g into the thick of it.

* * * * *

That the world knows little of its greatest men is a commonplace among
silly aphorisms. With far more justice it may be stated that of its
least men the world knows nothing and cares less. Yet the Doggies of
the War, who on the cry of "Havoc!" have been let loose, much to their
own and everybody else's stupefaction, deserve the passing tribute
sometimes, poor fellows, of a sigh, sometimes of a smile, often of a
cheer. Very few of them--very few, at any rate, of the English
Doggies--have tucked their little tails between their legs and run
away. Once a brawny humorist wrote to Doggie Trevor "_Sursum cauda._"
Doggie happened to be at the time in a water-logged front trench in
Flanders and the writer basking in the mild sunshine of Simla with his
Territorial regiment. Doggie, bidden by the Hedonist of circumstance
to up with his tail, felt like a scorpion.

Such feelings, however, will be more adequately dealt with hereafter.
For the moment, it is only essential to obtain a general view of the
type to which Trevor belonged.

* * * * *

If there is one spot in England where the present is the past, where
the future is still more of the past, where the past wraps you and
enfolds you in the dreamy mist of Gothic beauty, where the lazy
meadows sloping riverward deny the passage of the centuries, where the
very clouds are secular, it is the cathedral town of Durdlebury. No
factory chimneys defile with their smoke its calm air, or defy its
august and heaven-searching spires. No rabble of factory hands shocks
its few and sedate streets. Divine Providence, according to the
devout, and the crass stupidity of the local authorities seventy years
ago, according to progressive minds, turned the main line of railway
twenty miles from the sacred spot. So that to this year of grace it is
the very devil of a business to find out, from Bradshaw, how to get to
Durdlebury, and, having found, to get there. As for getting away, God
help you! But whoever wanted to get away from Durdlebury, except the
Bishop? In pre-motor days he used to grumble tremendously and threaten
the House of Lords with Railway Bills and try to blackmail the
Government with dark hints of resignation, and so he lived and
threatened and made his wearisome diocesan round of visits and died.
But now he has his episcopal motor-car, which has deprived him of his
grievances.