_ CHAPTER XXI. RAMSEY AND THE BISHOP
"High water like this," casually said the planter, next to Ramsey, "drives the big game out o' the swamps, where they use, and makes 'em foolish."
"Yes," said the bishop. "You know, Dick"--for he and the planter were old acquaintances--"not far from here, those long stretches of river a good mile wide, and how between them there are two or three short pieces where the shores are barely a quarter of a mile apart?"
"Yes," replied Dick and others.
"Well, last week, on my down trip, as we rounded a point in one of those narrow places, there, right out in mid-river, was a big buck, swimming across. Two swampers had spied him and were hot after him in a skiff."
"Oh," cried Ramsey, "I hope he got away!"
"Why, _I_ partly hoped he would," laughed the bishop, "and partly I hoped they'd get him."
"Characteristic," she heard the planter say to himself.
"And sure enough," the tale went on, "just as his forefeet hit the bank--" But there Hugh's messenger reappeared, and as Hugh listened to his murmured report the deer's historian avoided oblivion only by asking:
"Well, Mr. Courteney, after all, what was it?"
"Tell the bishop," said Hugh to the boy.
"'T'uz a man, suh," the servant announced, and when the ladies exclaimed he amended, "leas'wise a deckhan', suh."
"Thank Heaven!" thought several, not because it was a man but because the bells jingled again and the moving boat resumed her own blessed sounds. But the bishop was angry--too angry for table talk. He had his suspicions.
"Did deckhands make all that row?"
"Oh, no, suh; not in de beginnin', suh."
"Wasn't there trouble with the deck passengers?"
"Yassuh, at fus'; at fus', yassuh; wid dem and dey young leadeh. Y'see, dey be'n so long aboa'd ship dey plumb stahve fo' gyahden-sass an' 'count o' de sickness de docto' won't 'low 'em on'y some sawts. But back yondeh on sho' dey's some wile mulbe'y trees hangin' low wid green mulbe'ys, an' comin' away f'om de grave dey make a break fo' 'em. But de mate he head' 'em off. An' whilse de leadeh he a-jawin' at de mate on sho', an' likewise at de clerk on de b'ileh deck an' at the cap'm on de roof----"
"In a foreign tongue," prompted the bishop, to whom that seemed the kernel of the offense.
"Yassuh, I reckon so; in a fond tongue; yassuh."
"About his sick not having proper food?" asked Ramsey.
"Yass'm--no'm--yass'm! An' whilse he a-jawin', some o' de crew think dey see a chance fo' to slip into de bresh an' leave de boat. An' when de mate whip' out his 'evolveh on 'em, an' one draw a knife on him, an' he make a dash fo' dat one, he--dat deckhan'--run aboa'd so fas' dat he ain't see whah he gwine tell it's too la-ate."
The bishop tightened his lips at Hugh and peered at the cabin-boy: "How was it too late?"
"De deckhan' he run ove'boa'd, suh."
The ladies flinched, the men frowned. "But," said the querist, "meantime the mate had fired, hmm? Did he--hit?"
"Dey don't know, suh. De deckhan' he neveh riz."
"Awful!" The bishop and Hugh looked steadily at each other. "So that also we owe to our aliens!"
"Yes," said Hugh.
"We don't," said Ramsey softly, yet heard by all.
Across the board Mrs. Gilmore said "Oh!" but in the next breath all but the judge's sister laughed, the bishop, as Hugh and he began to rise, laughing most.
"Wait," said Ramsey, laying a hand out to each and addressing Hugh. "How are those sick downstairs going to get the right food?"
The cabin-boy almost broke in but caught himself.
"Say it," said Hugh.
"Why, dem what already sick dey a-gitt'n' it. Yass'm, dey gitt'n' de boat's best. Madam Hayle and de cap'm dey done see to dat f'om de staht. H-it's de well uns what needs he'p."
"But," said Ramsey, still to Hugh, "for sick or well--the right food--who pays for it?"
"The boat."
"Who pays the boat?" she asked, and suddenly, blushing, saw her situation. Except the bishop and the judge's sister, who were conversing in undertone--except them and Hugh--the whole company, actually with here and there an elbow on the board, had turned to her in such bright expectancy as to give her a shock of encounter. But mirth upheld her, and leaning in over the table she shifted her question to the smiling bishop: "Who pays the boat?"
"The boat? Why--ha, ha!--that's the boat's lookout."
"It isn't," she laughed, but laughed so daintily and in a gayety so modestly self-justified that the group approved and the Vicksburg man asked her:
"Who ought to pay the boat?"
"We!" she cried. "All of us! It's in the Bible that we ought!" She looked again to the bishop. "Ain't it?"
"Why, I don't recall any mention of this matter there."
"Nor of strangers?" she asked, "nor of sick folks?" and her demure mirth, not flung at him or at any one, but quite to itself and for itself, came again.
"Ah, that's another affair!" he rejoined. He felt her and Hugh, with half the rest, saying to themselves, "It is not!" but was all the more moved to continue: "My fair daughter, you prepare the way of the Lord. Brethren and sisters, I want you to gather with me here as soon as those yonder are through"--a backhanded toss indicated the children's table, whose feasters showed no sign that they would ever be through at all. "We must--every believer--and whosoever will--on this passenger-deck--spend an hour--more if the spirit leads--in prayer for this pestilence to be stayed." He fastened his gaze on Hugh; no senator was present to overtop him now, and certainly this colt of John Courteney's should not. Yet the largeness with which the colt's eyes stared through and beyond him was significant to all.
"And we must do more!" he persisted.
"We shall," said Hugh.
"We must!" said the bishop; "we must beseech God for a spiritual outpouring. We have on this boat the stranger of our own land and the sick of our own tongue: the stranger to grace and the sick in soul, who may be eternally lost before this boat has finished her trip; and as much as the soul's worth outweighs the body's is it our first duty to help them get religion!"
With her curls lowered nearly to the table Ramsey--ah, me!--laughed. Her notes were as light as a perfume, but to the bishop all perfumes were heavy. He turned to the actor. "Isn't that so, brother?"
"Oh, bishop, you know a lot better than I do."
"He doesn't," tinkled Ramsey, and, as the bishop swung back to her--"Do you?" she ingratiatingly challenged him. "No, you don't! You know you don't!"
The company would have laughed with her if only to save their face, and when he made a very bright retort they laughed the heartier. They rose with Hugh. Ramsey said she wished she knew again how her brother was, and Hugh sent his servant to inquire. As all loitered aft, the bishop held them together a moment more.
"You don't object to such a meeting?" he asked Hugh.
"Not if you don't alarm or distress any one. The doctor forbids that." While Hugh so replied, the circle was joined by the commodore. The bishop flared:
"Doctors always forbid! How can we exhort sinners without alarming or distressing them?"
Hugh's answer was overprompt: "I don't know, sir."
But Ramsey, drawing the Gilmores with her, came between. "Just a bit ago," she said to the bishop, "didn't you say yes, we must all be as gay and happy as we can?"
"I did, verily. But surely that shouldn't prevent this."
"Oh, surely not!" exclaimed both the players.
"It needn't," said Ramsey. "But if we five"--Gilmores, Courteneys, and herself--"and some others--help you with your meeting to-day will you help us with ours to-morrow?"
"If I can, assuredly! But how will you help me to-day, my young sister?"
On three fingers the young sister--so lately his daughter--counted: "First, we'll get the people to come; we'll tell them you're not going to alarm or distress anybody. Second, if you forget and begin to do it we'll remind you! And, third, we'll take up the collection!"
The senator laughed so much above the rest that the bishop colored as he said: "I never exhort and collect at the same time."
"Oh-h!" sighed Ramsey. "We must collect, you know, to pay our share, each of us, for the care of the sick. And we can't collect to-morrow; we'll all be so busy getting up our own meeting." Her eyes wandered to the senator, so fervently was he urging some matter upon the commodore.
"What," asked the bishop, turning to the players, "is to-morrow's meeting to be for?"
"Why," brightly said the wife, "just to keep every one as gay and happy as we can." But Ramsey added: "And to raise money for the not-sick emigrants, to get them the right food."
"Ho, ho! Another collection!"
"No, only admission fees. Six bits for the play, four bits for the dance."
Half offended, half amused, the bishop swelled. "And you ask me"--he laughed, but she had turned away and he reverted to the players--"on top of our prayers for God's mercy upon our bodies and souls you ask me to help get up a play and a dance!"
Eagerly, amid a general merriment that was not quite merry, the Gilmores answered with amused disclaimers for themselves and copious excuses for him. Ramsey's eyes, like Hugh's, were on the commodore and the senator, who were starting off together. The commodore's nod called Hugh and he moved to overtake them. The boy whom Hugh had sent to the texas, returning, sought to intercept him, but Hugh passed on and the messenger found Ramsey. She had just been rejoined by her old nurse, and to both servants her questions were prompt and swift. Their low replies plainly disturbed her, and she wheeled to the bishop where he still stood addressing the Gilmores and a dozen others in a manner loftily defensive. He forestalled her speech with good-natured haste. "Now, if our gay and happy young sister will ask me to do something befitting a minister of the gospel," he began----
"Amen to dat!" said old Joy, and as Ramsey's eyes showed tears the speaker paused.
"All right," she quietly said. "Come to my sick brother. Won't you, please?"
"Why--why, yes, I--I will. Cer-certainly I will. Yet--really--if I'm forbidden to alarm him"--his smile could not hide his sense of mortal risk.
"Oh, he's already alarmed!"
"He's turrified!" softly said old Joy.
"Why, then, the moment we're through our meeting----"
"Don't begin it!" said Ramsey. "It can wait heaps better than he can. He's waiting now and begging for you. Come! You needn't be afraid; I'll go with you!" She laughed.
"No!" cried Joy. "Lawd, Mahs' Bishop, she mus'n't!"
"She need not," said the bishop. "But for me to go now, before I--why, I couldn't come back and mingle----"
"Oh, come!" The girl drew him by the sleeve. But the Gilmores held her back and he went on alone, his face betraying a definite presentiment as he glanced round in response to a clapping of hands.
"Oh, thank you!" cried Ramsey. "Gawd bless you!" droned Joy. "We'll run your meeting while you're gone!" called Ramsey. "And we'll pray for you! Won't we?" she asked the players, and they and others answered: "Yes." _