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By Root 5855 0

produces the best economic and moral results. The law of the democratic world is human standardization, is the reduction of all humanity to the lowest common measure. Its religion is the worship of the average man. We outlaws believe in diversity, in aristocracy, in the natural hierarchy. We would remove every removable handicap and give every man his chance, in order that the best may rise to the position for which nature has qualified them. In a word, we believe in justice. And we revere, not the ordinary, but the extraordinary man. I could go on almost indefinitely with this list of the points on which we British Freemen are in radical disagreement with the democratic governors of what once was free and merry England. But I have said enough to show that there can be no peace between them and us. Their white is our black, their political good is our evil, their earthly paradise is our hell. Voluntary outlaws, we repudiate their rule, we wear the green livery of the forest. And we bide our time, we bide our time. For our time is coming and we do not propose to remain outlaws for ever. The time is coming when the laws will be of our making and the forest will be the place for those who now hold power. Two years ago our band was insignificant. To-day it is an army. An army of outlaws. Yet a little while, my comrades, and it will be the army of those who make the laws, not of those who break them. Yes, of those who break them. For, before we can become the makers of good laws, we must be the breakers of bad laws. We must have the courage of our outlawry. British Freemen, fellow outlaws, when the time comes, will you have that courage?’

From the green-coated ranks rose an enormous shout.

‘When I give the word, will you follow.’

‘We will, we will,’ the green thousand repeated.

‘Even if laws must be broken?’

There was another burst of affirmative cheering. When it died down and as Everard Webley was opening his mouth to continue, a voice shouted,’down with Webley! Down with the rich man’s militia! Down with the Bloody B…’ But before the voice could enunciate the whole hated parody of their name, half a dozen of the nearest British Freemen had thrown themselves upon its owner.

Everard Webley rose in his stirrups. ‘Keep your ranks,’ he called peremptorily. ‘How dare you leave the ranks?’

There was a scurrying of officers to the scene of confusion, an angry shouting of orders. The over-zealous Freemen slunk back to their places. Holding a bloody handkerchief to his nose and escorted by two policemen, their enemy marched away. He had lost his hat. The dishevelled hair blazed red in the sunlight. It was Illidge.

Everard Webley turned to the officer commanding the company whose men had broken their ranks. ‘Insubordination,’ he began; and his voice was cold and hard, not loud, but dangerously penetrating, ‘insubordination is the worst…’

Illidge removed his handkerchief from his nose and shouted in a shrill falsetto, ‘Oh, you naughty boys!’

There was a guffaw from the spectators. Everard ignored the interruption and having concluded his rebuke, went on with his speech. Commanding and yet persuasive, passionate, but controlled and musical, his voice thrilled out; and in a moment the shattered silence was reconstructed round his words, the dissipated attention was once more focussed and concentrated. There had been a rebellion; he had made another conquest.

Spandrell waited without impatience. Illidge’s tardiness gave him the opportunity to drink an extra cocktail or two. He was at his third and feeling already much better and more cheerful, when the restaurant door swung open and in walked Illidge, very militant and defiant, with an air of truculently parading his blackened eye.

‘Drunk and disorderly?’ questioned Spandrell at the sight of the bruise. ‘Or did you meet an outraged husband? Or have words with a lady?’

Illidge sat down and recounted his adventure, boastfully and with embellishments. He had been, according to his own account, a mixture of Horatius defending the bridge and St. Stephen under the shower of stones.