Loristan did not forbid Marco to pursue his acquaintance with The Rat
and his followers.
"You will find out for yourself whether they are friends for you or
not," he said. "You will know in a few days, and then you can make your
own decision. You have known lads in various countries, and you are a
good judge of them, I think. You will soon see whether they are going to
be _men_ or mere rabble. The Rat now--how does he strike you?"
And the handsome eyes held their keen look of questioning.
"He'd be a brave soldier if he could stand," said Marco, thinking him
over. "But he might be cruel."
"A lad who might make a brave soldier cannot be disdained, but a man
who is cruel is a fool. Tell him that from me," Loristan answered. "He
wastes force--his own and the force of the one he treats cruelly. Only
a fool wastes force."
"May I speak of you sometimes?" asked Marco.
"Yes. You will know how. You will remember the things about which
silence is the order."
"I never forget them," said Marco. "I have been trying not to, for such
a long time."
"You have succeeded well, Comrade!" returned Loristan, from his
writing-table, to which he had gone and where he was turning over
papers.
A strong impulse overpowered the boy. He marched over to the table and
stood very straight, making his soldierly young salute, his whole body
glowing.
"Father!" he said, "you don't know how I love you! I wish you were a
general and I might die in battle for you. When I look at you, I long
and long to do something for you a boy could not do. I would die of a
thousand wounds rather than disobey you--or Samavia!"
He seized Loristan's hand, and knelt on one knee and kissed it. An
English or American boy could not have done such a thing from unaffected
natural impulse. But he was of warm Southern blood.
"I took my oath of allegiance to you, Father, when I took it to Samavia.
It seems as if you were Samavia, too," he said, and kissed his hand
again.
Loristan had turned toward him with one of the movements which were full
of dignity and grace. Marco, looking up at him, felt that there was
always a certain remote stateliness in him which made it seem quite
natural that any one should bend the knee and kiss his hand.
A sudden great tenderness glowed in his father's face as he raised the
boy and put his hand on his shoulder.
"Comrade," he said, "you don't know how much I love you--and what reason
there is that we should love each other! You don't know how I have been
watching you, and thanking God each year that here grew a man for
Samavia. That I know you are--a _man_, though you have lived but twelve
years. Twelve years may grow a man--or prove that a man will never grow,
though a human thing he may remain for ninety years. This year may be
full of strange things for both of us. We cannot know _what_ I may have
to ask you to do for me--and for Samavia. Perhaps such a thing as no
twelve-year-old boy has ever done before."
"Every night and every morning," said Marco, "I shall pray that I may be
called to do it, and that I may do it well."
"You will do it well, Comrade, if you are called. That I could make
oath," Loristan answered him.
The Squad had collected in the inclosure behind the church when Marco
appeared at the arched end of the passage. The boys were drawn up with
their rifles, but they all wore a rather dogged and sullen look. The
explanation which darted into Marco's mind was that this was because The
Rat was in a bad humor. He sat crouched together on his platform biting
his nails fiercely, his elbows on his updrawn knees, his face twisted
into a hideous scowl. He did not look around, or even look up from the
cracked flagstone of the pavement on which his eyes were fixed.
Marco went forward with military step and stopped opposite to him with
prompt salute.
"Sorry to be late, sir," he said, as if he had been a private speaking
to his colonel.
"It's 'im, Rat! 'E's come, Rat!" the Squad shouted. "Look at 'im!"
But The Rat would not look, and did not even move.
"What's the matter?" said Marco, with less ceremony than a private would
have shown. "There's no use in my coming here if you don't want me."
"'E's got a grouch on 'cos you're late!" called out the head of the
line. "No doin' nothin' when 'e's got a grouch on."
"I sha'n't try to do anything," said Marco, his boy-face setting itself
into good stubborn lines. "That's not what I came here for. I came to
drill. I've been with my father. He comes first. I can't join the Squad
if he doesn't come first. We're not on active service, and we're not in
barracks."
Then The Rat moved sharply and turned to look at him.
"I thought you weren't coming at all!" he snapped and growled at once.
"My father said you wouldn't. He said you were a young swell for all
your patched clothes. He said your father would think he was a swell,
even if he was only a penny-a-liner on newspapers, and he wouldn't let
you have anything to do with a vagabond and a nuisance. Nobody begged
you to join. Your father can go to blazes!"
"Don't you speak in that way about my father," said Marco, quite
quietly, "because I can't knock you down."
"I'll get up and let you!" began The Rat, immediately white and raging.
"I can stand up with two sticks. I'll get up and let you!"
"No, you won't," said Marco. "If you want to know what my father said,
I can tell you. He said I could come as often as I liked--till I found
out whether we should be friends or not. He says I shall find that out
for myself."
It was a strange thing The Rat did. It must always be remembered of him
that his wretched father, who had each year sunk lower and lower in the
under-world, had been a gentleman once, a man who had been familiar with
good manners and had been educated in the customs of good breeding.
Sometimes when he was drunk, and sometimes when he was partly sober,
he talked to The Rat of many things the boy would otherwise never have
heard of. That was why the lad was different from the other vagabonds.
This, also, was why he suddenly altered the whole situation by doing
this strange and unexpected thing. He utterly changed his expression and
voice, fixing his sharp eyes shrewdly on Marco's. It was almost as if he
were asking him a conundrum. He knew it would have been one to most boys
of the class he appeared outwardly to belong to. He would either know
the answer or he wouldn't.
"I beg your pardon," The Rat said.
That was the conundrum. It was what a gentleman and an officer would
have said, if he felt he had been mistaken or rude. He had heard that
from his drunken father.
"I beg yours--for being late," said Marco.
That was the right answer. It was the one another officer and gentleman
would have made. It settled the matter at once, and it settled more than
was apparent at the moment. It decided that Marco was one of those who
knew the things The Rat's father had once known--the things gentlemen do
and say and think. Not another word was said. It was all right. Marco
slipped into line with the Squad, and The Rat sat erect with his
military bearing and began his drill:
"Squad!
"'Tention!
"Number!
"Slope arms!
"Form fours!
"Right!
"Quick march!
"Halt!
"Left turn!
"Order arms!
"Stand at ease!
"Stand easy!"
They did it so well that it was quite wonderful when one considered the
limited space at their disposal. They had evidently done it often, and
The Rat had been not only a smart, but a severe, officer. This morning
they repeated the exercise a number of times, and even varied it with
Review Drill, with which they seemed just as familiar.
"Where did you learn it?" The Rat asked, when the arms were stacked
again and Marco was sitting by him as he had sat the previous day.
"From an old soldier. And I like to watch it, as you do."
"If you were a young swell in the Guards, you couldn't be smarter at
it," The Rat said. "The way you hold yourself! The way you stand! You've
got it! Wish I was you! It comes natural to you."
"I've always liked to watch it and try to do it myself. I did when I was
a little fellow," answered Marco.
"I've been trying to kick it into these chaps for more than a year,"
said The Rat. "A nice job I had of it! It nearly made me sick at first."
The semicircle in front of him only giggled or laughed outright. The
members of it seemed to take very little offense at his cavalier
treatment of them. He had evidently something to give them which was
entertaining enough to make up for his tyranny and indifference. He
thrust his hand into one of the pockets of his ragged coat, and drew out
a piece of newspaper.
"My father brought home this, wrapped round a loaf of bread," he said.
"See what it says there!"
He handed it to Marco, pointing to some words printed in large letters
at the head of a column. Marco looked at it and sat very still.