“‘_The earth shook and trembled, because He was angry with them._’ Aye, ’twould seem to fit in singularly!—Yet, as you and I know, ’tis but our men at work of salvage. They must even destroy to save!—There went the last house in Shoreditch!” He made a gesture with his pipe-stem. “Ha, now the Hall falls upon itself like a house of cards!… Pray Heaven none of our boys be caught beneath the dropping masonry, as was honest Corporal Tulip yester-eve! ’Tis no marvel to me, Master Chitterley,” he went on, settling himself more comfortably on his narrow seat, “that the men like not the work. Nay, were it with other than my Lord Constable, or young Harry—or one such as I am, Master Chitterley—we might well expect a show of rebellion among them. To see death, you may say, be soldier’s life,—aye, give death, lay siege, waste, burn and slay,—all in the way of glorious war, friend Chitterley, and service of King—wholesome heat of blood to keep the horrors off—But this business, there is neither glory nor plunder in it. No—no, I’ve seen sour looks and lagging feet, as much as dare be, at least, under my lord’s eye or Master Harry’s.” “My lord—Master Harry—” repeated Chitterley, as in a kind of dream. “Do not mock me, sergeant, but there be days now when I scarce know them apart … remembering.… Or rather—” “Aye,” interrupted the soldier, good-humoured, yet impatient of the other’s maundering, “I catch your meaning. Young Master Harry that was a boy has grown marvellous quick a man these troublous times. ’Tis his gallant father all over again as you and I knew him. And, on the other hand, my Lord Constable is changed—oh, damnably changed! An old man in one year!—Hark in your ear! ’Tis never plague horrors, nor fire horrors, that have worked on him so sorely; ’tis the mind, Master Chitterley. Trouble of the mind!” He tapped his forehead with the pipe-stem, nodded his head, and thereafter puffed awhile in sagacious meditation. “In faith,” said Chitterley, with piteous trembling of the lip, “my dear lord’s hair has grown as white as mine own.”