“You have, lad; and you’re big-boned, and you’ll make a big man one of these days. You were framing finely for a soldier, my boy. But that’s all over now.”
“No, it isn’t,” cried the boy, impatiently, “and you shall go on teaching me about all the fighting and the men’s shields being all linked together so that the enemy shouldn’t break through the serried ranks.”
“Nay, my lad,” sighed the old warrior; “that was all very grand, but I don’t know what I could have been thinking about to let you persuade me to teach you what I did, all going against the master’s orders as it was. I suppose I liked it, for it put me in mind of the old days; but I seem to have come to myself like and know better now. You tempted me, my lad, and I’m afraid I tempted you; but no more of it. I’m sorry for what’s done, and the best way to be sorry for it is to own up and never do so any more.”
“Then you mean that you’re to leave off teaching me?”
“Yes, my lad; that’s so.”
“And suppose I say, as your master: ‘you shall go on.’ What then?”
“I should say: ‘you’re not going to disobey your father’s orders any more, but to give all this soldiering up like a man.’”
“Serge!”
“That’s right, my lad, and I know you aren’t going to set your face against what the master says I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yes, Serge,” said the boy, sadly; “but it seems very hard.”