Simon expresses it, "thanked where it remained in use unand caressed her much." But though the Queen was so poor that she could not reward Madame l'Hopital as she would have wished, or even, if we were to believe Saint-Simon's statement, indemnify her for the expenses she had incurred, she gave her a souvenir at parting to mark her gratitude. This was a miniature of herself, framed in brilliants. Some time after the Prince also sent her his own miniature, similarly set in diamonds. In Nonancourt the nine days' wonder soon faded from the public mind, time passed uneventfully, and, for twentyfive years after her return from St Germain, Madame l'Hopital continued to fulfil her duties unchanged, save for the memory of the incident that had distinguished her life. She died as she had lived, the postmistress of Nonancourt, bequeathing to her descendants the two royal miniatures and a possession she treasured even more dearly, the ribbon which her Prince had worn and given to her. Twelve years after her death this gold-embroidered band was made into an alms-bag by her daughter-in-law, and presented to the Church of la Madeleine, til the Revolution. But the l'Hopital family left Nonancourt during these troubled years, the bag fell into disrepair, and its origin was forgotten. It would have disappeared without record had not a lucky chance, in 1858, revealed a slip of paper, hidden between the embroidery and the worn worn silk lining, bearing this message from the past "Je suis le cordon de Jacques, dernier roi de la Grande Bretagne, dernier roi de la famille des Stuarts. Si vous voulés savoir comme je suis parvenu jusqu'à faire cet ornement, voiés les anecdottes du temps, comme: Histoire de la Régence du Duc d'Orléans sous la minorité de Louis XV.: Comme: Sa vie privée: enfin: Anecdottes des règnes de Louis XIV. et Louis XV.--Donné à l'Eglise en 1753 à Monsieur Héron, curé dudit lieu, par Madame l'Hopital, Maîtresse de poste."1 A few years ago a tattered scrap of silk, said to be the remains of the historical almsbag, was still preserved in the church. Now, even this fragment has vanished, and with it the last memory left in Nonancourt of the "gentleman who passed." THEODORA DEHON. í "I am the ribbon of James, last King of Great Britain, last King of the House of Stuart. If you would know how I became this ornament, consult the anecdotes of the time, such as: A History of the Regency of the Duc d'Orléans during the minority of Louis XV.; such as his Private Life; in short, anecdotes of the reigns of Louis XIV, and Louis XV.- -Given to this Church in 1753, and to Monsieur Héron, curé of the said place, by Madame l'Hopital, postmistress." FROM THE OUTPOSTS. THE GHILZAI'S WIFE. "For whither thou goest, I will go; . . . and thy people THE "Craft" is a very wonderful thing, there is no doubt about that, quite apart from the truth or otherwise of its traditional foundation by Royal Solomon. At times it shows its members many a queer by way of life, and brings them up against folk whom they would otherwise pass by in the wayside. The world has many a sidelight for those who tarry awhile to look, and whom the gift of human sympathy may at times illumine. If so be the onlooker is a Master Mason, then will his opportunities be doubled. A couple of years or so ago I chanced to be travelling from Rangoon to Colombo, and thence on to Bombay by an Australian boat. It was the monsoon, and foul at that, so the saloon passengers were few, and most of those below, while huddled wet misery personified was the lot of the steerage, many of whom were natives of India doing the short passage. These seemed mostly Muhammadans of the trader class, who frequent the seaports of the Empire and are to be found trading wherever the British flag flies, and under many another flag as well. The second day out from Colombo we were having it as bad as it can be in the Indian Ocean in monsoon time, "I thought you'd come, boss," said 8 figure who struggled to his feet. A roll of the ship sent him against me. "Knee to knee," said he. "It's a very bad day, sahib, and I want your help.' "You shall have it," I said. "Come in here," and I drew him into a bunk where the steerage cooking pots were piled. "My wife is very ill, sahib, and I want some sahib's food for her." "What's her?" the matter with "Sea - sickness, I suppose, sahib." "Will you take me to her?" He nodded, and I said, "But first tell me who you are." I asked the question in Pushtoo. I thought so he understood, though he answered in excellent English, or rather Australian, "I am a Pathan, a Ghilzai of the Suleiman Khel, and am returning to Ghuzni after ten years on the Coolgardie goldfields, and my wife is with me. She is an Australian girl." "What the devil do you mean by bringing an Australian girl steerage like this?" John Smith, mean white, as voor-looper, and not ashamed even, for he knew no better, and had always eaten his scoff with the boys. I knew, too, what the mean Dutch or bijwoner was to the farmer, and how like a dog he was treated. I have always wanted to go back to the veldt and see how the bijwoner, who had been the mainstay of the commando for the last half of the war, had settled down after a year or so on other people's mutton. However, that is another pair of shoes. I knew the mean white East and West, and only a few weeks before had seen an Austrian lad, with fair hair, blue eyes, of unknown parentage, tootling a a band of the blackest of black Madrassi bandsmen. "We lost our ready money, sahib, though I have plenty with seth at Peshawur. fife among a Besides," he said, he said, "she is not so very white, and people make a fuss if they see us together." "What do you mean by saying she is not so very white?" "You know what I mean, sahib." "I'm d-d if I do, you brute!" So I went without more ado down to the comfortless steerage bunk, to find the wretched mean Australian bush girl who was going alone to Afghanistan with a Ghilzai husband, and sorry enough she looked, though a fine day and a smooth sea would doubtless work wonders. At any rate I went for the ship's doctor and explained the situation. I also explained that there was little to gain by talking, and that the pair had best be left with such assistance as a brother in the craft could give, to work out their Pah! it was quite true, I own salvation in their own knew the mean white well, I way. To cut a long story had had them as transport short, the girl improved under boys and voor-loopers. "Croc- treatment, and was about on odile" Henry as driver, and deck the day we ran into the "Well, sahib, you have seen it in Afrique, no doubt. I did, when I went there with Dhanjhiboy's ambulance tongas. There are white people who are brought up like black people, they ran wild about the veldt with kafirs, and nobody will know them." 1 Indian banker. comparative calm of Bombay to various sepoys of the garri harbour. There I had some speech with her, and found her a rough enough diamond, rough of speech and sturdy of character, almost illiterate, but used since an infant to shift for herself and live as she could. "Aldo," as she called her husband (a missionary it appeared had married them and asked no questions), had been driving a donkey engine up at the goldfields, and she had found him lying in the bush with a broken head, robbed apparently by some whites. She had got him water, they had struck up an alliance, and they had married. Aldo had done well, and had later been running goods on pack-camels, and they were now off to Afghanistan to trade in ready-made black frock-coats. This plan of her husband's, whose real name he told me was Sultan Jan, was by no means so absurd as it sounds. The Afghan nobleman affects a dress of this nature, and English frock-coats are in great request. A merchant calling with such at the country seats of the Afghan gentry would undoubtedly be well received, and the ready-made frock-coat, as baled by Messrs Whitaway & Laidlaw, had I knew a ready market. Once when I was on the Chinese frontier of Upper Burma, in a small rainbound post, with 150 Gurkhas as garrison, the parcel post (which came in about once in six weeks) climbed the hill on a Government elephant. It contained huge parcels by the Value Payable Post, addressed son. That evening the whole of the garrison turned out for the evening parade in mufti, every man wearing a black Angola morning coat, which had been ordered by letter from the attractive price lists of the same enterprising firm. It was dull on that mountain border, in the monsoon, and to order goods and wait to see if they would come was the only diversion. Only the week before we, the officers, had wired to Calcutta for a wedding, a christening, and a birthday cake, to cheer our drooping appetites. We also used to ponder with glee on what the firm would say to the order. We had specially stipulated for plenty of almond icing. Anyway, Susie Hammerslip, now Mrs Sultan Jan of the Suleiman Khel, was going to seek her fortune in Afghanistan, with a caravan of frockcoats. One had heard tales now and again of Australian women returning with the Powindahs, as the trading clans of the Ghilzai are called. I had often wondered how they had fared, and whether or no they had held their own among the fierce clansmen and their dark, handsome, jealous womenfolk. Whether or no, as they lost their looks, they were drifting to the position of the old mother carrying the samovar,-such a one as you may see tottering after the caravan, instead of occupying the lacquered khajawah, that had been her right twenty years before, now relegated to lighting the fire, and catching the camels that broke away at night from their moorings. Perhaps Susie was of sterner clay, that would control by right of tongue and brawnier arm, and assert the fact that white is white in the East, till the blood is diluted out of all knowing. a However that may be, Susie and I stood overlooking the harbour by the iron bulwarks in the waist of the ship, while spirits and colour returned to her cheek, at freedom from the motion and the prospect of terra firma. And I saw that she was a red-haired roundfaced lass, with a good stubborn lip, and a firm-set chin, her skin covered with that fine down which marks those much in the open air. It was Saxon or a Teuton face, full of good temper and devoid of any evil. I chatted to her of what she was to see, and what Afghanistan might be like, to her chorus of "Oh, my," while her husband collected their belongings. When they finally appeared for landing, Sultan Jan was in a suit of rough tweeds, more or less resembling a member of one of the Latin races, for the Afghans are a fair people, while Susie was in a blue print dress with a Rob Roy shawl over her shoulders. To my inquiry if he wanted any money, Sultan Jan replied that he did not, as he would find a friend in Bombay to give him all he wanted, and that he should stay to do a day's business and then travel second-class to Peshawur. He was grateful for my assistance during the voyage, and had expressed himself as a mason should, vowing that if ever I needed help across the border in men or money, work or amusement, I was to call on him. Susie was not good at putting her thanks into words, but I took the liberty of giving her a small pocket revolver, and also my address in the Punjab, urging her to send to it if she found the situation more than she could handle. Further, I told her, which I knew to be the case, that she would not be allowed to cross the British border into Afghanistan until she had appeared before a British magistrate and satisfied him that she went of her own free will. However, she had no misgivings. The prospect before her seemed infinitely brighter than anything she had seen in her hovel existence on the edge of the Bush, and she seemed to have Sultan Jān in hand, unconsciously asserting the superiority of her very inferior white blood. The last I saw of them was in a taxi, if you please, driving along the Back Bay, evidently very pleased with themselves and in no want of money. A few months later I inquired up on the Frontier, and was told that a Powindah had crossed the border with a white wife, and that according to the orders of the Government of India she had been interviewed by the magistrate of the frontier district through which she passed. It happened to be Dera Ismael Khan, and she had expressed herself perfectly content, and anxious to proceed to her husband's people. |