Being left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in thedistant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldy past.

Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of Lem Hackett(fictitious name). It carried me back more than a generation in a moment,and landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings of life were notthe natural and logical results of great general laws, but of special orders,and were freighted with very precise and distinct purposes--partly punitivein intent, partly admonitory; and usually local in application.

When I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned--on a Sunday.

He fell out of an empty flat-boat, where he was playing.

Being loaded with sin, he went to the bottom like an anvil.

He was the only boy in the village who slept that night.

We others all lay awake, repenting. We had not needed the information,delivered from the pulpit that evening, that Lem's was a caseof special judgment--we knew that, already. There was a ferociousthunder-storm, that night, and it raged continuously until near dawn.

The winds blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept along the roofin pelting sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inky blacknessof the night vanished, the houses over the way glared out whiteand blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shutdown again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemedto rend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters.

I sat up in bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destructionof the world, and expecting it. To me there was nothing strangeor incongruous in heaven's making such an uproar about Lem Hackett.

Apparently it was the right and proper thing to do.

Not a doubt entered my mind that all the angels were grouped together,discussing this boy's case and observing the awful bombardmentof our beggarly little village with satisfaction and approval.

There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious way;that was the thought that this centering of the celestial intereston our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observersto people among us who might otherwise have escaped notice for years.

I felt that I was not only one of those people, but the very one mostlikely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result:

I should be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the riverhad been fairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would beonly just and fair. I was increasing the chances against myselfall the time, by feeling a secret bitterness against Lem for havingattracted this fatal attention to me, but I could not help it--this sinful thought persisted in infesting my breast in spite of me.

Every time the lightning glared I caught my breath, and judged I was gone.

分享到：