Gaunt hurried in,—he ought to be in camp, but he could not leave the house of God polluted all night,—opening the windows, even carrying the flag outside. The emblem of freedom, of course,—but —— He hardly knew why he did it. There were flags on every Methodist chapel, almost: the sect had thrown itself into the war con amore. But Gaunt had fallen into that sect by mistake; his animal nature was too weak for it: as for his feeling about the church, he had just that faint shade of Pantheism innate in him that would have made a good Episcopalian. The planks of the floor were more to him than other planks; something else than sunshine had often shone in to him through the little panes,—he touched them gently; he walked softly over the rag-carpet on the aisle. The LORD was in His holy temple. With another thought close behind that, of the time when the church was built, more than a year ago; what a happy, almost jolly time they had, the members giving the timber, and making a sort of frolic of putting it up, in the afternoons after harvest. They were all in one army or the other now: some of them in Blue's Gap. He would help ferret them out in the morning. He shivered, with the old doubt tugging fiercely at his heart. Was he right? The war was one of God's great judgments, but was it his place to be in it? It was too late to question now.
He went up into the pulpit, taking out the Bible that lay on the shelf, lighting a candle, glancing uneasily at the old man on the steps. He never had feared to meet his eye before. He turned to the fly-leaf, holding it to the candle. What odd fancy made him want to read the uncouth, blotted words written there? He knew them well enough. "To my Dear frend, David Gaunt. May, 1860. the Lord be Betwien mee And thee. J. Scofield." It was two years since he had given it to Gaunt, just after George had been so ill with cholera, and David had nursed him through with it. Gaunt fancied that nursing had made the hearts of both son and father more tender than all his sermons. He used to pray with them in the evenings as George grew better, hardly able to keep from weeping like a woman, for George was very dear to him. Afterwards the old man came to church more regularly, and George had quit swearing, and given up card-playing. He remembered the evening when the old man gave him the Bible. He had been down in Wheeling, and when he came home brought it out to Gaunt in the old corn-field, wrapped up in his best red bandanna handkerchief,—his face growing red and pale. "It's the Book, David. I thort ef you'd use this one till preach from. Mayhap it wouldn't be right till take it from a sinner like me, but—I thort I'd like it, somehow,"—showing him the fly-leaf. "I writ this,—ef it would be true,—what I writ,—'The Lord he between me and thee'?"
Gaunt passed his fingers now over the misspelled words softly as he would stroke a dead face. Then he came out, putting out the candle, and buttoning the Bible inside of his coat.
Scofield waited for him on the steps. Some trouble was in the old fellow's face, Gaunt thought, which he could not fathom. His coarse voice choked every now and then, and his eyes looked as though he never hoped to see the church or Gaunt again.
"Heh, David!" with a silly laugh. "You'll think me humorsome, boy, but I hev an odd fancy."
He stopped abruptly.
"What is it?"
"It's lonesome here,"—looking around vaguely. "God seems near here on the hills, d' ye think? David, I'm goin' a bit out on the road to-night, an' life's uncertain these times. Whiles I think I might never be back to see Dode agin,—or you. David, you're nearer to Him than me; you brought me to Him, you know. S'pose,—you'll think me foolish now,—ef we said a bit prayer here afore I go; what d'ye think? Heh?"
Gaunt was startled. Somehow to-night he did not feel as if God was near on the hills, as Scofield thought.
"I will,"—hesitating. "Are you going to see Dode first, before you go?"