Part 24

And he found the Sunday rest a great thing. Broken in upon, indeed, by a guard-mounting and parade; by police calls, inspection, and now and then guard duty; but between whiles full of quiet time to think.

It was such a pleasure to pile up the study books Saturday night, and leave the dark mass untouched till Monday morning. It took faith--a good deal--in some crises of work, but it paid well. The free time was so good. Not hours snatched unlawfully, but taken of right, according to that most wise and blessed law of the Lord: "In it thou shalt not do any work."

In fine weather Magnus kept himself much out of doors, letting the dust of the week clear all away from eyes and heart and brain, till the balance of things, so often confused in the weekday rush, swung steady and true once more.

"I don't see how you do it, Kin," said Randolph one day. "Do you run a light after taps?"

"Never," said Magnus. "I study all I can Saturday, and as early as I can Monday morning."

"Always ready for eight o'clock?"

"I will not say the details are always just as clear as they were on Saturday, but then my head is so much clearer. I get along, somehow."

"Well, I should say you did!" commented Rig. "Maxing it every blessed day last week."

XLV

NOTHING SERIOUS

A warrior so bold and a virgin so bright Conversed as they sat on the green. Alonzo the brave was the name of this knight: The damsel, the fair Imogene.

--LEWIS.

One of the mild amusements of this spring for Magnus was watching Rig. For Mr. McLean had fallen in love. Not deeply, for that implies certain other depths--or hopelessly, for there was every likelihood that he would get out again all safe; but unmanageably. Unutterably, Rig called it, and Magnus unendurably.

So the young man mooned over photographs, sported (in his room) an end of pink riband; tumbled his hair all he could, and went down in everything.

"I say, Rig!" Magnus admonished him one night, "keep out of the 'immortals,' whatever else you do."

"I cannot do much of anything," Rig answered mournfully.

"Well, I'd try, if I died in the effort," said Magnus. "Bone chevrons; your charmer has a quick eye for them."

"She has a quick eye for everything."

"Wearing bell buttons." But Rig did not heed him.

"Confess, Kin, you never saw such eyes."

"Only about five hundred and forty times, when I used to go cat-fishing. Ever notice catfish eyes, Rig?"

"They're so blue!" said Cadet McLean. "So deeply, darkly----"

"If you don't shut up," Magnus shouted at him, "I'll try if I can't shake some sense into you. Quit sighing like a furnace. You nearly blew the gas out."

"Of course I can't expect you to understand," said Rig. "You live only in books, far away from all this sort of thing."

"I hope so, this sort," said Magnus.

"You see, my heart is larger than my head," said Mr. McLean. "Always was."

But now Magnus threw down his book, and pitched into his friend very literally; pounding him, hustling him, getting him into a real fisticuff fight to protect himself.

"Feel better, don't you?" said Mr. Kindred, when the two faced each other, flushed and panting. "Balance of power restored?"

"I don't know how I feel!" said McLean. "I've lost all my ideas."

"Well, don't advertise them at any high figure," said Magnus.

"Let 'em alone, And they will come home, With their little tails behind 'em.

"Sit down and study, like a reasonable being. If I were a woman, I wouldn't _look_ at a man who couldn't hold his head up when my back was turned."

"It is quite impossible for me to look at a book," said Rig.

"Very good; sit still and sigh, and I'll write your explanation."

"To whom? What about?" Rig sat up now and gazed at him.

"To the Prof. To-morrow. As follows:

"'Sir: I have the honour to state that I have fallen into a six-inch mud puddle, and cannot get out in time for recitation. So wave motion must wait.'"

"Stuff!" McLean said rather angrily.

"Stuff, and nothing but stuff. Rig, when you get fired in June, your dear devoted will not turn her head to see which way you go to take the train. Not much!" said Magnus, relieving his feelings with a bit of slang, and then diving into his own problems for the next day. And Rig could get neither word nor look more that night. But whatever traditions may say, unlimited chocolate creams do not help a man with his tactics; nor does plum cake after taps provide him a clear head for next day's wave motion.

"You could make better marks, Mr. McLean," said the Superintendent one day, meeting Rig. "Why don't you, sir?"

And if Rig had been openly honest, he would have answered:

"Love--and mince pie, sir."

Magnus scolded his friend, fought him, jeered him; then tried other measures.

The days were softening and lengthening, with grass and flowers on the jump. Visitors were arriving in numbers; and for Magnus had come, from away across the continent, a bunch of snowdrops in Cherry's last letter. Somehow his own great happiness made the young cadet anxious for his friend.

"Look here, Trent," he said one day to another classmate, "can't you pitch in and spoon that Curry girl? Rig will be ruined."

"Spoon her yourself."

"Haven't time. One more will make no difference to you."

"Thanks. Rig will put a bullet in my head, if he suspects."

"Well, your brain always did need fresh air," said Magnus, "so that will fit. Why, to-day, in the section room, Hammer asked him the colour of old red sandstone,--and Rig answered:

"'Blue, Lieutenant.'"

"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Trent. "But isn't this rather a queer business to be talked up by our high and mighty magnate of the tender conscience? The man who keels over at the mere sight of a 'pony.'"

"Pshaw! if it was some girls," said Magnus. "But it will make no difference to her either. You've both worn your hearts out--supposing you ever had any."

"Thanks--awfully! And you think Miss Curry might be induced to hand over 'those fossil remains that she terms her affections' to me?"

"To your temporary care. You wear chevrons," said Magnus. "And your affections are as fossilised as hers, allowing for the argument's sake that such things ever existed. Just stroll up on the other side, when Rig's around. She'll be delighted. And as neither of you could possibly fall in love with anybody, there'll be nobody hurt."

"Except Rig."

"Rig!" Magnus said impatiently. "Rig ought to be cut in little pieces and sewed up some other way."

"Kin," said Mr. Trent, striking an easy attitude across the back of a chair, "you amuse me."

"Well, clear out and amuse yourself," said Magnus. "I've got a previous with this old book. And if Catkins finds you here, you'll be skinned for all he is worth."

Which warning Mr. Trent saw fit to heed.

XLVI

TRYING LETTERS

Though there's always enough to bear, There is always something to do; We have never to seek for care, When we have the world to get through.

--CHARLES SWAIN.

But whoever succeeded in driving the moth away from the candle? Magnus was fain to content himself with remembering that on most singed human moths, wings grow anew very fast.

Miss Curry welcomed Mr. Trent's advances with a gracious smile, but she by no means let go her hold of Rig; and Rig had perfectly lost his head. The girl might flout him five times a day, and these cool applications did but heighten the fever.

From the middle of April on, there was pretty steady "cadet weather." Whatever the dawn may threaten, it always clears off in time for drill, except on Saturdays, when the order is reversed, and the rain sets in with double force just as the hours of freedom begin.

Rain did not hinder some men. Magnus rather enjoyed wrapping himself in his long grey coat and stalking off into the gloom and the fog. The hills were so lovely in their misty caps, the air so laden with spring sweets: spice bush and trillium, black birch and dogwood and azalia, and all the leaf buds just bursting their varnished sheath. How fragrant the pines were! and the cedars and hemlocks: how dainty the small clouds of wayfaring birds just come to spend the night. And in another month _his_ birds of passage would be here, and the air full of their voices. Sometimes when Magnus thought of it, the excitement half made him wild; and he would set off for a sharp run up the hill, or a one-sided leap-frog among the rocks. Then he would throw himself down on the moss and hold his head and think. Or he took a squirrel track to the top of a tall tree and shouted (not too loud) and waved his cap to the passing trains, and saluted the old flag.

The Point filled up fast with candidates; and as Magnus looked at them, he did not much wonder at the glances which had once been cast on him. He found a slight touch of contempt the easiest thing in the world to creep in. A host of these sombre drones seeking something to do, a swarm of gay butterflies demanding only honey; what a motley crowd it made.

Even Magnus was drawn in by the honey-seekers; and took Miss Freak a walk after trailing arbutus, because she asked him so sweetly; and indeed himself asked some other girls to go here or there. And, of course, being a cadet, he said pretty things and made himself agreeable, though never beyond certain limits (N. B. I do not mean cadet limits, this time). As Miss Freak said, with her charming frankness:

"He never gives you anything to think of at night, when you get your back hair down."

But in spite of that small drawback, Mr. Kindred had his full share of what Mr. Clinker facetiously termed "drilling the Light Battery."

Some very pleasant and sensible girls came to the Point that spring; and in the great longing for sweeter tones than those of the average cadet, Magnus was ready enough to make acquaintance and take walks. And the girl generally declared: "It has been most delightful." Only when one gauzy creature looked up at him and said:

"Isn't it strange? You know I've always wanted to live at an army post--but I'm not engaged yet,"--then Cadet Kindred grew silent, and as soon as possible resigned in favour of Mr. Clinker.

So the hope-gilded days flew on: but with the end of May came a check.

Magnus got back from a long walk, to find two letters on his table. I know it is the correct thing for hero and heroine to "tear open" their letters, but Magnus cut his as carefully as if the very envelope might hold its quota of words.

"Dear Magnus," so the clear handwriting began, "I am afraid--no, I suppose I hope--that you will be very sorry. For I cannot go East with Mrs. Kindred and the girls."

And here, truth compels me to say, Cadet Kindred threw down the letter, and stamped about the room in a small tempest of displeasure.

"What's up?" queried Rig, who had noted the postmark. "Hasn't gone back on you, has she?"

For which harmless suggestion, Magnus promptly tumbled the offender out of his chair, and left him to pick himself up.

"I say! Steady on that, you know," commented Mr. McLean. "Girls are plenty; but where will you find a friend like me?"

"That was a beastly insinuation!" said Magnus in hot wrath.

"Was it? Girls are all alike, old boy." And Rig heaved a sigh.

"They're not! And this isn't what you mean by a girl. It's a--a----"

"An angel, perhaps," said Rig. "Then allow me to inquire what business you have to be rattled, with anything an angel sees fit to do."

"Rig," said Magnus seriously, pausing before him, "do you know whereabouts we are in barracks?"

"Second floor, first div.," Rig answered.

"Well, you can have a chance to measure the breadth of the window, and the depth to the ground, just as soon as you want it."

"Thanks, I'm sure," said Mr. McLean. "At this moment, I am hard at work on the problem of your temper, minus your common sense. What does the letter say?"

"Don't know yet," said Magnus. "I've only read three lines."

Rig looked at him, and then gathering up his own books, he carried them over to the cold steam pipes, laid them down, and perched himself at one end.

"You must excuse me," he said; "you are so plainly insane, that a due regard to my personal safety brings about this temporary coolness. 'Distance lends enchantment'--but you are more irresistible near by."

Magnus flung back into his chair again, with a half groan, and took up the letter. If it had been release from quarters he would have gone to Fort Put for the reading.

"Cannot come East!" he muttered to himself. "What's the use of reading on? She will not--and that's just where it is." And yet he read.

"Papa is not strong this spring; not at all able for the journey; and I cannot leave him alone. He says 'Go'--but I cannot, Magnus. Not this year." ("Bless her for that!") Magnus interlined. "But the girls are to see everything, and remember everything, and tell it all to me; and maybe when you graduate we can all be there."

"I think I will not write any more to-day, because I cannot talk of anything but this; and it is not best to say too much. But we are fighting in the same field, Magnus, even if we are out of sight of each other, and we get our orders from the same King. How I have thought over and over, the seeing you at parade! I felt sure I could always pick you out from all the three hundred. Good-bye.--Your Cherry."

It was well for Magnus that he had little time to brood over his disappointment. June was near at hand, some few "planks" of the Board of Visitors already arriving, and some last study to be done.

"You bone straight on through the year," Randolph said to him one day. "Why, in life, man, don't you let up, now and then?"

"I'm after another bone," Magnus answered him. But he did not say that when the "standing" roll came to the hand he loved best, her eyes must find the name of Charlemagne Kindred as high as it could possibly be.

"Just as high as I can put it," he told himself, with a fresh rush at everything. For faith does not spoil a man, nor holy living mar his scholarship.

So Magnus studied, and played tennis, and ran races; did exploits on the poles and ropes, and threw everybody who dared wrestle with him; won his marks, kept his chevrons, and did not lose his popularity.

But disappointments are said to hunt in couples. The next week after Cherry's letter of bad news, came one from Mrs. Kindred, with addition to the same. For she, too, must stay at home.

"Cherry wants my help in every way," wrote the mother. "I must stay with her. And it is really better, dear, on all accounts. For if I live till next June, I must go then to see you graduate,--and two such journeys cost."

Magnus sat back in great gloom, and declared that June was "fizzling out."

"I suppose the next word will be that Viola and Rose have some sort of a previous at the North Pole," he said.

XLVII

MRS. CONGRESSMAN

Pure was her mind and simple her intent, Good all she sought and kindness all she meant.

--CRABBE.

But no such climax followed. The girls wrote that they were to leave home on such a day, in charge of the wife of that very Congressman who had given Magnus his appointment. A true woman of the world in some things, but kindly, and not wanting in sense and tact. People said she liked uniforms herself, and was glad of a train of girls because it drew on a train of cadets. But neither thing was so very exceptional and unheard of that people needed to be hard on her. And she chose her girls well; always, if she could, some hid-away damsel whose one chance of getting to the Point this might be. And now, when the boy owed his place to her husband's good offices, it was her delight to take his sisters. The one stipulation was that she should have her own way about the bills.

"I must have a clear mind," she said, "and stop when I choose, and where I choose, or the trip won't be a speck of good. It's nobody's business how I manage my affairs, and you chits needn't strike in to be the first."

So in this lady's ample care Rose and Violet made the long journey, and enjoyed every scrap of it. The meals in the dining car, and (I'm afraid) the bunks in the so-called sleeper; even the small delays, for then they could look out to better advantage; and Mrs. Congressman voted them the two best girls she had ever taken anywhere. "Always ready for breakfast," she said, "and always willing to wait. It was as good as music to hear them laugh when we had to switch off on the side track, or when folks jammed past them to dinner; it sweetened the whole car; curled everybody's feathers...."

It was true, and I think would have been, even on a journey not into "Fairyland," though of course that helped. But the two were very quiet in their eager looking; the laugh and the exclamation were low-toned and well-bred. They asked sensible questions, and not too many even of them. Only when they got talking of Magnus, then indeed, the words came, with such sparkles and dimples and exultation, that Mrs. Congressman began to think her husband had done a bright thing for the country, when he gave that young soldier his place. But no one else in the car found out that they had a brother at West Point, and were on their way to see him; nor that their escort was the wife of an Hon. M. C.; such cheap fame our two girls had not learned to seek.

And thus it was a delightful little party that after some hours of rest, and a late breakfast, bestowed themselves in a palace car of the 11.30 train, and went swaying and swinging up the river.

People may say they have seen the Hudson, but never before as it is to-day, or as it will be to-morrow. The tide, the wind, the time of year, the temperature, the magnetic conditions, join hands in an endless chain of new effects. With a blue sky it is one thing, and will change its complexion on the instant, with the shadow of a passing cloud. To-day, in a frolic of white caps racing down before the north wind, and to-morrow rolling up in dull leaden surges, with a southern Banshee at its back. Now lapping the shore with sweetest whispers, now decked with a fringe of winter ice. Then frozen over from shore to shore, fitting in among the hills like an accurately cut sheet of white paper. But living, even then, with mysterious cracks and reports, with little plashes, where the tide breaks out along the edge.

It was May yet, with the lilac storm just past, and the river in full flood, tossed and heaving from the strain of the east wind. The green of the hills--the endless shades of the young leafage--seemed almost to change while you looked. The girls grew too breathless to talk even about Magnus, and to the hackneyed eyes of Mrs. Congressman, there was positive refreshment in the way those two arm-chairs whirled on their pivots, for last glimpses and new effects.

"My dear girls, I wish my neck had the untirable quality of yours," she said.

"Tired--how could one be tired?" said Violet. "Oh, Rose! just see that vessel with her sails swung out each side. That must be what Cooper means by 'wing and wing.'"

"Yes, the wind is stirring up," said Mrs. Congressman; "I'm sure I wish it would;" and she plied her fan.

"Let me fan you!" Rose cried, turning her chair away from the entrancing view.

"No, no! Look out and see all you can. I may be an old goose, but I know a little."

"You are just as kind as you can be, Mrs. Ironwood," said Rose gratefully.

"But allow me to remark, young ladies," said their friend, looking amused, "that at West Point there are also some things, and people, to look at. So don't get your necks stiff. You must not gaze in one direction all the time, there."

"Yes, ma'am. O, Violet, did you hear? The next stop is Garrisons!" And the two girls took hold of hands, as if to keep each other still.

"Yes, we're fairly in the Highlands now," said Mrs. Congressman, tying her bonnet strings. "Well, children, I'm glad you're so happy, and it's a real pleasure to have you along. Some girls are just a nuisance at West Point."

"Oh, I hope we shall not be a nuisance," Violet said, but looking out all the while.

"I'm afraid we shall make a great many mistakes," said Rose, studying the rocky green Dunderberg with her heart in her eyes. "You know we have just lived at home. Couldn't you tell us now, before we get there, how to do?"

"Bridges for rivers you'll not have to cross," quoth Mrs. Congressman, who had imbibed a little of her husband's manner, which now and then came out. "No use, child; you never do what you think you will. The chief thing at West Point, as everywhere, is to be a lady as much as a girl, and that you both are, always."

"Oh, thank you, ma'am!" Rose said warmly.

"There is one other thing," Mrs. Congressman went on, "that I might just remark. No manner of use, but it'll not do any harm. It is only, girls, that you must never believe anything cadets tell you."

This brought both chairs round on a sharp pirouette.

"Not anything!"

"But, you do not mean Magnus."

"Oh, Magnus is all the knights of the round table rolled into one; of course he takes in truth among his smaller virtues. The rest do not."

"Why, I thought Magnus said truth was one of the very first things there!" said Rose.

"Official truth. No cadet is allowed to fib officially. So they take it out socially."

The speaker kept a perfectly grave face, and the two girls looked aghast, felt so, all through the tunnel. But as they ran out in sight of Fort Montgomery and the tall outlines that rose up beyond, cadets (except Magnus) sunk down into very sublunary things.

"Oh, well, Magnus isn't so," Rose said contentedly.

"And we are not likely to see much of other cadets," Violet said, pressing close to her window.

Mrs. Congressman watched them for a minute; the graceful heads, the fair, well-bred faces; but then she seemed to find something very amusing out of her own window, for she smiled to herself till they reached Garrisons. There might be several cadets, she thought, who would have a word to say to that statement.

If Magnus had scanned the way over and up, because there was nobody there, for him, with what a difference the two young sisters watched every point where possibly he might be. Silently they followed their leader into the old omnibus, and noted every stone, stick, and leaf, that decked the road up the hill.

Passing the Mess Hall came a new sensation; for the day was so warm that windows and doors stood wide open, and there was not only the usual tumult of voices, but also a tangle of heads, arms, and grey cloth in view from the omnibus.

"The boys are at dinner," said Mrs. Ironwood.

"Oh, and is Magnus there, too?" cried the girls.

"Unless he's in the hospital."

"In the hospital!"

"He ought to be, if he's not eating his dinner. Might have sprained his ankle, dismounting too fast. Might have swallowed too much of Miss Somebody's cake."

But both these ideas were summarily dismissed.

"He is in there, of course," Rose said, her eyes full, and her heart wafting a blessing to the unseen brother; and with one consent the girls kissed their hands to the old grey building.

"Now, children," said Mrs. Congressman as they jolted on, "I must tell you one thing. This is all very well, tucked away in the 'bus with me; but never do you kiss hands to anybody at West Point, under other circumstances. There are always cadets lurking round in the bushes, and they'll think you mean _them_."

How the girls laughed! Whether because they had just been so near Magnus, or at this image of an ambush of other cadets, or the faint spice of danger in the air, or the general culmination; but even the quiet Rose came down from her dignity, and the omnibus rattled up to the hotel with a chorus of fun inside.

The needs of life are helpful and calming. Washing the dust off quiets one down, and prosaic dinner brings back one's sober senses. It was an extremely demure pair of girls that followed Mrs. Congressman into the dining-room, and gave earnest heed while she ordered dinner, surveyed the guests, scolded the waiter, and praised the soup.