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diff --git a/old/23554-0.txt b/old/23554-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6d4c916..0000000 --- a/old/23554-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,985 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Chilhowee Lily, by -Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: A Chilhowee Lily - 1911 - -Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) - -Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23554] -Last Updated: March 8, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILHOWEE LILY *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - -A CHILHOWEE LILY - -By Charles Egbert Craddock - -1911 - - -Tall, delicate, and stately, with all the finished symmetry and -distinction that might appertain to a cultivated plant, yet sharing -that fragility of texture and peculiar suggestion of evanescence -characteristic of the unheeded weed as it flowers, the Chilhowee lily -caught his eye. Albeit long familiar, the bloom was now invested with a -special significance and the sight of it brought him to a sudden pause. - -The cluster grew in a niche on the rocky verge of a precipice beetling -over the windings of the rugged primitive road on the slope of the -ridge. The great pure white bloom, trumpet-shaped and crowned with its -flaring and many-cleft paracorolla, distinct against the densely blue -sky, seemed the more ethereal because of the delicacy of its stalk, so -erect, so inflexibly upright. About it the rocks were at intervals green -with moss, and showed here and there heavy ocherous water stain. The -luxuriant ferns and pendant vines in the densely umbrageous tangle of -verdure served to heighten by contrast the keen whiteness of the flower -and the isolation of its situation. - -Ozias Crann sighed with perplexity as he looked, and then his eye -wandered down the great hosky slope of the wooded mountain where in -marshy spots, here and there, a sudden white flare in the shadows -betokened the Chilhowee lily, flowering in myraids, holding out lures -bewildering in their multitude. - -"They air bloomin' bodaciously all over the mounting," he remarked -rancorously, as he leaned heavily on a pickaxe; "but we uns hed better -try it ter-night ennyhows." - -It was late in August; a moon of exceeding lustre was in the sky, while -still the sun was going down. All the western clouds were aflare with -gorgeous reflections; the long reaches of the Great Smoky range had -grown densely purple; and those dim Cumberland heights that, viewed from -this precipice of Chilhowee, were wont to show so softly blue in the -distance, had now a variant amethystine hue, hard and translucent of -effect as the jewel itself. - -The face of one of his companions expressed an adverse doubt, as he, -too, gazed at the illuminated wilderness, all solitary, silent, remote. - -"'Pears like ter me it mought be powerful public," Pete Swolford -objected. He had a tall, heavy, lumpish, frame, a lackluster eye, a -broad, dimpled, babyish face incongruously decorated with a tuft of -dark beard at the chin. The suit of brown jeans which he wore bore token -variously of the storms it had weathered, and his coarse cowhide boots -were drawn over the trousers to the knee. His attention was now and -again diverted from the conversation by the necessity of aiding a young -bear, which he led by a chain, to repel the unwelcome demonstrations of -two hounds belonging to one of his interlocutors. Snuffling and nosing -about in an affectation of curiosity the dogs could not forbear growling -outright, as their muzzles approached their shrinking hereditary enemy, -while the cub nestled close to his master and whimpered like a child. - -"Jes' so, jes' so, Honey. I'll make 'em cl'ar out!" Swofford replied to -the animal's appeal with ready sympathy. Then, "I wish ter Gawd, Eufe, -ye'd call yer dogs off," he added in a sort of aside to the youngest -of the three mountaineers, who stood among the already reddening sumac -fringing the road, beside his horse, athwart which lay a buck all gray -and antlered, his recently cut throat still dripping blood. The party -had been here long enough for it to collect in a tiny pool in a crevice -in the rocky road, and the hounds constrained to cease their harassments -of the bear now began to eagerly lap it up. The rifle with which Eufe -Kinnicutt had killed the deer was still in his hands and he leaned upon -it; he was a tall, finely formed, athletic young fellow with dark hair, -keen, darkly greenish eyes, full of quickly glancing lights, and as he, -too, scanned the sky, his attitude of mind also seemed dissuasive. - -"'Pears like thar won't be no night, ez ye mought call night, till this -moon goes down," he suggested. "'Pears nigh ez bright ez day!" - -Ozias Crann's lank, angular frame; his narrow, bony face; his nose, long -yet not large, sharp, pinched; his light grey eyes, set very closely -together; his straggling reddish beard, all were fitting concomitants to -accent the degree of caustic contempt he expressed. "Oh, to be sure!" -he drawled. "It'll be powerful public up hyar in the mounting in the -midnight,--that's a fac'!--an' moonlight is mighty inconvenient to them -ez wants ter git spied on through totin' a lantern in cur'ous places." - -This sarcasm left the two remonstrants out of countenance. Pete Swofford -found a certain resource in the agitations of his bear, once more -shrinking and protesting because of the dogs. "Call off yer hound-dogs, -Rufe," he cried irritably, "or I'll gin 'em a bullet ter swallow." - -"Ye air a plumb fool about that thar bar, Pete," Kinnicutt said sourly, -calling off the hounds nevertheless. - -"That thar bar?" exclaimed Swofford. "Why, thar never war sech a bar! -That thar bar goes ter mill, an' kin fetch home grist,--ef I starts him -out in the woods whar he won't meet no dogs nor contrairy cattle o' men -he kin go ter mill all by his lone!--same ez folks an' the bes' kind o' -folks, too!" - -In fact the bear was even now begirt with a meal-bag, well filled, which -although adding to his uncouth appearance and perhaps unduly afflicting -the sensibilities of the horse, who snorted and reared at the sight of -him, saved his master the labor of "packing" the heavy weight. - -Swofford had his genial instincts and in return was willing to put up -with the cubbishness of the transport,--would wait in the illimitable -patience of the utterly idle for the bear to climb a tree if he liked -and pleasantly share with him the persimmons of his quest;--would never -interfere when the bear flung himself down and wallowed with the bag on -his back, and would reply to the censorious at home, objecting to the -dust and sand thus sifting in with the meal, with the time honored -reminder that we are all destined "to eat a peck of dirt" in this world. - -"Whenst ye fust spoke o' digging" said Kinnicutt, interrupting a -lengthening account of the bear's mental and moral graces, "I 'lowed -ez ye mought be sayin' ez they air layin' off ter work agin in the -Tanglefoot Mine." - -Ozias Crann lifted a scornful chin. "I reckon the last disasters thar -hev interrupted the company so ez they hain't got much heart todes -diggin' fur silver agin over in Tanglefoot Cove. Fust," he checked off -these misfortunes, by laying the fingers of one hand successively in the -palm of the other, "the timbers o' one o' the cross cuts fell an' the -roof caved in an' them two men war kilt, an' thar famblies sued the -company an' got mo' damages 'n the men war bodaciously wuth. Then the -nex' thing the pay agent, ez war sent from Glaston, war held up in -Tanglefoot an' robbed--some say by the miners. He got hyar whenst they -war out on a strike, an' they robbed him 'cause they warn't paid -cordin' ter thar lights, an' they _did_ shoot him up cornsider'ble. That -happened jes' about a year ago. Then sence, thar hev been a awful cavin' -in that deep shaft they hed sunk in the tunnel, an' the mine war flooded -an' the machinery ruint--I reckon the company in Glaston ain 't a-layin' -off ter fly in the face o' Providence and begin agin, arter all them -leadin's ter quit." - -"Some believe he warh't robbed at all," Kinnicutt said slowly. He had -turned listlessly away, evidently meditating departure, his hand on his -horse's mane, one foot in the stirrup. - -"Ye know that gal named Loralindy Byars?" Crann said craftily. - -Kinnicutt paused abruptly. Then as the schemer remained silent he -demanded, frowning darkly, "What's Loralindy Byars got ter do with it?" - -"Mighty nigh all!" Crann exclaimed, triumphantly. - -It was a moment of tense suspense. But it was not Crann's policy to -tantalize him further, however much the process might address itself -to his peculiar interpretation of pleasure. "That thar pay agent o' the -mining company," he explained, "he hed some sort'n comical name--oh, I -remember now, Renfrow--Paul Renfrow--waal--ye know he war shot in the -knee when the miners way-laid him." - -"I disremember now ef it war in the knee or the thigh," Swofford -interposed, heavily pondering. - -Kinnicutt's brow contracted angrily, and Crann broke into open wrath: -"an' I ain't carin', ye fool--what d' ye interrupt fur like that?" - -"Wall," protested Swofford, indignantly, "ye said 'ye know' an' I didn't -_know_." - -"An' I ain't carin'--the main p'int war that he could neither ride nor -walk. So the critter crawled! Nobody knows how he gin the strikers the -slip, but he got through ter old man Byars's house. An' thar he staid -till Loralindy an' the old 'oman Byars nussed him up so ez he could bear -the pain o' bein' moved. An' he got old man Byars ter wagin him down -ter Colb'ry, a-layin' on two feather beds 'count o' the rocky roads, an' -thar he got on the steam kyars an' he rid on them back ter whar he kem -from." - -Kinnicutt seemed unable to longer restrain his impatience. He advanced -a pace. "Ye appear ter 'low ez ye air tellin' news--I knowed all that -whenst it happened a full year ago!" - -"I reckon ye know, too, ez Loralindy hed no eyes nor ears fur ennybody -else whilst he war hyar--but then _he war_ good-lookin' an' saaft-spoken -fur true! An' now he hev writ a letter ter her!" - -Crann grinned as Kinnicutt inadvertently gasped. "How do you uns know -that!" the young man hoarsely demanded, with a challenging accent of -doubt, yet prescient despair. - -"'Kase, bubby, that's the way the story 'bout the lily got out. I was at -the mill this actial day. The miller hed got the letter--hevin' been -ter the post-office at the Crossroads--an' he read it ter her, bein' ez -Loralindy can't read writin'. She warn't expectin' it. He writ of his -own accord." - -A sense of shadows impended vaguely over all the illuminated world, and -now and again a flicker of wings through the upper atmosphere betokened -the flight of homing birds. Crann gazed about him absently while he -permitted the statement he had made to sink deep into the jealous, -shrinking heart of the young mountaineer, and he repeated it as he -resumed. - -"She warn't expectin' of the letter. She jes' stood thar by the -mill-door straight an' slim an' white an' still, like she always -be--ter my mind like she war some sort'n sperit, stiddier a sure enough -gal--with her yaller hair slick an' plain, an' that old, faded, green -cotton dress she mos' always wears, an' lookin' quiet out at the water -o' the mill-dam ter one side, with the trees a-wavin' behind her at the -open door--jes' like she always be! An' arter awhile she speaks slow -an' saaft an axes the miller ter read it aloud ter her. An' lo! old man -Bates war rej'iced an' glorified ter the bone ter be able ter git a peek -inter that letter! He jes' shet down the gates and stopped the mill -from runnin' in a jiffy, an' tole all them loafers, ez hangs round thar -mosly, ter quit thar noise. An' then he propped hisself up on a pile o' -grist, an' thar he read all the sayin's ez war writ in that letter. -An' a power o' time it tuk, an' a power o' spellin' an' bodaciously -wrastlin' with the alphabit." - -He laughed lazily, as he turned his quid of tobacco in his mouth, -recollecting the turbulence of these linguistic turmoils. - -"This hyar feller--this Renfrow--he called her in the letter 'My dear -friend'--he did--an' lowed he hed a right ter the word, fur ef ever a -man war befriended he hed been. He lowed ez he could never fur-get her. -An' Lord! how it tickled old man Bates ter read them sentiments--the -pride-ful old peacock! He would jes' stop an' push his spectacles back -on his slick bald head an' say, 'Ye hear me, Loralindy! he 'lows he'll -never furget the keer ye tuk o' him whenst he war shot an' ailin' an' -nigh ter death. An' no mo' he ought, nuther. But some do furget sech ez -that, Loralindy--some do!'" - -An' them fellers at the mill, listenin' ter the letter, could sca'cely -git thar consent ter wait fur old man Bates ter git through his talk ter -Loralindy, that he kin talk ter every day in the year! But arter -awhile he settled his spectacles agin, an' tuk another tussle with -the spellin,' an' then he rips out the main p'int o' the letter. "This -stranger-man he 'lowed he war bold enough ter ax another favior. The -cuss tried ter be funny. 'One good turn desarves another,' he said. 'An' -ez ye hev done me one good turn, I want ye ter do me another.' An' old -man Bates hed the insurance ter waste the time a-laffin' an' a-laffin' -at sech a good joke. Them fellers at the mill could hev fund it in thar -hearts ter grind him up in his own hopper, ef it wouldn't hev ground up -with him thar chance o' ever hearin' the end o' that thar interestin' -letter. So thar comes the favior. Would she dig up that box he treasured -from whar he told her he hed buried it, arter he escaped from the attack -o' the miners? An' would she take the box ter Colb'ry in her grandad's -wagin, an' send it ter him by express. He hed tole her once whar he -hed placed it--an' ter mark the spot mo' percisely he hed noticed one -Chilhowee lily bulb right beside it. An' then says the letter, 'Good -bye, Chilhowee Lily!' An' all them fellers stood staring." - -A light wind was under way from the west Delicate flakes of red and -glistening white were detached from the clouds. Sails--sails were -unfurling in the vast floods of the skies. With flaunting banners and -swelling canvas a splendid fleet reached half way to the zenith. But -a more multitudinous shipping still swung at anchor low in the west, -though the promise of a fair night as yet held fast. - -"An' now," said Ozias Crann in conclusion, "all them fellers is -a-diggin'." - -"Whut's in the box!" demanded Swof-ford, his big baby-face all in a -pucker of doubt. - -"The gold an' silver he ought ter hev paid the miners, of course. They -always 'lowed they never tuk a dollar off him; they jes' got a long -range shot at him! How I wish," Ozias Crann broke off fervently, "how -I wish I could jes' git my hands on that money once!" He held out his -hands, long and sinewy, and opened and shut them very fast. - -"Why, that would be stealin'!" exclaimed Kinnicutt with repulsion. - -"How so? 't ain't his'n now, sure--he war jes' the agent ter pay it -out," argued Crann, volubly. - -"It belongs ter the mine owners, then--the company." There was a -suggestion of inquiry in the younger man's tone. - -"'Pears not--they sent it hyar fur the percise purpose ter be paid out!" -the specious Crann replied. - -"Then it belongs ter the miners." - -"They hedn't yearned it--an' ef some o' them hed they warn't thar ter -receive it, bein' out on a strike. They hed burnt down the company's -office over yander at the mine in Tanglefoot Cove, with all the books -an' accounts, an' now nobody knows what's owin' ter who." - -Kinnicutt's moral protests were silenced, not satisfied. He looked up -moodily at the moon now alone in the sky, for only a vanishing segment -of the great vermilion sphere of the sun was visible above the western -mountains, when suddenly he felt one of those long grasping claws on his -arm. "Now, Rufe, bubby," a most insinuating tone, Crann had summoned, -"all them fool fellers air diggin' up the face of the yearth, wharever -they kin find a Chilhowee lily--like sarchin' fur a needle in a -haystack. But we uns will do a better thing than that. I drawed the idee -ez soon ez I seen you an' Pete hyar this evenin' so onexpected. 'Them's -my pardners,' I sez ter myself. 'Pete ter holp dig an' tote ef the box -be heavy. An' you ter find out edzac'ly whar it be hid.' You uns -an' Loralindy hev been keepin' company right smart, an' ye kin toll -Loralindy along till she lets slip jes' whar that lily air growin'. I'll -be bound ez she likes ye a sight better 'n that Renfrow--leastwise ef 't -warn't fur his letter, honeyin' her up with complimints, an' she hevin' -the chance o' tollin' him on through doin' him sech faviors, savin' his -life, an' now his money--shucks it's mo' _our_ money 'n his'n; 't ain -'t his 'n! Gol-darn the insurance o' this Renfrow! His idee is ter keep -the money his own self, an' make her sen' it ter him. Then 'Good-bye, -Chilhowee Lily!'" - -The night had come at last, albeit almost as bright as day, but with -so ethereal, so chastened a splendor that naught of day seemed real. A -world of dreams it was, of gracious illusions, of far vague distances -that lured with fair promises that the eye might not seek to measure. -The gorgeous tints were gone, and in their stead were soft grays and -indefinite blurring browns, and every suggestion of silver that metal -can show flashed in variant glitter in the moon. The mountains were -majestically sombre, with a mysterious sense of awe in their great -height There were few stars; only here and there the intense lustre of a -still planet might withstand the annihilating magnificence of the moon. - -Its glamour did not disdain the embellishment of humbler objects. As -Rufe Kinnicutt approached a little log cabin nestling in a sheltered -cove he realized that a year had gone by since Renfrow had seen it -first, and that thus it must have appeared when he beheld it. The dew -was bright on the slanting roof, and the shadow of oak trees wavered -over it. The mountain loomed above. The zigzag lines of the rail -fence, the bee-gums all awry ranged against it, the rickety barn and -fowl-house, the gourd vines draping the porch of the dwelling, all had -a glimmer of dew and a picturesque symmetry, while the spinning wheel as -Loralinda sat in the white effulgent glow seemed to revolve with flashes -of light in lieu of spokes, and the thread she drew forth was as silver. -Its murmuring rune was hardly distinguishable from the chant of the -cicada or the long droning in strophe and antistrophe of the waterside -frogs far away, but such was the whir or her absorption that she did not -perceive his approach till his shadow fell athwart the threshold, and -she looked up with a start. - -"Ye 'pear powerful busy a-workin' hyar so late in the night," he -exclaimed with a jocose intonation. - -She smiled, a trifle abashed; then evidently conscious of the bizarre -suggestions of so much ill-timed industry, she explained, softly -drawling: "Waal, ye know, Granny, she be so harried with her rheumatics -ez she gits along powerful poor with her wheel, an' by night she be -plumb out'n heart an' mad fur true. So arter she goes ter bed I jes' -spins a passel fur her, an' nex' mornin' she 'lows she done a toler'ble -stint o' work an' air consider'ble s'prised ez she war so easy put out." - -She laughed a little, but he did not respond. With his sensibilities all -jarred by the perfidious insinuation of Ozias Crann, and his jealousy -all on the alert, he noted and resented the fact that at first her -attention had come back reluctantly to him, and that he, standing before -her, had been for a moment a less definitely realized presence than the -thought in her mind--this thought had naught to do with him, and of that -he was sure. - -"Loralindy," he said with a turbulent impulse of rage and grief; "whenst -ye promised to marry me ye an' me war agreed that we would never hev one -thought hid from one another--ain't that a true word!" - -The wheel had stopped suddenly--the silver thread was broken; she -was looking up at him, the moonlight full on the straight delicate -lineaments of her pale face, and the smooth glister of her golden hair. -"Not o' my own," she stipulated. And he remembered, and wondered that it -should come to him so late, that she had stood upon this reservation -and that he--poor fool--had conceded it, thinking it concerned the -distilling of whisky in defiance of the revenue law, in which some of -her relatives were suspected to be engaged, and of which he wished to -know as little as possible. - -The discovery of his fatuity was not of soothing effect. "'T war that -man Renfrew's secret--I hearn about his letter what war read down ter -the mill." - -She nodded acquiescently, her expression once more abstracted, her -thoughts far afield. - -He had one moment of triumph as he brought himself tensely erect, -shouldering his gun--his shadow behind him in the moonlight duplicated -the gesture with a sharp promptness as at a word of command. - -"All the mounting's a-diggin' by this time!" He laughed with ready -scorn, then experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. Her face had -changed. Her expression was unfamiliar. She had caught together the two -ends of the broken thread, and was knotting them with a steady hand, and -a look of composed security on her face, that was itself a flout to -the inopportune search of the mountaineers and boded ill to his hope -to discover from her the secret of the _cache_. He recovered himself -suddenly. - -"Ye 'lowed ter me ez ye never keered nuthin' fur that man, Renfrow," he -said with a plaintive appeal, far more powerful with her than scorn. - -She looked up at him with candid reassuring eyes. "I never keered none -fur him," she protested. "He kem hyar all shot up, with the miners an' -mounting boys hot foot arter him--an' we done what we could fur him. -Gran'daddy 'lowed ez _he_ warn't 'spon-sible fur whut the owners done, -or hedn't done at the mine, an' he seen no sense in shootin' one man ter -git even with another." - -"But ye kep' his secret!" Kinnicutt persisted. - -"What fur should I tell it--'t ain't mine?" - -"That thar money in that box he buried ain't _his'n_, nuther!" he -argued. - -There was an inscrutable look in her clear eyes. She had risen, and was -standing in the moonlight opposite him. The shadows of the vines falling -over her straight skirt left her face and hair the fairer in the silver -glister. - -"'Pears like ter me," he broke the silence with his plaintive cadence, -"ez ye ought ter hev tole me. I ain't keerin' ter know 'ceptin' ye hev -shet me out. It hev hurt my feelin's powerful ter be treated that-a-way. -Tell me now--or lemme go forever!" - -She was suddenly trembling from head to foot. Pale she was always. Now -she was ghastly. "Rufe Kinnicutt," she said with the solemnity of -an adjuration, "ye don't keer fur sech ez this, fur _nuthin_'. An' I -promised!" - -He noted her agitation. He felt the clue in his grasp. He sought to -wield his power, "Choose a-twixt us! Choose a-twixt the promise ye made -ter that man--or the word ye deny ter me! An' when I'm gone--I'm gone!" - -She stood seemingly irresolute. - -"It's nuthin' ter me," he protested once more. "I kin keep it an' gyard -it ez well ez you uns. But I won't be shet out, an' doubted, an' denied, -like ez ef _I_ wan't fitten ter be trested with nuthin'!" - -He stood a moment longer, watching her trembling agitation, and feeling -that tingling exasperation that might have preceded a blow. - -"I'm goin'," he threatened. - -As she still stood motionless he turned away as if to make good his -threat. He heard a vague stir among the leaves, and turning back he saw -that the porch was vacant. - -He had overshot the mark. In swift repentance he retraced his steps. He -called her name. No response save the echoes. The house dogs, roused to -a fresh excitement, were gathering about the door, barking in affected -alarm, save one, to whom Kinnicutt was a stranger, that came, silent -and ominous, dragging a block and chain from under the house. Kinnicutt -heard the sudden drowsy plaints of the old rheumatic grandmother, as she -was rudely awakened by the clamors, and presently a heavy footfall smote -upon the puncheons that floored the porch. Old Byars himself, with his -cracked voice and long gray hair, had left his pipe on the mantel-piece -to investigate the disorder without. - -"Hy're Rufe!" he swung uneasily posed on his crutch stick in the -doorway, and mechanically shaded his eyes with one hand, as from the -sun, as he gazed dubiously at the young man, "hain't ye in an' about -finished yer visit t--or yer visitation, ez the pa'son calls it He, he, -he! Wall, Loralindy hev gone up steers ter the roof-room, an' it's about -time ter bar up the doors. Waal, joy go with ye, he, he, he! Come off, -Tige, _ye_ Bose, hyar! Cur'ous I can't 'larn them dogs no manners." - -A dreary morrow ensued on the splendid night. The world was ful of -mists; the clouds were resolved into drizzling rain; every perspective -of expectation was restricted by the limited purlieus of the present. -The treasure-seekers digging here and there throughout the forest in -every nook in low ground, wherever a drift of the snowy blossoms might -glimmer, began to lose hope and faith. Now and again some iconoclastic -soul sought to stigmatize the whole rumor as a fable. More than one -visited the Byars cabin in the desperate hope that some chance word -might fall from the girl, giving a clue to the mystery. - -By daylight the dreary little hut had no longer poetic or picturesque -suggestion. Bereft of the sheen and shimmer of the moonlight its aspect -had collapsed like a dream into the dullest realities. The door-yard was -muddy and littered; here the razor-back hogs rooted unrebuked; the -rail fence had fallen on one side, and it would seem that only their -attachment to home prevented them from wandering forth to be lost in the -wilderness; the clap-boards of the shiny roof were oozing and steaming -with dampness, and showed all awry and uneven; the clay and stick -chimney, hopelessly ont of plumb, leaned far from the wall. - -Within it was not more cheerful; the fire smoked gustily into the -dim little room, illumined only by the flicker of the blaze and the -discouraged daylight from the open door, for the batten shutters of the -unglazed window were closed. The puncheon floor was grimy--the feet -that curiosity had led hither brought much red clay mire upon them. The -poultry, all wet and dispirited, ventured within and stood about the -door, now scuttling in sudden panic and with peevish squawks upon the -unexpected approach of a heavy foot. Loralinda, sitting at her spinning -wheel, was paler than ever, all her dearest illusions dashed into -hopeless fragments, and a promise which she did not value to one whom -she did not love quite perfect and intact. - -The venerable grandmother sat propped with pillows in her arm-chair, -and now and again adjured the girl to "show some manners an' tell -the neighbors what they so honed to know." With the vehemence of her -insistence her small wizened face would suddenly contract; the tortures -of the rheumatism, particularly rife in such weather, would seize upon -her, and she would cry aloud with anguish, and clutch her stick and -smite her granddaughter to expedite the search for the primitive -remedies of dried "yarbs" on which her comfort depended. - -"Oh, Lord!" she would wail as she fell back among the pillows. "I'm -a-losin' all my religion amongst these hyar rheumatics. I wish I war a -man jes' ter say 'damn 'em' once! An' come good weather I'll sca'cely be -able ter look Loralindy in the face, considering how I hector her whilst -I be in the grip o' this misery." - -"Jes' pound away, Granny, ef it makes ye feel ennywise better," cried -Loralinda, furtively rubbing the weales on her arm. "It don't hurt me -wuth talkin' 'bout. Ye jes' pound away, an' welcome!" - -Perhaps it was her slender, elastic strength and erect grace, with her -shining hair and ethereal calm pallor in the midst of the storm that -evoked the comparison, for Ozias Crann was suddenly reminded of the -happy similitude suggested by the letter that he had heard read and had -repeated yesterday to his cronies as he stood in the road. The place was -before him for one illumined moment--the niche in the cliff, with its -ferns and vines, the delicate stately dignity of the lilies outlined -against the intense blue of the sky. - -The reminiscence struck him like a discovery. Where else could the -flower have been so naturally noticed by this man, a stranger, and -remembered as a mark in the expectation of finding it once more when the -bulb should flower again--as beside the county road? He would have been -hopelessly lost a furlong from the path. - -Crann stood for a moment irresolute, then silently grasped his pickaxe -and slunk out among the mists on the porch. - -He berated his slow mind as he hurried invisible through the vast clouds -in which the world seemed lost. Why should the laggard inspiration come -so late if it had come at all? Why should he, with the clue lying half -developed in his own mental impressions, have lost all the vacant hours -of the long, bright night, have given the rumor time to pervade the -mountains, and set all the idlers astir before he should strike the -decisive blow! - -There, at last, was the cliff, beetling far over the mist-filled valley -below. A slant of sunshine fell on the surging vapor, and it gleamed -opalescent. There was the niche, with the lilies all a-bloom. He came -panting up the slope under the dripping trees, with a dash of wind in -his face and the odor of damp leafage and mold on the freshening air. - -He struck the decisive blow with a will. The lilies shivered and -fell apart The echoes multiplied the stroke with a ringing metallic -iteration. - -The loiterers were indeed abroad. The sound lured them from their own -devious points of search, and a half dozen of the treasure-seekers burst -from the invisibilities of the mists as Ozias Crann's pickaxe cleaving -the mold struck upon the edge of a small japanned box hidden securely -between the rocks, a scant foot below the surface. A dangerous spot -for a struggle, the verge of a precipice, but the greed for gain is a -passion that blunts the sense of peril. The wrestling figures, heedless -of the abyss, swayed hither and thither, the precious box among them; -now it was captured by a stronger grasp, now secured anew by sheer -sleight-of-hand. More than once it dropped to the ground, and at last -in falling the lock gave way, and scattered to the wind were numberless -orderly vouchers for money already paid, inventories of fixtures, -bills for repairs, reports of departments--various details of value in -settling the accounts of the mine, and therefore to be transmitted to -the main office of the mining company at Glaston. "Ef I hed tole ye ez -the money warn't thar, ye wouldn't hev believed me," Lora-linda -Byars said drearily, when certain disappointed wights, who had sought -elsewhere and far a-field, repaired to the cabin laughing at their own -plight and upbraiding her with the paucity of the _cache_. "I knowed all -the time what war in that box. The man lef' it thar in the niche arter -he war shot, it bem' heavy ter tote an' not wuth much. But he brung the -money with him, an' tuk it off, bein', he said, without orders from the -owners, the miners hevin' burnt down the offices, an' bruk open the safe -an' destroyed all the papers, ceptin' that leetle box. I sewed up the -man's money myself in them feather beds what he lay on whenst he war -wagined down 'ter Colb'ry ter take the kyars. He 'lowed the compn'y -mought want them papers whenst they went into liquidation, ez he called -it, an' tole me how he hed hid 'em." - -Rufe Kinnicutt wondered that she should have been so unyielding. She did -not speculate on the significance of her promise. She did not appraise -its relative value with other interests, and seek to qualify it. Once -given she simply kept it. She held herself no free agent. It was not -hers. - -The discovery that the lure was gold revealed the incentive of her -lover's jealous demand to share the custody of the secret. His intention -was substituted for the deed in her rigid interpretation of integrity. -It cost her many tears. But she seemed thereafter to him still more -unyielding, as erect, fragile, ethereally pure and pale she noted his -passing no more than the lily might. He often thought of the cheap lure -of the sophisms that had so deluded him, the simple obvious significance -of the letter, and the phrase, "Goodbye, Chilhowee Lily," had also an -echo of finality for him. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Chilhowee Lily, by -Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILHOWEE LILY *** - -***** This file should be named 23554.txt or 23554.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23554/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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