"Well, I must say," said Cicely Preston, emphasizing the usual feminine
imperative for perfectly gratuitous statement, as she pushed back her
chair from the commandant's breakfast table, "I MUST really say that I
don't see anything particularly heroic in doing something wrong, lying
about it just to get other folks into trouble, and then rushing off to
do penance in a high wind and an open boat. But she's pretty, and
wears a man's shirt and coat, and of course THAT settles anything. But
why earrings and wet white stockings and slippers? And why that Gothic
arch of front and a boy's hat? That's what I simply ask;" and the
youngest daughter of Colonel Preston rose from the table, shook out the
skirt of her pretty morning dress, and, placing her little thumbs in
the belt of her smart waist, paused witheringly for a reply.
"You are most unfair, my child," returned Colonel Preston gravely. "Her
giving food and clothes to a deserter may have been only an ordinary
instinct of humanity towards a fellow-creature who appeared to be
suffering, to say nothing of M'Caffrey's plausible tongue. But her
periling her life to save him from an unjust accusation, and her desire
to shield her brother's pride from ridicule, is altogether praiseworthy
and extraordinary. And the moral influence of her kindness was strong
enough to make that scamp refuse to tell the plain truth that might
implicate her in an indiscretion, though it saved him from state
prison."
"He knew you wouldn't believe him if he had said the clothes were given
to him," retorted Miss Cicely, "so I don't see where the moral
influence comes in. As to her periling her life, those Marsh people
are amphibious anyway, or would be in those clothes. And as to her
motive, why, papa, I heard you say in this very room, and afterwards to
Mr. Calvert, when you gave him instructions, that you believed those
Culpeppers were capable of enticing away deserters; and you forget the
fuss you had with her savage brother's lawyer about that water front,
and how you said it was such people who kept up the irritation between
the Civil and Federal power."
The colonel coughed hurriedly. It is the fate of all great organizers,
military as well as civil, to occasionally suffer defeat in the family
circle.
"The more reason," he said, soothingly, "why we should correct harsh
judgments that spring from mere rumors. You should give yourself at
least the chance of overcoming your prejudices, my child. Remember,
too, that she is now the guest of the Fort."
"And she chooses to stay with Mrs. Bromley! I'm sure it's quite enough
for you and mamma to do duty--and Emily, who wants to know why Mr.
Calvert raves so about her--without MY going over there to stare."
Colonel Preston shook his head reproachfully, but eventually retired,
leaving the field to the enemy. The enemy, a little pink in the
cheeks, slightly tossed the delicate rings of its blonde crest, settled
its skirts again at the piano, but after turning over the leaves of its
music book, rose, and walked pettishly to the window.
But here a spectacle presented itself that for a moment dismissed all
other thoughts from the girl's rebellious mind.
Not a dozen yards away, on the wind-swept parade, a handsome young
fellow, apparently halted by the sentry, had impetuously turned upon
him in an attitude of indignant and haughty surprise. To the quick
fancy of the girl it seemed as if some disguised rustic god had been
startled by the challenge of a mortal. Under an oilskin hat, like the
petasus of Hermes, pushed back from his white forehead, crisp black
curls were knotted around a head whose beardless face was perfect as a
cameo cutting. In the close-fitting blue woolen jersey under his open
jacket the clear outlines and youthful grace of his upper figure were
revealed as clearly as in a statue. Long fishing-boots reaching to his
thighs scarcely concealed the symmetry of his lower limbs. Cricket and
lawn-tennis, knickerbockers and flannels had not at that period
familiarized the female eye to unfettered masculine outline, and Cicely
Preston, accustomed to the artificial smartness and regularity of
uniform, was perhaps the more impressed by the stranger's lawless grace.
The sentry had repeated his challenge; an angry flush was deepening on
the intruder's cheek. At this critical moment Cicely threw open the
French windows and stepped upon the veranda.
The sentry saluted the familiar little figure of his colonel's daughter
with an explanatory glance at the stranger. The young fellow looked
up--and the god became human.
"I'm looking for my sister," he said, half awkwardly, half defiantly;
"she's here, somewhere."
"Yes--and perfectly safe, Mr. Culpepper, I think," said the
arch-hypocrite with dazzling sweetness; "and we're all so delighted.
And so brave and plucky and skillful in her to come all that way--and
for such a purpose."
"Then--you know--all about it"--stammered Jim, more relieved than he
had imagined--"and that I"--
"That you were quite ignorant of your sister helping the deserter. Oh
yes, of course," said Cicely, with bewildering promptitude. "You see,
Mr. Culpepper, we girls are SO foolish. I dare say I should have done
the same thing in her place, only I should never have had the courage
to do what she did afterwards. You really must forgive her. But won't
you come in--DO." She stepped back, holding the window open with the
half-coaxing air of a spoiled child. "This way is quickest. DO come."
As he still hesitated, glancing from her to the house, she added, with
a demure little laugh, "Oh, I forget--this is Colonel Preston's
quarters, and I'm his daughter."
And this dainty little fairy, so natural in manner, so tasteful in
attire, was one of the artificial over-dressed creatures that his
sister had inveighed against so bitterly! Was Maggie really to be
trusted? This new revelation coming so soon after the episode of the
deserter staggered him. Nevertheless he hesitated, looking up with a
certain boyish timidity into Cicely's dangerous eyes.
"Is--is--my sister there?"
"I'm expecting her with my mother every moment," responded this
youthful but ingenious diplomatist sweetly; "she might be here now;
but," she added with a sudden heart-broken flash of sympathy, "I know
HOW anxious you both must be. I'LL take you to her now. Only one
moment, please." The opportunity of leading this handsome savage as it
were in chains across the parade, before everybody, her father, her
mother, her sister, and HIS--was not to be lost. She darted into the
house, and reappeared with the daintiest imaginable straw hat on the
side of her head, and demurely took her place at his side. "It's only
over there, at Major Bromley's," she said, pointing to one of the
vine-clad cottage quarters; "but you are a stranger here, you know, and
might get lost."
Alas! he was already that. For keeping step with those fairy-like
slippers, brushing awkwardly against that fresh and pretty skirt, and
feeling the caress of the soft folds; looking down upon the brim of
that beribboned little hat, and more often meeting the upturned blue
eyes beneath it, Jim was suddenly struck with a terrible conviction of
his own contrasting coarseness and deficiencies. How hideous those
oiled canvas fishing-trousers and pilot jacket looked beside this
perfectly fitted and delicately gowned girl! He loathed his collar,
his jersey, his turned-back sou'wester, even his height, which seemed
to hulk beside her--everything, in short, that the girl had recently
admired. By the time that they had reached Major Bromley's door he had
so far succumbed to the fair enchantress and realized her ambition of a
triumphant procession, that when she ushered him into the presence of
half a dozen ladies and gentlemen he scarcely recognized his sister as
the centre of attraction, or knew that Miss Cicely's effusive greeting
of Maggie was her first one. "I knew he was dying to see you after all
you had BOTH passed through, and I brought him straight here," said the
diminutive Machiavelli, meeting the astonished gaze of her father and
the curious eyes of her sister with perfect calmness, while Maggie,
full of gratitude and admiration of her handsome brother, forgot his
momentary obliviousness, and returned her greeting warmly.
Nevertheless, there was a slight movement of reserve among the
gentlemen at the unlooked-for irruption of this sunburnt Adonis, until
Calvert, disengaging himself from Maggie's side, came forward with his
usual frank imperturbability and quiet tact, and claimed Jim as his
friend and honored guest.
It then came out with that unostentatious simplicity which
characterized the brother and sister, and was their secure claim to
perfect equality with their entertainers, that Jim, on discovering his
sister's absence, and fearing that she might be carried by the current
towards the bar, had actually SWUM THE ESTUARY to Indian Island, and in
an ordinary Indian canoe had braved the same tempestuous passage she
had taken a few hours before. Cicely, listening to this recital with
rapt attention, nevertheless managed to convey the impression of having
fully expected it from the first. "Of course he'd have come here; if
she'd only waited," she said, sotto voce, to her sister Emily.
"He's certainly the handsomer of the two," responded that young lady.
"Of course," returned Cicely, with a superior air, "don't you see she
COPIES him."
Not that this private criticism prevented either from vying with the
younger officers in their attentions to Maggie, with perhaps the
addition of an open eulogy of her handsome brother, more or less
invidious in comparison to the officers. "I suppose it's an active
out-of-door life gives him that perfect grace and freedom," said Emily,
with a slight sneer at the smartly belted Calvert. "Yes; and he don't
drink or keep late hours," responded Cicely significantly. "His sister
says they always retire before ten o'clock, and that although his
father left him some valuable whiskey he seldom takes a drop of it."
"Therein," gravely concluded Captain Kirby, "lies OUR salvation. If,
after such a confession, Calvert doesn't make the most of his
acquaintance with young Culpepper to remove that whiskey from his path
and bring it here, he's not the man I take him for."
Indeed, for the moment it seemed as if he was not. During the next
three or four days, in which Colonel Preston had insisted upon
detaining his guests, Calvert touched no liquor, evaded the evening
poker parties at quarters, and even prevailed upon some of his brother
officers to give them up for the more general entertainment of the
ladies. Colonel Preston was politician enough to avail himself of the
popularity of Maggie's adventure to invite some of the Logport people
to assist him in honoring their neighbor. Not only was the old feud
between the Fort and the people thus bridged over, but there was no
doubt that the discipline of the Fort had been strengthened by Maggie's
extravagant reputation as a mediator among the disaffected rank and
file. Whatever characteristic license the grateful Dennis
M'Caffrey--let off with a nominal punishment--may have taken in his
praise of the "Quane of the Marshes," it is certain that the men
worshiped her, and that the band pathetically begged permission to
serenade her the last night of her stay.
At the end of that time, with a dozen invitations, a dozen
appointments, a dozen vows of eternal friendship, much hand-shaking,
and accompanied by a number of the officers to their boat, Maggie and
Jim departed. They talked but little on their way home; by some tacit
understanding they did not discuss those projects, only recalling
certain scenes and incidents of their visit. By the time they had
reached the little creek the silence and nervous apathy which usually
follow excitement in the young seemed to have fallen upon them. It was
not until after their quiet frugal supper that, seated beside the fire,
Jim looked up somewhat self-consciously in his sister's grave and
thoughtful face.
"Say, Mag, what was that idea o' yours about selling some land, and
taking a house at Logport?"