“31st January. This evening was full of the walking tour spirit, the spirit of good company. We were billeted at a farmhouse, and the farmer showed Captain Dixon and me all round his farm. He was full of pride in everything; of his horses first of all. There were three in the first stable, sleek and strong; then we saw _la mère_, a beautiful mare in foal; then lastly there was ‘Piccaninny,’ a yearling. All the stables were spotlessly clean, and the animals well kept. But to see him with his lambs was best of all. The ewes were feeding from racks that ran all along both sides of the sheds, and his lantern showed two long rows of level backs, solid and uniform and dull; while in the middle of the shed was a jocund company of close-cropped lambs, frisking, pushing, jostling, or pulling at their dams; as lively and naughty a crew as you could imagine. ‘Ah! _voleur_,’ cried our friend, picking up a lamb that was stealing a drink from the wrong tap, and pointing to its dam at the other end of the shed; he fondled and stroked it like a puppy, making us hold it, and assuring us it was not _méchant_! At 7.0 we had our dinner in the kitchen. The farmer, his wife, and the _domestique_ (a manservant, whose history I will tell in a few minutes) had just finished, and were going to clear off; but we asked them to stay and let us drink their health in whiskey and soda. The farmer said this was wont to make the _domestique_ go ‘zigzag’; for himself, he would drink, not for the inherent pleasure of the whiskey, which was a strong drink to which he was unused, he being of the land of light wines, but to give us pleasure! So the usual healths were given in Old Orkney and Perrier. Then we were told the history of the _domestique_, which brought one very close to the spirit in which France is fighting. He had eight children in Peronne, barely ten miles the other side of the line. Called up in September, 1914, he was in the trenches until March, 1915, when he was released on account of his eight children. But by then the living line had set between them in steel and blood, and never a word yet has he heard of his wife and eight children, the youngest of whom he left nine days old! There are times when our cause seems clouded with false motives; but there seemed no doubt on this score to-night, as we watched this man in his own land, creeping up, as it were, as near as possible to his wife and children and home, and yet barred from his own village, and without the knowledge even that his own dear ones were alive. The farmer told us he had gone half crazed. Yet he had a fine face, though furrowed with deep lines down his forehead. ‘Ten minutes in the yard with the Germans--ah! what would he do!’ And vividly he drew his hand across his throat. But the Germans would never go back: that was another of his opinions. No wonder he told us he doubted the _bon Dieu_: no wonder he sometimes went zigzag.