Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/65

Rh Such then, very briefly, were the manners and customs of our forefathers who made their homes in England during the fifth and sixth centuries. They were blue-eyed, fair-haired giants, sturdy pagans, fierce warriors, fearless lovers of sea and storm, reckless of life for life's sake, ever ready to suffer and if need be to die for one of the Blood. Brave, valorous, energetic, cheerful, if devoid of mercy and pity, they have bequeathed that force of character and "grit" to their successors—qualities which have carried England's sons successfully through unequal contest and inconceivable hardship, enabling them to ride fearlessly through surf and storm, and with dogged perseverance to build up new homes in distant lands, carving out the destiny of the British Empire, even as their forefathers carved out the destiny of England.

From the shores of the North Sea came our ideas of freedom, our right of free meeting, of free speech, free thought, free work. It is with respect akin to reverence that we look back across the stretch of over a thousand years to see in the Meeting of the Wise Men the germ of our Parliament to-day. On the other hand, it is not without anguish that we realise how completely