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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'way Down In Lonesome Cove, 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: 'way Down In Lonesome Cove
+       1895
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Illustrator: A. B. Frost
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23632]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE
+
+By Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+1895
+
+
+One memorable night in Lonesome Cove the ranger of the county entered
+upon a momentous crisis in his life. What hour it was he could hardly
+have said, for the primitive household reckoned time by the sun when it
+shone, by the domestic routine when no better might be. It was late.
+The old crone in the chimney-corner nodded over her knitting. In the
+trundle-bed at the farther end of the shadowy room were transverse
+billows under the quilts, which intimated that the small children were
+numerous enough for the necessity of sleeping crosswise. He had smoked
+out many pipes, and at last knocked the cinder from the bowl. The great
+hickory logs had burned asunder and fallen from the stones that served
+as andirons. He began to slowly cover the embers with ashes, that the
+fire might keep till morning.
+
+His wife, a faded woman, grown early old, was bringing the stone jar of
+yeast to place close by the hearth, that it might not "take a chill" in
+some sudden change of the night. It was heavy, and she bent in carrying
+it. Awkward, and perhaps nervous, she brought it sharply against the
+shovel in his hands.
+
+The clash roused the old crone in the corner.
+
+She recognized the situation instantly, and the features that sleep had
+relaxed into inexpressiveness took on a weary apprehension, which they
+wore like a habit. The man barely raised his surly black eyes, but his
+wife drew back humbly with a mutter of apology.
+
+The next moment the shovel was almost thrust out of his grasp. A tiny
+barefooted girl, in a straight unbleached cotten night-gown and a quaint
+little cotton night-cap, cavalierly pushed him aside, that she might
+cover in the hot ashes a burly sweet-potato, destined to slowly roast by
+morning. A long and careful job she made of it, and unconcernedly kept
+him waiting while she pottered back and forth about the hearth. She
+looked up once with an authoritative eye, and he hastily helped to
+adjust the potato with the end of the shovel. And then he glanced at
+her, incongruously enough, as if waiting for her autocratic nod of
+approval. She gravely accorded it, and pattered nimbly across the
+puncheon floor to the bed.
+
+"Now," he drawled, in gruff accents, "ef you-uns hev all had yer fill o'
+foolin' with this hyar fire, I'll kiver it, like I hev started out ter
+do."
+
+At this moment there was a loud trampling upon the porch without. The
+batten door shook violently. The ranger sprang up. As he frowned the
+hair on his scalp, drawn forward, seemed to rise like bristles.
+
+"Dad-burn that thar fresky filly!" he cried, angrily. "Jes' brung her
+noisy bones up on that thar porch agin, an' her huffs will bust spang
+through the planks o' the floor the fust thing ye know."
+
+The narrow aperture, as he held the door ajar, showed outlined against
+the darkness the graceful head of a young mare, and once more hoof-beats
+resounded on the rotten planks of the porch.
+
+Clouds were adrift in the sky. No star gleamed in the wide space high
+above the sombre mountains. On every side they encompassed Lonesome
+Cove, which seemed to have importunately thrust itself into the darkling
+solemnities of their intimacy.
+
+All at once the ranger let the door fly from his hand, and stood
+gazing in blank amazement. For there was a strange motion in the void
+vastnesses of the wilderness. They were creeping into view. How,
+he could not say, but the summit of the great mountain opposite was
+marvellously distinct against the sky. He saw the naked, gaunt, December
+woods. He saw the grim, gray crags. And yet Lonesome Cove below and the
+spurs on the other side were all benighted. A pale, flickering light
+was dawning in the clouds; it brightened, faded, glowed again, and their
+sad, gray folds assumed a vivid vermilion reflection, for there was a
+fire in the forest below. Only these reactions of color on the clouds
+betokened its presence and its progress. Sometimes a fluctuation of
+orange crossed them, then a glancing line of blue, and once more that
+living red hue which only a pulsating flame can bestow.
+
+"Air it the comin' o' the Jedgmint Day, Tobe?" asked his wife, in a meek
+whisper.
+
+"I'd be afraid so if I war ez big a sinner ez you-uns," he returned.
+
+"The woods air afire," the old woman declared, in a shrill voice.
+
+"They be a-soakin' with las' night's rain," he retorted, gruffly.
+
+The mare was standing near the porch. Suddenly he mounted her and rode
+hastily off, without a word of his intention to the staring women in the
+doorway.
+
+He left freedom of speech behind him. "Take yer bones along, then, ye
+tongue-tied catamount!" his wife's mother apostrophized him, with all
+the acrimony of long repression. "Got no mo' politeness 'n a settin'
+hen," she muttered, as she turned back into the room.
+
+The young woman lingered wistfully. "I wisht he wouldn't go a-ridin' off
+that thar way 'thout lettin' we-uns know whar he air bound fur, an' when
+he'll kern back. He mought git hurt some ways roun' that thar fire--git
+overtook by it, mebbe."
+
+"Ef he war roasted 'twould be mighty peaceful round in Lonesome," the
+old crone exclaimed, rancorously.
+
+Her daughter stood for a moment with the bar of the door in her hand,
+still gazing out at the flare in the sky. The unwonted emotion had
+conjured a change in the stereotyped patience in her face--even anxiety,
+even the acuteness of fear, seemed a less pathetic expression than that
+meek monotony bespeaking a broken spirit. As she lifted her eyes to the
+mountain one might wonder to see that they were so blue. In the many
+haggard lines drawn upon her face the effect of the straight lineaments
+was lost; but just now, embellished with a flush, she looked young--as
+young as her years.
+
+As she buttoned the door and put up the bar her mother's attention was
+caught by the change. Peering at her critically, and shading her eyes
+with her hand from the uncertain flicker of the tallow dip, she broke
+out, passionately: "Wa'al, 'Genie, who would ever hev thought ez yer
+cake would be _all_ dough? Sech a laffin', plump, spry gal ez ye useter
+be--fur all the wort' like a fresky young deer! An' sech a pack o' men
+ez ye hed the choice amongst! An' ter pick out Tobe Gryce an' marry him,
+an' kem 'way down hyar ter live along o' him in Lonesome Cove!"
+
+She chuckled aloud, not that she relished her mirth, but the
+harlequinade of fate constrained a laugh for its antics. The words
+recalled the past to Eugenia; it rose visibly before her. She had
+had scant leisure to reflect that her life might have been ordered
+differently. In her widening eyes were new depths, a vague terror, a
+wild speculation, all struck aghast by its own temerity.
+
+"Ye never said nuthin ter hender," she faltered.
+
+"I never knowed Tobe, sca'cely. How's enny-body goin' ter know a man
+ez lived 'way off down hyar in Lonesome Cove?" her mother retorted,
+acridly, on the defensive. "He never courted _me_, nohows. All the word
+he gin me war, 'Howdy,' an' I gin him no less."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+Eugenia knelt on the hearth. She placed together the broken chunks, and
+fanned the flames with a turkey wing. "I won't kiver the fire yit," she
+said, thoughtfully. "He mought be chilled when he gits home."
+
+The feathery flakes of the ashes flew; they caught here and there in her
+brown hair. The blaze flared up, and flickered over her flushed, pensive
+face, and glowed in her large and brilliant eyes.
+
+"Tobe said 'Howdy,'" her mother bickered on. "I knowed by that ez he hed
+the gift o' speech, but he spent no mo' words on me." Then, suddenly,
+with a change of tone: "I war a fool, though, ter gin my cornsent ter
+yer marryin' him, bein' ez ye war the only child I hed, an' I knowed I'd
+hev ter live with ye 'way down hyar in Lonesome Cove. I wish now ez ye
+hed abided by yer fust choice, an' married Luke Todd."
+
+Eugenia looked up with a gathering frown. "I hev no call ter spen'
+words 'bout Luke Todd," she said, with dignity, "ez me an' him are both
+married ter other folks."
+
+"I never said ye hed," hastily replied the old woman, rebuked and
+embarrassed. Presently, however, her vagrant speculation went recklessly
+on. "Though ez ter Luke's marryin', 'tain't wuth while ter set store on
+sech. The gal he found over thar in Big Fox Valley favors ye ez close ez
+two black-eyed peas. That's why he married her. She looks precisely like
+ye useter look. An' she laffs the same. An' I reckon _she_ 'ain't hed
+no call ter quit laffin', 'kase he air a powerful easy-goin' man.
+Leastways, he useter be when we-uns knowed him."
+
+"That ain't no sign," said Eugenia. "A saafter-spoken body I never seen
+than Tobe war when he fust kem a-courtin' round the settlemint."
+
+"Sech ez that ain't goin' ter las' noways," dryly remarked the
+philosopher of the chimney-corner.
+
+This might seem rather a reflection upon the courting gentry in general
+than a personal observation. But Eugenia's consciousness lent it point.
+
+"Laws-a-massy," she said, "Tobe ain't so rampa-gious, nohows, ez folks
+make him out. He air toler'ble peaceable, cornsiderin' ez nobody hev
+ever hed grit enough ter make a stand agin him, 'thout 'twar the Cunnel
+thar."
+
+She glanced around at the little girl's face framed in the frill of her
+night-cap, and peaceful and infantile as it lay on the pillow.
+
+"Whenst the Cunnel war born," Eugenia went on, languidly reminiscent,
+"Tobe war powerful outed 'kase she war a gal. I reckon ye 'members ez
+how he said he hed no use for sech cattle ez that. An' when she tuk sick
+he 'lowed he seen no differ. 'Jes ez well die ez live,' he said.
+An' bein' ailin', the Cunnel tuk it inter her head ter holler. Sech
+holler-in' we-uns hed never hearn with none o' the t'other chil'ren.
+The boys war nowhar. But a-fust it never 'sturbed Tobe. He jes spoke out
+same ez he useter do at the t'others, 'Shet up, ye pop-eyed buzzard!'
+Wa'al, sir, the Cunnel jes blinked at him, an' braced herself ez stiff,
+an' _yelled!_ I 'lowed 'twould take off the roof. An' Tobe said he'd
+wring her neck ef she warn't so mewlin'-lookin' an' peaked. An' he tuk
+her up an' walked across the floor with her, an' she shet up; an' he
+walked back agin, an' she stayed shet up. Ef he sot down fur a mi nit,
+she yelled so ez ye'd think ye'd be deef fur life, an' ye 'most hoped
+ye would be. So Tobe war obleeged ter tote her agin ter git shet o' the
+noise. He got started on that thar 'forced march,' ez he calls it, an'
+he never could git off'n it. Trot he must when the Cunnel pleased. He
+'lowed she reminded him o' that thar old Cunnel that he sarved under in
+the wars. Ef it killed the regiment, he got thar on time. Sence then
+the Cunnel jes gins Tobe her orders, an' he moseys ter do 'em quick, jes
+like he war obleeged ter obey. I b'lieve he air, somehows."
+
+"Wa'al, some day," said the disaffected old woman, assuming a port of
+prophetic wisdom, "Tobe will find a differ. Thar ain't no man so headin'
+ez don't git treated with perslimness by somebody some time. I knowed a
+man wunst ez owned fower horses an' cattle-critters quarryspondin', an'
+he couldn't prove ez he war too old ter be summonsed ter work on the
+road, an' war fined by the overseer 'cordin' ter law. Tobe will git his
+wheel scotched yit, sure ez ye air born. Somebody besides the Cunnel
+will skeer up grit enough ter make a stand agin him. I dunno how other
+men kin sleep o' night, knowin' how he be always darin' folks ter differ
+with him, an' how brigaty he be. The Bible 'pears ter me ter hev Tobe in
+special mind when it gits, ter mournin' 'bout'n the stiff-necked ones."
+
+*****
+
+The spirited young mare that the ranger rode strove to assert herself
+against him now and then, as she went at a breakneck speed along the
+sandy bridle-path through the woods. How was she to know that the
+white-wanded young willow by the way-side was not some spiritual
+manifestation as it suddenly materialized in a broken beam from a rift
+in the clouds? But as she reared and plunged she felt his heavy hand
+and his heavy heel, and so forward again at a steady pace. The forests
+served to screen the strange light in the sky, and the lonely road was
+dark, save where the moonbeam was splintered and the mists loitered.
+
+Presently there were cinders flying in the breeze, a smell of smoke
+pervaded the air, and the ranger forgot to curse the mare when she
+stumbled.
+
+"I wonder," he muttered, "what them no 'count half-livers o' town folks
+hev hed the shiftlessness ter let ketch afire thar!"
+
+As he neared the brink of the mountain he saw a dense column of smoke
+against the sky, and a break in the woods showed the little town--the
+few log houses, the "gyarden spots" about them, and in the centre of the
+Square a great mass of coals, a flame flickering here and there, and two
+gaunt and tottering chimneys where once the court-house had stood.
+At some distance--for the heat was still intense--were grouped the
+slouching, spiritless figures of the mountaineers. On the porches of the
+houses, plainly visible in the unwonted red glow, were knots of women
+and children--ever and anon a brat in the scantiest of raiment ran
+nimbly in and out. The clouds still borrowed the light from below, and
+the solemn, leafless woods on one side were outlined distinctly against
+the reflection in the sky. The flare showed, too, the abrupt precipice
+on the other side, the abysmal gloom of the valley, the austere
+summit-line of the mountain beyond, and gave the dark mysteries of
+the night a sombre revelation, as in visible blackness it filled the
+illimitable space.
+
+The little mare was badly blown as the ranger sprang to the ground. He
+himself was panting with amazement and eagerness.
+
+"The stray-book!" he cried. "Whar's the stray-book?"
+
+One by one the slow group turned, all looking at him with a peering
+expression as he loomed distorted through the shimmer of the heat above
+the bed of live coals and the hovering smoke.
+
+"Whar's the stray-book?" he reiterated, imperiously.
+
+"Whar's the court-house, I reckon ye mean to say," replied the
+sheriff--a burly mountaineer in brown jeans and high boots, on which the
+spurs jingled; for in his excitement he had put them on as mechanically
+as his clothes, as if they were an essential part of his attire.
+
+"Naw, I _ain't_ meanin' ter say whar's the courthouse," said the ranger,
+coming up close, with the red glow of the fire on his face, and his
+eyes flashing under the broad brim of his wool hat. He had a threatening
+aspect, and his elongated shadow, following him and repeating the
+menace of his attitude, seemed to back him up. "Ye air sech a triflin',
+slack-twisted tribe hyar in town, ez ennybody would know ef a spark
+cotched fire ter suthin, ye'd set an' suck yer paws, an' eye it till
+it bodaciously burnt up the court-house--sech a dad-burned lazy set o'
+half-livers ye be! I never axed 'bout'n the court-house. I want ter know
+whar's that thar stray-book," he concluded, inconsequently.
+
+"Tobe Gryce, ye air fairly demented," exclaimed the register--a
+chin-whiskered, grizzled old fellow, sitting on a stump and hugging his
+knee with a desolate, bereaved look--"talkin' 'bout the _stray-book_,
+an' all the records gone! What will folks do 'bout thar deeds, an'
+mortgages, an' sech? An' that thar keerful index ez I had made--ez
+straight ez a string--all cinders!"
+
+He shook his head, mourning alike for the party of the first part and
+the party of the second part, and the vestiges of all that they had
+agreed together.
+
+"An' ye ter kem mopin' hyar this time o' night arter the _stray-book!_"
+said the sheriff. "Shucks!" And he turned aside and spat disdainfully on
+the ground.
+
+"I want that thar stray-book!" cried Gryce, indignantly. "Ain't nobody
+seen it?" Then realizing the futility of the question, he yielded to a
+fresh burst of anger, and turned upon the bereaved register. "An' did
+ye jes set thar an' say, 'Good Mister Fire, don't burn the records; what
+'ll folks do 'bout thar deeds an' sech?' an' hold them claws o' yourn,
+an' see the court-house burn up, with that thar stray-book in it?"
+
+Half a dozen men spoke up. "The fire tuk inside, an' the court-house war
+haffen gone 'fore 'twar seen," said one, in sulky extenuation.
+
+"Leave Tobe be--let him jaw!" said another, cavalierly.
+
+"Tobe 'pears ter be sp'ilin' fur a fight," said a third, impersonally,
+as if to direct the attention of any belligerent in the group to the
+opportunity.
+
+The register had an expression of slow cunning as he cast a glance up at
+the overbearing ranger.
+
+"What ailed the stray-book ter bide hyar in the court-house all night,
+Tobe? Couldn't ye gin it house-room? Thar warn't no special need fur it
+to be hyar."
+
+Tobe Gryce's face showed that for once he was at a loss. He glowered
+down at the register and said nothing.
+
+"Ez ter me," resumed that worthy, "by the law o' the land my books war
+obligated ter be thar." He quoted, mournfully, "'Shall at all times be
+and remain in his office.'"
+
+He gathered up his knee again and subsided into silence.
+
+All the freakish spirits of the air were a-loose in the wind. In fitful
+gusts they rushed up the gorge, then suddenly the boughs would fall
+still again, and one could hear the eerie rout a-rioting far off down
+the valley. Now and then the glow of the fire would deepen, the coals
+tremble, and with a gleaming, fibrous swirl, like a garment of flames,
+a sudden animation would sweep over it, as if an apparition had passed,
+leaving a line of flying sparks to mark its trail.
+
+"I'm goin' home," drawled Tobe Gryce, presently. "I don't keer a frog's
+toe-nail ef the whole settle-mint burns bodaciously up; 'tain't nuthin
+ter me. I hev never hankered ter live in towns an' git tuk up with town
+ways, an' set an' view the court-house like the apple o' my eye. We-uns
+don't ketch fire down in the Cove, though mebbe we ain't so peart ez
+folks ez herd tergether like sheep an' sech."
+
+The footfalls of the little black mare annotated the silence of the
+place as he rode away into the darkling woods. The groups gradually
+disappeared from the porches. The few voices that sounded at long
+intervals were low and drowsy. The red fire smouldered in the centre of
+the place, and sometimes about it appeared so doubtful a shadow that it
+could hardly argue substance. Far away a dog barked, and then all was
+still.
+
+Presently the great mountains loom aggressively along the horizon. The
+black abysses, the valleys and coves, show dun-colored verges and grow
+gradually distinct, and on the slopes the ash and the pine and the oak
+are all lustrous with a silver rime. The mists are rising, the wind
+springs up anew, the clouds set sail, and a beam slants high.
+
+*****
+
+"What I want ter know," said a mountaineer newly arrived on the scene,
+sitting on the verge of the precipice, and dangling his long legs over
+the depths beneath, "air how do folks ez live 'way down in Lonesome
+Cove, an' who nobody knowed nuthin about noways, ever git 'lected
+ranger o' the county, ennyhow. I ain't s'prised none ter hear 'bout Tobe
+Gryce's goin's-on hyar las' night. I hev looked fur more'n that."
+
+"Wa'al, I'll tell ye," replied the register. "Nuthin' but favoritism
+in the county court. Ranger air 'lected by the jestices. Ye know," he
+added, vainglorious of his own tenure of office by the acclaiming voice
+of the sovereign people, "ranger ain't 'lected, like the register, by
+pop'lar vote."
+
+A slow smoke still wreathed upward from the charred ruins of the
+court-house. Gossiping groups stood here and there, mostly the
+jeans-clad mountaineers, but there were a few who wore "store clothes,"
+being lawyers from more sophisticated regions of the circuit. Court
+had been in session the previous day. The jury, serving in a criminal
+case--still strictly segregated, and in charge of an officer--were
+walking about wearily in double file, waiting with what patience they
+might their formal discharge.
+
+The sheriffs dog, a great yellow cur, trotted in the rear. When the
+officer was first elected, this animal, observing the change in his
+master's habits, deduced his own conclusions. He seemed to think the
+court-house belonged to the sheriff, and thenceforward guarded the door
+with snaps and growls; being a formidable brute, his idiosyncrasies
+invested the getting into and getting out of law with abnormal
+difficulties. Now, as he followed the disconsolate jury, he bore the
+vigilant mien with which he formerly drove up the cows, and if a juror
+loitered or stepped aside from the path, the dog made a slow detour as
+if to round him in, and the melancholy cortege wandered on as before.
+More than one looked wistfully at the group on the crag, for it was
+distinguished by that sprightly interest which scandal excites so
+readily.
+
+"Ter my way of thinking" drawled Sam Peters, swinging his feet over the
+giddy depths of the valley, "Tobe ain't sech ez oughter be set over the
+county ez a ranger, noways. 'Pears not ter me, an' I hev been keepin' my
+eye on him mighty sharp."
+
+A shadow fell among the group, and a man sat down on a bowlder hard by.
+He, too, had just arrived, being lured to the town by the news of the
+fire. His slide had been left at the verge of the clearing, and one of
+the oxen had already lain down; the other, although hampered by the yoke
+thus diagonally displaced, stood meditatively gazing at the distant blue
+mountains. Their master nodded a slow, grave salutation to the group,
+produced a plug of tobacco, gnawed a fragment from it, and restored it
+to his pocket. He had a pensive face, with an expression which in a man
+of wider culture we should discriminate as denoting sensibility. He had
+long yellow hair that hung down to his shoulders, and a tangled yellow
+beard. There was something at once wistful and searching in his gray
+eyes, dull enough, too, at times. He lifted them heavily, and they had
+a drooping lid and lash. There seemed an odd incongruity between this
+sensitive, weary face and his stalwart physique. He was tall and well
+proportioned. A leather belt girded his brown jeans coat. His great
+cowhide boots, were drawn to the knee over his trousers. His pose, as he
+leaned on the rock, had a muscular picturesque-ness.
+
+"Who be ye a-talkin' about?" he drawled.
+
+Peters relished his opportunity. He laughed in a distorted fashion, his
+pipe-stem held between his teeth.
+
+"_You-uns_ ain't wantin' ter swop lies 'bout sech ez him, Luke! We war
+a-talkin' 'bout Tobe Gryce."
+
+The color flared into the new-comer's face. A sudden animation fired his
+eye.
+
+"Tobe Gryce air jes the man I'm always wantin' ter hear a word about.
+Jes perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm with ye." And Luke Todd placed his
+elbows on his knees and leaned forward with an air of attention.
+
+Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending this ebullition. It was not
+what he had expected to elicit. No one laughed. His fleer was wide of
+the mark.
+
+"Wa'al"--he made another effort--"Tobe, we war jes sayin', ain't fitten
+fur ter be ranger o' the county. He be ez peart in gittin' ter own other
+folkses' stray cattle ez he war in courtin' other folkses' sweetheart,
+an', ef the truth mus' be knowed, in marryin' her." He suddenly twisted
+round, in some danger of falling from his perch. "I want ter ax one o'
+them thar big-headed lawyers a question on a p'int o' law," he broke
+off, abruptly.
+
+"What be Tobe Gryce a-doin' of now?" asked Luke Todd, with eager
+interest in the subject.
+
+"Wa'al," resumed Peters, nowise loath to return to the gossip, "Tobe, ye
+see, air the ranger o' this hyar county, an' by law all the stray horses
+ez air tuk up by folks hev ter be reported ter him, an' appraised by two
+householders, an' swore to afore the magistrate an' be advertised by the
+ranger, an' ef they ain't claimed 'fore twelve months, the taker-up kin
+pay into the county treasury one-haffen the appraisement an' hev the
+critter fur his'n. An' the owner can't prove it away arter that."
+
+"Thanky," said Luke Todd, dryly. "S'pose ye teach yer gran'mammy ter
+suck aigs. I knowed all that afore."
+
+Peters was abashed, and with some difficulty collected himself.
+
+"An' I knowed ye knowed it, Luke," he hastily conceded. "But hyar be
+what I'm a-lookin' at--the law 'ain't got no pervision fur a stray horse
+ez kem of a dark night, 'thout nobody's percuremint, ter the ranger's
+own house. Now, the p'int o' law ez I wanted ter ax the lawyers 'bout
+air this--kin the ranger be the ranger an' the taker-up too?"
+
+He turned his eyes upon the great landscape lying beneath, flooded
+with the chill matutinal sunshine, and flecked here and there with
+the elusive shadow's of the fleecy drifting clouds. Far away the long
+horizontal lines of the wooded spurs, converging on either side of the
+valley and rising one behind the other, wore a subdued azure, all unlike
+the burning blue of summer, and lay along the calm, passionless sky,
+that itself was of a dim, repressed tone. On the slopes nearer, the
+leafless boughs, massed together, had purplish-garnet depths of color
+wherever the sunshine struck aslant, and showed richly against the
+faintly tinted horizon. Here and there among the boldly jutting gray
+crags hung an evergreen-vine, and from a gorge on the opposite mountain
+gleamed a continuous flash, like the waving of a silver plume, where a
+cataract sprang down the rocks. In the depths of the valley, a field in
+which crab-grass had grown in the place of the harvested wheat showed
+a tiny square of palest yellow, and beside it a red clay road, running
+over a hill, was visible. Above all a hawk was flying.
+
+"Afore the winter fairly set in las' year," Peters resumed, presently,
+"a stray kem ter Tobe's house. He 'lowed ter me ez he fund her
+a-standin' by the fodder-stack a-pullin' off'n it. An' he 'quired
+round, an' he never hearn o' no owner. I reckon he never axed outside o'
+Lonesome," he added, cynically.
+
+He puffed industriously at his pipe for a few moments; then continued:
+"Wa'al, he 'lowed he couldn't feed the critter fur fun. An' he couldn't
+work her till she war appraised an' sech, that bein' agin the law
+fur strays. So he jes ondertook ter be ranger an' taker-up too--the
+bangedest consarn in the kentry! Ef the leetle mare hed been wall-eyed,
+or lame, or ennything, he wouldn't hev wanted ter be ranger an' taker-up
+too. But she air the peartest little beastis--she war jes bridle-wise
+when she fust kem--young an' spry!"
+
+Luke Todd was about to ask a question, but Peters, disregarding him,
+persisted:
+
+"Wa'al, Tobe tuk up the beastis, an' I reckon he reported her ter
+hisself, bein' the ranger--the critter makes me laff--an' he hed that
+thar old haffen-blind uncle o' his'n an' Perkins Bates, ez be never
+sober, ter appraise the vally o' the mare, an' I s'pose he delivered
+thar certificate ter hisself, an' I reckon he tuk oath that she kem
+'thout his procure_mint_ ter his place, in the presence o' the ranger."
+
+"I reckon thar ain't no law agin the ranger's bein' a ranger an' a
+taker-up too," put in one of the bystanders. "'Tain't like a sher'ff
+'s buyin' at his own sale. An' he hed ter pay haffen her vally into the
+treasury o' the county arter twelve months, ef the owner never proved
+her away."
+
+"Thar ain't no sign he ever paid a cent," said Peters, with a malicious
+grin, pointing at the charred remains of the court-house, "an' the
+treasurer air jes dead."
+
+"Wa'al, Tobe hed ter make a report ter the jedge o' the county court
+every six months."
+
+"The papers of his office air cinders," retorted Peters.
+
+"Wa'al, then," argued the optimist, "the stray-book will show ez she war
+reported an' sech."
+
+"The ranger took mighty partic'lar pains ter hev his stray-book in that
+thar court-house when 'twar burnt."
+
+There was a long pause while the party sat ruminating upon the
+suspicions thus suggested.
+
+Luke Todd heard them, not without a thrill of satisfaction. He found
+them easy to adopt. And he, too, had a disposition to theorize.
+
+"It takes a mighty mean man ter steal a horse," he said. "Stealin' a
+horse air powerful close ter murder. Folkses' lives fairly depend on
+a horse ter work thar corn an' sech, an' make a support fur em. I hev'
+knowed folks ter kem mighty close ter starvin' through hevin thar horse
+stole. Why, even that thar leetle filly of our'n, though she hedn't been
+fairly bruk ter the plough, war mightily missed. We-uns hed ter make out
+with the old sorrel, ez air nigh fourteen year old, ter work the crap,
+an' we war powerful disappointed. But we ain't never fund no trace o'
+the filly sence she war tolled off one night las' fall a year ago."
+
+The hawk floating above the valley and its winged shadow disappeared
+together in the dense glooms of a deep gorge. Luke Todd watched them as
+they vanished.
+
+Suddenly he lifted his eyes. They were wide with a new speculation. An
+angry flare blazed in them. "What sort'n beastis is this hyar mare ez
+the ranger tuk up?" he asked.
+
+Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending his tremor of excitement.
+"Seems sorter sizable," he replied, sibilantly, sucking his pipe-stem.
+
+Todd nodded meditatively several times, leaning his elbows on his knees,
+his eyes fixed on the landscape. "Hev she got enny particular marks, ez
+ye knows on?" he drawled.
+
+"Wa'al, she be ez black ez a crow, with the nigh fore-foot white. An'
+she hev got a white star spang in the middle o' her forehead, an' the
+left side o' her nose is white too."
+
+Todd rose suddenly to his feet. "By gum!" he cried, with a burst of
+passion, "she air _my_ filly! An' 'twar that thar durned horse-thief of
+a ranger ez tolled her off!"
+
+*****
+
+Deep among the wooded spurs Lonesome Cove nestles, sequestered from the
+world. Naught emigrates thence except an importunate stream that forces
+its way through a rocky gap, and so to freedom beyond. No stranger
+intrudes; only the moon looks in once in a while. The roaming wind may
+explore its solitudes; and it is but the vertical sunbeams that strike
+to the heart of the little basin, because of the massive mountains that
+wall it round and serve to isolate it. So nearly do they meet at the gap
+that one great assertive crag, beetling far above, intercepts the view
+of the wide landscape beyond, leaving its substituted profile jaggedly
+serrating the changing sky. Above it, when the weather is fair, appear
+vague blue lines, distant mountain summits, cloud strata, visions. Below
+its jutting verge may be caught glimpses of the widening valley without.
+But pre-eminent, gaunt, sombre, it sternly dominates "Lonesome," and is
+the salient feature of the little world it limits.
+
+Tobe Gryce's house, gray, weather-beaten, moss-grown, had in comparison
+an ephemeral, modern aspect. For a hundred years its inmates had come
+and gone and lived and died. They took no heed of the crag, but never
+a sound was lost upon it. Their drawling iterative speech the iterative
+echoes conned. The ringing blast of a horn set astir some phantom chase
+in the air. When the cows came lowing home, there were lowing herds
+in viewless company. Even if one of the children sat on a rotting log
+crooning a vague, fragmentary ditty, some faint-voiced spirit in the
+rock would sing. Lonesome Cove?--home of invisible throngs!
+
+As the ranger trotted down the winding road, multitudinous hoof-beats,
+as of a troop of cavalry, heralded his approach to the little girl who
+stood on the porch of the log-cabin and watched for him.
+
+"Hy're, Cunnel!" he cried, cordially.
+
+But the little "Colonel" took no heed. She looked beyond him at the
+vague blue mountains, against which the great grim rock was heavily
+imposed, every ledge, every waving dead crisp weed, distinct.
+
+He noticed the smoke curling briskly up in the sunshine from the clay
+and slick chimney. He strode past her into the house, as Eugenia,
+with all semblance of youth faded from her countenance, haggard and
+hollow-eyed in the morning light, was hurrying the corn-dodgers and
+venison steak on the table.
+
+Perhaps he did not appreciate that the women were pining with curiosity,
+for he vouchsafed no word of the excitements in the little town; and he
+himself was ill at ease.
+
+"What ails the Cunnel, 'Genie?" he asked, presently, glancing up sharply
+from under his hat brim, and speaking with his mouth full.
+
+"The cat 'pears ter hev got her tongue," said Eugenia, intending that
+the "Colonel" should hear, and perhaps profit. "She ain't able ter talk
+none this mornin'."
+
+The little body cast so frowning a glance upon them as she stood in
+the doorway that her expression was but slightly less lowering than
+her father's. It was an incongruous demonstration, with her infantile
+features, her little yellow head, and the slight physical force she
+represented. She wore a blue cotton frock, fastened up the back with
+great horn buttons; she had on shoes laced with leather strings; one of
+her blue woollen stockings fell over her ankle, disclosing the pinkest
+of plump calves; the other stocking was held in place by an unabashed
+cotton string. She had a light in her dark eyes and a color in her
+cheek, and albeit so slight a thing, she wielded a strong coercion.
+
+"Laws-a-massy, Cunnel!" said Tobe, in a harried manner, "couldn't ye
+find me nowhar? I'm powerful sorry. I couldn't git back hyar no sooner."
+
+But not in this wise was she to be placated. She fixed her eyes upon
+him, but made no sign.
+
+He suddenly rose from his half-finished breakfast. "Look-a-hyar,
+Cunnel," he cried, joyously, "don't ye want ter ride the filly?--ye knew
+ye hanker ter ride the filly."
+
+Even then she tried to frown, but the bliss of the prospect overbore
+her. Her cheek and chin dimpled, and there was a gurgling display of two
+rows of jagged little teeth as the doughty "Colonel" was swung to his
+shoulder and he stepped out of the door.
+
+He laughed as he stood by the glossy black mare and lifted the child
+to the saddle. The animal arched her neck and turned her head and gazed
+back at him curiously. "Hold on tight, Cunnel," he said as he looked up
+at her, his face strangely softened almost beyond recognition. And she
+gurgled and laughed and screamed with delight as he began to slowly lead
+the mare along.
+
+The "Colonel" had the gift of continuance. Some time elapsed before she
+exhausted the joys of exaltation. More than once she absolutely refused
+to dismount. Tobe patiently led the beast up and down, and the
+"Colonel" rode in state. It was only when the sun had grown high,
+and occasionally she was fain to lift her chubby hands to her eyes,
+imperiling her safety on the saddle, that he ventured to seriously
+remonstrate, and finally she permitted herself to be assisted to the
+ground. When, with the little girl at his heels, he reached the porch,
+he took off his hat, and wiped the perspiration from his brow with his
+great brown hand.
+
+"I tell ye, jouncin' round arter the Cunnel air powerful hot work," he
+declared.
+
+The next moment he paused. His wife had come to the door, and there was
+a strange expression of alarm among the anxious lines of her face.
+
+"Tobe," she said, in a bated voice, "who war them men?"
+
+He stared at her, whirled about, surveyed the vacant landscape, and once
+more turned dumfound-ed toward her. "What men?" he asked.
+
+"Them men ez acted so cur'ous," she said. "I couldn't see thar faces
+plain, an' I dunno who they war."
+
+"Whar war they?" And he looked over his shoulder once more.
+
+"Yander along the ledges of the big rock. Thar war two of 'em, hidin'
+ahint that thar jagged aidge. An' ef yer back war turned they'd peep out
+at ye an' the Cunnel ridin'. But whenst ye would face round agin, they'd
+drap down ahint the aidge o' the rock. I 'lowed wunst ez I'd holler ter
+ye, but I war feared ye moughtn't keer ter know." Her voice fell in its
+deprecatory cadence.
+
+He stodd in silent perplexity. "Ye air a fool, 'Genie, an' ye never seen
+nuthin'. Nobody hev got enny call ter spy on me."
+
+He stepped in-doors, took down his rifle from the rack, and went out
+frowning into the sunlight.
+
+The suggestion of mystery angered him. He had a vague sense of impending
+danger. As he made his way along the slope toward the great beetling
+crag all his faculties were on the alert. He saw naught unusual when he
+stood upon its dark-seamed summit, and he went cautiously to the
+verge and looked down at the many ledges. They jutted out at irregular
+intervals, the first only six feet below, and all accessible enough to
+an expert climber. A bush grew in a niche. An empty nest, riddled by
+the wind, hung dishevelled from a twig. Coarse withered grass tufted the
+crevices.
+
+Far below he saw the depths of the Cove--the tops of the leafless trees,
+and, glimpsed through the interlacing boughs, the rush of a mountain
+rill, and a white flash as a sunbeam slanted on the foam.
+
+He was turning away, all incredulous, when with a sudden start he looked
+back. On one of the ledges was a slight depression. It was filled with
+sand and earth. Imprinted upon it was the shape of a man's foot.
+The ranger paused and gazed fixedly at it. "Wa'al, by the Lord!" he
+exclaimed, under his breath. Presently, "But they hev no call!" he.
+argued. Then once more, softly, "By the Lord!"
+
+The mystery baffled him. More than once that day he went up to the crag
+and stood and stared futilely at the footprint. Conjecture had license
+and limitations, too. As the hours wore on he became harassed by the
+sense of espionage. He was a bold man before the foes he knew, but this
+idea of inimical lurking, of furtive scrutiny for unknown purposes,
+preyed upon him. He brooded over it as he sat idle by the fire. Once he
+went to the door and stared speculatively at the great profile of the
+cliff. The sky above it was all a lustrous amber, for the early sunset
+of the shortest days of the year was at hand. The mountains, seen partly
+above and partly below it, wore a glamourous purple. There were clouds,
+and from their rifts long divergent lines of light slanted down upon the
+valley, distinct among their shadows. The sun was not visible--only in
+the western heavens was a half-veiled effulgence too dazzlingly white to
+be gazed upon. The ranger shaded his eyes with his hand.
+
+No motion, no sound; for the first time in his life the unutterable
+loneliness of the place impressed him.
+
+"'Genie," he said, suddenly, looking over his shoulder within the cabin,
+"be you-uns _sure_ ez they war--_folks?_"
+
+"I dunno what you mean," she faltered, her eyes dilated. "They _looked_
+like folks."
+
+"I reckon they war," he said, reassuring himself. "The Lord knows I hope
+they war."
+
+*****
+
+That night the wind rose. The stars all seemed to have burst from their
+moorings, and were wildly adrift in the sky. There was a broken tumult
+of billowy clouds, and the moon tossed hopelessly amongst them, a lunar
+wreck, sometimes on her beam ends, sometimes half submerged, once more
+gallantly struggling to the surface, and again sunk. The bare boughs of
+the trees beat together in a dirgelike monotone. Now and again a leaf
+went sibilantly whistling past. The wild commotion of the heavens and
+earth was visible, for the night was not dark. The ranger, standing
+within the rude stable of unhewn logs, all undaubed, noted how pale were
+the horizontal bars of gray light alternating with the black logs of the
+wall. He was giving the mare a feed of corn, but he had not brought his
+lantern, as was his custom. That mysterious espionage had in some sort
+shaken his courage, and he felt the obscurity a shield. He had brought,
+instead, his rifle.
+
+The equine form was barely visible among the glooms. Now and then,
+as the mare noisily munched, she lifted a hoof and struck it upon the
+ground with a dull thud. How the gusts outside were swirling up the
+gorge! The pines swayed and sighed. Again the boughs of the chestnut-oak
+above the roof crashed together. Did a fitful blast stir the door?
+
+He lifted his eyes mechanically. A cold thrill ran through every fibre.
+For there, close by the door, somebody--something--was peering through
+the space between the logs of the wall. The face was invisible, but the
+shape of a man's head was distinctly defined. He realized that it was no
+supernatural manifestation when a husky voice began to call the mare, in
+a hoarse whisper, "Cobe! Cobe! Cobe!" With a galvanic start he was about
+to spring forward to hold the door. A hand from without was laid upon
+it.
+
+He placed the muzzle of his gun between the logs, a jet of red light was
+suddenly projected into the darkness, the mare was rearing and plunging
+violently, the little shanty was surcharged with roar and reverberation,
+and far and wide the crags and chasms echoed the report of the rifle.
+
+There was a vague clamor outside, an oath, a cry of pain. Hasty
+footfalls sounded among the dead leaves and died in the distance.
+
+When the ranger ventured out he saw the door of his house wide open, and
+the firelight flickering out among the leafless bushes. His wife met him
+halfway down the hill.
+
+"Air ye hurt, Tobe?" she cried. "Did yer gun go off suddint?"
+
+"Mighty suddint," he replied, savagely.
+
+"Ye didn't fire it a-purpose?" she faltered.
+
+"Edzactly so," he declared.
+
+"Ye never hurt nobody, did ye, Tobe?" She had turned very pale. "I
+'lowed it couldn't be the wind ez I hearn a-hollerin'."
+
+"I hopes an' prays I hurt 'em," he said, as he replaced the rifle in the
+rack. He was shaking the other hand, which had been jarred in some way
+by the hasty discharge of the weapon. "Some dad-burned horse-thief war
+arter the mare. Jedgin' from the sound o' thar running 'peared like to
+me ez thar mought be two o' 'em."
+
+The next day the mare disappeared from the stable. Yet she could not be
+far off, for Tobe was about the house most of the time, and when he and
+the "Colonel" came in-doors in the evening the little girl held in her
+hand a half-munched ear of corn, evidently abstracted from the mare's
+supper.
+
+"Whar be the filly hid, Tobe?" Eugenia asked, curiosity overpowering
+her.
+
+"Ax me no questions an' I'll tell ye no lies," he replied, gruffly.
+
+In the morning there was a fall of snow, and she had some doubt whether
+her mother, who had gone several days before to a neighbor's on the
+summit of the range, would return; but presently the creak of unoiled
+axles heralded the approach of a wagon, and soon the old woman, bundled
+in shawls, was sitting by the fire. She wore heavy woollen socks over
+her shoes as protection against the snow. The incompatibility of the
+shape of the hose with the human foot was rather marked, and as they
+were somewhat inelastic as well, there was a muscular struggle to get
+them off only exceeded by the effort which had been required to get them
+on. She shook her head again and again, with a red face, as she bent
+over the socks, but plainly more than this discomfort vexed her.
+
+"Laws-a-massy, 'Genie! I hearn a awful tale over yander 'mongst them
+Jenkins folks. Ye oughter hev married Luke Todd, an' so I tole ye
+an' fairly beset ye ter do ten year ago. _He_ keered fur ye. An'
+Tobe--shucks! Wa'al, laws-a-massy, child! I hearn a awful tale 'bout
+Tobe up yander at Jenkinses'."
+
+Eugenia colored.
+
+"Folks hed better take keer how they talk 'bout Tobe," she said, with a
+touch of pride. "They be powerful keerful ter do it out'n rifle range."
+
+With one more mighty tug the sock came off, the red face was lifted, and
+Mrs. Pearce shook her head ruefully.
+
+"The Bible say 'words air foolishness.' Ye dun-no what ye air talkin'
+'bout, child."
+
+With this melancholy preamble she detailed the gossip that had arisen
+at the county town and pervaded the country-side. Eugenia commented,
+denied, flashed into rage, then lapsed into silence. Although it did not
+constrain credulity, there was something that made her afraid when her
+mother said:
+
+"Ye hed better not be talkin' 'bout rifle range so brash, 'Genie,
+nohows. They 'lowed ez Luke Todd an' Sam Peters kem hyar--'twar jes
+night before las'--aimin' ter take the mare away 'thout no words an' no
+lawin', 'kase they didn't want ter wait. Luke hed got a chance ter
+view the mare, an' knowed ez she war hisn. An' Tobe war hid in the dark
+beside the mare, an' fired at 'em, an' the rifle-ball tuk Sam right
+through the beam o' his arm. I reckon, though, ez that warn't true, else
+ye would hev knowed it."
+
+She looked up anxiously over her spectacles at her daughter.
+
+"I hearn Tobe shoot," faltered Eugenia. "I seen blood on the leaves."
+
+"Laws-a-massy!" exclaimed the old woman, irritably. "I be fairly feared
+ter bide hyar; 'twouldn't s'prise me none ef they kem hyar an' hauled
+Tobe out an' lynched him an' sech, an' who knows who mought git hurt in
+the scrimmage?"
+
+They both fell silent as the ranger strode in. They would need a braver
+heart than either bore to reveal to him the suspicions of horse-stealing
+sown broadcast over the mountain. Eugenia felt that this in itself was
+coercive evidence of his innocence. Who dared so much as say a word to
+his face?
+
+The weight of the secret asserted itself, however. As she went about
+her accustomed tasks, all bereft of their wonted interest, vapid
+and burdensome, she carried so woe-begone a face that it caught his
+attention, and he demanded, angrily,
+
+"What ails ye ter look so durned peaked?"
+
+This did not abide long in his memory, however, and it cost her a pang
+to see him so unconscious.
+
+She went out upon the porch late that afternoon to judge of the weather.
+Snow was falling again. The distant summits had disappeared. The
+mountains near at hand loomed through the myriads of serried white
+flakes. A crow flew across the Cove in its midst. It heavily thatched
+the cabin, and tufts dislodged by the opening of the door fell down upon
+her hair. Drifts lay about the porch. Each rail of the fence was
+laden. The ground, the rocks, were deeply covered. She reflected with
+satisfaction that the red splotch of blood on the dead leaves was no
+longer visible. Then a sudden idea struck her that took her breath
+away. She came in, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, with an excited
+dubitation.
+
+Her husband commented on the change. "Ye air a powerful cur'ous critter,
+'Genie," he said: "a while ago ye looked some fower or five hundred
+year old--now ye favors yerself when I fust kem a-courtin' round the
+settlemint."
+
+She hardly knew whether the dull stir in her heart were pleasure or
+pain. Her eyes filled with tears, and the irradiated iris shone through
+them with a liquid lustre. She could not speak.
+
+Her mother took ephemeral advantage of his softening mood. "Ye useter be
+mighty perlite and saaft-spoken in them days, Tobe," she ventured.
+
+"I hed ter be," he admitted, frankly, "'kase thar war sech a many o'
+them mealy-mouthed cusses a-waitin' on 'Genie. The kentry 'peared ter me
+ter bristle with Luke Todd; he 'minded me o' brumsaidge--_everywhar_ ye
+seen his yaller head, ez homely an' ez onwelcome."
+
+"I never wunst gin Luke a thought arter ye tuk ter comin' round the
+settlemint," Eugenia said, softly.
+
+"I wisht I hed knowed that then," he replied; "else I wouldn't hev been
+so all-fired oneasy an' beset I wasted mo' time a-studyin' 'bout ye an'
+Luke Todd 'n ye war both wuth, an' went 'thout my vittles an' sot up o'
+nights. Ef I hed spent that time a-moanin' fur my sins an' settin' my
+soul at peace, I'd be 'quirin' roun' the throne o' Grace now! Young
+folks air powerful fursaken fools."
+
+Somehow her heart was warmer for this allusion. She was more hopeful.
+Her resolve grew stronger and stronger as she sat and knitted, and
+looked at the fire and saw among the coals all her old life at the
+settlement newly aglow. She was remembering now that Luke Todd had been
+as wax in her hands. She recalled that when she was married there was a
+gleeful "sayin'" going the rounds of the mountain that he had taken to
+the woods with grief, and he was heard of no more for weeks. The gossips
+relished his despair as the corollary of the happy bridal. He had had no
+reproaches for her. He had only looked the other way when they met, and
+she had not spoken to him since.
+
+"He set store by my word in them days," she said to herself, her lips
+vaguely moving. "I misdoubts ef he hev furgot."
+
+All through the long hours of the winter night she silently canvassed
+her plan. The house was still noiseless and dark when she softly opened
+the door and softly closed it behind her.
+
+It had ceased to snow, and the sky had cleared. The trees, all the
+limbs whitened, were outlined distinctly upon it, and through the boughs
+overhead a brilliant star, aloof and splendid, looked coldly down.
+Along dark spaces Orion had drawn his glittering blade. Above the snowy
+mountains a melancholy waning moon was swinging. The valley was full of
+mist, white and shining where the light fell upon it, a vaporous purple
+where the shadows held sway. So still it was! the only motion in all the
+world the throbbing stars and her palpitating heart. So solemnly silent!
+It was a relief, as she trudged on and on, to note a gradual change;
+to watch the sky withdraw, seeming fainter; to see the moon grow filmy,
+like some figment of the frost; to mark the gray mist steal on apace,
+wrap mountain, valley, and heaven with mystic folds, shut out all vision
+of things familiar. Through it only the sense of dawn could creep.
+
+*****
+
+She recognized the locality; her breath was short; her step quickened.
+She appeared, like an apparition out of the mists, close to a fence, and
+peered through the snow-laden rails. A sudden pang pierced her heart.
+
+For there, within the enclosure, milking the cow, she saw, all blooming
+in the snow--herself; the azalea-like girl she had been!
+
+She had not known how dear to her was that bright young identity she
+remembered. She had not realized how far it had gone from her. She felt
+a forlorn changeling looking upon her own estranged estate.
+
+A faint cry escaped her.
+
+The cow, with lifted head and a muttered low of surprise, moved out of
+reach of the milker, who, half kneeling upon the ground, stared with
+wide blue eyes at her ghost in the mist.
+
+There was a pause. It was only a moment before Eugenia spoke; it seemed
+years, so charged it was with retrospect.
+
+"I kem over hyar ter hev a word with ye," she said.
+
+At the sound of a human voice Luke Todd's wife struggled to her feet She
+held the piggin with one arm encircled about it, and with the other
+hand she clutched the plaid shawl around her throat. Her bright hair was
+tossed by the rising wind.
+
+"I 'lowed I'd find ye hyar a-milkin' 'bout now."
+
+The homely allusion reassured the younger woman.
+
+"I hev ter begin toler'ble early," she said. "Spot gins 'bout a gallon a
+milkin' now."
+
+Spot's calf, which subsisted on what was left over, seemed to find it
+cruel that delay should be added to his hardships, and he lifted up
+his voice in a plaintive remonstrance. This reminded Mrs. Todd of his
+existence; she turned and let down the bars that served to exclude him.
+
+The stranger was staring at her very hard. Somehow she quailed under
+that look. Though it was fixed upon her in unvarying intensity, it had
+a strange impersonality. This woman was not seeing her, despite that
+wide, wistful, yearning gaze; she was thinking of something else, seeing
+some one else.
+
+And suddenly Luke Todd's wife began to stare at the visitor very hard,
+and to think of something that was not before her.
+
+"I be the ranger's wife," said Eugenia. "I kem over hyar ter tell ye he
+never tuk yer black mare nowise but honest, bein' the ranger."
+
+She found it difficult to say more. Under that speculative, unseeing
+look she too faltered.
+
+"They tell me ez Luke Todd air powerful outed 'bout'n it. An' I 'lowed
+ef he knowed from me ez 'twar tuk fair, he'd b'lieve me."
+
+She hesitated. Her courage was flagging; her hope had fled. The eyes of
+the man's wife burned upon her face.
+
+"We-uns useter be toler'ble well 'quainted 'fore he ever seen ye, an' I
+'lowed he'd b'lieve my word," Eugenia continued.
+
+Another silence. The sun was rising; long liquescent lines of light of
+purest amber-color were streaming through the snowy woods; the shadows
+of the fence rails alternated with bars of dazzling glister; elusive
+prismatic gleams of rose and lilac and blue shimmered on every
+slope--thus the winter flowered. Tiny snow-birds were hopping about;
+a great dog came down from the little snow-thatched cabin, and was
+stretching himself elastically and yawning most portentously.
+
+"An' I 'lowed I'd see ye an' git you-uns ter tell him that word from me,
+an' then he'd b'lieve it," said Eugenia.
+
+The younger woman nodded mechanically, still gazing at her.
+
+And was this her mission! Somehow it had lost its urgency. Where was its
+potency, her enthusiasm? Eugenia realized that her feet were wet,
+her skirts draggled; that she was chilled to the bone and trembling
+violently. She looked about her doubtfully. Then her eyes came back to
+the face of the woman before her.
+
+"Ye'll tell him, I s'pose?"
+
+Once more Luke Todd's wife nodded mechanically, still staring.
+
+There was nothing further to be said. A vacant interval ensued. Then,
+"I 'lowed I'd tell ye," Eugenia reiterated, vaguely, and turned away,
+vanishing with the vanishing mists.
+
+Luke Todd's wife stood gazing at the fence through which the apparition
+had peered. She could see yet her own face there, grown old and worn.
+The dog wagged his tail and pressed against her, looking up and claiming
+her notice. Once more he stretched himself elastically and yawned
+widely, with shrill variations of tone. The calf was frisking about in
+awkward bovine elation, and now and then the cow affectionately licked
+its coat with the air of making its toilet. An assertive chanticleer was
+proclaiming the dawn within the henhouse, whence came too an impatient
+clamor, for the door, which served to exclude any marauding fox, was
+still closed upon the imprisoned poultry. Still she looked steadily at
+the fence where the ranger's wife had stood.
+
+"That thar woman favors me," she said, presently. And suddenly she burst
+into tears.
+
+Perhaps it was well that Eugenia could not see Luke Todd's expression as
+his wife recounted the scene. She gave it truly, but without, alas! the
+glamour of sympathy.
+
+"She 'lowed ez ye'd b'lieve her, bein' ez ye use-ter be 'quainted."
+
+His face flushed. "Wa'al, sir! the insurance o' that thar woman!" he
+exclaimed. "I war 'quainted with her; I war mighty well 'quainted with
+her." He had a casual remembrance of those days when "he tuk ter the
+woods ter wear out his grief."
+
+"She never gin me no promise, but me an' her war courtin' some. Sech
+dependence ez I put on her war mightily wasted. I dunno what ails the
+critter ter 'low ez I set store by her word."
+
+Poor Eugenia! There is nothing so dead as ashes. His flame had clean
+burned out. So far afield were all his thoughts that he stood amazed
+when his wife, with a sudden burst of tears, declared passionately that
+she knew it--she saw it--she favored Eugenia Gryce. She had found out
+that he had married her because she looked like another woman.
+
+"'Genie Gryce hev got powerful little ter do ter kem a-jouncin' through
+the snow over hyar ter try ter set ye an' me agin one another," he
+exclaimed, angrily. "Stealin' the filly ain't enough ter sati'fy her!"
+
+His wife was in some sort mollified. She sought to reassure herself.
+
+"Air we-uns of a favor?"
+
+"I dunno," he replied, sulkily. "I 'ain't seen the critter fur nigh on
+ter ten year. I hev furgot the looks of her. 'Pears like ter me," he
+went on, ruminating, "ez 'twar in my mind when I fust seen ye ez thar
+war a favor 'twixt ye. But I misdoubts now. Do she 'low ez I hev hed
+nuthin ter study 'bout sence?"
+
+Perhaps Eugenia is not the only woman who overrates the strength of a
+sentimental attachment. A gloomy intuition of failure kept her company
+all the lengthening way home. The chill splendors of the wintry day
+grated upon her dreary mood. How should she care for the depth and
+richness of the blue deepening toward the zenith in those vast skies?
+What was it to her that the dead vines, climbing the grim rugged crags,
+were laden with tufts and corollated shapes wherever these fantasies
+of flowers might cling, or that the snow flashed with crystalline
+scintillations? She only knew that they glimmered and dazzled upon the
+tears in her eyes, and she was moved to shed them afresh. She did not
+wonder whether her venture had resulted amiss. She only wondered that
+she had tried aught. And she was humbled.
+
+When she reached Lonesome Cove she found the piggin where she had hid
+it, and milked the cow in haste. It was no great task, for the animal
+was going dry. "Their'n gins a gallon a milkin'," she said, in rueful
+comparison.
+
+As she came up the slope with the piggin on her head, her husband was
+looking down from the porch with a lowering brow. "Why n't ye spen' the
+day a-milkin' the cow?" he drawled. "Dawdlin' yander in the cow-pen till
+this time in the mornin'! An' ter-morrer's Chrismus!"
+
+The word smote upon her weary heart with a dull pain. She had no
+cultured phrase to characterize the sensation as a presentiment, but
+she was conscious of the prophetic process. To-night "all the mounting"
+would be riotous with that dubious hilarity known as "Chrismus in the
+bones," and there was no telling what might come from the combined orgy
+and an inflamed public spirit.
+
+She remembered the familiar doom of the mountain horse-thief, the men
+lurking on the cliff, the inimical feeling against the ranger. She
+furtively watched him with forebodings as he came and went at intervals
+throughout the day.
+
+Dusk had fallen when he suddenly looked in and beckoned to the
+"Colonel," who required him to take her with him whenever he fed the
+mare.
+
+"Let me tie this hyar comforter over the Cunnel's head," Eugenia said,
+as he bundled the child in a shawl and lifted her in his arms.
+
+"Tain't no use," he declared. "The Cunnel ain't travellin' fur."
+
+She heard him step from the creaking porch. She heard the dreary wind
+without.
+
+Within, the clumsy shadows of the warping-bars, the spinning-wheel,
+and the churn were dancing in the firelight on the wall. The supper was
+cooking on the live coals. The children, popping corn in the ashes, were
+laughing; as her eye fell upon the "Colonel's" vacant little chair her
+mind returned to the child's excursion with her father, and again she
+wondered futilely where the mare could be hid. The next moment she was
+heartily glad that she did not know.
+
+It was like the fulfillment of some dreadful dream when the door opened.
+A man entered softly, slowly; the flickering fire showed his shadow--was
+it?--nay, another man, and still another, and another.
+
+The old crone in the corner sprang up, screaming in a shrill, tremulous,
+cracked voice. For they were masked. Over the face of each dangled a
+bit of homespun, with great empty sockets through which eyes vaguely
+glanced. Even the coarse fibre of the intruders responded to that
+quavering, thrilling appeal. One spoke instantly:
+
+"Laws-a-massy! Mis' Pearce, don't ye feel interrupted none--nor Mis'
+Gryce nuther. We-uns ain't harmful noways--jes want ter know whar that
+thar black mare hev disappeared to. She ain't in the barn."
+
+He turned his great eye-sockets on Eugenia. The plaid homespun mask
+dangling about his face was grotesquely incongruous with his intent,
+serious gaze.
+
+"I dunno," she faltered; "I dunno."
+
+She had caught at the spinning-wheel for support. The fire crackled. The
+baby was counting aloud the grains of corn popping from the ashes. "Six,
+two, free," he babbled. The kettle merrily sang.
+
+The man still stared silently at the ranger's wife. The expression in
+his eyes changed suddenly. He chuckled derisively. The others echoed his
+mocking mirth. "Ha! ha! ha!" they laughed aloud; and the eye-sockets in
+the homespun masks all glared significantly at each other. Even the dog
+detected something sinister in this laughter. He had been sniffing
+about the heels of the strangers; he bristled now, showed his teeth, and
+growled. The spokesman hastily kicked him in the ribs, and the animal
+fled yelping to the farther side of the fireplace behind the baby, where
+he stood and barked defiance. The rafters rang with the sound.
+
+Some one on the porch without spoke to the leader in a low voice. This
+man, who seemed to have a desire to conceal his identity which could not
+be served by a mask, held the door with one hand that the wind might not
+blow it wide open. The draught fanned the fire. Once the great bowing,
+waving white blaze sent a long, quivering line of light through the
+narrow aperture, and Eugenia saw the dark lurking figure outside. He had
+one arm in a sling. She needed no confirmation to assure her that this
+was Sam Peters, whom her husband had shot at the stable door.
+
+The leader instantly accepted his suggestion. "Wa'al, Mis' Gryce, I
+reckon ye dunno whar Tobe be, nuther?"
+
+"Naw, I dunno," she said, in a tremor.
+
+The homespun mask swayed with the distortions of his face as he sneered:
+
+"Ye mean ter say ye don't 'low ter tell us."
+
+"I dunno whar he be." Her voice had sunk to a whisper.
+
+Another exchange of glances.
+
+"Wa'al, ma'am, jes gin us the favor of a light by yer fire, an' we-uns
+'ll find him."
+
+He stepped swiftly forward, thrust a pine torch into the coals, and with
+it all whitely flaring ran out into the night; the others followed his
+example; and the terror-stricken women, hastily barring up the door,
+peered after them through the little batten shutter of the window.
+
+*****
+
+The torches were already scattered about the slopes of Lonesome Cove
+like a fallen constellation. What shafts of white light they cast upon
+the snow in the midst of the dense blackness of the night! Somehow they
+seemed endowed with volition, as they moved hither and thither, for
+their brilliancy almost cancelled the figures of the men that bore
+them--only an occasional erratic shapeless shadow was visible. Now and
+then a flare pierced the icicle-tipped holly bushes, and again there was
+a fibrous glimmer in the fringed pines.
+
+The search was terribly silent. The snow deadened the tread. Only the
+wind was loud among the muffled trees, and sometimes a dull thud sounded
+when the weight of snow fell from the evergreen laurel as the men
+thrashed through its dense growth. They separated after a time, and
+only here and there an isolated stellular light illumined the snow, and
+conjured white mystic circles into the wide spaces of the darkness. The
+effort flagged at last, and its futility sharpened the sense of injury
+in Luke Todd's heart.
+
+He was alone now, close upon the great rock, and looking at its jagged
+ledges all cloaked with snow. Above those soft white outlines drawn
+against the deep clear sky the frosty stars scintillated. Beneath were
+the abysmal depths of the valley masked by the darkness.
+
+His pride was touched. In the old quarrel his revenge had been hampered,
+for it was the girl's privilege to choose, and she had chosen. He cared
+nothing for that now, but he felt it indeed a reproach to tamely let
+this man take his horse when he had all the mountain at his back. There
+was a sharp humiliation in his position. He felt the pressure of public
+opinion.
+
+"Dad-burn him!" he exclaimed. "Ef I kin make out ter git a glimge o'
+him, I'll shoot him dead--dead!"
+
+He leaned the rifle against the rock. It struck upon a ledge. A metallic
+vibration rang out. Again and again the sound was repeated--now loud,
+still clanging; now faint, but clear; now soft and away to a doubtful
+murmur which he hardly was sure that he heard. Never before had he
+known such an echo. And suddenly he recollected that this was the great
+"Talking Rock," famed beyond the limits of Lonesome. It had traditions
+as well as echoes. He remembered vaguely that beneath this cliff there
+was said to be a cave which was utilized in the manufacture of saltpetre
+for gunpowder in the War of 1812.
+
+As he looked down the slope below he thought the snow seemed broken--by
+footprints, was it? With the expectation of a discovery strong upon
+him, he crept along a wide ledge of the crag, now and then stumbling and
+sending an avalanche of snow and ice and stones thundering to the foot
+of the cliff..He missed his way more than once. Then he would turn
+about, laboriously retracing his steps, and try another level of the
+ledges. Suddenly before him was the dark opening he sought. No creature
+had lately been here. It was filled with growing bushes and dead leaves
+and brambles. Looking again down upon the slope beneath, he felt very
+sure that he saw footprints.
+
+"The old folks useter 'low ez thar war two openings ter this hyar
+cave," he said. "Tobe Gryce mought hev hid hyar through a opening down
+yan-der on the slope. But _I'll_ go the way ez I hev hearn tell on, an'
+peek in, an' ef I kin git a glimge o' him, I'll make him tell me whar
+that thar filly air,--or I'll let daylight through him, sure!"
+
+He paused only to bend aside the brambles, then he crept in and took his
+way along a low, narrow passage. It had many windings, but was without
+intersections or intricacy. He heard his own steps echoed like a
+pursuing footfall. His labored breathing returned in sighs from the
+inanimate rocks. It was an uncanny place, with strange, sepulchral,
+solemn effects. He shivered with the cold. A draught stole in from some
+secret crevice known only to the wild mountain winds. The torch flared,
+crouched before the gust, flared again, then darkness. He hesitated,
+took one step forward, and suddenly--a miracle!
+
+A soft aureola with gleaming radiations, a low, shadowy chamber, a beast
+feeding from a manger, and within it a child's golden head.
+
+His heart gave a great throb. Somehow he was smitten to his knees.
+Christmas Eve! He remembered the day with a rush of emotion. He stared
+again at the vouchsafed vision. He rubbed his eyes. It had changed.
+
+Only hallucination caused by an abrupt transition from darkness to
+light; only the most mundane facts of the old troughs and ash-hoppers,
+relics of the industry that had served the hideous carnage of battle;
+only the yellow head of the ranger's brat, who had climbed into one of
+them, from which the mare was calmly munching her corn.
+
+[Illustration: Yet this was Christmas Eve 201]
+
+Yet this was Christmas Eve. And the Child did lie in a manger.
+
+Perhaps it was well for him that his ignorant faith could accept the
+illusion as a vision charged with all the benignities of peace on earth,
+good-will toward men. With a keen thrill in his heart, on his knees he
+drew the charge from his rifle, and flung it down a rift in the rocks.
+"Chrismus Eve," he murmured.
+
+He leaned his empty weapon against the wall, and strode out to the
+little girl who was perched up on the trough.
+
+"Chrismus gift, Cunnel!" he cried, cheerily. "Ter-morrer's Chrismus."
+
+The echoes caught the word. In vibratory jubilance they repeated
+it. "Chrismus!" rang from the roof, scintillating with calcspar;
+"Chrismus!" sounded from the colonnade of stalactites that hung down to
+meet the uprising stalagmites; "Chrismus!" repeated the walls incrusted
+with roses that, shut in from the light and the fresh air of heaven,
+bloomed forever in the stone. Was ever chorus so sweet as this?
+
+It reached Tobe Gryce, who stood at his improvised corn-bin. With a
+bundle of fodder still in his arms he stepped forward. There beside
+the little Colonel and the black mare he beheld a man seated upon an
+inverted half-bushel measure, peacefully lighting his pipe with a bunch
+of straws which he kindled at the lantern on the ash-hopper.
+
+The ranger's black eyes were wide with wonder at this intrusion, and
+angrily flashed. He connected it at once with the attack on the stable.
+The hair on his low forehead rose bristlingly as he frowned. Yet he
+realized with a quaking heart that he was helpless. He, although the
+crack shot of the county, would not have fired while the Colonel was
+within two yards of his mark for the State of Tennessee.
+
+He stood his ground with stolid courage--a target.
+
+Then, with a start of surprise, he perceived that the intruder was
+unarmed. Twenty feet away his rifle stood against the wall.
+
+Tobe Gryce was strangely shaken. He experienced a sudden revolt of
+credulity. This was surely a dream.
+
+"Ain't that thar Luke Todd? Why air ye a-wait-in' thar?" he called out
+in a husky undertone.
+
+Todd glanced up, and took his pipe from his mouth; it was now fairly
+alight.
+
+"Kase it be Chrismus Eve, Tobe," he said, gravely.
+
+The ranger stared for a moment; then came forward and gave the fodder
+to the mare, pausing now and then and looking with oblique distrust down
+upon Luke Todd as he smoked his pipe.
+
+"I want ter tell ye, Tobe, ez some o' the mounting boys air a-sarchin
+fur ye outside."
+
+"Who air they?" asked the ranger, calmly.
+
+His tone was so natural, his manner so unsuspecting, that a new doubt
+began to stir in Luke Todd's mind.
+
+"What ails ye ter keep the mare down hyar, Tobe?" he asked, suddenly.
+"Tears like ter me ez that be powerful comical."
+
+"Kase," said Tobe, reasonably, "some durned horse-thieves kem arter her
+one night. I fired at t'em. I hain't hearn on 'em sence. An' so I jes
+hid the mare."
+
+Todd was puzzled. He shifted his pipe in his mouth. Finally he said:
+"Some folks 'lowed ez ye hed no right ter take up that mare, bein' ez ye
+war the ranger."
+
+Tobe Gryce whirled round abruptly. "What war I a-goin' ter do, then?
+Feed the critter fur nuthin till the triflin' scamp ez owned her kem
+arter her? I couldn't work her 'thout takin' her up an' hevin her
+appraised. Thar's a law agin sech. An' I couldn't git somebody ter toll
+her off an' take her up. That ain't fair. What ought I ter hev done?"
+
+"Wa'al," said Luke, drifting into argument, "the town-folks 'low ez ye
+hev got nuthin ter prove it by, the stray-book an' records bein' burnt.
+The town-folks 'low ez ye can't prove by writin' an' sech ez ye
+ever tried ter find the owner." "The town-folks air fairly sodden in
+foolishness," exclaimed the ranger, indignantly.
+
+He drew from his ample pocket a roll of ragged newspapers, and pointed
+with his great thumb at a paragraph. And Luke Todd read by the light
+of the lantern the advertisement and description of the estray printed
+according to law in the nearest newspaper.
+
+The newspaper was so infrequent a factor in the lives of the mountain
+gossips that this refutation of their theory had never occurred to them.
+
+The sheet was trembling in Luke Todd's hand; his eyes filled. The
+cavern with its black distances, its walls close at hand sparkling with
+delicate points of whitest light; the yellow flare of the lantern; the
+grotesque shadows on the ground; the fair little girl with her golden
+hair; the sleek black mare; the burly figure of the ranger--all the
+scene swayed before him. He remembered the gracious vision that had
+saluted him; he shuddered at the crime from which he was rescued. Pity
+him because he knew naught of the science of optics; of the bewildering
+effects of a sudden burst of light upon the delicate mechanism of the
+eye; of the vagaries of illusion.
+
+"Tobe," he said, in a solemn voice--all the echoes were bated to awed
+whispers--"I hev been gin ter view a vision this night, bein' 'twar
+Chris-mus Eve. An' now I want ter shake hands on it fur peace."
+
+Then he told the whole story, regardless of the ranger's demonstrations,
+albeit they were sometimes violent enough. Tobe sprang up with a snort
+of rage, his eyes flashing, his thick tongue stumbling with the curses
+crowding upon it, when he realized the suspicions rife against him at
+the county town. But he stood with his clinched hand slowly relaxing,
+and with the vague expression which one wears who looks into the past,
+as he listened to the recital of Eugenia's pilgrimage in the snowy
+wintry dawn. "Mighty few folks hev got a wife ez set store by 'em like
+that," Luke remarked, impersonally.
+
+The ranger's rejoinder seemed irrelevant.
+
+"'Genie be a-goin' ter see a powerful differ arter this," he said, and
+fell to musing.
+
+Snow, fatigue, and futility destroyed the ardor of the lynching party
+after a time, and they dispersed to their homes. Little was said of this
+expedition afterward, and it became quite impossible to find a man
+who would admit having joined it. For the story went the rounds of the
+mountain that there had been a mistake as to unfair dealing on the part
+of the ranger, and Luke Todd was quite content to accept from the county
+treasury half the sum of the mare's appraisement--with the deduction
+of the stipulated per cent.--which Tobe Gryce had paid, the receipt for
+which he produced.
+
+The gossips complained, however, that after all this was settled
+according to law, Tobe wouldn't keep the mare, and insisted that Luke
+should return to him the money he had paid into the treasury, half her
+value, "bein' so brigaty he wouldn't own Luke Todd's beast. An' Luke
+agreed ter so do; but he didn't want ter be outdone, so fur the keep o'
+the filly he gin the Cunnel a heifer. An' Tobe war mighty nigh tickled
+ter death fur the Cunnel ter hev a cow o' her own."
+
+And now when December skies darken above Lonesome Cove, and the snow in
+dizzying whirls sifts softly down, and the gaunt brown leafless heights
+are clothed with white as with a garment, and the wind whistles and
+shouts shrilly, and above the great crag loom the distant mountains,
+and below are glimpsed the long stretches of the valley, the two men
+remember the vision that illumined the cavernous solitudes that night,
+and bless the gracious power that sent salvation 'way down to Lonesome
+Cove, and cherish peace and good-will for the sake of a little Child
+that lay in a manger.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'way Down In Lonesome Cove, by 
+Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
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