Stringtown on the Pike

A Novel by John Uri Lloyd

Chapter Nine

THE STORY OF THE PARSON.

"Inscrutable Providence has led us together, Colonel, me from the North and you from the South. That we are both of one honourable people is evidenced from the fact that from Bennington and from Saratoga, to the moss-clad Southern glades where Marion camped, our ancestors fought for a common cause, freedom for the white man. Shoulder to shoulder your ancestors and mine faced the same enemy, each patriot ready and willing to die for the land he loved, a land dear alike to North and South. Nobler men never lived than our forefathers, Colonel; for while yours, on the verge of starvation, were fighting in Virginia, mine, half frozen and with empty stomachs, were battling in New England. Thank God for the patriots North and South, who gave us a country of which both have great reason to be proud.

"You have given your version of an affair in which you participated, you, a descendant of a Revolutionary hero who served and died with Washington. You selected what you consider the proper method of righting a fancied wrong, the manly way to maintain the "?honour' of your distinguished grandfather and yourself. Now, I will give the history of the man you killed, who, like yourself, was a descendant of a soldier who faced the British enemy, and fell near where now stands the monument of Bunker Hill. Notwithstanding your different methods of life, neither you who live nor he whom you killed can be considered the descendants of cowards."

Either the speaker's voice had insensibly fallen, or the storm without had increased in violence to such a degree as to overcome its low murmur. The words were scarcely audible, and as the last sentence was spoken a pause ensued in which one heard only the shrieking of the frantic wind.

"There are good reasons, Colonel Luridson, why men cannot see life's duties exactly alike; and while I freely overlook your extravagant ideas of personal honour, it is a pity you cannot have equal charity for the views of my people. You were reared in the South, I in the North. Your land is balmy and pleasant most of the year, mine cold and cheerless. Your soil is easily cultivated and productive of great returns, our land is hilly and covered with granite boulders, around the bases of which men search with the hoe to find a nest here and there for a few grains of hard, yellow, scrub-flint corn. Your winters are so mild that stock scarcely seek for shelter, and your herds graze in open air the year through; our winters are so long that when spring comes the entire crop of the summer has been consumed in feeding a very limited number of animals. You became the heir of plenty by the result of that battle for freedom, in which both our ancestors served so valiantly, while it brought to us only a barren heritage. While you have been free to roam at will, watching for fancied insults and cultivating belligerent passions, I have been compelled to work unremittingly, and thus our distinctive environments have created our different views of life. Each of us should in consequence have forbearance for the other. I had to gain a livelihood, and was forced to spend the results of my little savings to secure the education necessary for the ministry, while you were provided for by the property you inherited, and were not obliged to labour."

The parson was interrupted by the grocer, who, ever mindful of his guests, stepped forth and heaped the fire with coal; the long-legged clerk, who had never before been known to move the relic of a chair on which he sat, actually broke the record and hitched it toward the stove. Mose, the Jew"?patient, pleasant Mose incapable of sarcasm or hatefulness, even when his people had been abused by idle-mouthed Gentiles, and whose face had never before lost its smile, now drew his nail-keg seat a foot forward, even edging himself into the circle of Gentiles.

"Is n't this a fearful night to be on picket duty? God help our exposed brethren of the North and South," said Professor Drake. There was no reply, and the eyes of the spectators turned again to the actors before them. The colonel, now pressing the preacher to the climax, as the preacher had previously done to him, said:

"Let's have the story, Pahson, not an oration about our common pedigree. I don't catch the connection."

"The story you soon shall have, sir; I wished to show that you and I may each revere the memory of the other's ancestors. I wished also to remove the stigma you have tried to cast over the man you killed, and to say, Colonel, that your honoured ancestor fought for his country, as thousands of noble Southern soldiers are now doing, and as Colonel Luridson is not doing. Your ancestors of Revolutionary fame did not choke stripling lads with pens in their hands in behalf of falsely imputed insults, sir."

Involuntarily the colonel's hand sought his back pocket, but as he made the movement two members of the Circle sprang to their feet. The parson waved them back.

"Shame, shame, Colonel!" he said calmly, "I have n't even a pen; besides, I have not told my story; you are bound in honour to listen patiently to my story."

"Then be quick about it," said Luridson savagely, and be careful of youah words, or I won't promise fer my temper. Jest now you came near going to the other Jones, and ancestors or no ancestors, cloth or no cloth, I warn you not to rile me ag'in."

"I was born and reared in New England," continued the clergyman without noticing the insult, "where men, women, and children must work for their living, and I assure you they consider it honourable to do so. I was the elder of two boys, and much older than two sisters. Our little home nestled at the base of a mountain spur, within a short journey of the ill-fated historical Willey House, and there, hidden in a nook that even tourists seldom find, the days of our peaceful child life came and went. Before our cottage stretched a small meadow, through which wound a clear brook fresh from the birch-covered mountain in its rear. One corner of this meadow was a garden, and included also a small rye field, which gave us our dark rye bread. We had not much beyond the necessities of life, but we were happy. We roamed the mountain side Saturday afternoons, caught fish in the brook and helped our father till his little fields. In winter evenings we cracked nuts, ate apples and listened to our aged grandmother's stories of wolves, Indians and of the revolutionary wars; during winter we attended a neighbourhood school. You never beheld such scenes as we sometimes witnessed there; you have never ploughed your way to school through waist-deep snow nor slept in the garret under the clapboards and waked to find the snow sifted in furrows across the coverlet.

"Such environments teach us to love one another more dearly, bring us closer together, strengthen family and neighbourly ties, make our joys a pleasure to others, and move others to mourn with us in sorrow, bind human lives into one, give to us faith, hope, and charity.

"You spoke of the fine sense of honour that exists among your people, but, my brother, could you have been schooled, as I have been, to think of the sorrowing friends, the mourning wife, children, or sweetheart, and the agony with which love looks into an open grave, your "?tender' heart, which bleeds at the recollection of a dying baby snake, would not forget its tenderness and gloat over cold-blooded murder in behalf of wounded "?honour.'"

As in harmony with these pathetic words, as if to impress their force upon that little circle, at this point the building trembled more violently than ever, the storm's fury seeming even to bend it out of its upright position, and, springing from its seat on the topmost shelf, a glass fruit jar shivered into fragments on the floor directly between the two upright men.

But the cry of wind and crash of glass were unheeded by the spell-wrapped actors who stood facing each other, and the audience began now to realize that these two men were personally concerned in both the story the Virginian had told and that which the parson was relating. The colonel was stoically gazing into vacancy. "Thus," continued the parson, "my boyhood days were spent until my brother grew to manhood, and my dear sisters were in the early bloom of maidenhood; my aged grandmother, with her stories of the long-ago, had gone to eternal rest, and my patient, loving mother, like a guardian angel, moved quietly about the house, thoughtful of all but herself, typical of thousands of New England mothers who forget themselves in their plodding life-work. I'm thinking now of a typical New England winter, during which there was never a thaw after the opening snow flew; every day after November first the frost crept deeper, every night the cold grew stronger, and when the days began to lengthen we had already experienced winter enough for the whole season. It had been decided long previously that I should go to an academy to study for the ministry, and each member of our family had scrimped and saved for years, in order to gather together the necessary means. My devoted sisters had even spent several summers as dining-room waiters in a neighbouring mountain hotel, adding by this sacrifice their earnings to the family hoard. But God moves in mysteries; the week after New Year's Day my father was kicked by our horse and instantly killed. We were drawn to the churchyard by the same horse; and as we bowed our heads about the open grave, Colonel, the snow which had been shoveled aside stood on a level as high above the earth's surface as the pit before us sunk beneath it. Next day the winds swept back the snow drift, and a cloak of pure, unruffled whiteness told that God conducted the close as well as the opening of that drama. God was with me then, but God only knows, my brethren, whether the hand of Providence is with me now.

"We returned to our desolate home and spent as best we could the remainder of the sad winter; but with returning spring and the cares of the sugar bush our sorrow abated, for the duties of life cannot be thrown aside at the behest of grief; and he who best serves his Creator looks not backward, as you yourself have said, Colonel. Realising that I had no chance now for my contemplated education, my ambition was thrown aside, and the usual life cares were resumed. How long this ran I cannot say, but long enough to give me many heartaches over withered prospects. Still, the unexpected often happens. Friends, you cannot imagine the joy that followed the reception of a precious letter. Our Congressman, unbeknown to us, had interested himself in our behalf with the Freedman's Bureau; my brother received by mail a great envelope marked "?Official,' and in it came an appointment as"?schoolteacher"?in"?Virginia."

The Colonel, whose gaze had been riveted upon the ceiling, shot a quick glance at the speaker; evidently he had anticipated the closing information, and after the sudden start he stoically resumed his former position. Mr. Wagner stopped whittling; Professor Drake, uncomfortable, busied himself in straightening the edges of a pile of books; Judge Elford firmly chewed his quid. The pastor stood motionless a moment, apparently lost in thought, then he slowly took his note-book and some papers from an inner pocket and handed them to Mr. Wagner, saying: "Please mail these tomorrow to the address inscribed on the fly-leaf of the book."

At these words Luridson turned half way toward the wall, and drew his half-closed hand from his hip pocket; an object could be seen in its palm which glistened like a bright bar of iron; a click followed, the hand returned the gleaming object to its former place, and the colonel stood immovable before the pastor.

There was a lull in the wind without at this juncture, and taking one step towards the colonel, the pastor continued, in a soft, tremulous tone: "Need you be told what followed? A telegram, a sobbing mother, distracted sisters, brother on bended knees, alone, in an attic room, registering with God an oath to revenge the infamous crime and not to relent until the murderer had been brought to judgment. Since that day Heaven has kept me from encountering the slayer of my brother. The fellow fled, Colonel, and you know, brave as you pretend to be, that he who stands before me now is a fugitive from justice and fears to go back to his Virginia home; neither does he dare to let his honourable Virginia countrymen know his hiding-place. You have discredited your ancestors, you are shaming the brave Southern soldier, and have no claim on the glorious mother of States, Virginia."

The Colonel made a quick motion, as if to strike the speaker, but Mr. Jones calmly held out his open hand, and in response to the silent command Luridson resumed his former position.

"Long," continued the pastor, "I struggled to overcome my wrath, vainly struggled to forgive, and at last I vowed that while our Master kept us apart no intentional act of mine should bring us into conflict; but if God Almighty led us to each other I would consider that it was by His will, and for a single purpose, and"?the hour has now come."

The hand of the colonel sped toward his hip pocket, but not so quickly as the pastor's arm sprang out, for as springs the tongue of a lizard, too rapid for eye to follow, so sprang the pastor's arms; and as a quivering sparrow gives one glance of despair, and one only, when falls the unexpected shadow of the hawk upon him, so gave the colonel one upward turn of the eye; and as the talons of the fierce bird of prey, crunching through bone and flesh, creep into the vitals of the death-struck bird, so crept those finger-ends into the tissues of the colonel's throat, closing the throbbing arteries beneath, damming up life"?s crimson current until, under the pressure of the fluttering heart, blood flowed from mouth, nose, and ear, and the very eyeballs turned purple.

The teacher sprang forward, so did the judge, but too late; the crime had been committed in the space of a breath; taken by surprise, they could give the unfortunate man no help; the pent-up hatred of years had been concentrated in that fearful grasp. That wild throwing of the arms, gurgle indescribably horrible, attempted swelling of the breast, instant blackening of the face, frightful upturning of the eyeballs, followed by the rush of blood from the mouth and nostrils, were sights that haunt me yet.

As falls an unclasped garment in a heap, so sank the Colonel, dead upon the floor.

Folding his hands upon his breast, the pastor addressed Judge Elford: "A murderer has gone to judgment, a murderer is born for judgment: I give myself up to the law."

Paralysed, stunned with horror by what they had witnessed, the members of the circle stood like frozen figures, motionless and dumb around the erect parson and the fallen braggart. How long I know not, only I am sure that from my place in the rear, where I had crept close to old Mose, I saw the amazed group stand aghast, staring first upon the slayer and then upon his victim.

Next I beheld, as in a dream, that the village doctor raised the head of the vanquished man, tore open the garments covering his chest, loosened his collar, placed a hand upon his breast and kneeled expectantly for a brief period, then with a shake of the head slowly arose and pronounced the word, "Dead." " Strange," he said, "that a single squeeze like this should be followed by death. I have seen men choked until the tongue hung out of their mouth, and yet they revived. There is no evidence of life in Luridson, however: the shock must have burst a blood-vessel in his brain.

The witnesses of the drama now regained their self-control, the palsy passed, their minds were liberated from the stupefying spell, and simultaneously several men stepped forward. In silence the dead colonel was straightened out upon the floor and covered with a strip of muslin torn from a bolt. A messenger with lantern in hand was dispatched for the village undertaker, and old Mose volunteered to perform the errand. During this period the pastor stood silent, with downcast eyes; the judge sat apparently apathetic, and, obeying a common instinct, the members of the circle automatically resumed their usual places, waiting for the end of the strange New Year celebration. I, however, against my will, now that the old Jew, Mose, was gone from my side, found myself crouching, shivering next the stove, near Osmond Jones, the preacher, who alone was standing. Seeing me, he reached down and placed his hand gently on my head.

"Child," he said, "would to God you had stayed with your mother to-night."


Typed by Sharon Franklin, M. L. S., Boone County Public Library; Manager, Walton Branch

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