recruits! One son was in a marching regiment, the other was Jack, and
three girls had vowed never to quit the rectory save as brides of
officers. Nevil thought that seemed encouraging; we were evidently not a
nation of shopkeepers at heart; and he quoted sayings of Mr. Stukely
Culbrett's, in which neither his ear nor Wilmore's detected the under-
ring Stukely was famous for: as that England had saddled herself with
India for the express purpose of better obeying the Commandments in
Europe; and that it would be a lamentable thing for the Continent and our
doctrines if ever beef should fail the Briton, and such like. 'Depend
upon it we're a fighting nation naturally, Jack,' said Nevil. 'How can
we submit! . . . however, I shall not be impatient. I dislike
duelling, and hate war, but I will have the country respected.' They
planned a defence of the country, drawing their strategy from magazine
articles by military pens, reverberations of the extinct voices of the
daily and weekly journals, customary after a panic, and making bloody
stands on spots of extreme pastoral beauty, which they visited by coach
and rail, looking back on unfortified London with particular melancholy.

Rosamund's word may be trusted that she dropped the letter into a London
post-office in pursuance of her promise to Nevil. The singular fact was
that no answer to it ever arrived. Nevil, without a doubt of her
honesty, proposed an expedition to Paris; he was ordered to join his
ship, and he lay moored across the water in the port of Bevisham, panting
for notice to be taken of him. The slight of the total disregard of his
letter now affected him personally; it took him some time to get over
this indignity put upon him, especially because of his being under the
impression that the country suffered, not he at all. The letter had
served its object: ever since the transmission of it the menaces and
insults had ceased.