CANE RIDGE MEETING-HOUSE
The third Sunday in October was the regular once-a-month meeting-day at
Cane Ridge Church. Early in the morning a note of preparation was
sounded throughout the Rogers domain, and by nine o'clock the entire
household was en route for the place of worship. On chairs in the wagon
drawn by two stout farm horses sat Mr. and Mrs. Rogers and the four
youngest children, while young Dudley, Henry and Susan rode horseback.
Uncle Tony, by reason of age, and Aunt Dink, by reason of flesh,
instead of walking with the other negroes, were allowed to sit on the
straw-covered floor of the wagon behind the white occupants.
As the cavalcade neared the church, a big, weather-stained log
structure, they saw that, early as it was, a crowd had preceded them.
Other wagons were stationed about in the shade, and many horses were
tethered to overhanging boughs.
While waiting for service to begin, Abner stood near the church and
looked around with some curiosity and not a little surprise; for nearly
every grade of frontier society seemed represented--aristocrats and
adventurers; mistresses and slaves; farmers and land agents;
ex-Revolutionary officers and ex-Indian-fighters; lately established
settlers and weather-beaten survivors of early pioneer days.
"Visiting together" near the woman's entrance were a number of matrons,
some in homespun gowns, calico split bonnets and cowhide shoes; others
in more pretentious apparel--bombazine gowns, muslin tuckers, and
"dress bonnets" of surprising depth and magnitude. Near the other
entrance, comparing notes upon fall wheat-sowing or corn-gathering, was
a cluster of farmers in shirt sleeves, homespun trousers and
well-greased shoes. Upon the horse-block a group of merry belles,
divesting themselves of mud-stained riding-skirts, stood forth in
bright array--beads and ribands, flaunting chintzes, clocked stockings
and morocco slippers. Some distance off, upon the roots of a
wide-spreading elm, sat two barefooted, swarthy, scarred old hunters
with raccoon skin caps, linsey hunting-shirts and buckskin breeches.
Near by, a group of urchins listened with open-mouthed absorption to
blood-curdling reminiscences of days when upon this now peaceful slope
the scream of the wildcat and the whoop of the Indian were more
familiar sounds than the songs of Zion and the eloquence of the
revivalist. Less in accord with the quiet beauty of this October
Sunday, a squad of loud-voiced, swaggering, half-intoxicated young men
lounged under the trees, recounting incidents of yesterday's cock-fight
or betting upon the wrestling-match next muster day.
In contrast to the other vehicles, the Gilcrest family coach, with its
span of glossy-coated bays, presently drew up before the church. The
negro driver sprang from his high seat, and, bowing obsequiously, let
down the steps and opened the door of the coach, from which emerged,
first, Hiram Gilcrest in all the glory of Sunday broadcloth; next, two
small boys, then a negro woman bearing in her arms the youngest scion
of the house of Gilcrest, an infant in long clothes. Lastly came Mrs.
Gilcrest, a fragile, faded woman in rustling brocade and satin
petticoat. Close behind the coach rode a horseback party of four--Betsy
Gilcrest, two of her brothers, and a young woman in long black
riding-skirt and loose jacket, her features hidden by the gauze veil
depending from her dress bonnet of corded white silk.
Betsy, rosy and dimpling, unencumbered by riding-skirt, dust-jacket or
veil, tossed her bridle to her brother, John Calvin, and sprang from
her saddle to the stile. Her movements were light and graceful, and she
looked like a woodland nymph in a gown of light, gaily flowered chintz,
and a large hat encircled in a wreath of bright leaves. As her
companion, the girl in the corded silk bonnet, drew up, several
gallants from the group of young people near by hastened eagerly
forward to her assistance. After doffing riding-skirt and loose jacket,
she stood a moment upon the block, adjusting her attire, a robe of
misty lavender sarcenet with a pink crepe scarf loosely knotted across
the bosom.
"I wish she'd throw back that veil," thought Abner, as he stood with
Henry a little apart.
"That's Major Gilcrest's niece, come from Virginia to live with them,"
explained Henry, seeing Abner's admiring gaze fixed upon the girl.
"She's as pretty as a rosebush covered with pink blossoms; there ain't
a girl comes to Cane Ridge that can stand alongside her. She makes even
Sally Bledsoe and Molly Trabue look like common hollyhocks."
By this time every one save the group of young people and a few
stragglers out in the shade had entered the church, from which at this
moment a loud voice was heard announcing, "Hymn 642;" while at the same
time Deacon Hiram Gilcrest, standing at one door, and Deacon Bushrod
Hinkson at the other, admonished all loiterers to come in.
As soon as the congregation was seated, Mason Rogers, in a voice of
much power and sweetness, started the hymn already announced. Others
quickly joined in, until soon the building was filled with a swelling
volume of melody which made the walls resound and the cobwebs tremble.
The negro nurse on the doorstep crooned the hymn as she held the
sleeping baby. Uncle Tony, sitting on the steps of the pulpit platform,
swayed his body and nodded his head in rhythmic motion. He could not
carry a tune, but now and then would join in with a single note which
rang out clear and loud above all the rest. Other negroes from their
places in the gallery over the doorways opposite the pulpit, though
they knew not the words of the hymn, added the melody of their
plaintive voices. Little girls seated by their mothers on the woman's
side of the low partition, and little boys by their fathers on the
other side of the church, joined in with piping treble. Deacon
Gilcrest, his stern features relaxed, kept time with his hand (down,
left, right, up) as he thundered forth a ponderous bass. Old Matthew
Houston from one "amen corner" added his quavering notes; while from
the other, Squire Trabue, his chair tilted back, his face beaming, sang
with little regard to time or tune, but with melody in his heart, if
not in his voice. Near the central partition Susan Rogers and Betsy
Gilcrest, happy and bright-eyed, sang from the same book, their voices
clear, true, and sweet as bird notes.
As the music arose in a swelling wave of melody, Abner Dudley looked
through the congregation for the girl in the lavender sarcenet.
Presently he discovered her seated near a window and singing with the
rest. Her veil was thrown back, and from the depths of the scoop
bonnet, with a wreath of roses under its brim, shone forth a face of
radiant loveliness. From her broad, white brow the shining brown hair
was parted in rippling masses; she had darkly fringed blue eyes, a
well-rounded chin, and skin whose tints of rose and pearl were like the
delicate inner surface of a sea shell.
"Abigail Patterson, of Williamsburg!" he mentally ejaculated. "What is
she doing here? Henry said that she was Major Gilcrest's niece, too. So
this is the 'Miss Abby' whom the Rogers children talk so much about,
and whom the Gilcrest children are always quoting. And to think that I
had pictured her a prim old maid."
It was not until the preacher, who until now had been hidden by the
high pulpit, stepped forward, that Abner was aroused to a sense of time
and place. He looked up as the clear tones of the speaker rang through
the building, and saw for the first time the man who was destined to
exert a powerful influence upon his career--Barton Warren Stone. At
this time, Stone was about twenty-nine years old, of slender build,
refined features, earnest mien, and childlike simplicity--"an Israelite
indeed in whom was no guile." This third Sunday in October was the day
for the regular quarterly communion service, and the emblems of the
sacred feast were spread upon the table in front of the pulpit.
Extending his hand, the speaker reverently pronounced his text: "Put
off the shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground" (Ex. 3:5).
[Illustration: _Barton Warren Stone._]
After pausing a moment that the words of the text might have due
impressiveness, Stone proceeded. He explained that the command in its
spiritual significance was still as imperative upon God's people when
they entered the house dedicated to his service, as it had been in its
literal sense to Moses when he had stood face to face with Jehovah at
the foot of Mount Horeb. The speaker's musical accents fixed the
attention of every hearer, and his words impressed every heart with the
solemnity befitting the place and the hour.
As soon as the people were dismissed for the noontide intermission,
they scattered about the grounds, talking, laughing, and setting out,
upon the table-cloths spread upon the grass, the luncheons which they
had brought with them.
While these preparations were in progress, Dudley started off with
Henry to look after the horses. Before reaching the grove where they
were tethered, he was hailed by Major and Mrs. Gilcrest with a cordial
invitation to "break bread" at their table--an invitation which he,
thinking of the beautiful niece, gladly accepted. He followed his host
and hostess to a cluster of trees under which Abby Patterson and Betsy
Gilcrest, assisted by their dusky servitors, had already spread a
repast which an epicure might have envied. But to one, at least, of the
guests it mattered little what viands were served; for young Dudley was
soon enthralled by the witchery of the blue eyes, rose-tinted
complexion and low-toned voice of the girl beside him. He was conscious
the while of little else save an unreasoning animosity for a young man
in powdered queue, flowered satin waistcoat, frilled shirt, and silver
knee buckles, who sat at Miss Patterson's other hand, between her and
Miss Gilcrest. This man, James Anson Drane, of Lexington, lawyer and
land agent, notwithstanding Dudley's jealous fancies, divided his
attentions almost equally between the two damsels, and seemed quite as
content with Betsy's lively sallies as with Abby's gentler, more
dignified conversation. As for the two gay youths, Thomas Hinkson and
William Smith, who sat opposite, if Abner thought of them at all, it
was only to pity them that the width of the table-cloth divided them
from the angelic being at his right; although they had for their
companions, Molly Trabue and Sally Bledsoe, who in their own buxom
style were accounted beauties.
Later, the young people started on a ramble through the woods. Dudley
offered his arm to Miss Patterson, thus separating them in a measure
from the rest of the company, who finally joined other groups of
strollers, until at last he found himself alone with her.
The air, odorous with the elusive fragrance of bark and crisping leaf,
breathed a delicious languor. The summer green of the chinquapin burrs
had given place to a richer coloring; the sumac and blackberry bushes
flushed red in the sunlight. Not even when clad in the tender freshness
of springtime beauty could the woods have been a more favorable place
in which to indulge in tender fancies than now when panoplied in
crimson and gold and burnished bronze, the scarlet fire of the maple
and the gaudy yellow of the hickory contrasting with the sober brown of
the beech, the dull red of the oak, and the dark gloss of the walnut. A
redbird arose from the grass at their approach and circled away into
the blue ether, and a rabbit, startled by the crackling of a twig,
scattered away into the deeper undergrowth.
Presently, Dudley and Abby reached a shady spot where a large spring,
clear as crystal, bubbled up from a hillside cleft. Outside this leafy
nook, myriads of gnats and bright-winged flies buzzed in the sunlight;
the soft breeze murmured faintly through the treetops, and the far-off
echo of laughter and merry shouts of other strollers accentuated the
quiet of this little retreat. They seated themselves upon the gnarled
roots of a big tree that guarded the spring. Abby, untying her bonnet,
tossed it upon the grass, and the sunlight glinted upon her lavender
gown and gave a warmer radiance to the wavy masses of her hair.
"To-day is not the first time I have seen you, Miss Patterson," Abner
said presently; "I recognized you the instant I saw you in church this
morning."
"Indeed!" she exclaimed, looking at him searchingly. "Are you not
mistaken? I have no recollection of ever seeing you before; and I have
a good memory for faces, too."
"As to your having seen me, that's a different matter," he replied,
"but I've a vivid recollection of you. It was at the Assembly ball at
Williamsburg just four years ago this month."
"Ah, that Assembly ball!" she exclaimed sadly. "That was the closing
scene of my happy young girlhood. Trouble followed quickly upon trouble
immediately after that night, until, within six weeks, I had lost
everything that made life sweet. But," she asked with a quick change of
manner, "if you were at that ball, how happened it I did not see you?
Were you not among the dancers?"
"On the contrary," Abner laughingly replied, "I was there as an
uninvited guest. Not for me were the delights of minuet, cotillion and
Roger de Coverly; for I had neither the costume nor the courage to
penetrate into the ballroom. With several fellow-students, I had stolen
from the college that night to witness the gay doings at the Capitol.
As I stood in a doorway wishing I could exchange my sober college garb
for that of a gentleman of fashion, you were pointed out to me as the
belle of the ball; and memory has ever since treasured the radiant
picture of the girl in a richly flowered brocade gown, who, with bright
eyes glowing, powdered head held high, and with little feet that scarce
touched the floor, led the dance with a handsome young soldier in
officer's uniform."
"Ah! those were happy days!" she said sadly. "I wonder you recognized
me to-day; I've had so much to change and age me."
"Changed you certainly are," he replied; "but, if I may say so, it is a
change which has but enhanced your claims to the verdict I heard
pronounced upon you that night--'the most beautiful woman in Virginia.'
As for having aged, I can not agree with you. Beauty that owes its
charm even more to sweetness of expression than to perfection of
coloring and regularity of features never grows old. Besides, four
years is not a long period, even when reckoned by youth's calendar.
Some authorities, moreover, with whom I heartily agree, assert that no
woman is older than she looks. According to that, you can not be more
than sixteen."
"But," she replied archly, "another and equally reliable theory is that
a woman is as old as she feels. That would make me at least thirty-six.
So, perhaps, between two such conflicting opinions, it would be well to
take middle ground and place my age correctly, at twenty-six. But
here!" she added laughingly, "you have actually inveigled me into
confessing my age, and that, you know, is what no woman likes to
do--especially when, as I suspect to be the case here, the woman is
several years older than the man. I am forgetting, too, to do the
honors of our spring, which is said to be the largest and most
unfailing in Kentucky--at any rate, it is known all through this
section as 'the big spring.' Boone declared this water to be the
coolest in the State. I wish it was like that magical fountain of
Lethe, and that a draught from it could make me forget my old life.
But, there! I will not look back, although your reminder of that
Assembly ball has stirred old memories to the depths. That road out
there was once a buffalo trail, and the buffaloes, doubtless, always
stopped at this spring to quench their thirst--at least, old hunters
declare that this was their favorite camping-ground. It was also a
favorite resort of the Indians, and a battle was fought here between
them and the white settlers, before the terrible massacre at Bluelicks
had aroused the whites to determined and well-organized resistance and
war of extermination. You should get old Mr. Lucky or Mr. Houston to
describe the battle at this spot--they were in it. But now you must
drink of this spring before you can be properly considered a member of
this community in 'good standing and full fellowship."
"See!" she added, offering him a drink from an old gourd kept in a
cleft of the rock for the use of chance passers-by. "This water is
almost ice-cold--and just look at this mint. Uncle Hiram declares it to
be the finest flavored he ever tasted. He never comes here without
carrying away some for his morning julep. I will take a handful to stow
away in the lunch-basket; it will save him a trip here after service
this afternoon."
Before drawing on her lace "half-hand" mitts, she held out her hands,
and asked him to pour water from the gourd upon them. Then she drew
from the swinging pocket at her belt a tiny embroidered square, but
before she could use it, Abner rescued it, and, substituting his own
handkerchief, dried her hands himself. Her loose sleeves fell back to
the dimpled elbows, and as he lingered over his task, he noted the
delicate tracery of blue veins along the inner curve of her white arms.
He saw, too, the freckles upon her rounded wrists, and that her
well-formed hands were sun-browned and hardened by work.
"Are you counting the freckles?" she asked demurely, smiling at him
from the depths of her white bonnet. "I fear you will not have time to
make a complete inventory of all the freckles, needle-pricks and
bruises; besides, it is some time since I heard voices, and we are far
from the meeting-house. Uncle Hiram would think it no light offense to
be late at afternoon service--and there is Betsy yonder by the big oak
on the hill, waving and beckoning frantically. Let us join her at
once."
"Yes, we must hasten," assented Dudley, consulting his big silver
watch, after thrusting his wet handkerchief into the bosom of his coat.
David Purviance, a young licentiate awaiting ordination at the next
session of presbytery, preached the afternoon sermon, and handled his
theme, "The Final Perseverance of the Saints," in a masterly manner.
But Abner Dudley gave little heed to the discourse; for his thoughts,
stirred by the vision of the beautiful girl across the aisle, were
wandering in an earthly paradise.
Through the deepening twilight he rode home alone that evening in a
tumult of bewildered feeling, scarcely able to realize that only that
morning he had been on that same road with Henry and Susan; for in the
interim he seemed to have entered an entirely new world of thought and
feeling.