In the spring, a little before the fall of Boston, Doctor John came
home. Second Westings learned then for the first time what he had so
studiously and considerately kept concealed,--the fact that he had been
wounded in a skirmish two months before. As soon as he was well enough
for the journey, he had been ordered home. He looked gaunt, and walked
with some difficulty, but otherwise seemed fairly well; and he made
haste to take back his old patients, with many expressions of amazement
that they had not died off under Jim Pigeon's treatment.
His coming brought new cheer to Westings House; and to Barbara,
reassured by his explicit accounts of her uncle's abounding health, it
meant such stimulus and diversion as was to be had of endless,
sympathetic talks. The little group of four were as close to one
another as of old,--yet with a difference. The love and trust were as
of old, but the dividing of hopes and aims threw Barbara more and more
with Doctor John, Mistress Mehitable more and more with Doctor Jim.
This seemed perfectly natural,--yet it soon began to cause a certain
heaviness on Doctor John's part, which made his whimsical sallies grow
infrequent. It caused, at the same time, a certain uneasiness on the
part of Doctor Jim; and Mistress Mehitable was seen more than once with
tears in her eyes, when, as it seemed to Barbara, there was no very
definite reason for the phenomenon. And all these symptoms troubled
Barbara. She grew more than commonly tender of Doctor John.
One day when she and Doctor John and Doctor Jim had strolled down to
the tavern to see the Hartford coach come in, they found a knot of
eager listeners gathered about two horsemen who were drinking a pot of
ale. As the little party approached, its members were pointed out, and
the horsemen turned to look at them with sharp interest. The two came
from up the river, in the next county, and were on their way to join
the Connecticut battalions under Putnam. They were bitter partisans,
and one of them had lost a brother in the fighting at Quebec. To them
it was of little account that Doctor John was a good rebel,--such, in
their eyes, all good men were bound to be. And they did not appreciate
the fact that he was an officer in the army they were about to join.
What they saw was simply Doctor Jim, the declared Tory, shameless and
unafraid. They eyed him with growing menace, uncertain, by reason of
the fact that he was walking between Barbara and Doctor John, just what
they wanted to do.
Presently Doctor Jim swung away by himself to speak to a lad whose
mother he was treating. He was giving some little order, when the two
horsemen, riding up to him, thrust him against the icy watering-trough
so unexpectedly that he fell over it. Bewildered, and not
understanding that he had been deliberately attacked, he was picking
himself up in a sputter of vexation, when one of the riders, a
fierce-eyed, burly fanatic, reached over the trough and cut at him
viciously with his riding-whip, exclaiming, "Take that, you damned Tory
dog!"
The blow missed Doctor Jim's head, but fell smartly across his
shoulders. The next moment a great hand seized the rider, tore him
from his seat, jammed him furiously against his horse's rump, and
dashed him down upon the dirty snow. Then Doctor John turned to deal
likewise with the second culprit. But he had forgotten his wound. He
grew white, reeled, and would have fallen, but that two of the Second
Westings men sprang to his aid and held him up.
When the stroke of the whip fell on his shoulders, Doctor Jim had
understood. With one of his wordless explosive roars he had sprung
right over the trough to take Homeric vengeance. But when he saw
Doctor John he forgot all about vengeance, he forgot all about the
attack.
"What is it, John?" he cried, picking him up as if the huge frame were
a feather, and carrying him to the settee outside the inn door.
"Nothing, Jim, nothing! The old wound, you know, and the heart not yet
just right," muttered Doctor John, recovering quickly, but leaning on
his brother's shoulder. Barbara, meanwhile, had run to fetch brandy,
which she now brought, along with the landlord.
The two horsemen had had their wrath for the moment diverted by the
sudden turn of events. But now--the fellow who had been so mauled in
Doctor John's grip having remounted, bursting with rage--they thought
it time to return to the attack, and made an effort to push through the
little crowd. Failing in this, they cursed Doctor Jim with varied
vigour, and told him what they intended to do when they could get at
him. In their righteous wrath they failed to notice that they were not
making themselves popular with the crowd. Neither Doctor Jim nor
Barbara paid the slightest attention to their curses, not seeming to
hear them; but Doctor John attended.
"Lads!" he said, lifting his head with difficulty. "Lads of Second
Westings! Shall we let these insolent scoundrels talk to us that way?"
"No, sir! No, sir! No, sir!" shouted a dozen voices,--whereupon
Barbara turned and beamed upon them unutterable favour. The landlord,
with several other stout fellows, seized the strangers' bridles and
forced the horses back toward the road.
"Ye'd better be gettin' on!" admonished mine host, grinning but
decisive. "Ye don't rightly understand us here, I calculate! Better
get on now, for convenience!"
The horsemen seemed to have forgotten their wrath in their astonishment.
"Are you all Tories, too?" they found voice to demand.
"We're as good patriots as ever you be!" rejoined mine host, crisply.
"But if we've got any Tories among us they're our own, and we'll see
about 'em ourselves, our own way. Now clear out!" And he hit the nigh
horse a smart slap on the rump, making him bound forward.
By this time the leader and spokesman of the twain had recovered his
full head of anger. He had no quixotic notion of undertaking to
discipline Second Westings village. But he conceived a very clear
purpose. Reining his excited horse down violently, he shook his fist
at the crowd, and shouted:
"If you choose to harbour a dirty Tory, there be men and patriots in
the other townships who'll come right soon an' teach you yer duty!"
"Oh, you clear out!" jeered the Second Westings men.
That evening, at Westings House, while the beginnings of a bleak March
wind storm blustered and whimpered outside, Mistress Mehitable brewed a
hot posset of uncommonly cheering quality. The cheer was needed; for
all felt that a crisis of some sort, or some grave change, was at hand.
Doctor John, who had quite recovered, tried in vain to make his fooling
sound spontaneous. The grave eyes of Destiny would persist in looking
out through the jester's-mask. At length Doctor Jim exclaimed,
abruptly:
"I must go, now! I must take Amos and slip away in the night, and go
wherever men are gathering to fight for the king. I'm not needed here
now, John, since you are back to take care of Mehitable and Barbara!"
It was what all had been waiting for, but it came with a shock--the
shock of conviction, not of surprise--to all. Mistress Mehitable
turned ghost pale, and unconsciously her hand went to her heart.
Doctor John noticed the action, with sad eyes that belied the humour of
his mouth. Barbara sprang up, rushed over to Doctor Jim, and flung her
arms around his neck.
"_Please_ don't go, Doctor Jim!" she pleaded. "This is the place for
you. And here we all love you so we don't care _what_ side you're on.
And as for going to fight for your side,--of course, you want to, we
all know that,--but you _never_ can get through to the coast. You can
never get through our people. No, you can't, Doctor Jim! You must
stay here with us. Help me hold him, Aunt Hitty!"
"Jim," said Doctor John, his voice trembling with earnestness, "I
appeal to you to stay. Don't break our hearts by going. Stay for our
sakes. I know, brother, how you feel,--and believing as you do, I
don't blame you,--I'll never blame you. But _Barbara is right_. _You
can't get through_. You can stay with a clear conscience!"
Mistress Mehitable, since becoming assured of the attitude of the
Second Westings men, had lost all her dread of having him stay, and
gained a quivering fear of having him go. Forgetful of all else, she
now laid her slim hand on his, looked at him with her whole soul in her
eyes, and said:
"_Must_ you? Oh, Jim, are you so sure you ought to go?"
A faint spasm passed over Doctor John's face--Barbara alone observing
it--and seemed to leave it older and sterner. He opened his mouth to
speak, but Doctor Jim was ahead of him.
"Yes, I know my duty. If a man sees it, he's got to do it,--eh, what,
dearest lady in the world? I wish I didn't see it so plain. Then I
might stay here with you all, you whom I love. But I see my duty, to
fight for the king, just as plain as you saw yours, John, to fight for
your damned old Congress!"
"I'm not going to fight any more!" interrupted Doctor John, speciously.
Doctor Jim laughed, tenderly derisive.
"No, but you're sending, and equipping, and supporting two able-bodied
substitutes, aren't you? But another point is, my Barbara,--by staying
I should bring disaster on you all. The good folk of Second
Westings--and they _are_ good folk, though rebels, alas!--will never
stand by and see the Ladds and Pigeons, whatever their views, molested
by an outside world. When your fiery patriots from up the river come
to ride me on a rail, Second Westings will stand in the way and get its
honest head broken. _You_ wouldn't do it, John Pigeon! You'd cut off
your head, before you'd let the poor souls get their heads broken for
you in a cause that they believe all wrong. I'd be a coward to let
them, John. Would you ask me to be a coward?"
"Wouldn't be much use asking," growled Doctor John. "But you're all
wrong, as usual, Jim!" Then he turned suddenly to Mistress Mehitable,
with a meaning look.
"You speak, Mehitable! You _make_ him stay. Demand it of him--as your
right! Keep him!"
Doctor Jim searched his brother's face, first with terrible question,
then with the growing light of a great joy. Barbara watched
breathless, forgetful of the fate of dynasties. Here, she felt, were
problems that had held long lives in doubt, now working to instant
solution. Mistress Mehitable turned scarlet, and she, too, questioned
the sombre, tender eyes of Doctor John. But she said, quite simply:
"I'm afraid, John, if he thinks he ought to go he'll go. But I do ask
you to stay, Jim."
"_Don't_, Mehitable!" groaned Doctor Jim.
"There, what did I tell you, John?" she said.
But now certain things, uncertain all his life till now, were quite
clear to Doctor John. Slowly, as if it hurt him, he got up. He went
over to where Mehitable was sitting, quite close to Doctor Jim. He
laid a hand on each, caressingly,--and to Mehitable that touch,
suddenly grown bold and firm, was a renunciation. He had never touched
her that way before.
"It is all right, Jim! It is all right, Mehitable!" said he, in a very
low but quite steady voice. "I never was sure till now,--but I ought
to have understood,--for I see now it was always _yours_, Jim. Forgive
me, brother. I ought not to have stood in the way."
"John!" cried Doctor Jim, catching the caressing hand in a fervent
clasp. "God bless you! But--on my honour I have never said a word!"
"I know, Jim, I know. We've always played fair to each other. But now
you can speak. And now,--you don't need to speak, either of you. Your
faces speak plain enough, to the eyes of one who loves you both!"
"Is it true, Mehitable? After all these years that I've kept
silence,--oh, is it true?" asked Doctor Jim, scarcely above a whisper,
reaching out his hands to her longingly.
For one instant she laid hers in his. Then she withdrew them quickly,
seized Doctor John's hand in both of hers, laid her cheek against it,
and burst into tears.
"Oh, John, dear John," she sobbed. "How can I bear that you should be
unhappy?"
Doctor John blinked, and made a little noise in his throat. Then, with
a brave levity, he exclaimed:
"Tut! Tut! Don't you worry about me, either of you, now. As for you,
Jim Pigeon, you Tory scoundrel, I'm getting the best of you, after all.
For I stay right here and take care of her, Lord knows how long, while
you go off, Lord knows where, and get yourself poked full of holes for
your old King George-- Eh, what, baggage? as Jim would say!" And he
turned unexpectedly toward Barbara, who had been standing by the
window, and peering diligently out into the blackness for the past ten
minutes,--and surreptitiously wiping her eyes as well as her nose.
"Yes, indeed you _do_ get the best of the bargain," she cheerfully and
mendaciously agreed.
Two days later, in the dark before moonrise, Doctor Jim and Amos
slipped away on horseback by the road to Westings Landing. And Doctor
John went with them as far as the Landing, to put them into trusty
hands for their night voyage down the river.