ents of more modern and liberal thinking had since come and gone
leaving the men and women who had been reared on the thundered Word as
expressed in his firstlies, secondlies, thirdlies and finalies unable to
fill their pulpit to their satisfaction.

Then it was that Sam Haymond, D.D., came to them, as a visiting preacher
for a single Sabbath. He came heralded by tidings of power in oratory
and zeal of spirit beyond the ordinary. Report had it that his shoulders
were above the heads of mediocrity and that, like Saul of Tarsus, he had
entered upon his ministry, not through the easy stages of ecclesiastical
apprenticeship, but with the warrior-spirit of a man wholly converted
from the ranks of the scoffers. Accordingly it was appropriate that he
should come as the guest of Eben Tollman, the keystone in the arch of
the church's laity and of the old minister who still held power as a
sort of director _emeritus_.

Eben being engaged by peremptory affairs in his study, Conscience drove
to the station to meet him on a fine young Saturday morning at the
beginning of June. She set out from the house which maintained a sort
of lordly aloofness among pine-covered hills, more than usually
conscious of the lilt of summer in air and landscape.

The Tollman farm had been one of goodly size when Eben had inherited it
and outlying tracts had since augmented it by virtue of purchase and
foreclosure, until the residence, which faced a lake-like cove, was
almost isolated of site. On either side of the sandy road, as Conscience
drove to the station, elms and silver oaks and maples were wearing new
and tender shades of green. Among the sober pines they reminded her of
fashionables flaunting their finery in the faces of staid conservatives.

Between the waxen profusion of bayberry bushes, wild-flowers sprinkled
the carpet of pine needles and blackberry trailers crawled in a bright
raggedness.

CHAPTER XVIII

Sam Haymond, D.D., gathering together his belongings, as the train
whistled for the village, fancied that he could visualize with a fair
accuracy the gentleman who had written, "You will be met at the
station." Eben Tollman used, in his correspondence, a stilted formality
which conjured up the portrait of one somewhat staid and humorless.

Conscience and her husband had, on the other hand, formed no mental
portrait of the visiting minister, save that his reputation and
accomplishment would indicate mature years.

When the