An Act of God

by Melville Davisson Post

　　IT WAS THE last day of the County Fair, and I stood beside my UncleAbner, on the edge of the crowd, watching the performance of amountebank.

　　On a raised platform, before a little house on wheels, stood a girldressed like a gypsy, with her arms extended, while an old man out inthe crowd, standing on a chair, was throwing great knives that hemmedher in with a steel hedge. The girl was very young, scarcely more than achild, and the man was old, but he was hale and powerful. He wore woodenshoes, travel-worn purple velvet trousers, a red sash, and a whiteblouse of a shirt open at the throat.

　　I was watching the man, whose marvelous skill fascinated me. He seemedto be looking always at the crowd of faces that passed between him andthe wagon, and yet the great knife fell to a hair on the target, grazingthe body of the girl.

　　But while the old man with his sheaf of knives held my attention, it wasthe girl that Abner looked at. He stood studying her face with a strangerapt attention. Sometimes he lifted his head and looked vacantly overthe crowd with the eyelids narrowed, like one searching for a memorythat eluded him, then he came back to the face in its cluster of darkringlets, framed in knives that stood quivering in the poplar board.

　　It was thus that my father found us when he came up.

　　"Have you noticed Blackford about?" he said; "I want to see him."

　　"No," replied Abner, "but he should be here, I think; he is at everyfrolic."

　　"I sent him the money for his cattle last night," my father went on,"and I wish to know if he got it."

　　Abner turned upon him at that. "You will always take a chance with thatscoundrel, Rufus," he said, "and some day you will be robbed. His landsare covered with a deed of trust."

　　"Well," replied my father, with his hearty laugh, "I shall not be robbedthis time. I have Blackford's request over his signature for the money,with the statement that the letter is to be evidence of its payment."

　　And he took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Abner.

　　My uncle read the letter to the end, and then his great fingerstightened on the sheet, and he read it carefully again, and yet again,with his eyes narrowed and his jaw protruding. Finally he looked myfather in the face.

　　"Blackford did not write this letter!" he said.

　　"Not write it!" my father cried. "Why, man, I know the deaf mute'swriting like a book. I know every line and slant of his letters, andevery crook and twist of his signature."

　　But my uncle shook his head.

　　My father was annoyed.

　　"Nonsense!" he said. "I can call a hundred men on these fair grounds whowill swear that Blackford made every stroke of the pen in that letter,even against his denial, and though he bring Moses and the prophets tosupport him."

　　Abner looked my father steadily in the face.

　　"That is true, Rufus," he said; "the thing is perfect. There is noletter or line or stroke or twist of the pen that varies fromBlackford's hand, and every grazer in the hills, to a man, will swearupon the Bible that he wrote it. Blackford himself cannot tell thiswriting from his own, nor can any other living man; and yet the deafmute did not write it."

　　"Well," said my father, "yonder is Blackford now; we will ask him."

　　But they never did.

　　I saw the tall deaf mute swagger up and enter the crowd before themountebank's wagon. And then a thing happened. The chair upon which theold man stood broke under him. He fell and the great knife in his handswerved downward and went through the deaf mute's body, as though itwere a cheese. The man was dead when we picked him up; the knife bladestood out between his shoulders, and the haft was jammed against hisbloody coat.

　　We carried him into the Agricultural Hall among the prize apples and thepumpkins, summoned Squire Randolph from the cattle pens, and brought themountebank before him.

　　Randolph came in his big blustering manner and sat down as though hewere the judge of all the world. He heard the evidence, and upon theword of every witness the tragedy was an accident clean through. But itwas an accident that made one shudder. It came swift and deadly andunforeseen, like a vengeance of God in the Book of Kings. One passingamong his fellows, in no apprehension, had been smitten out of life.There was terror in the mystery of selection that had thus claimedBlackford in this crowd for death. It brought our voices to a whisper tofeel how unprotected a man was in this life, and how little we couldsee.

　　And yet the thing had the aspect of design and moved with our sternScriptural beliefs. In the pulpit this deaf mute had been an example anda warning. His life was profligate and loose. He was a cattle shipperwho knew the abominations indexed by the Psalmist. He was an Ishmaelitein more ways than his affliction. He had no wife nor child, nor any nextof kin. He had been predestined to an evil end by every good housewifein the hills. He would go swiftly and by violence into hell, thepreachers said; and swiftly and by violence he had gone on this autumnmorning when the world was like an Eden.

　　He lay there among the sheaves of corn and the fruits and cereals of theearth, so fully come to the end predestined that those who had cried theprophecy the loudest were the most amazed. With all their vaporings,they could not believe that God would be so expeditious, and they spokein whispers and crowded about on tiptoe, as though the Angel of the Lordstood at the entrance of this little festal hall, as before thethreshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

　　Randolph could do nothing but find the thing an accident, and let theold man go. But he thundered from behind his table on the dangers ofsuch a trade as this. And all the time the mountebank stood stupidlybefore him like a man dazed, and the little girl wept and clung to thebig peasant's hand. Randolph pointed to the girl and told the old manthat he would kill her some day, and with the gestures and authority ofomnipotence forbade his trade. The old mountebank promised to cast hisknives into the river and get at something else. Randolph spoke upon thelaw of accidents sententiously for some thirty minutes, quoted LordBlackstone and Mr. Chitty, called the thing an act of God, within acertain definition of the law, and rose.

　　My Uncle Abner had been standing near the door, looking on with a grave,undecipherable face. He had gone through the crowd to the chair when theold man fell, had drawn the knife out of Blackford's body, but he hadnot helped to carry him in, and he had remained by the door, his bigshoulders towering above the audience. Randolph stopped beside him as hewent out, took a pinch of snuff, and trumpeted in his big, many-coloredhandkerchief.

　　"Ah, Abner," he said, "do you concur in my decision?"

　　"You called the thing an act of God," replied Abner, "and I concur inthat."

　　"And so it is," said Randolph, with judicial pomp; "the writers on thelaw, in their disquisitions upon torts, include within that term thoseinscrutable injuries that no human intelligence can foresee; forinstance, floods, earthquakes and tornadoes."

　　"Now, that is very stupid in the writers on the law," replied Abner; "Ishould call such injuries acts of the devil. It would not occur to me tobelieve that God would use the agency of the elements in order to injurethe innocent."

　　"Well," said Randolph, "the writers upon the law have not beentheologians, although Mr. Greenleaf was devout, and Chitty with a properreverence, and my lords Coke and Blackstone and Sir Matthew Hale inrespectable submission to the established church. They have grouped andcatalogued injuries with delicate and nice distinctions with respect totheir being actionable at law, and they found certain injuries to beacts of God, but I do not read that they found any injury to be an actof the devil. The law does not recognize the sovereignty and dominion ofthe devil."

　　"Then," replied Abner, "with great fitness is the law representedblindfold. I have not entered any jurisdiction where his writs havefailed to run."

　　There was a smile about the door that would have broken into laughterbut for the dead man inside.

　　Randolph blustered, consulted his snuffbox, and turned the conversationinto a neighboring channel.

　　"Do you think, Abner," he said, "that this old showman will give up hisdangerous practice as he promised me?"

　　"Yes," replied Abner, "he will give it up, but not because he promisedyou."

　　And he walked away to my father, took him by the arm, and led him aside.

　　"Rufus," he said, "I have learned something. Your receipt is valid."

　　"Of course it is valid," replied my father; "it is in Blackford's hand."

　　"Well," said Abner, "he cannot come back to deny it, and I will not be awitness for him."

　　"What do you mean, Abner?" my father said. "You say that Blackford didnot write this letter, and now you say that it is valid."

　　"I mean," replied Abner, "that when the one entitled to a debt receivesit, that is enough."

　　Then he walked away into the crowd, his head lifted and his fingerslocked behind his massive back.

　　The County Fair closed that evening in much gossip and many idlecomments on Blackford's end. The chimney corner lawyers, riding out withthe homing crowd, vapored upon Mr. Jefferson's Statute of Descents, andhow Blackford's property would escheat to the state since there was nonext of kin, and were met with the information that his lands and hiscattle would precisely pay his debts, with an eagle or two beyond for acoffin. And, after the manner of lawyers, were not silenced, but laiddown what the law would be if only the facts were agreeable to theirpremise. And the prophets, sitting in their wagons, assembled theirwitnesses and established the dates at which they had been propheticallydelivered.

　　Evening descended, and the fair grounds were mostly deserted. Those wholived at no great distance had moved their live stock with the crowd andhad given up their pens and stalls. But my father, who always brought adrove of prize cattle to these fairs, gave orders that we should remainuntil the morning. The distance home was too great and the roads werefilled. My father's cattle were no less sacred than the bulls of Egypt,and not to be crowded by a wagon wheel or ridden into by a shoutingdrunkard.

　　The night fell. There was no moon, but the earth was not in darkness.The sky was clear and sown with stars like a seeded field. I did not goto bed in the cattle stall filled with clover hay under a handwovenblanket, as I was intended to do. A youngster at a certain age is a sortof jackal and loves nothing in this world so much as to prowl over theground where a crowd of people has encamped. Besides, I wished to knowwhat had become of the old mountebank, and it was a thing I soondiscovered.

　　His wagon stood on the edge of the ground among the trees near theriver, with the door closed. His horse, tethered to a wheel, was nosingan armful of hay. The light of the stars filtered through the treetops,filled the wheels with shadows and threw one side of the wagon into theblackness of the pit. I went down to the fringe of trees; there I satsquatted on the earth until I heard a footstep and saw my Uncle Abnercoming toward the wagon. He walked as I had seen him walking in thecrowd, his hands behind him and his face lifted as though he consideredsomething that perplexed him. He came to the steps, knocked with hisclenched hand on the door, and when a voice replied, entered.

　　Curiosity overcame me. I scurried up to the dark side of the wagon.There a piece of fortune awaited me; a gilded panel had cracked withsome jolt upon the road, and by perching myself upon the wheel I couldsee inside. The old man had been seated behind a table made by lettingdown a board hinged to the wall. His knives were lying on the floorbeside him, bound together in a sheaf with a twine string. There weresome packets of old letters on the table and a candle. The little girllay asleep in a sort of bunk at the end of the wagon. The old man stoodup when my uncle entered, and his face, that had been dull and stupidbefore the justice of the peace, was now keen and bright.

　　"Monsieur does me an honor," he said. The words were an interrogationwith no welcome in them.

　　"No honor," replied my uncle, standing with his hat on; "but possibly aservice."

　　"That would be strange," the mountebank said dryly, "for I have receivedno service from any man here."

　　"You have a short memory," replied Abner; "the justice of the peacerendered you a great service on this day. Do you put no value on yourlife?"

　　"My life has not been in danger, monsieur," he said.

　　"I think it has," replied Abner.

　　'Then monsieur questions the decision?"

　　"No," said Abner; "I think it was the very wisest decision that Randolphever made."

　　"Then why does monsieur say that my life was in danger?"

　　"Well," replied my uncle, "are not the lives of all men in danger? Isthere any day or hour of a day in which they are secure, or any tract orparcel of this earth where danger is not? And can a man say when heawakes at daylight in his bed, on this day I shall go into danger, or Ishall not? In the light it is, and in the darkness it is, and where onelooks to find it, and where he does not. Did Blackford believe himselfin danger today when he passed before you?"

　　"Ah, monsieur," replied the man, "that was a terrible accident!"

　　My uncle picked up a stool, placed it by the table and sat down. He tookoff his hat and set it on his knees, then he spoke, looking at thefloor.

　　"Do you believe in God?"

　　I saw the old man rub his forehead with his hand and the ball of hisfirst finger make a cross.

　　"Yes, monsieur," he said, "I do."

　　"Then," replied Abner, "you can hardly believe that things happen out ofchance."

　　"We call it chance, monsieur," said the man, "when we do not understandit."

　　"Sometimes we use a better term," replied Abner. "Now, today Randolphdid not understand this death of Blackford, and yet he called it an actof God."

　　"Who knows," said the man; "are not the ways of God past finding out?"

　　"Not always," replied my uncle.

　　He gathered his chin into his hand and sat for some time motionless,then he continued:

　　"I have found out something about this one."

　　The old mountebank moved to his stool beyond the table and sat down.

　　"And what is that, monsieur?" he said.

　　"That you are in danger of your life-for one thing."

　　"In what danger?"

　　"Do you come from the south of Europe," replied Abner, "and forget thatwhen a man is killed there are others to threaten his assassin?"

　　"But this Blackford has no kin to carry a blood feud," said themountebank.

　　"And so," cried Abner, "you knew that before you killed him. And yet, inspite of that precaution, there stood a man in the crowd before thejustice of the peace who held your life in his hand. He had but tospeak."

　　"And why did he not speak-this man?" said the mountebank, looking atAbner across the table.

　　"I will tell you that," replied Abner. "He feared that the justice ofthe law might contravene the justice of God. It is a fabric woven frommany threads-this justice of God. I saw three of these threads todaystretching into the great loom, and I feared to touch them lest Idisturb the weaver at his work. I saw men see a murder and not know it.I saw a child see its father and not know it, and I saw a letter in thehandwriting of a man who did not write it."

　　The face of the old mountebank did not whiten, but instead it grew sternand resolute, and the muscles came out in it so that it seemed a thingof cords under the tanned skin.

　　"The proofs," he said.

　　"They are all here," replied Abner.

　　He stooped, lifted the sheaf of knives, broke the string and spread themon the table. He selected the one from which Blackford's blood had beenwiped off.

　　"Randolph examined this knife," he continued, "but not the others; heassumed that they are all alike. Well, they are not. The others aredull, but this one has the edge of a razor."

　　And he plucked a piece of paper from the table and sheared it in two.Then he put the knife down on the board and looked toward the far end ofthe wagon.

　　"And the child's face," he said-"I was not certain of that until I sawBlackford's ironed out under the hand of death, and then I knew. And theletter--"

　　But the old man was on his feet straining over the table, his featurestwitching like a taut rope.

　　"Hush! Hush!" he said.

　　There came a little gust of wind that whispered in the dry grass andblew the dead leaves against the wagon and about my face. They flutteredlike a presence, these dead leaves, and pecked and clawed at the gildedpanel like the nails of some feeble hand. I began to be assailed withfear as I sat there alone in the darkness looking in upon this tragedy.

　　My Uncle Abner sat down, and the old man remained with the palms of hishands pressed against the table. Finally he spoke.

　　"Monsieur," he said, "shall a man lead another into hell and escape thepit himself? Yes, she is his daughter, and her mother was mine, and Ihave killed him. He could not speak, but with those letters he persuadedher."

　　The man paused and turned over the packet of yellow envelopes tied upwith faded ribbon.

　　"And she believed what a woman will always believe. What would you havedone, monsieur? Go to the law-your English law that gives the woman apittance and puts her out of the court-house door for the ribald tolaugh at! Diable! Monsieur, that is not the law. I know the law, as myfather and my father's father, and your father and your father's fatherknew it. I would have killed him then, when she died, but for thischild. I would have followed him into these hills, day after day, likehis shadow behind him, until I got a knife into him and ripped him uplike a butchered pig. But I could not go to the hangman and leave thischild, and so I waited."

　　He sat down.

　　"We can wait, monsieur. That is one thing we have in mycountry-patience. And when I was ready I killed him."

　　The old man paused and put out his hand, palm upward, on the table. Itwas a wonderful hand, like a live thing.

　　"You have eyes, monsieur, but the others are as blind men. Did theythink that hand could have failed me? Cunning men have made machinery soaccurate that you marvel at them; but there was never a machine with theaccuracy of the human hand when it is trained as we train it. Monsieur,I could scratch a line on the door behind you with a needle, and with myeyes closed set a knife point into every twist and turn of it Why,monsieur, there was a straw clinging to Blackford's coat-a straw thathad fallen on him as he passed some horse stall. I marked it as he cameup through the crowd, and I split it with the knife.

　　"And now, monsieur?"

　　But my uncle stopped him. "Not yet," he said. "I am concerned about theliving and not the dead. If I had thought of the dead only, I shouldhave spoken this day; but I have thought also of the living. What haveyou done for the child?"

　　There came a great tenderness into the old man's face.

　　"I have brought it up in love," he said, "and in honor, and I have gotits inheritance for it."

　　He stopped and indicated the pack of letters.

　　"I was about to burn these when you came in, monsieur, for they haveserved their purpose. I thought I might need to know Blackford's handand I set out to learn it. Not in a day, monsieur, nor a week, like yourcommon forger, and with an untried hand-but in a year, and years-with ahand that obeys me, I went over and over every letter of every worduntil I could write the man's hand, not an imitation of it, monsieur,not that, but the very hand itself-the very hand that Blackford writeswith his own fingers. And it was well, for I was able to get the childall that Blackford had, beyond his debts, by a letter that no man couldknow that Blackford did not write."

　　"I knew that he did not write it," said Abner.

　　The old man smiled.

　　"You jest, monsieur," he said; "Blackford himself could not tell thewriting from his own. I could not, nor can any living man."

　　"That is true," replied Abner; "the letter is in Blackford's hand, as hewould have written it with his own fingers. It is no imitation, as yousay; it is the very writing of the man, and yet he did not write it, andwhen I saw it I knew that he did not."

　　The old man's face was incredulous.

　　"How could you know that, monsieur?" he said.

　　My uncle took the letter which my father had received out of his pocketand spread it out on the table.

　　"I will tell you," he said, "how I knew that Blackford did not writethis letter, although it is in his very hand. When my brother Rufusshowed me this letter, and I read it, I noticed that there were wordsmisspelled in it. Well, that of itself was nothing for the deaf mute didnot always spell correctly. It was the manner in which the words weremisspelled. Under the old system, when a deaf mute was taught to writehe was taught by the eye; consequently, he writes words as he remembersthem to look, and not as he remembers them to sound. His mistakes, then,are mistakes of the eye and not of the ear. And in this he differs fromevery man who can hear; for the man who can hear, when he is uncertainabout the spelling of a word, spells it as it sounds phonetically, usingnot a letter that looks like the correct one, but a letter that soundslike it-using 's' for 'c' and 'o' for 'u'-a thing no deaf mute wouldever do in this world, because he does not know what letters sound like.Consequently, when I saw the words in this letter misspelled bysound-when I saw that the person who had written this letter rememberedhis word as a sound, and by the arrangement of the letters in it wasendeavoring to indicate that sound-I knew he could hear."

　　The old man did not reply, but he rose and stood before my uncle. Hestood straight and fearless, his long white hair thrown back, hisbronzed throat exposed, his face lifted, and his eyes calm and level,like some ancient druid among his sacred oak trees.

　　And I crowded my face against the cracked panel, straining to hear whathe would say.

　　"Monsieur," he said, "I have done an act of justice, not as men do it,but as the providence of God does it. With care and with patience I haveaccomplished every act, so that to the eyes of men it bore the relationand aspect of God's providence. And all who saw were content but you.You have pried and ferreted behind these things, and now you must bearthe obligations of your knowledge."

　　He spread out his hands toward the sleeping girl.

　　"Shall this child grow up to honor in ignorance, or in knowledge go downto hell? Shall she know what her mother was, and what her father was,and what I am, and be fouled by the knowledge of it, and shall she bestripped of her inheritance and left not only outlawed, but paupered?And shall I go to the hangman, and she to the street? These are thingsfor you to decide, since you would search out what was hidden and revealwhat was covered! I leave it in your hands."

　　"And I," replied Abner, rising, "leave it in God's."