“Have a sleep then, my laddie—there on the sofy. It’s scarce worth going to bed. Besides, you’d have to clean yourself first.” “You won’t leave me, father—you’ll stay along of me?” “I’ll stay along of you and pray quiet.” Jerry gave a grunt, and drew up his knees to his chin, like some animal rolling itself for sleep. Mr. Sumption knelt beside him and continued his prayer: “O Lord, Thou hast a son, and doesn’t Thou know what I feel about this wretched boy of mine? Lord, give me a token that he is not predestined to everlasting death; save him from the snares of hell, in which he seems tangled like a bird in the snare of the fowler....” “Oh, father, do pray cheerful,” groaned Jerry. But praying cheerful was quite beyond the poor father’s powers, never remarkable in this direction at the best of times. All he could do was to sing, “Let Christian faith and hope dispel the fears of guilt and woe,” till Jerry had fallen asleep. 12 Three hours later he woke, to find Mrs. Hubble’s big wooden wash-tub in front of the fire. “Up you get,” said the Reverend Mr. Sumption, “and into that bath, and I’ll take your clothes down to be cleaned and mended before you go to the station.” “I’m not going to the station.” “You’re going there two hours from now, or you won’t be in Waterheel to-night.” “I don’t want to be in Waterheel ever again.” But Mr. Sumption was not having any nonsense. A large hairy paw like a gorilla’s shot out and swung Jerry by the collar on to the floor. “Now strip, you ungodly good-for-nothing, and I’ll send you out looking like a clergyman’s son.” Jerry, groaning and moaning to himself, got into the bath, while Mr. Sumption took his dirty bundle of clothes down to Mrs. Hubble’s kitchen, where a long and noisy argument followed on her abilities to make bricks without straw, as she called his request to make his son look decent. He returned to the study to find Jerry less stiff in the joints, but growing every minute more defiant and miserable as the steaming water cleared the fogs of sleep from his brain. “I’m not going back to camp. I’d die if I was to go there—with Ivy lost. It was bad enough when I had her to think of and all——But now ... I’d justabout break my heart.” “Maybe after a time you can write to her again——” “I can’t, I tell you. You don’t understand. I’ve lost her for ever. I frightened her—I made her scream.” “You’re a beast,” said his father. “Reckon I am, and reckon you’re treating me like one.” “If you stay behind, they’ll nab you for an absentee.” “I don’t care if they do. I’d sooner be locked up, than a soldier any more.” “For shame, boy!” “Well, how’d you like to be a soldier?—sworn at all day by bloody sergeants, and always fatigue and C.B. I’m fed up, I tell you, and I’m not going back.” “You’ll go back, if I have to pull you all the way by the ears.” “You’re the cruellest father I ever heard of.”