Magruder had been so pleased with his success in organizing a class
in the Hissawachee settlement that he resolved to favor them with a
Sunday sermon on his next round. He was accustomed to preach twice
every week-day and three times on every Sunday, after the laborious
manner of the circuit-rider of his time. And since he expected to
leave Hissawachee as soon as meeting should be over, for his next
appointment, he determined to reach the settlement before breakfast
that he might have time to confirm the brethren and set things in
order.
When the Sunday set apart for the second sermon drew near, Morton,
with the enthusiastic approval of Captain Lumsden, made ready his tin
horns to interrupt the preacher with a serenade. But Lumsden had
other plans of which Morton had no knowledge.
John Wesley's rule was, that a preacher should rise at four o'clock
and spend the hour until five in reading, meditation and prayer.
Five o'clock found Magruder in the saddle on his way to Hissawachee,
reflecting upon the sermon he intended to preach. When he had ridden
more than an hour, keeping himself company by a lusty singing of
hymns, he came suddenly out upon the brow of a hill overlooking the
Hissawachee valley. The gray dawn was streaking the clouds, the
preacher checked his horse and looked forth on the valley just
disclosing its salient features in the twilight, as a General looks
over a battle-field before the engagement begins. Then he
dismounted, and, kneeling upon the leaves, prayed with apostolic
fervor for victory over "the hosts of sin and the devil." When at
last he got into the saddle again the winter sun was sending its
first horizontal beams into his eyes, and all the eastern sky was
ablaze. Magruder had the habit of turning the whole universe to
spiritual account, and now, as he descended the hill, he made the
woods ring with John Wesley's hymn, which might have been composed in
the presence of such a scene:
"O sun of righteousness, arise
With healing in thy wing;
To my diseased, my fainting soul,
Life and salvation bring.
"These clouds of pride and sin dispel,
By thy all-piercing beam;
Lighten my eyes with faith; my heart
With holy hopes inflame."
By the time he had finished the second stanza, the bridle-path that
he was following brought him into a dense forest of beech and maple,
and he saw walking toward him two stout men, none other than our old
acquaintances, Bill McConkey and Jake Sniger.
"Looky yer," said Bill, catching the preacher's horse by the bridle:
"you git down!"
"What for?" said Magruder.
"We're goin' to lick you tell you promise to go back and never stick
your head into the Hissawachee Bottom agin."
"But I won't promise."
"Then we'll put a finishment to ye."
"You are two to one. Will you give me time to draw my coat?"
"Wal, yes, I 'low we will."
[Illustration: TWO TO ONE.]
The preacher dismounted with quiet deliberation, tied his bridle to a
beech limb, offering a mental prayer to the God of Samson, and then
laid his coat across the saddle.
"My friends," he said, "I don't want to whip you. I advise you now
to let me alone. As an American citizen, I have a right to go where
I please. My father was a revolutionary soldier, and I mean to fight
for my rights."
"Shet up your jaw!" said Jake, swearing, and approaching the preacher
from one side, while Bill came up on the other. Magruder was one of
those short, stocky men who have no end of muscular force and
endurance. In his unregenerate days he had been celebrated for his
victories in several rude encounters. Never seeking a fight even
then, he had, nevertheless, when any ambitious champion came from
afar for the purpose of testing his strength, felt himself bound to
"give him what he came after." He had now greatly the advantage of
the two bullies in his knowledge of the art of boxing.
Before Jake had fairly finished his preliminary swearing the preacher
had surprised him by delivering a blow that knocked him down. But
Bill had taken advantage of this to strike Magruder heavily on the
cheek. Jake, having felt the awful weight of Magruder's fist, was a
little slow in coming to time, and the preacher had a chance to give
Bill a most polemical blow on his nose; then turning suddenly, he
rushed like a mad bull upon Sniger, and dealt him one tremendous blow
that fractured two of his ribs and felled him to the earth. But Bill
struck Magruder behind, knocked him over, and threw himself upon him
after the fashion of the Western free fight. Nothing saved Magruder
but his immense strength. He rose right up with Bill upon him, and
then, by a deft use of his legs, tripped his antagonist and hurled
him to the ground. He did not dare take advantage of his fall,
however, for Jake had regained his feet and was coming up on him
cautiously. But when Sniger saw Magruder rushing at him again, he
made a speedy retreat into the bushes, leaving Magruder to fight it
out with Bill, who, despite his sorry-looking nose, was again ready.
But he now "fought shy," and kept retreating slowly backward and
calling out, "Come up on him behind, Jake! Come up behind!" But the
demoralized Jake had somehow got a superstitious notion that the
preacher bristled with fists before and behind, having as many arms
as a Hindoo deity. Bill kept backing until he tripped and fell over
a bit of brush, and then picked himself up and made off, muttering:
"I aint a-goin' to try to handle him alone! He must have the very
devil into him!"
About nine o'clock on that same Sunday morning, the Irish
school-master, who was now boarding at Goodwin's, and who had just
made an early visit to the Forks for news, accosted Morton with: "An'
did ye hear the nooze, Moirton? Bill Conkey and Jake Sniger hev had
a bit of Sunday morning ricreation. They throid to thrash the
praycher as he was a-comin' through North's Holler, this mornin'; but
they didn't make no allowance for the Oirish blood Magruder's got in
him. He larruped 'em both single-handed, and Jake's ribs are
cracked, and ye'd lawf to see Bill's nose! Captain must 'a' had some
proivate intherest in that muss; hey, Moirton?"
"It's thunderin' mean!" said Morton; "two men on one, and him a
preacher; and all I've got to say is, I wish he'd killed 'em both."
"And yer futer father-in-law into the bargain? Hey, Moirton? But
fwat did I tell ye about Koike? The praycher's jaw is lamed by a
lick Bill gave him, and Koike's to exhort in his place. I tould ye
he had the botherin' sperit of prophecy in him."
The manliness in a character like Morton's must react, if depressed
too far; and he now notified those who were to help him interrupt the
meeting that if any disturbance were made, he should take it on
himself to punish the offender. He would not fight alongside Bill
McConkey and Jake Sniger, and he felt like seeking a quarrel with
Lumsden, for the sake of justitifying himself to himself.
_CHAPTER XIV._