Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman's ire,
Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
Private Copper's father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
had studied under him. Five years' army service had somewhat blunted
Private Copper's pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory of
the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across
turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this
case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced
with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The
picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it
would have been an officer's command, moving as such. To-day it paid
casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper
of Irregular Horse, discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and
forthwith employed on odd jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a
bluish rock-strewn hill thinly fringed with brush atop, and remembering
how he had peered at Sussex conies through the edge of furze-clumps,
cautiously parted the dry stems before his face.
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