Читать книгу West Point Colors - Anna Bartlett Warner - Страница 15

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Are you shining for Jesus loyally,

Shining just anywhere;

Not only in easy places,

Not only just here and there? —F. R. Havergal.

In such fashion days and weeks rolled by; as time-wheels will, over the roughest ground, and through the most uninteresting country. For without doubt, drills can become monotonous; and if the body yielded itself more and more easily to regulations, as the time went on, so did not always the mind.

At first, in the strangeness of everything, details went for less, but now that he no longer wore the grey bag, to have his toes still kicked out set his blood tingling. He was so well made by nature, that "this extra regulation ramrod style," as he spitefully termed it, seemed like persecution. For some of the drill masters by no means slackened their demands as the need of them grew less.

"Get your shoulders back, Mr. Kindred!"

"Get them back, sir!"

"Get them back!"

"He had better take a sledge hammer and pound them in," Magnus declared one day.

"You'll be pounded for disrespect," Rig warned him.

"All right; it's a true bill. I don't respect that man, and I never shall."

"But officers, you know," suggested Rig.

"Oh, officers!" said Magnus loftily. "What business has he to be an officer, with the manners of a boot-black?"

However, as I said, time did wear on; with parades, drills, gymnastics, and the rest of it. And in the intervals, when upper classmen walked with the pretty girls, and went to teas and picnics, the plebs drew together and eyed them from a distance, making many comments, uttering many groans; but, most of all, knitting up firm and strong the class bond which no after-years could break.

This class bond is a most natural thing among boys who have faced hardships side by side; and in a way, it is very fine; but it has its danger, too.

The stand taken by each one in the class for and with each other one, in those first hard weeks when they feel as if every man's hand was against them all, sometimes passes into a "Stand by the class!" which cramps the influence, and hinders the action of many an individual man. "The class, right or wrong!" is never a safe motto.

One other little event in camp life that summer may be told over here, for its after-effect upon Magnus Kindred.

There were two or three men in the pleb class who, by reason of a certain offhand brightness of thought and tongue, had more influence with the rest than they deserved, for either their principles or their brains. Men able to put the wrong thing into such brilliant words, that the real meaning was lost sight of in the fun and the glitter. And so, in the scarcity of amusements, Magnus fell into the habit of lingering where they stood; listening to their sayings, laughing at their sallies, and, to a certain degree, following their lead. And, as often happens, the light words, the smart speeches which were not true, won their way. He began to hearken more readily, and more easily lent himself to plans and projects he might better have let alone; getting into the swirl of a current not likely to land him on any good and fruitful shore.

And then, as birds of a feather are apt to find each other out, some men of like tendencies in the first class made common cause, in a way; finding an admiring look of any sort quite pleasant, and a pleb a convenient catspaw, now and then. They made the musical ones come in for a chorus; and under such innocent cover matured their plans, and told their stories, to nobody's good.

If one of these wits set forth the fact that "Muffti" was sure to lead the prayer-meeting that night, Magnus would perhaps stay in his tent, or wander off beyond sound of the hymns, which always pricked his conscience and his heart as well. Or if some smart man made fun of the preacher who was to fill the chaplain's place during the summer vacation, Magnus was careful the next Sunday to practise himself in the fine art of sitting bolt upright when fast asleep. He grew to be an expert at smuggling in "boodle": he took the loan of books he had much better have let alone.

"Come round to my tent after dinner, Mr. Kindred," said Cadet Upright one day; and of course Magnus went; then stood attention in the straightest sort of way; very much wondering for what unknown breach of rules he was to be called to account by the first Captain.

So he stood up to all his inches, just within the tent door, while Cadet Captain Upright sat on a camp stool facing him; a stray sunbeam working its way in to touch the chevrons, and lighting up the honest, sunburnt face. Mr. Upright was no beauty, but not a man in the Corps was more thoroughly respected than he. "Not much to look at," said Sam Weller of his hat, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear!"

"Mr. Kindred," began Upright, "I asked you to come, because I wanted to talk to you."

He paused, and Magnus responded, "Yes, sir."

"You are in danger," Upright went on. "You are taking risks no wise man will shoulder."

"What have I done, sir?" Magnus demanded, stiffening slightly.

"Nothing special, to my knowledge," said the first captain, "But I see you in slippery places, where sooner or later a man must go down. And the mud often sticks for a good while to come, even after—and even if—he picks himself up and gets away."

"I don't see, sir," Magnus began—"what risks are you talking of, Mr. Upright?"

"The risk of being false to yourself, and to your Christian pledge and name; the risk of (practically) forgetting your mother and your mother's words."

But now Magnus burst forth.

"Forgetting my mother!" he said. Then checking himself:

"Oh, well, sir, that proves you never saw her, Mr. Upright."

Upright laughed, and his eyes shone.

"Good for you!" he said heartily. "But, Mr. Kindred, you are training with the wrong crowd."

And now Magnus coloured, and his eyes went down. Upright watched him for a moment in silence; then he took up a slip of paper, and held it out.

"Here is a reminding text I wrote off for you," he said. "Take it with you up and down the post. 'He setteth a print on the heels of my feet.' That will do, sir," and Magnus saluted, and whirled away.

"Might be the Com. himself, for the style he talks!" he grumbled, under his breath. But all the same, the words sank in. They were too true to miss a hearing, on the one side, and had been too kindly spoken to lose it, on the other. Yes, he was training with the wrong crowd, there was no doubt of that.

Magnus winced under the confession. There was no one he so little liked to find fault with as himself, and to court-martial Cadet Kindred, on his own knowledge and belief, was extremely unpleasant.

But the finding of the Court is rarely severe in such cases; and Magnus presently let himself off with a few admonitions to be more careful. He went to prayer-meeting regularly, boned discipline a little, and kept away from that crowd (what he called) "all he could."

Then they broke camp, and marched into barracks, and that was a help, for work began at a rate that left scant time for lawless play. Magnus Kindred had studied before, studied hard, but never with the exactness of drill and discipline and pressure that now filled every day. Breakfast, recitation, study, dinner, study, recitation, drill; then dress parade, supper, and study. Some of the plebs resigned and went home, others talked gloomily of being "found" in January; before which wintry fear homesickness itself gave way. And again others drew the buckles of their armour tight, looked well to their stirrups, and went at the difficulties, lance in rest.