‘What! what’s thet ye say?’ exclaimed Ephraim, too astonished for further speech.
‘A soldier’s first duty is obedience,’ went on Lucius, speaking to himself. ‘It’s no use, Grizzly; I’ll just have to stay behind.’
‘What ails ye ter say such ez thet?’ asked Ephraim, much aggrieved. ‘Right now ye seemed willin’ ’nuff, and ye looked right peart and chipper. Ye seemed ter ache ter come. Co’se ye mought have been funnin’ bout’n thet; but ef thet’s so, why, I give in I never war so fooled before.’
‘No,’ said Lucius, shaking his head sadly; ‘you were not wrong. I did want to go. I do still, very much indeed.’
‘Then why in thunder don’t ye?’ queried the mystified Ephraim.
‘Well,’ answered Lucius, growing very red again, and stirring a coil of ropes with his foot, ‘you know what father said when I told him I wanted to join; and then he said—the General, I mean—“a soldier’s first duty is obedience.” And, oh! Grizzly,’ he cried, flinging himself face downwards upon the blue heap, ‘I’d just love to go now; for since he spoke to me, I’d follow him through fire and water all the world over. But I mustn’t—I mustn’t.’
Ephraim stood twining his long brown fingers together, the picture of distress at sight of Luce’s grief. A blue vein which ran perpendicularly in the centre of his forehead, swelled out, a rugged bar, against which the waves of red which chased one another over his face broke and receded. His eyes were troubled, and swept rapidly up and down and round and round as if seeking inspiration, while so firmly were his lips compressed that the line of parting could barely be distinguished.
‘Don’t ye take on so, Luce. I can’t abear it,’ he muttered huskily, at last. Then, as if with the breaking of his silence the idea of which he had been in pursuit had been captured, he emitted a sudden cackle of satisfaction, and flinging himself down beside Lucius, drew the boy to him and hugged him like a grizzly indeed.
‘Cheer up, Luce!’ he cried. ‘I done got the way. By time! what an or’nery fool I must hev been not ter remember thet.’
‘Remember what?’ asked Lucius, willing but unable to see a ray of comfort.