The effort was so boyish, so unlike every other speech that had been made, and yet so full of a young man's honest zeal and profound convictions from a soul stirred to its very depths, that the audience rose to their feet at my closing words, and cheer followed cheer, making the air ring with sound.
When the meeting had finished, I found myself in the centre of a group of men who knew John Baronet and just wouldn't let his son get away without a handshake. I was flushed with the pleasure of such a reception and was doing my best to act well, when a man grasped my hand with a grip unlike any other hand I had ever felt, so firm, so full of friendship, and yet so undemonstrative, that I instinctively returned the clasp. He was a man of some thirty years, small beside me, and there was nothing unusual in his face or dress or manner to attract my attention. A stranger might not turn to him a second time in a crowd, unless they had once spoken and clasped hands.
"My name is Morton," he said. "I know your father, I knew him in the army and before, back in Massachusetts. I am from the Saline River country, and I came down here hoping to find the State more interested in the conditions out our way. You were the only speaker who thought of the needs of the settlers. There are terrible things being done right now."
He spoke so simply that a careless ear would not have detected the strength of the feeling back of the words.
"I'll tell my father I met you," I said cordially, "and I hope, I hope to heaven the captives may be found soon, and the Indians punished. How can a man live who has lost his wife, or his sweetheart, in that way?"
I knew I was blushing, but the matter was so terrible to me. Before he could answer, Richard Tillhurst pushed through the crowd and caught my arm.
"There's an old friend of yours here, who wants to meet you, Mr. Baronet," and he pulled me away.
"I hope I'll see you again," I turned to Mr. Morton to say, and in a moment more, I was face to face with Rachel Melrose. It was she whose presence I had somehow felt in that crowd of strangers. She was handsomer even than I had remembered her, and she had a style of dress new and attractive. One would know that she was fresh from the East, for our own girls and women for the most part had many things to consider besides the latest fashions.