not turned far or long from anything involving a principle. The truth
was that she had merely evaded his intolerance of any and all difference
of opinion--as a deep stream quietly flows round an immovable
rock--only to turn gently back into its own course as soon as might be.
And even in doing this, she had put aside only her own opinions and
feelings and rights, never those of any one else. But this present
dispute over David was wholly unlike any that had gone before. This
concerned the boy's feelings and rights, so that she suddenly found
herself forced to take a firm stand--affection, justice, and even mercy,
now forbidding her to yield. Yet it was, nevertheless, just as clear to
her in this as in everything else, that William sincerely thought he was
right. That was the trouble. That is always the trouble with people like
William Pressley, who are often harder to deal with and sometimes harder
to live with, than those who knowingly do wrong.
The three had scarcely entered the great room of Cedar House that
evening, when the judge asked the boy to go on an errand to a
neighbor's. This was to take some seed wheat which the judge had
promised to send for the fall sowing. The growing of wheat was still an
interesting and important experiment which was exciting the whole
country. There had been good corn in abundance from the first; on those
deep, rich, river-bottom lands the grains had but to reach the fertile
earth to produce an hundred bushels to the acre. But the settlers were
tired of eating corn-bread; their wives and children were pining for the
delicate white loaves made from the sweet fine wheat which they had
eaten in their old Virginia homes. So that the culture of the best wheat
had lately become a vital question, and this new seed was making a stir
of eager interest throughout the region. Philip Alston had given it to
the judge, and he, in turn, was dividing it among the neighbors. Each
grain was accordingly treasured and valued like a grain of gold, and the
judge cautioned the boy to be careful in tying the bag; wheat in the
grain is a slippery thing to handle, and he wished none of this to be
lost.
"You must have a good, strong string--one that can't slip," said Ruth,
in her thoughtful, housewifely way. "Let me think--what kind would be
best?"
"Here!" the judge drew out his wallet, and took off the string that
bound it. "You may use this, David, but take care not to lose it. This
is the strongest, finest strip of doeskin--"
Ruth's sweet laughter chimed in, "It looks like minkskin--it's so
black!" touching it gingerly with the tips of her fingers.
The judge laughed, too. Everything that she said and did pleased him.
But he cautioned the boy again not to lose the string, and to be careful
to bring it back. William Pressley looked on in grave, indifferent
silence. A slight frown gathered on his brow when he saw Ruth trying the
knot, to make sure of its firmness, after the bag was tied. His gaze
darkened somewhat and followed her when she went to the door to see the
boy set out; and he watched her stand looking after him, with her hands
raised to shield her eyes from the rays of the setting sun. It
displeased William to see her show such regard for any one of so little
importance--the personality of the boy did not enter into the matter.
While gazing at her in this cold disapproval, he noted with increased
annoyance that she then turned and looked long and wistfully toward the
forest path. It did not occur to him that she might be expecting or
wishing to see some one riding along the path. He was merely irritated
at what seemed to him an indication of unseemly restlessness and
empty-mindedness. To his mind the unusual and the unseemly were always
one and the same. And it was eminently unseemly in his eyes that the
woman who was to be his wife should wish to look away from the spot in
which he was sitting. And then, his displeasure turned to anger when
Ruth, after standing still and gazing up the forest path, till he felt
that he must go out to her and utter the reproof that was on his lips,
did not come back to her seat by his side, but began instead to play
with the swan.
He sat motionless and silent, calmly biding his time to express the
disapproval which such childish behavior made incumbent upon him. Cold,
hard anger like his can always wait; and waiting only makes it colder
and harder; there is never heat enough in it to melt its merciless ice.
A sudden darkening of the sky sent her into the house at last, and even
then she did not return to her proper place by his side. She did not
even look at him, but spoke to the judge who was just leaving the great
room to go to the cabin which he used as his bedroom and office. Ruth
begged him not to start out, saying that the storm seemed so near that
it might break before he could reach the cabin. But he went on with a
smiling shake of his head, after a glance at the dark clouds which were
gathering blackly on the other side of the river behind the spectral
cottonwoods, now bare of leaves and ghostly white.
"Did David have to go through the big deadening, William?" she asked
suddenly, speaking over her shoulder, without leaving her anxious post
in the doorway, though the wind was whipping her skirts about her
slender figure and loosing her long, black hair. "I wish he would come.
He should be back by this time. I am afraid--the great trees fall so in
a storm. Father Orin and the doctor, too, often ride through there. And
it is such a dangerous place when the wind blows. Oh!" with a cry of
relief, "there's David now! Here he comes. David, David dear--I am so
glad!"
She sprang down the steps and ran to meet the boy. The rush of the
rising storm kept from hearing William Pressley's call for her to come
back. He stood still for a moment, hesitating, and then, seeing that she
flew on, he followed and overtook her just as she reached David, who was
getting down from the pony and taking the empty bag from the saddle. The
wind was now very violent, and the darkened air was thick with the dead
leaves of the forest swirling into the river which was already lashed
into waves and dashing against the shore. Waterfowl flew landward with
frightened cries; a low, dark cloud was being drawn up the stream over
the ashen face of the water--a strange, thick, terrible black curtain,
shaken by the tempest and bordered by the lightning--pressed onward by
the resistless powers of the air.
There was a lull just as William Pressley reached Ruth's side. It was
one of those tense spaces which are among the greatest terrors of a
storm by reason of their suddenness, their stillness, and their
suspense. He grasped her hand, and she clung to his as she would have
clung to anything that she chanced to touch in her fright. He said
rather sternly that she must come to the house at once, and she turned
obediently, following the motion of his hand rather than the meaning of
his words. He spoke to David also, without looking at the boy, but she
was clinging to him and hiding her face on his arm whenever the
lightning flashed, and did not notice what he had said until he repeated
his words:--
"You have of course brought back the doeskin string."
Ruth suddenly lifted her face from his arm, loosed her grasp upon it and
stood away from him. Yet in that first dazed instant she could not
believe that she had heard aright. It was impossible for her, being what
she was, to understand that he had never in all his life done anything
more true to his nature, more thoroughly characteristic, than to ask
this question at such a time. She forgot the lightning while she waited
till he asked it for the third time. And then, straining her incredulous
ears again, she heard the boy murmur something, and she saw him
hurriedly and confusedly searching his pockets for the string.
"I can't find it," he stammered. "I must have dropped it when I poured
out the wheat. I am so sorry--I will go to-morrow--"
"You will go now;" said William, calmly. "The string will be lost by
to-morrow. And then," judicially, "you will remember a needed lesson
better if you go at once."
"William!" burst out Ruth almost with a scream. "You can't mean what you
say. Listen to the roar of the coming storm. It's almost here. Surely
you don't know what you are saying. Send David through the deadening in
the very teeth of a tempest like this, for a bit of string!"
"Come to the house, my dear. It is beginning to rain. I am afraid you
will take cold. You, sir, will go back at once," turning to the boy.
"You know, of course, that the string itself is of no importance in this
matter. It is absurd to speak of such a thing. But it is my duty to
teach you, as far as I can, to perform yours. I tell you again to go at
once. That is all I have to say, I believe, concerning this matter.
Come, Ruth, it is beginning to rain."
She shrunk away from his hand as if its touch horrified her. Her tears
were falling faster than the heavy, isolated drops that fell on her bare
head. But her courage was rising at need, as it always rose, and she was
not too much blinded by tears to see that the boy was getting on the
pony again. She ran to him and caught his sleeve, and turned upon
William Pressley with the reckless fierceness of a gentle creature made
daring in defence of what it loves.
"You are cruel," she said, speaking calmly, steadied by the very
extremity of her excitement and distress. "You have no more heart than a
stone. You feel nothing that does not touch yourself. You have always
been unkind to David. But you shall not do this. I will prevent
you--defy you. You shall not send him to his death for some narrow,
tyrannical notion. He is like my brother. I love him as if he were. And
I wouldn't allow you to treat a stranger so. It's inhuman! It shall not
be!" panting, and clinging to the boy.
William Pressley stared at her as if he thought she had suddenly lost
her senses. Could this be Ruth speaking like that--and to himself?
Instinctively he threw into his voice the whole weight of his heavy,
cold rage, which had never yet failed to crush all life and spirit out
of her most fiery resistance.
"This is truly shocking. I scarcely know what to say. I am merely trying
to do my unpleasant duty in a perfectly simple matter. If I didn't try
to do it, I should always think less well of myself--"
"Think less well of yourself!" she cried. "Nothing in the world could
ever make you do that! Nothing! Whatever you think and say and do is
always right; whatever anybody else thinks or says or does is always
wrong. I have given up in almost everything because I loved peace more
than my own way, and because I am not often sure that I know best. But I
will not give up in this!" shrinking and quivering at a peal of thunder,
but clinging closer to the boy's arm.
William Pressley came nearer and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"Come to the house, my dear," he said quietly. "It is beginning to rain
harder. You will certainly take cold. Come at once. When you have time
to think, you will see how childish and foolish all this is. We will say
no more about it. You, sir, know what is right for you to do. You know
as well as I do what the judge's positive orders were. You have
disregarded them--"
"But uncle Robert never meant anything like this," she said. "He is
kind and tender-hearted. I will call him. He would not--"
The boy had turned proudly and silently, meaning to get back in the
saddle, but she would not loose her hold on his arm. And then came the
first furious blast of the tempest, and the greatest trees--the
mightiest giants of the ancient forest--bent and crouched before it,
bracing themselves for the fierce conflict with the elements in which
they must gain or lose centuries of life. The rain now began to fall
heavily, and William abruptly told the boy to come in the house till the
storm was over. In yielding thus far, he was not influenced by Ruth's
threat to appeal to his uncle. He had scarcely heard what she said, and
he was never in awe of the judge's opinion, and never looked for
opposition from any source, because he could not anticipate an opinion
different from his own. He merely dropped the argument for the moment
because he saw the urgent necessity of bringing an undignified scene to
a speedy close, and could not see any other or better way of doing it.
When they had gone indoors and had gathered around the fire, so that
their damp clothes might dry, he was by far the most composed of the
three. The boy was deeply agitated and suffering as only the
supersensitive can suffer from harshness, whether merited or not. Ruth
was still quivering with excitement and distress, and very soon her
tender conscience also was aching. She could not recall very distinctly
all that she had said, but she knew how bitter her words must have been,
and was already wondering how she ever could have uttered them. How they
came in her mind and heart she could not comprehend. She had always
thought William a good man, and worthy of all respect, and she now felt
that there had been much truth in what he had said. David was a dreamer,
poor boy, and it would be well if he could be taught to remember, to be
practical and useful like other people. She still could not think it
right for him to have been forced to go back through the storm to
correct an error; but she now thought that William had not really
intended to send him. It seemed suddenly plain that William's sole
intention must have been to impress him with the necessity of doing what
he was told to do. She had scolded the boy herself about that very thing
many a time. The fault was hers, she had been too hasty, too excitable,
too impetuous. Ah, yes, that was always her fault! She looked at William
with everything that she thought and felt clearly to be seen on her
transparent face. But a ray of comfort shone through the cloud which
darkened her spirits. Surely this and everything else would be well when
she had told him how sorry she was, and how plainly she saw her mistake.
They had been such good friends as far back as she could remember; the
bond between them had been such a close and strong one that it
certainly could not be broken or even strained by a few hasty,
passionate words, repented at once. Her lovely eyes were already seeking
his face and silently appealing to this old and faithful affection.
But William's gaze did not meet hers. He was looking into the fire and
seeing what had occurred with wholly different eyes. To him everything
was altered, and nothing could ever make the relation between them what
it had been. No tenderness of affection, no length of association, no
faithfulness of service, could stand for an instant against a single one
of the many blows that his morbid self-love had received. For self-love
like his is an incurable disease of sensibility, a spreading canker
which poisons the whole character, as an unsound spot in the flesh
poisons the whole body. To those who have not come in close contact with
this form of morbidity, it may seem impossible that William Pressley's
love for Ruth, which had been real so far as it went, should have
hardened into dislike almost as soon as the words that wounded it had
left her lips. Yet that was precisely what had taken place, quite
naturally and even inevitably. He had loved her as much as he was
capable of loving, mainly because of the deep gratification which he
found in her great esteem for himself. No one else had ever come so near
granting his self-love all that it demanded. Her sweet presence, always
looking up to him, had been like the perpetual swinging of a censer
perpetually giving the fragrant incense that his vanity craved. And now
all this was changed. The gentle acolyte was gone, the censer no longer
swung, and instead there was a keen critic armed with words as hard as
stones. No, there was nothing strange in the fact that, when William
Pressley finally turned his gaze on Ruth, he looked at her as if she had
been a stranger whom he had never seen before; an utter stranger, and
one moreover whose presence was so utterly antagonistic to him that
there was not the remotest possibility of any liking between them. But
he said nothing, and gave no indication of what he felt. No feeling was
ever strong enough to cause him to say or do an unconsidered thing. In
this, as in all things, he waited to be sure that he was doing what
would place himself in the best possible light. While he had never a
moment's doubt of being wholly in the right, he thought it best to wait
and consider his own appearance in the matter. And then, just at that
time, political affairs were claiming his first attention, for that was
a period of intense public stress.
XIV
A SPIRITUAL CENTAUR
The whole wilderness, the whole country, the whole heart of the nation,
was now aflame over the coming conflict at Tippecanoe.
Father Orin, like every one else, was thinking of this, a day or so
later, as he rode along the forest path. There was a heavy weight in his
merciful breast as he looked across the river. Over there, beyond those
spectral cottonwoods and on the banks of its tributary, the Wabash, the
white and the red races were about to meet in a supreme struggle now
close at hand. He had just been told that Joe Daviess had offered his
sword, and the news had brought the public trouble home to his own
heart, for he loved the man.
And thus it was that, seeing Tommy Dye riding toward him, he had only a
grave word of greeting, without any of the merry banter that the
adventurer had come to expect. He stopped, however, feeling that Tommy
had something to say, but he listened in rather abstracted silence, till
Tommy spoke of having been to see the Sisters in order to tell them
good-by.
"For I am going to Tippecanoe, too. I leave to-night. The general can't
go. It looks like the wound from that infernal duel with Dickinson never
would get well. But I like to be where things are stirring, and I am
going, anyhow. So is Joe Daviess."
"Yes, I know," said Father Orin, sadly. "Good men as well as bad must
go, I suppose, if wars must be fought."
Tommy Dye looked hard at him for a moment, and taking off his hat,
rubbed his red hair the wrong way till it stood on end. His stare
gradually turned to a sort of sheepish embarrassment before he spoke;--
"I'll swear some of the babies up yonder ain't much bigger than my
fist!" he finally blurted out. "I took the Sisters the wad I won on the
last chicken fight. 'Twasn't much, but there ain't any use taking it
over the river for the red devils to get, if they get me--and maybe they
will--for they say the Prophet is a fighter. If the Shawnees don't get
me, I can make plenty more, so it's just as broad as it's long. Anyhow,
the Sisters will know what to do with the wad. Say! I wish it had been
bigger. They took me into the room where the youngsters stay," he said
huskily, rubbing his head harder than ever. "They said--them real ladies
said--that they would raise up the children to love me, and pray for me.
When I come away they cried--them real ladies--about me, old Tommy Dye,
that ain't even a heretic."
"You are kind, my friend; you have a good heart, and you are generous,"
said Father Orin; "but I wish you could earn your money in another and a
better way. Somehow it grates--"
"Now, look here!" cried Tommy Dye, bristling at once, and jamming his
hat back on his red head. He was always cowed at the very sight of the
gentle Sisters; but as man to man--even though one be a priest--he was
up again at once, and quite ready to hold his own. "Every man to his own
notion," he blustered and swaggered. "I've got mine and you've got
yours. That's my way of making a living, and I dare anybody to say it
ain't honest. Just let any man come out flat foot and tell me so, face
to face. I play fair, and I bet as square as the next one. I take my
chances the same as the other man. I may fight rough and tumble, but I
always give warning, and I never gouge. If any man's got anything to say
against my honesty or fairness, he's only got to come on and say it."
"Come, come!" said Father Orin, too sad to be amused at the outburst, as
he might have been at another time. "I beg your pardon if I have
offended you. I had no thought of doing that. But I wish I could induce
you to think before you go into danger. All who go over yonder will not
come back. The Shawnees have been getting ready for this test of
strength for a long time. There is great danger. I beg you, my friend,
to think. Will you come back with me to the chapel? Just for a little
while. There is no one there, and we can have a quiet talk."
"Now, what's the use of raking all that up again? We've gone over all
that--and more than once--haven't we? You thought one way and I another,
when we had it out the other day. And we've both got the same right now
that we had then, to think as we like about something that neither of us
knows the first blamed thing about, haven't we? Well, I think just the
same now that I did then, and I reckon you do, too. I haven't seen any
reason to change, have you? I haven't had any fresh news from up
yonder"--pointing heavenward--"and I don't suppose you have either. So
you see one of us is bound to be most damnable mistaken--"
"Shut up," shouted Father Orin, "you unmannerly rascal! I have a great
mind to jump down and pull you off that horse and give you a thrashing
to teach you some respect for religion, and how to keep a civil tongue
in your head. And you know I could do it, too!"
They looked fiercely at each other for a moment. Father Orin was of a
fiery spirit, and all his goodness could not always subdue it. Tommy Dye
was a ready and a good fighter, but he paused now, and silently
regarded the priest. He looked at his large, sturdy form, at his brawny
shoulders, at his deep chest and his long arms, remembering suddenly
that he had seen him roll, with his own hands, the largest logs in the
little chapel which no one else could move.
"I reckon you could," Tommy Dye finally conceded frankly.
Father Orin burst into his good-humored, chuckling laugh, and Tommy Dye
grinned, but their faces sobered instantly. The pity of it touched and
moved the priest through his sense of humor. The gambler was softened
and ashamed, he hardly knew why. With one simultaneous impulse they sent
their horses forward, and coming closer together clasped hands.
"God bless and guard you, my friend," said Father Orin. "You can't keep
me from saying that, and you can't help my praying for your safety,"
trying to smile.
Tommy Dye found nothing more to say and, laughing very loud, he put
spurs to his horse and galloped away through the darkening forest.
Father Orin and Toby stood still looking after him till he had passed
out of sight. And then they turned to go on their way. They went along
in silence for a while, and at last Father Orin began the conversation
with a heavy sigh. "Well, old man, there's another bad failure that we
have got to set down in our book--you and me. That was another of the
times when we didn't know what to do. That is to say, I didn't. I
suppose you did--you always do. You never make mistakes and lose your
temper like I do nearly every day. If I could do my part as well as you
do yours, we wouldn't fail so often, would we, old man?"
Toby quickly turned his head with a friendly, encouraging whinny, as if
he saw his co-worker's trouble and wanted to give him what comfort he
could. He always seemed to know as well when his friend needed
encouragement as when he required to be kept up to his duty. It is a
wonderful, wonderful thing, this bond between the good rider and the
good horse! It is so wonderfully close and strong; the closest and
strongest binding the human being to his brute brother. It is infinitely
more subtle too, than that which binds any other, even the kindest
master to the most faithful dog; for the man and his horse are not
merely master and servant, they are friends and even equals in a way.
Neither is nearly so complete or powerful without the other; but
together--with body and spirit coming in living, throbbing contact--they
form the mightiest force in flesh and blood. Along the marvellous
electric currents of life there flashes from the man to the horse,
intelligence, feeling, purpose, even thought perhaps, so that to the
true horseman the centaur can never be wholly a fabulous creature.