er agony nor set-back, and I give my word for peace.
Only--only--before this life I must have fought all along the line!"

His eyes lightened. Against the paling sky, in the wintry air, his
powerful frame, not tall, but deep-chested, broad-shouldered, looked
larger than life. "I don't talk this way often--as you'll grant!" he
said, and laughed. "But I suppose to-day loosed all our tongues, lifted
every man out of himself!"

"If war came," said Allan, "it couldn't be a long war, could it? After
the first battle we'd come to an understanding."

"Would we?" answered the other. "Would we?--God knows! In the past it
has been that the more equal the tinge of blood, the fiercer was the
war."

As he spoke he moved across to the sapling where was fastened his horse,
loosed him, and sprang into the saddle. The horse, a magnificent bay,
took the road, and the three began the long descent. It was very cold
and still, a crescent moon in the sky, and lights beginning to shine
from the farmhouses in the valley.

"Though I teach school," said Allan, "I like the open. I like to do
things with my hands, and I like to go in and out of the woods. Perhaps,
all the way behind us, I was a hunter, with a taste for books! My
grandfather was a scout in the Revolution, and his father was a
ranger.... God knows, _I_ don't want war! But if it comes I'll go. We'll
all go, I reckon."

"Yes, we'll all go," said Cleave. "We'll need to go."

The one rode, the other walked in silence for a time; then said the
first, "I shall ride to Lauderdale after supper and talk to Fauquier
Cary."

"You and he are cousins, aren't you?"

"Third cousins. His mother was a Dandridge--Unity Dandridge."

"I like him. It's like old wine and blue steel and a cavalier poet--that
type."

"Yes, it is old and fine, in men and in women."

"He does not want war."

"No."

"Hairston Breckinridge says that he won't discuss the possibility at
all--he'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work for
peace, and that war between brothers is horrible."

"It is. No. He wears a uniform. He cannot talk."

They went on in silence for a time, over the winter road, through the
crystal air. Between the branches of the trees the sky showed intense
and cold, the crescent moon, above a black mass of mountains, golden and
sharp, the lights in the valley near enough to be gathered.

"If there should be war," asked Allan, "what will they do, all the
Virginians in t