The Major brought his fist down on the table with a bang that set the fine china rattling and added the last straw of astonishment and discomfort to the unusual family jar; for few indeed had ever been the occasions upon which even a mild degree of paternal authority had not been so quickly followed by ready and willing compliance that an outbreak of anything like real temper or authoritative command--other than at or toward the slaves--had been hardly within Grif's memory.
The boy arose, trembling and pale, and leaving his untouched plate of choice food before him turned to leave the room.
"Come back here, sir!" commanded the old Major. "Take your seat, sir, and eat your supper, sir, and--"
Mrs. Davenport burst into tears. The boy hesitated, parted his lips as if to speak, looked at his mother, and with a sudden movement of his hand toward a little book which he always carried these later days in his breast-pocket, he stepped to his mother's side. There was a great lump in his throat. He was straggling for mastery of himself but his voice broke into a sob as he said:
"'He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.'" He kissed his mother's forehead and passed swiftly out of the room. His horse stood at the front gate waiting the usual evening canter. Griffith threw his long leg over the saddle, and said to Jerry, who stood holding the bridle of his own horse, ready to follow as was his custom: "I don't want you to-night, Jerry. Stay at home. Good-night," and rode away into the twilight.
It would be difficult to say just what Griffith's plan was. Indeed, it had all been so sudden and so out of the ordinary trend of his life, that there was a numb whirl of excitement, of pain and of blind impulse too fresh within him to permit of anything like consecutive thought. But, with Grif, as with most of us when the crises of our lives come, fate or chance or conditions have taken the reins to drive us. We are fond of saying--and while we are young we believe--that we decided thus or thus; that we converted that condition or this disaster into an opportunity and formed our lives upon such and such a model. All of which is--as a rule--mere fond self-gratulation. The fact is, although it may wound our pride to acknowledge it, that we followed the line of least resistance (all things being considered, our own natures included) and events did the rest. And so when Grif turned an angle in the road, two miles from home, and came suddenly upon the circuit rider, who was to baptize the new converts on the following day, and when Brother Prout took it for granted that Grif was on his way to the place of gathering in order to be present at the preliminary meeting, it seemed to Grif that he had originally started from home with that object in view. His thoughts began to center around that idea. The pain and shock of the home-quarrel, which he had simply started out to ride off, to think over, to prepare to meet on the morrow, gradually faded into a dull hurt, which made the phrases and quotations and exhortations of Brother Prout sound like friendly and personal utterances of soothing and of paternal advice, and so the two miles stretched into ten and the camp-ground was reached, and for Griffith, the die was cast.