I.

I am so pleased that it has come about, my dearest Madge,” said Mrs Harland. “I always hoped that Julian would take a fancy—I mean that you—that you would come to think tenderly of Julian. It was the one hope of my life. What should I have done if he had come to me with a story of having fallen in love with one of those horrid modern young women—the sort who are for ever having their names in the papers about something or other—charities and things? Charity has become the most effective means of self-advertisement in these days.”

“If he had come to you saying that he loved such a girl, you—you would have loved her too, you dear old thing!” cried Madge, kissing her on both cheeks.

“Madge, I’m ashamed of you,” said Mrs Harland with dignity—the dignity of the lady with a grievance.

“It is of yourself you would feel ashamed if your son came to you with a tale of loving a girl—any girl—and you failed to see her exactly with his eyes,” laughed Madge. “But I know you are glad that your duty in this respect is so easy: you have always loved me, haven’t you? How could you help it? When I think of how naughty I used to be; of the panes in the greenhouse I used to break, playing cricket with Julian—panes that involved no penalties; when I think of your early peas that I used to steal and eat raw out of the pods; when I think of all the mischief I used to put poor Julian up to, usually giving him a good lead over; and when I reflect that not once did I ever receive more than a verbal reproof from you, then I know that you could not help loving me,—it was not my fault that you did not think of me as the greatest nuisance in the county.”

Mrs Harland laughed, though she had entered upon this interview with the girl who was to be her daughter-in-law very seriously, and in by no means a laughing spirit.

“I loved you always, because you were always a girl to be loved, and my prayer day and night, dear, was that Julian would come to think so in good time,” said she. “I was, I admit, slightly alarmed to find how very friendly you and he always were: every one knows that nothing is so fatal to falling in love as great friendliness.”

“Of course,” said Madge. “How funny it was that I should never think about the matter at all! And yet I feel that I must always have loved him, just as I do now. How could any one help it, my dearest mother?”

The fond mother of Julian Harland made no attempt to answer so difficult a question. Some mothers may be able to formulate on economic grounds how it is that young men do not find it impossible to resist the charms of their numerous daughters; but the mother of an only son declines to entertain the notion that he may fail to attract any girl who has had the good fortune to appear attractive in his eyes. That was why Mrs Harland fully acquiesced in Madge’s view of the irresistible qualities of Julian.

“He is a good boy, he has never been otherwise than a good boy,” she said. “Still—well, I know that his future is safe in your keeping, my Madge.”

She had heard of extremely good boys making extremely undesirable matches with young women in tobacconists’ shops. It would seem as if every university town must be overflowing with tobacconists’ shops, and as if every tobacconist’s shop must be overcrowded with attractive young ladies; one reads so much (in books written by ladies) of the undergraduate victims to tobacconists’ girls. She felt glad that her son Julian had not come to her from Oxford with a story of having made up his mind that he could only be entirely happy if married to one of these. She felt that he had been a really good son in choosing Madge Winston, the most beautiful girl in the county, rather than a snub-nosed, golden-haired girl from behind a tobacconist’s counter. Yes, he deserved great credit for his discrimination.

“And I am doubly glad that you have become engaged just now,” she continued. “You will keep him at home, Madge.”

“He has never shown any tendency to roam again,” said Madge, with an inquiring look into Mrs Harland’s eyes. “He has often said that having had his tiger-shooting in Kashmir, he is perfectly satisfied.”

“It was not that sort of shooting that was in my mind,” said Mrs Harland. “But his father was a soldier—my father was a soldier. Look round the hall, Madge—nothing but uniforms in every picture. That is why——”

“You are afraid that if this war breaks out in earnest——”

“That’s it—that’s it. He belongs to a race of soldiers. There has not been a war since Blenheim between England and any other Power in which a Harland and a Severn have not fought.”

“That is a splendid thing to be able to say; and yet Julian was content with his Militia. Isn’t that strange?”

“It was for my sake, dearest Madge. I saw in his face before he was sixteen the old racial longing to be a soldier, and I made an appeal to him. He put his career away from him for my sake, Madge. He promised to stay at home with me in my loneliness.”

“You were able to make such an appeal to him?” There was a suggestion of surprise in the girl’s voice, and it carried with it a curious suggestion of coldness as well.

“Was it selfish of me—was it, Madge? Oh! I dare say it was. Yes, it must have been selfish; but think of my position, dear. He is all I have in the world now. What would life be worth to me if he were away, or if he were in danger? And then, think of his responsibilities. The property is not a large one, and it requires careful treatment. You don’t think that I was unreasonable, Madge?”

“Oh no, no,” said the girl. “You were right, quite right; only——”

“Only—only what, dear?” said Mrs Harland. “What is on my mind exactly at this moment,” said Madge, “is, that I—I would not have been strong enough to say that to him.”

“To say what to him, Madge?”

“What you said—to ask him to stay at home when he had his heart set on being a soldier, as his father and as his grandfathers were. Even now—but what’s the use of discussing a situation that cannot arise? Even if the war breaks out, he is only a Militia captain, so that he cannot be called on for duty in a campaign.”

“Of course, the war will be over in a month or two, and there is no chance of the Militia being called out; but it is just for the next month or so that I have my fears—my fears, I should say. I have none now that I know that you have promised to make him happy—to make me happy. I had my fears that at the first sound of the trumpet in his ears all the instincts of his house... Look at those uniforms in every picture round the hall.... Ah, I was afraid that he might ask me to release him from his promise.”

“And you knew that you would have released him without a word of demur,” said Madge. “You know that you would do so, for you belong to a fighting house, too. Bless me, I’m the only representative of civilianism among you all. Oh, it is high time that the fighting Severns and the fighting Harlands got a pacific element introduced among them.”

“That is what I feel,” said Mrs Harland. “Madge, you will not allow him ever to yield to that tradition of his house. I feel that so long as he is by your side he is safe. One campaign at least will take place without a descendant of the Harlands having anything to do with it.”

Before Madge had time to make a reply the gravel of the drive was sent flying against the lowest panes of the room by the feet of a horse reined in suddenly.

“Julian has returned with some important news,” said Madge, glancing outside.

In another instant a man’s step sounded in the porch, and Julian Harland entered the old oak hall with a newspaper in the same hand that held his hunting crop.

“It has come at last!” he cried. “War! war! war!”

“England has declared war against the Transvaal!” said Madge.

“On the contrary, it is Mr Kruger, the Boer farmer, who has declared war against Great Britain!” said he.

“Poor Mr Kruger!” said Madge.

“I am sorry—very sorry! War is terrible! I know what war means,” said Mrs Harland.

“Sorry!—sorry!” cried her son. “Why, what is there to be grieved, about? You’re not a friend of Mr Kruger’s, mother?”

“I know what war means,” said she.

“And I don’t,” said he.

There was something in his voice that suggested a sigh, and it seemed that he was aware of this himself, for he threw his riding crop into a corner, and cried out quite cheerily—“I’m happy to feel all the springs of domesticity welling up within my bosom since you made me the happiest chap in the county, my Madge. I have no greater ambition than to sit in a chair at one side of the fire with you to look at, my Madge. How rosy you are, my dear. What is keeping the lunch, mother? We must drink together ‘Confusion to Kruger!’ His ultimatum—fancy a half-caste Dutch peasant having the impudence to write an ultimatum to Great Britain!—it expires to-day. We’ll not leave the hall till we are sure it has expired.”

He continued in this excited strain during lunch, and Madge found that she too was in the same vein. War was in the air, and while the crowds in London were cheering aloud and singing “God Save the Queen!” with flashing eyes, the little group of three at the table in that old Somerset hall stood up and drank to the success of the Queen’s soldiers in South Africa. Around them on the oak panels were the pictures of Harlands in red coats, Harlands in blue coats, Harlands in the demi-armour of the Stuarts, Harlands in the chain mail of the Lancastrians. Every man of them carried a sword and kept his eyes fixed on the living head of their house sternly, anxiously.

And that was why Julian, after drinking to the toast which he had given a moment before, remained on his feet with his glass still in his hand, and with his eyes looking from picture to picture as though he had never seen one of them previously in his life.

His mother watched him, so did Madge.

The glass dropped from his hand and was smashed in pieces on the floor, and he fell back into his chair and gave a loud laugh.

“That’s Kruger!” he cried: “smashed!—smashed!—beyond recovery!—beyond coaguline—smashed—and without a Harland raising his hand against him,—that’s what they are saying—those Harlands that have had their eyes fixed on me, as if I needed their prompting. Come along, sweet womenfolk, and have a look at the sundial that Rogers unearthed when digging the new rose-bed, where the remains of the old maze were,—the date is carved on it, 1472 a.d. Just think of it, hidden for perhaps three hundred years and only unearthed yesterday, at the very hour that you promised to be my own Madge! A good omen! What does it mean except that a new era for the old house is beginning? Come along, my dearest.”

There was no great alacrity in Madge’s response to his challenge.