"No, do not tell me," he said. "If Cherry knows, that is enough. But, Magnus, I never expected you to lack the soldier heart!"
The boy's eyes flushed, and his lips were unsteady as he said:
"Nor I, sir. You cannot possibly be half so disappointed in me as I was in myself."
There was a long pause. What that bit of schooling was to Magnus it would be hard to describe; but he said not a word to shorten it. With head well up, and eyes looking gravely off at the fair landscape, of which they saw not a thing, so he sat; and Mr. Erskine watched him. His whole heart went out to the boy in tenderness and up for him in prayer. Not a hero in his own right, perhaps, but a better, stronger thing is the man whom God keeps, and who trusts the Lord for all power to keep himself.
"The people that know their God, shall be strong and do exploits."
"You told Cherry," the elder man began at length. "And what did Cherry say?"
"Broke my heart into little pieces," said Magnus briefly.
It was Mr. Erskine's turn to have wet eyes, though he smiled too.
"So!" he said. "My boy, did you ever realise that you might break her heart?"
"Don't ask me to realise it any more than I do, sir," Magnus answered, with a troubled voice. "You see she minds things that some people call trifles."