Jock’s walk is soon over, and he goes home, by an old path that is known to him, every foot of it, and goes to bed in his own old bed.  He has not broken into the routine of the household, and he sees no reason why he should.  And the next day it is much the same for him.  He gets up as early as he ever did, and he is likely to do a few odd bits of work that his father has not had time to come to.  He talks with his mother and the girls of all sorts of little, commonplace things, and with his father he discusses the affairs of the community.  And in the evening he strolls down town again, and exchanges a few words with friends, and learns, perhaps, of boys who haven’t been lucky enough to get home on leave—­of boys with whom he grew up, who have gone west.

So it goes on for several days, each day the same.  Jock is quietly happy.  It is no task to entertain him:  he does not want to be entertained.  The peace and quiet of home are enough for him; they are change enough from the turmoil of the front and the ceaseless grind of the life in the army in France.

And then Jock’s leave nears its end, and it is time for him to go back.  He tells them, and he makes his few small preparations.  They will have cleaned his kit for him, and mended some of his things that needed mending.  And when it is time for him to go they help him on with his pack and he kisses his mother and the girls good-by, and shakes hands with his father.

“Well, good-by,” Jock says.  He might be going to work in a factory a few miles off.  “I’ll be all right.  Good-by, now.  Don’t you cry, now, mother, and you, Jeannie and Maggie.  Don’t you fash yourselves about me.  I’ll be back again.  And if I shouldn’t come back—­why, I’ll be all right.”

So he goes, and they stand looking after him, and his old dog wonders why he is going, and where, and makes a move to follow him, maybe.  But he marches off down the street, alone, never looking back, and is waiting when the train comes.  It will be full of other Jocks and Andrews and Tams, on their way back to France, like him, and he will nod to some he knows as he settles down in the carriage.

And in just two days Jock will have traveled the length of England, and crossed the channel, and ridden up to the front.  He will have reported himself, and have been ordered, with his company, into the trenches.  And on the third night, had you followed him, you might see him peering over the parapet at the lines of the Hun, across No Man’s Land, and listening to the whine of bullets and the shriek of shells over his head, with a star shell, maybe, to throw a green light upon him for a moment.

So it is that a warrior comes and that a warrior goes in a land where war is war; in a land where war has become the business of all every day, and has settled down into a matter of routine.

CHAPTER XI