PART EIGHT 



WHAT OF THE HARVEST ? 



I. THE AUTUMN OF 1914. 



As German guns battered down the gates of Western 

 civilisation there was a quickening of fellowship amongst 

 all classes in rural England. The enemy's high explosives 

 had done what the churches and politicians had failed to 

 do. Squire and squatter, peasant and plutocrat, farmer 

 and labourer grasped hands during this tense moment of 

 spiritual afflatus. 



The first to leave the farms were the reservists, then, 

 with that implacable patriotism which always distinguishes 

 the English peasantry, the youths and unmarried men left 

 the plough and byre to shoulder a rifle. The farmer's boy, 

 so long despised, was appealed to by patriotic songs sung by 

 fine ladies to defend them and all English women ; and the 

 rich man's motor car swiftly sped these lads to the nearest 

 recruiting station. Then it was that the well-fed, well- 

 housed learnt with a shock the number of lads reared in 

 country cottages, who had to be rejected on account of 

 rupture, varicose veins, defective hearts, and bad teeth. 



Then, too, it was that the man who could swing an axe, 

 who could turn a furrow, or milk a cow, was acknowledged 

 to be of more importance than the man who spent his days 

 in driving a ball across a common or lounging about a Club. 

 The squire who sat on the Bench looked for the moment 

 with a tolerant eye upon the well-known poacher who might 

 make a useful sniper in the ranks of the British Army. 



Yet in spite of our terrible losses in man-power, and the 

 danger in which our -island-home stood of being cut off 

 from food supplies, men still gaily rode in pink, hounds were 



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