After that he seemed to sink into partial unconsciousness. Nathaniel felt his hand grow colder, but he still held it, grasping it more tightly when he felt the fumes of his father's reeking eloquence mount to his brain. The women were all sobbing aloud. A young girl was writhing on the floor, her groans stifled by her mother's hand. The air of the room was stifling with hysteria. The old sister of the dying man called out, "Oh, quick, Master Everett. He is going. Exhort him now to give us some token that at the last he repents of his unbelief."
The minister whirled about, shaking with his own violence. The sweat was running down his face. "Gideon Hall, I charge you to say if you repent of your sins."
There was a pause. The silence was suffocating.
The old man gradually aroused himself from his torpor, although he did not open his eyes. "Aye, truly I repent me of my sins," he whispered mildly, "for any unkindness done to any man, or——"
The minister broke in, his voice mounting shrilly, "Nay, not so, thou subtle mocker. Dost thou repent thee of thy unbelief in the true faith?"
Colonel Gideon Hall opened his eyes. He turned his head slowly on the pillow until he faced the preacher, and at the sight of his terrible eyes and ecstatic pallor he began to laugh whimsically, as he had laughed in the wood with Nathaniel. "Why, man, I thought you did but frighten women with it—not yourself too. Nay, do not trouble about me. I don't believe in your damned little hell."
The smile on his face gradually died away into a still serenity, which was there later, when the minister lifted his son away from the dead man's bed.
V
The four old men walked sturdily forward with their burden, although at intervals they slipped their tall staves under the corners and rested, wiping their foreheads and breathing hard. As they stood thus silent, where the road passed through a thicket of sumac, a boy came rapidly around the curve and was upon them before he saw that he was not alone. He stopped short and made a guilty motion to hide a bundle that he carried. The old men stared at him, and reassured by this absence of recognition he advanced slowly, looking curiously at the great scarlet flag which hung in heavy folds from their burden.
"Is this the road to Woodburn?" he asked them.