I cannot bear it any longer, said the pewter soldier as he sat on the drawers; it is so lonely and melancholy here.
—Hans Andersen.
It was the evening for band concert at the camp: a warm first of August. A red glow lingered over Crownest, the stars came out slowly, hazy with the heat; the katydids were publishing their arrival in the usual contradictory way. As the twilight deepened, the camp began to light up, and in front of the colour-line one especial burner shone full upon the concert programme, which was posted on a stick. Beyond this a small circle of lights marked the standing place of the band.
Cadets were everywhere—half in a tent, or half out; walking, sauntering, standing, in twos and threes and half-dozens; some down on the grass where the lights shone full, and some hid away in the shadows towards Fort Clinton.
Other figures were coming up, too, and dresses of every hue flitted across the plain. The dew lay sweet and fresh upon every grass-blade, but then the grass was short, and nobody minded dew when going to band concert.
Often some grey uniform was escorting some dainty lady: these coming straight from the houses, and those others pausing, after a delightful tryst at Trophy Point, or a saunter along the upper bends of Flirtation. For, in those days, the concert night limits were—so far as you could hear and distinguish the music.
The plebs kept together, and away from the gay throng; unless where some especially happy boy had a cousin on hand. But a great event had marked that day in Camp Hard; for the obnoxious "grey bags" had disappeared, giving place to the full uniform, bell buttons and all complete; and at last the plebs looked like cadets.
Magnus Kindred had been as jubilant as anyone over the change, and nobody had given a heartier parting kick to the grey bag. But "a competency is what a man has, and a little more"—and so, then, the young man wanted someone to look at him. How his mother and sisters would have stroked the sleeve of that wonderful dress coat, and admired the buttons: how they would have studied out every turn of braid and quirl of adornment. And Cherry—no, they were not her little hands he seemed to feel on his arm: her hands were just folded in their pretty way, and she stood a few steps off, laughing at the others, and secretly admiring him. She never said so, but what innocent, true-hearted girl can quite keep it out of her eyes, when her hero stands before her? Or, if the eyes sometimes grew shy and turned away, the lips laughed, and told it still.
"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus said, almost aloud, his own lips parting in a smile at the sweet vision. But then they closed again firmer than ever. Two thousand miles away (it seemed five thousand to Magnus), and two whole years before he could go there. And a weary sigh measured off both time and space, and found them endless.
"Joseph," whispered Mrs. Gresham to her son (they were just opposite Magnus), "who is that boy?"
"Kindred—fourth class."