the trenches;
fighting, suffering, dying. What for? For England, for England's
honour, for the safety of her women, for the sacredness of our lives,
for you: while you, you skulk at home smoking your cigarettes, go to
your places of amusement, and drink your beer. Don't you realise that
you are playing the coward?"

Then the speaker made his last appeal, clear, impassioned, convincing.

"What are you going to do, young men?" he cried. "We don't want
conscripts, but free men who come out cheerfully, willingly, gladly to
do their duty to their King, Country, and God. Who will be the first?"

He stood on the platform waiting amidst breathless silence.

"Will you wait until you are forced?"

"No! By God, no!" said Tom, and starting to his feet he walked to the
platform and gave his name.

Thus Tom became a soldier.

"Tha doesn't say so?" said Tom's mother when, that night, he told her
what he had done.

"Ay, I have."

"Then thou'st goin' for a sodger."

"Ay."

Mrs. Martha Pollard looked at him for a few seconds without speaking.
Evidently she found it difficult to find words to express her thoughts.

"Weel, Tom," she said presently, "I thought thee't got low eno' when
thee got drinkin' and picked up wi' that peacock-bedecked Polly Powell;
but I ne'er thought a bairn o' mine would sink as low as that. Wer't'a
baan now?"

"I'm goin' to tell Polly," said Tom.

"Ay, tha mun be sent to Lancaster asylum," said Mrs. Pollard.

[1] The above incident actually took place in a Lancashire city at the
beginning of the War.

CHAPTER III

Tom made his way to the Thorn and Thistle, but was informed that Polly
would not be home until eleven o'clock. He therefore wandered about
the town until that time, and again appeared at the public-house door.
But it was not until twelve o'clock that Polly made her appearance.

"Anything the matter, Tom?" she asked.

"Ay, I have joined the Army."

"Thou'st noan been such a fool?"

"I have noan been a fool," said Tom, "I couldn't help it."

Polly Powell looked at him rather angrily, then she said: "If you have
done it, what do you want to speak to me about it for?"

"I shall be off to-morrow," replied Tom. "The recruiting officer told
me I must report at the Town Hall to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."

"Where will you go?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Tom.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

"I thought," said Tom, "that is--I thought as I was