He sniffed contemptuously and walked to the back of the hall, where he opened fire with extracts from my speeches and articles, lovingly culled and flatteringly sandwiched between those of the Right Honourable Michael Bendix, one-time self-styled leader of pro-Boer nonconformity, later the chief ornament of the "Little Navy" group, later still—in the first days of August—the Cabinet champion of non-intervention, and subsequently a fire-eating Conscriptionist and parvenu War Lord.
Bertrand and I laboured unremittingly for the first four out of our appointed seven days, but the numbers never rose beyond a daily average of fifty, and I was compelled to warn O'Rane that if he wanted better results he must come and lend a hand. Two evenings later he appeared with Loring, scornful and charged with his new resentment against the world.
"The fellows have been falling over each other in my district," he said. "I always told you I could make men follow me."
"Let's have an ocular demonstration here," I suggested.
"You get up and do your turn," he answered. "I'll stampede the meeting later if you don't catch on."
Our meeting was held in Easterly Market Square round the steps of the Cross as the men returned from work. As there were two new speakers present, I introduced them and left Bertrand to prove for the hundredth time that the war had been engineered by Germany and that the stakes were no less than the whole order of civilization which England represented. As the speech began, Kestrell moved to the foot of the steps and quoted my uncle's earlier assurances that Germany was entirely amicable: when it was over he invited the audience to say whether the German working man had willed the war and what the English labouring classes stood to get out of it.
"What I says is, it takes two to make a quarrel," he proceeded, thumping a clenched fist into the open palm of the other hand. "'Oo done it 'ere? You? Me? I don't think. Was it Parliament? Ask these gentlemen: you've got a lord 'ere and two members. Of course the workin' man was gettin' uppish with 'is strikes and what not, but that's jest 'is pore misguided way. A bit o' martial law will set that right. You bin given King and Country for three weeks—'ard, and your duty's plain: work for Capital when there's peace and fight for it when there's war. It must be you as fights, 'cause there's no one else. An' you'll fight so that when it's over you can come back—if you 'aven't been killed—and find everything jest as it was before. I know what war is, and I saw our chaps when they came back from fighting for Capital in the Transvaal. You won't get no more of this blessed country by fightin' for it, and you couldn't lose more if the Germans came and collared the lot. Now if some of these lords and members 'ere went out and did a bit of fighting themselves——"
Loring rose swiftly to his feet.
"Of the three 'lords and members' present," he said, "one is considerably over military age, another has a commission, the third has applied for one."
"And 'ow soon are you going out?" inquired Kestrell.