Dudley read the desired bit, and then with a deep drawn breath Roy said: 

“He acted out the song of the drummer boys, didn’t he?  He marched on to meet his death like they did.  I wonder how it felt.  Could you have put yourself in front of the sergeant, Dudley?”

“If you had been the sergeant, I could,” was the prompt reply.

“But the sergeant hadn’t been kind to him.  Oh, Rob, Rob.”

“Don’t cry so, old chap, you’ll make yourself ill.  He’s happy now.  Don’t you think we’d better be going in?”

But Roy would not leave the beach till the tea bell sounded, and then he crept in with such a white, weary face that kind Mrs. Hawthorn put him straight to bed, and stayed with him listening to his trouble till tired out and exhausted he fell asleep.  When Dudley came to bed he found him clutching the letters tight in one hand, and muttering in his sleep, “God first, the Queen next, and then Master Roy!”

Once in the night he was roused by Roy’s grasping hold of his bedclothes.

“Dudley, are you asleep?”

“No,” was the sleepy answer, “aren’t you well?”

“Yes, but I can’t sleep.  Tell me, was it my fault?  Did I send Rob to his death?  I wanted him to go.  Did I make him go?”

“Of course you didn’t,” and Dudley now was wide-awake.  “He wanted to go first, and you didn’t like it, don’t you remember?”

“Yes, I think he liked going; but if he hadn’t heard that song perhaps he would never have gone, he would never have wanted to be a soldier.”

“He did a lot of good out there.  I don’t think he will be sorry now.”

Roy settled down to sleep again comforted; but for the next few days he seemed quite unable to give his mind to his lessons, and after some correspondence with Miss Bertram, it was arranged that he and Dudley should go home from Saturday to Monday.  It was a sad home-coming, and when Roy saw Rob’s Bible his grief burst out afresh.  The pages showed how much they had been studied, but no verse was more marked than the one Roy had given him.  “Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

On Sunday evening the boys paid a visit to old Principle.  They had been talking about Rob, when Roy said wistfully,

“Rob used his opportunity when he got it, didn’t he?  I expect he didn’t know what a hero he was.  I wonder if I shall ever get one come to me.  I should like to do something great for God, and great for my country.  I shall never give up wishing for a great opportunity to come to me!”

Then old Principle spoke, and his tone was very solemn: 

“’Tis not I that will make you proud and uplifted, laddie, but you have been given the grandest opportunity that ever a poor mortal could be given, and you’ve taken it and made use of it, thank the Lord!”

Both boys gazed up at him with open eyes and mouths.

Dudley said after a minute’s thought: