The rabbit leaped away under the shadow of the thick groves of young oaks; the owl, scared from its perch, went fluttering off into the cold, crisp air; but he saw only the contemptuous, quizzical face of old William Bacon--one shaggy eyebrow lifted, a smile showing through his shapeless beard.
He saw the colorless, handsome face of Radbourn, with a look of reproach and a note of suggestion--Radbourn, one of the best thinkers and speakers in Rock River, and the most generally admired young man in Rock County.
When he saw and heard Bacon, his hurt pride flamed up in wrath, but the calm voice of Radbourn, and the look in his stern, accusing eyes, made his head fall in thought.

As he rode, things grew clearer.

As a matter of fact, his whole system of religious thought was like the side of a shelving sand-bank--in unstable equilibrium--needing only a touch to send it slipping into a shapeless pile at the river's edge.

That touch had been given, and he was now in the midst of the motion of his falling faith.

He didn't know how much would stand when the sloughing ended.
Andrew Pill had been a variety of things, a farmer, a dry-goods merchant, and a traveling salesman, but in a revival quite like this of his own, he had been converted and his life changed.