ill
considerably puzzle the old sexton!!!!!

Soon after sunrise on Ascension Day I was woke clear and clean by the
bells _breaking into song_. You know campanology is his great hobby.
They rang changes, with long pauses between. Bells often try me very
much, at Ecclesfield _par exemple_, but I really enjoyed these....

May 24, 1879.

... A very pathetic bit of private news of poor little MacDowell. He
was sent by the General to tell them to strike the tents, and was
urging on the ammunition to the front, and encouraging the bandsmen to
carry it, when a Zulu shot him. A good and not painful end--God bless
him! The Capt. Jones who told this, said also that one little bugler
killed three big Zulus with his side-arms before he fell! Also that a
private of the 24th saved Chard's life at Rorke's Drift by pushing his
head down, so that a bullet went over it!

_Woolwich._ Whit Monday, 1879.

* * * * *

Don't think you have all the picturesque beggars to yourself! Out in a
street of Woolwich with Mrs. O'Malley the other day I saw
this--[_Sketch._] The eyes though very clear and intense-looking
decided me at once the man was blind, though he had no dog, and was
only walking solemnly on, with a _carved fiddle_ of white wood under
his arm! I ran back after him, and went close in front of him. He
gazed and saw nothing. Then I touched him and said, "Are you blind?"
He started and said, "Very nearly." I gave him a penny, for which he
thanked me, and then I asked about the fiddle. He carved and made it
himself out of firewood in the workhouse! The _handle part_ (forgive
my barbarism!) is "a bit of ash." It was much about the level of North
American Indian _art_, but very touching as to patient ingenuity. He
asked if anybody had told me about him. I said, "No. But I've a
husband who plays the fiddle," and I gave him the balance of my loose
coppers! He said, "Have you? He plays, does he? Well. This has been a
lucky day for me." He was a shipwright--can play the piano, he
says--lives in the workhouse in winter and comes out in summer--with
the flowers--and his fiddle! I knew you would like me to give
something to that _povero fratello_.

_Woolwich._ June 6, 1879.

... _The_ painter of the Academy this year is Mrs. Butler!! I do hope
some day somewhere you may see _The Remnants of an Army_ and _Recruits
for the Connaught Rangers_. The first is in the _Academy Notes_, which
I send you. T