“Oh, I daresay I’m getting old, Andrew,” The Laird replied evasively.

“Worrying about the boy?”

It was a straight shot and old Hector was too inexpressibly weary to attempt to dodge it.  He nodded sadly.

“Well, let us hope he’ll come through all right, sir.”

“Is he ill?  What’s wrong with him, Andrew?  Man, I’ve been eating my heart out for months, wondering what it is, but you know the fix I’m in.  I don’t like to ask and not a soul in Port Agnew will discuss him with me.”

“Why, there’s nothing wrong with him that I’m aware of, sir.  I spoke to Nan after services last Sunday and she read me a portion of his last letter.  He was quite well at that time.”

“W-wh-where is he, Andrew?”

“Somewhere in France.  He’s not allowed to tell.”

“France?  Good God, Andrew, not France!”

“Why not, may I ask?  Of course he’s in France.  He enlisted as a private shortly after war was declared.  Dirty Dan quit his job and went with him.  They went over with the Fifth Marines.  Do you mean to tell me this is news to you?” he added, frankly amazed.

“I do,” old Hector mumbled brokenly.  “Oh, Andrew man, this is terrible, terrible.  I canna stand it, man.”  He sat down and covered his face with his trembling old hands.

“Why can’t you?  You wouldn’t want him to sit at home and be a slacker, would you?  And you wouldn’t have a son of yours wait until the draft board took him by the ear and showed him his duty, would you?”

“If he’s killed I’ll nae get over it.”  The Laird commenced to weep childishly.

“Well, better men or at least men as fine, are paying that price for citizenship, Hector McKaye.”

“But his wife, man?  He was married.  ’Twas not expected of him—­”

“I believe his wife is more or less proud of him, sir.  Her people have always followed the flag in some capacity.”

“But how does she exist?  Andrew Daney, if you’re giving her the money—­”

“If I am you have no right to ask impertinent questions about it.  But I’m not.”

“I never knew it, I never knew it,” the old man complained bitterly.  “Nobody tells me anything about my own son.  I’m alone; I sit in the darkness, stifling with money—­oh, Andrew, Andrew, I didn’t say good-by to him!  I let him go in sorrow and in anger.”

“You may have time to cure all that.  Go down to the Sawdust Pile, take the girl to your heart like a good father should and then cable the boy.  That will square things beautifully.”

Even in his great distress the stubborn old head was shaken emphatically.  The Laird of Port Agnew was not yet ready to surrender.

Spring lengthened into summer and summer into fall.  Quail piped in the logged-over lands and wild ducks whistled down through the timber and rested on the muddy bosom of the Skookum, but for the first time in forty years The Laird’s setters remained in their kennels and his fowling pieces in their leather cases.  To him the wonderful red and gold of the great Northern woods had lost the old allurement and he no longer thrilled when a ship of his fleet, homeward bound, dipped her house-flag far below him.  He was slowly disintegrating.