'What's the use? Said the goose.'
Before answering which one might have to consider what world, which life, and whether his skin were a goose skin. But the Gray Goose's head would never have held all that."
Major Ewing was stationed at Aldershot in 1869, and during the eight years Mrs. Ewing lived there her pen was never idle. Aunt Judy's Magazine for 1870 was well supplied with tales, of which "Amelia" is perhaps one of the best.
To her life at Aldershot we owe the story which had for its motto "Lœtus sorte mea," and which is full of the most graphic descriptions of the huts and the soldiers' life in camp. As in the story of Madam Liberality we have glimpses of the author's childhood with all its little cares and joys, so in the "Story of a Short Life" we have the actual of a soldier's life in camp.
O'Reilly, the useful man of all trades, with his warm Irish heart, and his devotion to the Colonel's wife, his erratic and haphazard way of performing his duties, his admiration for the little gentleman in his velvet coat and lace collar, who stood erect by his side when the funeral passed to the music of the Dead March, imitating his soldierlike bearing and salute, is a vivid picture touched by the skilled hand of a word painter.
So also is the figure of the V.C., who in his first talk with the crippled child, stands before us as the ideal of a brave soldier, who sets but little store on his achievements, modest as the truly great always are, and encouraging the boy to fight a brave battle against irritable temper and impatience at the heavy cross of suffering laid upon him.
"'You are a V.C.,' Leonard is saying, 'and you ought to know. I suppose nothing—not even if I could be good always from this minute right away till I die—nothing could ever count up to the courage of a V.C.?'
"'God knows it could, a thousand times over,' was the V.C.'s reply.
"'Where are you going? Please don't go. Look at me. They're not going to chop the Queen's head off, are they?'