And who knew but that, up where France's great statue stood at the
wide-thrown portals of the Great City of the land, it had not given to
the mighty torch that nightly streams the light of Liberty across the
waters from the New World to the Old--who knew that it had not given to
that light a steady, ever-onward-reaching glow that some day should
illumine the earth?
* * * * *
The Cuban fever does not loosen its clutch easily.
Crittenden went to bed that day and lay there delirious and in serious
danger for more than a fortnight. But at the end a reward came for all
the ills of his past and all that could ever come.
His long fight was over, and that afternoon he lay by his window, which
was open to the rich, autumn sunlight that sifted through the woods and
over the pasture till it lay in golden sheens across the fence and the
yard and rested on his window-sill, rich enough almost to grasp with his
hand, should he reach out for it. There was a little colour in his
face--he had eaten one good meal that day, and his long fight with the
fever was won. He did not know that in his delirium he had spoken of
Judith--Judith--Judith--and this day and that had given out fragments
from which his mother could piece out the story of his love; that, at
the crisis, when his mother was about to go to the girl, Judith had come
of her own accord to his bedside. He did not know her, but he grew
quiet at once when the girl put her hand on his forehead.
Now Crittenden was looking out on the sward, green with the curious
autumn-spring that comes in that Bluegrass land: a second spring that
came every year to nature, and was coming this year to him. And in his
mood for field and sky was the old, dreamy mistiness of pure
delight--spiritual--that he had not known for many years. It was the
spirit of his youth come back--that distant youth when the world was
without a shadow; when his own soul had no tarnish of evil; when passion
was unconscious and pure; when his boyish reverence was the only feeling
he knew toward every woman. And lying thus, as the sun sank and the
shadows stole slowly across the warm bands of sunlight, and the
meadow-lark called good-night from the meadows, whence the cows were
coming homeward and the sheep were still browsing--out of the quiet and
peace and stillness and purity and sweetness of it all came his last
vision--the vision of a boy with a fresh, open face and no shadow across
the mirror of his clear eyes. It looked like Basil, but it was "the
little brother" of himself coming back at last--coming with a glad,
welcoming smile. The little man was running swiftly across the fields
toward him. He had floated lightly over the fence, and was making
straight across the yard for his window; and there he rose and floated
in, and with a boy's trustfulness put his small, chubby hand in the big
brother's, and Crittenden felt the little fellow's cheek close to his as
he slept on, his lashes wet with tears.