LAND AND' WATER. 
January 6, 19I6. 
THROUGH THE AMBROSIAL NIGHT. 
By J. D. Symon. 
THE last train came in exactly to the minute. 
It had all the outward appearance of that 
scheduled on the time tablc^vidclicil, it was 
steam-driven and not electric. There could 
be no mistake. In good faith, therefore, the traveller 
seized a corner seat and opened the book that would 
beguile the ne.xt three-quarters of an hour. But in 
live minutes a grinding of brakes proclaimed a halt and 
the cry of " All Change " warned at least one passenger 
that something unusual had happened. The worst, in 
fact, had happened. This was vot the last train, but a 
precursor, a few minutes late, masquerading as the last, 
worse still the true last would not stop at this wayside 
station. In due time it flashed through with a pitiless 
indifference to the stranded and belated, whose only 
hope now was the last electric which would stop twelve 
miles from his abode. Another quarter of an hour and 
the only hope in the way of conveyance had done its 
duty. After that, Shanks's mare. 
Well, it was a fine night. The tramp would be 
agreeable and would yield, perhaps, some new experience. 
The clock at the terminus said midnight as the victim 
alighted, to find that he was not alone in adversity. Two 
other late-homing pigeons had been beguiled, like himself, 
by that deceitful late penultimate train. They compaied 
notes and grumbles. One was lucky, he had only three 
miles between him and bed, the other had seven. Three- 
niiles had already found the only cab the country town 
had to offer at that time of night, and was bargaining 
for transport. Twelve-miles tried to arrange a deal, 
wiiich would include Seven-miles, who frankly declared 
that cabs were beyond his commission. But Three-miles 
would not come to terms. Ke suspected some inex- 
plicable form of swindle, and refused to believe in any 
equitable division, if the others should finally persuade 
Jehu to take them a little further on their way. Perhaps 
it was a case for the differential calculus. Less science 
would have done, but Three-miles was obdurate. It 
was his cab, he would stick to it. No share was possible. 
So off he drove in soHtary state. 
*T ' A Long March. 
^^ The remainder, glad of each others company, faced 
,flie long march, and began to make acquaintance. The 
Traveller found that his chance companion was a post- 
man ; what the postman discovered about the Traveller 
does not matter. For the first mile or so, under the 
frosty starUght, conversation was not very lively. Both 
were sleepy and smarting under injury, the way was 
long, the wind was cold ; the iron ground, slippery as 
glass here and there, told upon feet already weary. Even 
a postman can have his (ill of walking. But gradually, 
the brilliant air, the splendour of the night, prevailed 
over sulkiness and the Traveller, at least, began to enjoy 
himself hugely. Then the Postman spake and uttered a 
very human note. 
The way now led under high branching trees into a 
{)retty village of renown in the home counties. Darkness 
ay close about the wayfarers and out of the darkness 
came a groan. The postman knew where he was. 
" That's the Starling we're passing," he sighed, "and no 
chance o' a drink." Night and the hour had sounded for 
him the top note of Tragedy. Consolation there was 
none. The Starling, lightlcss and silent, slept inhospitable, 
a mockery of brighter hours. Across the village street, 
darkling, stole two furtive cats. On these the Postman 
moralised and found relief. 
Anon he talked of his profession and of the Territorial 
Army, of which he was a well-deserving pillar. War 
was still far away, as men ti.ought, but the letter carrier 
had the patriotic conscience. One wonders, has he ere 
now proved it to the utmost, this simple, quaint good 
fellow. Luck to him. wherever he be to-night! He 
had a keen sense for night sounds which may have been 
useful in the field. In a tree by the wajsidc he spotted 
a roosting cock, which the more urban eyes of Twelve- 
miles would have missed. The fowl resented the ap]>roach 
of the foot-pads and crowed lustily. Tabellarius told the 
bird he was a fool and admonished him to shut up. Then 
the eyes of Tabellarius went skyward. He made a cliancc, 
curious remark about the stars, and wondered what they 
were. A little drawing-out proved that this civil servant, 
with a Board-School education, had not the remotest idea 
about the hosts of heaven. He had never even heard that 
they were named. Twelve-miles, beginning with the 
Pole-star and the Great Bear, imparted a little very 
elementary astronomy and found the man of letters apt 
and interested. Aldebaran, Bellatrix and Betelgeuse, 
the belt and nebula of Orion, the electric flash of Sirius, 
the wonder of Vega, some day to usurp the Pole, the 
svvtet influence of Pleiades, with these dignitaries 
of the firmament the Postman scraped acquaintance ; 
he learned to distinguish planets from fixed stars 
and heard a little about their distances and movements 
taking it in with the eagerness of a child who 
listens to a fairy-tale. It was almost enviable to have 
ri'ached years of discretion with no faintest knowledge 
of the starry Universe. What would not the sophisticated 
give to enter that world consciously for the first time. 
First View of the Stars. 
Such an experience, keyed to the highest pitch of 
revelation, fell to the lot of agood friend of the Traveller's 
in early boyhood. A victim of very short sight, he had 
never even seen the stars, until, with the fitting of stronger 
spectacles, he at last gazed out into the infinite. It was 
his good fortune to look up for the first time with clear 
vision on a brilliant Northern night — just such a night 
as Masson celebrates in his " Memories " — and the pageant 
of the constellations thrilled him to awe and wonder. 
Hitherto hp had not known what men meant when they 
spoke of the stars. At that moment he understood 
better perhaps than any living person the mystery and 
the poetry of the rolling spheres. Nor has the memory 
of that vision ever left him. Wc, to whom the heavens 
are too familiar from infancy, can only guess at that 
ineffable ecstisy. 
The seven miles were done, before the travellers had 
begun to count them. Suddenly the Postman welcomed 
the lights of home on an upland heath, and descending 
to earth dwelt lovingly on the supper waiting within. 
There would be, he said, cold beef and a long drink o' 
beer, and he needed it. He added that an adjacent light 
was the baker's, who would now be getting to work on the 
morning's loaves. Twelve-miles, feeling somewhat empty, 
bade his friend farewell and tackled the remaining fi\-c 
miles. 
Voices of the Night. 
Alone, lie realised the full wonder and mvstery of the 
hour. The frost struck keener, the road rang metallic to 
the footfail. Sounds, unheard by dav, started into loud 
prominence ; the trickling of a iunlct seemed almost a 
rushing brook ; shy creatures of the night crept rustHng 
through the underwood. The very brushing of the sleeve 
upon the coat was now almost thundrous. And exquisite 
subtle scents of the countryside came down the faint 
breeze. Never had the smell of the haystack been 
wafted to the sense with such delicate and delicious 
purity. It is not the summer night alone that is 
ambrosial. The winter night, so it be clear and quiet, 
can hold its own with high June. 
The last mile lay over wide common-land, where the 
furze encrusted with rime glittered under a now risen 
moon. And so, just as Orion's belt swung low and 
touched the horizon, the Traveller, a little footsore but 
joyful, reached his own door. His time for the twelve 
miles was five minutes short of the three hours. Fair 
heel and toe, like Christopher North's midnight tramp 
over the same Chiltern hills from Oxford to London long 
ago — i-vKTa <S( anfipoa-i-nv, in vcry truth. 
Mr. Heincinann will shortly publish a now hook by Dr. 
riiarles Sarolca. entitled Europe's Debt to Russia. ' Dr. 
Sarolca's work is a systematic attempt to remove the pre- 
conceptions against Russia wliicii arc still vcry widclv 
uccepteil, and particularlv the niisconccijtioiis which it has 
suited Cicrnianv to publish in neutral countries. 
