At the park entrance John stood still a minute; his desire was to put Bendigo to his utmost speed and quickly find out the lonely world he knew of beyond Hatton and Harlow.  There he could mingle his prayer with the fresh winds of heaven and the cries of beasts and birds seeking their food from God.  His flesh had been well satisfied, but Oh how hungry was his soul!  It longed for a renewed sense of God’s love and it longed for some word of assurance from Jane.  Then there flashed across his memory the rumor of war and the clouds in the far west gathering volume and darkness every day.  No, he could not run away; he must find in the fulfilling of his duty whatever consolation duty could give him, and he turned doggedly to the mill and his mail.

Once more as he lifted his mail, he had that fear of a letter from Harry which had haunted him more or less for some months.  He shuffled the letters at once, searching for the delicate, disconnected writing so familiar to him and hardly knew whether its absence was not as disquieting as its presence would have been.

The mail being attended to, he sent for Greenwood and spoke to him about the likelihood of war and its consequences.  Jonathan proved to be quite well informed on this subject.  He said he had been on the point of speaking about buying all the cotton they could lay hands on, but thought Mr. Hatton was perhaps considering the question and not ready to move yet.

“Do you think they will come to fighting, Greenwood?” Mr. Hatton asked.

“Well, sir, if they’ll only keep to cotton and such like, they’ll never fire a gun, not they.  But if they keep up this slavery threep, they’ll fight till one side has won and the other side is clean whipped forever.  Why not?  That’s our way, and most of them are chips of the old oak block.  A hundred years or more ago we had the same question to settle and we settled it with money.  It left us all nearly bankrupt, but it’s better to lose guineas than good men, and the blackamoors were well satisfied, no doubt.”

“How do our men and women feel, Greenwood?”

“They are all for the black men, sir.  They hevn’t counted the cost to themselves yet.  I’ll put it up to them if that is your wish, sir.”

“You are nearer to them than I am, Jonathan.”

“I am one o’ them, sir.”

“Then say the word in season when you can.”

“The only word now, sir, is that Frenchy bit o’ radicalism they call liberty.  I told Lucius Yorke what I thought of him shouting it out in England.”

“Is Yorke here?”

“He was ranting away on Hatton green last night, and his catchword and watchword was liberty, liberty, and again liberty!’ He advised them to get a blue banner for their Club, and dedicate it to liberty.  Then I stopped him.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to be quiet or I would make him.  I told him we got beyond that word in King John’s reign.  I asked if he hed niver heard of the grand old English word freedom, and I said there was as much difference between freedom and liberty, as there was between right and wrong—­and then I proved it to them.”