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If these things were presumed, the presumption was at fault. The venerable excursionists were not gay and frisky. They played no blind-man's buff; they dealt not in whist; they shirked not the irksome journal, for alas! most of them were even writing books. They never romped, they talked but little, they never sang, save in the nightly prayer-meeting.
My aunt and I retired early and my dear sister sat for a long while with my father while he spoke to her most earnestly of his affairs. As I have already said my father had such an intense dislike for leave-taking that he always, when it was possible, shirked a farewell, and we children, knowing this dislike, used only to wave our hands or give him a silent kiss when parting.
But occasionally he shirked the cold tub; and, in the same way, he found it difficult at times to tell the truth. In the morning he had a letter from Mrs. Woolstan. Opening it hurriedly, he was pleased, but not surprised, to discover a cheque folded in the note-paper.
Whatever I had said or done, the burghers would have gone home; but I'll give you my word that those who come back will fight with renewed courage." I knew very well that there were some who would not return, but I preferred to command ten men who were willing to fight, rather than a hundred who shirked their duties.
"Ha, my head he is getting more clear!" he announced. "Gom, let us present ourselves to ze ladies, mine Bonker!" "It is necessary, Bonker you are sure?" "No Tulliwuddle has ever omitted the ceremony. If you shirked, I am assured on the very best authority that it would excite the gravest suspicions of your authenticity." Count Bunker spoke with an air of the most resolute conviction.
He listened with the greatest attention to every detail that they could give him, and then his jaw seemed to stiffen. "You have done well, lads," he said. "There is nothing more dangerous than the calling of a scout in the Indian wars, but not one of you has ever shirked it. You have warned us and now we are willing for Timmendiquas and Girty to attack whenever they choose."
You'd know all the time that you'd shirked, deserted, been false to your business. You'd be fishes out of water, with the knowledge that you'd taken for your own pleasure something that someone else ought to have had. It isn't in either of you to do it. You must leave such work to the Haves. Why, what happens the first time you try it on?
However, I firmly remind myself of that 'one in the eye, and then all my doubts depart. Good-night. Sleep well! You know very well that I should have shirked it if it hadn't been for you!" A little later the Meadowses stood together at the open window of their room, which led by a short flight of steps to a flowering garden below.
Where others shirked, he assumed. Where others lagged, he accelerated his pace. Where others were indifferent to things around them, he observed and put away the results for possible use later. He did not make of himself a pack-horse; what he undertook he did from interest in it, and that made it a pleasure to him when to others it was a burden.
That moment seemed a hundred years long, for I was always dreading to hear 'There is a telegram for Dr. Blythe. Then, when I had shirked for a while, I was ashamed of leaving it all for mother or Susan, and now I make myself go. But it never gets any easier.
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