Herb and the Farrars responded to it with heart-eager "Amens!" the
fervor of which was new to their lips.
"I thank you as if he were my own brother, boys," said the woodsman,
while he filled in the grave, and planted Neal's cross at its head.
"Sho! when it comes to a time like we've been through to-day, a man, if
he has anything but a gizzard in him, must feel as how we're all
brothers,--every man-jack of us,--white men, red men, half-and-half men,
whatever we are or wherever we sprung."
"A fellow is always hearing that sort of thing," said Neal Farrar to
Cyrus. "But I'm blessed if I ever felt it stick in me before! that we're
all of the one stuff, you know--we and that poor beggar. Some of us
seem to get such precious long odds over the others."
"All the more reason why we should do our level best to pull the
backward ones up to us," answered the American.
The words struck into the ears of Dol--that youngster listening with a
soberness of attention seldom seen in his flash-light eyes.
A few years afterwards, when Neal Farrar was a newly blown lieutenant in
his Queen's Twelfth Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and enthusiasms
as a modern young officer may be,--while his half-fledged ambitions were
hanging on the chances of active service, and the golden, remote
possibility of his one day being a V.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313