He smiled. "I have merely copied it. I saw the poem for the first time an hour or so ago at Mr. Audubon"s. It is new and has never been printed. It was written by the young English poet, John Keats, to his brother George Keats, who is a partner of Mr. Audubon in the mill on the river. Mr. Keats and his wife are here now, the guests of Mr. Audubon.
The poem came in a letter which has just been received. I have copied a part of it, and a few words from the letter, also. Mr. George Keats was kind enough to allow me, and I thought you would like to see them. I hadn"t time to copy the entire poem, though it isn"t very long."
"It was very kind," said Ruth. "I am so glad to see it. May I read it now? This is what the letter says," reading it aloud, so that David also might hear. "If I had a prayer to make for any great good ... it should be that one of your children should be the first American poet?"
"The first English hand across the sea!" said Paul Colbert.
Ruth read on from this letter of John Keats to his brother: "I have a mind to make a prophecy. They say that prophecies work out their own fulfilment." And then she read as much of "A Prophecy" as the doctor had copied.
"Though, the rushes that will make Its cradle are by the lake-- Though the linen that will be Its swathe is on the cotton tree-- Though the woollen that will keep It warm is on the silly sheep-- Listen, starlight, listen, listen, Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten, And hear my lullaby!
Child, I see thee! Child, I"ve found thee!
Midst the quiet all around thee!
Child, I see thee! Child, I spy thee!
And thy mother sweet is nigh thee.
Child, I know thee! Child no more, But a poet ever-more!
See, see, the lyre, the lyre!
In a flame of fire Upon the little cradle"s top Flaring, flaring, flaring, Past the eyesight"s bearing.
Wake it from its sleep, And see if it can keep Its eyes upon the blaze-- Amaze, amaze!
It stares, it stares, it stares, It dares what none dares!
It lifts its little hand into the flame Unharmed and on the strings Paddles a little tune and sings, With dumb endeavor sweetly-- Bard thou art completely; Little child, O" the western wild...."
Ruth looked at Paul with shining eyes. "I thank you again for thinking that I would like this," she said.
"A little chap whom I saw last night made me feel like making a prophecy that he would be the first Kentucky astronomer," said Paul, with a smile. "He was hardly more than a baby, not much over two years old--a toddling curly-head. Yet there he stood by the roadside, looking up at the heavens, as solemn as you please. And he said that "man couldn"t make moons." I didn"t hear him say this, but his brother repeated what he said."
"Yes, I know. You mean" little Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel. His people live near here, over on Highland Creek. His father came there from Virginia.
He intended to bore for salt water, meaning to make salt. But he found more interest in the wild multiflora roses that bloom all around the Lick, and the bones of unknown animals buried fifty feet beneath the surface of the earth--though the bones were not found just there--but farther off at another Lick."
"Then Master Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel is the true son of his father,"
smiled Paul Colbert. "Neither seems commonplace enough to be content with what everyday people find between heaven and earth."
He said this idly, as we all speak to one another when casting about for mutual interests before really knowing each other. Thus the talk drifted for a few moments, with a shy word now and then from David. And presently a chance reference to the epidemic brought a new light into the doctor"s eyes, and a new earnestness into his voice.
"The fathers and mothers of the country are much alarmed for their children," he said. "But there is far more need to be alarmed for themselves. The Cold Plague attacks the strong rather than the weak. But all the people, young and old, everywhere through the wilderness, are almost frantic with terror. They fear infection from every newcomer.
There was a panic throughout this vicinity a few days ago, over the landing of a flatboat, and the coming ash.o.r.e of the unfortunates who were on it. They were in a most pitiful plight. I hope never to see a sadder sight than that poverty-stricken little family. But they were not suffering from any disease more contagious than want; they were only cold, wet, tired, hungry, and disheartened. The poor mother was sitting on the damp sand near the water"s edge, with her little ones around her, when I found them. They were merely stopping to rest on their way from another portion of the state, to the wild country on the other side of the river."
"We saw them, too, poor things," said Ruth, quickly, with pity in her soft eyes. "Father Orin and Toby came by to tell us, and David and I went at once to do what we could. I can"t forget how the mother looked.
She was young, but had such a sad, haggard face, with such a prominent forehead, and such steady gray eyes. She held a strange looking little child on her lap. She said that her name was Nancy Lincoln, and she called the baby "Abe." He couldn"t have been more than two years of age, but he looked up at Father Orin, and from his face to ours, like some troubled little old man."
"Yes, Father Orin and Toby were first to the rescue, as they always are.
I can"t imagine when those two sleep, and I am sure they never rest when awake."
And then, seeing her interest and sympathy, he went on to tell of three little ones, orphaned by the plague, and left alone and utterly helpless, in a cabin on the Wilderness Road. As he spoke, he remembered with a pang of self-reproach, that Father Orin was with them now and waiting for him. He rose suddenly, saying that he must go, but a slight noise at the door caused him to pause and turn. It was William Pressley coming in, and Ruth went forward to meet him, and introduced him to the doctor, who sat down again for a few moments. The two young men then talked with one another as strangers do, of the current topics of the day and the country, speaking mostly of the Shawnee danger--the one subject then most earnestly and universally discussed throughout the wilderness. The nearest approach to a personal tone was in William Pressley"s formal expression of thanks. Paul Colbert put these aside as formally as they were offered, and in a moment more he got up to take leave. Yet in that brief s.p.a.ce the two men had begun to dislike each other.
This was natural enough on the part of William Pressley. It is indeed the first instinct of his kind toward any equal or superior. When a man"s or a woman"s vanity is so great that it instinctively and instantly levies on all within reach--demanding incense--nothing can be so dislikeful as a bearing which refuses to swing the censer. From its very nature it must instantly resent any such conscious or unconscious claim to equality, to say nothing of superiority. Those so afflicted must of necessity like only their inferiors and must have only inferiors for friends, if they have any friends at all. So that this is maybe the real reason why many reasonably good and perfectly sincere men and women go almost friendless through useful and blameless lives. And this was William Pressley"s natural feeling toward Paul Colbert. The honest, sincere young lawyer could have forgiven the honest, sincere young doctor almost any real sin or weakness and have liked him well enough; but he could not forgive the polite indifference of his manner toward himself, or his looking over his head at Ruth, or turning from him to speak to David. Least of all could he forgive him for being at that moment the most conspicuous figure in the whole region, on account of his single-handed struggle with the mysterious disease, which, defying the other doctors, had been devastating the new settlements of the wilderness. Nor could the difference in their aims affect this feeling in the least. To a nature like William Pressley"s, anything won by another is something taken from himself. Yet the dislike for Paul Colbert, which thus hardened within him, had no taint of jealousy in the ordinary sense of that term. He did not think of Ruth at all in the matter. It did not occur to him to a.s.sociate her with this stranger, or with any one but himself. It was in keeping with his character for him to be slower than a less vain man to suspect her--or any one whom he knew--of personal preference for another than himself; for vanity of this supreme order has its comforts as well as its torments.
On the part of Paul Colbert, the feeling was wholly different, and largely impersonal. It was merely the dislike that every busy man feels for a new acquaintance which promises no interest, even at the outset.
Had he been less busy, and his mind more free, he might perhaps have found some amus.e.m.e.nt in trying to find out how far this serious young man was mistaken in his high estimate of himself. He thought at a first glance that he was a good deal in error, but he also saw that he was sincere in his conviction; so that the young doctor was tolerantly amused at the lofty air of the young lawyer, without the slightest feeling of real resentment. He made one or two straightforward, friendly efforts to thaw the ice of William Pressley"s manner. His own was naturally frank and cordial. He always wished to be liked, which is the natural wish of every truly kind nature. And then, above and beyond this, was the right-minded lover"s instinctive desire to secure the good-will of all who are near the one whom he loves; for Paul Colbert had fallen in love with Ruth, and he knew it, as few do who have fallen in love at first sight. He could, indeed, have told the very instant at which love had come--like a bolt from the blue.
He was therefore more than willing to be friendly with William Pressley, and already seeking a pretext to come again. He now said, turning to Ruth with a smile:
"Since you are fond of poetry, perhaps you will allow me to fetch you a new volume of poems by a young Englishman, Lord Byron. A friend sent it to me from London. He says it is being severely treated by the critics.
They say that they never would have believed that any one could have been as idle and as worthless generally, as those "Hours of Idleness"
prove the author to be. But I think you will like the poems, especially one called "The Tear." It is said that the poet means to write something about Daniel Boone."
"There should be many tears in that poem," said Ruth, a shadow falling over the brightness of her face. "To think of the poor old hero as he is now makes the heart ache."
"It should make us all ashamed," said Paul Colbert. "He gave us the whole state, and we are not willing to give him back enough of it to rest his failing feet upon, nor a log cabin to shelter his feeble body, worn out in our service. It is the blackest ingrat.i.tude. It is a disgrace to the commonwealth."
"Pardon me," said William Pressley, with his cool smile; "but as I look at the matter, there is no one but himself to blame. It is solely the result of his own negligence and ignorance. He did not observe the plain requirement of the law."
"But, William," said Ruth, impulsively, with a brighter color in her cheek, "just think! How could he know--a simple old hunter, just like a little child, only as brave as a lion!" There was a quiver in her voice and a flash in her soft eyes.
"We can but hope that the state will remember what it owes," said the doctor, moving toward the door.
He felt that he had been tempted to linger too long. Father Orin was still waiting for him in the desolate cabin where the Cold Plague had left the three orphans. His conscience smote him for lingering, and yet he could not leave, even now, without speaking again of the poems, and saying that he would fetch the book and leave it the next time he rode by Cedar House.
When he was gone, Ruth looked at William Pressley in silent, troubled perplexity. She was wondering vaguely why she had felt so ashamed--almost as if she had done some shameful thing herself--when he had spoken as he had done before the doctor about Daniel Boone. It must have been plain to the visitor that she did not think as William thought. And yet she flinched again, recalling the doctor"s glance at William, and wondered why it should have hurt her, as if it had fallen upon herself. She was not old enough or wise enough to have learned that the mere promise to marry a man makes a sensitive woman begin forthwith, to feel responsible for everything that he says and does; and that this is one of the deep, mysterious sources of the misery and happiness of marriage.
X
FATHER ORIN AND TOBY MEET TOMMY DYE
Under the spur of his conscience the young doctor rode fast. He was not the man to let duty wait even on love, without trying to make amends.
But a sharper pang stung him when he reached the desolate cabin in which the Cold Plague had left the orphans.
It seemed to him that Toby, standing by the broken door, gave him a look of reproach. Toby had not failed or been slow in doing his part; Father Orin and he had already done all that they could, though this was piteously little. The one had cut fire-wood from the near-by fallen trees, and the other had drawn it to the cabin door, so that there was a good fire blazing on the earthen hearth. But the rotting, falling logs of the cabin"s walls were far apart, the mud which had once made them snug having dropped out; and the chilly, rising wind blew bitterly through the miserable hut. The covers on the bed were few and thin, although Father Orin had spread Toby"s blanket over them. The three little white faces lying in a pathetic row on the ragged pillows, lay so still that the doctor was not sure they were alive, till the oldest child, a boy of three, languidly opened his eyes, looked up unseeingly, and wearily closed them again.
There was a tightening in the doctor"s throat when he turned away, and he was glad to smile at Father Orin"s housekeeping. The priest certainly had left nothing in his power undone, to keep life in the frail little bodies. On the hearth was such food as he had been able to prepare, carefully covered to keep it warm. As the young man"s gaze thus wandered sadly about the cabin, his eyes encountered the old man"s. The laughter with which he was fighting emotion died on his lips, and their hands met in a close clasp.
"The poor little things!" the young man said. "Ah, Father, it is wild work--this making of a state. The soil of Kentucky should bear a rich harvest. It is being deeply sown in pain and sorrow, and well-watered with tears and blood."
They stood silent for a moment, looking helplessly at the bed and the little white faces.
"What shall we do?" then asked Father Orin. "These children can"t stay here through another night. That wind blows right over the bed, and there is no way to keep it out. They could hardly live till morning. And yet they may die on the way if we try to take them to the Sisters at once."
"That is their only chance. We are bound to take the risk. We must do our best to get them to the Sisters as quickly as possible. Women know better than doctors how to take care of babies. What is there to put round them--to wrap them in?"
There were no wrappings, nothing that could be used for the purpose, except the bed covers and Toby"s blanket. The men took these and with awkward tenderness covered the helpless, limp little bodies as well as they could. Father Orin then went out of the cabin, and with a nod summoned Toby to do his part. When the priest was seated in the saddle, the doctor turned back to the bed, and lifting one of the three limp little burdens, carried it out and carefully placed it in Father Orin"s arms.
"But you can"t carry both of the others," said the priest, in sudden perplexity. "And we can"t leave one here alone while we take the others and return. Maybe it would be better to take one at a time. I can either stay or go."
"Oh, no, indeed! I can take these two easy enough--one on each arm. They weigh nothing--poor little atoms--and I don"t need a hand for the reins.
My horse often goes in a run with them thrown over the pommel. He went on a bee-line with them so last night."