Very testily—"The date, my dear, put the date!"
"I have put it."
More testily at being in the wrong—"Then put your address, put your address."
I hesitated, and he threw up his hands: "Bless me! you've not got one. It has always puzzled me so what made you take a fancy to a soldier."
He had been very full of all kinds of ancient Church matters—a wonderful bell dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in a very remarkable inscription, etc.,—so I seized the pen and wrote—Strada Maria Stella, Malta—and "I du thenk" (as they say here) it will considerably puzzle the old sexton!!!!!
Soon after sunrise on Ascension Day I was woke clear and clean by the bells breaking into song. You know campanology is his great hobby. They rang changes, with long pauses between. Bells often try me very much, at Ecclesfield par exemple, but I really enjoyed these....
May 24, 1879.
... A very pathetic bit of private news of poor little MacDowell. He was sent by the General to tell them to strike the tents, and was urging on the ammunition to the front, and encouraging the bandsmen to carry it, when a Zulu shot him. A good and not painful end—God bless him! The Capt. Jones who told this, said also that one little bugler killed three big Zulus with his side-arms before he fell! Also that a private of the 24th saved Chard's life at Rorke's Drift by pushing his head down, so that a bullet went over it!
Woolwich. Whit Monday, 1879.