sisted 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,
inside a fortni't, after light draught hosses for the Artillery?
I don't murmur, for my part. We must all be prepared to make
sacrifices in these times. But all I say is, you can't pick up
draught hosses--light _or_ heavy--off a greengrocer, nor yet off a
bird-fancier; an' the man who says you can, I'll tell him to his face
he's no better than a liar," concluded Farmer Pearce, suddenly
growing crimson in the face, and smiting the table with unnecessary
heat.

"If the hosses be goin', why should the men linger?" young Obed
urged. "An' I don't see what you sacrificed either, over Tory an'
Pleasant; for you told me yourself the Squire gave a very fair price
for 'em."

"Well, an' I should hope so! You don't reckon as I was goin' to make
Government a present of 'em, do 'ee?--a man rated up to the ears, as
I be!" Here he glanced nervously at his brother-in-law, who (as a
town-dweller) held the monstrous belief that farmers enjoyed their
share, and even a little more, of relief from rating, and had more
than once shown argumentative fight on this subject in the piping
times of peace. But Mr Pamphlett tactfully ignored the challenge.

"Listen to me, Obed," he put in. "By what I hear from London, as
well as what I read in the papers, the most serious question before
this country just now is to maintain--or, as I might put it, to keep
up--an adequate supply of foodstuffs. To which end," pursued Mr
Pamphlett, in the weighty periods of the "leading article" from which
he had gathered this information, "it appears to us--I mean, to me--
that our agricultural friends would be well advised, at this
juncture, in considering the advisability, as well as the
feasibility, of restoring a quantity of their pasture-land to an
arable condition, and cultivating it _as_ such. The Boa