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?”
“It is a life worth more than mine. Ask me no more questions, but have Bob saddled for me.” Patty spoke as one not to be refused.
The horse was brought out, and Patty mounted, half eagerly and half timidly.
“When will you come back?”
“In time for school, Monday.”
“Patty, think again before you start,” called the doctor.
“There’s no time to think,” said Patty, as she rode away.
“I ought to have forbidden it,” the doctor muttered to himself half a hundred times in the next forty-eight hours.
When she had ridden a mile on the road that led to the “lower settlement” she turned an acute angle, and came back on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, if I may speak so geometrically. She thus went more than two miles to strike the main trail toward Jenkinsville, at a point only a mile away from her starting-place. She reached the woods in Long Bottom just as Pinkey told her she would, at dark. She was appalled at the thought of riding sixteen miles through a dense forest of beech trees in the night over a bridle-path. She reined up her horse, folded her hands, and offered a fervent prayer for courage and help, and then rode into the blackness ahead.
There is a local tradition yet lingering in this very valley in Ohio in regard to this dark ride of Patty’s. I know it will be thought incredible, but in that day marvelous things were not yet out of date. This legend, which reaches me from the very neighborhood of the occurrence, is that, when Patty had nerved herself for her lonely and perilous ride by prayer, there came to her, out of the darkness of the forest, two beautiful dogs. One of them started ahead of her horse and one of them became her rear-guard. Protected and comforted by her dumb companions, Patty rode all those lonesome hours in that wilderness bridle-path. She came, at midnight, to a settler’s house on the farther verge of the unbroken forest and found lodging. The dogs lay in the yard. In the early morning the settler’s wife came out and spoke to them but they gave her no recognition at all. Patty came a few moments later, when they arose and greeted her with all the eloquence of dumb friends, and then, having seen her safely through the woods and through the night, the two beautiful dogs, wagging a friendly farewell, plunged again into the forest and went—no man knows whither.
Such is the legend of Patty’s Ride as it came to me well avouched. Doubtless Mr. John Fiske or Mr. M. D. Conway could explain it all away and show how there was only one dog, and that he was not beautiful, but a stray bull-dog with a stumpy tail. Or that the whole thing is but a “solar myth.” The middle-ages have not a more pleasant story than this of angels sent in the form of dogs to convoy a brave lady on a noble mission through a dangerous forest. At any rate, Patty believed that the dumb guardians were answers to her prayer. She bade them good-by as they disappeared in the mystery whence they came, and rode on, rejoicing in so signal a mark of God’s favor to her enterprise. Sometimes her heart was sorely troubled at the thought of Morton’s being already the husband of another, and all that Sunday morning she took lessons in that hardest part of Christian living—the uttering of the little petition which gives all the inevitable over into God’s hands and submits to the accomplishment of His will.
She reached Jenkinsville at half-past eleven. Meeting had already begun. She knew the Methodist church by its general air of square ugliness, and near it she hitched old Bob.
When she entered the church Morton was preaching. Her long sun-bonnet was a sufficient disguise, and she sat upon the back seat listening to the voice whose music was once all her own. Morton was preaching on self-denial, and he made some allusions to his own trials when he became a Christian which deeply touched the audience, but which moved none so much as Patty.
The congregation was dismissed but the members remained to “class,” which was always led by the preacher when he was present. Most of the members sat near the pulpit, but when the “outsiders” had gone Patty sat lonesomely on the back seat, with a large space between her and the rest. Morton asked each one to speak, exhorting each in turn. At last, when all the rest had spoken, he walked back to where Patty sat, with her face hidden in her sun-bonnet, and thus addressed her:
“My strange sister, will you tell us how it is with you to-day? Do you feel that you have an interest in the Savior?”
Very earnestly, simply, and with a tinge of melancholy Patty spoke. There was that in her superior diction and in her delicacy of expression that won upon the listeners, so that, as she ceased, the brethren and sisters uttered cordial ejaculations of “The Lord bless our strange sister,” and so on. But Morton? From the first word he was thrilled with the familiar sound of the voice. It could not be Patty, for why should Patty be in Jenkinsville? And above all, why should she be in class-meeting? Of her conversion he had not heard. But though it seemed to him impossible that it could be Patty, there was yet a something in voice and manner and choice of words that had almost overcome him; and though he was noted for the freshness of the counsels that he gave in class-meeting, he was so embarrassed by the sense of having known the speaker, that he could not think of anything to say. He fell hopelessly into that trite exhortation with which the old leaders were wont to cover their inanity.
“Sister,” he said, “you know the way—walk in it.”
Then the brethren and sisters sang:
“O brethren will you meet me
On Canaan’s happy shore?”
And the meeting was dismissed.
The members thought themselves bound to speak to the strange sister. She evaded their kindly questions as they each shook hands with her, only answering that she wished to speak with Brother Goodwin. The preacher was eager and curious to converse with her, but one of the old brethren had button-holed him to complain that Brother Hawkins had ‘tended a barbecue the week before, and he thought that he had ought to be “read out” if he didn’t make confession. When the old brother had finished his complaint and had left the church, Morton was glad to see the strange sister lingering at the door. He offered his hand and said:
“A stranger here, I suppose?”
“Not quite a stranger, Morton.”
“Patty, is this you?” Morton exclaimed
Patty for her part was pleased and silent.
“Are you a Methodist then?”
“I am.”
“And what brought you to Jenkinsville?” he said, greatly agitated.
“To save your life. I am glad I can make you some amend for the way I treated you the last time I saw you.”
“To save my life! How?”
“I came to tell you that if you go to Salt Fork this afternoon you will be killed on the way.”
“How do you know?”
“You must not ask any questions. I cannot tell you anything more.”
“I am afraid, Patty, you have believed somebody who wanted to scare me.”
Patty here remembered the mysterious piece of paper which Pinkey had given her. She handed it to Morton, saying:
“I don’t know what is in this, but the person who sent the message said that you would understand.”
Morton opened the paper and started. “Where is he?” he asked.
“You must not ask questions,” said Patty, smiling faintly.
“And you rode all the way from Hissawachee to tell me?”
“Not at all. When I joined the church Father pulled the latch-string in. I am teaching school at Hickory Ridge.”
“Come, Patty, you must have some dinner.” Morton led her horse to the house of one of the members, introduced her as an old schoolmate, who had brought him an important warning, and asked that she receive some dinner.
He then asked Patty to let him go back with her or send an escort, both of which she firmly refused. He left the house and in a minute sat on his Dolly before the gate. At sight of Dolly Patty could have wept. He called her to the gate.
“If you won’t let me go with you I must go to Salt Fork. These men must understand that I am not afraid. I shall ride ten miles farther round and they will never know how I did it. Dolly can do it, though. How shall I thank you for risking your life for me? Patty, if I can ever serve you let me know, and I’ll die for you. I would rather die for you than not.”
“Thank you, Morton. You are married, I hear.”
“Not married, but I am to be married.” He spoke half bitterly, but Patty was too busy suppressing her own emotion to observe his tone.
“I hope you’ll be happy.” She had determined to say so much.
“Patty, I tell you I am wretched, and will be till I die. I am marrying one I never chose. I am utterly miserable. Why didn’t you leave me to be waylaid and killed? My life isn’t worth the saving. But God bless you, Patty.”
So saying, he touched Dolly with the spurs and was soon gone away around the Wolf Creek road—a long hard ride, with no dinner, and a sermon to preach at three o’clock.
And all the hour that Patty ate and rested in Jenkinsville, her hostess entertained her with accounts of Sister Ann Eliza Meacham, whom Brother Goodwin was to marry. She heard how eloquent was Sister Meacham in prayer, how earnest in Christian labor, and what a model preacher’s wife she would be. But the good sister added slyly that she didn’t more than half believe Brother Goodwin wanted to marry at all. He’d tried his best to give Ann Eliza up once, but couldn’t do it.
When Patty rode out of the village that afternoon she did her best, as a good Christian, to feel sorry that Morton could not love the one he was to marry. In an intellectual way she did regret it, but in her heart she was a woman.