ELIZABETH'S CAMPAIGN

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CHAPTER I

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      'Remember, Slater, if I am detained, that I am expecting the two gentlemen from the War Agricultural Committee at six, and Captain Mills of the Red Cross is coming to dine and sleep. Ask Lady Chicksands to look after him in case I am late—and put those Tribunal papers in order for me, by the way. I really must go properly into that Quaker man's case—horrid nuisance! I hope to be back in a couple of hours, but I can't be sure. Hullo, Beryl! I thought you were out.'

      The speaker, Sir Henry Chicksands, already mounted on his cob outside his own front door, turned from his secretary, to whom he had been giving these directions, to see his only daughter hurrying through the inner hall with the evident intention of catching her father before he rode off.

      She ran down the steps, but instead of speaking at once she began to stroke and pat his horse's neck, as though doubtful how to put what she had to say.

      'Well, Beryl, what's the matter?' said her father impatiently. The girl, who was slender and delicate in build, raised her face to his.

      'Are you—are you really going to Mannering, father?'

      'I am—worse luck!'

      'You'll handle him gently, won't you?' There was anxiety in the girl's voice. 'But of course you will—I know you will.'

      Chicksands shrugged his shoulders.

      'I shall do my best. But you know as well as I do that he's a queer customer when it comes to anything connected with the war.'

      The girl looked behind her to make sure that the old butler of the house had retired discreetly out of earshot.

      'But he can't quarrel with you, father!'

      'I hope not—for your sake.'

      'Must you really tackle him?'

      'Well, I thought I was the person to do it. It's quite certain nobody else could make anything of it.'

      Privately Beryl disagreed, but she made no comment.

      'Aubrey seems to be pretty worried,' she said, in a depressed tone, as she turned away.

      'I don't wonder. He should have brought up his father better. Well, good-bye, dear. Don't bother too much.'

      She waved her hand to him as he made off, and stood watching him from the steps—a gentle, attaching figure, her fair hair and the pale oval of her face standing out against the panelled hall behind her.

      Her father went his way down a long winding hill beyond his own grounds, along a country road lined with magnificent oaks, through a village where his practised eye noted several bad cottages with disapproval, till presently he slackened his horse's pace, as he passed an ill-looking farm about half a mile beyond the village.

      'Not a decent gate in the whole place!' he said to himself with disgust. 'And the farm buildings only fit for a bonfire. High time indeed that we made Mannering sit up!'

      He paused also to look over the neighbouring hedge at some fields literally choked with weeds.

      'And as for Gregson—lazy, drunken fellow! Why didn't he set some village women on? Just see what they've done on my place! Hullo, here he is! Now I'm in for it!' For he saw a slouching man coming rapidly towards him from the farmyard, with the evident intention of waylaying him. The man's shabby, untidy dress and blotched complexion did not escape Sir Henry's quick eye. 'Seems to have been making a night of it,' was his inward comment.

      'Good-day,