The old woman stared at him in dumb astonishment. But he was rising to take leave—a simple ceremony. He unhitched the horse at the gate, mounted, and, with a silent nod to the group on the porch, rode slowly away.
Old Mrs. Cayce followed him with curious eyes, peering out in the gaps of the hop-vines.
'D'rindy,' she said, 'that thar Pa'son Kelsey—we-uns useter call him nuthin' but Hi—he's got suthin' heavy on his mind. It always 'peared ter me ez he war a mighty cur'ous man ter take up with religion an' sech. A mighty suddint boy he war—ez good a fighter ez a catamount, an' always 'mongst the evil, bold men. Them he consorted with till he gin his child morphine by mistake, an' its mammy quine-iron; an' she los' her senses arterward, an' flunged herse'f off'n the bluff. 'Pears like to me ez them war jedgments on him—though Em'ly warn't much loss; ez triflin' a ch'ice fur a wife ez a man could make. An' now he hev got suthin' on his mind.'
The girl said nothing. She stayed her wheel with one hand, holding the thread with the other, and looked over her shoulder at the receding figure riding slowly along the vista of the forest-shadowed road. Then she turned, and fixed her lucent, speculative eyes on her grandmother, who continued:
'Calls hisself a castaway! Waal, he knows bes', bein' a prophet an' sech. But it air toler'ble comical talk fur a preacher. Brother Jake Tobin kin hardly hold hisself together, a-waitin' fur his sheer o' the joys o' the golden shore.'
'Waal, 'pears like ter me,' said Mirandy Jane, whose mind seemed never far from the culinary achievements to which she had been dedicated, 'ez Brother Jake Tobin sets mo' store on chicken fixin's than on grace, an' he fattens ev'y year.'
'I hopes,' proceeded the grandmother, disregarding the interruption, and peering out again at the road where the horseman had disappeared, 'ez Hi Kelsey won't sot hisself ter prophesyin' evil at the meetin'; 'pears ter me he ought to be hendered, ef mought be, 'kase the wrath he foresees mos'ly kems ter pass, an' I'm always lookin' ter see him prophesy the raiders—though he hev hed the grace ter hold his hand 'bout'n the still. An' I hopes he won't hev nuthin' ter say 'bout it at the meetin' Sunday.'
The little log meeting-house at the Notch stood high on a rugged spur of the Great Smoky. Dense forests encompassed it on every hand, obscuring that familiar picture of mountain and cloud and cove. From its rude, glassless windows one could look out on no distant vista, save, perhaps, in the visionary glories of heaven or the climatic discomforts of hell, according to the state of the conscience, or perchance the liver. The sky was aloof and limited. The laurel tangled the aisles of the woods.
Sometimes from the hard benches a weary tow-headed brat might rejoice to mark in the monotony the frisking of a squirrel on a bough hard by, or a woodpecker solemnly tapping. The acorns would rattle on the roof, if the wind stirred, as if in punctuation of the discourse. The pines, mustering strong among the oaks, joined their mystic threnody to the sad-voiced quiring within. The firs stretched down long, pendulous, darkling boughs, and filled the air with their balsamic fragrance.
Within the house the dull light fell over a few rude benches and a platform with a chair and table, which was used as pulpit. Shadows of many deep, rich tones of brown lurked among the rafters. Here and there a cobweb, woven to the consistence of a fabric, swung in the air. The drone of a blue-bottle, fluttering in and out of the window in a slant of sunshine, might invade the reverent silence, as Brother Jake Tobin turned the leaves to read the chapter.