OLLY SITS IN JUDGMENT

The possessive instinct, which, so determinedly balked, was animating two
members of the Forsyte family towards riddance of what they could no
longer possess, was hardening daily in the British body politic.
Nicholas, originally so doubtful concerning a war which must affect
property, had been heard to say that these Boers were a pig-headed lot;
they were causing a lot of expense, and the sooner they had their lesson
the better. He would send out Wolseley! Seeing always a little further
than other people--whence the most considerable fortune of all the
Forsytes--he had perceived already that Buller was not the man--'a bull
of a chap, who just went butting, and if they didn't look out Ladysmith
would fall.' This was early in December, so that when Black Week came, he
was enabled to say to everybody: 'I told you so.' During that week of
gloom such as no Forsyte could remember, very young Nicholas attended so
many drills in his corps, 'The Devil's Own,' that young Nicholas
consulted the family physician about his son's health and was alarmed to
find that he was perfectly sound. The boy had only just eaten his
dinners and been called to the bar, at some expense, and it was in a way
a nightmare to his father and mother that he should be playing with
military efficiency at a time when military efficiency in the civilian
population might conceivably be wanted. His grandfather, of course,
pooh-poohed the notion, too thoroughly educated in the feeling that no
British war could be other than little and professional, and profoundly
distrustful of Imperial commitments, by which, moreover, he stood to
lose, for he owned De Beers, now going down fast, more than a sufficient
sacrifice on the part of his grandson.

At Oxford, however, rather different sentiments prevailed. The inherent
effervescence of conglomerate youth had, during the two months of the
term before Black Week, been gradually crystallising out into vivid
oppositions. Normal adolescence, ever in England of a conservative
tendency though not taking things too seriously, was vehement for a fight
to a finish and a good licking for the Boers. Of this larger faction Val
Dartie was naturally a member. Radical youth, on the other hand, a small
but perhaps more vocal body, was for stopping the war and giving the
Boers autonomy. Until Black Week, however, the groups were amorphous,
without sharp edges, and argument remained but academic. Jolly was