“And how would you propose to approach the matter so as to deal with it knowledgeably?” asked Dr. Kimberly, a minister of still another denomination.
“I don’t know,” said Dr. Caiaphas. “I’m sure the conference is open to suggestions.”
“How would it do to send down a committee of five to interview him, and to ask him what he has to say for himself?” said Mr. Munjoy, jocularly. And then there was a murmur of laughter.
“Really, though,” said Mr. Bold, after the laugh had subsided, “I don’t know that that is a half bad suggestion.”
“Bad!” said Mr. Munjoy. “I should hope not. I hope you don’t think that a minister of my denomination would suggest anything that was bad.” And then there was another laugh.
The idea of the committee had been proposed in jest, but before the meeting closed it was considered seriously, and was finally adopted. There was still a general feeling of half-repressed jocularity about it all, but, nevertheless, the committee was duly appointed. Mr. Munjoy, as the proposer of the committee, was nominated for chairman, but he declined in a very witty and amusing speech, proposing Dr. Caiaphas in his stead. Dr. Caiaphas was not at all pleased with the sense of levity that pervaded the meeting. It seemed to him that the subject was very serious, and he replied to what Mr. Munjoy had said in a very serious manner. He wished, he said, that some younger man had been chosen. Without at all desiring to shift the burden from his own shoulders, he must say that he really felt that his time was so much taken up with the work of the investigation committee appointed to examine into the police department that it would be almost impossible for him to give to this matter that consideration which it seemed to him to deserve. Nevertheless, if it was the will of those present that he should act as chairman, he would so act to the best of his poor powers.
IV
WHAT WENT YE DOWN FOR TO SEE?
IT was a lovely, balmy day–that upon which our priests and Levites went down to the baptisms of John. It was yet early in March, but the day was as soft and as warm as a day in May.
When the clergymen descended from the train they found the platform crowded with those who had come over from the camp to meet arriving friends, and everywhere arose a confused and inarticulate hubbub of voices. The committee almost forced its way across the platform to where the hacks and carriages of all sorts and kinds stood drawn up in a row, and whence the voices of hackmen dominated loudly all the bustle and noise, adding their quota to the bewildering confusion. The crowd struggled and pushed, and through the ceaseless noise and hubbub there sounded the thin, keen wail of a crying baby.
Mr. Bold chose a ’bus, the committee filled it almost more than full, and it was driven off immediately, among the first to quit the station. A cloud of dust surrounded them as they rattled along the level road, leaving farther and farther behind them the still ceaseless tumult of the crowded platform, above which loomed the locomotive, smoking and hissing gigantically.
The owner of the ’bus stood on the steps behind clinging to the door-frame. “Be you ministers?” said he.
“Yes,” said one of the party.
“Come to the baptism?”
The minister laughed. “No, not exactly.”
“But, talking of baptism,” said Mr. Munjoy, “I wish very much we could find a basin of water and a cake of soap somewhere; it was very dusty coming down.”
The hackman leaned to one side and spat into the dusty road that sped away behind. “Yes,” he assented; “you see, we ’ain’t had no rain now for above two weeks.”
“Pretty bad look-out for salvation, I should say, if the dry weather holds,” observed Mr. Munjoy.
Dr. Caiaphas sat quiet and impassive. The uncomfortable feeling had been growing upon him ever since he left home that he was upon a grotesque fool’s errand.
The road over which they were now passing was heavy and sandy. The sun shone down upon it warmly, and, early as was the season, the fresh grass had begun to show itself in irregular patches of light and dark-green. The sky overhead was blue. In the sunshine it was warm, but those on the shady side of the coach drew their overcoats closer about them. Every now and then the hack would pass little groups or single figures, all plodding along in the direction of the camp. Sometimes there were larger groups of men and women and some children or half-grown girls. Some of the men carried their overcoats over one arm. One group which they passed consisted of three women, one man, and three children. One of the women–thin and frail-looking–carried a young baby, and the two other tired children dragged themselves along, holding each by a hand of another of the women. All these people were of the commoner sort. Some appeared to be working-men with their wives, others appeared not even to be laboring men, but of that great, underlying, nameless class that is still lower in the scale of social existence than the class of producers. Most of these people were evidently dressed in their best clothes, as though for a holiday.
After riding for maybe a mile, the hack turned a bend in the road, and from the summit of a little sandy rise of ground the committee came within sudden sight of the camp.
Every one of them was surprised at the extent of the encampment. As they looked down upon it, it stretched away like a great town of tents and huts. In some places the tents and frame sheds were clustered in a confused mass, in other places they were separated into streets and avenues. Upon the outskirts–the suburbs of this nondescript town–were everywhere clustering groups of carts and wagons and restless crowds of people which grew thicker and thicker in the camp, becoming here and there congested into restless, moving ganglia of humanity. These disconnected groups of people gathered most thickly along the banks of the stream, and far away in the distance was a greater crowd surrounding some central point of interest. The visitors surmised that John the Baptist was the centre of that crowd. Beyond the stream were a few scattered huts, and beyond that a level, green marsh. An inlet from the sea made in part a broken, sandy headland. Beyond that, in the distance, was a wide, sparkling stretch of water with the far, blue line of the farther shore. Above all was the windy arch of sky looking down peacefully and calmly upon the clustered, restless masses of human beings below. There was an indefinable odor of salt in the air, and the wind came across from over the marsh, fresh and cool.
The hack rattled down the road and into the camp in a cloud of dust. It was about noon and many of the people were eating their mid-day meal. Everywhere there were clusters of men and women, sitting in farm wagons or carts munching their food and talking among themselves.
The driver drove for some little distance into the camp, checking his horses every now and then and hallooing to the men and women in his road, who scattered right and left to make way for the rather headlong rate at which he drove. At last he stopped in front of a big frame shed with a rude sign above the doorway, informing the passers that there refreshment was to be had at a cheap and popular price. The shed was open at one end, and within you could see rows of benches and long deal tables. Here the committee got out, one by one, and stood looking about them.
Along the wide, street-like space there fronted a long, disjointed line of huts and tents of all sorts and kinds. The air was full of an indescribable odor as of raw boards and crushed grass. The street was full of a restless, passing stream of men and women and boys, and everywhere was the ceaseless buzz of talking, now and then dominated by the call
