The Red Book of Heroes

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Lang Andrew. The Red Book of Heroes

PREFACE

THE LADY-IN-CHIEF

PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES

HANNIBAL

THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS

THE CONSTANT PRINCE

THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE

A CHILD'S HERO

CONSCIENCE OR KING?

THE LITTLE ABBESS

GORDON

THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS

PALISSY THE POTTER

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Everybody nowadays is so used to seeing in the streets nurses wearing long floating cloaks of different colours, blue, brown, grey, and the rest, and to having them with us when we are ill, that it is difficult to imagine a time when there were no such people. In the stories that were written even fifty years ago you will soon find out what sort of women they were who called themselves 'nurses.' Any kind of person seems to have been thought good enough to look after a sick man; it was not a matter which needed a special talent or teaching, and no girl would have dreamed of nursing anybody outside her own home, still less of giving up her life to looking after the sick. It was merely work, it was thought, for old women, and so, at the moment when the patient needed most urgently some one young and strong and active about him, who could lift him from one side of the bed to the other, or keep awake all night to give him his medicine or to see that his fire did not go out, he was left to a fat, sleepy, often drunken old body, who never cared if he lived or died, so that she was not disturbed.

The woman who was to change all this was born in Florence in the year 1820 and called after that city. Her father, Mr. Nightingale, seems to have been fond of giving his family place-names, for Florence's sister, about a year older than herself, had the old title of Naples tacked on to 'Frances,' and in after life was always spoken of as 'Parthy' or 'Parthenope.' By and by a young cousin of these little girls would be named 'Athena,' after the town Athens, and then the fashion grew, and I have heard of twins called 'Inkerman' and 'Balaclava,' and of an 'Elsinora,' while we all know several 'Almas,' and may even have met a lady who bears the name of the highest mountain in the world – of course you can all guess what that is?

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'God save the Queen,' said the chaplain when he had finished, and from their hearts the men raised a feeble shout, 'God save the Queen.'

Soon another detachment of nurses arrived from home and undertook the charge of other hospitals along the shores of the Bosphorus. They were led by Miss Stanley, sister of the famous dean of Westminster, and the band consisted partly of ladies who gave their services and partly of nurses who were paid. Some Irish sisters of mercy also accompanied them, and these were allowed to wear their nun's dress, but the others must have looked very funny in the Government uniform – loose gowns of grey tweed, worsted jackets, short woollen cloaks, and scarves of brown holland with 'Scutari Hospital' in red letters across them. They were all made the same size, and 'in consequence,' adds sister Mary Aloysius, who was thankful that she did not need to present such an odd figure, 'the tall ladies appeared to be attired in short dresses, and the short ladies in long.'

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