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  V.

  In the meantime, Andrew Pill was undergoing the most singular and awfulmental revolution.

  When he leaped blindly into his cutter and gave his horse the rein, hewas wild with rage and shame, and a sort of fear. As he sat with benthead, he did not hear the tread of the horse, and did not see the treesglide past. The rabbit leaped away under the shadow of the thick grovesof young oaks; the owl, scared from its perch, went fluttering off intothe cold, crisp air; but he saw only the contemptuous, quizzical face ofold William Bacon--one shaggy eyebrow lifted, a smile showing throughhis shapeless beard.

  He saw the colorless, handsome face of Radbourn, with a look of reproachand a note of suggestion--Radbourn, one of the best thinkers andspeakers in Rock River, and the most generally admired young man in RockCounty.

  When he saw and heard Bacon, his hurt pride flamed up in wrath, but thecalm voice of Radbourn, and the look in his stern, accusing eyes, madehis head fall in thought. As he rode, things grew clearer. As a matterof fact, his whole system of religious thought was like the side of ashelving sand-bank--in unstable equilibrium--needing only a touch tosend it slipping into a shapeless pile at the river's edge. That touchhad been given, and he was now in the midst of the motion of his fallingfaith. He didn't know how much would stand when the sloughing ended.

  Andrew Pill had been a variety of things, a farmer, a dry-goodsmerchant, and a traveling salesman, but in a revival quite like this ofhis own, he had been converted and his life changed. He now desired tohelp his fellow-men to a better life, and willingly went out among thefarmers, where pay was small. It was not true, therefore, that he hadgone into it because there was little work and good pay. He was reallyan able man, and would have been a success in almost anything heundertook; but his reading and thought, his easy intercourse with menlike Bacon and Radbourn, had long since undermined any real faith in thecurrent doctrine of retribution, and to-night, as he rode into thenight, he was feeling it all and suffering it all, forced to acknowledgeat last what had been long moving.

  The horse took the wrong road, and plodded along steadily, carrying himaway from his home, but he did not know it for a long time. When at lasthe looked up and saw the road leading out upon the wide plain betweenthe belts of timber, leading away to Rock River, he gave a sigh ofrelief. He could not meet his wife then; he must have a chance to think.

  Over him, the glittering, infinite sky of winter midnight soared,passionless, yet accusing in its calmness, sweetness and majesty. Whatwas he that he could dogmatize on eternal life and the will of the Beingwho stood behind that veil? And then would come rushing back that scenein the school-house, the smell of the steaming garments, the gases fromthe lamps, the roar of the stove, the sound of his own voice, strident,dominating, so alien to his present mood, he could only shudder at it.

  He was worn out with the thinking when he drove into the stable at theMerchants' House and roused up the sleeping hostler, who looked at himsuspiciously and demanded pay in advance. This seemed right in hispresent mood. He was not to be trusted.

  When he flung himself face downward on his bed, the turmoil in his brainwas still going on. He couldn't hold one thought or feeling long; allseemed slipping like water from his hands.

  He had in him great capacity for change, for growth. Circumstances hadbeen against his development thus far, but the time had come when growthseemed to be defeat and failure.