There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to
pronounce in any language, but which no man or nation that cannot
utter, can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, I
was wrong.
--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
The early tea was over, and long shadows were falling as the little
party broke up. The three girls were still debating what sort of ice
cream they should make, when just beyond the gate a neighbour, driving
by, offered Mr. Erskine a seat in his buggy. Then Magnus turned to his
sisters.
"Stay here, you girls," he said. "I have to speak to Cherry very
seriously; and I doubt if she likes to be lectured before people. Run
in."
The girls laughed and obeyed; but perhaps Cherry did not choose to wait
for lectures, nor mean to have them, for she spoke first. They were
going slowly up the hill, Magnus falling into the West Point saunter,
to which Cherry rather unwillingly conformed.
"We are walking very slow," she ventured. "And you used to walk so
fast."
"West Point style. The very first day they impressed it upon my mind
that fast walkers want to get somewhere. And, Cerise, just now I do
not."
"Magnus," she said suddenly, "what did you really mean by a 'storm
flag'?"
"Ah!" said Cadet Kindred, in a tone of deep satisfaction, "now I have
got it. I thought it could not be long before Cherry would take me in
hand."
"But whatever did you mean?"
"Come over here and sit down," he said, drawing her away from the path
to a rock among the trees, and laying himself at her feet. "Now what
was it I said in that unfortunate letter?"
"It was not unfortunate," said Cherry, "for we were very glad to get
it; only that puzzled us. You said you kept some sort of a storm flag
flying. And we did not know what a storm flag might be."
Magnus looked down for a moment in silence.
"No wonder," he said, "for the idea is something that never came into
your true heart. You know what it means to strike your colours?"
"Yes--oh, yes!"
"And what it is to keep them flying,--for you do it every day."
"And I thought that must be what you meant," said Cherry. "You did not
like to call your flag a big one, but it was always bravely flying."
"I meant more than that--or less," said Magnus. "Cerise, a storm flag
is a sort of between thing. It may blow pretty hard, you think, and so
you haul down your beautiful fair-weather banner and run up another
that costs less; a little, little strip of bunting that hardly shows it
is there. You know it is; and once in a while, in a good light, you can
see the colours; but that is about all. It does not encourage the world
much, and tells of hard weather more than of victory and joy. Do you
understand now, dear girl?"
Cherry was looking at him with the keenest attention; the pulsations of
colour came and went.
"But, Magnus," she began.
"Yes, Chérie. Say whatever comes into your heart to say."
"Then there is a little short time every now and then when the colours
are really down?"
"Yes. And the harder the gale, the longer it takes to get them
up again. It is often slow work, anyhow," said Magnus, with some
bitterness at himself.
Cherry sat silent, looking down.
"What would happen to the other flag--the big one--if you left it
flying?" she said.
"In a gale? Go to ribands, probably--the real one."
"Yes, the real one. But that is just what the bullets do to it!" said
Cherry, her eyes glowing and deepening. "And everybody only loves such
a flag the better."
"And you love me the less."
The girl started slightly, with the sudden transfer of the subject to
herself, but she made no answer.
"Speak!" Magnus said, getting hold of her hand and giving it a little
shake. "Cherry, you've _got_ to speak. Do you?"
"No," she answered slowly; "you know that could not be. We have been
friends too long. I was a little disappointed, that is all."
I suppose there are few wholesomer views a man can get of himself than
through the eyes of the right sort of woman; but the wholesome is not
always the sweet. Cadet Kindred said to himself just then that it was
extremely bitter. He had been disappointed in himself, of course, more
than once, but that was another matter. One gives little softening
touches to one's own private lectures; excusing and explaining. Now,
this true heart, which he well believed would never flinch in the
direst extremity, had counted the minutes when the colours were down,
measured the storm flag, and been "disappointed."
If she had said sharper things, he could have borne it better. Was this
weak girl going to sail away from him on every tack? This morning she
had read pages where he knew not a word; this afternoon she was ready
for the forefront of that life battle where he had at least _thought_
of dodging behind a tree.
He sat looking down, slowly swinging her hand back and forth, thinking
of the days and times when he had trained with the wrong crowd, giving
countenance to what at heart he disapproved. Nothing so dreadfully bad,
perhaps, but very small work for him, a servant of the Great King; not
loyal, not dauntless.
True, he had afterwards called himself to order; had "braced up"
spiritually, and even for a time won the title of "saint"; but
"steadfast, immovable," he had not been. And in that swift way in which
thoughts work, there flashed upon him the story of one of the battles
of the Wilderness, when, as the young colour-bearer was shot down,
another caught the banner from his hand--and another from his, until
for a few minutes the colours just fell and rose, fell and rose--but
never allowed to touch the ground; not once.
"Magnus----"
"What?" he said.
"Will you please to look up and speak?" The tone was deprecating, the
dark eyes wistful and grave.
"There does not anything please me just now, except holding your hand.
No, you cannot get it away. You see, Cherry, this is how it is: there's
a strong tide there, setting the way you shouldn't go."
"Everywhere," put in Cherry.
"So mother says; but I speak of what I know. When you first get to
the Academy, you are so homesick that you'd like to pray and read the
Bible all the time; it seems more like home than anything else. Then
you are plagued, and get provoked. Then upper classmen drive you to
prayer-meeting, and of course you don't want to go. Then you get so
tangled up in the work and the hazing that you'd give your own dog two
cents to tell you who you are. You can't keep Sunday,--at least, you
think you can't,--with guard-mounting in the morning and dress parade
at night, and in barracks a lesson a mile long for eight o'clock Monday
morning."
"But Magnus, you do not study on Sunday?" Cherry said anxiously.
"I did once--and maxed it straight through, had a splendid week, and
saw visions of Willet's Point. So I thought I'd try it again. And that
week I just went down; got the worst marks I ever had, and, instead
of the doughty Engineer Corps, had the Immortals in full view. So I
concluded to get back into the good old ways and stay there."
Cherry laughed, but her eyes glistened. "That was one of the Lord's
gentle rebukes," she said.
"Well, it lasted," said Magnus. "I haven't done that thing again."
"And they make no allowance for the day before's being Sunday?"
"Not a bit. Why, one of the instructors advised us to have our
prayer-meeting early Sunday night, that there might be more hours for
study."
"But if you told them, Magnus?"
"They would just think I was shirking. You see we could not ask in
numbers enough to be a power, for many of the men do not care. That's
another thing in one's way; see a first classman as meek as Moses at
prayer-meeting, and then in camp have him just as hateful as Pharaoh
and all the Egyptians."
"To you yourself, Magnus?"
"I was a pleb once, you know. And nothing was too bad to do to a pleb,
for the best of men. No, I take that back; we had--and we have--some
splendid upper classmen; men who dose you with good counsel. It is not
always pleasant to take, Chérie, but it did me lots of good, for they
lived up to it themselves. They help, too, in other ways. Get a pleb
in out of the sun, and give him some play work in a tent, and so keep
him away from the hazing parties and give him time to breathe. Mr.
Upright was always doing such things."
"I should think everyone would love him very much."
"Yes, but you mustn't," said Magnus, giving her hand a little swing.
"You are not to love anybody but me. However, Upright isn't there now;
graduated, and gone to make enlisted men good and happy, wherever he's
stationed. Trueman is such another; and Starr, in our class. Ugliest
little man you ever saw, and the best."
"Then I do not believe he is the ugliest," said Cherry decidedly. "But
it was not like that last year, Magnus?"
"Oh, no! Yearlings have leave to step out and show themselves. Get
invited to picnics, some of them, and go to the hops, most of them, and
are wild for fun, all of them."
"Well, Magnus?"
"Well, Chérie, you see how it was. I have not been as bad as I might,
nor anything like as good. They think me a pretty reliable fellow over
there, but I'm not by any means what you would call a shining light.
Six in studies, and one in discipline, and a double-first at all sorts
of mischief."
Cherry could not help smiling.
"The very same boy you always were," she said.
"Pretty much. Only this is mischief that tells. Chocolate parties in
rooms after lights are out."
"After lights are out?"
"Supposed to be. Explosions on the area coming from nowhere and
nothing; and post dogs, painted to admiration."
"But, Magnus!"
"What, my lady?"
"_You_ do not do such things?"
"I drank the chocolate--should have got skinned for it, too, only I
stood behind something when Towser came in. And I looked at the dog.
And I did not go out of my wits with astonishment at the explosions.
Queer, too; for when you get together a bell button, a match, a white
feather, a little powder, and a second classman, they make more noise
than you would suppose possible."
"I thought they kept such watch of you," Cherry said. "We have wasted a
great deal of sympathy."
"No you haven't, and yes, they do; that's the fun. Some of the men will
tell you that breaking regulations is all the fun they have."
"Not you, Magnus?"
"No, not I exactly. I never can quite get rid of a certain respect for
law and order. But you would laugh yourself; you couldn't help it, to
see a solemn-looking Tac inspecting for apples, and know that they were
within an inch of his nose, where he couldn't find them."
"And you all kept grave?"
"Stood attention, like the sweet boys we were, till he was gone,--and
stood on our heads afterwards."
Cherry did laugh, but rather doubtfully. "I suppose it must be fun,"
she said, "but I wish you would let the other boys have it."
"That is not the only sort, by any means," said Magnus. "One day Miss
Flirt had brought Crinkem a basket of pears. Well, he stored them
skilfully in parts unknown, till friendly darkness should come to help;
had to go to drill, and told Carr (who hadn't) to keep an eye on the
basket. Which Carr did. Wasn't a pear there when Crinkem got back."
"Who is Crinkem?"
"First classman, then."
"And who is Miss Flirt?"
"A summer girl who stays all the time, and flirts with everybody."
"With you?"
"No, because she can't. She jeered me when I was a poor candidate, and
I vowed revenge."
"I should say revenge lay in the other direction," remarked Cherry.
"Not for her. She's been on tiptoe to rope me in, ever since I wore
chevrons. I did half think I would teach her a lesson when I got to be
first captain."
"Oh, Magnus, don't!"
"Why not?"
"Because she is a woman," said Cherry earnestly. "Oh, Magnus, help even
the silly people, if you can. I've been thinking so much lately of the
dear Lord's words: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' Don't you know how
salt gives strength and character to even things tasteless and ready to
spoil?"
Magnus bent down, reverently touching his lips to the hand he held.
"It's a pledge," he said. "I'll let Miss Flirt alone; help her, if I
can. But Cerise, I only said _thought_. And I have not thought it any
more since I have seen you again. You are certainly that salt, for me."
"How did the class supper go off?" Cherry inquired, changing the
subject. "You were full of it when you wrote last."
"It went off," said Magnus soberly. "The crowd was there. And some of
the crowd were too full of it afterwards. Don't speak about that; I'd
like to forget it."
She looked at him a little wonderingly, with that grave, earnest look
which was so innocent of evil, but said no more. Magnus watched her
for a minute, then gently laid back in her lap the hand he had been
holding, and turned half away.
"You want to hear about it," he said, "and you shall; it is best you
should. Cherry, you know cadets are forbidden strong drink, in any
shape, while they are at the Post?"
She nodded.
"Well, before furlough and before graduation, there is always a vote
taken by each class,--'wet or dry,' for the class supper; shall they
have wine--or shall they not? I have heard of one class who fought it
through for temperance, and won. With, of course, a minority protest;
but so really a minority that the other was counted as the class vote;
and their names should be gold-starred in every register. Our class had
no such proud distinction, nor the late first; and the usual results
followed."
"But Magnus!" The girl's colour changed so that he could not bear to
look at her.
"Yes?" he said, with a deep breath. "Ask any questions you like."
"I cannot ask!" she cried in distress. "These men whom you praise so
highly, who are so pleasant, so brilliant----"
"Were under a cloud that night, some of them," said Magnus gravely.
"They did not fall under the table, Cherry, but they did try to get
upon it and harangue the world from thence. It took pretty forcible
persuasions to keep some of them down."
"Alas!" Cherry said, in a tone of sorrow and pity that might have gone
to anybody's heart, her sweet eyes brimming over. "Oh, Magnus, what did
the minority do?"
Magnus glanced up at her.
"Stood to their votes, some of them," he said; "and some did not. And
of those last, Cherry, I was one."
"_You_, Magnus?" The words came with such a cry that the young man felt
as if he had been struck. Not another word followed, but he could see
that she was trembling from head to foot.
"Do not mistake me," he said gently. "I did not disgrace myself in any
open way, but I did take more than was good for me. For the first, and
for the last time, the Lord being my witness and my help."
And now something in his words scattered the last show of Cherry's
self-control. She exclaimed once more:
"Oh, Magnus!"
But then her head went down in her hands, and she cried as bitterly
as only those women who rarely cry at all can do--silently,
uncontrollably, shaken like a young willow by this sudden flood which
had burst its bounds. Cherry could not stay the tears, could not look
up nor speak.
And Magnus on his part ventured neither word nor touch, and after a
minute or two no look. The sight of the dear head, bowed so low in its
distress, was more than he could bear. He turned away, with a sort
of groan, thinking of that miserable night with unmeasured scorn of
himself. Not that he had by any means gone the length of many another
man; no one had been obliged to call him to order or see him home. But
he knew that both dignity and manhood had been tampered with, and the
scorn was deep. Not even a poor storm flag out that night!
Would Cherry ever speak to him again?
And now he turned towards her once more. One long curly brown tress had
slipped from the comb, and lay waving down at his side. Magnus looked
at it, touched it softly, then turned away again.
There came a sound of steps and voices, and, too quick to be hindered,
Cherry sprang to her feet and darted away; and Magnus was taken
possession of by his two young sisters, one on either side.
"What are you doing?" said Violet gaily. "Composing a sonnet to the
summer girl's eyebrows?"
"They are not always her own. What are _you_ about, chicks? wandering
round at this time of night."
"We came to help you get home," said Rose. "Or to find out if you were
coming."
"Because, if you are not, one pint of flannel cakes for breakfast will
be enough," said Violet. "Where is Cherry?"
"I do not know."
"Oh, you took her home, and got moonstruck on the way back," said Rose.
"Struck with something. It was more like Ithuriel's spear," said Magnus
absently.
"But what were you at, sure enough?"
"Getting photographs of myself in the moonlight."
"Snap-shots?" Rose asked, laughing at him.
"Just that. You are good little girls to look me up. Come, let us go."
And with a sort of bitter-sweet sense of holding fast what he had,
Magnus put his arm round each, and so led them down the hill, their
young voices making merry, the girlish arms locked round him, fast and
true.
This did not lay his thoughts, however. Should _he_ ever mar the joy of
these gay tones? ever make the innocent eyes look down in shame, for
him? Thoughts, questions, purposes, surged through the young cadet's
head as he walked along, and Magnus would fain have gone straight to
the silence of his own room. But they had waited prayers for him, and
of course he must take his place.
There are moods, however, in which no prayers but one's own will do;
and though Magnus did hear his mother's voice, and the chapter she
read, he could never have told a word of it afterwards. He got away as
soon as he could, and went upstairs; went to his own room and locked
the door, and fell on his knees; it seemed to him as if only so could
he even think out anything clearly.
How had it all come about? The wild transport of the last few days had
confused everything.
He remembered now that one and another had counselled him not to go,
to cut the class supper, and so save money, risk, and name. "I'll have
nothing to do with the whole thing," Twinkle had said. And he could see
the staunch, quiet face of some who were there and yet stood to their
vote. Why had not he?
It was not real cowardice, Magnus said to himself. He had thought the
word, and yet the bravery called for had not been so much that of
standing a taunt or refusing a persuasion; the men had not said so very
much to him. Perhaps, indeed, more open attack might have roused more
open resistance. But he had lacked that utterly "valiant for the truth"
heart, which for love of the cause, and seeing the fight at hand,
flings out the unpopular banner and stands beside it.
As in those dreadful days of the New York riots, when all the servants
in a certain house declared their sympathy with the rioters and against
the flag. And the dear mistress of the house, alone there, and with no
one to back her, ran out the biggest "Old Glory" she could find, from
her very most conspicuous window, and kept it floating.
Just there, Magnus felt, had been his fault, ever since he went to the
Academy; his religion had been too little an open, positive thing; had
not gone forth enough from its own intrenchments. He had rarely ever
tried to make himself a power for good. There had been back and forth
progress and impulses (if I may so put it), but not steady, daily
growth; not joyful, burning zeal for Christ and his cause. So, in the
wild excitement of that day and night, he had forgotten everything but
that he was off on furlough. Now it had come to this.
Had he lost Cherry? He could not tell. But he would be worthy of her,
whether or not. If the joy of his life was gone, and sometimes Magnus
felt that it was, yet honour and truth remained. "What shall it profit
a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
Nay, he would neither "lose himself," nor be "cast away." Thoughts
passed into earnest, pleading prayer, into new consecration vows; and
when the next fair dawn came stealing over the shadowed world, Cadet
Charlemagne Kindred had folded away his storm flag, and nailed his
noblest colours to the mast, and bid them fly!