Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/164

152 How long, how long ago it was since I stood looking at that pallid body going with its heroic message of England expects every man to do his duty up to … Where? Somewhere where the pallid bodies of heroes, who have fought the fight and done that duty well, are taken by soft hands and laid in the quiet of the Eternal Fields.—And how I used to think that, in some simple way, although it seemed so vague and unreal, that body was my body and that duty well done was my duty, and this small child here, with eyes half-brimmed with tears, so saw the final requiem of its own manhood, the seal of death with which it had sealed life, the fight well fought, the duty well done, and the pallid body taken by soft hands and laid in the quiet of the Eternal Fields.It is all changed now!

I turned from it with the lump of tears in my throat and went out into the air, and away. And I thought in this wise: that the dreams of boyhood are for boyhood and are sweet, while the sights of manhood are for manhood and are bitter: and, that it is given to many to desire the well-fought fight and the well-done duty and the tender progress to the quiet of the Eternal Fields, but that few, the dwindling sacred few, achieve to it: and that it is very hard to learn this simple lesson, that I, this me, this only real existence that I know in Space and Time and Life, is one of the many.

As I slowly climbed up the hill, I noted the old tree in the middle of the path, against which I, dizzy and faint from the pernicious tobacco smoke inhaled in the shade of a gnarly oak while the small gentle deer fed round me, leant full of the nausea of this wretchedness, resolute never to incur it again! Then I came in sight of the haunted house, darksome abode of awe and wonder. Then there was the field on the brow of which I had lain with Wallace, playing some game at 'chuck' with clasp-knives, looking at times out over the dark, silver-twining Thames, and dusky, far-stretching London; till one unlucky throw of his spiked my hand (here is the scar on my right thumb still), and how I insisted that there was not the end of chuck for the day!

It is all changed now, the field in which we played