"Whatever is it, John? Is there trouble already?" asked Mrs. Atheling.
"Plenty of it, and like to be more. The King has spoken like a fool."
"His Imbecility! I tell you what, Maude, there has been enough said to-day, and to-night, to set all the dogs of civil war loose. Give me a bit of eating, and I will tell thee and Kitty what a lot of idiots are met together in Westminster."
The Squire always wanted a deal of waiting upon; and in a few minutes his valet was bringing him easy slippers and a loose coat, and two handmaidens serving a tray, bearing game pastry, and fruit tarts, and clotted cream. But he would take neither wine, nor strong ale,--
"Water is all a man wants that gets himself stirred up in the House of Commons," he said. "And if I had been in the Lords' House, I would have needed nothing but a strait-jacket."
He had hardly sat down to eat, when Piers Exham came in. No one could have been more welcome, and the young man's troubled face brightened in the sunshine of Kate's smile, and in the honest kindness of the Squire's greeting. "I was just going to tell Mrs. Atheling all I knew about to-night's blundering," he said; "but now we will have your report first, for you have seen the Duke, I'll warrant."
"Indeed, Squire, the Duke is not dissatisfied--though the general opinion is, that the Duke of Wellington has committed an egregious mistake."
"I shouldn't wonder. Wellington does not know the difference between a field-marshal and a Cabinet Minister. What did he say?"
"He said that as long as he held any office in the Government, he would resist Reform. He said there was no need of Reform; that we had the best government in the world. The Duke of Devonshire, whom I have just seen, told me that this statement produced a feeling of the utmost dismay, even in the calm atmosphere of the House of Lords."
"Calm!" interrupted the Squire. "You had better say, Incurable prosiness."
"Wellington noticed the suppressed excitement, the murmur, and the movement, and asked Devonshire in a whisper, 'What can I have said to cause such great disturbance?' And Devonshire shrugged his shoulders and answered candidly, 'You have announced the fall of your government, that is all.'"
"Wellington considers the nation as a mutinous regiment," answered the Squire. "He thinks the arguments for Reformers ought to be cannon balls; but Englishmen will not endure a military government."
