Part 7

Armstrong answered by some light word, divining, by that super-sensitiveness of the young enthusiast, that a criticism was in the air. He looked up at the honest red face half a head higher than his own pale one, with a little curiosity. Peter's kindliness was so vast that he felt like a school-boy being forgiven by the professor of moral philosophy. A strange feeling for an expounder of the sacred word to experience in the presence of an apparently commonplace man.

"It was a good sermon," Peter went on; "that is, good because there was an honest purpose in it. But I don't agree with you, sir."

"Don't you?" retorted the preacher, smiling. He was not displeased that his first sermon contained stuff for argument.

"You see, your point of view is the point of view of a well-meaning but inexperienced young man. The world isn't near as bad as you made it out. There's a lot of good in human nature, and you'll find it out after awhile. I'm not afraid but what you'll find it out. But I'd be sorry to have you go on saying all these hard things that don't do any good. The only way to make people better is to take hold of some good thing about 'em and build on it. The world wants to be encouraged, not discouraged, sir!"

Armstrong felt now like a boy in the infant class being lectured by the Sabbath-school superintendent. His white teeth closed down over his lower lip. It galled him to have to look up to meet the eyes of this singular individual. But he rallied himself gallantly.

"Oh, I think very well of human nature," he said, in his strong, clear tones. "But you know we must not look at things from _that_ standpoint. Anything short of perfection is rottenness in the eyes of God. And who among us is anywhere near perfect?"

"Still, the world wants encouraging," repeated Peter.

It was the idea he had intended to emphasize. He wished that this fine young man and himself were seated on the porch of his little green cottage, with a pipe apiece, and the afternoon before them to talk the matter out. But nearly everybody had left the church. Only half a dozen or so lingered to exchange a word with the preacher. Courteous Peter felt that he had been to the fore long enough. He extended his hand again, and gave Armstrong's a cordial grip.

"Your face contradicts your preaching," he concluded, backing away reluctantly. "You'll not be so severe when you let yourself be as much in sympathy with people as nature meant you to be!"

He bowed in his ungainly fashion, and walked on out. Armstrong's attention was immediately engaged by Mistress Amanda, who invited him to go home with her to dinner. She had listened with keen interest to the little exchange of views between the preacher and Peter. Her sympathy was with Peter. She had less toleration than he for the intolerance of others. There is no bigotry like the bigotry of an egoistic mind that thinks itself liberal; and Mistress Amanda felt an impatient contempt for the hard and fast Calvinism of the preacher. But personal preferences were not allowed to stand in the way of hospitality. The preacher was pressed to come to Benvenew and stay over until Monday, when he could ride back to Roselawn, the Armstrong dwelling, in the cool air of the morning.

Other persons had felt a sense of their hospitable duties. In fact, Armstrong was half engaged to go to the Gordons. He was turning his gracefully uttered thanks into a refusal, when Mistress Amanda moved toward the pew on her left to pick up her fan, and in so doing gave him a glimpse of Nellie, who had kept modestly behind her mother all this time. Mistress Amanda was tall; Nellie was short and slim; a sylph, a dainty fairy figure, over whose face played the luminous light of the moon as it is reflected in water. Her great soft eyes dwelt upon him with pathetic sympathy. The brightness of partizanship was there, too. A dove whose heart had been moved to side with an eagle engaged in combat with its fellow would probably have looked so. Nellie felt in her gentle bosom the stirring of vindictiveness against Peter's rough hands that had essayed to tear away the veil of sanctity which hung over the Lord's chosen vessel. Her ears still held the echo of those strong, stern words with which the preacher had rebuked sin. She mentally bowed before them. She, too, was a sinner. Oh, that he might lead her into the light!

Armstrong's eyes had found her while these thoughts were writing themselves upon her innocent face. In a second he caught a breath of that incense which filled the heart of the sweetbriar rose. Youth, enthusiasm, worshipful instinct met and united in the one swift glance. The words of excuse died away in Armstrong's throat.

"Let me present you to my daughter, Nellie," said Mistress Amanda carelessly; hearing only a murmured acceptance of her invitation. The young girl bent her head, the rose tint deepening in her cheeks. The preacher bowed as to a queen. His manner seemed a trifle exaggerated to Mistress Amanda, but her critical reading of his character was that he would probably over-do everything.

She moved toward the church door with him, her negligent glance taking in an impression of a rather good-looking, gentlemanly bigot. Such people were bores that good breeding obliged one to suffer patiently.

The church was perfectly quiet by the time they had reached the door, for they were the last. The crowd outside compelled them to stop for an instant in the vestibule.

Suddenly there came to the ears of all three the sound of a long, mournful howl, deeper than that any dog could make; heavy yet tremulous, as of something in great distress.

Peter had been stayed at the door--probably he had loitered to see Nellie--and he, too, heard the sound. His round eyes widened and his mouth opened in astonishment. Without dying away completely the painful bellow was renewed.

It seemed to come from the interior of the church.

II.

SOME remarkable epithet rolled from the throat of Peter as he turned his head from side to side in a perplexed grasping after the location of this disturbance.

"It seems to come from the basement," observed Mistress Amanda. Peter strode to the basement door and took hold of the knob. It was locked; an occurrence so unusual as to arouse renewed surprise.

There was now a renewal of the sounds; a succession of low, long-drawn-out bellows, becoming more and more faint, and dying away completely while the four listeners stood looking at each other.

"May not some stray cow have got into the basement or cellar?" Armstrong suggested. It seemed to him that this big farmer showed more annoyance than the occasion demanded. Doubtless the explanation would prove to be very simple. But he had not Peter's premises to argue from. Mistress Amanda and he both knew that if any animal was imprisoned beneath the church it must have been driven there, and shut in. Why should such a thing be done? There was but one explanation. Over a week ago a fine cow belonging to Peter had bodily disappeared, without leaving a trace to identify the thief. He had had a strong suspicion that the guilt lay at the door of his neighbor, Theodore Funkhausen, one of the richest men in the county, but commonly called "Skunk." Many a quarrel had taken place between "Skunk" and Peter Weaver, in which the generous nature had been the victim. The last one dated a fortnight back, and was about Peter's cattle. Soon afterward the cow had disappeared. Funkhausen's sour visage had worn a particularly malicious look lately, when he and Peter met, a look that one who knew him might interpret as pleasure in an accomplished act of vengeance.

"I'm going to get at the meaning of them noises," said Peter, with mighty emphasis, and he laid violent hands upon the door lock, which was weak and yielded without much resistance. "If it's as I think," he added calmly, "Thed Funkhausen's going to have one thrashing!" He descended the dark stairway, and they heard the crackle of matches as he went. Peter's pipe was not in his pocket when he attended church but his match-box was.

"What does he mean?" asked Armstrong of Mistress Amanda. The boyish liking for an adventure and the instinct of the southerner for a fight struggled in his breast with the severity of the preacher. He had a vague idea that Peter Weaver was one of the unregenerate persons toward whom one's sympathies must not be allowed to flow incautiously. On the other hand, Funkhausen's reputation had reached Roselawn. To the fact that he was a _carpet-bagger_, the true-blooded Virginian laid some contemptible acts which otherwise would have been unaccountable. But there were persons who found the rich man good enough in his way, and he had a certain following, was a school trustee, member of the county jockey-club, and sure of a seat among the judges at the annual fair. Consequently, when he took it into his head to quarrel the possibility of his antagonist being in the wrong naturally presented itself to fair minds.

Armstrong had never heard of Peter Weaver, although the farmer-poet was well known throughout the county, and now that he had made his acquaintance he was not greatly disposed to admire him. There was enough resentment in his mind for the elder man's plain speaking to make neutrality in a quarrel between him and Funkhausen appear a Christian duty. But he could not find fault with any circumstances that led to his standing in the little vestibule close to this wonderfully fair young girl, whose spiritual face wore the far-away look of one whose thoughts are set on things above this earth. Yet Nellie had her practical side. In some things she was more practical than her mother.

Mistress Amanda's commanding bearing, however, was a complete contrast to the young girl's modest, timid mien. Her fine, black eyes rested coldly upon the young man who had put his question to her in a judicial tone. She murmured a few words that were no reply, and busied herself in drawing up the folds of her black satin skirt to sweep out to her carriage. Peter was heard coming up the steps. He emerged with an apoplectic face, breathing hard.

"_Was_ it?" asked Mistress Amanda.

He nodded. "Shorely, starved to death--the darned skunk!"

His friend gave him a look expressive of the wisdom of keeping cool and waiting for the right occasion. It was something like throwing water on a red-hot stove. But Peter had unlimited confidence in the good sense of Mistress Amanda. And he bore in mind that it is a man's duty not to show fight in the presence of ladies. So, sighing inwardly, he helped them up the step of the great family coach, where old Mrs. Powell and her niece were seated, waiting; and, mounting his horse, rode off at a pace that harmonized with his feelings.

Peter's bulk was unhandsome on horseback. As young Armstrong lightly vaulted into his saddle and reined his horse beside the window, where Nellie's sweet face peeped out from beneath the shadow of a flower-laden leghorn hat, she silently noted the contrast between the riders.

"What kep' you so, Mandy?" asked old Mrs. Powell, with as near the suspicion of a complaint in her voice as ever got into it.

"Why, something very singular, mother. Would you credit it, that Funkhausen put Peter Weaver's cow under the church and starved it to death! We heard its moans--probably its last ones, and Peter went down and found it. He says he'll thrash Funkhausen, and I think everybody in the county'll stand by him if he does."

"How perfectly dreadful!" chimed in the girls, in thrilled accents.

"Oh, dear, Mandy, that wuz mean indeed of Funkhausen," said the grieved old lady. "And he a member o' the chu'ch, and holdin' to particular redemption, which he oughtn't to dare to do less he's shore he's one o' the elect hisself."

"He'll need all his particular redemption--when Peter gets hold of him," commented Mistress Amanda, who was no Antinomian. She took some pleasure in making remarks like these, less to shock her mother, to whom she was more tenderly deferential than to anybody else in the world, than to enlarge the outlook of Nellie, whose innate bent toward Calvinism irritated her. She disbelieved in the possibility of a woman saint under sixty. Of men, she had been heard to remark that they "only got to heaven through the grace of God and the goodness of women." But while she hated pretensions to special piety she readily pardoned sinners who were confessedly incorrigible. She would overlook all offenses save self-complacency or the possession of a bloodless nature incapable alike of sterling virtues or robust wickedness. There are persons to whom the touch of velvet is odious. Mistress Amanda detested velvety natures. Some Viking-like quality in the woman, something fierce and grand as the breaking of a storm at sea, threw out a challenge for rough honesty; for the strong hand of untamed manhood to touch and calm her mood. In Peter Weaver she realized her ideal of robust, simple manliness. Twenty years before her maiden fancies would have passed him by with disdain. But there comes a period of life when a second set of desires replace the dreams of youth, unlike them in every respect, especially where "the curse of a granted prayer" has robbed the dreamer of illusions. In so many words, Mistress Amanda had never said to herself since she had been left a widow five years ago,--I like best the man who least resembles my husband:--but her regard involuntarily fell upon everything in the shape of both men and women, who were innocent of the suavity, the grace, and the polished egotism of the late Col. Thomas.

To revise one's personal ideals is sometimes commendable; but a good mother usually reads her new philosophy into the life of her daughter. In Mistress Amanda's hands Nellie had been as ductile as gold foil, showing a fragility, however, that exacted delicate treatment. Here was a sweet, affectionate, domestic disposition, without any of the deep and subtle qualities that had rendered her own life stormy; a nature formed to lean on strength and create a happy home for a good man. And Mistress Amanda had given to Peter's shy wooing an unspoken but emphatic approval. But the sleeping beauty's repose was not yet broken. Nellie's maidenly meditations had still leave to wander where they listed. But one little cloud hung over the rosy sky of Mistress Amanda's hopes: Nellie, always given to shy musings and conscientious scruples--had lately shown a strong bias toward her grandmother's religious convictions. Indeed, it often seemed to Mistress Amanda, whose ambition and passionately maternal nature would have fitted her to be the mother of heroes, that her daughter belonged more to old lady Powell than to herself.

A dear, sweet old lady, with a heart full to overflowing with the milk of human kindness, and yet she had unconsciously become a moral stumbling-block to the one person whose happiness she was in every way most desirous of serving.

Poor Mistress Amanda had never found any aid from nature in carrying out her plans, but she was not the woman to relinquish one on that account. She relied upon the aid of chance to bring that proof to Nellie of Peter Weaver's worth, which would make her tolerant of his rationalism.

A poet and a skeptic! Only in the degree which made it necessary for the solitary man, thinking out all things for himself, and philosophizing upon life with the sky and woods for counselors, to reach conclusions that he could connect with the way things had of turning out. Calvinism did not seem to him to connect with the law of duty to your neighbor as it presented itself to his conception; and his theology took this simple formula: bear and forbear as long as you can, and then strike good blows; leaving alone the consequences.

And Nellie was a very mimosa for sensitiveness, as to the sin of differing from one's spiritual advisers. Mistress Amanda looked at her daughter, a translucent opal set between those gilded spurs, her cousins, and reflected upon the pains nature takes to bring about disharmony in families.

As the carriage approached the gates of Benvenew two little darkies raced out and held them wide open, with a special grin and duck for the gentleman on horseback, whose dimes rolled in the dust, sped by the careless, free hand of one who remembered himself an Armstrong, forgetting the preacher. But the set of the preacher was strong in the man. It was apparent at dinner; that excellent dinner where the golden brown turkey at one end of the table was rivaled by the noble ham at the other end, and where corn-pudding, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes in firm, rose-red slices, were reflected in crystal-clear goblets of cut-glass, standing sentinel-like upon napkins of double-wove Barnsley damask, white as sunbleach and rain water could make them.

Armstrong sat at Mistress Amanda's right hand, with Nellie opposite, her hands constantly busy playing over the jellies and _entrées_ set in front of her to serve. Drooping curls half-hid her face, but his eyes dived keenly into the cool, sweet depths of hers when by chance she looked up. And she had the pleasantly fluttered sense of being watched by one curiously sympathetic with her.

"You are like your father," Mistress Amanda was saying. "Like what he was at your age. I met him once at a tournament held over at Purcellville. A pleasant part of the country, and a pleasant time we young people had that day."

"And you was crowned queen o' love and beauty, Mandy," cooed old Mrs. Powell. "I see by your face though, sir, that you don't hold to these fashions?"

"Should I hold to any customs that encourage vanity and display, and un-Christian rivalry?" returned the young preacher. "I understand there is to be a tournament held here in the fall, at Rocky Point. I shall feel it my duty to warn all our young people who have felt the strivings of the Spirit, not to yield to the temptation."

"I am so glad!" the fleeting cry came from Nellie involuntarily, and when Armstrong covered her flushing face with a soft look of encouragement, she continued sedately:

"I think such things take us too far away from our serious duties in life."

"Nellie is passing through one of those phases peculiar to youth," observed her mother. "Attacks of acute religious fanaticism are a sort of moral measles."

"Madam!" uttered Armstrong in a shocked tone, but meeting that calm glance of the elder woman, secure in the dignity of her deeper life experiences, he softened his tone apologetically:

"I beg you will not construe my criticism of the custom of tournaments into a criticism of yourself. Doubtless there was formerly a greater license in the Church concerning these things. Even dancing picnics were tolerated----"

"Why not?" asked the bold lady. "We must have amusements, we southerners. We are not Puritans."

"Shall the Puritans hold their faith more purely than ourselves? I see no reason why the very enthusiasm and eagerness for amusements natural to southerners should not be turned into the channels of a deeper Christianity."

Quite an argument ensued, in which it was notable that the forces were drawn up three to a side; old Mrs. Powell, Nellie, and Armstrong against Mistress Amanda and her two cousins, city-bred girls, desirous of shining in conversation.

Mistress Amanda carried on the battle with one hand behind her, so to speak. She disdained to put forth her full intellectual strength to rout a stripling. And half her mind was wandering abroad in a flight after her hero, pursuing his angry way homeward. Could her imagination have given her a true picture of Peter's adventures on the road, she might have dropped the feint of interest in the dinner-table topics to enjoy the thrill of real feeling, in a more singular and vigorous turn of events than was promised by the mild social elements gathered at Benvenew.

Peter had met his enemy on the lane turning off toward The Oaks, Funkhausen's place. He was driving along at a leisurely pace in his carryall alone, enjoying his meditations, when a fierce-browed horseman reined up beside him and caught the relaxed reins from his hands.

"Git out o' that, Thed Funkhausen," commanded Peter. "I've a word or two with you."

"Hadn't it better keep till another time?" suggested Funkhausen in a tone meant to be pacific.

"No, it won't keep!" thundered Peter, who had no mind to let his present wrath cool into his habitual, easy-going tolerance. And there was a force of circumstances in his having possession of the road and the reins, which compelled Funkhausen to step out; Peter dismounting at the same minute.

"What'd you shut my cow up for and starve her to death?"

A smile of sly enjoyment overspread Funkhausen's face. He did not deny the charge, seeming rather to take pride in an achievement so original. Funkhausen feared his huge antagonist, but beside being a burly man himself, he believed that he was near enough to home for his negroes to be within call; and there was a small army of farm-hands in his service.

So, charges were met by defiance, and Peter's temper ran no risk of dying away without finding vent. It came to blows before many expletives had made the air hot, and, as might have been expected, Funkhausen was tendered to the care of mother earth, with dust for his pillow. But although with that issue Peter began to find forgiveness sprouting in his soul, new complications arose. The farm-hands were within call, taking their ease before their cabin doors, and enjoying the smell of their dinners cooking. At Funkhausen's lusty cries they came pouring down the lane, realizing the duty of obedience to the man who supplied their bread.

"Surround him! Surround the low-lived coon!" yelled Funkhausen, sputtering and winking, wiping the blood from his nose with his best Sunday pocket-handkerchief.

And the negroes closed around the tall figure, standing firm and solid, with nothing but his fists to oppose to the force of numbers.

The negroes numbered fifteen men.

III.

THE sunshine of a perfect October day lay full upon Peter Weaver's great front porch, as he sat in his red armchair, smoking his after-dinner pipe, two months after his encounter with Funkhausen. Behind the porch lay the house; a minor affair, yet comfortable in its way. So long as weather permitted Peter lived upon his porches, the back one, fronting east, in the mornings, and the front one with the western exposure in the afternoon. From it he could see the goose-pond where his flock disported, and the road, not very lively, but with passing features of interest to a society loving mind.

His bachelor housekeeping was simple, his farm small, and the good grandparents had brought with them from Holland a store of Dutch guelders which had been converted into mining stock in due course, and, passing down to Peter, made his living a comfortable one. Had he chosen to loaf all day long upon his porches his income would have enabled him to do so. And old Aunt Vina and her two sons would not have lost their wages, nor the church its annual liberal check. But Peter had an industrious streak in him, and worked with all his might when he did work. Afterwards he indulged himself in spells of meditation and verse-writing.