When the Old Country Fought for the New.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XV, 11 April 1903, Page 980

When the Old Country Fought for the New.

(By

M.M.B.)

r was a beautiful evening; the soft 'SuHM' lights of the setting sun glinted *JIO through the trees and seemed to y. gently fondle the bright locks ot the two young lovers. Jamie was fcAySr ordered away to the war with

his regiment, so the young subaltern had come to say good-bye to his lassie. They would not see each other again for so long, it might be for years—New Zealand seemed so far away then; but Jeanie was not to forget, she was to go on loving her Jamie just the same until he came tack. Jamie would win the Victoria Cross, he would be promoted, some day all Britain would be talking of the great General James McKinnon, and Jeanie would be his wife.

The breeze blew the flaxen hair back from the eager, boyish face, and Jeanie was filled with pride. How could such a boy help beingfamous ! There wasn’t such another laddie to be found in Dalkeith, not in the whole of Scotland, as her Jamie.

They said good-bye beneath the lattice window, and Jamie went away to the war with Jeanie's “Dinna forget” ringing in his ears and her miniature lying against his heart. It was a cold day in June. Jamie’s regiment lay camped along the edge of a marsh, and from the distance came the sounds of the mad war-dance of the Maoris. Jamie longed for a battle, then he would win fame and honour. They would read accounts of his deeds in the little Dalkeith paper, and his lassie would cry out, “My brave Jamie,” with tears of pride and joy in her bonny blue eyes.

The Maoris rushed down on to their foes with a wild war-cry. There was a mistake somewhere, though no one seemed to know exactly how, but the regiment was scattered wide, and Jamie? Up to his waist in the marsh mud he fought for his young life with three burly savages. It was no good; he felt the warm blood trickling down his cheek, and he knew he could not hold out much longer. With grief in his heart he held out his sword to his foes as a sign of surrender. But what was surrender to them, those wild, untaught tribes of the Pacific? With the bright, gleaming weapon they hacked the fair young form till it sank silently beneath the black mud of the marsh.

Jeanie sat at the lattice window longing for the day when her laddie would come home to her, with the Victoria Cross pinned on his breast. Oh, that would be a bonny, bonny day! Perhaps her Jamie was thinking of her now, thinking glad thoughts as he gently kissed the little portrait. But the miniature pressed against a still heart, for Jamie was lying stiff and cold in the Ngacre swamp: his life’s blood clotted his flaxen curls, and only the calm, bright stars saw. but they told not.

Such things happened in the days when the Old World fought for the New.