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from the camp hill-top calls our attention to the silhouette of a gun on the sky-line there, and this gradually picks up the range of the fort. The first few rounds burst short (men posted in pits with native bombs). Meanwhile, the infantry advance, the cavalry doing a very obvious turning movement. A shell strikes the fort-cunningly and well done -the bang on the hill, the answering explosion against the fort wall (one of the garrison pulls a string, we believe, and lets off a bomb ready fixed for that purpose), more shells rain on the fort; portions of the wall tumble down; a corpse is hurled over the parapet to the strains of barbaric music of a defiant nature. The infantry attack develops, conconscientiously sowing the plain with its dead and dying: signallers flag wag ferocious dhoolies bear away the wounded -more shells more ejected corpses. Then the "forlorn hope"; each man with his powder-bag dashes recklessly on the fort. All die but one. He places his bag, fires the charge, rolls out of the way, and also dies. The gate is blown in. The stormers storm, the flying garrison flies right on to the lance-points of the cavalry; and then the whole of the performers march past the spectators.

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Follows the usual tent-pegging with lighted spear-points at lighted pegs. Sections of eight men rushing down at a time, and lamp-black raining on our frocks. Then a picked squad-darkness has fallen

curvette past, doing the lance exercise with lighted lances, the roar of the flames on thirty lance-points swung sharply and together, lending not the least curious feature to the exhibition. They finish by forming into line, charging past, and flashing from our ken into the darkness.

The amphitheatre of hills which surrounds us suddenly sprouts into numerous bonfires, and nearer, flaming letters gradually grow out of the night, and finally spell out the dates 1809 and 1909, with the names of the raiser of the regiment and of its present colonel.

At the same moment-this is a polite hint that it's time to go home a shower of rockets mounts skywards, and two long avenues of torches appear at somebody's bidding, one to show the pensioners to the regimental lines and the other to help the spectators homewards.

When rambling old Indian bungalows will stretch no more, they readily expand into canvas and camp furniture. But the feeding arrangements of an abnormal number of European guests in a small and remote station has but one solution, and that is the breaking into the bachelors' stronghold and the invasion of the Mess.

We do not know, we cannot tell, what strivings of heart preceded the heroic resolution. There may have been cravens who shook their heads, and like certain peers on a different but nearly as weighty a matter, protested against its advisa

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That night a final and cheerful dinner, with many healthdrinkings, and after it there arrived many stalwart men in scarlet and white, and others of lighter build in dark-blue and French grey, these being all the native officers of the station, foot and horse, pensioned and serving; and with them all British officers and as many civilians as the rooms could hold. There was a little shyness at first; but under the enlivening strains of a band and a great deal of handshaking, and a great deal of popping of champagne corks, the murmurs of convention soon developed into the buzz of good-fellowship; and black and blue and scarlet mingled, and midnight came and nobody went; and the band played the National Anthem, and still nobody went, and it was not until several "Auld Lang Synes," and we were well into the first Sunday of the new century, that any one did move, and then it was slowly.

bility, spoke of it as the thin
edge of Socialism, yet for
tactical reasons refused to
vote against it. The Mess
was officially announced to be,
between certain dates, "open
The ladies came, and,
what is more to the point, they
left on the last-mentioned date,
without apparently establish-
ing any more permanent foot-
hold than a few (hastily re-
turned) fans and handkerchiefs
gave warrant for. On the
last day of the centenary
week took place the durbar,
a final official gathering of
all guests and hosts, and
these were addressed by the
Colonel in good plain lingua
franca Hindustani, without any
flowers of Persian rhetoric.
And after it, a very ancient
bard he might, with his
snowy beard and long white
locks, have passed for the
Last Minstrel-stepped lightly
into the great durbar circle,
and dashing aside with
well-considered movement his
outer mantle, so as to show a
well-decorated breast, intoned
a rhyming narrative of the
week's events, called for three
cheers for everybody, including
the baneful photographer, thigh
skipped thrice into the air to
show how young and nimble
he still was, and uttering the
war-cry common to his race,
disappeared from our view.

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During the next few days came the farewells. As an old gentleman remarked, the while he struck his large woundy blow, "This this earth departs to its home, but" (here he smote his breast) "my heart remains here with the regiment."

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X.

66 A PRINCELY WOMAN."

Whitehall? How, with all her extravagance, could she hold her own against Lady Castlemaine and La Belle Stewart? It is no wonder, then, that she retired with her lord, whom she loved and worshipped, to the security of Welbeck, and cultivated, in the sunshine of his sympathy, the heaven - sent gifts which she devoutly believed to be hers.

A strayling from another time and place, she was misjudged by her own age. Pepys, strong in the prejudices of a light-hearted court, thought her "a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman. Later judgments have been wiser and more kind. We are far enough away to see her in a fairer relation, and to refrain from condemning,

IT was by a strange chance she sacrifice to the Muses in that Margaret, Duchess of the perfumed atmosphere of Newcastle, wandered out of her proper environment into the conflicting world of the seventeenth century. She might have played her part among the fantastical wits of Elizabeth's age. She would have been intimately at home with the Blue - stockings who met at Montagu House. She would have shone brilliantly in the social firmament of Seamore Place. She might have contributed her verselets to Lady Blessington's Book of Beauty, and taken her seat without surprise in Count D'Orsay's tilbury. Above all, she would have found in the London of our present century a gracious and sympathetic reception. She was not merely a great lady-"a princely woman," as Charles Lamb calls her; she was also a poet and philosopher. Had she been our contemporary, she might have revived the dying salon. She might have won such laurels as popular reviews confer. She might have gathered together under one roof wit and learning, beauty and fashion. And an unkind fate bade her grow to womanhood under the iron rule of the Commonwealth, and with the return of Charles II. to frequent a Court where gallantry was pursued with a dream. Had it been her simple-minded devotion, and where frivolity was mistress of all the arts. How could

even to appreciate, her pleasant foibles. Truly she might say that all the adventures that ever she knew were the adventures of her mind. Beset with disaster, ruined in fortune, married to a banished man, she remained essentially a woman of intellect. Not even poverty could tempt her into the world of common realities. She supported the world and its afflictions as though they were the phantoms of

fate to live in a golden age of peace, she would not have changed her conduct a

jot. Her inkpot would still the irreproachable gentility of have been her constant com- her nurture. She and her panion. The love of "the thrice noble, high and puissant Prince, William Cavendish, Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Newcastle," would still have engrossed her waking and her sleeping thoughts. And the very unity of her character makes it easy for us, who may contemplate the few simple actions of her life, to understand and admire her.1

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Born in 1620, she was the daughter of Sir Thomas Lucas, a gentleman-"which title, "which title," she says, "is granted and given by merit, not by princes." Her natural vanity persuaded her to interpret in the terms of heroism the characters of her father and mother. There was no incident or custom of her childhood that did not embellish her natural pride. Her upbringing was consonant with her exalted estate. She was bred "virtuously, modestly, civilly, and on honest principles.' In her father's august house there was neither stint nor parsimony. "As for plenty," says she, "we had not only for necessity, convenience, and decency, but for delight and pleasure to a superfluity." The pride which she professed unto the end of her life in noble, extravagant attire, was always indulged by her mother. "As for our garments," she declares, “my mother did not only delight to see us neat and cleanly, fine and gay, but rich and costly." With an ingenuous candour she describes

sisters were surrounded always with respectful attendance. They were not permitted familiarity or conversation with the vulgar servants. Servingmen were never permitted "to be in the nursery among the nursemaids, lest their rude lovemaking might do unseemly actions, or speak unhandsome words in the presence of child

ren

a prohibition which throws a curious light on the manners of the time. Their recreations were simple and ladylike. In the country they would read, work, walk, and

discourse with each other. The town afforded livelier pastimes. "Their customs were, in winter-time," thus she tells the tale,-"to go sometimes to plays, or to ride in their coaches about the streets to see the concourse and recourse of people; and in the spring-time to visit the Spring Garden, Hyde Park, and the like places; and sometimes they would have music, and sup in barges upon the water." It was an innocent and exclusive life, passed in full contentment with each other's virtues. No strangers approached their felicity, and it is not surprising that pride and lack of habit afflicted the peerless Margaret with bashfulness.

She confesses herself "naturally bashful," and art and circumstance had enhanced the work of nature. Yet the cause,

1 The First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.' By the author of 'A Life of Sir Kenelm Digby.' Longmans.

Never was woman more highly blessed than she, if we may believe her words, when she encountered this paragon of grace and

virtue. He was at once the worship and inspiration of her life. His exploits and perfections she celebrated both in prose and verse. Her eloquence conferred upon them both the crown of immortality, which neither the sneers of their contemporaries nor the ribald laughter of a later age has availed to dislodge. Truly she was no common lover. Never did Muse adore hero with a purer and loftier passion. "He was the only person I ever was in love with," said she, and only her own words may express her triumph:

she insists, was not in herself. castle.
She was not ashamed of mind or
body, birth or breeding. Con-
scious of her own superiority,
she trembled rather for others
than for herself. Therefore
she despaired of a cure, "un-
less nature as well as human
governments could be civilised
and brought into a methodical
order." Before she could regard
the world with confidence, the
world must be reformed, and
as reform was impossible, she
retained a certain timidity to
the end of her days. Her bash-
fulness, however, was concerned
not with the qualities but with
the numbers of persons. "For
were I to enter among a com-
pany of Lazaruses," she con-
fesses, "I should be as much
out of countenance as if they
were all Cæsars or Alexanders,
Cleopatras or Didos." Thus in
a curious passage of self-reve-
lation she puts another facet
upon the jewel of her pride, and
in the same breath exults that
she has never met with fools
and unworthy persons, bold,
rude, uncivil in word or action,
and that naturally she has the
same aversion to them as child-
ren have to spirits or grown
men and women to devils.

When civil war broke out, she made a momentary conquest of her bashfulness. Eager to prove her loyalty, she enrolled herself among the Queen's Maids of Honour, and cheerfully shared the exile of Henrietta Maria. In thus doing, she plainly obeyed the voice of fate. For it was at Paris, whither she attended her Majesty, that she met and married William Cavendish, then Earl of New

"Neither was I ashamed to own it, but gloried therein. For it was not amorous love (I never was infected therewith-it is a disease, or a passion, or both, I only know by relation, not by experience), neither entice me to love. But my love was could title, wealth, power, or passion honest and honourable, being placed upon merit, which affection joyed at the fame of his worth, pleased with delight in his wit, proud of the respects he used to me, and triumphing in the affections he professed for me, which affections he hath confirmed to me by a deed of time, sealed by constancy, and assigned by an unalterable decree of his promise, which makes me happy in despite of Fortune's frowns."

Thus happily won, she faced the ruin of her lord's house and hopes with equanimity, and sought in exile such consolation as literature affords.

Her books are many and treat of diverse subjects. Her courage equalled her industry.

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