hen every village ought to have a
miniature rifle range."

"Ye-ees," said the vicar. "Provided, of course, there isn't a constant
popping."...

"Manage that all right," said my uncle. "Thing'd be a sort of long shed.
Paint it red. British colour. Then there's a Union Jack for the church
and the village school. Paint the school red, too, p'raps. Not enough
colour about now. Too grey. Then a maypole."

"How far our people would take up that sort of thing--" began the vicar.

"I'm all for getting that good old English spirit back again," said
my uncle. "Merrymakings. Lads and lasses dancing on the village green.
Harvest home. Fairings. Yule Log--all the rest of it."

"How would old Sally Glue do for a May Queen?" asked one of the sons in
the slight pause that followed.

"Or Annie Glassbound?" said the other, with the huge virile guffaw of a
young man whose voice has only recently broken.

"Sally Glue is eighty-five," explained the vicar, "and Annie Glassbound
is well--a young lady of extremely generous proportions. And not quite
right, you know. Not quite right--here." He tapped his brow.

"Generous proportions!" said the eldest son, and the guffaws were
renewed.

"You see," said the vicar, "all the brisker girls go into service in
or near London. The life of excitement attracts them. And no doubt
the higher wages have something to do with it. And the liberty to wear
finery. And generally--freedom from restraint. So that there might be
a little difficulty perhaps to find a May Queen here just at present who
was really young and er--pretty.... Of course I couldn't think of any of
my girls--or anything of that sort."

"We got to attract 'em back," said my uncle. "That's what I feel about
it. We got to Buck-Up the country. The English country is a going
concern still; just as the Established Church--if you'll excuse me
saying it, is a going concern. Just as Oxford is--or Cambridge. Or any
of those old, fine old things. Only it wants fresh capital, fresh
idees and fresh methods. Light railways, f'rinstance--scientific use of
drainage. Wire fencing machinery--all that."

The vicar's face for one moment betrayed dismay. Perhaps he was thinking
of his country walks amids the hawthorns and honeysuckle.

"There's great things," said my uncle, "to be done on Mod'un lines with
Village Jam and Pickles--boiled in the country."

It was the reverberation of this last sentence in my mind, I think,
that sharpened my sentime