In the evening I descended to the semi-subterranean kitchen, and
talked with her and her old man, Thomas Mugridge by name.
And as I talked to them, all the subtleties and complexities of this
tremendous machine civilisation vanished away. It seemed that I went
down through the skin and the flesh to the naked soul of it, and in
Thomas Mugridge and his old woman gripped hold of the essence of this
remarkable English breed. I found there the spirit of the wanderlust
which has lured Albion's sons across the zones; and I found there the
colossal unreckoning which has tricked the English into foolish
squabblings and preposterous fights, and the doggedness and stubbornness
which have brought them blindly through to empire and greatness; and
likewise I found that vast, incomprehensible patience which has enabled
the home population to endure under the burden of it all, to toil without
complaint through the weary years, and docilely to yield the best of its
sons to fight and colonise to the ends of the earth.
Thomas Mugridge was seventy-one years old and a little man. It was
because he was little that he had not gone for a soldier. He had
remained at home and worked. His first recollections were connected with
work.
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