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 Enoch Willoughby
 
 Enoch Willoughby 
 
 A Novel 
 
 By 
 
 James A. Wickersham 
 
 New York 
 
 Charles Scribner s Sons 
 1900
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS
 
 .URL 
 
 Co 
 
 MY FATHER 
 IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE WILLOUGHBYS .... 1 
 
 II. THE O MARAS 12 
 
 III. PROSPERITY 19 
 
 IV. THE CLOSED BOOK . . . .25 
 V. THE VISION 37 
 
 VI. A FOLLOWER OF A FOLLOWER . . 49 
 
 VII. IN THE MEETING-HOUSE . . .58 
 
 VIII. "WILLIAM OLNEY" . . .66 
 
 IX. THE VISIT HOME 73 
 
 X. THE WOMAN PREACHER . . .78 
 
 XI. THE PRICE VISIT . 96
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XII. FACING IT OUT . . 113 
 
 XIII. PEACE TO OLD LADY MARGARET S 
 
 ASHES ! 136 
 
 XIV. ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PRICE . 152 
 XV. LYDDIE DECEIVES HERSELF . . 170 
 
 XVI. THE NEW SECT 177 
 
 XVII. RELIGION HELPING LOYE . . .190 
 XVIII. WILLIAM PRICE S HAND . . 205 
 
 XIX. TIME AND AFFECTION AGAINST REA 
 SON 218 
 
 XX. THE BETROTHAL . . 231 
 
 XXI. DEVELOPMENTS 251 
 
 XXII. THE VISIT FROM LITTLE JAMES . . 263 
 
 XXIII. A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE . . 273 
 
 XXIV. SOME SEPARATIONS . 286
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXV. THE "RESERVE" . . . .306 
 
 XXVI. A DAY ON BIG STRANGER . . 318 
 
 XXVII. THE INCIDENT OP THE CHILD . . 330 
 
 XXVIII. THE MIRACLE 338 
 
 XXIX. CONCLUSION . 353
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 THE WELLOUGHBYS 
 
 You probably would not find one of the Wil- 
 loughbys who did not have something peculiar 
 about him. This peculiarity used to be spoken 
 of as "queer;" and the "Willoughby queer, " 
 in all branches of the family, was a term in 
 common use. And yet there was no well- 
 defined quality meant by it. Sometimes it 
 referred merely to outward peculiarities, a 
 manner of expression ; a tone of voice ; a style 
 of living or dress or action ; but however in 
 definite it might be, whether tangible or intangi 
 ble, palpable or impalpable, the quality was 
 sure to be found in every Willoughby ; and if 
 you knew how, you could search it out and 
 describe it. 
 
 It is not quite true that it was found in every 
 Willoughby either, for there was one branch of 
 the family that had, for some reason or other, 
 assumed the name when they had no right to it ; 
 and, being rather prolific, this branch finally 
 
 1
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 came to have an influence in determining the 
 family character, but of course not its true 
 character. These were false Willoughbys, and 
 not at all to be reckoned in with the rest. If 
 any one should ever run across a Willoughby, 
 then, who has not the characteristic of queer- 
 ness, he may set him down at once as one of 
 those spurious Willoughbys. 
 
 I wish it were possible to write down all the 
 instances of this queerness that could bo found. 
 They would certainly be interesting ; but such 
 a record would be altogether too far-reaching. 
 There was David Willoughby, the surveyor and 
 mathematician, who had that peculiar drawl in 
 his voice, and who always managed to conceal 
 under it a very dry wit ; but he was an unbe 
 liever and an atheist, and no one would be like 
 ly to care much about him. 
 
 Then there was Thomas Willoughby, the 
 artist, who lived apart from his wife in his old 
 age, and was a kind of atheistical spiritualist, if 
 such a combination is possible ; a man a little 
 cynical in expression, w T ith a fine feeling for 
 color, who painted very beautiful portraits in 
 oil; one in particular of an old Quaker lady, 
 probably his mother I am not sure ; at any rate 
 it was much admired. Thomas used to believe 
 in the presence of spirits, and generally kept 
 two revolvers in his bed, most likely to keep the 
 spirits away, for he had no money to lose and 
 2
 
 THE WILLOUGHBYS 
 
 could not have been afraid of earthly robbers. 
 He was a very singular Willoughby; learned, 
 atheistical, solitary. One could write a whole 
 story about him alone, but we shall have nothing 
 more to say of him. He came of a very different 
 branch from the Enoch Willoughbys whom we 
 have to consider. The State school superin 
 tendent, James "Willoughby, was a cousin of his. 
 
 Thomas had a wealthy sister, who remained 
 all her life unmarried, and devoted her wealth 
 and services to spiritualism. I believe she 
 founded something like an asylum for impecun 
 ious and superannuated spiritualists. She had a 
 notion that they ought not to have any church, 
 and so would not found or endow one. She 
 thought if they had formed themselves into 
 churches immediately a creed would be formu 
 lated, the spirit would then begin to die out, 
 and pretty soon you would have nothing. 
 
 I do not believe you could find one of this 
 family who had not some opinion or other about 
 religion. There were a good many atheists, 
 and unbelievers of various kinds, but an equally 
 great number of religious enthusiasts, reformers, 
 and so on. A genuine man of the world, simple, 
 plain, with no opinion on anything but business, 
 or perhaps business and politics, you would 
 hardly find among them. The nearest ap 
 proach to it was, most likely, old Enoch Wil 
 loughby of Ohio. 
 
 3
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Before going on to speak of him, it ought to 
 be stated here that we never knew a Willoughby 
 who was a tramp or a beggar, nor did we ever 
 know of one who became really rich. There 
 was one who was rich, it is true : I can not say 
 just how many millions he owned, but he was a 
 millionnaire, and, moreover, had no great pecu 
 liarities. In a word, it is easy to see he was one 
 of those spurious Willoughbys and so does not 
 count. The whole family always kept along that 
 line of respectable mediocrity in wealth which is 
 said to be conducive to the greatest happiness. 
 As a rule they knew how to furnish labor for 
 themselves, to economize, and live within their 
 means ; and whether you found them in Penn 
 sylvania, Ohio, Indiana, or even Iowa or Kan 
 sas, you would be pretty sure to find them of 
 the respectable, well-to-do sort. 
 
 Old Enoch Willoughby was a Quaker, as all 
 the Willoughbys had been originally, and of 
 the orthodox variety ; though he insisted on 
 remaining on good terms with the Hixites all 
 his life, consistently with his doctrine of peace 
 making, which he professed and believed in 
 more perhaps than in any religion or other 
 doctrine under the sun. He was a tall, slender 
 man, over six feet in height, and away back of 
 our story, for he is only the father, or maybe 
 the grandfather, of the particular Willoughbys of 
 this history.
 
 THE WILLOUGHBYS 
 
 His wife, Margaret, was large, and ruddy- 
 faced, vigorous, and sturdy ; and if, at this time, 
 there had been any tendency in the original 
 stock of queerness to degenerate and die out, 
 she would have reinoculated it, surely ; for she 
 was the woman who had that water- witching 
 power which is, and was with her, a real power. 
 She was the woman they used to blindfold, and 
 lead across a covered ditch, with the forked 
 willow twig in her hands; and she would tell 
 where the water was every time ; but that was 
 only a small part of her peculiarities. She was 
 strong in more ways than one. She was known 
 all over the country for her services in sickness ; 
 and when in her prime could go out to the 
 barn in the middle of the night, saddle a colt at 
 the call of some one in distress, and ride ten or 
 a dozen miles to wait on a sick person. She 
 was not afraid of anything along the way, not 
 even of the Gurneyville graveyard ; for she had 
 enough belief in the existence of an invisible 
 world, and confidence in her acquaintance with 
 its character, to think she could have gotten 
 along with its inhabitants in the dark as well 
 as was necessary. 
 
 Margaret Willoughby was a rare woman, but 
 she had her faults along with the rest of us. 
 She could scold dreadfully at times, and if old 
 Enoch Willoughby had been of a mind to pay 
 any attention to her then she might have made 
 
 5
 
 bis life miserable ; but lie had a happy faculty 
 of living in an independent way to himself, or 
 wrapped up in his own thoughts and ideas, so 
 that her fretfuluess did not greatly disturb the 
 even tenor of his way. 
 
 When Enoch P. Willoughby the P. was 
 simply put in to distinguish the young man 
 from his father, as if it took the place of a Jr. 
 attached to the name brought his young wife 
 to live at his father s, the grandfather that is, 
 Enoch Willoughby, Sr. attempted to forestall 
 some anticipated trouble, and took the young 
 woman, who was greatly pleased with her father- 
 in-law, aside, and said to her : 
 
 " Now, Hannah, if thee will not pay too much 
 attention to what mother says, we shall get 
 along peacefully, and have a little heaven upon 
 earth ; but if thee does pay attention to what 
 she says, why, we shall have a little of the 
 other place here, I m afraid." 
 
 Now, there were some eight or ten children 
 of this family. Enoch P., whom we shall call 
 simply Enoch, was the youngest ; and as he had 
 not very much to do with, it seemed in every 
 way best that he and Hannah O Mara should 
 live at his father s. 
 
 This arrangement, like so many other similar 
 
 ones before it, did not turn out well ; and after 
 
 a few years, young Enoch and his wife migrated, 
 
 as so many hundreds of others did, from Ohio 
 
 6
 
 THE WILLOUGHBYS 
 
 to Indiana, then to Iowa and Minnesota, and 
 from there, finding the winters too cold, south, 
 through Iowa and Nebraska, to Kansas, where 
 they finally settled on the Reserve, as we shall 
 learn. This must have taken in all about six 
 teen or seventeen years, for their oldest boy, 
 James, had that age when they came to the 
 Reserve, and had been born in the old home in 
 Ohio. 
 
 The brothers and sisters of Enoch Willoughby 
 had settled in various places. One had become 
 a physician in eastern Indiana. Two others 
 had gone farther West. One of these settled in 
 Iowa, where he came nearest of all the younger 
 generations to becoming a rich man; he also 
 became one of the most peculiar, but peculiar 
 in those little, outward things actions, style of 
 dress, style of house, and so on that make 
 only eccentricities, and do not bear very com 
 plete description. Two sisters remained in 
 Ohio ; but one of them died early in life by 
 some accident, and left two children, who, of 
 course, did not bear the family name, but did 
 bring forth the fruit of the family, for they were 
 of the same quality of queerness. 
 
 The oldest sister had fewest of the family 
 characteristics, for there were no special pecu 
 liarities related of her. She was more like old 
 Enoch Willoughby, her father, who had had 
 that peace-making, quiet disposition. She was 
 
 7
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 a beautiful Quaker lady in her old age ; a good 
 model for that portrait which Thomas Wil- 
 loughby, of the other family, had painted. In 
 fact, she was the only one who had a good 
 enough temper to put up with the irascibility 
 of old Margaret Willoughby in her last years, 
 and to her fell the task of taking care of the old 
 lady. 
 
 All the other children were so glad of the op 
 portunity of getting rid of this task that they 
 renounced willingly their right to any inheri 
 tance in the estate of Enoch Willoughby, Sr., 
 gave quit-claims, and turned it all over to Annie 
 for taking care of their mother. 
 
 Strong characters are almost always the worst 
 in old age, and grandmother Willoughby was 
 really pretty bad. There was nothing to suit 
 her. If she had had ten willing slaves at her 
 constant command, she could have kept them all 
 busy attending to her wants, and yet Aunt Annie 
 managed, sweetly and gently, but forcibly, to 
 take care of her to the satisfaction of her 
 brothers and sisters. It may be she was thus 
 kept too busy to develop the proper amount of 
 peculiarity in herself. She never seemed to me 
 to be a genuine Willoughby ; but then, I did 
 not know her very well. 
 
 The other sister for there were three of the 
 sisters went West too, and pursued more nearly 
 the course of her younger brother, Enoch, than 
 8
 
 THE WILLOUGHBYS 
 
 any of the rest did. She was the most spiritu 
 ally minded of them all. She used to speak in 
 the Quaker meeting, and it was thought for a 
 time she would become a Quaker preacher. But 
 finally she found in herself the same magic pow 
 er, if one can call it so, that her mother, Marga 
 ret, possessed, only to a still greater degree. She 
 had a wonderful personal magnetism, and could 
 find water by water- witching with willow twigs ; 
 and she had the gift of magnetic healing also. 
 
 She finally became a full-blooded spiritualist, 
 but of the Biblical, Quaker variety. She left 
 the church in her old age after a long trial and 
 conviction for heresy, but left it entirely without 
 resentment. She was a good woman always ; 
 with a sweet voice, and a spirituality that 
 touched the soul only, and never ran away into 
 trances or mediumship or materialization or 
 anything of that kind ; the development of her 
 subconsciousness was very great, and she lived 
 in a Biblical world of dreams and visions and 
 their interpretation that was rather beautiful 
 than anything else. She brought up a large 
 family too, and was loved by her husband and 
 all her children, and was independent enough to 
 live a happy, religious life, in spite of the fact 
 that she had been disowned by the church. 
 She always remained the dearest recollection of 
 young Enoch Willoughby. He always spoke 
 of his sister Sarah a little as one would speak 
 
 9
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 of the New Jerusalem. There was for him 
 something heavenly about her ; and perhaps no 
 incident in his life had made a stronger impres 
 sion upon him than one visit with her. It was 
 then that he was cured by her of that pain in 
 his breast without his even speaking to her at 
 all of the pain. She came up to him, laid her 
 hand on his breast, and described the pain ho 
 felt there ; and it ceased before he had even 
 spoken to her. 
 
 These two always felt they would have liked 
 to live near one another, and yet they never 
 saw each other after those early days in Ohio 
 but that time when Sarah cured Enoch of the 
 pain in the breast. 
 
 Now, I want to be sure, before coming on 
 down to describe Enoch "Willoughby himself, 
 that I have told all that is necessary about the 
 rest of the family. 
 
 There was still another brother, James, who 
 remained in Ohio, and also another brother, 
 John, who went West with Enoch. John Wil- 
 loughby, too, will probably appear again in this 
 history ; but outside of these, I think we have 
 them all. They were all inclined to be high- 
 minded. As a rule they were not politicians or 
 seekers after offices. Occasionally school teach 
 ers would crop out among them, but generally 
 they remained always private citizens, such as I 
 have described them. 
 
 10
 
 THE WILLOUGHBYS 
 
 Certainly the fact of their sturdy economy and 
 general well-to-do-ness could not be too much 
 dwelt upon. Some of them were even rather 
 close in money matters, and wherever you found 
 them, and whatever you found them, as a rule, 
 they were pretty sure to be rather carefully look 
 ing after their material interests. 
 
 There was another thing about them : they 
 were of English origin and rather proud of it. 
 Old Enoch s father, John, had lived in western 
 Pennsylvania ; and his father, whose name I 
 have forgotten, had lived in Philadelphia, and 
 had had in his possession some documents, title 
 deeds, and abstracts, executed to his father, 
 William Willoughby, by William Penn. Of 
 course, many people, in this latitude, traced 
 their origin to Penn or his times, and old Wil 
 loughby was no exception to this custom. The 
 habit passed down in the family to Enoch and 
 Enoch P. It seemed a perfectly harmless 
 habit, and if it was able to lend additional dig 
 nity to any one of them, it certainly was as 
 cheap a method of attaining dignity as could be 
 found. 
 
 11
 
 II 
 
 THE O MARAS 
 
 JUST as the prevailing characteristic of the 
 "Willoughbys had been queerness so that of the 
 O Maras was clear and distinct, and hard to 
 name. Theirs was a large iamily, too, with 
 some Welsh blood, and perhaps that accounts 
 for it. This family had begun to decline, or be 
 gan about the time our story commences. The 
 reason for this decline seemed to lie in the 
 easy temper and yielding disposition with which 
 they were endowed. The whole family never 
 produced a political or religious reformer or 
 bigot in its entire history in America. On the 
 other hand, the number of minor poets and 
 actors, singers, and small orators in the family 
 was abnormally great. 
 
 At this time in its history, w r hen the period 
 of religious conversion came upon the various 
 members of the O Mara family, they were quite 
 apt to go to the dogs in some way or other. 
 Instead of becoming eccentric and finding their 
 wills and purposes strengthened, they gave up ; 
 waited on the Lord to do everything for them ; 
 and frequently found themselves unattended by 
 12
 
 THE O MARAS 
 
 him to any great length. They were inclined to 
 be hopeless, and so, as a rule, were not relig 
 ious. Out of this fundamental disposition 
 impressionable characters were developed, who 
 were easily influenced by their surroundings. 
 They became popular ; and you might expect a 
 great number of a family such as this to occupy 
 public positions, but never to leave a great im 
 pression on the public mind. The religious 
 character is the only one that is really strong 
 and enduring, whether for good or bad, and the 
 family could not be called religious. 
 
 Of Hannah s four sisters, the youngest, Lyd- 
 die, was, in her early years, impressionable 
 enough almost to have become a second Joan 
 of Arc ; the sweetest girl ; of most tender nat 
 ure ; eyes like a fawn, and a spirituality that 
 shone in her every look. 
 
 She came near marrying the first man that 
 presented himself, as we shall see, and, had she 
 done so, would have lived a life of hardship as 
 a drunkard s wife ever afterward, though always 
 happy, loving, and sweet, I am sure. 
 
 The oldest sister was that one who eventually 
 became a kind of crone, and spent her days in 
 the chimney corner, reading Pinneo s grammar 
 with the intonations of a priest. She had, among 
 the Quakers, friends who took care of her, for 
 she was harmless and withal gentle. 
 
 She was the one who, in her old age, lived 
 13
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 with Hannah after the spiritualism was well de 
 veloped, and who thought it was all the work of 
 the devil. She used to go off up-stairs to bed, 
 cover her head in the blanket and lie and moan 
 when there were spiritual meetings and she 
 heard Enoch speaking under the influence be 
 low. Peace to her ashes, she is dead. She 
 was. not religious in my opinion, but she was 
 ecclesiastical and had all those trite similes and 
 metaphors of church language on her tongue 
 constantly. 
 
 Then there was that sister who died at Han 
 nah s, that one of whom only one thing is neces 
 sary as a characteristic. She died with the 
 words, " Pooh, pooh," on her lips. It was the 
 question of the spirit life, in which she had no 
 belief and with which she had no patience. 
 She was an Ingersollian, with not enough in 
 terest in the whole subject of religion to be 
 properly called an agnostic even. Or rather she 
 was an indifferentist, and considered it more 
 sensible to talk about the cooking of onions or 
 the training of puppy dogs than of entering the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 It was on her very death -bed that Enoch 
 said to her, " Beck, we shall meet again over 
 the river." And she turned over with those 
 words, " Pooh, pooh," so weak on her lips as 
 hardly to be heard, but plainly to be recog 
 nized as like her, and died. 
 14
 
 THE O MARAS 
 
 Peace to her ashes, too. She showed more 
 individuality and force of character in her in 
 difference than most of her family did, and was 
 not by any means a bad woman. 
 
 There was one other sister, who never came 
 into close connection at all with our Enoch, and 
 perhaps we might not mention her. She was an 
 elocutionist, and in the execution of " Clarence s 
 Dream," or some such tragedy, may have found 
 sufficient vent for her surplus imagination and 
 exercise for the muscles of her diaphragm. She 
 was not a bad woman by any means ; but, though 
 she claimed religion, I am inclined to think it 
 was mostly abdominal ; and that she formed, 
 therefore, no exception to the general rule of 
 the O Mara family. 
 
 Of the five boys, three were musicians ; one 
 wrote poetry ; and one went off early and 
 joined the Shakers, and was lost sight of. 
 There were few descendants of any of them to 
 bear their name. When people become hope 
 less and irreligious, they become unprolific ; 
 for why should man, whose life is of few days 
 and full of trouble any way, propagate himself ? 
 
 These men were all pleasant natured, but they 
 are all gone. They were like some exotic plant 
 that you attempt to cultivate ; it flourishes for 
 a time, but pretty soon, you hardly know why, 
 you can scarcely find a specimen of it left. 
 Their genealogical tree culminated in this fam- 
 15
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 il} r of ten children, and then died out. Back of 
 it there may have been, must have been, some 
 thing strong and durable ; but it took the worm 
 in the bud and died. 
 
 Peace to all the family ! They may have been 
 as well off, the O Maras, as the Willoughbys, but 
 look at the difference ! Old Margaret Willough- 
 by, when she died, was the mother, grand 
 mother, and great-grandmother of one hundred 
 and twenty-nine children, grandchildren, and 
 great-grandchildren. I am not sure but there 
 were even great-greats among them. And at 
 that time there were hardly a baker s dozen 
 O Maras left in the world. 
 
 It may have been the feeling of this funda 
 mental difference in the make-up of the families 
 that caused a little opposition to the marriage 
 of young Enoch Willoughby and Hannah 
 O Mara. One family was going up and the 
 other was going down. One was multiplying 
 and replenishing the earth at a great rate ; the 
 other was degenerating, weakening, dying out. 
 
 If old Margaret Willoughby had had a daugh 
 ter-in-law with a hooked nose, a suspicion of a 
 mustache, a square-set jaw, a voice harsh and 
 commanding, and a disposition to be obeyed 
 corresponding with all these qualities, I warrant 
 you she would have meekened herself into the 
 most amiable of mothers-in-law, for she could 
 be good if she tried. The deep magnetism of 
 16
 
 THE O MABAS 
 
 her water -witching power would thrill one ; her 
 voice was magnetic, too, and her face as express 
 ive and captivating as if every separate muscle 
 had been under her special command. But 
 when visitors were absent ; when the neces 
 sity for self-control was no longer apparent ; 
 when the old, human nature was allowed to 
 assert itself; she could become as disagree 
 able as a rattlesnake, and not even be conscious 
 that she was not as good as ever. 
 
 So she could never understand why young 
 Hannah was all the time crying after she came 
 there to live. 
 
 "What was the matter with her? " she won 
 dered. " She did not seem to have any force 
 of character." And so at the most trivial mat 
 ters she would scold : if just the right directions 
 had not been given to the servant ; if one of 
 her Irish linen table-cloths had inadvertently 
 been used for every day ; or any other thing, 
 no matter how little, had gone wrong. 
 
 And then she would, most likely, come across 
 Hannah, slender, delicate, poetic Hannah, off 
 somewhere with eyes bathed in tears, and she 
 would scold her again. What was the mat 
 ter? She ought to know better than to give 
 way to her feelings so, especially at this time ; 
 the child would be a milksop and degenerate. 
 She ought to be cheerful. And then, when 
 Enoch would come home from work, Hannah 
 17
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 would seek him and throw her arms about his 
 neck and weep again, with no cause apparent. 
 
 She could not and would not talk about his 
 mother. It was no wonder that the first blue- 
 eyed boy was weak and fretful, a whining in 
 fant, hard to take care of. 
 
 And the grandmother scolded the oftener and 
 the mother cried the more ; and the poor old 
 grandfather smoothed over and calmed down 
 everything as often and as well as he could ; 
 walked the woods with the little grandchild in 
 his arms to ease grandmother s temper, and yet 
 was rather glad for the sake of peace, when 
 young Enoch took his wife, and pulling up 
 stakes, broke camp, and removed for good and 
 all, no matter where. 
 
 It is the law of the world that families shall 
 be broken up in order that families shall bo 
 formed and live. 
 
 "Good-by, father; good-by, mother," Enoch 
 and Hannah had said bravely when the parting 
 came ; "let us have no harshness, only love and 
 friendliness; we are following the ways of the 
 world. Come and see us when we get settled. 
 We will come back again some time to old 
 Ohio. Good-by, good-by ! " 
 
 18
 
 Ill 
 
 PROSPERITY 
 
 PROSPERITY did not mean wealth for young 
 Enoch and Hannah in their new Western life. 
 It meant rather health, industry, economy. 
 There is no story in this chapter. How can 
 you make a story of two happy and loving 
 young people, who have nothing to do but to 
 go out into the world and conquer a place in it, 
 and who are doing so with might and main ? 
 
 As soon as they were fairly started on the 
 way, the young wife threw her arms around her 
 husband s neck and sobbed from excess of 
 happiness. Now she was free. She would 
 rather a thousand times live in a log cabin and 
 be free to do as she pleased in it, than to live in 
 a mansion and feel that she was always nagged 
 at, and that things were never right. She felt 
 great throbs of gratitude to her husband who 
 had at last understood her without a word of 
 explanation, and had said : " Wife and chil 
 dren first, and father and mother afterward," 
 and taken them away. 
 
 She felt her love increase for his parents. 
 Dear old Margaret ! She could see now she 
 19
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 never meant it ; she had not understood ; she 
 had forgotten the feelings of a young wife and 
 mother in a new home. And Hannah resolved, 
 over and over again, to do her best. She said 
 in her heart she would work for him, she would 
 slave for him. A man who would make a sacri 
 fice like that deserved to be followed in the 
 best sense of the word, and she would follow 
 him. 
 
 There was another cause for gratitude that 
 was not without its sting : her mother had 
 recently died ; her father had lost his property 
 through a bad security debt, and with it his 
 self-control and stability of character. He was 
 not fit to take charge of his young children, and 
 Enoch readily took them along. It was noth 
 ing, he said; he hardly thought of it. They 
 would soon be able to work ; were able to do 
 something even then ; those three children were 
 no hindrance. And so they started West. 
 
 There was something glorious about Western 
 life some fifty years ago. What black furrows 
 they cut in the green sod out in Indiana, and 
 how high they " heaped the golden corn." 
 When the first signs of sterility came in the 
 over-teeming soil, they sold to a new-comer at 
 advanced prices, and went on to Iowa, and hero 
 again rich harvests of wheat and sales of fat 
 cattle helped the young Westerner. These were 
 the days when people carried yellow metal in 
 20
 
 PROSPERITY 
 
 their pockets, and wages were worth their 
 weight in gold. 
 
 Enoch hunted prairie chickens and quails and 
 carried on his shoulder one of the best stub and 
 twist shot-guns in the market, with his initials 
 carved on the stock, and there was not a better 
 shot in the country than he. How proud Han 
 nah used to be of her tall, black-haired, handsome 
 hunter ! The boys would run to meet him and 
 carry his game when he came home ; he had one 
 of the best hunting dogs about there. You could 
 hear him sing as he strode out over the prairie : 
 
 " Let the huntsman praise his hounds ; 
 And the farmer praise his grounds ; 
 And the priest praise the world that s to come ! " 
 
 If only he had let the priest do the praising 
 of the world that is to come ! 
 
 But it was a rich, full life, not only out 
 wardly ; this young couple were eagerly striving 
 for intellectual improvement. Some of the 
 best educations are obtained by men who have 
 had no advantages for education ; who have been 
 balked in going to academy or college, and have 
 retained from this a heightened sense of the 
 incompleteness of their education. They have 
 then remained students all their lives, and while 
 they express themselves with humility, because 
 their learning, they feel, has not the stamp of 
 authority on it, have yet become the best think- 
 21
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 ers, the best scholars, and the richest minds of 
 the time. Young Willoughby had a longing for 
 learning. He had had little schooling. An 
 itinerant teacher had kept a night-school in his 
 district in Ohio, and there he had gotten the 
 single rule of three, the rudiments of natural 
 philosophy, and the beginnings in astronomy. 
 He liked to study, but never read what he did 
 not want to remember. He read no trashy 
 novels, but he studied the problems of the stars ; 
 he had a clear idea of the universe in the 
 modern conception. He had worked out for 
 himself from these beginnings in natural phil 
 osophy a fair knowledge of mechanics also, and 
 he turned with an almost infinite delight to the 
 study of the Bible. 
 
 He was a man of good judgment in business 
 and made money. People came to him for ad 
 vice. Young men were sure of his sympathy. 
 He paid Mo.se and Eck, his young brothers-in- 
 law, for all they did, paid them well ; he soon 
 got them places where they could work for 
 themselves, and w r as in truth their elder brother. 
 
 Hannah read too. That tall, slender woman, 
 delicate in appearance, must have been of iron- 
 wood fibre, for she did her own work volun 
 tarily; brought up her children herself; found 
 time to read, and go on occasional visits ; and 
 go always to meeting on First days and some 
 times on Fourth days as well. 
 22
 
 PROSPERITY 
 
 It might do our degenerate age good to see 
 and know two such people. 
 
 Young Willoughby looked at that time more 
 like the picture of Lowell when he was young 
 than like anybody else ; his nose was a little 
 more curved perhaps, and there might have 
 been a little more of the Jewish cast in his 
 countenance. But as he strode over the hills or 
 went about among his fellows, he was plainly 
 king of them all, hills and fellows ; a man with 
 out guile, with deep hope, strong, religious nat 
 ure, deep love of wife and family, such a man 
 as we should like to write a panegyric upon if 
 the time would permit; proud of his English 
 descent, proud of his broad acres, proud of his 
 Western Americanism, proud of his wife and 
 children, proud of his Quaker parentage, 
 proud of his own manhood, and proud because, 
 in the common sense of the word, he was not 
 proud. 
 
 He had something of the poet in him, too, for 
 he was sensitive and delicate ; half woman in 
 disposition ; loved the moods of nature ; took 
 solitary walks in the middle of the night or 
 through the gloomy woods, dripping with water ; 
 or over the prairies in the very face and teeth of 
 the oncoming storm. Only expression was lack 
 ing in him. If that had been there, he might 
 have become a poet, and been saved. Rhythm, 
 alliteration, cadence, the melody of sound, and 
 23
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 the harmony of composition, have saved many a 
 man from something worse. 
 
 And Hannah, with a little touch of melan 
 choly that came from the O Mara nature, had, 
 alternating with it, spells of exuberant gayety ; 
 the tricks of a girl ; the mimicry of an actress ; 
 the lightness of wit almost of a woman of 
 Shakespeare, if there had only been some one to 
 reproduce it. She was a true elder sister and 
 companion, both to her own children and to her 
 brothers and sisters. 
 
 And to those two, the church, that is the 
 Quaker meeting several miles away, was a great 
 thing. It formed the centre of their social life, 
 and they were proud of it. It was the nucleus 
 of their intellectual life, and they respected it. 
 It was the soul of their spiritual life, and they 
 venerated it. It was the church of their fathers 
 and they loved it. On First day mornings and 
 often on Fourth day, they rose much earlier 
 than usual ; got breakfast and did up the work 
 and chores ; curried and harnessed the horses ; 
 washed and dressed the children, and dressed 
 themselves carefully ; provided against a possi 
 ble storm ; allowed themselves an hour or more 
 for going, and went away to Quaker meeting. 
 
 That is enough of their life to show what was 
 meant by this chapter on prosperity. Would it 
 might never have ended ! Would it could have 
 gone on to an endless increase ! 
 24
 
 IV 
 
 THE CLOSED BOOK 
 
 " DON T go, Enoch, don t, go." 
 
 These words of Hannah to Enoch were said 
 with deep feeling, for how could the young 
 wife bear to be left alone with nobody but the 
 children, on a farm, in a solitary house, far away 
 from the rest of the neighborhood in a wild 
 country, before civilization had well advanced 
 around them ; and that, too, for what she con 
 sidered a foolish idea ; a mere unnecessary fan 
 cy ; and yet, one she was bound to respect. 
 
 It was a question of Enoch s going away to 
 preach, to become a Quaker preacher ; and that 
 meant in those days to lead a life of sacrifice 
 and real privation. The Quakers believed in 
 the operation of the holy spirit, and so did not 
 have ministers educated for preaching, or a 
 hireling ministry. When the spirit came upon 
 them, and they felt forced to it, they went 
 about and preached the gospel in communities 
 where they thought it was necessary. They 
 often had help, were frequently carried from 
 settlement to settlement ; but they supported 
 25
 
 themselves, and sacrificed often their time and 
 their business to their sense of duty. 
 
 Enoch Willoughby was a spiritually minded 
 man, deep, earnest, sensitive. The silence of 
 the meeting, like that of the woods, the mid 
 night, and the solitude of the storm, was full 
 of meaning to him. At these times his mind 
 filled with an inrush of thoughts that almost 
 carried him away. Once or twice, under their 
 strong influence, he had risen and spoken in 
 meeting. 
 
 The Friends had come up afterward and con 
 gratulated him on his words, and he and Hannah 
 had gone home, warm through and through with 
 that good feeling which comes only from the 
 praise of those for whose praise we care. 
 
 Hannah, also, had once or twice ventured a 
 word in the woman s part of the meeting-house, 
 and had been commended for it ; and these two 
 had thought about it, and talked about it. It 
 was for both of them a sort of golden dream, a 
 rich, good something that had come into their 
 lives. It was as though you had suddenly found 
 you had a talent for acting, a real, genuine talent, 
 and were thinking how you could cultivate it, 
 develop it, and make something out of it ; think 
 ing how your friends would praise you first, and 
 later on an audience ; then a community, and 
 how pretty soon you would be known every 
 where, and your opportunity to do great and 
 26
 
 THE CLOSED BOOK 
 
 good things increased a hundred-fold. "We all 
 have a little of this in us, and Enoch and Han 
 nah certainly were not to be blamed for it. 
 
 But the next time Enoch ventured to speak 
 there was something noticeable about his speak 
 ing. People looked up ; was it his breathing 
 or the expression of his face ? Or what was it ? 
 There was something singular about him. 
 
 All the Quakers in those days preached in 
 a sing-song, a kind of uncultivated intoning. 
 Even at that time people had begun to discuss 
 this sing-song a little, and wonder whether it 
 was necessary to good speaking. Some had 
 even tried to speak without it. At the same 
 time a very few had ventured to start a set tune 
 in meeting, but the more spiritual had imme 
 diately frowned the attempt down. "To pro 
 duce artificial aids to the spirit was to deaden 
 the spirit," these said ; and they were perhaps 
 right ; for, with organs and instruments and set 
 psalms, with hired ministers and paid choirs, the 
 old improvised religion is crowded out, and one 
 of formality takes its place. In religion as in 
 literature or art, the creative impulse must pass 
 through three phases : first it worships, then 
 hates, then rightly estimates its models before it 
 can give full expression to that which is within 
 itself. In Enoch Willoughby the subconscious- 
 ness was very great. He was a man of dreams 
 and vision, of intuition and indefinite inipres- 
 27
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 sion ; but lie was not a poet, for the faculty of 
 expression in him was not cultivated. 
 
 Things were bom into his consciousness 
 by a painful parturition, so that when the 
 spirit came over him in meeting, he would first 
 begin to twitch and jerk. The muscles of his 
 face would move uneasily, and without control 
 of the will ; his eyes assumed a peculiar look ; 
 frequently his knees or his feet would be affected 
 in some odd way ; and his voice took on a tone 
 that was not at all natural to him. It was not 
 like the regular Quaker sing-song. It was not 
 pleasant to look at him at these times, nor was it 
 pleasant to hear his voice. 
 
 Very frequently these actions would come 
 upon him and last for a considerable time before 
 he would be able to speak a word ; his breathing 
 would be heavy ; he would be a noticeable sight ; 
 and control himself he could not, without at 
 once, as he said, driving the spirit away ; and 
 this, he thought, was wrong ; perhaps even the 
 unpardonable sin. 
 
 It must be remembered we are not describing 
 superficial, trivial things here ; we are describ 
 ing what is deepest and most important in some 
 men s experience. This man believed in the 
 spirit as an actual reality ; as we all did in those 
 days. He believed as much in the possibility 
 of offending the Holy Ghost as you and I do in 
 the possibility of offending our neighbors. 
 28
 
 THE CLOSED BOOK 
 
 And now, nothing in their lives, not even the 
 bringing up and educating of their children 
 not even their relations to one another, or to the 
 world, was more important to these young peo 
 ple than this matter of Enoch s speaking in 
 meeting. He longed to talk with his father in 
 Ohio about it. He felt the kind of impression 
 he was making on the meeting, and knew it was 
 not good. The old rich feeling of warmth to the 
 heart s core, with which he and Hannah had 
 once gone home from meeting after speaking 
 there, was changed to one of mixed humiliation, 
 and resisting pride, and determined persever 
 ance. 
 
 Enoch must preach. He had been " called," 
 and he could not help it. The matter took com 
 plete possession of his mind. He did almost 
 nothing but think about it. He grew solitary, 
 and wandered through the woods and over the 
 prairie, neglecting his work and the children 
 and Hannah. He remembered the deep peace 
 that came over him in meeting after he had 
 spoken ; it was to him like sunshine after storm : 
 like the placid lake after the rapids; like the 
 quiet spring day after the winds and storms of 
 March and April. He must obey the call. 
 
 And then he turned to reading the Bible, and 
 
 he encouraged himself in his course. There 
 
 was hardly a morning that he did not have a 
 
 dream or vision to interpret, and when inter- 
 
 29
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 preted it meant always that he must go out and 
 preach. 
 
 Hannah sympathized with him fully and 
 thoroughly ; but she would have been hardly hu 
 man, and certainly not the practical woman she 
 was, if she had not had some objections to his 
 going. She urged him not to go. She told him 
 she did not believe the Committee would ever 
 give him a letter to preach ; they did not like 
 his manner ; and, then, she did not know what 
 the rest of them would do. She even worked 
 herself up to considerable spirit in this conver 
 sation ; and when he said such things as " The 
 Lord will provide," and " Seek ye first the King 
 dom of Heaven, and all these things will be 
 added unto you," and " It is only what the Mas 
 ter did, etc., "she would reply that Jesus had no 
 wife and children to leave alone in a solitary 
 farmhouse ; and if He had had, she did not be 
 lieve He would have gone ; but if He had then 
 gone, under such circumstances, she thought He 
 might have done better. 
 
 These were bitter days for the whole family. 
 When the father came in, the children did not 
 run to him as before; they knew something 
 was the matter. They sympathized with their 
 mother; they cast shy glances at their father 
 and left him for the most part alone. The air 
 was oppressive and heavy ; it seemed almost as 
 if some one were dead in the house. What 
 30
 
 THE CLOSED BOOK 
 
 would ever become of them? The gun, with 
 its carved stock, rested on its rack over the 
 door. The poor dog, dejected and unnoticed, 
 followed his master about. These were sad, sad 
 days ; and little James, the oldest boy, would 
 talk to his mother about what was the matter 
 with father ; and his mother would tell him he 
 wanted to go and preach ; he thought he ought 
 to go and preach. And if the boy said anything, 
 as he was inclined to do, not quite complimen 
 tary about his father, the mother would hush 
 the child up as gently as possible. 
 
 She was determined to be a true and loyal 
 wife, and teach her children respect for their 
 father. She tried to keep them from hearing 
 the discussion as much as she could, but when 
 it came to the last, and Enoch said he " must 
 go, Hannah," and she and he stood out by the 
 house alone as she thought he had kissed the 
 children good-by without saying anything about 
 it then she threw her arms around his neck 
 and sobbed and cried : 
 
 " Don t go, don t go." 
 
 It was very pitiful ; and all the time there 
 was a little fellow around the corner of the 
 house, with clenched fist, and teeth set hard, 
 and lips gnawing as he listened. 
 
 Finally Enoch took his wife s arms gently 
 from around his neck, and kissed her ; he put 
 her firmly away, as if putting aside the temp- 
 31
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 tation to worldly and carnal things ; bade her 
 good-by ; to be of good cheer ; and went awa}-, 
 and left her. 
 
 Then she sank to the ground, sobbing as if 
 her heart would break, and then, the little fel 
 low, from around the corner of the house, 
 rushed out, threw his arms about his mother s 
 neck ; and in his burst of comforting zeal, cried 
 out, in the midst of tears and sobs : 
 
 " Never mind, mother, don t cry. Let the old 
 fool go!" 
 
 They were dreadful words for a child; but 
 one must imagine the long strain he had been 
 under ; imagine his quivering lips and com 
 pressed passion. 
 
 In an instant Hannah s tears ceased; she 
 rose slowly, and looked at the child for a long 
 time closely and earnestly. The boy felt as 
 though the heavens were about to fall. What 
 had he done ? That word " fool " he had never 
 been allowed to use ; had never used it, per 
 haps, before ; but he had heard, " whosoever 
 calleth his brother fool, is in danger of hell 
 fire ; " and though this was not his brother, 
 perhaps it was worse than if it had been ; for 
 that very reason, he had said it; because he 
 knew it was such an awful word. 
 
 Finally his mother told him she would have 
 to punish him. She directed him to go and 
 get a switch from the apple-tree in the garden, 
 32
 
 THE CLOSED BOOK 
 
 and bring it to her. The boy obeyed without a 
 word, and took his punishment without a mur 
 mur ; then kissed his mother and went away. 
 
 At first, after the whipping, the boy felt glad 
 that he had said what he did. It is the first 
 effect of punishment to justify the punished in 
 their own eyes. Then he began gradually to 
 have compunction, and then he went off and 
 hid in the haymow. 
 
 There his little heart filled up with remem 
 brance of his father, whom he loved tenderly ; 
 and he began to cry. It was not long till his 
 thoughts turned into prayer. He got down on 
 his knees, and prayed, and sobbed. The great, 
 awful danger of hell fire was over and about 
 him. The wrong he had done, the love of his 
 mother, his pride in defending and comforting 
 her, then his humiliation and defeat, and now 
 this dreadful load of an offended God and the 
 torments of the damned, rose up before him. 
 It was too much almost for him to bear. He 
 prayed for forgiveness long and hard. 
 
 Finally the overwrought muscles and nerves 
 relaxed. There came upon him such peace, 
 such sweet peace. God had forgiven him. He 
 knew it as well as he knew that the sun had 
 risen, but he did not stop to think of it. He 
 rested in it. He laid his little head down on 
 the hay ; his eyes closed ; the child was asleep 
 in the haymow. 
 
 33
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Hannah had, at first, thought she would take 
 the children and go back to Ohio ; then she had 
 considered the matter again, and decided to 
 wait awhile. Perhaps Enoch would return be 
 fore long. It might be he would find himself 
 mistaken. Perhaps his call was not so clear as 
 he had thought. Possibly the spirit would not 
 come upon him when he tried to preach away 
 from home, among strangers. She felt a little 
 satisfaction in thinking of it. She almost hoped 
 it would not come. She did not believe there 
 was any real necessity for his going ; she be 
 lieved he would soon come back ; at any rate, 
 she would wait awhile before doing anything. 
 
 Now let us consider a moment what Enoch 
 himself thought, for we should be unwilling to 
 consider it under any other light than that of 
 deep earnestness. This was no trivial matter. 
 Of course he never became a preacher. Now, 
 we can look back upon it and consider it with 
 a view to later events, and it seems altogether 
 different ; but then, Enoch was young ; he did 
 not know the future ; his mind was full of great 
 things, especially of the life of Jesus. The 
 story of the gospels was constantly in his mind ; 
 even their beautiful, old English styles of ex 
 pression were on his tongue. I have no doubt he 
 imagined himself being driven out from home 
 by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted 
 of the devil. All those expressions of the 
 34
 
 Bible that justify the neglect of earthly affairs 
 for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven were 
 constantly in his mind. 
 
 He might have been on the high road to in 
 sanity, as was said indeed, yet there was a high 
 intellectuality about this little farm-house in 
 those days ; a profound spirituality ; tender 
 emotions ; and nothing coarse, nothing vulgar, 
 nothing commonplace. Not every one is ca 
 pable, as young Enoch Willoughby was, of be 
 ing led to such convictions, of adopting so un 
 selfish and noble an enthusiasm. It is in the 
 silent bosom of some little family like this often, 
 between husband and wife, between mother and 
 daughter, between father and son, or son and 
 mother, or brothers and sisters, that the great, 
 deep tragedies of life are lived out and finished. 
 
 What experiences of mind or body Enoch 
 went through during his absence Hannah never 
 knew. The time remained to her a great, sealed 
 book. It is doubtful whether Enoch himself 
 more than half knew where he went or what he 
 did. He knew the great world that was revolv 
 ing in his mind; but the little outer world 
 largely escaped his observation. The Quakers 
 did not give him a letter to preach, and discour 
 aged him from the undertaking. He cared little, 
 for that was only one of the small outward for 
 malities. But there was more that he had to 
 care for. He was not at peace with the spirit, 
 35
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 nor the spirit with him. There was not that 
 harmony between the two that might lead to 
 great things ; the incarnation was not complete. 
 
 There were always himself and the spirit 
 struggling to retain possession of the flesh, and 
 however they might rend and tear it, they were 
 never at peace. I mean, exactly the same old 
 difficulties of expression were always there, and 
 would not leave him, that he had experienced 
 when he attempted to speak in the meetings at 
 home. 
 
 It was nearly six weeks before he returned, 
 thin, pale, haggard. The struggle with the 
 spiritual world had been very great in him. He 
 fell into Hannah s arms in one long, silent em 
 brace. She kissed her young Enoch passion 
 ately, and smoothed back his glossy, black hair, 
 which was all that had thriven about him during 
 that period of wandering. They wept together as 
 though it had been a parting, instead of a meet 
 ing. He hugged his children to his breast, but 
 they were almost afraid of him. And when 
 finally Hannah asked him where he had been, 
 and wanted to know something about his doings, 
 he said : 
 
 " Let it be a closed book between us, Hannah ; 
 let it be a closed book between us." 
 
 36
 
 THE VISION 
 
 BUT an experience like this could not be en 
 tirely closed, for it had an influence on Enoch s 
 whole life. It seemed to have been a turning 
 point in his course, or rather a point where the 
 hill -top had been reached in the road; and 
 where, henceforth, it began to fall away and run 
 more swiftly and decidedly to its end. Not that 
 from this time he was taking the down-hill road 
 to ruin, or anything of that kind; but simply 
 from this time on he became more fixed and 
 positive, less and less amenable to the advice or 
 influence of others. 
 
 He had been to see his sister Sarah, that one 
 who had most of the same peculiar nature he 1 
 had in himself. This much came out incident 
 ally from his conversation. He told of that 
 wonderful cure she had effected of the pain in his 
 breast. These two had strengthened each other 
 in their belief; but one good influence Aunt 
 Sarah that is what the children called her 
 had had upon him : she taught him that in this 
 day and generation of the world there is nothing 
 more important for a man of a family to do than 
 37
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 carefully to attend to his family. She taught 
 him to avoid excess in his enthusiasm she had 
 probably learned that from her own experience ; 
 not to give up too readily to his impulses ; 
 and that the plain, hard, common-sense of busi 
 ness life was after all one of the saving graces 
 and kept people from all kinds of excesses. He 
 must have taken this lesson in thoroughly, or 
 else it was a part of the old Willoughby inheri 
 tance, for he acted in accordance with it from 
 this time on. 
 
 Though he never grew rich, he never became 
 poor ; remained independent and able to assist 
 the needy about him ; and even when he went 
 farthest in his extravagant theories and wild 
 spiritualistic notions, he always kept control of 
 his business and lived the life of a substantial, 
 respectable business man. 
 
 But after this return, he talked more and more 
 of spiritual things, that is of strangely spiritual 
 things, things odd, peculiar ; this cure of Aunt 
 Sarah s for instance, and how he had been at the 
 cross-roads and not known which way to turn, 
 and had heard a voice, as it were, speaking in 
 his ear, telling him to turn to the left. He had 
 done so and had come to his destination. His 
 sister had told him his very thoughts in many 
 cases. They had talked about the spirit. They 
 always spoke of it then as the holy spirit, for 
 they were both Quakers, and the peculiar way 
 38
 
 THE VISION 
 
 it had of influencing Enoch. Sarah explained 
 that to him as an inheritance of his mother, 
 Margaret, who had a strange magnetic influence 
 about her. At that time spiritualism was just 
 starting in this country. They had both heard 
 of it; they both shunned it; but they both 
 looked into it. They both felt interested, but 
 yet a little afraid of the matter. 
 
 Indeed they believed in the action of the holy 
 spirit, believed it as much as we believe any 
 of the common things of life, and this influ 
 ence was to them something tangible, real. It 
 was possible for them to be caught up by the 
 spirit, they thought, and be actually carried 
 away contrary to their own wills and purposes, 
 to be led off to another town as George Fox was, 
 often, and there to preach or prophesy or exhort 
 without knowing why ; to be moved to go to a 
 particular person, perhaps an entire stranger, 
 and under an irresistible impulse, begin to 
 talk to that person on, let us say, matrimonial 
 infelicity, and gradually bring the subject nearer 
 and nearer home to his own treatment of his 
 wife ; then boldly to accuse him of such ill- 
 treatment of her and to lecture him into 
 shame of himself until he acknowledged his 
 fault, and was struck with wonder at the possi 
 bility of his accuser knowing anything of the 
 circumstances. That was what they called being 
 led by the spirit, and such things were happen- 
 39
 
 ENOCH \VILLOUGIIBY 
 
 ing, they believed, constantly, and they did not 
 consider such actions insanity. It was the 
 spirit come upon them. They had seen Uncle 
 Allen go under the "influence" in their early 
 lives as children; they had seen him begin to 
 twitch and move about uneasily and breathe 
 heavily and then finally rise, and begin to 
 preach. It was nothing. Now they began to 
 think it was, partly at least, not the holy spirit, 
 but spirits, departed spirits, that were doing it. 
 It was Biblical enough to believe that, and these 
 people for generations were steeped in the very 
 essence of the Scriptures. 
 
 It was a long time before Enoch would use the 
 name spiritualism at all, and Hannah could not 
 bear to hear it even mentioned ; it gave her the 
 cold shivers. But they began to hold meetings, 
 Enoch and Hannah, and the children if they 
 remained awake, and Hannah s younger sister 
 Lyddie, and her brothers Mose and Eck. They 
 did not call them circles : I do not think they 
 had heard the word seance yet ; if they had, they 
 would not have used it. They called them 
 spiritual meetings or sittings. 
 
 They held them now frequently after Enoch s 
 return, and he was almost always " influenced." 
 At first Hannah struggled against them, thought 
 they ought not to have the children in them. 
 To tell the truth she had a secret fear lest some 
 thing was the matter with Enoch s mind, and yet 
 40
 
 THE VISION 
 
 slie would not have mentioned such a thing for 
 the world. She overcame her feelings as well as 
 she could, kept silent, and let things take their 
 course. 
 
 For Enoch, at first at any rate, these were 
 purely religious meetings : they were not differ 
 ent from the silent sittings in the Quaker 
 church; the effect upon him was much the 
 same, and afterward there was the same inter 
 est in discussing what he had been led to say or 
 do while under the influence as there had been 
 after the Quaker meetings. 
 
 These were very strange performances, espe 
 cially for the violence of Enoch s " control." Im 
 agine how he looked : very tall ; dark hair ; blue 
 eyes ; fair skin ; long, slender hands and fingers ; 
 delicacy and power combined. Imagine the 
 children seated around the room and all hold 
 ing hands ; a very serious look on the faces of all, 
 and fear on some. And then imagine Enoch 
 going under the " influence : " the hard breath 
 ing, the vacant eye, the twitching muscles, the 
 jerking hands or knees, and then perhaps the 
 hands breaking loose and beginning to pound 
 the knees harder and harder, or the knees strik 
 ing together violently, the feet beginning to 
 shuffle about, the mouth to draw down at the 
 corners, with all imaginable, singular motions. 
 Think of the interest and wonder and fear 
 in the childreus faces and even in Hannah s. 
 41
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 And then, just imagine the man rising and 
 beginning to speak, in an altogether unnatural 
 voice, so that you had to look carefully at him 
 to be sure that it was the same person speaking 
 whom you had known, and then hear this voice 
 pass into terrible wailing I know not what else 
 to call it intense, fearful, awful. There is no 
 more terrible thing in the world than a human 
 voice. Imagine the shriek of terror, the cry for 
 help, the despairing wail, the moan of anguish ; 
 all of these put into a little close room. It was 
 fearful. 
 
 These trances were accompanied by cold feet 
 and hands, and a forehead with great sweat- 
 drops standing out like beads upon it; some 
 times they were followed by a kind of trance, in 
 which the man lay or sat like one dead, and yet 
 he did not suffer in them at all. 
 
 The first time they had one of these sittings 
 was soon after Enoch returned, and in it his 
 "control " was one of the most violent. Toward 
 the last, he had gone through the action of be 
 ing crucified, and had stood with arms and feet 
 extended, apparently in great agony, stiff and 
 moaning, until he had finally sunk to the floor 
 and lain there till the trance passed off. 
 
 The children sobbed and asked Hannah if ho 
 was dead. She knew not what to say and was 
 almost as much frightened as they were. Final 
 ly he came to himself ; and rose and lay down
 
 THE VISION 
 
 on the lounge, exhausted. The children were 
 put to bed. Mose and Eck were upstairs ; and 
 Lyddie was in her room, but too much afraid to 
 undress. She simply lay down on top of the 
 bed, pulled the cover over her and left the light 
 burning. The smaller children went to sleep 
 with their faces pressed close against each other 
 for fear ; and even Mose and Eck, who nearly 
 always had a scuffle on going to bed and pre 
 tended to quarrel if they so much as touched 
 one another, now lay as close together as two 
 girls. Hannah sat alone watching Enoch, lying 
 asleep. Pretty soon he awoke, and asked her if 
 she was not going to bed, and they both went 
 to bed then. 
 
 Enoch almost immediately fell asleep, but 
 Hannah could not sleep. She lay beside him 
 and heard him breathe ; and, in some way, a 
 great, sickening, terrible fear came over her. 
 She did not know what it was, but she could not 
 lie there. Every motion of the form near her 
 sent a shiver through her. She put together all 
 the strange things she could remember of him 
 and of his whole family. There had none of 
 them gone crazy ; it wasn t that ; but there was 
 something. She could not bear it. 
 
 Slowly and carefully she got up so as not to 
 
 awaken him ; she drew on a gown, and went to 
 
 the children s room and lay down beside tho 
 
 children. She felt better ; it was no use for 
 
 43
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 her to try to sleep. She lay there and fought 
 with her thoughts and feelings all night long, 
 and a long and fearful night it was. 
 
 Toward morning, when the light had some 
 what scattered her fears, she got up and quietly 
 took off her gown and lay down again beside 
 Enoch ; and when he awoke, she pretended to 
 awaken also. He did not know that for one 
 night his wife had left his bed and board, and 
 had been for those few hours, in thought and 
 feeling, divorced from him. But, with the 
 light, came a change ; a feeling of peace and 
 security. The blessed sunshine had driven all 
 that storm away. The very clatter of the 
 dishes, as Hannah and Lyddie washed them 
 and wiped them and put them tip after break 
 fast, was pleasant and cheerful. Outside, 
 Enoch and Mose were grinding the sickle, pre 
 paring to cut hay. It was all gone ; what had it 
 been anyway ? What was there last night that 
 made her lie awake the whole night through 
 in the children s bed ? It was strange, very 
 strange ; but whatever it was, it was gone now. 
 She got some old newspapers, and she and Lyd 
 die cut out and put up new covers for the pan 
 try shelves. After dinner she took a long nap ; 
 and that evening she and Enoch went over and 
 paid a visit to the Cadwalladers, and called on 
 the old maids. Hannah forgot everything. 
 She was soriy that these old ladies had not 
 44
 
 THE VISION 
 
 such a husband as she had ; and as they came 
 back together, she and Enoch, they were as 
 playful and loving as they used to be away 
 back in Ohio in the days of their courtship, and 
 Enoch had his arm about her. 
 
 But though the sun might expel the clouds 
 for a time, they would come again ; and the 
 very next night there was another experience. 
 This time there was little preparation for it. 
 Enoch had been more or less silent at noon 
 when in the house, and was so still, in the 
 evening. A little of that same feeling of op 
 pressiveness had come over everyone that al 
 ways does when one of a company is gloomy or 
 distressed. 
 
 After supper, they had gathered in the sit 
 ting-room when Enoch went out. Hannah no 
 ticed him carefully, but there was nothing re 
 markable in his behavior. He remained out a 
 long time ; they were beginning to be somewhat 
 frightened, and Hannah had suggested to Eck 
 that he go and see what Enoch was doing at the 
 stable. But Eck did not go at once probably 
 he was a little afraid and just then Enoch came 
 in. 
 
 Everyone saw at a glance something had hap 
 pened. He was pale as a sheet, and seemed 
 utterly exhausted ; at first he could not speak, 
 and lay down on the bed. All in the room 
 were silent, and waited until he could tell what 
 45
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 was the matter. Finally he told them he had 
 been seized and beaten by a spirit. 
 
 It was useless to express surprise ; the man 
 as thoroughly believed w r hat lie was saying as I 
 believe I am this moment holding the pen. He 
 had gone out to the corn-crib to feed the horses, 
 aiid had stooped down to pick up the corn and 
 put it in the basket. Just then a tall and pow 
 erful man seized him, and with a club began 
 beating him ; saying all the time : 
 
 " I will teach thee to deny me, I will teach 
 thee to deny me." 
 
 He continued beating him until at last he 
 fell down exhausted on the floor of the crib and 
 became unconscious. 
 
 This was the way he told of it then, and 
 always after that ; for he told the story as long 
 as he lived and thoroughly believed it himself. 
 He had, it seems, been pondering whether to 
 acknowledge the name of spiritualism or not, 
 and could not make up his mind. It was a 
 name in bad repute, and he loved the church of 
 his fathers; but he felt compunction for be 
 lieving what he did not acknowledge. Prob 
 ably this compunction had increased into re 
 morse, for he had the imaginative mind that 
 can magnify a thousand diameters every little 
 thing, and this remorse may have produced the 
 effect. But he believed it was a spirit and that 
 he had been punished, and had learned a lesson. 
 46
 
 THE VISION 
 
 Thereafter he called himself a spiritualist 
 openly and always, even when the odium at 
 tached to the name was as falsely applied to 
 him as the honor attached to the orthodoxy of 
 the Friends Society would have been. The 
 man had the imagination that would make him 
 throw an ink-stand at the devil. People, invis 
 ible to every one else, came in and spoke to 
 him ; ideas burst upon him like skyrockets, 
 with startling force and with all the individual 
 ity of concrete things. They were not the in 
 distinct, misty, brain -fog they are to some peo 
 ple ; but to him had actual form, color, and 
 sound. 
 
 It was nothing strange for him to leave his 
 work in the field and return to the house in the 
 middle of the morning, because some idea had 
 come to him with such force and clearness he 
 could not resist the temptation to go up and 
 communicate it to Hannah. 
 
 Having no knowledge of the meaning of lan 
 guage, except that which was forced into it by 
 the connection of thought, he was constantly 
 surprised by having words that he had used in 
 reading without knowing their meaning sud 
 denly burst open into significance. For days 
 and weeks he once carried the word " identity " 
 about with him, perhaps in his subconscious- 
 ness, not half knowing its meaning ; and when 
 the meaning came to him, he unhitched the 
 
 47
 
 ENOCH WILLOUUHBY 
 
 horses and came to the house. That was 
 enough glory for one day. In the same way, 
 too, his dreams were clearer than those of most 
 people ; and some of them had a fashion of re 
 peating themselves night after night with great 
 er and greater distinctness until they pushed 
 aside reality and became truer to him than 
 truth itself. 
 
 Certain of these repeated dreams finally seemed 
 to him to come always before events of a partic 
 ular character, and he came to believe that they 
 had significance, that they were given to him or 
 sent to him as intimations for warning or advice. 
 They would make a volume of literature if they 
 were written down, but there is not time for it. 
 Other events must be shown. 
 
 48
 
 VI 
 
 A FOLLOWER OF A FOLLOWER 
 
 THE effect of a life like this upon those famil 
 iar with it wears off gradually. As soon as the 
 strangeness of his performances was gone, there 
 was something rather interesting about them. 
 They varied the monotony of the long winter 
 evenings, and they gave always the feeling of 
 uncertainty or mystery to everything. Others of 
 the family wondered if they could act like that 
 and thought something of trying it. Occasion 
 ally a neighbor dropped in and saw these sit 
 tings, and spread accounts of them. Enoch and 
 Hannah went to meeting as regularly as ever, 
 and Enoch had by no means lost the habit of 
 speaking there, but now the Quakers had heard 
 that he was becoming a spiritualist and they 
 began to notice him more closely and to show a 
 little coolness. 
 
 Hannah observed that the Friends did not 
 visit them any more, that there was not the same 
 cordiality on the meeting-house porch before 
 and after meetings as formerly, and she spoke to 
 Enoch about it; but she might as well have 
 spoken to the wind. It was no use to urge him 
 49
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 to say nothing about his new theories until he 
 had examined them further. He was like a child 
 that has found something new. He must go and 
 show it to everybody. He talked to all of the 
 Friends about it, as far as he could get them to 
 discuss the matter, and he was surprised and 
 hurt to find that they would turn away without 
 interest. Some even said pretty severe things 
 to him. It was hinted that he might possibly 
 have an evil spirit. They shut him off in the 
 meeting all they could without noticeably offend 
 ing him. 
 
 Enoch felt intensely humiliated. This greatest 
 glory that had ever come to him, was then of 
 the devil, was it ? He was a false prophet, de 
 ceived by Satan, and himself deceiving the elect, 
 was he ? He studied over this phase of it for 
 months. He asked himself in all humility if he 
 was self-deceived, and he found the best answer 
 a man can find ; he had to believe in himself, 
 and he said, "No, he was not." Then he went 
 on in the same way. His reputation for strange 
 and gruesome things spread in the neighbor 
 hood ; the coolness increased between him and 
 the Friends and most other orthodox people 
 round about, and the more this grew, the more 
 Enoch Willoughby tried to right himself in the 
 eyes of the world by uprightness and moral liv 
 ing. That became a sort of mania with him too, 
 and in that he succeeded. His reputation for 
 50
 
 A FOLLOWER OF A FOLLOWER 
 
 honesty became fixed and secure. Some people 
 even took advantage of it, and then eased their 
 consciences by saying he was only an old spir 
 itualist. 
 
 For society, he chose those people who would 
 listen to his theories, and these were, of course, 
 those who had none themselves ; the ignorant, 
 the curious ; people from the woods district ; the 
 family got a bad reputation, much worse than it 
 deserved. And all this time Enoch studied the 
 Bible and filled himself with it, especially with 
 its spiritual portions; the story of Elias, the 
 Gospels, and Acts, and the entire life of Paul 
 and his teachings. There was no one in the 
 country that knew anything at all about it com 
 pared to him. 
 
 The preachers of the Quaker meeting and of 
 other churches in the region avoided him, and 
 would not enter into a discussion with him. They 
 had not time, and even if they had been able by 
 study to overcome him in argument, which is 
 doubtful, it would have required months to pre 
 pare for such a combat. The Bible is full of 
 spiritual things, and that man believed them and 
 thought he understood them; he believed in 
 Christ and his spiritual resurrection, and in the 
 after life of all mankind ; he believed in God ; he 
 believed in good and bad spirits ; he believed in 
 the power of the spiritual world about him, and 
 that made him believe all the miraculous in it ; 
 51
 
 ENOCH WILLOUG1IBY 
 
 but he was queer ; he could not help it ; he came 
 by it naturally, and he had to suffer the con 
 sequences of it, I suppose. 
 
 Enoch Willoughby had one follower, even now. 
 You will never find a man of ideas without some 
 followers, but one would be surprised to know 
 who this was. It was Lyddie. These children 
 all liked their elder brother Enoch ; he was like 
 a father to them, good and kind always. Re 
 strained by his mental disposition from all un 
 due familiarity, he held their respect. Lyddie, 
 as we have said, was a beautiful yourig girl, im 
 pressionable, with eyes gentle and affectionate 
 and she experienced something in those evening 
 meetings, enough to make her believe there was 
 more than mere imagination in them. 
 
 They did not encourage the children to sit 
 with them ; but Lyddio was now a woman and 
 accustomed to doing very much as she pleased, 
 and she frequently did take part. The first 
 time they ever knew of her being " influenced " 
 was one day after a meeting the night before. 
 Lyddie with the rest of the children had gone 
 out to the plum thicket to gather plums ; there, 
 suddenly, the girl was seized upon by the 
 power of the spirit, and under the influence, 
 gathered the children together and preached to 
 them. Then she led them to the house in great 
 wonder, and there gathered the other members 
 of the household together and preached to them 
 52
 
 also. It was a very strange performance in a 
 young girl, and might be incredible if one did 
 not consider the strong spiritual influence that 
 surrounded the whole family all the time. They 
 lived in an atmosphere of it, and could not get 
 away from it. After this, for a time, Lyddie 
 would be influenced at these meetings and 
 speak; but Hannah did not encourage it, nor 
 did Enoch think it best for so young a girl to 
 give herself up to that kind of spirituality. He 
 used to apply the words of Paul, " When I was 
 a child, I spake as a child," and so forth, to her 
 case. 
 
 So Lyddie did not become a spiritual medium 
 at all, but she had had experiences enough to 
 prevent her censuring Enoch Willoughby s 
 actions or theories, or feeling afraid of him. 
 She believed in him, liked him, and respected 
 him, and nothing used so to arouse her indigna 
 tion as to hear, as she did constantly, when she 
 was away from home, those hints and allusions 
 to his bad influence. Some people actually 
 believed that the Willoughby house was pos 
 sessed ; that there were ghosts there and 
 demons. Many people were afraid to go along 
 the road by it ; and many people avoided the 
 Willoughbys themselves as though they had 
 some contagion about them. Such a feeling 
 cements family ties more closely. They all felt 
 that Enoch was unjustly accused, that people 
 53
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 did not know him, that little things were magni 
 fied in his case, and Lyddie in particular had 
 said in her heart, she would never have any 
 thing to do with any one who thought that. 
 
 Now Lyddie could not help being as sweet 
 and gentle as the whole O Mara nature com 
 bined could make her, and when she went to 
 the Quaker meeting in those early days and sat 
 rapt in attention to some spiritual speaker, or 
 held by the charm of the meeting s silence, there 
 was something about her eyes that caught Will 
 iam Olney Price and held him, he did not know 
 how; there was something about her face and 
 her whole action that he could not get out of his 
 mind. He had hardly spoken to her. She was 
 a country girl and lived seven miles away from 
 the village. She was an orphan and had noth 
 ing. She had been brought up by charity and 
 by a rather singular family. William Olney s 
 father was the head of the meeting and its 
 principal support. He was the wealthiest man 
 in the village, and perhaps the man of the least 
 spirituality. He was of the old Providence 
 Quakers, grounded in respectability and tradi 
 tion, with only one son, whom he was counting 
 on to become the heir to his fortune, and then 
 the founder of a family here in the West, which 
 should by its success more than outweigh that 
 fault of being Westerners. 
 
 It was the same old story, for here was 
 54
 
 A FOLLOWEK OF A FOLLOWER 
 
 William Olney with the face of Lyddie O Mara 
 already settling in his mind. 
 
 This was about the time when Enoch and 
 Hannah began to feel the increasing coolness of 
 the Friends and to find excuses more and more 
 for not going to meeting. It now not infre 
 quently looked like rain, or they got up late in 
 the morning and it was so far away. And 
 young William Olney Price made all haste to 
 meeting First day mornings and watched every 
 new-comer and listened as every wagon drove 
 up, but no one came. So he watched First day 
 after First day, and once suggested to his father 
 that the Willoughbys did not come to meeting 
 now any more. His father told him he feared 
 they were drifting away from the church, and 
 would perhaps have to be dealt with by the 
 meeting, and perhaps it was just as well they 
 should not come. Sometimes even when they 
 did come Lyddie stayed away purposely. She 
 felt and knew that there had been a gaze fas 
 tened on her in meeting, and she knew whose it 
 was. She did not have to see with her eyes, 
 she had had that very person in mind when she 
 had said, "I shall never have anything to do 
 with one who thinks of us as I know Will 
 iam Price does." She did not want to go to 
 meeting any more. She had heard that William 
 Price was close and exacting ; that he was mak 
 ing money, and was even then said to be rich, 
 55
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 and it repelled her. She did not want to know 
 those people better ; she had an idea there was 
 something hard and cold about them. She put 
 them off in imagination into an entirely different 
 world ; thought of them as a different class of 
 human beings from her. She wished they would 
 not come to meeting. She thought they spoiled 
 the sweet peace she used to feel there. She 
 never liked to look at Rachel Price when she 
 came into the meeting-house, for she seemed 
 always to have unpleasant thoughts from it. 
 And William Price, the father, she thought stiff 
 and formal. Poor William Olney ! I am 
 afraid his eyes roved in the wrong direction this 
 time. 
 
 William Olney occasionally rode out from 
 the village and passed the Willoughby house. 
 If he had gone boldly in, it would not have 
 been out of the way at all. The neighborhood 
 was not large, and every one in it was some 
 what acquainted with every one else. He knew 
 the Willoughbys, and his father and mother 
 knew them. It is tme it was a rather formal 
 acquaintance, for both families instinctively felt 
 they were different from each other. The 
 young man could not help wondering what his 
 father and mother would say if he should go to 
 see Lyddie O Mara. 
 
 He thought this all over as he rode past the 
 house, rather hoping ho might at least see 
 56
 
 A FOLLOWER OF A FOLLOWER 
 
 Lyddie. He had some idea of going in, and 
 wished he might find some reasonable excuse 
 for it ; but as none presented itself he deter 
 mined to wait until some better opportunity 
 arose. Perhaps when the Willoughbys came to 
 meeting again, he would find some way of be 
 coming better acquainted with her. 
 
 57
 
 VII 
 
 IN THE MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 UNPLEASANT as well as agreeable scenes must 
 be described sometimes, because other events 
 depend upon them. If it were not so, we should 
 gladly omit what is to come now. 
 
 The Willoughbys came to meeting again at 
 last and Lyddie with them. They were still 
 members in good standing, and very respectable 
 people. They loved this old Quaker meeting ; 
 and while Enoch had not been encouraged to 
 go out as a preacher, there was no reason why 
 he should not speak in the meeting at home if 
 the spirit moved him, and that it was pretty 
 sure to do. 
 
 It was altogether too sure, Hannah felt ; and 
 Lyddie and she now were almost afraid to go to 
 meeting. What if one of those spells should 
 come on him there such as he had at home ? 
 What would people in meeting do if such a 
 spirit should come over him ? It was too dread 
 ful to think of, and they put it out of their 
 thoughts. But they were all afraid. Even 
 Enoch himself prayed in his heart he might not 
 be the one by whom the offence was to come. It 
 58
 
 IN THE MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 was with this feeling over them that they came 
 to meeting one day and sat down in that same 
 old beautiful silence. We may be sure William 
 Olney was there, but Lyddie had resolutely failed 
 to see him or even to allow herself to feel his 
 gaze fastened upon her. Oh, if they only got 
 safely out of it ! If Enoch could only control 
 himself ! 
 
 I do not know what in the world possessed 
 the man, when he knew the unpleasantness of 
 his manner, to allow himself ever to speak, 
 unless it be that his own theories about it were 
 correct. He was like Paul, who was a Pharisee 
 and believed in the resurrection, but who, like 
 his fellow-religionists, had put the belief away 
 out of his life as an indefinite, intangible truth, 
 without any practical bearing, good enough to 
 believe in, but not capable of any proof or dem 
 onstration ; for whom then, after his conver 
 sion, the other life became a living reality and 
 whose attempt to prove to his fellow-religion 
 ists what they themselves believed, made him 
 an offence. 
 
 " Would I of my own accord, Hannah," Enoch 
 asked, " rise up before our old congregation 
 and make myself an object of ridicule ? Such a 
 thing is not to be believed of any one ; then, if I 
 do so, they must believe that I am not acting 
 of myself, but of the spirit." 
 
 It was a good explanation and satisfied his 
 59
 
 ENOCII WILLOUCJIIBY 
 
 need of a reasonable theory; but it could 
 hardly satisfy the members of his own family, 
 who loved him and respected him, and could 
 not bear to see him make himself an object of 
 ridicule. But it had to be. 
 
 The moment he rose every one looked at 
 him. He went through the same singular 
 actions. There was that contraction of the 
 muscles of the face that indicated a violent 
 "control." Lyddie leaned her head down on 
 her hands, unable to look at him, and Hannah 
 hardly knew which way to turn or what to do. 
 
 When he spoke, there was that tone in his 
 voice that she dreaded. First he prayed, and 
 the meeting waited till ho was through ; but the 
 spirit had not yet left him ; when then he pro 
 ceeded to speak, the voice was so strange, so un 
 pleasant that uncle William Price, who sat at 
 the head of the meeting, felt it a kindness to 
 him and every one else to break meeting and did 
 so, leaning over and shaking hands with his 
 next neighbor, who sat with him on the high 
 bench at the head of the men s side. 
 
 The meeting was broken up, and people were 
 free to go out ; but Enoch had not yet ceased. 
 He seemed to be almost unconscious of what 
 was going on, and continued speaking for some 
 time. Even after Hannah rushed up to him, 
 took hold of him and spoke to him, it was some 
 time before she could call him back out of his 
 60
 
 IN THE MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 trance. And poor Lyddie was sitting with her 
 face covered, concealing her emotions as well as 
 she could. 
 
 When Enoch finally ceased speaking, Lyddie 
 looked up; there was no one in the meeting 
 house but herself and Hannah and Enoch, who 
 had now come out from under the influence. 
 
 When they went out on the porch, most peo 
 ple had gone ; and the few that remained seemed 
 rather to avoid them and did not come up and 
 speak to them. They were, however, becom 
 ing rather accustomed to this, and were all the 
 more surprised that as they were about to go 
 away young William Olney Price came up to 
 Enoch, and reached out and shook hands with 
 him. He then spoke to Hannah and Lyddie 
 and shook hands with them ; which should not 
 have surprised any one, as it was the custom 
 for every one to shake hands after meeting. 
 Now, however, it was a little surprising to 
 Enoch and Hannah. 
 
 They talked of it afterward. 
 
 " Did thee notice," Hannah asked, " that 
 young William Olney Price was the only one in 
 the meeting who came up after thee wrestled 
 with the spirit, and spoke to us ? " 
 
 Enoch had noticed it, and wondered at it a 
 little. 
 
 Now these people did not consider that any 
 great harm had been done. Enoch Willoughby 
 61
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 felt humiliated sometimes that he did not speak 
 and pray in a becoming manner, but this very 
 action was consistent with his theories and sub 
 stantiated them. He did wish sincerely that 
 the spirit might come upon him with unction 
 and cause him to act and speak in a pleasing 
 way ; but if it would not, he could not help it. 
 He had to try the spirits, he said, using the Bib 
 lical explanation as he always did in support of 
 his claim ; and further he used to say the King 
 dom of Heaven was like a net cast into the sea, 
 in which fishes of the most diverse kinds are lia 
 ble to be caught ; but he saAv that until a more 
 gracious or pleasing spirit could be induced to 
 come upon him, it would be better for him not 
 to go to meeting, but to practise his develop 
 ment at home. 
 
 It might even be an evil spirit ; he could not 
 deny the possibility; but he never thought of 
 giving up the whole subject and turning to the 
 things of this life alone and caring for them 
 only. That would have been to turn his back 
 on the spirit world, which was to him the whole 
 of religion. It meant the power of God, the 
 future life, the resurrection of Jesus, and possi 
 bility of all miracles on which the whole struct 
 ure was built ; and besides, he never forgot 
 those words he had heard in the corn-crib that 
 night he was beaten to death in spirit : " I will 
 teach thee to deny me." Paul s conversion on 
 62
 
 IN THE MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 the way to Damascus was not more vivid and 
 real to him than was his to Enoch Willoughby. 
 I really believe the man thought it would be bet 
 ter to have occasional communications with an 
 evil spirit, and know thus that there was a spir 
 itual world around us and about us, than to be 
 entirely shut away from such knowledge. 
 
 It is true he began now to turn more and more 
 to argument, though in that he was not much 
 more successful than in his inspiration. While 
 there was not the same queerness manifested, 
 there was in all his reasoning a quiet assump 
 tion of authority, of personal knowledge and ex 
 perience, that others generally could not or 
 would not assume ; and while this very thing, 
 with the uneducated and ignorant, gave him 
 power and influence among the opposite class 
 it aroused opposition. It was not very long be 
 fore Enoch Willoughby was set over against the 
 whole Quaker meeting, and the whole Quaker 
 meeting was set over against him. 
 
 Now, if it were possible, it would be well to 
 give some idea of the extent to which religion, 
 we will not say superstition those who want to 
 may say that entered into the life of this house 
 hold. They lived, all of them, in the very arms 
 of an invisible world, under the eye of good and 
 bad spirits. The conversation at table, at work, 
 in the evening, assumed the presence of such a 
 thing ; and again and again we must mention the 
 63
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Biblo ; it bad been the spiritual food of the 
 whole family for generations, and it was as 
 though it were all being concentrated now in 
 this one time and place. If one of the children 
 of that household now, after fifty years have 
 passed, would but turn his thoughts back to that 
 time, to that house in the woods, and to those 
 surroundings, and open the ear of his spirit to 
 the conversation there, he would hear more of 
 the Scripture in recollection than has collected 
 in his mind during all the long interval since. 
 And a kindness and gentleness and a sweet 
 hope were perennial in that family; for them 
 life was not stale and unprofitable and barren, 
 but was always a fresh and vigorous prepara 
 tion for something better. And yet this man 
 now became what Paul was to the Jews and 
 even to his own sect of the Pharisees, a dese- 
 crator of the temple, a perverter of morals, a 
 weakener of the church. 
 
 The house in which he lived became known 
 as a haunted house ; the man himself was soon 
 generally called " Old Enoch Willoughby," and 
 some added, "the old spiritualist," and some 
 " the old atheist," and some the " old infidel ; " 
 and all of this, I am sure, grew out of nothing 
 but a little queerness. 
 
 Then came the investigating committee, sent 
 out from the meeting to consider Enoch s sound 
 ness or unsoundness of doctrine, an event that 
 64
 
 IN THE MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 for the family was like the coming of a great 
 accident, a cataclysm of nature, an earthquake 
 or a tornado that rends the earth asunder or 
 lays the house low and leaves ruin in hearts 
 and homes. 
 
 " Verily, I come not to bring peace, but the 
 sword ; " and so it will always be with the com 
 ing of the spirit, of which Christ was the great 
 est type ; " for the natural man knoweth not 
 the things of the spirit, neither can he know."
 
 VIII 
 
 "WILLIAM OLNEY" 
 
 THIS last coming of the Willoughbys to the 
 Quaker meeting had not improved young Will 
 iam Olney s case ; on the contrary it had been 
 like the second stroke of the hammer on the 
 head of the nail. The sight of Lyddie in tears, 
 that day in the meeting-house, had made a 
 great impression on him. Now, in his fancy, 
 he would see her face, resting demurely under 
 her Quaker bonnet, and get the look of those 
 deep soft eyes ; and then in a moment, the head 
 would lean forward, and he would hear a little 
 sob ; or he would see a film gather over the 
 eyes and concentrate into drops, and stand like 
 pearls on the eyelids until they fell. The 
 sweet orphan girl, sobbing in church, was some 
 thing he could not get out of his mind for a 
 single moment. 
 
 He was glad he had gone up and spoken to 
 her and her people ; he had been almost afraid 
 to do so for fear it might look like pity or mis 
 placed sympathy on his part. But he had 
 shown his friendliness, they certainly could not 
 mistake that. 
 
 66
 
 "WILLIAM OLNEY" 
 
 And it had been shown in another way also. 
 He had found means of becoming better ac 
 quainted with Mose and Eck, Lyddie s brothers. 
 He had been with them several times, and it 
 would not be very noticeable now if he should 
 go out to their house to see them. It is sin 
 gular what ways other than the straightforward 
 one a young fellow in love will take. The first 
 time he went he did not see Lyddie at all, but 
 stopped at the gate leading into the yard, sat 
 on his horse awhile and talked with Mose, the 
 younger of the boys. Finally Eck saw them and 
 came up, and a game of quoits was proposed. 
 William Olney dismounted and pitched horse 
 shoes with the boys awhile and then went 
 away. 
 
 I do not know how he brought it about ; 
 it is all too long ago, and one forgets all the 
 twists and turns of that kind of thing. Did 
 any one ever observe two little children becom 
 ing acquainted how oddly they look at each 
 other, and how stiff and awkward they seem ; 
 till suddenly it is all over; you look up and 
 they are playing together as though they had 
 known each other for years. It was by a good 
 deal such " windlasses and assays of bias" that 
 young William Olney became acquainted with 
 Lyddie. But it was done in one way or an 
 other, and the first thing we know he was rid 
 ing out there frequently to see her. 
 67
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 He became recognized now as Lyddie s com 
 pany. There was a good deal of awkwardness 
 in knowing just what to do with him. It was 
 difficult to treat him with the proper amount of 
 indifference ; he threw a kind of restraint upon 
 the family. No one knew just what to say 
 when he was about, and it was hardest of all 
 for Lyddie to get on with him. 
 
 But this stiffness and reserve which his com 
 ing always produced, he did not at all notice. 
 Ho had been brought up in such an atmosphere, 
 and found everything here comparatively free. 
 Every one in this household did much as ho 
 pleased and had an individuality of his own 
 that was rather surprising to him. 
 
 At home as a boy he had been kept under 
 strict control, taught to show obedience, and 
 respect for his elders, and observance of forms 
 of all kinds. His books had been carefully se 
 lected for him as well as his playmates. He 
 had been held closely to the old-fashioned, 
 strictly orthodox notions of life ; had not been 
 allowed to whistle or even sing about the house, 
 or speak above a certain pitch ; had been 
 dressed regularly on First Day mornings for 
 Sunday-school and meetings, and the rest of 
 the day been kept pretty closely in the com 
 pany of his father and mother, and the elderly 
 people whom they might happen to visit, until 
 he learned to dread Sundays, to dislike the 
 68
 
 "WILLIAM OLNEY" 
 
 Sunday-schools, to yawn and even fall asleep 
 when the Quaker women were preaching ; and 
 found life, as a boy, rather dull and tame. 
 Then, when he came to go to college, it was not 
 better, for at Providence he was put under the 
 charge of an elderly uncle, his father s brother, 
 whose household had been somewhat on the 
 same order. 
 
 While there was perhaps no great life pulsing 
 in the boy, he longed for a little of its bright 
 side and colors. He might have had no music 
 in himself, but he was moved by concord of 
 sweet sounds. He would hardly have dared to 
 acknowledge it, but the sound of a violin stirred 
 him in a way he could not account for. He 
 liked ruddy faces, red hair, and bright eyes. 
 His sister, older than he, was pale always, and 
 thin ; a copy of his mother, who had a stately, 
 dignified way about her that harmonized per 
 haps with the Quaker drabs and dull blacks 
 which she wore. He had been used to this and 
 he wanted the opposite. He would have liked 
 just once to put on a red necktie and tan col 
 ored boots, to see how they would feel ; but he 
 would hardly have ventured it. He plugged 
 away at his Latin and Greek and mathematics, 
 and hoped the time might come when the folks 
 at home would be satisfied he had done enough 
 of them. He had good prospects, but he cared 
 little about them ; he would be rich some day, 
 69
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 but he had not come to the consideration of 
 that matter yet. He was an obedient boy to 
 his mother and sister, a dutiful son of his fa 
 ther, a student who never broke rules. He was 
 a birth-right member of the Quaker meeting, of 
 course, and that was in the days before any for 
 mal confirmation was thought necessary. And 
 if his father and mother ever thought of him at 
 all as likely to marry, they would have sup 
 posed of course he would defer to their wishes 
 in the matter. 
 
 It is likely he never in his life opposed his 
 parents in any way until he saw Lycldie O Mara 
 and fell in love with her. Then it seemed as if 
 all the humility and submission of his nature 
 had changed into obstinacy and determination. 
 He suddenly cared for nothing else in the world 
 but that girl, and everything that surrounded 
 her seemed to be just what he liked. The very 
 touch of the hand of these people in some way 
 was different. 
 
 He did not give himself an account of all these 
 things, but he felt like one who has been frozen 
 up and is being thawed out. Even in the mat 
 ter of his Biblical education, he had been brought 
 up in formality. Though he had read the Bible 
 all his life, he found that he knew little about it. 
 He knew the geography of it ; could tell where 
 Samaria and Jerusalem and possibly Antioch 
 lay ; a few of its uncertain dates had been
 
 "WILLIAM OLNEY" 
 
 drilled into his head, and he knew the names 
 of the books, with their doubtful authorship. 
 But when he came to hear the Bible spoken, 
 so to speak, as it was here, its expressions in 
 common use, he found that he really knew 
 nothing at all about the spirit of the book. 
 Even Lyddie could laugh at his ignorance, and 
 he liked the way she made sport of him for it. 
 He did not think it possible that such things 
 as trances could be even spoken of in the 
 Bible ; and that the spirit came on people like 
 a rushing, mighty wind, and made them act 
 strangely and talk in strange languages, he had 
 never heard. 
 
 Lyddie said, with a twinkle in her eye : " He 
 had not so much as heard whether there be 
 any Holy Ghost." It amused the whole fam 
 ily to tease him and show him how little he 
 knew about these matters, and to wonder what 
 he ever studied at college anyway. 
 
 And all the time Lyddie was teasing him for 
 his lack of knowledge of Scriptural spirituality, 
 he was drinking in the sight of her gentle eyes, 
 the rich color of her cheeks, her voice that 
 seemed to him something sweet enough to melt. 
 And all this time a storm was brewing for him 
 at home ; one of those quiet storms with no 
 thunder, no lightning, no black cloud and on 
 coming wrack and wind and dust and slamming 
 shutters, and then, after all, no rain ; but one of 
 71
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 those storms that come up by a gentle east wind 
 in a clear day, and about to-morrow high up in 
 the circumambient air, a filmy cirrus cloud be 
 gins to form the sun grow r s slightly pale, and 
 the sky slightly ringed and crossed around it, 
 and then far down toward the horizon the cloud 
 becomes darker and thicker; presently a few 
 drops fall, then more and more ; rolls of distant, 
 subdued, conventional thunder are heard at 
 proper intervals ; and not until all the cisterns 
 of earth are filled and have overflowed does this 
 mild and unostentatious storm pass away. 
 
 That was the kind of Quaker thunder-storm 
 young "William Olney must expect to encounter. 
 
 72
 
 IX 
 
 THE VISIT HOME 
 
 EVERY man ought to have some business, we 
 suppose, even in fiction; and with all Enoch 
 Willoughby s dreams and visions and general 
 spirituality, he was a farmer and made his 
 money mostly through cattle raising. Permit 
 us to say he was a good judge of cattle, a suc 
 cessful feeder, and could give offhand the weight 
 of a steer as closely as any other man in the 
 county. He took pride in it too. But his good 
 judgment of cattle and careful purchases of 
 stock to stall-feed in the fall could not hinder 
 his making mistakes in estimating the price of 
 corn or the extent of the growing crop, and 
 one winter about this time he made such a 
 mistake, and was obliged to borrow money of 
 William Price and mortgage the place to save 
 his investment. 
 
 During that winter, Enoch did not worry about 
 the cattle or the debt. They had been attended 
 to ; perhaps things would come out right. He 
 had done the best he could. While he had 
 some leisure time in the long winter, he might 
 as well be doing something ; so he turned his 
 73
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 attention to the spirits again. His theory 
 grew upon him ; it was so full of explanation, so 
 satisfactory. He explained it in long letters to 
 his brothers and sisters in Ohio and Indiana, 
 and other parts of the West. They replied at 
 first in friendly, admonitory letters, which 
 gradually grew shorter, then indifferent, and 
 finally curt. 
 
 The man was enthusiastic and full of ear 
 nestness and repressed zeal. He conceived the 
 desire to go back to his home in Ohio. He 
 wanted to talk to his father and mother; he 
 wanted to show his newly found treasure, for 
 he thought he had found something just as truly 
 as the man who picks up a handful of diamonds 
 from the bed of a stream is sure he has found 
 value. Hannah tried to persuade him not to 
 go. She felt sure he would be disappointed ; 
 besides, she did not like to be left out there in 
 the winter. But his desire was so great that he 
 had to go and went. 
 
 The first morning after he reached home, 
 the power of the spirit came upon him. The 
 first thing he knew he was seized as in a fit of 
 weeping, and began to cry and sob so that 
 the people were frightened. They asked him 
 what was the matter, but he told them he did 
 not know. He walked about over the old 
 place from room to room, wringing his hands 
 and sobbing and moaning while the tears 
 74
 
 THE VISIT HOME 
 
 ran down his face. It was as if the man were 
 suffering greatly. The noise he made, too, was 
 considerable. His eldest sister, Anne, followed 
 him about and carefully closed the doors after 
 him, to keep down the noise, and told some one 
 to stay at the front door and not to let any of the 
 neighbors come in. In fact, the Quaker quiet 
 of that old Ohio household was disturbed as it 
 had never been before. 
 
 What was the matter with the man ! Grand 
 mother Margaret, who was now grown pretty old, 
 said that he had the spirit on him, that was all ; 
 said she had had quite similar experiences when 
 she was a girl ; that he wasn t really suffering any 
 thing; that it was only the spirit weeping and wail 
 ing. What puzzled her was to know ivhy it had 
 come. Just let him alone and it would leave him 
 in due time. (And that old lady when she died had 
 as many as seventy-five different gowns stored in 
 the various closets and bureau-drawers of the 
 house, many of them in very good condition 
 and of very good quality. I cannot conceive 
 why one should recall this fact now, unless it is 
 to explain how the spiritual and the material 
 can go side by side in the same individual as it 
 was doing in Enoch.) She had prophesied cor 
 rectly about him ; he came out of it after awhile, 
 though not until he had gone through the entire 
 house, and out of the yard across to the woods 
 pasture. There he remained alone for perhaps an 
 75
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 hour, and when the spirit left him, he came to the 
 house. Grandmother Margaret had been right 
 in this, too ; he had not suffered a particle. He 
 had wondered all the time what it was going to 
 do with him next. He knew it was the spirit. 
 And now he began to try to interpret its coming 
 just as one would a dream. They talked of 
 what it could mean, but they all knew well 
 enough, and not even Enoch himself could bear 
 to mention it. It was the spirit bewailing his 
 separation from the family and the church. 
 Enoch knew from that moment his mission 
 would be in vain, but he had to go on and 
 fulfil it. 
 
 He began to explain his spiritualism. He 
 held circles; he spoke in meeting and every 
 where. It was a failure ; not but that the spirit 
 came : it did, and with power ; but they said it 
 was not a good spirit. They said it was not the 
 Holy Spirit. His own people rather hinted 
 there was something wrong with him. It is 
 vain for a man in such a case to call up his life 
 and his actions, his honesty, his godliness, his 
 sobriety. Some said he was mad. When he 
 spoke at the old Chester meeting-house, another 
 scene as bad as that in Iowa or even worse than 
 that took place ; the people left the house. The 
 old father even, a man of such peaceable dis 
 position as to have charity for the devil himself, 
 advised him to beware, to check the spirit and 
 76
 
 THE VISIT HOME 
 
 control himself. At times Enoch had now the 
 deepest humiliation after this visit, but even 
 this humiliation only seemed to strengthen him 
 more and more in his belief. 
 
 When he went home in the Spring, two 
 famous Quaker preachers Old Uncle Amos 
 Hoag was one came along ; and before it was 
 time to sell the cattle, Enoch took them in his 
 spring- wagon to Minneapolis. It required over 
 three weeks, and this was a time of infinite sat 
 isfaction to him. He lived in deep spiritual 
 converse, night and day. One of the preachers 
 sympathized with him, but the other thought he 
 was on the wrong road ; and when they returned, 
 made his doctrines known to the meeting and 
 urged on the investigation. 
 
 77
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 PEOPLE speak of what religion is and what it 
 is not. The following action was of a kind not 
 unusual among the Quakers. Was it religion? 
 There was a woman preacher who came to the 
 meeting at Hesper, the village near which Enoch 
 Willoughby lived. Her name was for a long 
 time a household word, but the writer cannot 
 recall it. It might have been Lucretia Mott, 
 but that this well-known woman never went so 
 far West. Was it Loisa Painter? or Alcinda 
 Morrow? or Caroline Fawcett? or Calinda 
 Place ? or Elizabeth Owen ? At all events it was 
 a name that was a household word in all Quaker 
 families ; a name that was revered ; a name 
 that Enoch Willoughby would never hear twice 
 before the horses would have been hitched up 
 to go to meeting any day in the week in the 
 midst of any employment, no matter how im 
 portant ; and then these same horses, under 
 the same conditions, would have been at that 
 woman s command to take her to her next stop 
 ping-place. She was truly a woman of God, if 
 the expression is not too strong ; a woman so 
 78
 
 spiritual and unselfish and highminded that the 
 communities where she came dropped every 
 thing at her call, and considered their own 
 business light in comparison to obeying her 
 slightest wishes. 
 
 The woman, then, came to Hesper to preach ; 
 and there she had an impression so strong as to 
 be irresistible, that she must go out and visit 
 Enoch "Willoughby and his family. She had 
 heard something about him, but that did not 
 prevent a certain strangeness in so strong an 
 impression. The Friends advised her not to go ; 
 it was too far, seven miles away ; a cold March 
 wind was blowing. It made no difference. Her 
 companion need not go, she said, but it had been 
 borne down upon her with such force during the 
 night to do this thing that she must obey. There 
 was a word of the spirit which she felt she must 
 be the instrument to convey to that family. And 
 so she went out to the house. It was almost as 
 though there was a radiance of goodness from 
 that w r oman s countenance as she came ; and 
 when she met the family, the coolness of March 
 seemed suddenly to change to the sunny warmth 
 of June. 
 
 " Enoch," she said, as she took his hand at 
 meeting him, " the spirit will not give me rest 
 until I speak one word to thee." 
 
 She was really under the power as she spoke, 
 and had felt it about her all the way out. Enoch 
 79
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 bowed his head over the woman s hand and was 
 silent. She appealed to the same power that he 
 worshipped ; here was one higher placed in the 
 same household as he, and he must obey her. 
 Here it was " thy Lord commanding my Lord." 
 Hannah stood to one side; the children were 
 waiting for the greetings to be over that they 
 might be noticed. The boys were afraid to lead 
 away the horses to put them up for fear the 
 noise of the moving Avheels might disturb the 
 words of that good woman. It was a beautiful 
 scene, far removed from the materialism of our 
 present age. It was like a scene from the dawn 
 of the age of electricity, when scientists went 
 around with magnetic needles in their pockets 
 and talked of nothing else ; or a scene from the 
 age of philosophy when men travelled miles and 
 stood for hours discussing a new theory of pure 
 reason and could not take time to sit down. 
 
 "Enoch" the words of the woman were elec 
 trical ; there was something about them that was 
 great with force and power " make to thyself/ 
 she said, " no graven images. That is the word 
 that has come upon me and will not leave me ; 
 make to thyself no graven images." 
 
 And then she explained : " It is of thy mind 
 and not of the spirit that thee says the power 
 that is upon thee is this or that. Thee knows 
 not whether it be departed spirits, or the Holy 
 Spirit, or the very spirit of God ; then do not 
 80
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 attempt to say. It is this that I have come to 
 tell thee and to impress it upon thee." 
 
 Here as Enoch was about to speak she inter 
 rupted him. 
 
 " No, do not seek to convert this into a mere 
 test of spirit communication. Thou and I need 
 no such tests. I am aware of thy worth, and 
 of that of thy family. I have seen the separ 
 ation that has come upon thee and them; I 
 have carried it in my mind for days and weeks ; 
 the spirit has been grieved within me, and I 
 have had to visit thee. Now let us go in." 
 
 She took possession of everything about the 
 house, and all recognized her authority in it. 
 The horses now drove on to the stable ; the chil 
 dren went about in whispers, and cautioned one 
 another not to disturb Loisa. The best chick 
 ens were caught, the best dinner prepared that 
 the place afforded ; but no doubt Enoch was all 
 the time thinking of Paul s vision on the way to 
 Damascus, and of his own spiritual whipping in 
 the comcrib. 
 
 After the dinner, when Loisa had rested and 
 risen, he approached her and said : " Loisa, 
 I am but one of the poorest vessels of the 
 Lord, and through me it seems offence comes 
 to many ; but such as I am, I may not change, 
 and what it is given to me to know, I may not 
 forget." 
 
 The occasion, the deep respect he felt for the 
 81
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 woman before him, his recollection of Paul and 
 his language, caught his very tongue and col 
 ored his style of expression : 
 
 " And what is brought upon me by the power 
 to confess, ought I ever to deny ? I have been 
 visited by dreams and visions, many of them ; 
 and once, in the evening of a day on which I 
 had pondered in my heart the name of the new 
 sect that has given so great offence, and when I 
 was sore with the fear of being called a follower 
 of it, then as I leaned down to take up corn to 
 put into the basket, a spirit came upon me, and 
 beat me even into unconsciousness and death 
 and told me throughout these words, I will 
 teach thee to deny me. I will teach thee to 
 deny me. Since then I have never denied and 
 can no longer deny; the will of the Highest 
 must be done." 
 
 Then followed a long, peaceful discussion ; a 
 searching of hearts and motives ; at the end of 
 which Loisa said she was relieved, and satisfied 
 that the spirit that had come upon this family 
 with such power was not of evil ; and if it led 
 to final separation, that would not much matter; 
 there was something higher than the family, 
 something higher than the church, higher even 
 than the nation, in which wo existed still as a 
 brotherhood, and of which we should always be 
 members. 
 
 She was about to go with those words of no- 
 82
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 ble meaning on her lips, but Enoch had still 
 something to say. They had warmed some 
 brick to put at Loisa s feet on the way back, 
 and had insisted on her taking an extra buffalo 
 robe along. They could get it the next time 
 they went to the village. But Loisa still waited : 
 
 "There is something more," she said. " Is it 
 on thy mind or mine ? " 
 
 She spoke as though listening to an inner voice. 
 
 Then, after a moment s pause, she answered 
 her own question : 
 
 " It is on thine ; what is it, Enoch ? " 
 
 Then Enoch began in this way : 
 
 " There is a subject, Loisa, about which I 
 should like to know thy way of thinking. There 
 is a young woman in my family, my wife s sister, 
 Lyddie ; she is modest and not unattractive, and 
 there are signs not to be mistaken that she has 
 been chosen of the spirit. But Hannah says 
 there are other signs not to be mistaken that a 
 young man has chosen her ; and in this Hannah 
 is most likely right, for she has a deep intuitive- 
 ness in those matters, and there lies the trouble. 
 This young man is not a son of spirituality ; he 
 has never been borne into the world of power ; 
 and it is exceedingly doubtful if he will ever be 
 borne into it in this life, for he is of a family 
 that has not often been visited of the spirit. 
 What then should we, who know all these 
 things, do?"
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 Loisa asked then, after a minute s thought : 
 " Is the young man of the church ? " 
 
 " He is a Friend," Enoch Willoughby replied, 
 " the son of William Price, who sits at the head 
 of our meeting. He is blessed with prosperity, 
 health, youth, and has true affection; but I fore 
 see that this union will bring separation into 
 his own family, and may not itself lead to that 
 harmony that is necessary to happiness in mar 
 riage. Can thee give us any light on this ques 
 tion?" 
 
 Enoch used the ungrammatical thee of the 
 Quakers, and felt it would be an affectation for 
 him to use "thou " even to Loisa Painter, unless 
 he did so always at home. 
 
 Now there was a long silence. Loisa was not 
 a woman in whom ready words found careless 
 utterance. With a sigh she rose up finally and 
 said : 
 
 " I will ponder the matter well ; and if any 
 thing is given me to say, I will say it to thee, or 
 I will write it to thee, or I will come again and 
 bring it to thee. Of my own mind, however, I 
 am of the opinion that godly love is all powerful, 
 and must have his own way ; and the question of 
 spirituality or unspirituality is not like putting 
 new wine into old wine skins, and thou must not 
 be too sure that the young man may not come 
 into the kingdom ; and, as for separation, though 
 it is painful, it is the law of the world. Yet re- 
 84
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 member, these are but my own words; they are 
 not given or sent me, and have no special sig 
 nificance or power." 
 
 Then she went, and it seemed as if she drew 
 the whole spirituality of the neighborhood away 
 after her. It took hours and days for the place 
 to seem natural and homelike again, and not 
 desolate and lonely. This was the coming and 
 going of the woman Quaker preacher. Would 
 that such comings and goings were more fre 
 quent in our lives. 
 
 Lyddie meanwhile kept as firmly as she could 
 to her determination not to love William Olney. 
 She was loyal to her experiences and to the 
 family in which she lived. She was womanly 
 beyond her years and very thoughtful, and she 
 felt that there might be trouble and harshness 
 brought into the world if she and William Ol 
 ney Price became too well acquainted. For that 
 reason she met him as little as possible. The 
 second time he came, she slipped away and 
 went over to the Cadwalladers, and spent the 
 day there. But she found that William Olney 
 had not even asked for her, or mentioned her, 
 and had again spent the time of his stay with 
 her brothers. 
 
 Perhaps she was mistaken, and a little blush 
 
 and shame came with the thought; and yet 
 
 Lyddie was of that sensitive nature that reads 
 
 thought almost by intuition. At any rate when 
 
 85
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 William Olney came again he found her; and 
 she could not well shun him and be rude to him. 
 
 She said to herself if she could keep herself 
 free, there could be no great harm done; that he 
 would easily recover if there was any little at 
 traction; as soon as his parents learned of his 
 coming, they would find some means of stopping 
 it; and besides, Lyddie would be altogether too 
 saintly and spiritual for romantic purposes, if 
 she had not had a little pride that William Olney 
 Price had sought her out and paid her decided 
 attention, more than to any other of the village 
 girls. 
 
 His coming was a compliment to the family, 
 and there is no use of denying that both Lyddie 
 and Hannah were pleased ; all the more so be 
 cause they felt the humiliation that was coming 
 upon them by Enoch s determined and persistent 
 use of the name of spiritualism. 
 
 The sect had much about it that was not rep 
 utable even then. It was somewhat connected 
 with necromancy and fortune-telling. Yet it was 
 not as now, when, as soon as one says spiritual 
 ism, there flashes across the mind of the hearer a 
 picture of plauchette boards and dark cabinets 
 and stage performances ; of Georgia wonders ; of 
 people being miraculously bound and unbound 
 for show ; and of exposing the secret workings 
 of a mysterious power for pay. 
 
 The Willoughbys would have thought that 
 86
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 this sort of spiritualism had no connection with 
 matters of the spirit, and for their part had 
 nothing of it. Theirs was a spiritualism only 
 of thought, of dreams and visions and experi 
 ences, that are found everywhere in the Bible. 
 But in spite of their humiliation, in spite of the 
 charitable interpretation of his theory by the 
 woman preacher, in spite of everything, Enoch 
 Willoughby was really a spiritualist, for he be 
 lieved in the frequent communication with de 
 parted spirits ; and by that name he had chos 
 en his company, and he would have to go with 
 them. 
 
 Hannah encouraged William Olney s atten 
 tions. 
 
 "It won t hurt thee, Lyddie," she said, "to 
 show a little friendliness to the young man. 
 He certainly hangs about as though he had lost 
 the last friend in the world." 
 
 And secretly she wondered if his people knew 
 of his coming there regularly every week, and 
 whether he would have the courage to confess 
 it. If he did so boldly, she would have a great 
 deal of respect for him. 
 
 The Willoughbys were already thoroughly 
 conscious of the kind of feeling that was grow 
 ing tip against them. And yet there was in 
 Hannah s mind too much affection for the 
 church, too little affiliation with the new belief, 
 too much of the feeling with which she had left 
 87
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 her husband s bed in horror that one night, and 
 lain apart from him in grief and pain of spirit, 
 for her yet to feel anger or harshness toward the 
 church of her fathers. 
 
 It is a question whether women are capable of 
 going idea-mad at all ; or if they are, whether it 
 is not always as a result of love for a man who 
 has this madness. The fixed idea may conquer 
 the heart of a woman when it is incarnate in a 
 beloved object, but it is at least a subject of 
 doubt whether it ever wholly conquers her rea 
 son and intellect. 
 
 It was years before Hannah gave up and ac 
 knowledged the name of spiritualism. She had 
 had no spiritual beatings in the corncrib to has 
 ten her decision. She had, however, had the 
 slow, daily process of a love that was better 
 than caressing; that was always care-taking, 
 self-sacrificing, and tender ; that was controlled 
 by reason, subordinated by faith, and carried on 
 and up by a hope greater than this life. 
 
 And when she did yield, she had not the Chris 
 tian charity that is without malice for all things. 
 She grew into a good, genuine, hatred of all that 
 looked down upon them and scorned them in 
 their new faith. 
 
 It was she that learned to use finally all those 
 
 radical expressions, called liberal, but in reality 
 
 most illiberal, which Enoch was always checking 
 
 her for. It was she that came to use the words 
 
 88
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHEK 
 
 "bigoted Christians" and " narrow-minded or 
 thodox," and later on cultivated the acquaintance 
 of spiritual mediums as much from a feeling of 
 pique as anything ; and influenced by her grow 
 ing dislike and hatred of the old meeting, came 
 even to dislike the Bible without reading it, and 
 to say all sorts of things against it, ignorantly 
 of course, but passionately. 
 
 And here, too, Enoch was always checking 
 her and bringing her back to right ideas ; al 
 ways remaining himself in moderation ; search 
 ing the Scriptures and his own experience, and 
 cultivating right on that spirituality that was 
 the very essence of his nature. 
 
 So now William Olney began to make love to 
 Lyddie. He was not particularly sensible to 
 her affected coolness. He told her he loved 
 her. He did it in the most awkward and bash 
 ful way imaginable, and Lyddie began to reason 
 with him. I would give anything if it were pos 
 sible to reproduce that scene, with its singular 
 styles of expression, and show to the eye and 
 ear Lyddie "reasoning" with William Olney, 
 trying to persuade him that it was not best they 
 should know each other better than at present. 
 But Lyddie trying to reason affection out only 
 succeeded, it is fair to suppose, in more deeply 
 reasoning affection in. 
 
 If William Olney succeeded in saying, " I love 
 thee, Lydia," he would be interrupted by Lyd- 
 89
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 die saying, " But tbee knows well enough thee 
 ought not to love me." 
 
 She would go on with the manner of a logician. 
 
 " I think I can show, nay, prove that thee 
 ought not to do as thee says, and as thee most 
 likely is mistaken in thinking thee does." 
 
 " I think thee will have a hard task, Lydia," 
 we can imagine him saying. 
 
 "But my name is not Lydia," Lyddie said, 
 and then continued with quite a discussion on 
 the two pronunciations of the name, and drew 
 from them an ingenious parallel between his 
 people and hers. 
 
 "What is the difference, Lydia ?" he asked 
 her. He was willing enough she should say 
 anything if she would only stay and reason on. 
 
 "I cannot quite explain it to thee," she said; 
 " but Li/dia is more set and formal, more like 
 thy father at the head of the meeting, while 
 Lyddie is like my brother-in-law down among 
 the low benches." 
 
 " I think I understand thee, Lydia," he said ; 
 "and if thee wishes I will call thee Lyddie 
 hereafter." 
 
 But ho did not ; he called her Lydia, and in 
 spite of herself she began rather to like the 
 change. 
 
 When he asked her again : " Lydia, will thee 
 become my wife ? " she replied, with the same 
 calm, reasoning tone : 
 
 90
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 " Oh, no, that would never do ; thy people are 
 the strictest of the orthodox and we are now 
 worse than the Hicksites." 
 
 Then it was that William Olney explained his 
 ecclesiasticisrn. 
 
 " Lydia, what have these names to do with the 
 matter ? " he argued. " I have never paid any 
 attention to them ; and orthodox, and Hicksite, 
 and Spiritualist, and even Roman Catholic, 
 have but an empty sound, as it were, in my ear. 
 But if thee feels that thee can only love me, I 
 am sure that all these matters can be deter 
 mined in the right way and settled hereafter 
 to the satisfaction of us all. Tell me but one 
 thing, Lydia. Am I disagreeable in thy eyes ; 
 do I cause thee to want to go from me? " 
 
 " No, it is not that, William Olney," she said ; 
 " but suppose I should be controlled. " 
 
 She said this with a spirit of mischief, but 
 not altogether ; for these people were not prac 
 tising mere scientific experiment when they sat 
 in the circle and waited on the spirit. There 
 was about it in those days, and for Enoch Wil- 
 loughby, there remained always, a deep religious 
 significance. 
 
 " Does thee mean, suppose the spirit should 
 come upon thee to preach ? " he asked. " Does 
 thee think that would offend me ? Haven t 
 I seen Caroline Fawcett preach in the meeting 
 when she was not more than seventeen years 
 91
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 old ; and Elizabeth Owen, likewise ; and thy 
 own sister, Hannah ? " 
 
 " But this is different," Lyddie persisted ; 
 "suppose I should act in meeting as my brother- 
 in-law, Enoch, did, and all the meeting should 
 get up and go out and leave me, and I should 
 be held by the spirit and made to speak on in 
 an empty meeting-house ? " 
 
 It was with a spirit of soberness and mirth 
 combined that she went on. 
 
 "Yes, what would thee think of that. And 
 then suppose everybody avoided me ; and 
 thought I had something evil about me; and 
 called me harsh names and should even try me 
 before the committee, as they have done Enoch ; 
 suppose they should go on and disown me 
 from the meeting; and thy own father and 
 mother should feel that I was possessed, and 
 may be beside myself. What would thee think 
 of that?" 
 
 There was something of conscientiousness, 
 too, in the way she put these damaging suppo 
 sitions. 
 
 " Or suppose I should Avake up some cold 
 morning, like the day Loisa Painter came to see 
 us, and tell thee that the spirit had been with 
 me, and compelled me to go and admonish some 
 one for, let us say, whipping an innocent child, 
 would thee let me go and may be even go with 
 me thyself?" 
 
 92
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 But she did not wait for an answer. 
 
 " And suppose these people should be offended 
 at me, because I had been informed by the spirit 
 of that which they were anxious to conceal ; and 
 suppose they gave me threatening answers, and 
 sent me offensive letters, and even attempted to 
 drive me out of the neighborhood by secret 
 threats ? " 
 
 She seemed bound to make that side of the 
 case as strong as possible. 
 
 " Thee must look at this side of it," she said, 
 finally. "I ought not to become thy wife. Only 
 they of the spirit can know the difficulties it has 
 to overcome, and I must follow what it is given 
 to me to follow, and do what it is given me to 
 do." 
 
 It was a most singular courtship, but it is an 
 incontestable fact that as William Olney sat and 
 listened to this young girl, he did not take in 
 the sense of her words at all. He was too sen 
 sible. He heard the music of her voice, that 
 melting sweetness of sound that always accom 
 panied her words. 
 
 He saw her eye quicken with life under the 
 effect of her unusual inspiration to speech ; he 
 saw how beautiful she was ; how mild and 
 gentle and spiritual this sweet Quaker girl ; it 
 had been growing on him right in the midst of 
 the speech, the irresistible impulse to take her 
 in his arms and kiss her lips. He felt that was 
 93
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 the only answer to give her. But he was not a 
 man of impulses ; impulse was not strong enough 
 in him to lead to immediate action. 
 
 And before he had time to act or reply, Lvddie 
 had risen and said, " I will weigh well what thee 
 has said to me, and I consider it an honorable 
 question and worthy of a well-considered an 
 swer." 
 
 Then there was something said about William 
 Olney s coming to one of their meetings and 
 about returning to this subject again, and the 
 young man went away. 
 
 As young William Olney went home after 
 having learned when the spiritual meeting was 
 to be held, he was wrapped up in the same illu 
 sion of love that is incomprehensible to one out 
 of it, or in it either for that matter. He felt in 
 his sedate way that he would go through fire and 
 flood for this girl, and he would like to hear of 
 any one writing her an offensive letter. Her 
 words began to come back to him now. " Drive 
 her from the neighborhood ! " His wrath was 
 slow to rise, but it rose in a great flame, give it 
 time enough. 
 
 " And getting up in the cold and driving her 
 miles away in the country in the early morn 
 ing." He would like nothing better. They 
 would wrap themselves up in a buffalo robe ; he 
 wished this very moment they were on their 
 way. And what was she going to do there in 
 94
 
 THE WOMAN PREACHER 
 
 the country. It didn t make any difference to 
 him what she was going to do. He would help 
 her in whatever she undertook, and, thinking 
 over the time the spiritual meeting was to take 
 place, he rode on home. 
 
 95
 
 XI 
 
 THE TRICE VISIT 
 
 IT is always disagreeable to follow the work 
 ings of a mind that has evil in it, and William 
 Olney s father, William Price, though not by 
 nature a bad man, to have prevented the mar 
 riage might have played easy with his con 
 science a little. There would have been no break 
 with his son. There would have been nothing 
 done outwardly that any one could have re 
 proached him for, nothing as to which he could 
 not easily have deceived himself into the be 
 lief that he was doing right. But he had two 
 strong holds on the family of Enoch Willough- 
 by ; one, the mortgage on the farm ; and the 
 other, the investigation by the committee. No 
 one could tell what he would have done in 
 either case; but in some matters, the wish is 
 father to the thought and even to the action ; 
 and there is no doubt he wished earnestly that 
 something should cause Enoch Willoughby to 
 remove from the neighborhood. 
 
 The mortgage and the church difficulty alone 
 would probably never have been sufficient to 
 bring this about, but a number of circumstances 
 96
 
 THE PRICE VISIT 
 
 were quietly helping them ; in the first place, a 
 kind of asthma, always worse in winter, so that 
 Enoch began talking of removing South for his 
 health ; when the wild geese went over in the fall, 
 he often watched them and talked of following 
 them. Then there was a natural inclination to 
 change ; there was a good deal of the "Western 
 rover in him, and besides he had already re 
 moved enough times to have learned the advan 
 tages in those days of selling an old farm and 
 buying a new one ; in this way he could start 
 again without debt. 
 
 And there was the action and outcome of 
 that brother, John, who had gone with him 
 to Iowa, and who was mentioned in the first 
 chapter of this story. He was married and had 
 quite a large family of children, and they did 
 not turn out well. The John Willoughbys lived 
 still farther away from Hesper than Enoch 
 did and in a rather rough neighborhood. They 
 were not well off, though not dependent; and 
 withal very proud, with that kind of pride 
 Enoch Willoughby always called beggar-pride ; 
 that kind, for example, that likes to buy finery 
 and make a show and is not too careful about 
 paying its debts. Such people can be very ex 
 asperating some times, especially if they are 
 relatives and one feels in any way responsi 
 ble for them. This responsibility Enoch Wil 
 loughby did feel for his brother John, and this 
 97
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 gave him a great deal to think about ; one would 
 have thought it sufficient to keep his mind off 
 spiritualism a little, but ho had plenty of 
 thought apparently for that too. Later on we 
 may have more to say about this family of Wil- 
 loughbys. At present there is little to tell of 
 them except the annoyance the children caused 
 Hannah and Lyddie, by their sly hints and in 
 nuendoes at their belief in spiritualism. They 
 used to come over frequently and liked to attend 
 the spiritual meetings, more as though they were 
 a kind of amusement than anything else ; and 
 soon caught the humor of putting to common 
 use all the terms that had come up among the 
 spiritualists in a way that annoyed Hannah 
 and even Uncle Enoch. And then, too, John 
 kept borrowing money and using it up, resting 
 on his oars, as Enoch called it. Not only that 
 but he had gotten a bad reputation. Enoch 
 Willoughby remained always a Christian spirit 
 ualist, and always said he was more a primitive 
 Quaker than anything else. But John Willough 
 by took up with every new and wild theory that 
 presented itself. He talked among other things 
 on free love, so long and often that his wife Lis- 
 beth threatened to leave him if he did not quit 
 it ; and whether he had any religious belief or 
 not, would have been a very hard matter to de 
 termine. But he got the name of atheist and 
 infidel somehow or other. He was rather harsh 
 98
 
 THE PKICE VISIT 
 
 in his attitude toward everything and every 
 body, and of course made enemies ; and secretly 
 in their hearts, perhaps Enoch and Hannah 
 Willoughby wanted to go to a country where 
 John and Elisabeth Willoughby and their family 
 were not. One could not very much blame 
 them, especially Enoch, whose whole desire was 
 to right himself by good action in the eyes of a 
 community who considered his belief disrepu 
 table. 
 
 There was still one other thing that helped 
 make up the chapter of reasons why the Wil- 
 loughbys talked so strongly of leaving the 
 country. Enoch and Hannah had lately gone 
 to visit the John "Willoughbys. It was the 
 custom in those days for families to make 
 long visits to one another. In this visit, 
 Enoch was " controlled " to go to a man who 
 lived down the creek from John s house and ad 
 monish him for they never knew what exactly. 
 Such action was not incomprehensible to such as 
 he. They believed a spirit urged them to bring 
 home to the mind of some person his wrong 
 doing or some such thing. At any rate, Enoch 
 went in spite of Hannah s remonstrance. He 
 had done such things before, and sometimes 
 there had seemed to be good cause for such ac 
 tions and good results to come from them. 
 But in this case, Hannah thought he ought not 
 to obey. Those people were rough, coarse 
 99
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 people, of no spirituality whatever, and there 
 was no telling how they might take it. She 
 was right, too, as the sequel proved. Enoch 
 did not remember what he said to the man, but 
 he made him very angry. Perhaps we ought 
 not to say the man was a coarse, brutal, bully 
 ing man, for we might want to change it ; but 
 that would be the first impression of him. And 
 the result of the visit was that Enoch Will- 
 oughby received not long afterwards an anony 
 mous letter. It is not probable he would have 
 paid any attention to it alone, but when taken 
 in connection with all the other reasons for leav 
 ing that neighborhood, it must have had some 
 weight. And now the family began to talk seri 
 ously of going South. 
 
 There are people who ease their consciences 
 by after-acts ; that is, they do some slight but 
 irreparable injury, and then try to repair it ; 
 try so very hard that they throw the whole 
 blame finally on the one injured. William 
 Price had done nothing to cause the Willough- 
 bys to leave the country, it is true, but he had 
 certainly felt the desire that they should leave, 
 and now when he heard they were going, he 
 may have had a little compunction for an un 
 just thought. At any rate, he said to his wife, 
 Rachel, that they ought to go out and visit 
 the Enoch "VYilloughbys before they left the 
 country. 
 
 100
 
 THE PRICE VISIT 
 
 When he said this, Rachel looked at him 
 earnestly; there was nothing in his face that 
 betrayed his meaning. She thought it rather 
 singular, but yet William had been out to the 
 Willoughbys more than once on the investigat 
 ing committee ; it might be now a little friend 
 liness was meant as an offset to this former 
 apparent hostility. 
 
 William Price was not a man who laid bare 
 all his motives for any action, and his family 
 were not accustomed to inquire too closely into 
 the whys and wherefores of what they were 
 asked to do. Rachel Price then only consid 
 ered what kind of visit he was thinking of 
 making ; whether they should send word they 
 were coming, and stay to dinner ; or whether 
 the visit should be somewhat short and formal. 
 
 William said they would drive out in the car 
 riage about ten o clock some week-day morning ; 
 they would stay to dinner and make a friendly 
 visit. 
 
 " And," he continued, " as for formality, by 
 which I suppose thee means dress, it might 
 show the greater good-will if thee should go 
 looking well." 
 
 Rachel began to see what he meant. If there 
 was a little dislike for them by the women of the 
 Willoughby household, he was at least willing 
 it should remain as great as it was, and though 
 this was to be a friendly visit, it was to be 
 101
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGH13Y 
 
 frigidly friendly ; that much she could pretty 
 plainly see, and on the way out she learned 
 more. William told her that he had it in mind 
 some time during the day, either before dinner 
 or after, there would be found an occasion for 
 her, Rachel, to be with Lyddie alone ; and she 
 might find opportunity of letting her know how 
 dear a son was to a mother, and how terrible a 
 thing a separation between them would be. She 
 might impress upon her mind how set " father " 
 was in his ways of thinking, and how surely the 
 father and son would be forever separated also ; 
 and if the girl had mercenary motives, but they 
 did not give her credit for any such, yet it might 
 be just as well to let her know that in case of a 
 marriage against his father s will, William Olney 
 would remain without any share in his father s 
 property. 
 
 In fact this visit was the result of the deepest 
 kind of calm meditation. William Price was 
 convinced, from certain indications of late, that 
 it would be of little use to try to influence the 
 young man. They must try to aftect Lyddie ; 
 this was the real object of the visit. In this 
 way people not infrequently use their reputation 
 for faults of character to further their own ends. 
 And so the visit w r as made. 
 
 This was not by any means a Loisa Painter 
 visit. When the carriage was seen coming, 
 there w r as a great flutter of excitement. Who 
 102
 
 THE PRICE VISIT 
 
 could it be? was the first question, and were 
 they coming here, the next. Then when it was 
 seen to be William Price and his wife, and that 
 they were coming in, the question was what 
 could it be for? 
 
 "It is something about William Olney, Lyd- 
 die," Hannah said to her, " thee may be sure of 
 that." 
 
 And Lyddie was sure of it. Could it be 
 possible they had come out of real friendliness, 
 because he had wanted them to become better 
 acquainted? She did not believe this; she 
 instinctively felt the visit was hostile to her. 
 Lyddie s touch of spirituality had given her an 
 insight into character, great control over herself 
 and a right estimation of the importance or un 
 importance of little things ; so that in a moment 
 she was calm, less flurried and fluttered than her 
 sister Hannah, not at all discomposed at the 
 sight of Rachel s heavy silk dress or rich 
 Quaker bonnet with its little fringe of expen 
 sive lace. 
 
 She went out with Hannah to greet the 
 Prices; she it was who sent some one to find 
 Enoch, who was about the place ; and had a boy 
 put up the horses. Then she left Hannah to 
 talk with the visitors while she proceeded to 
 make the first arrangements for dinner. 
 
 If they had intended to overawe Lyddie and 
 frighten her, they had plainly failed. She was 
 103
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 only a modest young woman, but there was 
 something about her that Rachel did not quite 
 understand. She had thought she would find 
 that occasion to speak to her before dinner ; may 
 be she would find an excuse to go out into the 
 kitchen or into the garden where she was, but 
 now she rather concluded to put it off until after 
 dinner. There would then be time enough. 
 
 But after dinner the dinner was one of those 
 quiet Quaker dinners, preceded by the usual 
 silent blessing, in which Enoch s arm was ob 
 served to give one or two singular jumps as 
 though the spirit even then was ready to come 
 upon him after dinner, Lyddie appeared in so 
 neat a garb, so plain and Quaker-like and be 
 coming, that Rachel Price felt a little pain in 
 her heart at what she knew she had to do. She 
 could not help looking at Lyddie s wavy brown 
 hair, curtained down her forehead, and tied in a 
 Grecian knot at the back of her head it was 
 very becoming to her. Her cheeks were ruddy 
 and her complexion warm and rich ; and when 
 ever she spoke there was a little something about 
 her voice that thrilled Rachel Price. Her lan 
 guage was good and grammatical, and Rachel 
 noticed she said "you" when addressing her 
 and William, while she said " thee " to Hannah 
 and Enoch and others of the family. 
 
 William Price and Enoch, of course, talked 
 of religion, and were deep in the discussion ; 
 
 104
 
 THE PRICE VISIT 
 
 Hannah and Rachel were speaking of various 
 people they knew, and Lyddie was trying to be 
 attentive to each conversation, but was interested 
 plainly in the religious discussion and had diffi 
 culty in keeping the run of Rachel s and 
 Hannah s talk. It was now that Rachel hoped 
 she might get an opportunity of speaking to 
 Lyddie, but Lyddie was so plainly following 
 the discourse of the men that Rachel felt a little 
 embarrassed. Lyddie was not like a timid girl. 
 She was a young woman of high mind ; Rachel 
 reproached herself once for allowing the thought 
 to cross her mind, but she could not altogether 
 blame William Olney. There was nothing about 
 the young woman that could be reproached. 
 She was of an old and respectable family of 
 Quakers on both sides; but she was a spirit 
 ualist, and some said she was a medium. It 
 was awful. Of course you could not see any 
 thing of it to look at her, but to think of it ! 
 Rachel shuddered at the thought and deter 
 mined that she would carry out what she had 
 come to do. But look as she would, she could 
 see no way of finding a right opportunity to do 
 so ; she saw she would have to make the op 
 portunity. She would have to call the young 
 woman by name, attract her attention from the 
 men s conversation and ask to speak a word 
 with her privately. Of course, every one would 
 know what it was about. She would have to 
 105
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 get up and go out with her before them all. It 
 was a very difficult task ; she trembled at it, but 
 she must carry it out. 
 
 And Lyddie, too, felt that something was 
 coming, but she had said to herself, " Let them 
 open the subject." 
 
 She noticed that Rachel was uneasy, and 
 when finally she looked over to her and called 
 her by name, Lyddie arose and asked : " Would 
 you like to speak to me? " 
 
 The "you" sounded a little strange and harsh 
 to Rachel Price, accustomed as all the members 
 of the meeting were to addressing one another 
 with "thee" and " thou." With this Lyddie 
 led the way out of the room and left in it a 
 blank silence. There was silence outside, too, 
 for Rachel, in spite of herself, could not begin. 
 
 After waiting awhile, and seeing her embar 
 rassment, Lyddie began very calmly, with not 
 a flutter in her voice: "You wish to speak to 
 me of your son, William Olney. It doesn t 
 require any special intuition to perceive that. 
 I am listening. If thee has anything to say, 
 Rachel Price, say it and I will heed it." 
 
 She must have felt a touch of emotion that 
 forced her to use the familiar address. Her 
 breath came quick and fast, but she had so 
 gotten the start of Rachel Price, that that good 
 woman could not find words to express herself. 
 
 Lyddie finall} spoke again. 
 106
 
 THE PRICE VISIT 
 
 " Thee can at least tell me whether that is the 
 subject on thy mind." She still waited, but 
 Kachel did not yet speak. " If it is, and thee 
 is fearful lest he have asked me to become his 
 wife, let me set thy mind at rest. He has done 
 so twice, and I have attempted to convince him 
 each time that he was wrong, and have as mildly 
 and yet firmly as possible refused him." 
 
 " But why did thee refuse him ? " 
 
 Kachel spoke before she thought, and sur 
 prised herself by asking that question. 
 
 And then a most singular thing happened. 
 The mother was led into praising her son to the 
 very woman whom she did not want him to 
 marry. There was an earnestness and sim 
 plicity in Lyddie s words about him that car 
 ried conviction ; and when she spoke of the 
 difference between her nature and William Ol- 
 ney s, and manifested withal such a desire to 
 find the best in the character of the young man 
 and make the most of it, no one would have 
 thought of any personal interest she might have 
 had in the matter. For Rachel on her part it 
 was a good deal such a conversation as she 
 might have carried on with the principal of a 
 school, to which she had taken her young son 
 with the expectation of leaving him there to be 
 educated. 
 
 " Set thy mind at rest, Rachel Price," Lyddie 
 said, finally. " It has not been difficult to refuse 
 107
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 your son twice, for I do not love him, and can 
 and will refuse him if he should ever do me the 
 honor to ask me again." 
 
 Then she led the way back to the room they 
 had left. She was entire master of the situa 
 tion, calm and quiet ; she even tried to start a 
 general conversation. But the others were too 
 much interested to engage in it, knowing what 
 had happened. An awkward silence ensued. 
 
 In order to understand what broke it one 
 would have to remember what kind of character 
 Hannah s was, what kind of life she had led at 
 old Enoch "Willoughby s in Ohio, constantly 
 weeping at old Margaret s harshness and eccen 
 tricities. Old Margaret was just the kind of 
 person one would like to be able to call Lady 
 Margaret, if there were a system of titles in this 
 country high and mighty, lordly, proud, and 
 peculiar ; and young Hannah was nothing but 
 a bundle of enthusiasms, quick, sensitive, im 
 aginative, easily passing from tears to laughter. 
 She reminded one of some old illustrations in a 
 copy of Shakespeare, where the women seem to 
 be all neck, with heads like lilies, turning on 
 long and slender stems. Her kind of nature 
 does not have the control of itself that Lyddie s 
 had. In some persons a fountain of suppressed 
 emotion spreads out into a placid surface of pro 
 found reasoning ; in others it bubbles up and 
 froths and foams in hysterical activity. 
 108
 
 Of the latter kind was Hannah. She had 
 been repressing her feeling all day ; in fact for 
 a long time. She was not yet a spiritualist, had 
 never acknowledged the name ; and might just 
 as easily have been aroused to take the other 
 side of the question, and hysterically plead for 
 her old Quaker faith as for this. But now, to 
 day, something had set her all aflame ; most of 
 all her pride was hurt. They were not good 
 enough for the Prices, weren t they? The 
 Prices had come out here to show them that, to 
 overawe them with silk dresses and fine bon 
 nets. She felt Lyddie s humiliation a thousand 
 times more than Lyddie had herself felt it. 
 
 It is under this kind of passionate excitement 
 that we say and do things that shape and fash 
 ion our whole future lives. While Lyddie was 
 out Hannah had sat like one almost in a frenzy, 
 and when she came in she went over to her and 
 said aloud : 
 
 " What did she say to thee, tell me, for I 
 will know ? " 
 
 " Hannah, Hannah," Enoch Willoughby spoke 
 up, for he saw in Hannah s eyes a look that 
 showed she was becoming hysterical, "calm 
 thyself, there is nothing the matter, remem 
 ber." 
 
 But Hannah burst forth. 
 
 " So there is nothing the matter, is there ? I 
 think there is everything the matter." She em- 
 109
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 phasized the everything. " We may not be 
 in a den of wolves, but we are in a den of 
 canting hypocrites." 
 
 The scene was painful, distressing. 
 
 " Thee, thee, William Price, I mean thee." 
 
 Her voice rose high and piercing, and she 
 walked out into the room, her tall form swaying 
 back and forth. 
 
 " And thee, Rachel Price, the wife of a hypo 
 crite who have eaten our bread and pretended 
 friendship and have hatred in your hearts and 
 scorn for us whom you think the lowest of the 
 low." It was a fearful tirade, and no one could 
 stop her. 
 
 Lyddie tried to pacify her. 
 
 " No, I will have my say ! " Hannah almost 
 shrieked; "let them feel it once, let them go 
 and scorn us; let them turn their backs on 
 the spirit and blaspheme ; that s what you 
 are, blasphemers, who deny the spirit, unless 
 it comes in the oily tongue of worldly hypoc 
 risy, fine clothes and set seasons; for shame 
 upon you, go your way and leave the house that 
 has been visited by far better than you. And 
 may your souls dry up and wither away spirit 
 ually for the want of just such visitation. You 
 are of the earth, earthy, earthy ..." 
 
 Then she lost control of herself, and began 
 to babble in a strange way, without intelligible 
 words. 
 
 110
 
 THE PRICE VISIT 
 
 They took her to her bed and induced her 
 to lie down, where after a time she grew 
 calm. 
 
 Meanwhile Enoch Willoughby had spoken to 
 the Prices. 
 
 "Hannah is not responsible for her words 
 now ; " he said, " she is beside herself from 
 emotion, and will herself be sorry that she has 
 acted thus. It was not Christian, and should 
 not have been. Whatever is best to do about 
 the young man and woman, I am sure, Will 
 iam, thee will find out to do. It has already 
 concerned ine much and I have even counselled 
 with others about it, but have not known just 
 what to say." 
 
 And Lyddie, too, had remained perfectly calm, 
 and had done the honors of the house, excused 
 her sister as well as she could, saying she was 
 excitable and had felt all along more than any 
 one else the reproach which the new sect was 
 bringing upon them, and her feeling had now 
 gotten control of her. 
 
 It was just as she bade them good-by that 
 Bachel Price, moved by Lyddie s seemliness 
 under these trying circumstances, and by her 
 calmness and placid Quaker beauty and unruf 
 fled friendliness, could not resist the impulse, 
 after she had stepped into the carriage, to bend 
 down toward Lyddie and take her hand and 
 say, as she pressed it : 
 
 111
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 "Thou art a good woman, Lyclia, thou art a 
 good woman." 
 
 Lyddie had it on her tongue to make some 
 sharp reply, to draw back her hand, to let her 
 own pride appear; but she checked herself, or 
 something checked her ; for a long time it was 
 a mystery to her what it was that held her back 
 and let these remain the last words of that mo 
 mentous Quaker visit to the Willoughbys : 
 " Thou art a good woman, Lyclia, thou art a 
 good woman." 
 
 113
 
 XII 
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 LYDDIE S promise given unasked, as it had 
 been, did not seem to bring Rachel or William 
 Price the satisfaction they had anticipated. 
 They both felt not a little ashamed, and both 
 feared that the worst was still to come. It 
 would never be a marriage, Rachel Price felt 
 sure of that ; but the possibility even was not 
 pleasant. It was true she could not help rather 
 liking the young woman. If only there was 
 nothing wrong with her belief, she could easily 
 have thought of her as a daughter-in-law. But 
 if she was a medium ! Oh, dear, no ! That 
 would never do ; never, never, never ? 
 
 And William Price s dissatisfaction came from 
 the thought of what William Olney would do, 
 and of what he would say of their visit, which 
 was plainly an intervention in his affairs. He 
 dreaded the outcome a little, but he knew very 
 well what ho should say by way of excuse. 
 They had only made a friendly visit, where they 
 had been berated, and spoken to in a harsh and 
 unchristian manner, for something they had 
 neither said nor done. It was not William 
 113
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 Price s way to go directly at anything. Even 
 now he was beginning to blame the WiUongh- 
 bys for the visit, and all its outcome. He had 
 almost made himself believe that they had in 
 vited them out, and had then turned upon their 
 guests and reproached them and shamed them. 
 It was very pleasant to have this kind of accom 
 modating, politic conscience. 
 
 As for the Enoch Willoughbys things were 
 fast becoming worse. They now felt that the 
 estrangement between them and the church was 
 almost incurable. Hannah s tantrum had flown 
 in the face of all Enoch s pacifying attitude, and 
 what would become of William Oluey s and 
 Lyddie s case was now a question. 
 
 There would have been perhaps no question 
 about it, but Lyddie was impressionable and 
 inclined to give great heed to her impressions. 
 What had been the reason, when speaking with 
 Rachel Price, as she bade her good-by, that 
 she had not been able to say what rose to her 
 lips ? It was one of those little things quite in 
 keeping with all her surroundings and experi 
 ences. She thought she must have been " held 
 back " from doing it ; and, as she thought over 
 it, she no doubt magnified it until she came 
 to believe it was a leading, a spiritual opening 
 that she must obey. That was, perhaps, the 
 first time she had ever asked herself if she 
 cared for the young man. She noticed now 
 114
 
 PACING IT OUT 
 
 that the words of his mother had been especi 
 ally pleasing to her. In spite of her impulse to 
 retaliation a few moments before, they had 
 soothed her and flattered her. 
 
 Where minds are highly wrought upon, a little 
 word often makes a deep impression, and these 
 words, " Thou art a good woman, Lydia," would 
 not leave her mind. What if William Olney per 
 sisted in his attention to her, and she found she did 
 really care for him ; would it be possible for her to 
 remove Rachel s prejudice ? Such thoughts will 
 float across a person s mind, all out of time and 
 place as they are, and so they flashed across 
 Lyddie s, and then she blushed, alone as she 
 was, and put them resolutely away. 
 
 But the fact of it is, any one can see, that this 
 visit had done the very opposite of what it was 
 intended to do. Lyddie had hardly had the 
 thought before that she could love William 
 Olney Price ; and the mere mention of his peo 
 ple had been like a cold shock to her, but now 
 she felt that she knew them better. She had less 
 fear of them, and might even win their liking ; and 
 William Olney had certainly demeaned himself 
 well. 
 
 It was, we think, from this visit of the Price s 
 that Hannah s break with the Quakers really 
 dated. Not until after this, did she begin to 
 use rather harsh expressions, and Enoch, in op 
 position to her, to urge charity. She wanted no 
 115
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 charity ; she did not propose to be smitten on 
 one cheek and then turn the other. That was 
 exactly Enoch Willoughby s doctrine. He liked 
 to pour coals of fire and preach non-resistance. 
 Hannah turned right about in the matter of 
 Lyddie and William Olney, and said she did not 
 want her sister to marry a "canting orthodox." 
 And Enoch would every time patiently correct 
 her by saying she should not allow herself such 
 expressions; they led the soul to malice, for it 
 was that which cometh out that defiles ; and 
 even if the Prices had not had the best inten 
 tions toward them, that was nothing against the 
 other members of the meeting. As for William 
 Gluey, that they could not decide ; they must 
 wait and see what the young man would do. 
 
 Enoch still persisted in reading and studying 
 the Bible, and believing and talking spiritualism ; 
 and Hannah now began to oppose him. She said 
 she had no patience with him ; she didn t know 
 what he did believe any longer. Was he going 
 to be a Quaker, and believe in the Bible and stick 
 to it? If so, well and good; then she d know 
 what to do. They d take to going to meeting 
 again, and she would face it out with the Prices ; 
 they had friends and plenty of them ; they could 
 drop the name of spiritualism. She would en 
 courage the Price match with Lyddie. Enoch 
 could keep down his jerking spirits in meeting, 
 and they would go in for worldliness for good 
 116
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 and all ; but if he was going to be a spiritualist, 
 to be one, and take the consequences. He had 
 had his beating in the corn-crib, that he was so 
 fond of telling about ; for her part she believed 
 it was mostly imagination, and thinking about 
 old Paul s vision on his way to Damascus ; but, 
 if he was going to follow its teaching, he had 
 better follow it ; hunt up the spiritualists and go 
 with them ; leave the meeting and the orthodox, 
 and quit talking about the Bible and studying it. 
 He would be a Bible crank, anyway, if he kept 
 on. She didn t believe in doing things by halves 
 and so forth. 
 
 Enoch s answer to her tirades was good; it 
 indicated the whole character of the man. 
 
 "Hannah, I am not going to try to make any 
 thing be one way or the other," he would say. 
 " I am going to try simply and earnestly to find 
 the truth, and then to follow it and obey it as 
 well as I can." 
 
 About this time a change came over Lyddie. 
 She seemed not to like so much to listen to 
 Enoch s discussions on spiritualism, or to hear 
 Hannah s somewhat cutting expressions against 
 the Quakers. She became a little more Quaker 
 ish in some ways, and Hannah told her she had 
 better wear a Quaker bonnet and a neckerchief 
 and be done with it. As for herself, Hannah 
 said, she was not going to wear Ac? Quaker bon 
 net any more till she learned, if she ever did, 
 117
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 which way Enoch went. If he went back to 
 the Quakers, she d wear it ; and, if he became a 
 spiritualist for good, she d send it to her sister, 
 Ruth, in Ohio. 
 
 About this time, too, Enoch went to a meeting 
 of spiritualists, urged on by Hannah s desire to 
 meet some people with whom she thought they 
 might be more in sympathy. But it did not 
 turn out well. The " manifestations " were 
 mostly in the form of "performances," and that, 
 too, for pay, which was contrary to all Enoch s 
 ideas. Some of the performances were plainly 
 frauds, and Hannah thought they should now 
 certainly know what they were going to do. 
 But here, as in the former case of the Prices and 
 the Quakers, Enoch was consistent with himself, 
 and maintained that because some of them were 
 frauds was no sign that they all were and that 
 we must not judge a whole body by some of its 
 members only. 
 
 Hannah now declared that she would go back 
 to the Quakers and be a Quaker. 
 
 "Nobody can tell what thee s going to do, 
 or be," she said; "thee s queer, Enoch. The 
 first thing thee knows we won t be anything at 
 all." 
 
 This was the direction then things now took 
 
 for some tune. Hannah determined that they 
 
 should be and remain Quakers. She made up 
 
 her mind that she would talk to Lyddie about 
 
 118
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 William Olney Price, and encourage the match. 
 She would have Enoch go back to meeting, and 
 have him try to keep still there ; she said she 
 knew he could if he only made up his mind to ; 
 and if he would quit reading the Bible so much, 
 and quit trying to interpret it his own way, she 
 thought they would be all right and come out 
 very well ; and in all this she had considerable 
 influence. 
 
 They went back to the meeting and Hannah 
 " faced it out " with the Prices. She was 
 somewhat ashamed to look them in the face at 
 first as she thought of how she had berated 
 them at her house, but she finally got over 
 it, and began again to feel a little at home in 
 the meeting. Enoch, too, found that he was 
 able to keep himself from going under the in 
 fluence in the meeting if he tried hard enough, 
 and kept his mind constantly on outward things; 
 and for a time now all went on smoothly as for 
 merly, with the exception of some trouble over 
 the name of spiritualist, which Enoch persistent 
 ly used ; and about the doctrine, too, which he 
 as persistently theorized on and argued about. 
 But for a long time now the spiritual meetings 
 must have been mostly dropped, and the speak 
 ing both at home and in meeting pretty much 
 discontinued. 
 
 There must have been some meetings, how 
 ever, for William Olney was at one or two ; but 
 119
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 nothing startling or very unusual happened; 
 that is, nothing very strange to a Quaker boy, 
 who had been accustomed all his life to seeing 
 people speak when under the influence of the 
 spirit. Lyddie was not " controlled." In some 
 way when she sat in a circle with William Ol- 
 ney and their hands touched, the influence did 
 not affect her. 
 
 Enoch Willoughby, of course, wrestled with 
 the spirit as often as he would allow it to come 
 upon him. But he began to see the impossibil 
 ity of doing anything, that is of converting any 
 one, by direct inspiration. His tests too were 
 often fallacious, and he turned more and more 
 to argument. He did say, however, that Han 
 nah, who had once or twice spoken in meeting 
 in a very pleasant voice and with a very ready 
 and easy flow of words and no unseemly move 
 ments of the muscles of her face, was not speak 
 ing through the spirit at all, but was most likely 
 doing it herself ; and Hannah had retorted that 
 she considered it better to do it herself than 
 to act so as to become the laughing-stock and 
 ridicule of the community. 
 
 And so it was some considerable time before 
 William Olney began to plead his cause again, 
 or learned of that visit of his father and mother 
 to the Willoughbys. 
 
 Lyddie was not all spirituality by any means. 
 
 120
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 She enjoyed life as all young girls did in those 
 days and ought to do at all times. 
 
 She could sing and she could dance ; she 
 could ride beautifully on horseback ; she went 
 to various parties and country dances, spelling 
 bees, and other entertainments. She even taught 
 little James, the boy who had the whipping for 
 speaking disrespectfully of his father, how to 
 dance the Quaker schottische. They called it 
 a Quaker schottische so that they might be 
 allowed to dance it. 
 
 Once when she was giving such a lesson, and 
 apparently in great spirits, the boy noticed that 
 she was crying. He asked her what was the 
 matter, but she would not answer him. He 
 coaxed her to tell, but Lyddie hushed him up, 
 and distracted his attention by proposing some 
 other amusement. When they came into the 
 house again, the boy told out that Lyddie had 
 been crying. 
 
 There was no one in the world except his 
 father whom the boy liked as he did Lyddie ; 
 his mother, of course, but in a different way. 
 His mother and he understood each other 
 when she petted him, smoothed his hair, 
 patted his cheek, or when he threw his arms 
 around her neck, or went to her for consolation 
 when he was hurt that was all clear. But his 
 affection for Lyddie and his father was differ 
 ent ; here was something mysterious ; here was 
 121
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 generally no caressing ; nothing a boy could 
 understand, but nice words always and not a few 
 about God and the spirit world. 
 
 The boy carne to think that spirits were the 
 cause of everything, especially of everything bad, 
 and he hated them. He had heard that they 
 once drove his father out from home into the 
 wilderness that meant for him over into the 
 big woods back of Lars Johnson s and then had 
 driven him around and beaten him for all those 
 six weeks he was away, and made him grow- 
 white and thin and blacker-haired than ever. 
 He knew now his father did not have anything to 
 do with it ; it had been only the wicked spirit. 
 His imagination pictured the spirit out in all 
 his awfulness, with a rope around his father s 
 neck and a great ox-goad, driving him about 
 among the wild grape-vines and tangled black 
 berry briers and thorn-bushes, and beating him. 
 It is no wonder that he hated the spirit, and 
 felt now, in an uncertain way, that it was at the 
 bottom of this trouble of Lyddie s, and was 
 making her cry. He clinched his little fist 
 tightly, and longed to be a man. He would 
 show then what he would do. And in those 
 spiritual meetings, when Enoch was controlled, 
 and supposed he was teaching great truths fre 
 quently there was a little boy peeping cautious 
 ly about to see if he could not get a glimpse 
 of the spirit somewhere, and find out where it 
 122
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 had hold of him, and what it was doing. He 
 used to think ho would like to stick pins into 
 its legs, and drive it away. 
 
 And yet that father had had a thousand 
 dreams about that boy. He had thought he 
 would grow up and become a learned man ; 
 carry on his teachings, and justify him and his 
 doctrines in the eyes of the great world, may 
 be ; and so half the time we are unconscious of 
 the real effect of our personalities upon those 
 about us. 
 
 In this kind of life Lyddie met other young 
 men than William Olney Price ; one Aaron 
 Melwin, especially, accompanied her frequent 
 ly. He possessed all the qualities that are 
 pleasing to a young girl. He was handsome, 
 of pleasant address and gentle voice, and was 
 always in demand. He may not have had very 
 much will of his own, but this lack perhaps is 
 not most noticeable in young men. We know 
 what he became ; but yet the very qualities 
 that go to make a man die in the ditch some 
 times are the ones that make him the most 
 agreeable and even in some instances the 
 most attractive character while he is out of it. 
 
 Lyddie ought to have married William Ol 
 ney Price in spite of everything; they were 
 intended for each other. She was spiritually 
 minded and he was practical; together the 
 balance would have been well preserved in 
 123
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 either character, and they loved each other. 
 That is, Lyddie had certainly given some in 
 dication of finally caring for William Olney. 
 But when he came again after that visit of his 
 father and mother, she was changed. At first 
 she avoided him, and when he did compel her 
 to speak with him, she was reserved, and kept 
 the subject of conversation safely away from 
 love-affairs. But when William Olney finally 
 forced her to listen, she thought it best to tell 
 him everything, and did so, though when he 
 learned of this visit and its intention, and 
 gathered all that Lyddie had said and prom 
 ised, it made no difference. 
 
 " But, Lyddie," he persisted, " the main 
 question is, Is it true that thee does not, and 
 cannot love me." 
 
 Lyddie did not reply. She could not, she 
 had nothing to say. She probably only showed 
 her embarrassment. 
 
 " I think I perceive that it is not the entire 
 truth," William Olney said, and in a moment 
 more he would have taken the girl in his arms 
 and kissed her. 
 
 But immediately she drew herself up, and her 
 whole dignity and strength of will returned as 
 she said, " William Olney, the question thee 
 urges is of no importance. I have promised 
 thy mother not to become thy wife, and wheth 
 er what I said further to her at that time was 
 124
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 rightly understood is no matter. I have prom 
 ised, and thee may be sure I will keep my 
 promise." 
 
 This carried the war into Africa, so to speak, 
 for as William Olney went away he said, " I 
 bid thee farewell, Lydia, but thee may expect 
 another visit from my mother soon, perhaps 
 this very day ; and on that visit she will ask 
 thee to retract thy promise, and thee will do it 
 then, will thee not ? " 
 
 But Lyddie did not answer directly. 
 
 " Better let it drop, William Olney," she said 
 at last ; " thy mother s will might be conquered ; 
 and, indeed, she did say some beautiful words 
 to me that took away the unpleasantness of 
 the visit from my mind. But thy mother s 
 will depends upon thy father s and that is 
 probably deeper and stronger. He will never 
 consent to thy union with a spiritualist, and 
 thee may be sure Enoch Willoughby will be 
 one as long as the recollection of his vision 
 lasts." 
 
 " But thee, Lydia," he said, " thee is not 
 Enoch Willoughby ; thee is not even his daugh 
 ter ; why should his opinion so affect thee ? " 
 
 " William Olney," she said then, irrelevant 
 ly, " there is such a thing as a great spiritual 
 separation ; the words of that good woman, 
 Loisa Painter, are in iny mind now as I speak 
 to thee ; and this separation comes upon those 
 125
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 who love one another, whether in the family, 
 in the church, or in the State. This separation 
 is painful and I would not be the cause of it 
 between thee and thy people. Be sure I shall 
 never be the cause of it ; until thy father and 
 thy mother as well as thyself desire me to be 
 come a member of thy family, I shall never 
 give my consent to do so." 
 
 So William Olney went quietly home and 
 spoke to his mother. She, poor woman, had 
 been expecting this for some time, but could do 
 nothing. 
 
 "It all depends upon thy father," she said. 
 And when William Olney asked her to present 
 the matter to him, she replied she had already 
 done so, and he insisted that William Olney 
 should never marry a spiritualist. Then Will 
 iam Olney went to see his father in the library. 
 
 There was no violent discussion, no voice 
 raised above a conventional pitch. The son 
 knew and the father knew the meeting would be 
 in vain. Old William Price had never yielded to 
 anything. You might as well expect that storm 
 which is caused by the advent of unknown 
 causes far in the upper air above the regions of 
 earth to be checked in its onward progress and 
 driven away by a summer whirlwind. 
 
 In William Price s mind, Enoch Willoughby 
 and all connected with him were going straight 
 to the devil. That may be a somewhat harsh 
 126
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 way of expressing it, but that was the substance 
 of it ; and he was himself doing the only right 
 thing in preventing this degrading union. There 
 was not a worldly thought about it we must 
 give him credit for that. In spite of his closeness 
 in money matters, and desire, too, that his family 
 might be continued in prosperity from gener 
 ation to generation, he would not seriously 
 have objected to William Olney marrying the 
 poorest girl in the neighborhood ; but the other 
 thing, never. It did not require the repetition 
 of that word " never " in his case ; once was 
 sufficiently emphatic. 
 
 The two men rose, calm, moderate, and were 
 about to separate. But William Olney could 
 not go without at least justifying Lyddie. 
 
 " Thy will, father, in this case, is absolute, for 
 the young woman has made her own to depend 
 upon it. She will not be the cause of bringing 
 separation into my family." 
 
 "And in that," William Price had the heart 
 to answer, " she is perfectly correct ; it would 
 be wrong in her to think otherwise." 
 
 Then William Olney said : 
 
 "Father, I cannot hope to bend thy will any 
 more than I can hope to change her mind ; I 
 shall not try to do either, for that would be to 
 change her against her conscience and thee 
 against thine. But I know that the young 
 woman is not averse to me, and I love her, 
 127
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 and I shall never inarry another woman but 
 her. Consider well what thou art doing. We 
 are a bloodless race, cold and not easily moved 
 to passion of any kind; my sister is almost 
 past the age when she is likely to be sought 
 by young men. The young woman of whom I 
 speak is the only one that has ever attracted 
 me or is ever likely to do so. Thy house 
 will be a childless house, father, and thy race 
 become extinct in this generation if thee per 
 sists in thy determination of this day. And as 
 for her belief, father, there is very little differ 
 ence between that and our own." 
 
 But here the elder Price interrupted him. 
 
 " Thee is speaking of that of which thee knows 
 nothing ; the religion which these people pro 
 fess is not a religion at all, but a base and 
 grovelling superstition; it is even worse than 
 that, for it is a godless superstition. They 
 would raise the sorcery and divination and 
 witchcraft of the Scriptures into the place of 
 the crucified Saviour. What they worship is 
 the power of darkness ; and what one worships 
 he finally assimilates himself unto, and becomes 
 identical with. It is not a light matter with 
 me, and I am not taking an inconsiderate step. 
 There is the attraction of the broad road to 
 destruction in this very thing, and those who 
 have once entered it are sure to follow it to its 
 end. Sad as it would be for me to see all my 
 128
 
 hopes blasted, to think that my race would 
 die in this generation, I had far rather it would 
 be even so than that I should ever be looked 
 back upon as the father of a godless race of un 
 holy and blaspheming spiritualists ; of mediums 
 who are no more than necromancers and sor 
 cerers ; who practise their mysterious incanta 
 tions and wicked witchcraft in dark closets and 
 secret cabinets; who prate of free love and 
 atheism and infidelity, but say very little, I as 
 sure thee, of Christ and Him crucified. Be 
 sure, oh, be sure I shall never consent to re 
 ceive as a daughter of my family a person of 
 that accursed superstition. " 
 
 These words were all kept in that same low, 
 quiet tone that clearly indicated the thoughts 
 were the result of reason, not passion ; they 
 were thus forcible and persistent. 
 
 But William Olney, too, was of the same 
 quiet persistency as his father, and he had not 
 exhausted all his reasoning yet. 
 
 "Father," he said, "Lydia has asked me to 
 be present at their meetings, for she is a 
 young woman absolutely without deception ; 
 and, though she did not say so, I felt that 
 she desired that I should see and know all they 
 did at those meetings, and understand as far as 
 possible all their position in regard to this new 
 faith. I have been present at them, and saw 
 nothing that was startling or even so very sur- 
 129
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 prising, except that Enoch Willoughby acted 
 and spoke as he is accustomed to do in meeting, 
 perhaps a little more freely ; and in Lydia there 
 was no change whatever, though she tells me 
 that the spirit has occasionally come upon her." 
 
 "Did she say the Holy Spirit?" William 
 Price asked. 
 
 " I don t think she is accustomed to saying 
 that," William Olney replied; "and there might 
 be an assumption on her part in doing so ; but 
 I warrant thee, father, no one who knows her as 
 I do would ever think of an unholy spirit com 
 ing upon her, for she is a good woman, father, 
 a thoroughly good woman. I do not mean to 
 exaggerate in this respect, but I trust thee will 
 not attempt to say that she is otherwise, for that 
 statement I feel I could not properly listen to, 
 even from thee, father. As nearly as I can gather 
 from her manner of description, she has been in 
 fluenced not differently from Caroline Fawcett or 
 Caroline Wooton, whom thee knows in our meet 
 ing ; each of w T hom I remember to have spoken 
 in meeting under the influence many years ago, 
 when they were quite young ; and Loisa Painter, 
 who was here recently, was guided in much the 
 same way." 
 
 " Oh, but that was entirely different," William 
 Price answered ; " these were holy women, guid 
 ed by the spirit of God and of truth ; but the 
 other is the spirit of falsehood and deception 
 130
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 and darkness. Beware, I say, oh, my son, be 
 ware how thou art being led astray. Satan him 
 self may be clothed as an angel of light, and come 
 in form to deceive the very elect. Later thou 
 wilt find that these so-called spiritual mediums 
 are held by Indian spirits and lying spirits, that 
 prophesy falsely and turn the soul to its own 
 destruction. Thou wilt find that their followers 
 are mostly fortune-tellers and gypsies, wander 
 ers, straying about without place or portion on 
 this earth ; the very lowest of the low ; cheating 
 and deceiving ; or else unbalanced in mind, with 
 strange eyes and long, wizard-like hair. Oh ! 
 my son, I would rather see thee dead and buried 
 quietly and sacredly in the church-yard of thy 
 fathers, and feel that thy place with thy Re 
 deemer hereafter was sure, than to see thee the 
 father of a family of children in whom I felt the 
 taint of heretical and demoniacal blood existed ; 
 and I thank merciful heaven that the woman 
 of whom thee is thinking has been allowed that 
 ray of light and wisdom that she has made her 
 acceptance of thee to depend upon my consent, 
 for that thee may be sure thee will never have." 
 "Well, father " there was the same quietness 
 and lack of all outward signs of passion "I 
 have been reasoning on this matter a great deal ; 
 I am sure thee is wrong, and I am equally sure 
 it would be impossible to convince thee of that 
 fact as difficult as it would be for thee to con- 
 
 131
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 vince ine that Lydia O Mara is not as good and 
 true as she is in my eyes pleasing. But this is 
 the course of my reasoning : if I follow thy 
 counsel and put her away from my mind, I shall 
 have no feeling of friendliness toward thee 
 henceforth, thee may be sure ; I shall regret all 
 my life that I have her not with me as a com 
 panion, and she if I am right in thinking that 
 she is not without affection for me will be 
 rendered unhappy, I cannot but hope, for a 
 long time ; so that in every way I look at it, 
 this action is bad ; equally bad for thee and our 
 family ; bad for me and bad for her, whose wel 
 fare I desire to consider in the matter. On the 
 other hand, if I should oppose thee, and marry 
 Lydia, I am sure my mother would soon become 
 reconciled and my sister also ; all but thee ; 
 thou wouldst, of course, hold out, as it is thy 
 nature. But Lydia, I trust, would be happy 
 with me, and I should be confident of happiness 
 in her society. That leaves, then, all of us bet 
 ter for the union except thee, and thee would 
 not be worse off, for I assure thee the separation 
 between tfcee and me will be equally great in 
 both cases; hence my conclusion is that I 
 should use every effort in my power, first, to 
 convince thee I am right ; and, next, to do 
 what I consider right, whether thou art con 
 vinced, or dost remain unconvinced." 
 
 The conversation was really over ; there was 
 132
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 little more to be said. The father added he 
 should never give his consent. The son as re 
 spectfully as possible reasserted that he should 
 do his best to marry the girl with or without his 
 father s consent, and the two men separated. 
 
 William Olney regretted afterward that he 
 had not made clearer to his father that Lyddie 
 was not a medium in any bad sense of the word, 
 and that he had not laid greater stress on the 
 general intelligence and honesty and good con 
 nection of the family, and also on the fact that 
 Lyddie was not a daughter of the Willoughbys, 
 and so ought not to be reproached with their 
 belief, if their belief was a cause of reproach. 
 But he knew it would all have been of no use. He 
 knew that the more good he told of these peo 
 ple to his father, the more dangerous his father 
 would consider them. The one drachm of evil 
 in the family, in his father s estimation, was more 
 than sufficient to leaven the whole lump. 
 
 He knew that his father was prejudiced with 
 a deep, set prejudice that could not be uprooted. 
 
 If he had told him how earnest and conscien 
 tious a student of the Bible Enoch Willoughby 
 was, his father would simply have replied, " The 
 devil can cite Scripture for his purpose." 
 
 And now that visit had aroused his father s 
 
 personal hostility. It was all too bad, but his 
 
 own conclusion had been reached, and he should 
 
 follow it. He loved Lyddie and he should make 
 
 133
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 her his wife. That would cause a break in the 
 family probably, but they could both spend their 
 time in doing their best to heal the break. He 
 even thought with some satisfaction how they 
 would go about it to do this. 
 
 But first he must overcome Lyddie s objec 
 tion, and this he found difficult. 
 
 " Thee must not think, William Olney," she 
 said the next time he saw her and was again 
 reasoning with her, "it is because I have once 
 said to thy mother I should not accept thee ; to 
 persist from that cause would be naught but ob 
 stinacy; and, if it were best, I should try to 
 reconcile my conscience to breaking that reso 
 lution ; but there is something more, the rea 
 sons which caused me to form that resolution 
 still exist. I cannot and will not become the 
 cause of separating thee from thy parents." 
 
 There was something so unalterably fixed, 
 something so much more forcible than mere 
 hasty resolution in her way of speaking, that 
 the young man felt a sinking at the heart. It 
 was then no use ; he had been deceiving himself 
 with false hopes. 
 
 A feeling of despair came over him. He only 
 said : " I see thee does not love me, Lyclia ; " 
 but it was so touching to hear him that the girl 
 did what she ought not to have done. We can 
 not avoid giving comfort sometimes, even when 
 we know such comfort is wrong. 
 134
 
 FACING IT OUT 
 
 " If it would be any satisfaction to thee here 
 after, William Olney, any healing for thy wound 
 ed pride, if perchance thy pride is wounded, thee 
 may know that in this thee has been mistaken." 
 
 She could go no farther ; a blush overspread 
 her face. She knew in a moment she had done 
 what she ought not to have done. She should 
 not have told him ; she immediately made up 
 her mind not to see him again. She rose and 
 held out her hand to bid him good-by. 
 
 Then she learned, what she should have 
 known before, that human nature is stronger 
 than Quaker reserve. 
 
 He took her hand and drew her to him forci 
 bly and kissed her again and again, and would 
 not release her. She could not struggle against 
 him, and for a moment her head rested on his 
 breast ; but only for a moment. Then she drew 
 herself up and freed herself from him. Some 
 thing like a sob escaped her, but she controlled 
 herself, and bade him good-by ; and he, poor 
 fool, happy in the intoxication of that first em 
 brace, went home with his Quaker heart thor 
 oughly warmed with that happiest experience 
 that comes in a lifetime. 
 
 135
 
 XIII 
 
 PEACE TO OLD LADY MARGARET S ASHES 
 
 THERE is a disadvantage in speaking a long 
 time in advance of anything that is to take place 
 in a story, for it gives the impression of already 
 having happened. So, as we have spoken of 
 what old Lady Margaret "Willoughby became in 
 her last years, how irascible and difficult to care 
 for, also how her estate was disposed of, or 
 something of the kind about it, it may have led 
 people to think at this time the old lady was no 
 longer in the land of the living. That would, 
 however, be a mistake. 
 
 She was still very much alive ; though her 
 husband, old Enoch Willoughby, the father of 
 Enoch P. the spiritualist, had quietly passed 
 away several years before dropped over out 
 of doors as though he had feared to go into the 
 house lest he might disturb somebody. 
 
 The old lady remained, large, ruddy-faced, 
 Victoria-Regina-like in appearance, and with en 
 ergy enough left to visit all her more than a 
 hundred descendants children, grand-children, 
 and great-grandchildren before she died. So 
 she looked around to see where they could be 
 136
 
 PEACE TO LADY MARGARET S ASHES 
 
 found; and, knowing that John Willoughby and 
 Enoch Willoughby were both in Iowa, she de 
 cided to pay them a visit. 
 
 Besides John had been appealing to her at 
 various times for assistance, and she had sent him 
 occasional loans which neither lender nor bor 
 rower ever expected should be repaid out of 
 her interest, of course, as she could not make 
 encroachments upon her capital. It was natural 
 then she should want to see what John was 
 doing with the money. 
 
 While she was getting ready in Ohio to come, 
 the first trouble with the John Willoughby chil 
 dren took place out in Iowa. The oldest boy 
 was named Israel. He was proud and hand 
 some, but with all those improvident ideas for 
 which the John Willoughbys were noted. If 
 he ever had any occupation when he was young 
 and ever made any money, he never succeeded 
 in saving any of it ; for, when he married, which 
 event occurred about this time, he had not where 
 to lay either his own or his wife s head, and as 
 his father John Willoughby had in all about 
 ten or eleven children, he could not well think 
 of taking the new Mrs. Willoughby there to be 
 come an addition to the family. The result 
 was they came to Uncle Enoch s, just for a few 
 days, on a kind of wedding visit. 
 
 This, however, did not seem to be about to find 
 any fitting termination, and the result was that 
 137
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Enoch Willoughby decided to find work for the 
 young man, and Hannah thought they could al 
 low Lizzie, his wife, to turn her hand to some use 
 ful purpose about the house and so let them earn 
 their living for awhile, and possibly get a little 
 start until they could find something better to do. 
 
 While Lizzie was good to work, she was proud, 
 too, as proud as Lucifer, in fact; and she and 
 her husband, in that respect, were much alike. 
 Now all went well until Israel had worked a few 
 days, when he wanted his pay, which he received 
 and took to town with him. It was a small 
 amount, of course, and one would think the 
 young man would have felt like economizing it ; 
 but when he came back he was found to have laid it 
 all out in one of those old-fashioned gold hooks, 
 such as people sometimes wore on the end of a 
 watch-guard in those days, and had bought a 
 ring for his wife with what remained. 
 
 Now Enoch felt it behooved him to talk to 
 Israel about such extravagance in his circum 
 stances ; but Israel was too proud to endure re 
 proof, and flared up iininediatel} r in hot words, 
 and ended by taking the ring and hook out to 
 the wood pile and chopping them to pieces. 
 Then Enoch felt he ought to reprove him for 
 this last act also. Of course this led to some 
 hasty words; Cousin Lizzie was brought into 
 the trouble, and made some remarks about spir 
 itualism. This gave Israel an opportunity, and 
 138
 
 PEACE TO LADY MARGARET S ASHES 
 
 he and his wife both declared they would not 
 live in contact with so degrading a superstition, 
 and directly flew up the stairs and got their 
 things together, and went back to the John 
 Willoughbys, whence they immediately wrote to 
 old Lady Margaret for help. 
 
 This event had not much in it, except that 
 one member of the household, that same little 
 James that we have twice before, maybe three 
 times, spoken of, thought the spirits had been 
 at work again, which they most surely had. He 
 retained for a long time the recollection of 
 Cousin Lizzie flouting up the stairs and slam 
 ming the door of her room, followed soon by 
 Israel ; he remembered also some hot words 
 cast like brick-bats upstairs and down between 
 his mother and Cousin Lizzie when the young 
 couple emerged from the room again and were 
 about to take their departure ; he remembered 
 Enoch s pacifying tone as he calmed matters 
 down, got the young couple to shake hands ere 
 they departed, sent word to John to come over 
 soon, and told Israel and Lizzie to come back and 
 make them another visit ; and then he remem 
 bered the sharp discussion that arose between 
 his father and mother ; in which his sympathies 
 were all with his mother, of course. 
 
 "The idea of inviting them to come back 
 again," Hannah said. "I d see them in worse 
 straits than they re in now before I d ever invite 
 139
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 them to pay another visit. The impudent 
 minx! " 
 
 Words were easy with Hannah. 
 
 " I should think thee d have more spirit," she 
 cried, " than to let them flout thee to thy very 
 face for thy belief, and not even make a reply." 
 
 And all this time tears and occasional sobs, 
 and finally reconciliation ; and Hannah in 
 Enoch s arms; and then pretty soon the visit of 
 Uncle John, and all peace and harmony again ; 
 and soon after that grandmother; and then, after 
 that, more scenes of an interesting domestic 
 character. 
 
 In fact, any one can see that this little James 
 was a Willoughby upon whom all these things 
 must have had a great effect. 
 
 And when old Lady Margaret did come, the 
 family resumed for a time its former Quaker at 
 titude ; went to the Quaker meeting regularly ; 
 Hannah s Quaker bonnet saw the light of day 
 now very often; and dreams and visions and 
 spiritual meetings were relegated to the limbo 
 from which they were perhaps derived. Many a 
 good dinner was cooked and set out for the 
 Friends who came to visit the old lady, and a 
 whole flood of respectability came back with her 
 and enveloped all the ramifications of the very 
 numerous family. 
 
 If Enoch said anything about spiritualism to 
 her, her principal argument was " Tut, tut," and 
 140
 
 PEACE TO LADY MARGARET S ASHES 
 
 that succeeded in silencing him better than any 
 of the preachers who had argued with him did. 
 She kept the children about the house from 
 whistling and singing; prevented them from 
 learning music, which they had some inclination 
 to begin; checked and reproved Lyddie for 
 teaching James the Quaker schottische; and, if 
 she had only stayed long enough, might even 
 have influenced William Price to think that the 
 Willoughbys were sufficiently good Quakers to 
 be connected with his family. 
 
 But all things draw to a close, and so did 
 finally the old lady s visit. 
 
 Peace to her ashes ! Bight in that visit, while 
 she was the centre of all the attentions of the 
 meeting, the most distinguished visitor from the 
 old Ohio yearly meeting they had had for many 
 a day, she found several wells by water- witching, 
 and nobody thought anything of it. She said 
 the willow twig, when it moved in her hands, felt 
 as though it had life in it. But all this was only 
 queerness, and did not detract from her high 
 respectability and commanding position. She 
 was a rare old lady ; and if only she could have 
 outlived her son, instead of him her, he might 
 never have become a martyr for a cause that was 
 developing perhaps from hereditary queerness 
 only. Peace to old Lady Margaret s ashes ! 
 
 Little Jamee Willoughby was all this time 
 growing older and getting ready later on to take 
 141
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 his part in our story. He certainly had a sin 
 gular childhood, made up of strange notions ; of 
 dreams and visions, and religious arguments ; a 
 childhood of mysterious passions, of strong love 
 and bitter hates and constant checkings for both. 
 With a nature like his mother s, he was quick 
 with passion, and ready to flame at a moment s 
 notice; but the thought of his father s calm 
 reasoning was always there to check him. 
 
 One moment he would feel that he must hate 
 the Quaker meeting and the Sunday-school and 
 everybody connected with them ; then he would 
 hear his father talking about charity and friend 
 liness, and old Shubal Swain, who always re 
 mained the best of friends, would come in, and 
 he would feel that he must like the meeting and 
 the Quakers, and hate the spirits ; and then he 
 would fill Shubal s horses feed-boxes with an 
 extra amount of oats and pet the horses noses 
 out of pure reconciliation with the church and 
 God and heaven. 
 
 A thousand such recollections afterward re 
 mained in his mind from this strange childhood. 
 
 But then would come the hatred of the Quak 
 ers again ; perhaps his father would come home 
 from meeting, humiliated and despondent, and 
 the little hands would be clinched and ready to 
 fight against the Church and against God and 
 Heaven and everything. 
 
 Out of his recollections of this childhood, how- 
 142
 
 PEACE TO LADY MARGARETS ASHES 
 
 ever, nothing was stronger than his love for that 
 strange and mysterious father. What was it about 
 him that so fascinated the boy, and gave him that 
 deep love and profound respect which for years 
 hid his faults and made him his ideal man ? 
 
 He could, years afterward, hear the old 
 horses drive up before the house in Hesper, 
 where he boarded, and went to school in winter ; 
 he could hear his father s voice, as he called to 
 them and stopped them ; he could see himself 
 rushing out to meet his father ; he could recall 
 a little shame as he noticed something about the 
 horse or sleigh or his father s dress that was 
 more rustic perhaps than even that rustic village 
 of Hesper, and then the rush of shame at such a 
 thought ; did not his father come for him every 
 Friday night and take him back every Monday 
 morning, and was there not an account always 
 open at William Price s store, where he could 
 get during the week anything he wanted ? No 
 boy ever had a better father. 
 
 Then he remembered how, one evening, in 
 that good Quaker family where he was boarding 
 Elijah Tabor s, I think it was he heard them 
 talking about spiritualism. They had forgotten 
 that he was around ; nice, good boy, they thought ; 
 always reading, or playing on an old melodeon ; 
 never any trouble. 
 
 Elija remarked, "It is strange that people 
 can be led aside by so singular a superstition." 
 143
 
 ENOCH WILLOTJGHBY 
 
 He doubted, he said, " if any were really de 
 ceived by it ; it was easier to believe that they 
 were all frauds and deceiving others than that 
 any human being, man or woman, could be so 
 led astray." 
 
 If they had noticed, they might have seen tho 
 little fellow over in the corner look off his book. 
 He was evidently paying attention to the con 
 versation. 
 
 Elijah went on : " It is only these long-haired 
 people, wild-eyed, and unbalanced in mind, that 
 take up with such a belief. No respectable peo 
 ple would have anything to do with it." 
 
 But this was too much for the boy ; his chiv 
 alry was aroused ; the love of father and mother 
 was boiling in his heart ; the Hannah O Mara 
 nature, of ready words and quick emotion, was 
 astir within him. 
 
 He sprang to his feet. 
 
 " It s a lie, it s a lie ! " he cried, and burst out 
 sobbing. 
 
 Then he threw down his book, got his hat 
 and coat, and was putting them on when good 
 Sarah Tabor, who had been like a mother or a 
 kind aunt to her little boarder, went to him and 
 said, in her mildest and gentlest voice : " James, 
 thee mustn t take things so to heart ; nobody 
 meant thy father or mother ; nobody thought of 
 them." 
 
 The boy was now sobbing and hysterical. 
 144
 
 PEACE TO LADY MAEGARET S ASHES 
 
 "Elijah will tell thee himself, he did not 
 mean thy father," she continued, soothingly. 
 Then, seeing he was about to go out, she asked : 
 " Where is thee going, James ? " 
 
 " I m going home," the boy replied. " I won t 
 stay here." 
 
 " But thee cannot go home this cold night all 
 that distance," the good woman said. "I can 
 not allow thee to ; thee is placed in my charge, 
 and thee might get lost and perish in the snow." 
 So with her mild voice and her calm reasoning 
 she pacified him ; took his coat from him, and 
 got him to go off to his room. 
 
 When she returned to the sitting-room, they 
 talked about the incident, those dear, good 
 Friends ; they said, how careful one must be of 
 what enters into the ear of childhood; they 
 spoke of how easily the little emotions are 
 stirred, and how hard it is to calm them ; and 
 of how filial love is, and perhaps should be, 
 stronger than all belief. 
 
 For a long time little James was ashamed to 
 look Aunt Sarah in the face ; and for a long 
 time Aunt Sarah gave the boy extra care and 
 unusual kindness; buttoned his coat for him 
 when he went out, and made him put a cloth 
 around his throat at the least sign of a cold. 
 And yet now from this incident the boy first be 
 gan to feel that he belonged to a different class 
 of people from those among whom he lived. 
 145
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Then the boy s mind was filled constantly 
 with opposite impressions, and, like a tree 
 blown by opposing blasts, now swayed in one 
 direction, now in another, might at last be ex 
 pected to stand erect and point only to Heaven 
 in spite of all the winds that blew upon it. 
 
 Every boy, I suppose, must have a hero, who, 
 like his first sweetheart, is apt to be a little 
 older than himself, and little James was no ex 
 ception. This particular hero was " Gene," in 
 other words, Eugene Beatty, the oldest son of 
 Doc Beatty, a Hicksite, who still attended the or 
 thodox meeting because there were not enough 
 of his own persuasion to form an independent 
 assembly ; a man who was not wrapped up in 
 any form of religion, who paid a fair amount of 
 attention to the world, made a good living, trav 
 elled about over the country, and thus saw a 
 great many people and improved his judgment. 
 He had none of the prejudice of the members 
 of the meeting against Enoch Willoughby. He 
 was his family physician, and as he thought 
 most likely his vagaries could never amount to 
 anything, he looked upon them as rather harm 
 less, unless he should carry them too far and so 
 possibly go a little daft over them and injure 
 himself ; the idea of his injuring any one else 
 never entered his head. 
 
 Impressionable children feel these unex 
 pressed opinions about them, one hardly knows 
 
 146
 
 PEACE TO LADY MARGARET S ASHES 
 
 how. Little James felt in some way that Dr. 
 Beatty s family were friendly. He had become 
 acquainted with Gene in school, and had once 
 gone home with him. There he had fallen in 
 love immediately with the whole family ; with 
 Gene and his brother and his adopted sister; 
 with the doctor and his good, motherly wife ; 
 with the organ, the violin, and the dulcimer and 
 numerous other musical instruments they all 
 played on more or less ; with the old tiger cat 
 and friendly Newfoundland dog, that formed 
 regular inmates of the household; even the 
 doctor s horse and buggy had come in for a 
 share of his admiration. It is not too much to 
 say that the very odor of drugs one always 
 detected there formed the pleasantest fragrance 
 that ever entered his youthful nostrils. 
 
 It was not long before he was a most faithful 
 follower of Gene. Follower? Nay, admirer, 
 lover ! And Gene, who was not averse to ad 
 miration, allowed and accepted all this homage ; 
 but himself preferred to spend his admiration 
 on a man, on some one who was old enough to 
 have horses and a sleigh; who had been away 
 from Hesper and seen the world ; in a word, on 
 William Olney Price, who had once been near 
 enough his own age to be Gene s companion in 
 an occasional tramp in the woods, but who, 
 since he had come back from Providence, had 
 outgrown his old acquaintance. 
 147
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Now, when William Olney Price saw little 
 James with Gene, he remembered the boy s 
 friendship for Lyddie. Ever since that last 
 visit Lyddie had resolutely refused to see Will 
 iam Olney, and the poor fellow had all this time 
 been in a bad state indeed. When, now, he saw 
 this boy from the Willoughbys, it was a con 
 necting link with Lyddie s surroundings. 
 
 He asked him how the folks at home were, 
 and the boy said, simply, " They are well." 
 
 He then asked if his grandmother was still 
 there, and the boy seemed to think that "No" 
 was all the reply that question required. 
 
 Then William Oluey asked him when she had 
 gone, and where she had gone, with many other 
 questions about her, until one would have 
 thought that William Oluey was greatly in 
 terested in old Margaret Willoughby. He asked 
 if James s father had had the asthma lately, 
 and whether his uncles, Mose and Eck, had re 
 turned from Prairie du Chien or La Crosse 
 which place was it they had gone to ? Couldn t 
 the boy tell him anything about Lyddie ? Didn t 
 he know she was the only one at all he cared to 
 hear about ? If he had not felt like taking the 
 boy in his arms and hugging him for ever 
 having been near the dear girl, breathed the 
 same air, and lived in the same house with 
 her, he could have punished him for his ob- 
 tuseness. 
 
 148
 
 Gene thought William Olney was becoming 
 remarkably friendly again, and was greatly sur 
 prised when he asked the boys if they would 
 like to take a sleigh ride after school. They 
 were, of course, glad to go. He took them sep 
 arately, Gene first, who liked the ride ; except 
 that he thought it very much too short; and 
 next James. But when William Olney found 
 himself with James, the nearest he could get to 
 conversation about Lyddie was to ask him if his 
 aunt liked to go sleigh-riding. Ridiculous ! And 
 to talk of her was all that he had taken him 
 sleigh-riding for. 
 
 It was time to go back. The boy s eyes 
 sparkled with enjoyment of the ride, the crisp 
 snow, the sharp air, and the sleigh-bells. Will 
 iam Olney had half a mind to tell him the whole 
 story, his love for Lyddie, and how the spirits 
 had interfered with it. Would he understand ? 
 He looked like an intelligent boy ; had clear, 
 blue eyes, a face like his father s, but with his 
 mother s hair and skin ; that is, with Lyddie s 
 complexion. And noticing these things William 
 Olney had a sudden impulse. 
 
 " Boy, I love thy Aunt Lydia." 
 
 The conversation thus begun, the boy remem 
 bered for years its earnestness, its intensity. 
 William Olney could hardly have found it more 
 difficult to make his first proposal to Lyddio 
 herself. The boy was almost afraid of him, he 
 149
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 seemed so much in earnest. He did not know 
 what to reply, and said nothing. 
 
 Then William Olney went on. "I love her, 
 I think, as well as any man could, and I thought 
 she cared for me. She said so ; but since then 
 I have thought she said that only to keep her 
 words from being too painful. Tell me, does 
 thee think thy aunt cares anything for me ; does 
 she ever speak about me ? " 
 
 He corrected himself hastily. 
 
 " No, she would not do that. Has thee ever 
 noticed anything that might lead thee to think 
 she liked me ? Was thee at home the last time 
 I came, when Lyddie would not see me ? What 
 did she do ? Where was she all the time ? " 
 
 He spoke rapidly, question after question, 
 without waiting or expecting any answer. When 
 the boy finally succeeded in saying in reply 
 to the last, "She sat upstairs and cried," he 
 went on : 
 
 " She cried ? Did thee say she sat upstairs and 
 cried ? They are the best words I think I ever 
 heard. Not that I would like to have her cry ? 
 but I am so glad she cried. Did she cry long ; 
 
 I hope it wasn t long, that is I hope she 
 
 cried long and hard." 
 
 The boy remembered for years how the man 
 looked. 
 
 " No, no, thee can t understand," William Ol 
 ney said, finally ; " let us drive on home." 
 150
 
 PEACE TO LADY MARGARETS ASHES 
 
 He let out the swift horses, and they fairly 
 flew over the hard packed snow on their return. 
 
 After this little James found he had such a 
 friend as never before. He had sleigh-rides and 
 books, and skates, until the boys were envious 
 of him. 
 
 It almost broke up the friendship between 
 him and Gene, and would have done so per 
 haps if Gene had not thought it best to keep on 
 the good side of one who could be so liked by 
 William Olney Price. 
 
 And all these attentions were faithfully nar 
 rated to Lyddie, and all these presents carried 
 home and shown her; everything William 
 Olney said to the boy was faithfully repeated to 
 her, and everything she said was as carefully re 
 peated to William Olney ; but not a note or a 
 direct message passed between them. 
 
 151
 
 XIV 
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PRICE 
 
 THE next happening was certainly unusual 
 and came about in this way. It was a little like 
 the pig that went to market and would not cross 
 the stile. Reason about it or think about it as 
 he would, William Olney, every time, came 
 against spiritualism as the cause of all the 
 trouble. Lyddie was not a girl to be influenced 
 solely by her own wishes ; she felt she was do 
 ing right, and the fact that her inclinations were 
 against her decision would rather strengthen it 
 than otherwise. She had thought the matter 
 over with many tears, and she had come to the 
 conclusion that she must take her stand. She 
 had, therefore, quietly, but firmly, refused to see 
 William Olney again, and all Hannah s persua 
 sions or William Olney s messages had been of 
 no avail. When he had come to see her, she had 
 remained out of the room, crying it is true, as 
 we have seen, but that made no difference. She 
 could not be moved, or rather the only effective 
 persuasion would have to come from William 
 Price. But William Price was equally immov 
 able. The only possible thing that could influ- 
 152
 
 ence him would be for Enoch Willoughby to re 
 nounce his spirits and acknowledge only the Holy 
 Spirit ; in other words, to become a Quaker and 
 remain one with all his family. So it was a 
 case of " Fire burn stick ; stick beat pig." 
 
 The moving motive in the chain of cause and 
 effect must be William Gluey himself ; but he 
 could have no effect on his father, and could not 
 reach Lyddie in any way to influence her. 
 
 There remained nothing for him to do but to 
 influence Enoch in some way to take his part. 
 Were these two beliefs so irreconcilable? 
 Wasn t it largely imagination on the part of 
 each of them that made the difference ? If his 
 father and Enoch Willoughby could again come 
 together and compare notes on their faiths, 
 perhaps some reconciliation might be possible. 
 He did not know, or else he did not stop to con 
 sider, how frequently and long they had com 
 pared notes on the investigation committee, and 
 only strengthened each other in obstinacy. Since 
 that investigation had begun, Enoch had studied 
 the Bible more persistently, had had more 
 dreams, and had magnified more little and un 
 important things into religious significance than 
 ever before, and had been given a great lift upon 
 the very road he was travelling. At the same 
 time William Price and those who had entered 
 with him into the matter, had strengthened them 
 selves in their own opposition, and what they 
 153
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 had considered before as mere peculiarities in 
 Enoch Willoughby, they now considered to have 
 been sure indications of his downward progress 
 toward heresy. It w r as vain to bring these two 
 together. They had better have been kept 
 apart, but to bring them together was the only 
 thing it seemed possible under the circum 
 stances for William Olney to do, and he must 
 do something. 
 
 He therefore visited Enoch Willoughby and 
 asked him plainly : " Does thee think, Enoch, 
 that the difference between thyself and my 
 father is irreconcilable ? Might it not be 
 healed ? Is it not a little thing ? Could you 
 not come together and so not bring about this 
 separation that I feel is going to be very hard 
 for some of us to bear?" 
 
 And Enoch replied : " It is no small matter 
 that thee suggests, William Olney ; we have tried 
 to come together, but have only succeeded thus 
 far in getting farther apart. However," he con 
 tinued, " if thee wishes, I will again seo thy 
 father and once more go over the grounds of 
 our reasoning." 
 
 And this last hope William Olney now nour 
 ished and made much of ; but he might as well 
 have hoped that the north wind and the south 
 wind should blow together, or each blow both 
 hot and cold. 
 
 Hannah, too, said that Enoch would have his 
 154
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PKICE 
 
 visit for nothing. He had better let William 
 Price alone and stay away from him. The only 
 thing was, as she had said, to make up his mind 
 that he was a Quaker or ivasn t ; to stay with 
 them or leave them. He ought to have some 
 mind or other of his own ; pretty soon he d be 
 like the bats and be neither bird nor beast. He 
 ought to make up his mind what he was going 
 to do before he went, and then he w r ould know 
 whether to go or not. If he was going to stick 
 to spiritualism, he might just as well stay away ; 
 he would only excite hard feelings by going. 
 William Price would call it sorcery, and witch 
 craft, and dernonology, and necromancy, and 
 talk of the Witch of Endor, and Elymas the 
 Sorcerer, and only make them both more bitter. 
 Let him stay away. Let William Olney persuade 
 Lyddie of his own accord, in his own way. It 
 was a pity if he couldn t find some way to in 
 fluence the girl. If she were a young man with 
 all William Olney s advantages, she thought she 
 could find some means of influencing a girl like 
 Lyddie. And if she went on and persisted in 
 her obstinacy, let her take the consequences, 
 marry Aaron Melwin, as she most likely would, 
 and live the wife of a drunkard ; for it was said 
 the young man already did drink and would 
 most likely go right on to his own destruction. 
 
 But Enoch had fallen into the habit of pay 
 ing little attention to what Hannah said ; she 
 155
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 said too much, and was too ready with her 
 tongue. So then he decided to make a friendly 
 visit to William Price s and talk over matters 
 and see what conclusions they could come to. 
 
 Hannah had to have one last word before he 
 went. 
 
 " Enoch," she put in, as he went away, " if I 
 were a man, I shouldn t go near William Price ; 
 I would believe what I pleased, and keep it to 
 myself. Thee knows thyself, Loisa Painter told 
 thee, thee doesn t know anything about what is 
 the matter with thee ; whether thee has spirits, 
 religion or what ; and so thee s got to make up 
 thy mind about it some time or other and then 
 follow thy own mind and be what thee wants to 
 be and let other people alone. Thee ll cut a 
 sorry figure going to William Price s. He ll think 
 thee mercenary and that it s self-interest ; he ll 
 give thee no credit for thy com-crib vision, thee 
 may be sure, and if thee d take my advice, 
 thee d stay at home and attend to thy own con 
 cerns. I think anyway that Lyddie is the one 
 to give up if any one does. She s the one to be 
 most benefited by it and most injured by it if 
 she doesn t give up. She s young and ought 
 not to be so set in her ways. Let her go over 
 to the Quakers body and spirit and become one 
 of them. It wouldn t do her any great harm ; 
 and, if she doesn t want to do that, why, Jet her 
 stick to her own views and carry William Olney 
 156
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PEICE 
 
 along with her. His father will soon yield to 
 the inevitable, and if he doesn t at first, he will 
 later on. If they ever have children, the inno 
 cence in the eyes of a grandchild is more power 
 ful than any religious belief ; and, if they are 
 never reconciled in life, why then they may be 
 reconciled hereafter in Heaven, who knows ; 
 and if that never happens, there is room enough 
 in this universe for two souls to walk apart 
 always. If I were thee, I should stay at home 
 and let the matter take its own course." 
 
 " Oh, Hannah, Hannah," Enoch said as he 
 kissed her and went on his way, " I fear thee 
 has not a particle of religion of thy own, not a 
 particle." 
 
 But he turned and came back to her after he 
 had gone some distance, to say another word and 
 so deaden the harshness of his last expression. 
 
 " Think how beautiful, Hannah, if this differ 
 ence might be put aside, and thy sister, Lyddie, 
 be united to the man of her choice, and we 
 could return to the meeting in peace and har 
 mony with all. I am hopeful that it may still 
 be so, and I go in all humility and submission 
 of spirit, trusting that something good and only 
 good may come of our conversation." 
 
 Then he turned and this time succeeded in 
 getting away. But he went slowly and thought- 
 fully. 
 
 "I am doing this of myself," he said, "and 
 157
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 it is not of the spirit ; I am therefore liable to 
 be in the wrong, and it behooves me to be care 
 ful. Will it be given to me what to say ? " 
 
 He felt instinctively that it would not. This 
 matter he should have to do of himself, and 
 singularly enough there was no one in the 
 world whom he distrusted more than himself, 
 and yet there was not one who was likely to do 
 more nearly the right thing. When Enoch 
 Willoughby followed his own judgment, unin 
 fluenced by the opposition or zeal of others, or 
 by spirits or dreams or visions, he was as 
 sure to do right as any one can be ; but the 
 man all his life thought the exact opposite was 
 true. Even now he would have given the world 
 for some slight manifestation. If he could but 
 hear a voice or see a sign, or feel some intuitive 
 guidance, he would have gone boldly on his 
 mission, and, be sure, he would have made a 
 botch of it. But there was not a sign, not a 
 voice, not a vision. Evidently the spirits meant 
 him to work out this matter himself. Per 
 haps on great occasions like this they distrusted 
 themselves a little, and remained away. 
 
 And so Enoch Willoughby came to Hesper, 
 pondering what he should say to William Price. 
 What he longed to do was to enter into an ar 
 gument with him, in which he should bring up 
 all the passages in the Bible that were relevant, 
 fairly flooding William Price and overwhelming 
 158
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PRICE 
 
 him, to prove the spirit life and spirit communi 
 cation. He would have liked to prove that he 
 himself was a direct, lineal descendant in the 
 spiritual line from George Fox and the Penn 
 Quakers, and still walking in all respects in 
 their original ways. But he felt that he must 
 forego this pleasure. " Argument is not per 
 suasive," he said, and now his business was to 
 persuade. To do this he must stand on a high 
 plane of disinterestedness and friendliness, and 
 yet he had no idea of retracting a particle. He 
 must not allow himself to be aroused or excited 
 in the least. 
 
 "If I could only catch the lofty spirit of 
 Paul," he said. The man only half lived in this 
 life ; the other half was in the lives of the apos 
 tles, whom he revered ; and of Jesus, whom 
 he worshipped." And yet, no doubt, when he 
 said if he could only catch the spirit of Paul, 
 he meant if the spirit would come on him and 
 influence him in some bodily or physical way. 
 His imagination represented all these persons 
 and influences to him in a tangible, visible 
 form. 
 
 When he came to the village, he felt more 
 and more his dependence on himself, and his 
 inability to do the right thing in the situation. 
 He thought he would not go directly to William 
 Price s, he would go and see if James was at 
 home at Elijah Tabor s. He met the boy com- 
 159
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 ing out to go to school, and probably the near 
 est approach he had to a spiritual impression 
 on this occasion was the thought of taking the 
 boy with him ; the boy was only afraid he 
 should be late for school, and hoped his father 
 would not stay long. 
 
 Inside William Price s house, the family were 
 gathered in the sitting-room after breakfast, and 
 were about to go apart for the day when Enoch 
 Willoughby was announced. 
 
 " He has come to speak to thee, father, at my 
 request," William Olney explained ; and at 
 this Sally and Kachel Price arose and went 
 out and William Olney followed them. Then 
 Enoch Willoughby and his son came in. They 
 exchanged greetings with William Price and 
 sat down, and there began a conversation, to 
 which the whole of the family soon gathered as 
 listeners. Kachel Price passed through the 
 room once or twice before she finally stopped 
 and openly remained. Sally was unable to 
 resist her curiosity, and William Olney had 
 not been sure from the first but he ought 
 to take a part in the conversation. The scene 
 remained in the boy s mind for many a year. 
 Its intense earnestness was almost painful. 
 
 When Enoch began to speak, ho rose. 
 
 " I have been urged by thy son to take this 
 step, William," he said, " on his representation 
 that thy objection to thy son s marriage with 
 160
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PRICE 
 
 the young woman of his choice, was based 
 solely on difference of belief, of which differ 
 ence I know myself to be the cause. If this 
 were not the case, I should not have come. If 
 it were difference of station in life, of posses 
 sions, of age, or of character, I should not have 
 come ; but, since it is as it is, I have thought 
 perhaps by reasoning together, we might still 
 find our differences were not so great as neces 
 sarily to bring about this painful separation be 
 tween the young man and the young woman." 
 
 " Enoch Willoughby," William Price said, not 
 attempting any concealment of his interest, or 
 any indirection, " there can be but one outcome 
 to this conversation. I am surprised that my 
 son has suggested it, and still more so that thee 
 has undertaken it." 
 
 His words were few and rather calculated by 
 the tone to prevent or check the coming con 
 versation. Enoch Willoughby was not, how 
 ever, to be checked by a tone of voice, and con 
 tinued, calmly : 
 
 " Let me assure thee first of one thing, Will 
 iam. I think as thee does in this, that it would 
 be more than useless for us to enter into dis 
 cussion of religious belief. It is with consider 
 able regret that I acknowledge this, for nothing 
 is more pleasing to my mind than to search the 
 Scriptures ; and, having found, to remember, 
 and remembering, to bring forward, what is 
 
 161
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 contained therein, to confute error, to establish 
 positions, and to 
 
 " That is the very thing," William Price in 
 terrupted ; " theo would warp the Scriptures to 
 thy own use." 
 
 " I will not deny," Enoch went on, determined 
 to be pacific, " that there is danger of that which 
 thou sayest ; but, in this case, it seemed to me 
 best not to enter into such discussion; rather 
 indeed to ask thee, Is it worth while to sepa 
 rate those who could be united in spirit because 
 of so slight a difference in religious belief ? " 
 
 The man spoke with humility, but yet with a 
 conscious dignity that put him in the right and 
 the other in the wrong. He was concessive 
 and pacific, high in tone ; and, backed as he 
 was by a good character, a good family, a long 
 line of respectable antecedents, and with im 
 portant connections among the Friends, there 
 was something about his attitude that to Will 
 iam Price seemed patronizing or condescend 
 ing, and angered him. He allowed his feeling 
 to get the better of him. 
 
 " Does thee consider the difference so slight, 
 Enoch Willoughby ? Thy perception has per 
 haps become dulled by too familiar association. 
 I can only tell thee what I think, and thee can 
 make the best of it. The belief that thee pro 
 fesses is nothing but a kind of ancestor wor 
 ship; thee would set up a totem pole of an 
 162
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PRICE 
 
 Alaskan Indian in the place of the crucified 
 Saviour. That which to the right-minded man 
 causes a shock of ghostly disgust, by close as 
 sociation thee has learned to appreciate, to ex 
 alt and to reverence. Thee is on the high road 
 to ruin ; I can but say to thee, I think thee de 
 ceived, perhaps purposely allowed to be chosen 
 by the Most High as an instrument for the de 
 ception of the unwary, and it is only worse than 
 useless that we should discuss the matter again." 
 
 He spoke as though he had finished, done, 
 settled the whole matter, now and forever. He 
 spoke, too, with so much feeling that he was no 
 doubt unconscious of the sting contained in his 
 words, how sharp and severe and cutting they 
 were. 
 
 Enoch continued calm and gentle. 
 
 "Thee has touched there," he began again, 
 quietly, " upon a subject of great soreness with 
 me, and thee may be right ; yet for my sake 
 and for the sake of those connected with me, 
 I trust thee is indeed wrong ; and that for his 
 own credit, the Most High may not have given 
 me over to be deceived by the infernal powers 
 to my own undoing. That is a harsh statement 
 thee has made, William Price, concerning the 
 Most High, and one I cannot allow to go un 
 challenged ; but, for the sake of peace and har 
 mony, if thee would retract that statement, we 
 might go on with the conversation." 
 163
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 " The -e is no use of going on with the conversa 
 tion," William Price continued in the same tone 
 and with the same severity. " I toll thee plainly 
 I consider thee on the way to become a sorcerer, 
 a worker of iniquity. I will have nothing to do 
 with thee or with thy house or thy people." 
 
 " Then my mission is indeed in vain," Enoch 
 Willoughby calmly replied ; " except that I 
 should now know how unbending thy attitude 
 is ; for otherwise if Lyddie had become a mem 
 ber of thy family, it might have been to her 
 great sorrow." He paused as though about to 
 cease from further efforts, and then : " I cannot 
 refrain from telling thee, however, William, be 
 fore we part, I consider thy attitude is little 
 better than that of the early Puritans, who per 
 secuted our ancestors, thine and mine, William, 
 those Quakers of Salem, and brought them to 
 torment and painful death for those very pe 
 culiarities which thee has been pleased to find 
 fault with in me. The spirit of our fathers is 
 being driven from its resting-place in our body, 
 and it is not surprising if it seek to rest else 
 where." 
 
 The speech was not harsh because it was im 
 personal and it was hardly fair to have answered 
 it as William Price did. 
 
 " Yes, even in the swine," he retorted, " that 
 rush down the hillside into the sea and are 
 drowned ! " 
 
 164
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PKICE 
 
 If these severe speeches had touched Enoch 
 Willoughby at all, he did not show it, except 
 perhaps by becoming calmer, more reasonable 
 and possibly a little more intense. 
 
 " I do not consider the simile well chosen for 
 the occasion," he rejoined, " for by their fruits 
 ye shall know them ; and, from my youth up, 
 I have lived among the Friends and am one of 
 them, and am willing to rest my case upon their 
 knowledge of me. But if thee will only leave 
 me entirely out of the question for what I am 
 and what I may be about to become is not alto 
 gether yet clear in my own mind the young 
 woman of whom we speak is not bound to fol 
 low me, and judging from what I know of her 
 character and that of her family, I think she 
 would soon become whatever her husband is. 
 And now I feel that my mission is ended ; and, 
 though thee has spoken harsh things of me, 
 I trust I have not made thy son s case worse. 
 As for the other matter I have no fear, and I 
 shall henceforth leave it entirely to be settled by 
 thee and thine." 
 
 Then he turned and, taking little James by 
 the hand, went slowly out of the room. 
 
 It was the first time he had ever been told 
 in this blunt, harsh fashion, that he was an in 
 strument in the hands of the devil, a sorcerer, a 
 wizard. 
 
 " Truly we are not far removed from the days 
 165
 
 of old," lie said to himself, and a shudder came 
 over him. as he thought of the possibilities that 
 might arise from the situation. It is true that 
 people could not openly be burned in these days, 
 but all manner of smaller and perhaps worse per 
 secutions were possible. Then his thoughts en 
 tirely changed as in a flash, and a great yearning 
 came over him for the people of his old church, 
 of the meeting at Hesper, of the old Chester 
 meeting-house in Ohio, and of his own family. 
 " They are turning their backs upon the very 
 gift that came to them from heaven," he thought, 
 " and first made them what they are ; where is 
 that bruised reed broken by the wind, that quak 
 ing and trembling body which they used to have 
 when the spirit came upon them of old, and for 
 which they have their name of Quaker in de 
 rision. It is gone, all gone, and only in a few 
 good and great women, or in an occasional soli 
 tary and despised member of our body are signs 
 of its existence still to be observed." 
 
 As he thought these thoughts, he was walk 
 ing along in silence, holding his son s hand. 
 The boy intuitively felt the intense thought, the 
 strain, the anxiety, the shame, the jar to the af 
 fections, for children are like the upper chords 
 of an instrument that catch the waves of har 
 mony or discord that sweep over the baser 
 strings about them, and store them up ; and 
 when they have become men and women, work 
 
 166
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PKICE 
 
 out of this harmony or discord the strong notes 
 of their own natures. At this moment the boy 
 hated everything, but especially God and the 
 spirits. He hated God because he thought He 
 had taken William Price s part and was helping 
 him, and he hated the spirits because he thought 
 in some way they had gotten his father into 
 trouble. Why didn t they get him out, if they 
 were, worth anything? Why, after they beat 
 him in the corn-crib and made him give up and 
 obey them, didn t they take his part instead of 
 getting him into more trouble ? 
 
 Such thoughts as these were passing through 
 the mind of the boy, while the father, perhaps, 
 hardly supposed the subject of this conversation 
 would be intelligible to him. If he had thought 
 of it, he would not have taken the boy along ; 
 and yet he was not so small, this boy ; he was 
 old enough to board away from home in the 
 winter and go to school ; he was old enough to 
 take his father s part vigorously before a whole 
 roomful of people, and stand up and tell them 
 they "lied," when he thought they were speak 
 ing falsely of his parents. The fact of it is the 
 father had not noticed that all these years he 
 had studied spiritualism and argued with the 
 Quakers and taken their preachers around on 
 their itineraries, this boy had grown from baby 
 hood into childhood and then boyhood and that 
 his reason was beginning to develop. 
 167
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 It came to him then like a voice out of the blue 
 sky, when James said, suddenly : 
 
 "Why don t thee quit the whole thing, father, 
 and be like George Header; he never talks 
 about spirits or God or Heaven, but just about 
 the store, and who can pay his debts and who 
 can t ; and about the price of cattle and hogs ; 
 and how much of everything a dollar will buy. 
 That s the kind of man I intend to be when I 
 grow up, and I won t have anythimj to do with 
 anything." 
 
 Slowly and heavily Enoch s thoughts came 
 back to the boy and what he had said. 
 
 "That is very well, James; everything hath 
 its time and its season. We will talk that all 
 over when thee comes home again. Now thee d 
 better go on to school; I ll be up for thee 
 Friday." 
 
 They shook hands and separated, and the 
 father said to himself, " What has the boy been 
 thinking about, I wonder ? " 
 
 Inside, at William Price s, William Olney said 
 to his father, " Thee has rejected Enoch Wil- 
 loughby s advances toward a reconciliation, and 
 made everything worse ; thee will live to repent 
 this day, father." 
 
 But William Price could not be led into an 
 other conversation with his son on the painful 
 subject. He said nothing in answer to any re- 
 103
 
 ENOCH TALKS WITH WILLIAM PRICE 
 
 marks that were made to him. Even to his 
 daughter Sally, who remarked that the man s 
 bearing had been good and modest, he replied 
 not a word, but soon went away to his day s 
 business. 
 
 169
 
 XV 
 
 LYDDEE DECEIVES HERSELF 
 
 THERE was something inexpressibly sad about 
 it when Lyddie O Mara presently became en 
 gaged to Aaron Melwin. She could not have 
 loved him. She had shown clearly enough that 
 her affections were with William Olney Price ; 
 but, since that day when she had made up her 
 mind what was right to do, she had never seen 
 William Olney. 
 
 Why then had she consented to marry another 
 man? If any one can answer the question, he 
 knows more about it than I do. She undoubt 
 edly knew what she was doing, for the poor girl 
 suffered over it for weeks and wept as if she had 
 lost her last friend on earth. 
 
 She made no concealment to young Melwin 
 that her affections were not with him. 
 
 "I like thee, Aaron Melwiu," she answered 
 to his importunity : " I cannot deny that, but 
 that is all. I fear I -care for thee as for a child 
 that needs watching." She told him she was 
 afraid he was not going to make the best out 
 of himself, and that was what gave her concern 
 about him. 
 
 170
 
 LYDDIE DECEIVES HERSELF 
 
 And this very concern it was that so pleased 
 young Mel win. He felt that he had some one 
 to look out for him, and be interested in him. 
 He was not a deep nature, and perhaps received 
 from Lyddie as much affection as he was capa 
 ble of appreciating ; at any rate he was willing to 
 take what he could get, and put up such a constant 
 plea that the girl thought she might be going to 
 make him miserable too. It looked a little as 
 though she were only brought into the world for 
 the unhappiness of all about her. She reasoned 
 that it would profit nothing to refuse him, and 
 could not make it worse for William Olney or 
 himself to accept him ; on the contrary, that it 
 would be the best and quickest way of healing 
 the whole difficulty, and repairing the damage 
 she had already done. There is no doubt the 
 girl took some consolation in the thought of her 
 martyrdom, for it was a case of pure self-sacri 
 fice ; on the other hand, she knew she was pre 
 paring for herself a wretched life. 
 
 Perhaps after all she would not have been led 
 to engage herself to the young man if it had not 
 been that at this time the Willoughbys were 
 about to leave the country. In theory Enoch 
 Willoughby retained no malice or ill-f eeling ; and 
 if any arose within him checked it and put it 
 down by main force. But perhaps such feelings 
 are capable of existing notwithstanding, and of 
 influencing the actions. At any rate, not long 
 171
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 after that visit to William Price, he sold the 
 place and paid off the Price mortgage. 
 
 Hannah told him she knew ho did it because 
 he was angry at William Price, but he vigorous 
 ly denied it. 
 
 " Did thee ever know me to be angry, Han 
 nah ? " he asked her. 
 
 "No," she acknowledged; "I never knew theo 
 to be angry as other people are in the good old- 
 fashioned way, more s the pity, and fly up, and 
 give people a piece of thy honest mind. For 
 my part, I consider that the better way, rather 
 than deceive thyself by thinking thee had no ill- 
 feeling, and go on acting under its influence." 
 
 There were a good many things in Enoch s 
 theories that Hannah had come to have "no pa 
 tience with," and was finding it hard to reconcile 
 with his actions. 
 
 Then Enoch said it was the asthma and the 
 cold winters, and Hannah said that was all a 
 pretence ; they had asthma as well in the South ; 
 the variations in temperature were just as great, 
 and it was only the variations that counted for 
 anything. Again Enoch declared the interest on 
 the boiTOwed money was one motive ; it was a 
 constant expense and did not vary as the income 
 from the land did. Enoch had all along made 
 up his mind to go to the Reserve at Tonganoxie, 
 though Hannah had said there were Quakers 
 there, and it would be no better. Enoch had 
 172
 
 LYDDIE DECEIVES HEKSELF 
 
 insisted he was not going away from the Quakers, 
 and Hannah had said nothing ; but she had kept 
 her own opinion about it. 
 
 The time for their moving had been actually 
 fixed upon ; but Mose and Eck, Lyddie s young 
 brothers, were not going ; and Lyddie did not 
 want to leave them. She did not want to leave 
 the country and the neighborhood ; perhaps this 
 had had something to do with her engaging her 
 self to young Aaron Mel win. 
 
 In this separation from the church, it would 
 be false to the truth and to art, not to show an 
 other side of the picture, to mention the Quakers 
 who sympathized with the Enoch Willoughbys; 
 for there were those who did, and for whom they 
 had the warmest feeling. The Prices were some 
 what unusual people in the meeting, their posi 
 tion a little higher because of their wealth and 
 their direct connection with the Providence 
 Friends ; and, of course, there were no such ties 
 to be broken between them and the Willoughbys 
 as, for instance, between the Swains and them. 
 We have had occasion to mention Shubal Swain. 
 He was only one of a dozen Friends who were 
 bound by the warmest ties to the Willoughbys 
 from their association together in a new settle 
 ment and in a new country. The Swains were 
 as much opposed to the new doctrine as the 
 Prices, no doubt, and as most, if not all, of the 
 Friends were ; but they had not the same repug- 
 173
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 nance to it. The Enoch Willoughbys said they 
 were more spiritual than most of the meeting. 
 
 In fact the Willoughbys now began to classify 
 everybody in this way, into the spiritual and the 
 material or worldly ; and they noticed that the 
 classification did not run according to wealth. 
 William Price was worldly, there was no doubt 
 about it ; and he had wealth. But Elias Koontz 
 was equally well off, and they had great sym 
 pathy with him and his family. Shubal Swain 
 was about as important in the Hesper meeting 
 as William Price, but in an altogether different 
 way. He was on the spiritual side of the meet 
 ing ; not a preacher, but it seemed that when he 
 spoke in ordinary conversation, there was some 
 thing of the spirit in his voice and in his words ; 
 the touch of his hand was more like that of the 
 Willoughbys themselves. There was a genuine 
 friendly feeling between the two families. 
 
 Shubal Swain was so silent a man one might 
 almost say he never said anything, though of 
 course that would be an exaggeration. He said 
 very little, and Mary Swain never said anything 
 but what was good of people, and Lou and Cal 
 and Willie all had gentle voices and kindly nat 
 ures that made them universally well liked. 
 " They are not afraid to be friendly with us, 
 either," Hannah said, and that now became a 
 very common expression with Hannah and 
 Enoch. People were afraid of being unpopular 
 174
 
 LYDDIE DECEIVES HERSELF 
 
 if they had anything to do with Spiritualists. 
 They would not want " to be seen with one of 
 them," they said. This feeling was strong in 
 the whole neighborhood, but it could not affect 
 the Swains. They were as friendly now as ever, 
 and Lou s jolly laugh rang out in the Wil- 
 loughby house now just the same among these 
 "Willoughby Spiritualists as it used to do among 
 the Willoughby Quakers there. 
 
 " Lou Swain," Hannah said to her one day 
 when she had come over to see them, "you peo 
 ple are about the only ones who haven t changed 
 at all in your manner toward us since we be 
 came Spiritualists, while others act as though 
 they were afraid of their lives here. Does thee 
 know sometimes when they go by and look 
 around as though they thought they would see 
 a ghost sitting upright on the ridge-pole of the 
 house, I feel as if I should like to go out and 
 frighten them." Even in ghostly matters there 
 was a spirit of fun and mischief about Hannah. 
 She could get some pleasantness even out of a 
 reputation for witchcraft. 
 
 Then she asked Lou Swain how it was they 
 did not feel afraid of them. 
 
 "I don t see any difference in thee," Lou an 
 swered. She was on terms of great familiarity 
 with Hannah. " Thee is just the same tall, lean 
 Hannah Willoughby now that thee always was, 
 and thy chicken gravy tastes just the same now 
 175
 
 that it always did when I come to see thee." 
 She laughed again, a laugh impossible to de 
 scribe. " Lou Swain has such a good laugh," 
 Hannah used to say. 
 
 The same good feeling existed for all the other 
 members of the family. Enoch tried to convert 
 Shubal Swain to spiritualism, and Shubal lis 
 tened with infinite patience. I think he took it 
 as a sort of lesson in the Scriptures ; Enoch s 
 long and frequent quotations from the Bible 
 seemed to please him. 
 
 He said nothing, or but little ; but what he 
 did say was golden. " Yes, examine all thee 
 pleases," he said, or such oracular maxims as 
 these, all given as answers to questions or 
 thrown in between arguments : 
 
 " No, it is foolish to be afraid of the truth." 
 
 "Whether popular or unpopular is not a 
 question of importance." 
 
 "Yes, charity for all belief sand all persons is 
 the only right attitude." 
 
 " So thee likes the spirit of the Saviour s 
 teachings; I don t see anything else necessary." 
 And so on. But he did advise Enoch not to 
 go too much among the Spiritualists, and in 
 that, too, Enoch Willoughby felt there would 
 have been some lack of perfect honesty. " One 
 ought to live and act honestly, according to his 
 belief," he said, and that he attempted to do in 
 every way possible. 
 
 176
 
 XVI 
 
 THE NEW SECT 
 
 THIS friendship for the Swains and for others 
 of the meeting had its pathetic side, for it would 
 have to be broken off too. There had been nu 
 merous Spiritualists coming into the country of 
 late, most of them, it is true, of no very high 
 respectability, and Hannah at first condemned 
 them all and would have nothing to do with 
 them. But Enoch remained consistent with 
 himself and his inexorable logic ; he would not 
 condemn one for all, nor all for one. They oc 
 casionally had those evening meetings still, and 
 of course every one in the neighborhood knew 
 the Enoch Willoughbys were Spiritualists. 
 
 One evening a man and two women drove up 
 in a light wagon, stopped before the house, and 
 went in. The two women were sisters; the 
 man was the husband of one of the women ; all 
 three were strangers to the Willoughbys. They 
 stated their business ; they were Spiritualists 
 themselves they said, and had heard that the 
 Willoughbys were also, and they thought per 
 haps they would be holding a meeting. They 
 were rather odd-looking people, with a " down 
 177
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 East" accent. One of the women was called 
 P lene, possibly a shortening of Pauline, and 
 the other, Susan. The woman P lene, the elder, 
 had a rather firm look about the mouth, an ex 
 pression of the eye that was not bad, but unu 
 sual in some way, and a rather metallic tone of 
 voice. The woman Susan was at first sight, to 
 say the least, not handsome ; but when you 
 looked at her more closely, her somewhat too- 
 high forehead was, after all, shapely ; her eyes 
 were mild, in fact, almost too mild, and her voice 
 was unusually soft and sweet, even for a wom 
 an s. She seemed timid among strangers, and 
 said very little. The man was simply coarse- 
 looking, and that was about the best that could 
 be said of him. 
 
 Hannah made no reply to this suggestion as 
 to the spiritual meeting, or merely said she did 
 not know about it, and asked them to be seated. 
 Then a few commonplaces were passed as to 
 where the women lived, and so on, and Enoch 
 Willoughby came in. The same sort of general 
 introduction was entered upon ; Enoch took up 
 with the suggestion of a meeting and asked if 
 any of them were speakers. They wore plainly 
 not accustomed to his style of address, for they 
 spoke of " circles " and " seances," of " mediums " 
 and " mediumship." It turned out that all three 
 were mediums of the speaking phase, but Su 
 san, the younger of the sisters, was the most 
 178
 
 THE NEW SECT 
 
 gifted, the spirit generally coining upon her 
 with very great power and often giving re 
 markable tests of spirit life through her medium- 
 ship. All this was related by P lene, with oc 
 casional notes and comments by her husband, 
 while Susan remained silent and timid. Enoch 
 explained that he was a very imperfect speaksr 
 himself, the spirit having indeed a powerful 
 hold upon him, but lacking the right kind of 
 guidance in some way, so that he was made to 
 go through quite singular actions not at all 
 pleasant to look at ; thus he had been obliged 
 with great reluctance to resist the inclination 
 to speak in the Quaker meeting, and generally 
 found it best to refrain from yielding to the in 
 fluence at all. 
 
 Then the elder of the two women began to 
 explain to him that what he needed was "de 
 velopment." 
 
 " You should sit in circles frequently," she 
 said ; " in fact, as often as possible ; the influ 
 ence would then come upon you more and more 
 easily, until finally you would be influenced 
 almost imperceptibly. The best speakers pass 
 under influence without mortal eye being able 
 to detect the change, and such a condition can 
 easily be acquired. The conditions must how 
 ever be kept favorable." This was the first use 
 of that word conditions which came later to play 
 a great part in the life of the family. 
 179
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 In a word, a meeting was arranged for, Enoch 
 entering into it much more willingly than Han 
 nah, who felt the lack of respectability and 
 standing of these people, and was inclined to 
 pay a good deal of attention to such things. 
 This very consideration, on the contrary, made 
 Enoch Willoughby the more eager to consent to 
 their request and sit with them. 
 
 " We must not feel ourselves above anybody, 
 Hannah," he said. This was another theory of 
 his with which Hannah said she had no pa 
 tience, and in which she put no confidence. 
 
 "Thee feels thyself above people just as 
 much as any one does, Enoch," she replied, " only 
 they are different people in thy case ; and then 
 thee has a way of treating them kindly and con 
 descendingly ; but they are not deceived by it. 
 People all hold themselves in certain places 
 with regard to other people ; they cannot help 
 it, any more than any other law of nature; and," 
 she continued, " I don t like the looks of these 
 people, and don t care to associate with them." 
 
 But she could not avoid this first meeting ; it 
 had already been arranged for ; and after it was 
 over, Hannah s opinion had changed. She did 
 not have a fancy for P lene, but she could not 
 help liking Susan. All three of the visitors 
 had risen and spoken under the " influence," 
 the man but briefly, and unpleasantly it must 
 be confessed ; P lene, too, in rather few words, 
 180
 
 THE NEW SECT 
 
 and as Enoch said, " a little as though she did 
 it herself." But Susan, the moment she rose 
 to her feet, had seemed an entirely different 
 person. 
 
 Her eyes had seemed to catch new fire ; her 
 voice had swollen out sweet, clear, vibrating ; 
 her actions and gestures were simple and ap 
 propriate ; her words had no philosophical 
 depth, it is true, and were only of the import of 
 these of most mediums : but there was an un 
 mistakable something about her, that showed 
 that the woman was not herself. The moment 
 she began to speak, Enoch looked up, and Han 
 nah too. They never missed a word or act of 
 hers while she remained on the floor. They 
 almost held their breath, and when " it " left 
 her and she sat down they both sighed involun 
 tarily from that feeling that you have when 
 some one executes a beautiful piece of music, 
 and a pleasure akin to pain seizes upon you ; a 
 something, perhaps an undefined longing that 
 you yourself might have been the performer. 
 
 If Enoch Willoughby could have spoken like 
 that in the Quaker meeting, how different his 
 life might have been ! There were almost tears 
 in his eyes when she finished. " She is a good 
 woman," he thought : " she must be a good 
 woman." 
 
 He fought off the influence from himself ; he 
 could not bear to let the spirit come upon him. 
 181
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 He felt it beginning in his right shoulder, and 
 his hands were getting a little cold, but he 
 resolutely held his shoulders still and rubbed 
 his hands back into their normal feeling ; and 
 pretty soon got up and brought the meeting to 
 an end by beginning a conversation on some 
 commonplace matter, so that not long after the 
 new-comers went away. 
 
 That was the first real spiritual meeting the 
 Willoughbys ever had with strangers, but it was 
 not the last ; it only furnished the beginning to 
 a long series of such meetings. Both Enoch 
 and Hannah hoped that those people would 
 come again. 
 
 Hannah was captivated by Susan s voice. " I 
 cannot tell thee how it went through me," she 
 said to Enoch. " She is a woman of great 
 spiritual gift, it must be." 
 
 And so Enoch thought too. He began also 
 to think the woman might be the means of aid 
 ing him in his own development. It may be he- 
 even yet had visions of going back to the 
 Quaker meeting, and rising without any twitch 
 ing and nervous actions, any peculiarity of 
 manner, and yet under the " power " and speak 
 ing to his old meeting in such a way as to show 
 them that his " influence " was good. 
 
 Hannah as usual had her own opinion. 
 
 " Thee is the most envious mortal that ever 
 lived," she averred, "and the most ambitious; 
 182
 
 THE NEW SECT 
 
 and yet keeps it all down, and conceals it, and 
 deceives thyself, so that thee never knows what 
 thy own motives really are." 
 
 And his answer was something like : " Fie, 
 fie, Hannah; what does thee mean by saying 
 such a thing?" 
 
 " I mean," Hannah would explain tempestu 
 ously, " thee d give thy right arm to be able to 
 speak like this woman in meeting, and I con 
 sider that just as much vanity as all the other 
 little vanities thee s constantly talking about. 
 But thee need not think of ever going back to 
 the old meeting, Enoch. If thee goes in with 
 those people, and learns to speak with the 
 tongues of angels, and with the unction of 
 Stephen himself the Quakers will never listen 
 to thee. It isn t worth while for thee to go to 
 that school to learn, if thee cares for thy old 
 congregation." 
 
 But Enoch did go to that school, and later 
 on, Hannah, too. 
 
 The next time those people came, Enoch al 
 lowed himself to be influenced, and he thought 
 the influence was better. It was a little easier, 
 and certainly he spoke more fluently and with 
 less of that unpleasant manner. And Han 
 nah s liking for Susan grew; she did not so 
 greatly dislike P lene either; and the man 
 himself became after awhile at least a little 
 more tolerable to all of them. But he finally 
 183
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 separated from his wife, and left the neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 Before very long, a few other families came 
 in, and a kind of spiritual settlement was 
 formed; spiritual meetings every Sunday be 
 came common ; they were held now at Susan s, 
 now at P lene s, and at last at the Willoughbys . 
 
 Hannah found that she was easily influenced, 
 much more easily than Enoch although Enoch 
 always said she did it herself ; and Hannah al 
 ways said he was only envious of her and she 
 got to liking the meetings; until, finally, al 
 most before they knew it, they had all gone, one 
 might almost say rashly and rapidly, over to 
 modern spiritualism ; all except Lyddie. 
 
 She had either taken a dislike to it or had 
 been afraid of it ; for, from whatever other rea 
 son it might have been, she had no more signs 
 of the influence ; and, though she met these new 
 Spiritualists, she would not be present at the 
 meetings or have anything to do with their 
 spiritualism. 
 
 Nor can we allow that Enoch Willoughby was 
 entirely earned away with them, either. For a 
 time he undoubtedly was captured by the charm 
 of Susan s voice, by the fact of her mysterious 
 double nature, the presence of the unknown 
 and possibly unknowable in her, and in others 
 of the new sect. But after awhile the hard, 
 practical, Willoughby common-sense returned ; 
 184
 
 THE NEW SECT 
 
 Enoch began to notice carefully what was said, 
 and he found it largely unsatisfactory. He 
 considered carefully the tests they gave, and he 
 found they always had some loophole of escape. 
 The women were not frauds he was convinced 
 of that but, under the " influence," they would 
 undoubtedly tell most extravagant falsehoods, 
 directly in connection with their very best tests 
 and proofs ; all except this woman, Susan. She 
 said very little that was in the nature of tests ; 
 but what little she did say seemed to be almost 
 incontrovertible. Her " influence " was an in 
 telligence apart from her own knowledge, and, 
 almost without exception, told the truth. Hers 
 was not a lying spirit ; but, good as it was, sim 
 ple and true as it seemed, a mind like Enoch 
 "Willoughby s could not be content to listen to a 
 woman, if she had the charm of spiritual mys 
 tery upon her never so strongly, or repeated 
 over and over the words, " I come from the 
 spirit land to show you there is a life after 
 death," indefinitely ; and that is practically 
 what she did, though with a thousand varia 
 tions, it is true ; in a deep, rich, thrilling voice : 
 sometimes in rhyme ; oftener in pleasant ca 
 dences and good inflections ; with a wide range 
 of melody and harmony of sound. But, after all, 
 it was like a love-song in the opera ; you began 
 to want to hear into the words ; you wanted 
 more depth of meaning, and less musical effect. 
 185
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 There might be condensed into the mouth of 
 this one Susan and into the effect of her preach 
 ing the result of the whole spiritual investiga 
 tion of Enoch Willoughby s life. It never sat 
 isfied him ; but he became, and lived and died, 
 a Spiritualist. He had taken the name when he 
 was a Quaker, under the force of his own men 
 tal or spiritual growth, and under most painful 
 mental stress, and he purposed abiding by it. 
 He gradually came to lose a little of the rever 
 ential feeling he had had for the subject ; it be 
 came a little like a toy, an old plauchette board, 
 with which he once spent a few idle moments, 
 and yet looked upon with a little mystery, as 
 though he still had the feeling that something 
 might come out of it after all ; as though, he 
 thought, with a smile half pathetic, "it came 
 very nearly amounting to something anyway." 
 He did not mind it so much now if the spirit 
 did ridiculous things. He could laugh at some 
 of P lene s grotesque attitudes, when under the 
 influence ; and, when he heard wonderful tests 
 spoken of, he would generally add humorously, 
 " Yes, but that was in Indiana, while we are in 
 Iowa; that was a long way off" ; meaning that 
 most likely there was no truth in it. Yet he had 
 the same belief in his dreams and visions that he 
 had formerly had. He would have been as much 
 impressed by Loisa Painter s influence now as 
 ever. He studied the Bible more, if possible, 
 186
 
 THE NEW SECT 
 
 than before. He went to the spiritual meetings, 
 unsatisfactory as they almost always were, be 
 cause he thought he could not do any better. 
 He did not succeed with his " influence " there 
 much better than he had done in the Quaker 
 meetings. His gestures were unpleasant, his 
 attitudes grotesque, and his imitations and 
 tests, most generally, ridiculous. But he had 
 cast in his lot with the Spiritualists, and he 
 would not leave them. The fact that people 
 said harsh things about them, called them all 
 frauds and deceivers and low people, aroused his 
 sense of justice. He would not condemn one 
 for all or all for a few : and there were, he felt, 
 people of deep spirituality among them ; Chris 
 tian Dorotheas even, among spiritual mediums. 
 
 " Doesn t new wine have to be put into new 
 wine-skins, lest if new wine be put into old 
 wine-skins, they will burst and the wine be 
 spilled," he used to quote in this connection. 
 
 But he gradually lost something of his great 
 expectations. After a few months, may be 
 years, of association with mediums and preach 
 ers and even spiritually minded Quakers, he no 
 longer expected so much to see suddenly a halo 
 of mystical light appear about the head of Susan 
 when she was speaking ; or a mysterious hand 
 materialize in front of P lene s face ; or that he 
 could by spirit impression tell accurately the 
 name of some stranger s uncle, or aunt, or 
 187
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 grandmother, and exactly on what day he or 
 she died, and what dress was worn on that oc 
 casion. But he and Hannah came to like these 
 people and others of the sect, even if they could 
 not give mathematical demonstration of the ex 
 istence of God, and of the soul after death. 
 Susan was a good woman, as he had thought ; 
 and P lene, too, though a little harsh in her 
 nature; and they sometimes had very good and 
 satisfactory meetings together with them and 
 with others of the neighborhood. His own 
 actions, when speaking, that had been out of 
 place in some way in the Quaker meeting, were 
 not so noticeable here, in his own home, or at 
 Susan s, or P lene s, with a group of the neigh 
 bors around. If they w r ere remarkably bad, the 
 explanation of them was always ready at hand ; 
 it was simply an odd spirit that had taken 
 possession of him. They laughed at its capers, 
 and let it go on its way rejoicing. And the in 
 fluence did good ; that Enoch Willoughby could 
 not have been made to deny. It brought a 
 soothing effect, it harmonized mental trouble, 
 freed the burdened mind oppressed with the 
 weariness of life, just the same in the spiritual 
 meeting as it had before in the Quaker meet 
 ings. Perhaps it would have done just as well 
 if he had practised elocution, or singing, recited 
 " Clarence s dream ; " or " Hamilton yielded to 
 the force of an imperious custom." I don t 
 188
 
 THE NEW SECT 
 
 know. I only know that he remained a Spirit 
 ualist, attended the meetings with Hannah, and 
 got some good out of them, though just what 
 is not so easy to tell. 
 
 But the essential attitude of the spiritual 
 mind is that it feels always there is more in 
 Heaven and Earth than may be dreamed of in 
 our philosophy. It does not know what time 
 something may happen ; it is a mind open, and 
 receptive to mysterious influences; and unless 
 we greatly mistake, such a mind can be per 
 fectly sane. Enoch Willoughby could tell ex 
 actly where two men should put a spike under a 
 log so that a third man at the end should share 
 the weight equally with them ; or how long the 
 short end of a whiffle-tree should be, to make 
 two horses share the load equally with a third 
 hitched to the long end ; but I do not believe he 
 would have been surprised at all to see "William 
 Price walk into his house, forcibly led by the 
 spirit, and put William Olney s and Lyddie s 
 hands together, and say "What God has joined 
 together, let no man put asunder." 
 
 189
 
 XVII 
 
 RELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 THIS going to the spiritualist meetings grad 
 ually took the Willoughbys away from the 
 Quakers, and came to separate them from even 
 those of the church with whom they had ever 
 remained on terms of friendship. That was sad. 
 They could not bear to give up some of them. 
 Hannah said " she would not have Mary Swain 
 get to thinking hard of them for anything in the 
 world." 
 
 " There is no danger," Enoch said. " Shubal 
 Swain is a man who does not judge of people 
 by little and insignificant things. He is a man 
 of great charity and broad mind ; thee need not 
 fear." 
 
 But one day he saw Hannah crying, actually 
 crying, as in the days when they lived at his 
 father s, old Enoch "Willoughby s, in Ohio, years 
 ago, and asked her what was the matter. 
 
 " I am ashamed to say," she said at first, but 
 then : " the Swains have gone by to the Cadwal- 
 laders, and that s the second time they ve gone 
 there since we have been to see them. Both 
 Mary and Lou owe me a visit. I can t help 
 190
 
 RELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 feeling bad about it ; of course, they may have 
 had some business at the Cadwalladers that 
 has taken them there this time, but I feel as if 
 they are going to leave us too. I couldn t bear 
 it." 
 
 It was a long time before Enoch could console 
 her. 
 
 " Never thee fear, Hannah," he said. " Shubal 
 Swain talks little, but he thinks a great deal, 
 and he seldom says anything but what is just 
 right ; that shows that his thoughts are right ; 
 and, if that is the case, he will not misjudge us ; 
 but thee must be careful thyself." 
 
 Then he remembered her intimacy with 
 Susan and P lene, and told her to think whether 
 she had not herself gone with them more even 
 than two times in succession ; and advised her 
 to consider what Lou and Mary might have the 
 right to think of her, and to be charitable. 
 
 Even as he was talking to her, a wagon was 
 heard driving along up the road. Hannah 
 looked out of the window and saw it; it was 
 the Swains coming back. They had driven in 
 to the Cadwalladers, on an errand probably, 
 and had then come back, and were driving up 
 to the Willoughbys on a visit. 
 
 Hannah s spirits were full of exuberant 
 
 gayety as well as sudden sinkings and fits of 
 
 despondency. I am not certain that what she 
 
 did now actually was to her credit, but she was 
 
 191
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 so delighted that the Swains had come that she 
 must do something. 
 
 After she had met them and greeted them, 
 she had to go out to bathe her eyes, for every 
 one saw she had been crying, and when she 
 came back, she carried in her hand her old 
 Quaker bonnet. It is impossible to bring back 
 now the spirit of fun and jollity that she suc 
 ceeded in putting into the conversation that en 
 sued about this Quaker bonnet. Such mirth 
 arises from the moment, only, and cannot be re 
 produced. They knew she had been crying and 
 their sympathies had been won over ; when she 
 now referred to her feelings, and said it was all 
 about this Quaker bonnet, they did not know 
 what she meant. 
 
 " I want to tell thee, Mary Swain," she said, 
 " this Quaker bonnet for some time has been 
 on the point of taking a long journey." 
 
 They waited for her to continue and explain. 
 
 " I have been thinking of sending it back to 
 my sister in Ohio," she said. " If we remained 
 Quakers, I thought I should keep it, as I might 
 need it. If we became spiritualists, I thought I 
 should send it back, as I could no longer make 
 use of it, and my sister might use it." 
 
 But here Enoch, rebuking her gently, asked 
 what she meant, and said : 
 
 " Hannah, I would not make light of a serious 
 question. Does thee consider that the question 
 192
 
 RELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 of what church we belong to is of no more im 
 portance than the disposition of thy bonnet ? " 
 
 " If it is important, then why don t thee decide 
 it," Hannah replied impetuously. "The more 
 important it is, the more necessary for an early 
 decision. As for me," she continued, " I ve 
 been waiting a long time to know what way 
 thee was going to take, whether thee would be a 
 Quaker or a spiritualist ; and I am unable to 
 decide ; thee s as much on the fence now as 
 ever." 
 
 "Hannah has very little mind of her own 
 about such matters," Enoch said, turning to 
 Shubal. 
 
 But Hannah would not allow that remark to 
 go unanswered. " It is thee," she said, " who 
 has no mind of thy own. Thee would like to be 
 a Quaker if thee could make the Quakers think 
 exactly as thee does, and be a spiritualist if thee 
 could only prove with miracles and signs and 
 wonders what is impossible to be proven. I 
 don t consider that the whole question is worth 
 any more than the question of a Quaker bonnet; 
 and, as for me, I consider that I have more mind 
 and will of my own exactly because I do not 
 decide. I am waiting for thee to decide, and it 
 seems to me it is pretty nearly time. Will 
 thee wait till they turn thee out of the church, 
 wait till we lose all our friends in both direc 
 tions, while thee is studying something thee 
 193
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 can never find out as long as thee lives? That 
 is what s the matter with me. I see we are 
 going to lose all our friends." 
 
 Just here Lyddie came into the room, spoke 
 to everybody, and then went on out. 
 
 " How poorly thy sister is looking," Mary 
 Swain remarked, and Haunah replied. 
 
 " Yes, it is distress of mind that is the mat 
 ter with her," said Hannah, " as perhaps thee 
 knows, and that is a much more important thing 
 than the final disposition of a Quaker bonnet." 
 
 Hannah was full of her theme of the bonnet. 
 
 " That s it," she went on ; " if the church 
 only affected the religion of our souls, it would 
 not make so much difference ; but, when it tells 
 us what kind of clothing we shall wear, who 
 shall be our friends and who not, it is something 
 more serious." 
 
 And then she must have had an impulse to 
 confidence, for she said : " I want to ask thee, 
 Shubal, when we go over to the spiritualists en 
 tirely, as I feel we are about to do, must we lose 
 all our old friends among the Quakers. Will 
 you people leave us too ? Will you think that 
 we are workers of iniquity ? We think so 
 much of you 
 
 But here Enoch interposed with : " Hannah, 
 Hannah," attempting to cause her to cease 
 speaking, for flattery to the face was as unpleas 
 ant to him as caressing or signs of affection. 
 194
 
 RELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 But Hannah was in this as in other things : 
 when she had anything to say, she proposed to 
 say it. 
 
 " Enoch, I have the floor," she began, and 
 Enoch was obliged to let her go on. " You are 
 our best friends in this meeting," she con 
 tinued, turning to the Swains ; " you have 
 never shown us the cold shoulder, and I have 
 thought a great deal about it ; it is one of the 
 main reasons why I hated to leave the meeting. 
 If I thought you could still respect us and 
 would respect us, I should not so much care ; 
 and I want to know what thee thinks about it." 
 She said this addressing Shubal directly. 
 " Never mind what Enoch says," she con 
 tinued ; " thee can tell me what thee thinks ; 
 will it be the last of our friendship ? Must we 
 give you people up ? " 
 
 " Hannah," Enoch interposed, " nobody can 
 answer such questions." 
 
 But Shubal had been appealed to, and he re 
 plied. " What may take place in time, of course, 
 I do not know. People grow apart by gradual 
 dissociation, as they have grown together by 
 association ; but, I think I may assure thee of 
 one thing, that as long as we think you are try 
 ing to do right, no matter what belief you may 
 profess, we shall never cast you out of our 
 hearts, and we hope you will think the same of 
 us." 
 
 195
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Then all were silent. Hannah wiped her 
 eyes, for, in spite of herself, the tears had been 
 coming, and said she did not so much care in 
 that case what became of the bonnet. 
 
 Just then a knock was heard at the door. 
 
 It is easy enough in general to make sport of 
 a man in love, but not of one in the condition in 
 which William Olney Price now walked into the 
 room. He cast a gloom over the whole place. 
 Every one felt depressed from the mere sight of 
 him, though, of course, they shook hands and 
 spoke with him, and had him take a seat. 
 They knew he had come to see Lyddie again, 
 and that Lyddie would not see him. He did 
 not ask for her, for he had been there before 
 and had not been able to see her, and she was 
 said, he knew, to be about to marry young 
 Aaron Melwin. But a condemned man has 
 more interest in looking at the place of his 
 execution than any other ; and I suppose some 
 such feeling had been the cause of his coming. 
 
 And now there took place one of those events 
 that were not so unusual to that life, but would 
 certainly be very strange in this, for these peo 
 ple did not keep their religion as a Sunday 
 affair, a silk hat to be kept in a bandbox and 
 only taken out once a week to be carefully worn 
 and put away again ; they kept it for every-day 
 use. When Hannah and Enoch fell out, as 
 alas, they sometimes did, it was not unusual at 
 19G
 
 RELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 all for them finally to make up by prayer ; as 
 when any domestic trouble occurred in the 
 neighborhood the house committee of Friends 
 used to hold a family service. So now, this 
 afternoon, that meeting in the sitting-room, 
 without having been called for any such pur 
 pose, became a religious meeting. 
 
 Can one imagine that after-dinner quiet ; the 
 thought of separation of the two lovers that 
 was uppermost in all minds ; the distressed ap 
 pearance of William Olney, and all the utter 
 impossibility of harmonizing matters. Gradu 
 ally the room settled into silence. You would 
 almost have expected some one to say, " Let 
 us pray." 
 
 But they did not do that in those days ; they 
 waited till a kind of spiritual silence fell upon 
 them as it did now. They were all more or less 
 impressionable. They all felt there was going 
 to be some manifestation of the spirit. What 
 would it be ? Upon whom would the lightning 
 fall? 
 
 Hannah saw that Mary Swain was going to 
 speak. She rose as softly as she could and 
 went out. Pretty soon she came back, bringing 
 Lydclie with her, and sat down again. 
 
 The mind of Enoch, all the time, was ripe for 
 
 the miraculous. Here was a chance for the healer, 
 
 for the spirit of power, for love, for peace, to 
 
 return to earth, and conquer the stubbornness of 
 
 197
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 the will. Here was the kind of love-feast that 
 his soul was always longing for. 
 
 No one could repeat the words of the good 
 woman who rose and spoke ; and, if they were 
 given, they would not be important. They 
 were mostly words from the Bible, and sung 
 right into the soul. 
 
 " There shall be no parting there," she sang, 
 "no sorrowing there, there shall be no marrying 
 or giving in marriage, but all shall be like the 
 angels of heaven." 
 
 What pangs of jealousy these words had once 
 caused Hannah years ago when she heard 
 Enoch going over them and she thought of him 
 in heaven and not her husband and she not his 
 wife! It seemed impossible. But now there 
 was something exquisitely peaceful and blessed 
 about the thought of a love that had nothing of 
 earthly marriage in it ; no jealousy, no hateful 
 pang, but only peace and rest ; delightful heav 
 enly rest and mutual confidence and harmony. 
 
 The speech of this sweet Quaker woman was 
 like a service in church, every note of which 
 sends the fancy wandering off, searching its past, 
 anticipating its future ; now through our child 
 hood, our present sorrows, our future joys ; leav 
 ing us at last with our friends, our lovers, in a 
 world to come. That must be the meaning of 
 religion, that where troubles are irresolvable 
 here they are loosed in heaven. It is the time, 
 
 198
 
 RELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 the place, the voice, the impression of sincerity 
 carried with it that go to the soul like the smile 
 of heavenly peace and have their effect in a 
 sermon like this. Mary Swain did not often 
 speak in meeting, but when she did it was with 
 great power of the spirit. 
 
 And long before she had ceased speaking, 
 there was not a dry eye in the room. William 
 Olney had gone over to Lyddie s side and had 
 taken her unresisting hand and was standing 
 by her. She was crying silently. When the 
 speaker ceased her good words, the room was 
 silent for a time, but all felt then that these two 
 ought to be left alone, they ought to speak to 
 gether now and perhaps finally, so they went 
 out and left them. 
 
 That was a good deal the kind of religious 
 meeting these people were accustomed to ; and 
 what gentleness, what peace came from it ! How 
 they felt drawn together in spite of spirit 
 ualism or Quakerism or anything else. They 
 followed the Swains out to their wagon, mostly 
 silent. The thought of those two young people 
 in the house was too sad to express. I don t 
 believe there was anything further said except 
 the good-by s, only as the boy James was lin 
 gering about the Swains, hoping something 
 might happen to keep them longer, Shubal said 
 to him, "James, thee had better not get too near 
 old Jerry s hind foot, he has been known to 
 199
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 kick. I don t think lie will, but it s best not to 
 get too close to him." 
 
 Within the house were two sad souls. Will 
 iam Olney had gotten down beside Lyddie, and 
 was holding her hand. 
 
 " No, Lyddie, I shall have no thought of self- 
 destruction, or of shirking niy duty. I am glad 
 that we think alike in this matter. If tliee per 
 sists in thy resolution and I cannot persuade 
 thee, but must obey thoe, then be sure I shall 
 live as best I can, as honestly and uprightly 
 as I may know how. I am not impulsive and 
 impetuous, I fear my soul is sluggish and not 
 easily fired to great or rash deeds, whether of 
 good or evil. I have often wished that I had 
 more of the soul of the poet, that is easily 
 moved to great suffering and great joy, and per 
 haps to great imaginations of both. But I feel 
 I have not ; I am plain and practical. I do not 
 know what my whole future life may be, of 
 course, but I know of the past that I have never 
 loved another woman but thee, and it is not 
 likely that I shall in the future. But I can live 
 even so, and if thee says I must, thee must be 
 obeyed. In one thing, however, I wish thee to 
 hear me, and I beg of thee to accept my counsel 
 and advice. It is hard to speak of it, but I 
 know thee will not impute selfish motive." 
 
 And then he urged her not to hasten her 
 marriage, not to do anything rash, to let the 
 200
 
 KELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 young man give proof of his constancy and 
 steadiness. 
 
 " Oh, Lydia," he went on passionately, " I 
 could not bear to think of thee a drunkard s 
 wife ; and yet, if that is thy duty," he said, "I 
 know thee will not shirk it either." And then 
 he pleaded with her before giving him a final 
 answer to consider it well ; to consider whether 
 they were not really betrothed by his confession 
 of affection for her and that kiss ; whether she 
 had a right to marry another man, when her soul 
 and his were united in affection. 
 
 " What God has joined together," he con 
 cluded in words that seemed better than any he 
 could form, "should not be separated in this 
 life ; and are we not as much united as though 
 we had stood up in the meeting and made our 
 agreement before the eyes of men ? " 
 
 Lyddie had recovered from her weeping, 
 which had been the immediate effect of Mary 
 Swain s speaking, and her gentle reason had re 
 asserted its sway. She freed herself quietly but 
 firmly from "William Olney s embrace. 
 
 "Mary Swain s words," she said, "are always 
 good ; they seem to go right through one and 
 stir one as those of almost no other person ; 
 but they must not lead us to forget ourselves. 
 It is very kind of thee to think only of my wel 
 fare at this trying moment ; it shows the good 
 ness of thy heart, and, far from imputing false 
 201
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 motives, I think it best to follow thy advice, so 
 much of it certainly as concerns the avoidance 
 of haste." 
 
 And then she reasserted that he was mistaken 
 if he thought merely because of a promise given 
 to the young man, she would not change her 
 mind; that would be to act from mere obsti 
 nacy, for a bad promise was always better broken 
 than kept ; and if she thought keeping that one 
 were going to make both of them unhappy, she 
 would try to find some way of not keeping it. 
 
 " It is not the promise," she said, " it is the 
 cause that led me to make the promise ; that 
 alas, still exists." 
 
 Then she talked to him in a way that very 
 few other young girls have ever adopted for de 
 clining marriage proposals. It was more like a 
 sermon. It was this way of speaking that made 
 young Melwin say, finally, he felt as if he were 
 courting his grandmother. It was a good deal 
 the Loisa Painter style of expression. 
 
 " My mind has been dwelling on very peculiar 
 things, William Olney," she began; "I know 
 thee will think it strange, but I have been 
 thinking of thee as though I were thy mother, 
 and loved thee as only a mother can love her 
 son ; and, then, that someone came between us 
 and captured thy affection, and that all the 
 pangs of parting came upon me. My fancy 
 carried out the picture and made of me a 
 202
 
 RELIGION HELPING LOVE 
 
 woman old and solitary, separated from all who 
 ought to love me, and by my fault alone." 
 
 Then she " carried out the picture," and such 
 thoughts were too strong for her ; she could 
 not resist them. She put herself in his father s 
 place also, and it did not seem to her that 
 William Olney s proposition was a good one; 
 and every time she looked it through, she came 
 to the same conclusion. 
 
 Then, as Lyddie tried to free her hand from 
 William Olney s clasp, he said: "Nay; with 
 thy permission, I will still hold thy hand." 
 
 He held it, too, as he went on and said: 
 " Does thee remember how, when I first knew 
 thee, thee wanted to make sport of me for my 
 lack of scriptural knowledge? Since then I 
 have sought to repair that lack, and have 
 learned that the Bible says, the wife shall leave 
 father and mother and cleave to her husband ; 
 and as for separation in families, Christ says 
 himself that he is the cause of such, for he 
 says, Think not that I am come to bring peace ; 
 I come not to bring peace, but the sword; 
 and then continues, saying how religion shall 
 bring separation among all members of the 
 family. 
 
 "Lydia," AVilliam Olney s last words were, 
 
 "we love each other, and there is nothing on 
 
 earth or in heaven that can separate us. We 
 
 belong to each other, and thee will be doing 
 
 203
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGEBY 
 
 wrong, very wrong, if thee carries out what thee 
 is contemplating." 
 
 But the most he could get from Lyddie was 
 assent not to hasten. She would think over the 
 matter ; she would wait for an impression ; 
 she would listen to the inward voice of the 
 spirit ; and, if anything better was given her to 
 do, she would let him know ; but he must not 
 see her, he must not try to influence her. 
 
 204
 
 XVIII 
 
 WILLIAM PRICE S HAND 
 
 THIS love-story, whose foundation, difficulty, 
 and solution all depended upon Enoch Wil- 
 loughby, his dreams and visions and so on, in 
 order to turn out well ought perhaps to have 
 had some startling catastrophe to decide its 
 course. It might have come about, for in 
 stance, that the spirit some night should rouse 
 up old "William Price and compel him to leave 
 his bed of feathers or maybe it was only a hair 
 mattress hunt up his son, and make manifest 
 his repentance, and so bring the young people 
 together and let all end happily. 
 
 Or it might have come about that William 
 Price should persevere in his obstinacy, which 
 would have been more natural ; and, when he 
 found that William Olney had been visiting the 
 girl again, and that the Willoughbys were very 
 slow about removing to another neighborhood, 
 that he should be afraid the girl would at last 
 marry the young man without regard to his 
 parents wishes which would have been noth 
 ing very strange and so should cast about for 
 205
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 some other means of getting rid of his trouble 
 some neighbors. 
 
 In that case, of course, he might have run 
 across old Abijah Willetts, who lived down on 
 Nine Mile Creek, below the John Willoughbys , 
 and was really one of the most bigoted old time 
 serving hypocrites that ever lived, and have 
 given him some indirect hint in such a way that 
 no one could at all accuse him of it, to give 
 Ted Blood a little more direct and intelligible 
 hint ; and so, by passing the matter on down 
 among those who lived in that region, finally 
 have brought it to the very man whom Enoch 
 Willoughby had angered that time by giving 
 him some plain advice under spiritual impres 
 sion, the very man, naturally, from whom 
 Enoch had received that anonymous, threaten 
 ing communication. In this way, William 
 Price might, indirectly, and from afar off, as it 
 were, have been the cause of arousing against 
 the Willoughbys a very low and coarse lot of 
 people, and so finally have brought about the 
 catastrophe. That would not have been im 
 probable. For religious feeling can be the 
 worst feeling there is, just as it is the best. All 
 emotions may be gauged by their opposites. 
 What is more touching than filial love, and what 
 more awful than a son s or father s curse ? Even 
 in this day and age of our story there was plenty 
 of religious feeling. You could find people 
 206
 
 WILLIAM PEICE S HAND 
 
 
 
 enough advocating church union and charity as 
 long as it was a question between the old estab 
 lished denominations ; but mention spiritualism 
 to them, and it was a red rag flaunted in the eye 
 of the maddest bull of Spain. Their charity 
 was all gone in a minute. They lost reason and 
 control of themselves. They felt a good deal as 
 Rachel Price did when she learned that her son, 
 William Olney, was in love with a spiritual me 
 dium and threw up her hands in holy horror. 
 
 The words of old William Price, when he was 
 talking to his son and to Enoch Willoughby, 
 were nothing but natural. There are many 
 people who would feel the same way, would 
 have great sympathy with him in those words. 
 
 It was the rarest kind of nature that could 
 talk like old Shubal Swain when he spoke to 
 William Price about the matter. I do not know 
 what the occasion was the occasion does not 
 matter, but this is the substance of the words 
 that were forced out of Shubal Swain when 
 speaking with William Price. 
 
 " Why, thee talks," he said, " as if to read the 
 Bible were wrong ; is thee afraid to trust thy 
 Bible in the hands of any one to read ? I have 
 more confidence in it. Let Enoch Willoughby 
 read it and re-read it. The truth it contains 
 cannot be crushed. Has thee no charity for a 
 spiritualist ? Did not God create him too ? If 
 their belief is false, can it stand in the world be- 
 207
 
 fore truth? If there is nothing in planchetto 
 boards and dark cabinets and strange mysteries, 
 does thee believe the world is going to be de 
 ceived by them for long? I have too much con 
 fidence in the good sense of the world and in its 
 final outcome. Does thee believe that all our 
 Quaker speakers are held by the spirit of Christ ? 
 I fear, alas, that even some of tJicin have seen the 
 spirit only as through a glass darkly. Does thee 
 think it impossible that Christ should ever err? 
 Might not his human imagination have overrated 
 the powers that were with him, and may not he 
 too have attributed to God in him what the im 
 mutable laws of nature would never allow ? It 
 is better to consider the frailty of all human 
 nature and be charitable. Enoch Willoughby 
 believes he was visited by the spirit of Jesus of 
 Nazareth. I do not believe it. I think it was 
 his imagination. Jesus believed that the Devil 
 took him up into a high mountain. If that was 
 not his imagination, in what form does thee sup 
 pose that Satan presented himself to him ? We 
 must have charity, and, when religion comes into 
 the world simply to make people hate one an 
 other, it might be better if it had never come. 
 Wickedness and fraud must be shunned, but 
 honest belief is always worthy of respect." 
 
 As for William Price, he had said his worst, 
 and it was impossible to exceed it. It is per 
 haps not overstating it at all to say that he 
 
 208
 
 WILLIAM PRICE S HAND 
 
 would have preferred his son should marry a 
 woman of the town rather than a spiritual me 
 dium. In his mind mediums were witches ; the 
 Devil was incarnated in them. He shuddered 
 at the very thought of them. 
 
 " AVhy, they are human," Shubal Swain said 
 to him. " We have been at their houses. We 
 have even heard these women they call Susan 
 and P lene, speak under the influence." 
 
 " It s insanity," William Price interrupted ; 
 " they are all crazy or on the high road to in 
 sanity. Can a man lose his own mind and re 
 tain it at the same time ? Can one be in the 
 possession of another, and at the same time pos 
 sess himself ? It is useless to talk to me, Shu 
 bal Swain. It is useless to try to reconcile me 
 with them. If I have the spirit of a persecutor, 
 I have the spirit of a persecutor." 
 
 " Our fathers themselves were burned as 
 witches," Shubal interposed. But William 
 Price would not listen ; he could not hear that 
 side of it. Times had changed for him and men 
 
 o 
 
 had changed. Authority for him was everything; 
 the law, tradition, the established and unvary 
 ing order of the old was all that had value ; he 
 could not conceive of the new being right, even 
 distantly, or partially. He was a type of man 
 kind, as Enoch Willoughby was a type, as Shu 
 bal Swain was an extraordinary and wonderful 
 Christian type. 
 
 209
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 Thus it might have been that the man, Abijah 
 Willetts, went on that time with some sugges 
 tion dropped from William Price. 
 
 Willetts was the kind of man to take such 
 suggestion. He was a type of religious bigotry 
 and hypocrisy such as can hardly be found at 
 the present time in America, except in the back 
 woods poor, pitiable specimens of narrow- 
 mindedness. Abijah Willetts was known to 
 have said he would not go across the lane on 
 Sunday to save a man s life. Probably this 
 was exaggeration, but an exaggeration that well 
 indicated the man s character. Sunday observ 
 ance was something tangible ; it touched Abi 
 jah on the formal, outward side of things, the 
 side he could appreciate. The mysterious, in 
 ner, conscience side, he knew little about. 
 
 He heard Enoch Willoughby was a Sabbath- 
 breaker. He himself would have plotted on 
 Sunday to cheat the poorest widow in the neigh 
 borhood, but he would have done so only while 
 riding to meeting or sitting on the high benches 
 there or sanctimoniously pursuing his other Sun 
 day observances. Perhaps we paint him blacker 
 than he was, but surely not blacker than his 
 type, surely not too black for what follows. 
 
 Abijah Willetts had a good reputation, and 
 yet he had been known let us whisper it, for 
 the sake of that humanity to which we all be 
 long to take money from a friend and put it 
 210
 
 WILLIAM PRICE S HAND 
 
 in his safe for accommodation, without witness 
 es of course, and then to forget absolutely that 
 he had ever taken it. It was said that on dark 
 nights he did not like to come home from town 
 alone, and no wonder ; that he went armed, 
 and people could not understand it ; a man of 
 his character ; a man whose blessing at table 
 was the essence of grace ; a man who could 
 preach and speak with the very words of heal 
 ing, do you think that lie twitched and jerked in 
 his utterances, or was moved by an unbecom 
 ing spirit ? Never. 
 
 William Price believed that the theory of 
 spiritualism was wrong ; Abijah Willetts thought 
 that the actions of spiritualists were bad and 
 ought to be prohibited. It required only such 
 a man as Ted Blood to say " that nest of spirit 
 ualists ought to be broken up," and to send that 
 letter to Enoch Willoughby. 
 
 Enoch Willoughby said little about the letter. 
 He was not a man to fear anything or anybody, 
 and he simply threw it aside. He had better 
 have taken Hannah s advice, believed what he 
 chose and kept still about it. But he could 
 not do that. If he believed that some sorrow 
 ing spirit wanted him to take a message to Ted 
 Blood that might prevent his abusing his wife, 
 he thought he must carry it. If he felt that 
 some spirit nearly related to Abijah Willetts 
 was grieving over his short-sightedness and 
 211
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 narrowness of vision, he could not resist the 
 influence exerted upon his sympathy to send 
 Abijah Willetts some such book as Robert Dale 
 Owen s "Footprints in the Debatable Laud," or 
 a spiritual journal, which Abijah refused to take 
 from the post-office, and over which he was very 
 greatly offended. 
 
 " Does he want every one to imagine that I 
 am a spiritualist ? " Abijah said. 
 
 He would not touch the horrid sheet. "Don t 
 ever offer it to me again," he told the postmis 
 tress in high dudgeon. 
 
 And Hannah said to Enoch : " It is very fool 
 ish for thee to try to convert people ; what is 
 the difference what they believe ? If thee has 
 found something good, keep it and enjoy it 
 thyself." But that was not Enoch s idea ; the 
 same spirit that made him generous in money 
 matters made him prodigal of ideas. The 
 man did really look upon himself as subject 
 to the will of a higher power, and obliged to 
 obey it. 
 
 There was also some other point in here. 
 
 The sources of our history are a little inexact. 
 It was a matter of turning a payment for work 
 from Ted Blood to Leonard Ramsdell, the hus 
 band of that spiritual medium, Susan. Rams- 
 dell was poor and had done some carpentering 
 for Blood, which Blood never intended to pay. 
 There are people like that who will pay some 
 212
 
 WILLIAM PRICE S HAND 
 
 debts and not others, who think certain people 
 ought to be paid, and certain others not ; in 
 other words, who pay their creditors by getting 
 angry at them. Blood had worked for Enoch 
 Willoughby, and Enoch had taken Blood s note 
 to Eanisdell, and presented it in part payment 
 of his own debt. There was no way of avoiding 
 the payment, and this was another cause of an 
 ger in Blood against Enoch Willoughby. 
 
 Exactly the run of these events, I cannot 
 give ; but there was another threatening letter 
 sent to Enoch Willoughby, a whitecap letter, 
 with skull and cross-bones at the top, a threat 
 of a whipping for his spiritualism and witch 
 craft. He was ordered to leave the country at 
 once. The letter, of course, was not signed ; 
 but Enoch Willoughby knew without the possi 
 bility of mistake, it had come from Ted Blood. 
 He knew that Blood was countenanced by Abi- 
 jah Willetts, and that probably the threat would 
 not be displeasing to William Price under the 
 circumstances. He pondered the letter deeply, 
 and came to a conclusion quite contrary to all 
 the plans we had made to bring about a strik 
 ing catastrophe to this story. 
 
 He said to himself : " People misjudge be 
 cause they do not understand. The hatred and 
 harshness and violence of the world come from 
 the fact that men live apart from one another 
 and do not know one another." 
 213
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 " Such men as Ted Blood are not capable of 
 understanding anything," Hannah said. 
 
 But Enoch would not admit that any man is 
 incapable of understanding human sympathy 
 and cannot be moved by kindness and reason. 
 
 " Does thee know what I am going to do, 
 Hannah ? " he said. " I am going to see Ted 
 Blood and show him how wicked and foolish he 
 is, and how he misunderstands the simplest 
 things." 
 
 Then followed a time with Hannah worse a 
 great deal than when Enoch was about to go 
 to talk with William Price. Here there was 
 danger ahead, real danger; and he ought not 
 to expose himself to it, she said. But from the 
 moment the idea came into the mind of Enoch 
 Willoughby, he had determined to carry it out. 
 He was not like anybody else. He was queer, 
 like all the AVilloughbys. 
 
 He wished there was some way to show the 
 man his friendliness and his good character. 
 
 " I wish there was some good way of having 
 him arrested and thoroughly punished," Han 
 nah said. 
 
 And so it came about that he went again to 
 the neighborhood of Nine Mile, and, as good 
 luck would have it, found there the opportunity 
 he had been wanting of converting the man to 
 friendliness. He found Blood s child sick of 
 diphtheria, the man away from home, the family 
 214
 
 WILLIAM PKICE S HAND 
 
 much frightened and despondent, not knowing 
 what to do; and he immediately encouraged 
 them to hope that something might be done, 
 went for the doctor, stayed all night, and sat up 
 and helped nurse the child, which in the morn 
 ing was much better and likely to recover. 
 When Blood went back and found what had 
 been done ho was won. The coldest ice can be 
 thawed by the sunshine, and the hardest heart 
 can be softened by love. Here was the father s 
 love for the child, which the preacher s love of 
 humanity usurped and grew in, and when the 
 child became better and Enoch Willoughby went 
 away, Ted Blood would have given anything if 
 he had never written that letter. 
 
 He said to himself it had not been signed, 
 and Enoch Willoughby could not know that he 
 had written it ; but the thought did not long 
 give him satisfaction. He finally went, volun 
 tarily, to Enoch Willoughby, confessed that he 
 wrote the letter and sent it. Pie blustered and 
 swore now as roundly and violently as before 
 that he would like to see anybody touch Enoch 
 Willoughby to harm him, and from that time on 
 the very people down Nine Mile who had been 
 most dangerous were the ones who took up most 
 freely the new doctrine. They came most to the 
 house to listen to it, had least offence that it 
 was unorthodox, and were more and more Enoch 
 Willoughby s followers and supporters. 
 215
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 Thus imagination was cheated of its plot 
 a sort of White Cap attempt to beat the devil 
 out of Enoch Willoughby with hickory withes. 
 It was very hard to carry through such a plot 
 as that with a man who was absolutely honest, 
 without a particle of deception in his nature, 
 with a strong love for humanity, and universal 
 sympathy. It came to be a constant complaint 
 with Hannah herself that he associated so freely 
 with Nick Reynolds and Sam Cox, and old man 
 Small, and especially with the Bloods and Frames 
 and Binghams ; and made no objection to the 
 children going with the young Binghams and 
 playing with them. 
 
 But he used always to say, " Hannah, if the 
 good will mingle only with the better, where 
 does the opportunity for the improvement of 
 the bad come in ? " A question Hannah could 
 only answer by saying, "Well, let somebody 
 else associate with the bad. Why should we do 
 it any more than others ? " 
 
 People became acquainted with these ideas of 
 his and liked them. They began to praise him. 
 They turned even the John Willoughby family 
 into a subject of praise of Enoch, and told how 
 much he had helped his older brother and how 
 various ones of the children had come upon him 
 for assistance, and how these very children were 
 accustomed to speak slightingly of him and of 
 his belief. They saw how foolishly proud they 
 216
 
 WILLIAM PRICE S HAND 
 
 were, and how little they had to be proud of, 
 and yet how they could all depend upon Uncle 
 Enoch, and all those things they liked in him. 
 They began to want to know something of what 
 such a man actually did believe, and began to 
 come about more and more. In fact, if Enoch 
 Willoughby at this time had wanted to go back 
 to the Church, he would have found it difficult to 
 do so. He had become known as the advocate 
 of a new doctrine, his reputation was fixing it 
 self ; the new wine was going into new wine- 
 flasks, and, instead of a dramatic and strange 
 ending to our story, it has become simply the 
 founding of a new sect, the going over to a new 
 religion. 
 
 217
 
 XIX 
 
 TIME AND AFFECTION AGAINST REASON 
 
 AND as the spiritualism gradually fixed itself 
 the chances for a happy solution of the love af 
 fair became fewer and fewer. Everyone con 
 nected with it was perverse and obstinate still. 
 William Price s objections could hardly be ex 
 pected ever to grow less ; Lyddie s reason would 
 not allow her to yield, though she did see Will 
 iam Olney occasionally, and her sense of humor 
 sometimes got the better of the pathos of the 
 situation. 
 
 Once William Oluey said to her, with all the 
 gravity of his Quaker style, " Lydia, I can think 
 of nothing now but to take thee boldly by main 
 force and carry thee off, as they used to do in 
 olden times." 
 
 And Lyddie replied, with the same humor, 
 " I could almost find it in my heart to wish thee 
 might do even that." 
 
 But when they talked about it seriously, -Lyd- 
 die ran against that inevitable train of reason 
 ing, her conclusions remained the same. There 
 did not seem to be any possibility of a different 
 arrangement. 
 
 218
 
 TIME AND AFFECTION 
 
 Meanwhile young Aaron Melwin was becom 
 ing tired of waiting. He was saying to himself 
 he felt a good deal as though he were courting 
 his grandmother. In truth, Lyddie was greatly 
 his superior, and were it not for the fact that 
 the most incongruous marriages are constantly 
 being made, no one would ever have thought it 
 possible that Lyddie O Mara should marry 
 Aaron Melwin. Her motherly character at 
 tracted him ; he liked having some one to look 
 after him, though, as a result, he did as he 
 pleased much more freely than before. It was 
 an attraction such as young men have sometimes 
 for a woman ten years their senior tremendous 
 respect, with awe and perhaps affection at first, 
 and at last, restraint. 
 
 Lyddie s reproaches and mild sermons to 
 young Melwin, when she heard of his escapades, 
 he considered very delightful. He took them as 
 the natural corrective to the escapades them 
 selves, satisfied his conscience by listening to 
 them, boasted that he had taken his lecture or 
 sermon and was now good again; but, after a 
 while, he failed to put in his appearance to re 
 ceive them. Lyddie s reproofs were now at 
 times less graciously received, and meanwhile 
 Lyddie herself was slowly arriving at a decision. 
 
 Lyddie would never have acknowleged that 
 she engaged herself to Aaron Melwin because 
 she had determined not to marry William Olney ; 
 219
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 she would have denied, too, that she was about 
 to free herself from him now because she loved 
 William Olney and was beginning to be con 
 quered by the strength of his affection. She 
 was simply conscious that she was losing her 
 influence over young Mel win ; and, if she could 
 not hope to better his character by marrying him, 
 it was hardly worth while to take the risk. So 
 she sent word for him to come and see her, and 
 then released him from his engagement. 
 
 Hannah told her, when she heard of it, " Of 
 course that was a good thing and sensible. But 
 now I suppose thee is about ready to accept 
 William Olney Price, in spite of the family op 
 position, and go over to the Quakers." 
 
 There was a little touch of bitterness in this ; 
 for, since Enoch Willoughby had obtained so 
 strong a following, he had been better and better 
 satisfied to remain away from the Quakers, and 
 had become more and more positively a spiritual 
 ist. Lyddie did not reply, but it is true she 
 began to recast her argument, to run through 
 her reasoning again. In fact she had already 
 yielded when William Olney gained time. It 
 was then he really won his case ; and when the 
 girl had made up her mind in this way, it would 
 be just as hard to change her as before. 
 
 " Lyddie is just like Enoch," said Hannah ; 
 " she acts from pure obstinacy and nothing else." 
 
 However that may be, there was love in the 
 220
 
 TIME AND AFFECTION 
 
 case on both sides, and who can blame the girl? 
 William Olney was constant and persistent. We 
 may be sure that he did not magnify the opposi 
 tion of his family, or make the family separation 
 appear greater than it really was. Lyddie could 
 not avoid contrasting the two possible futures : 
 she thought of Rachel and Sally Price and their 
 elegant home and surroundings ; of the good old 
 Quaker meeting and the friends she had there 
 there was a glamour, a halo of respectability 
 about all this that attracted her unconsciously. 
 On the other hand, there were the spiritualists ; 
 there were Susan and P lene, and three or four 
 others who had come to the country recently. 
 There was no difficulty in seeing what was better 
 from a worldly point of view. 
 
 Then again she had felt the same spiritual 
 " influence " at Quaker meetings as at spiritual 
 meetings. When old Uncle Allen used to go 
 under "influence," and she sat in the silence of 
 the Quaker meeting and watched him, she had 
 felt the presence of something mysterious about 
 her ; her hands grew cold ; an indefinable thrill 
 passed over her ; she was almost irresistibly im 
 pelled to rise and speak as she had been in the 
 spiritual meetings. 
 
 She said to herself, "It is the same thing, the 
 same something, whatever it is, that makes the 
 Quaker women preach, that makes some other 
 women become spiritual mediums." 
 221
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 The one was honored ; the other was neglected, 
 and by some probably despised. She knew 
 these were all worldly motives, and she put them 
 resolutely from her ; but they returned as reso 
 lutely again. She thought of Loisa Painter, and 
 she thought of Susan llamsdell; which would 
 she rather become? In case the spirit came 
 upon her, what would she rather be, a Quaker 
 preacher or a spiritual medium ? 
 
 These are not the usual thoughts of a young 
 girl when she is considering whether to marry 
 the man who loves her or not, but they were the 
 thoughts, worldly thoughts, it is true, that ran 
 through Lyddie O Mara s mind; and who can 
 blame her if the balance inclined toward the 
 Quakers? Suppose, too, William Price should 
 become reconciled ; and such a thing was possi 
 ble. She knew Rachel Price liked her ; had she 
 not said " she was a good woman ;" and suppose 
 she should become a speaker in the meeting. 
 He would be as proud of her then as he had 
 been harsh to her before. There was a pro 
 fessional pride in this too. Lyddie had the 
 pride of her spiritual experiences. She would 
 have liked to have a whole settlement stop work 
 ing and wait breathlessly for what she should say 
 or do, or even think, as they did for Loisa 
 Painter. Of course she should never be any 
 thing but the instrument of the spirit ; she 
 should only be a bruised reed ; but it would be 
 222
 
 TIME AND AFFECTION 
 
 very pleasant to be only a broken reed if one 
 were taken up tenderly, put into a delicate vase 
 and cared for in proportion to the amount of the 
 bruise. 
 
 Poor Lyddie! She fought down all these 
 thoughts desperately. She said to herself she 
 was vain, she was frivolous, she was worldly- 
 minded. She wished she could be like Enoch, 
 who took always the side of the poor, the un 
 popular ; who would rather be called a spiritual 
 ist than a bishop, if only he were confident he 
 was right. 
 
 Sometimes in imagination she could see her 
 self and her sister as they became years after 
 ward, with Lyddie married and living calmly in 
 the Price family, the opposition over ; the sim 
 ple business of living, ordinary and unromantic, 
 and Lyddie giving way to the same old nature 
 that was in her and speaking in the Quaker 
 meetings. She would have become a Quaker 
 while the Enoch Willoughbys had gone on in 
 the way they were going, and become spiritual 
 ists. Then it would be that Hannah could not 
 find expressions too severe to say of Lyddie: 
 " She knew on which side her bread was but 
 tered ; she knew on which side to find respecta 
 bility and good living, and that was all the girl 
 cared for. Now she was a good Quaker preacher, 
 was she" and there would be that little sarcas 
 tic twang in her voice that she knew so well how 
 223
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 to manage " and looked down on all the rest of 
 them, on her own sister probably, as deceived 
 and led astray by the devil. She had never sup 
 posed that Lyddie was a schemer, for it ivas 
 scheming, and Lyddie had used the spiritual 
 gift that had been given her simply to make a 
 living out of." 
 
 And then one might hear Enoch s voice. 
 
 " Don t thee suppose, Hannah, there is re 
 ligion in all denominations and outside of all 
 denominations? The girl followed her own in 
 clinations, and that was right. She loved, and 
 she married the man of her choice, and that was 
 right ; then the spirit came to her again, now 
 among the Quakers, and she became a Quaker 
 preacher ; if it had come to her among us, she 
 would have been a medium as thee is." 
 
 "Enoch" though there would be very little 
 connection between this and what Enoch had 
 been saying "I think we had better quit this 
 theeing and thouing ; we are not Quakers 
 any longer, and what is the use of carrying out 
 the pretence ? " 
 
 And so they might have dropped the conver 
 sation about Lyddie, and incidentally have de 
 cided to drop the plain speech also as they 
 did ; a very little thing, but with a good deal of 
 pathos aboiit it. When Hannah first said 
 " you " to Enoch, it was almost as though she 
 had used a profane word ; it came with a shock ; 
 224
 
 TIME AND AFFECTION 
 
 it always had to be forced a little, and was 
 always liable to be replaced by the more famil 
 iar " thee " whenever one of them was sick or in 
 any way needed a little tenderness; and the 
 children said " thee " long after the father and 
 mother had begun to force themselves to use 
 the more formal style of address. 
 
 But one would have thought at other times, 
 to hear Hannah, there could not be anything 
 genuine among the Quakers at all; that their 
 plain clothes and plain speech were just show 
 and pretence, and their " Bible worship, " as 
 she called it, and their regularity at meeting 
 and orthodoxy, mere idolatry. Lyddie, on her 
 side, though more careful, had very little use 
 for mediums, and used occasionally to call them 
 fortune tellers, perhaps the harshest expression 
 she ever allowed herself. 
 
 The girl was not to blame. She had said to 
 William Olney she was " sure there was some 
 thing in it ; just what it was, she did not know. 
 She thought it best, however, to be on the safe 
 side ; she feared she was not worthy to be a 
 martyr. It required some one with visions as 
 vivid as those of Enoch "Willoughby to be that. 
 
 " But what will thee think of me, William 
 Olney, if I accept thy proposition now after 
 all?" 
 
 That was the way she talked to him when he 
 was pushing his suit after he had learned she 
 225
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 was free from young Mel win. "Will thee not 
 think that I have been scheming and calcu 
 lating, and not at all in earnest ? "Will thee not 
 think me incapable of earnest conviction, and 
 very worldly wise ? " 
 
 But "William Olney was too much under the 
 influence of his passion really to consider what 
 he would thipk. 
 
 " I consider thee only a beautiful girl, Lyclia, 
 and one who is about to make me happy for 
 ever by consenting to become my wife," he said ; 
 " and, as for thy religion, I have always told 
 thee I knew little about that. It does not seem 
 to affect me any. Perhaps I do not understand 
 it; whatever suits theo in that matter will, I 
 am sure, be right." 
 
 " But what shall we do," Lyddie continued, 
 " about all these reasonings on separation in 
 families, and how could I ever forgive myself 
 if our marriage should be the cause of such 
 separation ? " And then they discussed what 
 they would do to reconcile the father Price. 
 It was certainly a singular love meeting. 
 
 In the midst of it William Olney said, 
 " Thinking as thee does, surely, it could not 
 be wrong or against thy principles, if thee 
 would return to the meeting occasionally, before 
 our engagement is heard of ; it might make it 
 much easier for niy father to become reconciled 
 to our marriage." 
 
 226
 
 TIME AND AFFECTION 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that Lyddie con 
 sented, and then reproached herself for it when 
 William Olney was gone. But she did manage to 
 go to the Quaker meeting the next Sunday with 
 one of her brothers, and never felt so conscience- 
 smitten in all her life. She said to herself it was 
 all the same thing, and why should one become 
 a martyr for an unpopular cause, and that really 
 no cause after all ? Enoch Willoughby uncon 
 sciously encouraged her in the thought. He led 
 her to believe that all religion was essentially 
 the same, that at the bottom of it was the belief 
 in immortality, and this belief was strengthened 
 and kept alive by various mental and emotional 
 phenomena; that these varied in power and 
 frequency in different persons and at different 
 times and periods, and when they had lain long 
 dormant belief died out of the world, and relig 
 ion became ethical and intellectual ; from that 
 it passed into the dogmatic and institutional, 
 and then became mere history. Now this in the 
 soul which is known as religion should perhaps 
 be nameless ; for as soon as it is named, a sect 
 is formed and theology has begun ; yet, if men 
 will live in the world, they cannot avoid the 
 forming of sects any more than they can the use 
 of names, and he had accepted the consequences. 
 He called this something in the soul the influ 
 ence of spirits, and believed it to be caused by 
 the actual contact with the spiritual world about 
 227
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 us. Others called it God, and thought it sure 
 to lead them right; others might with equal 
 justice call it the devil, and say it was sure to 
 lead them wrong ; and not a few, he felt sure, 
 had similar experiences which they considered 
 to be only the workings of their own imagina 
 tion under the influence of the emotion. These 
 were low forms of religion, all of them, Enoch 
 Willoughby asserted, existing in close connec 
 tion with the emotional nature ; and what there 
 was of right or wrong, of permanent or transi 
 tory, of truth or falsehood, in them, each in 
 dividual must find out from his own experience. 
 
 Lyddie put great confidence in Enoch Wil- 
 loughby ; his words were to her like law, a real 
 explanation ; and they quieted her conscience. 
 She could be just the same religiously, no mat 
 ter to what church she belonged. 
 
 She was most concerned about what interpre 
 tation might be put upon her conduct. " Will 
 not thee thyself," she asked William Olney, 
 " some time say that I have acted from false 
 motives? No, do not try to influence me by 
 thy cajolery." He had probably taken hold of 
 her hand at this point in the conversation. 
 
 " I am trying to put all that aside," she con 
 tinued, " and to think just as though I did not 
 love thee. Suppose anything should come up 
 between us ; suppose thy father should not be 
 come reconciled ; and suppose it should lead 
 228
 
 TIME AND AFFECTION 
 
 tliee to great trouble, perhaps even to poverty ; 
 and, in the difficulty of our lives, suppose even 
 our affection for each other should grow less I 
 am simply imagining what might take place is 
 there not, then, danger that thee may think I 
 have acted unworthily; that I have accepted 
 thee, because I hoped thereby to lead an easier 
 life ; and that I did it against my best light and 
 knowledge ? Will thee never say that ? " 
 
 And William Olney replied, " No, be sure I 
 will never say such a thing as that, Lydia. Thee 
 shall never have cause to repent of thy choice, 
 and I know I shall never repent of mine." Then 
 they gave themselves up to one another to love 
 and to be loved. 
 
 Always they came back to the subject of how 
 everyone should be reconciled. It was so easy 
 to think that all the world would soon be in 
 harmony, when they were in each other s pres 
 ence, walking together in the garden, or clasping 
 hands at meeting or parting. If only all the 
 world was in love there would be no trouble 
 about religious matters ; they would all then be 
 very easy to manage. 
 
 Lyddie felt, most of all, that her sister would 
 never forgive her ; not that Hannah would have 
 her do otherwise than marry William Olney 
 Price, but she would always think she had done 
 so from motives of expediency, and Hannah 
 would say just what she thought. That would 
 229
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 separate them eventually, and would leave 
 Hannah alone, for her younger brothers, Lyddie 
 knew, would go as she did. Hannah s quick 
 words and impetuous nature did not fit her for 
 leadership ; she would be one thing to-day, 
 another to-morrow ; and how can any one fol 
 low the quick changes of an emotional fancy ? 
 
 Lyddie knew all this and discussed it with 
 William Olney. " Oh, my friend," she said, 
 " thy separation, I foresee, cannot be greater 
 than mine, and whatever comes of it, we must 
 hold together. That must be our reward for the 
 difficulties we shall have to encounter." 
 
 And then again and again they talked of how 
 they might win old William Price s affection. 
 Here Lyddie s enthusiasm knew no bounds ; she 
 had confidence in herself; she did not know 
 how it would be done, but some way, she felt 
 sure, and most of all by keeping the right spirit. 
 " We must, from the first," she said, " care 
 nothing for worldly advantages ; we must not 
 be discouraged if he is never won, but persevere, 
 and disinterestedly and unselfishly act from 
 motives of love." 
 
 It was this nice way of talking in Lyddie 
 that Hannah called her religious cant. She 
 said that Lyddie was just the sweetest kind of a 
 hypocrite, always with good words on her 
 tongue ; but what Hannah said must be taken, 
 as we already know, with a little allowance. 
 230
 
 XX 
 
 THE BETROTHAL 
 
 ONE day after Lyddie had consented to the 
 marriage little James again found her in tears. 
 She had told him of the approaching event, and 
 when the boy was expressing his delight she 
 checked him, and then he noticed she was 
 crying. 
 
 "It is not all as bright as it looks to be, 
 James," she said, and the boy immediately 
 began to think the spirits probably were mak 
 ing mischief again. " But I trust and hope it 
 will come out right," she said, and then she 
 could not help sobbing. 
 
 The boy came and stood by her. There was 
 that kind of affection between them that existed 
 between him and his father ; intense, but calm 
 and reflective. When the boy wanted caressing, 
 he went to his mother ; when he was angry, his 
 mother was the one to sympathize with him ; 
 when he was afraid, his mother was afraid, too ; 
 sometimes they told each other ghost stories un 
 til they were both afraid to stir from the room. 
 His mother recounted to him her troubles with 
 Enoch and Lyddie and the Quakers, in her own 
 231
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 quick, impetuous way. The boy knew, when not 
 more than twelve years old, that his father did 
 not kiss his mother at parting unless she sug 
 gested it ; that he did not pet her or praise her 
 as she wished, but acted as if his principles 
 were, " When things are well say nothing ! " His 
 mother was a child, and did not know better 
 than to make a child her confidant ; or, if she 
 knew better, she did not care ; or if she cared, she 
 could not resist talking to some one who could 
 appreciate her moods and sympathize with her. 
 
 The boy had recounted his experience at 
 Elija Tabor s to his mother, and she had 
 clapped her hands, and cried, " Good, good," 
 and laughed, and petted and hugged him. 
 " Thee ll give it to them, Jimmie," she said ; 
 " thee won t be a non-resistant, or preach char 
 ity, or talk religious hypocrisy, but go right 
 through the world and fight thy way like a man, 
 knock people right and left ; oh, that was good, 
 that was good. Yes, hate thy enemies, and love 
 thy friends ; do good to them that do good to 
 thee, and as for them that do evil to thee, try 
 thy best to outdo them in it, and then they will 
 respect thee, and fear thee, and know how to 
 take thee and understand thee ; the other is all 
 a mere made-up doctrine." 
 
 And so later it was with his mother that he 
 was constantly joking, and on her he learned to 
 practice his youthful wit ; the sharper it was, 
 232
 
 the more she delighted in it. She could not 
 command from her children the respect that 
 many mothers exact, and would not have 
 allowed it if she had been able to comprehend 
 it. It would have been as foolish to her as to 
 make one child respect and obey another. 
 
 But now when the boy came to talk with 
 Lyddie or his father everything was different. 
 Lyddie had taught him dances and games, but 
 there was nothing exuberant about her joyous 
 moods or depressing about her despondent ones. 
 Hannah could sometimes cry by the hour, and 
 had many a time shocked the boy by wishing 
 she was dead. But Lyddie, in joy or tears, was 
 placid and controlled. It was she that gave the 
 boy his greatest insight into nature. She 
 taught him that a rose was beautiful, that the 
 yellow down on a dove in its nest was soft and 
 pretty, and that the parts of a feather were 
 wonderfully conjoined. She taught him to re 
 spect his father, without telling him not to 
 obey the instincts and caprices of his mother. 
 She led him to see and appreciate the good 
 points in his father s character. 
 
 " Thy father is never angry, James," she said 
 to him, " and that is good ; be sure it is good. 
 He has principles and will follow them, and be 
 sure that is right. He is not deceived by out 
 ward appearances, and be sure that is a great 
 thing. He sees the beautiful where others see 
 233
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 it not. Has tliee never seen him bring in a 
 bunch of blackberries hanging in their cluster 
 of greeii leaves, or a thorn on which a beetle has 
 been impaled by the harsh shrike ? James, be 
 like thy father. He sees much farther than other 
 men, away off into the depths of nature, around 
 and through its dark places." 
 
 And the boy had immediately thought again 
 of the woods back of Lars Oleson s, and of his 
 father driven about by the spirit with an ox 
 goad. Yes, he had surely seen into dark places 
 enough. His father and Lyddie were just alike. 
 The boy had a strange sort of veneration for 
 each of them. 
 
 Lyddie soon regained control of herself. 
 These tears were her parting tribute to this 
 friend of her childhood. It was as though she 
 had the gift of the seer and prophetess and felt 
 soon the boy would be forever separated from 
 her ; perhaps she might even become for him an 
 object of dislike. But it would not do to give 
 the boy such anticipation of evil. She took his 
 hand and petted it. 
 
 " I hope thee will always think of me as a 
 friend, James," she said. 
 
 And just then Hannah came and told her that 
 William Price was down-stairs and had asked to 
 see her. 
 
 " William Olney, thee means," Lyddie said, 
 as a slight blush suffused her face. 
 234
 
 THE BETROTHAL 
 
 " No, not William Olney, but William Price," 
 Hannah replied. 
 
 " Impossible," Lyddie thought, but in a mo 
 ment was calm. That was her nature. Her 
 thoughts grew clear. " I am coming soon," she 
 said. She went before a glass, but nothing 
 needed readjusting in her hair or her toilet. 
 
 "Lyddie always looks well," Hannah com 
 mented ; " she is just like a partridge ; its 
 feathers all know their places naturally, and 
 never get out of them. But what can William 
 Price want with her ? " she thought. 
 
 " It is just like him, though," she said to Lyd 
 die, aloud ; " he s heard of thy engagement to 
 William Olney; this is the second time now 
 they ve been here on that matter. I should 
 think he d be ashamed ever to set foot in this 
 house again." Then as Lyddie was about ready 
 to go down-stairs, " I hope thee ll give it to him 
 he deserves it ; don t be afraid, and don t let 
 him get the better of thee ; don t think too much 
 of thy engagement. William Olney s dead in 
 love with thee, and will never give thee up, and 
 if he does there are plenty of other young men. 
 Thee can always stay with us too and need not 
 ever think thyself a charge on us. Let him see 
 thee s a woman of spirit. If thee gives in now, 
 he ll rule both of you all his life ; and let him 
 understand that on matters of religion the con 
 science, and not tradition, must be thy guide." 
 235
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 " Oh, Hannah, Hannah, thec is making it very 
 hard for me," Lyddie said, " very hard." And 
 then she broke away from her and went down 
 stairs. 
 
 In Lyddie s mind were the words, " For it 
 w r ill be given thee what to say," and surround 
 ing her had come a great wave of spiritual exal 
 tation. Here was a worthy aim for her, a king 
 dom to be conquered. If she could capture and 
 lay before her husband s feet his father s heart ; 
 if she could win his father s affection ! Like 
 the speaker when he faces the multitude, liko the 
 general before he gives the final order to charge 
 in the battle, she felt herself sink into insignifi 
 cance before the greatness of her responsibility. 
 She trembled like a reed. A prayer went up in 
 her heart " O, ye heavenly powers." Long vis 
 tas of happy futures flashed before her in which 
 husband and wife, parents and children, and 
 grandchildren, in happy union lived a blessed 
 life on a peaceful earth. " Come, all-conquer 
 ing love," she was saying ; her spirit was just 
 ready to kindle ; there was a spiritual power 
 about her eyes, her breast ; she was Joan in her 
 prison watching the battle from afar and aboiit 
 to break her chains and rush upon the field. 
 Never before perhaps had a young girl been put 
 in such a situation ; never before perhaps had 
 there been such a girl as Lyddie. She had 
 conquered Rachel Price s good will as with a 
 236
 
 THE BETEOTHAL 
 
 wave of her hand. If she had been a spiritual 
 medium, she would have said " The power was 
 about her ; " if she had been a Quaker preacher, 
 she would have said " The Holy Spirit was alive 
 within her." 
 
 Perhaps it was her emotion. Perhaps it was 
 God, whose essence is love. Perhaps it was 
 her irresistible girlish simplicity and womanly 
 sweetness; the power in her eyes; her gentle 
 nature, her charm, her youth, the soul and spir 
 ituality of her voice, its thrill, as she went up to 
 William Price and spoke to him. Have you 
 ever listened to such women ? If Lyddie had 
 been a calculating actress she would not have 
 done a more effective thing than she did now, or 
 looked or spoken more to turn to friendliness 
 a hostile opinion. 
 
 " It shall be just as thee says, William Price ; 
 it shall never be without thy consent." These 
 were her first words, and then she went on and 
 spoke to him ; she did not know what she said, 
 and did not know how she said it. 
 
 She always believed afterward it was the di 
 vine spirit that came upon her. She was not 
 wholly conscious of what she did or said until, 
 finally, she felt herself weeping, holding William 
 Price s hand, calling him father and he calling 
 her daughter. There are wonders in the world 
 still ; miracles of change in the human heart now 
 as ever. At the time there is a halo about them, 
 237
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 a mysterious heat that envelops and fuses hearts. 
 Call it mystery, call it divine love, call it God, 
 but do not say it is not, for you will then show 
 to the wise your own ignorance ; and within its 
 range it can perform the apparently impossible. 
 
 Would you like to hear Hannah s interpreta 
 tion of this piece of acting ? " Lyddie," she said, 
 " thee is certainly one of the profoundest little 
 hypocrites that ever lived ; and, if thee doesn t 
 get a fortune, it is certainly not because thee has 
 not worked for it. I congratulate thee on thy 
 success. William Olney may well be proud of 
 his wife. I suppose thee will blossom forth now 
 soon as a Quaker preacher, and be put at the head 
 of the investigating committee that is trying us 
 for heresy. I have heard of people who would 
 say they believed in God, and immediately after 
 ward make some mental reservation, such as if 
 there is a God ; and thee now will say, I sup 
 pose, thee believes in the Holy Spirit, and add 
 under thy breath, if there is any. I wish thee 
 joy of thy conversion of thyself to thy father-in- 
 law." 
 
 But nothing that Hannah could say, nothing 
 that anyone could say, was able to trouble Lyd- 
 die s sweet peace of mind now. She kissed her 
 sister in spite of her for Hannah w r as not in 
 clined just now to be particularly friendly, and 
 had a hundred more things on her tongue to 
 say. But Lyddie wanted to be alone awhile ; 
 238
 
 THE BETROTHAL 
 
 she wanted a chance to think, to collect herself, 
 to recover from her mental exhaustion ; and 
 Hannah very reluctantly left her, after Lyddie 
 had promised to tell her more some other time. 
 
 And so Lyddie had conquered her kingdom ; 
 she believed she had been helped to do it by 
 something higher than herself. Oh, happiness 
 unutterable ! She was not then to be a cause of 
 separation in her husband s family. Bachel 
 Price, whom she had long thought she could 
 love as a mother, would be her friend; and 
 William Price and all of them. It seemed a 
 heavenly gift ; unexpected, unheard of. 
 
 She had been greatly startled when she heard 
 that William Price was again at the house to 
 see her. There had been no intimation of his 
 coming ; William Olney had not said a word to 
 her of the possibility of such a thing. She had 
 thought that Kachel Price might now possibly 
 visit her ; but this ! It was unheard of, impos 
 sible ; and yet true. 
 
 She reviewed the whole event. She had not 
 been unconscious, though she felt that she had 
 hardly been herself. She had been carried out 
 of and beyond herself; her own interest had 
 died away. She had been the operator unflinch 
 ingly carving his own flesh. It had been a mo 
 ment of supreme self-sacrificetrue, real, as if 
 there had been no selfish object to gain. From 
 those words, " It shall be just as thee says," she 
 239
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 had given up to William Price completely. She 
 had put herself in his place, and shown him her 
 appreciation of his feeling. She had such sym 
 pathy for the broken-spirited father that he had 
 been touched at the representation of himself. 
 And then no orator could have done it more 
 skilfully she turned the conversation to his 
 son. She spoke of his steadfastness in affec 
 tion ; his unselfishness when she was about to 
 marry another ; his obedience to high reason, 
 to which she had finally yielded as to the highest 
 and best; and then, in a few words, she gave 
 him the thoughts that had been gathering in 
 her mind about her own religion ; a few words, 
 but clear. The spiritual world, which is our in 
 timation of immortality and our basis for relig 
 ion, is not to be worshipped except manifested 
 in a wise and perfect form. She believed that 
 Christ was such manifestation. She could not 
 remember what words she had spoken, but again 
 she had given up her own knowledge of what 
 was right, of what was truth, for William Price s 
 sake. Something had ccfmpelled her to be thor 
 oughly and truly self-sacrificing. She was not 
 thinking of conquering, she was thinking only of 
 forcing herself to yield. 
 
 When William Price had taken her hand and 
 
 called her daughter, she had glanced up at his 
 
 face, and, for the first time in her life, she saw 
 
 something she liked about it ; something Quaker- 
 
 240
 
 THE BETEOTHAL 
 
 like, staid, and at bottom kind. For the first time, 
 too, she saw a resemblance in him to his son. 
 They had not spoken much. He had kissed her 
 on the forehead and said that Rachel was coming 
 soon to see her, that William Olney had told them 
 of the engagement. 
 
 That announcement had been an interesting 
 event, too, but very brief. It was another scene 
 in the library. The son had risen to go and said : 
 " Father, as I before told thee I should do, I have 
 done everything in my power to persuade Lydia 
 O Mara to consent to become my wife. She has 
 at last, after long thought, done so. I have 
 accepted thy former attitude as final, and now 
 wish to ask thee what I shall do regarding my 
 connection with thy business affairs ; to whom 
 shall I turn over my former duties ? " There 
 was not a trace of emotion. 
 
 The father looked at the young man, the pride 
 of his whole life ; the copy of himself ; true to his 
 convictions, firm, honest ; when necessary, bold ; 
 he would make no failure of life ; he would begin 
 for himself and go straight forward by himself 
 to the end. This was the beginning of the end. 
 
 Some one, something must yield ; father or son, 
 love or hate ; and how can a house that is divided 
 against itself stand ? How can a man love his 
 wife and hate his own father, or a father hate a 
 son s wife and love his son ? Our souls must bo 
 full of love or hate ; we must be of the kingdom of 
 241
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 God or of the kingdom of evil. Like a flash all 
 these thoughts passed through the father s heart. 
 Perhaps just then the transformation, the miracle, 
 began. Who knows what may have happened in 
 that same father s life, away back in its begin 
 ning ; some scene between another father and 
 son whose remembrance has remained like a 
 sting ? 
 
 Gradually some dark pictures that had been 
 haunting his mind disappeared ; some table rap- 
 pings and materializing cabinets and planchette 
 boards, that had been to him the instruments of 
 the devil, became in his mind but a few useless 
 and unavailing scientific experiments ; failures, 
 of course, but not of importance enough to 
 change the sweet stream of a lifetime to gall 
 and bitterness. Gradually there emerged in his 
 mind, from among witches and wizards and 
 frauds, the form of a young, respectable, hard 
 working, zealous, and spiritually-minded Quaker, 
 whose dreams and visions and spiritual whip 
 pings and visitations indicated depth of mind 
 and character, his own opposition to which came 
 to seem trivial, little. Gradually the bacchante 
 or fury, raging at him from a spell of madness, 
 became an emotional Quaker woman of really 
 very good qualities, only excited by a little hys 
 terical passion. 
 
 And William Price looked at his son, rose, 
 and took his hand. He did not go further then, 
 242
 
 THE BETROTHAL 
 
 but the young man saw in his father s eyes a 
 light he had not seen there before. 
 
 " To-morrow, William Olney," he said, " to 
 morrow, come to me at this time again." And 
 William Price, the father, that time left the 
 room first. 
 
 That had been the real miracle, and Lyddie 
 had helped it out. Enoch Willoughby had 
 been half expecting it, but he had thought it 
 must occur in some miraculous way. Three 
 knocks might have been heard at midnight, just 
 above the sleeping head of William Price ; and 
 then a voice coming from the pillow, saying, 
 "Arise, William Price, go to the house of 
 Enoch Willoughby, and make thy peace with 
 his sister-in-law, for she is comely and is about 
 to become thy son s wife in spite of thee and 
 all the devils," and then William Price would 
 arise in a trance, and lo . But why go on? 
 Perhaps I am simply making this up in order 
 to give more clearly the character of the visions 
 that appeared to his kind of imagination ; and 
 let us not be too sure, either, that they might 
 not actually have appeared. 
 
 The next day, about the same hour, namely at 
 eventide, when men go into the libraries and 
 shut the door and put on their slippers, it came 
 to pass that William Oluey came to William 
 Price and said : " Father, I am come to hear 
 thy decision." 
 
 243
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 "My decision, my son," William Price re 
 plied, " is that I have been to see Lyddie O Mara 
 and I think better of her. She is comely and 
 modest and spiritually minded. I can no long 
 er think hard of her or of thee. I may even 
 say I desire that she become thy wife." 
 
 And then they shook hands a pretty hard 
 squeeze, not looking very squarely into each 
 other s faces, and William Price said softly : 
 " Perhaps thee had better call mother, Olney." 
 He did sometimes address him thus familiarly. 
 Then, after his son had gotten well out of the 
 door into the hall, William Price hurriedly took 
 his handkerchief out of his coat-tail pocket and 
 wiped his eyes. 
 
 And now one might think this history was 
 pretty nearly over. In describing this last 
 scene, later, to Lyddie, William Oluey said 
 what followed was very much like a love-feast. 
 After his mother came in and heard the good 
 news, they called his sister Sally, and the two 
 women, especially his mother, had not known 
 how to say enough good things about Lyddie. 
 
 " Thy ears must have tingled, Lydia," Will 
 iam Olney said afterward in recounting it, and 
 then followed a scene that probably might as 
 well bo omitted. What kind of love scene 
 would one like to be absent from least, I won 
 der ? Certainly not that kind which is begun 
 by touching a young woman s ear, and as exactly 
 
 244
 
 THE BETROTHAL 
 
 this act was what William Olney had been guilty 
 of it scenis perfectly idiotic to remain longer at 
 tempting to describe this scene. 
 
 When they got through and came to their 
 senses sufficiently to talk in a manner intelli 
 gible to people who were not suffering from the 
 same malady as themselves, they found they 
 had a good many real things to talk about : in 
 the first place, the fixing of the wedding day, 
 which must be soon, this staid Quaker insisted. 
 It might have been rather hard for him to find 
 an intelligible reason why. Then, next, father 
 Price had desired, as their house was large, the 
 young people should live with them, and this 
 seemed to both of these dreamers a very happy 
 arrangement. The wedding, too, must be given 
 out in meeting, and they naturally wondered 
 what the Swains and Meaders, the Aliens and 
 Wootons and Faucetts and Places and Mor 
 rows and everybody would think and say about 
 it. 
 
 They discussed the Quaker marriage cere 
 mony. Both of them agreed in thinking it the 
 most beautiful marriage ceremony that ever was 
 invented. 
 
 " Does thee think thee can learn it by heart, 
 Lydia, so as to stand up before the whole meet 
 ing-house full of people, and say thy part off 
 without a mistake ? " 
 
 Lyddie felt very certain she could do that and 
 245
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 thought most likely William Olney would make 
 the worst blunder, unless perhaps his recent 
 committing to memory of Bible passages had 
 helped out his memory. And so she twitted 
 him on attempting to quote that long passage 
 from Mark s Gospel not long ago. " Thee re 
 members," she said there was something des 
 perately sweet about these ungrammatical thee s 
 " I m sure thee did not get it right ; and, as 
 thy part to say in the ceremony is longer than 
 mine, I am sure thee is very likely not to get 
 that right." 
 
 But William Olney thought the parts were 
 about the same length, and Lyddie was sure 
 the man s part was a little longer. The Disci 
 pline had to be brought into requisition ; Lyddie 
 had to go and hunt up the book. 
 
 But Lyddie met her sister, and Hannah 
 saw she had the Quaker Discipline in her hand. 
 Now Hannah had some thoughts in her mind 
 that she could not very well repress. W T e must 
 remember that she saw or thought she saw how 
 things were going. She was something of a 
 seer too in her way. Her imagination also had 
 been running on ahead. She already saw Lyd 
 die a rich Quaker preacher, as far separated 
 from her and from her own family as the an 
 tipodes. Of course, she could weep over it too ; 
 and then again would not mind tearing some 
 body s eyes out about it. She could call Lyddie 
 246
 
 THE BETROTHAL 
 
 a little Quaker hypocrite, yet if any one else had 
 dared to call her such a name, Hannah would 
 have risen in her wrath and devoured that per 
 son. It is useless to attempt to describe all 
 the circumstances. We must remember that 
 Hannah had herself spoken in meeting, and 
 taken great credit to herself for it. The oppor 
 tunity of doing so any more was now gone. 
 She would be only a despised spiritual medium 
 if she were anything, but Lyddie would stand 
 in high places. 
 
 Hannah never repressed her words, and now 
 when she saw Lyddie with the Discipline, her 
 thoughts were running over. It only took a 
 glance for Hannah to know what the book was. 
 In a moment she guessed what they had been 
 talking about. She would have said it was a 
 spirit inspiration that told her, though we rather 
 think it was her quick imagination. 
 
 She came up to Lyddie, and, pointing at the 
 book, she began and, for the moment, she was 
 a prophetess, a seer, a Cassandra " I see, I 
 see," she said ; " but don t imagine for a mo 
 ment thee has conquered them ; that would 
 be deceptive flattery to thyself. They will find 
 the cloven hoof in thee some day and thee in 
 them. Thee is preparing for a worse separation 
 than thee ever imagined ; binding the bonds the 
 tighter, that they may break with the louder 
 snap. They have taken thee up and will trans- 
 247
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 plant thee, but they will shake every particle of 
 the mother earth off thy roots and place thee in 
 the driest of sterile soil ; thy leaves shall wither 
 and shrink for lack of the breath that used to 
 blow upon them, and not one of thy kind shalt 
 thou see in the whole region round about thee. 
 Farewell, sweet sister, farewell forever ; go to 
 thy new-found friends and learn gradually to lie 
 to the world and even to thyself ; gather in the 
 sweet successes of life, and turn thy back on the 
 spirit that came to thee in our humble home in 
 our new and despised religion. No one can 
 blame thee. Live and enjoy it if thee can." 
 
 " Fie ! " Lyddie cried out, " is this the bless 
 ing thee would send out with me ? " And then 
 Hannah broke down and cried, and Lyddie took 
 her in her arms and consoled her. She knew it 
 was only her emotion, the thought of the part 
 ing, the trouble with the church ; and so she 
 went on back to William Olney with the Disci 
 pline in her hand. 
 
 We must not forget here, while the wedding 
 is approaching, to chronicle a quite unexpected 
 event, apparently of no importance, but one that 
 bore a little fruit later on. It was no more nor 
 less than Abijah Willetts s moving South. 
 
 No one knew he had been expecting to go. 
 He went to the Reserve, a place that has been 
 mentioned before, and will be heard of again. 
 He took a new span of horses with him. He 
 
 248
 
 THE BETROTHAL 
 
 bought them the day before, and promised to 
 pay for them the day after but that was little 
 for Abijah. He was followed and arrested, and 
 would have been brought back had he not act 
 ually talked the owner of the team into letting 
 him go on. He was such a soft-voiced, gentle- 
 faced old sinner, no one could believe ill of 
 him when in his presence. He actually talked 
 the owner into believing it was a perfectly hon 
 est transaction, that he simply had not found it 
 convenient to pay for the horses that day, but 
 intended to remit the amount the moment he 
 arrived at his destination. 
 
 The owner was mentally cursing himself all 
 the time he was relenting. " I know I m being 
 fooled, cheated," he was saying to himself ; "that 
 he s sleek and rotten and soft-voiced and hypo 
 critical ; but I can t help it ; he talks like an 
 angel, with his good old round face smiling out 
 at me from among his wife and children. Let 
 him go ; I know I ll never see a cent of the 
 money again, but damn the money, you can t 
 arrest a man like that from the bosom of his 
 family and carry him off with a religious halo 
 around his head into imprisonment and perpet 
 ual disgrace." 
 
 And so he relented and let him go ; and Abi 
 jah went on his way rejoicing, and never again 
 thought of paying for the horses. He said to 
 himself, " He couldn t arrest me anyway ; it was 
 249
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 only a breach of trust," and was perfectly satis 
 fied because be was fulfilling tbe letter of the 
 law. 
 
 Abijah left a wretched name behind him ; 
 that is one consolation. The wicked are pun 
 ished in the minds of men, even if they get no 
 punishment in reality. 
 
 250
 
 XXI 
 
 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 IN some respects Hannah had been perfectly 
 right in her prophecy. William Price was never 
 reconciled to the new doctrine ; that would have 
 been impossible. But the strong feeling he had 
 for his son, Lyddie s influence on his wife, 
 Rachel, and the fact that Lyddie belonged to 
 the church and was not known as a spiritualist, 
 and moreover was not a Willoughby, all influ 
 enced him. He remembered Enoch Willongh- 
 by s words : " She will become whatever her 
 husband is." That was most likely true ; they 
 would take her into the family, surround her in 
 every way with different influences ; she would 
 become and remain a good Friend, perhaps a 
 Quaker preacher, and that would be all the bet 
 ter. It was true, the family needed a little touch 
 of spirituality, a little sensitizing of the sympa 
 thetic nerves. 
 
 Such were William Price s thoughts. But 
 when ho came to see Lyddie, and she appeared 
 before him as a young Saint Theresa or Joan of 
 Arc in a condition of spiritual exaltation, he did, 
 for the time being, lose all his early calculated 
 251
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 plans for the future. He yielded uncondition 
 ally, overcome, as we have shown, by a set of 
 circumstances, we hardly know what. It was a 
 true overcoming, a real surrender on all sides. 
 But would it last ? Was this only a lull in that 
 storm we have taken as a symbol of this diffi 
 culty ? Ah ! that remains to be seen. 
 
 Now, if there ever was a soul in the world that 
 was true, and wanted to be true to itself and to 
 everyone around it, this soul was to be found in 
 the body of Lyddie O Mara. And yet she was 
 gradually placing herself in a situation where it 
 was becoming very difficult indeed for her to re 
 main true to herself or anything. 
 
 The marriage was made, as all hindrances were 
 removed. Lyddie was installed in the Price fam 
 ily ; the honeymoon came first, with its journey 
 to Providence and attendant diversions. After 
 it had come to an end Lyddie before long pretty 
 nearly took control of the whole household. 
 She was given so much attention, so much def 
 erence was paid to her, she was so sweetly rea 
 sonable and of such good judgment it soon 
 came to seem as though this family, that needed 
 nothing before, now had excess and superfluity 
 of good qualities. They attended the Quaker 
 meeting regularly ; a very pleasant intimacy 
 arose gradually between Lyddie and her father- 
 in-law. Lyddie was fond of conversing on re 
 ligious matters, and had, for a young woman, a 
 
 252
 
 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 wonderful insight into spiritual things ; and in 
 this, too, she ruled the family. She became a 
 kind of oracle on all such subjects. Her quota 
 tions from Scripture, which she had mostly from 
 the remembrance of their constant repetition at 
 home, they never disputed. When she spoke in 
 meeting, for she did now sometimes do that, her 
 words were looked upon as of very great im 
 portance, and weighed and considered. Every 
 opportunity was put in her way of making what 
 she pleased of herself. 
 
 When the first grandchild was born in the 
 family her situation was in every way pleasant. 
 Yet she had little twinges of conscience even 
 before that. She remembered Hannah s proph 
 ecy and she began to see some indications of its 
 fulfilment. She knew that her sister reproached 
 her for not having visited them on her return 
 from the wedding journey, and she knew what 
 she was saying in her mind of her. We must 
 remember Lyddie s relation in that family had 
 been more that of a daughter than aught else ; 
 now she began to dread to speak of visiting her 
 sister. The Willoughbys came to be very seldom 
 mentioned at the Prices, and then less and less 
 frequently. Her position in the family of her 
 husband was, however, made pleasanter and 
 pleasanter. It seemed to be a delight to these 
 people to spend money for their daughter-in- 
 law, and in many matters in which they would 
 253
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 not have spent a penny on themselves they 
 seemed to consider expense the proper thing 
 for Lyddie. For instance, the Quaker styles 
 were changing ; Avhile the elderly women still 
 adhered to their drab dresses, scoop bonnets, 
 and neckerchiefs, the younger people had as 
 sumed a more modern style, and Rachel and 
 Sally Price delighted in the change for Lyd 
 die, though they could not overcome their dis 
 like to assuming it themselves. So, too, her 
 newly-found uncle and aunt, those Prices in 
 Providence, had taken Lyddie into favor, and 
 fairly overwhelmed the new couple who were 
 the only young married people in the whole Price 
 family with presents. Caleb Price was a man 
 of considerable wealth and no children, and 
 William Olney would naturally some day fall 
 heir to his property. It is needless to try to 
 disguise the fact that all Lyddie s surroundings 
 tended to convince her of the necessity of quiet 
 ly forgetting her connection with a certain fam 
 ily of religious dreamers, who had happened to 
 bring her up and educate her and provide for 
 her until her marriage. 
 
 Still Lyddie was a woman of strength of 
 character ; the struggle between spiritual and 
 worldly things was only just beginning in her, 
 and what she might finally be led to do would 
 be very difficult to say. She felt instinctively 
 that it was unpleasant for everyone concerned 
 254
 
 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 for her to make a visit to the Willoughbys, and 
 put off doing so as long as possible. Another 
 fact she had recently learned: William. Price 
 had not given his business into the hands of 
 his son or made him active possessor of any 
 portion of his estate in such a way that he might 
 not, if need be, take the whole matter immedi 
 ately into his own hands again. 
 
 In this Lyddie felt there was great injustice. 
 Their manner of living and their expenses, Lyd 
 die knew, were far in excess of what would be 
 justified by their salary alone, or commission, 
 or whatever form of support William Price had 
 allowed his son. If that was all and was to be 
 all, it behooved them to live sparingly and to 
 begin already to provide for their future. Every 
 day they put off doing this the more difficult it 
 would become and the more dependent they 
 would finally be upon William Price s good will 
 and ultimate action. Lyddie did not like world- 
 liness in any of its forms ; she was independent. 
 She had made up her mind when she consented 
 to this marriage that what was essential in relig 
 ion was the same in all religions, and, feeling 
 that she could carry this essential something 
 with her, she thought it made little difference to 
 what church she belonged ; but she had no idea 
 of slighting or scorning her own people because 
 they were Spiritualists. On the contrary, her 
 soul was full of gratitude to them. She loved 
 255
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 her sister, though she knew she was emotional 
 and liable to say and do quick and hasty things, 
 and there began to grow up within her a scorn 
 and dislike of herself, to think that she could 
 even have the appearance of ingratitude or nar 
 rowness. 
 
 She knew what her sister would be saying of 
 her: "O, Lyddie? Yes, she is one of those 
 bigoted orthodox; it won t be long till she 
 wouldn t cross the street on Sunday to save a 
 man s life ; she ll soon be as bad as old Abijah 
 Willetts. She knows on which side her bread 
 is buttered." Lyddie could not endure these 
 thoughts. They were not just and yet Hannah 
 could hardly be blamed for entertaining them. 
 
 Of one thing she felt confident that was of her 
 husband s affection ; and, with her husband on 
 her side, she could fight through on any line of 
 opposition she might think best to choose. But 
 this was another of her worst difficulties. Re 
 sponsibilities are our greatest masters, and in 
 one sense the greatest slave is he who is pos 
 sessed of most responsibility. This, by her very 
 nature, Lyddie had assumed. She had always 
 been taught to follow her reason, but she could 
 not at times avoid reasoning from expediency. 
 
 She would find herself saying : " If it is a 
 
 question of the prosperity of my husband and 
 
 children, should I not concede something ? Is 
 
 not the stake in life greater than the loss in 
 
 256
 
 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 principle ? What is principle, anyway ? In one 
 man it is a whim ; in another, a vision ; in an 
 other, an expression of law, itself perhaps fixed 
 by caprice ; in another, a tradition ; again, it is 
 opposition or emotion, a merest obstinacy ; and 
 who can be sure that his greatest principle is 
 anything but the greatest illusion ? Who can be 
 sure that his religion is not finally an excess of 
 emotion or mental exaltation except in the case 
 of Enoch Willoughby and a few like him? They 
 are sure of themselves, but they too might be 
 mistaken. Then there remains the simple bal 
 ancing up of the good of one s friends, and what 
 friend can be nearer, for what friend should 
 one do more, than for the husband of one s heart 
 and the child in one s bosom ?" 
 
 And then, if she thought of Enoch Willoughby, 
 she would blush for very shame that such 
 thoughts could ever have passed through her 
 mind. With him principle was everything, be 
 cause it was eternal; while the world and all 
 that there is in it is but ephemeral as a day. And 
 how sure such a man s course must be. With 
 what satisfaction he must review his acts ! How 
 he can mark out a line and hew to it ! 
 
 And yet, what would be the outcome of such 
 a character, uncompromising, unyielding ? His 
 so-called principles were sure to get him into 
 trouble, wore constantly doing so. And the man 
 always welcomed the trouble as a test of the 
 257
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 principle and of his adherence to it. Born for a 
 martyr was such a man ! While she she was 
 born to wear silk dresses like Rachel Price, to 
 discuss the height and depth of Solomon s temple 
 and such other empty Scriptural formality as 
 might be intelligible in a materialist s ear. 
 
 These were the kind of reasonings that passed 
 through Lyddie s mind and were communicated 
 to her husband, for she said they should not be 
 divided even in thought. William Olney per 
 ceived all the depth and greatness of this wom 
 an s soul and was thankful that he had been 
 given a wife of understanding, and not a frivolous, 
 light-minded creature. 
 
 " Lyddie," he said to her, " I feel that I am 
 just beginning rightly to fall in love with thee ; 
 thy reason and sweet intellect almost relieve me 
 from the need of having any on certain matters. 
 I am sure that, with thy understanding, whatever 
 thee does will be right ; and I am sure theo will 
 be considerate of my people as thee is of thy own, 
 and further than that I can ask nothing." 
 
 So then Lyddie was left as much in the dark 
 after this searching conversation with her hus 
 band as before. And with it all she felt a kind 
 of contraction coming over her soul, a shrivelling, 
 dryiug-up process. At first she had spoken in 
 meeting, and sakept the flame burning that had 
 been lighted within her. But in some way 
 speaking was beginning to die out in the church ; 
 258
 
 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 a number of people had gone away. The shrink 
 ing process had begun when the Willoughbys 
 had absented themselves from the meeting. 
 Enoch Willoughby s powerful and wretched emo 
 tional speaking had made all other seem good 
 and easy by contrast. And then the Willettses 
 had gone. Abijah Willetts was no dull light 
 spiritually, though he was an old rascal, and 
 many had fears lest, after all, his religion might 
 be genuine ; it would have been a pity if so great 
 a rascal had had genuine religion, and it did 
 seem like it to hear him speak. 
 
 Then the younger women speakers had gradu 
 ally grown out of the speaking habit. Caroline 
 Wooton had married and moved away ; Caroline 
 Fawcett had married and become rather hard 
 and practical ; she could make a motion in the 
 woman s part of the meeting, or would work well 
 on a committee, but she seemed to have no in 
 spiration any longer. Calinda Place had turned 
 to music which, too, had lately been taken up in 
 the meeting and expended her excess of emo 
 tion in leading the singing, while Lucinda Mor 
 row had gone into mission work, and there was 
 no one left but Mary Swain, and she very seldom 
 spoke. The Swains, too, were talking of moving 
 to the Reserve. 
 
 Lyddie found, when she yielded to the spirit 
 in meeting, it was now somewhat noticeable. 
 Everybody remembered that she had been with
 
 the spiritualists, and the presence of this hostile 
 thought cast a chill upon her and banished the 
 spirit like a flash of light. Besides, gradually, 
 at the Prices they came to speak less frequently 
 of her performances of this kind, until finally 
 she came to feel after it at home always a kind 
 of chilly void, through which she had to wade 
 several days before it would warm up and fill. 
 Sometimes she asked herself what had become 
 of that flood of spirituality that had been rained 
 down over this whole settlement. It seemed once 
 as if everybody, from old Uncle Allen down, had 
 been spiritually minded ; the young women all 
 potential Lucretia Motts, and the young men all 
 possible George Foxes or Amos Hoags. 
 
 But now it was different. She began to ask 
 herself what life was for ; what was there in it ; 
 what did it mean? It began to seem dull and 
 stale. She had discussed the quality of cloth, 
 the style and cost of garments, the arrangement 
 of furniture and rooms, the harmony of colors 
 with Rachel and Sally Price until those sub 
 jects seemed to be pretty nearly exhausted. She 
 was like an actress who has been thrilled by ap 
 plause, and longs for the sensation again ; like 
 the old war-horse that idly hangs his head over 
 a too full manger, and dreams of the days when 
 he rushed into battle to the blare of the trumpet 
 and the beat of the drum. Who that has once 
 felt the inpouriug of the life-giving spirit, whether 
 260
 
 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 through pen, speech, or action, but remains all his 
 life waiting and receptive for another influence ? 
 
 Lyddie remembered Hannah s speaking, how 
 easily the spirit came upon that Eamsdell wom 
 an, and how sure Enoch Willoughby was of be 
 ing caught up by the power. Once only had 
 that power come over Lyddie with all-conquering 
 force the time she had last spoken to William 
 Price. That seemed now to her like the per 
 formance of a miracle ; and yet she knew that 
 William Price had said afterward " she seemed 
 considerably excited, that was all." Excited! 
 Was that what he called excited? She had 
 never been calmer in her life. 
 
 She did not even like to talk of the Bible any 
 longer, for the only parts of it that people seemed 
 to understand were the commandments and the 
 law of Moses. " Merciful heaven ! " she wanted 
 to cry, " keep me from forming harsh judgments ; 
 but these people are so narrow, so material, so 
 little ; what shall I be forced some time to do? " 
 
 She began to feel that life was a burden. She 
 sometimes imagined she had turned her back 
 upon the spirit and committed the unpardon 
 able sin. She wondered what the Prices would 
 say or do if she should go to a spiritual meeting 
 and sit in a circle and be influenced and speak. 
 They would hush it up and conceal it if possi 
 ble. They would think she was mad. If the 
 fact was known they would say she was mad, 
 261
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 and, if not for her husband, might easily put her 
 into confinement. But Lyddie had always in 
 tended to do what she thought was right ; had 
 never intended that her own will, much less her 
 own actions, should be controlled ; she felt that 
 she ought to lead others rather than be led by 
 them. Slowly and gradually she was coming to 
 a conclusion. 
 
 263
 
 XXII 
 
 THE VISIT FROM LITTLE JAMES 
 
 THIS conclusion was hastened by another 
 event ; nothing more important indeed than a 
 visit from her nephew, that little James whom 
 she loved with all an elder sister s affection. 
 The boy was quick and passionate like his 
 mother, but had always been more subject to 
 Lyddie s guidance than hers. Lyddie had con 
 trolled and moderated his transports of anger 
 and joy and childish emotion, and she had 
 thereby learned to love the boy as we all learn 
 to love those who loyally follow our guidance 
 and depend upon us. 
 
 The Prices felt instinctively they ought to be 
 most careful and polite to this little friend of 
 Lyddie s, and they were so ; nor was there any 
 depreciation when they announced to Lyddie 
 that little Jimmy Willoughby was waiting to see 
 her. 
 
 We ought to consider the early associations 
 of these two. How many times in the old days, 
 when Enoch had acted strangely under some tort 
 uring influence of the spirit, little James and 
 Lyddie had crept away upstairs together, and 
 263
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 sat with their arms about each other in very 
 fear and trembling before the Lord ; and then, 
 how they had comforted each other, Lyddie 
 keeping the boy calm and upholding his respect 
 for his father. "It will soon pass off, Jimmy," 
 she would say, and then would point out how 
 good that father was and gentle and kind to the 
 boy ; seldom punishing or reproving, and never 
 scolding ; and so they had quieted each other 
 and remained together in Lyddie s room until 
 the boy had fallen asleep, or until the influence 
 had departed. It is idle to expect such old as 
 sociations as these to be at once destroyed by a 
 marriage. It was well the Prices did not offend 
 this boy. I can imagine the gentlest tigress, 
 purring contentedly under the caresses of her 
 friendly domesticators, out of her sleepy eyes 
 lazily watching her cub, which someone is calmly 
 stroking down its yellow nose ; but let that cub 
 give one single cry of pain, and that tiger would 
 be Lyddie if they had offended the boy. 
 
 No one had thought of offending him. Every 
 one knew it would be better to wait until the 
 grandchild was born ; the mother instincts then 
 that now were concentrated on this little friend 
 would hold and check her. They had been kind 
 to Lyddie, wonderfully kind ; though they had 
 forgotten and wanted to forget where she came 
 from and what she was. But Lyddie had not 
 forgotten. 
 
 264
 
 THE VISIT FROM LITTLE JAMES 
 
 " Mother says you won t come to see us any 
 more, and so I determined I d come and see you 
 anyway just once, Tid." 
 
 The boy tried to laugh as he used the old nick 
 name, and felt a little shock as he thought of 
 applying it to Lyddie in all these new and won 
 derful surroundings. But Lyddie saw the boy s 
 lip quiver and knew all about it in a moment. 
 
 " Thy mother is mistaken, James," she said, 
 " and she misjudges me greatly. I have been 
 doing wrong, though, and what I knew was 
 wrong, by not going to see you." And then she 
 sat down by the boy and did as she had done a 
 hundred times before ; she told him everything 
 as if he were entirely capable of understanding, 
 as indeed he was. 
 
 " It is a great question of duty, James," she 
 said at last. " What ought I to do ? " 
 
 The boy understood and appreciated the sit 
 uation. " You d better give us all up, Tid," he 
 said ; " I m old enough to know that there is 
 nothing in it." That " it " was a bigger word 
 than it seemed. And then followed some boy 
 ish wisdom. " I know there isn t any God," the 
 boy said bitterly and passionately, " or any 
 heaven, or any earth, except just what you see ; 
 there is no such thing as a spirit, good or bad ; 
 we don t live after we die, we only rot. It s all 
 nonsense and people s imagination. The only 
 sensible men in the world are those that believe 
 265
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 nothing. Those that believe in God are slaves 
 and fools to all the rest. If you can make any 
 thing by staying here and cutting us and forget 
 ting us, I d do it ; it s the sensible thing. Of 
 course, we ll feel bad for a little while, but 
 that s no matter, we ll get over it. It s what 
 everybody does as far as I can see, and I m 
 going to learn to do as other people do." 
 
 And then Lyddie attempted to soothe and 
 pacify, but it was no longer easy. She had 
 already placed herself in a position where her 
 actions were liable to false interpretations, and 
 she had not yet decided. For a long time she 
 had been going over the words " He who 
 would save his life shall lose it." "Life " meant 
 to her the worldly, material life first, and next 
 it meant that better spiritual life of principle, 
 which she knew, and understood, and ought to 
 follow. She felt instinctively that the boy was 
 right, that to turn and tack and catch the favor 
 ing breeze and run before the storm was the 
 way to make progress on the ocean of life, while 
 over that other ocean of eternity there was but 
 one straight course marked out by the conscience 
 and leading to the very throne of the Most 
 High. 
 
 She was again for a moment a seer ; flashes 
 
 of inward light revealed to her vistas of the 
 
 future. She knew that at the end of one of 
 
 these must be a nameless grave, hovered over 
 
 266
 
 THE VISIT FROM LITTLE JAMES 
 
 and guarded by an immortal spirit of lasting 
 memory and imperishable glory. At the end of 
 the other was a deceptive monument recording 
 in lying characters the virtuous deeds of a 
 worldly and selfish woman. Should she have 
 respect to the world, or should she only be true 
 to herself? She could not decide ; she must 
 have time. 
 
 She took the boy up to her rooms, her own part 
 of the house. She interested him in every way 
 she could think of ; she kept him talking. She 
 had it in mind to have the carriage brought 
 round and take him back with her. " "What 
 shall it profit a man to gain the whole world 
 and lose his OAvn soul." These words would 
 constantly come to her, but the boy went home 
 alone. 
 
 He had not had a good visit with Aunt Tid ; 
 she had not talked to him as she used to do ; 
 she had been a little cool and stiff. 
 
 Hannah said now she was indeed ready to 
 go to another country. She had no sister liv 
 ing any longer in this. And before Lyddie 
 had a chance to redeem herself her people had 
 gone. 
 
 There comes in here also the momentous love 
 story of two children, of little James and Susie 
 Beatty. It is not necessary to laugh at them 
 because they were young ; they could be just as 
 sensibly foolish and foolishly sensible ; just as 
 267
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 pathetic and woe-begone ; quarrel and make up 
 and dream about one another night and day, 
 be thrilled by a touch of the hand or sigh at the 
 thought of blue eyes or red lips or wavy hair, 
 just as well as older people. 
 
 In fact, no one, old or young, could be more 
 desperately in love than little Jiumiie was with 
 Susan Beatty. She was the adopted daughter 
 of Doc Beatty, who has been mentioned before, 
 and soon concentrated upon herself all the boy s 
 affection for the whole family, dogs, cats, musical 
 instruments, and all. Even that medicinal odor, 
 that brought up the whole paradise of the doc 
 tor s house, now settled in his fancy around 
 Susie, and out of it seemed to grow the most 
 charming face of the most beautiful girl, and 
 yet he knew distinctly when and where and how 
 the tender passion first came into his heart. 
 
 It was while the Gene worship still glowed 
 high on the altar of his youthful affection, and 
 the doctor s old horse and Newfoundland clog 
 still shared in it, that it all came about, 
 namely in the following fashion : The doctor 
 had taken Susie with him to visit his patients, 
 and on the rounds had stopped at the Wil- 
 loughbys , and there had left the girl while he 
 made a side trip to a place to which he did not 
 wish her to accompany him. It was growing 
 dark ; the doctor was detained ; the girl became 
 afraid. The doctor was not a man to take 
 268
 
 THE VISIT FROM LITTLE JAMES 
 
 spirits out of the body very much into his cal 
 culations ; it is doubtful if he considered those 
 in it to any great extent. The idea that Susie 
 should become afraid of spirits at the Willough- 
 bys , and begin to cry, never entered his mind ; 
 but she did. The girl was left alone in the 
 sitting-room, and at first amused herself by 
 looking at the old photograph album ; then she 
 got up and touched the keys of the melodeon, 
 and went over to the window and looked out. 
 The house was on the edge of the woods ; it 
 was already growing dark ; the wind was sigh 
 ing through the trees. The girl was not used 
 to the country ; it looked lonely and desolate 
 outside. She wondered what the people were 
 doing. Why did not some one come and sit 
 with her ? Would the doctor be away long ? 
 She missed everything that she was used to, 
 and suddenly oh why did she think of that 
 the Willoughbys were spiritualists ! 
 
 Instantly a great terror seized upon the girl ; 
 she looked and expected to see the room full of 
 ghosts ; she did not dare move a foot or finger, 
 or stir from the room or even from the window. 
 She was paralyzed from the fear of her own 
 imagination. Suddenly one of her knees grew 
 weak and began to tremble. She must sit 
 down. But to sit down in that dark room, in 
 that place the thought of it was too much for 
 her. She heard a noise ; she gave a stifled 
 209
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 scream, covered her face, and sank on a sofa in 
 the corner and burst out crying. 
 
 " Why, Susie, what is the matter ? " 
 
 It was Hannah who was coming into the 
 room to stay with her. She had been thinking 
 the little girl might be afraid or lonesome, and 
 made* haste to come in as soon as she could. 
 But when the girl saw her she was frightened 
 the more. Whether it was the thought of the 
 spirits, or Hannah s tall form, or the fact that she 
 was a stranger, or whatever it was, Hannah saw 
 the girl was in danger of a fit of hysterics ; and 
 remembering that James was acquainted with 
 the doctor s family, and might be able to quiet 
 her, she rushed out and called him to come in. 
 
 As soon as the boy appeared, Susie recog 
 nized a familiar face. The spirits fled away 
 like a flash. 
 
 " Oh, I am so afraid," she said. 
 
 "Why, what are you afraid of," the boy 
 asked. 
 
 "I don t know, I don t know; I m just 
 afraid," the girl said ; and then she begged him 
 not to go away until the doctor came back. 
 The boy reassured her and took the photograph 
 album over to show her the pictures of his aunts 
 and cousins. He sat down by her on the sofa, 
 and Susie took hold of his arm and held him 
 close, and then they sat and talked ; and as 
 they talked it grew darker outside. The doctor 
 270
 
 THE VISIT FROM LITTLE JAMES 
 
 was still delayed. Finally the girl slipped her 
 hand into the boy s hand and then took hold 
 of it and pressed it. The boy returned the 
 pressure. 
 
 "And you were crying because you were 
 afraid right here in our house," he said to her. 
 
 "I was so foolish, so foolish," she replied; 
 "but I am not afraid any longer. I was not 
 afraid any longer after you came," and just then 
 the doctor drove up. 
 
 No one mentioned what had happened. The 
 doctor was in haste and drove off soon ; but 
 now the young lovers had become acquainted. 
 
 And then there had followed that delightful 
 period of young love, that is altogether too good 
 to describe, when the touch of a finger would 
 be remembered a week, and a look cast at some 
 one else would send the heart sinking down to 
 unfathomable depths of jealous pain. Then 
 might perhaps come the sweet intoxication of 
 a few minutes together ; then a fierce fight 
 with Jim Harris, because he said that "Susie 
 was a flirt and coquette and didn t care for 
 anybody as far away as you could see him in 
 the woods." 
 
 And then had come finally the breaking off ; 
 oh, woe, indeed ! And in this case the spirits 
 did it too, for the child lovers quarrelled about 
 religion, a deep, heavy, eternal quarrel. Two 
 hearts that beat as one were now henceforth 
 271
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 to beat as two; and words were passed back 
 and forth ; deep, dreadful words like these : 
 
 " I think a Hixite is as good as a Spiritualist 
 any day of the week," and vice versa. And 
 now how they hated one another ! 
 
 " That little flirt of a Susie " and " That little 
 stupid of a Jim ! " So that little James was 
 quite ready to go to the Reserve along with the 
 rest of his people. 
 
 272
 
 XXIII 
 
 A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 THERE succeeded a time when Lyddie, too, 
 looked into the depths. Lyddie now passed 
 through a period like that of a man distracted 
 with the pangs of misprised love. Of course, 
 her trouble was in the imagination, but it was 
 none the less real for all that. There is no 
 doubt Lyddie felt like one who had cursed God 
 and was beginning to wither away and die. 
 Everyone noticed that there was something the 
 matter with her, but no one could tell what it 
 was. She had no interest in anything about 
 her. She passed sleepless nights ; she was often 
 distraught ; she sought solitude as if it were her 
 only refuge. She actually came to fear to be 
 with the people about her lest she might say or 
 do something amiss. She shuddered often at her 
 imagination, and forcibly brought herself back 
 to the world around her. There is no doubt 
 that the effect of the strange teachings and theo 
 ries of Enoch Willoughby had much to do with 
 her condition. She felt that she had shut out 
 from herself the spirit world, and from base 
 motives ; that she had been ashamed to take up 
 273
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 and confess before her husband s people her 
 greatest benefactor ; the spirit that had con 
 quered a kingdom for her was not to be allowed a 
 dwelling-place in that kingdom. She hated her 
 self. She felt all the gnawiugs of remorse ; she 
 felt hate springing up in her soul against every 
 one and bitterness that turned her lip to sar 
 casm and her voice to acidity. She knew she 
 was in danger ; she felt that her love for her 
 husband had left her heart ; she almost hated 
 him. She lay by his side at times, on awaking 
 in the morning, and thought of him with repug 
 nance as a piece of cold, dead flesh lying beside 
 her. 
 
 " Something is the matter with Lyddie Price," 
 everybody said. She became indifferent to how 
 she lived, to how she was clothed, to what she 
 ate. The people in the house became a little 
 afraid of her. She would not go to the Quaker 
 meeting or elsewhere. The Prices said as little 
 as possible about her, but she was talked about 
 in the neighborhood. She grew thin and pale, 
 with great rings under her eyes. Once, before 
 the Willoughbys left, her young brothel s came 
 to see her ; they had heard she was not well. 
 But she did not care to see them. And yet, all 
 this time there was the most perfect understand 
 ing between herself and her husband. She told 
 him her feeling, her inward experiences, even 
 her hatred of him, her imaginings of his soul- 
 274
 
 A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 less materialism, of her thoughts of suicide. But 
 always she would say, " I shall get over it ; it is 
 the spirit working in me. I do not know what 
 it is going to do, or how or when, but it is lead 
 ing me somewhere through a vast amount of 
 bitter experience, and it may be for my own 
 good. I shall get over it, and whatever it 
 counsels me to do I shall have to do." 
 
 And then she asked her husband if he re 
 membered what she had said to him long ago, 
 before they were married, about her being com 
 pelled to get up on a cold morning and drive off 
 miles into the country on some foolish errand. 
 
 William Olney remembered and was ready 
 now, as he had ever been, to make himself the 
 willing slave of Lyddie s spirit. And so the 
 poor woman worked with herself and fought the 
 devil and shame and the world and the spirit, 
 but could get no rest and no light, until she be 
 gan to be afraid of herself, afraid that in her 
 confusion she might not retain the thread of 
 sanity. Her prayers were pitiful in the ex 
 treme. 
 
 " She s going like her sister Ruth in Ohio," 
 some said, " and will be a stupid crone in her 
 old age, to sit senselessly by the fire and intone 
 aloud Pinneo s Grammar and Hostetter s Alma 
 nac." 
 
 Others said : " She has the excitable nature 
 of her sister Hannah and it has gone in on her." 
 275
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 "It is her condition," still others said, "just 
 at this time." 
 
 " It is religion wonting upon her," said Mary 
 Swain. 
 
 Others said openly : " The woman is losing 
 her mind and will be in an insane asylum before 
 many months." 
 
 And poor Lyddie felt an oppression upon her 
 that she could not bear. It was like a physical 
 ailment. She could not sleep. She would have 
 the impulse to leap from the upper window and 
 crush herself upon the pavement. At meals 
 when sitting under William Price s silent bless 
 ing she could hardly avoid shouting out. But 
 this is enough to show her condition. What was 
 the remedy? 
 
 It suddenly flashed upon her she must go 
 back. Her own people were gone, but there 
 were others. There were those two women, 
 Susan and P lene. She began to think more 
 and more about them. Perhaps it was not true 
 that all religions are essentially the same. What 
 had come to her had come to her as spiritual 
 ism, and she must acknowledge it as that. It 
 was Enoch Willoughby s vision worked over 
 again in another form. Were we after all only 
 the instruments of something higher? It all 
 cleared up to her now. She felt confident that 
 that was what was wanted of her. She would 
 obey. She would do everything in her power, 
 276
 
 A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE- 
 
 and no fear or shame should keep her from it. 
 She believed her husband would not lose faith 
 in her, and there returned immediately into her 
 heart a great wave of kindly feeling. She would 
 no longer be a hypocrite. She could now re 
 spect herself and love the world and all in it. 
 She began to feel better in every way. 
 
 When William Olney came home that day the 
 clouds had gone. He asked her what had 
 changed her. 
 
 " Thee s so like thyself I hardly know thee," 
 he said with pleasing paradox, and Lyddie told 
 him of her " opening," her " inspiration." She 
 must go back, she said, even if it was the cause 
 of their being disinherited. 
 
 Then AVilliam Olney replied : " I have long 
 thought there might be something of that kind 
 the matter with thee ; you are all strange people, 
 unlike others, and I do not understand you at all ; 
 but I have always thought thee was much like 
 thy brother-in-law, Enoch Willoughby, whom I 
 respect and like in many ways ; and though I 
 think we should be careful not to offend my peo 
 ple, yet I have married thee. I love thee, Lyd 
 die; I love every little thing about thee, even 
 to thy most foolish fancies. We are young and 
 strong, life is open before us, we will not be 
 slaves to the prospect of an inheritance. Tell me 
 what thy spirit says for me to do, Lydia, and I 
 will do it even to the half of my kingdom." 
 277
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 And Lyddie replied in the same spirit of 
 humor and sadness. 
 
 " I am very much afraid, William Olney, it 
 will be even to the whole of thy kingdom," she 
 said, "for I am sure thy father will disinherit 
 us ; but I thank thee for being the best and 
 truest husband that ever lived." 
 
 Lyddie s conscience had been troubling her. 
 She thought she had done wrong, and the more 
 she thought about it, the more hateful her of 
 fence seemed. Her imaginative mind ran through 
 the future in a thousand directions ; but however 
 she looked at it she could see no relief for her 
 self, no escape from her false position, except by 
 what she had called " going back." She had 
 begun to feel her position first when the gradual 
 breaking up of her connection with the Willough- 
 bys began ; then when she had been visited by 
 little James. After all, she did not believe it 
 was the spirit driving her ; it was herself. Lyd 
 die had no great faith in any mission of hers ; 
 she was not called in any way as Enoch 
 Willoughby had been, except to do right, to 
 be true to herself. The moment she felt she 
 was not time to herself she became miserable ; 
 while the moment she turned as her conscience 
 pointed she became satisfied with herself and 
 happy. 
 
 " Very well, Lyddie," William Olney said, at 
 the close of their conversation, " shall we pro- 
 278
 
 A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 claim it from the housetops, Lydia Price has 
 gone over to the spiritualists ? 
 
 " Nay, do not jest," Lyddie said ; " it is very 
 sad." 
 
 " Yes, Lyddie, it probably is," William Olney 
 replied, "and I am not much given to seeing the 
 humorous side of things, but I cannot avoid smil 
 ing when I think of certain phases of thy situa 
 tion ; how anxious thee is to make a martyr of 
 thyself, how thee would like to have the church 
 try thee for heresy, how thee would like to have 
 my father disinherit us, and all to satisfy thy 
 conscience." 
 
 But Lyddie checked him. 
 
 " I am sure," she said, " thy father has al 
 ready begun to cast us out of his heart ; and 
 only to consider that side of it is very sad. I 
 have learned to like thy father, almost to love 
 him as a daughter. He is a strong nature, of a 
 certain kind that attracts me. There is some 
 thing about him that is as persistent and con 
 stant as about Enoch Willoughby s visions. I 
 can see plainly he will never yield, as he has 
 never really yielded. Do not think for a mo 
 ment I am considering our relation to his prop 
 erty. I know thee will not think me sordid or 
 mercenary, but look at the man himself ; con 
 sider his nature, his training, and his way of 
 looking at things, and is there nothing pathetic 
 to thee in the thought ? He will bid us good- 
 279
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 by as lie would if he saw us going down into 
 destruction and himself incapable of lending a 
 helping hand. And yet," she continued, " I feel 
 that I have to do it or die, not a physical, but 
 what is worse than that, a spiritual, death. I 
 cannot help feeling that I am like that Simon 
 who offered a price for the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost. I must put myself in a different situa 
 tion, or my life will be worth nothing." 
 
 " Very well," William Olney said, " shall I 
 withdraw from my father s business, or shall I 
 wait till the effect of thy action leads him to in 
 vite me to do so ? Can thee not manage to sat 
 isfy thy conscience by some other subterfuge ? 
 Can thee not let it be known among some of thy 
 friends that thee has changed thy belief, and still 
 go to meeting occasionally? Go to the other 
 meetings, but not too openly. Remember I am 
 not advising thee to do this, but simply suggest 
 ing a course that would not be wrong for me, 
 for to me it would make no difference what I was 
 called or what I am as far as religion is con 
 cerned, as I once before told thee ; and I thought 
 it was pretty much the same with thee. It does 
 not seem to me wise to sacrifice all our business 
 prospects for an over-nice question of conscience, 
 neither did it seem wise from a mere worldly 
 stand-point to sacrifice such prospects, as I sup 
 posed I should have to do when about to make 
 thee my wife. But we do not always follow the 
 280
 
 A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 counsel of worldly wisdom; and, as I did not 
 follow it then, so I shall not follow it now. 
 Spare my father s feelings all thee can, but be 
 come and be as for thy conscience whatever thee 
 likes." 
 
 And so Lyddie Price, already a believer in the 
 new doctrine, began openly to speak about it. 
 AYilliam Price said nothing, but the intimacy 
 that had sprung up between him and his daugh 
 ter-in-law was gradually dropped. There was 
 no argument attempted, no effort at conversion ; 
 the subject was simply avoided. 
 
 A gradual coolness was rising also between 
 William Olney and his father, and the poor old 
 gentleman suffered horribly. 
 
 " They are lost, they are lost," he often said 
 to himself, " and they will be the cause of lead 
 ing many astray, for their influence will be great 
 among the young people." 
 
 He withdrew more and more into himself. 
 He would not, must not, countenance them. 
 The thought that their bad influence came large 
 ly from their connection with him. and his wealth 
 troubled him. He wished he did not possess 
 anything; that he might lose what he possessed. 
 He could not break with his son and still enjoy 
 prosperity himself, and yet perhaps he ought to 
 break Avith him. The old gentleman was grow 
 ing palo and thin over his mental distress, and 
 yet, as Enoch "Willoughby would have said, 
 281
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 " There wasn t very much the matter ; those peo 
 ple only needed to know one another better, to 
 talk about things and reason about them, and 
 come to an understanding." 
 
 " What Lyddie needs," Hannah most likely 
 would have said, " is another good attack of 
 spiritual influence ; let her call up the spirits 
 and fly at old William Price again and that 
 pretty soon, or she will lose all she has gained, 
 and may not get the old Quaker s money after 
 all." 
 
 " Oh, if he had no money," Lyddie said over 
 and over, " and no friends or relations but us, 
 and was in affliction and grief and we could com 
 fort him, he should never find son or daughter 
 kinder." 
 
 Old William Price felt the pull on his affection, 
 but turned resolutely away. How we can hate 
 where we have once loved ! For a long time he 
 shut his eyes to the fact that Rachel was fond of 
 Lyddie, fonder far than of her own daughter. 
 That was another blow to him. He would come 
 home and look about for " mother," and ask for 
 her, only to be told " she was up in Lyddie s 
 room." " In Lyddie s room " that would be 
 enough ; he would go to the library and sit 
 down to his solitary reading of Millman s Jour 
 nal or George Fox s life, or the newspaper. If 
 Lyddie heard him coming she would suggest to 
 Rachel, " There comes father. Make haste, and 
 282
 
 A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 don t let liini find thee with me or the house 
 empty," and in every way she would be careful 
 to soften the harsh feeling that was congealing 
 between them, and she and Rachel Price talked 
 about it and understood each other. 
 
 Lyddie went openly to several spiritual meet 
 ings, and her husband went with her. She had 
 to go. 
 
 " It is not religion with me," she said, " it is 
 conscience." 
 
 Again and again she thought of the " sins of 
 the father being visited upon the children to the 
 third and fourth generation." Eeligion does not 
 by any means consist entirely of essential parts ; 
 two-thirds of it at least are in outward, ines 
 sential things. She felt the baseness of her 
 situation. She felt at times even William Price 
 might accuse her, with some show of reason, of 
 hypocrisy. He might say she had lied to him 
 and schemed to marry into the family and pro 
 vide for herself at the expense of her conscience. 
 What would she not do to avoid such imputa 
 tion? 
 
 One day she had been thinking this side of it 
 over when a woman called at the house and asked 
 for Mrs. Price. It was that Susan Eamsdell 
 of whom we have before spoken. The servant 
 did not know her, and the woman did not seem 
 to know just what to say when she was asked 
 which Mrs. Price she meant. It happened that 
 283
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 William Price was called to the door to speak 
 to her in explanation and Lyddie heard the con 
 versation from upstairs. The woman seemed to 
 be unable to make herself clear, until finally, by 
 a lucky thought, she said it was " the spiritual 
 ist woman^" whom she wished to see. 
 
 Then Lyddie could hear the tone of William 
 Price s voice, suddenly and entirely changed. 
 
 " There is no spiritualist woman living here," 
 he said ; " I advise thee to seek lower down." 
 
 Just what he meant by the words "lower 
 down " the woman plainly did not at first un 
 derstand, for she stood a moment looking up 
 and down the street. When she looked around 
 again, the door had closed behind her and she 
 slowly retreated. 
 
 Lyddie had heard the whole conversation. 
 She understood well those last words, and knew 
 they were meant for her ears rather than for 
 those of the woman outside, and yet Lyddie 
 was too good and charitable to become angry. 
 She did have determination, however, and a 
 conscience quick to respond. She immediately 
 went down stairs, past William Price, even ask 
 ing him to excuse her as she brushed against 
 him in the door, and spoke to the woman out 
 side ; she could be plainly heard both within 
 and without the house. 
 
 " They were mistaken in answering you," she 
 said, " there is a spiritualist woman living here. 
 284
 
 A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 I am she. Is there anything ? Will you come 
 in. Oh, it is Susan Ramsdell." 
 
 For at that moment she recognized her, and 
 then she urged her and the woman came in. 
 
 285
 
 XXIY 
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 THIS trivial incident brought about the rupt 
 ure. Lyddie could hardly be blamed for it. 
 She had already so much on her conscience she 
 felt she could not have endured another period 
 of self-reproach. It became plain that the fam 
 ilies must separate. Had it better be before 
 or after that coming event in anticipation of 
 which she and Rachel Price were spending so 
 many delightful hours together? It had per 
 haps better be soon. She was not likely to 
 have another such visit, it is true, for the Rarns- 
 dell woman with her sister was about to follow 
 the stream of emigration to the Reserve and had 
 come at the request of Lyddie s sister, Hannah, 
 to see Lyddie before she went away ; but other 
 things were very likely to arise. It would be 
 best to make the change at once. 
 
 She decided to talk to her husband about it, 
 and then began a series of events which changed 
 everything. 
 
 And first, it was the death of Rachel Price, 
 that good woman whom Lyddie had come to 
 love almost as a mother. Her illness was brief. 
 286
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 Lyddie had been with her as much as possible, 
 but had found her presence not desired in the 
 sick-room ; she found she cast a restraint over 
 William Price, that he avoided her ; and even 
 at the funeral, in the face of that great event of 
 nature that so often breaks down all the arti 
 ficial barriers and allows hearts to come togeth 
 er in a moment that have remained apart for 
 years, it was the same. Old William Price 
 remained alone ; his daughter Sally of course 
 was with him, but there could be little expres 
 sion of sympathy between two such natures as 
 theirs. It was Lyddie s heart that yearned for 
 sympathy with the old gentleman. She knew 
 that he suspected her of worldly motives. She 
 could do nothing toward rendering his life less 
 solitary and dreary without incurring the sus 
 picion of trying to ingratiate herself with him. 
 
 The child was born, but before this event 
 Lyddie and her husband had removed to an 
 other house. Lyddie had made up her mind 
 that the right thing for them to do was to act 
 as though there were no interested motives pos 
 sible. Let the one who entertains suspicion 
 of wrong motives suffer for entertaining such 
 suspicion. So they invited the father-in-law to 
 the house, but he did not come. He met his 
 son at business every day, but their social re 
 lations did not extend further than that. They 
 sent him notice of the birth of the boy, and he 
 287
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 returned them his congratulations by letter. 
 " The innocence in the eyes of a grandchild," 
 that Hannah had put into such ready words, did 
 not seem yet to be " stronger than any religious 
 belief." There are hearts of stone, and good 
 hearts too in most respects, that when it comes 
 to some foolish, simple phase of religion are 
 not amenable to reason. 
 
 William Price determined to get his property 
 out of his hands, that he might not be indi 
 rectly, even, an upholder of an " accursed super 
 stition." He was too good a man to want to 
 enjoy what one of his family did not possess. 
 Sometimes we are willing to inflict only a pun 
 ishment that we ourselves share. He deter 
 mined to make a visit to his brother in Provi 
 dence. He turned his property over to his 
 daughter, absolutely, retaining very little for 
 himself. Possibly he expected it would be re 
 turned to him later on. It may be he thought 
 she would share it with his son, and in this way 
 the responsibility would fall upon her ; or it may 
 be he thought she would keep it and the odium 
 of depriving his son of any share in it would 
 thus be taken away from himself. However 
 that may be, he made over his property to his 
 daughter and went on his visit. 
 
 No one would have supposed that Sally 
 Price would have retained everything for her 
 self, but she did. She was absolutely incapable
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 of generosity. There are natures with a con 
 sciousness of their own weakness so great that 
 all possible aids and props are insufficient to 
 make them feel secure. They retain everything 
 they can lay hands upon from a feeling of the 
 necessity of self-preservation. "Let them have 
 it ; they need it," is the best that can be said 
 of them. 
 
 " We can do without it," is what William Ol- 
 ney and Lyddie Price said, and then, without 
 malice, without envy, they went on their way 
 enjoying life, happy, generous, and striving. It 
 must be said, too, for Lyddie there was a deep 
 sense of satisfaction that she could not now be 
 accused of having obtained the Price wealth at 
 the cost of her conscience. 
 
 But if William Price counted on receiving 
 back from his daughter the control of his es 
 tate he had been misled. Weak natures, grasp 
 ing at the supports of wealth, are likewise easily 
 affected by flattery. Sally Price, before long, 
 was attracted by a schemer, who married her 
 for her money, and then succeeded in running 
 through with the most of it ; and, in her fight 
 to save the remainder, in her struggle with a 
 vicious nature, the woman hardened and con 
 tracted into one of those little, grasping, cun 
 ning souls, miserly and selfish. I suppose 
 God made them, but so he did the weasel, the 
 henhawk, and the blinking owl. Perhaps it is 
 289
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 bettor to say nothing more about it. She got 
 the property, and kept it. She never helped old 
 William Price, and he needed help before he 
 died. Does any one suppose he would take it 
 from those who were willing and able to give it ? 
 Not he, he would have died first. He had not 
 been brought up in the way of his fathers to 
 leave this way thoughtlessly and turn aside into 
 the broad road to destruction. 
 
 William Olney was not deprived of all inheri 
 tance by his father s action. That uncle in Prov 
 idence, by some change in the peculiar make-up 
 of humankind perhaps his proximity to Bos 
 ton was the cause of it had taken a turn to 
 spiritualism. W r ho can relate the causes? It 
 seemed to him these people had something of the 
 old-fashioned Quaker about them. Perhaps he 
 had met with that Biblical variety who really 
 have spiritual and religious natures ; at any rate, 
 can be supposed honest, and not frauds or trick 
 sters. However that may be, he was not alien 
 ated by Lyddie s claim of spiritualism ; and when 
 he died, which event occurred about this tima, 
 he left his property to his nephew. 
 
 "Lyddie," William Olney said to his wife, 
 "perhaps thy conscience will allow thee to re 
 main a good Quaker after all." 
 
 " If I bear the name and the reproach of the 
 new sect," Lyddie replied, " I should think my 
 self it might leave me at peace to do as I will. 
 290
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 But let us do everything we can to reconcile thy 
 father." 
 
 And that was no easy matter. William Price 
 had even left his brother s in Providence, because 
 he said they were becoming tainted with the 
 new heresy. 
 
 " My brother," he said, " has gone the way of 
 the rest of investigators. Let a man pay the 
 least attention to that heresy, let him incline his 
 ear but in the least, and he is lost ; he might as 
 well give up at once. The Devil has that man 
 in his clutches." 
 
 It was no use for Caleb Price to argue that it 
 did not necessarily mean a separation from 
 Christianity ; on the other hand that it meant its 
 re-invigoration, the re-introduction of primitive 
 faith. 
 
 " It will turn again to Christ, William," he 
 said; "be sure it will; for, though these people 
 do not speak of Christ much as yet and are 
 more occupied with signs and omens, with mira 
 cles and visions, they will find these, as Jesus 
 said, all unsatisfactory at last unless they are 
 connected with a strong and great personality. 
 That is what makes the Divine on earth. The 
 place of all these people is in the church of 
 Christ, and that is where they will eventually be 
 found, with new insight and stronger faith. I 
 tell thee the church itself is in danger, for it has 
 lost the belief in the miraculous. It hoots at the 
 291
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 verity of dreams, and scoffs at presentiments 
 and spiritual warnings ; it derides the secret con 
 verse of the soul with God, and the spiritual 
 world ; it turns a deaf ear to the inward voice, 
 and its greatest heroes of the modern days are 
 such men as practise the dogmas of an absolute 
 ly unreligious morality ; as though the deep les 
 sons of Christ could be inculcated in mankind 
 without the previous awakening of spiritual in 
 sight. As well might one expect the seed to ger 
 minate and grow on entirely uncultivated soil." 
 
 But we need not follow their conversation. 
 William Price was uninfluenced by it. 
 
 "There is no religion in it," he said; " its 
 place is not in the church ; it is not new wine 
 in old bottles, for it is not wine at all. It is 
 nothing but acidity." 
 
 So he had left his brother s with anything 
 but friendly feelings, and not long after that 
 the brother had died. Then he returned home 
 to Hesper, where he still owned a small house, 
 and a little farm, from w r hich he derived a 
 moderate living. His daughter had removed to 
 the city of Decorah. He seldom saw her. His 
 life was solitary and without many comforts, 
 but he would not allow his son or his son s wife 
 to make it more cheerful. He preferred not to 
 be connected with them. William Olney tried 
 to interest him in his own business and get him 
 to take some connection with it again. Not a 
 292
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 thing would lie have to do with it. That 
 precious grandchild of his he had never seen. 
 He would have nothing to do with " tainted and 
 heretical " blood. His obstinacy and reserve 
 and solitude bade fair to turn into comedy pretty 
 soon. People already said he was ridiculously 
 foolish. 
 
 Meanwhile Lyddie had been going to the 
 Quaker meetings again, and she and her hus 
 band were united in tender sympathy for the 
 solitary old father. In the evenings they sat and 
 talked together, or played with the child, and 
 every once in a while would wonder what grand 
 pa was doing ; they never met at night but 
 Lyddie asked her husband if he had seen father 
 to-day, or how he was looking. 
 
 Lyddie always retained charity for him and 
 never blamed him. " He cannot help it," she 
 said, " any more than I could help being what I 
 was, or any of us can help being what we are. 
 The only thing is, as Enoch used to say, to over 
 come all prejudices by being better acquainted 
 with one another." 
 
 But a way to bring that about seemed impos 
 sible. If William Price could be taken ill and 
 brought into the house, then perhaps his preju 
 dice might wear off ; but there seemed to be no 
 likelihood of such a thing. 
 
 Now all this time Lyddie was thought by her 
 sister and by William Price simply to have 
 293
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 played a part, but she said as long as her hus 
 band believed in her, and as long as her own 
 conscience was clear she should not much con 
 sider what people thought of her. Lyddio 
 asked herself over and over what miracle could 
 bring that old gentleman back to them and 
 reconcile him to them before he died. Could 
 any miracle do it ? 
 
 Perhaps the only thing to do was to let him 
 alone, but that was a matter of Lyddie s con 
 science and she could not cease from attempt 
 ing to reconcile him. It was the one thing she 
 was determined to accomplish. She thought 
 about it day and night. She did trivial things, 
 influenced solely by that thought. When she 
 was out with the child in its carriage, she un 
 consciously took the street on which she felt she 
 might meet William Price. She passed his 
 house frequently ; she thought of going in and 
 pleading with him. 
 
 " Don t work thyself up into another spell," 
 her husband said to her. " Don t get to think 
 ing it is thy conscience again and so make thy 
 self and everybody about thee miserable. It is 
 now just as at the time of our marriage, a ques 
 tion of two against one, or rather now of three 
 against one, for there is the baby to consider. As 
 long as father has enough to live on and has 
 proper care and attention, I shall not greatly 
 worry." And so it continued. 
 294
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 Finally William Price did fall ill and was 
 brought into their house for a time much 
 against his wishes, it must be confessed andLyd- 
 die and her husband nursed him with the greatest 
 care, and yet he was not reconciled ; and, when 
 he recovered, he went back to his old habits 
 and lived as before, and Lyddie felt that now 
 all chance of reconciliation was gone. Lyddie 
 Price was a strange person, like Enoch Wil- 
 loughby, in some respects. She could not 
 bear to have any one think ill of her ; it gave 
 her actual pain. 
 
 " What can I do ; what can I do ? " she asked 
 herself, over and over, when thinking of her 
 father-in-law. " What would Enoch Willough- 
 by do in such a case ? " 
 
 Her thoughts were kept still more on Enoch 
 Willoughby by letters that she received from 
 her nephew. James, indeed, was the only one 
 that wrote to her. Hannah did not pour meta 
 phorical coals of fire ; she might possibly have 
 poured real coals. She took no " stock " in 
 Lyddie s spiritualism. 
 
 " Her conscience hurts her a little," she said, 
 " and she has taken that very easy means of 
 pacifying it." 
 
 But little James loved that gentle aunt of his ; 
 
 the recollection of her was always with him. 
 
 Often he wanted to pour out his soul to her as 
 
 he did in the old days. His father was too 
 
 295
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 deeply hidden in spiritual clouds, liis mother 
 too changeable and too radical ; he missed the 
 gentle and benign reason of Aunt " Tid." So 
 he began the habit of writing to her, nearly al 
 ways under the influence of some strong emo 
 tion ; sometimes a burst of auger, a feeling of 
 tenderness ; sometimes religious zeal, or relig 
 ious bitterness, if we may call it so ; and then 
 he would add a few words about the new place 
 and what was going on there. 
 Here is one of his letters. 
 
 DEAR AUNT TID : 
 
 We have come to the wildest and worst place in 
 the world. I feel sure we ve got nearly to the bottom 
 of things. It is much worse here than it used to be 
 there. The same old trouble with the Quakers is 
 running on. Father and mother began going to 
 meeting to Tonganoxie and that started the whole 
 thing again. You know Abijah Willetts has moved 
 to this neighborhood, and he had something to do 
 with it. They ve got another investigating committee 
 appointed, and they come out here every week or so 
 and talk religion and eat up all our best pullets, and 
 then all those spiritualists have come in that used 
 to live up near us, and they are about the place a 
 great deal, talking religion too. 
 
 The Indians haven t been gone long from this place 
 and they left their spirits behind, it seems, and these 
 mediums have caught them. I call them manitous. 
 They call it "speaking with tongues," but I think it 
 would be hard work for them to find an interpreter. 
 
 O Tid, you don t know how I hate the whole thing. 
 296
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 I hate all religion ; I think they re crazy, all of them, 
 the old Quaker women, and the spiritual mediums, 
 and all of them. I go to the High School at Law 
 rence, and I intend to go to the college some day ; but 
 I wouldn t have anybody know that my people are 
 spiritualists for the world. I think I should die of 
 shame. And father s doing everything he can to send 
 me to school. I believe he d take the last dollar he had 
 to pay my board, and yet I wouldn t have him come 
 down to school to see me for anything in the world. 
 Sometimes I wish he was a catholic or an old atheist 
 or anything that was respectable, I wouldn t care 
 what. I m going to be an Ingersollian. 
 
 Mother has gone over to the mediums and got very 
 thick with them. The way it came about was, she 
 was sick, and they thought she was going to die, and 
 the Quakers heard of it, and some of the women 
 folks thought it was too bad for her to die a spirit 
 ualist and go to the devil, so they appointed a com 
 mittee to come and visit her ; mother had been sick 
 on her back in bed for I don t know how long, but 
 the moment those women came in, and began to talk 
 to her about dying you know how mother is she 
 took fire in a minute, and sprang out of bed, under 
 the influence, and talked to them as though she had 
 been sent to preach to them and not they to her. 
 Mother is such an awful hater, you know ; she never 
 forgave them for thinking she was going to die when 
 she wasn t. It was a good deal such a time as she 
 had when the Prices first came to visit us, you re 
 member, only worse. Well, then, those women, 
 Susan and P lene, came down from our old neighbor 
 hood, arid they took mother up and encouraged her ; 
 told her she would soon be well, that they had it 
 from some mysterious source or other, and they 
 297
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGUBY 
 
 helped take care of her and came in often too often, 
 some of us thought and now, since she s got better, 
 she don t go with anybody else. 
 
 And then father is the same man he always was. 
 Mother and I don t like the way he does at all, but 
 as far as that goes, there don t any of us like what 
 the others do. I don t like mother s going with 
 Susan and P lene so much, and mother thinks it fool 
 ish for me to go off to school it s just because she 
 knows I go with the Christians there and father 
 thinks mother makes all her religion herself, and 
 mother thinks father s religion is all obstinacy and 
 envy and came from his queer spells in meeting. But 
 what I was going to say, was, he has the same habit 
 of being "moved" to speak to people about their 
 sins that he used to have, and it s a good deal worse 
 here ; he d better be careful. There s a worse dis 
 trict here than that of old Nine Mile. It is called 
 the "Big Stranger district," and there is the worst 
 set of people there that ever settled in this country. 
 They re awful. Some of them settled here among 
 the Indians, and were squatters. They re raccoon 
 hunters, and nearly all have foxhounds and live just 
 any way, and father intends to go and talk spiritual 
 ism to them. It s dreadful. Mother and I tell him 
 we think it would be a good deal better if they d lye- 
 long to somebody else s religion, but you know that s 
 not father s way. Uncle John s have comedown too, 
 and that same old story is to be gone through with. 
 Well, good-by. I do wish you would come and see us. 
 
 Your aff. nephew, 
 JAMES WILLOUGUBY. 
 
 How Lyddie could picture the whole thing out 
 to herself !
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 She knew that whole life with its strangeness 
 and its intensity. She had herself gone through 
 with it and come out into something so much 
 better and clearer and purer, she felt a sweet 
 satisfaction as she thought of her own home and 
 her life, her husband, her child, and but ah ! 
 there was a sting about it still. She yearned too 
 for the people of her old home. 
 
 What a pleasure they did get once out of that 
 religious wrangle ; perhaps it was the pleasure of 
 spiritual growth and expansion, which is not 
 found in perfect characters : it is not the whole 
 that have need of the physician. There was 
 something pleasant about that old life. She 
 would like to see it again. She would like to 
 show her sister that she did not feel herself 
 above her; she had none of those foolish no 
 tions that separate people on account of relig 
 ious belief. Perhaps she would go and make 
 them a visit some time. 
 
 And then came another letter from little 
 James : 
 
 DEAR AUNT TID : 
 
 You know what an aggravating set of young ones 
 Uncle John s children used to be, and you remember 
 what trouble father had with the oldest ones in Iowa. 
 Well, we re having it worse than ever with the 
 younger generation I came very near writing ".Gen 
 eration of Vipers." You don t know how mother and 
 I hate the whole set, and how nice we have to be to 
 299
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 them because father promised Uncle John and Aunt 
 Lisbeth when they died that he d take it on himself 
 to look after their helpless children. Mother said if 
 he succeeded in properly taking care of his own fam 
 ily, he d do fairly well. But you know how it always 
 was with him ; he s always willing to help anybody, 
 the poorer they are the better, and then he ll save at 
 home and scrimp and tell us how careful we ought 
 to be not to waste a penny, and the next day go Jared 
 Simms security for a team of horses and lose it too, 
 and so he s helped every one of those children and 
 he gets no thanks for it. You ought to see and hear 
 what airs they put on when they come to our house, 
 because they think spiritualism is disreputable. 
 They ve all been to some high-flown church or other. 
 Since their father and mother died, they all claim now 
 to be Episcopalians or some such thing, because they 
 think it looks big. Mother says they don t know any 
 more about religion than so many monkeys. There 
 are Lil and Frank and Nole and Ken and Val, and 
 father will have to help everyone to get a start, just 
 as he did all the older ones ; and we don t see much 
 prospect of getting out of it soon. 
 
 O, yes, and now we ve got Aunt Tute quartered on 
 us ; she s your sister, and mother says some pretty 
 sharp things, because you did not take her and take 
 care of her. But she won t stay long, that s one con 
 solation. She s as fraid as death here, and every 
 time they have a meeting, she goes off upstairs and 
 crawls into bed and covers up, head and ears, and re 
 peats whole pages of Pinneo s Grammar to keep from 
 hearing what s going on below ; and then she ll have 
 the pouts and sit around for two or three days and 
 hardly speak to anybody. I think she s going away 
 though pretty soon. She declares she won t stay iq 
 300
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 this accursed country. Aunt Tute s a Quaker, and 
 she s been telling the Quakers awful things about us, 
 no telling just what. I wish she would go. I m go 
 ing back to school to-inorrow. Write soon and tell 
 me if you can t come. 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 JAMES WILLOUGHBY. 
 
 At times Lyddie thought the only way possi 
 ble to conquer her father-in-law s determination 
 was by some miraculous intervention of the 
 spirits. If William Price could fall into a trance, 
 as Peter did when about to receive the message 
 from Cornelius, and hear a voice bidding him, 
 he might obey it. But William Price did not 
 fall into trances or have spiritual visions or hear 
 voices. That is the trouble with that kind of 
 miracle, it only occurs to those in whom such 
 things are not strange or wonderful; and yet 
 Lyddie half believed and half expected it. If 
 wishing and hoping and silent prayers could 
 have brought it about, it would long since have 
 happened. 
 
 This, too, made her think more and more of 
 Enoch Willoughby and want to see him. She 
 felt that in his presence such powers were more 
 likely to bo manifested. Spiritual natures rein 
 force one another. The Quaker preachers used 
 always to have a travelling companion, who was 
 selected for his power to reinforce the speaker 
 301
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 spiritually. " Where two or three are gathered 
 together in my name, I will be with them." 
 Lyddie believed this. With Enoch Willoughby, 
 she had always felt as though the heavens were 
 just ready to open. She longed to be with him 
 again. There was a spiritual union greater and 
 stronger than any kinship. With it the earth 
 was full of life ; without it, life upon the earth 
 was meagre indeed. She was already thinking 
 she would go to the Reserve herself, when an 
 other letter from her nephew decided her. 
 
 DEAR AUNT LYBDIE : 
 
 I ain going away now for a long time. I am going 
 off to school, and must go, and yet I feel that I am 
 leaving the folks at home in the worst situation 
 they have ever been in. I must tell you and urge 
 you to go and see them. Aunt Tute has gone. She 
 shook off the dust of her feet against our house and 
 left it for good. Father tried to have her stay, but 
 not she. Mother said she d a great deal rather have 
 Susan Rarnsdell for a sister than her, but you know 
 how mother talks. I think mother has got to be care 
 ful ; she ll do something awful some day When those 
 spells come on her, nothing can control her ; she en 
 courages them too. You remember how she talked 
 to the William Prices the first time they came to see 
 us. Well she did worse than that to old Abijah 
 Willetts. They ve got him on the everlasting investi 
 gating committee. They don t know anything about 
 his character, of course, or they would not have put 
 him on it. So the last time they came out, mother 
 had one of her spells, and such a raking over as she 
 302
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 gave old Abijah. No one could stop her ; she had 
 that wild look in her eyes ; they were all afraid of her. 
 She marched right into the room with that something 
 about her, and walked up to Abijah and pointed 
 her finger at him, and then she told him all that she 
 had ever heard about him, about his stealing those 
 horses and cheating the buyer of his farm out of the 
 taxes. Father tried to stop her, but it was no use. 
 She couldn t be stopped except by main force. Finally 
 Willetts fairly broke and ran ; he got up and left the 
 room and didn t come back again. It was some time 
 before she came out of it. I m afraid she ll do some 
 thing awful some day, and those women encourage 
 her in it. I don t think they see the danger in it. I 
 want you to go and see her and see if you can t try 
 to have her control herself, and not let the spirits 
 come on her so much. 
 
 Now, I m afraid they re going to have trouble out 
 there. Father has many enemies as well as many 
 friends. Those who don t know him are nearly all 
 his enemies, and those who do know him at all well 
 are nearly all his friends. 
 
 He certainly is the strangest man that ever lived. 
 Sometimes mother and I think he don t care any 
 more for us than he does for Jared Simins old black 
 Betty, or for any other, the worst and poorest person 
 on Big Stranger Creek, and then we fairly hate him. 
 We sit together and talk about him and say things 
 that we re ashamed of afterwards. But he likes 
 everybody pretty much all the same, it doesn t make 
 any difference who they are, and that s what we can t 
 understand. Sometimes I think he s the only genu 
 ine Christian ever I knew, but it makes mother furi 
 ous when I say that. But when you think how he 
 acts, it seems like it, and when you think what he 
 303
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 says, it all seems clear, and to me it seems Christian. 
 He don t talk much about Christ, only sometimes he ll 
 say " Jesus said this or that," and use him as an ex 
 ample. He doesn t try to build up a big association 
 with by-laws and constitutions, bath-houses and news 
 paper-rooms. He don t try to teach people to observe 
 the Sabbath, or do any of those little things that 
 commonly mean to do good. But he somehow makes 
 every man first believe he has in himself an immortal 
 spirit, and as soon as they believe that, they begin to 
 change. First they seem to get a little afraid, and 
 then they get to wanting to know more about it, and 
 wanting strange tests to prove it. Then he tells them 
 to sit together in small companies in quiet, and to 
 wait on the spirit, and they may hear, or see, or feel 
 something they don t understand that will convince 
 them. They do it and they l>ecome convinced some 
 way, I don t know how. Then when they want to 
 know more, he tells them the Bible is full of it, and 
 advises them to read and find out for themselves. He 
 peoples the air with spirits, and with a Kingdom, 
 and with God at the head of it. Sometimes when 
 mother and I think how he spends his time working 
 for other people, he seems to us more like Jesus than 
 anybody we ever knew, and we think he is almost too 
 good and high to be one of our family, and we fairly 
 venerate him ; and then, as I said before, we just get 
 to hating him, and mother declares he is bringing a 
 whole raft of good-for-nothing men and women about 
 the house and tracking up the floor for no manner of 
 any good, and sometimes I believe in him and some 
 times I don t. But one thing, he talks about things 
 that I can understand, and not about something 
 away off two thousand years ago, and it touches peo 
 ple. They come to hear him talk. I don t mean 
 304
 
 SOME SEPARATIONS 
 
 preach ; he can t do that now any better than he used 
 to when he was a Quaker and that s what makes 
 some people hate him. They say he s stirring up the 
 people, and making them leave their old churches, 
 and drawing them off into a new sect, it is no use 
 for him to deny it and say he wants people to go into 
 the churches, to put new wine into old bottles. They 
 won t believe it and I m afraid something is going to 
 happen ; if you could come down and go to the meet 
 ing, and have them go a little, I ve thought maybe 
 things would blow over. I d like to tell you more, 
 but if you come you ll see how it is at home. I ll not 
 write any more about home again; I ve got to go 
 away, and I hope you ll write to me about them 
 before long. 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 JAMES WILLOUGHBY. 
 
 305
 
 XXXV 
 
 THE "RESERVE " 
 
 OUR scene now changes. It is night and 
 dark, in a country part trees, part prairie. It 
 shall be a country without true name, for what 
 is about to be enacted there is best not too 
 closely located. We have chosen to call it the 
 " Keserve." Perhaps this means that reserved, 
 held back from the brighter light of civilization 
 and progress, are dark spots in human nature 
 or the human heart, in which gloomy passions 
 and uncultivated intelligence still lie brooded 
 over by strange fancies. 
 
 In the " Reserve" were long woody valleys 
 into which ran, deep, dark hollows and gullies 
 from rough unserviceable hills. There were 
 places without trees, high and rounded like the 
 tops of billows, and on one of these stood a 
 house. From this house a light shone out over 
 a path leading to a road ; on this road some 
 distance away in a hollow, concealed by trees 
 and darkness, stood a group of men on horse 
 back. They were drawn up close together in 
 consultation. After a time one of them dis- 
 306
 
 THE "RESERVE" 
 
 mounted, and taking something in his hand, left 
 the group and walked up the hill. Reaching 
 the path, he turned into it and cautiously ap 
 proached the house. There he stooped, thrust 
 what he was carrying in his hand beneath the 
 door, rose hurriedly, knocked once or twice so 
 loud and strong that a dog in the rear of the 
 house heard and began to bark; then turned 
 and retreated rapidly down the path toward 
 the road. 
 
 Just then the door of the house behind him 
 opened ; the light flashed out and disclosed him 
 distinctly to view. The same moment he whirled 
 rapidly from the path, reached the road at a 
 bound and disappeared toward the hollow. 
 
 Pretty soon horses feet were heard galloping 
 off in the direction of Big Stranger. When the 
 sound had died out in the distance, the man 
 w r ho had opened the door, turned as if about to 
 go in ; and, glancing down at his feet, discovered 
 something lying there. He stooped and picked 
 it up. It was a piece of paper. Then he went 
 in and closed the door. 
 
 Within the house we should have found our 
 old acquaintances Enoch and Hannah, and 
 Lyddie with her baby, at last come on the long- 
 deferred visit. There besides was an old col 
 ored woman, large and strong, the "help" of 
 the household ; there were a hired man or two ; 
 and to-night there was a woman staying there 
 307
 
 ENOCH WILLOTJGHBY 
 
 called " old Betty," come in for a few days to 
 do extra work while Lyddie was " visiting." 
 
 The room had been quiet and peaceful ; a 
 stranger would have seen nothing unusual about 
 it. Lyddie had the child on her lap and was 
 fondling it. Hannah had been noticing the 
 child and had remarked that it was more like 
 William Olney than it was like "you." 
 
 There was something so unusual to Lyddie 
 about the word " you " that she looked up and 
 said; " I don t see how thee can do it, Hannah ; 
 it doesn t sound right for thee to call me by that 
 word." 
 
 But Hannah replied that they had fallen into 
 the way of it pretty much of late, and then Lyddie 
 asked her as a favor to continue the old style of 
 address while she was there. 
 
 "It won t be for very long, and surely not 
 very difficult," she said, " and thee can t do any 
 thing to make me feel more at home than that, 
 and thee certainly could not do aught to make 
 me feel so much a stranger as to call me 
 you. " 
 
 So Hannah had assented, and then there had 
 followed one of those long conversations that we 
 all like so well when we go back to the old home, 
 the old friends, after a long absence. How they 
 go to the heart in some way ! Lyddie had asked 
 about so many things, little things, pieces of 
 furniture, an old chair, and the looking-glass 
 303
 
 THE "RESERVE" 
 
 with its black composition frame, that she 
 had wreathed in asparagus and cat-tails years 
 ago ; and so on without end, till at last Hannah 
 said : 
 
 " Why, Lyddie, I never supposed thee cared 
 anything about such things, thee is so high- 
 minded and spiritual." 
 
 They had been careful not to mention that lat 
 ter word ; there might be something unpleasant 
 about it. They did not know exactly how Lyd 
 die had made out in her new surroundings ; and 
 then, too, there was always the feeling that when 
 once that subject was started it would go on with 
 out end, and leave no place for any other. 
 
 Hannah was very anxious to know how Lyddie 
 did get on with William Price and the rest of the 
 Quakers, and Lyddie was about equally anxious 
 to know how things were running here, and 
 whether there was anything in the difficulty that 
 her nephew had hinted at, because of which he 
 had been so desirous of having her come, when 
 Lyddie thought she heard a noise. 
 
 "Is not that someone at the door?" she 
 asked, and at once all stopped and listened. 
 But there was no sound, and they were about to 
 go on talking when there had come a loud, harsh 
 rap, and immediately the footsteps were heard 
 going away down the path. 
 
 " There," Lyddie said, " I was sure I heard 
 someone." 
 
 309
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Then Enoch Willoughby went to the door and 
 opened it, saying in a low voice : 
 
 " It is very strange that anyone should knock 
 and then run away." 
 
 When he opened the door, he had stood gazing 
 out still more surprised, for he could not under 
 stand why the visitor should have whirled off 
 the path like that and run away down the road. 
 
 He had been about to close the door when he 
 saw the paper. 
 
 "Somebody has knocked and left this note, 
 and then run away," he said, coming back into 
 the room. " Let us see what the note is." 
 
 He took it to the light, and Hannah and 
 Lyddie got up and came near to hear it read. 
 Enoch s hand began to tremble so that he could 
 with difficulty read the paper, but with an effort 
 he controlled himself, and said : " I hardly know, 
 Hannah, whether I ought to let thee and Lyddio 
 know the contents of this note or not. It is of no 
 importance at most, but yet it is of very unpleas 
 ant import. It is another threatening letter, just 
 such a one as that which Ted Blood sent me, thee 
 remembers, in Iowa, which turned out so pleas 
 antly, and eventually made us so good a friend. 
 Let us hope that this may have as good an 
 ending." 
 
 Then he was about to put the letter in his 
 pocket, when both of the women asked him what 
 it was. 
 
 310
 
 THE "RESERVE" 
 
 " Let us see it," they said ; " it is not right to 
 keep it to thyself." 
 
 Enoch, still holding the paper so that they 
 could not see it, philosophized for a time, as he 
 always did on every action. 
 
 "It is true the apprehension of evil is always 
 greater than the evil itself, but this is coarse 
 and brutal, and repugnant to every finer sense. 
 If thee wants to see it, Hannah, be calm and 
 control thyself and do not think much about 
 it." Then he laid the sheet of paper on the 
 table before them. 
 
 It was a large sheet of heavy writing-paper, 
 near the top of which was roughly drawn with 
 red ink a skull and cross-bones, and then in large 
 printed letters that completely filled the page, 
 these words, that Enoch Willoughby had rightly 
 characterized as coarse and brutal : 
 
 " YOU DAMNED SPIRITUALIST, PEEPAEE TO LEAVE 
 THIS COUNTRY." 
 
 The letter was not signed and not directed. 
 
 " Now don t be frightened," were Enoch Wil 
 loughby s first words ; " remember all the time 
 how the other letter turned out, and that this 
 may even result better than that." 
 
 But Hannah was already crying, and Lyddie 
 was walking up and down the room with the 
 baby in her arms, and the distress of the whole 
 family was very great. 
 
 311
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 " That is the way it always is," said Enoch, in 
 a calm, peaceful tone, as much to himself as to 
 the two women ; " a difference in thought among 
 the spiritually minded becomes two opposing 
 armies among those of the world, and so Christ 
 was driven from place to place, and yet his king 
 dom conquered and will conquer ; and when force 
 is met by force, then the demons of hate are 
 aroused and let loose. No ; the force of the 
 flesh must be met only by the force of the 
 spirit." 
 
 His logic was not close, but he was already 
 arranging his plan of defence. 
 
 "The only difficulty," he continued, "is that 
 they do not know us, and think they are doing 
 a righteous act in persecuting us, and driving 
 us from the country. They are hardly to blame 
 for it ; for, when men set up only tradition and 
 authority, they cannot understand what comes 
 to them in a new garb." 
 
 Perhaps he would have gone on all night in 
 reflection, if Hannah had not risen and said : 
 " Now, Enoch, I want thee to make up thy mind 
 at once what thee will do. Thee must either 
 obey the letter and prepare to sell out so that 
 they can see that thee is obeying it, or thee must 
 prepare for a defence. For my part I am not 
 very particular which. We have the law and 
 everything on our side. We can send for James, 
 and perhaps, Lyddie," she said, addressing her, 
 312
 
 THE "RESERVE" 
 
 " thee can send for thy husband ; the hired men 
 will do whatever we want them to do. We can 
 barricade the house. I m not averse to a little 
 scrimmage ; the whole spiritualist neighborhood 
 will be up in arms ; the Quakers themselves will 
 be on our side. Thee saw the man. We can 
 have detectives and track up the lot. Save the 
 paper carefully ; it may serve some purpose in 
 finding out these demons. What are law and 
 order in the world for, I wonder, if not to punish 
 just such villains as these? It is a God-forsaken 
 country, I acknowledge that, and I shouldn t 
 mind leaving it at all ; but to be driven out ! 
 That is not to my mind. Somebody must be 
 punished for this. Thee must make up thy 
 mind and quickly, too. Someone ought to be 
 sent off to Tonganoxie this very night to get 
 help." 
 
 But Enoch came in again with his medita 
 tions. "Who could it have been, and how 
 could I find him ? They went away in the di 
 rection of the Big Stranger neighborhood." 
 
 " Yes," Hannah interrupted, " and I hope 
 thee is not going to try to find them there, in 
 that den of wolves ; the very country is wild 
 and barbarous and the people are even worse 
 than the country. I hope thee won t think of 
 going over there to try to find another Ted 
 Blood s child sick of diphtheria, and nurse thy 
 self into his father s good graces. Such a cir- 
 313
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 cuiustance as that doesn t happen once in a 
 thousand years." 
 
 "No," Enoch said; "but when it does happen 
 it shows the goodness of human nature." 
 
 " Goodness of human fiddlesticks," cried Han 
 nah. "If thee won t fight, thee must run. 
 There s no other way, and Lyddie and I ll pre 
 pare for leaving to-morrow." 
 
 " Hannah," Enoch said quietly, " don t go so 
 rapidly in thy thoughts. There are many pos 
 sibilities. I would rather thee would not speak 
 further about the matter to-night. Let us talk 
 of something else. Let us go back to that pleas 
 ant discourse in which we were engaged when 
 we were interrupted. We want to hear of Lyd- 
 die s spiritual experiences. I should like to 
 learn about William Price, and there is much 
 we might tell one another with profit." 
 
 And so he brought them back gradually away 
 from the letter to the old subject and got them 
 quieted down. There was no immediate dan 
 ger, and pretty soon they went to bed and slept 
 peacefully till morning. 
 
 In the morning the sun rose beautiful and 
 bright, and it was impossible even to imagine 
 the dark spirits and evil passions, the gloom 
 and terror that had prevailed in and around 
 that house the night before. If it had not been 
 for that sheet of paper, they might have thought 
 it only a horrid nightmare, a too-vivid dream. 
 814
 
 THE "RESERVE" 
 
 There had been something very real about that, 
 however. 
 
 In Hannah it awakened only righteous indig 
 nation. 
 
 " I never cared to stay in this country," she 
 said. " I never wanted to come here ; but, if I 
 were managing things, I should not propose to 
 be driven out. It s just the same with the 
 spiritualism itself. I think it very foolish for 
 Enoch to go on preaching to everybody, but 
 when they come to attempt to stop him by main 
 force, then at once I want to teach it and preach 
 it myself." 
 
 Hannah made out to say very sensible 
 things in spite of a certain amount of animosity 
 contained in them. 
 
 And then they spent a large part of the 
 morning in conjectures as to who it could have 
 been. It was no one from their immediate 
 neighborhood, Enoch felt sure. They had 
 come from the Big Stranger district most like 
 ly. And as for the man Enoch had seen when 
 he opened the door, he was not able to place 
 him at all. He had a certain resemblance to 
 Jim Dark, but then he had about as close a re 
 semblance to old Sam Reynolds. It is impos 
 sible to know or remember a man seen from the 
 back by a mere flash of light and some distance 
 away. The sound of the horses feet had been 
 heard going off to the West, that was, in the 
 315
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 direction of the Big Stranger district. That 
 was the opposite direction from Tonganoxie 
 where the Quaker settlement lay, and yet Han 
 nah felt sure that Abijah "\Villetts had had some 
 thing to do with it. 
 
 " It s as much on account of what I said to him 
 as anything," she thought. But Enoch said, 
 " It is a contest between truth and tradition." 
 
 "It is a contest between an old scoundrel 
 who is afraid of being found out and the peo 
 ple who know his meanness ! " cried Hannah. 
 
 In this she may have been right. Abijah 
 might have had something to do with it, but it 
 was also true that there was an intense hatred 
 against spiritualists among others than rascals. 
 It was not quite so intense as that which the 
 Puritans had for witches possibly, but it was 
 not far from it. Within the range of Enoch 
 Willoughby s acquaintance, he was in no dan 
 ger ; he was so excellent a man that he might 
 believe what he pleased ; people said little 
 about it. They paid little attention to his be 
 lief or his teaching, excusing it in him as an 
 eccentricity. Outside the range of his personal 
 acquaintance or influence, however, people said 
 harsh things about him. They said that nest 
 of spiritualists ought to be torn up and scat 
 tered ; they said it would injure the reputation 
 of the country, which was bad enough already, 
 and prevent new settlers coming in. The most 
 316
 
 THE "RESERVE" 
 
 narrow and prejudiced religious bigotry is found 
 generally in country places, out-of-the-way dis 
 tricts, where men associate but little, and where, 
 if there are thoughts, they grow up like solitary 
 weeds, stiff, rank, and vigorous. No religious 
 zealot will have his origin in society ; it will re 
 quire the solitude of the cloister, the woods, or 
 the desert to produce him. 
 
 In the Big Stranger district there were peo 
 ple low and vile enough to white-cap a man 
 for religious belief. We may be sure Abijah 
 Willetts was too shrewd a man to be an actual 
 leader in such a thing. He was altogether a 
 modern rascal, and it would be impossible to 
 find any cloven hoofs or dragon s tail about 
 him. He would adhere closely to the letter of 
 the law and always be safe. If he dropped a 
 suggestion of any kind, it would never be such 
 a one as could be brought up against him. He 
 might say in the hearing of a man like Erode 
 Stevens, when talking about that "nest of spir 
 itualists," that " it was a pity there are certain 
 offences the law cannot reach," and so have in 
 directly helped on the event. But it will per 
 haps never be knoAvn exactly how it did come 
 about that the organization, already in existence 
 a long time for other purposes, took up the case 
 of the spiritualists, and decided to act upon it, 
 and finally sent the notice as we have seen. 
 
 317
 
 XXVI 
 
 A DAY ON BIG STRANGER. 
 
 Now Hannah and Lyddie took an entirely 
 different course in this matter from that which 
 Enoch advised. He wanted them to say nothing : 
 it would only excite harsh feelings, he said, and 
 do more harm then good, stir up the neighbor 
 hood and set one settlement against another. 
 
 But say what he would, Hannah and Lyddio 
 that day sent off word to various people, while 
 Enoch was thinking of ways by which he might 
 solve the difficulty. It was not only that, but 
 he wanted to find the best opportunity to 
 propagate his doctrine and to do good. When 
 minds are stirred up and excited, when there is 
 something going on of weight and importance, 
 then is the time they can best be caught and 
 held and instructed, he argued. 
 
 Along about ten o clock he took his hat and 
 coat and prepared to go out. Hannah asked him 
 where he was going, but he avoided a direct 
 answer. He told her he was going to walk out 
 among the neighbors a little and see if he might 
 not hear something ; but as soon as he got away 
 from the house, he took his course directly for 
 318
 
 A DAY ON BIG STRANGER 
 
 the Big Stranger district. He could not help it, 
 or thought he could not. He walked rapidly 
 until he finally came in among those clay hills 
 that ran down into the Big Stranger bottoms. 
 What a wild, rough country it was; the low 
 lands full of tall sycamore trees with little 
 patches of clearing cut out here and there, and 
 small houses built at the edges of the corn 
 fields. 
 
 " The people are poor," he thought, " and 
 must live wretched lives. What can they have 
 to think about here from day to day, from sea 
 son to season, from year to year? If they can 
 keep body and soul together they do well. And 
 yet these are the very people, and these are the 
 very places from which great truths arise and 
 take their start like cyclones across the great 
 continent of life." He was so busy with the 
 various thoughts that arose in his mind at the 
 sight of this new and poor neighborhood that he 
 almost forgot the object on which he had come. 
 
 It was recalled to him by his approaching 
 one of the little houses. When he went up to 
 the door and knocked, two large fox-hounds 
 came from back of the house, but did not offer 
 to molest him. A man opened the door and 
 Enoch Willoughby went in and sat down. 
 
 Now it was that he did what I consider an 
 extraordinary thing, and yet just in keeping 
 with the man s whole character. He told the 
 319
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 whole story of his spiritualism calmly and delib 
 erately, from the time of his early life np to the 
 present. He told of the letter ; said he had no 
 idea from whom it came, but that he had no in 
 tention of going away and leaving the country ; 
 that he felt the senders of it did not know him, 
 and had misjudged him, and all that they needed 
 was to become better acquainted with him ; that 
 he wanted to meet and talk with them, and 
 that as they kept themselves in concealment, 
 there was no other way but to become acquainted 
 with the whole neighborhood from whom he 
 supposed the letter had originated. His great 
 desire was to meet these people together. He 
 wanted to argue with them and converse with 
 them. He wished they would allow him to meet 
 with them that night, and talk with them. He 
 could not ask this man if he belonged to the or 
 ganization, nor could he ask him to send him 
 to one who did, but he could and did ask to be 
 directed to his next neighbor. And after sitting 
 and talking awhile he received such direction 
 and went away. 
 
 In this manner he spent the day going about 
 from house to house in the Big Stranger dis 
 trict without losing a touch of that dignity that 
 naturally belonged to him when he was himself, 
 and in each case leaving the impression of a 
 gentle voice, a kindly eye, and a fatherly face, 
 which it was very difficult for these people to 
 320
 
 A DAY ON BIG STRANGER 
 
 connect with that person in their imaginations 
 to whom they had given the opprobrious name 
 of " that old spiritualist." 
 
 For Enoch Willoughby that was a day never 
 to be forgotten. He must have visited some 
 eight or ten houses. At one place he had had 
 his dinner, at another his supper, at neither 
 would the people accept any pay. But at no 
 place did he hear a word about any whitecap 
 organization, or about anyone who belonged to 
 such a thing. 
 
 He had thought all the time, " It is not likely 
 that they will invite me to meet them, but what 
 I have done will do good. The evil in the world 
 is mostly imaginary and the way to overcome it 
 is by a close acquaintance with the truth." 
 
 It had already grown dark. He was thinking 
 as he walked along what Hannah and Lyddie 
 would say to his all-day s absence from home, 
 and he was not by any means home yet, for he 
 had but just passed the house that he first came 
 to in the morning. 
 
 He had barely passed it indeed when sud 
 denly a man with his face masked appeared in 
 the road before him. 
 
 " Come with me, old man," the stranger said, 
 "if you are in earnest about wanting to meet 
 the people who sent you that letter," and he 
 turned and led the way back to that first house. 
 "You will find no one here except the men of 
 321
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 the organization ; the family that lives here which 
 you saw in the morning are away from home." 
 
 When they reached the house and went in, 
 there were as many as a dozen men seated 
 around the room, all with their faces concealed. 
 They had no masks, properly speaking, they 
 had only a piece of white linen or cotton cloth 
 stretched over their faces, with openings for the 
 eyes and mouth. They kept their hats on their 
 heads and remained seated. 
 
 Now it was that Enoch Willoughby found 
 himself in the hands of a superior power. He 
 was not a preacher, never had been ; his own 
 reasoning was the best he could do at that, and 
 on his own reasoning also he had very little reli 
 ance. But he had, and had always possessed, 
 what he felt was a singular and wonderful power. 
 He determined to rely upon it now ; indeed that 
 was the very basis of his whole theory. These 
 men could not be convinced by argument, he 
 thought, and perhaps not convinced at all, but 
 for once he determined to trust himself and his 
 own life to the power in which he professed 
 belief. 
 
 " I am," he said aloud to them, " as you have 
 called me, a spiritualist. That is I believe in 
 the existence about us of a world of disembodied 
 spirits of men and women who are intelligences, 
 alive as much now as when they inhabited this 
 body. I purpose first to show you that this is 
 322
 
 A DAY ON BIG STRANGER 
 
 true, and then, after you believe that, I intend 
 to show you how this knowledge will lead you to 
 make better men of yourselves, and make the 
 world and everything in it better. I do not know 
 you, not one of you. I am in a country where I 
 have never been before. You may not believe 
 this, but not one of you will say that he has ever 
 seen me here before to-day. I have never to my 
 knowledge met one of you without his face 
 masked. I am going then to put myself in the 
 power of that spiritual world in which I have be 
 lief. I am going to ask those spirits that sur 
 round you and me to tell me the name of each 
 man here present, and as much of his history as 
 they may think it best to give. If when I have 
 gone a little way in this, any one does not care 
 to have me go further, he will feel at liberty to 
 retire. After I begin I shall not be responsible 
 for what I say until I am through. If I trust 
 myself at all to the power that is about me, I 
 must do so wholly. Perhaps even now there are 
 some of you who would prefer that I should not 
 go on." 
 
 Some persons were heard to say "Go on." 
 A good many remained silent. 
 
 Enoch arose. He stood for a moment and 
 bowed his head ; a slight tremor passed over 
 him. 
 
 " We cannot command the heavens," he be 
 gan ; " we can only say what is given us to say 
 323
 
 and that may be imperfectly spoken and imper 
 fectly understood." 
 
 Then walking directly in front of the man who 
 had met him and brought him back, he stopped 
 and said : 
 
 " Niles Joseph, do you not remember we went 
 swimming one Fourth of July in the old swim 
 ming hole, and in diving you struck your nose 
 on a stone in the bottom, and your nose bears a 
 scar from it on the left side to this day ? Have 
 I spoken the truth ? " 
 
 For some time the man did not reply. Then 
 he said slowly and distinctly : " It is the truth." 
 
 " Is your name Niles Joseph ? " Enoch Wil- 
 loughby asked. 
 
 " It is," the man replied. " But who are you 
 that say you went swimming with me ? " 
 
 For a moment they waited. Then Enoch "Wil- 
 loughby replied : " It is the spirit of your cousin, 
 John Clemmons, who died two years after that 
 time, hurt by a limb falling from a black oak-tree. 
 Is this correct ? " And again the man acknowl 
 edged that it was so. 
 
 So Enoch passed around the room, on the way 
 giving the name of each man and in each case 
 some incident, and in almost every case name 
 and incident were acknowledged as correct. 
 
 Not in every case, however, for we are not ad 
 vocating a doctrine ; we are simply describing 
 the man. When he had passed about half way 
 324
 
 A DAY ON BIG STRANGER 
 
 around the room, two men, seated near the door, 
 got up and went out before he came to them. 
 As they did so, some one remarked, " They are 
 afraid ; they have too many secrets in their past 
 to care to have it exposed to the daylight." 
 
 At this Enoch "Willoughby stopped. 
 
 " I do not wish to go further," he said, " and 
 tax to its utmost the powers of the invisible 
 world. What has been given to me to-day to do, 
 I might never be able to do again, for I have 
 not done it of myself ; it has been given me to 
 do. At another time when you have removed 
 your masks and at another place when I can 
 tell you the meaning of these things, I should 
 like to meet with you again. I must return 
 now. I should like to have you come and con 
 verse with me." 
 
 Then he turned and went out of the room, 
 unmolested, without further incident, and so 
 home. 
 
 If any one can explain this thing, he can do 
 more than I can. If any one requires that the 
 writer prove the possibility of its happening by 
 bringing forward another man who can do the 
 same things over and over, the writer must ac 
 knowledge his inability to satisfy the request. 
 There might net be another man in the world 
 who could have done it. For us it is but an 
 incident in a story, and we may believe it or 
 let it alone. 
 
 325
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 Enoch knew too much of the scriptures not 
 to know that Jesus had deprecated this use of 
 the spirits. He only felt ashamed that he had 
 employed them for what might be considered 
 his own advantage, and not solely for the ad 
 vancement of a doctrine. But in spite of that 
 there came the great sense of power, of a great 
 and wonderful world about him that was assist 
 ing him and upholding him. It may have been 
 telepathy, or mind reading, or a lucky accident, 
 or a fortunate guess or two, or whatever other 
 explanation ; the fact remained that Enoch 
 Willoughby believed it to be a touch of the 
 spiritual world, a gift of power made to him in 
 his difficulty. He was elated over it as one 
 might be over the discovery of a new continent. 
 In his depth of gratitude, he said over and over 
 he would never doubt again, he would never 
 require another test, he would never again hunt 
 after signs, or miracles, or omens; come what 
 might, he would go on henceforth strong and 
 believing to the end. Then he hastened his 
 steps in order the sooner to reach home and 
 recount the wonderful experience. 
 
 There he did not find the same ready belief 
 he had hoped for. 
 
 " It was all guess work," was Hannah s first 
 remark. "Don t tell me," she said, " that any 
 one can do such things as that. It was a fool 
 hardy act, and rash and unheard of." Enoch had 
 326
 
 A DAY ON BIG STRANGER 
 
 thrust his head into the lion s den, and this time, 
 wonderfully enough, come out safely, but let him 
 not imagine he d heard the last of it. He had 
 whetted the appetite of these people for tests, 
 and made them think they could be given to any 
 extent. " They ll be about now soon for more, 
 and then more and more " she said ; " there is 
 no end to this thing when it is once begun." 
 Ah, there is where the trouble would come in. 
 
 But Enoch s serenity could not be disturbed 
 by Hannah s fears. He was certainly in the 
 arms of a great knowledge ; it would no longer 
 do to call it hope. He was sure, certain, fixed, 
 unchangeable, henceforth and forever. 
 
 Lyddie doubted just a little. Enoch had 
 been around among these people all that day. 
 Who knows what he might have heard, what 
 impressions might have been made on his sub- 
 consciousness. Hannah felt too that because 
 Enoch could not become a speaker, he was the 
 more proud of his tests, and had all his life been 
 looking for them and so had magnified them in 
 this case. 
 
 But they were both glad that he had come out 
 of it safely, and they hoped that now the matter 
 would end. 
 
 It was, however, only beginning, and to un 
 derstand its continuation, we must go back to 
 the room where Enoch Willoughby left the 
 whitecappers. 
 
 327
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 The mystical mystifies, but never satisfies, 
 and these men were not satisfied. After Enoch 
 Willoughby had gone, they discussed the matter 
 with a constantly increasing distrust in the 
 miraculous nature of the performance, and a 
 growing fear lest they had been tricked. They 
 began to think the fact that Enoch Willoughby 
 had been about the neighborhood all day sus 
 picious. They had nearly all seen him. He 
 had heard some of their names probably. They 
 wore the same clothes that they had worn when 
 he saw them, and their clothes were not covered 
 by masks as their faces were. It was hardly 
 listened to, when one person said that Enoch 
 Willoughby had not even noticed their clothing, 
 but was altogether like one in a dream while he 
 was telling their names and those other circum 
 stances. Besides not all of the names were cor 
 rect, and the circumstances had some few points 
 about them that were uncertain. Niles Joseph 
 said he did not strike his nose on a stone at the 
 bottom of the swimming hole, but on one that 
 stuck out from the rocks that formed the bank. 
 
 They had certainly been cheated. One man 
 out of the ten or twelve was convinced, and 
 would take no further part in the proceedings ; 
 and have nothing further to do with harming 
 Enoch Willoughby. Enoch had told him the 
 the truth, a truth no one else could possibly 
 have known. He would not take the risk of 
 328
 
 A DAY ON BIG STRANGER 
 
 making a world of spirits angry, and he then 
 and there withdrew from the organization. He 
 was, however, only one man. In the others the 
 excitement went on increasing, and the feeling 
 becoming more intense. Why had Enoch Wil- 
 loughby stopped when he did in going the 
 rounds of the circle of men? 
 
 Probably because he had just come to some 
 he knew nothing about. And yet those men 
 were the very ones who had peculiar experi 
 ences in their lives that might have made good 
 tests. 
 
 " What if he had told you what happened at 
 the cross roads at the time of that insurance 
 business ? " 
 
 The person addressed made no reply, but put 
 his hand back to his hip pocket significantly. 
 One can see what kind of danger Enoch Wil- 
 loughby had been in. Instead of freeing him 
 self from it, as he thought, he had in reality 
 increased it many fold ; for, before the men left 
 the place where they had met with Enoch Wil- 
 loughby, they had decided to send him another 
 threatening letter ; more violent, and one de 
 termining the penalty of disobedience and fix 
 ing the date on which he should be compelled 
 to leave the neighborhood. 
 
 329
 
 XXVII 
 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE CHILD 
 
 THE next day after this event, the Willough- 
 bys were expecting something to happen. They 
 did not know what it would be, but that there 
 would be something they felt sure. 
 
 There was a kind of nervous excitement about 
 the whole place, which Enoch and Lyddie were 
 calm enough to control, but which had had a 
 bad effect on Hannah ; she was all day like one 
 beside herself, hardly daring to speak, because 
 she would say things that she immediately re 
 pented of, and yet unable to keep back the 
 thoughts that surged in her mind, or the words 
 that bubbled forth from her lips. 
 
 They were thoughts that it would not do to 
 express, harsh thoughts about religion in gen 
 eral, and Christianity in particular ; about all 
 dreamers and fanatics and religionists of every 
 kind, the foolishness of martyrdom, the danger 
 of fixed opinions, the necessity of fighting. 
 Enoch had all his life preached non-resistance, 
 a most absurd and ridiculous opinion, she 
 thought. It was no use for Enoch to call up 
 the action of Jesus as a model in this respect. 
 330
 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE CHILD 
 
 " I should think more of him," Hannah said, 
 " if he had boldly put himself at the head of a 
 band of those old Jews, and gone to work and 
 slashed into those detestable Pharisees and ma 
 terialistic Romans, and made a kingdom for 
 himself on the earth that meant something." 
 
 " Yes, and how long would it have lasted ? " 
 was Enoch s answer. "It would never have 
 been heard of after a dozen years, and who 
 would there ever have been to point the way to 
 the great hope of mankind ? " 
 
 But even the most soothing, calm words that 
 Enoch could speak would only start her going 
 again. They all saw it was best to say nothing 
 to her. There was that singular look about her 
 eyes all day. She said it was the spirit. There 
 was just a suspicion in the minds of Enoch and 
 Lyddie that it was to be feared, that it bor 
 dered on something else. "We do not like to 
 speak the word, as Enoch and Lyddie did not 
 like to speak it. 
 
 Hannah had cultivated these spells ever since 
 she had given herself up to the new doctrine. 
 It had begun when she was still a Quaker and 
 had spoken in meeting. There was a power 
 about her that had lifted her out of herself, 
 which she said was spiritual influence. Enoch 
 had generally thought she did it herself, because 
 it had been so difficult for him to speak, and 
 for Hannah it had been so easy that he thought 
 331
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 there was nothing in her speaking. But now 
 he began to recall the various times she had 
 been led out of herself to act like one mad with 
 the fury of words. He noticed, too, there was a 
 singular look about her eyes at times, and very 
 strong to-day. He believed, too, it might be 
 spirits, but it might also be something else. 
 They had better be careful. It would have been 
 better if he had not shown this letter and had 
 kept Hannah and Lyddie entirely out of all 
 knowledge of this matter, but it was done now, 
 and they would have to take the consequences. 
 
 All day long they watched the roads, Hannah 
 especially, for they expected some one to come ; 
 if not some one with another threat, then some 
 one wanting more tests, for it had generally 
 been the case that when one remarkable thing 
 was done, like those tests Enoch had given in 
 the Big Stranger district, a great demand would 
 come for more. And so this day passed with 
 that constant strain upon all concerned. 
 
 That night they received the second letter, not 
 so coarse and brutal as the first, but much more 
 to be feared. 
 
 And now if we can only tell slowly and calm 
 ly what happened, we shall do well. It was im 
 possible to keep the knowledge of the second 
 letter from Hannah, and it was during this day 
 that she did that dreadful thing that brought 
 the shock that eventually cured her. She threw 
 332
 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE CHILD 
 
 the child into the well. The tale has been told 
 over and over and is known to at least one whole 
 community. To many it did not seem strange, 
 for they said that Hannah was not in her right 
 mind. Those Quaker women especially who 
 came to visit her when they thought she was 
 going to die, and before whom she had sprung 
 from her bed and spoken as a raging bacchante, 
 said it was no wonder, that they had seen she 
 was beside herself. Abijah Willetts, too, who 
 had had some experience with Hannah s pas 
 sion, said he was not surprised at anything the 
 woman might do. As for Hannah herself, her 
 passion gone, her " influence " departed, her 
 bacchantic fury subsided, she had been over 
 whelmed with a flood of repentance. 
 
 " Oh, Lyddie, Lyddie," she had said over and 
 over again, " / did not do it ; believe me, I did 
 not do it. It was an evil influence, an evil 
 spirit, come upon me. It was not myself, and 
 I was not myself when I did it ; how could it 
 have been me that did it ? " And then she fon 
 dled the child for the child had been easily 
 rescued and great tears rolled down her face. 
 
 " O, Lyddie, I will never forgive myself. If 
 anything had happened and the child had died 
 O, I had rather a thousand times it had been 
 myself." She declared over and over she would 
 never have anything more to do with the 
 " influence." 
 
 333
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGIIBY 
 
 Enoch maintained the same attitude. 
 
 "Fie, Hannah," he said, "thy reasoning is 
 not at all correct. Because one spirit is bad is 
 no reason that all are so. We must try the 
 spirits; hold fast to that which is good. Do 
 not condemn the whole matter because some 
 thing about it is bad." 
 
 But Hannah had reached a determination ; 
 her conscience was aroused. She saw that for 
 her it was better to avoid excitement. She put 
 the matter of the threat and its consequences 
 calmly from her mind. She was very solicitous 
 about Lyddie, who had been wet through and 
 through in getting the child from the well, and 
 who just at that time had need to take care of 
 herself physically. 
 
 " Enoch has got himself into this trouble," 
 Hannah said ; " and I think he will have to get 
 himself out." 
 
 But oh ! the horror of Lyddie s mind when 
 she saw the danger her child had been in, and 
 thought of what might have happened. Was 
 it all insanity? She thought back over her 
 whole early life, those first years when she was 
 a young girl, almost a woman ; she remembered 
 those spiritual meetings at the Willoughbys, 
 and Enoch s dreams and visions and how Han 
 nah used to shudder with fear, and she herself 
 had been the one to think there was good in 
 them. She remembered that time in the phi in 
 
 334
 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE CHILD 
 
 thicket when she had been seized in religious 
 frenzy, and made to do strange things. She 
 remembered the second time William Price 
 came to the house, and she had again been 
 seized and carried away beyond herself. She 
 remembered the various times she had been 
 under an influence that was not of herself ; and 
 Lyddie came to the conclusion that God is in 
 everything, but not everything is God. He 
 could use even a touch of insanity, than which 
 there is no more startling thing in the world, to 
 arouse mankind for their good ; and a great sigh 
 of relief at having escaped something terrible 
 passed from her lips. If she only got safely 
 home, got back with the child to her home and 
 to William Price. Ah ! could it be that he was 
 right after all that they were all crazy ? 
 
 Though she could not help feeling that he 
 was narrow and prejudiced, she liked the sweet 
 sanity of his earthliness. Dear, good, William 
 Price, would it be possible that he should ever 
 use those terms when speaking of her ? And 
 then immediately she thought how strange a 
 person she herself was; when she was among 
 people who talked of and cared for the things 
 of the w r oiid, she soon conceived a dislike for 
 them and called them shallow and materialistic, 
 and felt as though she were bound in a prison 
 of flesh, and longed to burst her prison and fly 
 away ; and then when she came among dreain- 
 335
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 ers and spiritually minded people, she pretty 
 soon began to think them fools to their own 
 senses, deceived by their own thoughts, caught 
 up and whirled off in a storm of their own mad 
 fancies ! She was now in this latter extreme. 
 She wanted to go back, oh, how she wanted to 
 go home ! She would give more to-day to talk 
 of the tongs by her own fireplace than of all 
 the religions in the world. Oh, if her husband 
 were only here. 
 
 She lay on the bed with the child beside her, 
 and tears trickled down her cheeks, while 
 Hannah sat and looked at her. 
 
 " Don t cry, Lyddie," said Hannah ; " I never 
 did it ; O Lyddie, teU me that I did not do it." 
 
 " I am certain it was not thee, Hannah, 
 Lyddie said ; " thee never could have had the 
 heart to do it. It was some evil spirit that caine 
 over thee." 
 
 Then Hannah went on to tell how it was. 
 
 " I had felt them about me all day," she said ; 
 " strange thoughts and strange fancies. They 
 seemed to come like vivid pictures. I could 
 hear voices and see actions that were only 
 within my inner mind, and suddenly the tilings 
 of the real world all became dim and indistinct. 
 As in a dream or vision, I saw myself, and im 
 mediately everything else disappeared from be 
 fore me. I watched myself with a horrid fas 
 cination. I saw myself approach the child s 
 336
 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE CHILD 
 
 cradle ; I saw myself bend over the sleeping 
 infant ; I saw my own lips move and heard 
 them utter words as distinct and clear as if they 
 had been printed openly upon the lips of a pict 
 ure. They were Little Quaker, little Quaker, 
 and I could hear the tone of my own voice as I 
 spoke them. Then that phantom, me, picked 
 the child up gently and calmly ; it turned, it 
 glanced around to see if any one were near ; it 
 thought to lay the child back, but there was no 
 cradle before it ; the door was open and there 
 stood the well outside. The phantom smiled. 
 It was a nice idea. It advanced toward the 
 door, and then came the shriek that aroused me 
 from my evil vision to find, O horrible ! that I 
 had all through been following the actions of a 
 phantom, myself a blind, unreasoning imitator. 
 But luckily it turned out without injury, and 
 perhaps it will be for our good." 
 
 337
 
 XXVIII 
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 Bur Hannah was not yet through with the 
 spirit. It had still a purpose to perform. It 
 was not easy for one who once yielded to its 
 influence to withdraw suddenly from it. What 
 ever it was, the habit was only slowly acquired 
 and slowly discontinued. We are believers in 
 the existence of this power of the spirit as 
 Enoch Willoughby was, but by no means do we 
 believe, nor did Enoch Willoughby, that it was 
 always good. That there is something in it, is 
 as sure as that the sun will shine to-morrow, and 
 when people have once felt it, they will believe 
 in its existence forever. They may believe it with 
 fear and avoid it, or they may believe it with 
 love and reverence it. Its influence gives to 
 man a second nature, and when of the right kind 
 it is, we believe, the greatest power on earth to 
 uphold the sinking spirit, to lead men out of 
 what is low and degrading into the broad light 
 of truth and purity. We believe it to be the 
 basis of Christianity, perhaps of all religion. 
 We do not know Avhat it is, and do not pretend 
 to know, and that is where we think Enoch 
 33s
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 Willougliby s mistake came in. He thought 
 that he knew what it was, and his explanation 
 was perhaps as reasonable as any, but hardly 
 more reasonable than some others. However 
 this might be, one could hardly expect a body 
 of men of the mental calibre of those inhabi 
 tants of Big Stranger to be able to follow the 
 subtle reasoning of Gamaliel and let Enoch 
 Willoughby alone, saying if what he had in him 
 was of evil, it would come to naught ; if it was 
 of God, it would prevail and they ought not 
 then to be fighting against God. That would 
 have been the reasoning of Shubal Swain. Now 
 let us see how the whitecappers reasoned. 
 
 The first effect upon them had been to bring 
 doubt and confusion. That one of their num 
 ber had left them and declared he would not 
 take further part was a serious matter. The 
 second letter had been sent rather hastily and 
 by some with reluctance. There had been 
 something wonderfully mysterious about what 
 Enoch Willoughby had done. Some of them 
 were undoubtedly afraid of him. It was noticed 
 that the two men who had gotten up and gone 
 out as Enoch Willoughby approached them in 
 his test-giving, were now urging on the whip 
 ping. Some said these two men were afraid of 
 him, and they said it under their breath- 
 had good reason to be. A kind of faction arose 
 among them, a good deal of dispute and rough 
 339
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 joking. Those who had incidents named from 
 their lives had the worst of it, and naturally 
 enough did not like it. Why did not the man 
 go on and go the rounds of the company ; what 
 was fair for one was fair for all ? Then he might 
 have told them something that was actually 
 worth believing. 
 
 At any rate, the result of these deliberations 
 was that they decided to go to the house again 
 and call the man out. They would inform him 
 they were not satisfied and order him to go the 
 rounds of the company and tell the name of each 
 masked man and an incident from his life. If he 
 did this, they would let him off ; if he did not, 
 he should be whipped or driven out of the com 
 munity. Even those whose sympathies had been 
 aroused for him assented to this plan, for they 
 had no idea but if he could tell one mysterious 
 thing, he could tell another ; and, if under one 
 condition, why not under any; and those who 
 had no sympathy for him thought he had been 
 merely tricking them and this would enable 
 them to catch him and the man should be pun 
 ished for it. 
 
 Thus it was that they came again and called 
 Enoch Willoughby out of the house and no one 
 within noticed it. It is not to be wondered at 
 if Lyddie kept careful watch over the child and 
 did not let it out of her sight ; and Hannah was 
 so occupied in thinking of the awful thing she 
 340
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 had done, and what it might have resulted in, 
 that she did not notice that Enoch had been 
 called out. Besides the time had not been fixed 
 for this evening in the letter. 
 
 Outside Enoch Willoughby was led to a cer 
 tain place by the same group of masked men 
 that he had met in the Big Stranger district ; at 
 any rate he supposed they were the same. 
 
 They put to him the proposition they had ar 
 rived at. 
 
 " Go the rounds of us," the spokesman said ; 
 " tell the name and an incident from the life of 
 each man ; and, if you hit it as well as you did 
 before, we ll let you off; if you don t hit it, we ll 
 let things go as you received notice in the let 
 ter ; that is, we ll give you time to get out of the 
 country." 
 
 Enoch TVilloughby had not yet spoken. He 
 stood there before the group silently. He im 
 posed a little of his own dignity upon them. His 
 utter absence of fear in this dangerous situation,^ 
 his absorption in his own thoughts, than which 
 there is nothing that carries greater respect, the 
 fact that this man in a certain way claimed con 
 nection with an invisible world, and had appar 
 ently given proof of the connection all these 
 things had their effect upon the group of men. 
 It was night and had become dark, but the men 
 had with them a number of lanterns ; these they 
 set down together, and they formed a little 
 341
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 bunch of light on the ground around which the 
 men were gathered ; and by which everything 
 could, even from a distance, be plainly seen. 
 
 Enoch Willoughby had not yet spoken. 
 Finally he asked : " What will be the penalty 
 if I do not speak at all ?" 
 
 "Do you mean to refuse?" the spokesman 
 asked. 
 
 "I should prefer," Enoch Willoughby replied 
 calmly, "not to put it in that form. I would 
 rather say, if I cannot answer. " 
 
 " What do you mean, if you cannot an 
 swer ?" 
 
 " If you will have a few moments patience, I 
 will attempt to explain to you what I mean." 
 
 " Well, be quick about it, old man," said the 
 spokesman brutally. 
 
 But Enoch was entirely unmoved by it one 
 way or the other and slowly and calmly began : 
 
 " It is given to no one to command the invisible 
 world." 
 
 " What s that you re giving us," some one in 
 terrupted. But Enoch did not notice the inter 
 ruption. 
 
 " And whatever is done through it, must be 
 done by it. Before now it has happened that 
 great things have come to men, and they have 
 then thought they possessed power to command 
 the elements, that they possessed the key to all 
 mysterious knowledge, only to find that what 
 342
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 had come to them had been given to them, that 
 they knew little, and had no power over what 
 they did know. What I told you before, I did 
 not tell you, but some one else told you through 
 me. If I should say, I can tell you your names 
 and your past lives now, it would be false. I 
 can tell you nothing, and yet, it may be, that I 
 can tell you everything you ask." 
 
 But the men were growing impatient. 
 
 " What is that you are telling us," they said ; 
 " you can and you can t ; you will, and you won t ; 
 you told us, and you didn t." They thought he 
 was trying to deceive them. " Will you do what 
 we ask, or will you not ? " 
 
 " I will do what is given me to do, and further 
 than that I can say or do nothing," Enoch calmly 
 replied, and then stood waiting. He had bowed 
 his head, and was silent. The effect of his 
 appearance and presence was like that of one 
 praying. 
 
 In fact he was praying. He was saying to 
 himself, " why should they not go on, and com 
 plete the circle of tests ? And yet, no one can 
 know why. There may be that in the lives of 
 those men which would make it dangerous for 
 me and dangerous for them if it were exposed. 
 With what depth of insight the Saviour added 
 to his prayer, Thy will be done ? 
 
 And then again he attempted to explain. 
 " Every act of your lives," he said, " is known." 
 343
 
 EXOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 "Tell it to us, then," they said, for they 
 thought he meant known to him. 
 
 " And no doubt could be told to you," he went 
 on, not noticing the interruption. 
 
 " Then tell it, tell it ! " they cried ; " don t be 
 afraid of the worst that you know." 
 
 " But the power in which I believe," he con 
 tinued in the same unmoved manner, " and the 
 intelligence in which I trust is all knowing and 
 all seeing ; and besides that, it is all loving ; it 
 cares for you as well as for me ; it is like a father 
 of many children, who sees one in danger, but 
 knows if he rescues the one, he will endanger 
 the many, and so chooses the best, which may 
 seem to the one child the worst, act. I can tell 
 you nothing. I can promise nothing. I have 
 asked that it might be given me to speak as you 
 wish, but it has not been given. I put my trust 
 in that as the best answer, and I shall no longer 
 attempt to say or do anything. I am in your 
 power. Do with me as you please ; but I tell 
 you if you attempt to harm me, you will grieve 
 a world of spirits about you, who care for you as 
 father or mother, brother or sister, who are 
 higher than you, and better than you, and know 
 everything you say or do, or even think, and 
 will remember it." 
 
 Then they seized him, for they hardly heard a 
 word of all he had been saying, and had grown 
 very impatient at it, and proceeded to take off 
 his coat and lay bare his back. 
 344
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 " You need an argument, old man, that some 
 one can understand ! " 
 
 Now it was that Enoch Willoughby was in 
 danger of real martyrdom. It seemed as if there 
 was no way to save him ; the men were aroused, 
 angry. There was no one about the place to 
 whom he could look for help. And yet the in 
 dignity was prevented ; not in any such mirac 
 ulous way as Enoch Willoughby was perhaps 
 half expecting, but in a way that was really al 
 most as miraculous. 
 
 Some little time after Enoch had been called 
 out of the house, Hannah had missed him, and 
 had said to Lyddie, " Where in the world can 
 Enoch have gone this time of night and why can 
 he be staying away so long." 
 
 She saw he was not in the house, and began to 
 get frightened. The whole subject of that threat 
 ening letter came back to her mind and she 
 was becoming very greatly aroused, when she 
 chanced to see a light through the window. She 
 went to the window and looked out. She saw 
 clearly the group of masked men, standing 
 around the lanterns ; she saw Enoch at one side ; 
 she could perceive that they were talking ; and 
 she knew what it was about. Her quick imagina 
 tion was ready enough to give her the whole sub 
 ject, even the words and tones of their conver 
 sation. 
 
 That " something " began to arise in Hannah, 
 
 345
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 that had already done awful things. The 
 " power " was coming back on her. She could 
 feel it about her eyes and in her breast. She was 
 almost ready to shout aloud. She had said it 
 should never come upon her again ; but she knew 
 when she said this she was not master over it 
 to call it or keep it away. 
 
 Suddenly she saw them lay hold upon him. 
 Then it was to her as if the powers of heaven 
 had been let loose upon her, as if a flood had 
 enveloped her. She gave one cry, that quick, 
 sharp cry that is part shriek, part laughter ; but, 
 whatever composed of, is awful, terrible ; and 
 then she opened the door, and walked out. There 
 is something fearful in insanity, and this relig 
 ious frenzy had much the same effect. When 
 Hannah came walking up to these men, under 
 this power as she was, they saw it. She was 
 talking a strange language, intermingled with 
 those singular shouts that always remind one 
 in their effect, of the bellow of a creature that 
 has scented blood and at whose call the herd of 
 kine rush up, pawing the earth, bawling, furious. 
 
 Without an intelligible word, she walked into 
 the crowd of men, who gave way before her 
 strange and unearthly appearance, fascinated by 
 the sight ; and, before they were aware what 
 she was going to do or say, she had seized the 
 cloth mask of the nearest man, torn it from his 
 face, and tossed it upon the ground. 
 
 346
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 Then she proceeded to speak. 
 
 It was not so much, perhaps, what she said 
 that affected them, for half the time one could 
 not understand a word of her strange babble, 
 but it was the frenzy of her voice, the strange 
 light in her eyes. Hannah, undoubtedly, had 
 that something about her that people have long 
 tried in vain to explain. She had another self, 
 another personality that came over her with 
 great power. She said it was a spirit. We 
 know it came near being the death of her little 
 nephew, and so it could hardly have been all 
 good; and yet at this time, it as effectually 
 stopped the proceedings against Enoch Wil- 
 loughby as it had driven Abijah Willetts out of 
 the house like a whipped cur that time he had 
 come with the committee. 
 
 " Now go on your way," she shouted at last, 
 her speech becoming intelligible " or I will tear 
 the hypocritical masks from every one of your 
 cowardly faces. And as for thee, Enoch, get up, 
 and come to the house. I should like to see any 
 one so much as make a motion to touch thee ! " 
 
 She walked across to where he stood. 
 
 " Put thy coat on, or thee ll take cold ! " 
 
 That was finally what she said, and these 
 common-place words were powerful as though 
 they had been shrieks and cries of terror, for 
 the spirit spoke through every one of them, and 
 thrilled the hearer to the back-bone. 
 347
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Thus the miracle of leading Enoch Willoughby 
 away without hinderauce from among those men 
 was performed, and that was the last that was 
 ever heard of any whitecapping attempts by 
 them. 
 
 They were cowed and driven away, not so 
 much by the fact of a woman speaking to them 
 as by the fact that there was something strange 
 in Hannah s speaking. They saw something in 
 her that was more than ordinary, more than nat 
 ural ; and there are thousands and even hun 
 dreds of thousands of men to this day who have 
 seen the same thing in women and in men too, 
 who hesitate to call it insanity, and who satisfy 
 themselves for a name by saying simply, " There 
 is something in it." So these men said, " there 
 is something in it." Some of them had been 
 convinced by Enoch s tests and some of them 
 by Hannah s " influence." In some way they 
 felt rebuked and shamed ; they had really no 
 cause against the family ; their party was al 
 ready divided, and they gave the matter up en 
 tirely. Indeed Big Stranger district eventually 
 became one of the greatest spiritualist neigh 
 borhoods in that region. 
 
 But now we must consider what became of 
 Hannah when she returned to the house. It 
 was a long time before the " influence " left her, 
 so long, in fact, that Enoch and Lyddie began 
 to be afraid that she would never come out of 
 
 348
 
 THE MIEACLE 
 
 it. It was very late at night before she went to 
 sleep, and she was not herself all that time, and 
 continued talking in broken utterances with 
 little or no meaning. Lyddie and Enoch 
 thought she would sleep it off, but for a long 
 time it seemed as if she would not go to 
 sleep. 
 
 Along toward morning, however, she fell into 
 slumber, and from that on she lay as though she 
 would not waken again, and slept till long past 
 noon of the next day. When she awoke, she was 
 herself, and when they told her of what she had 
 done, she herself knew most of it, for the orig 
 inal self had not become entirely unconscious, 
 but she began to be more and more afraid of the 
 "influence." They told her how long she had 
 continued the strange unintelligible talking 
 after she came into the house. She began to 
 think, " what if it should never leave me," and 
 again and again she thought of Lyddie s child. 
 One must not play with fire, and there seemed 
 to her to be something more dangerous than fire 
 in this awful thing. 
 
 Never after that night did Enoch tell her " she 
 did it herself," and she saw, as he told her, that 
 it was better the inspiration should always have 
 before itself the example of a good and gentle 
 character so that one might not be led astray by 
 the sudden caprice of an irresponsible fancy to 
 do harmful acts. They had little fear of any- 
 349
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 thing further taking place from the Big Stranger 
 district. The way had been opened for a relig 
 ious discussion that went to the bottom of things, 
 and Lyddie completed her visit in peace, and 
 enjoyed it. 
 
 But she knew that for these people religion 
 was something different from what it was to 
 most. They had worked out a kind of primitive 
 religion for themselves. It had little of tradition 
 about it, almost nothing of authority. She knew 
 they would abide by it always, and she felt that 
 for them it was hardly worth while that they 
 should continue the pretence of remaining with 
 the old church. She felt that Enoch Willoughby 
 was of the material of which martyrs are made. 
 But there are worse martyrdoms than whippings, 
 or even tortures at the stake ; the martyrdom of 
 accepted unpopularity, of separation from church 
 and friends, the martyrdom of family deprecia 
 tion, if not even hatred, the martyrdom of grad 
 ual retirement into self through the contact with 
 misapplied coolness. She saw all these in store 
 for Enoch Willoughby, and that they were in 
 evitable for him since his spirituality was of 
 that Pauline kind, distinct, clear, vivid, never 
 to be forgotten, or even mistaken. And Han 
 nah, too, must suffer the same kind of martyr 
 dom, because she was a follower of his. If it 
 had not been for that, her religious frenzy would 
 have suited one church as well as another. Lyd- 
 
 350
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 die looked over the prospects for their future in 
 this new country, and she thought she saw more 
 hope for their happiness and their usefulness if 
 they broke with the old, and went zealously to 
 work to build up the new, and she advised them 
 to do this. Lyddie s opinions and advice had 
 come to have great weight. 
 
 "As for myself," she told them, "I shall re 
 main as I have always been. I shall go with 
 my husband s church and remain there, but I 
 shall always have sympathy for you, and you 
 must never forget that I am still with the church 
 from which you have broken away, and we can 
 make a few concessions as you can make a few. 
 Thee, Hannah, need not call us all bigoted 
 Christians any more than we need say you are 
 all sorcerers and necromancers. " 
 
 Then William Olney came down and finished 
 his visit, and took Lyddie back with him, and 
 life went on with the two families in much the 
 same way. Old William Price was never recon 
 ciled with his daughter-in-law. I verily believe 
 if he had been on his death-bed, and she had 
 importuned him for a friendly look, with the 
 strength of his last breath he would have turned 
 away his head from her. Even that little house 
 in Hesper and the small farm near the village, 
 he made over to his daughter also before he 
 died, although his daughter had not seen him 
 for years, had not helped him iu any way, or in 
 351
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 any way been like a daughter to him. It re 
 mained the one great disappointment of Lyd- 
 die s life that the old gentleman could not have 
 been reconciled, but such is life ; we cannot 
 help it, and cannot make men over again. 
 
 852
 
 XXIX 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THE trouble in the Big Stranger district, just 
 as before in Iowa, led to a great extension of 
 the doctrine. Opposition is almost the only 
 nourishment required for the growth of a new 
 teaching. We are inclined to believe that the 
 only thing that prevented Enoch Willoughby 
 from becoming a new prophet and founder of a 
 religion, a Mahomet or Brigham Young, was 
 lack of sufficient opposition. If the threats 
 against him had been carried out, and he had 
 been actually beaten to death without flinching 
 or recantation as might easily have been the 
 case if things had gone a little further, he 
 would have stood a fair chance of becoming 
 famous and possibly immortal. As it was, his 
 following increased, the spiritual meetings be 
 came more and more largely attended. And all 
 this time that investigating committee had been 
 hanging fire, if one might be allowed this ex 
 pression. And why not ? A heresy trial may 
 be pathetic, but in these days it can hardly be 
 tragical ; and they none of them go off like a 
 court-martial, but seem to drag their weary 
 353
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 length through whole volumes of proceedings. 
 This one was now, however, soon to come to an 
 end. In some way or other the Quakers heard 
 of that old performance of Enoch Willoughby s 
 years ago, when he thought and said he had 
 been " influenced " by the spirit of Jesus of Naz 
 areth. Of course, consistently with his belief, 
 he did not mean merely that he had taken the 
 teachings of Jesus as a guide, or any such mod 
 ern or common-sense interpretation of the words 
 as that, he meant just what he said ; and, though 
 he would gladly have kept it quiet, for he rev 
 erenced truly in his way, I honestly believe, the 
 name and character of Jesus, and felt in a cer 
 tain manner the incongruity, if that is the word 
 to express his feeling, of such influence ; that is, 
 he was really humble, and felt and knew the 
 disparity between the man and the spirit in this 
 case, yet when it was done, and came out, and 
 became known, and the Quakers brought it up 
 against him and made it one of the charges, 
 then came up that whole feeling of opposition 
 again. 
 
 As mildly as possible he put it to the com 
 mittee : " Why, the Apostle Paul said the same 
 thing not in any way to compare myself and 
 my experiences to the Apostle Paul and to his 
 wonderful insight and experiences but thee 
 must remember he even attributed so little a 
 thing as his being turned aside from going into 
 354
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Mysia to an intimation from the spirit of Jesus." 
 Then he referred them to Acts xvii., but you 
 cannot put a thing like that in mild enough lan 
 guage to prevent giving offence. 
 
 " The old, blaspheming wretch," they thought, 
 " does he think the spirit of Jesus has nothing 
 better to do than to come about influencing 
 him ? " People shuddered when they heard it. 
 Of course, when Paul s name is connected with 
 such a circumstance it is different, for we hear 
 the sound through an intervening wall of tradi 
 tion, history, poetry, and it is so deadened, and 
 we are so deafened at most, that we only half 
 catch the meaning. And so they urged that he 
 be turned out of the meeting, but many of them 
 were still kindly disposed to him on account of 
 his good character, and thought it would be 
 better for him to resign and withdraw volunta 
 rily. 
 
 That was also Hannah s opinion, but Enoch 
 Willoughby said, " No, their action shall stand 
 as a testimony against them," and he went on 
 arguing and quoting Scripture until they be 
 came tired of it, and we might say tired out, 
 when they formally expelled him and erased 
 his name from the book of church membership ; 
 and the day on which that occurred Enoch Wil 
 loughby looked back upon with a kind of sad 
 pride, and immediately after it became better 
 friends than ever with all the old Quakers of the 
 
 355
 
 ENOCH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 neighborhood and tried now more industriously 
 than ever to convert them to spiritualism. They 
 lost much of the harsh feeling against him as 
 soon as he was out of the church, for there is 
 nothing like standing squarely on an open plat 
 form of opinion. 
 
 And now what remains for such a character ? 
 Life remains, and a fairly full, rich life after 
 all. The Reserve prospered, land became valu 
 able ; Enoch Willoughby had much of it. While 
 not wealthy, he became well-to-do. The house 
 was enlarged and improved and filled with books. 
 Gradually the man worked his way up step by 
 step, from theory to theory, until he became 
 quite an authority on things spiritual wherever 
 found. His test-giving was mostly discontin 
 ued, but hope for him kept right on. His be 
 lief was so strong that it sometimes ran the risk 
 of being offensive. He would not allow any 
 one, unchallenged, to speak of the beyond as 
 " that bourne from whence no traveller returns," 
 or to say of it " that we cannot know." 
 
 " We can know," he would say, and " travel 
 lers do return from that bourne," and then, if 
 you were not careful, you would get a repetition 
 of the corn-crib vision. 
 
 He was a most singular old gentleman, was 
 Enoch Willoughby, the oddest one, perhaps, of 
 all the Willoughbys that came West. 
 
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