BRYDELL’S SECOND FAILURE.
Far back in his babyhood, almost, Brydell remembered the academic
buildings, the green lawns, and bright river at Annapolis, and when on a
lovely May evening he walked in the great gates and passed the marine on
guard, he felt so happy he could have danced and sung.
The weeks since his failure had been spent in a dull and hopeless mental
lethargy. Aunt Emeline had been grimly consolatory and had tried to
impress on him that he had made a lucky miss in not getting into the
navy, and named at least a thousand professions and business ventures in
which he could make more money. The good woman did not see in the least
how it was with the boy—that he was simply born to be a sailor, and that
nothing on earth could charm him then from his wish.
After that one outburst of generosity in writing to his father and the
admiral, he had settled down to a sullen submission. It would be months
before he could hear from his father, and until then nothing could be
done. Suddenly, like the lifting of a mist by the glorious sun, came the
admiral’s letter and the appointment, and within twenty-four hours
Brydell was on his way to Annapolis to be examined for admission to the
academy.
He had had no time to prepare for the examination, even if he could. But
a boy of Brydell’s temperament does not learn prudence and caution in a
day or a month, and he was as perfectly sanguine of success in the
coming examinations as if he had not failed before. He could have hugged
the admiral for his goodness, and had sat up half the night, when he got
the treasured letter, writing his thanks to him and the member of
Congress.
On this lovely May afternoon he walked with a springy step along the
brick walks of the academy grounds under the giant trees, fresh in their
spring livery, and as he looked at the velvet turf he smiled and thought
of the admiral and the dirt fort and Grubb and that early time. It was
not necessary for him to report until next morning, so he strolled
along, the very happiest fifteen-year-old fellow in the world.
Presently sauntering along the sea wall and watching the reflection in
the water of a steam launch filled with ladies and officers, he suddenly
came directly upon his old friend Grubb, standing and talking with
Esdaile, the handsome young fellow who had so far outstripped all the
other candidates, himself included. Esdaile started, and then blushing a
fiery red, nodded his head to Grubb and walked off.
As for Brydell, all the kindness he had ever received as a little boy
from the handsome marine rushed to his mind. Grubb, as handsome as ever,
although a good deal older, smiled delightedly as Brydell dashed
forward, but seeing how tall the young fellow had grown, Grubb drew
himself up and saluted as he said: “How d’ you do, Mr. Brydell?”
“Oh, hang the salute, Grubb! shake hands,” cried Brydell, delighted.
“I’m not a cadet yet, so we needn’t stand on ceremony.” At which Grubb
and he sawed the air for five minutes.
“And are you come down here for to be examined, sir?” asked Grubb,
smiling broadly.
“Yes,” said Brydell, adding shamefacedly, “I had a chance in a
competitive examination, but that fellow you were talking
with—Esdaile—got ahead of me.”
At this it was Grubb’s turn to color. He shifted his feet and said
hesitatingly:—
“Mr. Brydell, please don’t go for to tell it, sir, but Mr. Esdaile—Mr.
Esdaile is my son. His grandfather’s left him some money, if he’d take
the same name—Esdaile; and as the boy didn’t like the name o’ Grubb,
nohow, he got his name changed by law—and I’d ruther—I’d ruther, sir,
the folks here didn’t know it, bein’ as I ain’t nothin’ but a marine.”
Brydell was so taken aback for a moment that he did not know what to
say, and Grubb with unwonted fluency continued:—
“I’ve sent in my application for a transfer, sir, ’cause the boy don’t
want—I mean _I_ don’t want—to be stationed here, a-doin’ guard duty
while my boy is in the academy. I’ve talked it over with one o’ the
officers as I’ve knowed, and who has been a good friend to me, and he
says maybe it will be best all around. And I hope nobody will know that
Cadet William Esdaile is the son o’ Grubb the marine.”
“You may be right in getting transferred somewhere else,” answered
Brydell after a moment, “and if the officer advised you, I wouldn’t
venture to say a word; but I don’t see why your boy should not want to
recognize”— Here he stopped, not knowing how to keep on.
“Didn’t I tell you, sir, long years ago as how the boy was gittin’ above
his father?” burst out poor Grubb, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s
ashamed o’ me; he’s ashamed to be seen a-talkin’ with me, and I can give
him half my pay, and I’d give him all o’ it if he needed it, but I can’t
stand bein’ looked down upon by him.”
“Why, if you were my father, I shouldn’t be in the least ashamed of
you,” cried Brydell hotly. “You haven’t had the advantage we other
fellows have had, but you’re one of the most honest and respectable men
in the world; so says my father and Admiral Beaumont, too, and it’s a
great deal better to come out and be honest and above board about these
things than to be skulking and hiding them.”
“That’s true for you, Mr. Brydell,” replied Grubb, who had natural good
sense and much more experience than Brydell. “That’s your natur’. But it
ain’t everybody’s natur’. It ain’t my boy’s natur’; I wish it was. It’s
the easiest way and the best way o’ gittin’ through life, but it takes
all sorts o’ people to make up a world, and there’s lots o’ people that
could no more be aboveboard than a pig can fly.”
Brydell had not lived long enough to appreciate this truth, and he
parted from Grubb with a mixture of respect and contempt for him, but
with unabated affection, and a most genuine disgust for Esdaile. Perhaps
it was helped a little by Esdaile’s triumph over him, but Brydell had
always hated a sneak, and he had very good ground for thinking the
accomplished Mr. Esdaile was constitutionally a sneak.
Next day he reported and the examination began, and then came a time
that in torture far exceeded the sharp disappointment and sullen despair
of the last few weeks. For, after days of struggle and nights of furious
though ill-directed study, again did Brydell fail, and this time he
thought it was forever.
When he knew it he had but one desire on earth—to get away from the
place anywhere—anywhere. But where was he to go and what was he to do
that people would not find him out? He hated to go back to that dreary
house with Aunt Emeline; his father was completely out of his
reach,—that too kind father,—and Brydell felt sick at the idea of
meeting the admiral again.
Filled with the despair of the very young,—who can see nothing beyond
the narrow horizon of the present,—Brydell, sitting in his room at the
hotel, dropped his head upon his arms, and wished himself dead. He did
not know how long he had lain thus, only that the sun was shining
brightly in the afternoon when he heard the dreadful news, and it was
quite dusk when he had a strange feeling that some one was present, and
there stood over him Grubb’s tall figure.
“It’s mortal bad, Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb. Brydell answered not a word,
and in the silence of the twilight the only sound was the melancholy
call of a night bird heard through the open window.
“Whatever are you goin’ to do now, Mr. Brydell?” asked Grubb after a
while.
“I don’t know,” said Brydell in a voice that he hardly recognized as his
own.
“You’d better ask the admiral, sir,” presently Grubb continued.
Brydell made no reply. Then, after a longer pause than usual, Grubb kept
on:—
“You ain’t had no rale preparation, I reckon.”
“No!” cried Brydell bitterly; “sent from one school to another, as often
as I wanted; allowed twice as much pocket money as any other boy in
school, while my father was pinching and skimping himself to give it to
me; with no home, no mother, to encourage me and nobody to govern me; of
course I failed. I’ll always fail.”
“Don’t you go for to say that, Mr. Brydell, and it seems like I ain’t
the only foolish father in the world. There’s others as had eddication
and all sorts o’ things that don’t act no wiser nor poor old Grubb the
marine.”
“Don’t say a word against my father!” cried Brydell, lifting his pale
face for the first time.
“I’d be the last person in the world to say a word against the
leftenant, sir, but I say as how ’twas always said of you when you was a
little shaver: ‘Don’t be hard on him, he ain’t got no mother.’ Well, now
it seems to me they’ve been monstrous hard on you when they thought they
was bein’ easy.”
Brydell said nothing more. He knew Grubb was telling the truth.
“Well, now, sir, let me tell you something. I knows all about these
app’intments. You set down and write the admiral and ask him if he’ll
ask that there congressman to give you a year to prepare yourself. Tell
him as how you ain’t had half a chance, and give him your word as a
gentleman you’ll pass next year if they’ll let you keep the
app’intment.”
“I’m ashamed to.”
“Good night, Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb. “Them as is ashamed to ask for
another trial when they ain’t had a good chance, seems to me, ain’t got
much sand. It looks like you warn’t willin’ to work.”
“Sit down, Grubb,” answered Brydell, beginning to consider this sound
advice, and before Grubb left the room the letter was written to the
admiral.
“It won’t do any good; I know it won’t,” said poor Brydell despairingly.
Nevertheless he agreed to remain at Annapolis long enough to get an
answer.
It would take about three days to get an answer, supposing the admiral
to be able to see the congressman at once. Those days Brydell remained
shut up in his room. It was a turning point with him. He retained only a
dim and chaotic memory of what he felt and suffered in those three days;
but at the beginning he was a boy, and when he came out of the struggle
he was a man.
In the afternoon of the third day a dispatch came:—
Congressman will let this year’s appointment lapse and will hold
vacancy open for you another year, upon my solemn word of honor that
you will qualify yourself and pass. I rely upon you to make my promise
good.
GEORGE BEAUMONT.
The day was dark and rainy, but no June morning ever seemed brighter to
Brydell when he read that dispatch. The transition seemed to him like
passing from death to life.
He knew he had never had a chance at preparation, and he knew he had a
good mind, capable of learning what other fellows did. But, above all,
he felt suddenly develop within himself a determination, a strength of
purpose, a power of will that could do great things if he tried.
This new force was always a part of his character, although quickly
developed by a strange succession of fierce disappointments. But
impetuosity was also a part of his character, and with this new sense of
manliness and responsibility came a rash determination that he would
prove his sincerity by working for his living while preparing himself
for that other chance a year hence.
Hot with this thought, Brydell wrote his father a brief but eager
letter:—
And as I have known all the disadvantages of having too much money to
spend, all taken, almost stolen from your pay, dear old man, while you
are doing without everything for me, and I am determined never to cost
you another dollar. I can find work easy enough,
(sanguine Brydell)
and work won’t interfere with my studying half as much as play will,
and I want to do something—anything—everything—to earn the admiral’s
respect and my own too. So make yourself easy, dad, about me. I’ll be
at work when you get this, and you know whatever faults I’ve had I
never was a milksop; and I’m going to behave myself; don’t you worry
about that. So wait until next year and you won’t be ashamed of your
affectionate son and chum,
RICHARD BRYDELL, Jr.
Brydell ran and posted this letter before he had time to change his mind
about sending it. When it was gone he had a sudden feeling of shock,
like a man just under a shower bath. But his word was passed. He had
naturally the strength of mind to stick to what he said, and one of the
things that had not been neglected with him was a most faithful regard
for his own word. Rash his resolve might be, but not to be shirked on
that account.
When Brydell realized to what he had committed himself he seemed to grow
ten years older in half an hour. He felt a little afraid, but all these
things were working together to make a man of him.