"Yes, that's all!" the squire burst out. "An English Fashoda—that's all! We're the laughing-stock of Europe with our threats and demands, and then this d——d surrender. They call it a compromise. It's not what I call it. We've just licked their dirty boots—and I'd like to see every man-jack of the Government hanged and quartered!"
He was almost unintelligible in his fury, and the Rev. John made a mild gesture of protest.
"As a man of peace, I must rejoice," he said.
"As an Englishman, I curse!" the squire retorted, shaking his fist in the air. "It was a cowardly thing to do. We were ready and waiting for war. Every man of us had put his best foot forward. All my young fellows were learning to shoot and ride—I spent a small fortune on 'em; and now, what's the good? Their time and my money thrown clean away, and the humiliation of it all into the bargain! And to think we might have thrashed those confounded ruffians and settled them once and for all!"
He paced up and down, grinding his teeth, and Nora's eyes followed him with a critical wonder. By a swift turn of the imagination, she was again in that huge crowd, watching company after company of trained men as they tramped past in stern, resolute silence. Was it possible that this great blundering squire could talk of thrashing that mighty force with men who were learning to shoot and ride? Was it possible that she had ever thought as he thought?
He stopped in front of her, with his legs apart, and fixed her with a fierce, choleric stare.
"Come now, Miss Nora," he said, "you have been out there and know the blackguards. You must have hated 'em pretty well to have thrown up everything and come home?"
Something like an electric shock passed through Nora's body.
"I—hate them?" she stammered.
"Yes; Miles has been telling me the whole story. No offence meant, of course; but between such old friends as you and I, it was a d——d mistake to have married that foreign fellow. I always said so, didn't I, Parson?"