Harry had something to think about as he rode out into the park, and after a sharp canter over the drenched grass, with the rain and the wind fretting the mare so that it was all he could do to hold her, slowed to a trot as he entered a ride through the woods. It was not so much of the war. Fred would have a few months of training as a trooper, and then he would probably come back; he was not, after all, greatly to be envied there, and Harry had no particular wish to hurry on his own longer training, since the time was so far distant when he could expect to get his commission. But Fred had told him of others who were likely to follow his example now that the ice had once been broken—another lad from the stables, two from the gardens, some from the village. A cousin of his, from some distance off, who had already served in the Yeomanry, had joined a regular cavalry regiment, and was already in France, fighting. It was from him that the impulsion had first come. It was a fine thing to respond like that to your country’s call, almost before it was sounded. It was what Harry’s own forefathers would have done, and had done in many an instance that he had read about in old books in which he had pored to find out what he could about the knightly stock from which he had sprung. They would have collected their servants and tenants around them and ridden off at their head to offer themselves—a small band, perhaps, but a sturdy one, well horsed and equipped and well versed in the man’s business of giving and receiving blows. It could not be quite like that in this war, when boys of his age, even if capable of raising their followers, would have to go through the mill of learning and training before they could be of any use. But the readiness with which Fred’s cousin had been accepted and sent out to fight disturbed him somewhat, both on his own account and on that of the men and youths who owed him allegiance. There was nobody in the village of Royd or on all the wide Castle lands, so far as he knew, who had done any of the soldiering that is open to young men in times of peace. Supposing he himself had been of full age to fight, he would still have had to wait until he had learnt his business, and he could have given a lead to nobody. Why hadn’t it been suggested to him that he should join the County Yeomanry, or why had he not thought of it himself? The Sir Harry of the time of the Napoleonic wars had been in command of it; almost every man of his tenantry had belonged to it. Now it drew its recruits from other parts of the county; no one from Royd had served in it for a generation or more. It had never occurred to him that it would be a good thing for him in his position to do so.