E. V. Lucas

“ I said; "the light will have gone. Another day lost!" Nothing on earth can crystallize and solidify so swiftly and impacably as the French official face. At these words his smile vanished. He was not angry or threatening—merely granite. Those were the rules, and how could anyone question them? At two, he repeated; and again I left the building, this time not bowing quite so effusively, but suppressing a thousand criticisms which might have been spoken were not the French our allies. ”

“ A heavy dew lay on the earth. Not a dound could be heard; not a leaf fluttered. No sign of life. We were alone, save for the stubble and the ricks and the wooden crosses and the little flags. How near the dead seemed: nearer than in any cemetery. ”

“ The road from ——— leaves the town by a hill, crosses a canal, and then mounts and winds, and mounts again, and dips and mounts, between fields of stubble, with curcular straw-stacks as their only occupants. The first intimation of anything untoward, besides the want of life, was the spire of the little white vilage of ——— on the distant hill, which surely had been damaged. As one drew nearer it was clear that not only had the spire been damaged, but that the houses had been damaged too. ”