"But I don't think he found it bad, Ann. He had his great friend Anthony with him, and we all tried our best to give him a good time. And at seventeen it isn't so hard to rise above trouble." "Oh no," said Ann; "and Davie was so willing to be happy." She laughed. "I never knew anyone so appreciative of a joke--any sort of joke. When he was a tiny boy if I said anything which I meant to be funny, and which met with no response, Davie would say indignantly: 'Nana's made a joke and nobody laughed.' He always gave a loud laugh himself--'Me hearty laugh,' he called it." "Oh, I'd forgotten that," cried Davie's mother; "'me hearty laugh.' We all treated Davie as a joke, and didn't bother much whether his school reports were good or only fairly good. He wasn't at all studious naturally, though he was passionately fond of reading, and I'm afraid we liked to find excuses to let him play. Only Robbie took him seriously. You remember when he was home on leave he protested against Davie bounding everywhere and having no fixed hours of study. 'We've got to think of the chap's future,' he said." "Robbie and Davie adored each other," Ann said. "They were so funny together--Davie a little bashful with the big brother. I remember hearing Davie telling Robbie about some Fabian Society that he belonged to, and what they discussed at it, and Robbie stood looking at him through his eyeglass with an amused grin on his face, and said, 'Stout fellow!' That was always what he said to Davie, 'Stout fellow!' I can hear him now.... But the odd thing was that Davie seemed to take no interest in his own future. It was almost as if he realised that this world held no future for him. Mark, always careful and troubled, used to worry about a profession for him. He wanted him to go into the Navy, but you vetoed that as too dangerous; it mustn't be India, because we couldn't part with our baby." Mrs. Douglas leaned forward to push in a falling log. "I was foolishly anxious about Davie always; never quite happy if he was away from me. I worried the boy sometimes, but he was patient with me. 'Poor wee body,' he always said, and put his arms round me--he learned that expression from Robbie." "I have an old exercise book," said Ann, "in which Davie made his first efforts at keeping accounts--David _Douglas in account with self_. It is very much ornamented with funny faces and not very accurate, for sums are frequently noted as 'lost.' It stops suddenly, and underneath is scrawled, 'The war here intervened.' We didn't need to worry about his work in the world. That was decided for him when-- 'God chose His squires, and trained their hands For those stern lists of liberty.'"