past, might be in league with an assassin, and off to spread the news directly it was out of sight. the soldiers as they cross the bridge and begin the steep ascent. Everywhere there is a ragged unoared-for look, as if nothing that had been begun had been properly finished off; as if in every case some one had started off enthusiastically to do something, and then had suddenly wearied of it, and left off in the middle. The barracks stand high on the top of the hill in a commanding position like medieval fortress. It is seldom that they stand anywhere else in the chief towns of Ireland; and the sight of these towering strongholds contributes another cause for the resemblance to places remembered abroad. In Winchester and Shrewsbury the barracks are not built on hills, though there are hills to build them on if such had been the intention. It would seem rather that the valleys had been specially chosen for their site. The gate opens, the car travels in; a tall silent staff officer with fair hair and blue eyes receives receives the imposing sheaf of documents. They are safe. He hands out others, a smaller packet, and during the interval the party of men regale themselves on their frugal meal of sandwiches and cheese. And yet how strange that one should connect all the features of this country only with thoughts of death and strife. How cool and delightful the streams appear glittering in the sunlight; one's thoughts inevitably turn to the trout and salmon lurking in the the pools beneath the willows, and longing arises for a few days' sport free from any other care or distraction. And then there is the scene of the far-off mountains as the summit of a hill is reached, and the long expanse spreads out before the hurried travellers. They seem so peaceful under the soft mists that clothe their farthest ridges. And then the mail rushes down through forests of beech and pine into the village of Rathdooley. Soon after it ascends a steep hill, and from the eminence that it has gained, commands a view of a broad river as noble as the Severn or the Thames. On its farther bank stretch the spacious lawns of a park, and its margin is overshadowed by majestic elms. For a moment it seems as if a piece of England had been removed and taken into a foreign land. Then the eye travels farther to where the For a short moment they closely-packed town of Dolney are among friends, and can olusters round its narrow, exchange a few jests and the winding, precipitous street, news of the hour with their with its small low-fronted comrades. What a contrast houses, and the people crowd- between the neatness and ing shy and inquisitive at their orderliness of the barracks doors, gazing suspiciously at and the happy-go-lucky world outside. Not that there is any rooted antagonism between the troops and the people of the country. If there is any enmity, it is a purely artificial one, oreated by the exceptional oircumstances of the moment; for during long years the soldiers of the garrisons and the folk among whom they dwelt were the best of friends. Frequently they shared their sports and amusements in the most perfect amity. It is a bitter reflection that a small minority of mischief-makers has been able to ruin the good feeling that once prevailed, and to replace it by doubt and suspicion and mutual distrust. On their return journey they passed along the northern side of the wide park of which they had a sight on their arrival from the south. The outward journey had been the more important of the two, but the other might be equally perilous. And they were fully conscious of this. If they had been missed the first time, which was possible, their pursuers might try to waylay them on their return. And the route which they would be forced to take, at least for the first two miles out of Dolney, unless they were prepared to make a tremendous detour, was as well suited for an ambush as the road along the valley. For the first mile and a half it descended continually with one or two sharp turnings, and the ground on either side sloped away swiftly from it. On either side for the whole of that distance, there was a boundary wall of about three feet in height; on the left of the route this wall ran down into the park of Dolney to a depth of ten feet. And half a mile farther on the park gave place to an immense wood which stretched away on either side of the highway, the wall still continuing. When they entered the dark shades of the wood, as if in answer to an irresistible intuition, the men looked to their rifles, and made sure where the bombs lay. The Lewis gunner grasped his weapon more firmly and placed his finger on the trigger, while the officer took out his revolver and laid it across his knees. They gazed intently into the thick screen of foliage, which hid the sunlight, for the sign of a head over the wall. "Now, steady round the corner, said a man's voice between his teeth. "I've been this way before. This is the devil's death - trap." Then every one listened for the note of the motor-horn of the despatch-rider in front. But no sound came. "Forrard away, then. We're out of that." And the driver pressed his foot down on to the accelerator and pushed back his gear to top speed. All this had needed only a few seconds. The tension relaxed slightly, an easy lightheartedness was taking the place of the sombre attitude of expectation. And then suddenly one of them pointed to the man on the motor bioyole. He was holding up his hand and Pursuit through those trees, waving it. Surely it couldn't and in an unknown country, be-and then, without further was hopeless. So they pressed time for investigation, bang!!! on again full steam ahead, the just in front of the car; and a despatch-rider keeping only & score of high-pitched notes few yards in front of the car, hummed through the air, with instructions to shout on following the first explosion the appearance of anything by the smallest fraction of a suspicious. second, like the sudden release of a group of angry hornets. Then came briskly the retort as the rap-rap-rap of the Lewis gunner out through the bushes. And there was no further sound from the wood as it lay there, contrasting with the sunlight that broke in above them, almost as black as night. The bicycle had turned round, the car had stopped. "Are there any casualties?' 'No; only one man, sir! Tarton, a graze on the ear." And then to the bioyolist as he came up to them: "And why didn't you blow your horn?" "I did blow it, sir, but I couldn't get any sound out of it." Another ten minutes and they were topping a rise, leaving the forest far below, as they rose into the clear air and the wide expanses of the hills. A glorious sensation of triumph was added to the exhilarating influence of the wind as it rushed of_the_wind past. Far away before them lay a series of orests, growing purpler and purpler in the distance. And all round the green of the trees in the valleys contrasted with the bright colours of the heather that orowned the heights. Occasionally down below them glittered the silver of some stream or lake, while a hawk poised himself above them for an instant, and then swooped with unerring stroke over a shoulder of the hill. (To be continued.) 3 в VOL CCVIII.-NO. MCCLXII. YOU CHANGE AT CLAPHAM JUNCTION. BY EVELYNE BUXTON. MR PECKLEBURY, one Saturday afternoon in January 1920, was assiduously gardening in the front garden of the neat detached villa-residence in which he dwelt with his step-aunt, when some one coming from the direction of the suburban station, not a stone's-throw away, passed the gate, paused, returned, looked over it, and said "I beg your pardon, but can you tell me the name of this place?" "This is Puddispor, sir," said Mr Pecklebury, looking up from the minute grass border he was clipping at his step-aunt's behest in oase it should grow. "What a delightful spot it appears to be!" said the welldressed young man at the gate, gazing blissfully about him upon the little red villaresidences which surrounded Mr Pecklebury's in their hundreds along the neat laburnumed roads. Mr Peoklebury's eyes left the young man's face. He sat back on his heels, and his gaze also travelled round as much of the villa-residences as he could see. He looked at them pensively, as though he had once or twice before gazed round on them thus and wondered what they really looked like. "Have you lost your way, sir?" he inquired, his eyes returning to the young man. "Well, not here exactly," said the young man. "I couldn't exactly be said to have had a way here to lose, you see. Not as yet! I've only just arrived.” "Did you come by mistake?" inquired Mr Pecklebury, selecting, after a brief pause of not unnatural bewilderment, the question which seemed most likely to lead to enlightenment. "I can't call it a mistake," said the young man. Нө gazed intensely round him. "I feel as if all other places in the world were a mistake, and this alone were the place to come to. I feel as if I had come to the place of my dreams-dreams I had never so much as realised I was dreaming, I do assure you," he added with a change of voice, bringing suddenly puzzled eyes back to Mr Pecklebury's surprised face. They gazed at each other a moment, and then Mr Pecklebury made an earnest effort to reduce what he could not help feeling to be a rising element of incomprehensibility in the situation. "If you came here in a train by mistake, sir," he said, "that is, if you have arrived here without meaning to, perhaps you took the wrong train." "I can't call it the wrong train," said the young man, smiling rapturously. sir," replied Mr Pecklebury with some warmth, "when I haven't the least idea what it is you're talking about?" "Well, never mind," said the young man, sighing. "It was only that I seemed to myself to have said something I never said in my life before, and that I didn't know any one ever said. But it's clear they do! At least I do! At least I do here!" Mr Pecklebury looked at him again a moment in silence, and then remarked gently, "Don't you think, sir, that it would be almost better if you went home? You wouldn't have to wait long for a train back, you know, for we are a ter minus "A terminus!" oried the young man rapturously. "Did you say a terminus? Impossible! Incredible! Is there really such a thing as a terminus still to be found in this boundless, breaking, cracking, whirling world, where there doesn't seem to be a single thing left that isn't leading straight to something else, and nearly always something dreadful! A terminus! We are a terminus! Beautiful! Incredible!" "I do really advise you, sir," said Mr Pecklebury earnestly, "to go instantly straight home." "I am home," oried the young man. "I'm never going away. I'm never going anywhere but farther and farther into this delightful spot," and he bounded away among the detached villa-residences. |