scattered on its ledges. But from this same window, on a winter morning,
when affairs were urgent in France, I have seen youth assembled by that
wall. Youth was silent. There was only a sergeant's voice in all the
street. I think I hear now the diminishing trampling of quick feet
marching away; and see a boy's face as he turned near the top of the rise
to wave his hand. But look now, and say where are the shades on a bright
morning!

I went out, a dutiful citizen, to celebrate. No joy can be truthfully
reported till just this side of the High Street, where there were three
girls with linked arms dancing in lax and cheerful oblivion, one of them
quite drunk. Near them stood a cart with a man, a woman, and a monkey in
it. The superior animals were clothed in red, white, and blue, and the
monkey was wearing a Union Jack for a ruff. The ape was humping himself
on the tail-board, and from his expression he might have been wondering
how long all this would last. His gay companions were rosily chanting
that if they caught some one bending it would be of no advantage to him.
The main thoroughfare was sanded, and was waiting for the official
procession. Quiet citizens were strolling about with their children, and
what they were thinking is as great a mystery as what the populace at
Memphis thought when the completion of the Great Pyramid was celebrated
by the order of Cheops. In a room of an upper storey near the town hall a
choir was singing the Hallelujah Chorus, and below, on the pavement, a
hospital nurse, in a red wig, stood gravely listening, swaying to and
fro, holding her skirts high, so that we saw beneath the broad slacks of
an able seaman.

The chorus ceased, and in gratitude for the music the nurse embraced a
Highland soldier, who was standing near and who was secretly amused, I
believe, by the nurse's trousers. Then we heard the bands of the military
procession in the distance, and it was in that moment I saw a young
officer I knew, who was out as early as Neuve Chapelle, gazing, like
everybody else, in the direction of the martial sounds. Before I could
reach him through the press he had turned, and was walking hurriedly down
a side street, as though in flight. I could not follow him. I wanted to
see the soldiers. My reason was no better than some sentimental emotion;
for I saw the original Contemptibles march off for Mons; and was with a
battalion of the 9th Division, the first of Kitchener's men to go into
the