Two years after the Birkenhead tragedy one of the very few survivors, Captain Wright, who commanded a detachment of the 91st at the time, was awarded the Distinguished Service pension, while his promotion was ante-dated.

Twenty-six years after the wreck of the Abercrombie Robinson Gordon also received the same honour, the Distinguished Service pension-only about a year before his death. It came too late.

In September 1852 the Duke died, and his funeral took place on November 18. That day, for the first time within memory of the oldest veteran, an army in all the pride of war marched through London.

The grandeur of the procession, as the sorrowing tribute of a nation to its well-loved hero-the Great Warrior and Peacemakermade a pageant of military pomp and circumstance worthy of him.

My personal recollections of that foggy, dark November morning grow somewhat dim; yet, looking backward, a few slight threads of memory seem still to remain. There was the early breakfast before dawn had scarce begun to break; the excitement, and the hurried start (from Lord Cork's house in Hamilton Place) to take our places on the roof of one of the Clubs-White's or Brooks's, I forget which-in St. James's Street. We were there soon after seven, and the roof was already crowded. Then the long hours of waiting, which were not tedious, but full of interest. I remember the warmth of the grey morning air-or was it youth made it feel so warm ?-the safe, comfortable chairs on the housetop, and low-toned talk around. It all comes back to me: the

quiet gathering of black, silent multitudes in the street below, the whole scene of sombre gloom, with everywhere a sense of loss and of mourning. Strange that I recall not one note of the music that accompanied the funeral! Music there surely must have been, but the ceaseless tread of the regiments marching past was the only sound that fell insistently upon the hush of that deep. silence. Then there was the straining to catch a first glimpse of the lofty funeral car; and then when that solemn tower of darkness appeared at last, and was seen rounding the corner of and moving slowly down the street, how every eye turned that way, intently gazing. And then his horse, the great Duke's sorrowful charger-a chief mourner, so closely following after his dead master with drooping head. I know not if the big tears fell from his eyes in mute woe and mingled with the dust, like Rustum's

old horse in the Persian story; we were set too high up to see, even had we thought at the time. The 91st, whose approach we had eagerly watched for, we somehow missed. But I remember how when the 79th Highlanders came by the sort of murmur of applause that went all round for the splendid precision of their step. Even now I can see the men and hear their step! . The mists of half a century again rise up and all is once more obscure. Yet the keen regret of not being in two places at once is still recalled, with the desire so strongly felt that one could be present there and could witness also the last fine scene-the scene at the grave in St. Paul's.

And the long years came and went, and the gallant company of the 91st Highlanders, whose conduct when their transport was wrecked in Table Bay had won praise from The Duke, grew old and worn or got their discharge, and died and passed away, and their Captain (Gordon) alone survived until 1870, remaining for twelve years the last of the eight hundred who formed the regiment when he first joined. Then he also died. And the years still pass on; and since the pathos of Life has never been as the pathos of Death, so remembrance of the lost Birkenhead and the men who sacrificed their lives to their duty still endures, while the noble story of the seven hundred rescued from the wreck of the Abercrombie Robinson is forgotten.

E. V. B

345

THE PLOUGHIN' MATCH.

BY M. E. FRANCIS (MRS. FRANCIS BLUNDELL).

THE little village of Oakleigh appeared to be holding a special spring festival of its own when old Robert Inkpen betook himself homewards for the midday meal. The dozen or so of ancient irregularly built houses clinging to the steep hillside were embowered in blossom, while the little gardens to the rear of each were enlivened by patches of wallflowers and early stocks, primroses and forget-me-nots; here and there a few lingering daffodils and jonquils lent a special brightness. Moreover, it being Monday, the budding hedges were bespread with newly washed linen, while from the lines overhead a variety of dangling garments added their share of picturesqueness to the scene. Blue shirts, pink pinafores, here a fine scarlet petticoat, yonder a man's nankeen jacket -the lighter objects occasionally fluttering in the brisk breeze, the heavier ones flapping and swaying; there was colour and activity everywhere.

But old Robert's keen blue eyes gazed neither to right nor left; they looked fixedly, almost vengefully, in front of them, out of their network of lines; the mouth, too, was pinched and resolute: it was easy to guess that the old man was evolving some weighty purpose as he stumped along.

Turning in at a battered little wooden gate set midway in a hedge that was partly of privet and partly of furze (the latter all ablaze with bloom), he went quickly up the flagged path bordered with polyanthuses, and throwing open the house door, burst into the kitchen.

'What's this I do hear about a ploughin'-match?' he inquired, throwing his hat on the table.

Mrs. Inkpen, a meek old woman in a faded print dress and limp sun-bonnet, cast a timid and deprecating glance upon her lord.

'What ploughin'-match?' she stammered, making the query obviously with the desire to gain time.

'Be there more than one?' retorted Robert sarcastically.

'Fred Stuckhey telled I to-day all about it. He did stop outside the field where I were hedgin,' an' he telled I how 'twas all settled an' the names gived in an' all. There, to think as I did never hear one word about it! He could scarce believe it. "Well!" he says, that be a-servin' of 'ee bad, you as did used to be the champion plougher, too." But as I did say to en, "I do know very well why 'twas kep' a secret from I," an' I do know.-Where's Lyddy?'

'She be gone for your beer-she'll be back in a minute.'

Mrs. Inkpen nervously removed her 'master's' hat from among the plates and knives and forks in the centre of the table, and began to arrange these in orderly fashion. Dinner would be ready in a minute, and Robert had not yet, according to his usual custom, performed his ablutions at the tap, but she did not dare remind him of the fact; he sat with his gnarled, earthy hands folded on the head of his stick, his mouth pursed, and his eyes riveted on the open doorway.

Presently the little gate creaked on its hinges, and Lyddy's trim figure came in sight; a slender lassie with a complexion as pink and white as apple-blossom, and hair that flamed in the sunshine.

'Halloa, father!' cried she. 'You'm early to-day.'

'Halloa, hussy!' rejoined he with terrible emphasis. 'I do 'low I be early. I comed home early a-purpose. I've a word or two to say to 'ee. You'm fond enough o' tittle-tattlin' when there be nothin' to tattle about, but you go an' keep sich a piece o' news as this here about the ploughin' match a secret from your father, what had the best right to know. Come now, what did 'ee do that for?'

Lyddy's face became suffused with guilty roses; she glanced appealingly at her mother, but receiving no help from that quarter, endeavoured to carry off the situation by a desperate attempt at

unconcern.

'There now, didn't I tell 'ee about the ploughin' match? Well, I wonder what I can ha' been thinkin' on. It's to be on Thursday week in the big field at back of the Black Horse, an' the prize be a silver watch. Ye'll like to go an' look at it, won't ye, father?'

'I be a-goin' for to do more nor that,' rejoined Robert sternly. 'I be a-goin' for to com-pete. That do surprise 'ee, I d' 'low,' he added. 'You didn't think I'd be likely to want to do sich a thing,

did ye? Else ye mid ha' chanced to mention it, midn't ye? It wasn't along o' not wantin' me to com-pete that ye kep' it a secret, was it?'

He fired off these queries with a mixture of severity and slyness, delivering the last, however, with a kind of roar that was nothing if not terrifying. Both women were loud in protestation against the accusation, but Lyddy grew pinker and pinker, and Mrs. Inkpen's hands trembled over their work. They just hadn't chanced to think of naming the matter. How could they suppose he'd be that much upset about it? Of course if they'd known he'd mind one way or another they would certainly have told him.

Robert rose, and marching solemnly across the room, pointed with his stick to three small frames which hung beside the chimneypiece.

'What

'D'ye see this here?' he inquired, designating the first. do it say? It do say as Robert Inkpen was the winner o❜ Oakleigh Ploughin' Match in the year eighteen hundred an' fifty-four. I were but a lad then, an' we ploughed wi' oxen-ah, 'twas a curious sight that. Well, an' see here again. In eighteen hundred an' sixty-eight Robert Inkpen won Oakleigh Ploughin' Match again; an' in eighteen hundred an' ninety-two, which was the last time there was a ploughin' match held in Oakleigh, I done the same thing. Folks did allus say I were the Ploughin' Champion o' Oakleigh village. An' now it seems there's goin' to be another ploughin' match in Oakleigh-in memory o' old times they do tell I Parson do say-an' if it hadn't ha' been for chance the Oakleigh champion 'ud have heard nothin' about it till 'twas too late to com-pete. There must be a reason for that, an' I do know the reason very well-you'm afeared as the wold Champion 'ull win the prize again as he did win it afore. There's somebody else what you do want to win the prize, Lyddy. A body don't need the wisdom o' King Solomon to guess that.'

Again the duet of protest and denial was renewed, and received by the old man with equal incredulity.

'There, no need to tell lies about it,' he remarked, gradually recovering his good humour at the sight of their discomfiture; 'I do know all about it, an' there bain't a bit o' use tryin' for to deceive I. James Fry reckons he'll have it all his own way and carry off the prize same as he do reckon to carry you off, Lyddy, my maid; wi'out enough, nor half enough, to keep ye, an' a poor match every way. He do think he need only crook his finger at