The Freelands | Page 6

thinner, his head
narrower, than his brother's, and he had acquired a way of making those
he looked at doubt themselves and feel the sudden instability of all their
facts. He was--as has been said--thinking. His brother Stanley had
wired to him that morning: "Am motoring up to-day on business; can

you get Felix to come at six o'clock and talk over the position at
Tod's?" What position at Tod's? He had indeed heard something
vague--of those youngsters of Tod's, and some fuss they were making
about the laborers down there. He had not liked it. Too much of a piece
with the general unrest, and these new democratic ideas that were
playing old Harry with the country! For in his opinion the country was
in a bad way, partly owing to Industrialism, with its rotting effect upon
physique; partly to this modern analytic Intellectualism, with its
destructive and anarchic influence on morals. It was difficult to
overestimate the mischief of those two factors; and in the approaching
conference with his brothers, one of whom was the head of an
industrial undertaking, and the other a writer, whose books, extremely
modern, he never read, he was perhaps vaguely conscious of his own
cleaner hands. Hearing a car come to a halt outside, he went to the
window and looked out. Yes, it was Stanley! . . .
Stanley Freeland, who had motored up from Becket--his country place,
close to his plough works in Worcestershire--stood a moment on the
pavement, stretching his long legs and giving directions to his
chauffeur. He had been stopped twice on the road for not- exceeding
the limit as he believed, and was still a little ruffled. Was it not his
invariable principle to be moderate in speed as in all other things? And
his feeling at the moment was stronger even than usual, that the country
was in a bad way, eaten up by officialism, with its absurd limitations of
speed and the liberty of the subject, and the advanced ideas of these
new writers and intellectuals, always talking about the rights and
sufferings of the poor. There was no progress along either of those
roads. He had it in his heart, as he stood there on the pavement, to say
something pretty definite to John about interference with the liberty of
the subject, and he wouldn't mind giving old Felix a rap about his
precious destructive doctrines, and continual girding at the upper
classes, vested interests, and all the rest of it. If he had something to put
in their place that would be another matter. Capital and those who
controlled it were the backbone of the country--what there was left of
the country, apart from these d--d officials and aesthetic fellows! And
with a contraction of his straight eyebrows above his straight gray eyes,
straight blunt nose, blunter moustaches, and blunt chin, he kept a tight

rein on his blunt tongue, not choosing to give way even to his own
anger.
Then, perceiving Felix coming--'in a white topper, by Jove!'--he
crossed the pavement to the door; and, tall, square, personable, rang the
bell.

CHAPTER II
"Well, what's the matter at Tod's?"
And Felix moved a little forward in his chair, his eyes fixed with
interest on Stanley, who was about to speak.
"It's that wife of his, of course. It was all very well so long as she
confined herself to writing, and talk, and that Land Society, or
whatever it was she founded, the one that snuffed out the other day; but
now she's getting herself and those two youngsters mixed up in our
local broils, and really I think Tod's got to be spoken to."
"It's impossible for a husband to interfere with his wife's principles." So
Felix.
"Principles!" The word came from John.
"Certainly! Kirsteen's a woman of great character; revolutionary by
temperament. Why should you expect her to act as you would act
yourselves?"
When Felix had said that, there was a silence.
Then Stanley muttered: "Poor old Tod!"
Felix sighed, lost for a moment in his last vision of his youngest brother.
It was four years ago now, a summer evening--Tod standing between
his youngsters Derek and Sheila, in a doorway of his white,

black-timbered, creepered cottage, his sunburnt face and blue eyes the
serenest things one could see in a day's march!
"Why 'poor'?" he said. "Tod's much happier than we are. You've only to
look at him."
"Ah!" said Stanley suddenly. "D'you remember him at Father's
funeral?--without his hat, and his head in the clouds. Fine- lookin' chap,
old Tod--pity he's such a child of Nature."
Felix said quietly:
"If you'd offered him a partnership, Stanley--it would have been the
making of him."
"Tod in the plough works? My hat!"
Felix smiled. At sight of that smile, Stanley