Who can wonder, when you see the beastly towns they come out of, and the life they were reared in! And _none of us_ are going to stand profiteering, and broken pledges, and that kind of thing!'-- a sudden note of passion rushed into the man's voice.

'But after all, when all's said and done, this is _England_!' he turned with a fine, unconscious gesture to the woods and green spaces behind him, and the blue distances of plain--'and we're _Englishmen_--and it's touch and go whether England's going to come out or go under; and if we can't pay the Huns for what they've done in Belgium--what they've done in France!--what they've done to our men on the sea!--well, it's a devil's world!--and I'd sooner be quit of it, it don't matter how!' The man's slight frame shook under the force of his testimony.

His eyes held the Squire, who was for the moment silenced.

Then the engineer turned on his heel with a laugh: 'Well, good-day to you, Mr.Mannering.Go and fasten up your gates! If I'm for minding D.O.R.A.

and winning the war, I'm a good Socialist all the same.