The old Major disapproved, but it was not his way to discuss matters with his family; and it may be doubted, indeed, if the Major grasped the significance and force of the tide which had overtaken his son, as it had rushed with the power of a flood over his beloved Virginia and left in its wake a tremendous unrest, and carried before it many of the most sincere and forceful characters and questions. Beyond a few twittings and an occasional growl, therefore, the old Major had ignored his son's gradual withdrawal from the ancient forms and functions and the fact that almost every Sunday morning, of late, had found the boy absent from the family pew and present two miles up the valley at the little log meeting-house of the Methodists. He was unprepared, therefore, to face the question seriously, when finally told by the boy's mother that Grif had decided that on his nineteenth birthday he would be baptized, and that he intended to enter the ministry as a circuit rider.
The joke struck the Major as good above the average. He laughed long and loud. He chuckled within himself all day. When evening came and Griffith appeared at the table the Major was too full of mirth and derision to content himself with his usual banter.
"Your mothah inforhms me," he began with the ironical touch in his tone held well under the sparkle of humor. "Your mothah inforhms me that to-morrow is your nineteenth birthday, you long-legged young gosling, and that you contemplate celebrating it by transmuting yourself into a Methodist ass with leather lungs and the manners, sir,—and the habits, sir, of—of—of a damned Yankee!"
As the Major had halted for words and the picture of his son as a circuit rider arose before him as a reality and not as a joke, his ire had gotten the better of his humor. The picture he had conjured up in his own mind of this son of his in the new social relations sure to result from the contemplated change of faith swamped the old Major's sense of the absurdity of the situation in a sudden feeling of indignation and chagrin, and the sound of his own unusual words did the rest.
Griffith looked up at his father in blank surprise. His mother said, gently, "Majah! Majah!" But the old 'squire's sudden plunge into anger had him in its grip. He grew more and more excited as his own words stirred him.
"Yes, sir, like a damned northern tackey that comes down here amongst respectable people to talk to niggers, and preach, as they call their ranting, to the white trash that never owned a nigger in their whole worthless lives, and tell'em about the 'unrighteousness' of slavery! Why don't they read their Bibles if they know enough to read? It teaches slavery plain enough—'Servants obey your masters in all things,' and 'If a man sell his servant,' and 'His servant is his money,' and a good many more! Why don't they read their Bibles, I say, and shout if they want to, and attend to their own business? Nobody wants their long noses down here amongst reputable people, sowing seeds of riot and rebellion among the niggers!" The Major had forgotten his original point but it came back to him as Grif began to speak.
"But, sir-"
"But, sir!" he said, rising from his chair in his excitement, "don't 'but, sir,' me! I'm disgusted and ashamed, sir! Ashamed from the bottom of my hawt, that a son of mine—a Davenport—could for one moment contemplate this infernal piece of folly! A circuit rider, indeed! A damned disturber of niggers! A man with, no traditions! Shouting and having fits and leading weak-minded women and girls, and weaker-minded boys and niggers into unpardonable, disgraceful antics and calling it religion! Actually having the effrontery to call it religion! It's nothing but infernal rascality in half the cases and pitiable insanity in the other half, and if I'd been doing my duty as a 'squire I'd have taken the whole pestiferous lot up and put one set in jail and the other set in an asylum, long ago! Look at'em! Ducking 'converts,' as they call their dupes, in the creek! Perfectly disgraceful, sir! I forbid you to go about their meetings again, sir! Yes, sir, once and for all, I forbid it!"
The Major brought his fist down on the table with a bang that set the fine china rattling and added the last straw of astonishment and discomfort to the unusual family jar; for few indeed had ever been the occasions upon which even a mild degree of paternal authority had not been so quickly followed by ready and willing compliance that an outbreak of anything like real temper or authoritative command—other than at or toward the slaves—had been hardly within Grif's memory.
The boy arose, trembling and pale, and leaving his untouched plate of choice food before him turned to leave the room.