"Supposing there's something the matter with him, will he still have to
go?"
"I don't see why you should suppose there's anything the matter with
him," her mother said. "Is it likely your Uncle Victor would be paying
all that money to send him out if he wasn't fit to go?"
It didn't seem likely that Victor would have done anything of the sort;
any more than Uncle Edward would have let Aunt Bella give him an overcoat
lined with black jennet.
They were waiting for Roddy to come back from the doctor's. Before Uncle
Victor left Morfe he had made Roddy promise that for Mamma's satisfaction
he would go and be overhauled. And it was as if he had said "You'll see
then how much need there is to worry."
You might have kept on hoping that something would happen to prevent
Roddy's going but for the size and solidity and expensiveness of the
preparations. You might forget that his passage was booked for the first
Saturday in March, that to-day was the first Wednesday, that Victor's two
hundred pounds had been paid to Jem Alderson's account at the bank in
Montreal, and still the black jennet lining of the overcoat shouted at
you that nothing _could_ stop Roddy's going now. Uncle Victor might be
reckless, but Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella took no risks.
Unless, after all, Dr. Kendal stopped it--if he said Roddy mustn't go.
She could hear Roddy's feet coming back. They sounded like Mark's feet on
the flagged path outside.
He came into the room quickly. His eyes shone, he looked pleased and
excited.
Mamma stirred in her chair.
"That's a bright face. We needn't ask if you've got your passport," she
said.
He looked at her, a light, unresting look.
"How right you are," he said. "And wise."
"Well, I didn't suppose there was much the matter with you."
"There isn't."
He went to the bookshelf where he kept his drawing-blocks.
"I wouldn't sit down and draw if I were you. There isn't time."
"There'll be less after Saturday."
He sat down and began to draw. He was as absorbed and happy as if none of
them had ever heard of Canada.
He chanted:
"'Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered.'"
The pencil moved excitedly. Volumes of smoke curled and rolled and
writhed on the left-hand side of the sheet. The guns of Balaclava.
"'Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.'"
A rush of hoofs and heads and lifted blades on the right hand. The horses
and swords of the Light Brigade.
"'Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die'"--
"You ought to be a soldier, Roddy, like Mark, not a farmer."
"Oh wise! Oh right!
"'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.'"