The Choir Invisible

He had gone to the field himself one Saturday not long before, walking

thoughtfully over it. He had had with him two of the Lexington militia who,

in the battle, had been near poor Todd, their colonel, while fighting like a

lion to the last and bleeding from many wounds. The recollection of it all

was very clear now, very poignant: the bright winding river, there

broadening at its ford; the wild and lonely aspect of the country round

about. On the farther bank the long lofty ridge of rock, trodden and licked

bare of vegetation for ages by the countless passing buffalo; blackened by

rain and sun; only the more desolate for a few dwarfish cedars and other

timber scant and dreary to the eye. Encircling this hill in somewhat the

shape of a horseshoe, a deep ravine heavily wooded and rank with grass and

underbrush. The Kentuckians, disorderly foot and horse, rushing in

foolhardiness to the top of this uncovered expanse of rock; the Indians,

twice, thrice, their number, engirdling its base, ringing them round with

hidden death. The whole tragedy repossessed his imagination and his

emotions. His face had grown pale, his voice took the measure and cadence of

an old-time minstrel's chant, his nervous fingers should have been able to

reach out and strike the chords of a harp.With uplifted finger he was going

on to impress them with another lesson: that in the battles which would be

sure to await them, they must be warned by this error of their fathers never

to be over-hasty or over-confident, never to go forward without knowing the

nature of the ground they were to tread, or throw themselves into a struggle

without measuring the force of the enemy. He was doing this when a child

came skipping joyously across the common, and pushing her way up to him

through the circle of his listeners, handed him a note. He read it, and in

an instant the great battle, hills, river, horse, rider, shrieks, groans,

all vanished from his mind as silently as a puff of white smoke from a

distant cannon.

For a while he stood with his eyes fixed upon the paper, so absorbed as not

to note the surprise that had fallen upon the children. At length merely

saying, "I shall have to tell you the rest some other day," he walked

rapidly across the common in the direction from which the little messenger

had come.

A few minutes later he stood at the door of Father Poythress, the Methodist

minister, asking for Amy. But she and Kitty had ridden away and would not

return till night. Leaving word that he would come to see her in the

evening, he turned away.