OUR- ENGLISH COLDNESS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 92, 11 January 1908, Page 10

OUR- ENGLISH COLDNESS.

.. , ; A TATHER, AND SON*, 7 I was at. a railway station awaiting the• arrival of a train of troops from the front.' 'I liapponed. to see-upon the platform an old -man, a member of.myiclub, a retired major. He, too, was awaiting the train; it' wag. bringing back to him,, his son, a young man who had gone out to the war as of extra--ordinary promise. He, the son, had fulfilled this promise iji an extraordinary .do-, gree; lie was an only Child, ..arid the sole., hope) for tlio perpetuation, of an, ancient, family—a family-, of whoso:" traditions "old Major' H-irf was singularly aware and- sin-!; gularly fond. At the attack upon, a kopje, or ill-fated memory,' the young, man, by" the explosion; of somb'shell', had had,'a'll.arm, .0110 leg,'and, one sido of'his.faco.completely blown .Yet, upon that railway, platform, I arid the old man chatted. :dway-very pleasantly,. AYe„ talked of the weather, of the crops, of the' latoncss of the 'traiu, and kept, as. it wero,. .both our minds .studiously averted from tho 'subject that \continuously, was present in, Tjotli our.r'mmds. Arid when., at last .tlio. crippled form of tho son Jot itself down from the train, all that happened was tho odd, unembarrassing chit-cli. of left hand, .to extended right—a hurried, shuffling shake, anc Major EH — said: —" . . "Hullo, Bob!" Ins , son — Hullo, . Governor!" And nothing more. : . It was a tiling that must have happened, 'day' in, day out, all. over .these .wonderful islands; but that a nice'.should, trained itself to such a wonderful repression is nono tho loss worthy of wonder.—From Ford Madox Iluelfer's " Spirit of tho People."