Then
he turned and strode rapidly away.
XVIII
THE next morning the parson was standing before his scant congregation of
Episcopalians.
It was the first body of these worshippers gathered together in the
wilderness mainly from the seaboard aristocracy of the Church of England. A
small frame building on the northern slope of the wide valley served them
for a meeting-house. No mystical half-lights there but the mystical
half-lights of Faith; no windows but the many-hued windows of Hope; no
arches but the vault of Love. What more did those men and women need in that
land, over-shadowed always by the horror of quick or
waiting death?
In addition to his meagre flock many an unclaimed goat of the world fell
into that meek valley-path of Sunday mornings and came to hear, if not to
heed, the voice of this quiet shepherd; so that now, as be stood delivering
his final exhortation, his eyes ranged over wild, lawless, desperate
countenances, rimming him darkly around. They glowered in at him through the
door, where some sat upon the steps; others leaned in at the windows on each
side of the room. Over the closely packed rough heads of these he could see
others lounging further away on the grass beside their rifles, listening,
laughing and talking.
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