Tell England | Page 2

of your
schooldays, and describe your thoughts as they happened, and you will
unconsciously reveal what sort of scoundrelly characters you and your
friends were. And when you get to the Gallipoli part, well, you can give
us chiefly your thoughts, for Gallipoli, as far as dramatic incident is
concerned, is well able to shift for itself."
Little wonder that I was fascinated to read Rupert's final manuscript.
And, when I had finished the last words, I announced aloud a weighty
decision: "We must have a Prologue, Rupert,"--though, to be sure, my
study was empty at the time--"and it must give pictures of what your
three heroes were like, when they were small, abominable boys."
And thereafter I busied myself in seeking information of the early
childhood of Rupert Ray, Archibald Pennybet, and Edgar Gray Doe.
Not without misgiving do I offer the result of these researches, for I
fear all the time lest my self-conscious hand should profane Rupert's
artless narrative.
In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the
swallows fly away. Colonel Ray was a stately, grey-bearded
grandfather; and Rupert his flushed and blue-eyed grandson of six
years old; and the two stood side by side and watched. Behind them lay
the French town, Boulogne; beside them went the waters of the French
river, the Liane. Suddenly Rupert, who had kept his blue eyes on a sky

but little bluer, cried out excitedly: "There they are!" For him at that
moment the most interesting thing in the world was the flight of
swallows overhead. The Colonel, also, looked at the birds till they were
out of sight, and then, after keeping silence awhile, uttered a remark
which was rather sent in pursuit of the birds than addressed to his
young companion. "I shall not see the swallows again," he said.
Colonel Rupert Ray was no ordinary person. He was one of those of
whom tales are told; and such people are never ordinary. The most
treasured of these tales is the story of the swallows; and it goes on to
tell, as you would expect, how the Colonel died that year, before the
swallows came flying north and home again. He was buried, while little
Rupert and Rupert's mother looked on, in that untidy corner of the
Boulogne Cemetery, where many another English half-pay officer had
been laid before him.
Of course the burial of the Colonel was very sad for Rupert; but he
soon forgot it all in the excitement of preparing for the journey back to
London. The Colonel, you see, had known that his old life would break
up soon, and had summoned from their home in London the widow and
child of his favourite son, "that Rupert, the best of the lot," as he used
to call him. And now the Colonel was dead. So his grandson, the last of
the Rupert Rays, could look forward to all the jolly thrills of steaming
across the Channel to Folkestone and bowling in a train to London.
Really life was an excellent thing.
The day of the venturesome voyage began with excited sleeplessness
and glowing health, and ended with a headache and great tiredness.
There was the bustle of embarkation on to the boat; the rattle and bang
of falling luggage; the jangle of French and English tongues; the
unstraining of mighty ropes; the "hoot! hoot!" from the funnel, a
side-splitting incident; the _suff-suff-lap-suff_ of the ploughed-up sea;
the spray of the Channel, which sprinkling one's cheeks, caused one to
roar with laughter, till more moderation was enjoined; the incessant
throb of the engines; the vision of white cliffs, and the excitement
among the passengers; the headache; the landing on a black old pier;
the privilege of guarding the luggage by sitting upon as much of one
trunk as six years' growth of boy will cover, and pressing firmly upon
two other trunks with either hand, while Mrs. Ray (that capable lady)
changed francs into shillings; there was the wearisome and rolling

train-journey, wherein one slept, first against the window and then
against the black sleeve of an unknown gentleman; and lastly there was
the realisation that pale and sunny France had withdrawn into the past
to make room for pale and smutty London.
Now the Captain of all these manoeuvres, as the meanest intelligence
will have observed, was Mrs. Ray. Mrs. Ray was Rupert's mother, and
as beautiful as every mother must be, who has an only son, and is a
widow. Moreover she was a perfect teller of stories: all really beautiful
mothers are. And, for years after, she used at evening time to draw
young Rupert against her knees, and tell him the traditional stories of
that old half-pay officer at Boulogne. And grandfather was indeed a
hero in