The life of Florence Nightingale E-Book

Sarah A. Southall Tooley

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

At a dinner given to the military and naval officers who had served in the Crimean War, it was suggested that each guest should write on a slip of paper the name of the person whose services during the late campaign would be longest remembered by posterity. When the papers were examined, each bore the same name—“Florence Nightingale.”
The prophecy is fulfilled to-day, for though little more than fifty years have passed since the joy-bells throughout the land proclaimed the fall of Sebastopol, the majority of people would hesitate if asked to name the generals of the Allied Armies, while no one would be at a loss to tell who was the heroine of the Crimea. Her deeds of love and sacrifice sank deep into the nation’s heart, for they were above the strife of party and the clash of arms. While Death has struck name after name from the nation’s roll of the great and famous, our heroine lives in venerated age to shed the lustre of her name upon a new century.

Leseprobe

THE LIFE OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

MISS NIGHTINGALE.

(From a photograph by S. G. Payne & Son.)

THE LIFEOFFLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

BY SARAH A. TOOLEY

© 2024 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385745981

TOTHE LADY HERBERT OF LEA THE LIFE-LONG FRIEND OFFLORENCE NIGHTINGALE THIS BOOK IS BY PERMISSIONDedicated

PREFACE

The writing of the Life of Florence Nightingale was undertaken with the object of marking the jubilee of the illustrious heroine who left London on October 21st, 1854, with a band of thirty-eight nurses for service in the Crimean War. Her heroic labours on behalf of the sick and wounded soldiers have made her name a household word in every part of the British Empire, and it was a matter for national congratulation that Miss Nightingale lived to celebrate such a memorable anniversary.

A striking proof of the honour in which her name is held by the rising generation was given a short time ago, when the editor of The Girl’s Realm took the votes of his readers as to the most popular heroine in modern history. Fourteen names were submitted, and of the 300,000 votes given, 120,776 were for Florence Nightingale.

No trouble has been spared to make the book as accurate and complete as possible, and when writing it I spent several months in the vicinity of Miss Nightingale’s early homes, and received much kind assistance from people of all classes acquainted with her. In particular I would thank Lady Herbert of Lea for accepting the dedication of the book and for portraits of herself and Lord Herbert; Sir Edmund Verney for permission to publish the picture of the late Lady Verney and views of Claydon; Pastor Düsselhoff of Kaiserswerth for the portrait of Pastor Fliedner and some recollections of Miss Nightingale’s training in that institution; the late Sister Mary Aloysius, of the Convent of Sisters of Mercy, Kinvara, co. Galway, for memories of her work at Scutari Hospital; and Mr. Crowther, Librarian of the Public Library, Derby, for facilities for studying the collection of material relating to Miss Nightingale presented to the Library by the late Duke of Devonshire.

In the preparation of the revised edition I am indebted to Lady Verney, the late Hon. Frederick Strutt, and Mrs. Dacre Craven for valuable suggestions.

SARAH A. TOOLEY

Kensington.

THE LIFE OFFLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

CHAPTER I

BIRTH AND ANCESTRY

Birth at Florence—Shore Ancestry—Peter Nightingale of Lea—Florence Nightingale’s Parents.

We are born into life—it is sweet, it is strange,

We lie still on the knee of a mild mystery

Which smiles with a change;

But we doubt not of changes, we know not of spaces,

The heavens seem as near as our own mother’s face is,

And we think we could touch all the stars that we see.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Thought and deed, not pedigree, are the passports to enduring fame.—General Skobeleff.

At a dinner given to the military and naval officers who had served in the Crimean War, it was suggested that each guest should write on a slip of paper the name of the person whose services during the late campaign would be longest remembered by posterity. When the papers were examined, each bore the same name—“Florence Nightingale.”

The prophecy is fulfilled to-day, for though little more than fifty years have passed since the joy-bells throughout the land proclaimed the fall of Sebastopol, the majority of people would hesitate if asked to name the generals of the Allied Armies, while no one would be at a loss to tell who was the heroine of the Crimea. Her deeds of love and sacrifice sank deep into the nation’s heart, for they were above the strife of party and the clash of arms. While Death has struck name after name from the nation’s roll of the great and famous, our heroine lives in venerated age to shed the lustre of her name upon a new century.

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12th, 1820, at the Villa Colombaia near Florence, where her parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Shore Nightingale, of Lea, Derbyshire, were staying.

“What name should be given to the baby girl born so far away from her English home?” queried her parents, and with mutual consent they decided to call her “Florence,” after that fair city of flowers on the banks of the Arno where she first saw the light. Little did Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale then think that the name thus chosen was destined to become one of the most popular throughout the British Empire. Every “Florence” practically owes her name to the circumstances of Miss Nightingale’s birth.

It seemed as though the fates were determined to give an attractive designation to our heroine. While “Florence” suggested the goddess of flowers, “Nightingale” spoke of sweet melody. What could be more beautiful and euphonious than a name suggesting a song-bird from the land of flowers? The combination proved a special joy to Mr. Punch and his fellow-humorists when the bearer of the name rose to fame.

However, Miss Nightingale’s real family name was Shore. Her father was William Edward Shore, the only son of William Shore of Tapton, Derbyshire, and he assumed the name of Nightingale, by the sign manual of the Prince Regent, when he succeeded in 1815 to the estates of his mother’s uncle, Peter Nightingale of Lea. This change took place three years before his marriage, and five before the birth of his illustrious daughter.

Through her Shore ancestry Miss Nightingale is connected with the family of Baron Teignmouth. Sir John Shore, Governor-General of India, was created a baron in 1797 and took the title of Teignmouth. Another John Shore was an eminent physician at Derby in the reign of Charles II., and a Samuel Shore married the heiress of the Offleys, a Sheffield family.

It is through her paternal grandmother, Mary, daughter of John Evans of Cromford, the niece and sole heir of Peter Nightingale, that Florence Nightingale is connected with the family whose name she bears. Her great-great-uncle, Peter Nightingale, was a typical Derbyshire squire who more than a century ago lived in good style at the fine old mansion of Lea Hall. Those were rough and roystering days in such isolated villages as Lea, and “old Peter” had his share of the vices then deemed gentlemanly. He could swear with the best, and his drinking feats might have served Burns for a similar theme to The Whistle. His excesses gained for him the nickname of “Madman Nightingale,” and accounts of his doings still form the subject of local gossip. When in his cups, he would raid the kitchen, take the puddings from the pots and fling them on the dust-heap, and cause the maids to fly in terror. Nevertheless, “old Peter” was not unpopular; he was good-natured and easy going with his people, and if he drank hard, well, so did his neighbours. He was no better and little worse than the average country squire, and parson too, of the “good old times.” His landed possessions extended from Lea straight away to the old market town of Cromford, and beyond towards Matlock. It is of special interest to note that he sold a portion of his Cromford property to Sir Richard Arkwright, who erected there his famous cotton mills. The beautiful mansion of Willersley Castle, which the ingenious cotton-spinner built, and where he ended his days as the great Sir Richard, stands on a part of the original Nightingale property. When “old Peter” of jovial memory passed to his account, his estates and name descended to his grand-nephew, William Edward Shore.

The new squire, Florence Nightingale’s father, was a marked contrast to his predecessor. He is described by those who remember him as a tall, slim, gentlemanly man of irreproachable character. He had been educated at Edinburgh and Trinity College, Cambridge, and had broadened his mind by foreign travel at a time when the average English squire, still mindful of the once terrifying name of “Boney,” looked upon all foreigners as his natural enemies, and entrenched himself on his ancestral acres with a supreme contempt for lands beyond the Channel. Mr. Nightingale was far in advance of the county gentry of his time in matters of education and culture. Sport had no special attraction for him, but he was a student, a lover of books and a connoisseur in art. He was not without a good deal of pride of birth, for the Shores were a very ancient family.

As a landlord he had a sincere desire to benefit the people on his estates, although not perhaps in the way they most appreciated. “Well, you see, I was not born generous,” is still remembered as Mr. Nightingale’s answer when solicited for various local charities. However, he never begrudged money for the support of rural education, and, to quote the saying of one of his old tenants, “Many poor people in Lea would not be able to read and write to-day, if it had not been for ‘Miss Florence’s’ father.” He was the chief supporter of what was then called the “cheap school,” where the boys and girls, if they did not go through the higher standards of the present-day schools, at least learned the three R’s for the sum of twopence a week. There was, of course, no compulsory education then, but the displeasure of the squire with people who neglected to send their children to school was a useful incentive to parents. Mr. Nightingale was a zealous Churchman, and did much to further Christian work in his district.

Florence Nightingale’s mother was Miss Frances Smith, daughter of William Smith, Esq., of Parndon in Essex, who for fifty years was M.P. for Norwich. He was a pronounced Abolitionist, took wide and liberal views on the questions of the time, and was noted for his interest in various branches of philanthropy. Mrs. Nightingale was imbued with her father’s spirit, and is remembered for her great kindness and benevolence to the poor. She was a stately and beautiful woman in her prime and one of the fast-dying-out race of gentlewomen who were at once notable house-keepers and charming and cultured ladies. Her name is still mentioned with gratitude and affection by the old people of her husband’s estates.

It was from her mother, whom she greatly resembles, that Florence Nightingale inherited the spirit of wide philanthropy and the desire to break away, in some measure, from the bonds of caste which warped the county gentry in her early days and devote herself to humanitarian work. She was also fortunate in having a father who believed that a girl’s head could carry something more than elegant accomplishments and a knowledge of cross-stitch. While our heroine’s mother trained her in deeds of benevolence, her father inspired her with a love for knowledge and guided her studies on lines much in advance of the usual education given to young ladies at that period.

Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale had only two children—Frances Parthenope, afterwards Lady Verney, and Florence, about a year younger. Both sisters were named after the Italian towns where they were born, the elder receiving the name of Parthenope, the classic form of Naples, and was always known as “Parthe,” while our heroine was Florence.

CHAPTER II

EARLIEST ASSOCIATIONS

Lea Hall first English Home—Neighbourhood of Babington Plot—Dethick Church.

... Those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,

Are yet a master light of all our seeing.

Wordsworth.

WHEN Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale returned from abroad with their two little daughters, they lived for a time at the old family seat of Lea Hall, which therefore has the distinction of being the first English home of Florence Nightingale, an honour generally attributed to her parents’ subsequent residence of Lea Hurst.

Lea Hall is beautifully situated high up amongst the hills above the valley of the Derwent. I visited it in early summer when the meadows around were golden with buttercups and scented with clover, and the long grass stood ready for the scythe. Wild roses decked the hedgerows, and the elder-bushes, which grow to a great size in this part of Derbyshire, made a fine show with their white blossoms. Seen then, the old grey Hall seemed a pleasant country residence; but when the north wind blows and snow covers the hillsides, it must be a bleak and lonely abode. It is plainly and solidly built of grey limestone from the Derbyshire quarries, and is of good proportions. From its elevated position it has an imposing look, and forms a landmark in the open country. Leading from it, the funny old village street of Lea, with its low stone houses, some of them very ancient, curls round the hillside downwards to the valley. The butcher proudly displays a ledger with entries for the Nightingale family since 1835.

The Hall stands on the ancient Manor of Lea, which includes the villages of Lea, Dethick, and Holloway, and which passed through several families before it became the property of the Nightingales. The De Alveleys owned the manor in the reign of John and erected a chapel there. One portion of the manor passed through the families of Ferrar, Dethwick, and Babington, and another portion through the families of De la Lea, Frecheville, Rollestone, Pershall, and Spateman to that of the Nightingales.

The house stands a little back from the Lea road in its own grounds, and is approached by a gate from the front garden. Stone steps lead up to the front door, which opens into an old-fashioned flag-paved hall. Facing the door is an oak staircase of exceptional beauty. It gives distinction to the house and proclaims its ancient dignity. The balustrade has finely turned spiral rails, the steps are of solid oak, and the sides of the staircase panelled in oak. One may imagine the little Florence making her first efforts at climbing up this handsome old staircase.

In a room to the left the date 1799 has been scratched upon one of the window-panes, but the erection of the Hall must have been long before that time. For the rest, it is a rambling old house with thick walls and deep window embrasures. The ceilings are moderately high. There is an old-fashioned garden at the back, with fruit and shady trees and a particularly handsome copper beech.

The Hall has long been used as a farmhouse, and scarcely one out of the hundreds of visitors to the Matlock district who go on pilgrimages to Lea Hurst knows of its interesting association. The old lady who occupied it at the time of my visit was not a little proud of the fact that for forty-four years she had lived in the first English home of Florence Nightingale.

The casual visitor might think the district amid which our heroine’s early years were spent was a pleasant Derbyshire wild and nothing more, but it has also much historic interest. Across the meadows from Lea Hall are the remains of the stately mansion of Dethick, where dwelt young Anthony Babington when he conspired to release Mary Queen of Scots from her imprisonment at Wingfield Manor, a few miles away. Over these same meadows and winding lanes Queen Elizabeth’s officers searched for the conspirators and apprehended one at Dethick. The mansion where the plot was hatched has been largely destroyed, and what remains is used for farm purposes. Part of the old wall which enclosed the original handsome building still stands, and beside it is an underground cellar which according to tradition leads into a secret passage to Wingfield Manor. The farm bailiff who stores his potatoes in the cellar has not been able to find the entrance to the secret passage, though at one side of the wall there is a suspicious hollow sound when it is hammered.

The original kitchen of the mansion remains intact in the bailiff’s farmhouse. There is the heavy oak-beamed ceiling, black with age, the ponderous oak doors, the great open fireplace, desecrated by a modern cooking range in the centre, but which still retains in the overhanging beam the ancient roasting jack which possibly cooked venison for Master Anthony and the other gallant young gentlemen who had sworn to liberate the captive Queen. In the roof of the ceiling is an innocent-looking little trap-door which, when opened, reveals a secret chamber of some size. This delightful old kitchen, with its mysterious memories, was a place of great fascination to Florence Nightingale and her sister in their childhood, and many stories did they weave about the scenes which transpired long ago in the old mansion, so near their own home. It was a source of peculiar interest to have the scenes of a real Queen Mary romance close at hand, and gave zest to the subject when the sisters read about the Babington plot in their history books.

Dethick Church, where our heroine attended her first public service, and continued to frequently worship so long as she lived in Derbyshire, formed a part of the Babingtons’ domain. It was originally the private chapel of the mansion, but gradually was converted to the uses of a parish church. Its tall tower forms a picturesque object from the windows of Lea Hall. The church must be one of the smallest in the kingdom. Fifty persons would prove an overflowing congregation even now that modern seating has utilised space, but in Florence Nightingale’s girlhood, when the quality sat in their high-backed pews and the rustics on benches at the farther end of the church, the sitting room was still more limited. The interior of the church is still plain and rustic, with bare stone walls, and the bell ropes hanging in view of the congregation. The service was quaint in Miss Nightingale’s youth, when the old clerk made the responses to the parson, and the preaching sometimes took an original turn. The story is still repeated in the district that the old parson, preaching one Sunday on the subject of lying, made the consoling remark that “a lie is sometimes a very useful thing in trade.” The saying was often repeated by the farmers of Lea and Dethick in the market square of Derby.

Owing to the fact that Dethick Church was originally a private chapel, there is no graveyard. It stands in a pretty green enclosure on the top of a hill. An old yew-tree shades the door, and near by are two enormous elder-bushes, which have twined their great branches together until they fall down to the ground like a drooping ash, forming an absolutely secluded bower, very popular with lovers and truants from church.

The palmy days of old Dethick Church are past. No longer do the people from the surrounding villages and hamlets climb its steep hillside, Sunday by Sunday, for, farther down in the vale, a new church has recently been built at Holloway, which, if less picturesque, is certainly more convenient for the population. On the first Sunday in each month, however, a service is still held in the old church where, in days long ago, Florence Nightingale sat in the squire’s pew, looking in her Leghorn hat and sandal shoes a very bonny little maiden indeed.

CHAPTER III

LEA HURST

Removal to Lea Hurst—Description of the House—Florence Nightingale’s Crimean Carriage preserved there.

L o! in the midst of Nature’s choicest scenes,

E mbosomed ’mid tall trees, and towering hills,

A gem, in Nature’s setting, rests Lea Hurst.

H ome of the good, the pure at heart and beautiful,

U ndying is the fame which, like a halo’s light,

R ound thee is cast by the bright presence of the holy Florence

S aint-like and heavenly. Thou hast indeed a glorious fame

T ime cannot change, but which will be eternal.

Llewellyn Jewett.

When Florence Nightingale was between five and six years old, the family removed from Lea Hall to Lea Hurst, a house which Mr. Nightingale had been rebuilding on a site about a mile distant, and immediately above the hamlet of Lea Mills. This delightful new home is the one most widely associated with the life of our heroine. To quote the words of the old lady at the lodge, “It was from Lea Hurst as Miss Florence set out for the Crimea, and it was to Lea Hurst as Miss Florence returned from the Crimea.” For many years after the war it was a place of pilgrimage, and is mentioned in almost every guidebook as one of the attractions of the Matlock district. It has never been in any sense a show house, and the park is private, but in days gone by thousands of people came to the vicinity, happy if they could see its picturesque gables from the hillside, and always with the hope that a glimpse might be caught of the famous lady who lived within its walls. Miss Nightingale remains tenderly attached to Lea Hurst, although it is eighteen years since she last stayed there. After the death of her parents it passed to the next male heir, Mr. Shore Smith, who later assumed the name of Nightingale.

LEA HURST, DERBYSHIRE.

(Photo by Keene, Derby.)

[To face p. 16.

Lea Hurst is only fourteen miles from Derby, but the following incident would lead one to suppose that the house is not as familiar in the county town as might be expected. Not long ago a lady asked at a fancy stationer’s shop for a photograph of Lea Hurst.

“Lea Hurst?” pondered the young saleswoman, and turning to her companion behind the counter, she inquired, “Have we a photograph of Lea Hurst?”

“Yes, I think so,” was the reply.

“Who is Lea Hurst?” asked the first girl.

“Why, an actor of course,” replied the second.

There was an amusing tableau when the truth was made known.

Miss Nightingale’s father displayed a fine discrimination when he selected the position for his new house. One might search even the romantic Peak country in vain for a more ideal site than Lea Hurst. It stands on a broad plateau looking across to the sharp, bold promontory of limestone rock known as Crich Stand. Soft green hills and wooded heights stud the landscape, while deep down in the green valley the silvery Derwent—or “Darent,” as the natives call it—makes music as it dashes over its rocky bed. The outlook is one of perfect repose and beauty away to Dove’s romantic dale, and the aspect is balmy and sunny, forming in this respect a contrast to the exposed and bleak situation of Lea Hall.

The house is in the style of an old Elizabethan mansion, and now that time has mellowed the stone and clothed the walls with greenery, one might imagine that it really dated from the Tudor period. Mr. Nightingale was a man of artistic tastes, and every detail of the house was carefully planned for picturesque effect. The mansion is built in the form of a cross with jutting wings, and presents a picture of clustering chimneys, pointed gables, stone mullioned windows and latticed panes. The fine oriel window of the drawing-room forms a projecting wing at one end of the house. The rounded balcony above the window has become historic. It is pointed out to visitors as the place where “Miss Florence used to come out and speak to the people.” Miss Nightingale’s room opened on to this balcony, and after her return from the Crimea, when she was confined to the house with delicate health, she would occasionally step from her room on to the balcony to speak to the people, who had come as deputations, while they stood in the park below. Facing the oriel balcony is a gateway, shadowed by yew-trees, which forms one of the entrances from the park to the garden.

In front of the house is a circular lawn with gravel path and flower-beds, and above the hall door is inscribed N. and the date 1825, the year in which Lea Hurst was completed. The principal rooms open on to the garden or south front, and have a delightfully sunny aspect and a commanding view over the vale. From the library a flight of stone steps leads down to the lawn. The old schoolroom and nursery where our heroine passed her early years are in the upper part of the house and have lovely views over the hills.

In the centre of the garden front of the mansion is a curious little projecting building which goes by the name of “the chapel.” It is evidently an ancient building effectively incorporated into Lea Hurst. There are several such little oratories of Norman date about the district, and the old lady at Lea Hurst lodge shows a stone window in the side of her cottage which is said to be seven hundred years old. A stone cross surmounts the roof of the chapel, and outside on the end wall is an inscription in curious characters. This ancient little building has, however, a special interest for our narrative, as Miss Nightingale used it for many years as the meeting place for the Sunday afternoon Bible-class which she held for the girls of the district. In those days there was a large bed of one of Miss Nightingale’s favourite flowers, the fuchsia, outside the chapel, but that has been replaced by a fountain and basin, and the historic building itself, with its thick stone walls, now makes an excellent larder.

The gardens at Lea Hurst slope down from the back of the house in a series of grassy terraces connected by stone steps, and are still preserved in all their old-fashioned charm and beauty. There in spring and early summer one sees wallflowers, peonies, pansies, forget-me-nots, and many-coloured primulas in delightful profusion, while the apple trellises which skirt the terraces make a pretty show with their pink blossoms, and the long border of lavender-bushes is bursting into bloom. In a secluded corner of the garden is an old summer-house with pointed roof of thatch which must have been a delightful playhouse for little Florence and her sister.

The park slopes down on either side the plateau on which the house stands. The entrance to the drive is in the pleasant country road which leads to the village of Whatstandwell and on to Derby. This very modest park entrance, consisting of an ordinary wooden gate supported by stone pillars with globes on the top, has been described by an enthusiastic chronicler as a “stately gateway” with “an air of mediæval grandeur.” There is certainly no grandeur about Lea Hurst, either mediæval or modern. It is just one of those pleasant and picturesque country mansions which are characteristic of rural England, and no grandeur is needed to give distinction to a house which the name of Florence Nightingale has hallowed.

Beyond the park the Lea woods cover the hillside for some distance, and in spring are thickly carpeted with bluebells. A long winding avenue, from which magnificent views are obtained over the hills and woodland glades for many miles, skirts the top of the woods, and is still remembered as “Miss Florence’s favourite walk.”

The chief relic preserved at Lea Hurst is the curious old carriage used by Miss Nightingale in the Crimea. What memories does it not suggest of her journeys from one hospital to another over the heights of Balaclava, when its utmost carrying capacity was filled with comforts for the sick and wounded! The body of the carriage is of basket-work, and it has special springs made to suit the rough Crimean roads. There is a hood which can be half or fully drawn over the entire vehicle. The carriage was driven by a mounted man acting as postilion.

It seems as though such a unique object ought to have a permanent place in one of our public museums, for its interest is national. A native of the district, who a short time ago chanced to see the carriage, caught the national idea and returned home lamenting that he could not put the old carriage on wheels and take it from town to town. “There’s a fortune in the old thing,” said he, “for most folks would pay a shilling or a sixpence to see the very identical carriage in which Miss Florence took the wounded about in those Crimean times. It’s astonishing what little things please people in the way of a show. Why, that carriage would earn money enough to build a hospital!”

CHAPTER IV

THE DAYS OF CHILDHOOD

Romantic Journeys from Lea Hurst to Embley Park—George Eliot Associations—First Patient—Love of Animals and Flowers—Early Education.

The childhood shows the man,

As morning shows the day.

Milton.

There is a lesson in each flower;

A story in each stream and bower;

On every herb o’er which you tread

Are written words which, rightly read,

Will lead you from earth’s fragrant sod,

To hope and holiness and God.

Allan Cunningham.

The childhood of Florence Nightingale, begun, as we have seen, in the sunny land of Italy, was subsequently passed in the beautiful surroundings of her Derbyshire home, and at Embley Park, Hampshire, a fine old Elizabethan mansion, which Mr. Nightingale purchased when Florence was about six years old.

The custom was for the family to pass the summer at Lea Hurst, going in the autumn to Embley for the winter and early spring. And what an exciting and delightful time Florence and her sister Parthe had on the occasions of these alternative “flittings” between Derbyshire and Hampshire in the days before railroads had destroyed the romance of travelling! Then the now quiet little town of Cromford, two miles from Lea Hurst, was a busy coaching centre, and the stage coaches also stopped for passengers at the village inn of Whatstandwell, just below Lea Hurst Park. In those times the Derby road was alive with the pleasurable excitements of the prancing of horses, the crack of the coach-driver’s whip, the shouts of the post-boys, and the sound of the horn—certainly more inspiring and romantic sights and sounds than the present toot-toot of the motor-car, and the billows of dust-clouds which follow in its rear.

Sometimes the journey from Lea Hurst was made by coach, but more frequently Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale with their two little girls drove in their own carriage, proceeding by easy stages and putting up at inns en route, while the servants went before with the luggage to prepare Embley for the reception of the family.

How glorious it was in those bright October days to drive through the country, just assuming its dress of red and gold, or again in the return journey in the spring, when the hills and dales of Derbyshire were bursting into fresh green beauty. The passionate love for nature and the sights and sounds of rural life which has always characterised Miss Nightingale was implanted in these happy days of childhood. And so, too, were the homely wit and piquant sayings which distinguish her writings and mark her more intimate conversation. She acquired them unconsciously, as she encountered the country people.

In her Derbyshire home she lived in touch with the life which at the same period was weaving its spell about Marian Evans, when she visited her kinspeople, and was destined to be immortalised in Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss. Amongst her father’s tenants Florence Nightingale knew farmers’ wives who had a touch of Mrs. Poyser’s caustic wit, and was familiar with the “Yea” and “Nay” and other quaint forms of Derbyshire speech, such as Mr. Tulliver used when he talked to “the little wench” in the house-place of the ill-fated Mill on the Floss. She met, too, many of “the people called Methodists,” who in her girlhood were establishing their preaching-places in the country around Lea Hurst, and she heard of the fame of the woman preacher, then exercising her marvellous gifts in the Derby district, who was to become immortal as Dinah Morris. In Florence Nightingale’s early womanhood, Adam Bede lived in his thatched cottage by Wirksworth Tape Mills, a few miles from Lea Hurst, and the Poysers’ farm stood across the meadows.

The childhood of our heroine was passed amid surroundings which proved a singularly interesting environment. Steam power had not then revolutionised rural England: the counties retained their distinctive speech and customs, the young people remained on the soil where they were born, and the rich and the poor were thrown more intimately together. The effect of the greater personal intercourse then existing between the squire’s family and his people had an important influence on the character of Florence Nightingale in her Derbyshire and Hampshire homes. She learned sympathy with the poor and afflicted, and gained an understanding of the workings and prejudices of the uneducated mind, which enabled her in after years to be a real friend to those poor fellows fresh from the battlefields of the Crimea, many of whom had enlisted from the class of rural homes which she knew so well.

When quite a child, Florence Nightingale showed characteristics which pointed to her vocation in life. Her dolls were always in a delicate state of health and required the utmost care. Florence would undress and put them to bed with many cautions to her sister not to disturb them. She soothed their pillows, tempted them with imaginary delicacies from toy cups and plates, and nursed them to convalescence, only to consign them to a sick bed the next day. Happily, Parthe did not exhibit the same tender consideration for her waxen favourites, who frequently suffered the loss of a limb or got burnt at the nursery fire. Then of course Florence’s superior skill was needed, and she neatly bandaged poor dolly and “set” her arms and legs with a facility which might be the envy of the modern miraculous bone-setter.

The first “real live patient” of the future Queen of Nurses was Cap, the dog of an old Scotch shepherd, and although the story has been many times repeated since Florence Nightingale’s name became a household word, no account of her childhood would be complete without it. One day Florence was having a delightful ride over the Hampshire downs near Embley along with the vicar, for whom she had a warm affection. He took great interest in the little girl’s fondness for anything which had to do with the relief of the sick or injured, and as his own tastes lay in that direction, he was able to give her much useful instruction. However, on this particular day, as they rode along the downs, they noticed the sheep scattered in all directions and old Roger, the shepherd, vainly trying to collect them together.

“Where is your dog?” asked the vicar as he drew up his horse and watched the old man’s futile efforts.

“The boys have been throwing stones at him, sir,” was the reply, “and they have broken his leg, poor beast. He will never be any good for anything again and I am thinking of putting an end to his misery.”