"Do you really care for that?" she hastily withdrew her hand, saying almost pettishly:
"Of course I care to have you here in case any of the family should be taken sick. You understand our constitution, and are the only doctor in the town that we have the least confidence in."
His countenance fell, and she thought she heard a faint sigh as he turned sadly away, and with a silent bow left the house.
She dropped into a chair, hid her face in her hands, and burst into a passion of tears.
"Oh, how could I! how could I! when he has been so good and kind to me!" she sobbed. "It's just as if I had struck him a cruel blow, and oh! I could beat myself for it!"
Her words, and yet more her tone and manner in speaking them, had indeed wounded Kenneth. He had brought a care-burdened and sorrowful heart into her presence, and he carried it away with an added pang.
He was himself surprised to find that she had power to wound him so deeply. He had not known before how dear the wilful little maiden had become to him; but this pain opened his eyes.
"Ah, what have I been doing?" he cried, half aloud, as he strode onward toward his office, "and why am I regretting that for which I should be unutterably thankful – that I alone suffer, because of my imprudence? I must, I will be grateful that she has not given her young heart to such a one as I. And yet – and yet – but ah me, this is hoping even against hope! Yet will I not utterly despair, for with God all things are possible."
CHAPTER IX
Nell cried till she brought on a slight headache, then made that an excuse for going to bed before the return of her brother and his wife. She did not want to face the keen scrutiny of Clare, who would be sure to detect the traces of tears and to make a shrewd guess at their cause.
The girl had ample space for repentance, overpowering anxiety and dread in the next two or three weeks; and though she continued to hide her feelings from those about her, seeming quite as light hearted and gay as was her wont, the darkness of night was witness to many sighs and tears.
Dale came in on the evening after her late interview with Kenneth, and seizing an opportunity for a few words in private, asked her what she thought of Dr. Clendenin's starting off upon such a journey at that inclement season of the year.
"Why should I trouble myself about it?" Nell asked, with a slight toss of her pretty head. "I presume the doctor knows his own business."
"Possibly," returned Dale, with gravity, "but can you conjecture what that business is?"
"Can you?" she asked. "Perhaps some Indian chief is ill, or has a sick wife or child, and wishes to test the skill of the medicine man of the whites."
"Your ingenuity does you credit, Miss Lamar," remarked Dale, poking the fire, "but I am satisfied that Clendenin has gone on the same errand that took him before; and that is a chase after a white woman living among the Indians."
"A relative?" queried Nell, with interest.
"No; he told me he had never had relative or friend taken by them; and that is what makes his evident anxiety to find her so puzzling, so utterly inexplicable to me."
"Neither relative nor friend," pondered Nell, as she lay awake that night, listening to the sough of the wind around the house, the creaking of the trees in its fierce blast, the rattle of sleet against the outer wall, and the distant howl of the prairie wolf, and thinking of Kenneth without shelter from storm or wild beast, "if it were his lady love he would never say that."
This was not a heavy or lasting storm, the morning sun rose in a clear sky, and several days of mild bright weather followed.
After that it grew bitterly cold, and for many hours a fierce tempest raged, and the snow fell fast, the wind whirling it furiously about till all the roads and paths were blocked up with it, and in places the drifts were many feet deep.
Kenneth was on his homeward way when this storm began, with, as he had said, no companion save his horse and his gun.
On the latter was his principal reliance for a supply of food, though he had in his saddle-bags sufficient coarse corn-bread to keep him from actual starvation.
And well was it for him that he had come so provided, as the whirling, blinding snow rendered the pursuit of game impossible for the time being.
Indeed he soon found it impossible to continue his journey, and coming upon a comparatively sheltered spot, at the foot of a rock, he dismounted, secured his horse, and with some difficulty collecting a supply of dry branches, twigs, bark and leaves, finally succeeded in kindling a fire with his flint and steel and a bit of burnt rag which he carried for the purpose in his tinder box.
His mission had not been successful and his heart was heavy with disappointment, care and grief, as he sat there over his fire listening to the howling of the storm as the wind swept through the forest, the giant trees bending and creaking in the blast, groaning, breaking, falling before it and beneath the weight of snow and sleet.
At length there was a slight lull in the tempest, and Kenneth crept out from his hiding place and wandered hither and thither in search of fuel with which to replenish his fire.
Plunging into a snowdrift his foot caught in something and he had nearly fallen over – what? was it a log? Surely not! His heart gave a wild throb, he stooped, and hastily brushing away the snow found an Indian lad sleeping that fatal sleep, that, undisturbed, ends in death.
Exerting all his strength, Kenneth took the boy in his arms, shook him roughly, shouted in his ears, and catching up a handful of snow, rubbed it briskly over the half frozen face.
He dragged him to the shelter of the rock, but not close to the fire, and continuing his efforts at length succeeded in rousing him, and finally in restoring circulation and warmth to his benumbed limbs.
Then he took him to the fire, fed him and made him share his blanket, taking him in his arms that it might cover them both: and so with their feet to the fire, and each hugged close to the other's breast, they slept through the dark, stormy night.
The morning broke bright, clear and cold, icicles depending from the trees, snow heaped high on every side, too high to admit of moving more than a few paces from their sheltered nook. It was as if they were shut up in prison together.
The lad knew that Kenneth had saved his life and he was very grateful. He was a Shawnee, and had been travelling from one Indian village to another, but blinded by the whirling sleet and snow had lost his way and at last, overcome with fatigue, hunger and cold, had lain down to rest and sleep.
He could speak but a few words of English; but Kenneth had gained considerable knowledge of the Shawnee tongue since making acquaintance with Wawillaway, and was able to converse with the boy to their mutual satisfaction.
They remained together for some days, keeping up their fire and feeding on some wild turkeys Kenneth fortunately succeeded in shooting; then parting with kindly adieus and a hearty shake of the hand, each went his way, Kenneth toward Chillicothe, the Indian lad in a nearly opposite direction.
While yet two or three miles from the town, Kenneth saw in the distance a white man and an Indian coming toward him from thence.
They were Dale and Wawillaway, and as they drew near the former uttered a joyous shout.
"Hello, doc! so here you are, safe and sound! We feared you were buried in the snowdrifts and we'd have to dig you out."
There was a hearty shaking of hands as they met.
"Did you come out in search of me?" asked Kenneth.
"We did," said Dale, "and are rejoiced to have found you so easily. Your friends have been exceedingly anxious in regard to your safety, fearing you could hardly have weathered the heavy storm of last week. How did you manage it?"
Dale and the Indian had wheeled about, and all three were ploughing their way through the snow in the direction of the town.
Kenneth answered the question as they went, with a brief account of his sojourn at the foot of the rock in the wilderness.
He said nothing of the object of his journey or whether it had been successful; but Dale's furtive yet searching glances read a fresh and bitter disappointment in the weary, haggard face, and drooping figure.
"And my friends have been anxious for my safety, you say?" Kenneth said inquiringly, and with a wistful look in his large gray eyes, thinking of a fair young face that had sometimes brightened at his coming.
"Yes," said Dale, "it has been for the last three days the most exciting theme of conversation with old and young. It's a fine thing to be a doctor, if you care to have high and low, rich and poor interested in your safety."
It was the middle of the afternoon. Mrs. and Miss Lamar plied the needle within doors while the children were engaged in winter sports without – sledding, sliding and snow-balling.
Suddenly they came tearing in, half wild with joy.
"Oh, mother and Aunt Nell, he's come! he's come!"
"Who?" and Nell's heart beat fast and loud. It had been well nigh breaking with the thought of a manly form lying still and cold out in the wilderness with a snow wreath for its winding sheet, yet she had given no sign, but seemed the gayest of the gay.
"Dr. Clendenin!" cried the children in chorus; "he didn't get lost in the snow or killed by the Indians, we just saw him ride by with Mr. Dale and Wawillaway."
Nell stitched away, apparently quite indifferent to the news, but her heart sang for joy, and all the rest of the day her ear was strained to catch the sound of his approaching footsteps.
The major brought him home to tea and though Mrs. Lamar welcomed him most cordially, and the children hailed his coming with delight, Nell's manner was reserved and quiet almost to coldness.
He took the limp, passive hand in his for an instant, as he gave one wistful glance into the unmoved face, then with the thought, "She does not care for me, and it is well," yet sighing inwardly, turned away and entered into conversation with the major and his wife.
"We have been very anxious about you, doctor, ever since that fearful storm set in," Mrs. Lamar was saying. "We feared you must perish if exposed to it. Did you not suffer terribly?"
"Oh no," he answered cheerily, "I fared very well," and went on to tell of the sheltered rock he had found, and that he had a fire, a good blanket and something to eat.
"Tell us all about it," the children begged, clustering round him and climbing upon his knees.
"Were you all alone?" asked Bess; "I do think it must be dreadful to be alone in the woods at night."
"No, I was not quite alone through it all," he said, stroking her hair.
"Oh, I know! you mean God was with you?"
"Yes; but I had a human companion, too, an Indian boy, who told me his name was Little Horn."
Nell asked no question, but she was not the least interested of those who listened to the story of the finding of the lad and the way in which the two passed their time while storm-stayed together in the wood.
She was furtively studying Kenneth's face while he talked, sorrowfully taking note of its worn, thin look, and the deepening of the lines of grief and care that made it seem older than his years warranted. Its expression at this moment was cheerful, as were the tones of his voice, but she had no need to be told that for him "Disappointment still tracked the steps of hope."
CHAPTER X
Time passed on; a year, two years rolled away. Settlers had continued to move into the town and adjacent country, and Kenneth's practice had grown with the growth of the population.
This was, perhaps, one reason why there had been a great falling off in the frequency of his visits, other than professional, at Major Lamar's.
It was, at all events, the excuse he gave, for that and for absenting himself from nearly all the pleasure parties and merry-makings of the young people. Genial and pleasant in his intercourse with old and young, he yet was no ladies' man; seldom paid attention to any of the fair sex, except in the way of his calling; he had no time, he said, but always found abundance of it to bestow upon the sick and suffering. His whole heart and soul were in his work.
Some silly people began to call him an old bachelor, though he was still under thirty, and far from old looking.
Dale also was still single, and the two were as intimate and warm friends as ever.
Godfrey was attentive to business, but, unlike Kenneth, indulged a great fondness for ladies' society, and generally made one in every little social gathering and pleasure excursion, whether it were a moonlight row on river or creek, a picnic, or expedition in search of nuts or wild fruits, a visit to a sugar camp in the spring, or a gallop on horseback at almost any time of year.
He was very intimate at Major Lamar's, and never happier than when he could secure Miss Nell as his special partner in whatever festivity was going on.
She liked Dale, for he was gallant, courteous, well-informed, and a good talker of either sense or nonsense, but she took care not to receive too much attention from him, or to encourage hopes she never meant should be realized.
She was developing into a noble, lovable woman, fair and comely in more than ordinary degree.
She had a fine form, a queenly carriage, and Kenneth's eyes often followed her with a wistful, longing look as she passed, either riding or walking. Yet he stood quietly aside and left it to his fellows to strive for the prize he coveted above all other earthly good.
That strange, mysterious burden still rested on him, but was borne with a brave, cheerful resignation that was heroic.
There were times of deep depression, of bitter anguish of soul, of fierce conflict with himself, when the trial seemed more than mortal strength could bear; but these came at rare intervals, and faith and grace ever triumphed in the end.
Letters from home, where he had not visited since emigrating to Chillicothe, and his lonely journeys into the wilderness, of which he had made several in the interval we have passed over, seemed alike ever to bring him increased sadness of heart. Yet few but Dale knew this, Kenneth's mastery over himself enabling him to put aside his private griefs and cares when in the company of others.
Thus his heart was ever at leisure from itself and ready to sympathize in the interests, the joys and sorrows or physical sufferings of those about him.
As a natural consequence, there were many who cherished for him a very warm friendship.
The Nashes had removed to a farm a mile or more from town. Mrs. Nash was still the same cheery, genial soul she had shown herself on the journey to Ohio, and Nell Lamar, who had ever been a favorite with the good dame, loved to visit at the farm-house, and would sometimes tarry there for a week or a fortnight, when conscious of not being needed at home.
She and Mrs. Barbour were both there one sultry summer day, Nell expecting to make a prolonged stay, the other lady intending to return home in the cool of the evening. She had now two children younger than Flora, and had brought all three with her.
"It was a great deal of trouble," she complained in the old whining, querulous tones; "children were such a care! always in the way and making no end of trouble if you took them along, and if you left them at home you were worried to death lest something should happen to them."
This was repeated again and again, with slight variations, till her unwilling listeners would fain have stopped their ears to the doleful ditty, and Mrs. Nash, quite out of patience, at length exclaimed:
"Nancy, I should think you'd be afraid to fret so about your worry with the children, lest Providence should take them away! I don't deny that it is a good deal of work and care to nurse and provide for them; but they're worth it; at least, mine are to me, and there's nothing worth having in this world that we don't have to pay for in one way or another. And for my part, I'm willing to pay for my pleasures and treasures," she added, clasping her babe fondly to her breast.
The Nash family also had increased in numbers. Tom and Billy, now grown great hearty boys, were with their father in the field, and two little girls sat on the doorstep, each with a rag doll in her arms, which the busy mother had found time to make and Miss Nell's skilful fingers had just finished dressing. The baby boy on the mother's knee was the last arrival, six months old and the pet, darling and the treasure of the entire household, from father down to two-year-old Sallie.
"You never did have any sympathy for me, Sarah," whimpered Mrs. Barbour, lifting the corner of her apron to her eyes. "I wasn't born with such spirits as you have, and it ain't my fault that I wasn't, and I don't believe I'm half as stout and strong as you are; and it's just the same with the children, yours are a great deal healthier than mine, and that makes it easier for you in more ways than one. You and Nash don't have the big doctor bills to pay that we have, and you don't get all worn out with nursing."
"Well, Nancy," returned her sister-in-law, "maybe I'm not as sympathizing as I should be; but there is such a thing as cultivating good spirits and a habit of looking at the bright side, trusting in the Lord and being content with what He sends, and that has a good deal to do with health. Perhaps if your children had a cheerier mother, they'd have better spirits and better health."
"There it is! I'm always blamed for my misfortunes; that's just the way Dr. Clendenin talks to me, and Barbour too, and I think it's a burning shame," sobbed the abused woman. "I'm sure I wish I was dead and done with it! and so I shall be one o' these days; and then perhaps you and Tom will wish you'd treated me a little better."
"My brother Tom's a very good husband to you," remarked Mrs. Nash coolly," and I don't feel conscience smitten for any abuse I've given you either. It's Bible doctrine I've been urging on you. It bids us over and over again to be content, to be free from care, casting it all on the Lord, to rejoice in the Lord, to be glad in Him, to rejoice always, to shout for joy.
"And well we may, knowing that life here is short, and no matter how many troubles we may have they'll soon be done with and we shall be forever with the Lord; that is, if we're His children."
Here Nell broke in upon the conversation with a sudden exclamation. "That cat is acting very strangely!" and as she spoke the animal came rushing in from an adjoining wood-shed and dashed wildly about, gnashing its teeth furiously, its tongue hanging out and dripping with froth.
Both women sprang up with a scream. "It's mad! it's mad! it's frothing at the mouth!" Mrs. Nash clutching her babe in a death like grasp and springing toward the other children to save them, Mrs. Barbour snatching her youngest from the floor, while Nell caught up the next in age and sat it on top of a high old fashioned bureau, at the same time calling to Flora, who was outside, to "Run, run! climb a tree or the fence!"
Then seizing a broom she rushed at the cat and drove it under the bed.
"Oh what'll we do? what'll we do?" shrieked Mrs. Barbour, the children screaming in chorus. "Why didn't you drive it out of doors?"
"You run out yourself and take the children with you. I did the best I could," returned Nell, her voice trembling with agitation. "You, too, Mrs. Nash, save the children and I'll fight the cat. Where's your clothes line? quick, quick! Oh, I see it!" and snatching it from the nail where it hung, in a trice she had it opened out and a noose made in one end.
Then tearing off beds and bed clothes, tumbling them unceremoniously upon the floor, she mounted the bedstead, lifted a slat or two from the head, underneath which the cat crouched, snarling, spitting, foaming, biting in a frightful manner.
Nell shuddered and shrank back with a cry of terror as the infuriated animal made a spring at her, but gathering up all her courage, let down the noose and swung it slowly to and fro.
A moment of terrified, almost despairing effort, followed by success, the noose was drawn tight, the rabid creature lay strangled and dead, and the brave young girl dropped in a dead faint upon the pile of bedding on the floor.
The others had obeyed her behest and fled from the house, leaving her to battle single-handed with the enraged animal, while they filled the air with cries for help.
A horseman came at a swift gallop up the road, putting spurs to his steed as the sounds of distress greeted his ear.
"What is it?" he asked, drawing rein in front of the house and springing from the saddle.
"Oh, Dr. Clendenin, there's a mad cat in the house, and Miss Nell's trying to kill it!" cried the two women and Flora in chorus; but the words were scarcely uttered before he had dashed in at the open door.
His heart leaped into his throat at sight of the prostrate form on the confused heap of bedding, the body of the strangled cat so near that the toe of her slipper touched it.
"Oh, my darling!" he exclaimed in low, moved tones as he sprang to her side.
Then in almost frantic haste he searched for the marks of the creature's teeth on her hands and arms. There were none.
He tore off her shoes and stockings, his hands trembling, his face pale with a terrible fear.
"Thank God!" he said at last, drawing a long breath of relief.
He knelt down, loosened her dress, laid her more comfortably, her head lower, doing all with exceeding tenderness, and turning to Mrs. Nash, who had ventured in after him, leaving her little ones in Mrs. Barbour's care, said huskily: "Some cold water! quick! quick! She has fainted."
"Oh, doctor, is she hurt?" asked the woman in tremulous tones, as she hastily handed him a gourd filled with water from the well bucket.
He did not answer for a moment. He was sprinkling the water upon the still, white face, his own nearly as colorless. Would she never revive? those sweet eyes never open again?
Ah, the lids began to quiver, a faint tinge of rose stole into the fair, softly rounded cheek.
"I hope not," he said with an effort. "It was the fright probably. A fan, please."
Mrs. Nash brought one and gave it in silence.
Nell's eyes opened wide, gazing full into his. The faint tinge on her cheek deepened instantly to crimson, and starting up in confusion, she hastily stammered out some incoherent words, and burst into tears.
"Lie still for a little, Nell," Kenneth said, gently forcing her back.
Never were tones more musical with tenderness, never had eyes spoken a plainer language, and the girl's heart thrilled with a new, ecstatic joy. For years her hard but determined task had been to school it to indifference; but now, now she might let it have its way. He, so noble, so good, would never deceive her, never wrong her.
"Oh, Nell, you are not hurt? not bitten?" exclaimed Mrs. Nash almost imploringly.
"Hurt? bitten?" repeated Nell, in a half bewildered way. Then as her eye fell upon the dead cat and the whole scene came back to her with a rush, "No, no," she said, shuddering and hiding her face in her hands; "it sprang at me, but missed and fell back on the floor, and at last it ran its head into the noose, jerked away and strangled, and" – laughing hysterically – "I don't know what happened after that."
Mrs. Nash knelt down by her side and began putting on her stockings and shoes.
"The doctor pulled them off to see if you'd got a bite there," she explained. "Oh I'll never cease to thank the Lord that you escaped! I feel as if I'd been a mean coward to run off and leave you to fight the mad thing all alone. But it wasn't myself I was thinking of, but the children."
"I know it," murmured Nell, "and I told you to go."
Kenneth had moved away to the farther side of the room. His face, which was turned from them, was full of remorseful anguish. Alas! what had he done, won this dear heart that he dared not claim as his own? Oh, he had thought the grief, the pain, the loss all his own! but it was not so, she too must suffer and he could not save her from it, though for that he would freely lay down his life.
"Is it dead, have you killed it?" queried Mrs. Barbour timorously peering in at the open door.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Nash shortly, and stepping in, followed by the frightened but curious children, Mrs. Barbour dropped into a chair.
"Oh!" she cried, "it's just awful! I'm nearly dead, was most scared out o' my wits, and shan't get over it for a month!"
Then catching sight of the dead cat, "Ugh! the horrid thing! why don't you take it away, some of you? I feel ready to faint at the very sight of it. Doctor, you'll have to do something for me."
"There is nothing I can do for you, Mrs. Barbour," he said coldly. "You must help yourself, by determined self-control. After leaving Miss Lamar to face the living, furious animal alone, you may well bear the sight of it lying, dead, with all the rest of us here to share the danger, if there be any."
"There it is, just as usual," she sobbed, "I'm always blamed no matter what happens. I had my children to think of."
"Never mind," said Nell, sitting up; "it's all over and nobody hurt."
"Nobody hurt!" was the indignant rejoinder. "Maybe you ain't, but I am: I've got an awful headache with the fright, and feel as if I should just die this minute."
A loud hallo from the road without stopped the torrent of words for a space.
"Is Dr. Clendenin here?" shouted a man on horseback, reining in at the gate.
Kenneth stepped quickly to the door.
"What is it?" he asked.
"You're wanted in the greatest kind of a hurry, doctor; over there in the edge o' the woods, where they're felling trees, man crushed; not killed, but bad hurt – very."
Kenneth was in the saddle before the sentence was finished, and the two galloped rapidly away.
"People oughtn't to be so careless," commented Mrs. Barbour, as they all gathered about the door watching the horsemen till they disappeared in a cloud of dust. "Why don't they get out of the way when the tree's going to fall? How quick the doctor went off. He's ready enough to help a man, but wouldn't do anything for poor me!"
"He told you what to do for yourself," said her sister-in-law, a mixture of weariness and contempt in her tones.
"As if I could! There never was anybody that got so little sympathy as I do," she fretted, turning from the door and dropping into her chair again. "But I'll have another doctor. I'll send for Dr. Buell."
"Dr. Walter Buell; 'Dr. Water Gruel' they call him," laughed Flora, "because he won't let 'em have anything hardly to eat. He'll starve you, mother."
"Be quiet, Flora," was the angry rejoinder. "I'm not going to have you laughing at me. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, poor unfortunate creature that I am, and your mother too!
"To think that I should have happened here to-day of all days, when I don't stir from home once in a month! But that cat wouldn't have gone mad if I hadn't been here."
But her complaining fell upon inattentive ears. Mrs. Nash was busy ridding the house of the dead carcass and setting things in order, and Nell's thoughts were full of the new joy that had come to her, and of questionings as to when and where she should again meet him who had possessed himself of her heart's best affection. Would he return that evening? Verily she believed he would.
But no, he did not; and when she went home the following day, Clare greeted her with the news that Dr. Clendenin had gone East; he had been suddenly summoned to Glen Forest by a letter; some one was very ill, and as a pirogue was just leaving for Cincinnati, he had taken passage and gone down the river in it.
Nell's cheek paled a trifle and her eyes looked with mute questioning into those of her sister.
"He left good-by for you," said Clare.
And that was all – all! The girl's heart seemed to stand still with pain. What could it mean?