y in the future Croisilles
would stand again.

He took no interest in anything that I said. His house of two storeys
was down, his son was dead, the little village of Croisilles had gone
away; he had only one hope from the future. When I had finished
speaking of the future, he raised a knobbed stick that he carried, up
to the level of his throat, surely his son's old trench stick, and
there he let it dangle from a piece of string in the handle, which he
held against his neck. He watched me shrewdly and attentively
meanwhile, for I was a stranger and was to be taught something I
might not know--a thing that it was necessary for all men to learn.
"Le Kaiser," he said. "Yes;" I said, "the Kaiser." But I pronounced
the word Kaiser differently from him, and he repeated again "Le
Kaiser," and watched me closely to be sure that I understood. And
then he said "Pendu," and made the stick quiver a little as it
dangled from its string. "Oui," I said, "Pendu."

Did I understand? He was not yet quite sure. It was important that
this thing should be quite decided between us as we stood on this
road through what had been Croisilles, where he had lived through
many sunny years and I had dwelt for a season amongst rats. "Pendu"
he said. Yes, I agreed.

It was all right. The old man almost smiled.

I offered him a cigarette and we lit two from an apparatus of flint
and steel and petrol that the old man had in his pocket.

He showed me a photograph of himself and a passport to prove, I
suppose, that he was not a spy. One could not recognize the likeness,
for it must have been taken on some happier day, before he had seen
his house of two storeys lying there by the road. But he was no spy,
for there were tears in his eyes; and Prussians I think have no tears
for what we saw across the village of Croisilles.

I spoke of the rebuilding of his house no more, I spoke no more of
the new Croisilles shining through future years; for these were not
the things that he saw in the future, and these were not the hopes of
the poor old man. He had one dark hope of the future, and no others.
He hoped to see the Kaiser hung for the wrong he had done to
Croisilles. It was for this hope he lived.

Madame or senor of whatever far country, who may chance to see these
words, blame not this old man for the fierce hope he cherished. It
was the only hope he had. You, Madame, with your garden, your house,
your church, the village where all know you, you m