Hilary could not altogether account for a sudden change in the sentinel’s face and manner. He had been very sure that he was about to be denied all admission according to the strict orders to permit no stranger within the lines of the encampment. The soldier stared at the boy a moment longer, then called lustily aloud for the corporal of the guard. For these were the days of the close conscription, when it was popularly said that the army robbed both the cradle and the grave for its recruits, so young and so old were the men accounted liable for military duty. The sentinel could but discern at a glance that Hilary was younger even than the limit for these later conscriptions, and that only as a voluntary sacrifice to patriotism were his services attainable. The corporal of the guard came forthwith--tall, heavy, broad-visaged, downright in manner, and of a blunt style of speech. But on his face, too, the expression of formidable negation gave way at once to a brisk alacrity of welcome, and he immediately conducted Hilary to another officer, who brought him to a little knoll where the captain commanding the squadron was seated by a brisk fire, half reclining on his saddle thrown on the ground. He was beguiling his leisure, and perhaps reinforcing a certain down-hearted tendency to nostalgia, by reading the latest letters he had from home--letters a matter of six months old now, and already read into tatters, but so illuminated between the lines with familiar pictures and treasured household memories that they were still replete with an interest that would last longer than the paper. Two or three other officers were playing cards by the light of the fire, and one, elderly and grave, was reading a book through spectacles of sedate aspect. The measure of Hilary’s satisfaction was full to the brim. Captain Baker, as he informed his mother when a little later he burst into the home-circle wild with delight in his adventure and his news, couldn’t hold a candle to Captain Bertley. And rejoiced was he to be going at last and going with this officer. Hilary declared again and again that he wouldn’t be willing to fight in any other command. He was going at last, and going with the only captain in all the world for him--the first and foremost of men! And yet only this morning he had not known that this paragon existed.