1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
<head>
<title>
A Knight of the Cumberland, by John Fox, Jr.
</title>
<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
.foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
.mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
.toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
.toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
.figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
.figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
.pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
text-align: right;}
pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Knight of the Cumberland, by John Fox Jr.
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 Knight of the Cumberland
Author: John Fox Jr.
Release Date: July 6, 2008 [EBook #324]
Last Updated: March 14, 2018
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND ***
Produced by Mike Lough, and David Widger
</pre>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<h1>
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND
</h1>
<p>
<br />
</p>
<h2>
By John Fox, Jr.
</h2>
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<h2>
Contents
</h2>
<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
<tr>
<td>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I. THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II. ON THE WILD DOG'S TRAIL </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III. THE AURICULAR TALENT OF THE HON.
SAMUEL BUDD </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV. CLOSE QUARTERS </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V. BACK TO THE HILLS </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI. THE GREAT DAY </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII. AT LAST—THE TOURNAMENT </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII. THE KNIGHT PASSES </a>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<h1>
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND
</h1>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
I. THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS
</h2>
<p>
High noon of a crisp October day, sunshine flooding the earth with the
warmth and light of old wine and, going single-file up through the jagged
gap that the dripping of water has worn down through the Cumberland
Mountains from crest to valley-level, a gray horse and two big mules, a
man and two young girls. On the gray horse, I led the tortuous way. After
me came my small sister—and after her and like her, mule-back, rode
the Blight—dressed as she would be for a gallop in Central Park or
to ride a hunter in a horse show.
</p>
<p>
I was taking them, according to promise, where the feet of other women
than mountaineers had never trod—beyond the crest of the Big Black—to
the waters of the Cumberland—the lair of moonshiner and feudsman,
where is yet pocketed a civilization that, elsewhere, is long ago gone.
This had been a pet dream of the Blight's for a long time, and now the
dream was coming true. The Blight was in the hills.
</p>
<p>
Nobody ever went to her mother's house without asking to see her even when
she was a little thing with black hair, merry face and black eyes. Both
men and women, with children of their own, have told me that she was,
perhaps, the most fascinating child that ever lived. There be some who
claim that she has never changed—and I am among them. She began
early, regardless of age, sex or previous condition of servitude—she
continues recklessly as she began—and none makes complaint. Thus was
it in her own world—thus it was when she came to mine. On the way
down from the North, the conductor's voice changed from a command to a
request when he asked for her ticket. The jacketed lord of the dining-car
saw her from afar and advanced to show her to a seat—that she might
ride forward, sit next to a shaded window and be free from the glare of
the sun on the other side. Two porters made a rush for her bag when she
got off the car, and the proprietor of the little hotel in the little town
where we had to wait several hours for the train into the mountains gave
her the bridal chamber for an afternoon nap. From this little town to “The
Gap” is the worst sixty-mile ride, perhaps, in the world. She sat in a
dirty day-coach; the smoke rolled in at the windows and doors; the cars
shook and swayed and lumbered around curves and down and up gorges; there
were about her rough men, crying children, slatternly women, tobacco
juice, peanuts, popcorn and apple cores, but dainty, serene and as merry
as ever, she sat through that ride with a radiant smile, her keen black
eyes noting everything unlovely within and the glory of hill, tree and
chasm without. Next morning at home, where we rise early, no one was
allowed to waken her and she had breakfast in bed—for the Blight's
gentle tyranny was established on sight and varied not at the Gap.
</p>
<p>
When she went down the street that day everybody stared surreptitiously
and with perfect respect, as her dainty black plumed figure passed; the
post-office clerk could barely bring himself to say that there was no
letter for her. The soda-fountain boy nearly filled her glass with syrup
before he saw that he was not strictly minding his own business; the
clerk, when I bought chocolate for her, unblushingly added extra weight
and, as we went back, she met them both—Marston, the young engineer
from the North, crossing the street and, at the same moment, a drunken
young tough with an infuriated face reeling in a run around the corner
ahead of us as though he were being pursued. Now we have a volunteer
police guard some forty strong at the Gap—and from habit, I started
for him, but the Blight caught my arm tight. The young engineer in three
strides had reached the curb-stone and all he sternly said was:
</p>
<p>
“Here! Here!”
</p>
<p>
The drunken youth wheeled and his right hand shot toward his hip pocket.
The engineer was belted with a pistol, but with one lightning movement and
an incredibly long reach, his right fist caught the fellow's jaw so that
he pitched backward and collapsed like an empty bag. Then the engineer
caught sight of the Blight's bewildered face, flushed, gripped his hands
in front of him and simply stared. At last he saw me:
</p>
<p>
“Oh,” he said, “how do you do?” and he turned to his prisoner, but the
panting sergeant and another policeman—also a volunteer—were
already lifting him to his feet. I introduced the boy and the Blight then,
and for the first time in my life I saw the Blight—shaken.
Round-eyed, she merely gazed at him.
</p>
<p>
“That was pretty well done,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, he was drunk and I knew he would be slow.” Now something curious
happened. The dazed prisoner was on his feet, and his captors were
starting with him to the calaboose when he seemed suddenly to come to his
senses.
</p>
<p>
“Jes wait a minute, will ye?” he said quietly, and his captors, thinking
perhaps that he wanted to say something to me, stopped. The mountain youth
turned a strangely sobered face and fixed his blue eyes on the engineer as
though he were searing every feature of that imperturbable young man in
his brain forever. It was not a bad face, but the avenging hatred in it
was fearful. Then he, too, saw the Blight, his face calmed magically and
he, too, stared at her, and turned away with an oath checked at his lips.
We went on—the Blight thrilled, for she had heard much of our
volunteer force at the Gap and had seen something already. Presently I
looked back. Prisoner and captors were climbing the little hill toward the
calaboose and the mountain boy just then turned his head and I could swear
that his eyes sought not the engineer, whom we left at the corner, but,
like the engineer, he was looking at the Blight. Whereat I did not wonder—particularly
as to the engineer. He had been in the mountains for a long time and I
knew what this vision from home meant to him. He turned up at the house
quite early that night.
</p>
<p>
“I'm not on duty until eleven,” he said hesitantly, “and I thought I'd——”
</p>
<p>
“Come right in.”
</p>
<p>
I asked him a few questions about business and then I left him and the
Blight alone. When I came back she had a Gatling gun of eager questions
ranged on him and—happy withal—he was squirming no little. I
followed him to the gate.
</p>
<p>
“Are you really going over into those God-forsaken mountains?” he asked.
</p>
<p>
“I thought I would.”
</p>
<p>
“And you are going to take HER?”
</p>
<p>
“And my sister.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, I beg your pardon.” He strode away.
</p>
<p>
“Coming up by the mines?” he called back.
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps will you show us around?”
</p>
<p>
“I guess I will,” he said emphatically, and he went on to risk his neck on
a ten-mile ride along a mountain road in the dark.
</p>
<p>
“I LIKE a man,” said the Blight. “I like a MAN.”
</p>
<p>
Of course the Blight must see everything, so she insisted on going to the
police court next morning for the trial of the mountain boy. The boy was
in the witness chair when we got there, and the Hon. Samuel Budd was his
counsel. He had volunteered to defend the prisoner, I was soon told, and
then I understood. The November election was not far off and the Hon.
Samuel Budd was candidate for legislature. More even, the boy's father was
a warm supporter of Mr. Budd and the boy himself might perhaps render good
service in the cause when the time came—as indeed he did. On one of
the front chairs sat the young engineer and it was a question whether he
or the prisoner saw the Blight's black plumes first. The eyes of both
flashed toward her simultaneously, the engineer colored perceptibly and
the mountain boy stopped short in speech and his pallid face flushed with
unmistakable shame. Then he went on: “He had liquered up,” he said, “and
had got tight afore he knowed it and he didn't mean no harm and had never
been arrested afore in his whole life.”
</p>
<p>
“Have you ever been drunk before?” asked the prosecuting attorney
severely. The lad looked surprised.
</p>
<p>
“Co'se I have, but I ain't goin' to agin—leastwise not in this here
town.” There was a general laugh at this and the aged mayor rapped loudly.
</p>
<p>
“That will do,” said the attorney.
</p>
<p>
The lad stepped down, hitched his chair slightly so that his back was to
the Blight, sank down in it until his head rested on the back of the chair
and crossed his legs. The Hon. Samuel Budd arose and the Blight looked at
him with wonder. His long yellow hair was parted in the middle and brushed
with plaster-like precision behind two enormous ears, he wore spectacles,
gold-rimmed and with great staring lenses, and his face was smooth and
ageless. He caressed his chin ruminatingly and rolled his lips until they
settled into a fine resultant of wisdom, patience, toleration and
firmness. His manner was profound and his voice oily and soothing.
</p>
<p>
“May it please your Honor—my young friend frankly pleads guilty.” He
paused as though the majesty of the law could ask no more. “He is a young
man of naturally high and somewhat—naturally, too, no doubt—bibulous
spirits. Homoepathically—if inversely—the result was logical.
In the untrammelled life of the liberty-breathing mountains, where the
stern spirit of law and order, of which your Honor is the august symbol,
does not prevail as it does here—thanks to your Honor's wise and
just dispensations—the lad has, I may say, naturally acquired a
certain recklessness of mood—indulgence which, however easily
condoned there, must here be sternly rebuked. At the same time, he knew
not the conditions here, he became exhilarated without malice, prepensey
or even, I may say, consciousness. He would not have done as he has, if he
had known what he knows now, and, knowing, he will not repeat the offence.
I need say no more. I plead simply that your Honor will temper the justice
that is only yours with the mercy that is yours—only.”
</p>
<p>
His Honor was visibly affected and to cover it—his methods being
informal—he said with sharp irrelevancy:
</p>
<p>
“Who bailed this young feller out last night?” The sergeant spoke:
</p>
<p>
“Why, Mr. Marston thar”—with outstretched finger toward the young
engineer. The Blight's black eyes leaped with exultant appreciation and
the engineer turned crimson. His Honor rolled his quid around in his mouth
once, and peered over his glasses:
</p>
<p>
“I fine this young feller two dollars and costs.” The young fellow had
turned slowly in his chair and his blue eyes blazed at the engineer with
unappeasable hatred. I doubt if he had heard his Honor's voice.
</p>
<p>
“I want ye to know that I'm obleeged to ye an' I ain't a-goin' to fergit
it; but if I'd a known hit was you I'd a stayed in jail an' seen you in
hell afore I'd a been bounden to ye.”
</p>
<p>
“Ten dollars fer contempt of couht.” The boy was hot now.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, fine and be—” The Hon. Samuel Budd had him by the shoulder, the
boy swallowed his voice and his starting tears of rage, and after a
whisper to his Honor, the Hon. Samuel led him out. Outside, the engineer
laughed to the Blight:
</p>
<p>
“Pretty peppery, isn't he?” but the Blight said nothing, and later we saw
the youth on a gray horse crossing the bridge and conducted by the Hon.
Samuel Budd, who stopped and waved him toward the mountains. The boy went
on and across the plateau, the gray Gap swallowed him. That night, at the
post-office, the Hon. Sam plucked me aside by the sleeve.
</p>
<p>
“I know Marston is agin me in this race—but I'll do him a good turn
just the same. You tell him to watch out for that young fellow. He's all
right when he's sober, but when he's drunk—well, over in Kentucky,
they call him the Wild Dog.”
</p>
<p>
Several days later we started out through that same Gap. The glum
stableman looked at the Blight's girths three times, and with my own eyes
starting and my heart in my mouth, I saw her pass behind her
sixteen-hand-high mule and give him a friendly tap on the rump as she went
by. The beast gave an appreciative flop of one ear and that was all. Had I
done that, any further benefit to me or mine would be incorporated in the
terms of an insurance policy. So, stating this, I believe I state the
limit and can now go on to say at last that it was because she seemed to
be loved by man and brute alike that a big man of her own town, whose
body, big as it was, was yet too small for his heart and from whose brain
things went off at queer angles, always christened her perversely as—“The
Blight.”
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
II. ON THE WILD DOG'S TRAIL
</h2>
<p>
So up we went past Bee Rock, Preacher's Creek and Little Looney, past the
mines where high on a “tipple” stood the young engineer looking down at
us, and looking after the Blight as we passed on into a dim rocky avenue
walled on each side with rhododendrons. I waved at him and shook my head—we
would see him coming back. Beyond a deserted log-cabin we turned up a spur
of the mountain. Around a clump of bushes we came on a gray-bearded
mountaineer holding his horse by the bridle and from a covert high above
two more men appeared with Winchesters. The Blight breathed forth an awed
whisper:
</p>
<p>
“Are they moonshiners?”
</p>
<p>
I nodded sagely, “Most likely,” and the Blight was thrilled. They might
have been squirrel-hunters most innocent, but the Blight had heard much
talk of moonshine stills and mountain feuds and the men who run them and I
took the risk of denying her nothing. Up and up we went, those two mules
swaying from side to side with a motion little short of elephantine and,
by and by, the Blight called out:
</p>
<p>
“You ride ahead and don't you DARE look back.”
</p>
<p>
Accustomed to obeying the Blight's orders, I rode ahead with eyes to the
front. Presently, a shriek made me turn suddenly. It was nothing—my
little sister's mule had gone near a steep cliff—perilously near, as
its rider thought, but I saw why I must not look back; those two little
girls were riding astride on side-saddles, the booted little right foot of
each dangling stirrupless—a posture quite decorous but ludicrous.
</p>
<p>
“Let us know if anybody comes,” they cried. A mountaineer descended into
sight around a loop of the path above.
</p>
<p>
“Change cars,” I shouted.
</p>
<p>
They changed and, passing, were grave, demure—then they changed
again, and thus we climbed.
</p>
<p>
Such a glory as was below, around and above us; the air like champagne;
the sunlight rich and pouring like a flood on the gold that the beeches
had strewn in the path, on the gold that the poplars still shook high
above and shimmering on the royal scarlet of the maple and the sombre
russet of the oak. From far below us to far above us a deep curving ravine
was slashed into the mountain side as by one stroke of a gigantic
scimitar. The darkness deep down was lighted up with cool green,
interfused with liquid gold. Russet and yellow splashed the mountain sides
beyond and high up the maples were in a shaking blaze. The Blight's swift
eyes took all in and with indrawn breath she drank it all deep down.
</p>
<p>
An hour by sun we were near the top, which was bared of trees and turned
into rich farm-land covered with blue-grass. Along these upland pastures,
dotted with grazing cattle, and across them we rode toward the mountain
wildernesses on the other side, down into which a zigzag path wriggles
along the steep front of Benham's spur. At the edge of the steep was a
cabin and a bushy-bearded mountaineer, who looked like a brigand, answered
my hail. He “mought” keep us all night, but he'd “ruther not, as we could
git a place to stay down the spur.” Could we get down before dark? The
mountaineer lifted his eyes to where the sun was breaking the horizon of
the west into streaks and splashes of yellow and crimson.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, yes, you can git thar afore dark.”
</p>
<p>
Now I knew that the mountaineer's idea of distance is vague—but he
knows how long it takes to get from one place to another. So we started
down—dropping at once into thick dark woods, and as we went looping
down, the deeper was the gloom. That sun had suddenly severed all
connection with the laws of gravity and sunk, and it was all the darker
because the stars were not out. The path was steep and coiled downward
like a wounded snake. In one place a tree had fallen across it, and to
reach the next coil of the path below was dangerous. So I had the girls
dismount and I led the gray horse down on his haunches. The mules refused
to follow, which was rather unusual. I went back and from a safe distance
in the rear I belabored them down. They cared neither for gray horse nor
crooked path, but turned of their own devilish wills along the bushy
mountain side. As I ran after them the gray horse started calmly on down
and those two girls shrieked with laughter—they knew no better.
First one way and then the other down the mountain went those mules, with
me after them, through thick bushes, over logs, stumps and bowlders and
holes—crossing the path a dozen times. What that path was there for
never occurred to those long-eared half asses, whole fools, and by and by,
when the girls tried to shoo them down they clambered around and above
them and struck the path back up the mountain. The horse had gone down one
way, the mules up the other, and there was no health in anything. The
girls could not go up—so there was nothing to do but go down, which,
hard as it was, was easier than going up. The path was not visible now.
Once in a while I would stumble from it and crash through the bushes to
the next coil below. Finally I went down, sliding one foot ahead all the
time—knowing that when leaves rustled under that foot I was on the
point of going astray. Sometimes I had to light a match to make sure of
the way, and thus the ridiculous descent was made with those girls in high
spirits behind. Indeed, the darker, rockier, steeper it got, the more they
shrieked from pure joy—but I was anything than happy. It was
dangerous. I didn't know the cliffs and high rocks we might skirt and an
unlucky guidance might land us in the creek-bed far down. But the blessed
stars came out, the moon peered over a farther mountain and on the last
spur there was the gray horse browsing in the path—and the sound of
running water not far below. Fortunately on the gray horse were the
saddle-bags of the chattering infants who thought the whole thing a mighty
lark. We reached the running water, struck a flock of geese and knew, in
consequence, that humanity was somewhere near. A few turns of the creek
and a beacon light shone below. The pales of a picket fence, the cheering
outlines of a log-cabin came in view and at a peaked gate I shouted:
</p>
<p>
“Hello!”
</p>
<p>
You enter no mountaineer's yard without that announcing cry. It was
mediaeval, the Blight said, positively—two lorn damsels, a benighted
knight partially stripped of his armor by bush and sharp-edged rock, a
gray palfrey (she didn't mention the impatient asses that had turned
homeward) and she wished I had a horn to wind. I wanted a “horn” badly
enough—but it was not the kind men wind. By and by we got a
response:
</p>
<p>
“Hello!” was the answer, as an opened door let out into the yard a broad
band of light. Could we stay all night? The voice replied that the owner
would see “Pap.” “Pap” seemed willing, and the boy opened the gate and
into the house went the Blight and the little sister. Shortly, I followed.
</p>
<p>
There, all in one room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above,
puncheon floor beneath—cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only
furniture-“pap,” barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-corner with a
pipe, strings of red pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging around and
above, a married daughter with a child at her breast, two or three
children with yellow hair and bare feet all looking with all their eyes at
the two visitors who had dropped upon them from another world. The
Blight's eyes were brighter than usual—that was the only sign she
gave that she was not in her own drawing-room. Apparently she saw nothing
strange or unusual even, but there was really nothing that she did not see
or hear and absorb, as few others than the Blight can.
</p>
<p>
Straightway, the old woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe.
</p>
<p>
“I reckon you hain't had nothin' to eat,” she said and disappeared. The
old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees,
the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight and the
little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the extremes
in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin, interested me
mightily.
</p>
<p>
“Yer snack's ready,” said the old woman. The old man carried the chairs
into the kitchen, and when I followed the girls were seated. The chairs
were so low that their chins came barely over their plates, and demure and
serious as they were they surely looked most comical. There was the usual
bacon and corn-bread and potatoes and sour milk, and the two girls
struggled with the rude fare nobly.
</p>
<p>
After supper I joined the old man and the old woman with a pipe—exchanging
my tobacco for their long green with more satisfaction probably to me than
to them, for the long green was good, and strong and fragrant.
</p>
<p>
The old woman asked the Blight and the little sister many questions and
they, in turn, showed great interest in the baby in arms, whereat the
eighteen-year-old mother blushed and looked greatly pleased.
</p>
<p>
“You got mighty purty black eyes,” said the old woman to the Blight, and
not to slight the little sister she added, “An' you got mighty purty
teeth.”
</p>
<p>
The Blight showed hers in a radiant smile and the old woman turned back to
her.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, you've got both,” she said and she shook her head, as though she were
thinking of the damage they had done. It was my time now—to ask
questions.
</p>
<p>
They didn't have many amusements on that creek, I discovered—and no
dances. Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there were
corn-shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties.
</p>
<p>
“Does anybody round here play the banjo?”
</p>
<p>
“None o' my boys,” said the old woman, “but Tom Green's son down the creek—he
follers pickin' the banjo a leetle.” “Follows pickin' “—the Blight
did not miss that phrase.
</p>
<p>
“What do you foller fer a livin'?” the old man asked me suddenly.
</p>
<p>
“I write for a living.” He thought a while.
</p>
<p>
“Well, it must be purty fine to have a good handwrite.” This nearly
dissolved the Blight and the little sister, but they held on heroically.
</p>
<p>
“Is there much fighting around here?” I asked presently.
</p>
<p>
“Not much 'cept when one young feller up the river gets to tearin' up
things. I heerd as how he was over to the Gap last week—raisin'
hell. He comes by here on his way home.” The Blight's eyes opened wide—apparently
we were on his trail. It is not wise for a member of the police guard at
the Gap to show too much curiosity about the lawless ones of the hills,
and I asked no questions.
</p>
<p>
“They calls him the Wild Dog over here,” he added, and then he yawned
cavernously.
</p>
<p>
I looked around with divining eye for the sleeping arrangements soon to
come, which sometimes are embarrassing to “furriners” who are unable to
grasp at once the primitive unconsciousness of the mountaineers and, in
consequence, accept a point of view natural to them because enforced by
architectural limitations and a hospitality that turns no one seeking
shelter from any door. They were, however, better prepared than I had
hoped for. They had a spare room on the porch and just outside the door,
and when the old woman led the two girls to it, I followed with their
saddle-bags. The room was about seven feet by six and was windowless.
</p>
<p>
“You'd better leave your door open a little,” I said, “or you'll smother
in there.”
</p>
<p>
“Well,” said the old woman, “hit's all right to leave the door open.
Nothin's goin' ter bother ye, but one o' my sons is out a coon-huntin' and
he mought come in, not knowin' you're thar. But you jes' holler an' he'll
move on.” She meant precisely what she said and saw no humor at all in
such a possibility—but when the door closed, I could hear those
girls stifling shrieks of laughter.
</p>
<p>
Literally, that night, I was a member of the family. I had a bed to myself
(the following night I was not so fortunate)—in one corner; behind
the head of mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law and the baby had
another in the other corner, and the old man with the two boys spread a
pallet on the floor. That is the invariable rule of courtesy with the
mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and take to the floor
himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in a long experience,
have I seen the slightest consciousness—much less immodesty—in
a mountain cabin in my life. The same attitude on the part of the visitors
is taken for granted—any other indeed holds mortal possibilities of
offence—so that if the visitor has common sense, all embarrassment
passes at once. The door was closed, the fire blazed on uncovered, the
smothered talk and laughter of the two girls ceased, the coon-hunter came
not and the night passed in peace.
</p>
<p>
It must have been near daybreak that I was aroused by the old man leaving
the cabin and I heard voices and the sound of horses' feet outside. When
he came back he was grinning.
</p>
<p>
“Hit's your mules.”
</p>
<p>
“Who found them?”
</p>
<p>
“The Wild Dog had 'em,” he said.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
III. THE AURICULAR TALENT OF THE HON. SAMUEL BUDD
</h2>
<p>
Behind us came the Hon. Samuel Budd. Just when the sun was slitting the
east with a long streak of fire, the Hon. Samuel was, with the jocund day,
standing tiptoe in his stirrups on the misty mountain top and peering into
the ravine down which we had slid the night before, and he grumbled no
little when he saw that he, too, must get off his horse and slide down.
The Hon. Samuel was ambitious, Southern, and a lawyer. Without saying, it
goes that he was also a politician. He was not a native of the mountains,
but he had cast his fortunes in the highlands, and he was taking the first
step that he hoped would, before many years, land him in the National
Capitol. He really knew little about the mountaineers, even now, and he
had never been among his constituents on Devil's Fork, where he was bound
now. The campaign had so far been full of humor and full of trials—not
the least of which sprang from the fact that it was sorghum time.
Everybody through the mountains was making sorghum, and every mountain
child was eating molasses.
</p>
<p>
Now, as the world knows, the straightest way to the heart of the honest
voter is through the women of the land, and the straightest way to the
heart of the women is through the children of the land; and one method of
winning both, with rural politicians, is to kiss the babies wide and far.
So as each infant, at sorghum time, has a circle of green-brown stickiness
about his chubby lips, and as the Hon. Sam was averse to “long sweetenin'”
even in his coffee, this particular political device just now was no small
trial to the Hon. Samuel Budd. But in the language of one of his firmest
supporters Uncle Tommie Hendricks:
</p>
<p>
“The Hon. Sam done his duty, and he done it damn well.”
</p>
<p>
The issue at stake was the site of the new Court-House—two
localities claiming the right undisputed, because they were the only two
places in the county where there was enough level land for the Court-House
to stand on. Let no man think this a trivial issue. There had been a
similar one over on the Virginia side once, and the opposing factions
agreed to decide the question by the ancient wager of battle, fist and
skull—two hundred men on each side—and the women of the county
with difficulty prevented the fight. Just now, Mr. Budd was on his way to
“The Pocket”—the voting place of one faction—where he had
never been, where the hostility against him was most bitter, and, that
day, he knew he was “up against” Waterloo, the crossing of the Rubicon,
holding the pass at Thermopylae, or any other historical crisis in the
history of man. I was saddling the mules when the cackling of geese in the
creek announced the coming of the Hon. Samuel Budd, coming with his chin
on his breast-deep in thought. Still his eyes beamed cheerily, he lifted
his slouched hat gallantly to the Blight and the little sister, and he
would wait for us to jog along with him. I told him of our troubles,
meanwhile. The Wild Dog had restored our mules and the Hon. Sam beamed:
</p>
<p>
“He's a wonder—where is he?”
</p>
<p>
“He never waited—even for thanks.”
</p>
<p>
Again the Hon. Sam beamed:
</p>
<p>
“Ah! just like him. He's gone ahead to help me.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, how did he happen to be here?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“He's everywhere,” said the Hon. Sam.
</p>
<p>
“How did he know the mules were ours?”
</p>
<p>
“Easy. That boy knows everything.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, why did he bring them back and then leave so mysteriously?”
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam silently pointed a finger at the laughing Blight ahead, and I
looked incredulous.
</p>
<p>
“Just the same, that's another reason I told you to warn Marston. He's
already got it in his head that Marston is his rival.”
</p>
<p>
“Pshaw!” I said—for it was too ridiculous.
</p>
<p>
“All right,” said the Hon. Sam placidly.
</p>
<p>
“Then why doesn't he want to see her?” “How do you know he ain't watchin'
her now, for all we know? Mark me,” he added, “you won't see him at the
speakin', but I'll bet fruit cake agin gingerbread he'll be somewhere
around.”
</p>
<p>
So we went on, the two girls leading the way and the Hon. Sam now telling
his political troubles to me. Half a mile down the road, a solitary
horseman stood waiting, and Mr. Budd gave a low whistle.
</p>
<p>
“One o' my rivals,” he said, from the corner of his mouth.
</p>
<p>
“Mornin',” said the horseman; “lemme see you a minute.”
</p>
<p>
He made a movement to draw aside, but the Hon. Samuel made a
counter-gesture of dissent.
</p>
<p>
“This gentleman is a friend of mine,” he said firmly, but with great
courtesy, “and he can hear what you have to say to me.”
</p>
<p>
The mountaineer rubbed one huge hand over his stubbly chin, threw one of
his long legs over the pommel of his saddle, and dangled a heavy cowhide
shoe to and fro.
</p>
<p>
“Would you mind tellin' me whut pay a member of the House of Legislatur'
gits a day?”
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam looked surprised.
</p>
<p>
“I think about two dollars and a half.”
</p>
<p>
“An' his meals?”
</p>
<p>
“No!” laughed Mr. Budd.
</p>
<p>
“Well, look-ee here, stranger. I'm a pore man an' I've got a mortgage on
my farm. That money don't mean nothin' to you—but if you'll draw out
now an' I win, I'll tell ye whut I'll do.” He paused as though to make
sure that the sacrifice was possible. “I'll just give ye half of that two
dollars and a half a day, as shore as you're a-settin' on that hoss, and
you won't hav' to hit a durn lick to earn it.”
</p>
<p>
I had not the heart to smile—nor did the Hon. Samuel—so
artless and simple was the man and so pathetic his appeal.
</p>
<p>
“You see—you'll divide my vote, an' ef we both run, ole Josh
Barton'll git it shore. Ef you git out o' the way, I can lick him easy.”
</p>
<p>
Mr. Budd's answer was kind, instructive, and uplifted.
</p>
<p>
“My friend,” said he, “I'm sorry, but I cannot possibly accede to your
request for the following reasons: First, it would not be fair to my
constituents; secondly, it would hardly be seeming to barter the noble
gift of the people to which we both aspire; thirdly, you might lose with
me out of the way; and fourthly, I'm going to win whether you are in the
way or not.”
</p>
<p>
The horseman slowly collapsed while the Hon. Samuel was talking, and now
he threw the leg back, kicked for his stirrup twice, spat once, and turned
his horse's head.
</p>
<p>
“I reckon you will, stranger,” he said sadly, “with that gift o' gab o'
yourn.” He turned without another word or nod of good-by and started back
up the creek whence he had come.
</p>
<p>
“One gone,” said the Hon. Samuel Budd grimly, “and I swear I'm right sorry
for him.” And so was I.
</p>
<p>
An hour later we struck the river, and another hour upstream brought us to
where the contest of tongues was to come about. No sylvan dell in Arcady
could have been lovelier than the spot. Above the road, a big spring
poured a clear little stream over shining pebbles into the river; above it
the bushes hung thick with autumn leaves, and above them stood yellow
beeches like pillars of pale fire. On both sides of the road sat and
squatted the honest voters, sour-looking, disgruntled—a distinctly
hostile crowd. The Blight and my little sister drew great and curious
attention as they sat on a bowlder above the spring while I went with the
Hon. Samuel Budd under the guidance of Uncle Tommie Hendricks, who
introduced him right and left. The Hon. Samuel was cheery, but he was
plainly nervous. There were two lanky youths whose names, oddly enough,
were Budd. As they gave him their huge paws in lifeless fashion, the Hon.
Samuel slapped one on the shoulder, with the true democracy of the
politician, and said jocosely:
</p>
<p>
“Well, we Budds may not be what you call great people, but, thank God,
none of us have ever been in the penitentiary,” and he laughed loudly,
thinking that he had scored a great and jolly point. The two young men
looked exceedingly grave and Uncle Tommie panic-stricken. He plucked the
Hon. Sam by the sleeve and led him aside:
</p>
<p>
“I reckon you made a leetle mistake thar. Them two fellers' daddy died in
the penitentiary last spring.” The Hon. Sam whistled mournfully, but he
looked game enough when his opponent rose to speak—Uncle Josh
Barton, who had short, thick, upright hair, little sharp eyes, and a
rasping voice. Uncle Josh wasted no time:
</p>
<p>
“Feller-citizens,” he shouted, “this man is a lawyer—he's a
corporation lawyer”; the fearful name—pronounced “lie-yer”—rang
through the crowd like a trumpet, and like lightning the Hon. Sam was on
his feet.
</p>
<p>
“The man who says that is a liar,” he said calmly, “and I demand your
authority for the statement. If you won't give it—I shall hold you
personally responsible, sir.”
</p>
<p>
It was a strike home, and under the flashing eyes that stared
unwaveringly, through the big goggles, Uncle Josh halted and stammered and
admitted that he might have been misinformed.
</p>
<p>
“Then I advise you to be more careful,” cautioned the Hon. Samuel sharply.
</p>
<p>
“Feller-citizens,” said Uncle Josh, “if he ain't a corporation lawyer—who
is this man? Where did he come from? I have been born and raised among
you. You all know me—do you know him? Whut's he a-doin' now? He's a
fine-haired furriner, an' he's come down hyeh from the settlemints to tell
ye that you hain't got no man in yo' own deestrict that's fittin' to
represent ye in the legislatur'. Look at him—look at him! He's got
FOUR eyes! Look at his hair—hit's PARTED IN THE MIDDLE!” There was a
storm of laughter—Uncle Josh had made good—and if the Hon.
Samuel could straightway have turned bald-headed and sightless, he would
have been a happy man. He looked sick with hopelessness, but Uncle Tommie
Hendricks, his mentor, was vigorously whispering something in his ear, and
gradually his face cleared. Indeed, the Hon. Samuel was smilingly
confident when he rose.
</p>
<p>
Like his rival, he stood in the open road, and the sun beat down on his
parted yellow hair, so that the eyes of all could see, and the laughter
was still running round.
</p>
<p>
“Who is your Uncle Josh?” he asked with threatening mildness. “I know I
was not born here, but, my friends, I couldn't help that. And just as soon
as I could get away from where I was born, I came here and,” he paused
with lips parted and long finger outstretched, “and—I—came—because—I
WANTED—to come—and NOT because I HAD TO.”
</p>
<p>
Now it seems that Uncle Josh, too, was not a native and that he had left
home early in life for his State's good and for his own. Uncle Tommie had
whispered this, and the Hon. Samuel raised himself high on both toes while
the expectant crowd, on the verge of a roar, waited—as did Uncle
Joshua, with a sickly smile.
</p>
<p>
“Why did your Uncle Josh come among you? Because he was hoop-poled away
from home.” Then came the roar—and the Hon. Samuel had to quell it
with uplifted hand.
</p>
<p>
“And did your Uncle Joshua marry a mountain wife? No I He didn't think any
of your mountain women were good enough for him, so he slips down into the
settlemints and STEALS one. And now, fellow-citizens, that is just what
I'm here for—I'm looking for a nice mountain girl, and I'm going to
have her.” Again the Hon. Samuel had to still the roar, and then he went
on quietly to show how they must lose the Court-House site if they did not
send him to the legislature, and how, while they might not get it if they
did send him, it was their only hope to send only him. The crowd had grown
somewhat hostile again, and it was after one telling period, when the Hon.
Samuel stopped to mop his brow, that a gigantic mountaineer rose in the
rear of the crowd:
</p>
<p>
“Talk on, stranger; you're talking sense. I'll trust ye. You've got big
ears!”
</p>
<p>
Now the Hon. Samuel possessed a primordial talent that is rather rare in
these physically degenerate days. He said nothing, but stood quietly in
the middle of the road. The eyes of the crowd on either side of the road
began to bulge, the lips of all opened with wonder, and a simultaneous
burst of laughter rose around the Hon. Samuel Budd. A dozen men sprang to
their feet and rushed up to him—looking at those remarkable ears, as
they gravely wagged to and fro. That settled things, and as we left, the
Hon. Sam was having things his own way, and on the edge of the crowd Uncle
Tommie Hendricks was shaking his head:
</p>
<p>
“I tell ye, boys, he ain't no jackass even if he can flop his ears.”
</p>
<p>
At the river we started upstream, and some impulse made me turn in my
saddle and look back. All the time I had had an eye open for the young
mountaineer whose interest in us seemed to be so keen. And now I saw,
standing at the head of a gray horse, on the edge of the crowd, a tall
figure with his hands on his hips and looking after us. I couldn't be
sure, but it looked like the Wild Dog.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
IV. CLOSE QUARTERS
</h2>
<p>
Two hours up the river we struck Buck. Buck was sitting on the fence by
the roadside, barefooted and hatless.
</p>
<p>
“How-dye-do?” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Purty well,” said Buck.
</p>
<p>
“Any fish in this river?”
</p>
<p>
“Several,” said Buck. Now in mountain speech, “several” means simply “a
good many.”
</p>
<p>
“Any minnows in these branches?”
</p>
<p>
“I seed several in the branch back o' our house.”
</p>
<p>
“How far away do you live?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, 'bout one whoop an' a holler.” If he had spoken Greek the Blight
could not have been more puzzled. He meant he lived as far as a man's
voice would carry with one yell and a holla.
</p>
<p>
“Will you help me catch some?” Buck nodded.
</p>
<p>
“All right,” I said, turning my horse up to the fence. “Get on behind.”
The horse shied his hind quarters away, and I pulled him back.
</p>
<p>
“Now, you can get on, if you'll be quick.” Buck sat still.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” he said imperturbably; “but I ain't quick.” The two girls laughed
aloud, and Buck looked surprised.
</p>
<p>
Around a curving cornfield we went, and through a meadow which Buck said
was a “nigh cut.” From the limb of a tree that we passed hung a piece of
wire with an iron ring swinging at its upturned end. A little farther was
another tree and another ring, and farther on another and another.
</p>
<p>
“For heaven's sake, Buck, what are these things?”
</p>
<p>
“Mart's a-gittin' ready fer a tourneyment.”
</p>
<p>
“A what?”
</p>
<p>
“That's whut Mart calls hit. He was over to the Gap last Fourth o' July,
an' he says fellers over thar fix up like Kuklux and go a-chargin' on
hosses and takin' off them rings with a ash-stick—'spear,' Mart
calls hit. He come back an' he says he's a-goin' to win that ar
tourneyment next Fourth o' July. He's got the best hoss up this river, and
on Sundays him an' Dave Branham goes a-chargin' along here a-picking off
these rings jus' a-flyin'; an' Mart can do hit, I'm tellin' ye. Dave's
mighty good hisself, but he ain't nowhar 'longside o' Mart.”
</p>
<p>
This was strange. I had told the Blight about our Fourth of July, and how
on the Virginia side the ancient custom of the tournament still survived.
It was on the last Fourth of July that she had meant to come to the Gap.
Truly civilization was spreading throughout the hills.
</p>
<p>
“Who's Mart?”
</p>
<p>
“Mart's my brother,” said little Buck.
</p>
<p>
“He was over to the Gap not long ago, an' he come back mad as hops—”
He stopped suddenly, and in such a way that I turned my head, knowing that
caution had caught Buck.
</p>
<p>
“What about?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, nothin',” said Buck carelessly; “only he's been quar ever since. My
sisters says he's got a gal over thar, an' he's a-pickin' off these rings
more'n ever now. He's going to win or bust a belly-band.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, who's Dave Branham?”
</p>
<p>
Buck grinned. “You jes axe my sister Mollie. Thar she is.”
</p>
<p>
Before us was a white-framed house of logs in the porch of which stood two
stalwart, good-looking girls. Could we stay all night? We could—there
was no hesitation—and straight in we rode.
</p>
<p>
“Where's your father?” Both girls giggled, and one said, with frank
unembarrassment:
</p>
<p>
“Pap's tight!” That did not look promising, but we had to stay just the
same. Buck helped me to unhitch the mules, helped me also to catch
minnows, and in half an hour we started down the river to try fishing
before dark came. Buck trotted along.
</p>
<p>
“Have you got a wagon, Buck?”
</p>
<p>
“What fer?”
</p>
<p>
“To bring the fish back.” Buck was not to be caught napping.
</p>
<p>
“We got that sled thar, but hit won't be big enough,” he said gravely.
“An' our two-hoss wagon's out in the cornfield. We'll have to string the
fish, leave 'em in the river and go fer 'em in the mornin'.”
</p>
<p>
“All right, Buck.” The Blight was greatly amused at Buck.
</p>
<p>
Two hundred yards down the road stood his sisters over the figure of a man
outstretched in the road. Unashamed, they smiled at us. The man in the
road was “pap”—tight—and they were trying to get him home.
</p>
<p>
We cast into a dark pool farther down and fished most patiently; not a
bite—not a nibble.
</p>
<p>
“Are there any fish in here, Buck?”
</p>
<p>
“Dunno—used ter be.” The shadows deepened; we must go back to the
house.
</p>
<p>
“Is there a dam below here, Buck?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, thar's a dam about a half-mile down the river.”
</p>
<p>
I was disgusted. No wonder there were no bass in that pool.
</p>
<p>
“Why didn't you tell me that before?”
</p>
<p>
“You never axed me,” said Buck placidly.
</p>
<p>
I began winding in my line.
</p>
<p>
“Ain't no bottom to that pool,” said Buck.
</p>
<p>
Now I never saw any rural community where there was not a bottomless pool,
and I suddenly determined to shake one tradition in at least one
community. So I took an extra fish-line, tied a stone to it, and climbed
into a canoe, Buck watching me, but not asking a word.
</p>
<p>
“Get in, Buck.”
</p>
<p>
Silently he got in and I pushed off—to the centre.
</p>
<p>
“This the deepest part, Buck?”
</p>
<p>
“I reckon so.”
</p>
<p>
I dropped in the stone and the line reeled out some fifty feet and began
to coil on the surface of the water.
</p>
<p>
“I guess that's on the bottom, isn't it, Buck?”
</p>
<p>
Buck looked genuinely distressed; but presently he brightened.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” he said, “ef hit ain't on a turtle's back.”
</p>
<p>
Literally I threw up both hands and back we trailed—fishless.
</p>
<p>
“Reckon you won't need that two-hoss wagon,” said Buck. “No, Buck, I think
not.” Buck looked at the Blight and gave himself the pleasure of his first
chuckle. A big crackling, cheerful fire awaited us. Through the door I
could see, outstretched on a bed in the next room, the limp figure of
“pap” in alcoholic sleep. The old mother, big, kind-faced, explained—and
there was a heaven of kindness and charity in her drawling voice.
</p>
<p>
“Dad didn' often git that a-way,” she said; “but he'd been out a-huntin'
hawgs that mornin' and had met up with some teamsters and gone to a
political speakin' and had tuk a dram or two of their mean whiskey, and
not havin' nothin' on his stummick, hit had all gone to his head. No,
'pap' didn't git that a-way often, and he'd be all right jes' as soon as
he slept it off a while.” The old woman moved about with a cane and the
sympathetic Blight merely looked a question at her.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, she'd fell down a year ago—and had sort o' hurt herself—didn't
do nothin', though, 'cept break one hip,” she added, in her kind, patient
old voice. Did many people stop there? Oh, yes, sometimes fifteen at a
time—they “never turned nobody away.” And she had a big family,
little Cindy and the two big girls and Buck and Mart—who was out
somewhere—and the hired man, and yes—“Thar was another boy,
but he was fitified,” said one of the big sisters.
</p>
<p>
“I beg your pardon,” said the wondering Blight, but she knew that phrase
wouldn't do, so she added politely:
</p>
<p>
“What did you say?”
</p>
<p>
“Fitified—Tom has fits. He's in a asylum in the settlements.”
</p>
<p>
“Tom come back once an' he was all right,” said the old mother; “but he
worried so much over them gals workin' so hard that it plum' throwed him
off ag'in, and we had to send him back.”
</p>
<p>
“Do you work pretty hard?” I asked presently. Then a story came that was
full of unconscious pathos, because there was no hint of complaint—simply
a plain statement of daily life. They got up before the men, in order to
get breakfast ready; then they went with the men into the fields—those
two girls—and worked like men. At dark they got supper ready, and
after the men went to bed they worked on—washing dishes and clearing
up the kitchen. They took it turn about getting supper, and sometimes, one
said, she was “so plumb tuckered out that she'd drap on the bed and go to
sleep ruther than eat her own supper.” No wonder poor Tom had to go back
to the asylum. All the while the two girls stood by the fire looking,
politely but minutely, at the two strange girls and their curious clothes
and their boots, and the way they dressed their hair. Their hard life
seemed to have hurt them none—for both were the pictures of health—whatever
that phrase means.
</p>
<p>
After supper “pap” came in, perfectly sober, with a big ruddy face, giant
frame, and twinkling gray eyes. He was the man who had risen to speak his
faith in the Hon. Samuel Budd that day on the size of the Hon. Samuel's
ears. He, too, was unashamed and, as he explained his plight again, he did
it with little apology.
</p>
<p>
“I seed ye at the speakin' to-day. That man Budd is a good man. He done
somethin' fer a boy o' mine over at the Gap.” Like little Buck, he, too,
stopped short. “He's a good man an' I'm a-goin' to help him.”
</p>
<p>
Yes, he repeated, quite irrelevantly, it was hunting hogs all day with
nothing to eat and only mean whiskey to drink. Mart had not come in yet—he
was “workin' out” now.
</p>
<p>
“He's the best worker in these mountains,” said the old woman; “Mart works
too hard.”
</p>
<p>
The hired man appeared and joined us at the fire. Bedtime came, and I
whispered jokingly to the Blight:
</p>
<p>
“I believe I'll ask that good-looking one to 'set up' with me.” “Settin'
up” is what courting is called in the hills. The couple sit up in front of
the fire after everybody else has gone to bed. The man puts his arm around
the girl's neck and whispers; then she puts her arm around his neck and
whispers—so that the rest may not hear. This I had related to the
Blight, and now she withered me.
</p>
<p>
“You just do, now!”
</p>
<p>
I turned to the girl in question, whose name was Mollie. “Buck told me to
ask you who Dave Branham was.” Mollie wheeled, blushing and angry, but
Buck had darted cackling out the door. “Oh,” I said, and I changed the
subject. “What time do you get up?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, 'bout crack o' day.” I was tired, and that was discouraging.
</p>
<p>
“Do you get up that early every morning?”
</p>
<p>
“No,” was the quick answer; “a mornin' later.”
</p>
<p>
A morning later, Mollie got up, each morning. The Blight laughed.
</p>
<p>
Pretty soon the two girls were taken into the next room, which was a long
one, with one bed in one dark corner, one in the other, and a third bed in
the middle. The feminine members of the family all followed them out on
the porch and watched them brush their teeth, for they had never seen
tooth-brushes before. They watched them prepare for bed—and I could
hear much giggling and comment and many questions, all of which
culminated, by and by, in a chorus of shrieking laughter. That climax, as
I learned next morning, was over the Blight's hot-water bag. Never had
their eyes rested on an article of more wonder and humor than that water
bag.
</p>
<p>
By and by, the feminine members came back and we sat around the fire.
Still Mart did not appear, though somebody stepped into the kitchen, and
from the warning glance that Mollie gave Buck when she left the room I
guessed that the newcomer was her lover Dave. Pretty soon the old man
yawned.
</p>
<p>
“Well, mammy, I reckon this stranger's about ready to lay down, if you've
got a place fer him.”
</p>
<p>
“Git a light, Buck,” said the old woman. Buck got a light—a
chimneyless, smoking oil-lamp—and led me into the same room where
the Blight and my little sister were. Their heads were covered up, but the
bed in the gloom of one corner was shaking with their smothered laughter.
Buck pointed to the middle bed.
</p>
<p>
“I can get along without that light, Buck,” I said, and I must have been
rather haughty and abrupt, for a stifled shriek came from under the
bedclothes in the corner and Buck disappeared swiftly. Preparations for
bed are simple in the mountains—they were primitively simple for me
that night. Being in knickerbockers, I merely took off my coat and shoes.
Presently somebody else stepped into the room and the bed in the other
corner creaked. Silence for a while. Then the door opened, and the head of
the old woman was thrust in.
</p>
<p>
“Mart!” she said coaxingly; “git up thar now an' climb over inter bed with
that ar stranger.”
</p>
<p>
That was Mart at last, over in the corner. Mart turned, grumbled, and, to
my great pleasure, swore that he wouldn't. The old woman waited a moment.
</p>
<p>
“Mart,” she said again with gentle imperiousness, “git up thar now, I tell
ye—you've got to sleep with that thar stranger.”
</p>
<p>
She closed the door and with a snort Mart piled into bed with me. I gave
him plenty of room and did not introduce myself. A little more dark
silence—the shaking of the bed under the hilarity of those
astonished, bethrilled, but thoroughly unfrightened young women in the
dark corner on my left ceased, and again the door opened. This time it was
the hired man, and I saw that the trouble was either that neither Mart nor
Buck wanted to sleep with the hired man or that neither wanted to sleep
with me. A long silence and then the boy Buck slipped in. The hired man
delivered himself with the intonation somewhat of a circuit rider.
</p>
<p>
“I've been a-watchin' that star thar, through the winder. Sometimes hit
moves, then hit stands plum' still, an' ag'in hit gits to pitchin'.” The
hired man must have been touching up mean whiskey himself. Meanwhile, Mart
seemed to be having spells of troubled slumber. He would snore gently,
accentuate said snore with a sudden quiver of his body and then wake up
with a climacteric snort and start that would shake the bed. This was
repeated several times, and I began to think of the unfortunate Tom who
was “fitified.” Mart seemed on the verge of a fit himself, and I waited
apprehensively for each snorting climax to see if fits were a family
failing. They were not. Peace overcame Mart and he slept deeply, but not
I. The hired man began to show symptoms. He would roll and groan, dreaming
of feuds, <i>quorum pars magna fuit</i>, it seemed, and of religious
conversion, in which he feared he was not so great. Twice he said aloud:
</p>
<p>
“An' I tell you thar wouldn't a one of 'em have said a word if I'd been
killed stone-dead.” Twice he said it almost weepingly, and now and then he
would groan appealingly:
</p>
<p>
“O Lawd, have mercy on my pore soul!”
</p>
<p>
Fortunately those two tired girls slept—I could hear their breathing—but
sleep there was little for me. Once the troubled soul with the hoe got up
and stumbled out to the water-bucket on the porch to soothe the fever or
whatever it was that was burning him, and after that he was quiet. I awoke
before day. The dim light at the window showed an empty bed—Buck and
the hired man were gone. Mart was slipping out of the side of my bed, but
the girls still slept on. I watched Mart, for I guessed I might now see
what, perhaps, is the distinguishing trait of American civilization down
to its bed-rock, as you find it through the West and in the Southern hills—a
chivalrous respect for women. Mart thought I was asleep. Over in the
corner were two creatures the like of which I supposed he had never seen
and would not see, since he came in too late the night before, and was
going away too early now—and two angels straight from heaven could
not have stirred my curiosity any more than they already must have stirred
his. But not once did Mart turn his eyes, much less his face, toward the
corner where they were—not once, for I watched him closely. And when
he went out he sent his little sister back for his shoes, which the
night-walking hired man had accidentally kicked toward the foot of the
strangers' bed. In a minute I was out after him, but he was gone. Behind
me the two girls opened their eyes on a room that was empty save for them.
Then the Blight spoke (this I was told later).
</p>
<p>
“Dear,” she said, “have our room-mates gone?”
</p>
<p>
Breakfast at dawn. The mountain girls were ready to go to work. All looked
sorry to have us leave. They asked us to come back again, and they meant
it. We said we would like to come back—and we meant it—to see
them—the kind old mother, the pioneer-like old man, sturdy little
Buck, shy little Cindy, the elusive, hard-working, unconsciously shivery
Mart, and the two big sisters. As we started back up the river the sisters
started for the fields, and I thought of their stricken brother in the
settlements, who must have been much like Mart.
</p>
<p>
Back up the Big Black Mountain we toiled, and late in the afternoon we
were on the State line that runs the crest of the Big Black. Right on top
and bisected by that State line sat a dingy little shack, and there, with
one leg thrown over the pommel of his saddle, sat Marston, drinking water
from a gourd.
</p>
<p>
“I was coming over to meet you,” he said, smiling at the Blight, who,
greatly pleased, smiled back at him. The shack was a “blind Tiger” where
whiskey could be sold to Kentuckians on the Virginia side and to
Virginians on the Kentucky side. Hanging around were the slouching figures
of several moonshiners and the villainous fellow who ran it.
</p>
<p>
“They are real ones all right,” said Marston. “One of them killed a
revenue officer at that front door last week, and was killed by the posse
as he was trying to escape out of the back window. That house will be in
ashes soon,” he added. And it was.
</p>
<p>
As we rode down the mountain we told him about our trip and the people
with whom we had spent the night—and all the time he was smiling
curiously.
</p>
<p>
“Buck,” he said. “Oh, yes, I know that little chap. Mart had him posted
down there on the river to toll you to his house—to toll YOU,” he
added to the Blight. He pulled in his horse suddenly, turned and looked up
toward the top of the mountain.
</p>
<p>
“Ah, I thought so.” We all looked back. On the edge of the cliff, far
upward, on which the “blind Tiger” sat was a gray horse, and on it was a
man who, motionless, was looking down at us.
</p>
<p>
“He's been following you all the way,” said the engineer.
</p>
<p>
“Who's been following us?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“That's Mart up there—my friend and yours,” said Marston to the
Blight. “I'm rather glad I didn't meet you on the other side of the
mountain—that's 'the Wild Dog.'” The Blight looked incredulous, but
Marston knew the man and knew the horse.
</p>
<p>
So Mart—hard-working Mart—was the Wild Dog, and he was content
to do the Blight all service without thanks, merely for the privilege of
secretly seeing her face now and then; and yet he would not look upon that
face when she was a guest under his roof and asleep.
</p>
<p>
Still, when we dropped behind the two girls I gave Marston the Hon. Sam's
warning, and for a moment he looked rather grave.
</p>
<p>
“Well,” he said, smiling, “if I'm found in the road some day, you'll know
who did it.”
</p>
<p>
I shook my head. “Oh, no; he isn't that bad.”
</p>
<p>
“I don't know,” said Marston.
</p>
<p>
The smoke of the young engineer's coke ovens lay far below us and the
Blight had never seen a coke-plant before. It looked like Hades even in
the early dusk—the snake-like coil of fiery ovens stretching up the
long, deep ravine, and the smoke-streaked clouds of fire, trailing like a
yellow mist over them, with a fierce white blast shooting up here and
there when the lid of an oven was raised, as though to add fresh
temperature to some particular male-factor in some particular chamber of
torment. Humanity about was joyous, however. Laughter and banter and song
came from the cabins that lined the big ravine and the little ravines
opening into it. A banjo tinkled at the entrance of “Possum Trot,” sacred
to the darkies. We moved toward it. On the stoop sat an ecstatic picker
and in the dust shuffled three pickaninnies—one boy and two girls—the
youngest not five years old. The crowd that was gathered about them gave
way respectfully as we drew near; the little darkies showed their white
teeth in jolly grins, and their feet shook the dust in happy competition.
I showered a few coins for the Blight and on we went—into the mouth
of the many-peaked Gap. The night train was coming in and everybody had a
smile of welcome for the Blight—post-office assistant, drug clerk,
soda-water boy, telegraph operator, hostler, who came for the mules—and
when tired, but happy, she slipped from her saddle to the ground, she then
and there gave me what she usually reserves for Christmas morning, and
that, too, while Marston was looking on. Over her shoulder I smiled at
him.
</p>
<p>
That night Marston and the Blight sat under the vines on the porch until
the late moon rose over Wallens Ridge, and, when bedtime came, the Blight
said impatiently that she did not want to go home. She had to go, however,
next day, but on the next Fourth of July she would surely come again; and,
as the young engineer mounted his horse and set his face toward Black
Mountain, I knew that until that day, for him, a blight would still be in
the hills.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
V. BACK TO THE HILLS
</h2>
<p>
Winter drew a gray veil over the mountains, wove into it tiny jewels of
frost and turned it many times into a mask of snow, before spring broke
again among them and in Marston's impatient heart. No spring had ever been
like that to him. The coming of young leaves and flowers and bird-song
meant but one joy for the hills to him—the Blight was coming back to
them. All those weary waiting months he had clung grimly to his work. He
must have heard from her sometimes, else I think he would have gone to
her; but I knew the Blight's pen was reluctant and casual for anybody,
and, moreover, she was having a strenuous winter at home. That he knew as
well, for he took one paper, at least, that he might simply read her name.
He saw accounts of her many social doings as well, and ate his heart out
as lovers have done for all time gone and will do for all time to come.
</p>
<p>
I, too, was away all winter, but I got back a month before the Blight, to
learn much of interest that had come about. The Hon. Samuel Budd had
ear-wagged himself into the legislature, had moved that Court-House, and
was going to be State Senator. The Wild Dog had confined his reckless
career to his own hills through the winter, but when spring came,
migratory-like, he began to take frequent wing to the Gap. So far, he and
Marston had never come into personal conflict, though Marston kept ever
ready for him, and several times they had met in the road, eyed each other
in passing and made no hipward gesture at all. But then Marston had never
met him when the Wild Dog was drunk—and when sober, I took it that
the one act of kindness from the engineer always stayed his hand. But the
Police Guard at the Gap saw him quite often—and to it he was a
fearful and elusive nuisance. He seemed to be staying somewhere within a
radius of ten miles, for every night or two he would circle about the
town, yelling and firing his pistol, and when we chased him, escaping
through the Gap or up the valley or down in Lee. Many plans were laid to
catch him, but all failed, and finally he came in one day and gave himself
up and paid his fines. Afterward I recalled that the time of this gracious
surrender to law and order was but little subsequent to one morning when a
woman who brought butter and eggs to my little sister casually asked when
that “purty slim little gal with the snappin' black eyes was a-comin'
back.” And the little sister, pleased with the remembrance, had said
cordially that she was coming soon.
</p>
<p>
Thereafter the Wild Dog was in town every day, and he behaved well until
one Saturday he got drunk again, and this time, by a peculiar chance, it
was Marston again who leaped on him, wrenched his pistol away, and put him
in the calaboose. Again he paid his fine, promptly visited a “blind
Tiger,” came back to town, emptied another pistol at Marston on sight and
fled for the hills.
</p>
<p>
The enraged guard chased him for two days and from that day the Wild Dog
was a marked man. The Guard wanted many men, but if they could have had
their choice they would have picked out of the world of malefactors that
same Wild Dog.
</p>
<p>
Why all this should have thrown the Hon. Samuel Budd into such gloom I
could not understand—except that the Wild Dog had been so loyal a
henchman to him in politics, but later I learned a better reason, that
threatened to cost the Hon. Sam much more than the fines that, as I later
learned, he had been paying for his mountain friend.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, the Blight was coming from her Northern home through the green
lowlands of Jersey, the fat pastures of Maryland, and, as the white
dresses of schoolgirls and the shining faces of darkies thickened at the
stations, she knew that she was getting southward. All the way she was
known and welcomed, and next morning she awoke with the keen air of the
distant mountains in her nostrils and an expectant light in her happy
eyes. At least the light was there when she stepped daintily from the
dusty train and it leaped a little, I fancied, when Marston, bronzed and
flushed, held out his sunburnt hand. Like a convent girl she babbled
questions to the little sister as the dummy puffed along and she bubbled
like wine over the midsummer glory of the hills. And well she might, for
the glory of the mountains, full-leafed, shrouded in evening shadows,
blue-veiled in the distance, was unspeakable, and through the Gap the sun
was sending his last rays as though he, too, meant to take a peep at her
before he started around the world to welcome her next day. And she must
know everything at once. The anniversary of the Great Day on which all men
were pronounced free and equal was only ten days distant and preparations
were going on. There would be a big crowd of mountaineers and there would
be sports of all kinds, and games, but the tournament was to be the
feature of the day.
</p>
<p>
“A tournament?” “Yes, a tournament,” repeated the little sister, and
Marston was going to ride and the mean thing would not tell what mediaeval
name he meant to take. And the Hon. Sam Budd—did the Blight remember
him? (Indeed, she did)—had a “dark horse,” and he had bet heavily
that his dark horse would win the tournament—whereat the little
sister looked at Marston and at the Blight and smiled disdainfully. And
the Wild Dog—DID she remember him? I checked the sister here with a
glance, for Marston looked uncomfortable and the Blight saw me do it, and
on the point of saying something she checked herself, and her face, I
thought, paled a little.
</p>
<p>
That night I learned why—when she came in from the porch after
Marston was gone. I saw she had wormed enough of the story out of him to
worry her, for her face this time was distinctly pale. I would tell her no
more than she knew, however, and then she said she was sure she had seen
the Wild Dog herself that afternoon, sitting on his horse in the bushes
near a station in Wildcat Valley. She was sure that he saw her, and his
face had frightened her. I knew her fright was for Marston and not for
herself, so I laughed at her fears. She was mistaken—Wild Dog was an
outlaw now and he would not dare appear at the Gap, and there was no
chance that he could harm her or Marston. And yet I was uneasy.
</p>
<p>
It must have been a happy ten days for those two young people. Every
afternoon Marston would come in from the mines and they would go off
horseback together, over ground that I well knew—for I had been all
over it myself—up through the gray-peaked rhododendron-bordered Gap
with the swirling water below them and the gray rock high above where
another such foolish lover lost his life, climbing to get a flower for his
sweetheart, or down the winding dirt road into Lee, or up through the
beech woods behind Imboden Hill, or climbing the spur of Morris's Farm to
watch the sunset over the majestic Big Black Mountains, where the Wild Dog
lived, and back through the fragrant, cool, moonlit woods. He was doing
his best, Marston was, and he was having trouble—as every man
should. And that trouble I knew even better than he, for I had once known
a Southern girl who was so tender of heart that she could refuse no man
who really loved her she accepted him and sent him to her father, who did
all of her refusing for her. And I knew no man would know that he had won
the Blight until he had her at the altar and the priestly hand of
benediction was above her head.
</p>
<p>
Of such kind was the Blight. Every night when they came in I could read
the story of the day, always in his face and sometimes in hers; and it was
a series of ups and downs that must have wrung the boy's heart bloodless.
Still I was in good hope for him, until the crisis came on the night
before the Fourth. The quarrel was as plain as though typewritten on the
face of each. Marston would not come in that night and the Blight went
dinnerless to bed and cried herself to sleep. She told the little sister
that she had seen the Wild Dog again peering through the bushes, and that
she was frightened. That was her explanation—but I guessed a better
one.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
VI. THE GREAT DAY
</h2>
<p>
It was a day to make glad the heart of slave or freeman. The earth was
cool from a night-long rain, and a gentle breeze fanned coolness from the
north all day long. The clouds were snow-white, tumbling, ever-moving, and
between them the sky showed blue and deep. Grass, leaf, weed and flower
were in the richness that comes to the green things of the earth just
before that full tide of summer whose foam is drifting thistle down. The
air was clear and the mountains seemed to have brushed the haze from their
faces and drawn nearer that they, too, might better see the doings of that
day.
</p>
<p>
From the four winds of heaven, that morning, came the brave and the free.
Up from Lee, down from Little Stone Gap, and from over in Scott, came the
valley-farmers—horseback, in buggies, hacks, two-horse wagons, with
wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, in white dresses, flowered hats, and
many ribbons, and with dinner-baskets stuffed with good things to eat—old
ham, young chicken, angel-cake and blackberry wine—to be spread in
the sunless shade of great poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow and Wildcat
Valley and from up the slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck came smaller
tillers of the soil—as yet but faintly marked by the gewgaw
trappings of the outer world; while from beyond High Knob, whose crown is
in cloud-land, and through the Gap, came the mountaineer in the primitive
simplicity of home spun and cowhide, wide-brimmed hat and poke-bonnet,
quaint speech, and slouching gait. Through the Gap he came in two streams—the
Virginians from Crab Orchard and Wise and Dickinson, the Kentuckians from
Letcher and feudal Harlan, beyond the Big Black—and not a man
carried a weapon in sight, for the stern spirit of that Police Guard at
the Gap was respected wide and far. Into the town, which sits on a plateau
some twenty feet above the level of the two rivers that all but encircle
it, they poured, hitching their horses in the strip of woods that runs
through the heart of the place, and broad ens into a primeval park that,
fan-like, opens on the oval level field where all things happen on the
Fourth of July. About the street they loitered—lovers hand in hand—eating
fruit and candy and drinking soda-water, or sat on the curb-stone, mothers
with babies at their breasts and toddling children clinging close—all
waiting for the celebration to begin.
</p>
<p>
It was a great day for the Hon. Samuel Budd. With a cheery smile and
beaming goggles, he moved among his constituents, joking with yokels,
saying nice things to mothers, paying gallantries to girls, and chucking
babies under the chin. He felt popular and he was—so popular that he
had begun to see himself with prophetic eye in a congressional seat at no
distant day; and yet, withal, he was not wholly happy.
</p>
<p>
“Do you know,” he said, “them fellers I made bets with in the tournament
got together this morning and decided, all of 'em, that they wouldn't let
me off? Jerusalem, it's most five hundred dollars!” And, looking the
picture of dismay, he told me his dilemma. It seems that his “dark horse”
was none other than the Wild Dog, who had been practising at home for this
tournament for nearly a year; and now that the Wild Dog was an outlaw, he,
of course, wouldn't and couldn't come to the Gap. And said the Hon. Sam
Budd:
</p>
<p>
“Them fellers says I bet I'd BRING IN a dark horse who would win this
tournament, and if I don't BRING him in, I lose just the same as though I
had brought him in and he hadn't won. An' I reckon they've got me.”
</p>
<p>
“I guess they have.”
</p>
<p>
“It would have been like pickin' money off a blackberry-bush, for I was
goin' to let the Wild Dog have that black horse o' mine—the
steadiest and fastest runner in this country—and my, how that fellow
can pick off the rings! He's been a-practising for a year, and I believe
he could run the point o' that spear of his through a lady's finger-ring.”
</p>
<p>
“You'd better get somebody else.”
</p>
<p>
“Ah—that's it. The Wild Dog sent word he'd send over another feller,
named Dave Branham, who has been practising with him, who's just as good,
he says, as he is. I'm looking for him at twelve o'clock, an' I'm goin' to
take him down an' see what he can do on that black horse o' mine. But if
he's no good, I lose five hundred, all right,” and he sloped away to his
duties. For it was the Hon. Sam who was master of ceremonies that day. He
was due now to read the Declaration of Independence in a poplar grove to
all who would listen; he was to act as umpire at the championship
base-ball game in the afternoon, and he was to give the “Charge” to the
assembled knights before the tournament.
</p>
<p>
At ten o'clock the games began—and I took the Blight and the little
sister down to the “grandstand”—several tiers of backless benches
with leaves for a canopy and the river singing through rhododendrons
behind. There was jumping broad and high, and a 100-yard dash and hurdling
and throwing the hammer, which the Blight said were not interesting—they
were too much like college sports—and she wanted to see the
base-ball game and the tournament. And yet Marston was in them all—dogged
and resistless—his teeth set and his eyes anywhere but lifted toward
the Blight, who secretly proud, as I believed, but openly defiant,
mentioned not his name even when he lost, which was twice only.
</p>
<p>
“Pretty good, isn't he?” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Who?” she said indifferently.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, nobody,” I said, turning to smile, but not turning quickly enough.
</p>
<p>
“What's the matter with you?” asked the Blight sharply.
</p>
<p>
“Nothing, nothing at all,” I said, and straightway the Blight thought she
wanted to go home. The thunder of the Declaration was still rumbling in
the poplar grove.
</p>
<p>
“That's the Hon. Sam Budd,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Don't you want to hear him?”
</p>
<p>
“I don't care who it is and I don't want to hear him and I think you are
hateful.”
</p>
<p>
Ah, dear me, it was more serious than I thought. There were tears in her
eyes, and I led the Blight and the little sister home—conscience-stricken
and humbled. Still I would find that young jackanapes of an engineer and
let him know that anybody who made the Blight unhappy must deal with me. I
would take him by the neck and pound some sense into him. I found him
lofty, uncommunicative, perfectly alien to any consciousness that I could
have any knowledge of what was going or any right to poke my nose into
anybody's business—and I did nothing except go back to lunch—to
find the Blight upstairs and the little sister indignant with me.
</p>
<p>
“You just let them alone,” she said severely.
</p>
<p>
“Let who alone?” I said, lapsing into the speech of childhood.
</p>
<p>
“You—just—let—them—alone,” she repeated.
</p>
<p>
“I've already made up my mind to that.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, then!” she said, with an air of satisfaction, but why I don't know.
</p>
<p>
I went back to the poplar grove. The Declaration was over and the crowd
was gone, but there was the Hon. Samuel Budd, mopping his brow with one
hand, slapping his thigh with the other, and all but executing a
pigeon-wing on the turf. He turned goggles on me that literally shone
triumph.
</p>
<p>
“He's come—Dave Branham's come!” he said. “He's better than the Wild
Dog. I've been trying him on the black horse and, Lord, how he can take
them rings off! Ha, won't I get into them fellows who wouldn't let me off
this morning! Oh, yes, I agreed to bring in a dark horse, and I'll bring
him in all right. That five hundred is in my clothes now. You see that
point yonder? Well, there's a hollow there and bushes all around. That's
where I'm going to dress him. I've got his clothes all right and a name
for him. This thing is a-goin' to come off accordin' to Hoyle, Ivanhoe,
Four-Quarters-of-Beef, and all them mediaeval fellows. Just watch me!”
</p>
<p>
I began to get newly interested, for that knight's name I suddenly
recalled. Little Buck, the Wild Dog's brother, had mentioned him, when we
were over in the Kentucky hills, as practising with the Wild Dog—as
being “mighty good, but nowhar 'longside o' Mart.” So the Hon. Sam might
have a good substitute, after all, and being a devoted disciple of Sir
Walter, I knew his knight would rival, in splendor, at least, any that
rode with King Arthur in days of old.
</p>
<p>
The Blight was very quiet at lunch, as was the little sister, and my
effort to be jocose was a lamentable failure. So I gave news.
</p>
<p>
“The Hon. Sam has a substitute.” No curiosity and no question.
</p>
<p>
“Who—did you say? Why, Dave Branham, a friend of the Wild Dog. Don't
you remember Buck telling us about him?” No answer. “Well, I do—and,
by the way, I saw Buck and one of the big sisters just a while ago. Her
name is Mollie. Dave Branham, you will recall, is her sweetheart. The
other big sister had to stay at home with her mother and little Cindy,
who's sick. Of course, I didn't ask them about Mart—the Wild Dog.
They knew I knew and they wouldn't have liked it. The Wild Dog's around, I
understand, but he won't dare show his face. Every policeman in town is on
the lookout for him.” I thought the Blight's face showed a signal of
relief.
</p>
<p>
“I'm going to play short-stop,” I added.
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” said the Blight, with a smile, but the little sister said with some
scorn:
</p>
<p>
“You!”
</p>
<p>
“I'll show you,” I said, and I told the Blight about base-ball at the Gap.
We had introduced base-ball into the region and the valley boys and
mountain boys, being swift runners, throwing like a rifle shot from
constant practice with stones, and being hard as nails, caught the game
quickly and with great ease. We beat them all the time at first, but now
they were beginning to beat us. We had a league now, and this was the
championship game for the pennant.
</p>
<p>
“It was right funny the first time we beat a native team. Of course, we
got together and cheered 'em. They thought we were cheering ourselves, so
they got red in the face, rushed together and whooped it up for themselves
for about half an hour.”
</p>
<p>
The Blight almost laughed.
</p>
<p>
“We used to have to carry our guns around with us at first when we went to
other places, and we came near having several fights.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” said the Blight excitedly. “Do you think there might be a fight this
afternoon?”
</p>
<p>
“Don't know,” I said, shaking my head. “It's pretty hard for eighteen
people to fight when nine of them are policemen and there are forty more
around. Still the crowd might take a hand.”
</p>
<p>
This, I saw, quite thrilled the Blight and she was in good spirits when we
started out.
</p>
<p>
“Marston doesn't pitch this afternoon,” I said to the little sister. “He
plays first base. He's saving himself for the tournament. He's done too
much already.” The Blight merely turned her head while I was speaking.
“And the Hon. Sam will not act as umpire. He wants to save his voice—and
his head.”
</p>
<p>
The seats in the “grandstand” were in the sun now, so I left the girls in
a deserted band-stand that stood on stilts under trees on the southern
side of the field, and on a line midway between third base and the
position of short-stop. Now there is no enthusiasm in any sport that
equals the excitement aroused by a rural base-ball game and I never saw
the enthusiasm of that game outdone except by the excitement of the
tournament that followed that afternoon. The game was close and Marston
and I assuredly were stars—Marston one of the first magnitude.
“Goose-egg” on one side matched “goose-egg” on the other until the end of
the fifth inning, when the engineer knocked a home-run. Spectators threw
their hats into the trees, yelled themselves hoarse, and I saw several old
mountaineers who understood no more of base-ball than of the lost <i>digamma</i>
in Greek going wild with the general contagion. During these innings I had
“assisted” in two doubles and had fired in three “daisy cutters” to first
myself in spite of the guying I got from the opposing rooters.
</p>
<p>
“Four-eyes” they called me on account of my spectacles until a new
nickname came at the last half of the ninth inning, when we were in the
field with the score four to three in our favor. It was then that a small,
fat boy with a paper megaphone longer than he was waddled out almost to
first base and levelling his trumpet at me, thundered out in a sudden
silence:
</p>
<p>
“Hello, Foxy Grandpa!” That was too much. I got rattled, and when there
were three men on bases and two out, a swift grounder came to me, I fell—catching
it—and threw wildly to first from my knees. I heard shouts of
horror, anger, and distress from everywhere and my own heart stopped
beating—I had lost the game—and then Marston leaped in the air—surely
it must have been four feet—caught the ball with his left hand and
dropped back on the bag. The sound of his foot on it and the runner's was
almost simultaneous, but the umpire said Marston's was there first. Then
bedlam! One of my brothers was umpire and the captain of the other team
walked threateningly out toward him, followed by two of his men with
base-ball bats. As I started off myself towards them I saw, with the
corner of my eye, another brother of mine start in a run from the left
field, and I wondered why a third, who was scoring, sat perfectly still in
his chair, particularly as a well-known, red-headed tough from one of the
mines who had been officiously antagonistic ran toward the pitcher's box
directly in front of him. Instantly a dozen of the guard sprang toward it,
some man pulled his pistol, a billy cracked straightway on his head, and
in a few minutes order was restored. And still the brother scoring hadn't
moved from his chair, and I spoke to him hotly.
</p>
<p>
“Keep your shirt on,” he said easily, lifting his score-card with his left
hand and showing his right clinched about his pistol under it.
</p>
<p>
“I was just waiting for that red-head to make a move. I guess I'd have got
him first.”
</p>
<p>
I walked back to the Blight and the little sister and both of them looked
very serious and frightened.
</p>
<p>
“I don't think I want to see a real fight, after all,” said the Blight.
“Not this afternoon.”
</p>
<p>
It was a little singular and prophetic, but just as the words left her
lips one of the Police Guard handed me a piece of paper.
</p>
<p>
“Somebody in the crowd must have dropped it in my pocket,” he said. On the
paper were scrawled these words:
</p>
<p>
“<i>Look out for the Wild Dog!</i>”
</p>
<p>
I sent the paper to Marston.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
VII. AT LAST—THE TOURNAMENT
</h2>
<p>
At last—the tournament! Ever afterward the Hon. Samuel Budd called
it “The Gentle and Joyous Passage of Arms—not of Ashby—but of
the Gap, by-suh!” The Hon. Samuel had arranged it as nearly after Sir
Walter as possible. And a sudden leap it was from the most modern of games
to a game most ancient.
</p>
<p>
No knights of old ever jousted on a lovelier field than the green little
valley toward which the Hon. Sam waved one big hand. It was level, shorn
of weeds, elliptical in shape, and bound in by trees that ran in a
semicircle around the bank of the river, shut in the southern border, and
ran back to the northern extremity in a primeval little forest that
wood-thrushes, even then, were making musical—all of it shut in by a
wall of living green, save for one narrow space through which the knights
were to enter. In front waved Wallens' leafy ridge and behind rose the
Cumberland Range shouldering itself spur by spur, into the coming sunset
and crashing eastward into the mighty bulk of Powell's Mountain, which
loomed southward from the head of the valley—all nodding sunny
plumes of chestnut.
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam had seen us coming from afar apparently, had come forward to
meet us, and he was in high spirits.
</p>
<p>
“I am Prince John and Waldemar and all the rest of 'em this day,” he said,
“and 'it is thus,'” quoting Sir Walter, “that we set the dutiful example
of loyalty to the Queen of Love and Beauty, and are ourselves her guide to
the throne which she must this day occupy.” And so saying, the Hon. Sam
marshalled the Blight to a seat of honor next his own.
</p>
<p>
“And how do you know she is going to be the Queen of Love and Beauty?”
asked the little sister. The Hon. Sam winked at me.
</p>
<p>
“Well, this tournament lies between two gallant knights. One will make her
the Queen of his own accord, if he wins, and if the other wins, he's got
to, or I'll break his head. I've given orders.” And the Hon. Sam looked
about right and left on the people who were his that day.
</p>
<p>
“Observe the nobles and ladies,” he said, still following Sir Walter, and
waving at the towns-people and visitors in the rude grandstand. “Observe
the yeomanry and spectators of a better degree than the mere vulgar”—waving
at the crowd on either side of the stand—“and the promiscuous
multitude down the river banks and over the woods and clinging to the
tree-tops and to yon telegraph-pole. And there is my herald”—pointing
to the cornetist of the local band—“and wait—by my halidom—please
just wait until you see my knight on that black charger o' mine.”
</p>
<p>
The Blight and the little sister were convulsed and the Hon. Sam went on:
</p>
<p>
“Look at my men-at-arms”—the volunteer policemen with bulging
hip-pockets, dangling billies and gleaming shields of office—“and at
my refreshment tents behind”—where peanuts and pink lemonade were
keeping the multitude busy—“and my attendants”—colored
gentlemen with sponges and water-buckets—“the armorers and farriers
haven't come yet. But my knight—I got his clothes in New York—just
wait—Love of Ladies and Glory to the Brave!” Just then there was a
commotion on the free seats on one side of the grandstand. A darky
starting, in all ignorance, to mount them was stopped and jostled none too
good-naturedly back to the ground.
</p>
<p>
“And see,” mused the Hon. Sam, “in lieu of the dog of an unbeliever we
have a dark analogy in that son of Ham.”
</p>
<p>
The little sister plucked me by the sleeve and pointed toward the
entrance. Outside and leaning on the fence were Mollie, the big sister,
and little Buck. Straightway I got up and started for them. They hung
back, but I persuaded them to come, and I led them to seats two tiers
below the Blight—who, with my little sister, rose smiling to greet
them and shake hands—much to the wonder of the nobles and ladies
close about, for Mollie was in brave and dazzling array, blushing
fiercely, and little Buck looked as though he would die of such
conspicuousness. No embarrassing questions were asked about Mart or Dave
Branham, but I noticed that Mollie had purple and crimson ribbons clinched
in one brown hand. The purpose of them was plain, and I whispered to the
Blight:
</p>
<p>
“She's going to pin them on Dave's lance.” The Hon. Sam heard me.
</p>
<p>
“Not on your life,” he said emphatically. “I ain't takin' chances,” and he
nodded toward the Blight. “She's got to win, no matter who loses.” He rose
to his feet suddenly.
</p>
<p>
“Glory to the Brave—they're comin'! Toot that horn, son,” he said;
“they're comin',” and the band burst into discordant sounds that would
have made the “wild barbaric music” on the field of Ashby sound like a
lullaby. The Blight stifled her laughter over that amazing music with her
handkerchief, and even the Hon. Sam scowled.
</p>
<p>
“Gee!” he said; “it is pretty bad, isn't it?”
</p>
<p>
“Here they come!”
</p>
<p>
The nobles and ladies on the grandstand, the yeomanry and spectators of
better degree, and the promiscuous multitude began to sway expectantly and
over the hill came the knights, single file, gorgeous in velvets and in
caps, with waving plumes and with polished spears, vertical, resting on
the right stirrup foot and gleaming in the sun.
</p>
<p>
“A goodly array!” murmured the Hon. Sam.
</p>
<p>
A crowd of small boys gathered at the fence below, and I observed the Hon.
Sam's pockets bulging with peanuts.
</p>
<p>
“Largesse!” I suggested.
</p>
<p>
“Good!” he said, and rising he shouted:
</p>
<p>
“Largessy! largessy!” scattering peanuts by the handful among the
scrambling urchins.
</p>
<p>
Down wound the knights behind the back stand of the base-ball field, and
then, single file, in front of the nobles and ladies, before whom they
drew up and faced, saluting with inverted spears.
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam arose—his truncheon a hickory stick—and in a
stentorian voice asked the names of the doughty knights who were there to
win glory for themselves and the favor of fair women.
</p>
<p>
Not all will be mentioned, but among them was the Knight of the Holston—Athelstanic
in build—in black stockings, white negligee shirt, with Byronic
collar, and a broad crimson sash tied with a bow at his right side. There
was the Knight of the Green Valley, in green and gold, a green hat with a
long white plume, lace ruffles at his sleeves, and buckles on
dancing-pumps; a bonny fat knight of Maxwelton Braes, in Highland kilts
and a plaid; and the Knight at Large.
</p>
<p>
“He ought to be caged,” murmured the Hon. Sam; for the Knight at Large
wore plum-colored velvet, red base-ball stockings, held in place with
safety-pins, white tennis shoes, and a very small hat with a very long
plume, and the dye was already streaking his face. Marston was the last—sitting
easily on his iron gray.
</p>
<p>
“And your name, Sir Knight?”
</p>
<p>
“The Discarded,” said Marston, with steady eyes. I felt the Blight start
at my side and sidewise I saw that her face was crimson.
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam sat down, muttering, for he did not like Marston:
</p>
<p>
“Wenchless springal!”
</p>
<p>
Just then my attention was riveted on Mollie and little Buck. Both had
been staring silently at the knights as though they were apparitions, but
when Marston faced them I saw Buck clutch his sister's arm suddenly and
say something excitedly in her ear. Then the mouths of both tightened
fiercely and their eyes seemed to be darting lightning at the unconscious
knight, who suddenly saw them, recognized them, and smiled past them at
me. Again Buck whispered, and from his lips I could make out what he said:
</p>
<p>
“I wonder whar's Dave?” but Mollie did not answer.
</p>
<p>
“Which is yours, Mr. Budd?” asked the little sister. The Hon. Sam had
leaned back with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his white waistcoat.
</p>
<p>
“He ain't come yet. I told him to come last.”
</p>
<p>
The crowd waited and the knights waited—so long that the Mayor rose
in his seat some twenty feet away and called out:
</p>
<p>
“Go ahead, Budd.”
</p>
<p>
“You jus' wait a minute—my man ain't come yet,” he said easily, but
from various places in the crowd came jeering shouts from the men with
whom he had wagered and the Hon. Sam began to look anxious.
</p>
<p>
“I wonder what is the matter?” he added in a lower tone. “I dressed him
myself more than an hour ago and I told him to come last, but I didn't
mean for him to wait till Christmas—ah!”
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam sank back in his seat again. From somewhere had come suddenly
the blare of a solitary trumpet that rang in echoes around the
amphitheatre of the hills and, a moment later, a dazzling something shot
into sight above the mound that looked like a ball of fire, coming in
mid-air. The new knight wore a shining helmet and the Hon. Sam chuckled at
the murmur that rose and then he sat up suddenly. There was no face under
that helmet—the Hon. Sam's knight was MASKED and the Hon. Sam
slapped his thigh with delight.
</p>
<p>
“Bully—bully! I never thought of it—I never thought of it—bully!”
</p>
<p>
This was thrilling, indeed—but there was more; the strange knight's
body was cased in a flexible suit of glistening mail, his spear point,
when he raised it on high, shone like silver, and he came on like a
radiant star—on the Hon. Sam's charger, white-bridled, with long
mane and tail and black from tip of nose to tip of that tail as midnight.
The Hon. Sam was certainly doing it well. At a slow walk the stranger drew
alongside of Marston and turned his spear point downward.
</p>
<p>
“Gawd!” said an old darky. “Ku-klux done come again.” And, indeed, it
looked like a Ku-klux mask, white, dropping below the chin, and with
eye-holes through which gleamed two bright fires.
</p>
<p>
The eyes of Buck and Mollie were turned from Marston at last, and
open-mouthed they stared.
</p>
<p>
“Hit's the same hoss—hit's Dave!” said Buck aloud.
</p>
<p>
“Well, my Lord!” said Mollie simply.
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam rose again.
</p>
<p>
“And who is Sir Tardy Knight that hither comes with masked face?” he asked
courteously. He got no answer.
</p>
<p>
“What's your name, son?”
</p>
<p>
The white mask puffed at the wearer's lips.
</p>
<p>
“The Knight of the Cumberland,” was the low, muffled reply.
</p>
<p>
“Make him take that thing off!” shouted some one.
</p>
<p>
“What's he got it on fer?” shouted another.
</p>
<p>
“I don't know, friend,” said the Hon. Sam; “but it is not my business nor
prithee thine; since by the laws of the tournament a knight may ride
masked for a specified time or until a particular purpose is achieved,
that purpose being, I wot, victory for himself and for me a handful of
byzants from thee.”
</p>
<p>
“Now, go ahead, Budd,” called the Mayor again. “Are you going crazy?”
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam stretched out his arms once to loosen them for gesture,
thrust his chest out, and uplifted his chin: “Fair ladies, nobles of the
realm, and good knights,” he said sonorously, and he raised one hand to
his mouth and behind it spoke aside to me:
</p>
<p>
“How's my voice—how's my voice?”
</p>
<p>
“Great!” His question was genuine, for the mask of humor had dropped and
the man was transformed. I knew his inner seriousness, his oratorical
command of good English, and I knew the habit, not uncommon among
stump-speakers in the South, of falling, through humor, carelessness, or
for the effect of flattering comradeship, into all the lingual sins of
rural speech; but I was hardly prepared for the soaring flight the Hon.
Sam took now. He started with one finger pointed heavenward:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
“The knights are dust
And their good swords are rast;
Their souls are with the saints, we trust.”
</pre>
<p>
“Scepticism is but a harmless phantom in these mighty hills. We BELIEVE
that with the saints is the GOOD knight's soul, and if, in the radiant
unknown, the eyes of those who have gone before can pierce the little
shadow that lies between, we know that the good knights of old look gladly
down on these good knights of to-day. For it is good to be remembered. The
tireless struggle for name and fame since the sunrise of history attests
it; and the ancestry worship in the East and the world-wide hope of
immortality show the fierce hunger in the human soul that the memory of it
not only shall not perish from this earth, but that, across the Great
Divide, it shall live on—neither forgetting nor forgotten. You are
here in memory of those good knights to prove that the age of chivalry is
not gone; that though their good swords are rust, the stainless soul of
them still illumines every harmless spear point before me and makes it a
torch that shall reveal, in your own hearts still aflame, their courage,
their chivalry, their sense of protection for the weak, and the honor in
which they held pure women, brave men, and almighty God.
</p>
<p>
“The tournament, some say, goes back to the walls of Troy. The form of it
passed with the windmills that Don Quixote charged. It is with you to keep
the high spirit of it an ever-burning vestal fire. It was a deadly play of
old—it is a harmless play to you this day. But the prowess of the
game is unchanged; for the skill to strike those pendent rings is no less
than was the skill to strike armor-joint, visor, or plumed crest. It was
of old an exercise for deadly combat on the field of battle; it is no less
an exercise now to you for the field of life—for the quick eye, the
steady nerve, and the deft hand which shall help you strike the mark at
which, outside these lists, you aim. And the crowning triumph is still
just what it was of old—that to the victor the Rose of his world—made
by him the Queen of Love and Beauty for us all—shall give her smile
and with her own hands place on his brow a thornless crown.”
</p>
<p>
Perfect silence honored the Hon. Samuel Budd. The Mayor was nodding
vigorous approval, the jeering ones kept still, and when after the last
deep-toned word passed like music from his lips the silence held sway for
a little while before the burst of applause came. Every knight had
straightened in his saddle and was looking very grave. Marston's eyes
never left the speaker's face, except once, when they turned with an
unconscious appeal, I thought, to the downcast face of Blight—whereat
the sympathetic little sister seemed close to tears. The Knight of the
Cumberland shifted in his saddle as though he did not quite understand
what was going on, and once Mollie, seeing the eyes through the mask-holes
fixed on her, blushed furiously, and little Buck grinned back a delighted
recognition. The Hon. Sam sat down, visibly affected by his own eloquence;
slowly he wiped his face and then he rose again.
</p>
<p>
“Your colors, Sir Knights,” he said, with a commanding wave of his
truncheon, and one by one the knights spurred forward and each held his
lance into the grandstand that some fair one might tie thereon the colors
he was to wear. Marston, without looking at the Blight, held his up to the
little sister and the Blight carelessly turned her face while the demure
sister was busy with her ribbons, but I noticed that the little ear next
to me was tingling red for all her brave look of unconcern. Only the
Knight of the Cumberland sat still.
</p>
<p>
“What!” said the Hon. Sam, rising to his feet, his eyes twinkling and his
mask of humor on again; “sees this masked springal”—the Hon. Sam
seemed much enamored of that ancient word—“no maid so fair that he
will not beg from her the boon of colors gay that he may carry them to
victory and receive from her hands a wreath therefor?” Again the Knight of
the Cumberland seemed not to know that the Hon. Sam's winged words were
meant for him, so the statesman translated them into a mutual vernacular.
</p>
<p>
“Remember what I told you, son,” he said. “Hold up yo' spear here to some
one of these gals jes' like the other fellows are doin',” and as he sat
down he tried surreptitiously to indicate the Blight with his index
finger, but the knight failed to see and the Blight's face was so
indignant and she rebuked him with such a knife-like whisper that,
humbled, the Hon. Sam collapsed in his seat, muttering:
</p>
<p>
“The fool don't know you—he don't know you.”
</p>
<p>
For the Knight of the Cumberland had turned the black horse's head and was
riding, like Ivanhoe, in front of the nobles and ladies, his eyes burning
up at them through the holes in his white mask. Again he turned, his mask
still uplifted, and the behavior of the beauties there, as on the field of
Ashby, was no whit changed: “Some blushed, some assumed an air of pride
and dignity, some looked straight forward and essayed to seem utterly
unconscious of what was going on, some drew back in alarm which was
perhaps affected, some endeavored to forbear smiling and there were two or
three who laughed outright.” Only none “dropped a veil over her charms”
and thus none incurred the suspicion, as on that field of Ashby, that she
was “a beauty of ten years' standing” whose motive, gallant Sir Walter
supposes in defence, however, was doubtless “a surfeit of such vanities
and a willingness to give a fair chance to the rising beauties of the
age.” But the most conscious of the fair was Mollie below, whose face was
flushed and whose brown fingers were nervously twisting the ribbons in her
lap, and I saw Buck nudge her and heard him whisper:
</p>
<p>
“Dave ain't going to pick YOU out, I tell ye. I heered Mr. Budd thar
myself tell him he HAD to pick out some other gal.”
</p>
<p>
“You hush!” said Mollie indignantly.
</p>
<p>
It looked as though the Knight of the Cumberland had grown rebellious and
meant to choose whom he pleased, but on his way back the Hon. Sam must
have given more surreptitious signs, for the Knight of the Cumberland
reined in before the Blight and held up his lance to her. Straightway the
colors that were meant for Marston fluttered from the Knight of the
Cumberland's spear. I saw Marston bite his lips and I saw Mollie's face
aflame with fury and her eyes darting lightning—no longer at Marston
now, but at the Blight. The mountain girl held nothing against the city
girl because of the Wild Dog's infatuation, but that her own lover, no
matter what the Hon. Sam said, should give his homage also to the Blight,
in her own presence, was too much. Mollie looked around no more. Again the
Hon. Sam rose.
</p>
<p>
“Love of ladies,” he shouted, “splintering of lances! Stand forth, gallant
knights. Fair eyes look upon your deeds! Toot again, son!”
</p>
<p>
Now just opposite the grandstand was a post some ten feet high, with a
small beam projecting from the top toward the spectators. From the end of
this hung a wire, the end of which was slightly upturned in line with the
course, and on the tip of this wire a steel ring about an inch in diameter
hung lightly. Nearly forty yards below this was a similar ring similarly
arranged; and at a similar distance below that was still another, and at
the blast from the Hon. Sam's herald, the gallant knights rode slowly, two
by two, down the lists to the western extremity—the Discarded Knight
and the Knight of the Cumberland, stirrup to stirrup, riding last—where
they all drew up in line, some fifty yards beyond the westernmost post.
This distance they took that full speed might be attained before jousting
at the first ring, since the course—much over one hundred yards long—must
be covered in seven seconds or less, which was no slow rate of speed. The
Hon. Sam arose again:
</p>
<p>
“The Knight of the Holston!”
</p>
<p>
Farther down the lists a herald took up the same cry and the good knight
of Athelstanic build backed his steed from the line and took his place at
the head of the course.
</p>
<p>
With his hickory truncheon the Hon. Sam signed to his trumpeter to sound
the onset.
</p>
<p>
“Now, son!” he said.
</p>
<p>
With the blare of the trumpet Athelstane sprang from his place and came up
the course, his lance at rest; a tinkling sound and the first ring slipped
down the knight's spear and when he swept past the last post there was a
clapping of hands, for he held three rings triumphantly aloft. And thus
they came, one by one, until each had run the course three times, the
Discarded jousting next to the last and the Knight of the Cumberland,
riding with a reckless Cave, Adsum air, the very last. At the second joust
it was quite evident that the victory lay between these two, as they only
had not lost a single ring, and when the black horse thundered by, the
Hon. Sam shouted “Brave lance!” and jollied his betting enemies, while
Buck hugged himself triumphantly and Mollie seemed temporarily to lose her
chagrin and anger in pride of her lover, Dave. On the third running the
Knight of the Cumberland excited a sensation by sitting upright, waving
his lance up and down between the posts and lowering it only when the ring
was within a few feet of its point. His recklessness cost him one ring,
but as the Discarded had lost one, they were still tied, with eight rings
to the credit of each, for the first prize. Only four others were left—the
Knight of the Holston and the Knight of the Green Valley tying with seven
rings for second prize, and the fat Maxwelton Braes and the Knight at
Large tying with six rings for the third. The crowd was eager now and the
Hon. Sam confident. On came the Knight at Large, his face a rainbow, his
plume wilted and one red base-ball stocking slipped from its moorings—two
rings! On followed the fat Maxwelton, his plaid streaming and his kilts
flapping about his fat legs—also two rings!
</p>
<p>
“Egad!” quoth the Hon. Sam. “Did yon lusty trencherman of Annie Laurie's
but put a few more layers of goodly flesh about his ribs, thereby
projecting more his frontal Falstaffian proportions, by my halidom, he
would have to joust tandem!”
</p>
<p>
On came Athelstane and the Knight of the Green Valley, both with but two
rings to their credit, and on followed the Discarded, riding easily, and
the Knight of the Cumberland again waving his lance between the posts,
each with three rings on his spear. At the end the Knight at Large stood
third, Athelstane second, and the Discarded and the Knight of the
Cumberland stood side by side at the head of the course, still even, and
now ready to end the joust, for neither on the second trial had missed a
ring.
</p>
<p>
The excitement was intense now. Many people seemed to know who the Knight
of the Cumberland was, for there were shouts of “Go it, Dave!” from
everywhere; the rivalry of class had entered the contest and now it was a
conflict between native and “furriner.” The Hon. Sam was almost beside
himself with excitement; now and then some man with whom he had made a bet
would shout jeeringly at him and the Hon. Sam would shout back defiance.
But when the trumpet sounded he sat leaning forward with his brow wrinkled
and his big hands clinched tight. Marston sped up the course first—three
rings—and there was a chorus of applauding yells.
</p>
<p>
“His horse is gittin' tired,” said the Hon. Sam jubilantly, and the
Blight's face, I noticed, showed for the first time faint traces of
indignation. The Knight of the Cumberland was taking no theatrical chances
now and he came through the course with level spear and, with three rings
on it, he shot by like a thunderbolt.
</p>
<p>
“Hooray!” shouted the Hon. Sam. “Lord, what a horse!” For the first time
the Blight, I observed, failed to applaud, while Mollie was clapping her
hands and Buck was giving out shrill yells of encouragement. At the next
tilt the Hon. Sam had his watch in his hand and when he saw the Discarded
digging in his spurs he began to smile and he was looking at his watch
when the little tinkle in front told him that the course was run.
</p>
<p>
“Did he get 'em all?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, he got 'em all,” mimicked the Blight.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, an' he just did make it,” chuckled the Hon. Sam. The Discarded had
wheeled his horse aside from the course to watch his antagonist. He looked
pale and tired—almost as tired as his foam-covered steed—but
his teeth were set and his face was unmoved as the Knight of the
Cumberland came on like a demon, sweeping off the last ring with a low,
rasping oath of satisfaction.
</p>
<p>
“I never seed Dave ride that-a-way afore,” said Mollie.
</p>
<p>
“Me, neither,” chimed in Buck.
</p>
<p>
The nobles and ladies were waving handkerchiefs, clapping hands, and
shouting. The spectators of better degree were throwing up their hats and
from every part of the multitude the same hoarse shout of encouragement
rose:
</p>
<p>
“Go it, Dave! Hooray for Dave!” while the boy on the telegraph-pole was
seen to clutch wildly at the crossbar on which he sat—he had come
near tumbling from his perch.
</p>
<p>
The two knights rode slowly back to the head of the lists, where the
Discarded was seen to dismount and tighten his girth.
</p>
<p>
“He's tryin' to git time to rest,” said the Hon. Sam. “Toot, son!”
</p>
<p>
“Shame!” said the little sister and the Blight both at once so severely
that the Hon. Sam quickly raised his hand.
</p>
<p>
“Hold on,” he said, and with hand still uplifted he waited till Marston
was mounted again. “Now!”
</p>
<p>
The Discarded came on, using his spurs with every jump, the red of his
horse's nostrils showing that far away, and he swept on, spearing off the
rings with deadly accuracy and holding the three aloft, but having no need
to pull in his panting steed, who stopped of his own accord. Up went a
roar, but the Hon. Sam, covertly glancing at his watch, still smiled. That
watch he pulled out when the Knight of the Cumberland started and he
smiled still when he heard the black horse's swift, rhythmic beat and he
looked up only when that knight, shouting to his horse, moved his lance up
and down before coming to the last ring and, with a dare-devil yell, swept
it from the wire.
</p>
<p>
“Tied—tied!” was the shout; “they've got to try it again! they've
got to try it again!”
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam rose, with his watch in one hand and stilling the tumult with
the other. Dead silence came at once.
</p>
<p>
“I fear me,” he said, “that the good knight, the Discarded, has failed to
make the course in the time required by the laws of the tournament.”
Bedlam broke loose again and the Hon. Sam waited, still gesturing for
silence.
</p>
<p>
“Summon the time-keeper!” he said.
</p>
<p>
The time-keeper appeared from the middle of the field and nodded.
</p>
<p>
“Eight seconds!” “The Knight of the Cumberland wins,” said the Hon. Sam.
</p>
<p>
The little sister, unconscious of her own sad face, nudged me to look at
the Blight—there were tears in her eyes.
</p>
<p>
Before the grandstand the knights slowly drew up again. Marston's horse
was so lame and tired that he dismounted and let a darky boy lead him
under the shade of the trees. But he stood on foot among the other
knights, his arms folded, worn out and vanquished, but taking his bitter
medicine like a man. I thought the Blight's eyes looked pityingly upon
him.
</p>
<p>
The Hon. Sam arose with a crown of laurel leaves in his hand:
</p>
<p>
“You have fairly and gallantly won, Sir Knight of the Cumberland, and it
is now your right to claim and receive from the hands of the Queen of Love
and Beauty the chaplet of honor which your skill has justly deserved.
Advance, Sir Knight of the Cumberland, and dismount!”
</p>
<p>
The Knight of the Cumberland made no move nor sound.
</p>
<p>
“Get off yo' hoss, son,” said the Hon. Sam kindly, “and get down on yo'
knees at the feet of them steps. This fair young Queen is a-goin' to put
this chaplet on your shinin' brow. That horse'll stand.”
</p>
<p>
The Knight of the Cumberland, after a moment's hesitation, threw his leg
over the saddle and came to the steps with a slouching gait and looking
about him right and left. The Blight, blushing prettily, took the chaplet
and went down the steps to meet him.
</p>
<p>
“Unmask!” I shouted.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, son,” said the Hon. Sam, “take that rag off.”
</p>
<p>
Then Mollie's voice, clear and loud, startled the crowd. “You better not,
Dave Branham, fer if you do and this other gal puts that thing on you,
you'll never—” What penalty she was going to inflict, I don't know,
for the Knight of the Cumberland, half kneeling, sprang suddenly to his
feet and interrupted her. “Wait a minute, will ye?” he said almost
fiercely, and at the sound of his voice Mollie rose to her feet and her
face blanched.
</p>
<p>
“Lord God!” she said almost in anguish, and then she dropped quickly to
her seat again.
</p>
<p>
The Knight of the Cumberland had gone back to his horse as though to get
something from his saddle. Like lightning he vaulted into the saddle, and
as the black horse sprang toward the opening tore his mask from his face,
turned in his stirrups, and brandished his spear with a yell of defiance,
while a dozen voices shouted:
</p>
<p>
“The Wild Dog!” Then was there an uproar.
</p>
<p>
“Goddle mighty!” shouted the Hon. Sam. “I didn't do it, I swear I didn't
know it. He's tricked me—he's tricked me! Don't shoot—you
might hit that hoss!”
</p>
<p>
There was no doubt about the Hon. Sam's innocence. Instead of turning over
an outlaw to the police, he had brought him into the inner shrine of law
and order and he knew what a political asset for his enemies that insult
would be. And there was no doubt of the innocence of Mollie and Buck as
they stood, Mollie wringing her hands and Buck with open mouth and
startled face. There was no doubt about the innocence of anybody other
than Dave Branham and the dare-devil Knight of the Cumberland.
</p>
<p>
Marston had clutched at the Wild Dog's bridle and missed and the outlaw
struck savagely at him with his spear. Nobody dared to shoot because of
the scattering crowd, but every knight and every mounted policeman took
out after the outlaw and the beating of hoofs pounded over the little
mound and toward Poplar Hill. Marston ran to his horse at the upper end,
threw his saddle on, and hesitated—there were enough after the Wild
Dog and his horse was blown. He listened to the yells and sounds of the
chase encircling Poplar Hill. The outlaw was making for Lee. All at once
the yells and hoof-beats seemed to sound nearer and Marston listened,
astonished. The Wild Dog had wheeled and was coming back; he was going to
make for the Gap, where sure safety lay. Marston buckled his girth and as
he sprang on his horse, unconsciously taking his spear with him, the Wild
Dog dashed from the trees at the far end of the field. As Marston started
the Wild Dog saw him, pulled something that flashed from under his coat of
mail, thrust it back again, and brandishing his spear, he came, full speed
and yelling, up the middle of the field. It was a strange thing to happen
in these modern days, but Marston was an officer of the law and was
between the Wild Dog and the Ford and liberty through the Gap, into the
hills. The Wild Dog was an outlaw. It was Marston's duty to take him.
</p>
<p>
The law does not prescribe with what weapon the lawless shall be subdued,
and Marston's spear was the only weapon he had. Moreover, the Wild Dog's
yell was a challenge that set his blood afire and the girl both loved was
looking on. The crowd gathered the meaning of the joust—the knights
were crashing toward each other with spears at rest. There were a few
surprised oaths from men, a few low cries from women, and then dead
silence in which the sound of hoofs on the hard turf was like thunder. The
Blight's face was white and the little sister was gripping my arm with
both hands. A third horseman shot into view out of the woods at tight
angles, to stop them, and it seemed that the three horses must crash
together in a heap. With a moan the Blight buried her face on my shoulder.
She shivered when the muffled thud of body against body and the
splintering of wood rent the air; a chorus of shrieks arose about her, and
when she lifted her frightened face Marston, the Discarded, was limp on
the ground, his horse was staggering to his feet, and the Wild Dog was
galloping past her, his helmet gleaming, his eyes ablaze, his teeth set,
the handle of his broken spear clinched in his right hand, and blood
streaming down the shoulder of the black horse. She heard the shots that
were sent after him, she heard him plunge into the river, and then she saw
and heard no more.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
VIII. THE KNIGHT PASSES
</h2>
<p>
A telegram summoned the Blight a home next day. Marston was in bed with a
ragged wound in the shoulder, and I took her to tell him good-by. I left
the room for a few minutes, and when I came back their hands were
unclasping, and for a Discarded Knight the engineer surely wore a happy
though pallid face.
</p>
<p>
That afternoon the train on which we left the Gap was brought to a sudden
halt in Wildcat Valley by a piece of red flannel tied to the end of a
stick that was planted midway the track. Across the track, farther on, lay
a heavy piece of timber, and it was plain that somebody meant that, just
at that place, the train must stop. The Blight and I were seated on the
rear platform and the Blight was taking a last look at her beloved hills.
When the train started again, there was a cracking of twigs overhead and a
shower of rhododendron leaves and flowers dropped from the air at the feet
of the Blight. And when we pulled away from the high-walled cut we saw,
motionless on a little mound, a black horse, and on him, motionless, the
Knight of the Cumberland, the helmet on his head (that the Blight might
know who he was, no doubt), and both hands clasping the broken handle of
his spear, which rested across the pommel of his saddle. Impulsively the
Blight waved her hand to him and I could not help waving my hat; but he
sat like a statue and, like a statue, sat on, simply looking after us as
we were hurried along, until horse, broken shaft, and shoulders sank out
of sight. And thus passed the Knight of the Cumberland with the last gleam
that struck his helmet, spear-like, from the slanting sun.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
End of Project Gutenberg's A Knight of the Cumberland, by John Fox Jr.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND ***
***** This file should be named 324-h.htm or 324-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/324/
Produced by Mike Lough, and 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. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
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
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
</pre>
</body>
</html>
|
