The Mountain Girl Part 17

David was troubled indeed, but what could he do? He explained his need of her quickly, in low tones, outside the door. "I believe you are strong and brave and can do it as well as a man, but I hate to ask it of you. There is not time to wait. It must be done to-day, now."

"I'll help you," she said simply, and walked into the hut. She had become deadly pale, and he followed her and placed his fingers on her pulse, holding her hand and looking down in her eyes.

"You trust me?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. I must."

"Yes--you must--dear child. You are all right. Don't be troubled, but just think we are trying to save his life. Look at me now, and take in all I say."

Then he placed her with her back to his work, taught her how to count the man's pulse and to give the ether; but the patient demurred. He would not take it.

"Naw, I kin stand hit. Go ahead, Doctor."

"See here, Cate Irwin. You are bound to do as Doctor Thryng says or die," she said, bending over him. "Take this, and I'll sit by you every minute and never take my hand off yours. Stop tossing. There!" He obeyed her, and she sat rigidly still and waited.

The moments pa.s.sed in absolute silence. Her heart pounded in her breast and she grew cold, but never took her eyes from the still, deathlike face before her. In her heart she was praying--praying to be strong enough to endure the horror of it--not to faint nor fall--until at last it seemed to her that she had turned to stone in her place; but all the time she could feel the faintly beating pulse beneath her fingers, and kept repeating David's words: "We are trying to save his life--we are trying to save his life."

David finished. Moving rapidly about, he washed, covered, and carried away, and set all in order so that nothing betrayed his grewsome task.

Then he came to her and took both her cold hands in his warm ones and led her to the door. She swayed and walked weakly. He supported her with his arm and, once out in the sweet air, she quickly recovered. He praised her warmly, eagerly, taking her hands in his, and for the first time, as the faint rose crept into her cheeks, he felt her to be moved by his words; but she only smiled as she drew her hands away and turned toward the house.

"They'll be back directly, and I promised to have something for them to eat."

"Then I'll help you, for our man is coming out all right now, and I feel--if he can have any kind of care--he will live."

The sky had become overcast with heavy clouds and the wind had risen, blowing cold from the north. David replaced the shutter he had torn off and mended the fire with fuel he found scattered about the yard; while Ca.s.sandra swept and set the place in order and the resuscitated patient looked about a room neater and more homelike than he had ever slept in before. Ca.s.sandra searched out a few articles with which to prepare a meal--the usual food of the mountain poor--salt pork, and corn-meal mixed with water and salt and baked in the ashes. David watched her as she moved about the dark cabin, lighted only by the fitful flames of the fireplace, to perform those gracious, homely tasks, and would have helped her, but he could not.

At last the woman and her brood came streaming in, and Ca.s.sandra and the doctor were glad to escape into the outer air. He tried to make the mother understand his directions as to the care of her husband, but her pa.s.sive "Yas, suh" did not rea.s.sure him that his wishes would be carried out, and his hopes for the man's recovery grew less as he realized the conditions of the home. After riding a short distance, he turned to Ca.s.sandra.

"Won't you go back and make her understand that he is to be left absolutely alone? Scare her into making the children keep away from his bed, and not climb into it. You made him do as I wished, with only a word, and maybe you can do something with her. I can't."

She turned back, and David watched her at the door talking with the woman, who came out to her and handed her a bundle of something tied in a meal sack. He wondered what it might be, and Ca.s.sandra explained.

"These are the yarbs I sent her and the children aftah. I didn't know how to rid the cabin of them without I sent for something, and now I don't know what to do with these. We--we're obliged to use them some way." She hesitated--"I reckon I didn't do right telling her that--do you guess? I had to make out like you needed them and had sent back for them; it--it wouldn't do to mad her--not one of her sort." Her head drooped with shame and she added pleadingly, "Mother has used these plants for making tea for sick folks--but--"

He rode to her side and lifted the unwieldy load to his own horse, "Be ye wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove," he said, laughing.

"How do you mean?"

"You were wise. You did right where I would only have done harm and been brutal. Can't you see these have already served their purpose?"

"I don't understand."

"You told her to get them because you wished to make her think she was doing something for her husband, didn't you? And you couldn't say to her that she would help most by taking herself out of the way, could you?

She could not understand, and so they have served their purpose as a means of getting her quietly and harmlessly away so we could properly do our work."

"But I didn't say so--not rightly; I made her think--"

"Never mind what you said or made her think. You did right, G.o.d knows.

We are all made to work out good--often when we think erroneously, just as you made her uncomprehendingly do what she ought. If ever she grows wise enough to understand, well and good; if not, no harm is done."

Ca.s.sandra listened, but doubtingly. At last she stopped her horse. "If you can't use them, I feel like I ought to go back and explain," she said. Her face gleamed whitely out of the gathering dusk, and he saw her shiver in the cold and bitter wind. He was more warmly dressed than she, and still he felt it cut through him icily.

"No. You shall not go back one step. It would be a useless waste of your time and strength. Later, if you still feel that you must, you can explain. Come."

She yielded, touched her horse lightly with her whip, and they hurried on. The night was rapidly closing in, the thick, dark shadows creeping up from the gorges below as they climbed the rugged steep they had descended three hours earlier. They picked their way in silence, she ahead, and he following closely. He wondered what might be her thoughts, and if she had inherited, along with much else that he could perceive, the Puritan conscience which had possibly driven some ancestor here to live undisturbed of his precious scruples.

When they emerged at last on the level ridge where she had so joyously laughed out, Thryng hurried forward and again rode at her side. She sat wearily now, holding the reins with chilled hands. Had she forgotten the happy moment? He had not. The wind blew more shrewdly past them, and a few drops of rain, large and icy cold, struck their faces.

"Put these on your hands, please," he begged, pulling off his thick gloves; but she would not.

He reached for the bridle of her horse and drew him nearer, then caught her cold hands and began chafing them, first one and then the other.

Then he slipped the warm gloves over them. "Wear them a little while to please me," he urged. "You have no coat, and mine is thick and warm."

Suddenly he became aware that she was and had been silently weeping, and he was filled with anxiety for her, so brave she had been, so tired she must be--worn out--poor little heart!

"Are you so tired?" he asked.

"Oh, no, no."

"Won't you tell me what troubles you? Let me put this over your shoulders to keep off the rain."

"Oh, no, no!" she cried, as he began to remove his coat. "You need it a heap more than I. You have been sick, and I am well."

"Please wear it. I will walk a little to keep warm."

"Oh! I can't. I'm not cold, Doctor Thryng. It isn't that."

He became imperative through anxiety. "Then tell me what it is," he said.

"I can't stop thinking of Decatur Irwin. I can feel you working there yet, and seems like I never will forget. I keep going over it and over it and can't stop. Doctor, are you sure--sure--it was right for us to do what we did?"

"Poor child! It was terrible for you, and you were fine, you know--fine; you are a heroine--you are--"

"I don't care for me. It isn't me. Was it right, Doctor? Was there no other way?" she wailed.

"As far as human knowledge goes, there was no other way. Listen, Miss Ca.s.sandra, I have been where such accidents were frequent. Many a man's leg have I taken off. Surgery is my work in life--don't be horrified. I chose it because I wished to be a saver of life and a helper of my fellows." She was shivering more from the nervous reaction than from the cold, and to David it seemed as if she were trying to draw farther away from him.

"Don't shrink from me. There are so many in the world to kill and wound, some there must be to mend where it is possible. I saw in a moment that your intuition had led you rightly, and soon I knew what must be done; I only hope we were not too late. Don't cry, Miss Ca.s.sandra. It makes me feel such a brute to have put you through it."

"No, no. You were right kind and good. I'm only crying now because I can't stop."

"There, there, child! We'll ride a little faster. I must get you home and do something for you." He spoke out of the tenderness of his heart toward her.

But soon they were again descending, and the horses, careful for their own safety if not for their riders', continued slowly and stumblingly to pick their footing in the darkness. Now the rain began to beat more fiercely, and before they reached the Fall Place they were wet to the skin.

David feared neither the wetting nor the cold for himself; only for her in her utter weariness was he anxious. She would help him stable the horses and led away one while he led the other, but once in the house he took matters in his own hands peremptorily. He rebuilt the fire and himself removed her wet garments and her shoes. She was too exhausted to resist. Following the old mother's directions, he found woollen blankets and, wrapping her about, he took her up like a baby and laid her on her bed. Then he brewed her a hot milk punch and made her take it.

"You need this more than I, Doctah. If you'll just take some yourself, as soon as I can I'll make your bed in the loom shed again, and--"