Daisy
Grant's 'elogies and 'ologies. Now this would never have happened if
he had been at home."
I did not understand her, but then I knew she did not understand the
pursuits she so slighted; and it was beyond my powers to enlighten
her. So I did not try.
Mr. Thorold was punctual, and so was I; and we set forth at five
o'clock, I at least was happy as it was possible to be. Warm it was,
yet; we went slowly down the road, in shadow and sunshine; tasting the
pleasantness, it seems to me, of every tree, and feeling the sweetness
of each breath; in that slight exhilaration of spirits which loses
nothing and forgets nothing. At least I have a good memory for such
times. There was a little excitement, no doubt, about going this walk
with a cadet and a stranger, which helped the whole effect.
I made use of my opportunity to gain a great deal of information which
Dr. Sandford could not give. I wanted to understand the meaning and the
use of many things I saw about the Point. Batteries and fortifications
were a mysterious jumble to me; shells were a horrible novelty; the whole
art and trade of a soldier, something well worth studying, but difficult
to see as a reasonable whole. The adaptation of parts to an end, I could
perceive; the end itself puzzled me.
"Yet there has always been fighting," said my companion.
"Yes," I assented.
"Then we must be ready for it."
But I was not prepared in this case with my answer.
"Suppose we were unjustly attacked?" said Mr. Thorold; and I thought
every one of the gilt buttons on his grey jacket repelled the idea of
a peaceable composition.
"I don't know," said I, pondering. "Why should the rule be different
for nations and for individual people?"
"What is your rule for individual people?" he asked, laughing, and
looking down at me, as he held the gate open. I can see the look and
the attitude now.
"It is not _my_ rule," I said.
"_The_ rule, then. What should a man do, Miss Randolph, when he is
unjustly attacked?"
I felt I was on very untenable ground, talking to a soldier. If I was
right, what was the use of his grey coat, or of West Point itself? We
were mounting the little steep pitch beyond the gate, where the road
turns; and I waited till I got upon level footing. Then catching a
bright inquisitive glance of the hazel eyes, I summoned up my courage
and spoke.
"I have no rule but the Bible, Mr. Thorold."
"The Bible! What does the Bible say? It tells us of a great deal of
fighting."
"Of bad men."
"Yes, but the Jews were commanded to fight, were they not?"
"To punish bad men. But we have got another rule since that."
"What is it?"
"If any man smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also."
"Is it possible you think the Bible means that literally?" he said.
"Do you think it would say what it did not mean?"
"But try it by the moral effect; what sort of a fellow would a man be
who did so, Miss Randolph?"
"I think he would be fine!" I said; for I was thinking of One who,
"when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he
threatened not." But I could not tell all my thought to Mr. Thorold;
no more than I could to Dr. Sandford.
"And would you have him stand by and see another injured?" my
companion asked. "Wouldn't you have him fight in such a case?"
I had not considered that question. I was silent.
"Suppose he sees wrong done; wrong that a few well-planted blows, or
shots, if you like--shots are but well-directed blows," he said,
smiling--"wrong that a few well-planted blows would prevent. Suppose
somebody were to attack you now, for instance; ought I not to fight
for it?"
"I should like to have you," I said.
"Come!" he said, laughing, and stretching out his hand to shake mine,
"I see you will let me keep my profession, after all. And why should
not a nation do, on a larger scale, what a man may do?"
"Why it may," I said.
"Then West Point is justified."
"But very few wars in the world are conducted on that principle," I
said.
"Very few. In fact I do not at this moment recollect the instances.
But you would allow a man, or a nation, to fight in self-defence,
would not you?"
I pondered the matter. "I suppose he has a right to protect his life,"
I said. "But, 'if a man smite thee on the cheek,' _that_ does not
touch life."
"What would you think of a man," said my companion, gravely, "who
should suffer some one to give him such a blow, without taking any
notice of it?"
"If he did it because he was _afraid_," I said, "of course I shouldn't
like that. But if he did it to obey the Bible, I should think it was
noble. The Bible says, 'it is glory to pass by a transgression.'"
"But suppose he was afraid of being thought afraid?"
I looked at my companion, and felt instinctively sure that neither
this nor my first supposed case would ever be true of him. Further, I
felt sure that no one would ever be hardy enough to give the supposed
occasion. I can hardly tell how I knew; it was by some of those
indescribable natural signs. We were slowly mounting the hill; and in
every powerful, lithe movement, in the very set of his shoulders and
head, and as well in the sparkle of the bright eye which looked round
at me, I read the tokens of a spirit which I thought neither had known
nor ever would know the sort of indignity he had described. He was
talking for talk's sake. But while I looked, the sparkle of the eye
grew very merry.
"You are judging me, Miss Randolph," he said. "Judge me gently."
"No, indeed," I said. "I was thinking that you are not speaking from
experience."
"I am not better than you think me," he said, laughing, and shaking
his head. And the laugh was so full of merriment that it infected me.
I saw he was very much amused; I thought he was a little interested,
too. "You know," he went on, "my education has been unfavourable. I
have fought for a smaller matter than that you judge insufficient."
"Did it do any good?" I asked.
He laughed again: picked up a stone and threw it into the midst of a
thick tree to dislodge something--I did not see what; and finally
looked round at me with the most genial amusement and good nature
mixed. I knew he was interested now.
"I don't know how much good it did to anybody but myself," he said.
"It comforted me--at the time. Afterwards I remember thinking it was
hardly worth while. But if a fellow should suffer an insult, as you
say, and not take any notice of it, what do you suppose would become
of him in the corps--or in the world either?"
"He would be a noble man, all the same," I said.
"But people like to be well thought of by their friends and society."
"I know that."
"He would be sent to Coventry unmitigatedly."
"I cannot help it, Mr. Thorold," I said. "If anybody does wrong
because he is afraid of the consequences of doing right, he is another
sort of a coward--that is all."
Mr. Thorold laughed, and catching my hand as we came to a turn in the
road where the woods fell away right and left, brought me quick round
the angle, without letting me go to the edge of the bank to get the
view.
"You must not look till you get to the top," he said.
"What an odd road!" I remarked. "It just goes by zigzags."
"The only way to get up at all, without travelling round the hill.
That is, for horses."
It was steep enough for foot wayfarers, but the road was exceeding
comfortable that day. We were under the shade of trees all the way;
and talk never lagged. Mr. Thorold was infinitely pleasant to me; as
well as unlike any one of all my former acquaintances. There was a
wealth of life in him that delighted my quieter nature; an amount of
animal spirits that were just a constant little impetus to me; and
from the first I got an impression of strength, such as weakness loves
to have near. Bodily strength he had also, in perfection; but I mean
now the firm, self-reliant nature, quick at resources, ready to act as
to decide, and full of the power that has its spring and magazine in
character alone. So, enjoying each other, we went slowly up the
zigzags of the hill, very steep in places, and very rough to the foot;
but the last pitch was smoother, and there the grey old bulwarks of
the ruined fortification faced down upon us, just above.
"Now," said Mr. Thorold, coming on the outside of me to prevent it,
"don't look!"--and we turned into the entrance of the fort, between
two outstanding walls. Going through, we hurried up a little steep
rise, till we got to a smooth spread of grass, sloping gently to a
level with the top of the wall. Where this slope reached its highest,
where the parapet (as Mr. Thorold called it) commanded a clear view
from the eastern side, there he brought me, and then permitted me to
stand still. I do not know how long I stood quite still without
speaking.
"Will you sit down?" said my companion; and I found he had spread a
pocket-handkerchief on the bank for me. The turf in that place was
about eighteen inches higher than the top of the wall, making a very
convenient seat. I thought of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh;
but I also thought the most queenly thing I could do was to take the
offered civility, and I sat down. My eyes were bewildered with the
beauty; they turned from one point to another with a sort of
wondering, insatiable enjoyment. There, beneath our feet, lay the
little level green plain; its roads and trees all before us as in a
map, with the lines of building enclosing it on the south and west. A
cart and oxen were slowly travelling across the road between the
library and the hotel, looking like minute ants dragging a crumb
along. Beyond them was the stretch of brown earth, where the cavalry
exercises forbade a blade of grass to show itself. And beyond that,
at the farther edge of the plain, the little white camp; its straight
rows of tents and the alleys between all clearly marked out. Round all
this the river curved, making a promontory of it; a promontory with
fringed banks, and levelled at top, as it seemed, just to receive the
Military Academy. On the other side the river, a long sweep of gentle
hills, coloured in the fair colours of the evening; curving towards
the north-east into a beautiful circle of soft outlines back of the
mountain which rose steep and bold at the water's edge. This mountain
was the first of the group I had seen from my hotel window. Houses and
churches nestled in the curve of tableland, under the mountain. Due
north, the parapet of the fort rising sharply at its northern angle a
few feet from where I sat, hindered my full view. Southerly, the hills
swept down, marking the course of the river for many a mile; but again
from where I sat I could not see how far. With a sigh of pleasure my
eye came back to the plain and the white tents.
"Is guard duty very disagreeable?" I asked, thinking of Preston's talk
in the morning.
"Why at mid-day, with the thermometer at 90 deg., it is not exactly the
amusement one would choose," said Mr. Thorold. "I like it at night
well enough."
"What do you do?"
"Nothing, but walk up and down, two hours at a time."
"What is the use of it?"
"To keep order, and make sure that nothing goes in or out that has no
business to do it."
"And they have to carry their guns," I said.
"Their muskets--yes."
"Are they very heavy?"
"No. Pretty heavy for an arm that is new to it. I never remember I
have mine."
"Mr. Caxton said," (Mr. Caxton was the cadet who had introduced Mr.
Thorold to me)--"Mr. Caxton told Mrs. Sandford that the new cadets are
sometimes so exhausted with their tour of duty that they have to be
carried off the ground."
Mr. Thorold looked at me, a very keen bright look of his hazel eyes;
but he said nothing.
"And he said that the little white boxes at the corners of the camp,