An Unofficial Patriot
Page 2
CHAPTER II.
_"I paint him in character."_--Shakespeare
That a Davenport should seriously contemplate leaving the "MotherChurch." as the devotees of the Anglican establishment were given tocalling their branch of the real Roman mother, was a propositiontoo absurd to be considered; and the old Major met his son's firstsuggestions, wherein this tendency was indicated, as the mere vaporingsof a restless, unformed boy. He laughed loudly, guyed his son openly,and inquired jocosely which one of the pretty Methodist girls had struckhis fancy.
"If it turns out to be serious, Grif, and you marry her, she will, as amatter of course, transfer her membership to the Mother Church. A truewife always follows her husband in all things. 'Thy people shall bemy people, and thy God my God,' you know, Grif. Good old saying. Bibletruth, my son. But who is the happy girl, you young scamp? There israther a paucity of thoroughbreds among the Methodists, as they callthis new craze. Don't make _that_ kind of a mistake, my boy, whateverelse you do. Better keep inside the paddock."
The old Major chuckled, and, turning on his heel, left his son coveredwith confusion, and with a sense of impotent zeal and conviction towhich he could not or dared not give voice.
That this question of a truer, warmer, more personally stirringreligious life did not touch a single responsive chord in the Major'snature, filled the son, anew, with misgivings. At first, thesequestionings led him to doubt himself, and to wonder if it could, afterall, be possible that his own youth, inexperience and provincialismmight really not lie at the root of his new unrest. He went to theMethodist meetings with a fresh determination to be serenely critical,and not to yield to the onrush of emotion which had grown so strongwithin him as he had listened, in the past, to the passionate and oftenruggedly-eloquent appeals of the pioneers of the new faith--or, perhaps,it were better to say, to the new expression of the old faith. He gaveup his extra Latin lessons, which had been his delight and the prideof his tutor and of his family, that he might have these hours for thestudy of the Bible and the few other books carried by the colporteurs orthe circuit riders, who were beginning to overrun the State.
The old Major disapproved, but it was not his way to discuss matterswith his family; and it may be doubted, indeed, if the Major grasped thesignificance and force of the tide which had overtaken his son, as ithad rushed with the power of a flood over his beloved Virginia and leftin its wake a tremendous unrest, and carried before it many of the mostsincere and forceful characters and questions. Beyond a few twittingsand an occasional growl, therefore, the old Major had ignored his son'sgradual withdrawal from the ancient forms and functions and the factthat almost every Sunday morning, of late, had found the boy absent fromthe family pew and present two miles up the valley at the little logmeeting-house of the Methodists. He was unprepared, therefore, to facethe question seriously, when finally told by the boy's mother that Grifhad decided that on his nineteenth birthday he would be baptized, andthat he intended to enter the ministry as a circuit rider.
The joke struck the Major as good above the average. He laughed long andloud. He chuckled within himself all day. When evening came and Griffithappeared at the table the Major was too full of mirth and derision tocontent himself with his usual banter.
"Your mothah inforhms me," he began with the ironical touch in his toneheld well under the sparkle of humor. "Your mothah inforhms me thatto-morrow is your nineteenth birthday, you long-legged young gosling,and that you contemplate celebrating it by transmuting yourself into aMethodist 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 acircuit rider arose before him as a reality and not as a joke, his irehad gotten the better of his humor. The picture he had conjured up inhis own mind of this son of his in the new social relations sure toresult from the contemplated change of faith swamped the old Major'ssense of the absurdity of the situation in a sudden feeling ofindignation and chagrin, and the sound of his own unusual words did therest.
Griffith looked up at his father in blank surprise. His mother said,gently, "Majah! Majah!" But the old 'squire's sudden plunge into angerhad him in its grip. He grew more and more excited as his own wordsstirred him.
"Yes, sir, like a damned northern tackey that comes down here amongstrespectable people to talk to niggers, and preach, as they call theirranting, to the white trash that never owned a nigger in their wholeworthless lives, and tell'em about the 'unrighteousness' of slavery! Whydon't they read their Bibles if they know enough to read? _It_ teachesslavery plain enough--'Servants obey your masters in all things,' and'If a man sell his servant,' and 'His servant is his money,' and a goodmany more! Why don't they read their Bibles, I say, and shout if theywant to, and attend to their own business? Nobody wants their long nosesdown here amongst reputable people, sowing seeds of riot and rebellionamong the niggers!" The Major had forgotten his original point but itcame 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 bottomof my hawt, that a son of mine--a Davenport--could for one momentcontemplate this infernal piece of folly! A circuit rider, indeed! Adamned disturber of niggers! A man with, no traditions! Shouting andhaving fits and leading weak-minded women and girls, and weaker-mindedboys and niggers into unpardonable, disgraceful antics and callingit religion! Actually having the effrontery to call it religion! It'snothing but infernal rascality in half the cases and pitiable insanityin the other half, and if I'd been doing my duty as a 'squire I'd havetaken the whole pestiferous lot up and put one set in jail and the otherset in an asylum, long ago! Look at'em! Ducking 'converts,' as they calltheir dupes, in the creek! Perfectly disgraceful, sir! I forbid you togo about their meetings again, sir! Yes, sir, once and for all, I forbidit!"
The Major brought his fist down on the table with a bang that setthe fine china rattling and added the last straw of astonishment anddiscomfort to the unusual family jar; for few indeed had ever been theoccasions upon which even a mild degree of paternal authority hadnot been so quickly followed by ready and willing compliance that anoutbreak of anything like real temper or authoritative command--otherthan at or toward the slaves--had been hardly within Grif's memory.
The boy arose, trembling and pale, and leaving his untouched plate ofchoice food before him turned to leave the room.
"Come back here, sir!" commanded the old Major. "Take your seat, sir,and eat your supper, sir, and--"
Mrs. Davenport burst into tears. The boy hesitated, parted his lips asif to speak, looked at his mother, and with a sudden movement of hishand toward a little book which he always carried these later days inhis breast-pocket, he stepped to his mother's side. There was a greatlump in his throat. He was straggling for mastery of himself but hisvoice broke into a sob as he said:
"'He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. Andhe that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me, is not worthy ofMe.'" He kissed his mother's forehead and passed swiftly out of theroom. His horse stood at the front gate waiting the usual eveningcanter. Griffith threw his long leg over the saddle, and said to Jerry,who stood holding the bridle of his own horse, ready to follow aswas his custom: "I don't want you to-night, Jerry. Stay at home.Good-night," and rode away into the twilight.
It would be difficult to say just what Griffith's plan was. Indeed, ithad all been so sudden and so out of the ordinary trend of his life,that there was a numb whirl of excitement, of pain and of blind impulsetoo fresh within him to permit of anything like consecutive thought.But, with Grif, as with most of us when the crises of our lives come,fate or chance or conditions have taken the reins to drive us. We arefond of saying--and while we are young we believe--that we decidedthus or thus; that we converted that condition or this disaster intoan opportunity and formed our lives upon such and such a model. All ofwhich is--as a rule--mere fond self-gratulatio
n. The fact is, althoughit may wound our pride to acknowledge it, that we followed the line ofleast resistance (all things being considered, our own natures included)and events did the rest. And so when Grif turned an angle in the road,two miles from home, and came suddenly upon the circuit rider, who wasto baptize the new converts on the following day, and when Brother Prouttook it for granted that Grif was on his way to the place of gatheringin order to be present at the preliminary meeting, it seemed to Grifthat he had originally started from home with that object in view. Histhoughts began to center around that idea. The pain and shock of thehome-quarrel, which he had simply started out to ride off, to thinkover, to prepare to meet on the morrow, gradually faded into a dullhurt, which made the phrases and quotations and exhortations of BrotherProut sound like friendly and personal utterances of soothing andof paternal advice, and so the two miles stretched into ten and thecamp-ground was reached, and for Griffith, the die was cast.