Ebenezer--and so too is Obed here--up in this fat of the land, though
you don't know it. Eh?" said Mr Pamphlett sharply as his nephew
Obed, who had been sitting by and listening sulkily, made an
impatient movement,--"But as I was going on to say, if we, that hold
(as I may put it) the threads of commerce in these times, believe in
sitting solid, why surely the same applies--only more so--to
agriculture."

"Which is the backbone of Old England," interposed Farmer Pearce,
"an' always has been."

"There's two ends to most backbones," put in young Obed, who had been
tracing patterns with his fingers on the surface of the mahogany
table. "And I don't pretend to have the cleverer one. But I don't
want the other to be kicked into doin' summat; which is what'll
happen to us farmin' chaps if we don't start enlistin'."

"The aggericultural community," persisted his father, who had picked
up that resonant term at meetings of the Farmers' Union, "is, an'
always has been, the backbone of England."

"Then 'tis time we showed it, in the Yeomanry."

"I wish you'd hold your tongue on that word; when you know your
mother never hears it spoke but she wakes me up at night with the
palpitations. . . . We _be_ showin' it, I tell 'ee. We _be_ doin'
something for our country in this here crisis. Why, didn' Squire
Tresawna ride over but yesterday an' commandeer Tory an' Pleasant?--
that's my two best waggon-hosses," the farmer explained to his
brother-in-law. "An' didn' he say as most likely he'd be over again,