"Not to-night, Squire; I really can't."
"Well, then, come over to-morrow. Come and spend a week with me; we should all love to have you."
"We will talk about that after I have heard your news," I said; "for I am sure you have news. What is it?"
"I don't know why I want to tell you, but I feel as though I must. Josiah Lethbridge has been converted."
"Converted! What do you mean?"
"The age of miracles is not past;" and the Squire laughed as he spoke. "You know what my opinion of Lethbridge has been; you know, too, that he is regarded as a kind of Shylock. I told you about our quarrel, didn't I?"
"Yes, I remember perfectly."
"I hate war;" and he spoke as though he wanted to change the subject. "I can't sleep of a night when I think of all the misery, all the agony it is causing. I know that we as a nation could do nothing but what we have done; but when I remember people like poor Searle, and the hundreds and thousands all over the land whose hearts are broken, I feel like going mad. It is simply hellish, man! Not that we can stop it. We must go on and on, no matter what it costs us, until war is made impossible for the future. No, Kaiserism, militarism must be crushed, destroyed forever! Still I feel, Erskine, that there is a tremendous alchemy in war. It is brutal, but it is purifying. It is hellish, but God uses it, and over-rules it for His own purposes."
"I hope you are right," was my reply. "But what is your particular reason for saying this now?"
"It is Lethbridge. You know what a hard man he is, don't you? You have heard how he has got people into his grip, and ground them to powder? You have been told how, like a spider, he has attracted them into his web and imprisoned them? I don't say that, in a way, he has not been a just man. He has never done anything that has violated the law. But he has been cruel and merciless. He has demanded his pound of flesh to the fiftieth part of an ounce. He has never forgiven an injury, and has always been impatient of any one's will but his own. But there, I needn't enlarge on that; you have heard, you know."