THE ADAMANT DOOR
Once upon a time, on a fine spring morning, a country lad named Hugh took his fish pole from a corner and went to try his luck in a brook beside the road. Now it fortuned that as he stood upon the grassy bank, casting about in the broad shallows of the stream, the boy heard the mighty sound of many men singing together, and presently he beheld a regiment of soldiers on the march. In uniforms of red-and-white they were clad, and an officer in red-and-white and gold was riding at their head.
And now the regiment came to a halt, and broke ranks beside the brook. With shouts and cries the young soldiers hurried to the water, opened their gay coats at the throat, and washed the dust from their sunburnt faces; the sergeants gathered and gossiped by themselves; the horse of the guiding officer sucked up great mouths of water, looked about, and blew the spray from his nostrils; and here and there a man helped a comrade with his pack.
“How splendid it must be to be a soldier!” thought Hugh as he gazed upon the merry company. And, hurrying home to his mother as fast as his legs could carry him, he begged so eagerly for permission to enlist, that at length he won her consent and followed the marching men.
And now the lad Hugh was himself a soldier of the realm with a red-and-white uniform like unto the others, a pack for his back, and a shiny leather hat with a shiny silver star. Soon he knew what it was to lie upon the ground and shiver in a blanket, and to watch the rolling stars, and hear the night wind cry.
Now it chanced that there was another young soldier of Hugh’s age enlisted in the company, and with this lad, whose name was Jocelyn, Hugh presently became the best of friends. This Jocelyn was a mountaineer and was slender and yellow-haired; whilst Hugh was a lad of the plain and was sturdy of frame and dark. And because these two lads were the youngest of the company and were loyal friends, they marched down the highway side by side and shared together the good and ill of life.
Now it came to pass upon a summer’s night, as the soldiers lay encamped in fields by the royal city, that the great bell of the King’s palace broke the quiet of the stars with a loud and unending clangor of alarm. It was late, the watch fires had almost burned away, and the soldiers, waking in the dark, seized upon their arms and wondered at the din. All at once, with a thunder of hoofs, a messenger from the city came spurring in with the news that war was at hand, and that the regiment must break camp on the instant and speed to the borders of the realm. Presently fresh branches tossed upon the embers filled the camp with the light of flames, and bugle calls rang through the tumult and the clanging of the bell.
Left! Right! Left! Right! And the soldiers were marching to the wars. They came to ancient hamlets in the night, and found soldiers of other companies already sleeping in the barns; they marched through lonely forests, and warmed their noonday meal with a blaze of twigs and fallen boughs; they marched singing through the fields of golden grain. Soon the villages and the fields grew rare, a silence fell upon the land, and the regiment found itself at the edge of a vast and lonely moor. Regiments without number were there encamped, and their bivouac fires gleamed at night like a thousand scattered stars.
Leagues away, on barren hills rising to the north, were to be seen the fires of the foe.
And now it was the morn of battle: a red sun was rising above the brown hills and hollows of the moor, the air was sluggish, and flat gray clouds lay motionless and low. Tarantara! Tarantara! went the bugles, regiment after regiment came marching to its post, the plain shook to the tramp of feet, the horsemen gathered behind, the drums began to sound, the men in red-and-white marched down to the moor, and presently the great hollow of the waste rang like a brazen cup with the beginning tumult of the fray.