Strange as was the spot, stranger was Webster to himself and did not know what had changed him. It seemed that for the first time in his life his eyes were fully opened; never had he seen with such vision; and his feeling was so deep, so intense. The whole scene was enchantment. It was more than reality. He was more than reality. The singing of birds far away—it was so crystal sweet, yet he could see none. A few yards from him a rivulet made its way from somewhere to somewhere. He could trace its course by the growth of plants which crowded its banks and covered it with their leaves.
Expectancy weighed heavily on him. He was there for a purpose but could not say what the purpose was.
All at once as his eyes were fixed on the low, green thicket opposite him, he saw that it was shaken; something was on its way to him. He watched the top of the thicket being parted to the right and to the left. With a great leaping of his heart he waited, motionless where he sat on the grass. What creature could be coming? Then he saw just within the edge of the thicket a curious piece of head-gear—he had no knowledge of any such hat. Then he saw a gun barrel. Then the hand and forearm of a man was thrust forward and it pushed the underbrush aside; and then there stepped forth into the open the figure of a hunter, lean, vigorous, tall, athletic. The hunter stepped out with a bold stride or two and stopped and glanced eagerly around with an air of one in a search; he discovered Webster and with a look of relief stood still and smiled.
There could be no mistake. Webster held imprinted on memory from a picture those features, those all-seeing eyes; it was Wilson—weaver lad of Paisley, wandering peddler youth of the grey Scotch mountains, violinist, flutist, the poet who had burned his poem standing in the public cross, the exile, the school teacher for whom the boy caught the mouse, the failure who sent the drawing to Thomas Jefferson, the bold figure in the skiff drifting down the Ohio—the naturalist plunging into the Kentucky wilderness and walking to Lexington and shivering in White's garret—the great American ornithologist, the immortal man.
There he stood: how could it be? It was reality yet more than reality.
The hunter walked straight toward him with the light of recognition in his eyes. He came and stood before Webster and looked down at him with a smile:
"Have you found him, Webster?"
Webster strangely heard his own voice:
"I have not found him."