His mouth fairly frothed as with both clenched fists he beat his breast. Bud beat his own thin chest and wrenched his peaked face into a terrible grimace, but said never a word.
The watchers relapsed into dumb, stunned silence and waited with their dead--waited for the saddest of all days; a day crowned with a grievous memory that followed them through life.
No Sabbath born to the mountains had ever dawned as this one. The early morning was charged with a sepulchral mist, impinging upon the senses like sounds vocal, telling of some great sorrow hanging on the crest of the world.
The first chill light saw the gospel-house holding its dead to its breast--the venerable sire that begot it. The dawn-breath floated down from the blue-wooded ridges to the clearing and stooped to kiss the pallid belfry.
And all the blossoms bowed down their tremulous heads and shed their dew-tears amidst the chanting of spirit-voices. The tumultuous cry of the cascade, wont to rant in the ragged throat of Hellsfork, was now hushed to a repining monotone.
The first beam of sunlight, pallid as a candle ray, parted the vapor shroud enveloping the gospel-house, and a dolorous ring-dove mourning on the pinnacle of a dead sycamore tolled her triple-noted angelus across the clearing in measured, solemn accents.
Before the day had fairly broken, an exodus of humanity had begun, bound for Hellsfork. For weeks and months the day of dedication had been discussed throughout the mountains. Hour after hour the rock-strewn highways of the hills were traversed by travel-worn crusaders. This stream of human souls converged at the church clearing, filling it up like the gradual rise of a tide.
They came on mule-back, on horse-back, in buck-boards. They came singly and in twos and threes.
Bed-ridden cripples were borne hither by their loved ones, that the great preacher might lay hands upon their infirmities and implore the merciful God to alleviate their sufferings. The halt and the maimed were come to sue for absolution and to be made whole again.
One misshapen hunchback--a veritable Quasimodo--with stubby bowed legs, abnormal arms, and ape-like visage, carried his helpless offspring eighteen miles to this sanctuary; begging prayers to relieve the creature's torture.