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Chapter 15
The regiment was standing at order arms at the side of a lane,
waiting for the command to march, when suddenly the youth
remembered the little packet enwrapped in a faded yellow
envelope which the loud young soldier with lugubrious words
had intrusted to him. It made him start. He uttered an
exclamation and turned toward his comrade.
"Wilson!"
"What?"
His friend, at his side in the ranks, was thoughtfully staring
down the road. From some cause his expression was at that moment
very meek. The youth, regarding him with sidelong glances,
felt impelled to change his purpose. "Oh, nothing," he said.
His friend turned his head in some surprise, "Why, what was
yeh goin' t' say?"
"Oh, nothing," repeated the youth.
He resolved not to deal the little blow. It was sufficient that
the fact made him glad. It was not necessary to knock his friend
on the head with the misguided packet.
He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how
easily questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately, he
had assured himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize
him with a persistent curiousity, but he felt certain that
during the first period of leisure his friend would ask him to
relate his adventures of the previous day.
He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he
could prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination.
He was master. It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the
shafts of derision.
The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death.
He had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral,
and had doubtless in the packet of letters, presented various
keepsakes to relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had
delivered himself into the hands of the youth.
The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined
to condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor.
His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its
flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs,
and since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from
an encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts
of his own to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had
performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.
Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked
at them from a distance he began to see something fine there.
He had license to be pompous and veteranlike.
His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.
In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the
doomed and the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance.
Few but they ever did it. A man with a full stomach and the
respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything
that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe,
or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail;
the others may play marbles.
He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay
directly before him. It was not essential that he should plan
his ways in regard to them. He had been taught that many
obligations of a life were easily avoided. The lessons of
yesterday had been that retribution was a laggard and blind.
With these facts before him he did not deem it necessary that
he should become feverish over the possibilities of the ensuing
twenty-four hours. He could leave much to chance. Besides,
a faith in himself had secretly blossomed. There was a little
flower of confidence growing within him. He was now a man of
experience. He had been out among the dragons, he said,
and he assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had
imagined them. Also, they were inaccurate; they did not sting
with precision. A stout heart often defied, and defying, escaped.
And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen of
gods and doomed to greatness?
He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle.
As he recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them.
They had surely been more fleet and more wild than was
absolutely necessary. They were weak mortals. As for himself,
he had fled with discretion and dignity.
He was aroused from this reverie by his friend, who, having
hitched about nervously and blinked at the trees for a time,
suddenly coughed in an introductory way, and spoke.
"Fleming!"
"What?"
The friend put his hand up to his mouth and coughed again.
He fidgeted in his jacket.
"Well," he gulped at last, "I guess yeh might as well give me
back them letters." Dark, prickling blood had flushed into his
cheeks and brow.
"All right, Wilson," said the youth. He loosened two buttons
of his coat, thrust in his hand, and brought forth the packet.
As he extended it to his friend the latter's face was turned from him.
He had been slow in the act of producing the packet because
during it he had been trying to invent a remarkable comment on
the affair. He could conjure up nothing of sufficient point.
He was compelled to allow his friend to escape unmolested with
his packet. And for this he took unto himself considerable credit.
It was a generous thing.
His friend at his side seemed suffering great shame. As he
contemplated him, the youth felt his heart grow more strong
and stout. He had never been compelled to blush in such manner
for his acts; he was an individual of extraordinary virtues.
He reflected, with condescending pity: "Too bad! Too bad!
The poor devil, it makes him feel tough!"
After this incident, and as he reviewed the battle pictures he
had seen, he felt quite competent to return home and make the
hearts of the people glow with stories of war. He could see
himself in a room of warm tints telling tales to listener.
He could exhibit laurels. They were insignificant; still,
in a district where laurels were infrequent, they might shine.
He saw his gaping audience picturing him as the central figure
in blazing scenes. And he imagined the consternation and the
ejaculations of his mother and the young lady at the seminary
as they drank his recitals. Their vague feminine formula for
beloved ones doing brave deeds on the field of battle without
risk of life would be destroyed.
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