The Redemption of David Corson. Charles Frederic Goss
performed by a Justice of the Peace in the city of Cincinnati, a year or so before their appearance in the Quaker village. An experience so abnormal would have perverted, if not destroyed her nature, had it not contained the germs of beauty and virtue implanted at her birth. They were still dormant, but not dead; they only awaited the sun and rain of love to quicken them into life.
The quack had coarsened with the passing years, but Pepeeta, withdrawing into the sanctuary of her soul, living a life of vague dreams and half-conscious aspirations after something, she knew not what, had grown even more gentle and submissive. As she did not yet comprehend life, she did not protest against its injustice or its incongruity. The vulgar people among whom she lived, the vulgar scenes she saw, passed across the mirror of her soul without leaving permanent impressions. She performed the coarse duties of her life in a perfunctory manner. It was her body and not her soul, her will and not her heart which were concerned with them. What that soul and that heart really were, remained to be seen.
CHAPTER IV.
THE WOMAN
"One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace."—Much Ado About Nothing.
True to his determination, the doctor devoted the night following his advent into the little frontier village to the investigation of the Quaker preacher's fitness for his use. He took Pepeeta with him, the older habitues of the tavern standing on the porch and smiling ironically as they started.
The meeting house was one of those conventional weather-boarded buildings with which all travelers in the western states are familiar. The rays of the tallow candles by which it was lighted were streaming feebly out into the night. The doors were open, and through them were passing meek-faced, soft-voiced and plain-robed worshipers.
The silhouettes of the men's broad hats and the women's poke bonnets, seen dimly against the pale light of the windows as they passed, plainly revealed their sect. The similarity of their garments almost obliterated the personal identity of the wearers.
The two strangers, so different in manners and dress, joined the straggling procession which crept slowly along the road and chatted to each other in undertones.
"What queer people," said Pepeeta.
"Beat the Dutch, and you know who the D-d-dutch beat!"
"What sort of a building is that they are going into?"
"That's a church."
"What is a church for?"
"Ask the marines! Never b-b-been in one more'n once or twice. G-g-g-guess they use 'em to p-p-pray in. Never pray, so never go."
"Why have you never taken me?"
"Why should I?"
"We go everywhere else, to theaters, to circuses, to races."
"Some sense in going there. Have f-f-fun!"
"Don't they have any fun in churches?"
"Fun! They think a man who laughs will go straight to the b-b-bow-wows!"
"What are they for, then, these churches?"
"For religion, I tell you."
"What is religion?"
"Don't you know?"
"No."
"Your education has been n-n-neglected."
"Tell me what it is!"
"D-d-d-don't ask so many questions! It is something for d-d-dead folks."
"How dark the building looks."
"Like a b-b-barn."
"How solemn the people seem."
"Like h-h-hoot owls."
"It scares me."
"Feel a little b-b-bit shaky myself; but it's too late to b-b-back out now. I'm going if they roast and eat me. If this f-f-feller can talk as they say he can, I am going to get hold of him, d-d-d-dead or alive. I'll have him if it takes a habeas c-c-corpus."
At this point of the conversation they arrived at the meeting-house. Keeping close together, Pepeeta light and graceful, the doctor heavy and awkward, both of them thoroughly embarrassed, they ascended the steps as a bear and gazelle might have walked the gang-plank into the ark. They entered unobserved save by a few of the younger people who were staring vacantly about the room, and took their seats on the last bench. The Quaker maidens who caught sight of Pepeeta were visibly excited and began to preen themselves as turtle doves might have done if a bird of paradise had suddenly flashed among them. One of them happened to be seated next her. She was dressed in quiet drabs and grays. Her face and person were pervaded and adorned by simplicity, meekness, devotion; and the contrast between the two was so striking as to render them both self-conscious and uneasy in each other's presence.
The visitors did not know at all what to expect in this unfamiliar place, but could not have been astonished or awed by anything else half so much as by the inexplicable silence which prevailed. If the whole assemblage had been dancing or turning somersaults, they would not have been surprised, but the few moments in which they thus sat looking stupidly at the people and then at each other seemed to them like a small eternity. Pepeeta's sensitive nature could ill endure such a strain, and she became nervous.
"Take me away," she imploringly whispered to the doctor, who sat by her side, ignorant of the custom which separated the sexes.
He tried to encourage her in a few half-suppressed words, took her trembling hand in his great paw, pressed it reassuringly, winked humorously, and then looked about him with a sardonic grin.
To Pepeeta's relief, the silence was at last broken by an old man who rose from his seat, reverently folded his hands, lifted his face to heaven, closed his eyes and began to speak. She had never until this moment listened to a prayer, and this address to an invisible Being wrought in her already agitated mind a confused and exciting effect; but the prayer was long, and gave her time to recover her self-control. The silence which followed its close was less painful because less strange than the other, and she permitted herself to glance about the room and to wonder what would happen next. Her curiosity was soon satisfied. David Corson, the young mystic, rose to his feet. He was dressed with exquisite neatness in that simple garb which lends to a noble person a peculiar and serious dignity. Standing for a moment before he began his address, he looked over the audience with the self-possession of an accomplished orator. The attention of every person in the room was at once arrested. They all recalled their wandering or preoccupied thoughts, lifted their bowed heads and fixed their eyes upon the commanding figure before them.
This general movement caused Pepeeta to turn, and she observed a sudden transformation on the countenance of the dove-like Quaker maiden. A flush mantled her pale cheek and a radiance beamed in her mild blue eyes. It was a tell-tale look, and Pepeeta, who divined its meaning, smiled sympathetically.
But the first word which fell from the lips of the speaker withdrew her attention from every other object, for his voice possessed a quality with which she was entirely unfamiliar. It would have charmed and fascinated the hearer, even if it had uttered incoherent words. For Pepeeta, it had another and a more mysterious value. It was the voice of her destiny, and rang in her soul like a bell. The speech of the young Quaker was a simple and unadorned message of the love of God to men, and of their power to respond to the Divine call. The thoughts to which he gave expression were not original, but simply distillations from the words of Madam Guyon, Fenelon, Thomas à Kempis and St. John; and yet they were not mere repetitions, for they were permeated by the freshness and