The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

But the horse was not needed that day, nor was it likely to be needed for some time to come, for within the hour after breakfast Mr. Wesley was overcome by a shivering fit and compelled to take to his bed. It became plain that he had caught a chill—the wonder was that it had not manifested itself sooner, considering that he had sat for so long the day before in his saturated garments, and the very trying morning that he had had. Mr. Hartwell, who had some knowledge of medicine, and a considerable experience of the simpler maladies to which his miners were subject, found that he was more than a little feverish, and expressed the opinion that he would not be able to travel for a full week. Wesley, who, himself, knew enough about the treatment of disease to allow of his writing a book on the subject, agreed with him, that it was not necessary to send for a physician, who might possibly differ from both of them in his diagnosis.

For three days he remained in bed, and in spite of the fact that he would have nothing to say to the Peruvian bark which his host so strongly recommended, his feverish tendency gradually abated, and by careful nursing he was able to sit up in his room by the end of a week.

In the meantime he had many visitors, though he refrained from seeing any of them. His host told him that Miller Pendelley, Jake Pullsford, and Hal Holmes had driven more than once from Ruthallion when they heard of his illness; but of course the earliest and most constant of the enquirers after his health were Nelly Polwhele and her lover. Mr. Hartwell told him how greatly distressed they were, and perhaps it was natural, he added, that the girl should be the one who laid the greatest emphasis upon the fact that they were the cause of Mr. Wesley's suffering. She was undoubtedly a sweet and unselfish girl, Hartwell said; and he feared that Captain Snowdon thought that she was making too great a fuss in referring to the risks which he, Wesley, had run to bring her happiness. Snowdon, being a man, had not her imagination; and besides his life had been made up of running risks for the benefit of other people, and he was scarcely to be blamed if he took a less emotional view of, at least, the incident of Wesley's finding him exhausted on the shore in the early dawn.

“I spoke with him to-day,” said Hartwell when his guest was able to hear these things, “and while he certainly showed himself greatly concerned at your sickness, he grumbled, half humorously, when he touched upon the way he was being neglected by the young woman. 'I am being hardly treated, sir,' he said. 'What is a simple master-mariner at best alongsides a parson with a persuasive voice? But when the parson adds on to his other qualities the dash and derring-do of a hero it seems to me that a plain man had best get into his boat, if so be that he have one, and sail away—it boots not whither, so long as he goes. Oh, ay, sir, I allow that your Mr. Wesley hath made short work of me.' Those were his words; and though they were followed by an earnest enquiry after your health, I could see that he would as lief that he owed his life to a more ordinary man.”

“If I had not been overtaken by this sickness he would have had no cause for complaint,” said Wesley. After a pause he touched with caution upon a matter over which he had been thinking for some time.

“Mr. Snowdon heard nothing about a rival other than myself in the young woman's regard?” he said.

“Oh, not he,” replied Hartwell quickly. “Snowdon is not the fellow to listen to all that the gossips may say about Madam Nelly's liking for admiration—he knows well that so pretty a thing will be slandered, even when she shows herself to be wisely provident by seeking to have two strings to her bow. But, indeed, whatever her weakness may have been in the past, she hath been a changed girl since you first came hither. Captain Snowdon has no rival but yourself, sir, and I am certain that the honest fellow would not for the world that the young woman abated aught of her gratitude to you. He has too large a heart to harbour any thought so unworthy of a true man.”

“God forbid that anything should come between them and happiness,” said Wesley.

“'Tis all unlikely,” said his host. “He must see that her love for him must be in proportion to her gratitude to you for having done all that you have done for him. If she did not love him dearly she would have no need to be half so grateful to you.”

Wesley said nothing more on this point. He had not forgotten what Nelly had confided to him and the counsel which he had given her just before the hurricane had cut short their conversation on the cliffs. She had told him her story, confessing that the man to whom she had given her promise was less dear to her now that she was in daily expectation of meeting him after the lapse of a year than he had been when they had parted; and he had defined, in no doubtful language, the direction in which her duty lay.