The soldier's wife and child, mother and sister, were always in her thoughts. Not only did she persuade the men to write home, but she used all her great influence to induce them to send home their pay to their families. At Scutari she had a money-order office of her own, and four afternoons in each month she devoted to receiving money from the soldiers who brought it to her, and forwarding it to England. It is estimated that about a thousand pounds was sent each month, in small sums of twenty or thirty shillings. "This money," says Miss Nightingale, "was literally so much rescued from the canteen and drunkenness."
After the fall of Sebastopol the British Government followed her example, and set up money-order offices in several places, with excellent results.
Sometimes it was Miss Nightingale herself who wrote home to the soldier's family; sad, sweet letters, telling how the husband or father had done his duty gallantly, and had died as a brave man should; giving his last messages, and inclosing the mementos he had left for them. To many a humble home these letters brought comfort and support in the hour of trial, and were treasured—are no doubt treasured to this day—like the relics of a blessed saint.
The Treaty of Peace was signed at Paris on March 30, 1856, and now all hearts in the Crimea turned toward home. One by one the hospitals were closed, as their inmates recovered strength; one by one the troopships were filled with soldiers—ragged, gaunt, hollow-eyed, yet gay and light-hearted as schoolboys—and started on the homeward voyage; yet still the Lady-in-Chief lingered. Not while one sick man remained would Florence Nightingale leave her post. Indeed, at the last moment she found a task that none but herself might have taken up. The troopships were gone; but here, on the camping ground before Sebastopol, were fifty or sixty poor women, left behind when their husbands' regiments had sailed, helpless and—I was going to say friendless, but nothing could be more untrue; for they gathered in their distress round the hut of the Lady-in-Chief, imploring her aid; and she soon had them on board a British ship, speeding home after the rest.
And now the end had come, and there was only one more thing to do, one more order to give; the result of that last order is seen to-day by all who visit that far-away land of the Crimea. On the mountain heights above Balaklava, on a peak not far from the Sanatorium where she labored and suffered, towers a great cross of white marble, shining like snow against the deep blue sky. This is the "Nightingale Cross," her own tribute to the brave men and the devoted nurses who died in the war. At the foot of the cross are these words:
"Lord have mercy upon us."
To every Englishman—nay, to everyone of any race who loves noble thoughts and noble deeds—this monument will always be a sacred and a venerable one.
In the spring of this year, Lord Ellesmere, speaking before Parliament, said:
"My Lords, the agony of that time has become a matter of history. The vegetation of two successive springs has obscured the vestiges of Balaklava and of Inkerman. Strong voices now answer to the roll call, and sturdy forms now cluster round the colors. The ranks are full, the hospitals are empty. The angel of mercy still lingers to the last on the scene of her labors; but her mission is all but accomplished. Those long arcades of Scutari, in which dying men sat up to catch the sound of her footstep or the flutter of her dress, and fell back on the pillow content to have seen her shadow as it passed, are now comparatively deserted. She may be thinking how to escape, as best she may, on her return, the demonstration of a nation's appreciation of the deeds and motives of Florence Nightingale."
This was precisely what the Lady-in-Chief was thinking. She meant to return to England as quietly as she left it; and she succeeded. The British Government begged her to accept a man-of-war as her own for the time being; she was much obliged, but would rather not. She went over to Scutari, saw the final closing of the hospitals there, and took a silent farewell of that place of many memories; then stepped quietly on board a French vessel, and sailed for France. A few days later—so the story goes—a lady quietly dressed in black, and closely veiled, entered the back door of Lea Hurst. The old butler saw the intruder, and hastened forward to stop her way—and it was "Miss Florence!"