The minister whirled about, shaking with his own violence.  The sweat was running down his face.  “Gideon Hall, I charge you to say if you repent of your sins.”

There was a pause.  The silence was suffocating.

The old man gradually aroused himself from his torpor, although he did not open his eyes.  “Aye, truly I repent me of my sins,” he whispered mildly, “for any unkindness done to any man, or——­”

The minister broke in, his voice mounting shrilly, “Nay, not so, thou subtle mocker.  Dost thou repent thee of thy unbelief in the true faith?”

Colonel Gideon Hall opened his eyes.  He turned his head slowly on the pillow until he faced the preacher, and at the sight of his terrible eyes and ecstatic pallor he began to laugh whimsically, as he had laughed in the wood with Nathaniel.  “Why, man, I thought you did but frighten women with it—­not yourself too.  Nay, do not trouble about me. I don’t believe in your damned little hell.”

The smile on his face gradually died away into a still serenity, which was there later, when the minister lifted his son away from the dead man’s bed.

V

The four old men walked sturdily forward with their burden, although at intervals they slipped their tall staves under the corners and rested, wiping their foreheads and breathing hard.  As they stood thus silent, where the road passed through a thicket of sumac, a boy came rapidly around the curve and was upon them before he saw that he was not alone.  He stopped short and made a guilty motion to hide a bundle that he carried.  The old men stared at him, and reassured by this absence of recognition he advanced slowly, looking curiously at the great scarlet flag which hung in heavy folds from their burden.

“Is this the road to Woodburn?” he asked them.

“Aye,” they answered briefly.

He had almost passed them when he stopped again, drawing in his breath.

“Oh, are you—­is this Colonel—­”

“Aye, lad,” said the oldest of the bearers, “this is the funeral procession of the best commander and truest man who ever lived.”

“But why—­” began the boy, looking at the flag.

“He’s wrapped in the flag of the king that he was a loyal servant to, because the damned psalm-singing hypocrites in the town where he lived of late would not make a coffin for him—­no, nor allow ground to bury him—­no, nor men to bear him out to his grave!  We be men who have served under him in three wars, and we come from over the mountain to do the last service for him.  He saved our lives for us more than once—­brave Colonel Gid!”

They all uncovered at the name, and the boy shyly and awkwardly took his cap off.

“May I—­may I see him once again?” he asked, dropping his bundle.  “He saved my life too.”

Two men put their gnarled old hands to the flag and drew it down from the head of the bier.  The boy did not speak, but he went nearer and nearer with an expression on his face which one of the old men answered aloud.  “Aye, is he not at peace!  God grant we may all look so when the time comes.”