February 1. We are living on, as best we may, through cold and thaw and cold again. The horror of that January night, when human beings and birds wakened, with fear dropping from the sky, when innocent women and children were killed by bombs from German Zeppelins, lingers and grows deeper. The tension was greatest for those who could not hear what the birds heard, but listened to the great outcry of blackbirds, pheasants, and other winged things, to the loud cawing of the rooks, and wondered and waited in nameless anguish. There seems to be no refuge in earth or sky or sea. Can this world of shot and shell and conquering chemicals be that world that was so beautiful, and that suddenly seemed so strangely safe when you came into my life?
March 10. Such days of excitement and of strain! My little house has performed its supreme service,—has sheltered a body, while the soul was going out.
It began three days ago; I was walking down the village street with Don at my heels, when I noticed a large touring car at the Inn, with a group of people very much excited, gesticulating and talking with a vehemence that usually means Latin blood. Mine hostess of the Inn was running to and from the car with bottles and flannel cloths; turpentine on warm flannel is her cure for every human ailment. Then I saw in the car an old, old lady—quite ill, evidently—leaning heavily on the shoulder of a younger woman. I shall not soon forget the look of that grey-white face under the snow-white hair and black widow's bonnet, set in a group of strange faces, among which I remember one of a little boy, watching breathlessly with his mouth wide open, and a smaller girl, staring apathetically with her eyes full of tears that looked as if they had long been there. I did not need to be told that this oddly-assorted set of people were refugees. I had seen too many utter strangers, from diverse surroundings, hastily gathered together, clad in velvet, clad in rags, to share one suffering.
I found that they were being taken from London, where they had been cared z many weeks, to different destinations in the northern counties, but the man in charge had evidently lost his way and was making an unnecessary detour toward the coast. He could not speak their language, nor they his, and he seemed entirely at a loss in this dilemma. Oh, the loneliness, and the desolation, and the bitter shame of it all!
"The old lady's took ill, of a sudden, 'm," said the landlady, stopping her little trot near me.
I asked the younger woman, whose face was very kindly, if this was her mother, but she shook her head.
"I don't know who she is; I never saw her until we started."
Then I begged and pleaded; the chauffeur looked greatly relieved, and so did mine hostess, though she remonstrated that it would be quite too much for me.
"Are you sure, Miss, that you want her? We don't know what it is; it may be contagious."
"I don't care what it is!" I said so suddenly that Don barked out; there was a little feeling of joy within me at the thought that there might be danger; it is hard to be shut out from the great danger that circles the world.