“It cannot be avoided. My duty is with the people. That duty I must do.”
“But home—me—Fred?”
“You will be safe here,” he said. “It is not likely that the tide of trouble will flow this way.”
“But Fred,” she whispered.
“Fred. Ah, yes, Fred,” said the colonel, thoughtfully.
“Oh no, no, no,” cried Mistress Forrester, in agony, as she saw her husband’s hesitating way, and suspected the truth. “No, no, husband, he is too young.”
“He will grow older,” said the colonel, with quiet firmness. “Wife, when the country calls for the help of her son, he must give it freely. If your boy is needed in his country’s service, he will have to go.”
Fred heard these words, and went slowly and thoughtfully away—thoughtfully, for his head was in a whirl—the coming of his father’s military friend—his father’s old life as a soldier—and these hints about civil war.
“I don’t think I should mind,” he said to himself, “not if Scar went too. He and I could get on so well together. Of course we should be too young for regular soldiers, but we should soon grow older.”
Then he began to recall different things of which he had heard and read, about youths going off to the war in olden times to be esquires, and after deeds of valour to become belted knights who had won their spurs.