"I ain't bitin' that kind of a hook, an' I ain't goin' to be _yanked_
into heaven when I c'n _slide_ into hell. Waal! I must be goin'; I've
got a new-milk's cow that needs tendin' to."
The effect of all this was very great. From being at the very mouth of
the furnace, quivering with fear and captive to morbid imaginings,
Bacon's dry intonation brought them all back to earth again. They
perceived something of the absurdity of the whole situation.
Pill was beaten for the first time in his life. He had been struck below
the belt by a good-natured giant. The best he could do, as Bacon
shuffled calmly out, was to stammer: "Will some one please sing?" And
while they sang, he stood in deep thought. Just as the last verse was
quivering into silence, the full, deep tones of Radbourn's voice rose
above the bustle of feet and clatter of seats:--
"And all _that_ he preaches in the name of Him who came bringing peace
and good-will to men."
Radbourn's tone had in it reproach and a noble suggestion. The people
looked at him curiously. The deacons nodded their heads together in
counsel, and when they turned to the desk Pill was gone!
"Gee whittaker! That was tough," said Milton to Radbourn; "knocked the
wind out o' him like a cannon-ball. What'll he do now?"
"He can't do anything but acknowledge his foolishness."
"You no business t' come here an' 'sturb the Lord's meetin'," cried old
Daddy Brown to Radbourn. "You're a sinner and a scoffer."
"I thought Bacon was the disturbing ele--"
"You're just as bad!"
"He's all _right_," said William Councill. "I've got sick, m'self, of
bein' _scared_ into religion. I never was so fooled in a man in my life.
If I'd tell you what Pill said to me the other day, when we was in
Robie's store, you'd fall in a fit. An' to hear him talkin' here
t'night, is enough to make a horse laugh."
"You're all in league with the devil," said the old man, wildly; and so
the battle raged on.
Milton and Radbourn escaped from it, and got out into the clear, cold,
untainted night.
"The heat of the furnace doesn't reach as far as the horses," Radbourn
moralized, as he aided in unhitching the shivering team. "In the vast,
calm spaces of the stars, among the animals, such scenes as we have just
seen are impossible." He lifted his hand in a lofty gesture. The light
fell on his pale face and dark eyes. The girls were a little indignant
and disposed to take the preacher's part. They thought Bacon had no
right to speak out that way, and Miss Graham uttered her protest, as
they whirled away on the homeward ride with pleasant jangle of bells.
"But the secret of it all was," said Radbourn in answer, "Pill knew he
was acting a part. I don't mean that he meant to deceive, but he got
excited, and his audience responded as an audience does to an actor of
the first class, and he was for the time in earnest; his imagination
_did_ see those horrors,--he was swept away by his own words. But when
Bacon spoke, his dry tone and homely words brought everybody, preacher
and all, back to the earth with a thump! Everybody saw, that after
weeping and wailing there for an hour, they'd go home, feed the calves,
hang up the lantern, put out the cat, wind the clock, and go to bed. In
other words, they all came back out of their barbaric _powwow_ to their
natural modern selves."
This explanation had palpable truth, but Lily perceived that it had
wider application than to the meeting they had just left.
"They'll be music around this clearing to-morrow," said Milton, with a
sigh; "wish I was at home this week."
"But what'll become of Mr. Pill?"
"Oh, he'll come out all right," Radbourn assured her, and Milton's clear
tenor rang out as he drew Eileen closer to his side:--
"O silver moon, O silver moon,
You set, you set too soon--
The morrow day is far away,
The night is but begun."