of the day outlined on the crest
of the hill which is full of our dead. They climb and disappear, one
by one. _Our_ way is downward; but we form--they above and we
below--one and the same mass, all visible together.

"It's fine!" says Marie, "it looks as if they were galloping over us!"

They are the shining vanguard that protects us, the great eternal
framework which upholds our country, the forces of the mighty past
which illuminate it and protect it against enemies and revolutions.

And we, we are all alike, in spite of our different minds; alike in the
greatness of our common interests and even in the littleness of our
personal aims. I have become increasingly conscious of this close
concord of the masses beneath a huge and respect-inspiring hierarchy.
It permits a sort of lofty consolation and is exactly adapted to a life
like mine. This evening, by the light of the setting sun, I see it and
read it and admire it.

All together we go down by the fields where tranquil corn is growing,
by the gardens and orchards where homely trees are making ready their
offerings--the scented blossom which lends, the fruit which gives
itself. They form an immense plain, sloping and darkling, with brown
undulations under the blue which now alone is becoming green. A little
girl, who has come from the spring, puts down her bucket and stands at
the roadside like a post, looking with all her eyes. She looks at the
marching multitude with beaming curiosity. Her littleness embraces
that immensity, because it is all a part of Order. A peasant who has
stuck to his work in spite of the festival and is bent over the deep
shadows of his field, raises himself from the earth which is so like
him, and turns towards the golden sun the shining monstrance of his
face.

* * * * * *

But what is this--this sort of madman, who stands in the middle of the
road and looks as if, all by himself, he would bar the crowd's passage?
We recognize Brisbille, swaying tipsily in the twilight. There is an
eddy and a muttering in the flow.

"D'you want to know where all that's leading you?" he roars, and
nothing more can be heard but his voice. "It's leading you to hell!
It's the old rotten society, with the profiteering of all them that
can, and the stupidity of the rest! To hell, I tell you! To-morrow
look out for yourselves! To-morrow!"

A woman's voice cries from out of the shadows, in a sort of scuffle,