Jackanapes   By: Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing (1841-1885)

By

JULIANA HORATIO EWING

Illustrated by

Amy Sacker

BOSTON

L. C. PAGE and COMPANY

(INCORPORATED)

COPYRIGHT, 1895

BY

JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. "Last noon beheld them full of life, Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay."

CHAPTER II. "And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse."

CHAPTER III. "If studious, copie fair what time hath blurred, Redeem truth from his jawes."

CHAPTER IV. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

CHAPTER V. "Then, said he, 'I am going to my Father's.'"

CHAPTER VI. "Und so ist der blaue Himmel grösser als jedes Gewölk darin, und dauerhafter dazu."

ILLUSTRATIONS

"BUT SHE REMEMBERED THE LITTLE MISS JESSAMINE" Frontispiece

TITLEPAGE

"NEXT DAY JANE HAD HEARD MORE"

AT THE POND

"JACKANAPES COULD HARDLY SLEEP FOR SPECULATING"

"HE WAS DISPOSED TO TALK CONFIDENTIALLY"

THE GENERAL'S GRANDSON

THE BOY TRUMPETER

TAILPIECE

FINIS

" If I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favors, I could lay on like a butcher, and sit like a Jackanapes, never off !"

KING HENRY V, Act 5, Scene 2.

JACKANAPES

CHAPTER I.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal sound of strife, The morn the marshalling in arms the day Battle's magnificently stern array! The thunder clouds close o'er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse: friend, foe, in one red burial blent.

Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine: Yet one would I select from that proud throng. to thee, to thousands, of whom each And one as all a ghastly gap did make In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake; The Archangel's trump, not glory's, must awake Those whom they thirst for. BYRON.

Two Donkeys and the Geese lived on the Green, and all other residents of any social standing lived in houses round it. The houses had no names. Everybody's address was, "The Green," but the Postman and the people of the place knew where each family lived. As to the rest of the world, what has one to do with the rest of the world, when he is safe at home on his own Goose Green? Moreover, if a stranger did come on any lawful business, he might ask his way at the shop.

Most of the inhabitants were long lived, early deaths (like that of the little Miss Jessamine) being exceptional; and most of the old people were proud of their age, especially the sexton, who would be ninety nine come Martinmas, and whose father remembered a man who had carried arrows, as a boy, for the battle of Flodden Field. The Grey Goose and the big Miss Jessamine were the only elderly persons who kept their ages secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned any one's age, or recalled the exact year in which anything had happened. She said that she had been taught that it was bad manners to do so "in a mixed assembly."