“Our boys will make them run, sir,” cried Bracy, flushing up.
“You mean they’ll make our lads run,” growled the Major.
“No, I don’t, sir. I’ll answer for our company. What do you say, Roberts?”
“Same as you do, old man. Go on; you can put it stronger than I can.”
“No,” said Bracy: “perhaps I’ve said too much, as the youngest officer in the regiment.”
“Not a bit, my lad,” cried the Colonel warmly. “I endorse all you say. They are terribly young-looking, but, take them all together, as bright and plucky a set of fellows as any officer could wish to command.”
“Yes,” said the Major through his teeth; “but look at them to-day. Hang me if they didn’t at times seem like a pack of schoolboys out for a holiday—larking and shouting at one another, so that I got out of patience with them.”
“Better like that than limping along, discontented and footsore,” said the Colonel gravely. “The boys are as smart over their drill as they can be, and a note on the bugle would have brought every one into his place. I don’t want to see the life and buoyancy crushed out of lads by discipline and the reins held too tightly at the wrong time. By the way, Graham, you dropped the curb-rein on your horse’s neck coming up the rough pass, and thoroughly gave him his head.”
“Yes,” said the Major; “but we were talking about men, not horses.”
“Bah! Don’t listen to him,” cried the Doctor, laughing. “He’s a bit yellow in the eyes, and he’ll be singing quite a different song soon. The boys are right enough, Colonel, and all the better for being young—they’ll mould more easily into your ways.”