The great heart of the nation at home had been wrung with pity and indignation at the altogether unnecessary sufferings of the men who had gone out to fight her battles in the East, and who, through miscalculation, muddle, and incapacity, had died like flies, of sickness and want.
The roar of anger with which the news was greeted shook the mighty in their seats and hurled Ministers and Cabinets into the dust. Still more to the purpose, the sympathy aroused set itself promptly to the cure of official abuses by the administration of private charity; which word is used in its high apostolic sense, for private munificence and public subscription provided the miserable, gallant remnant of our army only with those things which were theirs by right, and of which they had been defrauded by sheerest stupidity and the inexorcisabie demon of Red-tape.
The Times fund was a mighty help; Florence Nightingale a still mightier, in that noblest attribute of personal service and sacrifice which touches all hearts to higher things.
But there were also many private benefactors, who set to work at once on their own account to do what they could, and among them was Sir George Herapath.
When the dreadful disclosures of the camps and hospitals came home, he was still bending, almost broken, under the weight of his own loss. His son's death had beaten him to the ground and shortened his span by years.
But the thought of the miseries of those other brave fellows, out on the bleak hill-sides above Sebastopol, stirred him out of the depths of his sorrow. He sent for Charles Eager.
"Eager," he said, "I can't get any sleep for thinking of it all."
"He died as a gallant man should die, Sir George."
"It's the others I'm thinking of--the poor fellows who are mouldering away out there for want of everything that has been forgotten or sent astray."
And a spark came into Eager's eye, for here was sign of grace and hope after his own mind--a sorely stricken heart rising superior to its own loss in helpful thought for others.