finding himself in this galley, were peculiar.  For his feeling towards Miltoun, whom he had twice met at Mrs. Noel’s, was, in spite of disagreements, by no means unfriendly; while his feeling towards Miltoun’s family was not yet in existence.  Having lived from hand to mouth, and in many countries, since he left Westminster School, he had now practically no class feelings.  An attitude of hostility to aristocracy because it was aristocracy, was as incomprehensible to him as an attitude of deference.

His sensations habitually shaped themselves in accordance with those two permanent requirements of his nature, liking for adventure, and hatred of tyranny.  The labourer who beat his wife, the shopman who sweated his ‘hands,’ the parson who consigned his parishioners to hell, the peer who rode roughshod—­all were equally odious to him.  He thought of people as individuals, and it was, as it were, by accident that he had conceived the class generalization which he had fired back at Miltoun from Mrs. Noel’s window.  Sanguine, accustomed to queer environments, and always catching at the moment as it flew, he had not to fight with the timidities and irritations of a nervous temperament.  His cheery courtesy was only disturbed when he became conscious of some sentiment which appeared to him mean or cowardly.  On such occasions, not perhaps infrequent, his face looked as if his heart were physically fuming, and since his shell of stoicism was never quite melted by this heat, a very peculiar expression was the result, a sort of calm, sardonic, desperate, jolly look.

His chief feeling, then, at the outrage which had laid him captive in the enemy’s camp, was one of vague amusement, and curiosity.  People round about spoke fairly well of this Caradoc family.  There did not seem to be any lack of kindly feeling between them and their tenants; there was said to be no griping destitution, nor any particular ill-housing on their estate.  And if the inhabitants were not encouraged to improve themselves, they were at all events maintained at a certain level, by steady and not ungenerous supervision.  When a roof required thatching it was thatched; when a man became too old to work, he was not suffered to lapse into the Workhouse.  In bad years for wool, or beasts, or crops, the farmers received a graduated remission of rent.  The pottery-works were run on a liberal if autocratic basis.  It was true that though Lord Valleys was said to be a staunch supporter of a ‘back to the land’ policy, no disposition was shown to encourage people to settle on these particular lands, no doubt from a feeling that such settlers would not do them so much justice as their present owner.  Indeed so firmly did this conviction seemingly obtain, that Lord Valleys’ agent was not unfrequently observed to be buying a little bit more.

But, since in this life one notices only what interests him, all this gossip, half complimentary, half not, had fallen but lightly on the ears of the champion of Peace during his campaign, for he was, as has, been said, but a poor politician, and rode his own horse very much his own way.