this heading, though I well remember that part, if not the whole of it, was written whilst Julie lay in bed; and I was despatched by her on messages in various directions to ascertain what really became of Hampstead Heath donkeys during the winter, and the name of the flower that clothes some parts of the Heath with a sheet of white in summer.

In May 1883, Major Ewing returned home from Ceylon, and was stationed at Taunton. This change brought back much comfort and happiness into my sister's life. She once more had a pretty home of her own, and not only a home but a garden. When the Ewings took their house, and named it Villa Ponente from its aspect towards the setting sun, the "garden" was a potato patch, with soil chiefly composed of refuse left by the house-builders; but my sister soon began to accumulate flowers in the borders, especially herbaceous ones that were given to her by friends, or bought by her in the market. Then in 1884 she wrote "Mary's Meadow," as a serial for Aunt Judy's Magazine, and the story was so popular that it led to the establishment of a "Parkinson Society for lovers of hardy flowers." Miss Alice Sargant was the founder and secretary of this, and to her my sister owed much of the enjoyment of her life at Taunton, for the Society produced many friends by correspondence, with whom she exchanged plants and books, and the "potato patch" quickly turned into a well-stocked flower-garden.

Perhaps the friend who did most of all to beautify it was the Rev, J. Going, who not only gave my sister many roses, but planted them round the walls of her house himself, and pruned them afterwards, calling himself her "head gardener." She did not live long enough to see the roses sufficiently established to flower thoroughly, but she enjoyed them by anticipation, and they served to keep her grave bright during the summer that followed her death.

Next to roses I think the flowers that Julie had most of were primulas of various kinds, owing to the interest that was aroused in them by the incident in "Mary's Meadow" of Christopher finding a Hose-in-hose cowslip growing wild in the said "meadow." My sister was specially proud of a Hose-in-hose cowslip which was sent to her by a little boy in Ireland, who had determined one day with his brothers and sisters, that they would set out and found an "Earthly Paradise" of their own, and he began by actually finding a Hose-in-hose, which he named it after "Christopher," and sent a bit of the root to Mrs. Ewing.

The last literary work that she did was again on the subject of flowers. She began a series of "Letters from a Little Garden" in the number of Aunt Judy for November 1884, and these were continued until February 1885. The Letter for March was left unfinished, though it seemed, when boxes of flowers arrived day by day during Julie's illness from distant friends, as if they must almost have intuitively known the purport of the opening injunction in her unpublished epistle, enjoining liberality in the practice of cutting flowers for decorative purposes! Her room for three months was kept so continuously bright by the presence of these creations of God which she loved so well:—

The Letters were the last things that my sister wrote; but some brief papers which she contributed to The Child's Pictorial Magazine were not published until after her death. In the May number "Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks" came out, and in the numbers for June, July, and August 1885, there were three "Hoots" from "The Owl in the Ivy Bush; or the Children's Bird of Wisdom." They are in the form of quaint letters of advice, and my sister adopted the Spectator's method of writing as an eye-witness in the first person, so far as was possible in addressing a very youthful class of readers. She had a strong admiration for many of both Steele and Addison's papers.

The list that I promised to give of Julie's published stories is now completed; and, if her works are to be valued by their length, it may justly be said that she has not left a vast amount of matter behind her, but I think that those who study her writings carefully, will feel that some of their greatest worth lies in the wonderful condensation and high finish that they display. No reviewer has made a more apt comparison than the American one in Every other Saturday, who spoke of "Jackanapes" as "an exquisite bit of finished work—a Meissonier, in its way."

To other readers the chief value of the books will be in the high purpose of their teaching, and the consciousness that Julie held her talent as a direct gift from God, and never used it otherwise than to His glory. She has penned nothing for which she need fear reproach from her favourite old proverb, "A wicked book is all the wickeder because it can never repent." It is difficult for those who admire her writings to help regretting that her life was cut off before she had accomplished more, but to still such regrets we cannot do better than realize (as a kind friend remarked) "how much she has been able to do, rather than what she has left undone." The work which she did, in spite of her physical fragility, far exceeds what the majority of us perform with stronger bodies and longer lives. This reflection has comforted me, though I perhaps know more than others how many subjects she had intended to write stories upon. Some people have spoken as if her forte lay in writing about soldiers only, but her success in this line was really due to her having spent much time among them. I am sure her imagination and sympathy were so strong, that whatever class of men she was mixed with, she could not help throwing herself into their interests, and weaving romances about them. Whether such romances ever got on to paper was a matter dependent on outward circumstances and the state of her health.

One of the unwritten stories which I most regret is "Grim the Collier"; this was to have been a romance of the Black Country of coal-mines, in which she was born, and the title was chosen from the description of a flower in a copy of Gerarde's Herbal, given to her by Miss Sargant:—

I wish, too, that Julie could have written about sailors, as well as soldiers, in the tale of "Little Mothers' Meetings," which had been suggested to her mind by visits to Liverpool. The sight of a baby patient in the Children's Hospital there, who had been paralyzed and made speechless by fright, but who took so strange a fancy to my sister's sympathetic face that he held her hand and could scarcely be induced to release it, had affected her deeply. So did a visit that she paid one Sunday to the Seamen's Orphanage, where she heard the voices of hundreds of fatherless children ascending with one accord in the words, "I will arise and go to my Father," and realized the Love that watched over them. These scenes were both to have been woven into the tale, and the "Little Mothers" were boy nurses of baby brothers and sisters.

Another phase of sailor life on which Julie hoped to write was the "Guild of Merchant Adventurers of Bristol." She had visited their quaint Hall, and collected a good deal of historical information and local colouring for the tale, and its lesson would have been one on mercantile honour.

I hope I have kept my original promise, that whilst I was making a list of Julie's writings, I would also supply an outline biography of her life; but now, if the Children wish to learn something of her at its End, they shall be told in her own words:—