"I could stand it better, if I was free from blame in my own eyes. I tell you, mother, the only real hell is in knowing you're wrong, and feeling, to the bottom of your heart that you've brought suffering upon others by being wrong."
"My dear child," quavered good Mrs. Powell, "you's morbid. Yo' notion ain't the right notion at all. How could you ahelped the pore child's bein' so?"
"By standing to my colors. By obeying my own conscience, no matter what the world said."
"Mandy, yo' own sense must tell you't youcouldn't ahelped it, noway. Even if you'd kept on thinkin' 's you done. It wuz took out'n yo' hands. You done yo' duty in stayin' by Vivian when he wuz laid low, an' nobody kin do mo'n their duty."
"It was my duty to nurse him. And after that—after he waswell, I should have—gone."
"Now, I reely thought you got fond o' Vivian, an' I wuz thankin' the Laud for it."
"Oh, women are mostly fools," answered Amanda, sweepingly. "But don't thank the Lord for it, mother. The fruits of folly are more bitter than the fruits of wilful sins, I think."
"Mandy," said Mrs. Powell, rising in all the might of her sensible, hearty, well-balanced nature; "it won't do to be furever dwellin' 'pon what we've failed to do, an' what we ought to adone. This world ain't heaven, and we's right to rejoice with tremblin'; but there's a sayin' I want to recommend to yo' pore, worn heart: 'Again I say unto ye, rejoice.' That's it, honey. Stop worryin' an' frettin' an' leavethings you can't alter if you wuz to kill yo'self tryin'.
"An' now I'm a-goin' to hev Liza make a co'n pudden' an' whip up cream fur the peaches, an' you must please me by puttin' away everything else an' givin' yo' mind to enjoyin' a right good dinner. Thar's miseries in the world, to be shore, but thar's comfort too, an' to my thinkin' it's mighty good common sense to take our fill o' creature comforts as we go along, fur we's only got a certain length o' time to stay 'pon this 'arth, an' we might as well make the best on it."
"There are some things that have no best side," said Amanda; but she said it rather faintly. After all, there was logic in what her mother expressed. She knew that nothing in the world now could alter her opinion of Vivian; nothing should ever again alter her attitude toward him. But was there any comfort or happiness to be got out of life still?
Mrs. Powell had left the room, after pressinga kiss upon her daughter's cheek, and another upon the hair of the sleeping baby.
Through the window came the sound of Nellie's voice, exclaiming to her little colored playmates in vivacious accents: "There's papa coming! Grandma said he was coming to dinner;" and in another moment she skipped into the room with her hand in that of the fine-looking man who appeared before his wife hat in hand, wearing a gentle, deprecating smile.
Amanda arose quickly, pressing her baby to her breast, and stood looking at him with fire in her eyes. Am I never to be safe from your intrusion? her look said. But her lips were mute, and with a lately learned self-control she remained silent, while he filled in the embarrassing moment with the graceful, fluent phrases ever at his command.
"What a magnificent woman she is," thought Vivian, as he threw himself into a chair, and began to entertain little Nellie with some funny anecdote, intensely conscious all the while of the stately, stern presence that ignored him.
Suddenly her gown brushed his knees as she passed him on her way to the door, and he glanced up rather uneasily.
"I'm only going to lay baby on the bed," she said in a low tone, not without the trace of contempt she could never nowadays keep out of her voice when speaking to him. But in the other room, while she was bending over her little one, there came to her one of those humorous suggestions that visit us now and then, to lighten our periods of depression.
"Man is, after all, only a kind of stomach, and friendship but an eating together." The sentence was from Carlyle, perhaps; anyway, it was applicable to the situation. What was the use of making such a serious affair out of living?
"Oh, yes, it is easy enough to be upon friendly terms 'if friendship is but an eating together,'" Amanda said to herself, grimly.
Half an hour later Mrs. Powell, sitting, flushed and anxious at the head of her hospitable table, rejoiced at the amenities thatpassed between her two guests, and whispered to her own heart that everything was coming out right, in the end. And to this determined optimism Amanda, who interpreted her mother's beaming looks perfectly, made no sign of dissent. But Vivian, even with his facile acceptance of all things in his favor, could not help but realize to-day, very strongly, that Amanda would never be to him, so long as she lived, anything but an icicle. With her temper, it might have been worse than that.
I.
Sneaking Creek Churchhad an unusually full attendance on the Sunday morning that saw Miles Armstrong's first wrestle with his Satanic majesty, in the interests of that congregation.
He was a well-grown boy of twenty, or so, with the look of an eager colt scenting its first honors in the wind, and determined to strain every nerve to come in ahead at the finish. The bright, brown eye, large and deep, turning here and there with a half-timid, half-bold gaze, the quivering nostril and tossing chestnut mane over his long head gave him a likeness to a high-bred horse, scarcely broken yet, and destined to kick the traces somewhat before settling down to a steady pace.
The accommodations offered by the Second Baptist Church to its preachers were not luxurious. A straight-backed cane chair, and a small square table holding a bible and a pitcher of water were the creature comforts that stole gently upon the senses of young Armstrong after his ten-mile gallop over Fauquier County roads that morning.
Nothing cared he for creature comforts. Nothing either, for the fact that the congregation facing him was composed of Fauquier County's choicest and best in the line of hereditary sinners; clothed in fine raiment and conscious of waiting carriages and servants outside, and of choice viands upon solid silver dishes at the end of their journey homeward after they had listened to the sermon. To him all these personages, in rustling silks and fine broadcloth, all these Haywoods, and Gordons, and Dudleys were so many sick souls, needing the cordial of the true gospel; so many criminally blind beings with feet turned toward destruction, careless of the light and life they might haveby an effort that, to him, in his young zeal, seemed so simple and slight; to them, perhaps, involving sacrifices beyond his experience and power to imagine.
Immediately in front of the platform stood the organ, and seated bolt upright before this was Miss Lavinia Powell, in a green silk waist with skin-tight sleeves that prevented her raising her arms to her head to twist up the wisp of gray hair straggling from her door-knobcoiffeur, and which consequently held the uneasy attention of a nervous woman in her rear all church time. Had the hair belonged to anybody else than Miss Lavinia Powell, the neighbor would have ventured to reach over and adjust it. But no one ever performed familiar offices for Miss Powell. She was the quintessence of spinsterhood, and her weapons of defense were two gray eyes like a ferret's; of offense—a tongue unparalleled for point.
Two-thirds of the people were wondering what Miss Lavinia thought of the new preacher. He was not yet permanently engaged. Underneathall his concentrated purpose to utter telling truths this morning, lurked the consciousness that he was on probation. He felt, even though it was impossible that he could have heard the whisper that was running around the church while he gave out the first hymn. It began in the pew occupied by a couple of girls who were visiting old Mrs. Powell, who sat with her sweet, serene face turned toward the young preacher with a look of beautifully blended respect and benevolence. She heard none of the gossip carried on by her nieces.
"Is he ordained?"
"No, indeed. Not a minister at all yet."
"He's experienced sanctification, though."
"You don't say so!"
"Yes, but he fell from grace, they say. Perhaps that's why he looks so melancholy."
"Do you think he looks melancholy? To me he just looks earnest. He's got splendid eyes, but they're awfully deep. I'd be proud of a man with eyes like that, wouldn't you?"
A smothered giggle, and a murmur to a friend in the next pew.
"Do you believe in sanctification? The preacher's experienced it."
Nellie Thomas heard the last remark, and from that moment her reverential gaze was fixed upon the thin, earnest face of the youthful preacher. Her heart bowed before the spiritual power abiding in him. She received the sermon as a divine message, humbly responsive to the persuasive words that sought to arouse a conviction of sin in all hearers.
"We are all of us in the mire of sin," uttered the clear young voice in solemn accents. "Every one of us should take shame to himself for his sins. You that wear elegant clothes and live in great houses are no better than the beggar—the tramp—that goes from one back door to another—in the matter of sin. The back door of the Father's house is the door we'll have to go to when we want to enter into heaven. If you are proud and lofty-minded, and think yourself good enough to be admittedat the front door it is all the more certain that you'll be turned away and made to go around to the back entrance, and made to wait there knocking a long time before you are let in. And good enough for you, too. Are any one of us fit to enter into the presence of the Lord? If any one of us thinks so he ought to take shame to himself for the notion. If I had such a false notion in my own head I'd take shame to myself for it."
The sermon went on, the emphatic voice falling at the end of every sentence as if the speaker had the intent to drive home his argument by verbal knocks. The respectable audience was browbeaten and held up to ridicule for its pretensions to virtue; it was proved conclusively that not a hope of salvation could be reasonably cherished by a single person present. Proved to the general mind. A few persons remained in doubt, and one—a man seated with folded arms in the middle of the church—continued utterly skeptical. He had attended closely to the sermon, his broad, ruddy faceexpressing throughout a kindly sympathy with the preacher, curiously mingled with concern. Now and then he had allowed a great sigh to escape him, and once he moved restlessly as if impelled to utter a protest. But he mastered the impulse and kept quiet until the final word was said, and the preacher in an agitated voice gave out the last hymn. All the hymns had been mournful. This was brighter. Perhaps the congregation embraced the opportunity for a change of mood, for the hymn swelled out with unwonted vigor, nearly every one falling in with the second stanza.
A powerful bass voice projected itself from the lungs of the good-humored-looking skeptic. Throwing back his head he roared forth a melodious bellow that drowned all other individual accents—save one. Nellie Thomas' bird-like tones thrilled their roundelay of worship with the silvery clearness of the skylark. With the freshness and innocence of some lark reared on the top bough of a giant tree, high above the strife and guilt of the world. Thethrob of feeling in the tones came from the same source that a child's emotions of worship come from; an awed sense of personal inferiority to some element of perfection dwelling somewhere in the universe, and approached on timid wings of faith. Unconscious of self, her sweet voice brightened and strengthened until the mass of sound outside seemed but a great accompaniment, the mighty single bass bearing her up as if it held her aloft in its arms.
This was what Peter Weaver came to church for. Singing devotional songs with little Nellie was the crown and cap-sheaf of the week's silent, unrecognized worship that was carried on with the generous abandonment of a mind seeking no reward beyond the privilege of devoting itself to its cherished object. The simple, brave soul lodged in Peter's huge frame joyed in surrounding the young girl with a protecting fondness that was like an invisible shield interposed between her and harm. He had never cared for any other girl, and he had cared for her ever since she—a radiant maid of sixyears in a pink lawn frock and white sun-bonnet—entered the old school-house door one morning twelve years before, and transformed the loutish boy puzzling over sums, into a poet and a knight-errant, bound forever to her service. During all these years that he had carried her school-books, gathered wild-flowers for her from dangerous mountain crevasses, and catered to her gentle whims in every way a man might, who bore her continually in his heart and studied how best to give her pleasure, Peter had never broken in upon this friendship by a word of the sentiment of which his poet-soul was full. Nellie, called by her admirers the beauty of Virginia, was to him the living embodiment of the sweetbriar rose, too delicate, too sensitive to be plucked and worn, even by one worthy of that distinction. Himself, he thought scarce worthy to tie her little shoe.
And yet, except in contrast with this Dresden china creature, with her skin of milk and roses, her golden brown eyes so soft and shy, and her cloud of sunny curls, fine as floss, the modestfarmer-poet, tied by circumstances to homely tasks, was not a man to be despised. His height, which was six feet two inches, was sustained by good breadth of shoulder and shapeliness of limb. His round head, covered with short, crisp, black locks, was well set, and his pleasant eyes, of an opaque blue like the hue of old Dutch pottery, looked out at you with a frank and honest expression. There was too much color in his cheek, but it was a clear, bright red, showing healthy blood beneath, as free from venom as his nature. He was now thirty-two years old, and his philosophical temperament, not wanting in capacity for deep thinking, made his years set lightly upon him. He was still rather a great boy than a mature man, in the opinion of most people, and perhaps of all the men and women in Fauquier County who knew and liked Peter Weaver, but one person recognized and appreciated the sound, sane mind, the capacity for heroic action that lay beneath his eccentricities and commonplace, almost awkward bearing. Thisfriend was Amanda Thomas, the widowed mistress of Benvenew, called Mistress Amanda, to distinguish her from old widow Thomas, her mother-in-law.
Mistress Amanda's strong character rather than any external advantages had made her an important personage in the county. Her kinsfolk, the Powells, were impoverished, and her husband, the bright particular star of the sporting set, had left her an affectionate legacy of debts, together with an invalid child whose malady set him apart from the working world and enshrined him in his mother's heart as something to be tenderly cherished at any cost to herself or others. This boy was never seen out of his home, and people whispered dark stories of his strange and dangerous moods, in which no one could do anything with him save Peter Weaver.
No wonder, then, that Peter Weaver, whose oddities were not upheld by an ancient Virginia family name, was, nevertheless, welcomed as a favorite guest at Benvenew, where many a proudyoungster hung about, thinking himself rewarded for hours of patient homage to the stately mistress, by a glimpse of shy Nellie. He and Mistress Amanda had come to that complete understanding when a glance interchanged means a whole volume of explanation. It was natural for this glance to be interchanged when they differed from prevailing opinions.
Therefore, it was this great lady's gaze that caught and held the doubtful look that Peter threw toward the preacher while the final argument was being made as to the absolute necessity for all of them to be bowed down in humiliation over their sins. Some rapid question and answer seemed to pass between the two that left Peter satisfied. He threw himself into the singing with more than common zeal, and when the moment came for a general relaxing from the stiffness of sermon-tide he walked out of his pew and up toward the front with a fixed purpose plainly written upon his face.
The youthful preacher had stepped downfrom the platform, and with the step he seemed to become another man. All the severity had vanished both from countenance and manner. Bright, kind, with a suppressed liveliness that became in the passage from heart to tongue cheerful and witty response to the pleasant clamor around him, he was like a man who had thrown off the weight of a heavy responsibility, and got back home again. But outward transformations are not to be taken as signs of deep internal changes. The man who laughs at your dinner table is the same man who refused to abate his stern judgment against your brother yesterday. He is not to be played with because he chooses to be humorous.
Peter Weaver was now standing beside the preacher. Mistress Amanda introduced them, and then turned so that her voluminous draperies made a barrier between the two men and the groups behind.
Young Armstrong's slim hand yielded a ready clasp to the mighty grip of the farmer-poet, who was anxious to express in this greetingmore than usual good-will and interest. To balance what he had made up his mind it was his duty to say.
"I'm shore them that have a better right than me to express an opinion have thanked you for your sermon," said Peter. Always slow, his speech was now even ponderous, through anxiety to find appropriate words. Some of his thickness of his Dutch grandfather's tongue had descended to him, along with a short-sighted and earnest devotion to duty.
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 fromthatstandpoint. 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 pewon 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 innocentface. 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 thelast. 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.
Someremarkable 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 therichest 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 anadventure 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 acarpet-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 disposedto 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.
"Wasit?" 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 oldMrs. 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 anybodyelse 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 comesa 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 MistressAmanda 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 onthat 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 andentréesset in front of her to serve. Drooping curls half-hid her face, but his eyes dived keenlyinto 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 fromNellie 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 thanwas 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'sface. 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.
Thesunshine 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 flockdisported, 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.
How he had first gained courage to put himself before the public as a poet is a mystery. Possibly he had hopes of making his name illustrious in little Nellie's eyes. It is certain that a copy of thePurcellville Bannerwithheavy lines in red ink drawn around a sonnet addressed to "A Sweetbriar Rose," and signed "Heinrichs," had reached Benvenew the day after being issued. Since then the poet had branched out in other directions and theBanner'scolumns were enriched with an amount of original matter that led the editor seriously to contemplate the possibility of abandoning a "patent outside," and depending upon home talent to fill his space. Eventually, the disguise maintained by "Heinrichs" was penetrated by his neighbors and Peter was made the recipient of attentions varying from invitations to dine and display his talent for versification at the Gordons, all the way down to lampoons in chalk upon his barn-door, and hootings from the six red-haired little Clapsaddles.
Pendleton Haywood, riding by one morning, espied the sturdy poet with his sleeves rolled up, deep in molasses-making; and thought it opportune to call out:
"Peter, make me a rhyme!"
With extraordinary quickness this rejoinder was thundered back: