thankful,--the most joyous of all the generations before or after
us,--since Providence gives us such good work to live for, or such a good
opportunity to die. It is worth living for, just to have the chance to die
so well as a man may in these days. Come, be a soldier. Be a chaplain,
since your education lies that way; and you will find that nobody in peace
prays so well as we do, we soldiers; and you shall not be debarred from
fighting, too; if war is holy work, a priest may lawfully do it, as well
as pray for it. Come with us, my old friend Septimius, be my comrade, and,
whether you live or die, you will thank me for getting you out of the
yellow forlornness in which you go on, neither living nor dying."

Septimius looked at Robert Hagburn in surprise; so much was he altered and
improved by this brief experience of war, adventure, responsibility, which
he had passed through. Not less than the effect produced on his loutish,
rustic air and deportment, developing his figure, seeming to make him
taller, setting free the manly graces that lurked within his awkward
frame,--not less was the effect on his mind and moral nature, giving
freedom of ideas, simple perception of great thoughts, a free natural
chivalry; so that the knight, the Homeric warrior, the hero, seemed to be
here, or possible to be here, in the young New England rustic; and all
that history has given, and hearts throbbed and sighed and gloried over,
of patriotism and heroic feeling and action, might be repeated, perhaps,
in the life and death of this familiar friend and playmate of his, whom he
had valued not over highly,--Robert Hagburn. He had merely followed out
his natural heart, boldly and singly,--doing the first good thing that
came to hand,--and here was a hero.

"You almost make me envy you, Robert," said he, sighing.

"Then why not come with me?" asked Robert.