The undying grandeur of the mountains, their solemn fixity, the mystery
that hangs about them, and their sombre silences impose upon the mind a
sense of immutability, and in their midst human life seems a fluctuating,
trivial thing, and men come and go with the transitory ineffectiveness of
a shifting vapor.
Something of this was in Teck Jepson’s thoughts, as he stood on the
river bank at the baptizing in the valley, and looked about him at the
close-circling purple heights. He remembered many who had known them,
and whom they would know no more; and he fancied that others—half fact,
half figment of his ignorant imagination—had made their homes here, who
had never trod these rugged ways. And he took note, too, of the vanishing
presence of the Indian and those dim traditional pygmy dwellers in
Tennessee, far back in the fabulous perspectives of time, still vaguely
known in rural regions as the “little people.”
A dusky bloom was upon the vast slopes, for a black cloud overspread
their summits and portended rain. All the landscape was in the sullen
shadow, and wore this dull purple, or a deep, indefinite gray and brown,
save that upon one of the minor ridges about the base of the Great Smoky
the sun’s rays fell diverging from a rift in the clouds,—a yellow fibrous
slant on the illuminated emerald tint of the foliage below, indescribably
brilliant in the sudden contrast. The stream, closely begirt on one side
by frowning crags and lower rock-bound banks on the other, was black
and swift and sinister, with here and there a white flash of foam. It
might have suggested Styx rather than Jordan, but for the congregation
standing on the pebbly margin where the county road came down in a cleft
in the rocks to a doubtful ford,—the landing being effected on the
opposite side, so far up stream that it was barely visible,—and but for
the weird baptismal hymns and the echoing psalmody of the heathen rocks.
The assemblage had a melancholy guise: the elder men grizzled and
grim, with broad-brimmed hats and clad in jeans, and the women with
pallid, ascetic faces, barely glimpsed under their long tunnel-like
sun-bonnets, and wearing straight-skirted homespun dresses. Only in the
rear of the crowd some of the languid young mountaineers showed signs
of latent but fitful levity. There were always voices enough to carry
on the sonorous hymn, though under its cover remarks in an undertone
were often exchanged. Above on the slope were hitched the ox-wagons and
saddle-horses that had conveyed the company hither, but in the defile
between the crags were two horsemen, still mounted, gravely watching the
rite administered.
It was an impressive moment when the old preacher, his white hair and his
lined face ghastly in the unnatural light of the day, forged out into
the current, leading a young girl by the hand, and crying out in the
silence,—for the song had ceased,—“This is the river o’ death! Come down,
my sister, and be buried with Christ in baptism.”
A flickering glow of lightning, broad and faint, ran over the clouds, and
illumined her pale face and her coils of fair hair, as she was slowly
laid backward into the depths of the black water. The next moment she
rose, dimly descried in the dun light of the gray day, exclaiming that
she had risen from the dead, and crying, “Glory! Glory!” in an ecstatic
frenzy, as she struggled, with dripping hair and garments, to the shore.
All the rocks echoed the shrill, rapturous cry, and “Glory! Glory!”
sounded far and faint up and down the river.
“On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand!” The chorus was renewed, its wistful,
subdued spirit contrasting with the joyful exclamation, “Glory!” that
still pierced its cadences.
Suddenly a sturdy, stout young man with short cropped black hair, a
bullet head, and an intent manner, and clad in copper-colored jeans,
plunged into the cold water and waded out alone, not waiting to be met by
the parson; for when the old man turned about, the candidate was standing
in the middle of the river.
“Ye notice how turrible brash Josiah Preen be,—can’t wait fur pa’son ter
summons him,” one of the horsemen in the gorge observed to the other,
“but needs ter dash out in the ruver that-a-way, ez ef thar warn’t water
enough ter go ’roun’, an’ he’d miss his chance o’ gittin’ glory.”
“He be goin’ ter save his soul hisself; he ain’t goin’ ter wait on the
slow arm o’ the Lord,” commented the other.
“He’s ez awk’ard ez a peeg caught in a gate,” returned his companion. “I
ain’t s’prised none ef he gits flustrated, an’ drowns in that shallow
water.”
And indeed there was a vigorous scuffle, as the candidate misunderstood
the direction and manner in which the stalwart old clergyman proposed to
lower his robust bulk. He was under water longer than the usual interval.
It splashed and surged above him, and finally he came up, seemingly in
an athletic struggle with the parson, choking and sputtering and meekly
submitting to be led to the bank, shuffling and hindered by his heavy
water-logged garments.
The congregation solemnly resumed the chant, as if the rite had been
administered in its most decorous method; but its mishaps occasioned
great though suppressed joy to the young sinners in the rear and to the
two men on horseback in the defile.
Most of the candidates were young people, some mere children, for the
elders had “got religion” long years ago. The “perfessin’ members” looked
on at the ceremony with retrospective eyes, wise in experience.
“Ye ’low ye air comin up inter a new land!” cried out one of the
brethren suddenly, expressing, perhaps, the thought of many of the
congregation. The exhorting voice had a strange staccato effect in the
midst of the chanting, which diminished gradually and quavered into
silence,—“inter a new lan’, whar godliness finds a smooth path an’ needs
no staff fur its steppin’ out strong, an’ the way is plain, an’ the end
in view! Oh, my frien’s, this ain’t Canaan, an’ nuthin’ like it; jes’
old Kildeer County, whar the devil loves ter roam an’ rage. An’ now’s
yer chance to show yer heart air changed! Ye’ll find yer besettin’ sins
like tares in the groun’, an’ Satan a-waitin’ in the briers ter tempt yer
steps. The day is dark, an’ the way—ah!—is long—ah!—an’ no man kin see
whar it leads—ah! Oh, be not a castaway!” His voice rose into song and
the docile chorus followed:—
“Oh, be not a castaway,
Ye whom Jesus loves.”
A heavily built man of forty was one of the exceptions to the prevalent
youthfulness of the candidates. He went down in a hesitant and
circumspect manner, and he entered the cold water so slowly as to suggest
reluctance.
“He ain’t used ter that thar kind o’ liquor,” one of the unregenerate
horsemen observed, in a low tone. He had crossed his right leg over on
the pommel of his saddle, and he leaned his elbow on his knee, and rested
his chin in his hand as he talked, looking between his horse’s intent
ears. “An’ he ain’t got no real interus’ in the lan’ a-flowin’ with milk
an’ honey. He’d git mighty happy, now, though, ef somebody ez knowed
could make him b’lieve they hed a quiet leetle still hid up in one e-end
o’ Canaan.”
“What ailed him ter git religion, ennyhow?” demanded the other, whose
horse was restive, bowing down his head and tossing his mane, and from
time to time lifting his fore-foot and pawing impatiently.
“His wife died, an’ that reminded him he war mortial hisse’f. His
religion’ll las’ him jes’ ’bout ez long ez he ’members his wife.”
“An’ that’ll be till he kin git him another one—ez ain’t dead,” rejoined
his co-cynic.
The candidate assumed a port of religious joy, as he rose with a
commotion of the water that reached in concentric circles from bank to
bank. A yellow flicker glanced along the dark ripples, for the sharp
blades of the lightnings cleft the clouds. The wooded slopes, the crags,
the level reaches of the valley, were lifted, with all their tints
distinct in this unnatural, dream-like light for a moment, then sank into
the dull purple monotony of the overhanging cloud. His bearded face and
wild eyes were illumined for the instant, as he came struggling to the
shore, hoarsely shouting that he had viewed heaven and was risen from the
dead, while the faint, sullen thunder muttered among the mountain-tops.
The next moment a thrill ran through the assemblage other than
the fervors of religion, or the natural curiosity elicited by the
developments hitherto. A man, for whom the pastor was waiting in the
stream, was coming down the bank,—a man with that singular pallor
acquired by years of indoor life, and known as “jail bleach;” a tall,
thin figure, clad in brown jeans that hung loosely upon him. He had
bright, quick, gray eyes, black hair that lay straight and close about a
narrow, thin head, and clear-cut, regular features; the profile showed
with onyx-like distinctness against the clouds and the dark river, in
the lurid light of the day. It was Jake Baintree, the man who had last
seen the missing mountaineer, and who had been tried for his murder and
acquitted.
The congregation had forgotten to sing. It was in dead silence that he
went down to the typical flood to wash his sins away.
Hoof-beats smote suddenly the tense and stormy stillness. The horsemen
were riding down the rocky defile to hear what might be said, reining in
at the rear of the crowd; one standing erect in his stirrups, to look
over the heads and down into the dark current, the other kneeling on his
saddle.
It was not the parson who met Jake Baintree. A figure like Saul’s, taller
by a head than all his fellows, with a long supple step, an imperious
erectness, and a manner that would not be denied, interposed on the bank
of the river, laid a hand on the candidate’s breast, and held him back.
“Wait, Jacob Baintree!” exclaimed Teck Jepson. “Wait till ye hear how the
rocks hev cried out agin ye. They would not hold thar peace, though the
jedge an’ the juries let thar hands fall, an’ jestice dwindled away. An’
what did the rocks say?”
He stood alert, tingling in every fibre, his hand still on the man’s
breast, who had put up both his own hands to pull it down. But there they
rested upon it, as if palsied, while he fixed his startled, fascinated
gaze upon the fiery eyes of the other.
“The rocks say, ‘Sam’l Keale’s coat!’” Jepson held up a dark garment,
shaking it in the air. A tremor ran through the crowd; a low,
inarticulate exclamation burst from it. The candidate’s hands fell from
the arm he had sought to clutch. He winced perceptibly, and Teck Jepson’s
grasp closed on his collar. He should hear; they all should heed. “An’
then the rocks say, ‘Sam’l Keale’s hat!’” Jepson held it aloft. “I fund
’em in a hollow, ahint a rock, folks,—a rock ez wouldn’t hide ’em, for
the freeze split it, an’ revealed the gyarments ter my eye. Now,”—he
flung the man from him,—“go ter yer baptism in brimstun’ an’ wrath, whar
the worm dieth not, an’ the fire is not squenched!”
He turned, and was lost in the crowd, many shrinking away in horror
from the garments he held in either hand, and from his furious look and
manner. For there was some sympathy for the man whom he left trembling on
the bank, and attentive ears, and minds open to conviction, were lent to
Baintree’s words as he exclaimed,—
“I can’t holp it, brethren. I dunno what Sam’l done with his old
clothes, nor why he hid ’em in a rock. I dunno ef they air Sam’l’s,
an’ Teck Jepson don’t nuther. But”—he subtly felt the strength of his
argument—“_he_ sha’n’t hender me! The devil sha’n’t hender me! I hev
got my religion. ‘Oh, grace is mine! I hev got my sheer!’” he sang
tremulously.
Somehow the excited people did not join, and he went down into the black
water to the music of his own quavering voice.
The parson stood as if petrified in the midst of the stream. The
lightning illumined his white hair, and the thunder rolled once more.
The clouds were in motion; there was a dank smell of foliage in the air;
rain had begun to fall somewhere in the mountains,—a matter ordinarily of
interest to an unhoused crowd so far from any shelter or habitation. But
they all remained motionless, watching the young man as he waded out to
meet the venerable pastor.
Suddenly the parson’s figure stirred. He lifted his arms; he was sternly
waving the candidate away. “Until ye confess,—until ye confess!” he
cried, striding toward the bank, presently lifting his voice into song,
mechanically joining the rejected aspirant’s refrain, “Oh, grace is mine!
I hev got _my_ sheer!” unconscious of any satiric meaning the words
conveyed.
The crowd took up the chant fragmentarily, amidst the pealings of the
thunder and the sharp dartings of the lightning; it was broken, too, by
their movement, for as they sang they were turning toward their wagons
and horses. The first heavy drops of rain were falling as Jacob Baintree
reached the rocky bank, scrambling up its rugged slopes into the very
drear scenes of this world as he knew it.