Part 23 (2/2)
”Then I shall go with you!” he said, starting toward her with a light step, in keeping with the gallantry of a man even younger than his years. He spoke in a tone of protective masculine authority, as an officer might to a woman of whom he was fond when he saw her exposing herself to danger. He would escort her; he would see that no harm befell her. The impulse was spontaneous in an illusion free of the gardener's part. But he saw her lips tighten and a frown gather.
”It is not necessary, thank you!” she answered, more coldly than she had ever spoken to him. This had a magically quick effect on his att.i.tude.
”I beg pardon! I forgot!” he explained in his old man's voice, his head sinking, his shoulders drooping in the humility of a servant who recognizes that he has been properly rebuked for presumption. ”Not a gunner any more--I'm a spy!” he thought, as he shuffled off without looking toward the batteries again, though the music of wheels and hoofs was now close by. ”I must turn my back on the guns, for they tempt me.
And I must win her consent before I shall have even the dignity of a spy--and I will win it!” he added, brightening. ”La, la, la! Trust me!”
Marta had a glimpse, as she turned away, of an appealingly pathetic figure bent as under a wound to his spirits, which gave her a sense of personal cruelty in the midst of a wave of pity and regret.
”He is what he is because of the army; a victim of a cult, a habit,” she was thinking. ”Had he been in any other calling his fine qualities might have been of service to the world and he would have been happy.”
Then her sympathy was drawn to another object of war's injustice--a man approaching under the guard of two soldiers. Suddenly the man planted his feet and refused to budge.
”I tell you, it isn't fair!” he cried in rage and appeal. ”I tell you, I was only visiting on this side and got caught! I'm a reservist of the first line. If I don't answer the call I'll be branded a s.h.i.+rker in my village, and I've got to live in that village all my life. You better kill me and have done with it!”
”Sorry,” said one of the soldiers, ”but you were caught trying to sneak.
We're acting under orders. No use of balking.”
”Who wouldn't sneak?” demanded the prisoner desperately. ”Oh, say, be a little human! The worst of it is that I came over here to see my girl to say good-by to her. I'm going to marry her,” he pleaded, ”though my folks are against it because she's a Brown. It makes me so cheap--it--”
”We were told to take you to the general. He'll let you off if there isn't any war, and he may, anyway. But he sure won't if you resist arrest.” The soldiers seized his arms firmly. ”Come along!” they said, and he went. Any one must go when a steel claw of the demon enforces the order.
A company of infantry resting among their stacked rifles changed the color of the square in the distance from the gray of pavement to the brown of a ma.s.s of uniforms. In the middle of the main street a major of the brigade staff, with a number of junior officers and orderlies, was evidently waiting on some signal. Sentries were posted at regular intervals along the curb. The people in the houses and shops from time to time stopped packing up their effects long enough to go to the doors and look up and down apprehensively, asking bootless, nervous questions.
”Are they coming yet?”
”Do you think they will come?”
”Are you sure it's going to be war?”
”Will they sh.e.l.l the town?”
”There'll be time enough for you to get away!” shouted the major. ”All we know is what is written in our instructions, and we shall act on them when the thing starts. Then we are in command. Meanwhile, get ready!”
A lieutenant of a detachment of engineers coming at the double from a cross street stopped to inquire:
”This way to the knitting mills?”
”Straight ahead! Can't go wrong!” the major answered.
”We are going to loophole their walls for the infantry,” explained the lieutenant as he hurried on.
”Then they're going to fight in the town!”
”Blow our homes to pieces!”
”Destroy our property!”
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