Somewhere or another, very near to where he had stood that afternoon, a grave was waiting for him. Those few strokes of the pen had decided that its dimensions should be not eighteen inches by ten; but five feet four by two. But the time was not yet: the instruction added to his will need not begin to take effect for a good many years. Meanwhile his corner of immortality waited for him, measured by himself to suit his own taste. It came back to him then as a pleasant simile of fancy, that he had had an uncle who was an undertaker. It ran in the family. Here was Mr. Trimblerigg--his own! CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE _Peace-Work_ To become the spiritual voice of a nation is a rare experience, and in the history of the race it has come to the individual but seldom. But when it happens, he is a greater power than military leader, or politician, or popular preacher, unless in one man all three functions find themselves combined; then, without much justification in fact, a people may mistake the combination for the more rare and genuine article. It could not exactly be said of Mr. Trimblerigg at this time that he was a military leader; but the idea had been industriously disseminated, by his admirers and by himself during the war, that had he been he would have been a brilliant one. Nor was he exactly a politician; but he had been very busy and energetic in putting the politicians right, so that, as they went out of favour in public estimation, he came in. For the rest, a popular preacher he was, and a very wonderful one; though it is a curious fact that his sermons and speeches do not read well in print. Mr. Trimblerigg’s orations were gymnastic exercises and histrionic performances combined; and these things lose their effect when reduced to print. Nevertheless he had now become a Voice, and the sound of him travelled wherever his native tongue was spoken, war-conditions having given it an atmosphere that it could fill. His military instinct he had mainly shown by running about in moments of crisis and pinning his faith to commanders who up till then had escaped defeat. When he found he had made a mistake, he dropped them so quickly that nobody remembered he had ever believed in them; and having thus discovered three or four and lost them again, he finally hit upon the right one. Having done that, he did not allow it to be forgotten, so that the reputation which survived the final and triumphant catastrophe remained partly his. His political instinct produced more definite and more solid results; he persuaded the politicians to do a lot of things which at other times they would not have dared. Some of these things were not very scrupulous, and others were not very successful; but they were all military necessities, and as only the relative truth was told about them, they took their place in the general scheme of things; and if they did not exactly do good, they were good for the morale of the nation for the time being.