The Hallam Succession, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [desktop ebook reader .txt] 📗

the piazza steps, or peeping through the railings. He was dressed in buckskin and blue flannel, and at first sight had a most unclerical look. But the moment he lifted, his face Elizabeth saw what a clear, noble soul looked out from the small twinkling orbs beneath his large brows. And as he grew excited in the evening's conversation, his muscles nerved, his body straightened, and he became the wiry, knotted embodiment of calm power and determination.

"We expected you two weeks ago," said John to him.

"There was work laid out for me I hadn't calculated on, John. Bowie's men were hard up for fresh meat, and I lent them my rifle a few days. Then the Indians bothered me. They were hanging around Saledo settlement in a way I didn't like, so I watched them until I was about sure of their next dirty trick. It happened to be a thieving one on the Zavala ranche, so I let Zavala know, and then rode on to tell Granger he'd better send a few boys to keep them red-handed Comanche from picking and stealing and murdering."

"It was just like you. You probably saved many lives."

"Saving life is often saving souls, John. Next time I go that way every man at Zavala's ranche and every man in Granger's camp will listen to me. I shall then have a greater danger than red men to tell them of. But they know both my rifle and my words are true, and when I say to them, 'Boys, there's hell and heaven right in your path, and your next step may plunge you into the fiery gulf, or open to you the golden gates,' they'll listen to me, and they'll believe me. John, it takes a soldier to preach to soldiers, and a saved sinner to know how to save other sinners."

"And if report is not unjust," said Richard, "you will find plenty of great sinners in such circuits as you take."

"Sir, you'll find sinners, great sinners, everywhere. I acknowledge that Texas has been made a kind of receptacle for men too wicked to live among their fellows. I often come upon these wild, carrion jail-birds. I know them a hundred yards off. It is a great thing, every way, that they come here. God be thanked! Texas has nothing to fear from them. In the first place, though the atmosphere of crime is polluting in a large city, it infects nobody here. I tell you, sir, the murderer on a Texas prairie is miserable. There is nothing so terrible to him as this freedom and loneliness, in which he is always in the company of his outraged conscience, which drives him hither and thither, and gives him no rest. For I tell you, that murderers don't willingly meet together, not even over the whisky bottle. They know each other, and shun each other. Well, sir, this subject touches me warmly at present, for I am just come from the death-bed of such a man. I have been with him three days. You remember Bob Black, John?"

"Yes. A man who seldom spoke, and whom no one liked. A good soldier, though. I don't believe he knew the meaning of fear."

"Didn't he? I have seen him sweat with terror. He has come to me more dead than alive, clung to my arms like a child, begged me to stand between him and the shapes that followed him."

"Drunk?"

"No, sir. I don't think he ever tasted liquor; but he was a haunted man! He had been a sixfold murderer, and his victims made life a terror to him."

"How do you account for that?"

"We have a spiritual body, and we have a natural body. When it pleases the Almighty, he opens the eyes and ears of our spiritual body, either for comfort, or advice, or punishment. This criminal saw things and heard words no mortal eyes have perceived, nor mortal ears understood. The man was haunted: I cannot doubt it."

"I believe what you say," said Elizabeth, solemnly, "for I have heard, and I have seen."

"And so have I," said the preacher, in a kind of rapture. "When I lay sleeping on the St. Mark's one night, I felt the thrill of a mighty touch, and I heard, with my spiritual ears, words which no mortal lips uttered; and I rose swiftly, and saved my life from the Comanche by the skin of my teeth. And another night, as I rode over the Maverick prairie, when it was knee-deep in grass and flowers, and the stars were gathering one by one with a holy air into the house of God, I could not restrain myself, and I sang aloud for joy! Then, suddenly, there seemed to be all around me a happy company, and my spiritual ears were opened, and I heard a melody beyond the voices of earth, and I was not ashamed in it of my little human note of praise. I tell you, death only sets us face to face with Him who is not very far from us at any time."

"And Bob is dead?"

"Yes; and I believe he is saved."

No one spoke; and the preacher, after a minute's silence, asked, "Who doubts?"

"A sixfold murderer, you said?"

"Nay, nay, John; are you going to limit the grace of God? Do you know the height and depth of his mercy? Have you measured the length and breadth of the cross? I brought the cross of Christ to that fiend-haunted bed, and the wretched soul clasped it, clung to it, yes, climbed up by it into heaven!"

"It was peace at last, then?" said Phyllis.

"It was triumph! The devil lost all power to torture him; for, with the sweet assurance of his forgiveness came the peace that passeth understanding. What is there for great criminals? Only the cross of Christ? O the miracle of love, that found out for us such an escape!"

"And you think that the man really believed himself to be forgiven by God?"

"I am sure that he knew he was forgiven."

"It is wonderful. Why, then, do not all Christians have this knowledge?"

"It is their privilege to have it; but how few of us have that royal nature which claims all our rights! The cross of Christ! There are still Jewish minds to whom it is a stumbling-block; and still more minds of the Greek type to whom it is foolishness."

"But is not this doctrine specially a Methodist one?"

"If St. Paul was a Methodist, and St. Augustine, and Martin Luther, and the millions of saved men, to whom God has counted 'faith' in his word and mercy 'for righteousness,' then it is specially Methodist. What says the Lord? 'Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' I do not say but what there are many good men without this assurance; but I do say, that it is the privilege of all who love and believe God. John Wesley himself did not experience this joy until he heard the Moravian, Peter Bohler, preach. 'Before that,' he says, 'I was a servant of God, accepted and safe, but now I _knew it_.'"

Elizabeth did not again reply. She sat very still, her hand clasped in that of Phyllis, whose head was leaning upon her breast. And very frequently she glanced down at the pale, spiritual face with its luminous dark eyes and sweet mouth. For Phyllis had to perfection that lovely, womanly charm, which puts itself _en rapport_ with every mood, and yet only offers the sympathy of a sensitive silence and an answering face.

As the women sat musing the moon rose, and then up sprang the night breeze, laden with the perfume of bleaching grass, and all the hot, sweet scents of the south.

"How beautiful is this land!" said Richard, in an enthusiasm. "What a pity the rabble of other lands cannot be kept out of it!"

The preacher lifted his head with a quick belligerent motion: "There is no such thing, as rabble, sir. For the meanest soul Christ paid down his precious blood. What you call 'rabble' are the builders of kingdoms and nationalities."

"Yes," said John, "I dare say if we could see the fine fellows who fought at Hastings, and those who afterward forced Magna Charta from King John without the poetic veil of seven hundred years, we should be very apt to call them 'rabble' also. Give the founders of Texas the same time, and they may also have a halo round their heads. Was not Rome founded by robbers, and Great Britain by pirates?"

"There is work for every man, and men for every work. These 'rabble,' under proper leaders, were used by the Almighty for a grand purpose-- the redemption of this fair land, and his handful of people in it, from the thrall of the priests of Rome. Would such men as the Livingstons, the Carrolls, the Renselaers, or the wealthy citizens of Philadelphia or Washington have come here and fought Indians and Mexicans; and been driven about from pillar to post, living on potatoes and dry corn? Good respectable people suffer a great deal of tyranny ere they put their property in danger. But when Texas, in her desperation, rose, she was glad of the men with a brand on their body and a rope round their neck, and who did not value their lives more than an empty nut-shell. They did good service. Many of them won back fair names and men's respect and God's love. I call no man 'rabble.' I know that many of these outcasts thanked God for an opportunity to offer their lives for the general good," and, he added dropping his voice almost to a whisper, "I know of instances where the sacrifice was accepted, and assurance of that acceptance granted."

"The fight for freedom seems to be a never-ending one."

"Because," said the preacher, "Man was created free. Freedom is his birthright, even though he be born in a prison, and in chains. Hence, the noblest men are not satisfied with physical and political freedom; they must also be free men in Christ Jesus; for let me tell you, if men are slaves to sin and the devil, not all the Magna Chartas, nor all the swords in the world, can make them truly free."

And thus they talked until the moon set and the last light was out in the cabins, and the 'after midnight' feeling became plainly evident. Then Phyllis brought out a dish that looked very like walnut shells, but which all welcomed. They were preserved bears' paws. "Eat," she said, "for though it is the last hour we may meet in this life, we must sleep now."

And the Texan luxury was eaten with many a pleasant word, and then, with kind and solemn 'farewells,' the little party separated, never in all the years of earth to sit together again; for just at daylight, John and Phyllis stood at their gates, watching the carriage which carried Richard and Elizabeth pass over the hill, and into the timber, and out of sight.


CHAPTER XI.

"The evening of life brings with it its lamp."--TOUBERT.

"And there arrives a lull in the hot race:
And an unwonted calm pervades the breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea, where it goes."--ARNOLD

"She