In those few weeks after the declaration of war it spread and throve over all England. It made Life still worth living, and well worth living, for thousands of anxious sweethearts, and of mothers giving only sons for their country, and of wives who missed closest comrades, and of young widows who had but lately been made brides.
It inspired, through the girl he left behind him, the man who went to war; and thus its influence became part of that subtle but crucial thing which is known as the Moral of an Army, and of an Empire and of a Civilisation.
It was, as Leslie Long, the lover of quotations, often quoted to herself in those days:
"The Voice to Kingly boys
To lift them through the fight;
And comfortress of Unsuccess
To give the dead Good-night.
"A rule to trick the arithmetic
Too base of leaguing odds,
The spur of trust, the curb of lust,
The hand-maid of the gods."
Little Gwenna, the wife who had been left at the church door, took all the help that Spirit gave her.
Two days after her wedding her Uncle Hugh went back to the slate-roofed village that was wedged between those steep, larch-grown Welch hills. But, though his niece found that this "dreat-ful" old man could be all that was gentle and kind for her, she refused to go home, as he begged her, with him.
She said she must live somewhere where she could "see a little bit of what was going on." She must have some work, real work, to fill her time. She thanked him; she would let him know directly she felt she could come down to Wales. But just now, please, she wanted nothing but to get back to Mrs. Crewe, her Aeroplane Lady at the Works. She'd go back just as if nothing had happened.
She returned, to find changes at that Aircraft Factory.