"And what are we doing?" he exclaimed. "We have stopped nothing; we surround our soldiers with the old temptations, and we leave their defenceless wives exposed to the same temptations; I know all about it. Mahn, it was Ruskin that said, 'There is no wealth but life,' and we leave all our wealth of life at the mercy of every evil. It's a fair scandal. Do you ken the conclusion I've come to! It is that the best form of government is a benevolent despotism. Oor men are afraid of this and that--losing votes--but an autocrat with a stroke of a pen can sweep away the power of hell. If they would only make King George an autocrat for a few years.... That would be grand!" He insisted on lending me the blue-covered pamphlet, and it being his hour off he walked with me across the bridge. The valley was now dark. The snuff-manufacturer's house down below was wrapped in gloom. Lights twinkled on the slopes. Below a lamp-post at the far end of the bridge two men stood. When he saw them the ticket-collector stood fast. "Mahn," said he, "I've come to a great resolution. I'm too old to fight; and they canna get at me in ony way. No Income-tax for me; and threepence on the tea is naething, for I never take it; I want to feel that I am worth men dying for me; and I am going to be tee-total till the end of the war. I'll give the money to help the soldiers' weans. It's the weans that pull at my heart-strings." And he turned on his heel and walked rapidly back across the bridge. Under the lamp-post stood the roadman and the beadle, looking after him. I spoke to them, for since the war began we all speak to each other in our parish. "Has he forgotten ony thin'?" asked the roadman, waving a hand towards the retreating form of the ticket-collector. "I don't think so," I answered, "he just said that he was going to be tee-total till the end of the war." "Tee-total!" echoed the roadman mournfully; "there gangs anither lost soul!" My two friends went sadly down the steep brae, and I turned up the long flight of stone steps that leads to the road above. On the top of the first flight I turned and looked after them. When they came opposite the door of the village inn, they slowed down ... and then went resolutely past, down into the hollow. The two of them have probably resolved to join the company of the "lost souls." ***