and how this innovation on Follow-the-Drum in after years made the voyage home with her regiment and continued her duties in Portman Street barracks, till a military funeral finished her course, belongs to the history of Her Majesty’s forces. That she was a goose is proved by record of her characteristics; _anser canadensis_ is a clamorous bird, and armed humans underneath his flight are made aware of his presence by his noisy gabble--if silent he would never be discovered. It is said the prudent fair ones of the flock keep a chucky-stone in the mouth during travel, in order to guard against temptation. Therefore, as the Great Grey Goose of the West was a gander and gabbler, the silent sentry, the goose militant of the Coldstream Guards, must have been a goose, and is a Deborah. * * * * * When we come to the details of Mackenzie’s life, his attitude towards wife and bairns and mother and theirs towards him would disarm even his political critic. There is the meeting of the two old schoolmates, Isabel Baxter and Mackenzie, without recognition, the brief courtship, and a life of mutual devotion. There is baby Joseph Hume, whose early death saddened the father’s life; and there is the pathetic entry in his diary, after his rebellion had entailed banishment: “My daughter Janet’s birthday, aged thirteen. When I came home in the evening we had no bread; took a cup of tea without it, and Helen, to comfort me, said it was no better on the evening of my own birthday.” They drank the cup of poverty together, father, mother, grandmother and children. For twenty-four hours at a stretch there was no food, fire or light; and after such a fast the father would go forth shivering to collect a small due or meet a friend willing to share a sixpence. The younger children never ceased to cry for food; the others suffered in silence. We read of the servant, one of the true-hearted Irish, and she is content to starve with the rest. Despite poverty, the father continued to wear a watch, once the property of his eldest daughter, whom he sincerely mourned for twelve years with an almost superstitious veneration. We find him telling his son to cheer up, not to despond; that there are green spots in the desert of life; that after darkness comes light. And even in this dreadful plight there are moments when the tragic becomes serio-comic. There is a night when the plaintive sounds from the darkness about him urge him to make one more assault upon the cupboard that he knows is empty--no, not quite empty; there is a book, and by the embers of their dying fire he reads the title, “The Dark Ages,” and he and all indulge in a hearty laugh, and then go supperless--nay, breakfastless and dinnerless--to bed.