It was a part of Channing's new policy of caution with regard to
Jacqueline that took him occasionally to Storm in the rôle of casual
caller, especially now that the older girl was not there to disconcert
him with her oddly observant gaze. Here he frequently found other
callers, young men who since Professor Thorpe's entertainment had
discovered that the distance between Storm and their homes, by
automobile and even by train, was a negligible trifle.
These young men Jacqueline referred to, with innocent triumph and
evident justice, as "victims."
"I _told_ Jemmy there was no need of going away from home to get beaux,"
she said complacently to Channing. "Here I've sat, just like a spider in
a web, and--look at them all! To say nothing of you," she added, with a
little gasp at her own daring.
Channing frowned slightly. He was not altogether pleased with the
numbers and the frequency of the victims; a fact which added distinctly
to Jacqueline's pride in them. But she never allowed her duties as
hostess nor her instincts as coquette to interfere with any engagements
at the Ruin.
It was Channing's custom, when he called at Storm, to bid her a
nonchalant, not to say indifferent, farewell, and repair by devious ways
to the ravine; where some moments later he welcomed a very different
Jacqueline from the demure young person he had left--ardent, glowing,
very eager to atone to him for the enforced restraint of the previous
encounter. The coquette in Jacqueline was only skin deep.
One day, arriving at Storm at a belated lunch hour, the hospitable
negress who opened to him led him back at once into the dining-room; and
there he found a guest quite different from Jacqueline's victims. He was
a singular-looking old man, clad in worn butternut jeans; an uncouth,
uncombed, manifestly unwashed person at whose side on the floor rested a
peddler's pack. He was doing some alarming trencher-work with his knife,
and kept a supply of food convenient in his cheek while he greeted
Channing with a courteous, "Howdy, stranger!"
"No, no, darter"--he continued without interruption his conversation
with Jacqueline. "'Tain't a mite of use puttin' that little washtub in
my room no more, bekase you ain't a-goin' to toll me into it. I takes my
bath when I gits home to Sally. She kinder expects it of me. Hit's a
wife's privilege to cut her man's hair and pare his nails and scrub his
ears an' all them little things, 'specially ef she ain't got no chillun
to do hit fur, an' I'd feel mighty mean ef I disapp'inted her. I don't
do much fer Sally, noways. No, darter, oncet or twicet a year's often
enough fer a human critter to git wet all over, 'cep'n in a nateral way,
by swimmin' in the crick. These here baths and perfumery-soaps an' all
ain't nature. They're sinful snares to the flesh, that's what they be,
not fitten' fer us workers in the Lord's vineyard."
"You think the Lord prefers you dirty?" murmured Jacqueline, with a side
glance at the astonished Channing.
"I dunno, darter, but some of His chillun does, an' that's a fack. Ef I
was too clean, I wouldn't seem to 'em like home-folks." He added, in all
reverence, "I 'lows the Lord went dirty Hisself sometimes when He was
among pore folks, jes' to show 'em He wa'n't no finer than what they
be."
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Philip Benoix, beside him.
Channing suddenly realized who this peddler was. Jacqueline had spoken
of him often--a protégé of her mother's whom she called the Apostle,
half fanatic and half saint, who appeared at Storm occasionally on his
way between the mountains of his birth and the city where he had taken
unto himself a wife; bringing down to the "Settlements," for sale,
certain crude handiwork of the mountain women, carrying back with him
various products of civilization, such as needles, and shoe-strings, and
stick-candy, and Bibles. It was his zeal in spreading what he called
"the Word of God" along his route that had won the old peddler his title
of "the Apostle."
Channing looked at him with new interest, the literary eye lighting even
while he frowned at the sight of so uncouth a creature seated at lunch
with ladies.
The Apostle suddenly turned to him with a gentle, quizzical smile, and
Channing had the startled sensation of having spoken his thoughts
unwittingly aloud.
"Stranger, I reckon you ain't never been up in them barren mountings,
whar men has to wrastle with the yearth and the Devil fer every mouthful
of food they puts into their bellies? When I comes down from thar, I
always aims a bee line fer Sister Kildare's house, bekase I'm hongry.
She don't never turn no hongry man away. 'Tain't safe to turn a hongry
man away. You cain't never tell," he added slowly and significantly,
"who He might be."
There was a little pause, uncomfortable on Channing's part. Mysticism
did not often come his way. He decided that the peddler was a trifle
mad.
Then Mrs. Kildare said, "Tell this gentleman something about your own
mountain, Brother Bates. He'd like to hear."
"I'm mighty discouraged about 'em up thar, an' that's a fack." He shook
his head gloomily. "Folks on Misty is hongrier, and drunker, and meaner
than ever--most as mean as they be in the cities. They're pison
ign'rant. That's the trouble. The Word of God comes to 'em, but they're
too ign'rant to onderstand. 'Tain't wrote in no language they knows, and
ef it was, they couldn't read it. Take this here, now--'Love thy
neighbor as thyself.' What does that mean to 'em? They ain't got no
neighbors to speak of, and them they has, ef they ain't kin-folks, is
enemies. Ef the Book was to say 'Git the drop on thy neighbor before he
gits the drop on thee,' they'd understand. That's their language--but it
ain't God's. I goes on totin' 'em the Word of God in my pack, and them
that won't buy I gives it to. But there ain't nobody to explain it to
'em."
"What about you? Why can't you explain it to them?" asked Kate Kildare.
He shook his head again. "None of 'em wants to listen to old Brother
Bates. They know I'm as ign'rant as what they be. I used to think ef I
could manage someway to git book-l'arnin', I might be a preacher some
day. But I dunno. Reckon I never could 'a' yelled and hollered loud
enough, nor scared 'em up proper about hell-fire. I ain't so sure I got
convictions about hell-fire," he admitted, apologetically. "Seems to me
it ain't nateral. Seems to me ef there ever was such a thing, the Lord
in His loving-kindness would 'a' put it out long ago.--And I couldn't
ever have started the hymn for 'em--never could remember a tune in my
born days. No, no! The best I can do for 'em is just to keep on totin'
the Word of God around in my pack, hopin' they'll kind of absorb it in
at the skin, like I done."
Philip said, "What about the Circuit Riders? Do none of them come to
Misty?" He referred to a class of itinerant preachers who are entitled
to as much honor for the work they have done among Cumberland
mountaineers as any missionaries to the heathen of savage lands.
"Not no more, they don't. The last Circuit Rider that come was a young
fellow who looked upon a woman to lust after her," explained the peddler
with Biblical simplicity, "and her man shot him up, and I reckon he was
too skeert to come back again. Hit's mighty nigh a year sence there's
bin a proper baptizin' or buryin' or marryin' on Misty, with young folks
pairin' off and babies comin' along as fast as ever. They git tired of
waitin' to be tied proper, you see. They've done backslid even from whar
they was at."
"I had always understood," murmured the interested Channing, "that
jumping over a broomstick was the accepted form of marriage in these
mountains."
"Well, stranger, a broomstick's better than nothin', I reckon," replied
the peddler tolerantly. "It kinder stands for law and order, anyway.
I've knowed folks down around these parts, whar they's a-plenty of
preachers, to take up with each other 'thout'n so much as a broomstick
to make things bindin'-like."
Philip exchanged glances with the author. "_Touché!_" he murmured. He
turned to Brother Bates. "If I can manage to get away for a week or two,
will you pilot me up to Misty?" he asked. "I might make up a few arrears
of weddings, funerals, and so forth."
"You, Philip? Good!" exclaimed Kate, heartily.
The Apostle for the first time allowed his gaze to rest on Philip. He
chuckled, with the sly malice of a child that has played some trick upon
an elder. "I 'lowed you'd be speakin' up purty soon," he said. "I bin
talkin' at you all the time, son. Hit don't matter what kind of a
preacher you be--Methody or Cam'elite, or what--jest so's you kin give
'em the Word strong."
"I'll give it to them as strong as I can," smiled Philip, "though I must
confess that I share your doubts with regard to hell-fire."
"Can ye start a tune? That's what gits 'em every time."
"I can do better than that." He looked at Jacqueline.
Even as he spoke, inspiration had come to him. It was the answer to the
problem of how to separate Jacqueline from Channing. "Will you come,
too, and be my choir?" he asked her.
She clapped her hands. "What a lark! Mummy, may I? You know how I've
always longed to go up into the mountains!"
Suddenly she paused, dismayed. She had remembered Channing.
But that gentleman rose to the occasion with promptitude, somewhat to
the chagrin of Philip.
"How would you like to add a passable tenor to your choir, Benoix? If
you will let me in on this missionary expedition, it would be awfully
good of you. Just the opportunity I've been looking for."
The Apostle beamed on them all. "They's always room for workers in the
Lord's vineyard," he said solemnly.
Philip could think of no reasonable objection to offer. He murmured
something vague to Kate about the necessity of a chaperon.
She stared at him in frank amazement. "A chaperon for Jacqueline--with
_you_? What an idea! You and Mr. Channing will take the best possible
care of my little girl. Of course she shall go! I wish I could go
myself."
"Why can't you?" he asked eagerly.
She shook her head. "At State Fair time? Impossible, with my head men
away. It would demoralize the farm."
Jacqueline caught Philip's eye and winked, wickedly. "You'll just have
to be that chaperon yourself, Reverend Flip," she murmured.