"Discipline is what the boy wants," said Mr. Trupp. "It's what we all want."
Anne Caspar nodded dubiously.
"If it's the right sort," she said.
"It may save him," continued her mentor. "It can't do him any harm. And anyway, it's worth trying. You send Ernie round to me. I'll have a talk with him, and I'll drop in to-morrow and have a chat with his father."
Ernie, when approached, made no difficulty.
He was young; his enthusiasms were easily stirred; and the most famous of South Country regiments, the Forest Rangers, known in history as the Hammer-men, had been more than living up to its reputation in South Africa.
"You'll travel," Mr. Trupp told him. "Go to India as like as not and see a bit of the world. Our Joe's going to Sandhurst next year. Nothing'll do but he must be a Hammer-man—like his grandfather before him. I dare say he'll join you out there."
But if Ern was too young to fight his own battles, there was one doughty warrior who meant to fight them for him.
Mr. Pigott came round to see the Doctor in roaring wrath.
The South African War was in full swing. The frenzy of lusty paganism, called Imperialism, which was sweeping the country, had revolted the schoolmaster and many more. In the estimation of these, the horrors enacted at home in the name of God and Empire surpassed the obscenities of the war itself. Mr. Pigott saw Militarism as a raddled prostitute dancing on the souls and bodies of men.