The Freelands | Page 7

grew red, and John refilled
his pipe. It is always the devil to have a brother more sarcastic than
oneself!
"How old are those two?" John said abruptly.
"Sheila's twenty, Derek nineteen."
"I thought the boy was at an agricultural college?"
"Finished."
"What's he like?"
"A black-haired, fiery fellow, not a bit like Tod."
John muttered: "That's her Celtic blood. Her father, old Colonel Moray,
was just that sort; by George, he was a regular black Highlander.
What's the trouble exactly?"
It was Stanley who answered: "That sort of agitation business is all
very well until it begins to affect your neighbors; then it's time it

stopped. You know the Mallorings who own all the land round Tod's.
Well, they've fallen foul of the Mallorings over what they call injustice
to some laborers. Questions of morality involved. I don't know all the
details. A man's got notice to quit over his deceased wife's sister; and
some girl or other in another cottage has kicked over--just ordinary
country incidents. What I want is that Tod should be made to see that
his family mustn't quarrel with his nearest neighbors in this way. We
know the Mallorings well, they're only seven miles from us at Becket.
It doesn't do; sooner or later it plays the devil all round. And the air's
full of agitation about the laborers and 'the Land,' and all the rest of
it--only wants a spark to make real trouble."
And having finished this oration, Stanley thrust his hands deep into his
pockets, and jingled the money that was there.
John said abruptly:
"Felix, you'd better go down."
Felix was sitting back, his eyes for once withdrawn from his brothers'
faces.
"Odd," he said, "really odd, that with a perfectly unique person like
Tod for a brother, we only see him once in a blue moon."
"It's because he IS so d--d unique."
Felix got up and gravely extended his hand to Stanley.
"By Jove," he said, "you've spoken truth." And to John he added: "Well,
I WILL go, and let you know the upshot."
When he had departed, the two elder brothers remained for some
moments silent, then Stanley said:
"Old Felix is a bit tryin'! With the fuss they make of him in the papers,
his head's swelled!"
John did not answer. One could not in so many words resent one's own

brother being made a fuss of, and if it had been for something real, such
as discovering the source of the Black River, conquering Bechuanaland,
curing Blue-mange, or being made a Bishop, he would have been the
first and most loyal in his appreciation; but for the sort of thing Felix
made up--Fiction, and critical, acid, destructive sort of stuff, pretending
to show John Freeland things that he hadn't seen before--as if Felix
could!--not at all the jolly old romance which one could read well
enough and enjoy till it sent you to sleep after a good day's work. No!
that Felix should be made a fuss of for such work as that really almost
hurt him. It was not quite decent, violating deep down one's sense of
form, one's sense of health, one's traditions. Though he would not have
admitted it, he secretly felt, too, that this fuss was dangerous to his own
point of view, which was, of course, to him the only real one. And he
merely said:
"Will you stay to dinner, Stan?"

CHAPTER III
If John had those sensations about Felix, so--when he was away from
John--had Felix about himself. He had never quite grown out of the
feeling that to make himself conspicuous in any way was bad form. In
common with his three brothers he had been through the mills of
gentility--those unique grinding machines of education only found in
his native land. Tod, to be sure, had been publicly sacked at the end of
his third term, for climbing on to the headmaster's roof and filling up
two of his chimneys with football pants, from which he had omitted to
remove his name. Felix still remembered the august scene--the horrid
thrill of it, the ominous sound of that: "Freeland minimus!" the
ominous sight of poor little Tod emerging from his obscurity near the
roof of the Speech Room, and descending all those steps. How very
small and rosy he had looked, his bright hair standing on end, and his
little blue eyes staring up very hard from under a troubled frown. And
the august hand holding up those sooty pants, and the august voice:
"These appear to be yours, Freeland minimus. Were you so good as to

put them down my chinmeys?" And the little piping, "Yes, sir."
"May I ask why, Freeland minimus?"
"I don't know, sir."
"You must have had some reason, Freeland minimus?"
"It was the