Keziah Coffin Part 10

"Hum! Queer weather for a walk, I call it. Won't be many out to-night, except Come-Outers goin' to holler their lungs loose at prayer meetin'.

He, he! You ain't turned Come-Outer, have you, Mr. Ellery? You've headed right for the chapel."

Ellery's reply was hurried and a bit confused. He said good night and went on.

"Laviny," whispered the shocked Kyan, "do you think that was a--er--polite thing to say to a parson? That about his turnin'

Come-Outer? He didn't make much answer, seemed to me. You don't think he was mad, do ye?"

"I don't care if he was," snorted Miss Pepper. "He could tell a body where he was goin' then. n.o.body can snub me, minister or not. I think he's kind of stuck-up, if you want to know, and if he is, he'll get took down in a hurry. Come along, don't stand there with your mouth open like a flytrap. I'd like to know what he was up to. I've a precious good mind to follow him; would if 'twa'n't so much trouble."

She didn't. Yet, if she had, she would have deemed the trouble worth while. For John Ellery stumbled on through the mist till he reached the "Corners" where the store was located and the roads forked. There, he turned to the right, into the way called locally "Hammond's Turn-off."

A short distance down the "Turn-off" stood a small, brown-s.h.i.+ngled building, its windows alight. Opposite its door, on the other side of the road, grew a spreading hornbeam tree surrounded by a cl.u.s.ter of swamp blackberry bushes. In the black shadow of the hornbeam Mr. Ellery stood still. He was debating in his mind a question: should he or should he not enter that building?

As he stood there, groups of people emerged from the fog and darkness and pa.s.sed in at the door. Some of them he had seen during his fortnight in Trumet. Others were strangers to him. A lantern danced and wabbled up the "Turn-off" from the direction of the bay sh.o.r.e and the packet wharf.

It drew near, and he saw that it was carried by an old man with long white hair and chin beard, who walked with a slight limp. Beside him was a thin woman wearing a black poke bonnet and a shawl. In the rear of the pair came another woman, a young woman, judging by the way she was dressed and her lithe, vigorous step. The trio halted on the platform of the building. The old man blew out the lantern. Then he threw the door open and a stream of yellow light poured over the group.

The young woman was Grace Van Horne. The minister recognized her at once. Undoubtedly, the old man with the limp was her guardian, Captain Eben Hammond, who, by common report, had spoken of him, Ellery, as a "hired priest."

The door closed. A few moments thereafter the sound of a squeaky melodeon came from within the building. It wailed and quavered and groaned. Then, with a suddenness that was startling, came the first verse of a hymn, sung with tremendous enthusiasm:

"Oh, who shall answer when the Lord shall call His ransomed sinners home?"

The hallelujah chorus was still ringing when the watcher across the street stepped out from the shadow of the hornbeam. Without a pause he strode over to the platform. Another moment and the door had shut behind him.

The minister of the Trumet Regular church had entered the Come-Outer chapel to attend a Come-Outer prayer meeting!

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH THE PARSON CRUISES IN STRANGE WATERS

The Come-Outer chapel was as bare inside, almost, as it was without.

Bare wooden walls, a beamed ceiling, a raised platform at one end with a table and chairs and the melodeon upon it, rows of wooden settees for the congregation--that was all. As the minister entered, the wors.h.i.+pers were standing up to sing. Three or four sputtering oil lamps but dimly illumined the place and made recognition uncertain.

The second verse of the hymn was just beginning as Ellery came in. Most of the forty or more grown people in the chapel were too busy wrestling with the tune to turn and look at him. A child here and there in the back row twisted a curious neck but twisted back again as parental fingers tugged at its ear. The minister tiptoed to a dark corner and took his stand in front of a vacant settee.

The man whom Ellery had decided must be Captain Eben Hammond was standing on the low platform beside the table. A quaint figure, patriarchal with its flowing white hair and beard, puritanical with its set, smooth-shaven lips and tufted brows. Captain Eben held an open hymn book back in one hand and beat time with the other. He wore bra.s.s-bowed spectacles well down toward the tip of his nose. Swinging a heavy, stubby finger and singing in a high, quavering voice of no particular register, he led off the third verse:

"Oh, who shall weep when the roll is called And who shall shout for joy?"

The melodeon and the hymn book were in accord as to the tune, but Captain Eben and the various members of the congregation seemed to have a desire to improvise. They sang with spirit, however, and the rhythmic pat of feet grew louder and louder. Here and there men and women were swaying and rocking their bodies in time to the music. The chorus for each verse was louder than the one preceding it.

Another hymn was given out and sung. And another and still another. The windows rattled. The patting grew to a steady "thump! thump!" Momentary pauses between lines were punctuated by hallelujahs and amens. Standing directly in front of the minister was a six-foot, raw-boned individual whose clothes smelled strongly of fish, and whose hands, each swung at the end of an exposed five inches of hairy red wrist, looked like flippers. At the end of the third hymn this personage sprang straight up into the air, cracked the heels of a pair of red cowhide boots together, and whooped: "Glory be! Send the PAOWER!" in a voice like the screech of a northeast gale. Mr. Ellery, whom this gymnastic feat had taken by surprise, jumped in sympathy, although not as high.

The singing over, the wors.h.i.+pers sat down. Captain Eben took a figured handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. The thin, nearsighted young woman who had been humped over the keyboard of the melodeon, straightened up. The wors.h.i.+pers relaxed a little and began to look about.

Then the captain adjusted his spectacles and opened a Bible, which he took from the table beside him. Clearing his throat, he announced that he would read from the Word, tenth chapter of Jeremiah:

"'Thus saith the Lord. Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

"'For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workmen, with the ax.'"

He read in a measured singsong, stopping occasionally to hold the book in a better light and peering at the fine print through his spectacles.

And as he read, there was a sudden rustle on one of the back benches. A child had turned, stared, and pulled at its mother's sleeve. The rustle grew and spread.

Captain Eben drawled on to the twentieth verse:

"'My tabernacle is spoiled and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains!

"'For the pastors are become brutish and have not sought the Lord: therefore they shall not prosper, and--'"

"A-MEN!"

The shout came from the second bench from the front, where Ezekiel Ba.s.sett, clam digger and fervent religionist, was always to be found on meeting nights. Ezekiel was the father of Susannah B. Ba.s.sett, "Sukey B." for short, who played the melodeon. He had been, by successive seizures, a Seventh Day Baptist, a Second Adventist, a Millerite, a Regular, and was now the most energetic of Come-Outers. Later he was to become a Spiritualist and preside at table-tipping seances.

Ezekiel's amen was so sudden and emphatic that it startled the reader into looking up. Instead of the faces of his congregation, he found himself treated to a view of their back hair. Nearly every head was turned toward the rear corner of the room, there was a buzz of whispering and, in front, many men and women were standing up to look.

Captain Eben was scandalized.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "Is this a prayer meetin' or--or--what? Brethren and sisters, I must say--"

Ezekiel Ba.s.sett stepped forward and whispered in his ear. The captain's expression of righteous indignation changed to one of blank astonishment. He, too, gazed at the dark corner. Then his lips tightened and he rapped smartly on the table.

"Brethren and sisters," he thundered, in the voice which, of old, had enforced obedience aboard his coasting schooner, "remember this is the house of the Lord. Be reverent!"

He waited until every eye had swung about to meet his. Then he regarded his abashed but excited hearers with a steady and prolonged stare.

"My friends," he said, "let us bow in prayer."

John Ellery could have repeated that prayer, almost word for word, years after that night. The captain prayed for the few here gathered together: Let them be steadfast. Let them be constant in the way. The path they were treading might be narrow and beset with thorns, but it was the path leading to glory.

"Scoffers may sneer," he declared, his voice rising; "they may make a mock of us, they may even come into Thy presence to laugh at us, but theirs is the laugh that turns to groanin'. O Lord, strengthen us to-night to speak what's in our hearts, without fear." ("A-men!") "To prophesy in Thy name! To bid the mockers and them that dare--dare to profane this sanctuary be careful. Hired singers and trumpets and vain shows we have not" ("Thank the Lord! Amen!"), "but the true faith and the joy of it we do have." ("Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Glory!")

And so on, his remarks becoming more personal and ever pointing like a compa.s.s needle to the occupant of that seat in the corner. The minister's determination to attend a Come-Outer meeting, though it had reached the sticking point only a half hour before, was the result of considerable deliberation. He had argued with himself and had made up his mind to find out for himself just what these people did. He was finding out, certainly. His motives were good and he had come with no desire to scoff, but, for the life of him, he could not help feeling like a criminal. Incidentally, it provoked him to feel that way.

"O Lord," prayed Captain Hammond, the perspiration in beads on his forehead, "Thou hast said that the pastors become brutish and have not sought Thee and that they shan't prosper. Help us tonight to labor with this one that he may see his error and repent in sackcloth and ashes."

They sang once more, a hymn that prophesied woe to the unbeliever.

Then Ezekiel Ba.s.sett rose to "testify." The testimony was mainly to the effect that he was happy because he had fled to the ark of safety while there was yet time.

"I found out," he shouted, "that fancy music and--ah--and--ah--sot sermons and fine duds and suchlike wa'n't goin' to do ME no good.

I needed somethin' else. I needed good times in my religion"

("Hallelujah!") "and I've found 'em right here. Yes, sir! right here.

And I say this out loud," turning to glare at the intruder, "and I don't care who comes to poke fun at me for sayin' it." ("Amen!")

A sharp-nosed female followed Mr. Ba.s.sett. She spoke with evident feeling and in a voice that trembled and shook when her emotion carried it aloft. SHE'D had enough of high-toned religion. Yes, and of them that upheld it. When her brother Simeon was took bad with phthisic, "wheezin'

like a busted bellerses" and 'twas "up and down, trot, trot, trot," to fetch and carry for him day in and night out, did the folks from the Reg'lar church help her? She guessed NOT. The only one that came nigh her was Laviny Pepper, and she came only to gas and gabble and find out things that wa'n't none of her business. What help she got was from a Come-Outer, from Eben Hammond, bless his good soul! ("Amen!") That phthisic settled her for Reg'larism. Yes, and for them that preached it, too. So there!

Captain Eben called for more testimony. But the testifiers were, to use the old minstrel joke, backward in coming forward that evening. At an ordinary meeting, by this time, the shouts and enthusiasm would have been at their height and half a dozen Come-Outers on their feet at once, relating their experiences and proclaiming their happiness. But tonight there was a damper; the presence of the leader of the opposition cast a shadow over the gathering. Only the bravest attempted speech. The others sat silent, showing their resentment and contempt by frowning glances over their shoulders and portentous nods one to the other.