An hour later he came up. He brought some brown bread and salt meat to
me, and even better, some news of what was doing; and he told it to me
as I sat and ate upon the bank. I remember, as he talked, and I kept
watching far to the west where some aeroplanes hovered above the now
greening tops of the forest hills.

"You get the truth from country folk," he said. "They win their news
first hand from wounded fathers and sons. In the city the war news is
ground, sifted, and only what is of little interest is dispersed. There
have been great deeds. The German armies hold the line between Ghent and
Mulhausen and are wearing out the Allies by exhaustion. Many armies have
reinforced the British and the French, but the German lines hold fast
and wear out the Allies. The Russians are still upon the defensive in
Poland. London is in a panic as it has been attacked by Zeppelins, and
the German Fleet has come out from Kiel and claims a victory. That news,
of course, you can doubt, as it does not come first hand. The Allies,
however, threaten Constantinople and the Turkish armies are demoralised.
But the greatest of the news," and here the fire came into his face
again, "is that the workers of the world are uneasy. Strikes rage in
England, in Australia, in Canada, in the United States, and--yes in
Germany. The English shipyard workers on the Clyde and at Southampton
have at various times since March held up British naval construction;
and it is now August. There is a universal demand for shorter hours with
increased wages, and food prices are high. The Australian workers are
striking against their own Labor Governments, and refusing to fit out
troopships unless they get treble pay for night work, and in Germany the
workers are rising because they are tiring of forced employment. All the
civil, as well as military factories, have been working treble shifts;
and huge stocks of all kinds of manufactures have accumulated everywhere
and cannot be distributed. Workers are losing heart. This war is
stretching out too long for them. It was to be a short, sharp war, and
they now fear time is on the side of the Allies, so a general uprising
is threatened. But alas--alas!" he continued as if to himself, "this
news is a fortnight old."

Then he turned to me with anxious face.

"I knew not of these things when I went on this road to Coblenz," he
said. "For fourteen days I had been in silent seclusion in a monastery
at Deutz, as each of our br