“What place is this, Jim?” said Mr. Benedict.

“This is the half-way house,” responded that personage, without looking up.

“Why, this is purgatory, isn’t it?” inquired Benedict.

“Yes, Mike is a Catholic, an’ all his folks; an’ he’s got to stay here a good while, an’ he’s jest settled down an’ gone to housekeepin’.”

“Is it far to the gulf, now?”

“Twenty mile, and the road is rougher nor a—­”

“‘Ah, it’s no twinty mile,” responded Mike, “an’ the road is jist lovely—­jist lovely; an’ afore ye start I’m goin’ to give ye a drap that ’ll make ye think so.”

They sat a whole hour before the fire, and then Mike mixed the draught he had promised to the poor patient.  It was not a heavy one, but, for the time, it lifted the man so far out of his weakness that he could sleep, and the moment his brain felt the stimulus, he dropped into a slumber so profound that when the time of departure came he could not be awakened.  As there was no time to be lost, a bed was procured from a spare chamber, with pillows; the wagon was brought to the door, and the man was carried out as unconscious as if he were in his last slumber, and tenderly put to bed in the wagon.  Jim declined the dram that Mike urged upon him, for he had need of all his wits, and slowly walked the horse away on the road to his boat.  If Benedict had been wide awake and well, he could not have traveled the road safely faster than a walk; and the sleep, and the bed which it rendered necessary, became the happiest accidents of the journey.

For two long hours the horse plodded along the stony and uneven road, and then the light began to redden in the east, and Jim could see the road sufficiently to increase his speed with safety.  It was not until long after the sun had risen that Benedict awoke, and found himself too weak to rise.  Jim gave him more food, answered his anxious inquiries in his own way, and managed to keep him upon his bed, from which he constantly tried to rise in response to his wandering impulses.  It was nearly noon when they found themselves at the river; and the preparations for embarkation were quickly made.  The horse was tied and fed, the wagon unfastened, and the whole establishment was left for Mike to reclaim, according to the arrangement that Jim had made with him.

The woodsman saw that his patient would not be able to sit, and so felt himself compelled to take along the bed.  Arranging this with the pillows in the bow of his boat, and placing Benedict upon it, with his boy at his feet, he shoved off, and started up the stream.

After running along against the current for a mile, Benedict having quietly rested meantime, looked up and said weakly: 

“Jim, is this the gulf?”

“Yes,” responded Jim, cheerfully.  “This is the gulf, and a purty place ‘tis too.  I’ve seed a sight o’ worser places nor this.”

“It’s very beautiful,” responded Benedict.  “We must be getting pretty near.”