“If you feel it like that,” Seth encouraged him, “the way’s plain, surely?  Father nor mother—­no, nor wife nor child, if I had ’em—­ could hinder me.”

“What hinders you then, lucky man?” Seth smoked for a while in silence.  “I don’t think as I’d answer ’ee,” he said at length quietly, “if I thought my answerin’ would carry weight in your mind. You to call me lucky!—­when your way’s clear, and all you want is the will.”

“We’ll pass that,” said Obed.  “To you, that have none at home to hinder, ben’t the way clear?”

“Since you ask me, ’tis not; or if clear, clear contrary.”

“How should that be, in God’s name?”

“I’d rather you didn’ ask.”

“But I do. . . .  Look here, Seth Minards, I’m in trouble:  and I don’t know how ‘tis, but you’re the sort o’ chap one turns to.  Sit down, now, like a friend.”

Seth seated himself on the turf.  “It’s a strange thing, is War,” said he after a pause.  “All my life I’ve abominated it—­yes, the very thought of it.”

“All my life,” said Obed, “I’ve reckoned it—­I can’t tell you why—­ the only test of a man.”

“’Tis an evil thing; yes, to be sure, and a devilish,” said Seth, musing.  “Men killing one another—­and the widows left, an’ the orphans, on both sides.  War’s the plainest evil in all the world; and if I join in it, ’tis to help evil with my eyes open.  All my life, sir, I’ve held by the Sermon on the Mount.”

“I’ve read it,” said Obed Pearce.  “Go on.”

“Without it I’m lost.  Then along comes this very worst evil,” he gazed towards the camp on the slope, “and here it is, callin’ me in the name o’ my Country, tauntin’, askin’ me why I can’t make up my mind to be a man!” Seth checked a groan.  “You see,” he went on, “we looks at it, sir, in different ways, but they both hurt.  I be main sorry if my own trouble o’ mind adds any weight to your’n.  But th’ Bible says that, though one man’s burden be ’most as heavy as another’s, the pair may halve the whole load by sharin’ it—­or that’s as I read the tex’.”

Young Obed ground his teeth.  “Maybe you haven’t to endure this sort o’ thing!” On a fierce impulse he pulled an envelope from his pocket, seemed to repent, then hardened his courage, and slowly drew forth—­three white feathers, “It came to me this morning, anonymous.”  His face was crimson.

“Maybe I have,” answered Seth tranquilly, and produced an envelope containing three feathers precisely similar.  “But what signifies a dirty trick o’ that sort?  It only tells what be in some other unfort’nate person’s mind.  It don’t affect what’s in my own,”

“Hullo!” hailed a voice behind them.  “Comparin’ love-letters, you young men?”

The speaker was Nicky-Nan, come to survey the desolation of his ’taty-patch.  Young Obed hastily crammed his envelope into his pocket.  But Seth Minards turned about with a frank smile.