University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
SAMUEL BEFORE THE CHURCH.

YOU are not going to be fool enough, Sam, my
boy,” says Mr. Gayfeather to his nephew, on the
day of the trial, “to tell the truth about this little
difficulty? Take them at their word; they have
made it easy for you — a fit of derangement — it
may have been in your family! I shouldn't mind myself to
bear witness to that effect; there's your uncle Catwild, for
instance, I am sure he was crazy when he cut me off as he
did, and left the fortune all to you, you young rascal; or, if
you prefer it, you might plead a drop too much — just a
gentlemanly foible, you know — nothing damaging in such a
confession, and with the expression of a little judicious penitence
you are sure to come off with honors, and,” he added,
slapping Samuel on the shoulder and speaking with triumphant
gayety, “marry the girl and live happy forever
afterwards! Come, hold up your head, Uncle Charley'll give
you his blessing now, if you want it!”

“O, my friend!” answers Samuel, standing back and
gazing upon the man with solemn severity, “you mustn't
talk so light; I know you don't mean it; but I don't like to
hear it, even in jest. I could hold up my hands in the fire,
and shout victory, with the truth on my side, but I couldn't
hold 'em up with a lie on my tongue, not if it was to gain all
the world.”

“Ah, to be sure I was jesting!” says Uncle Charley. “A
fellow can't help plaguing you a little sometimes, you are so
confounded honest! so religiously religious!”

“I ain't so good as I ought to be,” says Samuel.” And
no more was said on the subject.

It had been proposed at first to hold the disciplinary meeting
in some private house, but only Mrs. Whiteflock had a
room that was sufficiently spacious, and she made excuses;
it was all-important that Peter should be kept quiet; any
great excitement might prove fatal; she had the doctor's
word for that. This settled the question, and the meeting-house,
in all its garniture of new paint and polish, was
lighted up by times, the poor member who did this work
clattering about noisily upon the occasion. The patches at
his knees seemed to him quite like badges of honor, and he
took special pains to thump his old hat into corners as he put
it on his head, so as to give it an official-like air of importance.

Mr. Lightwait and all who sided with him were pleased,
on the whole, with the arrangement; it was quite like a hall
of judgment; no private room could have been so effective;
the great glass chandeliers, trembling and shimmering in
front of the pulpit, were thought by some to be enough of
themselves to strike awe into the heart of poor Samuel.

The hum that had run through the village during the
afternoon, lulled at sunset, and when the lights flashed from
the great windows of the meeting-house, a solemn hush
settled over the town, and directly old women, quivering
with curiosity through all their withered skins, were seen
slipping out of their doors, and across the common, one by
one, and two and two, their mouths puckering close, and
their gowns, of faded mourning, flopping about their ankles
as they pressed forward. After the old crones came the
common gossips, and after these sober matrons and staid and
sad-faced men, and by and by one long procession was seen

to flow toward the meeting-house. All thought of privacy
was given up; the double doors were thrown wide open, and
the eager, swaying multitude poured on and on, and in and
in, till all the pews and all the aisles and all the house everywhere
was crowded and crammed.

Such confusion was never seen in a church, I dare say;
eager nudges and whispered questions, to which there was
no answer. What was to be the order of the meeting? and
who was to lead it? Was brother Lightwait come? Would
there be singing and prayer? Was Samuel Dale in the
house? had anybody seen him? Would he speak for himself,
or would his great relative, Mr. Gayfeather, speak for
him? Would he venture to appear in person, at all? Boys
climbed into the window-seats, and the more eager of the
multitude bobbed up and down continually, to see what
they could see, and to hear what they could hear. At last
Mr. Lightwait was seen to enter the house with a huge book
and a great scroll of writing in his arm, and to ascend the
pulpit with stately solemnity.

Something like decent order began to prevail now, but
still there was a hum and stir that bespoke the general excitement.
At last the pastor stood up, and, clasping his hands
upon the great Bible, offered a prayer so long that it seemed
as if it would stretch to eternity if it got there in no other
way. By previous arrangement the members of the church,
and all persons of note and authority invited from other
churches, were seated in the pews immediately fronting the
pulpit; venerable white-haired men and women, many of
them, and all sober, earnest-faced and good-hearted Christian
people. All these got on their knees, and stayed there
during the long prayer, responding from time to time, some
with sighs, some with tears, and some with fervent exclamations
of “Glory to God!” and, “Lord, send thy Spirit!”
and, “Amen!” When the prayer was concluded, and all
had gotten their seats again, and while the expectant hush,
solemn to awfulness, pervaded the house, a firm, steady step
rung over the door-stone, and Samuel Dale came in, and
inclining his head reverentially, passed the good people before
him, and took his place, not boldly, nor ostentatiously, but
as one having authority, for all that, on one of the upper
steps of the pulpit. Mr. Lightwait arose involuntarily, no
doubt with intent to rebuke his audacity; but when Samuel

turned calmly, meeting his eager, questioning look with one
of sad serenity, he sunk back among the sofa cushions and
veiled his face, waiting like the rest.

Samuel, as it was seen at once by his conspicuous position
and the full glare of the chandeliers, had made no attempt
to display his newly-acquired riches, but was dressed in the
plain, decent way they were used to see him, his Sunday
best, to be sure, but the old Sunday best of homely homespun.
He wore no ornaments except his beard and hair, and
these his late confinement from the fierce sun and rough
winds had served to beautify, so that they were ornaments
of exceeding fineness. His linen was as fresh and bright as
new snow, and the broad, old-fashioned collar showing under
the locks that fell quite upon his shoulders became him
wonderfully well. His face was pale, for he had come from
fasting and prayer, and his great eyes were lit up with the
fires of an intense soul, so that as he looked over the vast
assemblage, every man and woman felt as if he or she were
specially singled out by their still, far-reaching splendor.
He looked like some prophet of the wilderness, or some poet,
inspired by the wild woods and great prairies and rushing
rivers of the rude country in which he dwelt. Only for the
moment he stood thus, speaking to the audience with his
eyes, and then his voice came out, full, deep, powerful.

“If there is any man among you (he was looking now at
the venerable people before him) who can, with a clear conscience,
pray for me, let him pray.”

Then he knelt on the steps where he stood, before them
all, and bowed his head even to the ground.

And nearly all the house knelt with him; never so many
worldly people had spontaneously gotten on their knees at
once in that house before. The prayer was brief, and all
alive with faith and fevor; it did not pre-judge nor pre-doom,
but left Samuel where it found him, in the hands of
our merciful Father.

When he stood up again, his beard was all sprinkled with
glistening drops; he had been weeping; not with weakness
or fear, but with that sacred emotion in the stirrings of which
the strongest manhood need feel no shame. His voice, when
he spoke, had in it just that tremor of tenderness that goes
so straight to the heart.

Mr. Lightwait leaned down over the great Bible, which

he held clasped in his arm as he leaned. “Since you have
taken my people out of my hands,” he said, “will you not
take my pulpit, too?”

“Not yet, it is not time,” Samuel answered. “When I
can stand there with clean hands in the eyes of your people,
or of God's people, rather, then I will stand there, not till
then.” He had only spoken a word or two when he was
thus interrupted, and he now began again. “My brothers
and sisters,” he said, “I stand before you accused, by some
among you, of murder, or the attempt to murder, which is
no better than murder as far as I can see, for the Bible tells
us that our wicked deeds are done in our hearts before they
are done by our hands; and what I have to say first of all,
is, that I ain't guilty of this thing, neither before you nor
before God.”

A murmur ran through the house at this, and there were
some open exclamations to the effect that he must not go
too far. But as soon as he could be heard, he again went
on with the same calm confidence as before.

“I ain't guilty of murder, nor of intent to murder,” he
said, “but I am guilty of a rash action and of rash and
wicked behavior afterwards.

“I came among you a stranger,” he went on, “and was
took into the church through your goodness, and I leave it
to you all to say if there was anything against me till this
accusation was brought?”

Responses of “No, no, thank God,” from half the church,
and then he said, casting his eyes upon the ground and his
voice vibrating as if his heart were all of a tremble, “I said
I come among you a stranger and was took into the church.
I hardly know how to go on, for there is some experience in
every man's life that is too sacred to be spoke of as we speak
of our common affairs, too sacred to be spoke of at all to
the world's ear. Let me just say, then, that one of these
come to me here among you, that it involved the happiness
or misery of my life, as I believed, and that he who is my
chief accuser, took my heart, and as it seemed to me, played
with it just for the amusement of his idle hours. I say it
seemed to me so, and I know it would seem to you so if I
could speak out all the truth.”

Here Mr. Lightwait arose. “This young man,” he said,
“has already taken too much of our precious time, with his

idle vagaries. I hold in my hand the charges which are
preferred against him by this church. I will proceed to read
them, and at the close of the reading an opportunity will be
given him to reply, if, indeed, he shall then desire an opportunity.”

“This bishop's son accuses me of attemptin' his life,” says
Samuel. “I accuse him of attemptin' to murder my peace,
and I can make my accusation good through written testimony
and through the livin' testimony of Brother Peter Whiteflock,
and let him, if he dares, deny this! But what I ask is
the opportunity to confess my sins, not to accuse him, and I
leave it to you, my friends, to say who you will hear speak.”

Mr. Lightwait made haste to withdraw his proposition, a
verdict was rendered in favor of Samuel, and the general
feeling was that he had the advantage.

“No, I am not here to bring charges against our pastor,”
Samuel went on, “I leave them to his conscience, and will
only say that my heart could not be crushed in his hand as
it was, and continue to beat for him warm and kind as ever,
for my brethren and sisters, though I'm a professor, I follow
my Master but from afar off, and often when I would do
good, evil is present with me, and when I would think right
thoughts, bad ones slip in and crowd the others away. So,
as I said, I did not feel toward him as one Christian man
ought to feel toward another, and what came of it in the end,
was this,— but before I state it, let me here make a confession.
Ever since I was born I have been liable to see what is commonly
called apparitions. I don't call 'em so because I think
they are generally somethin' more than shadders; but call
'em what you will, they are sometimes such true likenesses
of men and women that they would be mistook for men and
women by everybody not used to the sight of 'em.” There
was a stir of dissent through the house, mingled with
whispers and laughter. Samuel paused a moment, and went
on. “As I believe,” he says, “those so called apparitions
are sometimes demons, sometimes angels, and sometimes
men!” The stir through the congregation became louder
and the whisper rose to a murmur of scorn and disapprobation;
there were one or two hisses, even. Samuel paid no
heed to this interruption, but drawing the Bible from its
cushion, opened it, slowly and calmly turned the leaves in
silence until the attention of the people was again secured.

“It was,” he says, “as you will none of you, my good
friends, doubt, a real angel that appeared to Peter.” He
stepped up one step higher so as to bring the page under
fuller light, and read:

“`And when Herod would have brought him forth, the
same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound
with two chains; and the keeper before the door kept the
prison.

“`And, behold the angel of the Lord came upon him, and
a light shined in the prison, and he smote Peter on the side,
and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly, and his chains
fell off from his hands.

“`And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on
thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast
thy garment about thee, and follow me.

“`And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that
it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he
saw a vision.

“`And when they were past the first and second ward, they
came unto the iron gate that leadeth into the city; which
opened to them of his own accord; and they went out, and
passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed
from him.”'

The house was deeply silent now, so that as Samuel turned
the leaves of the Bible, every one could hear the little rustle
they made. “To Paul,” says Samuel, “it was a man, and
not an angel that appeared,” and he again read:

“`And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; there stood
a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over to
into Macedonia, and help us.”'

“And do you intend to compare yourself with Peter and
Paul?” interposed Mr. Lightwait, and then he says, “These
things were in the days of miracles, and cannot by any possibility
have any bearing whatever upon your case. You
will therefore please confine yourself to the matter in hand.”

“The matter I had in hand,” says Samuel, “was to prove
just what I have proved by an authority that none of you
will question, but there is evidence enough this side of what
you call the day of miracles, of just such appearances as I
have seen from time to time all my life; you all have read
how Luther threw his ink-stand at the devil, and how the
father of the very founder of Methodism was haunted in his

parsonage at Epworth.” Upon this declaration there were
such disturbances in the house that for some time Samuel
could not go on, and two or three old women showed their
contempt for him by leaving the room. There were no
actual hisses now, but the spirit of hisses prevailed, seeing
and feeling which Samuel proceeded to prove what he had
only intimated, by reading from the “Armenian Magazine”
an account of the disturbances at Epworth Parsonage, compiled
by Mr. John Wesley, who visited Epworth in 1730 for
the purpose of examining for himself the journal of Samuel
Wesley, describing in detail the various phenomena that
occurred in his house there in the months of December, 1716,
and of January, 1717. The full account is too long to be
transcribed here, and, at any rate, the effect produced by the
rude eloquence of Samuel then and there upon an audience
to many of whom the account was wholly new, could not be
even faintly reproduced by the printed words. It began
with the knockings heard about ten o'clock at night on
December 2, 1716, by one Robert Brown, a servant in the
family, who immediately opened the door, but could see
nobody; and proceeded to tell how the knockings changed
into groans — so like to human groans that Robert exclaimed,
“It is Mr. Turpine, who has the stone and used to groan so.”
And from this the narrative went on, showing with much
detail how Robert became frightened and went to bed;
seeing, when he had reached the top of the garret stairs, a
handmill which was there whirled about very swiftly, and
how, when he was in bed, he heard the gobbling of a turkey-cock
close to his bed-side, and after, a sound as of one
stumbling over his shoes.

The account of the maid throwing down the butter-tray
and running away as for life when she heard the knockings
on the shelf where the puncheons of milk stood, produced
some laughter, but that of “Sister Molly” — at the time about
twenty years of age — who, as she sat reading at night in the
dining-room, heard the door open and a person walking in,
that seemed to have on a silk night-gown, rustling and trailing
along,” caused those who were seated by the windows
that overlooked the grave-yard to shudder and keep their
faces away from the long moonlighted mounds, and the
mossy and leaning gravestones.

The fright of “Sister Sukey” produced, too, a very solemn

effect; she, as it appeared, having boasted that nothing could
frighten her, was presently assailed by knockings under the
table, by the clatter of the warming-pan, and of the iron
casement, as also by the incessant moving of the door-latch,
up and down, which caused her to leap into bed without
undressing, and there to pull the bed-clothes over her head
and lie trembling till morning. But the portion of the
narrative, which perhaps produced the greatest effect, was
that in which Mr. Wesley was himself an actor.

One Mr. Hoole, vicar of Hoxey, and an eminently pious
and sensible man, had been called in to hear the knockings
that were used to occur at prayer time, about ten o'clock at
night, and were supposed to be the work of a man named
Jeffrey, who had died in the house, but this special night no
knockings occurred at prayers. Presently, however, a servant
came in and said, “Old Jeffrey is coming; I hear the
signal!” It was toward the top of the house, on the outside,
at the northeast corner, resembling the loud creaking
of a saw, or rather that of a wind-mill when the body of it
is turned about in order to shift the sails to the wind. We
then heard a knocking over our heads, and Mr. Wesley,
catching up a candle, said, “Come, sir, now you shall hear
for yourself!” We went up stairs, he with much hope, and
I, to say the truth, with much fear. When we came into
the nursery, it was knocking in the next room; and when
we went there, it was knocking in the nursery. And there
it continued to knock, particularly at the head of the bed
(which was of wood) in which Miss Hetty and two of her
younger sisters lay. Mr. Wesley, observing that they were
much affected, though asleep, sweating and trembling excessively,
was very angry, and pulling out a pistol, was going to
fire at the place from whence the sound came. But I snatched
him by the arm, and said, “Sir, you are convinced this is
something preternatural; if so, you cannot hurt it; but you
give it power to hurt you.” He then went alone to the bed
and said, sternly, “Thou deaf and dumb devil! why dost
thou fright these children that cannot answer for themselves?
Come to me in my study, that am a man!” Instantly it
knocked his knock (the particular knock he always used at
the gate) as if it would shiver the board to pieces; and we
heard nothing more that night.”

“What I have to say,” said Samuel, as he closed the book

from which he had been reading, “is this: If so good a
Christian as Mr. Wesley was tempted to fire a pistol at a
ghost, why should not a poor sinner like me be tempted in
the same way?”

He then said that being in the fields one night, he was
met and mocked by an apparition, and that, having been
wrought up to a high pitch beforehand, he was tempted, as
a better man had been before him, to fire upon the thing,
which he took to be only the double, or shadder, so to speak,
of Mr. Lightwait, and not Mr. Lightwait himself.

“Just why I done this rash deed,” says Samuel, “I need
not explain, further than I have already explained, but that
I had no thought of murder in my soul, God, who is my judge,
knoweth. When I was arrested, then it first came to me
that I had mistook a man for the shadder which had many a
time before crossed and recrossed my path. I saw the feeling
was so against me that it wouldn't help me any to tell
the truth just then, and besides, the pride and wickedness
that are always in the heart of men helped me to brave it
through, and I owned the murder, and made as if I was glad
of it, for which I am sorry now, and ashamed, and here
before you all I humbly ask my pastor to forgive me and to
believe my story, for He who seeth all hearts and the secrets
of them knoweth that I have spoken nothing but the very
truth.” Then turning to the congregation, the tears dropping
from his eyes, and his voice trembling and tender as a
woman's, he said, “To you, my friends, under God, I commit
myself and my offence, asking your prayers for me against
the power of Satan, and hoping and praying that when you
shall have gone aside, and talked between yourselves, you
shall be found saying, as did those of old, “This man doeth
nothing worthy of death or of bonds.”

“We have no need to go aside and talk between ourselves,
Brother Samuel,” spoke an old man, standing up, his white
hair on his shoulders and his white beard on his bosom
trembling like the foam on a storm-shaken wave, and then
he said, “If, we did not forgive one another, how should we
be able to pray, `Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors'? and if we were not all liable to be tempted, how
should we pray, `Lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, forever'?”

“Lord melt our hearts!” “Help us to love one another,”
and, “Be merciful to us, sinners!” were the responses that
rung over the house.

Then the old man read from memory, for he had no need
of the Book:

“`For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly
Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men
their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”'

The deep silence that followed this was broken by a voice,
saying, “Let us pray!” Then the people knelt down, and
the fervent petition that was offered called forth so many
ejaculations and responses, so many amens, and hallelujahs,
it seemed as if the whole congregation were praying together.
Then burst forth the hymn commencing —

which was sung throughout with jubilant exultation.

Mr. Lightwait now arose, pale, placid, grave and gracious
as ever, but the joyous tumult was so great that no word
of what he said was heard, and the only resource left him
was to pronounce the benediction, which he did, then making
haste to give his hand to Samuel. No one in all the house
seemed more rejoiced than he, at the way things had gone,
and when at last the shaking of hands was over, and the
congratulations done with, he completed the general joy by
taking the arm of Samuel before them all, and walking with
him out of the house. What he felt, the reader may guess
as well as I, but what he said was of the sweetest and
kindest.

But as for Samuel, his great heart was melted and glowing
with love, through and through; it was not in him to cherish
a hard thought toward any man just then. Was he not the
victor in all the battles? The church by acclamation had
accepted him. Fortune had opened her arms and was smiling,
and last, and best, his little love, his Daisy, was waiting
to be his before the world, as she was already in secret.

“I wish you was as happy as I am!” he said, when they
were come to the gate of the parsonage, “I would share my

joy with you if I could, for I have more than I deserve.”
He held the hand of Mr. Lightwait hard, as he said this, and
by voice and gesture and everything, showed how sincere,
how almost sorrowfully sincere, the generosity was. It
would seem as if the best that was in a man must have been
awakened to meet such honesty and goodness, and it is
enough to make one almost despair of poor human nature,
to see that it was not awakened.”

“By the way, Brother Samuel,” says Mr. Lightwait,
loosening his hand, and slipping a ring from one finger,
“you will be seeing your little Margaret very soon? doubtless
before I shall.”

“O, yes!” says Samuel. “I shall see her early to-morrow;
just as early as I dare; I must be first to tell her the
good news.”

“Ah, to be sure! and when you have done that, will you
be good enough to do me a favor?”

“With all my heart,” says Samuel, “what is it?”

“Just to give her back this ring. I don't suppose she
prizes it; she said she did not when she gave it me; but
perhaps she does attach some value to it, after all; young
ladies must not always be taken at their word, you know.”

Samuel took the ring and held it up in the moonlight;
but there was no need that he should hold it up in the moonlight;
he knew it as soon as his fingers touched it.

“How long have you had this?” he asked, and his voice
came up like the voice of one who is speaking low down in
a grave.

“O, I hardly know,” says Mr. Lightwait, in the most
trivial tone, and then he says, “Ah, yes; I remember now;”
and then he tells Samuel, aggravating the treachery, if it
could be aggravated, “She gave it me the very night they
carried you off to the wretched prison (all against my
will); I remember that I found her sitting on the door-steps,
and that she told me she had just seen you go along.
Be sure you give it back to her, with my best wishes for her
happiness, and so, good night.”

He glided away through the moonlight, and Samuel, when
he was out of sight, staggered forward like a drunken man,
putting out his hands as if he were holding by the air. That
night he did himself in the shadows of the thick woods, and
with his face half buried among the dead leaves, moaned out

his anguish to the dumb, pitiless ear of our ancient mother,
the earth.

The next day Margaret looked for Samuel in vain, and the
next, and the next; but never again, in all the days of her
life, if she had known it, was the glad sunshine of that
honest, truthful heart to make light about her any more.

How could he believe in her love when, with the very
declaration of it, she had deceived him with so cruel a lie?

“What have you been doing, my good Samuel?” cries
Mrs. Whiteflock, as he appeared before her at last, the great
sweat-drops standing like beads along his colorless forehead.

“Laying up my treasures where moth and rust doth not
corrupt,” he replied, and nothing more was ever said between
them with reference to what had happened. He gave himself
entirely to the care of Peter now, and would tend his
wants by the hour, and seem to find great comfort in his
work. Every fancy, every lightest whim was humored,
and when he had busied himself with his labor of love all
day, he was not yet content, but would sit up half the night
singing hymns, or reading aloud from the Bible. Peter
would sometimes interrupt him to say the room was filled
with spirits, or that he saw some beautiful vision, and so the
days and nights went by, gradually bearing the sick man
nearer to that country where the inhabitants are never sick
any more. The gathering shadows were to Samuel like
voices calling out of other and better lands, and so far from
breaking down under the numerous burdens that were laid
upon him, he was continually buoyed up by steady and constantly
increasing accessions of spiritual life. The ravelled
web of his earthly pleasures was, as it were, knit up by the
hands of angels, and the green branch, broken from his tree
of life, let in fresh light from heaven, insomuch that all who
saw him remarked a sudden growth of all excellent qualities,
a growth upon himself, — a larger and higher manhood.
Sorrow has her orders in this world — an order of nobility
as well as an order of broken hearts, and it was to the former
that Samuel attained. The bitter wave of his fortune had
borne him higher than he could have climbed of himself,
and receding had left him there alone, but with feet planted
on a rock, and with faith and hope anchored in heavenly,
instead of earthly love. No tinsel star, no foolish fluttering
ribbon for him — he was of another order of nobility now —

of that order which God himself ordains, and which is above
all the fleeting shows and vanities of time.

“What now, Brother Sobersides?” says Mr. Gayfeather,
coming suddenly upon him, one day. “You look as if you
were meditating upon hair shirts, rope girdles, flagellations,
and the like pious and pleasing austerities. Come, old
fellow, tell us what has fallen upon you.”

“A light from heaven,” says Samuel, “above the brightness
of the sun, and against it my sins show black as night.”

“Why, Sam, my dear boy, you are losing your wits! you
must get out of this state somehow.”

“I wish that you could get into it,” says Samuel, “and
that is the best wish I can wish you.”

“Come, Sam, get off your high horse! I am come to you
in need of real sympathy and help — help that is substantial.
None of your preaching for me. To come to the honest
truth, Sam, I'm in debt, and out of credit. The fellows
about here don't play fair, and then I've had deused bad luck
into the bargain. Anyhow, I've nary red to my name, and
what's more, I've promised to take, carry and convey your
Aunt Kate Lightwait to the Oak-water camp-meeting, which
is at this present, as you know, at the very meridian heat and
height of its progress. There, that's a good boy! You have
laid me under a weight of eternal obligation I am sure, and
Kate would be precious grateful if she only knew — but then
she doesn't know, and isn't likely to, not with my showing.
Heigh, ho! when ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise, sure
enough. But I'll make it all right with you one of these
days, Sam, my boy. By the way, how much is there here?”

It was, of course, Samuel's purse that excited this question,
and that had called forth the grateful exclamations preceding
it.

“I don't know,” says Samuel, “and no matter, much or
little, it is yours. I only hope it may be instrumental in
your conversion. By all means go to the camp meeting.”

“Thank you, Sam; and if conversion is a thing that'll do
me any good, I must say I hope I'll get it like the deuse!
And if I should happen to be struck under conviction,
(that's the term, isn't it?) I'll make haste to let you know.”
Then seeing how anxious, how sadly concerned for him,
Samuel really was, he hastened to change the subject, saying
carelessly, as he tucked the beautiful silk purse in the pocket

of his waistcoat, “You couldn't make a thing like that out
of a sow's ear, could you, Sam?”

Samuel made no answer. “How is your charge, Peter,
the prophet?” he went on.

“O, how can you, Uncle Charley!” and then Samuel said
that his good Brother Peter was nearing home.

“Ah, indeed,” says “Uncle Charley,” twirling the key of
his watch, and then subduing his voice to what he considered
a proper tone of solemnity, he said, “Verily, man is like the
grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into
the baker's oven.”

Samuel groaned. “Do you ever read your Bible, Uncle
Charley?” he says.

He rose up, laughing: “I believe you think me little
better than one of the wicked,” he said, and then slapping
Samuel on the shoulder, “I'm not so good as you are, I'm
free to own that;” and here he offered back the purse; “I
can't take it from you, Sam, indeed I can't. I'll go back to
the `Eagle' and try my hand. Maybe there's luck in store,
yet.”

But Samuel would not receive the purse. “It's yours,”
he said, “make good use of it, and don't try your hand, as
you call it, never, never again, as long as you live.”

“This money has been once given to the poor,” says
“Uncle Charley,” “and that relieves me of a second giving,
though if they come round with the hat, and Kate's eyes are
upon me, a V or so will have to go in; as for the bulk, it
will be as it happens;” and tossing up the purse, and catching
it in his hand as he walked, and nodding and smiling
across his shoulder, he went away.

One day Peter asked Samuel to go into the fields and look
after old Posey, for he could not himself walk so much as
from the bed to the window any more.

“He is getting on charmingly, my dear madam,” the Doctor
said, persistently, as Mrs. Whiteflock followed him to the
hall door, with such waiting, wistful eyes. “Only the
weather was, for the most part, very unfavorable. One time
it had rained, and another it was hot, and another cool, quite
too cool for the season. Now the patient had eaten over
much, and now he had been pestered with company, and the
excitement kept him from sleep; an increase of opium of
nights and more rigid abstinence of days, and perhaps a

little more blood from the left arm, and the slight and temporary
derangement would all be rectified. No need for
alarm, my dear madam, none whatever; all invalids have
their ups and downs and their poor days, you know. I will
see you early to-morrow. You have a supply of the blue
pills?”

And Mrs. Whiteflock would have her cry alone, and then
she would get comfort as we all get it in our darkest hours,
hoping where there is no hope. And when her eyes were
dry she would take a turn in the garden, and directly appear
in the sick-room with a bunch of fresh flowers and a cheery
face, both especially composed for Peter's sake.

It was on one of these occasions Mrs. Whiteflock had
come in with more smiles and more flowers than common,
because that she had wept more tears, perhaps, that Peter
asked Samuel to go, while she sat by his bedside, and look
after Posey.

As it happened Mr. Lightwait had been walking in the
fields, too, that morning, and was just returning as Samuel
went out. Both were on one path, and before either had
perceived the other, they were very near, and squarely face
to face. Mr. Lightwait flushed and trembled, then grew
pale and stood stone still, half in fear, half in defiance.

“My friend,” says Samuel, turning quietly aside, and giving
him all the way, “if you can afford the injury you have
done me, I can, so let there be no enmity between us.”

Mr. Lightwait made haste to get out of the pathway now,
and though a patch of rough wild briers was directly before
him, he trod straight through them quite as though he had
been treading upon roses.

At the dinner hour that day Katherine waited for her
brother a long time, then she sent for him, still he did not
come; then she went herself to his study. “Why, what is
the matter, John,” she says, “you are used to be hungry.”

“And so I am now, dear Kate, but I am going to keep
fast to-day.”

After this he visited all the poor of the church and dispensed
charities with bountiful liberality; he had left undone
the things he should have done, he said, and had done the
things he ought not.

One afternoon Katherine appeared before him in her
bonnet and best silk gown, and with a flower stuck in her

belt, and a blush blazing in her cheek, “We are going to the
Oak-water camp-meeting,” she said, “Charles and I. Can
you drink your tea alone? I have directed it to be served
at the usual hour.”

“I shall miss you,” he says, looking sadly up from the
notes he was preparing, but I would not have you remain on
my account.”

He spoke as though he were called on to make some great
sacrifice, and perhaps he felt at the moment that he was
making a sacrifice, but Katherine had no sooner ridden out
of sight than he threw down his note-book and fell whistling
and humming of tunes that were not psalm tunes, either.
Then he ran up and down the house and about the grounds,
without plan or purpose; now gossiping with the servant-maid
at the kitchen door, and now gaping over the door-yard
gate. A young bird that for the first time feels its wings is
not more happily restless than was he in his unrestrained
and unobserved liberty.

At sunset he came forth sleek and smiling, but with an
eager air, withal, as one might look who had bought an
indulgence and was going to make the most of it. He came
forth thus, and took the path across the field toward Mrs.
Fairfax's, but he had not gone far when of a sudden he
turned straight about and took the road. “It was in that
path I met Samuel,” he muttered to himself; and then he
cast down his eyes and proceeded at a sober pace. As he
passed Mrs. Whiteflock's garden he was aware that some
one was standing at the gate, but he chose to appear unconscious,
never lifting his eyes.

“You are going to see Margaret, I take it?” says Samuel,
for it was he who was at the gate.

“And if I am, sir, what is that to you?” was the icy
answer.

“It it just this much, Brother Lightwait. I have something
here for her, and I think she will like better to take it
from your hand than mine;” and he gave him a ring sparkling
with a cluster of brilliants, worth more than all her
mother's land.

As he reached it forth Mr. Lightwait recognized on the
little finger of his right hand the thin, plain band of gold
that he himself had stolen from Margaret and given back to
Samuel with such bitter satisfaction and proud triumph.

“If I might venture to speak for her,” he said, coldly, “I
should say she would prefer to receive back her own property,”
and he glanced at the old ring.

“You are mistaken,” says Samuel, “I give her this” — he
was turning the ring on his finger now — “with my heart in
it; she did not value it, and I now give her one with brilliants,
which she will value. When I give this, Brother
Lightwait” (he was still turning it fondly), “I expected, as
I need hardly tell you, to have her hand back with it. I
cannot have the hand now” — he might have said, “I will
not have the hand,” but he was all too good, too generous
to say that; he only said, therefore, “I cannot have the hand,
and if, as I dare say, you can, let there be no thought in your
mind that I have any claim upon it.”

There was not a touch of bitterness in his tone, it was not
even sad, but graciously sweet and tender, and as he finished
speaking he offered his hand, the brown, clumsy hand with
the poor little ring shining upon one finger; and as they
stood thus together, the soft white palm of the bishop's son
trembled in the hard honest grasp of his great-hearted
friend, for that Samuel was sincerely his friend, he did not
and could not doubt. An hour or more after this, while
Samuel was yet meditating beneath the stars, as he went up
and down the garden path, a shadow fell suddenly across the
flowers, and the next moment Mr. Lightwait stood before
him.

“I have not been to see Margaret to-night,” he said.
“Present your gift yourself.” And he offered back the ring.
Then he said, “Marry her, too, if you will. I shall not stand
between you.”

It seemed as if he had forced himself to say this much
against his will, and as though it were pride and not penitence
that had brought him back. As if, while he humbled
himself, he scorned his humility; in short, as though Satan
had cast down his crown, without casting down with it his
rebellious spirit.

“My good friend,” says Samuel, and the calm dignity of
his voice and manner was majestic as he spoke, “if God had
joined us you could not put us asunder; she never loved
me, and my love for her has been absorbed in a larger and
higher love. I told you I had no claim upon her hand; you
almost force me to say that I desire to have none. God

bless you both and make you more truthful to each other
than you have either of you been to me.”

And with a smile benignant and tender, such as the
mother bestows upon her wayward child, and with a gentle
gesture implying farewell, he moved away through the starlight,
and the bishop's son was alone.

And this, then, was his triumph.

He was not good enough to be touched by such goodness,
he was only humiliated and mortified. All his evil passions
were roused up by the dispassionate behavior of Samuel,
and so far from rejoicing in victory, he writhed as in defeat.

“I will get the better of this insolent fellow yet,” he said
to himself, as he turned away. “It will pique him, for all
of his pretence, to see his little Daisy, as he has presumed to
call her, smiling upon me instead of himself! Men do not
thus easily give up their treasures.”

When Margaret met Samuel next, she flaunted the diamonds
in his face. The bishop's son had bestowed them
upon her as his own gift.