University of Virginia Library

43. CHAPTER XLIII.
THE MIDNIGHT ALARM.

AT last the time drew on toward midnight, the
hour upon which all expectation was concentrated.
For did not the Parable of the Ten Virgins speak
of the coming of the bridegroom at midnight?

“My friends and brethren,” said Elder Hankins,
his voice shaking with emotion, as he held his watch up
in the moonlight, “My friends and brethren, ef the Word is true,
they is but five minutes more before the comin' in of the new
dispensation. Let us spend the last moments of time in silent
devotion.”

“I wonder ef he thinks the world runs down by his pay-tent-leever
watch?” said Jonas, who could not resist the impulse
to make the remark, even with the expectation of the immediate
coming of the day of judgment in his mind.

“I wonder for what longitude he calculates prophecy?” said
Andrew. “It can not be midnight all round the world at the
same moment.”

But Elder Hankins's flock did not take any astronomical difficulty
into consideration. And no spectator could look upon them,
bowing silently in prayer, awed by the expectation of the sudden

coming of the Lord, without feeling that, however much
the expectation might be illusory, the emotion was a fact absolutely
awful. Events are only sublime as they move the human
soul, and the swift-coming end of time was subjectively a great
reality to these waiting people. Even Andrew was awe-stricken
from sympathy; as Coleridge, when he stood godfather for
Keble's child, was overwhelmed with a sense of the significance
of the sacrament from Keble's stand-point. As for Cynthy Ann,
she trembled with fear as she held fast to the arm of Jonas.
And Jonas felt as much seriousness as was possible to him, until
he heard Norman Anderson's voice crying with terror and excitement,
and felt Cynthy shudder on his arm.

“Fer my part,” said Jonas, turning to Andrew, “it don't seem
like as ef it was much use to holler and make a furss about the
corn crap when October's fairly sot in, and the frost has nipped
the blades. All the plowin' and hoein' and weedin' and thinnin'
out the suckers won't better the yield then. An' when wheat's
ripe, they's nothin' to be done fer it. It's got to be rep jest as
it stan's. I'm rale sorry, to-night, as my life a'n't no better, but
what's the use of cryin' over it? They's nothin' to do now
but let it be gethered and shelled out, and measured up in
the standard half-bushel of the sanctuary. And I'm afeard they'll
be a heap of nubbins not wuth the shuckin'. But ef it don't
come to six bushels the acre, I can't help it now by takin' on.”

At twelve o'clock, even the scoffers were silent. But as the
sultry night drew on toward one o'clock, Bill Day and his party
felt their spirits revive a little. The calculation had failed in
one part, and it might in all. Bill resumed his burlesque exhortations
to the rough-looking “brethren” about him. He tried to
lead them in singing some ribald parody of Adventist hymns,

but his terror and theirs was too genuine, and their voices died
down into husky whispers, and they were more alarmed than
ever at discovering the extent of their own demoralization. The
bottle, one of those small-necked, big-bodied quart-bottles that
Western topers carry in yellow-cotton handkerchiefs, was passed
round. But even the whisky seemed powerless to neutralize
their terror, rather increasing the panic by fuddling their faculties.

“Boys!” said Bob Short, trembling, and sitting down on a
stump. “this—this ere thing—is a gittin' serious. Ef—well, ef
it was to happen—you know—you don't s'pose—ahem—you don't
think God A'mighty would be too heavy on a feller. Do ye? Ef
it was to come to-night, it would be blamed short notice.”

At one o'clock the moon was just about dipping behind the
hills, and the great sycamores, standing like giant sentinels on
the river's marge, cast long unearthly shadows across the water,
which grew blacker every minute. The deepening gloom gave
all objects in the river valley a weird, distorted look. This oppressed
August. The landscape seemed an enchanted one, a
something seen in a dream or a delirium. It was as though the
change had already come, and the real tangible world had passed
away. He was the more susceptible from the depression caused
by the hot sultriness of the night, and his separation from Julia.

He thought he would try to penetrate the crowd to the point
where his mother was; then he would be near her, and nearer
to Julia if anything happened. A curious infatuation had taken
hold of August. He knew that it was an infatuation, but
he could not shake it off. He had resolved that in case the trumpet
should be heard in the heavens, he would seize Julia and
claim her in the very moment of universal dissolution. He
reached his mother, and as he looked into her calm face, ready

for the millennium or for anything else “the Father” should
decree, he thought she had never seemed more glorious than
she did now, sitting with her children about her, almost unmoved
by the excitement. For Mrs. Wehle had come to take everything
as from the Heavenly Father. She had even received
honest but thick-headed Gottlieb in this spirit, when he had
fallen to her by the Moravian lot, a husband chosen for her
by the Lord, whose will was not to be questioned.

August was just about to speak to his mother, when he
was forced to hang his head in shame, for there was his father
rising to exhort.

“O mine freunde! pe shust immediadely all of de dime retty.
Ton't led your vait vail already, and ton't let de debil git no
unter holts on ye. Vatch and pe retty!”

And August could hear the derisive shouts of Bill Day's party,
who had recovered their courage, crying out, “Go it, ole Dutchman!
I'll bet on you!” He clenched his fist in anger, but
his mother's eyes, looking at him with quiet rebuke, pacified him
in a moment. Yet he could not help wondering whether blundering
kinsfolk made people blush in the next world.

“Holt on doo de last ent!” continued Gottlieb. “It's pout
goom! Kood pye, ole moon! You koes town, you nebber
gooms pack no more already.”

This exhortation might have proceeded in this strain indefinitely,
to the mortification of August and the amusement of the
profane, had there not just at that moment broken upon the
sultry stillness of the night one of those crescendo thunder-bursts,
beginning in a distant rumble, and swelling out louder and still
louder, until it ended with a tremendous detonation. In the
strange light of the setting moon, while everybody's attention

was engrossed by the excitement, the swift oncoming of a thunder-cloud
had not been observed by any but Andrew, and it
had already climbed half-way to the zenith, blotting out a third
of the firmament. This inverted thunder-bolt produced a startling
effect upon the over-strained nerves of the crowd. Some
cried out with terror, some sobbed with hysterical agony, some
shouted in triumph, and it was generally believed that Virginia
Waters, who died a maniac many years afterward, lost her reason
at that moment. Bill Day ceased his mocking, and shook till his
teeth chattered. And none of his party dared laugh at him.
The moon had now gone, and the vivid lightning followed the
thunder, and yet louder and more fearful thunder succeeded
the lightning. The people ran about as if demented, and Julia
was left alone. August had only one thought in all this confusion,
and that was to find Julia. Having found her, they
clasped hands, and stood upon the brow of the hill calmly
watching the coming tempest, believing it to be the coming of
the end. Between the claps of thunder they could hear the
broken sentences of Elder Hankins, saying something about the
lightning that shineth from one part of heaven to the other, and
about the promised coming in the clouds. But they did not
much heed the words. They were looking the blinding lightning
in the face, and in their courageous trust they thought
themselves ready to look into the flaming countenance of the
Almighty, if they should be called before Him. Every fresh
burst of thunder seemed to August to be the rocking of the
world, trembling in the throes of dissolution. But the world
might crumble or melt; there is something more enduring than
the world. August felt the everlastingness of love; as many
another man in a supreme crisis has felt it.

But the swift cloud had already covered half the sky, and
the bursts of thunder followed one another now in quicker succession.
And as suddenly as the thunder had come, came the
wind. A solitary old sycamore, leaning over the water on the
Kentucky shore, a mile away, was first to fall. In the lurid darkness,
August and Julia saw it meet its fate. Then the rail fences
on the nearer bank were scattered like kindling-wood, and some
of the sturdy old apple-trees of the orchard in the river-bottom
were uprooted, while others were stripped of their boughs.
Julia clung to August and said something, but he could only see
her lips move; her voice was drowned by the incessant roar of
the thunder. And then the hurricane struck them, and they
half-ran and were half-carried down the rear slope of the
hill. Now they saw for the first time that the people were
gone. The instinct of self-preservation had proven stronger
than their fanaticism, and a contagious panic had carried them
into a hay-barn near by.

Not knowing where the rest had gone, August and Julia
only thought of regaining the castle. They found the path
blocked by fallen trees, and it was slow and dangerous work,
waiting for flashes of lightning to show them their road. In
making a long detour they lost the path. After some minutes,
in a lull in the thunder, August heard a shout, which he answered,
and presently Philosopher Andrew appeared with a lantern,
his grizzled hair and beard flying in the wind.

“What ho, my friends!” he cried. “This is the way you go
to heaven together! You'll live through many a storm yet!”

Guided by his thorough knowledge of the ground, they had
almost reached the castle, when they were startled by piteous
cries. Leaving August with Julia, Andrew climbed a fence, and

went down into a ravine to find poor Bill Day in an agony of
terror, crying out in despair, believing that the day of doom
had already come, and that he was about to be sent into well-deserved
perdition. Andrew stooped over him with his lantern,
but the poor fellow, giving one look at the shaggy face, shrieked
madly, and rushed away into the woods.

“I believe,” said the Philosopher, when he got back to August,
“I believe he took me for the devil.”