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<h1>FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE<br/> THE ANGEL OF THE CRIMEA</h1>
<p class="center">BY</p>
<p class="center">LAURA E. RICHARDS</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</SPAN><br/> <span class="small">HOW FLORENCE GOT HER NAME—HER THREE HOMES.</span></h2>
<p>One evening, some time after the great
Crimean War of 1854-55, a company of
military and naval officers met at dinner
in London. They were talking over the
war, as soldiers and sailors love to do, and somebody
said: "Who, of all the workers in the Crimea,
will be longest remembered?"</p>
<p>Each guest was asked to give his opinion on this
point, and each one wrote a name on a slip of paper.
There were many slips, but when they came to be
examined there was only one name, for every single
man had written "Florence Nightingale."</p>
<p>Every English boy and girl knows the beautiful
story of Miss Nightingale's life. Indeed, hers is<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</SPAN></span>
perhaps the best-loved name in England since good
Queen Victoria died. It will be a great pleasure to
me to tell this story to our own boys and girls in this
country; and it shall begin, as all proper stories do,
at the beginning.</p>
<p>Her father was named William Nightingale. He
was an English gentleman, and in the year 1820
was living in Italy with his wife. Their first child
was born in Naples, and they named her Parthenope,
that being the ancient name of Naples; two
years later, when they were living in Florence, another
little girl came to them, and they decided to
name her also after the city of her birth.</p>
<p>When Florence was still a very little child her
parents came back to England to live, bringing the
two children with them. First they went to a house
called Lea Hall, in Derbyshire. It was an old, old
house of gray stone, standing on a hill, in meadows
full of buttercups and clover. All about were blossoming
hedgerows full of wild roses, and great
elder-bushes heavy with white blossoms; and on the
hillside below it lies the quaint old village of Lea
with its curious little stone houses.</p>
<p>Lea Hall is a farmhouse now, but it still has its<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</SPAN></span>
old flag-paved hall and its noble staircase of oak
with twisted balustrade, and broad solid steps where
little Florence and her sister "Parthe" used to play
and creep and tumble. There was another place
near by where they loved even better to play; that
was the ancient house of Dethick. I ought rather
to say the ancient kitchen, for little else remained
of the once stately mansion. The rest of the house
was comparatively new, but the great kitchen was
(and no doubt is) much as it was in the days of
Queen Elizabeth.</p>
<p>Imagine a great room with heavy timbered roof,
ponderous oaken doors, and huge open fireplace over
which hung the ancient roasting jack. In the ceiling
was a little trap-door, which looked as if it might
open on the roof; but in truth it was the entrance to
a chamber hidden away under the roof, a good-sized
room, big enough for several persons to hide in.</p>
<p>Florence and her sister loved to imagine the
scenes that had taken place in that old kitchen;
strange and thrilling, perhaps terrible scenes; they
knew the story of Dethick, and now you shall hear
it too.</p>
<p>In that old time which Tennyson calls "the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</SPAN></span>
spacious days of great Elizabeth," Dethick belonged
to a noble family named Babington. It was a fine
house then. The oaken door of the old kitchen
opened on long corridors and passages, which in
turn led to stately halls and noble galleries. There
were turrets and balconies overlooking beautiful
gardens; and on the stone terraces gay lords and
ladies used to walk and laugh and make merry,
and little children run and play and dance, and life
go on very much as it does now, with work and
play, love and laughter and tears.</p>
<p>One of the gay people who used to walk there
was Anthony Babington. He was a gallant young
gentleman, an ardent Catholic, and devoted to the
cause of the beautiful and unfortunate Mary Queen
of Scots.</p>
<p>Though ardent and devoted, Babington was a
weak and foolish young man. He fell under the influence
of a certain Ballard, an artful and designing
person who had resolved to bring about the
death of the great English Queen, and was induced
by him to form the plot which is known in history
as Babington's Conspiracy; so he was brought to
ruin and death.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>In the year 1586 Queen Mary was imprisoned
at Wingfield Manor, a country house only a few
miles distant from Dethick. The conspirators gathered
other Catholic noblemen about them, and
planned to release Queen Mary and set her once
more on the throne.</p>
<p>They used to meet at Dethick where, it is said,
there is a secret passage underground leading to
Wingfield Manor. Perhaps—who knows?—they
may have sat in the kitchen, gathering about the
great fireplace for warmth; the lights out, for fear
of spies, only the firelight gleaming here and there,
lighting up the dark corners and the eager, intent
faces. And when the plot was discovered, and
Queen Elizabeth's soldiers were searching the country
round for the young conspirators, riding hither
and thither along the pleasant country lanes and
thrusting their sabres in among the blossoming
hedgerows, it was here at Dethick that they
sought for Anthony Babington. They did not find
him, for he was in hiding elsewhere, but one of
his companions was actually discovered and arrested
there.</p>
<p>Perhaps—again, who knows?—this man may<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</SPAN></span>
have been hiding in the secret chamber above the
trap-door. One can fancy the pursuers rushing in,
flinging open cupboards and presses, in search for
their prey; and finding no one, gathering baffled
around the fireplace. Then one, chancing to glance
up, catches sight of the trap-door in the ceiling.
"Ha! lads, look up! the rascal may be hiding yonder!
Up with you, you tall fellow!" Then a piling
up of benches, one man mounting on another's
shoulders—the door forced open, the young nobleman
seized and overpowered, and brought down to
be carried off to London for trial.</p>
<p>Anthony Babington and his companions were executed
for high treason, and Queen Mary, who was
convicted of approving the plot, was put to death
soon after.</p>
<p>All this Florence Nightingale and her sister knew,
and they never tired of "playing suppose" in old
Dethick kitchen, and living over again in fancy the
romantic time long past. And on Sundays the two
children went with their parents to old Dethick
church, and sat where Anthony Babington used to
sit, for in his days it was the private chapel of
Dethick. It is a tiny church; fifty people would<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</SPAN></span>
fill it to overflowing, but Florence and her sister
might easily feel that the four bare walls held all
the wild history of Elizabeth's reign.</p>
<p>Anthony Babington in doublet and hose, with
velvet mantle, feathered cap, and sword by his side;
little Florence Nightingale in round Leghorn hat
and short petticoats. It is a long step between these
two, yet they are the two most famous people who
ever said their prayers in old Dethick church. The
lad's brief and tragic story contrasts strangely with
the long and beautiful story of Florence Nightingale,
a story that has no end.</p>
<p>When Florence was between five and six years
old, she left Lea Hall for a new home, Lea Hurst,
about a mile distant. Here her father had built a
beautiful house in the Elizabethan style, of stone,
with pointed gables, mullioned windows and latticed
panes. There was a tiny chapel on the site
he chose, hundreds of years old, and this he built
into the house, so that Lea Hurst, as well as Lea
Hall and Dethick, joined hands with the old historic
times. In this little chapel, by and by, we
shall see Florence holding her Bible class. But I
like still to think of her as a little rosy girl, running<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</SPAN></span>
about the beautiful gardens of Lea Hurst, or playing
house in the quaint old summerhouse with
its pointed roof of thatch. Perhaps she brought her
dolls here; but the dolls must wait for another
chapter.</p>
<p>Soon after moving to Lea Hurst, the Nightingales
bought still another country seat, Embley
Park, in Hampshire, a fine old mansion built in
Queen Elizabeth's time, and at some distance from
Lea Hurst.</p>
<p>After this the family used to spend the summer
at Lea Hurst, and the winter at Embley. There
were no railroads then in that neighborhood; the
journey was sometimes made by stagecoach, sometimes
in the Nightingales' own carriage.</p>
<p>Embley Park is one of the stately homes of England,
with its lofty gables, terraces and shadowing
trees; and all around it are sunny lawns, and gardens
filled with every sweet and lovely flower.</p>
<p>Now you know a little of the three homes of
Florence Nightingale, Lea Hall, Lea Hurst, and
Embley Park; next you shall hear what kind of
child she herself was.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</SPAN></span></p>
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