Children of the Dear Cotswolds

by L. Allen Harker

Teddy's sisters, both considerably older than he—for he was only four—were facile echoes of their parents. And, after all, there was no earthly reason why any of the family should take any particular interest in soldiers. They had seen very few. When they did happen to come across a body of men in uniform marching to the strains of a military band, they doubtless thrilled for a moment like everybody else; then the soldiers and all they stood for vanished from their minds as from their sight.

But it was otherwise with Teddy. He thought about soldiers, dreamed of soldiers, talked about soldiers, and asked incessant questions about soldiers all day long and with any one he could get to answer him. And this was the more surprising inasmuch as he was not naturally a talkative child, being of a somewhat taciturn and ruminative disposition. It annoyed papa, for, quiet and biddable as Teddy was in every other respect, his enthusiasm for the soldier subject was such that no amount of snubbing could keep him off it.

And it started this way. One year, on their way to the Highlands, they stayed in Edinburgh for the month of July. A friend of papa's lent them his flat. The flat was in Ramsay Gardens, and Teddy's nursery window looked over the Castle Esplanade. The Black Watch was stationed at the Castle just then, and from his window Teddy beheld them drilling. He was always seeing them when he went out, and whensoever he did see them, singly or in companies, he was thrilled to the centre of his little soul. It is believed that his nurse shared his enthusiasm, but this was not known till long afterwards. But this much is certain, that when she and Teddy went out to take the air, whether he trotted by her side, or was seated proudly in his mail-cart, they seldom went in any direction that did not either lead to, or circulate round about, the evolutions of the Black Watch. Moreover, that regiment never marched in any direction whatsoever that Teddy and his nurse were not among the most palpitating of interested spectators.

Teddy's nurse was distinctly pleasing to the eye. Plump, fresh-coloured and very neat in her becoming uniform, she was of that superior order of nurses who are trained in institutions guaranteed to turn out guardians of the young not only medically competent to deal with every known form of infantile disease, but so deeply versed in psychology as to be able to draw out all that is best, and suppress anything that is evil, in a child's character.

Mummy had selected her with extreme care, and Teddy was almost entirely in her charge. Mummy went out a good deal, for both she and papa had many friends in Edinburgh whom they had not seen for a very long time. His sisters were under the dominion of a Fräulein, so he and his nurse were left almost entirely to their own devices.

It was a beautiful July, and they were hardly ever kept indoors by bad weather. Teddy's cheeks grew round and rosy, his eyes bright and interested, so that his parents declared the keen bracing air was doing him all the good in the world. Up to that time he had been rather a pale, phlegmatic child.

To get from Princes Street to Ramsay Gardens one has to mount an exceedingly steep hill, pretty stiff walking for a pedestrian, and real hard work when you've got to push a mail-cart with a solid small boy in it. Yet very often his nurse would take Teddy to Princes Street Gardens in the afternoon, and generally on such occasions the band of the Black Watch discoursed sweet music from the band-stand.

On the return journey there always appeared some kindly kilted figure anxious to "gie the bairn a hurl" up the steepest part of the hill. Nurse was always very staid and dignified on such occasions. She accepted assistance, it is true, but with reservations. Moreover, she even tried to check Teddy's efforts in the way of conversation with his escort by time-worn aphorisms to the effect that little boys should be seen and not heard. But here she failed signally.

"When I'm a man," said Teddy, during one of these delicious "hurrls," "I hope I sail be a gate big soldier like you."

"You mean, my dear, that you hope you'll be an officer," nurse remarked loftily.