Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 13

but the right to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as G.o.d commands and as conscience dictates is more sacred than obedience and allegiance to the King. We love peace, but more our freedom; we love our home, but more our equities in the Kingdom of G.o.d; and we will give all for civil and religious freedom.

"It is as great to give your life to, as for a cause. In the Beat.i.tudes we are told: 'Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness'

sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven.'

"Visions come with persecution. Paul tells how, after the stoning at Lystra, he was caught up into Paradise and saw unutterable things. Again in the account of Stephen's stoning we are told how he looked steadfastly up into heaven and saw the glory of G.o.d; and while they stoned him he called upon G.o.d, saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit'

and he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, 'Lord lay not this sin to their charge;' and when he had said this, he fell asleep.

"He fell asleep. While asleep, the tears were wiped from his eyes; his vision was strengthened; he awoke in a land where there was no night, in the presence of G.o.d, who said unto him: 'I will be your G.o.d and you shall be my son.'"

CHAPTER IV.-John Calvin Campbell and Dorothy Fairfax.

John Calvin Campbell was a beautiful child, with strangely clear, deep blue eyes, close clinging golden curls, a complexion fair to paleness, though tinted to a delicate ruddiness by exposure. He was thoroughly self-reliant and independent.

The neighbors spoke of him as a strange boy; not that he was mentally or physically weak; but his manner and thoughts and method of expression were unnatural in one so young.

His mother looked after him with such solicitude that his father, half vexed, said: "You are spoiling that boy; give him a chance to live his own life; I want him to find interest and pleasure in the same things other boys do."

"If you do, you are going to be disappointed; he is not like other boys.

He is more like his grandfather than little David Clark. He is not contentious, yet without apparent effort, for the mere asking, he seems to have his way with other children. Though he is just seven and wanders about the mountain side alone, I am not worried. When I remonstrated, he replied with calm a.s.surance: 'Mother, you need not worry, I will not get hurt, I am learning things;' I have come to believe that what he said is true. I asked why he climbed out upon the Pinnacle Rock and he answered: 'When on the big rock, I think and learn and see things I cannot here. I see earth and heaven as one great whole.' The boy seems not to mind in the least being alone; though he often acts as guide for one of the older boys to the rock, any one of whom will quit his games to go.

Several times when he went off alone, I followed and unseen watched him climb carefully to the Pinnacle, where, finding a seat not too near the edge, he sat looking out over the Valley and seemed to dream in wide-eyed wonder. The birds flew about as though he were not there; and the little ground squirrels that burrow in the rocks came out and sat up and rubbed their faces and combed their bushy tails within a foot of his hand. When he rose up to come home he held out his little hands towards the valley as though he would take all that he saw within his tiny arms saying: 'O the joy of it! the joy of it!' What are we to do with a boy like that? Let us watch over him carefully and let us follow the way G.o.d leads. Sometime have him tell you what he sees."

He began making his little journeys to the rocks when he was five years old; first with his mother or Ruth, then alone. Each day from the spring of 1773 until the following May, his little feet wore a distinct and narrow path from the kitchen door to his aerie. The people of the Valley seeing the little boy on the big rock, called it John Calvin's Rock; and it is so called to this day, though very few know the reason. A local historian writing of the early Presbyterian settlements of the Valley, making fact fit theory, refers to the rock as having in some unknown way been called after the father of Calvinism.

Mr. Campbell first made the acquaintance of Thomas Fairfax and his wife on the trip to Winchester in 1771, stopping at their plantation on his way from the Hite settlement. This acquaintance, renewed at the meeting house, had ripened into a warm friends.h.i.+p mainly through Dorothy's instrumentality; who, beginning with the peep hole conversation three years before, insisted on talking with John Calvin every time she saw him.

The two families occasionally lunched together in the church grove; or if it rained, the Fairfaxes spent the night with the Campbells, as the distance to Greenaway Court was great.

The two men for more than a year had planned a bear hunt in the Kanawha cliffs and at last Mr. Fairfax had come to the plantation for that purpose, bringing his wife and little Dorothy, who were to remain with Mrs. Campbell.

He and Mr. Campbell, accompanied by two servants and half a dozen dogs, crossing over the mountains, camped on the benches overlooking the wilderness of the Kanawha.

One day, Mr. Campbell with his servant, John Mason, went down into the river meadows hunting for deer, and while quietly stalking, themselves unperceived, saw three Indians traveling the path towards the settlement. As small parties occasionally visited them or hunted in the valley of the Kanawha, it never occurred to him that it was a war party; nor were they decorated with pigments and root stain as a war party.

When he got back to camp he told of seeing the Indians; whereupon Mr.

Fairfax suggested they better return home as he had heard just before leaving Winchester of trouble between the whites and Indians, growing out of the recent killing of the Logan family by Captain Cresap and his men at the mouth of Yellow Creek.

The morning after Dorothy's arrival, John Calvin started for school, nearly two miles away. Dorothy, who, since the day she had commanded him to peep through the hole, had continued issuing her commands, demanded to accompany him and had her way as usual. She insisted on sitting with him in the boys' room. There they sat together and studied and recited from the same primer. Dorothy could read almost as well as the boy; but he knew all the Shorter Catechism, while she knew only the first three pages.

After they had returned home and had dinner John Calvin started for his accustomed aerie overlooking the valley and Dorothy waited to be called; then seeing she was forgotten, followed slowly after, up the narrow path; too hurt to call out and too anxious to follow to be piqued into remaining.

The little girl of the valley, half way up and nearly out of breath, stumbled, and slightly hurt, cried out with pain. The boy looked round, saw and ran back, saying: "O Dorothy! I did not know you would care to come. Let me have your hand and help you. I will show you the big valley and tell you what I see beyond."

Hand in hand they finished the ascent; and on the top in the very center of the great rock he made a heap of pine straw, where they sat side by side; the boy blue eyed and golden haired, birth-marked by his Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and the girl carrying from the centuries past her Norman birthright of brown eyes and dark tresses. As they sat, looking down upon the valley, her dark curls, tousled by the wind, played tag with his golden locks.

How different the two children were. Dorothy's eyes and thoughts were of the valley, which the distance transformed into toyland. The houses suited the people, who were tiny dolls. The cattle as they came from the barns looked like the tiny creatures of a toy ark. These she talked about in a chirpy, rambling way; but the boy, mind-marked by his forebears, did not hear. He sat and gazed into the May-blue sky, blotted at intervals with fluffy, half transparent clouds, wind rolled from the Blue Ridge towards the Alleghanies.

He began to talk of them: "The clouds are the chariots of the angels and if you watch closely you may see them driving with reins of gold. Above the clouds, if you look hard and pray the while, you may see the face of G.o.d. The angels watch over us; and if we do something we should not they drop a tear to wipe out the deed. Sometimes the tears miss their mark and fall into the sea, and they become pearls. The little sh.e.l.l fish which live upon the bottom where it is dark gather and store these treasures in their homes, because in pa.s.sing from sky to sea they have taken into their hearts the colors of the rainbow and the sun. When the Son of G.o.d was nailed upon the cross, the angels hiding their faces lost track of earth and drove their chariots far out to sea, where, in the dark, undisturbed depths the sad old sh.e.l.l fish dwell; and as they traveled most of them were too sad even for tears; but a few great tears were shed and fell great, perfect pearls into the sea. These the old sh.e.l.l fish found and gathered up. Once in many years one of these old fellows is torn from his moorings in the darkness of the deep and washed towards the sh.o.r.e. A fisherman gathers in and opens the old moss grown sh.e.l.l and, finding the pearl, is very glad-'Wherefore, do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which satisfieth not. Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto me; hear and you shall live.'"

The boy turned towards the girl; and saw an Indian with uplifted tomahawk standing over her ready to strike. The girl looking up, saw too, and cowering in terror, crept close to the boy. He, without fear or hesitancy, rose and on tiptoe reached up and took him by the arm. So they stood for several moments; then the Indian, strangely moved by the face of the boy, in which there with neither fear nor anger but calm confidence that he would not strike, lowered his arm and smiled; and the boy smiled back.

The Indian, a Mingo chief, who spoke a little English said: "No hurt little boy and girl but they must come with Logan." He called the two braves who stood guard at the foot of the rock and ordered them to take up the children. The boy uttered no sound, but the little girl whimpered for her mother.

They were carried hastily over the mountain and by the time the stars came out were on the head waters of the Kanawha. Resting for an hour or more, until the moon rose over the tree tops, they traveled an old trail far into the night and, camping, slept until the first light of day; then on again until they reached the mouth of Meadow Creek, where they breakfasted on venison and parched corn. Then while Logan destroyed all evidences of the camp the other two dragged a canoe from the willows and paddled to a projecting rock, from which the party embarked.

As they were leaving a small black dog with a bark of joy ran up and jumped into the canoe. It was Jerry, christened Jeremiah when a puppy by Mr. Campbell, because he was given to much lamentation; later the name had been changed to Jerry at the suggestion of the boy's grandfather.

The dog as the canoe left the bank gave a couple of sharp barks which were answered by some one from the woods. One of the Indians, lifting the dog out of the canoe, silently placed it in the water; knowing that if he killed it the children would cry out. They paddled hastily along the sh.o.r.e screened by the willows. The dog for a moment swam after them, then turned and swam back to the rock.

As they circled a bend some distance below, a man stepped out on the rock and stooped and helped Jerry out of the river. It was Richard Cameron.

School had been out some time; even the older boys and girls who were kept an hour longer than the little ones, had all gone home; yet the master sat by the window thinking of his dead wife. Glancing towards the grove of cedars on the mountain he barely made out the two small children on John Calvin Rock and beside them he saw three men whom he supposed were the returned hunters.

When he reached home he learned that the two children were lost and that a searching party had been sent out into the mountains.

Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Fairfax becoming uneasy at the long absence of the children climbed to the rock and not finding them, sent Ruth Crawford, the servant, to the settlement asking for help. They then called Richard Cameron and after he had gotten his rifle the three, followed by Jerry, began the search.

It was not long before Jerry picked up the trail which Richard followed a weary way to the river landing. On the way, in the moist earth at the spring he had found a few tracks of the Indians and the foot prints of the children; searching the willows he had found where the canoe had been cached.

Realizing that the children were prisoners and that unaided he could not effect their rescue, he hastened back towards the settlement.

Several hours travel back the trail, he came upon the hunters who had been joined by Mr. Clark and who, having spent the day in search for the children, were making camp for the night.

He told what he had learned; and after piecing this with the schoolmaster's story and what they had discovered, they were satisfied the children were captives of the three Indians they had seen two days before and who now were making for the Ohio River country.

Resting several hours, they traveled that night to the mouth of Meadow Creek and in the morning followed down the river bank; finding on every portage around the rapids traces of the Indians and the children. At the Indian lead mines they found a canoe and in that paddled down the river to Point Pleasant.

Here they found the station of Caleb Smith in ashes; saw a large war party of Indians and felt a.s.sured that from its leader they could get definite information of the children. Richard Cameron offered to walk to the camp and surrender as a prisoner to be with the children; but Mr.

Campbell would not hear of it believing that he would be tortured to death, as it was evident the Indians were on the war path. The whole Indian country was in arms and the Ohio, about the mouth of the Kanawha, literally swarmed with war canoes.

For two weeks they sought the children and each day were exposed to the gravest danger. Even if found, they recognized, that their rescue was next to impossible; and, disappointed, they decided to return home, feeling satisfied the children were alive and in no immediate danger, and hoping when the present trouble blew over to return and rescue them.

The morning after their return to the Campbell plantation, Mr. Fairfax and his wife left for home. Then he went to Williamsburg, where he made application for a.s.sistance to Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, hoping through his influence with the Indians to procure the release of the children; as Dunmore was said to be on intimate terms with the tribes of the Kanawha and Scioto country and was then engaged in buying pelts from them; from which trade he derived a considerable private revenue.

The Governor gave him very little satisfaction, saying: "I would be glad to do it if we had the time, but as you know, my whole time is taken up by pending political troubles."

Governor Dunmore was extremely unpopular. It was charged that through Connelley and other agents he was then inciting the Mingoes, who had always been allies of the British to attack the frontier settlements and thus keep the attention of the western portion of the colony from the political troubles that exercised and oppressed the people of Tidewater, Virginia.

Revolution was in the air, England was determined to collect direct impost duties from the colonies and insist upon an enforcement of the recently enacted law that any colonist charged with treason or inciting rebellion should be transported to England for trial. British troops were quartered in Boston and the Port Bill had been pa.s.sed, closing Boston Harbor. Nevertheless, in the Valley and throughout Virginia, the first of June, 1774, was observed as a day of fasting and prayer because all recognized that war was impending with the mother country.

In the meanwhile Mr. Campbell began organizing the settlers, looking to a forcible rescue of the children. This activity was reported to the Governor, by him construed as treasonable conduct and his arrest was ordered.

Mrs. Campbell was not greatly depressed by the abduction of her little son. She felt that he would be restored to her unharmed.