Four or five places up the trench a man stumbled to his knee, coughed
with a rush of blood and toppled over dead.

"Dahn and aht," said the big man gruffly. "Gawd! If we could get at
'em!"

The wail of a distant shell rose to a shriek and the explosion was
instantaneous. The little man suddenly went limp and his rifle rolled
down the bank of the trench.

His friend looked at him with unspeakable anguish. "Got it--in the
perishing neck this time, Bill," gasped the little man.

Bill leaned over and propped his pal's head on his shoulder. A large
dark stain was saturating the wounded man's tunic and he lay very still.

"Bill," very faintly; then, with surprise, "Blimey! 'E's blubbing! Poor
old Bill!"

The big man was shaking with strangled sobs. For some moments he held
his friend close, and it was the dying man who spoke first.

"Are we dahn-'earted?" he said. The whisper went along the line and
swelled into a roar.

The big man choked back his sobs. "No, old pal, no!" he answered, and
"No-o-o-o!" roared the line in unison.

The little man lay back with a contented sigh. "No," he repeated, and
closed his eyes for ever.

* * * * *

THE SOUTHDOWNS.

The Grey Men of the South
They look to glim of seas,
This gentle day of drouth
And sleepy Autumn bees,
Pale skies and wheeling hawk
And scent of trodden thyme,
Brown butterflies and chalk
And the sheep-bells' chime.

The Grey Men they are old,
Ah, very old they be;
They've stood upside the wold
Since all eternity;
They standed in a ring
And the elk-bull roared to them
When SOLOMON was king
In famed Jerusalem.

KING SOLOMON was wise;
He was KING DAVID'S son;
He lifted up his eyes
To see his hill-tops run;
And his old heart found cheer,
As yours and mine may do
On these grey days, my dear,
Nor'-East of Piddinghooe.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"THE COST."

_Mr. Samuel Woodhouse_, of the middle classes, being anxious to distract
his son _John_ during the critical moments of _Mrs. John's_ confinement,
relates how, in similar circumstances more directly affecting himself,
he had been playing tennis, and the strain of the crisis had quite put
him off his game. The little jest is, of course, adapted from the
familiar lines:--

"I was playing golf the day: When the Germans landed ..."

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