A. M. Williamson

“ The body has been martyred, but the soul is left alive—beautiful, brave soul of the old stones of France!
"Oh!" went up from three voices in the motor-car. I think even our one-legged soldier-chauffeur emitted a grunt of joy; and Mother Beckett clasped her hands on her little thin breast, as if she were praying, such a wonderful sight it was, with the golden coronation of the noon-day sun on the towers. Our officer-guide, in his car ahead, looked back as if to say, "I told you so! They can't kill France, and Rheims is the very spirit and youth of France." ”

“ I noticed, as Brian sketched us his little picture of the past, that Dierdre O'Farrell gazed at him, as if at some legendary knight in whose reality she did not believe. It was the first time I had seen any change in the sullen face, but it was a change to interest rather than sympathy. She had the air of saying in her mind: "You look more like a St. George, stepped down from a stained-glass window, than an ordinary man of to-day. You seem to think about everyone else before yourself, and to see a lot more with your blind eyes than we see. ”

“ Nicolas is the patron saint of the neighbourhood, so it's right that from his little town and his big church all the country round should open out to the eye, as if to do him homage.
From the hill of Léomont we could see to the south the far-off, famous Forest of Parroy; away to the north, the blue heights of La Grande Couronne, where the fate of Nancy was decided in 1914; to the west, a purple haze like a mourning wreath of violets hung over the valley of the Meurthe, and the tragic little tributary river Mortagne; beyond, we could picture with our mind's eyes the Moselle and the Meuse. ”

“ And now, the work of those thousand busy years has crumbled in a few monstrous months, like the sand-houses of children when the tide comes in! What Father Beckett saw of Ypres after three years' bombardment, was not much more than that shown in Brian's picture, dated 900! A blackened wall or two and a heap of rubble where stood the Halle des Drapiers—pride of Ypres since the thirteenth century—its belfry, its statues, its carvings, its paintings, all vanished like the contours and colours of a sunset cloud. The cathedral is a skeleton. ”

“ While Brian painted in the Grande Place and the Petite Place, and sketched the Abbey of St. Waast (who brought Christianity to that part of the world) I wandered alone. I used to stand every evening till my neck ached, staring up at the beautiful belfry, to watch the swallows chase each other back and forth among the bells, whose peal was music of fairyland. And I never tired of wandering through the arcades under the tall old Flemish houses with their overhanging upper storeys, or peeping into the arcades' cool shadows, from the middle of the sunlit squares. ”

“ I'll tell you why I did not pray this, Padre, and why, instead of trying to expose my life, I wished—almost unconsciously—to save it. I hardly realized why then, but I do realize now. It is different in these days from that night in Paris, when I wished I might be run over by a motor-car. At that time I should have been glad to die. Now I cling to life—not just because I'm young and strong, and people call me beautiful, but because I feel I must stay in the world to see what happens next. ”

“ After luncheon we staggered away to see the great sight of Ham, the fortress-château which has given it history and fame for centuries. The Germans blew up the citadel out of sheer spite, as the vast pink pile long ago ceased to be of military value. They wished to show their power by ruining the future of the town, which lived on its monument historique: but (as often happens with their "frightfulness") that object was just the one they failed in. I can't believe that the castle of Ham was as striking in its untouched magnificence as now in the rose-red splendour of its ruin! ”

“ Father, the simplest, kindest man, with the air of liking his fireside better than any adventure: Mother, a slip of a creature—"a flower in a vase to be kept by her menfolk on a high shelf," as I told myself when I first saw her. Yet what adventures they have had, and what they have accomplished since the day Brian proposed this pilgrimage, two months ago! Not a town on our route that, after the war won't have cause to bless them and the son in whose name their good works have been done—cause to bless Beckett kindness, Beckett money for generations in the future! ”

“ Never was there any one like Brian for drawing out confidences from shut-up souls (except you, Padre!) if he chooses to open his own soul, for that end; and apparently he thought it worth while in the case of Dierdre. He began by telling her things about himself—his old hopes and ambitions and the change in them since his blindness. He confessed to the girl (as he confessed to me long ago) how at first he wished desperately to die, because life without eyesight wasn't life. He has so loved colour, and beauty, and success in his work had been so close, that he felt he couldn't endure blindness. ”

“ It seemed as if the heart of Compiègne, past and present, were hidden just behind that gray façade of the palace across the square!
Of course, Jeanne was the "star" heroine of Compiègne, where she fought so bravely and was taken prisoner, and sold to the English by John of Luxembourg at a very cheap price. But, you know, she is the heroine of such lots of other places we have seen or will see, that we let her image fade for us behind the brilliant visions of Compiègne's pleasures.
As a rule, old history has the lure of romance in it, and makes modern history seem dull in contrast. ”

“ Ypres the town is a mourner draped in black with the stains of fire which killed its beauty and joy. But there is a glory that can never be killed, a glory above mere beauty, as a living soul is above the dead body whence it has risen. That glory is Ypres. She is a ghost, but she is an inspiration, a name of names, a jewel worth dying for—"worth giving a man's eyes for," Brian says!
"Has your brother told you about the man we met at the Visitors' Château?" asked Father Beckett, when between the two men—and my reminiscences—the story of the tour was finished with those last words of Brian's. ”

“ Anyhow, he knew that Dierdre was in danger, and almost flung her behind him. He was just in time to save her from being thrown down by the dog, who hurled himself like a young avalanche at Brian. To those who had no clue to the truth, it must have seemed that the animal was mad. Julian, and Father Beckett, and the khaki man rushed to the rescue, only to see the dog and Brian in each other's arms, the creature licking Brian's face, laughing and crying at the same time—which you know, Padre, a dog frantic with joy at sight of a long-lost master can do perfectly well! ”

“ The Meurthe-et-Moselle, with Nancy as its centre and capital, was a terrible danger zone, with the sword of the enemy pointed at its heart, but the lover of Lorraine asked to become préfet in place of a man about to leave, and his family rallied round him. There at Nancy, they have been ever since those days, through all the bombardments by Big Berthas and Taubes. When houses and hotels were being blown to bits by naval guns, thirty-five kilometres away, the daily life of the family went on as if in peace. As a man, the Préfet longed to send his wife and children far away. ”

“ We fancied, Brian and I, that after a walk round Nancy René and Isabella would retire, sadder and wiser ghosts, content to have finished their lives in gentler times than ours. Back into the shadows might they fade, to sleep again, and take up their old dream where the noise of twentieth-century shrapnel had snapped its thread. Their best dream must be, we thought, of their battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold on his black war-horse, surrounded by Burgundian barons in armour, shouting, and waving their banners with standards of ivory and gold ”

“ Their destruction of the young fruit trees was just a slaughter of [Pg 221] innocents; and I've never hated war, Padre, as I hated it to-day—above all, German methods of making war. Even the countless graves on the battlefields do not look so sad as those acres of murdered trees: blown-up trees, chopped-down trees, trees gashed to death with axes, trees that strove with all the strength of Nature to live, putting forth leaves and blossoms as their life blood emptied from their veins.
The graves of dead soldiers do not, somehow, look utterly sad. ”

“ Not even Sirius could be more fiercely devoted than she, who had to atone for her past injustice. She was angry that blind Brian should be thus coldly stared at, and that a man in better health than he should calmly sprawl in the best chair, screening the fire.
By this time, Padre, you will have learned enough about Dierdre O'Farrell to know what her temper is! She forgot that a stranger might not realize Brian's blindness at first sight in a room where the dusk was creeping in, and she spoke sharply, in her almost perfect French. ”

“ One makes one's adieux early in war times; but the moonlight was so wonderful on that Taube-ridden night that Brian said he felt it like a cool silver shower on his eyelids. "I believe I'm developing night-eyes!" he laughed to me, as we walked ahead of the Becketts and Julian O'Farrell, on our way across the gleaming square to our hotel. "Surely there won't be another raid for an hour or two? Let's take a walk. Let's go into the old town, and try to see some ghosts." ”

“ Despite the crowds of soldiers in khaki and horizon blue who fill the streets and cafés, the place seems outside war. Even the stacked sandbags walling the west front and the side portals of the grandest cathedral in France suggest comfortable security rather than fear. The jackdaws and pigeons that used to be at home in the carvings, camp contentedly among the bags, or walk in the neglected grass where sleep the dead of long ago. I didn't want to remember just then, or let any one else remember, that twenty miles away were the trenches and thousands of the dead of to-day! ”

“ There's the Canal of the Aisne and the Marne, too—oh, many wide waters and little streams, to breathe out mist, for Rheims is on the pleasant Île-de-France. There was so much mist this autumn day that it hid from our eyes for a long time the tall form of the Cathedral which should dominate the plain for many miles; a thick, white mist like the sheet with which a sculptor veils his masterpiece until it's ready to face the world. ”

“ But that's no excuse really, and Brian would despise me if he knew."
"There you are!" Julian burst out, with a relieved sigh, a more natural colour creeping back to his face. "If Jim Beckett let you go before the war without asking you to marry him, I'm afraid his love couldn't have been very deep—not deep enough to make him forgive you after all this time for deceiving his old father and mother the way you have. My God, no! In spite of your beauty, he'd have no mercy on you!" ”

“ German gunpowder was too weak to bring it down, and so perhaps the prophecy of the Comte de St. Pol, builder of the fortress, may be fulfilled—that while France stands, the tower of Ham's citadel will stand. Thousands more pilgrims will come in a year, after the war, to see what the Germans did and what they failed to do, than ever came in the mild, prosperous days before 1914, when Ham's best history was old. They will come and gaze at the massive bulk—red always as if reflecting sunset light—looming against the blue ”

“ And yet, Vitrimont isn't sad as others of the ruined towns are sad. It even cheered us, after Léomont, because a star of hope shines over the field of desolation—a star that has come out of the west. Some wonderful women of San Francisco decided to "adopt" Vitrimont, as one of the little places of France which had suffered most in the war. Two of them, Miss Polk and Miss Crocker—girls rather than women—gave themselves as well as their money to the work. In what remains of Vitrimont—what they are making of Vitrimont—they live like two fresh roses that have taken root in a pile of ashes. ”

“ Belgian police dog of beautiful shape, I would call "Sirius" to see if he answered.
More than once since this trip began I've called "Sirius!" to police dogs, not knowing whether they were Belgian, German, or Dutch, and they have answered only with glances of superb scorn. This time I hesitated. The mental picture I saw of myself—a vague young woman, seated in an automobile stranded by the roadside, trying to lure away the dog of a strange man—was disconcerting. While I debated whether to break my promise or behave like a wild school girl, the animal paused in his listless trot. ”

“ René, whose memory never dies in Nancy, though his body died 500 years ago.
What if he should rise from his tomb in the church of the Cordeliers, or come down off his little bronze horse in the Place St. Epvre as ghosts may by moonlight, to walk with his fair wife Isabella through the huddled streets of the old town, gazing at the wreckage made by the greatest war of history? What would he think of civilization, he who held his dukedom against the star warrior of the century, Charles the Bold? War was lawless enough in his day. ”

“ Being in the dream, I didn't belong to the wonderful, war-time Paris which was rushing and roaring around me. Military motors, and huge camions and ambulances were tearing up and down, over the gray-satin surface of asphalt which used to be sacred to private autos and gay little taxis bound for theatres and operas and balls. For every girl, or woman, or child, who passed, there were at least ten soldiers: French soldiers in bleu horizon, Serbians in gray, Britishers and a sprinkling of Americans in khaki. ”

“ I insisted. "It isn't the only graveyard we have seen, alas! and there are only French names on the little crosses."
"I know," he said. "After we chased the Germans out of this hole, we lived here ourselves, in their caves—and died here, as you see, Mademoiselle. But the place is haunted, and not by spirits of the dead—worse! Put on your hats again, Messieurs! The dead will forgive you. And, ladies, wrap veils over your faces. If it were not so late, you would already know why. But the noise of our autos, and the lights may stir up those ghosts!" ”

“ I remember the Scottish monks who were established at Péronne in the reign of Clovis. I remember how Charles the Bold of Burgundy (who died outside Nancy's gates) imprisoned wicked Louis XI in a strong tower of the château, one of the four towers with conical roofs, like extinguishers of giant candles and kingly reputations! I remember best of all the heroine of Péronne, Catherine de Poix, "la belle Péronnaise," who broke with her own hand the standard of Charles's royal flag, in the siege of 1536, threw the bearer into the fosse, and saved the city. ”

“ Inside a blotting-pad were a few sheets of hotel stationery and envelopes. My stylographic pen glided noiselessly over the paper. Now and then I glanced over my shoulder at Brian, and he was still fast asleep, looking more like an angel than a man. You know my nickname for him was always "Saint" because of his beautiful pure face, and the far-away look in his eyes. Being a soldier has merely bronzed him a little. It hasn't carved any hard lines. Being blind has made the far-away things he used to see come near, so that he walks in the midst of them. ”

“ Imagine long windows opening into a garden: rosy lamplight streaming out, silver moonlight streaming in; music; the wonderful voice of a man (Julian O'Farrell) singing the "Marseillaise," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and "Tipperary." Then into the midst of this breaking the tiresome whine of the siren.
"What? A fourth time to-day?" cries somebody. "These creatures will wear out their welcome if they're not careful!"
A laugh follows, to drown the bark of shrapnel, and a general shrugging of the shoulders. ”