Round Anvil Rock A Romance

IX

PAUL'S FIRST VIS­IT TO RUTH

None of this strife had yet touched Cedar House. Even the hazy sad­ness which had dimmed Ruth's bright spir­its as she had watched the young preach­er ride away, had passed as quick­ly as mist be­fore the sun. For it is one of the mer­cies that hap­py youth nev­er sees life's strug­gle quite clear­ly, and that it is soon al­lowed to for­get the fleet­ing glimpses which may cloud its hap­pi­ness for an in­stant.

Her thoughts were now sole­ly of the young doc­tor's com­ing. He had not named the hour; the epi­dem­ic made him un­cer­tain of his own time. But he had said that he would come dur­ing the day, so that it was nec­es­sary to be ready to re­ceive him at any mo­ment. And there were many pleas­ant things to do in prepa­ra­tion for his com­ing. More ros­es were to be gath­ered, and oth­er flow­ers al­so, were bloom­ing gay­ly among the sober veg­eta­bles as if it were mid-​sum­mer. So that the first thing Ruth did was to strip the gar­den, with David to help her and no one to hin­der.

The judge and William had gone away from the house as soon as break­fast was over, say­ing they would try to re­turn in time to see the vis­itor. Miss Pene­lope was busy in see­ing that the cof­fee-​pot was washed with hot wa­ter and rinsed with cold, and scoured in­side and out till it shone like bur­nished sil­ver. The wid­ow Broad­nax, too, was as busy as she ev­er was, sit­ting in her usu­al place in the chim­ney-​cor­ner, look­ing like some large, clum­si­ly graven im­age in dark stone, and watch­ing her half-​sis­ter's ev­ery move­ment with­out wink­ing or turn­ing her head. So that Ruth and David were left to fol­low their own fan­ci­ful de­vices, free to put flow­ers ev­ery­where. They wrought out their fan­cies to the fullest and the more fan­tas­tic, as the artis­tic in­stinct rarely fails to do in its first free­dom. When they were done, the great room of Cedar House was an odd­ly charm­ing sight, worth go­ing far to see. Nev­er be­fore had it been so won­der­ful, strange, and beau­ti­ful. It had now be­come an en­chant­ed bow­er of min­gled bloom and fra­grance, shad­owed with­in yet open to the sun-​lit day and the flash­ing riv­er.

“There!” cried Ruth, look­ing round, with her head on one side. “There isn't one for­got­ten spot for an­oth­er flow­er. Now, I must run and dress. And you must wait here till I come back, David, dear, for the doc­tor may ar­rive at any mo­ment, and some­body should be ready to wel­come him. Why! aunt Mol­ly has ac­tu­al­ly fol­lowed aunt Pene­lope clear to the kitchen, so that there is no one left but you. Don't go till I come back.”

She went up the broad, dark stairs, turn­ing on al­most ev­ery step to look down over the room and drink in the beau­ty and sweet­ness. David, al­so, drank it in still more ea­ger­ly, tak­ing deep in­tox­icat­ing draughts, as the thirsty take cool, sparkling wine. He then sat qui­et­ly look­ing about and wait­ing. His book was in his pock­et, as it near­ly al­ways was when not in his hand. But he had grown shy of read­ing “The Fa­mous His­to­ry of Mon­til­ion--Knight of the Or­acle, Son to the true Mir­ror of Princes, the most Renowned Per­icles, show­ing his Strange Birth, Un­for­tu­nate Love, Per­ilous Ad­ven­tures in Arms: and how he came to the Knowl­edge of his Par­ents, in­ter­laced with a Va­ri­ety of Pleas­ant and De­light­ful Dis­course,” since Ruth had laughed at it, and had laid the blame for his weak­ness up­on the ro­mance. And then his crav­ing for the ro­man­tic and beau­ti­ful was sat­is­fied for the mo­ment by gaz­ing about this big, strange, shad­owy, em­bow­ered room. More­over, Ruth came back very soon. When beau­ty is young, fresh, nat­ural, and very, very great, it does not need much time for its adorn­ment. Ruth's toi­let was like a bird's. A quick dip in pure, cold wa­ter--a flut­ter of soft gar­ments as the ra­di­ant wings cast off the crys­tal drops--and she was ready to meet the full glo­ry of the sun­light. When she thus came smil­ing down the stairs that day, with the dew of life's morn­ing fresh up­on her, David turned from the flow­ers.

“Yes, in­deed! Isn't it a love­ly frock!” she cried, run­ning her hand light­ly over the big, puffy, short sleeve. “It is one of the last un­cle Philip had made in New Or­leans, and fetched up the riv­er. You might draw this muslin through my small­est ring. See this dear lit­tle gir­dle--way up here right un­der my arms--and so del­icate­ly worked in these pale blue for­get-​me-​nots, that look as if they were just in bloom. See!”--lift­ing the gauzy skirt as a child lifts its apron--“Here is a bor­der of the for­get-​me-​nots all around the bot­tom. But you are such a goose that you don't know how pret­ty it is un­less I tell you,” pre­tend­ing to shake him, with trills of hap­py laugh­ter. “All the same, you shall look at the slip­pers, too! You shall see that the kid is as blue as the for­get-​me-​nots,--whether you want to or not!” draw­ing back the skirt and putting out her foot.

And the boy gaz­ing at her face, for­got his bash­ful­ness far enough to ad­mire the frock and the slip­pers as much as she thought they de­served. Nei­ther of these chil­dren of the wilder­ness knew how un­suit­able her dress was, that it had nev­er been in­tend­ed for wear­ing in the morn­ing any­where, or for the for­est at any time. Ruth had worn on­ly the dain­ti­est and finest of gar­ments all her life, with­out any re­gard for suit­able­ness. From her baby­hood to this day of her girl­hood, it had been Philip Al­ston's pride and hap­pi­ness to dress her as the proud­est and rich­est fa­ther might dress his daugh­ter, in the midst of the high­est civ­iliza­tion. Ruth knew noth­ing else, and those who knew her would scarce­ly have known her, see­ing her oth­er­wise. It was on­ly the few strangers stop­ping at Cedar House, on their way over the Wilder­ness Road, who gazed at Ruth in won­der­ing amaze­ment. Nat­ural­ly enough, those who had nev­er seen her be­fore could not at first be­lieve the ev­idence of their own daz­zled eyes. To them this ra­di­ant young crea­ture in her rich, del­icate rai­ment could not seem re­al at first; she was too love­ly, too like an en­chant­ing vi­sion born of the dim green shad­ows of the for­est, a be­witch­ing dryad, an exquisite sprite.

Some such thoughts as these crossed the mind of Paul Col­bert as he looked at her through the open door. He had rid­den up un­heard, had dis­mount­ed, ty­ing his horse to a tree, and had then stood for sev­er­al min­utes with­out be­ing seen by Ruth or David. When he spoke, they thought that he had just ar­rived. Ruth went for­ward to wel­come him with the ease and grace that marked ev­ery­thing she did. Na­ture had giv­en her a pret­ty, gen­tle dig­ni­ty, and Philip Al­ston's cul­tured ex­am­ple had pol­ished her man­ner. She now did all the grace­ful of­fices of the host­ess, qui­et­ly and sim­ply. She said how sor­ry she was that nei­ther her un­cle nor her cousin was at home. They wished, she said, to be there when he came, so that they might try to thank him for his kind­ness to her. But one or the oth­er would re­turn very soon; both had hoped to do so be­fore his ar­rival.

“It is ear­ly for a vis­it,” Paul Col­bert said, in a tone of apol­ogy; “but I couldn't come at all to-​day, un­less I stopped now in pass­ing.”

“Oh, no!” said Ruth, quick­ly. “It isn't very ear­ly.”

“And then I thought you might like to see this,” he said.

Ris­ing, he stepped to her side, and gave her a sheet of pa­per torn from his note-​book and cov­ered with writ­ing. He did not re­turn to the chair which he had arisen from, but took an­oth­er much near­er her own.

“Po­et­ry!” she said. “Is it some­thing that you have writ­ten?”

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 ashore 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 space 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 as­so­ciate 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 amuse­ment 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 in­grat­itude. 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.