ll him, ma'am! The other
wouldn't be respectful. He's never 'Major Jackson' except when he's
trying to teach natural philosophy. On the drill ground he's 'Old Jack.'
Richard, he says--Old Jack says--that not a man since Napoleon has
understood the use of cavalry."

Cleave, sitting with his eyes upon the portrait of his grandfather,
answered dreamily: "Old Jack is probably in the right of it, Will.
Cavalry is a great arm, but I shall choose the artillery."

His mother set down her coffee cup with a little noise, Miriam shook her
hair out of her eyes and came back from her own dream of the story she
was reading, and Will turned as sharply as if he were on the parade
ground at Lexington.

"You don't think, then, that it is just all talk, Richard! You are sure
that we're going to fight!"

"You fight!" cried Miriam. "Why, you aren't sixteen!"

Will flared up. "Plenty of soldiers have _died_ at sixteen, Missy! 'Old
Jack' knows, if you don't--"

"Children, children!" said Margaret Cleave, in a quivering voice. "It is
enough to know that not a man of this family but would fight now for
Virginia, just as they fought eighty odd years ago! Yes, and we women
did our part then, and we would do it now! But I pray God, night and
day--and Miriam, you should pray too--that this storm will not burst! As
for you two who've always been sheltered and fed, who've never had a
blow struck you, who've grown like tended plants in a garden--you don't
know what war is! It's a great and deep Cup of Trembling! It's a scourge
that reaches the backs of all! It's universal destruction--and the gift
that the world should pray for is to build in peace! That is true, isn't
it, Richard?"

"Yes, it is true," said Richard. "Don't, Will," as the boy began to
speak. "Don't let's talk any more about it to-night. After all, a deal
of storms go by--and it's a wise man who can read Time's order-book." He
rose from the table. "It's like the fable. The King may die, the Ass may
die, the Philosopher may die--and next Christmas maybe the peacefullest
on record! I'm going to ride to Lauderdale for a little while, and, if
you like, I'll ask about that shotgun for you."

A few minutes later and he was out on the starlit road to Lauderdale. As
he rode he thought, not of the Botetourt Resolutions, nor of Fauquier
Cary, nor of Allan Gold, nor of the supper table at Three Oaks, nor of a
case which he must fight through at the court house three days hence,
but of Ju