Everyman's Land

								


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EVERYMAN'S LAND



          BY C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

                   AUTHOR OF


"The Lightning Conductor Discovers America,"

        "Lady Betty Across the Water,"

         "Set in Silver," Etc.



                Frontispiece



                A. L. BURT COMPANY


Publishers                                    New York


Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company

            COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY

          C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF

      TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,

          INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN


COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY

    TO ALL SOLDIERS WHO HAVE FOUGHT

    OR FIGHT FOR EVERYMAN'S LAND AND

    EVERYMAN'S RIGHT; AND TO THOSE

           WHO LOVE FRANCE

CHAPTER I

Padre, when you died, you left a message for me. You asked me to go on
writing, if I were in trouble, just as I used to write when you were on
earth. I used to "confess," and you used to advise. Also you used to
scold. How you used to scold! I am going to do now what you asked, in
that message.
I shall never forget how you packed me off to school at Brighton, and
Brian to Westward Ho! the year father died and left us to you--the most
troublesome legacy a poor bachelor parson ever had! I'd made up my mind
to hate England. Brian couldn't hate anything or anybody: dreamers don't
know how to hate: and I wanted to hate you for sending us there. I
wanted to be hated and misunderstood. I disguised myself as a Leprechaun
and sulked; but it didn't work where you were concerned. You understood
me as no one else ever could--or will, I believe. You taught me
something about life, and to see that people are much the same all over
the world, if you "take them by the heart."
You took me by the heart, and you held me by it, from the time I was
twelve till the time when you gave your life for your country. Ten
years! When I tell them over now, as a nun tells the beads of her
rosary, I realize what good years they were, and how their
goodness--with such goodness as I had in me to face them--came through
you.
Even after you died, you seemed to be near, with encouragement and
advice. Remembering how pleased you were, when I decided to train as a
nurse, added later to the sense of your nearness, because I felt you
would rejoice when I was able to be of real use. It was only after you
went that my work began to count, but I was sure you knew. I could hear
your voice say, "Good girl! Hurrah for you!" when I got the gold medal
for nursing the contagious cases; your dear old Irish voice, as it used