“To bear is to conquer our fate.”
                                            CAMPBELL.

“And who are you, young man?” asked Captain Field, turning back to the two who remained.

Jim had gone down on his knees beside the Gail Water to wash the stains of battle from his nose, that feature having suffered in the encounter; so Evie, who was regaining her composure, gave the customary explanation of his position. Captain Field listened attentively, and then stooped and picked up the book which had, with most unusual carelessness, been thrown on the grass.

“Homer!” he said. “Who has been reading this?”

“Please, sir, I have,” said Jim, who had succeeded in cleansing himself from gore.

“A translation, of course,” said Captain Field, turning it over.

“You see,” said Evie, apologetically, “neither of us can read Greek.”

“Neither of you can read Greek,” repeated Captain Field, with a certain twinkle of amusement. “And, pray, young lady, have you been indulging in Homer too?”

“I mostly try to read the same as Jim,” explained Evie; “but,” she added, truthfully, “I couldn’t manage Milton.”

“Oh,” said Captain Field. “And you, Jim, did you manage Milton?”

“A good deal of it, sir. I liked the ‘Paradise Lost.’ I rather admired Satan.”

Captain Field sat down on the stump of a tree and laughed.

“And you, Evie,” he said, “I suppose your sympathies did not go in that direction?”

Evie looked a little puzzled. “I’ve liked other books better,” she said.

“Miss Evie is three years younger than I am,” said Jim, in a tone of defence and protection, at which Captain Field smiled.

“And what other books have you read?” he inquired.

“Oh, a lot,” said Evie. “Shakespeare, and ‘The Arabian Nights,’ and Froissart’s ‘Chronicles,’ and ‘The Faërie Queene, ’ and ‘Don Quixote,’ and—and some books on ‘Military Tactics,’ and ‘The Morte d’Arthur,’ and——”

“Stop, stop!” cried Captain Field. “Good gracious! What appallingly well-read people! And now you have been at the ‘Iliad,’ have you? What do you think of it, Jim?”

Jim’s eyes sparkled. “It’s splendid, sir,” he said; “it makes you feel—oh, it makes you feel——” and he broke off speechless. How could he put into words just all the old Greek poet stirred within him?

Captain Field looked at him curiously for a moment.

“And ‘Military Tactics,’ ” he said. “What in the name of wonder possessed you two babies to try to read anything so dry as that?”

“‘Babies’ is hardly a word to use,” said Evie, with a manner she may have studied from Aunt Janet. “I am certainly not one, and Jim is three years older, and growing a man.”

“I apologize,” said Captain Field—“I humbly apologize. And now tell me about the ‘Tactics.’ ”

Evie paused and got rid of her dignity. “Jim wants to be a soldier, you see,” she said.

“He does, does he?” said Captain Field. “Well, he certainly seems to have some fighting capacities.”

“But Miss Mercer doesn’t want it,” continued Evie; “she means him to sit on a high stool and do sums all day.”

“Quill-driver, eh?” said Captain Field.

“And it’s much nicer to be a soldier, isn’t it?” said Evie, persuasively.

“Naturally I prefer my own profession,” replied her friend; “but it’s lucky that tastes differ, or there would be a difficulty in carrying on all the affairs of this old world of ours. So I suppose, my lad,” he continued, turning to Jim, “Miss Mercer is one of those good ladies, who look upon the wearing of the Queen’s uniform as scarcely respectable?”

Jim was quick to detect the slight sarcasm that tinged this speech.

“She’s done everything for me, sir, and she wants to do what she thinks best for me now,” he said loyally.

The slightly sarcastic smile about the corners of Captain Field’s lips resolved itself into a very pleasant one.

“Good lad!” he said. “I thought there was good stuff about you from the way you licked our young mutual friend, who, by the way, has the makings of a man too.”

“But I should like to be a soldier, sir,” said Jim, perhaps a little plaintively, “and I feel sometimes,” he added with a confidence which he was not much in the habit of placing in slight acquaintances—“I feel as if I could make a good one.”

“I believe you would,” said Captain Field, slowly, looking at him—“I believe you would. But remember this, my boy, although it is a fine thing to be a good soldier—a very fine thing—it’s a finer still to be a good man. And, sometimes, Jim, that might mean giving up our own will, even the desire of our hearts, to please those who, perhaps, have done for us more than we quite realize.”

And then Captain Field turned and walked back to the house with Evie and Maryanne of the paint-smeared countenance and damp bedraggled clothing. But twice before he reached it he paused to say half to himself—

“A fine lad—with the makings of a man.”

And Jim sat down on the bank and gazed at the Gail Water—wistfully at first, as though he were perhaps wishing he too might be carried down with its rush to the big river, and so on to the sea round that great unknown world, where were things new and strange; where people lived full lives, and fought and struggled, and suffered and died; though possibly Jim did not think much of the last two. And then, after a time, a new steady look came into his brown eyes, his lips closed with a certain decision, till at last, rousing himself, he walked quietly back to the village.

The minister, worthy man, might have talked himself hoarse, had he been so minded, about the iniquities of the army, and the moral and social advantages of a commercial life. Jim regarded the minister with both respect and affection, but he was far too shrewd not to be perfectly aware that, when on this subject, the good old man did not know what he was talking about. Now, Captain Field did; he admitted he considered his own profession the most desirable, and yet he had given Jim a wise and true word of counsel which the lad at once saw and believed to be wise and true. He took his resolve, and walked back to the cottage.

From that day Miss Mercer and Alison were worried no more by longings for the army and a soldier’s life; for Jim had done a finer thing than many a knight of old of whom he and Evie had read and dreamed—he had conquered himself.

The promise of friendship, which Jim and Archie made when they looked each other in the face and clasped hands after their battle by the Gail Water, was kept; and to the advantage of both. Archie found rambles about Gailside much improved by companionship. The holiday which had promised to be remarkably dull and devoid of any excitement, except what he might himself provide by tormenting Evie and deliberately getting into mischief, turned out one of the pleasantest he had spent in his life, besides bringing him less often than usual into conflict with the authorities. I should be sorry indeed to say that Archie and Jim got into no mischief; but it was of the unpremeditated order—which, I fear, Archie’s had not always been—and most often took the form of clothes torn and damaged during scrambles up or down precipitous places, and headlong chases through thick-growing woods and furze. And to Jim association with a lad of Archie’s class was a hitherto unknown pleasure. Archie’s general reading certainly could not be compared to Jim’s; but his education had of necessity insured his acquaintance with much of which the village lads were ignorant, and he could understand allusions to many of the things which interested Jim and were to the ordinary companions of the latter literally so much Greek.

It was Evie who seemed likely to suffer by the new friendship, and to be left out in the cold when arduous scrambles and long expeditions were in progress. Evie’s feelings were, in fact, hurt, and she took an early opportunity of letting Jim know it. I fear, indeed, she resorted to tears; and Jim, smitten with remorse, promptly went to appeal to Archie.

“Couldn’t we take Miss Evie to-day?” he said. “We’ve left her all alone since Monday.”

“Girls are no good,” said Archie, with sweeping condemnation; “they can’t climb or even walk decently.”

“Oh, Miss Evie can climb,” said Jim, on the defensive; “I’ll get her to go up the big tree by the bridge, and you’ll see.”

“And tear her frock, and get us into a row,” said Archie, contemptuously.

He had not been quite fortunate in his experience of girls, for his own sisters belonged to the whimpering order, and it is probable they eventually turned out the sort of women peculiarly obnoxious to the opposite sex, shrieking at imaginary dangers, and finding it impossible to face any of the difficulties of life without much and varied male support.

Archie eventually yielded to Jim’s representations of Evie’s capabilities in the way of scrambling. She was permitted to accompany them on their less difficult expeditions; and, thanks principally to Jim’s guardianship, acquitted herself so well, that she first wrung from Archie the grudging admission she was “not so bad for a girl,” and, finally, the overwhelming compliment, “it was a pity she wasn’t a boy.”

And the parting at the end of these summer holidays brought to all three children unfeigned regret.

Association with Archie had not made Jim’s resolution to abandon his military aspirations easier in any way. To the former the army was the one obvious profession for a gentleman, the natural goal of all his fighting race, and the only thing for which it really seemed to him worth while that any man should strive. It did not make it easier for Jim; but, despite Archie’s chaff and Evie’s lamentations, he set his teeth and abode by his resolve.

When the time at last came for him to betake himself to those sums on a high stool, so often and so ruefully discussed, he went without a murmur. The town where he was employed was about three miles distant from Gailside, and he walked there every morning, and back again to Miss Mercer’s cottage in the evening. But for these walks I know not how he would have endured. Miss Mercer, intent on doing her best for him, never guessed how the sedentary life, the dull copying, the dry figures, which might have been natural enough—even pleasant—to a lad cast in a different mould, were to him at times little short of agony. To heighten it, his lot had been cast in a garrison town. He was actually within hearing of the bugle calls, which stirred his blood to a wild unrest, much perhaps as Homer had done. Seated on his high stool, he could sometimes see from the window troopers pass along; and he set his teeth and drove away at his pen, trying not to think of the life he longed for.

Of course, he did not see so much of Evie now, but the habit of lending books was not dropped. Evie took them down to Gail Cottage sometimes; and sometimes on the precious Saturday afternoons, when Jim was free, these two young people still met beside the Gail Water and discussed their favourite authors.

Evie had fallen into the way of going often to see Miss Mercer herself. They seemed an unlikely couple for a friendship, but Jim was the bond of union between them. The old lady was fond of discussing him and his prospects; and of expressing her satisfaction that she had at last got his feet firmly planted in the way in which she wished them to go; that, in fact, he was beginning “to do for himself.” She was “getting frail” now, she said. And Evie, looking at her, realized that this was true, and wondered in her heart if the thought had come to Jim.

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