May 9, 191 « 
Land 6i Water 
19 
Turfburj'. The morning papers came out with a list of the new 
V.C.s, and among the names was that of Corporal Green. 
I read the item over the breakfast-table. " For conspicuous 
bravery," so began the brief report, and then went on : 
.\11 others being killed or wounded. Green and his officer 
held the trench ior three hours against a large enemy force. 
In the late afternoon the officer fell wounded. Taking 
advantage of the darkness, though under heavy shrapnel 
fire. Green crawled out of the trench and bore the wounded 
officer into safety. He then returned, and brought out 
another wounded man. Going back a third lime, and 
finding all the other occupants of the trench dead, he brought 
back the machine-gun. Unfortunately, Green was himself 
wounded ne.vt day by a flying beam from a house struck 
by an enem\- shell, and is at present in hospital. 
It took some little time for this news to get home to our 
hearts, but when it finally did, something akin to a revolu- 
tion happened in our tiny borough. People who had never 
heard the name of Corporal Green until then, mysteriously 
discovered that he was one of their intimates. The quarry 
owner descended on his men in a frock coat and silk hat. 
and with a flag in his buttonhole ; called for three times 
three for the hero, and gave a day's holiday with full pay. 
Mine host of the "Fiddle and Trumpet" drew much custom 
b\' retailing s.tories of Jim's prowess as a pigeon-shooter 
(true) and of the innumerable pints he could take without 
effect (apocryphal). Mrs. Green, her confidence and her 
garrulousness alike restored, became a person of consequence, 
and her cottage was invaded by all sorts of well-wishers. 
When her portrait appeared in the local press. Lane's End 
felt itself exalted. Incidentally mentioning to the vicar 
that Jim was coming home next Wednesday week at three, 
that enthusiastic parson passed on the information, and 
Little Turfbury at once began preparations for receiving its 
gallant townsman in fine style. The corporation met in 
secret conclave and discussed whether or not the Freedom 
of the Borough should be conferred on the corporal, and the 
discussion only petered out when a distinguished alderman 
explained that the Freedom of the Borough meant freedom 
from all rates and taxes, which "he felt might, if conferred 
once, by setting up a precedent, mihtate in future against 
all disinterested heroism in the British Army." 
Up in hospital Corporal Green became the astonished 
recipient of many letters. His brow corrugated as he 
watched the pile on the little table grow. As a concession to 
public curiosity, he allowed the nurse to open and read one 
of them ; but, finding it to be from a stranger, he f^rusquely 
refused to allow the others to be opened. "He would 
take them home," he said, "where it would please the owd 
woman to read them," and the inquisitive nurse whisked 
herself away in a tantrum, remarking audibly "that though 
Corporal Green might be a brave man, he was a bear all 
the same." 
It was owing to these letters going unopened that Jim, 
on his way north, reached the jimction, where he changed 
trains for Little Turfbury, without the slightest inkling of 
the bands and banners and huzzas which were awaiting 
him on the platform there. An energetic reporter, athirst 
for news, and who boarded the waiting train at the junction, 
was the first to enlighteji him. He was a brisk young fellow, 
who prided himself on knowing how to deal with all sorts of 
men ; but. finding that he could get nothing out of his quarry 
than that he "had done nowt to talk about," began to 
tell of the doings at Little Turfbury in the hope of drawing 
his man by that means. 
For a time Jim listened with mouth agape and eyes ablaze. 
The reporter noticed the impression his words made, and 
began to congratulate himself on a glorious coqp ; he was 
getting at his man at last. Suddenly his hearer rose up 
and, without a wor.d, lurched out of the compartment. The 
brisk young newsman awaited his return in vain ; so also 
did the Mayor and Corporation of Little Turfbury. 
» ♦ ♦ » » 
The town clock was striking midnight when a haggard 
and weary man in khaki — who had extended the ten miles 
which lay between the junction and his home into fifteen, 
by choosing unfrequented paths — took the last turning into 
Lane's End. A well-known step outside the cottage and an 
excited whine within told his anxious mother who had 
arrived. She hastened to fling open the door. 
"Eh, but I'm right pleased to see ye, l^d ; whatever are 
ye doing so late ? " 
The corporal did not answer, but sat down heavily on the 
nearest chedr. Quick to notice that something was wrong, 
Mrs. Green busied herself with the supper-table ; she had 
learned by experience to bide her time. It was not till the 
meal was half over that he spoke. "I'm fair capped wi' 
yer, mother, letting them mayors and corporations make 
such fools o' themselves ! " was his first remark. 
" I couldn't help it, Jim ; I really couldn't. I tellcd 'em 
that ye didn't like fussing ower ; but they said as ye were 
a 'ero, and oughter be received as one." 
"I wish I had 'em all i' the trenches," he growled. "I ud 
give 'em summat to do better than flag-wagging and trumpet- 
blaring, that I ud." 
He bent over the supper-table again, but the birth-mark 
in his forehead stood out threateningly. Presently he pushed 
away his plate with his unwounded hand and looked around, 
his glance finally resting on the old worn face opposite. The 
look of yearning home-hunger whidh I have often detected in 
the eyes of war-wearied men from the front, came into those 
of Corporal Grim. He gulped in his throat, and hi hard 
face softened. 
" Mother, did ye ever kiss me when I was a babby ? " 
"Ay, lad, many and many and many a time." 
"Then kiss me now, mother ; and as for them mayors and 
corporations ..." 
Ah, yes, there were certainly unplumbed depths in the 
heart of Corporal Grim. 
The North Countrie : By H.R.S. 
\To t amble round th-- north countrie 
That is the life that pleases me. ... ' 
RATHER it was the life that pleased me. Now 
the pleasure is mainly retrospective. The con- 
flagration of world-war has lit up our Uttle lives, 
and in the face of an uncertain future memory 
resolves past time into a quick-moving kinema 
of tlie mind. The north countrie ! In its envisagenient real 
and ideal mingle. Childhood and youth are in the vague 
background, a dreamy timeless past, with a mother's angel 
prescience hovering near ; the setting — the grime of in- 
dustrial Newcastle, the resounding yards and workshops, 
the sheening Tyno. the lurid night-furnaces, booming buzzers, 
squalid streets, and scurrying trains, relieved by roving 
hours on Ravensworth's wooded slopes ; sunny days by the 
Browney at Bearpark in sight of Durham's Gothic towers ; 
holidays amid the bright greenery of the North Tyne, and 
the free breath of Gunnerton Crags. 
Sharply punctuated, like a note of exclamation, came my 
first thrill of inspiration. On the eve of the outbreak of 
the South African War, I heard the storm-voice on Windy 
Hill, roaring in the pines, spirit speaking to spirit amid the 
pauses of the storm. To me, as an event of sad and significant 
spiritual import, the South African War in retrospect stands 
out supreme. It seemed to reveal to me the deterioration 
of the old Enghsh spirit. In the neglected, almost forgotten. 
wealth, of North-Country history and literature, I found 
solace, and felt then, as now, the vague but ineffectual desire 
to voice the dormant sentiment of local patriotism. 
I have roved wide over Northumberland and Durham, 
contrasting the rural decadence of the one with the feverish 
exploitation, mining and industrial, of the other. In my 
origin I am linked with each, and have mused over each 
with an equal love. Northumberland ! County of castles, 
each on its green mound or rocky scaur, land of fell and 
mountain, stream and strath, glade and glen ; of the oak 
and the ash, and the bonnie birken tree of old Northumbrian 
song ; of the pipe's sweet strain and wild moorland muse ; 
of a once thousand happy and thriving hamlets, villages, and 
market towns ; of famous fairs ; wheat-laden valleys ; 
whirring windmill and clacking water-wheels ! Now, in 
comparison, a sylvan and pastoral solitude, lacking soul, but 
lovely and romantic still. On its mountain sides, its cleughs 
and crags, its sheep-walks and heathery wastes, I have marked 
its wild memorial flower — ^the bluebell — the chosen emblem 
of its sons, as the stanza of an old song suggests, and the 
sign of many an old Northumbrian wayside inn : 
Ask the shepherd.s who dwell on our wild heathy mountains. 
What flower has their favour, and, mark me, they'll tell, 
'Tis the flower that blooms brightest by forest and fountain. 
On moorland and meadow, the bonnie bluebell ! 
And Durham of the dismal present, a cloudy collieried land. 
