When the last echo of the boatman's horn had melted among the darkling
hills, he turned as instinctively as a sun-worshipper faces the east and
drank in another musical refrain. The Angelus was pealing faintly from
the bell of the little log chapel far up the river, hidden among the
trees. The faith which it betokened was not his own faith, nor the faith
of those with whom he lived, but the beauty and sweetness of the token
appealed to him none the less. How beautiful, how sweet it was! As it
thus came drifting down with the river's deepening shadows, he thought
of the little band of Sisters--angels of charity--kneeling under that
rough roof; those brave gentlewomen of high birth and delicate breeding
who were come with the very first to take an heroic part in the making
of Kentucky and, so doing, in the winning of the whole West. As the boy
thought of them with a swelling heart,--for they had been kind to
him,--it seemed that they were braver than the hunters, more courageous
than the soldiers. Listening to the appeal of the Angelus stealing so
tenderly through the twilight, with the strain of poetry that was in him
thrilling in response, he felt that the prayers then going up must fill
the cruel wilderness with holy incense; that the coming of these gentle
Sisters must subdue the very wild beasts, as the presence of the lovely
martyrs subdued the lions of old.
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