"Unless they teach the people the lesson of it; do you think it is nothing to an American to see this great country at the mercy of the first food panic which overtakes her? I tell you, it is as much to my countrymen as to yours. Teach them that they have a precious possession in this island kingdom, and you are doing a great work. I shall be a proud man to have a hand in it——"
"You certainly will have that. It's a lesson we all need. I don't think I could have repeated it myself, but for these weeks. Now, I know—and the man who knows can never forget."
He fell to silence upon it, and regarding the drear country from the blurred window, perceived a barren field and a drift of snow falling from a sullen sky. Yet sore afflicted as she was, he remembered that this was Mother England, and that he and countless others had been but ungrateful sons in the days of her glory.
Would it be otherwise when the shadows had passed?
Ah! who could tell?
BOOK IV
MERELY MEN AND WOMEN