But when he
saw a cluster of checkerberry plums in spring gleam withered red against
gray moss, on some stony upland, he stood still and pondered.
Then, on a night when the fall wind was at its mightiest, and shook the
house on Meteor Island as if clods of turf had been hurled against it,
he took down his Bible from its stand. At the first page to which he
turned, his eye rested on the words, "Woman, hath no man damned thee?"
He bent close, his hand shook, and his blunt finger traced the remainder
of that text which he and Cad Sills together had unwittingly erased from
the Preaching Tree.
"No man, Lord."--"Neither do I damn thee: go, and sin no more."
He left the Bible standing open and ran out-of-doors.
The hemlock grove confronted him a mass of solid green. Night was coming
on, as if with an ague, in a succession of coppery cold squalls which
had not yet overtaken the dying west. In that quarter the sky was like a
vast porch of crimson woodbine.
When this had sunk, night gave a forlorn and indistinguishable look to
everything. A spark of ruddy light glowed deep in the valley. The
rocking outlines of the hills were lost in rushing darkness. At his back
sounded the pathetic clatter of a dead spruce against its living
neighbor, bespeaking the deviltry of woodland demons.
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