Here a horse’s hoofs clattered upon the frozen road in front. Two or three women went to the window. “It’s Preacher Freeman,” they announced. “He’s on his way to Mills’s Ford to see that man that’s been hurt.”
“He’s got nine miles further to ride and it’s mighty cold.”
The door opened and a tall man, dark and spare, entered. He might have been thirty years old, but he smiled at the tree with boyish appreciation as he made his way past it and gave the assembly a general “Howdy.” Then he drew off his mittens and went from one to another shaking hands though he didn’t call them all by name. His own church people were there, but it is needless to name their denominational conformity—he was an honour to any church. They gave him a seat before the fire and he stretched out his shabbily shod feet toward it with a tired sigh, but an involuntary one, for he checked it.
“I stopped at your house Judge Brevard,” he said, “and learned that you were here.”
Embarrassed at being found in company so ecclesiastically mixed, Brevard irrelevantly felt of the young man’s coat.
“Tollable thin for this weather,” he said.
“The exercise of riding keeps me warm,” answered the preacher and changed the subject. “I didn’t expect to find all my people here” (with kind eyes he seemed to single out his own). “I’m glad of it,” he continued heartily. “I’m glad to see the whole neighbourhood joining hands.”
He praised the tree, gave a few minutes to general and friendly discourse, arranged with Brevard the personal matter which had been the object of his call, wished them a “Merry Christmas” and went out. They heard him speak to his horse as he untied him but in a moment he entered the cabin again. He came forward haltingly and laid a hand upon the back of a bench, fidgeting like an embarrassed schoolboy as he began to speak:
“Brethren, I spent last night twenty miles from here up on the Harriman Mountain. You-all know what Harriman is like.”
Colonel Ledbetter twisted himself round and faced the speaker.