THE SIGNPOST
MOST Englishmen are doing today their particular duty, and he, impassively erect on a bank at the cross-roads, as stolidly English as English oak can make him, has his no less to perform and is steadfast in doing it.
For years in tireless discharge of his public function he has given to native and stranger on foot or on wheel with fitting gravity and stiff indicative arm information clear and emphatic—whether wanted or not.
But when word was passed that careless talk in public might, garnered by treacherous ears, be of use to the enemy, with patriot self-disregard he took instant precautions : and now—no sentry more close-lipped and wooden than he.
Alone on that long stretch of road alive to the danger, he notes with stern disapproval the chatter of birds and the insistent gossip and gush of a neighbouring stream— just as if, he complains to himself, there wasn't a war on.
So, steadfast in duty, the heart of him English and sound, he awaits, of its coming assured, the call to proclaim with bold black letters to a fear-freed world once more : " To Minehead two miles and a half—To Selworthy four."
W. G. HOLE.
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