Miss Penelope, reaching up, seized the bridle-reins and held on by main force with one hand while she rummaged in her out pocket with the other.
"There!—here are three bits—every cent I've got with me," she said indignantly, shoving it in his hand. "Well, Peter Cartwright, if your mother could know—"
But the young backwoodsman, whose fame was already filling the wilderness, and was to fill the whole Christian world, now pressed on riding fast, and was soon beyond her kind scolding.
"Well, 'pon my word! Did anybody ever see the like of that!" she cried, seeing that Ruth had followed her to the door. "That boy don't know half the time whether he has had anything to eat or not. And it's just exactly the same to him when he's got money and when he hasn't."
The girl did not hear what Miss Penelope said. Her heart was responding, as it always did, to everything great or heroic, and she looked after this boy preacher with newly opened eyes. She suddenly saw as by a flash of white light, that he and the other pioneer men of God—these soldiers of the cross who were bearing it through the trackless wilderness—were of the greatest. Her dim eyes followed the young man—this brave bearer of the awful burden of the divine mission—watching him press on to the river. She thought of the many rivers that he must swim, the forests that he must thread, the savages that he must contend against, the wild beasts that he must conquer, the plague that he must defy, the shelterless nights that he must sleep under the trees—freezing, starving, struggling through winter's cold and summer's heat, and all for the love of God and the good of mankind.
VIII
THE LOG TEMPLE OF JUSTICE
Most of those dauntless soldiers, who first bore the cross through the wilderness were as ready to fight as to pray—as they had to be. No power of earth or evil which he had been able to combat could have turned young Peter Cartwright that day or have held him back. Pressing on without rest or food, he was in time to preach. When this duty was done, he returned over the Shawnee Crossing and rode straight to the court-house. To go there was in his eyes the next service due the Word.
The court-house was a single large, low room built of rough logs, and standing in the depths of the primeval forest. Great trees arched their branches over its roof and the immemorial "Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes," went up through their heavy dark tops. It must have been strange thus to hear this formal summons before the bar of human justice, strange indeed to see the precise motion of man's law in so wild a spot. Roundabout there still stretched the wilderness which is subject only to nature's law—the one immutable law which takes no heed of justice or mercy; which recks neither man's needs nor his deserts.
The court-house in the wilderness stood quite alone, with no other building near. There was not even a fence round it, nor so much as a hitching-post in front of the rude door which was rarely closed. Those who came—the judge, the jury, the lawyers, the clients, the spectators—all hitched their horses to the swinging limbs of the trees. The sole sign of man's handiwork, beyond the log walls of the court-house itself, was a crude attempt at bridge-building. A creek ran between the court-house and the home of Judge Knox, who was the judge of the court, and over this a few rough boards had been loosely laid across two rotting logs. The structure being both weak and unsteady, it was the judge's habit to dismount on coming to the bridge and to cross it on foot, leading his horse by the bridle. It was then but a stone's throw to the court-house, and as he was heavy, clumsy, and an awkward rider, he did not mount again, but walked on till he came to the spot where he always stopped to tie the bridle to the same limb. And there he invariably tied it in his absent-minded way, without ever thinking of looking round to see if the horse was tied with the bridle. Sometimes he was and again he was not, for this was as that sagacious and dignified animal himself thought best. He commonly made up his mind upon this point when they got to the bridge, where he could tell easily enough by the judge's gait in crossing over, whether or not it would be advisable to follow. If the horse then saw fit to turn back and go home, as a hint to the family to send for the judge at the proper time, he never hesitated to pull his head out of the old bridle which he could do very easily. So that the judge sometimes went on and tied the empty bridle in the usual place, never knowing the difference; while his horse calmly turned round and soberly walked back to the stable. Seeing him thus pass the windows, the good people of Cedar House sighed a little, and shook their heads, but they nevertheless always knew exactly what to do.