"Pretty good, Tom," was the quick reply, "but I think I can beat it with something more hopeful. I got it in Sunday School out in Missouri:
"'The sword and spear, of needless worth,
Shall prune the tree and plough the earth;
And Peace shall smile from shore to shore
And Nations learn to war no more.'"
The country boy's eyes gleamed with eager approval. He had fought for nearly two years and the glory of war was beginning to lose its glamour.
"Say that again, Ned," he pleaded. "Say it again! That's the prettiest thing I ever heard in my life!"
He was silent a moment:
"Yes, I used to think it would be glorious to hear the thunder of guns and the shriek of shells. I've changed my mind. When I hear one of 'em comin' now, I begin to sing to myself the old-fashioned tune I used to hear in the revivals:
"'Hark from the tomb a doleful sound!
'My thoughts in dreadful subjects roll damnation and the dead——'
"I've an idea we're going to sing some o' them old songs on this field pretty soon."
Again Ned thought of John and offered a silent prayer that he might not be in those blue lines that were going to charge into the jaws which Death had opened for them in the valley below.
John Vaughan in his tent beyond the Rappahannock was wasting no energy worrying about the coming battle. Death had ceased to be a matter of personal concern. He had seen so many dead and wounded men as he had ridden over battlefields he had come to take them as a matter of course. He was going into action now for the first time in the ranks as a private soldier and he would see things happen at closer range—that was all. He wished to see them that way. He had reached the point of utter indifference to personal danger and it brought a new consciousness of strength that was inspiring. He had stopped dreaming of the happiness of love after the exhibition he had made of himself before Betty Winter and the brutal insult with which he met her advances. Some girls might forgive it, but not this proud, sensitive, high strung daughter of the snows of New England and the sunlight of France. And so he had resolutely put the thought out of his heart.