were old. When he was a child they had
insisted on the utmost submission, and now they expected the same
submission--to their prejudice, intolerance, and lack of knowledge. They
had almost ridiculously that calm, quiet, well-satisfied assurance which
a king by right divine might have in the certainty that he could do no
wrong.

And James, with bitter, painful scorn, thought of that frightful blunder
which had forced Colonel Parsons to leave the service. At first his
belief in his father had been such that James could not conceive the
possibility even that he had acted wrongly; the mere fact that his
father had chosen a certain course was proof of its being right and
proper, and the shame lay with his chief, who had used him ill. But when
he examined the affair and thought over it, the truth became only too
clear; it came to him like a blow, and for a while he was overcome with
shame. The fact was evident--alas! only too evident--his father was
incapable of command. James was simply astounded; he tried not to hear
the cruel words that buzzed in his ears, but he could not help
it--imbecility, crass idiocy, madness. It was worse than madness, the
folly of it was almost criminal; he thought now that his father had
escaped very easily.

James hastened his step, trying to rid himself of the irritating
thoughts. He walked along the fat and fertile Kentish fields, by the
neat iron railing with which they were enclosed. All about him was
visible the care of man. Nothing was left wild. The trees were lopped
into proper shape, cut down where their presence seemed inelegant,
planted to complete the symmetry of a group. Nature herself was under
the power of the formal influence, and flourished with a certain
rigidity and decorum. After a while the impression became singularly
irksome; it seemed to emphasise man's lack of freedom, reminding one of
the iron conventions with which he is inevitably bound. In the sun, the
valley, all green and wooded, was pleasantly cool; but when the clouds
rolled up from the west heavily, brushing the surrounding hills, the
aspect was so circumscribed that James could have cried out as with
physical pain. The primness of the scene then was insufferable; the
sombre, well-ordered elms, the meadows so carefully kept, seemed the
garden of some great voluptuous prison, and the air was close with
servitude.

James panted for breath. He thought of the vast distances of South
Africa, bush and prairie stret