He walked daily in front of the Chateau Frontenac and watched and watched the gallant boys, oh! so pitifully young, marching, drilling with that look in their eyes that he could not comprehend. He went to the Plains of Abraham and stood spellbound while the past and present flayed his fevered imagination. He stood in front of the pictured appeals that the Government posted on fences and buildings, and still his flesh held his spirit captive. Then one day, quite unconsciously, the Government reached him—him, Tom Gavot! There was a new picture among the many, an old mother with a transfigured face, her hand on the shoulder of her boy.
"My son, your country needs you."
Tom looked, and turned away. It did not seem fair to—to bully fellows like that. He was angry, but he went back. The boy's face seemed to grow like his own! Poor Tom, he could not realize that it was the face of young Canada. The woman why, she was like the long-dead mother! Tom felt sure, had his mother lived, that she would have been old and saintly. Yes, saintly in spite of everything, for would not he have seen to that? He, and his roads?
Tom thought of his roads, his peaceful, beautiful roads. Would he be fit to plan them, travel on them if he let other men make them safe for him?
Then one September day he said quietly—and the man to whom he spoke never forgot his eyes—"I'm going to enlist. I'm going back to my home place. I'd like to start with the boys from there." So Tom went back to Point of Pines. He almost forgot that he was the husband of Donelle Langley. He had taken farewell of many, many things without realizing it: his own fear, his wife, his roads, his hope of Donelle.
He went back very simply, very quietly, and with that new look in his sad young eyes he seemed like a stranger. Not for him was the glory and the excitement. He was going because he dared not stay. His soul was reaching out to an ideal that was screened in mystery, he had only just courage enough to press on. Pierre looked at his boy pleadingly.
"Tom," he whimpered, "I'm not much of a father. I can't send you off feeling proud of me, I've held you back all your life. But I can make you feel easier about me by telling you that I've got work. You won't have to fash yourself about that."
Tom regarded his father with a vague sense of gladness; then he reached out falteringly and took his hand!
Marcel drew Tom to her heart. All her motherhood was up in arms.
"Tom," she whispered, "all through the years I've broken my heart over those little graves on the hill, but to-day I thank God they're there!"