“You know, miss,” he said, “there was a many young doctors out there that should never have been there—they didn’t know their duty and they didn’t do as they should for us—and she chased ’em, ay, she did that! She got rid of ’em, and there was better ones come in their place, and it was all quite different. Oh yes,” and he laughed delightedly, as a schoolboy might. “Oh yes, she hunted ’em out.” I, who have a great reverence for the medical profession, felt rather shy and frightened and inclined to blush, but the gusto with which the veteran recalled a righteous vengeance on the heads of the unworthy was really very funny. And his gargoyle mirth set in high relief the tenderness with which he told of Miss Nightingale’s motherly ways with his poor wounded comrades, and how she begged them not to mind having their wounds washed, any more than if she were really their mother or sister, and thus overcame any false shame that might have prevented their recovery. “Ah, she was a good woman,” he kept repeating, “there’s no two ways about it, a _good_ woman!” From Pensioner John Garrett of the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, I had one very interesting bit of history at first hand; for he volunteered the fact that on his first arrival in the Crimea—which was evidently about the same time as Miss Nightingale’s own, his first engagement having been the battle of Inkermann—Miss Nightingale being still unknown to the soldiers—a mere name to them—she had much unpopularity to overcome. Clearly jealous rumour had been at work against this mere woman who was coming, as the other pensioner had phrased it, “to chase the doctors.” This, of course, made the completeness of her rapid victory over the hearts of the entire army the more noteworthy. “And afterwards?” I asked. “Oh, _afterwards we knew what she was_, and she was very popular indeed!” Though he treasured and carried about with him everywhere a Prayer Book containing Florence Nightingale’s autograph—which I told him ought to be a precious heirloom to his sons and their children, and therefore refused to accept, when in the generosity of his kind old heart he thrice tried to press it upon me—he had only seen her once; for he was camping out at the front, and it was on one of her passing visits that he had his vision of her. He is a very young-looking old man of eighty-two, Suffolk-born, and had been in the army from boyhood up to the time of taking his pension. He had fought in the battle of Inkermann and done valiant trench-duty before Sebastopol, and confirmed quite of his own accord the terrible accounts that have come to us of the privations suffered. “Water,” he said, “why, we could scarce get water to drink—much less to wash—why, I hadn’t a change of linen all the winter through.” “And you hadn’t much food, I hear, for your daily rations?” I said.