A sigh shuddered through the crowd, and, with a
sob in his voice, Winton said: 'God help us all.'
I close my eyes and see it all again. The waving crowd of dark-faced
men, the plunging horses, and, high up beside the driver, the swaying,
smiling, waving figure, and about all the mountains, framing the picture
with their dark sides and white peaks tipped with the gold of the rising
sun. It is a picture I love to look upon, albeit it calls up another
that I can never see but through tears.
I look across a strip of ever-widening water, at a group of men upon the
wharf, standing with heads uncovered, every man a hero, though not a man
of them suspects it, least of all the man who stands in front, strong,
resolute, self-conquered. And, gazing long, I think I see him turn again
to his place among the men of the mountains, not forgetting, but every
day remembering the great love that came to him, and remembering, too,
that love is not all. It is then the tears come.
But for that picture two of us at least are better men to-day.
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