"Who are these people," he said, "and why do they come?" He
spoke as though he addressed some present but invisible
authority.
My father answered him
"They are the people of Virginia," he said, "and they come,
Zindorf, in the purpose of events that you have turned terribly
backward!"
The man was in some desperate perplexity, but he had steel nerves
and the devil's courage.
He looked my father calmly in the face.
"What does all this mean?" he said.
"It means, Zindorf," cried my father, "it means that the very
things, the very particular things, that you ought to have used
for the glory of God, God has used for your damnation!"
And again, in the clear April air, there entered through the open
window the faint tolling of a bell.
"Listen, Zindorf! I will tell you. In the old abandoned church
yonder, when they came to toll the bell for Duncan, the rope fell
to pieces; I came along then, and Jacob Lance climbed into the
steeple to toll the bell by hand. At the first crash of sound a
wolf ran out of a thicket in the ravine below him, and fled away
toward the mountains. Lance, from his elevated point, could see
the wolf's muzzle was bloody.
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