Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best:
And what seems but idle show,
Strengthens and supports the rest.
--LONGFELLOW.
Magnus strolled leisurely along, thinking first that he could show
these cadets how to run, and then beginning to have grave doubts on
the subject; and finally finding himself a seat under the trees, where
he could look and listen in shady comfort. Eyes and ears had full
occupation.
There was a busy note of preparation everywhere, and especially among
the drums. Beating there, and then beating here; the sound caught
up and echoed back from the grey rocks on the green hillside. Then
came out uniforms of various sorts (Magnus personified the dress, not
knowing the men) and proceeded to mark off a certain space on the green
in front of him, setting a gay little banner at the four corners of a
large, large square.
Then, at first slowly, but soon hurrying up from every point of the
compass, a many-coloured crowd swarmed in and filled the seats--filled
them presently so full that Magnus gave up his place to the next gauzy
creature that came along. She fluttered down into the seat with much
gratulation and no thanks, and Magnus gravely took his stand in the
rear.
He had no lack of company, even there. Officers in various uniforms,
civilians in all sorts of coats, and girls in all sorts of finery,
stood beside and around him.
And now, also, there came straying in another small posse, whom Magnus
instinctively knew as of his own kind. Yes, they must be candidates;
partly, perhaps, because they could not possibly be anything else;
no other class owned them. Yet how did _he_ know that?--to whom all
classes here were strange. What possible connection between that dapper
little fellow in straw hat and black alpaca coat, and this young giant
who wore a cloth cap and a fluttering linen duster? Or how was his next
neighbour in a Derby and long frock coat like the fourth man, who wore
brown trousers, a cutaway coat, and a wide-awake? Yet even Magnus could
see that "candidate" was written on them all. So plainly, indeed, that
he stepped further back and put himself behind the tree. Anybody who
looked at him standing there--and some did look--saw a tall, well-made
young fellow in a neat and perfectly unobtrusive suit of brown-grey
cloth. Very dark hair and with a wilful curl that tossed it about every
way. Excellent features, ignorant as yet of life's moulding touch; and
a sweet, mobile mouth, set just now in very grave lines indeed, and
so hiding one of the great charms of his face. For nobody could watch
Magnus Kindred when he smiled or laughed, and not notice the _clean_
look: the utterly pure and true lines into which those grave ones
changed. For the rest, hands and feet were well shaped and in excellent
order; and the whole bearing was both self-reliant and unconscious.
But it seemed as if the gayer grew the scene, the soberer grew that
young face gazing out from behind the tree. For of all the lonely
places, commend me to an unknown throng of pleasure-seekers, where
everyone belongs to someone, is waiting for someone, or is waited for,
and you belong to none. No eyes are watching for you, no heart stirs
when you come in sight; and no one will miss you if you do not come at
all.
So Magnus felt that day. The more people came, the more he was crowded
almost from standing-room, the wider grew the heart distance between
himself and the bright world about him. Gay girls, pretty girls,
thronged the seats and the walk; Magnus only felt that none of them
was Cherry, and every older woman that came by, decked in feathers and
flowers and laces, sent his thoughts off with such a rush to his own
dear mother, in her simplest go-to-meeting bonnet, that it was all the
boy could do to stand there and give no sign. And at even the officers
he looked askance, wondering which of them might possibly be "Tacs."
"Poor fellow!" said some of the kind hearts amid the finery. "He looks
pretty homesick."
"Such a handsome boy, too. You must take him out in the German, Floy."
"Oh, _he_ can't go to the German," said Miss Floy, who had reached
the mature age of thirteen. "None of the plebs can. And he's only a
candidate, yet. Besides, I don't care much for any man that doesn't
wear chevrons."
And the mother laughed and repeated the smart saying to her next
neighbour.
If there arose in the mind of Charlemagne Kindred an instant resolve
to wear chevrons, at whatever cost, you must not think hardly of him.
These pretty, airy creatures wield a powerful sceptre and their silken
cords are strong.
How the people crowded in! They sat where they could, and stood where
they shouldn't. They grouped themselves round the old trees, and made
a strong background to the iron seats. Officers, civilians, matrons,
girls--and candidates. Little children dropped down on the green edge
of the parade ground, and at last grown-up and hard-pushed people
sat there, too. Then an imposing police sergeant came along, waving
them off with his black wand. And the people jumped up, growling and
frowning, and, as soon as they saw his back, dropped down again.
As for Magnus, the whole thing seemed to wind him up in tightening
cords of tension. He was outside now, but to-morrow at this time he
would be in; caught and bound and caged behind a cordon of regulations.
Assigned a place, turned over to duties which he could in no wise quit
or change. Not to see home again for two long years.
Should he do it? Or should he, in these last hours of freedom, set
himself free for good? Take the first train for the West, and leave all
his great prospects behind him, and the chevrons and shoulder-straps to
someone else? Thoughts came and went, surged and rolled back; and the
whistle of each train, as it flew by, just made the confusion deeper.
"Come!" they seemed to say. "Come-m-me-me!"
Meantime the review went on; the citizen actors showed how they could
not march and the cadets how they could; and this last part was so fine
that Magnus fairly forgot himself and his trouble. Round the great
square they went; the grey and white lines moving like some one elastic
thing. Corners made no break, hot sunbeams seemed unnoticed. So they
marched round; first slow, then fast; and then began the double-timing.
How beautiful it was! Privates in their glancing lines; cadet officers
leading on, and running backwards or forwards with equally unerring
footsteps. Heading all, the Commandant. Years had passed away since
he learned the double-quick; and the supple boy had changed into the
grey-haired man; but his foot never faltered, his step never lagged.
The white-plumed blue uniform led on the grey with a gallantry it was
pretty to see. Magnus watched the whole with deepest admiration; down
to the last bit of timeful running with no music to mark it off.
He was noticing every step; eyeing the black shoe-soles that came up
as one, the bent-knee line of white trousers, the glitter of the guns;
forgetting everything else, when again the hated word came full upon
his ear.
"Just look at that candidate, will you! It's as good as a play. I
wonder he didn't join in."
"Ya-as," was answered in a drawling tone by her escort. "There he
stands. Study his perfections now, while you can, Miss Jenny. Next week
he will have ceased to shine upon the polite world. Exit the candidate,
enter the beast. That is, if he gets in, which is doubtful."
A small thing may do the work where a large one fails; trains got no
hearing, after that. That he would enter became instantly a fixed fact
to that particular candidate.
The girl was certainly pretty. How would Cherry look, sitting there,
and with himself in a grey coat bending over her, and twirling her
parasol? Cherry was handsomer--miles away--than this girl. Deeper eyes,
tenderer mouth, more glowing cheeks, too, for that matter. Yet she
would not look _so_, the boy honestly owned to himself, though fuming
a little over the admission; the whole make-up would be different. The
very idea of such shoes as this damsel thrust out into the sunlight had
never entered Cherry's wholesome head. "Shoe pegs," Magnus called the
heels, with great scorn, and set right in the middle of her foot. And
scarlet stockings. And her dress--what was it made of? No, Cherry would
not look so; and however he might frown, Magnus felt the glamour, as
most men do, of city dressmaking and "the correct thing."
"Country-made gowns look so different," said someone behind him.
Then that girl further on, in fluffs of white lace and muslin, white
shoes, white gloves, and her dainty head crowned with "an acre" of
Leghorn, and "a half bushel" of roses. No, neither would Cherry look
like her. And now the boy's fancy brought the little country maiden,
in her country garb--even her Sunday best--and set her down beside
these two. A plain white gown, with no setting off but the simple
ruffles which Cherry had embroidered, and the exquisite laundry work
which she had also done herself. Black shoes, which were made for
walking ("but either one of those white ones could hold 'em both,"
thought Magnus, in his hot fancy). Then a broad straw hat, round which
Violet's deft fingers had twined a dark green riband; while the hands,
which were small, indeed, and comely, but unwhitened with either
idleness or lemon, wore only a pair of spotless Lisle thread gloves.
Magnus looked at the pink, the white, the tan kids all about him, and
drew a deep breath.
"But she _shall_ sit there!" he said, with one of his fierce mental
bursts. "She shall sit there, and look just so. No, not just so, for,
if they try their prettiest, they can never any of them look like her."