Even wounds and bruises heal more rapidly when the heart is cheered,
and as Patty, after spending Saturday and Sunday with the patient,
found time to come in and give him his breakfast every morning before
she went to school, he grew more and more cheerful, and the doctor
announced in his sudden style that he'd "get along." In all her
interviews Patty was not only a woman but a Methodist. She read the
Bible and talked to the man about repentance; and she would not have
been a Methodist of that day had she neglected to pray with him. She
could not penetrate his reserve. She could not guess whether what
she said had any influence on him or not. Once she was startled and
lost faith in any good result of her labors when she happened, in
arranging things about the room, to come upon a hideous wolf-skin cap
and some heavy false-whiskers. She had more than suspected all along
that her patient was a highwayman, but upon seeing the very disguises
in which his crimes had been committed, she shuddered, and asked
herself whether a man so hardened that he was capable of
theft--perhaps of murder--could ever be any better. She found
herself, after that, trying to imagine how the wounded man would look
in so fierce a mask. But she soon remembered all that she had
learned of the Methodist faith in the power of the Divine Spirit
working in the worst of sinners, and she got her testament and read
aloud to the highwayman the story of the crucified thief.
It was on Thursday morning, as she helped him take his breakfast--he
was sitting propped up in bed--that he startled her most effectually.
Lifting his eyes, and looking straight at her with the sort of stare
that comes of feebleness, he asked:
"Did you ever know a young Methodist circuit rider named Goodwin?"
Patty thought that he was penetrating her secret. She turned away to
hide her face, and said:
"I used to go to school with him when we were children."
"I heard him preach a sermon awhile ago," said the patient, "that
made me tremble all over. He's a great preacher. I wish I was as
good as he is."
Patty made some remark about his having been a good boy.
"Well, I don't know," said the patient; "I used to hear that he had
been a little hard--swore and drank and gambled, to say nothing of
dancing and betting on horses. But they said some girl jilted him in
that day. I suppose he got into bad habits because she jilted him,
or else she jilted him because he was bad. Do you know anything
about it?"
"Yes."
"She's a heartless thing, I suppose?"
Patty reddened, but the sick man did not see it. She was going to
defend herself--he must know that she was the person--but how? Then
she remembered that he was only repeating what had been a matter of
common gossip, and some feeling of mischievousness led her to answer:
"She acted badly--turned him off because he became a Methodist."
"But there was trouble before that, I thought. When he gambled away
his coat and hat one night."
"Trouble with her father, I think," said Patty, casting about in her
own mind how she might change the conversation.
"Is she alive yet?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Give her head to marry Goodwin now, I'll bet," said the man.
Patty now plead that she must hasten to school. She omitted reading
the Bible and prayer with the patient for that morning. It was just
as well. There are states of mind not favorable to any but the most
private devotions.
On Friday evening Patty intended to go by the cabin a moment, but on
coming near she saw horses tied in front of it, and her heart failed
her. She reasoned that these horses belonged to members of the gang
and she could not bring herself to plunge into their midst in the
dusk of the evening. But on Saturday morning she found the strangers
not yet gone, and heard them speak of the sick man as "Pinkey." "Too
soft! too soft! altogether," said one. "We ought to have shipped
him----" Here the conversation was broken off.
The sick man, whom the others called Pinkey, she found very uneasy.
He was glad to see her, and told her she must stay by him. He seemed
anxious for the men to go away, which at last they did. Then he
listened until Mrs. Barkins and her children became sufficiently
uproarious to warrant him in talking.
"I want you to save a man's life."
"Whose?"
"Preacher Goodwin's."
Patty turned pale. She had not the heart to ask a question.
"Promise me that you will not betray me and I'll tell you all about
it."
Patty promised.
"He's to be killed as he goes through Wild Cat Woods on Sunday
afternoon. He preaches in Jenkinsville at eleven, and at Salt Fork
at three. Between the two he will be killed. You must go yourself.
They'll never suspect you of such a ride. If any man goes out of
this settlement, and there's a warning given, he'll be shot. You
must go through the woods to-night. If you go in the daytime, you
and I will both be killed, maybe. Will you do it?"
Patty had her full share of timidity. But in a moment she saw a
vision of Morton Goodwin slain.
"I will go."
"You must not tell the doctor a word about where you're going; you
must not tell Goodwin how you got the information."
"He may not believe me."
"Anybody would believe you."
"But he will think that I have been deceived, and he cannot bear to
look like a coward."
"That's true," said Pinkey. "Give me a piece of paper. I will write
a word that will convince him."
He took a little piece of paper, wrote one word and folded it. "I
can trust you; you must not open this paper," he said.
"I will not," said Patty.
"And now you must leave and not come back here until Monday or
Tuesday. Do not leave the settlement until five o'clock. Barkins
will watch you when you leave here. Don't go to Dr. Morgan's till
afternoon and you will get rid of all suspicion. Take the east road
when you start, and then if anybody is watching they will think that
you are going to the lower settlement. Turn round at Wright's
corner. It will be dark by the time you reach the Long Bottom, but
there is only one trail through the woods. You must ride through
to-night or you cannot reach Jenkinsville to-morrow. God will help
you, I suppose, if He ever helps anybody, which I don't more than
half believe."
Patty went away bewildered. The journey did not seem so dreadful as
the long waiting. She had to appear unconcerned to the people with
whom she boarded. Toward evening she told them she was going away
until Monday, and at five o'clock she was at the doctor's door,
trembling lest some mishap should prevent her getting a horse.
"Patty, howdy?" said the doctor, eyeing her agitated face sharply.
"I didn't find you at Barkins's as I expected when I got there this
morning. Sick man did not say much. Anything wrong? What scared
you away?"
"Doctor, I want to ask a favor."
"You shall have anything you ask."
"But I want you to let me have it on trust, and ask me no questions
and make no objections."
"I will trust you."
"I must have a horse at once for a journey."
"This evening?"
"This evening."
"But, Patty, I said I would trust you; but to go away so late, unless
it is a matter of life and death----"
"It is a matter of life and death."
"And you can't trust me?"
"It is not my secret. I promised not to tell you."
"Now, Patty, I must break my promise and ask questions. Are you
certain you are not deceived? Mayn't there be some plot? Mayn't I
go with you? Is it likely that a robber should take any interest in
saving the life of the person you speak of?"
Patty looked a little startled. "I may be deceived, but I feel so
sure that I ought to go that I will try to go on foot, if I cannot
get a horse."
"Patty, I don't like this. But I can only trust your judgment. You
ought not to have been bound not to tell me."
"It is a matter of life and death that I shall go. It is a matter of
life and death to another that it shall not be known that I went. It
is a matter of life and death to you and me both that you shall not
go with me."
"Is the life you are going to save worth risking your own for? Is it
only the life of a robber?"
"It is a life worth more than mine. Ask me no more questions, but
have Bob saddled for me." Patty spoke as one not to be refused.
The horse was brought out, and Patty mounted, half eagerly and half
timidly.
"When will you come back?"
"In time for school, Monday."
"Patty, think again before you start," called the doctor.
"There's no time to think," said Patty, as she rode away.
"I ought to have forbidden it," the doctor muttered to himself half a
hundred times in the next forty-eight hours.
When she had ridden a mile on the road that led to the "lower
settlement" she turned an acute angle, and came back on the
hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, if I may speak so
geometrically. She thus went more than two miles to strike the main
trail toward Jenkinsville, at a point only a mile away from her
starting-place. She reached the woods in Long Bottom just as Pinkey
told her she would, at dark. She was appalled at the thought of
riding sixteen miles through a dense forest of beech trees in the
night over a bridle-path. She reined up her horse, folded her hands,
and offered a fervent prayer for courage and help, and then rode into
the blackness ahead.
There is a local tradition yet lingering in this very valley in Ohio
in regard to this dark ride of Patty's. I know it will be thought
incredible, but in that day marvelous things were not yet out of
date. This legend, which reaches me from the very neighborhood of
the occurrence, is that, when Patty had nerved herself for her lonely
and perilous ride by prayer, there came to her, out of the darkness
of the forest, two beautiful dogs. One of them started ahead of her
horse and one of them became her rear-guard. Protected and comforted
by her dumb companions, Patty rode all those lonesome hours in that
wilderness bridle-path. She came, at midnight, to a settler's house
on the farther verge of the unbroken forest and found lodging. The
dogs lay in the yard. In the early morning the settler's wife came
out and spoke to them but they gave her no recognition at all. Patty
came a few moments later, when they arose and greeted her with all
the eloquence of dumb friends, and then, having seen her safely
through the woods and through the night, the two beautiful dogs,
wagging a friendly farewell, plunged again into the forest and
went--no man knows whither.
Such is the legend of Patty's Ride as it came to me well avouched.
Doubtless Mr. John Fiske or Mr. M. D. Conway could explain it all
away and show how there was only one dog, and that he was not
beautiful, but a stray bull-dog with a stumpy tail. Or that the
whole thing is but a "solar myth." The middle-ages have not a more
pleasant story than this of angels sent in the form of dogs to convoy
a brave lady on a noble mission through a dangerous forest. At any
rate, Patty believed that the dumb guardians were answers to her
prayer. She bade them good-by as they disappeared in the mystery
whence they came, and rode on, rejoicing in so signal a mark of God's
favor to her enterprise. Sometimes her heart was sorely troubled at
the thought of Morton's being already the husband of another, and all
that Sunday morning she took lessons in that hardest part of
Christian living--the uttering of the little petition which gives all
the inevitable over into God's hands and submits to the
accomplishment of His will.
She reached Jenkinsville at half-past eleven. Meeting had already
begun. She knew the Methodist church by its general air of square
ugliness, and near it she hitched old Bob.
When she entered the church Morton was preaching. Her long
sun-bonnet was a sufficient disguise, and she sat upon the back seat
listening to the voice whose music was once all her own. Morton was
preaching on self-denial, and he made some allusions to his own
trials when he became a Christian which deeply touched the audience,
but which moved none so much as Patty.
The congregation was dismissed but the members remained to "class,"
which was always led by the preacher when he was present. Most of
the members sat near the pulpit, but when the "outsiders" had gone
Patty sat lonesomely on the back seat, with a large space between her
and the rest. Morton asked each one to speak, exhorting each in
turn. At last, when all the rest had spoken, he walked back to where
Patty sat, with her face hidden in her sun-bonnet, and thus addressed
her:
"My strange sister, will you tell us how it is with you to-day? Do
you feel that you have an interest in the Savior?"
Very earnestly, simply, and with a tinge of melancholy Patty spoke.
There was that in her superior diction and in her delicacy of
expression that won upon the listeners, so that, as she ceased, the
brethren and sisters uttered cordial ejaculations of "The Lord bless
our strange sister," and so on. But Morton? From the first word he
was thrilled with the familiar sound of the voice. It could not be
Patty, for why should Patty be in Jenkinsville? And above all, why
should she be in class-meeting? Of her conversion he had not heard.
But though it seemed to him impossible that it could be Patty, there
was yet a something in voice and manner and choice of words that had
almost overcome him; and though he was noted for the freshness of the
counsels that he gave in class-meeting, he was so embarrassed by the
sense of having known the speaker, that he could not think of
anything to say. He fell hopelessly into that trite exhortation with
which the old leaders were wont to cover their inanity.
"Sister," he said, "you know the way--walk in it."
Then the brethren and sisters sang:
"O brethren will you meet me
On Canaan's happy shore?"
And the meeting was dismissed.
The members thought themselves bound to speak to the strange sister.
She evaded their kindly questions as they each shook hands with her,
only answering that she wished to speak with Brother Goodwin. The
preacher was eager and curious to converse with her, but one of the
old brethren had button-holed him to complain that Brother Hawkins
had 'tended a barbecue the week before, and he thought that he had
ought to be "read out" if he didn't make confession. When the old
brother had finished his complaint and had left the church, Morton
was glad to see the strange sister lingering at the door. He offered
his hand and said:
"A stranger here, I suppose?"
"Not quite a stranger, Morton."
"Patty, is this you?" Morton exclaimed
Patty for her part was pleased and silent.
"Are you a Methodist then?"
"I am."
"And what brought you to Jenkinsville?" he said, greatly agitated.
"To save your life. I am glad I can make you some amend for the way
I treated you the last time I saw you."
"To save my life! How?"
"I came to tell you that if you go to Salt Fork this afternoon you
will be killed on the way."
"How do you know?"
"You must not ask any questions. I cannot tell you anything more."
"I am afraid, Patty, you have believed somebody who wanted to scare
me."
Patty here remembered the mysterious piece of paper which Pinkey had
given her. She handed it to Morton, saying:
"I don't know what is in this, but the person who sent the message
said that you would understand."
Morton opened the paper and started. "Where is he?" he asked.
"You must not ask questions," said Patty, smiling faintly.
"And you rode all the way from Hissawachee to tell me?"
"Not at all. When I joined the church Father pulled the latch-string
in. I am teaching school at Hickory Ridge."
"Come, Patty, you must have some dinner." Morton led her horse to
the house of one of the members, introduced her as an old schoolmate,
who had brought him an important warning, and asked that she receive
some dinner.
He then asked Patty to let him go back with her or send an escort,
both of which she firmly refused. He left the house and in a minute
sat on his Dolly before the gate. At sight of Dolly Patty could have
wept. He called her to the gate.
"If you won't let me go with you I must go to Salt Fork. These men
must understand that I am not afraid. I shall ride ten miles farther
round and they will never know how I did it. Dolly can do it,
though. How shall I thank you for risking your life for me? Patty,
if I can ever serve you let me know, and I'll die for you. I would
rather die for you than not."
"Thank you, Morton. You are married, I hear."
"Not married, but I am to be married." He spoke half bitterly, but
Patty was too busy suppressing her own emotion to observe his tone.
"I hope you'll be happy." She had determined to say so much.
"Patty, I tell you I am wretched, and will be till I die. I am
marrying one I never chose. I am utterly miserable. Why didn't you
leave me to be waylaid and killed? My life isn't worth the saving.
But God bless you, Patty."
So saying, he touched Dolly with the spurs and was soon gone away
around the Wolf Creek road--a long hard ride, with no dinner, and a
sermon to preach at three o'clock.
And all the hour that Patty ate and rested in Jenkinsville, her
hostess entertained her with accounts of Sister Ann Eliza Meacham,
whom Brother Goodwin was to marry. She heard how eloquent was Sister
Meacham in prayer, how earnest in Christian labor, and what a model
preacher's wife she would be. But the good sister added slyly that
she didn't more than half believe Brother Goodwin wanted to marry at
all. He'd tried his best to give Ann Eliza up once, but couldn't do
it.
When Patty rode out of the village that afternoon she did her best,
as a good Christian, to feel sorry that Morton could not love the one
he was to marry. In an intellectual way she did regret it, but in
her heart she was a woman.
_CHAPTER XXX._