Crestlands Part 25

"'A sincere and disinterested friend,' indeed," he thought; "it's some ruse to get me into this queer business."

Before receiving the anonymous communication, Logan, being desirous of hearing Clay and Daviess speak, had partly promised Mason Rogers, who felt a lively interest in the trial, to go with him to Frankfort. Logan now fully determined to let nothing prevent his going; and, fearing to alarm his wife, he resolved to say nothing of the warning he had received.

Upon the following Tuesday evening Graham, the detective, came to Oaklands, and spent the night there. He was able to supply to Gilcrest at least one missing link of evidence--the fellow to the torn piece of letter to Charles M. Brady. This, with one or two other doc.u.ments of a more or less compromising nature, Drane had overlooked in his haste to get out of the vicinity of Frankfort; and Graham, when he searched the apartment a few hours after Drane's escape, had found the papers in the escritoire.

Early Wednesday morning Logan, in company of Mason Rogers, Samuel Trabue and William Hinkson, set out on horseback for the State capital.

On the way they were overtaken by the Gilcrest coach-and-four driven by Uncle Zeke. In the coach sat Hiram Gilcrest, a strange gentleman from Louisville, and the pretended land agent, Graham. As the vehicle pa.s.sed the four equestrians, Gilcrest gave a distant salutation to Trabue and Hinkson, who were riding on the left, but did not turn his head to the right where rode his son-in-law and his former bosom friend, Mason Rogers.

The trial at Frankfort did not come off, because of Daviess' failure to secure the attendance of some important witnesses; but those people who were gathered at the court-house were by no means defrauded of entertainment; for they heard a brilliant debate between Henry Clay and Joseph Hamilton Daviess. The crowds that filled the floor, windows, galleries and platform of the big court-room remained for hours spellbound while these two renowned men, each stimulated by the other's thrilling oratory, and glowing with the ardent conviction of the justice of his cause, met in intellectual combat. Henry Clay was the leader of the popular political party in the State, and had the sympathy of the audience on his side. Daviess was a Federalist, and his prosecution was regarded by many of his hearers as simply a persecution of an unfortunate and innocent man who, from motives of political hatred only, was here arraigned as a traitor. Daviess, however, was made strong by his full conviction of Burr's guilt; moreover, this very infatuation of the audience, and the smiling security and self-a.s.surance of the suspected traitor who sat before him, spurred Daviess to brilliant effort. But all was in vain, for the present at least; for, on account of the non-appearance of proper witnesses, the prosecution was dismissed--to the great rejoicing of the friends of Burr, who were at that time so under the spell of his fascinating personality that even had the court found a true bill against him, they would still have believed him innocent. To show their admiration and sympathy, these friends and admirers gave a grand public ball at Frankfort the next evening to celebrate "Aaron Burr's triumph over his enemies." This ball was followed by another equally brilliant given by the friends of Daviess, to show their admiration of him and their belief in the justice of his suit against Burr.

Logan and his three companions returned from Frankfort late Thursday afternoon. On Sat.u.r.day, as Logan was leaving the house after an early breakfast, he was astonished to see Hiram Gilcrest on horseback at the front gate. Abner hastened down the walk to meet him; but, instead of accepting the invitation to alight and enter the house, Major Gilcrest with stern dignity replied that he preferred to remain where he was, having called that morning, not to pay a visit, but to atone for an injustice of which he had for a number of years been guilty.

Logan, thinking that the "injustice" had reference to Gilcrest's opposition to his daughter's marriage, replied that no explanation or apology was necessary, as the very fact that Major Gilcrest was there at Crestlands was apology enough. He again invited the Major to come in, urging the pleasure it would be to Betsy to welcome her father in her own house, and to have him see her little son William, now a fine little fellow two years old, and the tiny baby daughter. Hiram, however, again refused the invitation.

"Mr. Logan," he said, "I have for some years back been greatly in error with regard to you, as the result of the base representations and lying statements of James Anson Drane, in whose character I have been most woefully deceived." Handing Logan the anonymous note that Drane had dropped in the hall, the letter from "B. S." to "A. D.," and the two torn parts of the letter to Charles Brady, he then entered into a full explanation of all the circ.u.mstances which had influenced him to think Logan a political traitor.

When Gilcrest had finished his explanation, Logan replied that he was fully satisfied, and that he could not wonder that, under the circ.u.mstances, Major Gilcrest had been deceived. "But now," he went on, smiling cordially and extending his hand, "let us forget all hard feelings, and be to each other henceforth as father and son should be.

Betty will be wild with happiness to welcome her father into her own home."

But the stubborn old fellow would neither grasp his son-in-law's hand nor accept the invitation to enter the house. "No, Mr. Logan," he said firmly, "I am an honorable and, I hope, a just man; and my sense of honor and of justice prompted me to apologize for an unjust suspicion of you; but, sir," and his deep-set eyes flashed as he spoke, "though you are exonerated from all blame in this political intrigue, you are still guilty of a far greater wrong--that of alienating the affections of my child, my only daughter, of basely abducting her from her father's house, and well-nigh breaking that father's heart. That wrong, sir, I can never forget, and for that, sir, I can never forgive you."

"But--but, Major Gilcrest, I beg of you," began Abner, earnestly; but Gilcrest would not listen, and, with a wave of his hand to command silence, he continued: "No explanation, no apology, no reparation, or prayer of either you or your wife, can atone. I shall never under any circ.u.mstances enter your door; but I will no longer forbid my wife to visit her daughter, nor object to you and your wife returning those visits. I bid you good morning, sir," and the proud and unyielding old man rode away.

Several years later, Logan, while on a trip to Louisville, again encountered Graham, and learned from him that the strange peddler who had delivered the anonymous note to him and the one to Drane was Graham himself in disguise. He had employed this ruse to ascertain which of the two young men was the guilty one. When, in the guise of a land agent, he had in 1806 visited that region, his suspicions had already been slightly aroused against Drane. He had therefore managed to be much in the company of the young lawyer, who, if he suspected that Graham was other than he claimed to be, had the art to hide his suspicions, and in pretended unconsciousness and innocence had also managed to instill into the stranger's mind much doubt of Logan. These doubts were in a measure allayed by Graham's visit to Logan; but, to be entirely sure as to which was his man, he had resorted to the device of sending the two warnings, intending that the one who took alarm should be arrested. Drane, however, had been too swift in his movements, and had thus escaped.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

THE STRANGER PREACHER

One Thursday in June, several years later, Major Gilcrest was returning from a business trip which had called him to a distant county. His road led him by a little log schoolhouse on the banks of Shanklin Creek.

Here he found a meeting in progress in the locust grove surrounding the schoolhouse.

When last he had been through this region, the little school building had been used occasionally as a Presbyterian meeting-house, there being no church building in the neighborhood. Accordingly, Gilcrest, thinking this a meeting of brethren of his own faith and order, tied his horse to a sapling, and, joining the congregation in the grove, sat down on a log not far from the speaker's stand, just as a minister was finishing his discourse. When he had concluded, a man who seemed to be the moderator of the meeting rose to speak.

"We are sorry indeed to announce that our beloved Brother Elgood, who was next to have addressed us, is providentially hindered from being here to-day. This is a great disappointment; for we who know how powerful and eloquent Brother Elgood is, had hoped to be greatly edified by his discourse. It still lacks an hour and ten minutes to noon; and while we await the time for dinner to be spread in the grounds, another brother, a stranger from a distant part of the State, will speak." Thereupon, a tall, ungainly man of about forty years rose from a seat at the back of the platform and came forward. He was clad in copperas-dyed jeans trousers, ill-fitting cotton coat, and homespun shirt. He wore neither stock nor waistcoat, his trousers were baggy and too short for his long legs, and his cowhide shoes were covered with dust. His face was pale, his eyes deep set, his hair long and straggling, shoulders stooping, form gaunt to emaciation. The moderator's mode of introduction had not been one to rea.s.sure a timid man, nor to prepossess an audience favorably toward a speaker. The stranger came forward with ungraceful hesitation, and stood silently facing his audience. The people stared an instant at the uncouth figure; some laughed, and many turned to leave the auditorium, thinking that a stroll about the grounds, chatting with friends, would be a more agreeable pastime until lunch was served than to sit before this awkward fellow.

Suddenly the stranger regained self-possession, and, drawing his figure up to its full height, he pointed a long forefinger at a group of people standing near, who were evidently making sport of him, and called out, "Thus cried Job unto his revilers, 'Suffer me that I may speak, and after that I have spoken, mock on.'" His penetrating tones reached every one in the grove. Some who had risen to leave, sat down, curious to know what manner of man this might be; but many more, after a moment's hesitation, started off again. He then cried in still louder tone, "'Hear, O my people, and I wilt testify unto thee, O Israel, if thou wilt but hearken unto me!'"

Many more, now smiling and willing to be amused, returned to their places; but the speaker, seeing many groups still hesitating in the distance, cried out for the third time, with all the strength of his powerful lungs, "'Hear my words, O ye wise men; and give ear unto me, ye that have understanding; for the ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat.'"

Then, as the last straggler returned to his seat, the speaker said with a winning smile which utterly changed the expression of his gaunt visage: "And now, friends, you are doubtless beset with curiosity as to who this strange fellow in b.u.t.ternut jeans and cowhide shoes may be; but it mattereth not who he is, whence he came, or whither he goeth.

The message, not the man, is the important thing."

Without a Bible he quoted his text, "'Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on him shall never be confounded' (1 Pet. 2:6); 'Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ' (1 Cor. 3: 11)."

He described the church of apostolic days--its trials, its zeal, its simplicity, its oneness of aim. "The mult.i.tude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul," and "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication." He pointed out that this unity was not merely a spiritual and invisible union, but tangible, visible, organic, a union in which caste and nationality were ignored, and where Judean and Samaritan, Israelite and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, rich and poor, free and bond, formed one common brotherhood, working together with such harmony and power that, despite stripes and imprisonments, persecutions and tortures, they multiplied and strengthened, until idolatry was crushed, paganism vanquished, heathen philosophy confounded, and unbelief abashed.

For a time, Hiram Gilcrest sat upon his log and listened to the speaker's vivid eloquence with a satisfaction which amounted to enthusiasm. "Would that this man," Gilcrest mused, "had been our pastor at Cane Ridge, instead of that mischief-brewer, that pestilent heretic, Barton Stone. Then our church would not have been led off into this schism." But as the stranger proceeded in his discourse, Gilcrest awoke to the fact that he was listening to what was in his opinion most dangerous doctrine.

"To-day," the preacher said, "the church is so bound by the shackles of dogma and doctrine, so crippled by doubtful disputations over 'mint, anise and c.u.min,' that she is well-nigh powerless to carry on the task a.s.signed to her, the evangelization of the world. Sectarianism, with her vermin swarm of envy, hatred, error, waste and confusion, devastates the land. In the kingdom of the 'Prince of peace' is heard the drum-beat of party warfare, where theology prevails against Christology, dogma against devotion, partyism against piety; and where the dictation of ecclesiastic councils is obeyed rather than the voice of Christ."

His musical tones fixed the attention and thrilled every heart. Without gesture or excitement, his manner was quietly forcible, until he reached the second head of his theme. Then his spirit seemed to overleap all impediments; and, as if inspired, he proclaimed the sovereign efficacy of the sacrifice upon Calvary.

"The existence and development of the church," he said, "rests not upon the acceptance of any system of opinion or tradition or interpretation, but upon the acknowledgment of Jesus as Redeemer and Messiah. 'Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail against it,' was the reply of Jesus to Peter's confession, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living G.o.d.' This is the one basic truth upon which rests all the testimony of prophet and apostle. This is the one sure foundation upon which the whole superstructure of the Christian life must be built. It is the one inspired creed and summary of the entire purpose and plan of the gospel.

"Since the foundation of our faith," he continued, "is not a set of doctrinal tenets or a system of theological opinions, but a divine personality, it follows that the spirit of Christian unity must be as liberal and as broadly catholic as the spirit of Christ; and if we, the scattered hosts of the Lord's people, are ever to be brought together into one common bond of fellowship, we must each first learn to magnify our points of agreement upon all matters of Scriptural interpretation and exegesis, and to minimize our points of difference. Let us bear in mind that whether our own particular system of theology be based upon Calvin's predominating doctrine, the sovereignty of G.o.d and the unchangeableness of his decrees; or whether we, like Arminius, lay greater stress upon the doctrine of the freedom of the human will and man's individual responsibility; whether we be Calvinist or Arminian, Presbyterian or Methodist, Baptist or Quaker--we all worship the same G.o.d, and through the same Mediator. Therefore, laying aside all malice and envying and evil speaking and sectarian strife, let us preserve the 'unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.'"

Thus the stranger reasoned, and ere he had finished, Hiram Gilcrest, stripped of the armor under which he had so long battled for his stern creed, was left helpless and wounded; and the sharpest item of his defeat was this, that the Wellington of this Waterloo was proclaiming substantially the same doctrine as that of the hated Stone.

His armor broken, his weapons captured, himself wounded, the old man sat with bowed head, too weak and crushed to quit the field until the sermon was finished. Then, unheeded, he threaded his way out of the throng. Awe at last stole over him as he rode slowly along the quiet lanes, with his hat slouched low over his face; and he was conscious of a deeper meaning in his favorite texts of Scripture than he had hitherto felt. Presently, however, he returned to his own habitual and (to him) more rea.s.suring reasoning. "That fellow seems to think the whole ocean of G.o.d's eternal purpose and decree can be caught up and held in one little pint cup; and in his self-confident ignorance he looks upon the Lord's ways as though they were a child's reading-book which any man could learn at once. Even if there be truth in what he says, the simple gospel is too mild and too broad to be used thus freely. It would make the road to salvation toe easy for the transgressor. The Westminster Confession and the Shorter and Longer Catechisms are the skillful condensation and concentration of all Scripture truth. They are the framework of the church; and one might as well try to build a house without beams and rafters as to try to hold a church together without creeds and covenants and confessions of faith."

He said nothing to any one of that sermon in the grove; but the next few weeks he searched the Scriptures as he had never done before. At first he sought to find texts to bolster up his preaccepted tenets, but as the weeks went by, and he grew more and more absorbed in the search, he began to study the Bible impartially and comprehensively; and, instead of being satisfied with fragments of truth taken here and there from disconnected texts, he studied the different pa.s.sages with reference to their connected meaning. Reading, studying, pondering thus, his reason and judgment could not but admit the force of what Barton Stone and the other "New Light" ministers were teaching. Yes, his reason and judgment were at last convinced; yet this did not produce submission and a desire to acknowledge his error, but rather a feeling of resistance and defiance.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE CUP OF COLD WATER

In August of that same summer, Hiram Gilcrest, the man of strong nerve and iron const.i.tution, whose boast it had been that he had never known a day's real sickness, was stricken down with disease, and after a few days of wasting illness, he was muttering in the delirium of typhus fever.

He had never forgiven his daughter and her husband their runaway marriage. True, since the partial reconciliation of five years before, which had removed the ban of total non-communication between the two households, Betsy had occasionally visited her mother; but always, when at Oaklands, her father's manner, cold, distant, formal, had made her feel that not as a child of the house, nor even as an honored guest, but merely as a stranger, would she ever again be received in the home of her childhood. This was a great sorrow to her, the one dark cloud in the otherwise serene sky of her married happiness; and Logan, although he cared little on his own account for the cold looks and haughty demeanor of his father-in-law, loved his young wife too tenderly not to sorrow at her sorrow.

Now that Major Gilcrest was ill, however, Abner and Betty forgot all his harsh injustice, and hurried to the bedside where he lay battling for life against the fire that filled his veins, sapped his strength and consumed his flesh. Mason Rogers, too, although he and Gilcrest had not spoken to each other since their stormy interview eight years before, now hearing of his old friend's illness, forgot all harsh words and thoughts, and hurried to Oaklands to offer a.s.sistance. Of Gilcrest's six children, only Betsy and Matthew, the first-born and the youngest, were there. Silas and Philip were in Ma.s.sachusetts, students at Cambridge; John Calvin and Martin Luther, who had been among the first of those brave Kentucky volunteers to march to the defense of the territory of Indiana against the depredations of Tec.u.mseh and the Prophet, were now with General Harrison at Vincennes.

During the day, Betsy, who had left her three little children in the charge of the negress Marthy, shared with Aunt Dilsey the care of the sick man; and during the night watch Abner was his most constant attendant. Although Gilcrest was too delirious to recognize any one, it soon came to pa.s.s that no one else could influence him as could his once despised son-in-law; for poor Mrs. Gilcrest could not bear the sight of her husband's sufferings, and was hardly ever allowed to enter the room.

All that the medical erudition of the time prescribed was done for the patient. He was bled twice a week, and smothered in blankets; he was poulticed and plastered, blistered and fomented; he was dosed with concoctions of fever-wort, boneset, burdock, pokeberry, mullein root, and other medicaments bitter of taste and vile of smell; and kept hot, weak, and miserable generally. Our forbears are represented to this generation as a brave, vigorous and healthy race; and no wonder, for disease in that heroic age was simply a question of the "survival of the fittest;" and the stringent remedies prescribed under the old dispensation were well calculated to eliminate all but the strongest members of the race.

August and September pa.s.sed, and still the master of Oaklands lay helpless, while fever raged in his gaunt frame with unrelenting violence. One thing was constantly denied him, fresh, cold water; although he pleaded with such pitiful agony that his nurses wept when they refused him. In delirium he talked of the old spring at his far-away childhood home--of the babbling music of the water as it sparkled over its pebbly bed and trickled down the rocky hillside--and again and again he pleaded for one draught of its reviving freshness.

"Water! water!" was the burden of his plaint from morn till night, and from night till morn; and when too weak to speak, his hollow, bloodshot eyes still begged for water.

Finally he was given up to die. "He can not last through the night,"

was the verdict of the two physicians to the mourning ones around the bedside. His fainting wife was carried from the room; and his daughter, not able to endure the sight of his dying agonies, allowed her husband to lead her to her old room, where she threw herself across her bed in a paroxysm of grief. "Oh, father, father, my poor, dear old father!"

she wailed, "if only you could speak to me again before you die, and tell me that you forgive me and love me. And my brothers, so far away!

Oh, if you could be with us in this dark hour! It is so hard, so hard!"

The doctors had left. Aunt Dilsey was upstairs in attendance upon her stricken mistress. The night wore on, and when the gray dawn was just beginning to creep into the chamber where Hiram Gilcrest lay unconscious and scarcely breathing, Mason Rogers and John Trabue, worn out with their long night's vigil, stole into an adjoining room to s.n.a.t.c.h an hour's rest. Only Abner Logan and William Bledsoe were left in attendance upon the dying man. Presently he opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Abner.

"Do you know me, Mr. Gilcrest?" asked Logan, tenderly touching the shrunken, parched hands.

"Water! water!" was the reply; "for G.o.d's sake give me water! Have mercy, and let me have one drop before I die!"