Jackanapes | Page 4

lived very economically that they might help their poorer neighbors.
They neither entertained nor went into company, but the young lady
always went up the village as far as the George and Dragon, for air and
exercise, when the London Mail[2] came in.
[Footnote 2: The Mail Coach it was that distributed over the face of the
land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking news of
Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo.... The grandest
chapter of our experience, within the whole Mail Coach service, was on
those occasions when we went down from London with the news of
Victory. Five years of life it was worth paying down for the privilege of

an outside place.
DE QUINCEY.]
One day (it was a day in the following June) it came in earlier than
usual, and the young lady was not there to meet it.
But a crowd soon gathered round the George and Dragon, gaping to
see the Mail Coach dressed with flowers and oak-leaves, and the guard
wearing a laurel wreath over and above his royal livery. The ribbons
that decked the horses were stained and flecked with the warmth and
foam of the pace at which they had come, for they had pressed on with
the news of Victory.
Miss Jessamine was sitting with her niece under the oak-tree on the
Green, when the Postman put a newspaper silently into her hand. Her
niece turned quickly--"Is there news?"
"Don't agitate yourself, my dear," said her aunt. "I will read it aloud,
and then we can enjoy it together; a far more comfortable method, my
love, than when you go up the village, and come home out of breath,
having snatched half the news as you run."
"I am all attention, dear aunt," said the little lady, clasping her hands
tightly on her lap.
Then Miss Jessamine read aloud--she was proud of her reading--and
the old soldier stood at attention behind her, with such a blending of
pride and pity on his face as it was strange to see:--
"DOWNING STREET,
"June 22, 1815, 1 A.M."
"That's one in the morning," gasped the Postman; "beg your pardon,
mum."
But though he apologized, he could not refrain from echoing here and
there a weighty word. "Glorious victory,"--"Two hundred pieces of

artillery,"--"Immense quantity of ammunition,"--and so forth.
"The loss of the British Army upon this occasion has unfortunately
been most severe. It had not been possible to make out a return of the
killed and wounded when Major Percy left headquarters. The names of
the officers killed and wounded, as far as they can be collected, are
annexed.
"I have the honor ----"
"The list, aunt! Read the list!"
"My love--my darling--let us go in and--"
"No. Now! now!"
To one thing the supremely afflicted are entitled in their sorrow--to be
obeyed--and yet it is the last kindness that people commonly will do
them. But Miss Jessamine did. Steadying her voice, as best she might,
she read on, and the old soldier stood bareheaded to hear that first Roll
of the Dead at Waterloo, which began with the Duke of Brunswick, and
ended with Ensign Brown.[3] Five-and-thirty British Captains fell
asleep that day on the bed of Honor, and the Black Captain slept among
them.
[Footnote 3: "Brunswick's fated chieftain" fell at Quatre Bras, the day
before Waterloo, but this first (very imperfect) list, as it appeared in the
newspapers of the day, did begin with his name, and end with that of an
Ensign Brown.]
* * * * *
There are killed and wounded by war, of whom no returns reach
Downing Street.
Three days later, the Captain's wife had joined him, and Miss
Jessamine was kneeling by the cradle of their orphan son, a purple-red
morsel of humanity, with conspicuously golden hair.

"Will he live, Doctor?"
"Live? GOD bless my soul, ma'am! Look at him! The young
Jackanapes!"
CHAPTER II.
And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old Nurse.
LONGFELLOW.
The Grey Goose remembered quite well the year that Jackanapes began
to walk, for it was the year that the speckled hen for the first time in all
her motherly life got out of patience when she was sitting. She had
been rather proud of the eggs--they are unusually large--but she never
felt quite comfortable on them; and whether it was because she used to
get cramp, and got off the nest, or because the season was bad, or what,
she never could tell, but every egg was addled but one, and the one that
did hatch gave her more trouble than any chick she had ever reared.
It was a fine, downy, bright yellow little thing, but it had a monstrous
big nose and feet, and such an ungainly walk as she knew no other