It was a dreadful moment. For a space in which all nature seemed to hold its breath, Caleb sat rigid and dumb.
“Whose propity is this?” asked the Deacon still more sternly, and Will divined the mighty struggle going on in his father’s quaint conscience; casuistic questions as to how far a pill-box conveyed unconsciously had been “brought” by him, or in what sense pills administered to him remorselessly from without could be said to be his “property.”
Then suddenly Caleb’s lips opened. “Oi count ’twas in my parcel,” he said in tremulous accents.
The sublimity of the confession thrilled Will: he even felt a curious moisture at his eyes. But before the Deacon, sitting there like a judge about to pronounce sentence, could say a word, a blinding glare, followed almost instantaneously by an appalling crashing and smashing right overhead, showed that nature had indeed held its breath and had now spoken in flame and thunder. Will’s first reflection when the daze had passed away, and the congregation found itself and its building providentially safe, was that it was indeed lucky his father had spoken first; otherwise his confession might have seemed extorted by terror. But Joshua Mawhood was not the Deacon to let such a situation pass without profit. “The Lord havin’ spoke, brethren,” said he, “there ain’t no need for my opinion. The thing Oi hate most in this lower world is hypocrisy and dissemblin’. ‘Roight up and down, Jo Perry,’ as the sayin’ goos. Ef we ain’t been destroyed, as we sat here guzzlin’ and guttlin’, ’tain’t no merit of the congregation, ’tis because the Lord bein’ marciful don’t destroy Sodom and Gomorrah so long as there’s one roighteous man.” He rose majestically and drew himself up to his full height, and held the pill-box even higher. “Brother Flynt, if you’ll kindly step out, Oi’ll hand you back your propity.”
No fiercer punishment could have been devised for Caleb’s gentle soul: the sinner, isolated, passing through his shrinking Brethren and Sisters, must come forward as to a confession table. No wonder the poor man held back.
“Oi don’t need it now, Deacon,” he said, with lips almost as white as his hair. “You can throw it away ef you like.”
With malicious enjoyment the Deacon slowly and solemnly lifted the lid of the pill-box and dipped in his fingers, to hold up the impious contents to the public execration. Then his face changed.
“Why, it’s salt!” he cried in angry disappointment. It was as if the devil were playing thimblerig with him.
“Oi was thinkin’ the missus had ought to put some in,” said Caleb, beaming again.
The woman of the baby-cart now found herself possessed of the Spirit. She sprang to her feet, a baby on either arm.