Gaunt turned away, and hurried down the hill, his heart throbbing and aching against his bony side with the breathless pain which women, and such men as he, know. Her hand was cold, as she gave it to him; some pain had chilled her blood: was it because she bade him good-bye forever, then? Was it? He knew it was not: his instincts were keen as those of the old Pythoness, who read the hearts of men and nations by surface-trifles. Gaunt joined the old man, and began talking loosely and vaguely, as was his wont,—of the bad road, and the snow-water oozing through his boots,—not knowing what he said. She did not care; he would not cheat himself: when he told her to-night what he meant to do, she heard it with a cold, passive disapproval,—with that steely look in her dark eyes that shut him out from her. "You are sincere, I see; but you are not true to yourself or to God": that was all she said. She would have said the same, if he had gone with her brother. It was a sudden stab, but he forgave her: how could she know that God Himself had laid this blood-work on him, or the deathly fight his soul had waged against it? She did not know,—nor care. Who did?
The man plodded doggedly through the melting snow, with a keener sense of the cold biting through his threadbare waistcoat, of the solitude and wrong that life had given him,—his childish eyes turning to the gray depth of night, almost fierce in their questioning,—thinking what a failure his life had been. Thirty-five years of struggle with poverty and temptation! Ever since that day in the blacksmith's shop in Norfolk, when he had heard the call of the Lord to go and preach His word, had he not striven to choke down his carnal nature,—to shut his eyes to all beauty and love,—to unmake himself, by self-denial, voluntary pain? Of what use was it? To-night his whole nature rebelled against this carnage before him,—his duty; scorned it as brutal; cried out for a life as peaceful and meek as that of Jesus, (as if that were not an absurdity in a time like this,) for happiness, for this woman's love; demanded it, as though these things were its right!
The man had a genial, childish temperament, given to woo and bind him, in a thousand simple, silly ways, into a likeness of that Love that holds the world, and that gave man no higher hero-model than a trustful, happy child. It was the birthright of this haggard wretch going down the hill, to receive quick messages from God through every voice of the world,—to understand them, as few men did, by his poet's soul,—through love, or color, or music, or keen healthy pain. Very many openings for him to know God through the mask of matter. He had shut them; being a Calvinist, and a dyspeptic, (Dyspepsia is twin-tempter with Satan, you know,) sold his God-given birthright, like Esau, for a hungry, bitter mess of man's doctrine. He came to loathe the world, the abode of sin; loathed himself, the chief of sinners; mapped out a heaven in some corner of the universe, where he and the souls of his persuasion, panting with the terror of being scarcely saved, should find refuge. The God he made out of his own bigoted and sour idea, and foisted on himself and his hearers as Jesus, would not be as merciful in the Judgment as Gaunt himself would like to be,—far from it. So He did not satisfy him. Sometimes, thinking of the pure instincts thwarted in every heart,—of the noble traits in damned souls, sent hellwards by birth or barred into temptation by society, a vision flashed before him of some scheme of the universe where all matter and mind were rising, slowly, through the ages, to eternal life. "Even so in Christ should all be made alive." All matter, all mind, rising in degrees towards the Good? made order, infused by God? And God was Love. Why not trust this Love to underlie even these social riddles, then? He thrust out the Devil's whisper, barred the elect into their narrow heaven, and tried to be content.
Douglas Palmer used to say that all Gaunt needed to make him a sound Christian was education and fresh meat. Gaunt forgave it as a worldly scoff. And Palmer, just always, thought, that, if Christ was just, He would remember it was not altogether Gaunt's fault, nor that of other bigots, if they had not education nor spiritual fresh meat. Creeds are not always "good providers."
The two men had a two-miles' walk before them. They talked little, as they went. Gaunt had not told the old man that he was going into the Northern army: how could he? George's dead face was between them, whenever he thought of it. Still, Scofield was suspicious as to Gaunt's politics: he never talked to him on the subject, therefore, and to-night did not tell him of his intention to go over to Blue's Gap to warn the boys, and, if they were outnumbered, to stay and take his luck with them. He nor Dode never told Gaunt a secret: the man's brain was as leaky as a sponge.
"He don't take enough account o' honor, an' the like, but it's for tryin' till keep his soul right," he used to say, excusingly, to Dode. "That's it! He minds me o' th' man that lived up on th' pillar, prayin'."
"The Lord never made people to live on pillars," Dode said.
The old man looked askance at Gaunt's worn face, as he trotted along beside him, thinking how pure it was. What had he to do with this foul slough, we were all mired in? What if the Yankees did come, like incarnate devils, to thieve and burn and kill? This man would say "that ye resist not evil." He lived back there, pure and meek, with Jesus, in the old time. He would not dare to tell him he meant to fight with the boys in the Gap before morning. He wished he stood as near to Christ as this young man had got; he wished to God this revenge and bloodthirstiness were out of him; sometimes he felt as if a devil possessed him, since George died. The old fellow choked down a groan in the whiffs of his pipe.
Was the young man back there, in the old time, following the Nazarene? The work of blood Scofield was taking up for the moment, he took up, grappled with, tried to put his strength into. Doing this, his true life lay drained, loathsome, and bare. For the rest, he wished Dode had cared,—only a little. If one lay stabbed on some of these hills, it would be hard to think nobody cared: thinking of the old mother he had buried, years before. Yet Dode suffered: the man was generous to his heart's core,—forgot his own want in pity for her. What could it have been that pained her, as he came away? Her father had spoken of Palmer. That? His ruled heart leaped with a savage, healthy throb of jealousy.
Something he saw that moment made him stop short. The road led straight through the snow-covered hills to the church where the meeting was to be held. Only one man was in sight, coming towards them, on horseback. A sudden gleam of light showed him to them clearly. A small, middle-aged man, lithe, muscular, with fair hair, dressed in some shaggy dark uniform and a felt hat. Scofield stopped.