The man next him laughed, and said lightly, "Who cares? A short life and a merry one for me!"
"What do you say?" asked the senior officer, turning to the young lieutenant, who was riding on the other side of him.
As Fortescue lay in his tent, with the door open to the west, he could see the young officer, whom he had known at Sandhurst, looking steadfastly at the fast-setting sun; and he could hear him say softly, almost as if he were speaking to himself—
"Peace, perfect peace; my future all unknown.
Jesus I know, and He is on the Throne."
The next evening came, and the sunset was as fine as the night before, but the golden rays were streaming down upon a bloody battlefield covered with the dead and dying. The Major who had asked that question of his companions was riding across the valley, but he was riding alone; for his two friends were lying amongst the dead, cold and still. Fortescue saw him, and he knew that he alone of the three was left to see the sun go down. And, as he looked, he envied the young lieutenant who had met death with such calm confidence. Perhaps the next battlefield might be his own last resting-place. Who knew? And as he knelt in his tent that night to say his prayers he had asked that that perfect peace might be his also; and now he, too, could say—
"Jesus I know, and He is on the Throne."
But could his poor old father say that? He was afraid not. He felt that he ought to speak to him, but it would be very difficult.
The Captain was naturally a very reserved man; he would have found it extremely difficult to speak to any one on such a subject, but to say anything of the kind to his old father seemed to him a task which he dared not undertake. Perhaps he could persuade him to see a clergyman to-morrow; he could, at any rate, venture to suggest that he should do so.
And so at last morning dawned, and, thoroughly wearied by the many troubled thoughts of the night, Captain Fortescue got up and dressed. But before he went downstairs, he crept into his father's room and stood by his bed. Watson had gone to the kitchen for something she wanted, and he found no one in the room. The old man's eyes were closed, and he thought he was asleep. But he opened his eyes after a time, and looked at his son.
"Kenneth," he said.