"It isn't polite for folks in the seats to talk louder than the preacher," I had to admonish them in my natural voice and manner. "I hope you won't be so noisy while I'm preaching."
Nevertheless, when I gave out my text, the struck Mariposa, rolling from side to side with the motion of a "weaving" horse on her rocking-chair—that squeaked dismally—was so wrought upon by the ring of unknown and high-sounding syllables as to set up a dreary drone like the hum of an exaggerated bumblebee, and to keep it up. This did not disconcert me. I had expected to stir the imagination of my hearers, for my own was aglow.
Mary 'Liza, in reciting her geography lesson on Friday, had several times spoken of "Van Diemen's Land." Without the remotest conception of where or what it was—whether continent, or island, or town—I fastened, in fancy, upon her words, and constructed a hypothesis relative to the mysterious locality. Why I should have strung it upon the same strand of condemnation and doom with Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Capernaum and Chorazin, I may have known then. I have no idea now why this was done, or the derivation of the inclusive curse.
Van Diemen's Land, thus damned, fell naturally into line with the "Come and see!" of the "living creatures," and the "Death and Hell," and the prophecy of killing with sword and with famine and the wild beasts of the field. I was in a quiver of excitement that made my head and heart hot, and my feet and hands cold, as I fairly shouted my text:—
"For oh! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"
Mariposa's rhythmic hum was broken into irregular bars by groans and gruntings and sighings—all, I was gratified to note, modulated to the standard of civility I had indicated. I had made a hortatory hit, and it was encored. I spread wide my hands, in one of which was the New Testament, and reiterated the text with greater unction and volume:—
"For, oh, my brethren! Van Diemen's Land shall be no more!"
The chair careened under my ill-advised energy; the barrel toppled forward, and I shot, like a rocket, clear over Mariposa's head, breaking my fall somewhat upon another girl and baby, and landing in the middle of the congregation, with my nose against one of the swathed bricks.
I seldom cried when hurt, Cousin Molly Belle having told me long ago that a brave soldier made no noise when his head was shot off. But I screamed lustily now in the belief that my nose was broken and I bleeding to death. The deluge of gore was frightful to inexperienced eyes.
My father's voice, kindly authoritative, bidding me "be still!" hushed my roaring. As tears and blood were stanched, I saw his face bending over me, full of concern that yet fought with amusement I did not comprehend. I could not doubt that he pitied me, when he carried me, bloody and dirty as I was, into the chamber, and stood by while my mother and Mam' Chloe set me to rights. The shock of the fall and the fright left me sick and trembling. The trundle-bed was drawn out to half its width and I was laid upon it, wrapped in my little dressing-gown, a bottle of camphor in my nerveless hand.