Some fifteen years ago the prevailing opinion regarding the brothers Beresford--Lord Charles and Lord William--probably was that they were both more or less crazy. Their father, the fourth Marquis of Waterford, was a clergyman. It is not alleged that this circumstance contributed to intensify the impression; and in point of fact the clerical marquis was a sedate well-ordered divine, who was a dean, and no doubt might have been a bishop had he aspired to that dignity. But their uncle, the third Lord Waterford, had earned by sedulous exertion the popular appellation of “the mad marquis.” He rode his horse over toll-gates by lantern light, distinguished himself in miscellaneous pugilistic encounters, made and won the wildest wagers, and finally broke his neck in the hunting-field. It was supposed that the spirit of this ancestor had revived in his madcap nephews. Lord Charles--far better known as “Charlie”--was a midshipman who appeared to live for larks. Lord William--whom all his world knew as “Bill”--was a lieutenant in a lancer regiment who in the hunting-field and in steeplechase riding had broken pretty well every bone in his body, and some of them several times over. Men who knew the brothers well realised that behind their madcap daring and their wild recklessness lay a capacity for earnest work when the opportunity should offer. It should be said that their eccentricities were never sullied by taint of anything gross or dishonourable; it lay in no man’s mouth to say that a Beresford ever did a coarse, a shabby, or an ungenerous thing. People had grown to comprehend that Charles Beresford was something other than a merry-andrew, before that critical moment of the bombardment of Alexandria, when he laid his little _Condor_ right under the guns of a hostile battery, and not less by skill than by daring contributed materially to the successful issue. Since then he has served as a minister of the Crown, and when until lately he spoke from his place in Parliament, he was listened to as a leading practical authority on naval reforms. William has three medals for as many campaigns; has won the Victoria Cross by the deed of splendid valour I am about to narrate; was the sole and most efficient staff officer to a brigade composed of uniquely heterogeneous elements out of which good work could be got only by a rare combination of tact, firmness, and veritable leadership; and is now fulfilling adequately the important duties of Military Secretary to the Viceroy of India. Under these circumstances people have now for some time left off regarding the brothers Beresford as crazy.