The Orduna brought us safe to the Mersey and we landed at Liverpool.  Even had there been no thought of danger to the ship, that voyage would have been a hard one for us to endure.  We never ceased thinking of John, longing for him and news of him.  It was near Christmas, but we had small hope that we should be able to see him on that day.

All through the voyage we were shut away from all news.  The wireless is silenced in time of war, save for such work as the government allows.  There is none of the free sending, from shore to ship, and ship to ship, of all the news of the world, such as one grows to welcome in time of peace.  And so, from New York until we neared the British coast, we brooded, all of us.  How fared it with Britain in the war?  Had the Hun launched some new and terrible attack?

[ILLUSTRATION:  “I did not stop at sending out my recruiting band.  I went out myself.”. (See Lauder02.jpg)]

But two days out from home we saw a sight to make us glad and end our brooding for a space.

“Eh, Harry—­come and look you!” someone called to me.  It was early in the morning, and there was a mist about us.

I went to the rail and looked in the direction I was told.  And there, rising suddenly out of the mist, shattering it, I saw great, gray ships—­warships—­British battleships and cruisers.  There they were, some of the great ships that are the steel wall around Britain that holds her safe.  My heart leaped with joy and pride at the sight of them, those great, gray guardians of the British shores, bulwarks of steel that fend all foemen from the rugged coast and the fair land that lies behind it.

Now we were safe, ourselves!  Who would not trust the British navy, after the great deeds it has done in this war?  For there, mind you, is the one force that has never failed.  The British navy has done what it set out to do.  It has kept command of the seas.  The submarines?  The tin fish?  They do not command the sea!  Have they kept Canada’s men, and America’s, from reaching France?

When we landed my first inquiry was for my son John.  He was well, and he was still in England, in training at Bedford with his regiment, the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders.  But it was as we had feared.  Our Christmas must be kept apart.  And so the day before Christmas found us back in our wee hoose on the Clyde, at Dunoon.  But we thought of little else but the laddie who was making ready to fight for us, and of the day, that was coming soon, when we should see him.

CHAPTER IV

It was a fitting place to train men for war, Bedford, where John was with his regiment, and where his mother and I went to see him so soon as we could after Christmas.  It is in the British midlands, but before the factory towns begin.  It is a pleasant, smiling country, farming country, mostly, with good roads, and fields that gave the boys chances to learn the work of digging trenches—­aye, and living in them afterward.