ey divided as to the origin of governmental
inefficiency; Nevil accusing the Lords guilty of foulest sloth, Everard
the Quakers of dry-rotting the country. He passed with a shrug Nevil's
puling outcry for the enemy as well as our own poor fellows: 'At his
steppes again!' And he had to be forgiving when reports came of his
nephew's turn for overdoing his duty: 'show-fighting,' as he termed it.

'Braggadocioing in deeds is only next bad to mouthing it,' he wrote very
rationally. 'Stick to your line. Don't go out of it till you are
ordered out. Remember that we want soldiers and sailors, we don't want
suicides.' He condescended to these italics, considering impressiveness
to be urgent. In his heart, notwithstanding his implacably clear
judgement, he was passably well pleased with the congratulations
encompassing him on account of his nephew's gallantry at a period of
dejection in Britain: for the winter was dreadful; every kind heart that
went to bed with cold feet felt acutely for our soldiers on the frozen
heights, and thoughts of heroes were as good as warming-pans. Heroes we
would have. It happens in war as in wit, that all the birds of wonder
fly to a flaring reputation. He that has done one wild thing must
necessarily have done the other; so Nevil found himself standing in
the thick of a fame that blew rank eulogies on him for acts he had not
performed. The Earl of Romfrey forwarded hampers and a letter of
praise. 'They tell me that while you were facing the enemy, temporarily
attaching yourself to one of the regiments--I forget which, though I
have heard it named--you sprang out under fire on an eagle clawing a
hare. I like that. I hope you had the benefit of the hare. She is our
property, and I have issued an injunction that she shall not go into the
newspapers.' Everard was entirely of a contrary opinion concerning
the episode of eagle and hare, though it was a case of a bird of
prey interfering with an object of the chase. Nevil wrote home most
entreatingly and imperatively, like one wincing, begging him to
contradict that and certain other stories, and prescribing the form of a
public renunciation of his proclaimed part in them. 'The hare,' he sent
word, 'is the property of young Michell of the Rodney, and he is the
humanest and the gallantest fellow in the service. I have written to my
Lord. Pray help to rid me of burdens that make me feel like a robber and
impostor.'

Everard replied:

'I have a letter from