Nathaniel blushed at his ignorance and looked timidly at his protector.
"Nay, he knows naught of your painter"s gibberish. Give him a crayon and a bit of white bark and see can he make my picture. I"ll lean my head back and fold my hands to sleep."
In the long sunny quiet that followed, the old man really slipped away into a light doze, from which he was awakened by a loud shout from LeMaury. The Frenchman had sprung upon Nathaniel and was kissing his cheeks, which were now crimson with excitement. "Oh, it is Giotto come back again. He shall be anything--Watteau."
Nathaniel broke away and ran toward the old man, his eyes blazing with hope.
"What does he mean?" he demanded.
"He means that you"re to be a painter and naught else, though how a man can choose to daub paint when there are swords to be carried--well, well,"
he pulled himself painfully to his feet, wincing at gouty twinges, "I will go and see your father about--"
"_Mais, Colonel Hall, dites_! How can I arrange not to lose this pearl among artists?"
At the name, for he had not understood the t.i.tle before, p.r.o.nounced as it was in French, the boy fell back in horrified recognition. "Oh! you are Colonel Gideon Hall!"
"Aye, lad, who else?" The old soldier swung himself up to the saddle, groaning, "Oh, d.a.m.n that wet ground! I fear I cannot sit the nag home."
"But then you are the enemy of G.o.d--the chosen one of Beelzebub----"
"Do they call me _that_ in polite and pious Hillsboro?"
The Frenchman broke in, impatient of this incomprehensible talk. "See, boy, you--Everett--I go back to France now soon. I lie next Friday night at Woodburn. If you come to me there we will go together to France--to Paris--you will be the great artist----"
He was silenced by a gesture from the colonel, who now sat very straight on his horse and beckoned to Nathaniel. The boy came timorously. "You have heard lies about me, Everett. Be man enough to trust your own heart." He broke into a half-sad little laugh at Nathaniel"s face of fascinated repulsion.
"You can laugh now," whispered the boy, close at his knee, "but when you come to die? Why, even my father trembles at the thought of death. Oh, if I could but believe you!"
"Faugh! To fear death when one has done his best!"
He had turned his horse"s head, but Nathaniel called after him, bringing out the awful words with an effort. "But they say--that you do not believe in G.o.d."
The colonel laughed again. "Why, lad, I"m the only man in this d.a.m.n town who does." He put his horse into a trot and left Nathaniel under the birch-trees, the sun high over his head, the bag of salt forgotten at his feet.
IV
A little before sundown the next day the minister strode into his house, caught up his Bible, and called to his wife, "Deborah, the Lord hath answered me in my trouble. Call Nathaniel and bring him after me to the house of Gideon Hall."
Mistress Everett fell back, her hand at her heart, "To _that_ house?"
"Aye, even there. He lieth at the point of death. So are the wicked brought into desolation. Yesterday, as he rode in the wood, his horse cast him down so that it is thought he may not live till dark. I am sent for by his pious sisters to wrestle with him in prayer. Oh, Deborah, now is the time to strike the last blow for the salvation of our son. Let him see how the devil carries off the transgressor into the fires of h.e.l.l, or let him see how, at the last, the proudest must make confession of his wicked unbelief----"
He hurled himself through the door like a javelin, while his wife turned to explain to Nathaniel the reason for the minister"s putting on his Sabbath voice of a week-day morning. He cried out miserably, "Oh, mother, _don"t_ make me go there!"
"Nay, Nathaniel, there is naught new. You have been with us before to many a sickbed and seen many a righteous death. This is an ill man, whose terrors at the reward of his unbelief will be like goodly medicine to your sick soul, and teach you to lay hold on righteousness while there is yet time."
"But, mother, my Uncle Elzaphan said--I asked him this morning about Colonel Hall--that he had done naught but good to all men, that he had fought bravely with French and Indians, that the poor had half of his goods, that--"
She took him by the hand and dragged him relentlessly out upon the street.
"Your Uncle Elzaphan is a man of no understanding, and does not know that the devil has no more subtile lure than a man who does good works but who is not of the true faith. Aye, he maketh a worse confusion to the simple than he who worketh iniquity by noonday."
She led him through the village street, through a long curving lane where he had never been before, and down an avenue of maple-trees to a house at which he had always been forbidden even to look. Various of the neighbor women were hurrying along in the same direction. As they filed up the stairs he trembled to hear his father"s voice already raised in the terrible tones of one of his inspired hours. At the entrance to the sick chamber he clung for a moment to the door, gazing at the wild-eyed women who knelt about the room, their frightened eyes fixed on his father. His knees shook under him. He had a qualm of nausea at the slimy images of corruption and decay which the minister was trumpeting forth as the end to all earthly pride.
His mother pushed him inexorably forward into the room, and then, across the nightmare of frenzy, he met the calm gaze of the dying man. It was the turning-point of his life.
He ran to the bed, falling on his knees, clasping the great knotty hand and searching the eyes which were turned upon him, gently smiling. The minister, well pleased with this evidence of his son"s emotion, caught his breath for another flight of eloquence which should sear and blast the pretensions of good works as opposed to the true faith. "See how low the Lord layeth the man who thinks to bargain with the Almighty, and to ransom his soul from h.e.l.l by deeds which are like dust and ashes to Jehovah."
Nathaniel crept closer and whispered under cover of his father"s thunderings, "Oh, you are truly not afraid?"
The dying man looked at him, his eyes as steady as when they were in the woods. "Nay, little comrade, it is all a part of life."
After that he seemed to sink into partial unconsciousness. Nathaniel felt his hand grow colder, but he still held it, grasping it more tightly when he felt the fumes of his father"s reeking eloquence mount to his brain.
The women were all sobbing aloud. A young girl was writhing on the floor, her groans stifled by her mother"s hand. The air of the room was stifling with hysteria. The old sister of the dying man called out, "Oh, quick, Master Everett. He is going. Exhort him now to give us some token that at the last he repents of his unbelief."
The minister whirled about, shaking with his own violence. The sweat was running down his face. "Gideon Hall, I charge you to say if you repent of your sins."
There was a pause. The silence was suffocating.
The old man gradually aroused himself from his torpor, although he did not open his eyes. "Aye, truly I repent me of my sins," he whispered mildly, "for any unkindness done to any man, or----"
The minister broke in, his voice mounting shrilly, "Nay, not so, thou subtle mocker. Dost thou repent thee of thy unbelief in the true faith?"
Colonel Gideon Hall opened his eyes. He turned his head slowly on the pillow until he faced the preacher, and at the sight of his terrible eyes and ecstatic pallor he began to laugh whimsically, as he had laughed in the wood with Nathaniel. "Why, man, I thought you did but frighten women with it--not yourself too. Nay, do not trouble about me. _I_ don"t believe in your d.a.m.ned little h.e.l.l."
The smile on his face gradually died away into a still serenity, which was there later, when the minister lifted his son away from the dead man"s bed.
V
The four old men walked st.u.r.dily forward with their burden, although at intervals they slipped their tall staves under the corners and rested, wiping their foreheads and breathing hard. As they stood thus silent, where the road pa.s.sed through a thicket of sumac, a boy came rapidly around the curve and was upon them before he saw that he was not alone.
He stopped short and made a guilty motion to hide a bundle that he carried. The old men stared at him, and rea.s.sured by this absence of recognition he advanced slowly, looking curiously at the great scarlet flag which hung in heavy folds from their burden.
"Is this the road to Woodburn?" he asked them.
"Aye," they answered briefly.
He had almost pa.s.sed them when he stopped again, drawing in his breath.
"Oh, are you--is this Colonel--"
"Aye, lad," said the oldest of the bearers, "this is the funeral procession of the best commander and truest man who ever lived."