At last the knight was in the saddle. Much as Morton grieved when he
thought of Patty, he rejoiced now in the wholeness of his moral
purpose. Vacillation was over. He was ready to fight, to sacrifice,
to die, for a good cause. It had been the dream of his boyhood; it
had been the longing of his youth, marred and disfigured by
irregularities as his youth had been. In the early twilight of the
winter morning he rode bravely toward his first battle field, and, as
was his wont in moments of cheerfulness, he sang. But not now the
"Highland Mary," or "Ca' the yowe's to the knowes," but a hymn of
Charles Wesley's he had heard Cook sing the night before, some
stanzas of which had strongly impressed him and accorded exactly with
his new mood, and his anticipation of trouble and the loss of Patty,
perhaps, from his religious life:
"In hope of that immortal crown
I now the Cross sustain,
And gladly wander up and down,
And smile at toil and pain;
I suffer on my threescore years,
Till my Deliv'rer come
And wipe away his servant's tears,
And take his exile home.
* * * * * * * *
"O, what are all my sufferings here
If, Lord, thou count me meet
With that enraptured host to appear
And worship at thy feet!
Give joy or grief, give ease or pain,
Take life or friends away,
But let me find them all again
In that eternal day."
Long before he had reached Hissawachee he had ceased to sing. He was
painfully endeavoring to imagine how he would be received at home and
at Captain Lumsden's.
At home, the wan mother sat in the dull winter twilight, trying to
keep her heart from fainting entirely. The story of Morton's losses
at cards had quickly reached the settlement--with the easy addition
that he had fled to escape paying his debt of dishonor, and had
carried off the horse and gun which another had won from him in
gambling. This last, the mother steadily refused to believe. It
could not be that Morton would quench all the manly impulses of his
youth and follow in the steps of his prodigal brother, Lewis. For
Morton was such a boy as Lewis had never been, and the thought of his
deserting his home and falling finally into bad practices, had
brought to Mrs. Goodwin an agony that was next door to heart-break.
Job Goodwin had abandoned all work and taken to his congenial
employment of sighing and croaking in the chimney-corner, building
innumerable Castles of Doubt for the Giant Despair.
Mrs. Wheeler came in to comfort her friend. "I am sure, Mrs.
Goodwin," she said, "Morton will yet be saved; I have been enabled to
pray for him with faith."
In spite of her sorrow, Mrs. Goodwin could not help thinking that it
was very inconsistent for an Arminian to believe that God would
convert a man in answer to prayer, when Arminians professed to
believe that a man could be a Christian or not as he pleased.
Willing, however, to lay the blame of her misfortune on anybody but
Morton, she said, half peevishly, that she wished the Methodists had
never come to the settlement. Morton had been in a hopeful state of
mind, and they had driven him to wickedness. Otherwise he would
doubtless have been a Christian by this time.
And now Mrs. Wheeler, on her part, thought--but did not say--that it
was most absurd for Mrs. Goodwin to complain of anything having
driven Morton away from salvation, since, according to her
Calvinistic doctrine, he must be saved anyhow if he were elected. It
is so easy to be inconsistent when we try to reason about God's
relation to his creatures; and so easy to see absurdity in any creed
but our own!
The twilight deepened, and Mrs. Goodwin, unable now to endure the
darkness, lit her candle. Then there was a knock at the door. Ever
since Sunday the mother, waiting between hope and despair, had turned
pale at every sound of footsteps without. Now she called out, "Come
in!" in a broken voice, and Mr. Brady entered, having just dismissed
his school.
"Troth, me dair madam, it's not meself that can give comfort. I'm
sure to say something not intoirely proper to the occasion, whiniver
I talk to anybody in throuble--something that jars loike a varb that
disagrees with its nominative in number and parson, as I may say.
But I thought I ought to come and say you, and till you as I don't
belave Moirton would do anything very bad, an' I'm shoore he'll be
home afore the wake's out. I've soiphered it out by the Rule of
Thray. As Moirton Goodwin wuz to his other throubles--comin' out all
roight--so is Moirton Goodwin to his present dif_fic_culties. If the
first term and the third is the same, then the sicond and the fourth
has got to be idintical. Perhaps I'm talkin' too larned; but you're
an eddicated woman, Mrs. Goodwin, and you can say that me
dimonsthration's entoirely corrict. Moirton'll fetch the answer set
down in the book ivery toime, without any remainder or mistake.
Thair's no vulgar fractions about him."
"Fractious, did you say?" spoke in Job Goodwin, who had held his hand
up to his best ear, to hear what Brady was saying. "No, I don't 'low
he was fractious, fer the mos' part. But he's gone now, and he'll
git killed like Lew did, and we'll all hev the fever, and then
they'll be a war weth the Bridish, and the Injuns'll be on us, and it
'pears like as if they wa'n't no eend of troubles a-comin'. Hey?"
At that very moment the latch was jerked up and Henry came bursting
into the room, gasping from excitement.
"What is it? Injuns?" asked Mr. Goodwin, getting to his feet.
But Henry gasped again.
"Spake!" said Brady. "Out wid it!"
"Mort's--a-puttin'--Dolly--in the stable!" said the breathless boy.
"Dolly's in the stable, did you say?" queried Job Goodwin, sitting
down again hopelessly. "Then somebody--Injuns, robbers, or
somebody--'s killed Mort, and she's found her way back!"
While Mr. Goodwin was speaking, Mrs. Wheeler slipped out of the open
door, that she might not intrude upon the meeting; but Brady--oral
newspaper that he was--waited, with the true journalistic spirit, for
an interview. Hardly had Job Goodwin finished his doleful speech,
when Morton himself crossed the threshold and reached out his hand to
his mother, while she reached out both hands and--did what mothers
have done for returning prodigals since the world was made. Her
husband stood by bewildered, trying to collect his wits enough to
understand how Morton could have been murdered by robbers or Indians
and yet stand there. Not until the mother released him, and Morton
turned and shook hands with his father, did the father get rid of the
illusion that his son was certainly dead.
"Well, Moirton," said Brady, coming out of the shadow, "I'm roight
glad to see ye back. I tould 'em ye'd bay home to-noight, maybe. I
soiphered it out by the Single Rule of Thray that ye'd git back about
this toime. One day fer sinnin', one day fer throyin' to run away
from yersilf, one day for repintance, and the nixt the prodigal son
falls on his mother's neck and confisses his sins."
Morton was glad to find Brady present; he was a safeguard against too
much of a scene. And to avoid speaking of subjects more unpleasant,
he plunged at once into an account of his adventure at Brewer's Hole,
and of his arrest for stealing his own horse. Then he told how he
had escaped by the good offices of Mr. Donaldson. Mrs. Goodwin was
secretly delighted at this. It was a new bond between the young man
and the minister, and now at last she should see Morton converted.
The religious experience Morton reserved. He wanted to break it to
his mother alone, and he wanted to be the first to speak of it to
Patty. And so it happened that Brady, having gotten, as he supposed,
a full account of Morton's adventures, and being eager to tell so
choice and fresh a story, found himself unable to stay longer. But
just as he reached the door, it occurred to him that if he did not
tell Morton at once what had happened in his absence, some one else
would anticipate him. He had sole possession of Morton's adventure
anyhow; so he straightened himself up against the door and said:
"An' did ye hear what happened to Koike, the whoile ye was gone,
Moirton?"
"Nothing bad, I hope," said Morton.
"Ye may belave it was bad, or ye may take it to be good, as ye plase.
Ye know how Koike was bilin' over to shoot his uncle, afore ye went
away in the fall. Will, on'y yisterday the Captin he jist met Koike
in the road, and gives him some hard words fer sayin' what he did to
him last Sunthay. An' fwat does Koike do but bowldly begins another
exhortation, tellin' the Captin he was a sinner as desarved to go to
hill, an' that he'd git there if he didn't whale about and take the
other thrack. An' fwat does the Captin do but up wid the flat of his
hand and boxes Koike's jaw. An' I thought Koike would 'a' sarved him
as Magruder did Jake Sniger. But not a bit of it! He fired up rid,
and thin got pale immajiately. Thin he turned round t'other soide of
his face, and, wid a thremblin' voice, axed the Captin if he didn't
want to slap that chake too? An' the Captin swore at him fer a
hypocrite, and thin put out for home wid the jerks; an' he's been
a-lookin' loike a sintince that couldn' be parsed iver sence."
"I wonder Kike bore it. I don't think I could," said Morton,
meditatively.
"Av coorse ye couldn't. Ye're not a convarted Mithodist, But I must
be goin'. I'm a-boardin' at the Captin's now."
_CHAPTER XIX._