The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills

Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be." Feebly he leaned on Jack, the tears ran down his cheek: "'Tain't weakness, Jack, 'tain't that--it's joy, it's love of God, Whose done so much for me. It's the glory, glory of them lines--Oh, God--what a line of poetry!" "Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!" Ben Butler stood ready, the bell clanged again. Jack helped him into the sulky; never had he seen the old man so feeble. Travis was already at the post. They got the word immediately, but to the old man's dismay, Travis's mare shot away like a scared doe, trotting as frictionless as a glazed emery wheel. The old man shook up Ben Butler and wondered why he seemed to stand so still. The old horse did his best, he paced as he never had before, but the flying thing like a red demon flitted always just before him, a thing with tendons of steel and feet of fire. "Oh, God, Ben Butler, what is it--what? Have you quit on me, ole hoss?--you, Ben Butler, you that come in answer to prayer? My God, Cap'n Tom, Shiloh!" And still before him flew the red thing with wings. At the half, at the three-quarters: "Now ole hoss!" And the old horse responded gamely, grandly. He thundered like a cyclone bursting through a river-bed. Foot by foot, inch by inch, he came up to Travis's mare. Nose to nose they flew along. There was a savage yell--a loud cracking of Travis' whip in the blind horse's ears. Never had the sightless old horse had such a fright! He could not see--he could only hear the terrible, savage yell. Frightened, he forgot, he dodged, he wavered-- "Steady, Ben Butler, don't--oh--" It was a small trick of Travis', for though the old pacer came with a rush that swept everything before it, the drive had been made too late. Travis had the heat won already. Still there was no rule against it. He could yell and crack his whip and make all the noise he wished, and if the other horse was frightened, it was the fault of his nerves. Everybody who knew anything of racing knew that. A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand. But he had won the heat! What did he care? He could scarcely stop his mare. She seemed like a bird and as fresh. He pulled her double to make her turn and come back after winning, and as she came she still fought the bit. As he turned, he almost ran into the old pacer jogging, broken-hearted behind. The mare's mouth was wide open, and the Bishop's trained eye fell on the long tusk-like lower teeth, flashing in the sun. Startled, he quivered from head to foot. He would not believe his own eyes. He looked closely again. There was no doubt of it--she was eight years old! In an instant he knew--his heart sank, "We're robbed, Cap'n Tom--Shiloh--my God!" Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers and the fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes. "How about the gloves and candy now?" he called to them with his cap in his hand. Above the judges had hung out: _6th Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:14. When Flecker of Tennessee saw the time hung out, he jumped from his seat exclaiming: "Six heats and the last heat the fastest? Who ever heard of a tired mare cutting ten seconds off that way? By the eternal, but something's wrong there." "Six heats an' the last one the fastest--By gad, sah," said Col. Troup. "It is strange. That mare Lizzette is a wonder, an' by gad, sah, didn't the old pacer come? By gad, but if he'd begun that drive jus' fifty yards sooner--our money"-- Flecker groaned: "We're gone, Colonel--one thousand we put up and the one we hedged with." "By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette went smoother that last heat? She had a different stride, a different gait." Flecker had not noticed it. "But it was a small thing," he said--"to frighten the old horse. No rule against it, but a gentleman--" The Colonel smiled: "Damn such gentlemen, sah. They're a new breed to me." The old man went slowly back to the stable. He said nothing. He walked dazed, pale, trembling, heart-broken. But never before had he thought so keenly. Should he expose Travis?--Ruin him, ruin him--here? Then there passed quickly thoughts of Cap'n Tom--of Miss Alice. What a chance to straighten every thing out, right every wrong--to act for Justice, Justice long betrayed--for God. For God? And had not, perhaps, God given him this opportunity for this very purpose? Was not God,--God, the ever merciful but ever just, behind it all? Was it not He who caused him to look at the open mouth of the first mare? Was it not He giving him a chance to right a wrong so long, so long delayed? If he failed to speak out would he not be doing every man in the race a wrong, and Cap'n Tom and Shiloh, and even Miss Alice, so soon to marry this man--how it went through him!--even God--even God a wrong! He trembled; he could not walk. He sat down; Jack and Bud had the horse, the outlaw's eyes flashing fire as he led him away. But Bud, poor Bud, he was following, broken-hearted, blubbering and still saying between his sobs: "Great--hoss--he skeered him!" The grand-stand sat stupefied, charged to the explosive point with suppressed excitement. Six terrible heats and no horse had won three. But now Lizzette and Ben Butler had two each--who would win the next, the decisive heat. God help the old preacher, for he had no chance. Not after the speed that mare showed. Colonel Troup came up: "By gad, sah, Bishop--don't give up--you've got one mo' chance. Be as game as the ole hoss." "We are game, sir--but--but, will you do as I tell you an' swear to me on yo' honor as a gentleman never to speak till I say the word? Will you swear to keep sacred what I show you, until I let you tell?" The Colonel turned red: "What do you mean, sah?" "Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman--" "On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it." "Go," said the old man quickly, "an' look in the mouth of the mare they are jes' bringin' in--the mare that won that heat. Go, an' remember yo' honor pledged. Go an' don't excite suspicion." The old man sat down and, as he waited, he thought. Never before had he thought so hard. Never had such a burden been put upon him. When he looked up Colonel Troup stood pale and silent before him--pale with close-drawn lips and a hot, fierce, fighting gleam in his eyes. "You've explained it, sah--" he said. Then he fumbled his pistol in his pocket. "Now--now, give me back my promise, my word. I have two thousand dollars at stake, and--and clean sport, sah,--clean sport. Give me back my word." "Sit down," said the old man quietly. The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful. He was calm but the Bishop saw how hard the fight was. Then the old man broke out: "I can't--O God, I can't! I can't _make_ a character, why should I _take_ one? It's so easy to take a word--a nod--it is gone! And if left maybe it 'ud come agin. Richard Travis--it looks bad--he may be bad--but think what he may do yet--if God but touch him? No man's so bad but that God can't touch him--change him. We may live to see him do grand and noble things--an' God will touch him," said the old man hotly, "he will yet." "If you are through with me," said Colonel Troup, coolly, "and will give me back my promise, I'll go and touch him--yes, damn him, I'll shoot him as he should be." "But I ain't gwine to give it back," smiled the old man. Colonel Troup flushed: "What'll you do, then? Let him rob you an' me, sah? Steal my two thousand, and Flecker's? Your purse that you've already won--yours--yours, right this minute? Rob the public in a fake race, sah? You've won the purse, it is yours, sah. He forfeited it when he brought out that other mare. Think what you are doing, sah!" "Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh, too"--winced the old man. "But I forgot--you don't kno'--yes"--and he smiled triumphantly. "Yes, Col'nel, I'll let him do all that if--if God'll let it be. But God won't let it be!" Colonel Troup arose disgusted--hot. "What do you mean, old man. Are you crazy, sah? Give me back my word--" "Wait--no--no," said the Bishop. "Col'nel, you're a man of yo' word--wait!" And he arose and was gone. The Colonel swore soundly. He walked around and damned everything in sight. He fumbled his pistol in his pocket, and wondered how he could break his word and yet keep it. There was no way, and he went off to take a drink. Bud, the tears running down his cheeks--was rubbing Ben Butler down, and saying: "Great hoss--great hoss!" Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up. "I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop," said Jack. "Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit like yeller dogs? Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight--with God's help." Then he thought a moment: "Fetch me some cotton." He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's ears. "It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening the ole hoss," said Jack. "Ben Butler," said the old man, as he stepped back and looked at the horse, "Ben Butler, I've got you now where God's got me--you can't see an' you can't hear. You've got to go by faith, by the lines of faith. But I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as God guides me--by faith." The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they scored for the last heat. The old pacer's gallant fight had won them all--and now--now after winning two heats, with only one more to win--now to lose at last. For he could not win--not over a mare as fresh and full of speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she, too, had but one heat to win. But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the old man as he drove out on the track. "Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll strike a bargain with you, sah. You say God ain't goin' to let him win this heat an' race an' so forth, sah." The Bishop smiled: "I ain't give up, Col'nel--not yet." "Well, sah, if God does let Travis win, I take it from yo' reasoning, sah, that he's a sorry sort of a God to stand in with a fraud an' I'll have nothin' to do with Him. I'll tell all about it." "If that's the way you think--yes," said the old man, solemnly--"yes--tell it--but God will never stan' in with fraud." "We'll see," said the Colonel. "I'll keep my word if--if--you win!" Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky wheels like a demon. Even Travis had time to notice that the old man had done something to steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship did he fly along! Driving, driving, driving--they flew--they fought it out. Not a muscle moved in the old man's body. Like a marble statue he sat and drove. Only his lips kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close that Travis heard him: "It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's way--faith,--the lines of faith--'He leadeth me--He leadeth me'!" Up--up--came the pacer fearless with frictionless gait, pacing like a wild mustang-king of the desert, gleaming in sweat, white covered with dust, rolling like a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and low: "He leadeth me, O blessed thought, O word with heavenly comfort fraught, Whate'er I do, whate'er I be, Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me." Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch, and the old pacer well up, collaring the flying mare and pacing her neck to neck. Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip and circling it around his head, uttered again, amid fierce crackling, his Indian yell: "Hi--hi--there--ho--ha--ho--hi--hi--e--e!" But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis, white and frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear that tightened around his