He laughed.

'Well, not when I'm going over the parapet to attack the Boches.
Honestly, one thinks of nothing then but how one can get one's men
across. But you won't come off badly, my little Nell--for
thoughts--night or day. And you mustn't think of us too sentimentally.
It's quite true that men write wonderful letters--and wonderful verse
too--men of all ranks--things you'd never dream they could write. I've
got a little pocket-book full that I've collected. I've left it in
London, but I'll show you some day. But bless you, nobody _talks_ about
their feelings at the front. We're a pretty slangy lot in the trenches,
and when we're in billets, we read novels and rag each other--and
_sleep_--my word, we do sleep!'

He rolled on his back, and drew his hat over his eyes a moment, for
even in the fresh mountain air the June sun was fierce. Nelly sat still,
watching him, as he had watched her--all the young strength and
comeliness of the man to whom she had given herself.

And as she did so there came swooping down upon her, like the blinding
wings of a Fury, the remembrance of a battle picture she had seen that
morning: a bursting shell--limp figures on the ground. Oh not
George--not _George_--never! The agony ran through her, and her fingers
gripped the turf beside her. Then it passed, and she was silently proud
that she had been able to hide it. But it had left her pale and
restless. She sprang up, and they went along the high path leading to
Grasmere and Langdale.

Presently at the top of the little neck which separates Rydal from