Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/176

 At this critical conjuncture, an old man stepped forth from the British side. He was the senior in years in his regiment, and was looked up to accordingly. Walking up to the dividing line, which was there still clearly cut in the primitive sod, he stood across it, and stretching his arms to both sides cried out, in a strong clear voice, intensified by evident emotion, "The Old Mother's call is to all her children."

The effect was electrical. The soldiers on either side at once rushed forward to the common boundary, where, throwing down their arms in an indiscriminate heap, they each cordially grasped the other's hand. All danger was thenceforth at an end; and in the subsequent official arrangements each side seemed only to vie with the other in yielding, to the now recognized common brotherhood, the points upon which they had before so seriously differed.

The Club, in the wide generality of its use, was specially a nineteenth-century feature of our town life. But the twentieth century had not only kept up, but even much extended and improved the club features of its predecessor. Not only was our country's population greatly increased, but, from the circumstances first alluded to, the proportions of its educated, well-mannered, clubbable element, were of necessity increased in a much greater ratio. While the clubs of that time took a great membership extension, together with accompanying palatial