the gentlemen had said, had permitted himself to say, that our England’s recent history was a provincial apothecary’s exhibition of the battle of bane and antidote.  Mr. Durance could hardly mean it.  But how could one answer him when he spoke of the torpor of the people, and of the succeeding Governments as a change of lacqueys—­or the purse-string’s lacqueys?  He said, that Old England has taken to the arm-chair for good, and thinks it her whole business to pronounce opinions and listen to herself; and that, in the face of an armed Europe, this great nation is living on sufferance.  Oh!

Skepsey had uttered the repudiating exclamation.

‘Feel quite up to it?’ he was asked by his neighbour.

The mover of armed hosts for the defence of the country sat in a third-class carriage of the train, approaching the first of the stations on the way to town.  He was instantly up to the level of an external world, and fell into give and take with a burly broad communicative man; located in London, but born in the North, in view of Durham cathedral, as he thanked his Lord; who was of the order of pork-butcher; which succulent calling had carried him down to near upon the borders of Surrey and Sussex, some miles beyond the new big house of a Mister whose name he had forgotten, though he had heard it mentioned by an acquaintance interested in the gentleman’s doings.  But his object was to have a look at a rare breed of swine, worth the journey; that didn’t run to fat so much as to flavour, had longer legs, sharp snouts to plump their hams; over from Spain, it seemed; and the gentleman owning them was for selling them, finding them wild past correction.  But the acquaintance mentioned, who was down to visit t’ other gentleman’s big new edifice in workmen’s hands, had a mother, who had been cook to a family, and was now widow of a cook’s shop; ham, beef, and sausages, prime pies to order; and a good specimen herself; and if ever her son saw her spirit at his bedside, there wouldn’t be room for much else in that chamber—­supposing us to keep our shapes.  But he was the right sort of son, anxious to push his mother’s shop where he saw a chance, and do it cheap; and those foreign pigs, after a disappointment to their importer, might be had pretty cheap, and were accounted tasty.

Skepsey’s main thought was upon war:  the man had discoursed of pigs.

He informed the man of his having heard from a scholar, that pigs had been the cause of more bloody battles than any other animal.

How so? the pork-butcher asked, and said he was not much of a scholar, and pigs might be provoking, but he had not heard they were a cause of strife between man and man.  For possession of them, Skepsey explained.  Oh! possession!  Why, we’ve heard of bloody battles for the possession of women!  Men will fight for almost anything they care to get or call their own, the pork-butcher said; and he praised Old England for avoiding war.  Skepsey nodded.  How if war is forced on us?  Then we fight.  Suppose we are not prepared?—­We soon get that up.  Skepsey requested him to state the degree of resistance he might think he could bring against a pair of skilful fists, in a place out of hearing of the police.