March 2, 19 16. 
LAND AND WATER. 
OF SUCH IS OUR KINGDOM 
By Eden Phillpotts. 
SO close to the sere waste was the colour of him, 
that not until .alongside did one perceive this 
snuidge of tawny was no part of the dead heath 
and fern, but a youth in khaki resting on a 
boulder beside the highway. 
" Bit off more than I can chew," he said. " This is 
my hrst dav without crutches and I've gone too far." 
He had one stout stick beside him and no more. 
" Could you get on with an arm t'other side ? " 
" Yes, to rights, if it han't asking too much." 
His village home lay two miles off and we started 
for it. 
" I came up over as gay as you please, and thought 
I was all right ; but I can't travel like I could afore I 
was hit and my foot's properly tired " he explained. 
" Wounded in France ? 
" No— (ialhpoli. Only a touch and I'm well again, 
but it gets tired. Got a week at home after hospital ; 
then I join up." 
" You're pretty young j'et." 
" In sight of twenty," he said. " But ten 3'ears older 
than that I reckon. " 
" The war's turned a good many boys into men." 
" In a way. It's funny being back to Widecombe 
and seeing what was my hfe, and what seemed good 
enough not much more than a year ago.'! 
'■ It's all shrunk a bit —eh ? 
" That's just it, " he said eagerly. " If that iddcn 
the ver}' word ! It's all shrunk — all of it. Afore I went, 
Dartymoor seemed a tidy big place and I couldn't picture 
a bigger ; but now " He broke off and laughed. 
' When I came out of hospital and down to Newton, I 
lifted my eyes and said, ' Now for old Dartymoor.' And 
if vou'd believe it, I looked for Hey Tor Rock up in the 
s'.<y ! And then suddenly I see two little grey mole-hills 
far down under, and there was Hey Tor Rock. I left it 
a mighty big thing and come home to find nought at all ! " 
"You've seen some real mountains meantime .■* " 
" So I have then. Home's shrunk — that's the word. 
E\ervthing's shrunK' — the blessed people have shrunk 
1 reckon ! " 
" It's your new point of view. Shall you go back 
farming ? " 
" I wonder about that," he said. " There's some- 
thing good to it. It never seemed particular good much 
before, but just life. I'm very fond of cattle. But it 
wouldn't be the same again. Though home's got small 
in one wa\', it's got big in another. You take it for 
granted till you've been away from it and got knocked 
about. Then when you came back you find there was a 
lot more to it than you thought." 
" You see more of the truth of it? " He nodded. 
He presented the interesting spectacle of an intelli- 
gent man, whose ideas ran beyond his power of ex- 
pression ; but it was easy to see what he was feeling. 
" Do you want to go back ? " 
" I do. It's not the same things being up against 
Turks as Germans. I want to do my bit against Germans. 
There's more to it. I'd sooner knock out one German 
than ten Turks." 
" I can understand that. But you don't want to be 
a soldier all your time ? " 
" No. I'll be very glad to come back to my father 
I believe. All the same I wouldn't, have missed it. 
You can't never be the same again. I tell the starred 
chaps that they don't know they're born and, what's 
more, they don't know they're 'fenglish. dood Lord ! 
If they was to go out into the world '&nd see what our 
pals in the war think of tiie Lnglish. And our own 
—the Canadians and Anzacs— every riiother's son." 
■ We rested awhile and looked down through twilight 
at the tiny hamlet of Widecombe— a nest of cots with 
little fields spread on the hills round about under the moor, 
and a church tower above grey, naked sycamores. 
" That's my home," he said, pointing to a farmhouse 
on the nearer slope. " I see trenches wherever I look 
nowadays. I thought I knew how to dig before I joined, 
but I didn't even know how to dig. 'Tis funny to see 
labouring men digging now. You want to yell at 'em." 
Wc parted presently at his outer gate and he was 
generous of thanks. 
" Four of us have joined up since I came back," 
he said as we shook hands. " Of course, I can't put it 
before 'em like truth ; but so soon as the chaps begin to 
scent out a bit what it means, the right sort go along." 
" And the wrong sort ? 
" They ain't no blank good whether or no," he said. 
" There's men down there who say to your face that 'tis 
all one to them whether Bill or (ieorge reigns over 'em. 
And you can't make 'em sse different. You can put 'em 
into khaki, of course, and get 'em a bit nearer to being 
men ; but there ain't no brains to work on." 
He limped off climbing the hill again ; and where 
the moors sank to amorplious masses of gloom under 
gatliering darkness, onr returned with imagination 
(piickened and an emotion of large satisfaction after the 
soldier's talk. 
For it echoed the mo\'ement at work in millions of 
youthful minds ; it promised the certainty that in 
measure of their intellect, the potei^.tial fathers of the 
race to come will face life after the war in a larger spirit, 
with heightened imderstanding and far wider \-ahies than 
of old. And that comprehension, like a dawn, is brighten- 
ing the eyes of all the Empire's children, now meeting in 
the flesh for the first time, and mingling in such sacred 
service for their common ^Mother, that henceforth, from 
])alm to pine, and pole to pole, must quicken a mightier 
spirit and throb a steadier heart. 
On the morning of this day I had read the biggest 
word on the subject that had yet appeared in a public 
print —a word of flame, well showing how once again 
the soul that inspires our Empire's self-governing colonics 
may be sought to breathe wisdom and the new life into 
the aged Motherland ; for in Canada, Australia, New 
Zealand and the Cape shall be found a Medea with en- 
chantments great enough to bring new youth to the 
I'nited Kingdom. IMr. Hughes, the Prime Minister of 
Australia, has been sworn a Member of the Canadian 
Privy Council and attended a meeting of the Cabinet — 
an event at once unparalleled in the chronicles of limpire 
and golden with infinite possibility. 
SORTES SHAKESPEARIANv^, 
By SIR SIDNEY LEE. 
THE KAISER. 
He hath iiu friends bul who arc friends 
for fear, 
Which in his greatest need tvi'l shrink 
from him. 
RICHARD HI., V. ii.. 201. 
THE VOTE OF CREDIT. 
The strongest castle, tciver cr tiivn, 
The go/den Inllcf ben's it dczvn. 
THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM, xix.. 29 30. 
TO THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. 
77iere are inore things in heaven and earth, 
Hora'io, 
Than are dreamt of in )our philosophy. 
HAMLET. L. v.. 165-7. 
