“We got to attract ‘em back,” said my uncle. “That’s what I feel about it. We got to Buck-Up the country. The English country is a going concern still; just as the Established Church—if you’ll excuse me saying it, is a going concern. Just as Oxford is—or Cambridge. Or any of those old, fine old things. Only it wants fresh capital, fresh idees and fresh methods. Light railways, f’rinstance—scientific use of drainage. Wire fencing machinery—all that.”
The vicar’s face for one moment betrayed dismay. Perhaps he was thinking of his country walks amids the hawthorns and honeysuckle.
“There’s great things,” said my uncle, “to be done on Mod’un lines with Village Jam and Pickles—boiled in the country.”
It was the reverberation of this last sentence in my mind, I think, that sharpened my sentim
