initial commit of ebook 35619HEADmain

1 files changed, 7755 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/35619-8.txt b/35619-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a61a25
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35619-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7755 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, by 
+Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+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: The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2011 [EBook #35619]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROPHET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+           THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS
+
+                  BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
+
+
+                        A NEW EDITION
+
+    LONDON
+    CHATTO & WINDUS
+    1901
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+Always enwrapped in the illusory mists, always touching the evasive
+clouds, the peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains are like some barren
+ideal, that has bartered for the vague isolations of a higher atmosphere
+the material values of the warm world below. Upon those mighty and
+majestic domes no tree strikes root, no hearth is alight; humanity is an
+alien thing, and utility set at naught. Below, dense forests cover the
+massive, precipitous slopes of the range, and in the midst of the
+wilderness a clearing shows, here and there, and the roof of a humble
+log-cabin; in the valley, far, far lower still, a red spark at dusk may
+suggest a home, nestling in the cove. Grain grows apace in these scanty
+clearings, for the soil in certain favoured spots is mellow; and the
+weeds grow, too, and in a wet season the ploughs are fain to be active.
+They are of the bull-tongue variety, and are sometimes drawn by oxen. As
+often as otherwise they are followed by women.
+
+In the gracious June mornings, when winds are astir and wings are awhirl
+in the wide spaces of the sunlit air, the work seemed no hardship to
+Dorinda Cayce--least of all one day when another plough ran parallel to
+the furrows of her own, and a loud, drawling, intermittent conversation
+became practicable. She paused often, and looked idly about her:
+sometimes at the distant mountains, blue and misty, against the
+indefinite horizon; sometimes down at the cool, dense shadows of the
+wooded valley, so far below the precipice, to which the steep clearing
+shelved; sometimes at the little log-cabin on the slope above, sheltered
+by a beetling crag and shadowed by the pines; sometimes still higher at
+the great 'bald' of the mountain, and its mingled phantasmagoria of
+shifting clouds and flickering sheen and glimmering peak.
+
+'He 'lowed ter me,' she said suddenly, 'ez he hev been gin ter view
+strange sights a many a time in them fogs, an' sech.'
+
+The eyes lifted to the shivering vapours might never have reflected
+aught but a tropical sunshine, so warm, so bright, so languorously calm
+were they. She turned them presently upon a young man, who was
+ploughing with a horse close by, and who also came to a meditative halt
+in the turn-row. He too was of intermittent conversational tendencies,
+and between them it might be marvelled that so many furrows were already
+run. He wore a wide-brimmed brown wool hat, set far back upon his head;
+a mass of straight yellow hair hung down to the collar of his brown
+jeans coat. His brown eyes were slow and contemplative. The corn was
+knee-high, and hid the great boots drawn over his trousers. As he moved
+there sounded the unexpected jingle of spurs. He looked, with the
+stolid, lack-lustre expression of the mountaineer, at the girl, who
+continued, as she leaned lightly on the plough-handles:
+
+'I 'lowed ter him ez mebbe he hed drempt them visions. I knows I hev
+thunk some toler'ble cur'ous thoughts myself, ef I war tired an'
+sleepin' hard. But he said he reckoned I hed drempt no sech dreams ez
+his'n. I can't holp sorrowin' fur him some. He 'lowed ez Satan hev
+hunted him like a pa'tridge on the mounting.'
+
+The young man's eyes dropped with sudden significance upon his
+plough-handles. A pair of pistols in their leather cases swung
+incongruously there. They gave a caustic suggestion of human adversaries
+as fierce as the moral pursuit of the Principle of Evil, and the girl's
+face fell. In absence of mind she recommenced her work.
+
+'Waal,' she gently drawled, as the old ox languidly started down the
+row, ''pears like ter me ez it ain't goin' ter be no differ, nohow: it
+won't hender ye none.'
+
+Her face was grave, but there was a smile in her eyes, which had the
+lustre and depth of a sapphire, and a lambent glow like the heart of a
+blue flame. They were fringed by long, black lashes, and her hair was
+black also. Her pink calico sun-bonnet, flaring toward the front, showed
+it lying in moist tendrils on her brow, and cast an unwonted roseate
+tint upon the clear, healthful pallor of her complexion. She wore a dark
+blue homespun dress, and, despite her coarse garb and uncouth occupation
+and the gaunt old ox, there was something impressive in her simple
+beauty, her youth, and her elastic vigour. As she drove the ploughshare
+into the mould she might have seemed the type of a young
+civilization--so fine a thing in itself, so roughly accoutred.
+
+When she came down the slope again, facing him, the pink curtain of her
+bonnet waving about her shoulders, her blue skirts fluttering among the
+blades of corn, a winged shadow sweeping along as if attendant upon her,
+while a dove flew high above to its nest in the pines, he raised his
+hand with an imperative gesture, and she paused obediently. He had
+flushed deeply; the smouldering fire in his eyes was kindling. He leaned
+across the few rows of corn that stood between them.
+
+'I hev a word ter ax right now. Who air under conviction hyar?' he
+demanded.
+
+She seemed a trifle startled. Her grasp shifted uncertainly on the
+plough-handles, and the old ox, accustomed to rest only at the turn-row,
+mistook her intention, and started off. She stopped him with some
+difficulty, and then, 'Convicted of sin?' she asked, in a voice that
+showed her appreciation of the solemnity of the subject.
+
+'I hev said it,' the young man declared, with a half-suppressed
+irritation which confused her.
+
+She remained silent.
+
+'Mebbe it air yer granny,' he suggested, with a sneer.
+
+She recoiled, with palpable surprise. 'Granny made her peace fifty year
+ago,' she declared, with pride in this anciently acquired grace--'fifty
+year an' better.'
+
+'The boys air convicted, then? he asked, still leaning over the corn and
+still sneering.
+
+'The boys hev got thar religion, too,' she faltered, looking at him with
+wide eyes, brilliant with astonishment, and yet a trifle dismayed.
+Suddenly, she threw herself into her wonted confiding attitude, leaning
+upon her plough-handles, and with an appealing glance began an
+extenuation of her spiritual poverty: ''Pears like ez I hev never hed a
+call ter tell you-uns afore ez I hev hed no time yit ter git my
+religion. Granny bein' old, an' the boys at the still, I hev hed ter
+spin, an' weave, an' cook, an' sew, an' plough some--the boys bein'
+mos'ly at the still. An' then, thar be Mirandy Jane, my brother Ab's
+darter, ez I hev hed ter l'arn how ter cook vittles. When I went down
+yander ter my aunt Jerushy's house in Tuckaleechee Cove, ter holp her
+some with weavin', I war plumb cur'ous ter know how Mirandy Jane would
+make out whilst I war gone. They 'lowed ez she hed cooked the vittles
+toler'ble, but ef she had washed a skillet or a platter in them three
+days _I_ couldn't find it.'
+
+Her tone was stern; all the outraged housekeeper was astir within her.
+
+He said nothing, and she presently continued discursively, still leaning
+on the plough-handles:
+
+'I never stayed away but them three days. I warn't sati'fied in my mind,
+nohow, whilst I bided down thar in Tuckaleechee Cove. I hankered
+cornsider'ble arter the baby. He air three year old now, an' I hev
+keered fur him ever sence his mother died--my brother Ab's wife, ye
+know--two year ago an' better. They hed fedded him toler'ble whilst I
+war away, an' I fund him fat ez common. But they hed crost him
+somehows, an' he war ailin' in his temper when I got home, an' hed ter
+hev cornsider'ble coddlin'.'
+
+She paused before the rising anger in his eyes.
+
+'Why air Mirandy Jane called ter l'arn how ter cook vittles?' he
+demanded, irrelevantly, it might have seemed.
+
+She looked at him in deprecating surprise. Yet she turned at bay.
+
+'I hev never hearn ez ye war convicted yerself, Rick Tyler!' she said
+tartly. 'Ye war never so much ez seen a-scoutin' round the mourner's
+bench. Ef I hev got no religion, ye hev got none, nuther.'
+
+'Ye air minded ter git married, D'rindy Cayce,' he said severely,
+solving his own problem, 'an' that's why Mirandy Jane hev got ter be
+l'arned ter take yer place at home.'
+
+He produced this as if it were an accusation.
+
+She drew back, indignant and affronted, and with a rigid air of offended
+propriety.
+
+'I hev no call ter spen' words 'bout sech ez that with a free-spoken man
+like you-uns,' she staidly asseverated; and then she was about to move
+on.
+
+Accepting her view of the gross unseemliness of his mention of the
+subject, the young fellow's anger gave way to contrition.
+
+'Waal, D'rindy,' he said, in an eager, apologetic tone,' I hev seen that
+critter, that thar preacher, a-hangin' round you-uns's house a powerful
+deal lately, whilst I hev been obleeged ter hide out in the woods. An'
+bein' ez nobody thar owns up ter needin' religion but ye, I reckoned he
+war a-tryin' ter git ye ter take him an' grace tergether. That man hev
+got his mouth stuffed chock-full o' words--more 'n enny other man I ever
+see,' he added, with an expression of deep disgust.
+
+Dorinda might be thought to abuse her opportunities.
+
+'He ain't studyin' 'bout'n me, no more 'n I be 'bout'n him,' she said,
+with scant relish for the spectacle of Rick Tyler's jealousy. 'Pa'son
+Kelsey jes' stops thar ter the house ter rest his bones awhile, arter he
+comes down off'n the bald, whar he goes ter pray.'
+
+'In the name o' reason,' exclaimed the young fellow petulantly, 'why
+can't he pray somewhar else? A man ez hev got ter h'ist hisself on the
+bald of a mounting ten mile high--except what's lackin'--ter git a
+purchase on prayer hain't got no religion wuth talkin' 'bout. Sinner ez
+I am, I kin pray in the valley--way down yander in Tuckaleechee Cove--ez
+peart ez on enny bald in the Big Smoky. That critter air a powerful
+aggervatin' contrivance.'
+
+Her eyes still shone upon him.
+
+''Pears like ter me ez it air no differ, nohow,' she said, with her
+consolatory cadence. As she again started down the row, she added,
+glancing over her shoulder and relenting even to explanation, ''Twar
+granny's word ez Mirandy Jane hed ter be l'arned ter cook an' sech. She
+air risin' thirteen now, an' air toler'ble bouncin' an' spry, an'
+oughter be some use, ef ever. An' _she_ mought marry when she gits
+fairly grown, an',' pausing in the turn-row for argument, and looking
+with earnest eyes at him, as he still stood in the midst of the waving
+corn, idly holding his plough-handles, where the pistols swung, 'ef she
+did marry, 'pears like ter me ez she would be mightily faulted ef she
+couldn't cook tasty.'
+
+There was no reasonable doubt of this proposition, but it failed to
+convince, and in miserable cogitation he completed another furrow, and
+met her at the turn-row.
+
+'I s'pose ez Pa'son Kelsey an' yer granny air powerful sociable an'
+frien'ly,' he hazarded, as they stood together.
+
+'I dunno ez them two air partic'lar frien'ly. Pa'son Kelsey air in
+nowise a sociable critter,' said Dorinda, with a discriminating air. 'He
+ain't like Brother Jake Tobin--though it 'pears like ter me ez his gift
+in prayer air manifested more survigrus, ef ennything.' She submitted
+this diffidently. Having no religion, she felt incompetent to judge of
+such matters. ''Pears like ter me ez Pa'son Kelsey air more like 'Lijah
+an' 'Lisha, an' them men, what he talks about cornsider'ble, an' goes
+out ter meet on the bald.'
+
+'He don't meet them men on the bald; they air dead,' said Rick Tyler
+abruptly.
+
+She looked at him in shocked surprise.
+
+'That's jes' his addling way o' talkin',' continued the young fellow.
+'He don't mean fur true more 'n haffen what he say. He 'lows ez he meets
+the sperits o' them men on the bald.'
+
+Once more she lifted her bright eyes to the shivering vapours--vague,
+mysterious, veiling in solemn silence the barren, awful heights.
+
+An extreme gravity had fallen upon her face.
+
+'Did they live in thar lifetime up hyar in the Big Smoky, or in the
+valley kentry?' she asked, in a lowered voice.
+
+'I ain't sure 'bout'n that,' he replied indifferently.
+
+''Crost the line in the old North State?' she hazarded, exhausting her
+knowledge of the habitable globe.
+
+'I hearn him read 'bout'n it wunst, but I furgits now.'
+
+Still her reverent, beautiful eyes, full of the dreamy sunshine, were
+lifted to the peak. 'It must hev been in the Big Smoky Mountings they
+lived,' she said, with eager credulity, 'fur he tole me ez the word an'
+the prophets holped him when Satan kem a-huntin' of him like a pa'tridge
+on the mounting.'
+
+The young fellow turned away, with a gesture of angry impatience.
+
+'Ef he hed ever hed the State o' Tennessee a-huntin' of him he wouldn't
+be so feared o' Satan. Ef thar war a warrant fur _him_ in the sher'ffs
+pocket, an' the gran' jury's true bill fur murder lyin' agin _him_
+yander at Shaftesville, an' the gov'nor's reward, two hunderd dollars
+blood-money, on _him_, he wouldn't be a-humpin' his bones round hyar so
+peart, a-shakin' in his shoes fur the fear o' Satan.' He laughed--a
+caustic, jeering laugh. 'Satan's mighty active, considerin' his age, but
+I'd be willin' ter pit the State o' Tennessee agin him when it kem ter
+huntin' of folks like a pa'tridge.'
+
+The sunshine in the girl's eyes was clouded. They had filled with tears.
+Still leaning on the plough-handles, she looked at him, with suddenly
+crimson cheeks and quivering lips. 'I dunno how the State o' Tennessee
+kin git its own cornsent ter be so mean an' wicked ez it air,' she said,
+his helpless little partizan.
+
+Despite their futility, her words comforted him. 'An' I hev done
+nuthin', nohow!' he cried out, in shrill self-justification. 'I could no
+more hender 'Bednego Tynes from shootin' Joel Byers down in his own
+door 'n nuthin' in this worl'. I never even knowed they hed a grudge.
+'Bednego Tynes, he tole me ez he owed Joel a debt, an' war goin' ter see
+him 'bout'n it, an' wanted somebody along ter hear his word an' see
+justice done 'twixt 'em. Thar air fower Byers boys, an' I reckon he war
+feared they would all jump on him at wunst, an' he wanted me ter holp
+him ef they did. An' I went along like a fool sheep, thinkin' 'bout
+nuthin'. An' when we got way down yander in Eskaqua Cove, whar Joel
+Byers's house air, he gin a hello at the fence, an' Joel kem ter the
+door. An' 'Bednego whipped up his rifle suddint an' shot him through the
+head, ez nip an' percise! An' thar stood Joel's wife, seein' it all. An'
+'Bednego run off, nimble, I tell ye, an' I war so flustrated I run, too.
+Somebody cotched 'Bednego in the old North State the nex' week, an' the
+gov'nor hed ter send a requisition arter him. But sence I fund out ez
+they 'lowed I war aidin' an' abettin' 'Bednego, an' war goin' ter arrest
+me 'kase I war thar at the killin', they hev hed powerful little chance
+o' tryin' me in the court. An' whilst the gov'nor hed his hand in, he
+offered a reward fur sech a lawless man ez I be.'
+
+He broke off, visibly struggling for composure; then he recommenced in
+increasing indignation: 'An' these hyar frien's o' mine in the Big
+Smoky, I'll be bound they hanker powerful arter them two hunderd
+dollars blood-money. I know ez I'd hev been tuk afore this, ef it warn't
+fur them consarns thar.' He nodded frowningly at the pistols. 'Them's
+the only frien's I hev got.'
+
+The girl's voice trembled. ''Pears like ye mought count me in,' she said
+reproachfully.
+
+'Naw,' he retorted sternly; 'ye go round hyar sorrowin' fur a man ez hev
+got nuthin' ter be afeared of but the devil.'
+
+She made no reply, and her meekness mollified him.
+
+'D'rindy,' he said, in an altered tone, and with the pathos of a keen
+despair, 'I hed fixed it in my mind a good while ago, when I could hev
+hed a house, an' lived like folks, stidd'er like a wolf in the woods,
+ter ax ye ter marry me; but I war hendered by gittin' skeered 'bout'n
+yer bein' all in favour o' Amos Jeemes, ez kem up ter see ye from
+Eskaqua Cove, an' I didn't want ter git turned off. Mebbe ef I hed axed
+ye then I wouldn't hev tuk ter goin' along o' Abednego Tynes an' sech,
+an' the killin' o' Joel wouldn't hev happened like it done. Would
+ye--would ye hev married me then?'
+
+Her eyes flashed. 'Ye air fairly sodden with foolishness, Rick!' she
+exclaimed angrily. 'Air you-uns thinkin ez I'll 'low ez I would hev
+married a man four months ago ez never axed me ter marry, nohow?' Then,
+with an appreciation of the delicacy of the position and a conservation
+of mutual pride, she added, 'An' I won't say nuther ez I _wouldn't_
+marry a man ez hev never axed me ter marry, nohow.'
+
+Somehow, the contrariety of the proprieties, as she translated them,
+bewildered and baffled him. Even had he been looking at her he might
+hardly have interpreted, with his blunt perceptions, the dewy
+wistfulness of the eyes which she bent upon him. The word might promise
+nothing now. Still she would have valued it. He did not speak it. His
+eyes were fixed on Chilhowee Mountain, rising up, massive and splendid,
+against the west. The shadows of the clouds flecked the pure and perfect
+blue of the sunny slopes with a dusky mottling of purple. The denser
+shade in the valley had shifted, and one might know by this how the day
+wore on. The dew had dried from the long, keen blades of the Indian
+corn; the grasshoppers droned among them. A lizard basked on a flat
+white stone hard by. The old ox dozed in the turn-row.
+
+Suddenly Rick Tyler lifted his hand, with an intent gesture and a
+dilated eye. There came from far below, on the mountain road, the sound
+of a horse's hoof striking on a stone, again, and yet again. A faint
+metallic jingle--the air was so still now--suggested spurs. The girl's
+hand trembled violently as she stepped swiftly to his horse and took
+off the plough-gear. He had caught up a saddle that was lying in the
+turn-row, and as hastily buckled the girth about the animal.
+
+'Ef that air ennybody a-hankerin' ter see me, don't you-uns be a-denyin'
+ez I hev been hyar, D'rindy,' he said, as he put his foot in the
+stirrup. 'I reckon they hev fund out by now ez I be in the kentry round
+about. But keep 'em hyar ez long ez ye kin, ter gin me a start.'
+
+He mounted his horse, and rode noiselessly away along the newly turned
+mould of the furrow.
+
+She stood leaning upon her plough-handles and silently watching him. His
+equestrian figure, darkly outlined against the far blue mountains and
+the intermediate valley, seemed of heroic size against the landscape,
+which was reduced by the distance to the minimum of proportion. The deep
+shadows of the woods encompassing the clearing fell upon him presently,
+and he, too, was but a shadow in the dusky monochrome of the limited
+vista. The dense laurel closed about him, and his mountain fastnesses,
+that had befriended him of yore, received him once again.
+
+Then up and down the furrows Dorinda mechanically followed the plough,
+her pulses throbbing, every nerve tense, every faculty alert. She winced
+when she heard the frequent striking of hoofs upon the rocky slopes of
+the road below. She was instantly aware when they were silent, and the
+party had stopped to breathe the horses. She began accurately to gauge
+their slow progress.
+
+''Tain't airish in nowise ter-day,' she said, glancing about at the
+still, noontide landscape; 'an' ef them air valley cattle they mus' git
+blowed mightily travellin' up sech steep mountings ez the Big Smoky.'
+She checked her self-gratulation. 'Though I ain't wantin' ter gloat on
+the beastis' misery, nuther,' she stipulated.
+
+She paused presently at the lower end of the clearing, and looked down
+over the precipice, that presented a sheer sandstone cliff on one side,
+and on the other a wild confusion of splintered and creviced rocks,
+where the wild rose bloomed in the niches and the grape-vine swung. The
+beech-trees on the slope below conserved beneath their dense, umbrageous
+branches a tender green twilight. Loitering along in a gleaming silver
+thread by the roadside was a mountain rill, hardly gurgling even when
+with slight and primitive shift it was led into a hollow and mossy log,
+that it might aggregate sufficient volume in the dry season to water the
+horse of the chance wayfarer.
+
+The first stranger that rode into this shadowy nook took off a large
+straw hat and bared his brow to the refreshing coolness. His grizzled
+hair stood up in front after the manner denominated 'a roach.' His
+temples were deeply sunken, and his strongly marked face was long and
+singularly lean. He held it forward, as if he were snuffing the air. He
+had a massive and powerful frame, with not an ounce of superfluous
+flesh, and he looked like a hound in the midst of the hunting season.
+
+It served to quiet Dorinda's quivering nerves when he leisurely rode his
+big grey horse up to the trough, and dropped the rein that the animal
+might drink. If he were in pursuit he evidently had no idea how close he
+had pressed the fugitive. He was joined there by the other members of
+the party, six or eight in number, and presently a stentorian voice
+broke upon the air. 'Hello! Hello!' he shouted, hailing the log cabin.
+
+Mirandy Jane, a slim, long-legged, filly-like girl of thirteen, with a
+tangled black mane, the forelock hanging over her wild, prominent eyes,
+had at that moment appeared on the porch. She paused, and stared at the
+strangers with vivacious surprise. Then, taking sudden fright, she fled
+precipitately, with as much attendant confusion of pattering footfalls,
+flying mane, and excited snorts and gasps as if she were a troop of wild
+horses.
+
+'Granny! Granny!' she exclaimed to the old crone in the chimney-corner,
+'thar's a man on a big grey critter down at the trough, an' I an't
+s'prised none ef he air a raider!'
+
+The hail of the intruders was regarded as a challenge by some fifteen or
+twenty hounds that suddenly materialized among the beehives and the
+althea bushes, and from behind the ash-hopper and the hen-house and the
+rain-barrel. From under the cabin two huge curs came, their activity
+impeded by the blocks and chains they drew. These were silent, while the
+others yelped vociferously, and climbed over the fence, and dashed down
+the road.
+
+The horses pricked up their ears, and the leader of the party awaited
+the onslaught with a pistol in his hand.
+
+The old woman, glancing out of the window, observed this demonstration.
+
+'He'll kill one o' our dogs with that thar shootin'-iron o' his'n!' she
+exclaimed in trepidation. 'Run, Mirandy Jane, an' tell him _our_ dogs
+don't bite.'
+
+The filly-like Mirandy Jane made great speed among the hounds as she
+called them off, and remembered only after she had returned to the house
+to be afraid of the 'shootin'-iron' herself.
+
+The old woman, who had come out on the porch, stood gazing at the party,
+shading her eyes with her hands, and a long-range colloquy ensued.
+
+'Good-mornin', madam,' said the man at the trough.
+
+'Good-mornin', sir,' quavered the old crone on the mountain slope.
+
+'I'm the sher'ff o' the county, madam, an' I'd like ter know ef----'
+
+'Mirandy Jane,' the old woman interrupted, in a wrathful undertone,
+''pears like I hev' hed the trouble o' raisin' a idjit in you-uns! Them
+ain't raiders, 'n nuthin' like it. Run an' tell the sher'ff we air
+dishin' up dinner right now, an' ax him an' his gang ter' light an'
+hitch, an' eat it along o' we-uns.'
+
+The prospect was tempting. It was high noon, and the posse had been in
+the saddle since dawn. Dorinda, with a beating heart, remarked how short
+a consultation resulted in dismounting and hitching the horses; and
+then, with their spurs jingling and their pistols belted about them, the
+men trooped up to the house.
+
+As they seated themselves around the table, more than one looked back
+over his shoulder at the open window, in which was framed, as motionless
+as a painted picture, the vast perspective of the endless blue ranges
+and the great vaulted sky, not more blue, all with the broad, still,
+brilliant noontide upon it.
+
+'Ye ain't scrimped fur a view, Mis' Cayce, an' that's the Lord's truth!'
+exclaimed the officer.
+
+'Waal,' said the old woman, as if her attention were called to the fact
+for the first time, 'we kin see a power o' kentry from this spot o'
+ourn, sure enough; but I dunno ez it gins us enny more chance o' ever
+viewin' Canaan.'
+
+'It's a sight o' ground ter hev ter hunt a man over, ez ef he war a
+needle in a haystack,' and once more the officer turned and surveyed the
+prospect.
+
+The room was overheated by the fire which had cooked the dinner, and the
+old woman actively plied her fan of turkey feathers, pausing
+occasionally to readjust her cap, which had a flapping frill, and was
+surmounted by a pair of gleaming spectacles. A bandana kerchief was
+crossed over her breast, and she wore a blue-and-white-checked homespun
+dress of the same pattern and style that she had worn here fifty years
+ago. Her hands were tremulous and gnarled, and her face was deeply
+wrinkled, but her interest in life was as fresh as Mirandy Jane's.
+
+The great frame of the warping-bars on one side of the room was swathed
+with a rainbow of variegated yarn, and a spinning-wheel stood near the
+door. A few shelves, scrupulously neat, held piggins, a cracked blue
+bowl, brown earthenware, and the cooking utensils. There were rude
+gun-racks on the walls. These indicated the fact of several men in the
+family. It was the universal dinner-hour, yet none of them appeared. The
+sheriff reflected that perhaps they had their own sufficient reason to
+be shy of strangers, and the horses hitched outside advertised the
+presence and number of unaccustomed visitors within. When the usual
+appetizer was offered, it took the form of whisky in such quantity that
+the conviction was forced upon him that it was come by very handily.
+However, he applied himself with great relish to the bacon and
+snap-beans, corn dodgers and fried chicken, not knowing that Mirandy
+Jane, who was esteemed altogether second-rate, had cooked them, and he
+spread honey upon the apple-pie, ate it with his knife, and washed it
+down with buttermilk, kept cold as ice in the spring--the mixture being
+calculated to surprise a more civilized stomach.
+
+Not even his conscience was roused--the first intimation of a disordered
+digestion. He listened to old Mrs. Cayce with no betrayal of divination
+when she vaguely but anxiously explained the absence of her son and his
+boys in the equivocal phrase, 'Not round about ter-day, bein' gone off,'
+and he asked how many miles distant was the Settlement, as if he
+understood they had gone thither. He was saying to himself, the brush
+whisky warming his heart, that the revenue department paid him nothing
+to raid moonshiners, and there was no obligation of his office to sift
+any such suspicion which might occur to him while accepting an unguarded
+hospitality.
+
+He looked with somewhat appreciative eyes at Dorinda, as she went back
+and forth from the table to the pot which hung in the deep chimney-place
+above the smouldering coals. She had laid aside her bonnet. Her face was
+grave, her eyes were bright and excited; her hair was drawn back, except
+for the tendrils about her brow, and coiled, with the aid of a
+much-prized 'tuckin'-comb,' at the back of her head in a knot
+discriminated as Grecian in civilization. He remarked to her grandmother
+that he was a family man himself, and had a daughter as old, he should
+say, as Dorinda.
+
+'D'rindy air turned seventeen, now,' said Mrs. Cayce disparagingly. 'It
+'pears like ter me ez the young folks nowadays air awk'ard an' back'ard.
+I war married when I war sixteen--sixteen scant.'
+
+The girl felt that she was indeed of advanced years, and the sheriff
+said that his daughter was not yet sixteen, and he thought it probable
+that she weighed more than Dorinda.
+
+He lighted his pipe presently, and tilted his chair back against the
+wall.
+
+'Yes 'm,' he said meditatively, gazing out of the window at the great
+panorama, 'it's a pretty big spot o' kentry ter hev ter hunt a man over.
+Now ef 'twar one o' the town folks we could make out ter overhaul him
+somehows; but a mounting boy--why, he's ez free ter the hills ez a fox.
+I s'pose ye hain't seen him hyar-abouts?'
+
+'I hain't hearn who it air yit,' the old woman replied, putting her hand
+behind her ear.
+
+'It's Rick Tyler; he hails from this deestric'. I won't be 'stonished ef
+we ketch him this time. The gov'nor has offered two hunderd dollars
+reward fur him, an' I reckon somebody will find it wuth while ter head
+him fur us.'
+
+He was talking idly. He had no expectation of developments here. He had
+only stopped at the house in the first instance for the question which
+he had asked at every habitation along the road. It suddenly occurred to
+him as polite to include Dorinda in the conversation.
+
+'Ye hain't seen nor hearn of him, I s'pose, hev ye?' inquired the
+sheriff, directly addressing her.
+
+As he turned toward her he marked her expression. His own face changed
+suddenly. He rose at once.
+
+'Don't trifle with the law, I warn ye,' he said sternly. 'Ye hev seen
+that man.'
+
+Dorinda was standing beside her spinning-wheel, one hand holding the
+thread, the other raised to guide the motion. She looked at him pale and
+breathless.
+
+'I hev seen him. I ain't onwillin' ter own it. Ye never axed me afore.'
+
+The other members of the party had crowded in from the porch, where they
+had been sitting since dinner, smoking their pipes. The officer,
+realizing his lapse of vigilance and the loss of his opportunity, was
+sharply conscious, too, of their appreciation of his fatuity.
+
+'Whar did ye see him?' he asked.
+
+'I seen him hyar--this mornin'.' There was a stir of excitement in the
+group. 'He kem by on his beastis whilst I war a-ploughin', an' we talked
+a passel. An' then he tuk Pete's plough, ez war idle in the turn-row,
+an' helped along some; he run a few furrows.'
+
+'Which way did he go?' asked the sheriff breathlessly.
+
+'I dunno,' faltered the girl.
+
+'Look-a-hyar!' he thundered, in rising wrath. 'Ye'll find yerself under
+lock an' key in the jail at Shaftesville, if ye undertake ter fool with
+me. Which way did he go?'
+
+A flush sprang into the girl's excited face. Her eyes flashed.
+
+'Ef ye kin jail me fur tellin' all I know, I can't holp it,' she said,
+with spirit. 'I kin tell no more.'
+
+He saw the justice of her position. It did not make the situation
+easier for him. Here he had sat eating and drinking and idly talking,
+while the fugitive, who had escaped by a hair's-breadth, was counting
+miles and miles between himself and his lax pursuer. This would be heard
+of in Shaftesville--and he a candidate for re-election! He beheld
+already an exchange of significant glances among his posse. Had he asked
+that simple question earlier he might now be on his way back to
+Shaftesville, his prisoner braceleted with the idle handcuffs that
+jingled in his pocket as he moved.
+
+He caught at every illusive vagary that might promise to retrieve his
+error. He declared that she could not say which way Rick Tyler had taken
+because he was not gone.
+
+'He's in this house right now!' he exclaimed. He ordered a search, and
+the guests, a little while ago so friendly, began exploring every nook
+and cranny.
+
+'No, no!' cried the old woman shrilly, as they tried the door of the
+shed-room, which was bolted and barred. 'Ye can't tech that thar door.
+It can't be opened--not ef the Gov'nor o' Tennessee war hyar himself,
+a-moanin' an' a-honin' ter git in.'
+
+The sheriff's eyes dilated. 'Open the door--I summon ye!' he proclaimed,
+with his imperative official manner.
+
+'No!--I done tole ye,' she said indignantly. 'The word o' the men folks
+hev been gin ter keep that thar door shet, an shet it's going ter be
+kep'.'
+
+The officer laid his hand upon it.
+
+'Ye mustn't bust it open!' shrilled the old woman. 'Laws-a-massy! ef
+thar be many sech ez you-uns in Shaftesville, I ain't s'prised none that
+the Bible gits ter mournin' over the low kentry, an' calls it a vale o'
+tears an' the valley o' the shadder o' death!'
+
+The sheriff had placed his powerful shoulder against the frail batten
+door.
+
+'Hyar goes!' he said.
+
+There was a crash; the door lay in splinters on the floor; the men
+rushed precipitately over it.
+
+They came back laughing sheepishly. The officer's face was angry and
+scarlet.
+
+'Don't take the bar'l--don't take the bar'l!' the old woman besought of
+him, as she fairly hung upon his arm. 'I dunno _how_ the boys would
+cavort ef they kem back an' fund the bar'l gone.'
+
+He gave her no heed. 'Whyn't ye tell me that man warn't thar?' he asked
+of the girl.
+
+'Ye didn't ax me that word,' said Dorinda.
+
+'No, 'Cajah Green, ye didn't,' said one of the men, who, since the
+abortive result of their leader's suspicion, were ashamed of their
+mission, and prone to self-exoneration. 'I'll stand up ter it ez she
+answered full an' true every word ez ye axed her.'
+
+'Lor'-a'mighty! Ef I jes' knowed aforehand how it will tech the boys
+when they view the door down onto the floor!' exclaimed the old woman.
+'They mought jounce round hyar ez ef they war bereft o' reason, an' all
+thar hope o' salvation hed hung on the hinges. An' then agin they mought
+'low ez they hed ruther hev no door than be at the trouble o' shettin'
+it an' barrin' it up ez they come an' go. They air mighty onsartin in
+thar temper, an' I hev never hankered ter see 'em crost. But fur the
+glory's sake, don't tech the bar'l. It's been sot thar ter age some, ef
+the Lord will spare it.'
+
+In the girl's lucent eyes the officer detected a gleam of triumph. How
+far away in the tangled labyrinths of the mountain wilderness, among the
+deer-paths and the cataracts and the cliffs, had these long hours led
+Rick Tyler?
+
+He spoke on his angry impulse: 'An' I ain't goin' ter furgit in a hurry
+how I hev fund out ez ye air a-consortin' with criminals, an' aidin' an'
+abettin' men ez air fleein' from jestice an' wanted fur murder. Ye look
+out; ye'll find yerself in Shaftesville jail 'fore long, I'm
+a-thinkin'.'
+
+'He stopped an' talked ez other folks stop an' talk,' Dorinda retorted.
+'I couldn't hender, an' I hed no mind ter hender. He took no bite nor
+sup ez others hez done. 'Pears like ter me ez we hev gin aid an' comfort
+ter the off'cer o' the law ez well ez we could.'
+
+And this was the story that went down to Shaftesville.
+
+The man, his wrath rebounding upon himself, hung his head, and went down
+to the trough, and mounted his horse without another word.
+
+The others hardly knew what to say to Dorinda. But they were more
+deliberate in their departure, and hung around apologizing in their rude
+way to the old woman, who convulsively besought each to spare the
+barrel, which had been set in the shed-room to 'age some, ef it could be
+lef alone.'
+
+Dorinda stood under the jack-bean vines, blossoming purple and white,
+and watched the men as they silently rode away. All the pride within her
+was stirred. Every sensitive fibre flinched from the officer's coarse
+threat. She followed him out of sight with vengeful eyes.
+
+'I wish I war a man!' she cried passionately.
+
+'A-law, D'rindy!' exclaimed her grandmother, aghast at the idea. 'That
+ain't manners!'
+
+The shadows were beginning to creep slowly up the slopes of the Great
+Smoky Mountains, as if they came from the depths of the earth. A roseate
+suffusion idealised range and peak to the east. The delicate skyey
+background of opaline tints and lustre made distinct and definite their
+majestic symmetry of outline. Ah! and the air was so clear! What
+infinite lengths of elastic distances stretched between that quivering
+trumpet-flower by the fence and the azure heights which its scarlet horn
+might almost seem to cover! The sun, its yellow blaze burned out, and
+now a sphere of smouldering fire, was dropping down behind Chilhowee,
+royally purple, richly dark. Wings were in the air, and every instinct
+was homeward. An eagle, with a shadow skurrying through the valley like
+some forlorn Icarus that might not soar, swept high over the landscape.
+Above all rose the great 'bald,' still splendidly illumined with the red
+glamour of the sunset, and holding its uncovered head so loftily against
+the sky that it might seem it had bared its brow before the majesty of
+heaven.
+
+When the 'men folks,' great, gaunt, bearded, jeans-clad fellows, stood
+in the shed-room and gazed at the splintered door upon the floor, it was
+difficult to judge what was the prevailing sentiment, so dawdling, so
+uncommunicative, so inexpressive of gesture were they.
+
+'We knowed ez thar war strangers prowlin' roun',' said the master of the
+house, when he had heard his mother's excited account of the events of
+the day. 'We war a-startin' home ter dinner, an' seen thar beastises
+hitched thar a-nigh the trough. An' I 'lowed ez mebbe they mought be the
+revenue devils, so I jes' made the boys lay low. An' Sol war set ter
+watch, an' he gin the word when they hed rid away.'
+
+He was a man of fifty-five, perhaps, tough and stalwart. His face was as
+lined and seamed as that of his mother, who had counted nearly fourscore
+years, but his frame was almost as supple as at thirty. This trait of
+physical vigour was manifested in each of his muscular sons, and,
+despite their slow and lank uncouthness, their movements suggested
+latent elasticity. In Dorinda, his only daughter, it graced her youth
+and perfected her beauty. He was known far and wide as 'Groundhog
+Cayce,' but he would tell you, with a flash of the eye, that before the
+war he bore the Christian name of John.
+
+Nothing more was said on the subject until after supper, when they were
+all sitting, dusky shadows, on the little porch, where the fireflies
+sparkled and the vines fluttered, and one might look out and see the new
+moon, in the similitude of a silver boat, sailing down the western
+skies, off the headlands of Chilhowee. A cricket was shrilling in the
+weeds. The vague sighing voice of the woods rose and fell with a
+melancholy monody. A creamy elder-blossom glimmered in a corner of the
+rail fence, hard by, its delicate, delicious odour pervading the air.
+
+'I never knowed,' said one of the young men, 'ez this hyar sher'ff--this
+'Cajah Green--war sech a headin' critter.'
+
+'He never teched the bar'l,' said the old woman, not wishing that he
+should appear blacker than he had painted himself.
+
+'I s'pose you-uns gin him an' his gang a bite an' sup,' remarked
+Groundhog Cayce.
+
+'They eat a sizable dinner hyar,' put in Mirandy Jane, who, having
+cooked it, had no mind that it should be belittled.
+
+'An' they stayed a right smart while, an' talked powerful frien'ly an'
+sociable-like,' said old Mrs. Cayce, 'till the sher'ff got addled with
+the notion that we hed Rick Tyler hid hyar. An' unless we-uns hed tied
+him in the cheer or shot him, nuthin' in natur' could hev held him. I
+'lowed 't war the dram he tuk, though D'rindy thinks differ. They never
+teched the bar'l, though.'
+
+'An' then,' said Dorinda, with a sudden gush of tears, all the afflicted
+delicacy of a young and tender woman, all the overweening pride of the
+mountaineer, throbbing wildly in her veins, her heart afire, her
+helpless hands trembling, 'he said the word ez he would lock me up in
+the jail at Shaftesville, sence I hed owned ter seein' a man ez he
+warn't peart enough ter ketch. He spoke that word ter me--_the jail_!'
+
+She hung sobbing in the doorway.
+
+There was a murmur of indignation among the group, and John Cayce rose
+to his feet with a furious oath.
+
+'He shell rue it!' he cried--'he shell rue it! Me an' mine take no word
+off'n nobody. My gran'dad an' his three brothers, one hunderd an'
+fourteen year ago, kem hyar from the old North State an' settled in the
+Big Smoky. They an' thar sons rooted up the wilderness. They cropped.
+They fit the beastis; they fit the Injun; they fit the British; an' this
+last little war o' ourn they fit each other. Thar hev never been a
+coward 'mongst 'em. Thar hev never been a key turned on one of 'em, or a
+door shet. They hev respected the law fur what it war wuth, an' they hev
+stood up fur thar rights agin it. They answer fur thar word, an others
+hev ter answer.'
+
+He paused for a moment.
+
+The moon, still in the similitude of a silver boat, swung at anchor in a
+deep indentation in the summit of Chilhowee that looked like some lonely
+pine-girt bay; what strange, mysterious fancies did it land from its
+cargo of sentiments and superstitions and uncanny influences!
+
+'D'rindy,' her father commanded, 'make a mark on this hyar rifle-bar'l
+fur 'Cajah Green's word ter be remembered by.'
+
+There was a flash in the faint moonbeams, as he held out to her a long,
+sharp knife. The rifle was in his hand. Other marks were on it
+commemorating past events. This was to be a foregone conclusion.
+
+'No, no!' cried the girl, shrinking back aghast. 'I don't want him shot.
+I wouldn't hev him hurted fur me, fur nothin'! I ain't keerin' now fur
+what he said. Let him be--let him be!'
+
+She had smarted under the sense of indignity. She had wanted their
+sympathy, and perhaps their idle anger. She was dismayed by the
+revengeful passion she had roused.
+
+'No, no!' she reiterated, as one of the younger men, her brother Peter,
+stepped swiftly out from the shadow, seized her hand with the knife
+trembling in it, and, catching the moonlight on the barrel of the rifle,
+guided upon it, close to the muzzle, the mark of a cross.
+
+The moon had weighed anchor at last, and dropped down behind the
+mountain summit, leaving the bay with a melancholy waning suffusion of
+light, and the night very dark.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The summer days climbed slowly over the Great Smoky Mountains. Long the
+morning lingered among the crags, and chasms, and the dwindling shadows.
+The vertical noontide poised motionless on the great balds. The evening
+dawdled along the sunset slopes, and the waning crimson waited in the
+dusk for the golden moonrise.
+
+So little speed they made that it seemed to Rick Tyler that weeks
+multiplied while they loitered.
+
+It might have been deemed the ideal of a sylvan life--those days while
+he lay hid out on the Big Smoky. His rifle brought him food with but the
+glance of the eye and a touch on the trigger: 'Ekal ter the prophet's
+raven, ef the truth war knowed,' he said sometimes, while he cooked the
+game over a fire of dead-wood gathered by the wayside. A handful of
+blackberries gave it a relish, and there were the ice-cold,
+never-failing springs of the range wherever he might turn.
+
+But for the unquiet thoughts that followed him from the world, the
+characteristic sloth of the mountaineer might have spared him all sense
+of tedium, as he lay on the bank of a mountain stream, while the slow
+days waxed and waned. Often he would see a musk-rat--picturesque little
+body--swimming in a muddy dip. And again his listless gaze was riveted
+upon the quivering diaphanous wings of a snake-doctor, hovering close at
+hand, until the grotesque, airy thing would flit away. The arrowy
+sunbeams shot into the dense umbrageous tangles, and fell spent to earth
+as the shadows swayed. Farther down the stream two huge cliffs rose on
+either side of the channel, giving a narrow view of far-away blue
+mountains as through a gate. In and out stole the mist, uncertain
+whither. The wind came and went, paying no toll. Sometimes, when the sun
+was low, a shadow--an antlered shadow--slipped through like a fantasy.
+
+But when the skies would begin to darken and the night come tardily on,
+the scanty incidents of the day lost their ephemeral interest. His human
+heart would assert itself, and he would yearn for the life from which he
+was banished, and writhe with an intolerable anguish under his sense of
+injury.
+
+'An' the law holds me the same ez 'Bednego Tynes, who killed Joel Byers,
+jes' ter keep his hand in--hevin' killed another man afore--an' I never
+so much ez lifted a finger agin him!'
+
+He pondered much on his past, and the future that he had lost. Sometimes
+he gave himself to adjusting, from the meagre circumstances of their
+common lot on Big Smoky, the future of those with whose lives his own
+had heretofore seemed an integral part, and from which it should for
+evermore be dissevered. All the pangs of penance were in that sense of
+irrevocability. It was done, and here was his choice: to live the life
+of a skulking wolf, to prowl, to flee, to fight at bay, or to return and
+confront an outraged law. He experienced a frenzy of rage to realize how
+hardily his world would roll on without him. Big Smoky would not suffer!
+The sun would shine, and the crops ripen, and the harvest come, and the
+snows sift down, and the seasons revolve. The boys would shoot for beef,
+and there was to be a gander-pulling at the Settlement when the
+candidates should come 'stumpin' the Big Smoky' for the midsummer
+elections. And when, periodically, 'the mountings' would wake to a sense
+of sin, and a revival would be instituted, all the people would meet,
+and clap their hands, and sing, and pray, and that busy sinner, D'rindy,
+might find time to think upon grace, and perhaps upon the man whom she
+likened to the prophets of old.
+
+Then Rick Tyler would start up from his bed of boughs, and stride wildly
+about among the boulders, hardly pausing to listen if he heard a wolf
+howling on the lonely heights. An owl would hoot derisively from the
+tangled laurel. And oh, the melancholy moonlight in the melancholy
+pines, where the whip-poor-will moaned and moaned!
+
+'I'd shoot that critter ef I could make out ter see him!' cried the
+harassed fugitive, his every nerve quivering.
+
+It all began with Dorinda; it all came back to her. He drearily foresaw
+that she would forget him; and yet he could not know how the alienation
+was to commence, how it should progress, and the process of its
+completion. 'All whilst I'm a-roamin' off with the painters an' sech!'
+he exclaimed bitterly.
+
+And she--her future was plain enough. There was a little log-cabin by
+the grist-mill: the mountains sheltered it; the valley held it as in the
+palm of a hand. Hardly a moment since, his jealous heart had been racked
+by the thought of the man she likened to the prophets of old, and now he
+saw her spinning in the door of Amos James's house in the quiet depths
+of Eskaqua Cove.
+
+This vision stilled his heart. He was numbed by his despair. Somehow,
+the burly young miller seemed a fitter choice than the religious
+enthusiast, whose leisure was spent in praying in the desert places. He
+wondered that he should ever have felt other jealousy, and was
+subacutely amazed to find this passion so elastic.
+
+With wild and haggard eyes he saw the day break upon this vision. It
+came in at the great gate--a pale flush, a fainting star, a burst of
+song, and the red and royal sun.
+
+The morning gradually exerted its revivifying influence and brought a
+new impulse. He easily deceived himself, and disguised it as a reason.
+
+'This hyar powder is a-gittin' mighty low,' he said to himself,
+examining the contents of his powder-horn. 'An' that thar rifle eats it
+up toler'ble fast sence I hev hed ter hunt varmints fur my vittles. Ef
+that war the sher'ff a-ridin' arter me the day I war at Cayce's, he's
+done gone whar he b'longs by this time--'twar two weeks ago; an' ef he
+ain't gone back, he wouldn't be layin' fur me roun' the Settle_mint_,
+nohow. An' I kin git some powder thar, an' hear 'em tell what the
+mounting air a-doin' of. An' mebbe I won't be so durned lonesome when I
+gits back hyar.'
+
+He mounted his horse, later in the day, and picked his way slowly down
+the banks of the stream and through the great gate.
+
+The Settlement on a spur of the Big Smoky illustrated the sacrilege of
+civilization. A number of trees, girdled years ago, stretched above the
+fields their gigantic skeletons, suggesting their former majesty of mien
+and splendid proportions. Their forlorn, leafless branches rattled
+together with a dreary sound, as the breeze stirred among the gaunt and
+pallid assemblage. The little log-cabins, five or six in number, were so
+situated among the stumps which disfigured the clearing, that if a
+sudden wind should bring down one of the monarchial spectres of the
+forest, it would make havoc only in the crops. The wheat was thin and
+backward. A little patch of cotton in a mellow dip served to show the
+plant at its minimum. There was tobacco, too, placed, like the cotton,
+where it was hoped it would take a notion to grow. Sorghum flourished,
+and the tasselled Indian corn, waving down a slope, had aboriginal
+suggestions of plumed heads and glancing quivers. A clamour of Guinea
+fowls arose, and geese and turkeys roved about in the publicity of the
+clearing with the confident air of esteemed citizens. Sheep were feeding
+among the ledges.
+
+It was hard to say what might be bought at the store except powder and
+coffee, and sugar perhaps, if 'long-sweetenin'' might not suffice; for
+each of the half-dozen small farms was a type of the region, producing
+within its own confines all its necessities. Hand-looms could be
+glimpsed through open doors, and as yet the dry-goods trade is unknown
+to the homespun-clad denizens of the Settlement. Beeswax, feathers,
+honey, dried fruit, are bartered here, and a night's rest has never been
+lost for the perplexities of the currency question on the Big Smoky
+Mountains.
+
+The proprietor of the store, his operations thus limited, was content to
+grow rich slowly, if needs were to grow rich at all. In winter he sat
+before the great wood fire in the store and smoked his pipe, and his
+crony, the blacksmith, often came, hammer in hand and girded with his
+leather apron, and smoked with him. In the summer he sat all day, as
+now, in front of the door, looking meditatively at the scene before him.
+The sunlight slanted upon the great dead trees; their forms were imposed
+with a wonderful distinctness upon the landscape that stretched so far
+below the precipice on which the little town was perched. They even
+touched, with those bereaved and denuded limbs, the far blue mountains
+encircling the horizon, and with their interlacing lines and curves they
+seemed some mysterious scripture engraven upon the world.
+
+It was just six o'clock, and the shadow of a bough that still held a
+mass of woven sticks, once the nest of an eagle, had reached the verge
+of the cliff, when the sound of hoofs fell on the still air, and a man
+rode into the clearing from the encompassing woods.
+
+The storekeeper glanced up to greet the new-comer, but did not risk the
+fatigue of rising. Women looked out of the windows, and a girl on a
+porch, reeling yarn, found a reason to stop her work. A man came out of
+a house close by, and sat on the fence, within range of any colloquy in
+which he might wish to participate. The whole town could join at will in
+a municipal conversation. The forge fire showed a dull red against the
+dusky brown shadows in the recesses of the shop. The blacksmith stood in
+front of the door, his eyes shielded with his broad blackened right
+hand, and looked critically at the steed. Horses were more in his line
+than men. He was a tall, powerfully built fellow of thirty, perhaps,
+with the sooty aspect peculiar to his calling, a swarthy complexion, and
+a remarkably well-knit, compact, and muscular frame. He often said in
+pride, 'Ef I hed hed the forgin' o myself, I wouldn't hev welded on a
+pound more, or hammered out a leader differ.'
+
+Suddenly detaching his attention from the horse, he called out, 'Waal,
+sir! Ef thar ain't Rick Tyler!' This was addressed to the town at large.
+Then, 'What ails ye, Rick? I hearn tell ez you-uns war on yer way ter
+Shaftesville along o' the sher'ff.' He had a keen and twinkling eye. He
+cast it significantly at the man on the fence. 'Ye kem back, I reckon,
+ter git yer handcuffs mended at my shop. Gimme the bracelets.' He held
+out his hand in affected anxiety.
+
+'I ain't a-wearin' no bracelets now.' Rick Tyler's hasty impulse had
+its impressiveness. He levelled his pistol. 'Ef ye hanker ter do enny
+mendin', I'll gin ye repairs ter make in them cast-iron chit'lings o'
+yourn,' he said coolly.
+
+He was received at the store with a distinct accession of respect. The
+blacksmith stood watching him, with angry eyes, and a furtive
+recollection of the reward offered by the governor for his apprehension.
+
+The young fellow, with a sudden return of caution, did not at once
+venture to dismount; and Nathan Hoodendin, the storekeeper, rose for no
+customer. Respectively seated, for these diverse reasons, they
+transacted the negotiation.
+
+'Hy're, Rick,' drawled the storekeeper languidly. 'I hopes ye keeps yer
+health,' he added politely.
+
+The young man melted at the friendly tone. This was the welcome he had
+looked for at the Settlement. Loneliness had made his sensibilities
+tender, and 'hiding out' affected his spirits more than dodging the
+officers in the haunts of men, or daring the cupidity roused, he knew,
+by the reward for his capture. The blacksmith's jeer touched him as
+cruelly as an attempt upon his liberty. 'Jes' toler'ble,' he admitted,
+with the usual rural reluctance to acknowledge full health. 'I hopes ye
+an' yer fambly air thrivin',' he drawled, after a moment.
+
+A whiff came from the storekeeper's pipe; the smoke wreathed before his
+face, and floated away.
+
+'Waal, we air makin' out--we air makin' out.'
+
+'I kem over hyar,' said Rick Tyler, proceeding to business, 'ter git
+some powder out'n yer store. I wants one pound.'
+
+Nathan Hoodendin smoked silently for a moment. Then, with a facial
+convulsion and a physical wrench, he lifted his voice.
+
+'Jer'miah!' he shouted in a wild wheeze. And again, 'Jer'miah!'
+
+The invoked Jer'miah did not materialize at once. When a small
+tow-headed boy of ten came from a house among the stumps, with that
+peculiar deftness of tread characteristic of the habitually barefoot, he
+had an alert, startled expression, as if he had just jumped out of a
+bush. His hair stood up in front; he had wide pop-eyes, and long ears,
+and a rabbit-like aspect that was not diminished as he scudded round the
+heels of Rick Tyler's horse, at which he looked apprehensively.
+
+'Jer'miah,' said his father, with a pathetic cadence, 'go into the
+store, bub, an' git Rick Tyler a pound o' powder.'
+
+As Jeremiah started in, the paternal sentiment stirred in Nathan
+Hoodendin's breast.
+
+'Jer'miah,' he wheezed, bringing the fore-legs of the chair to the
+ground, and craning forward with unwonted alacrity to look into the
+dusky interior of the store, 'don't ye be foolin' round that thar powder
+with no lighted tallow dip nor nuthin'. I'll whale the life out'n ye ef
+ye do. Jes' weigh it by the winder.'
+
+Whether from fear of a whaling by his active parent, or of the
+conjunction of a lighted tallow dip and powder, Jeremiah dispensed with
+the candle. He brought the commodity out presently, and Rick stowed it
+away in his saddle-bags.
+
+'Can't ye 'light an' sot a while 'an talk, Rick?' said the storekeeper.
+'We-uns hev done hed our supper, but I reckon they could fix ye a snack
+yander ter the house.'
+
+Rick said he wanted nothing to eat, but, although he hesitated, he could
+not finally resist the splint-bottomed chair tilted against the wall of
+the store, and a sociable pipe, and the countryside gossip.
+
+'What's goin' on 'round the mounting?' he asked.
+
+Gid Fletcher, the blacksmith, came and sat in another chair, and the man
+on the fence got off and took up his position on a stump hard by. The
+great red sun dropped slowly behind the purple mountains; and the full
+golden moon rose above the corn-field that lay on the eastern slope, and
+hung there between the dark woods on either hand; and the blades caught
+the light, and tossed with burnished flashes into the night; and the
+great ghastly trees assumed a ghostly whiteness; and the mystic writing
+laid on the landscape below had the aspect of an uninterpreted portent.
+The houses were mostly silent; now and then a guard-dog growled at some
+occult alarm; a woman somewhere was softly and fitfully singing a child
+to sleep, and the baby crooned too, and joined in the vague, drowsy
+ditty. And for aught else that could be seen, and for aught else that
+could be heard, this was the world.
+
+'Waal, the Tempter air fairly stalkin' abroad on the Big
+Smoky--leastwise sence the summer season hev opened,' said Nathan
+Hoodendin. His habitual expression of heavy, joyless pondering had been
+so graven into his face that his raised grizzled eye-brows, surmounted
+by a multitude of perplexed wrinkles, his long, dismayed jaw, his thin,
+slightly parted lips, and the deep grooves on either side of his nose,
+were not susceptible of many gradations of meaning. His shifting eyes,
+cast now at the stark trees, now at the splendid disk of the rising
+moon, betokened but little anxiety for the Principle of Evil aloose in
+the Big Smoky. 'Fust--lemme see--thar war Eph Lowry, ez got inter a
+quar'l with his wife's half-brother's cousin, an' a-tusslin' 'roun' they
+cut one another right smart, an' some say ez Eph'll never hev his
+eyesight right good no more. Then thar war Baker Teal, what the folks
+in Eskaqua Cove 'low let down the bars o' the milk-sick pen, one day
+las' fall, an' druv Jacob White's red cow in; an' his folks never knowed
+she hed grazed thar till they hed milked an' churned fur butter, when
+she lay down an' died o' the milk-sick. Ef they hed drunk her milk
+same ez common, 'twould hev sickened 'em, sure, 'an mebbe killed
+'em. An' they've been quar'lin' 'bout'n it ever sence. Satan's
+a-stirrin'--Satan's a-stirrin' 'roun' the Big Smoky.'
+
+'Waal, I hearn ez some o' them folks in Eskaqua Cove 'low ez the red cow
+jes' hooked down the bars, bein' a turrible hooker,' spoke up the man on
+the stump unexpectedly.
+
+'Waal, White an' his folks won't hear ter no sech word ez that,' said
+the blacksmith; 'an' arter jowin' an' jowin' back an' fo'th they went
+t'other day an' informed on Teal 'fore the jestice, an' the Squair fined
+him twenty-five dollars, 'cordin' ter the law o' Tennessee fur them ez
+m'liciously lets down the bars o' the milk-sick pen. An' Baker Teal hed
+ter pay, an' the county treasury an' the informers divided the money
+'twixt 'em.'
+
+'What did I tell you-uns? Satan's a-stirrin'--Satan's a-stirrin' 'roun'
+the Big Smoky,' said the storekeeper, with a certain morbid pride in the
+Enemy's activity.
+
+'The constable o' this hyar deestric',' recommenced Gid Fletcher, who
+seemed as well informed as Nathan Hoodendin, 'he advised 'em ter lay it
+afore the jestice; he war mighty peart 'bout'n that thar job. They 'low
+ter me ez he hev tuk up a crazy fit ez he kin beat Micajah Green fur
+sher'ff, an' he's a-skeetin' arter law-breakers same ez a rooster arter
+a Juny-bug. He 'lows it'll show the kentry what a peart sher'ff he'd
+make.'
+
+'Shucks!' said the man on the stump. 'I'll vote fur 'Cajah Green fur
+sher'ff agin the old boy; he hev got a nose fur game.'
+
+'He hain't nosed you-uns out yit, hev he, Rick?' said the blacksmith,
+with feigned heartiness and a covert sneer.
+
+'Ho! ho! ho!' laughed Nathan Hoodendin. 'What war I a-tellin' you-uns?
+Satan's a-stirrin'--Satan's surely a-stirrin' on the Big Smoky.'
+
+Rick sat silent in the moonlight, smoking his pipe, his brown wool hat
+far back, the light full on his yellow head. His face had grown a trifle
+less square, and his features were more distinctly defined than of yore;
+he did not look ill, but care had drawn a sharp line here and there.
+
+'One sher'ff's same ter you-uns ez another, ain't he, Rick?' said the
+man on the stump. 'Any of 'em 'll do ter run from.'
+
+'They tell it ter me,' said the storekeeper, with so sudden a vivacity
+that it seemed it must crack his graven wrinkles, 'ez the whole Cayce
+gang air a-goin' ter vote agin 'Cajah Green, 'count o' the way he jawed
+at old Mis' Cayce an' D'rindy, the day he run you-uns off from thar,
+Rick.'
+
+'I ain't hearn tell o' that yit,' drawled Rick desolately, 'bein' hid
+out.'
+
+'Waal, he jawed at D'rindy, an' from what I hev hearn D'rindy jawed
+back; an' I dunno ez that's s'prisin'--the gal-folks ginerally do.
+Leastwise, I know ez he sent word arterward ter D'rindy by his
+dep'ty--ez war a-scoutin' 'roun' hyar, arter you-uns, I reckon, Rick--ez
+he would be up some day soon ter 'lectioneer, an' he war a-goin' ter
+stop ter thar house an' ax her pardin'. An' she sent him word, fur God's
+sake ter bide away from thar.'
+
+A long pause ensued; the stars were faint and few; the iterative note of
+the katydid vibrated monotonously in the dark woods; dew was falling;
+the wind stirred.
+
+'What ailed D'rindy ter say that word?' asked Rick, mystified.
+
+'Waal, I dunno,' said Hoodendin indifferently. 'I hev never addled my
+brains tryin' ter make out what a woman means. Though,' he qualified, 'I
+did ax the dep'ty an' Amos Jeemes from down yander in Eskaqua Cove--the
+dep'ty hed purtended ter hev summonsed him ez a posse, an' they war
+jes' rollickin' 'roun' the kentry like two chickens with thar heads
+off--I axed 'em what D'rindy meant; an' they 'lowed they didn't know,
+nor war they takin' it ter heart. They 'lowed ez she never axed _them_
+ter bide away from thar fur God's sake. An' then they snickered an'
+laffed, like single men do. An' I up an' tole 'em ez the Book sot it
+down ez the laffter o' fools is like the cracklin' o' bresh under a
+pot.'
+
+Rick Tyler was eager, his eyes kindling, his breath quick. He looked
+with uncharacteristic alertness at the inexpressive face of the
+leisurely narrator.
+
+'They capered like a dunno-what-all on the Big Smoky, them two,--the
+off'cer o' the law an' his posse! Thar goin's on war jes' scandalous:
+they played kyerds, an' they consorted with the moonshiners over
+yander,' nodding his head at the wilderness, 'an' got ez drunk ez two
+fraish biled ow_els_: an' they sung an' they hollered. An' they went ter
+the meetin'-house over yander whilst they war in liquor, an' the
+preacher riz up an' put 'em out. He's toler'ble tough, that thar Pa'son
+Kelsey, an' kin hold right smart show in a fight. An' the dep'ty, he
+straightened hisself, an' 'lowed he war a off'cer o' the law. An' Pa'son
+Kelsey, he 'lowed _he_ war a off'cer o' the law, an' he 'lowed ez his
+law war higher 'n the law o' Tennessee. An' with that he barred up the
+door. They hed a cornsider'ble disturba_mint_ at the meetin'-house
+yander at the Notch, an' the saints war tried in thar temper.'
+
+'The dep'ty 'lows ez Pa'son Kelsey air crazy in his mind,' said the man
+on the stump. 'The dep'ty said the pa'son talked ter him like ez ef he
+war a onregenerate critter. An' he 'lowed he war baptized in Scolacutta
+River two year ago an' better. The dep'ty say these hyar mounting
+preachers hain't got no doctrine like the valley folks. He called Pa'son
+Kelsey a ignorant cuss!'
+
+'Laws-a-massy!' exclaimed Nathan Hoodendin, scandalized.
+
+'He say it fairly makes him laff ter hear Pa'son Kelsey performing like
+he hed a cut-throat mortgage on a seat 'mongst the angels. He say ez he
+thinks Pa'son Kelsey speaks with more insurance 'n enny man he ever
+see.'
+
+'I reckon, ef the truth war knowed, the dep'ty ain't got no religion,
+an' never war in Scolacutta River, 'thout it war a-fishing',' said the
+blacksmith, meditatively.
+
+The fugitive from justice, pining for the simple society of his world,
+listened like a starveling thing to these meagre details, so replete
+with interest to him, so full of life and spirit. The next moment he was
+sorry he had come.
+
+'That thar Amos Jeemes air a comical critter,' said the man on the
+stump, after an interval of cogitation, and with a gurgling reminiscent
+laugh. 'He war a-cuttin' up his shines over thar ter Cayce's, t'other
+day; he warn't drunk _then_, ye onderstan'----'
+
+'I onderstan'. He war jes' fool, like he always air,' said the
+blacksmith.
+
+'Edzactly,' assented the man on the stump. 'An' he fairly made D'rindy
+laff ter see what the critter would say nex'. An' D'rindy always seemed
+ter me a powerful solemn sorter gal. Waal, she laffed at Amos. An'
+whilst him an' the dep'ty war a-goin' down the mounting--I went down ter
+Jeemes's mill ter leave some grist over night ter be ground--the dep'ty,
+he run Amos 'bout'n it. The dep'ty he 'lowed ez no gal hed ever made so
+much fun o' him, an' Amos 'lowed ez D'rindy _didn't_ make game o' him.
+She thunk too much o' him fur that. An' that bold-faced dep'ty, he
+'lowed he thought 'twar _him_ ez hed fund favior. An' Amos--we war
+mighty nigh down in Eskaqua Cove then--he turned suddint an' p'inted up
+the mounting. "What kin you-uns view on the mounting?" he axed. The
+dep'ty, he stopped an' stared; an' thar mighty nigh ez high ez the lower
+e-end o' the bald, war a light. "That shines fur me ter see whilst I'm
+'bleeged ter be in Eskaqua Cove," sez Amos. An' the dep'ty said, "I
+think it air a star!" An' Amos sez, sez he, "Bless yer bones, I think
+so, too--sometimes!" But 'twarn't no star. 'Twar jes' a light in the
+roof-room window o' Cayce's house; an' ye could see it, sure enough,
+plumb to the mill in Eskaqua Cove!'
+
+Rick rose to go. Why should he linger, and wring his heart, and garner
+bitterness to feed upon in his lonely days? Why should he look upon the
+outer darkness of his life, and dream of the star that shone so far for
+another man's sake into the sheltered depths of Eskaqua Cove? He had an
+impulse which he scorned, for his sight was blurred as he laid his hand
+on the pommel of his saddle. He did not see that one of the other men
+rose too.
+
+An approach, stealthy, swift, and the sinewy blacksmith flung himself
+upon his prisoner with the supple ferocity of a panther.
+
+'Naw--naw!' he said, showing his strong teeth, closely set. 'We can't
+part with ye yit, Rick Tyler! I'll arrest you-uns, ef the sher'ff can't.
+The peace o' Big Smoky an' the law o' the land air ez dear ter me ez ter
+enny other man.'
+
+The young fellow made a frantic effort to mount; then, as his horse
+sprang snorting away, he strove to draw one of his pistols. There was a
+turbulent struggle under the great silver moon and the dead trees. Again
+and again the swaying figures and their interlocked shadows reeled to
+the verge of the cliff; one striving to fall and carry the other with
+him, the other straining every nerve to hold back his captive.
+
+Even the storekeeper stood up and wheezed out a remonstrance.
+
+'Look-a-hyar, boys'--he began; then, 'Jer'miah,' he broke off abruptly,
+as the hopeful scion peered shyly out of the store door, 'clar out'n the
+way, sonny; they hev got shootin'-irons, an' some o' em mought go off.'
+
+He himself stepped prudently back. The man on the stump, however, forgot
+danger in his excitement. He sat and watched the scene with an eager
+relish which might suggest that a love of bull-fights is not a
+cultivated taste.
+
+'Be them men a-wraistlin'?' called out a woman, appearing in the doorway
+of a neighbouring house.
+
+''Pears like it ter me,' he said dryly.
+
+The strength of despair had served to make the younger man the
+blacksmith's equal, and the contest might have terminated differently
+had Rick Tyler not stumbled on a ledge. He was forced to his knees, then
+full upon the ground, his antagonist's grasp upon his throat. The
+blacksmith roared out for help; the man on the stump slowly responded,
+and the storekeeper languidly came and overlooked the operation, as the
+young fellow was disarmed and securely bound, hand and foot.
+
+'Waal, now, Gid Fletcher, ye hev got him,' said Nathan Hoodendin. 'What
+d'ye want with him?'
+
+The blacksmith had risen, panting, with wild eyes, his veins standing
+out in thick cords, perspiring from every pore, and in a bounding fury.
+
+'What do I want with him? I want ter put his head on my anvil thar, an'
+beat the foolishness out'n it with my hammer. I want ter kick him off'n
+this hyar bluff down ter the forge fires o' hell. That air what _I_
+want. An' the State o' Tennessee ain't wantin' much differ.'
+
+'Gid Fletcher,' said the man who had been sitting on the stump--he spoke
+in an accusing voice--'ye ain't keerin' nuthin' fur the law o' the land,
+nor the peace o' Big Smoky, nuther. It air jes' that two hundred dollars
+blood-money ye air cottonin' ter, an' ye knows it.'
+
+The love of money, the root of evil, is so rare in the mountains that
+the blacksmith stood as before a deep reproof. Then, with a moral
+hardihood that matched his physical prowess, he asked, 'An' what ef I
+be?'
+
+'What war I a-tellin' you-uns? Satan's a-stirrin'--Satan's a-stirrin' on
+the Big Smoky!' interpolated old Hoodendin.
+
+'Waal, I'd never hev been hankerin' fur sech,' drawled the moralist.
+
+A number of other men had come out from the houses, and a discussion
+ensued as to the best plan to keep the prisoner until morning. It was
+suggested that the time-honoured expedient in localities without the
+civilization of a jail--a wagon-body inverted, with a rock upon
+it--would be as secure as the state prison.
+
+'But who wants ter go ter heftin' rocks?' asked Nathan Hoodendin
+pertinently.
+
+For the sake of convenience, therefore, they left the prisoner bound
+with a rope made fast around a stump, that he might not, in his
+desperation, roll himself from the crag, and deputing a number of the
+men to watch him by turns, the Settlement retired to its slumbers.
+
+The night wore on; the moon journeyed toward the mountains in the west;
+the mists rose to meet it, and glistened like a silver sea. Some lonely,
+undiscovered ocean, this; never a sail set, never a pennant flying; all
+the valley was submerged; the black summits in the distance were
+isolated and insular; the moonlight glanced on the sparkling ripples, on
+the long reaches of illusive vapour.
+
+At intervals cocks crew; a faint response, like farthest echoes, came
+from some neighbouring cove; and then silence, save for the drone of the
+nocturnal insects and the far blast of a hunter's horn.
+
+'Jer'miah,' said Rick Tyler suddenly, as the boy crouched by one of the
+stumps and watched him with dilated, moonlit eyes--when Nathan
+Hoodendin's vigil came the little factotum served in his
+stead--'Jer'miah, git my knife out'n the store an' cut these hyar ropes.
+I'll gin ye my rifle ef ye will.'
+
+The boy sprang up, scudded off swiftly, then came back, and crouched by
+the stump again.
+
+The moon slipped lower and lower; the silver sea had turned to molten
+gold; the stars that had journeyed westward with the moon were dying out
+of a dim blue sky. Over the corn-field in the east was one larger than
+the rest, burning in an amber haze, charged with an unspoken poetical
+emotion that set its heart of white fire aquiver.
+
+'I'll gin ye my horse ef ye will.'
+
+'I dassent,' said Jer'miah.
+
+The morning star was burned out at last, and the prosaic day came over
+the corn-field.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Twilight was slipping down on the Big Smoky. Definiteness was
+annihilated, and distance a suggestion. Mountain forms lay darkening
+along the horizon, still flushed with the sunset. Eskaqua Cove had
+abysmal suggestions, and the ravines were vague glooms. Fire-flies were
+a-flicker in the woods. There might be a star, outpost of the night.
+
+Dorinda, hunting for the vagrant 'crumply cow,' paused sometimes when
+the wandering path led to the mountain's brink, and looked down those
+gigantic slopes and unmeasured depths. She carried her milk-piggin, and
+her head was uncovered. Now and then she called with long, vague vowels,
+'Soo--cow! Soo!' There was no response save the echoes, and the vibrant
+iteration of the katydid. Once she heard an alien sound, and she paused
+to listen. From the projecting spur where she stood, looking across the
+Cove, she could see, above the forests on the slopes, the bare, uprising
+dome, towering in stupendous proportions against the sky. The sound came
+again and yet again, and she recognised the voice of the man who was
+wont to go and pray in the desert places on the 'bald' of the mountain,
+and whom she had likened to the prophets of old. There was something
+indescribably wild and weird in those appealing, tempestuous tones, now
+rising as in frenzy, and now falling as with exhaustion--beseeching,
+adjuring, reproaching.
+
+'He hev fairly beset the throne o' grace!' she said, with a sort of pity
+for this insistent piety. A shivering, filmy mist was slipping down over
+the great dome. It glittered in the last rays of the sunlight, already
+vanished from the world below, like an illuminated silver gauze. She was
+reminded of the veil of the temple, and she had a sense of intrusion.
+
+'Prayer, though, air free for all,' she remarked, as self-justification,
+since she had paused to hear.
+
+She did not linger. His voice died in the distance, and the solemnity of
+the impression was gradually obliterated. As she went she presently
+began to sing, sometimes interpolating, without a sense of interruption,
+her mellow call of 'Soo--cow! Soo!' until it took the resemblance of a
+refrain, with an abrupt crescendo. The wild roses were flowering along
+the paths, and the pink and white azaleas--what perfumed ways, what
+lavish grace and beauty! The blooms of the laurel in the darkling places
+were like a spangling of stars. Dew was falling--it dashed into her
+face from the boughs that interlaced across the unfrequented path--and
+still the light lingered, loath to leave. She heard the stir of some
+wild things in the hollow of a great tree, and then a faint, low growl.
+She fancied she saw a pair of bright eyes looking apprehensively at her.
+
+'We-uns hev got a baby at our house, too, an' we don't want yourn,
+ma'am; much obleeged, all the same,' she said, with a laugh. But she
+looked back with a sort of pity for that alert maternal fear, and she
+never mentioned to the youngest brother, a persistent trapper, the
+little family of raccoons in the woods.
+
+She had forgotten the voice raised in importunate supplication on the
+'bald,' until, pursuing the path, she was led into the road, hard by a
+little bridge, or more properly culvert, which had rotted long ago; the
+vines came up through the cavities in the timbers, and a blackberry
+bush, with a wren's nest, flourished in their midst. The road was fain
+to wade through the stream; but the channel was dry now--a narrow belt
+of yellow sand lying in a long curving vista in the midst of the dense
+woods. A yoke of oxen, drawing a rude slide, paused to rest in the
+middle of the channel, and beside them was a man, of medium height,
+slender but sinewy, dressed in brown jeans, his trousers thrust into the
+legs of his boots, a rifle on his shoulder, and a broad-brimmed old wool
+hat surmounting his dark hair, that hung down to the collar of his coat.
+Her singing had prepared him for her advent, but he barely raised his
+eyes. That quick glance was incongruous with his dullard aspect; it held
+a spark of fire, inspiration, frenzy--who can say?
+
+He spoke suddenly, in a meek, drawling way, and with the air of
+submitting the proposition:
+
+'I hev gin the beastises a toler'ble hard day's work, an' I'm
+a-favourin' 'em goin' home.'
+
+A long pause ensued. The oxen hung down their weary heads, with the
+symbol of slavery upon them. The smell of ferns and damp mould was on
+the air. Rotting logs lay here and there, where the failing water had
+stranded them. The grape-vine, draping the giant oaks, swayed gently,
+and suggested an observation to break the silence.
+
+'How air the moral vineyard a-thrivin'?' she asked solemnly.
+
+He looked downcast. 'Toler'ble, I reckon.'
+
+'I hearn tell ez thar war a right smart passel o' folks baptized over
+yander in Scolacutta River,' she remarked encouragingly.
+
+'I baptized fourteen.'
+
+She turned the warm brightness of her eyes upon him. 'They hed all fund
+grace!' she exclaimed.
+
+'They 'lowed so. I hopes they'll prove it by thar works,' he said,
+without enthusiasm.
+
+'Ye war a-prayin' fur 'em on the bald?' she asked, apprehending that he
+accounted these converts peculiarly precarious.
+
+'Naw,' he replied, with moody sincerity; 'I war a-prayin' fur myself.'
+
+There was another pause, longer and more awkward than before.
+
+'What work be you-uns a-doin' of?' asked Dorinda timidly. She quailed a
+trifle before the uncomprehended light in his eyes. It was not of her
+world, she felt instinctively.
+
+'I hev ploughed some, holpin' Jonas Trice, an' hev been a-hauling wood.
+I tuk my rifle along,' he added, 'thinkin' I mought see suthin' ez would
+be tasty fur the old men's supper ez I kem home, but I forgot ter look
+around keen.'
+
+There was a sudden sound along the road--a sound of quick hoof-beats.
+Because of the deep sand the rider was close at hand before his approach
+was discovered. He drew rein abruptly, and they saw that it was Gid
+Fletcher, the blacksmith of the Settlement.
+
+'Hev you-uns hearn the news?' he cried excitedly, as he threw himself
+from the saddle.
+
+The man, leaning on the rifle, looked up, with no question in his eyes.
+There was an almost monastic indifference to the world suggested in his
+manner.
+
+'Thar's a mighty disturbamint at the Settle_mint_. Las' night this hyar
+Rick Tyler--what air under indictment fur a-killin' o' Joel Byers--he
+kem a-nosin' 'roun' the Settle_mint_ a-tryin' ter buy powder----'
+
+Dorinda stretched out her hand; the trees were unsteady before her; the
+few faint stars, no longer pulsating points of light, described a circle
+of dazzling gleams. She caught at the yoke on the neck of the oxen; she
+leaned upon the impassive beast, and then it seemed that every faculty
+was merged in the sense of hearing. The horse had moved away from the
+blacksmith, holding his head down among the boulders, and snuffing about
+for the water he remembered here with a disappointment almost pathetic.
+
+'War he tuk?' demanded the preacher.
+
+'Percisely so,' drawled the blacksmith, with a sub-current of elation in
+his tone.
+
+There was a sudden change in Kelsey's manner. He turned fiery eyes upon
+the blacksmith. Light and life were in every line of his face. He drew
+himself up tense and erect; he stretched forth his hand with an accusing
+gesture.
+
+''Twar you-uns, Gid Fletcher, ez tuk the boy!'
+
+'Lord, pa'son, how'd you-uns know that?' exclaimed the blacksmith. His
+manner combined a difference, which in civilization we recognise as
+respect for the cloth, with the easy familiarity, induced by the
+association since boyhood, of equals in age and station. 'I hedn't let
+on a word, hed I, D'rindy?'
+
+The idea of an abnormal foreknowledge, mysteriously possessed, had its
+uncanny influences. The lonely woods were darkening about them. The
+stars seemed very far off. A rotting log in the midst of the débris of
+the stream, in a wild tangle of underbrush and shelving rocks, showed
+fox-fire and glowed in the glooms.
+
+'I knowed,' said Kelsey, contemptuously waiving the suggestion of
+miraculous forecast, 'bekase the sher'ff hain't been in the Big Smoky
+for two weeks, an' that thar danglin' shadder o' his'n rid off las'
+Monday from Jeemes's Mill in Eskaqua Cove. An' the constable o' the
+deestric air sick abed. So I 'lowed 'twar you-uns.'
+
+'An' why air it me more'n enny other man at the Settle_mint_?' The
+blacksmith's blood was rising; his sensibilities descried a covert taunt
+which as yet his slower intelligence failed to comprehend.
+
+'An' ye hev rid with speed fur the sher'ff--or mebbe ter overhaul the
+dep'ty--ter come an' jail the prisoner afore he gits away.'
+
+'An' why me, more'n the t'others?' demanded the blacksmith.
+
+'Yer heart air ez hard ez your anvil, Gid Fletcher,' said the
+mind-reader. 'Thar ain't another man on the Big Smoky ez would stir
+himself ter gin over ter the gallus or the pen'tiary the frien' ez
+trested him, who hev done no harm, but hev got tangled in a twist of a
+unjest law. Ef the law tuk him, that's a differ.'
+
+''Tain't fur we-uns ter jedge o' the law!' exclaimed Gid Fletcher, his
+logic sharpened by the anxiety of his greed and his prideful
+self-esteem. 'Let the law jedge o' his crime.'
+
+'Jes' so; let the law take him, an' let the law try him. The law is ekal
+ter it. Ef the sheriff summons me with his posse, I'll hunt Rick Tyler
+through all the Big Smoky----'
+
+'Look-a-hyar, Hi Kelsey, the Gov'nor o' Tennessee hev offered a reward
+o' two hundred dollars----'
+
+'Blood-money,' interpolated the parson.
+
+'Ye kin call it so, ef so minded; but ef it war right fur the Guv'nor
+ter offer it, it air right fur me ter yearn it.'
+
+He had come very close. It was his nature and his habit to brook no
+resistance. He subdued the hard metals upon his anvil. His hammer
+disciplined the iron. The fire wrought his will. His instinct was to
+forge this man's opinion into the likeness of his own. His conviction
+was the moral swage that must shape the belief of others.
+
+'It air lawful fur me ter yearn it,' he repeated.
+
+'Lawful!' exclaimed the parson, with a tense, jeering laugh. 'Judas war
+a law-abidin' citizen. He mos' lawfully betrayed _his_ Frien' ter the
+law. Them thirty pieces o' silver! Sech currency ain't out o'
+circulation yit!'
+
+Quick as a flash the blacksmith's heavy hand struck the prophet in the
+face. The next moment his sudden anger was merged in fear. He stood,
+unarmed, at the mercy of an assaulted and outraged man, with a loaded
+rifle in his hands and all the lightnings of heaven quivering in his
+angry eyes.
+
+Gid Fletcher had hardly time to draw the breath he thought his last,
+when the prophet slowly turned the other cheek.
+
+'In the name of the Master,' he said, with all the dignity of his
+calling.
+
+As the blacksmith mounted his horse and rode away, he felt that the
+parson's rifle-ball would be preferable to the gross slur that he had
+incurred. His reputation, moral and spiritual, was annihilated; and he
+held this dear, for piety, or its simulacrum, on the primitive Big
+Smoky, is the point of honour. What a text! What an illustration of
+iniquity he would furnish for the sermons, foretelling wrath and
+vengeance, that sometimes shook the Big Smoky to its foundations! He was
+cast down and indignant too.
+
+'Fur Hi Kelsey ter be a-puttin' up sech a pious mouth, an' a-turnin' the
+t'other cheek, an' sech, ter me, ez hev seen him hold his own ez stiff
+in many a free-handed fight, an' hev drawed his shootin'-irons on folks
+agin an' agin! An' he fairly tuk the dep'ty, at that thar disturbamint
+at the meet'n'-house, by the scruff o' the neck, an' shuck him ez ef he
+hed been a rat or suthin', an' drapped him out'n the door. An' now ter
+be a-turnin' the t'other cheek! An' thar's that thar D'rindy, a-seein'
+it all, an' a-lookin' at it ez wide-eyed ez a cat in the dark.'
+
+Dorinda went home planning a rescue. Against the law this probably was,
+she thought. 'Ef it air--it oughtn't ter be,' she concluded arbitrarily.
+'It don't hurt nobody.' How serious it was--a felony--she did not know,
+nor did she care. She went on sturdily, debating within herself how best
+to tell the news. With an intuitive knowledge of human nature, she
+reckoned on the prejudice aroused by the recital of the blacksmith's
+assault upon the preacher, and the forbearance of the man of God. She
+began to count those who would be likely to attempt the enterprise when
+it should be suggested. There were the five men at home, all bold,
+reckless, antagonistic to the law, and at odds with the sheriff. She
+paused, with a frightened face and a wild gesture, as if to ward off an
+unforeseen danger. Send them to meet him! Never, never would she lift
+her hand or raise her voice to aid in fulfilling that grimly prophesied
+death on the muzzle of the old rifle-barrel. She trembled at the thought
+of her precipitancy. His life was in her hand. With a constraining moral
+sense she felt that it was she who had placed it in jeopardy, and that
+she held it in trust.
+
+She was cold, shivering. There was a change in the temperature; perhaps
+hail had fallen somewhere near, for the rare air had icy suggestions.
+She was seldom out so late, and was glad to see, high on the slope, the
+light that was wont to shine like a star into the dark depths of Eskaqua
+Cove. The white mists gathered around it; a circle of pearly light
+encompassed it, like Saturn's ring. As she came nearer, the roof of the
+house defined itself, with its oblique ridge-pole against the sky, and
+its clay and stick chimney, also built in defiance of rectangles, and
+its little porch, the curtaining hop-vines, dripping, dripping, with
+dew. In the corner of the rail fence was the 'crumply cow,' chewing her
+cud.
+
+The radiance of firelight streamed out through the open door, around
+which was grouped a number of shadows, of intent and wistful aspect.
+These were the hounds, and they crowded about her ecstatically as she
+came up on the porch.
+
+She paused at the door, and looked in with melancholy eyes. The light
+fell on her face, still damp with the dew, giving its gentle curves a
+subdued glister, like marble; the dark blue of her dress heightened its
+fairness. A sudden smile broke upon it as she leaned forward. There were
+three men, Ab, Pete, and Ben, seated around the fire; but she was
+looking at none of them, and they silently followed her gaze. Only one
+pair of eyes met hers--the eyes of a fat young person, wonderfully
+muscular for the tender age of three, who sat in the chimney-corner in a
+little wooden chair, and preserved the important and impassive air of a
+domestic magnate. This was hardly impaired by his ill-defined, infantile
+features, his large tow-head, his stolid blue eyes, his feminine garb of
+blue-checked cotton, short enough to disclose sturdy white calves and
+two feet with the usual complement of toes. He looked at her in grave
+recognition but made no sign.
+
+'Jacob,' she softly drawled, 'whyn't ye go ter bed?'
+
+But Jacob was indisposed to conversation on this theme; he said nothing.
+
+'Whyn't you-uns git him ter bed?' she asked of the assemblage at large.
+'He'll git stunted, a-settin' up so late in the night.'
+
+'Waal,' said one of the huge jeans-clad mountaineers, taking his pipe
+from his mouth, and scrutinizing the subject of conversation, 'I 'low it
+takes more'n three full-grown men ter git that thar survigrus buzzard
+ter bed when he don't want ter go thar, an' we warn't a-goin' ter resk
+it.'
+
+'I did ax him ter go ter bed, D'rindy,' said another of the bearded
+giants, 'but he 'lowed he _wouldn't_. I never see a critter so pompered
+ez Jacob; he ain't got no medjure o' respec' fur nobody.'
+
+The subject of these strictures gazed unconcernedly, first at one
+speaker, then at the other. Dorinda still looked at him, her face
+transfigured by its tender smile. But she was fain to exert her
+authority. 'Waal, Jacob,' she said decisively, 'ye mus' gin yer cornsent
+ter go ter bed, arter a while.'
+
+Jacob calmly nodded. He expected to go to bed some time that night.
+
+The hounds had taken advantage of Dorinda's entrance to creep into the
+room and adjust themselves among the family group about the fire. One of
+them, near Jacob, lured by the tempting plumpness, put out a long, red
+tongue, and gave a furtive lick to his fat white leg. The little
+mountaineer promptly doubled his plucky fist, and administered a sharp
+blow on the black nose of the offender, whose yelp of repentant pain
+attracted attention to the canine intruders. Ab Cayce rose to his feet
+with an oath. There was a shrill chorus of anguish as he actively kicked
+them out with his great cowhide boots.
+
+'Git out'n hyar, ye dad-burned beastises! I hev druv ye out fifty times
+sence sundown; now _stay_ druv!'
+
+He emphasized the lesson with several gratuitous kicks after the room
+and the porch were fairly cleared. But before he was again seated the
+dogs were once more clustered about the door, with intent bobbing heads
+and glistening eyes that peered in wistfully, with a longing for the
+society of their human friends, and a pathetic anxiety to be accounted
+of the family circle.
+
+There was more stir than usual in the interval between supper and
+bedtime. During the three memorable days that Dorinda had sojourned in
+Tuckaleechee Cove, Miranda Jane's ineffective administration had
+resulted in domestic chaos in several departments. The lantern by which
+the cow was to be milked was nowhere to be found. The filly-like Miranda
+Jane, with her tousled mane and black forelock hanging over her eyes,
+was greatly distraught in the effort to remember where it had been put
+and for what it had been last used, and was 'plumb beat out and beset,'
+she declared, as she cantered in and cantered out, and took much
+exercise in the search, to little purpose. One of the men rose
+presently, and addressed himself to the effort. He found it at last, and
+handed it to Dorinda without a word. He did not offer to milk the
+cow--as essentially a feminine task, in the mountains, as to sew or
+knit. When she came back she sat down among them in the chair usually
+occupied by her grandmother--who had in her turn gone on a visit to
+'Aunt Jerushy' in Tuckaleechee Cove--and as she busied herself in
+putting on her needles a sizable stocking for Jacob she did not join in
+the fragmentary conversation.
+
+Ab Cayce, the eldest, talked fitfully as he smoked his pipe--a lank,
+lantern-jawed man, with a small, gleaming eye and a ragged beard. The
+youngest of the brothers, Solomon, was like him, except that his long
+chin, of the style familiarly denominated jimber-jawed, was still smooth
+and boyish, and, big-boned as he was, he lacked in weight and somewhat
+in height the proportions of the senior. Peter was the contentious
+member of the family. He was wont to bicker in solitary disaffection,
+until he seemed to disprove the adage that it takes two to make a
+quarrel. He was afflicted with a stammer, and at every obstruction his
+voice broke out with startling shrillness, several keys higher than the
+tone with which the sentence commenced. He was loose-jointed and had a
+shambling gait; his hair seemed never to have outgrown the bleached,
+colourless tone so common among the children of the mountains, and it
+hung in long locks of a dreary drab about his sun-embrowned face. His
+teeth were irregular, and protruded slightly. 'Ez hard-favored ez Pete
+Cayce,' was a proverb on the Big Smoky. His wrangles about the amount of
+seed necessary to sow to the acre, and his objurgation concerning the
+horse he had been ploughing with that day, filled the evening.
+
+'Thar ain't a durned fool on the Big Smoky ez dunno that thar sayin'
+'bout'n the beastises:--
+
+    "One white huff--buy him;
+    Two white huffs--try him;
+    Three white huffs--deny him;
+    Four white huffs an' a white nose--
+    Take off his hide an feed him ter the crows."'
+
+Outside, the rising wind wandered fitfully through the Great Smoky, like
+a spirit of unrest. The surging trees in the wooded vastness on every
+side filled the air with the turbulent sound of their commotion. The
+fire smouldered on the hearth. The room was visible in the warm glow:
+the walls, rich and mellow with the alternate dark shade of the hewn
+logs and the dull yellow of the 'daubin''; the great frame of the
+warping-bars, hung about with scarlet and blue and saffron yarn; the
+brilliant strings of red pepper, swinging from the rafters. The
+spinning-wheel, near the open door, revolved slightly, with a stealthy
+motion, when the wind touched it, as though some invisible woodland
+thing had half a mind for uncanny industrial experiments.
+
+Dorinda told her news at last, in few words and with what composure she
+could command. As the listeners broke into surprised ejaculations and
+comments, she sat gazing silently at the fire. Should she speak the
+thought nearest to her heart? Should she suggest a rescue? She was torn
+by contending terrors--fears for them, for the man in his primitive
+shackles at the Settlement, for the enemy whose life she felt she had
+jeopardized. She had a wild vision--half in hope, half in anguish--of
+her brothers, in the saddle, armed to the teeth and riding like the
+wind. They had not moved of their own accord. Should she urge them to
+go?
+
+Oh, never had the long days on the Big Smoky, never had all the years
+that had visibly rolled from east to west with the changing seasons,
+brought her so much of life as the last few hours--such intensity of
+emotion, such swiftness of thought, such baffling perplexity, such woe!
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+Kelsey trudged on with his slide and his oxen, elated by his moral
+triumph. He glorified himself for his meekness. He joyed, with all the
+turbulent impulses of victory, in the blacksmith's discomfiture.
+
+Yet he was cognizant of his own deeper, subtler springs of action. There
+was that within him which forbade him to take the life of an unarmed
+man, but he piqued himself that he forbore. He had withheld even the
+return of the blow. But he knew that in refraining he had struck deeper
+still. He dwelt upon the scene with the satisfaction of an inventor. He,
+too, could foresee the consequences: the blood-curdling eloquence; the
+port and pose of a martyr; the far-spread distrust of the blacksmith's
+professions of piety, under which that doughty religionist already
+quaked.
+
+And as he reflected he replied, tartly, to the monitor within, 'Be
+angry, and sin not.'
+
+And the monitor had no text.
+
+Because of the night drifting down, perhaps--drifting down with a
+chilling change; because of the darkened solemnity of the dreary woods;
+because of the stars shining with a splendid aloofness from all that is
+human; because of the melancholy suggestions of a will-o'-the-wisp
+glowing in a marshy tangle, his exultant mood began to wane.
+
+'Thar it is!' he cried suddenly, pointing at the mocking
+illusion--'that's my religion: looks like fire, an' it's fog!'
+
+His mind had reverted to his wild supplications in the solitudes of the
+'bald'--his unanswered prayers. The oxen had paused of their own accord
+to rest, and he stood looking at the spectral gleam.
+
+'I'd never hev thunk o' takin' up with religion,' he said, in a shrill,
+upbraiding tone, 'ef I hed been let ter live along like other men be, or
+ef me an mine could die like other folks be let ter die! But it 'peared
+ter me ez religion war 'bout all ez war lef', arter I hed gin the baby
+the stuff the valley doctor hed lef' fur Em'ly--bein' ez I couldn't read
+right the old critter's cur'ous scrapin's with his pencil--an' gin Em'ly
+the stuff fur the baby. An' it died. An' then Em'ly got onsettled an'
+crazy, an' tuk ter vagrantin' 'roun', an' fell off'n the bluff. An' some
+say she flunged herself off'n it. And I knows she flunged herself off'n
+it through bein' out'n her mind with grief.'
+
+He paused, leaning on the yoke, his dreary eyes still on the _ignis
+fatuus_ of the woods. 'An' then Brother Jake Tobin 'lowed ez religion
+war fur sech ez me. I hed no mind ter religion. But the worl' hed in an'
+about petered out for me. An' I tuk up with religion. I hev sarved it
+five year faithful. An' now'--he cast his angry eyes upward--'ye let me
+believe that thar is no God!'
+
+So it was that Satan hunted him like a partridge on the mountains. So it
+was that he went out into the desert places to upbraid the God in whom
+he I believed because he believed that there was no God. There was a
+tragedy in his faith and his unfaith. That this untrained, untutored
+mind should grope among the irreconcilable things--the problems of a
+merciful God and His afflicted people, foreordained from the beginning
+of the world and free agents! That to the ignorant mountaineer should
+come those distraught questions that vex polemics, and try the strength
+of theologies, and give the wise men an illimitable field for the
+display of their agile and ingenious solutions and substitutions! He
+knew naught of this: the wild Alleghanies intervened between his
+yearning, empty despair and their plenished fame, the splendid
+superstructure on the ruins of their faith. He thought himself the only
+unbeliever in a Christian world, the only inherent infidel: a
+mysteriously accursed creature charged with the discovery of the
+monstrous fallacy of that beneficent comfort, assuaging the grief of a
+stricken world, and called an overruling Providence. Again his
+flickering faith would flare up, and he would reproach God who had
+suffered its lapse. This was his secret and his shame, and he guarded
+it. And so when he preached his wild sermons with a certain natural
+eloquence; and prayed his frantic prayers, instinct with all the
+sincerities of despair; and sang with the people the mournful old hymns,
+in the little meeting-house on the notch, or on the banks of the
+Scolacutta River, where they went down to be baptized, his keen
+introspection, his moral dissent, which he might not forbear, yet would
+not avow, were an intolerable burden, and his spiritual life was the
+throe of a spiritual anguish.
+
+Often there was no intimation in those sermons of his of the quaint
+doctrines which delight the simple men of his calling in that region,
+who are fain to feel learned. His Christ, to judge from this mood, was a
+Paramount Emotion; not the Christ who confuted the wise men in the
+temple, and read in the synagogues, and said dark allegories; but He who
+stilled the storm, and healed the sick, and raised the dead, and wept,
+most humanly, for the friend whom he loved. Kelsey's trusting heart
+contended with his doubting mind, and the simple humanities of these
+sermons comforted him. Sometimes he sought consolation otherwise; he
+would remember that he had never been like his fellows. This was only
+another manifestation of the dissimilarity that dated from his earliest
+recollections. He had from his infancy peculiar gifts. He was learned in
+the signs of the weather, and predicted the mountain storms; he knew the
+haunts and habits of every beast and bird in the Great Smoky, every leaf
+that burgeons, every flower that blows. So deep and incisive a knowledge
+of human nature had he, that this faculty was deemed supernatural, and
+akin to the gift of prophecy. He himself understood, although perhaps he
+could not have accurately limited and defined it, that he exercised
+unconsciously a vigilant attention and an acute discrimination; his
+forecast was based upon observation so close and unsparing, and a power
+of deduction so just, that in a wider sphere it might have been called
+judgment, and, reinforced by education, have attained all the functions
+of a ripened sagacity.
+
+Crude as it was, it did not fail of recognition. In many ways his 'word'
+was sought and heeded. His influence yielded its richest effect when his
+_confrère_ of the pulpit would call on him to foretell the fate of the
+sinner and the wrath of God to the Big Smoky. And then Brother Jake
+Tobin would accompany the glowing picture by a slow rhythmic clapping of
+hands and a fragmentary chant, 'That dreadful Day air a-comin'
+along!'--bearing all the time a smiling and beatific countenance, as if
+he were fireproof himself, and brimstone and flame were only for his
+friends.
+
+Rousing himself from his reverie with a sigh, Hiram Kelsey urged the
+oxen along the sandy road, which had here and there a stony interval
+threatening the slide with dissolution at every jolt. They began
+presently to quicken their pace of their own accord. The encompassing
+woods and the laurel were so dense that no gleam of light was visible
+till they brought up suddenly beside a rail fence, and the fitful
+glimmer of firelight from an open door close at hand revealed the
+presence of a double log cabin. There was an uninclosed passage between
+the two rooms, and in this a tall, gaunt woman was standing.
+
+'Thar be Hi now, with the steers,' she said, detecting the dim bovine
+shadows in the flickering gleams.
+
+Tell Hiram ter come in right now,' cried a chirping voice, like a
+superannuated cricket. 'I hev a word ter ax him.'
+
+'Tell Hiram ter feed them thar steers fust,' cried out another ancient
+voice, keyed several tones lower, and also with the ring of authority.
+
+'Tell Hiram,' shrilly piped the other, 'ter hustle his bones, ef he
+knows what air good fur 'em.'
+
+'Tell Hiram,' said the deeper voice, sustaining the antiphonal effect,
+'I want them thar steers feded foreshortly.'
+
+Then ensued a muttered wrangle within, and finally the shriller voice
+was again uplifted:
+
+'Tell Hiram what my word air.'
+
+'An' ye tell Hiram what _my_ word air.'
+
+The woman, who was tall as a grenadier, and had a voice like velvet,
+looked meekly back into the room, upon each mandate, with a nod of mild
+obedience.
+
+'Ye hearn 'em,' she said softly to Kelsey. Evidently she could not
+undertake the hazard of discriminating between these co-equal
+authorities.
+
+'I hearn 'em,' he replied.
+
+She sat down near the door, and resumed her occupation of monotonously
+peeling June apples for 'sass.' Her brown calico sun-bonnet, which she
+habitually wore, in doors and out, obscured her visage, except her chin
+and absorbed mouth, that now and then moved in unconscious sympathy with
+her work. There was a piggin on one side of her to receive the quartered
+fruit, and on the other a white oak splint basket, already half full of
+the spiral parings. On the doorstep her husband sat, a shaggy-headed,
+full-bearded, unkempt fellow, in brown jeans trousers reaching almost to
+his collarbone in front, and supported by the single capable suspender
+so much affected in the mountains. His unbleached cotton shirt was open
+at the throat, for there was fire enough in the huge chimney-place to
+make the room unpleasantly warm, despite the change of temperature
+without. Now and then he stretched out his hand for an apple already
+pared, which his wife gave him with an adroit back-handed movement, and
+which he ate in a mouthful or two. He made way for Kelsey to enter, and
+asked him a question, almost inarticulate because of the apples, but
+apparently of hospitable intent, for Kelsey said he had had a bite and a
+sup at Jonas Trice's, and did not want the supper which had been
+providently saved for him.
+
+Kelsey did not betray which command he had thought best to obey.
+
+'I hed ter put my rifle on the rack in the t'other room, gran'dad,' he
+observed meekly, addressing one of two very old men who sat on either
+side of the huge fireplace. There were cushions in their rude arm
+chairs, and awkward little three-legged footstools were placed in front
+of them. Their shoes and clothing, although coarse to the last degree,
+were clean and carefully tended. They had each long ago lived out the
+allotted threescore years and ten, but they had evidently not worn out
+their welcome. One had suffered a paralytic attack, and every word and
+motion was accompanied with a convulsive gasp and jerk. The other old
+man was saturnine and lymphatic, and seemed a trifle younger than his
+venerable associate.
+
+'What war ye a-doin' of with yer rifle?' mumbled gran'dad in wild,
+toothless haste.
+
+'I tuk it along ter see, when I war a-comin' home, ef I mought shoot
+suthin' tasty for supper.'
+
+'What did ye git?' demanded gran'dad, with retrospective greed; for
+supper was over, and he had done full justice to his share.
+
+'I never got nuthin',' said Kelsey, a trifle shame-facedly.
+
+'Waal, waal, waal! These hyar latter times gits cur'ouser ez they goes
+along. The stren'th an' the seasonin' hev all gone out'n the lan'.
+Whenst I war young, folks ez kerried rifles ter git suthin' fur supper
+never kem home a-suckin' the bar'l. Folks ez kerried rifles in them days
+didn't tote 'em fur--fur--a 'ornamint. Folks in them days lef preachin'
+an' prophecy an' sech ter thar elders, an' hunted the beastis an' the
+Injun,--though sinners is plentier than the t'other kind o' game on the
+Big Smoky these times. No man in them days, jes' turned thirty, sot
+hisself down ter idlin', an' preachin', an' convictin' his elders o'
+sin.'
+
+Kelsey bore himself with the deferential humility characteristic of the
+mountaineers towards the aged among them.
+
+'What war the word ez ye war a-layin' off to say ter me, gran'dad?' he
+asked, striving to effect a diversion.
+
+'Waal, waal, look a-hyar, Hiram,' exclaimed the old man, remembering his
+question in eager precipitancy. 'This hyar 'Cajah Green, ye know, ez air
+a-runnin' fur sher'ff--air--air he Republikin or Dimmycrat?'
+
+'Thar's no man in these hyar parts smart enough ter find that out,'
+interpolated Obediah Scruggs in the door, circumspectly taking the apple
+seeds out of his mouth. He was the son of one of the magnates, and the
+son-in-law of the other; his matrimonial venture had resulted in
+doubling his filial obligations. His wife had brought, instead of a
+dowry, her aged father to the fireside.
+
+''Cajah Green,' continued the speaker, 'run ez a independent las' time,
+an' thar war so many bolters an' sech they split the vote, an' he war
+'lected. An' now he air a-runnin' agin.'
+
+The old man listened to this statement, his eye blazing, his chin in a
+quiver, his lean figure erect, and the pipe in his palsied hand shaking
+till the coal of fire on top showed brightening tendencies.
+
+'Waal, sir! waal!' exclaimed the aged politician, with intense
+bitterness. 'The stren'th an' the seasonin' hev _all_ gone out'n the
+lan'! Whenst I war young,' he declared dramatically, drawing the
+pitiable contrast, 'folks knowed what they war, an they let other folks
+know, too, ef they hed ter club it inter 'em. But them was Old Hickory's
+times. Waal, waal, we ain't a-goin' ter see Old Hickory no
+more--no--more!'
+
+'I hopes not,' said the other old man, with sudden asperity. 'I hopes
+we'll never see no sech tormentin' old Dimmycrat agin. But law! I
+needn't fret my soul. Henry Clay shook all the life out'n him five year
+afore he died. Henry Clay made a speech agin Andrew Jackson in 1840 what
+forty thousan' people kem ter hear. _Thar_ war a man fur ye! He hed a
+tongue like a bell; 'pears like ter me I kin hear it yit, when I listens
+right hard. By Gum!' triumphantly, 'that day he tuk the stiffenin' out'n
+Old Hickory! Surely, surely, he did! Ef I thought I war never a-goin'
+ter hear Old Hickory's name agin I'd tune up my ears fur the angel's
+quirin'. I war born a Republikin, I grow'd ter be a good Whig, an' I'll
+die a Republikin. Ef that ain't religion I dunno what air! That's the
+way I hev lived an' walked afore the Lord. An' hyar in the evenin' o' my
+days I hev got ter set alongside o' this hyar old consarn, an' hear him
+jow 'bout'n Old Hickory from mornin' till night. Ef I hed knowed how he
+war goin' ter turn out 'bout'n Old Hickory in his las' days, I wouldn't
+hev let my darter marry his son, thirty-five year ago. I knowed he war a
+Dimmycrat, but I never knowed the stren'th o' the failin' till I were
+called on ter 'speriunce it.'
+
+'Ye 'lowed t'other day, gran'dad,' said Kelsey, addressing the aged
+paralytic in a propitiatory manner, 'ez ye warn't a-goin' ter talk
+'bout'n Old Hickory no more. It 'pears like ter me ez ye oughter gin yer
+'tention ter the candidates ez ye hev got ter vote fur in August--'Cajah
+Green, an' sech.'
+
+But it must be admitted that Micajah Green was not half the man that Old
+Hickory was, and the filial remonstrance had no effect. The acrimonies
+of fifty years ago were renewed across the hearth with a rancour that
+suggests that an old grudge, like old wine, improves with time. No one
+ventured to interrupt, but Obediah Scruggs, still lounging in the door,
+commented in a low tone:
+
+'The law stirs itself ter sot a time when a man air old enough ter vote
+an' meddle with politics ginerally. 'Pears like ter me it ought ter sot
+a time when he hev got ter quit.'
+
+'Waal, Obediah!' exclaimed the soft-voiced woman, the red parings
+hanging in concentric circles from her motionless knife. 'That ain't
+religion. Ye talk like a man would hev ter be ez sensible an' solid fur
+politics ez fur workin' on the road. They don't summons the old men fur
+sech jobs ez that. They mought ez well enjye the evenin' o' thar days
+with this foolishness o' politics ez enny other.'
+
+'Shucks!' said Obediah, who had the courage of his convictions. 'These
+hyar old folks hev hed ter live in the same house an' ride in the same
+wagin thirty-five year, jes' 'kase, when we war married, they agreed ter
+put what they hed tergether; an' they hev been a-fightin' over thar dead
+an' gone politics ev'ry minit o' the time sence. Thar may be some good
+Dimmycrats, an' thar may be some good Republikins, but they make a
+powerful oneasy team, yoked tergether. An' when it grows on 'em so, the
+law oughter step in, an' count 'em over age, an' shet 'em up. 'Specially
+ez dad hev voted fur Andy Jackson fur Presi_dint_ outer respec' fur his
+mem'ry, ev'y 'lection sence the tormentin' old crittur died.'
+
+But he said all this below his breath, and presently fell silent, for
+his wife's face had clouded, and her soft drawling voice had an
+intimation of a depression of spirit.
+
+'The kentry hev kem ter its ruin,' exclaimed the paralytic, 'when
+men--brazen-faced buzzards--kin go an' git 'lected ter office 'thout no
+party ter boost 'em! Look a-hyar,'--he turned to his grandson,--'ye air
+always a-prophesyin'. Prophesy some now. Air 'Cajah Green a-goin' ter be
+'lected?'
+
+He thumped the floor with his stick, and fixed his imperative eye upon
+Hiram Kelsey's face.
+
+'Naw, gran'dad. He won't be 'lected,' said the prophet.
+
+The old man's face was scarlet because of this contradiction of his own
+dismal vaticinations.
+
+''Cajah Green _will_ be 'lected,' he cried. 'The kentry's ruined. Folks
+dunno whether they air Republikins or Dimmycrats! Lor' Almighty, ter
+think o' that! The kentry's ruined! An' yer prophesyin' don't tech it.
+They hed false prophets in the old days, an' the tribe holds out yit.'
+
+He struck the floor venomously with his stick. Its defective aim once or
+twice brought it upon a rough black bundle that lay rolled up in front
+of the fire like a great dog. A slow head was lifted inquiringly, with
+an offended mien, from the rolls of fat and far. Twinkling small eyes
+glared out. When another blow descended, with a wild disregard of
+results, there was a whimper, a long, low growl, a flash of white teeth,
+and with claw and fang the pet cub caught at the stick. The old man
+dropped it in a panic.
+
+'Look a-yander at the bar!' he shrieked.
+
+But the cub had crouched on the floor since the stick had fallen, and
+was whimpering again, and looking about in cowardly appeal.
+
+The old man rallied. 'What d'ye bring the savage beastis home fur,
+Hiram, out'n the woods whar they b'long?' he vociferated.
+
+'Kase he 'lowed he hed killed the dam, an' the young 'un war bound ter
+starve,' put in the other old man, actuated, perhaps, by some sympathy
+for the grandson, whose strength and youth counted for naught against
+this adversary.
+
+'What air ye a-aimin' ter do with it? Ter kill sech chillen ez happen
+ter make game o' ye? That's what the prophets of old 'cited thar bars
+ter do--ter kill the little laffin' chillen.'
+
+Kelsey winced. The cruelties of the old chronicles bore hard upon his
+wavering faith.
+
+The old man saw his advantage, and with the wantonness of tyranny
+followed it up: 'That's it--that's it! That would suit Hiram, like the
+prophets--ter kill the innercent chillen!'
+
+The young man recoiled suddenly. The patriarch, a wild terror on his
+pallid, aged face, recognised the significance of his words. He held up
+his shaking hands as if to recall them--to clutch them. He had
+remembered the domestic tragedy; the humble figure of the little
+mountain child, all gaiety and dimples and gurgling laughter, who had
+known no grief and had wrought such woe, who had left a rude, empty
+cradle in the corner, a mound--such a tiny mound!--in the graveyard, and
+an imperishable anguish of self-reproach, unquenchable as the fires of
+hell.
+
+'I furgot--I furgot!' shrieked the old man. 'I furgot the baby! When
+war she buried?--las' week or year afore las'? The only one--the only
+great-gran'child I ever hed. The frien'liest baby! Knowed me jes' ez
+well!' He burst into senile tears. 'Don't ye go, Hiram. What did the
+doctor say ye gin her? Laws-a-massy! 'Pears like 'twar jes' yestiddy she
+war a-crawlin' 'round the floor, stidd'er that heejus beastis ez I wisht
+war in the woods--laffin'--Lord A'mighty! laffin' an' takin' notice ez
+peart. Hiram, don't ye go--don't ye go! Peartes', pretties' chile I ever
+see--an' I had six o' my own--an' the frien'lies'! An' I hed planned fur
+sech a many pleasures when she hed got some growth an' hed l'arned ter
+talk. I wanted ter hear what she hed ter say--the only great-gran'child
+I ever hed--an' now the words will never be spoke. 'Pears like ter me ez
+the Lord shows mighty little jedgmint ter take her, an' leave me
+a-cumberin' the groun'.'
+
+Then he began once more to wring his hands and sob aloud--that piteous
+weeping of the aged!--and to mumble brokenly, 'The frien'lies' baby!'
+
+The woman left her work and took off her bonnet, showing her grey hair
+drawn into a skimpy knot at the back of her head, and leaving in high
+relief her strong, honest, candid features, on which the refinements of
+all benign impulses effaced the effects of poverty and ignorance. She
+crossed the room to the old man's chair; her velvety voice soothed him.
+He suffered himself to be lifted by his son and grandson, and carried
+away bodily to bed in the room across the passage. In the meantime the
+woman filled a tin cup with lard, placing in its midst a button tied in
+a bit of cloth to serve as a wick, and lighted it at the fire, while the
+cub presided with sniffing curiosity at the unusual proceeding, pressing
+up close against her as she knelt on the hearth, well knowing that she
+was not to be held in fear nor in any special respect by young bears.
+
+'I'm goin' ter gin him a button-lamp ter sleep by, bein' ez he hev tuk
+the baby in his head agin,' she said to her father in explanation; 'he
+won't feel so lonesome ef he wakes up.'
+
+He had looked keenly after his venerable compeer as the paralytic was
+borne across the uninclosed passage between the two rooms.
+
+'He's breaking some. He's aging,' he said critically; not without
+sympathy, but with a stalwart conviction that his own feebleness was as
+strength to the other's weakness. 'He's breaking some,' he repeated,
+with a physical vanity that might have graced a prize-fighter.
+
+The next moment there came sharp and shrill through the open door the
+old man's voice, high and glib in cheerful forgetfulness, conversing
+with his attendants as they got him to bed.
+
+'Whenst I war young,' he cried, 'I went down to Sevierville wunst. 'Twar
+when they war a-runnin' of Old Hickory.'
+
+'Thar it is again!' exclaimed the ancient Republican. 'Old Hickory war
+bad enough when he war alive; but I b'lieves he's wusser now that he is
+dead, with this hyar old critter a-moanin' 'bout him night and day. I'd
+feel myself called ter fling him of'n the bluff, ef it warn't that he
+hev got the palsy, an' I gits sorry fur him wunst in a while. An' then I
+b'lieves that ennybody what is a Dimmycrat air teched in the head, an'
+ain't 'sponsible fur thar foolishness, 'kase sensible folks ain't
+Dimmycrats. That's been my 'speriunce fur eighty year, an' I hev hed no
+call ter change my mind. So I hev to try my patience an' stan' this hyar
+old critter's foolishness, but it air a mighty tough strain.'
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+The shadows of the great dead trees in the midst of the Settlement were
+at their minimum in the vertical vividness of the noontide. They bore
+scant resemblance to those memorials of gigantic growths which towered,
+stark and white, so high to the intensely blue sky; instead, they were
+like some dark and leafless underbrush clustering about the sapless
+trunks. The sandy stretch of the clearing reflected the sunlight with a
+deeply yellow glare, its poverty of soil illustrated by frequent clumps
+of the woolly mullein-weeds. The Indian corn and the sparse grass were
+crudely green in the enclosures about the grey, weather-beaten
+log-houses, which stood distinct against the dark, restful tones of the
+forest filling the background. The mountains with each remove wore every
+changing disguise of distance: shading from sombre green to a dull
+purple; then overlaid with a dubious blue; next showing a true and
+turquoise richness; still farther, a delicate transient hue that has no
+name; and so away to the vantage-ground of illusions, where the ideal
+poises upon the horizon, and the fact and the fantasy are
+undistinguishably blended. The intermediate valleys appeared in
+fragmentary glimpses here and there; sometimes there was only the
+verdure of the tree-tops; one was cleft by a canary-coloured streak
+which betokened a harvested wheat-field; in another blazed a sapphire
+circle, where the vertical sun burned in the waters of a blue salt
+'lick.'
+
+The landscape was still--very still; not the idle floating of a cloud,
+not the vague shifting of a shadow, not the flutter of a wing. But the
+Settlement on the crags above had known within its experience no similar
+commotion. There were many horses hitched to the fences, some girded
+with blankets in lieu of saddles. Clumsy waggons stood among the stumps
+in the clearing, with the oxen unyoked and their provender spread before
+them on the ground. Although the log-cabins gave evidence of hospitable
+proceedings within, family parties were seated in some of the vehicles,
+munching the dinner providently brought with them. All the dogs in the
+Great Smoky, except perhaps a very few incapacitated by extreme age or
+extreme youth, were humble participants in the outing, having trotted
+under the waggons many miles from their mountain homes, and now lay with
+lolling tongues among the wheels. About the store lounged a number of
+men, mostly the stolid, impassive mountaineers. A few, however, although
+in the customary jeans, bore the evidence of more worldly prosperity
+and a higher culture; and there were two or three resplendent in the
+'b'iled shirt and store clothes' of civilization, albeit the first was
+without collar or cravat, and the latter showed antique cut and reverend
+age. These were candidates--talkative, full of anecdote, quick to
+respond, easily flattered, and flattering to the last degree. They were
+especially jocose and friendly with each other, but amid the fraternal
+guffaws and interchanges of 'chaws o' terbacco' many quips were bandied,
+barbed with ridicule; many good stories recounted, charged with
+uncomplimentary deductions; many jokes cracked, discovering the kernel
+of slander or detraction in the merry shell. The mountaineers looked on,
+devoid of envy, and despite their stolidity with an understanding of the
+conversational masquerade. Beneath this motley verbal garb was a grave
+and eager aspiration for public favour, and it was a matter of no small
+import when a voter would languidly glance at another with a silent
+laugh, slowly shake his head with a not-to-be-convinced gesture, and
+spit profusely on the ground.
+
+In and out of the store dawdled a ceaseless procession of free and
+enlightened citizens; always emerging with an aspect of increased
+satisfaction, wiping their mouths with big bandanna handkerchiefs, and
+sometimes with the more primitive expedient of a horny hand. Nathan
+Hoodendin sat in front of the door, keeping store after his usual
+fashion, except that the melancholy wheeze 'Jer'miah' rose more
+frequently upon the air. Jer'miah's duties consisted chiefly in serving
+out whisky and apple-jack, and the little drudge stuck to his work with
+an earnest pertinacity, for which the privilege of draining the very few
+drops left in the bottom of the glass after each dram seemed hardly an
+adequate reward.
+
+The speeches, which were made in the open air, the candidate mounted on
+a stump in front of the store, were all much alike--the same
+self-laudatory meekness, the same inflamed party spirit, the same jocose
+allusions to opponents,--each ending, 'Gentlemen, if I am elected to
+office I will serve you to the best of my skill and ability. Gentlemen,
+I thank you for your attention.' The crowd, close about, stood listening
+with great intentness, each wearing the impartial pondering aspect of an
+umpire.
+
+On the extreme outskirts of the audience, however, there was an
+unprecedented lapse of attention; a few of the men, seated on stumps or
+on the waggon-tongues, now and then whispering together, and casting
+excited glances towards the blacksmith's shop. Sometimes one would rise,
+approach it stealthily, stoop down, and peer in at the low window. The
+glare outside made the interior seem doubly dark, and a moment or two
+was needed to distinguish the anvil, the fireless hearth, the sooty
+hood. A vague glimmer fell through a crevice in the clapboard roof upon
+a shock of yellow hair and gleaming eyes, two sullen points of light in
+the midst of the deep shadows. None of the mountaineers had ever seen a
+wild beast caged, but Rick Tyler's look of fierce and surly despair, of
+defiance, of all vain and vengeful impulses, as he sat bound hand and
+foot in the forge, was hardly more human. The faces multiplied at the
+window,--stolid, or morbidly curious, awe-struck, or with a grinning
+display of long tobacco-stained teeth. Many of them were well known to
+Rick Tyler, and if ever he had liked them he hated them now.
+
+There was a stir outside, a clamour of many voices. The 'speaking' was
+over. Footsteps sounded close to the door of the blacksmith's shop. The
+sheriff was about to enter, and the crowd pressed eagerly forward to
+catch a glimpse of the prisoner. Arriving this morning, the sheriff had
+been glad to combine his electioneering interests with his official
+duty. The opportunity of canvassing among the assemblage gave him, he
+thought, an ample excuse for remaining a few hours longer at the
+Settlement than was necessary; and when he heard of the impending
+diversion of the gander-pulling he was convinced that his horse required
+still more rest before starting with his prisoner for Shaftesville jail.
+
+He went briskly into the forge, carrying a pair of clanking handcuffs.
+He busied himself in exchanging these for the cord with which the young
+fellow's wrists were bound. It had been drawn brutally tight, and the
+flesh was swollen and raw. 'It seems ter me, ez 'twas the blacksmith
+that nabbed ye, he might hev done better for ye than this, by a darned
+sight,' he said in an undertone.
+
+He had not been reluctant at first that the crowd should come in, but he
+appreciated unnecessary harshness as an appeal for sympathy, and he
+called out to his deputy, who had accompanied him on his mission, to
+clear the room.
+
+'We're goin' ter keep him shet up fur an hour or so, an' start down the
+mounting in the cool o' the evenin',' he explained; 'so ef ye want ter
+view him the winder is yer chance.'
+
+The forge was cleared at last, the broad light vanishing with the
+closing of the great barn-like doors. Rick heard the lowered voices of
+the sheriff and deputy gravely consulting without, as they secured the
+fastenings with a padlock which they had brought with them in view of
+emergencies. They had taken the precaution, too, to nail strips of board
+at close intervals across the shutterless windows; more, perhaps, to
+prevent the intrusion of the curious without than the escape of the
+manacled prisoner. The section of the landscape glimpsed through the
+bars--the far blue mountains and a cluster of garnet pokeberries, with a
+leaf or two of the bush growing close by the wall--sprang into abnormal
+brilliancy at the end of the dark vista of the interior. It was a
+duskier brown within for that fragment of vivid colour and dazzling
+clearness in the window. Naught else could be seen, except a diagonal
+view of the porch of one of the log-cabins, and the corn-field beyond.
+
+Curiosity was not yet sated; now and then a face peered in, as Rick sat
+bound securely, the cords still about his limbs and feet and the
+clanking handcuffs on his wrists. These inquisitive apparitions at the
+window grew fewer as the time went by, and presently ceased altogether.
+The bustle outside increased: it drowned the drowsy drone of the cicada;
+it filled the mountain solitudes with a trivial incongruity. Often
+sounded there the sudden tramp of a horse and a loud guffaw. Rick knew
+that they were making ready for the gander-pulling, which unique sport
+had been selected by the long-headed mountain politicians as likely to
+insure the largest assemblage possible from the surrounding region to
+hear the candidates prefer their claims.
+
+Electioneering topics were not suspended even while the younger men were
+saddling and bridling their horses for the proposed festivity. As
+Micajah Green strolled across the clearing and joined a group of elderly
+spectators who in their chairs sat tilted against the walls of the
+store, which began to afford some shade, he found that his own prospects
+were under discussion.
+
+'They tell me, 'Cajah,' said Nathan Hoodendin, who had hardly budged
+that day, his conversational activity, however, atoning for his physical
+inertia, 'ez ye air bound ter eend this 'lection with yer finger in yer
+mouth.'
+
+'Don't know why,' said Micajah Green, with a sharp, sudden effect as of
+an angry bark, and lapsing from the smiling mien which he was wont to
+conserve as a candidate.
+
+'Waal, word hev been brung hyar ter the Settle_mint_ ez this prophet o'
+ourn in the Big Smoky, he say ye ain't goin' ter be re'lected.'
+
+The sheriff laughed scornfully, snapping his fingers as he stood before
+the group, and whirled airily on his boot-heel.
+
+Nevertheless, he was visibly annoyed. He knew the strength of a
+fantastic superstition among ignorant people, and their disposition to
+verify rather than to disprove. There were voters in the Big Smoky
+liable to be controlled by a morbid impulse to make the prophet's word
+true. It was an unexpected and unmeasured adverse influence, and he
+chafed under the realization.
+
+'An' what sets Pa'son Kelsey agin me?' he demanded.
+
+'He ain't in no ways _sot agin you-uns_ ez I knows on,' discriminated
+Nathan Hoodendin, studious impartiality expressed among the graven
+wrinkles of his face. 'Not ez it war _sot agin_ ye; but ye jes' 'lows ez
+that air the fac'. Ye ain't goin' ter be 'lected agin.'
+
+'The pa'son hev got a gredge agin the old man, hyar,' said the deputy.
+He was a stalwart fellow of about twenty-five years of age. He had sandy
+hair and moustache, a broad freckled face, light grey eyes, and a
+thin-lipped, defiant mouth. He bore himself with an air of bravado which
+conveyed as many degrees of insult as one felt disposed to take up. 'He
+lit out on me fust--I war with Amos Jeemes thar,--an' the pa'son put us
+out'n the meet'n'-house. He did! He don't want no sorter sher'ff's in
+the Big Smoky. An' he called Gid Fletcher, the blacksmith, "Judas" fur
+arrestin' that lot o' bacon yander in the shop, when he kem hyar ter the
+Settle_mint_ fur powder, ter keep him able to resis' the law! Who sold
+Rick Tyler that powder, Mister Hoodendin?' he added, turning his eyes on
+the proprietor of the store.
+
+Old Hoodendin hesitated. 'Jer'miah,' he wheezed feebly.
+
+His anxious eyes gleamed from out their perplexed wrinkles like a ray of
+sunlight twinkling through a spider-web.
+
+There was an interchange of glances between the sheriff and his deputy,
+and the admonished subordinate continued:
+
+''Twar jes' the boy, eh; an' I reckon he war afeard o' Rick's
+shootin'-irons an' sech.'
+
+''Twar Jer'miah,' repeated the storekeeper, his discreet eyes upon the
+bosom of his blue-checked homespun shirt.
+
+'Waal, the pa'son, ez I war sayin', he called the blacksmith "Judas" fur
+capturing the malefactor, an' the gov'nor's reward "blood-money,"'
+continued the deputy, expertly electioneering, since his own tenure was
+on the uncertain continuance of the sheriff in office. 'An' now he's
+goin' round the kentry prophesyin' as 'Cajah Green ain't goin' ter be
+'lected. Waal, thar war false prophets 'fore his time, an' will be agin,
+I'm thinkin'.'
+
+There was a sudden clamour upon the air; a vibrant, childish voice, and
+then a great horse-laugh. An old crone had come out of one of the cabins
+and was standing by the fence, holding out to Gid Fletcher, who seemed
+master of ceremonies, a large white gander. The fowl's physiognomy was
+thrown into bold prominence by a thorough greasing of the head and neck.
+His wings flapped, he hissed fiercely, he dolorously squawked. A little
+girl was running frantically by the side of the old woman, clutching at
+her skirt and vociferously claiming the 'gaynder.' Hers it was, since
+'Mam gin me the las' aig when the grey goose laid her ladder out, an' it
+war sot under the old Dominicky hen ez kem off'n her nest through
+settin' three weeks, like a hen will do. An' then 'twar put under old
+Top-knot, an' 'twar the fust aig hatched out'n old Top-knot's settin'.'
+
+This unique pedigree, shrieked out with a shrill distinctness, mixed
+with the lament of the prescient bird, had a ludicrous effect. Fletcher
+took the gander with a guffaw, the old crone chuckled, and the young men
+laughed as they mounted their horses.
+
+The blacksmith hardly knew which part he preferred to play. The element
+of domination in his character gave a peculiar relish to the rôle of
+umpire; yet with his pride in his deftness and strength it cost him a
+pang to forego the competition in which he felt himself an assured
+victor. He armed himself with a whip of many thongs, and took his stand
+beneath a branch of one of the trees, from which the gander was
+suspended by his big feet, head downward. Aghast at his disagreeable
+situation, his wild eyes stared about; his great wings flapped
+drearily; his long neck protruded with its peculiar motion, unaware of
+the clutch it invited. What a pity so funny a thing can suffer!
+
+The gaping crowd at the store, on the cabin porches, on the fences,
+watched the competitors with wide-eyed, wide-mouthed delight. There were
+gallant figures amongst them, shown to advantage on young horses whose
+spirit was not yet quelled by the plough. They filed slowly around the
+prescribed space once, twice; then each made the circuit alone at a
+break-neck gallop. As the first horseman rode swiftly along the crest of
+the precipice, his head high against the blue sky, the stride of the
+steed covering mountain and valley, he had the miraculous effect of
+Prince Firouz Shah and the enchanted horse in their mysterious aërial
+journeys. When he passed beneath the branch whence hung the frantic,
+fluttering bird, the blacksmith, standing sentinel with his whip of many
+thongs, laid it upon the flank of the horse, and despite the wild and
+sudden plunge the rider rose in his stirrups and clutched the greased
+neck of the swaying gander. Tough old fowl! The strong ligaments
+resisted. The first hardly hoped to pluck the head, and after his hasty,
+convulsive grasp his frightened horse carried him on almost over the
+bluff. The slippery neck refused to yield at the second pull, and the
+screams of the delighted spectators mingled with the shrieks of the
+gander. The mountain colt, a clay-bank, with a long black tail full of
+cockle-burrs, bearing the third man, reared violently under the surprise
+of the lash. As the rider changed the balance of his weight, rising in
+his stirrups to tug at the gander's neck, the colt pawed the air wildly
+with his fore feet, fell backward, and rolled upon the ground, almost
+over the hapless wight. The blacksmith was fain to support himself
+against the tree for laughter, and the hurrahing Settlement could not
+remember when it had enjoyed anything so much. The man gathered himself
+up sheepishly, and limped off; the colt being probably a mile away,
+running through the woods at the height of his speed.
+
+The gander was in a panic by this time. If ever a fowl of that gender
+has hysterics, that gander exhibited the disease. He hissed; he flapped
+his wings; he squawked; he stared; he used every limited power of
+expression with which nature has gifted him. He was so funny one could
+hardly look at him.
+
+As Amos James was about to take his turn, amid flattering cries of
+'Amos'll pull his head!' 'Amos'll git his head!' a man who had suddenly
+appeared on horseback at the verge of the clearing, and had paused,
+contemplating the scene, rode swiftly forward to the tree.
+
+'Ye can't pull out'n turn--ye can't pull out'n turn, pa'son!' cried half
+a dozen voices from the younger men. The elders stared in amaze that the
+preacher should demean his calling by engaging in this public sport.
+
+Kelsey checked his pace before he reached the blacksmith, who, seeing
+that he was not going to pull, forbore to lay on the lash. The next
+moment he thought that Kelsey was going to pull; he had risen in his
+stirrups with uplifted arm.
+
+'What be you-uns a-goin' ter do?' demanded Gid Fletcher, amazed.
+
+'I'm a-goin' ter take this hyar critter down.'
+
+His words thrilled through the settlement like a current of electricity.
+The next phrase was lost in a wild chorus of exclamations.
+
+'Take the gaynder down?'
+
+'What fur?'
+
+'Hi Kelsey hev los' his mind; surely he hev!'
+
+Then above the angry, undistinguishable tumult of remonstrance the
+preacher's voice rose clear and impressive:
+
+'The pains o' the beastis He hev made teches the Lord in heaven; fur He
+marks the sparrow's fall, an' minds Himself o' the pitiful o' yearth!'
+He spoke with the authority appertaining to his calling. 'The spark o'
+life in this fow-_el_ air kindled ez fraish ez yourn--fur hevin' a soul,
+ye don't ginerally prove it; an' hevin' no soul ter save, this gaynder
+hain't yearned the torments o' hell, an' I'm a-goin' ter take the
+critter down.'
+
+''Tain't yer gaynder!' conclusively argued the blacksmith, applying the
+swage of his own conviction.
+
+'He air _my_ gaynder!' shrieked out a childish voice. 'Take him
+down--take him down!'
+
+This objection to the time-honoured sport seemed hardly less eccentric
+than an exhibition of insanity. To apply a dignified axiom of humanity
+to that fluttering, long-suffering tumult of anguish familiarly known as
+the 'gaynder' was regarded as ludicrously inappropriate. To refer to the
+Lord and the typical sparrow in this connection seemed almost blasphemy.
+Nevertheless, with the rural reverence for spiritual authority and the
+superior moral perception of the clergy, the crowd wore a submissively
+balked aspect, and even the young men who had not yet had their tug at
+the fowl's neck succumbed, under the impression that the preacher's fiat
+had put a stop to the gander-pulling for this occasion.
+
+As Kelsey once more lifted his hand to liberate the creator of the day's
+merriment, the blacksmith, his old grudge reinforced by a new one, gave
+the horse a cut with his whip. The animal plunged under the unexpected
+blow, and carried the rider beyond the tree. Reverence for the cloth
+had no longer a restraining influence on the young mountaineers. They
+burst into yells of laughter.
+
+'Cl'ar out, pa'son!' they exclaimed delightedly. 'Ye hev hed yer pull.
+Cl'ar out!'
+
+There was a guffaw among the elders about the store. A clamour of
+commenting voices rose from the cabin porches, where the feminine
+spectators stood. The gander squawked dolorously. The hubbub was
+increased by the sudden sharp yelping of hounds that had started game
+somewhere near at hand. Afterward, from time to time, canine snarls and
+yaps rose vociferously upon the air--unheeded, since the inherent
+interests of a gander-pulling were so enhanced by the addition of a
+moral discussion and the jeopardy of its conclusion.
+
+The next man in turn, Amos James, put his horse to a canter, and came in
+a cloud of yellow dust toward the objective point under the tree. In
+another moment there was almost a collision, for Kelsey had wheeled and
+ridden back so swiftly that he reined up under the bough where the fowl
+hung as Amos James, rising in his stirrups, dashed toward it. His horse
+shied, and carried him past, out of reach, while the blacksmith stepped
+precipitately toward the bole, exclaiming angrily:
+
+'Don't ride me down, Hi Kelsey!'
+
+He recovered his presence of mind and the use of his whip immediately,
+and laid a stinging lash upon the parson's horse, as once more the
+champion of the bird reached up to release it. The next instant Gid
+Fletcher recoiled suddenly; there was a significant gesture, a steely
+glimmer, and the blacksmith was gazing with petrified reluctance down
+the muzzle of a six-shooter. He dared not move a muscle as he stood,
+with that limited field of vision, and with more respectful acquiescence
+in the opinion of another man than he had ever before been brought to
+entertain. The horseman looked at his enemy in silence for a moment, the
+broad-brimmed hat shading his face, with its melancholy expression, its
+immobile features, and its flashing eyes.
+
+'Drap that lash,' Kelsey said.
+
+Gid Fletcher's grasp relaxed; then the parson with his left hand reached
+up and contrived to unloose the fluttering gander. He handed the bird
+down to the little girl, who had been fairly under the horse's heels at
+the tree since the first suggestion of its deliverance. She clutched it
+in great haste, wrapped her apron about it, and carrying it baby-wise,
+ran fleetly off, casting apprehensive glances over her shoulder.
+
+So the gander was saved, but in its fright, its woe, and the frantic
+presage in whatever organ may serve it for mind, the fowl had a pretty
+fair case against the Settlement for exemplary damages.
+
+The sport ended in great disaffection and a surly spirit. Several small
+grievances among the younger men promised to result in a disturbance of
+the peace. The blacksmith, held at bay only by the pistol, flared out
+furiously when relieved of that strong coercion. His pride was roused in
+that he should be publicly balked and terrorized.
+
+'I'll remember this,' he said, shaking his fist in the prophet's face.
+'I'll save the gredge agin ye.'
+
+But he was pulled off by his brethren in the church, who thought it
+unwise to have a member in good standing again assault the apostle of
+peace.
+
+Amos James--a tall, black-eyed fellow of twenty-three or four, with
+black hair, slightly powdered with flour, and a brown jeans suit, thus
+reminiscent also of the mill--sighed for the sport in which he had hoped
+to be victorious.
+
+'Pa'son talked like the gaynder war his blood relation--own brothers,
+I'm a-thinkin',' he drawled disconsolately.
+
+The sheriff was disposed to investigate prophecy.
+
+'I've heard, pa'son,' he said, with a smile ill concealing his vexation,
+'ye have foreseen I ain't goin' ter be lucky with this here 'lection;
+goin' ter come out o' the leetle eend o' the horn.'
+
+The prophet, too, was perturbed and out of sorts. The sustaining grace
+of feeling a martyr was lacking in the event of to-day, in which he
+himself had wielded the coercive hand. He marked the covert
+aggressiveness of the sheriff's manner, and revolted at being held to
+account and forced to contest. He fixed his gleaming eyes upon the
+officer's face, but said nothing.
+
+'I'm a-hustlin' off now,' said Micajah Green, 'an' ez I won't be up in
+the Big Smoky agin afore the 'lection, I lowed ez I'd find out what ails
+yer ter set sech a durned thing down as a fac'. Why ain't I goin' ter be
+'lected?' he reiterated, his temper flaring in his face, his eyes
+fierce.
+
+But for the dragging block and chain of his jeopardized prospects he
+could not have restrained himself from active insult. With his peculiar
+qualifications for making enemies, and the opportunities afforded by the
+difficult office he had filled for the past two years, he illustrated at
+this moment the justice of the prophecy. But his evident anxiety, his
+eagerness, even his fierce intolerance, had a touch of the pathetic to
+the man for whom earth held so little and heaven nothing. It seemed
+useless to suggest, to admonish, to argue.
+
+'I say the word,' declared the prophet. 'I can't ondertake ter gin the
+reason.'
+
+'Ye won't gin the reason?' said the sheriff, between his teeth.
+
+'Naw,' said the prophet.
+
+'An' I won't be 'lected, hey?'
+
+'Ye won't be 'lected.'
+
+The deputy touched the sheriff on the shoulder.
+
+'I want ter see ye.'
+
+'In a minute,' said the elder man impatiently.
+
+'I want ter see ye.'
+
+Something in the tone constrained attention. The sheriff turned, and
+looked into a changed face. He suffered himself to be led aside.
+
+'Ye _ain't_ goin' ter be 'lected,' said the deputy grimly, 'an' for a
+damned good reason. Look-a-thar!'
+
+They had walked to the blacksmith's shop. The deputy motioned to him to
+look into the window.
+
+'Damn ye, what is it?' demanded Micajah Green, mystified.
+
+The other made no reply, and the officer stooped, and looked into the
+dusky interior.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+Three sides of the blacksmith's shop, the door, and the window were in
+full view from the little hamlet; the blank wall of the rear was close
+to a sheer precipice. The door was locked, and the key was in the
+sheriff's pocket.
+
+The prisoner, bound with cords around his ankles and limbs, and with his
+wrists manacled, was gone!
+
+Every detail was as it had been left, except that at the rear, the only
+point secure from observation, there were traces of burrowing in the
+earth. In the cavity thus made between the lowest log and the 'dirt
+floor' a man's body might with difficulty have been compressed--but a
+man so shackled! Undoubtedly he had had assistance. This was a rescue.
+
+Only a moment elapsed before the great barn-like doors were widely
+flaring, and the anxious care of the officers and the eager curiosity of
+the crowd had explored every nook and cranny within.
+
+The ground was dry, and there was not even a footprint to betoken the
+movements of the fugitive and his rescuers; only in the freshly upturned
+earth where he effected escape were the distinct marks of the palms of
+his hands, significantly close together.
+
+Evidently he was still handcuffed when he had crawled through.
+
+'He's a-wearin' my bracelets yit!' exclaimed the sheriff excitedly. 'Him
+an' his friends warn't able ter cut them off, like they done the ropes.'
+
+A search was organized in hot haste.
+
+Every cabin, the corn-fields, the woods near at hand, were ransacked.
+Parties went beating about through the dense undergrowth. They climbed
+the ledges of great crags. They hovered with keen eyes above dark
+abysses. They pursued for hours a tortuous course down a deep gorge,
+strewn with gigantic boulders, washed by the wintry torrents into divers
+channellings, overhung by cliffs hundreds of feet high, honeycombed with
+fantastic niches and rifts.
+
+What futile quest! What vastness of mountain wilderness!
+
+The great sun went down in a splendid suffusion of crimson colour, and a
+translucent golden haze, with a purple garb for the mountains, and a
+glamourous dream for the sky, and bestowing far and near the gilded
+license of imagination.
+
+The searchers were hard at it until late into the night; never a clue
+to encourage them, never a hope to lure them on.
+
+More than once they flagged, these sluggish mountaineers, who had passed
+the day in unwonted excitement, and had earned their night's rest. But
+the penalties of refusing to aid the officers of the law spurred them
+on.
+
+Even old Hoodendin--not so old as to be exempt from this duty, for the
+sheriff had summoned every available man at the Settlement to his
+assistance--hobbled from stone to stone, from one rotting log to
+another, where he sat down to recuperate from his exertions.
+
+The search degenerated into a mere form, an aimless beating about in the
+brush, before Micajah Green could be induced to relinquish the hope of
+capture, and blow the horn as a signal for reassembling.
+
+The bands of fagged-out men, straggling back to the Settlement toward
+dawn, found reciprocal satisfaction in expressing the opinion that
+'Cajah Green had 'keerlessly let Rick git away, an' warn't a-goin' ter
+mend the matter by incitin' the mounting ter bust 'round the woods like
+a lot o' crazy deer all night, ter find a man ez warn't nowhar.'
+
+They wore surly enough faces as they gathered about the door of the
+store, or lounged on the stumps and the few chairs, waiting for a
+mounted party that had been ordered to extend the search down in the
+adjacent coves and along the spurs.
+
+The agile Jer'miah scudded about, furnishing such consolation as can be
+contained in a jug. Had the quest resulted differently, they would have
+laughed and joked and caroused till daybreak. As it was, their talk was
+fragmentary; slight and innuendo were in every word.
+
+The sheriff had supplemented his own negligence by a grievous disregard
+of their comfort, and the sense of defeat, so bitter to an American
+citizen, completed the ĉsthetic misery of the situation.
+
+The waggons still stood about in the clearing; here and there the burly
+dark steers lay ruminant and half asleep among the stumps. Among them,
+too, were the cattle of the place; the cows, milked late the evening
+before, had not yet roamed away.
+
+Against a dark background of blackberry bushes a white bull stood in the
+moonlight, motionless, the lustre gilding his horns and touching his
+great sullen eyes with a spark of amber light. In his imperious
+stillness he looked like a statue of a masquerading Jupiter.
+
+A sound.
+
+'Hist!' said the sheriff.
+
+The moon, low in the west, was drawing a seine of fine-spun gold across
+the dark depths of the valley. In that enchanted enmeshment were tangled
+all the fancies of the night; the vague magic of dreams; vagrant
+romances, dumb but for the pulses; the gleams of a poetry too delicately
+pellucid to be focused by a pen. The mountains maintained a majesty of
+silence. All the world beneath was still. The wind was laid.
+
+Far, far away, once again, a sound.
+
+So indistinct, so undistinguishable--they hardly knew if they had heard
+aright. There was a sudden scuffle near at hand. Over one of the rail
+fences, gleaming wet with dew, and rich with the loan of a silver beam,
+there climbed a long, lean old hound; with an anxious aspect he ran to
+the verge of the crag. Once more that sound, alien alike to the mountain
+solitudes and the lonely sky; then the deep-mouthed baying broke forth,
+waking all the echoes, and rousing all the dogs in the cove as well as
+the canine visitors and residents at the Settlement.
+
+'Dod-rot that critter!' exclaimed the sheriff angrily. 'We can't hear
+nuthin' now but his long jaw.'
+
+'Jes' say "Silence in court!"' suggested Amos James from where he lay at
+length in the grass.
+
+The sheriff nimbly kicked the dog instead, and the night was filled
+with wild shrieks of pain and anger. When his barking was renewed, it
+was punctuated with sharp, reminiscent yelps, as the injustice of his
+treatment ever and anon recurred to his mind.
+
+The sound of human voices grew very distinct when it could be heard at
+all, and the tramp of approaching horses shook the ground.
+
+Every eye was turned toward the point at which the road came into the
+Settlement, between the densities of the forest and the gleaming array
+of shining, curved blades and tossing plumes, where the corn-field
+spread its martial suggestions. When an equestrian shadow suddenly
+appeared, the sheriff saluted it in a tremor of excitement.
+
+'Hello!' he shouted. 'Did ye ketch him?'
+
+The foremost of the party rode slowly forward: the horse was jaded; the
+rider slouched in the saddle with an aspect of surly exhaustion.
+
+'Ketch him!' thundered out Gid Fletcher's gruff voice. 'Ketch the
+devil!'
+
+The bold-faced deputy was brazening it out. He rode up with as dapper a
+style as a man may well maintain who has been in the saddle ten hours
+without food, sustained only by the strength of a 'tickler' in his
+pocket, whose prospects are jeopardized and whose official prestige is
+ruined. The demeanour of the other riders expressed varying degrees of
+injured disaffection as they threw themselves from their horses.
+
+The blacksmith dismounted in front of the cumbersome doors of his shop,
+on which still hung the sheriff's padlock, and with the stiff gait of
+one who has ridden long and hard he strode across the clearing, and
+stopped before the group in front of the store.
+
+He looked infuriated. It might have been a matter of wonder that so
+tired a man could nourish so strong and active a passion.
+
+'Look a-hyar, 'Cajah Green!' he exclaimed, with an oath, 'folks 'low ter
+me ez I ain't got no right ter my reward fur ketchin' that thar greased
+peeg,--ez ye hed ter leave go of--kase he warn't landed in jail or
+bailed. That air the law, they tells me.'
+
+'That's the law,' replied the sheriff. His chair was tilted back against
+the wall of the store, his hat drawn over his brow. He spoke with the
+calmness of desperation.
+
+'Then 'pears like ter me ez I hev hed all my trouble fur nuthin', an'
+all the resk I hev tuk,' said the blacksmith, coming close, and
+mechanically rolling up the sleeve of his hammer-arm.
+
+'Edzac'ly.'
+
+The blacksmith turned on him a look like that of a wounded bear. 'An' ye
+sit thar ez peaceful ez skim-milk, an' 'low ez ye hev let my two
+hundred dollars slip away?' he demanded. 'Dad burn yer greasy soul!'
+
+'I hopes it air all I hev let slip,' said the sheriff quietly. There was
+so much besides which he had cause to fear that it did not occur to him
+to be afraid of the blacksmith.
+
+Perhaps it was the subacute perception that he shared the officer's
+attention with more engrossing subjects which had the effect of
+tempering Gid Fletcher's anger.
+
+The rim of the moon was slipping behind the purple heights of Chilhowee.
+Day was suddenly upon them, though the sun had not yet risen--when did
+the darkness flee?--the day, cool, with a freshness as of a new
+creation, and with an atmosphere so clear that one might know the ash
+from the oak in the deep green depths of the wooded valley.
+
+The hour had not yet done with witchery: the rose-red cloud was in the
+east, and the wild red rose had burst its bud; a mocking-bird sprang
+from its nest in a dogwood-tree, with a scintillating wing and a soaring
+song, and a ray of sunlight like a magic wand fell athwart the
+landscape.
+
+Gid Fletcher sat vaguely staring. Presently he lifted his hand with a
+sudden gesture demanding attention.
+
+'Ye ain't goin' ter be 'lected, air ye, 'Cajah Green?'
+
+The sheriff stirred uneasily. His ambition, a little and a selfish
+thing, was the index to his soul. Without it he himself would not be
+able to find the page whereon was writ all that there was of the
+spiritual within him. He writhed to forego it.
+
+'Naw,' he said desperately. 'I s'pose I ain't.' He pushed his hat back
+nervously.
+
+He heard, without marking, the sudden rattling of one of the waggons
+that had left some time ago: it was crossing a rickety bridge near the
+foot of the mountain; the hollow reverberations rose and fell, echoed
+and died away. One of the cabin doors opened, and a man came out upon
+the porch. He washed his face in a tin pan which stood on a bench for
+the public toilet, treated his head to a refreshing souse, and then,
+with the water dripping from his long locks upon the shoulders of his
+shirt, the bold-faced deputy, much refreshed by a snack and his
+ablutions, came lounging across the clearing to join them.
+
+Suddenly Micajah Green noted that the blacksmith was looking at him with
+a significant gleam in his black eyes and a flush on his swarthy face.
+
+'Who said ye warn't goin' ter be 'lected?'
+
+'Why, this hyar prophet o' yourn on the Big Smoky.'
+
+'Why did he 'low ez that warn't comin' ter pass?'
+
+'He wouldn't gin no reason.'
+
+'He lef' ye ter find that out. An' ye fund it out?'
+
+The sheriff said nothing. He was breathlessly intent.
+
+'An' he met me in the woods, an' lowed ez Rick Tyler oughtn't ter be
+tuk, an' hed done no wrong; an' he called the gov'nor's reward
+blood-money, an' worked hisself nigh up ter the shoutin' p'int; an'
+called me "Judas" fur takin' the boy, sence me an' him hed been
+frien'ly, an' lowed ez them thar thirty pieces o' silver warn't out o'
+circulation yit.'
+
+'An' then,' the bold-faced deputy struck in, 'he rode up yestiddy,
+a-raisin' a great wondermint over a gaynder-pullin', ez if thar'd never
+been one before; purtendin' 'twar wicked, like he'd never killed an' eat
+a fowel, an' drawin' pistols, an' raisin' a great commotion an' excitin'
+an' _de_stractin' the Settlemint, so a man handcuffed, an' with a rope
+twisted round his arms an' legs, gits out of a house right under thar
+nose, an' runs away. Rick Tyler couldn't hev done it 'thout them ropes
+war cut, an' he war gin a chance ter sneak out. Now, I ain't a prophet
+by natur'e but I kin say who cut them ropes, an' who raised a
+disturbamint outside ter gin him a chance ter mosey.'
+
+'Whar's he now?' demanded the sheriff, rising from his chair and
+glancing about.
+
+'He was a-huntin' with the posse, las' night,' said the deputy. 'He
+never lef' till 'bout an hour ago. He never wanted nobody ter 'spicion
+nuthin', I reckon. Mebbe that's him now.'
+
+He pointed to a road in the valley, a tawny streak elusively appearing
+upon a hilltop or skirting a rocky spur, soon lost in a sea of foliage.
+Beside a harvested wheat-field it was again visible, and a tiny moving
+object might be discerned by eyes trained to the long stretches of
+mountain landscape. The sun was higher, the dew exhaled in warm and
+languishing perfume, the mocking-bird filled the air with ecstasy. The
+men stood among their elongated shadows on the crag, staring at the
+moving object until it reached the dense woods, and so passed out of
+sight.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+Down a precipitous path, hardly more civilized of aspect than if it were
+trodden by the deer, filled with interlacing roots, barricaded by long
+briery tangles, overhung by brush and overshadowed by trees--down this
+sylvan way Dorinda, followed by Jacob and one or two of the
+companionable old hounds, was wont to go to the spring under the crag.
+
+The spot had its fascinations. The great beetling cliff towered far
+above, the jagged line of its summit serrating the zenith. Its rugged
+face was seamed with many a fissure, and here and there were clumps of
+ferns, a swaying vine, a huckleberry bush that fed the birds of the air.
+Below surged the tops of the trees. There was a shelving descent from
+the base of the crag, and Jacob must needs have heed of the rocky depths
+beneath in treading the narrow ledge that led to a great cavernous niche
+in the face of the rock.
+
+Here in a deep cleft welled the never-failing spring. It always reminded
+Dorinda of that rock which Moses smote; although, of course, when she
+thought of it, she said she knew that Mount Horeb was in Jefferson
+County, because a man who had married her brother's wife's cousin had
+an aunt who lived there. And when she had abandoned that unconscious
+effort to bring the great things near, she would sit upon the rock and
+look with a sigh of pleasure at that pure, outgushing limpidity,
+unfailing and unchanging, and say it reminded her of the well-springs of
+pity.
+
+One day, as she sat there, her dreaming head thrown back upon her hands
+clasped behind it, there sounded a sudden step close by. The old hounds,
+lying without the cavernous recess, could see along the upward vista of
+the path, and their low growl was rather in surly recognition than in
+active defiance. Dorinda and Jacob, within the great niche, beheld
+naught but the distant mountain landscape framed in the rugged arch
+above their heads. The step did not at once advance; it hesitated, and
+then Amos James came slowly into view. Dorinda looked up dubiously at
+him, and it occurred to him that this was the accepted moment to examine
+the lock of his gun.
+
+'Howdy,' he ventured, as he turned the rifle about.
+
+She had assumed a more constrained attitude, and had unclasped her hands
+from behind her head. The seat was a low one, and the dark blue folds of
+her homespun dress fell about her with simple amplitude. Her pink calico
+sun-bonnet lay on the rock under her elbow. The figure of the pudgy
+Jacob in the foreground had a callow grotesqueness. He, too, undertook
+the demeanour he had learned to discriminate as 'manners.' Outside, the
+old dog snapped at the flies.
+
+Amos James seemed to think an account of himself appropriate.
+
+'I hev been a-huntin',' he said, his grave black eyes on the rifle and
+his face in the shadow of his big white hat. 'I happened ter pass by the
+house, an' yer granny said ez ye hed started down hyar arter a pail o'
+water, an' I 'lowed ez I'd kem an' fetch it fur ye.'
+
+Dorinda murmured that she was 'much obleeged,' and relapsed into silent
+propriety.
+
+Extraordinary gun! It really seemed as if Amos James would be compelled
+to take it to pieces then and there, so persistently did it require his
+attention.
+
+Jacob, whose hearing was unimpaired, but whose education in the specious
+ways of those of a larger growth was as yet incomplete, got up briskly.
+Since Amos had come to fetch the pail he saw no reason in nature why the
+pail should not be fetched, and he imagined that the return was in
+order. He paused for a moment in surprise; then seeing that no one else
+moved, he sat down abruptly. But for her manners Dorinda could have
+laughed. Amos James's cheek flushed darkly as he still worked at the
+gun.
+
+'I s'pose ez you-uns hev hearn the news?' he remarked presently. As he
+asked the question he quickly lifted his eyes.
+
+Ah, what laughing lights in hers--what radiant joys! She did not look at
+him. Her gaze was turned far away to the soft horizon. Her delicate lips
+had such dainty curves. Her pale cheek flushed tumultuously. She leaned
+her head back against the rock, the tendrils of her dark hair spreading
+over the unyielding grey stone, which, weather-shielded, was almost
+white. In its dead, dumb finality--the memorial of seas ebbed long ago,
+of forms of life extinct--she bore it a buoyant contrast. She looked
+immortal!
+
+'I hev hearn the news,' she said, her long lashes falling, and with
+quiet circumspection at variance with the triumph in her face.
+
+He looked at her gravely, breathlessly. A new idea had taken possession
+of him. The rescue--it was a strange thing! Who in the Great Smoky
+Mountains had an adequate temptation to risk the penalty of ten years in
+the state-prison for rescuing Rick Tyler from the officers of the law?
+His brothers?--they were step-brothers. His father was dead. Affection
+could not be accounted a factor. Venom might do more. Some reckless
+enemy of the sheriff's might thus have craftily compassed his ruin. Then
+there suddenly came upon Amos James a recollection of the Cayces' grudge
+against Micajah Green, and of the fact that they had already actively
+bestirred themselves to electioneer against him. Once, before it all
+happened, Rick Tyler had hung persistently about Dorinda, and perhaps
+the 'men-folks' approved him. Amos remembered too that a story was
+current at the gander-pulling that the reason the Cayces had absented
+themselves and were lying low was because a party of revenue raiders had
+been heard of on the Big Smoky. Who had heard of them, and when did they
+come, and where did they go? It seemed a fabrication, a cloak. And
+Dorinda--she was the impersonation of delighted triumph.
+
+'Agged the men-folks on, I reckon,' he thought--'agged 'em on, fur the
+sake o' Rick Tyler!'
+
+A sense of despair, quiet, numbing, was creeping over him.
+
+''Tain't no reg'lar ail, I know,' he said to himself; 'but I b'lieve
+it'll kill me.'
+
+Conversation in the mountains is a leisurely procedure, time being of
+little value. The ensuing pause, however, was of abnormal duration, and
+at last Amos was fain to break it, albeit irrelevantly.
+
+'This hyar weather is gittin' mighty hot,' he observed, taking off his
+hat and fanning himself with it. 'I feel like I hed been dragged
+bodaciously through the hopper.'
+
+From the shaded coolness of the grotto the girl admitted that it was
+'middlin' warm.'
+
+Despite the slumberous sunshine here, all the world was not so quiet.
+Over the valley a cloud was hovering, densely black, but with a grey,
+nebulous margin; now and then it was rent by a flash of lightning in
+swift zigzag lines, yet the mountains beyond were a tender blue in the
+golden glow of a sunshine yet more tender.
+
+''Pears like they air gittin' a shower over yander, at the furder eend
+o' the cove,' Dorinda remarked encouragingly. 'Ef it war ter storm right
+smart, mebbe the thunder would cool the air some.'
+
+'Mebbe so,' he assented.
+
+Then he marked again the new beauty abloom in her face, and his heart
+sank within him. His pride was touched, too. He was a man well-to-do for
+the 'mountings,' with his own grist-mill, and a widowed mother whose
+plaint it was, night and day, that Amos was 'sech a slowly boy ter git
+married, an' the Lord knows thar oughter be somebody roun' the house
+spry'r 'n a pore old woman mighty nigh fifty year old--yes, sir! a-going
+on fifty. An' I want ter live down ter Emmert's Cove along o' Malviny,
+my married darter,' she would insist, 'whar thar air chillen, an'
+babies ter look arter, an' not sech a everlastin' gang o' men, a-lopin'
+'round the mill. But I dunno _what_ Amos would do ef I lef' him.'
+
+Evidently it was a field for a daughter-in-law. Amos felt in his secret
+soul that this was not the only attraction. He was well favoured and
+tall and straight, and had a good name in the county, despite his
+pranks, which were leniently regarded. He honestly thought that Dorinda
+might do worse. Whether it was tact or whether it was delicacy, he did
+not allude to the worldly contrast with the fugitive from justice.
+
+'I s'pose they won't ketch Rick agin,' he hazarded.
+
+'I reckon not,' she said demurely, her long black lashes again falling.
+
+He leaned uneasily on his gun, looked down at his great boots drawn over
+his brown jeans trousers to his knees, adjusted his leathern belt, and
+pulled his hat a trifle farther over his eyes.
+
+'D'rindy,' he said suddenly, 'ye set a heap o' store on Rick Tyler?'
+
+Then he was doubtful, and feared he had offended her.
+
+Her sapphire eyes, with their leaping blue lights and dark clear depths,
+all blended and commingled in the softest brilliancy, shone upon him.
+The bliss of the event was supreme.
+
+'Mebbe I do,' she said.
+
+He turned and looked away at the storm, seeming ineffective as it surged
+in the distance. The trees in the cove were tossed by a wind that raged
+on a lower level, as if it issued from Ĉolian caverns in the depths of
+the range. It was a wild, aërial panorama--the black clouds, and the
+rain, and the mist rolling through the deep gorge, veined with
+lightnings and vocal with thunder, and the thunderous echoes among the
+rocks.
+
+Not a leaf stirred on the mountain's brow, and the great 'bald' lifted
+its majestic crest in a sunshine all unpaled, and against the upper
+regions of the air, splendidly blue. There was an analogy in the scene
+with his mood and hers.
+
+A moment ago he had been saying to himself that he did not want to be
+'turned off' in favour of a man who was hunted like a wild animal
+through the woods; who, if his luck and his friends should hold out, and
+he could evade capture, might look forward to naught but uncertainty and
+a fearful life, like others in the Big Smoky, who dared not open their
+own doors to a summons from without, skulking in their homes like beasts
+in their den.
+
+The dangers, misfortunes, and indignities suffered by his preferred
+rival were an added slur upon him, who had all the backing of propitious
+circumstance. Since there was nothing to gain, why humble himself in
+vain?
+
+This was his logic--sound, just, approved by his judgment; and as it
+arranged itself in his mind with all the lucidity of pure reason, he
+spoke from the complex foolish dictates of his unreasoning heart.
+
+'I hev hoped ter marry ye, D'rindy, like I hev hoped fur salvation,' he
+said abruptly.
+
+He looked at her now, straight and earnestly, with his shaded, serious
+black eyes. Her rebuking glance slanted beyond him from under her
+half-lifted lashes.
+
+'I thought ye war a good church member,' she said unexpectedly.
+
+'I am. But that don't make me a liar ez I knows on. I'd ruther hear ye
+a-singin' 'roun' the house in Eskaqua Cove, an' a-callin' the chickens,
+an' sech, 'n ter hear all the angels in heaven a-quirin' tergether.'
+
+'That ain't religion, Amos Jeemes,' she said, with cool disapproval.
+
+'Waal,' he rejoined with low-spirited obstinacy, 'mebbe 'tain't.'
+
+There was a delicate odour of ferns on the air; the cool, outgushing
+water tinkled on the stones like a chime of silver bells; his shadow
+fell athwart the portal as he leaned on his rifle, and his wandering
+glance mechanically swept the landscape.
+
+The sudden storm had passed, the verge of the cloud hovering so near
+that they could hear the last heavy raindrops pattering on the tops of
+the trees in Eskaqua Cove. Vapours were rising from the ravine: the sun
+shone upon them, throwing a golden aureola about the opposite mountains,
+and all the wreathing mists that the wind whirled down the valley had
+elusive, opalescent effects. The thunder muttered in the distance; the
+sharp-bladed lightnings were sheathed; a rainbow girdled the world, that
+had sprung into a magic beauty as if cinctured by the zone of Venus. The
+arch spanned the blue sky, and on the dark mountains extended the
+polychromatic reflection. The freshened wind came rushing up the gorge,
+and the tree-tops bent.
+
+'Look-a-hyar, D'rindy,' said Amos James sturdily; 'I want ye ter promise
+me one thing.'
+
+Dorinda had risen in embarrassment. She looked down at Jacob.
+
+'It air about time for we-uns ter be a-goin' ter the house, I reckon,'
+she said.
+
+But Jacob sat still. He was apt in 'takin' l'arnin',' and he had begun
+to perceive that his elders did not always mean what they said. He was
+cool and comfortable, and content to remain.
+
+'I want ye ter promise me that ef ever ye find ez ye hev thunk too well
+o' Rick Tyler, an' hev sot him up too high in yer mind over other folks,
+ye'll let me know.'
+
+Her cheek dimpled; her rare laughter fell on the air; a fervid faith
+glowed in her deep, bright eyes.
+
+'I promise ye!'
+
+'Ye think Rick Tyler air mighty safe in that promise,' he rejoined,
+crestfallen.
+
+But Dorinda would say no more.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+The disappointment which Amos James experienced found expression in much
+the same manner as that of many men of higher culture. He went down to
+his home in Eskaqua Cove, moody and morose. He replied to his chirping
+mother in discouraging monosyllables. In taciturn disaffection he sat on
+the step of the little porch, and watched absently a spider weaving her
+glittering gossamer maze about an overhanging mass of purple grapes,
+with great green leaves that were already edged with a rusty red and
+mottled with brown. A mocking-bird boldly perched among them, ever and
+anon, the airy grace of his pose hardly giving, in its exquisite
+lightness, the effect of a pause. The bird swallowed the grapes whole
+with a mighty gulp, and presently flew away with one in his bill for the
+refreshment of his family, whose vibratory clamour in an althea bush
+hard by mingled with the drone of the grasshoppers in the wet grass,
+louder than ever since the rain, and the persistent strophe and
+antistrophe of the frogs down on the bank of the mill-pond.
+
+'Did they git enny shower up in the mounting, Amos?' demanded his
+mother, as she sat knitting on the porch--a thin little woman, with a
+nervous, uncertain eye and a drawling, high-pitched voice.
+
+'Naw'm,' said Amos, 'not ez I knows on.'
+
+'I reckon ye'd hev knowed ef ye hed got wet,' she said, with asperity.
+'Ye hain't got much feelin', no ways--yer manners shows it--but I 'low
+ye _would_ feel the rain ef it kem down right smart, or ef ye war streck
+by lightnin'.'
+
+There was no retort, and from the subtle disappointment in the little
+woman's eye it might have seemed that to inaugurate a controversy would
+have been more filial, so bereft of conversational opportunity was her
+lonely life, where only a 'gang o' men loped 'round the mill.'
+
+She knitted on with a sharp clicking of the needles for a time, carrying
+the thread on a gnarled fourth finger, which seemed unnaturally active
+for that member, and somehow officious.
+
+'I'll be bound ye went ter Cayce's house,' she said aggressively.
+
+There was another long pause. The empty dwelling behind them was so
+still that one could hear the footsteps of an intruding rooster, as he
+furtively entered at the back door.
+
+'Shoo!' she said, shaking her needles at him, as she bent forward and
+saw him standing in the slant of the sunshine, all his red and yellow
+feathers burnished. He had one foot poised motionless, and looked at her
+with a reproving side-glance, as if he could not believe he had caught
+the drift of her remarks. Another gesture, more pronounced than the
+first, and he went scuttling out, his wings half spread and his
+toe-nails clattering on the puncheon floor. 'Ye went ter Cayce's, I'll
+be bound, and hyar ye be, with nuthin' ter tell. Ef I war free ter
+jounce 'round the mounting same ez the idle, shif'less men-folks, who
+hev got nuthin' ter do but eye a mill ez the water works, I'd hev so
+much ter tell whenst I got home that ye'd hev ter tie me in a cheer ter
+keep me from talkin' myself away, like somebody happy with religion. An'
+hyar ye be, actin' like ye hed no mo' gift o' speech'n the rooster.
+Shoo! Shoo! Whar did ye go, ennyhow, when ye war on the mounting?'
+
+'A-huntin',' said Amos.
+
+'Huntin' D'rindy Cayce, I reckon. An' ye never got her, ter jedge from
+yer looks. An' I ain't got the heart ter blame the gal. Sech a lonesome,
+say-nuthin' husband ye'd make!'
+
+The sharp click of her knitting-needles filled the pause. But her
+countenance had relaxed. She was in a measure enjoying the conversation,
+since the spice of her own share atoned for the lack of news or
+satisfactory response.
+
+'Air old Mis' Cayce's gyarden-truck suff'rin' fur rain?'
+
+There was a gleam of hopeful expectation behind her spectacles. With her
+reeking 'gyarden-spot' dripping with raindrops, and the smell of thyme
+and sage and the damp mould on the air, she could afford some pity as an
+added flavour for her pride.
+
+'Never looked ter see,' murmured her son, between two long whiffs from
+his pipe.
+
+His mother laid her knitting on her lap.
+
+'I'll be bound, Amos Jeemes, ez ye never tole her how 'special our'n war
+a-thrivin' this season.'
+
+'Naw'm,' said Amos, a trifle more promptly than usual, 'I never. 'Fore
+I'd go a-crowin' over old Mis' Cayce 'bout'n our gyarden-truck I'd see
+it withered in a night, like Jonah's gourd.'
+
+'It's the Lord's han',' said his mother quickly, in self-justification.
+'I ain't been prayin' fur no drought in Mis' Cayce's gyarden-spot.'
+
+Another long pause ensued. The sun shining through a bunch of grapes
+made them seem pellucid globes of gold and amber and crimson among
+others darkly purple in the shadow. The mocking-bird came once more
+a-foraging. A yellow and red butterfly flickered around in the air, as
+if one of the tiger-lilies there by the porch had taken wings and was
+wantoning about in the wind. On the towering bald of the mountain a
+cloud rested, obscuring the dome--a cloud of dazzling whiteness--and it
+seemed as if the mountain had been admitted to some close communion with
+the heavens. Below, the colour was intense, so deeply green were the
+trees, so clear and sharp a grey were the crags, so blue were the
+shadows in the ravines. Amos was looking upward. He looked upward much
+of the time.
+
+'See old Groundhog?' inquired his mother, suddenly.
+
+'Whar?' he demanded with a start, breaking from his reverie.
+
+'Laws-a-massy, boy!' she exclaimed, in exasperation. 'Whenst ye war up
+ter the Cayces', this mornin'.'
+
+'Naw'm,' said Amos. He had never admitted, save by indirection, that he
+had been to the Cayces'.
+
+'War he gone ter the still?'
+
+'I never axed.'
+
+'I s'pose not, bein' ez ye never drinks nuthin' but buttermilk, do
+ye?'--this with a scathing inflection.
+
+She presently sighed deeply.
+
+'Waal, waal. The millinium an' the revenue will git thar rights one of
+these days, I hopes an' prays. I'm a favorin' of ennythink ez'll storp
+sin an' a-swillin' o' liquor. Tax 'em all, I say! Tax the sinners!'
+
+She had assumed a pious aspect, and spoke in a tone of drawling
+solemnity, with a vague idea that the whisky tax was in the interest of
+temperance, and the revenue department was a religious institution. The
+delusions of ignorance!
+
+'Thar ain't ez much drunk nohow now ez thar useter war. I 'members when
+I war a gal whisky war so cheap that up to the store at the Settlemint
+they'd hev a bucket set full o' whisky an' a gourd, free fur all comers,
+an' another bucket alongside with water ter season it. An' the way that
+thar water lasted war surprisin'--that it war! Nowadays ye ain't goin'
+to find liquor so plenty nowhar, 'cept mebbe at old Groundhog's still.'
+
+Amos made no reply. His eyes were fixed on the road. A man on an old
+white horse had emerged from the woods, and was slowly ambling toward
+the mill. The crazy old structure was like a caricature; it seemed that
+only by a lapse of all the rules of interdependent timbers did it hang
+together, with such oblique disregard of rectangles. Its doors and
+windows were rhomboidal; its supports tottered in the water. The gate
+was shut. The whir was hushed. A sleep lay upon the pond, save where the
+water fell like a silver veil over the dam. Even this motion was dreamy
+and somnambulistic.
+
+On the other side of the stream the great sandstone walls of the channel
+showed the water-marks of flood and fall of past years, cut in sharp
+levels and registered in the rock. They beetled here and there, and the
+verdure on the summits looked over and gave the deep waters below the
+grace of a dense and shady reflection. Above the dark old roof on every
+hand the majestic encompassing mountains rose against the sky, and the
+cove nestled sequestered from the world in this environment.
+
+The man on the gaunt white horse suddenly paused, seeing the mill silent
+and lonely; his eyes turned to the little house farther down the stream.
+
+'Hello!' he yelled. 'I kem hyar ter git some gris' groun'.'
+
+'Grin' yer gris' yerse'f,' vociferated the miller, cavalierly renouncing
+his vocation. 'I hev no mind ter go a-medjurin' o' toll.'
+
+Thus privileged, the stranger dismounted, went into the old mill,
+himself lifted the gate, and presently the musical whir broke forth. It
+summoned an echo from the mountain that was hardly like a reflection of
+its simple, industrial sound, so elfin, so romantically faint, so fitful
+and far, it seemed! The pond awoke, the water gurgled about the wheel,
+the tail-race was billowy with foam.
+
+Presently there was silence. The gate had fallen; the farmer had
+measured the toll, and was riding away. As he vanished Amos James rose
+slowly, and began to stretch his stalwart limbs.
+
+'I'm glad ye ain't palsied with settin' so long, Amos,' said his mother.
+'Ye seem ter hev los' interes' in everythink 'ceptin' the doorstep. Lord
+A'mighty! I never thunk ez ye'd grow up ter be sech pore comp'ny. No
+wonder ez D'rindy hardens her heart! An' when ye war a baby--my sakes! I
+could set an' list'n ter yer jowin' all day. An' sech comp'ny ye war,
+when ye couldn't say a word an' hedn't a tooth in yer head!'
+
+He lived in continual rivalry with this younger self in his mother's
+affections. She was one of those women whose maternal love is expressed
+in an idolatry of infancy. She could not forgive him for outgrowing his
+babyhood, and regarded every added year upon his head as a sort of
+affront and a sorrow.
+
+He strode away, still gloomily downcast, and when the woman next looked
+up she saw him mounted on his bay horse, and riding toward the base of
+the mountain.
+
+'Waal, sir!' she exclaimed, taking off her spectacles and rubbing the
+glasses on her blue-checked apron, 'D'rindy Cayce'll hev ter marry that
+thar boy ter git shet o' him. I hev never hearn o' nobody ridin' up that
+thar mounting twict in one day 'thout they hed suthin' 'special ter
+boost 'em--a-runnin' from the sher'ff, or sech.'
+
+But Amos James soon turned from the road that wound in long, serpentine
+undulations to the mountain's brow, and pursued a narrow bridlepath,
+leading deep into the dense forests. It might have seemed that he was
+losing his way altogether when the path disappeared among the boulders
+of a stream, half dry.
+
+He followed the channel up the rugged, rock-girt gorge for perhaps a
+mile, emerging at length upon a slope of out-cropping ledges, where his
+horse left no hoof-print.
+
+Soon he struck into the laurel, and pressed on, guided by signs
+distinguishable only to the initiated: some grotesque gnarling of limbs,
+perhaps, of the great trees that stretched above the almost impenetrable
+undergrowth; some projecting crag, visible at long intervals, high up
+and cut sharply against the sky.
+
+All at once, in the midst of the dense laurel, he came upon a cavity in
+the side of the mountain. The irregularly shaped fissure was more than
+tall enough to admit a man.
+
+He stood still for a moment, and called his own name. There was no
+response save the echoes, and, dismounting, he took the bridle and began
+to lead the horse into the cave. The animal shied dubiously, protesting
+against this unique translation to vague subterranean spheres. The
+shadow of the fissured portal fell upon them; the light began to grow
+dim; the dust thickened.
+
+As Amos glanced over his shoulder he could see the woods without
+suffused with a golden radiance, and there was a freshness on the
+intensely green foliage as if it were newly washed with rain. The world
+seemed suddenly clarified, and tiny objects stood out with strange
+distinctness; he saw the twigs on the great trees and the white tips of
+the tail-feathers of a fluttering bluejay. Far down the aisles of the
+forest the enchantment held its wonderful sway, and he felt in his own
+ignorant fashion how beautiful is the accustomed light.
+
+When the horse's stumbling feet had ceased to sound among the stones,
+the wilderness without was as lonely and as unsuggestive of human
+occupation or human existence as when the Great Smoky Mountains first
+rose from the sea.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+Amos and his steed made their way along a narrow passage, growing wider,
+however, and taller, but darker, and with many short turns--an
+embarrassment to the resisting brute's physical conformation.
+
+Suddenly there was a vague red haze in the dark, the sound of voices,
+and an abrupt turn brought man and horse into a great subterranean
+vault, where dusky distorted figures, wreathing smoke, and a flare of
+red fire suggested Tartarus.
+
+'Hy're, Amos!' cried a hospitable voice.
+
+A weird tone repeated the words with precipitate promptness.
+
+Again and again the abrupt echoes spoke; far down the unseen blackness
+of the cave a hollow whisper announced his entrance, and he seemed
+mysteriously welcomed by the unseen powers of the earth.
+
+He was not an imaginative man nor observant, but the upper regions were
+his sphere, and he had all the acute sensitiveness incident to being out
+of one's element. Even after he had seated himself he noted a far,
+faint voice crying, 'Hy're, Amos!' in abysmal depths explored only by
+the sound of his name.
+
+And here it was that old Groundhog Cayce evaded the law, and ran his
+still, and defied the revenue department, and maintained his right to do
+as he would with his own.
+
+'Lord A'mighty, air the corn mine, or no?' he would argue. 'Air the
+orchard mine, or the raiders'? An' what ails me ez I can't make whisky
+an' apple-jack same ez in my dad's time, when him an' me run a sour mash
+still on the top o' the mounting in the light o' day, up'ards o' twenty
+year, an' never hearn o' no raider. Tell me that's agin the law,
+nowadays! Waal, now, who made that law? I never; an' I ain't a-goin' ter
+abide by it, nuther. Ez sure ez ye air born, it air jes' a Yankee trick
+fotched down hyar by the Fed'ral army. An' if I hed knowed they war
+goin' ter gin tharse'fs ter sech persecutions arter the war, I dunno how
+I'd hev got my consent ter fit alongside of 'em like I done fower year
+fur the Union.'
+
+A rude furnace made of fire-rock was the prominent feature of the place,
+and on it glimmered the pleasing rotundities of a small copper still.
+The neck curved away into the obscurity. There was the sound of gurgling
+water, with vague babbling echoes; for the never-failing rill of an
+underground spring, which rose among the rocks, was diverted to the
+unexpected purpose of flowing through the tub where the worm was coiled,
+and of condensing the precious vapours, which dripped monotonously into
+their rude receiver at the extremity of the primitive fixtures.
+
+The iron door of the furnace was open now as Ab Cayce replenished the
+fire. It sent out a red glare, revealing the dark walls; the black
+distances; the wreaths of smoke, that were given a start by a short
+chimney, and left to wander away and dissipate themselves in the wide
+subterranean spaces; and the uncouth, slouching figures and illuminated
+faces of the distillers. They lounged upon the rocks or sat on inverted
+baskets and tubs, and one stalwart fellow lay at length upon the ground.
+
+The shadows were all grotesquely elongated, almost divested of the
+semblance of humanity, as they stretched in unnatural proportions upon
+the rocks.
+
+Amos James's horse cast on the wall an image so gigantic that it seemed
+as if the past and the present were mysteriously united, and he stood
+stabled beside the grim mastodon whom the cave had sheltered from the
+rigours of his day long before Groundhog Cayce was moved to seek a
+refuge.
+
+The furnace door clashed; the scene faded; only a glittering line of
+vivid white light, emitted between the ill-fitting door and the unhewn
+rock, enlivened the gloom. Now and then, as one of the distillers moved,
+it fell upon him, and gave his face an abnormal distinctness in the
+surrounding blackness, like some curiously cut onyx.
+
+'Waal, Amos,' said a voice from out the darkness, 'I'm middlin' glad ter
+see you-uns. Hev a drink.'
+
+A hand came out into the gleaming line of light extending with a
+flourish of invitation a jug of jovial aspect.
+
+'Don't keer ef I do,' said Amos politely.
+
+He lifted the jug, and drank without stint. The hand received it back
+again, shook it as if to judge of the quantity of its contents, and
+then, with a gesture of relish, raised it to an unseen mouth.
+
+'Enny news 'round the mill, Amos?' demanded his invisible pot companion.
+
+'None ez I knows on,' drawled Amos.
+
+'Grind some fur we-uns ter-morrer?' asked Ab.
+
+'I'll grind yer bones, ef ye'll send 'em down,' said Amos
+accommodatingly. 'All's grist ez goes ter the hopper. How kem you-uns
+ter git the nightmare 'bout'n the raiders? I waited fur Sol an' the
+corn right sharp time Wednesday mornin'; jes' hed nuthin' ter do but ter
+sot an' suck my paws, like a b'ar in winter, till 't war time ter put
+out an' go ter the gaynder-pullin'.'
+
+'Waal'--there was embarrassment in the tones of the burly shadow, and
+all the echoes were hesitant as Groundhog Cayce replied in Ab's stead:
+'Mirandy Jane 'lowed ez she hed seen a strange man 'bout'n the spring,
+an' thought it war a raider--though he'd hev been in a mighty ticklish
+place fur a raider, all by himself. Mirandy Jane hev fairly got the
+jim-jams, seein' raiders stiddier snakes; we-uns can't put no dependence
+in the gal. An' mam, she drempt the raiders hed camped on Chilhowee
+Mounting. An' D'rindy, she turned fool: fust she 'lowed ez we-uns would
+all be ruined ef we went ter the gaynder-pullin', an' then she war
+powerful interrupted when we 'lowed we wouldn't go, like ez ef she
+wanted us ter go most awful. I axed this hyer Pa'son Kelsey, ez rid by
+that mornin', ef he treed enny raiders in his mind. An' he 'lowed none,
+'ceptin' the devil a-raidin' 'roun' his own soul. But 'mongst 'em we-uns
+jest bided away that day. I wouldn't hev done it, 'ceptin' D'rindy tuk
+ter talkin' six ways fur Sunday, an' she got me plumb catawampus, so ez
+I didn't rightly know what I wanted ter do myself.'
+
+It was a lame story for old Groundhog Cayce to tell. Even the
+hesitating echoes seemed ashamed of it. Mirandy Jane's mythical raider,
+and mam's dream, and D'rindy's folly--were these to baffle that
+stout-hearted old soldier?
+
+Amos James said no more. If old Cayce employed an awkward subterfuge to
+conceal the enterprise of the rescue, he had no occasion to intermeddle.
+Somehow, the strengthening of his suspicions brought Amos to a new
+realization of his despair. He sought to modify it by frequent reference
+to the jug, which came his way at hospitably short intervals. But he had
+a strong head, and had seen the jug often before; and although he
+thought his grief would be alleviated by getting as drunk as a 'fraish
+b'iled ow_el_,' that consummation of consolation was coy and tardy. He
+was only mournfully frisky after a while, feeling that he should
+presently be obliged to cut his throat, yet laughing at his own jokes
+when the moonshiners laughed, then pausing in sudden seriousness to
+listen to the elfin merriment evoked among the lurking echoes. And he
+sang, too, after a time, a merry catch, in a rich and resonant voice,
+with long, dawdling, untutored cadences and distortions of
+effect--sudden changes of register, many an abrupt crescendo and
+diminuendo, and 'spoken' interpolations and improvisations, all of
+humorous intent.
+
+The others listened with the universal greedy appetite for
+entertainment which might have been supposed to have dwindled and died
+of inanition in their serious and deprived lives. Pete Cayce first
+revolted from the strain on his attention, subordination, and
+acquiescence. It was not his habit to allow any man to so completely
+absorb public attention.
+
+'Look-a-hyar, Amos, fur Gawd's sake, shet up that thar foolishness!' he
+stuttered at last. 'Thar's n-no tellin' how f-f-fur yer survigrus
+bellerin' kin be hearn. An' besides, ye'll b-b-bring the rocks down on
+to we-uns d-d'rectly. They tell me that it air dangerous ter f-f-f-fire
+pistols an' jounce 'round in a cave. Bring the roof down.'
+
+'That air jes' what I'm a-aimin' ter do, Pete,' said Amos, with his
+comical gravity. 'I went ter meetin' week 'fore las', an' the pa'son
+read 'bout Samson; an' it streck my ambition, an' I'm jes' a-honin' ter
+pull the roof down on the Philistine.'
+
+'Look-a-hyar, Amos Jeemes, ye air the b-b-banged-est critter on this
+hyar m-mounting! Jes' kem hyar ter our s-still an' c-c-call me a
+Ph-Ph-Philistine.'
+
+The jug had not been stationary, and as Pete thrust his aggressive face
+forward the vivid, quivering line of light from the furnace showed that
+it was flushed with liquor, and that his eyes were bloodshot. His gaunt
+head, with long, colourless hair, protruding teeth, and homely,
+prominent features, as it hung there in the isolating effect of that
+sharp and slender gleam--the rest of his body cancelled by the
+darkness--had a singularly unnatural and sinister aspect. The light
+glanced back with a steely glimmer. The drunken man had a knife in his
+hand.
+
+'Storp it, now!' his younger brother drawlingly admonished him. 'Who be
+ye a-goin' ter cut?'
+
+'Call m-m-me a Philistine! I'll bust his brains out!' asseverated Pete.
+
+'Ye're drunk, Pete,' said old Groundhog Cayce, in an explanatory manner.
+
+There was no move to defend the threatened guest. Perhaps Amos James was
+supposed to be able to take care of himself.
+
+'Call me a Ph-Philistine--a Philistine!' exclaimed Pete, steadying
+himself on the keg on which he sat, and peering with wide, light eyes
+into the darkness, as if to mark the whereabouts of the enemy before
+dealing the blow. 'Jes' got insurance--c-c-c-call me a Philistine!'
+
+'Shet up, Pete. I'll take it back,' said Amos gravely. '_I'm_ the
+Philistine myself; fur pa'son read ez Samson killed a passel o'
+Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, an' ez long ez ye be talkin' I
+feel in an' about dead.'
+
+Amos James had bent close attention to the sermon, and had brought as
+much accurate information from meeting as was consistent with hearing so
+sensational a story as Samson's for the first time. In the mountains men
+do not regard church privileges as the opportunity of a quiet hour to
+meditate on secular affairs, while a gentle voice drones on antiquated
+themes. To Amos, Samson was the latest thing out.
+
+Pete did not quite catch the full meaning of this sarcasm. He was
+content that Amos should seem to recant. He replaced his knife, but sat
+surly and muttering, and now and then glancing toward the guest.
+
+Meantime that vivid white gleam quivered across the dusky shadows; now
+and then the horse pawed, raising martial echoes, as of squadrons of
+cavalry, among the multitudinous reverberations of the place, while his
+stall-companion, that the light could conjure up, was always noiseless;
+the continuous fresh sound of water gurgling over the rocks mingled with
+the monotonous drip from the worm; occasionally a gopher would skud
+among the heavily booted feet, and the jug's activity was marked by the
+shifting for an interval of the red sparks which indicated the glowing
+pipes of the burly shadows around the still.
+
+The stories went on, growing weird as the evening outside waned, in
+some unconscious sympathy with the melancholy hour--for in these sunless
+depths one knew nor day nor night--stories of bloody vendettas, and
+headless ghosts, and strange provisions, and unnamed terrors. And Amos
+James recounted the fable of a mountain witch, interspersed with a wild
+vocal refrain:
+
+     Cu-vo! Cu-vo! Kil-dar! Kil-dar! Kil-dar!
+
+Thus she called her hungry dogs that fed on human flesh, while the winds
+were awhirl, and the waning moon was red, and the Big Smoky lay in
+densest gloom.
+
+The white line of light had yellowed, deepened, grown dull. The furnace
+needed fuel. Ab suddenly leaned down and threw open the door. The flare
+of the pulsing coals resuscitated the dim scene and the long
+dun-coloured shadows. Here in the broad red light were the stolid,
+meditative faces of the distillers, each with his pipe in his mouth and
+his hat on his head; it revealed the dilated eye and unconsciously
+dramatic gesture of the story-teller, sitting upon a barrel in their
+midst; the horse was distinct in the background, now dreaming and now
+lifting an impatient fore-foot, and his gigantic stall-mate, the
+simulacrum of the mastodon, moved as he moved, but softly, that the
+echoes might not know--the immortal echoes, who were here before him,
+and here still.
+
+And behind all were the great walls of the vault, with its vague
+apertures leading to unexplored recesses; with many jagged ledges,
+devoted to shelf-like usage, and showing here a jug, and here a
+shot-pouch, and here a rat--fat and sleek, thanks to the plenteous waste
+of mash and grain--looking down with a glittering eye, and here a bag of
+meal, and here a rifle.
+
+Suddenly Amos James broke off.
+
+'Who's that?' he exclaimed, and all the echoes were sharply
+interrogative.
+
+There was a galvanic start among the moonshiners. They looked hastily
+about--perhaps for the witch, perhaps for the frightful dogs, perhaps
+expecting the materialization of Mirandy Jane's raider.
+
+Amos had turned half-round and was staring intently beyond the still.
+The man lying on the ground had shifted his position; his soft brown hat
+was doubled under his head. The red flare showed its long, tawny,
+tangled hair, of a hue unusual enough to be an identification. His
+stalwart limbs were stretched out at length; the hands he thrust above
+his head were unmanacled; as he moved there was the jingle of spurs.
+
+'Why, thar be Rick Tyler!' exclaimed Amos James.
+
+'Hev ye jes' fund that out?' drawled the man on the ground, with a
+jeering inflection.
+
+'W-w-w-whyn't ye lie low, Rick?' demanded Pete aggressively. 'Ef ever
+thar war a empty cymblin', it's yer head. Amos an' that thar thin-lipped
+sneak ez called hisself a dep'ty air thick'n thieves.'
+
+There was no hesitation in Amos James's character. He leaned forward
+suddenly and clutched Pete by the throat, and the old man and Solomon
+were fain to interfere actively to prevent that doughty member of the
+family from being throttled on the spot.
+
+Pending the interchange of these amenities, Rick Tyler lay motionless on
+the ground; Ab calmly continued his task of replenishing the fire; and
+Ben asked, in a low monotone, the favour of leaving the furnace-door
+open for a 'spell, whilst I unkiver the kag in the corner, an' fill the
+jug, an' kiver the kag agin keerful, 'kase I don't want no rat in mine.'
+
+When Pete, with a scarlet face and starting eyes and a throat full of
+complicated coughs and gurgles, was torn out of the young miller's
+strong hands, old Groundhog Cayce remonstrated:
+
+'Lord A'mighty, boys! Can't ye set an' drink yer liquor sociable,
+'thout clinchin' that-a-way? What did Pete do ter ye, Amos?'
+
+'Nuthin'; he dassent,' said the panting Amos.
+
+'Did he hurt yer feelin's?' asked the old man with respectful sympathy.
+
+'Yes, he did,' said Amos, admitting vulnerability in that tender
+ĉsthetic organ.
+
+'Never none--now--koo--koo!' coughed Pete. 'He hev got no
+f-f-f-feelin's, koo--koo! I hev hearn his own m-mam say so a-many a
+time.'
+
+'He 'lowed,' said Amos, his black eyes flashing indignantly, his face
+scarlet, the perspiration thick in his black hair, 'ez I'd tell the
+deputy--kase he war toler'ble lively hyar, an' I got sorter friendly
+with him when I hed ter sarve on the posse--ez I seen Rick Tyler hyar.
+Mebbe ye think I want two hundred dollars--hey!'
+
+He made a gesture as if to seize again his late antagonist.
+
+'A-koo, koo, koo!' coughed Pete, moving cautiously out of reach.
+
+All the echoes clamoured mockingly with the convulsive sound, and thus
+multiplied they gave a ludicrous suggestion of the whooping cough.
+
+'I dunno, Mr. Cayce,' said Amos, with some dignity, addressing the old
+man, 'what call ye hev got ter consort with them under indictment for
+murder, an' offenders agin the law. But hevin' seen Rick Tyler hyar in
+a friendly way along o' you-uns, he air ez safe from me ez ef he war
+under my own roof.'
+
+Rick Tyler drew himself up on his elbow, and turned upon the speaker a
+face inflamed by sudden passion.
+
+'Go tell the dep'ty!' he screamed. 'I'll take no faviors from ye, Amos
+Jeemes. Kem on! Arrest me yerse'f!' He rose to his feet, and held out
+his bruised and scarred hands, smiting them together as if he were again
+handcuffed. The light fell full on his clothes, tattered by his briery
+flight, the long dishevelment of his yellow hair, his burning face, and
+the blazing fury in his brown eyes. 'Kem on! Arrest me yerse'f--ye air
+ekal ter it. I kin better bide the law than ter take faviors from
+you-uns. Kem on! Arrest me!'
+
+Once more he held out his free hands as if for the manacles.
+
+Their angry eyes met. Then, as Amos James still sat silent and
+motionless on the barrel, Rick Tyler turned, and with a gesture of
+desperation again flung himself on the ground.
+
+There was a pause. Two of the moonshiners were arranging to decant some
+liquor into a keg, and were lighting a tallow dip for the purpose. In
+the dense darkness of the recess where they stood it took on a large and
+lunar aspect. A rayonnant circle hovered attendant upon it; the shadows
+about it were densely black, and in the sharp and colourless contrasts
+the two bending figures of the men handling the keg stood out in
+peculiar distinctness of pose and gesture. The glare of the fire in the
+foreground deepened to a dull orange, to a tawny red, even to a dusty
+brown, in comparison with the pearly, luminous effect of the candle. The
+tallow dip was extinguished when the task was complete. Presently the
+furnace door clashed, the group of distillers disappeared as with a
+bound, and that long, livid line of pulsating light emitted by the
+ill-fitting door cleft the gloom like a glittering blade.
+
+'I s'pose ye don't mean ter be sassy in 'special, Amos, faultin' yer
+elders, talkin' 'bout consortin' with them under indictment,' said old
+Groundhog Cayce's voice. 'But I dunno ez ye hev enny call ter sot
+yerse'f up in jedgmint on my actions.'
+
+'Waal,' said Amos, apologetic, 'I never went ter say nuthin' like
+faultin' nohow. Sech ez yer actions I leaves ter you-uns.'
+
+'Ye mought ez well,' said the elder, unconsciously satiric. 'The Bible
+'lows ez every man air a law unto hisself. An' I hev fund I gits peace
+mos'ly in abidin' by the law ez kems from within. An' I kin see no
+jestice in my denyin' a rifle an' a lot o' lead an' powder ter a
+half-starvin' critter ter save his life. Rick war bound ter starve, hid
+out, ef he hed nuthin' ter shoot deer an' wild varmints with, bein' ez
+his rifle war tuk by the sher'ff. I knows no law ez lays on me the
+starvin' o' a human. An' when that boy kem a-cropin' hyar ter the still
+this evenin', he got ez fair-spoke a welcome, an' ez much liquor ez he'd
+swaller, same ez enny comer on the mounting. I dunno ez he air a
+offender agin the law, an' 'tain't my say-so. I ain't a jedge, an' thar
+ain't enough o' me fur a jury.'
+
+This lucid discourse, its emphasis doubled by the iterative echoes, had
+much slow, impersonal effect as it issued from the darkness. It was to
+Amos James, accustomed to rural logic, as if reason, pure and simple,
+had spoken. His heart had its own passionate protest. Not that he
+disapproved the loan of the rifle, but he distrusted the impulse which
+prompted it. To find the hunted fugitive here among the distillers added
+the force of conviction to his suspicions of a rescue and its
+instigation.
+
+The personal interest which he had in all this annulled for a moment his
+sense of the becoming, and defied the constraints of etiquette.
+
+'How'd Rick Tyler say he got away from the sher'ff, ennyhow?' he
+demanded bluntly.
+
+'He warn't axed,' said old Groundhog Cayce quietly.
+
+A silence ensued, charged with all the rigours of reproof.
+
+'An' I dunno ez ye hev enny call ter know, Amos Jeemes,' cried out Rick,
+still prone upon the ground. 'That won't holp the sher'ff none now. Ye'd
+better be studyin' 'bout settin' him on the trail ter ketch me agin.'
+
+The line of light from the rift in the furnace door showed a yellow
+gleam in the blackness where his head lay. Amos James fixed a burning
+eye upon it.
+
+'I'll kem thar d'rec'ly an' tromp the life out'n ye, Rick Tyler. I'll
+grind yer skull ter pieces with my boot-heel, like ez ef ye war a
+copper-head.'
+
+'Laws-a-massy, boys, sech a quar'lin', fightin' batch ez ye be! I fairly
+gits gagged with my liquor a-listenin' ter ye--furgits how ter swaller,'
+said Groundhog Cayce, suddenly fretful.
+
+'Leave Rick be, Amos Jeemes,' he added, in an authoritative tone. And
+then, with a slant of his head toward Rick Tyler, lying on the ground,
+'Hold yer jaw down thar!'
+
+And the two young men lapsed into silence.
+
+The spring, rising among the barren rocks, chanted aloud its prescient
+sylvan song of the woodland ways, and the glancing beam, and the
+springing trout, and the dream of the drifting leaf, as true of tone and
+as delicately keyed to the dryadic chorus in the forest without as if
+the waters that knew but darkness and the cavernous sterilities were
+already in the liberated joys of the gorge yonder, reflecting the sky,
+wantoning with the wind, and swirling down the mountain side. The
+spirits dripped from the worm, the furnace roared, the men's feet grated
+upon the rocks as they now and then shifted their position.
+
+'Waal,' said Amos at last, rising, 'I'd better be a-goin'. 'Pears like
+ez I hev wore out my welcome hyar.'
+
+He stood looking at the line of light, remembering desolately Dorinda's
+buoyant, triumphant mood. Its embellishment of her beauty had smitten
+him with an afflicted sense of her withdrawal from all the prospects of
+his future. He had thought that he had given up hope, but he began to
+appreciate, when he found Rick Tyler in intimate refuge with her
+kindred, how sturdy an organism was that heart of his, and to realize
+that to reduce it to despair must needs cost many a throe.
+
+'I hev wore out my welcome, I reckon,' he repeated dismally.
+
+'I dunno what ails ye ter say that. Ye hev jes' got tired o' comin'
+hyar, I reckon,' said old man Cayce. 'Wore out yer welcome--shucks!'
+
+'Mighty nigh wore me out,' said Pete, remembering to cough.
+
+'Waal,' said Amos, slightly salved by the protestations of his host, 'I
+reckon it air time I war a-puttin' out, ennyhow. Jes' set that thar
+furnace door on the jar, Pete, so I kin see ter lay a-holt o' the
+beastis.'
+
+The door opened, the red glow flared out, the figures of the moonshiners
+all reappeared in a semicircle about the still, and as Amos James took
+the horse's bridle and led him away from the wall the mastodon vanished,
+with noiseless tread, into the dim distance of the unmeasured past.
+
+The horse's hoofs reverberated down the cavernous depths, echoed,
+re-echoed, multiplied indefinitely. Even after the animal had been led
+through the tortuous windings of the passage his tramp resounded through
+the gloom.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+The displeasure of his fellows is a slight and ephemeral matter to a man
+whose mind is fixed on a great essential question, charged with moral
+gravity and imperishable consequence; whose physical courage is the
+instinct of his nature, conserved by its active exercise in a life of
+physical hardship.
+
+Kelsey had forgotten the gander-pulling, the impending election, the
+excitement of the escape, before he had ridden five miles from the
+Settlement. He jogged along the valley road, the reins on the horse's
+neck, his eyes lifted to the heights. The fulness of day was on their
+unpeopled summits. Infinity was expressed before the eye. On and on the
+chain of mountains stretched, with every illusion of mist and colour,
+with every differing grace of distance, with inconceivable measures of
+vastness. The grave delight in which their presence steeped the senses
+stirred his heart. They breathed solemnities. They lent wings to the
+thoughts. They lifted the soul. Could he look at them and doubt that one
+day he should see God? He had been near--oh, surely, He had been near.
+
+Kelsey was comforted as he rode on. Somehow, the mountains had for his
+ignorant mind some coercive internal evidence of the great truths. In
+their exalted suggestiveness were congruities; so far from the world
+were they--so high above it; so interlinked with the history of all that
+makes the races of men more than the beasts that perish, that conserves
+the value of that noble idea--an immortal soul. On a mountain the ark
+rested; on a mountain the cross was planted; the steeps beheld the
+glories of the transfiguration; the lofty solitudes heard the prayers of
+the Christ; and from the heights issued the great Sermon instinct with
+all the moralities of every creed. How often He went up into the
+mountain!
+
+The thought uplifted Kelsey. The flush of strong feeling touched his
+cheek. His eyes were fired with that sudden gleam of enthusiasm as
+remote from earthly impulses as the lightnings of Sinai.
+
+'An' I will preach his name!' the parson exclaimed, in a tense and
+thrilling voice. He checked his horse, drew out of his pocket a thumbed
+old Bible, clumsily turned the leaves and sought for his text.
+
+No other book had he ever read: only that sublime epic, with its deep
+tendernesses and its mighty portents; with its subtleties of prophecy in
+wide and splendid phrase, and their fulfilment in the barren record of
+the simplest life; with all the throbbing presentment of martyrdom and
+doom and death, dominated by the miracle of resurrection and the potency
+of divinity. Every detail was as clearly pictured to his mind as if,
+instead of the vast, unstoried stretches of the Great Smoky Mountains,
+he looked upon the sanctities of the hills of Judĉa.
+
+He read as he rode along--slowly, slowly. A bird's shadow would flit
+across the holy page, and then away to the mountain; the winds of heaven
+caressed it. Sometimes the pollen of flowering weeds fell upon it; for
+in the midst of the unfrequented road they often stood in tall rank
+rows, with a narrow path on either side, trodden by the oxen of the
+occasional team, while the growth bent elastically under the passing bed
+of the waggon.
+
+He was almost happy. The clamours of his insistent heart were still. His
+conscience, his memory, his self-reproach, had loosed their hold. His
+keen and subtile native intellect stretched its unconscious powers, and
+discriminated the workings of character, and reviewed the deploying of
+events, and measured results. He was far away, walking with the
+disciples.
+
+Suddenly, like an aërolite, he was whirled from high ethereal spaces by
+the attraction of the earth. A man was peering from between the rails of
+a fence by the wayside.
+
+'Kin ye read yer book, pa'son, an' ride yer beastis all ter wunst?' he
+cried out with the fervour of admiration.
+
+That tree of knowledge--ah, the wily serpent!
+
+Galilee--it was thousands of miles away across the deep salt seas.
+
+The parson closed his book with a smile of exultation.
+
+'The beast don't hender me none. I kin read ennywhar,' he said, proud of
+the attainment.
+
+'Waal, sir!' exclaimed the other, one of that class, too numerous in
+Tennessee, who can neither read nor write. 'Air it the Good Book?' he
+demanded, with a sudden thought.
+
+'It air the Holy Bible,' said the parson, handing him the book.
+
+The man eyed it with reverence. Then, with a gingerly gesture, he gave
+it back. The parson was looking down at him, all softened and humanized
+by this unconscious flattery.
+
+'Waal, pa'son,' said the illiterate admirer of knowledge, with a
+respectful and subordinate air, 'I hearn ez ye war a-goin' ter hold
+fo'th up yander at the meet'n-house at the Notch nex' Sunday. Air that a
+true word?'
+
+'I 'lows ter preach thar on the nex' Lord's day,' replied the parson.
+
+'Then,' with the promptness of a sudden resolution, 'I'm a-goin' ter
+take the old woman an' the chillen an' waggon up the Big Smoky ter hear
+the sermon. I 'low ez a man what kin ride a beastis an' read a book all
+ter wunst mus' be a powerful exhorter; an' mebbe ye'll lead us all ter
+grace.'
+
+The parson said he would be glad to see the family at the meeting-house,
+and presently jogged off down the road.
+
+One might regard the satisfaction of this simple scene as the due meed
+of his labours; one might account his pride in his attainments as a
+harmless human weakness. There have been those of his calling, proud,
+too, of a finite knowledge, and fain to conserve fame, whose conscience
+makes no moan--who care naught for humility, and hardly hope to be
+genuine.
+
+The flush of pleasure passed in a moment. His face hardened. That fire
+of a sublimated anger or frenzy touched his eyes. He remembered Peter,
+the impetuous, and Thomas, the doubter, and the warm generosities of the
+heart of him whom Jesus loved, and he 'reckoned' that they would not
+have left Him standing in the road for the joy of hearing their learning
+praised.
+
+He rebuked himself as caring less for the Holy Book than that his craft
+could read it. His terrible insight into motives was not dulled by a
+personal application. Introverted upon his own heart, it was keen,
+unsparing, insidiously subtle. He saw his pride as if it had been
+another man's, except that it had no lenient mediator; for he was just
+to other men, even gentle.
+
+He took pitiless heed of the pettiness of his vanity; he detected
+pleasure that the man by the wayside should come, not for salvation, but
+to hear the powerful exhorter speak. He saw the instability of his high
+mood, of the gracious re-awaking of faith; he realized the lapse from
+the heights of an ecstasy at the lightest touch of temptation.
+
+'The Lord lifts me up,' he said, 'ter dash me on the groun'!'
+
+No more in Judĉa, in the holy mountains; no more among the disciples.
+Drearily along the valley road, glaring and yellow in the sun, the book
+closed, the inspiration fled, journeyed the ignorant man, who would fain
+lay hold on a true and perfected sanctity.
+
+He despatched his errand in the valley--a secular matter, relating to
+the exchange of a cow and a calf.
+
+The afternoon was waning when he was again upon the slopes of the Big
+Smoky; for the roads were rough, and he had travelled slowly, always
+prone to 'favour the beastis.' He stopped in front of Cayce's house,
+where he saw Dorinda spinning on the porch, and preferred a request for
+a gourd of water.
+
+The old woman heard his voice, and came hastily out with hospitable
+insistence that he should dismount and 'rest his bones, sence he hed rid
+fur, an' tell the news from the Settlemint.' There was a cordial
+contrast between this warm esteem and his own unkind thoughts, and he
+suffered himself to be persuaded.
+
+He sat under the hop-vines, and replied in monosyllables to the old
+woman's animated questions, and gave little news of the excitements at
+the Settlement which they had not already heard.
+
+Dorinda, her wheel awhirl, one hand lifted holding the thread, the other
+poised in the air to control the motion, her figure thrown back in a
+fine, alert pose, looked at him with a freshened pity for his downcast
+spirit, and with intuitive sympathy. He sorrowed not because of the
+things of this world, she felt. It was some high and spiritual grief,
+such as might pierce a prophet's heart. Her eyes, full of the ideality
+of the sentiment, dwelt upon him reverently.
+
+He marked the look. With his overwhelming sense of his sins, he was
+abased under it, and he scourged himself as a hypocrite.
+
+'Thar air goin' ter be preachin' at the meetin'-house Sunday, I hearn,'
+she observed presently, thinking this topic more meet for his discussion
+than the 'gaynder-pullin'' and the escape, and such mundane matters.
+
+The tempered green light fell upon her fair face, adding a delicacy to
+its creamy tint; her black hair caught a shifting golden flake of
+sunshine as she moved back and forth; her red lips were slightly parted.
+The grasshoppers droned in the leaves an accompaniment to the whirr of
+her wheel. The 'prince's feathers' bloomed in great clumsy crimson tufts
+close by the step.
+
+Mirandy Jane, seated on an inverted noggin, listened tamely to the
+conversation, her wild, uncertain eyes fixed upon the parson's face; she
+dropped them, and turned her head with a shying gesture, if by chance
+his glance fell upon her.
+
+From this shadowed, leafy recess the world seen through the green
+hop-vines was all in a great yellow glare.
+
+'Be you-uns a-goin' ter hold fo'th,' demanded the old woman, 'or Brother
+Jake Tobin?'
+
+'It air me ez air a-goin' ter preach,' he said.
+
+'Then I'm a-comin',' she declared promptly. 'It do me good ter hear
+you-uns fairly make the sinners spin. Sech a gift o' speech ye hev got!
+I fairly see hell when ye talk o' thar doom. I see wrath an' I smell
+brimstone. Lord be thanked, I hev fund peace! An' I'm jes' a-waitin' fur
+the good day ter come when the Lord'll rescue me from yearth!' She threw
+herself back in her chair, closing her eyes in a sort of ecstasy, and
+beating her hands on her knees, her feet tapping in rhythm.
+
+'Though ef ye'll b'lieve me,' she added, sitting up straight with an
+appalling suddenness, and opening her eyes, 'D'rindy thar ain't
+convicted yit. Oh, child,' in an enthused tone of reproof, 'time is
+short--time is short!'
+
+'Waal,' said Dorinda, speaking more quickly than usual, and holding up
+her hand to stop the wheel, 'I hev hed no chance sca'cely ter think on
+salvation, bein' ez the weavin' war hendered some--an'----'
+
+She paused in embarrassment.
+
+'That air a awful word ter say--puttin' the Lord ter wait! Whyn't ye
+speak the truth ter her, pa'son? Fix her sins on her.'
+
+'Sometimes,' said the parson abruptly, looking at her as if he saw more
+or less than was before him, 'I dunno ef I hev enny call ter say a word.
+I hev preached ter others, an' I'm like ter be a castaway myself.'
+
+The old woman stared at him in dumb astonishment. But he was rising to
+take leave--a simple ceremony. He unhitched the horse at the gate,
+mounted, and, with a silent nod to the group on the porch, rode slowly
+away.
+
+Old Mrs. Cayce followed him with curious eyes, peering out in the gaps
+of the hop-vines.
+
+'D'rindy,' she said, 'that thar Pa'son Kelsey--we-uns useter call him
+nuthin' but Hi--he's got suthin' heavy on his mind. It always 'peared
+ter me ez he war a mighty cur'ous man ter take up with religion an'
+sech. A mighty suddint boy he war--ez good a fighter ez a catamount, an'
+always 'mongst the evil, bold men. Them he consorted with till he gin
+his child morphine by mistake, an' its mammy quine-iron; an' she los'
+her senses arterward, an' flunged herse'f off'n the bluff. 'Pears like
+to me ez them war jedgments on him--though Em'ly warn't much loss; ez
+triflin' a ch'ice fur a wife ez a man could make. An' now he hev got
+suthin' on his mind.'
+
+The girl said nothing. She stayed her wheel with one hand, holding the
+thread with the other, and looked over her shoulder at the receding
+figure riding slowly along the vista of the forest-shadowed road. Then
+she turned, and fixed her lucent, speculative eyes on her grandmother,
+who continued:
+
+'Calls hisself a castaway! Waal, he knows bes', bein' a prophet an'
+sech. But it air toler'ble comical talk fur a preacher. Brother Jake
+Tobin kin hardly hold hisself together, a-waitin' fur his sheer o' the
+joys o' the golden shore.'
+
+'Waal, 'pears like ter me,' said Mirandy Jane, whose mind seemed never
+far from the culinary achievements to which she had been dedicated, 'ez
+Brother Jake Tobin sets mo' store on chicken fixin's than on grace, an'
+he fattens ev'y year.'
+
+'I hopes,' proceeded the grandmother, disregarding the interruption, and
+peering out again at the road where the horseman had disappeared, 'ez Hi
+Kelsey won't sot hisself ter prophesyin' evil at the meetin'; 'pears ter
+me he ought to be hendered, ef mought be, 'kase the wrath he foresees
+mos'ly kems ter pass, an' I'm always lookin' ter see him prophesy the
+raiders--though he hev hed the grace ter hold his hand 'bout'n the
+still. An' I hopes he won't hev nuthin' ter say 'bout it at the meetin'
+Sunday.'
+
+The little log meeting-house at the Notch stood high on a rugged spur of
+the Great Smoky. Dense forests encompassed it on every hand, obscuring
+that familiar picture of mountain and cloud and cove. From its rude,
+glassless windows one could look out on no distant vista, save, perhaps,
+in the visionary glories of heaven or the climatic discomforts of hell,
+according to the state of the conscience, or perchance the liver. The
+sky was aloof and limited. The laurel tangled the aisles of the woods.
+
+Sometimes from the hard benches a weary tow-headed brat might rejoice to
+mark in the monotony the frisking of a squirrel on a bough hard by, or a
+woodpecker solemnly tapping. The acorns would rattle on the roof, if the
+wind stirred, as if in punctuation of the discourse. The pines,
+mustering strong among the oaks, joined their mystic threnody to the
+sad-voiced quiring within. The firs stretched down long, pendulous,
+darkling boughs, and filled the air with their balsamic fragrance.
+
+Within the house the dull light fell over a few rude benches and a
+platform with a chair and table, which was used as pulpit. Shadows of
+many deep, rich tones of brown lurked among the rafters. Here and there
+a cobweb, woven to the consistence of a fabric, swung in the air. The
+drone of a blue-bottle, fluttering in and out of the window in a slant
+of sunshine, might invade the reverent silence, as Brother Jake Tobin
+turned the leaves to read the chapter.
+
+Sometimes there would sound, too, a commotion among the horses without,
+unharnessed from the waggons and hitched to the trees; then in more
+than one of the solemn faces might be descried an anxious
+perturbation--not fear because of equine perversities, but because of
+the idiosyncrasies of callow human nature in the urchins left in charge
+of the teams. No one ventured to investigate, however, and, with that
+worldly discomfort contending with the spiritual exaltations they sought
+to foster, the rows of religionists swayed backward and forward in
+rhythm to the reader's voice, rising and falling in long, billowy sweeps
+of sound, like the ground swell of ocean waves.
+
+It was strange, looking upon their faces, and with a knowledge of the
+limited phases of their existence, their similarity of experience here,
+where a century might come and go, working no change save that, like the
+leaves, they fluttered awhile in the outer air with the spurious
+animation called life, and fell in death, and made way for new
+bourgeonings like unto themselves--strange to mark how they differed.
+Here was a man of a stern, darkly religious conviction, who might either
+have writhed at the stake or stooped to kindle the flames; and here was
+an accountant soul that knew only those keen mercantile motives--the
+hope of reward and the fear of hell; and here was an enthusiast's eye,
+touched by the love of God; and here was an unfinished, hardly humanized
+face, that it seemed as presumptuous to claim as the exponent of a soul
+as the faces of the stupid oxen out-of-doors. All were earnest; many
+wore an expression of excited interest, as the details of the chapter
+waxed to a climax, like the tense stillness of a metropolitan audience
+before an unimagined _coup de théâtre_. The men all sat on one side,
+chewing their quids; the women on the other, almost masked by their limp
+sun-bonnets. The ubiquitous baby--several of him--was there, and more
+than once babbled aloud and cried out peevishly. Only one, becoming
+uproarious, was made a public example, being quietly borne out and
+deposited in the ox-waggon, at the mercy of the urchins who presided
+over the teams, while his mother creaked in again on the tips of
+deprecating, anxious toes, to hear the Word.
+
+Brother Jake Tobin might be accounted in some sort a dramatic reader. He
+was a tall, burly man, inclining to fatness, with grizzled hair reached
+back from his face. He cast his light grey eyes upward at the end of
+every phrase, with a long, resonant 'Ah!' He smote the table with his
+hands at emphatic passages; he rolled out denunciatory clauses with a
+freshened relish which intimated that he considered one of the choicest
+pleasures of the saved might be to gloat over the unhappy predicament of
+the damned. He chose for his reading paragraphs that, applied to aught
+but spiritual enemies and personified sins, might make a civilized man
+quake for his dearest foe. He paused often and interpolated his own
+observations, standing a little to the side of the table, and speaking
+in a conversational tone. 'Ain't that so, my brethren an' sisters! But
+_we_ air saved in the covenant--ah!' Then, clapping his hands with an
+ecstatic upward look, 'I'm so happy, I'm so happy!'--he would go on to
+read with the unction of immediate intention, 'Let death seize them! Let
+them go down quick into hell!'
+
+He wore a brown jeans suit, the vest much creased in the regions of his
+enhanced portliness, its maker's philosophy not having taken into due
+account his susceptibility to 'chicken fixin's.' After concluding the
+reading, he wiped the perspiration from his brow with his red bandanna
+handkerchief, and placed it around the collar of his unbleached cotton
+shirt, as he proceeded to the further exertion of 'lining out' the hymn.
+
+The voice broke forth in those long, lingering cadences that have a
+melancholy, spiritual, yearning effect, in which the more tutored church
+music utterly fails. The hymn rose with a solemn jubilance, filling the
+little house, and surging out into the woods; sounding far across unseen
+chasms and gorges, and rousing in the unsentient crags an echo with a
+testimony so sweet, charged with so devout a sentiment, that it seemed
+as if with this voice the very stones would have cried out, had there
+been dearth of human homage when Christ rode into Jerusalem.
+
+Then the sudden pause, the failing echo, the sylvan stillness, and the
+chanting voice 'lined out' another couplet. It was well, perhaps, that
+this part of the service was so long; the soul might rise on its
+solemnity, might rise on its aspiration.
+
+It came to an end at last. Another long pause ensued. Kelsey, sitting on
+the opposite side of the table, his elbow on the back of his chair, his
+hand shading his eyes, made no movement. Brother Jake Tobin looked hard
+at him, with an expression which in a worldly man we should pronounce
+exasperation. He hesitated for a moment in perplexity. There was a faint
+commotion, implying suppressed excitement in the congregation. Parson
+Kelsey's idiosyncrasies were known by more than one to be a thorn in the
+side of the frankly confiding Brother Jake Tobin.
+
+'Whenst I hev got him in the pul_pit_ alongside o' me,' he would say to
+his cronies, 'I feel ez onlucky an' weighted ez ef I war a-lookin' over
+my lef' shoulder at the new moon on a November Friday. I feel ez
+oncommon ez ef he war a deer, or suthin', ez hev got no salvation in
+him. An' eff he don't feel the sperit ter pray, he _won't_ pray, an' I
+hev got ter surroun' the throne o' grace by myself. He _kin_ pray ef he
+hev a mind ter, an' he _do_ seem ter hev hed a outpourin' o' the sperit
+o' prophecy; but he hev made me 'pear mighty comical 'fore the Lord a
+many a time, when I hev axed him ter open his mouth an' he hev kep' it
+shut.'
+
+Brother Jake did not venture to address him now. An alternative was open
+to him.
+
+'Brother Reuben Bates, will ye lead us in prayer?' he said to one of the
+congregation.
+
+They all knelt down, huddled like sheep in the narrow spaces between the
+benches, and from among them went up the voice of supplication, that
+anywhere and anyhow has the commanding dignity of spiritual communion,
+the fervour of exaltation, and all the moving humility of the finite
+leaning upon the infinite. Ignorance was annihilated, so far as Brother
+Reuben Bates's prayer was concerned. It grasped the fact of
+immortality--all worth knowing!--and humble humanity was presented as
+possessing the intimate inherent principles of the splendid fruitions of
+eternity.
+
+He had few words, Brother Reuben, and the aspirated 'Ah!' was long drawn
+often, while he swiftly thought of something else to say. Brother Jake
+Tobin, after the manner in vogue among them, broke out from time to
+time with a fervour of assent. 'Yes, my Master!' he would exclaim in a
+wild, ecstatic tone. 'Bless the Lord!' 'That's a true word!' 'I'm so
+happy!'
+
+Always these interpolations came opportunely when Brother Reuben seemed
+entangled in his primitive rhetoric, and gave him a moment for
+improvisation. It was doubtless Hi Kelsey's miserable misfortune that
+his acute intuition should detect in the reverend tones a vainglorious
+self-satisfaction, known to no one else, not even to the speaker; that
+he should accurately gauge how Brother Jake Tobin secretly piqued
+himself upon his own gift in prayer, never having experienced these
+stuttering halts, never having needed these pious boosts; that he should
+be aware, ignorant as he was, of that duality of cerebration by which
+Brother Jake's mind was divided between the effect on God, bending down
+a gracious ear, and the impression of these ecstatic outbursts on the
+congregation; that the petty contemptibleness of it should depress him;
+that its dissimulations angered him. With the rigour of an upright man,
+he upbraided himself. He was on his knees: was he praying? Were these
+the sincerities of faith? Was this lukewarm inattention the guerdon of
+the sacrifice of the cross? His ideal and himself, himself and what he
+sought to be--oh, the gulf! the deep divisions!
+
+He gave his intentions no grace. He conceded naught to human nature. His
+conscience revolted at a sham. And he was a living, breathing sham--upon
+his knees.
+
+Ah, let us have a little mercy on ourselves! Most of us do. For there
+was Brother Jake Tobin, with a conscience free of offence, happily
+unobservant of his own complicated mental processes and of the motives
+of his own human heart, becoming more and more actively assistant as
+Brother Reuben Bates grew panicky, hesitant, and involved, and kept
+convulsively on through sheer inability to stop, suggesting epilepsy
+rather than piety.
+
+It was over at last; exhausted nature prevailed, and Brother Bates
+resumed his seat, wiping the perspiration from his brow and raucously
+clearing his rasped throat.
+
+There was a great scraping of the rough shoes and boots on the floor as
+the congregation rose, and one or two of the benches were moved backward
+with a harsh, grating sound. A small boy had gone to sleep during the
+petition, and remained in his prayerful attitude. Brother Jake Tobin
+settled himself in his chair as comfortably as might be, tilted it back
+on its hind-legs against the wall, and wore the air of having fairly
+exploited his share of the services and cast off responsibility. The
+congregation composed itself to listen to the sermon.
+
+There was an expectant pause. Kelsey remembered ever after the tumult of
+emotion with which he stepped forward to the table and opened the book.
+He turned to the New Testament for his text--turned the leaves with a
+familiar hand. Some ennobling phase of that wonderful story which would
+touch the tender, true affinity of human nature for the higher
+things--from this he would preach to-day. And yet, at the same moment,
+with a contrariety of feeling from which he shrank aghast, there was
+skulking into his mind all that grewsome company of doubts. In double
+file they came: fate and free agency, free will and fore-ordination,
+infinite mercy and infinite justice, God's loving-kindness and man's
+intolerable misery, redemption and damnation. He had evolved them all
+from his own unconscious logical faculty, and they pursued him as if he
+had, in some spiritual necromancy, conjured up a devil--nay, legions of
+devils. Perhaps if he had known how they have assaulted the hearts of
+men in times gone past; how they have been combated and baffled, and yet
+have risen and pursued again; how, in the scrutiny of science and
+research, men have paused before their awful presence, analyzed them,
+philosophized about them, and found them interesting; how others, in the
+levity of the world, having heard of them, grudge the time to think upon
+them--if he had known all this, he might have felt some courage in
+numbers.
+
+As it was, there was no fight left in him. He closed the book with a
+sudden impulse. 'My frien's,' he said, 'I stan' not hyar ter preach
+ter-day, but fur confession.'
+
+There was a galvanic start among the congregation, then intense silence.
+
+'I hev los' my faith!' he cried out, with a poignant despair. 'God ez
+gin it--ef thar is a God--hev tuk it away. You-uns kin go on. You-uns
+kin b'lieve. Yer paster b'lieves, an' he'll lead ye ter grace--leastwise
+ter a better life. But fur me thar's the nethermost depths of hell,
+ef'--how his faith and his unfaith tried him!--'ef thar be enny hell.
+Leastwise----Stop, brother,'--he held up his hand in deprecation, for
+Parson Tobin had risen at last, with a white, scared face; nothing like
+this had ever been heard in all the length and breadth of the Great
+Smoky Mountains--'bear with me a little; ye'll see me hyer no more. Fur
+me thar is shame, ah! an' trial, ah! an' doubt, ah! an' despair, ah! The
+good things o' life hev not fallen ter me. The good things o' heaven air
+denied. My name is ter be a by-word an' a reproach 'mongst ye. Ye'll
+grieve ez ye hev ever hearn the Word from me, ah! Ye'll be held in
+derision! An' I hev hed trials--none like them ez air comin', comin',
+down the wind. I hev been a man marked fur sorrow, an' now fur shame.'
+
+He stood erect; he looked bold, youthful. The weight of his secret,
+lifted now, had been heavier than he knew. In his eyes shone that
+strange light which was frenzy, or prophecy, or inspiration; in his
+voice rang a vibration they had never before heard.
+
+'I will go forth from 'mongst ye--I that am not of ye. Another shall
+gird me an' carry me where I would not. Hell an' the devil hev prevailed
+agin me. Pray fur me, brethren, ez I cannot pray fur myself. Pray that
+God may yet speak ter me--speak from out o' the whurlwind.'
+
+There was a sound upon the air. Was it the rising of the wind? A thrill
+ran through the congregation. The wild emotion, evoked and suspended in
+this abrupt pause, showed in pallid excitement on every face. Several of
+the men rose aimlessly, then turned and sat down again. Brought from the
+calm monotony of their inner life into this supreme crisis of his, they
+were struck aghast by the hardly comprehended situations of his
+spiritual drama enacted before them. And what was that sound on the air?
+In the plenitude of their ignorant faith, were they listening for the
+invoked voice of God?
+
+Kelsey, too, was listening, in anguished suspense.
+
+It was not the voice of God, that man was wont to hear when the earth
+was young; not the rising of the wind. The peace of the golden sunshine
+was supreme. Even a tiny cloudlet, anchored in the limited sky, would
+not sail to-day.
+
+On and on it came. It was the galloping of horse--the beat of hoofs,
+individualized presently to the ear--with that thunderous, swift,
+impetuous advance that so domineers over the imagination, quickens the
+pulse, shakes the courage.
+
+It might seem that all the ingenuity of malignity could not have
+compassed so complete a revenge. The fulfilment of his prophecy entered
+at the door. All its spiritual significance was annihilated; it was
+merged into a prosaic material degradation when the sheriff of the
+county strode, with jingling spurs, up the aisle, and laid his hand upon
+the preacher's shoulder. He wore his impassive official aspect. But his
+deputy, following hard at his heels, had a grin of facetious triumph
+upon his thin lips. He had been caught by the nape of the neck, and in a
+helpless, rodent-like attitude had been slung out of the door by the
+stalwart man of God, when he and Amos James had ventured to the
+meeting-house in liquor; and neither he nor the congregation had
+forgotten the sensation. It was improbable that such high-handed
+proceedings could be instituted to-day, but the sheriff had taken the
+precaution to summon the aid of five or six burly fellows, all armed to
+the teeth. They, too, came tramping heavily up the aisle. Several wore
+the reflection of the deputy's grin; they were the 'bold, bad men,' the
+prophet's early associates before 'he got religion, an' sot hisself ter
+consortin' with the saints.' The others were sheepish and doubtful,
+serving on the posse with a protest under the constraining penalties of
+the law.
+
+The congregation was still with a stunned astonishment. The preacher
+stood as one petrified, his eyes fixed upon the sheriff's face. The
+officer, with a slow, magisterial gesture, took a paper from his
+breast-pocket, and laid it upon the Bible.
+
+'Ye kin read, pa'son,' he said. 'Ye kin read the warrant fur yer
+arrest.'
+
+The deputy laughed, a trifle insolently. He turned, swinging his hat--he
+had done the sacred edifice the reverence of removing it--and surveyed
+the wide-eyed, wide-mouthed people, leaning forward, standing up,
+huddled together, as if he had some speculation as to the effect upon
+them of these unprecedented proceedings.
+
+Kelsey could read nothing. His strong head was in a whirl; he caught at
+the table, or he might have fallen. The amazement of it--the shame of
+it!
+
+'Who does this?' he exclaimed, in sudden realization of the situation.
+Already self-convicted of the blasphemy of infidelity, he stood in his
+pulpit in the infinitely ignoble guise of a culprit before the law.
+
+Those fine immaterial issues of faith and unfaith--where were they? The
+torturing fear of futurity, and of a personal devil and a material
+hell--how impotent! His honest name--never a man had borne it that had
+suffered this shame; the precious dignity of freedom was riven from him;
+the calm securities of his self-respect were shaken for ever. He could
+never forget the degradation of the sheriff's touch, from which he
+shrank with so abrupt a gesture that the officer grasped his pistol and
+every nerve was on the alert. Kelsey was animated at this moment by a
+pulse as essentially mundane as if he had seen no visions and dreamed no
+dreams. He had not known how he held himself--how he cherished those
+values, so familiar that he had forgotten to be thankful till their
+possession was a retrospection.
+
+He sought to regain his self-control. He caught up the paper; it
+quivered in his trembling hands; he strove to read it. 'Rescue!' he
+cried out in a tense voice. 'Rick Tyler! I never rescued Rick Tyler!'
+
+The words broke the long constraint. They were an elucidation, a flash
+of light. The congregation looked at him with changed eyes, and then
+looked at each other. Why did he deny? Were not the words of his
+prophecy still on the air? Had he not confessed himself an evil-doer,
+forsaken of God and bereft of grace? His prophecy was matched by the
+details of his experience. Had he done no wrong he could have foreseen
+no vengeance.
+
+'Rick Tyler ain't wuth it,' said one old man to another, as he spat on
+the floor.
+
+The widow of Joel Byers, the murdered man, fell into hysterical
+screaming at Rick Tyler's name, and was presently borne out by her
+friends and lifted into one of the wagons.
+
+'It air jes' ez well that the sher'ff takes Pa'son Kelsey, arter that
+thar confession o' his'n,' said one of the dark-browed men, helping to
+yoke the oxen. 'We couldn't hev kep' him in the church arter sech words
+ez his'n, and church discipline ain't a-goin' ter cast out no sech devil
+ez he air possessed by.'
+
+Brother Jake Tobin, too, appreciated that the arrest of the preacher in
+his pulpit was a solution of a difficult question. It was manifestly
+easier for the majesty of the State of Tennessee to deal with him than
+for the little church on the Big Smoky.
+
+'Yer sins hev surely fund ye out, Brother Kelsey,' he began, with the
+air of having washed his hands of all responsibility. 'God would never
+hev fursook ye ef ye hedn't fursook the good cause fust. Ye air ter be
+cast down--ye who hev stood high.'
+
+There was a momentary silence.
+
+'Will ye come?' said the sheriff, smiling fixedly, 'or had ye ruther be
+fetched?'
+
+The deputy had a pair of handcuffs dangling officiously. They rattled in
+rude contrast with the accustomed sounds of the place.
+
+Kelsey hesitated. Then, after a fierce internal struggle, he submitted
+meekly, and was led out from among them.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+It is seldom, in this world at least, that a man who absents himself
+from church repents it with the fervour of regret which Amos James
+experienced when he heard of the unexpected proceedings at the Notch.
+
+'Sech a rumpus--dad-burn my luck--I mought never git the chance ter see
+agin!' he declared with a pious sense of deprivation. And he thought it
+had been a poor substitute to sit on the doorstep all the forenoon
+Sunday, 'ez lonesome ez a b'ar in a hollow tree,' because his heart was
+yet so sore and sensitive that he could not see Dorinda's pink
+sun-bonnet without a rush of painful emotion, or her face without
+remembering how she looked when he talked of the rescue of Rick Tyler.
+
+The 'gang o' men'--actively described by his mother as 'lopin' roun' the
+mill'--lingered long in conclave this morning. Perhaps their views had a
+more confident and sturdy effect from being propounded at the top of the
+voice, since the insistent whirr of the busy old mill drowned all
+efforts in a lower tone; but it was very generally the opinion that
+Micajah Green had transcended all the license of his official character
+in making the arrest at the place and time he had selected.
+
+'I knows,' commented one of the disaffected, 'ez it air the law o'
+Tennessee ez a arrest kin be made of a Sunday, ef so be it must. But
+'pears like ter me 'twar nuthin' in this worl' but malice an' meanness
+ez tuk ch'ice o' the minute the man hed stood up ter preach the Word ter
+arrest him. 'Cajah Green mus' hev tuk keerful heed o' time--jes' got
+thar spang on the minute.'
+
+'He w-warn't p-p-preachin' the Word,' stuttered Pete Cayce
+antagonistically. 'He hed 'jest 'lowed he w-w-warn't fit ter preach it.
+No more war he.'
+
+He had come down from the still to treat for meal for the mash. He was
+willing to wait--nay anxious, that he might bear his share in the
+conversation.
+
+He tilted his chair back against the wall, and nodded his long,
+drab-tinted locks convincingly.
+
+The water whirled around the wheel; the race foamed with prismatic
+bubbles, flashing opal-like in the sun; the vague lapsing of the calm
+depths in the pond was like some deep sigh, as of the fulness of
+happiness or reflective content--not pain. The water falling over the
+dam babbled in a meditative undertone. All sounds were dominated by the
+whirr of the mill in its busy, industrial monody, and within naught else
+could be heard, save the strident voices pitched on the miller's key
+and roaring the gossip.
+
+Through the window could be seen the rocky banks opposite, their summits
+tufted with huckleberry and sassafras bushes and many a tangle of weeds;
+the dark shadow in the water below; the slope of the mountain rising
+above. A branch, too, of the low-spreading chestnut-oak, that hung above
+the roof of the mill, was visible, swaying close without; it cast a
+tempered shade over the long cobwebs depending from the rafters,
+whitened by the dust of the flour.
+
+The rough, undressed timbers within were of that mellow, rich tint,
+intermediate between yellow and brown, so restful to the eye. The floor
+was littered with bags of corn, on which some of the men lounged; others
+sat in the few chairs, and Amos James leaned against the hopper.
+
+'Waal,' retorted the first speaker, 'ez fur ez 'Cajah Green could know,
+he'd hev been a-preachin' then, an' argyfyin' his own righteousness; an'
+'Cajah laid off ter kem a-steppin' in with his warrant ter prove him a
+liar an' convict him o' sinnin' agin the law 'fore his congregation.'
+
+''Pears like ter me ez pa'son war sorter forehanded,' said Pete
+captiously. 'He hed proved hisself a liar 'fore the sher'ff got thar;
+saved 'Cajah the trouble.'
+
+'I hearn,' said another man, 'ez pa'son up-ed an' 'lowed ez he didn't
+b'lieve in the Lord, an' prophesied his own downfall an' his trial 'fore
+the sher'ff got thar.'
+
+'He d-d-did!' shouted Pete. 'We never knowed much more arter 'Cajah an'
+the dep'ty kem 'n we did afore. Pa'son said they'd gird him an' t-t-take
+him whar he didn't want ter g-go--an' so they d-d-d-did.'
+
+'D-d-did what?' mockingly demanded Amos James, with unnecessary rancour,
+it might have seemed.
+
+Pete's infirmity became more pronounced under this cavalier treatment.
+
+'T-t-take him w-w-w-whar he didn't w-w-w-want'--explosively--'ter go, ye
+fool!'
+
+'Whar?'
+
+'D'ye reckon that he wanted ter go ter jail in Shaftesville?' demanded
+Pete, with scathing scorn.
+
+His sneering lip exposed his long, protruding teeth, and his
+hard-featured face was unusually repellant.
+
+'Hev they tuk him ter jail--the pa'son--Pa'son Kelsey?' exclaimed Amos
+James, in a deeply serious tone.
+
+He looked fixedly at Pete, as if he might thus express more than he said
+in words. There was indignation in his black eyes, even reproach. He
+still leaned on the hopper, but there was nothing between the stones,
+for he had forgotten to pour in more corn, and the industrious flurry of
+the unsentient old mill was like the bustle of many clever people--a
+great stir about nothing. He wore his broad-brimmed white hat far back
+on his head. His black hair was sprinkled with flour and meal, and along
+the curves of his features the snowy flakes had congregated in thin
+lines, bringing out the olive tint of his complexion, and intensifying
+the sombre depths of his eyes.
+
+Pete returned the allusion to his defective speech by a comment on the
+intentness of the miller's gaze.
+
+'Ye look percisely like a ow-_el_, Amos--percisely like a old horned
+ho-ho-hooter,' he declared, with a laugh. 'Ya-as,' he continued,' they
+did take pa'son ter jail, bein' ez the jestice that the sher'ff tuk him
+afore--old Squair Prine, ye know--h-he couldn't decide ez ter his
+g-guilt. The Squair air so onsartain in his mind, an' wavers so ez ter
+his knowledge, that I hev hearn ez ev'y day he counts his toes ter make
+sure he's got ten. So the old Squair h-hummed and h-h-hawed over the
+evidence, an' he 'l-lowed ter Pa'son K-Kelsey ez he couldn't b'lieve
+nuthin' agin him right handy, ez he hed sot under his p-preachin' many a
+time an' profited by it; but thar war his cur'ous performin' 'bout'n
+the gaynder whilst Rick got off, an' he hed hearn ez pa'son turned his
+back on the Lord in a s'prisin' way. Then the Squair axed how he kem ter
+prophesy his own arrest ef he hed done nuthin' ter bring it on. The
+Squair 'lowed 'twar a serious matter, a pen'tiary offence; an' he warn't
+cl'ar in his own mind; an he up-ed an' down-ed, an' twisted an' turned,
+an' he didn't know _what_ ter do: so the e-end war he jes' committed
+Pa'son Kelsey ter jail, ter await the action of the g-g-g-gran' jury.'
+
+Pete gave this detail with some humour, wagging his head back and forth
+to imitate the magisterial treatment of the quandary, and putting up
+first one hand, then the other, stretching out first one rough boot,
+then the other, to signify the various points of the dilemma.
+
+Amos James did not laugh. He still gravely gazed at the narrator.
+
+'Whyn't he git bail?' he demanded gruffly.
+
+'Waal, he didn't--'kase he couldn't. The old man, he fixed the bail
+without so much dilly-dallyin' an' jouncin' 'roun' in his mind ez ye
+mought expec'. He jes' put on his specs, an' polished his old bald
+noodle with his red h-h-handkercher, an' tuk a fraish chaw o' terbacco,
+an' put his nose in his book, an' tuk it out ter brag ez them crazy bugs
+in N-N-Nashvul sent him a book ev'y time they made a batch o' new
+laws--pore, prideful old critter mus' hev been lyin'!--an' then he put
+his nose in his book agin like he smelt the law an' trailed it by scent.
+'Twarn't more'n haffen hour 'fore he tuk it out, an' say the least bail
+he could take war a thousand d-d-dollars fur the defendant, an' five
+hunderd fur each of his sureties--like it hev been in ev'y sech case
+'fore a jestice s-sence the Big Smoky Mountings war made.'
+
+Pete laughed, his great fore-teeth, his flexible lip, his long, bony
+face and tangled mane giving him something of an equine aspect. His mood
+was unusually jocular; and, indeed, a man might experience some elation
+of spirit to be the only one of the 'lopers round' at the mill who had
+been present at a trial of such significance. The close attention
+accorded his every word demonstrated the interest in the subject, and
+the guffaws which greeted his sketch of the familiar character of the
+old 'Squair' was a flattering tribute to his skill as a _raconteur_. The
+peculiar antagonism of his disposition was manifested only in the delay
+and digressions by which he thwarted Amos James's eagerness to know why
+Parson Kelsey had not been admitted to bail. He could not accurately
+interpret the indignation in the miller's look, and he cared less for
+the threat it expressed. Cowardice was not predicable of one of the
+Cayce tribe. Perhaps it might have been agreeable for the community if
+the discordant Pete could have been more readily intimidated.
+
+'Whyn't pa'son gin the bail, then?' demanded Amos again.
+
+'He _did_ gin it,' returned Pete perversely.
+
+'Waal, then, how'd the sher'ff take him ter jail?'
+
+'Right down the county road, ez ye an' me an' the rest of us hyar in the
+Big Smoky hev worked on till sech c-c-cattle ez 'Cajah Green an' his
+buzzardy dep'ty hain't got no sort'n c-chance o' breakin' thar necks
+over the rocks an' sech.'
+
+'Look-a-hyar, Pete Cayce, I'll fling ye bodaciously over that thar
+bluff!' exclaimed Amos James, darkly frowning.
+
+A rat that had boldly run across the floor a number of times, its
+whiskers powdered white, its tail white also, and gaily frisking behind
+it, had ventured so close to the miller's motionless foot, that when he
+stepped hastily forward it sprang into the air with a wonderfully human
+expression of fright; then, in a sprawling fashion, it swiftly sped away
+to some dark corner, where it might meditate on the escaped danger and
+take heed of foolhardiness.
+
+'W-w-what would I be a-doin' of, Amos Jeemes, whilst ye war a-flingin'
+m-me over the b-b-bluff?' demanded Pete pertinently.
+
+'What ails ye, ter git tuk so suddint in yer temper, Amos?' asked
+another of the baffled listeners, who desired to promote peace and
+further the account of Parson Kelsey's examination before the
+magistrate. 'Amos jes' axed ye, Pete, why pa'son warn't admitted ter
+bail.'
+
+'H-h-he never none now,' said Pete. 'He axed w-w-why Pa'son Kelsey
+didn't g-_gin_ bail. He did gin it, but 't-twarn't accepted.'
+
+'What fur?' demanded Amos, relapsing into interest in the subject, and
+leaning back against the hopper.
+
+'Waal,' said Pete, preferring, on the whole, the distinction of relating
+the proceedings before the magistrate to the more familiar diversion of
+bickering, 'pa'son he 'lowed he'd gin his gran'dad an' his uncle ter go
+on his bond; an' the Squair, arter he hed stuck his nose into his book a
+couple o' times, an' didn't see nuthin' abolishin' gran'dads an' uncles,
+he tuk it out an' refraished it with a pinch o' snuff, an' 'lowed he'd
+take gran'dad an' uncle on the bond. An' then up jumped Gid Fletcher,
+the blacksmith over yander ter the Settlemint--him it war ez swore out
+the warrant--and demanded the Squair would hear his testimony agin it.
+That thar 'Cajah Green, he sick-ed him on, all the time. I seen Gid
+Fletcher storp suddint wunst, an' wall his eye 'round onsartin' at
+'Cajah Green, ez ef ter make sure he war a-sayin' all right. An' 'Cajah
+Green, he batted his eye, ez much ez ter say, "Go it, old hoss!" Sure ez
+ye air born them two fixed it up aforehand.'
+
+'I do _de_-spise that thar critter, 'Cajah Green!' exclaimed one of the
+men, who was sitting on a sack of corn in the middle of the floor. 'He
+fairly makes the trigger o' my rifle itch! I hope he won't kem out ahead
+at the August election. The Big Smoky'll hev ter git him beat somehows;
+we can't hev him aggervatin' 'roun' hyar another two year.'
+
+The fore-legs of Pete Cayce's tilted chair came down with a thump. He
+leaned forward, and with a marked gesture offered his big horny paw to
+the man who sat on the bag of corn; they solemnly shook hands as on a
+compact.
+
+Amos James still leaned against the empty hopper, listening with a face
+of angry gloom as Pete recommenced:
+
+'Waal, the Squair, he put his nose inter his book agin, an' then he
+'lowed he'd hear Gid Fletcher's say-so. An' Gid--waal, he'll be mighty
+good metal fur the devil's anvil; I feel it in my bones how Satan will
+rej'ice ter draw Gid Fletcher down small--he got up an' 'lowed ez pa'son
+an' his uncle an' his gran'dad didn't wuth two thousand dollars. They
+hed what they hed all tergether, an' 'twarn't enough--'twarn't wuth
+more'n a thousan', ef that. An' so the Squair--waal, he looked toler'ble
+comical, a-nosin' in his book an' a-polishin' off the torp o' his head
+with his red handkercher, an' he war ez oneasy an' onsartain in his
+actions ez a man consortin' accidentally with a bumbly bee. He tried 'em
+all powerful in thar temper, bein' so gin over ter backin' an' fo'thin';
+but ez he war the jestice they hed ter sot 'round an' look solemn an'
+respec'ful. An' at las' he said he couldn't accept the bail, ez 'twar
+insufficient. The dep'ty looked like h'd jump up and down, an' crack his
+heels together; 'peared like he war glad fur true. An' the Squair, he
+'lowed ez the rescue war a crime ez mought make a jestice keerful how he
+tuk insufficient bail. Ennybody ez would holp a man ter escape from
+cust'dy would jump his bond hisself, though he war toler'ble keerful ter
+explain ter pa'son ez he never ondertook ter charge nuthin' on him,
+nuther. An' he hed ter bear in mind ez he oc'pied a m-m-mighty important
+place in the l-law--though I can't see ez it air so mighty important ter
+h-h-hev ter say, "I dunno; let the court decide."'
+
+Amos James remembered the hopper at last. He turned, and, as he lifted a
+bag and poured in the corn, he asked, his eyes on the golden stream of
+grain:
+
+'An' what did pa'son say when he fund it out?'
+
+Pete Cayce laughed, his big teeth making the facetious demonstration
+peculiarly pronounced. He was looking out of the window, through the
+leafy bough of the overspreading chestnut-oak, at the deep, transparent
+water in the pond. The dark, lustrous reflection of the sassafras and
+huckleberry bushes on the summit of the vertical rocky bank was like
+some mezzotinted landscape under glass. A frog on one of the ledges at
+the waterside was a picture of amphibious content; sometimes his mouth
+opened and shut quickly, with an expression, if not beautiful, implying
+satisfaction. Pete lazily caught up a stick which he had been whittling.
+The slight missile flew through the air, catching the light as it went.
+Its aim was accurate, and the next moment the monotony of the placid
+surface was broken by the elastically widening circles above the spot
+where the frog jumped in.
+
+'The pa'son,' he said languidly, having satisfactorily concluded this
+exploit--'at fust it looked like the c-critter couldn't make it out--he
+'peared toler'ble peaked an' white-faced, but the way he behaved ter the
+sher'ff 'minds me o' the tales the old men tell 'bout'n Hangin' Maw an'
+Bloody Feller, an' them t'other wild Injuns that useter aggervate the
+white folks in the Big Smoky--proud an' straight, an' lookin' at 'Cajah
+Green ez ef he war jes' the dirt under his feet. Waal, pa'son 'lowed,
+calm an' quiet, ez I'd be skinnin' a deer or suthin', ez he'd ruther be
+obligated ter his own f-folks fur that holp, but ez that couldn't be
+he'd git bail from others. 'Twarn't m-much matter jes' till he could
+'pear 'fore the court, fur nuthin' could be easier'n ter prove ez he
+hedn't rescued Rick Tyler, nor never gin offence agin the law. An' he
+turned round ez s-s-sure an' quiet ter Pa'son Tobin, who hed kem along
+ter see what mought be a-doin', an' sez he, "B-Brother Jake Tobin,
+you-uns an' some o' the c-church folks, I know, will be 'sponsible fur
+the bail." An' ef ye'll b'lieve me, Brother Jake Tobin, he got up
+slanch-wise, and in sech a hurry the cheer fell over ahint him; an' sez
+he, "Naw, brother--I will call ye brother,"--like that war powerful
+'commodatin'--"I kin not sot my p-people ter do sech, arter yer words
+yestiddy. We kin lose no money by ye--the church air pore an' the cause
+air needy. I kin only pray fur the devil ter l-loose his holt on ye,
+f-fur I perceive the devil in ye." Waal, sir,' continued Pete, drawing a
+plug of tobacco from his pocket, and gnawing on it with tugging
+persistence, 'Christian perfesser ez I be, I felt sorter 'shamed o'
+Brother J-Jake Tobin--he looked s-s-sech a skerry h-half-liver, 'feard
+o' losin' money! Shucks! I could sca'cely keep my hands off 'n him. He
+looked so--so cur'ous, I wanted ter--ter'--he remembered the reverence
+due to the cloth--'ter trip him up,' he concluded temperately. 'An'
+then, ez he war a-whurlin' his fat sides around ter pick up the cheer,
+Pa'son K-Kelsey--he hed t-turned plumb bleached, like a corpse--he stood
+up, an' sez, "The Lord hev fursaken me!" An' Brother Jake Tobin humps
+around, with the cheer in his hand, an' sez, "Naw, brother, naw, ye hev
+fursook the Lord!"'
+
+'Waal,' said the man on the bag of corn, gazing meditatively at the
+dusty floor and at a great yellow cur who had ventured within, as a
+shelter from the mid-day heat, and lay at ungainly length asleep near
+the door, 'I dunno ez I kin blame Brother Jake Tobin. 'Twould hev made a
+mighty scandal ter keep Pa'son Kelsey in the church, arter what he said
+agin' the faith. We'll hev ter turn him out; an' ez he air ter be turned
+out, I dunno ez the church members hev enny call ter go on his bond. He
+air none o' we-uns, nowadays.'
+
+'Leastwise none o' 'em war a-goin' t-ter do it,' said Pete quietly.
+'They air all mindful o' Brother Jake Tobin's longest ear, ez kin hear a
+call from the church yander in Cade's Cove ev'y time he g-gits mad at
+'em. But I tell ye,' added Pete, restoring his plug of tobacco to his
+pocket, and chewing hard on the bit which his strong teeth had wrenched
+off, 'it did 'pear to me ez they mought hev stretched a p'int when I see
+the pa'son ridin' off with them two sneakin' off'cers. He hed so nigh
+los' his senses with the notion he war a-goin' ter be jailed ez they had
+ter hold him up in the saddle, else he'd hev been under the beastis's
+huffs in a minute.'
+
+'Whyn't you-uns go on his bond?' asked Amos James suddenly.
+
+'Who?' shouted Pete, in stentorian amaze, above the clamour of the old
+mill.
+
+'You-uns--the whole Cayce lay-out,' reiterated Amos James.
+
+His blood had risen to his face. All the instincts of justice within him
+revolted at the picture Pete had drawn, coarsely and crudely outlined,
+but touched with the vivid realities of nature. It was as a scene
+present before him: the falsely accused man borne away, crushed with
+shame, while the true criminal looked on with a lax conscience and an
+impersonal interest, and thriftily saved his observations to recount to
+his cronies at the mill.
+
+Amos James cared naught for the outraged majesty of the law. The rescue
+of the prisoner from its fierce talons seemed to him, instead, humane
+and beneficent. His sense of justice was touched only by the manifest
+cruelty when one man was forced to bear the consequences of another's
+act.
+
+'You-uns mought hev done ez much,' he said significantly.
+
+'I reckon they would hev 'lowed ez we warn't wuth it,' said Pete,
+quietly ruminant; 'the still can't show up.'
+
+'Ye never tried it,' said Amos.
+
+'Waal, d-dad, he warn't thar, an' I couldn't ondertake ter speak for the
+rest. An' I ain't beholden no ways to Pa'son Kelsey. I hev no call ter
+b-b-bail him ez I knows on. I hev no hand in his bein' arrested an'
+sech.'
+
+'Hev no hand in his bein' arrested!' retorted Amos scornfully.
+
+Pete was staring stolidly at him, and the other men assumed an intent,
+inquiring attitude.
+
+Amos James felt suddenly that he had gone too far. He had no wish to
+fasten this stigma upon the Cayces; he had every reason to avoid it. He
+did not know how far he had been accounted a confidant in the intimacies
+of the cave when Rick Tyler had found a refuge there. He could not
+disregard the trust reposed in him. And yet he could not recall his
+words.
+
+Pete's blank gaze changed to an amazed comprehension. He spoke out
+bluntly the thought in the other's mind.
+
+'Ye air a-thinkin', Amos Jeemes, ez 'twar we-uns ez cut Rick Tyler
+a-loose o' the sher'ff!' he exclaimed.
+
+Amos, confronted with his own suspicion, listened with a guilty air.
+
+'Ye air surely the b-b-b-biggest f-f-f-fool'--the words seemed very
+large with these additional consonants--'in the shadder o' the B-b-b-Big
+S-s-s-sm-Smoky M-m-Mountings!' Pete spread them out with all the
+magnifying facilities of his infirmity.
+
+'Waal, then,' said Amos, crestfallen, 'who done it?'
+
+'Why, P-Pa'son Kelsey, I reckon.'
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+That memorable arrest in the Big Smoky was the last official act of the
+sheriff, except the surrender of his books and papers and taking his
+successor's receipt for the prisoners in the county jail. The defeat had
+its odious aspects. The race had been amazingly unequal. Had the ground
+tottered beneath him, as he stood in the grass-fringed streets of
+Shaftesville, and heard the rumours of the returns from the civil
+districts, he could hardly have experienced a sensation of insecurity
+commensurate with this, for all his moral supports were threatened. His
+self-confidence, his arrogant affinity for authority, his pride, and his
+ambition keenly barbed the prescience of this abnormal flatness of
+failure. He was pierced by every careless glance; every casual word
+wounded him. He had a strange disturbing sense of a loss of identity.
+This anxious, browbeaten, humiliated creature--was this Micajah Green?
+He did not recognise himself; every throb within him had an alien
+impulse; he repudiated every cringing mental process. It was his first
+experience of the rigours of adversity; it did not quell him; he felt
+effaced.
+
+He feebly sought to goad himself to answer the rough chaff of spurious
+sympathizers with his old bluff spirit; his retort was like the lisp of
+a child in defiance of the challenge of a bugle. He saw with faltering
+bewilderment how the interesting spectacle increased his audience; it
+resembled in some sort an experiment in vivisection, and where the
+writhings most suggested an appreciated anguish, each curious scientist
+most longed to thrust the scalpel.
+
+The coroner held the election, as the sheriff himself was a candidate,
+and when the result became known the details excited increased comment.
+In the district of the county town he had a majority, but the unanimity
+against him in the outlying districts, especially in the Big Smoky and
+its wide-spread spurs and coves, was unprecedented in the annals of the
+county. He had hoped that the election of judge and attorney-general,
+taking place at the same time, might divert attention from the
+disastrous completeness of his failure. But their race involved no
+peculiar phase of popular interest, and the more important results were
+subordinated, so far as the county was concerned, to the spectacle of
+'Cajah Green, 'flabbergasted an' flustrated like never war seen.'
+
+New elements of gossip were added now and then, vivaciously canvassed
+among the knots of men perched on barrels in the stores, or congregated
+in the post-office, or sitting on the steps of the courthouse, and were
+ruthlessly detailed to the ex-sheriff, whose starts of rage, unthinking
+relapses into official speech, jerks of convulsive surprise, prolonged
+the amusement beyond its natural span.
+
+It ceased suddenly. The adjustment to a new line of thought and to a
+future under altered conditions was facilitated by the inception of an
+immediate definite intention and a sentiment co-equal with the passion
+of despair. The idlers of the town might not have been able to
+accurately define the moment when the drama of defeat, with which he had
+prodigally entertained them, lost its interest. But there was a moment
+that differed from all the others of the lazy August hours; the minimum
+of time charged with disproportionate importance. It might be likened to
+a symbol of chemistry, which, though the simplest alphabetical
+character, is significant of an essential element involving
+life--perhaps death.
+
+That moment the wind came freshly down from the mountains; the glare of
+the morning sun rested on the empty, sandy street of the village, the
+weeds and grass that obscured the curbing of the pavement were still
+overhung by a glittering gossamer net of dew. A yellow butterfly flitted
+over it, followed by another so like that it could not be distinguished
+from its aërial counterpart. The fragrance of new-mown hay somewhere in
+the rural metropolis was sweet on the air. A blue-bottle, inside the
+window of the store hard by, droned against the glass, and seemed in
+some sort an echo to the monotonous drawl of a man who had lately been
+up in the Big Smoky, and who had gleaned fresh points concerning the
+recent election.
+
+'What did ye ever do ter the Cayces, 'Cajah, or what did Bluff Peake
+ever do fur 'em?' he asked, as preliminary to detailing that the Cayces
+had turned out and pervaded the Great Smoky Mountains, electioneering
+against the incumbent. 'They rid hyar an' they rid thar--up in the
+mountings an' down in the coves; an' some do say thar war one o' 'em in
+ev'y votin'-place in all the mounting deestric's the day the 'lection
+kem off, jes' a-stiffenin' up the Peake men, an' a-beggin', an'
+a-prayin', an' a-wraslin' in argymint with them ez hed gin out they war
+a-goin' ter vote fur you-uns. Bluff Peake say they fairly 'lected him,
+though he 'lowed 'twarn't fur love o' him. I wonder ye done ez well ez
+ye did, 'Cajah, though ye couldn't hev done much wuss, sure enough. All
+o' 'em war out, from old Groundhog down ter Sol, when they war
+'lectioneerin', an' the whisky ez war drunk round the Settlemint an'
+sech war 'sprisin'. Some say old Groundhog furnished it free.'
+
+The ex-sheriff made no reply. There was a look in his eye that gave his
+long, lean head, deeply sunken at the temples, less the aspect of that
+of a whipped hound than it had worn of late. One might have augured that
+he was a dangerous brute. And after that, the conversation with the
+recent election as a theme flagged, and died out gradually.
+
+It was only a few days before he had occasion to go up into the Great
+Smoky Mountains, on matters, he averred, connected with closing
+unsettled business of the office which he held.
+
+As he jogged along, he moodily watched the distant mountains, growing
+ever nearer, and engirdled here and there with belts of white mists,
+above whose shining silver densities sometimes would tower a gigantic
+'bald,' with a suspended, isolated effect, like some wonderful aërial
+regions unknown to geography, foreign to humanity.
+
+The supreme dignity of their presence was familiar to him. Their awful
+silence, like the unspeakable impressiveness of some overpowering
+thought, affected him not. The vastness of the earth which they
+suggested, beneath the immensities of the sky, which leaned upon them,
+found no responsive largeness in his emotions.
+
+Those barren domes of an intense blue, tinged with purple where the bold
+rocks jutted out, flushed where the yellow sunshine languished to a
+blush; those heavily wooded slopes below the balds, sombre and rich in
+green and bronze and all darkling shades--touched, too, here and there
+with a vivid crimson where the first fickle sumach flared; those coves
+in which shadows lurked and vague sentiments of colour were abroad in
+visionary guise, in unexplained softness of greys and hardly realized
+blues, in dun browns and sedate yellows, vanishing before the plain
+prose of an approach,--he had reduced all this to a scale of miles, and
+the splendours of the landscape were not more seemly or suggestive than
+the colours of a map on the wall. It was a mental scale of miles, for
+the law decreeing a sufficiency of mileposts seemed to weaken in the
+ruggedness of the advance, and when he was fairly among the coves and
+ravines they disappeared.
+
+He pushed his horse rather hard, as the time wore on, but sunset was on
+the mountains before he came upon the great silent company of dead trees
+towering above the Settlement in the reddening light, and tracing their
+undeciphered hieroglyphics across the valley beneath and upon the
+heights beyond. The ringing vibrations of the anvil were on the air; the
+measured alternations of the hand-hammer and the sledge resounded in a
+clear, metallic fugue; the flare from the forge fire streamed through
+the great door of the blacksmith's shop, giving fluctuating glimpses of
+the interior, but fainting and fading into impotent artificiality before
+the gold and scarlet fires ablaze in the western sky.
+
+A waggon, broken down and upheld by a pole in lieu of one of the wheels,
+stood in front of the blacksmith's shop, and was evidently the reason of
+Gid Fletcher's industry at this late hour.
+
+Its owner loitered aimlessly about; now looking, with a gloat of
+acquisition, at his purchases stowed away in the waggon, and now
+nervously at a little barefoot girl whom he had brought with him to
+behold the metropolitan glories of the Settlement.
+
+He occasionally asked her anxious questions.
+
+'Ain't you-uns 'most tired out, Euraliny?' he would say; or, 'Don't ye
+feel wore in yer backbone, hevin' ter wait so long?' or, 'Hedn't ye
+better lay down on the blanket in the waggin an' rest yer bones, bein'
+ez we-uns started 'fore daybreak?'
+
+But the sturdy Euralina shook her sun-bonnet, with her head in it, in
+emphatic negation at every suggestion, and sat upright on the board laid
+across the rough, springless waggon, looking about her gravely, with a
+stalwart determination to see all there was in the famed Settlement;
+thinking, perhaps, that her backbone would have leisure to humour its
+ails in the retirement of home. What an ideal traveller Euralina would
+be under a wider propitiousness of circumstance!
+
+And so the anxious parent could only stroll about as before, and
+contemplate his purchases, and pause at the door of the blacksmith's
+shop to say, 'Ain't you-uns 'most done, Gid?' in a tone of harrowing
+insistence, for the fortieth time since the blacksmith's services were
+invoked.
+
+Gid Fletcher looked up with lowering brow as Micajah Green entered.
+
+The shadows of evening were dense in the ill-lighted place; the
+fluctuations of the forge fire, now flaring, now fading, intensified the
+idea of gloom.
+
+The red-hot iron that the blacksmith held on the anvil threw its lurid
+reflection into his swarthy face and his eyes; his throat was bare; his
+athletic figure, girded with his leather apron, demonstrated in its
+poses the picturesqueness of the simple craft; his sleeve was rolled
+tightly from his huge, corded hammer-arm. His hand-hammer seemed
+endowed with some nice discriminating sense as it tapped here and there
+with an imperative clink, and the great sledge in the striker's hands
+came crashing down to execute its sharp behests, while the flakes flew
+from the metal in jets of golden sparks.
+
+A man is never so plastic to virtuous impulses as when he is doing well
+his chosen work. Labour was ordained to humanity as a curse; surely God
+repented Him of the evil. What blessing has proved so beneficent!
+
+The suggestions entering with the new-comer were at variance with this
+wholesome industrial mood. They recalled to the blacksmith his baffled
+avarice, his revenge, and the malice that had influenced his testimony
+at the committing trial. More than once, of late, while the anvil sang
+responsive to the hammer's sonorous clangour, and the sparks flew,
+emblazoning the twilight of the shop with arabesques of golden flakes,
+and the iron yielded like wax to fire and force, he had a sudden fear
+that he had not done well.
+
+True, he had sworn to nothing which he did not believe, either in the
+affidavit for the warrant or at the committing trial; but the widely
+chartered credulity of an angry man! He said to himself in extenuation
+that he would not have gone so far but for the sheriff.
+
+He was not glad, with these recollections paramount, to see Micajah
+Green again. Some concession he made, however, to the dictates of
+hospitality.
+
+'Hy're, 'Cajah,' he said, albeit gruffly, and the monotonous clinking of
+the hand-hammer and the clanking of the sledge went on as before.
+
+Micajah Green's knowledge of life had not been wide, but there was space
+to evolve a cynical reflection that, being down in the world now, he
+must bite the dust, and he attributed this cavalier treatment to the
+perverse result of the election.
+
+He had acquired something of the manner of bravado, from his recent
+experience as a defeated candidate, and he swaggered a little as he
+strolled about the dirt floor of the shop; glancing at the forge fire,
+slumberously glowing, at the smoky hood above it, at the window opening
+upon the purpling mountains and the fading west. He even paused, and
+turned with his foot the clods of the cavity still yawning below the
+log, where the escaped man had crawled through.
+
+There was an altercation at this moment between the smith and his
+assistant; for the work was not so satisfactory as when Gid Fletcher's
+mind was exclusively bent upon it, and his striker officiated also as
+scapegoat, although that function was not specified as his duty in their
+agreement. Gid Fletcher had marked with furtive surprise and doubt
+every movement of the intruder, and this show of interest in the only
+trace of the escape by which was lost his rich reward roused his ire.
+
+'Even the dogs hev quit that, 'Cajah,' he said enigmatically, as he
+caught up the iron for the new skene and thrust it into the fire, while
+the striker fell to at the bellows. The long sighing burst forth; the
+fire flared to redness, to a white heat, every vivid coal edged by a fan
+of yellow shimmer. The blacksmith's fine stalwart figure was thrown
+backward; his face was lined with sharp white lights; he was looking
+over his shoulder, and laughing silently, but with a sneer.
+
+'The dogs?' said Micajah Green, amazed. He did not sneer.
+
+'The dogs tuk ter cropin' in an' out'n that thar hole fur five or six
+days arter Rick Tyler got away,' Gid Fletcher explained. 'Peared ter be
+nosin' round fur him, too. I dunno what notion tuk 'em, but I never
+would abide 'em in the shop, an' so I jes' kep' that fur 'em'--he nodded
+at a leather strap hanging on the rod--'an' larnt 'em ter stay out o'
+hyar. But even they hev gin it up now.'
+
+'I hain't gin it up, though,' said Micajah Green, still turning the
+clods with his foot. 'I'll be held responsible by the court fur the
+escape, I rackon, ef the gran' jury remembers ter indict me fur it, ez
+negligence. An' ef I kin lay my hands on Rick Tyler yit I'll be mighty
+glad ter feel of him.'
+
+The blacksmith, without changing his attitude, looked hard at his
+visitor for a moment. Something rang false in the speech. He could not
+have said what it was, but his moral sense detected it, as his practised
+ear might have discovered by the sound a flaw in the metal under his
+hammer.
+
+'Ye ain't kem up the Big Smoky a-huntin' fur Rick Tyler?' he said at
+length.
+
+'Naw,' admitted Micajah Green; 'it's jes' 'bout some onsettled business
+o' the county. But ef I war ter meet up with Rick in the road I wouldn't
+pass him by.'
+
+He said this with a satirical half-laugh, still turning the clods with
+his foot, the vivid white light illuminating his figure and his face
+beneath his straw hat. The next moment the sighing bellows was silent,
+and Gid Fletcher and his striker had the red-hot metal between them on
+the anvil, and were once more forging that intricate metallic melody,
+with its singing echoes, that seemed to endow the little log cabin with
+a pulsing heart, that flowed from its surcharged chamber out into the
+grey night, to the deeply purple mountains, to the crescent golden moon,
+to the first few stars pulsating as if in rhythm to the clinking of the
+hand-hammer and the clanking of the sledge--forging this, and as its
+incident the durable skene which should enable Euralina and her parent
+to leave the Settlement shortly.
+
+'I hopes ter git home 'fore daybreak, Gid,' he said desperately,
+standing in the door, and looking wistfully at the iron in process of
+transformation upon the anvil.
+
+He turned out again presently, and Micajah Green paused, leaning against
+the window, and looking doubtfully from time to time at the striker.
+This was an ungainly, heavy young mountaineer, with a shock of red hair,
+a thick neck, and unfinished features which seemed not to have been
+accounted worthy of more careful moulding. There was a look of humble
+pain in his face when the blacksmith angrily upbraided him. His
+perceptions were inefficient to accurately distribute blame; he was only
+receptive, poor fellow! and we all know that in every sense those who
+can only take, and cannot return, have little to hope from the world. He
+was evidently not worth fearing; and Micajah Green disregarded him as
+completely as the presence of the anvil.
+
+'Talkin' 'bout Rick Tyler, did you-uns go sarchin' that night--the
+dep'ty's party--ter the still they say old man Cayce runs?'
+
+'Naw'--Gid Fletcher paused, his hammer uplifted, the red glow of the
+iron on his meditative face and eyes; the striker, both hands upholding
+the poised sledge, waited in the dusky background--'naw. We met up with
+Pete Cayce, an' he 'lowed ez he hedn't seen nor hearn o' Rick Tyler.'
+
+'Ef I hed been along I'd have sarched the still, too.'
+
+The blacksmith stared in astonishment.
+
+'Pete Cayce's say-so war all I wanted,' he declared; 'an' I hed the two
+hunderd dollars ez I hed yearned, an' ye hed flunged away, a-hangin' on
+ter it,' he added.
+
+'I hev a mind ter go thar now, whilst I be on the Big Smoky, an' talk
+ter the old man 'bout'n it,' Green said reflectively.
+
+He had drawn out his clasp-knife, and was whittling a piece of white oak
+which he had picked up from the ground. With the energy of his intention
+the slivers flew.
+
+The blacksmith glanced in furtive surprise at his downcast face, but for
+a moment said nothing. Then:
+
+'Hain't you-uns hearn how the Cayces turned out agin ye at the 'lection?
+Ef they didn't defeat ye, they made it an all-fired sight wuss. Ez fur
+ez I could hear, me and Tobe Grimes war the only men in the Big Smoky ez
+voted fur ye. I war plumb 'shamed o' it arterward. I hates ter be beat.
+I'm thinkin' they ain't a-hankerin' ter see ye down yander at the
+still.'
+
+The defeated candidate's face turned deeply scarlet pending this
+recital. But he said, with an off-hand air:
+
+'I ain't a-keerin' fur that now; that's 'count o' an old grudge the
+Cayces hold agin me. All I want now is ter kem up with Rick Tyler, ef so
+be I can, afore the gran' jury sits again; an' I hev talked with
+ev'ybody on the mountings, mighty nigh, 'ceptin' it be the Cayces. Which
+fork o' the road is it ye take fur the still--I furgit--the lef' or the
+right?'
+
+Gid Fletcher burst into a sudden laugh, almost as metallic, as
+inexpressive of any human emotion, as if it had issued from the anvil.
+His face flushed, not the reflection from the iron, which had cooled,
+but with his own angry red blood; his figure, visible in the sullen
+illumination of the dull forge fire, was tense and motionless.
+
+'Ye never knew, 'Cajah Green!' he cried. 'Ye don't take nare one o' the
+forks o' the road. Ye ain't a-goin' ter know, nuther, from me. I ain't
+a-hankerin' ter be fund dead in the road some mornin', with a big bullet
+in my skull-bone, an' nobody ter know how sech happened. Ef ye hev a
+mind ter spy out the Cayces fur the raiders, ye air on a powerful cold
+scent; thar ain't nobody on this mounting ez loves lead well enough ter
+tell whar old Groundhog holds forth. Them ez he wants ter know--knows
+'thout bein' told. Ye ain't smart enough, 'Cajah Green, ter match yer
+meanness!'
+
+It is difficult for a man, without the hope of deceiving, to maintain a
+deception, and it was with scant verisimilitude that Micajah Green
+denied the detection of his clumsy ruse, and swore that he only wanted
+to come up with Rick Tyler. He went through the motions, however, while
+the blacksmith looked at him with uncovered teeth, and a demonstration
+that in a man might be described as a smile, but in a wild cat would be
+called a snarl. The fierce, surprised glare of the eyes added the
+complement of expression. Now and then he growled indignant
+interpolations:
+
+'Naw; ye 'lowed ez I'd tell ye, an' ye'd tell the raiders, an' then
+somehow ye'd hev shifted the blame on me, an' them Cayces--five of 'em
+an' all thar kin--would hev riddled me with thar bullets till folks
+wouldn't hev knowed which war metal an' which war man.'
+
+Still Micajah Green maintained his feint of denial, and the blacksmith
+presently ceased to contradict.
+
+It was Fletcher's privilege to entertain this visitor at the Settlement,
+and the behests of hospitality could hardly be served without ignoring
+the disagreement that had arisen between them. Little, however, was
+said while the waggon axle and skene were in process of completion, and
+then adjusted to the vehicle by the light of a lantern.
+
+Jer'miah came over from the store, and presided after the manner of
+small boys, regarding each phase of the operation with an interest for
+which a questioner would have found no corresponding fulness of
+information--a sort of spurious curiosity, satisfying the eye, but
+having no connection with the brain. Euralina, who was small for her
+sun-bonnet, a grotesque and top-heavy little figure, stood in the door
+of the forge--also a wide-eyed and impressed spectator.
+
+The blacksmith was a very good illustration of a rural Hercules, as he
+riveted his bolts, and lifted the body of the ponderous vehicle, and
+went lightly in and out of the forge. He did his work well and quickly
+too, for a mountaineer, and he had the artisan's satisfaction in his
+handicraft, as, with his hammer still in his hand, he watched the slow
+vehicle creak along the road between the corn-field and the woods, and
+disappear gradually from view.
+
+The wheels still sounded assertively on the air; the katydids' iteration
+rose in vibrant insistence; the long, vague, pervasive sighing of the
+woods added to the night its deep melancholy. The golden burnished
+blade of the new moon was half sheathed in invisibility behind a dark
+mountain's summit.
+
+The blacksmith's house was on the elevated slope beyond the forge, and
+as he turned on his porch and looked back, he noted the one salient
+change in the landscape as seen from the higher level--above the distant
+mountain-summit the moon showed its glittering length, as if withdrawn
+from the scabbard. He glanced at it and shut the door.
+
+Micajah Green had the best that the humble log cabin could afford, and
+no dearth of fair words as a relish to the primitive feast. It was only
+the next morning, when his foot was in the stirrup, that his host
+recurred to the theme of the evening before.
+
+'Look-a-hyar, 'Cajah Green, you-uns jes' let old Groundhog Cayce be. Ye
+ain't a-goin' ter find out whar his still air a-workin', an' ef he war
+ter hear ez ye had been 'quirin' 'round 'bout'n it 'twould be ez much ez
+yer life air wuth.'
+
+Micajah Green renewed his hollow protestations, discredited as before,
+and the blacksmith, shading his eyes from the sun with his broad
+blackened right hand, watched him ride away.
+
+Even when he was out of sight, Gid Fletcher stood for a time silently
+looking at the spot where horse and man had disappeared. Then he shook
+his head, and went into the forge.
+
+'Zeke,' he said to his humble striker, 'ye air a fool, an' ye know it.
+But ye air a smart man ter that loon, fur the hell of it air he dunno he
+air a loon.'
+
+His warnings, nevertheless, had more effect than he realized. They
+served as a check on Micajah Green's speech with the few men that he
+met--all surly enough, however, to repel confidence, were there no other
+motive to withhold it.
+
+He saw in this another confirmation of the Cayces' enmity, and their
+activity in weakening his hold on the people. He began to think it hard
+that he should be thus at their mercy; that his office should be wrested
+from him; that they should impose unexampled indignities of defeat; that
+he should not dare to raise his hand against them--nay, his voice, for
+even the reckless Gid Fletcher had cautions for so much as a word.
+
+Some trifling errand which he had used as a pretext for his journey
+brought him several miles along the range, and when he was actually
+starting down the mountain, his vengeance still muzzled, his ingenuity
+at fault, his courage faltering, all the intention of his journey
+merged in its subterfuge, he found himself upon the road which led past
+the Cayces' house, and in many serpentine windings down the long jagged
+slopes to the base. Noontide was near. The shadows were short. He heard
+the bees droning. The far-away mountains were of an exquisite ethereal
+azure, discrediting the opaque turquoise blue of the sky. The dark
+wooded coves had a clear distinctness of tone and definiteness of
+detail, despite the distance. The harmonies of colour that filled the
+landscape culminated in a crimson sumach growing hard by in a corner of
+a rail fence. The little house was still. The muffled tread of his
+horse's hoofs in the deep, dry sand did not rouse the sleeping hounds
+under the porch. The vines clambering to its roof were full of tiny
+yellow gourds; he could see through the gaps Dorinda's spinning-wheel
+against the wall. A hazy curl of smoke wreathed upward from the chimney
+with a deliberate grace in the sunshine. He smelled the warm fragrance
+of the apples in the orchard at the rear, stretching along the mountain
+side. The corn that Dorinda had ploughed on the steep slope was high,
+and waved above the staked and ridered fence. There were wild blue
+morning glories among it, the blossom still open here and there under a
+sheltering canopy of blades; and there were trumpet flowers, too,
+boldly facing the blazing sun with a beauty as ardent.
+
+He looked up at this still picture more than once, as he paused for his
+horse to drink at the wayside trough, and then he rode on down the
+mountain, speculating on his baffled mission.
+
+He hardly knew how far he had gone when he heard voices in loud
+altercation. He could not give immediate attention, for he was in a
+rocky section of the road, so full of boulders and out-cropping ledges
+that it was easy to divine that the overseer had a lenient
+interpretation of the idea of repair.
+
+Once his horse fell, and after pulling the animal up, with an oath of
+irritation, he came, suddenly, turning sharply around a jutting crag,
+upon another rider and a recalcitrant steed. This rider was a child,
+carried on the shoulders of a girl of twelve or so, who had a peculiarly
+wiry and alert appearance, with long legs, a precipitate and bounding
+action, a tousled mane, the forelock hanging in her wild, excited eyes.
+
+He recognised at once the filly-like Miranda Jane, before either caught
+a glimpse of him, and he heard enough of her remonstrance to acquaint
+him with Jacob's tyranny in insisting that his unshod steed should keep
+straight up the rocky 'big road,' as he ambitiously called it, in lieu
+of turning aside in the sandy byways of a cow-path.
+
+The expedient flashed through Micajah Green's mind in an instant. He
+drew up his horse. 'I'll give ye a lift, bubby,' he said; then, with a
+mighty effort at recollection, 'Howdy, Mirandy Jane!' he cried
+jubilantly.
+
+His success in recalling the name affected him like an inspiration.
+
+The girl had shied off, according to her custom with a visible tremour,
+looking at him with big eyes and a quivering nostril, instantly
+accounting him a raider. As he called her name she stopped and stared
+dubiously at him.
+
+'How's granny?' he asked familiarly, 'and D'rindy?'
+
+'She's well,' Miranda Jane returned, lumping them in the singular
+number.
+
+Had he inquired for the men folks, she would have been alarmed. As it
+was, she began to be at ease. She could not at once remember him, it was
+true, but he was evidently a familiar of the family.
+
+'Come, bubby,' he said to Jacob, who had been peering over Miranda
+Jane's head, sharing her doubts, but sturdily repudiating her fears,
+'I'll gin ye a ride ter the trough.'
+
+Jacob held up his arms, he was swung to the pommel, and the cortege
+started, Miranda Jane nimbly following in the rear.
+
+Such simple things Jacob said, elicited by questions the craft of which
+he could not divine. Where had he been? He and Mirandy Jane had gone
+with the apples in the waggon, but the waggon had afterward been driven
+to the mill, and Mirandy Jane had been charged by D'rindy to 'tote' him
+on the way home if he got tired, and Mirandy Jane wanted to tote him in
+the cow-path, 'mongst the briars. And where did he say he went with the
+apples? To the cave.
+
+'To the cave!' exclaimed the querist, astonished.
+
+'Over yander on the backbone,' returned the guileless Jacob, reinforcing
+the information with a stubby forefinger, pointing toward the base of
+the mountain.
+
+And here was the trough. And Miranda Jane and Jacob stood by the
+roadside to regretfully watch the big grey horse trot slowly away.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+There came a change in the weather. A vagueness fell upon the landscape.
+The farthest mountains receded into invisibility, and the horizon was
+marked by an outline of summits hitherto familiar in the middle
+distance. The sunshine was languid, slumberous. A haze clothed the air
+in a splendid garb of translucent, gold-tinted folds, and trailing
+across the dim blue of the ranges invested them with many a dreamy
+illusion. Athwart the sky were long sweeps of fibrous white clouds
+presaging rain. Since dawn they were thickening; silent in the intense
+stillness of the noontide, they gathered and overspread the heavens and
+quenched the sun, and bereaved the vapours hanging in the ravines of all
+the poetic glamours of reflection.
+
+A rain-crow was huskily cawing on the trough by the roadside where he
+had perched. Dorinda heard the guttural note, and went out to gather up
+the fruit spread to dry on boards that were stretched from stone to
+stone. Dark clouds were rolling up from the west. She paused to see them
+submerge Chilhowee, its outline stark and hard beneath their turbulent
+whirl; toward the south their heavy folds broke into sudden commotion,
+and they were torn into fringes as the rain began to fall. The mist
+followed and isolated the Great Smoky from all the rest of the world.
+
+And now the little house was as lonely as the ark on Ararat. The mists
+possessed the universe. They filled the forests and lay upon the corn
+and hid the 'gyarden-spot,' and came skulking about the porch, peering
+through the vines in a ghostly fashion. Presently they sifted through,
+and whenever the door was opened it showed them lurking there as if
+wistfully waiting or with some half-humanized curiosity.
+
+Night stole on, and the ruddy flare of the fire had heightened
+suggestions of good cheer and comfort, because of these waifs of the
+rain and the air shivering in chilly guise about the door.
+
+The men came to supper and all went again, except Pete. He was ailing,
+he declared, and betook himself to bed betimes. The house grew quiet.
+The grandmother nodded over her knitting, with a limp falling of the
+lower jaw, occasional spasmodic gestures, and an absorbed, unfamiliar
+expression of countenance.
+
+Dorinda, in her low chair, sat in the glow of the fire. As it rose and
+fell it cast a warm light or a dreamy shadow on her delicately rounded
+cheek and her shining eyes. One dishevelled tress of her dense black
+hair fell over the red kerchief twisted round her neck. Her blue
+homespun dress lay in lustreless folds about her. The shadowy and rude
+interior of the room--the dark brown of the logs of the wall and the
+intervening yellow clay daubing; the great clumsy warping-bars; the
+pendent peltry and pop-corn and strings of red pepper swaying from the
+rafters; the puncheon floor gilded by the firelight; the deep yawning
+chimney with its heaps of ashes and its pulsating coals--all formed in
+the rich colours and soft blending of detail an harmonious setting for
+her vivid, definite face, as she settled herself to work at her evening
+'stent.' Her reel was before her; the spokes, worn smooth and dark and
+glossy by age and use, reflected with polished lustre the glimmer of the
+fire. She had a broche in her hand, just taken from the spindle. For the
+lack of the more modern broche-holder she thrust a stick through the
+tunnel of the shuck on which the yarn was wound, placing the end of it,
+to hold it steady, in her low shoe; catching the thread between her deft
+fingers she threw it with a fine free gesture over the periphery of the
+reel. And then the whirling spokes were only a rayonnant suggestion, so
+swiftly they sped round and round in the light of the fire, and a
+musical low whirr broke forth. Now and then the reel ticked and told off
+another cut, and she would bend forward to tie the thread with a
+practised dextrous hand.
+
+The downpour of the rain had a dreary, melancholy persistence, beating
+upon the roof and splashing from the eaves into the puddles beneath. At
+intervals a drop fell down the wide chimney and hissed upon the coals.
+
+Suddenly there was another splash, differing in its abrupt energy; a
+foot had slipped outside, and groping hands were laid upon the wall.
+
+Dorinda sprang up with a white face and tense muscles. The old woman was
+suddenly bolt upright in her corner, although not recognising the sound.
+
+'Hurry 'long, D'rindy,' she said peremptorily, 'you-uns ain't goin' ter
+reel a hank ef ye don't mosey. What ails the gal?' she broke off, her
+attention attracted to her grand-daughter's changed expression.
+
+'Thar's suthin' out o' doors,' said Dorinda, in a tremulous whisper. 'I
+hearn 'em step whenst ye war asleep.'
+
+'I ain't batted my eye this night,' said her grandmother, with the force
+of conviction. 'I ain't slep' a wink. An' ye never hearn nuthin'.'
+
+There was a bolder demonstration outside; a footfall sounded on the
+porch, and a hand tried the latch.
+
+'Massy on us! Raiders!' shrieked the old woman, rising precipitately,
+her knitting falling from her lap, the ball of yarn rolling away and the
+kitten springing after it.
+
+Dorinda ran to the door--perhaps to put up the bar. But with sudden
+courage she lifted the latch. Outside were the ghostly vapours, white
+and visible in the light from within.
+
+She peered out doubtfully for a moment. A sudden rush of colour surged
+into her face; she made a feint of closing the door and ran back to her
+work, looking over her shoulder with radiant eyes; she caught up the
+broche, sticking it deftly in her shoe, seated herself in her low chair,
+and with her light free gesture led the thread over the reel.
+
+'Massy on us!' shrilled the old woman aghast. 'D'rindy, shet the door!
+Be ye a-lettin' the lawless ones in on us! raiders an' sech, scoutin'
+'roun' in the fog--an' nobody hyar but Pete, ez couldn't be waked up
+right handy with nuthin' more wholesome'n a bullet--a----'
+
+There was a man's figure in the doorway--a slow, hesitating figure, and
+Rick Tyler, his face grave and dubious, embarrassed by the complicated
+effort to look at Dorinda and yet seem to ignore her, trod heavily in,
+and with a soft and circumspect manner closed the door.
+
+'I kem over hyar, Mis' Cayce,' he remarked, 'ez I 'lowed mebbe the boys
+war at the still an' yer felt lonesome, bein' ez it air rainin' right
+smart, an''--he hesitated.
+
+'Howdy, Rick--howdy!' she exclaimed cordially. He had the benefit of her
+relief in finding the visitor not a raider. 'Jes' sot yer bones down
+hyar by the fire. Airish out o' doors, ain't it? I'm powerful glad to
+see ye. D'rindy ain't much company when she air busy, an' the weavin'
+ain't done yit.'
+
+'I 'lowed ez I mought resk comin' up hyar wunst in a while now,' he
+said, with a covert glance at Dorinda. 'I ain't keerin' much fur the new
+sher'ff, 'kase he air a town man, an' don't know me; an' the new
+constable, he 'lowed over yander ter the store ez he war a off'cer o'
+the law, an' not a shootin' mark fur folks ez war minded ter hide out;
+an' Gid Fletcher hev been told ez he'd hev others ter deal with ef he
+ondertook ter fool along arrestin' me agin. So I hev got no call ter
+stay ez close in the bresh ez I hev been, though I ain't a-goin' ter
+furgit these hyar consarns, nuther.'
+
+He glanced down at the glimmer of steel in his belt, where Dorinda
+recognised her father's pistols.
+
+'Bes' be on the safe side,' said the old woman approvingly, her nimble
+needles quivering in the light. 'But law! I useter know a man over
+yandar on Chilhowee Mounting, whar I lived afore I war married, an' he
+hed killed fower men--though I b'lieve one o' 'em war a Injun--an' he
+hed no call ter aggervate hisself with sher'ffs nor shootin'-irons,
+nuther. He walked 'round ez favoured an' free ez my old tur-r-key
+gobbler. Though some said he hed bad dreams. But ez he war a hearty
+feeder they mought hev kem from the stummick stiddier the heart.'
+
+The young man listened with a doubtful mien. He was thrown back at his
+ease in the splint-bottomed chair. One stalwart leg, the boot reaching
+over his trousers to the knee, was stretched out to the fire; from the
+damp sole the steam was starting in the warm air. On his other knee one
+of the shooting-irons in question rested; he held it lightly with one
+hand. The other hand was thrust into the belt that girded his brown
+jeans coat. His tawny yellow hair, the ends of a deeper tint, being wet,
+hung to his coat collar.
+
+His hat, from the broad brim of which raindrops were still trickling,
+was deposited beneath the chair, and the kitten was investigating it
+with a dainty, scornful white mitten. He bore the marks of his trials in
+his sharpened features; his face took on readily a lowering expression,
+and a touch of anger kindled the smouldering fire in his brown eyes.
+
+'But I hev killed no man,' he said, with emphasis. 'I hev hurt nobody.
+Ef I hed, 'twouldn't be no more'n I oughter do ter g'long with the
+sher'ff an' leave it ter men. But I ain't done no harm. An' I don't want
+ter stay in jail, an' be tried, an' kem ter jedgment, an' sech, an'
+mebbe hev them buzzardy lawyers fix suthin' on me ennyways.'
+
+All through this speech the old woman tried to interrupt.
+
+'Laws-a-massy, Rick,' she said at length, 'ye hev got mighty tetchy
+sence ye hev been hid out. I ain't sayin' nuthin' agin you-uns, ez I
+knows on--nor agin that man that lived on Chilhowee Mounting, nuther. I
+can't sot myself ter jedge o' him. He war a perfessin' member, an' he
+hed a powerful gift in 'quirin'; useter raise the chune reg'lar at all
+the meetin's ez fur back ez I kin remember.'
+
+Her interest in the visit was impaired to some degree by this collision;
+she would have rejoiced to express her mental estimate of Rick as the
+'headin'est critter in the kentry,' but the hospitable instincts
+constrained her, and she nobly swallowed her vexation. His presence,
+however, 'hectored' her, and she seized an excuse to absent herself
+presently, saying that she had to get her clean plaid coat to mend,
+'bein' ez when it last hung on the clothes-line that thar fresky young
+hound named Bose stood on his hind legs ter gnaw it, an' actially
+chawed a piece out'n it, and I hev ter put a wedge in it afore I kin
+wear it.'
+
+She creaked away into the next room, and as the door shut he turned his
+eyes for the first time on Dorinda. The firelight played on the reel,
+whirling in a lustrous circle before her, on the broche stuck in the
+rough little shoe, on her arm, uplifted in a graceful curve as she held
+the thread. Her brilliant eyes were grave and intent; her dense black
+hair and her dark blue dress heightened the fairness of her face, and
+the crimson kerchief about her throat was hardly more vivid than the
+flush on her cheeks.
+
+The knowledge that her embarrassment was greater than his own made him
+bolder. They sat, however, some time in silence. Then, his heart waxing
+soft in the coveted domestic atmosphere and the contemplation of the
+picture before him, he said gently:
+
+'They air all agin me, D'rindy.'
+
+She forgot herself instantly. She looked full at him with soft
+melancholy deprecation.
+
+'They don't hender ye none,' she said.
+
+'Ye don't sot no store by me nuther, these days, D'rindy,' he went on,
+with a thrill of elation in his heart belying the doubt and despair in
+his speech.
+
+The reel ticked and told off another cut. She leaned forward to tie the
+thread. She could not lift her eyelids now; still he saw the vivid
+sapphire iris, half eclipsed by the long black lash.
+
+He patted the pistol on his knee.
+
+'Would ye be afeared, D'rindy, ter marry a man ez would hev ter keep his
+life, and yourn, mebbe, with this pistol? Would ye be afeard ter live in
+his house along o' him, a hunted critter--an' set an' sing in his door,
+when the muzzle of a rifle or the sher'ff's revolver mought peek through
+the rails of the fence? Would ye be afeared?'
+
+He put the weapon slowly into his belt.
+
+'Would ye be afeared?' he reiterated.
+
+The reel stopped. She turned her eyes, dilated with a splendid boldness,
+full upon him. How they flouted fear!
+
+Such audacity of courage seemed to him gallant in a man; in a woman,
+expressing faith in his valiance, it was enchanting. He lost his slow
+decorum. He caught the hand that held the thread. She could not withdraw
+it from that strong, ecstatic clutch, and as she started, protesting, to
+her feet, he rose too, overturning the reel; and the kittens made merry
+confusion in the methodical cuts.
+
+'D'rindy,' he exclaimed, catching her in his arms, 'thar ain't no need
+ter be afeard! Word kem up the mounting--I got it from Steve Byers--ez
+when Abednego Tynes war tried he plead guilty, an' axed ter go on the
+stand an' make a statement. An' he told the truth at last--at last! An'
+he war sentenced, an' the case war nolle prosequied agin me! An' ye
+warn't afeared! Ye would hev married me an' resked it. Ye warn't
+afeard!'
+
+She was tall, and her agitated, upturned face was close to his shoulder.
+He knew it was simply unpardonable, according to the rigid decorums of
+their code of manners, but the impetuosity of his joy overbore him, and
+he bent down and kissed her lips.
+
+Dorinda's courage!--it was gone. She looked so frightened and amazed
+that he relaxed his clasp.
+
+'Ye know, D'rindy,' he said apologetically, 'I'm fairly out'n my head
+with joy.'
+
+She stood trembling, her hand pressed to her beating heart, her head
+whirling. And then, he never forgot it, of her own accord she laid her
+other hand on his breast.
+
+'I always believed ye war _good--good--good_!'
+
+And the wild winds whirled around the Great Smoky, and the world was
+given over to the clouds and the night, and the rain fell, and the drops
+splashed with a dreary sound down from the eaves of the house.
+
+They did not hear. How little they heeded. Within, all the atmosphere
+was suffused by that wonderful irradiation of love, and happiness, and
+hope that was confidence. The fire might flare if it listed. The shadows
+might flicker if they would. It seemed to them at the moment each would
+never see aught, care for aught, save what was expressed in the other's
+eyes.
+
+The kitten had waxed riotous in the unprecedented opportunities of the
+reel, still lying with all its tangled yellow yarn upon the floor. As it
+sprang tigerishly in the air and fell, fixing its predatory claws in
+another cut, Dorinda looked down with a startled air.
+
+'Granny'll be axin' mighty p'inted how that thar spun-truck kem ter be
+twisted so,' she said, crestfallen and prescient. 'It looks like a
+hurrah's nest.'
+
+'Tell her ez how 'twar the cat,' said Rick.
+
+Dorinda shook her head dubiously.
+
+'The cat couldn't hev got it ef the reel hedn't been flunged on the
+floor.'
+
+'Let's wind it inter balls, then,' suggested Rick, quick at expedients.
+'She'll never know it war tangled. I'll hold it fur ye.'
+
+It was no great hardship for Rick. She lightly slipped the skeins over
+the wrists that had known sterner shackles. The task required her to sit
+near him; her face and head were bent toward him as she absorbed
+herself in the effort to find the end of the thread; sometimes she
+lifted her eyes and looked radiantly at him.
+
+He had not known how beautiful she was--because he saw her face more
+closely, he thought, not averted, nor coy, as always before--or was it
+embellished by that ineffable joy that filled her heart? Well for them
+both, perhaps, that those few moments were so happy--or is it well to
+remember a supreme felicity, for this is fleeting. Yellow yarn! she was
+winding threads of gold. How his pulses thrilled at the lightest flying
+touch of her fleet hands!
+
+He looked at her--into her eyes if he might--at her round crimson cheek,
+at her clearly cut chin, at the long lashes, at the black hair drawn
+back from her brow, where a curling tendril drooped over the temple. And
+he held the yarn all awry.
+
+It was no first-class job, for this reason and her haste.
+
+'What ails ye ter hustle 'long so, D'rindy?' he asked at last. 'Ye ain't
+so mighty afeared o' yer granny.'
+
+'Naw,' Dorinda admitted; 'but brother Pete, he be at home ter-night, an'
+he air toler'ble fractious ef he sees his chance, an' I don't want him
+a-laffin' at we-uns; kase I hev hearn him say ez when young folks gits
+ter windin' yarn tergether 'tain't fur love o' the spun-truck, but jes'
+fur one another.'
+
+Rick laughed a little, slowly. Then, growing grave:
+
+'Ef ye'll b'lieve me, Pete told the word yander ter the still ez Amos
+Jeemes--a mis'able addled aig he be!--'lowed ter the men at the mill ez
+he b'lieved ez 'twar the Cayces ez rescued me, the day o' the
+gaynder-pullin', from the sher'ff.'
+
+She paused, the bright thread in her motionless hand, her fire-lit face
+bent upon him.
+
+'Amos Jeemes hed better be keerful how he tries ter fix it on we-uns!'
+she cried, with the tense vibration of anger, 'tellin' the mill an'
+sech! I hev hearn the boys 'low ez 'twar ten year in the pen'tiary fur
+rescuing a man from the sher'ff, ef it got fund out.'
+
+'Pete say ez how he jes' laffed at him an' named him a fool.'
+
+'Pete air ekal ter that,' she returned with some sarcasm.
+
+She was deftly winding the yarn once more, the fire showing a deeper
+thoughtfulness upon her face. Its flicker gave the room a sense of
+motion; the festoons of scarlet pepper-pods, the long yellow and red
+strings of pop-corn, the peltry hanging from the rafters, apparently
+swayed as the light rose and fell; and the warping-bars, with their
+rainbow of spun-truck stretched from peg to peg, seemed to be dancing a
+clumsy measure in the corner. The rocking-chair where granny was wont to
+sit was occupied now by a shadow, and now was visibly vacant.
+
+She looked up into his face with an absorbed un-noting eye. He was
+pierced by the knowledge that though she saw him, she was thinking of
+something else.
+
+'Won't the Court let the pa'son go free now, sence they know ye done no
+crime?' she asked.
+
+'Naw. The pa'son air accused of a rescue, an' whether the man he rescued
+air convicted or no it air jes' the same ter the law ez agin him. The
+_rescue_ air the thing he hev got ter answer fur.'
+
+She dropped her hands in her lap and threw herself back in her chair.
+
+'Ten year in prison!' she exclaimed.
+
+Her face was all the tenderest pity; her voice was full of yearning
+sympathy; she cast her eyes upward with a look that was reverence
+itself.
+
+'How good he war! I s'pose he knowed ye never done no harm, an' he war
+willin' ter suffer stiddier you-uns. I never hearn o' sech a man! 'Pears
+ter me them old prophets don't tech him! I never hearn o' _them_ showin'
+sech love o' God an' thar feller man. He rescued ye jes' fur that!'
+
+Rick Tyler looked at her for a moment with a kindling eye. He sprang to
+his feet, throwing the golden skein--it was only yarn after all, a
+coarse yellow yarn--upon the floor. He strode across the rude hearth and
+leaned against the mantelpiece, which was as high as his head. The light
+fell upon his changed face, the weapons in his belt, his long tawny
+hair, the flashing fire in his eye. He raised his right hand with an
+importunate gesture.
+
+'D'rindy Cayce, ye air in love with that man!' he said, in a low
+passionate voice and between his set teeth. 'I hev seen it afore--long
+ago; but sence ye hev promised ter marry me, ef ye say his name agin,
+I'll kill him--I'll shoot him through the heart--dead--dead--do ye hear
+me--_dead_!'
+
+She was shaken by the spectacle of his sudden anger, and she was angered
+in turn by his jealous rage. There was a dull aching in her heart in the
+voids left by the ebbing of her ecstatic happiness.
+
+This was too precious to lightly let go. She walked over to him and took
+hold of his right arm, although his hand was toying nervously with his
+pistol.
+
+'Ye don't b'lieve no sech word, Rick,' she said, 'deep down in yer
+heart, ye don't b'lieve it. An' how kin ye grudge me from thinkin' well
+o' the man, an' feelin' frien'ly--oh, mighty frien'ly--when he will hev
+ter take ten year in the pen'tiary fur givin' ye yer freedom? He rescued
+ye! An' I'll thank him an' praise him fur it ev'y day I live. My love,
+ef ye call it love, will foller him fur that all through the prison, an'
+the bolts an' bars, an' gyards. An' yer pistols can't holp it.'
+
+He put her from him with a mechanical gesture and a perplexed brow. He
+sat down in the chair he had occupied at first; his hat was still under
+it, one leg was stretched out to the fire, on the other knee his hand
+rested; he looked exactly as when he first came into the room, but she
+had a vague idea, as she stood opposite on the hearth, that it was long
+ago, so much had happened since.
+
+'D'rindy,' he said, 'he never done it. The pa'son never rescued me.'
+
+She stood staring at him in wide-eyed amaze.
+
+He was silent for a moment, and then he broke into a bitter laugh.
+
+'I do declar,' he said, 'it fairy tickles me ter hear o' one man bein'
+arrested fur rescuin' me, an' another set bein' s'pected fur rescuin'
+me, an another set bein' s'pected o' the same thing, when not one of 'em
+in all the Big Smoky, not one, lifted a hand ter holp me. Whether the
+gallus or a life sentence 'twar all the same ter them. Accusing' yer dad
+an' the boys at the still--shucks! Old Groundhog loant me a rifle, an'
+ter hear him talk saaft sawder 'bout'n it ter Amos Jeemes ye'd hev thunk
+he war the author o' my salvation! An' arrest the pa'son! he war a
+likely one ter rescue a body!--too 'feared o' Satan! An' ef all they say
+air true 'bout'n the word he spoke yander at the meetin' 'fore they tuk
+him off, he hev got cornsider'ble call ter be afeard o' Satan. Naw, sir!
+he never rescued nuthin' but the gaynder! Nobody holped me! Nobody on
+the Big Smoky held out a hand! I ain't goin' ter furgit it, nuther!'
+
+She stood looking intently at his face, with its caustic laugh upon it
+and his eyes full of bitterness. She knew that he secretly upbraided her
+as well as her people that they had made no move to save him from the
+clutches of the sheriff. She involuntarily turned her eyes to the
+gun-rack where the barrel of 'Old Betsy' gleamed, and she remembered the
+mark it bore to commemorate the foregone conclusion of Micajah Green's
+death. For this she had held her hand. She felt humble and guilty, since
+she had acted in the interests of peace. And yet that shrewd sense, that
+true conscience, which coexisted with the idealistic tendencies of her
+nature, demanded how could she justify herself in asking the sacrifice
+of ten years of other men's liberty that her lover might escape the
+consequences of his own act; how could she dare to precipitate a
+collision with the sheriff, while their grievance was still fresh in
+their minds? Fortunately she did not lay this train of thought bare
+before Rick Tyler. Natures like his foster craft in the most pellucid
+candour.
+
+'How'd ye git away, Rick?' she said instead.
+
+'I won't tell ye,' he replied rudely; 'it don't consarn ye ter know.'
+Then suddenly softening, 'I take that back, D'rindy. I ain't goin' ter
+furgit ez ye owned up ye war willin' ter marry me an' live all yer life
+along with a hunted man in a house that mought be fired over yer head
+enny time, or a rifle-ball whiz in at the winder. I ain't goin' ter
+furgit that.'
+
+Alas! he could not divine how he should remember it!
+
+He fixed his eyes on the fire, as if moodily recalling the scene. She
+noted that desperate, hunted look in his face which it had not worn
+to-night.
+
+'I war a-settin' thar,' he began abruptly, 'my feet tied with ropes, and
+with handcuffs on'--he held his hands together as if manacled; she
+shuddered a little--'an' I hearn the hurrahin' an' fuss outside whilst
+they was all a-rowin' over the gaynder. An' then I hearn a powerful
+commotion 'mongst the dogs, ez ef they hed started some sorter game or
+suthin'. An' the fust I knowed thar war a powerful scuttlin' 'round the
+back o' the blacksmith's shop, an' a rabbit squez in a hole 'twixt the
+lowes' log an' the groun'--'twarn't bigger 'n a gopher's hole. An' I
+never thunk nuthin' 'ceptin' them boys outside would be mighty mad ef
+they knowed thar hounds hed run a rabbit same ez a deer.'
+
+Dorinda had sunk into her chair; her hands trembled, her face was pale.
+
+'An' the cur'ous part of it,' he continued, now in the full swing of
+narrative, 'war that the hounds wouldn't gin it up. They jes' kep'
+a-nosin' an' yappin' roun' that thar little hole. Thar sot the
+rabbit--she 'minded me o' myself, got in an' couldn't git out. Thar war
+nowhar else fur her ter sneak through. She sot thar ez upright an'
+trembly ez me; jes' ez skeered, an' jes' about ez little chance. The
+only diff'ence 'twixt us war I hed a soul, an' that didn't do me enny
+good, an' the lack o' it didn't do her enny harm; both o' we-uns war
+more pertic'lar 'bout keepin' a skin full o' whole bones 'n ennything
+else. An' then them nosin' hounds began ter scratch an' claw up dirt.
+Bless yer soul, D'rindy, they hed a hole ez big ez that thar piggin,
+afore I thunk ennything 'bout'n it. It makes me feel the cold shakes
+when I 'members ez I mought not hev thunk 'bout'n it till 'twar too
+late. Lord! how slow them hounds seemed! though the rabbit she fund 'em
+fast enough, I reckon. Ev'y now an' then she'd hop along this way an'
+that, an' the hounds would git her scent agin--an' the way they'd yap!
+The critter would hop along an' look up at me--I never will furgit the
+look in the critter's eyes ez she sot thar an' waited fur the dogs. They
+war in a hurry an' toler'ble lively, I reckon, but they 'peared ter me
+ez slow ez ef ev'y one war weighted with a block an' chain. Waal, the
+hole got bigger an' they yapped louder, an' I got so weak waitin', an'
+fearin' somebody would hear 'em, an' kem ter see 'bout what they hed got
+up fur game, an' find that hole, I didn't know how I could bide it. The
+hole got big enough fur the hounds ter squeeze through, an' hyar they
+kem bouncin' in. They lept round the shop, an' flopped up agin the door,
+so that ef thar hedn't been all that fuss outside 'bout takin' the
+gaynder down, somebody would hev been boun' ter notice it. I hed ter
+wait fur the dogs ter ketch the rabbit an' shake the life out'n her
+'fore I darst move a paig, they kep' up sech a commotion. An' when they
+hed dragged the critter's little carcass outside an' begun fightin' over
+it, I got up. I jes' could sheffle along a leetle bit; that eternally
+cussed scoundrel, Gid Fletcher----'
+
+He paused.
+
+It was beyond the power of language to express the deep damnation he
+desired for the blacksmith. His face grew scarlet, the tears started to
+his angry eyes. How he pitied himself, remembering his hard straits, and
+his cruel indignities! And how she pitied him!
+
+He caught his breath, and went on:
+
+'That black-hearted devil hed tied my feet so close I could sca'cely
+hobble, an' my hands an' wrists hed all puffed an' swelled up, whar the
+cords had been--'twar the sher'ff ez gin me the handcuffs. Waal, I tuk
+steps 'bout two inches long till I got 'crost the shop ter the hole.
+Then I jes' flopped down an' croped through. I didn't stan' up outside,
+though 'twar at the back o' the shop an' nobody could see me. Ye know
+the aidge o' the bluff ain't five feet from the shop; the cliff's ez
+sheer ez a wall, but thar's a ledge 'bout twenty feet down. It looked
+mighty narrer, an' thar warn't no vines ter swing by; but I jes' hed ter
+think o' them devils on t'other side the shop ter make me willin' ter
+resk it. Waal, thar war a clump o' sass'fras--ye know the bark's
+tough--near the aidge. I jes' bruk one o' the shoots ter the root an'
+turned it down over the aidge o' the bluff an' swung on ter the e-end
+o' it. Waal, it tore off in my hands, but I didn't fall more'n a few
+feet, an' lighted on the ledge. An' I tossed the saplin' away, an' then
+I walked--steps 'bout'n two inches long, ef that--ez fur ez the ledge
+went, cornsider'ble way from the Settlemint, an' 'twar two or three
+hundred feet ter the bottom, whar I stopped. An' thar war a niche thar
+whar I could sit an' lay down, sorter. Thar I bided all night. I hearn
+'em huntin', an' it made me laff. I knowed they warn't a-goin' ter find
+me, but I didn't know how I war a-going' ter git away from thar with
+them handcuffs on, an' ropes 'roun' my legs; they war knotted so ez I
+couldn't reach 'em fur the irons. I waited all nex' day, though I never
+hed nuthin' ter eat but some jew-berries ez growed 'mongst the rocks
+thar. An' the nex' morn'n','--his eye dilated with triumph--'the
+swellin' o' my wrists hed gone down, an' I could draw my hands out'n the
+handcuffs ez easy ez lyin'.'
+
+He held up his hands; they were small for his size, and bore little
+token of hard work; the wrists were supple.
+
+'An' then,' he said, with brisk conclusiveness, 'I jes' ontied the ropes
+'roun' my feet an' clumb up ter the top o' the mounting by vines an'
+sech, an' struck inter the laurel, an' never stopped a-travellin' till I
+got ter Cayce's still.'
+
+He drew a long sigh not unmixed with pleasure. He had a sense of
+achievement. It gave, perhaps, a certain value to his harsh experience
+to recount his triumph to so fair an audience. He was looking at her
+with a dawning smile in his eyes, and she was silently looking at him.
+Suddenly she burst into sobs.
+
+'Shucks, D'rindy, it's all over an' done now,' he said, appropriating
+the soft sympathy of her tears.
+
+'An' I'm so glad, Rick; so glad fur that. I'd hev bartered my hope o'
+heaven fur it,' she sobbed. 'But I war thinkin' that minit o' the
+pa'son. They 'rested him in his pulpit, an' they wouldn't gin him bail,
+an' they kerried him 'way from the mountings, an' jailed him, an' he'll
+go ter the pen'tiary, ten year mebbe, fur a crime ez he never done. Ye
+wouldn't let him do that ef ye could holp it, would ye, Rick?'
+
+She looked up tearfully at him. His eyes gleamed; his nostrils were
+quivering; every fibre in him responded to his anger.
+
+'Ef I could, D'rindy Cayce, I'd hev that man chained in the lowest pits
+o' hell fur all time, so ye mought never see his face agin. An' ef I
+could, I'd wipe his mem'ry off'n the face o' the yearth, so ye mought
+never speak his name.'
+
+'Law, Rick Tyler, don't!' protested the girl, aghast. 'I've seen ye ez
+jealous o' Amos Jeemes----'
+
+'I don't keer _that_ fur Amos Jeemes!' he exclaimed, snapping his
+fingers. 'I hevn't seen ye sit an' cry over Amos Jeemes, an' sech
+cattle, an' say he war like a prophet. I thought ye war thinkin' 'bout
+_me_, an'--an'----'
+
+He paused in mortification.
+
+'D'rindy,' he said, suddenly calm, though his eye was excited and
+quickly glancing, 'did ye ax him ef he would do ennything fur me when I
+war in cust'dy?'
+
+'Naw,' said Dorinda, 'nobody could do nuthin' fur you-uns, 'kase they'd
+hev ter resk tharselfs an' run agin the law. But what I want ye ter do
+fur pa'son air fur jestice. He never done what he war accused of. An' ye
+_war_ along o' Abednego Tynes, though innercent. Law, Rick, ef the
+murderer would say the word ter set ye free, can't ye do ez much fur the
+pa'son, ez hev seen so much trouble a'ready?'
+
+'In the name o' Gawd, D'rindy, what air you-uns a-wantin' me ter do?' he
+asked, in sheer amazement.
+
+She mistook the question for relenting. She caressed his coat sleeve as
+she stood beside him. All her beauty was overcast; her face was stained
+with weeping; tears dimmed her eyes, and her pathetic gesture of
+insistence seemed forlorn. He looked down dubiously at her.
+
+'What I want ye ter do, Rick, fur him, air right, an' law, an' jestice.
+Nobody could hev done that fur ye, 'cept Abednego Tynes. I want yer ter
+go ter pa'son's trial fur the rescue, an' gin yer testimony, an' tell
+the jedge an' jury the tale ye hev tole me--the truth--an' they'll be
+obleeged ter acquit.'
+
+He flung away in a tumult of rage. It was exhausting to witness how his
+frequent gusts of passion shook him.
+
+'D'rindy,' he thundered, 'ye want me ter gin myself up fur the pa'son;
+ye don't keer nuthin' fur me, so he gits back ter the Big Smoky an'
+you-uns. I mought be arrested yit on the same indictment; the nolle
+prosequi don't hender--it jes' don't set no day fur me ter be tried. An'
+mebbe Steve Byers hev been foolin' me some. Ye jes' want ter trade me
+off ter the State fur the pa'son.'
+
+'Ye shan't go!' cried the girl. 'I didn't know that about the nolle
+prosequi. Ye shan't go!'
+
+He was mollified for a moment. He noticed again how pale she was.
+
+'Law, D'rindy,' he said, 'ye fairly wear yerself out with yer tantrums.
+Whyn't ye do like other folks; the pa'son never holped me none, an' I
+ain't got no call ter holp him.'
+
+'Ef ye war ter go afore the Squair an' swear 'bout'n the rescue an'
+sech, an' git him ter write it ter the Court fur the pa'son----'
+
+'The constable o' the deestric' ez hangs 'roun' thar at the jestice's
+house mought be thar an' arrest me,' he said speciously. 'The gov'nor
+hain't withdrawn that reward yit, ez I knows on.'
+
+'Naw,' she said quickly, 'I'll make the boys toll the constable down ter
+the still till ye git through. The jestice air lame, an' ain't able ter
+arrest ye, an' I'd be thar an' gin ye the wink, ef thar war ennything
+oncommon ennywhar, or enny men aroun'.'
+
+He could hardly refuse. He could not affect fear. He hesitated.
+
+'Ez long ez I thunk he hed rescued ye, I didn't hev no call ter move.
+But now I know how 'twar, I'd fairly die ef he war lef' ter suffer in
+jail, knowin' he hev done nuthin' agin the law.'
+
+Her lip quivered. The tears started to her eyes. The sight of them, shed
+for another man's sake, excited again the vigilant jealousy in his
+breast.
+
+'I'll do nuthin' fur Hi Kelsey,' he declared. 'Ef ye ain't in love with
+him, ye would be ef he war ter git back ter the Big Smoky. He done
+nuthin' fur me, an' I hev no call ter do nuthin' fur him.'
+
+He looked furiously at her, holding her at arm's length.
+
+'Ye hev tole me ye love _me_, an' I expec' ye ter live up ter it. Ye hev
+promised ter marry me, an' I claim ye fur my wife. Say that man's name
+another time, an' I'll kill him, ef ever he gits in rifle range agin.
+I'll kill him! I'll kill him!' his right hand was once more mechanically
+toying with the pistol, while he held her arm with the other, 'an' I'll
+kill ye, too!'
+
+He had gone too far; he had touched the dominant impulse of her nature.
+Her cheeks were flaring. Her courage blazed in her eyes.
+
+'An' I tell ye, Rick Tyler, that I am not afeard o' ye! An' if ye let a
+man suffer fur a word ez ye can say in safety, an' an act ez ye kin do
+in ease, ye ain't the Rick Tyler I knowed--ye air suthin' else. I 'lowed
+ye war good, but mebbe I hev been cheated in ye, an' ef I hev, I'll gin
+ye up. I ain't a-goin' ter marry no man ez I can't look up ter, an' say
+"he air _good_!" An' ef ye'll meet me a hour 'fore sundown, at the
+Squair's house, ter-morrow evenin', I'll b'lieve in ye, an' I'll marry
+ye. An' ef ye don't, I won't.'
+
+She caught up his hat and gave it to him. Then she opened the door. The
+white mists stood shivering in the little porch.
+
+He turned and looked in angry dismay at her resolute face. But he did
+not say a word, though he knew her heart yearned for it beneath her
+inflexible mask.
+
+He walked slowly out, and the door closed upon him, and upon the
+shivering white mists. He paused for a moment, hesitating.
+
+He heard nothing within--not even her retreating step. He knew as well
+as if he had seen her that she was leaning against the door, silently
+sobbing her heart out.
+
+'D'rindy needs a lesson,' he said sternly. And so he went out into the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+
+The rain ceased the next day, but the clouds did not vanish. Their
+folds, dense, opaque, impalpable, filled the vastness. The landscape was
+lost in their midst. The horizon had vanished. Distance was annihilated.
+
+Only a yard or so of the path was seen by Dorinda, as she plodded along
+through the white vagueness that had absorbed the familiar world. And
+yet for all essentials she saw quite enough; in her ignorant fashion she
+deduced the moral, that if the few immediate steps before the eye are
+taken aright, the long lengths of the future will bring you at last
+where you would wish to be.
+
+The reflection sustained her in some sort as she went. She was reluctant
+to acknowledge it even to herself; but she had a terrible fear that she
+had imposed a test that Rick would not endure.
+
+'Ef he air so powerful jealous ez that, ter not holp another man a
+leetle bit, when he knows it can't hurt him none, he air jes' selfish,
+an' nuthin' shorter.'
+
+She paused, looking about her mechanically. The few blackberry bushes,
+almost leafless, stretching out on either hand, were indistinct in the
+mist, and against the dense vapour they had the meagre effect of a hasty
+sketch on a white paper. The trees overhung her, she knew, in the
+invisible heights above; she heard the moisture dripping monotonously
+from their leaves. It was a dreary sound as it invaded the solemn
+stillness of the air.
+
+'An' _I'm_ boun' ter try ter holp him, ef I kin. I know too much, sence
+Rick spoke las' night, ter let me set an' fold my hands in peace. 'Pears
+like ter me ez that thar air all the diff'ence 'twixt humans an' the
+beastis, ter holp one another some. An' ef a human won't, 'pears like
+ter me ez the Lord hev wasted a soul on that critter.'
+
+Despite her logic she stood still; her blue eyes were surcharged with
+shadows as they wistfully turned upward to the sad and sheeted day; her
+lips were grave and pathetic; her blue dress had gleams of moisture here
+and there, and a plaid woollen shawl, faded to the faintest hues, was
+drawn over her dense black hair. She stood and hesitated. She thought of
+the man she loved, and she thought of the word she denied the man in
+prison. Poor Dorinda! to hold the scales of justice unblinded.
+
+'I dunno what ails me ter be 'feared he won't kem!' she said, striving
+to reassure herself; 'an' ennyhow'--she remembered the few immediate
+steps before her taken aright, and went along down the clouded,
+curtained path that was itself an allegory of the future.
+
+The justice's gate loomed up like fate--the poor little palings to be
+the journey's end of hope or despair! A pig, without any appreciation of
+its subtler significance, had in his frequent wallowings at its base
+impaired in a measure its stability. He grunted at the sound of a
+footfall, as if to warn the new-comer that she might step on him.
+Dorinda took heed of the imperative caution, opened the gate gingerly,
+and it only grazed his back. He grunted again, whether in meagre, surly
+approval, or reproof that she had come at all, was hardly to be
+discriminated in his gruff, disaffected tone.
+
+She noticed that the locust leaves, first of all to show the changing
+season, were yellow on the ground; a half-denuded limb was visible in
+the haze. There were late red roses, widely a-bloom, by the doorstep of
+the justice's house--a large double cabin of hewn logs, with a
+frame-inclosed passage between the two rooms. There was glass in the
+windows, for the justice was a man of some means for these parts; and
+she saw behind one of the tiny panes his bald polished head and his
+silver-rimmed spectacles gleaming in animated curiosity. He came
+limping, with the assistance of a heavy cane, to the door.
+
+'Howdy, D'rindy,' he exclaimed cheerfully; 'come in, child. What sort o'
+weather is this?'
+
+In abrupt digression, he looked over her head into the blank vagueness
+of the world. But for the dim light, it might have suggested the empty
+inexpressiveness of the periods before the creation, when 'the earth was
+without form and void.'
+
+'It air toler'ble airish in the fog,' said Dorinda, finding her voice
+with difficulty.
+
+The room into which she was ushered seemed to her limited experience a
+handsome apartment. But somehow the passion of covetousness is an
+untouched spring in the nature of these mountaineers. The idea of
+ownership did not enter into Dorinda's mind as she gazed at the green
+plaster parrot that perched in state on the high mantelpiece. She was
+sensible of its merits as a feature of the domestic landscape at the
+'jestice's house,' precisely as the sight of the distant Chilhowee was
+company in her lonely errands about the mountain. To be deprived of
+either would be like a revulsion of nature. She did not grudge the
+justice his possession, nor did she desire it for herself. She
+entertained a simple admiration for the image, and always looked to see
+it on its lofty perch when she first entered the room.
+
+There were several books piled beside it, which the justice valued more.
+There was, too, a little square looking-glass, in which one might behold
+a distortion of physiognomy. Above all hung a framed picture of General
+Washington crossing the Delaware. The mantelpiece was to the girl a
+museum of curiosities. A rag-carpet covered the floor; there was a
+spinning-wheel in the corner; a bed, too, draped with a gay quilt--a mad
+disportment of red and yellow patchwork, which was supposed to represent
+the rising sun, and was considered a triumph of handicraft. The
+justice's seat was a splint-bottomed chair, which stood near
+a pine table where ink was always displayed--of a pale green
+variety--writing-paper, and a pile of books. The table had a drawer
+which it was difficult to open or shut, and now and then 'the Squair'
+engaged in muscular wrestling with it.
+
+He sat down, with a sigh, and drew forth his red bandana handkerchief
+from the pocket of his brown jeans coat, and polished the top of his
+head, and stared at Dorinda, much marvelling as to her mission. She had
+not, in her primitive experience, attained to the duplicity of a
+subterfuge; she declined the invitation to go into the opposite room,
+where his wife was busy cooking supper, by saying she was waiting for a
+man whom she expected to meet here to explain something to the justice.
+
+'Is it a weddin', D'rindy?' exclaimed the old fellow waggishly.
+
+''Tain't a weddin',' said Dorinda curtly.
+
+'Ye air foolin' me!' he declared, with a jocose affectation of
+inspecting his attire. 'I hev got another coat I always wears ter marry
+a couple, an' ye don't want ter gimme a chance to spruce up, fur fear
+I'll take the shine off'n the groom. It's a weddin'! Who is the happy
+man, D'rindy?'
+
+This jesting, as appropriate, according to rural etiquette, to a young
+and pretty woman as the compliments of the season, seemed a dreary sort
+of fun to Dorinda, so heavy had her presaging heart become. There was a
+trifle of sensibility in the old Squire, perhaps induced by much
+meditation in his inactive indoor life, and he recognised something
+appealing in the girl's face and attitude, as she sat in a low chair
+before the dull fire that served rather to annul the chilliness of the
+day than to diffuse a perceptible warmth. The shawl had dropped from her
+head and loosely encircled her throat; her hand twisted its coarse
+fringes; she was always turning her face toward the window where only
+the pallid mists might be seen--the pallid mists and a great glowing
+crimson rose, that, motionless, touched the pane with its velvet petals.
+The old justice forbore his jokes, his dignities might serve him better.
+He entertained Dorinda by telling her how many times he had been elected
+to office. And he said he wouldn't count how many times he expected to
+be, for it was his firm persuasion that, 'when Gabriel blew that thar
+old horn o' his'n, he'd find the Squair still a-settin' in jedgment on
+the Big Smoky.' He showed her his books, and told her how the folks at
+Nashville were constrained by the law of the State to send him one every
+time they made new laws. And she understood this as a special and
+personal compliment, and was duly impressed.
+
+Outdoors the still day was dying silently, like the gradual sinking from
+a comatose state, that is hardly life, to the death it simulates. How
+did the gathering darkness express itself in that void whiteness of the
+mists, still visibly white as ever! Night was sifting through them; the
+room was shadowy; yet still in the glow of the fire she beheld their
+pallid presence close against the window. And the red rose was shedding
+its petals!--down dropping, with the richness of summer spent in their
+fleeting beauty, their fragrance a memory, the place they had
+embellished, bereft. She did not reflect; she only felt. She saw the
+rose fade, the sad night steal on apace; the hour had passed, and she
+knew he would not come. She burst into sudden tears.
+
+The old man, whether it was in curiosity or sympathy, had his questions
+justified by her self-betrayal, and his craft easily drew the story from
+her simplicity. He got up suddenly with an expression of keen interest.
+She followed his emotions dubiously, as he took from the mantelpiece a
+tallow dip in an old pewter candlestick, and with slow circumspection
+lighted the sputtering wick.
+
+'I want ter look up a p'int o' law, D'rindy,' he said impressively. 'Ye
+jes' set thar an' I'll let ye know d'rec'ly how the law stands.'
+
+It seemed to Dorinda a long time that he sat with his book before him on
+the table, his spectacles gleaming in the light of the tallow dip, close
+at hand, his lips moving as he slowly read beneath his breath, now and
+then clutching his big red handkerchief, and polishing off the top of
+his round head and his wrinkled brow. Twice he was about to close the
+book. Twice he renewed his search.
+
+And now at last it was small comfort to Dorinda to know that the
+affidavit would not, in the justice's opinion, have been competent
+testimony. He called it an _ex parte_ statement, and said that unless
+Rick Tyler's deposition were taken in the regular way, giving due notice
+to the attorney-general, it could not be admitted, and that in almost
+all criminal cases witnesses were compelled to testify _vivâ voce_.
+Small comfort to Dorinda to know that the effort was worthless from the
+beginning, and that on it she had staked and lost the dearest values of
+her life. As he read aloud the prosy, prolix sentences, they were
+annotated by her sobs.
+
+'Dell-law! D'rindy, 'twarn't no good, nohow!' he exclaimed, presently,
+breaking off with an effort from his reading, for he relished the rotund
+verbiage--the large freedom of legal diction impressed him as a
+privilege, accustomed as he was only to the simple phrasings of his
+simple neighbours. He could not understand her disappointment. Surely
+Rick Tyler's defection could not matter, he argued, since the affidavit
+would have been worthless.
+
+She did not tell him more. All the world was changed to her.
+Nothing--not her lover himself--could ever make her see it as once it
+was. She declined the invitation to stay and eat supper, and soon was
+once more out in the pallid mist and the contending dusk. The scene that
+she had left was still vivid in her mind, and she looked back once at
+the lucent yellow square of the lighted window gleaming through the
+white vapours. The rose-bush showed across the lower panes, and she
+remembered the melancholy fall of the flower.
+
+Alas, the roses all were dead!
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+
+It was not so dreary in the dark depths of the cavern as in the still
+white world without; and the constable of the district, one Ephraim
+Todd, found the flare of the open furnace and the far-reaching lights,
+red among the glooms, and a perch on an empty barrel, and the warm
+generosities of the jug, a genial transition. Nevertheless he protested.
+
+'You-uns oughter be plumb 'shamed, Pete,' he said, 'ter toll me hyar,
+an' me a off'cer o' the law.'
+
+'Ye hev been hyar often afore, the Lord above knows,' asseverated Pete,
+'an' ye needed mighty little tollin'.'
+
+'But I warn't a off'cer o' the law then,' said the constable, wrestling
+with his official conscience. 'An' I hev tuk a oath an' am under bonds.
+An' hyar I be a-consortin' with law-breakers, an' 'tain't becomin' in a
+off'cer o' the law.'
+
+'Ye ain't tuk no oath, nor entered into no bonds ter keep yer throat ez
+dry ez a limekiln,' retorted Pete. 'Jes' take a swig at that thar jug
+an' hand it over hyar, will ye, an' hold yer jaw.'
+
+Thus readily the official conscience, never rampant, was pacified. The
+constable had formerly been, as Pete said, an _habitué_ of the place,
+but since his elevation to office he had made himself scarce, in
+deference to the promptings of that newly acquired sense of dignity and
+propriety.
+
+Should some chemical process obliterate for a time a leopard's spots,
+consider the satisfaction of the creature to find himself once more
+restored to his natural polka-dots; and such was the complacence of the
+constable, with his artificial conscience evaporated and his heart
+mottled with its native instincts of good and evil. He was glad to be
+back in the enjoyment of the affluent hospitalities of the moonshiner's
+jug.
+
+He was a big, portly fellow, hardly more symmetrical than the barrel
+upon which he was seated. He had an inexhaustible fund of good humour,
+and was not even angry when Pete, in sheer contrariety, told him the
+reason for his enticement to the still.
+
+He said he would be glad enough if Rick Tyler could swear out anything
+that would benefit the parson, and declared that he believed only
+Micajah Green's malice could have compassed his incarceration.
+
+''Cajah inquired o' me whar this place war, Pete,' he said,
+'a-purtendin' like he hed been hyar wunst. But I jes' tole him 'twar ez
+safe ez a unhatched deedie in a aig--an' I batted my eye, jes' so, an'
+he shet up purty quick.'
+
+The gleam from the furnace door showed Pete's own light grey eyes
+intently staring at the visitor, but he said nothing and the matter
+passed.
+
+When the constable's heart was warmed by the brush whisky he understood
+the sensation as happiness, and he translated happiness as a religious
+excitement.
+
+He seemed maudlin as he talked about the parson, who, he declared, had
+led him to grace, and he recited some wonderful stories of religious
+experience, tending to illustrate his present righteousness and the
+depths of iniquity from which he had been redeemed.
+
+Pete's perversity operated to curtail these.
+
+'That's a fac'!' he would heartily assent; 'ye useter be one o' the
+meanes' men on these hyar mountings!' Or 'Grace hed a mighty wrastle
+with Satan in yer soul. I dunno whether he air cast out _yit_!'
+
+The constable--his big owlish head askew--was embarrassed by these
+manoeuvres, and presently the talk drifted to the subject of the
+parson's spiritual defection. This he considered a mental aberration.
+
+'Hi Kelsey,' he said, 'war always more or less teched in the head. I hev
+noticed--an' ye may sot it down ez a true word--ez ev'y man es air much
+smarter'n other men in some ways, in other ways air foolisher. He mought
+prophesy one day, an' the nex' ye wouldn't trest him ter lead a blind
+goose ter water. He air smarter'n enny man I ever see--Pa'son Kelsey
+air. Thar's Brother Jake Tobin ain't got haffen his sense; an' yit
+nobody can't say ez Brother Jake ain't sensible.'
+
+The philosopher upon the barrel, as he made this nice distinction, gazed
+meditatively into the bed of live coals that flung its red glare on his
+broad flushed countenance and wide blinking eyes.
+
+It revealed the others, too: the old man's hard, lined, wrinkled visage
+and his stalwart supple frame; Pete, with his long tangled hair, his
+pipe between his great exposed teeth; Ab, filling the furnace with wood,
+his ragged beard moved by the hot breath of the fire; the big-boned,
+callow Sol, with his petulant, important face; and Ben, in the dim
+background tossing the sticks over to Ab from the gigantic wood pile.
+
+They fell with a sharp sound, and the cave was full of their multiplied
+echoes. The men as they talked elevated their voices so as to be heard.
+
+Ab was rising from his kneeling posture. He closed the furnace door, and
+as it clashed he thought for an instant he was dreaming. In that instant
+he saw Pete start up suddenly with wild, distended eyes, and with a
+levelled pistol in his hand.
+
+The next moment Ab knew what it meant. A sharp report--and a jet of red
+light, projected from the muzzle of the weapon, revealed a group of
+skulking, unfamiliar figures stealthily advancing upon them.
+
+The return fire was almost instantaneous, and was followed by
+multitudinous echoes and a thunderous crash that thrilled every nerve.
+The darkness was filled with the clamours of pandemonium, for the
+concussion had dislodged from the roof a huge fragment of rock, weighing
+doubtless many tons.
+
+The revenue raiders lagged for a moment, confused by the overwhelming
+sound, the clouds of stifling dust, and the eerie aspect of the place.
+They distinguished a sharp voice presently, crying out some imperative
+command, and after that there was no more resistance from the
+moonshiners. They had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them.
+
+The intruders were at a loss. They could not pursue and capture the men
+in the dark. If the furnace door were opened they would be targets in
+the glare for the lurking moonshiners in the glooms beyond. It did not
+occur to them that the cave had another outlet, until, as the echoes of
+the fallen fragment grew faint, they heard far away a voice crying out,
+'Don't leave me!' and the mocking rocks repeating it with their tireless
+mimicry.
+
+It was the constable. He never forgot that agonized retreat down those
+unknown black depths. He was hardly able to keep pace with his swifter
+fellows, falling sometimes, and being clutched to his feet rudely
+enough, as they pressed on in a close squad; feeling now and then the
+sudden wing of a bat against his face and interpreting it as the touch
+of a human pursuer; sometimes despairing, as they scrambled through a
+long, low, narrow passage, scarcely wide enough for the constable's
+comfortable fatness. Then it was that fear descended upon him with
+redoubled force, and he would exclaim in pity of his plight, 'An' me a
+off'cer o' the law!'
+
+He impeded their flight incalculably, but to their credit be it said the
+lighter weights had never a thought of deserting their unfortunate guest
+despite the danger of capture and the distress of mind induced by the
+loss of their little 'all.' The poor constable fitted some of the
+tube-like passages like the pith in the bark, and as he was at last
+drawn, pallid, struggling, his garments in shreds, from an aperture of
+the cave in a dense untrodden jungle of the laurel, he again piteously
+exclaimed, 'An' me a off'cer o' the law!'
+
+There was little leisure, however, to meditate upon his degraded
+dignity. He followed the example of the moonshiners, and ran off through
+the laurel as fleetly as a fat man well could.
+
+The raiders showed excellent judgment. They offered no pursuit down
+those dark and devious underground corridors. Acquiring a sense of
+security from the echoes growing ever fainter and indicative of
+lengthening distances, they presently opened the furnace door, and by
+the aid of the flare cut the tubs and still to pieces, destroyed the
+worm, demolished the furnace, and captured in triumph sundry kegs and
+jugs of the illicit whisky. There was a perfunctory search for the
+distillers at the log cabin on the mountain slope. But the officers made
+haste to be off, for the possibility of rally and recapture is not
+without parallel facts in the annals of moonshining.
+
+Perhaps the mountain wilds had never sheltered a fiercer spirit than old
+Groundhog Cayce when he ventured back into his den and stood over the
+ruins of his scanty fortunes--the remnants of the still; the furnace, a
+pile of smoking stones and ashes and embers; the worm in spiral
+sections; the tubs half burnt, riven in pieces, lying about the ground.
+The smoke was still dense overhead and the hot stones were sending up
+clouds of steam. It was as well, perhaps, since the place would never
+again be free from inspection, that it could not be used as it once was.
+The great fragment of rock, fallen from the roof, lay in the course of
+the subterranean stream, and the water, thus dammed, was overflowing its
+channel and widely spreading a shallow flood all along the familiar
+ground. It was rising. He made haste to secure the few articles
+overlooked by the raiders: a rifle, a powder-horn on one of the ledges
+that served as shelf, a bag of corn, the jovial jug. And for the last
+time he crept through the narrow portal and left the cavern to the dense
+darkness, to the floating smoke, to the hissing embers, and the slow
+rising of the subterranean springs.
+
+For days he nursed his wrath as he sat upon the cabin porch beneath the
+yellow gourds and the purple blooms of the Jack-bean, and gazed with
+unseeing eyes at the wide landscape before him. The sky was blue in
+unparalleled intensity. The great 'balds' towered against it in sharp
+outlines, in definite symmetry, in awful height. The forests were
+aflame with scarlet boughs. The balsams shed upon the air their
+perfumes, so pervasive, so tonic, that the lungs breathed health and all
+the benignities of nature. The horizon seemed to expand, and the
+exquisite lucidity of the atmosphere revealed vague lines of far-away
+mountains unknown to the limitations of less favoured days.
+
+In the woods the acorns were dropping, dropping, all the long hours. The
+yellow sunshine was like a genial enthusiasm, quickening the pulses and
+firing the blood. The hickory trees seemed dyed in its golden
+suffusions, and were a lustrous contrast to the sombre pine, or the
+dappled maple, or the vivid crimson of the black-gum. But the future of
+the year was a narrowing space; the prospects it had brought were
+dwarfed in the fulfilment, or were like an empty clutch at the empty
+air. And winter was afoot; ah, yes, the tenderest things were already
+dead--the flowers and the hopes--and the splendid season cherished in
+its crimson heart a woeful premonition. And thus the winds, blowing
+where they listed, sounded with a melancholy cadence; and the burnished
+yellow sheen was an evanescent light; and the purple haze, vaguely
+dropping down, had its conclusive intimations in despite that it
+loitered.
+
+Dorinda, with her hands folded too, sat much of the time in dreary
+abstraction on the step of the porch, looking down at the yellowed
+corn-field which she and Rick ploughed on that ecstatic June morning.
+How long ago it seemed! Sometimes above it, among the brown tassels,
+there hovered in the air a cluster of quivering points of light against
+the blue mountain opposite, as some colony of gossamer-winged insects
+disported themselves in the sunshine. And the crickets were shrilling
+yet in the grass. She saw nothing, and it would be hard to say what she
+thought. In the brilliancy of her youthful beauty--a matter of linear
+accuracy and delicate chiselling and harmonious colouring, for Nature
+had been generous to her--it might seem difficult to descry a likeness
+to the wrinkled and weather-beaten features of her father's lowering
+face, as he sat in his chair helplessly brooding upon his destroyed
+opportunities. But there was a suggestion of inflexibility in both: she
+had firm lines about her mouth that were hard in his; the unflinching
+clearness of her eyes was a reflection of the unflinching boldness of
+his. Her expression in these days was so set, so stern, so hopeless,
+that one might have said she looked like him. He beheld his ruined
+fortunes; she, her bereft heart.
+
+Amos James, one day, as he stood on the porch, saw this look on her
+face. She was leaning on her folded arms in the window hard by. She had
+spoken to him as absently and with as mechanical courtesy as the old
+moonshiner at the other end of the porch. He came up close to her. It
+was a wonderful contrast to the face she had worn when they talked, that
+day at the spring, of Rick Tyler's escape. With the quickened intuition
+of a lover's heart he divined the connection.
+
+'Ye hain't kep' yer promise, D'rindy,' he said in a low tone.
+
+'What promise?' she demanded, rousing herself and knitting her brows as
+she looked at him.
+
+'Ye 'lowed ye'd let me know ef ever ye kem ter think less o' Rick
+Tyler.'
+
+Her eyes, definitely angry, flashed upon him.
+
+'Ye shan't profit by it,' she declared.
+
+And so he left her, still leaning in the vine-framed window, the lilac
+blossoms of the Jack-bean drooping until they touched her black hair.
+
+Rick Tyler was dismayed by the result of his jealousy and the strange
+'lesson' that Dorinda had learned. He found her inflexible. She reminded
+him sternly of the conditions of her promise and that he had failed. And
+when he protested that he was jealous because he loved her so, she said
+she valued no love that for her sake grudged a word, not in generosity,
+but in simple justice, to liberate an innocent man in the rigours of a
+terrible doom. And when at this man's very name he was seized with his
+accustomed impetuous anger, she looked at him with a cool aloof
+scrutiny that might have expressed a sheer curiosity. It bewildered and
+tamed him. He had never heard of a Spartan. He only thought of her as
+immovable, and as infinitely remote from his plane as the great dome of
+the mountain. He remembered that she had always softened to his
+misfortunes, and he talked of how he had suffered. But she said that was
+all over now, and he had been 'mighty lucky.' He sought to appeal to her
+in her own behalf, and reminded her how she had loved him through it
+all, how she would have married him, despite the fierce pursuit of the
+law. She had loved him; he would not forget that.
+
+'No,' she said drearily. 'I never loved ye. I loved what I thunk ye war.
+But ye warn't that--nuthin' like it! Ye war suthin' else. I war jes' in
+love with my own foolishness.'
+
+Poor Dorinda! Alas, for the fair ideals! these things are transient.
+
+He went away at last, indignant and amazed. Once he thought of offering
+to make the affidavit, not cognizant of its fatal defect, and then the
+conviction took hold upon him that this melancholy was her deep
+disappointment because she loved the man she sought to aid. And
+sometimes he could not believe he had lost her heart. And yet when he
+would go back, her dull indifference to his presence would convince him
+alike that he was naught to her now and that he had been supplanted.
+
+His contradictions of feeling began to crystallize into a persistent
+perversity. He took pleasure in denying the story she had told of his
+escape, and many people hardly knew which version to believe. He
+congratulated Brother Jake Tobin one evening at the cabin on having
+turned Hi Kelsey out of the church, and called him a wolf in sheep's
+clothing.
+
+And then for his pains he was obliged to listen to her defence of the
+absent man; she declared the parson was like one of the prophets--like
+some man in the Bible. As to that confession he had made in the church,
+'twar plain he war out'n his head.'
+
+Meantime Brother Jake Tobin discreetly bent his attention upon the honey
+and fried chicken on the supper table, and Rick Tyler fumed in silence.
+
+After the news of the nolle prosequi, Rick went about the mountain with
+his former large liberty. His step-brothers were desirous of
+obliterating his recollection of their avoidance, and made him a present
+of several head of cattle and some hogs. He lived at home among them,
+and began to have prospects for the future.
+
+He was planning with the younger Cayces to start a new still, for a
+region is particularly safe for that enterprise immediately after a
+visit from the revenue officers, their early return being improbable.
+And he talked about a house-raising while the weather held fine, and
+before snow.
+
+'I'm a-thinkin' 'bout gittin' married, Pete, ter a gal over yander ter
+the Settlemint,' he said, looking for the effect on Dorinda.
+
+She was as silent, as stern, as listless as ever. And but for the sheer
+futility of it, he might have fallen to upbraiding her and protesting
+and complaining as of yore, and repudiated the mythical 'gal at the
+Settlemint.'
+
+All the leaves were falling. Crisp and sere they carpeted the earth and
+fled before the wind. They seemed in some wise to illumine the slopes as
+they lay in long yellow vistas under the overhanging black boughs. Many
+a nest was revealed--empty, swinging on the bare limb.
+
+The mountains near at hand were sad and sombre, the stark denuded
+forests showing the brown ground among the trees, and great jutting
+crags, and sterile stretches of out-cropping rocks, and fearful abysmal
+depths of chasms--and streams, too, madly plunging. All the scene was
+stripped of the garb of foliage, and the illusion of colour, and the
+poetry of the song birds and the flowers.
+
+More distant ranges were of a neutral vagueness, and farther still they
+seemed a nebulous grey under a grey sky. When the sun shone they were
+blue--a faint, unreal blue, a summer souvenir clinging to the wintry
+landscape like some youthful trait continued in a joyless age.
+
+For it was November, and the days were drear.
+
+About this time an excited rumour suddenly prevailed that Parson Kelsey
+had returned to the Great Smoky Mountains.
+
+It was widely discredited at first, but proved to be authorized by Gid
+Fletcher, who was himself just back from Shaftesville, where he had been
+to testify in the trial for the rescue of Rick Tyler. A story of
+discomfiture he retailed, and he seemed ill at ease and prone to lay
+much blame on Rick, whose perverse circulation of diverse accounts of
+the escape had greatly unnerved him before his journey, and prevented
+the prosecution from summoning Rick as a witness, if indeed he would
+have permitted himself to be served with the subpoena.
+
+The judge was testy during the trial, and charged the jury in favour of
+the prisoner; after the verdict of acquittal, he stated indignantly that
+there had been practically no evidence against the defendant, and that
+it was a marked instance of the indifference or ignorance of the
+committing magistrate and the grand jury that such a case of flagrant
+malice could get beyond them and into the jurisdiction of the court.
+
+Gid Fletcher solaced himself by telling how Green played the fool on the
+stand when the judge snarled at him, and contradicted himself and cut a
+'mighty pore figger.'
+
+'Though ez ter that, the pa'son riz up an' reviled both me an' 'Cajah in
+open court,' said Fletcher. ''Pears like he hed read the Bible so
+constant jes' ter l'arn ev'y creepy soundin' curse ez could be called
+down on the heads o' men. An' somebody said ter the jedge arterward ez
+he oughter fine pa'son fur contempt o' court. An' the jedge 'lowed he
+warn't a statute; he hed some human natur in him, an' he wanted me an'
+'Cajah ter hear the truth spoke one time.'
+
+The blacksmith declared, too, that he was 'fairly afeard o' pa'son' and
+his fierce threats of revenge, and was glad enough that they were not
+obliged to make the journey together, for he, having a horse, had
+ridden, while the parson had been constrained to walk.
+
+'I reckon he's hyar by this time,' Fletcher said to Nathan Hoodendin,
+'but I ain't a-hankerin' ter meet up with him agin. He's more like a
+wild beastis 'na man; ter see him cut his blazin' eye aroun' at ye,
+ye'd 'low ez he'd never hearn o' grace!'
+
+The snow came with Kelsey.
+
+One day, when the dull dawn broke, the white flakes were softly
+falling--silent, mysterious, ghostly invasion of the wild wintry air and
+the woods. All adown chasms and ravines, unexplored and unknown, the
+weird palpitating motion animated the wide and desert spaces. The ground
+was deeply covered; the drifts filled the hollows; they burdened the
+crests of the jutting crags and found a lodgment in all the fissures of
+their dark and rugged faces. The white lines on the bare black boughs
+served to discriminate their sylvan symmetry. Vague solemnities pervaded
+the silent marshalling of these forces of Nature.
+
+The wind held its breath. An austere hush lay upon the chilled world.
+The perspective had its close limitations and the liberties of vision
+were annulled. Only the wild things were abroad; but the footprints of
+the rabbit or the deer were freshly filled, and the falling snow seemed
+to possess the world. When it ceased at last, it lay long on the ground,
+for the cold continued. And the wilderness was sheeted and still.
+
+There were presently visible occasional ruts winding in and out among
+the trees, marking the course of the road and the progress of some
+adventurous waggon and ox-team--sometimes, too, the hoof-prints of a
+saddle-horse. One might easily judge how few of the mountaineers had
+ventured out since the beginning of the 'cold snap.' These marks were
+most numerous in front of the log-house where Hiram Kelsey and his uncle
+and the two old men sat around the fire. There was a prevalent curiosity
+as to how the parson had endured the double humiliation of imprisonment
+and being cast out of the church. They were hardly prepared for the
+tempestuous fury which animated him upon the mention of the prosecution
+and the witnesses' names. But when hesitating inquiries were propounded
+by those of his visitors disposed to controversy--seeking to handle his
+heresies and gauge his infidelity--he would fall from the ecstasies of
+rage to a dull despondency.
+
+'I dunno,' he would say, looking into the heart of the red fire. 'I
+can't sati'fy my mind. Some things in the Bible air surely set
+contrariwise. I can't argyfy on 'em. But thar's one thing I kin
+_feel_--Christ the Lord liveth. An' sometimes that seems doctrine
+enough. An' mebbe some day I'll find Him.'
+
+A thaw came on, checked by a sudden freeze. He thought it as cold as
+ever one afternoon about sunset as he trudged along the road. He saw a
+tiny owl, perched in a cedar-tree hard by the rail-fence. The creature's
+feathers were ruffled, and it looked chill. The atmosphere was of a
+crystalline clearness. The mountains in the east had dropped the snow
+from the darkling pines, but above, the towering balds rose in unbroken
+whiteness, imposed in onyx-like distinctness upon the azure sky. There
+were vague suggestions of blue and violet and rose on the undulations of
+the steep, snow-covered slopes close at hand. The crags were begirt with
+icicles, reaching down many feet and brilliant with elusive prismatic
+glimmers. He heard a sudden crash: a huge scintillating pendant had
+fallen by its own weight. Chilhowee stood massive and richly purple
+beyond the snowy valley; above was a long stretch of saffron sky, and in
+its midst the red sun was going down. He stood to watch its fiery disc
+slip behind the mountains, and then he turned and pursued his way
+through the neutral-tinted twilight of the wintry evening.
+
+Old Cayce's log-cabin rose up presently, dark and drear against the high
+and snowy slopes behind it. The drifts still lay thatch-like on the
+roof; the eaves were fringed with icicles. The overhanging trees were
+cased in glittering icy mail. The blackened corn-stalks, left standing
+in the field as is the habit until next spring's ploughing should
+begin, were writhen and bent, and bore gaunt witness to the devastation
+of the winter wind. The smoke was curling briskly from the chimney, and
+as the door opened to his knock, the great fire of hickory and ash,
+sending up yellow and blue flames all tipped with vivid scarlet, cast a
+genial flare upon the snowy landscape, slowly darkening without. He
+experienced a sudden surprise as his eye fell upon old man Cayce, the
+central figure of the group, having heard stories of the moonshiner's
+deep depression, consequent upon the disastrous raid, and of the apathy
+into which he had fallen. They hardly seemed true. He sat erect in his
+chair, his supple frame alert, his eye intent, every fibre charged with
+energy, his face deeply flushed. He looked expectant, eager. His
+stalwart sons sat with him in a semicircle about the wide, warm hearth.
+All their pipes were freshly alight, for the evening meal was just
+concluded. They, too, wore an aspect of repressed excitement.
+
+Kelsey detected it in their abstraction during the formal greetings, and
+when he was seated among them, ever and anon they shifted uneasily in
+their chairs, which grated harshly on the puncheon floor. Sometimes
+there sounded a faint jingling of spurs when they moved their feet on
+the ill-adjusted stones of the hearth. They had their pistols in their
+belts and perchance their lives in their hands. His admission was in
+some sort a confidence, but although he marvelled, he said nothing.
+
+The bare and humble furnishing of the room was very distinct in the rich
+glow--the few chairs, the shelves with the cooking utensils, the churn,
+a chest, the warping-bars, the spinning-wheel; and their simple domestic
+significance seemed at variance with the stern and silent armed men
+grouped about the fire.
+
+A vibrant sound--one of the timbers had sprung in the cold. Soloman rose
+precipitately.
+
+'Nuthin', Sol, nuthin',' said the old man testily. 'Tain't nigh time
+yit.'
+
+Nevertheless Sol opened the door. The chill air rushed in. The yellow
+flames bowed and bent fantastically before it. Outside the gibbous moon
+hung in the sky, and the light, solemn, ghostly, pervaded with pallid
+mysteries the snowy vistas of the dense, still woods. The shadow of the
+black boughs lay in distinct tracery upon the white surface; there was a
+vague multiplication of effect, and the casual glance could ill
+distinguish the tree from its semblance. Vacant of illusions was the
+winding road--silent, and empty, and white, its curve visible from the
+fireplace through the black rails of the zigzag fence. Hiram Kelsey
+caught a glimpse, too, of the frosty dilations of a splendid star; then
+the door closed and Sol came back with jingling spurs to his seat by the
+fireside.
+
+'Be you-uns satisfied?' demanded Pete with a sneer.
+
+Sol, abashed, said nothing, and once more the ominous silence descended,
+all moodily watching the broad and leaping flames and the pulsating
+coals beneath.
+
+Somehow the geniality of the fire suggested another bright and dominant
+presence that was wont in some sort to illumine the room.
+
+'Whar be D'rindy?' asked Kelsey suddenly.
+
+'Waal--D'rindy,' said Ab, the eldest of the sons, evidently withdrawing
+his mind with an effort, 'she hev gone ter Tuckaleechee Cove, ter holp
+nuss Aunt Jerushy's baby. It's ailin', an' bein' ez it air named arter
+D'rindy, she sets store by it, an' war powerful tormented ter hear how
+the critter war tuk in its stummick. She kerried Jacob along, too, 'kase
+she 'lows she hankers arter him when she's away, an' she makes out ez
+we-uns cross him in his temper, 'thout she air by ter pertect him. I war
+willin' 'kase it air peacefuller hyar without Jacob 'n with him--though
+he air my own son, sech ez he be. An' D'rindy hev pompered him till he
+air ez prideful ez a tur-r-key gobbler, an' jes' about ez
+cornsiderate.'
+
+'She lef' Mirandy Jane an' me,' said Pete, facetiously showing his great
+teeth.
+
+'Waal,' said the old man, speaking with his grave excited eyes still on
+the fire. 'I be toler'ble glad ez D'rindy tuk this time ter leave home
+fur a few days, 'kase she hev been toler'ble ailin' an' droopy. An'
+t'other day some o' the boys got ter talkin' 'bout'n how sure they be ez
+'twar 'Cajah Green--dad-burn the critter!--ez gin the revenue hounds the
+word whar our still war hid. An' D'rindy, she jes' tuk a screamin' fit,
+an' performed an' kerried on like she war bereft o' reason. An' she got
+down old Betsy thar'--pointing to a rifle on the rack--'ez Pete hed made
+her draw a mark on it ter remember 'Cajah Green by, an' his word ez he'd
+jail her some day, an' she wanted me and the boys ter swear on it ez
+we-uns would never shoot him.'
+
+'An' did you-uns swear sech?' asked Hiram Kelsey, in fierce reprobation.
+
+Beneath the broad brim of his hat his eyes were blazing; their large
+dilated pupils cancelled the iris and the idea of colour; they were
+coals of fire. His shadowed face was set and hard; it bore a presage of
+disappointment--and yet he was doubtful.
+
+Pete turned and looked keenly at him.
+
+'Waal,' said the old man, embarrassed, and in some sort mortified,
+'D'rindy, ye see, war ailin', an', an'--I never hed but that one darter
+an' sech a pack o' sons, an' it 'pears like she _oughter_ be
+humoured--an'----'
+
+'Ye w-wants him shot, hey, pa'son?' Pete interrupted his critical study
+of the unconscious subject.
+
+Kelsey's eyes flashed.
+
+'I pray that the Lord may cut him off,' he said.
+
+'Waal, the Lord ain't obleeged ter use a rifle,' said Pete pertinently.
+'Even we-uns kin find more ways than that.'
+
+'The pa'son mought ez well go along an' holp,' said Groundhog Cayce.
+
+Kelsey turned his eyes in blank inquiry from the old man to Pete by his
+side.
+
+'We air a-layin' fur him now,' Pete explained.
+
+'He hain't been so delivered over by the Lord ez ter kem agin, arter
+informin' the raiders, inter the Big Smoky?' Kelsey asked, forgetting
+himself for the moment, and aghast at the doomed man's peril.
+
+Pete tapped his head triumphantly.
+
+'Tain't stuffed with cotton wool,' he declared. 'We let on ter the
+mounting ez we never knowed who done it. An' we jes' laid low, an' held
+our tongues betwixt our teeth, when we hearn 'bout'n his 'quirin' round
+'bout'n the still, from this'n an' that'n, d'rectly arter the 'lection.
+We got him beat fur that, jes' 'count o' what he said ter D'rindy,
+'kase she wouldn't g-g-gin her cornsent ter shootin' him, an' got dad
+set so catawampus, he obeyed her like Jacob wouldn't fur nuthin'.
+An''--with rising emphasis--'th-th-the blamed critter 'lows he lef' no
+tracks an' ain't been found out yit! An' hyar he be on the Big Smoky
+agin, a-finishin' up some onsettled business with his old office. I seen
+him yander ter the Settlemint, an' talked with him frien'ly an'
+familiar, along o' Gid Fletcher, an' fund out when he war ter start down
+ter Eskaqua Cove, ter bide all night at Tobe Grimes's house.'
+
+'But--but--ef they never tole him--surely none o' 'em told him'--argued
+Kelsey breathlessly.
+
+Pete showed his long teeth.
+
+'Somebody tole him,' he said, with a fierce smile. 'H-h-he couldn't git
+the mounting ter t-t-turn agin we-uns; they war _afeard_!' cynically
+discriminating the motive. 'So he kem nosin' roun' 'mongst our
+c-c-chillen--the little chillen, ez didn't know what they war a-tellin'
+an' Jacob tole him whar the cave war, an' 'bout haulin' the apples fur
+pomace. Jacob war the man, fur Mirandy Jane hearn him say it. She hed
+seen 'Cajah Green afore, when he war sher'ff.'
+
+It was a palpable instance of bad faith and imposition, and it tallied
+well with Hiram Kelsey's own wrongs. He sat brooding upon them, and
+looking at the fire with dulled meditative eyes. One of the logs, burnt
+in twain, broke with a crash under the burden of the others, and the
+fire, quickening about them, sent up myriads of sparks attendant upon
+the freshening flames; among the pulsating red coals there were dazzling
+straw-tinted gleams, and a vista of white heat that repelled the eye.
+
+Outside the wind was rising--its voice hollow, keen, and shrill as it
+swept over the icy chasms; the trees were crashing their bare boughs
+together. It was a dreary sound. From far away came the piercing howl of
+some prowling hungry wolf, familiar enough to the ears that heard it,
+but its ravening intimations curdled the blood. A cock's crow presently
+smote the air, clear and resonant as a bugle, and with a curse on
+tardiness the impatient Sol once more rose and opened the door to look
+out.
+
+A change was impending. Clouds had come with the wind, from the west to
+meet the moon. Though tipped with the glint of silver, the black portent
+was not disguised. Rain or snow, it mattered not which. The young
+mountaineer held the door open to show the darkening sky and the
+glittering earth, and looked over his shoulder with a triumphant
+glance.
+
+'That will settle the footprints,' he said.
+
+There was something so cruel in his face, so deadly in his eyes, a
+ferocious satisfaction in the promised security so like the savage joy
+of a skulking beast, that it roused a normal impulse in the breast of
+the man who read the thoughts of his fellow-men like an open book.
+Kelsey was himself again.
+
+He raised his hand suddenly, with an imperative gesture.
+
+'Listen ter me!' he said, with that enthusiasm kindling in his eyes
+which they honoured sometimes as the light of religion, and sometimes
+reviled as frenzy. 'Ye'll repent o' yer deeds this night! An' the
+jedgmint o' the Lord will foller ye! Yer father's grey hairs will go
+down in sorrow ter the grave, but his mind will die before his body. An'
+some of you-uns will languish in jail, an' know the despair o' the bars.
+An' he that is bravest 'mongst ye will mark how his shadder dogs him.
+An' ye will strike yer hands tergether, an' say, "That the day hed never
+dawned, that the night hed never kem fur we-uns!" An' ye'll wisht ye hed
+died afore! An' but for the coward in the blood, ye would take yer own
+life then! An' ye'll look at the grave before ye, an' hope ez it all
+ends thar!'
+
+His eyes blazed. He had risen to his feet in the intensity of his
+fervour. And whether it was religion or whether it was lunacy it
+transfigured him.
+
+They had all quailed before him, half overborne by the strength of his
+emotion, and half in deprecation, because of their faith in his
+mysterious foreknowledge. But as he turned, pushed back his chair, and
+hastily started toward the door, they lost the impression. Pete first
+recovered himself.
+
+'Wh-wh-whar be you-uns a-goin'?' he demanded roughly.
+
+The parson turned fiercely. He thrust out his hand with a gesture of
+repudiation, and once more he lifted the latch.
+
+'Naw, ye ain't g-g-goin',' said Pete, with cool decision, throwing
+himself against the door. 'Ye hev sot 'mongst we-uns an' h-hearn our
+plans. Ye 'peared ter gin yer cornsent w-when dad said ye could go
+'long. Dad thought ye'd like ter hev a s-sheer in payin' yer own grudge.
+We hev tole ye what we hev tole no other livin' man. An' now ye hev got
+ter hev our reason ter h-h-hold yer yaw. I don't like ter s-shoot a man
+down under our own roof ez kem hyar frien'ly, but ef ye fools with that
+thar latch agin, I reckon I'll be obleeged ter do it.'
+
+If Pete Cayce had possessed an acute discrimination in the reading of
+faces, he might have interpreted Kelsey's look as a pondering dismay;
+the choice offered him was to do murder or to die! As it was, Pete only
+noted the relinquishment of the parson's design when he sat down silent
+and abstracted before the fire.
+
+But for his deep grudge, it might have seemed that Kelsey had intended
+to forewarn Micajah Green of the danger in the path, and to turn him
+back. Pete did not feel entirely reassured until after he had said:
+
+'I 'lowed ez ye s-s-swore ye fairly _de_-spise 'Cajah G-G-Green, an'
+r-raged ter git even with him.'
+
+'I furgits it sometimes,' rejoined Kelsey.
+
+And Pete did not apprehend the full meaning of the words.
+
+'An' don't do no more o' yer prophesyin' ter-night, Hiram,' said the old
+man irritably. 'It fairly gins me the ager to hear sech talk.'
+
+The night wore on. The fire roared; the men, intently listening, sat
+around the hearth.
+
+Now and then a furtive glance was cast at Hiram Kelsey. He seemed lost
+in thought, but his eye glittered with that uninterpreted, inscrutable
+light, and they were vaguely sorry that he had come among them.
+
+They took scant heed of his reproach. It has been so long the unwritten
+law of moonshiners that the informer shall perish as the consequence of
+his malice and his rashness, that whatever normal moral sense they
+possess is in subjection to their arbitrary code of justice and the
+savage custom of the region.
+
+The mysterious disappearance of a horse-thief or a revenue spy,
+dramatically chronicled, with a wink and a significant grin, as 'never
+hearn on no more,' or 'fund dead in the road one mornin',' affects the
+mountaineers much as the hangman's summary in the Friday evening papers
+impresses more law-abiding communities--shocking, but necessary.
+
+The great fire was burnt to a mass of coals. The wind filled the ravines
+with a tumult of sound. The bare woods were in wild commotion. The gusts
+dashed upon the roof snow, perhaps, or sleet, or vague drizzling rain;
+now discontinued, now coming again with redoubled force.
+
+Suddenly, a growl from the dogs under the house; then the sound of a
+crunching hoof in the snow.
+
+The men sallied forth, swift and silent as shadows. There was a frantic
+struggle in the road; a wild cry for help; a pistol fired wide of the
+mark, the report echoing in the silence from crag to crag, from chasm to
+chasm, with clamorous iteration, as if it would alarm the world. The
+horses were ready. The men hastily threw themselves into the saddle.
+
+It had been arranged that Kelsey, who had no horse, should ride before
+the prisoner.
+
+He mounted, drew about his own waist the girth which bound the doomed
+man, buckling it securely, and the great grey horse was in the centre of
+the squad.
+
+Micajah Green begged as they went--begged as only a man can for his
+life. He denied, he explained, he promised.
+
+'Ye cotton ter puttin' folks in jail, 'Cajah! Yer turn now! We'll put ye
+whar the dogs won't bite ye,' said the old man savagely.
+
+And the rest said never a word.
+
+The skies were dark, the mountain wilds awful in their immensity, in
+their deep obscurities, in the multitudinous sounds of creaking boughs
+and shrilling winds.
+
+They were in the dense laurel at last. The branches, barbed with ice,
+and the evergreen leaves, burdened with snow, struck sharply in their
+faces as they forced their way through.
+
+The swift motion had chilled them; icicles clung to their hair and
+beard; each could hardly see the dark figures of the others in the dense
+umbrageous undergrowth as they recognised the spot they sought and
+called a halt.
+
+It was the mouth of the cave; they could hear the sound of the dark cold
+water as it rippled in the vaulted place where the dammed current rose
+now half way to the roof.
+
+Their wretched prisoner, understanding this fact and the savage
+substitute for the rifle, made a despairing struggle.
+
+'Lemme git a holt of him, Hi,' said Pete, his teeth chattering, his
+numbed arms stretched up in the darkness to lay hold on his victim.
+
+'Hyar he be,' gasped the parson.
+
+There was another frantic struggle as they tore the doomed man from the
+horse; a splash, a muffled cry--he was cast headlong into the black
+water. A push upon a great boulder hard by--it fell upon the cavity with
+a crash, and all hope of egress was barred.
+
+Then, terrorized themselves, the men mounted their horses; each, fleeing
+as if from pursuit, found his way as best he might out of the dark
+wilderness.
+
+One might not know what they felt that night when the rain came down on
+the roof. One might not dare to think what they dreamed.
+
+The morning broke, drear and clouded, and full of rain, and hardly less
+gloomy than the night. The snow, tarnished and honeycombed with dark
+cellular perforations, was melting and slipping down the ravines. The
+gigantic icicles encircling the crags fell now and then with a
+resounding crash. The drops from the eaves dripped monotonously into the
+puddles below. The roof leaked. Sol's bridle-hand had been frozen the
+night before in the long swift ride.
+
+But the sun came out again; the far mountains smiled in a blue vagueness
+that was almost a summer garb. The relics of the snow exhaled a silvery
+haze that hung airily about the landscape. Only the immaculate whiteness
+of those lofty regions of the balds withstood the thaw, and coldly
+glittered in wintry guise.
+
+A strange sensation thrilled through the fireside group one of these
+mornings when Amos James came up from the mill, and as he smoked with
+them asked suddenly, all unaware of the tragedy, 'What ailed 'Cajah
+Green ter leave the Big Smoky in sech a hurry?'
+
+'Wh-wh-at d'ye mean?' growled Pete in startled amaze.
+
+And then Amos James, still unconscious of the significance of the
+recital, proceeded to tell that shortly after daybreak on last Wednesday
+morning he heard a 'powerful jouncin' of huffs,' and looking out of the
+window he saw Micajah Green on his big grey horse, flying along the
+valley road at a tremendous rate of speed. Before he could open the
+window to hail him, man and horse were out of sight.
+
+It was a silent group that Amos left, all meditating upon that swift
+equestrian figure, pictured against the dreariness of the rainy dawn,
+and the grey mist, and the shadowing mountains.
+
+'Amos seen a ghost,' said Pete presently. He looked dubiously over his
+shoulder, though the morning sunshine came flickering through the door,
+widely ajar.
+
+'That ain't nuthin' oncommon,' said the old man sturdily. Then he told a
+ghastly story of a legal execution--that the criminal was seen afterward
+sitting in the moonlight under the gallows on his coffin-lid; and other
+fearful fantasies of the rural mind, which, morbidly excited, will not
+accept the end of the rope as a finality.
+
+It was only when Obediah Scruggs came to their house searching for his
+nephew, saying that Hiram had not been seen nor heard of since he had
+set out one evening to visit them, that a terrible premonition fell upon
+Groundhog Cayce. His iron will guarded it for a time, till some one
+journeying from Shaftesville reported having seen there Micajah Green,
+who was full of a terrible story of a midnight attack upon him by the
+Cayce tribe, from whom he had miraculously escaped in the midst of the
+struggle and darkness, he declared, and more dead than alive. Then
+mysteriously and with heavy presage Pete and his father made a
+pilgrimage to the cave. They pried up the boulder over the cavity. They
+heard the deep water held in the subterranean reservoir still sighing
+and echoing with the bubbling of the mountain spring. On the surface
+there floated a hat--Hi Kelsey's limp and worn old hat.
+
+They never told their secret. They replaced the boulder, and sealed
+their lips.
+
+The old man began to age rapidly. His conscience was heavier than his
+years. But it was a backwoods conscience, and had the distortions of his
+primitive philosophy. One day he said piteously:
+
+'It air a dreadful thing, Pete, ter kill a man by accident.'
+
+And Pete replied meditatively, 'I dunno but what it air.'
+
+By degrees, as they reflected upon the incredible idea that a mistake
+could have been made between the two men, the truth percolated through
+their minds. It was a voluntary sacrifice.
+
+'He war always preachin' agin killin',' said the old man, 'an' callin'
+folks,' his voice fell to a whisper--'Cain!'
+
+It was well for him, perhaps, when he presently fell into mental
+decrepitude, and in vacancy was spared the anguish of remorse.
+
+And Pete fearfully noted the fulfilment of the prophecy.
+
+No one could account for the change in Pete Cayce. He patched up old
+feuds, and forgave old debts, and forgot his contentious moods, and was
+meek and very melancholy. And although the parson preached no more, who
+shall say his sermons were ended? As to him, surely his doubts were
+solved in knowing all, and perhaps in the exaltations of that
+sacrificial moment he found Christ.
+
+The mystery of his fate remained unexplained. The search for him flagged
+after a time, and failed. There were many conjectures, all wide of the
+truth.
+
+Dorinda believed that, like the prophet of old, he had not been suffered
+to taste death, but was caught up into the clouds. And with a chastened
+solemnity she cherishes the last of her illusions.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+HIS VANISHED STAR
+
+'"His Vanished Star," in all its well-defined, well-described human
+interests, and its graphic account of grand and lovely scenery, is an
+excellent novel.... The story is both charming and original.'--_Glasgow
+Herald._
+
+'A thrilling and pathetic tale, and one full of quiet humour and
+intimate observation of human nature.'--_Morning Leader._
+
+'There is not a page in it which will not cause a reader to respect the
+writer for her good work.'--_Bookman._
+
+'C. E. Craddock has given in "His Vanished Star" fresh evidence of
+strong imaginative power and a faculty of vivid description, bold,
+definite, and picturesque.... Its excellencies are undeniable, and not
+of a common sort.'--_Scotsman._
+
+'A remarkable study of nature as well as of character.... Rich in the
+rather grim humour of a peculiar class, picturesque and in its way
+powerful, "His Vanished Star" will recommend itself to the lover of
+American fiction.'--_Morning Post._
+
+'There is a good deal of interesting character-drawing, and the
+spiritual impressions are strong and high. There is humour
+too.'--_Athenĉum._
+
+'As a vivid sketch of American life in its most primitive aspect, "His
+Vanished Star" is undoubtedly a noteworthy book.'--_Speaker._
+
+
+OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS
+
+'The name of George Eliot rises to our lips once again as we read "The
+Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains." ... The author is honoured in her
+own country as Miss Mary N. Murfree. She is indeed worthy of honour.
+This book gives her an indisputable place in the first rank of American
+novelists. Yet it is scarcely accurate to say that she stands in the
+rank; her station is abreast, yet apart. Amid all the charms of the
+American school of fiction, we look for one in vain--to wit, robustness.
+This quality Miss Murfree possesses. Her work may be called the most
+virile of recent American writing. The heroine is a really exquisite
+creation, full of health, grace, and womanly loyalty.'--_Pall Mall
+Gazette._
+
+'The tale is really good, and gives graphic pictures of ways and manners
+far removed from any that are within our ken.... A story which shows
+appreciation of the beauties of nature, and much knowledge of the human
+heart. The heroine is earnest and charming--a gem.'--_Morning Post._
+
+'A remarkable story.... We have seldom, if ever, read a book with
+greater delight, or one more rich in the quaint and grim humour, the
+rare pathos, the touching simplicity, and the picturesque descriptions
+which are only to be found in stories of this kind.'--_Society._
+
+'Unquestionably the most remarkable story that has been received
+from America for a very long time indeed.... The whole picture,
+as a study both of nature and of human nature, is wonderfully
+impressive.'--_Graphic._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prophet of the Great Smoky
+Mountains, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROPHET ***
+
+***** This file should be named 35619-8.txt or 35619-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/1/35619/
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+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 1.F.3.  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, are 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.