Another second would easily be found somewhere; for, as Nevil observed, you have only to set these affairs going, and British blood rises:  we are not the people you see on the surface.  Wilmore’s father was a parson, for instance.  What did he do?  He could not help himself:  he supplied the army and navy with recruits!  One son was in a marching regiment, the other was Jack, and three girls had vowed never to quit the rectory save as brides of officers.  Nevil thought that seemed encouraging; we were evidently not a nation of shopkeepers at heart; and he quoted sayings of Mr. Stukely Culbrett’s, in which neither his ear nor Wilmore’s detected the under-ring Stukely was famous for:  as that England had saddled herself with India for the express purpose of better obeying the Commandments in Europe; and that it would be a lamentable thing for the Continent and our doctrines if ever beef should fail the Briton, and such like.  ’Depend upon it we’re a fighting nation naturally, Jack,’ said Nevil.  ’How can we submit! . . . however, I shall not be impatient.  I dislike duelling, and hate war, but I will have the country respected.’  They planned a defence of the country, drawing their strategy from magazine articles by military pens, reverberations of the extinct voices of the daily and weekly journals, customary after a panic, and making bloody stands on spots of extreme pastoral beauty, which they visited by coach and rail, looking back on unfortified London with particular melancholy.

Rosamund’s word may be trusted that she dropped the letter into a London post-office in pursuance of her promise to Nevil.  The singular fact was that no answer to it ever arrived.  Nevil, without a doubt of her honesty, proposed an expedition to Paris; he was ordered to join his ship, and he lay moored across the water in the port of Bevisham, panting for notice to be taken of him.  The slight of the total disregard of his letter now affected him personally; it took him some time to get over this indignity put upon him, especially because of his being under the impression that the country suffered, not he at all.  The letter had served its object:  ever since the transmission of it the menaces and insults had ceased.

But they might be renewed, and he desired to stop them altogether.  His last feeling was one of genuine regret that Frenchmen should have behaved unworthily of the high estimation he held them in.  With which he dismissed the affair.

He was rallied about it when he next sat at his uncle’s table, and had to pardon Rosamund for telling.

Nevil replied modestly:  ’I dare say you think me half a fool, sir.  All I know is, I waited for my betters to speak first.  I have no dislike of Frenchmen.’