But he was quickly surrounded by pitying eyes and emotional voices, and
was coaxed into the house, where the young ladies took his coat away to
mend it. While he waited for it in my room I spoke of the terror so many
brave men had of these fierce home-guards. I knew one such beast that was
sired of a wolf. He heard me with downcast eyes, at first with evident
pleasure, but very soon quite gravely.
"They can afford to fear dogs," he replied, "when they've got no other
fear." And when I would have it that he had shown a stout heart he smiled
ruefully.
"I do everything through weakness," he soliloquized, and, taking my book,
opened it as if to dismiss our theme. But I bade him turn to the preface,
where heavily scored by the same feminine hand which had written on the
blank leaf opposite, "Richard Thorndyke Smith, from C.O."--we read
something like this:
The seed of heroism is in all of us. Else we should not forever relish, as
we do, stories of peril, temptation, and exploit. Their true zest is no
mere ticklement of our curiosity or wonder, but comradeship with souls
that have courage in danger, faithfulness under trial, or magnanimity in
triumph or defeat. We have, moreover, it went on to say, a care for human
excellence _in general_, by reason of which we want not alone our son, or
cousin, or sister, but _man everywhere_, the norm, _man_, to be strong,
sweet, and true; and reading stories of such, we feel this wish rebound
upon us as duty sweetened by a new hope, and have a new yearning for its
fulfilment in ourselves.
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