“And so it happens, Mr. Grant, that we have much noise lately from the trumpets and the fife and drums.”
“Yes, man is a military animal, he loves parade,” answered Max.
“But in this war, there is much more than parade.”
“You are right, Miss Vedder. It was prompted by that gigantic heart-throb with which, even across oceans, we feel each other’s rights and wrongs. And in this way we learn best that we are men and brothers. Can a man do more for a wrong than give his life to right it?”
Then Eric cried out with hysterical passion: “I wish only that I might have my way with Aberdeen! Oh, the skulking cowards who follow him! Max! Max! If you would mount our father’s big war horse and hold me in front of you and ride into the thick of the battle, and let me look on the cold light of the lifted swords! Oh, the shining swords! They shake! They cry out! The lives of men are in them! Max! Max! I want to die––on a––battlefield!”
And Max held the weeping boy in his arms, and bowed his head over him and whispered words too tender and sacred to be written down.
For a while Eric was exhausted; he lay still watching his brother and Sunna, and listening to their conversation. They were talking of the excitement in London, and of the pressure of the 154 clergy putting down the reluctancies and falterings of the peace men.
“Have you heard, Miss Vedder,” said Grant, “that one of the bishops decided England’s call to war by a wonderful sermon in St. Paul’s?”
“I am sorry to be ignorant. Tell me.”