Part 17

We left Patty standing irresolute in the road. The latch-string of her father's house was drawn in; she must find another home. Every Methodist cabin would be open to her, of course; Colonel Wheeler would be only too glad to receive her. But Colonel Wheeler and all the Methodist people were openly hostile to her father, and delicacy forbade her allying herself so closely with her father's foes. She did not want to foreclose every door to a reconciliation. Mrs. Goodwin's was not to be thought of. There was but one place, and that was with Kike's mother, the widow Lumsden, who, as a relative, was naturally her first resort in exile.

Here she found a cordial welcome, and here she found the schoolmaster, still attentive to the widow, though neither he nor she dared think of marriage with Kike's awful displeasure in the back-ground.

"Well, well," said Brady, when the homeless Patty had received permission to stay in the cabin of her aunt-in-law: "Well, well, how sthrange things comes to pass, Miss Lumsden. You turned Moirton off yersilf fer bein' a Mithodis' and now ye're the one that gits sint adrift." Then, half musingly, he added: "I wish Moirton noo, now don't oi? Revinge is swate, and this sort of revinge would be swater on many accounts."

The helpless Patty could say nothing, and Brady looked out of the window and continued, in a sort of soliloquy: "Moirton would be _that_ glad. Ha! ha! He'd say the divil niver sarved him a better thrick than by promptin' the Captin to turn ye out. It'll simplify matters fer Moirton. A sum's aisier to do when its simplified, loike. An' now it'll be as aisy to Moirton when he hears about it, as twice one is two--as simple as puttin' two halves togither to make a unit." Here the master rubbed his hands in glee. He was pleased with the success of his illustration. Then he muttered: "They'll agree in ginder, number and parson!"

"Mr. Brady, I don't think you ought to make fun of me."

"Make fun of ye! Bliss yer dair little heart, it aint in yer ould schoolmasther to make fun of ye, whin ye've done yer dooty. I was only throyin' to congratilate ye on how aisy Moirton would conjugate the whole thing whin he hears about it."

"Now, Mr. Brady," said Patty, drawing herself up with her old pride, "I know there will be those who will say that I joined the church to get Morton back, I want you to say that Morton is to be married--was probably married to-day--and that I knew of it some days ago."

Brady's countenance fell. "Things niver come out roight," he said, as he absently put on his hat. "They talk about spicial providinces," he soliloquized, as he walked away, "and I thought as I had caught one at last. But it does same sometoimes as if a bluntherin' Oirishman loike mesilf could turn the univarse better if he had aholt of the stairin' oar. But, psha! Oi've only got one or two pets of me own to look afther. God has to git husbands fer ivery woman ixcipt the old maids. An' some women has to have two, of which I hope is the Widdy Lumsden! But Mithodism upsets iverything. Koike's so religious that he can't love anybody but God, and he don't know how to pity thim that does. And Koike's made us both mortally afeard of his goodness. I wish he'd fall dead in love himself once; thin he'd know how it fales!"

Patty soon found that her father could not brook her presence in the neighborhood, and that the widow's hospitality to her was resented as an act of hostility to him. She accordingly set herself to find some means of getting away from the neighborhood, and at the same time of earning her living.

Happily, at this moment came presiding elder Magruder to a quarterly meeting on the circuit to which Ilissawachee belonged, and, hearing of Patty's case, he proposed to get her employment as a teacher. He had heard that a teacher was wanted in the neighborhood of the Hickory Ridge church, where the conference had met. So Patty was settled as a teacher. For ten hours a day she showed children how to "do sums," heard their lessons in Lindley Murray, listened to them droning through the moralizing poems in the "Didactic" department of the old English Reader, and taught them spelling from the "a-b abs" to "in-com-pre-hen-si-bil-i-ty" and its octopedal companions. And she boarded round, but Dr. Morgan, the Presbyterian ex-minister, when he learned that she was Kike's cousin, and a sufferer for her religion, insisted that her Sundays should be passed in his house. And being almost as much a pastor as a doctor among the people, he soon found Patty a rare helper in his labors among the poor and the sick. Something of good-breeding and refinement there was in her manner that made her seem a being above the poor North Carolinans who had moved into the hollows, and her kindness was all the more grateful on account of her dignity. She was "a grand lady," they declared, and besides was "a kinder sorter angel, like, ye know, in her way of tendin' folks what's sick." They loved to tell how "she nussed Bill Turner's wife through the awfulest spell of the yaller janders you ever seed; an' toted _Miss_ Cole's baby roun' all night the night her ole man was fotch home shot through the arm with his own good-fer-nothin' keerlessness. She's better'n forty doctors, root or calomile."

[Illustration: THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS OF HICKORY RIDGE.]

One day Doctor Morgan called at the school-house door just as the long spelling-class had broken up, and Patty was getting ready to send the children home. The doctor sat on his horse while each of the boys, with hat in one hand and dinner-basket in the other, walked to the door, and, after the fashion of those good old days, turned round and bowed awkwardly at the teacher. Some bobbed their heads forward on their breasts; some jerked them sidewise; some, more respectful, bent their bodies into crescents. Each seemed alike glad when he was through with this abominable bit of ceremony, the only bit of ceremony in the whole round of their lives. The girls, in short linsey dresses, with copperas-dyed cotton pantalettes, came after, dropping "curcheys" in a style that would have bewildered a dancing-master.

"Miss Lumsden," said the doctor, when the teacher appeared, "I am sorry to see you so tired. I want you to go home with me. I have some work for you to do to-morrow."

There were no buggies in that day. The roads were mostly bridle-paths, and those that would admit wagons would have shaken a buggy to pieces. Patty climbed upon a fence-corner, and the doctor rode as close as possible to the fence where she stood. Then she dropped upon the horse behind him, and the two rode off together.

Doctor Morgan explained to Patty that a strange man was lying wounded at the house of a family named Barkins, on Higgins's Run. The man refused to give his name, and the family would not tell what they knew about him. As Barkins bore a bad reputation, it was quite likely that the stranger belonged to some band of thieves who lived by horse-stealing and plundering emigrants. He seemed to be in great mental anguish, but evidently distrusted the doctor. The doctor therefore wished Patty to spend Saturday at Barkins's, and do what she could for the patient. "It is our business to do the man good," said Doctor Morgan, "not to have him arrested. Gospel is always better than Law."

On Saturday morning the doctor had a horse saddled with a side-saddle for Patty, and he and she rode to Higgins's Hollow, a desolate, rocky glen, where once lived a noted outlaw from whom the hollow took its name, and where now resided a man who was suspected of giving much indirect assistance to the gangs of thieves that infested the country, though he was too lame to be actively engaged in any bold enterprises.

Barkins nodded his head in a surly fashion at Patty as she crossed the threshold, and Mrs. Barkins, a square-shouldered, raw-boned woman, looked half inclined to dispute the passage of any woman over her door-sill. Patty felt a shudder of fear go through her frame at the thought of staying in such a place all day; but Doctor Morgan had an authoritative way with such people. When called to attend a patient, he put the whole house under martial law.

"Mrs. Barkins, I hope our patient's better. He needs a good deal done for him to-day, and I brought the school-mistress to help you, knowing you had a houseful of children and plenty of work."

"I've got a powerful sight to do, Doctor Morgan, but you had orter know'd better'n to fetch a school-miss in to spy out a body's housekeepin' 'thout givin' folks half a chance to bresh up a little. I 'low she haint never lived in no holler, in no log-house weth ten of the wust childern you ever seed and a decreppled ole man." She sulkily brushed off a stool with her apron and offered it to Patty. But Patty, with quick tact, laid her sunbonnet on the bed, and, while the doctor went into the only other room of the house to see the patient, she seized upon the woman's dish-towel and went to wiping the yellow crockery as Mrs. Barkins washed it, and to prevent the crabbed remonstrance which that lady had ready, she began to tell how she had tried to wipe dishes when she was little, and how she had upset the table and spilt everything on the floor. She looked into Mrs. Barkins's face with so much friendly confidence, her laugh had so much assurance of Mrs. Barkins's concurrence in it, that the square visage relaxed a little, and the woman proceeded to show her increasing friendliness by boxing "Jane Marier" for "stan'in' too closte to the lady and starrin at her that a-way."

Just then the doctor opened the squeaky door and beckoned to Patty.

"I've brought you the only medicine that will do you any good," he said, rapidly, to the sick man. "This is Miss Lumsden, our school-mistress, and the best hand in sickness you ever saw. She will stay with you an hour."

The patient turned his wan face over and looked wearily at Patty. He seemed to be a man of forty, but suffering and his unshorn beard had given him a haggard look, and he might be ten years younger. He had evidently some gentlemanly instincts, for he looked about the room for a seat for Patty. "I'll take care of myself," said Patty, cheerfully--seeing his anxious desire to be polite.

"I will write down some directions for you," said Dr. Morgan, taking out pencil and paper. When he handed the directions to Patty they read:

"I leave you a lamb among wolves. But the Shepherd is here! It is the only chance to save the poor fellow's life or his soul. I will send Nettie over in an hour with jelly, and if you want to come home with her you can do so. I will stop at noon."

With that he bade her good-bye and was gone. Patty put the room in order, wiped off the sick man's temples, and he soon fell into a sleep. When he awoke she again wiped his face with cold water. "My mother used to do that," he said.

"Is she dead?" asked Patty, reverently.

"I think not. I have been a bad man, and it is a wonder that I didn't break her heart. I would like to see her!"

"Where is she?" asked Patty.

The patient looked at her suspiciously: "What's the use of bringing my disgrace home to her door?" he said.

"But I think she would bear your disgrace and everything else for the sake of wiping your face as I do."

"I believe she would," said the wounded man, tremulously. "I would like to go to her, and ever since I came away I have meant to go as soon as I could get in the way of doing better. But I get worse all the time. I'll soon be dead now, and I don't care how soon. The sooner the better;" and he sighed wearily.

Patty had the tact not to contradict him.

"Did your mother ever read to you?" she asked.

"Yes; she used to read the Bible on Sundays and I used to run away to keep from hearing it. I'd give everything to hear her read now."

"Shall I read to you?"

"If you please."

"Shall I read your mother's favorite chapter?" said Patty.

"How do you know which that is?--I don't!"

"Don't you think one woman knows how another woman feels?" asked Patty. And she sat by the little four-light window and took out her pocket Testament and read the three immortal parables in the fifteenth of Luke. The man's curiosity was now wide awake; he listened to the story of the sheep lost and found, but when Patty glanced at his face, it was unsatisfied; he hearkened to the story of the coin that was lost and found, and still he looked at her with faint eagerness, as if trying to guess why she should call that his mother's favorite chapter. Then she read slowly, and with sincere emotion, that truest of fictions, the tale of the prodigal son and his hunger, and his good resolution, and his tattered return, and the old father's joy. And when she looked up, his eyes tightly closed could not hide his tears.

"Do you think that is her favorite chapter?" he asked.

"Of course it must be," said Patty, conclusively. "And you'll notice that this prodigal son didn't wait to make himself better, or even until he could get a new suit of clothes."

The sick man said nothing.

The raw-boned Mrs. Barkins came to the door at that moment and said:

"The doctor's gal's out yer and want's to see you."

"You won't go away yet?" asked the patient, anxiously.

"I'll stay," said Patty, as she left the room.

Nettie, with her fresh face and dimpled cheeks, was standing timidly at the outside door. Patty took the jelly from her hand and sent a note to the Doctor:

"The patient is doing well every way, and I am in the safest place in the world--doing my duty."

And when the doctor read it he said, in his nervously abrupt fashion: "Perfect angel!"

_CHAPTER XXIX._

PATTY'S JOURNEY.

Even wounds and bruises heal more rapidly when the heart is cheered, and as Patty, after spending Saturday and Sunday with the patient, found time to come in and give him his breakfast every morning before she went to school, he grew more and more cheerful, and the doctor announced in his sudden style that he'd "get along." In all her interviews Patty was not only a woman but a Methodist. She read the Bible and talked to the man about repentance; and she would not have been a Methodist of that day had she neglected to pray with him. She could not penetrate his reserve. She could not guess whether what she said had any influence on him or not. Once she was startled and lost faith in any good result of her labors when she happened, in arranging things about the room, to come upon a hideous wolf-skin cap and some heavy false-whiskers. She had more than suspected all along that her patient was a highwayman, but upon seeing the very disguises in which his crimes had been committed, she shuddered, and asked herself whether a man so hardened that he was capable of theft--perhaps of murder--could ever be any better. She found herself, after that, trying to imagine how the wounded man would look in so fierce a mask. But she soon remembered all that she had learned of the Methodist faith in the power of the Divine Spirit working in the worst of sinners, and she got her testament and read aloud to the highwayman the story of the crucified thief.

It was on Thursday morning, as she helped him take his breakfast--he was sitting propped up in bed--that he startled her most effectually. Lifting his eyes, and looking straight at her with the sort of stare that comes of feebleness, he asked:

"Did you ever know a young Methodist circuit rider named Goodwin?"

Patty thought that he was penetrating her secret. She turned away to hide her face, and said:

"I used to go to school with him when we were children."

"I heard him preach a sermon awhile ago," said the patient, "that made me tremble all over. He's a great preacher. I wish I was as good as he is."

Patty made some remark about his having been a good boy.

"Well, I don't know," said the patient; "I used to hear that he had been a little hard--swore and drank and gambled, to say nothing of dancing and betting on horses. But they said some girl jilted him in that day. I suppose he got into bad habits because she jilted him, or else she jilted him because he was bad. Do you know anything about it?"

"Yes."

"She's a heartless thing, I suppose?"

Patty reddened, but the sick man did not see it. She was going to defend herself--he must know that she was the person--but how? Then she remembered that he was only repeating what had been a matter of common gossip, and some feeling of mischievousness led her to answer:

"She acted badly--turned him off because he became a Methodist."

"But there was trouble before that, I thought. When he gambled away his coat and hat one night."

"Trouble with her father, I think," said Patty, casting about in her own mind how she might change the conversation.

"Is she alive yet?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Give her head to marry Goodwin now, I'll bet," said the man.

Patty now plead that she must hasten to school. She omitted reading the Bible and prayer with the patient for that morning. It was just as well. There are states of mind not favorable to any but the most private devotions.

On Friday evening Patty intended to go by the cabin a moment, but on coming near she saw horses tied in front of it, and her heart failed her. She reasoned that these horses belonged to members of the gang and she could not bring herself to plunge into their midst in the dusk of the evening. But on Saturday morning she found the strangers not yet gone, and heard them speak of the sick man as "Pinkey." "Too soft! too soft! altogether," said one. "We ought to have shipped him----" Here the conversation was broken off.

The sick man, whom the others called Pinkey, she found very uneasy. He was glad to see her, and told her she must stay by him. He seemed anxious for the men to go away, which at last they did. Then he listened until Mrs. Barkins and her children became sufficiently uproarious to warrant him in talking.

"I want you to save a man's life."

"Whose?"

"Preacher Goodwin's."

Patty turned pale. She had not the heart to ask a question.

"Promise me that you will not betray me and I'll tell you all about it."

Patty promised.

"He's to be killed as he goes through Wild Cat Woods on Sunday afternoon. He preaches in Jenkinsville at eleven, and at Salt Fork at three. Between the two he will be killed. You must go yourself. They'll never suspect you of such a ride. If any man goes out of this settlement, and there's a warning given, he'll be shot. You must go through the woods to-night. If you go in the daytime, you and I will both be killed, maybe. Will you do it?"

Patty had her full share of timidity. But in a moment she saw a vision of Morton Goodwin slain.

"I will go."

"You must not tell the doctor a word about where you're going; you must not tell Goodwin how you got the information."

"He may not believe me."

"Anybody would believe you."

"But he will think that I have been deceived, and he cannot bear to look like a coward."

"That's true," said Pinkey. "Give me a piece of paper. I will write a word that will convince him."

He took a little piece of paper, wrote one word and folded it. "I can trust you; you must not open this paper," he said.

"I will not," said Patty.

"And now you must leave and not come back here until Monday or Tuesday. Do not leave the settlement until five o'clock. Barkins will watch you when you leave here. Don't go to Dr. Morgan's till afternoon and you will get rid of all suspicion. Take the east road when you start, and then if anybody is watching they will think that you are going to the lower settlement. Turn round at Wright's corner. It will be dark by the time you reach the Long Bottom, but there is only one trail through the woods. You must ride through to-night or you cannot reach Jenkinsville to-morrow. God will help you, I suppose, if He ever helps anybody, which I don't more than half believe."

Patty went away bewildered. The journey did not seem so dreadful as the long waiting. She had to appear unconcerned to the people with whom she boarded. Toward evening she told them she was going away until Monday, and at five o'clock she was at the doctor's door, trembling lest some mishap should prevent her getting a horse.

"Patty, howdy?" said the doctor, eyeing her agitated face sharply. "I didn't find you at Barkins's as I expected when I got there this morning. Sick man did not say much. Anything wrong? What scared you away?"

"Doctor, I want to ask a favor."

"You shall have anything you ask."

"But I want you to let me have it on trust, and ask me no questions and make no objections."

"I will trust you."

"I must have a horse at once for a journey."

"This evening?"

"This evening."

"But, Patty, I said I would trust you; but to go away so late, unless it is a matter of life and death----"

"It is a matter of life and death."

"And you can't trust me?"

"It is not my secret. I promised not to tell you."

"Now, Patty, I must break my promise and ask questions. Are you certain you are not deceived? Mayn't there be some plot? Mayn't I go with you? Is it likely that a robber should take any interest in saving the life of the person you speak of?"

Patty looked a little startled. "I may be deceived, but I feel so sure that I ought to go that I will try to go on foot, if I cannot get a horse."

"Patty, I don't like this. But I can only trust your judgment. You ought not to have been bound not to tell me."

"It is a matter of life and death that I shall go. It is a matter of life and death to another that it shall not be known that I went. It is a matter of life and death to you and me both that you shall not go with me."

"Is the life you are going to save worth risking your own for? Is it only the life of a robber?"