How characteristic of our dear, dramatic Doe his words were!

“Yes,” I said, and could think of nothing more to say.

He moved his body slightly, and I, cudgelling my mind for some remark, asked: 

“Were you hurt much?”

“I was wounded—­in the shoulder—­and then hit four times, after I—­the doctor seems to think it’s pretty bad—­but oh, it’s nothing.”

As he spoke I could see that he was rather pleased with the picturesqueness of being “Dangerously Wounded,” and that, while he wished to inform us how interesting he had become, he wished also to appear to be stoically making light of his pain.  And I loved him for being the same self-conscious heroic character up to the last.

The brilliant eyes sought out Monty, who was standing just behind me.  Doe gazed at him, and, after a thoughtful pause, laughed nervously.

“I wonder if I shall be—­here—­to-morrow, when you come.  I dare say I shan’t.”

Again I saw the thought behind his words.  Probably my love for him was blazing up, in these farewell moments, brighter than it had ever been, and illuminating all things.  I saw that he wanted to live, but feared he was going to die.  I saw that he had gambled everything upon his last remark, and was waiting to see if he would draw life or death.

Had he said it to me I should have answered hurriedly:  “Of course you will,” but Monty was cast in more courageous metal.  Boldly he seized this moment to convey the truth.  He offered no denial to Doe’s daring suggestion that the end was near:  instead, he laid his hand very gently on the boy’s wrist, as if to tell him that he wished to help him through with a difficult thought.

Throughout my life, till someone shall tell me that my time has come, I shall remember Doe’s look when he saw that Monty was not going to dispute his statement.  His wide eyes stared inquiringly.  Then they filmed over with a slight moisture, for they belonged to a boy who was not yet twenty.  He dropped his eyelids to conceal the welling moisture, but raised them a few seconds later, revealing that the tears had gathered still more abundantly, and his lashes were wet with them.  Nevertheless he smiled, and said: 

“Well, it can’t be helped.  If I’d known when I started that it would end like this—­I’d have gone through with it just the same.  I haven’t got cold feet.”

Sec.2

“It’s an end to all the ambitions and poems,” said Doe later, when the windowless tent seemed to be getting dark, though the afternoon was yet early.  “P’raps you’ll be left to fulfil yours, Rupert.  Do you remember you said in Radley’s room—­all those hundreds of years ago—­that you wanted to be a country squire?”

“Yes,” answered I, with a quivering lip.

“And Penny wanted—­to be a Tory....  And I wanted to lead the people.  Oh, well.  I’d like just to have known—­whether we won the war in the end.  P’raps you’ll know—­”