He had never forgiven his daughter and her husband their runaway marriage. True, since the partial reconciliation of five years before, which had removed the ban of total non-communication between the two households, Betsy had occasionally visited her mother; but always, when at Oaklands, her father's manner, cold, distant, formal, had made her feel that not as a child of the house, nor even as an honored guest, but merely as a stranger, would she ever again be received in the home of her childhood. This was a great sorrow to her, the one dark cloud in the otherwise serene sky of her married happiness; and Logan, although he cared little on his own account for the cold looks and haughty demeanor of his father-in-law, loved his young wife too tenderly not to sorrow at her sorrow. Now that Major Gilcrest was ill, however, Abner and Betty forgot all his harsh injustice, and hurried to the bedside where he lay battling for life against the fire that filled his veins, sapped his strength and consumed his flesh. Mason Rogers, too, although he and Gilcrest had not spoken to each other since their stormy interview eight years before, now hearing of his old friend's illness, forgot all harsh words and thoughts, and hurried to Oaklands to offer assistance. Of Gilcrest's six children, only Betsy and Matthew, the first-born and the youngest, were there. Silas and Philip were in Massachusetts, students at Cambridge; John Calvin and Martin Luther, who had been among the first of those brave Kentucky volunteers to march to the defense of the territory of Indiana against the depredations of Tecumseh and the Prophet, were now with General Harrison at Vincennes. During the day, Betsy, who had left her three little children in the charge of the negress Marthy, shared with Aunt Dilsey the care of the sick man; and during the night watch Abner was his most constant attendant. Although Gilcrest was too delirious to recognize any one, it soon came to pass that no one else could influence him as could his once despised son-in-law; for poor Mrs. Gilcrest could not bear the sight of her husband's sufferings, and was hardly ever allowed to enter the room. All that the medical erudition of the time prescribed was done for the patient. He was bled twice a week, and smothered in blankets; he was poulticed and plastered, blistered and fomented; he was dosed with concoctions of fever-wort, boneset, burdock, pokeberry, mullein root, and other medicaments bitter of taste and vile of smell; and kept hot, weak, and miserable generally. Our forbears are represented to this generation as a brave, vigorous and healthy race; and no wonder, for disease in that heroic age was simply a question of the "survival of the fittest;" and the stringent remedies prescribed under the old dispensation were well calculated to eliminate all but the strongest members of the race.