“I'm only a humble student,” said the poet. “Think what we've learnt in a hundred years. That little Devil, who rode across Europe killing an' burning an' spreading terror until they stopped him at Waterloo, he taught us a great lesson. He made us hate war, and that was the beginning o' the end of it. There were to be other wars, but they have been steps only in the conquest of Peace.”
“And there will be no more war?” I queried.
“Yes; but the learned races will put an end to it by and by,” he went on. “The upper classes have all learnt their lesson—they know too much. We know suthin' 'bout war here in Faraway. Let me tell ye a story.”
The old poet sat on a rock near, and began this little epic of the countryside:
