Part 8

"If only she could hear it!" he used to think; if only the "All's well!" could cross those weary miles that kept her away. But now, somehow, he did not wish it. Yes, it was all well with the camp, all well with the Post; was it all well with him? Would the words bear a true report as _she_ would understand them?

Cadet Kindred studied the point a good deal as he lay there in the guard tent looking himself over, or stole a solitary walk now and then. And I say "stole" advisedly. Short of stealing away, a solitary walk was hard to get.

If, at the risk of his neck, he slid down some sheer cliff to the river's edge, few indeed would follow him, but a cadet boat might come along shore with a barge-load of girls in tow. And sometimes he was quick enough to dodge behind the bushes, and sometimes he sat still and let the shower of exclamations come.

"Oh, there's Mr. Kindred!"

"Just _see_ Mr. Kindred!"

"Mr. Kindred, _please_ get right into the boat."

"Haven't a permit."

"There's nobody round," said the Kitten. "Jump in quick. You _never_ can get back up there without being dashed to pieces."

"Hardly _with_. Then there'll be one less 'additional' in the way."

"How dreadful! I thought you were better brought up than to talk so."

"I was."

"Were you really so very well brought up?" said the Kitten, with her head on one side. "Do you know, I should never have thought it."

Magnus rose to his feet, and doffed his cap profoundly.

"Now you've done it, Puss," said Miss Saucy.

"Why, I don't see how," said the Kitten. "I hate well-brought-up people; that's why I spoke."

"Better hate Kin as fast as you can, then," said Chappy from the boat, "so's there'll be a chance for some of the rest of us. Why, he don't sleep in chapel more than every other Sunday."

"How can he help going to sleep, poor boy?" said Miss Saucy. "Such sermons!"

"Well, come now," said another cadet, "that last sermon wasn't half bad. And not more than twice as long as was necessary."

"Yes, but for these times!" quoth Miss Saucy. "Why, it was just like saying 'Be good,' don't you know?"

"Hard upon the times, wasn't it?" said Magnus.

"Well, row on," said the Kitten with a deep sigh. "I see by his face nothing _I_ can say will do any good. But it is such a pity! I never guessed he was that sort. A new fad, isn't it?" she said in a loud aside, as the oars dipped and rose. "Good-bye, Mr. Kindred! I hope your meditations will be very profitable."

"Thank you," Magnus answered, standing up again, "I think they will."

He watched the boat as it went on over the dimpling water, then changed his place a little, and began on a new end of his thoughts. This girl had "never guessed he was that sort."

Maybe she was only telling society fibs, but Magnus would not let himself off so. For what reason had he ever given her to think him a Christian? Where had his colours been, in all these walks and talks and meetings? Up his sleeve, in hiding?

"But I cannot flaunt them in people's faces," Magnus pleaded for himself.

No, and no more did the flag its stars and stripes; only waved them joyously overhead.

He had been ready to say that the constant frolic with the gay crowd was not good for him, but how about his side of the influence? Had he ever tried talking sense to girls whom he condemned for talking only nonsense? "Ye are the salt of the earth," but salt refreshes, stimulates, purifies; how far had he been like that? Without being priggish, without setting up for a preacher, could he not show in every way that the service of Christ was better than all else, and the knowledge of Him the most joyful thing in all this world? "Ye are my witnesses," said the Lord Jesus; and what sort of testimony did Cadet Magnus Kindred give from day to day? No matter how other men did, what had he done?

The final outcome of all these cogitations was a letter.

"CAMP GOLIGHTLY,

"July --, 18--.

"MY DEAR MOTHER:

"I don't see why you don't come East and look after your boy. How do you know what he is about here? Better come and see whether you want him home on furlough; that is, if that time ever comes, which I don't believe it will. Three, six, well nigh eight months yet before it will even be 'One hundred days to June.' Besides, they may find me in January, and then, instead of going home, I should go as straight to the Antipodes as if they'd shot me out of a catapult."

"Don't be uneasy; I'm not skinned more than twice a day on an average; skins grow fast here, and skinning is nothing when you get used to it. So the eels say. And I'm sure to take daddy's scalp when we get back to barracks. Not much of a possession, either, I must own."

"Do you realise, ma'am, that your son is that much detested and overworked and maligned being a yearling Corporal?--wearing chevrons, and sporting dignity enough for three Major-Generals? Come and see me drill the plebs; best fun you ever saw in your life--when you aren't one of 'em."

"But now, mother, this is serious. Do bring up our three girls respectably, so that when they come here for first-class camp, they'll know how to behave. But first of all, you've got to come yourself and brush me up. Buy your ticket for West Point, stop at Garrisons, cross in the ferryboat, and take the omnibus up the hill. Look out both sides all the way up; and the minute you see a grey uniform throw up his cap, get out. I suppose I might run it down the hill, but then if I get in con. and couldn't see you all the time you were here, it wouldn't pay. And Towser'd be sure to be round with his patent magnifiers."

"So I'll go to the edge of limits, and as you don't know where that is, look out. If you get lost, I'll put Towser on the track and he'll know where you are before you know it yourself. I wonder the Phil. Department don't set him to work on the lost Pleiad."

"Heigh-ho! I wish you were here this minute--with your bag full of gingercakes. I was on guard last night, and had nothing to eat but those old cast-iron sandwiches. So we put 'em in the reveille gun and they went off that way. Love to the girls. Don't bring 'em this time, but come yourself."

"Your (very) third class Corporal, CHARLEMAGNE KINDRED."

"I enclose a picture of myself which you may like to see."

XVI

RE-ENFORCEMENTS READY

Rien n'est impossible: il y a des voies qui conduisent à toutes choses; et si nous avions assez de volonté, nous aurions toujours assez de moyens.

--ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"Like to see it!" Well, I suppose they did. It will not do to say that never was photograph so devoured; too many just such counterfeits of boys in grey have sped across this broad continent and been just so received; but it was well for this particular one that mere looking at things cannot wear them out.

At first, after one astonished look and exclamation they all broke down and cried. Partly for joy--for how handsome he was! and how those bell buttons did set him off!--partly for the wild longing it stirred to have him in their arms again. But with this came in another feeling: that keen, subtle pang which detects a change. Was their own wayward, careless, happy-go-lucky Magnus really hid away behind that perfectly buttoned coat? For even a year at West Point makes a wonderful change, which even accustomed eyes find marvellous; what wonder that these unwonted ones grew wide open as they gazed? He had graduated from the mild sway of persuasion and was under orders.

If the first half hour's study of the picture was full of joy, it may be doubted if the pain of the second had all the softening that really belonged to it. _This_ exact, stately young man, _her_ Magnus, who used to catch her in his arms and whirl her off her feet. _This_ soldierly fellow _their_ brother, who would swing himself by one foot from the apple tree and climb the lightning rod and hold on by his teeth to the window sill? They did not write all this out for themselves, but the smiles faded. Not their boy any longer, but Uncle Sam's.

"I should think they might have left him just a few curls!" said Violet, identifying one small grievance. "Oh, I wonder what Cherry will say?"

"I wish she'd come," said poor Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to speak calmly. "Cherry is always so wise. And I am such a goose," she added, feeling after a stray smile. "Of course, he could not be at West Point and a soldier and look like my little boy still."

"Let me run up with it to Cherry and bring her back," said Rose.

"No, no, leave it here!" cried the mother. "I cannot have it out of my sight one minute. Oh, girls! was there ever such a handsome fellow seen, anywhere?"

"Never, I do believe," said Rose. "Mother, his eyes haven't changed one bit. Just see how they laugh at you----" But that look stopped the words.

"What is going on here?" said a sweet young voice at the window. "What are you all studying out?" And Cherry's quick, soft steps came through the hall and into the room.

"Don't tell her! Don't tell her!" cried both the girls in an eager whisper.

"Come in, love," said Mrs. Kindred. "We were just wishing for you."

"Yes, come and tell us what you think," said Rose. And placing themselves each side of Cherry, the two girls marched her up to a place behind their mother's chair, where she could look over Mrs. Kindred's cap and see the picture, watching to hear what she would say.

But Cherry said never a word. She started, and gave a little cry at first sight of that wonderful presentation of her hero, but then she stood quite still; her fingers interlacing each other, the red and white playing hide and seek on her young face. That undefined change which they all felt came to her with a difference. For Magnus had never been hers to have and to hold, but only to gaze at from a safe distance; and suddenly, lo! he had become more wonderful than ever. Whether this put him further away or not gave Cherry no trouble just then; she had forgotten herself and the whole world at first sight of this picture of that astonishing person, Cadet Charlemagne Kindred.

"Do you think it looks like him, dear?" Mrs. Kindred said plaintively; and with a quick jump down to earth, Cherry answered in the most matter-of-fact way:

"It must, Mrs. Kindred; it is a photograph."

"That's true," said the mother. "I had forgotten that, Cherry; you always say just the right thing." And she turned round and held up her face to kiss the girl who had spoken with such calm wisdom. But poor Cherry found out then that her own nerves were overstrung, and she had no answer ready. And what sort of an unconscious feeling was it that made her turn away and take up the empty "Pach" envelope and look inside; _could_ Magnus have put in a second copy for her? An action, by the way, it was a pity that young man did not see, walking, as he was just then, round Flirtation and making pretty speeches to the youngest Miss Fashion.

Cherry laid down the envelope and put on her hat.

"You are strange people not to like it," she said.

"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad because it looks different."

"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying the hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go flying open, in the Army."

"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing at her young soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me! Dear me! But take off your hat and sit down, child; here is a whole long letter to read."

There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her with bewildered eyes.

"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said. "Why, I thought he had the whole Government to do that."

"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone, I am sure," said Rose.

"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is homesick, Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."

"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.

"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his mother." Her voice choked a little.

"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite failing to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma, don't look so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of you; he ought to be."

"And of course, you will go to him at once," put in Violet. "Then you can tell us all about him and the place and everything."

"Go to him!" These lively spirits, treading down impossibilities with their young feet, were too much for her.

"Why, girls, I haven't the money."

"You shall have my new winter bonnet--which was to be," said Rose.

"And all my Christmas presents which, perhaps, were not to be," said Violet. "I've got five cents besides in my strong box."

"And Uncle Thorn will help," said Rose. Mrs. Kindred held up her hand.

"Be quiet, all of you," she said, "or I shall lose my senses." She sat looking at that boy in grey who was homesick for the sight of her.

"It isn't 'all of us,' at all, mamma," said Violet, "for Cherry is as still as a mouse. Speak up, red lips, and give us your opinion."

Speaking low, as before, Cherry made answer that it would be safe to read the whole letter, before deciding upon anything, which was such a self-evident point of wisdom that they all laughed, and the reading began again.

"Now, mamma, don't stop till you get through, no matter what he says," pleaded Rose. And Mrs. Kindred tried, but in truth it was hard. Every sentence or two she would stop and look up helplessly, at the two faces that bent over her, or try for encouragement from Cherry's shining eyes, down by the table. Which eyes, however, were not always in sight. Cherry found some wonderful things in the letter, which the others missed; and so now and then retired into her own private meditations. "Bring up _our_ three girls" and "when _they_ come." Clearly, then, she also was expected at "first-class camp," whatever that might be.

"Cherry, you don't seem to hear, my child. What does he mean about their 'finding' him and his not coming home, but going to the Antipodes?"

"I think it is just some of his nonsense, Mrs. Kindred," said the girl, too happy to be alarmed. "He wants to make you come, and so he says all the queer things he can think of. You see West Point hasn't really changed him one bit."

"Dear fellow!" said the mother, with another look at the picture. "I think you must be right, Cherry. I am getting used to the dress a little. And I'd almost give my life to see him. But do you really think I could go so far alone, even if I had the money?"

With the happy courage of their years, the girls assured her that nothing possibly could be easier; get in and get out all right, and the railway companies would do the rest.

"Uncle Thorn will put you in, you know," said Violet, "and as for your getting out, when you are so near Magnus I don't believe anybody could keep you in the cars without handcuffs and fetters. You'll just fly out."

"But suppose I fly out too soon?" said Mrs. Kindred, to whose eyes the two thousand miles of space loomed up very large indeed.

"You will not," said Rose decidedly. "Conductor will not let you. Read on, mamma, please."

So Mrs. Kindred read on, only to get more hopelessly mixed as to the real state of things. "Skins" and "scalps"--third-class corporals and the Antipodes; laying it off on the West Point vernacular did not clear up the meaning a bit. And when the letter had been read carefully twice through from end to end, Mrs. Kindred laid it down and calmly announced that she should set off for the East as soon as she could get ready. And the girls kissed her and cheered her, and only wished they could go too.

And things turned out a good deal as they had said. Mr. Thorn not only bought her ticket, but put her in careful charge of the conductor. The girls packed the modest little trunk, stowing in all the gingercakes there was room for; Violet laid in a dainty handkerchief embroidered with the young cadet's initials, Rose added a small pincushion "to go in his pocket," and Cherry, with some demurs, sent him her last little drawing of the old apple tree which had been his own special private gymnasium. Cherry had a very pretty knack with her pencil. Then they all went to the station to see her off, even some of the neighbours joining in.

"It's a clear Providence your goin', Mrs. Kindred," said one good woman, whose husband had come West looking for "royal roads" to wealth and place. "Now you kin tell us all about it, for sen' Magnus went, we've been athinkin' o' sendin' our Bill. He's a dreffle shiftless feller: don't take after me, if I do say it. Bill just despises work in any shape or way, and so his father kinder thought maybe he'd do for West Point. They'd pull him through, likely, just as they do the rest, and then he'd he provided for."

Happily, the train came, and nobody could answer. The girls went home and held an indignation meeting, and Mrs. Kindred rolled swiftly away, very soon forgetting everything else in the one thought that she was going to see her boy.

XVII

THREE CHEERS AND A TIGER

'Twas morn, a most auspicious one: From the golden East the golden sun Came forth his glorious race to run, Through clouds of most splendid tinges. Clouds that lately slept in shade, But now seemed made Of gold brocade; With magnificent golden fringes.

--HOOD.

Yes, it was a royal August day. The last summer month has a very different character in different places. In town, where, instead of

"Three months of sunshine bound in sheaves"

you have the same stored up in pavements and glowing from brown stone fronts, it is a time which men naturally enough choose for their vacation, and leave the city home behind them as fast and as far as they can. September rains may clear the air, but till then, away.

But in the Highlands, with here and there a rare exception, August is one of the very loveliest months of all the year. We say of a human face that it is finer after life has given its touches and done somewhat of its fine chiselling, and a little so does the last summer month surpass the two that went before. More sedate than jocund June; far calmer than July with its tempests and fervid heats, the shadows fall differently, the changed lights give you a new insight into things. The days are so exquisite partly because they are shortening; the flowers hurry out in troops. And nowhere in all the year do we have such a succession of wonderful sunset skies as in August. Then the temperature is for the most part perfect; the cool mornings and evenings only the fairer for the midday heat. It is a time when you can sit out, dine out, and well nigh take leave of the house altogether.

One wise thing inexperienced Mrs. Kindred remembered to do. From point to point as the miles rolled by, she sent postals to the girls at home, and one at the outset to Magnus. He knew just when to look for her. And so, when the day came, and dinner was over, Cadet Charlemagne reported his absence at the guard tent, and strolled away to Trophy Point, and seated himself to wait and watch. Too early yet by an hour; but he was restless and could do nothing else.

The day was cloudless now; the noon heats still in the air; the hazy, lazy hum of the locusts thrilled out on every side. Perhaps lazy is not just the word--but there are no inflections; they fight it out on one line, as few tired workers ever can.

A suspicion of real haze hung over Newburgh; the more distant hills looked faint and dreamy. Far up the river a long tow wound silently down, leaving its trail upon the quiet water; nearby a sloop or two went softly on, spreading their white wings to the breeze. There was just enough air stirring to lift and drop, lift and drop, the bunting on the flagstaff.

Magnus sat looking and listening, drawing a deep breath now and then. How long it seemed since he first saw Trophy Point and that flagstaff!--and it was really but fourteen months. He glanced up at the flag, just then shaking out its lovely folds. That had not changed. And he knew his mother had not; she would be just the same blessed person she had always been. But how about himself? and what would she think of him? And now, studying that question, Magnus took out mentally his own private stand of colours and looked at them, matching them with the flag overhead. It hung very still just then; and yet he could see a star here, a touch of the stripes there. Storms might beat it to ribands, but they could not change the colours nor make the flag come down.

"That weak strip of bunting!" thought Magnus, with a certain interlining of words not complimentary to himself. And other words written above his father's grave came quick and clear: "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

Magnus stood up and walked slowly along the little path to another point, whence he could see the "Central" road.

"I'm no end glad she's coming!"--so ran his thoughts. "But I just wonder how she'll like her boy? And there she comes!"

For now a puff of white smoke rose up at the mouth of the Breakneck tunnel and then fell into a long, curling line, and began to wind its way rapidly along the curves of the river road.

Magnus watched it, jumped on the seat to see it better still, and then tossed his cap into the air like any boy let out of school.

"Hurrah, old flag!" he cried; "there she comes! Now you'll see somebody worth looking at."

The white line rushed on, paused at Cold Spring, whirled along over the north bay and hid itself in the green Island woods, while Magnus, again waving his cap and this time so recklessly that it was near going down the hill, hurried away to Battery Knox, ran up on the green parapet, and stood to watch. The engine came puffing over the south bay as if the fate of the nation hung on its speed, dived into the Garrisons tunnel and slowed up.

How long it stayed!

"Just to put off mother and her little trunk!" thought Magnus, laughing to himself, and then getting such dim eyes that he could not see a thing. But he felt as if he could hug even the trunk.

And now, puff, puff, the train slowly moved away from the station, and the little ferryboat rang her bell. Of course, his mother was there, in the small, dark throng that came down to the river, and of course he must therefore really see her, but--Oh! it was too tantalising! I think at that minute Magnus would have given anything (except furlough) for a good glass.

The boat was off, steering across the river in a pretty curve to suit the tide; the smooth water turning back in two long lines of wrinkles in her wake.

Magnus leaped down from the parapet and was speeding away up the path at a great rate when there came a hail:

"Mr. Kin--dred!"

Magnus paused to see.

Clustered about the pathetic white column that looking calmly down on the silent river, tells in such vivid fashion its terrible tale of struggle and death, were three or four very summery looking girls: Miss Fashion, Miss Dangleum, and another whom Magnus did not know.

"_Do_ come here, Mr. Kindred," pleaded Miss Dangleum.

Well, a cadet is nothing if he is not a squire of distressed damsels. Magnus turned and jumped down to where they stood.

"What's the matter?" he said; "has a fan gone down the hill? or is a parasol in trouble?"

"There, isn't that just like you!" said Miss Fashion. "No, nothing so serious as that."

"Miss Beguile has come," said Miss Dangleum, "and she asked you down to a private view of her eyes."

"Oh, _Nina_!" said Miss Beguile, in soft expostulation.