Round Anvil Rock: A Romance

by Nancy Huston Banks

"Shut up," shouted Father Orin, "you unmannerly rascal! I have a great mind to jump down and pull you off that horse and give you a thrashing to teach you some respect for religion, and how to keep a civil tongue in your head. And you know I could do it, too!"

They looked fiercely at each other for a moment. Father Orin was of a fiery spirit, and all his goodness could not always subdue it. Tommy Dye was a ready and a good fighter, but he paused now, and silently regarded the priest. He looked at his large, sturdy form, at his brawny shoulders, at his deep chest and his long arms, remembering suddenly that he had seen him roll, with his own hands, the largest logs in the little chapel which no one else could move.

"I reckon you could," Tommy Dye finally conceded frankly.

Father Orin burst into his good-humored, chuckling laugh, and Tommy Dye grinned, but their faces sobered instantly. The pity of it touched and moved the priest through his sense of humor. The gambler was softened and ashamed, he hardly knew why. With one simultaneous impulse they sent their horses forward, and coming closer together clasped hands.

"God bless and guard you, my friend," said Father Orin. "You can't keep me from saying that, and you can't help my praying for your safety," trying to smile.

Tommy Dye found nothing more to say and, laughing very loud, he put spurs to his horse and galloped away through the darkening forest. Father Orin and Toby stood still looking after him till he had passed out of sight. And then they turned to go on their way. They went along in silence for a while, and at last Father Orin began the conversation with a heavy sigh. "Well, old man, there's another bad failure that we have got to set down in our book—you and me. That was another of the times when we didn't know what to do. That is to say, I didn't. I suppose you did—you always do. You never make mistakes and lose your temper like I do nearly every day. If I could do my part as well as you do yours, we wouldn't fail so often, would we, old man?"

Toby quickly turned his head with a friendly, encouraging whinny, as if he saw his co-worker's trouble and wanted to give him what comfort he could. He always seemed to know as well when his friend needed encouragement as when he required to be kept up to his duty. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing, this bond between the good rider and the good horse! It is so wonderfully close and strong; the closest and strongest binding the human being to his brute brother. It is infinitely more subtle too, than that which binds any other, even the kindest master to the most faithful dog; for the man and his horse are not merely master and servant, they are friends and even equals in a way. Neither is nearly so complete or powerful without the other; but together—with body and spirit coming in living, throbbing contact—they form the mightiest force in flesh and blood. Along the marvellous electric currents of life there flashes from the man to the horse, intelligence, feeling, purpose, even thought perhaps, so that to the true horseman the centaur can never be wholly a fabulous creature.

One of the greatest things about this wonderful bond is that it reaches all classes of riders and horses. Every good rider and every good horse may rely upon it, no matter which of the many roads through life they may travel together: all may trustingly rely upon it till one or both shall have breasted "Sleep's dreamy hill." The horse of the fox-hunter, of the race-rider, of the mounted soldier—every one of these noble beasts has the fullest understanding of his rider's calling, and gives it his completest sympathy with the greatest assistance in his power. Who that has known the horse at his best can have failed to observe and recognize and be moved by this fact? We have all seen that the hunter hardly needs the touch of his rider's knee to be off like the wind and to go without urging from whip or spur on to the end of the chase; never flagging, no matter how long or hard it may be; never flinching at the deepest ditch nor fouling at the highest fence; straining every sinew to the last, for his rider's defeat is his own failure, his rider's success his own victory. And we have all seen the gallant response of the race-horse to every movement of his rider's body—a loyal gallantry that ennobles even the merely mercenary; and the sight of these two—now one—flying toward the goal, always makes the heart beat faster and grow warm with its brave showing of this magical bond. And above all, we have seen the trooper's horse, which comes closer to him than the comrade fighting by his side; for it is to his horse more than to his sword that the soldier must owe any glory that he may hope to win; and when strength and courage can no longer serve, it is his horse that often gives his own body to shield his rider from death.

And if all this be true, as all horsemen know it to be—even when the bond is strained by cruelty and tainted by gain and stained by blood—how much closer and stronger must have been the tie between this priest of the wilderness and his friend. Toby's loyalty was never tried like the hunter's by seeing some dumb brother tortured and slain—and that the hunter feels the test keenly, no one can doubt after seeing the horror in his eloquent eyes. Toby never had to suffer from a broken heart because of a lost race, or because he shared the disgrace of his rider's dishonesty, and many noble beasts have seemed to suffer something strangely like this. Toby never had to lend his strength to the taking of human life, like the trooper's horse; and the soldier's horse does not need the power of speech to tell that he suffers almost as much in the spirit as in the flesh from the horrors of the battle-field. Toby and his friend worked together solely for peace, kindness, and mercy, for the relief of suffering, and the saving of bodies and souls; all and always, solely for the good of the world, of their fellow-creatures, and the glory of God.

Think of what it was that Father Orin and his partner did! They had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a strip of country which was more than fifty miles wide and little less than four hundred miles long. This lay on both sides of the Ohio River, much of it being the trackless forest, so that Father Orin and Toby used the Shawnee Crossing oftener than the Shawnees themselves. They went unharmed, too, where no other pioneers ever dared go. Some mysterious power seemed to protect them, as the rude cross drawn on a cabin door is said to have saved the inmates from the savages. Father Orin and Toby thus travelled about two hundred miles each week all the year through, without stopping for heat or cold. There was only one church when they first began their labors, and this was the little log chapel; but the members of that small and widely scattered congregation were served with the offices of their religion by the priest at many private houses which were far apart and called "stations." There were about thirty of these in Kentucky, several in Indiana and Illinois, and one or two in Tennessee, and Father Orin and Toby visited them all, some as often as once a month and the others as often as possible. To say Mass and to preach constituted but a part of the duty which called them from place to place. They went wherever the priest was needed to administer baptism to infants or older persons; they went wherever any one, old or young, required instruction in religion; they went wherever the priest was needed to hear confession; they went far and wide, so that the priest might solemnize marriage for Protestants as well as Catholics; they visited the sick, no matter how distant, in summer and in winter alike, and Toy day or by night; they went at any summons to bury the dead; and they tried to go again, so that the priest might do what he could to comfort the living. Yet with all this untiring zeal for the soul's welfare, there was also a ceaseless care for the body's welfare, and a divine disregard of any narrow line of faith; for wherever Toby carried Father Orin that good man's heart was always moved by compassion for any distress of mind, body, or estate, always overflowing with a deep, wide pity infinitely greater and more Christian than any creed.