was a person with a fine figure.  He had one leg and one arm, and the plume of his dragoon’s helmet was shorn off; but his slight, erect figure still looked noble on a stately white palfrey.  The French armies were usually commanded by Marshal Petit, a gay fellow with his full complement of limbs, who sat a horse well.  He had a younger brother almost equally distinguished.  I have no recollection of a King of France.  He must have been a poor fellow.  The Sultan of Turkey, the Khedive, and Li Hung Chang still live in my memory as persons of distinction; but I have no personal recollection of the Tsar, or the Emperors of Germany or Austria, or of the King of Italy, though I know they existed.

Into this placid existence turmoil would enter three times a year.  The elder brothers, Hugh, Tommy and B., would come home for the holidays from Sandhurst and Rugby, and R. would appear, and become almost one of the family.  Then would occur troublous times, with a few advantages and many disadvantages.

“Tommy” was a curiously solitary youth as I remember him, who played the ’cello with great perseverance and considerable success.  At soldiers he was something of a genius, though his games were of an intricacy which failed to commend itself to me altogether.  In his great soldier days he not only made history, but wrote it—­a height to which I never attained.

In the holidays, cricket in the back garden became a great feature, and Tommy was a demon bowler.  I fancy, too, that the very elaborate but highly satisfactory form of the game must have originated with him.  In the back garden we not merely played cricket, but made history—­cricket history.  Two county sides were written out, and we batted alternately for the various cricketers, doing our best to imitate their styles.  We bowled also in a rough imitation of the styles of the county bowlers whom we represented.  This arrangement secured us against personal rivalry, kept up a tremendous interest in first-class cricket and enabled matches to continue, if necessary, for weeks at a time.  It encouraged, too, a fair, impersonal and unprejudiced view of outside events.

In cricket, war and music we undoubtedly benefited by the holidays, especially in the summer, when we used to go to the country, often occupying a school-house with gym, cricket nets and a fair-sized garden.  Ecclesiastical architecture suffered, however....

Hugh was a great and glorious person, a towering beneficent despot when he did appear....  As for me I adored him with whole-hearted hero-worship.  He was the “protector of the poor,” who kept the rest of us in order.  He was a magnificent person who revolutionized the art of war by the introduction of explosives.  He was a tremendous walker, and first taught me to love great tramps over the downs, to sniff appreciatively the glorious air and to love their bare, storm-swept outlines.  Hugh stood for all that is wholesome, strenuous, out of doors in my life.  Without him I should have been a mere sedentary.  Among other things he was an enthusiastic boxer and gymnast.  For these pursuits I sturdily feigned enthusiasm and suppressed timidity.