Very little was known of her late husband, yet that little was of a
sufficiently awe-inspiring character to satisfy the curiosity of
Laurel Spring. A man of unswerving animosity and candid belligerency,
untempered by any human weakness, he had been actively engaged as
survivor in two or three blood feuds in Kentucky, and some desultory
dueling, only to succumb, through the irony of fate, to an attack of
fever and ague in San Francisco. Gifted with a fine sense of humor, he
is said, in his last moments, to have called the simple-minded clergyman
to his bedside to assist him in putting on his boots. The kindly divine,
although pointing out to him that he was too weak to rise, much
less walk, could not resist the request of a dying man. When it was
fulfilled, Mr. MacGlowrie crawled back into bed with the remark that his
race had always “died with their boots on,” and so passed smilingly and
tranquilly away.
It is probable that this story was invented to soften the ignominy of
MacGlowrie's peaceful end. The widow herself was also reported to be
endowed with relations of equally homicidal eccentricities. Her two
brothers, Stephen and Hector Boompointer, had Western reputations that
were quite as lurid and remote. Her own experiences of a frontier life
had been rude and startling, and her scalp--a singularly beautiful one
of blond hair--had been in peril from Indians on several occasions. A
pair of scissors, with which she had once pinned the intruding hand of
a marauder to her cabin doorpost, was to be seen in her sitting room at
Laurel Spring. A fair-faced woman with eyes the color of pale sherry,
a complexion sallowed by innutritious food, slight and tall figure, she
gave little suggestion of this Amazonian feat. But that it exercised a
wholesome restraint over the many who would like to have induced her
to reenter the married state, there is little reason to doubt. Laurel
Spring was a peaceful agricultural settlement. Few of its citizens
dared to aspire to the dangerous eminence of succeeding the defunct
MacGlowrie; few could hope that the sister of living Boompointers
would accept an obvious mesalliance with them. However sincere their
affection, life was still sweet to the rude inhabitants of Laurel
Spring, and the preservation of the usual quantity of limbs necessary to
them in their avocations. With their devotion thus chastened by caution,
it would seem as if the charming mistress of Laurel Spring House was
secure from disturbing attentions.
It was a pleasant summer afternoon, and the sun was beginning to strike
under the laurels around the hotel into the little office where the
widow sat with the housekeeper--a stout spinster of a coarser Western
type. Mrs. MacGlowrie was looking wearily over some accounts on the
desk before her, and absently putting back some tumbled sheaves from the
stack of her heavy hair. For the widow had a certain indolent Southern
negligence, which in a less pretty woman would have been untidiness,
and a characteristic hook and eyeless freedom of attire which on less
graceful limbs would have been slovenly. One sleeve cuff was unbuttoned,
but it showed the blue veins of her delicate wrist; the neck of her
dress had lost a hook, but the glimpse of a bit of edging round the
white throat made amends. Of all which, however, it should be said that
the widow, in her limp abstraction, was really unconscious.
“I reckon we kin put the new preacher in Kernel Starbottle's room,” said
Miss Morvin, the housekeeper. “The kernel's going to-night.”
“Oh,” said the widow in a tone of relief, but whether at the early
departure of the gallant colonel or at the successful solution of the
problem of lodging the preacher, Miss Morvin could not determine. But
she went on tentatively:--
“The kernel was talkin' in the bar room, and kind o' wonderin' why you
hadn't got married agin. Said you'd make a stir in Sacramento--but you
was jest berried HERE.”
“I suppose he's heard of my husband?” said the widow indifferently.
“Yes--but he said he couldn't PLACE YOU,” returned Miss Morvin.
The widow looked up. “Couldn't place ME?” she repeated.
“Yes--hadn't heard o' MacGlowrie's wife and disremembered your
brothers.”
“The colonel doesn't know everybody, even if he is a fighting man,” said
Mrs. MacGlowrie with languid scorn.
“That's just what Dick Blair said,” returned Miss Morvin. “And though
he's only a doctor, he jest stuck up agin' the kernel, and told that
story about your jabbin' that man with your scissors--beautiful; and
how you once fought off a bear with a red-hot iron, so that you'd have
admired to hear him. He's awfully gone on you!”
The widow took that opportunity to button her cuff.
“And how long does the preacher calculate to stay?” she added, returning
to business details.
“Only a day. They'll have his house fixed up and ready for him
to-morrow. They're spendin' a heap o' money on it. He ought to be the
pow'ful preacher they say he is--to be worth it.”
But here Mrs. MacGlowrie's interest in the conversation ceased, and it
dropped.
In her anxiety to further the suit of Dick Blair, Miss Morvin had
scarcely reported the colonel with fairness.
That gentleman, leaning against the bar in the hotel saloon with a
cocktail in his hand, had expatiated with his usual gallantry upon
Mrs. MacGlowrie's charms, and on his own “personal” responsibility
had expressed the opinion that they were thrown away on Laurel Spring.
That--blank it all--she reminded him of the blankest beautiful woman
he had seen even in Washington--old Major Beveridge's daughter from
Kentucky. Were they sure she wasn't from Kentucky? Wasn't her name
Beveridge--and not Boompointer? Becoming more reminiscent over his
second drink, the colonel could vaguely recall only one Boompointer--a
blank skulking hound, sir--a mean white shyster--but, of course, he
couldn't have been of the same breed as such a blank fine woman as the
widow! It was here that Dick Blair interrupted with a heightened color
and a glowing eulogy of the widow's relations and herself, which,
however, only increased the chivalry of the colonel--who would be the
last man, sir, to detract from--or suffer any detraction of--a lady's
reputation. It was needless to say that all this was intensely diverting
to the bystanders, and proportionally discomposing to Blair, who already
experienced some slight jealousy of the colonel as a man whose fighting
reputation might possibly attract the affections of the widow of the
belligerent MacGlowrie. He had cursed his folly and relapsed into gloomy
silence until the colonel left.
For Dick Blair loved the widow with the unselfishness of a generous
nature and a first passion. He had admired her from the first day
his lot was cast in Laurel Spring, where coming from a rude frontier
practice he had succeeded the district doctor in a more peaceful and
domestic ministration. A skillful and gentle surgeon rather than a
general household practitioner, he was at first coldly welcomed by the
gloomy dyspeptics and ague-haunted settlers from riparian lowlands. The
few bucolic idlers who had relieved the monotony of their lives by the
stimulus of patent medicines and the exaltation of stomach bitters, also
looked askance at him. A common-sense way of dealing with their ailments
did not naturally commend itself to the shopkeepers who vended these
nostrums, and he was made to feel the opposition of trade. But he was
gentle to women and children and animals, and, oddly enough, it was
to this latter dilection that he owed the widow's interest in him--an
interest that eventually made him popular elsewhere.
The widow had a pet dog--a beautiful spaniel, who, however, had
assimilated her graceful languor to his own native love of ease to such
an extent that he failed in a short leap between a balcony and a window,
and fell to the ground with a fractured thigh. The dog was supposed to
be crippled for life even if that life were worth preserving--when Dr.
Blair came to the rescue, set the fractured limb, put it in splints and
plaster after an ingenious design of his own, visited him daily, and
eventually restored him to his mistress's lap sound in wind and limb.
How far this daily ministration and the necessary exchange of sympathy
between the widow and himself heightened his zeal was not known. There
were those who believed that the whole thing was an unmanly trick to get
the better of his rivals in the widow's good graces; there were others
who averred that his treatment of a brute beast like a human being was
sinful and unchristian. “He couldn't have done more for a regularly
baptized child,” said the postmistress. “And what mo' would a regularly
baptized child have wanted?” returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, with the drawling
Southern intonation she fell back upon when most contemptuous.
But Dr. Blair's increasing practice and the widow's preoccupation
presently ended their brief intimacy. It was well known that she
encouraged no suitors at the hotel, and his shyness and sensitiveness
shrank from ostentatious advances. There seemed to be no chance of her
becoming, herself, his patient; her sane mind, indolent nerves, and calm
circulation kept her from feminine “vapors” of feminine excesses. She
retained the teeth and digestion of a child in her thirty odd years, and
abused neither. Riding and the cultivation of her little garden gave
her sufficient exercise. And yet the unexpected occurred! The day after
Starbottle left, Dr. Blair was summoned hastily to the hotel. Mrs.
MacGlowrie had been found lying senseless in a dead faint in the
passage outside the dining room. In his hurried flight thither with the
messenger he could learn only that she had seemed to be in her usual
health that morning, and that no one could assign any cause for her
fainting.
He could find out little more when he arrived and examined her as she
lay pale and unconscious on the sofa of her sitting room. It had not
been thought necessary to loosen her already loose dress, and indeed he
could find no organic disturbance. The case was one of sudden nervous
shock--but this, with his knowledge of her indolent temperament, seemed
almost absurd. They could tell him nothing but that she was evidently on
the point of entering the dining room when she fell unconscious. Had
she been frightened by anything? A snake or a rat? Miss Morvin
was indignant! The widow of MacGlowrie--the repeller of
grizzlies--frightened at “sich”! Had she been upset by any previous
excitement, passion, or the receipt of bad news? No!--she “wasn't that
kind,” as the doctor knew. And even as they were speaking he felt the
widow's healthy life returning to the pulse he was holding, and giving
a faint tinge to her lips. Her blue-veined eyelids quivered slightly
and then opened with languid wonder on the doctor and her surroundings.
Suddenly a quick, startled look contracted the yellow brown pupils of
her eyes, she lifted herself to a sitting posture with a hurried glance
around the room and at the door beyond. Catching the quick, observant
eyes of Dr. Blair, she collected herself with an effort, which Dr. Blair
felt in her pulse, and drew away her wrist.
“What is it? What happened?” she said weakly.
“You had a slight attack of faintness,” said the doctor cheerily, “and
they called me in as I was passing, but you're all right now.”
“How pow'ful foolish,” she said, with returning color, but her eyes
still glancing at the door, “slumping off like a green gyrl at nothin'.”
“Perhaps you were startled?” said the doctor.
Mrs. MacGlowrie glanced up quickly and looked away. “No!--Let me see!
I was just passing through the hall, going into the dining room,
when--everything seemed to waltz round me--and I was off! Where did they
find me?” she said, turning to Miss Morvin.
“I picked you up just outside the door,” replied the housekeeper.
“Then they did not see me?” said Mrs. MacGlowrie.
“Who's they?” responded the housekeeper with more directness than
grammatical accuracy.
“The people in the dining room. I was just opening the door--and I felt
this coming on--and--I reckon I had just sense enough to shut the door
again before I went off.”
“Then that accounts for what Jim Slocum said,” uttered Miss Morvin
triumphantly. “He was in the dining room talkin' with the new preacher,
when he allowed he heard the door open and shut behind him. Then he
heard a kind of slump outside and opened the door again just to find you
lyin' there, and to rush off and get me. And that's why he was so mad
at the preacher!--for he says he just skurried away without offerin'
to help. He allows the preacher may be a pow'ful exhorter--but he ain't
worth much at 'works.'”
“Some men can't bear to be around when a woman's up to that sort of
foolishness,” said the widow, with a faint attempt at a smile, but a
return of her paleness.
“Hadn't you better lie down again?” said the doctor solicitously.
“I'm all right now,” returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, struggling to her feet;
“Morvin will look after me till the shakiness goes. But it was mighty
touching and neighborly to come in, Doctor,” she continued, succeeding
at last in bringing up a faint but adorable smile, which stirred Blair's
pulses. “If I were my own dog--you couldn't have treated me better!”
With no further excuse for staying longer, Blair was obliged to
depart--yet reluctantly, both as lover and physician. He was by no means
satisfied with her condition. He called to inquire the next day--but she
was engaged and sent word to say she was “better.”
In the excitement attending the advent of the new preacher the slight
illness of the charming widow was forgotten. He had taken the
settlement by storm. His first sermon at Laurel Spring exceeded even
the extravagant reputation that had preceded him. Known as the “Inspired
Cowboy,” a common unlettered frontiersman, he was said to have developed
wonderful powers of exhortatory eloquence among the Indians, and
scarcely less savage border communities where he had lived, half
outcast, half missionary. He had just come up from the Southern
agricultural districts, where he had been, despite his rude antecedents,
singularly effective with women and young people. The moody dyspeptics
and lazy rustics of Laurel Spring were stirred as with a new patent
medicine. Dr. Blair went to the first “revival” meeting. Without
undervaluing the man's influence, he was instinctively repelled by
his appearance and methods. The young physician's trained powers of
observation not only saw an overwrought emotionalism in the speaker's
eloquence, but detected the ring of insincerity in his more lucid speech
and acts. Nevertheless, the hysteria of the preacher was communicated to
the congregation, who wept and shouted with him. Tired and discontented
housewives found their vague sorrows and vaguer longings were only the
result of their “unregenerate” state; the lazy country youths felt
that the frustration of their small ambitions lay in their not being
“convicted of sin.” The mourners' bench was crowded with wildly
emulating sinners. Dr. Blair turned away with mingled feelings of
amusement and contempt. At the door Jim Slocum tapped him on the
shoulder: “Fetches the wimmin folk every time, don't he, Doctor?” said
Jim.
“So it seems,” said Blair dryly.
“You're one o' them scientific fellers that look inter things--what do
YOU allow it is?”
The young doctor restrained the crushing answer that rose to his lips.
He had learned caution in that neighborhood. “I couldn't say,” he said
indifferently.
“'Tain't no religion,” said Slocum emphatically; “it's jest pure
fas'nation. Did ye look at his eye? It's like a rattlesnake's, and them
wimmin are like birds. They're frightened of him--but they hev to do
jest what he 'wills' 'em. That's how he skeert the widder the other
day.”
The doctor was alert and on fire at once. “Scared the widow?” he
repeated indignantly.
“Yes. You know how she swooned away. Well, sir, me and that preacher,
Brown, was the only one in that dinin' room at the time. The widder
opened the door behind me and sorter peeked in, and that thar preacher
give a start and looked up; and then, that sort of queer light come in
his eyes, and she shut the door, and kinder fluttered and flopped down
in the passage outside, like a bird! And he crawled away like a snake,
and never said a word! My belief is that either he hadn't time to turn
on the hull influence, or else she, bein' smart, got the door shut
betwixt her and it in time! Otherwise, sure as you're born, she'd
hev been floppin' and crawlin' and sobbin' arter him--jist like them
critters we've left.”
“Better not let the brethren hear you talk like that, or they'll lynch
you,” said the doctor, with a laugh. “Mrs. MacGlowrie simply had an
attack of faintness from some overexertion, that's all.”
Nevertheless, he was uneasy as he walked away. Mrs. MacGlowrie had
evidently received a shock which was still unexplained, and, in spite of
Slocum's exaggerated fancy, there might be some foundation in his story.
He did not share the man's superstition, although he was not a skeptic
regarding magnetism. Yet even then, the widow's action was one of
repulsion, and as long as she was strong enough not to come to these
meetings, she was not in danger. A day or two later, as he was passing
the garden of the hotel on horseback, he saw her lithe, graceful,
languid figure bending over one of her favorite flower beds. The high
fence partially concealed him from view, and she evidently believed
herself alone. Perhaps that was why she suddenly raised herself from her
task, put back her straying hair with a weary, abstracted look, remained
for a moment quite still staring at the vacant sky, and then, with
a little catching of her breath, resumed her occupation in a dull,
mechanical way. In that brief glimpse of her charming face, Blair was
shocked at the change; she was pale, the corners of her pretty mouth
were drawn, there were deeper shades in the orbits of her eyes, and in
spite of her broad garden hat with its blue ribbon, her light flowered
frock and frilled apron, she looked as he fancied she might have looked
in the first crushing grief of her widowhood. Yet he would have passed
on, respecting her privacy of sorrow, had not her little spaniel
detected him with her keener senses. And Fluffy being truthful--as dogs
are--and recognizing a dear friend in the intruder, barked joyously.
The widow looked up, her eyes met Blair's, and she reddened. But he was
too acute a lover to misinterpret what he knew, alas! was only confusion
at her abstraction being discovered. Nevertheless, there was something
else in her brown eyes he had never seen before. A momentary lighting
up of RELIEF--of even hopefulness--in his presence. It was enough for
Blair; he shook off his old shyness like the dust of his ride, and
galloped around to the front door.
But she met him in the hall with only her usual languid good humor.
Nevertheless, Blair was not abashed.
“I can't put you in splints and plaster like Fluffy, Mrs. MacGlowrie,”
he said, “but I can forbid you to go into the garden unless you're
looking better. It's a positive reflection on my professional skill, and
Laurel Spring will be shocked, and hold me responsible.”
Mrs. MacGlowrie had recovered enough of her old spirit to reply that she
thought Laurel Spring could be in better business than looking at her
over her garden fence.
“But your dog, who knows you're not well, and doesn't think me quite a
fool, had the good sense to call me. You heard him.”
But the widow protested that she was as strong as a horse, and that
Fluffy was like all puppies, conceited to the last degree.
“Well,” said Blair cheerfully, “suppose I admit you are all right,
physically, you'll confess you have some trouble on your mind, won't
you? If I can't make you SHOW me your tongue, you'll let me hear you USE
it to tell me what worries you. If,” he added more earnestly, “you won't
confide in your physician--you will perhaps--to--to--a--FRIEND.”
But Mrs. MacGlowrie, evading his earnest eyes as well as his appeal, was
wondering what good it would do either a doctor, or--a--a--she herself
seemed to hesitate over the word--“a FRIEND, to hear the worriments of a
silly, nervous old thing--who had only stuck a little too closely to her
business.”
“You are neither nervous nor old, Mrs. MacGlowrie,” said the doctor
promptly, “though I begin to think you HAVE been too closely confined
here. You want more diversion, or--excitement. You might even go to
hear this preacher”--he stopped, for the word had slipped from his mouth
unawares.
But a swift look of scorn swept her pale face. “And you'd like me to
follow those skinny old frumps and leggy, limp chits, that slobber and
cry over that man!” she said contemptuously. “No! I reckon I only want a
change--and I'll go away, or get out of this for a while.”
The poor doctor had not thought of this possible alternative. His heart
sank, but he was brave. “Yes, perhaps you are right,” he said sadly,
“though it would be a dreadful loss--to Laurel Spring--to us all--if you
went.”
“Do I look so VERY bad, doctor?” she said, with a half-mischievous,
half-pathetic smile.
The doctor thought her upturned face very adorable, but restrained his
feelings heroically, and contented himself with replying to the pathetic
half of her smile. “You look as if you had been suffering,” he said
gravely, “and I never saw you look so before. You seem as if you had
experienced some great shock. Do you know,” he went on, in a lower tone
and with a half-embarrassed smile, “that when I saw you just now in the
garden, you looked as I imagined you might have looked in the first days
of your widowhood--when your husband's death was fresh in your heart.”
A strange expression crossed her face. Her eyelids dropped instantly,
and with both hands she caught up her frilled apron as if to meet
them and covered her face. A little shudder seemed to pass over
her shoulders, and then a cry that ended in an uncontrollable and
half-hysterical laugh followed from the depths of that apron, until
shaking her sides, and with her head still enveloped in its covering,
she fairly ran into the inner room and closed the door behind her.
Amazed, shocked, and at first indignant, Dr. Blair remained fixed to
the spot. Then his indignation gave way to a burning mortification as he
recalled his speech. He had made a frightful faux pas! He had been fool
enough to try to recall the most sacred memories of that dead husband
he was trying to succeed--and her quick woman's wit had detected his
ridiculous stupidity. Her laugh was hysterical--but that was only
natural in her mixed emotions. He mounted his horse in confusion and
rode away.
For a few days he avoided the house. But when he next saw her she had
a charming smile of greeting and an air of entire obliviousness of his
past blunder. She said she was better. She had taken his advice and
was giving herself some relaxation from business. She had been riding
again--oh, so far! Alone?--of course; she was always alone--else what
would Laurel Spring say?
“True,” said Blair smilingly; “besides, I forgot that you are quite able
to take care of yourself in an emergency. And yet,” he added, admiringly
looking at her lithe figure and indolent grace, “do you know I never can
associate you with the dreadful scenes they say you have gone through.”
“Then please don't!” she said quickly; “really, I'd rather you wouldn't.
I'm sick and tired of hearing of it!” She was half laughing and yet half
in earnest, with a slight color on her cheek.
Blair was a little embarrassed. “Of course, I don't mean your
heroism--like that story of the intruder and the scissors,” he
stammered.
“Oh, THAT'S the worst of all! It's too foolish--it's sickening!” she
went on almost angrily. “I don't know who started that stuff.” She
paused, and then added shyly, “I really am an awful coward and horribly
nervous--as you know.”
He would have combated this--but she looked really disturbed, and he
had no desire to commit another imprudence. And he thought, too, that he
again had seen in her eyes the same hopeful, wistful light he had once
seen before, and was happy.
This led him, I fear, to indulge in wilder dreams. His practice,
although increasing, barely supported him, and the widow was rich. Her
business had been profitable, and she had repaid the advances made her
when she first took the hotel. But this disparity in their fortunes
which had frightened him before now had no fears for him. He felt that
if he succeeded in winning her affections she could afford to wait for
him, despite other suitors, until his talents had won an equal position.
His rivals had always felt as secure in his poverty as they had in his
peaceful profession. How could a poor, simple doctor aspire to the hand
of the rich widow of the redoubtable MacGlowrie?
It was late one afternoon, and the low sun was beginning to strike
athwart the stark columns and down the long aisles of the redwoods on
the High Ridge. The doctor, returning from a patient at the loggers'
camp in its depths, had just sighted the smaller groves of Laurel
Springs, two miles away. He was riding fast, with his thoughts filled
with the widow, when he heard a joyous bark in the underbrush, and
Fluffy came bounding towards him. Blair dismounted to caress him, as
was his wont, and then, wisely conceiving that his mistress was not far
away, sauntered forward exploringly, leading his horse, the dog hounding
before him and barking, as if bent upon both leading and announcing him.
But the latter he effected first, for as Blair turned from the trail
into the deeper woods, he saw the figures of a man and woman walking
together suddenly separate at the dog's warning. The woman was Mrs.
MacGlowrie--the man was the revival preacher!
Amazed, mystified, and indignant, Blair nevertheless obeyed his first
instinct, which was that of a gentleman. He turned leisurely aside as
if not recognizing them, led his horse a few paces further, mounted him,
and galloped away without turning his head. But his heart was filled
with bitterness and disgust. This woman--who but a few days before
had voluntarily declared her scorn and contempt for that man and his
admirers--had just been giving him a clandestine meeting like one of the
most infatuated of his devotees! The story of the widow's fainting,
the coarse surmises and comments of Slocum, came back to him with
overwhelming significance. But even then his reason forbade him to
believe that she had fallen under the preacher's influence--she, with
her sane mind and indolent temperament. Yet, whatever her excuse or
purpose was, she had deceived him wantonly and cruelly! His abrupt
avoidance of her had prevented him from knowing if she, on her part, had
recognized him as he rode away. If she HAD, she would understand why he
had avoided her, and any explanation must come from her.
Then followed a few days of uncertainty, when his thoughts again
reverted to the preacher with returning jealousy. Was she, after all,
like other women, and had her gratuitous outburst of scorn of THEIR
infatuation been prompted by unsuccessful rivalry? He was too proud to
question Slocum again or breathe a word of his fears. Yet he was not
strong enough to keep from again seeking the High Ridge, to discover
any repetition of that rendezvous. But he saw her neither there, nor
elsewhere, during his daily rounds. And one night his feverish anxiety
getting the better of him, he entered the great “Gospel Tent” of the
revival preacher.
It chanced to be an extraordinary meeting, and the usual enthusiastic
audience was reinforced by some sight-seers from the neighboring county
town--the district judge and officials from the court in session, among
them Colonel Starbottle. The impassioned revivalist--his eyes ablaze
with fever, his lank hair wet with perspiration, hanging beside his
heavy but weak jaws--was concluding a fervent exhortation to his
auditors to confess their sins, “accept conviction,” and regenerate then
and there, without delay. They must put off “the old Adam,” and put on
the flesh of righteousness at once! They were to let no false shame
or worldly pride keep them from avowing their guilty past before their
brethren. Sobs and groans followed the preacher's appeals; his own
agitation and convulsive efforts seemed to spread in surging waves
through the congregation, until a dozen men and women arose,
staggering like drunkards blindly, or led or dragged forward by sobbing
sympathizers towards the mourners' bench. And prominent among them, but
stepping jauntily and airily forward, was the redoubtable and worldly
Colonel Starbottle!
At this proof of the orator's power the crowd shouted--but stopped
suddenly, as the colonel halted before the preacher, and ascended the
rostrum beside him. Then taking a slight pose with his gold-headed cane
in one hand and the other thrust in the breast of his buttoned coat, he
said in his blandest, forensic voice:--
“If I mistake not, sir, you are advising these ladies and gentlemen to
a free and public confession of their sins and a--er--denunciation
of their past life--previous to their conversion. If I am
mistaken I--er--ask your pardon, and theirs and--er--hold myself
responsible--er--personally responsible!”
The preacher glanced uneasily at the colonel, but replied, still in the
hysterical intonation of his exordium:--
“Yes! a complete searching of hearts--a casting out of the seven Devils
of Pride, Vain Glory”--
“Thank you--that is sufficient,” said the colonel blandly. “But might
I--er--be permitted to suggest that you--er--er--SET THEM THE EXAMPLE!
The statement of the circumstances attending your own past life and
conversion would be singularly interesting and exemplary.”
The preacher turned suddenly and glanced at the colonel with furious
eyes set in an ashy face.
“If this is the flouting and jeering of the Ungodly and Dissolute,” he
screamed, “woe to you! I say--woe to you! What have such as YOU to do
with my previous state of unregeneracy?”
“Nothing,” said the colonel blandly, “unless that state were also the
STATE OF ARKANSAS! Then, sir, as a former member of the Arkansas BAR--I
might be able to assist your memory--and--er--even corroborate your
confession.”
But here the enthusiastic adherents of the preacher, vaguely conscious
of some danger to their idol, gathered threateningly round the platform
from which he had promptly leaped into their midst, leaving the colonel
alone, to face the sea of angry upturned faces. But that gallant warrior
never altered his characteristic pose. Behind him loomed the reputation
of the dozen duels he had fought, the gold-headed stick on which he
leaned was believed to contain eighteen inches of shining steel--and the
people of Laurel Spring had discretion.
He smiled suavely, stepped jauntily down, and made his way to the
entrance without molestation.