So the crisis was at hand. The Squire felt battle in his blood. As he walked along through his domain, exhilarated by the bright frosty morning, and swinging his stick like a boy, he was in the true Quixotic mood, ready to tilt at any wind-mill in his path. The state of the country, the state of the war, the state of his own affairs, had produced in him a final ferment of resentment and disgust which might explode in any folly. Why not go to prison? He thought he could bear it. A man must stand by his opinions--even through sacrifice. It would startle the public into attention. Such outrages on the freedom, on the ancient rights of Englishmen, must not pass without protest. Yes--he felt it in him to be a martyr! They would hardly refuse him a pocket Homer in prison. What, a month? Three weeks, in actual practice. Luckily he cared nothing at all about food--though he refused to be rationed by a despotic Government. On a handful of dates and a bit of coarse bread he had passed many a day of hard work when he was excavating in the East. One can always starve--for a purpose! The Squire conceived himself as out for Magna Charta--the root principles of British liberty. As for those chattering fellows of the Labour Party, let them conquer England if they could. While the Government ploughed up his land without leave, the Socialists would strip him of it altogether. Well, nothing for it but to _fight_! If one went down, one went down--but at least honourably. In the _Times_ that morning there was a report of a case in the north, a landowner fined £100, for letting a farm go to waste for the game's sake. And Miss Bremerton had been holding up the like fate to him that morning--because of Holme Wood. A woman of parts that!--too clever!--a disputatious creature, whom a man would like to put down. But it wasn't easy; she slipped out of your grip--gave you unexpected tits for tats. One would have thought after that business with the will, she would be anxious to make up--to show docility. In such a relation one expected docility. But not a bit of it! She grew bolder. The Squire admitted uncomfortably that it was his own fault--only, in fact, what he deserved for making a land-agent, accountant, and legal adviser out of a poor lady who had merely engaged herself to be his private secretary for classical purposes.