What a bonnie morning that was, to be sure!  The sun was out, after some rainy days, and glad we all were to see it.  The land was sprayed with silver light; the air was as sweet and as soft and as warm as a baby’s breath.  And the cars seemed to leap forward, as if they, too, loved the day and the air.  They ate up the road.  They seemed to take hold of its long, smooth surface—­they are grand roads, over you, in France—­and reel it up in underneath their wheels as if it were a tape.

This time we did little stopping, no matter how good the reason looked.  We went hurtling through villages and towns we had not seen before.  Our horn and our siren shrieked a warning as we shot through.  And it seemed wrong.  They looked so peaceful and so quiet, did those French towns, on that summer’s morning!  Peaceful, aye, and languorous, after all the bustle and haste we had been seeing.  The houses were set in pretty encasements of bright foliage and they looked as though they had been painted against the background of the landscape with water colors.

It was hard to believe that war had passed that way.  It had; there were traces everywhere of its grim visitation.  But here its heavy hand had been laid lightly upon town and village.  It was as if a wave of poison gas of the sort the Germans brought into war had been turned aside by a friendly breeze, arising in the very nick of time.  Little harm had been done along the road we traveled.  But the thunder of the guns was always in our ears; we could hear the steady, throbbing rhythm of the cannon, muttering away to the north and east.

It was very warm, and so, after a time, as we passed through a village, someone—­Hogge, I think—­suggested that a bottle of ginger beer all around would not be amiss.  The idea seemed to be regarded as an excellent one, so Godfrey spoke to the chauffeur beside him, and we stopped.  We had not known, at first, that there were troops in town.  But there were—­Highlanders.  And they came swarming out.  I was recognized at once.

“Well, here’s old Harry Lauder!” cried one braw laddie.

“Come on, Harry—­gie us a song!” they shouted.  “Let’s have ‘Roamin’ in the Gloamin’, Harry!  Gie us the Bonnie Lassie!  We ha’ na’ heard ’The Laddies Who Fought and Won,’ Harry.  They tell us that’s a braw song!”

We were not really supposed to give any roadside concerts that day, but how was I to resist them?  So we pulled up into a tiny side street, just off the market square, and I sang several songs for them.  We saved time by not unlimbering the wee piano, and I sang, without accompaniment, standing up in the car.  But they seemed to be as well pleased as though I had had the orchestra of a big theater to support me, and all the accompaniments and trappings of the stage.  They were very loath to let me go, and I don’t know how much time we really saved by not giving our full and regular programme.  For, before I had done, they had me telling stories, too.  Captain Godfrey was smiling, but he was glancing at his watch too, and he nudged me, at last, and made me realize that it was time for us to go on, no matter how interesting it might be to stay.