One How it touches one,-this flowing in to their old home of all the moving tides of Empire. line. The train moves through with the tramp of a Roman Kent; England but faintly vis- legion; but whistling and ible, green and lovely through humming a tune, cheery and the drifting grey and amethyst joyous, the Freemen of the of the morning haze. The World. Nine Men do not talk. or two slumber, the rest smoke and are silent. The red-eyed The red-eyed wives and the light-footed sweethearts who came to see them off have vanished into the past; yet if one could look behind the stoical face of this man of forty, one might see there a picture of his home and of little John and Mary; and, behind the mask of that chap there with the hard eyes and the clean-cut jaw, a grim softness for the girl who kissed him last night. Only when we reach Folkestone is the silence of this company broken. "'Ome again," says one with a bitter humour; and to the clatter of accoutrements and ammunition boots the carriage rapidly empties of its burden. As I step out on to the platform, an exquisite picture assails me of a crinkling of a crinkling sea and a pale blue mackerel sky; of white chalk cliffs and green downs that reach over to the very edge of the waters; of a little harbour full of fishing craft and their old-world tracery of masts and nets and rigging. The world moves on, but these things were here before England became England, and when Britain was still a little Celtic island hidden in the mists of the Northern Seas. A regiment of Australian infantry marches down the long pier-head; thud, thud, thud; Upon the decks there are officers standing in groups, hawk-nosed, beribboned, aristocratic; men of the old wars. There are Frenchmen and Belgians, women in costly furs, ensconced in deck-chairs, luxurious. We move past the transports full of troops in khaki, and the air is rent with their cheers. When these men die they will die like victors ascending to a banquet of the gods. As we move it is evident that this crossing of the waters is not without its risks. Every one on board wears a life-belt. It is a morning of great beauty, and as I look over the ship's side towards the receding English shore, it is a green sea that I look upon, patterned with the white lace of the wash, sunlit here, shadowy there, where the grey cloud made by the trailing smoke lends an an added wonder to the scene. It leaves upon one an indelible impression, as of a strong hand guarding our rights upon the sea-as of a force that is alive and vigilant, and will neither be resisted nor within human limits be taken unawares. What must it be out there in the grey North Sea, where the Grand Fleet keeps its unceasing definable impress of another watch and ward? race. It is less homely, less exquisite; its architecture makes for display. The Italian was longer here than he was in England. But the pier upon which one has so often stood in times of peace, with the pain of parting still fresh in one's heart, is to-day itself an intimate part of our soil. The British army is in occupation, and English is spoken upon every side. Never in the history of the world have so many of the island people stood upon the soil of this continent of France. We have left behind us the cares and the insouciance of the common life, and are at one stroke involved in the stern and simple business of War. Our decks are crowded with troops-infantry, cavalry, gunners, each with his rifle and his arms. There is something primal about this fellowship of the man and his weapon. The officer is secondary, necessary, but less immediate. The private, in his simplicity and directness, is the type of the man-atarms. His task is plain, and he is equipped to perform it on the instant. We reach Boulogne. It is the same land of green downs running in billows to the sea; but there rests upon it the in Let our friends not forget the impulse that has sent them here; loyalty to them, devotion to a great Cause; the driving-force of five million freemen self-enlisted for War. A VISIT TO ARRAS. Our course to Arras lies through an ancient forest, past the little town and chateau of which have stood here for a thousand years. Upon the horizon there is war and the sound of guns; but here is a little corner left over from the Middle Ages: one can see at a glance the relationship of this little cluster of men to the castle on the hill; and when one passes from the cobbled street under the gateway of the chateau it is as though a magician had waved his wand before one's eyes. The castle belongs to the Duchesse d'Uzès, to whom it has descended through gener There ations of princely men. As I walk in, there at one end are the remnants of the banqueting hall, with its rich Gothic tracery and lovely windows, in which Edward Prince of Wales is said to have feasted in the company of his friends; the old keep, for all the perfection of its masonry, ruined by Marlborough's guns; the moat with its golden foliage and slumbering peace; the sunlit rooms with their vast south windows overlooking the humble feudal town, and the rolling weald, luminous in the September sun. Beside the parlour there is the kitchen with its pleasant odours, its battery of cuisine-the speciality of France. In a wing of the chateau there are the rooms reserved for the Duchesse's use when she comes at intervals to this old haunt of her people. The memory of this place must be of a particular fragrance to those who have found in it a momentary shelter from the stress and fury of war. The long white road along which we are travelling has brought us to the very edge of the battle, and we dare not follow it any farther. There is no visible barrier; but if you look at the map you will notice that in this month of September 1916 the frontier line lies very near the broken city. We hold what remains of it; it has passed for ever out of the hands of the barbarian; but the tide of battle still ebbs with sudden bursts of rage at its gates. To enter the city we must make a side detour. But before we do so, here is a village which, in the lottery of war, has retained its peaceful air and untouched perfection under the very muzzles of the German guns. In the fields the women toil; the haymakers are busy; the great farm - horses wait, with their wonted quiet, for the burden of the day. In the streets a man stands with his little daughter of three in his arms, his face beaming with affection, his dog wagging his tail about his legs. There are roses still upon the cottage walls, and through the old door of the church there is wafted into the daylight the scent of incense, the voice of prayer. And yet there across the low valley, where that church spire cleaves the air, and that wood displays its contours, under that line of trees, there are sure enough the German trenches. As we enter the proud old city, upon its threshold where the British sentries stand immovable, there rises, rich with its Gothic tracery, a convent whose roofs and walls have been torn by shells, whose interior is a scene of ruin. Wherever a shell has entered the building, there everything within its reach lies torn and twisted and broken, as if it had been seized with some terrible convulsion. The moulded ceilings, the white walls, the stained-glass windows, the chapel of the convent, the high altar-these are a total wreck. Only at the end of the apse, where there lingers a fragment of the roof, a figure of the Christ still stands serene and whole amidst the general desolation. side chapel a statue of the Virgin and the Child remains upon its pedestal, but some In a freak of explosion has carried off both their heads. We descend into the cellars, where some sick are lying, waiting for carriage to a hospital in the rear. They are still in their khaki uniforms and long coats, and they lie here exhausted and asleep, in the abandonment of fatigue, their heavy boots upon their feet, the iron on the heels glinting in the gloomy shadows of the vaults. Below these again there are the dark Spanish cellars and secret ways, a whole world of underground intrigue that linked this place with St Eloi. The story of the destruction of this convent is one of the most poignant imaginable. In the early days of the War it was the principal hospital of Arras, and the Red Cross floated from its steeple when the invader, singing a Bavarian hymn, tramped past it along the Rue d'Amiens. In May 1915, 1200 wounded were cared for within its walls. In October of that year its destruction was decreed. As the first shells began to fall, all those who could walk were told that they could leave, if they wished, for Aubigny, seven miles away. The whole of the little colony of sick and wounded said they would go. They would rather die on the road, they said, than fall into the hands of the Boche. "It was a lugubrious flight," says one who looked upon it, "dreadful to contemplate. They went on their hands and on their knees; they rolled over down the stairs; they took chairs with them as prop for their broken limbs. Men with abdominal wounds, who had been obliged to lie absolutely still, dragged themselves along after the others. And this rather than submit to the mercies of the Boche. "My eyes filled with tears as we wished them God-speed, for I knew only too well that many must die on the way. It was a moment of horror which I can never forget." A small handful of the most grievously stricken remained. These were in so bad a state that the doctors would not risk moving them into the cellars. But the women who cared for them would not leave them to the more certain death upstairs. One by one these broken men were carried down by them at the imminent risk of their own lives. "As we did so," says the same observer, "a violent explosion occurred; the glass fell about us in a thousand fragments. We thought the whole building was doomed. A blinding, but luminous dust enveloped us. I was covered with bricks and plaster. A bit of glass hit me, and my face was sheathed with blood. The wounded cried out in their agony. And then we heard above the tumult the clear voice of the Abbé Gengembre absolving us from our sins. Upon our knees, and with bared heads, we received this final benediction. But in the kitchen Sister Mary, the cook, went to and fro, attending to her duties with her wonted care as if Death were not knocking at the door; on the upper floor, Madeleine Bracq, a girl of twenty, stood at the bedside of the wounded, in the midst of the falling shells." The Roman soldier who died at the destruction of Pompeii was not braver than she. In the following March there was a fresh bombardment. A "Marmite" hit the upper walls and penetrated to the basement. You can still see the path along which it came. Five devoted men and women were killed. The ambulance, which had struggled on so long, ceased to exist. It was not till the 8th of December 1915 that the ruin of the spire and of the chapel was deereed. The German shells followed each other at two minutes' intervals; few missed their easy target, and in a little while the destruction was complete. ... One emerges from a place like this with something of a sense of physical pain. It is as though one had received a blow over the heart. "Well, sergeant," said the General to the Irish Guardsman at the gate, "is it safe for us to go into the town?" "Sure, ye niver know, sirr, what the divils 'll be at; but it's aisy they are this morning." So with gas masks handy and steel helmets upon our heads there is always the risk of being killed in Arras-we went down the cobbled street, through rows upon rows of shattered houses, to the Cathedral and the old Spanish Place. It was like going through a city seized with the plague, or some other mysterious infection. The shops and places of business opening on the street were shuttered and nailed down with beards; the slates upon the roofs were shaken from their places; the window-panes were jarred and broken to bits; the walls were twisted and awry, and wherever a shell had fallen, there was a gap of ruin; what was once a home being now but a mass of matchwood, or a torrent of disembowelled stone. And yet in the very midst of all these symptoms of disaster, there were evidences that the people had not wholly abandoned their homes. Outside one there sat a white-haired old lady of eighty, with her feet resting upon a stool and a parasol over her head-tranquil with the peace of those for whom death has no longer any sting. Let him come and find her if he would in the shadow of her own roof. This was her Nunc Dimittis. Outside another, in the shelter of a wall, a girl wheeled a perambulator with a new-born babe inside it asleep. There were even children playing in little groups at the street corners. But there were hardly any men, except the British soldier in his helmet of steel; and we found him here as cool and phlegmatic and as much at home as if he had never crossed the seas. The Grande Place, with its superb Belfry, its ruins of old Flemish houses, its noble Hôtel de Ville, was an absolute wreck. The Pride of Arras was humbled to the dust. The |