Breakfast was nearly ready when Dr. Coughlan awoke. The physician saw at once by the worn and haggard look on his friend’s face that his had been a sleepless night. It was as though all the pain and trouble of the old days had returned. The little doctor muttered angrily to himself while the shepherd was gone to the spring for water. “Blast it all, I’m a fool, a meddlesome, old fool. Ought to have let well enough alone. No need to drag him back into it all again; no need. Do no good; no good at all.”
When the morning meal was finished, Mr. Howitt said, “David, will you think me rude, if I leave you alone to-day? The city pavement fits one but poorly to walk these hills of mine, and you are too tired after your trip and the loss of your regular sleep to go with me this morning. Stay at the ranch and rest. If you care to read, here are a few of your favorites. Will you mind very much? I should like to be alone to-day, David.”
“Right, Daniel, right. I understand. Don’t say another word; not a word. Go ahead. I’m stiff and sore anyway; just suit me.”
The shepherd arranged everything for his friend’s comfort, putting things in readiness for his noonday meal, and showing him the spring. Then, taking his own lunch, as his custom was, he went to the corral and released the sheep. The doctor watched until the last of the flock was gone, and he could no longer hear the tinkle of the bells and the bark of the dog.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
I AIN’T NOBODY NO MORE.
With the coming of the evening, the shepherd returned to his guest. Dr. Coughlan heard first the bells on the leaders of the flock, and the barking of the dog coming nearer and nearer through the woods. Soon the sheep appeared trooping out of the twilight shadows into the clearing; then came Brave followed by his master.
The countenance of the old scholar wore again that look of calm strength and peace that had marked it before the coming of his friend. “Have you had a good rest, David? Or has your day been long and tiresome? I fear it was not kind of me to leave you alone in this wilderness.”
The doctor told how he had passed the time, reading, sleeping and roaming about the clearing and the nearby woods. “And you,” he said, looking the other over with a professional eye, “you look like a new man; a new man, Daniel. How do you do it? Some secret spring of youth in the wilderness? Blast it all, wish you would show me. Fool Sarah and the girls, fool them, sure.”
“David, have you forgotten the prescription you gave me when you ordered me from the city? You took it you remember from one of our favorite volumes.” The shepherd bared his head and repeated,
“If thou art worn and hard beset,
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget;
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.”