Everyman's Land

greatest comfort, as of

me that last message: "Write to me, in the old way, ju

he good smile which made your face different from any other. I don't deserve the smile. Did I ever deserve it? Yet you gave

t by putting on paper, as if for you, the story of my wickedness. Now the story is told, I can't stop. I can't shut the door in the wall

said those letters were your "magic carpet," on which you travelled with us. Poor Padre, you'd no time nor money for other travelling! You never saw France, till the war c

could prove me a liar, to the Becketts or Brian: that I was "safe-brutally

they got all three, as magically as Cinderella got her coach and four. The French authorities pl

a French soldier to drive it. The soldier has only one leg: but he can do more with that one than most men with two. Thus we set forth

of all people: yet every road that leads east from Paris leads to German

y children, without a thrill! We said it over and over in the car:

s and jerry-built restaurants of the suburbs seemed under a spell of sleep. There were no men anywhere, except the very old, and boys of the "class" of next year. Women swept out the gloomy shops: women drove omnibuses: women hawked the morning papers. Outside Paris we were stopped by soldiers, appearing from sentry-boxes:

ine of blue water, parallel with our road at a little distance, had not Brian said, "Have we come in sight of the Ourcq? W

ticking to its banks: knew it vaguely, as one knows and forgets that one's friends' faces have profiles. But Brian's words brought back the whole story to my mind in a flash. I remembered how Vo

advisers told him there were not soldiers enough in his command to do it. "Then we'll do

defender of the capital. "I've been in China and

not be enough men," a

olice," said the general, inspi

d and won by sheer bravado, that he cried out in rage, "How could I count on such a coup? Not another military governor in a hundred would have risked throwing his whole force sixty

ions that change on the screen like patterns in a kaleidoscope? So on this meadow-bordered road, peaceful in the autumn sunlight, we saw with our minds' eyes the soldiers of 1914: behind them the soldiers of 1870: farther in

in gaiety, as if it wished to forget and be happy. But souls and rivers never re

still see on the left bank of the river traces of trench-shallow, pathetic holes dug in wild haste. We might have missed them, we creatures with mere eyes, if Brian hadn't asked, "

ts thousand years of history. There was no work for the Becketts there, we thought, for the Germans had time to do little material harm to Meaux in 1914: and at first sight there seemed

y, "we might call on the bishop? Wh

. He took the children of the town under his protection, and no harm came to one of them. There were postcard photographs going round early in the war

our shoulders, almost guiltily, and there indeed he was. He had been in the cathedral with two French officers, and in another instant the trio would have turned a corner.

k French! Mary, you must s

the bishop. Off came Mr. Beckett's hat; and both offic

self some credit. As it was, I stammered out some

our poor. And now, you say, he has given his life for France? What is there I can do to prove our gratitude? You have come to Meaux because of his let

m's example in generosity, we bade adieu to the-oh, ever so much kindlier heir of the great controversialist. I'm afraid, to tell the truth, the little old lady cared more to know that her Jim's favourite cheese-Brie-was made in Meaux, than anything else in the town's history. Nevertheless, she listened with a charmed air to Brian's story of Meaux's great romance-as she listens to all Brian's stories. It was you, Padre, who told it to Brian, and to me, one winter night when we'd been reading about Gaston, de Foix, "Gaston le Bel." Our talk of his exploits brought us to Meaux, at the time of the Jacquerie, in the twelfth century. The common people had revolted against the nobl

s Martel built for a young King Thierry. The legend says that this boy differed from the wicked kings Thierry, sons and grandsons of the Frankish Clovis; that he wanted to be good, but "Fate" would not let him. Perhaps it's a judgment on those terrible Thierry kings, who left to their enemies

destruction. I took up nursing in the south of France before the Zeppelins made much visible impression on London; and as I volunteered for a "contagious" hospital, I've lived an isolated life far from all horrors save those in my own ward, and the few I saw when I went to nurse Brian. Perhaps it was well for us to begin with Chateau-Thierry, whose gaping wounds are not mortal, and to miss tragic Varreddes. Had Sermaize-les-Bains, which burst upon us later, been our first experience, the shock might have been too great for Mrs. Beckett. As it was, we worked slowly to the climax. Yet even so, we travelled on with a hideous mirage

go; that under the gray roofs-furry-soft as the backs of Maltese cats-hearts had beaten in agony of fear; that alon

the ninth century made it famous by his praise. Nevertheless, there are ruins to see, for the town was bombarded by the Germans after they were turned out. All the quarter of the rich was laid waste: and the vast "Fabrique de Champagne" of Mercier, with its ornamental frieze of city names, is silent

ri de Navarre, and harangued his comrades on the superiority of Wilhelm von Hohenzollern. As the speechmaker cracked the neck with his sword, the bottle burst in a thousand pieces, drenching everyone with wine. A bit of glass struck the electric lamp over the table, and out went the light. For an instant the room was black. Then a white ray flickered on the wall, as if thrown through the window by a searchlight. Out of its glimmer

to fly from France for ever! I ought to say, Attila the first, since

a spiral motion which brings us at certain periods, as we rise, directly above the last earth-phase in our evolution. If it's true, here, after nearly thirteen centuries, are the Huns overrunning Europe once more. Learned Huns, scientific Huns, but always Huns, repeating history on a higher scale, barbarously bent on pulling down the liberty of the world by the power of bru

at, cruel general or king, or did his soul rest until it

ne, hoping to keep their hold on France. I didn't even pause for Saint-Bernard, preaching the Crusade in the gorgeous presence of Louis VII and his knights. It was Attila who lured me down, down into his century, buried deep under the sands of Time. I heard the ring of George Meredith's words: "Attila, my Attila!" But I saw the wild warrior Attila, fighting in Champagne, not the dead man adjured by Ildico, his bride. I saw him "short, swarthy, broad-ches

asted only a day, and engaged from a hundred and seventy-four thousand to thre

alons, proud city of twenty-two bridges and the Canal Rhine-Marne. The

e to destroy of the charming old town planned by Francis I, and named for him. All the villages round about the new Huns broke to pieces, like the toy towns of children: Revigny, sprayed from hand pumps with petrol, and burnt to the ground: Sermaize-les-Bains, loved by Romans and

re all speaks of death and desolation, save the busy little hut-villages of the Quakers. The "Friends" quietly began their labour of lo

ce to face in so strange a way that it need