University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

“What upon earth does this mean?” said Colonel
Robinson.

“It means,” said Balcombe, “fraud, perjury, and
suppression of a will. It means that my young
friend here is Mr. Napier, grandson and heir at
law of the friend and patron of my youth, Mr.
Raby of Barnard's Castle in the county of Northumberland,
Virginia; and that he has been defrauded
of that splendid inheritance by the knavery
of that scoundrel, in combination with another, by
whom he has been bribed. It means that I am
determined to see him righted and to restore him
to the home of his ancestors, and that I will `neither
give rest to my eyes nor slumber to my eye
lids,' till I have accomplished this. But come,

William, the game's afoot, and we must not slacken
our pursuit; let us see what comes next.”

“I am afraid,” said I, “that the fierceness of
your assault may put the fellow to flight, and that
we may have to run him down, before we can bring
him to action again.”

“You say true,” said Balcombe; “we must
guard against that.” He reflected a moment, and
then said, “That will do; it will answer a double
purpose. Come, William, we must take a walk.”

We went out, and I asked what he proposed
to do.

“Ascertain whether Montague will take to his
heels; and if he does, pursue him, and bring him
back.”

“Bring him back!” said I. “By what means?”

“By means he cannot resist,” replied Balcombe.

“I do not understand you,” said I.

“Do you not? Have you not seen that with
my eye upon him he is helpless as a charmed
bird? I could lead him to Virginia, and lock him
up in the penitentiary, if I could travel so far without
sleeping. But I forget myself.”

He put his whistle to his mouth and sounded a
succession of notes, as if carelessly. Nothing
could seem less like a signal; but I observed, that,
as he repeated the use of the instrument, several
times during the walk, he uniformly sounded the
same notes.

“What does that mean?” said I.

“It is a hint to Keizer to fall in with me, as if

by chance. John is not far off, and a ramble of
half an hour will hardly fail to bring us within
hearing.”

As he predicted, so it proved. We soon met
with Keizer, when Balcombe asked if he knew
Mr. Jones.

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Have you any business with him?”

“I can make some, sir.”

“Do you know Montague?”

“Oh, I know him mighty well, sir.”

“Have you any business with him?”

“None just now, sir; but he is always glad to
see me, for he is always getting me to do something
for him.”

“Well, he is at Jones's. I must see him before
he quits the neighbourhood, and you must find out
whether he means to stay to the campmeeting.
If so, I want to know it. If you find out that he
is going away, you must tell me directly, and let
me know which way he is going. Does he know
you to be my friend?”

“I reckon not, sir; he lives too far off.”

“Then don't let him find it out. Now fork off
at the next path. You and I must be strangers
for a while; and mark this, John: if Montague
talks of employing you in any way, you must be
ready to do anything for him; and if he wants you
to cut my throat, you must undertake it.”

“I understand you, sir. Good-morning.”

We now returned to the house, and spent a gay

and happy evening. Balcombe's spirits were most
exuberant; and he rattled on, from topic to topic,
so amusingly, that bedtime came before I thought
of it. John did not appear; and we inferred that
Montague, fearing to betray himself by precipitate
flight, had determined to remain where he was.
In the morning Keizer came and told us that Montague
had been in the fidgets all the evening; had
talked of going away; and had only been restrained
by the earnest expostulations of Jones.
His pleas of business were all overruled by allusions
to those whose private affairs detained them
from the marriage supper, and he saw that he
might lose character by going away; he had therefore
determined to stay.

About noon we all went to the campmeeting.
Such things were not known in the part of the
country where I lived; and I almost forgot the
interesting condition of my affairs in the novelty of
the scene.

In the bosom of a vast forest, a piece of ground,
nearly an acre in extent, and in form almost a
square, was enclosed on three sides by a sort of
shed, sloping outward, and boarded up on the outside.
This was divided into something like stalls,
separated from each other and closed in front by
counterpanes, blankets, and sheets, disposed as
curtains. Some of these were thrown up, and
within we saw coarse tables, stools, and preparations
for eating and sleeping, such as piles of straw,
beds tied up in bundles with bedclothes, knives and

forks, plates, porringers, and platters, loaves of
bread, skimmed-milk cheeses, jirked meat, hams,
tongues, and cold fowls. Children and dogs were
nestling in the straw, and mothers sat on stools
nursing their infants. The whole centre of the
area was occupied by hewn logs, placed in extended
parallel lines, with the ends resting on other
transverse logs, so as to form rows of rude benches.
On these were seated a promiscuous multitude, of
every age, sex, condition, and hue; crowded
densely towards the front, and gradually thinning
in the rear, where some seats were nearly vacant,
or partially occupied by lounging youngsters,
chatting, smoking, and giggling, and displaying,
both in dress and manner, a disposition to ape the
foppery and impertinence of fashion. Of this, indeed,
they saw so little in these remote wilds, that
the imitation was of course awkward, but none the
less unequivocal.

At the open end of the area was the stand, as it
is called. This was formed by raising a pen of
logs to a convenient height, over which a platform
of loose planks was laid, surmounted by a shelter
to keep off the sun and rain. The platform was
large enough for a dozen chairs, occupied by as
many preachers. It was surrounded by a strong
enclosure, about twenty yards square, over the
whole of which a deep bed of straw was laid.
This, as I understood, was intended to save the
bones of those who might be unable to keep their
feet, under the eloquence of the preacher, the

workings of conscience, the conviction of sin, or
the delirious raptures of newborn hope.

The preachers were, for the most part, men,
whose dress and air bespoke a low origin, and narrow
circumstances. Conspicuous among them
was a stout old man, whose gray hair and compressed
lips, ensconced between a long nose and
hooked chin, could hardly have escaped observation
under any circumstances. He alone was on
his feet, and moved about the platform with a
noiseless step, speaking in whispers to one or another
of the preachers. At length he took his
seat, and the officiating minister rose. He was a
tall, slender youth, whose stripling figure lost
nothing of its appearance of immaturity by being
dressed in clothes which he had obviously out-grown.
The bony length of naked wrist and ankle
set off to the best advantage his broad hands and
splay feet, the heels of which were turned out, as
he moved forward to his place in front of the platform.
His nearly beardless face was embrowned
by the sun, his features were diminutive, and only
distinguished by a full round forehead, and a hazel
eye, clear, bright, and imaginative. He gave out
a hymn, which was sung, and then offered up a
prayer, which, though apparently meant to pass
for extemporaneous, was obviously spoken from
memory, and made up, for the most part, of certain
forms of speech, taken from all the prayers
and all the creeds that have ever been published,
and arranged to suit the taste of the speaker, and

the peculiar doctrines of his sect. Then came
another hymn, and then the sermon. It was a
doctrinal essay, a good deal after the manner of a
trial sermon, in which not a little acuteness was
displayed. But the voice was untrained, the language
ungrammatical, the style awkward, and the
pronunciation barbarous. The thing went off
heavily, but left on my mind a very favourable
impression of the latent powers of the speaker.
But he was not (to use the slang of the theatre)
“a star.” He was heard with decorous but
drowsy attention, and took his seat, without having
excited a shout or a groan. I could not help suspecting
that the poor young fellow, being put forward
as a foil for some popular declaimer, had had
his discourse pruned of all exuberance of language
or fancy, and reduced to a mere hortus siccus of
theological doctrine. A closing prayer by an old
minister, in which the effort of the “young brother”
was complimented with a patronising air,
was followed by another hymn, and the temporary
dispersion of the assembly.

In the mean time the keen eye of Balcombe had
discovered Montague, seated, with bare and bowed
head, directly in front of the preacher, and listening
with every mark of devout humility. He rose
with the rest, and, with folded arms, walked apart,
as in profound meditation. He joined none of the
parties that flocked to the tents for refreshment,
but, as if unconsciously, strayed into the wood.
There was doubtless little of hypocrisy in his air

of abstraction and thoughtfulness. But how few
of those who saw him guessed the nature of his
thoughts?

I saw that Balcombe kept his eye upon him, and
followed him at a cautious distance, accompanied
by James Scott. At length seeing Montague
detached from the crowd, they quickened their
pace and joined him. He made a sudden stop and
drew back, but soon moved on again, and the
three disappeared together in the wood. I was
much inclined to follow; but Balcombe's movements
were all so indicative of some precise plan,
that I feared to thwart it by my presence. Had he
had occasion for me, he would have told me so. I
endeavoured, therefore, to amuse myself with the
strange anomalous scenes around me, until the
service of the day was renewed.

Now came the turn of the old minister I first
described. The audience had been wearied with
a discourse not at all to their taste. They were
now refreshed, and eager for some stimulus to
help digestion. At first, I thought they would be
disappointed; for he talked for a long time in a
dull, prosing way, about himself, and the church,
and was listened to with an air, which led me to
conclude that he had established a sort of understanding
with his hearers, that whatever he might
say must be worth hearing, and taken with thankfulness.
At length, however, he seemed to warm
by slow degrees; his voice became louder, his utterance
more rapid, his gestures more earnest;

and an occasional groan from the crowd bespoke
their awaking sympathy. Presently he began to
catch his breath, to rant and rave and foam at the
mouth, and to give all the conventional tokens of
enthusiasm and eloquence. The signals were duly
answered by the groans, the sobs, the cries, the
shouts, the yells of the multitude: some sprang to
their feet and clapped their hands; some grasped
the hands of others, with smiles and tears of sympathy
and mutual gratulation; some fell down,
and were hoisted over into the pen, where they
lay tossing among the straw, and uttering the most
appalling shrieks. The discourse was abruptly
closed; and several of the preachers came down
into the enclosure, and kneeling among the prostrate
penitents, poured forth prayer after prayer,
and shouted hymn after hymn, in which the whole
audience joined in one wild burst of discord, broken
down into harmony by the very clashing of jarring
sounds.

The sun went down on this tumultuous scene, of
which I could not foresee the termination; and,
having lost my dinner, I found it high time to
secure my supper by returning to Colonel Robinson's.