Of a sudden, all was bright and warm, and he felt himself going up, up, up, through flawless blue space.  He thought he had no wings, but he did not miss them, nor even think about them; he was missing and thinking about Toby, and wondering, where he was, and what he was doing.  But ah! there he was all ready and waiting close to the gate of paradise.  Yes, there was Toby after all!  There he was, standing by a celestial manger overflowing with ambrosia, already blanketed with softest zephyrs, saddled with shining clouds, and bitted with sunbeams—­quite ready and only waiting for the touch of his friend’s hand on the bridle—­to canter up the radiant highway walled with jasper and paved with stars.

XV

THE WEB THAT SEEMED TO BE WOVEN

The fancy pleased Father Orin, and he spoke jestingly to Toby about it, reminding him, however, seriously enough, that it was only in visions that there could be any such direct passing from earth to heaven.

“For you see, old man, there’s a place on the way where most of us must tarry a while.  Maybe you might be able to pass by and go straight on.  I am afraid there wouldn’t be much of a chance for me.”

But they were both still far from their long, hard journey’s end on that gloomy November evening.  They were merely turning a little aside from their usual broad path for a still wider service to humanity.  They had not seen the doctor that day, and there was always reason to fear that he might at any moment fall a victim to the epidemic which he was ceaselessly fighting, so that they were now going in some anxiety to see what had kept him away from the places in which they were used to seeing him.  They were both very tired, yet Toby, nevertheless, quickened his weary pace at a gentle hint from Father Orin, and they got to the doctor’s house just as the sun went down behind the cottonwoods on the other shore.

The cabin stood near the river bank.  It was a single room of logs, rough without and bare within.  The doctor was not very poor, as poverty and riches were considered in the wilderness, having inherited a modest fortune.  But he was generous and charitable, and had gone from Virginia into Kentucky with an earnest wish to serve his kind.  And then his acquaintance with Father Orin had brought him in close contact with want as well as suffering, and would have given him good uses for larger means than his own.  Yet rude and empty as the cabin was, there were traces of refinement here and there, as there always must be wherever true refinement dwells.  A miniature of his mother, whom he could not remember, hung against the logs at the head of his bed.  There were a few good books on a rough shelf, and a spray of autumn leaves lay on the table.  The beauty of the leaves had drawn him to break the spray from the bough and bring it home.  But he had forgotten it as soon as he had laid it down on the table, and the leaves were withering as he sat beside them with his head bowed upon his hands.