"What a country to write a border ballad in," I exclaimed. "It's a pity nothing ever happened here."
Helen's militant patriotism was up in arms at once. "If that isn't like your conceited British ignorance! Over there, not far from that clump of trees by the lake, is a little blockhouse that has a story of pioneer heroism equal to—well, to the bravery at the siege of Lucknow, and not many miles from here the battle of Lake Erie was fought. Perhaps your English history books don't mention that fight," she flung at me mischievously.
"That is naturally wasted on me, because I'm not English," I answered.
"Well, you've lived there all your life and learned some of their ways. You are American only in streaks—and I've heard you call England 'home.'"
"That's true," I replied. "It seems curious to me sometimes—almost a man without a country. But when I said nothing had happened in this big place we are sitting in—it feels like sitting in the centre of a circle thousands of miles in diameter—I was thinking of one of our little English counties, Hertfordshire, for example, where, in any village you choose, you'll find half the world has happened. There's St. Albans—with the old Norman abbey church of Roman bricks sitting high on the hill above the land on which Boadicea and her warriors held the legions at bay."
"Now I know you are a good American," she laughed.
"Why?"
"Because no Englishman is ever sentimental about England; it takes an American to be that."
She had undoubtedly scored a palpable hit. I dropped lecturing on English history.
"The others should be in sight by now," Helen said after a silence. I stood up and looked along the road. There was no trace of them to be seen.