A Lady of England 2

A Lady of England 2

CHAPTER X

 

LOYAL AND TRUE 331

 

CHAPTER XI

 

CLOUDS AFTER SUNSHINE 344

 

CHAPTER XII

 

THE FIRST STONE OF BATALA CHURCH 359

 

CHAPTER XIII

 

SOME OF A. L. O. E.’s POSSESSIONS 374

 

CHAPTER XIV

 

ON THE RIVER’S BRINK 395

 

CHAPTER XV

 

IN HARNESS ONCE MORE 410

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

A VISIT FROM BISHOP FRENCH 427

 

CHAPTER XVII

 

THE DAILY ROUND 445

 

CHAPTER XVIII

 

IN OLD AGE 461

 

CHAPTER XIX

 

LIGHT AT EVENTIDE 475

 

CHAPTER XX

 

THE LAST GREAT SORROW 491

 

CHAPTER XXI

 

THE HOME-GOING 503

 

LIST OF PRINCIPAL BOOKS BY A. L. O. E. 515

 

LIST OF SOME SMALL BOOKLETS BY A. L. O. E. 519

 

 

 

 

PART I

 

LIFE IN ENGLAND

 

 

‘Constant discipline in unnoticed ways, and the hidden spirit’s silent

unselfishness, becoming the hidden habit of the life, give to it its

true saintly beauty, and this is the result of care and lowly love in

little things. Perfection is attained most readily by this constancy of

religious faithfulness in all minor details of life, in the lines of

duty which fill up what remains to complete the likeness to our LORD,

consecrating the daily efforts of self-forgetting love.’--T. T. CARTER.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

A.D. 1771-1835

 

THE STORY OF HER FATHER

 

 

Charlotte Maria Tucker, known widely by her _nom de plume_ of A. L.

O. E.,--signifying A Lady Of England,--as the successful author of

numberless children’s books, deserves to be yet more extensively known

as the heroic Pioneer of elderly and Honorary volunteers in the broad

Mission-fields of our Church.

 

Her books, which were much read and appreciated in the youth of the

present middle-aged generation, may to some extent have sunk into the

background, as the works of successive story-tellers do in the majority

of cases retire, each in turn, before newer names and newer styles; but

the splendid example set by Charlotte Tucker, at a time of life when

most people are intent upon retiring from work, and taking if they may

their ease,--an example of _then_ buckling on her armour afresh, and of

entering upon the toughest toil of all her busy life, will surely never

be forgotten.

 

She was the sixth child and third daughter of Henry St. George Tucker,

a prominent Bengal Civilian, and, later on, Chairman of the East India

Company. All her five brothers went to India, and all five were there in

the dark days of the Mutiny. Thus by birth she had a close connection

with that great eastern branch of the British Empire, to which her last

eighteen years were entirely devoted. People in general go out early,

and retire to England for rest in old age. Miss Tucker spent fifty-four

active years in England, and then yielded her remaining powers to the

cause of our fellow-subjects in Hindustan.

 

It seems desirable that a slight sketch of her father’s earlier life

should precede the story of hers.

 

Henry St. George Tucker came into this world on the 15th of February

1771. He was born in the Bermudas, on the Isle St. George, whence his

name, and was the eldest of ten children. An interesting reference to

this event is found in a letter of Charlotte Tucker’s, written February

15, 1890: ‘As I went in my duli to villages this morning, I thought, “One

hundred and nineteen years ago a precious Baby was born in a distant

island”; and I thanked God for our beloved and honoured Father.’

 

Henry St. George’s father was a man of good descent, of high reputation,

and of a leading position in the islands. His mother, a Miss Bruere

before marriage,--probably the name was a corruption of _Bruyere_,--was

daughter of the then governor of the Bermudas, a gallant old soldier,

possessing fourteen children and also a particularly irascible temper.

 

The elder Mr. Tucker appears to have been a man of gentle temperament

and liberal views; I do not mean ‘Liberal’ in the mere party sense,

but liberal as opposed to ‘illiberal.’ Whatever his own opinions may

have been, he did not endeavour to force them upon his children; he did

not, in fact, petrify the children’s little fancies by opposition into

a lasting existence. It is amusing to read of the opposite tendencies

among his boys, one taking the loyal side and another the republican

side in the dawning struggle between England and her American Colonies.

Long after, Henry St. George spoke of himself as having then been ‘a bit

of a rebel’; adding, ‘But my republican zeal was very much cooled by

the French Revolution; and if a spark of it had remained, our own most

contemptible revolution of 1830 would have extinguished it, and have

fixed me for life a determined Conservative.’

 

He had on the whole a strong constitution, though counted delicate as a

child; and his early life in the Bermudas was one of abundant fresh air

and exercise. Much more time was given to riding and boating than to

books; indeed, his education seems hardly to have been begun before the

age of ten years, when he was sent to school in England. Whether such

a plan would answer with the ordinary run of boys may well be doubted.

Henry St. George Tucker was not an ordinary boy; and he showed no signs

of loss in after-life through ten years of play at the beginning of it.

 

One piece of advice given to him by his mother, when he was about to

start for England, cannot but cause a smile. She was at pains to assure

him that it would be unnecessary to take off his hat to every person

whom he might meet in the streets of London. Henry St. George, speaking

of this in later years, continues: ‘But habit is strong; and even now,

when I repair to the stables for my horse, I interchange bows with the

coachman and the ostlers and all the little idle urchins whom I encounter

in the mews.’ One would have been sorry indeed to see so graceful a habit

altered. It might far better be imitated. Exceeding courtesy was through

life characteristic of the man, and it descended in a marked degree upon

many of his descendants, notably so upon Charlotte Maria, the A. L. O. E.

of literature.

 

School education, begun at ten, ended at fourteen. The boy worked hard,

and rose in his classes quickly; though at an after period he spoke of

his own learning in those days as ‘superficial.’ He had been intended by

his father for the legal profession, and many years of hard work were

supposed to lie before him. These plans were unexpectedly broken through.

One of his aunts, who lived in England, acting impulsively and without

authority, altered the whole course of his career. She asked him, ‘Would

he like to visit India?’ A more unnecessary question could hardly have

been put. What schoolboy of fourteen would _not_ ‘like to visit India’?

Young Henry seized upon the idea; and the said aunt, under the impression

that she was kindly relieving his father of needless school expenses,

actually shipped the lad off as middy in a merchant vessel bound for

India, not waiting to write and ask his father’s permission. She merely