I have heard the music of the guns when our nation spoke in the stern tones of battle to a nation in arms; I have heard the crash of tempests on Southern coasts when ships were reeling in the breath of the blast, and souls to their God were going; I have crouched low in my saddle when the tornado has swept trees from the forest as a boy brushes flowers with his footsteps.  But never had I heard a sound like that.  It was the voice of millions, it was the great heart-beats of a mighty nation, it was a welcome and a warning—­a welcome to the descendants of the ’prentice lads of Old London, a warning to the world.  I caught the echoes in my hands, I hugged them to my heart, I let them pour into my brain, and this is the tale they told:  “Sluggish we are, ye people, slow to wake, strong in the strength of conscious might.  Jibe at us, jeer at us, flout us and threaten us; but beware the day we turn in our strength.  We have sent forth a few of our children, but they were but as a drop in the ocean.  All Britain sent two hundred and fifty thousand strong men to Africa; London, if need be, can send five hundred thousand more to the uttermost parts of the earth.  Aye, and when they have died, as these would have died if need be, we can open our hearts and send five hundred thousand more, and yet be strong for our home fighting.”  It was a nation speaking to the nations, and that is the tale it told.  Let the nations take heed and beware, for the language was the language of truth.

I listened; and lo! through the storm of cheering, through the cries of women and the strong shouting of men in their prime, I caught another sound, a sound I knew and loved—­the sound of marching men.  Music hath charms to stir the blood and make men mad, but there is no music in all the earth like the trained tread of men who have marched to battle.  I knew the rhythm of that tread; I knew that the “boys” of Old London were coming, and my nostrils seemed filled with the fumes of fighting.  I looked again, and, saw them, hard faced, clean limbed, close set, as soldiers should be who have faced the storm and stress of war, as proud a band as Britain ever had, soldier and citizen both in one, fit to be a nation’s bulwark and a nation’s trust; and in the crowd around them there were a thousand thousand men as good, as game, as gritty, as they, for they were the children of the people, the men of the shop-counter, the men of the city office, the men of every artisan craft, the very vitals of London.  They had sprung from the womb of the city, and the city could give birth to a million more if need be.