Such is economic law in Polpier: and in accordance with it young Obed Pearce sat and drew at his pipe alone: whereas when young Seth Minards, by two years his junior, came along at a slow walk with hands deep in his trouser-pockets and no maiden on his arm or by his side, Obed felt no incongruity in challenging him. "Hullo, young Seth! Not found a maid yet?" "No: nor likely to." Young Seth halted. If he had not found a damsel it was not for lack of good looks. He had a face for a Raphael to paint; the face of a Stephen or a Sebastian; gloomed over just now, as he halted with his shoulders to the sunset. "I can't think o' such things in these times, Mr Obed." "Nor me," said the farmer's son, discovering that his pipe was out and feeling in his pocket for a box of matches. "There's no hurry for you, Mr Obed." "Isn't there? . . . Well, I suppose not, thank goodness! Here, take a fill o' baccy an' tell me what you think of it. I mean, o' course"--with a jerk of his hand towards the camp--"what you think o' that there?" "I wish I could tell 'ee offhand," answered Seth after a pause, carefully filling his pipe. "I was puzzlin' it over as I came along." "I see nothing to puzzle, for a man placed as you be," said Obed, drawing hard on his pipe. "If you had a father and a mother, now, both draggin' hard on your coat-tails--My God!" he broke off, staring at the sappers moving on the hillside. "What wouldn't I give to be like any o' those?" "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."