Part 6 (1/2)
It was this astonis.h.i.+ng figure, powerfully acted, that scared poor Tom Dixon into crying out for mercy. The effect on the rest was awful. To see so great a sinner fall terror-stricken seemed like a providential stroke of confirmatory evidence, and nearly a dozen other young people fell crying. Whereat the old people burst out into amens with unspeakable fervor. But the preacher, the wild light still in his eyes, tore up and down, crying above the tumult:
”The Lord is come with _power_! His hand is visible _here_. Shout _aloud_ and spare _not_. Fall before him as _dust_ to his feet!
Hypocrites, vipers, scoffers! the _lash_ o' the _Lord_ is on ye!”
In the intense pause which followed as he waited with expectant, uplifted face--a pause so deep even the sobbing sinners held their breath--a dry, drawling, utterly matter-of-fact voice broke the tense hush.
”S-a-y, Pill, ain't you a bearun' down on the boys a _leetle too_ hard?”
The preacher's extended arm fell as if life had gone out of it. His face flushed and paled; the people laughed hysterically, some of them the tears of terror still on their cheeks; but Radbourn said, ”Bravo, Bacon!”
Pill recovered himself.
”Not hard enough for _you_, neighbor Bacon.”
Bacon rose, retaining the same dry, prosaic tone:
”I ain't bitin' that kind of a hook, an' I ain't goin' to be _yanked_ into heaven when I c'n _slide_ into h.e.l.l. Waal! I must be goin'; I've got a new-milk's cow that needs tendin' to.”
The effect of all this was indescribable. From being at the very mouth of the furnace, quivering with fear and captive to morbid imaginings, Bacon's dry intonation had brought them all back to earth again. They saw a little of the absurdity of the whole situation.
Pill was beaten for the first time in his life. He had been struck below the belt by a good-natured giant. The best he could do, as Bacon shuffled calmly out, was to stammer: ”Will some one please sing?” And while they sang, he stood in deep thought. Just as the last verse was quivering into silence, the full, deep tones of Radbourn's voice rose above the bustle of feet and clatter of seats:
”And all _that_ he preaches in the name of Him who came bringing peace and good-will to men.”
Radbourn's tone had in it reproach and a n.o.ble suggestion. The people looked at him curiously. The deacons nodded their heads together in counsel, and when they turned to the desk Pill was gone!
”Gee whittaker! That was tough,” said Milton to Radbourn; ”knocked the wind out o' him like a cannon-ball. What'll he do now?
”He can't do anything but acknowledge his foolishness.”
”You no business t' come here an' 'sturb the Lord's meetin',” cried old Daddy Brown to Radbourn. ”You're a sinner and a scoffer.”
”I thought Bacon was the disturbing ele”----
”You're just as bad!”
”He's all _right_,” said William Councill. ”I've got sick, m'self, of bein' _scared_ into religion. I never was so fooled in a man in my life.
If I'd tell you what Pill said to me the other day, when we was in Robie's store, you'd fall in a fit. An' to hear him talkin' here t'night, is enough to make a horse laugh.”
”You're all in league with the devil,” said the old man wildly; and so the battle raged on.
Milton and Radbourn escaped from it, and got out into the clear, cold, untainted night.
”The heat of the furnace don't reach as far as the horses,” Radbourn moralized, as he aided in unhitching the s.h.i.+vering team. ”In the vast, calm s.p.a.ces of the stars, among the animals, such scenes as we have just seen are impossible.” He lifted his hand in a lofty gesture. The light fell on his pale face and dark eyes.
The girls were a little indignant and disposed to take the preacher's part. They thought Bacon had no right to speak out that way, and Miss Graham uttered her protest, as they whirled away on the homeward ride with pleasant jangle of bells.