But one day determined Peter's future destiny and his rank as a man and a Briton. Peter had gone to the coast, with Puck and the cart, spending the night at a sister's on the way. He had some business at Yarmouth, he said. I devised some errands for him and encouraged his going. I thought that it would perhaps prove to be his farewell to his sister before going to war. Those were strange days, the days of Peter's absence,--tense, full of nameless anxiety. That early-morning feeling of suspense, of expectancy, lasted into the afternoon; and one early morning had brought us the unmistakable sound of guns from the sea. Peter came rattling home in the late afternoon, a pale, distraught Peter, who seemed to have lost several pounds. He came into the garden where I was tying up rosebushes for the winter; at first he seemed unable to speak, but at last gasped out, "Those ---- Germans!" and the gasp ended in a little sob. As I watched him, I found myself sharing his trembling indignation. "German ships, 'm, men-of-war, standing off our coast, bombarding; it has never been attacked before. I saw them with my own eyes; I 'eard them with my own ears!" The firing, then, had had the significance that we dreaded. It began at about seven o'clock in the morning on November third, terrifying the peaceful folk of the seacoast town, shell after shell, report after report for nearly half an hour. Peter, who was getting an early start for home, had taken Puck and the cart to a house on the outskirts of the town, where he was getting a bag of very superior fertilizer. Then came the great noise and the splashing; little if any actual damage was done to buildings or to people, yet Peter contended that Puck was actually struck on the shoulder by some fragment of splintering wood or flying stone dislodged by a shell. Those shells may have missed their intended mark, but they went home to the heart of the time-expired man, Peter Snell. He knew at last that there was a war, and I knew--what he himself had not yet realized--that he was going to it. Peter lacks descriptive powers; I got from him little idea of the actual scene in all the fright and confusion. When he had found that there was nothing he could do to help, he had sped toward home, intent on carrying out his unavowed purpose. Asking how Puck, now standing with drooping head at the gate, had behaved at the crisis, I got the account that I expected, and, as we petted this veteran of the war and dressed a small hurt on his shoulder, I heard how he, the most antic pony in the British Isles, had held his ground, had jumped only moderately, had endured the crashing and the splashing, standing with his four legs braced in the sand, trembling all over, while Peter, dazed a bit at first, came to his senses. "And I will say, 'm, that he showed more 'ead than I 'ad myself, for the reins were loose on his back, I 'aving dropped them to put in the bag of fertilizer. 'E never offered to run, 'm!"