"Janets are trumps! Vivia, don't you wish you were going to the war?"
"Yes," said Vivia.
"There is something in it, isn't there?" said Ray. "You'll sit at home, and how your blood will boil! What keeps you women alive? Darning stockings, I suppose. There's only one thing I dread: 't would be hard to read of other men's glory, and I lying flat on my back. Would you make me cookies then, little Jane?"
Little Jane only gave him one swift, shy look: there was more promise in it than in many a vow. In return, Ray tossed her the sparkle of his dancing glance an instant, and then his eager fancies caught him again.
"We read of them," said he, "those splendid scenes. What can there be like acting them? Ah, what a throb there is in it! The rush, the roar, the onslaught, the clanging trumpet, the wreathing smoke, and the mad horses. Dauntlessly defying danger. Ravishing fame from the teeth of the battery. See in what a great leap of the heart you spring with the forlorn hope up the escalade! Your soul kindles and flashes with your blade. You are nothing but a wrath. To die so, with all one's spirit at white-heat, awake, alert, aflame, must send one far up and along the heights of being. And if you live, there are other things to do; and how the women feel their fiery pulses fly, their hot tears start, as you go by, thinking of all the tumult, the din, the daring, the danger, and you a part of it!"
Little Jane was trembling and tying on her bonnet. As for Vivia, she burst into tears.
"Oh, Ray!" sobbed she, "I wish I were a man!"
"I don't!" said he. "Oh, it's rip-roarious! Come, let's follow our leader. We'll bring you back the cropple-crown, auntie."
And so they departed, while, breaking into fresh carols, ringing and dulcet, as they went, Vivia's voice resounded till the woods pealed to the echo:—
"He waved his proud arm, and the trumpets were blown
The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on,
Till o'er Ravelston crags and on Clermiston lea
Died away the wild war-notes of Bonny Dundee!"