"I'd like to come with you," said St. Clair, "but I wouldn't bring any gun. I'd just roam through the woods for a week and disturb nothing. If I saw a bear I'd point my finger at him and say: 'Go away, young fellow, I won't bother you if you won't bother me,' and then he'd amble off peacefully in one direction, and I'd amble off peacefully in another. I wouldn't want to hear a gun fired during all that week. I'd just rest, rest, rest my nerves and my soul. I wouldn't break a bough or a bush. I'd even be careful how hard I stepped on the leaves. Birds could walk all over me if they liked. I'd drink from those clear streams, and I'd sleep in my blanket on a bed of leaves."
"But suppose it rained, Arthur?"
"I wouldn't let it rain in that enchanted week of mine. Nothing would happen except what I wanted to happen. It would be a week of the most absolute peace and quiet the world has ever known. There wouldn't be any winds, they would be zephyrs. The skies would all be made out of the softest and finest of blue satin and any little clouds that floated before 'em would be made of white satin of the same quality. The nights would be clear with the most wonderful stars that ever shone. Great new stars would come out for the first time, and twinkle for me, and the man in the most silvery moon known in the history of time would grin down at me and say without words: 'St. Clair, old fellow, this is your week of peace, everything has been fixed for you, so make the most of it.' And then I'd wander on. The birds would sing to me and every one of 'em would sing like a prima donna. Wherever I stepped, wild flowers would burst into bloom as I passed, and if a gnat should happen to buzz before my face I wouldn't brush him away for fear of hurting him. The universe and I would be at peace with each other."
"Hear him! O, hear him!" exclaimed Happy Tom. "Old Arthur grows dithyrambic and hexametrical. He fairly distills the essence of highfalutin poetry."
"I don't know that he's so far fetched," said sober Dalton. "I feel a good deal that way myself. I suppose, Thomas Langdon, that the colors of the world depend upon one's own eyes. What I call green may appear to you like the color of blue to me. Now, Arthur really sees all these things that he's telling about, because he has the eye of the mind with which to see them. I've quit saying that people don't see things, because I don't see 'em myself."
"Good for you, Professor," said Langdon. "That's quite a lecture you gave me, long though not windy, and I accept it. Those Elysian fields that Arthur was painting are real and he's going to have his enchanted week as he calls it. Arthur is a poet, sure enough."
"I have written a few little verses which were printed in the Charleston Mercury," said St. Clair.
"What's this? What's this?" asked a mellow voice. "Can it be possible that young gentlemen are discussing poetry between battles and with the enemy in sight?"
It was Colonel Leonidas Talbot, coming down the trench, and Lieutenant Colonel Hector St. Hilaire was just behind him. The young officers rose and saluted promptly, but they knew there was no reproof in Colonel Talbot's tone.
"We had to do it, sir," said Harry respectfully. "Something struck Arthur here, and like a fountain he gushed suddenly into poetry. He had a most wonderful vision of the Elysian fields and of himself wandering through them for a week, knee deep in flowers, and playing the softest of music on a guitar."