"We have been here ever since Friday. Why haven't you been to see me? Dr. Sandford sent word to you."
"Dr. Sandford!" said Preston, taking the place by my side. "How did you come here, Daisy?"
"I came by the boat, last Friday. How should I come?"
"Who are you with?"
"Dr. Sandford—and Mrs. Sandford."
"Mrs.Sandford, and Dr. Sandford," said Preston, pointedly. "You are not with the doctor, I suppose."
"Why yes, I am," I answered. "He is my guardian—don't you know, Preston? He brought me. How tall you have grown!"
"A parcel of Yankees," said Preston. "Poor little Daisy."
"What do you mean by 'Yankees'?" I said. "You do not mean just people at the North, for you speak as if it was something bad."
"It is. So I do," said Preston. "They are a mean set—fit for nothing but to eat codfish and scrape. I wish you had nothing to do with Yankees."
I thought how all the South lived upon stolen earnings. It was a disagreeable turn to my meditations for a moment.
"Where have you hid yourself since you have come here?" Preston went on. "I have been to the hotel time and again to find you."
"Have you!" I said. "Oh, I suppose I was out walking."
"With whom were you walking."
"I don't know anybody here, but those I came with. But, Preston, why are you not over yonder with the others?"
I was looking at the long grey line formed in front of us on the plain.
"I got leave of absence, to come and see you, Daisy. Andyouhave grown, and improved. You're wonderfully improved. Are you the very same Daisy? and what are you going to do here?"
"Oh, I'm enjoying myself. Now, Preston why does that man stand so?"
"What man?"
"That officer—here in front, standing all alone, with the sash and sword. Why does he stand so?"
"Hush. That is Captain Percival. He is the officer in charge."
"What is that?"
"Oh, he looks after the parade, and things."
"But why does he stand so, Preston?"
"Stand how?" said Preston, unsympathizingly. "That is good standing."
"Why, with his shoulders up to his ears," I said; "and his arms lifted up as if he was trying to put his elbows upon a high shelf. It isveryawkward."
"They all stand so," said Preston. "That's right enough."
"It is ungraceful."
"It is military."
"Must one be ungraceful in order to be military?"
"Heisn't ungraceful. That is Percival—of South Carolina."
"The officer yesterday stood a great deal better," I went on.
"Yesterday? That was Blunt. He's a Yankee."
"Well, what then, Preston?" I said laughing.
"I despise them!"
"Aren't there Yankees among the cadets?"
"Of course; but they are no count—only here and there there's one of good family. Don't you have anything to do with them, Daisy!—mind;—not with one of them, unless I tell you who he is."
"With one of whom? What are you speaking of?"
"The cadets."
"Why I have nothing to do with them," I said. "How should I?"
Preston looked at me curiously.
"Nor at the hotel, neither, Daisy—more than you can help. Have nothing to say to the Yankees."
I thought Preston had taken a strange fancy. I was silent.
"It is not fitting," he went on. "We are going to change all that. I want to have nothing to do with Yankees."
"What are you going to change?" I asked. "I don't see how you can help having to do with them. They are among the cadets, and they are among the officers."
"We have our own set," said Preston. "I have nothing to do with them in the corps."
"Now, Preston, look; what are they about? All the red sashes are getting together."
"Parade is dismissed. They are coming up to salute the officer in charge."
"It is so pretty!" I said, as the music burst out again, and the measured steps of the advancing line of "red sashes"marked it. "And now Captain Percival will unbend his stiff elbows. Why could not all that be done easily, Preston?"
"Nonsense, Daisy!—it is military."
"Is it? But Mr. Blunt did it a great deal better. Now they are going. Must you go?"
"Yes. What are you going to do to-morrow?"
"I don't know—I suppose we shall go into the woods again."
"When the examination is over, I can attend to you. I haven't much time just now. But there is really nothing to be done here, since one can't get on horseback out of the hours."
"I don't want anything better than I can get on my own feet," I said joyously. "I find plenty to do."
"Look here, Daisy," said Preston—"don't you turn into a masculine, muscular woman, that can walk her twenty miles and wear hobnailed shoes—like the Yankees you are among. Don't forget that you are the daughter of a Southern gentleman—"
He touched his cap hastily and turned away—walking with those measured steps towards the barracks; whither now all the companies of grey figures were in full retreat. I stood wondering, and then slowly returned with my friends to the hotel; much puzzled to account for Preston's discomposure and strange injunctions. The sunlight had left the tops of the hills; the river slept in the gathering grey shadows, soft, tranquil, reposeful. Before I got to the hotel, I had quite made up my mind that my cousin's eccentricities were of no consequence.
They recurred to me, however, and were as puzzling as ever. I had no key at the time.
The next afternoon was given to a very lively show: the light artillery drill before the Board of Visitors. We sat out under the trees to behold it; and I found out now the meaning of thebroad strip of plain between the hotel and the library, which was brown and dusty in the midst of the universal green. Over this strip, round and round, back, and forth, and across, the light artillery wagons rushed, as if to show what they could do in time of need. It was a beautiful sight, exciting and stirring; with the beat of horses' hoofs, the clatter of harness, the rumble of wheels tearing along over the ground, the flash of a sabre now and then, the ringing words of command, and the soft, shrill echoing bugle which repeated them. I only wanted to understand it all; and in the evening I plied Preston with questions. He explained things to me patiently.
"I understand," I said, at last, "I understand what it would do in war time. But we are not at war, Preston."
"No."
"Nor in the least likely to be."
"We can't tell. It is good to be ready."
"But what do you mean?" I remember saying. "You speak as if we might be at war. Who is there for us to fight?"
"Anybody that wants putting in order," said Preston. "The Indians."
"O Preston, Preston!" I exclaimed. "The Indians! when we have been doing them wrong ever since the white men came here; and you want to do them more wrong!"
"I want to hinder them from doing us wrong. But I don't care about the Indians, little Daisy. I would just as lief fight the Yankees."
"Preston, I think you are very wrong."
"You think all the world is," he said.
We were silent, and I felt very dissatisfied. Whatwasall this military schooling a preparation for, perhaps? How could weknow. Maybe these heads and hands, so gay to-day in their mock fight, would be grimly and sadly at work by and by, in real encounter with some real enemy.
"Do you see that man, Daisy?" whispered Preston, suddenly in my ear. "That one talking to a lady in blue."
We were on the parade ground, among a crowd of spectators, for the hotels were very full, and the Point very gay now. I said I saw him.
"That is a great man."
"Is he?" I said, looking and wondering if a great man could hide behind such a physiognomy.
"Other people think so, I can tell you," said Preston. "Nobody knows what that man can do. That is Davis of Mississippi."
The name meant nothing to me then. I looked at him as I would have looked at another man. And I did not like what I saw. Something of sinister, nothing noble, about the countenance; power there might be—Preston said there was—but the power of the fox and the vulture it seemed to me; sly, crafty, selfish, cruel.
"If nobody knows what he can do, how is it so certain that he is a great man?" I asked. Preston did not answer. "I hope there are not many great men that look like him." I went on.
"Nonsense, Daisy!" said Preston, in an energetic whisper. "That is Davis of Mississippi."
"Well?" said I. "That is no more to me than if he were Jones of New York."
"Daisy!" said Preston. "If you are not a true Southerner, I will never love you any more."
"What do you mean by a true Southerner? I do not understand."
"Yes, you do. A true Southerner is always a Southerner, and takes the part of a Southerner in every dispute—right or wrong."
"What makes you dislike Northerners so much?"
"Cowardly Yankees!" was Preston's reply.
"You must have an uncomfortable time among them, if you feel so," I said.
"There are plenty of the true sort here. I wish you were in Paris, Daisy; or somewhere else."
"Why?" I said, laughing.
"Safe with my mother, oryourmother. You want teaching. You are too latitudinarian. And you are too thick with the Yankees, by half."
I let this opinion alone, as I could do nothing with it; and our conversation broke off with Preston in a very bad humour.
The next day, when we were deep in the woods, I asked Dr. Sandford if he knew Mr. Davis of Mississippi. He answered Yes, rather drily. I knew the doctor knew everybody.
I asked why Preston called him a great man.
"Does he call him a great man?" Dr. Sandford asked.
"Do you?"
"No, not I, Daisy. But that may not hinder the fact. And I may not have Mr. Gary's means of judging."
"What means can he have?" I said.
"Daisy," said Dr. Sandford suddenly, when I had forgotten the question in plunging through a thicket of brushwood, "if the North and the South should split on the subject of slavery, what side would you take?"
"What do you mean by a 'split'?" I asked slowly, in my wonderment.
"The States are not precisely like a perfect crystal, Daisy,and there is an incipient cleavage somewhere about Mason and Dixon's line."
"I do not know what line that is."
"No. Well, for practical purposes, you may take it as the line between the slave States and the free."
"But how could there be a split?" I asked.
"There is a wedge applied even now, Daisy—the question whether the new States forming out of our Western territories, shall have slavery in them or shall be free States."
I was silent upon this; and we walked and climbed for a little distance, without my remembering our geological or mineralogical, or any other objects in view.
"The North say," Dr. Sandford then went on, "that these States shall be free. The South—or some men at the South—threaten that if they be, the South will split from the North, have nothing to do with us, and set up for themselves."
"Who is to decide it?" I asked.
"The people. This fall the election will be held for the next President; and that will show. If a slavery man be chosen, we shall know that a majority of the nation go with the Southern view."
"If not?"—
"Then there may be trouble, Daisy."
"What sort of trouble?" I asked hastily.
Dr. Sandford hesitated, and then said, "I do not know how far people will go."
I mused, and forgot the sweet flutter of green leaves, and smell of moss and of hemlock, and golden bursts of sunshine, amongst which we were pursuing our way. Preston's strange heat and Southernism, Mr. Davis's wile and greatness, a comingdisputed election, quarrels between the people where I was born and the people where I was brought up, divisions and jealousies, floated before my mind in unlovely and confused visions. Then, remembering my father and my mother and Gary McFarlane, and others whom I had known, I spoke again.
"Whatever the Southern people say, they will do, Dr. Sandford."
"Provided—" said the doctor.
"What, if you please?"
"Provided the North will let them, Daisy."
I thought privately they could not hinder. Would there be a trial? Could it be possible there would be a trial?
"But you have not answered my question," said the doctor. "Aren't you going to answer it?"
"What question?"
"As to the side you would take."
"I do not want any more slave States, Dr. Sandford."
"I thought so. Then you would be with the North."
"But people will never be so foolish as to come to what you call a 'split,' Dr. Sandford."
"Upon my word, Daisy, as the world is at present, the folly of a thing is no presumptive argument against its coming into existence. Look—here we shall get a nice piece of quartz for your collection."
I came back to the primary rocks, and for the present dismissed the subject of the confusions existing on the surface of the earth; hoping sincerely that there would be no occasion for calling it up again.
For some time I saw very little of Preston. He was busy, he said. My days flowed on like the summer sunshine, and were as beneficent. I was gaining strength every day. Dr. Sandforddecreed that I must stay as long as possible. Then Mr. Sandford came, the doctor's brother, and added his social weight to our party. Hardly needed, for I perceived that we were very much sought after; at least my companions. The doctor in especial was a very great favourite, both with men and women; who I notice are most ready to bestow their favour where it is least cared for. I don't know but Dr. Sandford cared for it; only he did not show that he did. The claims of society however began to interfere with my geological and other lessons.
A few days after his brother's arrival, the doctor had been carried off by a party of gentlemen who were going back in the mountains to fish in the White Lakes. I was left to the usual summer delights of the place; which indeed to me were numberless; began with the echo of the morning gun (or before) and ended not till the three taps of the drum at night. The cadets had gone into camp by this time; and the taps of the drum were quite near, as well as the shrill sweet notes of the fife at reveille and tattoo. The camp itself was a great pleasure to me; and at guardmounting or parade I never failed to be in my place. Only to sit in the rear of the guard tents and watch the morning sunlight on the turf, and on the hills over the river, and shining down the camp alleys, was a rich satisfaction. Mrs. Sandford laughed at me; her husband said it was "natural," though I am sure he did not understand it a bit; but the end of all was, that I was left very often to go alone down the little path to the guard tents among the crowd that twice a day poured out there from our hotel and met the crowd that came up from Cozzens's hotel below.
So it was, one morning that I remember. Guardmounting was always late enough to let one feel the sun's power; and itwas a sultry morning, this. We were in July now, and misty, vaporous clouds moved slowly over the blue sky, seeming to intensify the heat of the unclouded intervals. But wonderful sweet it was; and I under the shade of my flat hat, with a little help from the foliage of a young tree, did not mind it at all. Every bit of the scene was a pleasure to me; I missed none of the details. The files of cadets in the camp alleys getting their arms inspected; the white tents themselves, with curtains tightly done up; here and there an officer crossing the camp ground and stopping to speak to an orderly; then the coming up of the band, the music, the marching out of the companies; the leisurely walk from the camp of the officer in charge, drawing on his white gloves; his stand and his attitude; and then the pretty business of the parade. All under that July sky; all under that flicker of cloud and sun, and the soft sweet breath of air that sometimes stole to us to relieve the hot stillness; and all with that setting and background of cedars and young foliage and bordering hills over which the cloud shadows swept. Then came the mounting-guard business. By and by Preston came to me.
"Awfully hot, Daisy!" he said.
"Yes, you are out in it," I said, compassionately.
"What areyouout in it for?"
"Why, I like it," I said. "How come you to be one of the red sashes this morning?"
"I have been an officer of the guard this last twenty-four hours."
"Since yesterday morning?"
"Yes."
"Do you like it, Preston?"
"Likeit!" he said. "Like guard duty! Why, Daisy, when a fellow has left his shoe-string untied, or something or other like that, they put him on extra guard duty to punish him."
"Did you ever do so, Preston?"
"Did I ever do so?" he repeated savagely. "Do you think I have been raised like a Yankee, to take care of my shoes? That Blunt is just fit to stand behind a counter and measure inches!"
I was very near laughing, but Preston was not in a mood to bear laughing at.
"I don't think it is beneath a gentleman to keep his shoe-strings tied," I said.
"A gentleman can't always think of everything!" he replied.
"Then you are glad you have only one year more at the Academy?"
"Of course I am glad! I'll never be under Yankee rule again; not if I know it."
"Suppose they elect a Yankee President?" I said; but Preston's look was so eager and so sharp at me that I was glad to cover my rash suggestion under another subject as soon as possible.
"Are you going to be busy this afternoon?" I asked him.
"No, I reckon not."
"Suppose you come and go up to the fort with me?"
"What fort?"
"Fort Putnam. I have never been there yet."
"There is nothing on earth to go there for," said Preston, shrugging his shoulders. "Just broil yourself in the sun, and get nothing for it. It's an awful pull uphill; rough, and all that; and nothing at the top but an old stone wall."
"But there is the view!" I said.
"You have got it down here—just as good. Just climb up the hotel stairs fifty times without stopping, and then look out of the thing at the top—and you have been to Fort Putnam."
"Why, I want you to go to the top of Crow's Nest," I said.
"Yes! I was ass enough to try that once," said Preston, "when I was just come, and thought I must do everything; but if anybody wants to insult me, let him just ask me to do it again!"
Preston's mood was unmanageable. I had never seen him so in old times. I thought West Point did not agree with him. I listened to the band, just then playing a fine air, and lamented privately to myself that brass instruments should be so much more harmonious than human tempers. Then the music ceased and the military movements drew my attention again.
"They all walk like you," I observed carelessly, as I noticed a measured step crossing the camp ground.
"Do they?" said Preston sneeringly. "I flatter myself I do not walk likeallof them. If you notice more closely, Daisy, you will see a difference. You can tell a Southerner, on foot or on horseback, from the sons of tailors and farmers—strange if you couldn't!"
"I think you are unjust, Preston," I said. "You should not talk so. Major Blunt walks as well and stands much better than any officer I have seen; and he is from Vermont; and Capt. Percival is from South Carolina, and Mr. Hunter is from Virginia, and Col. Forsyth is from Georgia. They are all of them less graceful than Major Blunt."
"What do you think of Dr. Sandford?" said Preston in the same tone; but before I could answer I heard a call of "Gary!—Gary!" I looked round. In the midst of the ranks of spectators to our left stood a cadet, my friend of the omnibus. He was looking impatiently our way, and again exclaimed in a sort of suppressed shout—"Gary!" Preston heard him that time; started from my side, and placed himself immediately beside his summoner, in front of the guard tents and spectators. The two were in line, two or three yards separating them, and both facing towards a party drawn up at some little distance on the camp ground, which I believe were the relieving guard. I moved my own position to a place immediately behind them, where I spied an empty camp-stool, and watched the two with curious eyes. Uniforms, and military conformities generally, are queer things if you take the right point of view. Here were these two, a pair, and not a pair. The grey coat and the white pantaloons (they had all gone into white now), the little soldier's cap, were a counterpart in each of the other; the two even stood on the ground as if they were bound to be patterns each of the other; and when my acquaintance raised his arms and folded them after the most approved fashion, to my great amusement Preston's arms copied the movement: and they stood like two brother statues still, from their heels to their cap rims. Except when once the right arm of my unknown friend was unbent to give a military sign, in answer to some demand or address from somebody in front of him which I did not hear. Yet as I watched, I began to discern how individual my two statues really were. I could not see faces, of course. But the grey coat on the one looked as if its shoulders had been more carefully brushed than had been the case with the other; the spotless pantaloons, which seemed to be just out of the laundress's basket, as I suppose they were, sat with a trimmer perfection inone case than in the other. Preston's pocket gaped, and was, I noticed, a little bit ripped; and when my eye got down to the shoes, his had not the black gloss of his companion's. With that one there was not, I think, a thread awry. And then, there was a certain relaxation in the lines of Preston's figure impossible to describe, stiff and motionless though he was; something which prepared one for a lax and careless movement when he moved. Perhaps this was fancy and only arose from my knowledge of the fact; but with the other no such fancy was possible. Still, but alert; motionless, but full of vigour; I expected what came; firm, quick, and easy action, as soon as he should cease to be a statue.
So much to a back view of character; which engrossed me till my two statues went away.
A little while after Preston came. "Are you here yet?" he said.
"Don't you like to have me here?"
"It's hot. And it is very stupid for you, I should think. Where is Mrs. Sandford?"
"She thinks as you do, that it is stupid."
"You ought not to be here without some one."
"Why not? What cadet was that who called you, Preston?"
"Called me? Nobody called me."
"Yes he did. When you were sitting with me. Who was it?"
"I don't know!" said Preston. "Good-bye. I shall be busy for a day or two."
"Then you cannot go to Fort Putnam this afternoon?"
"Fort Putnam? I should think not. It will be broiling to-day."
And he left me. Things had gone wrong with Preston lately,I thought. Before I had made up my mind to move, two other cadets came before me. One of them Mrs. Sandford knew, and I slightly.
"Miss Randolph, my friend Mr. Thorold has begged me to introduce him to you."
It wasmyfriend of the omnibus. I think we liked each other at this very first moment. I looked up at a manly, well-featured face, just then lighted with a little smile of deference and recognition; but permanently lighted with the brightest and quickest hazel eyes that I ever saw. Something about the face pleased me on the instant. I believe it was the frankness.
"I have to apologize for my rudeness, in calling a gentleman away from you, Miss Randolph, in a very unceremonious manner, a little while ago."
"Oh, I know," I said. "I saw what you did with him."
"Did I do anything with him?"
"Only called him to his duty, I suppose."
"Precisely. He was very excusable for forgetting it; but it might have been inconvenient."
"Do you think it is ever excusable to forget duty?" I asked; and I was rewarded with a swift flash of fun in the hazel eyes, that came and went like forked lightning.
"It is not easily pardoned here," he answered.
"People don't make allowances?"
"Not officers," he said, with a smile. "Soldiers lose the character of men, when on duty; they are only reckoned machines."
"You do not mean that exactly, I suppose."
"Indeed I do!" he said, with another slighter coruscation. "Intelligent machines, of course, and with no more latitude of action. You would not like that life?"
"I should think you would not."
"Ah, but we hope to rise to the management of the machines, some day."
I thought I saw in his face that he did. I remarked that I thought the management of machines could not be very pleasant.
"Why not?"
"It is degrading to the machines—and so, I should think, it would not be very elevating to those that make them machines."
"That is exactly the use they propose them to serve, though," he said, looking amused; "the elevation of themselves."
"I know," I said, thinking that the end was ignoble too.
"You do not approve it?" he said.
I felt those brilliant eyes dancing all over me and, I fancied, over my thoughts too. I felt a little shy of going on to explain myself to one whom I knew so little. He turned the conversation, by asking me if I had seen all the lions yet.
I said I supposed not.
"Have you been up to the old fort?"
"I want to go there," I said; "but somebody told me to-day, there was nothing worth going for."
"Has his report taken away your desire to make the trial?"
"No, for I do not believe he is right."
"Might I offer myself as a guide? I can be disengaged this afternoon; and I know all the ways to the fort. It would give me great pleasure."
I felt it would give me great pleasure too, and so I told him. We arranged for the hour, and Mr. Thorold hastened away.
I AM going to Fort Putnam this afternoon, with Mr. Thorold," I announced to Mrs. Sandford, after dinner.
"Who is Mr. Thorold?"
"One of the cadets."
"One of the cadets! So it has got hold of you at last, Daisy!"
"What, Mrs. Sandford?"
"But Fort Putnam? My dearest child, it is very hot!"
"Oh, yes, ma'am—I don't mind it."
"Well, I am very glad, if you don't," said Mrs. Sandford. "And I am very glad Grant has taken himself off to the White Lakes. He gave nobody else any chance. It will do you a world of good."
"What will?" I asked, wondering.
"Amusement, dear—amusement. Something a great deal better than Grant's 'elogies and 'ologies. Now this would never have happened if he had been at home."
I did not understand her, but then I knew she did not understand the pursuits she so slighted; and it was beyond my powers to enlighten her. So I did not try.
Mr. Thorold was punctual, and so was I; and we set forth at five o'clock, I at least was happy as it was possible to be. Warm it was, yet; we went slowly down the road, in shadow and sunshine; tasting the pleasantness, it seems to me, of every tree, and feeling the sweetness of each breath; in that slight exhilaration of spirits which loses nothing and forgets nothing. At least I have a good memory for such times. There was a little excitement, no doubt, about going this walk with a cadet and a stranger, which helped the whole effect.
I made use of my opportunity to gain a great deal of information which Dr. Sandford could not give. I wanted to understand the meaning and the use of many things I saw about the Point. Batteries and fortifications were a mysterious jumble to me; shells were a horrible novelty; the whole art and trade of a soldier, something well worth studying, but difficult to see as a reasonable whole. The adaptation of parts to an end, I could perceive; the end itself puzzled me.
"Yet there has always been fighting," said my companion.
"Yes," I assented.
"Then we must be ready for it."
But I was not prepared in this case with my answer.
"Suppose we were unjustly attacked?" said Mr. Thorold; and I thought every one of the gilt buttons on his grey jacket repelled the idea of a peaceable composition.
"I don't know," said I, pondering. "Why should the rule be different for nations and for individual people?"
"What is your rule for individual people?" he asked, laughing, and looking down at me, as he held the gate open. I can see the look and the attitude now.
"It is notmyrule," I said.
"Therule, then. What should a man do, Miss Randolph, when he is unjustly attacked?"
I felt I was on very untenable ground, talking to a soldier. If I was right, what was the use of his grey coat, or of West Point itself? We were mounting the little steep pitch beyond the gate, where the road turns; and I waited till I got upon level footing. Then catching a bright inquisitive glance of the hazel eyes, I summoned up my courage and spoke.
"I have no rule but the Bible, Mr. Thorold."
"The Bible! What does the Bible say? It tells us of a great deal of fighting."
"Of bad men."
"Yes, but the Jews were commanded to fight, were they not?"
"To punish bad men. But we have got another rule since that."
"What is it?"
"If any man smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also."
"Is it possible you think the Bible means that literally?" he said.
"Do you think it would say what it did not mean?"
"But try it by the moral effect; what sort of a fellow would a man be who did so, Miss Randolph?"
"I think he would be fine!" I said; for I was thinking of One who, "when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not." But I could not tell all my thought to Mr. Thorold; no more than I could to Dr. Sandford.
"And would you have him stand by and see another injured?"my companion asked. "Wouldn't you have him fight in such a case?"
I had not considered that question. I was silent.
"Suppose he sees wrong done; wrong that a few well-planted blows, or shots, if you like—shots are but well-directed blows," he said, smiling—"wrong that a few well-planted blows would prevent. Suppose somebody were to attack you now, for instance; ought I not to fight for it?"
"I should like to have you," I said.
"Come!" he said, laughing, and stretching out his hand to shake mine, "I see you will let me keep my profession, after all. And why should not a nation do, on a larger scale, what a man may do?"
"Why it may," I said.
"Then West Point is justified."
"But very few wars in the world are conducted on that principle," I said.
"Very few. In fact I do not at this moment recollect the instances. But you would allow a man, or a nation, to fight in self-defence, would not you?"
I pondered the matter. "I suppose he has a right to protect his life," I said. "But, 'if a man smite thee on the cheek,'thatdoes not touch life."
"What would you think of a man," said my companion, gravely, "who should suffer some one to give him such a blow, without taking any notice of it?"
"If he did it because he wasafraid," I said, "of course I shouldn't like that. But if he did it to obey the Bible, I should think it was noble. The Bible says, 'it is glory to pass by a transgression.'"
"But suppose he was afraid of being thought afraid?"
I looked at my companion, and felt instinctively sure that neither this nor my first supposed case would ever be true of him. Further, I felt sure that no one would ever be hardy enough to give the supposed occasion. I can hardly tell how I knew; it was by some of those indescribable natural signs. We were slowly mounting the hill; and in every powerful, lithe movement, in the very set of his shoulders and head, and as well in the sparkle of the bright eye which looked round at me, I read the tokens of a spirit which I thought neither had known nor ever would know the sort of indignity he had described. He was talking for talk's sake. But while I looked, the sparkle of the eye grew very merry.
"You are judging me, Miss Randolph," he said. "Judge me gently."
"No, indeed," I said. "I was thinking that you are not speaking from experience."
"I am not better than you think me," he said, laughing, and shaking his head. And the laugh was so full of merriment that it infected me. I saw he was very much amused; I thought he was a little interested, too. "You know," he went on, "my education has been unfavourable. I have fought for a smaller matter than that you judge insufficient."
"Did it do any good?" I asked.
He laughed again: picked up a stone and threw it into the midst of a thick tree to dislodge something—I did not see what; and finally looked round at me with the most genial amusement and good nature mixed. I knew he was interested now.
"I don't know how much good it did to anybody but myself," he said. "It comforted me—at the time. Afterwards I rememberthinking it was hardly worth while. But if a fellow should suffer an insult, as you say, and not take any notice of it, what do you suppose would become of him in the corps—or in the world either?"
"He would be a noble man, all the same," I said.
"But people like to be well thought of by their friends and society."
"I know that."
"He would be sent to Coventry unmitigatedly."
"I cannot help it, Mr. Thorold," I said. "If anybody does wrong because he is afraid of the consequences of doing right, he is another sort of a coward—that is all."
Mr. Thorold laughed, and catching my hand as we came to a turn in the road where the woods fell away right and left, brought me quick round the angle, without letting me go to the edge of the bank to get the view.
"You must not look till you get to the top," he said.
"What an odd road!" I remarked. "It just goes by zigzags."
"The only way to get up at all, without travelling round the hill. That is, for horses."
It was steep enough for foot wayfarers, but the road was exceeding comfortable that day. We were under the shade of trees all the way; and talk never lagged. Mr. Thorold was infinitely pleasant to me; as well as unlike any one of all my former acquaintances. There was a wealth of life in him that delighted my quieter nature; an amount of animal spirits that were just a constant little impetus to me; and from the first I got an impression of strength, such as weakness loves to have near. Bodily strength he had also, in perfection; but I mean now the firm, self-reliant nature, quick at resources, ready to act as todecide, and full of the power that has its spring and magazine in character alone. So, enjoying each other, we went slowly up the zigzags of the hill, very steep in places, and very rough to the foot; but the last pitch was smoother, and there the grey old bulwarks of the ruined fortification faced down upon us, just above.
"Now," said Mr. Thorold, coming on the outside of me to prevent it, "don't look!"—and we turned into the entrance of the fort, between two outstanding walls. Going through, we hurried up a little steep rise, till we got to a smooth spread of grass, sloping gently to a level with the top of the wall. Where this slope reached its highest, where the parapet (as Mr. Thorold called it) commanded a clear view from the eastern side, there he brought me, and then permitted me to stand still. I do not know how long I stood quite still without speaking.
"Will you sit down?" said my companion; and I found he had spread a pocket-handkerchief on the bank for me. The turf in that place was about eighteen inches higher than the top of the wall, making a very convenient seat. I thought of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh; but I also thought the most queenly thing I could do was to take the offered civility, and I sat down. My eyes were bewildered with the beauty; they turned from one point to another with a sort of wondering, insatiable enjoyment. There, beneath our feet, lay the little level green plain; its roads and trees all before us as in a map, with the lines of building enclosing it on the south and west. A cart and oxen were slowly travelling across the road between the library and the hotel, looking like minute ants dragging a crumb along. Beyond them was the stretch of brown earth, where the cavalry exercises forbade a blade of grass to show itself. Andbeyond that, at the farther edge of the plain, the little white camp; its straight rows of tents and the alleys between all clearly marked out. Round all this the river curved, making a promontory of it; a promontory with fringed banks, and levelled at top, as it seemed, just to receive the Military Academy. On the other side the river, a long sweep of gentle hills, coloured in the fair colours of the evening; curving towards the north-east into a beautiful circle of soft outlines back of the mountain which rose steep and bold at the water's edge. This mountain was the first of the group I had seen from my hotel window. Houses and churches nestled in the curve of tableland, under the mountain. Due north, the parapet of the fort rising sharply at its northern angle a few feet from where I sat, hindered my full view. Southerly, the hills swept down, marking the course of the river for many a mile; but again from where I sat I could not see how far. With a sigh of pleasure my eye came back to the plain and the white tents.
"Is guard duty very disagreeable?" I asked, thinking of Preston's talk in the morning.
"Why at mid-day, with the thermometer at 90°, it is not exactly the amusement one would choose," said Mr. Thorold. "I like it at night well enough."
"What do you do?"
"Nothing, but walk up and down, two hours at a time."
"What is the use of it?"
"To keep order, and make sure that nothing goes in or out that has no business to do it."
"And they have to carry their guns," I said.
"Their muskets—yes."
"Are they very heavy?"
"No. Pretty heavy for an arm that is new to it. I never remember I have mine."
"Mr. Caxton said," (Mr. Caxton was the cadet who had introduced Mr. Thorold to me)—"Mr. Caxton told Mrs. Sandford that the new cadets are sometimes so exhausted with their tour of duty that they have to be carried off the ground."
Mr. Thorold looked at me, a very keen bright look of his hazel eyes; but he said nothing.
"And he said that the little white boxes at the corners of the camp, were monuments to those who had fallen on duty."
"Just four of them!" said Mr. Thorold, settling his cap down over his brows; but then he laughed, and I laughed; how we laughed!
"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" he said, jumping up. I did not know there was anything more to see. Now however he brought me up on the high angle of the parapet that had intercepted my view to the north. I could hardly get away from there. The full magnificence of the mountains in that quarter; the river's course between them, the blue hills of the distant Shawangunk range, and the woody chasm immediately at my feet, stretching from the height where I stood over to the crest of the Crow's Nest; it took away my breath. I sat down again, while Mr. Thorold pointed out localities; and did not move, till I had to make way for another party of visitors who were coming. Then Mr. Thorold took me all round the edge of the fort. At the south, we looked down into the woody gorge where Dr. Sandford and I had hunted for fossil infusoria. From here the long channel of the river running southernly, with its bordering ridge of hills, and above all, the wealth and glory of the woodland and the unheaved rocks before me, were almost as good asthe eastern view. The path along the parapet in places was narrow and dizzy; but I did not care for it, and my companion went like a chamois. He helped me over the hard places; hand in hand we ran down the steep slopes; and as we went we got very well acquainted. At last we climbed up the crumbling masonry to a small platform which commanded the view both east and south.
"What is this place for?" I asked.
"To plant guns on."
"They could not reach to the river, could they?"
"Much further—the guns of nowadays."
"And the old vaults under here—I saw them as we passed by,—were they prisons, places for prisoners?"
"A sort of involuntary prisoners," said Mr. Thorold. "They are only casemates; prisons for our own men occasionally, when shot and shell might be flying too thick; hiding-places, in short. Would you like to go to the laboratory some day, where we learn to make different kinds of shot, and fire-works and such things?"
"Oh, very much! But, Mr. Thorold, Mr. Caxton told me that André was confined in one of these places under here; he said his name was written upon the stones in a dark corner, and that I would find it."
Mr. Thorold looked at me, with an expression of such contained fun that I understood it at once; and we had another laugh together. I began to wonder whether every one that wore a uniform of grey and white with gilt buttons made it his amusement to play upon the ignorance of uninitiated people; but on reflection I could not think Mr. Thorold had done so. I resolved to be careful how I trusted the rest of the cadets, even Preston;and indeed my companion remarked that I had better not believe anything I heard without asking him. We ran down and inspected the casemates; and then took our seats again for one last look on the eastern parapet. The river and hills were growing lovely in cooler lights; shadow was stealing over the plain.
"Shall I see you to-morrow evening?" my companion asked suddenly.
"To-morrow evening?" I said. "I don't know. I suppose we shall be at home."
"Then I shallnotsee you. I meant, at the hop."
"The hop?" I repeated. "What is that?"
"The cadets' hop. During the encampment we have a hop three times a week—a cotillion party. I hope you will be there. Haven't you received an invitation?"
"I think not," I said. "I have heard nothing about it."
"I will see that that is set right," Mr. Thorold remarked. "And now, do you know we must go down?—that is,Imust; and I do not think I can leave you here."
"Oh, you have to be on parade!" I exclaimed, starting up; "and it is almost time!"
It was indeed, and though my companion put his own concerns in the background very politely, I would be hurried. We ran down the hill, Mr. Thorold's hand helping me over the rough way and securing me from stumbling. In very few minutes we were again at the gate and entered upon the post limits. And there were the band, in dark column, just coming up from below the hill.
We walked the rest of the way in orderly fashion enough, till we got to the hotel gate; there Mr. Thorold touched his cap andleft me, on a run, for the camp. I watched till I saw he got there in time, and then went slowly in; feeling that a great piece of pleasure was over.
I had had a great many pieces of pleasure in my life, but rarely acompanion. Dr. Sandford, Miss Cardigan, my dear Capt. Drummond, were all much in advance of my own age; my servants were my servants, at Magnolia; and Preston had never associated with me on just the footing of equality. I went upstairs thinking that I should like to see a great deal more of Mr. Thorold.
Mrs. Sandford was on the piazza when I came down, and alone; everybody was gone to parade. She gave me a little billet.
"Well, my dear Daisy!—are you walked to death? Certainly, West Point agrees with you! What a colour! And what a change! You are not the same creature that we brought away from New York. Well, was it worth going for, all the way to see that old ruin? My dear! I wish your father and mother could see you."
I stood still, wishing they could.
"There is more pleasure for you," Mrs. Sandford went on.
"What is this, ma'am?"
"An invitation. The cadets have little parties for dancing, it seems, three times a week, in summer; poor fellows! it is all the recreation they get, I suspect; and of course, they want all the ladies that can be drummed up, to help them to dance. It's quite a charity, they tell me. I expect I shall have to dance myself."
I looked at the note, and stood mute, thinking what I should do. Ever since Mr. Thorold had mentioned it, up on the hill, the question had been recurring to me. I had never been to a party in my life, since my childish days at Melbourne. AuntGary's parties at Magnolia had been of a different kind from this; not assemblies of young people. At Mme. Ricard's I had taken dancing lessons, at my mother's order; and in her drawing room I had danced quadrilles and waltzes with my schoolfellows; but Mme. Ricard was very particular, and nobody else was ever admitted. I hardly knew what it was to which I was now invited. To dance with the cadets! I knew only three of them; however, I supposed that I might dance with those three. I had an impression that amusements of this kind were rather found in the houses of the gay than the sober-minded; but this was peculiar, to help the cadets' dance, Mrs. Sandford said. I thought Mr. Thorold wished I would come. I wondered Preston had not mentioned it. He, I knew, was very fond of dancing. I mused till the people came back from parade and we were called to tea; but all my musings went no further. I did not decidenotto go.
"Now, Daisy," said Mrs. Sandford the next morning, "if you are going to the hop to-night, I don't intend to have you out in the sun burning yourself up. It will be terribly hot; and you must keep quiet. I am so thankful Grant is away! he would have you all through the woods, hunting for nobody knows what, and bringing you home scorched."
"Dear Mrs. Sandford," I said, "I can dance just as well, if Iamburnt."
"That's a delusion, Daisy. You are a woman, after all, my dear—or you will be; and you may as well submit to the responsibility. And you may not know it, but you have a wonderfully fine skin, my dear; it always puts me in mind of fresh cream."
"Cream is yellow," I said.
"Not all the cream that everIsaw," said Mrs. Sandford. "Daisy, you need not laugh. You will be a queen, my dear, when you cease to be a child. What are you going to wear to-night?"
"I don't know, ma'am; anything cool, I suppose."
"It won't matter much," Mrs. Sandford repeated.
But yet I found she cared, and it did matter, when it came to the dressing-time. However she was satisfied with one of the embroidered muslins my mother had sent me from Paris.
I think I see myself now, seated in the omnibus and trundling over the plain to the cadets' dancing-rooms. The very hot, still July night seems round me again. Lights were twinkling in the camp, and across the plain in the houses of the professors and officers; lights above in the sky too, myriads of them, mocking the tapers that go out so soon. I was happy with a little flutter of expectation; quietly enjoying meanwhile the novel loveliness of all about me, along with the old familiar beauty of the abiding stars and dark blue sky. It was a five minutes of great enjoyment. But all natural beauty vanished from my thoughts when the omnibus drew up at the door of the Academic Building. I was entering on something untried.
At first sight, when we went into the room, it burst upon me that it was very pretty. The room was dressed with flags,—and evergreens,—and with uniforms; and undoubtedly there is charm in colour, and a gilt button and a gold strap do light up the otherwise sombre and heavy figures of our Western masculine costume. The white and rosy and blue draperies and scarfs that were floating around the forms of the ladies, were met and set off by the grey and white of the cadets and the heavier dark blue of the officers. I never anywhere else saw so pretty gatherings. I stood quite enchanted with the pleasure of theeye; till to my startled astonishment, Capt. Percival came up and asked me to dance with him. I had not expected to dance with anybody except Preston, and Mr. Thorold, and perhaps Mr. Caxton. Mr. Thorold came up before the dance began, and I presented him to Mrs. Sandford. He asked me for the first dance, then for the second. And there was no more time for anything, for the dancing began.
I had always liked dancing at school. Here the music was far better and the scene infinitely prettier; it was very pleasant, I thought. That is, when Capt. Percival did not talk; for he talked nothings. I did not know how to answer him. Of course it had been very hot to-day; and the rooms were very full; and there were a good many people at the hotel. I had nothing but an insipid affirmative to give to these propositions. Then said Capt. Percival insinuatingly—
"You are from the South?"
I had nothing but an insipid assent again.
"I was sure of it," he said. "I could not be mistaken."
I wondered how he knew, but it did not suit me to ask him; and we danced on again till the dance came to an end. I was glad when it did. In a minute more I was standing by Mrs. Sandford and introduced to Capt. Boulanger, who also asked me to dance, and engaged me for the next but one; and then Mr. Caxton brought up one of his brother cadets and presented him, andheasked me, and looked disappointed when for both the next dances I was obliged to refuse him. I was quite glad when Mr. Thorold came and carried me off. The second quadrille went better than the first; and I was enjoying myself unfeignedly, when in a pause of the dance I remarked to my partner that there seemed to be plenty of ladies here to-night.
"Plenty," he said. "It is very kind of them. What then?"
"Only—" I said—"so many people came and asked me to dance in the few minutes I stood by Mrs. Sandford, and one of them looked quite disappointed that he could not have me."
I was met by a look of the keenest inquiry, followed instantly and superseded by another flash of expression. I could not comprehend it at the time. The eyes, which had startled me by their steely gleam, softened wonderfully with what looked like nothing so much as reverence, along with some other expression which I could neither read at the moment nor fathom afterwards.
Both looks were gone before I could ask him what they meant, or perhaps I should have asked; for I was beginning to feel very much at my ease with Mr. Thorold. I trusted him.
"Did he want you for this dance?" was all he said.
"For this, and for the next," I answered.
"Both gone! Well, may I have the third, and so disappoint somebody else?" he said, laughing.
If I did not talk much with Mr. Thorold in intervals of dancing, at least we did not talk nonsense. In the next pause he remarked that he saw I was fond of this amusement.
"I think I like everything," I told him.
"Are the hills better than this?" he whispered.
"Oh, yes!" I said. "Don't you think so?"
He smiled, and said "truly he did." "You have been over the Flirtation walk, of course?" he added.
"I do not know which it is."
He smiled again, that quick illuminating smile, which seemed to sparkle in his hazel eyes; and nodded his head a little.
"I had the pleasure to see you there, very early one morning."
"Oh, is that it?" I said. "I have been down that way from the hotel very often."
"That way leads to it. You were upon it, where you were sitting. You have not been through it yet? May I show it to you some day? To-morrow?"
I agreed joyfully; and then asked who were certain of the cadets whom I saw about the room, with rosettes of ribbon and long streamers on the breast of their grey coats?
"Those are the Managers," said my companion. "You will see enough of them. It is their duty to introduce poor fellows who want partners."
I did not see much of them, however, that evening. As soon as I was released from that dance, Capt. Percival brought up Capt. Lascelles; and somebody else, Mr. Sandford, I believe, introduced Lt. Vaux, and Major Fairbairn; and Major Pitt was another, I believe. And Col. Walruss brought up his son, who was in the corps of cadets. They all wanted to dance with me; so it was lucky Mr. Thorold had secured his second dance, or I could not have given it to him. I went over and over again the same succession of topics, in the intervals of standing still. How the day had been warm, and the evening kept up its character; the hotels were full now; the cadets well off to have so many ladies; dancing a pleasant pastime, and West Point a nice place. I got so accustomed to the remarks I might expect, that my mouth was ready with an assenting "yes" before the speaker began. But the talking was a small part of the business, after all; and the evening went merrily for me, till on a sudden a shrill piercing summons of drum and fife, rolling as it were into our very ears, put a stop to proceedings. Midway in the movement the dancers stopped; there was a hurried bow andcurtsey, and an instant scattering of all the grey-coated part of the assembly. The "hop" was over. We went home in the warm moonlight, I thinking that I had had a very nice time, and glad that Mr. Thorold was coming to take me to walk to-morrow.