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.