The next morning after breakfast John Webb met Mostyn as he stood smoking on the front porch.
"If you haven't got nothin' better to do," he said, "you might walk down with me to Dolph Wartrace's store, at the cross-roads. Thar will be a crowd thar to-day."
"Anything special going on?" Mostyn asked.
"If the feller keeps his appointment we'll have a sermon," John smiled. "For the last seven or eight years a queer tramp of a chap—John Leach, he calls hisself—has been comin' along an' preachin' at the store. Nobody knows whar he is from. Folks say he makes his rounds all through the mountains of Tennessee, Georgia, an' North Carolina. He won't take a cent o' pay, never passes the hat around, an' has been knowed to stop along the road an' work for poor farmers for a week on a stretch for nothin' but his bed an' board. Some say he's crazy, an' some say he's got more real Simon-pure religion than any regular ordained minister. I love to listen to 'im. He tells a lot o' tales an' makes a body laugh an' feel sad at the same time."
"I certainly would like to hear him," the banker declared, and with Webb he turned toward the gate.
"Are you a member of any church?" he inquired, when they were in the road.
"No, I never jined one," Webb drawled out. "I'm the only feller I know of in this country that don't affiliate with some denomination or other."
"That is rather odd," Mostyn remarked, tentatively. "How did you manage to stay out of the fold among so many religious people?"
"I don't exactly know." Webb's freckled face held a reflective look. "I kept puttin' it off from year to year, thinkin' I would jine, especially as everybody was constantly naggin me about it. Seems to me that I was the chief subject at every revival they held. It bothered me considerable, I tell you. The old folks talked so much about my case that little boys an' gals would sluff away from me in the public road. But I wasn't to blame. The truth is, Mr. Mostyn, I wanted to give 'em all—Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians—a fair show. You see, each denomination declared that it had the only real correct plan, an' I'll swear I liked one as well as t'other. When I'd make up my mind to tie to the Methodists, some Baptist or Presbyterian would ax me what I had agin his religion, an' in all the stew an' muddle they got me so balled up that I begun to be afeard I wasn't worth savin' nohow. About that time this same tramp preacher come along, an' I heard 'im talk. I listened close, but I couldn't make out whether he stood for sprinklin', pourin', or sousin' clean under. So after he finished I went up an' axed 'im about it. I never shall forget how the feller grinned—I reckon I remember it because it made me feel better. He ketched hold o' my hand, he did, an' while he was rubbin' it good an' kind-like, he said: 'Brother, don't let that bother you. I'm floatin' on top myself. In fact, my aim is to stay out o' the jangle so I kin jine all factions together in brotherly bonds.' As he put it, the light o' God was shinin' on every earthly path that had any sort o' upward slope to it."
At this moment there was a vigorous blowing of the horn of an automobile in the road behind them, and in a cloud of dust a gleaming new car bore down toward them. To the banker's surprise, Webb paused in the center of the road and made no effort to move.
"Look out!" Mostyn cried, warningly. "Here, quick!"
"Humph!" Webb grunted, still refusing to move, his eyes flashing sullenly. "I'm goin' to pick up a rock some o' these days an' knock one o' them fellers off his perch."
Still immovable he stood while the honking car, with brakes on, slid to a stop a few feet away.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" the man at the wheel, in a jaunty cap and goggles, cried out, angrily. "You heard me blowin', didn't you?"
"I ain't deef," John flashed at him. "I wanted to see what 'the hell'—to use your words—you'd do about it. You think because you are in a rig o' that sort, Pete Allen, you can make men an' women break the'r necks to git out o' your way. If you had touched me with that thing I'd have stomped the life out o' you. I know you. You used to split rails an' hoe an' plow, barefooted over in Dogwood. 'White trash,' the niggers called your folks. You've been in town just long enough to make you think you can trample folks down like so many tumble-bugs."
"Well, you have no right to block the road up," the driver said, quite taken aback, his color mounting to his cheeks. "There is a law—"
"I don't care a dang about your law!" Webb broke in. "I'm law-abidin', but when a law is passed givin' an upstart like you the right to make a decent man jump out of your way, like a frost-bitten grasshopper, I'll break it. The minute a skunk like you buys a machine on credit an' starts out he thinks he owns the earth."
Still flushed, the man grumbled out something inarticulately and started on his way.
"I hit 'im purty hard," John said, as Mostyn rejoined him, "but if thar is anything on earth that makes me rippin' mad it is the way fellers like that look an' act."
They found thirty or forty men, women, and children at the store awaiting the coming of the preacher. The building was a long, one-story frame structure made of undressed planks whitewashed. It had a porch in front which was filled with barrels, chicken-coops, and heavy agricultural implements. The people were seated in the shade of the trees, some on the grass and others in their own road-wagons.
Wartrace, the storekeeper, in his shirt-sleeves, stood in the front door. He was about thirty years of age and had only one arm. "Come up, come up, Mr. Mostyn," he called out, cheerily. "The preacher is headed this way. A feller passed 'im on the mountain road ten minutes ago. If you hain't heard John Leach talk you've missed a treat."
Mostyn accepted the chair Wartrace drew from within the store, and Webb took a seat near by on an inverted nail-keg. Wartrace was called within, and the banker began to watch the crowd with interest. Back in the store men were lounging on the long counters, chewing tobacco, smoking and talking of their crops or local politics.
"I see 'im!" a woman cried, from the end of the porch, as she stood eagerly pointing up the mountain-road. Mostyn saw a tall man of middle age, smooth-shaven, with long yellow hair falling on his broad shoulders, easily striding down the incline. He had blue eyes and delicate, rather effeminate features. He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat, dark trousers, and a black frock-coat without a vest. Reaching the store, he took off his hat, brushed back his hair from a high pink forehead, and with bows and smiles to the people on all sides, he cried out cheerily:
"How are you, everybody? God bless your bones. I hope the Lord has been with you since I saw you last fall. Hello, Brother Wartrace! You see, old chap, I do remember your name," he called out, as the storekeeper appeared in the doorway. "Say, I wish you would have some of those roustabouts inside roll out a dry-goods box for me to stand on."
"All right, Brother Leach," Wartrace answered. "I've got the same box you spoke on before. I intend to keep it for good luck."
"All right, all right, roll it out, gentlemen. I'd help you, but I've had a pretty stiff walk down the mountain to get here on time, and want to sorter get my wind."
He stood fanning his perspiring face with his hat while two obliging farmers brought the box out. "There under that tree," he ordered. "Show me a cheaper pulpit than that, and I'll buy it for kindling-wood. By the way, friends, two preachers over the mountain told me last night that I was doing more harm than good, talking without pay on the public highway as I am doing. I'd like to please every living soul, including them, if I could. It makes them mad to see you all gather to hear a jumping-jack like me. They say it's making salvation too cheap, and quote Scripture as to 'the laborer being worthy of the hire.' That would be all right if this was labor to me, but it isn't; it is nothing but fun, an' fun full of the glory of God, at that."
The box was now in the required spot; and, mounting upon it, Leach stamped on the boards vigorously to test their strength. "I'm gaining flesh," he laughed. "Free grub is fattening. I'll have to gird up my loins with a rope before long."
Then he was silent. The look of merriment passed from his face. Mostyn thought he had never seen a more impressive figure as the man stood, a ray of sunlight on his brow, looking wistfully over the heads of his little audience toward the rugged mountains. Then slowly and reverently he raised his hands and began to pray aloud. It was a conventional prayer, such as the average rural preacher used in opening a meeting; and when it was over he took a worn hymn-book from his coat pocket, and after reading a hymn he began to sing in a deep, sonorous voice. Some of the women, with timid, piping notes and the men in bass tones joined in. This over, Leach cleared his throat, stroked his lips with a tapering, sun-browned hand, and began to talk.
"Somebody over the mountain yesterday wanted to know, brethren, how I happened to take up this roving life, and I told them. They seemed impressed by it, and I'm going to tell you. To begin with, the best temperance talker is the man who has led a life of drunkenness and through the grace of the Lord got out of it to give living testimony as to its evil. Now, I'm pretty sure, for the same reason, that a man who has been through the mire of hell on earth is competent to testify about that. I'm that sort of a man. I was once up in the world, as you might say. My folks had means. After I got out of school I went into business on my own hook in my home town. You will be interested in this, Brother Wartrace; so make them fellers come out of the store and be quiet."
Order was restored. The mountaineers who were talking within slouched out on the porch and stood respectfully listening.
"I went into the grain business," Leach continued. "I was young then, and I thought I owned the market. My old daddy cautioned me to go slow, but I paid no attention to him. Folks called me a hustler, and I was proud of it. I got into fast ways. I played poker; I had a pair of fast horses, and I was guilty of other habits that I sometimes mention at my 'men-only' meetings. After awhile I slid into the hole that is at the foot of every ungodly slope on earth. I was facing ruin. I had only one chance to save myself, and that was to gamble big on wheat. To do it I actually stole some money out of a bank run by a friend of mine. It's awful to think about, but I did it. I was found out. I was accused and arrested. I was tried and found guilty. Lord, Lord, I shall never forget that day! My mother and father were in the courtroom. She fainted dead away, and an eternal blight fell on his white head.
"I was sent to prison. My hair was clipped, and I was put in stripes and steel shackles. All hell was packed in me. Instead of being conquered, as most convicts are, I kept swearing that I was innocent. I'd lie awake at night in my cell concocting lie after lie to bolster up my case and stir up sympathy. I wrote letters to my home papers. While I was clanking along by my fellow-prisoners who were taking their medicine like men I was hating the whole of creation and studying devilish ways to fight.
"I got to writing to the Governor of the State. I had heard he was kind-hearted, and I thought I might make him believe I was innocent, so I wrote letter after letter to him. I used every pretext I could think of. Once I told him that I hoped God would strike me dead in my tracks and damn me eternally if I had not been falsely imprisoned. Now and then he would answer, in a kind sort of way, and that made me think I might convince him if I kept up my letters.
"I was that sort of a fiend for a year. Then a strange thing happened. A little, mild-mannered man was put in for murder. He had the cell adjoining mine. He wasn't like any other prisoner I'd ever seen. He had a sad, patient face, and didn't look at all strong. I took to him because he used to pass his tobacco through to me—said he had quit using it. Well, what do you think? One night as I lay with my ear close to the partition I heard him praying. And the strangest part of it was that he wasn't praying like a guilty man. He was begging the Lord to be good to the other prisoners, and open their eyes to the spiritual light, which he declared was even then shining in his cell.
"Well, do you know, I listened to him night after night, and got so I could sleep better after I'd heard him pray. And in the daytime I loved to find myself by his side in any work we had to do. I never shall forget the thing I'm going to tell you. We were carrying brick to repair a wall where an attempt was made by some fellows to get out. It was out in the sunlight, and I hadn't seen the sun many times for a year past. I don't know how it come up, but somehow he happened to remark that he was innocent of the charge against him. Circumstantial evidence had landed him where he was. He wasn't the one that did the killing at all. I remember as I looked at him that I was convinced he was telling the truth. He was innocent and I was guilty. I had an odd feeling after that that I had no right to be near him.
"He used to talk to me in the sweetest, gentlest way I ever heard. He told me that if a convict would only turn to God the most wretched prison ever built would be full of joy. He said, and I believed him, that he didn't care much whether he was out or in jail, that God was there by his side and that he was happy. Lord, Lord, how he did plead with me! His eyes would fill chock full and his voice would shake as he begged and begged me to pray to God for help. I remember I did try, but, having lied to the Governor and everybody else, somehow I couldn't do it right. Then what do you reckon? I heard him in his cell every night begging God to help Number Eighty-four—that was all he knew me by—Eighty-four. He was Number Seventy-two. Every night for a month I would stick my ear to the partition and listen and listen for that strange, strange mention of me. I got so that when we would meet in the daytime I'd feel like grabbing hold of him and telling him that I loved him.
"Now, on the first of every month I was in the habit of writing a letter to the Governor, and the time had come round again. I got the paper and pen and ink from the warden, and started to go over again my old lying tale, but somehow I couldn't put the old fire in it. I kept thinking of Seventy-two and his prayers. I remember I cried that night, and felt as limp as a rag. I had changed. Then, I don't know how it happened, but it was as though some voice had spoken inside of me and told me not to write to the Governor about myself, but about Seventy-two, who really was innocent. So I started out, and with the tears pouring down my face and blotting the paper I told the Governor about the prayers of Seventy-two, and how good he was, and begged him to give him a pardon, as I knew positively that he was innocent. Then a queer thing took place. I couldn't begin to explain it, but in trying to think of some way to convince the Governor of the fellow's innocence I came out with this: I said, 'Governor, I am the man that has been writing to you all this time swearing he is innocent. I have written you a thousand lies. I am guilty, but I'm telling you the truth this time, as God is my judge. I don't ask release for myself, but I want justice done to Seventy-two. No purer or better man ever lived.'
"I sent the letter off; and, friends, I'm here to tell you that I never felt so happy in all my life. The very prison walls that night seemed to melt away in space. My poor cot was as soft as floating clouds. I didn't feel the shackles on my ankle and arm, and the low singing of Seventy-two in his cell was as sweet as far-off celestial music. I remember he called out to me just before bed-time, 'Brother, how goes it?' and for the first time I answered, with a sob in my throat: 'I'm all right, Seventy-two—I'm all right!' And I heard him say, 'Thank the Lord, blessed be His holy name!'
"Now comes the best part, friends—I'm glad to see you've been so quiet and attentive. Lo and behold! One morning the warden sent for me to come to his private sitting-room, and there sat a dignified, kind-faced man. It was the Governor. He wanted to talk to me, he said, about Seventy-two. I don't know how it was, but I give you my word that somehow I didn't have a single thought beyond trying to get Seventy-two pardoned. Once the Governor broke in and said, 'But how about your own case?' And I told him I was guilty and had no hope as far as I was concerned. He put a lot of questions to me about Seventy-two, about his habits and talk to me and other prisoners; and I heard him say to the warden, 'This is an interesting case; I must look further into it.'
"Then I was sent back, and Seventy-two was ordered out. He was with the Governor for about an hour, and then he came back to his cell, and I heard him praying and sobbing. Once I heard him say, 'Lord, Lord, Thou hast answered my call. Justice is to be done.'
"The next day it went around that Seventy-two was pardoned. He put on his old clothes, packed up his things, and come to shake hands with us. When he come to me he pulled me to one side and clung to my hand and began to cry. 'It was all through you,' he said. 'The Governor wouldn't have believed it in any other way.' Then he told me not to feel bad, that—well"—Leach's voice clogged up here, and he wiped his twitching lips with his slender hand—"well, Seventy-two said that a look had come in my face which showed that peace was mine at last. He said he was going to keep on praying for me, and advised me to try to do good among the prisoners.
"He went away, and I did try to follow his advice. I read my Bible every spare chance I got and told the convicts that I believed in a merciful God who was ready and willing to forgive all sins and lighten punishment. I got so I loved to talk to them, and sometimes when the chaplain was sick or away he let me take his place on Sundays, and it was there that I learned to preach. I served my time out. A sharp blow met me on the day of my release. I was thinking of going back home to make a new start when a letter from my father told me that my mother had been dead a month. A young sister of mine was to be married to a fellow high up in society, and father wrote me that he wished me well, but thought that perhaps I ought not to come home branded for life as I was.
"Friends, that was a lick that only God's omnipotent hand could soften. I was without home or blood-kin. There was nothing I could do to make a living, for an ex-convict is never encouraged by the world at large. That's how I came to take up this work. It seems to me at times that I was made for it—that all my trouble was laid on me for a divine purpose."
The speaker paused to take a drink of water from a dipper Wartrace was holding up to him, and Mostyn slipped back into the store. Going out at a door in the rear, he went into the adjoining wood and strode along in the cooling shade toward the mountain. The sonorous voice of the speaker rang through the forest, and came back in an echo from a beetling cliff behind him.
Mostyn shuddered. The speaker's experiences had vividly brought to mind many of his own questionable exploits in finance. He recalled his narrow escape from bankruptcy when, by an adroit lie, he had secured the backing of Mitchell and other money-lenders. Old Jefferson Henderson's ashen face and accusing eyes were before him. He had broken no law in that case, but only he and Henderson knew of the false statements which had ensnared the credulous man's whole fortune.
The preacher's warning had come in time. Pate had intended it as a check to a perilous pace. He would speculate no more. He would follow Saunders's example and lead a rational life. He would live more simply. He would—his heart sank into an ooze of delight—he would marry the sweetest, most beautiful, and bravest girl in the world. He would win Dolly's whole heart, and in the future devote himself solely to her happiness. What more admirable course could a penitent man pursue? He quickened his step. He was thrilled from head to foot. He had reached the turning-point, and what a turning-point it was! In fancy, he saw himself taking the pretty child-woman in his arms and pledging his brain and brawn to her forever. It was really a most noble thing to do, for it meant the uplifting, as far as lay in his power, of her family. It would materially alter their sordid lives. He could give employment to Dolly's brother; he might be the means of educating and finding a suitable husband for Ann. Perhaps Saunders might sell him his plantation; Tom Drake could manage it for him, and the Colonial mansion would make a delightful summer home. Ah, things were coming about as they should! Dolly, Dolly, beautiful, exquisite Dolly was to be his wife, actually his wife!
He sat down on a moss-covered stone aflame with a passion, which was of both blood and spirit. How beautiful the world seemed! How gloriously the sun shone on the pines of the mountain! How blue was the sky! How white the floating clouds!
The preacher was singing a hymn.
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