In the central clearing, a sort of rude amphitheatre of seats was formed of rough-pine slabs. Around on the edges of the forest the tents of the various worshippers were pitched; for the spending of three or four days and nights upon the ground is deemed an essential part of the service. The same clear stream which wound round the dwelling of Tiff prattled its way, with a modest gurgle, through this forest, and furnished the assembly with water.
The Gordons, having come merely for the purposes of curiosity, and having a residence in the neighborhood, did not provide themselves with a tent. The servants, however, were less easily satisfied. Aunt Rose shook her head, and declared, oracularly, that "De blessing was sure to come down in de night, and dem dat wanted to get a part of it would have to be dar!"
Consequently, Nina was beset to allow her people to have a tent, in which they were to take turns in staying all night, as candidates for the blessing. In compliance with that law of good-humored indulgence which had been the traditionary usage of her family, Nina acceded; and the Gordon tent spread its snowy sails, to the rejoicing of their hearts. Aunt Rose predominated about the door, alternately slapping the children and joining the chorus of hymns which she heard from every part of the camp-ground. On the outskirts were various rude booths, in which whiskey and water, and sundry articles of provision, and fodder for horses, were dispensed for a consideration. Abijah Skinflint here figured among the money-changers, while his wife and daughter were gossiping through the tents of the women. In front of the seats, under a dense cluster of pines, was the preachers' stand: a rude stage of rough boards, with a railing around it, and a desk of small slabs, supporting a Bible and a hymn-book.
The preachers were already assembling; and no small curiosity was expressed with regard to them by the people, who were walking up and down among the tents. Nina, leaning on the arm of Clayton, walked about the area with the rest. Anne Clayton leaned on the arm of Uncle John. Aunt Nesbit and Aunt Maria came behind. To Nina the scene was quite new, for a long residence in the Northern States had placed her out of the way of such things; and her shrewd insight into character, and her love of drollery, found an abundant satisfaction in the various little points and oddities of the scene. They walked to the Gordon tent, in which a preliminary meeting was already in full course. A circle of men and women, interspersed with children, were sitting, with their eyes shut, and their heads thrown back, singing at the top of their voices. Occasionally, one or other would vary the exercises by clapping of hands, jumping up straight into the air, falling flat on the ground, screaming, dancing, and laughing.
"Oh, set me up on a rock!" screamed one.
"I's sot up!" screamed another.
"Glory!" cried the third, and a tempest of "amens" poured in between.
"I's got a sperience!" cried one, and forthwith began piping it out in a high key, while others kept on singing.
"I's got a sperience!" shouted Tomtit, whom Aunt Rose, with maternal care, had taken with her.
"No, you an't neither! Sit down!" said Aunt Rose, kneading him down as if he had been a batch of biscuits, and going on at the same time with her hymn.
"I's on the Rock of Ages!" screamed a neighbor.
"I want to get on a rock edgeways!" screamed Tomtit, struggling desperately with Aunt Rose's great fat hands.
"Mind yourself!—I'll crack you over!" said Aunt Rose. And Tomtit, still continuing rebellious, was cracked over accordingly, with such force as to send him head-foremost on the straw at the bottom of the tent; an indignity which he resented with loud howls of impotent wrath, which, however, made no impression in the general whirlwind of screaming, shouting, and praying.
Nina and Uncle John stood at the tent-door laughing heartily. Clayton looked on with his usual thoughtful gravity of aspect. Anne turned her head away with an air of disgust.
"Why don't you laugh?" said Nina, looking round at her.
"It doesn't make me feel like it," said Anne. "It makes me feel melancholy."
"Why so?"
"Because religion is a sacred thing with me, and I don't like to see it travestied," said she.
"Oh," said Nina, "I don't respect religion any the less for a good laugh at its oddities. I believe I was born without any organ of reverence, and so don't feel the incongruity of the thing as you do. The distance between laughing and praying isn't so very wide in my mind as it is in some people's."
"We must have charity," said Clayton, "for every religious manifestation. Barbarous and half-civilized people always find the necessity for outward and bodily demonstration in worship; I suppose because the nervous excitement wakes up and animates their spiritual natures, and gets them into a receptive state, just as you have to shake up sleeping persons and shout in their ears to put them in a condition to understand you. I have known real conversions to take place under just these excitements."
"But," said Anne, "I think we might teach them to be decent. These things ought not to be allowed!"
"I believe," said Clayton, "intolerance is a rooted vice in our nature. The world is as full of different minds and bodies as the woods are of leaves, and each one has its own habit of growth. And yet our first impulse is to forbid everything that would not be proper for us. No, let the African scream, dance, and shout, and fall in trances. It suits his tropical lineage and blood as much as our thoughtful inward ways do us."
"I wonder who that is!" said Nina, as a general movement on the ground proclaimed the arrival of some one who appeared to be exciting general interest. The stranger was an unusually tall, portly man, apparently somewhat past the middle of life, whose erect carriage, full figure, and red cheeks, and a certain dashing frankness of manner, might have indicated him as belonging rather to the military than the clerical profession. He carried a rifle on his shoulder, which he set down carefully against the corner of the preacher's stand, and went around shaking hands among the company with a free and jovial air that might almost be described by the term rollicking.
"Why," said Uncle John, "that's father Bonnie! How are you, my fine fellow?"
"What! you, Mr. Gordon?—How do you do?" said father Bonnie, grasping his hand in his, and shaking it heartily. "Why, they tell me," he said, looking at him with a jovial smile, "that you have fallen from grace!"
"Even so!" said Uncle John. "I am a sad dog, I dare say."
"Oh, I tell you what," said father Bonnie, "but it takes a strong hook and a long line to pull in you rich sinners! Your money-bags and your niggers hang round you like mill-stones! You are too tough for the Gospel! Ah!" said he, shaking his fist at him, playfully, "but I'm going to come down upon you, to-day, with the law, I can tell you! You want the thunders of Sinai! You must have a dose of the law!"
"Well," said Uncle John, "thunder away! I suppose we need it, all of us. But, now, father Bonnie, you ministers are always preaching to us poor dogs on the evils of riches; but, somehow, I don't see any of you that are much afraid of owning horses, or niggers, or any other good thing that you can get your hands on. Now, I hear that you've got a pretty snug little place, and a likely drove to work it. You'll have to look out for your own soul, father Bonnie!"
A general laugh echoed this retort; for father Bonnie had the reputation of being a shrewder hand at a bargain, and of having more expertness in swapping a horse or trading a negro, than any other man for six counties round.
"He's into you, now, old man!" said several of the by-standers, laughingly.
"Oh, as to that," said father Bonnie, laughing, also, "I go in with Paul,—they that preach the Gospel must live of the Gospel. Now, Paul was a man that stood up for his rights to live as other folks do. 'Isn't it right,' says he, 'that those that plant a vineyard should first eat of the fruit? Haven't we power to lead about a sister, a wife?' says he. And if Paul had lived in our time he would have said a drove of niggers, too! No danger about us ministers being hurt by riches, while you laymen are so slow about supporting the Gospel!"
At the elbow of father Bonnie stood a brother minister, who was in many respects his contrast. He was tall, thin, and stooping, with earnest black eyes, and a serene sweetness of expression. A threadbare suit of rusty black, evidently carefully worn, showed the poverty of his worldly estate. He carried in his hand a small portmanteau, probably containing a change of linen, his Bible, and a few sermons. Father Dickson was a man extensively known through all that region. He was one of those men among the ministers of America, who keep alive our faith in Christianity, and renew on earth the portrait of the old apostle: "In journeyings often, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon them daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and they are not weak? who is offended, and they burn not?"
Every one in the state knew and respected father Dickson; and, like the generality of the world, people were very well pleased, and thought it extremely proper and meritorious for him to bear weariness and painfulness, hunger and cold, in their spiritual service, leaving to them the right of attending or not attending to him, according to their own convenience. Father Dickson was one of those who had never yielded to the common customs and habits of the country in regard to the holding of slaves. A few, who had been left him by a relation, he had at great trouble and expense transported to a free state, and settled there comfortably. The world need not trouble itself with seeking to know or reward such men; for the world cannot know and has no power to reward them. Their citizenship is in heaven, and all that can be given them in this life is like a morsel which a peasant gives in his cottage to him who to-morrow will reign over a kingdom.
He had stood listening to the conversation thus far with the grave yet indulgent air with which he generally listened to the sallies of his ministerial brothers. Father Bonnie, though not as much respected or confided in as father Dickson, had, from the frankness of his manners, and a certain rude but effective style of eloquence, a more general and apparent popularity. He produced more sensation on the camp-ground; could sing louder and longer, and would often rise into flights of eloquence both original and impressive. Many were offended by the freedom of his manner out of the pulpit; and the stricter sort were known to have said of him, "that when out he never ought to be in, and when in never out." As the laugh that rose at his last sally died away, he turned to father Dickson, and said:—
"What do you think?"
"I don't think," said father Dickson, mildly, "that you would ever have found Paul leading a drove of negroes."
"Why not, as well as Abraham, the father of the faithful? Didn't he have three hundred trained servants?"
"Servants, perhaps; but not slaves!" said father Dickson, "for they all bore arms. For my part, I think that the buying, selling, and trading, of human beings, for purposes of gain, is a sin in the sight of God."
"Well, now, father Dickson, I wouldn't have thought you had read your Bible to so little purpose as that! I wouldn't believe it! What do you say to Moses?"
"He led out a whole army of fugitive slaves through the Red Sea," said father Dickson.
"Well, I tell you, now," said father Bonnie, "if the buying, selling, or holding, of a slave for the sake of gain, is, as you say, a sin, then three fourths of all the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, in the slave states of the Union, are of the devil!"
"I think it is a sin, notwithstanding," said father Dickson, quietly.
"Well, but doesn't Moses say expressly, 'Ye shall buy of the heathen round about you'?"
"There's into him!" said a Georgia trader, who, having camped with a coffle of negroes in the neighborhood, had come up to camp-meeting.
"All those things," said father Dickson, "belong to the old covenant, which Paul says was annulled for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, and have nothing to do with us, who have risen with Christ. We have got past Mount Sinai and the wilderness, and have come unto Mount Zion; and ought to seek the things that are above, where Christ sitteth."
"I say, brother," said another of the ministers, tapping him on the shoulder, "it's time for the preaching to begin. You can finish your discussion some other time. Come, father Bonnie, come forward, here, and strike up the hymn."
Father Bonnie accordingly stepped to the front of the stand, and with him another minister, of equal height and breadth of frame, and, standing with their hats on, they uplifted, in stentorian voices, the following hymn:—
"Brethren don't you hear the sound?
The martial trumpet now is blowing;
Men in order listing round,
And soldiers to the standard flowing."
As the sound of the hymn rolled through the aisles and arches of the wood, the heads of different groups, who had been engaged in conversation, were observed turning toward the stand, and voices from every part of the camp-ground took up the air, as, suiting the action to the words, they began flowing to the place of preaching. The hymn went on, keeping up the same martial images:—
"Bounty offered, life and peace;
To every soldier this is given,
When the toils of life shall cease,
A mansion bright, prepared in heaven."
As the throng pressed up, and came crowding from the distant aisles of the wood, the singers seemed to exert themselves to throw a wilder vehemence into the song, stretching out their arms and beckoning eagerly. They went on singing:—
"You need not fear; the cause is good,
Let who will to the crown aspire:
In this cause the martyrs bled,
And shouted victory in the fire.
"In this cause let's follow on,
And soon we'll tell the pleasing story,
How by faith we won the crown,
And fought our way to life and glory.
"Oh, ye rebels, come and 'list!
The officers are now recruiting:
Why will you in sin persist,
Or waste your time in vain disputing?
"All excuses now are vain;
For, if you do not sue for favor,
Down you'll sink to endless pain,
And bear the wrath of God forever."
There is always something awful in the voice of the multitude. It would seem as if the breath that a crowd breathed out together, in moments of enthusiasm, carried with it a portion of the dread and mystery of their own immortal natures. The whole area before the pulpit, and in the distant aisles of the forest, became one vast, surging sea of sound, as negroes and whites, slaves and freemen, saints and sinners, slave-holders, slave-hunters, slave-traders, ministers, elders, and laymen, alike joined in the pulses of that mighty song. A flood of electrical excitement seemed to rise with it, as, with a voice of many waters, the rude chant went on:—
"Hark! the victors singing loud!
Emanuel's chariot wheels are rumbling;
Mourners weeping through the crowd,
And Satan's kingdom down is tumbling!"
Our friend, Ben Dakin, pressed to the stand, and, with tears streaming down his cheeks, exceeded all others in the energy of his vociferations. Ben had just come from almost a fight with another slave-hunter, who had boasted a better-trained pack of dogs than his own; and had broken away to hurry to the camp-ground, with the assurance that he'd "give him fits when the preachin' was over;" and now he stood there, tears rolling down his cheeks, singing with the heartiest earnestness and devotion. What shall we make of it? Poor heathen Ben! is it any more out of the way for him to think of being a Christian in this manner, than for some of his more decent brethren, who take Sunday passage for eternity in the cushioned New York or Boston pews, and solemnly drowse through very sleepy tunes, under a dim, hazy impression that they are going to heaven? Of the two, we think Ben's chance is the best; for, in some blind way, he does think himself a sinner, and in need of something he calls salvation; and, doubtless, while the tears stream down his face, the poor fellow makes a new resolve against the whiskey-bottle, while his more respectable sleepy brethren never think of making one against the cotton-bale.
Then there was his rival, also, Jim Stokes,—a surly, foul-mouthed, swearing fellow,—he joins in the chorus of the hymn, and feels a troublous, vague yearning, deep down within him, which makes him for the moment doubt whether he had better knock down Ben at the end of the meeting.
As to Harry, who stood also among the crowd, the words and tune recalled but too vividly the incidents of his morning's interview with Dred, and with it the tumultuous boiling of his bitter controversy with the laws of the society in which he found himself. In hours of such high excitement, a man seems to have an intuitive perception of the whole extent and strength of what is within himself; and, if there be anything unnatural or false in his position, he realizes it with double intensity.
Mr. John Gordon, likewise, gave himself up, without resistance, to be swayed by the feeling of the hour. He sung with enthusiasm, and wished he was a soldier of somebody, going somewhere, or a martyr shouting victory in the fire; and if the conflict described had been with any other foe than his own laziness and self-indulgence—had there been any outward, tangible enemy, at the moment—he would doubtless have enlisted, without loss of time.
When the hymn was finished, however, there was a general wiping of eyes, and they all sat down to listen to the sermon. Father Bonnie led off in an animated strain. His discourse was like the tropical swamp, bursting out with a lush abundance of every kind of growth—grave, gay, grotesque, solemn, fanciful, and even coarse caricature, provoking the broadest laughter. The audience were swayed by him like trees before the wind. There were not wanting touches of rude pathos, as well as earnest appeals. The meeting was a union one of Presbyterians and Methodists, in which the ministers of both denominations took equal part; and it was an understood agreement among them, of course, that they were not to venture upon polemic ground, or attack each other's peculiarities of doctrine. But Abijah's favorite preacher could not get through a sermon without some quite pointed exposition of Scripture bearing on his favorite doctrine of election, which caused the next minister to run a vehement tilt on the correlative doctrines of free grace, with a eulogy on John Wesley. The auditors, meanwhile, according to their respective sentiments, encouraged each preacher with a cry of "Amen!" "Glory be to God!" "Go on, brother!" and other similar exclamations.
About noon the services terminated, pro tem., and the audience dispersed themselves to their respective tents through the grove, where there was an abundance of chatting, visiting, eating, and drinking, as if the vehement denunciations and passionate appeals of the morning had been things of another state of existence. Uncle John, in the most cheery possible frame of mind, escorted his party into the woods, and assisted them in unpacking a hamper containing wine, cold fowls, cakes, pies, and other delicacies which Aunt Katy had packed for the occasion.
Old Tiff had set up his tent in a snug little nook on the banks of the stream, where he informed passers-by that it was his young mas'r and missis's establishment, and that he, Tiff, had come to wait on them. With a good-natured view of doing him a pleasure, Nina selected a spot for their nooning at no great distance, and spoke in the most gracious and encouraging manner to them, from time to time.
"See, now, can't you, how real quality behaves demselves!" he said, grimly, to Old Hundred, who came up bringing the carriage-cushions for the party to sit down upon. "Real quality sees into things! I tell ye what, blood sees into blood. Miss Nina sees dese yer chil'en an't de common sort—dat's what she does!"
"Umph!" said Old Hundred, "such a muss as ye keep up about yer chil'en! Tell you what, dey an't no better dan oder white trash!"
"Now, you talk dat ar way, I'll knock you down!" said Old Tiff, who, though a peaceable and law-abiding creature, in general, was driven, in desperation, to the last resort of force.
"John, what are you saying to Tiff?" said Nina, who had overheard some of the last words. "Go back to your own tent, and don't you trouble him! I have taken him under my protection."
The party enjoyed their dinner with infinite relish, and Nina amused herself in watching Tiff's cooking preparations. Before departing to the preaching-ground, he had arranged a slow fire, on which a savory stew had been all the morning simmering, and which, on the taking off of the pot-lid, diffused an agreeable odor through the place.
"I say, Tiff, how delightfully that smells!" said Nina, getting up, and looking into the pot. "Wouldn't Miss Fanny be so kind as to favor us with a taste of it?"
Fanny, to whom Tiff punctiliously referred the question, gave a bashful consent. But who shall describe the pride and glory that swelled the heart of Tiff as he saw a bowl of his stew smoking among the Gordon viands, praised and patronized by the party? And, when Nina placed on their simple board—literally a board, and nothing more—a small loaf of frosted cake, in exchange, it certainly required all the grace of the morning exercises to keep Tiff within due bounds of humility. He really seemed to dilate with satisfaction.
"Tiff, how did you like the sermon?" said Nina.
"Dey's pretty far, Miss Nina. Der's a good deal o' quality preaching."
"What do you mean by quality preaching, Tiff?"
"Why, dat ar kind dat's good for quality—full of long words, you know. I spects it's very good; but poor nigger like me can't see his way through it. You see, Miss Nina, what I's studdin' on, lately, is, how to get dese yer chil'en to Canaan; and I hars fus with one ear, and den with t'oder, but 'pears like an't clar 'bout it, yet. Dere's a heap about mose everything else, and it's all very good; but 'pears like I an't clar, arter all, about dat ar. Dey says, 'Come to Christ;' and I says, 'Whar is he, any how?' Bress you, I want to come! Dey talks 'bout going in de gate, and knocking at de do', and 'bout marching on de road, and 'bout fighting and being soldiers of de cross; and de Lord knows, now, I'd be glad to get de chil'en through any gate; and I could take 'em on my back and travel all day, if dere was any road; and if dere was a do', bless me, if dey wouldn't hear Old Tiff a rapping! I spects de Lord would have fur to open it—would so. But, arter all, when de preaching is done, dere don't 'pear to be nothing to it. Dere an't no gate, dere an't no do', nor no way; and dere an't no fighting, 'cept when Ben Dakin and Jim Stokes get jawing about der dogs; and everybody comes back eating der dinner quite comf'table, and 'pears like dere wan't no such ting dey's been preaching 'bout. Dat ar troubles me—does so—'cause I wants fur to get dese yer chil'en in de kingdom, some way or oder. I didn't know but some of de quality would know more 'bout it."
"Hang me, if I haven't felt just so!" said Uncle John. "When they were singing that hymn about enlisting and being a soldier, if there had been any fighting doing anywhere, I should have certainly gone right into it; and the preaching always stirs me up terribly. But, then, as Tiff says, after it's all over, why, there's dinner to be eaten, and I can't see anything better than to eat it; and then, by the time I have drank two or three glasses of wine, it's all gone. Now, that's just the way with me!"
"Dey says," said Tiff, "dat we must wait for de blessing to come down upon us, and Aunt Rose says it's dem dat shouts dat gets de blessing; and I's been shouting till I's most beat out, but I hasn't got it. Den, one of dem said none of dem could get it but de 'lect; but, den, t'oder one, he seemed to tink different; and in de meeting dey tells about de scales falling from der eyes,—and I wished dey fall from mine—I do so! Perhaps, Miss Nina, now, you could tell me something."
"Oh, don't ask me!" said Nina; "I don't know anything about these things. I think I feel a little like Uncle John," she said, turning to Clayton. "There are two kinds of sermons and hymns; one gets me to sleep, and the other excites and stirs me up in a general kind of way; but they don't either seem to do me real good."
"For my part, I am such an enemy to stagnation," said Clayton, "that I think there is advantage in everything that stirs up the soul, even though we see no immediate results. I listen to music, see pictures, as far as I can, uncritically. I say, 'Here I am; see what you can do with me.' So I present myself to almost all religious exercises. It is the most mysterious part of our nature. I do not pretend to understand it, therefore never criticise."
"For my part," said Anne, "there is so much in the wild freedom of these meetings that shocks my taste and sense of propriety, that I am annoyed more than I am benefited."
"There spoke the true, well-trained conventionalist," said Clayton. "But look around you. See, in this wood, among these flowers, and festoons of vine, and arches of green, how many shocking, unsightly growths! You would not have had all this underbrush, these dead limbs, these briers running riot over trees, and sometimes choking and killing them. You would have well-trimmed trees and velvet turf. But I love briers, dead limbs, and all, for their very savage freedom. Every once in a while you see in a wood a jessamine, or a sweet-brier, or a grape-vine, that throws itself into a gracefulness of growth which a landscape gardener would go down on his knees for, but cannot get. Nature resolutely denies it to him. She says, 'No! I keep this for my own. You won't have my wildness—my freedom; very well, then you shall not have the graces that spring from it.' Just so it is with men. Unite any assembly of common men in a great enthusiasm,—work them up into an abandon, and let every one 'let go,' and speak as nature prompts,—and you will have brush, underwood, briers, and all grotesque growths; but, now and then, some thought or sentiment will be struck out with a freedom or power such as you cannot get in any other way. You cultivated people are much mistaken when you despise the enthusiasms of the masses. There is more truth than you think in the old 'Vox populi, vox Dei.'"
"What's that?" said Nina.
"'The voice of the people is the voice of God.' There is truth in it. I never repent my share in a popular excitement, provided it be of the higher sentiments; and I do not ask too strictly whether it has produced any tangible result. I reverence the people, as I do the woods, for the wild, grand freedom with which their humanity develops itself."
"I'm afraid, Nina," said Aunt Nesbit, in a low tone, to the latter, "I'm afraid he isn't orthodox."
"What makes you think so, aunt?"
"Oh, I don't know; his talk hasn't the real sound."
"You want something that ends in 'ation,' don't you, aunt?—justification, sanctification, or something of that kind."
* * * * * * * * * *
Meanwhile, the department of Abijah Skinflint exhibited a decided activity. This was a long, low booth, made of poles, and roofed with newly-cut green boughs. Here the whiskey-barrel was continually pouring forth its supplies to customers who crowded around it. Abijah sat on the middle of a sort of rude counter, dangling his legs, and chewing a straw, while his negro was busy in helping his various customers. Abijah, as we said, being a particularly high Calvinist, was recreating himself by carrying on a discussion with a fat, little, turnipy brother of the Methodist persuasion.
"I say," he said, "Stringfellow put it into you, Methodists, this morning! Hit the nail on the head, I thought!"
"Not a bit of it!" said the other, contemptuously. "Why, elder Baskum chawed him up completely! There wan't nothin' left of him!"
"Well," said Abijah, "strange how folks will see things! Why, it's just as clar to me that all things is decreed! Why, that ar nails everything up tight and handsome. It gives a fellow a kind of comfort to think on it. Things is just as they have got to be. All this free-grace stuff is drefful loose talk. If things is been decreed 'fore the world was made, well, there seems to be some sense in their coming to pass. But, if everything kind of turns up whenever folks think on't, it's a kind of shaky business."
"I don't like this tying up things so tight," said the other, who evidently was one of the free, jovial order. "I go in for the freedom of the will. Free Gospel, and free grace."
"For my part," said Abijah, rather grimly, "if things was managed my way, I shouldn't commune with nobody that didn't believe in election, up to the hub."
"You strong electioners think you's among the elect!" said one of the by-standers. "You wouldn't be so crank about it, if you didn't! Now, see here: if everything is decreed, how am I going to help myself?"
"That ar is none of my look-out," said Abijah. "But there's a pint my mind rests upon—everything is fixed as it can be, and it makes a man mighty easy."
* * * * * * * * * * *
In another part of the camp-ground, Ben Dakin was sitting in his tent door, caressing one of his favorite dogs, and partaking his noontide repast with his wife and child.
"I declar'," said Ben, wiping his mouth, "wife, I intend to go into it, and sarve the Lord, now, full chisel! If I catch the next lot of niggers, I intend to give half the money towards keeping up preaching somewhere round here. I'm going to enlist, now, and be a soldier."
"And," said his wife, "Ben, just keep clear of Abijah Skinflint's counter, won't you?"
"Well, I will, durned if I won't!" said Ben. "I'll be moderate. A fellow wants a glass or two, to strike up the hymn on, you know; but I'll be moderate."
The Georgia trader, who had encamped in the neighborhood, now came up.
"Do you believe, stranger," said he, "one of them durned niggers of mine broke loose and got in the swamps, while I was at meeting this morning! Couldn't you take your dog, here, and give 'em a run? I just gave nine hundred dollars for that fellow, cash down."
"Ho! what you going to him for?" said Jim Stokes, a short, pursy, vulgar-looking individual, dressed in a hunting-shirt of blue Kentucky jean, who just then came up. "Why, durn ye, his dogs an't no breed 't all! Mine's the true grit, I can tell you; they's the true Florida blood-hounds! I's seen one of them ar dogs shake a nigger in his mouth like he'd been a sponge."
Poor Ben's new-found religion could not withstand this sudden attack of his spiritual enemy; and, rousing himself, notwithstanding the appealing glances of his wife, he stripped up his sleeves, and, squaring off, challenged his rival to a fight.
A crowd gathered round, laughing and betting, and cheering on the combatants with slang oaths and expressions, such as we will not repeat, when the concourse was routed by the approach of father Bonnie on the outside of the ring.
"Look here, boys, what works of the devil have you got round here? None of this on the camp-ground! This is the Lord's ground, here; so shut up your swearing, and don't fight."
A confused murmur of voices now began to explain to father Bonnie the cause of the trouble.
"Ho, ho!" said he, "let the nigger run; you can catch him fast enough when the meetings are over. You come here to 'tend to your salvation. Ah, don't you be swearing and blustering round! Come, boys, join in a hymn with me." So saying, he struck up a well-known air:—
"When Israel went to Jericho,
O good Lord, in my soul!"
in which one after another joined, and the rising tumult was soon assuaged.
"I say," said father Bonnie to the trader, in an undertone, as he was walking away, "you got a good cook in your lot, hey?"
"Got a prime one," said the trader; "an A number one cook, and no mistake! Picked her up real cheap, and I'll let you have her for eight hundred dollars, being as you are a minister."
"You must think the Gospel a better trade than it is," said father Bonnie, "if you think a minister can afford to pay at that figure!"
"Why," said the trader, "you haven't seen her; it's dirt cheap for her, I can tell you! A sound, strong, hearty woman; a prudent, careful housekeeper; a real pious Methodist, a member of a class-meeting! Why, eight hundred dollars an't anything! I ought to get a thousand for her; but I don't hear preaching for nothing,—always think right to make a discount to ministers!"
"Why couldn't you bring her in?" said father Bonnie. "Maybe I'll give you seven hundred and fifty for her."
"Couldn't do that, no way!" said the trader. "Couldn't, indeed!"
"Well, after the meetings are over I'll talk about it."
"She's got a child, four years old," said the trader, with a little cough; "healthy, likely child; I suppose I shall want a hundred dollars for him!"
"Oh, that won't do!" said father Bonnie. "I don't want any more children round my place than I've got now!"
"But, I tell you," said the trader, "it's a likely boy. Why, the keeping of him won't cost you anything, and before you think of it you'll have a thousand-dollar hand grown on your own place."
"Well," said father Bonnie, "I'll think of it!"
In the evening the scene on the camp-ground was still more picturesque and impressive. Those who conduct camp-meetings are generally men who, without much reasoning upon the subject, fall into a sort of tact, in influencing masses of mind, and pressing into the service all the great life forces and influences of nature. A kind of rude poetry pervades their minds, colors their dialect, and influences their arrangements. The solemn and harmonious grandeur of night, with all its mysterious power of exalting the passions and intensifying the emotions, has ever been appreciated, and used by them with even poetic skill. The day had been a glorious one in June; the sky of that firm, clear blue, the atmosphere of that crystalline clearness, which often gives to the American landscape such a sharply-defined outline, and to the human system such an intense consciousness of life. The evening sun went down in a broad sea of light, and even after it had sunk below the purple horizon, flashed back a flood of tremulous rose-colored radiance, which, taken up by a thousand filmy clouds, made the whole sky above like a glowing tent of the most ethereal brightness. The shadows of the forest aisles were pierced by the rose-colored rays; and, as they gradually faded, star after star twinkled out, and a broad moon, ample and round, rose in the purple zone of the sky. When she had risen above the horizon but a short space, her light was so resplendent and so profuse, that it was decided to conduct the evening service by that alone; and when, at the sound of the hymn, the assembly poured in and arranged themselves before the preaching-stand, it is probable that the rudest heart present was somewhat impressed with the silent magnificence by which God was speaking to them through his works. As the hymn closed, father Bonnie, advancing to the front of the stage, lifted his hands, and pointing to the purple sky, and in a deep and not unmelodious voice, repeated the words of the Psalmist:—
"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy-work; day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge."
"Oh, ye sinners!" he exclaimed, "look up at the moon, there, walking in her brightness, and think over your oaths, and your cursings, and your drinkings! Think over your backbitings, and your cheatings! think over your quarrellings and your fightings! How do they look to you now, with that blessed moon shining down upon you? Don't you see the beauty of our Lord God upon her? Don't you see how the saints walk in white with the Lord, like her? I dare say some of you, now, have had a pious mother, or a pious wife, or a pious sister, that's gone to glory; and there they are walking with the Lord!—walking with the Lord, through the sky, and looking down on you, sinners, just as that moon looks down! And what does she see you doing, your wife, or your mother, or sister, that's in glory? Does she see all your swearings, and your drinkings, and your fightings, and your hankerings after money, and your horse-racings, and your cock-fightings? Oh, sinners, but you are a bad set! I tell you the Lord is looking now down on you, out of that moon! He is looking down in mercy! But, I tell you, he'll look down quite another way, one of these days! Oh, there'll be a time of wrath, by and by, if you don't repent! Oh, what a time there was at Sinai, years ago, when the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, and the mountain was all of a smoke, and there were thunderings and lightnings, and the Lord descended on Sinai! That's nothing to what you'll see, by and by! No more moon looking down on you! No more stars, but the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat! Ah! did you ever see a fire in the woods? I have; and I've seen the fire on the prairies, and it rolled like a tempest, and men and horses and everything, had to run before it. I have seen it roaring and crackling through the woods, and great trees shrivelled in a minute like tinder! I have seen it flash over trees seventy-five and a hundred feet high, and in a minute they'd be standing pillars of fire, and the heavens were all a blaze, and the crackling and roaring was like the sea in a storm. There's a judgment-day for you! Oh, sinner, what will become of you in that day? Never cry, Lord, Lord! Too late—too late, man! You wouldn't take mercy when it was offered, and now you shall have wrath! No place to hide! The heavens and earth are passing away, and there shall be no more sea! There's no place for you now in God's universe."
By this time there were tumultuous responses from the audience of groans, cries, clapping of hands, and mingled shouts of glory and amen!
The electric shout of the multitude acted on the preacher again, as he went on, with a yet fiercer energy. "Now is your time, sinners! Now is your time! Come unto the altar, and God's people will pray for you! Now is the day of grace! Come up! Come up, you that have got pious fathers and mothers in glory! Come up, father! come up mother! come up, brother! Come, young man! we want you to come! Ah, there's a hardened sinner, off there! I see his lofty looks! Come up, come up! Come up, you rich sinners! You'll be poor enough in the day of the Lord, I can tell you! Come up, you young women! You daughters of Jerusalem, with your tinkling ornaments! Come, saints of the Lord, and labor with me in prayer. Strike up a hymn, brethren, strike up the hymn!" And a thousand voices commenced the hymn,—
"Stop, poor sinner, stop and think,
Before you further go!"
And, meanwhile, ministers and elders moved around the throng, entreating and urging one and another to come and kneel before the stand. Multitudes rushed forward, groans and sobs were heard, as the speaker continued, with redoubled vehemence.
"I don't care," said Mr. John Gordon, "who sees me; I'm going up! I am a poor old sinner, and I ought to be prayed for, if anybody."
Nina shrank back, and clung to Clayton's arm. So vehement was the surging feeling of the throng around her that she wept with a wild, tremulous excitement.
"Do take me out,—it's dreadful!" she said.
Clayton passed his arm round her, and, opening a way through the crowd, carried her out beyond the limits, where they stood together alone, under the tree.
"I know I am not good as I ought to be," she said, "but I don't know how to be any better. Do you think it would do me any good to go up there? Do you believe in these things?"
"I sympathize with every effort that man makes to approach his Maker," said Clayton; "these ways do not suit me, but I dare not judge them. I cannot despise them. I must not make myself a rule for others."
"But, don't you think," said Nina, "that these things do harm sometimes?"
"Alas, child, what form of religion does not? It is our fatality that everything that does good must do harm. It's the condition of our poor, imperfect life here."
"I do not like these terrible threats," said Nina. "Can fear of fire make me love? Besides, I have a kind of courage in me that always rises up against a threat. It isn't my nature to fear."
"If we may judge our Father by his voice in nature," said Clayton, "he deems severity a necessary part of our training. How inflexibly and terribly regular are all his laws! Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind, fulfilling his word—all these have a crushing regularity in their movements, which show that he is to be feared as well as loved."
"But I want to be religious," said Nina, "entirely apart from such considerations. Not driven by fear, but drawn by love. You can guide me about these things, for you are religious."
"I fear I should not be accepted as such in any church," said Clayton. "It is my misfortune that I cannot receive any common form of faith, though I respect and sympathize with all. Generally speaking, preaching only weakens my faith; and I have to forget the sermon in order to recover my faith. I do not believe—I know that our moral nature needs a thorough regeneration; and I believe this must come through Christ. This is all I am certain of."
"I wish I were like Milly," said Nina. "She is a Christian, I know; but she has come to it by dreadful sorrows. Sometimes I'm afraid to ask my heavenly Father to make me good, because I think it will come by dreadful trials, if he does."
"And I," said Clayton, speaking with great earnestness, "would be willing to suffer anything conceivable, if I could only overcome all evil, and come up to my highest ideas of good." And, as he spoke, he turned his face up to the moonlight with an earnest fervor of expression, that struck Nina deeply.
"I almost shudder to hear you say so! You don't know what it may bring on you!"
He looked at her with a beautiful smile, which was a peculiar expression of his face in moments of high excitement.
"I say it again!" he said. "Whatever it involves, let it come!"
* * * * * * * * * *
The exercises of the evening went on with a succession of addresses, varied by singing of hymns and prayers. In the latter part of the time many declared themselves converts, and were shouting loudly. Father Bonnie came forward.
"Brethren," he shouted, "we are seeing a day from the Lord! We've got a glorious time! Oh, brethren, let us sing glory to the Lord! The Lord is coming among us!"
The excitement now became general. There was a confused sound of exhortation, prayers, and hymns, all mixed together, from different parts of the ground. But, all of a sudden, every one was startled by a sound which seemed to come pealing down directly from the thick canopy of pines over the heads of the ministers.
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end shall it be for you? The day of the Lord shall be darkness, and not light! Blow ye the trumpet in Zion! Sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble! for the day of the Lord cometh!"
There was deep, sonorous power in the voice that spoke, and the words fell pealing down through the air like the vibrations of some mighty bell. Men looked confusedly on each other; but, in the universal license of the hour, the obscurity of the night, and the multitude of the speakers, no one knew exactly whence it came. After a moment's pause, the singers were recommencing, when again the same deep voice was heard.
"Take away from me the noise of thy songs, and the melody of thy viols; for I will not hear them, saith the Lord. I hate and despise your feast-days! I will not smell in your solemn assemblies; for your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers are greedy for violence! Will ye kill, and steal, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and come and stand before me, saith the Lord? Ye oppress the poor and needy, and hunt the stranger; also in thy skirts is found the blood of poor innocents! and yet ye say, Because I am clean shall his anger pass from me! Hear this, ye that swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes? The Lord hath sworn, saying, I will never forget their works. I will surely visit you!"
The audience, thus taken, in the obscurity of the evening, by an unknown speaker, whose words seemed to fall apparently from the clouds, in a voice of such strange and singular quality, began to feel a creeping awe stealing over them. The high state of electrical excitement under which they had been going on, predisposed them to a sort of revulsion of terror; and a vague, mysterious panic crept upon them, as the boding, mournful voice continued to peal from the trees.
"Hear, oh ye rebellious people! The Lord is against this nation! The Lord shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness? For thou saidst, I will ascend into the stars; I will be as God! But thou shalt be cast out as an abominable branch, and the wild beasts shall tread thee down! Howl, fir-tree, for thou art spoiled! Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars! for the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the land! The Lord shall utter his voice before his army, for his camp is very great! Multitudes! multitudes! in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision! The sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars withdraw their shining; for the Lord shall utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and earth shall shake! In that day I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and darken the whole earth! And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and your songs into lamentation! Woe to the bloody city! It is full of lies and robbery! The noise of a whip!—the noise of the rattling of wheels!—of the prancing horses, and the jumping chariot! The horseman lifteth up the sword and glittering spear! and there is a multitude of slain! There is no end of their corpses!—They are stumbling upon the corpses! For, Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord, and I will make thee utterly desolate!"
There was a fierce, wailing earnestness in the sound of these dreadful words, as if they were uttered in a paroxysm of affright and horror, by one who stood face to face with some tremendous form. And, when the sound ceased, men drew in their breath, and looked on each other, and the crowd began slowly to disperse, whispering in low voices to each other.
So extremely piercing and so wildly earnest had the voice been, that it actually seemed, in the expressive words of Scripture, to make every ear to tingle. And, as people of rude and primitive habits are always predisposed to superstition, there crept through the different groups wild legends of prophets strangely commissioned to announce coming misfortunes. Some spoke of the predictions of the judgment-day; some talked of comets, and strange signs that had preceded wars and pestilences. The ministers wondered, and searched around the stand in vain. One auditor alone could, had he desired it, make an explanation. Harry, who stood near the stand, had recognized the voice. But, though he searched, also, around, he could find no one.
He who spoke was one whose savage familiarity with nature gave him the agility and stealthy adroitness of a wild animal. And, during the stir and commotion of the dispersing audience, he had silently made his way from tree to tree, over the very heads of those who were yet wondering at his strange, boding words, till at last he descended in a distant part of the forest.
After the service, as father Dickson was preparing to retire to his tent, a man pulled him by the sleeve. It was the Georgia trader.
"We have had an awful time, to-night!" said he, looking actually pale with terror. "Do you think the judgment-day really is coming?"
"My friend," said father Dickson, "it surely is! Every step we take in life is leading us directly to the judgment-seat of Christ!"
"Well," said the trader, "but do you think that was from the Lord, the last one that spoke? Durned if he didn't say awful things!—'nough to make the hair rise! I tell you what, I've often had doubts about my trade. The ministers may prove it's all right out of the Old Testament; but I'm durned if I think they know all the things that we do! But, then, I an't so bad as some of 'em. But, now, I've got a gal out in my gang that's dreadful sick, and I partly promised her I'd bring a minister to see her."
"I'll go with you, friend," said father Dickson; and forthwith he began following the trader to the racks where their horses were tied. Selecting, out of some hundred who were tied there, their own beasts, the two midnight travellers soon found themselves trotting along under the shadow of the forest's boughs.
"My friend," said father Dickson, "I feel bound in conscience to tell you that I think your trade a ruinous one to your soul. I hope you'll lay to heart the solemn warning you've heard to-night. Why, your own sense can show you that a trade can't be right that you'd be afraid to be found in if the great judgment-day were at hand."
"Well, I rather spect you speak the truth; but, then, what makes father Bonnie stand up for 't?"
"My friend, I must say that I think father Bonnie upholds a soul-destroying error. I must say that, as conscience-bound. I pray the Lord for him and you both. I put it right to your conscience, my friend, whether you think you could keep to your trade, and live a Christian life."
"No; the fact is, it's a d——d bad business, that's just where 't is. We an't fit to be trusted with such things that come to us—gals and women. Well, I feel pretty bad, I tell you, to-night; 'cause I know I haven't done right by this yer gal. I ought fur to have let her alone; but, then, the devil or something possessed me. And now she has got a fever, and screeches awfully. I declar, some things she says go right through me!"
Father Dickson groaned in spirit over this account, and felt himself almost guilty for belonging ostensibly and outwardly to a church which tolerated such evils. He rode along by the side of his companion, breaking forth into occasional ejaculations and snatches of hymns. After a ride of about an hour, they arrived at the encampment. A large fire had been made in a cleared spot, and smouldering fragments and brands were lying among the white ashes. One or two horses were tied to a neighboring tree, and wagons were drawn up by them. Around the fire, in different groups, lay about fifteen men and women, with heavy iron shackles on their feet, asleep in the moonlight. At a little distance from the group, and near to one of the wagons, a blanket was spread down on the ground under a tree, on which lay a young girl of seventeen, tossing and moaning in a disturbed stupor. A respectable-looking mulatto-woman was sitting beside her, with a gourd full of water, with which from time to time she moistened her forehead. The woman rose as the trader came up.
"Well, Nance, how does she do now?" said the trader.
"Mis'able enough!" said Nance. "She done been tossing, a throwing round, and crying for her mammy, ever since you went away!"
"Well, I've brought the minister," said he. "Try, Nance, to wake her up; she'll be glad to see him."
The woman knelt down, and took the hand of the sleeper.
"Emily! Emily!" she said, "wake up!"
The girl threw herself over with a sudden, restless toss. "Oh, how my head burns!—Oh, dear!—Oh, my mother! Mother!—mother!—mother!—why don't you come to me?"
Father Dickson approached and knelt the other side of her. The mulatto-woman made another effort to bring her to consciousness.
"Emily here's the minister you was wanting so much! Emily, wake up!"
The girl slowly opened her eyes—large, tremulous, dark eyes. She drew her hand across them, as if to clear her sight, and looked wistfully at the woman.
"Minister!—minister!" she said.
"Yes, minister! You said you wanted to see one."
"Oh, yes, I did!" she said, heavily.
"My daughter!" said father Dickson, "you are very sick!"
"Yes!" she said, "very! And I'm glad of it! I'm going to die!—I'm glad of that, too! That's all I've got left to be glad of! But I wanted to ask you to write to my mother. She is a free woman; she lives in New York. I want you to give my love to her, and tell her not to worry any more. Tell her I tried all I could to get to her: but they took us, and mistress was so angry she sold me! I forgive her, too. I don't bear her any malice, 'cause it's all over, now! She used to say I was a wild girl, and laughed too loud. I shan't trouble any one that way any more! So that's no matter!"
The girl spoke these sentences at long intervals, occasionally opening her eyes and closing them again in a languid manner. Father Dickson, however, who had some knowledge of medicine, placed his finger on her pulse, which was rapidly sinking. It is the usual instinct, in all such cases, to think of means of prolonging life. Father Dickson rose, and said to the trader:—
"Unless some stimulus be given her, she will be gone very soon!"
The trader produced from his pocket a flask of brandy, which he mixed with a little water in a cup, and placed it in father Dickson's hand. He kneeled down again, and, calling her by name, tried to make her take some.
"What is it?" said she, opening her wild, glittering eyes.
"It's something to make you feel better."
"I don't want to feel better! I want to die!" she said, throwing herself over. "What should I want to live for?"
What should she? The words struck father Dickson so much that he sat for a while in silence. He meditated in his mind how he could reach, with any words, that dying ear, or enter with her into that land of trance and mist, into whose cloudy circle the soul seemed already to have passed. Guided by a subtle instinct, he seated himself by the dying girl, and began singing, in a subdued plaintive air, the following well-known hymn:—
"Hark, my soul! it is the Lord,
'Tis thy Saviour, hear his word;
Jesus speaks—he speaks to thee!
Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou me?"
The melody is one often sung among the negroes; and one which, from its tenderness and pathos, is a favorite among them. As oil will find its way into crevices where water cannot penetrate, so song will find its way where speech can no longer enter. The moon shone full on the face of the dying girl, only interrupted by flickering shadows of leaves; and, as father Dickson sung, he fancied he saw a slight, tremulous movement of the face, as if the soul, so worn and weary, were upborne on the tender pinions of the song. He went on singing:—
"Can a mother's tender care
Cease toward the child she bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be:
Still will I remember thee."
By the light of the moon, he saw a tear steal from under the long lashes, and course slowly down her cheek. He continued his song:—
"Mine is an eternal love,
Higher than the heights above,
Deeper than the depths beneath,
True and faithful—strong as death.
"Thou shalt see my glory soon,
When the work of faith is done;
Partner of my throne shalt be!
Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou me?"
Oh, love of Christ! which no sin can weary, which no lapse of time can change; from which tribulation, persecution, and distress cannot separate—all-redeeming, all-glorifying, changing even death and despair to the gate of heaven! Thou hast one more triumph here in the wilderness, in the slave-coffle, and thou comest to bind up the broken-hearted.
As the song ceased, she opened her eyes.
"Mother used to sing that!" she said.
"And can you believe in it, daughter?"
"Yes," she said, "I see Him now! He loves me! Let me go!"
There followed a few moments of those strugglings and shiverings which are the birth-pangs of another life, and Emily lay at rest.
Father Dickson, kneeling by her side, poured out the fulness of his heart in an earnest prayer. Rising, he went up to the trader, and, taking his hand, said to him,—
"My friend, this may be the turning-point with your soul for eternity. It has pleased the Lord to show you the evil of your ways; and now my advice to you is, break off your sins at once, and do works meet for repentance. Take off the shackles of these poor creatures, and tell them they are at liberty to go."
"Why, bless your soul, sir, this yer lot's worth ten thousand dollars!" said the trader, who was not prepared for so close a practical application.
Do not be too sure, friend, that the trader is peculiar in this. The very same argument, though less frankly stated, holds in the bonds of Satan many extremely well-bred, refined, respectable men, who would gladly save their souls if they could afford the luxury.
"My friend," said father Dickson, using the words of a very close and uncompromising preacher of old, "what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
"I know that," said the trader, doubtfully; "but it's a very hard case, this. I'll think about it, though. But there's father Bonnie wants to buy Nance. It would be a pity to disappoint him. But I'll think it over."
Father Dickson returned to the camp-ground between one and two o'clock at night, and, putting away his horse, took his way to the ministers' tent. Here he found father Bonnie standing out in the moonlight. He had been asleep within the tent; but it is to be confessed that the interior of a crowded tent on a camp-ground is anything but favorable to repose. He therefore came out into the fresh air, and was there when father Dickson came back to enter the tent.
"Well, brother, where have you been so late?" said father Bonnie.
"I have been looking for a few sheep in the wilderness, whom everybody neglects," said father Dickson. And then, in a tone tremulous from agitation, he related to him the scene he had just witnessed.
"Do you see," he said, "brother, what iniquities you are countenancing? Now, here, right next to our camp, a slave-coffle encamped! Men and women, guilty of no crime, driven in fetters through our land, shaming us in the sight of every Christian nation! What horrible, abominable iniquities are these poor traders tempted to commit! What perfect hells are the great trading-houses, where men, women, and children are made merchandise of, and where no light of the Gospel ever enters! And when this poor trader is convicted of sin, and wants to enter into the kingdom, you stand there to apologize for his sins! Brother Bonnie, I much fear you are the stumbling block over which souls will stumble into hell. I don't think you believe your argument from the Old Testament, yourself. You must see that it has no kind of relation to such kind of slavery as we have in this country. There's an awful Scripture which saith: 'He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, so that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?'"
The earnestness with which father Dickson spoke, combined with the reverence commonly entertained for his piety, gave great force to his words. The reader will not therefore wonder to hear that father Bonnie, impulsive and easily moved as he was, wept at the account, and was moved by the exhortation. Nor will he be surprised to learn that, two weeks after, father Bonnie drove a brisk bargain with the same trader for three new hands.
The trader had discovered that the judgment-day was not coming yet a while; and father Bonnie satisfied himself that Noah, when he awoke from his wine, said, "Cursed be Canaan."
* * * * * * * * * *
We have one scene more to draw before we dismiss the auditors of the camp-meeting.
At a late hour the Gordon carriage was winding its way under the silent, checkered, woodland path. Harry, who came slowly on a horse behind, felt a hand laid on his bridle. With a sudden start, he stopped.
"Oh, Dred, is it you? How dared you—how could you be so imprudent? How dared you come here, when you know you risk your life?"
"Life!" said the other, "what is life? He that loveth his life shall lose it. Besides, the Lord said unto me, Go! The Lord is with me as a mighty and terrible one! Harry, did you mark those men? Hunters of men, their hands red with the blood of the poor, all seeking unto the Lord! Ministers who buy and sell us! Is this a people prepared for the Lord? I left a man dead in the swamps, whom their dogs have torn! His wife is a widow—his children, orphans! They eat and wipe their mouth, and say, 'What have I done?' The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are we!"
"I know it," said Harry, gloomily.
"And you join yourself unto them?"
"Don't speak to me any more about that! I won't betray you, but I won't consent to have blood shed. My mistress is my sister."
"Oh, yes, to be sure! They read Scripture, don't they? Cast out the children of the bond-woman! That's Scripture for them!"
"Dred," said Harry, "I love her better than I love myself. I will fight for her to the last, but never against her, nor hers!"
"And you will serve Tom Gordon?" said Dred.
"Never!" said Harry.
Dred stood still a moment. Through an opening among the branches the moonbeams streamed down on his wild, dark figure. Harry remarked his eye fixed before him on vacancy, the pupil swelling out in glassy fulness, with a fixed, somnambulic stare. After a moment, he spoke, in a hollow, altered voice, like that of a sleep-walker:—
"Then shall the silver cord be loosed, and the golden bowl be broken. Yes, cover up the grave—cover it up! Now, hurry! come to me, or he will take thy wife for a prey!"
"Dred, what do you mean?" said Harry. "What's the matter?" He shook him by the shoulder.
Dred rubbed his eyes, and stared on Harry.
"I must go back," he said, "to my den. 'Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests,' and in the habitation of dragons the Lord hath opened a way for his outcasts!"
He plunged into the thickets, and was gone.