Part 8

It was a grievous disappointment to the little band of Methodists that Brother Magruder's face was so swollen, after his encounter, as to prevent his preaching. They had counted much upon the success of this day's work, and now the devil seemed about to snatch the victory. Mrs. Wheeler enthusiastically recommended Kike as a substitute, and Magruder sent for him in haste. Kike was gratified to hear that the preacher wanted to see him personally. His sallow face flushed with pleasure as he stood, a slender stripling, before the messenger of God.

"Brother Lumsden," said Mr. Magruder, "are you ready to do and to suffer for Christ?"

"I trust I am," said Kike, wondering what the preacher could mean.

"You see how the devil has planned to defeat the Lord's work to-day. My lip is swelled, and my jaw so stiff that I can hardly speak. Are you ready to do the duty the Lord shall put upon you?"

Kike trembled from head to foot. He had often fancied himself preaching his first sermon in a strange neighborhood, and he had even picked out his text; but to stand up suddenly before his school-mates, before his mother, before Brady, and, worse than all, before Morton, was terrible. And yet, had he not that very morning made a solemn vow that he would not shrink from death itself!

"Do you think I am fit to preach?" he asked, evasively.

"None of us are fit; but here will be two or three hundred people hungry for the bread of life. The Master has fed you; he offers you the bread to distribute among your friends and neighbors. Now, will you let the fear of man make you deny the blessed Lord who has taken you out of a horrible pit and set your feet upon the Rock of Ages?"

Kike trembled a moment, and then said: "I will do whatever you say, if you will pray for me."

"I'll do that, my brother. And now take your Bible, and go into the woods and pray. The Lord will show you the way, if you put your whole trust in him."

The preacher's allusion to the bread of life gave Kike his subject, and he soon gathered a few thoughts which he wrote down on a fly-leaf of the Bible, in the shape of a skeleton. But it occurred to him that he had not one word to say on the subject of the bread of life beyond the sentences of his skeleton. The more this became evident to him, the greater was his agony of fear. He knelt on the brown leaves by a prostrate log; he made a "new consecration" of himself; he tried to feel willing to fail, so far as his own feelings were involved; he reminded the Lord of his promises to be with them he had sent; and then there came into his memory a text of Scripture: "For it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak." Taking it, after the manner of the early Methodist mysticism, that the text had been supernaturally "suggested" to him, he became calm; and finding, from the height of the sun, that it was about the hour for meeting, he returned to the house of Colonel Wheeler, and was appalled at the sight that met his eyes. All the settlement, and many from other settlements, had come. The house, the yard, the fences, were full of people. Kike was seized with a tremor. He did not feel able to run the gauntlet of such a throng. He made a detour, and crept in at the back door like a criminal. For stage-fright--this fear of human presence--is not a thing to be overcome by the will. Susceptible natures are always liable to it, and neither moral nor physical courage can avert it.

A chair had been placed in the front door of the log house, for Kike, that he might preach to the congregation indoors and the much larger one outdoors. Mr. Magruder, much battered up, sat on a wooden bench just outside. Kike crept into the empty chair in the doorway with the feeling of one who intrudes where he does not belong. The brethren were singing, as a congregational voluntary, to the solemn tune of "Kentucky," the hymn which begins:

"A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify; A never-dying soul to save And fit it for the sky."

Magruder saw Kike's fright, and, leaning over to him, said: "If you get confused, tell your own experience." The early preacher's universal refuge was his own experience. It was a sure key to the sympathies of the audience.

Kike got through the opening exercises very well. He could pray, for in praying he shut his eyes and uttered the cry of his trembling soul for help. He had been beating about among two or three texts, either of which would do for a head-piece to the remarks he intended to make; but now one fixed itself in his mind as he stood appalled by his situation in the presence of such a throng. He rose and read, with a tremulous voice:

"There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?"

The text arrested the attention of all. Magruder, though unable to speak without pain, could not refrain from saying aloud, after the free old Methodist fashion: "The Lord multiply the loaves! Bless and break to the multitude!" "Amen!" responded an old brother from another settlement, "and the Lord help the lad!" But Kike felt that the advantage which the text had given him would be of short duration. The novelty of his position bewildered him. His face flushed; his thoughts became confused; he turned his back on the audience out of doors, and talked rapidly to the few friends in the house: the old brethren leaned their heads upon their hands and began to pray. Whatever spiritual help their prayers may have brought him, their lugubrious groaning, and their doleful, audible prayers of "Lord, help!" depressed Kike immeasurably, and kept the precipice on which he stood constantly present to him. He tried in succession each division that he had sketched on the fly-leaf of the Bible, and found little to say on any of them. At last, he could not see the audience distinctly for confusion--there was a dim vision of heads swimming before him. He stopped still, and Magruder, expecting him to sit down, resolved to "exhort" if the pain should kill him. The Philistines meanwhile were laughing at Kike's evident discomfiture.

But Kike had no notion of sitting down. The laughter awakened his combativeness, and his combativeness restored his self-control. Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure. He was through with the sermon, and it had occupied just six minutes. The lad's scanty provisions had not been multiplied. But he felt relieved. The sermon over, there was no longer necessity for trying to speak against time, nor for observing the outward manner of a preacher.

"Now," he said, doggedly, "you have all seen that I cannot preach worth a cent. When David went out to fight, he had the good sense not to put on Saul's armor. I was fool enough to try to wear Brother Magruder's. Now, I'm done with that. The text and sermon are gone. But I'm not ashamed of Jesus Christ. And before I sit down, I am going to tell you all what he has done for a poor lost sinner like me."

Kike told the story with sincere directness. His recital of his own sins was a rebuke to others; with a trembling voice and a simple earnestness absolutely electrical, he told of his revengefulness, and of the effect of Magruder's preaching on him. And now that the flood-gates of emotion were opened, all trepidation departed, and there came instead the fine glow of martial courage. He could have faced the universe. From his own life the transition to the lives of those around him was easy. He hit right and left. The excitable crowd swayed with consternation as, in a rapid and vehement utterance, he denounced their sins with the particularity of one who had been familiar with them all his life. Magruder forgot to respond; he only leaned back and looked in bewilderment, with open eyes and mouth, at the fiery boy whose contagious excitement was fast setting the whole audience ablaze. Slowly the people pressed forward off the fences. All at once there was a loud bellowing cry from some one who had fallen prostrate outside the fence, and who began to cry aloud as if the portals of an endless perdition were yawning in his face. Magruder pressed through the crowd to find that the fallen man was his antagonist of the morning--Bill McConkey! Bill had concealed his bruised nose behind a tree, but had been drawn forth by the fascination of Kike's earnestness, and had finally fallen under the effect of his own terror. This outburst of agony from McConkey was fuel to the flames, and the excitement now spread to all parts of the audience. Kike went from man to man, and exhorted and rebuked each one in particular. Brady, not wishing to hear a public commentary on his own life, waddled away when he saw Kike coming; his mother wept bitterly under his exhortation; and Morton sat stock still on the fence listening, half in anguish and half in anger, to Kike's public recital of his sins.

At last Kike approached his uncle; for Captain Lumsden had come on purpose to enjoy Morton's proposed interruption. He listened a minute to Kike's exhortation, and the contrary emotions of alarm at the thought of God's judgment and anger at Kike's impudence contended within him until he started for his horse and was seized with that curious nervous affection which originated in these religious excitements and disappeared with them.* He jerked violently--his jerking only adding to his excitement, which in turn increased the severity of his contortions. This nervous affection was doubtless a natural physical result of violent excitement; but the people of that day imagined that it was produced by some supernatural agency, some attributing it to God, others to the devil, and yet others to some subtle charm voluntarily exercised by the preachers. Lumsden went home jerking all the way, and cursing the Methodists more bitterly than ever.

* It bore, however, a curious resemblance to the "dancing disease" which prevailed in Italy in the Middle Ages.

_CHAPTER XV._

MORTON'S RETREAT.

It would be hard to analyze the emotions with which Morton had listened to Kike's hot exhortation. In vain he argued with himself that a man need not be a Methodist and "go shouting and crying all over the country," in order to be good. He knew that Kike's life was better than his own, and that he had not force enough to break his habits and associations unless he did so by putting himself into direct antagonism with them. He inwardly condemned himself for his fear of Lumsden, and he inly cursed Kike for telling him the blunt truth about himself. But ever as there came the impulse to close the conflict and be at peace with himself by "putting himself boldly on the Lord's side," as Kike phrased it, he thought of Patty, whose aristocratic Virginia pride would regard marriage with a Methodist as worse than death.

And so, in mortal terror, lest he should yield to his emotions so far as to compromise himself, he rushed out of the crowd, hurried home, took down his rifle, and rode away, intent only on getting out of the excitement.

As he rode away from home he met Captain Lumsden hurrying from the meeting with the jerks, and leading his horse--the contortions of his body not allowing him to ride. With every step he took he grew more and more furious. Seeing Morton, he endeavored to vent his passion upon him.

"Why didn't--you--blow--why didn't--why didn't you blow your tin horns, this----" but at this point the jerks became so violent as to throw off his hat and shut off all utterance, and he only gnashed his teeth and hurried on with irregular steps toward home, leaving Morton to gauge the degree of the Captain's wrath by the involuntary distortion of his visage.

Goodwin rode listlessly forward, caring little whither he went; endeavoring only to allay the excitement, of his conscience, and to imagine some sort of future in which he might hope to return and win Patty in spite of Lumsden's opposition. Night found him in front of the "City Hotel," in the county-seat village of Jonesville; and he was rejoiced to find there, on some political errand, Mr. Burchard, whom he had met awhile before at Wilkins', in the character of a candidate for sheriff.

"How do you do, Mr. Morton? Howdy do?" said Burchard, cordially, having only heard Morton's first name and mistaking it for his last. "I'm lucky to meet you in this town. Do you live over this way? I thought you lived in our county and 'lectioneered you--expecting to get your vote."

The conjunction of Morton and Burchard on a Sunday evening (or any other) meant a game at cards, and as Burchard was the more skillful and just now in great need of funds, it meant that all the contents of Morton's pockets should soon transfer themselves to Burchard's, the more that Morton in his contending with the religious excitement of the morning rushed easily into the opposite excitement of gambling. The violent awakening of a religious revival has a sharp polarity--it has sent many a man headlong to the devil. When Morton had frantically bet and lost all his money, he proceeded to bet his rifle, then his grandfather's watch--an ancient time-piece, that Burchard examined with much curiosity. Having lost this, he staked his pocket-knife, his hat, his coat, and offered to put up his boots, but Burchard refused them. The madness of gambling was on the young man, however. He had no difficulty in persuading Burchard to take his mare as security for a hundred dollars, which he proceeded to gamble away by the easy process of winning once and losing twice.

When the last dollar was gone, his face was very white and calm. He leaned back in the chair and looked at Burchard a moment or two in silence.

"Burchard," said he, at last, "I'm a picked goose. I don't know whether I've got any brains or not. But if you'll lend me the rifle you won long enough for me to have a farewell shot, I'll find out what's inside this good-for-nothing cocoa-nut of mine."

Burchard was not without generous traits, and he was alarmed. "Come, Mr. Morton, don't be desperate. The luck's against you, but you'll have better another time. Here's your hat and coat, and you're welcome. I've been flat of my back many a time, but I've always found a way out. I'll pay your bill here to-morrow morning. Don't think of doing anything desperate. There's plenty to live for yet. You'll break some girl's heart if you kill yourself, maybe."

This thrust hurt Morton keenly. But Burchard was determined to divert him from his suicidal impulse.

"Come, old fellow, you're excited. Come out into the air. Now, don't kill yourself. You looked troubled when you got here. I take it, there's some trouble at home. Now, if there is"--here Burchard hesitated--"if there is trouble at home, I can put you on the track of a band of fellows that have been in trouble themselves. They help one another. Of course, I haven't anything to do with them; but they'll be mighty glad to get a hold of a fellow like you, that's a good shot and not afraid."

For a moment even outlawry seemed attractive to Morton, so utterly had hope died out of his heart. But only for a moment; then his moral sense recoiled.

"No; I'd rather shoot myself than kill somebody else. I can't take that road, Mr. Burchard."

"Of course you can't," said Burchard, affecting to laugh. "I knew you wouldn't. But I wanted to turn your thoughts away from bullets and all that. Now, Mr. Morton----"

"My name's not Morton. My last name is Goodwin--Morton Goodwin." This correction was made as a man always attends to trifles when he is trying to decide a momentous question.

"Morton Goodwin?" said Burchard, looking at him keenly, as the two stood together in the moonlight. Then, after pausing a moment, he added: "I had a crony by the name of Lew Goodwin, once. Devilish hard case he was, but good-hearted. Got killed in a fight in Pittsburg."

"He was my brother," said Morton.

"Your brother? thunder! You don't mean it. Let's see; he told me once his father's name was Moses--no; Job. Yes, that's it--Job. Is that your father's name?"

"Yes."

"I reckon the old folks must a took Lew's deviltry hard. Didn't kill 'em, did it?"

"No."

"Both alive yet?"

"Yes."

"And now you want to kill both of 'em by committing suicide. You ought to think a little of your mother----"

"Shut your mouth," said Morton, turning fiercely on Burchard; for he suddenly saw a vision of the agony his mother must suffer.

"Oh! don't get mad. I'm going to let you have back your horse and gun, only you must give me a bill of sale so that I may be sure you won't gamble them away to somebody else. You must redeem them on your honor in six months, with a hundred and twenty-five dollars. I'll do that much for the sake of my old friend, Lew Goodwin, who stood by me in many a tight place, and was a good-hearted fellow after all."

Morton accepted this little respite, and Burchard left the tavern. As it was now past midnight, Goodwin did not go to bed. At two o'clock he gave Dolly corn, and before daylight he rode out of the village. But not toward home. His gambling and losses would be speedily reported at home and to Captain Lumsden. And moreover, Kike would persecute him worse than ever. He rode out of town in the direction opposite to that he would have taken in returning to Hissawachee, and he only knew that it was opposite. He was trying what so many other men have tried in vain to do--to run away from himself.

But not the fleetest Arabian charger, nor the swiftest lightning express, ever yet enabled a man to leave a disagreeable self behind. The wise man knows better, and turns round and faces it.

About noon Morton, who had followed an obscure and circuitous trail of which he knew nothing, drew near to a low log-house with deer's horns over the door, a sign that the cabin was devoted to hotel purposes--a place where a stranger might get a little food, a place to rest on the floor, and plenty of whiskey. There were a dozen horses hitched to trees about it, and Goodwin got down and went in from a spirit of idle curiosity. Certainly the place was not attractive. The landlord had a cut-throat way of looking closely at a guest from under his eye-brows; the guests all wore black beards, and Morton soon found reason to suspect that these beards were not indigenous. He was himself the object of much disagreeable scrutiny, but he could hardly restrain a mischievous smile at thought of the disappointment to which any highwayman was doomed who should attempt to rob him in his present penniless condition. The very worst that could happen would be the loss of Dolly and his rifle. It soon occurred to him that this lonely place was none other than "Brewer's Hole," one of the favorite resorts of Micajah Harp's noted band of desperadoes, a place into which few honest men ever ventured.

One of the men presently stepped to the window, rested his foot upon the low sill, and taking up a piece of chalk, drew a line from the toe to the top of his boot.* Several others imitated him; and Morton, in a spirit of reckless mischief and adventure, took the chalk and marked his right boot in the same way.

* In relating this incident, I give the local tradition as it is yet told in the neighborhood. It does not seem that chalking one's boot is a very prudent mode of recognizing the members of a secret band, but I do not suppose that men who follow a highwayman's life are very wise people.

"Will you drink?" said the man who had first chalked his boot.

Goodwin accepted the invitation, and as they stood near together, Morton could plainly discover the falseness of his companion's beard. Presently the man fixed his eyes on Goodwin and asked, in an indifferent tone: "Cut or carry?"

"Carry," answered Morton, not knowing the meaning of the lingo, but finding himself in a predicament from which there was no escape but by drifting with the current. A few minutes later a bag, which seemed to contain some hundreds of dollars, was thrust into his hand, and Morton, not knowing what to do with it, thought best to "carry" it off. He mounted his mare and rode away in a direction opposite to that in which he had come. He had not gone more than three miles when he met Burchard.

"Why, Burchard, how did you come here?"

"Oh, I came by a short cut."

But Burchard did not say that he had traveled in the night, to avoid observation.

"Hello! Goodwin," cried Burchard, "you've got chalk on your boot! I hope you haven't joined the--"

"Well, I'll tell you, Burchard, how that come. I found the greatest set of disguised cut-throats you ever saw, at this little hole back here. You hadn't better go there, if you don't want to be relieved of all the money you got last night. I saw them chalking their boots, and I chalked mine, just to see what would come of it. And here's what come of it;" and with that, Morton showed his bag of money. "Now," he said, "if I could find the right owner of this money, I'd give it to him; but I take it he's buried in some holler, without nary coffin or grave-stone. I 'low to pay you what I owe you, and take the rest out to Vincennes, or somewheres else, and use it for a nest-egg. 'Finders, keepers,' you know."

Burchard looked at him darkly a moment. "Look here, Morton--Goodwin, I mean. You'll lose your head, if you fool with chalk that way. If you don't give that money up to the first man that asks for it, you are a dead man. They can't be fooled for long. They'll be after you. There's no way now but to hold on to it and give it up to the first man that asks; and if he don't shoot first, you'll be lucky. I'm going down this trail a way. I want to see old Brewer. He's got a good deal of political influence. Good-bye!"

Morton rode forward uneasily until he came to a place two miles farther on, where another trail joined the one he was traveling. Here there stood a man with a huge beard, a blanket over his shoulders, holes cut through for arms, after the frontier fashion, a belt with pistols and knives, and a bearskin cap. The stranger stepped up to him, reaching out his hand and saying nothing. Morton was only too glad to give up the money. And he set Dolly off at her best pace, seeking to get as far as possible from the head-quarters of the cut-or-carry gang. He could not but wonder how Burchard should seem to know them so well. He did not much like the thought that Burchard's forbearance had bound him to support that gentleman's political aspirations when he had opportunity. This friendly relation with thieves was not what he would have liked to see in a favorite candidate, but a cursed fatality seemed to be dragging down all his high aspirations. It was like one of those old legends he had heard his mother recite, of men who had begun by little bargains with the devil, and had presently found themselves involved in evil entanglements on every hand.

_CHAPTER XVI._

SHORT SHRIFT.

But Morton had no time to busy himself now with nice scruples. Bread and meat are considerations more imperative to a healthy man than conscience. He had no money. He might turn aside from the trail to hunt; indeed this was what he had meant to do when he started. But ever, as he traveled, he had become more and more desirous of getting away from himself. He was now full sixty or seventy miles from home, but he could not make up his mind to stop and devote himself to hunting. At four o'clock the valley of the Mustoga lay before him, and Morton, still purposeless, rode on. And now at last the habitual thought of his duty to his mother was returning upon him, and he began to be hesitant about going on. After all, his flight seemed foolish. Patty might not yet be lost; and as for Kike's revival, why should he yield to it, unless he chose?