At other times, he was morbid and silent, or made skeptical
and sneering remarks aside.
Lovell Barlow, though generally regarded as a believer, had never so far
overcome his natural modesty and reserve as to address the Wallencamp
meeting. But one night, spurred to make the attempt by some of his
malicious and fun-loving compatriots, he surprised us all by rising with
a violent motion from his seat, and making a sudden plunge forward as
though his audience were a cold bath, and he had determined to wade in.
"Boys!" he began, with a most unnatural ferociousness. Then I felt
Lovell's eyes fixed on my face. "And girls, too," he added, more gently;
"and girls, too, certainly, _I_ think so;" he continued; "_I_ think so."
His tone became very feeble. He glanced about with a wild eye for his
hat, grasped it, and went out, and I saw him afterwards, through the
window, standing like a statue, in the moonlight, with his arms folded,
and with a perfectly cold and emotionless cast of countenance.
Among the professors, Godfrey Cradlebow's mother, Aunt Sibylla, with
quite as much fire and less delicacy of expression than characterized the
speech of the strange lame man, was always ready to warn, threaten, and
exhort.
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