“You have refused us permission to touch this timber, and I suppose we must yield to your wishes in this respect,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s more than likely, too, that you will object to our putting up the buildings we have in mind anywhere about Carrington?” 348
“Your surmises are perfectly correct,” replied the Colonel.
“Well,” said Lyle, “according to the charter we can overrule your objections by a three-fourths majority, and I have to give you notice that I’m going to call a meeting on Thursday next to consider the matter. We have generally met at the Manor to discuss anything of interest.”
Carrington who appeared to have recovered his composure raised his hand in sign of dismissal.
“Any time you wish in the evening—say six o’clock,” he said.
We turned away and left him, but it seemed to me from his manner that he would not have agreed to the meeting so readily had he not been certain that it would cost him very little trouble to humiliate the men who called it. Lyle appeared very thoughtful as we rode away.
“I’m sorry all this has happened, but it was bound to come,” he said to one of his companions. “I may not have been particularly tactful, but, after all, unless I’d given way altogether I don’t see that I could have handled the matter in any very different way.”
The man who rode beside him laughed somewhat ruefully. “No,” he admitted, “you simply can’t discuss a point with the Colonel. I’m rather afraid the thing’s going to hurt a good many of us, and it may result in breaking up the settlement, but the fat’s in the fire now, and we must stand fast.” He broke off for a moment with a sigh. “If he only weren’t so sickeningly obstinate! It’s an abominably unpleasant situation.”
I could understand how the speaker shrank from the task in front of him. For years he and the others had rendered their leader unquestioning obedience, and the Colonel hitherto had ruled the settlement more or less in accordance with their wishes, though I fancy that this was due to the 349 fact that their views had generally coincided and not to any willingness to defer to them. It was, perhaps, not unnatural that most of them should look coldly on innovations and hold by traditions, for Englishmen are proverbially averse to change. Still, they could recognize when a change was absolutely necessary, and setting aside their predilections and prejudices insist on it. I, however, had less of the latter, since my status was not theirs, and it seemed to me that the man who would be most hurt was Colonel Carrington.
There was no doubt that he had the gift of command. Some men are unmistakably endued with it, and as a rule everybody defers to them even when they do not use it wisely. They come to regard it as their right, and by presuming on the good-nature or supineness of those with whom they come into contact, until at length the exception to the rule appears. Then being boldly faced they prove to be very much like other men. The air of authority disappears, and everybody wonders why he allowed himself to be overawed so long.