YANKEES.
For several days I saw nothing of Preston. He was hardly missed.
I found that such a parade as that which pleased me the first morning
came off twice daily; and other military displays, more extended and
more interesting, were to be looked for every day at irregular times.
I failed not of one. So surely as the roll of the drum or a strain of
music announced that something of the sort was on hand, I caught up my
hat and was ready. And so was Dr. Sandford. Mrs. Sandford would often
not go; but the doctor's hat was as easily put on as mine, and as
readily; and he attended me, I used to think, as patiently as a great
Newfoundland dog. As patient, and as supreme. The evolutions of
soldiers and clangour of martial music were nothing to _him_, but he
must wait upon his little mistress. I mean of course the Newfoundland
dog; not Dr. Sandford.
"Will you go for a walk, Daisy?" he said, the morning of the third or
fourth day. "There is nothing doing on the plain, I find."
"A walk? Oh, yes!" I said. "Where shall we go?"
"To look for wonderful things," he said.
"Only don't take the child among the rattlesnakes," said Mrs.
Sandford. "_They_ are wonderful, I suppose, but not pleasant. You will
get her all tanned, Grant!"
But I took these hints of danger as coolly as the doctor himself did;
and another of my West Point delights began.
We went beyond the limits of the post, passed out at one of the gates
which shut it in from the common world, and forgot for the moment
drums and fifes. Up the mountain side, under the shadow of the trees
most of the time, though along a good road; with the wild hill at one
hand rising sharp above us. Turning round that, we finally plunged
down into a grand dell of the hills, leaving all roads behind and all
civilization, and having a whole mountain between us and the West
Point plain. I suppose it might have been a region for rattlesnakes,
but I never thought of them. I had never seen such a place in my life.
From the bottom of the gorge where we were, the opposite mountain side
sloped up to a great height; wild, lonely, green with a wealth of
wood, stupendous, as it seemed to me, in its towering expanse. At our
backs, a rocky and green precipice rose up more steeply yet, though to
a lesser elevation, topped with the grey walls of the old fort, the
other face of which I had seen from our hotel. A wilderness of nature
it was; wild and stern. I feasted on it. Dr. Sandford was moving
about, looking for something; he helped me over rocks, and jumped me
across morasses, and kept watchful guard of me; but else he let me
alone; he did not talk, and I had quite enough without. The strong
delight of the novelty, the freedom, the delicious wild things around,
the bracing air, the wonderful lofty beauty, made me as happy as I
thought I could be. I feasted on the rocks and wild verdure, the
mosses and ferns and lichen, the scrub forest and tangled undergrowth,
among which we plunged and scrambled: above all, on those vast leafy
walls which shut in the glen, and almost took away my breath with
their towering lonely grandeur. All this time Dr. Sandford was as busy
as a bee, in quest of something. He was a great geologist and
mineralogist; a lover of all natural science, but particularly of
chemistry and geology. When I stopped to look at him, I thought he
must have put his own tastes in his pocket for several days past that
he might gratify mine. I was standing on a rock, high and dry and grey
with lichen; he was poking about in some swampy ground.
"Are you tired, Daisy?" he said, looking up.
"My feet are tired," I said.
"That is all of you that can be tired. Sit down where you are--I will
come to you directly."
So I sat down and watched him, and looked off between whiles to the
wonderful green walls of the glen. The summer blue was very clear
overhead; the stillness of the place very deep; insects, birds, a
flutter of leaves, and the grating of Dr. Sandford's boot upon a
stone, all the sounds that could be heard.
"Why you are warm, as well as tired, Daisy," he said, coming up to my
rock at last.
"It _is_ warm," I answered.
"Warm?" said he. "Look here, Daisy!"
"Well, what in the world is that?" I said, laughing. "A little mud or
earth is all that I can see."
"Ah, your eyes are not good for much, Daisy--except to look at."
"Not good for much for _that_," I said, amused; for his eyes were bent
upon the earth in his hand.
"I don't know," said he, getting up on the rock beside me and sitting
down. "I used to find strange things in them once. But this is
something you will like, Daisy."
"Is it?"
"If you like wonderful things as well as ever."
"Oh, I do!" I said. "What is it, Dr. Sandford?"
He carefully wrapped up his treasure in a bit of paper and put it in
his pocket; then he cut down a small hickory branch and began to fan
me with it; and while he sat there fanning me he entered upon a
lecture such as I had never listened to in my life. I had studied a
little geology of course, as well as a little of everything else; but
no lesson like this had come in the course of my experience. Taking
his text from the very wild glen where we were sitting and the
mountain sides upon which I had been gazing, Dr. Sandford spread a
clear page of nature before me and interpreted it. He answered
unspoken questions; he filled great vacancies of my ignorance; into
what had been abysms of thought he poured a whole treasury of
intelligence and brought floods of light. All so quietly, so
luminously, with such a wealth of knowledge and facility of giving it,
that it is a simple thing to say no story of Eastern magic was ever
given into more charmed ears around an Arabian desert fire. I listened
and he talked and fanned me. He talked like one occupied with his
subject and not with me: but he met every half-uttered doubt or
question, and before he had done he satisfied it fully. I had always
liked Dr. Sandford; I had never liked him so much; I had never, since
the old childish times, had such a free talk with him. And now, he did
not talk to me as a child or a very young girl, except in bending
himself to my ignorance; but as one who loves knowledge likes to give
it to others, so he gave it to me. Only I do not remember seeing him
like to give it in such manner to anybody else. I think the novelty
added to the zest when I thought about it; at the moment I had no time
for side thoughts. At the moment my ears could but receive the pearls
and diamonds of knowledge which came from the speaker's lips, set in
silver of the simplest clear English. I notice that the people who
have the most thorough grasp of a subject make ever least difficulty
of words about it.
The sun was high and hot when we returned, but I cared nothing for
that. I was more than ever sure that West Point was fairyland. The old
spring of childish glee seemed to have come back to my nerves.
"Dinner is just ready," said Mrs. Sandford, meeting us in the hall.
"Why, where _have_ you been? And look at the colour of Daisy's face!
Oh, Grant, what have you done with her?"
"Very good colour--" said the doctor, peering under my hat.
"She's all flushed and sunburnt, and overheated."
"Daisy is never anything but cool," he said; "unless when she gets
hold of a principle, and somebody else gets hold of the other end.
We'll look at these things after dinner, Daisy."
"Principles?" half exclaimed Mrs. Sandford, with so dismayed an
expression that the doctor and I both laughed.
"Not exactly," said the doctor, putting his hand in his pocket. "Look
here."
"I see nothing but a little dirt."
"You shall see something else by and by--if you will."
"You have never brought your microscope here, Grant? Where in the
world will you set it up?"
"In your room--after dinner--if you permit."
Mrs. Sandford permitted; and though she did not care much about the
investigations that followed, the doctor and I did. As delightful as
the morning had been, the long afternoon stretched its bright hours
along; till Mrs. Sandford insisted I must be dressed, and pushed the
microscope into a corner and ordered the doctor away.
That was the beginning of the pleasantest course of lessons I ever had in
my life. From that time Dr. Sandford and I spent a large part of every
day in the hills; and often another large part over the microscope. No
palace and gardens in the Arabian nights were ever more enchanting, than
the glories of nature through which he led me; nor half so wonderful. "A
little dirt," as it seemed to ordinary eyes, was the hidden entrance way
ofttimes to halls of knowledge more magnificent and more rich than my
fancy had ever dreamed of.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sandford found a great many officers to talk to.
It was not till the evening of the next day following my first walk
into the mountains, that I saw Preston. It was parade time; and I was
sitting as usual on one of the iron settees which are placed for the
convenience of spectators. I was almost always there at parade and
guardmounting. The picture had a continual fascination for me, whether
under the morning sun, or the evening sunset; and the music was
charming. This time I was alone, Dr. and Mrs. Sandford being engaged
in conversation with friends at a little distance. Following with my
ear the variations of the air the band were playing my mind was at the
same time dwelling on the riches it had just gained in the natural
history researches of the day, and also taking in half consciously
the colours of the hills and the light that spread over the plain;
musing, in short, in a kind of dream of delight; when a grey figure
came between me and my picture. Finding that it did not move, I raised
my eyes.
"The same Daisy as ever!" said Preston, his eyes all alight with fun
and pleasure. "The same as ever! And how came you here? and when did
you come? and how did you come?"
"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. And _you_ have
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 is
_very_ awkward."
"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?"
"_He_ isn'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 the broad
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. What _was_ all this
military schooling a preparation for, perhaps? How could we know.
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, or _your_ mother. 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 coming disputed 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. Sandford decreed 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 it was 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 are _you_ out 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?"
"_Like_ it!" 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
like _all_ of 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 in one 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 was _my_ friend 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.