PRO PATRIA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7367, 21 January 1902, Page 4

PRO PATRIA.

(By Edgar Wallaoe in the Daily Mail.) Hallo, what is this ? The horse will be glad of a rest, so I dismount and loosen his girths and knee-halter him seourely to sse what attracted my attention. It is a little cairn. There are not many loose boulders in the vicinity, and very few stones, and the material for the oairn mu'pfc have been brought with gome pains from a distance by those who made it. Dull, red stones they are, and have been long enough in their present position to allow a little green creeping weed to throw one slender tendril up one side of the ground and halfway down the other. And there are some wild flowers, too, growing among the stone 3. Green slips tipped with magenta, sprawling ground creep3r starred with tiny whit 9 flowers. Shoots of maize already a foot high, snd swajing to every vagary of the soft windsSomebody's grave. And two pieces of biscuit box have been nailed together to form a cross, on which the maker has evidently started to carve the name, but, being pressed for time or the rude tool failing, finished off the inscription with black lead pencil. 'Pte. J. L ' ±tain and dust have obliterated the hastily-written pencilled letters, but on the lower part of the upright, and protected from the elements by a larger stone, evidently placed to give stability to the symbol, is written in pencil, 1 for king and country.' So Pte. J. L , whoever he was, has died for King and Country. Did he know it, I wonder, and did the writer of the epitaph realise at all the significance of the inscription? Perhaps he didu't. It may have been a line from some musichall ballad — such a one as may be heard at any hall being addressed j to the sentimental artisan. A trite little phrase, but perfectly descriptive of the passing of " him beneath the hastily-gathered stones. Hackneyed, heroic, and threadbare pathos, tawdry from long dwelling amid tinsel and grease paint, smelling of the very orange peel at the pit door, but raised to its proper dignity by fitting application. So, here you are, and this is the end of all things, Private J. L , whosoever you were, yokel or cockney sharp, ne'er-do-well or gentleman. This is not the end you pictured — if, indeed, your mind ever ran on the Great Finality. Poor tool, broken in the fashioning of Empire, and laid aside for ever. Do the great ones of the earth, who shall go down to posterity as Empire-makers, who shall shine in the pages of history because of this work you have done — do these know i your work, divine your worth, and place you at your true . valuation ? I wonder, as I replace the stone, and force upright the drooping cross, how many lines of history you deserve, you poor unit, who died for King and Country. How many hearts lie buried here, broken and crushed, and mangled for King and Country 1 I know how you died — uncomplaining, undoubting the wisdom of God, half wondering, perhaps, why no presentiment of your death had come to you, and strangely curious through all. 1 have seen your like, and the death they died. '

I could not wish you a ref-ting place more fitting. Nature is silent hereabouts. God's Sanctuary, where world noires are hushed and the circling hills are giants linked hand in hand to keep back tbe crush and the fret and the hurry of life. Sleep ? well, brother, There are those who [ will not forget who are the real! Empire-makerp. I almost envy you j this victorious quiet, this splendid rest. No mausoleum of polished granite, no sculptured stone, no graven praise, no tablet in the dim chancel. For you, no churchyard | by familiar lanes. Day breaks and j night fall, and no hoof fall breaks the silence. The west glows and sleeps ; the easfe quickens and pal- s. Hesperus becomes Lucifer, and only the wheeling hawk looks den n upon the little red mound beneath which lies this Private J. L , this maker of Emp-re.