John Fox

“ The mountain youth turned a strangely sobered face and fixed his blue eyes on the engineer as though he were searing every feature of that imperturbable young man in his brain forever. It was not a bad face, but the avenging hatred in it was fearful. Then he, too, saw the Blight, his face calmed magically and he, too, stared at her, and turned away with an oath checked at his lips. We went on—the Blight thrilled, for she had heard much of our volunteer force at the Gap and had seen something already. ”

“ George Fox says, "It was opened to me," or "at the command of God I did so and so." "Then at the command of God, on the ninth day of the seventh month 1643 (Fox being just nineteen) , I left my relations and brake off all familiarity or friendship with young or old." "About the beginning of the year 1647 I was moved of the Lord to go into Darbyshire." Fox hears voices and he sees visions, some of which he brings before the reader with apocalyptic power in the simple and strong English, alike untutored and undefiled, of which, like John Bunyan, his contemporary, he was a master. ”

“ Logic leads one way as well as another and no man can logically blame another for the way he goes."
"No more politics now, gentlemen," said the General quickly. "We will join the ladies. Harry," he added, with some sternness, "lead the way!"
As the three boys rose, Chad lifted his glass. His face was pale and his lips trembled.
"May I propose a toast, General Dean?"
"Why, certainly," said the General, kindly.
"I want to drink to one man but for whom I might be in a log cabin now, and might have died there for all I know—my friend and, thank God! my kinsman—Major Buford." ”

“ Down Kingdom Come they went. Here was where he had met the old cow, and here was the little hill where Jack had fought Whizzer and he had fought Tad Dillon and where he had first seen Melissa. Again the scarlet of her tattered gown flashed before his eyes. At the bend of the river they parted from the giant twins. Faithful Jake's face was foolish when Chad took him by the hand and spoke to him, as man to man, and Rebel Jerry turned his face quickly when Dan told him that he would never forget him, and made him promise to come to see him, if Jerry ever took another raft down to the capital. ”

“ The old man’s dim eyes had a new fire.
“Talk!” he commanded and motioned to the ground, but the lad did not squat Indian fashion, but stood straight with arms folded, and the chief knew that a conflict was coming. Narrowly he watched White Arrow’s face and bearing—uneasily felt the strange new power of him.
“I have been with my own people,” said the lad simply, “the palefaces who have come over the big mountains and have built forts and planted corn, and they were kind to me. I went over those mountains, on and on almost to the big waters. I found my kin. They are many and strong and rich. ”

“ It is fatefully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look back to their first meetings with one another, and Hale never forgot that night in the cabin of the Red Fox. For had Bad Rufe Tolliver, while he whispered at the gate, known the part the quiet young man silently seated in the porch would play in his life, he would have shot him where he sat: and could the Red Fox have known the part his sleeping guest was to play in his, the old man would have knifed him where he lay. ”

“ She heard her father's bed creak again, again the rattle of the door-chain, and then old Judd stepped on the porch with a revolver in each hand.
“Hello!” he answered sternly.
“Judd,” said Hale sharply—and June had never heard that tone from him before—“a man with a black moustache killed one of our men over in the Gap yesterday and we've tracked him over here. There's his horse—and we saw him go into that door. We want him.” ”

“ With a sigh the parson swung offside from Jeb, dexterously pulling a jackknife from his trousers-pocket, opening it, and thrusting it in the high top of his right boot. Then he kneeled in the road with uplifted face and eyes closed:
“O Lawd,” he called sonorously, “thou knowest that I visit my fellow man with violence only with thy favor and in thy name. Thou knowest that when I laid Jim Thompson an' Si Marcum in thar graves it was by thy aid. ”

“ The Red Fox rose, shaking his head.
“All right, Judd Tolliver,” he said warningly.
“Come in and git something to eat, Red.”
“No,” he said, “I'll be gittin' along”—and he went, still shaking his head.
The table was covered with an oil-cloth spotted with drippings from a candle. The plates and cups were thick and the spoons were of pewter. The bread was soggy and the bacon was thick and floating in grease. The men ate and the women served, as in ancient days. They gobbled their food like wolves, and when they drank their coffee, the noise they made was painful to June's ears. ”

“ Juno had been delirious since the day she was stricken. Her mutterings had been disjointed and unintelligible, but that night, while Mother Camp and the New Englander sat at her bedside, she said again:
“Don't let him come.”
“She ain't said that for three days now,” said Mother Camp. “Whut d' you s'pose she means?” The husband shook his head.
Next morning the nurse for whom St. Hilda had sent arrived from the Bluegrass, and the New Englander started down Little Clover to the settlement school to consult the doctor and see St. Hilda. ”

“ And then Dan, with hands up, stepped into sight.
"I'll spare you," he said, quietly. "Not a word, mother. They've got me. You can tell him there is no one else in the house, though."
Mrs. Dean's eyes filled with tears, and a sob broke from Margaret.
"There is no one else," she said, and Chad bowed. "In the house," she added, proudly, scorning the subterfuge.
"Search the barn," said Chad, "quick!" The Sergeant ran down the steps.
"I reckon you are a little too late, my friend," said Dan. "Why, bless me, it's my old friend Chad—and a lieutenant! ”

“ Up the ravine the old man went to a little ledge of rocks, beyond which was the blind, and when Hale saw his stooped figure slip over that and disappear, he ran noiselessly toward it, crept noiselessly to the top and peeped carefully over to see the Red Fox with his back to him and peering into a clump of bushes—hardly ten yards away. ”

“ Miss Jennie had called him "Mr. Buford." He wondered what Margaret would call him when he came to say good-by. She called him nothing. She only smiled at him.
"You must come to see us soon again," she said, graciously, and so said all the Deans.
The Major was quiet going home, and Miss Lucy drowsed. All evening the Major was quiet.
"If a fight does come," he said, when they were going to bed, "I reckon I'm not too old to take a hand."
"And I reckon I'm not too young," said Chad. ”

“ At other hours he would be searching for moonshine stills, or watching his enemies in the valley from some mountain top, with that huge spy-glass—Hale could see now that the brass tube was a telescope—that he might slip down and unawares take a pot-shot at them. The Red Fox communicated with spirits, had visions and superhuman powers of locomotion—stepping mysteriously from the bushes, people said, to walk at the traveller's side and as mysteriously disappearing into them again, to be heard of in a few hours an incredible distance away. ”

“ He turned goggles on me that literally shone triumph.
“He's come—Dave Branham's come!” he said. “He's better than the Wild Dog. I've been trying him on the black horse and, Lord, how he can take them rings off! Ha, won't I get into them fellows who wouldn't let me off this morning! Oh, yes, I agreed to bring in a dark horse, and I'll bring him in all right. That five hundred is in my clothes now. You see that point yonder? Well, there's a hollow there and bushes all around. That's where I'm going to dress him. ”

“ On the way to God's Country at last! Already Chad had schooled himself for the parting with Jack, and but for this he must—little man that he was—have burst into tears. As it was, the lump in his throat stayed there a long while, but it passed in the excitement of that mad race down the river. The old Squire had never known such a tide.
"Boys," he said, gleefully, "we're goin' to make a REcord on this trip—you jus' see if we don't. That is, if we ever git thar alive."
All the time the old man stood in the middle of the raft yelling orders. ”

“ Old Judd Tolliver, so Hale learned, had come himself to offer the little old woman in black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived, and had tried to get her to go back with him to Lonesome Cove; but it pleased the Red Fox that he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of white—cap and all—as emblems of the purple and fine linen he was to put on above, and the little old woman stayed where she was, silently and without question, cutting the garments, as Hale pityingly learned, from a white table-cloth and measuring them piece by piece with the clothes the old man wore in jail. ”

“ A riderless horse filled the opening in the covert of leaves that swallowed up the path. It was gray and he knew it as he knew the saddle as his old enemy's—Dave. Dave had kept his promise—he had come back. The dream was coming true, and they were to meet at last face to face. One of them was to strike a trail more lonesome than the Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and that man would not be John Hale. One detail of the dream was going to be left out, he thought grimly, and very quietly he drew his pistol, cocked it, sighted it on the opening—it was an easy shot—and waited. ”

“ And then he looked up with bewildered face at the Major and broke into the quavering voice of an old man.
"Chad Buford, you little devil, come hyeh this minute or I'll beat the life outen you!"
"What—what!" said the Major excitedly. The boy's face was as honest as the sky above him. "Well, that's funny—very funny."
"Well, that's it," said Chad, "that's what ole Nathan used to call me. I reckon I hain't naver thought o' my name agin tell you axed me." The Major looked at the lad keenly and then dropped back in his seat ruminating. ”

“ In 1848 he was obliged by his own health finally to return to England. He was able a few months later to accept the appointment of assistant secretary to the Church Missionary Society, but on 14 Oct. 1848, after a severe attack of the malady which had driven him from India, he died in his mother's house at Durham.
Fox's short and interrupted career was made remarkable by his single-minded and intelligent devotion. His last illness was brought on by his exertions in working and preaching for the society when his strength was unequal to the task. ”

“ It caught the big man on the point of the chin. Jay's head snapped up and back violently, his feet left the ground, and his big body thudded the road.
“My God, he's knocked him down! My God, he's knocked him down!” muttered the amazed girl. “You got him down!” she cried. “Jump on him an' stomp him!” He turned one startled look toward her and—it is incredible—the look even at that moment was shy; but he stood still, for Ira had picked up the ethics as well as the skill of the art, of which nothing was known in Happy Valley or elsewhere in the hills. ”

“ Blackbirds chattered in the firs. The screech of a peacock shrilled across the yard, and a ploughman's singing wailed across the fields:
Trouble, O Lawd!
Nothin' but trouble in de lan' of Canaan.
The boy knew he had given his old friend a mortal hurt.
"Don't, Major," he pleaded. "You don't know how I have fought against this. I tried to be on your side. I thought I was. I joined the Rifles. I found first that I couldn't fight WITH the South, and—then—I—found that I had to fight FOR the North. It almost kills me when I think of all you have done."
The Major waved his hand imperiously. ”

“ Looks like I was mos' convicted, Uncl' Gabe." His voice trembled and he stopped. "Crump was a-lyin'," he cried, suddenly. "But hit's wuss, Und' Gabe; hit's wuss! You say a life fer a life in this worl'; the rider says hit's in the next, 'n' I'm mis'ble, Uncl' Gabe. Ef Rome—I wish Rome was hyeh," he cried, helplessly. "I don't know whut to do."
The miller rose and limped within the mill, and ran one hand through the shifting corn. He stood in the doorway, looking long and perplexedly towards Hazlan; he finally saw, he thought, just what the lad's trouble was. ”

“ In the summer of 1671, George Fox and some other Friends visited the West Indies and the continent of [Pg 30] America, to push the work of evangelisation and of organising the societies there. They landed in Barbadoes, after a voyage enlivened by constant dangers from the leakiness of the vessel, and once by an almost miraculous escape from capture by a Sallee man-of-war. Fox's son-in-law, John Rous, was in the company, and on landing he was at once taken to the house of Mr. Rous, senior, who was a wealthy sugar planter. ”

“ His name still exists in the neighbourhood in Weltje Road, which runs from the Upper Mall to King Street West, and consists of sixty-eight houses.
We have seen that Fox was at Brighton in 1784. Fox, who was the 'guide, philosopher, and friend' of Prince Florizel, was at this time a man of about thirty-five or thirty-six, having been born in 1749. By his birth, education, and talents he should have been a fitting companion for the Prince, but he was lax in his morals, an inveterate gambler, and a hard drinker, and a worse comrade for a young man could scarcely be found. ”

“ I goes about a-preachin' the word in the wilderness an' a-healin' the sick with soothin' yarbs and sech.”
“An' a-makin' compacts with the devil,” said old Judd shortly, “when the eye of man is a-lookin' t'other way.” The left side of the Red Fox's face twitched into the faintest shadow of a snarl, but, shaking his head, he kept still.
“Well,” said Sam Barth, who was thin and long and sandy, “I don't keer what them fellers do on t'other side o' the mountain, but what air they a-comin' over here fer?” ”