Part 6 (1/2)
With a vitality born of generations of warriors, he regained consciousness, staggered the mile to his own gate, where he met a friend, who, with extreme concern, began to a.s.sist him into his home. But he refused the helping arm with, ”No, I go alone; it would alarm Lydia if I could not walk alone.” These, with the few words he spoke as he entered the kitchen, where his wife was overseeing old Milly get the evening meal, were the last intelligent words he spoke for many a day.
”Lydia, they've hurt me at last,” he said, gently.
She turned at the sound of his strained voice. A thousand emotions overwhelmed her at the terrifying sight before her. Love, fear, horror, all broke forth from her lips in a sharp, hysterical cry, but above this cry sounded the gay laughter of the children who were playing in the next room, their shrill young voices raised in merriment over some new sport. In a second the mother-heart a.s.serted itself. Their young eyes must not see this ghastly thing.
”Milly!” she cried to the devoted Indian servant, ”help Chief George.” Then das.h.i.+ng into the next room, she half sobbed, ”Children, children! hush, oh, hus.h.!.+ Poor father--”
She never finished the sentence. With a turn of her arm she swept them all into the drawing-room, closed the door, and flew back to her patriot husband.
For weeks and weeks he lay fighting death as only a determined man can--his upper jaw broken on both sides, his lower jaw splintered on one side, his skull so crushed that to the end of his days a silver dollar could quite easily be laid flat in the cavity, a jagged and deep hole in his back, and injuries about the knees and leg bones. And all these weeks Lydia hovered above his pillow, night and day, nursing, tending, helping, cheering. What effort it cost her to be bright and smiling no tongue can tell, for her woman's heart saw that this was but the beginning of the end. She saw it when in his delirium he raved to get better, to be allowed to get up and go on with the fight; saw that his spirit never rested, for fear that, now he was temporarily inactive, the whisky dealers would have their way. She knew then that she must school herself to endure this thing again; that she must never ask him to give up his life work, never be less courageous than he, tough that courage would mean never a peaceful moment to her when he was outside their own home.
Mr. Evans was a great comfort to her during those terrible weeks.
Hour after hour he would sit beside the injured man, never speaking or moving, only watching quietly, while Lydia barely s.n.a.t.c.hed the necessary sleep a nurse must have, or attended to the essential needs of the children, who, however, were jealously cared for by faithful Milly. During those times the children never spoke except in whispers, their rigid Indian-English training in self-effacement and obedience being now of untold value.
But love and nursing and bravery all counted in the end, and one day George Mansion walked downstairs, the doctor's arm on one side, Lydia's on the other. He immediately asked for his pistol and his dagger, cleaned the one, oiled and sharpened the other, and said, ”I'll be ready for them again in a month's time.”
But while he lay injured his influential white friends and the Government at Ottawa had not been idle. The lawless creature who dealt those unmerited blows was tried, convicted and sent to Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. So one enemy was out of the way for the time being. It was at this time that advancing success lost him another antagonist, who was placed almost in the rank of an ally.
George Mansion was a guest of the bishop of his diocese, as he was a lay delegate accompanying Mr. Evans to the Anglican Synod. The chief's work had reached other ears than those of the Government at Ottawa, and the bishop was making much of the patriot, when in the See House itself an old clergyman approached him with outstretched hand and the words, ”I would like you to call bygones just bygones.”
”I don't believe I have the honor of knowing you, sir,” replied the Indian, with a puzzled but gracious look.
”I am your wife's brother-in-law,” said the old clergyman, ”the man who would not allow her to be married from my house--that is, married to _you_.”
The Indian bit his lip and instinctively stepped backward. Added to his ancestral creed of never forgiving such injury, came a rush of memory--the backward-surging picture of his homeless little sweetheart and all that she had endured. Then came the memory of his dead mother's teaching--teaching she had learned from her own mother, and she in turn from her mother: ”Always forget yourself for _old_ people, always honor the _old_.”
Instantly George Mansion arose--arose above the prejudices of his blood, above the traditions of his race, arose to the highest plane a man can reach--the memory of his mother's teaching.
”I would hardly be here as a lay delegate of my church were I not willing to let bygones be bygones,” he said, simply, and laid his hand in that of the old clergyman, about whose eyes there was moisture, perhaps because this opportunity for peacemaking had come so tardily.
The little family of ”Grand Mansions” were now growing to very ”big childhood,” and the inevitable day came when Lydia's heart must bear the wrench of having her firstborn say good-bye to take his college course. She was not the type of mother who would keep the boy at home because of the heartache the good-byes must bring, but the parting was certainly a hard one, and she watched his going with a sense of loss that was almost greater than her pride in him. He had given evidence of the most remarkable musical talent. He played cla.s.sical airs even before he knew a note, and both his parents were in determined unison about this talent being cultivated. The following year the oldest daughter also entered college, having had a governess at home for a year, as some preparation. But these changes brought no difference into the home, save that George Mansion's arm grew stronger daily in combat against the old foe.
Then came the second attack of the enemy, when six white men beset him from behind, again knocking him insensible, with a heavy blue beech hand-spike. They broke his hand and three ribs, knocked out his teeth, injured his side and head; then seizing his pistol, shot at him, the ball fortunately not reaching a vital spot. As his senses swam he felt them drag his poor maimed body into the middle of the road, so it would appear as if horses had trampled him, then he heard them say, ”_This_ time the devil is dead.” But hours afterwards he again arose, again walked home, five interminable miles, again greeted his ever watchful and anxious wife with, ”Lydia, they've hurt me once more.” Then came weeks of renewed suffering, of renewed care and nursing, of renewed vitality, and at last of conquered health.
These two terrible illnesses seemed to raise Lydia into a peculiar, half-protecting att.i.tude towards him. In many ways she ”mothered”
him almost as though he were her son--he who had always been the leader, and so strong and self-reliant. After this, when he went forth on his crusades, she watched his going with the haunting fear with which one would watch a child wandering on the edge of a chasm. She waited on him when he returned, served him with the tenderness with which one serves a cripple or a baby. Once he caught her arm, as she carried to him a cup of broth, after he had spent wearisome hours at the same old battle, and turning towards her, said softly: ”You are like my mother used to be to me.” She did not ask him in what way--she knew--and carried broth to him when next he came home half exhausted. Gradually he now gathered about him a little force of zealous Indians who became enthusiastic to take up arms with him against the whisky dealers. He took greater precautions in his work, for the growing mist of haunting anxiety in Lydia's eyes began to call to him that there were other claims than those of the nation. His splendid zeal had brought her many a sleepless night, when she knew he was scouring the forests for hidden supplies of the forbidden merchandise, and that a whole army of desperadoes would not deter him from fulfilling his duty of destroying it. He felt, rather than saw, that she never bade him good-bye but that she was prepared not to see him again alive.
Added to this he began to suffer as she did--to find that in his good-byes was the fear of never seeing her again. He, who had always been so fearless, was now afraid of the day when he should not return and she would be once more alone.
So he let his younger and eager followers do some of the battling, though he never relaxed his vigilance, never took off his armor, so to speak. But now he spent long days and quiet nights with Lydia and his children. They entertained many guests, for the young people were vigorous and laughter-loving, and George and Lydia never grew old, never grew weary, never grew commonplace. All the year round guests came to the hospitable country house--men and women of culture, of learning, of artistic tastes, of congenial habits.
Scientists, authors, artists, all made their pilgrimages to this unique household, where refinement and much luxury, and always a glad welcome from the chief and his English wife, made their visits long remembered. And in some way or other, as their children grew up, those two seemed to come closer together once more. They walked among the trees they had once loved in those first bridal days, they rested by the river sh.o.r.e, they wandered over the broad meadows and bypaths of the old estate, they laughed together frequently like children, and always and ever talked of and acted for the good of the Indian people who were so unquestionably the greatest interest in their lives, outside their own children. But one day, when the beautiful estate he was always so proud of was getting ready to smile under the suns of spring, he left her just when she needed him most, for their boys had plunged forward into the world of business in the large cities, and she wanted a strong arm to lean on. It was the only time he failed to respond to her devoted nursing, but now she could not bring him back from the river's brink, as she had so often done before. Cold had settled in all the broken places of his poor body, and he slipped away from her, a sacrifice to his fight against evil on the altar of his nation's good. In his feverish wanderings he returned to the tongue of his childhood, the beautiful, dulcet Mohawk. Then recollecting and commanding himself, he would weakly apologize to Lydia with: ”I forgot; I thought it was my mother,” and almost his last words were, ”It must be by my mother's side,” meaning his resting-place. So his valiant spirit went fearlessly forth.
”Do you ever think, dear,” said Lydia to her youngest child, some years later, ”that you are writing the poetry that always lived in an unexpressed state here in my breast?”
”No, Marmee,” answered the girl, who was beginning to mount the ladder of literature, ”I never knew you wanted to _write_ poetry, although I knew you loved it.”
”Indeed, I did,” answered the mother, ”but I never could find expression for it. I was made just to sing, I often think, but I never had the courage to sing in public. But I did want to write poetry, and now you, dear, are doing it for me. How proud your father would have been of you!”