"Abhorred slave which any print of goodness will not take
Being capable of all ill."
The words of Saint Paul to the sorcerer fitted him: "O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness." He was a type of those whom the apostle described as "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, deceit, malignity—implicable, unmerciful."
Strangely enough, one of the moonshiners had read Shakespeare's "Tempest," and gave Caliban's title of "monster" to Zibe Turner. From that day he was generally nicknamed "Monster Turner."
"Always stick to dat," repeated Turner in his deep, gutteral voice. "Let's drink to de health of all moonshiners and to de defeat an' death of all revenue spies. Dat's my holt (hold)." Suiting the action to the words, he raised a stone jug nearly full of spirits to his lips and taking a long draught, handed it to the next, and so it went the rounds. The liquor, which would have made an ordinary drinker intoxicated in a few minutes, had no perceptible effect upon these men, who scarcely ever tasted water, so commonly did they drink the product of their stills; but it perhaps raised their feelings a trifle and loosened their tongues to speak other words and strengthened their purposes to perform unlawful acts.
Sam Wiles then spoke: "Next to these officer dorgs who hunt us on the hills and mountains, I hate them shoutin' hypercrits who air holdin' that camp meetin' near Poplar Crick. They're tryin' to make the whul county pious, and you fellers know how their head men have jined with others around here to appint a vigilance committee to drive all such as we'uns air out'n the State. Because we believe in pursonal liberty, because we think it right to make our own whisky and to race our hosses, because we sometimes try our luck at cards and win money from the young fools in the valley, they want to put the law on our tracks. Now the more camp meetin's we have around here, the less pursonal liberty we shall have; and I propose to you'ns that we jine with the boys on Honey Crick and bust up the camp meetin'."
This proposition was hailed with delight by all the company except Long Tom. When he had cleared his mouth of juice, he drawled out: "Byes, none of ye would like to see that meetin' capsized better nor I would. But we must be sure of our ground. I have hearn that the star preacher there—what's his name? Jasper Hurry? No. Very? That's it, Jasper Very. I have hearn that he is almighty strong and brave, and we had better be keerful how we tackle 'im."
"Shucks," said Wiles, "they air all cowards, and their magistrates will run at the first attack; and I say it is to our interest to break up that meetin', and do it right away. What do you say, byes?"
They all consented to the attack, and took another swig around from the big jug to seal the agreement.
"Now," said their leader, "it's time you'ns went to yer homes. Zibe Turner will stay, and we'uns will tend de fire. Long Tom, tomorrow you go to Bert Danks, the captain of the Honey Crick crowd, and ask him and his pals to meet us here in de evenin'."