s. But I know her well. The
chateau is less cold and lonely than it was.

Old stairs wind upwards to a long corridor, the distant ends of which
are unseen. A few candles gutter in the draughts. The shadows leap. The
place is so still that I can hear the antique timbers talking. But
something is without which is not the noise of the wind. I listen, and
hear it again, the darkness throbbing; the badly adjusted horizon of
outer night thudding on the earth--the incessant guns of the great war.

And I come, for this night at least, to my room. On the wall is a tiny
silver Christ on a crucifix; and above that the portrait of a child,
who fixes me in the surprise of innocence, questioning and loveable,
the very look of warm April and timid but confiding light. I sleep with
the knowledge of that over me, an assurance greater than that of all
the guns of all the hosts. It is a promise. I may wake to the earth I
used to know in the morning.

_Winter 1917._

XIX. Holly-Ho!

In the train bound for the leave boat, just before Christmas, the
Knight-Errant, who also was returning to the front, re-wrote the
well-known hymn of Phillips Brooks for me, to make the time pass. It
began:

"Oh little town of Bethlehem,
To thee we give the lie."

So you may guess, though I shan't tell you, how it continued. For the
iron was in the soul of the Knight and misery was twisting it. I cannot
pretend it was a pleasure trip. This was to be our third Christmas in
Flanders. Is it any good trying to pass on the emotion common to men
who go to that place because they must? No, it is not. Yet, throughout
the journey to the boat, I was not astonished at the loud gaiety of
many of our passengers. I have got used to it; for they were like that
when they landed at Boulogne in August 1914; and they will be no
different when they come back for good, to comfortable observers who
prefer to be satisfied easily.

There was a noise of musical instruments and untractable boots on the
floor-boards. While waiting in the nervous queue on the Day of Judgment
one of those fellows will address a mouth organ to the responsive feet
of a pal, and the others will look on with intent approval, indifferent
to Gabriel. Having watched disaster experiment variously with my
countrymen for three years, I begin to understand why once the French
hated us, why lately they have learned to admire us and to be amused by
us, why the blunders of our governing clas