Little Coo-Coo.

Otago Witness, Issue 1159, 14 February 1874, Page 20

Littl e Coo-Coo.

OH. THE KHITMUTGAR'S REVENGE. A TALB OP TUB IXDIAS MtfTISY, IN FOUR CIUITERS. CHAPTER IV. — SUNSHINE THKOUGH THB CLOUDS. A short time afterwards, when the station had been put in a Btate of defence in case of a visit from the insurgents, all the women and children having taken refuge in a small fort close by, anxiously awaiting the reinforcements for which the Colonel had applied, a messenger arrived post haste from the General commanding the division before Delhi, ordering Colonel Rose to proceed there at once with the 133 rd and all available troops ; the women children, and invalids, among the latter General Tillotson, to be sent in charge of a detachment to Calcutta ; and Feringheabad, in fact, to be evacuated. After heartbreaking farewells, and weary journeyings through many perilf •, we arrived safely in the Oity of Palaces. There we remained until the close of the mutiny, and there we welcomed back the little remnant of our gallant regiment which shot and shell and pestilence had spared. Many there were to whom those farewells spoken with bursting hearts and swimming; eyes, proved eternal ones. Among them was our brave Colonel, who had latterly been appointed to the command of a brigade at Delhi. In storming a breach with his accustomed gallantly, he placed himself conspicuous by his tall fine figure and kingly bearing (it was said of him that he was. a man born to rule), at the head of his men. A perfect hail of bullets and grape from the enemy's batteries was whizzing around them, and the rankswere thinning fast. The men regarded the undertaking as a forlorn hope, and so indeed it was, and for a second they hesitated and ceased to advance. Then Rose sprang forward, and obtaining a footing on a portion of the bastion, waved the men on with his sword. It was the last time his stately well-known figure was ever seen by many of them, for at that moment a rifle-ball from one of the enemy's sharpshooters passed clean through his lungs, and he fell mortally wounded into the arms of one of his sergeants. And as he fell a shout of triumph went forth from the hostile force, for they knew the English had lost a great leader. The old sergeant laid his chief tenderly down for an instant, and, raising his rifle, the man who had deprived the army of John Hose's life paid for it with his own, but, ah me, it was a sorry exchange. He lingered on in terrible agony until evening, but no word of complaint or moan of pain escaped that brave man's lips in hia death-throes, lest thoso sufferers who lay around him in the hospital tent, though less sorely wounded than himself, should hear him and be discouraged. As the darkness closed around, and the "cease firing" was sounded through the i British lines, a smile stole over his face, and the friend who watched beside him bent down to catch the words he was striving hard to utter ; they were words of love and comfort for his poor old widowed mother in England, the mother who had to weep for two sons slain m that awful rebellion. Then he turned his head wearily away, and "tho light that never was oiv sea or shore" shone on John Rose's brovr, tm ho yielded :• up his great boul to the God who mado it to be so

loving, so beloved. His grave is lone and solitary enough, in a spot near the Cashmere gate ; but his real tomb is in the hearts of the English men and women, ■who knew his worth as a commander and as a friend, and who loved him too well ever to need to be reminded of him by the fulsome eulogies of monumental marble. Estelle had never recovered her reason, and had been, on arrival at Calcutta, sent home to Brittany under careful guardianBhip. She was very quiet usually, and gave little trouble, but the sight of a child at once brought on one of the old maniacal paroxysms. Such was the account Fred's mother wrote of her. When India was restored to quietness and peace once more, my husband, whose health was greatly shattered by wounds and privations, and Fred Wilson, poor fellow, who had lost an arm before Delhi, obtained furlough to Europe, and with thankful hearts we took our passages in the P. and O. steamship Cyrus. For some days we were all of us too ill to leave our cabins, for the sea was very high, and nearly every one on board suffered severely from mat de mer (that name sounds a little less repugnant than the other one). As soon as I was able, I crawled on deck, and lying down on one of the benches, fell fast asleep. I was aroused suddenly by the familiar sound of a child's voice, a voice I knew, 0 so well. I rubbed my eyes and tried hard to persuade myself that I was asleep and dreaming, but no, I was wide awake ; and there standing beside me, in broad daylight, in the Bay of Bengal, her golden hair floating in the breeze, her blue eyes laughing at me, her rosy lips parted as if to speak, was the living breathing image of little Coo-Coo. I thought of all the ghastly stories I had read, of the apparition known as the •'radiant child," of wraiths, of spirits of murdered people appearing to those dear to them ; they all seemed to cross my brain in a single moment ; and then — O my materialistic reader, don't be too hard on me — think of my weak state, and all the suffering I had endured, and don't laugh when I tell you I went off in a dead faint. When I recovered it was to find my husband bending over me. "It was no spirit you saw, my love," he said, " but our own little Coo-Coo in the flesh, restored to her father's arms by a merciful Providence." And so in truth it was, and I need scarcely say much amusement was excited among both passengers and crew by the story of " Mrs. Burgoyne's ghost." The child, it appeared, had, some months previously, been brought to the house of a Mr. Malcolmson, a wealthy civilian living at Garden Reach, by a native Mussulman woman. She told him that the little one, as he would find on washing the colouring from her face and hair, was a European child. It had been given into her charge at the commencement of the mutiny by her husband, whose name was Sheik Alladeen, and he had sent her and the child, dressed in native clothes and disguised, from Feringheabad, miles and miles away, to a village on the Hooghly, •where his brother lived, threatening her •with death should she ever divulge the little thing's parentage. She herself did not know her husband's motive in so acting, but from fear she would have kept the secret. However, news reached her that he was dead, had been hung or shot as a mutineer, she believed ; and as she was a very poor woman and the child a great expense to her, she resolved to go to the nearest magistrate, who happened to be Mr. Malcolmson, and lay her case before him. The good old man received the child, and tiied unsuccessfully to discover her relatives. Poor Coo-Coo had forgotten her father's name, having been taught, with many menaces, to call herself by the native one of "Luchmee." Advertisements were inserted in the two principal Indian newspapers, but none of us saw them, bo of course they remained unanswered ; and even had we noticed them, I doubt whether they would have excited our attention, as we should never have dreamt of connecting the lost child of the Hooghly village with our darling, whom we only thought of as safe in heaven. Mr. Malcolmson, being on the eve of departure for England, at last determined to adopt Coo-Coo, and take her with him, fully satisfied in his own mind that her parents had perished in one or other of the great massacres. The curious part of the story wnsthathe shouldhave engagedberths in the very ship which was taking the little girl's father away from the only place where any trace of her could ever have been discovered. The kind old civilian, whose wife and children had long been dead, and who had become greatly attached to the bonny wee waif, was overjoyed at being the means of restoring the stray lamb to the fold where her loss had been so sorely mourned. The only consideration that now remained was whether the restoration of Jjor child would produce any good effect

earnest request we accompanied him to his mother's home in Brittany ; indeed I don't know how we could have declined doing so, for Coo-Coo, wilful as ever, utterly refused to leave me, we having renewed all our old friendship on the voyage. The chateau was a queer rambling old place, so large that there was little fear of the child and its mother coming into collision before the proper time, for as yet we were afraid to break the news to the latter ; indeed, the doctor who visited her would not hear of its being done. Estelle's rooms were on the west side of the old castle, overlooking a sort of parterre or pleasaunce in which she sometimes walked ; and there she always remained, never visiting any other part of the house. Coo-Coo's nursery was on the north side, and her "bonne" had strict orders on no account to permit the child access to the rooms or gardens in the west wing. On my first visit to Estelle, she knew me at once, but received me as though we had never been parted ; the same with her husband and mine. She was very calm and peaceful now, although fragile and delicate-look-ing ; in fact, the only symptoms of mental disturbance which remained were her total obliviousness of all connected with her Indian life (she seemed not to know that she had ever been out of Brittany : how she accounted for our acquaintance I cannot conceived and her intense aversion to children, of whom she had always been particularly fond. On these two subjects I never touched ; on all others she conversed rationally and pleasantly. The village doctor who attended Estelle, giving her nothing more noxious than tisanes — powerless to kill or cure — begged us on no account to let his patient see the child. ' c She is the victim of monomania, and will do the petite an injury ; at least such is my opinion," said the little man, shrugging his shoulders. "I trust to you, Madame Burgoyne, to prevent it ; these bonnes are si betes, si betes ! "

I should tell yon, by the bye, that Coo-Coo had by no means forgotten her mother ; she continually asked me where " maman " was, for she had now discarded Hindustani for French, and I had to tell the most shocking fibs on the subject. She had also found a very good likeness of Estelle in her grandmother's room, and insisted on having it hung up over her own little bed, and saying her prayers to it every night. You can fancy my horror when, sitting with Estelle one day in the pretty oldfashioned upper room overlooking the flower-garden, I suddenly overheard two voices, a child's and a servant's, raised in hot dispute ; and before I could leave my seat, the garden door was pushed violently open, and Miss Coo-Coo, followed by her favourite white poodle puppy, Fleur-de-Lys, danced in triumph a saraband over old Jean the gardener's most cherished flower-beds, pursued by that injured domestic in a state of exceeding perspiration and wrath. Round and round the beds he chased her, uttering maledictions, and calling upon all the saints in the calendar for help ; but the child's sturdy legs did her far better service than poor old Jean's gouty ones did him, and, for the nonce, she escaped. The old gardener went to fetch the bonne, and my lady then began to play at ball with her puppy, tossing him into a cluster of magnificent carnations, until all their heads were broken from the stalks. All this time Estelle had grown paler and paler ; now she lifted her head, and a gleam shot out of her dark eyes which made me tremble, not for myself but for the child. Then, her hands clenched, her face working, she rose and went quickly to the window, just as the last carnation had been guillotined. I followed, rather rashly, for as Coo-Coo stood looking out for some fresh mischief, she suddenly spied me, and, heigh presto, she left the garden, ran in through the open window on to the ground floor, and now her little feet were coming pattering up the stairs. What was to be done ? Our door was open, and could not be fastened, as only that morning the lock had been removed for repair ; and in another second the child would be in the room. I caught Estelle round the waist and forced her into a chair ; a moment more and the little one trotted in, her pinafore full of scarlet blossoms. "0, Madame Burgoyne," she began, " j'ai de jolis fleurs pour toi ; mais le vieux Jean comment il grogne ! " when she paused at sight of the pale angry face beside me ; and, dropping flowers, puppy, and everything else, she flew to Estelle s side, and flung her little arms round her mother's neck, crying, "0 maman, je t'ai trouve, je t'ai trouv6 ! " At sound of the voice and the name, Eatelle showed no more anger, but gently detaching the child's arms from her neck, she looked at her and then at me, and said qiiietly, "Who is she?" I was silent, and the poor little thing answered, "I am Coo-Coo, dear mother, your own little Coo-Coo." " Nay, " said Eetolle sadly, and I thought X hu4 never Been her eyes look no miW or

natural since her illness ; ' ' there was once a child called Coo-Coo, but she is with the angels. Go away, my dear, go and play." The poor little girl could not, of course, comprehend the scene before her, but she was awe-struck and frightened, and felt that she had been slighted ; so, sitting down on the floor beside Estelle, and hiding her face in her mother's dress, she cried as if her little heart would break. Then some old chord — who shall say how? — in the mother's heart was touched, and she stooped down and, raising the little one, took her to her bosom, and then, knowing she was safe, I gently closed the door behind me and went out, leaving her softly weeping.