THE DOCTOR'S RIDE.
If the doctor was an eccentric man, he could be, when the occasion
demanded it, both kind and thoughtful. More than once during Katharine's
confinement he had ridden far beyond his circuit, and visited her in
that lonely prison. No one was ever made aware of the fact, and he
alone, of all that neighborhood, with one exception, was informed that
Nelson Thrasher was also an inmate of the same prison. From the good old
people it had been kept with religious delicacy. They knew that
Katharine had a right to her freedom, and could now return home at
pleasure; but she had written to ask more time. Duties, she said, to her
fellow-prisoners kept her among them yet a little longer. She was free
to depart, but the hospital needed her, and with the warden's consent
she remained in voluntary service, teaching those whom she would soon
leave behind how to tend and comfort the sick as she had done. This was
an appeal that the old people could understand, so the lone mother
submitted quietly to a few more months of solitude, and the Thrashers
said to each other:
"Who knows but Nelson may come back before then?"
But time creeps on, even in a prison, and at last Thrasher was set free.
The doctor knew the time, and had the harness put on his old friend that
morning at an early hour. The horse did not exactly like this
proceeding. He objected to any long ride without the saddle-bags.
Indeed, he did not feel exactly like a respectable doctor's horse
without that appendage, and remonstrated against the indignity of reins,
thills, and whiffle-trees, with vigorous shakes of the head, and even a
vicious kick or two. But the doctor came out and expostulated with him
after his own quaint fashion, and directly the two went off in harmony,
one at each end of the reins.
For two whole days the sick of that neighborhood for fifteen miles
around took care of themselves, and grumbled accordingly.
On the evening of the second day, there was a terrible rumbling of loose
wheels along the Derby turnpike, for the brown horse had caught sight of
his home, and instantly went off in a rickety series of leaps that
almost tossed the doctor from his seat in front of the wagon.
"Don't be afraid," he said, turning to the back seat, where a man and
woman were seated, with the light of a crescent moon lying tenderly on
their faces. "It's his way when things go to suit him. The sight of home
always sets him off."
"Oh, I am not afraid," said a sweet female voice "It's a long time since
either of us have known what fear was. Isn't it, Nelson?"
The man thus addressed clasped the little hand which stole into his with
tender force, but said nothing. His heart was too full. The trial that
lay before him at the end of that ride might have taxed the courage of
any man.
They rode on to the doctor's house. He got out of the wagon, removed the
temporary seat which had accommodated him from Simsbury, and held a
silent counsel with his horse, patting the old fellow on the neck, and
using all the conciliatory blandishments for deluding horseflesh into
obedience, which have since been dignified into a science.
"There now, get along," he said, moving toward the gate. "He'll go ahead
without balking. No need of a whip. The old chap wont stand that from
anybody but me. Drive on, and God be with you."
The strange man leaned heavily on his crutches, and gently lifted his
hat as he uttered these words. The soft moonlight fell upon his head,
and a grander one seldom bared itself in reverence to a noble sentiment.
As the doctor wheeled around he saw the members of his family coming out
to welcome him home. His manner changed at once. Inwardly delighted with
their prompt affection he put the children aside with good-natured
rebukes of their clamorous joy, and stalking into the room, which served
as an office, sunk quietly into a leathern easy chair, and desired the
eldest boy to hand down his fiddle.
The boy took an old violin from its place on the wall and gave it into
his father's hand. The doctor drew a lump of rosin from his pocket,
rasped the bow with it for a full minute, then lifting the instrument to
his shoulder began to play; directly the children came rushing in from
the hall and kitchen, astonished, for some of the wildest and most
invigorating music heard for many a day, rang out from the dark old
violin, filling the whole house with cheerfulness.
The doctor's wife--a fine woman, of the Connecticut stamp--came softly
into the room with word that his supper was on the table; but he only
answered with a dash at Yankee Doodle, and revelled in it with a zest
ten thousand suppers could not have excited. The good housewife never
urged her husband to any thing; she knew the folly of that too well; so
she sat down pleasantly and listened to his music. It was well worth the
trouble, for the doctor threw off a world of generous thankfulness in
those erratic notes, and when music comes from the soul it is always
good. She asked no questions, but knew very well that something
satisfactory had happened to her husband, for he always expressed these
feelings through his violin.
Meantime the two travellers kept on up the turnpike. They passed the
rock spring, which sparkled out from the shadows cast over it from the
dogwood thickets; all cut up root and branch in these days, and moved
slowly over the old bridge. They could see the white spire of the
Episcopal church, rising into the moonlight from the high bank opposite,
and, with the sight, Katharine's heart melted within her. She lifted her
eyes to Thrasher; the moonlight lay full upon his face. It was pale and
troubled. In that church he had been baptized.
Katharine took his hand with touching gentleness, and pressed it to her
lips. Her face was so heavenly that he bent down and kissed it, leaving
a heavy tear on her cheek, which she would not have wiped away for the
world.
"Ah, Nelson!" she said, clasping her hands and lifting her eyes from the
church spire to the heavens, which it seemed to penetrate--"how plainly
I see the great goodness of God in all that has happened. At first it
was very dark, and I struggled against the cruelty of that arrest, and
the unjust sentence which branded me before the world. I forgot that the
Son of God was thus assailed, thus branded! and worse still, put to
death, that Christianity might be our inheritance. I did not know what
great happiness might spring out of this degradation; how holy a work
lay waiting for me in that prison!"
"My poor girl, it was a terrible life for you. Can God forgive me for
bringing you there?"
"Nelson, this is wrong--it is unkind! It was to be; God knew what was
best, and sent me in the path of a great duty against my will, or I
never should have found it. He had compassion on those poor creatures so
barbarously cut off from every thing sweet and good in life. They were
perishing or turning to demons for the want of a little care, a few kind
words, a smile of pity now and then. I was poor as poor could be,
helpless as a child, but these things I could give them; so he thought
it best that I should go.
"I was rebellious at first, Nelson, and wondered how it could be that I,
an innocent woman, should suffer among the guilty. I was so young, so
weak, and miserably selfish. Besides, I hoped so fondly that you would
come back and save me. But they were dragging me away from all
possibility of seeing you."
"My poor Katharine!"
"Oh, it was hard! it was hard!" she said, laying her forehead on his
shoulder; "for I thought you loved me! I thought you loved me!"
He drew her head close to his bosom, but said nothing; self-reproach
held his heart in silence.
"With this hope of seeing you again, rising above every thing, it was a
cruel thought that you might come home and find me there, think perhaps
that I had harmed your child."
"No, Katharine--no, I never could have believed that. In my most insane
moments I knew and felt how good you were."
"But these thoughts would come to me in my prison, Nelson; I could not
help that. So I struggled against that hard fate and wanted to die. The
people were wrong and harsh with me, the law was wrong, the judges were
wrong, but God was right."
"I--I was the most cruel of all," said Thrasher, in a low, pained voice.
"Still it was all needful. What else would have won me from home to live
among those poor convicts, to help them and feel for them, till a
beautiful happiness sprang up to me out of those dreary mines. Then,
then," she added, with a gush of tender gratitude, "just as I had
learned to live and endure for others, knowing that God's wisdom was
higher than man's justice, you came, my husband, and I had the power to
help you. I so weak, and you so strong! From that day I knew how great a
blessing had been won for me, out of what seemed the deadly ruin of a
life. In that black depth I found the heart of my husband."
"Oh, a worthless, wicked heart, Katharine!"
"But it was mine--all mine!"
He girded her closer with his arm, and that was answer enough.
"Then you began to trust me, and believe in me, Nelson; as a strong man
lets some little child lead him, because of its very helplessness; you
listened to me and loved me--for you do love me, Nelson!"
"The God you worship so beautifully, Katharine, only knows how much I
love you!"
"Oh, we shall be very happy!" answered the young woman, bowing her head,
while a soft rain of tears fell down her cheeks. "Every soul in the
prison loved us. God has forgiven us!"
"Not us, Katharine! It is I that have need of His pardon; not you, my
wife!"
But in her sweet humility she would not have it so, and protested
against it. "No, no; I was untamed, impatient, disobedient to my mother.
In a woman these are great sins. We are equal there as in the mercies
which fall around us now."
Thrasher was a man of few words, but his wife understood this, and saw,
by the emotion in his face, how deeply his spirit was touched.
They fell into silence after this, and rode on slowly, thinking of those
they were about to meet. The wagon rolled heavily up Falls Hill, turned
at the old willow tree, and passed up the Bungy road approaching the old
homestead.
They came to Mrs. Allen's house first. It was dark and still as the
grave. Why was this? The hour did not warrant such dreary darkness, such
utter solitude.
Katharine, who was leaning eagerly forward, fell back with a heavy
sigh. Was her mother dead? Had sorrow broken her heart at last? Was it a
tomb to which she had come, after eight long years of imprisonment?
They left the wagon, and knocked at the door. There was no footstep
within. No answering voice. Not even a gleam of fire light to speak of
an existing household.
They returned to the wagon without speaking, and drove slowly over the
hill; very slowly, for that empty house had filled them with painful
forebodings.
From the butternut tree they got a first sight of the old homestead.
From the sitting room window a steady light was burning, which fell upon
a great snowball bush, turning the huge white blossoms that covered it
into globes of gold. "They are alive; they are at home!" said Thrasher.
"God be thanked!"