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and over and over again I erashed through the film of ice which covered the ruts, stumbled, and fell. My friend dragged me up and urged me on. On we went again. My condition grew worse and worse. Presently we came to a part of the country where the landscape was entirely different from the country through which we had passed. Sometimes for about half a mile our way led through forest aisles, with tall and ghostly rows of pine and fir trees on either side.

A mixture of sleet and snow beat in our faces and froze on our hats and overcoats. Over and over again I sank down amidst the snow on the wayside, was helped up again by my friend, struggled on twenty or thirty yards, and fell down again, to repeat the same procedure a hundred times. The country grew wilder, and opened out into expanses of heath partially covered with stunted shrubs.

We came to four crossreads, and chose one of them, after frequent consultations of the compass, but soon found, after we had gone about half a mile, that it led on to a wild and snow-covered desolate heath, which Keith was certain he had not crossed on

his former escape. Seeing that his former escape had been undertaken in the spring, when the appearance of the country was entirely different, his ability in routefinding, with snow on the ground, and on such a night

as this, I regard as nothing short of marvellous.

By this time, about halfpast two in the morning-we had been tramping almost continuously since seven-I had to confess that I was "done." I was completely exhausted. He helped me back to the edge of the forest and bedded me on some broken twigs in the gloom of the pine trees, while he went back to the oross-roads in order to see, with our last match, whether he could disoover where we had gone wrong. I lay there motionless, with mingled feelings of disgust, heart-breaking disappointment, and an intense longing for sleep. How long I lay there I do not know. Keith returned after a time, and, as he told me later, thought I had died while he was away. He examined my pulse, and told me later that it was hardly perceptible, and very very slow.

Feeling that he ought to have the best possible chance, I pleaded with him to leave me there and go on alone. He would not hear of this, and turned down all my arguments. He helped me on to my feet and practically dragged me back to the crossroads, carrying my rucksack as well as his own. There I sank into the snow again. He pointed out to me the road we should have taken; but we both realised that it was out of the question for us to go on, and we decided, after a short consultation, to return to a rickety straw-shed

which we had noticed near a farm, at a distance of about three miles from Haltern. It consisted of a straw - rick, covered by an open leaky roof supported by four cornerposts.

We chose the road which we thought was the right one, and painfully made our way along its deeply - rutted surface for a considerable distance, only to discover that it led us into unfamiliar country. We were wrong again. There was nothing for it but to retrace our steps. By this time my eyes were beginning to play me tricks, and I dimly remember swearing most volubly not usually one of my many faults as the thought came over me of all that our failure at the last lap would mean. Still, as I have often thought since, whenever, while in jail, we had indulged in calculations of our chances, we had always been most firmly of the opinion that we should have no prospect of success in attempting to cross the frontier when the landscape was white with snow. Two dark moving bodies on a white surface would present an ideal target for the frontier guards. Our plans also necessarily involved our spending a full day from dawn till dusk -lying out in the open, and, unsatisfactorily furnished as we were with food and clothing, and with nothing in the way of stimulants, it is an open question whether we should have survived such an ordeal in our then state of health, or whether we

should have been compelled, nearer the goal, to crawl to some habitation and give our. selves up to the people there. The gall, however, that tasted so bitterly at the time, was the thought that my breakdown had deprived the two of us of a sporting chance. I felt keenly for my friend, and my readers will place their own value upon the splendid way in which he stood by his chum.

To return: we found that we had gone wrong, and there was no alternative but to retrace our steps to the crossroads. I am not quite sure, but I believe we took another wrong turning before we eventually struck the right road, and then, proceeding wearily along it, we came to the first cottage. We tried half-heartedly to knock up the people there, but receiving no response, I stumbled along, helped by Keith, to the straw-rick, which was our real objective. By means of a rickety ladder, two of whose rungs broke when we tried to use them, we climbed up into the straw, and all that I remember is lying there, convulsed every three or four seconds throughout the long night with shivers which shook every nerve in my body, constantly wet by the dripping snow from the roof, and too exhausted even to be able to oover myself with the straw which lay around me.

We got through the night somehow or other, and at about six or seven in the morning, heard below us the noise of some one walking in the farm

be folly to attempt to lie up the whole day, in the condition in which I still found myself; and as we walked along the highroad, through beautiful snow-covered country, we discussed plans, and decided that we would return to Haltern Station and take tickets for 8 certain town in another part of Germany, where I thought we might be able to find a hiding-place, with a view to our lying up there until the snow had disappeared and I had completely recovered. Had fortune favoured us in carrying out this plan, we should, at a later date, have emerged from our hiding - place, and made another dash for the frontier. In spite of our heartbreaking disappointments, and our very slim chances of ultimate success, I was glad to be free, and remember how, with a feeling of intense gratitude, I walked along that country road, with pine-woods on either side crowning the snow-covered slopes; how my heart leapt at the sight of an occasional robin-red breast, and how gladdened I felt at the sound of children's laughter. We got through the village safely, and arrived at the station. There we took tickets for a certain town, and as we were passing through the barrier, my friend asked the ticket-collector from which platform the train left. The man looked at us and said. quite quietly

yard. Keith climbed down
the ladder and went to the
farmhouse, to inform the people
that we were two young Ger-
mans who had lost our way
the previous night on the snow-
covered heath, and had been
forced to take refuge in their
straw-rick. He came back
shortly afterwards with the
welcome news that the farmer's
wife had requested him to take
me into the kitchen, where we
might sit by the fire and drink
a cup of coffee which she would
prepare for us. Painfully, and
still trembling in every limb, I
managed to climb down the
ladder and hobble into the
house. The goodwife and her
young son and daughters re-
ceived us quite kindly, and
although we remained there
more than an hour, and drank
and ate the things they pro-
vided for us, they never seemed
to doubt our story that we
were Germans, who were not
in the army because we were
physically unfit for military
service. The old lady told us
of her soldier son, and when we
left in order to return to
Haltern Station, we paid her
for the food, and for any
damage for which we might
have been responsible. I left
Captain König's 'Voyage of
the Deutschland' with the
eldest daughter. I have often
wondered since whether I shall
ever have an opportunity of
meeting these kind people
again, and telling them the
true story which lay behind
that little incident.

I was feeling better, thanks perhaps to the coffee and food, but I recognised that it would

VOL. CCIV.—NO. MCCXXXIII.

"From over there, gentlemen! But you have time enough. You have more than ten minutes to spare. Why

I

not go into the waiting-room? waiter had time to bring our You will be notified of the departure of the train."

"Thank you," we said, and turned to walk to the waitingroom, which, as soon as we entered, we discovered was not only the station buffet, but also the Army Headquarters for the village. A tall Lieutenant, in the smart green uniform of a Prussian Jäger Regiment, stood near the buffet, and, as we ordered coffee, we noticed to our dismay that the ticket-collector had followed us into the room and was engaged in conversation with the Lieutenant. They glanced several times in our direction, and before the

coffee, the Lieutenant came up to us, and, putting his hands on the table, and leaning over, said

"Wo kommen Sie her? Wo sind Ihre Papiere? (Where do you come from? Where are your papers?)

We looked at each other, made a sorry attempt to smile, saw in each other's eyes recognition of the fact that the game was up, and that bluff would serve us no longer. We admitted our identity.

"Corporal, take these two men across to the Guardroom!"

Failed again!

(To be continued.)

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THE MRS GUMMIDGE OF THE EMPIRE-THE IRISH REBELLION-WHAT THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS IRELAND'S TRUE GRIEVANCE A BORN PARLIAMENTARIAN-MR HERBERT FISHER'S BILL THE FUTURE OF THE "YOUNG PERSON "-THE SOUL OF THE NATION DESTROYED-MILITARY

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THE Irish, we are told, are always busily engaged in nursing a grievance. What that grievance is they have doubtless forgotten. It is some two centuries old, and was long ago atoned for. But there are some to whom the vague consciousness of a grievance is a necessity of life, and the Irish will doubtless enfeeble their mind and purpose by assuming an injury until the end of time. It matters not to them that the pretence of bearing an imaginary wrong with impatience is the plain mark of inferiority. If for a moment they were willing to renounce their love of complaint, they would be instantly recalled to their duty by a set of raucous agitators.

And though Ireland plays her chosen part as the Mrs Gummidge of the Empire-"I am a lone, lorn creetur, and everythink goes contrairy with me"-the British Government, in which Ireland has more than her fair share, with the generous gesture of Mr Peggotty, overwhelms her with benefits. Do her citizens want land? Millions

DRILL-THE REAL AIM

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

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are forthcoming from the British taxpayer, and Ireland, which always keeps an eye upon the main chance, accepts what is given her with a curse. "When we were not appealing to the British Government," says Mr George Russell (A.E.), we were not idle with our prayers in other quarters. . . . We appealed to God, humanity, the United States, the Colonies, for pity, for sympathy, for dollars. We warned America that if she did not come to our rescue our national aspirations would die out, and the responsibility would be on her shoulders. One felt ashamed of the name of Irishman in the midst of all these tearful supplications. I received a letter once from an American friend who expressed a view which grows more and more popular in his country. Can't the Irish people do something except beg? Can they do nothing for themselves? Their policy isn't manly, and when I think of Joan of Arc I feel it isn't even womanly." They can do one other thing than beg: they can rebel when England is at war, and thus hamper

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