“Now, wouldn’t that stir the most discouraged? Doesn’t it arouse one, make him stand up, face defeat, fight, and win? That is what it has done to me over and over again. Now, just listen to this last verse:
“‘It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the Captain of my soul.’”
Upon Rolfe’s face was an expression of great determination as he ended, and his glowing eyes were looking straight before him. To him the words were wonderfully real and effective. Marion, too, felt their spell, and even the heart of the matter-of-fact sergeant experienced a strange thrill.
“Tom, I never appreciated your poetry before,” the latter candidly confessed. “To me it was all doggerel, but I see it in a different light now. I am really glad to see that you have broken out again after your unusually long silence.”
The constable’s face beamed with pleasure, and he gave a sigh of relief.
“Good for you, sergeant!” he replied. “Now you can understand why General Wolfe recited Gray’s ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’ as he moved up the river to attack Quebec. We have often argued about that, and you always contended it was all nonsense. I am glad that you see light at last.”
