But the common man in Britain was not being the British bulldog of General Gerson’s hopes. He was declining to be a bulldog altogether. He was remaining a profoundly skeptical human being, with the most disconcerting modern tendencies. And much too large a part of his combative energy was directed, not against the appointed enemy, but against the one commanding spirit which could still lead him to victory.

The Decree of Public Safety was now the law of the land. It might not be strictly constitutional, but the dictatorship had superseded constitutionalism. Yet everywhere it was being disputed. The national apathy was giving place to a resistance as bold as it was dogged. North, east, and west there were protests, remonstrances, overt obstruction. The recalcitrant workers found lawyers to denounce the Lord Paramount’s authority, funds to organize resistance. Half the magistrates in the country were recusant and had to be superseded by military courts. Never had the breach between the popular mind and the imperial will of the directive and possessing classes been so open and so uncompromising. It was astounding to find how superficial loyalty to the Empire had always been.

The distress of the Lord Paramount at these tensions was extreme. “My English,” he said. “My English. My English have been misled.” He would stand with a sheaf of reports from the mobilization department in his hand repeating, “I did not count on this.”

It needed all the most penetrating reminders of which Gerson was capable to subdue that heroically tender heart to the stern work of repression. And yet, just because the Lord Paramount had stood aside and effaced himself in that matter of the hospitals he was misjudged, and his repressive measures were understood to be the natural expression of a fierce and arrogant disposition. The caricaturists gave him glaring and projecting eyes and a terrible row of teeth. They made his hands — and really they were quite shapely hands — into the likeness of gesticulating claws. That was a particularly cruel attack. “I must be strong,” he repeated to himself, “and later they will understand.”

But it is hard for a patriot to be stark and strong with his own misguided people. Riots had to be dispersed with bayonets and rifle-fire in the south of Wales, in Lancashire and the Midlands. There was savage street fighting in Glasgow. The tale of these domestic casualties lengthened. The killed were presently to be counted by the hundred. “Nip the trouble in the bud,” said Gerson. “Arrest the agitators and shoot a few of them, if you don’t like firing on crowds. Over half the country now time is being lost and the drafts delayed.”

So those grim sedition clauses which had looked so calmly heroic on paper were put into operation. The military authorities arrested vigorously. A few old hands were caught in the net but even before the court-martials were held it was apparent to the Lord Paramount that for the most part they were dealing with excitable youths and youngish men. Most of these younger agitators would have been treated very indulgently indeed if they had been university students. But Gerson insisted upon the need of a mental shock for the whole country. “Shoot now,” he said, “and you may forgive later. War is war.”

“Shoot now,” said Gerson, “and the rest will come in for training, good as gold. Stop the rot. And let ’em say what they like about you.”

The Lord Paramount could feel how tenderly and completely that faithful secretary of his could read the intimations of his saddened and yet resolute profile. “Yes,” he admitted, “we must shoot — though the bullet tears us on its way.”

The order went forth.

There was a storm of remonstrances, threats, and passionate pleas for pity. That was to have been expected. Much was fended off from direct impact upon the Lord Paramount, but he knew the protest was there. It found an echo in his own too human heart. “The will of a great people,” he said, “must override these little individual stories. There is this boy Carrol from Bristol they are asking me to reprieve! There seems to be a special fuss about him. A sort of boy scholar of promise — yes. But read the poison of those speeches he made! He struck an officer. . . .”

“Shall Carrol die?” asked an outbreak of placards along Whitehall that no one could account for. That hardened the Lord Protector’s mouth; he must show he would not be bullied, and in stern response to that untimely challenge young Carrol and five and thirty associates died at dawn.

There was a hideous popular clamour at this unavoidable act of war. The Lord Paramount’s secretarial organization was far too new and scanty to protect him adequately from the clamour of this indignation and, it may be, something in himself acted as an all too ready receiver for these messages of antagonism. Abruptly out of the void into which he was wont to vanish appeared Sir Bussy the unquenchable. He was now almost full size again and confident and abrupt in his prewar style.

“This shooting of boys!” he said. “This killing of honest and straightforward people who don’t agree with you! Why, damn it! we might be in Italy! It’s a century out of date. Why did you ever let this war get loose?”

The Lord Paramount stood defensively mute, and it was Gerson who took the word out of his mouth and answered Sir Bussy. “Have you never even heard of discipline? Have you never heard of the needs of war? I tell you we are at war.”

“But why are we at war?” cried Sir Bussy. “Why the devil are we at war?”

“What the devil are fleets and armies for if we are never to use them? What other ways are there for settling national differences? What’s a flag for if you’re never............