With immense nervous energy, even while they stood staring, he retrieved his horse, which had been stampeded farther into the wood. Then he fixed his rummaged saddle-bags, mounted, and galloped off, singing a hymn so loudly and triumphantly that it echoed in their ears like a battle-call.
"His name is Lorenzo Dow. He is not afraid of man or devil," said the mother, half in praise, half in criticism of this great Methodist preacher. "His manner is strange beyond belief; yet he sways all hearts toward righteousness."
"He is a lively one. They must have sneaked up on him, four to one, to get him," Doby guessed.
Mother and son hurried after him and came to the top of the next hill in time to see him, at a mad run and yelling lustily, charge down upon his late captors as they crossed the valley.
The huskies were taken all aback. There was something of witchcraft in the way their prisoner appeared before them. Their minds were too slow to form a plan to stop him. He whirled past them like a storm, went over the next hill, and straightway was in the grove.
Doby and his mother were among the many to see the spare figure of the circuit-riding preacher mount a stump in the grove and in ringing tones proclaim the Church militant.
It was that perfect thing which comes in the easy times after corn-planting, a May day of sunshine and balmy airs.
Boards for seats had been carried from a barn close by and people sat under the new leaves within scent of the wild honeysuckle. Later in the dry summer season these outdoor meetings would become camp-meetings of a sort which lasted for a week at a time. Whole families would bring enough household gear and food and shelter to enable them to live on the spot for that length of time.
Church and prayer meetings would be going day and night under pressure of religious revival. To-day was to be a foretaste of the form of worship the summer-time was sure to bring.