Page:Armistice Day.djvu/193

Rh at the foot of the Cenotaph. The mother behind me sobbed afresh, for the King for whom he had died had laid a wreath upon the tomb of her boy!

Then the bells of all the churches in London seemed to break loose from guiding hands and began to ring out riotously, madly. There was a suggestion of hysterical emotion. I was struck by their effect on the expression of a tall fellow in the front line of the crowd. He wore a monocle and stared and stared. I fancied he was living again—as were thousands of others there—one August night in Trafalgar Square. The bells of all London were ringing wildly like this and within the heart of all England wild alarums were ringing too. War! There was the thrill—fierce, sickening, exultant, resolute, all in the same breath—that comes but once. "To arms!" had clanged, clamored, jangled the bells of all London until the very air seemed to reel drunkenly. And how they flocked to the standards—several hundred thousand strong! The victory seemed so easy, so near!...

The bells of all London stopped ringing one by one.

The preliminary chimes of the Abbey fall solitary upon the silence. Big Ben and the bells near and far blend solemnly in their last strokes of the hour. There is a sharp interval. Then the