d. And if they
weren't other people's principles, what did it matter? He was ready
to stand by them, to go to prison for them. He folded his arms
magnificently.

Pamela laughed excitedly, and shook her head.

'Oh, no, father, you won't be a hero--only a laughing-stock! That's
what Desmond minds so much. They won't send you to prison. Some
tiresome old Judge will give you a talking-to in Court, and you
won't be able to answer him back. And then they'll fine you--and we
shall be a little more boycotted than we were before! That's all
that'll happen!'

'"Boycotted"?--what do you mean?' said the Squire haughtily.

'Oh, father, can't you _feel_ it?' cried Pamela.

'As if one man could pit himself against a nation!' said Mrs.
Strang, in that manner of controlled emotion which the Squire
detested. He rarely felt emotion, but when he did, he let it go.

Peremptorily he turned them all out, giving strict orders that
nothing he had done should be interfered with. Then he attempted to
go on with some work of his own, but he could not bring his mind to
bear. Finally he seized his hat and went out into the park to see if
the populace were really rising. It was a cold October evening, with
a waxing moon, and a wind that was rapidly bringing the dead leaves
to earth. Not a soul was to be seen! Only once the Squire thought he
heard the sound of distant guns; and two aeroplanes crossed rapidly
overhead sailing into the western sky. Everywhere the war!--the
cursed, cursed obsession of it!

For the first time there was a breach in the Squire's defences,
which for three years he had kept up almost intact. He had put
literature, and art, and the joys of the connoisseur between himself
and the measureless human ill around him. It had spoilt his personal
life, had interfered with his travels, his diggings, his friendships
with foreign scholars. Well, then, as far as he could he would take
no account of it, would shut it out, and rail at the men and the
forces that made it. He barely looked at the newspapers; he never
touched a book dealing with the war. It seemed to him a triumph of
mind and intelligence when he succeeded in shutting out the
hurly-burly altogether. Only, when in the name of the war his
private freedom and property were interfered with, he had flamed out
into hysterical revolt. Old aristocratic instincts came to the aid
of passionate will, and, perhaps, of an uneasy conscience.

And now in the man's vain but not ign