he is an old soldier himself, and his views on the war are held in great esteem. i hadnt heard the news, but, whatever it was, i could see from the landlords immense smile that there was nothing to fear. jim has got a commission, said the landlord, and he said it in a tone that left no doubt that now things would begin to move. for jim is his son, a sergeant-major in the artillery, who has been out at the front ever since mons. the news has created quite a sensation. but we are getting so used to sensations now that we are becoming _blasé_. there has never been such a year of wonders in the memory of any one living. the other day thousands of soldiers from the great camp ten miles away descended on our terraini think thats the wordand had a tremendous two-days battle in the hills about us. they broke through the hedges, and slept in the cornfields, and ravished the apple-trees in my orchard, and raided the cottagers for tea, and tramped to and fro in our street and gave us the time of our lives. _i_ never seed such a sight in _my_ life, said old benjamin to me in the evening. man and boy, ive lived in that there bungalow for eighty-five year come michaelmas, and _i_ never seed the like o _this_ before. yes, eighty-five year come michaelmas. and my father had that there land on a peppercorn rent, and the way he lost it was like this happily at this moment there was a sudden alarum among the soldiers, and i was able to dodge the familiar rehearsal of old benjamins grievance. and who would ever have dreamed that we should live to hear french talked in our street as a familiar form of speech? but we have. in a little cottage at the other end of the village is a family of belgians, a fragment of the flotsam thrown up by the great inundation of 1914. they have brought the story of frightfulness near to us, for they passed through the terror of louvain, hiding in the cellars for nights and days, having two of their children killed, and escaping to the coast on foot. every sunday night you will see them very busy carrying their few chairs and tables into a neighbouring barn, for on monday mornings mass is celebrated there. the priest comes up in a country cart from ten miles away, and the refugees scattered for miles around assemble for worship, after which there is a tremendous pow-pow in french and flemish, with much laughter and gaiety. old benjamin dont hold with they priests, and he has grave suspicions about all foreign tongues, but the belgians have become quite a part of us, and their children are learning to lisp in english down at the school in the valley. much less agreeable is the frame of mind towards the occupants of the cottage next to the blue boar. they are the wife and children of a german who had worked in this country for many years and is now in america. the woman is english and amiable, but the proximity of anything so reminiscent of germany is painful to the village, and especially to the landlord, whose views about germans can hardly be put into words. i should hope therell be no prisoners took after _this_, he says grimly whenever he hears of a new outrage. verminthats what they are, he says, and they should be treated according-ly. the germans, in fact, have become the substitute for every term of execration, even with mild david the labourer. he came into the orchard last evening staggering under a 15-ft. ladder. we had decided that if we were going to have the pears before the wasps had spoiled them we must pick them at once. its a wunnerful crop, said david. ive knowed this pear-tree [looking up at one of them from the foot of his ladder] for twenty-five year, and ive never seen such a crop on it afore. then he mounted the ladder and began to pick the fruit. well, im blowed, he said, if they aint been at em aready. and he flung down pear after pear scooped out by the wasps close to the stalk. reglar germansthats what they are, he said. look at em round that hive, he went on. theyll hev all the honey and them bees will starve and git the isle o wightthats what theyll git. lor, he added, reflectively, i dunno what wospses are made forwospses _and_ germans. it gits over me. i said it got over me too. and then from among the branches, while i hung on to the foot of the ladder to keep it firm, david unbosomed his disquiet to me about enlisting. most o the chaps round here has gone, he said, an i dont like staying beind. seems as though you were hanging back like. taint that i shouldnt like to go; but its this way . (hullo, i got my hand on a wasp that time) . theres such a lot o women-folk dependent on me. theres my wife and theres my mother down the village _and_ my aunt; and not a man to do anything for em but me. after my work on th farm, i keeps all three gardens going and a patch of allotment down the valley as well. youre growing a lot of good food, and thats military work, i said. he seemed cheered by the idea, and asked me if id like to see the potatoes he had dug up that eveningthey were a wunnerful fine lot, he said. so after he had stripped the pear-tree he shouldered the ladder, and we went down the village to davids garden. there i saw his potatoes, some lying to dry where they had been dug up, others in sacks. also his marrows and beans and cabbages and lettuces. a little apologetically, he offered me some of the largest potatoesjust as a hobby, he said, meaning thereby that it was only a trifle he offered. as i went away in the gathering dark, with my hands full of potatoes, i met the landlord of the blue boar, his shirt sleeves rolled up as usual above his brown, muscular arms. bad news that about mrs. lummis, he said, looking towards the cottage on the other side of the road. what is that? said i. her son? there had been no news of him for two months. yes, poor jack. shes got news that he was killed near la bassée in june. nice fellerand her only son. then, more cheerfully, he added, jims coming home to-morrow. going to get his officers rig out, you know, and have a restthe first since he went out a year ago. youll be glad to see him, said i. not half, said he with a vast smile. on rumour i was speaking the other day to a man of cautious mind on a subject of current rumour. well, he said, if i had been asked whether i believed such evidence four months ago i should have said certainly. but after the great russian myth i believe nothing that i cant prove. i believed in that army of ghosts that came from archangel! there are people who say they didnt believe in it. some of them believe they didnt believe in it. but i say defiantly that i did believe in it. and i say further that there was never a rumour in the world that seemed based upon more various or more convincing evidence. and it wasnt true. well, i find im a changed man. i find i am no longer a believer: i am a doubter. this experience, i suppose, is not uncommon. the man who believes as easily to-day as he did six months ago is a man on whom lessons are thrown away. we have lived in a world of gigantic whispers, and most of them have been false whispers. even the magic word official leaves one cold. it is not what i am officially told that interests me: it is what i am officially not told that i want to know in order to arrive at the truth. you remember that famous answer of the plaintiff in an action against a london paper years ago. what did you tell him? i told him to tell the truth. the whole truth? no, _selected truths_. what we have to guard against in this matter of rumours is the natural tendency to believe what we want to believe. take that case of the reported victory in poland in november 1914. there is strong reason to believe that a large part of hindenburgs army narrowly escaped being encircled, that had rennenkampf come up to time the trick would have been done. but it wasnt done