2


Now side by side with that I will set another picture of a
different kind.

A week or two ago I was travelling up North. The stations we passed
through were many of them full of troops, the trains were crammed
with soldiers, and very healthy and happy they looked. I was struck
by their friendliness and kindness; they were civil and modest;
they did not behave as if they were in possession of the line, as
actually I suppose they were, but as if they were ordinary
travellers, and anxious not to incommode other people. I saw
soldiers doing kind little offices, helping an old frail woman
carefully out of the train and handing out her baggage, giving
chocolates to children, interesting themselves in their fellow-
travellers. At one place I saw a proud and anxious father, himself
an old soldier, I think, seeing off a jolly young subaltern to the
front, with hardly suppressed tears; the young man was full of
excitement and delight, but did his best to cheer up the spirits of
"Daddy," as he fondly called him. I felt very proud of our
soldiers, their simplicity and kindness and real goodness. I was
glad to belong to the nation which had bred them, and half forgot
the grim business on which they were bent. We stopped at a
junction. And here I caught sight of a strange little group. There
was a young man, an officer, who had evidently been wounded; one of
his legs was encased in a surgical contrivance, and he had a
bandage round his head. He sat on a bench between two stalwart and
cheerful-looking soldiers, who had their arms round him, and were
each holding one of his hands. I could not see the officer clearly