New Spalding Club > House of Gordon > Gordons under arms

THE MAKING OF THE MUSTER. XXV
tian name. Many of these have been identified by Mrs. Skelton, although
she is nothing if not cautious in her deductions ; but there still remain
sixty-nine men whose Christian names have not been discovered.
Then one has always to face the loose way in which rank is assigned
by civilians. Thus " Captain " is a favourite generic term for all com.
missions beneath the rank of major, although in America " Colonel "
seems to be the lowest common denominator ; thereby neutralising Mr.
Crosland's jibe that every Scot is a " Dr. " to his neighbours.
Rapid as this survey of the work of eight years has to be, it
will disclose to the most casual reader some of the difficulties which
have had to be faced in order to produce those apparently easy bio-
graphies. " Taking pains," said Sir Arthur Pinero on one occasion,
" is the only luxury I allow myself." Mrs. Skelton has simply wallowed
in this form of luxury during the past eight years. Not only has she
had to co-ordinate masses of purely Naval and Military information
taken from different sources ; not only has she had to try and find
origins for some officers, and regiments for others ; but she has had to
reconstruct her system of presenting their careers, and has written her
entire manuscript twice over, to say nothing of her preliminary experi-
ments. At first she marshalled all her men by regiments, in the pre-
cedence assigned them by the Army List, keeping the Navy men in a
separate list. However, in September, 1910, when the entire manu-
script was ready on this basis, it was suggested to her by the Secre-
tary of the Club that the Navy and Army should be massed together,
and that the whole should be arranged on a chronological sequence,
by year, month, and day : not only so, but that the work had been done
on too large (and too readable) a scale for the Club to tackle. The new
form proposed anticipated Mr. Masefield's verses on " Biography " : —
When I am buried all my thoughts and acts
Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts.
Such a reconstruction, however necessary, was obviously a heartbreak-
ing proposal after all the years of building-up work : and it would have
made many a student throw the whole thing up in utter dismay.
But Mrs. Skelton possessing as she does the rare secret of resilience
soon adapted herself to the necessary" conditions, and within a few
m onths had the first section of the new manuscript ready for the
printer. The final revise of the first sheet was dated so long ago as