"Birds! No. A soldier, unless he is spoiling with garrison idleness, won't waste his genius for killing on innocent birds and their like. Besides, the artillery fellows over yonder have scared them away from the whole neighborhood. We were target-shooting with pistols. Oh, if you knew the hot coals and icicles I had to swallow when I recognized you up there!" He looked ahead, and saw with joy that his companions had departed. "Here is Molly, and my bay is behind the rock. May I ride home with you?" He helped her to mount, and sprang into his own saddle. The lonely, lovely earth and sky were theirs together; they went slowly, slowly down to the ford. Molly was thirsty, or else perverse; for she paused, lowered her aristocratic little head, and began to drink. Presently Saladin, the bay, standing by her on the brink, did the same; and the two riders sat, perforce, conscious of their like silent sympathy and society. An impulse rushed on each to lean over towards the other also, to lay cheek to happy cheek over the shallow water, in their youth, in the sun. The Sergeant stiffened himself with an effort. "Although it is a holiday," he said, scanning the distance, "and although there's no end of jollity afoot, greased poles, football, leap-frog, hurdle-races, and all that--and did you know that Mrs. Willoughby, escorted by the Colonel and the Adjutant, had gone for the day? There are to be charming diversions at the infantry camp, and a ball to wind up with. You were asked, too, I hear; but you missed it, straying off to your hermitage." "I am glad I did! Please finish your sentence." "Oh, I forgot. I was going to add that this sort of relaxation, just now, might be risky, when Old Glory and I may be ordered out before morning to waltz to fife-music!" "A battle? Do you truly think it likely?" "I half believe it. I don't mind telling you I have a premonition of it, involving another premonition regarding myself. But what of it? Our old friend Cicero, I think it was, used to say that we are born not for ourselves, but for the Republic." He laughed, as if he had said a jocund thing. He had not meant then to test her feeling for him; but he had allies in the hour and its emotion. Cecily rejoiced in his cheerful acceptances, and remembered her impersonal pride in the circumstances of his enlistment, of which she had heard on all sides at home. Her voice fell, unawares, into its shy inflections, its little wild spontaneous minors, as she said, seeing the horses rear their heads: "Will you please tell me, Sergeant Blanchard, how you came to join the army? All that I know is that you were abroad, and that you gave up your pleasure, and came back." He began quietly, as they passed the stream and made for higher ground: