In some things he had stood firm. The first brandy snap he got hold of at Mrs. Beguile's picnic went over the cliffs at Fort Putnam, to the great excitement of a nest of young squirrels. And the first bonbon drugged with rum followed: first, and last.
"But, easy and cheap!" he repeated to himself. "I was not going to be tricked into taking that stuff. I had said I wouldn't."
What else had he "said"?
Coming off next morning with O. G. P., Magnus got leave to go to the trunkroom, and hunted out a little copy of the Church covenant which he knew his mother had packed in with his other things. Then, under one of the shadowing trees of Fort Clinton, he lay on the grass and read it over.
"Unto Him, the Lord, you do now give yourself away, in a covenant never to be revoked, to be His willing servant forever."
Was it like a good servant to listen to slighting talk about his Master's laws? To be silent when the Name that is above every name was lightly spoken? Could he not rise and go from any company? How long would he be quiet if his mother's name was handled so? He did always wince, he was glad to remember, but who had been the wiser?
"Not even a poor little storm flag!" he said bitterly to himself. "And these are but catspaws that come to me."
Magnus turned over on his elbow, and looked across to the flagstaff, where the colours were having a lively time in the breeze; looked and looked, his eyes growing very grave, his lips firm.
"You're worth a half hundred of me, old comrade," he said, with a reverent wave of his cap. What was that his mother had said in her last letter?
"Thou, therefore, my son, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Turning back after a while to his former position, Magnus found himself face to face with a pile of muslin and lace, of which Miss Saucy was the fair centre. She stood a little away, gazing pensively at him, her white kids clasped in what might be either entreaty or dismay.