The swaying trees and dark, grey houses of the ugly suburb of the town were all transfigured for a moment. The chapel door was closed, and from the chimney of the crematorium a faint blue smoke was issuing, which, by degrees, faded into the atmosphere, just as the soul, for all I know, may melt into the air. When the last stragglers had gone, and bits of paper scurried uneasily along before the wind, the world seemed empty, with nothing friendly in it, but the shoulder of Ben Lomond peeping out shyly over the Kilpatrick Hills. VI ELYSIUM THE Triad came into my life as I walked underneath the arch by which the sentinels sit in Olympian state upon their rather long-legged chargers, receiving, as is their due, the silent homage of the passing nurserymaids. The soldier in the middle was straight back from the front. The mud of Flanders clung to his boots and clothes. It was “deeched” into his skin, and round his eyes had left a stain so dark, it looked as if he had been painted for a theatrical make-up. Upon his puttees it had dried so thickly that you could scarcely see the folds. He bore upon his back his knapsack, carried his rifle in his hand all done up in a case, which gave it, as it seemed to me, a look of hidden power, making it more terrible to think of than if it had shone brightly in the sun. His water-bottle and a pack of some kind hung at his sides, and as he walked kept time to every step. Under his elbow protruded the shaft of something, perhaps an entrenching tool of some sort, or perhaps some weapon strange to civilians accustomed to the use of stick or umbrella as their only arm. In himself he seemed a walking arsenal, carrying his weapons and his baggage on his back, after the fashion of a Roman legionary. The man himself, before the hand of discipline had fashioned him to number something or another, must have looked fresh and youthful, not very different from a thousand others that in time of peace one sees in early morning going to fulfil one of those avocations without which no State can possibly endure, and yet are practically unknown to those who live in the vast stucco hives either of Belgravia or Mayfair. He may have been some five-and-twenty, and was a Londoner or a man from the home counties lying round about. His sunburnt face was yet not sunburnt as is the face of one accustomed to the weather all his life. Recent exposure had made his skin all feverish, and his blue eyes were fixed, as often are the eyes of sailors or frontiersmen after a long watch.