ged in the Malakhoff fort in the
transport of munitions, but during the great bombardment in June 18th
they were suddenly called to help man a fifty-pound gun, and performed
this duty with such pluck and fortitude that Admiral Nakhimoff
personally complimented them, and promised them the Cross of Merit. The
final assault on the fortress, which culminated in its capture, saw the
boys on the ramparts one night, almost in the front ranks of the
defenders. Two of them, Robert and Farasiouk, had just recovered from
wounds received three weeks earlier. They had been sent to the Redan
fort to aid in the establishment of a lazeretto, and, when the English
rather unexpectedly appeared on the parapets in great force, every
available man among the defenders, including even the hospital
assistants, rushed to the front. The overwhelming defeat of Colonel
Wyndham's columns was due to the desperate bravery of the Redan's
defenders, who, though greatly outnumbered, fought like demons. The four
cabin-boys were in the thick of the fight, Novikoff especially
distinguishing himself by deftly tripping up an English lieutenant, and
forcing him at the pistol's point to surrender his sword.

At the conclusion of peace, among the first to benefit from the imperial
good-will and gratitude were the four sailor lads. The Emperor pinned a
gold medal on each boy's breast, and took them under his special
protection. Although they were of humble birth, he placed them in the
School of Naval Cadets at St. Petersburg, and launched them on an
honorable career in the service of their country. Three of them lived to
attain the rank of Captain in the Russian navy. The fourth, Farasiouk,
was drowned shortly after his promotion to lieutenant in the very harbor
of Sebastopol, which he had helped so bravely to defend.

GREAT MEN'S SONS.

BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.

THE SON OF CROMWELL.

In the famous old English village of St. Ives--famous because of a
certain nursery rhyme concerning a man who, travelling toward the town,
met seven wives with their cats and kits--there once lived a farmer who,
later in his life, became more famous than St. Ives itself.

Out West they would have called him a ranchman. He was really a cattle
farmer, with a big grazing farm that lay along the river Ouse, in what
is termed "the fen country" of England. Here, where the Ouse slipped
thickly and lazily through those low, green, boggy, marshy fields called
the fens, this far