But they might be renewed, and he desired to stop them altogether. His
last feeling was one of genuine regret that Frenchmen should have behaved
unworthily of the high estimation he held them in. With which he
dismissed the affair.

He was rallied about it when he next sat at his uncle's table, and had to
pardon Rosamund for telling.

Nevil replied modestly: 'I dare say you think me half a fool, sir.
All I know is, I waited for my betters to speak first. I have no dislike
of Frenchmen.'

Everard shook his head to signify, 'not half.' But he was gentle enough
in his observations. 'There's a motto, Ex pede Herculem. You stepped
out for the dogs to judge better of us. It's an infernally tripping
motto for a composite structure like the kingdom of Great Britain and
Manchester, boy Nevil. We can fight foreigners when the time comes.'
He directed Nevil to look home, and cast an eye on the cotton-spinners,
with the remark that they were binding us hand and foot to sell us to the
biggest buyer, and were not Englishmen but 'Germans and Jews, and quakers
and hybrids, diligent clerks and speculators, and commercial travellers,
who have raised a fortune from foisting drugged goods on an idiot
population.'

He loathed them for the curse they were to the country. And he was one
of the few who spoke out. The fashion was to pet them. We stood against
them; were halfhearted, and were beaten; and then we petted them, and bit
by bit our privileges were torn away. We made lords of them to catch
them, and they grocers of us by way of a return. 'Already,' said
Everard, 'they have knocked the nation's head off, and dry-rotted the