TELL ENGLAND



A PROLOGUE BY PADRE MONTY


§1

In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the
swallows fly away. I can find no better beginning than that.

When there devolved upon me as a labour of love the editing of
Rupert Ray's book, "Tell England," I carried the manuscript into my
room one bright autumn afternoon, and read it during the fall of a
soft evening, till the light failed, and my eyes burned with the
strain of reading in the dark. I could hardly leave his ingenuous
tale to rise and turn on the gas. Nor, perhaps, did I want such
artificial brightness. There are times when one prefers the
twilight. Doubtless the tale held me fascinated because it revealed
the schooldays of those boys whom I met in their young manhood, and
told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure which I shared with
them. Though, sadly enough, I take Heaven to witness that I was not
the idealised creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless them, how
these boys will idealise us!

Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who suggested to him the
writing of his story. And well I recall how he demurred, asking: