London was strangely sensitive, easily exalted, easily depressed, listening avidly to rumours, even when they were clearly absurd. It was the least English of the cities, far, far less English than the villages and country towns. London's nerves were often jangled, but the nerves of Boveyhayne were never jangled. London jumped up and down like a Jack-in-the-box, but Boveyhayne moved steadily on. There were times when London was so un-English as to believe that England might be beaten ... but Boveyhayne never imagined that for a moment. Boveyhayne did not think of the defeat of England, because it had never occurred to Boveyhayne that England could be beaten. Old Widger would sometimes say, "They Germans be cunning!" or "Us'll 'ave to 'it a bit 'arder avore us knocks 'un out!" but Old Widger never imagined for a moment that "'un," as he always called the Kaiser, would not sooner or later get knocked out, and so he went on with his work, pausing now and then to say, "'Er's a reg'lar cunnin' old varmint, 'er be!" almost with as much admiration as if he were talking of a fox or an otter that had eluded the hounds many times. But the cunningest fox falls to the hounds in the end of some chase, and Widger did not doubt that "Keyser" would fall, too. Boveyhayne, was very English in its reserves and its dignity. London might squeal for reprisals, but Boveyhayne never squealed. When the Germans torpedoed a merchant ship, Old Widger said, "It hain't very manly, be it, sir?" and that was all. Old Widger was not indifferent or without imagination ... but he had self-respect, and he could not squeal like a frantic rabbit even when he was in pain. He could hit, and he could hit hard, but he did not care to claw and scratch and bite!...

Henry disliked London then, but he comforted himself with the thought that it resembled all capital cities, that its population was not a native population, but one that shifted and changed and had no tradition. Old Widger had lived in the same cottage all his life: his father had lived there too; and his family, for several generations before his father, had lived and worked in Boveyhayne. They had habits and customs so old that no one knew the meaning of them. When Widger's wife died, Widger and his family had gone to church on the Sunday after her burial, as all the Boveyhayne bereaved do, and had sat through the service, taking no part in it, neither kneeling to pray nor rising to sing nor responding to the invocations. But Old Widger did not know why he had behaved in that fashion, nor did any one in Boveyhayne. "Don't seem no sense in it," he said, but nevertheless he did it, and nothing on earth would have prevented him from doing it. It was the custom....

But there was no custom in London. There were no habits, no traditions, nothing to hold on to in times of crisis or distress. There was no one in London who had been born and had spent all his life in one house, in a house, too, in which his father had been born and had lived and had died. People took a house for three years ... and then moved to another one. Locality had no meaning for them ... they hardly knew the names of their neighbours ... they were not surrounded by cousins ... the roads and streets had no meaning or memories for them ... they were just thoroughfares, passages along which one walked or drove to a railway station or a shopping centre....

And while Old Widger, if the thought had been put into his mind, would stoutly have answered, "Us ain't never been beat!" a Londoner would have answered, "My God, supposing we are beaten?..." Victory might be long in being won. Widger would admit that. But "us ain't never been beat" he would maintain. The Londoner would admit that victory might never be won ... and in making the admission, de-nationalised himself. Widger, obstinate, immovable, imperturbable, kindly, unvengeful and resolute, was English to the marrow ... and when Henry thought of England as a conquering country, he thought of it as a nation of Widgers, not as a nation of Cockneys.

"And it is a nation of Widgers," he said to himself. "The Cockneys shout more, print more, and they squeal a lot, but the Widgers are in the majority!"

It was not until night fell that Henry's love of London was restored. When the sky-signs were put out, and the shop-lights were diminished, and the running flames announcing the merits of this one's whisky and that one's tea were quenched, London became again an ancient city that a man could love....

"It's worth fighting for?" Henry murmured to himself as he stood on the terrace of Trafalgar Square, before the National Gallery, and looked about him at the dusk-softened outlines and the rich highways of shadows. One would not fight for the England that squealed through the ha'penny papers ... one would gladly throttle that England ... one would not fight for the England of the Stock Broker and the Mill Owner ... but one would fight hard, fight until death, for the England of Old Widger and the England of this darkened, dignified and beautiful London.