Part 21

"Yes you do. Not all just alike, perhaps; one man puts in more brains than another, and so maybe gets larger returns; but the slower fellow maxes it _for him_; the dividends are as large as the stock will warrant. And to my mind, that is the only ambition worth a copper. I've no patience with this trying to get ahead of somebody else in any line. Get ahead of yourself; break your own record."

"Not making other men your measure," Magnus said.

"No. That's the way Paul puts it: 'I press toward the mark for the prize'; not to get ahead of Peter or James or John. The colour markers always in advance, flagging out new ground."

"What do you count a man's colour markers, sir?" Magnus said, looking amused.

"Perhaps clean purpose of heart and loyalty to God would come near it. The Great Captain has thrown open to you--to every young man--a wondrous Promised Land. He says: 'Go in and possess it. Ye are well able to overcome.' The land is not all 'fish and cucumbers and melons,' with a good deal of garlic, like the Egypt degradation and bondage; but 'a goodly land of springs and fountains, of oil olive and honey; whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.' I do not believe you cadets are half aggressive enough."

"In what way, sir?"

"Every way. Suppose your colour markers had been up to their duty on that sad night, and you pressing forward for the Lord's 'Well done.'"

"Yes," Magnus answered, with a thrill of pain that somehow got into his voice.

"Or suppose," Mr. Wayne went on, laying a tender hand on the young man's shoulder, "suppose you had been praying for those other men whose ways you knew; working with them, persuading them into the service of Christ?"

"Oh, that could not be," Mr. Kindred said decidedly. "At least, I might pray for them, of course, but I could not say much."

"Why not?"

"Against cadet code, sir. We let each other pretty well alone."

"Cadet code!" Mr. Wayne repeated. "You tease each other now and then, I fancy?"

"Always!"

"And laugh at each other?"

"Without stint."

"Perhaps introduce each other occasionally?"

"Why, of course, sir!" Magnus answered.

"And probably the cadet code would permit you to pull a man out of the river, or tell him the barracks were ablaze? It is framed only against the important things, hey?"

"Don't you call it important to pull a man out of the river?" Magnus asked, with a laugh.

"Rather. Nothing like pulling him into the kingdom."

The clouds sailed silently by, river and hill darkening and brightening as the shadows fell and passed; the leaves rustled softly among the oak branches and stirred with a different music among the pines. Then from far down below sounded a drum--Magnus started up.

"Thank you, Mr. Wayne!" he said earnestly. "Come to the guard-house before call to quarters. I must go."

"I will walk down with you," said his friend.

"But I must run!"

And away he went, springing down the hill through every short cut that could be found; the grey and white showing, and hiding, and coming out again further on.

Mr. Wayne watched him with great interest, taking his own pace the while down the hill; and now, as he went, from every other quarter came just such flying figures. From the woods, from Flirtation, from the river; from lingering last words on doorsteps, and girls and bonbons in the houses. Hastening along with the graceful ease of long practice, hurrying to lose themselves behind the grim grey walls of barracks.

And Mr. Wayne watched and laughed; but then his eyes grew grave. Will they make such haste at every call of duty, these gay youngsters? on hand and "ready" at each noble muster? Alas, no! Even now some are getting an "absence," and some a "late," and of others the guns are not cleaned and the bell buttons will be tarnished. Ready! it is a short word; but it means a man's whole ceaseless purpose, self-denial, and care. How little those speeding figures on the green guessed that anybody on the old hillside was praying for them; but I believe the very skill and swiftness with which they darted along, gave stringency to the prayer; such power for good, such forces for evil; such ease in doing the right thing, such recklessness, sometimes, whether it was done or not. Through his glass, Mr. Wayne could study it all out.

See that one now; a tall fellow, going over the ground at a rate to take common people's breath away. It is not altogether his fault that he has to run for it; his best girl is on hand to-day, and this was a critical walk round Flirtation. Drum-calls were scarcely heard, and minutes flew unheeded. No carelessness of orders kept him back, and no contempt for them make him linger now. He does not mean to have even a late; and so dashes on and wins. There is some jeering and clapping as the tall figure comes up; "Two-forty" being his affectionate soubriquet; but all the same he is there, in ranks, with about ten seconds or less to spare.

Another--Oh, yes, he set out to run; anathematising the drum, the parade, and the regulations, and so soon stops; runs again--and stops, with a sort of what's-the-use air. "How much time?" he asks another, who is walking calmly on.

"None at all."

Whereupon he quickens his steps; but not so the second. The drum-beats come thicker and faster--that makes no odds. It is only a "skin" more or less, he says to himself; and he's sure to get it some other way, if not this; and he has lost his Christmas leave already. So, while the rest fall in, and answer to roll-call, he comes leisurely up to barracks, some minutes after the last man has shouted "Here!"

That is Cadet Clinker all through; if he is going to fess, he'll "fess cold." No one knows better than he how many demerits a man may get and still keep his place in the corps; or what delicate shades of meaning there are about "taking advantage of permits." So he runs it here and runs it there; goes off limits in all sorts of ways, places, and times, and gets help from all the friendly smugglers that infest the Post. He is one who entraps others, serving out his stores in many-coloured glasses or dainty cups, teaching the younger men strange oaths and unwholesome ways; making many a weak boy ashamed of his mother's counsels and his father's rules.

"_Il y a des héros en mal, comme en bien._"

You see he is such a pleasant fellow,--handsome, rich, plausible; a great favourite with the ladies; and with a head about equally divided between folly and mathematics. Excellent gifts, all thrown away; and worst of all, thrown where they are stumbling blocks for other men. But he is a tremendous favourite all the same, with much more courage to do wrong than he has to do right.

It is a thing to see Mr. Clinker come forth and walk about the Post, a day or two after one of his prize-fight exploits. His mouth is swelled, his eyes bruised, his nose knocked out of all its fine proportions. But he steps jauntily along, and the pretty girl at his side gazes up into the disfigured face as if Clinker were one of the first defenders of the country, newly risen from the shadows of old Fort Clinton.

To-night Magnus watched him coming over the plain, and thought of Mr. Wayne's words. No, he had never prayed for Clinker, much less tried to win him to better ways. And Cadet Kindred remarked to himself, quite privately, that he would rather "pull him out of the river" than do _that_, every time.

Mr. Wayne stayed over Sunday, and Magnus spent with him every minute that he could. The day was still and mild, so they could be out of doors the whole time; and I hardly know which of them enjoyed it most.

"If surroundings made men, you cadets should be the noblest set on earth!" Mr. Wayne broke forth, as late in the afternoon they walked up from Battery Knox, and paused in the little clearing where "Dade and his Command" will be thought of for many a long day. "Such wonders of beauty on every side, in mountains and sky and river; and whichever way you turn, such reminders of men who have 'fought a good fight' on the field of honour. Look at the old flag, and think how it has been shot at and insulted; defied and threatened; yet how splendidly it floats off to-day! And the guns that lie sleeping beneath its shadow were captured by men who knew no such words as 'hard' or 'easy.' And the great iron links once stretched across the river tell of other chains triumphantly broken, in the face of fearful odds. On all sides you find written: 'Faithful unto death.' Life purpose, life and death effort, life-blood, have done it all; the blood of men who 'counted not their life dear unto themselves' when the country had need. And the one traitor among them--why, you will not have his name even in sight! His tablet is a blank."

Slowly pacing up the walk again, Mr. Wayne went on, half to himself:

"Then Paul answered: 'What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.' Magnus" (with sudden change of tone) "when we parted two years ago at the Grand Central, I bade you make friends with the flag; _now_ I tell you to open a recruiting office. I think you Christian men in the corps are making a grand mistake."

"If you cannot reach the nation, Gather in the men you know: Teach your friend the way to glory-- Draw your comrade where you go."

Cadet Kindred stopped short and faced him.

"Yes," Mr. Wayne said, answering the look; "I know all about it. But the Lord said: 'He that gathereth not with me, scattereth'. And if you think it will be easier to take positive ground and begin positive work for Christ among a lot of strange officers at your first post, _I_ think you are mistaken."

XLI

UP CROWNEST

Crowds of bees are giddy with clover, Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet: Crowds of larks in their matins hang over, Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.

--JEAN INGELOW.

If Cadet Kindred rose up next morning with the very spirit of the Crusades astir in his heart; ready to charge down upon the Saracens, lance in rest; he said to himself as the day went on, that if Mr. Wayne had ever been a West Point cadet, that gentleman would know some things he did not know now.

Here had Magnus been dreaming all night how he knocked a bumper out of Randolph's hand; how he had run Rig up to the first section in French; and how he had pitched Clinker back over the Commissary wall, just in time to prevent his being missed and "skinned." Also how he himself had been publicly thanked for these exploits by the Academic Board in full session. But, alas! "the stuff that dreams are made of" fades in the morning sun, and from these pleasing nocturnal visions Mr. Kindred passed to a particularly tough recitation, with corresponding low marks, and thence to the stubbornest horse in the hall, that would not take the hurdles, and made him instead take the tan. And now, as he sat in his room, tired and growly, the mail brought him nothing but a desperately perfumed pink note. Magnus said "Phew!" and moved to the window.

"Sent the whole shop, hasn't she?" said Rig. "That's Mrs. Newcomb, a mile off."

"Just listen, will you?" said Magnus. "She wants to give a picnic on Crownest, and tells me to bring men enough for five girls! How many apiece, do you suppose?"

"Unknown quantity; all depends on the girls. Who are they?"

"Doesn't tell. Miss Pretty, of course, for one; she is a niece or something. Then there's another girl, 'just from abroad,'--'and the rest you know.' Well, I'll take the new girl, at a venture."

"Then you'll not have to think up any new grinds," said Rig. "Lucky man. And I'll take Miss Pretty. If she's heard all mine before, she won't say so. So we are two."

"And Clinker's three----"

"What do you have him for?" said Rig. "He's in every single thing--when he isn't on the area."

"She wants him. By name," said Magnus. "Hopes 'dear Mr. Clinker will be at leisure.'"

"That's a neat way of hoping he's out of Con." said Rig. "Say, didn't she have a granddaughter or something, getting rubbed up in Paris? That's the new girl."

"Granddaughter!" said Magnus. "Just let Mrs. Newcomb hear you say that! But I'll take the rubbed-up girl, whoever she is, my risk. And Miss Frisk will take _you_. She's sure to be along."

"Sure to get Clinker, if she is," said Rig. "Wonder if the little Busy Bee will come? Kin, you're hard on that girl."

"Don't want me to be soft, do you?" said Magnus, with the drum cutting him short.

Of course the names of the party were all out before Saturday; the girls could not talk of much else. And as for cadets, each girl might have had five, had the limits of the lunch basket agreed thereto. The day was perfect, the dresses faultless, and Mr. Clinker happily "at leisure," for once.

Not everybody knows--but few _try_ to know--how witching that climb up Crownest is, if you take the old "Cadet Trail." The way goes along for a while at the level of the plain, but then betakes itself to the air; presently mounting up and up with a straight pitch before you. There come turns, of course, winding round some unscaleable rock; and gentler going over a small knoll or two, and quite a level stretch around the shoulder, in the "Nest." But very often it is just a steep ladder of a path, to be climbed as best you can. A wilderness of grey rock and green woods; feathery hemlocks, sombre oaks, ash trees, maples, and hickory. Below these, dogwood and other "cornels," with ironwood, shad blossom, witch hazel, and laurel. Lower still ferns--unlike those in the valley; with orchids of a new type, yellow gerardias, purple gerardias, partridge berry, and wintergreen. Then the brown leaves of last year, half covering the mosses, and thickly sprinkled in turn with the red and yellow of to-day.

The rarest scents are in the air: the balsam breath of the sweet brier, and from the new-fallen and falling leaves that special fragrance of the autumn woods--sweet, racy, heart-piercing, a waft from days gone by and withered, their work all done.

Many of the birds have already gone South; but robins are here, and chickadees, and the cry of the gulls is in perfect keeping with the cool air and the white caps on the river.

Up through this wilderness of wild and fragrant things, the little party went joyously along; or if not quite that on Mrs. Newcomb's part, yet it is painful to relate that her trips and stumbles did but heighten the fun for all the rest. In many a place it took two men to get her on at all. Magnus would leave his pretty companion safe on some high standpoint, jump down again himself, and with Crane on the other side carefully engineer Mrs. Newcomb to a place beside her niece. It might also be noticed that Mr. Clinker and his convoy generally lagged behind at such crises, or got into some tangle themselves, from which they came out, safe and suddenly, as soon as Mrs. Newcomb was disposed of. And by and by Cadet Kindred, being quite alive to the situation, quickened his pace, and passed on too far ahead for any new service to be required of him.

On and up the two flitted along--like grey and red squirrels, averred the toiling Mrs. Newcomb; but even for themselves there were difficulties.

Here, for instance, stands an immense rock that stops the way. And as Miss Lane measures it with her eyes, behold! there is Magnus on top of it, reaching down his hand to her.

"Do you expect me to climb up there?" Cadet gives a little gesture of the head which Dickens would have said meant, "He rather thought so."

"How did you get there yourself?"

"Came."

"Are there any snakes up there?"

"Not so many as where you are."

Miss Lane seized his hand, made unheard-of efforts, and mounted the rock, then looked down complacently.

"Why, how slow you are!" she cried. "Just jump up as I did. Oh--what was that--a rattle?"

"Yes; Rig's tin pail against his buttons," said Magnus, laughing.

"I wish he'd give it to someone who does not wear buttons. Must people always carry tin pails when they go out to enjoy themselves?"

"You'll like it at the top. And we're almost there now."

Trees grew shorter and scarcer, rocks stood up in bolder self-assertion; and, with a last steep climb, the grey and the red came out upon the mountain's lovely head, and, after a shout of victory, sat down to look and breathe. Oh, how wonderfully fair earth is from the top of Crownest!

On the west, beyond the dipping hillside, the broad valley lay in seven shades of green--slope beyond slope--till it touched the soft horizon blue. To the north, the far-off Catskill range rose, shoulder to shoulder, from the more level land, a great lonely pile. Then on the south, beyond the locked-in Highlands, Tappan lay shimmering in the sunlight, a blue inland sea; while just across the river on its eastern shore, the bluff ends of the mountains fell apart, and you could see the long valleys between; the grey-green ridges like grim ribs, running eastward towards the Connecticut line. The river itself was decked with various craft; over all there wandered a faint, fitful north breeze.

From their vantage ground Magnus and his companion watched the toiling party below, for whom neither earth nor sky had any special charm just then. Privately Mrs. Newcomb was assuring herself, that the next time she gave a picnic it would not be on the top of Crownest; the girls might say what they liked. And Mr. Clinker was inwardly chafing against the good lady's value in avoirdupois. (Quite literally, sometimes, when on a bad bit of road she surged up against him.) Rig was laughing to himself at them, at Magnus, and at things generally; and aloud at the sallies of Miss Freak; while the last couples of the party fumed a little at the slow progress and the narrow trail. How came those two to get ahead? There they sat, in triumphant ease, the grey and the red.

"You men are a very peculiar set," Miss Lane said suddenly.

"I am sure you ladies are."

"Oh, I am not talking of the whole human race," said Miss Lane: "it is cadets that are so odd, so unlike other people."

"That is good," said Magnus. "One would not wish to be like everybody else."

"How you chop one up. I mean other students. Do you try to be unlike all other cadets?"

Magnus shook his head.

"I get the credit sometimes, without trying."

"And I can see you deserve it, too," said the girl. "You would have tugged Aunt Newcomb all the way up here, if you hadn't thought Mr. Clinker meant you should."

Magnus laughed.

"Do you call that being odd?" he said. "It is just even."

"And then, instead of standing off like a shirk, you did the polite thing and ran away. Do you always run from difficulties, Mr. Kindred?"

"Bad for me if I do," said Magnus. "A foe in the rear is worth two in front."

"Then you generally fight?"

"People, or things?"

"Both."

"Well, as to the people," Magnus answered, "I have not been much tried. It depends on yourself somewhat, I fancy; and I have never been challenged since I entered the Corps."

"What would you do if you were?"

"What I would, is one thing," Magnus said rather slowly. "By my good leave, I should say no."

"Would you--and be pointed at?"

"You're sure to be pointed at for something," Magnus answered lightly. "It's a choice of cases."

"But I cannot imagine a man like you saying no!" said the girl eagerly. "Not fight, if you were challenged? You are brave, I know."

"How do you know? If I am, I shall never fight for fear of being pointed at."

"But why?" Miss Lane repeated, her bright eyes searching his face. "Tell me quick, Mr. Kindred. They'll all be up here directly, and I cannot possibly wait to know till to-morrow. Why wouldn't you fight? I believe you could whip any man in the Corps."

"There is one rule," said Magnus, meeting her look, "which I have sworn to keep. It is an old rule, and a short one, but it covers a great deal of ground. 'Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.' I could not so endorse my acceptance of a challenge."

The girl looked at him with wide open eyes.

"You will find those old rules of yours terribly in the way, sometimes," she said.

"Sure sign that I am off the track, then," said her companion, smiling. "Fences don't matter when you mean to keep the road. But doubtless most good things have their inconvenient side."

"Aunt Newcomb, for instance," said Miss Lane, changing her tone. "I think I should count both sides 'inconvenient,' if I had to pull her up the hill. By the way, Mr. Kindred, why didn't your rule oblige you to take the brunt of the burden to the last?"

"It might in some cases," said Magnus; "not in this. Clinker had to earn his lunch, and there was no other way for him to do it."

"Well, there they come," said Miss Lane, rising up, "to cut short our talk; I am quite sorry. You interest me, Mr. Kindred; cadets with 'views' are a novelty. But I rather wish you would fight!"

"I dare say I could get a broken head in the riding-hall some day, when I'm on Dangerfield--would that do?" said Magnus, laughing back at her as he went forward to give Mrs. Newcomb a hand, which was gratefully taken.

"Oh, Mr. Kindred--thank you! This has been certainly--the most awfully grand--walk I ever experienced."

"It isn't a walk at all, Aunt Newcomb," said Miss Freak. "It's a clamber, and a climb, and the roughest sort of time. I've ruined my best pair of shoes, and not another this side of New York. And five walks on hand for to-morrow."

"Get an order on the Captain from the Com.," Rig suggested.

"Fit warranted," said Miss Freak, putting her little foot out into the sunlight. "I wonder you don't offer me your own, Mr. McLean, at once, and save what is left of mine."

"You wouldn't need but one," said Rig; "and regulations require me to have two."

"Much you care for regulations, up here."

"Freaky, my dear," said her aunt, "I wish you girls would unpack the baskets, and heat up our coffee. I am just worn out."

"But you must have a fire," said Miss Lane. "Who'll make it?"

Then followed the prettiest, liveliest bustle. The hilltop all around them was covered with a low growth of huckleberry bushes; and here and there, scattered about among this, were twigs and sticks and chips, dry and bleached and just ready to burn.

Choosing with some care a rock whence the fire could not easily spread, a gay little blaze was soon kindled, and the cold coffee put under--or over--its care. Then busy hands unpacked or uncovered the baskets. Sandwiches were in one, cake in another, late peaches filled a third. Miss Freak had a box of Huyler's somewhat luscious sweets; Miss Newcomb an assortment of peanut brittle, cocoanut cakes, and sweet chocolate; and the wind kept still, and did not blow even a napkin away.

But the last time Magnus Kindred had been at a picnic, it was in the far-away home region, and with just the home group around him; and now it all came back to him in a moment; with the tones of his mother's voice as she asked for a blessing on their day's pleasure. And I suppose it was this that made him pause unconsciously, after he had taken his stand by the fire to pour out the steaming coffee.

"What is it?" said Mrs. Newcomb, in her plaintive voice. "Not hot yet?"

Then Miss Freak laughed out, and Miss Newcomb looked at her, and Miss Lane watched this cadet who had "views."

"Oh, aunty!" cried Miss Freak, "don't you know he's one of the too-good-for-this-earth boys? Why, coffee out of an ice box would scald his throat, if somebody didn't pray over it first. He's waiting for you to say grace, ma'am."

"Waiting for me!" Mrs. Newcomb repeated helplessly. "But your uncle always does it, you know, Freaky."