Poor Morris! he did not dream how anxiously he was waited for at home, nor yet of the crowd assembled at the depot to welcome back the loved physician, whom they had missed so much, and whose name they had so often heard coupled with praise as a true hero, even though his post was not in the front of the battle. Thousands had been cared for by him, their gaping wounds dressed skillfully, their aching heads soothed tenderly, and their last moments made happier by the words he spoke to them of the world to which they were going, where there is no more war or shedding of man's blood. In the churchyard at Silverton there were three soldiers' graves, whose pale occupants had each died with Dr. Grant's hand held tightly in his, as if afraid that he would leave them before the dark river was crossed, while in more than one Silverton home there was a wasted form on which the soldier coat hung loosely, who never tired of telling Dr. Morris' praise and dwelling on his goodness. But Dr. Morris was not thinking of this as, faint and sick, with the green shade before his eyes, he leaned against the pile of shawls his companion had placed for his back and wondered if they were almost there.
"I smell the pond lilies; we must he near Silverton," he said, and a sigh escaped his lips as he thought of coming home and not being able to see it or the woods and fields around it. "Thy will be done," he had said many times since the fear first crept into his heart that for him the light had faded.
But now, when home was almost reached, and he began to breathe the air from the New England hills and the perfume of the New England lilies, the flesh rebelled again, and he cried out within himself: "Oh, I cannot be blind! God will not deal thus by me!" while keen as the cut of a sharpened knife was the pang with which he thought of Katy, and wondered would she care if he were blind.
Just then the long train stopped at Silverton, and, led by his attendant, he stepped feebly into the crowd, which sent up deafening cheers for Dr. Grant come home again. At the sight of his helplessness, however, a feeling of awe fell upon them, and whispering to each other, "I did not suppose he was so bad," they pressed around him, offering their hands and inquiring anxiously how he was.
"I have been sick, but I shall get better now. The very sound of your friendly voices does me good, even though I cannot see you distinctly," he said, as he went slowly to his carriage, led now by Uncle Ephraim, who could not keep back his tears as he saw how weak Morris was, panting for breath as he leaned back among the cushions.