Other Main-Travelled Roads. Garland Hamlin
perch, went fluttering off into the cold, crisp air; but he saw only the contemptuous, quizzical face of old William Bacon—one shaggy eyebrow lifted, a smile showing through his shapeless beard.
He saw the colorless, handsome face of Radbourn, and his look of reproach and note of suggestion—Radbourn, one of the best thinkers in Rock River, and the most generally admired young man in Rock County.
When he saw and heard Bacon, his hurt pride flamed up in wrath, but the calm voice of Radbourn, and the look in his stern, accusing eyes, made his head fall in thought. As he rode, things grew clearer. As a matter of fact, his whole system of religious thought was like the side of a shelving sand-bank—in unstable equilibrium—needing only a touch to send it slipping into a shapeless pile at the river's edge. That touch had been given, and he was now in the midst of the motion of his falling faith. He didn't know how much would stand when the sloughing ended.
Andrew Pill had been a variety of things, a farmer, a dry-goods merchant, and a travelling salesman, but in a revival quite like this of his own, he had been converted and his life changed. He now desired to help his fellow-men to a better life, and willingly went out among the farmers, where pay was small. It was not true, therefore, that he had gone into it because there was little work and good pay. He was really an able man, and would have been a success in almost anything he undertook; but his reading and thought, his easy intercourse with men like Bacon and Radbourn, had long since undermined any real faith in the current doctrine of retribution, and to-night, as he rode into the night, he was feeling it all and suffering it all, forced to acknowledge at last what had been long moving.
The horse took the wrong road, and plodded along steadily, carrying him away from his home, but he did not know it for a long time. When at last he looked up and saw the road leading out upon the wide plain between the belts of timber, leading away to Rock River, he gave a sigh of relief. He could not meet his wife then; he must have a chance to think.
Over him, the glittering, infinite sky of winter midnight soared, passionless, yet accusing in its calmness, sweetness, and majesty. What was he that he could dogmatize on eternal life and the will of the Being who stood behind that veil? And then would come rushing back that scene in the schoolhouse, the smell of the steaming garments, the gases from the lamps, the roar of the stove, the sound of his own voice, strident, dominating, so alien to his present mood, he could only shudder at it.
He was worn out with thinking when he drove into the stable at the Merchants' House and roused up the sleeping hostler, who looked at him suspiciously and demanded pay in advance. This seemed right in his present mood. He was not to be trusted.
When he flung himself face downward on his bed, the turmoil in his brain was still going on. He couldn't hold one thought or feeling long; all seemed slipping like water from his hands.
He had in him great capacity for change, for growth. Circumstances had been against his development thus far, but the time had come when growth seemed to be defeat and failure.
VI
Radbourn was thinking about him, two days after, as he sat in his friend Judge Brown's law office, poring over a volume of law. He saw that Bacon's treatment had been heroic; he couldn't get the pitiful confusion of the preacher's face out of his mind. But, after all, Bacon's seizing of just that instant was a stroke of genius.
Some one touched him on the arm and he turned.
"Why—Elder—Mr. Pill, how de do? Sit down. Draw up a chair."
There was trouble in the preacher's face. "Can I see you, Radbourn, alone?"
"Certainly; come right into this room. No one will disturb us there."
"Now, what can I do for you?" he said, as they sat down.
"I want to talk to you about—about religion," said Pill, with a little timid pause in his voice.
Radbourn looked grave. "I'm afraid you've come to a dangerous man."
"I want you to tell me what you think. I know you're a student. I want to talk about my case," pursued the preacher, with a curious hesitancy. "I want to ask a few questions on things."
"Very well; sail in. I'll do the best I can," said Radbourn.
"I've been thinking a good deal since that night. I've come to the conclusion that I don't believe what I've been preaching. I thought I did, but I didn't. I don't know what I believe. Seems as if the land had slid from under my feet. What am I to do?"
"Say so," replied Radbourn, his eyes kindling. "Say so, and get out of it. There's nothing worse than staying where you are. What have you saved from the general land-slide?"
Pill smiled a little. "I don't know."
"Want me to cross-examine you and see, eh? Very well, here goes." He settled back with a smile. "You believe in square dealing between man and man?"
"Certainly."
"You believe in good deeds, candor, and steadfastness?"
"I do."
"You believe in justice, equality of opportunity, and in liberty?"
"Certainly I do."
"You believe, in short, that a man should do unto others as he'd have others do unto him; think right and live out his thoughts?"
"All that I steadfastly believe."
"Well, I guess your land-slide was mostly imaginary. The face of the eternal rock is laid bare. You didn't recognize it at first, that's all. One question more. You believe in getting at truth?"
"Certainly."
"Well, truth is only found from the generalizations of facts. Before calling a thing true, study carefully all accessible facts. Make your religion practical. The matter-of-fact tone of Bacon would have had no force if you had been preaching an earnest morality in place of an antiquated terrorism."
"I know it, I know it," sighed Pill, looking down.
"Well, now go back and tell 'em so. And then, if you can't keep your place preaching what you do believe, get into something else. For the sake of all morality and manhood, don't go on cursing yourself with hypocrisy."
Mr. Pill took a chew of tobacco rather distractedly, and said:—
"I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"No, not now. You think out your present position yourself. Find out just what you have saved from your land-slide."
The elder man rose; he hardly seemed the same man who had dominated his people a few days before. He turned with still greater embarrassment.
"I want to ask a favor. I'm going back to my family. I'm going to say something of what you've said, to my congregation—but—I'm in debt—and the moment they know I'm a backslider, they're going to bear down on me pretty heavy. I'd like to be independent."
"I see. How much do you need?" mused Radbourn.
"I guess two hundred would stave off the worst of them."
"I guess Brown and I can fix that. Come in again to-night. Or no, I'll bring it round to you."
The two men parted with a silent pressure of the hand that meant more than any words.
When Mr. Pill told his wife that he could preach no more, she cried, and gasped, and scolded till she was in danger of losing her breath entirely. "A guinea-hen sort of a woman" Councill called her. "She can talk more an' say less 'n any woman I ever see," was Bacon's verdict, after she had been at dinner at his house. She was a perpetual irritant.
Mr. Pill silenced her at last with a note of impatience approaching a threat, and drove away to the Corners to make his confession without her. It was Saturday night, and Elder Wheat was preaching as he entered the crowded room. A buzz and mumble of surprise stopped the orator for a few moments, and he shook hands with Mr. Pill dubiously, not knowing what to think of it all, but as he was