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One interesting sidelight on that lecture came from Norry's brother Jack. I was in the forge the next day getting some staples and I asked him what he thought of it. He said that the Colonel had been wonderfully reasonable and not a bit sarcastic. I was surprised by the final word and I remarked that surely he would hardly be that at such a time. But Jack said that you never knew when that sort of man was going to be sarcastic and tell you to buy all sorts of material which he knew perfectly well that you couldn't afford, yet this fellow had been straightforward and reasonable and had mentioned a truss of hay up the chimney, which was fair enough because anyone could get a-hold of that.

The dreadful insinuation contained in this argument made me sit up and I went back across the road reflecting that Jack was giving some of the people who come to address us from time to time credit for far more brains, if much less human decency, than I did, and I wondered then if the fine old country gentry who are nearly all dead and gone with their horses, their guinea tips, their grooms and their leather hat-boxes, were not a deal more ingenious than I had imagined if they bred a countryside always to expect intelligence from them if nothing else whatever, for it sometimes seems that it is only a respect for superior brains and the secret knowledge their possession entails which really makes men and masters. The Church, for instance, never showed any sign of losing her grip whatever abominable muddles she got herself into while the parsons were still the only people in the parishes who could read.