"A very shifty fellow, Pomfret, with a face the colour of skilly. He licks your boots. I wouldn't let him black mine. By the way, I've promised Habakkuk Mucklow half-a-sovereign for every cove he collars."
"That we should have come to such a pass!"
"Light a fresh cigar, and we'll go to the stables. When I'm fed up with mankind, I always take a squint at my gees."
"So do I, Davenant. But they'll have to go, too."
"Mine are ready for 'em."
This talk took place in mid-September, at a moment when an astrologer, doing a roaring trade not far from Piccadilly Circus, predicted confidently that the final disappearance of the All-Highest would take place upon the twenty-fifth day of October, 1914! Many believed him. And the mere sight of our splendid regulars route-marching over country roads, singing "Tipperary" as they swung along, deepened in the hearts of those who beheld them the conviction that French's Army was quite sufficient to stem the Hun tide, and, later on, sweep it back to Berlin. The pacifist press was widely read by men who had never looked at a newspaper before.
Unspeakable atrocities had begun in prostrate Belgium. Some refused to credit them. Others shrugged their shoulders and remarked blandly that war was not five o'clock tea. Out of the seething mass of contradictions, affirmations, exaggerations and recriminations, men in the rural districts who could hardly read and write were invited to step forward and abandon the beaten tracks. Can one blame them, to-day, that they shrank at first from a desperate plunge into the unknown?
Upon the following Sunday, Nether-Applewhite Church was crowded to the galleries.
All over the country, churches were filling up or emptying according to the virtue that emanated from the preachers of God's Word. One wonders whether ministers of the Gospel apply this numerical test to themselves. It is certain, however, that those, like Hamlin, whether in Church or Chapel, who laid aside for the moment merely Biblical exegesis and the expounding of doctrine and dogma, and concentrated spiritual and intellectual energies upon dealing faithfully with the problem of human conduct as affected by a catastrophic war, had no reason to complain that they addressed empty pews.
Captain Davenant read the Lessons as if he were declaiming the Riot Act. The good man believed that the young men present were shirking hounds to be rated and whipped up to their Master. Under the lash of his rasping voice, even Mrs. Yellam, louder in fervent response than usual, winced and frowned. The Parson, in his three-decker, wondered whether a discreet hint would serve to tone down the zeal of this militant Christian, who positively wallowed in the slaughters and comminations of the Old Testament. The Captain, as a stout upholder of Church and Crown, must be handled delicately; a dry old stick breaks so easily. Uncle sat with his wife in the Mucklow pew, half-way down the nave. He carried a high head, and thought of the half-sovereigns soon to be rattling in and out of his pocket. Jane sat beside him, sniffing audibly. Alfred Yellam and Fancy Broomfield were opposite to each other, with the aisle between them.