A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 191 



public opinion, and looks somewhat grimly on the 

 amazing bad discipline and talking in the ranks 

 which goes on in social and political affairs. I once 

 dined with him at Major Buck's house : a rather well- 

 known political condottiere was of the company and, 

 perhaps to c/ioquer the assembled squirearchy, handled 

 the Crown and Constitution rather lightly. " Sir," 

 says the General, " in Afghanistan I have had to have 

 men shot for no more disloyalty than that ! " and we 

 returned prudently to the birds and the District 

 Council. 



He has been with us long enough now for the story 



of the long scar on his sword-hand and the bare place 



on his temple to have reached nearly every one in the 



parish, and to gain him a peculiar respect. Bodily 



prowess is still a power with our proletariat, spite of 



so much compulsory development of their brains. 



The Rector declares that the mile which he ran against 



Oxford served him to better purpose in his first 



curacy than his Tripos. When we meet our little 



General in his worn grey t\\eed, sauntering in the 



lanes and switching the nettles with imaginary true 



edge of his rattan, we all feel, whether articulately or 



not, what we owe him ; we can connect more or less 



clearly the scythes of this and forty other peaceful 



harvests with the sweep of his sabres under a fiercer 



