“And I say the same. It was inconsiderate and selfish and decidedly unpatriotic. If everybody had done like that where would the rest of us have been?” “That’s it, mum. But it’s them Chilfers all over. I’m glad to say they’ve tuk his car f’r the war, and they’ve tuk all the horses they could lay their hands on. That’s rough on some. There’s Gilling down our way. He runs a laundry. They stopped him in the street t’other day an’ tuk his horse and left th’ van and th’ laundry he was delivering right there. It’ll put a stop on him I’m thinking, and folks’ll have to go dirty, unless th’ big laundries pick up all the business.” “There will be discomforts in all directions, I’m afraid, Mrs Skirrow. But we’re much better off than the poor people in Belgium who are being turned out in thousands and their homes burnt over their heads. It’s dreadful work.” “’Tis that, mum. An’ begging your pardon, I says like my old man, ‘Damn that Keyzer, and put the stopper on ’im as quick as may be!’” “One cannot help hoping he will suffer as he deserves.” “That’s right, mum! Bet you I’d trounce ’im if I got half a chance. I’d twist his old neck like that, I would,”--and she wrung her wet floor-cloth into her pail with a vehemence that imperilled its further usefulness. “He’s an old divvle, he is, an’ th’ young one’s worse, they say. All the same, if they c’d do it so’s none of ’em got killed, for me I wouldn’t mind th’ war going on for quite a goodish bit.” “And I would be thankful if it all ended to-morrow.” “Ah! ’twon’t do that, mum,” was Mrs Skirrow’s safe prophecy. Since Con’s post-card saying they were expecting to leave within an hour or two, they had had no word from him, nor was any information as to the movements of the troops permitted in the papers. The rigid censorship dropped an impenetrable vail between the anxious hearts at home and the active operations abroad. It was a time and an occasion for the exercise of unparalleled and implicit faith and hope and trust in the powers that held the ways, and still more in the Highest Power of all. And on all sides was manifested an extraordinary strengthening and quickening of those higher and deeper feelings which had become somewhat atrophied during the long fat years of peace. The nation and the Empire drew itself together, forgot the little family disputes which had enlivened its existence for so long, and stood shoulder to shoulder as never before. The waters were troubled and the sick were healed. The Colonel, in the pursuit of his duties, was frequently at the War Office. He heard, there and at his club, many things of which he never spoke even to Mr and Mrs Dare in their intimate evening confabulations. The full bleak blackness of the days of Mons and Maubeuge were known to him, and the peril of Le Cateau and Landrecies, and it was as much as he could do to keep the weight of these grave matters out of his face at times.