"I don't know nothing of it," said Ernie, honestly taken aback. Jehovah, the majestic, in his flaming jersey, could sneer. "Ah, don't you, my lad?" he said. "Well, I do. Let's have no more of it." The two men went on their way: Salvation Joe to the Manager's office to make his report. "Always the same with these old soldiers," he said. "It's up with their fists at the first onset. No reasonableness in em. Can't keep em off of it." "Better keep him anyway till the end of the season," said the Manager. "We don't want a change now." "No, sir. I don't want a change any time," said the head-porter, on the defensive. "But order is order. That's all I says." The pressure of necessity was indeed squeezing the softness out of Ernie. Enemies thronged his path. He was becoming wary and watchful. Of old, when in the course of life he had come up against hostility and obstruction, he had met it either by evasion or the non-resistance so fatally easy to a man of his temperament. It was different now. His enemies were leagued together to rob him of something dearer than himself. Therefore he would stand: therefore he would fight. There grew upon him a dignity, a restraint, above all a sternness that men and women alike remarked and respected. Céleste ceased to mock him; Don John kept his distance; and the Captain was on his guard. Ernie was sure of it: for Royal was nothing of a diplomatist when dealing with an enemy whom he despised. Ruth, too, avoided Ernie now. He noticed it, and did not attempt to approach her. The two were drawing away, and yet, Ernie sometimes thought, coming closer--for all the girl's grave reserve. He at least was climbing heights where he had never been before. Up there in the eternal snows it was lonely but bracing. He was putting on an armour of ice. Clothed thus, knew that nothing could hurt him. He could bear all things, conquer all men. Once at that time Mr. Pigott met him in Old Town. "Ern," he said, eyeing the other curiously, "I've got a job for you in my yard, if you like it. What about it?" "No, sir," answered Ernie, almost aggressively. "I'm going to stick where I am." "No offence anyway," growled the other, striding huffily on his way.... "I might have been insulting him instead of trying to help him," the aggrieved man reported to Mr. Trupp later. "Yes," said the Doctor. "He's under the Lash again. I see that. And he's growing because of it. Men do--if they are men. If they aren't they just break." "You and your Lash," grumbled the other. "There are other stimulants in the world." Mr. Trupp pursed his lips. "Perhaps," he grinned. "But none so effective." His father, too, noticed the change in his elder son. Once as they were sitting together, above the chalk-pit, on one of Ern's afternoons off, after a long silence, he said, "How goes it, Boy-lad?" "What, dad?" "The affair." Ernie looked away, teasing the bent between his teeth. "None too well, dad."