Chapter 2

"Ay, ay, Sir Colin, we'll do that," came the ready response. Now, it was usual, in preparing to receive a cavalry charge, for soldiers to be formed in a hollow square; but on this occasion Sir Colin ranged his men, two deep, in a _thin red line_, which has become memorable in the annals of the British army. The Russian cavalry were advancing, but, instead of the masses which were expected to make the attack, only about 400 came on.

Sir Colin's men, fierce and eager for the onset, would have dashed from behind the hillock where they were stationed, but for the stern voice commanding them to stand firm in their ranks.

The Russians hardly waited for their fire. Startled by the red-coated Britishers rising up at the word of their leader, they broke and fled; and the men of the 93rd, who, but a little before, had made up their minds to die where they stood, saw as in a dream their enemies scattered and broken; and the cloud of horsemen which had threatened to engulf and annihilate them, make no effort to snatch the victory which seemed within their grasp.

Before the Crimean war was over, Sir Colin resigned his command, and returned to England, as a protest against an affront he had received.

Honoured by the Queen with a command to attend her at Windsor, he was asked by her Majesty to return to the Crimea; and the veteran assented at once, declaring he would serve under a corporal if she wished it.

The Russian war was soon concluded; and Sir Colin thought that at length he had finished soldiering. But it was not to be. In the summer of 1857 the Indian Mutiny broke out, and on 11th July he was asked how soon he could start for India. The old soldier of sixty-five replied that he could go the same evening; and on the very next day, Sunday, he was on his way to take command of the British army in India.

As the Mutiny is alluded to briefly in the story of Havelock, I will only state that Sir Colin's vigorous, cautious, skilful policy ere long brought this fearful rebellion to a close.

For his able conduct of the war he was warmly thanked by the Queen; and at its conclusion was raised to the peerage, under the title of Lord Clyde. Colin Campbell was an admirable soldier, firm in discipline, setting a good example, ever thoughtful for the comfort and well-being of his men, sharing in all the hardships and perils they passed through. It is, therefore, not surprising that his men loved him.

Not that he was by any means a perfect man. He had a temper--a very hasty and passionate temper too, and one that troubled him a good deal; but he was on the watch for that to see it did not get the better of him.

Here is an entry from his diary of 5th March, 1846, showing something of the character of the man. "Anniversary of Barossa. An old story thirty years ago. Thank God for all His goodness to me'! Although I have suffered much from ill health, and in many ways, I am still as active as any man in the regiment, and quite as able as the youngest to go through fatigue."

Let us just glance at the way this victor in a hundred fights regarded the approach of death.

He prepared for his end with a humility as worthy of example as his deeds in the army had been. "Mind this," he said to his old friend General Eyre, "I die at peace with all the world."

He frequently asked Mrs. Eyre to pray with him, and to read the Bible aloud.

"Oh! for the pure air of Heaven," he once exclaimed, "that I might be laid at rest and peace on the lap of the Almighty!"

He suffered a good deal in his last illness, and at times would jump up as if he heard the bugle, and exclaim:--

"I am ready!"

And so; when he passed away on the 14th August, 1863, in his seventy-first year, "lamented by the Queen, the army, and the people," he was quite ready to meet that last enemy, death, whom he had faced so often on the field of battle.

A SAILOR BOLD AND TRUE.

STORIES OF LORD COCHRANE.

All who, forgetful of self, have striven to render their country free and glorious are true heroes. Of those who have been ready to lay down their lives for the welfare of Great Britain the number is legion. From them let us select one as a type of thousands of brave men who have helped to make Britain mistress of the ocean.

Thomas Cochrane, son of Lord Dundonald, took to the sea as a duck takes to the water. When he first went on board ship the lieutenant cared neither that he was Lord Cochrane nor that he was related to the captain of the ship. He did not spare him one jot; but made him do all kinds of work, just as if he had been plain Tom Smith. And so it came to pass that he got a thorough training, and, being a smart youth, was soon promoted.

Cochrane had the good fortune on one occasion to meet Lord Nelson, who in course of conversation said to him, "Never mind manoeuvres; always go at them".

This advice he certainly followed throughout his life; and he began pretty early too. For being in command of a sloop of 158 tons, called the _Speedy_, with fourteen small guns and fifty-one men, he happened to come across a good-sized Spanish vessel, with thirty-two big guns, and over 300 men. The Spaniard, of course, was going to seize on the little English ship, and, so to speak, gobble it up. But Cochrane, instead of waiting to be attacked, made for the Spaniard, and, after receiving the fire of all her guns, without delivering a shot, got right under the side of the _Gamo_ (so the vessel was called), and battered into her with might and main. The Spaniards did not relish this, and were going to board the tiny English craft, but again they were forestalled; for Cochrane with all his men took the _Gamo_ by storm, killed some, and frightened others; and ere long a marvellous sight was witnessed at Minorca, the great _Gamo_ was brought by the _Speedy_ into the harbour, with over 263 men on board, hale and hearty, whilst Cochrane never had a fifth of that number!

Ship after ship he took, till his name became a terror to the Spaniards and French; for he was so audacious, that no matter how big was the vessel he came across, nor how small his own, he "went at them," as Nelson had told him to do; and many a stately prize brought he home as the result of his daring and bravery.

One of the most gallant deeds he did was in connection with the defence of Rosas. Times had changed since the events related above, and Great Britain was now helping Spain in her struggle against France.

When he got to Rosas the place was within an ace of surrender. The French had pounded the defences into a deplorable condition.

Fort Trinidad, an important position, was about to be assaulted, the walls having been well-nigh beaten down by the fire of the enemy.

Cochrane however, with an immense quantity of sandbags, palisades, and barrels, made it pretty secure. But he did a cleverer thing even than this. There was a piece of steep rock, up which the besiegers would have to climb. This he covered with grease, so as to make it difficult to get a foothold, and planks with barbed hooks were placed ready to catch those who were rash enough to seek their aid.

The assault was delivered--up the rock came the French, and--down they tumbled in dozens and hundreds. Those who caught hold of the planks were hooked; and, to crown all, a heavy fire was poured into them by the British.

During the siege the Spanish flag was shot away whilst a heavy cannonade was going on; but Cochrane, though the bullets were whistling about in every direction, calmly stepped down into the ditch, and rescued the flag.

When he was not fighting his country's battles at sea, he was besieging Parliament to bring about reforms in the Navy. This naturally brought him a good many enemies amongst rich and powerful people, who were making plenty of money out of the Government, and doing nothing for it. So, when these persons had a chance of bringing a charge of conspiracy against him, they were right glad of the opportunity; and in the end Cochrane was sent to prison.

Some there were who believed in his honour and uprightness. His wife was in all his trials a very tower of strength to him. The electors of Westminster, who had sent him to Parliament, never ceased to have faith in his truth and honour, and re-elected him when still in prison. Yet, for all this, it was between forty and fifty years before his innocence was completely proved!

In 1847, however, he was restored to his honours by her Majesty the Queen; and in 1854 he was made a Rear Admiral of England.

A ROUGH DIAMOND THAT WAS POLISHED.

THE STORY OF JOHN CASSELL.

"I were summat ruff afore I went to Lunnon," said John Cassell.

He had called to see his friend Thomas Whittaker, who was staying at Nottingham, and John was announced as "the Manchester carpenter".

He was dressed on the occasion in a suit of clothes which a Quaker friend had given him; but Cassell being tall and thin, and the Quaker short and stout, they did not altogether fit!

The trousers were too short, and the hat too big; accordingly, John's legs came a long way through the trousers, and his head went a good way in at the top. "It was something like taking a tin saucepan with the bottom out and using it as a scabbard for a broad sword," remarked one who knew him. He had on an old overcoat, and a basket of tools was thrown over his shoulder with which to earn his food in case temperance lecturing failed.

When John remarked that he was "summat ruff," the gentleman at whose house Mr. Whittaker was staying nearly had a fit; and after he had at length recovered his gravity he ejaculated, "Well, I would have given a guinea to have seen you before you did go".

Yet John Cassell was a diamond--though at that time the roughest specimen one could come across from the pit's mouth to the Isle of Dogs. His ideas were clear cut; he had confidence in himself, he meant to make a name in the world,--and he _did_.

John Cassell was born in Manchester in 1817. His father, the bread-winner of the family, had the misfortune to meet with an injury which entirely disabled him, and from the effects of which he died when John was quite young. His mother worked hard for her own and her son's support, and had little time left to look very particularly to the education of her boy. He, however, grew up strong and hardy.

It is true that when he ought to have been at school he was often at play, or seeing something of the world, its sights and festivities, on his own account. True, also, that he tumbled into the river, and nearly ended his career at a very early age. Still he survived his river catastrophe; and, though he gained little book learning, possessed such a good and retentive memory, and was so observant, that his mind became stored with vivid impressions of the scenes and surroundings of his youth, which he related with great effect in after-life.

He had, of course, to begin work at an early age. First of all, he went into a cotton factory, and later to a velveteen factory; then, having a taste for carpentering, he took to it as a trade, though he was at best but a rough unskilled workman, tramping about the country, and doing odd jobs wherever he could get them.

One day John Cassell was working at the Manchester Exchange when he was persuaded to go and hear Dr. Grindrod lecture on temperance. The lecture seems to have bitten itself into John's mind; for a little later on, in July, 1835, after hearing Mr. Swindlehurst lecture, he signed the pledge. That was the unsuspected turning-point of carpenter John's life.

After this he attended meetings and took an active part on the platform, and became known as "the boy lecturer". Though he was dressed in fustian, and wore a workman's apron, he spoke effectively, and his words went to the hearts of his hearers. His originality of style, too, pleased the audiences of working people whom he addressed.

In 1836 John Cassell made his first move towards London.

He worked his way to town, and lectured on the road. He carried a bell, and with that brought together his audiences.

At times he was very roughly handled by the crowd; yet this had no effect upon him, except to make him the more determined.

His clothes became threadbare, his boots worn out, his general appearance dilapidated; but he got help from a few good people, who saw the hero beneath his rags.

He was three weeks accomplishing the journey; and when he arrived in London spent the first day in search of work, which he failed to obtain.

In the evening, seeing that a temperance meeting was to be held in a hall off the Westminster Road, he went to it; and asked to be allowed to speak. Some of those on the platform viewed with distrust the gaunt, shabby, travel-stained applicant. But he would take no denial, and soon won cheers from the audience. When he stopped short, after a brief address, someone shouted "Go on". "How can a chap go on when he has nothing to say?" came the ready reply. That night he had no money in his pocket to pay for a bed; so he walked the streets of London through the weary hours till dawn of day.

Other temperance meetings he addressed; for his heart and mind were full of that subject. After one of the meetings a gentleman questioned him as to his means; and, finding the straits he was in, asked if he were not disheartened.

"No," replied John; "it is true I carry all my wealth in my little wallet, and have only a few pence in my pocket; but I have faith in God I shall yet succeed."

Struck by his manifest sincerity, the gentleman introduced him next day to a friend who took a warm interest in the temperance cause.

"Which wouldst thou prefer, carpentering or trying to persuade thy fellow-men to give up drinking, and to become teetotalers?" he asked.

Without hesitation John Cassell replied:--

"The work of teetotalism."

"Then thou shalt have an opportunity, and I will stand thy friend."

John Cassell now went forth as a disciple of the temperance cause. Remembering his experiences on the way to London he furnished himself with a watchman's rattle, with which he used to call together the people of the villages he visited.

A temperance paper thus speaks of him in 1837:--

"John Cassell, the Manchester carpenter, has been labouring, amidst many privations, with great success in the county of Norfolk. He is passing through Essex--(where he addressed the people, among other places, from the steps leading up to the pulpit of the Baptist chapel, with his carpenter's apron twisted round his waist)--on his way to London. He carries his watchman's rattle--an excellent accompaniment of temperance labour."

Cassell had a great regard for Thomas Whittaker. It was an address given by this gentleman which had first made him wish to become a public man.

When he called on Mr. Whittaker in Nottingham, as already related, after some conversation had taken place, he remarked:--

"I should like to hear thee again, Tom".

"Well," remarked Whittaker as a joke, "you can if you go with me to Derby."

John accepted the invitation forthwith, much to his friend's chagrin, who was bothered to know what to do with him; for he was under the impression that some members of the family where he expected to lodge would not give a very hearty welcome to this rough fellow.

This is Mr. Whittaker's narrative of the sequel:--

"We walked together to Derby that day. At the meeting he spoke a little, and pleased the people. When the meeting was over, he said:--

"'Can't I sleep with you?'

"'Well,' I said, 'I have no objection; but, you know, _I_ am only a lodger.'

"However, go with me he _would_, and _did_. That was the man. When John made up his mind to do a thing he did it; and to that feature in his character, no doubt, much of his future success may be attributed. The gentleman at whose house he met me at Nottingham, and who was ashamed of him, subsequently became his servant, and touched his hat to him; and John has pulled up at my own door in his carriage, with a liveried servant, when I lived near to him in London."

John Cassell was now in the thick of the fight. In those days the opposition to the Gospel of Temperance was keen and bitter. Sometimes there were great disturbances at the meetings, sometimes he was pelted with rubbish, at times he did not know where to turn for a night's lodging. It was, on the whole, a fierce conflict; but John was nothing daunted.

It is, of course, impossible to sum up the amount of a man's influence. John Cassell scattered the seed of temperance liberally. Here is a case showing how one of the grains took root, and grew up to bear important fruit.

The Rev. Charles Garrett, the celebrated teetotal President of the Wesleyan Conference, writing several years after John Cassell's death, says:--

"I signed the pledge of total abstinence in 1840, after hearing a lecture on the subject by the late John Cassell. I have therefore tried it for more than thirty years. It has been a blessing to me, and has made me a blessing to others."

How to cure the curse of drink, what to give in its place when the pleasures of the glass were taken away--that was the problem which many have tried to solve. None more successfully than John Cassell.

At a meeting in Exeter Hall he suddenly put a new view before his audience. "I have it!" he exclaimed.

"The remedy is education. Educate the working men and women, and you have a remedy for the crying evil of the country. Give the people mental food, and they will not thirst after the abominable drink which is poisoning them."

He had hitherto been doing something to assist the temperance cause by the sale of tea and coffee, and he now turned his attention to the issue of publications calculated to benefit the cause.

Having, at the age of twenty-four, married Mary Abbott, he became possessed of additional means for carrying out his publishing schemes.

Cheap illustrated periodicals began to issue from the press under his superintendence, and copies were multiplied by the hundred thousand.

He never forgot that he had been a working man, and one of the first publications he started was called _The Working Man's Friend_.

It is not necessary to say more. Though John Cassell died comparatively young--he was only forty-eight when his death took place in 1865--he had done a grand life's work; and the soundness of his judgment is shown by the fact that works which he planned retain their hold upon the people to this day.

John Cassell had his ambitions, but they were of a very simple kind.

"I started in life with one ambition," he said, "and that was to have a clean shirt every day of my life; this I have accomplished now for some years; but I have a second ambition, and that is to be an MAP., and represent the people's cause; then I shall be public property, and you may do what you like with me." This latter desire he would doubtless have realised but for his early decease.

"A BRAVE, FEARLESS SORT OF LASS."

THE STORY OF GRACE DARLING.

She was not much of a scholar, she could not spell as well as a girl in the third standard, she lived a quiet life quite out of the busy world; and yet Grace Darling's name is now a household word.

Let us see how that has come about.

William Darling, Grace's father, was keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland. Longstone is a desolate rock, swept by the northern gales; and woe betide the ship driven on its pitiless shores!

Mr. Darling and his family had saved the lives of many persons who had been shipwrecked ere that memorable day of which I will tell you.

On the night of the 5th September, 1838, the steamer _Forfarshire_, bound from Hull to Dundee, was caught in a terrific storm off the Farne Islands. Her machinery became damaged and all but useless, and the vessel drifted till the sound of the breakers told sixty-three persons composing the passengers and crew that death was near at hand.

The captain made every effort to run the ship in between the Islands and the mainland, but in vain; and about three o'clock on the morning of the 6th September the vessel struck on the rock with a sickening crash.

A boat was lowered, into which nine of the passengers got safely, whilst others lost their lives in attempting to do so. These nine were saved during the day by a passing vessel.

The _Forfarshire_ meantime was the sport of the waves, which threatened every minute to smash her in pieces.

Before long, indeed, one wave mightier than the rest lifted her bodily on to the sharp rocks and broke her in two. Her after-part was swept away, and the captain, his wife, and those who were in that portion of the vessel, were drowned. The fore-part meantime remained fast on the rocks, lashed by the furious billows.

That morning Grace was awakened by the sound of voices in distress, and dressing quickly she sought her father.

They listened, and soon their worst fears were confirmed. Near at hand, but still quite beyond reach of help, could be heard the despairing shrieks of the shipwrecked crew.

To attempt to rescue them seemed quite out of the question. That was apparent at once to William Darling, skilful boatman though he was, and brave as a lion.

The sea was so terrific that it was ten chances to one against a boat being able to keep afloat.

But Grace entreated: "Father, we must not let them perish. I will go with you in the boat, and God will give us success."

In vain Mrs. Darling urged that the attempt was too perilous to be justified, and reproached Grace for endeavouring to persuade her father to run such unwarrantable risks.

William Darling saw plainly how many were the chances against success. Even if the boat was not at once swamped, two persons alone, and one of them only a girl, were insufficient for the work; for, supposing they reached the wreck, they would probably be too exhausted to get back.

No, duty did not demand such an act; and for a time he declined to put out.

But Grace was quite firm. This girl of three and twenty, never very robust, had marvellous strength of will; and, her mind being set on attempting the rescue, she prevailed over both her father's judgment and her mother's entreaties; and into that awful sea the boat was at length launched. Though every billow threatened to engulf the frail craft, yet it nevertheless rode through the mountainous waves and drew near the rock where the helpless men and women were standing face to face with death. When it was sufficiently close to the shore William Darling sprang out to help the weary perishing creatures, whilst Grace was left to manage the boat unaided.

It was now that her courage was put to the severest test. At this critical moment the lives of her father and all the survivors depended upon her judgment and skill.

Well did her past experience and cool nerve then serve her. Alone and unaided she kept the boat in a favourable position in the teeth of that pitiless gale; and as soon as her father signalled to her she waited for an opportune moment and rowed in. Ere long, in spite of the fury of wind and wave, they had got all aboard, and rowed back in safety to the lighthouse.

The passengers who were rescued told the story of Grace's courage; and soon the tale was in every newspaper.

George Darling, Grace's brother, speaking of this deed fifty years after, says: "She always considered, as indeed we all did, that far too much was made of what she did. She only did what was her duty in the circumstances, brought up among boats, so to speak, and used to the sea as she was. Still she was always a brave, fearless sort of lass, and very religious too--there's no doubting that. But it was never her wish that people should make so much of what she did."

A great deal was made of the deed certainly, but surely not too much. A subscription was set on foot, and £700 presented to her, besides innumerable presents.