FORT PUTNAM.
"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 not _my_ rule," I said.
"_The_ rule, 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,' _that_ does 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 was _afraid_," 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 remember thinking 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
to decide, 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. And beyond 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 deg., 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 as the 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 Andre 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 shall _not_ see 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, _I_ must; 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 and left 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 a
_companion_. 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. Aunt Gary'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 decide _not_ to 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 I _am_
burnt."
"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 ever _I_ saw," 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 the eye; 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, and _he_ asked 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 and curtsey, 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.