Gebhart, who did not use his sabre but
performed prodigies of valour and did great
execution with the shaft of a broken lance
—in other words, with a big stick— by the
power of which he knocked several cuirassiers
off their horses.

Captain Nolan quotes a most sensible
letter of Cromwell's very much to his
purpose. It runs thus:

"Wisbeach, this day, 11th Nov., 1642.
"Dear Friend,—Let the sattler see to the horse
gear. I learn from one, many are ill served. If a
man has not good weapons, horse and harness, he
is as nought.
                         " From your Friend,
                                         "OLIVER CROMWELL"
     "To Auditor Squire"

And so we are reminded that we have said
nothing yet about the trooper's horse. Good
as English horses are, and better still as they
may be, there is a vice in our system which
does some little injury to the best class of
saddle-horses used for working purposes.
The race-horse breed does them no good.
For their purpose, race-horses suit perfectly;
they are capable of putting out great speed
for a short time. They have long legs,
straight shoulders, and delicate constitutions.
There is no power of endurance in them.
They cannot maintain speed or hard labour
day after day. Our cavalry horses are a
little on the same model, long-legged, straight
shouldered, and less capable of sustained
work than could be wished. They stand
high, and so come up to the old standard of
excellence; but their height is one symptom
of their weakness. They are no match for
the wiry little Persian and Arab horses used
by our troops in India. An officer in India
rode his charger, an Arab little more than
fourteen hands high, four hundred miles in
five consecutive days, and the horse did not
even throw out a windgall. A man weighing,
when in marching order, twenty-two and a
half stone, was carried with ease on a march
of eight hundred miles by a small Persian
horse, which, in the course of the march, even
swam a broad and rapid river under him; the
man saying that "a hussar and his horse
should not part company," and declining to
make use of the ferry-boat. Probably there
is no horse in the English army able with
anything like equal ease to do either of these two
things, and it becomes a question whether
the introduction into this country of a little
more of the hardy oriental breed of horses, to
the exclusion of a certain amount of our more
artificial race-horse blood from the cavalry
stud of the nation, would not be an excellent
appendix to the five hundred other reforms
necessary before English cavalry shall become
as efficient as it ought to be. At present let
it be confessed, that we are no worse than our
nearest neighbours; indeed, not so bad, for
they are not nearly so well horsed, are worse
riders even in their own bad way, and are
equally encumbered. But if we make our
army horsemen what they easily may become,
and what each naturally would be if left to
his own devices, we at once make them what
our neighbours never can become, and, without
adding a man to our cavalry troops, we
increase by at least one third their power as
defenders of the nation.

AMY, THE CHILD

I FOUND the story of Amy, the Child, in
an old German pocket-book.

One Sunday afternoon, in summer-time,
the village children went into the church
to be taught their catechism. Among them
was Amy, the shepherd's step-daughter,
some seven years old. She was a tender-
hearted child; and when the clergyman,
after speaking of our duty towards our
neighbour, said, "All people who would
please God, must do good according to their
means, be those means ever so little,'' she
could not refrain from weeping.

For, Amy was very poor, and felt
innocently persuaded that she had no power
whatever to gladden by her love or kindness
any earthly creature; not even a lamb, or a
young dove. She had neither, poor child.

So, Amy came out of church with sadness
in her heart, thinking that God would take
no pleasure in her, because (but that was
only her own idea) she had never yet done
good to any one.

Not wishing that her eyes, now red with
weeping, should be seen at home, she went
into the fields, and laid herself down under
a wild rose bush. There, she remarked that
the leaves of the shrub, tarnished with dust,
were dry and drooping, and that the pretty
pink blossoms looked pale and faded; for
there had been no rain for a very long time.

She hastened to a brook that flowed by at
no great distance, drew water in the hollow
of her hand, (for cup she had none) and thus
toilfully and by slow degrees, often going
and as often returning, she washed the dust
away from the languishing rose bush, and so
refreshed its roots by the timely moisture,
that soon it reared itself again in strength
and beauty, and joyfully and fragrantly
unfolded its blossoms to the sun.

After that, little Amy wandered on by the
side of the brook in the meadows, whence
she had obtained the water. As she gazed
upon it, she almost envied the silver stream,
because it had been able to do good to the
rose tree.

On what she herself had done, she did not
bestow a single thought.

Proceeding a little way further, she
observed a great stone lying in the bed of the
narrow brook, and so choking up the channel
that the water could only struggle past it
slowly; and, as it were, drop by drop. Owing
to this obstacle, all the merry prattle of the
stream was at an end. This grieved Amy