They adore Wallingham over there--he's
pretty nearly a god--and they'd like to do as he tells
them, and they're dead sick of theoretic politics; but
they're afraid--oh, they're afraid!"
"They'll do well to ca' canny," said John Murchison.
"There's two things in the way, at a glance," Lorne went
on. "The conservatism of the people--it isn't a name,
it's a fact--the hostility and suspicion; natural enough:
they know they're stupid, and they half suspect they're
fair game. I suppose the Americans have taught them that.
Slow--oh, slow! More interested in the back-garden fence
than anything else. Pick up a paper, at the moment when
things are being done, mind, all over the world, done
against them--when their shipping is being captured, and
their industries destroyed, and their goods undersold
beneath their very noses--and the thing they want to know
is--Why Are the Swallows Late? I read it myself, in a
ha'penny morning paper, too--that they think rather
dangerously go-ahead--a whole column, headed, to inquire
what's the matter with the swallows. The Times the same
week had a useful leader on Alterations in the Church
Service, and a special contribution on Prayers for the
Dead. Lord, they need 'em! Those are the things they
THINK about! The session's nearly over, and there's two
Church Discipline Bills, and five Church Bills--bishoprics
and benefices, and Lord knows what--still to get through.
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