Round Anvil Rock A Romance

VI

THE CAMP-​MEET­ING

As they turned and were rid­ing on to­ward the camp-​meet­ing, the doc­tor spoke of the priest and his horse. The boy lis­tened with the won­der­ing awe that most of us feel, when some stranger points out the hero­ism of a sim­ple soul or an ev­ery­day deed which we have known, un­know­ing­ly, all our lives.

“Fa­ther Orin and To­by are a pair to take your hat off to,” the young doc­tor said. “I have come to know them fair­ly well by this time, al­though I have not been here very long. It isn't nec­es­sary for any one to be long in the neigh­bor­hood be­fore find­ing out what those two are do­ing. And then my own work among the suf­fer­ing gives me many op­por­tu­ni­ties to know what they are do­ing and try­ing to do. The church side is on­ly one side of their good work. I am not a Catholic, and con­se­quent­ly see lit­tle of that side; but I meet them ev­ery­where con­stant­ly car­ing for the poor and the af­flict­ed with­out any re­gard for creed. And they nev­er have any mon­ey, worth speak­ing of, to help with. They have on­ly their time and their strength and their whole la­bo­ri­ous, self-​sac­ri­fic­ing lives to give. The ex­pe­di­ents that they re­sort to in a pinch would make any­body laugh--to keep from cry­ing. They were out the oth­er day with a brand-​new plan. They trav­elled about fifty miles through the wilder­ness try­ing to find a pur­chas­er for the new over­coat that a Methodist friend gives Fa­ther Orin ev­ery fall. He, of course, had giv­en his old coat to some shiv­er­ing wretch last spring while it was still cold, but that didn't make the slight­est dif­fer­ence. He didn't even re­mem­ber the fact till I re­mind­ed him of it. It is on­ly Oc­to­ber now--so that he can do with­out the over­coat--and a poor fel­low who has come with his wife and ba­by to live in that de­sert­ed cab­in near the court-​house, is in sore need of a horse for his fall plough­ing. Fa­ther Orin had sug­gest­ed To­by's draw­ing the plough, think­ing that some of his own work might be at­tend­ed to on foot. But To­by, it seems, drew the line at that. It was a treat to hear Fa­ther Orin laugh when he told how To­by made it plain that he thought there were more im­por­tant du­ties for him to per­form, how firm­ly he re­fused to drag the plough. He was quite will­ing, how­ev­er, to do his best to sell the over­coat, so that they might have mon­ey to hire a horse for the plough­ing.”

The doc­tor broke off sud­den­ly. The roar com­ing from the dark­ness around the swamp rose high on the gusty wind. He and David were now rid­ing fast, and the roar­ing grew rapid­ly more con­tin­uous and dis­tinct. The vast vol­ume of inar­tic­ulate sound present­ly be­gan to break in­to many hu­man voic­es. At last a sin­gle voice pierced all the rest. Its shrill cry of spir­itu­al an­guish filled the dark for­est with the wail­ing of a soul in ex­trem­ity.

“And it's a wom­an, too!” cried the doc­tor.

He spoke short­ly, al­most an­gri­ly, but some­thing in his tone told David that he al­so was shiv­er­ing, al­though the night was warm, and that his heart was full of pity. They were now draw­ing near the camp-​meet­ing, but they could not see it, nor even the light from it. They had reen­tered the for­est, which was here made dark­er and wilder by many fall­en trees, blown down and tossed to­geth­er by the fierce tem­pests which of­ten rent the swamp. The torn roots, the de­cay­ing trunks, and the shat­tered branch­es of the dead gi­ants of the an­cient wood, were dank with wa­ter-​moss. Rank poi­son vines writhed ev­ery­where, and crept like vipers be­yond the dead­ly bor­ders of the great Cy­press Swamp. Through such dark and tan­gled den­si­ty as this the smoky torch­es, burn­ing dim­ly around the camp, could cast their light but a lit­tle way. And thus it was by hear­ing and not by see­ing, that they came at last up­on the spot al­most by ac­ci­dent. They had scarce­ly got hur­ried­ly down from their hors­es, and hasti­ly tied them to a swing­ing bough when the scene burst up­on them--a wild vi­sion re­vealed by the dim flick­er­ing torch­light.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “A dark, con­fused ... writhing mass of hu­man­ity.”]

There was a long, low shed of vast ex­tent. It was cov­ered with rough boards, and up­held by tree-​trunks which still bore the bark. There was no floor oth­er than the bare earth, and there were no seats oth­er than un­hewn logs. Here, un­der the deep shad­ows of this great shed, all dark­ly shut in by the black wilder­ness and dim­ly lit by a wide cir­cle of smok­ing, flar­ing torch­es, there surged a dark, con­fused, con­vulsed, roar­ing, writhing mass of hu­man­ity. And there were many hun­dreds in that shad­owy mul­ti­tude--sway­ing, strug­gling, groan­ing, laugh­ing, weep­ing, shout­ing, pray­ing, danc­ing, leap­ing, and falling.

“It does not seem pos­si­ble that there can be so many in all the wilder­ness,” said the doc­tor. “But they come from long dis­tances, from as far as fifty and six­ty miles around. And they have been com­ing for weeks--day and night--just like this.”

He spoke sad­ly, and with deep feel­ing. He laid his firm, gen­tle hand on David's shak­ing arm, know­ing how the aw­ful spec­ta­cle must af­fect the sen­si­tive boy. David in­stinc­tive­ly drew near­er to his side feel­ing the sup­port of his calm, sane, strong pres­ence, and be­gan grad­ual­ly to see with clear­er eyes, so that this aw­ful vi­sion be­came by de­grees a more aw­ful re­al­ity.

“Lis­ten!” cried the doc­tor. “They are be­gin­ning to sing!”

Ah, lis­ten in­deed! For a stranger, wilder chant than this which now went swelling up from that fren­zied, sway­ing mass of hu­man­ity sure­ly nev­er stirred all that is most mys­ti­cal in the soul of man! Peal­ing grand­ly, aw­ful­ly up­ward through the star-​lit spaces of a grander tem­ple than ev­er was reared by hu­man hands, it rolled heav­en­ward, on and on, and high­er and high­er, to the very dome of the fir­ma­ment.

With the wild chant­ing, the mad­ness of the mul­ti­tude in­creased. Many men and wom­en--ay, and lit­tle chil­dren, too--all dropped to their knees, heed­less of be­ing trod­den un­der­foot by the un­fall­en fren­zied, and thus crept the length of the earth­en floor to the foot of the rude al­tar. Here, be­fore the pul­pit of rough-​hewn logs, great heaps of straw were strewn thick and broad­cast. On these straw heaps men and wom­en fell pros­trate side by side, and lay as if they were dead. Oth­ers, both men and wom­en, were sud­den­ly seized with the un­nat­ural, con­vul­sive jerk­ing which gave this mys­te­ri­ous vis­ita­tion its best-​known name. Un­der this dread­ful tremor the long hair of del­icate ladies poured un­no­ticed over the most mod­est shoul­ders and flew back and forth with the sound of a whip; for those so wild­ly wrought up­on were not sole­ly of the hum­ble and the ig­no­rant. The high­est and the most re­fined of the whole coun­try were there. The earth was strewn with cost­ly rai­ment. Gen­tle­men rent the fine ruf­fles from their wrists and their bo­soms; gen­tle­wom­en cast their rich­est or­na­ments to the winds. And all the while that this aw­ful, ma­jes­tic, soul-​stir­ring chant was thus mount­ing high­er and grow­ing wilder, many were whirling and danc­ing.

David shrunk back, and the doc­tor drew him clos­er to his side, as a man sud­den­ly burst out of the swirling mass of mad­dened hu­man­ity, and dashed past them in­to the for­est. There, still with­in the wide cir­cle of flar­ing, smok­ing, torch­light, the poor crea­ture threw his arms around a tree, and ut­ter­ing strange, sav­age cries like the bark­ing of a dog, he dashed his head against the tree-​trunk till the blood gushed out and poured down his ghast­ly face. David clung clos­er to the doc­tor's arm and turned his eyes away, feel­ing sick and faint with hor­ror.

“Don't look at him. Turn your head. I must go to him and help him if I can,” the doc­tor said, gen­tly loos­ing the boy's grasp. “I shouldn't have brought you here. But--Good God! Who is that?” he cried sharply. “Look! Quick! Do you know that girl? Over there by the last pil­lar--yon­der, yon­der, with her face turned this way!”

In his ea­ger­ness he seized the boy, fair­ly lift­ing him from the ground, and held him up so that he could see over all the heads of the surg­ing, swirling crowd. The girl was still there, and David rec­og­nized Ruth. She was stand­ing not far off and near the edge of the shed. Close be­hind her the torch­es threw out gloomy ban­ners of smoke and vivid stream­ers of flame, and against them she ap­peared a qui­et, white spir­it among many tossed dark shades. When David first saw her, he thought she was look­ing at him. But in an­oth­er mo­ment her beau­ti­ful face, which had been pale enough be­fore, turned as white as her frock and her large eyes widened with ter­ror. And then David knew that she was look­ing be­yond him and had seen the hor­ror by the tree. He for­got his own hor­ri­fied faint­ness, he for­got where he was, the doc­tor--ev­ery­thing but Ruth and that look in her dear face. He sprang to­ward her with a pierc­ing cry and out­stretched arms.

“Ruth!” he cried. “Here I am, Ruth, dear. I am com­ing to you. I'll take you away!”

It was a sin­gle voice raised against the deaf­en­ing roar of a hur­ri­cane. On­ly the doc­tor heard or heed­ed, and he laid a re­strain­ing hand on David's shoul­der.

“You are right,” he said. “Take her away as soon as you can. She should not have come. Is she your sis­ter? Come this way. We will go round,” he went on, with­out wait­ing for an an­swer. “We may be able to reach her from the oth­er side of the shed.”

The firm touch and calm tone part­ly brought the boy to him­self, and he fol­lowed as close­ly as he could, but on­ly to be beat­en back again and again. That ter­rif­ic chant was now at its high­est and wildest, and he and the doc­tor were caught in the hu­man mael­strom and swirled hith­er and thith­er like straws. They were swept far apart, and when they were quick­ly driv­en to­geth­er again, they had lost sight of Ruth. They were tossed once more, and thrown out­side the fiercest swirl. Stand­ing still, they held to a tree, gasp­ing, and searched the crowd with their gaze, try­ing to find her. She was nowhere to be seen. But while they thus paused, wait­ing for breath to go on, they saw a tall man near by, lean­ing against a pil­lar and qui­et­ly over­look­ing the wild scene. He stood with­in the cir­cle of torch­light, and they could see him dis­tinct­ly. Nei­ther the doc­tor nor David had ev­er seen him be­fore and nei­ther ev­er saw him again, but they nev­er for­got just how he looked that night.

He was a very tall man of more than six feet in height. He was very erect and very slen­der, with the slen­der­ness that gives a look of youth as well as grace. There was no tinge of gray in his tawny hair, which fell heav­ily back from his high, nar­row fore­head, with­out any of the stiff­ness seen in his lat­er por­traits. He was not more than thir­ty-​five years of age at this time, but his face was al­ready lined with care and trou­ble and ex­po­sure. It was nat­ural­ly pale and thin, al­most hag­gard. Its sole re­deem­ing fea­ture was the won­der­ful bril­liance of his blue eyes. The doc­tor and David could not see the col­or of his eyes, and yet he seemed to them a sin­gu­lar­ly hand­some man, as he did to al­most ev­ery one. There was some­thing about him that may be called a pres­ence, for lack of a bet­ter term, some­thing which drew the gaze of the crowd and held it ev­ery­where. Many eyes were up­on him that night in the very height and cen­tre of all the fren­zy. Glances were cast at him even from the pul­pit, which was not far away. One of the min­is­ter­ing preach­ers gave him a look of recog­ni­tion, and then, bend­ing down, whis­pered in the ear of an­oth­er preach­er, a very young man who stood be­low the pul­pit among the fall­en, ex­hort­ing them to re­pen­tance. The ex­hort­er shook off the whis­per­er and went on with his im­pas­sioned plea. He, too, was well worth look­ing at, and bet­ter worth lis­ten­ing to--this in­spired young back­woods­man, Pe­ter Cartwright. His swarthy face was pale with the pal­lor of fa­nati­cism, and his dark eyes were aflame with some mys­tic fire. His long black hair was wild­ly blown by the wind which bore his bro­ken words still more bro­ken­ly:--

“Such a time as this has not been seen since the day of Pen­te­cost.... A sa­cred flame is sure­ly sweep­ing sin from the earth.... Come all ye. Take up your cross and fol­low Him.... Heav­en's gate stands wide to-​night.... Praise the Lord!... Come in.... Come at once.... Do not de­lay--or the gate may close, nev­er to open again. Come! Come with me to the mer­cy seat. I was once like you. My soul, like yours, was rent in agony. I wept, I strove, I prayed, I was in ut­ter de­spair ... just as you are now.... Some­times it seemed as if I could al­most lay hold on the Saviour.... Then--all of a sud­den--such a fear of the dev­il fell up­on me that he ap­peared to stand right by my side ready to drag me down to hell. But I prayed on, and said, 'Lord if there be mer­cy for me, let me find it!' ... At last, in the midst of this aw­ful strug­gle of soul, I came to the foot of the al­tar--here--where I am beg­ging you to come.... And then it was as if a voice out of heav­en said to me, 'Thy sins are for­giv­en thee.' ... Glo­ry! Glo­ry! De­light flashed all around me. Joy un­speak­able sprung up in my soul. It seemed to me that I was al­ready in par­adise. The very trees, the very leaves on the trees, seemed to be singing to­geth­er and prais­ing God.... Will you share this di­vine peace with me? Will you come with me this night to the foot of the cross?... Then come now--now--for this may be the ac­cept­ed hour of your sal­va­tion.... Come.... If you wait, you are lost ... lost!”

But these sim­ple, bro­ken words are on­ly the cold and life­less echo of Pe­ter Cartwright's fiery, liv­ing elo­quence. Noth­ing can ev­er bring that back as it re­al­ly was. None may hope to tell those who nev­er heard him what it was like. No one, per­haps among the num­ber­less thou­sands who did hear him, ev­er knew what the pow­er was, by which this un­let­tered back­woods­man swayed mul­ti­tudes at his will. Per­haps David af­ter­ward de­scribed it as near­ly as any one could, when he said that the mere sound of Pe­ter Cartwright's voice that night--when he could not hear the words--made him feel so sor­ry, so grieved, so ashamed, that he want­ed to fall down on the earth and hide his face and weep like a wom­an, for his own sins and the sins of the whole world.

“There she is!” cried the doc­tor. “We can reach her now.”

But an­oth­er roar­ing wave of hu­man­ity dashed over them, sweep­ing them far­ther from Ruth and near­er the pul­pit. They were so near that they could see the fire that flashed over the pale dark­ness of the young preach­er's face as his broth­er preach­er bent down for the sec­ond time and touched him warn­ing­ly, and whis­pered again. Pe­ter Cartwright, who was still bend­ing over the men and wom­en ly­ing at his feet, sud­den­ly stood erect. He threw back his long black hair, and flung a flam­ing glance at the tall man lean­ing against the pil­lar. And then his voice rang out like a trum­pet call­ing to com­bat.

“What if it _is_ Gen­er­al Jack­son?” he cried. “What is An­drew Jack­son but a sin­ner, too? Let him come with the rest of these poor sin­ners to beg for par­don be­fore the throne of grace. And let him make haste--or a just and of­fend­ed God will pun­ish him as if he were the low­est of earth!”

The chal­lenge sound­ed clear and far. It must have reached the ears of An­drew Jack­son, the proud and feared hero of many bat­tles. No man liv­ing was more in­tol­er­ant of in­dig­ni­ty or quick­er to re­sent the slight­est af­front. An alarmed mur­mur cir­cled through all the tu­mult; the doc­tor and David heard it dis­tinct­ly, and turned with those about them to look at the man thus chal­lenged. But An­drew Jack­son him­self stood quite still and gave no sign that he had heard. He bare­ly bowed his head when a short, thick-​set man pressed through the crowd and touched his arm. The man was a hench­man of his, wide­ly and not fa­vor­ably known in the coun­try, a gam­bler and ad­ven­tur­er whose name was Tom­my Dye. He was lead­ing the gen­er­al's horse. There were a few words be­tween them, and then the tall fig­ure vault­ed in­to the sad­dle and dis­ap­peared in the sur­round­ing black­ness of the for­est.

“Now! Here she is. Quick!” cried the doc­tor.

So cry­ing, he plunged in­to the storm-​lashed sea of hu­man­ity like a strong swim­mer. The boy fol­lowed as well as he could, us­ing all his strength, but they were both dashed back again and again, till at last a wilder wave caught them up and cast them down be­side Ruth. In­stant­ly the doc­tor lift­ed her in his arms be­fore David found breath, and held her as light­ly as if she had been but a wreath of smoke blown across his breast. Hold­ing her thus, and lift­ing her high­er above those wild waves, he bore her through them as if they had been but rip­pling wa­ter. On and on he went to the bor­der of the for­est be­yond the tu­mult where the torch­light was bright­est, and there he gen­tly set her down. And then all alone they stood silent­ly look­ing at each oth­er. They were still gaz­ing down in­to one an­oth­er's faces, when the boy ran up, pant­ing. At the sight of him the won­der went out of Ruth's blue eyes, and the fright came back. The spell was bro­ken, and she re­mem­bered where she was.

“David! Come to me. Take me away!” she cried. “Oh, what a fear­ful place! I can nev­er for­get it while I live. Where is William? We were sep­arat­ed by the crowd.”

But even as she spoke, in tones that trem­bled with alarm, while yet her beau­ti­ful face was white and her blue eyes full of tears, there came one of the swift changes that gave her beau­ty its great­est charm. A vivid blush dyed her cheek, the long, wet lash­es sud­den­ly un­veiled a co­quet­tish glance, there was a daz­zling smile, her hands went up to put her blown hair in or­der, and she drew on the for­got­ten gyp­sy bon­net which was hang­ing by its strings on her arm. She drew clos­er to the boy, but she looked at the doc­tor over her shoul­der.

“Who is this gen­tle­man, David?” she fal­tered. “And how--”

Paul Col­bert spoke for him­self, telling her his name.

“I am a doc­tor--the new doc­tor of the neigh­bor­hood,” he said, adding with a smile, “I beg your par­don. There was no oth­er way. This young gen­tle­man--who came with me--saw you. We had been try­ing for an hour or more to reach you. We were afraid to lose the first chance to get you out of that dan­ger­ous crush.”

His voice was drowned by a sud­den roar which lift­ed the fren­zy high­er and brought it near­er. The col­or and smiles fled again from Ruth's face, and she clung to David in greater alarm.

“Take me home. Oh--oh--isn't it ter­ri­ble! I can't wait to find William. I must go now. I wouldn't be afraid to go alone with you, dear. Not in the least afraid. Take me--take me!”

“Come, then,” said David. “The pony's over here.”

“But I don't know where my horse is. I don't know where William tied it. I am so turned round that I don't know any­thing.” She was be­gin­ning to smile again at her own be­wil­der­ment.

“The pony can take us both,” said the boy.

She was turn­ing away with him when the doc­tor in­ter­fered with hes­itat­ing ea­ger­ness:--

“If you will per­mit me--I would sug­gest that your friend who came with you may be anx­ious. He will nat­ural­ly try to find you. Not know­ing that you are gone, he must be alarmed. If I knew him by sight, I could find him and tell him--”

Again his voice was lost in the ris­ing roar of the mul­ti­tude. The girl buried her face against the boy's shoul­der, shud­der­ing­ly and trem­bling, and burst in­to weep­ing.

“Tell me what to do, David! I can't bear this any longer,” she sobbed. “Take me away. Tell me what to do! Oh! Oh!” putting her shak­ing hands over her ears to shut out the dread­ful sounds.

The doc­tor touched her arm. “If you would al­low me to take you home, per­haps this young gen­tle­man could stay and find the per­son who came with you.” He turned quick­ly to the boy. “You know him?”

“Yes,” David replied un­will­ing­ly.

His heart had be­gun to beat high. Here was a bet­ter chance to prove him­self a man than he had dared hope for. And now this bold stranger was try­ing to rob him of it. He strug­gled with him­self for a mo­ment, be­fore he could give it up. But Ruth was cry­ing and trem­bling and cling­ing to him.

“I will find William,” he then said hasti­ly. “Let the doc­tor take you home.”

“But my horse is lost,” Ruth lift­ed her head from David's shoul­der and flashed a tear­ful, smil­ing glance at the doc­tor. “How can you take me?”

“Leave it to me,” Paul Col­bert said quick­ly, in the tone of a man used to meet­ing emer­gen­cies. “Come with me. I will find a way.”

It seemed to Ruth and David that he was one to find a way to what­ev­er he wished. They fol­lowed him like two chil­dren, to the spot where his horse was tied be­side the pony. He un­tied the bri­dle with the quick­ness of con­stant prac­tice, and sprang in­to the sad­dle with the ease of the prac­ticed horse­man. He threw the reins over the pom­mel, and then bend­ing down, held out his arms.

“Now!” he cried. “Give the young la­dy your hand for her foot!”

David hes­itat­ed, not un­der­stand­ing what he meant. It was the cus­tom for the wom­en of the wilder­ness to ride be­hind the men; but it was plain that this was not the young doc­tor's in­ten­tion. He sat far back in his large sad­dle, and when Ruth set her foot in the palm of David's hand, and flut­tered up­ward like a freed bird, he caught her and seat­ed her be­fore him. A word to his horse and they were away. He was hold­ing Ruth close to his breast, and her white gar­ments were blown about him, as they van­ished in the black wilder­ness.