ether, this did no much affright
them; but often Georgie would hear her shrill cry of "Boy! Boy!" half a
world away, and hurry to her rescue before "They" maltreated her.

He and she explored the dark-purple downs as far inland from the
brushwood-pile as they dared, but that was always a dangerous matter.
The interior was filled with "Them," and "They" went about singing in
the hollows, and Georgie and she felt safer on or near the seaboard. So
thoroughly had he come to know the place of his dreams that even waking
he accepted it as a real country, and made a rough sketch of it. He kept
his own counsel, of course; but the permanence of the land puzzled him.
His ordinary dreams were as formless and as fleeting as any healthy
dreams could be, but once at the brushwood-pile he moved within known
limits and could see where he was going. There were months at a time
when nothing notable crossed his sleep. Then the dreams would come in
a batch of five or six, and next morning the map that he kept in
his writing case would be written up to date, for Georgie was a most
methodical person. There was, indeed, a danger--his seniors said so--of
his developing into a regular "Auntie Fuss" of an adjutant, and when an
officer once takes to old-maidism there is more hope for the virgin of
seventy than for him.

But fate sent the change that was needed, in the shape of a little
winter campaign on the Border, which, after the manner of little
campaigns, flashed out into a very ugly war; and Cottar's regiment was
chosen among the first.

"Now," said a major, "this'll shake the cobwebs out of
us all--especially you, Galahad; and we can see what your
hen-with-one-chick attitude has done for the regiment."

Cottar nearly wept with joy as the campaign went forward. They were
fit--physically fit beyond the other troops; they were good children in
camp, wet or dry, fed or unfed; and they followed their officers with
the quick suppleness and trained obedience of a first-class foot-ball
fifteen. They were cut off from their apology for a base, and cheerfully
cut their way back to it again; they crowned and cleaned out hills full
of the enemy with the precision of well-broken dogs of chase; and in the
hour of retreat, when, hampered with the sick and wounded of the column,
they were persecuted down eleven miles of waterless valley, they,
serving as rearguard, covered themselves with a great glory in the eyes
of fellow-professionals. Any regiment