University of Virginia Library

35. 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.

[ILLUSTRATION]

AN ACCUSING MEMORY.

[Description: 554EAF. Page 322. In-line engraving of a drooping woman on a horse and a man in a cap who holds the bridle.]

“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.

“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 did n'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 would n'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
would n'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 are n'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 had n't been in love with your blue eyes once I
would n'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.