“There we shan’t agree. There’s a kind of man who can’t keep out of a scrap wherever one happens to be going. And in these islands you’ve got more of that sort to the square mile than anywhere else I’ve visited, although I’ve not yet seen the Basutos. But Gervase Brandon is not of that type. War is against every instinct that man’s got. He hates it with every fiber of his nature.” “There are many thousands like him,” said the vicar; “many thousands who have simply given their lives--and more than their lives--in a just quarrel.” “I know. But the quarrel was not his, and he didn’t make it. And it was not as if, like the Belgians, the French, and the Russians, he had the Hun on his doorstep. It would have been quite easy for a man like that to say: ‘Leave it to the British Navy. Sooner or later they are bound to clear up the mess.’” “He was too honest to do that,” said the vicar. “He saw that a test case had arisen between right and wrong, between God and Antichrist, and he simply went and did his duty.” “Well, I can only say,” Mr. Murdwell rejoined, “that when I saw him the other day he seemed to believe in neither.” “That’s because you don’t really know him. Just now, it is true, he is in rather a disturbed state mentally. He has always had a skeptical mind, and there have been times when I’ve been tempted to think that he gave it too much latitude. And just now he is suffering a bad reaction after the horrors he’s been through. And of course he has had to give up the hope of ever walking again. But whatever the opinions of such a man may be, it is only right and fair to judge him by his actions.” “Yes, he’s made a big sacrifice. And the tragedy of it is he feels now that he’s made it in vain.” “His mental health is not what it might be just now, poor fellow. He has said things to me about Prussia winning, even if she loses and so on, which I know he cannot really believe.” “Why not?” “Because Gervase Brandon is too true an Englishman ever to doubt the spirit of the race. He is depressed just now about a very trivial matter. He has magnified it out of all proportion, whereas had he been fit and well he would not have given it a second thought. No, Gervase Brandon is not the man to despair of the Republic. He is part and parcel of England herself, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone.” “I see he’s all that. In fact he belongs to one of your first families, with the most beautiful place on the countryside, and the _manes_ of his ancestors, who went to the Crusades, all around him. No, I suppose he couldn’t help doing as he did, if you come to figure it out.” “He was without a choice in the matter as he freely admits.” “And yet that man’s a highbrow of highbrows. His knowledge amazed me--not on his own subject, of which he didn’t speak, and I didn’t either, because I know nothing about it, but on my own--on which I claim to know just a little more than anyone else.”