“No! I want to cry out! I want to shout the shameful wrong from the house-tops! Indeed, it 179 is flying all over England and Scotland––over all the civilized world! And yet––my God! the guilty ones are still living!”
“Coll, my dear one, what is it thou most needs––cold water?”
“No! No! Get me a pot of hot tea.[*] My brain burns. My heart is like to break! Our poor brave soldiers! They are dying of hunger and of every form of shameful neglect. The barest necessities of life are denied them.”
The Norsemen of Shetland and Orkney drank tea in every kind of need or crisis. No meal without it, no pleasure without it; and it was equally indispensable in every kind of trouble or fatigue.
“By whom? By whom, Coll?”
“Pacifists in power and office everywhere! Give me a drink! Give me a drink! I am ill––get me tea––and I will tell thee.”
There was boiling water on the kitchen hob, and the tea was ready in five minutes. “Drink, dear Coll,” said Rahal, “and then share thy trouble and anger with me. The mail packet brought the bad news, I suppose?”