I refer to this subject to-day not to recall these historic fables, but to
show what cruel wrong we may do to the innocent by accepting rumours about
our neighbours without examining the facts. Was there ever a more pitiful
story than that told at the inquest on an elderly woman at Henham in
Suffolk? Her husband had been the village schoolmaster for twenty-eight
years. The couple had a son whom they sent to Germany to learn the
language. The average village schoolmaster has not much money for luxuries,
and I can imagine the couple screwing and saving to give their boy a good
start in life. When he had finished his training he set out to seek his
fortune in South America, and there in far Guatemala he became a teacher of
languages. When the war broke out he heard the call of the Motherland to
her children and like thousands of others came back to fight.
But in the meantime the lying tongue of rumour had been busy with his name
in his native village. It was said that he was an officer in the German
Army, and on the strength of that rumour his parents were ordered by the
Chief Constable to leave the village and not to dwell on the East Coast.
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