Round Anvil Rock A Romance

VII

A MORN­ING IN CEDAR HOUSE

It was al­most morn­ing when the boy and William Press­ley reached home. David did not go to bed, but set out at the first glim­mer of dawn to do the judge's bid­ding, call­ing the black men to go with him, since there was no great glo­ry to be won by go­ing alone in the day­light. There was time for a lit­tle rest af­ter com­ing back, and it was still very ear­ly when he arose from his bed and be­gan to get ready for break­fast.

He looked from his cab­in win­dow at the riv­er which al­ways drew his wak­ing gaze. It was sparkling like a stream of liq­uid di­amonds un­der the flood of sun­light pour­ing over the daz­zled earth. The fring­ing rush­es rip­pled as gen­tly as the wa­ter un­der the snowy breasts of many swans. The trees along the shore were fresh­ly green and new­ly alive with the col­or and chat­ter of the paro­quets. Look­ing and lis­ten­ing, he thought what a po­et­ic no­tion it was that these vivid birds should car­ry the seed pearls of the mistle­toe from one mighty oak to an­oth­er, bear­ing the tiny trea­sures in the wax on their feet.

Far up the wide, shin­ing riv­er a great, heavy-​laden barge was glid­ing swift­ly down. Its worn and clum­sy sail seemed as white and grace­ful as the wings of the swans in the sun. Its dull and tan­gled coils of cordelles caught an un­wont­ed charm from the sun­beams. Its mer­ry crew was singing a song, which came gay­ly over the flash­ing wa­ter:--

“Hi-​ho, the boat­men row, The Ken­tuck boys and the O-​hi-​o. Dance, the boat­men, dance, Dance, the boat­men, dance; Dance all night till broad day­light, And go home with the gals in the mornin'.”

Watch­ing the barge pass out of sight be­neath the over­hang­ing trees, David turned to see a small dark ob­ject, lead­ing two long verg­ing lines of sil­very rip­ples across the glit­ter­ing cur­rent. This cleft the wa­ter near the Shawnee Cross­ing, and might, not long be­fore, have been the plumed head of a war­rior want­ing his ca­noe. But since the war­riors were all gone so strange­ly and sud­den­ly, this brown speck now cross­ing the riv­er must have been the antlered head of a deer swim­ming to the oth­er side, thus giv­ing the hunters warn­ing that these green hills would soon be white with snow. If so, there was no oth­er sign of near­ing win­ter. The som­bre for­est stretch­ing away from the op­po­site shore had not yet been bright­ened by a touch of frost. The leaves on the near-​by trees, the great oaks and elms and poplars stand­ing around Cedar House, were thin­ning on­ly through ripeness, and drift­ing very slow­ly down to the green and grow­ing grass. On the tall maples per­fec­tion alone had culled the fo­liage, so wreath­ing the bronze boughs with rar­er gar­lands of fret­ted gold.

No dread of win­try storms had yet driv­en away any of the birds that Ruth fed ev­ery day on the sill of her cham­ber win­dow. They were all there as usu­al--the whole feath­ered colony--as if they wished to be po­lite, even though they were not hun­gry on that sun­ny morn­ing. The lit­tle ones, to be sure, pecked a crumb now and then with a lan­guid in­dif­fer­ence. The blue jays--as usu­al--were brazen in their in­grat­itude for any dole of com­mon­place crumbs, while spicy seeds were still strewn by ev­ery scent­ed breeze. But shy and bold alike, they all flocked around Ruth's win­dow, and sat on the sill with­in reach of her hand, and cocked their pret­ty heads as if it were feast enough on­ly to look at her.

She had al­ready been down­stairs to fetch the birds' break­fast, and had gone in­to the gar­den where the sweet­est and red­dest ros­es of all the year were still bloom­ing. She held a big bunch of them in her hand as she stood at the open win­dow and waved it at David in a morn­ing greet­ing, when she saw him cross­ing the yard. She came down the broad stairs as he en­tered the great room, and she was wear­ing a fresh white frock and her arms were full of the fra­grant red ros­es.

The rest of the fam­ily were al­ready in the room, and the ta­ble was laid for break­fast. Ruth greet­ed each one with a smile, but she did not speak, and be­gan to move qui­et­ly about the ta­ble, giv­ing those dain­ty lit­tle fin­ish­ing touch­es which no true wom­an ev­er leaves to a ser­vant. She put some of the ros­es in a vase, and re­ar­ranged this and that, mov­ing light­ly and soft­ly about. Her foot­steps were as sound­less as the fall of ten­der leaves, and her gar­ments made no more rus­tle than the un­fold­ing of a flow­er. She threw one of the red ros­es at David, and waft­ed the judge a kiss. Once or twice she turned to speak to William, but forth­with smil­ing­ly gave up all thought of it for the time be­ing.

There nev­er was any use in any­body's try­ing to speak while Miss Pene­lope was in the height of the ex­cite­ment of mak­ing the morn­ing cof­fee. An op­por­tu­ni­ty for a word might pos­si­bly oc­cur dur­ing the mak­ing of the cof­fee for din­ner or sup­per. Miss Pene­lope did not con­sid­er this func­tion quite so solemn a cer­emo­ny at din­ner or sup­per time. Some­times, at rare in­ter­vals, she had been known to al­low the cof­fee for din­ner or sup­per to be made by the cook in the kitchen. But the mak­ing of the break­fast cof­fee was a very dif­fer­ent and far more im­pos­ing cer­emo­ni­al. This must al­ways be per­formed in the pres­ence of the, en­tire as­sem­bled house­hold, by her own hand, on the wide hearth in the great room of Cedar House. To have per­mit­ted the cook to make the morn­ing cof­fee in the kitchen, would have been in Miss Pene­lope's eyes, to rel­egate a sa­cred rite to pro­fane hands in an un­con­se­crat­ed place. Her own mak­ing of the morn­ing cof­fee had in­deed much of the solem­ni­ty of a re­li­gious cer­emo­ny--or would have had, if those who looked on, had been un­able to hear, or even slight­ly dull of hear­ing. For the sound of Miss Pene­lope's voice was charm­ing when the lis­ten­er could not hear what it said. And her dul­cet tone al­ways ran through the whole per­for­mance like the faint, sweet echo of dis­tant mu­sic. But when the lis­ten­er's ears were keen, and he could hear the things that this kind, ca­ress­ing voice was say­ing, the threats that it was ut­ter­ing!--They were alarm­ing enough to cur­dle the blood of the lit­tle cup-​bear­ers, black, brown, and yel­low, who al­ways flew like shut­tles back and forth be­tween the big house and the dis­tant kitchen while Miss Pene­lope was mak­ing the break­fast cof­fee. It re­quired much fly­ing of small dusky legs, to and fro, be­fore the cold wa­ter was cold enough, the hot wa­ter hot enough, and the fresh egg fresh enough, to sat­is­fy Miss Pene­lope that the cof­fee would be all that it should be.

On this par­tic­ular morn­ing the usu­al ex­cite­ment had reached its cri­sis as Ruth came down the stairs. There was usu­al­ly a slight lull when the first slen­der and al­most in­vis­ible col­umn of steam arose from the long spout of the cof­fee-​pot. That was the most crit­ical mo­ment, and it now be­ing safe­ly past, Miss Pene­lope hasti­ly sent away all the cup-​bear­ers in a body. But she still hov­ered anx­ious­ly over the pot, grave­ly con­sid­er­ing how many min­utes longer it should rest on its triv­et over the glow­ing coals. Hers was a quaint lit­tle fig­ure. She wore a queer lit­tle black dress, very short and nar­row, made af­ter some pe­cu­liar fash­ion of her own, and over it a queer­er lit­tle cape of the same stuff. Her cap on the oth­er hand was sin­gu­lar­ly large and white, and the ruf­fle around her face was very wide and very stiff. The snap­ping black eyes un­der the ruf­fle were nev­er still, and the claw­like lit­tle hands were nev­er at rest. David in his idle way used to won­der what she wor­ried about and fid­get­ed over in her sleep. But it was hard to think of her asleep; it would have been eas­ier to fan­cy a sleep­ing weasel. Nev­er­the­less the boy liked Miss Pene­lope. Ruth and he had learned while they were lit­tle chil­dren, that there was no un­kind­ness in the snap­ping of her sharp lit­tle black eyes, and that the ter­ri­ble things she said were as harm­less as heat light­ning. Even the lit­tle cup-​bear­ers, black, brown, and yel­low, all knew how kind-​heart­ed she was, and did not mind in the least the most ap­palling threats ut­tered by her sweet, soft voice. She al­ways gave them some­thing be­fore she sent them fly­ing back to the cab­ins. Ev­ery­body liked her bet­ter than the wid­ow Broad­nax who nev­er scold­ed or med­dled and in­deed, rarely spoke at all to any one up­on any sub­ject. For the house­hold had long since come to un­der­stand that this la­dy, like many an­oth­er of her kind, was silent main­ly be­cause she had noth­ing to say; and that she nev­er found fault, sim­ply be­cause she did not care. In­dif­fer­ence like hers of­ten pass­es for ami­abil­ity; and that sort of mo­tion­less si­lence con­ceals a vac­uum quite as of­ten as it cov­ers a deep. On­ly one thing ev­er ful­ly aroused the wid­ow Broad­nax; and this was to see her half-​sis­ter tak­ing au­thor­ity in her own broth­er's house. And in­deed, that were enough to rouse the ver­iest mol­lusk of a wom­an. In the case of the wid­ow Broad­nax this nat­ural feel­ing was not at all af­fect­ed by the fact that she was too in­do­lent to make the ex­er­tion to claim and fill her right­ful place as mis­tress of the house. It did not mat­ter in the least that she lay and slept like a sloth while poor lit­tle Miss Pene­lope was up and work­ing like a beaver. No wom­an's claims ev­er have any­thing to do with her deserts; per­haps no man's ev­er have ei­ther; per­haps all who claim most de­serve least. At all events, it was per­fect­ly nat­ural that the wid­ow Broad­nax should feel as tru­ly and deeply ag­grieved at her half-​sis­ter's rul­ing her own broth­er's house, as if she, her­self, had been the most en­er­get­ic and ca­pa­ble of house­keep­ers.

On that morn­ing her dull eyes kept an un­wa­ver­ing, un­wink­ing watch over the cof­fee mak­ing; as they al­ways did over ev­ery en­croach­ment up­on her rights. Her heavy eye­lids were on­ly par­tial­ly lift­ed, yet not a move­ment of Miss Pene­lope's rest­less lit­tle body, not a ges­ture of her ner­vous lit­tle hands was al­lowed to es­cape. Now that the cof­fee was near­ly ready, Miss Pene­lope had be­come rather more com­posed. She still stood guard over the cof­fee-​pot; she nev­er left it till she car­ried it to the ta­ble with her own hands, but she was laps­ing in­to a sort of spent si­lence. She mere­ly sighed at in­ter­vals with the con­tent­ed weari­ness that comes from a sense of du­ty well done. But her half-​sis­ter still eyed her as a fat, mo­tion­less spi­der eyes a buzzing lit­tle fly which is ceas­ing to flut­ter. Miss Pene­lope had not ob­served a large pewter cup rest­ing on the floor near the wid­ow Broad­nax's chair. It had been left there by a care­less ser­vant, who had used a por­tion of the mix­ture of red paint and sour but­ter­milk with which it was filled, to give the wide hearth its fine dai­ly gloss. Miss Pene­lope had not ob­served it be­cause she was al­ways obliv­ious to ev­ery­thing else while hang­ing over the cof­fee-​pot. The wid­ow Broad­nax had seen the cup at once be­cause it was slight­ly in the way of her foot; and she was quick enough to no­tice the least dis­com­fort. But she had not im­me­di­ate­ly per­ceived the longed-​for op­por­tu­ni­ty which it gave her. That came like an in­spi­ra­tion a few mo­ments lat­er, when Miss Pene­lope was off guard for an in­stant. Her back was turned on­ly long enough for her to go to the ta­ble and see if the tray was ready for the cof­fee-​pot, but the wid­ow Broad­nax found this plen­ty of time. With a quick­ness tru­ly sur­pris­ing in one of her ha­bit­ual slow­ness, she swooped down and seized the cup of but­ter­milk and paint. In a flash she lift­ed the lid of the cof­fee-​pot, poured the con­tents of the cup in the cof­fee, set the emp­ty cup down in its place, and was back again, rest­ing among the cush­ions as if she had nev­er stirred, when poor lit­tle Miss Pene­lope, all un­sus­pect­ing, re­turned to her post.

“You re­al­ly must get up, Sis­ter Mol­ly,” that la­dy said res­olute­ly, re­new­ing an al­ter­ca­tion. “I hid the pantry keys un­der your chair cush­ions at sup­per, last night. That's al­ways the safest place. But I for­got to take them out be­fore you sat down. And you must get up--there isn't enough sug­ar for the cof­fee.”

“Let me,” said Ruth, com­ing for­ward with a smile, in her pret­ty, coax­ing way.

When the an­tag­onism be­tween the sis­ters broke in­to open hos­til­ity, it was near­ly al­ways she who man­aged to soothe them and re­store a tem­po­rary sem­blance of peace--for be­yond that no mor­tal pow­er could go. She now pre­vailed up­on the wid­ow Broad­nax to rise with her as­sis­tance, thus se­cur­ing the keys, and when that la­dy was once on her feet she was eas­ier to move, so that Ruth now led her to her place at the break­fast ta­ble with­out fur­ther trou­ble. There was, how­ev­er, al­ways more or less trou­ble about the place it­self. It was but wom­an na­ture to feel it to be very hard for a whole sis­ter to sit at the side of the ta­ble while a half sis­ter sat at its head. The judge al­ways did what he could to spare her feel­ings, and Miss Pene­lope's at the same time. He was a bach­elor, and held wom­en in the half-​gal­lant, half-​hu­mor­ous re­gard which sets the bach­elor apart from the mar­ried man, and places him at a dis­ad­van­tage which he is com­mon­ly un­aware of. The judge thought he un­der­stood the dis­tinc­tive­ly fem­inine weak­ness­es par­tic­ular­ly well, and that he made un­com­mon­ly large al­lowance for them, as the bach­elor al­ways thinks and nev­er does. And then when the quar­rel reached a cri­sis, and he was en­tire­ly at the end of his re­sources for keep­ing the peace, he could al­ways threat­en to take to the woods, and that usu­al­ly brought a short truce.

“Ruth, my dear, what's all this about some stranger's bring­ing you home last night?” he in­quired, tak­ing his seat at the foot of the ta­ble. “Where were you, William? and what were you do­ing? You shouldn't have tak­en Ruth to such a place, or any­where, if you couldn't take care of her,” with un­usu­al sever­ity.

Ruth sprang to William's de­fence. She said that it was not his fault. They were sep­arat­ed by the crowd. He had done his best, and all that any one could have done.

“I made William take me. He didn't want to do it. And I am not sor­ry that I went, al­though I was so much fright­ened at the time. With­out see­ing it, no one can ev­er know what this strange and aw­ful thing is like. No de­scrip­tion can pos­si­bly de­scribe it,” she said, with dark­en­ing eyes and ris­ing col­or.

“A most shock­ing and im­prop­er scene,” said William Press­ley, as one who weighs his words. “A most shock­ing and im­prop­er scene.”

Ruth looked at him won­der­ing­ly.

“Shock­ing--im­prop­er!” she fal­tered, per­plexed­ly. “What a strange way to think of it. To me it was a great, grave, ter­ri­ble spec­ta­cle. The awe of it over­whelmed me, alarmed as I was. Why, it was like see­ing the Soul uni­ver­sal--bared and quiv­er­ing.”

William Press­ley said noth­ing more. He nev­er dis­cussed any­thing. Once he had spo­ken, the sub­ject seemed to him fi­nal­ly dis­posed of.

“Great Grief!” cried Miss Pene­lope in the blank­est amaze­ment and the great­est dis­may. “For the land's sake!”

As the faith­ful high-​priest­ess of the cof­fee-​pot she was al­ways the first to taste her own brew. She now set her cup down hasti­ly. Her red, wrin­kled lit­tle face was a study. The wid­ow Broad­nax, whose cup was un­touched, sat silent and im­pas­sive as usu­al, re­gard­ing her with the same dull, half-​open, un­wink­ing gaze.

“What un­der the sun!” gasped Miss Pene­lope, still more and more amazed and dis­mayed, and grow­ing an­gry as she ral­lied from the shock.

“Come, come!--if I can't eat break­fast in peace, I'll take to the woods. What's the mat­ter?” ex­claimed the judge. “Didn't you get the cof­fee made to suit you, af­ter all that rum­pus? Isn't it good?”

“Good!” shrieked Miss Pene­lope. “It's poi­soned, I do be­lieve! Don't drink it, any of you, if you val­ue your lives!”

“Oh, non­sense!” said the judge. “You are too hard to please, Sis­ter Pene­lope. And you spoil the rest of us, mak­ing the cof­fee your­self. Nev­er mind--nev­er mind!”

He took a sip and made a wry face, but he hard­ly ev­er knew what he was eat­ing, and push­ing the cup back, for­got all about it. He was more in­ter­est­ed in Ruth's ac­count of the meet­ing, and asked many ques­tions about her ride home.

“This young doc­tor must be a fine fel­low,” he said. “I have been hear­ing a good deal about him from Fa­ther Orin. They are al­ready great friends, it seems. They meet of­ten among the poor and the sick, and work to­geth­er. I hope, my dear, that you thought to ask him to call. You re­mem­bered, didn't you, to tell him that the latch-​string of Cedar House al­ways hangs on the out­side? I want to thank him and then I should like to know such a man. He is an ad­di­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty.”

“Oh, yes, I thought of that, of course,” said Ruth, sim­ply. “I told him I knew you and William would like to thank him. He is com­ing to-​day. I hope, un­cle Robert, that you will be here when he does come.”

“I shall be here to thank him,” said William. “Un­cle need take no trou­ble in the mat­ter. I will do all that is nec­es­sary.”

A wom­an must be deeply in love be­fore she likes to hear the note of own­er­ship in a man's voice when speak­ing of her­self. Ruth was not at all in love--in that way--al­though she did not yet know that she was not. The del­icate ros­es of her cheeks deep­ened sud­den­ly to the tint of the rich red ones which she held again in her hands. Her blue eyes dark­ened with re­volt, and she gave William a clear, lev­el look, throw­ing up her head. Then her soft heart smote her, and her gen­tle spir­it re­proached her. She be­lieved William Press­ley to be a good man, and she was ev­er ready to feel her­self in the wrong. She got up in a timid flur­ry and went to the door and stood a mo­ment look­ing out at the sun-​lit riv­er. Present­ly she qui­et­ly re­turned, and shy­ly paus­ing be­hind William's chair, rest­ed her hand on the back of it. There was a timid apol­ogy in the ges­ture. She was think­ing on­ly of her own short­com­ings. Had she been crit­ical of him or even ob­ser­vant, she would have seen that there was some­thing pe­cu­liar­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic in the very way that he han­dled his knife and fork; a cu­ri­ous, sat­is­fied self-​con­scious­ness in the very lift of his wrists which seemed to say that this, and no oth­er, was the cor­rect man­ner of eat­ing, and that he dis­ap­proved of ev­ery­body else's man­ner. But she saw noth­ing of the kind, for hers was not the poor af­fec­tion that stands ev­er ready to pick flaws. He did not know that she was near him un­til the judge spoke to her; and then he sprang to his feet at once. He was much too fine a gen­tle­man to keep his seat while any la­dy stood. Ruth smil­ing­ly mo­tioned him back to his chair, and go­ing round the ta­ble, leant over the judge's shoul­der. He had been ex­am­in­ing a pack­et of le­gal pa­pers, and he laid a yel­low doc­ument be­fore her, spread­ing it out on the ta­ble-​cloth.

“You were ask­ing the oth­er day about the buf­fa­lo--when they were here, and so on. Now, lis­ten to this old note of hand, dat­ed the fif­teenth of Oc­to­ber, sev­en­teen hun­dred and nine­ty-​two, just nine­teen years ago. Here it is: 'For val­ue Rec'd, I promise to pay Pe­ter Wil­son or his Agent, twen­ty pounds worth of good mar­ket Buf­fa­lo Beef free from Boone, to be de­liv­ered at Red Banks on the Ohio Riv­er, or at aney oth­er place that he or his shall salt beef on the banks of said riv­er, and aney time in the en­su­ing fawl be­fore this fawl's hunt­ing is over.' There now, my dear! That would seem to prove that there were plen­ty of buf­fa­lo here­abouts not long ago. A hun­dred dol­lars in En­glish gold must have bought a large amount of wild meat. If this meant Vir­ginia pounds it was still a great deal. And the hunter who drew this note must have known how he was go­ing to pay it.”

“Rachel Ro­bards says there were lots of buf­fa­lo when she came,” said Miss Pene­lope, who was grad­ual­ly re­cov­er­ing from the shock of tast­ing the cof­fee, and now pru­dent­ly thought best to say no more about the mat­ter. “I al­ways call her Rachel Ro­bards, be­cause I knew her so well by that name. I am not a-​dis­put­ing her mar­riage with Gen­er­al Jack­son. If she wasn't mar­ried to him when she first thought she was, she is now, hard and fast enough. I have got noth­ing to say about that one way or an­oth­er. As a sin­gle wom­an, it don't be­come me to be a-​talk­ing about such mat­ters. But mar­ried or not mar­ried, I have al­ways stood up for Rachel Ro­bards. Lewis Ro­bards would have picked a fuss with the An­gel Gabriel, let alone a fire-​eater like An­drew Jack­son. Give the dev­il his due. But all the same, if An­drew Jack­son does try to chas­tise Pe­ter Cartwright for what he said last night, there's a-​go­ing to be trou­ble. Now mark my word! I know as well, and bet­ter than any of you, that Pe­ter is on­ly a boy. Many's the time that I've seen his moth­er take off her slip­per and turn him across her lap. And she nev­er hit him a lick amiss, ei­ther. But that's nei­ther here nor there. His be­ing young don't keep me from see­ing that he has sure­ly got the Gift. It don't make any dif­fer­ence that he hasn't cut his wis­dom teeth, as they say. What if he hasn't?” de­mand­ed Miss Pene­lope, with the most sin­gu­lar con­trast be­tween her mild tone and her fierce words. “What has the cut­ting of wis­dom teeth got to do with preach­ing, when the preach­er has been giv­en the Gift!”

So speak­ing, she sud­den­ly start­ed up from the ta­ble with an ex­cla­ma­tion of sur­prise, and ran to the open door.

“Pe­ter! Oh, Pe­ter Cartwright!” she called. “Wait--stop a minute. To think of your go­ing by right at the very minute that we were a-​talk­ing about you!”

She went out un­der the trees where the square-​built, stern-​faced, swarthy young preach­er had brought his horse to a stand­still.

“Now, Pe­ter, you sure­ly ain't a-​go­ing up to the court-​house to see An­drew Jack­son,” she said in sud­den alarm.

“No, no, not now,” said Pe­ter, hur­ried­ly. “I am rid­ing fast to keep an ap­point­ment to preach on the oth­er side of the riv­er.”

“But you can stop long enough to eat break­fast. I lay you haven't had a bite this blessed day.”

Pe­ter shook his head, gath­er­ing up the reins.

“And ten to one that you haven't got a cent of mon­ey!” Miss Pene­lope ac­cused him.

Pe­ter's grim young face re­laxed in a faint smile. He put his hand in his pock­et and drew out two small pieces of sil­ver.

“Ah, ha, I knew it!” ex­ult­ed Miss Pene­lope. “Now do wait just one minute till I run in the house and get you some mon­ey.”

“No, no, there isn't time. I'll miss my ap­point­ment to preach. I will get along some­how. Thank you--good-​by.”

Miss Pene­lope, reach­ing up, seized the bri­dle-​reins and held on by main force with one hand while she rum­maged in her out pock­et with the oth­er.

“There!--here are three bits--ev­ery cent I've got with me,” she said in­dig­nant­ly, shov­ing it in his hand. “Well, Pe­ter Cartwright, if your moth­er could know--”

But the young back­woods­man, whose fame was al­ready fill­ing the wilder­ness, and was to fill the whole Chris­tian world, now pressed on rid­ing fast, and was soon be­yond her kind scold­ing.

“Well, 'pon my word! Did any­body ev­er see the like of that!” she cried, see­ing that Ruth had fol­lowed her to the door. “That boy don't know half the time whether he has had any­thing to eat or not. And it's just ex­act­ly the same to him when he's got mon­ey and when he hasn't.”

The girl did not hear what Miss Pene­lope said. Her heart was re­spond­ing, as it al­ways did, to ev­ery­thing great or hero­ic, and she looked af­ter this boy preach­er with new­ly opened eyes. She sud­den­ly saw as by a flash of white light, that he and the oth­er pi­oneer men of God--these sol­diers of the cross who were bear­ing it through the track­less wilder­ness--were of the great­est. Her dim eyes fol­lowed the young man--this brave bear­er of the aw­ful bur­den of the di­vine mis­sion--watch­ing him press on to the riv­er. She thought of the many rivers that he must swim, the forests that he must thread, the sav­ages that he must con­tend against, the wild beasts that he must con­quer, the plague that he must de­fy, the shel­ter­less nights that he must sleep un­der the trees--freez­ing, starv­ing, strug­gling through win­ter's cold and sum­mer's heat, and all for the love of God and the good of mankind.