Philip Blackburn\'s meeting had not been advertised, for it was only in the small hours of the morning that a motor-bicyclist scaring the hares and herons in the marshes, had brought the news from Labour Headquarters that P.B. was bearing the Fiery Cross to Beachbourne in the course of a whirlwind pilgrimage of the Southern Counties. But the hall was crammed.

Philip Blackburn was a sure draw at any time. A Labour M.P. and stalwart of the Independent Labour Party, it was often said that he was destined to be the Robespierre of the new movement. Certainly he was an incorruptible. A cripple from his youth, and a fanatic, with the face of a Savonarola, in the House and on the platform he asked no quarter and gave none.

Half an hour later the dusty Ford car which bore the fighting pacifist was signalled panting down Stone Cross hill over the Levels: a half-hour the audience passed singing God save the People and The Red Flag.

A few minutes later he came limping on to the platform: a little man, of the black-coated proletariat obviously, with the face of a steel blade, keen and fine, and far-removed from the burly labour agitator, hoarse of voice, and raw of face, of a previous generation. His reception was impressively quiet. The man\'s personality, his courage, his errand, the occasion, awed even the most boisterous.

He looked dead-beat, admitted as much, and apologised for being late.

"You know where I come from (cheers) and where I\'m bound for to-night. And you know what I\'ve come about—Is it Peace or War?"

And he launched straightway into that famous Follow-your-leader speech, the ghost of which in one form or another was to haunt the country, as the murdered albatross haunted the blood-guilty mariner, all through the war, and will haunt England for generations still after we are gone:—

The danger long-preached was on them at last. It must be faced and fought. They must take a leaf out of Carson\'s book. The Conservatives had shown the way: they must follow their leaders of the ruling class. They must dish the Government if it proposed to betray the country just as the unionists had done—by persuading the Army not to fight. They must undermine the morale of the private soldiers—just as the Tories had undermined that of the officers. They must have their agents in every barrack-room, their girls at every barrack-gate—just as the Tories had done. The men must apply the sternest "disciplinary pressure" to scabs—just as the officers had done. They must stop recruiting—as Garvin and the Yellow Press had advocated. The famous doctrine of "optional obedience," newly introduced into the Army by Tory casuists, must be carried to its logical conclusion. And if the worst came to the worst they must follow their leaders of the ruling class, arm, and "fight the fighters. Follow your leaders—that is the word."

He spoke with cold and bitter passion in almost a complete hush—a white-hot flame of a man burning straight and still on the altar of a packed cathedral. Then he sank back into his chair, spent, his eyes closed, his face livid, his fine fingers twitching. He had achieved that rarest triumph of the orator: beaten his audience into silence.

The Colonel stood up against the wall at the back. Peering over intervening heads he saw Joe Burt sitting in front.

Then a voice at his ear, subdued and deep and vibrating, floated out on the hush as it were on silver wings.

"Now, Joe!" it said, like a courser urging on a greyhound.

There was a faint stir in the stillness: the eyes of the orator on the platform opened. A chair scraped; the woman beside the Colonel sighed. There was some sporadic cheering, and an undercurrent of groans.

Joe Burt rose to his feet slowly and with something of the solemn dignity of one rising from the dead. Everybody present knew him; nobody challenged his right to speak. A worker and a warrior, who had lived in the East-end for some years now, he had his following, and he had his enemies. The moderate men were for him, the extremists had long marked him down as suspect—in with the capitalists—too fond of the classy class. But they would hear him; for above all things he was that which the Englishman loves best in friend or enemy—a fighter.

Standing there, thick-set and formidable as a bull, he began the speech of his life.

"Two wrongs don\'t make a right. Because the officers have sold the pass, are the men to do the same?"

"Never!" came a shout from the back. It was Ernie\'s voice. The Colonel recognised it and thrilled.

"We all know," continued the speaker, "that the gentry have put their coontry after their party. It\'s for the People to show them the true road, and put Democracy before even their coontry."

"Hear! hear!" from Philip Blackburn.

The speaker was growing to his task, growing as it grew.

"This is a great spiritual issue. Are we to save our lives to lose them? or lose them to save them? The People are in the Valley of Decision. God and the Devil are standing on a mountain-top on either side the way crying—Who is on my side?" His great voice went billowing through the ............