hy a man of such capacities, so many qualities
of real greatness and power, should have escaped a city career. I said
something to this effect to a group of men with whom I was talking this
morning. I thought they exchanged glances; one said:

"When he first came out of the army he'd made such a fine record as a
surgeon that everyone-urged him to go to the city and practice----"

A pause followed which no one seemed inclined to fill.

"But he didn't go," I said.

"No, he didn't go. He was a brilliant young fellow. He _knew_ a lot, and
he was popular, too. He'd have had a great success----"

Another pause.

"But he didn't go?" I asked promptingly.

"No; he staid here. He was better educated than any man in this county.
Why, I've seen him more'n once pick up a book of Latin and read it _for
pleasure_."

I could see that all this was purposely irrelevant, and I liked them for
it. But walking home from the cemetery Horace gave me the story; the
community knew it to the last detail. I suppose it is a story not
uncommon among men, but this morning, told of the old Doctor we had just
laid away, it struck me with a tragic poignancy difficult to describe.

"Yes," said Horace, "he was to have been married, forty years ago, and
the match was broken off because he was a drunkard."

"A drunkard!" I exclaimed, with a shock I cannot convey.

"Yes, sir," said Horace, "one o' the worst you ever see. He got it in
the army. Handsome, wild, brilliant--that was the Doctor. I was a little
boy but I remember it mighty well."

He told me the whole distressing story. It was all a long time ago and
the details do not matter now. It was to be expected that a man like the
old Doctor should love, love once, and love as few men do. And that is
what he did--and the girl left him because he was a drunkard!

"They all thought," said Horace, "that he'd up an' kill himself. He
said he would, but he didn't. Instid o' that he put an open bottle on
his table and he looked at it and said: 'Which is stronger, now, you or
John North? We'll make that the test,' he said, 'we'll live or die by
that.' Them was his exact words. He couldn't sleep nights and he got
haggard like a sick man, but he left the bottle there and never touched
it."

How my heart throbbed with the thought of that old silent struggle! How
much it explained; how near it brought all these people around him! It
made him so human. It is the tragic necessity (but the salvation) of