I could put him in prison if I chose. To beat an old soldier!--to
beat one of the boys of '61!--it is shameful!"
"I have heard of what you owed and what men owed you; you had none the
worst of it," Sam protested coldly, while Kate held her breath and Jane
McPherson, at work over the ironing board in the corner, half turned and
looked silently at the man and the boy, the slightly increased pallor of
her long face the only sign that she had heard.
Windy had not pressed the quarrel. Standing for a moment in the middle of
the kitchen, holding the book in his hand, he looked from the pale silent
mother by the ironing board to the son now standing and staring at him,
and, throwing the book upon the table with a bang, fled the house. "You
don't understand," he had cried, "you don't understand the heart of a
soldier."
In a way the man was right. The two children did not understand the
blustering, pretending, inefficient old man. Having moved shoulder to
shoulder with grim, silent men to the consummation of great deeds Windy
could not get the flavour of those days out of his outlook upon life.
Walking half drunk in the darkness along the sidewalks of Caxton on the
evening of the quarrel the man became inspired.
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