But if this stirring in one's nature made a man both a sacrament and a partaker of a sacrament, was there not yet something horrible in this spilling of blood, this breaking of bodies? Was this sacrament only to be consummated by the butcher? Was there no healing sacrament which, when a man partook of it, gave him life and more life! Was there not an honourable rivalry among nations, each to be better than the other, to replace this brawling about boundaries, this pettifogging with frontiers? Was there to be no end to this killing and preparing for killing? Would men, from now on, set themselves to the devisal of murderous and more murderous weapons of war until at last an indignant, disgusted God, sick of the smell of blood, threw the earth from Him, caring nothing what happened to it, so that it was out of His consciousness?...

While he looked out of the window, the dusk settled down, and he could see the mists rising from the fields. He drew the curtains, and went and sat down by the fire. There was a faint odour of burning turf in the room, and as he watched the blue spirals of smoke curling up the chimney, he remembered how he had trudged across Dartmoor once, and, suddenly, unexpectedly had turned a corner of the road, and looked down on a village in a hollow, and for a moment or two had imagined he was in Ireland because of the smell of burning turf that came from the cottage chimneys.

"We and they are one," he murmured to himself. "Our differences are but two aspects of the same thing. Our blood and their blood, our earth and their earth, mingled and made sacramental, shall be to the glory of God!"

The door opened, and Hannah came in, carrying a lighted lamp.

"I just thought I'd bring it myself," she said. "I'd be afeard of my life to let Minnie handle it. Dear knows, but she'd set herself on fire, or mebbe the house, an' that'd be a nice thing, an' a new mistress comin' to it. Will I put it down here by your elbow?"

"Anywhere, Hannah!" he answered.

"I'll just rest it here then, where it'll not be too strong for your eyes. Yon ought to have the electric light put in the house. Major Cairnduff has it in his house, an' it's not half the size of this one.... Will I get you something?"

"No, thank you, Hannah!"

"A taste of some thin' to ate, mebbe, or a sup to drink?"

"Nothing, thank you!"

She went over to the fire. "Dear bless us," she said, "that's no sort of a fire at all. What come over you, to let it get that low!"

"I didn't notice it, Hannah!"

"'Deed an' I don't suppose you did ... moidherin' your mind about one thing an' another! There'll be a different story to tell when the mistress comes home. Mark my words, there will! Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!..."