Mr. Quinn died at Christmas. The old man, weakened by his long illness, had been stunned by the War, and when his second illness seized him, he made no effort to resist it. He would lie very quietly for a long while, and then a paroxysm of fury would possess him, and he would shake his fist impotently in the air. "If they wanted a war," he shouted once, "why didn't they go and fight it themselves. They were paid to keep the peace, and ... and!..."

He fell back on his pillow, exhausted, and when Henry, hurrying up the stairs to him the moment he heard the shout, reached him, he was gasping for breath. "It's all right, son!" he said when he had recovered himself. "It's all right!..."

"It's foolish of you, father, to agitate yourself like that," Henry said to him, putting his arms round him and lifting him into a more comfortable position.

"I can't help it, Henry, when I think of ... of all the young lads!... By God, they'd no right to do it!..."

"Hush, father!..."

"They'd no right to do it! You'd think they were greedy for blood ... young men's blood!" He pointed to an English newspaper lying on the floor. "Did you read that paper?" he said.

"Yes."

"Houndin' them into it," the old man went on. "Yellin' for young men! By God, I'd be ashamed ... parsons an' women an' old men that can't fight themselves, houndin' young men into it! If they'd any decency, they'd shut up...."

"All right, father!"

"The man that owns this paper ... whatshisname!..."

"It doesn't matter, does it? Lie still and be quiet!"

"I can't be quiet. Like a damned big monster, yellin' for boys to eat. Has he any childher, will you tell me?..."

"I don't know, father!"

"Of course he hasn't. An' here he is, yelpin' in his damned rag every day, 'Fee-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a young man!' Why don't they shove him at the Front ... the very front!"

"You must keep quiet, father!"

"All right, Henry, all right!"

He was silent for a few minutes, and then he began again, in a quieter voice. "I'd have put the men that made it, the whole lot of them, in the front rank, and let them blow themselves to blazes. Old men sittin' in offices, an' makin' wars, an' then biddin' young men to pay the price of them! By God, that's mean! By God, that's low!..."

"But old men couldn't bear the strain of it, father!" Henry interjected, and he recalled some of the horrors of the trenches where the soldiers had stood with the water reaching to their waists; but Mr. Quinn insisted that the old men should have fought the war they made.

"Who cares a damn whether they can bear it or not," he said. "Let 'em die, damn 'em! They're no good!" He turned quickly to Henry, and demanded, "What good are they? Tell me that now!" but before Henry could make an answer to him, he went off insistently, "They're no good, I tell you. I know well what they're like ... sittin' in their clubs, yappin' an' yappin' an' demandin' this an' demandin' that, an' gettin' on one another's nerves; an' whatever happens it's not them that suffers for it: it's the young lads that pays for everything. Look at the way the old fellows go on in Parliament, Henry! By God, I want to vomit when I read about them! Yappin' an' yappin' when they should be down on their knees beggin' God's forgiveness...."

He spoke as if he were not himself an old man, and it did not seem strange to Henry that he should speak in that fashion, for Mr. Quinn's spirit had always been a young spirit.

"An' these wee bitches with their white feathers," he went on, "ought to be well skelped. If I had a daughter, an' she did a thing like that, by God, I'd break her skull for her!"

"I suppose they think they're doing their duty, father, and they're young!..."

"There's women at it, too. I read in the paper yesterday mornin' that there was grown women doin' it. There's nobody has any right to bid a man go to that except them that's been to it themselves. If the women an' the parsons an' the old men can't fight for their country, they can hold their tongues for it, an' by God they ought to be made to hold them...."

He asked continually after Gilbert.

"He's a sergeant now, father. He's been offered a commission, but he won't take it!..."

"Why?"

"Oh, one of his whimsy-whamsies, I suppose. He says the non-commissioned officers are the backbone of the Army, and he prefers to be part of the backbone. You remember Ninian Graham, father?"

"I do, rightly!..."

"He's come home to join. He's in the Engineers!"

Mr. Quinn did not make any answer to Henry. He slipped a little further into the bed, and lay for a long while with his eyes closed, so long that Henry thought he had fallen asleep; but, just when Henry began to tiptoe from the room, he opened his eyes again, and suddenly they were full of tears.

"The fine young fellows," he said. "The fine young lads!"