ave you. I'll not be
going. I'm not wearying. I know what my duty is; and it's here at
home with you." He was repeating his assurance incoherently, when she
stopped him.

"Gavie, there's no need to tell your Auntie Elspie that you would do
all that is in your power for us. I ken you've kept silence all these
months for fear of giving us pain. But I've been watching you, and I
guessed what ailed you. And it is what we would have, Gavie. We would
not have you want to stay at home while others go to die for us to save
our homes and lives. And indeed it's proud I am this night, even if my
heart is sore--sore----"

She broke down a moment, and again Gavin firmly declared his decision.
He could not deny he wanted to go to the Front he confessed, but maybe
it was just a foolish love of adventure and it did not interfere with
the fact that he was needed at home.

"So I'll jist stay here, Auntie Elspie," he repeated, "I am needed
here, and I would be ashamed to turn my back on you. I couldn't be
happy knowing you needed me, and I wasn't here to take care of you all."

And so they argued the matter far into the night, Auntie Elspie
insisting that he should go, and the boy declaring that he would not.
She was reinforced shortly by her sisters. Auntie Flora had heard the
low rumble of voices and had seen the light in Gavin's room. She
wakened Janet, and fearing that Gavin's strange conduct had culminated
in an attack of some real illness, the two anxious old ladies hurriedly
flung on some clothes and went down the hall to Gavin's room. And
there they found a strange scene, Elspie urging Gavin to enlist, and
Gavin holding back and declaring that nothing would induce him to go to
the war!

It was the look in his two younger Aunts' eyes, when the case was
explained to them, that first shook Gavin's resolution. Auntie Flora
stood up tall and stately, and her face flushed proudly as she turned
to Janet. "What did I tell ye!" she cried triumphantly, "I knew he
wanted to go!" And Auntie Janet burst into tears, and hiding her face
in the old shawl she had thrown round her shoulders she sobbed, "Aye,
and I said it, too. I knew ye couldn't be the kind that would want to
stay at home, Gavie." And Gavin comforted them in a state of
speechless wonder. It appeared that after all they had been waiting
for him to express a desire to go and that their pride was quite equal
to their grief!

CHAPTER XIII

"THE PLIGH