"I address myself to the women in this room. . . . With you the last word lies, as it rightly should. It is to you that husband, son, brother, wooer, will turn for the deciding voice to say, 'Go, help to save England—and may God prosper and guard you'; because it is your heart that makes the sacrifice, as it is your image the man will carry away with him; because the England he goes to defend shapes itself in his mind as 'home,' as the one most sacred spot, though it be but a cottage, in which his imagination or his memory installs you as queen; in which your presence reigns, or is to reign.
"Do you realise your strength, O ye women? . . . The age of chivalry is not dead. Nothing so noble that has once so nobly taken hold of men's minds can ever die, though the form of it may change. Now the doctrine of chivalry was this, for the Man and the Woman—
"For the man, that every true soldier went forth as a knight:"
'And no quarrell a knight he ought to take
But for a Truth or for a Woman's sake.'
"And our soldiers to-day fight for both: for the truth that Right is better than Might, and for the sake of every woman who reigns or shall reign in an English home; that not only shall she be safeguarded from the satyr and the violator, but that she shall be secured in every inch of dignity she has known in our days; as queen at the hearth where her children obey her, and in her doorway to which the merchants of all the earth bring their wares.
"For the Woman, chivalry taught that she, who cannot herself fight, is always the Queen of Tournay, the president of the quarrel, the arbitress between the righteous and the unrighteous cause, the dispenser of reward to him who fights the good fight. . . . So, and as each one of you is the braver to speak the word—'Go, though it break my heart: and God bring you safely home to me!'—she shall with the heavenlier right tender her true soldier his crown when he returns and kneels for a blessing on his victory."
When the speeches were ended and Farmer Best arose to invite intending recruits to step up to the platform, Mr Boult had an unhappy inspiration. "If you'll excuse me, Mr Chairman," he suggested, "there's a way that I tried this day week in Holloway with great effect. . . . I take out my watch an' count ten, very slowly, giving the young men the chance who shall rush up before the counting is over. It acted famously at Holloway."
"Oh, very well," said Farmer Best doubtfully, taken off his guard.
"The gen'leman from London," he announced, "will count ten slowly,
an' we're to watch out what happens. He says it acted very well at
Holloway last week."
On the instant, as Mr Boult drew out his watch, the audience hushed itself, as for a conjuring seance. Mr Hambly passed a hand over his brow, and sighed.
"One—two—three—" counted Mr Boult, and a mortuary silence descended on all.