A moment later, looking up from his brakes, as the car came to a standstill, he became aware that he had pulled up immediately beneath the equestrian statue of Charles the First. Here was an odd, an amusing--a superstitious man might even have said an ominous--coincidence. Had not the storm which was about to break, broken before, long ago, in this man's reign? And had not this man been engulfed by the storm? The King looked up at the statue with a sudden flash of quickened, sober interest. Had not this man, alone, amongst all his predecessors been compelled to drain the poisonous cup of revolution to the very dregs? There had been no lightning conductor, no Duke of Northborough, no strong man, sure of himself, and of his purpose, ready, and eager, to take the full shock of the lightning flash, in this man's day. But there had been. The Earl of Strafford. And Charles--Charles the Martyr, did not some people still call him?--had torn his lightning conductor down with his own hands. He had failed Strafford. He had abandoned him to his enemies. With his own hand, he had signed Strafford's, and so, in a sense, his own, death warrant. And he, himself--if this was an omen? He had not failed the Duke anyway. The Duke had assured him that he was not letting him down. If he believed, for a moment, that he was failing the Duke, he would turn round, even now, and go straight back to the palace. But the Duke needed no man's support. There, at any rate, this man, fixed there, high above him, on horseback, in imperishable bronze, against the clear blue of the summer sky, had been more fortunate than he was. This man had never known the bitterness of neutrality, of personal impotence, of personal insignificance. This man had had a part to play, and he had played it, not unhandsomely, at the last, they said. There was a jingle of some sort about it-- "He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene." Nothing common or mean? Not at the last, perhaps. But, before the last, in his failure of Strafford? Still, limited, narrow, and bigoted, as he was, this man had lived, and died, for the faith that was in him. It had never occurred to him that he could go on strike. He had stood for, he had fought for, he had died for--the Divine Right of Kings! The Divine Right of Kings? How grotesquely absurd the phrase sounded now! But was it any more grotesquely absurd than the opposition, the counter-phrases, in praise of democracy, of the mob? The voice of the people is the voice of God. The same grotesque bigotry, the same fanatical intolerance, spoke there. Happily people were growing chary of using such phrases. They had been too often used as a cloak to hide personal prejudices and passions, to be trusted much longer. Still, perhaps, the band _was_ playing--somewhere--