It didn't amuse them.
A cigarette, a girl, and a stile formed their ideal of Sunday enjoyment.

They had no quarrel with the harrier fellow or the soldier fellow for following his bent.

They were most broad-minded.

But they flattered themselves that they were fellows of a superior and more intelligent breed.

They were making money and living warm, the only ideal of existence of which they had ever heard, and what did anything else matter?
If a man has never been taught that he has a country, how the deuce do you expect him to love her--still less to defend her with his blood?
Our more than damnable governments for the last thirty years have done everything in their power to crush in English hearts the national spirit of England.