Mary Addams Bayne

“ Abner Dudley distrusted this easy acquiescence, and had a suspicion that the views which Drane expressed so glibly were not his true sentiments—a suspicion which Betsy Gilcrest appeared to share, as testified by the scornful toss of her head, the contemptuous smile that flitted across her lips, and the sarcastic light that flashed in her eyes whenever the bland and brilliant young lawyer fluently argued in favor of federalism and Calvinism.
No distinctions of rank and culture disturbed the homogeneous character of society at Cane Ridge. Friendships were warm and constant ”

“ After a moment, he continued: "Clergy nor presbytery nor synod has the right to stand between the people and the Bible, with authoritative creeds and confessions of faith; for the Bible is its own interpreter; and 'Equal rights to all, special privileges to none,' is a doctrine that will some day be adopted in religion as well as in civil and political matters."
"Ah, Stone," Dudley replied, "that is indeed laying the ax to the very root of the tree of denominational intolerance. If you make public such opinions, you will be branded as a heretic." ”

“ You supposed, when you were so miserable after Abby went away, that I didn't understand! Many and many a night have I lain awake, sorrowing over your sorrow and my inability to help you."
"Listen to me, Betty dear. My feeling for your cousin, though pure and tender, was as nothing compared to what I have for you. Even when I was most under the spell of her beauty and sweetness, I thought of you as one who might well stir the pulse and thrill the heart of any man not made armor-proof by love for another."
"But you did love Cousin Abby?" she questioned with another wistful, half-timid look. ”

“ I mean to marry Abner Logan as soon as he says the word."
"Be silent, before I strike you!" cried her father, advancing toward her. "Go! Fling yourself into your lover's arms as soon as you please. I wash my hands of you, you willful, passionate hussy!"
"Stop! stop! this instant, Hiram Gilcrest," shrieked his wife, rising from her chair and stamping her foot. Then she rushed to him, caught his arm and actually shook him, crying: "You shall not heap such abuse on my child! I have been silent long enough." ”

“ Though I honor you above any one else I have known during my life in Kentucky, I have no love to give you. Besides, I am too old, too grave, too disposed to melancholy, to make you happy. You need a younger, stronger, more joyous nature than mine. At present you can not understand this; some day you will, and then you will see that a far more suitable mate—a girl self-reliant, buoyant, and with a wealth of love in her pure, warm heart—is waiting for you. Ah! you are blind, blind, that you do not see how Happiness is holding out her hand to you. ”

“ I know the truth and steadfastness of your nature too well to believe that you encourage or coquette with Drane or any other man. My meaning is this: your father likes Drane and thinks so highly of his brilliant prospects that the mere fact that he is a possible suitor for your hand will dispose your father to think with the less favor of my pretensions. And indeed, Betty dear, though I do not for a moment think you encourage the fellow, still what I have said of the situation is true in regard to his feelings and intentions; he wears his heart upon his sleeve. ”

“ Remain where you are, until I return," he added to Betsy when Aunt Dilsey had obeyed the summons, and was assisting him to carry his wife upstairs.
His anger had cooled somewhat when he returned to the parlor half an hour later. "I can not, of course, force you to marry any one," he said to his daughter; "nor for the present will I urge upon your consideration the suit of Mr. Drane, against whom you have taken so unreasoning and unjust a prejudice; but there's another point upon which I must do my duty without shrinking. I command you to give up thinking of Abner Dudley, now and forever." ”

“ A further incentive to merriment was the excited admiration of the negroes gathered outside at doors and windows—not only the darkeys of the Rogers household, but many from neighboring domains as well—heads bobbing, eyes rolling, teeth glistening, as their feet beat time on the frozen ground. Sometimes a dusky swain caught some dusky maid around the waist and swung her merrily; and all promised themselves "jes' sech a dance in the big cabin, nex' Sat'day night, with Marse Bushrod Hinkson's Jake fur fiddler." ”

“ Nature was steeped in that tender, dreamy haze peculiar to Indian Summer, and the air held a pleasing odor like that of burning leaves. The songbirds had gone away to winter homes in the South, and the stillness of the forest was broken only by the dropping of nuts from the hickory-trees.
"The first day of November!" she thought, as she stood leaning on the bars, with old Jock lying at her feet. "I wonder how soon he will come," and she smiled tenderly. "Not to-day or to-morrow, I know; for he has gone to Lexington again, so Susan said, and will not be back until the last of the week. ”

“ I can't understand them at all."
"Understand them!" exclaimed Betsy. "Who can? Why, whenever one of our learned ministers is on the subject of 'reprobation,' 'predestination,' or 'effectual calling,' his reasoning is so subtle and his logic so ingenious that it must puzzle the elect angels themselves to understand his arguments."
"But you surely believe in the beautiful doctrine of grace?" Henry asked earnestly. "You believe that the saints will persevere and get home at last to glory, don't you?"
"We'll tell you more about that when we get there ourselves—if we ever do," replied Susan. ”

“ These dim, tantalizing recollections which had been first partially aroused that November night by Gilcrest's and Rogers' recital of the horrors of the famous Indian uprising of 1782, had been kindled into stronger life by what his uncle had recently told him of the attack upon the cabin of the Pages, the flight to Bryan's, the death there of Mary Page, and the return of her little orphaned boy to his Lawsonville people. ”

“ Not even when clad in the tender freshness of springtime beauty could the woods have been a more favorable place in which to indulge in tender fancies than now when panoplied in crimson and gold and burnished bronze, the scarlet fire of the maple and the gaudy yellow of the hickory contrasting with the sober brown of the beech, the dull red of the oak, and the dark gloss of the walnut. A redbird arose from the grass at their approach and circled away into the blue ether, and a rabbit, startled by the crackling of a twig, scattered away into the deeper undergrowth. ”

“ After doffing riding-skirt and loose jacket, she stood a moment upon the block, adjusting her attire, a robe of misty lavender sarcenet with a pink crepe scarf loosely knotted across the bosom.
"I wish she'd throw back that veil," thought Abner, as he stood with Henry a little apart.
"That's Major Gilcrest's niece, come from Virginia to live with them," explained Henry, seeing Abner's admiring gaze fixed upon the girl. "She's as pretty as a rosebush covered with pink blossoms; there ain't a girl comes to Cane Ridge that can stand alongside her. ”

“ If the portrait of old Silas Gilcrest, hanging above the mantel, had opened its mouth and spoken, father and daughter could not have been more astounded than at this outbreak. In the whole course of her married life this was the first time that Jane Gilcrest had ever asserted herself, or raised her voice against her lord and master. "Yes, you are a brute to use such language and to treat your daughter so! And now, I suppose you'll beat me, next; you look as though you'd like to fell us both to the earth with that whip—oh! ”

“ This perfect unconsciousness of the simple household was helpful to the young man. Furthermore, his work necessitated his living much out of doors, and this helped him still more; for none but those who have the unseeing eye and the unappreciative heart for the beauty of woods and fields, summer sunshine, glinting stream, and joyous bird notes, can long be wholly without benefit from nature's ministry. Thus Abner had within reach two mighty remedies for sadness—the balm of nature's beauty, and the bracing tonic of hard work. ”

“ Better than this, the revivals were a bond of union between the different religious sects; for, in the prevalence of enthusiasm, even such rigid upholders of creed as Gilcrest and Landrum felt more concern about the salvation of their children than about the tenets of their church. In fact, from the beginning of the awakening, Books of Discipline and Confessions of Faith had been gathering dust, and soon would have been completely lost to view, had not the more strenuous churchmen at last in alarm put forth their hands to stay their tottering ark of creed, mistaking it for the ark of God. ”

“ Betty answered frankly. "He is dad's friend, not mine. I treat him courteously, of course; but that——"
"Your father may consider himself the magnet that draws Drane to Oaklands," sneered Abner; "but I know better, and so do you, my girl. The attraction for him is very different. The fellow's in love with you. That's plain. 'He who runs may read.'"
"And he who reads had better run!" retorted Betsy, now thoroughly nettled, "if this reading construes anything I do or say into encouragement of this lawyer." ”

“ Another frequent visitor at Oaklands was James Anson Drane, the young lawyer and land agent of Lexington. In him Dudley at first feared a formidable rival; but it soon became apparent that Betsy Gilcrest, not Abby Patterson, was the magnet which drew the young lawyer to Oaklands. Hiram Gilcrest and Drane's father had been close friends. For this reason James was ever a welcome guest; and he ingratiated himself into still greater favor with Major Gilcrest by agreeing with him on all points, whenever religion or politics was the topic of discussion. ”

“ Dogma and doctrine contain very little of the true essence of faith. But the time is coming when people will begin to search the Scriptures for themselves; and then, just as the walls of Jericho fell before the blasts of the trumpets, so will the whole superstructure of human theology, whose four corner-stones are bigotry, intolerance, superstition and speculative doctrine, crumble into nothingness. ”

“ Betsy answered, laughing and coloring. "I shouldn't have made that speech had I known that you and Mr. Dudley were within hearing. But, nevertheless, I do not believe that I am the chief of sinners; others who have had just as good opportunities are as bad as I am, I'm sure."
"Besides, if everybody who gets up in meeting and says he's the chief of sinners, is really so, there would be more chiefs in this neighborhood than in all the Indian tribes taken together," put in John Calvin, pertly, unabashed by the presence of parson and schoolmaster. ”

“ Gilcrest sank limply into the nearest chair. Betsy continued: "I am sensible of the honor Mr. Drane does me in seeking my hand; but I am surprised at his persisting in a suit which he must know is displeasing to me. More than once has he so plainly intimated his intentions that I could not fail to understand, and just as plainly have I intimated that I could not favor his suit. I now, in your presence, say what I have so often hinted to him—that I can never be his wife."
"Tut! tut! girl, have done with these unseemly airs!" said her father, sharply. "You are not capable of judging. ”

“ Gilcrest objected with an emphatic shake of his head. "Such a course would tend to lead the young mind into error."
"On the contrary," returned Dudley, thoughtfully, "might not the seed of the gospel, thus sown, fall unconsciously into the child's heart and bear fruit for good when he is older?"
"No! It's dangerous to place the Bible in the hands of the unconverted young."
"Do I understand you to mean that children should not read the Bible at all?" asked Dudley.
"The mysteries of the Scriptures are not for the child to tamper with. ”

“ To say that Hiram Gilcrest was amazed at the story which the lawyer related would but feebly express his state of mind. "If our suspicions are correct," he said when he had thought over Drane's story, "as to the date of this woman's death, and if this son of hers is illegitimate, he has no rights at all, under the provisions of this will, to the Hite estates. My wife, in that case, is the heir; and, by heaven, she shall have her rights! It is not that I care so much for the monetary value of what this Andrew Hite left. ”

“ Let us bear in mind that whether our own particular system of theology be based upon Calvin's predominating doctrine, the sovereignty of God and the unchangeableness of his decrees; or whether we, like Arminius, lay greater stress upon the doctrine of the freedom of the human will and man's individual responsibility; whether we be Calvinist or Arminian, Presbyterian or Methodist, Baptist or Quaker—we all worship the same God, and through the same Mediator. ”