Part 20

Lewis sat down and rested his head in his hands. "I have been a very wicked man, Morton, but I never committed a murder. I am guilty of complicity. I got tangled in the net of Micajah Harp's band. I helped them because they had a hold on me, and I was too weak to risk the consequences of breaking with them. That complicity has spoiled all my life. But the crimes they laid on Pinkey were mostly committed by others. Pinkey was a sort of ghost at whose doors all sins were laid."

"I must hurry home," said Patty. "I only stopped to shake hands," and she rose to go.

"Miss Lumsden," said Lewis, "you wanted me to destroy these lies. You shall have them to do what you like with. I wish you could take my sins, too."

Patty put the disguises into the fire. "Only God can take your sins," she said.

"Even he can't make me forget them," said Lewis, with bitterness.

Patty went home in anxiety. Lewis Goodwin seemed to have forgotten the resolution he had made as Pinkey to save Morton from Ann Eliza.

But Patty went home bravely and let thoughts of present duty crowd out thoughts of possible happiness. She bore the peculiar paternal greetings of her father; she installed herself at once, and began, like a good genius, to evolve order out of chaos. By the time evening arrived the place had come to know its mistress again.

CHAPTER XXXV.

PINKEY AND ANN ELIZA.

That evening, after dark, Morton and his Brother Lewis strolled into the woods together. It was not safe for Lewis to walk about in the day time. The law was on one side and the vengeance of Micajah Harp's band, perhaps, on the other. But in the twilight he told Morton something which interested the latter greatly, and which increased his gratitude to Lewis. That you may understand what this communication was, I must go back to an event that happened the week before--to the very last adventure that Lewis Goodwin had in his character of Pinkey.

Ann Eliza Meacham had been disappointed. She had ridden ten miles to Mount Tabor Church, one of Morton's principal appointments. No doubt Ann Eliza persuaded herself--she never had any trouble in persuading herself--that zeal for religious worship was the motive that impelled her to ride so far to church. But why, then, did she wish she had not come, when instead of the fine form and wavy locks of Brother Goodwin, she found in the pulpit only the located brother who was supplying his place in his absence at Kike's bedside? Why did she not go on to the afternoon appointment as she had intended? Certain it is that when Ann Eliza left that little log church--called Mount Tabor because it was built in a hollow, perhaps--she felt unaccountably depressed. She considered it a spiritual struggle, a veritable hand to hand conflict with Satan. She told the brethren and sisters that she must return home, she even declined to stay to dinner. She led the horse up to a log and sprang into the saddle, riding away toward home as rapidly as the awkward old natural pacer would carry her. She was vexed that Morton should stay away from his appointments on this part of his circuit to see anybody die. He might know that it would be a disappointment to her. She satisfied herself, however, by picturing to her own imagination the half-coldness with which she would treat Brother Goodwin when she should meet him. She inly rehearsed the scene. But with most people there is a more secret self, kept secret even from themselves. And in her more secret self, Ann Eliza knew that she would not dare treat Brother Goodwin coolly. She had a sense of insecurity in her hold upon him.

Riding thus through the great forests of beech and maple Ann Eliza had reached Cherry Run, only half a mile from her aunt's house, and the old horse, scenting the liberty and green grass of the pasture ahead of him, had quickened his pace after crossing the "run," when what should she see ahead but a man in wolf-skin cap and long whiskers. She had heard of Pinkey, the highwayman, and surely this must be he. Her heart fluttered, she reined her horse, and the highwayman advanced.

"I haven't anything to give you. What do you want?"

"I don't want anything but to persuade you to do your duty," he said, seating himself by the side of the trail on a stump.

[Illustration: AN ACCUSING MEMORY.]

"Let me go on," said Miss Meacham, frightened, starting her horse.

"Not yet," said Pinkey, seizing the bridle, "I want to talk to you." And he sat down again, holding fast to her bridle-rein.

"What is it?" asked Ann Eliza, subdued by a sense of helplessness.

"Do you think, Sister Meacham," he said in a canting tone, "that you are doing just right? Is not there something in your life that is wrong? With all your praying, and singing, and shouting, you are a wicked woman."

Ann Eliza's resentment now took fire. "Who are you, that talk in this way? You are a robber, and you know it! If you don't repent you will be lost! Seek religion now. You will soon sin away your day of grace, and what an awful eternity--"

Miss Meacham had fallen into this hortatory vein, partly because it was habitual with her, and consequently easier in a moment of confusion than any other, and partly because it was her forte and she thought that these earnest and pathetic exhortations were her best weapons. But when she reached the words "awful eternity," Pinkey cried out sneeringly:

"Hold up, Ann Eliza! You don't run over me that way. I'm bad enough, God knows, and I'm afraid I shall find my way to hell some day. But if I do I expect to give you a civil good morning on my arrival, or welcome you if you get there after I do. You see I know all about you, and it's no use for you to glory-hallelujah me."

Ann Eliza did not think of anything appropriate to the occasion, and so she remained silent.

"I hear you have got young Goodwin on your hooks, now, and that you mean to marry him against his will. Is that so?"

"No, it isn't. He proposed to me himself."

"O, yes! I suppose he did. You made him!"

"I didn't."

"I suppose not. You never did. Not even in Pennsylvania. How about young Harlow? Who made him?"

Ann Eliza changed color. "Who are you?" she asked.

"And that fellow with dark hair, what's his name? The one you danced with down at Stevens's one night."

"What do you bring up all my old sins for?" asked Ann Eliza, weeping. "You know I have repented of all of them, and now that I am trying to lead a new life, and now that God has forgiven my sins and let me see the light of his reconciled countenance----"

"Stop, Ann Eliza," broke out Pinkey. "You sha'n't glory-hallelujah me in that style, confound you! Maybe God has forgiven you for driving Harlow to drink himself into tremens and the grave, and for sending that other fellow to the devil, and for that other thing, you know. You wouldn't like me to mention it. You've got a very pretty face, Ann Eliza,--you know you have. But Brother Goodwin don't love you. You entangled him; you know you did. Has God forgiven you for that, yet? Don't you think you'd better go to the mourners' bench next time yourself, instead of talking to the mourners as if you were an angel? Come, Ann Eliza, look at yourself and see if you can sing glory-hallelujah. Hey?"

"Let me go," plead the young woman, in terror.

"Not yet, you angelic creature. Now that I come to think of it, piety suits your style of feature. Ann Eliza, I want to ask you one question before we part, to meet down below, perhaps. If you are so pious, why can't you be honest? Why can't you tell Preacher Goodwin what you left Pennsylvania for? Why the devil don't you let him know beforehand what sort of a horse he's getting when he invests in you? Is it pious to cheat a man into marrying you, when you know he wouldn't do it if he knew the whole truth? Come now, you talk a good deal about the 'bar of God,' what do you think will become of such a swindle as you are, at the bar of God?"

"You are a wicked man," cried she, "to bring up the sins that I have put behind my back. Why should I talk with--with Brother Goodwin or anybody about them?"

For Ann Eliza always quieted her conscience by reasoning that God's forgiveness had made the unpleasant facts of her life as though they were not. It was very unpleasant, when she had put down her memory entirely upon certain points, to have it march up to her from without, wearing a wolf-skin cap and false whiskers, and speaking about the most disagreeable subjects.

"Ann Eliza, I thought maybe you had a conscience, but you don't seem to have any. You are totally depraved, I believe, if you do love to sing and shout and pray. Now, when a preacher cannot get a man to be good by talking at his conscience, he talks damnation to him. But you think you have managed to get round on the blind side of God, and I don't suppose you are afraid of hell itself. So, as conscience and perdition won't touch you, I'll try something else. You are going to write a note to Preacher Goodwin and let him off. I am going to carry it."

"I won't write any such a note, if you shoot me!"

"You aren't afraid of gunpowder. You think you'd sail into heaven straight, by virtue of your experiences. I am not going to shoot you, but here is a pencil and a piece of paper. You may write to Goodwin, or I shall. If I write I will put down a truthful history of all Ann Eliza Meacham's life, and I shall be quite particular to tell him why you left Pennsylvania and came out here to evangelize the wilderness, and play the mischief with your heavenly blue eyes. But, if you write, I'll keep still."

"I'll write, then," she said, in trepidation.

"You'll write now, honey," replied her mysterious tormentor, leading the horse up to the stump.

Ann Eliza dismounted, sat down and took the pencil. Her ingenious mind immediately set itself to devising some way by which she might satisfy the man who was so strangely acquainted with her life, and yet keep a sort of hold upon the young preacher. But the man stood behind her and said, as she began, "Now write what I say. I don't care how you open. Call him any sweet name you please. But you'd better say 'Dear Sir.'"

Ann Eliza wrote: "Dear Sir."

"Now say: 'The engagement between us is broken off. It is my fault, not yours.'"

"I won't write that."

"Yes, you will, my pious friend. Now, Ann Eliza, you've got a nice face; when a man once gets in love with you he can't quite get out. I suppose I will feel tender toward you when we meet to part no more, down below. I was in love with you once."

"Who are you?"

"O, that don't matter! I was going to say that if I hadn't been in love with your blue eyes once I wouldn't have taken the trouble to come forty miles to get you to write this letter. I was only a mile away from Brother Goodwin, as you call him, when I heard that you had victimized him. I could have sent him a note. I came over here to save you from the ruin you deserve. I would have told him more than the people in Pennsylvania ever knew. Come, my dear, scribble away as I say, or I will tell him and everybody else what will take the music out of your love-feast speeches in all this country."

With a tremulous hand Ann Eliza wrote, reflecting that she could send another note after this and tell Brother Goodwin that a highwayman who entertained an insane love for her had met her in a lonely spot and extorted this from her. She handed the note to Pinkey.

"Now, Ann Eliza, you'd better ask God to forgive this sin, too. You may pray and shout till you die. I'll never say anything--unless you open communication with preacher Goodwin again. Do that, and I'll blow you sky-high."

"You are cruel, and wicked, and mean, and--"

"Come, Ann Eliza, you used to call me sweeter names than that, and you don't look half so fascinating when you're mad as when you are talking heavenly. Good by, Miss Meacham." And with that Pinkey went into a thicket and brought forth his own horse and rode away, not on the road but through the woods.

If Ann Eliza could have guessed which one of her many lovers this might be she would have set about forming some plan for circumventing him. But the mystery was too much for her. She sincerely loved Morton, and the bitter cup she had given to others had now come back to her own lips. And with it came a little humility. She could not again forget her early sins so totally. She looked to see them start out of the bushes by the wayside at her.

After this recital it is not necessary that I should tell you what Lewis Goodwin told his brother that night as they strolled in the woods.

At midnight Lewis left home, where he could not stay longer with safety. The war with Great Britain had broken out and he joined the army at Chillicothe under his own name, which was his best disguise. He was wounded at Lundy's Lane, and wrote home that he was trying to wipe the stain off his name. He afterward moved West and led an honest life, but the memory of his wild youth never ceased to give him pain. Indeed nothing is so dangerous to a reformed sinner as forgetfulness.

_CHAPTER XXXVI._

GETTING THE ANSWER.

When Patty went down to strain the milk on the morning after her return, the hope of some deliverance through Lewis Goodwin had well-nigh died out. If he had had anything to communicate, Morton would not have delayed so long to come to see her. But, standing there as of old, in the moss-covered spring-house, she was, in spite of herself, dreaming dreams of Morton, and wondering whether she could have misunderstood the hint that Lewis Goodwin, while he was yet Pinkey, had dropped. By the time the first crock was filled with milk and adjusted to its place in the cold current, she had recalled that morning of nearly three years before, when she had resolved to forsake father and mother and cleave to Morton; by the time the second crock had been neatly covered with its clean block she thought she could almost hear him, as she had heard him singing on that morning:

"Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear, Thou'rt to love and heaven sae dear, Nocht of ill may come thee near, My bonnie dearie."

Both she and Morton had long since, in accordance with the Book of Discipline, given up "singing those songs that do not tend to the glory of God," but she felt a longing to hear Morton's voice again, assuring her of his strong protection, as it had on that morning three years ago. Meanwhile, she had filled all the crocks, and now turned to pass out of the low door when she saw, standing there as he had stood on that other morning, Morton Goodwin. He was more manly, more self-contained, than then. Years of discipline had ripened them both. He stepped back and let her emerge into the light; he handed her that note which Pinkey had dictated to Ann Eliza, and which Patty read:

"REV. MORTON GOODWIN:

"Dear Sir--The engagement between us is broken off. It is my fault and not yours.

"ANN E. MEACHAM."

"It must have cost her a great deal," said Patty, in pity. Morton loved her better for her first unselfish thought.

[Illustration: AT THE SPRING-HOUSE AGAIN.]

He told her frankly the history of the engagement; and then he and Patty sat and talked in a happiness so great that it made them quiet, until some one came to call her, when Morton walked up to the house to renew his acquaintance with the invalid and mollified Captain Lumsden.

"Faix, Moirton," said Brady, afterward, when he came to understand how matters stood, "you've got the answer in the book. It's quare enough. Now, 'one and one is two' is aisy enough, but 'one and one is one' makes the hardest sum iver given to anybody. You've got it, and I'm glad of it. May ye niver conjugate the varb 'to love' anyways excipt prisent tinse, indicative mood, first parson, plural number, 'we love.' I don't keer ef ye add the futur' tinse, and say, 'we will love,' nor ef ye put in the parfect and say, 'we have loved,' but may ye always stick fast to first parson, plural number, prisint tinse, indicative mood, active v'ice!"

Morton returned to Jenkinsville circuit in some trepidation. He feared that the old brethren would blame him more than ever. But this time he found himself the object of much sympathy. Ann Eliza had forestalled all gossip by renewing her engagement with the very willing Bob Holston, who chuckled a great deal to think how he had "cut out" the preacher, after all. And when Brother Magruder came to understand that he had not understood Morton's case at all, and to understand that he never should be able to understand it, he thought to atone for any mistake he might have made by advising the bishop to send Brother Goodwin to the circuit that included Hissawachee. And Morton liked the appointment better than Magruder had expected. Instead of living with his mother, as became a dutiful son, he soon installed himself for the year at the house of Captain Lumsden, in the double capacity of general supervisor of the moribund man's affairs and son-in-law.

There rise before me, as I write these last lines, visions of circuits and stations of which Morton was afterward the preacher-in-charge, and of districts of which he came to be presiding elder. Are not all of these written in the Book of the Minutes of the Conferences? But the silent and unobtrusive heroism of Patty and her brave and life-long sacrifices are recorded nowhere but in the Book of God's Remembrance.

THE END.