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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36771-8.txt b/36771-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82f3aac --- /dev/null +++ b/36771-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10016 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and Other +Stories, 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 Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and Other Stories + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock + +Release Date: July 17, 2011 [EBook #36771] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTOMS *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton 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.) + + + + + + + + [Illustration: "'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A + NEPHEW?'"] + + + + + The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge + + + And Other Stories + + BY + + CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK + + AUTHOR OF + + "IN THE 'STRANGER PEOPLE'S' COUNTRY" ETC. + + ILLUSTRATED + + + NEW YORK + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + + 1895 + + + Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS + + _All rights reserved._ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE + + HIS "DAY IN COURT" + + 'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE + + THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS + + THE RIDDLE OF THE ROCKS + + + + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A NEPHEW?'" + + THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE + + OLD JOEL QUIMBEY + + "'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'" + + "SHE FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD" + + "HE STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW" + + OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON + + "YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE" + + "HE HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST" + + "'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'" + + "SHE SMILED UPON THE BABY" + + THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP + + "THE TABLES OF THE LAW" + + "'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER--_ME_?'" + + + + +THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE + + +Across the narrow gorge the little foot-bridge stretched--a brace of +logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a cedar +pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the dark and +rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, swift +and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all ordinary +usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and elusive +travellers who by common report frequented it. + +"We ain't likely ter meet nobody. Few folks kem this way nowadays, +'thout it air jes' ter ford the creek down along hyar a piece, sence +harnts an' sech onlikely critters hev been viewed a-crossin' the +foot-bredge. An' it hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble onlucky, too," +said Roxby. + +His interlocutor drew back slightly. He had his own reasons to recoil +from the subject of death. For him it was invested with a more immediate +terror than is usual to many of the living, with that flattering +persuasion of immortality in every strong pulsation repudiating all +possibility of cessation. Then, lifting his gloomy, long-lashed eyes to +the bridge far up the stream, he asked, "Whose 'harnts'?" + +His voice had a low, repressed cadence, as of one who speaks seldom, +grave, even melancholy, and little indicative of the averse interest +that had kindled in his sombre eyes. In comparison the drawl of the +mountaineer, who had found him heavy company by the way, seemed imbued +with an abnormal vivacity, and keyed a tone or two higher than was its +wont. + +"Thar ain't a few," he replied, with a sudden glow of the pride of the +cicerone. "Thar's a graveyard t'other side o' the gorge, an' not more +than a haffen-mile off, an' a cornsider'ble passel o' folks hev been +buried thar off an' on, an' the foot-bredge ain't in nowise +ill-convenient ter them." + +Thus demonstrating the spectral resources of the locality, he rode his +horse well into the stream as he spoke, and dropped the reins that the +animal's impatient lips might reach the water. He sat facing the +foot-bridge, flecked with the alternate shifting of the sunshine and the +shadows of the tremulous firs that grew on either side of the high banks +on the ever-ascending slope, thus arching both above and below the +haunted bridge. His companion had joined him in the centre of the +stream; but while the horses drank, the stranger's eyes were +persistently bent on the concentric circles of the water that the +movement of the animals had set astir in the current, as if he feared +that too close or curious a gaze might discern some pilgrim, whom he +cared not to see, traversing that shadowy quivering foot-bridge. He was +mounted on a strong, handsome chestnut, as marked a contrast to his +guide's lank and trace-galled sorrel as were the two riders. A slender +gloved hand had fallen with the reins to the pommel of the saddle. His +soft felt hat, like a sombrero, shadowed his clear-cut face. He was +carefully shaven, save for a long drooping dark mustache and imperial. +His suit of dark cloth was much concealed by a black cloak, one end of +which thrown back across his shoulder showed a bright blue lining, the +color giving a sudden heightening touch to his attire, as if he were "in +costume." It was a fleeting fashion of the day, but it added a certain +picturesqueness to a horseman, and seemed far enough from the times that +produced the square-tailed frock-coat which the mountaineer wore, +constructed of brown jeans, the skirts of which stood stiffly out on +each side of the saddle, and gave him, with his broad-brimmed hat, a +certain Quakerish aspect. + +"I dun'no' why folks be so 'feared of 'em," Roxby remarked, +speculatively. "The dead ain't so oncommon, nohow. Them ez hev been in +the war, like you an' me done, oughter be in an' 'bout used ter +corpses--though I never seen none o' 'em afoot agin. Lookin' at a smit +field o' battle, arter the rage is jes' passed, oughter gin a body a +realizin' sense how easy the sperit kin flee, an' what pore vessels fur +holdin' the spark o' life human clay be." + +Simeon Roxby had a keen, not unkindly face, and he had that look of +extreme intelligence which is entirely distinct from intellectuality, +and which one sometimes sees in a minor degree in a very clever dog or a +fine horse. One might rely on him to understand instinctively everything +one might say to him, even in its subtler ęsthetic values, although he +had consciously learned little. He was of the endowed natures to whom +much is given, rather than of those who are set to acquire. He had many +lines in his face--even his simple life had gone hard with him, its +sorrows unassuaged by its simplicity. His hair was grizzled, and hung +long and straight on his collar. He wore a grizzled beard cut broad and +short. His boots had big spurs, although the lank old sorrel had never +felt them. He sat his horse like the cavalryman he had been for four +years of hard riding and raiding, but his face had a certain gentleness +that accented the Quaker-like suggestion of his garb, a look of +communing with the higher things. + +"I never blamed 'em," he went on, evidently reverting to the spectres of +the bridge--"I never blamed 'em for comin' back wunst in a while. It +'pears ter me 'twould take me a long time ter git familiar with heaven, +an' sociable with them ez hev gone before. An', my Lord, jes' think what +the good green yearth is! Leastwise the mountings. I ain't settin' store +on the valley lands I seen whenst I went ter the wars. I kin remember +yit what them streets in the valley towns smelt like." + +He lifted his head, drawing a long breath to inhale the exquisite +fragrance of the fir, the freshness of the pellucid water, the aroma of +the autumn wind, blowing through the sere leaves still clinging red and +yellow to the boughs of the forest. + +"Naw, I ain't blamin' 'em, though I don't hanker ter view 'em," he +resumed. "One of 'em I wouldn't be afeard of, though. I feel mighty +sorry fur her. The old folks used ter tell about her. A young 'oman she +war, a-crossin' this bredge with her child in her arms. She war young, +an' mus' have been keerless, I reckon; though ez 'twar her fust baby, +she moughtn't hev been practised in holdin' it an' sech, an' somehows it +slipped through her arms an' fell inter the ruver, an' war killed in a +minit, dashin' agin the rocks. She jes' stood fur a second a-screamin' +like a wild painter, an' jumped off'n the bredge arter it. She got it +agin; for when they dragged her body out'n the ruver she hed it in her +arms too tight fur even death ter onloose. An' thar they air together in +the buryin'-ground." + +He gave a nod toward the slope of the mountain that intercepted the +melancholy view of the graveyard. + +"Got it yit!" he continued; "bekase" (he lowered his voice) "on windy +nights, whenst the moon is on the wane, she is viewed kerryin' the baby +along the bredge--kerryin' it clear over, _safe an' sound_, like she +thought she oughter done, I reckon, in that one minute, whilst she stood +an' screamed an' surveyed what she hed done. That child would hev been +nigh ter my age ef he hed lived." + +Only the sunbeams wavered athwart the bridge now as the firs swayed +above, giving glimpses of the sky, and their fibrous shadows flickered +back and forth. The wild mountain stream flashed white between the brown +bowlders, and plunged down the gorge in a succession of cascades, each +seeming more transparently green and amber and brown than the other. The +chestnut horse gazed meditatively at these limpid out-gushings, having +drunk his fill; then thought better of his moderation, and once more +thrust his head down to the water. The hand of his rider, which had made +a motion to gather up the reins, dropped leniently on his neck, as +Simeon Roxby spoke again: + +"Several--several others hev been viewed, actin' accordin' ter thar +motions in life. Now thar war a peddler--some say he slipped one icy +evenin', 'bout dusk in winter--some say evil ones waylaid him fur his +gear an' his goods in his pack, but the settlemint mostly believes he +war alone whenst he fell. His pack 'pears ter be full still, they +say--but ye air 'bleeged ter know he hev hed ter set that pack down fur +good 'fore this time. We kin take nuthin' out'n this world, no matter +what kind o' a line o' goods we kerry in life. Heaven's no place fur +tradin', I understan', an' I _do_ wonder sometimes how in the worl' them +merchants an' sech in the valley towns air goin' ter entertain tharse'fs +in the happy land o'Canaan. It's goin' ter be sorter bleak fur them, +sure's ye air born." + +With a look of freshened recollection, he suddenly drew a plug of +tobacco from his pocket, and he talked on even as he gnawed a piece from +it. + +"Durin' the war a cavalry-man got shot out hyar whilst runnin' 'crost +that thar foot-bredge. Thar hed been a scrimmage an' his horse war kilt, +an' he tuk ter the bresh on foot, hopin' ter hide in the laurel. But ez +he war crossin' the foot-bredge some o' the pursuin' party war fordin' +the ruver over thar, an' thinkin' he'd make out ter escape they fired on +him, jes' ez the feller tried ter surrender. He turned this way an' +flung up both arms--but thar's mighty leetle truce in a pistol-ball. +That minute it tuk him right through the brain. Seems toler'ble long +range fur a pistol, don't it? He kin be viewed now most enny moonlight +night out hyar on the foot-bredge, throwin' up both hands in sign of +surrender." + +The wild-geese were a-wing on the way southward. Looking up to that +narrow section of the blue sky which the incision of the gorge into the +very depths of the woods made visible, he could see the tiny files +deploying along the azure or the flecking cirrus, and hear the vague +clangor of their leader's cry. He lifted his head to mechanically follow +their flight. Then, as his eyes came back to earth, they rested again on +the old bridge. + +"Strange enough," he said, suddenly, "the skerriest tale I hev ever +hearn 'bout that thar old bredge is one that my niece set a-goin'. She +_seen_ the harnt _herself_, an' it shakes me wuss 'n the idee o' all the +rest." + +His companion's gloomy gaze was lifted for a moment with an expression +of inquiry from the slowly widening circles of the water about the +horse's head as he drank. But Roxby's eyes, with a certain gleam of +excitement, a superstitious dilation, still dwelt upon the bridge at the +end of the upward vista. He went on merely from the impetus of the +subject. "Yes, sir--she _seen_ it a-pacin' of its sorrowful way acrost +that bredge, same ez the t'others of the percession o' harnts. 'Twar my +niece, Mill'cent--brother's darter--by name, Mill'cent Roxby. Waal, +Mill'cent an' a lot o' young fools o' her age--little over fryin' +size--they 'tended camp-meetin' down hyar on Tomahawk Creek--'tain't so +long ago--along with the old folks. An' 'bout twenty went huddled up +tergether in a road-wagin. An', lo! the wagin it bruk down on the way +home, an' what with proppin' it up on a crotch, they made out ter reach +the cross-roads over yander at the Notch, an' thar the sober old folks +called a halt, an' hed the wagin mended at the blacksmith-shop. Waal, it +tuk some two hours, fur Pete Rodd ain't a-goin' ter hurry hisself--in my +opinion the angel Gabriel will hev ter blow his bugle oftener'n wunst at +the last day 'fore Pete Rodd makes up his mind ter rise from the dead +an' answer the roll-call--an' this hyar young lot sorter found it +tiresome waitin' on thar elders' solemn company. The old folks, whilst +waitin', set outside on the porches of the houses at the settlemint, an' +repeated some o' the sermons they hed hearn at camp, an' more'n one +raised a hyme chune. An' the young fry--they hed hed a steady diet o' +sermons an' hyme chunes fur fower days--they tuk ter stragglin' off down +the road, two an' two, like the same sorter idjits the world over, +leavin' word with the old folks that the wagin would overtake 'em an' +pick 'em up on the road when it passed. Waal, they walked several mile, +an' time they got ter the crest o' the hill over yander the moon hed +riz, an' they could look down an' see the mist in the valley. The moon +war bright in the buryin'-groun' when they passed it, an' the +head-boards stood up white an' stiff, an' a light frost hed fell on the +mounds, an' they showed plain, an' shone sorter lonesome an' cold. The +young folks begun ter look behind em' fur the wagin. Some said--I +b'lieve 'twar Em'ry Keenan--they could read the names on the boards +plain, 'twar so light, the moon bein' nigh the full: but Em'ry never +read nuthin' at night by the moon in his life; he ain't enny too capable +o' wrastlin' with the alphabet with a strong daytime on his book ter +light him ter knowledge. An' the shadows war black an' still, an' all +the yearth looked ez ef nuthin' lived nor ever would agin, an' they +hearn a wolf howl. Waal, that disaccommodated the gals mightily, an' +they hed a heap more interes' in that old wagin, all smellin' rank with +wagin-grease an' tar, than they did in thar lovyers; an' they hed ruther +hev hearn that old botch of a wheel that Pete Rodd hed set onto it +comin' a-creakin' an' a-complainin' along the road than the sweetest +words them boys war able ter make up or remember. So they stood thar in +the road--a-stare-gazin' them head-boards, like they expected every +grave ter open an' the reveilly ter sound--a-waitin' ter be overtook by +the wagin, a-listenin', but hearin' nuthin' in the silence o' the +frost--not a dead leaf a-twirlin', nor a frozen blade o' grass astir. +An' then two or three o' the gals 'lowed they hed ruther walk back ter +meet the wagin, an' whenst the boys 'lowed ter go on--nuthin' war likely +ter ketch 'em--one of 'em bust out a-cryin'. Waal, thar war the eend o' +that much! So the gay party set out on the back track, a-keepin' step +ter sobs an' sniffles, an' that's how kem _they_ seen no harnt. But +Mill'cent an' three or four o' the t'others 'lowed they'd go on. They +warn't two mile from home, an' full five from the cross-roads. So Em'ry +Keenan--he hev been waitin' on her sence the year one--so he put his +skeer in his pocket an' kem along with her, a-shakin' in his shoes, I'll +be bound! So down the hill in the frosty moonlight them few kem--purty +nigh beat out, I reckon, Mill'cent war, what with the sermonizin' an' +the hyme-singin' an' hevin' ter look continual at the sheep's-eyes o' +Em'ry Keenan--he wears my patience ter the bone! So she concluded ter +take the short-cut. An' Em'ry he agreed. So they tuk the lead, the rest +a followin', an' kem down thar through all that black growth"--he lifted +his arm and pointed at the great slope, dense with fir and pine and the +heavy underbrush--"keepin' the bridle-path--easy enough even at night, +fur the bresh is so thick they couldn't lose thar way. But the moonlight +war mightily slivered up, fallin' through the needles of the pines an' +the skeins of dead vines, an' looked bleached and onnatural, an' holped +the dark mighty leetle. An' they seen the water a-shinin' an' a-plungin' +down the gorge, an' the glistenin' of the frost on the floor o' the +bredge. Thar war a few icicles on the hand-rail, an' the branches o' the +firs hung ez still ez death; only that cold, racin', shoutin', jouncin' +water moved. Jes ez they got toler'ble nigh the foot-bredge a sudden +cloud kem over the face o' the sky. Thar warn't no wind on the yearth, +but up above the air war a-stirrin'. An' Em'ry he 'lowed Mill'cent +shouldn't cross the foot-bredge whilst the light warn't clar--I wonder +the critter hed that much sense! An' she jes' drapped down on that rock +thar ter rest"--he pointed up the slope to a great fragment that had +broken off from the ledges and lay near the bank: the bulk of the +mass was overgrown with moss and lichen, but the jagged edges of the +recent fracture gleamed white and crystalline among the brown and +olive-green shadows about it. A tree was close beside it. "Agin that +thar pine trunk Em'ry he stood an' leaned. The rest war behind, a-comin' +down the hill. An' all of a suddenty a light fell on the furder eend o' +the foot-bredge--a waverin' light, mighty white an' misty in the +darksomeness. Mill'cent 'lowed ez fust she thunk it war the moon. An' +lookin' up, she seen the cloud; it held the moon close kivered. An' +lookin' down, she seen the light war movin'--movin' from the furder eend +o' the bredge, straight acrost it. Sometimes a hand war held afore it, +ez ef ter shield it from the draught, an' then Mill'cent 'seen twar a +candle, an' the white in the mistiness war a 'oman wearin' white an' +carryin' it. Lookin' ter right an' then ter lef' the 'oman kem, with now +her right hand shieldin' the candle she held, an' now layin' it on the +hand-rail. The candle shone on the water, fur it didn't flare, an' when +the 'oman held her hand before it the light made a bright spot on the +foot-bredge an' in the dark air about her, an' on the fir branches over +her head. An' a thin mist seemed to hang about her white frock, but not +over her face, fur when she reached the middle o' the foot-bredge she +laid her hand agin on the rail, an' in the clear light o' the candle +Mill'cent seen the harnt's face. An' thar she beheld her own face; _her +own face_ she looked upon ez she waited thar under the tree watchin' the +foot-bredge; _her own face_ pale an' troubled; her own self dressed in +white, crossin' the foot-bredge, an' lightin' her steps with a corpse's +candle." He drew up the reins abruptly. He seemed in sudden haste to go. + +[Illustration: THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE] + +His companion looked with deepening interest at the bridge, although he +followed his guide's surging pathway to the opposite bank. As the two +dripping horses struggled up the steep incline he asked, "Did the man +with her see the manifestation also?" + +"He _'lows_ he did," responded Roxby, equivocally. "But when Mill'cent +fust got so she could tell it, 'peared ter me ez Em'ry Keenan fund it ez +much news ez the rest o' we-uns. Mill'cent jes' drapped stone-dead, +accordin' ter all accounts, an' he an' the t'other young folks flung +water in her face till she kem out'n her faint; an' jes' then they hearn +the wagin a-rattlin' along the road, an' they stopped it an' fetched her +home in it. She never told the tale till she war home, an' it skeered me +an' my mother powerful, fur Mill'cent is all the kin we hev got. +Mill'cent is gran'daddy an' gran'mammy, sons an' daughters, uncles an' +aunts, cousins, nieces, an' nephews, all in one. The only thing I ain't +pervided with is a nephew-in-law, an' I don't need him. Leastwise I +ain't lookin' fur Em'ry Keenan jes' at present." + +The pace was brisker when the two horses, bending their strength +sturdily to the task, had pressed up the massive slope from the deep +cleft of the gorge. As the road curved about the outer verge of the +mountain, the valley far beneath came into view, with intersecting +valleys and transverse ranges, dense with the growths of primeval +wildernesses, and rugged with the tilted strata of great upheavals, and +with chasms cut in the solid rock by centuries of erosion, traces of +some remote cataclysmal period, registering thus its throes and +turmoils. The blue sky, seen beyond a gaunt profile of one of the +farther summits that defined its craggy serrated edge against the +ultimate distances of the western heavens, seemed of a singularly suave +tint, incongruous with the savagery of the scene, which clouds and +portents of storm might better have befitted. The little graveyard, +which John Dundas discerned with recognizing eyes, albeit they had never +before rested upon it, was revealed suddenly, lying high on the opposite +side of the gorge. No frost glimmered now on the lowly mounds; the +flickering autumnal sunshine loitered unafraid among them, according to +its languid wont for many a year. Shadows of the gray unpainted +head-boards lay on the withered grass, brown and crisp, with never a +cicada left to break the deathlike silence. A tuft of red leaves, +vagrant in the wind, had been caught on one of the primitive monuments, +and swayed there with a decorative effect. The enclosure seemed, to +unaccustomed eyes, of small compass, and few the denizens who had found +shelter here and a resting-place, but it numbered all the dead of the +country-side for many a mile and many a year, and somehow the loneliness +was assuaged to a degree by the reflection that they had known each +other in life, unlike the great herds of cities, and that it was a +common fate which the neighbors, huddled together, encountered in +company. + +It had no discordant effect in the pervasive sense of gloom, of mighty +antagonistic forces with which the scene was replete; it fostered a +realization of the pitiable minuteness and helplessness of human nature +in the midst of the vastness of inanimate nature and the evidences of +infinite lengths of forgotten time, of the long reaches of unimagined +history, eventful, fateful, which the landscape at once suggested and +revealed and concealed. + +Like the sudden flippant clatter of castanets in the pause of some +solemn funeral music was the impression given by the first glimpse along +the winding woodland way of a great flimsy white building, with its many +pillars, its piazzas, its "observatory," its band-stand, its garish +intimations of the giddy, gay world of a summer hotel. But, alack! it, +too, had its surfeit of woe. + +"The guerrillas an' bushwhackers tuk it out on the old hotel, sure!" +observed Sim Roxby, by way of introduction. "Thar warn't much fightin' +hyar-abouts, an' few sure-enough soldiers ever kem along. But wunst in a +while a band o' guerrillas went through like a suddint wind-storm, an' I +tell ye they made things whurl while they war about it. They made a +sorter barracks o' the old place. Looks some like lightning hed struck +it." + +He had reined up his horse about one hundred yards in front of the +edifice, where the weed-grown gravelled drive--carefully tended ten +years agone--had diverged from the straight avenue of poplars, sweeping +in a circle around to the broad flight of steps. + +"Though," he qualified abruptly, as if a sudden thought had struck him, +"ef ye air countin' on buyin' it, a leetle money spent ter keerful +purpose will go a long way toward makin' it ez good ez new." + +His companion did not reply, and for the first time Roxby cast upon him +a covert glance charged with the curiosity which would have been earlier +and more easily aroused in another man by the manner of the stranger. A +letter--infrequent missive in his experience--had come from an ancient +companion-in-arms, his former colonel, requesting him in behalf of a +friend of the old commander to repair to the railway station, thirty +miles distant, to meet and guide this prospective purchaser of the old +hotel to the site of the property. And now as Roxby looked at him the +suspicion which his kind heart had not been quick to entertain was +seized upon by his alert brain. + +"The cunnel's been fooled somehows," he said to himself. + +For the look with which John Dundas contemplated the place was not the +gaze of him concerned with possible investment--with the problems of +repair, the details of the glazier and the painter and the plasterer. +The mind was evidently neither braced for resistance nor resigned to +despair, as behooves one smitten by the foreknowledge of the certainty +of the excess of the expenditures over the estimates. Only with pensive, +listless melancholy, void of any intention, his eyes traversed the long +rows of open doors, riven by rude hands from their locks, swinging +helplessly to and fro in the wind, and giving to the deserted and +desolate old place a spurious air of motion and life. Many of the +shutters had been wrenched from their hinges, and lay rotting on the +floors. The ball-room windows caught on their shattered glass the +reflection of the clouds, and it seemed as if here and there a wan face +looked through at the riders wending along the weed-grown path. Where so +many faces had been what wonder that a similitude should linger in the +loneliness! The pallid face seemed to draw back as they glanced up while +slowly pacing around the drive. A rabbit sitting motionless on the front +piazza did not draw back, although observing them with sedate eyes as he +poised himself upright on his haunches, with his listless fore-paws +suspended in the air, and it occurred to Dundas that he was probably +unfamiliar with the presence of human beings, and had never heard the +crack of a gun. A great swirl of swallows came soaring out of the big +kitchen chimneys and circled in the sky, darting down again and again +upward. Through an open passage was a glimpse of a quadrangle, with its +weed-grown spaces and litter of yellow leaves. A tawny streak, a red +fox, sped through it as Dundas looked. A half-moon, all a-tilt, hung +above it. He saw the glimmer through the bare boughs of the leafless +locust-trees here and there still standing, although outside on the lawn +many a stump bore token how ruthlessly the bushwhackers had furnished +their fires. + +"That thar moon's a-hangin' fur rain," said the mountaineer, commenting +upon the aspect of the luminary, which he, too, had noticed as they +passed. "I ain't s'prised none ef we hev fallin' weather agin 'fore +day, an' the man--by name Morgan Holden--that hev charge o' the hotel +property can't git back fur a week an' better." + +A vague wonder to find himself so suspicious flitted through his mind, +with the thought that perhaps the colonel might have reckoned on this +delay. "Surely the ruvers down yander at Knoxville mus' be a-boomin', +with all this wet weather," he said to himself. + +Then aloud: "Morgan Holden he went ter Colbury ter 'tend ter some +business in court, an' the ruvers hev riz so that, what with the bredges +bein' washed away an' the fords so onsartain an' tricky, he'll stay till +the ruver falls. He don't know ye war kemin', ye see. The mail-rider hev +quit, 'count o' the rise in the ruver, an' thar's no way ter git word +ter him. Still, ef ye air minded ter wait, I'll be powerful obligated +fur yer comp'ny down ter my house till the ruver falls an' Holden he +gits back." + +The stranger murmured his obligations, but his eyes dwelt lingeringly +upon the old hotel, with its flapping doors and its shattered windows. +Through the recurrent vistas of these, placed opposite in the rooms, +came again broken glimpses of the grassy space within the quadrangle, +with its leafless locust-trees, first of all to yield their foliage to +the autumn wind, where a tiny owl was shrilling stridulously under the +lonely red sky and the melancholy moon. + +"Hed ye 'lowed ter put up at the old hotel?" asked Roxby, some inherent +quickness supplying the lack of a definite answer. + +For the first time the stranger turned upon him a look more expressive +than the casual fragmentary attention with which he had half heeded, +half ignored his talk since their first encounter at the railway +station. + +"A simple fellow, but good as gold," was the phrase with which Simeon +Roxby had been commended as guide and in some sort guard. + +"Not so simple, perhaps," the sophisticated man thought as their eyes +met. Not so simple but that the truth must serve. "The colonel suggested +that it might be best," he replied, more alert to the present moment +than his languid preoccupation had heretofore permitted. + +The answer was good as far as it went. A few days spent in the old +hostelry certainly would serve well to acquaint the prospective +purchaser with its actual condition and the measures and means needed +for its repair; but as Sim Roxby stood there, with the cry of the owl +shrilling in the desert air, the lonely red sky, the ominous tilted +moon, the doors drearily flapping to and fro as the wind stole into the +forlorn and empty place and sped back affrighted, he marvelled at the +refuge contemplated. + +"I believe there is some of the furniture here yet. We could contrive to +set up a bed from what is left. The colonel could make it all right with +Holden, and I could stay a day or two, as we originally planned." + +"Ye-es. I don't mind Holden: a man ain't much in charge of a place ez +ain't got a lock or a key ter bless itself with, an' takes the owel an' +the fox an' the gopher fur boarders; but, ennyhow, kem with me home ter +supper. Mill'cent will hev it ready by now ennyhows, an' ye need +suthin' hearty an' hot ter stiffen ye up ter move inter sech quarters ez +these." Dundas hesitated, but the mountaineer had already taken assent +for granted, and pushed his horse into a sharp trot. Evidently a refusal +was not in order. Dundas pressed forward, and they rode together along +the winding way past the ten-pin alley, its long low roof half hidden in +the encroaching undergrowth springing up apace beneath the great trees; +past the stables; past a line of summer cottages, strangely staring of +aspect out of the yawning doors and windows, giving, instead of an +impression of vacancy, a sense of covert watching, of secret occupancy. +If one's glances were only quick enough, were there not faces pressed to +those shattered panes--scarcely seen--swiftly withdrawn? + +He was in a desert; he had hardly been so utterly alone in all his life; +yet he bore through the empty place a feeling of espionage, and ever and +anon he glanced keenly at the overgrown lawns, with their deepening +drifts of autumn leaves, at the staring windows and flaring doors, which +emitted sometimes sudden creaking wails in the silence, as if he sought +to assure himself of the vacancy of which his mind took cognizance and +yet all his senses denied. + +Little of his sentiment, although sedulously cloaked, was lost on Sim +Roxby; and he was aware, too, in some subtle way, of the relief his +guest experienced when they plunged into the darkening forest and left +the forlorn place behind them. The clearing in which it was situated +seemed an oasis of light in the desert of night in which the rest of +the world lay. From the obscurity of the forest Dundas saw, through the +vistas of the giant trees, the clustering cottages, the great hotel, +gables and chimneys and tower, stark and distinct as in some weird +dream-light in the midst of the encircling gloom. The after-glow of +sunset was still aflare on the western windows; the whole empty place +was alight with a reminiscence of its old aspect--its old gay life. Who +knows what memories were a-stalk there--what semblance of former times? +What might not the darkness foster, the impunity of desertion, the +associations that inhabited the place with almost the strength of human +occupancy itself? Who knows--who knows? + +He remembered the scene afterward, the impression he received. And from +this, he thought, arose his regret for his decision to take up here his +abiding-place. + +The forest shut out the illumined landscape, and the night seemed indeed +at hand; the gigantic boles of the trees loomed through the encompassing +gloom, that was yet a semi-transparent medium, like some dark but clear +fluid through which objects were dimly visible, albeit tinged with its +own sombre hue. The lank, rawboned sorrel had set a sharp pace, to which +the chestnut, after momentary lagging, as if weary with the day's +travel, responded briskly. He had received in some way intimations that +his companion's corn-crib was near at hand, and if he had not deduced +from these premises the probability of sharing his fare, his mental +processes served him quite as well as reason, and brought him to the +same result. On and on they sped, neck and neck, through the darkening +woods; fire flashed now and again from their iron-shod hoofs; often a +splash and a shower of drops told of a swift dashing through the +mud-holes that recent rains had fostered in the shallows. The dank odor +of dripping boughs came on the clear air. Once the chestnut shied from a +sudden strange shining point springing up in the darkness close at hand, +which the country-bred horse discriminated as fox-fire, and kept +steadily on, unmindful of the rotting log where it glowed. Far in +advance, in the dank depths of the woods, a Will-o'-the-wisp danced and +flickered and lured the traveller's eye. The stranger was not sure of +the different quality of another light, appearing down a vista as the +road turned, until the sorrel, making a tremendous spurt, headed for it, +uttering a joyous neigh at the sight. + +The deep-voiced barking of hounds rose melodiously on the silence, and +as the horses burst out of the woods into a small clearing, Dundas +beheld in the brighter light a half-dozen of the animals nimbly afoot in +the road, one springing over the fence, another in the act of climbing, +his fore-paws on the topmost rail, his long neck stretched, and his head +turning about in attitudes of observation. He evidently wished to assure +himself whether the excitement of his friends was warranted by the facts +before he troubled himself to vault over the fence. Three or four still +lingered near the door of a log-cabin, fawning about a girl who stood on +the porch. Her pose was alert, expectant; a fire in the dooryard, where +the domestic manufacture of soap had been in progress, cast a red flare +on the house, its appurtenances, the great dark forest looming all +around, and, more than the glow of the hearth within, lighted up the +central figure of the scene. She was tall, straight, and strong; a +wealth of fair hair was clustered in a knot at the back of her head, and +fleecy tendrils fell over her brow; on it was perched a soldier's cap; +and certainly more gallant and fearless eyes had never looked out from +under the straight, stiff brim. Her chin, firm, round, dimpled, was +uplifted as she raised her head, descrying the horsemen's approach. She +wore a full dark-red skirt, a dark brown waist, and around her neck was +twisted a gray cotton kerchief, faded to a pale ashen hue, the +neutrality of which somehow aided the delicate brilliancy of the blended +roseate and pearly tints of her face. Was this the seer of +ghosts--Dundas marvelled--this the Millicent whose pallid and troubled +phantom already paced the foot-bridge? + +He did not realize that he had drawn up his horse suddenly at the sight +of her, nor did he notice that his host had dismounted, until Roxby was +at the chestnut's head, ready to lead the animal to supper in the barn. +His evident surprise, his preoccupation, were not lost upon Roxby, +however. His hand hesitated on the girth of the chestnut's saddle when +he stood between the two horses in the barn. He had half intended to +disregard the stranger's declination of his invitation, and stable the +creature. Then he shook his head slowly; the mystery that hung about +the new-comer was not reassuring. "A heap o' wuthless cattle 'mongst +them valley men," he said; for the war had been in some sort an +education to his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him +ter stay. I ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent, +nohow. Em'ry Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble +well acquainted with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy +an' mammy, an' both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could +tell ye exac'ly which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from, +an' them lean sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every tone o' his voice. +Em'ry never thunk afore ez I set store on bein' acquainted with him. He +'lowed I knowed him _too_ well." + +He laughed as he glanced through the open door into the darkening +landscape. Horizontal gray clouds were slipping fast across the pearly +spaces of the sky. The yellow stubble gleamed among the brown earth of +the farther field, still striped with its furrows. The black forest +encircled the little cleared space, and a wind was astir among the +tree-tops. A white star gleamed through the broken clapboards of the +roof, the fire still flared under the soap-kettle in the dooryard, and +the silence was suddenly smitten by a high cracked old voice, which told +him that his mother had perceived the dismounted stranger at the gate, +and was graciously welcoming him. + +She had come to the door, where the girl still stood, but half withdrawn +in the shadow. Dundas silently bowed as he passed her, following his +aged hostess into the low room, all bedight with the firelight of a +huge chimney-place, and comfortable with the realization of a journey's +end. The wilderness might stretch its weary miles around, the weird wind +wander in the solitudes, the star look coldly on unmoved by aught it +beheld, the moon show sad portents, but at the door they all failed, for +here waited rest and peace and human companionship and the sense of +home. + +"Take a cheer, stranger, an' make yerself at home. Powerful glad ter see +ye--war 'feard night would overtake ye. Ye fund the water toler'ble high +in all the creeks an' sech, I reckon, an' fords shifty an' onsartain. +Yes, sir. Fall rains kem on earlier'n common, an' more'n we need. Wisht +we could divide it with that thar drought we had in the summer. Craps +war cut toler'ble short, sir--toler'ble short." + +Mrs. Roxby's spectacles beamed upon him with an expression of the utmost +benignity as the firelight played on the lenses, but her eyes peering +over them seemed endowed in some sort with independence of outlook. It +was as if from behind some bland mask a critical observation was poised +for unbiased judgment. He felt in some degree under surveillance. But +when a light step heralded an approach he looked up, regardless of the +betrayal of interest, and bent a steady gaze upon Millicent as she +paused in the doorway. + +And as she stood there, distinct in the firelight and outlined against +the black background of the night, she seemed some modern half-military +ideal of Diana, with her two gaunt hounds beside her, the rest of the +pack vaguely glimpsed at her heels outside, the perfect outline and +chiselling of her features, her fine, strong, supple figure, the look of +steady courage in her eyes, and the soldier's cap on her fair hair. Her +face so impressed itself upon his mind that he seemed to have seen her +often. It was some resemblance to a picture of a vivandičre, doubtless, +in a foreign gallery--he could not say when or where; a remnant of a +tourist's overcrowded impressions; a half-realized reminiscence, he +thought, with an uneasy sense of recognition. + +"Hello, Mill'cent! home agin!" Roxby cried, in cheery greeting as he +entered at the back door opposite. "What sorter topknot is that ye got +on?" he demanded, looking jocosely at her head-gear. + +The girl put up her hand with an expression of horror. A deep red flush +dyed her cheek as she touched the cap. "I forgot 'twar thar," she +murmured, contritely. Then, with a sudden rush of anger as she tore it +off: "'Twar granny's fault. She axed me ter put it on, so ez ter see +which one I looked most like." + +"Stranger," quavered the old woman, with a painful break in her voice, +"I los' fower sons in the war, an' Mill'cent hev got the fambly favor." + +"Ye _mought_ hev let me know ez I war a-perlitin' round in this hyar +men's gear yit," the girl muttered, as she hung the cap on a prong of +the deer antlers on which rested the rifle of the master of the house. + +Roxby's face had clouded at the mention of the four sons who had gone +out from the mountains never to return, leaving to their mother's +aching heart only the vague comfort of an elusive resemblance in a +girl's face; but as he noted Millicent's pettish manner, and divined her +mortification because of her unseemly head-gear in the stranger's +presence, he addressed her again in that jocose tone without which he +seldom spoke to her. + +"Warn't you-uns apologizin' ter me t'other day fur not bein' a nephew +'stiddier a niece? Looked sorter like a nephew ter-night." + +She shook her head, covered now only with its own charming tresses +waving in thick undulations to the coil at the nape of her neck--a +trifle dishevelled from the rude haste with which the cap had been torn +off. + +Roxby had seated himself, and with his elbows on his knees he looked up +at her with a teasing jocularity, such as one might assume toward a +child. + +"_Ye war_," he declared, with affected solemnity--"ye war 'pologizin' +fur not bein' a nephew, an' 'lowed ef ye war a nephew we could go +a-huntin' tergether, an' ye could holp me in all my quar'ls an' fights. +I been aging some lately, an' ef I war ter go ter the settlemint an' git +inter a fight I mought not be able ter hold my own. Think what 'twould +be ter a pore old man ter hev a dutiful nephew step up an'"--he doubled +his fists and squared off--"jes' let daylight through some o' them +cusses. An' didn't _ye say_"--he dropped his belligerent attitude and +pointed an insistent finger at her, as if to fix the matter in her +recollection--"ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye could fire a gun +'thout shettin' yer eyes? An' I told ye then ez that would mend yer aim +mightily. I told ye that I'd be powerful mortified ef I hed a nephew ez +hed ter shet his eyes ter keep the noise out'n his ears whenst he fired +a rifle. The tale would go mighty hard with me at the settlemint." + +The girl's eyes glowed upon him with the fixity and the lustre of those +of a child who is entertained and absorbed by an elder's jovial wiles. A +flash of laughter broke over her face, and the low, gurgling, +half-dreamy sound was pleasant to hear. She was evidently no more than a +child to these bereft old people, and by them cherished as naught else +on earth. + +"An' didn't _I_ tell _you-uns_," he went on, affecting to warm to the +discussion, and in reality oblivious of the presence of the +guest--"didn't I tell ye ez how ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye +wouldn't hev sech cattle ez Em'ry Keenan a-danglin' round underfoot, +like a puppy ye can't gin away, an' that _won't_ git lost, an' ye ain't +got the heart ter kill?" + +The girl's lip suddenly curled with scorn. "Yer nephew would be +obligated ter make a ch'ice fur marryin' 'mongst these hyar mounting +gals--Parmely Lepstone, or Belindy M'ria Matthews, or one o' the Windrow +gals. Waal, sir, I'd ruther be yer niece--even ef Em'ry Keenan _air_ +like a puppy underfoot, that ye can't gin away, an' won't git lost, an' +ye ain't got the heart ter kill." She laughed again, showing her white +teeth. She evidently relished the description of the persistent +adherence of poor Emory Keenan. "But which one o' these hyar gals would +ye recommend ter yer nephew ter marry--ef ye hed a nephew?" + +She looked at him with flashing eyes, conscious of having propounded a +poser. + +He hesitated for a moment. Then--"I'm surrounded," he said, with a +laugh. "Ez I couldn't find a wife fur myself, I can't ondertake ter +recommend one ter my nephew. Mighty fine boy he'd hev been, an' +saaft-spoken an' perlite ter aged men--not sassy an' makin' game o' old +uncles like a niece. Mighty fine boy!" + +"Ye air welcome ter him," she said, with a simulation of scorn, as she +turned away to the table. + +Whether it were the military cap she had worn, or the fancied +resemblance to the young soldiers, never to grow old, who had gone forth +from this humble abode to return no more, there was still to the guest's +mind the suggestion of the vivandičre about her as she set the table and +spread upon it the simple fare. To and from the fireplace she was +followed by two or three of the younger dogs, their callowness expressed +in their lack of manners and perfervid interest in the approaching meal. +This induced their brief journeys back and forth, albeit embarrassed by +their physical conformation, short turns on four legs not being +apparently the easy thing it would seem from so much youthful +suppleness. The dignity of the elder hounds did not suffer them to move, +but they looked on from erect postures about the hearth with glistening +eyes and slobbering jaws. + +Ever and anon the deep blue eyes of Millicent were lifted to the outer +gloom, as if she took note of its sinister aspect. She showed scant +interest in the stranger, whose gaze seldom left her as he sat beside +the fire. He was a handsome man, his face and figure illumined by the +firelight, and it might have been that he felt a certain pique, an +unaccustomed slight, in that his presence was so indifferent an element +in the estimation of any young and comely specimen of the feminine sex. +Certainly he had rarely encountered such absolute preoccupation as her +smiling far-away look betokened as she went back and forth with her +young canine friends at her heels, or stood at the table deftly slicing +the salt-rising bread, the dogs poised skilfully upon their hind-legs to +better view the appetizing performance; whenever she turned her face +toward them they laid their heads languishingly askew, as if to remind +her that supper could not be more fitly bestowed than on them. One, to +steady himself, placed unobserved his fore-paw on the edge of the table, +his well-padded toes leaving a vague imprint as of fingers upon the +coarse white cloth; but John Dundas was a sportsman, and could the +better relax an exacting nicety where so pleasant-featured and affable a +beggar was concerned. He forgot the turmoils of his own troubles as he +gazed at Millicent, the dreary aspect of the solitudes without, the +exile from his accustomed sphere of culture and comfort, the poverty and +coarseness of her surroundings. He was sorry that he had declined a +longer lease of Roxby's hospitality, and it was in his mind to +reconsider when it should be again proffered. Her attitude, her gesture, +her face, her environment, all appealed to his sense of beauty, his +interest, his curiosity, as little ever had done heretofore. Slice after +slice of the firm fragrant bread was deftly cut and laid on the plate, +as again and again she lifted her eyes with a look that might seem to +expect to rest on summer in the full flush of a June noontide without, +rather than on the wan, wintry night sky and the plundered, quaking +woods, while the robber wind sped on his raids hither and thither so +swiftly that none might follow, so stealthily that none might hinder. A +sudden radiance broke upon her face, a sudden shadow fell on the firelit +floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young +mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness, +was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was addressed to the +old woman. + +"Howdy, Mis' Roxby--howdy? Air yer rheumatics mendin' enny?" he +demanded, with the condolent suavity of the would-be son-in-law, or +grandson-in-law, as the case may be. And he hung with a transfixed +interest upon her reply, prolix and discursive according to the wont of +those who cultivate "rheumatics," as if each separate twinge racked his +own sympathetic and filial sensibilities. Not until the tale was ended +did he set his gun against the wall and advance to the seat which Roxby +had indicated with the end of the stick he was whittling. He observed +the stranger with only slight interest, till Dundas drew up his chair +opposite at the table. There the light from the tallow dip, guttering in +the centre, fell upon his handsome face and eyes, his carefully tended +beard and hair, his immaculate cuffs and delicate hand, the seal-ring +on his taper finger. + +"Like a gal, by gum!" thought Emory Keenan. "Rings on his fingers--yit +six feet high!" + +He looked at his elders, marvelling that they so hospitably repressed +the disgust which this effeminate adornment must occasion, forgetting +that it was possible that they did not even observe it. In the gala-days +of the old hotel, before the war, they had seen much "finicking finery" +in garb and equipage and habits affected by the _jeunesse dorée_ who +frequented the place in those halcyon times, and were accustomed to such +details. It might be that they and Millicent approved such flimsy +daintiness. He began to fume inwardly with a sense of inferiority in her +estimation. One of his fingers had been frosted last winter, and with +the first twinge of cold weather it was beginning to look very red and +sad and clumsy, as if it had just remembered its ancient woe; he glanced +from it once more at the delicate ringed hand of the stranger. + +Dundas was looking up with a slow, deferential, decorous smile that +nevertheless lightened and transfigured his expression. It seemed +somehow communicated to Millicent's face as she looked down at him from +beneath her white eyelids and long, thick, dark lashes, for she was +standing beside him, handing him the plate of bread. Then, still +smiling, she passed noiselessly on to the others. + +Emory was indeed clumsy, for he had stretched his hand downward to offer +a morsel to a friend of his under the table--he was on terms of +exceeding amity with the four-footed members of the house hold--and in +his absorption not withdrawing it as swiftly as one accustomed to canine +manners should do, he had his frosted finger well mumbled before he +could, as it were, repossess himself of it. + +"I wonder what they charge fur iron over yander at the settlemint, +Em'ry?" observed Sim Roxby presently. + +"Dun'no', sir," responded Emory, glumly, his sullen black eyes full of +smouldering fire--"hevin' no call ter know, ez I ain't no blacksmith." + +"I war jes' wonderin' ef tenpenny nails didn't cost toler'ble high ez +reg'lar feed," observed Roxby, gravely. + +But his mother laughed out with a gleeful cracked treble, always a ready +sequence of her son's rustic sallies. "He got ye that time, Em'ry," she +cried. + +A forced smile crossed Emory's face. He tossed back his tangled dark +hair with a gasp that was like the snort of an unruly horse submitting +to the inevitable, but with restive projects in his brain. "I let the +dog hyar ketch my finger whilst feedin' him," he said. His plausible +excuse for the tenpenny expression was complete; but he added, his +darker mood recurring instantly, "An', Mis' Roxby, I hev put a stop ter +them ez hev tuk ter callin' me Em'ly, I hev." + +The old woman looked up, her small wrinkled mouth round and amazed. "_I_ +never called ye Emily," she declared. + +Swift repentance seized him. + +"Naw, 'm," he said, with hurried propitiation. "I 'lowed ye did." + +"I didn't," said the old woman. "But ef I war ter find it toothsome ter +call ye 'Emily,' I dun'no' how ye air goin' ter pervent it. Ye can't go +gunnin' fur me, like ye done fur the men at the mill, fur callin' ye +'Emily.'" + +"Law, Mis' Roxby!" he could only exclaim, in his horror and contrition +at this picture he had thus conjured up. "Ye air welcome ter call me +ennything ye air a mind ter," he protested. + +And then he gasped once more. The eyes of the guest, contemptuous, +amused, seeing through him, were fixed upon him. And he himself had +furnished the lily-handed stranger with the information that he had been +stigmatized "Em'ly" in the banter of his associates, until he had taken +up arms, as it were, to repress this derision. + +"It takes powerful little ter put ye down, Em'ry," said Roxby, with +rallying laughter. "Mam hev sent ye skedaddlin' in no time at all. I +don't b'lieve the Lord made woman out'n the man's rib. He made her out'n +the man's backbone; fur the man ain't hed none ter speak of sence." + +Millicent, with a low gurgle of laughter, sat down beside Emory at the +table, and fixed her eyes, softly lighted with mirth, upon him. The +others too had laughed, the stranger with a flattering intonation, but +young Keenan looked at her with a dumb appealing humility that did not +altogether fail of its effect, for she busied herself to help his plate +with an air of proprietorship as if he were a child, and returned it +with a smile very radiant and sufficient at close range. She then +addressed herself to her own meal. The young dogs under the table ceased +to beg, and gambolled and gnawed and tugged at her stout little shoes, +the sound of their callow mirthful growls rising occasionally above the +talk. Sometimes she rose again to wait on the table, when they came +leaping out after her, jumping and catching at her skirts, now and then +casting themselves on the ground prone before her feet, and rolling over +and over in the sheer joy of existence. + +The stranger took little part in the talk at the table. Never a question +was asked him as to his mission in the mountains, or the length of his +stay, his vocation, or his home. That extreme courtesy of the +mountaineers, exemplified in their singular abstinence from any +expressions of curiosity, accepted such account of himself as he had +volunteered, and asked for no more. In the face of this standard of +manners any inquisitiveness on his part, such as might have elicited +points of interest for his merely momentary entertainment, was tabooed. +Nevertheless, silent though he was for the most part, the relish with +which he listened, his half-covert interest in the girl, his quick +observation of the others, the sudden very apparent enlivening of his +mental atmosphere, betokened that his quarters were not displeasing to +him. It seemed only a short time before the meal was ended and the +circle all, save Millicent, with pipes alight before the fire again. The +dogs, well fed, had ranged themselves on the glowing hearth, lying prone +on the hot stones; one old hound, however, who conserved the air of +listening to the conversation, sat upright and nodded from time to time, +now and again losing his balance and tipping forward in a truly human +fashion, then gazing round on the circle with an open luminous eye, as +who should say he had not slept. + +It was all very cheerful within, but outside the wind still blared +mournfully. Once more Dundas was sorry that he had declined the +invitation to remain, and it was with a somewhat tentative intention +that he made a motion to return to the hotel. But his host seemed to +regard his resolution as final, and rose with a regret, not an +insistence. The two women stared in silent amazement at the mere idea of +his camping out, as it were, in the old hotel. The ascendency of +masculine government here, notwithstanding Roxby's assertion that Eve +was made of Adam's backbone, was very apparent in their mute +acquiescence and the alacrity with which they began to collect various +articles, according to his directions, to make the stranger's stay more +comfortable. + +"Em'ry kin go along an' holp," he said, heartlessly; for poor Emory's +joy in perceiving that the guest was not a fixture, and that his +presence was not to be an embargo on any word between himself and +Millicent during the entire evening, was pitiably manifest. But the +situation was still not without its comforts, since Dundas was to go +too. Hence he was not poor company when once in the saddle, and was +civil to a degree of which his former dismayed surliness had given no +promise. + +Night had become a definite element. The twilight had fled. Above their +heads, as they galloped through the dank woods, the bare boughs of the +trees clashed together--so high above their heads that to the town man, +unaccustomed to these great growths, the sound seemed not of the +vicinage, but unfamiliar, uncanny, and more than once he checked his +horse to listen. As they approached the mountain's verge and overlooked +the valley and beheld the sky, the sense of the predominance of darkness +was redoubled. The ranges gloomed against the clearer spaces, but a +cloud, deep gray with curling white edges, was coming up from the west, +with an invisible convoy of vague films, beneath which the stars, +glimmering white points, disappeared one by one. The swift motion of +this aerial fleet sailing with the wind might be inferred from the +seemingly hurried pace of the moon making hard for the west. Still +bright was the illumined segment, but despite its glitter the shadowy +space of the full disk was distinctly visible, its dusky field spangled +with myriads of minute, dully golden points. Down, down it took its way +in haste--in disordered fright, it seemed, as if it had no heart to +witness the storm which the wind and the clouds foreboded--to fairer +skies somewhere behind those western mountains. Soon even its vague +light would encroach no more upon the darkness. The great hotel would be +invisible, annihilated as it were in the gloom, and not even thus dimly +exist, glimmering, alone, forlorn, so incongruous to the wilderness that +it seemed even now some mere figment of the brain, as the two horsemen +came with a freshened burst of speed along the deserted avenue and +reined up beside a small gate at the side. + +"No use ter ride all the way around," observed Emory Keenan. "Mought jes +ez well 'light an' hitch hyar." + +The moon gave him the escort of a great grotesque shadow as he threw +himself from his horse and passed the reins over a decrepit +hitching-post near at hand. Then he essayed the latch of the small gate. +He glanced up at Dundas, the moonlight in his dark eyes, with a smile as +it resisted his strength. + +He was a fairly good-looking fellow when rid of the self-consciousness +of jealousy. His eyes, mouth, chin, and nose, acquired from reliable and +recognizable sources, were good features, and statuesque in their +immobility beneath the drooping curves of his broad soft hat. He was +tall, with the slenderness of youth, despite his evident weight and +strength. He was long-waisted and lithe and small of girth, with broad +square shoulders, whose play of muscles as he strove with the gate was +not altogether concealed by the butternut jeans coat belted in with his +pistols by a broad leathern belt. His boots reached high on his long +legs, and jingled with a pair of huge cavalry spurs. His stalwart +strength seemed as if it must break the obdurate gate rather than open +it, but finally, with a rasping creak, dismally loud in the silence, it +swung slowly back. + +The young mountaineer stood gazing for a moment at the red rust on the +hinges. "How long sence this gate must hev been opened afore?" he said, +again looking up at Dundas with a smile. + +Somehow the words struck a chill to the stranger's heart. The sense of +the loneliness of the place, of isolation, filled him with a sort of +awe. The night-bound wilderness itself was not more daunting than these +solitary tiers of piazzas, these vacant series of rooms and corridors, +all instinct with vanished human presence, all alert with echoes of +human voices. A step, a laugh, a rustle of garments--he could have sworn +he heard them at any open doorway as he followed his guide along the dim +moonlit piazza, with its pillars duplicated at regular intervals by the +shadows on the floor. How their tread echoed down these lonely ways! +From the opposite side of the house he heard Keenan's spurs jangling, +his soldierly stride sounding back as if their entrance had roused +barracks. He winced once to see his own shadow with its stealthier +movement. It seemed painfully furtive. For the first time during the +evening his jaded mind, that had instinctively sought the solace of +contemplating trifles, reverted to its own tormented processes. "Am I +not hiding?" he said to himself, in a sort of sarcastic pity of his +plight. + +The idea seemed never to enter the mind of the transparent Keenan. He +laughed out gayly as they turned into the weed-grown quadrangle, and the +red fox that Dundas had earlier observed slipped past him with +affrighted speed and dashed among the shadows of the dense shrubbery of +the old lawn without. Again and again the sound rang back from wall to +wall, first with the jollity of seeming imitation, then with an appalled +effect sinking to silence, and suddenly rising again in a grewsome +_staccato_ that suggested some terrible unearthly laughter, and bore but +scant resemblance to the hearty mirth which had evoked it. Keenan paused +and looked back with friendly gleaming eyes. "Oughter been a leetle +handier with these hyar consarns," he said, touching the pistols in his +belt. + +It vaguely occurred to Dundas that the young man went strangely heavily +armed for an evening visit at a neighbor's house. But it was a lawless +country and lawless times, and the sub-current of suggestion did not +definitely fix itself in his mind until he remembered it later. He was +looking into each vacant open doorway, seeing the still moonlight +starkly white upon the floor; the cobwebbed and broken window-panes, +through which a section of leafless trees beyond was visible; bits of +furniture here and there, broken by the vandalism of the guerillas. Now +and then a scurrying movement told of a gopher, hiding too, and on one +mantel-piece, the black fireplace yawning below, sat a tiny tawny-tinted +owl, whose motionless bead-like eyes met his with a stare of stolid +surprise. After he had passed, its sudden ill-omened cry set the silence +to shuddering. + +Keenan, leading the way, paused in displeasure. "I wisht I hed viewed +that critter," he said, glumly. "I'd hev purvented that screechin' ter +call the devil, sure. It's jes a certain sign o' death." + +He was about to turn, to wreak his vengeance, perchance. But the bird, +sufficiently fortunate itself, whatever woe it presaged for others, +suddenly took its awkward flight through sheen and shadow across the +quadrangle, and when they heard its cry again it came from some remote +section of the building, with a doleful echo as a refrain. + +The circumstance was soon forgotten by Keenan. He seemed a happy, +mercurial, lucid nature, and he began presently to dwell with interest +on the availability of the old music-stand in the centre of the square +as a manger. "Hyar," he said, striking the rotten old structure with a +heavy hand, which sent a quiver and a thrill through all the +timbers--"hyar's whar the guerillas always hitched thar beastises. Thar +feed an' forage war piled up thar on the fiddlers' seats. Ye can't do no +better'n ter pattern arter them, till ye git ready ter hev fiddlers an' +sech a-sawin' away in hyar agin." + +And he sauntered away from the little pavilion, followed by Dundas, who +had not accepted his suggestion of a room on the first floor as being +less liable to leakage, but finally made choice of an inner apartment in +the second story. He looked hard at Keenan, when he stood in the doorway +surveying the selection. The room opened into a cross-hall which gave +upon a broad piazza that was latticed; tiny squares of moonlight were +all sharply drawn on the floor, and, seen through a vista of gray +shadow, seemed truly of a gilded lustre. From the windows of this room +on a court-yard no light could be visible to any passer-by without. +Another door gave on an inner gallery, and through its floor a staircase +came up from the quadrangle close to the threshold. Dundas wondered if +these features were of possible significance in Keenan's estimation. The +young mountaineer turned suddenly, and snatching up a handful of slats +broken from the shutters, remarked: + +"Let's see how the chimbly draws--that's the main p'int." + +There was no defect in the chimney's constitution. It drew admirably, +and with the white and red flames dancing in the fireplace, two or three +chairs, more or less disabled, a table, and an upholstered lounge +gathered at random from the rooms near at hand, the possibility of +sojourning comfortably for a few days in the deserted hostelry seemed +amply assured. + +Once more Dundas gazed fixedly at the face of the young mountaineer, who +still bent on one knee on the hearth, watching with smiling eyes the +triumphs of his fire-making. It seemed to him afterwards that his +judgment was strangely at fault; he perceived naught of import in the +shallow brightness of the young man's eyes, like the polished surface of +jet; in the instability of his jealousy, his anger; in his hap-hazard, +mercurial temperament. Once he might have noted how flat were the spaces +beneath the eyes, how few were the lines that defined the lid, the +socket, the curve of the cheekbone, the bridge of the nose, and how +expressionless. It was doubtless the warmth and glow of the fire, the +clinging desire of companionship, the earnest determination to be +content, pathetic in one who had but little reason for optimism, that +caused him to ignore the vacillating glancing moods that successively +swayed Keenan, strong while they lasted, but with scanty augury because +of their evanescence. He was like some newly discovered property in +physics of untried potentialities, of which nothing is ascertained but +its uncertainties. + +And yet he seemed to Dundas a simple country fellow, good-natured in +the main, unsuspicious, and helpful. So, giving a long sigh of relief +and fatigue, Dundas sank down in one of the large arm-chairs that had +once done duty for the summer loungers on the piazza. + +In the light of the fire Emory was once more looking at him. A certain +air of distinction, a grace and ease of movement, an indescribable +quality of bearing which he could not discriminate, yet which he +instinctively recognized as superior, offended him in some sort. He +noticed again the ring on the stranger's hand as he drew off his glove. +Gloves! Emory Keenan would as soon have thought of wearing a petticoat. +Once more the fear that these effeminate graces found favor in +Millicent's estimation smote upon his heart. It made the surface of his +opaque eyes glisten as Dundas rose and took up a pipe and tobacco pouch +which he had laid on the mantel-piece, his full height and fine figure +shown in the changed posture. + +"Ez tall ez me, ef not taller, an', by gum! a good thirty pound +heavier," Emory reflected, with a growing dismay that he had not those +stalwart claims to precedence in height and weight as an offset to the +smoother fascinations of the stranger's polish. + +He had risen hastily to his feet. He would not linger to smoke +fraternally over the fire, and thus cement friendly relations. + +"I guided him hyar, like old Sim Roxby axed me ter do, an' that's all. I +ain't keerin' ef I never lay eyes on him again," he said to himself. + +"Going?" said Dundas, pleasantly, noticing the motion. "You'll look in +again, won't you?" + +"Wunst in a while, I reckon," drawled Keenan, a trifle thrown off his +balance by this courtesy. + +He paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder for a moment at +the illumined room, then stepped out into the night, leaving the tenant +of the lonely old house filling his pipe by the fire. + +His tread rang along the deserted gallery, and sudden echoes came +tramping down the vacant halls as if many a denizen of the once populous +place was once more astir within its walls. Long after Dundas had heard +him spring from the lower piazza to the ground, and the rusty gate clang +behind him, vague footfalls were audible far away, and were still again, +and once more a pattering tread in some gaunt and empty apartment near +at hand, faint and fainter yet, till he hardly knew whether it were the +reverberations of sound or fancy that held his senses in thrall. + +And when all was still and silent at last he felt less solitary than +when these elusive tokens of human presence were astir. + +Late, late he sat over the dwindling embers. His mind, no longer +diverted by the events of the day, recurred with melancholy persistence +to a theme which even they, although fraught with novelty and presage of +danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril +dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him +in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here, +defenceless so far from the specious wiles and ways of men. All the line +of provocations seemed slight, seemed naught, as he reviewed them and +balanced them against a human life. True, it was not in some mad quarrel +that his skill had taken it and had served to keep his own--a duel, a +fair fight, strictly regular according to the code of "honorable men" +for ages past--and he sought to argue that it was doubtless but the +morbid sense of the wild fastnesses without, the illimitable vastness of +the black night, the unutterable indurability of nature to the +influences of civilization, which made it taste like murder. He had +brought away even from the scene of action, to which he had gone with +decorous deliberation--his worldly affairs arranged for the possibility +of death, his will made, his volition surrendered, and his sacred honor +in the hands of his seconds--a humiliating recollection of the sudden +revulsion of the aspect of all things; the criminal sense of haste with +which he was hurried away after that first straight shot; the agitation, +nay, the fright of his seconds; their eagerness to be swiftly rid of +him, their insistence that he should go away for a time, get out of the +country, out of the embarrassing purview of the law, which was prone to +regard the matter as he himself saw it now, and which had an ugly trick +of calling things by their right names in the sincere phraseology of an +indictment. And thus it was that he was here, remote from all the usual +lines of flight, with his affectation of being a possible purchaser for +the old hotel, far from the railroad, the telegraph, even the postal +service. Some time--soon, indeed, it might be, when the first flush of +excitement and indignation should be overpast, and the law, like a +barking dog that will not bite, should have noisily exhausted the gamut +of its devoirs--he would go back and live according to his habit in his +wonted place, as did other men whom he had known to be "called out," and +who had survived their opponents. Meantime he heard the ash crumble; he +saw the lighted room wane from glancing yellow to a dull steady red, and +so to dusky brown; he marked the wind rise, and die away, and come +again, banging the doors of the empty rooms, and setting timbers all +strangely to creaking as under sudden trampling feet; then lift into the +air with a rustling sound like the stir of garments and the flutter of +wings, calling out weirdly in the great voids of the upper atmosphere. + +He had welcomed the sense of fatigue earlier in the evening, for it +promised sleep. Now it had slipped away from him. He was strong and +young, and the burning sensation that the frosty air had left on his +face was the only token of the long journey. It seemed as if he would +never sleep again as he lay on the lounge watching the gray ash +gradually overgrow the embers, till presently only a vague dull glow +gave intimation of the position of the hearth in the room. And then, +bereft of this dim sense of companionship, he stared wide-eyed in the +darkness, feeling the only creature alive and awake in all the world. +No; the fox was suddenly barking within the quadrangle--a strangely wild +and alien tone. And presently he heard the animal trot past his door on +the piazza, the cushioned footfalls like those of a swift dog. He +thought with a certain anxiety of the tawny tiny owl that had sat like +a stuffed ornament on the mantel-piece of a neighboring room, and he +listened with a quaking vicarious presentiment of woe for the sounds of +capture and despair. He was sensible of waiting and hoping for the fox's +bootless return, when he suddenly lost consciousness. + +How long he slept he did not know, but it seemed only a momentary +respite from the torture of memory, when, still in the darkness, +thousands of tremulous penetrating sounds were astir, and with a great +start he recognized the rain on the roof. It was coming down in steady +torrents that made the house rock before the tumult of his plunging +heart was still, and he was longing again for the forgetfulness of +sleep. In vain. The hours dragged by; the windows slowly, slowly defined +their dull gray squares against the dull gray day dawning without. The +walls that had been left with only the first dark coat of plaster, +awaiting another season for the final decoration, showed their drapings +of cobweb, and the names and pencilled scribblings with which the fancy +of transient bushwhackers had chosen to deface them. The locust-trees +within the quadrangle drearily tossed their branches to and fro in the +wind, the bark very black and distinct against the persistent gray lines +of rain and the white walls of the galleried buildings opposite; the +gutters were brimming, roaring along like miniature torrents; nowhere +was the fox or the owl to be seen. Somehow their presence would have +been a relief--the sight of any living thing reassuring. As he walked +slowly along the deserted piazzas, in turning sudden corners, again and +again he paused, expecting that something, some one, was approaching to +meet him. When at last he mounted his horse, that had neighed gleefully +to see him, and rode away through the avenue and along the empty ways +among the untenanted summer cottages, all the drearier and more forlorn +because of the rain, he felt as if he had left an aberration, some +hideous dream, behind, instead of the stark reality of the gaunt and +vacant and dilapidated old house. + +The transition to the glow and cheer of Sim Roxby's fireside was like a +rescue, a restoration. The smiling welcome in the women's eyes, their +soft drawling voices, with mellifluous intonations that gave a value to +each commonplace simple word, braced his nerves like a tonic. It might +have been only the contrast with the recollections of the night, with +the prospect visible through the open door--the serried lines of rain +dropping aslant from the gray sky and elusively outlined against the +dark masses of leafless woods that encircled the clearing; the dooryard +half submerged with puddles of a clay-brown tint, embossed always with +myriads of protruding drops of rain, for however they melted away the +downpour renewed them, and to the eye they were stationary, albeit +pervaded with a continual tremor--but somehow he was cognizant of a +certain coddling tenderness in the old woman's manner that might have +been relished by a petted child, an unaffected friendliness in the +girl's clear eyes. They made him sit close to the great wood fire; the +blue and yellow flames gushed out from the piles of hickory logs, and +the bed of coals gleamed at red and white heat beneath. They took his +hat to carefully dry it, and they spread out his cloak on two chairs at +one side of the room, where it dismally dripped. When he ventured to +sneeze, Mrs. Roxby compounded and administered a "yerb tea," a sovereign +remedy against colds, which he tasted on compulsion and in great doubt, +and swallowed with alacrity and confidence, finding its basis the easily +recognizable "toddy." He had little knowledge how white and troubled his +face had looked as he came in from the gray day, how strongly marked +were those lines of sharp mental distress, how piteously apparent was +his mute appeal for sympathy and comfort. + +"Mill'cent," said the old woman in the shed-room, as they washed and +wiped the dishes after the cozy breakfast of venison and corn-dodgers +and honey and milk, "that thar man hev run agin the law, sure's ye air +born." + +Millicent turned her reflective fair face, that seemed whiter and more +delicate in the damp dark day, and looked doubtfully out over the +fields, where the water ran in steely lines in the furrows. + +"Mus' hev been by accident or suthin'. _He_ ain't no hardened sinner." + +"Shucks!" the old woman commented upon her reluctant acquiescence. "I +ain't keerin' for the law! 'Tain't none o' my job. The tomfool men make +an' break it. Ennybody ez hev seen this war air obleeged to take note o' +the wickedness o' men in gineral. This hyer man air a sorter pitiful +sinner, an' he hev got a look in his eyes that plumb teches my heart. I +'ain't got no call ter know nuthin' 'bout the law, bein' a 'oman an' +naterally ignorunt. I dun'no' ez he hev run agin it." + +"Mus' hev been by accident," said Millicent, dreamily, still gazing over +the sodden fields. + +The suspicion did nothing to diminish his comfort or their cordiality. +The morning dragged by without change in the outer aspects. The noontide +dinner came and went without Roxby's return, for the report of the +washing away of a bridge some miles distant down the river had early +called him out to the scene of the disaster, to verify in his own +interests the rumor, since he had expected to haul his wheat to the +settlement the ensuing day. The afternoon found the desultory talk still +in progress about the fire, the old woman alternately carding cotton and +nodding in her chair in the corner; the dogs eying the stranger, +listening much of the time with the air of children taking instruction, +only occasionally wandering out-of-doors, the floor here and there +bearing the damp imprint of their feet; and Millicent on her knees in +the other corner, the firelight on her bright hair, her delicate cheek, +her quickly glancing eyes, as she deftly moulded bullets. + +"Uncle Sim hed ter s'render his shootin'-irons," she explained, "an' he +'ain't got no ca'tridge-loadin' ones lef'. So he makes out with his old +muzzle-loadin' rifle that he hed afore the war, an' I moulds his bullets +for him rainy days." + +As she held up a moulded ball and dexterously clipped off the surplus +lead, the gesture was so culinary in its delicacy that one of the dogs +in front of the fire extended his head, making a long neck, with a +tentative sniff and a glistening gluttonous eye. + +"Ef I swallered enny mo' lead, I wouldn't take it hot, Towse," she said, +holding out the bullet for canine inspection. "'Tain't healthy!" + +But the dog, perceiving the nature of the commodity, drew back with a +look of deep reproach, rose precipitately, and with a drooping tail went +out skulkingly into the wet gray day. + +"Towse can't abide a bullet," she observed, "nor nuthin' 'bout a gun. He +got shot wunst a-huntin', an' he never furgot it. Jes show him a gun an' +he ain't nowhar ter be seen--like he war cotch up in the clouds." + +"Good watch-dog, I suppose," suggested Dundas, striving to enter into +the spirit of her talk. + +"Naw; too sp'ilt for a gyard-dog--granny coddled him so whenst he got +shot. He's jest vally'ble fur his conversation, I reckon," she +continued, with a smile in her eyes. "I dun'no' what else, but he is +toler'ble good company." + +The other dogs pressed about her, the heads of the great hounds as high +as her own as she sat among them on the floor. With bright eyes and +knitted brows they followed the motions of pouring in the melted metal, +the lifting of the bullets from the mould, the clipping off of the +surplus lead, and the flash of the keen knife. + +Outside the sad light waned; the wind sighed and sighed; the dreary rain +fell; the trees clashed their boughs dolorously together, and their +turbulence deadened the sound of galloping horses. As Dundas sat and +gazed at the girl's intent head, with its fleecy tendrils and its +massive coil, the great hounds beside her, all emblazoned by the +firelight upon the brown wall near by, with the vast fireplace at hand, +the whole less like reality than some artist's pictured fancy, he knew +naught of a sudden entrance, until she moved, breaking the spell, and +looked up to meet the displeasure in Roxby's eyes and the dark scowl on +Emory Keenan's face. + + * * * * * + +That night the wind shifted to the north. Morning found the chilled +world still, ice where the water had lodged, all the trees incased in +glittering garb that followed the symmetry alike of every bough and the +tiniest twig, and made splendid the splintered remnants of the +lightning-riven. The fields were laced across from furrow to furrow, in +which the frozen water still stood gleaming, with white arabesques which +had known a more humble identity as stubble and crab-grass; the sky was +slate-colored, and from its sad tint this white splendor gained added +values of contrast. When the sun should shine abroad much of the effect +would be lost in the too dazzling glister; but the sun did not shine. + +All day the gray mood held unchanged. Night was imperceptibly sifting +down upon all this whiteness, that seemed as if it would not be +obscured, as if it held within itself some property of luminosity, when +Millicent, a white apron tied over her golden head, improvising a hood, +its superfluous fulness gathered in many folds and pleats around her +neck, fichu-wise, stood beside the ice-draped fodder-stack and essayed +with half-numbed hands to insert a tallow dip into the socket of a +lantern, all incrusted and clumsy with previous drippings. + +"I dun'no' whether I be a-goin' ter need this hyar consarn whilst +milkin' or no," she observed, half to herself, half to Emory, who, +chewing a straw, somewhat surlily had followed her out for a word apart. +"The dusk 'pears slow ter-night, but Spot's mighty late comin' home, an' +old Sue air fractious an' contrairy-minded, and feels mighty anxious an' +oneasy 'boutn her calf, that's ez tall ez she is nowadays, an' don't +keer no mo' 'bout her mammy 'n a half-grown human does. I tell her she +oughtn't ter be mad with me, but with the way she brung up her chile, ez +won't notice her now." + +She looked up with a laugh, her eyes and teeth gleaming; her golden hair +still showed its color beneath the spotless whiteness of her voluminous +headgear, and the clear tints of her complexion seemed all the more +delicate and fresh in the snowy pallor of the surroundings and the +grayness of the evening. + +"I reckon I'd better take it along," and once more she addressed herself +to the effort to insert the dip into the lantern. + +Emory hardly heard. His pulse was quick. His eye glittered. He breathed +hard as, with both hands in his pockets, he came close to her. + +"Mill'cent," he said, "I told ye the t'other day ez ye thunk a heap too +much o' that thar stranger--" + +"An' I tole ye, bubby, that I didn't think nuthin' o' nobody but +you-uns," she interrupted, with an effort to placate his jealousy. The +little jocularity which she affected dwindled and died before the +steady glow of his gaze, and she falteringly looked at him, her unguided +hands futilely fumbling with the lantern. + +"Ye can't fool me," he stoutly asseverated. "Ye think mo' o' him 'n o' +me, kase ye 'low he air rich, an' book-larned, an' smooth-fingered, an' +finified ez a gal, an' goin' ter buy the hotel. I say, _hotel_! Now +_I'll_ tell ye what he is--I'll tell ye! He's a criminal. He's runnin' +from the law. He's hidin' in the old hotel that he's purtendin' ter +buy." + +She stared wide-eyed and pallid, breathless and waiting. + +He interpreted her expression as doubt, denial. + +"It's gospel sure," he cried. "Fur this very evenin' I met a gang o' men +an' the sheriff's deputy down yander by the sulphur spring 'bout +sundown, an' he 'lowed ez they war a-sarchin' fur a criminal ez war +skulkin' round hyarabout lately--ez they wanted a man fur hevin' +c'mitted murder." + +"But ye didn't accuse _him_, surely; ye hed no right ter s'picion _him_. +Uncle Sim! Oh, my Lord! Ye surely wouldn't! Oh, Uncle Sim!" + +Her tremulous words broke into a quavering cry as she caught his arm +convulsively, for his face confirmed her fears. She thrust him wildly +away, and started toward the house. + +"Ye needn't go tattlin' on me," he said, roughly pushing her aside. +"I'll tell Mr. Roxby myself. I ain't 'shamed o' what I done. I'll tell +him. I'll tell him myself." And animated with this intention to +forestall her disclosure, his long strides bore him swiftly past and +into the house. + +It seemed to him that he lingered there only a moment or two, for Roxby +was not at the cabin, and he said nothing of the quarrel to the old +woman. Already his heart had revolted against his treachery, and then +there came to him the further reflection that he did not know enough to +justify suspicion. Was not the stranger furnished with the fullest +credentials--a letter to Roxby from the Colonel? Perhaps he had allowed +his jealousy to endanger the man, to place him in jeopardy even of his +life should he resist arrest. + +Keenan tarried at the house merely long enough to devise a plausible +excuse for his sudden excited entrance, and then took his way back to +the barnyard. + +It was vacant. The cows still stood lowing at the bars; the sheep +cowered together in their shed; the great whitened cone of the +fodder-stack gleamed icily in the purple air; beside it lay the lantern +where Millicent had cast it aside. She was gone! He would not believe it +till he had run to the barn, calling her name in the shadowy place, +while the horse at his manger left his corn to look over the walls of +his stall with inquisitive surprised eyes, luminous in the dusk. He +searched the hen-house, where the fowls on their perches crowded close +because of the chill of the evening. He even ran to the bars and looked +down across the narrow ravine to which the clearing sloped. Beyond the +chasm-like gorge he saw presently on the high ascent opposite footprints +that had broken the light frost-like coating of ice on the dead leaves +and moss--climbing footprints, swift, disordered. He looked back again +at the lantern where Millicent had flung it in her haste. Her mission +was plain now. She had gone to warn Dundas. She had taken a direct line +through the woods. She hoped to forestall the deputy sheriff and his +posse, following the circuitous mountain road. + +Keenan's lip curled in triumph. His heart burned hot with scornful anger +and contempt of the futility of her effort. "They're there afore she +started!" he said, looking up at the aspects of the hour shown by the +sky, and judging of the interval since the encounter by the spring. +Through a rift in the gray cloud a star looked down with an icy +scintillation and disappeared again. He heard a branch in the woods snap +beneath the weight of ice. A light sprang into the window of the cabin +hard by, and came in a great gush of orange-tinted glow out into the +snowy bleak wintry space. He suddenly leaped over the fence and ran like +a deer through the woods. + +Millicent too had been swift. He had thought to overtake her before he +emerged from the woods into the more open space where the hotel stood. +In this quarter the cloud-break had been greater. Toward the west a +fading amber glow still lingered in long horizontal bars upon the opaque +gray sky. The white mountains opposite were hung with purple shadows +borrowed from a glimpse of sunset somewhere far away over the valley of +East Tennessee; one distant lofty range was drawn in elusive snowy +suggestions, rather than lines, against a green space of intense yet +pale tint. The moon, now nearing the full, hung over the wooded valley, +and aided the ice and the crust of snow to show its bleak, wan, wintry +aspect; a tiny spark glowed in its depths from some open door of an +isolated home. Over it all a mist was rising from the east, drawing its +fleecy but opaque curtain. Already it had climbed the mountain-side and +advanced, windless, soundless, overwhelming, annihilating all before and +beneath it. The old hotel had disappeared, save that here and there a +gaunt gable protruded and was withdrawn, showed once more, and once more +was submerged. + +A horse's head suddenly looking out of the enveloping mist close to his +shoulder gave him the first intimation of the arrival, the secret silent +waiting, of those whom he had directed hither. That the saddles were +empty he saw a moment later. The animals stood together in a row, +hitched to the rack. No disturbance sounded from the silent building. +The event was in abeyance. The fugitive in hiding was doubtless at ease, +unsuspecting, while the noiseless search of the officers for his +quarters was under way. + +With a thrill of excitement Keenan crept stealthily through an open +passage and into the old grass-grown spaces of the quadrangle. Night +possessed the place, but the cloud seemed denser than the darkness. He +was somehow sensible of its convolutions as he stood against the wall +and strained his eyes into the dusk. Suddenly it was penetrated by a +milky-white glimmer, a glimmer duplicated at equidistant points, each +fading as its successor sprang into brilliance. The next moment he +understood its significance. It had come from the blurred windows of the +old ball-room. Millicent had lighted her candle as she searched for the +fugitive's quarters; she was passing down the length of the old house on +the second story, and suddenly she emerged upon the gallery. She +shielded the feeble flicker with her hand; her white-hooded head gleamed +as with an aureola as the divergent rays rested on the opaque mist; and +now and again she clutched the baluster and walked with tremulous care, +for the flooring was rotten here and there, and ready to crumble away. +Her face was pallid, troubled; and Dundas, who had been warned by the +tramp of horses and the tread of men, and who had descended the stairs, +revolver in hand, ready to slip away if he might under cover of the +mist, paused appalled, gazing across the quadrangle as on an +apparition--the sight so familiar to his senses, so strange to his +experience. He saw in an abrupt shifting of the mist that there were +other figures skulking in doorways, watching her progress. The next +moment she leaned forward to clutch the baluster, and the light of the +candle fell full on Emory Keenan, lurking in the open passage. + +A sudden sharp cry of "Surrender!" + +The young mountaineer, confused, swiftly drew his pistol. Others were +swifter still. A sharp report rang out into the chill crisp air, rousing +all the affrighted echoes--a few faltering steps, a heavy fall, and for +a long time Emory Keenan's life-blood stained the floor of the +promenade. Even when it had faded, the rustic gossips came often and +gazed at the spot with morbid interest, until, a decade later, an +enterprising proprietor removed the floor and altered the shape of that +section of the building out of recognition. + +The escape of Dundas was easily effected. The deputy sheriff, confronted +with the problem of satisfactorily accounting for the death of a man who +had committed no offence against public polity, was no longer +formidable. His errand had been the arrest of a horse-thief, well-known +to him, and he had no interest in pursuing a fugitive, however obnoxious +to the law, whose personal description was so different from that of the +object of his search. + +Time restored to Dundas his former place in life and the esteem of his +fellow-citizens. His stay in the mountains was an episode which he will +not often recall, but sometimes volition fails, and he marvels at the +strange fulfilment of the girl's vision; he winces to think that her +solicitude for his safety should have cost her her lover; he wonders +whether she yet lives, and whether that tender troubled phantom, on +nights when the wind is still and the moon is low and the mists rise, +again joins the strange, elusive, woful company crossing the quaking +foot-bridge. + + + + +HIS "DAY IN COURT" + + +It had been a hard winter along the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, +and still the towering treeless domes were covered with snow, and the +vagrant winds were abroad, rioting among the clifty heights where they +held their tryst, or raiding down into the sheltered depths of the Cove, +where they seldom intruded. Nevertheless, on this turbulent rush was +borne in the fair spring of the year. The fragrance of the budding +wild-cherry was to be discerned amidst the keen slanting javelins of the +rain. A cognition of the renewal and the expanding of the forces of +nature pervaded the senses as distinctly as if one might hear the grass +growing, or feel along the chill currents of the air the vernal pulses +thrill. Night after night in the rifts of the breaking clouds close to +the horizon was glimpsed the stately sidereal Virgo, prefiguring and +promising the harvest, holding in her hand a gleaming ear of corn. But +it was not the constellation which the tumultuous torrent at the +mountain's base reflected in a starry glitter. From the hill-side above +a light cast its broken image among the ripples, as it shone for an +instant through the bosky laurel, white, stellular, splendid--only a +tallow dip suddenly placed in the window of a log-cabin, and as suddenly +withdrawn. + +For a gruff voice within growled out a remonstrance: "What ye doin' that +fur, Steve? Hev that thar candle got enny call ter bide in that thar +winder?" + +The interior, contrary to the customary aspect of the humble homes of +the region, was in great disarray. Cooking utensils stood uncleaned +about the hearth; dishes and bowls of earthen-ware were assembled upon +the table in such numbers as to suggest that several meals had been +eaten without the ceremony of laying the cloth anew, and that in default +of washing the crockery it had been re-enforced from the shelf so far as +the limited store might admit. Saddles and spinning-wheels, an ox-yoke +and trace-chains, reels and wash-tubs, were incongruously pushed +together in the corners. Only one of the three men in the room made any +effort to reduce the confusion to order. This was the square-faced, +black-bearded, thick-set young fellow who took the candle from the +window, and now advanced with it toward the hearth, holding it at an +angle that caused the flame to swiftly melt the tallow, which dripped +generously upon the floor. + +"I hev seen Eveliny do it," he said, excitedly justifying himself. "I +noticed her sot the candle in the winder jes' las' night arter supper." +He glanced about uncertainly, and his patience seemed to give way +suddenly. "Dad-burn the old candle! I dunno _whar_ ter set it," he +cried, desperately, as he flung it from him, and it fell upon the floor +close to the wall. + +The dogs lifted their heads to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got +up with the nimbleness of expectation, and, with a prescient gratitude +astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped suddenly, +and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if suspecting a +practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young mountaineer's +face. He threw himself into his chair with a heavy sigh, and desisted +for a time from the unaccustomed duty of clearing away the dishes after +supper. + +"An' 'ain't ye got the gumption ter sense what Eveliny sot the candle in +the winder fur?" his brother Timothy demanded, abruptly--"ez a sign ter +that thar durned Abs'lom Kittredge." + +The other two men turned their heads and looked at the speaker with a +poignant intensity of interest. "I 'lowed ez much when I seen that light +ez I war a-kemin' home las' night," he continued; "it shined spang down +the slope acrost the ruver an' through all the laurel; it looked plumb +like a star that hed fell ter yearth in that pitch-black night. I dunno +how I s'picioned it, but ez I stood thar an' gazed I knowed somebody war +a-standin' an' gazin' too on the foot-bredge a mite ahead o' me. I +couldn't see him, an' he couldn't turn back an' pass me, the bredge +bein' too narrer. He war jes obligated ter go on. I hearn him breathe +quick; then--pit-pat, pit-pat, ez he walked straight toward that light. +An' he be 'bleeged ter hev hearn me, fur arter I crost I stopped. +Nuthin'. Jes' a whisper o' wind, an' jes' a swishin' from the ruver. I +knowed then he hed turned off inter the laurel. An' I went on, +a-whistlin' ter make him 'low ez I never s'picioned nuthin'. An' I kem +inter the house an' tole dad ez he'd better be a-lookin' arter Eveliny, +fur I b'lieved she war a-settin' her head ter run away an' marry Abs'lom +Kittredge." + +"Waal, I ain't right up an' down sati'fied we oughter done what we +done," exclaimed Stephen, fretfully. "It don't 'pear edzacly right fur +three men ter fire on one." + +Old Joel Quimbey, in his arm-chair in the chimney-corner, suddenly +lifted his head--a thin head with fine white hair, short and sparse, +upon it. His thin, lined face was clear-cut, with a pointed chin and an +aquiline nose. He maintained an air of indignant and rebellious grief, +and had hitherto sat silent, a gnarled and knotted hand on either arm of +his chair. His eyes gleamed keenly from under his heavy brows as he +turned his face upon his sons. "How could we know thar warn't but one, +eh?" + +He had not been a candidate for justice of the peace for nothing; he had +absorbed something of the methods and spirit of the law through sheer +propinquity to the office. "We-uns wouldn't be persumed ter _know_." And +he ungrudgingly gave himself all the benefit of the doubt that the law +accords. + +"That's a true word!" exclaimed Stephen, quick to console his +conscience. "Jes' look at the fac's, now. We-uns in a plumb black +midnight hear a man a-gittin' over our fence; we git our rifles; +a-peekin' through the chinkin' we ketch a glimge o' him--" + +"Ha!" cried out Timothy, with savage satisfaction, "we seen him by the +light she set ter lead him on!" + +[Illustration: "OLD JOEL QUIMBEY"] + +He was tall and lank, with a delicately hooked nose, high cheek-bones, +fierce dark eyes, and dark eyebrows, which were continually elevated, +corrugating his forehead. His hair was black, short and straight, and he +was clad in brown jeans, as were the others, with great cowhide boots +reaching to the knee. He fixed his fiery intent gaze on his brother as +the slower Stephen continued, "An' so we blaze away--" + +"An' one durned fool's so onlucky ez ter hit him an' not kill him," +growled Timothy, again interrupting. "An' so whilst Eveliny runs out +a-screamin', 'He's dead! he's dead!--ye hev shot him dead!' we-uns make +no doubt but he _is_ dead, an' load up agin, lest his frien's mought +rush in on we-uns whilst we hedn't no use o' our shootin'-irons. An' +suddint--ye can't hear nuthin' but jes' a owel hootin' in the woods, or +old Pa'son Bates's dogs a-howlin' acrost the Cove. An' we go out with a +lantern, an' thar's jes' a pool o' blood in the dooryard, an' bloody +tracks down ter the laurel." + +"Eveliny gone!" cried the old man, smiting his hands together; "my +leetle darter! The only one ez never gin me enny trouble. I couldn't hev +made out ter put up with this hyar worl' no longer when my wife died ef +it hedn't been fur Eveliny. Boys war wild an' mischeevious, an' folks +outside don't keer nuthin' 'bout ye--ef they _war_ ter 'lect ye ter +office 'twould be ter keep some other feller from hevin' it, 'kase they +'spise him more'n ye. An' hyar she's runned off an' married old Tom +Kittredge's gran'son, Josiah Kittredge's son--when our folks 'ain't +spoke ter none o' 'em fur fifty year--Josiah Kittredge's son--ha! ha! +ha!" He laughed aloud in tuneless scorn of himself and of this freak of +froward destiny and then fell to wringing his hands and calling upon +Evelina. + +The flare from the great chimney place genially played over the huddled +confusion of the room and the brown logs of the wall, where the gigantic +shadows of the three men mimicked their every gesture with grotesque +exaggeration. The rainbow yarn on the warping bars, the strings of +red-pepper hanging from the ceiling, the burnished metallic flash from +the guns on their racks of deer antlers, served as incidents in the +monotony of the alternate yellow flicker and brown shadow. Deep under +the blaze the red coals pulsated, and in the farthest vistas of the fire +quivered a white heat. + +"Old Tom Kittredge," the father resumed, after a time, "he jes' branded +yer gran'dad's cattle with his mark; he jes' cheated yer gran'dad, my +dad, out'n six head o' cattle." + +"But then," said the warlike Timothy, not willing to lose sight of +reprisal even in vague reminiscence, "he hed only one hand ter rob with +arter that, fur I hev hearn ez how when gran'dad got through with him +the doctor hed ter take his arm off." + +"Sartainly, sartainly," admitted the old man, in quiet assent "An' +Josiah Kittredge he put out the eyes of a horse critter o' mine right +thar at the court-house door--" + +"Waal, arterward, we-uns fired his house over his head," put in Tim. + +"An' Josiah Kittredge an' me," the old man went on, "we-uns clinched +every time we met in this mortal life. Every time I go past the +graveyard whar he be buried I kin feel his fingers on my throat. He had +a nervy grip, but no variation; he always tuk holt the same way." + +"'Pears like ter me ez 'twar a fust-rate time ter fetch out the rifles +again," remarked Tim, "this mornin', when old Pa'son Bates kem up hyar +an' 'lowed ez he hed married Eveliny ter Abs'lom Kittredge on his +death-bed; 'So be, pa'son,' I say. An' he tuk off his hat an' say, +'Thank the Lord, this will heal the breach an' make ye frien's!' An' I +say, 'Edzacly, pa'son, ef it _air_ Abs'lom's death-bed; but them +Kittredges air so smilin' an' deceivin' I be powerful feared he'll cheat +the King o' Terrors himself. I'll forgive 'em ennything--_over his +grave_.'" + +"Pa'son war tuk toler'ble suddint in his temper," said the literal +Steve. "I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he +put out." + +"Ye mus' keep up a Christian sperit, boys; that's the main thing," said +the old man, who was esteemed very religious, and a pious Mentor in his +own family. He gazed meditatively into the fire. "What ailed Eveliny ter +git so tuk up with this hyar Abs'lom? What made her like him?" he +propounded. + +"His big eyes, edzacly like a buck's, an' his long yaller hair," sneered +the discerning Timothy, with the valid scorn of a big ugly man for a +slim pretty one. "'Twar jes 'count o' his long yaller hair his mother +called him Abs'lom. He war named Pete or Bob, I disremember +what--suthin' common--till his hair got so long an' curly, an' he sot +out ter be so plumb all-fired beautiful, an' his mother named him agin; +this time Abs'lom, arter the king's son, 'count o' his yaller hair." + +"Git hung by his hair some o' these days in the woods, like him the +Bible tells about; that happened ter the sure-enough Abs'lom," suggested +Stephen, hopefully. + +"Naw, sir," said Tim; "when Abs'lom Kittredge gits hung it'll be with +suthin' stronger'n hair; he'll stretch hemp." He exchanged a glance of +triumphant prediction with his brother, and anon gazed ruefully into the +fire. + +"Ye talk like ez ef he war goin' ter live, boys," said old Joel Quimbey, +irritably. "Pa'son 'lowed he war powerful low." + +"Pa'son said he'd never hev got home alive 'thout she'd holped him," +said Stephen. "She jes' tuk him an' drug him plumb ter the bars, though +I don't see how she done it, slim leetle critter ez she be; an' thar she +holped him git on his beastis; an' then--I declar' I feel ez ef I could +kill her fur a-demeanin' of herself so--she led that thar horse, him +a-ridin' an' a-leanin' on the neck o' the beastis, two mile up the +mountain, through the night." + +"Waal, let her bide thar. I'll look on her face no mo'," declared the +old man, his toothless jaw shaking. "Kittredge she be now, an' none o' +the name kin come a-nigh me. How be I ever a-goin' 'bout 'mongst the +folks at the settlement agin with my darter married ter a Kittredge? How +Josiah an' his dad mus' be a-grinnin' in thar graves at me this night! +An' I 'low they hev got suthin' ter grin about." + +And suddenly his grim face relaxed, and once more he began to smite his +hands together and to call aloud for Evelina. + +Timothy could offer no consolation, but stared dismally into the fire, +and Stephen rose with a sigh and addressed himself to pushing the +spinning-wheels and tubs and tables into the opposite corner of the +room, in the hope of solving the enigma of its wonted order. + + * * * * * + +It seemed to Evelina afterward that when she climbed the rugged ways of +the mountain slope in that momentous night she left forever in the +depths of the Cove that free and careless young identity which she had +been. She did not accurately discriminate the moment in which she began +to realize that she was among her hereditary enemies, encompassed by a +hatred nourished to full proportions and to a savage strength long +before she drew her first breath. The fact only gradually claimed its +share in her consciousness as the tension of anxiety for Absalom's sake +relaxed, for the young mountaineer's strength and vitality were promptly +reasserted, and he rallied from the wound and his pallid and forlorn +estate with the recuperative power of the primitive man. By degrees she +came to expect the covert unfriendly glances his brother cast upon her, +the lowering averted mien of her sister-in-law, and now and again she +surprised a long, lingering, curious gaze in his mother's eyes. They +were all Kittredges! And she wondered how she could ever have dreamed +that she might live happily among them--one of them, for her name was +theirs. And then perhaps the young husband would stroll languidly in, +with his long hair curling on his blue jeans coat-collar, and an assured +smile in his dark brown eyes, and some lazy jest on his lips, certain of +a welcoming laugh, for he had been so near to death that they all had a +sense of acquisition in that he had been led back. For his sake they had +said little; his mother would busy herself in brewing his "yerb" tea, +and his brother would offer to saddle the mare if he felt that he could +ride, and they would all be very friendly together; and his alien wife +would presently slip out unnoticed into the "gyarden spot," where the +rows of vegetables grew as they did in the Cove, turning upon her the +same neighborly looks they wore of yore, and showing not a strange leaf +among them. The sunshine wrapped itself in its old fine gilded gossamer +haze and drowsed upon the verdant slopes; the green jewelled "Juny-bugs" +whirred in the soft air; the mould was as richly brown as in Joel +Quimbey's own enclosure; the flag-lilies bloomed beside the onion bed; +and the woolly green leaves of the sage wore their old delicate tint and +gave out a familiar odor. + +Among this quaint company of the garden borders she spent much of her +time, now hoeing in a desultory fashion, now leaning on the long handle +of the implement and looking away upon the far reaches of the purple +mountains. As they stretched to vague distances they became blue, and +farther on the great azure domes merged into a still more tender hue, +and this in turn melted into a soft indeterminate tint that embellished +the faint horizon. Her dreaming eyes would grow bright and wistful; her +rich brown curling hair, set free by the yellow sun-bonnet that slipped +off her head and upon her shoulders, would airily float backward in the +wind; there was a lithe grace in the slender figure, albeit clad in a +yellow homespun of a deep dye, and the faded purplish neckerchief was +caught about a throat fairer even than the fair face, which was +delicately flushed. Absalom's mother, standing beside Peter, the eldest +son, in the doorway, watched her long one day. + +"It all kem about from that thar bran dance," said Peter, a homely man, +with a sterling, narrow-minded wife and an ascetic sense of religion. +"Thar Satan waits, an' he gits nimbler every time ye shake yer foot. The +fiddler gin out the figger ter change partners, an' this hyar gal war +dancin' opposite Abs'lom, ez hed never looked nigh her till that day. +The gal didn't know _what_ ter do; she jes' stood still; but Abs'lom he +jes' danced up ter her ez keerless an' gay ez he always war, jes' like +she war ennybody else, an' when he held out his han' she gin him hern, +all a-trembly, an' lookin' up at him, plumb skeered ter death, her eyes +all wide an' sorter wishful, like some wild thing trapped in the woods. +An' then the durned fiddler, moved by the devil, I'll be bound, plumb +furgot ter change 'em back. So they danced haff'n the day tergether. An' +arter that they war forever a-stealin' off an' accidentally meetin' at +the spring, an' whenst he war a-huntin' or she drivin' up the cow, an' +a-courtin' ginerally, till they war promised ter marry." + +"'Twarn't the bran dance; 'twar suthin' ez fleetin' an' ez useless," +said his mother, standing in the door and gazing at the unconscious +girl, who was leaning upon the hoe, half in the shadow of the blooming +laurel that crowded about the enclosure and bent over the rail fence, +and half in the burnished sunshine; "she's plumb beautiful--thar's the +snare ez tangled Abs'lom's steps. I never 'lowed ter see the day ez +could show enny comfort fur his dad bein' dead, but we hev been spared +some o' the tallest cavortin' that ever war seen sence the Big Smoky war +built. Sometimes it plumb skeers me ter think ez we-uns hev got a +Quimbey abidin' up hyar along o' we-uns in _his_ house an' a-callin' o' +herse'f Kittredge. I looks ter see him a-stalkin' roun' hyar some night, +too outdone an' aggervated ter rest in his grave." + +But the nights continued spectreless and peaceful on the Great Smoky, +and the same serene stars shone above the mountain as over the Cove. +Evelina could watch here, as often before, the rising moon ascending +through a rugged gap in the range, suffusing the dusky purple slopes and +the black crags on either hand with a pensive glamour, and revealing the +river below by the amber reflection its light evoked. She often sat on +the step of the porch, her elbow on her knees, her chin in her hand, +following with her shining eyes the pearly white mists loitering among +the ranges. Hear! a dog barks in the Cove, a cock crows, a horn is +wound, far, far away; it echoes faintly. And once more only the sounds +of the night--that vague stir in the windless woods, as if the forest +breathes, the far-away tinkle of water hidden in the darkness--and the +moon is among the summits. + +The men remained within, for Absalom avoided the chill night air, and +crouched over the smouldering fire. Peter's wife sedulously held aloof +from the ostracized Quimbey woman. But her mother-in-law had fallen into +the habit of sitting upon the porch these moonlit nights. The sparse, +newly-leafed hop and gourd vines clambering to its roof were all +delicately imaged on the floor, and the old woman's clumsy figure, her +grotesque sun-bonnet, her awkward arm-chair, were faithfully reproduced +in her shadow on the log wall of the cabin--even to the up-curling smoke +from her pipe. Once she suddenly took the stem from her mouth. +"Eveliny," she said, "'pears like ter me ye talk mighty little. Thar +ain't no use in gittin' tongue-tied up hyar on the mounting." + +Evelina started and raised her eyes, dilated with a stare of amazement +at this unexpected overture. + +"I ain't keerin'," said the old woman, recklessly, to herself, although +consciously recreant to the traditions of the family, and sacrificing +with a pang her distorted sense of loyalty and duty to her kindlier +impulse. "I warn't born a Kittredge nohow." + +"Yes,'m," said Evelina, meekly; "but I don't feel much like talkin' +noways; I never talked much, bein' nobody but men-folks ter our house. +I'd ruther hear ye talk 'n talk myself." + +"Listen at ye now! The headin' young folks o' this kentry 'll never rest +till they make thar elders shoulder _all_ the burdens. An' what air ye +wantin' a pore ole 'oman like me ter talk about?" + +Evelina hesitated a moment, then looked up, with a face radiant in the +moonbeams. "Tell all 'bout Abs'lom--afore I ever seen him." + +His mother laughed. "Ye air a powerful fool, Eveliny." + +The girl laughed a little, too. "I dunno ez I want ter be no wiser," she +said. + +But one was his wife, and the other was his mother, and as they talked +of him daily and long, the bond between them was complete. + + * * * * * + +"I hev got 'em both plumb fooled," the handsome Absalom boasted at the +settlement, when the gossips wondered once more, as they had often done, +that there should be such unity of interest between old Joel Quimbey's +daughter and old Josiah Kittredge's widow. As time went on many rumors +of great peace on the mountain-side came to the father's ears, and he +grew more testy daily as he grew visibly older. These rumors multiplied +with the discovery that they were as wormwood and gall to him. Not that +he wished his daughter to be unhappy, but the joy which was his grief +and humiliation was needlessly flaunted into his face; the idlers about +the county town had invariably a new budget of details, being supplied, +somewhat maliciously, it must be confessed, by the Kittredges +themselves. The ceremony of planting one foot on the neck of the +vanquished was in their minds one of the essential concomitants of +victory. The bold Absalom, not thoroughly known to either of the women +who adored him, was ingenious in expedients, and had applied the +knowledge gleaned from his wife's reminiscences of her home, her +father, and her brothers to more accurately aim his darts. Sometimes +old Quimbey would fairly flee the town, and betake himself in a towering +rage to his deserted hearth, to brood futilely over the ashes, and +devise impotent schemes of vengeance. + +He often wondered afterward in dreary retrospection how he had survived +that first troublous year after his daughter's elopement, when he was so +lonely, so heavy-hearted at home, so harried and angered abroad. His +comforts, it is true, were amply insured: a widowed sister had come to +preside over his household--a deaf old woman, who had much to be +thankful for in her infirmity, for Joel Quimbey in his youth, before he +acquired religion, had been known as a singularly profane man--"a mos' +survigrus cusser"--and something of his old proficiency had returned to +him. Perhaps public sympathy for his troubles strengthened his hold upon +the regard of the community. For it was in the second year of Evelina's +marriage, in the splendid midsummer, when all the gifts of nature climax +to a gorgeous perfection, and candidates become incumbents, that he +unexpectedly attained the great ambition of his life. He was said to +have made the race for justice of the peace from sheer force of habit, +but by some unexplained freak of popularity the oft-defeated candidate +was successful by a large majority at the August election. + +"Laws-a-massy, boys," he said, tremulously, to his triumphant sons, when +the result was announced, the excited flush on his thin old face +suffusing his hollow veinous temples, and rising into his fine white +hair, "how glad Eveliny would hev been ef--ef--" He was about to say if +she had lived, for he often spoke of her as if she were dead. He turned +suddenly back, and began to eagerly absorb the details of the race, as +if he had often before been elected, with calm superiority canvassing +the relative strength, or rather the relative weakness, of the defeated +aspirants. + +He could scarcely have measured the joy which the news gave to Evelina. +She was eminently susceptible of the elation of pride, the fervid glow +of success, but her tender heart melted in sympathetic divination of all +that this was to him who had sought it so long, and so unabashed by +defeat. She pined to see his triumph in his eyes, to hear it in his +voice. She wondered--nay, she knew that he longed to tell it to her. As +the year rolled around again to summer, and she heard from time to time +of his quarterly visits to the town as a member of the worshipful +Quarterly County Court, she began to hope that, softened by his +prosperity, lifted so high by his honors above all the cavillings of the +Kittredges, he might be more leniently disposed toward her, might pity +her, might even go so far as to forgive. + +But none of her filial messages reached her father's fiery old heart. + +"Ye'll be sure, Abs'lom, ef ye see Joe Boyd in town, ye'll tell him ter +gin dad my respec's, an' the word ez how the baby air a-thrivin', an' I +wants ter fotch him ter see the fambly at home, ef they'll lemme." + +Then she would watch Absalom with all the confidence of happy +anticipation, as he rode off down the mountain with his hair flaunting, +and his spurs jingling, and his shy young horse curveting. + +But no word ever came in response; and sometimes she would take the +child in her arms and carry him down a path, worn smooth by her own +feet, to a jagged shoulder thrust out by the mountain where all the +slopes fell away, and a crag beetled over the depths of the Cove. Thence +she could discern certain vague lines marking the enclosure, and a tiny +cluster of foliage hardly recognizable as the orchard, in the midst of +which the cabin nestled. She could not distinguish them, but she knew +that the cows were coming to be milked, lowing and clanking their bells +tunefully, fording the river that had the sunset emblazoned upon it, or +standing flank deep amidst its ripples, the chickens might be going to +roost among the althea bushes; the lazy old dogs were astir on the +porch. She could picture her brothers at work about the barn; most often +a white-haired man who walked with a stick--alack! she did not fancy how +feebly, nor that his white hair had grown long and venerable, and tossed +in the breeze. "Ef he would jes lemme kem fur one haff'n hour!" she +would cry. + +But all her griefs were bewept on the crag, that there might be no tears +to distress the tenderhearted Absalom when she should return to the +house. + +The election of Squire Quimbey was a sad blow to the arrogant spirit of +the Kittredges. They had easily accustomed themselves to ascendency, and +they hotly resented the fact that fate had forborne the opportunity to +hit Joel Quimbey when he was down. They had used their utmost influence +to defeat him in the race, and had openly avowed their desire to see him +bite the dust. The inimical feeling between the families culminated one +rainy autumnal day in the town where the quarterly county court was in +session. + +A fire had been kindled in the great rusty stove, and crackled away with +grudging merriment inside, imparting no sentiment of cheer to the gaunt +bare room, with its dusty window-panes streaked with rain, its shutters +drearily flapping in the wind, and the floor bearing the imprint of many +boots burdened with the red clay of the region. The sound of slow +strolling feet in the brick-paved hall was monotonous and somnolent. + +Squire Quimbey sat in his place among the justices. Despite his pride of +office, he had not the heart for business that might formerly have been +his. More than once his attention wandered. He looked absently out of +the nearest window at the neighboring dwelling--a little frame-house +with a green yard; a well-sweep was defined against the gray sky, and +about the curb a file of geese followed with swaying gait the wise old +gander. "What a hand for fow-_els_ Eveliny war!" he muttered to himself; +"an' she hed luck with sech critters." He used the obituary tense, for +Evelina had in some sort passed away. + +He rubbed his hand across his corrugated brow, and suddenly he became +aware that her husband was in the room, speaking to the chairman of the +county court, and claiming a certificate in the sum of two dollars each +for the scalps of one wolf, "an' one painter," he continued, laying the +small furry repulsive objects upon the desk, "an' one dollar fur the +skelp of one wild-cat." He was ready to take his oath that these animals +were killed by him running at large in this county. + +He had stooped a little in making the transfer. He came suddenly to his +full height, and stood with one hand in his leather belt, the other +shouldering his rifle. The old man scanned him curiously. The crude +light from the long windows was full upon his tall slim figure; his +yellow hair curled down upon the collar of his blue jeans coat; his +great miry boots were drawn high over the trousers to the knee; his +pensive deer-like eyes brightened with a touch of arrogance and enmity +as, turning slowly to see who was present, his glance encountered his +father-in-law's fiery gaze. + +"Mr. Cheerman! Mr. Cheerman!" exclaimed the old man, tremulously, "lemme +examinate that thar wild-cat skelp. Thanky, sir; thanky, sir; I wanter +see ef 'tain't off'n the head o' some old tame tomcat. An' this air a +painter's"--affecting to scan it by the window--"two ears 'cordin' to +law; yes, sir, two; and this"--his keen old face had all the white light +of the sad gray day on its bleaching hair and its many lines, and his +eager old hands trembled with the excitement of the significant satire +he enacted--"an' this air a wolf's, ye say? Yes; it's a Kittredge's; +same thing, Mr. Cheerman, by a diff'ent name; nuthin' in the code +'bout'n a premium fur a Kittredge's skelp; but same natur'; coward, +bully, thief--_thief_!" + +The words in the high cracked voice rang from the bare walls and bare +floors as he tossed the scalps from him, and sat down, laughing silently +in painful, mirthless fashion, his toothless jaw quivering, and his +shaking hands groping for the arms of his chair. + +"Who says a Kittredge air a thief says a lie!" cried out the young man, +recovering from his tense surprise. "I don't keer how old he be," he +stipulated--for he had not thought to see her father so aged--"he lies." + +The old man fixed him with a steady gaze and a sudden alternation of +calmness. "Ye air a Kittredge; ye stole my daughter from me." + +"I never. She kem of her own accord." + +"Damn ye!" the old man retorted to the unwelcome truth. There was +nothing else for him to say. "Damn the whole tribe of ye; everything +that goes by the accursed name of Kittredge, that's got a drop o' yer +blood, or a bone o' yer bones, or a puff o' yer breath--" + +"Squair! squair!" interposed an officious old colleague, taking him by +the elbow, "jes' quiet down now; ye air a-cussin' yer own gran'son." + +"So be! so be!" cried the old man, in a frenzy of rage. "Damn 'em +all--all the Kittredge tribe!" He gasped for breath; his lips still +moved speechlessly as he fell back in his chair. + +Kittredge let his gun slip from his shoulder, the butt ringing heavily +as it struck upon the floor. "I ain't a-goin' ter take sech ez that +off'n ye, old man," he cried, pallid with fury, for be it remembered +this grandson was that august institution, a first baby. "He sha'n't sit +up thar an' cuss the baby, Mr. Cheerman." He appealed to the presiding +justice, holding up his right arm as tremulous as old Quimbey's own. "I +want the law! I ain't a-goin' ter tech a old man like him, an' my wife's +father, so I ax in the name o' peace fur the law. Don't deny it"--with a +warning glance--"'kase I ain't school-larned, an' dunno how ter get it. +Don't ye deny me the law! I _know_ the law don't 'low a magistrate an' a +jestice ter cuss in his high office, in the presence of the county +court. I want the law! I want the law!" + +The chairman of the court, who had risen in his excitement, turning +eagerly first to one and then to the other of the speakers, striving to +silence the colloquy, and in the sudden surprise of it at a momentary +loss how to take action, sat down abruptly, and with a face of +consternation. Profanity seemed to him so usual and necessary an +incident of conversation that it had never occurred to him until this +moment that by some strange aberration from the rational estimate of +essentials it was entered in the code as a violation of law. He would +fain have overlooked it, but the room was crowded with spectators. The +chairman would be a candidate for re-election as justice of the peace at +the expiration of his term. And after all what was old Quimbey to him, +or he to old Quimbey, that, with practically the whole town looking on, +he should destroy his political prospects and disregard the dignity of +his office. He had a certain twinge of conscience, and a recollection of +the choice and fluent oaths of his own repertory, but as he turned over +the pages of the code in search of the section he deftly argued that +they were uttered in his own presence as a person, not as a justice. + +And so for the first time old Joel Quimbey appeared as a law-breaker, +and was duly fined by the worshipful county court fifty cents for each +oath, that being the price at which the State rates the expensive and +impious luxury of swearing in the hearing of a justice of the peace, and +which in its discretion the court saw fit to adopt in this instance. + +The old man offered no remonstrance; he said not a word in his own +defence. He silently drew out his worn wallet, with much contortion of +his thin old anatomy in getting to his pocket, and paid his fines on the +spot. Absalom had already left the room, the clerk having made out the +certificates, the chairman of the court casting the scalps into the open +door of the stove, that they might be consumed by fire according to law. + +The young mountaineer wore a heavy frown, and his heart was ill at ease. +He sought some satisfaction in the evident opinion of the crowd which +now streamed out, for the excitements within were over, that he had done +a fine thing; a very clever thought, they considered it, to demand the +law of Mr. Chairman, that one of their worships should be dragged from +the bench and arraigned before the quarterly county court of which he +was a member. The result gave general satisfaction, although there were +those who found fault with the court's moderation, and complained that +the least possible cognizance had been taken of the offence. + +"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed an old codger in the street. "I jes knowed that +hurt old Joel Quimbey wuss 'n ef a body hed druv a knife through him; +he's been so proud o' bein' jestice 'mongst his betters, an' bein' +'lected at las', many times ez he hev run. Waal, Abs'lom, ye hev proved +thar's law fur jestices too. I tell ye ye hev got sense in yer +skull-i-bone." + +But Absalom hung his head before these congratulations; he found no +relish in the old man's humbled pride. Yet had he not cursed the baby, +lumping him among the Kittredges? Absalom went about for a time, with a +hopeful anxiety in his eyes, searching for one of the younger Quimbeys, +in order to involve him in a fight that might have a provocation and a +result more to his mind. Somehow the recollection of the quivering and +aged figure of his wife's father, of the smitten look on his old face, +of his abashed and humbled demeanor before the court, was a reproach to +him, vivid and continuously present with his repetitious thoughts +forever re-enacting the scene. His hands trembled; he wanted to lay hold +on a younger man, to replace this ęsthetic revenge with a quarrel more +wholesome in the estimation of his own conscience. But the Quimbey sons +were not in town to-day. He could only stroll about and hear himself +praised for this thing that he had done, and wonder how he should meet +Evelina with his conscience thus arrayed against himself for her +father's sake. "Plumb turned Quimbey, I swear," he said, in helpless +reproach to this independent and coercive moral force within. His +dejection, he supposed, had reached its lowest limits, when a rumor +pervaded the town, so wild that he thought it could be only fantasy. It +proved to be fact. Joel Quimbey, aggrieved, humbled, and indignant, had +resigned his office, and as Absalom rode out of town toward the +mountains, he saw the old man in his crumpled brown jeans suit, mounted +on his white mare, jogging down the red clay road, his head bowed before +the slanting lines of rain, on his way to his cheerless fireside. He +turned off presently, for the road to the levels of the Cove was not the +shorter cut that Absalom travelled to the mountains. But all the way the +young man fancied that he saw from time to time, as the bridle-path +curved in the intricacies of the laurel, the bowed old figure among the +mists, jogging along, his proud head and his stiff neck bent to the +slanting rain and the buffets of his unkind fate. And yet, pressing the +young horse to overtake him, Absalom could find naught but the fleecy +mists drifting down the bridle-path as the wind might will, or lurking +in the darkling nooks of the laurel when the wind would. + + * * * * * + +The sun was shining on the mountains, and Absalom went up from the sad +gray rain and through the gloomy clouds of autumn hanging over the Cove +into a soft brilliant upper atmosphere--a generous after-thought of +summer--and the warm brightness of Evelina's smile. She stood in the +doorway as she saw him dismounting, with her finger on her lips, for the +baby was sleeping: he put much of his time into that occupation. The +tiny gourds hung yellow among the vines that clambered over the roof of +the porch, and a brave jack-bean--a friend of the sheltering eaves--made +shift to bloom purple and white, though others of the kind hung crisp +and sere, and rattled their dry bones in every gust. The "gyarden spot" +at the side of the house was full of brown and withered skeletons of the +summer growths; among the crisp blades of the Indian-corn a sibilant +voice was forever whispering; down the tawny-colored vistas the pumpkins +glowed. The sky was blue; the yellow hickory flaming against it and +hanging over the roof of the cabin was a fine color to see. The red +sour-wood tree in the fence corner shook out a myriad of white tassels; +the rolling tumult of the gray clouds below thickened, and he could hear +the rain a-falling--falling into the dreary depths of the Cove. + +All this for him: why should he disquiet himself for the storm that +burst upon others? + +Evelina seemed a part of the brightness; her dark eyes so softly alight, +her curving red lips, the faint flush in her cheeks, her rich brown +hair, and the purplish kerchief about the neck of her yellow dress. Once +more she looked smilingly at him, and shook her head and laid her finger +on her lip. + +"I oughter been sati'fied with all I got, stiddier hectorin' other folks +till they 'ain't got no heart ter hold on ter what they been at sech +trouble ter git," he said, as he turned out the horse and strode +gloomily toward the house with the saddle over his arm. + +"Hev ennybody been spiteful ter you-uns ter-day?" she asked, in an +almost maternal solicitude, and with a flash of partisan anger in her +eyes. + +"Git out'n my road, Eveliny," he said, fretfully, pushing by, and +throwing the saddle on the floor. There was no one in the room but the +occupant of the rude box on rockers which served as cradle. + +Absalom had a swift, prescient fear. "She'll git it all out'n me ef I +don't look sharp," he said to himself. Then aloud, "Whar's mam?" he +demanded, flinging himself into a chair and looking loweringly about. + +"Topknot hev jes kem off'n her nest with fourteen deedies, an' she an' +'Melia hev gone ter the barn ter see 'bout'n 'em." + +"Whar's Pete?" + +"A-huntin'." + +A pause. The fire smouldered audibly; a hickory-nut fell with a sharp +thwack on the clapboards of the roof, and rolled down and bounded to the +ground. + +Suddenly: "I seen yer dad ter-day," he began, without coercion. "He gin +me a cussin', in the court-room, 'fore all the folks. He cussed all the +Kittredges, _all_ o' 'em; him too"--he glanced in the direction of the +cradle--"cussed 'em black an' blue, an' called me a _thief_ fur marryin' +ye an kerry-in' ye off." + +Her face turned scarlet, then pale. She sat down, her trembling hands +reaching out to rock the cradle, as if the youthful Kittredge might be +disturbed by the malediction hurled upon his tribe. But he slept +sturdily on. + +"Waal, now," she said, making a great effort at self-control, "ye +oughtn't ter mind it. Ye know he war powerful tried. I never purtended +ter be ez sweet an' pritty ez the baby air, but how would you-uns feel +ef somebody ye despised war ter kem hyar an' tote him off from we-uns +forever?" + +"I'd cut thar hearts out," he said, with prompt barbarity. + +"Thar, now!" exclaimed his wife, in triumphant logic. + +He gloomily eyed the smouldering coals. He was beginning to understand +the paternal sentiment. By his own heart he was learning the heart of +his wife's father. + +"I'd chop 'em inter minch-meat," he continued, carrying his just +reprisals a step further. + +"Waal, don't do it right now," said his wife, trying to laugh, yet +vaguely frightened by his vehemence. + +"Eveliny," he cried, springing to his feet, "I be a-goin' ter tell ye +all 'bout'n it. I jes called on the cheerman fur the law agin him." + +"Agin _dad_!--the law!" Her voice dropped as she contemplated aghast +this terrible uncomprehended force brought to oppress old Joel Quimbey; +she felt a sudden poignant pang for his forlorn and lonely estate. + +"Never mind, never mind, Eveliny," Absalom said, hastily, repenting of +his frantic candor and seeking to soothe her. + +"I _will_ mind," she said, sternly. "What hev ye done ter dad?" + +"Nuthin'," he replied, sulkily--"nuthin'." + +"Ye needn't try ter fool me, Abs'lom Kittredge. Ef ye ain't minded ter +tell me, I'll foot it down ter town an' find out. What did the law do +ter him?" + +"Jes fined him," he said, striving to make light of it. + +"An' ye done that fur--_spite_!" she cried. "A-settin' the law ter +chouse a old man out'n money, fur gittin' mad an' sayin' ye stole his +only darter. Oh, I'll answer fur him"--she too had risen; her hand +trembled on the back of the chair, but her face was scornfully +smiling--"he don't mind the _money_; he'll never git you-uns _fined_ ter +pay back the gredge. He don't take his wrath out on folkses' _wallets_; +he grips thar throats, or teches the trigger o' his rifle. Laws-a-massy! +takin' out yer gredge that-a-way! It's _ye_ poorer fur them dollars, +Abs'lom--'tain't him." She laughed satirically, and turned to rock the +cradle. + +"What d'ye want me ter do? Fight a old man?" he exclaimed, angrily. + +She kept silence, only looking at him with a flushed cheek and a +scornful laughing eye. + +He went on, resentfully: "I ain't 'shamed," he stoutly asserted. "Nobody +'lowed I oughter be. It's him, plumb bowed down with shame." + +"The shoe's on the t'other foot," she cried. "It's ye that oughter be +'shamed, an' ef ye ain't, it's more shame ter ye. What hev he got ter be +'shamed of?" + +"'Kase," he retorted, "he war fetched up afore a court on a crim'nal +offence--a-cussin' afore the court! Ye may think it's no shame, but he +do; he war so 'shamed he gin up his office ez jestice o' the peace, what +he hev run fur four or five times, an' always got beat 'ceptin' wunst." + +"Dad!" but for the whisper she seemed turning to stone; her dilated +eyes were fixed as she stared into his face. + +"An' I seen him a-ridin' off from town in the rain arterward, his head +hangin' plumb down ter the saddle-bow." + +Her amazed eyes were still fastened upon his face, but her hand no +longer trembled on the back of the chair. + +He suddenly held out his own hand to her, his sympathy and regret +returning as he recalled the picture of the lonely wayfarer in the rain +that had touched him so. "Oh, Eveliny!" he cried, "I never war so beset +an' sorry an'--" + +She struck his hand down; her eyes blazed. Her aspect was all instinct +with anger. + +"I do declar' I'll never furgive ye--ter spite him so--an' kem an' tell +_me_! An' shame him so ez he can't hold his place--an' kem an' tell +_me_! An' bow him down so ez he can't show his face whar he hev been so +respected by all--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' all fur spite, fur he hev +got nuthin' ye want now. An' I gin him up an' lef him lonely, an' all +fur you-uns. Ye air mean, Abs'lom Kittredge, an' I'm the mos' fursaken +fool on the face o' the yearth!" + +He tried to speak, but she held up her hand in expostulation. + +"Nare word--fur I won't answer. I do declar' I'll never speak ter ye +agin ez long ez I live." + +He flung away with a laugh and a jeer. "That's right," he said, +encouragingly; "plenty o' men would be powerful glad ef thar wives would +take pattern by that." + +He caught up his hat and strode out of the room. He busied himself in +stabling his horse, and in looking after the stock. He could hear the +women's voices from the loft of the barn as they disputed about the best +methods of tending the newly hatched chickens, that had chipped the +shell so late in the fall as to be embarrassed by the frosts and the +coming cold weather. The last bee had ceased to drone about the great +crimson prince's-feather by the door-step, worn purplish through long +flaunting, and gone to seed. The clouds were creeping up and up the +slope, and others were journeying hither from over the mountains. A +sense of moisture was in the air, although a great column of dust sprang +up from the dry corn-field, with panic-stricken suggestions, and went +whirling away, carrying off withered blades in the rush. The first drops +of rain were pattering, with a resonant timbre in the midst, when Pete +came home with a newly killed deer on his horse, and the women, with +fluttering skirts and sun-bonnets, ran swiftly across from the barn to +the back door of the shed-room. Then the heavy downpour made the cabin +rock. + +"Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar +rain--they'll be drenched," said the old woman, when they were all +safely housed except the two. "Whar be she?" + +"A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she +always be," said the sister-in-law, tartly. + +Absalom ran out into the rain without his hat, his heart in the clutch +of a prescient terror. No; the summer was over for the garden as well as +for him; all forlorn and rifled, its few swaying shrubs tossed wildly +about, a mockery of the grace and bloom that had once embellished it. +His wet hair streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel boughs +as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet had +worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood, himself +enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the +dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the +valley and baffled his vision. He realized it with a sinking heart. She +was gone. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon--it was close upon nightfall--Stephen Quimbey, letting +down the bars for the cows, noticed through the slanting lines of rain, +serried against the masses of sober-hued vapors which hid the great +mountain towering above the Cove, a woman crossing the foot-bridge. He +turned and lifted down another bar, and then looked again. Something was +familiar in her aspect, certainly. He stood gravely staring. Her +sun-bonnet had fallen back upon her shoulders, and was hanging loosely +there by the strings tied beneath her chin; her brown hair, dishevelled +by the storm, tossed back and forth in heavy wave-less locks, wet +through and through. When the wind freshened they lashed, thong-like, +her pallid oval face; more than once she put up her hand and tried to +gather them together, or to press them back--only one hand, for she +clasped a heavy bundle in her arms, and as she toiled along slowly up +the rocky slope, Stephen suddenly held his palm above his eyes. The +recognition was becoming definite, and yet he could scarcely believe +his senses: was it indeed Evelina, wind-tossed, tempest-beaten, and with +as many tears as rain-drops on her pale cheek? Evelina, forlorn and +sorry, and with swollen sad dark eyes, and listless exhausted step--here +again at the bars, where she had not stood since she dragged her wounded +lover thence on that eventful night two years and more ago. + +Resentment for the domestic treachery was uppermost in his mind, and he +demanded surlily, when she had advanced within the sound of his words, +"What hev ye kem hyar fur?" + +"Ter stay," she responded, briefly. + +His hand in an uncertain gesture laid hold upon his tuft of beard. + +"Fur good?" he faltered, amazed. + +She nodded silently. + +He stooped to lift down the lowest bar that she might pass. Suddenly the +bundle she clasped gave a dexterous twist; a small head, with yellow +downy hair, was thrust forth; a pair of fawn-like eyes fixed an +inquiring stare upon him; the pink face distended with a grin, to which +the two small teeth in the red mouth, otherwise empty, lent a singularly +merry expression; and with a manner that was a challenge to pursuit, the +head disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, tucked with affected +shyness under Evelina's arm. + +She left Stephen standing with the bar in his hand, staring blankly +after her, and ran into the cabin. + +Her father had no questions to ask--nor she. + +As he caught her in his arms he gave a great cry of joy that rang +through the house, and brought Timothy from the barn, in astonishment, +to the scene. + +"Eveliny's _home_!" he cried out to Tim, who, with the ox-yoke in his +hand, paused in the doorway. "Kem ter stay! Eveliny's _home_! I knowed +she'd kem back to her old daddy. Eveliny's kem ter stay fur good." + +"They tole me they'd hectored ye plumb out'n the town an' out'n yer +office. They hed the insurance ter tell _me_ that word!" she cried, +sobbing on his breast. + +"What d'ye reckon I keer fur enny jestice's cheer when I hev got ye agin +ter set alongside o' me by the fire?" he exclaimed, his cracked old +voice shrill with triumphant gladness. + +He pushed her into her rocking-chair in the chimney-corner, and laughed +again with the supreme pleasure of the moment, although she had leaned +her head against the logs of the wall, and was sobbing aloud with the +contending emotions that tore her heart. + +"Didn't ye ever want ter kem afore, Eveliny?" he demanded. "I hev been +a-pinin' fur a glimge o' ye." He was in his own place now, his hands +trembling as they lay on the arms of his chair, a pathetic reproach was +in his voice. "Though old folks oughtn't ter expec' too much o' young +ones, ez be all tuk up naterally with tharse'fs," he added, bravely. He +would not let his past lonely griefs mar the bright present. "Old folks +air mos'ly cumberers--mos'ly cumberers o' the yearth, ennyhow." + +Her weeping had ceased; she was looking at him with dismayed surprise +in her eyes, still lustrous with unshed tears. "Why, dad I sent ye a +hundred messages ef I mought kem. I tole Abs'lom ter tell Joe +Boyd--bein' as ye liked Joe--I wanted ter see ye." She leaned forward +and looked up at him with frowning intensity. "They never gin ye that +word?" + +He laughed aloud in sorry scorn. "We can't teach our chil'n nuthin'," he +philosophized. "They hev got ter hurt tharse'fs with all the thorns an' +the stings o' the yearth. Our sperience with the sharp things an' bitter +ones don't do them no sarvice. Naw, leetle darter--naw! Ye mought ez +well gin a message o' kindness ter a wolf, an' expec' him ter kerry it +ter some lonesome, helpless thing a-wounded by the way-side, ez gin it +ter a Kittredge." + +"I never will speak ter one o' 'em agin ez long ez I live," she cried, +with a fresh gust of tears. + +"Waal," exclaimed the old man, reassuringly, and chirping high, "hyar we +all be agin, jes' the same ez we war afore. Don't cry, Eveliny; it's +jes' the same." + +A sudden babbling intruded upon the conversation. The youthful +Kittredge, as he sat upon the wide flat stones of the hearth, was as +unwelcome here in the Cove as a Quimbey had been in the cabin on the +mountain. The great hickory fire called for his unmixed approval, coming +in, as he had done, from the gray wet day. He shuffled his bare pink +feet--exceedingly elastic and agile members they seemed to be, and he +had a remarkable "purchase" upon their use--and brought them smartly +down upon their heels as if this were one of the accepted gestures of +applause. Then he looked up at the dark frowning faces of his mother's +brothers, and gurgled with laughter, showing the fascinating spectacle +of his two front teeth. Perhaps it was the only Kittredge eye that they +were not willing to meet. They solemnly gazed beyond him and into the +fire, ignoring his very existence. He sustained the slight with an +admirable cheerfulness, and babbled and sputtered and flounced about +with his hands. He grew pinker in the generous firelight, and he looked +very fat as he sat in a heap on the floor. He seemed to have threads +tightly tied about his bolster-shaped limbs in places where elder people +prefer joints--in his ankles and wrists and elbows--for his arms were +bare, and although his frock of pink calico hung decorously high on one +shoulder, it drooped quite off from the other, showing a sturdy chest. + +His mother took slight notice of him; she was beginning to look about +the room with a certain critical disfavor at the different arrangement +of the household furniture adopted by her father's deaf and widowed old +sister who presided here now, and who, it chanced, had been called away +by the illness of a relative. Evelina got up presently, and shifted the +position of the spinning-wheels, placing the flax-wheel where the large +wheel had been. She then pushed out the table from the corner. "What +ailed her ter sot it hyar?" she grumbled, in a disaffected undertone, +and shoved it to the centre of the floor, where it had always stood +during her own sway. She cast a discerning glance up among the strings +of herbs and peppers hanging from above, and examined the shelves where +the simple stores for table use were arranged in earthen-ware bowls or +gourds--all with an air of vague dissatisfaction. She presently stepped +into the shed-room, and there looked over the piles of quilts. They were +in order, certainly, but placed in a different method from her own; +another woman's hand had been at work, and she was jealous of its very +touch among these familiar old things to which she seemed positively +akin. "I wonder how I made out ter bide so long on the mounting," she +said; and with the recollection of the long-haired Absalom there was +another gush of tears and sobs, which she stifled as she could in one of +the old quilts that held many of her own stitches and was soothing to +touch. + +The infantile Kittredge, who was evidently not born to blush unseen, +seemed to realize that he had failed to attract the attention of the +three absorbed Quimbeys who sat about the fire. He blithely addressed +himself to another effort. He suddenly whisked himself over on +all-fours, and with a certain ursine aspect went nimbly across the +hearth, still holding up his downy yellow head, his pink face agrin, and +alluringly displaying his two facetious teeth. He caught the rung of +Tim's chair, and lifted himself tremulously to an upright posture. And +then it became evident that he was about to give an exhibition of the +thrilling feat of walking around a chair. With a truly Kittredge +perversity he had selected the one that had the savage Timothy seated in +it. For an instant the dark-browed face scowled down into his +unaffrighted eyes: it seemed as if Tim might kick him into the fire. +The next moment he had set out to circumnavigate, as it were. What a +prodigious force he expended upon it! How he gurgled and grinned and +twisted his head to observe the effect upon the men, all sedulously +gazing into the fire! how he bounced, and anon how he sank with sudden +genuflections! how limber his feet seemed, and what free agents! Surely +he never intended to put them down at that extravagant angle. More than +once one foot was placed on top of the other--an attitude that impeded +locomotion and resulted in his sitting down in an involuntary manner and +with some emphasis. With an appalling temerity he clutched Tim's great +miry boots to help him up and on his way round. Occasionally he swayed +to and fro, with his teeth on exhibition, laughing and babbling and +shrilly exclaiming, inarticulately bragging of his agile prowess, as if +he were able to defy all the Quimbeys, who would not notice him. And +when it was all over he went in his wriggling ursine gait back to the +hearth-stone, and there he was sitting, demurely enough, and as if he +had never moved, when his mother returned and found him. + +There was no indication that he had attracted a moment's attention. She +looked gravely down at him; then took her chair. A pair of blue yarn +socks was in her hand. "I never see sech darnin' ez Aunt Sairy Ann do +fur ye, dad; I hev jes tuk my shears an' cut this heel smang out, an' I +be goin' ter do it over." + +She slipped a tiny gourd into the heel, and began to draw the slow +threads to and fro across it. + +The blaze, red and yellow, and with elusive purple gleams, leaped up the +chimney. The sap was still in the wood; it sang a summer-tide song. But +an autumn wind was blowing shrilly down the chimney; one could hear the +sibilant rush of the dead leaves on the blast. The window and the door +shook, and were still, and once more rattled as if a hand were on the +latch. + +Suddenly--"Ever weigh him?" her father asked. + +She sat upright with a nervous start. It was a moment before she +understood that it was of the Kittredge scion he spoke. + +With his high cracked laugh the old man leaned over, his outspread hand +hovering about the plump baby, uncertain where, in so much soft fatness, +it might be practicable to clutch him. There were some large horn +buttons on the back of his frock, a half-dozen of which, gathered +together, afforded a grasp. He lifted the child by them, laughing in +undisguised pleasure to feel the substantial strain upon the garment. + +"Toler'ble survigrus," he declared, with his high chirp. + +His daughter suddenly sprang up with a pallid face and a pointing hand. + +"The winder!" she huskily cried--"suthin's at the winder!" + +But when they looked they saw only the dark square of tiny panes, with +the fireside scene genially reflected on it. And then she fell to +declaring that she had been dreaming, and besought them not to take down +their guns nor to search, and would not be still until they had all +seemed to concede the point; it was she who fastened the doors and +shutters, and she did not lie down to rest till they were all asleep and +hours had passed. None of them doubted that it was Absalom's face that +she had seen at the window, where the light had once lured him before, +and she knew that she had dreamed no dream like this. + + * * * * * + +It soon became evident that whenever Joe Boyd was intrusted with a +message he would find means to deliver it. For upon him presently +devolved the difficult duties of ambassador. The first time that his +honest square face appeared at the rail fence, and the sound of his +voice roused Evelina as she stood feeding the poultry close by, she +returned his question with a counter-question hard to answer. + +"I hev been up the mounting," he said, smiling, as he hooked his arms +over the rail fence. "Abs'lom he say he wanter know when ye'll git yer +visit out an' kem home." + +She leaned her elbow against the ash-hopper, balancing the wooden bowl +of corn-meal batter on its edge and trembling a little; the geese and +chickens and turkeys crowded, a noisy rout, about her feet. + +"Joe," she said, irrelevantly, "ye air one o' the few men on this yearth +ez ain't a liar." + +He stared at her gravely for a moment, then burst into a forced laugh. +"Ho! ho! I tell a bushel o' 'em a day, Eveliny!" He wagged his head in +an anxious affectation of mirth. + +"Why'n't ye gin dad them messages ez Abs'lom gin ye from me?" + +Joe received this in blank amaze; then, with sudden comprehension, his +lower jaw dropped. He looked at her with a plea for pity in his eyes. +And yet his ready tact strove to reassert itself. + +"I mus' hev furgot 'em," he faltered. + +"Did Abs'lom ever gin 'em ter ye?" she persisted. + +"_Ef he did_, I mus' hev furgot 'em," he repeated, crestfallen and +hopeless. + +She laughed and turned jauntily away, once more throwing the corn-meal +batter to the greedily jostling poultry. "Tell Abs'lom I hev f'und him +out," she said. "He can't sot me agin dad no sech way. This be my home, +an' hyar I be goin' ter 'bide." + +And so she left the good Joe Boyd hooked on by the elbows to the fence. + +The Quimbeys, who had heard this conversation from within, derived from +it no small elation. "She hev gin 'em the go-by fur good," Timothy said, +confidently, to his father, who laughed in triumph, and pulled calmly at +his pipe, and looked ten years younger. + +But Steve was surlily anxious. "I'd place heap mo' dependence in Eveliny +ef she didn't hev this hyar way o' cryin' all the time. She 'lows she's +glad she kem--_so glad_ she hev lef' Abs'lom fur good an' all--an' then +she busts out a-cryin' agin. I ain't able ter argufy on sech." + +"Shucks! wimmen air always a-cryin', an' they don't mean _nuthin_' by +it," exclaimed the old man, in the plenitude of his wisdom. "It air jes' +one o' thar most contrarious ways. I hev seen 'em set down an' cry fur +joy an' pleasure." + +[Illustration: "'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'"] + +But Steve was doubtful. "It be a powerful low-sperited gift fur them ez +hev ter 'bide along of 'em. Eveliny never useter be tearful in nowise. +Now she cries a heap mo' 'n that thar shoat"--his lips curled in +contempt as he glanced toward the door, through which was visible a +small rotund figure in pink calico, seated upon the lowest log of the +wood-pile--"ez she fotched down hyar with her. _He_ never hev hed a +reg'lar blate but two or three times sence he hev been hyar, an' them +war when that thar old tur-rkey gobbler teetered up ter him an' tuk his +corn-dodger that he war a-eatin' on plumb out'n his hand. _He_ hed +suthin' to holler fur--hed los' his breakfus." + +"Don't he 'pear ter you-uns to be powerful peegeon-toed?" asked Tim, +anxiously, turning to his father. + +"The gawbbler?" faltered the amazed old man. + +"Naw; him, _him_--_Kittredge_," said Tim, jerking his big thumb in the +direction of the small boy. + +"Law-dy Gawd A'mighty! _naw! naw!_" The grandfather indignantly +repudiated the imputation of the infirmity. One would have imagined that +he would deem it meet that a Kittredge should be pigeon-toed. "It's jes +the way _all_ babies hev got a-walkin'; he ain't right handy yit with +his feet--jes a-beginnin' ter walk, an' sech. Peegeon-toed! I say it, ye +fool!" He cast a glance of contempt on his eldest-born, and arrogantly +puffed his pipe. + +Again Joe Boyd came, and yet again. He brought messages contrite and +promissory from Absalom; he brought commands stern and insistent. He +came into the house at last, and sat and talked at the fireside in the +presence of the men of the family, who bore themselves in a manner +calculated to impress the Kittredge emissary with their triumph and +contempt for his mission, although they studiously kept silence, leaving +it to Evelina to answer. + +At last the old man, leaning forward, tapped Joe on the knee. "See hyar, +Joe. Ye hev always been a good frien' o' mine. This hyar man he stole my +darter from me, an' whenst she wanted ter be frien's, an' not let her +old dad die unforgivin', he wouldn't let her send the word ter me. An' +then he sot himself ter spite an' hector me, an' fairly run me out'n the +town, an' harried me out'n my office, an' when she f'und out--she +wouldn't take my word fur it--the deceivin' natur' o' the Kittredge +tribe, she hed hed enough o' 'em. I hev let ye argufy 'bout'n it; ye hev +hed yer fill of words. An' now I be tired out. Ye ain't 'lowin' she'll +ever go back ter her husband, air ye?" + +Joe dolorously shook his head. + +"Waal, ef ever ye kem hyar talkin' 'bout'n it agin, I'll be 'bleeged ter +take down my rifle ter ye." + +Joe gazed, unmoved, into the fire. + +"An' that would be mighty hard on me, Joe, 'kase ye be so pop'lar +'mongst all, I dunno _what_ the kentry-side would do ter me ef I war ter +put a bullet inter ye. Ye air a young man, Joe. Ye oughter spare a old +man sech a danger ez that." + +And so it happened that Joe Boyd's offices as mediator ceased. + +A week went by in silence and without result. Evelina's tears seemed to +keep count of the minutes. The brothers indignantly noted it, and even +the old man was roused from the placid securities of his theories +concerning lachrymose womankind, and remonstrated sometimes, and +sometimes grew angry and exhorted her to go back. What did it matter to +her how her father was treated? He was a cumberer of the ground, and +many people besides her husband had thought he had no right to sit in a +justice's chair. And then she would burst into tears once more, and +declare again that she would never go back. + +The only thoroughly cheerful soul about the place was the intruding +Kittredge. He sat continuously--for the weather was fine--on the lowest +log of the wood-pile, and swung his bare pink feet among the chips and +bark, and seemed to have given up all ambition to walk. Occasionally red +and yellow leaves whisked past his astonished eyes, although these were +few now, for November was on the wane. He babbled to the chickens, who +pecked about him with as much indifference as if he were made of wood. +His two teeth came glittering out whenever the rooster crowed, and his +gleeful laugh--he rejoiced so in this handsomely endowed bird--could be +heard to the barn. The dogs seemed never to have known that he was a +Kittredge, and wagged their tails at the very sound of his voice, and +seized surreptitious opportunities to lick his face. Of all his +underfoot world only the gobbler awed him into gravity and silence; he +would gaze in dismay as the marauding fowl irresolutely approached from +around the wood-pile, with long neck out-stretched and undulating gait, +applying first one eye and then the other to the pink hands, for the +gobbler seemed to consider them a perpetual repository of corn-dodgers, +which indeed they were. Then the head and the wabbling red wattles would +dart forth with a sudden peck, and the shriek that ensued proved that +nothing could be much amiss with the Kittredge lungs. + +One fine day he sat thus in the red November sunset. The sky, seen +through the interlacing black boughs above his head, was all amber and +crimson, save for a wide space of pure and pallid green, against which +the purplish-garnet wintry mountains darkly gloomed. Beyond the rail +fence the avenues of the bare woods were carpeted with the sere +yellowish leaves that gave back the sunlight with a responsive +illuminating effect, and thus the sylvan vistas glowed. The long +slanting beams elongated his squatty little shadow till it was hardly a +caricature. He heard the cow lowing as she came to be milked, fording +the river where the clouds were so splendidly reflected. The chickens +were going to roost. The odor of the wood, the newly-hewn chips, +imparted a fresh and fragrant aroma to the air. He had found among them +a sweet-gum ball and a pine cone, and was applying them to the +invariable test of taste. Suddenly he dropped them with a nervous start, +his lips trembled, his lower jaw fell, he was aware of a stealthy +approach. Something was creeping behind the wood-pile. He hardly had +time to bethink himself of his enemy the gobbler when he was clutched +under the arm, swung through the air with a swiftness that caused the +scream to evaporate in his throat, and the next moment he looked +quakingly up into his father's face with unrecognizing eyes; for he had +forgotten Absalom in these few weeks. He squirmed and wriggled as he was +held on the pommel of the saddle, winking and catching his breath and +spluttering, as preliminary proceedings to an outcry. There was a sudden +sound of heavily shod feet running across the puncheon floor within, a +wild, incoherent exclamation smote the air, an interval of significant +silence ensued. + +"Get up!" cried Absalom, not waiting for Tim's rifle, but spurring the +young horse, and putting him at the fence. The animal rose with the +elasticity and lightness of an uprearing ocean wave. The baby once more +twisted his soft neck, and looked anxiously into the rider's face. This +was not the gobbler. The gobbler did not ride horseback. Then the +affinity of the male infant for the noble equine animal suddenly +overbore all else. In elation he smote with his soft pink hand the +glossy arched neck before him. "Dul-lup!" he arrogantly echoed Absalom's +words. And thus father and son at a single bound disappeared into woods, +and so out of sight. + + * * * * * + +The savage Tim was leaning upon his rifle in the doorway, his eyes +dilated, his breath short, his whole frame trembling with excitement, as +the other men, alarmed by Evelina's screams, rushed down from the barn. + +"What ails ye, Tim? Why'n't ye fire?" demanded his father. + +Tim turned an agitated, baffled look upon him. "I--I mought hev hit the +baby," he faltered. + +"Hain't ye got no aim, ye durned sinner?" asked Stephen, furiously. + +"Bullet mought hev gone through him and struck inter the baby," +expostulated Tim. + +"An' then agin it moughtn't!" cried Stephen. "Lawd, ef _I_ hed hed the +chance!" + +"Ye wouldn't hev done no differ," declared Tim. + +"Hyar!" Steve caught his brother's gun and presented it to Tim's lips. +"Suck the bar'l. It's 'bout all ye air good fur." + +The horses had been turned out. By the time they were caught and saddled +pursuit was evidently hopeless. The men strode in one by one, dashing +the saddles and bridles on the floor, and finding in angry expletives a +vent for their grief. And indeed it might have seemed that the Quimbeys +must have long sought a choice Kittredge infant for adoption, so far did +their bewailings discount Rachel's mourning. + +"Don't cry, Eveliny," they said, ever and anon. "We-uns'll git him back +fur ye." + +But she had not shed a tear. She sat speechless, motionless, as if +turned to stone. + +"Laws-a-massy, child, ef ye would jes hev b'lieved _me_ 'bout'n them +Kittredges--Abs'lom in partic'lar--ye'd be happy an' free now," said the +old man, his imagination somewhat extending his experience, for he had +had no knowledge of his son-in-law until their relationship began. + +The evening wore drearily on. Now and then the men roused themselves, +and with lowering faces discussed the opportunities of reprisal, and +the best means of rescuing the child. And whether they schemed to burn +the Kittredge cabin, or to arm themselves, burst in upon their enemies, +shooting and killing all who resisted, Evelina said nothing, but stared +into the fire with unnaturally dilated eyes, her white lined face all +drawn and somehow unrecognizable. + +"Never mind," her father said at intervals, taking her cold hand, +"we-uns 'll git him back, Eveliny. The Lord hed a mother wunst, an' I'll +be bound He keeps a special pity for a woman an' her child." + +"Oh, great gosh! who'd hev dreamt we'd hev missed him so!" cried Tim, +shifting his position, and slipping his left arm over the back of his +chair. "Jes ter think o' the leetle size o' him, an' the great big gap +he hev lef' roun' this hyar ha'th-stone!" + +"An' yit he jes sot underfoot, 'mongst the cat an' the dogs, jes ez +humble!" said Stephen. + +"I'd git him back even ef he warn't no kin ter me, Eveliny," declared +Tim, and he spoke advisedly, remembering that the youth was a Kittredge. + +Still Evelina said not a word. All that night she silently walked the +puncheon floor, while the rest of the household slept. The dogs, in +vague disturbance, because of the unprecedented vigil and stir in the +midnight, wheezed uneasily from time to time, and crept restlessly about +under the cabin, now and again thumping their backs or heads against the +floor; but at last they betook themselves to slumber. The hickory logs +broke in twain as they burned, and fell on either side, and presently +there was only the dull red glow of the embers on her pale face, and the +room was full of brown shadows, motionless, now that the flames flared +no more. Once when the red glow, growing ever dimmer, seemed almost +submerged beneath the gray ashes, she paused and stirred the coals. The +renewed glimmer showed a fixed expression in her eyes, becoming momently +more resolute. At intervals she knelt at the window and placed her hands +about her face to shut out the light from the hearth, and looked out +upon the night. How the chill stars loitered! How the dawn delayed! The +great mountain gloomed darkling above the Cove. The waning moon, all +melancholy and mystic, swung in the purple sky. The bare, stark boughs +of the trees gave out here and there a glimmer of hoar-frost. There was +no wind; when she heard the dry leaves whisk she caught a sudden glimpse +of a fox that, with his crafty shadow pursuing him, leaped upon the +wood-pile, nimbly ran along its length, and so, noiselessly, away--while +the dogs snored beneath the house. A cock crew from the chicken-roost; +the mountain echoed the resonant strain. She saw a mist come stealing +softly along a precipitous gorge; the gauzy web hung shimmering in the +moon; presently the trees were invisible; anon they showed rigid among +the soft enmeshment of the vapor, and again were lost to view. + +She rose; there was a new energy in her step; she walked quickly across +the floor and unbarred the door. + +The little cabin on the mountain was lost among the clouds. It was not +yet day, but the old woman, with that proclivity to early rising +characteristic of advancing years, was already astir. It was in the +principal room of the cabin that she slept, and it contained another +bed, in which, placed crosswise, were five billet-shaped objects under +the quilts, which when awake identified themselves as Peter Kittredge's +children. She had dressed and uncovered the embers, and put on a few of +the chips which had been spread out on the hearth to dry, and had sat +down in the chimney corner. A timid blaze began to steal up, and again +was quenched, and only the smoke ascended in its form; then the light +flickered out once more, casting a gigantic shadow of her +sun-bonnet--for she had donned it thus early--half upon the brown and +yellow daubed wall, and half upon the dark ceiling, making a specious +stir amidst the peltry and strings of pop-corn hanging motionless +thence. + +She sighed heavily once or twice, and with an aged manner, and leaned +her elbows on her knees and gazed contemplatively at the fire. All at +once the ashes were whisked about the hearth as in a sudden draught, and +then were still. In momentary surprise she pushed her chair back, +hesitated, then replaced it, and calmly settled again her elbows on her +knees. Suddenly once more a whisking of the ashes; a cold shiver ran +through her, and she turned to see a hand fumbling at the batten shutter +close by. She stared for a moment as if paralyzed; her spectacles fell +to the floor from her nerveless hand, shattering the lenses on the +hearth. She rose trembling to her feet, and her lips parted as if to +cry out. They emitted no sound, and she turned with a terrified +fascination and looked back. The shutter had opened, there was no glass, +the small square of the window showed the nebulous gray mist without, +and defined upon it was Evelina's head, her dark hair streaming over the +red shawl held about it, her fair oval face pallid and pensive, and with +a great wistfulness upon it; her lustrous dark eyes glittered. + +"Mother," her red lips quivered out. + +The old crone recognized no treachery in her heart. She laid a warning +finger upon her lips. All the men were asleep. + +Evelina stretched out her yearning arms. "Gin him ter me!" + +"Naw, naw, Eveliny," huskily whispered Absalom's mother. "Ye oughter kem +hyar an' 'bide with yer husband--ye know ye ought." + +Evelina still held out her insistent arms. "Gin him ter me!" she +pleaded. + +The old woman shook her head sternly. "Ye kem in, an' 'bide whar ye +b'long." + +Evelina took a step nearer the window. She laid her hand on the sill. +"Spos'n 'twar Abs'lom whenst he war a baby," she said, her eyes softly +brightening, "an' another woman hed him an' kep' him, 'kase ye an' his +dad fell out--would ye hev 'lowed she war right ter treat ye like ye +treat me--whenst Abs'lom war a baby?" + +Once more she held out her arms. + +There was a step in the inner shed-room; then silence. + +"Ye hain't got no excuse," the soft voice urged; "ye know jes how I +feel, how ye'd hev felt, whenst Abs'lom war a baby." + +The shawl had fallen back from her tender face; her eyes glowed, her +cheek was softly flushed. A sudden terror thrilled through her as she +again heard the heavy step approaching in the shed-room. "Whenst Abs'lom +war a baby," she reiterated, her whole pleading heart in the tones. + +A sudden radiance seemed to illumine the sad, dun-colored folds of the +encompassing cloud; her face shone with a transfiguring happiness, for +the hustling old crone had handed out to her a warm, somnolent bundle, +and the shutter closed upon the mists with a bang. + +"The wind's riz powerful suddint," Peter said, noticing the noise as he +came stumbling in, rubbing his eyes. He went and fastened the shutter, +while his mother tremulously mended the fire. + +The absence of the baby was not noticed for some time, and when the +father's hasty and angry questions elicited the reluctant facts, the +outcry for his loss was hardly less bitter among the Kittredges than +among the Quimbeys. The fugitives were shielded from capture by the +enveloping mist, and when Absalom returned from the search he could do +naught but indignantly upbraid his mother. + +She was terrified by her own deed, and cowered under Absalom's wrath. It +was in a moral collapse, she felt, that she could have done this thing. +She flung her apron over her head, and sat still and silent--a +monumental figure--among them. Once, roused by Absalom's reproaches, she +made some effort to defend and exculpate herself, speaking from behind +the enveloping apron. + +"I ain't born no Kittredge nohow," she irrelevantly asseverated, "an' I +never war. An' when Eveliny axed me how I'd hev liked ter hev another +'oman take Abs'lom whenst he war a baby, I couldn't hold out no longer." + +"Shucks!" cried Absalom, unfilially; "ye'd a heap better be a-studyin' +'bout'n my good now 'n whenst I war a baby--a-givin' away _my_ child ter +them Quimbeys; a-h'istin' him out'n the winder!" + +She was glad to retort that he was "impident," and to take refuge in an +aggrieved silence, as many another mother has done when outmatched by +logic. + +After this there was more cheerfulness in her hidden face than might +have been argued from her port of important sorrow. "Bes' ter hev no +jawin', though," she said to herself, as she sat thus inscrutably +veiled. And deep in her repentant heart she was contradictorily glad +that Evelina and the baby were safe together down in the Cove. + + * * * * * + +Old Joel Quimbey, putting on his spectacles, with a look of keenest +curiosity, to read a paper which the deputy-sheriff of the county +presented when he drew rein by the wood-pile one afternoon some three +weeks later, had some difficulty in identifying a certain Elnathan +Daniel Kittredge specified therein. He took off his spectacles, rubbed +them smartly, and put them on again. The writing was unchanged. Surely +it must mean the baby. That was the only Kittredge whose body they could +be summoned to produce on the 24th of December before the judge of +the circuit court, now in session. He turned the paper about and looked +at it, his natural interest as a man augmented by his recognition as an +ex-magistrate of its high important legal character. + +[Illustration: "SHE FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD"] + +"Eveliny," he quavered, at once flattered and furious, "dad-burned ef +Abs'lom hain't gone an' got out a _habeas corpus_ fur the baby!" + +The phrase had a sound so deadly that there was much ado to +satisfactorily explain the writ and its functions to Evelina, who had +felt at ease again since the baby was at home, and so effectually +guarded that to kidnap him was necessarily to murder two or three of the +vigilant and stalwart Quimbey men. So much joy did it afford the old man +to air his learning and consult his code--a relic of his +justiceship--that he belittled the danger of losing the said Elnathan +Daniel Kittredge in the interest with which he looked forward to the day +for him to be produced before the court. + +There was a gathering of the clans on that day. Quimbeys and Kittredges +who had not visited the town for twenty years were jogging thither +betimes that morning on the red clay roads, all unimpeded by the deep +mud which, frozen into stiff ruts and ridges here and there, made the +way hazardous to the running-gear. The lagging winter had come, and the +ground was half covered with a light fall of snow. + +The windows of the court-house were white with frost; the weighted doors +clanged continuously. An old codger, slowly ascending the steps, and +pushing into the semi-obscurity of the hall, paused as the door slammed +behind him, stared at the sheriff in surprise, then fixed him with a +bantering leer. The light that slanted through the open court-room door +fell upon the official's burly figure, his long red beard, his big +broad-brimmed hat pushed back from his laughing red face, consciously +ludicrous and abashed just now. + +"Hev ye made a find?" demanded the new-comer. + +For in the strong arms of the law sat, bolt-upright, Elnathan Daniel +Kittredge, his yellow head actively turning about, his face decorated +with a grin, and on most congenial terms with the sheriff. + +"They're lawin' 'bout'n him in thar"--the sheriff jerked his thumb +toward the door. "_Habeas corpus_ perceedin's. Dunno ez I ever see a +friskier leetle cuss. Durned ef I 'ain't got a good mind ter run off +with him myself." + +The said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge once more squirmed round and settled +himself comfortably in the hollow of the sheriff's elbow, who marvelled +to find himself so deft in holding him, for it was twenty years since +his son--a gawky youth who now affected the company at the saloon, and +was none too filial--was the age and about the build of this infant +Kittredge. + +"They hed a reg'lar scrimmage hyar in the hall--them fool men--Quimbey +an' Kittredge. Old man Quimbey said suthin' ter Abs'lom Kittredge--I +dunno what all. Abs'lom never jawed back none. He jes made a dart an' +snatched this hyar leetle critter out'n his mother's arms, stiddier +waitin' fur the law, what he summonsed himself. Blest ef I didn't hev +ter hold my revolver ter his head, an' then crack him over the knuckles, +ter make him let go the child. I didn't want ter arrest him--mighty +clever boy, Abs'lom Kittredge! I promised that young woman I'd keep holt +o' the child till the law gins its say-so. I feel sorry fur her; she's +been through a heap." + +"Waal, ye look mighty pritty, totin' him around hyar," his friend +encouraged him with a grin. "I'll say that fur ye--ye look mighty +pritty." + +And in fact the merriment in the hall at the sheriff's expense began to +grow so exhilarating as to make him feel that the proceedings within +were too interesting to lose. His broad red face with its big red beard +reappeared in the doorway--slightly embarrassed because of the sprightly +manners of his charge, who challenged to mirth every eye that glanced at +him by his toothful grin and his gurgles and bounces; he was evidently +enjoying the excitement and his conspicuous position. He manfully gnawed +at his corn-dodger from time to time, and from the manner in which he +fraternized with his new acquaintance, the sheriff, he seemed old enough +to dispense with maternal care, and, but for his incomplete methods of +locomotion, able to knock about town with the boys. The Quimbeys took +note of his mature demeanor with sinking hearts; they looked anxiously +at the judge, wondering if he had ever before seen such +precocity--anything so young to be so old: "He 'ain't never afore +'peared so survigrus--so _durned_ survigrus ez he do ter-day," they +whispered to each other. + +"Yes, sir," his father was saying, on examination, "year old. Eats +anything he kin git--cabbage an' fat meat an' anything. _Could_ walk if +he wanted ter. But he 'ain't been raised right"--he glanced at his wife +to observe the effect of this statement. He felt a pang as he noted her +pensive, downcast face, all tremulous and agitated, overwhelmed as she +was by the crowd and the infinite moment of the decision. But Absalom, +too, had his griefs, and they expressed themselves perversely. + +"He hev been pompered an' fattened by bein' let ter eat an' sleep so +much, till he be so heavy ter his self he don't wanter take the trouble +ter git about. He _could_ walk ennywhar. He's plumb survigrus." + +And as if in confirmation, the youthful Kittredge lifted his voice to +display his lung power. He hilariously babbled, and suddenly roared out +a stentorian whoop, elicited by nothing in particular, then caught the +sheriff's beard, and buried in it his conscious pink face. + +The judge looked gravely up over his spectacles. He had a bronzed +complexion, a serious, pondering expression, a bald head, and a gray +beard. He wore a black broadcloth suit, somewhat old-fashioned in cut, +and his black velvet waist-coat had suffered an eruption of tiny red +satin spots. He had great respect for judicial decorums, and no +Kittredge, however youthful, or survigrus, or exalted in importance by +_habeas corpus_ proceedings, could "holler" unmolested where he +presided. + +"Mr. Sheriff," he said, solemnly, "remove that child from the presence +of the court." + +And the said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge went out gleefully kicking in the +arms of the law. + +The hundred or so grinning faces in the court-room relapsed quickly into +gravity and excited interest. The rows of jeans-clad countrymen seated +upon the long benches on either side of the bar leaned forward with +intent attitudes. For this was a rich feast of local gossip, such as had +not been so bountifully spread within their recollection. All the +ancient Quimbey and Kittredge feuds contrived to be detailed anew in +offering to the judge reasons why father or mother was the more fit +custodian of the child in litigation. + +As Absalom sat listening to all this, his eyes were suddenly arrested by +his wife's face--half draped it was, half shadowed by her sun-bonnet, +its fine and delicate profile distinctly outlined against the +crystalline and frosted pane of the window near which she sat. The snow +without threw a white reflection upon it; its rich coloring in contrast +was the more intense; it was very pensive, with the heavy lids drooping +over the lustrous eyes, and with a pathetic appeal in its expression. + +And suddenly his thoughts wandered far afield. He wondered that it had +come to this; that she could have misunderstood him so; that he had +thought her hard and perverse and unforgiving. His heart was all at once +melting within him; somehow he was reminded how slight a thing she was, +and how strong was the power that nerved her slender hand to drag his +heavy weight, in his dead and helpless unconsciousness, down to the bars +and into the safety of the sheltering laurel that night, when he lay +wounded and bleeding under the lighted window of the cabin in the Cove. +A deep tenderness, an irresistible yearning had come upon him; he was +about to rise, he was about to speak he knew not what, when suddenly her +face was irradiated as one who sees a blessed vision; a happy light +sprang into her eyes; her lips curved with a smile; the quick tears +dropped one by one on her hands, nervously clasping and unclasping each +other. He was bewildered for a moment. Then he heard Peter gruffly +growling a half-whispered curse, and the voice of the judge, in the +exercise of his discretion, methodically droning out his reasons for +leaving so young a child in the custody of its mother, disregarding the +paramount rights of the father. The judge concluded by dispassionately +recommending the young couple to betake themselves home, and to try to +live in peace together, or, at any rate, like sane people. Then he +thrust his spectacles up on his forehead, drew a long sigh of dismissal, +and said, with a freshened look of interest, "Mr. Clerk, call the next +case." + +The Quimbey and Kittredge factions poured into the hall; what cared they +for the disputed claims of Jenkins _versus_ Jones? The lovers of +sensation cherished a hope that there might be a lawless effort to +rescue the infant Kittredge from the custody to which he had been +committed by the court. The Quimbeys watchfully kept about him in a +close squad, his pink sun-bonnet, in which his head was eclipsed, +visible among their brawny jeans shoulders, as his mother carried him in +her arms. The sheriff looked smilingly after him from the court-house +steps, then inhaled a long breath, and began to roar out to the icy air +the name of a witness wanted within. Instead of a gate there was a +flight of steps on each side of the fence, surmounted by a small +platform. Evelina suddenly shrank back as she stood on the platform, for +beside the fence Absalom was waiting. Timothy hastily vaulted over the +fence, drew his "shooting-iron" from his boot-leg, and cocked it with a +metallic click, sharp and peremptory in the keen wintry air. For a +moment Absalom said not a word. He looked up at Evelina with as much +reproach as bitterness in his dark eyes. They were bright with the anger +that fired his blood; it was hot in his bronzed cheek; it quivered in +his hands. The dry and cold atmosphere amplified the graces of his long +curling yellow hair that she and his mother loved. His hat was pushed +back from his face. He had not spoken to her since the day of his +ill-starred confidence, but he would not be denied now. + +"Ye'll repent it," he said, threateningly. "I'll take special pains fur +that." + +She bestowed on him one defiant glance, and laughed--a bitter little +laugh. "Ye air ekal ter it; ye have a special gift fur makin' folks +repent they ever seen ye." + +"The jedge jes gin him ter ye 'kase ye made him out sech a fibble little +pusson," he sneered. "But it's jes fur a time." + +She held the baby closer. He busied himself in taking off his sun-bonnet +and putting it on hind part before, gurgling with smothered laughter to +find himself thus queerly masked, and he made futile efforts to play +"peep-eye" with anybody jovially disposed in the crowd. But they were +all gravely absorbed in the conjugal quarrel at which they were +privileged to assist. + +"It's jes fur a time," he reiterated. + +"Wait an' see!" she retorted, triumphantly. + +"I won't wait," he declared, goaded; "I'll take him yit; an' when I do +I'll clar out'n the State o' Tennessee--see ef I don't!" + +She turned white and trembled. "Ye dassent," she cried out shrilly. +"Ye'll be 'feared o' the law." + +"Wait an' see!" He mockingly echoed her words, and turned in his old +confident manner, and strode out of the crowd. + +Faint and trembling, she crept into the old canvas-covered wagon, and as +it jogged along down the road stiff with its frozen ruts and ever +nearing the mountains, she clasped the cheerful Kittredge with a +yearning sense of loss, and declared that the judge had made him no +safer than before. It was in vain that her father, speaking from the +legal lore of the code, detailed the contempt of court that the +Kittredges would commit should they undertake to interfere with the +judicial decision--it might be even considered kidnapping. + +"But what good would that do me--an' the baby whisked plumb out'n the +State? Ef Abs'lom ain't 'feared o' Tim's rifle, what's he goin' ter keer +fur the pore jedge with nare weepon but his leetle contempt o' +court--ter jail Abs'lom, ef he kin make out ter ketch him!" + +She leaned against the swaying hoop of the cover of the wagon and burst +into tears. "Oh, none o' ye'll do nuthin' fur me!" she exclaimed, in +frantic reproach. "Nuthin'!" + +"Ye talk like 'twar we-uns ez made up sech foolishness ez _habeas +corpus_ out'n our own heads," said Timothy. "I 'ain't never looked ter +the law fur pertection. Hyar's the pertecter." He touched the trigger of +his rifle and glanced reassuringly at his sister as he sat beside her on +the plank laid as a seat from side to side of the wagon. + +She calmed herself for a moment; then suddenly looked aghast at the +rifle, and with some occult and hideous thought, burst anew into tears. + +"Waal, sir," exclaimed Stephen, outdone, "what with all this hyar daily +weepin' an' nightly mournin', I 'ain't got spunk enough lef' ter stan' +up agin the leetlest Kittredge a-goin'. I ain't man enough ter sight a +rifle. Kittredges kin kem enny time an' take my hide, horns, an' tallow +ef they air minded so ter do." + +"I 'lowed I hearn suthin' a-gallopin' down the road," said Tim, +abruptly. + +Her tears suddenly ceased. She clutched the baby closer, and turned and +lifted the flap of the white curtain at the back of the wagon, and +looked out with a wild and terror-stricken eye. The red clay road +stretched curveless, a long way visible and vacant. The black bare trees +stood shivering in the chilly blast on either side; among them was an +occasional clump of funereal cedars. Away off the brown wooded hills +rose; snow lay in thin crust-like patches here and there, and again the +earth wore the pallid gray of the crab-grass or the ochreous red of the +gully-washed clay. + +"I don't see nuthin'," she said, in the bated voice of affrighted +suspense. + +While she still looked out flakes suddenly began to fly, hardly falling +at first, but poised tentatively, fluctuating athwart the scene, +presently thickening, quickening, obscuring it all, isolating the woods +with an added sense of solitude since the sight of the world and the +sound of it were so speedily annulled. Even the creak of the +wagon-wheels was muffled. Through the semicircular aperture in the front +of the wagon-cover the horns of the oxen were dimly seen amidst the +serried flakes; the snow whitened the backs of the beasts and added its +burden to their yoke. Once as they jogged on she fancied again that she +heard hoof-beats--this time a long way ahead, thundering over a little +bridge high above a swirling torrent, that reverberated with a hollow +tone to the faintest footfall. "Jes somebody ez hev passed we-uns, +takin' the short-cut by the bridle-path," she ruminated. No pursuer, +evidently. + +Everything was deeply submerged in the snow before they reached the dark +little cabin nestling in the Cove. Motionless and dreary it was; not +even a blue and gauzy wreath curled out of the chimney, for the fire had +died on the hearth in their absence. No living creature was to be seen. +The fowls were huddled together in the hen-house, and the dogs had +accompanied the family to town, trotting beneath the wagon with lolling +tongues and smoking breath; when they nimbly climbed the fence their +circular footprints were the first traces to mar the level expanse of +the door-yard. The bare limbs of the trees were laden; the cedars +bore great flower-like tufts amidst the interlacing fibrous foliage. The +eaves were heavily thatched; the drifts lay in the fence corners. + +[Illustration: "HE STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW"] + +Everything was covered except, indeed, one side of the fodder-stack that +stood close to the barn. Evelina, going out to milk the cow, gazed at it +for a moment in surprise. The snow had slipped down from it, and lay in +rolls and piles about the base, intermixed with the sere husks and +blades that seemed torn out of the great cone. "Waal, sir, Spot mus' hev +been hongry fur true, ter kem a-foragin' this wise. Looks ez ef she hev +been fairly a-burrowin'." + +She turned and glanced over her shoulder at tracks in the +snow--shapeless holes, and filling fast--which she did not doubt were +the footprints of the big red cow, standing half in and half out of the +wide door, slowly chewing her cud, her breath visibly curling out on the +chill air, her great lips opening to emit a muttered low. She moved +forward suddenly into the shelter as Evelina started anew toward it, +holding the piggin in one hand and clasping the baby in the other arm. + +Evelina noted the sound of her brothers' two axes, busy at the +wood-pile, their regular cleavage splitting the air with a sharp stroke +and bringing a crystalline shivering echo from the icy mountain. She did +not see the crouching figure that came cautiously burrowing out from the +stack. Absalom rose to his full height, looking keenly about him the +while, and stole noiselessly in the soft snow to the stable, and peered +in through a crevice in the wall. + +Evelina had placed the piggin upon the straw-covered ground, and stood +among the horned cattle and the huddling sheep, her soft melancholy face +half shaded by the red shawl thrown over her head and shoulders. A tress +of her brown hair escaped and curled about her white neck, and hung down +over the bosom of her dark-blue homespun dress. Against her shoulder the +dun-colored cow rubbed her horned head. The baby was in a pensive mood, +and scarcely babbled. The reflection of the snow was on his face, +heightening the exquisite purity of the tints of his infantile +complexion. His gentle, fawn-like eyes were full of soft and lustrous +languors. His long lashes drooped over them now, and again were lifted. +His short down of yellow hair glimmered golden against the red shawl +over his mother's shoulders. + +One of the beasts sank slowly upon the ground--a tired creature +doubtless, and night was at hand; then another, and still another. Their +posture reminded Absalom, as he looked, that this was Christmas Eve, and +of the old superstition that the cattle of the barns spend the night +upon their knees, in memory of the wondrous Presence that once graced +their lowly place. The boughs rattled suddenly in the chill blast above +his head; the drifts fell about him. He glanced up mechanically to see +in the zenith a star of gracious glister, tremulous and tender, in the +rifts of the breaking clouds. + +"I wonder ef it air the same star o' Bethlehem?" he said, thinking of +the great sidereal torch heralding the Light of the World. He had a +vague sense that this star has never set, however the wandering planets +may come and go in their wide journeys as the seasons roll. He looked +again into the glooming place, at the mother and her child, remembering +that the Lord of heaven and earth had once lain in a manger, and clung +to a humble earthly mother. + +The man shook with a sudden affright. He had intended to wrest the child +from her grasp, and mount and ride away; he was roused from his reverie +by the thrusting upon him of his opportunity, facilitated a hundredfold. +Evelina had evidently forgotten something. She hesitated for a moment; +then put the baby down upon a great pile of straw among the horned +creatures, and, catching her shawl about her head, ran swiftly to the +house. + +Absalom moved mechanically into the doorway. The child, still pensive +and silent, and looking tenderly infantile, lay upon the straw. A sudden +pang of pity for her pierced his heart: how her own would be desolated! +His horse, hitched in a clump of cedars, awaited him ten steps away. It +was his only chance--his last chance. And he had been hardly entreated. +The child's eyes rested, startled and dilated, upon him; he must be +quick. + +The next instant he turned suddenly, ran hastily through the snow, +crashed among the cedars, mounted his horse, and galloped away. + +It was only a moment that Evelina expected to be at the house, but the +gourd of salt which she sought was not in its place. She hurried out +with it at last, unprescient of any danger until all at once she saw the +footprints of a man in the snow, otherwise untrodden, about the +fodder-stack. She still heard the two axes at the wood-pile. Her +father, she knew, was at the house. + +A smothered scream escaped her lips. The steps had evidently gone into +the stable, and had come out thence. Her faltering strength could +scarcely support her to the door. And then she saw lying in the straw +Elnathan Daniel, beginning to babble and gurgle again, and to grow very +pink with joy over a new toy--a man's glove, a red woollen glove, +accidentally dropped in the straw. She caught it from his hands, and +turned it about curiously. She had knit it herself--for Absalom! + +When she came into the house, beaming with joy, the baby holding the +glove in his hands, the men listened to her in dumfounded amaze, and +with significant side glances at each other. + +"He wouldn't take the baby whenst he hed the chance, 'kase he knowed +'twould hurt me so. An' he never wanted ter torment me--I reckon he +never _did_ mean ter torment me. An' he did 'low wunst he war sorry he +spited dad. Oh! I hev been a heap too quick an' spiteful myself. I hev +been so terrible wrong! Look a-hyar; he lef this glove ter show me he +hed been hyar, an' could hev tuk the baby ef he hed hed the heart ter do +it. Oh! I'm goin' right up the mounting an' tell him how sorry I be." + +"Toler'ble cheap!" grumbled Stephen--"one old glove. An' he'll git +Elnathan Daniel an' ye too. A smart fox he be." + +They could not dissuade her. And after a time it came to pass that the +Quimbey and Kittredge feuds were healed, for how could the heart of a +grandfather withstand a toddling spectacle in pink calico that ran +away one day some two years later, in company with an adventurous dog, +and came down the mountain to the cabin in the Cove, squeezing through +the fence rails after the manner of his underfoot world, proceeding +thence to the house, where he made himself very merry and very welcome? +And when Tim mounted his horse and rode up the mountain with the +youngster on the pommel of the saddle, lest Evelina should be out of her +mind with fright because of his absence, how should he and old Mrs. +Kittredge differ in their respective opinions of his vigorous growth, +and grace of countenance, and peartness of manner? On the strength of +this concurrence Tim was induced to "'light an' hitch," and he even sat +on the cabin porch and talked over the crops with Absalom, who, the next +time he went to town, stopped at the cabin in the Cove to bring word how +Elnathan Daniel was "thrivin'." The path that Evelina had worn to the +crag in those first homesick days on the mountain rapidly extended +itself into the Cove, and widened and grew smooth, as the grandfather +went up and the grandson came down. + +[Illustration: OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON] + + + + +'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE + + +One memorable night in Lonesome Cove the ranger of the county entered +upon a momentous crisis in his life. What hour it was he could hardly +have said, for the primitive household reckoned time by the sun when it +shone, by the domestic routine when no better might be. It was late. The +old crone in the chimney-corner nodded over her knitting. In the +trundle-bed at the farther end of the shadowy room were transverse +billows under the quilts, which intimated that the small children were +numerous enough for the necessity of sleeping crosswise. He had smoked +out many pipes, and at last knocked the cinder from the bowl. The great +hickory logs had burned asunder and fallen from the stones that served +as andirons. He began to slowly cover the embers with ashes, that the +fire might keep till morning. + +His wife, a faded woman, grown early old, was bringing the stone jar of +yeast to place close by the hearth, that it might not "take a chill" in +some sudden change of the night. It was heavy, and she bent in carrying +it. Awkward, and perhaps nervous, she brought it sharply against the +shovel in his hands. + +The clash roused the old crone in the corner. She recognized the +situation instantly, and the features that sleep had relaxed into +inexpressiveness took on a weary apprehension, which they wore like a +habit. The man barely raised his surly black eyes, but his wife drew +back humbly with a mutter of apology. + +The next moment the shovel was almost thrust out of his grasp. A tiny +barefooted girl, in a straight unbleached cotton night-gown and a quaint +little cotton night-cap, cavalierly pushed him aside, that she might +cover in the hot ashes a burly sweet-potato, destined to slowly roast by +morning. A long and careful job she made of it, and unconcernedly kept +him waiting while she pottered back and forth about the hearth. She +looked up once with an authoritative eye, and he hastily helped to +adjust the potato with the end of the shovel. And then he glanced at +her, incongruously enough, as if waiting for her autocratic nod of +approval. She gravely accorded it, and pattered nimbly across the +puncheon floor to the bed. + +"Now," he drawled, in gruff accents, "ef you-uns hev all had yer fill o' +foolin' with this hyar fire, I'll kiver it, like I hev started out ter +do." + +At this moment there was a loud trampling upon the porch without. The +batten door shook violently. The ranger sprang up. As he frowned the +hair on his scalp, drawn forward, seemed to rise like bristles. + +"Dad-burn that thar fresky filly!" he cried, angrily. "Jes' brung her +noisy bones up on that thar porch agin, an' her huffs will bust spang +through the planks o' the floor the fust thing ye know." + +The narrow aperture, as he held the door ajar, showed outlined against +the darkness the graceful head of a young mare, and once more hoof-beats +resounded on the rotten planks of the porch. + +Clouds were adrift in the sky. No star gleamed in the wide space high +above the sombre mountains. On every side they encompassed Lonesome +Cove, which seemed to have importunately thrust itself into the darkling +solemnities of their intimacy. + +All at once the ranger let the door fly from his hand, and stood gazing +in blank amazement. For there was a strange motion in the void +vastnesses of the wilderness. They were creeping into view. How, he +could not say, but the summit of the great mountain opposite was +marvellously distinct against the sky. He saw the naked, gaunt, December +woods. He saw the grim, gray crags. And yet Lonesome Cove below and the +spurs on the other side were all benighted. A pale, flickering light was +dawning in the clouds; it brightened, faded, glowed again, and their +sad, gray folds assumed a vivid vermilion reflection, for there was a +fire in the forest below. Only these reactions of color on the clouds +betokened its presence and its progress. Sometimes a fluctuation of +orange crossed them, then a glancing line of blue, and once more that +living red hue which only a pulsating flame can bestow. + +"Air it the comin' o' the Jedgmint Day, Tobe?" asked his wife, in a meek +whisper. + +"I'd be afraid so if I war ez big a sinner ez you-uns," he returned. + +"The woods air afire," the old woman declared, in a shrill voice. + +"They be a-soakin' with las' night's rain," he retorted, gruffly. + +The mare was standing near the porch. Suddenly he mounted her and rode +hastily off, without a word of his intention to the staring women in the +doorway. + +He left freedom of speech behind him. "Take yer bones along, then, ye +tongue-tied catamount!" his wife's mother apostrophized him, with all +the acrimony of long repression. "Got no mo' politeness 'n a settin' +hen," she muttered, as she turned back into the room. + +The young woman lingered wistfully. "I wisht he wouldn't go a-ridin' off +that thar way 'thout lettin' we-uns know whar he air bound fur, an' when +he'll kem back. He mought git hurt some ways roun' that thar fire--git +overtook by it, mebbe." + +"Ef he war roasted 'twould be mighty peaceful round in Lonesome," the +old crone exclaimed, rancorously. + +Her daughter stood for a moment with the bar of the door in her hand, +still gazing out at the flare in the sky. The unwonted emotion had +conjured a change in the stereotyped patience in her face--even anxiety, +even the acuteness of fear, seemed a less pathetic expression than that +meek monotony bespeaking a broken spirit. As she lifted her eyes to the +mountain one might wonder to see that they were so blue. In the many +haggard lines drawn upon her face the effect of the straight lineaments +was lost; but just now, embellished with a flush, she looked young--as +young as her years. + +As she buttoned the door and put up the bar her mother's attention was +caught by the change. Peering at her critically, and shading her eyes +with her hand from the uncertain flicker of the tallow dip, she broke +out, passionately: "Wa'al, 'Genie, who would ever hev thought ez yer +cake would be _all_ dough? Sech a laffin', plump, spry gal ez ye useter +be--fur all the worl' like a fresky young deer! An' sech a pack o' men +ez ye hed the choice amongst! An' ter pick out Tobe Gryce an' marry him, +an' kem 'way down hyar ter live along o' him in Lonesome Cove!" + +She chuckled aloud, not that she relished her mirth, but the +harlequinade of fate constrained a laugh for its antics. The words +recalled the past to Eugenia; it rose visibly before her. She had had +scant leisure to reflect that her life might have been ordered +differently. In her widening eyes were new depths, a vague terror, a +wild speculation, all struck aghast by its own temerity. + +"Ye never said nuthin ter hender," she faltered. + +"I never knowed Tobe, sca'cely. How's ennybody goin' ter know a man ez +lived 'way off down hyar in Lonesome Cove?" her mother retorted, +acridly, on the defensive. "He never courted _me_, nohows. All the word +he gin me war, 'Howdy,' an' I gin him no less." + +There was a pause. + +Eugenia knelt on the hearth. She placed together the broken chunks, and +fanned the flames with a turkey wing. "I won't kiver the fire yit," she +said, thoughtfully. "He mought be chilled when he gits home." + +The feathery flakes of the ashes flew; they caught here and there in her +brown hair. The blaze flared up, and flickered over her flushed, pensive +face, and glowed in her large and brilliant eyes. + +"Tobe said 'Howdy,'" her mother bickered on. "I knowed by that ez he hed +the gift o' speech, but he spent no mo' words on me." Then, suddenly, +with a change of tone: "I war a fool, though, ter gin my cornsent ter +yer marryin' him, bein' ez ye war the only child I hed, an' I knowed I'd +hev ter live with ye 'way down hyar in Lonesome Cove. I wish now ez ye +bed abided by yer fust choice, an' married Luke Todd." + +Eugenia looked up with a gathering frown. "I hev no call ter spen' words +'bout Luke Todd," she said, with dignity, "ez me an' him are both +married ter other folks." + +"I never said ye hed," hastily replied the old woman, rebuked and +embarrassed. Presently, however, her vagrant speculation went recklessly +on. "Though ez ter Luke's marryin', 'tain't wuth while ter set store on +sech. The gal he found over thar in Big Fox Valley favors ye ez close ez +two black-eyed peas. That's why he married her. She looks precisely like +ye useter look. An' she laffs the same. An' I reckon _she_ 'ain't hed no +call ter quit laffin', 'kase he air a powerful easy-goin' man. +Leastways, he useter be when we-uns knowed him." + +"That ain't no sign," said Eugenia. "A saafter-spoken body I never seen +than Tobe war when he fust kem a-courtin' round the settlemint." + +"Sech ez that ain't goin' ter las' noways," dryly remarked the +philosopher of the chimney-corner. + +This might seem rather a reflection upon the courting gentry in general +than a personal observation. But Eugenia's consciousness lent it point. + +"Laws-a-massy," she said, "Tobe ain't so rampagious, nohows, ez folks +make him out. He air toler'ble peaceable, cornsiderin' ez nobody hev +ever hed grit enough ter make a stand agin him, 'thout 'twar the Cunnel +thar." + +She glanced around at the little girl's face framed in the frill of her +night-cap, and peaceful and infantile as it lay on the pillow. + +"Whenst the Cunnel war born," Eugenia went on, languidly reminiscent, +"Tobe war powerful outed 'kase she war a gal. I reckon ye 'members ez +how he said he hed no use for sech cattle ez that. An' when she tuk sick +he 'lowed he seen no differ. 'Jes ez well die ez live,' he said. An' +bein' ailin', the Cunnel tuk it inter her head ter holler. Sech +hollerin' we-uns hed never hearn with none o' the t'other chil'ren. The +boys war nowhar. But a-fust it never 'sturbed Tobe. He jes spoke out +same ez he useter do at the t'others, 'Shet up, ye pop-eyed buzzard!' +Wa'al, sir, the Cunnel jes blinked at him, an' braced herself ez stiff, +an' _yelled_! I 'lowed 'twould take off the roof. An' Tobe said he'd +wring her neck ef she warn't so mewlin'-lookin' an' peakčd. An' he tuk +her up an' walked across the floor with her, an' she shet up; an' he +walked back agin, an' she stayed shet up. Ef he sot down fur a minit, +she yelled so ez ye'd think ye'd be deef fur life, an' ye 'most hoped ye +would be. So Tobe war obleeged ter tote her agin ter git shet o' the +noise. He got started on that thar 'forced march,' ez he calls it, an' +he never could git off'n it. Trot he must when the Cunnel pleased. He +'lowed she reminded him o' that thar old Cunnel that he sarved under in +the wars. Ef it killed the regiment, he got thar on time. Sence then the +Cunnel jes gins Tobe her orders, an' he moseys ter do 'em quick, jes +like he war obleeged ter obey. I b'lieve he air, somehows." + +"Wa'al, some day," said the disaffected old woman, assuming a port of +prophetic wisdom, "Tobe will find a differ. Thar ain't no man so headin' +ez don't git treated with perslimness by somebody some time. I knowed a +man wunst ez owned fower horses an' cattle-critters quarryspondin', an' +he couldn't prove ez he war too old ter be summonsed ter work on the +road, an' war fined by the overseer 'cordin' ter law. Tobe will git his +wheel scotched yit, sure ez ye air born. Somebody besides the Cunnel +will skeer up grit enough ter make a stand agin him. I dunno how other +men kin sleep o' night, knowin' how he be always darin' folks ter differ +with him, an' how brigaty he be. The Bible 'pears ter me ter hev Tobe in +special mind when it gits ter mournin' 'bout'n the stiff-necked ones." + + * * * * * + +The spirited young mare that the ranger rode strove to assert herself +against him now and then, as she went at a breakneck speed along the +sandy bridle-path through the woods. How was she to know that the +white-wanded young willow by the way-side was not some spiritual +manifestation as it suddenly materialized in a broken beam from a rift +in the clouds? But as she reared and plunged she felt his heavy hand and +his heavy heel, and so forward again at a steady pace. The forests +served to screen the strange light in the sky, and the lonely road was +dark, save where the moonbeam was splintered and the mists loitered. + +Presently there were cinders flying in the breeze, a smell of smoke +pervaded the air, and the ranger forgot to curse the mare when she +stumbled. + +"I wonder," he muttered, "what them no 'count half-livers o' town folks +hev hed the shiftlessness ter let ketch afire thar!" + +As he neared the brink of the mountain he saw a dense column of smoke +against the sky, and a break in the woods showed the little town--the +few log houses, the "gyarden spots" about them, and in the centre of the +Square a great mass of coals, a flame flickering here and there, and two +gaunt and tottering chimneys where once the court-house had stood. At +some distance--for the heat was still intense--were grouped the +slouching, spiritless figures of the mountaineers. On the porches of the +houses, plainly visible in the unwonted red glow, were knots of women +and children--ever and anon a brat in the scantiest of raiment ran +nimbly in and out. The clouds still borrowed the light from below, and +the solemn, leafless woods on one side were outlined distinctly against +the reflection in the sky. The flare showed, too, the abrupt precipice +on the other side, the abysmal gloom of the valley, the austere +summit-line of the mountain beyond, and gave the dark mysteries of the +night a sombre revelation, as in visible blackness it filled the +illimitable space. + +The little mare was badly blown as the ranger sprang to the ground. He +himself was panting with amazement and eagerness. + +"The stray-book!" he cried. "Whar's the stray-book?" + +One by one the slow group turned, all looking at him with a peering +expression as he loomed distorted through the shimmer of the heat above +the bed of live coals and the hovering smoke. + +"Whar's the stray-book?" he reiterated, imperiously. + +"Whar's the court-house, I reckon ye mean to say," replied the +sheriff--a burly mountaineer in brown jeans and high boots, on which the +spurs jingled; for in his excitement he had put them on as mechanically +as his clothes, as if they were an essential part of his attire. + +"Naw, I _ain't_ meanin' ter say whar's the court-house," said the +ranger, coming up close, with the red glow of the fire on his face, and +his eyes flashing under the broad brim of his wool hat. He had a +threatening aspect, and his elongated shadow, following him and +repeating the menace of his attitude, seemed to back him up. "Ye air +sech a triflin', slack-twisted tribe hyar in town, ez ennybody would +know ef a spark cotched fire ter suthin, ye'd set an' suck yer paws, an' +eye it till it bodaciously burnt up the court-house--sech a dad-burned +lazy set o' half-livers ye be! I never axed 'bout'n the court-house. I +want ter know whar's that thar stray-book," he concluded, +inconsequently. + +"Tobe Gryce, ye air fairly demented," exclaimed the register--a +chin-whiskered, grizzled old fellow, sitting on a stump and hugging his +knee with a desolate, bereaved look--"talkin' 'bout the _stray-book_, +an' all the records gone! What will folks do 'bout thar deeds, an' +mortgages, an' sech? An' that thar keerful index ez I had made--ez +straight ez a string--all cinders!" + +He shook his head, mourning alike for the party of the first part and +the party of the second part, and the vestiges of all that they had +agreed together. + +"An' ye ter kem mopin' hyar this time o' night arter the _stray-book_," +said the sheriff. "Shucks!" And he turned aside and spat disdainfully on +the ground. + +"I want that thar stray-book!" cried Gryce, indignantly. "Ain't nobody +seen it?" Then realizing the futility of the question, he yielded to a +fresh burst of anger, and turned upon the bereaved register. "An' did ye +jes set thar an' say, 'Good Mister Fire, don't burn the records; what'll +folks do 'bout thar deeds an' sech?' an' hold them claws o' yourn, an' +see the court-house burn up, with that thar stray-book in it?" + +Half a dozen men spoke up. "The fire tuk inside, an' the court-house war +haffen gone 'fore 'twar seen," said one, in sulky extenuation. + +"Leave Tobe be--let him jaw!" said another, cavalierly. + +"Tobe 'pears ter be sp'ilin' fur a fight," said a third, impersonally, +as if to direct the attention of any belligerent in the group to the +opportunity. + +The register had an expression of slow cunning as he cast a glance up at +the overbearing ranger. + +"What ailed the stray-book ter bide hyar in the court-house all night, +Tobe? Couldn't ye gin it house-room? Thar warn't no special need fur it +to be hyar." + +Tobe Gryce's face showed that for once he was at a loss. He glowered +down at the register and said nothing. + +"Ez ter me," resumed that worthy, "by the law o' the land my books war +obligated ter be thar." He quoted, mournfully, "'Shall at all times be +and remain in his office.'" + +He gathered up his knee again and subsided into silence. + +All the freakish spirits of the air were a-loose in the wind. In fitful +gusts they rushed up the gorge, then suddenly the boughs would fall +still again, and one could hear the eerie rout a-rioting far off down +the valley. Now and then the glow of the fire would deepen, the coals +tremble, and with a gleaming, fibrous swirl, like a garment of flames, a +sudden animation would sweep over it, as if an apparition had passed, +leaving a line of flying sparks to mark its trail. + +"I'm goin' home," drawled Tobe Gryce, presently. "I don't keer a frog's +toe-nail ef the whole settlemint burns bodaciously up; 'tain't nuthin +ter me. I hev never hankered ter live in towns an' git tuk up with town +ways, an' set an' view the court-house like the apple o' my eye. We-uns +don't ketch fire down in the Cove, though mebbe we ain't so peart ez +folks ez herd tergether like sheep an' sech." + +The footfalls of the little black mare annotated the silence of the +place as he rode away into the darkling woods. The groups gradually +disappeared from the porches. The few voices that sounded at long +intervals were low and drowsy. The red fire smouldered in the centre of +the place, and sometimes about it appeared so doubtful a shadow that it +could hardly argue substance. Far away a dog barked, and then all was +still. + +Presently the great mountains loom aggressively along the horizon. The +black abysses, the valleys and coves, show duncolored verges and grow +gradually distinct, and on the slopes the ash and the pine and the oak +are all lustrous with a silver rime. The mists are rising, the wind +springs up anew, the clouds set sail, and a beam slants high. + + * * * * * + +"What I want ter know," said a mountaineer newly arrived on the scene, +sitting on the verge of the precipice, and dangling his long legs over +the depths beneath, "air how do folks ez live 'way down in Lonesome +Cove, an' who nobody knowed nuthin about noways, ever git 'lected ranger +o' the county, ennyhow. I ain't s'prised none ter hear 'bout Tobe +Gryce's goin's-on hyar las' night. I hev looked fur more'n that." + +"Wa'al, I'll tell ye," replied the register. "Nuthin' but favoritism in +the county court. Ranger air 'lected by the jestices. Ye know," he +added, vainglorious of his own tenure of office by the acclaiming voice +of the sovereign people, "ranger ain't 'lected, like the register, by +pop'lar vote." + +A slow smoke still wreathed upward from the charred ruins of the +court-house. Gossiping groups stood here and there, mostly the +jeans-clad mountaineers, but there were a few who wore "store clothes," +being lawyers from more sophisticated regions of the circuit. Court had +been in session the previous day. The jury, serving in a criminal +case--still strictly segregated, and in charge of an officer--were +walking about wearily in double file, waiting with what patience they +might their formal discharge. + +The sheriff's dog, a great yellow cur, trotted in the rear. When the +officer was first elected, this animal, observing the change in his +master's habits, deduced his own conclusions. He seemed to think the +court-house belonged to the sheriff, and thence-forward guarded the door +with snaps and growls; being a formidable brute, his idiosyncrasies +invested the getting into and getting out of law with abnormal +difficulties. Now, as he followed the disconsolate jury, he bore the +vigilant mien with which he formerly drove up the cows, and if a juror +loitered or stepped aside from the path, the dog made a slow detour as +if to round him in, and the melancholy cortége wandered on as before. +More than one looked wistfully at the group on the crag, for it was +distinguished by that sprightly interest which scandal excites so +readily. + +"Ter my way of thinkin'," drawled Sam Peters, swinging his feet over the +giddy depths of the valley, "Tobe ain't sech ez oughter be set over the +county ez a ranger, noways. 'Pears not ter me, an' I hev been keepin' my +eye on him mighty sharp." + +A shadow fell among the group, and a man sat down on a bowlder hard by. +He, too, had just arrived, being lured to the town by the news of the +fire. His slide had been left at the verge of the clearing, and one of +the oxen had already lain down; the other, although hampered by the yoke +thus diagonally displaced, stood meditatively gazing at the distant blue +mountains. Their master nodded a slow, grave salutation to the group, +produced a plug of tobacco, gnawed a fragment from it, and restored it +to his pocket. He had a pensive face, with an expression which in a man +of wider culture we should discriminate as denoting sensibility. He had +long yellow hair that hung down to his shoulders, and a tangled yellow +beard. There was something at once wistful and searching in his gray +eyes, dull enough, too, at times. He lifted them heavily, and they had a +drooping lid and lash. There seemed an odd incongruity between this +sensitive, weary face and his stalwart physique. He was tall and well +proportioned. A leather belt girded his brown jeans coat. His great +cowhide boots were drawn to the knee over his trousers. His pose, as he +leaned on the rock, had a muscular picturesqueness. + +"Who be ye a-talkin' about?" he drawled. + +Peters relished his opportunity. He laughed in a distorted fashion, his +pipe-stem held between his teeth. + +"_You-uns_ ain't wantin' ter swop lies 'bout sech ez him, Luke! We war +a-talkin' 'bout Tobe Gryce." + +The color flared into the new-comer's face. A sudden animation fired his +eye. + +"Tobe Gryce air jes the man I'm always wantin' ter hear a word about. +Jes perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm with ye." And Luke Todd placed +his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with an air of attention. + +Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending this ebullition. It was not +what he had expected to elicit. No one laughed. His fleer was wide of +the mark. + +"Wa'al"--he made another effort--"Tobe, we war jes sayin', ain't fitten +fur ter be ranger o' the county. He be ez peart in gittin' ter own other +folkses' stray cattle ez he war in courtin' other folkses' sweetheart, +an', ef the truth mus' be knowed, in marryin' her." He suddenly twisted +round, in some danger of falling from his perch. "I want ter ax one o' +them thar big-headed lawyers a question on a p'int o' law," he broke +off, abruptly. + +"What be Tobe Gryce a-doin' of now?" asked Luke Todd, with eager +interest in the subject. + +"Wa'al," resumed Peters, nowise loath to return to the gossip, "Tobe, ye +see, air the ranger o' this hyar county, an' by law all the stray horses +ez air tuk up by folks hev ter be reported ter him, an' appraised by two +householders, an' swore to afore the magistrate an' be advertised by the +ranger, an' ef they ain't claimed 'fore twelve months, the taker-up kin +pay into the county treasury one-haffen the appraisement an' hev the +critter fur his'n. An' the owner can't prove it away arter that." + +"Thanky," said Luke Todd, dryly. "S'pose ye teach yer gran'mammy ter +suck aigs. I knowed all that afore." + +Peters was abashed, and with some difficulty collected himself. + +"An' I knowed ye knowed it, Luke," he hastily conceded. "But hyar be +what I'm a-lookin' at--the law 'ain't got no pervision fur a stray horse +ez kem of a dark night, 'thout nobody's percuremint, ter the ranger's +own house. Now, the p'int o' law ez I wanted ter ax the lawyers 'bout +air this--kin the ranger be the ranger an' the taker-up too?" + +He turned his eyes upon the great landscape lying beneath, flooded with +the chill matutinal sunshine, and flecked here and there with the +elusive shadows of the fleecy drifting clouds. Far away the long +horizontal lines of the wooded spurs, converging on either side of the +valley and rising one behind the other, wore a subdued azure, all unlike +the burning blue of summer, and lay along the calm, passionless sky, +that itself was of a dim, repressed tone. On the slopes nearer, the +leafless boughs, massed together, had purplish-garnet depths of color +wherever the sunshine struck aslant, and showed richly against the +faintly tinted horizon. Here and there among the boldly jutting gray +crags hung an evergreen-vine, and from a gorge on the opposite mountain +gleamed a continuous flash, like the waving of a silver plume, where a +cataract sprang down the rocks. In the depths of the valley, a field in +which crab-grass had grown in the place of the harvested wheat showed a +tiny square of palest yellow, and beside it a red clay road, running +over a hill, was visible. Above all a hawk was flying. + +"Afore the winter fairly set in las' year," Peters resumed, presently, +"a stray kem ter Tobe's house. He 'lowed ter me ez he fund her +a-standin' by the fodder-stack a-pullin' off'n it. An' he 'quired round, +an' he never hearn o' no owner. I reckon he never axed outside o' +Lonesome," he added, cynically. He puffed industriously at his pipe for +a few moments; then continued: "Wa'al, he 'lowed he couldn't feed the +critter fur fun. An' he couldn't work her till she war appraised an' +sech, that bein' agin the law fur strays. So he jes ondertook ter be +ranger an' taker-up too--the bangedest consarn in the kentry! Ef the +leetle mare hed been wall-eyed, or lame, or ennything, he wouldn't hev +wanted ter be ranger an' taker-up too. But she air the peartest little +beastis--she war jes bridle-wise when she fust kem--young an' spry!" + +Luke Todd was about to ask a question, but Peters, disregarding him, +persisted: + +"Wa'al, Tobe tuk up the beastis, an' I reckon he reported her ter +hisself, bein' the ranger--the critter makes me laff--an' he hed that +thar old haffen-blind uncle o' his'n an' Perkins Bates, ez be never +sober, ter appraise the vally o' the mare, an' I s'pose he delivered +thar certificate ter hisself, an' I reckon he tuk oath that she kem +'thout his procure_mint_ ter his place, in the presence o' the ranger." + +"I reckon thar ain't no law agin the ranger's bein' a ranger an' a +taker-up too," put in one of the bystanders. "'Tain't like a sher'ff's +buyin' at his own sale. An' he hed ter pay haffen her vally into the +treasury o' the county arter twelve months, ef the owner never proved +her away." + +"Thar ain't no sign he ever paid a cent," said Peters, with a malicious +grin, pointing at the charred remains of the court-house, "an' the +treasurer air jes dead." + +"Wa'al, Tobe hed ter make a report ter the jedge o' the county court +every six months." + +"The papers of his office air cinders," retorted Peters. + +"Wa'al, then," argued the optimist, "the stray-book will show ez she war +reported an' sech." + +"The ranger took mighty partic'lar pains ter hev his stray-book in that +thar court-house when 'twar burnt." + +There was a long pause while the party sat ruminating upon the +suspicions thus suggested. + +Luke Todd heard them, not without a thrill of satisfaction. He found +them easy to adopt. And he, too, had a disposition to theorize. + +"It takes a mighty mean man ter steal a horse," he said. "Stealin' a +horse air powerful close ter murder. Folkses' lives fairly depend on a +horse ter work thar corn an' sech, an' make a support fur em. I hev +knowed folks ter kem mighty close ter starvin' through hevin thar horse +stole. Why, even that thar leetle filly of our'n, though she hedn't been +fairly bruk ter the plough, war mightily missed. We-uns hed ter make out +with the old sorrel, ez air nigh fourteen year old, ter work the crap, +an' we war powerful disapp'inted. But we ain't never fund no trace o' +the filly sence she war tolled off one night las' fall a year ago." + +The hawk floating above the valley and its winged shadow disappeared +together in the dense glooms of a deep gorge. Luke Todd watched them as +they vanished. + +Suddenly he lifted his eyes. They were wide with a new speculation. An +angry flare blazed in them. "What sort'n beastis is this hyar mare ez +the ranger tuk up?" he asked. + +Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending his tremor of excitement. +"Seems sorter sizable," he replied, sibilantly, sucking his pipe-stem. + +Todd nodded meditatively several times, leaning his elbows on his knees, +his eyes fixed on the landscape. "Hev she got enny partic'lar marks, ez +ye knows on?" he drawled. + +"Wa'al, she be ez black ez a crow, with the nigh fore-foot white. An' +she hev got a white star spang in the middle o' her forehead, an' the +left side o' her nose is white too." + +Todd rose suddenly to his feet. "By gum!" he cried, with a burst of +passion, "she air _my_ filly! An' 'twar that thar durned horse-thief of +a ranger ez tolled her off!" + + * * * * * + +Deep among the wooded spurs Lonesome Cove nestles, sequestered from the +world. Naught emigrates thence except an importunate stream that forces +its way through a rocky gap, and so to freedom beyond. No stranger +intrudes; only the moon looks in once in a while. The roaming wind may +explore its solitudes; and it is but the vertical sunbeams that strike +to the heart of the little basin, because of the massive mountains that +wall it round and serve to isolate it. So nearly do they meet at the gap +that one great assertive crag, beetling far above, intercepts the view +of the wide landscape beyond, leaving its substituted profile jaggedly +serrating the changing sky. Above it, when the weather is fair, appear +vague blue lines, distant mountain summits, cloud strata, visions. Below +its jutting verge may be caught glimpses of the widening valley without. +But pre-eminent, gaunt, sombre, it sternly dominates "Lonesome," and is +the salient feature of the little world it limits. + +Tobe Gryce's house, gray, weather-beaten, moss-grown, had in comparison +an ephemeral, modern aspect. For a hundred years its inmates had come +and gone and lived and died. They took no heed of the crag, but never a +sound was lost upon it. Their drawling iterative speech the iterative +echoes conned. The ringing blast of a horn set astir some phantom chase +in the air. When the cows came lowing home, there were lowing herds in +viewless company. Even if one of the children sat on a rotting log +crooning a vague, fragmentary ditty, some faint-voiced spirit in the +rock would sing. Lonesome Cove?--home of invisible throngs! + +As the ranger trotted down the winding road, multitudinous hoof-beats, +as of a troop of cavalry, heralded his approach to the little girl who +stood on the porch of the log-cabin and watched for him. + +"Hy're, Cunnel!" he cried, cordially. + +But the little "Colonel" took no heed. She looked beyond him at the +vague blue mountains, against which the great grim rock was heavily +imposed, every ledge, every waving dead crisp weed, distinct. + +He noticed the smoke curling briskly up in the sunshine from the clay +and stick chimney. He strode past her into the house, as Eugenia, with +all semblance of youth faded from her countenance, haggard and +hollow-eyed in the morning light, was hurrying the corn-dodgers and +venison steak on the table. + +Perhaps he did not appreciate that the women were pining with curiosity, +for he vouchsafed no word of the excitements in the little town; and he +himself was ill at ease. + +"What ails the Cunnel, 'Genie?" he asked, presently, glancing up sharply +from under his hat brim, and speaking with his mouth full. + +"The cat 'pears ter hev got her tongue," said Eugenia, intending that +the "Colonel" should hear, and perhaps profit. "She ain't able ter talk +none this mornin'." + +The little body cast so frowning a glance upon them as she stood in the +doorway that her expression was but slightly less lowering than her +father's. It was an incongruous demonstration, with her infantile +features, her little yellow head, and the slight physical force she +represented. She wore a blue cotton frock, fastened up the back with +great horn buttons; she had on shoes laced with leather strings; one of +her blue woollen stockings fell over her ankle, disclosing the pinkest +of plump calves; the other stocking was held in place by an unabashed +cotton string. She had a light in her dark eyes and a color in her +cheek, and albeit so slight a thing, she wielded a strong coercion. + +"Laws-a-massy, Cunnel!" said Tobe, in a harried manner, "couldn't ye +find me nowhar? I'm powerful sorry. I couldn't git back hyar no sooner." + +But not in this wise was she to be placated. She fixed her eyes upon +him, but made no sign. + +He suddenly rose from his half-finished breakfast. "Look-a-hyar, +Cunnel," he cried, joyously, "don't ye want ter ride the filly?--ye knew +ye hanker ter ride the filly." + +Even then she tried to frown, but the bliss of the prospect overbore +her. Her cheek and chin dimpled, and there was a gurgling display of two +rows of jagged little teeth as the doughty "Colonel" was swung to his +shoulder and he stepped out of the door. + +He laughed as he stood by the glossy black mare and lifted the child to +the saddle. The animal arched her neck and turned her head and gazed +back at him curiously. "Hold on tight, Cunnel," he said as he looked up +at her, his face strangely softened almost beyond recognition. And she +gurgled and laughed and screamed with delight as he began to slowly lead +the mare along. + +The "Colonel" had the gift of continuance. Some time elapsed before she +exhausted the joys of exaltation. More than once she absolutely refused +to dismount. Tobe patiently led the beast up and down, and the "Colonel" +rode in state. It was only when the sun had grown high, and occasionally +she was fain to lift her chubby hands to her eyes, imperiling her safety +on the saddle, that he ventured to seriously remonstrate, and finally +she permitted herself to be assisted to the ground. When, with the +little girl at his heels, he reached the porch, he took off his hat, and +wiped the perspiration from his brow with his great brown hand. + +"I tell ye, jouncin' round arter the Cunnel air powerful hot work," he +declared. + +The next moment he paused. His wife had come to the door, and there was +a strange expression of alarm among the anxious lines of her face. + +"Tobe," she said, in a bated voice, "who war them men?" + +He stared at her, whirled about, surveyed the vacant landscape, and once +more turned dumfounded toward her. "What men?" he asked. + +"Them men ez acted so cur'ous," she said. "I couldn't see thar faces +plain, an' I dunno who they war." + +"Whar war they?" And he looked over his shoulder once more. + +"Yander along the ledges of the big rock. Thar war two of 'em, hidin' +ahint that thar jagged aidge. An' ef yer back war turned they'd peep out +at ye an' the Cunnel ridin'. But whenst ye would face round agin, they'd +drap down ahint the aidge o' the rock. I 'lowed wunst ez I'd holler ter +ye, but I war feared ye moughtn't keer ter know." Her voice fell in its +deprecatory cadence. + +He stood in silent perplexity. "Ye air a fool, 'Genie, an' ye never seen +nuthin'. Nobody hev got enny call ter spy on me." + +He stepped in-doors, took down his rifle from the rack, and went out +frowning into the sunlight. + +The suggestion of mystery angered him. He had a vague sense of impending +danger. As he made his way along the slope toward the great beetling +crag all his faculties were on the alert. He saw naught unusual when he +stood upon its dark-seamed summit, and he went cautiously to the verge +and looked down at the many ledges. They jutted out at irregular +intervals, the first only six feet below, and all accessible enough to +an expert climber. A bush grew in a niche. An empty nest, riddled by the +wind, hung dishevelled from a twig. Coarse withered grass tufted the +crevices. Far below he saw the depths of the Cove--the tops of the +leafless trees, and, glimpsed through the interlacing boughs, the rush +of a mountain rill, and a white flash as a sunbeam slanted on the foam. + +He was turning away, all incredulous, when with a sudden start he looked +back. On one of the ledges was a slight depression. It was filled with +sand and earth. Imprinted upon it was the shape of a man's foot. The +ranger paused and gazed fixedly at it. "Wa'al, by the Lord!" he +exclaimed, under his breath. Presently, "But they hev no call!" he +argued. Then once more, softly, "By the Lord!" + +The mystery baffled him. More than once that day he went up to the crag +and stood and stared futilely at the footprint. Conjecture had license +and limitations, too. As the hours wore on he became harassed by the +sense of espionage. He was a bold man before the foes he knew, but this +idea of inimical lurking, of furtive scrutiny for unknown purposes, +preyed upon him. He brooded over it as he sat idle by the fire. Once he +went to the door and stared speculatively at the great profile of the +cliff. The sky above it was all a lustrous amber, for the early sunset +of the shortest days of the year was at hand. The mountains, seen partly +above and partly below it, wore a glamourous purple. There were clouds, +and from their rifts long divergent lines of light slanted down upon the +valley, distinct among their shadows. The sun was not visible--only in +the western heavens was a half-veiled effulgence too dazzlingly white to +be gazed upon. The ranger shaded his eyes with his hand. No motion, no +sound; for the first time in his life the unutterable loneliness of the +place impressed him. + +"'Genie," he said, suddenly, looking over his shoulder within the cabin, +"be you-uns _sure_ ez they war--_folks_?" + +"I dunno what you mean," she faltered, her eyes dilated. "They _looked_ +like folks." + +"I reckon they war," he said, reassuring himself. "The Lord knows I hope +they war." + + * * * * * + +That night the wind rose. The stars all seemed to have burst from their +moorings, and were wildly adrift in the sky. There was a broken tumult +of billowy clouds, and the moon tossed hopelessly amongst them, a lunar +wreck, sometimes on her beam ends, sometimes half submerged, once more +gallantly struggling to the surface, and again sunk. The bare boughs of +the trees beat together in a dirge-like monotone. Now and again a leaf +went sibilantly whistling past. The wild commotion of the heavens and +earth was visible, for the night was not dark. The ranger, standing +within the rude stable of unhewn logs, all undaubed, noted how pale were +the horizontal bars of gray light alternating with the black logs of the +wall. He was giving the mare a feed of corn, but he had not brought his +lantern, as was his custom. That mysterious espionage had in some sort +shaken his courage, and he felt the obscurity a shield. He had brought, +instead, his rifle. + +The equine form was barely visible among the glooms. Now and then, as +the mare noisily munched, she lifted a hoof and struck it upon the +ground with a dull thud. How the gusts outside were swirling up the +gorge! The pines swayed and sighed. Again the boughs of the chestnut-oak +above the roof crashed together. Did a fitful blast stir the door? + +He lifted his eyes mechanically. A cold thrill ran through every fibre. +For there, close by the door, somebody--something--was peering through +the space between the logs of the wall. The face was invisible, but the +shape of a man's head was distinctly defined. He realized that it was no +supernatural manifestation when a husky voice began to call the mare, in +a hoarse whisper, "Cobe! Cobe! Cobe!" With a galvanic start he was about +to spring forward to hold the door. A hand from without was laid upon +it. + +He placed the muzzle of his gun between the logs, a jet of red light was +suddenly projected into the darkness, the mare was rearing and plunging +violently, the little shanty was surcharged with roar and reverberation, +and far and wide the crags and chasms echoed the report of the rifle. + +There was a vague clamor outside, an oath, a cry of pain. Hasty +footfalls sounded among the dead leaves and died in the distance. + +When the ranger ventured out he saw the door of his house wide open, and +the firelight flickering out among the leafless bushes. His wife met him +halfway down the hill. + +"Air ye hurt, Tobe?" she cried. "Did yer gun go off suddint?" + +"Mighty suddint," he replied, savagely. + +"Ye didn't fire it a-purpose?" she faltered. + +"Edzactly so," he declared. + +"Ye never hurt nobody, did ye, Tobe?" She had turned very pale. "I +'lowed it couldn't be the wind ez I hearn a-hollerin'." + +"I hopes an' prays I hurt 'em," he said, as he replaced the rifle in the +rack. He was shaking the other hand, which had been jarred in some way +by the hasty discharge of the weapon. "Some dad-burned horse-thief war +arter the mare. Jedgin' from the sound o' thar runnin', 'peared like to +me ez thar mought be two o' 'em." + +The next day the mare disappeared from the stable. Yet she could not be +far off, for Tobe was about the house most of the time, and when he and +the "Colonel" came in-doors in the evening the little girl held in her +hand a half-munched ear of corn, evidently abstracted from the mare's +supper. + +"Whar be the filly hid, Tobe?" Eugenia asked, curiosity overpowering +her. + +"Ax me no questions an' I'll tell ye no lies," he replied, gruffly. + +In the morning there was a fall of snow, and she had some doubt whether +her mother, who had gone several days before to a neighbor's on the +summit of the range, would return; but presently the creak of unoiled +axles heralded the approach of a wagon, and soon the old woman, bundled +in shawls, was sitting by the fire. She wore heavy woollen socks over +her shoes as protection against the snow. The incompatibility of the +shape of the hose with the human foot was rather marked, and as they +were somewhat inelastic as well, there was a muscular struggle to get +them off only exceeded by the effort which had been required to get them +on. She shook her head again and again, with a red face, as she bent +over the socks, but plainly more than this discomfort vexed her. + +"Laws-a-massy, 'Genie! I hearn a awful tale over yander 'mongst them +Jenkins folks. Ye oughter hev married Luke Todd, an' so I tole ye an' +fairly beset ye ter do ten year ago. _He_ keered fur ye. An' +Tobe--shucks! Wa'al, laws-a-massy, child! I hearn a awful tale 'bout +Tobe up yander at Jenkinses'." + +Eugenia colored. + +"Folks hed better take keer how they talk 'bout Tobe," she said, with a +touch of pride. "They be powerful keerful ter do it out'n rifle range." + +With one more mighty tug the sock came off, the red face was lifted, and +Mrs. Pearce shook her head ruefully. + +"The Bible say 'words air foolishness.' Ye dunno what ye air talkin' +'bout, child." + +With this melancholy preamble she detailed the gossip that had arisen at +the county town and pervaded the country-side. Eugenia commented, +denied, flashed into rage, then lapsed into silence. Although it did not +constrain credulity, there was something that made her afraid when her +mother said: + +"Ye hed better not be talkin' 'bout rifle range so brash, 'Genie, +nohows. They 'lowed ez Luke Todd an' Sam Peters kem hyar--'twar jes +night before las'--aimin' ter take the mare away 'thout no words an' no +lawin', 'kase they didn't want ter wait. Luke hed got a chance ter view +the mare, an' knowed ez she war his'n. An' Tobe war hid in the dark +beside the mare, an' fired at 'em, an' the rifle-ball tuk Sam right +through the beam o' his arm. I reckon, though, ez that warn't true, else +ye would hev knowed it." + +She looked up anxiously over her spectacles at her daughter. + +"I hearn Tobe shoot," faltered Eugenia. "I seen blood on the leaves." + +"Laws-a-massy!" exclaimed the old woman, irritably. "I be fairly feared +ter bide hyar; 'twouldn't s'prise me none ef they kem hyar an' hauled +Tobe out an' lynched him an' sech, an' who knows who mought git hurt in +the scrimmage?" + +They both fell silent as the ranger strode in. They would need a braver +heart than either bore to reveal to him the suspicions of horse-stealing +sown broadcast over the mountain. Eugenia felt that this in itself was +coercive evidence of his innocence. Who dared so much as say a word to +his face? + +The weight of the secret asserted itself, however. As she went about her +accustomed tasks, all bereft of their wonted interest, vapid and +burdensome, she carried so woe-begone a face that it caught his +attention, and he demanded, angrily, "What ails ye ter look so durned +peakčd?" + +This did not abide long in his memory, however, and it cost her a pang +to see him so unconscious. + +She went out upon the porch late that afternoon to judge of the weather. +Snow was falling again. The distant summits had disappeared. The +mountains near at hand loomed through the myriads of serried white +flakes. A crow flew across the Cove in its midst. It heavily thatched +the cabin, and tufts dislodged by the opening of the door fell down upon +her hair. Drifts lay about the porch. Each rail of the fence was laden. +The ground, the rocks, were deeply covered. She reflected with +satisfaction that the red splotch of blood on the dead leaves was no +longer visible. Then a sudden idea struck her that took her breath away. +She came in, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, with an excited +dubitation. + +Her husband commented on the change. "Ye air a powerful cur'ous critter, +'Genie," he said: "a while ago ye looked some fower or five hundred year +old--now ye favors yerself when I fust kem a-courtin' round the +settlemint." + +She hardly knew whether the dull stir in her heart were pleasure or +pain. Her eyes filled with tears, and the irradiated iris shone through +them with a liquid lustre. She could not speak. + +Her mother took ephemeral advantage of his softening mood. "Ye useter be +mighty perlite and saaft-spoken in them days, Tobe," she ventured. + +"I hed ter be," he admitted, frankly, "'kase thar war sech a many o' +them mealy-mouthed cusses a-waitin' on 'Genie. The kentry 'peared ter me +ter bristle with Luke Todd; he 'minded me o' brumsaidge--_everywhar_ ye +seen his yaller head, ez homely an' ez onwelcome." + +"I never wunst gin Luke a thought arter ye tuk ter comin' round the +settlemint," Eugenia said, softly. + +"I wisht I hed knowed that then," he replied; "else I wouldn't hev been +so all-fired oneasy an' beset. I wasted mo' time a-studyin' 'bout ye an' +Luke Todd 'n ye war both wuth, an' went 'thout my vittles an' sot up o' +nights. Ef I hed spent that time a-moanin' fur my sins an' settin' my +soul at peace, I'd be 'quirin' roun' the throne o' Grace now! Young +folks air powerful fursaken fools." + +Somehow her heart was warmer for this allusion. She was more hopeful. +Her resolve grew stronger and stronger as she sat and knitted, and +looked at the fire and saw among the coals all her old life at the +settlement newly aglow. She was remembering now that Luke Todd had been +as wax in her hands. She recalled that when she was married there was a +gleeful "sayin'" going the rounds of the mountain that he had taken to +the woods with grief, and he was heard of no more for weeks. The gossips +relished his despair as the corollary of the happy bridal. He had had no +reproaches for her. He had only looked the other way when they met, and +she had not spoken to him since. + +"He set store by my word in them days," she said to herself, her lips +vaguely moving. "I misdoubts ef he hev furgot." + +All through the long hours of the winter night she silently canvassed +her plan. The house was still noiseless and dark when she softly opened +the door and softly closed it behind her. + +It had ceased to snow, and the sky had cleared. The trees, all the limbs +whitened, were outlined distinctly upon it, and through the boughs +overhead a brilliant star, aloof and splendid, looked coldly down. Along +dark spaces Orion had drawn his glittering blade. Above the snowy +mountains a melancholy waning moon was swinging. The valley was full of +mist, white and shining where the light fell upon it, a vaporous purple +where the shadows held sway. So still it was! the only motion in all the +world the throbbing stars and her palpitating heart. So solemnly silent! +It was a relief, as she trudged on and on, to note a gradual change; to +watch the sky withdraw, seeming fainter; to see the moon grow filmy, +like some figment of the frost; to mark the gray mist steal on apace, +wrap mountain, valley, and heaven with mystic folds, shut out all vision +of things familiar. Through it only the sense of dawn could creep. + + * * * * * + +She recognized the locality; her breath was short; her step quickened. +She appeared, like an apparition out of the mists, close to a fence, and +peered through the snow-laden rails. A sudden pang pierced her heart. + +For there, within the enclosure, milking the cow, she saw, all blooming +in the snow--herself; the azalea-like girl she had been! + +She had not known how dear to her was that bright young identity she +remembered. She had not realized how far it had gone from her. She felt +a forlorn changeling looking upon her own estranged estate. + +A faint cry escaped her. + +The cow, with lifted head and a muttered low of surprise, moved out of +reach of the milker, who, half kneeling upon the ground, stared with +wide blue eyes at her ghost in the mist. + +There was a pause. It was only a moment before Eugenia spoke; it seemed +years, so charged it was with retrospect. + +"I kem over hyar ter hev a word with ye," she said. + +At the sound of a human voice Luke Todd's wife struggled to her feet. +She held the piggin with one arm encircled about it, and with the other +hand she clutched the plaid shawl around her throat. Her bright hair was +tossed by the rising wind. + +"I 'lowed I'd find ye hyar a-milkin' 'bout now." + +The homely allusion reassured the younger woman. + +"I hev ter begin toler'ble early," she said. "Spot gins 'bout a gallon a +milkin' now." + +Spot's calf, which subsisted on what was left over, seemed to find it +cruel that delay should be added to his hardships, and he lifted up his +voice in a plaintive remonstrance. This reminded Mrs. Todd of his +existence; she turned and let down the bars that served to exclude him. + +The stranger was staring at her very hard. Somehow she quailed under +that look. Though it was fixed upon her in unvarying intensity, it had a +strange impersonality. This woman was not seeing her, despite that wide, +wistful, yearning gaze; she was thinking of something else, seeing some +one else. + +And suddenly Luke Todd's wife began to stare at the visitor very hard, +and to think of something that was not before her. + +"I be the ranger's wife," said Eugenia. "I kem over hyar ter tell ye he +never tuk yer black mare nowise but honest, bein' the ranger." + +She found it difficult to say more. Under that speculative, unseeing +look she too faltered. + +"They tell me ez Luke Todd air powerful outed 'bout'n it. An' I 'lowed +ef he knowed from me ez 'twar tuk fair, he'd b'lieve me." + +She hesitated. Her courage was flagging; her hope had fled. The eyes of +the man's wife burned upon her face. + +"We-uns useter be toler'ble well 'quainted 'fore he ever seen ye, an' I +'lowed he'd b'lieve my word," Eugenia continued. + +Another silence. The sun was rising; long liquescent lines of light of +purest amber-color were streaming through the snowy woods; the shadows +of the fence rails alternated with bars of dazzling glister; elusive +prismatic gleams of rose and lilac and blue shimmered on every +slope--thus the winter flowered. Tiny snow-birds were hopping about; a +great dog came down from the little snow-thatched cabin, and was +stretching himself elastically and yawning most portentously. + +"An' I 'lowed I'd see ye an' git you-uns ter tell him that word from me, +an' then he'd b'lieve it," said Eugenia. + +The younger woman nodded mechanically, still gazing at her. + +And was this her mission! Somehow it had lost its urgency. Where was its +potency, her enthusiasm? Eugenia realized that her feet were wet, her +skirts draggled; that she was chilled to the bone and trembling +violently. She looked about her doubtfully. Then her eyes came back to +the face of the woman before her. + +"Ye'll tell him, I s'pose?" + +Once more Luke Todd's wife nodded mechanically, still staring. + +There was nothing further to be said. A vacant interval ensued. Then, "I +'lowed I'd tell ye," Eugenia reiterated, vaguely, and turned away, +vanishing with the vanishing mists. + +Luke Todd's wife stood gazing at the fence through which the apparition +had peered. She could see yet her own face there, grown old and worn. +The dog wagged his tail and pressed against her, looking up and claiming +her notice. Once more he stretched himself elastically and yawned +widely, with shrill variations of tone. The calf was frisking about in +awkward bovine elation, and now and then the cow affectionately licked +its coat with the air of making its toilet. An assertive chanticleer was +proclaiming the dawn within the hen-house, whence came too an impatient +clamor, for the door, which served to exclude any marauding fox, was +still closed upon the imprisoned poultry. Still she looked steadily at +the fence where the ranger's wife had stood. + +"That thar woman favors me," she said, presently. And suddenly she burst +into tears. + +Perhaps it was well that Eugenia could not see Luke Todd's expression as +his wife recounted the scene. She gave it truly, but without, alas! the +glamour of sympathy. + +"She 'lowed ez ye'd b'lieve her, bein' ez ye useter be 'quainted." + +His face flushed. "Wa'al, sir! the insurance o' that thar woman!" he +exclaimed. "I war 'quainted with her; I war mighty well 'quainted with +her." He had a casual remembrance of those days when "he tuk ter the +woods ter wear out his grief." "She never gin me no promise, but me an' +her war courtin' some. Sech dependence ez I put on her war mightily +wasted. I dunno what ails the critter ter 'low ez I set store by her +word." + +Poor Eugenia! There is nothing so dead as ashes. His flame had clean +burned out. So far afield were all his thoughts that he stood amazed +when his wife, with a sudden burst of tears, declared passionately that +she knew it--she saw it--she favored Eugenia Gryce. She had found out +that he had married her because she looked like another woman. + +"'Genie Gryce hev got powerful little ter do ter kem a-jouncin' through +the snow over hyar ter try ter set ye an' me agin one another," he +exclaimed, angrily. "Stealin' the filly ain't enough ter sati'fy her!" + +His wife was in some sort mollified. She sought to reassure herself. + +"Air we-uns of a favor?" + +"I dunno," he replied, sulkily. "I 'ain't seen the critter fur nigh on +ter ten year. I hev furgot the looks of her. 'Pears like ter me," he +went on, ruminating, "ez 'twar in my mind when I fust seen ye ez thar +war a favor 'twixt ye. But I misdoubts now. Do she 'low ez I hev hed +nuthin ter study 'bout sence?" + +Perhaps Eugenia is not the only woman who overrates the strength of a +sentimental attachment. A gloomy intuition of failure kept her company +all the lengthening way home. The chill splendors of the wintry day +grated upon her dreary mood. How should she care for the depth and +richness of the blue deepening toward the zenith in those vast skies? +What was it to her that the dead vines, climbing the grim rugged crags, +were laden with tufts and corollated shapes wherever these fantasies of +flowers might cling, or that the snow flashed with crystalline +scintillations? She only knew that they glimmered and dazzled upon the +tears in her eyes, and she was moved to shed them afresh. She did not +wonder whether her venture had resulted amiss. She only wondered that +she had tried aught. And she was humbled. + +When she reached Lonesome Cove she found the piggin where she had hid +it, and milked the cow in haste. It was no great task, for the animal +was going dry. "Their'n gins a gallon a milkin'," she said, in rueful +comparison. + +As she came up the slope with the piggin on her head, her husband was +looking down from the porch with a lowering brow. "Why n't ye spen' the +day a-milkin' the cow?" he drawled. "Dawdlin' yander in the cow-pen till +this time in the mornin'! An' ter-morrer's Chrismus!" + +The word smote upon her weary heart with a dull pain. She had no +cultured phrase to characterize the sensation as a presentiment, but she +was conscious of the prophetic process. To-night "all the mounting" +would be riotous with that dubious hilarity known as "Chrismus in the +bones," and there was no telling what might come from the combined orgy +and an inflamed public spirit. + +She remembered the familiar doom of the mountain horse-thief, the men +lurking on the cliff, the inimical feeling against the ranger. She +furtively watched him with forebodings as he came and went at intervals +throughout the day. + +Dusk had fallen when he suddenly looked in and beckoned to the +"Colonel," who required him to take her with him whenever he fed the +mare. + +"Let me tie this hyar comforter over the Cunnel's head," Eugenia said, +as he bundled the child in a shawl and lifted her in his arms. + +"'Tain't no use," he declared. "The Cunnel ain't travellin' fur." + +She heard him step from the creaking porch. She heard the dreary wind +without. + +Within, the clumsy shadows of the warping-bars, the spinning-wheel, and +the churn were dancing in the firelight on the wall. The supper was +cooking on the live coals. The children, popping corn in the ashes, were +laughing; as her eye fell upon the "Colonel's" vacant little chair her +mind returned to the child's excursion with her father, and again she +wondered futilely where the mare could be hid. The next moment she was +heartily glad that she did not know. + +It was like the fulfillment of some dreadful dream when the door opened. +A man entered softly, slowly; the flickering fire showed his shadow--was +it?--nay, another man, and still another, and another. + +The old crone in the corner sprang up, screaming in a shrill, tremulous, +cracked voice. For they were masked. Over the face of each dangled a bit +of homespun, with great empty sockets through which eyes vaguely +glanced. Even the coarse fibre of the intruders responded to that +quavering, thrilling appeal. One spoke instantly: + +"Laws-a-massy! Mis' Pearce, don't ye feel interrupted none--nor Mis' +Gryce nuther. We-uns ain't harmful noways--jes want ter know whar that +thar black mare hev disappeared to. She ain't in the barn." + +He turned his great eye-sockets on Eugenia. The plaid homespun mask +dangling about his face was grotesquely incongruous with his intent, +serious gaze. + +"I dunno," she faltered; "I dunno." + +She had caught at the spinning-wheel for support. The fire crackled. The +baby was counting aloud the grains of corn popping from the ashes. "Six, +two, free," he babbled. The kettle merrily sang. + +The man still stared silently at the ranger's wife. The expression in +his eyes changed suddenly. He chuckled derisively. The others echoed his +mocking mirth. "Ha! ha! ha!" they laughed aloud; and the eye-sockets in +the homespun masks all glared significantly at each other. Even the dog +detected something sinister in this laughter. He had been sniffing about +the heels of the strangers; he bristled now, showed his teeth, and +growled. The spokesman hastily kicked him in the ribs, and the animal +fled yelping to the farther side of the fireplace behind the baby, where +he stood and barked defiance. The rafters rang with the sound. + +Some one on the porch without spoke to the leader in a low voice. This +man, who seemed to have a desire to conceal his identity which could not +be served by a mask, held the door with one hand that the wind might not +blow it wide open. The draught fanned the fire. Once the great bowing, +waving white blaze sent a long, quivering line of light through the +narrow aperture, and Eugenia saw the dark lurking figure outside. He had +one arm in a sling. She needed no confirmation to assure her that this +was Sam Peters, whom her husband had shot at the stable door. + +The leader instantly accepted his suggestion. "Wa'al, Mis' Gryce, I +reckon ye dunno whar Tobe be, nuther?" + +"Naw, I dunno," she said, in a tremor. + +The homespun mask swayed with the distortions of his face as he sneered: + +"Ye mean ter say ye don't 'low ter tell us." + +"I dunno whar he be." Her voice had sunk to a whisper. + +Another exchange of glances. + +"Wa'al, ma'am, jes gin us the favor of a light by yer fire, an' we-uns +'ll find him." + +He stepped swiftly forward, thrust a pine torch into the coals, and with +it all whitely flaring ran out into the night; the others followed his +example; and the terror-stricken women, hastily barring up the door, +peered after them through the little batten shutter of the window. + + * * * * * + +The torches were already scattered about the slopes of Lonesome Cove +like a fallen constellation. What shafts of white light they cast upon +the snow in the midst of the dense blackness of the night! Somehow they +seemed endowed with volition, as they moved hither and thither, for +their brilliancy almost cancelled the figures of the men that bore +them--only an occasional erratic shapeless shadow was visible. Now and +then a flare pierced the icicle-tipped holly bushes, and again there was +a fibrous glimmer in the fringed pines. + +The search was terribly silent. The snow deadened the tread. Only the +wind was loud among the muffled trees, and sometimes a dull thud sounded +when the weight of snow fell from the evergreen laurel as the men +thrashed through its dense growth. They separated after a time, and only +here and there an isolated stellular light illumined the snow, and +conjured white mystic circles into the wide spaces of the darkness. The +effort flagged at last, and its futility sharpened the sense of injury +in Luke Todd's heart. + +He was alone now, close upon the great rock, and looking at its jagged +ledges all cloaked with snow. Above those soft white outlines drawn +against the deep clear sky the frosty stars scintillated. Beneath were +the abysmal depths of the valley masked by the darkness. + +His pride was touched. In the old quarrel his revenge had been hampered, +for it was the girl's privilege to choose, and she had chosen. He cared +nothing for that now, but he felt it indeed a reproach to tamely let +this man take his horse when he had all the mountain at his back. There +was a sharp humiliation in his position. He felt the pressure of public +opinion. + +"Dad-burn him!" he exclaimed. "Ef I kin make out ter git a glimge o' +him, I'll shoot him dead--dead!" + +He leaned the rifle against the rock. It struck upon a ledge. A metallic +vibration rang out. Again and again the sound was repeated--now loud, +still clanging; now faint, but clear; now soft and away to a doubtful +murmur which he hardly was sure that he heard. Never before had he known +such an echo. And suddenly he recollected that this was the great +"Talking Rock," famed beyond the limits of Lonesome. It had traditions +as well as echoes. He remembered vaguely that beneath this cliff there +was said to be a cave which was utilized in the manufacture of saltpetre +for gunpowder in the War of 1812. + +As he looked down the slope below he thought the snow seemed broken--by +footprints, was it? With the expectation of a discovery strong upon him, +he crept along a wide ledge of the crag, now and then stumbling and +sending an avalanche of snow and ice and stones thundering to the foot +of the cliff. He missed his way more than once. Then he would turn +about, laboriously retracing his steps, and try another level of the +ledges. Suddenly before him was the dark opening he sought. No creature +had lately been here. It was filled with growing bushes and dead leaves +and brambles. Looking again down upon the slope beneath, he felt very +sure that he saw footprints. + +"The old folks useter 'low ez thar war two openings ter this hyar cave," +he said. "Tobe Gryce mought hev hid hyar through a opening down yander +on the slope. But _I'll_ go the way ez I hev hearn tell on, an' peek in, +an' ef I kin git a glimge o' him, I'll make him tell me whar that thar +filly air, or I'll let daylight through him, sure!" + +He paused only to bend aside the brambles, then he crept in and took his +way along a low, narrow passage. It had many windings, but was without +intersections or intricacy. He heard his own steps echoed like a +pursuing footfall. His labored breathing returned in sighs from the +inanimate rocks. It was an uncanny place, with strange, sepulchral, +solemn effects. He shivered with the cold. A draught stole in from some +secret crevice known only to the wild mountain winds. The torch flared, +crouched before the gust, flared again, then darkness. He hesitated, +took one step forward, and suddenly--a miracle! + +A soft aureola with gleaming radiations, a low, shadowy chamber, a beast +feeding from a manger, and within it a child's golden head. + +His heart gave a great throb. Somehow he was smitten to his knees. +Christmas Eve! He remembered the day with a rush of emotion. He stared +again at the vouchsafed vision. He rubbed his eyes. It had changed. + +Only hallucination caused by an abrupt transition from darkness to +light; only the most mundane facts of the old troughs and ash-hoppers, +relics of the industry that had served the hideous carnage of battle; +only the yellow head of the ranger's brat, who had climbed into one of +them, from which the mare was calmly munching her corn. + +Yet this was Christmas Eve. And the Child did lie in a manger. + +Perhaps it was well for him that his ignorant faith could accept the +illusion as a vision charged with all the benignities of peace on earth, +good-will toward men. With a keen thrill in his heart, on his knees he +drew the charge from his rifle, and flung it down a rift in the rocks. +"Chrismus Eve," he murmured. + +[Illustration: "YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE"] + +He leaned his empty weapon against the wall, and strode out to the +little girl who was perched up on the trough. + +"Chrismus gift, Cunnel!" he cried, cheerily. "Ter-morrer's Chrismus." + +The echoes caught the word. In vibratory jubilance they repeated it. +"Chrismus!" rang from the roof, scintillating with calc-spar; +"Chrismus!" sounded from the colonnade of stalactites that hung down to +meet the uprising stalagmites; "Chrismus!" repeated the walls incrusted +with roses that, shut in from the light and the fresh air of heaven, +bloomed forever in the stone. Was ever chorus so sweet as this? + +It reached Tobe Gryce, who stood at his improvised corn-bin. With a +bundle of fodder still in his arms he stepped forward. There beside the +little Colonel and the black mare he beheld a man seated upon an +inverted half-bushel measure, peacefully lighting his pipe with a bunch +of straws which he kindled at the lantern on the ash-hopper. + +The ranger's black eyes were wide with wonder at this intrusion, and +angrily flashed. He connected it at once with the attack on the stable. +The hair on his low forehead rose bristlingly as he frowned. Yet he +realized with a quaking heart that he was helpless. He, although the +crack shot of the county, would not have fired while the Colonel was +within two yards of his mark for the State of Tennessee. + +He stood his ground with stolid courage--a target. + +Then, with a start of surprise, he perceived that the intruder was +unarmed. Twenty feet away his rifle stood against the wall. + +Tobe Gryce was strangely shaken. He experienced a sudden revolt of +credulity. This was surely a dream. + +"Ain't that thar Luke Todd? Why air ye a-waitin' thar?" he called out in +a husky undertone. + +Todd glanced up, and took his pipe from his mouth; it was now fairly +alight. + +"Kase it be Chrismus Eve, Tobe," he said, gravely. + +The ranger stared for a moment; then came forward and gave the fodder to +the mare, pausing now and then and looking with oblique distrust down +upon Luke Todd as he smoked his pipe. + +"I want ter tell ye, Tobe, ez some o' the mounting boys air a-sarchin +fur ye outside." + +"Who air they?" asked the ranger, calmly. + +His tone was so natural, his manner so unsuspecting, that a new doubt +began to stir in Luke Todd's mind. + +"What ails ye ter keep the mare down hyar, Tobe?" he asked, suddenly. +"'Pears like ter me ez that be powerful comical." + +"Kase," said Tobe, reasonably, "some durned horse-thieves kem arter her +one night. I fired at 'em. I hain't hearn on 'em sence. An' so I jes hid +the mare." + +Todd was puzzled. He shifted his pipe in his mouth. Finally he said: +"Some folks 'lowed ez ye hed no right ter take up that mare, bein' ez ye +war the ranger." + +Tobe Gryce whirled round abruptly. "What war I a-goin' ter do, then? +Feed the critter fur nuthin till the triflin' scamp ez owned her kem +arter her? I couldn't work her 'thout takin' her up an' hevin her +appraised. Thar's a law agin sech. An' I couldn't git somebody ter toll +her off an' take her up. That ain't fair. What ought I ter hev done?" + +"Wa'al," said Luke, drifting into argument, "the town-folks 'low ez ye +hev got nuthin ter prove it by, the stray-book an' records bein' burnt. +The town-folks 'low ez ye can't prove by writin' an' sech ez ye ever +tried ter find the owner." + +"The town-folks air fairly sodden in foolishness," exclaimed the ranger, +indignantly. + +He drew from his ample pocket a roll of ragged newspapers, and pointed +with his great thumb at a paragraph. And Luke Todd read by the light of +the lantern the advertisement and description of the estray printed +according to law in the nearest newspaper. + +The newspaper was so infrequent a factor in the lives of the mountain +gossips that this refutation of their theory had never occurred to them. + +The sheet was trembling in Luke Todd's hand; his eyes filled. The cavern +with its black distances, its walls close at hand sparkling with +delicate points of whitest light; the yellow flare of the lantern; the +grotesque shadows on the ground; the fair little girl with her golden +hair; the sleek black mare; the burly figure of the ranger--all the +scene swayed before him. He remembered the gracious vision that had +saluted him; he shuddered at the crime from which he was rescued. Pity +him because he knew naught of the science of optics; of the bewildering +effects of a sudden burst of light upon the delicate mechanism of the +eye; of the vagaries of illusion. + +"Tobe," he said, in a solemn voice--all the echoes were bated to awed +whispers--"I hev been gin ter view a vision this night, bein' 'twar +Chrismus Eve. An' now I want ter shake hands on it fur peace." + +Then he told the whole story, regardless of the ranger's demonstrations, +albeit they were sometimes violent enough. Tobe sprang up with a snort +of rage, his eyes flashing, his thick tongue stumbling with the curses +crowding upon it, when he realized the suspicions rife against him at +the county town. But he stood with his clinched hand slowly relaxing, +and with the vague expression which one wears who looks into the past, +as he listened to the recital of Eugenia's pilgrimage in the snowy +wintry dawn. "Mighty few folks hev got a wife ez set store by 'em like +that," Luke remarked, impersonally. + +The ranger's rejoinder seemed irrelevant. + +"'Genie be a-goin' ter see a powerful differ arter this," he said, and +fell to musing. + +Snow, fatigue, and futility destroyed the ardor of the lynching party +after a time, and they dispersed to their homes. Little was said of this +expedition afterward, and it became quite impossible to find a man who +would admit having joined it. For the story went the rounds of the +mountain that there had been a mistake as to unfair dealing on the part +of the ranger, and Luke Todd was quite content to accept from the county +treasury half the sum of the mare's appraisement--with the deduction of +the stipulated per cent.--which Tobe Gryce had paid, the receipt for +which he produced. + +The gossips complained, however, that after all this was settled +according to law, Tobe wouldn't keep the mare, and insisted that Luke +should return to him the money he had paid into the treasury, half her +value, "bein' so brigaty he wouldn't own Luke Todd's beast. An' Luke +agreed ter so do; but he didn't want ter be outdone, so fur the keep o' +the filly he gin the Cunnel a heifer. An' Tobe war mighty nigh tickled +ter death fur the Cunnel ter hev a cow o' her own." + +And now when December skies darken above Lonesome Cove, and the snow in +dizzying whirls sifts softly down, and the gaunt brown leafless heights +are clothed with white as with a garment, and the wind whistles and +shouts shrilly, and above the great crag loom the distant mountains, and +below are glimpsed the long stretches of the valley, the two men +remember the vision that illumined the cavernous solitudes that night, +and bless the gracious power that sent salvation 'way down to Lonesome +Cove, and cherish peace and good-will for the sake of a little Child +that lay in a manger. + + + + +THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS + + +I + +If the mission of the little school-house in Holly Cove was to impress +upon the youthful mind a comprehension and appreciation of the eternal +verities of nature, its site could hardly have been better chosen. All +along the eastern horizon deployed the endless files of the Great Smoky +Mountains--blue and sunlit, with now and again the apparition of an +unfamiliar peak, hovering like a straggler in the far-distant rear, and +made visible for the nonce by some exceptional clarification of the +atmosphere; or lowering, gray, stern; or with ranks of clouds hanging on +their flanks, while all the artillery of heaven whirled about them, and +the whole world quaked beneath the flash and roar of its volleys. The +seasons successively painted the great landscape--spring, with its +timorous touch, its illumined haze, its tender, tentative green and gray +and yellow; summer, with its flush of completion, its deep, luscious, +definite verdure, and the golden richness of fruition; autumn, with a +full brush and all chromatic splendors; winter, in melancholy sepia +tones, black and brown and many sad variations of the pallors of white. +So high was the little structure on the side of a transverse ridge that +it commanded a vast field of sky above the wooded ranges; and in the +immediate foreground, down between the slopes which were cleft to the +heart, was the river, resplendent with the reflected moods of the +heavens. In this deep gorge the winds and the pines chanted like a Greek +chorus; the waves continuously murmured an intricate rune, as if conning +it by frequent repetition; a bird would call out from the upper air some +joyous apothegm in a language which no creature of the earth has learned +enough of happiness to translate. + +But the precepts which prevailed in the little school-house were to the +effect that rivers, except as they flowed as they listed to confusing +points of the compass, rising among names difficult to remember, and +emptying into the least anticipated body of water, were chiefly to be +avoided for their proclivity to drown small boys intent on swimming or +angling. Mountains, aside from the desirability of their recognition as +forming one of the divisions of land somewhat easily distinguishable by +the more erudite youth from plains, valleys, and capes, were full of +crags and chasms, rattlesnakes and vegetable poisons, and a further +familiarity with them was liable to result in the total loss of the +adventurous--to see friends, family, and home no more. + +These dicta, promulgated from the professorial chair, served to keep the +small body of callow humanity, with whose instruction Abner Sage was +intrusted by the State, well within call and out of harm's way during +the short recesses, while under his guidance they toddled along the +rough road that leads up the steeps to knowledge. But one there was who +either bore a charmed life or possessed an unequalled craft in +successfully defying danger; who fished and swam with impunity; who was +ragged and torn from much climbing of crags; whose freckled face bore +frequent red tokens of an indiscriminate sampling of berries. It is too +much to say that Abner Sage would have been glad to have his warnings +made terrible by some bodily disaster to the juvenile dare-devil of the +school, but Leander Yerby's disobedient incredulity as to the terrors +that menaced him, and his triumphant immunity, fostered a certain grudge +against him. Covert though it was, unrecognized even by Sage himself, it +was very definitely apparent to Tyler Sudley when sometimes, often, +indeed, on his way home from hunting, he would pause at the school-house +window, pulling open the shutter from the outside, and gravely watch his +protégé, who stood spelling at the head of the class. + +For Leander Yerby's exploits were not altogether those of a physical +prowess. He was a mighty wrestler with the multiplication table. He had +met and overthrown the nine line in single-handed combat. He had +attained unto some interesting knowledge of the earth on which he lived, +and could fluently bound countries with neatness and precision, and was +on terms of intimacy with sundry seas, volcanoes, islands, and other +sizable objects. The glib certainty of his contemptuous familiarity +with the alphabet and its untoward combinations, as he flung off words +in four syllables in his impudent chirping treble, seemed something +uncanny, almost appalling, to Tyler Sudley, who could not have done the +like to save his stalwart life. He would stare dumfounded at the erudite +personage at the head of the class; Leander's bare feet were always +carefully adjusted to a crack between the puncheons of the floor, +literally "toeing the mark"; his broad trousers, frayed out liberally at +the hem, revealed his skinny and scarred little ankles, for his out-door +adventures were not without a record upon the more impressionable +portions of his anatomy; his waistband was drawn high up under his +shoulder-blades and his ribs, and girt over the shoulders of his +unbleached cotton shirt by braces, which all his learning did not +prevent him from calling "galluses"; his cut, scratched, calloused hands +were held stiffly down at the side seams in his nether garments in +strict accordance with the regulations. But rules could not control the +twinkle in his big blue eyes, the mingled effrontery and affection on +his freckled face as he perceived the on-looking visitor, nor hinder the +wink, the swiftly thrust-out tongue, as swiftly withdrawn, the egregious +display of two rows of dishevelled jagged squirrel teeth, when once +more, with an offhand toss of his tangled brown hair, he nimbly spelled +a long twisted-tailed word, and leered capably at the grave intent face +framed in the window. + +"Why, Abner!" Tyler Sudley would break out, addressing the teacher, all +unmindful of scholastic etiquette, a flush of pleasure rising to his +swarthy cheek as he thrust back his wide black hat on his long dark +hair and turned his candid gray eyes, all aglow, upon the cadaverous, +ascetic preceptor, "ain't Lee-yander a-gittin' on powerful, _powerful_ +fas' with his book?" + +"Not in enny ways so special," Sage would reply in cavalier +discouragement, his disaffected gaze resting upon the champion scholar, +who stood elated, confident, needing no commendation to assure him of +his pre-eminence; "but he air disobejient, an' turr'ble, turr'ble bad." + +The nonchalance with which Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism +intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this +world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the +English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on +his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along +behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to the +teacher's reproof. + +"Lee-yander," he would gently drawl, "ye mustn't be so bad, honey; ye +_mustn't_ be so turr'ble bad." + +"Naw, ma'am, I won't," Leander would cheerily pipe out, and so the +procession would wend its way along. + +For he still confused the gender in titles of respect, and from force of +habit he continued to do so in addressing Tyler Sudley for many a year +after he had learned better. + +These lapses were pathetic rather than ridiculous in the hunter's ears. +It was he who had taught Leander every observance of verbal humility +toward his wife, in the forlorn hope of propitiating her in the +interest of the child, who, however, with his quick understanding that +the words sought to do honor and express respect, had of his own accord +transferred them to his one true friend in the household. The only +friend he had in the world, Sudley often felt, with a sigh over the +happy child's forlorn estate. And, with the morbid sensitiveness +peculiar to a tender conscience, he winced under the knowledge that it +was he who, through wrongheadedness or wrongheartedness, had contrived +to make all the world besides the boy's enemy. Both wrongheaded and +wronghearted he was, he sometimes told himself. For even now it still +seemed to him that he had not judged amiss, that only the perversity of +fate had thwarted him. Was it so fantastically improbable, so hopeless a +solace that he had planned, that he should have thought his wife might +take comfort for the death of their own child in making for its sake a +home for another, orphaned, forlorn, a burden, and a glad riddance to +those into whose grudging charge it had been thrown? This bounty of hope +and affection and comfort had seemed to him a free gift from the dead +baby's hands, who had no need of it since coming into its infinite +heritage of immortality, to the living waif, to whom it was like life +itself, since it held all the essential values of existence. The idea +smote him like an inspiration. He had ridden twenty miles in a snowy +night to beg the unwelcome mite from the custody of its father's +half-brothers, who were on the eve of moving to a neighboring county +with all their kin and belongings. + +Tyler Sudley was a slow man, and tenacious of impressions. He could +remember every detail of the events as they had happened--the palpable +surprise, the moment of hesitation, the feint of denial which +successively ensued on his arrival. It mattered not what the season or +the hour--he could behold at will the wintry dawn, the deserted cabin, +the glow of embers dying on the hearth within; the white-covered wagon +slowly a-creak along the frozen road beneath the gaunt, bare, +overhanging trees, the pots and pans as they swung at the rear, the +bucket for water swaying beneath, the mounted men beside it, the few +head of swine and cattle driven before them. Years had passed, but he +could feel anew the vague stir of the living bundle which he held on the +pommel of his saddle, the sudden twist it gave to bring its inquiring, +apprehensive eyes, so large in its thin, lank-jawed, piteous little +countenance, to bear on his face, as if it understood its transfer of +custody, and trembled lest a worse thing befall it. One of the women +stopped the wagon and ran back to pin about its neck an additional +wrapping, an old red-flannel petticoat, lest it should suffer in its +long, cold ride. His heart glowed with vicarious gratitude for her +forethought, and he shook her hand warmly and wished her well, and hoped +that she might prosper in her new home, and stood still to watch the +white wagon out of sight in the avenue of the snow-laden trees, above +which the moon was visible, a-journeying too, swinging down the western +sky. + +Laurelia Sudley sat in stunned amazement when, half-frozen, but +triumphant and flushed and full of his story, he burst into the warm +home atmosphere, and put the animated bundle down upon the hearth-stone +in front of the glowing fire. For one moment she met its forlorn gaze +out of its peakčd and pinched little face with a vague hesitation in her +own worn, tremulous, sorrow-stricken eyes. Then she burst into a tumult +of tears, upbraiding her husband that he could think that another child +could take the place of her dead child--all the dearer because it was +dead; that she could play the traitor to its memory and forget her +sacred grief; that she could do aught as long as she should live but sit +her down to bewail her loss, every tear a tribute, every pang its +inalienable right, her whole smitten existence a testimony to her love. +It was in vain that he expostulated. The idea of substitution had never +entered his mind. But he was ignorant, and clumsy of speech, and +unaccustomed to analyze his motives. He could not put into words his +feeling that to do for the welfare of this orphaned and unwelcome little +creature all that they would have done for their own was in some sort a +memorial to him, and brought them nearer to him--that she might find in +it a satisfaction, an occupation--that it might serve to fill her empty +life, her empty arms. + +But no! She thought, and the neighbors thought, and after a time Tyler +Sudley came to think also, that he had failed in the essential duty to +the dead--that of affectionate remembrance; that he was recreant, +strangely callous. They all said that he had seemed to esteem one baby +as good as another, and that he was surprised that his wife was not +consoled for the loss of her own child because he took it into his head +to go and toll off the Yerby baby from his father's half-brothers "ez +war movin' away an' war glad enough ter get rid o' one head o' human +stock ter kerry, though, _bein' human_, they oughter been ashamed ter +gin him away like a puppy-dog, or an extry cat, all hands consarned." + +From the standpoint she had taken Laurelia had never wavered. It was an +added and a continual reproach to her husband that all the labor and +care of the ill-advised acquisition fell to her share. She it was who +must feed and clothe and tend the gaunt little usurper; he needs must be +accorded all the infantile prerogatives, and he exacted much time and +attention. Despite the grudging spirit in which her care was given she +failed in no essential, and presently the interloper was no longer gaunt +or pallid or apprehensive, but grew pink and cherubic of build, and +arrogant of mind. He had no sensitive sub-current of suspicion as to his +welcome; he filled the house with his gay babbling, and if no maternal +chirpings encouraged the development of his ideas and his powers of +speech, his cheerful spirits seemed strong enough to thrive on their own +stalwart endowments. His hair began to curl, and a neighbor, remarking +on it to Laurelia, and forgetting for the moment his parentage, said, in +admiring glee, twining the soft tendrils over her finger, that Mrs. +Sudley had never before had a child so well-favored as this one. From +this time forth was infused a certain rancor into his foster-mother's +spirit toward him. Her sense of martyrdom was complete when another +infant was born and died, leaving her bereaved once more to watch this +stranger grow up in her house, strong and hearty, and handsomer than any +child of hers had been. + +The mountain gossips had their own estimate of her attitude. + +"I ain't denyin' but what she hed nat'ral feelin' fur her own chil'ren, +bein' dead," said the dame who had made the unfortunate remark about the +curling hair, "but Laurelia Sudley war always a contrary-minded, +lackadaisical kind o' gal afore she war married, sorter set in +opposition, an' now ez she ain't purty like she useter was, through +cryin' her eyes out, an' gittin' sallow-complected an' bony, I kin +notice her contrariousness more. Ef Tyler hedn't brung that chile home, +like ez not she'd hev sot her heart on borryin' one herself from +somebody. Lee-yander ain't in nowise abused, ez I kin see--ain't +acquainted with the rod, like the Bible say he oughter be, an' ennybody +kin see ez Laurelia don't like the name he gin her, yit she puts up with +it. She larnt him ter call Ty 'Cap'n,' bein' she's sorter proud of it, +'kase Ty war a cap'n of a critter company in the war: 'twarn't sech a +mighty matter nohow; he jes got ter be cap'n through the other off'cers +bein' killed off. An' the leetle boy got it twisted somehows, an' calls +_her_ 'Cap'n' an' Ty 'Neighbor,' from hearin' old man Jeemes, ez comes +in constant, givin' him that old-fashioned name. 'Cap'n' 'bout fits +Laurelia, though, an' that's a fac'." + +Laurelia's melancholy ascendency in the household was very complete. It +was characterized by no turbulence, no rages, no long-drawn argument or +objurgation; it expressed itself only in a settled spirit of +disaffection, a pervasive suggestion of martyrdom, silence or sighs, or +sometimes a depressing singing of hymn tunes. For her husband had long +ago ceased to remonstrate, or to seek to justify himself. It was with a +spirit of making amends that he hastened to concede every point of +question, to defer to her preference in all matters, and Laurelia's sway +grew more and more absolute as the years wore on. Leander Yerby could +remember no other surroundings than the ascetic atmosphere of his home. +It had done naught apparently to quell the innate cheerfulness of his +spirit. He evidently took note, however, of the different standpoint of +the "Captain" and his "Neighbor," for although he was instant in the +little manifestations of respect toward her which he had been taught, +his childish craft could not conceal their spuriousness. + +"That thar boy treats me ez ef I war a plumb idjit," Laurelia said one +day, moved to her infrequent anger. "Tells me, 'Yes, ma'am, cap'n,' an' +'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' jes ter quiet me--like folks useter do ter old +Ed'ard Green, ez war in his dotage--an' then goes along an' does the +very thing I tell him not ter do." + +Sudley looked up as he sat smoking his pipe by the fire, a shade of +constraint in his manner, and a contraction of anxiety in his slow, dark +eyes, never quite absent when she spoke to him aside of Leander. + +She paused, setting her gaunt arms akimbo, and wearing the manner of one +whose kindly patience is beyond limit abused. "Kems in hyar, he do, +a-totin' a fiddle. An' I says, 'Lee-yander Yerby, don't ye know that +thar thing's the devil's snare?' 'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' he says, grinnin' +like a imp; 'it's _my_ snare, fur I hev bought it from Peter Teazely fur +two rabbits what I cotch in my trap, an' my big red rooster, an' a bag +o' seed pop-corn, an' the only hat I hev got in the worl'.' An' with +that the consarn gin sech a yawp, it plumb went through my haid. An' +then the critter jes tuk ter a-bowin' it back an' forth, a-playin' 'The +Chicken in the Bread-trough' like demented, a-dancin' off on fust one +foot an' then on t'other till the puncheons shuck. An' I druv him out +the house. I won't stan' none o' Satan's devices hyar! I tole him he +couldn't fetch that fiddle hyar whenst he kems home ter-night, an' I be +a-goin' ter make him a sun-bonnet or a nightcap ter wear stiddier his +hat that he traded off." + +She paused. + +Her husband had risen, the glow of his pipe fading in his unheeding +hand, his excited eyes fixed upon her. "Laurely," he exclaimed, "ye +ain't meanin' ez that thar leetle critter could play a chune fust off on +a fiddle 'thout no larnin'!" + +She nodded her head in reluctant admission. + +He opened his mouth once or twice, emitting no sound. She saw how his +elation, his spirit of commendation, his pride, set at naught her +displeasure, albeit in self-defence, perchance, he dared not say a word. +With an eye alight and an absorbed face, he laid his pipe on the +mantel-piece, and silently took his way out of the house in search of +the youthful musician. + +Easily found! The racked and tortured echoes were all aquake within half +a mile of the spot where, bareheaded, heedless of the threatened +ignominy alike of sun-bonnet or nightcap, Leander sat in the flickering +sunshine and shadow upon a rock beside the spring, and blissfully +experimented with all the capacities of catgut to produce sound. + +"Listen, Neighbor!" he cried out, descrying Tyler Sudley, who, indeed, +could do naught else--"_listen_! Ye won't hear much better fiddlin' this +side o' kingdom come!" And with glad assurance he capered up and down, +the bow elongating the sound to a cadence of frenzied glee, as his arms +sought to accommodate the nimbler motions of his legs. + +Thus it was the mountaineers later said that Leander fell into bad +company. For, the fiddle being forbidden in the sober Laurelia's house, +he must needs go elsewhere to show his gift and his growing skill, and +he found a welcome fast enough. Before he had advanced beyond his +stripling youth, his untutored facility had gained a rude mastery over +the instrument; he played with a sort of fascination and spontaneity +that endeared his art to his uncritical audiences, and his endowment was +held as something wonderful. And now it was that Laurelia, hearing him, +far away in the open air, play once a plaintive, melodic strain, +fugue-like with the elfin echoes, felt a strange soothing in the sound, +found tears in her eyes, not all of pain but of sad pleasure, and +assumed thenceforth something of the port of a connoisseur. She said she +"couldn't abide a fiddle jes sawed helter-skelter by them ez hedn't +larned, but ter play saaft an' slow an' solemn, and no dancin' chune, +no frolic song--she warn't set agin that at all." And she desired of +Leander a repetition of this sunset motive that evening when he had come +home late, and she discovered him hiding the obnoxious instrument under +the porch. But in vain. He did not remember it. It was some vague +impulse, as unconsciously voiced as the dreaming bird's song in the +sudden half-awake intervals of the night. Over and again, as he stood by +the porch, the violin in his arms, he touched the strings tentatively, +as if, perchance, being so alive, they might of their own motion recall +the strain that had so lately thrilled along them. + +He had grown tall and slender. He wore boots to his knees now, and +pridefully carried a "shootin'-iron" in one of the long legs--to his +great discomfort. The freckles of his early days were merged into the +warm uniform tint of his tanned complexion. His brown hair still curled; +his shirt-collar fell away from his throat, round and full and +white--the singer's throat--as he threw his head backward and cast his +large roving eyes searchingly along the sky, as if the missing strain +had wings. + +The inspiration returned no more, and Laurelia experienced a sense of +loss. "Some time, Lee-yander, ef ye war ter kem acrost that chune agin, +try ter set it in yer remembrance, an' play it whenst ye kem home," she +said, wistfully, at last, as if this errant melody were afloat somewhere +in the vague realms of sound, where one native to those haunts might +hope to encounter it anew. + +"Yes, ma'am, cap'n, I will," he said, with his facile assent. But his +tone expressed slight intention, and his indifference bespoke a too +great wealth of "chunes"; he could feel no lack in some unremembered +combination, sport of the moment, when another strain would come at +will, as sweet perchance, and new. + +She winced as from undeserved reproach when presently Leander's +proclivities for the society of the gay young blades about the +countryside, sometimes reputed "evil men," were attributed to this exile +of the violin from the hearth-stone. She roused herself to disputation, +to indignant repudiation. + +"They talk ez ef it war _me_ ez led the drinkin', an' the gamin', an' +the dancin', and sech, ez goes on in the Cove, 'kase whenst Lee-yander +war about fryin' size I wouldn't abide ter hev him a-sawin' away on the +fiddle in the house enough ter make me deef fur life. At fust the racket +of it even skeered Towse so he wouldn't come out from under the house +fur two days an' better; he jes sot under thar an' growled, an' +shivered, an' showed his teeth ef ennybody spoke ter him. Nobody don't +like Lee-yander's performin' better'n I do whenst he plays them saaft, +slippin'-away, slow medjures, ez sound plumb religious--ef 'twarn't a +sin ter say so. Naw, sir, ef ennybody hev sot Lee-yander on ter evil +ways 'twarn't me. My conscience be clear." + +Nevertheless she was grievously ill at ease when one day there rode up +to the fence a tall, gaunt, ill-favored man, whose long, lean, sallow +countenance, of a Pharisaic cast, was vaguely familiar to her, as one +recognizes real lineaments in the contortions of a caricature or the +bewilderments of a dream. She felt as if in some long-previous existence +she had seen this man as he dismounted at the gate and came up the path +with his saddle-bags over his arm. But it was not until he mustered an +unready, unwilling smile, that had of good-will and geniality so slight +an intimation that it was like a spasmodic grimace, did she perceive how +time had deepened tendencies to traits, how the inmost thought and the +secret sentiment had been chiselled into the face in the betrayals of +the sculpture of fifteen years. + +"Nehemiah Yerby!" she exclaimed. "I would hev knowed ye in the happy +land o' Canaan." + +"Let's pray we may all meet thar, Sister Sudley," he responded. "Let's +pray that the good time may find none of us unprofitable servants." + +Mrs. Sudley experienced a sudden recoil. Not that she did not echo his +wish, but somehow his manner savored of an exclusive arrogation of piety +and a suggestion of reproach. + +"That's my prayer," she retorted, aggressively. "Day an' night, that's +my prayer." + +"Yes'm, fur us an' our households, Sister Sudley--we mus' think o' them +c'mitted ter our charge." + +She strove to fling off the sense of guilt that oppressed her, the +mental attitude of arraignment. He was a young man when he journeyed +away in that snowy dawn. She did not know what changes had come in his +experience. Perchance his effervescent piety was only a habit of speech, +and had no significance as far as she was concerned. The suspicion, +however, tamed her in some sort. She attempted no retort. With a +mechanical, reluctant smile, ill adjusted to her sorrow-lined face, she +made an effort to assume that the greeting had been but the conventional +phrasings of the day. + +"Kem in, kem in, Nehemiah; Tyler will be glad ter see ye, an' I reckon +ye will be powerful interested ter view how Lee-yander hev growed an' +prospered." + +She felt as if she were in some terrible dream as she beheld him slowly +wag his head from side to side. He had followed her into the large main +room of the cabin, and had laid his saddle-bags down by the side of the +chair in which he had seated himself, his elbows on his knees, his hands +held out to the flickering blaze in the deep chimney-place, his eyes +significantly narrowing as he gazed upon it. + +"Naw, Sister Sudley," he wagged his head more mournfully still. "I kin +but grieve ter hear how my nevy Lee-yander hev 'prospered,' ez ye call +it, an' I be s'prised ye should gin it such a name. Oh-h-h, Sister +Sudley!" in prolonged and dreary vocative, "I 'lowed ye war a godly +woman. I knowed yer name 'mongst the church-goers an' the +church-members." A faint flush sprang into her delicate faded cheek; a +halo encircled this repute of sanctity, she felt with quivering +premonition that it was about to be urged as a testimony against her. +"Elsewise I wouldn't hev gin my cornsent ter hev lef' the leetle lam', +Lee-yander, in yer fold. Precious, precious leetle lam'!" + +Poor Laurelia! Were it not that she had a sense of fault under the +scathing arraignment of her motives, her work, and its result, although +she scarcely saw how she was to blame, that she had equally with him +esteemed Leander's standpoint iniquitous, she might have made a better +fight in her own interest. Why she did not renounce the true culprit as +one on whom all godly teachings were wasted, and, adopting the +indisputable vantage-ground of heredity, carry the war into the enemy's +country, ascribing Leander's shortcomings to his Yerby blood, and with +stern and superior joy proclaiming that he was neither kith nor kin of +hers, she wondered afterward, for this valid ground of defence did not +occur to her then. In these long mourning years she had grown dull; her +mental processes were either a sad introspection or reminiscence. Now +she could only take into account her sacrifices of feeling, of time, of +care; the illnesses she had nursed, the garments that she had made and +mended--ah, how many! laid votive on the altar of Leander's vigor and +his agility, for as he scrambled about the crags he seemed, she was wont +to say, to climb straight out of them. The recollection of all this--the +lesser and unspiritual maternal values, perchance, but essential--surged +over her with bitterness; she lost her poise, and fell a-bickering. + +"'Precious leetle lam','" she repeated, scornfully. "Precious he mus' +hev been! Fur when ye lef' him he hedn't a whole gyarmint ter his back, +an' none but them that kivered him." + +Nehemiah Yerby changed color slightly as the taunt struck home, but he +was skilled in the more ęsthetic methods of argument. + +"We war pore--mighty pore indeed, Sister Sudley." + +Now, consciously in the wrong, Sister Sudley, with true feminine +inconsistency, felt better. She retorted with bravado. + +"Needle an' thread ain't 'spensive nowhar ez I knows on, an' the +gov'mint hev sot no tax on saaft home-made soap, so far ez hearn from." + +She briskly placed her chair, a rude rocker, the seat formed of a +taut-stretched piece of ox-hide, beside the fire, and took up her +knitting. A sock for Leander it was--one of many of all sizes. She +remembered the first that she had measured for the bare pink toes which +he had brought there, forlorn candidates for the comfortable integuments +in which they were presently encased, and how she had morbidly felt that +every stitch she took was a renunciation of her own children, since a +stranger was honored in their place. The tears came into her eyes. It +was only this afternoon that she had experienced a pang of self-reproach +to realize how near happiness she was--as near as her temperament could +approach. But somehow the air was so soft; she could see from where she +sat how the white velvet buds of the aspen-trees in the dooryard had +lengthened into long, cream-tinted, furry tassels; the maples on the +mountain-side lifted their red flowering boughs against the delicate +blue sky; the grass was so green; the golden candlesticks bunched along +the margin of the path to the rickety gate were all a-blossoming. The +sweet appeal of spring had never been more insistent, more coercive. +Somehow peace, and a placid content, seemed as essential incidents in +the inner life as the growth of the grass anew, the bursting of the bud, +or the soft awakening of the zephyr. Even within the house, the languors +of the fire drowsing on the hearth, the broad bar of sunshine across the +puncheon floor, so slowly creeping away, the sense of the vernal +lengthening of the pensive afternoon, the ever-flitting shadow of the +wren building under the eaves, and its iterative gladsome song breaking +the fireside stillness, partook of the serene beatitude of the season +and the hour. The visitor's drawling voice rose again, and she was not +now constrained to reproach herself that she was too happy. + +"Yes'm, pore though we war then--an' we couldn't look forward ter the +Lord's prosperin' us some sence--we never would hev lef' the precious +leetle lam'"--his voice dwelt with unvanquished emphasis upon the +obnoxious words--"'mongst enny but them persumed ter be godly folks. +Tyler war a toler'ble good soldier in the war, an' hed a good name in +the church, but _ye_ war persumed to be a plumb special Christian with +no pledjure in this worl'." + +Laurelia winced anew. This repute of special sanctity was the pride of +her ascetic soul. Few of the graces of life or of the spirit had she +coveted, but her pre-eminence as a religionist she had fostered and +cherished, and now through her own deeds of charity it seemed about to +be wrested from her. + +"Lee-yander Yerby hev larnt nuthin' but good in this house, an' all my +neighbors will tell you the same word. The Cove 'lows I hev been _too_ +strict." + +Nehemiah was glancing composedly about the room. "That thar 'pears ter +be a fiddle on the wall, ain't it, Mis' Sudley?" he said, with an +incidental air and the manner of changing the subject. + +Alack, for the ęsthetic perversion! Since the playing of those +melancholy minor strains in that red sunset so long ago, which had +touched so responsive a chord in Laurelia's grief-worn heart, the crazy +old fiddle had been naturalized, as it were, and had exchanged its +domicile under the porch for a position on the wall. It was boldly +visible, and apparently no more ashamed of itself than was the big +earthen jar half full of cream, which was placed close to the fireplace +on the hearth in the hope that its contents might become sour enough by +to-morrow to be churned. + +Laurelia looked up with a start at the instrument, red and lustrous +against the brown log wall, its bow poised jauntily above it, and some +glistening yellow reflection from the sun on the floor playing among the +strings, elusive, soundless fantasies. + +Her lower jaw dropped. She was driven to her last defences, and sore +beset. "It air a fiddle," she said, slowly, at last, and with an air of +conscientious admission, as if she had had half a mind to deny it. "A +fiddle the thing air." Then, as she collected her thoughts, "Brother +Pete Vickers 'lows ez he sees no special sin in playin' the fiddle. He +'lows ez in some kentries--I disremember whar--they plays on 'em in +church, quirin' an' hymn chunes an' sech." + +Her voice faltered a little; she had never thought to quote this +fantasy in her own defence, for she secretly believed that old man +Vickers must have been humbugged by some worldly brother skilled in +drawing the long bow himself. + +Nehemiah Yerby seemed specially endowed with a conscience for the +guidance of other people, so quick was he to descry and pounce upon +their shortcomings. If one's sins are sure to find one out, there is +little doubt but that Brother Nehemiah would be on the ground first. + +"Air you-uns a-settin' under the preachin' o' Brother Peter Vickers?" he +demanded in a sepulchral voice. + +"Naw, naw," she was glad to reply. "'Twar onderstood ez Brother Vickers +wanted a call ter the church in the Cove, bein' ez his relations live +hyar-abouts, an' he kem up an' preached a time or two. But he didn't git +no call. The brethren 'lowed Brother Vickers war too slack in his idees +o' religion. Some said his hell warn't half hot enough. Thar air some +powerful sinners in the Cove, an' nuthin' but good live coals an' a +liquid blazin' fire air a-goin' ter deter them from the evil o' thar +ways. So Brother Vickers went back the road he kem." + +She knit off her needle while, with his head still bent forward, +Nehemiah Yerby sourly eyed her, feeling himself a loser with Brother +Vickers, in that he did not have the reverend man's incumbency as a +grievance. + +"He 'pears ter me ter see mo' pleasure in religion 'n penance, ennyhow," +he observed, bitterly. "An' the Lord knows the bes' of us air sinners." + +"An' he laughs loud an' frequent--mightily like a sinner," she agreed. +"An' whenst he prays, he prays loud an' hearty, like he jes expected ter +git what he axed fur sure's shootin'. Some o' the bretherin' sorter +taxed him with his sperits, an' he 'lowed he couldn't holp but be +cheerful whenst he hed the Lord's word fur it ez all things work +tergether fur good. An' he laffed same ez ef they hedn't spoke ter him +serious." + +"Look at that, now!" exclaimed Nehemiah. "An' that thar man ez good ez +dead with the heart-disease." + +Laurelia's eyes were suddenly arrested by his keen, pinched, lined face. +What there was in it to admonish her she could hardly have said, nor how +it served to tutor her innocent craft. + +"I ain't so sure 'bout Brother Vickers bein' so wrong," she said, +slowly. "He 'lowed ter me ez I hed spent too much o' my life +a-sorrowin', 'stiddier a-praisin' the Lord for his mercies." Her face +twitched suddenly; she could not yet look upon her bereavements as +mercies. "He 'lowed I would hev been a happier an' a better 'oman ef I +hed took the evil ez good from the Lord's hand, fur in his sendin' it's +the same. An' I know that air a true word. An' that's what makes me 'low +what he said war true 'bout'n that fiddle; that I ought never ter hev +pervented the boy from playin' 'round home an' sech, an' 'twarn't no sin +but powerful comfortable an' pleasurable ter set roun' of a cold winter +night an' hear him play them slow, sweet, dyin'-away chunes--" She +dropped her hands, and gazed with the rapt eyes of remembrance through +the window at the sunset clouds which, gathering red and purple and +gold on the mountain's brow, were reflected roseate and amethyst and +amber at the mountain's base on the steely surface of the river. +"Brother Vickers 'lowed he never hearn sech in all his life. It brung +the tears ter his eyes--it surely did." + +"He'd a heap better be weepin' fur them black sheep o' his congregation +an' fur Lee-yander's shortcomin's, fur ez fur ez I kin hear he air about +ez black a sheep ez most pastors want ter wrestle with fur the turnin' +away from thar sins. Yes'm, Sister Sudley, that's jes what p'inted out +my jewty plain afore my eyes, an' I riz up an' kem ter be instant in +a-doin' of it. 'I'll not leave my own nevy in the tents o' sin,' I sez. +'I hev chil'n o' my own, hearty feeders an' hard on shoe-leather, ter +support, but I'll not grudge my brother's son a home.' Yes, Laurely +Sudley, I hev kem ter kerry him back with me. Yer jewty ain't been done +by him, an' I'll leave him a dweller in the tents o' sin no longer." + +His enthusiasm had carried him too far. Laurelia's face, which at first +seemed turning to stone as she gradually apprehended his meaning and his +mission, changed from motionless white to a tremulous scarlet while he +spoke, and when he ceased she retorted herself as one of the ungodly. + +"Ye mus' be mighty ambitious ter kerry away a skin full o' broken bones! +Jes let Tyler Sudley hear ez ye called his house the tents o' the +ungodly, an' that ye kem hyar a-faultin' me, an' tellin' me ez I 'ain't +done my jewty ennywhar or ennyhow!" she exclaimed, with a pride which, +as a pious saint, she had never expected to feel in her husband's +reputation as a high-tempered man and a "mighty handy fighter," and +with implicit reliance upon both endowments in her quarrel. + +"Only in a speritchual sense, Sister Sudley," Nehemiah gasped, as he +made haste to qualify his asseveration. "I only charge you with havin' +sp'iled the boy; ye hev sp'iled him through kindness ter him, an' not +_ye_ so much ez Ty. Ty never hed so much ez a dog that would mind him! +His dog wouldn't answer call nor whistle 'thout he war so disposed. _I_ +never faulted ye, Sister Sudley; 'twar jes Ty I faulted. I know Ty." + +He knew, too, that it was safer to call Ty and his doings in question, +big and formidable and belligerent though he was, than his +meek-mannered, melancholy, forlorn, and diminutive wife. Nehemiah rose +up and walked back and forth for a moment with an excited face and a +bent back, and a sort of rabbit-like action. "Now, I put it to you, +Sister Sudley, air Ty a-makin' that thar boy plough ter-day--jes +_be-you-ti-ful_ field weather!" + +Sister Sudley, victorious, having regained her normal position by one +single natural impulse of self-assertion, not as a religionist, but as +Tyler Sudley's wife, and hence entitled to all the show of respect which +that fact unaided could command, sat looking at him with a changed +face--a face that seemed twenty years younger; it had the expression it +wore before it had grown pinched and ascetic and insistently sorrowful; +one might guess how she had looked when Tyler Sudley first went up the +mountain "a-courtin'." She sought to assume no other stand-point. Here +she was intrenched. She shook her head in negation. The affair was none +of hers. Ty Sudley could take ample care of it. + +Nehemiah gave a little skip that might suggest a degree of triumph. +"Aha, not ploughin'! But _Ty_ is ploughin'. I seen him in the field. An' +Lee-yander ain't ploughin'! An' how did I know? Ez I war a-ridin' along +through the woods this mornin' I kem acrost a striplin' lad a-walkin' +through the undergrowth ez onconsarned ez a killdee an' ez nimble. An' +under his chin war a fiddle, an' his head war craned down ter it." He +mimicked the attitude as he stood on the hearth. "He never looked up +wunst. Away he walked, light ez a plover, an' _a-ping_, _pang_, _ping_, +_pang_," in a high falsetto, "went that fiddle! I war plumb 'shamed fur +the critters in the woods ter view sech idle sinfulness, a ole ow_el_, +a-blinkin' down out'n a hollow tree, kem ter see what _ping_, _pang_, +_ping_, _pang_ meant, an' thar war a rabbit settin' up on two legs in +the bresh, an' a few stray razor-back hawgs; I tell ye I war mortified +'fore even sech citizens ez them, an' a lazy, impident-lookin' dog ez +followed him." + +"How did ye know 'twar Lee-yander?" demanded Mrs. Sudley, recognizing +the description perfectly, but after judicial methods requiring strict +proof. + +"Oh-h! by the fambly favor," protested the gaunt and hard-featured +Nehemiah, capably. "I knowed the Yerby eye." + +"He hev got his mother's eyes." Mrs. Sudley had certainly changed her +stand-point with a vengeance. "He hev got his mother's _be-you-ti-ful_ +_blue_ eyes and her curling, silken brown hair--sorter red; little Yerby +in _that_, mebbe; but sech eyes, an' sech lashes, an' sech fine curling +hair ez none o' yer fambly ever hed, or ever will." + +"Mebbe so. I never seen him more'n a minit. But he might ez well hev a +_be-you-ti-ful_ curlin' nose, like the elephint in the show, for all the +use he air, or I be afeard air ever likely ter be." + + * * * * * + +Tyler Sudley's face turned gray, despite his belligerent efficiencies, +when his wife, hearing the clank of the ox-yoke as it was flung down in +the shed outside, divined the home-coming of the ploughman and his team, +and slipped out to the barn with her news. She realized, with a strange +enlightenment as to her own mental processes, what angry jealousy the +look on his face would have roused in her only so short a time +ago--jealousy for the sake of her own children, that any loss, any +grief, should be poignant and pierce his heart save for them. Now she +was sorry for him; she felt with him. + +But as he continued silent, and only stared at her dumfounded and +piteous, she grew frightened--she knew not of what. + +"Shucks, Ty!" she exclaimed, catching him by the sleeve with the impulse +to rouse him, to awaken him, as it were, to his own old familiar +identity; "ye ain't 'feared o' that thar snaggle-toothed skeer-crow in +yander; he would be plumb comical ef he didn't look so mean-natured an' +sech a hypercrite." + +He gazed at her, his eyes eloquent with pain. + +"Laurely!" he gasped, "this hyar thing plumb knocks me down; it jes +takes the breath o' life out'n me!" + +She hesitated for a moment. Any anxiety, any trouble, seemed so +incongruous with the sweet spring-tide peace in the air, that one did +not readily take it home to heart. Hope was in the atmosphere like an +essential element; one might call it oxygen or caloric or vitality, +according to the tendency of mind and the habit of speech. But the heart +knew it, and the pulses beat strongly responsive to it. Faith ruled the +world. Some tiny bulbous thing at her feet that had impeded her step +caught her attention. It was coming up from the black earth, and the +buried darkness, and the chill winter's torpor, with all the impulses of +confidence in the light without, and the warmth of the sun, and the +fresh showers that were aggregating in the clouds somewhere for its +nurture--a blind inanimate thing like that! But Tyler Sudley felt none +of it; the blow had fallen upon him, stunning him. He stood silent, +looking gropingly into the purple dusk, veined with silver glintings of +the moon, as if he sought to view in the future some event which he +dreaded, and yet shrank to see. + +She had rarely played the consoler, so heavily had she and all her +griefs leaned on his supporting arm. It was powerless now. She perceived +this, all dismayed at the responsibility that had fallen upon her. She +made an effort to rally his courage. She had more faith in it than in +her own. + +"'Feard o' _him_!" she exclaimed, with a sharp tonic note of satire. +"Kem in an' view him." + +"Laurely," he quavered, "I oughter hev got it down in writin' from him; +I oughter made him sign papers agreein' fur me ter keep the boy till he +growed ter be his own man." + +She, too, grew pale. "Ye ain't meanin' ter let him take the boy sure +enough!" she gasped. + +"I moughtn't be able ter holp it; I dun'no' how the law stands. He air +kin ter Lee-yander, an' mebbe hev got the bes' right ter him." + +She shivered slightly; the dew was falling, and all the budding herbage +was glossed with a silver glister. The shadows were sparse. The white +branches of the aspens cast only the symmetrical outline of the tree +form on the illumined grass, and seemed scarcely less bare than in +winter, but on one swaying bough the mocking-bird sang all the joyous +prophecies of the spring to the great silver moon that made his gladsome +day so long. + +She was quick to notice the sudden cessation of his song, the alert, +downward poise of his beautiful head, his tense critical attitude. A +mimicking whistle rose on the air, now soft, now keen, with swift +changes and intricate successions of tones, ending in a brilliant +borrowed roulade, delivered with a wonderful velocity and _élan_. The +long tail feathers, all standing stiffly upward, once more drooped; the +mocking-bird turned his head from side to side, then lifting his full +throat he poured forth again his incomparable, superb, infinitely +versatile melody, fixing his glittering eye on the moon, and heeding the +futilely ambitious worldling no more. + +The mimicking sound heralded the approach of Leander. Laurelia's heart, +full of bitterness for his sake, throbbed tenderly for him. Ah, what +was to be his fate! What unkind lot did the future hold for him in the +clutches of a man like this! Suddenly she was pitying his mother--her +own children, how safe! + +She winced to tell him what had happened, but she it was who, bracing +her nerves, made the disclosure, for Sudley remained silent, the end of +the ox-yoke in his trembling hands, his head bare to the moon and the +dew, his face grown lined and old. + +Leander stood staring at her out of his moonlit blue eyes, his hat far +back on the brown curls she had so vaunted, damp and crisp and clinging, +the low limp collar of his unbleached shirt showing his round full +throat, one hand resting on the high curb of the well, the other holding +a great brown gourd full of the clear water which he had busied himself +in securing while she sought to prepare him to hear the worst. His lips, +like a bent bow as she thought, were red and still moist as he now and +then took the gourd from them, and held it motionless in the interest of +her narration, that indeed touched him so nearly. Then, as she made +point after point clear to his comprehension, he would once more lift +the gourd and drink deeply, for he had had an active day, inducing a +keen thirst. + +She had been preparing herself for the piteous spectacle of his frantic +fright, his futile reliance on them who had always befriended him, his +callow forlorn helplessness, his tears, his reproaches; she dreaded +them. + +He was silent for a reflective moment when she had paused. "But what's +he want with me, Cap'n?" he suddenly demanded. "Mought know I warn't +industrious in the field, ez he seen me off a-fiddlin' in the woods +whilst Neighbor war a-ploughin'." + +[Illustration: "HE HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST"] + +"Mebbe he 'lows he mought _make_ ye industrious an' git cornsider'ble +work out'n ye," she faltered, flinching for him. + +After another refreshing gulp from the gourd he canvassed this +dispassionately. "Say his own chil'n air 'hearty feeders an' hard on +shoe-leather?' Takes a good deal o' goadin' ter git ploughin' enough fur +the wuth o' feed out'n a toler'ble beastis like old Blaze-face thar, +don't it, Neighbor?--an' how is it a-goin' ter be with a human ez mebbe +will hold back an' air sot agin ploughin' ennyhow, an' air sorter idle +by profession? 'Twould gin him a heap o' trouble--more'n the ploughin' +an' sech would be wuth--a heap o' trouble." Once more he bowed his head +to the gourd. + +"He 'lowed ye shouldn't dwell no mo' in the tents o' sin. He seen the +fiddle, Lee; it's all complicated with the fiddle," she quavered, very +near tears of vexation. + +He lifted a smiling moonlit face; his half-suppressed laugh echoed +gurglingly in the gourd. "Cap'n," he said, reassuringly, "jes let's hear +Uncle Nehemiah talk some mo', an' ef I can't see no mo' likely work fur +me 'n ploughin', I'll think myself mighty safe." + +They felt like three conspirators as after supper they drew their chairs +around the fire with the unsuspicious Uncle Nehemiah. However, Nehemiah +Yerby could hardly be esteemed unsuspicious in any point of view, so +full of vigilant craft was his intention in every anticipation, so +slyly sanctimonious was his long countenance. + +There could hardly have been a greater contrast than Tyler Sudley's +aspect presented. His candid face seemed a mirror for his thought; he +had had scant experience in deception, and he proved a most unlikely +novice in the art. His features were heavy and set; his manner was +brooding and depressed; he did not alertly follow the conversation; on +the contrary, he seemed oblivious of it as his full dark eyes rested +absently on the fire. More than once he passed his hand across them with +a troubled, harassed manner, and he sighed heavily. For which his +co-conspirators could have fallen upon him. How could he be so dull, so +forgetful of all save the fear of separation from the boy whom he had +reared, whom he loved as his own son; how could he fail to know that a +jaunty, assured mien might best serve his interests until at any rate +the blow had fallen; why should he wear the insignia of defeat before +the strength of his claim was tested? Assuredly his manner was +calculated to greatly reinforce Nehemiah Yerby's confidence, and to +assist in eliminating difficulties in the urging of his superior rights +and the carrying out of his scheme. Mrs. Sudley's heart sank as she +caught a significant gleam from the boy's eyes; he too appreciated this +disastrous policy, this virtual surrender before a blow was struck. + +"An' Ty ain't afeard o' bars," she silently commented, "nor wolves, nor +wind, nor lightning, nor man in enny kind o' a free fight; but bekase he +dun'no' how the _law_ stands, an' air afeard the law _mought_ be able +ter take Lee-yander, he jes sets thar ez pitiful ez a lost kid, fairly +ready ter blate aloud." + +She descried the covert triumph twinkling among the sparse light lashes +and "crow-feet" about Nehemiah's eyes as he droned on an +ever-lengthening account of his experiences since leaving the county. + +"It's a mighty satisfyin' thing ter be well off in yearthly goods an' +chattels," said Laurelia, with sudden inspiration. "Ty, thar, is in +debt." + +For Uncle Nehemiah had been dwelling unctuously upon the extent to which +it had pleased the Lord to prosper him. His countenance fell suddenly. +His discomfiture in her unexpected disclosure was twofold, in that it +furnished a reason for Tyler's evident depression of spirits, +demolishing the augury that his manner had afforded as to the success of +the guest's mission, and furthermore, to Nehemiah's trafficking soul, it +suggested that a money consideration might be exacted to mollify the +rigors of parting. + +For Nehemiah Yerby had risen to the dignities, solvencies, and +responsibilities of opening a store at the cross-roads in Kildeer +County. It was a new and darling enterprise with him, and his mind and +speech could not long be wiled away from the subject. This abrupt +interjection of a new element into his cogitations gave him pause, and +he did not observe the sudden rousing of Tyler Sudley from his revery, +and the glance of indignant reproach which he cast on his wife. No man, +however meek, or however bowed down with sorrow, will bear unmoved a +gratuitous mention of his debts; it seems to wound him with all the +rancor of insult, and to enrage him with the hopelessness of adequate +retort or reprisal. It is an indignity, like taunting a ghost with +cock-crow, or exhorting a clergyman to repentance. He flung himself all +at once into the conversation, to bar and baffle any renewed allusion to +that subject, and it was accident rather than intention which made him +grasp Nehemiah in the vise of a quandary also. + +"Ye say ye got a store an' a stock o' truck, Nehemiah. Air ye ekal ter +keepin' store an' sech?" he demanded, speculatively, with an inquiring +and doubtful corrugation of his brows, from which a restive lock of hair +was flung backward like the toss of a horse's mane. + +"I reckon so," Nehemiah sparely responded, blinking at him across the +fireplace. + +"An' ye say ye hev applied fur the place o' postmaster?" Tyler prosed +on. "All that takes a power o' knowledge--readin' an' writin' an' +cipherin' an' sech. How air ye expectin' to hold out, 'kase I know ye +never hed no mo' larnin' than me, an' I war acquainted with ye till ye +war thirty years old an' better?" + +The tenor of this discourse did not comport with his customary suavity +and tactful courtesy toward a guest, but he was much harassed and had +lost his balance. He had a vague idea that Mrs. Sudley hung upon the +flank of the conversation with a complete summary of amounts, dates, and +names of creditors, and he sought to balk this in its inception. +Moreover, his forbearance with Nehemiah, with his presence, his +personality, his mission, had begun to wane. Bitter reflections might +suffice to fill the time were he suffered to be silent; but since a part +in the conversation had been made necessary, he had for it no honeyed +words. + +"I'd make about ez fit a postmaster, I know, ez that thar old ow_el_ +a-hootin' out yander. I could look smart an' sober like him, but that's +'bout all the fur my school-larnin' kerried me, an' yourn didn't reach +ter the nex' mile-post--an' that I know." + +Nehemiah's thin lips seemed dry. More than once his tongue appeared +along their verges as he nervously moistened them. His small eyes had +brightened with an excited look, but he spoke very slowly, and to +Laurelia it seemed guardedly. + +"I tuk ter my book arterward, Brother Sudley. I applied myself ter +larnin' vigorous. Bein' ez I seen the Lord's hand war liberal with the +gifts o' this worl', I wanted ter stir myself ter desarve the good +things." + +Sudley brought down the fore-legs of his chair to the floor with a +thump. Despite his anxiety a slow light of ridicule began to kindle on +his face; his curling lip showed his strong white teeth. + +"Waal, by gum! ye mus' hev been a sight ter be seen! Ye, forty or fifty +years old, a-settin' on the same seat with the chil'n at the deestric' +school, an' a-competin' with the leetle tadpoles fur 'Baker an' Shady' +an sech!" + +He was about to break forth with a guffaw of great relish when Nehemiah +spoke hastily, forestalling the laughter. + +"Naw; Abner Sage war thar fur a good while las' winter a-visitin' his +sister, an' he kem an' gin me lessons an' set me copies thar at my +house, an' I larnt a heap." + +Leander lifted his head suddenly. The amount of progress possible to +this desultory and limited application he understood only too well. He +had not learned so much himself to be unaware how much in time and labor +learning costs. The others perceived no incongruity. Sudley's face was +florid with pride and pleasure, and his wife's reflected the glow. + +"Ab Sage at the cross-roads! Then he mus' hev tole ye 'bout Lee-yander +hyar, an' his larnin'. Ab tole, I know." + +Nehemiah drew his breath in quickly. His twinkling eyes sent out the +keenest glance of suspicion, but the gay, affectionate, vaunting laugh, +as Tyler Sudley turned around and clapped the boy a ringing blow on his +slender shoulder, expressed only the plenitude of his simple vainglory. + +"Lee-yander hyar _knows it all_!" he boasted. "Old Ab himself don't know +no mo'! I'll be bound old Ab went a-braggin'--hey, Lee-yander?" + +But the boy shrank away a trifle, and his smile was mechanical as he +silently eyed his relative. + +"Ab 'lowed he war tur'ble disobejient," said Nehemiah, after a pause, +and cautiously allowing himself to follow in the talk, "an' gi'n over +ter playin' the fiddle." He hesitated for a moment, longing to +stigmatize its ungodliness; but the recollection of Tyler Sudley's +uncertain temper decided him, and he left it unmolested. "But Ab 'lowed +ye war middlin' quick at figgers, Lee-yander--middlin' quick at +figgers!" + +Leander, still silent and listening, flushed slightly. This measured +praise was an offence to him; but he looked up brightly and obediently +when his uncle wagged an uncouthly sportive head (Nehemiah's anatomy +lent itself to the gay and graceful with much reluctance), thrust his +hands into his pockets, and, tilting himself back in his chair, +continued: + +"I'll try ye, sonny--I'll try ye. How much air nine times seven?--nine +times seven?" + +"Forty-two!" replied the boy, with a bright, docile countenance fixed +upon his relative. + +There was a pause. "Right!" exclaimed Nehemiah, to the relief of Sudley +and his wife, who had trembled during the pause, for it seemed so +threatening. They smiled at each other, unconscious that the examination +meant aught more serious than a display of their prodigy's learning. + +"An', now, how much air twelve times eight?" demanded Nehemiah. + +"Sixty-six!" came the answer, quick as lightning. + +"Right, sir, every time!" cried Nehemiah with a glow of genuine +exultation, as he brought down the fore-legs of the chair to the floor, +and the two Sudleys laughed aloud with pleasure. + +Leander saw them all distorted and grimacing while the room swam round. +The scheme was clear enough to him now. The illiterate Nehemiah, whose +worldly prosperity had outstripped his mental qualifications, had +bethought himself of filling the breach with his nephew, given away as +surplusage in his burdensome infancy, but transformed into a unique +utility under the tutelage of Abner Sage. It was his boasting of his +froward pupil, doubtless, that had suggested the idea, and Leander +understood now that he was to do the work of the store and the +post-office under the nominal incumbency of this unlettered lout. Had +the whole transaction been open and acknowledged, Leander would have had +scant appetite for the work under this master; but he revolted at the +flimsy, contemptible sham; he bitterly resented the innuendoes against +the piety of the Sudleys, not that he cared for piety, save in the +abstract; he was daunted by the brutal ignorance, the doltish +inefficiency of the imposture that had so readily accepted his patently +false answers to the simple questions. He had a sort of crude reverence +for education, and it had seemed to him a very serious matter to take +such liberties with the multiplication table. He valued, too, with a +boy's stalwart vanity, his reputation for great learning, and he would +not have lightly jeopardized it did he not esteem the crisis momentous. +He knew not what he feared. The fraud of the intention, the groundless +claim to knowledge, made Nehemiah's scheme seem multifariously guilty in +some sort; while Tyler Sudley and his wife, albeit no wiser +mathematically, had all the sanctions of probity in their calm, +unpretending ignorance. + +"Ef Cap'n or Neighbor wanted ter run a post-office on my larnin', or ter +keep store, they'd be welcome; but I won't play stalkin'-horse fur that +thar man's still-hunt, sure ez shootin'," he said to himself. + +The attention which he bent upon the conversation thenceforth was an +observation of its effect rather than its matter. He saw that he was +alone in his discovery. Neither Sudley nor his wife had perceived any +connection between the store, the prospective post-office, and the +desire of the illiterate would-be postmaster to have his erudite nephew +restored to his care. + +It may be that the methods of his "Neighbor" and the "Captain" in the +rearing of Leander, the one with unbridled leniency, the other with +spurious severity and affected indifference, had combined to foster +self-reliance and decision of character, or it may be that these +qualities were inherent traits. At all events, he encountered the +emergency without an instant's hesitation. He felt no need of counsel. +He had no doubts. He carried to his pallet in the roof-room no +vacillations and no problems. His resolve was taken. For a time, as he +listened to the movements below-stairs, the sound of voices still rose, +drowsy as the hour waxed late; the light that flickered through the +cracks in the puncheon flooring gradually dulled, and presently a harsh +grating noise acquainted him with the fact that Sudley was shovelling +the ashes over the embers; then the tent-like attic was illumined only +by the moonlight admitted through the little square window at the gable +end--so silent, so still, it seemed that it too slept like the silent +house. The winds slumbered amidst the mute woods; a bank of cloud that +he could see from his lowly couch lay in the south becalmed. The bird's +song had ceased. It seemed to him as he lifted himself on his elbow that +he had never known the world so hushed. The rustle of the quilt of gay +glazed calico was of note in the quietude; the impact of his bare foot +on the floor was hardly a sound, rather an annotation of his weight and +his movement; yet in default of all else the sense of hearing marked it. +His scheme seemed impracticable as for an instant he wavered at the head +of the ladder that served as a stairway; the next moment his foot was +upon the rungs, his light, lithe figure slipping down it like a shadow. +The room below, all eclipsed in a brown and dusky-red medium, the +compromise between light and darkness that the presence of the embers +fostered, was vaguely revealed to him. He was hardly sure whether he saw +the furniture all in place, or whether he knew its arrangement so well +that he seemed to see. Suddenly, as he laid his hand on the violin on +the wall, it became visible, its dark red wood richly glowing against +the brown logs and the tawny clay daubing. A tiny white flame had shot +up in the midst of the gray ashes, as he stood with the cherished object +in his cautious hand, his excited eyes, dilated and expectant, searching +the room apprehensively, while a vague thrill of a murmur issued from +the instrument, as if the spirit of music within it had been wakened by +his touch--too vague, too faintly elusive for the dormant and somewhat +dull perceptions of Nehemiah Yerby, calmly slumbering in state in the +best room. + +The faint jet of flame was withdrawn in the ashes as suddenly as it had +shot forth, and in the ensuing darkness, deeper for the contrast with +that momentary illumination, it was not even a shadow that deftly +mounted the ladder again and emerged into the sheeny twilight of the +moonlit roof-room. Leander was somehow withheld for a moment motionless +at the window; it may have been by compunction; it may have been by +regret, if it be possible to the very young to definitely feel either. +There was an intimation of pensive farewell in his large illumined eyes +as they rested on the circle of familiar things about him--the budding +trees, the well, with its great angular sweep against the sky, the still +sward, the rail-fences glistening with the dew, the river with the +moonlight in a silver blazonry on its lustrous dark surface, the +encompassing shadows of the gloomy mountains. There was no sound, not +even among the rippling shallows; he could hear naught but the pain of +parting throbbing in his heart, and from the violin a faint continuous +susurrus, as if it murmured half-asleep memories of the melodies that +had thrilled its waking moments. It necessitated careful handling as he +deftly let himself out of the window, the bow held in his mouth, the +instrument in one arm, while the other hand clutched the boughs of a +great holly-tree close beside the house. It was only the moonlight on +those smooth, lustrous leaves, but it seemed as if smiling white faces +looked suddenly down from among the shadows: at this lonely hour, with +none awake to see, what strange things may there not be astir in the +world, what unmeasured, unknown forces, sometimes felt through the +dulling sleep of mortals, and then called dreams! As he stood breathless +upon the ground the wind awoke. He heard it race around the corner of +the house, bending the lilac bushes, and then it softly buffeted him +full in the face and twirled his hat on the ground. As he stooped to +pick it up he heard whispers and laughter in the lustrous boughs of the +holly, and the gleaming faces shifted with the shadows. He looked +fearfully over his shoulder; the rising wind might waken some one of the +household. His "Neighbor" was, he knew, solicitous about the weather, +and suspicious of its intentions lest it not hold fine till all the oats +be sown. A pang wrung his heart; he remembered the long line of seasons +when, planting corn in the pleasant spring days, his "Neighbor" had +opened the furrow with the plough, and the "Captain" had followed, +dropping the grains, and he had brought up the rear with his hoe, +covering them over, while the clouds floated high in the air, and the +mild sun shone, and the wind kept the shadows a-flicker, and the +blackbird and the crow, complacently and craftily watching them from +afar, seemed the only possible threatening of evil in all the world. He +hastened to stiffen his resolve. He had need of it. Tyler Sudley had +said that he did not know how the law stood, and for himself, he was not +willing to risk his liberty on it. He gazed apprehensively upon the +little batten shutter of the window of the room where Nehemiah Yerby +slept, expecting to see it slowly swing open and disclose him there. It +did not stir, and gathering resolution from the terrors that had beset +him when he fancied his opportunity threatened, he ran like a frightened +deer fleetly down the road, and plunged into the dense forest. The wind +kept him company, rollicking, quickening, coming and going in fitful +gusts. He heard it die away, but now and again it was rustling among a +double file of beech-trees all up the mountain-side. He saw the +commotion in their midst, the effect of swift movement as the scant +foliage fluttered, then the white branches of the trees all a-swaying +like glistening arms flung upward, as if some bevy of dryads sped up the +hill in elusive rout through the fastnesses. + + * * * * * + +The next day ushered in a tumult and excitement unparalleled in the +history of the little log-cabin. When Leander's absence was discovered, +and inquiry of the few neighbors and search of the vicinity proved +fruitless, the fact of his flight and its motive were persistently +forced upon Nehemiah Yerby's reluctant perceptions, with the destruction +of his cherished scheme as a necessary sequence. With some wild craving +for vengeance he sought to implicate Sudley as accessory to the +mysterious disappearance. He found some small measure of solace in +stumping up and down the floor before the hearth, furiously railing at +the absent host, for Sudley had not yet relinquished the bootless quest, +and indignantly upbraiding the forlorn, white-faced, grief-stricken +Laurelia, who sat silent and stony, her faded eyes on the fire, heedless +of his words. She held in her lap sundry closely-rolled knitted +balls--the boy's socks that she had so carefully made and darned. A +pile of his clothing lay at her feet. He had carried nothing but his +fiddle and the clothes he stood in, and if she had had more tears she +could have wept for his improvidence, for the prospective tatters and +rents that must needs befall him in that unknown patchless life to which +he had betaken himself. + +Nehemiah Yerby argued that it was Sudley who had prompted the whole +thing; he had put the boy up to it, for Leander was not so lacking in +feeling as to flee from his own blood-relation. But he would set the law +to spy them out. He would be back again, and soon. + +He may have thought better of this presently, for he was in great haste +to be gone when Tyler Sudley returned, and to his amazement in a +counterpart frame of mind, charging Nehemiah with the responsibility of +the disaster. It was strange to Laurelia that she, who habitually strove +to fix her mind on religious things, should so relish the aspect of Ty +Sudley in his secular rage on this occasion. + +"Ye let we-uns hev him whilst so leetle an' helpless, but now that he +air so fine growed an' robustious ye want ter git some work out'n him, +an' he hev runned away an' tuk ter the woods tarrified by the very sight +of ye," he averred. "He'll never kem back; no, he'll never kem back; fur +he'll 'low ez ye would kem an' take him home with you; an' now the Lord +only knows whar he is, an' what will become of him." + +His anger and his tumultuous grief, his wild, irrepressible anxiety for +Leander's safety, convinced the crafty Nehemiah that he was no party to +the boy's scheme. Sudley's sorrow was not of the kind that renders the +temper pliable, and when Nehemiah sought to point a moral in the absence +of the violin, and for the first time in Sudley's presence protested +that he desired to save Leander from that device of the devil, the +master of the house shook his inhospitable fist very close indeed to his +guest's nose, and Yerby was glad enough to follow that feature +unimpaired out to his horse at the bars, saying little more. + +He aired his views, however, at each house where he made it convenient +to stop on his way home, and took what comfort there might be in the +rōle of martyr. Leander was unpopular in several localities, and was +esteemed a poor specimen of the skill of the Sudleys in rearing +children. He had been pampered and spoiled, according to general report, +and more than one of his successive interlocutors were polite enough to +opine that the change to Nehemiah's charge would have been a beneficent +opportunity for much-needed discipline. Nehemiah was not devoid of some +skill in interrogatory. He contrived to elicit speculations without +giving an intimation of unduly valuing the answer. + +"He's 'mongst the moonshiners, I reckon," was the universal surmise. +"He'll be hid mighty safe 'mongst them." + +For where the still might be, or who was engaged in the illicit +business, was even a greater mystery than Leander's refuge. Nothing more +definite could be elicited than a vague rumor that some such work was +in progress somewhere along the many windings of Hide-and-Seek Creek. + +Nehemiah Yerby had never been attached to temperance principles, and, +commercially speaking, he had thought it possible that whiskey on which +no tax had been paid might be more profitably dispensed at his store +than that sold under the sanctions of the government. These +considerations, however, were as naught in view of the paralysis which +his interests and schemes had suffered in Leander's flight. He dwelt +with dismay upon the possibility that he might secure the postmastership +without the capable assistant whose services were essential. In this +perverse sequence of events disaster to his application was more to be +desired than success. He foresaw himself browbeaten, humiliated, +detected, a butt for the ridicule of the community, his pretensions in +the dust, his pitiful imposture unmasked. And beyond these ęsthetic +misfortunes, the substantial emoluments of "keepin' store," with a +gallant sufficiency of arithmetic to regulate prices and profits, were +vanishing like the elusive matutinal haze before the noontide sun. +Nehemiah Yerby groaned aloud, for the financial stress upon his spirit +was very like physical pain. And in this inauspicious moment he +bethought himself of the penalties of violating the Internal Revenue +Laws of the United States. + +Now it has been held by those initiated into such mysteries that there +is scant affinity between whiskey and water. Nevertheless, in this +connection, Nehemiah Yerby developed an absorbing interest in the +watercourses of the coves and adjacent mountains, especially their more +remote and sequestered tributaries. He shortly made occasion to meet the +county surveyor and ply him with questions touching the topography of +the vicinity, cloaking the real motive under the pretence of an interest +in water-power sufficient and permanent enough for the sawing of lumber, +and professing to contemplate the erection of a saw-mill at the most +eligible point. The surveyor had his especial vanity, and it was +expressed in his frequent boast that he carried a complete map of the +county graven upon his brain; he was wont to esteem it a gracious +opportunity when a casual question in a group of loungers enabled him to +display his familiarity with every portion of his rugged and mountainous +region, which was indeed astonishing, even taking into consideration his +incumbency for a number of terms, aided by a strong head for locality. +Nehemiah Yerby's scheme was incalculably favored by this circumstance, +but he found it unexpectedly difficult to support the figment which he +had propounded as to his intentions. Fiction is one of the fine arts, +and a mere amateur like Nehemiah is apt to fail in point of consistency. +He was inattentive while the surveyor dilated on the probable value, the +accessibility, and the relative height of the "fall" of the various +sites, and their available water-power, and he put irrelevant queries +concerning ineligible streams in other localities. No man comfortably +mounted upon his hobby relishes an interruption. The surveyor would stop +with a sort of bovine surprise, and break out in irritable parenthesis. + +"That branch on the t'other side o' Panther Ridge? Why, man alive, that +thread o' water wouldn't turn a spider web." + +Nehemiah, quaking under the glance of his keen questioning eye, would +once more lapse into silence, while the surveyor, loving to do what he +could do well, was lured on in his favorite subject by the renewed +appearance of receptivity in his listener. + +"Waal, ez I war a-sayin', I know every furlong o' the creeks once down +in the Cove, an' all their meanderings, an' the best part o' them in the +hills amongst the laurel and the wildernesses. But now the ways of sech +a stream ez Hide-an'-Seek Creek are past finding out. It's a 'sinking +creek,' you know; goes along with a good volume and a swift current for +a while to the west, then disappears into the earth, an' ain't seen fur +five mile, then comes out agin running due north, makes a tremenjious +jump--the Hoho-hebee Falls--then pops into the ground agin, an' ain't +seen no more forever," he concluded, dramatically. + +"How d'ye know it's the same creek?" demanded Nehemiah, sceptically, and +with a wrinkling brow. + +"By settin' somethin' afloat on it before it sinks into the ground--a +piece of marked bark or a shingle or the like--an' finding it agin after +the stream comes out of the caves," promptly replied the man of the +compass, with a triumphant snap of the eye, as if he entertained a +certain pride in the vagaries of his untamed mountain friend. "Nobody +knows how often it disappears, nor where it rises, nor where it goes at +last. It's got dozens of fust-rate millin' sites, but then it's too fur +off fur you ter think about." + +"Oh no 'tain't!" exclaimed Nehemiah, suddenly. + +The surveyor stared. "Why, you ain't thinkin' 'bout movin' up inter the +wilderness ter live, an' ye jes applied fur the post-office down at the +cross-roads? Ye can't run the post-office thar an' a saw-mill thirty +mile away at the same time." + +Nehemiah was visibly disconcerted. His wrinkled face showed the flush of +discomfiture, but his craft rallied to the emergency. + +"Moughtn't git the post-office, arter all's come an' gone. Nothin' is +sartin in this vale o' tears." + +"An' ye air goin' ter take ter the woods ef ye don't?" demanded the +surveyor, incredulously. "Thought ye war goin' ter keep store?" + +"Waal, I dun'no'; jes talkin' round," said Nehemiah, posed beyond +recuperation. "I mus' be a-joggin', ennyhow. Time's a-wastin'." + +As he made off hastily in the direction of his house, for this +conversation had taken place at the blacksmith's shop at the +cross-roads, the surveyor gazed after him much mystified. + +"What is that old fox slyin' round after? He ain't studyin' 'bout no +saw-mill, inquirin' round about all the out-o'-the-way water-power in +the kentry fifty mile from where he b'longs. He's a heap likelier to be +goin' ter start a wild cat still in them wild places--git his whiskey +cheap ter sell in his store." + +He shook his head sagely once for all, for the surveyor's mind was of +the type prompt in reaching conclusions, and he was difficult to divert +from his convictions. + +A feature of the development of craft to a certain degree is the +persuasion that this endowment is not shared. A fine world it would be +if the Nehemiah Yerbys were as clever as they think themselves, and +their neighbors as dull. He readily convinced himself that he had given +no intimation that his objects and motives were other than he professed, +and with unimpaired energy he went to work upon the lines which he had +marked out for himself. A fine chase Hide-and-Seek Creek led him, to be +sure, and it tried his enthusiasms to the uttermost. What affinity this +brawling vagrant had for the briers and the rocks and the tangled +fastnesses! Seldom, indeed, could he press in to its banks and look down +upon its dimpled, laughing, heedless face without the sacrifice of +fragments of flesh and garments left impaled upon the sharp spikes of +the budding shrubs. Often it so intrenched itself amidst the dense +woods, and the rocks and chasms of its craggy banks, that approach was +impossible, and he followed it for miles only by the sound of its wild, +sweet, woodland voice. And this, too, was of a wayward fancy; now, in +turbulent glee among the rocks, riotously chanting aloud, challenging +the echoes, and waking far and near the forest quiet; and again it was +merely a low, restful murmur, intimating deep, serene pools and a +dallying of the currents, lapsed in the fulness of content. Then +Nehemiah Yerby would be beset with fears that he would lose this +whisper, and his progress was slight; he would pause to listen, hearing +nothing; would turn to right, to left; would take his way back through +the labyrinth of the laurel to catch a thread of sound, a mere +crystalline tremor, and once more follow this transient lure. As the +stream came down a gorge at a swifter pace and in a succession of +leaps--a glassy cataract visible here and there, airily sporting with +rainbows, affiliating with ferns and moss and marshy growths, the +bounding spray glittering in the sunshine--it flung forth continuously +tinkling harmonies in clear crystal tones, so penetrating, so definitely +melodic, that more than once, as he paced along on his jaded horse, he +heard in their midst, without disassociating the sounds, the _ping, +pang, ping, pang_, of the violin he so condemned. He drew up at last, +and strained his ear to listen. It did not become more distinct, always +intermingled with the recurrent rhythm of the falling water, but always +vibrating in subdued throbbings, now more acute, now less, as the +undiscriminated melody ascended or descended the scale. It came from the +earth, of this he was sure, and thus he was reminded anew of the caves +which Hide-and-Seek Creek threaded in its long course. There was some +opening near by, doubtless, that led to subterranean passages, dry +enough here, since it was the stream's whim to flow in the open sunshine +instead of underground. He would have given much to search for it had he +dared. His leathery, lean, loose cheek had a glow of excitement upon it; +his small eyes glistened; for the first time in his life, possibly, he +looked young. But he did not doubt that this was the stronghold of the +illicit distillers, of whom one heard so much in the Cove and saw so +little. A lapse of caution, an inconsiderate movement, and he might be +captured and dealt with as a spy and informer. + +Nevertheless his discovery was of scant value unless he utilized it +further. He had always believed that his nephew had fled to the secret +haunts of the moonshiners. Now he only knew it the more surely; and what +did this avail him, and how aid in the capture of the recusant clerk and +assistant postmaster? He hesitated a moment; then fixing the spot in his +mind by the falling of a broad crystal sheet of water from a ledge some +forty feet high, by a rotting log at its base that seemed to rise +continually, although the moving cataract appeared motionless, by +certain trees and their relative position, and the blue peaks on a +distant skyey background of a faint cameo yellow, he slowly turned his +horse's rein and took his way out of danger. It was chiefly some +demonstration on the animal's part that he had feared. A snort, a +hoof-beat, a whinny would betray him, and very liable was the animal to +any of these expressions. One realizes how unnecessary is speech for the +exposition of opinion when brought into contradictory relations with the +horse which one rides or drives. All day had this animal snorted his +doubts of his master's sanity; all day had he protested against these +aimless, fruitless rambles; all day had he held back with a high head +and a hard mouth, while whip and spur pressed him through laurel almost +impenetrable, and through crevices of crags almost impassable. For were +there not all the fair roads of the county to pace and gallop upon if +one must needs be out and jogging! Unseen objects, vaguely discerned to +be moving in the undergrowth affrighted the old plough-horse of the +levels--infinitely reassured and whinnying with joyful relief when the +head of horned cattle showed presently as the cause of the commotion. He +would have given much a hundred times that day, and he almost said so a +hundred times, too, to be at home, with the old bull-tongue plough +behind him, running the straight rational furrow in the good bare open +field, so mellow for corn, lying in the sunshine, inviting planting. + +"Ef I git ye home wunst more, I'll be bound I'll leave ye thar," +Nehemiah said, ungratefully, as they wended their way along; for without +the horse he could not have traversed the long distances of his search, +however unwillingly the aid was given. + +He annotated his displeasure by a kick in the ribs; and when the old +equine farmer perceived that they were absolutely bound binward, and +that their aberrations were over for the present, he struck a sharp gait +that would have done honor to his youthful days, for he had worn out +several pairs of legs in Nehemiah's fields, and was often spoken of as +being upon the last of those useful extremities. He stolidly shook his +head, which he thought so much better than his master's, and bedtime +found them twenty miles away and at home. + +Nehemiah felt scant fatigue. He was elated with his project. He scented +success in the air. It smelled like the season. It too was suffused with +the urgent pungency of the rising sap, with the fragrance of the +wild-cherry, with the vinous promise of the orchard, with the richness +of the mould, with the vagrant perfume of the early flowers. + +He lighted a tallow dip, and he sat him down with writing materials at +the bare table to indite a letter while all his household slept. The +windows stood open to the dark night, and Spring hovered about outside, +and lounged with her elbows on the sill, and looked in. He constantly +saw something pale and elusive against the blackness, for there was no +moon, but he thought it only the timid irradiation with which his tallow +dip suffused the blossoming wands of an azalea, growing lithe and tall +hard by. With this witness only he wrote the letter--an anonymous +letter, and therefore he was indifferent to the inadequacies of his +penmanship and his spelling. He labored heavily in its composition, now +and then perpetrating portentous blots. He grew warm, although the fire +that had served to cook supper had long languished under the bank of +ashes. The tallow dip seemed full of caloric, and melted rapidly in +pendulous drippings. He now and again mopped his red face, usually so +bloodless, with his big bandanna handkerchief, while all the zephyrs +were fanning the flying tresses of Spring at the window, and the soft, +sweet, delicately attuned vernal chorus of the marshes were tentatively +running over _sotto voce_ their allotted melodies for the season. Oh, it +was a fine night outside, and why should a moth, soft-winged and +cream-tinted and silken-textured, come whisking in from the dark, as +silently as a spirit, to supervise Nehemiah Yerby's letter, and travel +up and down the page all befouled with the ink? And as he sought to +save the sense of those significant sentences from its trailing silken +draperies, why should it rise suddenly, circling again and again about +the candle, pass through the flame, and fall in quivering agonies once +more upon the page? He looked at it, dead now, with satisfaction. It had +come so very near ruining his letter--an important letter, describing +the lair of the illicit distillers to a deputy marshal of the revenue +force, who was known to be in a neighboring town. He had good reason to +withhold his signature, for the name of the informer in the ruthless +vengeance of the region would be as much as his life was worth. The moth +had not spoiled the letter--the laborious letter; he was so glad of +that! He saw no analogies, he received not even a subtle warning, as he +sealed and addressed the envelope and affixed the postage-stamp. Then he +snuffed out the candle with great satisfaction. + +The next morning the missive was posted, and all Nehemiah Yerby's plans +took a new lease of life. The information he had given would result in +an immediate raid upon the place. Leander would be captured among the +moonshiners, but his youth and his uncle's representations--for he would +give the officers an inkling of the true state of the case--would +doubtless insure the boy's release, and his restoration to those +attractive commercial prospects which had been devised for him. + + +II + +The ordering of events is an intricate process, and to its successful +exploitation a certain degree of sagacious prescience is a prerequisite, +as well as a thorough mastery of the lessons of experience. For a day or +so all went well in the inner consciousness of Nehemiah Yerby. The +letter had satisfied his restless craving for some action toward the +consummation of his ambition, and he had not the foresight to realize +how soon the necessity of following it up would supervene. He first grew +uneasy lest his letter had not reached its destination; then, when the +illimitable field of speculation was thus opened out, he developed an +ingenuity of imagination in projecting possible disaster. Day after day +passed, and he heard naught of his cherished scheme. The +revenuers--craven wretches he deemed them, and he ground his teeth with +rage because of their seeming cowardice in their duty, since their duty +could serve his interests--might not have felt exactly disposed to risk +their lives in these sweet spring days, when perhaps even a man whose +life belongs to the government might be presumed to take some pleasure +in it, by attempting to raid the den of a gang of moonshiners on the +scanty faith of an informer's word, tenuous guaranty at best, and now +couched in an anonymous letter, itself synonym for a lie. Oh, what fine +eulogies rose in his mind upon the manly virtue of courage! How +enthusing it is at all times to contemplate the courage of others!--and +how safe! + +Then a revulsion of belief ensued, and he began to fear that they might +already have descended upon their quarry, and with all their captives +have returned to the county town by the road by which they came--nearer +than the route through the cross-roads, though far more rugged. Why had +not this possibility before occurred to him! He had so often prefigured +their triumphant advent into the hamlet with all their guarded and +shackled prisoners, the callow Leander in the midst, and his own +gracefully enacted rōle of virtuous, grief-stricken, pleading relative, +that it seemed a recollection--something that had really +happened--rather than the figment of anticipation. But no word, no +breath of intimation, had ruffled the serenity of the cross-roads. The +calm, still, yellow sunshine day by day suffused the land like the +benignities of a dream--almost too good to be true. Every man with the +heart of a farmer within him was at the plough-handles, and making the +most of the fair weather. The cloudless sky and the auspicious forecast +of fine days still to come did more to prove to the farmer the existence +of an all-wise, overruling Providence than all the polemics of the world +might accomplish. The furrows multiplied everywhere save in Nehemiah's +own fields, where he often stood so long in the turn-row that the old +horse would desist from twisting his head backward in surprise, and +start at last of his own motion, dragging the plough, the share still +unanchored in the ground, half across the field before he could be +stopped. The vagaries of these "lands" that the absent-minded Nehemiah +laid off attracted some attention. + +"What ails yer furrows ter run so crooked, Nehemiah?" observed a +passer-by, a neighbor who had been to the blacksmith-shop to get his +plough-point sharpened; he looked over the fence critically. "Yer +eyesight mus' be failin' some." + +"I dun'no'," rejoined Nehemiah, hastily. Then reverting to his own +absorption. "War it you-uns ez I hearn say thar war word kem ter the +cross-roads 'bout some revenuers raidin' 'round somewhar in the woods?" + +The look of surprise cast upon him seemed to his alert anxiety to +betoken suspicion. "Laws-a-massy, naw!" exclaimed his interlocutor. "Ye +air the fust one that hev named sech ez that in these diggin's, fur I'd +hev hearn tell on it, sure, ef thar hed been enny sech word goin' the +rounds." + +Nehemiah recoiled into silence, and presently his neighbor went +whistling on his way. He stood motionless for a time, until the man was +well out of sight, then he began to hastily unhitch the plough-gear. His +resolution was taken. He could wait no longer. For aught he knew the +raiders might have come and gone, and be now a hundred miles away with +their prisoners to stand their trial in the Federal court. His schemes +might have all gone amiss, leaving him in naught the gainer. He could +rest in uncertainty no more. He feared to venture further questions when +no rumor stirred the air. They rendered him doubly liable to +suspicion--to the law-abiding as a possible moonshiner, to any +sympathizer with the distillers as a probable informer. He determined to +visit the spot, and there judge how the enterprise had fared. + +When next he heard that fine sylvan symphony of the sound of the falling +water--the tinkling bell-like tremors of its lighter tones mingling with +the sonorous, continuous, deeper theme rising from its weight and volume +and movement; with the surging of the wind in the pines; with the +occasional cry of a wild bird deep in the new verdure of the forests +striking through the whole with a brilliant, incidental, detached +effect--no faint vibration was in its midst of the violin's string, +listen as he might. More than once he sought to assure himself that he +heard it, but his fancy failed to respond to his bidding, although again +and again he took up his position where it had before struck his ear. +The wild minstrelsy of the woods felt no lack, and stream and wind and +harping pine and vagrant bird lifted their voices in their wonted +strains. He could hardly accept the fact; he would verify anew the +landmarks he had made and again return to the spot, his hat in his hand, +his head bent low, his face lined with anxiety and suspense. No sound, +no word, no intimation of human presence. The moonshiners were doubtless +all gone long ago, betrayed into captivity, and Leander with them. He +had so hardened his heart toward his recalcitrant young kinsman and his +Sudley friends, he felt so entirely that in being among the moonshiners +Leander had met only his deserts in coming to the bar of Federal +justice, that he would have experienced scant sorrow if the nephew had +not carried off with his own personality his uncle's book-keeper and +postmaster's clerk. And so--alas, for Leander! As he meditated on the +untoward manner in which he had overshot his target, this marksman of +fate forgot the caution which had distinguished his approach, for +hitherto it had been as heedful as if he fully believed the lion still +in his den. He slowly patrolled the bank below the broad, thin, crystal +sheet, seeing naught but its rainbow hovering elusively in the sun, and +its green and white skein-like draperies pendulous before the great dark +arch over which the cataract fell. The log caught among the rocks in the +spray at the base was still there, seeming always to rise while the +restless water seemed motionless. + +No trace that human beings had ever invaded these solitudes could he +discover. No vague, faint suggestion of the well-hidden lair of the +moonshiners did the wild covert show forth. "The revenuers war smarter'n +me; I'll say that fur 'em," he muttered at last as he came to a +stand-still, his chin in his hand, his perplexed eyes on the ground. And +suddenly--a footprint on a marshy spot; only the heel of a boot, for the +craggy ledges hid all the ground but this, a mere sediment of sand in a +tiny hollow in the rock from which the water had evaporated. It was a +key to the mystery. Instantly the rugged edges of the cliff took on the +similitude of a path. Once furnished with this idea, he could perceive +adequate footing all adown the precipitous way. He was not young; his +habits had been inactive, and were older even than his age. He could +not account for it afterward, but he followed for a few paces this +suggestion of a path down the precipitous sides of the stream. He had a +sort of triumph in finding it so practicable, and he essayed it still +farther, although the sound of the water had grown tumultuous at closer +approach, and seemed to foster a sort of responsive turmoil of the +senses; he felt his head whirl as he looked at the bounding, frothing +spray, then at the long swirls of the current at the base of the fall as +they swept on their way down the gorge. As he sought to lift his +fascinated eyes, the smooth glitter of the crystal sheet of falling +water so close before him dazzled his sight. He wondered afterward how +his confused senses and trembling limbs sustained him along the narrow, +rugged path, here and there covered with oozing green moss, and slippery +with the continual moisture. It evidently was wending to a ledge. All at +once the contour of the place was plain to him; the ledge led behind the +cataract that fell from the beetling heights above. And within were +doubtless further recesses, where perchance the moonshiners had worked +their still. As he reached the ledge he could see behind the falling +water and into the great concave space which it screened beneath the +beetling cliff. It was as he had expected--an arched portal of jagged +brown rocks, all dripping with moisture and oozing moss, behind the +semi-translucent green-and-white drapery of the cascade. + +But he had not expected to see, standing quietly in the great vaulted +entrance, a man with his left hand on a pistol in his belt, the mate of +which his more formidable right hand held up with a steady finger on +the trigger. + +This much Nehemiah beheld, and naught else, for the glittering profile +of the falls, visible now only aslant, the dark, cool recess beyond, +that menacing motionless figure at the vanishing-point of the +perspective, all blended together in an indistinguishable whirl as his +senses reeled. He barely retained consciousness enough to throw up both +his hands in token of complete submission. And then for a moment he knew +no more. He was still leaning motionless against the wall of rock when +he became aware that the man was sternly beckoning to him to continue +his approach. His dumb lips moved mechanically in response, but any +sound must needs have been futile indeed in the pervasive roar of the +waters. He felt that he had hardly strength for another step along the +precipitous way, but there is much tonic influence in a beckoning +revolver, and few men are so weak as to be unable to obey its behests. +Poor Nehemiah tottered along as behooved him, leaving all the world, +liberty, volition, behind him as the descending sheet of water fell +between him and the rest of life and shut him off. + +"That's it, my leetle man! I thought you could make it!" were the first +words he could distinguish as he joined the mountaineer beneath the +crag. + +Nehemiah Yerby had never before seen this man. That in itself was +alarming, since in the scanty population of the region few of its +denizens are unknown to each other, at least by sight. The tone of +satire, the gleam of enjoyment in his keen blue eye, were not +reassuring to the object of his ridicule. He was tall and somewhat +portly, and he had a bluff and offhand manner, which, however, served +not so much to intimate his good-will toward you as his abounding +good-humor with himself. He was a man of most arbitrary temper, one +could readily judge, not only from his own aspect and manner, but from +the docile, reliant, approving cast of countenance of his reserve +force--a half-dozen men, who were somewhat in the background, lounging +on the rocks about a huge copper still. They wore an attentive aspect, +but offered to take no active part in the scene enacted before them. One +of them--even at this crucial moment Yerby noticed it with a pang of +regretful despair--held noiseless on his knee a violin, and more than +once addressed himself seriously to rubbing rosin over the bow. There +was scant music in his face--a square physiognomy, with thick features, +and a shock of hay-colored hair striped somewhat with an effect of +darker shades like a weathering stack. He handled the bow with a blunt, +clumsy hand that augured little of delicate skill, and he seemed from +his diligence to think that rosin is what makes a fiddle play. He was +evidently one of those unhappy creatures furnished with some vague inner +attraction to the charms of music, with no gift, no sentiment, no +discrimination. Something faintly sonorous there was in his soul, and it +vibrated to the twanging of the strings. He was far less alert to the +conversation than the others, whose listening attitudes attested their +appreciation of the importance of the moment. + +"Waal," observed the moonshiner, impatiently, eying the tremulous and +tongue-tied Yerby, "hev ye fund what ye war a-huntin' fur?" + +So tenacious of impressions was Nehemiah that it was the violin in those +alien hands which still focussed his attention as he stared gaspingly +about. Leander was not here; probably had never been here; and the +twanging of those strings had lured him to his fate. Well might he +contemn the festive malevolence of the violin's influence! His letter +had failed; no raider had intimidated these bluff, unafraid, burly +law-breakers, and he had put his life in jeopardy in his persistent +prosecution of his scheme. He gasped again at the thought. + +"_Waal_," said the moonshiner, evidently a man of short patience, and +with a definite air of spurring on the visitor's account of himself, "we +'ain't been lookin' fur any spy lately, but I'm 'lowin' ez we hev fund +him." + +His fear thus put into words so served to realize to Yerby his immediate +danger that it stood him in the stead of courage, of brains, of +invention; his flaccid muscles were suddenly again under control; he +wreathed his features with his smug artificial smile, that was like a +grimace in its best estate, and now hardly seemed more than a +contortion. But beauty in any sense was not what the observer was +prepared to expect in Nehemiah, and the moonshiner seemed to accept the +smile at its face value, and to respect its intention. + +"Spies don't kem climbin' down that thar path o' yourn in full view +through the water"--for the landscape was as visible through the thin +falling sheet as if it had been the slightly corrugated glass of a +window--"do they?" Yerby asked, with a jocose intonation. "That thar +shootin'-iron o' yourn liked ter hev skeered me ter death whenst I fust +seen it." + +His interlocutor pondered on this answer for a moment. He had an adviser +among his corps whose opinion he evidently valued; he exchanged a quick +glance with one of the men who was but dimly visible in the shadows +beyond the still, where there seemed to be a series of troughs leading a +rill of running water down from some farther spring and through the tub +in which the spiral worm was coiled. This man had a keen, white, lean +face, with an ascetic, abstemious expression, and he looked less like a +distiller than some sort of divine--some rustic pietist, with strange +theories and unhappy speculations and unsettled mind. It was a face of +subtle influences, and the very sight of it roused in Nehemiah a more +heedful fear than the "shootin'-iron" in the bluff moonshiner's hand had +induced. He was silent, while the other resumed the office of spokesman. + +"Ye ain't 'quainted hyar"--he waved his hand with the pistol in it +around at the circle of uncowering men, although the mere movement made +Nehemiah cringe with the thought that an accidental discharge might as +effectually settle his case as premeditated and deliberate murder. "Ye +dun'no' none o' us. What air ye a-doin' hyar?" + +"Why, that thar war the very trouble," Yerby hastily explained. "_I +didn't know none o' ye!_ I hed hearn ez thar war a still somewhars on +Hide-an'-Seek Creek"--once more there ensued a swift exchange of glances +among the party--"but nobody knew who run it nor whar 'twar. An' one +day, consider'ble time ago, I war a-passin' nigh 'bouts an' I hearn +that fiddle, an' that revealed the spot ter me. An' I kem ter-day +'lowin' ye an' me could strike a trade." + +Once more the bluff man of force turned an anxious look of inquiry to +the pale, thoughtful face in the brown and dark green shadows beyond the +copper gleam of the still. If policy had required that Nehemiah should +be despatched, his was the hand to do the deed, and his the stomach to +support his conscience afterward. But his brain revolted from the +discriminating analysis of Nehemiah's discourse and a decision on its +merits. + +"Trade fur what?" he demanded at last, on his own responsibility, for no +aid had radiated from the face which his looks had interrogated. + +"Fur whiskey, o' course." Nehemiah made the final plunge boldly. "I be +goin' ter open a store at the cross-roads, an' I 'lowed I could git +cheaper whiskey untaxed than taxed. I 'lowed ye wouldn't make it ef ye +didn't expec' ter sell it. I didn't know none o' you-uns, an' none o' +yer customers. An' ez I expec' ter git mo' profit on sellin' whiskey 'n +ennything else in the store, I jes took foot in hand an' kem ter see +'boutn it mysef. I never 'lowed, though, ez it mought look cur'ous ter +you-uns, or like a spy, ter kem ez bold ez brass down the path in full +sight." + +The logic of the seeming security of his approach, and the apparent +value of his scheme, had their full weight. He saw credulity gradually +overpowering doubt and distrust, and his heart grew light with relief. +Even their cautious demur, intimating a reserve of opinion to the effect +that they would think about it, did not daunt him now. He believed, in +the simplicity of his faith in his own craft, now once more in the +ascendant, that if they should accept his proposition he would be free +to go without further complication of his relations with wild-cat +whiskey. He could not sufficiently applaud his wits for the happy +termination of the adventure to which they had led him. He had gone no +further in the matter than he had always intended. Brush whiskey was the +commodity that addressed itself most to his sense of speculation. For +this he had always expected to ferret out some way of safely +negotiating. He had gone no further than he should have done, at all +events, a little later. He even began mentally to "figger on the price" +down to which he should be able to bring the distillers, as he accepted +a proffered seat in the circle about the still. He could neither divide +nor multiply by fractions, and it is not too much to say that he might +have been throttled on the spot if the moonshiners could have had a +mental vision of the liberties the stalwart integers were taking with +their price-current, so to speak, and the preternatural discount that +was making so free with their profits. So absorbed in this pleasing +intellectual exercise was Nehemiah that he did not observe that any one +had left the coterie; but when a stir without on the rocks intimated an +approach he was suddenly ill at ease, and this discomfort increased when +the new-comer proved to be a man who knew him. + +"Waal, Nehemiah Yerby!" he exclaimed, shaking his friend's hand, "I +never knowed you-uns ter be consarned in sech ez moonshinin'. I hev +been a-neighborin' Isham hyar," he laid his heavy hand on the tall +moonshiner's shoulder, "fur ten year an' better, but I won't hev nuthin' +ter do with bresh whiskey or aidin' or abettin' in illicit 'stillin'. I +like Isham, an' Isham he likes me, an' we hev jes agreed ter disagree." + +Nehemiah dared not protest nor seek to explain. He could invent no story +that would not give the lie direct to his representations to the +moonshiners. He felt that their eyes were upon him. He could only hope +that his silence did not seem to them like denial--and yet was not +tantamount to confession in the esteem of his upbraider. + +"Yes, sir," his interlocutor continued, "it's a mighty bad government +ter run agin." Then he turned to the moonshiner, evidently taking up the +business that had brought him here. "Lemme see what sorter brand ye hev +registered fur yer cattle, Isham." + +Yerby's heart sank when the suspicion percolated through his brain that +this man had been induced to come here for the purpose of recognizing +him. More fixed in this opinion was he when no description of the brand +of the cattle could be found, and the visitor finally went away, his +errand bootless. + +From time to time during the afternoon other men went out and returned +with recruits on various pretexts, all of which Nehemiah believed masked +the marshalling of witnesses to incriminate him as one of themselves, in +order to better secure his constancy to the common interests, and in +case he was playing false to put others into possession of the facts as +to the identity of the informer. His liability to the law for aiding and +abetting in moonshining was very complete before the day darkened, and +his jeopardy as to the information he had given made him shake in his +shoes. + +For at any moment, he reflected, in despair, the laggard raiders might +swoop down upon them, and the choice of rōles offered to him was to seem +to them a moonshiner, or to the moonshiners an informer. The first was +far the safer, for the clutches of the law were indeed feeble as +contrasted with the popular fury that would pursue him unwearied for +years until its vengeance was accomplished. From the one, escape was to +the last degree improbable; from the other, impossible. + +Any pretext to seek to quit the place before the definite arrangements +of his negotiation were consummated seemed even to him, despite his +eagerness to be off, too tenuous, too transparent, to be essayed, +although he devised several as he sat meditative and silent amongst the +group about the still. The prospect grew less and less inviting as the +lingering day waned, and the evening shadows, dank and chill, +perceptibly approached. The brown and green recesses of the grotto were +at once murkier, and yet more distinctly visible, for the glow of the +fire, flickering through the crevices of the metal door of the furnace, +had begun to assert its luminous quality, which was hardly perceptible +in the full light of day, and brought out the depth of the shadows. The +figures and faces of the moonshiners showed against the deepening gloom. +The sunset clouds were still red without; a vague roseate suffusion was +visible through the falling water. The sun itself had not yet sunk, for +an oblique and almost level ray, piercing the cataract, painted a series +of faint prismatic tints on one side of the rugged arch. But while the +outer world was still in touch with the clear-eyed day, night was +presently here, with mystery and doubt and dark presage. The voice of +Hoho-hebee Falls seemed to him louder, full of strange, uncomprehended +meanings, and insistent iteration. Vague echoes were elicited. Sometimes +in a seeming pause he could catch their lisping sibilant tones +repeating, repeating--what? As the darkness encroached yet more heavily +upon the cataract, the sense of its unseen motion so close at hand +oppressed his very soul; it gave an idea of the swift gathering of +shifting invisible multitudes, coming and going--who could say whence or +whither? So did this impression master his nerves that he was glad +indeed when the furnace door was opened for fuel, and he could see only +the inanimate, ever-descending sheet of water--the reverse interior +aspect of Hoho-hebee Falls--all suffused with the uncanny tawny light, +but showing white and green tints like its diurnal outer aspect, instead +of the colorless outlines, resembling a drawing of a cataract, which the +cave knew by day. He did not pause to wonder whether the sudden +transient illumination was visible without, or how it might mystify the +untutored denizens of the woods, bear, or deer, or wolf, perceiving it +aglow in the midst of the waters like a great topaz, and anon lost in +the gloom. He pined to see it; the momentary cessation of darkness, of +the effect of the sounds, so strange in the obscurity, and of the chill, +pervasive mystery of the invisible, was so grateful that its influence +was tonic to his nerves, and he came to watch for its occasion and to +welcome it. He did not grudge it even when it gave the opportunity for a +close, unfriendly, calculating scrutiny of his face by the latest comer +to the still. This was the neighboring miller, also liable to the +revenue laws, the distillers being valued patrons of the mill, and since +he ground the corn for the mash he thereby aided and abetted in the +illicit manufacture of the whiskey. His life was more out in the world +than that of his underground _confrčres_, and perhaps, as he had a +thriving legitimate business, and did not live by brush whiskey, he had +more to lose by detection than they, and deprecated even more any +unnecessary risk. He evidently took great umbrage at the introduction of +Nehemiah amongst them. + +"Oh yes," he observed, in response to the cordial greeting which he met; +"an' I'm glad ter see ye all too. I'm powerful glad ter kem ter the +still enny time. It's ekal ter goin' ter the settlemint, or plumb ter +town on a County Court day. Ye see _everybody_, an' hear _all_ the news, +an' meet up with _interestin' strangers_. I tell ye, now, the mill's +plumb lonesome compared ter the still, an' the mill's always hed the +name of a place whar a heap o' cronies gathered ter swap lies, an' +sech." + +The irony of this description of the social delights and hospitable +accessibilities of a place esteemed the very stronghold of secrecy +itself--the liberty of every man in it jeopardized by the slightest +lapse of vigilance or judgment--was very readily to be appreciated by +the group, who were invited by this fair show of words to look down the +vista of the future to possible years of captivity in the jails of +far-away States as Federal prisoners. The men gazed heavily and +anxiously from one to another as the visitor sank down on the rocks in a +relaxed attitude, his elbow on a higher ledge behind him, supporting his +head on his hand; his other hand was on his hip, his arm stiffly akimbo, +while he looked with an expression of lowering exasperation at Yerby. It +was impossible to distinguish the color of his garb, so dusted with +flour was he from head to foot; but his long boots drawn over his +trousers to the knee, and his great spurs, and a brace of pistols in his +belt, seemed incongruous accessories to the habiliments of a miller. His +large, dark hat was thrust far back on his head; his hair, rising +straight in a sort of elastic wave from his brow, was powdered white; +the effect of his florid color and his dark eyes was accented by the +contrast; his pointed beard revealed its natural tints because of his +habit of frequently brushing his hand over it, and was distinctly red. +He was lithe and lean and nervous, and had the impatient temper +characteristic of mercurial natures. It mattered not to him what was the +coercion of the circumstances which had led to the reception of the +stranger here, nor what was the will of the majority; he disapproved of +the step; he feared it; he esteemed it a grievance done him in his +absence; and he could not conceal his feelings nor wait a more fitting +time to express them in private. His irritation and objection evidently +caused some solicitude amongst the others. He was important to them, and +they deprecated his displeasure. Isham Beaton listened to the +half-covert sneers of his words with perturbation plainly depicted on +his face, and the man whom Nehemiah had at first noticed as one whose +character seemed that of adviser, and whose opinion was valued, now +spoke for the first time. He handed over a broken-nosed pitcher with the +remark, "Try the flavor of this hyar whiskey, Alfred; 'pears like ter me +the bes' we-uns hev ever hed." + +His voice was singularly smooth; it had all the qualities of culture; +every syllable, every lapse of his rude dialect, was as distinct as if +he had been taught to speak in this way; his tones were low and even, +and modulated to suave cadences; the ear experienced a sense of relief +after the loud, strident voice of the miller, poignantly penetrating and +pitched high. + +"Naw, Hilary, I don't want nuthin' ter drink. 'Bleeged ter ye, but I +ain't wantin' nuthin' ter drink," reiterated the miller, plaintively. + +Isham Beaton cast a glance of alarm at the dimly seen, monastic face of +his adviser in the gloom. It was unchanged. Its pallor and its keen +outline enabled its expression to be discerned as he himself went +through the motions of sampling the rejected liquor, shook his head +discerningly, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and deposited the +pitcher near by on a shelf of the rock. + +A pause ensued. Nehemiah, with every desire to be agreeable, hardly +knew how to commend himself to the irate miller, who would have none of +his very existence. No one could more eagerly desire him to be away than +he himself. But his absence would not satisfy the miller; nothing less +than that the intruder should never have been here. Every perceptible +lapse of the moonshiners into anxiety, every recurrent intimation of +their most pertinent reason for this anxiety, set Nehemiah a-shaking in +his shoes. Should it be esteemed the greatest good to the greatest +number to make safely away with him, his fate would forever remain +unknown, so cautious had he been to leave no trace by which he might be +followed. He gazed with deprecating urbanity, and with his lips +distended into a propitiating smile, at the troubled face powdered so +white and with its lowering eyes so dark and petulant. He noted that the +small-talk amongst the others, mere unindividualized lumpish fellows +with scant voice in the government of their common enterprise, had +ceased, and that they no longer busied themselves with the necessary +work about the still, nor with the snickering interludes and horse-play +with which they were wont to beguile their labors. They had all seated +themselves, and were looking from one to the other of the more important +members of the guild with an air which betokened the momentary +expectation of a crisis. The only exception was the man who had the +violin; with the persistent, untimely industry of incapacity, he twanged +the strings, and tuned and retuned the instrument, each time producing a +result more astonishingly off the key than before. He was evidently +unaware of this till some one with senses ajar would suggest that all +was not as it should be in the drunken reeling catch he sought to play, +when he would desist in surprise, and once more diligently rub the bow +with rosin, as if that mended the matter. The miller's lowering eyes +rested on his shadowy outline as he sat thus engaged, for a moment, and +then he broke out suddenly: + +"Yes, this hyar still is the place fur news, an' the place ter look out +fur what ye don't expec' ter happen. It's powerful pleasant ter be +a-meetin' of folks hyar--this hyar stranger this evenin'"--his gleaming +teeth in the semi-obscurity notified Yerby that a smile of spurious +politeness was bent upon him, and he made haste to grin very widely in +response--"an' that thar fiddle 'minds me o' how onexpected 'twar whenst +I met up with Lee-yander hyar--'pears ter me, Bob, ez ye air goin' ter +diddle the life out'n his fiddle--an' Hilary jes begged an' beseeched me +ter take the boy with me ter help 'round the mill, ez he war a-runnin' +away. Ye want me ter 'commodate this stranger too, ez mebbe air runnin' +from them ez wants him, hey Hilary?" + +The grin was petrified on Nehemiah's face. He felt his blood rush +quickly to his head in the excitement of the moment. So here was the +bird very close at hand! And here was his enterprise complete and +successful. He could go away after the cowardly caution of the +moonshiners should have expended itself in dallying and delay, with his +negotiation for the "wild-cat" ended, and his accomplished young +relative in charge. He drew himself erect with a sense of power. The +moonshiners, the miller, would not dare to make an objection. He knew +too much! he knew far too much! + +The door of the furnace was suddenly flung ajar, but he was too much +absorbed to perceive the change that came upon the keen face of Hilary +Tarbetts, who knelt beside it, as the guest's portentous triumphant +smile was fully revealed. Yerby did not lose, however, the glance of +reproach which the moonshiner cast upon the miller, nor the miller's air +at once triumphant, ashamed, and regretful. He had in petulant pique +disclosed the circumstance which he had pledged himself not to disclose. + +"This man's name is Yerby too," Hilary said, significantly, gazing +steadily at the miller. + +The miller looked dumfounded for a moment. He stared from one to the +other in silence. His conscious expression changed to obvious +discomfiture. He had expected no such result as this. He had merely +given way to a momentary spite in the disclosure, thinking it entirely +insignificant, only calculated to slightly annoy Hilary, who had made +the affair his own. He would not in any essential have thwarted his +comrade's plans intentionally, nor in his habitual adherence to the +principles of fair play would he have assisted in the boy's capture. He +drew himself up from his relaxed posture; his spurred feet shuffled +heavily on the stone floor of the grotto. A bright red spot appeared on +each cheek; his eyes had become anxious and subdued in the quick +shiftings of temper common to the red-haired gentry; his face of +helpless appeal was bent on Hilary Tarbetts, as if relying on his +resources to mend the matter; but ever and anon he turned his eyes, +animated with a suspicious dislike, on Yerby, who, however, could have +snapped his fingers in the faces of them all, so confident, so +hilariously triumphant was he. + +"Yerby, I b'lieve ye said yer name war, an' so did Peter Green," said +Tarbetts, still kneeling by the open furnace door, his pale cheek +reddening in the glow of the fire. + +Thus reminded of the testimony of his acquaintance, Yerby did not +venture to repudiate his cognomen. + +"An' what did ye kem hyar fur?" blustered the miller. "A-sarchin' fur +the boy?" + +Yerby's lips had parted to acknowledge this fact, but Tarbetts suddenly +anticipated his response, and answered for him: + +"Oh no, Alfred. Nobody ain't sech a fool ez ter kem hyar ter this hyar +still, a stranger an' mebbe suspected ez a spy, ter hunt up stray +children, an' git thar heads shot off, or mebbe drownded in a mighty +handy water-fall, or sech. This hyar man air one o' we-uns. He air +a-tradin' fur our liquor, an' he'll kerry a barrel away whenst he goes." + +Yerby winced at the suggestion conveyed so definitely in this crafty +speech; he was glad when the door of the furnace closed, so that his +face might not tell too much of the shifting thoughts and fears that +possessed him. + +The miller's fickle mind wavered once more. If Yerby had not come for +the boy, he himself had done no damage in disclosing Leander's +whereabouts. Once more his quickly illumined anger was kindled against +Tarbetts, who had caused him a passing but poignant self-reproach. +"Waal, then, Hilary," he demanded, "what air ye a-raisin' sech a row +fur? Lee-yander ain't noways so special precious ez I knows on. +Toler'ble lazy an' triflin', an' mightily gi'n over ter moonin' over a +readin'-book he hev got. That thar mill war a-grindin' o' nuthin' at all +more'n haffen ter-day, through me bein' a-nappin', and Lee-yander plumb +demented by his book so ez he furgot ter pour enny grist inter the +hopper. Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though +I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose +out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his +hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be goin' +ter hide his book." + +"No need," thought Nehemiah, scornfully. Book and scholar and it might +be fiddle too, so indulgent had the prospect of success made him, would +by to-morrow be on the return route to the cross-roads. He even ventured +to differ with the overbearing miller. + +"I dun'no' 'bout that; books an' edication in gin'ral air toler'ble +useful wunst in a while;" he was thinking of the dark art of dividing +and multiplying by fractions. "The Yerbys hev always hed the name o' +bein' quick at thar book." + +Now the democratic sentiment in this country is bred in the bone, and +few of its denizens have so diluted it with Christian grace as to +willingly acknowledge a superior. In such a coterie as this "eating +humble-pie" is done only at the muzzle of a "shootin'-iron." + +"Never hearn afore ez enny o' the Yerbys knowed B from bull-foot," +remarked one of the unindividualized lumpish moonshiners, shadowy, +indistinguishable in the circle about the rotund figure of the still. He +yet retained acrid recollections of unavailing struggles with the +alphabet, and was secretly of the opinion that education was a painful +thing, and, like the yellow-fever or other deadly disease, not worth +having. Nevertheless, since it was valued by others, the Yerbys should +scathless make no unfounded claims. "Ef the truth war knowed, nare one +of 'em afore could tell a book from a bear-trap." + +Nehemiah's flush the darkness concealed; he moistened his thin lips, and +then gave a little cackling laugh, as if he regarded this as pleasantry. +But the demolition of the literary pretensions of his family once begun +went bravely on. + +"Abner Sage larnt this hyar boy all he knows," another voice took up the +testimony. "Ab 'lows ez his mother war quick at school, but his +dad--law! I knowed Ebenezer Yerby! He war a frien'ly sorter cuss, +good-nachured an' kind-spoken, but ye could put all the larnin' he hed +in the corner o' yer eye." + +"An' Lee-yander don't favor none o' ye," observed another of the +undiscriminated, unimportant members of the group, who seemed to the +groping scrutiny of Nehemiah to be only endowed with sufficient identity +to do the rough work of the still, and to become liable to the Federal +law. "Thar's Hil'ry--he seen it right off. Hil'ry he tuk a look at +Lee-yander whenst he wanted ter kem an' work along o' we-uns, 'kase his +folks wanted ter take him away from the Sudleys. Hil'ry opened the +furnace door--jes so; an' he cotch the boy by the arm"--the great brawny +fellow, unconsciously dramatic, suited the action to the word, his face +and figure illumined by the sudden red glow--"an' Hil'ry, he say, 'Naw, +by God--ye hev got yer mother's eyes in yer head, an' I'll swear ye +sha'n't larn ter be a sot!' An' that's how kem Hil'ry made Alf Bixby +take Lee-yander ter work in the mill. Ef ennybody tuk arter him he war +convenient ter disappear down hyar with we-uns. So he went ter the +mill." + +"An' I wisht I hed put him in the hopper an' ground him up," said the +miller, in a blood-curdling tone, but with a look of plaintive anxiety +in his eyes. "He hev made a heap o' trouble 'twixt Hil'ry an' me fust +an' last. Whar's Hil'ry disappeared to, ennyways?" + +For the flare from the furnace showed that this leading spirit amongst +the moonshiners had gone softly out. Nehemiah, whose courage was +dissipated by some subtle influence of his presence, now made bold to +ask, "An' what made him ter set store on Lee-yander's mother's eyes?" +His tone was as bluffly sarcastic as he dared. + +"Shucks--ye mus' hev hearn that old tale," said the miller, cavalierly. +"This hyar Malviny Hixon--ez lived down in Tanglefoot Cove then--her an' +Hil'ry war promised ter marry, but the revenuers captured him--he war +a-runnin' a still in Tanglefoot then--an' they kep' him in jail somewhar +in the North fur five year. Waal, she waited toler'ble constant fur two +or three year, but Ebenezer Yerby he kem a-visitin' his kin down in +Tanglefoot Cove, an' she an' him met at a bran dance, an' the fust thing +I hearn they war married, an' 'fore Hil'ry got back she war dead an' +buried, an' so war Ebenezer." + +There was a pause while the flames roared in the furnace, and the +falling water desperately dashed upon the rocks, and its tumultuous +voice continuously pervaded the silent void wildernesses without, and +the sibilant undertone, the lisping whisperings, smote the senses anew. + +"He met up with cornsider'ble changes fur five year," remarked one of +the men, regarding the matter in its chronological aspect. + +Nehemiah said nothing. He had heard the story before, but it had been +forgotten. A worldly mind like his is not apt to burden itself with the +sentimental details of an antenuptial romance of the woman whom his +half-brother had married many years ago. + +A persuasion that it was somewhat unduly long-lived impressed others of +the party. + +"It's plumb cur'us Hil'ry ain't never furgot her," observed one of them. +"He hev never married at all. My wife says it's jes contrariousness. Ef +Malviny hed been his wife an' died, he'd hev married agin 'fore the year +war out. An' I tell my wife that he'd hev been better acquainted with +her then, an' would hev fund out ez no woman war wuth mournin' 'bout fur +nigh twenty year. My wife says she can't make out ez how Hil'ry 'ain't +got pride enough not ter furgive her fur givin' him the mitten like she +done. An' I tell my wife that holdin' a gredge agin a woman fur bein' +fickle is like holdin' a gredge agin her fur bein' a woman." + +He paused with an air, perceived somehow in the brown dusk, of having +made a very neat point. A stir of assent was vaguely suggested when some +chivalric impulse roused a champion at the farther side of the worm, +whose voice rang out brusquely: + +"Jes listen at Tom! A body ter hear them tales he tells 'bout argufyin' +with his wife would 'low he war a mighty smart, apt man, an' the pore +foolish 'oman skeercely hed a sensible word ter bless herself with. When +everybody that knows Tom knows he sings mighty small round home. Ye +stopped too soon, Tom. Tell what yer wife said to that." + +Tom's embarrassed feet shuffled heavily on the rocks, apparently in +search of subterfuge. The dazzling glintings from the crevices of the +furnace door showed here and there gleaming teeth broadly agrin. + +"Jes called me a fool in gineral," admitted the man skilled in argument. + +"An' didn't she 'low ez men folks war fickle too, an' remind ye o' yer +young days whenst ye went a-courtin' hyar an' thar, an' tell over a +string o' gals' names till she sounded like an off'cer callin' the +roll?" + +"Ye-es," admitted Tom, thrown off his balance by this preternatural +insight, "but all them gals war a-tryin' ter marry me--not me tryin' ter +marry them." + +There was a guffaw at this modest assertion, but the disaffected +miller's tones dominated the rude merriment. + +"Whenst a feller takes ter drink folks kin spell out a heap o' reasons +but the true one--an' that's 'kase he likes it. Hil'ry 'ain't never +named that 'oman's name ter me, an' I hev knowed him ez well ez ennybody +hyar. Jes t'other day whenst that boy kem, bein' foolish an' maudlin, he +seen suthin' oncommon in Lee-yander's eyes--they'll be mighty oncommon +ef he keeps on readin' his tomfool book, ez he knows by heart, by the +firelight when it's dim. Ef folks air so sot agin strong drink, let 'em +drink less tharsefs. Hear Brother Peter Vickers preach agin liquor, an' +ye'd know ez all wine-bibbers air bound fur hell." + +"But the Bible don't name 'whiskey' once," said the man called Tom, in +an argumentative tone. "Low wines I'll gin ye up;" he made the +discrimination in accents betokening much reasonable admission; "but +nare time does the Bible name whiskey, nor yit peach brandy, nor +apple-jack." + +"Nor cider nor beer," put in an unexpected recruit from the darkness. + +The miller was silent for a moment, and gave token of succumbing to this +unexpected polemic strength. Then, taking thought and courage together, +"Ye can't say the Bible ain't down on 'strong drink'?" There was no +answer from the vanquished, and he went on in the overwhelming miller's +voice: "Hil'ry hed better be purtectin' hisself from strong drink, +'stiddier the boy--by makin' him stay up thar at the mill whar he knows +thar's no drinkin' goin' on--ez will git chances at it other ways, ef +not through him, in the long life he hev got ter live. The las' time the +revenuers got Hil'ry 'twar through bein' ez drunk ez a fraish-biled owl. +It makes me powerful oneasy whenever I know ye air all drunk an' +a-gallopadin' down hyar, an' no mo' able to act reasonable in case o' +need an' purtect yersefs agin spies an' revenuers an' sech 'n nuthin' in +this worl'. The las' raid, ye 'member, we hed the still over yander;" he +jerked his thumb in the direction present to his thoughts, but unseen by +his coadjutors; "a man war wounded, an' we dun'no' but what killed in +the scuffle, an' it mought be a hangin' matter ter git caught now. Ye +oughter keep sober; an' ye know, Isham, ye oughter keep Hil'ry sober. I +dun'no' why ye can't. I never could abide the nasty stuff--it's enough +ter turn a bullfrog's stomach. Whiskey is good ter sell--not ter drink. +Let them consarned idjits in the flat woods buy it, an' drink it. +Whiskey is good ter sell--not ter drink." + +This peculiar temperance argument was received in thoughtful silence, +the reason of all the mountaineers commending it, while certain of them +knew themselves and were known to be incapable of profiting by it. + +Nehemiah had scant interest in this conversation. He was conscious of +the strain on his attention as he followed it, that every point of the +situation should be noted, and its utility canvassed at a leisure +moment. He marked the allusion to the man supposed to have been killed +in the skirmish with the raiders, and he appraised its value as coercion +in any altercation that he might have in seeking to take Leander from +his present guardians. But he felt in elation that this was likely to be +of the slightest; the miller evidently found himself hampered rather +than helped by the employment of the boy; and as to the moonshiner's +sentimental partisanship, for the sake of an old attachment to the +dead-and-gone mountain girl, there was hardly anything in the universe +so tenuous as to bear comparison with its fragility. "A few drinks +ahead," he said to himself, with a sneer, "an' he won't remember who +Malviny Hixon was, ef thar is ennything in the old tale--which it's +more'n apt thar ain't." + +He began, after the fashion of successful people, to cavil because his +success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this +uncomfortable interlude! Why could he not have discovered Leander's +whereabouts earlier, and by now be jogging along the road home with the +boy by his side? Why had he not bethought himself of the mill in the +first instance--that focus of gossip where all the news of the +countryside is mysteriously garnered and thence dispensed bounteously to +all comers? It was useless, as he fretted and chafed at these untoward +omissions, to urge in his own behalf that he did not know of the +existence of the mill, and that the miller, being an ungenial and +choleric man, might have perversely lent himself to resisting his demand +for the custody of the young runaway. No, he told himself emphatically, +and with good logic, too, the miller's acrimony rose from the fact of a +stranger's discovery of the still and the danger of his introduction +into its charmed circle. And that reflection reminded him anew of his +own danger here--not from the lawless denizens of the place, but from +the forces which he himself had evoked, and again he glanced out toward +the water-fall as fearful of the raiders as any moonshiner of them all. + +But what sudden glory was on the waters, mystic, white, an opaque +brilliance upon the swirling foam and the bounding spray, a crystalline +glitter upon the smooth expanse of the swift cataract! The moon was in +the sky, and its light, with noiseless tread, sought out strange, lonely +places, and illusions were astir in the solitudes. Pensive peace, +thoughts too subtle for speech to shape, spiritual yearnings, were +familiars of the hour and of this melancholy splendor; but he knew none +of them, and the sight gave him no joy. He only thought that this was a +night for the saddle, for the quiet invasion of the woods, when the few +dwellers by the way-side were lost in slumber. He trembled anew at the +thought of the raiders whom he himself had summoned; he forgot his +curses on their laggard service; he upbraided himself again that he had +not earlier made shift to depart by some means--by any means--before the +night came with this great emblazoning bold-faced moon that but +prolonged the day; and he started to his feet with a galvanic jerk and a +sharp exclamation when swift steps were heard on the rocks outside, and +a man with the lightness of a deer sprang down the ledges and into the +great arched opening of the place. + +"'Tain't nobody but Hil'ry," observed Isham Beaton, half in reproach, +half in reassurance. + +The pervasive light without dissipated in some degree the gloom within +the grotto; a sort of gray visibility was on the appurtenances and the +figures about the still, not strong enough to suggest color, but giving +contour. His fright had been marked, he knew; a sort of surprised +reflectiveness was in the manner of several of the moonshiners, and +Nehemiah, with his ready fears, fancied that this inopportune show of +terror had revived their suspicions of him. It required some effort to +steady his nerves after this, and when footfalls were again audible +outside, and all the denizens of the place sat calmly smoking their +pipes without so much as a movement toward investigating the sound, he, +knowing whose steps he had invited thither, had great ado with the +coward within to keep still, as if he had no more reason to fear an +approach than they. + +A great jargon in the tone of ecstasy broke suddenly on the air upon +this new entrance, shattering what little composure Nehemiah had been +able to muster; a wide-mouthed exaggeration of welcome in superlative +phrases and ready chorus. Swiftly turning, he saw nothing for a moment, +for he looked at the height which a man's head might reach, and the +new-comer measured hardly two feet in stature, waddled with a very +uncertain gait, and although he bore himself with manifest complacence, +he had evidently heard the like before, as he was jovially hailed by +every ingratiating epithet presumed to be acceptable to his infant mind. +He was attended by a tall, gaunt boy of fifteen, barefooted, with +snaggled teeth and a shock of tow hair, wearing a shirt of unbleached +cotton, and a pair of trousers supported by a single suspender drawn +across a sharp, protuberant shoulder-blade behind and a very narrow +chest in front. But his face was proud and happy and gleeful, as if he +occupied some post of honor and worldly emolument in attending upon the +waddling wonder on the floor in front of him, instead of being assigned +the ungrateful task of seeing to it that a very ugly baby closely +related to him did not, with the wiliness and ingenuity of infant +nature, invent some method of making away with himself. For he _was_ an +ugly baby as he stood revealed in the flare of the furnace door, thrown +open that his admirers and friends might feast their eyes upon him. His +short wisps of red hair stood straight up in front; his cheeks were +puffy and round, but very rosy; his eyes were small and dark, but +blandly roguish; his mouth was wide and damp, and had in it a small +selection of sample teeth, as it were; he wore a blue checked homespun +dress garnished down the back with big horn buttons, sparsely set on; he +clasped his chubby hands upon a somewhat pompous stomach; he sidled +first to the right, then to the left, in doubt as to which of the +various invitations he should accept. + +"Kem hyar, Snooks!" "Right hyar, Toodles!" "Me hyar, Monkey Doodle!" +"Hurrah fur the leetle-est moonshiner on record!" resounded fulsomely +about him. Many were the compliments showered upon him, and if his +flatterers told lies, they had told more wicked ones. The pipes all went +out, and the broken-nosed pitcher languished in disuse as he trotted +from one pair of outstretched arms to another to give an exhibition of +his progress in the noble art of locomotion; and if he now and again sat +down, unexpectedly to himself and to the spectator, he was promptly put +upon his feet again with spurious applause and encouragement. He gave +an exhibition of his dancing--a funny little shuffle of exceeding +temerity, considering the facilities at his command for that agile +amusement, but he was made reckless by praise--and they all lied +valiantly in chorus. He repeated all the words he knew, which were few, +and for the most part unintelligible, crowed like a cock, barked like a +dog, mewed like a cat, and finally went away, his red cheeks yet more +ruddily aglow, grave and excited and with quickly beating pulses, like +one who has achieved some great public success and led captive the +hearts of thousands. + +The turmoils of his visit and his departure were great indeed. It all +irked Nehemiah Yerby, who had scant toleration of infancy and little +perception of the jocosity of the aspect of callow human nature, and it +seemed strange to him that these men, all with their liberty, even their +existence, jeopardized upon the chances that a moment might bring forth, +could so relax their sense of danger, so disregard the mandates of +stolid common-sense, and give themselves over to the puerile +beguilements of the visitor. The little animal was the son of one of +them, he knew, but he hardly guessed whom until he marked the paternal +pride and content that had made unwontedly placid the brow of the irate +miller while the ovation was in progress. Nehemiah greatly preferred the +adult specimen of the race, and looked upon youth as an infirmity which +would mend only with time. He was easily confused by a stir; the +gurglings, the ticklings, the loud laughter both in the deep bass of the +hosts and the keen treble of the guest had a befuddling effect upon him; +his powers of observation were numbed. As the great, burly forms +shifted to and fro, resuming their former places, the red light from the +open door of the furnace illumining their laughing, bearded +countenances, casting a roseate suffusion upon the white turmoils of the +cataract, and showing the rugged interior of the place with its damp and +dripping ledges, he saw for the first time among them Leander's slight +figure and smiling face; the violin was in his hand, one end resting on +a rock as he tightened a string; his eyes were bent upon the instrument, +while his every motion was earnestly watched by the would-be fiddler. + +Nehemiah started hastily to his feet. He had not expected that the boy +would see him here. To share with one of his own household a secret like +this of aiding in illicit distilling was more than his hardihood could +well contemplate. As once more the contemned "ping-pang" of the process +of tuning fell upon the air, Leander chanced to lift his eyes. They +smilingly swept the circle until they rested upon his uncle. They +suddenly dilated with astonishment, and the violin fell from his +nerveless hand upon the floor. The surprise, the fear, the repulsion his +face expressed suddenly emboldened Nehemiah. The boy evidently had not +been prepared for the encounter with his relative here. Its only +significance to his mind was the imminence of capture and of being +constrained to accompany his uncle home. He cast a glance of indignant +reproach upon Hilary Tarbetts, who was not even looking at him. The +moonshiner stood filling his pipe with tobacco, and as he deftly +extracted a coal from the furnace to set it alight, he shut the door +with a clash, and for a moment the whole place sunk into invisibility, +the vague radiance vouchsafed to the recesses of the grotto by the +moonbeams on the water without annihilated for the time by the contrast +with the red furnace glare. Nehemiah had a swift fear that in this +sudden eclipse Leander might slip softly out and thus be again lost to +him, but as the dull gray light gradually reasserted itself, and the +figures and surroundings emerged from the gloom, resuming shape and +consistency, he saw Leander still standing where he had disappeared in +the darkness; he could even distinguish his pale face and lustrous eyes. +Leander at least had no intention to shirk explanations. + +"Why, Uncle Nehemiah!" he said, his boyish voice ringing out tense and +excited above the tones of the men, once more absorbed in their wonted +interests. A sudden silence ensued amongst them. "What air ye a-doin' +hyar?" + +"Waal, ah, Lee-yander, boy--" Nehemiah hesitated. A half-suppressed +chuckle among the men, whom he had observed to be addicted to +horse-play, attested their relish of the situation. Ridicule is always +of unfriendly intimations, and the sound served to put Nehemiah on his +guard anew. He noticed that the glow in Hilary's pipe was still and +dull: the smoker did not even draw his breath as he looked and listened. +Yerby did not dare avow the true purpose of his presence after his +representations to the moonshiners, and yet he could not, he would not +in set phrase align himself with the illicit vocation. The boy was too +young, too irresponsible, too inimical to his uncle, he reflected in a +sudden panic, to be intrusted with this secret. If in his hap-hazard, +callow folly he should turn informer, he was almost too young to be +amenable to the popular sense of justice. He might, too, by some +accident rather than intention, divulge the important knowledge so +unsuitable to his years and his capacity for guarding it. He began to +share the miller's aversion to the introduction of outsiders to the +still. He felt a glow of indignation, as if he had always been a party +in interest, that the common safety should not be more jealously +guarded. The danger which Leander's youth and inexperience threatened +had not been so apparent to him when he first heard that the boy had +been here, and the menace was merely for the others. As he felt the +young fellow's eyes upon him he recalled the effusive piety of his +conversation at Tyler Sudley's house, his animadversions on +violin-playing and liquor-drinking, and Brother Peter Vickers's mild and +merciful attitude toward sinners in those unspiced sermons of his, that +held out such affluence of hope to the repentant rather than to the +self-righteous. The blood surged unseen into Nehemiah's face. For shame, +for very shame he could not confess himself one with these outcasts. He +made a feint of searching in the semi-obscurity for the rickety chair on +which he had been seated, and resumed his former attitude as Leander's +voice once more rang out: + +"What air ye a-doin' hyar, Uncle Nehemiah?" + +"Jes a-visitin', sonny; jes a-visitin'." + +There was a momentary pause, and the felicity of the answer was +demonstrated by another chuckle from the group. His senses, alert to the +emergency, discriminated a difference in the tone. This time the laugh +was with him rather than at him. He noted, too, Leander's dumfounded +pause, and the suggestion of discomfiture in the boy's lustrous eyes, +still widely fixed upon him. As Leander stooped to pick up the violin he +remarked with an incidental accent, and evidently in default of retort, +"I be powerful s'prised ter view ye hyar." + +Nehemiah smarted under the sense of unmerited reproach; so definitely +aware was he of being out of the character which he had assumed and worn +until it seemed even to him his own, that he felt as if he were +constrained to some ghastly masquerade. Even the society of the +moonshiners as their guest was a reproach to one who had always piously, +and in such involuted and redundant verbiage, spurned the ways and +haunts of the evil-doer. According to the dictates of policy he should +have rested content with his advantage over the silenced lad. But his +sense of injury engendered a desire of reprisal, and he impulsively +carried the war into the enemy's country. + +"I ain't in no ways s'prised ter view you-uns hyar, Lee-yander," he +said. "From the ways, Lee-yander, ez ye hev been brung up by them +slack-twisted Sudleys--ungodly folks 'ceptin' what little regeneration +they kin git from the sermons of Brother Peter Vickers, who air +onsartain in his mind whether folks ez ain't church-members air goin' +ter be damned or no--I ain't s'prised none ter view ye hyar." He +suddenly remembered poor Laurelia's arrogations of special piety, and +it was with exceeding ill will that he added: "An' Mis' Sudley in +partic'lar. Ty ain't no great shakes ez a shoutin' Christian. I dun'no' +ez I ever hearn him shout once, but his wife air one o' the reg'lar, +mournful, unrejicing members, always questioning the decrees of +Providence, an' what ain't no nigher salvation, ef the truth war knowed, +'n a sinner with the throne o' grace yit ter find." + +Leander had not picked up the violin; this disquisition had arrested his +hand until his intention was forgotten. He came slowly to the +perpendicular, and his eyes gleamed in the dusk. A vibration of anger +was in his voice as he retorted: + +"Mebbe so--mebbe they air sinners; but they'd look powerful comical +'visitin' hyar!" + +"Ty Sudley ain't one o' the drinkin' kind," interpolated the miller, who +evidently had the makings of a temperance man. "He never sot foot hyar +in his life." + +"Them ez kem a-visitin' hyar," blustered the boy, full of the +significance of his observations and experience, "air either wantin' a +drink or two 'thout payin' fur it, or else air tradin' fur liquor ter +sell, an' that's the same ez moonshinin' in the law." + +There was a roar of delight from the circle of lumpish figures about the +still which told the boy that he had hit very near to the mark. Nehemiah +hardly waited for it to subside before he made an effort to divert +Leander's attention. + +"An' what air _you-uns_ doin' hyar?" he demanded. "Tit for tat." + +"Why," bluffly declared Leander, "I be a-runnin' away from you-uns. An' +I 'lowed the still war one place whar I'd be sure o' not meetin' ye. +Not ez I hev got ennything agin moonshinin' nuther," he added, hastily, +mindful of a seeming reflection on his refuge. "Moonshinin' _is +business_, though the United States don't seem ter know it. But I hev +hearn ye carry on so pious 'bout not lookin' on the wine whenst it be +red, that I 'lowed ye wouldn't like ter look on the still whenst--whenst +it's yaller." He pointed with a burst of callow merriment at the big +copper vessel, and once more the easily excited mirth of the circle +burst forth irrepressibly. + +Encouraged by this applause, Leander resumed: "Why, _I_ even turns my +back on the still myself out'n respec' ter the family--Cap'n an' +Neighbor bein' so set agin liquor. Cap'n's ekal ter preachin' on it ef +ennything onexpected war ter happen ter Brother Vickers. An' when I +_hev_ ter view it, I look at it sorter cross-eyed." The flickering line +of light from the crevice of the furnace door showed that he was +squinting frightfully, with the much-admired eyes his mother had +bequeathed to him, at the rotund shadow, with the yellow gleams of the +metal barely suggested in the brown dusk. "So I tuk ter workin' at the +mill. An' _I_ hev got nuthin' ter do with the still." There was a pause. +Then, with a strained tone of appeal in his voice, for a future with +Uncle Nehemiah had seemed very terrible to him, "So ye warn't a-sarchin' +hyar fur me, war ye, Uncle Nehemiah?" + +Nehemiah was at a loss. There is a peculiar glutinous quality in the +resolve of a certain type of character which is not allied to +steadfastness of purpose, nor has it the enlightened persistence of +obstinacy. In view of his earlier account of his purpose he could not +avow his errand; it bereft him of naught to disavow it, for Uncle +Nehemiah was one of those gifted people who, in common parlance, do not +mind what they say. Yet his reluctance to assure Leander that he was not +the quarry that had led him into these wilds so mastered him, the +spurious relinquishment had so the aspect of renunciation, that he +hesitated, started to speak, again hesitated, so palpably that Hilary +Tarbetts felt impelled to take a hand in the game. + +"Why don't ye sati'fy the boy, Yerby?" he said, brusquely. He took his +pipe out of his mouth and turned to Leander. "Naw, bub. He's jes tradin' +fur bresh whiskey, that's all; he's sorter skeery 'bout bein' a +wild-catter, an' he didn't want ye ter know it." + +The point of red light, the glow of his pipe, the only exponent of his +presence in the dusky recess where he sat, shifted with a quick, +decisive motion as he restored it to his lips. + +The blood rushed to Nehemiah's head; he was dizzy for a moment; he heard +his heart thump heavily; he saw, or he fancied he saw, the luminous +distention of Leander's eyes as this Goliath of his battles was thus +delivered into his hands. To meet him here proved nothing; the law was +not violated by Nehemiah in the mere knowledge that illicit whiskey was +in process of manufacture; a dozen different errands might have brought +him. But this statement put a sword, as it were, into the boy's hands, +and he dared not deny it. + +"'Pears ter me," he blurted out at last, "ez ye air powerful slack with +yer jaw." + +"Lee-yander ain't," coolly returned Tarbetts. "He knows all thar is ter +know 'bout we-uns--an' why air ye not ter share our per'ls?" + +"I ain't likely ter tell," Leander jocosely reassured him. "But I can't +help thinkin' how it would rejice that good Christian 'oman, Cap'n +Sudley, ez war made ter set on sech a low stool 'bout my pore old +fiddle." + +And thus reminded of the instrument, he picked it up, and once more, +with the bow held aloft in his hand, he dexterously twanged the strings, +and with his deft fingers rapidly and discriminatingly turned the +screws, this one up and that one down. The earnest would-be musician, +who had languished while the discussion was in progress, now plucked up +a freshened interest, and begged that the furnace door might be set ajar +to enable him to watch the process of tuning and perchance to detect its +subtle secret. No objection was made, for the still was nearly empty, +and arrangements tending to replenishment were beginning to be +inaugurated by several of the men, who were examining the mash in tubs +in the further recesses of the place. They were lighted by a lantern +which, swinging to and fro as they moved, sometimes so swiftly as to +induce a temporary fluctuation threatening eclipse, suggested in the +dusk the erratic orbit of an abnormally magnified fire-fly. It barely +glimmered, the dullest point of white light, when the rich flare from +the opening door of the furnace gushed forth and the whole rugged +interior was illumined with its color. The inadequate moonlight fell +away; the chastened white splendor on the foam of the cataract, the +crystalline glitter, timorously and elusively shifting, were +annihilated; the swiftly descending water showed from within only a +continuously moving glow of yellow light, all the brighter from the +dark-seeming background of the world glimpsed without. A wind had risen, +unfelt in these recesses and on the weighty volume of the main sheet of +falling water, but at its verge the fitful gusts diverted its downward +course, tossing slender jets aslant, and sending now and again a shower +of spray into the cavern. Nehemiah remembered his rheumatism with a +shiver. The shadows of the men, instead of an unintelligible +comminglement with the dusk, were now sharp and distinct, and the light +grotesquely duplicated them till the cave seemed full of beings who were +not there a moment before--strange gnomes, clumsy and burly, slow of +movement, but swift and mysterious of appearance and disappearance. The +beetling ledges here and there imprinted strong black similitudes of +their jagged contours on the floor; with the glowing, weird illumination +the place seemed far more uncanny than before, and Leander, with his +face pensive once more in response to the gentle strains slowly elicited +by the bow trembling with responsive ecstasy, his large eyes full of +dreamy lights, his curling hair falling about his cheek as it rested +upon the violin, his figure, tall and slender and of an adolescent +grace, might have suggested to the imagination a reminiscence of Orpheus +in Hades. They all listened in languid pleasure, without the effort to +appraise the music or to compare it with other performances--the bane of +more cultured audiences; only the ardent amateur, seated close at hand +on a bowlder, watched the bowing with a scrutiny which betokened +earnest anxiety that no mechanical trick might elude him. The miller's +half-grown son, whose ear for any fine distinctions in sound might be +presumed to have been destroyed by the clamors of the mill, sat a trifle +in the background, and sawed away on an imaginary violin with many +flourishes and all the exaggerations of mimicry; he thus furnished the +zest of burlesque relished by the devotees of horse-play and simple +jests, and was altogether unaware that he had a caricature in his shadow +just behind him, and was doing double duty in making both Leander and +himself ridiculous. Sometimes he paused in excess of interest when the +music elicited an amusement more to his mind than the long-drawn, +pathetic cadences which the violinist so much affected. For in sudden +changes of mood and in effective contrast the tones came showering forth +in keen, quick staccato, every one as round and distinct as a globule, +but as unindividualized in the swift exuberance of the whole as a drop +in a summer's rain; the bow was but a glancing line of light in its +rapidity, and the bounding movement of the theme set many a foot astir +marking time. At last one young fellow, an artist too in his way, laid +aside his pipe and came out to dance. A queer _pas seul_ it might have +been esteemed, but he was light and agile and not ungraceful, and he +danced with an air of elation--albeit with a grave face--which added to +the enjoyment of the spectator, for it seemed so slight an effort. He +was long-winded, and was still bounding about in the double-shuffle and +the pigeon-wing, his shadow on the wall nimbly following every motion, +when the violin's cadence quavered off in a discordant wail, and +Leander, the bow pointed at the water-fall, exclaimed: "Look out! +Somebody's thar! Out thar on the rocks!" + +It was upon the instant, with the evident intention of a surprise, that +a dozen armed men rushed precipitately into the place. Nehemiah, his +head awhirl, hardly distinguished the events as they were confusedly +enacted before him. There were loud, excited calls, unintelligible, +mouthing back in the turbulent echoes of the place, the repeated word +"Surrender!" alone conveying meaning to his mind. The sharp, succinct +note of a pistol-shot was a short answer. Some quick hand closed the +door of the furnace and threw the place into protective gloom. He was +vaguely aware that a prolonged struggle that took place amongst a group +of men near him was the effort of the intruders to reopen it. All +unavailing. He presently saw figures drawing back to the doorway out of +the _mźlée_, for moonshiner and raider were alike indistinguishable, and +he became aware that both parties were equally desirous to gain the +outer air. Once more pistol-shots--outside this time--then a tumult of +frenzied voices. Struck by a pistol-ball, Tarbetts had fallen from the +ledge under the weight of the cataract and into the deep abysses below. +The raiders were swiftly getting to saddle again. Now and then a crack +mountain shot drew a bead upon them from the bushes; but mists were +gathering, the moon was uncertain, and the flickering beams deflected +the aim. Two or three of the horses lay dead on the river-bank, and +others carried double, ridden by men with riddled hats. They were in +full retreat, for the catastrophe on the ledge of the cliff struck +dismay to their hearts. Had the man been shot, according to the +expectation of those who resist arrest, this would be merely the logical +sequence of events. But to be hurled from a crag into a cataract savored +of atrocity, and they dreaded the reprisals of capture. + +[Illustration: "'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'"] + +It was soon over. The whole occurrence, charged with all the +definitiveness of fate, was scant ten minutes in transition. A laggard +hoof-beat, a faint echo amidst the silent gathering of the moonlit +mists, and the loud plaint of Hoho-hebee Falls were the only sounds that +caught Nehemiah's anxious ear when he crept out from behind the empty +barrels and tremulously took his way along the solitary ledges, ever and +anon looking askance at his shadow, that more than once startled him +with a sense of unwelcome companionship. The mists, ever thickening, +received him into their midst. However threatening to the retreat of the +raiders, they were friendly to him. Once, indeed, they parted, showing +through the gauzy involutions of their illumined folds the pale moon +high in the sky, and close at hand a horse's head just above his own, +with wild, dilated eyes and quivering nostrils. Its effect was as +detached as if it were only drawn upon a canvas; the mists rolled over +anew, and but that he heard the subdued voice of the rider urging the +animal on, and the thud of the hoofs farther away, he might have thought +this straggler from the revenue party some wild illusion born of his +terrors. + +The fate of Hilary Tarbetts remained a mystery. When the stream was +dragged for his body it was deemed strange that it should not be found, +since the bowlders that lay all adown the rocky gorge so interrupted the +sweep of the current that so heavy a weight seemed likely to be caught +amongst them. Others commented on the strength and great momentum of the +flow, and for this reason it was thought that in some dark underground +channel of Hide-and-Seek Creek the moonshiner had found his sepulchre. A +story of his capture was circulated after a time; it was supposed that +he dived and swam ashore after his fall, and that the raiders overtook +him on their retreat, and that he was now immured, a Federal prisoner. +The still and all the effects of the brush-whiskey trade disappeared as +mysteriously, and doubtless this silent flitting gave rise to the +hopeful rumor that Tarbetts had been seen alive and well since that +fateful night, and that in some farther recesses of the wilderness, +undiscovered by the law, he and like comrades continue their chosen +vocation. However that may be, the vicinity of Hoho-hebee Falls, always +a lonely place, is now even a deeper solitude. The beavers, unmolested, +haunt the ledges; along their precipitous ways the deer come down to +drink; on bright days the rainbow hovers about the falls; on bright +nights they glimmer in the moon; but never again have they glowed with +the shoaling orange light of the furnace, intensifying to the deep tawny +tints of its hot heart, like the rich glamours of some great topaz. + +This alien glow it was thought had betrayed the place to the raiders, +and Nehemiah's instrumentality was never discovered. The post-office +appointment was bestowed upon his rival for the position, and it was +thought somewhat strange that he should endure the defeat with such +exemplary resignation. No one seemed to connect his candidacy with his +bootless search for his nephew. When Leander chanced to be mentioned, +however, he observed with some rancor that he reckoned it was just as +well he didn't come up with Lee-yander; there was generally mighty +little good in a runaway boy, and Lee-yander had the name of being +disobejent an' turr'ble bad. + +Leander found a warm welcome at home. His violin had been broken in the +_mźlée_, and the miller, though ardently urged, never could remember the +spot where he had hidden the book--such havoc had the confusion of that +momentous night wrought in his mental processes. Therefore, unhampered +by music or literature, Leander addressed himself to the plough-handles, +and together that season he and "Neighbor" made the best crop of their +lives. + +Laurelia sighed for the violin and Leander's music, though, as she +always made haste to say, some pious people misdoubted whether it were +not a sinful pastime. On such occasions it went hard with Leander not to +divulge his late experiences and the connection of the pious Uncle +Nehemiah therewith. But he always remembered in time Laurelia's +disability to receive confidences, being a woman, and consequently +unable to keep a secret, and he desisted. + +One day, however, when he and Ty Sudley, ploughing the corn, now +knee-high, were pausing to rest in the turn-row, a few furrows apart, in +an ebullition of filial feeling he told all that had befallen him in +his absence. Ty Sudley, divided between wrath toward Nehemiah and +quaking anxiety for the dangers that Leander had been constrained to +run--_ex post facto_ tremors, but none the less acute--felt moved now +and then to complacence in his prodigy. + +"So 'twar _you-uns_ ez war smart enough ter slam the furnace door an' +throw the whole place inter darkness! That saved them moonshiners and +raiders from killin' each other. It saved a deal o' bloodshed--ez sure +ez shootin'. 'Twar mighty smart in ye. But"--suddenly bethinking himself +of sundry unfilial gibes at Uncle Nehemiah and the facetious account of +his plight--"Lee-yander, ye mustn't be so turr'ble bad, sonny; ye +_mustn't_ be so _turr'ble_ bad." + +"Naw, ma'am, Neighbor, I won't," Leander protested. + +And he went on following the plough down the furrow and singing loud and +clear. + + + + +THE RIDDLE OF THE ROCKS + + +Upon the steep slope of a certain "bald" among the Great Smoky Mountains +there lie, just at the verge of the strange stunted woods from which the +treeless dome emerges to touch the clouds, two great tilted blocks of +sandstone. They are of marked regularity of shape, as square as if hewn +with a chisel. Both are splintered and fissured; one is broken in twain. +No other rock is near. The earth in which they are embedded is the rich +black soil not unfrequently found upon the summits. Nevertheless no +great significance might seem to attach to their isolation--an +outcropping of ledges, perhaps; a fracture of the freeze; a trace of +ancient denudation by the waters of the spring in the gap, flowing now +down the trough of the gorge in a silvery braid of currents, and with a +murmur that is earnest of a song. + +It may have been some distortion of the story heard only from the lips +of the circuit rider, some fantasy of tradition invested with the +urgency of fact, but Roger Purdee could not remember the time when he +did not believe that these were the stone tables of the Law that Moses +flung down from the mountain-top in his wrath. In the dense ignorance of +the mountaineer, and his secluded life, he knew of no foreign +countries, no land holier than the land of his home. There was no +incongruity to his mind that it should have been in the solemn silence +and austere solitude of the "bald," in the magnificent ascendency of the +Great Smoky, that the law-giver had met the Lord and spoken with Him. +Often as he lay at length on the strange barren place, veiled with the +clouds that frequented it, a sudden sunburst in their midst would +suggest anew what supernal splendors had once been here vouchsafed to +the faltering eye of man. The illusion had come to be very dear to him; +in this insistent localization of his faith it was all very near. And so +he would go down to the slope below, among the weird, stunted trees, and +look once more upon the broken tables, and ponder upon the strange signs +written by time thereon. The insistent fall of the rain, the incisive +blasts of the wind, coming again and again, though the centuries went, +were registered here in mystic runes. The surface had weathered to a +whitish-gray, but still in tiny depressions its pristine dark color +showed in rugose characters. A splintered fissure held delicate fucoid +impressions in fine script full of meaning. A series of worm-holes +traced erratic hieroglyphics across a scaling corner; all the varied +texts were illuminated by quartzose particles glittering in the sun, and +here and there fine green grains of glauconite. He knew no names like +these, and naught of meteorological potency. He had studied no other +rock. His casual notice had been arrested nowhere by similar signs. +Under the influence of his ignorant superstition, his cherished +illusion, the lonely wilderness, what wonder that, as he pondered upon +the rocks, strange mysteries seemed revealed to him? He found +significance in these cabalistic scriptures--nay, he read inspired +words! With the ramrod of his gun he sought to follow the fine tracings +of the letters writ by the finger of the Lord on the stone tables that +Moses flung down from the mountain-top in his wrath. + +With a devout thankfulness Purdee realized that he owned the land where +they lay. It was worth, perhaps, a few cents an acre; it was utterly +untillable, almost inaccessible, and his gratulation owed its fervor +only to its spiritual values. He was an idle and shiftless fellow, and +had known no glow of acquisition, no other pride of possession. He +herded cattle much of the time in the summer, and he hunted in the +winter--wolves chiefly, their hair being long and finer at this season, +and the smaller furry gentry; for he dealt in peltry. And so, despite +the vastness of the mountain wilds, he often came and knelt beside the +rocks with his rifle in his hand, and sought anew to decipher the mystic +legends. His face, bending over the tables of the Law with the earnest +research of a student, with the chastened subduement of devotion, with +all the calm sentiments of reverie, lacked something of its normal +aspect. When a sudden stir of the leaves or the breaking of a twig +recalled him to the world, and he would lift his head, it might hardly +seem the same face, so heavy was the lower jaw, so insistent and +coercive his eye. But if he took off his hat to place therein his cotton +bandana handkerchief or (if he were in luck and burdened with game) the +scalp of a wild-cat--valuable for the bounty offered by the State--he +showed a broad, massive forehead that added the complement of +expression, and suggested a doubt if it were ferocity his countenance +bespoke or force. His long black hair hung to his shoulders, and he wore +a tangled black beard; his deep-set dark blue eyes were kindled with the +fires of imagination. He was tall, and of a commanding presence but for +his stoop and his slouch. His garments seemed a trifle less well ordered +than those of his class, and bore here and there the traces of the blood +of beasts; on his trousers were grass stains deeply grounded, for he +knelt often to get a shot, and in meditation beside the rocks. He spent +little time otherwise upon his knees, and perhaps it was some intuition +of this fact that roused the wrath of certain brethren of the +camp-meeting when he suddenly appeared among them, arrogating to himself +peculiar spiritual experiences, proclaiming that his mind had been +opened to strange lore, repeating thrilling, quickening words that he +declared he had read on the dead rocks whereon were graven the +commandments of the Lord. The tumultuous tide of his rude eloquence, his +wild imagery, his ecstasy of faith, rolled over the assembly and awoke +it anew to enthusiasms. Much that he said was accepted by the more +intelligent ministers who led the meeting as figurative, as the finer +fervors of truth, and they felt the responsive glow of emotion and +quiver of sympathy. He intended it in its simple, literal significance. +And to the more local members of the congregation the fact was patent. + +"Sech a pack o' lies hev seldom been tole in the hearin' o' Almighty +Gawd," said Job Grinnell, a few days after the breaking up of camp. He +was rehearsing the proceedings at the meeting partly for the joy of +hearing himself talk, and partly at the instance of his wife, who had +been prevented from attending by the inopportune illness of one of the +children. "Ez I loant my ear ter the words o' that thar brazen buzzard I +eyed him constant. Fur I looked ter see the jedgmint o' the Lord descend +upon him like S'phira an' An'ias." + +"_Who?_" asked his wife, pausing in her task of picking up chips. He had +spoken of them so familiarly that one might imagine they lived close by +in the cove. + +"An'ias an' S'phira--them in the Bible ez war streck by lightnin' fur +lyin'," he explained. + +"I 'member _her_," she said. "S'phia, I calls her." + +"Waal, A'gusta, _S'phira_ do me jes ez well," he said, with the +momentary sulkiness of one corrected. "Thar war a man along, though. An' +'pears ter me thar war powerful leetle jestice in thar takin' off, ef +Roger Purdee be 'lowed ter stan' up thar in the face o' the meetin' an' +lie so ez no yearthly critter in the worl' could b'lieve him--'ceptin' +Brother Jacob Page, ez 'peared plumb out'n his head with religion, an' +got ter shoutin' when this Purdee tuk ter tellin' the law he read on +them rocks--Moses' tables, folks calls 'em--up yander in the mounting." + +He nodded upward toward the great looming range above them. His house +was on a spur of the mountain, overshadowed by it; shielded. It was to +him the Almoner of Fate. One by one it doled out the days, dawning from +its summit; and thence, too, came the darkness and the glooms of night. +One by one it liberated from the enmeshments of its tangled wooded +heights the constellations to gladden the eye and lure the fancy. Its +largess of silver torrents flung down its slopes made fertile the little +fields, and bestowed a lilting song on the silence, and took a turn at +the mill-wheel, and did not disdain the thirst of the humble cattle. It +gave pasturage in summer, and shelter from the winds of the winter. It +was the assertive feature of his life; he could hardly have imagined +existence without "the mounting." + +"Tole what he read on them rocks--yes, sir, ez glib ez swallerin' a +persimmon. 'Twarn't the reg'lar ten comman'ments--some cur'ous new +texts--jes a-rollin' 'em out ez sanctified ez ef he hed been called ter +preach the gospel! An' thar war Brother Eden Bates a-answerin' 'Amen' +ter every one. An' Brother Jacob Page: 'Glory, brother! Ye hev received +the outpourin' of the Sperit! Shake hands, brother!' An' sech ez that. +Ter hev hearn the commotion they raised about that thar derned lyin' +sinner ye'd hev 'lowed the meetin' war held ter glorify him stiddier the +Lord." + +Job Grinnell himself was a most notorious Christian. Renown, however, +with him could never be a superfluity, or even a sufficiency, and he +grudged the fame that these strange spiritual utterances were acquiring. +He had long enjoyed the distinction of being considered a miraculous +convert; his rescue from the wily enticements of Satan had been +celebrated with much shaking and clapping of hands, and cries of +"Glory," and muscular ecstasy. His religious experiences thenceforth, +his vacillations of hope and despair, had been often elaborated amongst +the brethren. But his was a conventional soul; its expression was in the +formulas and platitudes of the camp-meeting. They sank into oblivion in +the excitement attendant upon Purdee's wild utterances from the mystic +script of the rocks. + +As Grinnell talked, he often paused in his work to imitate the +gesticulatory enthusiasms of the saints at the camp-meeting. He was a +thickset fellow of only medium height, and was called, somewhat +invidiously, "a chunky man." His face was broad, prosaic, good-natured, +incapable of any fine gradations of expression. It indicated an +elementary rage or a sluggish placidity. He had a ragged beard of a +reddish hue, and hair a shade lighter. He wore blue jeans trousers and +an unbleached cotton shirt, and the whole system depended on one +suspender. He was engaged in skimming a great kettle of boiling sorghum +with a perforated gourd, which caught the scum and strained the liquor. +The process was primitive, instead of the usual sorghum boiler and +furnace, the kettle was propped upon stones laid together so as to +concentrate the heat of the fire. His wife was continually feeding the +flames with chips which she brought in her apron from the wood-pile. Her +countenance was half hidden in her faded pink sun-bonnet, which, +however, did not obscure an expression responsive to that on the man's +face. She did not grudge Purdee the salvation he had found; she only +grudged him the prestige he had derived from its unique method. + +"Why can't the critter elude Satan with less n'ise?" she asked, +acrimoniously. + +"Edzackly," her husband chimed in. + +Now and then both turned a supervisory glance at the sorghum mill down +the slope at some little distance, and close to the river. It had been a +long day for the old white mare, still trudging round and round the +mill; perhaps a long day as well for the two half-grown boys, one of +whom fed the machine, thrusting into it a stalk at a time, while the +other brought in his arms fresh supplies from the great pile of sorghum +cane hard by. + +All the door-yard of the little log cabin was bedaubed with the scum of +the sorghum which Job Grinnell flung from his perforated gourd upon the +ground. The idle dogs--and there were many--would find, when at last +disposed to move, a clog upon their nimble feet. They often sat down +with a wrinkling of brows and a puzzled expression of muzzle to +investigate their gelatinous paws with their tongues, not without +certain indications of pleasure, for the sorghum was very sweet; some of +them, that had acquired the taste for it from imitating the children, +openly begged. + +One, a gaunt hound, hardly seemed so idle; he had a purpose in life, if +it might not be called a profession. He lay at length, his paws +stretched out before him, his head upon them; his big brown eyes were +closed only at intervals; ever and again they opened watchfully at the +movement of a small child, ten months old, perhaps, dressed in pink +calico, who sat in the shadow formed by the protruding clay and stick +chimney, and played by bouncing up and down and waving her fat hands, +which seemed a perpetual joy and delight of possession to her. Take her +altogether, she was a person of prepossessing appearance, despite her +frank display of toothless gums, and around her wide mouth the unseemly +traces of sorghum. She had the plumpest graces of dimples in every +direction, big blue eyes with long lashes, the whitest possible skin, +and an extraordinary pair of pink feet, which she rubbed together in +moments of joy as if she had mistaken them for her hands. Although she +sputtered a good deal, she had a charming, unaffected laugh, with the +giggle attachment natural to the young of her sex. + +Suddenly there sounded an echo of it, as it were--a shrill, nervous +little whinny; the boys whirled round to see whence it came. The +persistent rasping noise of the sorghum mill and the bubbling of the +caldron had prevented them from hearing an approach. There, quite close +at hand, peering through the rails of the fence, was a little girl of +seven or eight years of age. + +"I wanter kem in an' see you-uns's baby!" she exclaimed, in a high, +shrill voice. "I want to pat it on the head." + +She was a forlorn little specimen, very thin and sharp-featured. Her +homespun dress was short enough to show how fragile were the long lean +legs that supported her. The curtain of her sun-bonnet, which was +evidently made for a much larger person, hung down nearly to the hem of +her skirt; as she turned and glanced anxiously down the road, evidently +suspecting a pursuer, she looked like an erratic sun-bonnet out for a +stroll on a pair of borrowed legs. + +She turned again suddenly and applied her thin, freckled little face to +the crack between the rails. She smiled upon the baby, who smiled in +response, and gave a little bounce that might be accounted a courtesy. +The younger of the boys left the cane pile and ran up to his brother at +the mill, which was close to the fence. "Don't ye let her do it," he +said, venomously. "That thar gal is one of the Purdee fambly. I know +her. Don't let her in." And he ran back to the cane. + +Grinnell had seemed pleased by this homage at the shrine of the family +idol; but at the very mention of the "Purdee fambly" his face hardened, +an angry light sprang into his eyes, and his gesture in skimming with +the perforated gourd the scum from the boiling sorghum was as energetic +as if with the action he were dashing the "Purdee fambly" from off the +face of the earth. It was an ancient feud; his grandfather and some +contemporary Purdee had fallen out about the ownership of certain +vagrant cattle; there had been blows and bloodshed, other members of the +connection had been dragged into the controversy; summary reprisals were +followed by counter-reprisals. Barns were mysteriously fired, hen-roosts +robbed, horses unaccountably lamed, sheep feloniously sheared by unknown +parties; the feeling widened and deepened, and had been handed down to +the present generation with now and then a fresh provocation, on the +part of one or the other, to renew and continue the rankling old +grudges. + +[Illustration: "SHE SMILED UPON THE BABY"] + +And here stood the hereditary enemy, wanting to pat their baby on the +head. + +"Naw, sir, ye won't!" exclaimed the boy at the mill, greatly incensed at +the boldness of this proposition, glaring at the lean, tender, wistful +little face between the rails of the fence. + +But the baby, who had not sense enough to know anything about hereditary +enemies, bounced and laughed and gurgled and sputtered with glee, and +waved her hands, and had never looked fatter or more beguiling. + +"I jes wanter pat it wunst," sighed the hereditary enemy, with a lithe +writhing of her thin little anatomy in the anguish of denial--"_jes +wunst!_" + +"Naw, sir!" exclaimed the youthful Grinnell, more insistently than +before. He did not continue, for suddenly there came running down the +road a boy of his own size, out of breath, and red and angry--the +pursuer, evidently, that the hereditary enemy had feared, for she +crouched up against the fence with a whimper. + +"Kem along away from thar, ye miser'ble little stack o' bones!" he +cried, seizing his sister by one hand and giving her a jerk--"a-foolin' +round them Grinnells' fence an' a-hankerin' arter thar old baby!" + +He felt that the pride of the Purdee family was involved in this +admission of envy. + +"I jes wanter pat it on the head _wunst_," she sighed. + +"Waal, ye won't now," said the Grinnell boys in chorus. + +The Purdee grasp was gentler on the little girl's arm. This was due not +to fraternal feeling so much as to loyalty to the clan; "stack o' +bones" though she was, they were Purdee bones. + +"Kem along," Ab Purdee exhorted her. "A baby ain't nuthin' extry, +nohow"--he glanced scoffingly at the infantile Grinnell. "The mountings +air fairly a-roamin' with 'em." + +"We-uns 'ain't got none at our house," whined the sun-bonnet, +droopingly, moving off slowly on its legs, which, indeed, seemed +borrowed, so unsteady and loath to go they were. + +The Grinnell boys laughed aloud, jeeringly and ostentatiously, and the +Purdee blood was moved to retort: "We-uns don't want none sech ez that. +Nary tooth in her head!" + +And indeed the widely stretched babbling lips displayed a vast vacuity +of gum. + +Job Grinnell, who had listened with an attentive ear to the talk of the +children, had nevertheless continued his constant skimming of the scum. +Now he rose from his bent posture, tossed the scum upon the ground, and +with the perforated gourd in his hand turned and looked at his wife. +Augusta had dropped her apron and chips, and stood with folded arms +across her breast, her face wearing an expression of exasperated +expectancy. + +The Grinnell boys were humbled and abashed. The wicked scion of the +Purdee house, joying to note how true his shaft had sped, was again +fitting his bow. + +"An' ez bald-headed ez the mounting." + +The baby had a big precedent, but although no peculiar shame attaches to +the bare pinnacle of the summit, she--despite the difference in size +and age--was expected to show up more fully furnished, and in keeping +with the rule of humanity and the gentilities of life. + +No teeth, no hair, no sign of any: the fact that she was so backward was +a sore point with all the family. Job Grinnell suddenly dropped the +perforated gourd, and started down toward the fence. The acrimony of the +old feud was as a trait bred in the bone. Such hatred as was inherent in +him was evoked by his religious jealousies, and the pious sense that he +was following the traditions of his elders and upholding the family +honor blended in gentlest satisfaction with his personal animosity +toward Roger Purdee as he noticed the boy edging off from the fence to a +safe distance. He eyed him derisively for a moment. + +"Kin ye kerry a message straight?" The boy looked up with an expression +of sullen acquiescence, but said nothing. "Ax yer dad--an' ye kin tell +him the word kems from me--whether he hev read sech ez this on the +lawgiver's stone tables yander in the mounting: 'An' ye shall claim sech +ez be yourn, an' yer neighbor's belongings shall ye in no wise +boastfully medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covetiousness, nor +yit git up a big name in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's.'" + +He laughed silently--a twinkling, wrinkling demonstration over all his +broad face--a laugh that was younger than the man, and would have +befitted a square-faced boy. + +The youthful Purdee, expectant of a cuffing, stood his ground more +doubtfully still under the insidious thrusts of this strange weapon, +sarcasm. He knew that they were intended to hurt; he was wounded +primarily in the intention, but the exact lesion he could not locate. He +could meet a threat with a bold face, and return a blow with the best. +But he was mortified in this failure of understanding, and perplexity +cowed him as contention could not. He hung his head with its sullen +questioning eyes, and he found great solace in a jagged bit of cloth on +the torn bosom of his shirt, which he could turn in his embarrassed +fingers. + +"Whar be yer dad?" Grinnell asked. + +"Up yander in the mounting," replied the subdued Purdee. + +"A-readin' of mighty s'prisin' matter writ on the rocks o' the yearth!" +exclaimed Grinnell, with a laugh. "Waal, jes keep that sayin' o' mine in +yer head, an' tell him when he kems home. An' look a-hyar, ef enny mo' +o' his stray shoats kem about hyar, I'll snip thar ears an' gin 'em my +mark." + +The youth of the Purdee clan meditated on this for a moment. He could +not remember that they had missed any shoats. Then the full meaning of +the phrase dawned upon him--it was he and the wiry little sister thus +demeaned with a porcine appellation, and whose ears were threatened. He +looked up at the fence, the little low house, the barn close by, the +sorghum mill, the drying leaves of tobacco on the scaffold, the +saltatory baby; his eyes filled with helpless tears, that could not +conceal the burning hatred he was born to bear them all. He was hot and +cold by turns; he stood staring, silent and defiant, motionless, sullen. +He heard the melodic measure of the river, with its crystalline, keen +vibrations against the rocks; the munching teeth of the old +mare--allowed to come to a stand-still that the noise of the sorghum +mill might not impinge upon the privileges of the quarrel; and the high, +ecstatic whinny of the little sister waiting on the opposite bank of the +river, having crossed the foot-bridge. There the Grinnell baby had +chanced to spy her, and had bounced and grinned and sputtered affably. +It was she who had made all the trouble yearning after the Grinnell +baby. + +He would not stay, however, to be ignominiously beaten, for Grinnell had +turned away, and was looking about the ground as if in search of a thick +stick. He accounted himself no craven, thus numerically at a +disadvantage, to turn shortly about, take his way down the rocky slope, +cross the foot-bridge, jerk the little girl by one hand and lead her +whimpering off, while the round-eyed Grinnell baby stared gravely after +her with inconceivable emotions. These presently resulted in rendering +her cross; she whined a little and rubbed her eyes, and, smarting from +her own ill-treatment of them, gave a sharp yelp of dismay. The old dog +arose and went and sat close by her, eying her solemnly and wagging his +tail, as if begging her to observe how content he was. His dignity was +somewhat impaired by sudden abrupt snaps at flies, which caused her to +wink, stare, and be silent in astonishment. + +"Waal, Job Grinnell," exclaimed Augusta, as her husband came back and +took the perforated gourd from her hand--for she had been skimming the +sorghum in his absence--"ye air the longest-tongued man, ter be so +short-legged, I ever see!" + +He looked a trifle discomfited. He had deported himself with unwonted +decision, conscious that Augusta was looking on, and in truth somewhat +supported by the expectation of her approval. + +"What ails ye ter say words ye can't abide by--ye 'low ye 'pear so +graceful on the back track?" she asked. + +He bent over the sorghum, silently skimming. His composure was somewhat +ruffled, and in throwing away the scum his gesture was of negligent and +discursive aim; the boiling fluid bespattered the foot of one of the +omnipresent dogs, whose shrieks rent the sky and whose activity on three +legs amazed the earth. He ran yelping to Mrs. Grinnell, nearly +overturning her in his turbulent demand for sympathy; then scampered +across to the boys, who readily enough stopped their work to examine the +wounded member and condole with its wheezing proprietor. + +"What ye mean, A'gusta?" Grinnell said at length. "Kase I 'lowed I'd cut +thar ears? I ain't foolin'. Kem meddlin' about remarkin' on our chill'n +agin, I'll show 'em." + +Augusta looked at him in exasperation. "I ain't keerin' ef all the +Purdees war deef," she remarked, inhumanly, "but what war them words ye +sent fur a message ter Purdee?--'bout pridin' on what ain't theirn." + +Grinnell in his turn looked at her--but dubiously. However much a man is +under the domination of his wife, he is seldom wholly frank. It is in +this wise that his individuality is preserved to him. "I war jes +wantin' ter know ef them words war on the rocks," he said with a +disingenuousness worthy of a higher culture. + +She received this with distrust. "I kin tell ye now--they ain't," she +said, discriminatingly; "Purdee's words don't sound like _them_." + +"Waal, now, what's the differ?" he demanded, with an indignation natural +enough to aspiring humanity detecting a slur upon one's literary style. + +"Waal--" she paused as she knelt down to feed the fire, holding the +fragrant chips in her hand; the flame flickered out and lighted up her +reflective eyes while she endeavored to express the distinction she +felt: "Purdee's words don't sound ter me like the words of a man sech ez +men be." + +Grinnell wrinkled his brows, trying to follow her here. + +"They sound ter me like the words spoke in a dream--the pernouncings of +a vision." Mrs. Grinnell fancied that she too had a gift of Biblical +phraseology. "They sound ter me like things I hearn whenst I war +a-hungered arter righteousness an' seekin' religion, an' bided alone in +the wilderness a-waitin' o' the Sperit." + +"'Gusta!" suddenly exclaimed her husband, with the cadence of amazed +conviction, "ye b'lieve the lie o' that critter, an' that he reads the +words o' the Lord on the rock!" + +She looked up a little startled. She had been unconscious of the +circuitous approaches of credence, and shared his astonishment in the +conclusion. + +"Waal, sir!" he said, more hurt and cast down than one would have +deemed possible. "I'm willin' ter hev it so. I'm jes nuthin' but a +sinner an' a fool, ripenin' fur damnation, an' he air a saint o' the +yearth!" + +Now such sayings as this were frequent upon Job Grinnell's tongue. He +did not believe them; their utility was in their challenge to +contradiction. Thus they often promoted an increased cordiality of the +domestic relations and an accession of self-esteem. + +Augusta, however, was tired; the boiling sorghum and the September sun +were debilitating in their effects. There was something in the scene +with the youthful Purdee that grated upon her half-developed +sensibilities. The baby was whimpering outright, and the cow was lowing +at the bars. She gave her irritation the luxury of withholding the salve +to Grinnell's wounded vanity. She said nothing. The tribute to Purdee +went for what it was worth, and he was forced to swallow the humble-pie +he had taken into his mouth, albeit it stuck in his throat. + +A shadow seemed to have fallen into the moral atmosphere as the gentle +dusk came early on. One had a sense as if bereft, remembering that so +short a time ago at this hour the sun was still high, and that the +full-pulsed summer day throbbed to a climax of color and bloom and +redundant life. Now, the scent of harvests was on the air; in the +stubble of the sorghum patch she saw a quail's brood more than +half-grown, now afoot, and again taking to wing with a loud whirring +sound. The perfume of ripening muscadines came from the bank of the +river. The papaws hung globular among the leaves of the bushes, and the +persimmons were reddening. The vermilion sun was low in the sky above +the purpling mountains; the stream had changed from a crystalline brown +to red, to gold, and now it was beginning to be purple and silver. And +this reminded her that the full-moon was up, and she turned to look at +it--so pearly and luminous above the jagged ridge-pole of the dark +little house on the rise. The sky about it was blue, refining into an +exquisitely delicate and ethereal neutrality near the horizon. The baby +had fallen asleep, with its bald head on the old dog's shoulder. + +After the supper was over, the sorghum fire still burned beneath the +great kettle, for the syrup was not yet made, and sorghum-boiling is an +industry that cannot be intermitted. The fire in the midst of the gentle +shadow and sheen of the night had a certain profane, discordant effect. +Pete's ill-defined figure slouching over it while he skimmed the syrup +was grimly suggestive of the distillations of strange elixirs and +unhallowed liquors, and his simple face, lighted by a sudden darting red +flame, had unrecognizable significance and was of sinister intent. For +Pete was detailed to attend to the boiling; the grinding was done, and +the old white mare stood still in the midst of the sorghum stubble and +the moonlight, as motionless and white as if she were carved in marble. +Job Grinnell sat and smoked on the porch. + +Presently he got up suddenly, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and +looked at it carefully before he stuck it into his pocket. He went, +without a word, down the rocky slope, past the old drowsing mare, and +across the foot-bridge. Two or three of the dogs, watching him as he +reappeared on the opposite bank, affected a mistake in identity. They +growled, then barked outright, and at last ran down and climbed the +fence and bounded about it, baying the vista where he had vanished, +until the sleepy old mare turned her head and gazed in mild surprise at +them. + +Augusta sat alone on the step of the porch. + +She had various regrets in her mind, incipient even before he had quite +gone, and now defining themselves momently with added poignancy. A woman +who, in her retirement at home, charges herself with the control of a +man's conduct abroad, is never likely to be devoid of speculation upon +probable disasters to ensue upon any abatement of the activities of her +discretion. She was sorry that she had allowed so trifling a matter to +mar the serenity of the family; her conscience upbraided her that she +had not besought him to avoid the blacksmith's shop, where certain men +of the neighborhood were wont to congregate and drink deep into the +night. Above all, her mind went back to the enigmatical message, and she +wondered that she could have been so forgetful as to fail to urge him to +forbear angering Purdee, for this would have a cumulative effect upon +all the rancors of the old quarrels, and inaugurate perhaps a new series +of reprisals. + +"I ain't afeard o' no Purdee ez ever stepped," she said to herself, +defining her position. "But I'm fur peace. An' ef the Purdees will leave +we-uns be, I ain't a-goin' ter meddle along o' them." + +She remembered an old barn-burning, in the days when she and her husband +were newly married, at his father's house. She looked up at the barn +hard by, on a line with the dwelling, with that tenderness which one +feels for a thing, not because of its value, but for the sake of +possession, for the kinship with the objects that belong to the home. A +cat was sitting high in a crevice in the logs where the daubing had +fallen out; the moon glittered in its great yellow eyes. A frog was +leaping along the open space about the rude step at Augusta's feet. A +clump of mullein leaves, silvered by the light, spangled by the dew, hid +him presently. What an elusive glistening gauze hung over the valley far +below, where the sense of distance was limited by the sense of +sight!--for it was here only that the night, though so brilliant, must +attest the incomparable lucidity of daylight. She could not even +distinguish, amidst those soft sheens of the moon and the dew, the +Lombardy poplar that grew above the door of old Squire Grove's house +down in the cove; in the daytime it was visible like a tiny finger +pointing upward. How drowsy was the sound of the katydid, now loudening, +now falling, now fainting away! And the tree-toad shrilled in the +dog-wood tree. The frogs, too, by the river in iterative fugue sent +forth a song as suggestive of the margins as the scent of the fern, and +the mint, and the fragrant weeds. + +A convulsive start! She did not know that she slept until she was again +awake. The moon had travelled many a mile along the highways of the +skies. It hung over the purple mountains, over the farthest valley. The +cicada had grown dumb. The stars were few and faint. The air was chill. +She started to her feet; her garments were heavy with dew. The fire +beneath the sorghum kettle had died to a coal, flaring or fading as the +faint fluctuations of the wind might will. Near it Pete slumbered where +he too had sat down to rest. And Job--Job had never returned. + + * * * * * + +He had found it a lightsome enough scene at the blacksmith's shop, where +it was understood that the neighboring politicians collogued at times, +or brethren in the church discussed matters of discipline or more +spiritual affairs. In which of these interests a certain corpulent jug +was most active it would be difficult perhaps to accurately judge. The +great barn-like doors were flung wide open, and there was a group of men +half within the shelter and half without; the shoeing-stool, a broken +plough, an empty keg, a log, and a rickety chair sufficed to seat the +company. The moonlight falling into the door showed the great slouching, +darkling figures, the anvil, the fire of the forge (a dim ashy coal), +and the shadowy hood merging indistinguishably into the deep duskiness +of the interior. In contrast, the scene glimpsed through the low window +at the back of the shop had a certain vivid illuminated effect. A spider +web, revealing its geometric perfection, hung half across one corner of +the rude casement; the moonbeams without were individualized in fine +filar delicacy, like the ravellings of a silver skein. The boughs of a +tree which grew on a slope close below almost touched the lintel; the +leaves seemed a translucent green; a bird slept on a twig, its head +beneath its wing. + +[Illustration: THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP] + +Back of the cabin, which was situated on a limited terrace, the great +altitudes of the mountain rose into the infinity of the night. + +The drawling conversation was beset, as it were, by faint fleckings of +sound, lightly drawn from a crazy old fiddle under the chin of a gaunt, +yellow-haired young giant, one Ephraim Blinks, who lolled on a log, and +who by these vague harmonies unconsciously gave to the talk of his +comrades a certain theatrical effect. + +Grinnell slouched up and sat down among them, responding with a nod to +the unceremonious "Hy're, Job?" of the blacksmith, who seemed thus to do +the abbreviated honors of the occasion. The others did not so formally +notice his coming. + +The subject of conversation was the same that had pervaded his own +thoughts. He was irritated to observe how Purdee had usurped public +attention, and yet he himself listened with keenest interest. + +"Waal," said the ponderous blacksmith, "I kin onderstan' mighty well ez +Moses would hev been mighty mad ter see them folks a-worshippin' o' a +calf--senseless critters they be! 'Twarn't no use flingin' down them +rocks, though, an' gittin' 'em bruk. Sandstone ain't like metal; ye +can't heat it an' draw it down an' weld it agin." + +His round black head shone in the moonlight, glistening because of his +habit of plunging it, by way of making his toilet, into the barrel of +water where he tempered his steel. He crossed his huge folded bare arms +over his breast, and leaned back against the door on two legs of the +rickety chair. + +"Naw, sir," another chimed in. "He mought hev knowed he'd jes hev ter go +ter quarryin' agin." + +"They air always a-crackin' up them folks in the Bible ez sech powerful +wise men," said another, whose untrained mind evidently held the germs +of advanced thinking. "'Pears ter me ez some of 'em conducted tharselves +ez foolish ez enny folks I know--this hyar very Moses one o' 'em. +Throwin' down them rocks 'minds me o' old man Pinner's tantrums. Sher'ff +kem ter his house 'bout a jedgmint debt, an' levied on his craps. An' +arter he war gone old man tuk a axe an' gashed bodaciously inter the +loom an' hacked it up. Ez ef that war goin' ter do enny good! His wife +war the mos' outed woman I ever see. They 'ain't got nare nother loom +nuther, an' hain't hearn no advices from the Lord." + +The violinist paused in his playing. "They 'lowed Moses war a meek man +too," he said. "He killed a man with a brick-badge an' buried him in the +sand. Mighty meek ways"--with a satirical grimace. + +The others, divining that this was urged in justification and precedent +for devious modern ways that were not meek, did not pursue this branch +of the subject. + +"S'prised me some," remarked the advanced thinker, "ter hear ez them +tables o' stone war up on the bald o' the mounting thar. I hed drawed +the idee ez 'twar in some other kentry somewhar--I dunno--" He stopped +blankly. He could not formulate his geographical ignorance. "An' I never +knowed," he resumed, presently, "ez thar war enough gold in Tennessee +ter make a gold calf; they fund gold hyar, but 'twar mighty leetle." + +"Mebbe 'twar a mighty leetle calf," suggested the blacksmith. + +"Mebbe so," assented the other. + +"Mebbe 'twar a silver one," speculated a third; "plenty o' silver they +'low thar air in the mountings." + +The violinist spoke up suddenly. "Git one o' them Injuns over yander ter +Quallatown right seasonable drunk, an' he'll tell ye a power o' places +whar the old folks said thar war silver." He bowed his chin once more +upon the instrument, and again the slow drawling conversation proceeded +to soft music. + +"Ef ye'll b'lieve me," said the advanced thinker, "I never war so +conflusticated in my life ez I war when he stood up in meetin' an' told +'bout'n the tables o' the law bein' on the bald! I 'lowed 'twar somewhar +'mongst some sort'n people named 'Gyptians." + +"Mebbe some o' them Injuns air named 'Gyptians," suggested Spears, the +blacksmith. + +"Naw, sir," spoke up the fiddler, who had been to Quallatown, and was +the ethnographic authority of the meeting. "Tennessee Injuns be named +Cher'kee, an' Chick'saw, an' Creeks." + +There was a silence. The moonlight sifted through the dark little shanty +of a shop; the fretting and foaming of a mountain stream arose from far +down the steep slope, where there was a series of cascades, a fine +water-power, utilized by a mill. The sudden raucous note of a night-hawk +jarred upon the air, and a shadow on silent wings sped past. The road +was dusty in front of the shop, and for a space there was no shade. +Into the full radiance of the moonlight a rabbit bounded along, rising +erect with a most human look of affright in its great shining eyes as it +tremulously gazed at the motionless figures. It too was motionless for a +moment. The young musician made a lunge at it with his bow; it sprang +away with a violent start--its elongated grotesque shadow bounding +kangaroo-like beside it--into the soft gloom of the bushes. There was no +other traveller along the road, and the talk was renewed without further +interruption. "Waal, sir, ef 'twarn't fur the testimony o' the words he +reads ez air graven on them rocks, I couldn't git my cornsent ter +b'lieve ez Moses ever war in Tennessee," said the advanced thinker. "I +ain't ondertakin' ter say what State he settled in, but I 'lowed +'twarn't hyar. It mus' hev been, though, 'count o' the scripture on them +broken tables." + +"I never knowed a meetin' woke ter sech a pint o' holiness. The saints +jes rampaged around till it fairly sounded like the cavortin's o' the +ungodly," a retrospective voice chimed in. + +"I raised thirty-two hyme chunes," said the musician, who had a great +gift in quiring, and was the famed possessor of a robust tenor voice. "A +leetle mo' gloryin' aroun' an' I'd hev kem ter the eend o' my row, an' +hev hed ter begin over agin." He spoke with acrimony, reviewing the +jeopardy in which his _répertoire_ had been placed. + +"Waal," said the blacksmith, passing his hand over his black head, as +sleek and shining as a beaver's, "I'm a-goin' up ter the bald o' the +mounting some day soon, ef so be I kin make out ter shoe that mare o' +mine"--for the blacksmith's mount was always barefoot--"I'm afeard ter +trest her unshod on them slippery slopes; I want ter read some o' them +sayin's on the stone tables myself. I likes ter git a tex' or the eend +o' a hyme set a-goin' in my head--seems somehow ter teach itself ter the +anvil, an' then it jes says it back an' forth all day. Yestiddy I never +seen its beat--'Christ--war--born--in--Bethlehem.' The anvil jes rang +with that ez ef the actial metal hed the gift o' prayer an' praise." + +"Waal, sir," exclaimed Job Grinnell, who had been having frequent +colloquies aside with the companionable jug, "ye mought jes ez well save +yer shoes an' let yer mare go barefoot. Thar ain't nare sign o' a word +writ on them rocks." + +They all sat staring at him. Even the singing, long-drawn vibrations of +the violin were still. + +"By Hokey!" exclaimed the young musician, "I'll take Purdee's word ez +soon ez yourn." + +The whiskey which Grinnell had drunk had rendered him more plastic still +to jealousy. The day was not so long past when Purdee's oath would have +been esteemed a poor dependence against the word of so zealous a brother +as he--a pillar in the church, a shining light of the congregation. He +noted the significant fact that it behooved him to justify himself; it +irked him that this was exacted as a tribute to Purdee's newly acquired +sanctity. + +"Purdee's jes a-lyin' an' a-foolin' ye," he declared. "Ever been up on +the bald?" + +They had lived in its shadow all their lives. Even by the circuitous +mountain ways it was not more than five miles from where they sat. But +none had chanced to have a call to go, and it was to them as a foreign +land to be explored. + +"Waal, I hev, time an' agin," said Grinnell. "I dunno who gin them rocks +the name of Moses' tables o' the Law. Moses must hev hed a powerful +block an' tackle ter lift sech tremenjious rocks. I hev known 'em named +sech fur many a year. But I seen 'em not three weeks ago, an' thar ain't +nare word writ on 'em. Thar's the mounting; thar's the rocks; ye kin go +an' stare-gaze 'em an' sati'fy yerse'fs." + +Whether it were by reason of the cumulative influences of the continual +references to the jug, or of that sense of reviviscence, that more alert +energy, which the cool Southern nights always impart after the sultry +summer days, the suggestion that they should go now and solve the +mystery, and meet the dawn upon the summit of the bald, found instant +acceptance, which it might not have secured in the stolid daylight. + +The moon, splendid, a lustrous white encircled by a great halo of +translucent green, swung high above the duskily purple mountains. Below +in the valleys its progress was followed by an opalescent gossamer +presence that was like the overflowing fulness, the surplusage, of light +rather than mist. The shadows of the great trees were interlaced with +dazzling silver gleams. The night was almost as bright as the day, but +cool and dank, full of sylvan fragrance and restful silence and a +romantic liberty. + +The blacksmith carried his rifle, for wolves were often abroad in the +wilderness. Two or three others were similarly armed; the advanced +thinker had a hunting-knife, Job Grinnell a pistol that went by the name +of "shootin'-iron." The musician carried no weapon. "I ain't 'feared o' +no wolf," he said; "I'll play 'em a chune." He went on in the vanguard, +his tousled yellow hair idealized with many a shimmer in the moonlight +as it hung curling down on his blue jeans coat, his cheek laid softly on +the violin, the bow glancing back and forth as if strung with moonbeams +as he played. The men woke the solemn silences with their loud mirthful +voices; they startled precipitate echoes; they fell into disputes and +wrangled loudly, and would have turned back if sure of the way home, but +Job Grinnell led steadily on, and they were fain to follow. They lagged +to look at a spot where some man, unheeded even by tradition, had dug +his heart's grave in a vain search for precious metal. A deep excavation +in the midst of the wilderness told the story; how long ago it was might +be guessed from the age of a stalwart oak that had sunk roots into its +depths; the shadows were heavy about it; a sense of despair brooded in +the loneliness. And so up and up the endless ascent; sometimes great +chasms were at one side, stretching further and further, and crowding +the narrow path--the herder's trail--against the sheer ascent, till it +seemed that the treacherous mountains were yawning to engulf them. The +air was growing colder, but was exquisitely clear and exhilarating; the +great dewy ferns flung silvery fronds athwart the way; vines in +stupendous lengths swung from the tops of gigantic trees to the roots. +Hark! among them birds chirp; a matutinal impulse seems astir in the +woods; the moon is undimmed; the stars faint only because of her +splendors; but one can feel that the earth has roused itself to a sense +of a new day. And there, with such feathery flashes of white foam, such +brilliant straight lengths of translucent water, such a leaping grace of +impetuous motion, the currents of the mountain stream, like the arrows +of Diana, shoot down the slopes. And now a vague mist is among the +trees, and when it clears away they seem shrunken, as under a spell, to +half their size. They grow smaller and smaller still, oak and chestnut +and beech, but dwarfed and gnarled like some old orchard. And suddenly +they cease, and the vast grassy dome uprises against the sky, in which +the moon is paling into a dull similitude of itself; no longer wondrous, +transcendent, but like some lily of opaque whiteness, fair and fading. +Beneath is a purple, deeply serious, and sombre earth, to which mists +minister, silent and solemn; myriads of mountains loom on every hand; +the half-seen mysteries of the river, which, charged with the red clay +of its banks, is of a tawny color, gleams as it winds in and out among +the white vapors that reach in fantastic forms from heaven above to the +valley below. There is a certain relief in the mist--it veils the +infinities of the scene, on which the mind can lay but a trembling hold. + +"Folks tell all sort'n cur'ous tales 'bout'n this hyar spot," said Job +Grinnell, his square face, his red hair hanging about his ears, and his +ragged red beard visible in the dull light of the coming day. "I hev +hearn folks 'low ez a pa'tridge up hyar will look ez big ez a Dominicky +rooster. An' ef ye listens ye kin hear words from somewhar. An' +sometimes in the cattle-herdin' season the beastises will kem an' crowd +tergether, an' stan' on the bald in the moonlight all night." + +"I dunno," said the advanced thinker, "ez I be s'prised enny ef Purdee, +ez be huntin' up hyar so constant, hev got sorter teched in the head, +ter take up sech a cur'ous notion 'bout'n them rocks." + +He glanced along the slope at the spot, visible now, where Moses flung +the stone tables and they broke in twain. And there, standing beside +them, was a man of great height, dressed in blue jeans, his +broad-brimmed hat pushed from his brow, and his meditative dark eyes +fixed upon the rocks; a deer, all gray and antlered, lay dead at his +feet, and his rifle rested on the ground as he leaned on the muzzle. + +A glance was interchanged between the others. Their intention, the +promptings of curiosity, had flagged during the long tramp and the +gradual waning of the influence of the jug. The coincidence of meeting +Purdee here revived their interest. Grinnell, remembering the ancient +feud, held back, being unlikely to elicit Purdee's views in the face of +their contradiction. The blacksmith and the young fiddler took their way +down toward him. + +He looked up with a start, seeing them at some little distance. His +full, contemplative eyes rested upon them for a moment almost devoid of +questioning. It was not the face of a man who finds himself confronted +with the discovery of his duplicity and his hypocrisy. There was a +strange doubt stirring in the blacksmith's heart. As he approached he +looked upon the storied rocks with a sort of solemn awe, as if they had +indeed been given by the hand of the Lord to his servant, who broke them +here in his wrath. He knew that the step of the musician slackened as he +followed. What holy mysteries were they not rushing in upon? He spoke in +a bated voice. + +"Roger," he said, "we'uns hearn ye tell 'bout the scriptures graven on +these hyar tables ez Moses flung down, an' we'uns 'lowed we'uns would +kem an' read some fur ourselves." + +Purdee did not speak nor hesitate; he moved aside that the blacksmith +might stand where he had been--as it were at the foot of the page. + +But what transcendent glories thronged the heavens--what august +splendors of dawn! Had the sun ever before risen like this, with the sky +an emblazonment of red, of gold, of darting gleams of light; with the +mountains most royally purple or most radiantly blue; with the prismatic +mists in flight; with the slow climax of the dazzling sphere ascending +to dominate it all? + +The blacksmith knelt down to read. The musician, his silent violin under +his chin, leaned over his comrade's shoulder. The hunter stood still, +expectant. + +Alas! the corrugations of time, the fissile results of the frost; the +wavering line of ripple-marks of seas that shall ebb no more; growth of +lichen; an army of ants in full march; a passion-flower trailing from a +crevice, its purple blooms lying upon the gray stone near where it is +stamped with the fossil imprint of a sea-weed, faded long ago and +forgotten. Or is it, alas! for the eyes that can see only this? + +[Illustration: "THE TABLES OF THE LAW"] + +The blacksmith looked up with a twinkling leer; the violinist recovered +his full height, and drew the bow dashingly across the strings; then let +his arm fall. + +"Roger," the blacksmith said, "dad-burned ef I kin read ennything hyar." + +The young musician looked over his brawny shoulder in silence. + +"Whar d'ye make out enny letters, Roger?" persisted Spears. + +Purdee leaned over and eagerly pointed with his ramrod to a curious +corrugation of the surface of the rock. Again the blacksmith bent down; +the musician craned forward, his yellow hair hanging about his bronzed +face. + +"I hev been toler'ble well acquainted with the alphabit," said Spears, +"fur goin' on thirty year an' better, an' I'll swar ter Heaven thar +ain't nare sign of a letter thar." + +Purdee stared at him in wild-eyed amazement for a moment. Then he flung +himself upon his knees beside the great rock, and guiding his ramrod +over the surface, he exclaimed, "Hyar, Spears; right hyar!" + +The blacksmith was all incredulous as he lent himself to a new posture, +and leaned forward to look with the languid indulgence of one who will +not again entertain doubt. + +"Nare A, nor B, nor C, nor none o' the fambly," he declared. "These +hyar rocks ain't no Moses' tables sure enough; Moses never war in +Tennessee. They be jes like enny other rock, an' thar ain't a word o' +writin' on 'em." + +He looked up with a curious questioning at Purdee's face--a strange face +for a man detected in a falsehood, a trick. The deep-set eyes were wide +as if straining for perception denied them. Despite the chill, rare air, +great drops had started on his brow, and were falling upon his beard, +and upon his hands. These strong hands were quivering; they hovered +above the signs on the rocks. The mystic letters, the inspired words, +where were they? Grope as he might, he could not find them. Alas! doubt +and denial had climbed the mountain--the awful limitations of the more +finite human creature--and his inspiration and the finer enthusiasms of +the truth were dead. + +Dead with a throe that was almost like a literal death. This--on this he +had lived; the ether of ecstasy was the breath of his life. He clutched +at the stained red handkerchief knotted about his throat as if he were +suffocating; he tore it open as he swayed backward on his knees. He did +not hear--or he did not heed--the laugh among the little crowd on the +bald--satirical, rallying, zestful. He was deaf to the strains of the +violin, jeeringly and jerkingly playing a foolish tune. It was growing +fainter, for they had all turned about to betake themselves once more to +the world below. He could have seen, had he cared to see, their bearded +grinning faces peering through the stunted trees, as descending they +came near the spot where he had lavished the spiritual graces of his +feeling, his enthusiasm, his devotion, his earnest reaching for +something higher, for something holy, which had refreshed his famished +soul; had given to its dumbness words; had erased the values of the +years, of the nations; had made him friends with Moses on the "bald"; +had revealed to him the finger of the Lord on the stone. + +He took no heed of his gestures, of which, indeed, he was unconscious. +They were fine dramatically, and of great power, as he alternately rose +to his full height, beating his breast in despair, and again sank upon +his knees, with a pondering brow and a searching eye, and a hovering, +trembling hand, striving to find the clew he had lost. They might have +impressed a more appreciative audience, but not one more entertained +than the cluster of men who looked and paused and leered in amusement at +one another, and thrust out satirical tongues. Long after they had +disappeared, the strains of the violin could be heard, filling the +solemn, stricken, strangely stunted woods with a grotesquely merry +presence, hilarious and jeering. + + * * * * * + +Purdee found it possible to survive the destruction of illusions. Most +of us do. It wrought in him, however, the saturnine changes natural upon +the relinquishment of a dear and dead fantasy. This ethereal entity is a +more essential component of happiness than one might imagine from the +extreme tenuity of the conditions of its existence. Purdee's fantasy may +have been a poor thing, but, although he could calmly enough close its +eyes, and straighten its limbs, and bury it decently from out the +offended view of fact, he felt that he should mourn it in his heart as +long as he should live. And he was bereaved. + +There is a certain stage in every sorrow when it rejects sympathy. +Purdee, always taciturn, grave, uncommunicative, was invested with an +austere aloofness, and was hardly to be approached as he sat, silent and +absent, brooding over the fire at his own home. When roused by some +circumstance of the domestic routine, and it became apparent that his +mood was not sullenness or anger, but simple and complete introversion, +it added a dignity and suggested a remoteness that were yet less +reassuring. His son, who stood in awe of him--not because of paternal +severity, but because no boy could refrain from a worshipping respect +for so miraculous a shot, a woodsman so subtly equipped with all elusive +sylvan instincts and knowledge--forbore to break upon his meditations by +the delivery of Grinnell's message. Nevertheless the consciousness of +withholding it weighed heavily upon him. He only pretermitted it for a +time, until a more receptive state of mind should warrant it. Day by +day, however, he looked with eagerness when he came into the cabin in +the evening to ascertain if his father were still seated in the +chimney-corner silently smoking his pipe. Purdee had seldom remained at +home so long at a time, and the boy had a daily fear that the gun on the +primitive rack of deer antlers would be missing, and word left in the +family that he had taken the trail up the mountain, and would return +"'cordin' ter luck with the varmints." And thus Job Grinnell's +enigmatical message, that had the ring of defiance, might remain +indefinitely postponed. + +Abner had not realized how long a time it had been delayed, until one +evening at the wood-pile, in tossing off a great stick to hew into +lengths for the chimney-place, he noticed that thin ice had formed in +the moss and the dank cool shadows of the interstices. "I tell ye now, +winter air a-comin'," he observed. He stood leaning on his axe-handle +and looking down upon the scene so far below; for Purdee's house was +perched half-way up on the mountain-side, and he could see over the +world how it fared as the sun went down. Far away upon the levels of the +valley of East Tennessee a golden haze glittered resplendent, lying +close upon an irradiated earth, and ever brightening toward the horizon, +and it seemed as if the sun in sinking might hope to fall in fairer +spheres than the skies he had left, for they were of a dun-color and an +opaque consistency. Only one horizontal rift gave glimpses of a dazzling +ochreous tint of indescribable brilliancy, from the focus of which the +divergent light was shed upon the western limits of the land. Chilhowee, +near at hand, was dark enough--a purplish garnet hue; but the scarlet of +the sour-wood gleamed in the cove; the hickory still flared gallantly +yellow; the receding ranges to the north and south were blue and more +faintly azure. The little log cabin stood with small fields about it, +for Purdee barely subsisted on the fruits of the soil, and did not seek +to profit. It had only one room, with a loft above; the barn was a +makeshift of poles, badly chinked, and showing through the crevices +what scanty store there was of corn and pumpkins. A black-and-white +work-ox, that had evidently no deficiency of ribs, stood outside of the +fence and gazed, a forlorn Tantalus, at these unattainable dainties; now +and then a muttered low escaped his lips. Nobody noticed him or +sympathized with him, except perhaps the little girl, who had come out +in her sun-bonnet to help her brother bring in the fuel. He gruffly +accepted her company, a little ashamed of her because she was a girl; +since, however, there was no other boy by to laugh, he permitted her the +delusion that she was of assistance. + +As he paused to rest he reiterated, "Winter air a-comin', I tell ye." + +"D'ye reckon, Ab," she asked, in her high, thin little voice, her hands +full of chips and the basket at her feet, "ez Grinnell's baby knows +Chris'mus air a-comin'?" + +He glowered at her as he leaned on the axe. "I reckon Grinnell's old +baby dunno B from Bull-foot," he declared, gruffly. + +The recollection of the message came over him. He had a pang of regret, +remembering all the old grudges against the Grinnells. They were +re-enforced by this irrepressible yearning after their baby, this +admission that they had aught which was not essentially despicable. +Nevertheless, he suddenly saw a reason for the Grinnell baby's +existence; he loaded up both arms with the sticks of wood, and, followed +by the peripatetic sun-bonnet, conscientiously weighed down with one +billet, he strode into the house, and let his burden fall with a mighty +clatter in the corner of the chimney. The sun-bonnet staggered up and +threw her stick on the top of the pile of wood. + +Purdee, sitting silently smoking, glanced up at the noise. Abner took +advantage of the momentary notice to claim, too, the attention of his +mother. "I wish ye'd make Eunice quit talkin' 'bout the Grinnell's old +baby, like she war actially demented--uglies' bald-headed, slab-sided, +slobbery old baby I ever see--nare tooth in its head! I do despise them +Grinnells." + +As he anticipated, his father spoke suddenly: "Ye jes keep away from +thar," he said, sternly. "I trest them folks no furder 'n a +rattlesnake." + +"_I_ ain't consortin' along o' 'em," declared the boy. "But I actially +hed ter take Eunice by the scalp o' her head an' lug her off one day +when she hung on thar fence a-stare-gazin' Grinnell's baby like 'twar +fitten ter eat." + +The child's mother, a cadaverous, pale woman, was listlessly stringing +the warping-bars with hanks of variegated yarn. The grandmother, who +conserved a much more active and youthful interest in life, took down a +brown gourd used as a scrap-basket that was on a protruding lath of the +clay-and-stick chimney, and hunted among the scraps of homespun and bits +of yarn stowed within it. The room was much like the gourd in its aged +brown tint; its indigenous aspect, as if it had not been made with +hands, but was some spontaneous production of the soil; with its bits of +bright color--the peppers hanging from the rafters, the rainbow-hued +yarn festooning the warping-bars, the red coals of the fire, the blue +and yellow ware ranged on the shelf, the brown puncheon floor and walls +and ceiling and chimney--it might have seemed the interior of a similar +gourd of gigantic proportions. She dressed a twig from the pile of wood +in a gay scrap of cloth, casting glances the while at the little girl, +and handed it to her. + +"I hain't never seen ez good a baby ez this," she said, with the +convincing coercive mendacity of a grandmother. + +The little girl accepted it humbly; it was a good baby doubtless of its +sort, but it was not alive, which could not be denied of the Grinnell +baby, Grinnell though it was. + +"An' Job Grinnell he kem down ter the fence, an' 'lowed he'd slit our +ears, an' named us shoats," continued her brother. Purdee lifted his +head. "An' sent a word ter dad," said the boy, tremulously. + +"What word did he send ter--_me_?" cried Purdee. + +The boy quailed to tell him. "He tole me ter ax ye ef ye ever read sech +ez this on Moses' tables in the mountings--'An' ye shell claim sech ez +be yer own, an' yer neighbors' belongings shell ye in no wise boastfully +medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covetiousness, nor yit git a big +name up in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's,'" faltered the +sturdy Abner. + +The next moment he felt an infinite relief. He suddenly recognized the +fact that he had been chiefly restrained from repeating the words by an +unrealized terror lest they prove true--lest something his father +claimed was not his, indeed. + +[Illustration: "'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER--_ME_?'"] + +But the expression of anger on Purdee's face was merged first in blank +astonishment, then in perplexed cogitation, then in renewed and +overpowering amazement. + +The wife turned from the warping-bars with a vague stare of surprise, +one hand poised uncertainly upon a peg of the frame, the other holding a +hank of "spun truck." The grandmother looked over her spectacles with +eyes sharp enough to seem subsidized to see through the mystery. + +"In the name o' reason and religion, Roger Purdee," she adjured him, +"what air that thar perverted Philistine talkin' 'bout?" + +"It air more'n I kin jedge of," said Purdee, still vainly cogitating. + +He sat for a time silent, his dark eyes bent on the fire, his broad, +high forehead covered by his hat pulled down over it, his long, tangled, +dark locks hanging on his collar. + +Suddenly he rose, took down his gun, and started toward the door. + +"Roger," cried his wife, shrilly, "I'd leave the critter be. Lord knows +thar's been enough blood spilt an' good shelter burned along o' them +Purdees' an' Grinnells' quar'ls in times gone. Laws-a-massy!"--she wrung +her hands, all hampered though they were in the "spun truck"--"I'd +ruther be a sheep 'thout a soul, an' live in peace." + +"A sca'ce ch'ice," commented her mother. "Sheep's got ter be butchered. +I'd ruther be the butcher, myself--healthier." + +Purdee was gone. He had glanced absently at his wife as if he hardly +heard. He waited till she paused; then, without answer, he stepped +hastily out of the door and walked away. + + * * * * * + +The cronies at the blacksmith's shop latterly gathered within the great +flaring door, for the frost lay on the dead leaves without, the stars +scintillated with chill suggestions, and the wind was abroad on nights +like these. On shrill pipes it played; so weird, so wild, so prophetic +were its tones that it found only a shrinking in the heart of him whose +ear it constrained to listen. The sound of the torrent far below was +accelerated to an agitated, tumultuous plaint, all unknown when its +pulses were bated by summer languors. The moon was in the turmoil of the +clouds, which, routed in some wild combat with the winds, were streaming +westward. + +And although the rigors of the winter were in abeyance, and the late +purple aster called the Christmas-flower bloomed in the sheltered grass +at the door, the forge fire, flaring or dully glowing, overhung with its +dusky hood, was a friendly thing to see, and in its vague illumination +the rude interior of the shanty--the walls, the implements of the trade, +the bearded faces grouped about, the shadowy figures seated on whatever +might serve, a block of wood, the shoeing-stool, a plough, or perched on +the anvil--became visible to Roger Purdee from far down the road as he +approached. Even the head of a horse could be seen thrust in at the +window, while the brute, hitched outside, beguiled the dreary waiting +by watching with a luminous, intelligent eye the gossips within, as if +he understood the drawling colloquy. They were suffering some dearth of +timely topics, supplying the deficiency with reminiscences more or less +stale, and had expected no such sensation as they experienced when a +long shadow fell athwart the doorway,--the broad aperture glimmering a +silvery gray contrasted with the brown duskiness of the interior and the +purple darkness of the distance; the forge fire showed Purdee's tall +figure leaning on the door-frame, and lighted up his serious face +beneath his great broad-brimmed hat, his intent, earnest eyes, his +tangled black beard and locks. He gave no greeting, and silence fell +upon them as his searching gaze scanned them one by one. + +"Whar's Job Grinnell?" he demanded, abruptly. + +There was a shuffling of feet, as if those members most experienced +relief from the constraint that silence had imposed upon the party. A +vibration from the violin--a sigh as if the instrument had been suddenly +moved rather than a touch upon the strings--intimated that the young +musician was astir. But it was Spears, the blacksmith, who spoke. + +"Kem in, Roger," he called out, cordially, as he rose, his massive +figure and his sleek head showing in the dull red light on the other +side of the anvil, his bare arms folded across his chest. "Naw, Job +ain't hyar; hain't been hyar for a right smart while." + +There was a suggestion of disappointment in the attitude of the +motionless figure at the door. The deeply earnest, pondering face, +visible albeit the red light from the forge-fire was so dull, was keenly +watched. For the inquiry was fraught with peculiar meaning to those +cognizant of the long and bitter feud. + +"I ax," said Purdee, presently, "kase Grinnell sent me a mighty cur'ous +word the t'other day." He lifted his head. "Hev enny o' you-uns hearn +him 'low lately ez I claim ennything ez ain't mine?" + +There was silence for a moment. Then the forge was suddenly throbbing +with the zigzagging of the bow of the violin jauntily dandering along +the strings. His keen sensibility apprehended the sudden jocosity as a +jeer, but before he could say aught the blacksmith had undertaken to +reply. + +"Waal, Purdee, ef ye hedn't axed me, I warn't layin' off ter say nuthin +'bout'n it. 'Tain't no consarn o' mine ez I knows on. But sence ye _hev_ +axed me, I hold my jaw fur the fear o' no man. The words ain't writ ez I +be feared ter pernounce. An' ez all the kentry hev hearn 'bout'n it +'ceptin' you-uns, I dunno ez I hev enny call ter hold my jaw. The Lord +'ain't set no seal on my lips ez I knows on." + +"Naw, sir!" said Purdee, his great eyes glooming through the dusk and +flashing with impatience. "He 'ain't set no seal on yer lips, ter jedge +by the way ye wallop yer tongue about inside o' 'em with fool words. +Whyn't ye bite off what ye air tryin' ter chaw?" + +"Waal, then," said the admonished orator, bluntly, "Grinnell 'lows ye +don't own that thar lan' around them rocks on the bald, no more'n ye +read enny writin' on 'em." + +"Not them rocks!" cried Purdee, standing suddenly erect--"the tables o' +the Law, writ with the finger o' the Lord--an' Moses flung 'em down thar +an' bruk 'em. All the kentry knows they air Moses' tables. An' the +groun' whar they lie air mine." + +"'Tain't, Grinnell say 'tain't." + +"Naw, sir," chimed in the young musician, his violin silent. "Job +Grinnell declars he owns it hisself, an' ef he war willin' ter stan' the +expense he'd set up his rights, but the lan' ain't wuth it. He 'lows his +line runs spang over them rocks, an' a heap furder." + +Purdee was silent; one or two of the gossips laughed jeeringly; he had +been proved a liar once. It was well that he did not deny; he was put to +open shame among them. + +"An' Grinnell say," continued Blinks, "ez ye hev gone an' tole big tales +'mongst the brethren fur ownin' sech ez ain't yourn, an' readin' of +s'prisin' sayin's on the rocks." + +He bent his head to a series of laughing harmonics, and when he raised +it, hearing no retort, the silvery gray square of the door was empty. He +saw the moon glimmer on the clumps of grass outside where the +Christmas-flower bloomed. + +The group sat staring in amaze; the blacksmith strode to the door and +looked out, himself a massive, dark silhouette upon the shimmering +neutrality of the background. There was no figure in sight; no faint +foot-fall was audible, no rustle of the sere leaves; only the voice of +the mountain torrent, far below, challenged the stillness with its +insistent cry. + +He looked back for a moment, with a vague, strange doubt if he had seen +aught, heard aught, in the scene just past. "Hain't Purdee been hyar?" +he asked, passing his hand across his eyes. The sense of having dreamed +was so strong upon him that he stretched his arms and yawned. + +The gleaming teeth of the grouped shadows demonstrated the merriment +evoked by the query. The chuckle was arrested midway. + +"Ye 'pear ter 'low ez suthin' hev happened ter Purdee, an' that thar war +his harnt," suggested one. + +The bold young musician laid down his violin suddenly. The instrument +struck upon a keg of nails, and gave out an abrupt, discordant jangle, +startling to the nerves. "Shet up, ye durned squeech-owl!" he exclaimed, +irritably. Then, lowering his voice, he asked: "Didn't they 'low down +yander in the Cove ez Widder Peters, the day her husband war killed by +the landslide up in the mounting, heard a hoe a-scrapin' mightily on the +gravel in the gyarden-spot, an' went ter the door, an' seen him thar +a-workin', an' axed him when he kem home? An' he never lifted his head, +but hoed on. An' she went down thar 'mongst the corn, an' she couldn't +find nobody. An' jes then the Johns boys rid up an' 'lowed ez Jim Peters +war dead, an' hed been fund in the mounting, an' they war a-fetchin' of +him then." + +The horse's head within the window nodded violently among the shadows, +and the stones rolled beneath his hoof as he pawed the ground. + +"Mis' Peters she knowed suthin' were a-goin' ter happen when she seen +that harnt a-hoein'." + +"I reckon she did," said the blacksmith, stretching himself, his nerves +still under the delusion of recent awakening. "Jim never hoed none when +he war alive. She mought hev knowed he war dead ef she seen him hoein'." + +"Waal, sir," exclaimed the violinist, "I'm a-goin' up yander ter +Purdee's ter-morrer ter find out what he died of, an' when." + +That he was alive was proved the next day, to the astonishment of the +smith and his friends. The forge was the voting-place of the district, +and there, while the fire was flaring, the bellows blowing, the anvil +ringing, the echo vibrating, now loud, now faint, with the antiphonal +chant of the hammer and the sledge, a notice was posted to inform the +adjacent owners that Roger Purdee's land, held under an original grant +from the State, would be processioned according to law some twenty days +after date, and the boundaries thereof defined and established. The +fac-simile of the notice, too, was posted on the court-house door in the +county town twenty miles away, for there were those who journeyed so far +to see it. + +"I wonder," said the blacksmith, as he stood in the unfamiliar street +and gazed at it, his big arms, usually bare, now hampered with his coat +sleeves and folded upon his chest--"I wonder ef he footed it all the way +ter town at the gait he tuk when he lit out from the forge?" + +It was a momentous day when the county surveyor planted his +Jacob's-staff upon the State line on the summit of the bald. His sworn +chain-bearers, two tall young fellows clad in jeans, with broad-brimmed +wool hats, their heavy boots drawn high over their trousers, stood ready +and waiting, with the sticks and clanking chain, on the margin of the +ice-cold spring gushing out on this bleak height, and signifying more +than a fountain in the wilderness, since it served to define the +southeast corner of Purdee's land. The two enemies were perceptibly +conscious of each other. Grinnell's broad face and small eyes laden with +fat lids were persistently averted. Purdee often glanced toward him +gloweringly, his head held, nevertheless, a little askance, as if he +rejected the very sight. There was the fire of a desperate intention in +his eyes. Looking at his face, shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, one +could hardly have doubted now whether it expressed most ferocity or +force. His breath came quick--the bated breath of a man who watches and +waits for a supreme moment. His blue jeans coat was buttoned close about +his sun-burned throat, where the stained red handkerchief was knotted. +He wore a belt with his powder-horn and bullet-pouch, and carried his +rifle on his shoulder; the hand that held it trembled, and he tried to +quell the quiver. "I'll prove it fust, an' kill him arterward--kill him +arterward," he muttered. + +In the other hand he held a yellowed old paper. Now and then he bent his +earnest dark eyes upon the grant, made many a year ago by the State of +Tennessee to his grandfather; for there had been no subsequent +conveyances. + +The blacksmith had come begirt with his leather apron, his shirt-sleeves +rolled up, and with his hammer in his hand, an inopportune customer +having jeopardized his chance of sharing in the sensation of the day. +The other neighbors all wore their coats closely buttoned. Blinks +carried his violin hung upon his back; the sharp timbre of the wind, +cutting through the leafless boughs of the stunted woods, had a kindred +fibrous resonance. Clouds hung low far beneath them; here and there, as +they looked, the trees on the slopes showed above and again below the +masses of clinging vapors. Sometimes close at hand a peak would reveal +itself, asserting the solemn vicinage of the place, then draw its veil +slowly about it, and stand invisible and in austere silence. The +surveyor, a stalwart figure, his closely buttoned coat giving him a +military aspect, looked disconsolately downward. + +"I hoped I'd die before this," he remarked. "I'm equal to getting over +anything in nature that's flat or oblique, but the vertical beats me." + +He bent to take sight for a moment, the group silently watching him. +Suddenly he came to the perpendicular, and strode off down the rugged +slope over gullies and bowlders, through rills and briery tangles, his +eyes distended and eager as if he were led into the sylvan depths by the +lure of a vision. The chain-bearers followed, continually bending and +rising, the recurrent genuflections resembling the fervors of some +religious rite. The chain rustled sibilantly among the dead leaves, and +was ever and anon drawn out to its extremest length. Then the dull clank +of the links was silent. + +"Stick!" called out the young mountaineer in the rear. + +"Stuck!" responded his comrade ahead. + +And once more the writhing and jingling among the withered leaves. The +surveyor strode on, turning his face neither to the right nor to the +left, with his Jacob's-staff held upright before him. The other men +trooped along scatteringly, dodging under the low boughs of the stunted +trees. They pressed hastily together when the great square rocks--Moses' +tables of the Law--came into view, lying where it was said the man of +God flung them upon the sere slope below, both splintered and fissured, +and one broken in twain. The surveyor was bearing straight down upon +them. The men running on either side could not determine whether the +line would fall within the spot or just beyond. They broke into wild +exclamations. + +"Ye may hammer me out ez flat ez a skene," cried the blacksmith, "ef I +don't b'lieve ez Purdee hev got 'em." + +"Naw, sir, naw!" cried another fervent amateur; "thar's the north. I jes +now viewed Grinnell's dad's deed; the line ondertakes ter run with +Purdee's line; he hev got seven hunderd poles ter the north; ef they air +a-goin' ter the north, them tables o' the Law air Grinnell's." + +A wild chorus ensued. + +"Naw!" "Yes!" "Thar they go!" "A-bearin' off that-a-way!" "Beats my +time!" as they stumbled and scuttled alongside the acolytes of the +Compass, who bowed down and rose up at every length of the chain. +Suddenly a cry from the chain-bearers. + +"Out!" + +Stillness ensued. + +The surveyor stopped to register the "out." It was a moment of thrilling +suspense; the rocks lay only a few chains further; Grinnell, into whose +confidence doubt had begun to be instilled, said to himself, all +a-tremble, that he would hardly have staked his veracity, his standing +with the brethren, if he had realized that it was so close a matter as +this. He had long known that his father owned the greater part of the +unproductive wilderness lying between the two ravines; the land was +almost worthless by reason of the steep slants which rendered it utterly +untillable. He was sure that by the terms of his deed, which his father +had from its vendor, Squire Bates, his line included the Moses' tables +on which Purdee had built so fallacious a repute of holiness. He looked +once more at the paper--"thence from Crystal Spring with Purdee's line +north seven hundred poles to a stake in the middle of the river." + +Purdee too was all a-quiver with eagerness. He had not beheld those +rocks since that terrible day when all the fine values of his gifted +vision had been withdrawn from him, and he could read no more with eyes +blinded by the limitations of what other men could see--the infinitely +petty purlieus of the average sense. He had a vague idea that should +they say this was his land where those strange rocks lay, he would see +again, he would read undreamed-of words, writ with a pen of fire. He +started toward them, and then with a conscious effort he held back. + +The surveyor took no heed of the sentiments involved in processioning +Purdee's land. He stood leaning on his Jacob's-staff, as interesting to +him as Moses' rocks, and in his view infinitely more useful, and wiped +his brow, and looked about, and yawned. To him it was merely the +surveying for a foolish cause of a very impracticable and steep tract of +land, and the only reason it should be countenanced by heaven or earth +was the fees involved. And this was what he saw at the end of Purdee's +line. + +Suddenly he took up his Jacob's-staff and marched on with a long stride, +bearing straight down upon the rocks. The whole _cortége_ started +anew--the genuflecting chain-bearers, the dodging, scrambling, running +spectators. On one of the strange stunted leafless trees a colony of +vagrant crows had perched, eerie enough to seem the denizens of those +weird forests; they broke into raucous laughter--Haw! haw! haw!--rising +to a wild commotion of harsh, derisive discord as the men once more gave +vent to loud, excited cries. For the surveyor, stalking ahead, had +passed beyond the great tables of the Law; the chain-bearers were +drawing Purdee's line on the other side of them, and they had fallen, if +ever they fell here from Moses' hand and broke in twain, upon Purdee's +land, granted to his ancestor by the State of Tennessee. + +He could not speak for joy, for pride. His dark eyes were illumined by a +glancing, amber light. He took off his hat and smoothed with his rough +hand his long black hair, falling from his massive forehead. He leaned +against one of the stunted oaks, shouldering his rifle that he had +loaded for Grinnell--he could hardly believe this, although he +remembered it. He did not want to shoot Grinnell; he would not waste the +good lead! + +And indeed Grinnell had much ado to defend himself against the sneers +and rebukes with which the party beguiled the way through the wintry +woods. "Ter go a-claimin' another man's land, an' put him ter the +expense o' processionin' it, an' git his line run!" exclaimed the +blacksmith, indignantly. "An' ye 'ain't got nare sign o' a show at +Moses' tables!" + +"I dunno how this hyar line air a-runnin'," declared Grinnell, sorely +beset. "I don't b'lieve it air a-runnin' north." + +The surveyor was hard by. He had planted his staff again, and was once +more taking his bearings. He looked up for a second. + +"North_west_," he said. + +Grinnell stared for a moment; then strode up to the surveyor, and +pointed with his stubby finger at a word on his deed. + +The official looked with interest at it; he held up suddenly Purdee's +grant and read aloud, "From Crystal Spring seven hundred poles +north_west_ to a stake in the middle of the river." + +He examined, too, the original plat of survey which he had taken to +guide him, and also the plat made when Squire Bates sold to Grinnell's +father; "north_west_" they all agreed. There was evidently a clerical +error on the part of the scrivener who had written Grinnell's deed. + +In a moment the harassed man saw that through the processioning of +Purdee's land he had lost heavily in the extent of his supposed +possessions. He it was who had claimed what was rightfully another's. +And because of the charge Purdee was the richer by a huge slice of +mountain land--how large he could not say, as he ruefully followed the +line of survey. + +But for this discovery the interest of processioning Purdee's land would +have subsided with the determination of the ownership of the limited +environment of the stone tables of the Law. Now, as they followed the +ever-diverging line to the northwest, the group was pervaded by a +subdued and tremulous excitement, in which even the surveyor shared. Two +or three whispered apart now and then, and Grinnell, struggling to +suppress his dismay, was keenly conscious of the glances that sought him +again and again in the effort to judge how he was taking it. Only Purdee +himself was withdrawn from the interest that swayed them all. He had +loitered at first, dallying with a temptation to slip silently from the +party and retrace his way to the tables and ascertain, perchance, if +some vestige of that mystic scripture might not reveal itself to him +anew, or if it had been only some morbid fancy, some futile influence of +solitude, some fevered condition of the blood or the brain, that had +traced on the stone those gracious words, the mere echo of which--his +stuttered, vague recollections--had roused the camp-meeting to fervid +enthusiasms undreamed of before. And then he put from him the +project--some other time, perhaps, for doubts lurked in his heart, +hesitation chilled his resolve--some other time, when his companions and +their prosaic influence were all far away. He was roused abruptly, as he +stalked along, to the perception of the deepening excitement among them. +They had emerged from the dense growths of the mountain to the lower +slope, where pastures and fields--whence the grain had been +harvested--and a garden and a dwelling, with barns and fences, lay +before them all. And as Purdee stopped and stared, the realization of a +certain significant fact struck him so suddenly that it seemed to take +his breath away. That divergent line stretching to the northwest had +left within his boundaries the land on which his enemy had built his +home. + +He looked; then he smote his thigh and laughed aloud. + +The rocks on the river-bank caught the sound, and echoed it again and +again, till the air seemed full of derisive voices. Under their stings +of jeering clamor, and under the anguish of the calamity which his +reeling senses could scarcely measure, Job Grinnell's composure suddenly +gave way. He threw up his arms and called upon Heaven; he turned and +glared furiously at his enemy. Then, as Purdee's laughter still jarred +the air, he drew a "shooting-iron" from his pocket. The blacksmith +closed with him, struggling to disarm him. The weapon was discharged in +the turmoil, the ball glancing away in the first quiver of sunshine +that had reached the earth to-day, and falling spent across the river. + +Grinnell wrested himself from the restraining grasp, and rushed down the +slope to his gate to hide himself from the gaze of the world--his world, +that little group. Then remembering that it was no longer his gate, he +turned from it in an agony of loathing. And knowing that earth held no +shelter for him but the sufferance of another man's roof, he plunged +into the leafless woods as if he heavily dragged himself by a power +which warred within him with other strong motives, and disappeared among +the myriads of holly bushes all aglow with their red berries. + +The spectators still followed the surveyor and his Jacob's-staff, but +Purdee lingered. He walked around the fence with a fierce, gloating eye, +a panther-like, loping tread, as a beast might patrol a fold before he +plunders it. All the venom of the old feud had risen to the opportunity. +Here was his enemy at his mercy. He knew that it was less than seven +years since the enclosures had been made, acres and acres of tillable +land cleared, the houses built--all achieved which converted the +worthlessness of a wilderness into the sterling values of a farm. +He--he, Roger Purdee--was a rich man for the "mountings," joining his +little to this competence. All the cruelties, all the insults, all the +traditions of the old vendetta came thronging into his mind, as +distinctly presented as if they were a series of hideous pictures; for +he was not used to think in detail, but in the full portrayal of +scenes. The Purdee wrongs were all avenged. This result was so +complete, so baffling, so ruinous temporally, so humiliating +spiritually! It was the fullest replication of revenge for all that had +challenged it. + +"How Uncle Ezra would hev rej'iced ter hev lived ter see this day!" he +thought, with a pious regret that the dead might not know. + +The next moment his attention was suddenly attracted by a movement in +the door-yard. A woman had been hanging out clothes to dry, and she +turned to go in, without seeing the striding figure patrolling the +enclosure. A baby--a small bundle of a red dress--was seated on the pile +of sorghum-cane where the mill had worked in the autumn; the stalks were +broken, and flimsy with frost and decay, and washed by the rains to a +pallid hue, yet more marked in contrast with the brown ground. The +baby's dress made a bright bit of color amidst the dreary tones. As +Purdee caught sight of it he remembered that this was "Grinnell's old +baby," who had been the cause of the renewal of the ancient quarrel, +which had resulted so benignantly for him. "I owe you a good turn, sis," +he murmured, satirically, glaring at the child as the unconscious mother +lifted her to go in the house. The baby, looking over the maternal +shoulder, encountered the stern eyes staring at her. She stared gravely +too. Then with a bounce and a gurgle she beamed upon him from out the +retirement of her flapping sun-bonnet; she smiled radiantly, and finally +laughed outright, and waved her hands and again bounced beguilingly, and +thus toothlessly coquetting, disappeared within the door. + +Before Purdee reached home, flakes of snow, the first of the season, +were whirling through the gray dusk noiselessly, ceaselessly, always +falling, yet never seeming to fall, rather to restlessly pervade the air +with a vacillating alienation from all the laws of gravitation. Elusive +fascinations of thought were liberated with the shining crystalline +aerial pulsation; some mysterious attraction dwelt down long vistas +amongst the bare trees; their fine fibrous grace of branch and twig was +accented by the snow, which lay upon them with exquisite lightness, +despite the aggregated bulk, not the densely packed effect which the +boughs would show to-morrow. The crags were crowned; their grim faces +looked frowningly out like a warrior's from beneath a wreath. Nowhere +could the brown ground be seen; already the pine boughs bent, the +needles failing to pierce the drifts. On the banks of the stream, on the +slopes of the mountain, in wildest jungles, in the niches and crevices +of bare cliffs, the holly-berries glowed red in the midst of the +ever-green snow-laden leaves and ice-barbed twigs. When his house at +last came into view, the roof was deeply covered; the dizzying whirl had +followed every line of the rail-fence; scurrying away along the furthest +zigzags there was a vanishing glimpse of a squirrel; the boles of the +trees were embedded in drifts; the chickens had gone to roost; the sheep +were huddling in the broad door of the rude stable; he saw their heads +lifted against the dark background within, where the ox was vaguely +glimpsed. He caught their mild glance despite the snow that in-starred +with its ever-shifting crystals the dark space of the aperture, and +intervened as a veil. They suddenly reminded him of the season--that it +was Christmas Eve; of the sheep which so many years ago beheld the angel +of the Lord and the glory of the great light that shone about the +shepherds abiding in the fields. Did they follow, he wondered, the +shepherds who went to seek for Christ? Ah, as he paused meditatively +beside the rail-fence--what matter how long ago it was, how far +away!--he saw those sheep lying about the fields under the vast midnight +sky. They lift their sleepy heads. Dawn? not yet, surely; and they lay +them down again. And one must bleat aloud, turning to see the quickening +sky; and one, woolly, white, white as snow, with eyes illumined by the +heralding heavens, struggles to its feet, and another, and the flock is +astir; and the shepherds, drowsing doubtless, are awakened to good +tidings of great joy. + +What a night that was!--this night--Christmas Eve. He wondered he had +not thought of it before. And the light still shines, and the angel +waits, and the eternal hosts proclaim peace on earth, good-will toward +men, and summon us all to go and follow the shepherds and see--what? A +little child cradled in a manger. The mountaineer, leaning on his gun by +the rail-fence, looked through the driving snow with the lights of +divination kindling in his eyes, seeing it all, feeling its meaning as +never before. Christ came thus, he knew, for a purpose. He could have +come in the chariots of the sun or on the wings of the wind. But He was +cradled as a little child, that men might revere humanity for the sake +of Him who had graced it; that they, thinking on Him, might be good to +one another and to all little children. + +As he burst into the door of his house the elations of his high +religious mood were rudely dispelled by shrill cries of congratulation +from his wife and her mother. For the news had preceded him. Ephraim +Blinks with his fiddle had stopped there on his way to play at some +neighboring merry-making, and had acquainted them with the result of +processioning Purdee's land. + +"We'll go down thar an' live!" cried his wife, with a gush of joyful +tears. "Arter all our scratchin' along like ten-toed chickens all this +time, we'll hev comfort an' plenty! We'll live in Grinnell's good house! +But ter think o' our trials, an' how pore we hev been!" + +"This air the Purdees' day!" cried the grandmother, her face flushed +with the semblance of youth. "Arter all ez hev kem an' gone, the +jedgmint o' the Lord hev descended on Grinnell, an' he air cast out. An' +his fields, an' house, an' bin, an' barn, air Purdee's!" + +The fire flared and faded; shadows of the night gloomed thick in the +room--this night of nights that bestowed so much, that imposed so much +on man and on his fellow-man! + +"Ain't the Grinnell baby got _no_ home?" whimpered the hereditary enemy. + +The mountaineer remembered the Lord of heaven and earth cradled, a +little Child, in the manger. He remembered, too, the humble child +smiling its guileless good-will at the fence. He broke out suddenly. + +"How kem the fields Purdee's," he cried, leaning his back against the +door and striking the puncheon floor with the butt of the gun till it +rang again and again, "or the house, or the bin, or the barn? Did he +plant 'em? Did he build 'em? Who made 'em his'n?" + +"The law!" exclaimed both women in a breath. + +"Thar ain't no law in heaven or yearth ez kin gin an honest man what +ain't his'n by rights," he declared. + +An insistent feminine clamor arose, protesting the sovereign power of +the law. He quaked for a moment; dominant though he was in his own +house, he could not face them, but he could flee. He suddenly stepped +out of the door, and when they opened it and looked after him in the +snowy dusk and the whitened woods, he was gone. + +And popular opinion coincided with them when it became known that he had +formally relinquished his right to that portion of the land improved by +Grinnell. He said to the old squire who drew up the quit-claim deed, +which he executed that Christmas Eve, that he was not willing to profit +by his enemy's mistake, and thus the consideration expressed in the +conveyance was the value of the land, considered not as a farm, but as +so many acres of wilderness before an axe was laid to the trunk of a +tree or the soil upturned by a plough. It was the minimum of value, and +Grinnell came cheaply off. + +The blacksmith, the mountain fiddler, and the advanced thinker, who had +been active in the survey, balked of the expected excitement attendant +upon the ousting of Grinnell, and some sensational culmination of the +ancient feud, were not in sympathy with the pacific result, and spoke as +if they had given themselves to unrequited labors. + +"Thar ain't no way o' settlin' what that thar critter Purdee owns +'ceptin' ez consarns Moses' tables o' the Law. He clings ter them," they +said, in conclave about the forge fire when the big doors were closed +and the snow, banking up the crevices, kept out the wind. "There ain't +no use in percessionin' Purdee's land." + +And indeed Purdee's possessions were wider far than even that divergent +line which the county surveyor ran out might seem to warrant; for on the +mountain-tops largest realms of solemn thought were open to him. He +levied tribute upon the liberties of an enthused imagination. He exulted +in the freedom of the expanding spaces of a spiritual perception of the +spiritual things. When the snow slipped away from the tables of the Law, +the man who had read strange scripture engraven thereon took his way one +day, doubtful, but faltering with hope, up and up to the vast dome of +the mountain, and knelt beside the rocks to see if perchance he might +trace anew those mystic runes which he once had some fine instinct to +decipher. And as he pondered long he found, or thought he found, here a +familiar character, and there a slowly developing word, and anon--did he +see it aright?--a phrase; and suddenly it was discovered to him that, +whether their origin were a sacred mystery or the fantastic scroll-work +of time as the rock weathered, high thoughts, evoking thrilling +emotions, bear scant import to one who apprehends only in mental +acceptance. And he realized that the multiform texts which he had read +in the fine and curious script were but paraphrases of the simple +mandate to be good to one another for the sake of that holy Child +cradled in manger, and to all little children. + + + THE END + + + + +IN THE "STRANGER PEOPLE'S" COUNTRY. + +By CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 +50. + + + In this strong story Miss Murfree has shown better art than in + any of her other long novels. It is a romance of the Tennessee + mountains, told with singular effect. The mystery and the + picturesqueness of it make it notable. We have enjoyed it, and + we recommend it to those who are hungry and thirsty for a + genuinely entertaining story.--_Independent_, N. Y. + + Miss Murfree has never had a more fascinating field for a + story.... She continues to be a romancist of strong imagination + and sustained dramatic power.--_Literary World_, Boston. + + The extraordinary freshness and reality of the picture of the + hill-people's life in the mountainous regions of Tennessee make + this one of the most readable of the many readable American + stories which abound just now.--_Saturday Review_, London. + + A brilliant story, full of power, remarkably picturesque and + vigorous in the telling.... The author writes in the spirit of a + thorough literary artist, and this book in plot, character, + drawing, vividness, and interest is an advance even on the + admirable stories that brought her into notice and established + her reputation.--_Saturday Evening Gazette_, Boston. + + The author delineates the natural scenery of the region with + graphic power, and the actors in her stories are drawn to the + life. This book is equal to any of its predecessors in dramatic + power.--_Observer_, N. Y. + + This is, perhaps, the best story which Miss Murfree has + published.... Though Miss Murfree's pen has described the + wonderful mountain scenery over and over again in her previous + volumes, yet here are found new, fresh touches that are + charmingly beautiful, strange, and weird.--_Zion's Herald_, + Boston. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK + +_For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage +prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt +of the price._ + + + + +R. D. BLACKMORE'S NOVELS. + + +PERLYCROSS. A Novel. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75. + + Told with delicate and delightful art. Its pictures of rural + English scenes and characters will woo and solace the + reader.... It is charming company in charming surroundings. Its + pathos, its humor, and its array of natural incidents are all + satisfying. One must feel thankful for so finished and + exquisite a story.... Not often do we find a more impressive + piece of work.--_N. Y. Sun._ + +SPRINGHAVEN. 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Y. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the +publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + +BY GEORGE DU MAURIER + + +TRILBY. A Novel. Illustrated by the Author. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1 75; Three-quarter Calf, $3 50; Three-quarter Crushed Levant, $4 50. + + Certainly, if it were not for its predecessor, we should assign + to "Trilby" a place in fiction absolutely companionless.... It + is one of the most unconventional and charming of + novels.--_Saturday Review_, London. + + It is a charming story told with exquisite grace and + tenderness.--_N. Y. Tribune_. + + Mr. Du Maurier has written his tale with such originality, + unconventionality, and eloquence, such rollicking humor and + tender pathos, and delightful play of every lively fancy, all + running so briskly in exquisite English and with such vivid + dramatic picturing, that it is only comparable ... to the + freshness and beauty of a spring morning at the end of a + dragging winter.... It is a thoroughly unique story.--_N. Y. + Sun_. + +PETER IBBETSON. With an Introduction by his Cousin, Lady * * * * * +("Madge Plunket"). Edited and Illustrated by GEORGE DU MAURIER. Post +8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. + + That it is one of the most remarkable books that have appeared + for a long time is, however, indisputable.--_N. Y. Tribune_. + + There are no suggestions of mediocrity. The pathos is true, the + irony delicate, the satire severe when its subject is unworthy, + the comedy sparkling, and the tragedy, as we have said, + inevitable. 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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 Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and Other Stories + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock + +Release Date: July 17, 2011 [EBook #36771] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTOMS *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton 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.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div> + +<br /> + +<br /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img id="coverpage" border="0" src="images/cover.jpg" width="393" height="600" +alt="Cover Page" title="Cover Page" /> +</div> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="ifro" id="ifro"></a> +<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="600" height="376" +alt=""'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT +BEIN' A NEPHEW?'"" title=""'WARN'T YOU-UNS +APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A NEPHEW?'"" /> <span +class="caption">"'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR +NOT BEIN' A NEPHEW?'"</span> </div> + +<h1 id="booktitle">The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge</h1> + +<p class="h2">And Other Stories</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">BY +<br /> +CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK</p> + +<p class="h4">AUTHOR OF +<br /> +"IN THE 'STRANGER PEOPLE'S' COUNTRY" ETC.<br /> +<br /> +ILLUSTRATED</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img src="images/decoration.jpg" width="100" height="124" alt="decoration" title="decoration" /> +</div> + +<p class="h4">NEW YORK +<br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +<br /> +1895</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h5">Copyright, 1895, by <span class="smcap">Harper & Brothers</span></p> +<hr class="thin" /> +<p class="h5"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[3]</span></p> + +<p class="h3">CONTENTS</p> + +<div class="centered"> + <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"> </td> + <td class="tdr">PAGE</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#THE_PHANTOMS_OF_THE_FOOT-BRIDGE">1</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">HIS "DAY IN COURT"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#HIS_DAY_IN_COURT">61</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#WAY_DOWN_IN_LONESOME_COVE">131</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#THE_MOONSHINERS_AT_HOHO-HEBEE_FALLS">183</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">THE RIDDLE OF THE ROCKS</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#THE_RIDDLE_OF_THE_ROCKS">289</a> + </td> + </tr> + +</table></div> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">ILLUSTRATIONS</p> + +<div class="centered"> + <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="Illustrations"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" width="70%">"'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A NEPHEW?'"</td> + <td class="tdc" width="15%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="15%"> + <a href="#ifro"><i>Frontispiece</i></a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE</td> + <td class="tdc"><i>Facing p.</i></td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i012">12</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">OLD JOEL QUIMBEY</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i066">66</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i102">102</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"SHE FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i114">114</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"HE STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i124">124</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i128">128</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i176">176</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"HE HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i214">214</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i284">284</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"SHE SMILED UPON THE BABY"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i300">300</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i312">312</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"THE TABLES OF THE LAW"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i322">322</a> + </td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER—<i>ME</i>?'"</td> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr"> + <a href="#i330">330</a> + </td> + </tr> + +</table></div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_PHANTOMS_OF_THE_FOOT-BRIDGE" id="THE_PHANTOMS_OF_THE_FOOT-BRIDGE"></a> +THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE</h2> + +<p>Across the narrow gorge the little foot-bridge stretched—a brace +of logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a +cedar pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the +dark and rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, +swift and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all +ordinary usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and +elusive travellers who by common report frequented it.</p> + +<p>"We ain't likely ter meet nobody. Few folks kem this way nowadays, +'thout it air jes' ter ford the creek down along hyar a piece, sence +harnts an' sech onlikely critters hev been viewed a-crossin' the +foot-bredge. An' it hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble onlucky, too," +said Roxby.</p> + +<p>His interlocutor drew back slightly. He had his own reasons to recoil +from the subject of death. For him it was invested with a more immediate +terror than is usual to many of the living, with that flattering +persuasion of immortality in every strong pulsation repudiating all +possibility of cessation. Then, lifting his gloomy, long-lashed eyes to +the bridge far up the stream, he asked, "Whose 'harnts'?"<span class="pagenum">[4]</span></p> + +<p>His voice had a low, repressed cadence, as of one who speaks seldom, +grave, even melancholy, and little indicative of the averse interest +that had kindled in his sombre eyes. In comparison the drawl of the +mountaineer, who had found him heavy company by the way, seemed imbued +with an abnormal vivacity, and keyed a tone or two higher than was its +wont.</p> + +<p>"Thar ain't a few," he replied, with a sudden glow of the pride of the +cicerone. "Thar's a graveyard t'other side o' the gorge, an' not more +than a haffen-mile off, an' a cornsider'ble passel o' folks hev been +buried thar off an' on, an' the foot-bredge ain't in nowise +ill-convenient ter them."</p> + +<p>Thus demonstrating the spectral resources of the locality, he rode his +horse well into the stream as he spoke, and dropped the reins that the +animal's impatient lips might reach the water. He sat facing the +foot-bridge, flecked with the alternate shifting of the sunshine and the +shadows of the tremulous firs that grew on either side of the high banks +on the ever-ascending slope, thus arching both above and below the +haunted bridge. His companion had joined him in the centre of the +stream; but while the horses drank, the stranger's eyes were +persistently bent on the concentric circles of the water that the +movement of the animals had set astir in the current, as if he feared +that too close or curious a gaze might discern some pilgrim, whom he +cared not to see, traversing that shadowy quivering foot-bridge. He was +mounted on a strong, handsome chestnut, as marked a contrast to his +guide's lank and trace-galled sorrel as were the two<span class="pagenum">[5]</span> riders. A +slender gloved hand had fallen with the reins to the pommel of the +saddle. His soft felt hat, like a sombrero, shadowed his clear-cut face. +He was carefully shaven, save for a long drooping dark mustache and +imperial. His suit of dark cloth was much concealed by a black cloak, +one end of which thrown back across his shoulder showed a bright blue +lining, the color giving a sudden heightening touch to his attire, as if +he were "in costume." It was a fleeting fashion of the day, but it added +a certain picturesqueness to a horseman, and seemed far enough from the +times that produced the square-tailed frock-coat which the mountaineer +wore, constructed of brown jeans, the skirts of which stood stiffly out +on each side of the saddle, and gave him, with his broad-brimmed hat, a +certain Quakerish aspect.</p> + +<p>"I dun'no' why folks be so 'feared of 'em," Roxby remarked, +speculatively. "The dead ain't so oncommon, nohow. Them ez hev been in +the war, like you an' me done, oughter be in an' 'bout used ter +corpses—though I never seen none o' 'em afoot agin. Lookin' at a +smit field o' battle, arter the rage is jes' passed, oughter gin a body +a realizin' sense how easy the sperit kin flee, an' what pore vessels +fur holdin' the spark o' life human clay be."</p> + +<p>Simeon Roxby had a keen, not unkindly face, and he had that look of +extreme intelligence which is entirely distinct from intellectuality, +and which one sometimes sees in a minor degree in a very clever dog or a +fine horse. One might rely on him to understand instinctively everything +one might say to him, even in its subtler æsthetic values, +although<span class="pagenum">[6]</span> he had consciously learned little. He was of the endowed +natures to whom much is given, rather than of those who are set to +acquire. He had many lines in his face—even his simple life had +gone hard with him, its sorrows unassuaged by its simplicity. His hair +was grizzled, and hung long and straight on his collar. He wore a +grizzled beard cut broad and short. His boots had big spurs, although +the lank old sorrel had never felt them. He sat his horse like the +cavalryman he had been for four years of hard riding and raiding, but +his face had a certain gentleness that accented the Quaker-like +suggestion of his garb, a look of communing with the higher things.</p> + +<p>"I never blamed 'em," he went on, evidently reverting to the spectres of +the bridge—"I never blamed 'em for comin' back wunst in a while. +It 'pears ter me 'twould take me a long time ter git familiar with +heaven, an' sociable with them ez hev gone before. An', my Lord, jes' +think what the good green yearth is! Leastwise the mountings. I ain't +settin' store on the valley lands I seen whenst I went ter the wars. I +kin remember yit what them streets in the valley towns smelt like."</p> + +<p>He lifted his head, drawing a long breath to inhale the exquisite +fragrance of the fir, the freshness of the pellucid water, the aroma of +the autumn wind, blowing through the sere leaves still clinging red and +yellow to the boughs of the forest.</p> + +<p>"Naw, I ain't blamin' 'em, though I don't hanker ter view 'em," he +resumed. "One of 'em I wouldn't be afeard of, though. I feel mighty +sorry fur her. The old folks used ter tell about her. A young<span class="pagenum">[7]</span> 'oman +she war, a-crossin' this bredge with her child in her arms. She war +young, an' mus' have been keerless, I reckon; though ez 'twar her fust +baby, she moughtn't hev been practised in holdin' it an' sech, an' +somehows it slipped through her arms an' fell inter the ruver, an' war +killed in a minit, dashin' agin the rocks. She jes' stood fur a second +a-screamin' like a wild painter, an' jumped off'n the bredge arter it. +She got it agin; for when they dragged her body out'n the ruver she hed +it in her arms too tight fur even death ter onloose. An' thar they air +together in the buryin'-ground."</p> + +<p>He gave a nod toward the slope of the mountain that intercepted the +melancholy view of the graveyard.</p> + +<p>"Got it yit!" he continued; "bekase" (he lowered his voice) "on windy +nights, whenst the moon is on the wane, she is viewed kerryin' the baby +along the bredge—kerryin' it clear over, <i>safe an' sound</i>, like +she thought she oughter done, I reckon, in that one minute, whilst she +stood an' screamed an' surveyed what she hed done. That child would hev +been nigh ter my age ef he hed lived."</p> + +<p>Only the sunbeams wavered athwart the bridge now as the firs swayed +above, giving glimpses of the sky, and their fibrous shadows flickered +back and forth. The wild mountain stream flashed white between the brown +bowlders, and plunged down the gorge in a succession of cascades, each +seeming more transparently green and amber and brown than the other. The +chestnut horse gazed meditatively at these limpid out-gushings, having +drunk his fill; then thought better of his moderation, and once<span class="pagenum">[8]</span> more +thrust his head down to the water. The hand of his rider, which had made +a motion to gather up the reins, dropped leniently on his neck, as +Simeon Roxby spoke again:</p> + +<p>"Several—several others hev been viewed, actin' accordin' ter thar +motions in life. Now thar war a peddler—some say he slipped one +icy evenin', 'bout dusk in winter—some say evil ones waylaid him +fur his gear an' his goods in his pack, but the settlemint mostly +believes he war alone whenst he fell. His pack 'pears ter be full still, +they say—but ye air 'bleeged ter know he hev hed ter set that pack +down fur good 'fore this time. We kin take nuthin' out'n this world, no +matter what kind o' a line o' goods we kerry in life. Heaven's no place +fur tradin', I understan', an' I <i>do</i> wonder sometimes how in the worl' +them merchants an' sech in the valley towns air goin' ter entertain +tharse'fs in the happy land o'Canaan. It's goin' ter be sorter bleak fur +them, sure's ye air born."</p> + +<p>With a look of freshened recollection, he suddenly drew a plug of +tobacco from his pocket, and he talked on even as he gnawed a piece from +it.</p> + +<p>"Durin' the war a cavalry-man got shot out hyar whilst runnin' 'crost +that thar foot-bredge. Thar hed been a scrimmage an' his horse war kilt, +an' he tuk ter the bresh on foot, hopin' ter hide in the laurel. But ez +he war crossin' the foot-bredge some o' the pursuin' party war fordin' +the ruver over thar, an' thinkin' he'd make out ter escape they fired on +him, jes' ez the feller tried ter surrender. He turned this way an' +flung up both arms—but thar's mighty leetle truce in a +pistol-ball. That<span class="pagenum">[9]</span> minute it tuk him right through the brain. Seems +toler'ble long range fur a pistol, don't it? He kin be viewed now most +enny moonlight night out hyar on the foot-bredge, throwin' up both hands +in sign of surrender."</p> + +<p>The wild-geese were a-wing on the way southward. Looking up to that +narrow section of the blue sky which the incision of the gorge into the +very depths of the woods made visible, he could see the tiny files +deploying along the azure or the flecking cirrus, and hear the vague +clangor of their leader's cry. He lifted his head to mechanically follow +their flight. Then, as his eyes came back to earth, they rested again on +the old bridge.</p> + +<p>"Strange enough," he said, suddenly, "the skerriest tale I hev ever +hearn 'bout that thar old bredge is one that my niece set a-goin'. She +<i>seen</i> the harnt <i>herself</i>, an' it shakes me wuss 'n the idee o' all the +rest."</p> + +<p>His companion's gloomy gaze was lifted for a moment with an expression +of inquiry from the slowly widening circles of the water about the +horse's head as he drank. But Roxby's eyes, with a certain gleam of +excitement, a superstitious dilation, still dwelt upon the bridge at the +end of the upward vista. He went on merely from the impetus of the +subject. "Yes, sir—she <i>seen</i> it a-pacin' of its sorrowful way +acrost that bredge, same ez the t'others of the percession o' harnts. +'Twar my niece, Mill'cent—brother's darter—by name, +Mill'cent Roxby. Waal, Mill'cent an' a lot o' young fools o' her +age—little over fryin' size—they 'tended camp-meetin' down +hyar on Tomahawk<span class="pagenum">[10]</span> Creek—'tain't so long ago—along with +the old folks. An' 'bout twenty went huddled up tergether in a +road-wagin. An', lo! the wagin it bruk down on the way home, an' what +with proppin' it up on a crotch, they made out ter reach the cross-roads +over yander at the Notch, an' thar the sober old folks called a halt, +an' hed the wagin mended at the blacksmith-shop. Waal, it tuk some two +hours, fur Pete Rodd ain't a-goin' ter hurry hisself—in my opinion +the angel Gabriel will hev ter blow his bugle oftener'n wunst at the +last day 'fore Pete Rodd makes up his mind ter rise from the dead an' +answer the roll-call—an' this hyar young lot sorter found it +tiresome waitin' on thar elders' solemn company. The old folks, whilst +waitin', set outside on the porches of the houses at the settlemint, an' +repeated some o' the sermons they hed hearn at camp, an' more'n one +raised a hyme chune. An' the young fry—they hed hed a steady diet +o' sermons an' hyme chunes fur fower days—they tuk ter stragglin' +off down the road, two an' two, like the same sorter idjits the world +over, leavin' word with the old folks that the wagin would overtake 'em +an' pick 'em up on the road when it passed. Waal, they walked several +mile, an' time they got ter the crest o' the hill over yander the moon +hed riz, an' they could look down an' see the mist in the valley. The +moon war bright in the buryin'-groun' when they passed it, an' the +head-boards stood up white an' stiff, an' a light frost hed fell on the +mounds, an' they showed plain, an' shone sorter lonesome an' cold. The +young folks begun ter look behind em' fur the<span class="pagenum">[11]</span> wagin. Some +said—I b'lieve 'twar Em'ry Keenan—they could read the names +on the boards plain, 'twar so light, the moon bein' nigh the full: but +Em'ry never read nuthin' at night by the moon in his life; he ain't enny +too capable o' wrastlin' with the alphabet with a strong daytime on his +book ter light him ter knowledge. An' the shadows war black an' still, +an' all the yearth looked ez ef nuthin' lived nor ever would agin, an' +they hearn a wolf howl. Waal, that disaccommodated the gals mightily, +an' they hed a heap more interes' in that old wagin, all smellin' rank +with wagin-grease an' tar, than they did in thar lovyers; an' they hed +ruther hev hearn that old botch of a wheel that Pete Rodd hed set onto +it comin' a-creakin' an' a-complainin' along the road than the sweetest +words them boys war able ter make up or remember. So they stood thar in +the road—a-stare-gazin' them head-boards, like they expected every +grave ter open an' the reveilly ter sound—a-waitin' ter be +overtook by the wagin, a-listenin', but hearin' nuthin' in the silence +o' the frost—not a dead leaf a-twirlin', nor a frozen blade o' +grass astir. An' then two or three o' the gals 'lowed they hed ruther +walk back ter meet the wagin, an' whenst the boys 'lowed ter go +on—nuthin' war likely ter ketch 'em—one of 'em bust out +a-cryin'. Waal, thar war the eend o' that much! So the gay party set out +on the back track, a-keepin' step ter sobs an' sniffles, an' that's how +kem <i>they</i> seen no harnt. But Mill'cent an' three or four o' the +t'others 'lowed they'd go on. They warn't two mile from home, an' full +five from the cross-roads. So Em'ry Keenan—he<span class="pagenum">[12]</span> hev been +waitin' on her sence the year one—so he put his skeer in his +pocket an' kem along with her, a-shakin' in his shoes, I'll be bound! So +down the hill in the frosty moonlight them few kem—purty nigh beat +out, I reckon, Mill'cent war, what with the sermonizin' an' the +hyme-singin' an' hevin' ter look continual at the sheep's-eyes o' Em'ry +Keenan—he wears my patience ter the bone! So she concluded ter +take the short-cut. An' Em'ry he agreed. So they tuk the lead, the rest +a followin', an' kem down thar through all that black growth"—he +lifted his arm and pointed at the great slope, dense with fir and pine +and the heavy underbrush—"keepin' the bridle-path—easy +enough even at night, fur the bresh is so thick they couldn't lose thar +way. But the moonlight war mightily slivered up, fallin' through the +needles of the pines an' the skeins of dead vines, an' looked bleached +and onnatural, an' holped the dark mighty leetle. An' they seen the +water a-shinin' an' a-plungin' down the gorge, an' the glistenin' of the +frost on the floor o' the bredge. Thar war a few icicles on the +hand-rail, an' the branches o' the firs hung ez still ez death; only +that cold, racin', shoutin', jouncin' water moved. Jes ez they got +toler'ble nigh the foot-bredge a sudden cloud kem over the face o' the +sky. Thar warn't no wind on the yearth, but up above the air war +a-stirrin'. An' Em'ry he 'lowed Mill'cent shouldn't cross the +foot-bredge whilst the light warn't clar—I wonder the critter hed +that much sense! An' she jes' drapped down on that rock thar ter +rest"—he pointed up the slope to a great fragment that had broken +off from the ledges and <span class="pagenum">[13]</span>lay near the bank: the bulk of the mass +was overgrown with moss and lichen, but the jagged edges of the recent +fracture gleamed white and crystalline among the brown and olive-green +shadows about it. A tree was close beside it. "Agin that thar pine trunk +Em'ry he stood an' leaned. The rest war behind, a-comin' down the hill. +An' all of a suddenty a light fell on the furder eend o' the +foot-bredge—a waverin' light, mighty white an' misty in the +darksomeness. Mill'cent 'lowed ez fust she thunk it war the moon. An' +lookin' up, she seen the cloud; it held the moon close kivered. An' +lookin' down, she seen the light war movin'—movin' from the furder +eend o' the bredge, straight acrost it. Sometimes a hand war held afore +it, ez ef ter shield it from the draught, an' then Mill'cent 'seen twar +a candle, an' the white in the mistiness war a 'oman wearin' white an' +carryin' it. Lookin' ter right an' then ter lef' the 'oman kem, with now +her right hand shieldin' the candle she held, an' now layin' it on the +hand-rail. The candle shone on the water, fur it didn't flare, an' when +the 'oman held her hand before it the light made a bright spot on the +foot-bredge an' in the dark air about her, an' on the fir branches over +her head. An' a thin mist seemed to hang about her white frock, but not +over her face, fur when she reached the middle o' the foot-bredge she +laid her hand agin on the rail, an' in the clear light o' the candle +Mill'cent seen the harnt's face. An' thar she beheld her own face; <i>her +own face</i> she looked upon ez she waited thar under the tree watchin' the +foot-bredge; <i>her own face</i> pale an' troubled; her own<span class="pagenum">[14]</span> self dressed +in white, crossin' the foot-bredge, an' lightin' her steps with a +corpse's candle." He drew up the reins abruptly. He seemed in sudden +haste to go.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 284px;"> <a name="i012" id="i012"></a> +<img src="images/i012.jpg" width="284" height="600" alt="THE PHANTOM +OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE" title="THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE" /> +<span class="caption">THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE</span> </div> + +<p>His companion looked with deepening interest at the bridge, although he +followed his guide's surging pathway to the opposite bank. As the two +dripping horses struggled up the steep incline he asked, "Did the man +with her see the manifestation also?"</p> + +<p>"He <i>'lows</i> he did," responded Roxby, equivocally. "But when Mill'cent +fust got so she could tell it, 'peared ter me ez Em'ry Keenan fund it ez +much news ez the rest o' we-uns. Mill'cent jes' drapped stone-dead, +accordin' ter all accounts, an' he an' the t'other young folks flung +water in her face till she kem out'n her faint; an' jes' then they hearn +the wagin a-rattlin' along the road, an' they stopped it an' fetched her +home in it. She never told the tale till she war home, an' it skeered me +an' my mother powerful, fur Mill'cent is all the kin we hev got. +Mill'cent is gran'daddy an' gran'mammy, sons an' daughters, uncles an' +aunts, cousins, nieces, an' nephews, all in one. The only thing I ain't +pervided with is a nephew-in-law, an' I don't need him. Leastwise I +ain't lookin' fur Em'ry Keenan jes' at present."</p> + +<p>The pace was brisker when the two horses, bending their strength +sturdily to the task, had pressed up the massive slope from the deep +cleft of the gorge. As the road curved about the outer verge of the +mountain, the valley far beneath came into view, with intersecting +valleys and transverse ranges, dense with the growths of primeval +wildernesses,<span class="pagenum">[15]</span> and rugged with the tilted strata of great upheavals, +and with chasms cut in the solid rock by centuries of erosion, traces of +some remote cataclysmal period, registering thus its throes and +turmoils. The blue sky, seen beyond a gaunt profile of one of the +farther summits that defined its craggy serrated edge against the +ultimate distances of the western heavens, seemed of a singularly suave +tint, incongruous with the savagery of the scene, which clouds and +portents of storm might better have befitted. The little graveyard, +which John Dundas discerned with recognizing eyes, albeit they had never +before rested upon it, was revealed suddenly, lying high on the opposite +side of the gorge. No frost glimmered now on the lowly mounds; the +flickering autumnal sunshine loitered unafraid among them, according to +its languid wont for many a year. Shadows of the gray unpainted +head-boards lay on the withered grass, brown and crisp, with never a +cicada left to break the deathlike silence. A tuft of red leaves, +vagrant in the wind, had been caught on one of the primitive monuments, +and swayed there with a decorative effect. The enclosure seemed, to +unaccustomed eyes, of small compass, and few the denizens who had found +shelter here and a resting-place, but it numbered all the dead of the +country-side for many a mile and many a year, and somehow the loneliness +was assuaged to a degree by the reflection that they had known each +other in life, unlike the great herds of cities, and that it was a +common fate which the neighbors, huddled together, encountered in +company.<span class="pagenum">[16]</span></p> + +<p>It had no discordant effect in the pervasive sense of gloom, of mighty +antagonistic forces with which the scene was replete; it fostered a +realization of the pitiable minuteness and helplessness of human nature +in the midst of the vastness of inanimate nature and the evidences of +infinite lengths of forgotten time, of the long reaches of unimagined +history, eventful, fateful, which the landscape at once suggested and +revealed and concealed.</p> + +<p>Like the sudden flippant clatter of castanets in the pause of some +solemn funeral music was the impression given by the first glimpse along +the winding woodland way of a great flimsy white building, with its many +pillars, its piazzas, its "observatory," its band-stand, its garish +intimations of the giddy, gay world of a summer hotel. But, alack! it, +too, had its surfeit of woe.</p> + +<p>"The guerrillas an' bushwhackers tuk it out on the old hotel, sure!" +observed Sim Roxby, by way of introduction. "Thar warn't much fightin' +hyar-abouts, an' few sure-enough soldiers ever kem along. But wunst in a +while a band o' guerrillas went through like a suddint wind-storm, an' I +tell ye they made things whurl while they war about it. They made a +sorter barracks o' the old place. Looks some like lightning hed struck +it."</p> + +<p>He had reined up his horse about one hundred yards in front of the +edifice, where the weed-grown gravelled drive—carefully tended ten +years agone—had diverged from the straight avenue of poplars, +sweeping in a circle around to the broad flight of steps.</p> + +<p>"Though," he qualified abruptly, as if a sudden<span class="pagenum">[17]</span> thought had struck +him, "ef ye air countin' on buyin' it, a leetle money spent ter keerful +purpose will go a long way toward makin' it ez good ez new."</p> + +<p>His companion did not reply, and for the first time Roxby cast upon him +a covert glance charged with the curiosity which would have been earlier +and more easily aroused in another man by the manner of the stranger. A +letter—infrequent missive in his experience—had come from an +ancient companion-in-arms, his former colonel, requesting him in behalf +of a friend of the old commander to repair to the railway station, +thirty miles distant, to meet and guide this prospective purchaser of +the old hotel to the site of the property. And now as Roxby looked at +him the suspicion which his kind heart had not been quick to entertain +was seized upon by his alert brain.</p> + +<p>"The cunnel's been fooled somehows," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>For the look with which John Dundas contemplated the place was not the +gaze of him concerned with possible investment—with the problems +of repair, the details of the glazier and the painter and the plasterer. +The mind was evidently neither braced for resistance nor resigned to +despair, as behooves one smitten by the foreknowledge of the certainty +of the excess of the expenditures over the estimates. Only with pensive, +listless melancholy, void of any intention, his eyes traversed the long +rows of open doors, riven by rude hands from their locks, swinging +helplessly to and fro in the wind, and giving to the deserted and +desolate old place a<span class="pagenum">[18]</span> spurious air of motion and life. Many of the +shutters had been wrenched from their hinges, and lay rotting on the +floors. The ball-room windows caught on their shattered glass the +reflection of the clouds, and it seemed as if here and there a wan face +looked through at the riders wending along the weed-grown path. Where so +many faces had been what wonder that a similitude should linger in the +loneliness! The pallid face seemed to draw back as they glanced up while +slowly pacing around the drive. A rabbit sitting motionless on the front +piazza did not draw back, although observing them with sedate eyes as he +poised himself upright on his haunches, with his listless fore-paws +suspended in the air, and it occurred to Dundas that he was probably +unfamiliar with the presence of human beings, and had never heard the +crack of a gun. A great swirl of swallows came soaring out of the big +kitchen chimneys and circled in the sky, darting down again and again +upward. Through an open passage was a glimpse of a quadrangle, with its +weed-grown spaces and litter of yellow leaves. A tawny streak, a red +fox, sped through it as Dundas looked. A half-moon, all a-tilt, hung +above it. He saw the glimmer through the bare boughs of the leafless +locust-trees here and there still standing, although outside on the lawn +many a stump bore token how ruthlessly the bushwhackers had furnished +their fires.</p> + +<p>"That thar moon's a-hangin' fur rain," said the mountaineer, commenting +upon the aspect of the luminary, which he, too, had noticed as they +passed. "I ain't s'prised none ef we hev fallin' weather<span class="pagenum">[19]</span> agin 'fore +day, an' the man—by name Morgan Holden—that hev charge o' +the hotel property can't git back fur a week an' better."</p> + +<p>A vague wonder to find himself so suspicious flitted through his mind, +with the thought that perhaps the colonel might have reckoned on this +delay. "Surely the ruvers down yander at Knoxville mus' be a-boomin', +with all this wet weather," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>Then aloud: "Morgan Holden he went ter Colbury ter 'tend ter some +business in court, an' the ruvers hev riz so that, what with the bredges +bein' washed away an' the fords so onsartain an' tricky, he'll stay till +the ruver falls. He don't know ye war kemin', ye see. The mail-rider hev +quit, 'count o' the rise in the ruver, an' thar's no way ter git word +ter him. Still, ef ye air minded ter wait, I'll be powerful obligated +fur yer comp'ny down ter my house till the ruver falls an' Holden he +gits back."</p> + +<p>The stranger murmured his obligations, but his eyes dwelt lingeringly +upon the old hotel, with its flapping doors and its shattered windows. +Through the recurrent vistas of these, placed opposite in the rooms, +came again broken glimpses of the grassy space within the quadrangle, +with its leafless locust-trees, first of all to yield their foliage to +the autumn wind, where a tiny owl was shrilling stridulously under the +lonely red sky and the melancholy moon.</p> + +<p>"Hed ye 'lowed ter put up at the old hotel?" asked Roxby, some inherent +quickness supplying the lack of a definite answer.</p> + +<p>For the first time the stranger turned upon him a look more expressive +than the casual fragmentary<span class="pagenum">[20]</span> attention with which he had half +heeded, half ignored his talk since their first encounter at the railway +station.</p> + +<p>"A simple fellow, but good as gold," was the phrase with which Simeon +Roxby had been commended as guide and in some sort guard.</p> + +<p>"Not so simple, perhaps," the sophisticated man thought as their eyes +met. Not so simple but that the truth must serve. "The colonel suggested +that it might be best," he replied, more alert to the present moment +than his languid preoccupation had heretofore permitted.</p> + +<p>The answer was good as far as it went. A few days spent in the old +hostelry certainly would serve well to acquaint the prospective +purchaser with its actual condition and the measures and means needed +for its repair; but as Sim Roxby stood there, with the cry of the owl +shrilling in the desert air, the lonely red sky, the ominous tilted +moon, the doors drearily flapping to and fro as the wind stole into the +forlorn and empty place and sped back affrighted, he marvelled at the +refuge contemplated.</p> + +<p>"I believe there is some of the furniture here yet. We could contrive to +set up a bed from what is left. The colonel could make it all right with +Holden, and I could stay a day or two, as we originally planned."</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. I don't mind Holden: a man ain't much in charge of a place ez +ain't got a lock or a key ter bless itself with, an' takes the owel an' +the fox an' the gopher fur boarders; but, ennyhow, kem with me home ter +supper. Mill'cent will hev<span class="pagenum">[21]</span> it ready by now ennyhows, an' ye need +suthin' hearty an' hot ter stiffen ye up ter move inter sech quarters ez +these." Dundas hesitated, but the mountaineer had already taken assent +for granted, and pushed his horse into a sharp trot. Evidently a refusal +was not in order. Dundas pressed forward, and they rode together along +the winding way past the ten-pin alley, its long low roof half hidden in +the encroaching undergrowth springing up apace beneath the great trees; +past the stables; past a line of summer cottages, strangely staring of +aspect out of the yawning doors and windows, giving, instead of an +impression of vacancy, a sense of covert watching, of secret occupancy. +If one's glances were only quick enough, were there not faces pressed to +those shattered panes—scarcely seen—swiftly withdrawn?</p> + +<p>He was in a desert; he had hardly been so utterly alone in all his life; +yet he bore through the empty place a feeling of espionage, and ever and +anon he glanced keenly at the overgrown lawns, with their deepening +drifts of autumn leaves, at the staring windows and flaring doors, which +emitted sometimes sudden creaking wails in the silence, as if he sought +to assure himself of the vacancy of which his mind took cognizance and +yet all his senses denied.</p> + +<p>Little of his sentiment, although sedulously cloaked, was lost on Sim +Roxby; and he was aware, too, in some subtle way, of the relief his +guest experienced when they plunged into the darkening forest and left +the forlorn place behind them. The clearing in which it was situated +seemed<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> an oasis of light in the desert of night in which the rest +of the world lay. From the obscurity of the forest Dundas saw, through +the vistas of the giant trees, the clustering cottages, the great hotel, +gables and chimneys and tower, stark and distinct as in some weird +dream-light in the midst of the encircling gloom. The after-glow of +sunset was still aflare on the western windows; the whole empty place +was alight with a reminiscence of its old aspect—its old gay life. +Who knows what memories were a-stalk there—what semblance of +former times? What might not the darkness foster, the impunity of +desertion, the associations that inhabited the place with almost the +strength of human occupancy itself? Who knows—who knows?</p> + +<p>He remembered the scene afterward, the impression he received. And from +this, he thought, arose his regret for his decision to take up here his +abiding-place.</p> + +<p>The forest shut out the illumined landscape, and the night seemed indeed +at hand; the gigantic boles of the trees loomed through the encompassing +gloom, that was yet a semi-transparent medium, like some dark but clear +fluid through which objects were dimly visible, albeit tinged with its +own sombre hue. The lank, rawboned sorrel had set a sharp pace, to which +the chestnut, after momentary lagging, as if weary with the day's +travel, responded briskly. He had received in some way intimations that +his companion's corn-crib was near at hand, and if he had not deduced +from these premises the probability of sharing his fare,<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> his mental +processes served him quite as well as reason, and brought him to the +same result. On and on they sped, neck and neck, through the darkening +woods; fire flashed now and again from their iron-shod hoofs; often a +splash and a shower of drops told of a swift dashing through the +mud-holes that recent rains had fostered in the shallows. The dank odor +of dripping boughs came on the clear air. Once the chestnut shied from a +sudden strange shining point springing up in the darkness close at hand, +which the country-bred horse discriminated as fox-fire, and kept +steadily on, unmindful of the rotting log where it glowed. Far in +advance, in the dank depths of the woods, a Will-o'-the-wisp danced and +flickered and lured the traveller's eye. The stranger was not sure of +the different quality of another light, appearing down a vista as the +road turned, until the sorrel, making a tremendous spurt, headed for it, +uttering a joyous neigh at the sight.</p> + +<p>The deep-voiced barking of hounds rose melodiously on the silence, and +as the horses burst out of the woods into a small clearing, Dundas +beheld in the brighter light a half-dozen of the animals nimbly afoot in +the road, one springing over the fence, another in the act of climbing, +his fore-paws on the topmost rail, his long neck stretched, and his head +turning about in attitudes of observation. He evidently wished to assure +himself whether the excitement of his friends was warranted by the facts +before he troubled himself to vault over the fence. Three or four still +lingered near the door of a log-cabin, fawning about a girl who stood on +the<span class="pagenum">[24]</span> porch. Her pose was alert, expectant; a fire in the dooryard, +where the domestic manufacture of soap had been in progress, cast a red +flare on the house, its appurtenances, the great dark forest looming all +around, and, more than the glow of the hearth within, lighted up the +central figure of the scene. She was tall, straight, and strong; a +wealth of fair hair was clustered in a knot at the back of her head, and +fleecy tendrils fell over her brow; on it was perched a soldier's cap; +and certainly more gallant and fearless eyes had never looked out from +under the straight, stiff brim. Her chin, firm, round, dimpled, was +uplifted as she raised her head, descrying the horsemen's approach. She +wore a full dark-red skirt, a dark brown waist, and around her neck was +twisted a gray cotton kerchief, faded to a pale ashen hue, the +neutrality of which somehow aided the delicate brilliancy of the blended +roseate and pearly tints of her face. Was this the seer of +ghosts—Dundas marvelled—this the Millicent whose pallid and +troubled phantom already paced the foot-bridge?</p> + +<p>He did not realize that he had drawn up his horse suddenly at the sight +of her, nor did he notice that his host had dismounted, until Roxby was +at the chestnut's head, ready to lead the animal to supper in the barn. +His evident surprise, his preoccupation, were not lost upon Roxby, +however. His hand hesitated on the girth of the chestnut's saddle when +he stood between the two horses in the barn. He had half intended to +disregard the stranger's declination of his invitation, and stable the +creature. Then he shook his head slowly; the<span class="pagenum">[25]</span> mystery that hung +about the new-comer was not reassuring. "A heap o' wuthless cattle +'mongst them valley men," he said; for the war had been in some sort an +education to his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him +ter stay. I ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent, +nohow. Em'ry Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble +well acquainted with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy +an' mammy, an' both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could +tell ye exac'ly which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from, +an' them lean sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every tone o' his voice. +Em'ry never thunk afore ez I set store on bein' acquainted with him. He +'lowed I knowed him <i>too</i> well."</p> + +<p>He laughed as he glanced through the open door into the darkening +landscape. Horizontal gray clouds were slipping fast across the pearly +spaces of the sky. The yellow stubble gleamed among the brown earth of +the farther field, still striped with its furrows. The black forest +encircled the little cleared space, and a wind was astir among the +tree-tops. A white star gleamed through the broken clapboards of the +roof, the fire still flared under the soap-kettle in the dooryard, and +the silence was suddenly smitten by a high cracked old voice, which told +him that his mother had perceived the dismounted stranger at the gate, +and was graciously welcoming him.</p> + +<p>She had come to the door, where the girl still stood, but half withdrawn +in the shadow. Dundas silently bowed as he passed her, following his +aged<span class="pagenum">[26]</span> hostess into the low room, all bedight with the firelight of a +huge chimney-place, and comfortable with the realization of a journey's +end. The wilderness might stretch its weary miles around, the weird wind +wander in the solitudes, the star look coldly on unmoved by aught it +beheld, the moon show sad portents, but at the door they all failed, for +here waited rest and peace and human companionship and the sense of +home.</p> + +<p>"Take a cheer, stranger, an' make yerself at home. Powerful glad ter see +ye—war 'feard night would overtake ye. Ye fund the water toler'ble +high in all the creeks an' sech, I reckon, an' fords shifty an' +onsartain. Yes, sir. Fall rains kem on earlier'n common, an' more'n we +need. Wisht we could divide it with that thar drought we had in the +summer. Craps war cut toler'ble short, sir—toler'ble short."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Roxby's spectacles beamed upon him with an expression of the utmost +benignity as the firelight played on the lenses, but her eyes peering +over them seemed endowed in some sort with independence of outlook. It +was as if from behind some bland mask a critical observation was poised +for unbiased judgment. He felt in some degree under surveillance. But +when a light step heralded an approach he looked up, regardless of the +betrayal of interest, and bent a steady gaze upon Millicent as she +paused in the doorway.</p> + +<p>And as she stood there, distinct in the firelight and outlined against +the black background of the night, she seemed some modern half-military +ideal of Diana, with her two gaunt hounds beside her,<span class="pagenum">[27]</span> the rest of +the pack vaguely glimpsed at her heels outside, the perfect outline and +chiselling of her features, her fine, strong, supple figure, the look of +steady courage in her eyes, and the soldier's cap on her fair hair. Her +face so impressed itself upon his mind that he seemed to have seen her +often. It was some resemblance to a picture of a vivandière, +doubtless, in a foreign gallery—he could not say when or where; a +remnant of a tourist's overcrowded impressions; a half-realized +reminiscence, he thought, with an uneasy sense of recognition.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Mill'cent! home agin!" Roxby cried, in cheery greeting as he +entered at the back door opposite. "What sorter topknot is that ye got +on?" he demanded, looking jocosely at her head-gear.</p> + +<p>The girl put up her hand with an expression of horror. A deep red flush +dyed her cheek as she touched the cap. "I forgot 'twar thar," she +murmured, contritely. Then, with a sudden rush of anger as she tore it +off: "'Twar granny's fault. She axed me ter put it on, so ez ter see +which one I looked most like."</p> + +<p>"Stranger," quavered the old woman, with a painful break in her voice, +"I los' fower sons in the war, an' Mill'cent hev got the fambly favor."</p> + +<p>"Ye <i>mought</i> hev let me know ez I war a-perlitin' round in this hyar +men's gear yit," the girl muttered, as she hung the cap on a prong of +the deer antlers on which rested the rifle of the master of the house.</p> + +<p>Roxby's face had clouded at the mention of the four sons who had gone +out from the mountains<span class="pagenum">[28]</span> never to return, leaving to their mother's +aching heart only the vague comfort of an elusive resemblance in a +girl's face; but as he noted Millicent's pettish manner, and divined her +mortification because of her unseemly head-gear in the stranger's +presence, he addressed her again in that jocose tone without which he +seldom spoke to her.</p> + +<p>"Warn't you-uns apologizin' ter me t'other day fur not bein' a nephew +'stiddier a niece? Looked sorter like a nephew ter-night."</p> + +<p>She shook her head, covered now only with its own charming tresses +waving in thick undulations to the coil at the nape of her neck—a +trifle dishevelled from the rude haste with which the cap had been torn +off.</p> + +<p>Roxby had seated himself, and with his elbows on his knees he looked up +at her with a teasing jocularity, such as one might assume toward a +child.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ye war</i>," he declared, with affected solemnity—"ye war +'pologizin' fur not bein' a nephew, an' 'lowed ef ye war a nephew we +could go a-huntin' tergether, an' ye could holp me in all my quar'ls an' +fights. I been aging some lately, an' ef I war ter go ter the settlemint +an' git inter a fight I mought not be able ter hold my own. Think what +'twould be ter a pore old man ter hev a dutiful nephew step up +an'"—he doubled his fists and squared off—"jes' let daylight +through some o' them cusses. An' didn't <i>ye say</i>"—he dropped his +belligerent attitude and pointed an insistent finger at her, as if to +fix the matter in her recollection—"ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a +niece ye could fire<span class="pagenum">[29]</span> a gun 'thout shettin' yer eyes? An' I told ye +then ez that would mend yer aim mightily. I told ye that I'd be powerful +mortified ef I hed a nephew ez hed ter shet his eyes ter keep the noise +out'n his ears whenst he fired a rifle. The tale would go mighty hard +with me at the settlemint."</p> + +<p>The girl's eyes glowed upon him with the fixity and the lustre of those +of a child who is entertained and absorbed by an elder's jovial wiles. A +flash of laughter broke over her face, and the low, gurgling, +half-dreamy sound was pleasant to hear. She was evidently no more than a +child to these bereft old people, and by them cherished as naught else +on earth.</p> + +<p>"An' didn't <i>I</i> tell <i>you-uns</i>," he went on, affecting to warm to the +discussion, and in reality oblivious of the presence of the +guest—"didn't I tell ye ez how ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a +niece ye wouldn't hev sech cattle ez Em'ry Keenan a-danglin' round +underfoot, like a puppy ye can't gin away, an' that <i>won't</i> git lost, +an' ye ain't got the heart ter kill?"</p> + +<p>The girl's lip suddenly curled with scorn. "Yer nephew would be +obligated ter make a ch'ice fur marryin' 'mongst these hyar mounting +gals—Parmely Lepstone, or Belindy M'ria Matthews, or one o' the +Windrow gals. Waal, sir, I'd ruther be yer niece—even ef Em'ry +Keenan <i>air</i> like a puppy underfoot, that ye can't gin away, an' won't +git lost, an' ye ain't got the heart ter kill." She laughed again, +showing her white teeth. She evidently relished the description of the +persistent adherence of poor Emory Keenan. "But which one o' these<span class="pagenum">[30]</span> +hyar gals would ye recommend ter yer nephew ter marry—ef ye hed a +nephew?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him with flashing eyes, conscious of having propounded a +poser.</p> + +<p>He hesitated for a moment. Then—"I'm surrounded," he said, with a +laugh. "Ez I couldn't find a wife fur myself, I can't ondertake ter +recommend one ter my nephew. Mighty fine boy he'd hev been, an' +saaft-spoken an' perlite ter aged men—not sassy an' makin' game o' +old uncles like a niece. Mighty fine boy!"</p> + +<p>"Ye air welcome ter him," she said, with a simulation of scorn, as she +turned away to the table.</p> + +<p>Whether it were the military cap she had worn, or the fancied +resemblance to the young soldiers, never to grow old, who had gone forth +from this humble abode to return no more, there was still to the guest's +mind the suggestion of the vivandière about her as she set the +table and spread upon it the simple fare. To and from the fireplace she +was followed by two or three of the younger dogs, their callowness +expressed in their lack of manners and perfervid interest in the +approaching meal. This induced their brief journeys back and forth, +albeit embarrassed by their physical conformation, short turns on four +legs not being apparently the easy thing it would seem from so much +youthful suppleness. The dignity of the elder hounds did not suffer them +to move, but they looked on from erect postures about the hearth with +glistening eyes and slobbering jaws.</p> + +<p>Ever and anon the deep blue eyes of Millicent were lifted to the outer +gloom, as if she took note<span class="pagenum">[31]</span> of its sinister aspect. She showed scant +interest in the stranger, whose gaze seldom left her as he sat beside +the fire. He was a handsome man, his face and figure illumined by the +firelight, and it might have been that he felt a certain pique, an +unaccustomed slight, in that his presence was so indifferent an element +in the estimation of any young and comely specimen of the feminine sex. +Certainly he had rarely encountered such absolute preoccupation as her +smiling far-away look betokened as she went back and forth with her +young canine friends at her heels, or stood at the table deftly slicing +the salt-rising bread, the dogs poised skilfully upon their hind-legs to +better view the appetizing performance; whenever she turned her face +toward them they laid their heads languishingly askew, as if to remind +her that supper could not be more fitly bestowed than on them. One, to +steady himself, placed unobserved his fore-paw on the edge of the table, +his well-padded toes leaving a vague imprint as of fingers upon the +coarse white cloth; but John Dundas was a sportsman, and could the +better relax an exacting nicety where so pleasant-featured and affable a +beggar was concerned. He forgot the turmoils of his own troubles as he +gazed at Millicent, the dreary aspect of the solitudes without, the +exile from his accustomed sphere of culture and comfort, the poverty and +coarseness of her surroundings. He was sorry that he had declined a +longer lease of Roxby's hospitality, and it was in his mind to +reconsider when it should be again proffered. Her attitude, her gesture, +her face, her environment, all appealed<span class="pagenum">[32]</span> to his sense of beauty, his +interest, his curiosity, as little ever had done heretofore. Slice after +slice of the firm fragrant bread was deftly cut and laid on the plate, +as again and again she lifted her eyes with a look that might seem to +expect to rest on summer in the full flush of a June noontide without, +rather than on the wan, wintry night sky and the plundered, quaking +woods, while the robber wind sped on his raids hither and thither so +swiftly that none might follow, so stealthily that none might hinder. A +sudden radiance broke upon her face, a sudden shadow fell on the firelit +floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young +mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness, +was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was addressed to the +old woman.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mis' Roxby—howdy? Air yer rheumatics mendin' enny?" he +demanded, with the condolent suavity of the would-be son-in-law, or +grandson-in-law, as the case may be. And he hung with a transfixed +interest upon her reply, prolix and discursive according to the wont of +those who cultivate "rheumatics," as if each separate twinge racked his +own sympathetic and filial sensibilities. Not until the tale was ended +did he set his gun against the wall and advance to the seat which Roxby +had indicated with the end of the stick he was whittling. He observed +the stranger with only slight interest, till Dundas drew up his chair +opposite at the table. There the light from the tallow dip, guttering in +the centre, fell upon his handsome face and eyes, his carefully tended +beard and hair, his immaculate<span class="pagenum">[33]</span> cuffs and delicate hand, the +seal-ring on his taper finger.</p> + +<p>"Like a gal, by gum!" thought Emory Keenan. "Rings on his +fingers—yit six feet high!"</p> + +<p>He looked at his elders, marvelling that they so hospitably repressed +the disgust which this effeminate adornment must occasion, forgetting +that it was possible that they did not even observe it. In the gala-days +of the old hotel, before the war, they had seen much "finicking finery" +in garb and equipage and habits affected by the <i>jeunesse dorée</i> +who frequented the place in those halcyon times, and were accustomed to +such details. It might be that they and Millicent approved such flimsy +daintiness. He began to fume inwardly with a sense of inferiority in her +estimation. One of his fingers had been frosted last winter, and with +the first twinge of cold weather it was beginning to look very red and +sad and clumsy, as if it had just remembered its ancient woe; he glanced +from it once more at the delicate ringed hand of the stranger.</p> + +<p>Dundas was looking up with a slow, deferential, decorous smile that +nevertheless lightened and transfigured his expression. It seemed +somehow communicated to Millicent's face as she looked down at him from +beneath her white eyelids and long, thick, dark lashes, for she was +standing beside him, handing him the plate of bread. Then, still +smiling, she passed noiselessly on to the others.</p> + +<p>Emory was indeed clumsy, for he had stretched his hand downward to offer +a morsel to a friend of his under the table—he was on terms of +exceeding amity with the four-footed members of the house<span class="pagenum">[34]</span> +hold—and in his absorption not withdrawing it as swiftly as one +accustomed to canine manners should do, he had his frosted finger well +mumbled before he could, as it were, repossess himself of it.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what they charge fur iron over yander at the settlemint, +Em'ry?" observed Sim Roxby presently.</p> + +<p>"Dun'no', sir," responded Emory, glumly, his sullen black eyes full of +smouldering fire—"hevin' no call ter know, ez I ain't no +blacksmith."</p> + +<p>"I war jes' wonderin' ef tenpenny nails didn't cost toler'ble high ez +reg'lar feed," observed Roxby, gravely.</p> + +<p>But his mother laughed out with a gleeful cracked treble, always a ready +sequence of her son's rustic sallies. "He got ye that time, Em'ry," she +cried.</p> + +<p>A forced smile crossed Emory's face. He tossed back his tangled dark +hair with a gasp that was like the snort of an unruly horse submitting +to the inevitable, but with restive projects in his brain. "I let the +dog hyar ketch my finger whilst feedin' him," he said. His plausible +excuse for the tenpenny expression was complete; but he added, his +darker mood recurring instantly, "An', Mis' Roxby, I hev put a stop ter +them ez hev tuk ter callin' me Em'ly, I hev."</p> + +<p>The old woman looked up, her small wrinkled mouth round and amazed. "<i>I</i> +never called ye Emily," she declared.</p> + +<p>Swift repentance seized him.</p> + +<p>"Naw, 'm," he said, with hurried propitiation. "I 'lowed ye did."</p> + +<p>"I didn't," said the old woman. "But ef I war<span class="pagenum">[35]</span> ter find it toothsome +ter call ye 'Emily,' I dun'no' how ye air goin' ter pervent it. Ye can't +go gunnin' fur me, like ye done fur the men at the mill, fur callin' ye +'Emily.'"</p> + +<p>"Law, Mis' Roxby!" he could only exclaim, in his horror and contrition +at this picture he had thus conjured up. "Ye air welcome ter call me +ennything ye air a mind ter," he protested.</p> + +<p>And then he gasped once more. The eyes of the guest, contemptuous, +amused, seeing through him, were fixed upon him. And he himself had +furnished the lily-handed stranger with the information that he had been +stigmatized "Em'ly" in the banter of his associates, until he had taken +up arms, as it were, to repress this derision.</p> + +<p>"It takes powerful little ter put ye down, Em'ry," said Roxby, with +rallying laughter. "Mam hev sent ye skedaddlin' in no time at all. I +don't b'lieve the Lord made woman out'n the man's rib. He made her out'n +the man's backbone; fur the man ain't hed none ter speak of sence."</p> + +<p>Millicent, with a low gurgle of laughter, sat down beside Emory at the +table, and fixed her eyes, softly lighted with mirth, upon him. The +others too had laughed, the stranger with a flattering intonation, but +young Keenan looked at her with a dumb appealing humility that did not +altogether fail of its effect, for she busied herself to help his plate +with an air of proprietorship as if he were a child, and returned it +with a smile very radiant and sufficient at close range. She then +addressed herself to her own meal. The young dogs under the table ceased +to beg, and gambolled and gnawed and<span class="pagenum">[36]</span> tugged at her stout little +shoes, the sound of their callow mirthful growls rising occasionally +above the talk. Sometimes she rose again to wait on the table, when they +came leaping out after her, jumping and catching at her skirts, now and +then casting themselves on the ground prone before her feet, and rolling +over and over in the sheer joy of existence.</p> + +<p>The stranger took little part in the talk at the table. Never a question +was asked him as to his mission in the mountains, or the length of his +stay, his vocation, or his home. That extreme courtesy of the +mountaineers, exemplified in their singular abstinence from any +expressions of curiosity, accepted such account of himself as he had +volunteered, and asked for no more. In the face of this standard of +manners any inquisitiveness on his part, such as might have elicited +points of interest for his merely momentary entertainment, was tabooed. +Nevertheless, silent though he was for the most part, the relish with +which he listened, his half-covert interest in the girl, his quick +observation of the others, the sudden very apparent enlivening of his +mental atmosphere, betokened that his quarters were not displeasing to +him. It seemed only a short time before the meal was ended and the +circle all, save Millicent, with pipes alight before the fire again. The +dogs, well fed, had ranged themselves on the glowing hearth, lying prone +on the hot stones; one old hound, however, who conserved the air of +listening to the conversation, sat upright and nodded from time to time, +now and again losing his balance and tipping forward in a truly human +fashion, then<span class="pagenum">[37]</span> gazing round on the circle with an open luminous eye, +as who should say he had not slept.</p> + +<p>It was all very cheerful within, but outside the wind still blared +mournfully. Once more Dundas was sorry that he had declined the +invitation to remain, and it was with a somewhat tentative intention +that he made a motion to return to the hotel. But his host seemed to +regard his resolution as final, and rose with a regret, not an +insistence. The two women stared in silent amazement at the mere idea of +his camping out, as it were, in the old hotel. The ascendency of +masculine government here, notwithstanding Roxby's assertion that Eve +was made of Adam's backbone, was very apparent in their mute +acquiescence and the alacrity with which they began to collect various +articles, according to his directions, to make the stranger's stay more +comfortable.</p> + +<p>"Em'ry kin go along an' holp," he said, heartlessly; for poor Emory's +joy in perceiving that the guest was not a fixture, and that his +presence was not to be an embargo on any word between himself and +Millicent during the entire evening, was pitiably manifest. But the +situation was still not without its comforts, since Dundas was to go +too. Hence he was not poor company when once in the saddle, and was +civil to a degree of which his former dismayed surliness had given no +promise.</p> + +<p>Night had become a definite element. The twilight had fled. Above their +heads, as they galloped through the dank woods, the bare boughs of the +trees clashed together—so high above their heads that to the town +man, unaccustomed to these great<span class="pagenum">[38]</span> growths, the sound seemed not of +the vicinage, but unfamiliar, uncanny, and more than once he checked his +horse to listen. As they approached the mountain's verge and overlooked +the valley and beheld the sky, the sense of the predominance of darkness +was redoubled. The ranges gloomed against the clearer spaces, but a +cloud, deep gray with curling white edges, was coming up from the west, +with an invisible convoy of vague films, beneath which the stars, +glimmering white points, disappeared one by one. The swift motion of +this aerial fleet sailing with the wind might be inferred from the +seemingly hurried pace of the moon making hard for the west. Still +bright was the illumined segment, but despite its glitter the shadowy +space of the full disk was distinctly visible, its dusky field spangled +with myriads of minute, dully golden points. Down, down it took its way +in haste—in disordered fright, it seemed, as if it had no heart to +witness the storm which the wind and the clouds foreboded—to +fairer skies somewhere behind those western mountains. Soon even its +vague light would encroach no more upon the darkness. The great hotel +would be invisible, annihilated as it were in the gloom, and not even +thus dimly exist, glimmering, alone, forlorn, so incongruous to the +wilderness that it seemed even now some mere figment of the brain, as +the two horsemen came with a freshened burst of speed along the deserted +avenue and reined up beside a small gate at the side.</p> + +<p>"No use ter ride all the way around," observed Emory Keenan. "Mought jes +ez well 'light an' hitch hyar."<span class="pagenum">[39]</span></p> + +<p>The moon gave him the escort of a great grotesque shadow as he threw +himself from his horse and passed the reins over a decrepit +hitching-post near at hand. Then he essayed the latch of the small gate. +He glanced up at Dundas, the moonlight in his dark eyes, with a smile as +it resisted his strength.</p> + +<p>He was a fairly good-looking fellow when rid of the self-consciousness +of jealousy. His eyes, mouth, chin, and nose, acquired from reliable and +recognizable sources, were good features, and statuesque in their +immobility beneath the drooping curves of his broad soft hat. He was +tall, with the slenderness of youth, despite his evident weight and +strength. He was long-waisted and lithe and small of girth, with broad +square shoulders, whose play of muscles as he strove with the gate was +not altogether concealed by the butternut jeans coat belted in with his +pistols by a broad leathern belt. His boots reached high on his long +legs, and jingled with a pair of huge cavalry spurs. His stalwart +strength seemed as if it must break the obdurate gate rather than open +it, but finally, with a rasping creak, dismally loud in the silence, it +swung slowly back.</p> + +<p>The young mountaineer stood gazing for a moment at the red rust on the +hinges. "How long sence this gate must hev been opened afore?" he said, +again looking up at Dundas with a smile.</p> + +<p>Somehow the words struck a chill to the stranger's heart. The sense of +the loneliness of the place, of isolation, filled him with a sort of +awe. The night-bound wilderness itself was not more<span class="pagenum">[40]</span> daunting than +these solitary tiers of piazzas, these vacant series of rooms and +corridors, all instinct with vanished human presence, all alert with +echoes of human voices. A step, a laugh, a rustle of garments—he +could have sworn he heard them at any open doorway as he followed his +guide along the dim moonlit piazza, with its pillars duplicated at +regular intervals by the shadows on the floor. How their tread echoed +down these lonely ways! From the opposite side of the house he heard +Keenan's spurs jangling, his soldierly stride sounding back as if their +entrance had roused barracks. He winced once to see his own shadow with +its stealthier movement. It seemed painfully furtive. For the first time +during the evening his jaded mind, that had instinctively sought the +solace of contemplating trifles, reverted to its own tormented +processes. "Am I not hiding?" he said to himself, in a sort of sarcastic +pity of his plight.</p> + +<p>The idea seemed never to enter the mind of the transparent Keenan. He +laughed out gayly as they turned into the weed-grown quadrangle, and the +red fox that Dundas had earlier observed slipped past him with +affrighted speed and dashed among the shadows of the dense shrubbery of +the old lawn without. Again and again the sound rang back from wall to +wall, first with the jollity of seeming imitation, then with an appalled +effect sinking to silence, and suddenly rising again in a grewsome +<i>staccato</i> that suggested some terrible unearthly laughter, and bore but +scant resemblance to the hearty mirth which had evoked it. Keenan paused +and looked back with friendly gleaming<span class="pagenum">[41]</span> eyes. "Oughter been a leetle +handier with these hyar consarns," he said, touching the pistols in his +belt.</p> + +<p>It vaguely occurred to Dundas that the young man went strangely heavily +armed for an evening visit at a neighbor's house. But it was a lawless +country and lawless times, and the sub-current of suggestion did not +definitely fix itself in his mind until he remembered it later. He was +looking into each vacant open doorway, seeing the still moonlight +starkly white upon the floor; the cobwebbed and broken window-panes, +through which a section of leafless trees beyond was visible; bits of +furniture here and there, broken by the vandalism of the guerillas. Now +and then a scurrying movement told of a gopher, hiding too, and on one +mantel-piece, the black fireplace yawning below, sat a tiny tawny-tinted +owl, whose motionless bead-like eyes met his with a stare of stolid +surprise. After he had passed, its sudden ill-omened cry set the silence +to shuddering.</p> + +<p>Keenan, leading the way, paused in displeasure. "I wisht I hed viewed +that critter," he said, glumly. "I'd hev purvented that screechin' ter +call the devil, sure. It's jes a certain sign o' death."</p> + +<p>He was about to turn, to wreak his vengeance, perchance. But the bird, +sufficiently fortunate itself, whatever woe it presaged for others, +suddenly took its awkward flight through sheen and shadow across the +quadrangle, and when they heard its cry again it came from some remote +section of the building, with a doleful echo as a refrain.</p> + +<p>The circumstance was soon forgotten by Keenan.<span class="pagenum">[42]</span> He seemed a happy, +mercurial, lucid nature, and he began presently to dwell with interest +on the availability of the old music-stand in the centre of the square +as a manger. "Hyar," he said, striking the rotten old structure with a +heavy hand, which sent a quiver and a thrill through all the +timbers—"hyar's whar the guerillas always hitched thar beastises. +Thar feed an' forage war piled up thar on the fiddlers' seats. Ye can't +do no better'n ter pattern arter them, till ye git ready ter hev +fiddlers an' sech a-sawin' away in hyar agin."</p> + +<p>And he sauntered away from the little pavilion, followed by Dundas, who +had not accepted his suggestion of a room on the first floor as being +less liable to leakage, but finally made choice of an inner apartment in +the second story. He looked hard at Keenan, when he stood in the doorway +surveying the selection. The room opened into a cross-hall which gave +upon a broad piazza that was latticed; tiny squares of moonlight were +all sharply drawn on the floor, and, seen through a vista of gray +shadow, seemed truly of a gilded lustre. From the windows of this room +on a court-yard no light could be visible to any passer-by without. +Another door gave on an inner gallery, and through its floor a staircase +came up from the quadrangle close to the threshold. Dundas wondered if +these features were of possible significance in Keenan's estimation. The +young mountaineer turned suddenly, and snatching up a handful of slats +broken from the shutters, remarked:</p> + +<p>"Let's see how the chimbly draws—that's the main p'int."<span class="pagenum">[43]</span></p> + +<p>There was no defect in the chimney's constitution. It drew admirably, +and with the white and red flames dancing in the fireplace, two or three +chairs, more or less disabled, a table, and an upholstered lounge +gathered at random from the rooms near at hand, the possibility of +sojourning comfortably for a few days in the deserted hostelry seemed +amply assured.</p> + +<p>Once more Dundas gazed fixedly at the face of the young mountaineer, who +still bent on one knee on the hearth, watching with smiling eyes the +triumphs of his fire-making. It seemed to him afterwards that his +judgment was strangely at fault; he perceived naught of import in the +shallow brightness of the young man's eyes, like the polished surface of +jet; in the instability of his jealousy, his anger; in his hap-hazard, +mercurial temperament. Once he might have noted how flat were the spaces +beneath the eyes, how few were the lines that defined the lid, the +socket, the curve of the cheekbone, the bridge of the nose, and how +expressionless. It was doubtless the warmth and glow of the fire, the +clinging desire of companionship, the earnest determination to be +content, pathetic in one who had but little reason for optimism, that +caused him to ignore the vacillating glancing moods that successively +swayed Keenan, strong while they lasted, but with scanty augury because +of their evanescence. He was like some newly discovered property in +physics of untried potentialities, of which nothing is ascertained but +its uncertainties.</p> + +<p>And yet he seemed to Dundas a simple country<span class="pagenum">[44]</span> fellow, good-natured +in the main, unsuspicious, and helpful. So, giving a long sigh of relief +and fatigue, Dundas sank down in one of the large arm-chairs that had +once done duty for the summer loungers on the piazza.</p> + +<p>In the light of the fire Emory was once more looking at him. A certain +air of distinction, a grace and ease of movement, an indescribable +quality of bearing which he could not discriminate, yet which he +instinctively recognized as superior, offended him in some sort. He +noticed again the ring on the stranger's hand as he drew off his glove. +Gloves! Emory Keenan would as soon have thought of wearing a petticoat. +Once more the fear that these effeminate graces found favor in +Millicent's estimation smote upon his heart. It made the surface of his +opaque eyes glisten as Dundas rose and took up a pipe and tobacco pouch +which he had laid on the mantel-piece, his full height and fine figure +shown in the changed posture.</p> + +<p>"Ez tall ez me, ef not taller, an', by gum! a good thirty pound +heavier," Emory reflected, with a growing dismay that he had not those +stalwart claims to precedence in height and weight as an offset to the +smoother fascinations of the stranger's polish.</p> + +<p>He had risen hastily to his feet. He would not linger to smoke +fraternally over the fire, and thus cement friendly relations.</p> + +<p>"I guided him hyar, like old Sim Roxby axed me ter do, an' that's all. I +ain't keerin' ef I never lay eyes on him again," he said to +himself.<span class="pagenum">[45]</span></p> + +<p>"Going?" said Dundas, pleasantly, noticing the motion. "You'll look in +again, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Wunst in a while, I reckon," drawled Keenan, a trifle thrown off his +balance by this courtesy.</p> + +<p>He paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder for a moment at +the illumined room, then stepped out into the night, leaving the tenant +of the lonely old house filling his pipe by the fire.</p> + +<p>His tread rang along the deserted gallery, and sudden echoes came +tramping down the vacant halls as if many a denizen of the once populous +place was once more astir within its walls. Long after Dundas had heard +him spring from the lower piazza to the ground, and the rusty gate clang +behind him, vague footfalls were audible far away, and were still again, +and once more a pattering tread in some gaunt and empty apartment near +at hand, faint and fainter yet, till he hardly knew whether it were the +reverberations of sound or fancy that held his senses in thrall.</p> + +<p>And when all was still and silent at last he felt less solitary than +when these elusive tokens of human presence were astir.</p> + +<p>Late, late he sat over the dwindling embers. His mind, no longer +diverted by the events of the day, recurred with melancholy persistence +to a theme which even they, although fraught with novelty and presage of +danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril +dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him +in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here, +defenceless so far from the specious wiles and ways of men. All the line +of provocations<span class="pagenum">[46]</span> seemed slight, seemed naught, as he reviewed them +and balanced them against a human life. True, it was not in some mad +quarrel that his skill had taken it and had served to keep his +own—a duel, a fair fight, strictly regular according to the code +of "honorable men" for ages past—and he sought to argue that it +was doubtless but the morbid sense of the wild fastnesses without, the +illimitable vastness of the black night, the unutterable indurability of +nature to the influences of civilization, which made it taste like +murder. He had brought away even from the scene of action, to which he +had gone with decorous deliberation—his worldly affairs arranged +for the possibility of death, his will made, his volition surrendered, +and his sacred honor in the hands of his seconds—a humiliating +recollection of the sudden revulsion of the aspect of all things; the +criminal sense of haste with which he was hurried away after that first +straight shot; the agitation, nay, the fright of his seconds; their +eagerness to be swiftly rid of him, their insistence that he should go +away for a time, get out of the country, out of the embarrassing purview +of the law, which was prone to regard the matter as he himself saw it +now, and which had an ugly trick of calling things by their right names +in the sincere phraseology of an indictment. And thus it was that he was +here, remote from all the usual lines of flight, with his affectation of +being a possible purchaser for the old hotel, far from the railroad, the +telegraph, even the postal service. Some time—soon, indeed, it +might be, when the first flush of excitement and indignation should be +overpast, and the<span class="pagenum">[47]</span> law, like a barking dog that will not bite, +should have noisily exhausted the gamut of its devoirs—he would go +back and live according to his habit in his wonted place, as did other +men whom he had known to be "called out," and who had survived their +opponents. Meantime he heard the ash crumble; he saw the lighted room +wane from glancing yellow to a dull steady red, and so to dusky brown; +he marked the wind rise, and die away, and come again, banging the doors +of the empty rooms, and setting timbers all strangely to creaking as +under sudden trampling feet; then lift into the air with a rustling +sound like the stir of garments and the flutter of wings, calling out +weirdly in the great voids of the upper atmosphere.</p> + +<p>He had welcomed the sense of fatigue earlier in the evening, for it +promised sleep. Now it had slipped away from him. He was strong and +young, and the burning sensation that the frosty air had left on his +face was the only token of the long journey. It seemed as if he would +never sleep again as he lay on the lounge watching the gray ash +gradually overgrow the embers, till presently only a vague dull glow +gave intimation of the position of the hearth in the room. And then, +bereft of this dim sense of companionship, he stared wide-eyed in the +darkness, feeling the only creature alive and awake in all the world. +No; the fox was suddenly barking within the quadrangle—a strangely +wild and alien tone. And presently he heard the animal trot past his +door on the piazza, the cushioned footfalls like those of a swift dog. +He thought with a certain anxiety of the tawny tiny owl that had +sat<span class="pagenum">[48]</span> like a stuffed ornament on the mantel-piece of a neighboring +room, and he listened with a quaking vicarious presentiment of woe for +the sounds of capture and despair. He was sensible of waiting and hoping +for the fox's bootless return, when he suddenly lost consciousness.</p> + +<p>How long he slept he did not know, but it seemed only a momentary +respite from the torture of memory, when, still in the darkness, +thousands of tremulous penetrating sounds were astir, and with a great +start he recognized the rain on the roof. It was coming down in steady +torrents that made the house rock before the tumult of his plunging +heart was still, and he was longing again for the forgetfulness of +sleep. In vain. The hours dragged by; the windows slowly, slowly defined +their dull gray squares against the dull gray day dawning without. The +walls that had been left with only the first dark coat of plaster, +awaiting another season for the final decoration, showed their drapings +of cobweb, and the names and pencilled scribblings with which the fancy +of transient bushwhackers had chosen to deface them. The locust-trees +within the quadrangle drearily tossed their branches to and fro in the +wind, the bark very black and distinct against the persistent gray lines +of rain and the white walls of the galleried buildings opposite; the +gutters were brimming, roaring along like miniature torrents; nowhere +was the fox or the owl to be seen. Somehow their presence would have +been a relief—the sight of any living thing reassuring. As he +walked slowly along the deserted piazzas, in turning sudden corners, +again and again he<span class="pagenum">[49]</span> paused, expecting that something, some one, was +approaching to meet him. When at last he mounted his horse, that had +neighed gleefully to see him, and rode away through the avenue and along +the empty ways among the untenanted summer cottages, all the drearier +and more forlorn because of the rain, he felt as if he had left an +aberration, some hideous dream, behind, instead of the stark reality of +the gaunt and vacant and dilapidated old house.</p> + +<p>The transition to the glow and cheer of Sim Roxby's fireside was like a +rescue, a restoration. The smiling welcome in the women's eyes, their +soft drawling voices, with mellifluous intonations that gave a value to +each commonplace simple word, braced his nerves like a tonic. It might +have been only the contrast with the recollections of the night, with +the prospect visible through the open door—the serried lines of +rain dropping aslant from the gray sky and elusively outlined against +the dark masses of leafless woods that encircled the clearing; the +dooryard half submerged with puddles of a clay-brown tint, embossed +always with myriads of protruding drops of rain, for however they melted +away the downpour renewed them, and to the eye they were stationary, +albeit pervaded with a continual tremor—but somehow he was +cognizant of a certain coddling tenderness in the old woman's manner +that might have been relished by a petted child, an unaffected +friendliness in the girl's clear eyes. They made him sit close to the +great wood fire; the blue and yellow flames gushed out from the piles of +hickory logs, and the bed of coals<span class="pagenum">[50]</span> gleamed at red and white heat +beneath. They took his hat to carefully dry it, and they spread out his +cloak on two chairs at one side of the room, where it dismally dripped. +When he ventured to sneeze, Mrs. Roxby compounded and administered a +"yerb tea," a sovereign remedy against colds, which he tasted on +compulsion and in great doubt, and swallowed with alacrity and +confidence, finding its basis the easily recognizable "toddy." He had +little knowledge how white and troubled his face had looked as he came +in from the gray day, how strongly marked were those lines of sharp +mental distress, how piteously apparent was his mute appeal for sympathy +and comfort.</p> + +<p>"Mill'cent," said the old woman in the shed-room, as they washed and +wiped the dishes after the cozy breakfast of venison and corn-dodgers +and honey and milk, "that thar man hev run agin the law, sure's ye air +born."</p> + +<p>Millicent turned her reflective fair face, that seemed whiter and more +delicate in the damp dark day, and looked doubtfully out over the +fields, where the water ran in steely lines in the furrows.</p> + +<p>"Mus' hev been by accident or suthin'. <i>He</i> ain't no hardened sinner."</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" the old woman commented upon her reluctant acquiescence. "I +ain't keerin' for the law! 'Tain't none o' my job. The tomfool men make +an' break it. Ennybody ez hev seen this war air obleeged to take note o' +the wickedness o' men in gineral. This hyer man air a sorter pitiful +sinner, an' he hev got a look in his eyes that plumb<span class="pagenum">[51]</span> teches my +heart. I 'ain't got no call ter know nuthin' 'bout the law, bein' a +'oman an' naterally ignorunt. I dun'no' ez he hev run agin it."</p> + +<p>"Mus' hev been by accident," said Millicent, dreamily, still gazing over +the sodden fields.</p> + +<p>The suspicion did nothing to diminish his comfort or their cordiality. +The morning dragged by without change in the outer aspects. The noontide +dinner came and went without Roxby's return, for the report of the +washing away of a bridge some miles distant down the river had early +called him out to the scene of the disaster, to verify in his own +interests the rumor, since he had expected to haul his wheat to the +settlement the ensuing day. The afternoon found the desultory talk still +in progress about the fire, the old woman alternately carding cotton and +nodding in her chair in the corner; the dogs eying the stranger, +listening much of the time with the air of children taking instruction, +only occasionally wandering out-of-doors, the floor here and there +bearing the damp imprint of their feet; and Millicent on her knees in +the other corner, the firelight on her bright hair, her delicate cheek, +her quickly glancing eyes, as she deftly moulded bullets.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Sim hed ter s'render his shootin'-irons," she explained, "an' he +'ain't got no ca'tridge-loadin' ones lef'. So he makes out with his old +muzzle-loadin' rifle that he hed afore the war, an' I moulds his bullets +for him rainy days."</p> + +<p>As she held up a moulded ball and dexterously clipped off the surplus +lead, the gesture was so culinary in its delicacy that one of the dogs +in<span class="pagenum">[52]</span> front of the fire extended his head, making a long neck, with a +tentative sniff and a glistening gluttonous eye.</p> + +<p>"Ef I swallered enny mo' lead, I wouldn't take it hot, Towse," she said, +holding out the bullet for canine inspection. "'Tain't healthy!"</p> + +<p>But the dog, perceiving the nature of the commodity, drew back with a +look of deep reproach, rose precipitately, and with a drooping tail went +out skulkingly into the wet gray day.</p> + +<p>"Towse can't abide a bullet," she observed, "nor nuthin' 'bout a gun. He +got shot wunst a-huntin', an' he never furgot it. Jes show him a gun an' +he ain't nowhar ter be seen—like he war cotch up in the clouds."</p> + +<p>"Good watch-dog, I suppose," suggested Dundas, striving to enter into +the spirit of her talk.</p> + +<p>"Naw; too sp'ilt for a gyard-dog—granny coddled him so whenst he +got shot. He's jest vally'ble fur his conversation, I reckon," she +continued, with a smile in her eyes. "I dun'no' what else, but he is +toler'ble good company."</p> + +<p>The other dogs pressed about her, the heads of the great hounds as high +as her own as she sat among them on the floor. With bright eyes and +knitted brows they followed the motions of pouring in the melted metal, +the lifting of the bullets from the mould, the clipping off of the +surplus lead, and the flash of the keen knife.</p> + +<p>Outside the sad light waned; the wind sighed and sighed; the dreary rain +fell; the trees clashed their boughs dolorously together, and their +turbulence deadened the sound of galloping horses. As<span class="pagenum">[53]</span> Dundas sat +and gazed at the girl's intent head, with its fleecy tendrils and its +massive coil, the great hounds beside her, all emblazoned by the +firelight upon the brown wall near by, with the vast fireplace at hand, +the whole less like reality than some artist's pictured fancy, he knew +naught of a sudden entrance, until she moved, breaking the spell, and +looked up to meet the displeasure in Roxby's eyes and the dark scowl on +Emory Keenan's face.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>That night the wind shifted to the north. Morning found the chilled +world still, ice where the water had lodged, all the trees incased in +glittering garb that followed the symmetry alike of every bough and the +tiniest twig, and made splendid the splintered remnants of the +lightning-riven. The fields were laced across from furrow to furrow, in +which the frozen water still stood gleaming, with white arabesques which +had known a more humble identity as stubble and crab-grass; the sky was +slate-colored, and from its sad tint this white splendor gained added +values of contrast. When the sun should shine abroad much of the effect +would be lost in the too dazzling glister; but the sun did not shine.</p> + +<p>All day the gray mood held unchanged. Night was imperceptibly sifting +down upon all this whiteness, that seemed as if it would not be +obscured, as if it held within itself some property of luminosity, when +Millicent, a white apron tied over her golden head, improvising a hood, +its superfluous fulness gathered in many folds and pleats around her +neck, fichu-wise, stood beside the ice-draped fodder-stack and essayed +with half-numbed hands to insert a<span class="pagenum">[54]</span> tallow dip into the socket of a +lantern, all incrusted and clumsy with previous drippings.</p> + +<p>"I dun'no' whether I be a-goin' ter need this hyar consarn whilst +milkin' or no," she observed, half to herself, half to Emory, who, +chewing a straw, somewhat surlily had followed her out for a word apart. +"The dusk 'pears slow ter-night, but Spot's mighty late comin' home, an' +old Sue air fractious an' contrairy-minded, and feels mighty anxious an' +oneasy 'boutn her calf, that's ez tall ez she is nowadays, an' don't +keer no mo' 'bout her mammy 'n a half-grown human does. I tell her she +oughtn't ter be mad with me, but with the way she brung up her chile, ez +won't notice her now."</p> + +<p>She looked up with a laugh, her eyes and teeth gleaming; her golden hair +still showed its color beneath the spotless whiteness of her voluminous +headgear, and the clear tints of her complexion seemed all the more +delicate and fresh in the snowy pallor of the surroundings and the +grayness of the evening.</p> + +<p>"I reckon I'd better take it along," and once more she addressed herself +to the effort to insert the dip into the lantern.</p> + +<p>Emory hardly heard. His pulse was quick. His eye glittered. He breathed +hard as, with both hands in his pockets, he came close to her.</p> + +<p>"Mill'cent," he said, "I told ye the t'other day ez ye thunk a heap too +much o' that thar stranger—"</p> + +<p>"An' I tole ye, bubby, that I didn't think nuthin' o' nobody but +you-uns," she interrupted, with an effort to placate his jealousy. The +little jocularity which she affected dwindled and died before the<span class="pagenum">[55]</span> +steady glow of his gaze, and she falteringly looked at him, her unguided +hands futilely fumbling with the lantern.</p> + +<p>"Ye can't fool me," he stoutly asseverated. "Ye think mo' o' him 'n o' +me, kase ye 'low he air rich, an' book-larned, an' smooth-fingered, an' +finified ez a gal, an' goin' ter buy the hotel. I say, <i>hotel</i>! Now +<i>I'll</i> tell ye what he is—I'll tell ye! He's a criminal. He's +runnin' from the law. He's hidin' in the old hotel that he's purtendin' +ter buy."</p> + +<p>She stared wide-eyed and pallid, breathless and waiting.</p> + +<p>He interpreted her expression as doubt, denial.</p> + +<p>"It's gospel sure," he cried. "Fur this very evenin' I met a gang o' men +an' the sheriff's deputy down yander by the sulphur spring 'bout +sundown, an' he 'lowed ez they war a-sarchin' fur a criminal ez war +skulkin' round hyarabout lately—ez they wanted a man fur hevin' +c'mitted murder."</p> + +<p>"But ye didn't accuse <i>him</i>, surely; ye hed no right ter s'picion <i>him</i>. +Uncle Sim! Oh, my Lord! Ye surely wouldn't! Oh, Uncle Sim!"</p> + +<p>Her tremulous words broke into a quavering cry as she caught his arm +convulsively, for his face confirmed her fears. She thrust him wildly +away, and started toward the house.</p> + +<p>"Ye needn't go tattlin' on me," he said, roughly pushing her aside. +"I'll tell Mr. Roxby myself. I ain't 'shamed o' what I done. I'll tell +him. I'll tell him myself." And animated with this intention to +forestall her disclosure, his long strides bore him swiftly past and +into the house.</p> + +<p>It seemed to him that he lingered there only a<span class="pagenum">[56]</span> moment or two, for +Roxby was not at the cabin, and he said nothing of the quarrel to the +old woman. Already his heart had revolted against his treachery, and +then there came to him the further reflection that he did not know +enough to justify suspicion. Was not the stranger furnished with the +fullest credentials—a letter to Roxby from the Colonel? Perhaps he +had allowed his jealousy to endanger the man, to place him in jeopardy +even of his life should he resist arrest.</p> + +<p>Keenan tarried at the house merely long enough to devise a plausible +excuse for his sudden excited entrance, and then took his way back to +the barnyard.</p> + +<p>It was vacant. The cows still stood lowing at the bars; the sheep +cowered together in their shed; the great whitened cone of the +fodder-stack gleamed icily in the purple air; beside it lay the lantern +where Millicent had cast it aside. She was gone! He would not believe it +till he had run to the barn, calling her name in the shadowy place, +while the horse at his manger left his corn to look over the walls of +his stall with inquisitive surprised eyes, luminous in the dusk. He +searched the hen-house, where the fowls on their perches crowded close +because of the chill of the evening. He even ran to the bars and looked +down across the narrow ravine to which the clearing sloped. Beyond the +chasm-like gorge he saw presently on the high ascent opposite footprints +that had broken the light frost-like coating of ice on the dead leaves +and moss—climbing footprints, swift, disordered. He looked back +again at the lantern where Millicent had flung<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> it in her haste. Her +mission was plain now. She had gone to warn Dundas. She had taken a +direct line through the woods. She hoped to forestall the deputy sheriff +and his posse, following the circuitous mountain road.</p> + +<p>Keenan's lip curled in triumph. His heart burned hot with scornful anger +and contempt of the futility of her effort. "They're there afore she +started!" he said, looking up at the aspects of the hour shown by the +sky, and judging of the interval since the encounter by the spring. +Through a rift in the gray cloud a star looked down with an icy +scintillation and disappeared again. He heard a branch in the woods snap +beneath the weight of ice. A light sprang into the window of the cabin +hard by, and came in a great gush of orange-tinted glow out into the +snowy bleak wintry space. He suddenly leaped over the fence and ran like +a deer through the woods.</p> + +<p>Millicent too had been swift. He had thought to overtake her before he +emerged from the woods into the more open space where the hotel stood. +In this quarter the cloud-break had been greater. Toward the west a +fading amber glow still lingered in long horizontal bars upon the opaque +gray sky. The white mountains opposite were hung with purple shadows +borrowed from a glimpse of sunset somewhere far away over the valley of +East Tennessee; one distant lofty range was drawn in elusive snowy +suggestions, rather than lines, against a green space of intense yet +pale tint. The moon, now nearing the full, hung over the wooded valley, +and aided the ice and the crust of snow to show its bleak, wan, wintry +aspect; a tiny spark glowed in its depths<span class="pagenum">[58]</span> from some open door of an +isolated home. Over it all a mist was rising from the east, drawing its +fleecy but opaque curtain. Already it had climbed the mountain-side and +advanced, windless, soundless, overwhelming, annihilating all before and +beneath it. The old hotel had disappeared, save that here and there a +gaunt gable protruded and was withdrawn, showed once more, and once more +was submerged.</p> + +<p>A horse's head suddenly looking out of the enveloping mist close to his +shoulder gave him the first intimation of the arrival, the secret silent +waiting, of those whom he had directed hither. That the saddles were +empty he saw a moment later. The animals stood together in a row, +hitched to the rack. No disturbance sounded from the silent building. +The event was in abeyance. The fugitive in hiding was doubtless at ease, +unsuspecting, while the noiseless search of the officers for his +quarters was under way.</p> + +<p>With a thrill of excitement Keenan crept stealthily through an open +passage and into the old grass-grown spaces of the quadrangle. Night +possessed the place, but the cloud seemed denser than the darkness. He +was somehow sensible of its convolutions as he stood against the wall +and strained his eyes into the dusk. Suddenly it was penetrated by a +milky-white glimmer, a glimmer duplicated at equidistant points, each +fading as its successor sprang into brilliance. The next moment he +understood its significance. It had come from the blurred windows of the +old ball-room. Millicent had lighted her candle as she searched for +the<span class="pagenum">[59]</span> fugitive's quarters; she was passing down the length of the old +house on the second story, and suddenly she emerged upon the gallery. +She shielded the feeble flicker with her hand; her white-hooded head +gleamed as with an aureola as the divergent rays rested on the opaque +mist; and now and again she clutched the baluster and walked with +tremulous care, for the flooring was rotten here and there, and ready to +crumble away. Her face was pallid, troubled; and Dundas, who had been +warned by the tramp of horses and the tread of men, and who had +descended the stairs, revolver in hand, ready to slip away if he might +under cover of the mist, paused appalled, gazing across the quadrangle +as on an apparition—the sight so familiar to his senses, so +strange to his experience. He saw in an abrupt shifting of the mist that +there were other figures skulking in doorways, watching her progress. +The next moment she leaned forward to clutch the baluster, and the light +of the candle fell full on Emory Keenan, lurking in the open passage.</p> + +<p>A sudden sharp cry of "Surrender!"</p> + +<p>The young mountaineer, confused, swiftly drew his pistol. Others were +swifter still. A sharp report rang out into the chill crisp air, rousing +all the affrighted echoes—a few faltering steps, a heavy fall, and +for a long time Emory Keenan's life-blood stained the floor of the +promenade. Even when it had faded, the rustic gossips came often and +gazed at the spot with morbid interest, until, a decade later, an +enterprising proprietor removed the floor and altered the shape of that +section of the building out of recognition.<span class="pagenum">[60]</span></p> + +<p>The escape of Dundas was easily effected. The deputy sheriff, confronted +with the problem of satisfactorily accounting for the death of a man who +had committed no offence against public polity, was no longer +formidable. His errand had been the arrest of a horse-thief, well-known +to him, and he had no interest in pursuing a fugitive, however obnoxious +to the law, whose personal description was so different from that of the +object of his search.</p> + +<p>Time restored to Dundas his former place in life and the esteem of his +fellow-citizens. His stay in the mountains was an episode which he will +not often recall, but sometimes volition fails, and he marvels at the +strange fulfilment of the girl's vision; he winces to think that her +solicitude for his safety should have cost her her lover; he wonders +whether she yet lives, and whether that tender troubled phantom, on +nights when the wind is still and the moon is low and the mists rise, +again joins the strange, elusive, woful company crossing the quaking +foot-bridge.</p> <p><span class="pagenum">[63]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[62]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[61]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h2><a name="HIS_DAY_IN_COURT" id="HIS_DAY_IN_COURT"></a>HIS "DAY IN COURT"</h2> + +<p>It had been a hard winter along the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, +and still the towering treeless domes were covered with snow, and the +vagrant winds were abroad, rioting among the clifty heights where they +held their tryst, or raiding down into the sheltered depths of the Cove, +where they seldom intruded. Nevertheless, on this turbulent rush was +borne in the fair spring of the year. The fragrance of the budding +wild-cherry was to be discerned amidst the keen slanting javelins of the +rain. A cognition of the renewal and the expanding of the forces of +nature pervaded the senses as distinctly as if one might hear the grass +growing, or feel along the chill currents of the air the vernal pulses +thrill. Night after night in the rifts of the breaking clouds close to +the horizon was glimpsed the stately sidereal Virgo, prefiguring and +promising the harvest, holding in her hand a gleaming ear of corn. But +it was not the constellation which the tumultuous torrent at the +mountain's base reflected in a starry glitter. From the hill-side above +a light cast its broken image among the ripples, as it shone for an +instant through the bosky laurel, white, stellular, splendid—only +a tallow dip suddenly placed in the window of a log-cabin, and as +suddenly withdrawn.<span class="pagenum">[64]</span></p> + +<p>For a gruff voice within growled out a remonstrance: "What ye doin' that +fur, Steve? Hev that thar candle got enny call ter bide in that thar +winder?"</p> + +<p>The interior, contrary to the customary aspect of the humble homes of +the region, was in great disarray. Cooking utensils stood uncleaned +about the hearth; dishes and bowls of earthen-ware were assembled upon +the table in such numbers as to suggest that several meals had been +eaten without the ceremony of laying the cloth anew, and that in default +of washing the crockery it had been re-enforced from the shelf so far as +the limited store might admit. Saddles and spinning-wheels, an ox-yoke +and trace-chains, reels and wash-tubs, were incongruously pushed +together in the corners. Only one of the three men in the room made any +effort to reduce the confusion to order. This was the square-faced, +black-bearded, thick-set young fellow who took the candle from the +window, and now advanced with it toward the hearth, holding it at an +angle that caused the flame to swiftly melt the tallow, which dripped +generously upon the floor.</p> + +<p>"I hev seen Eveliny do it," he said, excitedly justifying himself. "I +noticed her sot the candle in the winder jes' las' night arter supper." +He glanced about uncertainly, and his patience seemed to give way +suddenly. "Dad-burn the old candle! I dunno <i>whar</i> ter set it," he +cried, desperately, as he flung it from him, and it fell upon the floor +close to the wall.</p> + +<p>The dogs lifted their heads to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got +up with the nimbleness of<span class="pagenum">[65]</span> expectation, and, with a prescient +gratitude astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped +suddenly, and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if +suspecting a practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young +mountaineer's face. He threw himself into his chair with a heavy sigh, +and desisted for a time from the unaccustomed duty of clearing away the +dishes after supper.</p> + +<p>"An' 'ain't ye got the gumption ter sense what Eveliny sot the candle in +the winder fur?" his brother Timothy demanded, abruptly—"ez a sign +ter that thar durned Abs'lom Kittredge."</p> + +<p>The other two men turned their heads and looked at the speaker with a +poignant intensity of interest. "I 'lowed ez much when I seen that light +ez I war a-kemin' home las' night," he continued; "it shined spang down +the slope acrost the ruver an' through all the laurel; it looked plumb +like a star that hed fell ter yearth in that pitch-black night. I dunno +how I s'picioned it, but ez I stood thar an' gazed I knowed somebody war +a-standin' an' gazin' too on the foot-bredge a mite ahead o' me. I +couldn't see him, an' he couldn't turn back an' pass me, the bredge +bein' too narrer. He war jes obligated ter go on. I hearn him breathe +quick; then—pit-pat, pit-pat, ez he walked straight toward that +light. An' he be 'bleeged ter hev hearn me, fur arter I crost I stopped. +Nuthin'. Jes' a whisper o' wind, an' jes' a swishin' from the ruver. I +knowed then he hed turned off inter the laurel. An' I went on, +a-whistlin' ter make him 'low ez I never s'picioned nuthin'. An' I kem +inter the<span class="pagenum">[66]</span> house an' tole dad ez he'd better be a-lookin' arter +Eveliny, fur I b'lieved she war a-settin' her head ter run away an' +marry Abs'lom Kittredge."</p> + +<p>"Waal, I ain't right up an' down sati'fied we oughter done what we +done," exclaimed Stephen, fretfully. "It don't 'pear edzacly right fur +three men ter fire on one."</p> + +<p>Old Joel Quimbey, in his arm-chair in the chimney-corner, suddenly +lifted his head—a thin head with fine white hair, short and +sparse, upon it. His thin, lined face was clear-cut, with a pointed chin +and an aquiline nose. He maintained an air of indignant and rebellious +grief, and had hitherto sat silent, a gnarled and knotted hand on either +arm of his chair. His eyes gleamed keenly from under his heavy brows as +he turned his face upon his sons. "How could we know thar warn't but +one, eh?"</p> + +<p>He had not been a candidate for justice of the peace for nothing; he had +absorbed something of the methods and spirit of the law through sheer +propinquity to the office. "We-uns wouldn't be persumed ter <i>know</i>." And +he ungrudgingly gave himself all the benefit of the doubt that the law +accords.</p> + +<p>"That's a true word!" exclaimed Stephen, quick to console his +conscience. "Jes' look at the fac's, now. We-uns in a plumb black +midnight hear a man a-gittin' over our fence; we git our rifles; +a-peekin' through the chinkin' we ketch a glimge o' him—"</p> + +<p>"Ha!" cried out Timothy, with savage satisfaction, "we seen him by the +light she set ter lead him on!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 464px;"> <a name="i066" id="i066"></a> +<img src="images/i066.jpg" width="464" height="600" alt=""OLD +JOEL QUIMBEY"" title=""OLD JOEL QUIMBEY"" /> +<span class="caption">"OLD JOEL QUIMBEY"</span> </div> <p><span class="pagenum">[67]</span></p> <p>He +was tall and lank, with a delicately hooked nose, high cheek-bones, +fierce dark eyes, and dark eyebrows, which were continually elevated, +corrugating his forehead. His hair was black, short and straight, and he +was clad in brown jeans, as were the others, with great cowhide boots +reaching to the knee. He fixed his fiery intent gaze on his brother as +the slower Stephen continued, "An' so we blaze away—"</p> + +<p>"An' one durned fool's so onlucky ez ter hit him an' not kill him," +growled Timothy, again interrupting. "An' so whilst Eveliny runs out +a-screamin', 'He's dead! he's dead!—ye hev shot him dead!' we-uns +make no doubt but he <i>is</i> dead, an' load up agin, lest his frien's +mought rush in on we-uns whilst we hedn't no use o' our shootin'-irons. +An' suddint—ye can't hear nuthin' but jes' a owel hootin' in the +woods, or old Pa'son Bates's dogs a-howlin' acrost the Cove. An' we go +out with a lantern, an' thar's jes' a pool o' blood in the dooryard, an' +bloody tracks down ter the laurel."</p> + +<p>"Eveliny gone!" cried the old man, smiting his hands together; "my +leetle darter! The only one ez never gin me enny trouble. I couldn't hev +made out ter put up with this hyar worl' no longer when my wife died ef +it hedn't been fur Eveliny. Boys war wild an' mischeevious, an' folks +outside don't keer nuthin' 'bout ye—ef they <i>war</i> ter 'lect ye ter +office 'twould be ter keep some other feller from hevin' it, 'kase they +'spise him more'n ye. An' hyar she's runned off an' married old Tom +Kittredge's gran'son, Josiah Kittredge's son—when <span class="pagenum">[68]</span>our folks +'ain't spoke ter none o' 'em fur fifty year—Josiah Kittredge's +son—ha! ha! ha!" He laughed aloud in tuneless scorn of himself and +of this freak of froward destiny and then fell to wringing his hands and +calling upon Evelina.</p> + +<p>The flare from the great chimney place genially played over the huddled +confusion of the room and the brown logs of the wall, where the gigantic +shadows of the three men mimicked their every gesture with grotesque +exaggeration. The rainbow yarn on the warping bars, the strings of +red-pepper hanging from the ceiling, the burnished metallic flash from +the guns on their racks of deer antlers, served as incidents in the +monotony of the alternate yellow flicker and brown shadow. Deep under +the blaze the red coals pulsated, and in the farthest vistas of the fire +quivered a white heat.</p> + +<p>"Old Tom Kittredge," the father resumed, after a time, "he jes' branded +yer gran'dad's cattle with his mark; he jes' cheated yer gran'dad, my +dad, out'n six head o' cattle."</p> + +<p>"But then," said the warlike Timothy, not willing to lose sight of +reprisal even in vague reminiscence, "he hed only one hand ter rob with +arter that, fur I hev hearn ez how when gran'dad got through with him +the doctor hed ter take his arm off."</p> + +<p>"Sartainly, sartainly," admitted the old man, in quiet assent "An' +Josiah Kittredge he put out the eyes of a horse critter o' mine right +thar at the court-house door—"</p> + +<p>"Waal, arterward, we-uns fired his house over his head," put in Tim.</p> + +<p>"An' Josiah Kittredge an' me," the old man went on, "we-uns clinched +every time we met in<span class="pagenum">[69]</span> this mortal life. Every time I go past the +graveyard whar he be buried I kin feel his fingers on my throat. He had +a nervy grip, but no variation; he always tuk holt the same way."</p> + +<p>"'Pears like ter me ez 'twar a fust-rate time ter fetch out the rifles +again," remarked Tim, "this mornin', when old Pa'son Bates kem up hyar +an' 'lowed ez he hed married Eveliny ter Abs'lom Kittredge on his +death-bed; 'So be, pa'son,' I say. An' he tuk off his hat an' say, +'Thank the Lord, this will heal the breach an' make ye frien's!' An' I +say, 'Edzacly, pa'son, ef it <i>air</i> Abs'lom's death-bed; but them +Kittredges air so smilin' an' deceivin' I be powerful feared he'll cheat +the King o' Terrors himself. I'll forgive 'em ennything—<i>over his +grave</i>.'"</p> + +<p>"Pa'son war tuk toler'ble suddint in his temper," said the literal +Steve. "I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he +put out."</p> + +<p>"Ye mus' keep up a Christian sperit, boys; that's the main thing," said +the old man, who was esteemed very religious, and a pious Mentor in his +own family. He gazed meditatively into the fire. "What ailed Eveliny ter +git so tuk up with this hyar Abs'lom? What made her like him?" he +propounded.</p> + +<p>"His big eyes, edzacly like a buck's, an' his long yaller hair," sneered +the discerning Timothy, with the valid scorn of a big ugly man for a +slim pretty one. "'Twar jes 'count o' his long yaller hair his mother +called him Abs'lom. He war named Pete or Bob, I disremember +what—suthin' common—till his hair got so long an' curly, an' +he sot out ter be so plumb all-fired beautiful, an' his<span class="pagenum">[70]</span> mother +named him agin; this time Abs'lom, arter the king's son, 'count o' his +yaller hair."</p> + +<p>"Git hung by his hair some o' these days in the woods, like him the +Bible tells about; that happened ter the sure-enough Abs'lom," suggested +Stephen, hopefully.</p> + +<p>"Naw, sir," said Tim; "when Abs'lom Kittredge gits hung it'll be with +suthin' stronger'n hair; he'll stretch hemp." He exchanged a glance of +triumphant prediction with his brother, and anon gazed ruefully into the +fire.</p> + +<p>"Ye talk like ez ef he war goin' ter live, boys," said old Joel Quimbey, +irritably. "Pa'son 'lowed he war powerful low."</p> + +<p>"Pa'son said he'd never hev got home alive 'thout she'd holped him," +said Stephen. "She jes' tuk him an' drug him plumb ter the bars, though +I don't see how she done it, slim leetle critter ez she be; an' thar she +holped him git on his beastis; an' then—I declar' I feel ez ef I +could kill her fur a-demeanin' of herself so—she led that thar +horse, him a-ridin' an' a-leanin' on the neck o' the beastis, two mile +up the mountain, through the night."</p> + +<p>"Waal, let her bide thar. I'll look on her face no mo'," declared the +old man, his toothless jaw shaking. "Kittredge she be now, an' none o' +the name kin come a-nigh me. How be I ever a-goin' 'bout 'mongst the +folks at the settlement agin with my darter married ter a Kittredge? How +Josiah an' his dad mus' be a-grinnin' in thar graves at me this night! +An' I 'low they hev got suthin' ter grin about."</p> + +<p>And suddenly his grim face relaxed, and once<span class="pagenum">[71]</span> more he began to smite +his hands together and to call aloud for Evelina.</p> + +<p>Timothy could offer no consolation, but stared dismally into the fire, +and Stephen rose with a sigh and addressed himself to pushing the +spinning-wheels and tubs and tables into the opposite corner of the +room, in the hope of solving the enigma of its wonted order.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It seemed to Evelina afterward that when she climbed the rugged ways of +the mountain slope in that momentous night she left forever in the +depths of the Cove that free and careless young identity which she had +been. She did not accurately discriminate the moment in which she began +to realize that she was among her hereditary enemies, encompassed by a +hatred nourished to full proportions and to a savage strength long +before she drew her first breath. The fact only gradually claimed its +share in her consciousness as the tension of anxiety for Absalom's sake +relaxed, for the young mountaineer's strength and vitality were promptly +reasserted, and he rallied from the wound and his pallid and forlorn +estate with the recuperative power of the primitive man. By degrees she +came to expect the covert unfriendly glances his brother cast upon her, +the lowering averted mien of her sister-in-law, and now and again she +surprised a long, lingering, curious gaze in his mother's eyes. They +were all Kittredges! And she wondered how she could ever have dreamed +that she might live happily among them—one of them, for her name +was theirs. And then perhaps the young husband<span class="pagenum">[72]</span> would stroll +languidly in, with his long hair curling on his blue jeans coat-collar, +and an assured smile in his dark brown eyes, and some lazy jest on his +lips, certain of a welcoming laugh, for he had been so near to death +that they all had a sense of acquisition in that he had been led back. +For his sake they had said little; his mother would busy herself in +brewing his "yerb" tea, and his brother would offer to saddle the mare +if he felt that he could ride, and they would all be very friendly +together; and his alien wife would presently slip out unnoticed into the +"gyarden spot," where the rows of vegetables grew as they did in the +Cove, turning upon her the same neighborly looks they wore of yore, and +showing not a strange leaf among them. The sunshine wrapped itself in +its old fine gilded gossamer haze and drowsed upon the verdant slopes; +the green jewelled "Juny-bugs" whirred in the soft air; the mould was as +richly brown as in Joel Quimbey's own enclosure; the flag-lilies bloomed +beside the onion bed; and the woolly green leaves of the sage wore their +old delicate tint and gave out a familiar odor.</p> + +<p>Among this quaint company of the garden borders she spent much of her +time, now hoeing in a desultory fashion, now leaning on the long handle +of the implement and looking away upon the far reaches of the purple +mountains. As they stretched to vague distances they became blue, and +farther on the great azure domes merged into a still more tender hue, +and this in turn melted into a soft indeterminate tint that embellished +the faint horizon. Her dreaming eyes would grow bright and +wistful;<span class="pagenum">[73]</span> her rich brown curling hair, set free by the yellow +sun-bonnet that slipped off her head and upon her shoulders, would +airily float backward in the wind; there was a lithe grace in the +slender figure, albeit clad in a yellow homespun of a deep dye, and the +faded purplish neckerchief was caught about a throat fairer even than +the fair face, which was delicately flushed. Absalom's mother, standing +beside Peter, the eldest son, in the doorway, watched her long one day.</p> + +<p>"It all kem about from that thar bran dance," said Peter, a homely man, +with a sterling, narrow-minded wife and an ascetic sense of religion. +"Thar Satan waits, an' he gits nimbler every time ye shake yer foot. The +fiddler gin out the figger ter change partners, an' this hyar gal war +dancin' opposite Abs'lom, ez hed never looked nigh her till that day. +The gal didn't know <i>what</i> ter do; she jes' stood still; but Abs'lom he +jes' danced up ter her ez keerless an' gay ez he always war, jes' like +she war ennybody else, an' when he held out his han' she gin him hern, +all a-trembly, an' lookin' up at him, plumb skeered ter death, her eyes +all wide an' sorter wishful, like some wild thing trapped in the woods. +An' then the durned fiddler, moved by the devil, I'll be bound, plumb +furgot ter change 'em back. So they danced haff'n the day tergether. An' +arter that they war forever a-stealin' off an' accidentally meetin' at +the spring, an' whenst he war a-huntin' or she drivin' up the cow, an' +a-courtin' ginerally, till they war promised ter marry."</p> + +<p>"'Twarn't the bran dance; 'twar suthin' ez fleetin' an' ez useless," +said his mother, standing in the<span class="pagenum">[74]</span> door and gazing at the unconscious +girl, who was leaning upon the hoe, half in the shadow of the blooming +laurel that crowded about the enclosure and bent over the rail fence, +and half in the burnished sunshine; "she's plumb beautiful—thar's +the snare ez tangled Abs'lom's steps. I never 'lowed ter see the day ez +could show enny comfort fur his dad bein' dead, but we hev been spared +some o' the tallest cavortin' that ever war seen sence the Big Smoky war +built. Sometimes it plumb skeers me ter think ez we-uns hev got a +Quimbey abidin' up hyar along o' we-uns in <i>his</i> house an' a-callin' o' +herse'f Kittredge. I looks ter see him a-stalkin' roun' hyar some night, +too outdone an' aggervated ter rest in his grave."</p> + +<p>But the nights continued spectreless and peaceful on the Great Smoky, +and the same serene stars shone above the mountain as over the Cove. +Evelina could watch here, as often before, the rising moon ascending +through a rugged gap in the range, suffusing the dusky purple slopes and +the black crags on either hand with a pensive glamour, and revealing the +river below by the amber reflection its light evoked. She often sat on +the step of the porch, her elbow on her knees, her chin in her hand, +following with her shining eyes the pearly white mists loitering among +the ranges. Hear! a dog barks in the Cove, a cock crows, a horn is +wound, far, far away; it echoes faintly. And once more only the sounds +of the night—that vague stir in the windless woods, as if the +forest breathes, the far-away tinkle of water hidden in the +darkness—and the moon is among the summits.<span class="pagenum">[75]</span></p> + +<p>The men remained within, for Absalom avoided the chill night air, and +crouched over the smouldering fire. Peter's wife sedulously held aloof +from the ostracized Quimbey woman. But her mother-in-law had fallen into +the habit of sitting upon the porch these moonlit nights. The sparse, +newly-leafed hop and gourd vines clambering to its roof were all +delicately imaged on the floor, and the old woman's clumsy figure, her +grotesque sun-bonnet, her awkward arm-chair, were faithfully reproduced +in her shadow on the log wall of the cabin—even to the up-curling +smoke from her pipe. Once she suddenly took the stem from her mouth. +"Eveliny," she said, "'pears like ter me ye talk mighty little. Thar +ain't no use in gittin' tongue-tied up hyar on the mounting."</p> + +<p>Evelina started and raised her eyes, dilated with a stare of amazement +at this unexpected overture.</p> + +<p>"I ain't keerin'," said the old woman, recklessly, to herself, although +consciously recreant to the traditions of the family, and sacrificing +with a pang her distorted sense of loyalty and duty to her kindlier +impulse. "I warn't born a Kittredge nohow."</p> + +<p>"Yes,'m," said Evelina, meekly; "but I don't feel much like talkin' +noways; I never talked much, bein' nobody but men-folks ter our house. +I'd ruther hear ye talk 'n talk myself."</p> + +<p>"Listen at ye now! The headin' young folks o' this kentry 'll never rest +till they make thar elders shoulder <i>all</i> the burdens. An' what air ye +wantin' a pore ole 'oman like me ter talk about?"</p> + +<p>Evelina hesitated a moment, then looked up,<span class="pagenum">[76]</span> with a face radiant in +the moonbeams. "Tell all 'bout Abs'lom—afore I ever seen him."</p> + +<p>His mother laughed. "Ye air a powerful fool, Eveliny."</p> + +<p>The girl laughed a little, too. "I dunno ez I want ter be no wiser," she +said.</p> + +<p>But one was his wife, and the other was his mother, and as they talked +of him daily and long, the bond between them was complete.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"I hev got 'em both plumb fooled," the handsome Absalom boasted at the +settlement, when the gossips wondered once more, as they had often done, +that there should be such unity of interest between old Joel Quimbey's +daughter and old Josiah Kittredge's widow. As time went on many rumors +of great peace on the mountain-side came to the father's ears, and he +grew more testy daily as he grew visibly older. These rumors multiplied +with the discovery that they were as wormwood and gall to him. Not that +he wished his daughter to be unhappy, but the joy which was his grief +and humiliation was needlessly flaunted into his face; the idlers about +the county town had invariably a new budget of details, being supplied, +somewhat maliciously, it must be confessed, by the Kittredges +themselves. The ceremony of planting one foot on the neck of the +vanquished was in their minds one of the essential concomitants of +victory. The bold Absalom, not thoroughly known to either of the women +who adored him, was ingenious in expedients, and had applied the +knowledge gleaned from his wife's reminiscences of her home, her +father,<span class="pagenum">[77]</span> and her brothers to more accurately aim his darts. +Sometimes old Quimbey would fairly flee the town, and betake himself in +a towering rage to his deserted hearth, to brood futilely over the +ashes, and devise impotent schemes of vengeance.</p> + +<p>He often wondered afterward in dreary retrospection how he had survived +that first troublous year after his daughter's elopement, when he was so +lonely, so heavy-hearted at home, so harried and angered abroad. His +comforts, it is true, were amply insured: a widowed sister had come to +preside over his household—a deaf old woman, who had much to be +thankful for in her infirmity, for Joel Quimbey in his youth, before he +acquired religion, had been known as a singularly profane man—"a +mos' survigrus cusser"—and something of his old proficiency had +returned to him. Perhaps public sympathy for his troubles strengthened +his hold upon the regard of the community. For it was in the second year +of Evelina's marriage, in the splendid midsummer, when all the gifts of +nature climax to a gorgeous perfection, and candidates become +incumbents, that he unexpectedly attained the great ambition of his +life. He was said to have made the race for justice of the peace from +sheer force of habit, but by some unexplained freak of popularity the +oft-defeated candidate was successful by a large majority at the August +election.</p> + +<p>"Laws-a-massy, boys," he said, tremulously, to his triumphant sons, when +the result was announced, the excited flush on his thin old face +suffusing his hollow veinous temples, and rising into his fine <span +class="pagenum">[78]</span>white hair, "how glad Eveliny would hev been +ef—ef—" He was about to say if she had lived, for he often +spoke of her as if she were dead. He turned suddenly back, and began to +eagerly absorb the details of the race, as if he had often before been +elected, with calm superiority canvassing the relative strength, or +rather the relative weakness, of the defeated aspirants.</p> + +<p>He could scarcely have measured the joy which the news gave to Evelina. +She was eminently susceptible of the elation of pride, the fervid glow +of success, but her tender heart melted in sympathetic divination of all +that this was to him who had sought it so long, and so unabashed by +defeat. She pined to see his triumph in his eyes, to hear it in his +voice. She wondered—nay, she knew that he longed to tell it to +her. As the year rolled around again to summer, and she heard from time +to time of his quarterly visits to the town as a member of the +worshipful Quarterly County Court, she began to hope that, softened by +his prosperity, lifted so high by his honors above all the cavillings of +the Kittredges, he might be more leniently disposed toward her, might +pity her, might even go so far as to forgive.</p> + +<p>But none of her filial messages reached her father's fiery old heart.</p> + +<p>"Ye'll be sure, Abs'lom, ef ye see Joe Boyd in town, ye'll tell him ter +gin dad my respec's, an' the word ez how the baby air a-thrivin', an' I +wants ter fotch him ter see the fambly at home, ef they'll lemme."</p> + +<p>Then she would watch Absalom with all the confidence of happy +anticipation, as he rode off<span class="pagenum">[79]</span> down the mountain with his hair +flaunting, and his spurs jingling, and his shy young horse curveting.</p> + +<p>But no word ever came in response; and sometimes she would take the +child in her arms and carry him down a path, worn smooth by her own +feet, to a jagged shoulder thrust out by the mountain where all the +slopes fell away, and a crag beetled over the depths of the Cove. Thence +she could discern certain vague lines marking the enclosure, and a tiny +cluster of foliage hardly recognizable as the orchard, in the midst of +which the cabin nestled. She could not distinguish them, but she knew +that the cows were coming to be milked, lowing and clanking their bells +tunefully, fording the river that had the sunset emblazoned upon it, or +standing flank deep amidst its ripples, the chickens might be going to +roost among the althea bushes; the lazy old dogs were astir on the +porch. She could picture her brothers at work about the barn; most often +a white-haired man who walked with a stick—alack! she did not +fancy how feebly, nor that his white hair had grown long and venerable, +and tossed in the breeze. "Ef he would jes lemme kem fur one haff'n +hour!" she would cry.</p> + +<p>But all her griefs were bewept on the crag, that there might be no tears +to distress the tenderhearted Absalom when she should return to the +house.</p> + +<p>The election of Squire Quimbey was a sad blow to the arrogant spirit of +the Kittredges. They had easily accustomed themselves to ascendency, and +they hotly resented the fact that fate had forborne the opportunity to +hit Joel Quimbey when he was<span class="pagenum">[80]</span> down. They had used their utmost +influence to defeat him in the race, and had openly avowed their desire +to see him bite the dust. The inimical feeling between the families +culminated one rainy autumnal day in the town where the quarterly county +court was in session.</p> + +<p>A fire had been kindled in the great rusty stove, and crackled away with +grudging merriment inside, imparting no sentiment of cheer to the gaunt +bare room, with its dusty window-panes streaked with rain, its shutters +drearily flapping in the wind, and the floor bearing the imprint of many +boots burdened with the red clay of the region. The sound of slow +strolling feet in the brick-paved hall was monotonous and somnolent.</p> + +<p>Squire Quimbey sat in his place among the justices. Despite his pride of +office, he had not the heart for business that might formerly have been +his. More than once his attention wandered. He looked absently out of +the nearest window at the neighboring dwelling—a little +frame-house with a green yard; a well-sweep was defined against the gray +sky, and about the curb a file of geese followed with swaying gait the +wise old gander. "What a hand for fow-<i>els</i> Eveliny war!" he muttered to +himself; "an' she hed luck with sech critters." He used the obituary +tense, for Evelina had in some sort passed away.</p> + +<p>He rubbed his hand across his corrugated brow, and suddenly he became +aware that her husband was in the room, speaking to the chairman of the +county court, and claiming a certificate in the sum of two dollars each +for the scalps of one wolf, "an'<span class="pagenum">[81]</span> one painter," he continued, laying +the small furry repulsive objects upon the desk, "an' one dollar fur the +skelp of one wild-cat." He was ready to take his oath that these animals +were killed by him running at large in this county.</p> + +<p>He had stooped a little in making the transfer. He came suddenly to his +full height, and stood with one hand in his leather belt, the other +shouldering his rifle. The old man scanned him curiously. The crude +light from the long windows was full upon his tall slim figure; his +yellow hair curled down upon the collar of his blue jeans coat; his +great miry boots were drawn high over the trousers to the knee; his +pensive deer-like eyes brightened with a touch of arrogance and enmity +as, turning slowly to see who was present, his glance encountered his +father-in-law's fiery gaze.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Cheerman! Mr. Cheerman!" exclaimed the old man, tremulously, "lemme +examinate that thar wild-cat skelp. Thanky, sir; thanky, sir; I wanter +see ef 'tain't off'n the head o' some old tame tomcat. An' this air a +painter's"—affecting to scan it by the window—"two ears +'cordin' to law; yes, sir, two; and this"—his keen old face had +all the white light of the sad gray day on its bleaching hair and its +many lines, and his eager old hands trembled with the excitement of the +significant satire he enacted—"an' this air a wolf's, ye say? Yes; +it's a Kittredge's; same thing, Mr. Cheerman, by a diff'ent name; +nuthin' in the code 'bout'n a premium fur a Kittredge's skelp; but same +natur'; coward, bully, thief—<i>thief</i>!"</p> + +<p>The words in the high cracked voice rang from<span class="pagenum">[82]</span> the bare walls and +bare floors as he tossed the scalps from him, and sat down, laughing +silently in painful, mirthless fashion, his toothless jaw quivering, and +his shaking hands groping for the arms of his chair.</p> + +<p>"Who says a Kittredge air a thief says a lie!" cried out the young man, +recovering from his tense surprise. "I don't keer how old he be," he +stipulated—for he had not thought to see her father so +aged—"he lies."</p> + +<p>The old man fixed him with a steady gaze and a sudden alternation of +calmness. "Ye air a Kittredge; ye stole my daughter from me."</p> + +<p>"I never. She kem of her own accord."</p> + +<p>"Damn ye!" the old man retorted to the unwelcome truth. There was +nothing else for him to say. "Damn the whole tribe of ye; everything +that goes by the accursed name of Kittredge, that's got a drop o' yer +blood, or a bone o' yer bones, or a puff o' yer breath—"</p> + +<p>"Squair! squair!" interposed an officious old colleague, taking him by +the elbow, "jes' quiet down now; ye air a-cussin' yer own gran'son."</p> + +<p>"So be! so be!" cried the old man, in a frenzy of rage. "Damn 'em +all—all the Kittredge tribe!" He gasped for breath; his lips still +moved speechlessly as he fell back in his chair.</p> + +<p>Kittredge let his gun slip from his shoulder, the butt ringing heavily +as it struck upon the floor. "I ain't a-goin' ter take sech ez that +off'n ye, old man," he cried, pallid with fury, for be it remembered +this grandson was that august institution, a first baby. "He sha'n't sit +up thar an' cuss the<span class="pagenum">[83]</span> baby, Mr. Cheerman." He appealed to the +presiding justice, holding up his right arm as tremulous as old +Quimbey's own. "I want the law! I ain't a-goin' ter tech a old man like +him, an' my wife's father, so I ax in the name o' peace fur the law. +Don't deny it"—with a warning glance—"'kase I ain't +school-larned, an' dunno how ter get it. Don't ye deny me the law! I +<i>know</i> the law don't 'low a magistrate an' a jestice ter cuss in his +high office, in the presence of the county court. I want the law! I want +the law!"</p> + +<p>The chairman of the court, who had risen in his excitement, turning +eagerly first to one and then to the other of the speakers, striving to +silence the colloquy, and in the sudden surprise of it at a momentary +loss how to take action, sat down abruptly, and with a face of +consternation. Profanity seemed to him so usual and necessary an +incident of conversation that it had never occurred to him until this +moment that by some strange aberration from the rational estimate of +essentials it was entered in the code as a violation of law. He would +fain have overlooked it, but the room was crowded with spectators. The +chairman would be a candidate for re-election as justice of the peace at +the expiration of his term. And after all what was old Quimbey to him, +or he to old Quimbey, that, with practically the whole town looking on, +he should destroy his political prospects and disregard the dignity of +his office. He had a certain twinge of conscience, and a recollection of +the choice and fluent oaths of his own repertory, but as he turned over +the pages of the code in search of the section<span class="pagenum">[84]</span> he deftly argued +that they were uttered in his own presence as a person, not as a +justice.</p> + +<p>And so for the first time old Joel Quimbey appeared as a law-breaker, +and was duly fined by the worshipful county court fifty cents for each +oath, that being the price at which the State rates the expensive and +impious luxury of swearing in the hearing of a justice of the peace, and +which in its discretion the court saw fit to adopt in this instance.</p> + +<p>The old man offered no remonstrance; he said not a word in his own +defence. He silently drew out his worn wallet, with much contortion of +his thin old anatomy in getting to his pocket, and paid his fines on the +spot. Absalom had already left the room, the clerk having made out the +certificates, the chairman of the court casting the scalps into the open +door of the stove, that they might be consumed by fire according to law.</p> + +<p>The young mountaineer wore a heavy frown, and his heart was ill at ease. +He sought some satisfaction in the evident opinion of the crowd which +now streamed out, for the excitements within were over, that he had done +a fine thing; a very clever thought, they considered it, to demand the +law of Mr. Chairman, that one of their worships should be dragged from +the bench and arraigned before the quarterly county court of which he +was a member. The result gave general satisfaction, although there were +those who found fault with the court's moderation, and complained that +the least possible cognizance had been taken of the offence.</p> + +<p>"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed an old codger in the street. "I jes knowed that +hurt old Joel Quimbey<span class="pagenum">[85]</span> wuss 'n ef a body hed druv a knife through +him; he's been so proud o' bein' jestice 'mongst his betters, an' bein' +'lected at las', many times ez he hev run. Waal, Abs'lom, ye hev proved +thar's law fur jestices too. I tell ye ye hev got sense in yer +skull-i-bone."</p> + +<p>But Absalom hung his head before these congratulations; he found no +relish in the old man's humbled pride. Yet had he not cursed the baby, +lumping him among the Kittredges? Absalom went about for a time, with a +hopeful anxiety in his eyes, searching for one of the younger Quimbeys, +in order to involve him in a fight that might have a provocation and a +result more to his mind. Somehow the recollection of the quivering and +aged figure of his wife's father, of the smitten look on his old face, +of his abashed and humbled demeanor before the court, was a reproach to +him, vivid and continuously present with his repetitious thoughts +forever re-enacting the scene. His hands trembled; he wanted to lay hold +on a younger man, to replace this æsthetic revenge with a quarrel +more wholesome in the estimation of his own conscience. But the Quimbey +sons were not in town to-day. He could only stroll about and hear +himself praised for this thing that he had done, and wonder how he +should meet Evelina with his conscience thus arrayed against himself for +her father's sake. "Plumb turned Quimbey, I swear," he said, in helpless +reproach to this independent and coercive moral force within. His +dejection, he supposed, had reached its lowest limits, when a rumor +pervaded the town, so wild that he thought it could be only +fantasy.<span class="pagenum">[86]</span> It proved to be fact. Joel Quimbey, aggrieved, humbled, +and indignant, had resigned his office, and as Absalom rode out of town +toward the mountains, he saw the old man in his crumpled brown jeans +suit, mounted on his white mare, jogging down the red clay road, his +head bowed before the slanting lines of rain, on his way to his +cheerless fireside. He turned off presently, for the road to the levels +of the Cove was not the shorter cut that Absalom travelled to the +mountains. But all the way the young man fancied that he saw from time +to time, as the bridle-path curved in the intricacies of the laurel, the +bowed old figure among the mists, jogging along, his proud head and his +stiff neck bent to the slanting rain and the buffets of his unkind fate. +And yet, pressing the young horse to overtake him, Absalom could find +naught but the fleecy mists drifting down the bridle-path as the wind +might will, or lurking in the darkling nooks of the laurel when the wind +would.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The sun was shining on the mountains, and Absalom went up from the sad +gray rain and through the gloomy clouds of autumn hanging over the Cove +into a soft brilliant upper atmosphere—a generous after-thought of +summer—and the warm brightness of Evelina's smile. She stood in +the doorway as she saw him dismounting, with her finger on her lips, for +the baby was sleeping: he put much of his time into that occupation. The +tiny gourds hung yellow among the vines that clambered over the roof of +the porch, and a brave jack-bean—a friend of the sheltering +eaves—made shift<span class="pagenum">[87]</span> to bloom purple and white, though others of +the kind hung crisp and sere, and rattled their dry bones in every gust. +The "gyarden spot" at the side of the house was full of brown and +withered skeletons of the summer growths; among the crisp blades of the +Indian-corn a sibilant voice was forever whispering; down the +tawny-colored vistas the pumpkins glowed. The sky was blue; the yellow +hickory flaming against it and hanging over the roof of the cabin was a +fine color to see. The red sour-wood tree in the fence corner shook out +a myriad of white tassels; the rolling tumult of the gray clouds below +thickened, and he could hear the rain a-falling—falling into the +dreary depths of the Cove.</p> + +<p>All this for him: why should he disquiet himself for the storm that +burst upon others?</p> + +<p>Evelina seemed a part of the brightness; her dark eyes so softly alight, +her curving red lips, the faint flush in her cheeks, her rich brown +hair, and the purplish kerchief about the neck of her yellow dress. Once +more she looked smilingly at him, and shook her head and laid her finger +on her lip.</p> + +<p>"I oughter been sati'fied with all I got, stiddier hectorin' other folks +till they 'ain't got no heart ter hold on ter what they been at sech +trouble ter git," he said, as he turned out the horse and strode +gloomily toward the house with the saddle over his arm.</p> + +<p>"Hev ennybody been spiteful ter you-uns ter-day?" she asked, in an +almost maternal solicitude, and with a flash of partisan anger in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Git out'n my road, Eveliny," he said, fretfully,<span class="pagenum">[88]</span> pushing by, and +throwing the saddle on the floor. There was no one in the room but the +occupant of the rude box on rockers which served as cradle.</p> + +<p>Absalom had a swift, prescient fear. "She'll git it all out'n me ef I +don't look sharp," he said to himself. Then aloud, "Whar's mam?" he +demanded, flinging himself into a chair and looking loweringly about.</p> + +<p>"Topknot hev jes kem off'n her nest with fourteen deedies, an' she an' +'Melia hev gone ter the barn ter see 'bout'n 'em."</p> + +<p>"Whar's Pete?"</p> + +<p>"A-huntin'."</p> + +<p>A pause. The fire smouldered audibly; a hickory-nut fell with a sharp +thwack on the clapboards of the roof, and rolled down and bounded to the +ground.</p> + +<p>Suddenly: "I seen yer dad ter-day," he began, without coercion. "He gin +me a cussin', in the court-room, 'fore all the folks. He cussed all the +Kittredges, <i>all</i> o' 'em; him too"—he glanced in the direction of +the cradle—"cussed 'em black an' blue, an' called me a <i>thief</i> fur +marryin' ye an kerry-in' ye off."</p> + +<p>Her face turned scarlet, then pale. She sat down, her trembling hands +reaching out to rock the cradle, as if the youthful Kittredge might be +disturbed by the malediction hurled upon his tribe. But he slept +sturdily on.</p> + +<p>"Waal, now," she said, making a great effort at self-control, "ye +oughtn't ter mind it. Ye know he war powerful tried. I never purtended +ter be ez sweet an' pritty ez the baby air, but how would<span class="pagenum">[89]</span> you-uns +feel ef somebody ye despised war ter kem hyar an' tote him off from +we-uns forever?"</p> + +<p>"I'd cut thar hearts out," he said, with prompt barbarity.</p> + +<p>"Thar, now!" exclaimed his wife, in triumphant logic.</p> + +<p>He gloomily eyed the smouldering coals. He was beginning to understand +the paternal sentiment. By his own heart he was learning the heart of +his wife's father.</p> + +<p>"I'd chop 'em inter minch-meat," he continued, carrying his just +reprisals a step further.</p> + +<p>"Waal, don't do it right now," said his wife, trying to laugh, yet +vaguely frightened by his vehemence.</p> + +<p>"Eveliny," he cried, springing to his feet, "I be a-goin' ter tell ye +all 'bout'n it. I jes called on the cheerman fur the law agin him."</p> + +<p>"Agin <i>dad</i>!—the law!" Her voice dropped as she contemplated +aghast this terrible uncomprehended force brought to oppress old Joel +Quimbey; she felt a sudden poignant pang for his forlorn and lonely +estate.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, never mind, Eveliny," Absalom said, hastily, repenting of +his frantic candor and seeking to soothe her.</p> + +<p>"I <i>will</i> mind," she said, sternly. "What hev ye done ter dad?"</p> + +<p>"Nuthin'," he replied, sulkily—"nuthin'."</p> + +<p>"Ye needn't try ter fool me, Abs'lom Kittredge. Ef ye ain't minded ter +tell me, I'll foot it down ter town an' find out. What did the law do +ter him?"<span class="pagenum">[90]</span></p> + +<p>"Jes fined him," he said, striving to make light of it.</p> + +<p>"An' ye done that fur—<i>spite</i>!" she cried. "A-settin' the law ter +chouse a old man out'n money, fur gittin' mad an' sayin' ye stole his +only darter. Oh, I'll answer fur him"—she too had risen; her hand +trembled on the back of the chair, but her face was scornfully +smiling—"he don't mind the <i>money</i>; he'll never git you-uns +<i>fined</i> ter pay back the gredge. He don't take his wrath out on folkses' +<i>wallets</i>; he grips thar throats, or teches the trigger o' his rifle. +Laws-a-massy! takin' out yer gredge that-a-way! It's <i>ye</i> poorer fur +them dollars, Abs'lom—'tain't him." She laughed satirically, and +turned to rock the cradle.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye want me ter do? Fight a old man?" he exclaimed, angrily.</p> + +<p>She kept silence, only looking at him with a flushed cheek and a +scornful laughing eye.</p> + +<p>He went on, resentfully: "I ain't 'shamed," he stoutly asserted. "Nobody +'lowed I oughter be. It's him, plumb bowed down with shame."</p> + +<p>"The shoe's on the t'other foot," she cried. "It's ye that oughter be +'shamed, an' ef ye ain't, it's more shame ter ye. What hev he got ter be +'shamed of?"</p> + +<p>"'Kase," he retorted, "he war fetched up afore a court on a crim'nal +offence—a-cussin' afore the court! Ye may think it's no shame, but +he do; he war so 'shamed he gin up his office ez jestice o' the peace, +what he hev run fur four or five times, an' always got beat 'ceptin' +wunst."</p> + +<p>"Dad!" but for the whisper she seemed turning<span class="pagenum">[91]</span> to stone; her dilated +eyes were fixed as she stared into his face.</p> + +<p>"An' I seen him a-ridin' off from town in the rain arterward, his head +hangin' plumb down ter the saddle-bow."</p> + +<p>Her amazed eyes were still fastened upon his face, but her hand no +longer trembled on the back of the chair.</p> + +<p>He suddenly held out his own hand to her, his sympathy and regret +returning as he recalled the picture of the lonely wayfarer in the rain +that had touched him so. "Oh, Eveliny!" he cried, "I never war so beset +an' sorry an'—"</p> + +<p>She struck his hand down; her eyes blazed. Her aspect was all instinct +with anger.</p> + +<p>"I do declar' I'll never furgive ye—ter spite him so—an' kem +an' tell <i>me</i>! An' shame him so ez he can't hold his place—an' kem +an' tell <i>me</i>! An' bow him down so ez he can't show his face whar he hev +been so respected by all—an' kem an' tell <i>me</i>! An' all fur spite, +fur he hev got nuthin' ye want now. An' I gin him up an' lef him lonely, +an' all fur you-uns. Ye air mean, Abs'lom Kittredge, an' I'm the mos' +fursaken fool on the face o' the yearth!"</p> + +<p>He tried to speak, but she held up her hand in expostulation.</p> + +<p>"Nare word—fur I won't answer. I do declar' I'll never speak ter +ye agin ez long ez I live."</p> + +<p>He flung away with a laugh and a jeer. "That's right," he said, +encouragingly; "plenty o' men would be powerful glad ef thar wives would +take pattern by that."<span class="pagenum">[92]</span></p> + +<p>He caught up his hat and strode out of the room. He busied himself in +stabling his horse, and in looking after the stock. He could hear the +women's voices from the loft of the barn as they disputed about the best +methods of tending the newly hatched chickens, that had chipped the +shell so late in the fall as to be embarrassed by the frosts and the +coming cold weather. The last bee had ceased to drone about the great +crimson prince's-feather by the door-step, worn purplish through long +flaunting, and gone to seed. The clouds were creeping up and up the +slope, and others were journeying hither from over the mountains. A +sense of moisture was in the air, although a great column of dust sprang +up from the dry corn-field, with panic-stricken suggestions, and went +whirling away, carrying off withered blades in the rush. The first drops +of rain were pattering, with a resonant timbre in the midst, when Pete +came home with a newly killed deer on his horse, and the women, with +fluttering skirts and sun-bonnets, ran swiftly across from the barn to +the back door of the shed-room. Then the heavy downpour made the cabin +rock.</p> + +<p>"Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar +rain—they'll be drenched," said the old woman, when they were all +safely housed except the two. "Whar be she?"</p> + +<p>"A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she +always be," said the sister-in-law, tartly.</p> + +<p>Absalom ran out into the rain without his hat, his heart in the clutch +of a prescient terror. No; the summer was over for the garden as well as +for him; all forlorn and rifled, its few swaying shrubs<span class="pagenum">[93]</span> tossed +wildly about, a mockery of the grace and bloom that had once embellished +it. His wet hair streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel +boughs as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet +had worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood, +himself enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the +dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the +valley and baffled his vision. He realized it with a sinking heart. She +was gone.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>That afternoon—it was close upon nightfall—Stephen Quimbey, +letting down the bars for the cows, noticed through the slanting lines +of rain, serried against the masses of sober-hued vapors which hid the +great mountain towering above the Cove, a woman crossing the +foot-bridge. He turned and lifted down another bar, and then looked +again. Something was familiar in her aspect, certainly. He stood gravely +staring. Her sun-bonnet had fallen back upon her shoulders, and was +hanging loosely there by the strings tied beneath her chin; her brown +hair, dishevelled by the storm, tossed back and forth in heavy wave-less +locks, wet through and through. When the wind freshened they lashed, +thong-like, her pallid oval face; more than once she put up her hand and +tried to gather them together, or to press them back—only one +hand, for she clasped a heavy bundle in her arms, and as she toiled +along slowly up the rocky slope, Stephen suddenly held his palm above +his eyes. The recognition was becoming<span class="pagenum">[94]</span> definite, and yet he could +scarcely believe his senses: was it indeed Evelina, wind-tossed, +tempest-beaten, and with as many tears as rain-drops on her pale cheek? +Evelina, forlorn and sorry, and with swollen sad dark eyes, and listless +exhausted step—here again at the bars, where she had not stood +since she dragged her wounded lover thence on that eventful night two +years and more ago.</p> + +<p>Resentment for the domestic treachery was uppermost in his mind, and he +demanded surlily, when she had advanced within the sound of his words, +"What hev ye kem hyar fur?"</p> + +<p>"Ter stay," she responded, briefly.</p> + +<p>His hand in an uncertain gesture laid hold upon his tuft of beard.</p> + +<p>"Fur good?" he faltered, amazed.</p> + +<p>She nodded silently.</p> + +<p>He stooped to lift down the lowest bar that she might pass. Suddenly the +bundle she clasped gave a dexterous twist; a small head, with yellow +downy hair, was thrust forth; a pair of fawn-like eyes fixed an +inquiring stare upon him; the pink face distended with a grin, to which +the two small teeth in the red mouth, otherwise empty, lent a singularly +merry expression; and with a manner that was a challenge to pursuit, the +head disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, tucked with affected +shyness under Evelina's arm.</p> + +<p>She left Stephen standing with the bar in his hand, staring blankly +after her, and ran into the cabin.</p> + +<p>Her father had no questions to ask—nor she.</p> + +<p>As he caught her in his arms he gave a great<span class="pagenum">[95]</span> cry of joy that rang +through the house, and brought Timothy from the barn, in astonishment, +to the scene.</p> + +<p>"Eveliny's <i>home</i>!" he cried out to Tim, who, with the ox-yoke in his +hand, paused in the doorway. "Kem ter stay! Eveliny's <i>home</i>! I knowed +she'd kem back to her old daddy. Eveliny's kem ter stay fur good."</p> + +<p>"They tole me they'd hectored ye plumb out'n the town an' out'n yer +office. They hed the insurance ter tell <i>me</i> that word!" she cried, +sobbing on his breast.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye reckon I keer fur enny jestice's cheer when I hev got ye agin +ter set alongside o' me by the fire?" he exclaimed, his cracked old +voice shrill with triumphant gladness.</p> + +<p>He pushed her into her rocking-chair in the chimney-corner, and laughed +again with the supreme pleasure of the moment, although she had leaned +her head against the logs of the wall, and was sobbing aloud with the +contending emotions that tore her heart.</p> + +<p>"Didn't ye ever want ter kem afore, Eveliny?" he demanded. "I hev been +a-pinin' fur a glimge o' ye." He was in his own place now, his hands +trembling as they lay on the arms of his chair, a pathetic reproach was +in his voice. "Though old folks oughtn't ter expec' too much o' young +ones, ez be all tuk up naterally with tharse'fs," he added, bravely. He +would not let his past lonely griefs mar the bright present. "Old folks +air mos'ly cumberers—mos'ly cumberers o' the yearth, ennyhow."</p> + +<p>Her weeping had ceased; she was looking at him<span class="pagenum">[96]</span> with dismayed +surprise in her eyes, still lustrous with unshed tears. "Why, dad I sent +ye a hundred messages ef I mought kem. I tole Abs'lom ter tell Joe +Boyd—bein' as ye liked Joe—I wanted ter see ye." She leaned +forward and looked up at him with frowning intensity. "They never gin ye +that word?"</p> + +<p>He laughed aloud in sorry scorn. "We can't teach our chil'n nuthin'," he +philosophized. "They hev got ter hurt tharse'fs with all the thorns an' +the stings o' the yearth. Our sperience with the sharp things an' bitter +ones don't do them no sarvice. Naw, leetle darter—naw! Ye mought +ez well gin a message o' kindness ter a wolf, an' expec' him ter kerry +it ter some lonesome, helpless thing a-wounded by the way-side, ez gin +it ter a Kittredge."</p> + +<p>"I never will speak ter one o' 'em agin ez long ez I live," she cried, +with a fresh gust of tears.</p> + +<p>"Waal," exclaimed the old man, reassuringly, and chirping high, "hyar we +all be agin, jes' the same ez we war afore. Don't cry, Eveliny; it's +jes' the same."</p> + +<p>A sudden babbling intruded upon the conversation. The youthful +Kittredge, as he sat upon the wide flat stones of the hearth, was as +unwelcome here in the Cove as a Quimbey had been in the cabin on the +mountain. The great hickory fire called for his unmixed approval, coming +in, as he had done, from the gray wet day. He shuffled his bare pink +feet—exceedingly elastic and agile members they seemed to be, and +he had a remarkable "purchase" upon their use—and brought them +smartly down upon their heels as if this were one<span class="pagenum">[97]</span> of the accepted +gestures of applause. Then he looked up at the dark frowning faces of +his mother's brothers, and gurgled with laughter, showing the +fascinating spectacle of his two front teeth. Perhaps it was the only +Kittredge eye that they were not willing to meet. They solemnly gazed +beyond him and into the fire, ignoring his very existence. He sustained +the slight with an admirable cheerfulness, and babbled and sputtered and +flounced about with his hands. He grew pinker in the generous firelight, +and he looked very fat as he sat in a heap on the floor. He seemed to +have threads tightly tied about his bolster-shaped limbs in places where +elder people prefer joints—in his ankles and wrists and +elbows—for his arms were bare, and although his frock of pink +calico hung decorously high on one shoulder, it drooped quite off from +the other, showing a sturdy chest.</p> + +<p>His mother took slight notice of him; she was beginning to look about +the room with a certain critical disfavor at the different arrangement +of the household furniture adopted by her father's deaf and widowed old +sister who presided here now, and who, it chanced, had been called away +by the illness of a relative. Evelina got up presently, and shifted the +position of the spinning-wheels, placing the flax-wheel where the large +wheel had been. She then pushed out the table from the corner. "What +ailed her ter sot it hyar?" she grumbled, in a disaffected undertone, +and shoved it to the centre of the floor, where it had always stood +during her own sway. She cast a discerning glance up among the strings +of herbs and peppers hanging from above, and examined<span class="pagenum">[98]</span> the shelves +where the simple stores for table use were arranged in earthen-ware +bowls or gourds—all with an air of vague dissatisfaction. She +presently stepped into the shed-room, and there looked over the piles of +quilts. They were in order, certainly, but placed in a different method +from her own; another woman's hand had been at work, and she was jealous +of its very touch among these familiar old things to which she seemed +positively akin. "I wonder how I made out ter bide so long on the +mounting," she said; and with the recollection of the long-haired +Absalom there was another gush of tears and sobs, which she stifled as +she could in one of the old quilts that held many of her own stitches +and was soothing to touch.</p> + +<p>The infantile Kittredge, who was evidently not born to blush unseen, +seemed to realize that he had failed to attract the attention of the +three absorbed Quimbeys who sat about the fire. He blithely addressed +himself to another effort. He suddenly whisked himself over on +all-fours, and with a certain ursine aspect went nimbly across the +hearth, still holding up his downy yellow head, his pink face agrin, and +alluringly displaying his two facetious teeth. He caught the rung of +Tim's chair, and lifted himself tremulously to an upright posture. And +then it became evident that he was about to give an exhibition of the +thrilling feat of walking around a chair. With a truly Kittredge +perversity he had selected the one that had the savage Timothy seated in +it. For an instant the dark-browed face scowled down into his +unaffrighted eyes: it seemed as if Tim might kick him<span class="pagenum">[99]</span> into the +fire. The next moment he had set out to circumnavigate, as it were. What +a prodigious force he expended upon it! How he gurgled and grinned and +twisted his head to observe the effect upon the men, all sedulously +gazing into the fire! how he bounced, and anon how he sank with sudden +genuflections! how limber his feet seemed, and what free agents! Surely +he never intended to put them down at that extravagant angle. More than +once one foot was placed on top of the other—an attitude that +impeded locomotion and resulted in his sitting down in an involuntary +manner and with some emphasis. With an appalling temerity he clutched +Tim's great miry boots to help him up and on his way round. Occasionally +he swayed to and fro, with his teeth on exhibition, laughing and +babbling and shrilly exclaiming, inarticulately bragging of his agile +prowess, as if he were able to defy all the Quimbeys, who would not +notice him. And when it was all over he went in his wriggling ursine +gait back to the hearth-stone, and there he was sitting, demurely +enough, and as if he had never moved, when his mother returned and found +him.</p> + +<p>There was no indication that he had attracted a moment's attention. She +looked gravely down at him; then took her chair. A pair of blue yarn +socks was in her hand. "I never see sech darnin' ez Aunt Sairy Ann do +fur ye, dad; I hev jes tuk my shears an' cut this heel smang out, an' I +be goin' ter do it over."</p> + +<p>She slipped a tiny gourd into the heel, and began to draw the slow +threads to and fro across it.<span class="pagenum">[100]</span></p> + +<p>The blaze, red and yellow, and with elusive purple gleams, leaped up the +chimney. The sap was still in the wood; it sang a summer-tide song. But +an autumn wind was blowing shrilly down the chimney; one could hear the +sibilant rush of the dead leaves on the blast. The window and the door +shook, and were still, and once more rattled as if a hand were on the +latch.</p> + +<p>Suddenly—"Ever weigh him?" her father asked.</p> + +<p>She sat upright with a nervous start. It was a moment before she +understood that it was of the Kittredge scion he spoke.</p> + +<p>With his high cracked laugh the old man leaned over, his outspread hand +hovering about the plump baby, uncertain where, in so much soft fatness, +it might be practicable to clutch him. There were some large horn +buttons on the back of his frock, a half-dozen of which, gathered +together, afforded a grasp. He lifted the child by them, laughing in +undisguised pleasure to feel the substantial strain upon the garment.</p> + +<p>"Toler'ble survigrus," he declared, with his high chirp.</p> + +<p>His daughter suddenly sprang up with a pallid face and a pointing hand.</p> + +<p>"The winder!" she huskily cried—"suthin's at the winder!"</p> + +<p>But when they looked they saw only the dark square of tiny panes, with +the fireside scene genially reflected on it. And then she fell to +declaring that she had been dreaming, and besought them not to take down +their guns nor to search, and would not be still until they had all +seemed to concede the<span class="pagenum">[101]</span> point; it was she who fastened the doors and +shutters, and she did not lie down to rest till they were all asleep and +hours had passed. None of them doubted that it was Absalom's face that +she had seen at the window, where the light had once lured him before, +and she knew that she had dreamed no dream like this.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It soon became evident that whenever Joe Boyd was intrusted with a +message he would find means to deliver it. For upon him presently +devolved the difficult duties of ambassador. The first time that his +honest square face appeared at the rail fence, and the sound of his +voice roused Evelina as she stood feeding the poultry close by, she +returned his question with a counter-question hard to answer.</p> + +<p>"I hev been up the mounting," he said, smiling, as he hooked his arms +over the rail fence. "Abs'lom he say he wanter know when ye'll git yer +visit out an' kem home."</p> + +<p>She leaned her elbow against the ash-hopper, balancing the wooden bowl +of corn-meal batter on its edge and trembling a little; the geese and +chickens and turkeys crowded, a noisy rout, about her feet.</p> + +<p>"Joe," she said, irrelevantly, "ye air one o' the few men on this yearth +ez ain't a liar."</p> + +<p>He stared at her gravely for a moment, then burst into a forced laugh. +"Ho! ho! I tell a bushel o' 'em a day, Eveliny!" He wagged his head in +an anxious affectation of mirth.</p> + +<p>"Why'n't ye gin dad them messages ez Abs'lom gin ye from me?"<span class="pagenum">[102]</span></p> + +<p>Joe received this in blank amaze; then, with sudden comprehension, his +lower jaw dropped. He looked at her with a plea for pity in his eyes. +And yet his ready tact strove to reassert itself.</p> + +<p>"I mus' hev furgot 'em," he faltered.</p> + +<p>"Did Abs'lom ever gin 'em ter ye?" she persisted.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ef he did</i>, I mus' hev furgot 'em," he repeated, crestfallen and +hopeless.</p> + +<p>She laughed and turned jauntily away, once more throwing the corn-meal +batter to the greedily jostling poultry. "Tell Abs'lom I hev f'und him +out," she said. "He can't sot me agin dad no sech way. This be my home, +an' hyar I be goin' ter 'bide."</p> + +<p>And so she left the good Joe Boyd hooked on by the elbows to the fence.</p> + +<p>The Quimbeys, who had heard this conversation from within, derived from +it no small elation. "She hev gin 'em the go-by fur good," Timothy said, +confidently, to his father, who laughed in triumph, and pulled calmly at +his pipe, and looked ten years younger.</p> + +<p>But Steve was surlily anxious. "I'd place heap mo' dependence in Eveliny +ef she didn't hev this hyar way o' cryin' all the time. She 'lows she's +glad she kem—<i>so glad</i> she hev lef' Abs'lom fur good an' +all—an' then she busts out a-cryin' agin. I ain't able ter argufy +on sech."</p> + +<p>"Shucks! wimmen air always a-cryin', an' they don't mean <i>nuthin</i>' by +it," exclaimed the old man, in the plenitude of his wisdom. "It air jes' +one o' thar most contrarious ways. I hev seen 'em set down an' cry fur +joy an' pleasure."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i102" id="i102"></a> +<img src="images/i102.jpg" width="600" height="401" +alt=""'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'"" +title=""'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'"" /> +<span class="caption">"'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM +MESSAGES?'"</span> +</div> <p><span class="pagenum">[103]</span></p> <p>But Steve was doubtful. "It be a powerful +low-sperited gift fur them ez hev ter 'bide along of 'em. Eveliny never +useter be tearful in nowise. Now she cries a heap mo' 'n that thar +shoat"—his lips curled in contempt as he glanced toward the door, +through which was visible a small rotund figure in pink calico, seated +upon the lowest log of the wood-pile—"ez she fotched down hyar +with her. <i>He</i> never hev hed a reg'lar blate but two or three times +sence he hev been hyar, an' them war when that thar old tur-rkey gobbler +teetered up ter him an' tuk his corn-dodger that he war a-eatin' on +plumb out'n his hand. <i>He</i> hed suthin' to holler fur—hed los' his +breakfus."</p> + +<p>"Don't he 'pear ter you-uns to be powerful peegeon-toed?" asked Tim, +anxiously, turning to his father.</p> + +<p>"The gawbbler?" faltered the amazed old man.</p> + +<p>"Naw; him, <i>him</i>—<i>Kittredge</i>," said Tim, jerking his big thumb in +the direction of the small boy.</p> + +<p>"Law-dy Gawd A'mighty! <i>naw!</i> <i>naw!</i>" The grandfather indignantly +repudiated the imputation of the infirmity. One would have imagined that +he would deem it meet that a Kittredge should be pigeon-toed. "It's jes +the way <i>all</i> babies hev got a-walkin'; he ain't right handy yit with +his feet—jes a-beginnin' ter walk, an' sech. Peegeon-toed! I say +it, ye fool!" He cast a glance of contempt on his eldest-born, and +arrogantly puffed his pipe.</p> + +<p>Again Joe Boyd came, and yet again. He brought messages contrite and +promissory from Absalom; he brought commands stern and insistent. He +came into the house at last, and sat and<span class="pagenum">[104]</span> talked at the fireside in +the presence of the men of the family, who bore themselves in a manner +calculated to impress the Kittredge emissary with their triumph and +contempt for his mission, although they studiously kept silence, leaving +it to Evelina to answer.</p> + +<p>At last the old man, leaning forward, tapped Joe on the knee. "See hyar, +Joe. Ye hev always been a good frien' o' mine. This hyar man he stole my +darter from me, an' whenst she wanted ter be frien's, an' not let her +old dad die unforgivin', he wouldn't let her send the word ter me. An' +then he sot himself ter spite an' hector me, an' fairly run me out'n the +town, an' harried me out'n my office, an' when she f'und out—she +wouldn't take my word fur it—the deceivin' natur' o' the Kittredge +tribe, she hed hed enough o' 'em. I hev let ye argufy 'bout'n it; ye hev +hed yer fill of words. An' now I be tired out. Ye ain't 'lowin' she'll +ever go back ter her husband, air ye?"</p> + +<p>Joe dolorously shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Waal, ef ever ye kem hyar talkin' 'bout'n it agin, I'll be 'bleeged ter +take down my rifle ter ye."</p> + +<p>Joe gazed, unmoved, into the fire.</p> + +<p>"An' that would be mighty hard on me, Joe, 'kase ye be so pop'lar +'mongst all, I dunno <i>what</i> the kentry-side would do ter me ef I war ter +put a bullet inter ye. Ye air a young man, Joe. Ye oughter spare a old +man sech a danger ez that."</p> + +<p>And so it happened that Joe Boyd's offices as mediator ceased.</p> + +<p>A week went by in silence and without result.<span class="pagenum">[105]</span> Evelina's tears +seemed to keep count of the minutes. The brothers indignantly noted it, +and even the old man was roused from the placid securities of his +theories concerning lachrymose womankind, and remonstrated sometimes, +and sometimes grew angry and exhorted her to go back. What did it matter +to her how her father was treated? He was a cumberer of the ground, and +many people besides her husband had thought he had no right to sit in a +justice's chair. And then she would burst into tears once more, and +declare again that she would never go back.</p> + +<p>The only thoroughly cheerful soul about the place was the intruding +Kittredge. He sat continuously—for the weather was fine—on +the lowest log of the wood-pile, and swung his bare pink feet among the +chips and bark, and seemed to have given up all ambition to walk. +Occasionally red and yellow leaves whisked past his astonished eyes, +although these were few now, for November was on the wane. He babbled to +the chickens, who pecked about him with as much indifference as if he +were made of wood. His two teeth came glittering out whenever the +rooster crowed, and his gleeful laugh—he rejoiced so in this +handsomely endowed bird—could be heard to the barn. The dogs +seemed never to have known that he was a Kittredge, and wagged their +tails at the very sound of his voice, and seized surreptitious +opportunities to lick his face. Of all his underfoot world only the +gobbler awed him into gravity and silence; he would gaze in dismay as +the marauding fowl irresolutely approached from around the wood-pile, +with long<span class="pagenum">[106]</span> neck out-stretched and undulating gait, applying first +one eye and then the other to the pink hands, for the gobbler seemed to +consider them a perpetual repository of corn-dodgers, which indeed they +were. Then the head and the wabbling red wattles would dart forth with a +sudden peck, and the shriek that ensued proved that nothing could be +much amiss with the Kittredge lungs.</p> + +<p>One fine day he sat thus in the red November sunset. The sky, seen +through the interlacing black boughs above his head, was all amber and +crimson, save for a wide space of pure and pallid green, against which +the purplish-garnet wintry mountains darkly gloomed. Beyond the rail +fence the avenues of the bare woods were carpeted with the sere +yellowish leaves that gave back the sunlight with a responsive +illuminating effect, and thus the sylvan vistas glowed. The long +slanting beams elongated his squatty little shadow till it was hardly a +caricature. He heard the cow lowing as she came to be milked, fording +the river where the clouds were so splendidly reflected. The chickens +were going to roost. The odor of the wood, the newly-hewn chips, +imparted a fresh and fragrant aroma to the air. He had found among them +a sweet-gum ball and a pine cone, and was applying them to the +invariable test of taste. Suddenly he dropped them with a nervous start, +his lips trembled, his lower jaw fell, he was aware of a stealthy +approach. Something was creeping behind the wood-pile. He hardly had +time to bethink himself of his enemy the gobbler when he was clutched +under the arm, swung through the air with a swiftness<span class="pagenum">[107]</span> that caused +the scream to evaporate in his throat, and the next moment he looked +quakingly up into his father's face with unrecognizing eyes; for he had +forgotten Absalom in these few weeks. He squirmed and wriggled as he was +held on the pommel of the saddle, winking and catching his breath and +spluttering, as preliminary proceedings to an outcry. There was a sudden +sound of heavily shod feet running across the puncheon floor within, a +wild, incoherent exclamation smote the air, an interval of significant +silence ensued.</p> + +<p>"Get up!" cried Absalom, not waiting for Tim's rifle, but spurring the +young horse, and putting him at the fence. The animal rose with the +elasticity and lightness of an uprearing ocean wave. The baby once more +twisted his soft neck, and looked anxiously into the rider's face. This +was not the gobbler. The gobbler did not ride horseback. Then the +affinity of the male infant for the noble equine animal suddenly +overbore all else. In elation he smote with his soft pink hand the +glossy arched neck before him. "Dul-lup!" he arrogantly echoed Absalom's +words. And thus father and son at a single bound disappeared into woods, +and so out of sight.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The savage Tim was leaning upon his rifle in the doorway, his eyes +dilated, his breath short, his whole frame trembling with excitement, as +the other men, alarmed by Evelina's screams, rushed down from the barn.</p> + +<p>"What ails ye, Tim? Why'n't ye fire?" demanded his father.<span class="pagenum">[108]</span></p> + +<p>Tim turned an agitated, baffled look upon him. "I—I mought hev hit +the baby," he faltered.</p> + +<p>"Hain't ye got no aim, ye durned sinner?" asked Stephen, furiously.</p> + +<p>"Bullet mought hev gone through him and struck inter the baby," +expostulated Tim.</p> + +<p>"An' then agin it moughtn't!" cried Stephen. "Lawd, ef <i>I</i> hed hed the +chance!"</p> + +<p>"Ye wouldn't hev done no differ," declared Tim.</p> + +<p>"Hyar!" Steve caught his brother's gun and presented it to Tim's lips. +"Suck the bar'l. It's 'bout all ye air good fur."</p> + +<p>The horses had been turned out. By the time they were caught and saddled +pursuit was evidently hopeless. The men strode in one by one, dashing +the saddles and bridles on the floor, and finding in angry expletives a +vent for their grief. And indeed it might have seemed that the Quimbeys +must have long sought a choice Kittredge infant for adoption, so far did +their bewailings discount Rachel's mourning.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry, Eveliny," they said, ever and anon. "We-uns'll git him back +fur ye."</p> + +<p>But she had not shed a tear. She sat speechless, motionless, as if +turned to stone.</p> + +<p>"Laws-a-massy, child, ef ye would jes hev b'lieved <i>me</i> 'bout'n them +Kittredges—Abs'lom in partic'lar—ye'd be happy an' free +now," said the old man, his imagination somewhat extending his +experience, for he had had no knowledge of his son-in-law until their +relationship began.</p> + +<p>The evening wore drearily on. Now and then the men roused themselves, +and with lowering<span class="pagenum">[109]</span> faces discussed the opportunities of reprisal, +and the best means of rescuing the child. And whether they schemed to +burn the Kittredge cabin, or to arm themselves, burst in upon their +enemies, shooting and killing all who resisted, Evelina said nothing, +but stared into the fire with unnaturally dilated eyes, her white lined +face all drawn and somehow unrecognizable.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," her father said at intervals, taking her cold hand, +"we-uns 'll git him back, Eveliny. The Lord hed a mother wunst, an' I'll +be bound He keeps a special pity for a woman an' her child."</p> + +<p>"Oh, great gosh! who'd hev dreamt we'd hev missed him so!" cried Tim, +shifting his position, and slipping his left arm over the back of his +chair. "Jes ter think o' the leetle size o' him, an' the great big gap +he hev lef' roun' this hyar ha'th-stone!"</p> + +<p>"An' yit he jes sot underfoot, 'mongst the cat an' the dogs, jes ez +humble!" said Stephen.</p> + +<p>"I'd git him back even ef he warn't no kin ter me, Eveliny," declared +Tim, and he spoke advisedly, remembering that the youth was a Kittredge.</p> + +<p>Still Evelina said not a word. All that night she silently walked the +puncheon floor, while the rest of the household slept. The dogs, in +vague disturbance, because of the unprecedented vigil and stir in the +midnight, wheezed uneasily from time to time, and crept restlessly about +under the cabin, now and again thumping their backs or heads against the +floor; but at last they betook themselves to slumber. The hickory logs +broke in<span class="pagenum">[110]</span> twain as they burned, and fell on either side, and +presently there was only the dull red glow of the embers on her pale +face, and the room was full of brown shadows, motionless, now that the +flames flared no more. Once when the red glow, growing ever dimmer, +seemed almost submerged beneath the gray ashes, she paused and stirred +the coals. The renewed glimmer showed a fixed expression in her eyes, +becoming momently more resolute. At intervals she knelt at the window +and placed her hands about her face to shut out the light from the +hearth, and looked out upon the night. How the chill stars loitered! How +the dawn delayed! The great mountain gloomed darkling above the Cove. +The waning moon, all melancholy and mystic, swung in the purple sky. The +bare, stark boughs of the trees gave out here and there a glimmer of +hoar-frost. There was no wind; when she heard the dry leaves whisk she +caught a sudden glimpse of a fox that, with his crafty shadow pursuing +him, leaped upon the wood-pile, nimbly ran along its length, and so, +noiselessly, away—while the dogs snored beneath the house. A cock +crew from the chicken-roost; the mountain echoed the resonant strain. +She saw a mist come stealing softly along a precipitous gorge; the gauzy +web hung shimmering in the moon; presently the trees were invisible; +anon they showed rigid among the soft enmeshment of the vapor, and again +were lost to view.</p> + +<p>She rose; there was a new energy in her step; she walked quickly across +the floor and unbarred the door.<span class="pagenum">[111]</span></p> + +<p>The little cabin on the mountain was lost among the clouds. It was not +yet day, but the old woman, with that proclivity to early rising +characteristic of advancing years, was already astir. It was in the +principal room of the cabin that she slept, and it contained another +bed, in which, placed crosswise, were five billet-shaped objects under +the quilts, which when awake identified themselves as Peter Kittredge's +children. She had dressed and uncovered the embers, and put on a few of +the chips which had been spread out on the hearth to dry, and had sat +down in the chimney corner. A timid blaze began to steal up, and again +was quenched, and only the smoke ascended in its form; then the light +flickered out once more, casting a gigantic shadow of her +sun-bonnet—for she had donned it thus early—half upon the +brown and yellow daubed wall, and half upon the dark ceiling, making a +specious stir amidst the peltry and strings of pop-corn hanging +motionless thence.</p> + +<p>She sighed heavily once or twice, and with an aged manner, and leaned +her elbows on her knees and gazed contemplatively at the fire. All at +once the ashes were whisked about the hearth as in a sudden draught, and +then were still. In momentary surprise she pushed her chair back, +hesitated, then replaced it, and calmly settled again her elbows on her +knees. Suddenly once more a whisking of the ashes; a cold shiver ran +through her, and she turned to see a hand fumbling at the batten shutter +close by. She stared for a moment as if paralyzed; her spectacles fell +to the floor from her nerveless hand, shattering the lenses on the +hearth. She<span class="pagenum">[112]</span> rose trembling to her feet, and her lips parted as if +to cry out. They emitted no sound, and she turned with a terrified +fascination and looked back. The shutter had opened, there was no glass, +the small square of the window showed the nebulous gray mist without, +and defined upon it was Evelina's head, her dark hair streaming over the +red shawl held about it, her fair oval face pallid and pensive, and with +a great wistfulness upon it; her lustrous dark eyes glittered.</p> + +<p>"Mother," her red lips quivered out.</p> + +<p>The old crone recognized no treachery in her heart. She laid a warning +finger upon her lips. All the men were asleep.</p> + +<p>Evelina stretched out her yearning arms. "Gin him ter me!"</p> + +<p>"Naw, naw, Eveliny," huskily whispered Absalom's mother. "Ye oughter kem +hyar an' 'bide with yer husband—ye know ye ought."</p> + +<p>Evelina still held out her insistent arms. "Gin him ter me!" she +pleaded.</p> + +<p>The old woman shook her head sternly. "Ye kem in, an' 'bide whar ye +b'long."</p> + +<p>Evelina took a step nearer the window. She laid her hand on the sill. +"Spos'n 'twar Abs'lom whenst he war a baby," she said, her eyes softly +brightening, "an' another woman hed him an' kep' him, 'kase ye an' his +dad fell out—would ye hev 'lowed she war right ter treat ye like +ye treat me—whenst Abs'lom war a baby?"</p> + +<p>Once more she held out her arms.</p> + +<p>There was a step in the inner shed-room; then silence.<span class="pagenum">[113]</span></p> + +<p>"Ye hain't got no excuse," the soft voice urged; "ye know jes how I +feel, how ye'd hev felt, whenst Abs'lom war a baby."</p> + +<p>The shawl had fallen back from her tender face; her eyes glowed, her +cheek was softly flushed. A sudden terror thrilled through her as she +again heard the heavy step approaching in the shed-room. "Whenst Abs'lom +war a baby," she reiterated, her whole pleading heart in the tones.</p> + +<p>A sudden radiance seemed to illumine the sad, dun-colored folds of the +encompassing cloud; her face shone with a transfiguring happiness, for +the hustling old crone had handed out to her a warm, somnolent bundle, +and the shutter closed upon the mists with a bang.</p> + +<p>"The wind's riz powerful suddint," Peter said, noticing the noise as he +came stumbling in, rubbing his eyes. He went and fastened the shutter, +while his mother tremulously mended the fire.</p> + +<p>The absence of the baby was not noticed for some time, and when the +father's hasty and angry questions elicited the reluctant facts, the +outcry for his loss was hardly less bitter among the Kittredges than +among the Quimbeys. The fugitives were shielded from capture by the +enveloping mist, and when Absalom returned from the search he could do +naught but indignantly upbraid his mother.</p> + +<p>She was terrified by her own deed, and cowered under Absalom's wrath. It +was in a moral collapse, she felt, that she could have done this thing. +She flung her apron over her head, and sat still and silent—a +monumental figure—among them. Once, roused by Absalom's +reproaches, she made some<span class="pagenum">[114]</span> effort to defend and exculpate herself, +speaking from behind the enveloping apron.</p> + +<p>"I ain't born no Kittredge nohow," she irrelevantly asseverated, "an' I +never war. An' when Eveliny axed me how I'd hev liked ter hev another +'oman take Abs'lom whenst he war a baby, I couldn't hold out no longer."</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" cried Absalom, unfilially; "ye'd a heap better be a-studyin' +'bout'n my good now 'n whenst I war a baby—a-givin' away <i>my</i> +child ter them Quimbeys; a-h'istin' him out'n the winder!"</p> + +<p>She was glad to retort that he was "impident," and to take refuge in an +aggrieved silence, as many another mother has done when outmatched by +logic.</p> + +<p>After this there was more cheerfulness in her hidden face than might +have been argued from her port of important sorrow. "Bes' ter hev no +jawin', though," she said to herself, as she sat thus inscrutably +veiled. And deep in her repentant heart she was contradictorily glad +that Evelina and the baby were safe together down in the Cove.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Old Joel Quimbey, putting on his spectacles, with a look of keenest +curiosity, to read a paper which the deputy-sheriff of the county +presented when he drew rein by the wood-pile one afternoon some three +weeks later, had some difficulty in identifying a certain Elnathan +Daniel Kittredge specified therein. He took off his spectacles, rubbed +them smartly, and put them on again. The writing was unchanged. Surely +it must mean the baby. That was the only Kittredge whose body they could +be summoned to produce on the 24th of December <span class="pagenum">[115]</span>before the judge +of the circuit court, now in session. He turned the paper about and +looked at it, his natural interest as a man augmented by his recognition +as an ex-magistrate of its high important legal character.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i114" id="i114"></a> +<img src="images/i114.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt=""SHE +FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD"" +title=""SHE FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD"" /> <span class="caption">"SHE FLUNG HER +APRON OVER HER HEAD"</span> </div> + +<p>"Eveliny," he quavered, at once flattered and furious, "dad-burned ef +Abs'lom hain't gone an' got out a <i>habeas corpus</i> fur the baby!"</p> + +<p>The phrase had a sound so deadly that there was much ado to +satisfactorily explain the writ and its functions to Evelina, who had +felt at ease again since the baby was at home, and so effectually +guarded that to kidnap him was necessarily to murder two or three of the +vigilant and stalwart Quimbey men. So much joy did it afford the old man +to air his learning and consult his code—a relic of his +justiceship—that he belittled the danger of losing the said +Elnathan Daniel Kittredge in the interest with which he looked forward +to the day for him to be produced before the court.</p> + +<p>There was a gathering of the clans on that day. Quimbeys and Kittredges +who had not visited the town for twenty years were jogging thither +betimes that morning on the red clay roads, all unimpeded by the deep +mud which, frozen into stiff ruts and ridges here and there, made the +way hazardous to the running-gear. The lagging winter had come, and the +ground was half covered with a light fall of snow.</p> + +<p>The windows of the court-house were white with frost; the weighted doors +clanged continuously. An old codger, slowly ascending the steps, and +pushing into the semi-obscurity of the hall, paused<span class="pagenum">[116]</span> as the door +slammed behind him, stared at the sheriff in surprise, then fixed him +with a bantering leer. The light that slanted through the open +court-room door fell upon the official's burly figure, his long red +beard, his big broad-brimmed hat pushed back from his laughing red face, +consciously ludicrous and abashed just now.</p> + +<p>"Hev ye made a find?" demanded the new-comer.</p> + +<p>For in the strong arms of the law sat, bolt-upright, Elnathan Daniel +Kittredge, his yellow head actively turning about, his face decorated +with a grin, and on most congenial terms with the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"They're lawin' 'bout'n him in thar"—the sheriff jerked his thumb +toward the door. "<i>Habeas corpus</i> perceedin's. Dunno ez I ever see a +friskier leetle cuss. Durned ef I 'ain't got a good mind ter run off +with him myself."</p> + +<p>The said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge once more squirmed round and settled +himself comfortably in the hollow of the sheriff's elbow, who marvelled +to find himself so deft in holding him, for it was twenty years since +his son—a gawky youth who now affected the company at the saloon, +and was none too filial—was the age and about the build of this +infant Kittredge.</p> + +<p>"They hed a reg'lar scrimmage hyar in the hall—them fool +men—Quimbey an' Kittredge. Old man Quimbey said suthin' ter +Abs'lom Kittredge—I dunno what all. Abs'lom never jawed back none. +He jes made a dart an' snatched this hyar leetle critter out'n his +mother's arms, stiddier waitin'<span class="pagenum">[117]</span> fur the law, what he summonsed +himself. Blest ef I didn't hev ter hold my revolver ter his head, an' +then crack him over the knuckles, ter make him let go the child. I +didn't want ter arrest him—mighty clever boy, Abs'lom Kittredge! I +promised that young woman I'd keep holt o' the child till the law gins +its say-so. I feel sorry fur her; she's been through a heap."</p> + +<p>"Waal, ye look mighty pritty, totin' him around hyar," his friend +encouraged him with a grin. "I'll say that fur ye—ye look mighty +pritty."</p> + +<p>And in fact the merriment in the hall at the sheriff's expense began to +grow so exhilarating as to make him feel that the proceedings within +were too interesting to lose. His broad red face with its big red beard +reappeared in the doorway—slightly embarrassed because of the +sprightly manners of his charge, who challenged to mirth every eye that +glanced at him by his toothful grin and his gurgles and bounces; he was +evidently enjoying the excitement and his conspicuous position. He +manfully gnawed at his corn-dodger from time to time, and from the +manner in which he fraternized with his new acquaintance, the sheriff, +he seemed old enough to dispense with maternal care, and, but for his +incomplete methods of locomotion, able to knock about town with the +boys. The Quimbeys took note of his mature demeanor with sinking hearts; +they looked anxiously at the judge, wondering if he had ever before seen +such precocity—anything so young to be so old: "He 'ain't never +afore 'peared so survigrus—so <i>durned</i> survigrus ez he do +ter-day," they whispered to each other.<span class="pagenum">[118]</span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," his father was saying, on examination, "year old. Eats +anything he kin git—cabbage an' fat meat an' anything. <i>Could</i> +walk if he wanted ter. But he 'ain't been raised right"—he glanced +at his wife to observe the effect of this statement. He felt a pang as +he noted her pensive, downcast face, all tremulous and agitated, +overwhelmed as she was by the crowd and the infinite moment of the +decision. But Absalom, too, had his griefs, and they expressed +themselves perversely.</p> + +<p>"He hev been pompered an' fattened by bein' let ter eat an' sleep so +much, till he be so heavy ter his self he don't wanter take the trouble +ter git about. He <i>could</i> walk ennywhar. He's plumb survigrus."</p> + +<p>And as if in confirmation, the youthful Kittredge lifted his voice to +display his lung power. He hilariously babbled, and suddenly roared out +a stentorian whoop, elicited by nothing in particular, then caught the +sheriff's beard, and buried in it his conscious pink face.</p> + +<p>The judge looked gravely up over his spectacles. He had a bronzed +complexion, a serious, pondering expression, a bald head, and a gray +beard. He wore a black broadcloth suit, somewhat old-fashioned in cut, +and his black velvet waist-coat had suffered an eruption of tiny red +satin spots. He had great respect for judicial decorums, and no +Kittredge, however youthful, or survigrus, or exalted in importance by +<i>habeas corpus</i> proceedings, could "holler" unmolested where he +presided.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Sheriff," he said, solemnly, "remove that child from the presence +of the court."<span class="pagenum">[119]</span></p> + +<p>And the said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge went out gleefully kicking in the +arms of the law.</p> + +<p>The hundred or so grinning faces in the court-room relapsed quickly into +gravity and excited interest. The rows of jeans-clad countrymen seated +upon the long benches on either side of the bar leaned forward with +intent attitudes. For this was a rich feast of local gossip, such as had +not been so bountifully spread within their recollection. All the +ancient Quimbey and Kittredge feuds contrived to be detailed anew in +offering to the judge reasons why father or mother was the more fit +custodian of the child in litigation.</p> + +<p>As Absalom sat listening to all this, his eyes were suddenly arrested by +his wife's face—half draped it was, half shadowed by her +sun-bonnet, its fine and delicate profile distinctly outlined against +the crystalline and frosted pane of the window near which she sat. The +snow without threw a white reflection upon it; its rich coloring in +contrast was the more intense; it was very pensive, with the heavy lids +drooping over the lustrous eyes, and with a pathetic appeal in its +expression.</p> + +<p>And suddenly his thoughts wandered far afield. He wondered that it had +come to this; that she could have misunderstood him so; that he had +thought her hard and perverse and unforgiving. His heart was all at once +melting within him; somehow he was reminded how slight a thing she was, +and how strong was the power that nerved her slender hand to drag his +heavy weight, in his dead and helpless unconsciousness, down to the bars +and into the safety of the sheltering laurel that<span class="pagenum">[120]</span> night, when he +lay wounded and bleeding under the lighted window of the cabin in the +Cove. A deep tenderness, an irresistible yearning had come upon him; he +was about to rise, he was about to speak he knew not what, when suddenly +her face was irradiated as one who sees a blessed vision; a happy light +sprang into her eyes; her lips curved with a smile; the quick tears +dropped one by one on her hands, nervously clasping and unclasping each +other. He was bewildered for a moment. Then he heard Peter gruffly +growling a half-whispered curse, and the voice of the judge, in the +exercise of his discretion, methodically droning out his reasons for +leaving so young a child in the custody of its mother, disregarding the +paramount rights of the father. The judge concluded by dispassionately +recommending the young couple to betake themselves home, and to try to +live in peace together, or, at any rate, like sane people. Then he +thrust his spectacles up on his forehead, drew a long sigh of dismissal, +and said, with a freshened look of interest, "Mr. Clerk, call the next +case."</p> + +<p>The Quimbey and Kittredge factions poured into the hall; what cared they +for the disputed claims of Jenkins <i>versus</i> Jones? The lovers of +sensation cherished a hope that there might be a lawless effort to +rescue the infant Kittredge from the custody to which he had been +committed by the court. The Quimbeys watchfully kept about him in a +close squad, his pink sun-bonnet, in which his head was eclipsed, +visible among their brawny jeans shoulders, as his mother carried him in +her arms. The sheriff looked smilingly after him from the +court-house<span class="pagenum">[121]</span> steps, then inhaled a long breath, and began to roar +out to the icy air the name of a witness wanted within. Instead of a +gate there was a flight of steps on each side of the fence, surmounted +by a small platform. Evelina suddenly shrank back as she stood on the +platform, for beside the fence Absalom was waiting. Timothy hastily +vaulted over the fence, drew his "shooting-iron" from his boot-leg, and +cocked it with a metallic click, sharp and peremptory in the keen wintry +air. For a moment Absalom said not a word. He looked up at Evelina with +as much reproach as bitterness in his dark eyes. They were bright with +the anger that fired his blood; it was hot in his bronzed cheek; it +quivered in his hands. The dry and cold atmosphere amplified the graces +of his long curling yellow hair that she and his mother loved. His hat +was pushed back from his face. He had not spoken to her since the day of +his ill-starred confidence, but he would not be denied now.</p> + +<p>"Ye'll repent it," he said, threateningly. "I'll take special pains fur +that."</p> + +<p>She bestowed on him one defiant glance, and laughed—a bitter +little laugh. "Ye air ekal ter it; ye have a special gift fur makin' +folks repent they ever seen ye."</p> + +<p>"The jedge jes gin him ter ye 'kase ye made him out sech a fibble little +pusson," he sneered. "But it's jes fur a time."</p> + +<p>She held the baby closer. He busied himself in taking off his sun-bonnet +and putting it on hind part before, gurgling with smothered laughter to +find himself thus queerly masked, and he made futile<span class="pagenum">[122]</span> efforts to +play "peep-eye" with anybody jovially disposed in the crowd. But they +were all gravely absorbed in the conjugal quarrel at which they were +privileged to assist.</p> + +<p>"It's jes fur a time," he reiterated.</p> + +<p>"Wait an' see!" she retorted, triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"I won't wait," he declared, goaded; "I'll take him yit; an' when I do +I'll clar out'n the State o' Tennessee—see ef I don't!"</p> + +<p>She turned white and trembled. "Ye dassent," she cried out shrilly. +"Ye'll be 'feared o' the law."</p> + +<p>"Wait an' see!" He mockingly echoed her words, and turned in his old +confident manner, and strode out of the crowd.</p> + +<p>Faint and trembling, she crept into the old canvas-covered wagon, and as +it jogged along down the road stiff with its frozen ruts and ever +nearing the mountains, she clasped the cheerful Kittredge with a +yearning sense of loss, and declared that the judge had made him no +safer than before. It was in vain that her father, speaking from the +legal lore of the code, detailed the contempt of court that the +Kittredges would commit should they undertake to interfere with the +judicial decision—it might be even considered kidnapping.</p> + +<p>"But what good would that do me—an' the baby whisked plumb out'n +the State? Ef Abs'lom ain't 'feared o' Tim's rifle, what's he goin' ter +keer fur the pore jedge with nare weepon but his leetle contempt o' +court—ter jail Abs'lom, ef he kin make out ter ketch him!"</p> + +<p>She leaned against the swaying hoop of the cover of the wagon and burst +into tears. "Oh, none<span class="pagenum">[123]</span> o' ye'll do nuthin' fur me!" she exclaimed, +in frantic reproach. "Nuthin'!"</p> + +<p>"Ye talk like 'twar we-uns ez made up sech foolishness ez <i>habeas +corpus</i> out'n our own heads," said Timothy. "I 'ain't never looked ter +the law fur pertection. Hyar's the pertecter." He touched the trigger of +his rifle and glanced reassuringly at his sister as he sat beside her on +the plank laid as a seat from side to side of the wagon.</p> + +<p>She calmed herself for a moment; then suddenly looked aghast at the +rifle, and with some occult and hideous thought, burst anew into tears.</p> + +<p>"Waal, sir," exclaimed Stephen, outdone, "what with all this hyar daily +weepin' an' nightly mournin', I 'ain't got spunk enough lef' ter stan' +up agin the leetlest Kittredge a-goin'. I ain't man enough ter sight a +rifle. Kittredges kin kem enny time an' take my hide, horns, an' tallow +ef they air minded so ter do."</p> + +<p>"I 'lowed I hearn suthin' a-gallopin' down the road," said Tim, +abruptly.</p> + +<p>Her tears suddenly ceased. She clutched the baby closer, and turned and +lifted the flap of the white curtain at the back of the wagon, and +looked out with a wild and terror-stricken eye. The red clay road +stretched curveless, a long way visible and vacant. The black bare trees +stood shivering in the chilly blast on either side; among them was an +occasional clump of funereal cedars. Away off the brown wooded hills +rose; snow lay in thin crust-like patches here and there, and again the +earth wore the pallid gray of the crab-grass or the ochreous red of the +gully-washed clay.<span class="pagenum">[124]</span></p> + +<p>"I don't see nuthin'," she said, in the bated voice of affrighted +suspense.</p> + +<p>While she still looked out flakes suddenly began to fly, hardly falling +at first, but poised tentatively, fluctuating athwart the scene, +presently thickening, quickening, obscuring it all, isolating the woods +with an added sense of solitude since the sight of the world and the +sound of it were so speedily annulled. Even the creak of the +wagon-wheels was muffled. Through the semicircular aperture in the front +of the wagon-cover the horns of the oxen were dimly seen amidst the +serried flakes; the snow whitened the backs of the beasts and added its +burden to their yoke. Once as they jogged on she fancied again that she +heard hoof-beats—this time a long way ahead, thundering over a +little bridge high above a swirling torrent, that reverberated with a +hollow tone to the faintest footfall. "Jes somebody ez hev passed +we-uns, takin' the short-cut by the bridle-path," she ruminated. No +pursuer, evidently.</p> + +<p>Everything was deeply submerged in the snow before they reached the dark +little cabin nestling in the Cove. Motionless and dreary it was; not +even a blue and gauzy wreath curled out of the chimney, for the fire had +died on the hearth in their absence. No living creature was to be seen. +The fowls were huddled together in the hen-house, and the dogs had +accompanied the family to town, trotting beneath the wagon with lolling +tongues and smoking breath; when they nimbly climbed the fence their +circular footprints were the first traces to mar the level expanse of +the door-yard. The <span class="pagenum">[125]</span>bare limbs of the trees were laden; the +cedars bore great flower-like tufts amidst the interlacing fibrous +foliage. The eaves were heavily thatched; the drifts lay in the fence +corners.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 452px;"> <a name="i124" id="i124"></a> +<img src="images/i124.jpg" width="452" height="600" alt=""HE +STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW"" +title=""HE STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW"" /> +<span class="caption">"HE STOLE +NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW"</span> </div> + +<p>Everything was covered except, indeed, one side of the fodder-stack that +stood close to the barn. Evelina, going out to milk the cow, gazed at it +for a moment in surprise. The snow had slipped down from it, and lay in +rolls and piles about the base, intermixed with the sere husks and +blades that seemed torn out of the great cone. "Waal, sir, Spot mus' hev +been hongry fur true, ter kem a-foragin' this wise. Looks ez ef she hev +been fairly a-burrowin'."</p> + +<p>She turned and glanced over her shoulder at tracks in the +snow—shapeless holes, and filling fast—which she did not +doubt were the footprints of the big red cow, standing half in and half +out of the wide door, slowly chewing her cud, her breath visibly curling +out on the chill air, her great lips opening to emit a muttered low. She +moved forward suddenly into the shelter as Evelina started anew toward +it, holding the piggin in one hand and clasping the baby in the other +arm.</p> + +<p>Evelina noted the sound of her brothers' two axes, busy at the +wood-pile, their regular cleavage splitting the air with a sharp stroke +and bringing a crystalline shivering echo from the icy mountain. She did +not see the crouching figure that came cautiously burrowing out from the +stack. Absalom rose to his full height, looking keenly about him the +while, and stole noiselessly in the soft snow to the stable, and peered +in through a crevice in the wall.<span class="pagenum">[126]</span></p> + +<p>Evelina had placed the piggin upon the straw-covered ground, and stood +among the horned cattle and the huddling sheep, her soft melancholy face +half shaded by the red shawl thrown over her head and shoulders. A tress +of her brown hair escaped and curled about her white neck, and hung down +over the bosom of her dark-blue homespun dress. Against her shoulder the +dun-colored cow rubbed her horned head. The baby was in a pensive mood, +and scarcely babbled. The reflection of the snow was on his face, +heightening the exquisite purity of the tints of his infantile +complexion. His gentle, fawn-like eyes were full of soft and lustrous +languors. His long lashes drooped over them now, and again were lifted. +His short down of yellow hair glimmered golden against the red shawl +over his mother's shoulders.</p> + +<p>One of the beasts sank slowly upon the ground—a tired creature +doubtless, and night was at hand; then another, and still another. Their +posture reminded Absalom, as he looked, that this was Christmas Eve, and +of the old superstition that the cattle of the barns spend the night +upon their knees, in memory of the wondrous Presence that once graced +their lowly place. The boughs rattled suddenly in the chill blast above +his head; the drifts fell about him. He glanced up mechanically to see +in the zenith a star of gracious glister, tremulous and tender, in the +rifts of the breaking clouds.</p> + +<p>"I wonder ef it air the same star o' Bethlehem?" he said, thinking of +the great sidereal torch heralding the Light of the World. He had a +vague sense that this star has never set, however the wandering<span class="pagenum">[127]</span> +planets may come and go in their wide journeys as the seasons roll. He +looked again into the glooming place, at the mother and her child, +remembering that the Lord of heaven and earth had once lain in a manger, +and clung to a humble earthly mother.</p> + +<p>The man shook with a sudden affright. He had intended to wrest the child +from her grasp, and mount and ride away; he was roused from his reverie +by the thrusting upon him of his opportunity, facilitated a hundredfold. +Evelina had evidently forgotten something. She hesitated for a moment; +then put the baby down upon a great pile of straw among the horned +creatures, and, catching her shawl about her head, ran swiftly to the +house.</p> + +<p>Absalom moved mechanically into the doorway. The child, still pensive +and silent, and looking tenderly infantile, lay upon the straw. A sudden +pang of pity for her pierced his heart: how her own would be desolated! +His horse, hitched in a clump of cedars, awaited him ten steps away. It +was his only chance—his last chance. And he had been hardly +entreated. The child's eyes rested, startled and dilated, upon him; he +must be quick.</p> + +<p>The next instant he turned suddenly, ran hastily through the snow, +crashed among the cedars, mounted his horse, and galloped away.</p> + +<p>It was only a moment that Evelina expected to be at the house, but the +gourd of salt which she sought was not in its place. She hurried out +with it at last, unprescient of any danger until all at once she saw the +footprints of a man in the snow, otherwise untrodden, about the +fodder-stack. She<span class="pagenum">[128]</span> still heard the two axes at the wood-pile. Her +father, she knew, was at the house.</p> + +<p>A smothered scream escaped her lips. The steps had evidently gone into +the stable, and had come out thence. Her faltering strength could +scarcely support her to the door. And then she saw lying in the straw +Elnathan Daniel, beginning to babble and gurgle again, and to grow very +pink with joy over a new toy—a man's glove, a red woollen glove, +accidentally dropped in the straw. She caught it from his hands, and +turned it about curiously. She had knit it herself—for Absalom!</p> + +<p>When she came into the house, beaming with joy, the baby holding the +glove in his hands, the men listened to her in dumfounded amaze, and +with significant side glances at each other.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't take the baby whenst he hed the chance, 'kase he knowed +'twould hurt me so. An' he never wanted ter torment me—I reckon he +never <i>did</i> mean ter torment me. An' he did 'low wunst he war sorry he +spited dad. Oh! I hev been a heap too quick an' spiteful myself. I hev +been so terrible wrong! Look a-hyar; he lef this glove ter show me he +hed been hyar, an' could hev tuk the baby ef he hed hed the heart ter do +it. Oh! I'm goin' right up the mounting an' tell him how sorry I be."</p> + +<p>"Toler'ble cheap!" grumbled Stephen—"one old glove. An' he'll git +Elnathan Daniel an' ye too. A smart fox he be."</p> + +<p>They could not dissuade her. And after a time it came to pass that the +Quimbey and Kittredge feuds were healed, for how could the heart of a +<span class="pagenum">[129]</span>grandfather withstand a toddling spectacle in pink calico that +ran away one day some two years later, in company with an adventurous +dog, and came down the mountain to the cabin in the Cove, squeezing +through the fence rails after the manner of his underfoot world, +proceeding thence to the house, where he made himself very merry and +very welcome? And when Tim mounted his horse and rode up the mountain +with the youngster on the pommel of the saddle, lest Evelina should be +out of her mind with fright because of his absence, how should he and +old Mrs. Kittredge differ in their respective opinions of his vigorous +growth, and grace of countenance, and peartness of manner? On the +strength of this concurrence Tim was induced to "'light an' hitch," and +he even sat on the cabin porch and talked over the crops with Absalom, +who, the next time he went to town, stopped at the cabin in the Cove to +bring word how Elnathan Daniel was "thrivin'." The path that Evelina had +worn to the crag in those first homesick days on the mountain rapidly +extended itself into the Cove, and widened and grew smooth, as the +grandfather went up and the grandson came down.</p> <p><span class="pagenum">[133]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[132]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[131]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[130]</span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 407px;"> <a name="i128" id="i128"></a> +<img src="images/i128.jpg" width="407" height="600" alt="OLD QUIMBEY +AND HIS GRANDSON" title="OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON" /> +<span class="caption">OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON</span> </div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h2><a name="WAY_DOWN_IN_LONESOME_COVE" id="WAY_DOWN_IN_LONESOME_COVE"></a>'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE</h2> + +<p>One memorable night in Lonesome Cove the ranger of the county entered +upon a momentous crisis in his life. What hour it was he could hardly +have said, for the primitive household reckoned time by the sun when it +shone, by the domestic routine when no better might be. It was late. The +old crone in the chimney-corner nodded over her knitting. In the +trundle-bed at the farther end of the shadowy room were transverse +billows under the quilts, which intimated that the small children were +numerous enough for the necessity of sleeping crosswise. He had smoked +out many pipes, and at last knocked the cinder from the bowl. The great +hickory logs had burned asunder and fallen from the stones that served +as andirons. He began to slowly cover the embers with ashes, that the +fire might keep till morning.</p> + +<p>His wife, a faded woman, grown early old, was bringing the stone jar of +yeast to place close by the hearth, that it might not "take a chill" in +some sudden change of the night. It was heavy, and she bent in carrying +it. Awkward, and perhaps nervous, she brought it sharply against the +shovel in his hands.</p> + +<p>The clash roused the old crone in the corner.<span class="pagenum">[134]</span> She recognized the +situation instantly, and the features that sleep had relaxed into +inexpressiveness took on a weary apprehension, which they wore like a +habit. The man barely raised his surly black eyes, but his wife drew +back humbly with a mutter of apology.</p> + +<p>The next moment the shovel was almost thrust out of his grasp. A tiny +barefooted girl, in a straight unbleached cotton night-gown and a quaint +little cotton night-cap, cavalierly pushed him aside, that she might +cover in the hot ashes a burly sweet-potato, destined to slowly roast by +morning. A long and careful job she made of it, and unconcernedly kept +him waiting while she pottered back and forth about the hearth. She +looked up once with an authoritative eye, and he hastily helped to +adjust the potato with the end of the shovel. And then he glanced at +her, incongruously enough, as if waiting for her autocratic nod of +approval. She gravely accorded it, and pattered nimbly across the +puncheon floor to the bed.</p> + +<p>"Now," he drawled, in gruff accents, "ef you-uns hev all had yer fill o' +foolin' with this hyar fire, I'll kiver it, like I hev started out ter +do."</p> + +<p>At this moment there was a loud trampling upon the porch without. The +batten door shook violently. The ranger sprang up. As he frowned the +hair on his scalp, drawn forward, seemed to rise like bristles.</p> + +<p>"Dad-burn that thar fresky filly!" he cried, angrily. "Jes' brung her +noisy bones up on that thar porch agin, an' her huffs will bust spang +through the planks o' the floor the fust thing ye know."</p> + +<p>The narrow aperture, as he held the door ajar,<span class="pagenum">[135]</span> showed outlined +against the darkness the graceful head of a young mare, and once more +hoof-beats resounded on the rotten planks of the porch.</p> + +<p>Clouds were adrift in the sky. No star gleamed in the wide space high +above the sombre mountains. On every side they encompassed Lonesome +Cove, which seemed to have importunately thrust itself into the darkling +solemnities of their intimacy.</p> + +<p>All at once the ranger let the door fly from his hand, and stood gazing +in blank amazement. For there was a strange motion in the void +vastnesses of the wilderness. They were creeping into view. How, he +could not say, but the summit of the great mountain opposite was +marvellously distinct against the sky. He saw the naked, gaunt, December +woods. He saw the grim, gray crags. And yet Lonesome Cove below and the +spurs on the other side were all benighted. A pale, flickering light was +dawning in the clouds; it brightened, faded, glowed again, and their +sad, gray folds assumed a vivid vermilion reflection, for there was a +fire in the forest below. Only these reactions of color on the clouds +betokened its presence and its progress. Sometimes a fluctuation of +orange crossed them, then a glancing line of blue, and once more that +living red hue which only a pulsating flame can bestow.</p> + +<p>"Air it the comin' o' the Jedgmint Day, Tobe?" asked his wife, in a meek +whisper.</p> + +<p>"I'd be afraid so if I war ez big a sinner ez you-uns," he returned.</p> + +<p>"The woods air afire," the old woman declared, in a shrill voice.<span class="pagenum">[136]</span></p> + +<p>"They be a-soakin' with las' night's rain," he retorted, gruffly.</p> + +<p>The mare was standing near the porch. Suddenly he mounted her and rode +hastily off, without a word of his intention to the staring women in the +doorway.</p> + +<p>He left freedom of speech behind him. "Take yer bones along, then, ye +tongue-tied catamount!" his wife's mother apostrophized him, with all +the acrimony of long repression. "Got no mo' politeness 'n a settin' +hen," she muttered, as she turned back into the room.</p> + +<p>The young woman lingered wistfully. "I wisht he wouldn't go a-ridin' off +that thar way 'thout lettin' we-uns know whar he air bound fur, an' when +he'll kem back. He mought git hurt some ways roun' that thar +fire—git overtook by it, mebbe."</p> + +<p>"Ef he war roasted 'twould be mighty peaceful round in Lonesome," the +old crone exclaimed, rancorously.</p> + +<p>Her daughter stood for a moment with the bar of the door in her hand, +still gazing out at the flare in the sky. The unwonted emotion had +conjured a change in the stereotyped patience in her face—even +anxiety, even the acuteness of fear, seemed a less pathetic expression +than that meek monotony bespeaking a broken spirit. As she lifted her +eyes to the mountain one might wonder to see that they were so blue. In +the many haggard lines drawn upon her face the effect of the straight +lineaments was lost; but just now, embellished with a flush, she looked +young—as young as her years.</p> + +<p>As she buttoned the door and put up the bar her<span class="pagenum">[137]</span> mother's attention +was caught by the change. Peering at her critically, and shading her +eyes with her hand from the uncertain flicker of the tallow dip, she +broke out, passionately: "Wa'al, 'Genie, who would ever hev thought ez +yer cake would be <i>all</i> dough? Sech a laffin', plump, spry gal ez ye +useter be—fur all the worl' like a fresky young deer! An' sech a +pack o' men ez ye hed the choice amongst! An' ter pick out Tobe Gryce +an' marry him, an' kem 'way down hyar ter live along o' him in Lonesome +Cove!"</p> + +<p>She chuckled aloud, not that she relished her mirth, but the +harlequinade of fate constrained a laugh for its antics. The words +recalled the past to Eugenia; it rose visibly before her. She had had +scant leisure to reflect that her life might have been ordered +differently. In her widening eyes were new depths, a vague terror, a +wild speculation, all struck aghast by its own temerity.</p> + +<p>"Ye never said nuthin ter hender," she faltered.</p> + +<p>"I never knowed Tobe, sca'cely. How's ennybody goin' ter know a man ez +lived 'way off down hyar in Lonesome Cove?" her mother retorted, +acridly, on the defensive. "He never courted <i>me</i>, nohows. All the word +he gin me war, 'Howdy,' an' I gin him no less."</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>Eugenia knelt on the hearth. She placed together the broken chunks, and +fanned the flames with a turkey wing. "I won't kiver the fire yit," she +said, thoughtfully. "He mought be chilled when he gits home."<span class="pagenum">[138]</span></p> + +<p>The feathery flakes of the ashes flew; they caught here and there in her +brown hair. The blaze flared up, and flickered over her flushed, pensive +face, and glowed in her large and brilliant eyes.</p> + +<p>"Tobe said 'Howdy,'" her mother bickered on. "I knowed by that ez he hed +the gift o' speech, but he spent no mo' words on me." Then, suddenly, +with a change of tone: "I war a fool, though, ter gin my cornsent ter +yer marryin' him, bein' ez ye war the only child I hed, an' I knowed I'd +hev ter live with ye 'way down hyar in Lonesome Cove. I wish now ez ye +bed abided by yer fust choice, an' married Luke Todd."</p> + +<p>Eugenia looked up with a gathering frown. "I hev no call ter spen' words +'bout Luke Todd," she said, with dignity, "ez me an' him are both +married ter other folks."</p> + +<p>"I never said ye hed," hastily replied the old woman, rebuked and +embarrassed. Presently, however, her vagrant speculation went recklessly +on. "Though ez ter Luke's marryin', 'tain't wuth while ter set store on +sech. The gal he found over thar in Big Fox Valley favors ye ez close ez +two black-eyed peas. That's why he married her. She looks precisely like +ye useter look. An' she laffs the same. An' I reckon <i>she</i> 'ain't hed no +call ter quit laffin', 'kase he air a powerful easy-goin' man. +Leastways, he useter be when we-uns knowed him."</p> + +<p>"That ain't no sign," said Eugenia. "A saafter-spoken body I never seen +than Tobe war when he fust kem a-courtin' round the settlemint."</p> + +<p>"Sech ez that ain't goin' ter las' noways," dryly remarked the +philosopher of the chimney-corner.<span class="pagenum">[139]</span></p> + +<p>This might seem rather a reflection upon the courting gentry in general +than a personal observation. But Eugenia's consciousness lent it point.</p> + +<p>"Laws-a-massy," she said, "Tobe ain't so rampagious, nohows, ez folks +make him out. He air toler'ble peaceable, cornsiderin' ez nobody hev +ever hed grit enough ter make a stand agin him, 'thout 'twar the Cunnel +thar."</p> + +<p>She glanced around at the little girl's face framed in the frill of her +night-cap, and peaceful and infantile as it lay on the pillow.</p> + +<p>"Whenst the Cunnel war born," Eugenia went on, languidly reminiscent, +"Tobe war powerful outed 'kase she war a gal. I reckon ye 'members ez +how he said he hed no use for sech cattle ez that. An' when she tuk sick +he 'lowed he seen no differ. 'Jes ez well die ez live,' he said. An' +bein' ailin', the Cunnel tuk it inter her head ter holler. Sech +hollerin' we-uns hed never hearn with none o' the t'other chil'ren. The +boys war nowhar. But a-fust it never 'sturbed Tobe. He jes spoke out +same ez he useter do at the t'others, 'Shet up, ye pop-eyed buzzard!' +Wa'al, sir, the Cunnel jes blinked at him, an' braced herself ez stiff, +an' <i>yelled</i>! I 'lowed 'twould take off the roof. An' Tobe said he'd +wring her neck ef she warn't so mewlin'-lookin' an' peakèd. An' +he tuk her up an' walked across the floor with her, an' she shet up; an' +he walked back agin, an' she stayed shet up. Ef he sot down fur a minit, +she yelled so ez ye'd think ye'd be deef fur life, an' ye 'most hoped ye +would be. So Tobe war obleeged ter tote her agin ter git shet o' the +noise. He got started on that thar 'forced march,' ez he calls it, an' +he never<span class="pagenum">[140]</span> could git off'n it. Trot he must when the Cunnel pleased. +He 'lowed she reminded him o' that thar old Cunnel that he sarved under +in the wars. Ef it killed the regiment, he got thar on time. Sence then +the Cunnel jes gins Tobe her orders, an' he moseys ter do 'em quick, jes +like he war obleeged ter obey. I b'lieve he air, somehows."</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, some day," said the disaffected old woman, assuming a port of +prophetic wisdom, "Tobe will find a differ. Thar ain't no man so headin' +ez don't git treated with perslimness by somebody some time. I knowed a +man wunst ez owned fower horses an' cattle-critters quarryspondin', an' +he couldn't prove ez he war too old ter be summonsed ter work on the +road, an' war fined by the overseer 'cordin' ter law. Tobe will git his +wheel scotched yit, sure ez ye air born. Somebody besides the Cunnel +will skeer up grit enough ter make a stand agin him. I dunno how other +men kin sleep o' night, knowin' how he be always darin' folks ter differ +with him, an' how brigaty he be. The Bible 'pears ter me ter hev Tobe in +special mind when it gits ter mournin' 'bout'n the stiff-necked ones."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The spirited young mare that the ranger rode strove to assert herself +against him now and then, as she went at a breakneck speed along the +sandy bridle-path through the woods. How was she to know that the +white-wanded young willow by the way-side was not some spiritual +manifestation as it suddenly materialized in a broken beam from a rift +in the clouds? But as she reared and plunged she felt his heavy hand and +his heavy heel, and so forward<span class="pagenum">[141]</span> again at a steady pace. The forests +served to screen the strange light in the sky, and the lonely road was +dark, save where the moonbeam was splintered and the mists loitered.</p> + +<p>Presently there were cinders flying in the breeze, a smell of smoke +pervaded the air, and the ranger forgot to curse the mare when she +stumbled.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he muttered, "what them no 'count half-livers o' town folks +hev hed the shiftlessness ter let ketch afire thar!"</p> + +<p>As he neared the brink of the mountain he saw a dense column of smoke +against the sky, and a break in the woods showed the little +town—the few log houses, the "gyarden spots" about them, and in +the centre of the Square a great mass of coals, a flame flickering here +and there, and two gaunt and tottering chimneys where once the +court-house had stood. At some distance—for the heat was still +intense—were grouped the slouching, spiritless figures of the +mountaineers. On the porches of the houses, plainly visible in the +unwonted red glow, were knots of women and children—ever and anon +a brat in the scantiest of raiment ran nimbly in and out. The clouds +still borrowed the light from below, and the solemn, leafless woods on +one side were outlined distinctly against the reflection in the sky. The +flare showed, too, the abrupt precipice on the other side, the abysmal +gloom of the valley, the austere summit-line of the mountain beyond, and +gave the dark mysteries of the night a sombre revelation, as in visible +blackness it filled the illimitable space.</p> + +<p>The little mare was badly blown as the ranger<span class="pagenum">[142]</span> sprang to the +ground. He himself was panting with amazement and eagerness.</p> + +<p>"The stray-book!" he cried. "Whar's the stray-book?"</p> + +<p>One by one the slow group turned, all looking at him with a peering +expression as he loomed distorted through the shimmer of the heat above +the bed of live coals and the hovering smoke.</p> + +<p>"Whar's the stray-book?" he reiterated, imperiously.</p> + +<p>"Whar's the court-house, I reckon ye mean to say," replied the +sheriff—a burly mountaineer in brown jeans and high boots, on +which the spurs jingled; for in his excitement he had put them on as +mechanically as his clothes, as if they were an essential part of his +attire.</p> + +<p>"Naw, I <i>ain't</i> meanin' ter say whar's the court-house," said the +ranger, coming up close, with the red glow of the fire on his face, and +his eyes flashing under the broad brim of his wool hat. He had a +threatening aspect, and his elongated shadow, following him and +repeating the menace of his attitude, seemed to back him up. "Ye air +sech a triflin', slack-twisted tribe hyar in town, ez ennybody would +know ef a spark cotched fire ter suthin, ye'd set an' suck yer paws, an' +eye it till it bodaciously burnt up the court-house—sech a +dad-burned lazy set o' half-livers ye be! I never axed 'bout'n the +court-house. I want ter know whar's that thar stray-book," he concluded, +inconsequently.</p> + +<p>"Tobe Gryce, ye air fairly demented," exclaimed the register—a +chin-whiskered, grizzled old fellow, sitting on a stump and hugging his +knee with a<span class="pagenum">[143]</span> desolate, bereaved look—"talkin' 'bout the +<i>stray-book</i>, an' all the records gone! What will folks do 'bout thar +deeds, an' mortgages, an' sech? An' that thar keerful index ez I had +made—ez straight ez a string—all cinders!"</p> + +<p>He shook his head, mourning alike for the party of the first part and +the party of the second part, and the vestiges of all that they had +agreed together.</p> + +<p>"An' ye ter kem mopin' hyar this time o' night arter the <i>stray-book</i>," +said the sheriff. "Shucks!" And he turned aside and spat disdainfully on +the ground.</p> + +<p>"I want that thar stray-book!" cried Gryce, indignantly. "Ain't nobody +seen it?" Then realizing the futility of the question, he yielded to a +fresh burst of anger, and turned upon the bereaved register. "An' did ye +jes set thar an' say, 'Good Mister Fire, don't burn the records; what'll +folks do 'bout thar deeds an' sech?' an' hold them claws o' yourn, an' +see the court-house burn up, with that thar stray-book in it?"</p> + +<p>Half a dozen men spoke up. "The fire tuk inside, an' the court-house war +haffen gone 'fore 'twar seen," said one, in sulky extenuation.</p> + +<p>"Leave Tobe be—let him jaw!" said another, cavalierly.</p> + +<p>"Tobe 'pears ter be sp'ilin' fur a fight," said a third, impersonally, +as if to direct the attention of any belligerent in the group to the +opportunity.</p> + +<p>The register had an expression of slow cunning as he cast a glance up at +the overbearing ranger.</p> + +<p>"What ailed the stray-book ter bide hyar in the<span class="pagenum">[144]</span> court-house all +night, Tobe? Couldn't ye gin it house-room? Thar warn't no special need +fur it to be hyar."</p> + +<p>Tobe Gryce's face showed that for once he was at a loss. He glowered +down at the register and said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Ez ter me," resumed that worthy, "by the law o' the land my books war +obligated ter be thar." He quoted, mournfully, "'Shall at all times be +and remain in his office.'"</p> + +<p>He gathered up his knee again and subsided into silence.</p> + +<p>All the freakish spirits of the air were a-loose in the wind. In fitful +gusts they rushed up the gorge, then suddenly the boughs would fall +still again, and one could hear the eerie rout a-rioting far off down +the valley. Now and then the glow of the fire would deepen, the coals +tremble, and with a gleaming, fibrous swirl, like a garment of flames, a +sudden animation would sweep over it, as if an apparition had passed, +leaving a line of flying sparks to mark its trail.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' home," drawled Tobe Gryce, presently. "I don't keer a frog's +toe-nail ef the whole settlemint burns bodaciously up; 'tain't nuthin +ter me. I hev never hankered ter live in towns an' git tuk up with town +ways, an' set an' view the court-house like the apple o' my eye. We-uns +don't ketch fire down in the Cove, though mebbe we ain't so peart ez +folks ez herd tergether like sheep an' sech."</p> + +<p>The footfalls of the little black mare annotated the silence of the +place as he rode away into the darkling woods. The groups gradually +disappeared<span class="pagenum">[145]</span> from the porches. The few voices that sounded at long +intervals were low and drowsy. The red fire smouldered in the centre of +the place, and sometimes about it appeared so doubtful a shadow that it +could hardly argue substance. Far away a dog barked, and then all was +still.</p> + +<p>Presently the great mountains loom aggressively along the horizon. The +black abysses, the valleys and coves, show duncolored verges and grow +gradually distinct, and on the slopes the ash and the pine and the oak +are all lustrous with a silver rime. The mists are rising, the wind +springs up anew, the clouds set sail, and a beam slants high.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"What I want ter know," said a mountaineer newly arrived on the scene, +sitting on the verge of the precipice, and dangling his long legs over +the depths beneath, "air how do folks ez live 'way down in Lonesome +Cove, an' who nobody knowed nuthin about noways, ever git 'lected ranger +o' the county, ennyhow. I ain't s'prised none ter hear 'bout Tobe +Gryce's goin's-on hyar las' night. I hev looked fur more'n that."</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, I'll tell ye," replied the register. "Nuthin' but favoritism in +the county court. Ranger air 'lected by the jestices. Ye know," he +added, vainglorious of his own tenure of office by the acclaiming voice +of the sovereign people, "ranger ain't 'lected, like the register, by +pop'lar vote."</p> + +<p>A slow smoke still wreathed upward from the charred ruins of the +court-house. Gossiping groups stood here and there, mostly the +jeans-clad mountaineers, but there were a few who wore "store<span class="pagenum">[146]</span> +clothes," being lawyers from more sophisticated regions of the circuit. +Court had been in session the previous day. The jury, serving in a +criminal case—still strictly segregated, and in charge of an +officer—were walking about wearily in double file, waiting with +what patience they might their formal discharge.</p> + +<p>The sheriff's dog, a great yellow cur, trotted in the rear. When the +officer was first elected, this animal, observing the change in his +master's habits, deduced his own conclusions. He seemed to think the +court-house belonged to the sheriff, and thence-forward guarded the door +with snaps and growls; being a formidable brute, his idiosyncrasies +invested the getting into and getting out of law with abnormal +difficulties. Now, as he followed the disconsolate jury, he bore the +vigilant mien with which he formerly drove up the cows, and if a juror +loitered or stepped aside from the path, the dog made a slow detour as +if to round him in, and the melancholy cortége wandered on as +before. More than one looked wistfully at the group on the crag, for it +was distinguished by that sprightly interest which scandal excites so +readily.</p> + +<p>"Ter my way of thinkin'," drawled Sam Peters, swinging his feet over the +giddy depths of the valley, "Tobe ain't sech ez oughter be set over the +county ez a ranger, noways. 'Pears not ter me, an' I hev been keepin' my +eye on him mighty sharp."</p> + +<p>A shadow fell among the group, and a man sat down on a bowlder hard by. +He, too, had just arrived, being lured to the town by the news of +the<span class="pagenum">[147]</span> fire. His slide had been left at the verge of the clearing, +and one of the oxen had already lain down; the other, although hampered +by the yoke thus diagonally displaced, stood meditatively gazing at the +distant blue mountains. Their master nodded a slow, grave salutation to +the group, produced a plug of tobacco, gnawed a fragment from it, and +restored it to his pocket. He had a pensive face, with an expression +which in a man of wider culture we should discriminate as denoting +sensibility. He had long yellow hair that hung down to his shoulders, +and a tangled yellow beard. There was something at once wistful and +searching in his gray eyes, dull enough, too, at times. He lifted them +heavily, and they had a drooping lid and lash. There seemed an odd +incongruity between this sensitive, weary face and his stalwart +physique. He was tall and well proportioned. A leather belt girded his +brown jeans coat. His great cowhide boots were drawn to the knee over +his trousers. His pose, as he leaned on the rock, had a muscular +picturesqueness.</p> + +<p>"Who be ye a-talkin' about?" he drawled.</p> + +<p>Peters relished his opportunity. He laughed in a distorted fashion, his +pipe-stem held between his teeth.</p> + +<p>"<i>You-uns</i> ain't wantin' ter swop lies 'bout sech ez him, Luke! We war +a-talkin' 'bout Tobe Gryce."</p> + +<p>The color flared into the new-comer's face. A sudden animation fired his +eye.</p> + +<p>"Tobe Gryce air jes the man I'm always wantin' ter hear a word about. +Jes perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm with ye." And Luke Todd placed +his<span class="pagenum">[148]</span> elbows on his knees and leaned forward with an air of +attention.</p> + +<p>Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending this ebullition. It was not +what he had expected to elicit. No one laughed. His fleer was wide of +the mark.</p> + +<p>"Wa'al"—he made another effort—"Tobe, we war jes sayin', +ain't fitten fur ter be ranger o' the county. He be ez peart in gittin' +ter own other folkses' stray cattle ez he war in courtin' other folkses' +sweetheart, an', ef the truth mus' be knowed, in marryin' her." He +suddenly twisted round, in some danger of falling from his perch. "I +want ter ax one o' them thar big-headed lawyers a question on a p'int o' +law," he broke off, abruptly.</p> + +<p>"What be Tobe Gryce a-doin' of now?" asked Luke Todd, with eager +interest in the subject.</p> + +<p>"Wa'al," resumed Peters, nowise loath to return to the gossip, "Tobe, ye +see, air the ranger o' this hyar county, an' by law all the stray horses +ez air tuk up by folks hev ter be reported ter him, an' appraised by two +householders, an' swore to afore the magistrate an' be advertised by the +ranger, an' ef they ain't claimed 'fore twelve months, the taker-up kin +pay into the county treasury one-haffen the appraisement an' hev the +critter fur his'n. An' the owner can't prove it away arter that."</p> + +<p>"Thanky," said Luke Todd, dryly. "S'pose ye teach yer gran'mammy ter +suck aigs. I knowed all that afore."</p> + +<p>Peters was abashed, and with some difficulty collected himself.</p> + +<p>"An' I knowed ye knowed it, Luke," he hastily <span class="pagenum">[149]</span>conceded. "But hyar +be what I'm a-lookin' at—the law 'ain't got no pervision fur a +stray horse ez kem of a dark night, 'thout nobody's percuremint, ter the +ranger's own house. Now, the p'int o' law ez I wanted ter ax the lawyers +'bout air this—kin the ranger be the ranger an' the taker-up too?"</p> + +<p>He turned his eyes upon the great landscape lying beneath, flooded with +the chill matutinal sunshine, and flecked here and there with the +elusive shadows of the fleecy drifting clouds. Far away the long +horizontal lines of the wooded spurs, converging on either side of the +valley and rising one behind the other, wore a subdued azure, all unlike +the burning blue of summer, and lay along the calm, passionless sky, +that itself was of a dim, repressed tone. On the slopes nearer, the +leafless boughs, massed together, had purplish-garnet depths of color +wherever the sunshine struck aslant, and showed richly against the +faintly tinted horizon. Here and there among the boldly jutting gray +crags hung an evergreen-vine, and from a gorge on the opposite mountain +gleamed a continuous flash, like the waving of a silver plume, where a +cataract sprang down the rocks. In the depths of the valley, a field in +which crab-grass had grown in the place of the harvested wheat showed a +tiny square of palest yellow, and beside it a red clay road, running +over a hill, was visible. Above all a hawk was flying.</p> + +<p>"Afore the winter fairly set in las' year," Peters resumed, presently, +"a stray kem ter Tobe's house. He 'lowed ter me ez he fund her +a-standin' by the fodder-stack a-pullin' off'n it. An' he 'quired round, +an' he never hearn o' no owner. I reckon he never axed outside o' +Lonesome," he added, cynically.<span class="pagenum">[150]</span> He puffed industriously at his +pipe for a few moments; then continued: "Wa'al, he 'lowed he couldn't +feed the critter fur fun. An' he couldn't work her till she war +appraised an' sech, that bein' agin the law fur strays. So he jes +ondertook ter be ranger an' taker-up too—the bangedest consarn in +the kentry! Ef the leetle mare hed been wall-eyed, or lame, or +ennything, he wouldn't hev wanted ter be ranger an' taker-up too. But +she air the peartest little beastis—she war jes bridle-wise when +she fust kem—young an' spry!"</p> + +<p>Luke Todd was about to ask a question, but Peters, disregarding him, +persisted:</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, Tobe tuk up the beastis, an' I reckon he reported her ter +hisself, bein' the ranger—the critter makes me laff—an' he +hed that thar old haffen-blind uncle o' his'n an' Perkins Bates, ez be +never sober, ter appraise the vally o' the mare, an' I s'pose he +delivered thar certificate ter hisself, an' I reckon he tuk oath that +she kem 'thout his procure<i>mint</i> ter his place, in the presence o' the +ranger."</p> + +<p>"I reckon thar ain't no law agin the ranger's bein' a ranger an' a +taker-up too," put in one of the bystanders. "'Tain't like a sher'ff's +buyin' at his own sale. An' he hed ter pay haffen her vally into the +treasury o' the county arter twelve months, ef the owner never proved +her away."</p> + +<p>"Thar ain't no sign he ever paid a cent," said Peters, with a malicious +grin, pointing at the charred remains of the court-house, "an' the +treasurer air jes dead."</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, Tobe hed ter make a report ter the jedge o' the county court +every six months."<span class="pagenum">[151]</span></p> + +<p>"The papers of his office air cinders," retorted Peters.</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, then," argued the optimist, "the stray-book will show ez she war +reported an' sech."</p> + +<p>"The ranger took mighty partic'lar pains ter hev his stray-book in that +thar court-house when 'twar burnt."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause while the party sat ruminating upon the +suspicions thus suggested.</p> + +<p>Luke Todd heard them, not without a thrill of satisfaction. He found +them easy to adopt. And he, too, had a disposition to theorize.</p> + +<p>"It takes a mighty mean man ter steal a horse," he said. "Stealin' a +horse air powerful close ter murder. Folkses' lives fairly depend on a +horse ter work thar corn an' sech, an' make a support fur em. I hev +knowed folks ter kem mighty close ter starvin' through hevin thar horse +stole. Why, even that thar leetle filly of our'n, though she hedn't been +fairly bruk ter the plough, war mightily missed. We-uns hed ter make out +with the old sorrel, ez air nigh fourteen year old, ter work the crap, +an' we war powerful disapp'inted. But we ain't never fund no trace o' +the filly sence she war tolled off one night las' fall a year ago."</p> + +<p>The hawk floating above the valley and its winged shadow disappeared +together in the dense glooms of a deep gorge. Luke Todd watched them as +they vanished.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he lifted his eyes. They were wide with a new speculation. An +angry flare blazed in them. "What sort'n beastis is this hyar mare ez +the ranger tuk up?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending his<span class="pagenum">[152]</span> tremor of +excitement. "Seems sorter sizable," he replied, sibilantly, sucking his +pipe-stem.</p> + +<p>Todd nodded meditatively several times, leaning his elbows on his knees, +his eyes fixed on the landscape. "Hev she got enny partic'lar marks, ez +ye knows on?" he drawled.</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, she be ez black ez a crow, with the nigh fore-foot white. An' +she hev got a white star spang in the middle o' her forehead, an' the +left side o' her nose is white too."</p> + +<p>Todd rose suddenly to his feet. "By gum!" he cried, with a burst of +passion, "she air <i>my</i> filly! An' 'twar that thar durned horse-thief of +a ranger ez tolled her off!"</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Deep among the wooded spurs Lonesome Cove nestles, sequestered from the +world. Naught emigrates thence except an importunate stream that forces +its way through a rocky gap, and so to freedom beyond. No stranger +intrudes; only the moon looks in once in a while. The roaming wind may +explore its solitudes; and it is but the vertical sunbeams that strike +to the heart of the little basin, because of the massive mountains that +wall it round and serve to isolate it. So nearly do they meet at the gap +that one great assertive crag, beetling far above, intercepts the view +of the wide landscape beyond, leaving its substituted profile jaggedly +serrating the changing sky. Above it, when the weather is fair, appear +vague blue lines, distant mountain summits, cloud strata, visions. Below +its jutting verge may be caught glimpses of the widening valley without. +But pre-eminent, gaunt, sombre, it sternly dominates<span class="pagenum">[153]</span> "Lonesome," +and is the salient feature of the little world it limits.</p> + +<p>Tobe Gryce's house, gray, weather-beaten, moss-grown, had in comparison +an ephemeral, modern aspect. For a hundred years its inmates had come +and gone and lived and died. They took no heed of the crag, but never a +sound was lost upon it. Their drawling iterative speech the iterative +echoes conned. The ringing blast of a horn set astir some phantom chase +in the air. When the cows came lowing home, there were lowing herds in +viewless company. Even if one of the children sat on a rotting log +crooning a vague, fragmentary ditty, some faint-voiced spirit in the +rock would sing. Lonesome Cove?—home of invisible throngs!</p> + +<p>As the ranger trotted down the winding road, multitudinous hoof-beats, +as of a troop of cavalry, heralded his approach to the little girl who +stood on the porch of the log-cabin and watched for him.</p> + +<p>"Hy're, Cunnel!" he cried, cordially.</p> + +<p>But the little "Colonel" took no heed. She looked beyond him at the +vague blue mountains, against which the great grim rock was heavily +imposed, every ledge, every waving dead crisp weed, distinct.</p> + +<p>He noticed the smoke curling briskly up in the sunshine from the clay +and stick chimney. He strode past her into the house, as Eugenia, with +all semblance of youth faded from her countenance, haggard and +hollow-eyed in the morning light, was hurrying the corn-dodgers and +venison steak on the table.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he did not appreciate that the women were pining with curiosity, +for he vouchsafed no<span class="pagenum">[154]</span> word of the excitements in the little town; +and he himself was ill at ease.</p> + +<p>"What ails the Cunnel, 'Genie?" he asked, presently, glancing up sharply +from under his hat brim, and speaking with his mouth full.</p> + +<p>"The cat 'pears ter hev got her tongue," said Eugenia, intending that +the "Colonel" should hear, and perhaps profit. "She ain't able ter talk +none this mornin'."</p> + +<p>The little body cast so frowning a glance upon them as she stood in the +doorway that her expression was but slightly less lowering than her +father's. It was an incongruous demonstration, with her infantile +features, her little yellow head, and the slight physical force she +represented. She wore a blue cotton frock, fastened up the back with +great horn buttons; she had on shoes laced with leather strings; one of +her blue woollen stockings fell over her ankle, disclosing the pinkest +of plump calves; the other stocking was held in place by an unabashed +cotton string. She had a light in her dark eyes and a color in her +cheek, and albeit so slight a thing, she wielded a strong coercion.</p> + +<p>"Laws-a-massy, Cunnel!" said Tobe, in a harried manner, "couldn't ye +find me nowhar? I'm powerful sorry. I couldn't git back hyar no sooner."</p> + +<p>But not in this wise was she to be placated. She fixed her eyes upon +him, but made no sign.</p> + +<p>He suddenly rose from his half-finished breakfast. "Look-a-hyar, +Cunnel," he cried, joyously, "don't ye want ter ride the filly?—ye +knew ye hanker ter ride the filly."</p> + +<p>Even then she tried to frown, but the bliss of the<span class="pagenum">[155]</span> prospect +overbore her. Her cheek and chin dimpled, and there was a gurgling +display of two rows of jagged little teeth as the doughty "Colonel" was +swung to his shoulder and he stepped out of the door.</p> + +<p>He laughed as he stood by the glossy black mare and lifted the child to +the saddle. The animal arched her neck and turned her head and gazed +back at him curiously. "Hold on tight, Cunnel," he said as he looked up +at her, his face strangely softened almost beyond recognition. And she +gurgled and laughed and screamed with delight as he began to slowly lead +the mare along.</p> + +<p>The "Colonel" had the gift of continuance. Some time elapsed before she +exhausted the joys of exaltation. More than once she absolutely refused +to dismount. Tobe patiently led the beast up and down, and the "Colonel" +rode in state. It was only when the sun had grown high, and occasionally +she was fain to lift her chubby hands to her eyes, imperiling her safety +on the saddle, that he ventured to seriously remonstrate, and finally +she permitted herself to be assisted to the ground. When, with the +little girl at his heels, he reached the porch, he took off his hat, and +wiped the perspiration from his brow with his great brown hand.</p> + +<p>"I tell ye, jouncin' round arter the Cunnel air powerful hot work," he +declared.</p> + +<p>The next moment he paused. His wife had come to the door, and there was +a strange expression of alarm among the anxious lines of her face.</p> + +<p>"Tobe," she said, in a bated voice, "who war them men?"<span class="pagenum">[156]</span></p> + +<p>He stared at her, whirled about, surveyed the vacant landscape, and once +more turned dumfounded toward her. "What men?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Them men ez acted so cur'ous," she said. "I couldn't see thar faces +plain, an' I dunno who they war."</p> + +<p>"Whar war they?" And he looked over his shoulder once more.</p> + +<p>"Yander along the ledges of the big rock. Thar war two of 'em, hidin' +ahint that thar jagged aidge. An' ef yer back war turned they'd peep out +at ye an' the Cunnel ridin'. But whenst ye would face round agin, they'd +drap down ahint the aidge o' the rock. I 'lowed wunst ez I'd holler ter +ye, but I war feared ye moughtn't keer ter know." Her voice fell in its +deprecatory cadence.</p> + +<p>He stood in silent perplexity. "Ye air a fool, 'Genie, an' ye never seen +nuthin'. Nobody hev got enny call ter spy on me."</p> + +<p>He stepped in-doors, took down his rifle from the rack, and went out +frowning into the sunlight.</p> + +<p>The suggestion of mystery angered him. He had a vague sense of impending +danger. As he made his way along the slope toward the great beetling +crag all his faculties were on the alert. He saw naught unusual when he +stood upon its dark-seamed summit, and he went cautiously to the verge +and looked down at the many ledges. They jutted out at irregular +intervals, the first only six feet below, and all accessible enough to +an expert climber. A bush grew in a niche. An empty nest, riddled by the +wind, hung dishevelled from a twig. Coarse withered grass tufted the +crevices.<span class="pagenum">[157]</span> Far below he saw the depths of the Cove—the tops +of the leafless trees, and, glimpsed through the interlacing boughs, the +rush of a mountain rill, and a white flash as a sunbeam slanted on the +foam.</p> + +<p>He was turning away, all incredulous, when with a sudden start he looked +back. On one of the ledges was a slight depression. It was filled with +sand and earth. Imprinted upon it was the shape of a man's foot. The +ranger paused and gazed fixedly at it. "Wa'al, by the Lord!" he +exclaimed, under his breath. Presently, "But they hev no call!" he +argued. Then once more, softly, "By the Lord!"</p> + +<p>The mystery baffled him. More than once that day he went up to the crag +and stood and stared futilely at the footprint. Conjecture had license +and limitations, too. As the hours wore on he became harassed by the +sense of espionage. He was a bold man before the foes he knew, but this +idea of inimical lurking, of furtive scrutiny for unknown purposes, +preyed upon him. He brooded over it as he sat idle by the fire. Once he +went to the door and stared speculatively at the great profile of the +cliff. The sky above it was all a lustrous amber, for the early sunset +of the shortest days of the year was at hand. The mountains, seen partly +above and partly below it, wore a glamourous purple. There were clouds, +and from their rifts long divergent lines of light slanted down upon the +valley, distinct among their shadows. The sun was not visible—only +in the western heavens was a half-veiled effulgence too dazzlingly white +to be gazed upon. The ranger shaded his eyes with his hand.<span class="pagenum">[158]</span> No +motion, no sound; for the first time in his life the unutterable +loneliness of the place impressed him.</p> + +<p>"'Genie," he said, suddenly, looking over his shoulder within the cabin, +"be you-uns <i>sure</i> ez they war—<i>folks</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I dunno what you mean," she faltered, her eyes dilated. "They <i>looked</i> +like folks."</p> + +<p>"I reckon they war," he said, reassuring himself. "The Lord knows I hope +they war."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>That night the wind rose. The stars all seemed to have burst from their +moorings, and were wildly adrift in the sky. There was a broken tumult +of billowy clouds, and the moon tossed hopelessly amongst them, a lunar +wreck, sometimes on her beam ends, sometimes half submerged, once more +gallantly struggling to the surface, and again sunk. The bare boughs of +the trees beat together in a dirge-like monotone. Now and again a leaf +went sibilantly whistling past. The wild commotion of the heavens and +earth was visible, for the night was not dark. The ranger, standing +within the rude stable of unhewn logs, all undaubed, noted how pale were +the horizontal bars of gray light alternating with the black logs of the +wall. He was giving the mare a feed of corn, but he had not brought his +lantern, as was his custom. That mysterious espionage had in some sort +shaken his courage, and he felt the obscurity a shield. He had brought, +instead, his rifle.</p> + +<p>The equine form was barely visible among the glooms. Now and then, as +the mare noisily munched,<span class="pagenum">[159]</span> she lifted a hoof and struck it upon the +ground with a dull thud. How the gusts outside were swirling up the +gorge! The pines swayed and sighed. Again the boughs of the chestnut-oak +above the roof crashed together. Did a fitful blast stir the door?</p> + +<p>He lifted his eyes mechanically. A cold thrill ran through every fibre. +For there, close by the door, somebody—something—was peering +through the space between the logs of the wall. The face was invisible, +but the shape of a man's head was distinctly defined. He realized that +it was no supernatural manifestation when a husky voice began to call +the mare, in a hoarse whisper, "Cobe! Cobe! Cobe!" With a galvanic start +he was about to spring forward to hold the door. A hand from without was +laid upon it.</p> + +<p>He placed the muzzle of his gun between the logs, a jet of red light was +suddenly projected into the darkness, the mare was rearing and plunging +violently, the little shanty was surcharged with roar and reverberation, +and far and wide the crags and chasms echoed the report of the rifle.</p> + +<p>There was a vague clamor outside, an oath, a cry of pain. Hasty +footfalls sounded among the dead leaves and died in the distance.</p> + +<p>When the ranger ventured out he saw the door of his house wide open, and +the firelight flickering out among the leafless bushes. His wife met him +halfway down the hill.</p> + +<p>"Air ye hurt, Tobe?" she cried. "Did yer gun go off suddint?"</p> + +<p>"Mighty suddint," he replied, savagely.<span class="pagenum">[160]</span></p> + +<p>"Ye didn't fire it a-purpose?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"Edzactly so," he declared.</p> + +<p>"Ye never hurt nobody, did ye, Tobe?" She had turned very pale. "I +'lowed it couldn't be the wind ez I hearn a-hollerin'."</p> + +<p>"I hopes an' prays I hurt 'em," he said, as he replaced the rifle in the +rack. He was shaking the other hand, which had been jarred in some way +by the hasty discharge of the weapon. "Some dad-burned horse-thief war +arter the mare. Jedgin' from the sound o' thar runnin', 'peared like to +me ez thar mought be two o' 'em."</p> + +<p>The next day the mare disappeared from the stable. Yet she could not be +far off, for Tobe was about the house most of the time, and when he and +the "Colonel" came in-doors in the evening the little girl held in her +hand a half-munched ear of corn, evidently abstracted from the mare's +supper.</p> + +<p>"Whar be the filly hid, Tobe?" Eugenia asked, curiosity overpowering +her.</p> + +<p>"Ax me no questions an' I'll tell ye no lies," he replied, gruffly.</p> + +<p>In the morning there was a fall of snow, and she had some doubt whether +her mother, who had gone several days before to a neighbor's on the +summit of the range, would return; but presently the creak of unoiled +axles heralded the approach of a wagon, and soon the old woman, bundled +in shawls, was sitting by the fire. She wore heavy woollen socks over +her shoes as protection against the snow. The incompatibility of the +shape of the hose with the human foot was rather marked, and as they +were somewhat inelastic as well, there was a muscular struggle to<span class="pagenum">[161]</span> +get them off only exceeded by the effort which had been required to get +them on. She shook her head again and again, with a red face, as she +bent over the socks, but plainly more than this discomfort vexed her.</p> + +<p>"Laws-a-massy, 'Genie! I hearn a awful tale over yander 'mongst them +Jenkins folks. Ye oughter hev married Luke Todd, an' so I tole ye an' +fairly beset ye ter do ten year ago. <i>He</i> keered fur ye. An' +Tobe—shucks! Wa'al, laws-a-massy, child! I hearn a awful tale +'bout Tobe up yander at Jenkinses'."</p> + +<p>Eugenia colored.</p> + +<p>"Folks hed better take keer how they talk 'bout Tobe," she said, with a +touch of pride. "They be powerful keerful ter do it out'n rifle range."</p> + +<p>With one more mighty tug the sock came off, the red face was lifted, and +Mrs. Pearce shook her head ruefully.</p> + +<p>"The Bible say 'words air foolishness.' Ye dunno what ye air talkin' +'bout, child."</p> + +<p>With this melancholy preamble she detailed the gossip that had arisen at +the county town and pervaded the country-side. Eugenia commented, +denied, flashed into rage, then lapsed into silence. Although it did not +constrain credulity, there was something that made her afraid when her +mother said:</p> + +<p>"Ye hed better not be talkin' 'bout rifle range so brash, 'Genie, +nohows. They 'lowed ez Luke Todd an' Sam Peters kem hyar—'twar jes +night before las'—aimin' ter take the mare away 'thout no words +an' no lawin', 'kase they didn't want ter wait. Luke hed got a chance +ter view the mare, an' knowed<span class="pagenum">[162]</span> ez she war his'n. An' Tobe war hid +in the dark beside the mare, an' fired at 'em, an' the rifle-ball tuk +Sam right through the beam o' his arm. I reckon, though, ez that warn't +true, else ye would hev knowed it."</p> + +<p>She looked up anxiously over her spectacles at her daughter.</p> + +<p>"I hearn Tobe shoot," faltered Eugenia. "I seen blood on the leaves."</p> + +<p>"Laws-a-massy!" exclaimed the old woman, irritably. "I be fairly feared +ter bide hyar; 'twouldn't s'prise me none ef they kem hyar an' hauled +Tobe out an' lynched him an' sech, an' who knows who mought git hurt in +the scrimmage?"</p> + +<p>They both fell silent as the ranger strode in. They would need a braver +heart than either bore to reveal to him the suspicions of horse-stealing +sown broadcast over the mountain. Eugenia felt that this in itself was +coercive evidence of his innocence. Who dared so much as say a word to +his face?</p> + +<p>The weight of the secret asserted itself, however. As she went about her +accustomed tasks, all bereft of their wonted interest, vapid and +burdensome, she carried so woe-begone a face that it caught his +attention, and he demanded, angrily, "What ails ye ter look so durned +peakèd?"</p> + +<p>This did not abide long in his memory, however, and it cost her a pang +to see him so unconscious.</p> + +<p>She went out upon the porch late that afternoon to judge of the weather. +Snow was falling again. The distant summits had disappeared. The +mountains near at hand loomed through the myriads of serried white +flakes. A crow flew across the Cove<span class="pagenum">[163]</span> in its midst. It heavily +thatched the cabin, and tufts dislodged by the opening of the door fell +down upon her hair. Drifts lay about the porch. Each rail of the fence +was laden. The ground, the rocks, were deeply covered. She reflected +with satisfaction that the red splotch of blood on the dead leaves was +no longer visible. Then a sudden idea struck her that took her breath +away. She came in, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, with an excited +dubitation.</p> + +<p>Her husband commented on the change. "Ye air a powerful cur'ous critter, +'Genie," he said: "a while ago ye looked some fower or five hundred year +old—now ye favors yerself when I fust kem a-courtin' round the +settlemint."</p> + +<p>She hardly knew whether the dull stir in her heart were pleasure or +pain. Her eyes filled with tears, and the irradiated iris shone through +them with a liquid lustre. She could not speak.</p> + +<p>Her mother took ephemeral advantage of his softening mood. "Ye useter be +mighty perlite and saaft-spoken in them days, Tobe," she ventured.</p> + +<p>"I hed ter be," he admitted, frankly, "'kase thar war sech a many o' +them mealy-mouthed cusses a-waitin' on 'Genie. The kentry 'peared ter me +ter bristle with Luke Todd; he 'minded me o' +brumsaidge—<i>everywhar</i> ye seen his yaller head, ez homely an' ez +onwelcome."</p> + +<p>"I never wunst gin Luke a thought arter ye tuk ter comin' round the +settlemint," Eugenia said, softly.</p> + +<p>"I wisht I hed knowed that then," he replied; "else I wouldn't hev been +so all-fired oneasy an' beset. I wasted mo' time a-studyin' 'bout ye an' +Luke Todd 'n ye war both wuth, an' went 'thout<span class="pagenum">[164]</span> my vittles an' sot +up o' nights. Ef I hed spent that time a-moanin' fur my sins an' settin' +my soul at peace, I'd be 'quirin' roun' the throne o' Grace now! Young +folks air powerful fursaken fools."</p> + +<p>Somehow her heart was warmer for this allusion. She was more hopeful. +Her resolve grew stronger and stronger as she sat and knitted, and +looked at the fire and saw among the coals all her old life at the +settlement newly aglow. She was remembering now that Luke Todd had been +as wax in her hands. She recalled that when she was married there was a +gleeful "sayin'" going the rounds of the mountain that he had taken to +the woods with grief, and he was heard of no more for weeks. The gossips +relished his despair as the corollary of the happy bridal. He had had no +reproaches for her. He had only looked the other way when they met, and +she had not spoken to him since.</p> + +<p>"He set store by my word in them days," she said to herself, her lips +vaguely moving. "I misdoubts ef he hev furgot."</p> + +<p>All through the long hours of the winter night she silently canvassed +her plan. The house was still noiseless and dark when she softly opened +the door and softly closed it behind her.</p> + +<p>It had ceased to snow, and the sky had cleared. The trees, all the limbs +whitened, were outlined distinctly upon it, and through the boughs +overhead a brilliant star, aloof and splendid, looked coldly down. Along +dark spaces Orion had drawn his glittering blade. Above the snowy +mountains a melancholy waning moon was swinging. The valley was full of +mist, white and shining where the light fell upon it,<span class="pagenum">[165]</span> a vaporous +purple where the shadows held sway. So still it was! the only motion in +all the world the throbbing stars and her palpitating heart. So solemnly +silent! It was a relief, as she trudged on and on, to note a gradual +change; to watch the sky withdraw, seeming fainter; to see the moon grow +filmy, like some figment of the frost; to mark the gray mist steal on +apace, wrap mountain, valley, and heaven with mystic folds, shut out all +vision of things familiar. Through it only the sense of dawn could +creep.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>She recognized the locality; her breath was short; her step quickened. +She appeared, like an apparition out of the mists, close to a fence, and +peered through the snow-laden rails. A sudden pang pierced her heart.</p> + +<p>For there, within the enclosure, milking the cow, she saw, all blooming +in the snow—herself; the azalea-like girl she had been!</p> + +<p>She had not known how dear to her was that bright young identity she +remembered. She had not realized how far it had gone from her. She felt +a forlorn changeling looking upon her own estranged estate.</p> + +<p>A faint cry escaped her.</p> + +<p>The cow, with lifted head and a muttered low of surprise, moved out of +reach of the milker, who, half kneeling upon the ground, stared with +wide blue eyes at her ghost in the mist.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. It was only a moment before Eugenia spoke; it seemed +years, so charged it was with retrospect.<span class="pagenum">[166]</span></p> + +<p>"I kem over hyar ter hev a word with ye," she said.</p> + +<p>At the sound of a human voice Luke Todd's wife struggled to her feet. +She held the piggin with one arm encircled about it, and with the other +hand she clutched the plaid shawl around her throat. Her bright hair was +tossed by the rising wind.</p> + +<p>"I 'lowed I'd find ye hyar a-milkin' 'bout now."</p> + +<p>The homely allusion reassured the younger woman.</p> + +<p>"I hev ter begin toler'ble early," she said. "Spot gins 'bout a gallon a +milkin' now."</p> + +<p>Spot's calf, which subsisted on what was left over, seemed to find it +cruel that delay should be added to his hardships, and he lifted up his +voice in a plaintive remonstrance. This reminded Mrs. Todd of his +existence; she turned and let down the bars that served to exclude him.</p> + +<p>The stranger was staring at her very hard. Somehow she quailed under +that look. Though it was fixed upon her in unvarying intensity, it had a +strange impersonality. This woman was not seeing her, despite that wide, +wistful, yearning gaze; she was thinking of something else, seeing some +one else.</p> + +<p>And suddenly Luke Todd's wife began to stare at the visitor very hard, +and to think of something that was not before her.</p> + +<p>"I be the ranger's wife," said Eugenia. "I kem over hyar ter tell ye he +never tuk yer black mare nowise but honest, bein' the ranger."</p> + +<p>She found it difficult to say more. Under that speculative, unseeing +look she too faltered.</p> + +<p>"They tell me ez Luke Todd air powerful outed<span class="pagenum">[167]</span> 'bout'n it. An' I +'lowed ef he knowed from me ez 'twar tuk fair, he'd b'lieve me."</p> + +<p>She hesitated. Her courage was flagging; her hope had fled. The eyes of +the man's wife burned upon her face.</p> + +<p>"We-uns useter be toler'ble well 'quainted 'fore he ever seen ye, an' I +'lowed he'd b'lieve my word," Eugenia continued.</p> + +<p>Another silence. The sun was rising; long liquescent lines of light of +purest amber-color were streaming through the snowy woods; the shadows +of the fence rails alternated with bars of dazzling glister; elusive +prismatic gleams of rose and lilac and blue shimmered on every +slope—thus the winter flowered. Tiny snow-birds were hopping +about; a great dog came down from the little snow-thatched cabin, and +was stretching himself elastically and yawning most portentously.</p> + +<p>"An' I 'lowed I'd see ye an' git you-uns ter tell him that word from me, +an' then he'd b'lieve it," said Eugenia.</p> + +<p>The younger woman nodded mechanically, still gazing at her.</p> + +<p>And was this her mission! Somehow it had lost its urgency. Where was its +potency, her enthusiasm? Eugenia realized that her feet were wet, her +skirts draggled; that she was chilled to the bone and trembling +violently. She looked about her doubtfully. Then her eyes came back to +the face of the woman before her.</p> + +<p>"Ye'll tell him, I s'pose?"</p> + +<p>Once more Luke Todd's wife nodded mechanically, still staring.<span class="pagenum">[168]</span></p> + +<p>There was nothing further to be said. A vacant interval ensued. Then, "I +'lowed I'd tell ye," Eugenia reiterated, vaguely, and turned away, +vanishing with the vanishing mists.</p> + +<p>Luke Todd's wife stood gazing at the fence through which the apparition +had peered. She could see yet her own face there, grown old and worn. +The dog wagged his tail and pressed against her, looking up and claiming +her notice. Once more he stretched himself elastically and yawned +widely, with shrill variations of tone. The calf was frisking about in +awkward bovine elation, and now and then the cow affectionately licked +its coat with the air of making its toilet. An assertive chanticleer was +proclaiming the dawn within the hen-house, whence came too an impatient +clamor, for the door, which served to exclude any marauding fox, was +still closed upon the imprisoned poultry. Still she looked steadily at +the fence where the ranger's wife had stood.</p> + +<p>"That thar woman favors me," she said, presently. And suddenly she burst +into tears.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was well that Eugenia could not see Luke Todd's expression as +his wife recounted the scene. She gave it truly, but without, alas! the +glamour of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"She 'lowed ez ye'd b'lieve her, bein' ez ye useter be 'quainted."</p> + +<p>His face flushed. "Wa'al, sir! the insurance o' that thar woman!" he +exclaimed. "I war 'quainted with her; I war mighty well 'quainted with +her." He had a casual remembrance of those days when "he tuk ter the +woods ter wear out his grief."<span class="pagenum">[169]</span> "She never gin me no promise, but +me an' her war courtin' some. Sech dependence ez I put on her war +mightily wasted. I dunno what ails the critter ter 'low ez I set store +by her word."</p> + +<p>Poor Eugenia! There is nothing so dead as ashes. His flame had clean +burned out. So far afield were all his thoughts that he stood amazed +when his wife, with a sudden burst of tears, declared passionately that +she knew it—she saw it—she favored Eugenia Gryce. She had +found out that he had married her because she looked like another woman.</p> + +<p>"'Genie Gryce hev got powerful little ter do ter kem a-jouncin' through +the snow over hyar ter try ter set ye an' me agin one another," he +exclaimed, angrily. "Stealin' the filly ain't enough ter sati'fy her!"</p> + +<p>His wife was in some sort mollified. She sought to reassure herself.</p> + +<p>"Air we-uns of a favor?"</p> + +<p>"I dunno," he replied, sulkily. "I 'ain't seen the critter fur nigh on +ter ten year. I hev furgot the looks of her. 'Pears like ter me," he +went on, ruminating, "ez 'twar in my mind when I fust seen ye ez thar +war a favor 'twixt ye. But I misdoubts now. Do she 'low ez I hev hed +nuthin ter study 'bout sence?"</p> + +<p>Perhaps Eugenia is not the only woman who overrates the strength of a +sentimental attachment. A gloomy intuition of failure kept her company +all the lengthening way home. The chill splendors of the wintry day +grated upon her dreary mood. How should she care for the depth and +richness of the<span class="pagenum">[170]</span> blue deepening toward the zenith in those vast +skies? What was it to her that the dead vines, climbing the grim rugged +crags, were laden with tufts and corollated shapes wherever these +fantasies of flowers might cling, or that the snow flashed with +crystalline scintillations? She only knew that they glimmered and +dazzled upon the tears in her eyes, and she was moved to shed them +afresh. She did not wonder whether her venture had resulted amiss. She +only wondered that she had tried aught. And she was humbled.</p> + +<p>When she reached Lonesome Cove she found the piggin where she had hid +it, and milked the cow in haste. It was no great task, for the animal +was going dry. "Their'n gins a gallon a milkin'," she said, in rueful +comparison.</p> + +<p>As she came up the slope with the piggin on her head, her husband was +looking down from the porch with a lowering brow. "Why n't ye spen' the +day a-milkin' the cow?" he drawled. "Dawdlin' yander in the cow-pen till +this time in the mornin'! An' ter-morrer's Chrismus!"</p> + +<p>The word smote upon her weary heart with a dull pain. She had no +cultured phrase to characterize the sensation as a presentiment, but she +was conscious of the prophetic process. To-night "all the mounting" +would be riotous with that dubious hilarity known as "Chrismus in the +bones," and there was no telling what might come from the combined orgy +and an inflamed public spirit.</p> + +<p>She remembered the familiar doom of the mountain horse-thief, the men +lurking on the cliff, the inimical feeling against the ranger. She +furtively<span class="pagenum">[171]</span> watched him with forebodings as he came and went at +intervals throughout the day.</p> + +<p>Dusk had fallen when he suddenly looked in and beckoned to the +"Colonel," who required him to take her with him whenever he fed the +mare.</p> + +<p>"Let me tie this hyar comforter over the Cunnel's head," Eugenia said, +as he bundled the child in a shawl and lifted her in his arms.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't no use," he declared. "The Cunnel ain't travellin' fur."</p> + +<p>She heard him step from the creaking porch. She heard the dreary wind +without.</p> + +<p>Within, the clumsy shadows of the warping-bars, the spinning-wheel, and +the churn were dancing in the firelight on the wall. The supper was +cooking on the live coals. The children, popping corn in the ashes, were +laughing; as her eye fell upon the "Colonel's" vacant little chair her +mind returned to the child's excursion with her father, and again she +wondered futilely where the mare could be hid. The next moment she was +heartily glad that she did not know.</p> + +<p>It was like the fulfillment of some dreadful dream when the door opened. +A man entered softly, slowly; the flickering fire showed his +shadow—was it?—nay, another man, and still another, and +another.</p> + +<p>The old crone in the corner sprang up, screaming in a shrill, tremulous, +cracked voice. For they were masked. Over the face of each dangled a bit +of homespun, with great empty sockets through which eyes vaguely +glanced. Even the coarse fibre of the intruders responded to that +quavering, thrilling appeal. One spoke instantly:<span class="pagenum">[172]</span></p> + +<p>"Laws-a-massy! Mis' Pearce, don't ye feel interrupted none—nor +Mis' Gryce nuther. We-uns ain't harmful noways—jes want ter know +whar that thar black mare hev disappeared to. She ain't in the barn."</p> + +<p>He turned his great eye-sockets on Eugenia. The plaid homespun mask +dangling about his face was grotesquely incongruous with his intent, +serious gaze.</p> + +<p>"I dunno," she faltered; "I dunno."</p> + +<p>She had caught at the spinning-wheel for support. The fire crackled. The +baby was counting aloud the grains of corn popping from the ashes. "Six, +two, free," he babbled. The kettle merrily sang.</p> + +<p>The man still stared silently at the ranger's wife. The expression in +his eyes changed suddenly. He chuckled derisively. The others echoed his +mocking mirth. "Ha! ha! ha!" they laughed aloud; and the eye-sockets in +the homespun masks all glared significantly at each other. Even the dog +detected something sinister in this laughter. He had been sniffing about +the heels of the strangers; he bristled now, showed his teeth, and +growled. The spokesman hastily kicked him in the ribs, and the animal +fled yelping to the farther side of the fireplace behind the baby, where +he stood and barked defiance. The rafters rang with the sound.</p> + +<p>Some one on the porch without spoke to the leader in a low voice. This +man, who seemed to have a desire to conceal his identity which could not +be served by a mask, held the door with one hand that the wind might not +blow it wide open. The draught fanned the fire. Once the great bowing, +waving<span class="pagenum">[173]</span> white blaze sent a long, quivering line of light through +the narrow aperture, and Eugenia saw the dark lurking figure outside. He +had one arm in a sling. She needed no confirmation to assure her that +this was Sam Peters, whom her husband had shot at the stable door.</p> + +<p>The leader instantly accepted his suggestion. "Wa'al, Mis' Gryce, I +reckon ye dunno whar Tobe be, nuther?"</p> + +<p>"Naw, I dunno," she said, in a tremor.</p> + +<p>The homespun mask swayed with the distortions of his face as he sneered:</p> + +<p>"Ye mean ter say ye don't 'low ter tell us."</p> + +<p>"I dunno whar he be." Her voice had sunk to a whisper.</p> + +<p>Another exchange of glances.</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, ma'am, jes gin us the favor of a light by yer fire, an' we-uns +'ll find him."</p> + +<p>He stepped swiftly forward, thrust a pine torch into the coals, and with +it all whitely flaring ran out into the night; the others followed his +example; and the terror-stricken women, hastily barring up the door, +peered after them through the little batten shutter of the window.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The torches were already scattered about the slopes of Lonesome Cove +like a fallen constellation. What shafts of white light they cast upon +the snow in the midst of the dense blackness of the night! Somehow they +seemed endowed with volition, as they moved hither and thither, for +their brilliancy almost cancelled the figures of the men that bore +them—only an occasional erratic shapeless shadow<span class="pagenum">[174]</span> was +visible. Now and then a flare pierced the icicle-tipped holly bushes, +and again there was a fibrous glimmer in the fringed pines.</p> + +<p>The search was terribly silent. The snow deadened the tread. Only the +wind was loud among the muffled trees, and sometimes a dull thud sounded +when the weight of snow fell from the evergreen laurel as the men +thrashed through its dense growth. They separated after a time, and only +here and there an isolated stellular light illumined the snow, and +conjured white mystic circles into the wide spaces of the darkness. The +effort flagged at last, and its futility sharpened the sense of injury +in Luke Todd's heart.</p> + +<p>He was alone now, close upon the great rock, and looking at its jagged +ledges all cloaked with snow. Above those soft white outlines drawn +against the deep clear sky the frosty stars scintillated. Beneath were +the abysmal depths of the valley masked by the darkness.</p> + +<p>His pride was touched. In the old quarrel his revenge had been hampered, +for it was the girl's privilege to choose, and she had chosen. He cared +nothing for that now, but he felt it indeed a reproach to tamely let +this man take his horse when he had all the mountain at his back. There +was a sharp humiliation in his position. He felt the pressure of public +opinion.</p> + +<p>"Dad-burn him!" he exclaimed. "Ef I kin make out ter git a glimge o' +him, I'll shoot him dead—dead!"</p> + +<p>He leaned the rifle against the rock. It struck upon a ledge. A metallic +vibration rang out. Again<span class="pagenum">[175]</span> and again the sound was +repeated—now loud, still clanging; now faint, but clear; now soft +and away to a doubtful murmur which he hardly was sure that he heard. +Never before had he known such an echo. And suddenly he recollected that +this was the great "Talking Rock," famed beyond the limits of Lonesome. +It had traditions as well as echoes. He remembered vaguely that beneath +this cliff there was said to be a cave which was utilized in the +manufacture of saltpetre for gunpowder in the War of 1812.</p> + +<p>As he looked down the slope below he thought the snow seemed +broken—by footprints, was it? With the expectation of a discovery +strong upon him, he crept along a wide ledge of the crag, now and then +stumbling and sending an avalanche of snow and ice and stones thundering +to the foot of the cliff. He missed his way more than once. Then he +would turn about, laboriously retracing his steps, and try another level +of the ledges. Suddenly before him was the dark opening he sought. No +creature had lately been here. It was filled with growing bushes and +dead leaves and brambles. Looking again down upon the slope beneath, he +felt very sure that he saw footprints.</p> + +<p>"The old folks useter 'low ez thar war two openings ter this hyar cave," +he said. "Tobe Gryce mought hev hid hyar through a opening down yander +on the slope. But <i>I'll</i> go the way ez I hev hearn tell on, an' peek in, +an' ef I kin git a glimge o' him, I'll make him tell me whar that thar +filly air, or I'll let daylight through him, sure!"</p> + +<p>He paused only to bend aside the brambles, then he crept in and took his +way along a low, narrow<span class="pagenum">[176]</span> passage. It had many windings, but was +without intersections or intricacy. He heard his own steps echoed like a +pursuing footfall. His labored breathing returned in sighs from the +inanimate rocks. It was an uncanny place, with strange, sepulchral, +solemn effects. He shivered with the cold. A draught stole in from some +secret crevice known only to the wild mountain winds. The torch flared, +crouched before the gust, flared again, then darkness. He hesitated, +took one step forward, and suddenly—a miracle!</p> + +<p>A soft aureola with gleaming radiations, a low, shadowy chamber, a beast +feeding from a manger, and within it a child's golden head.</p> + +<p>His heart gave a great throb. Somehow he was smitten to his knees. +Christmas Eve! He remembered the day with a rush of emotion. He stared +again at the vouchsafed vision. He rubbed his eyes. It had changed.</p> + +<p>Only hallucination caused by an abrupt transition from darkness to +light; only the most mundane facts of the old troughs and ash-hoppers, +relics of the industry that had served the hideous carnage of battle; +only the yellow head of the ranger's brat, who had climbed into one of +them, from which the mare was calmly munching her corn.</p> + +<p>Yet this was Christmas Eve. And the Child did lie in a manger.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was well for him that his ignorant faith could accept the +illusion as a vision charged with all the benignities of peace on earth, +good-will toward men. With a keen thrill in his heart, on his knees he +drew the charge from his rifle, and flung it down a rift in the rocks. +"Chrismus Eve," he murmured.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i176" id="i176"></a> +<img src="images/i176.jpg" width="600" height="385" alt=""YET +THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE"" +title=""YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE"" /> +<span class="caption">"YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS +EVE"</span> </div> <p><span class="pagenum">[177]</span></p> <p>He leaned his empty weapon against the wall, and +strode out to the little girl who was perched up on the trough.</p> + +<p>"Chrismus gift, Cunnel!" he cried, cheerily. "Ter-morrer's Chrismus."</p> + +<p>The echoes caught the word. In vibratory jubilance they repeated it. +"Chrismus!" rang from the roof, scintillating with calc-spar; +"Chrismus!" sounded from the colonnade of stalactites that hung down to +meet the uprising stalagmites; "Chrismus!" repeated the walls incrusted +with roses that, shut in from the light and the fresh air of heaven, +bloomed forever in the stone. Was ever chorus so sweet as this?</p> + +<p>It reached Tobe Gryce, who stood at his improvised corn-bin. With a +bundle of fodder still in his arms he stepped forward. There beside the +little Colonel and the black mare he beheld a man seated upon an +inverted half-bushel measure, peacefully lighting his pipe with a bunch +of straws which he kindled at the lantern on the ash-hopper.</p> + +<p>The ranger's black eyes were wide with wonder at this intrusion, and +angrily flashed. He connected it at once with the attack on the stable. +The hair on his low forehead rose bristlingly as he frowned. Yet he +realized with a quaking heart that he was helpless. He, although the +crack shot of the county, would not have fired while the Colonel was +within two yards of his mark for the State of Tennessee.</p> + +<p>He stood his ground with stolid courage—a target.</p> + +<p>Then, with a start of surprise, he perceived that<span class="pagenum">[178]</span> the intruder was +unarmed. Twenty feet away his rifle stood against the wall.</p> + +<p>Tobe Gryce was strangely shaken. He experienced a sudden revolt of +credulity. This was surely a dream.</p> + +<p>"Ain't that thar Luke Todd? Why air ye a-waitin' thar?" he called out in +a husky undertone.</p> + +<p>Todd glanced up, and took his pipe from his mouth; it was now fairly +alight.</p> + +<p>"Kase it be Chrismus Eve, Tobe," he said, gravely.</p> + +<p>The ranger stared for a moment; then came forward and gave the fodder to +the mare, pausing now and then and looking with oblique distrust down +upon Luke Todd as he smoked his pipe.</p> + +<p>"I want ter tell ye, Tobe, ez some o' the mounting boys air a-sarchin +fur ye outside."</p> + +<p>"Who air they?" asked the ranger, calmly.</p> + +<p>His tone was so natural, his manner so unsuspecting, that a new doubt +began to stir in Luke Todd's mind.</p> + +<p>"What ails ye ter keep the mare down hyar, Tobe?" he asked, suddenly. +"'Pears like ter me ez that be powerful comical."</p> + +<p>"Kase," said Tobe, reasonably, "some durned horse-thieves kem arter her +one night. I fired at 'em. I hain't hearn on 'em sence. An' so I jes hid +the mare."</p> + +<p>Todd was puzzled. He shifted his pipe in his mouth. Finally he said: +"Some folks 'lowed ez ye hed no right ter take up that mare, bein' ez ye +war the ranger."</p> + +<p>Tobe Gryce whirled round abruptly. "What<span class="pagenum">[179]</span> war I a-goin' ter do, +then? Feed the critter fur nuthin till the triflin' scamp ez owned her +kem arter her? I couldn't work her 'thout takin' her up an' hevin her +appraised. Thar's a law agin sech. An' I couldn't git somebody ter toll +her off an' take her up. That ain't fair. What ought I ter hev done?"</p> + +<p>"Wa'al," said Luke, drifting into argument, "the town-folks 'low ez ye +hev got nuthin ter prove it by, the stray-book an' records bein' burnt. +The town-folks 'low ez ye can't prove by writin' an' sech ez ye ever +tried ter find the owner."</p> + +<p>"The town-folks air fairly sodden in foolishness," exclaimed the ranger, +indignantly.</p> + +<p>He drew from his ample pocket a roll of ragged newspapers, and pointed +with his great thumb at a paragraph. And Luke Todd read by the light of +the lantern the advertisement and description of the estray printed +according to law in the nearest newspaper.</p> + +<p>The newspaper was so infrequent a factor in the lives of the mountain +gossips that this refutation of their theory had never occurred to them.</p> + +<p>The sheet was trembling in Luke Todd's hand; his eyes filled. The cavern +with its black distances, its walls close at hand sparkling with +delicate points of whitest light; the yellow flare of the lantern; the +grotesque shadows on the ground; the fair little girl with her golden +hair; the sleek black mare; the burly figure of the ranger—all the +scene swayed before him. He remembered the gracious vision that had +saluted him; he shuddered at the crime from which he was rescued. Pity +him because he knew naught of the science of optics; of the +bewildering<span class="pagenum">[180]</span> effects of a sudden burst of light upon the delicate +mechanism of the eye; of the vagaries of illusion.</p> + +<p>"Tobe," he said, in a solemn voice—all the echoes were bated to +awed whispers—"I hev been gin ter view a vision this night, bein' +'twar Chrismus Eve. An' now I want ter shake hands on it fur peace."</p> + +<p>Then he told the whole story, regardless of the ranger's demonstrations, +albeit they were sometimes violent enough. Tobe sprang up with a snort +of rage, his eyes flashing, his thick tongue stumbling with the curses +crowding upon it, when he realized the suspicions rife against him at +the county town. But he stood with his clinched hand slowly relaxing, +and with the vague expression which one wears who looks into the past, +as he listened to the recital of Eugenia's pilgrimage in the snowy +wintry dawn. "Mighty few folks hev got a wife ez set store by 'em like +that," Luke remarked, impersonally.</p> + +<p>The ranger's rejoinder seemed irrelevant.</p> + +<p>"'Genie be a-goin' ter see a powerful differ arter this," he said, and +fell to musing.</p> + +<p>Snow, fatigue, and futility destroyed the ardor of the lynching party +after a time, and they dispersed to their homes. Little was said of this +expedition afterward, and it became quite impossible to find a man who +would admit having joined it. For the story went the rounds of the +mountain that there had been a mistake as to unfair dealing on the part +of the ranger, and Luke Todd was quite content to accept from the county +treasury half the sum of the mare's appraisement—with the +deduction<span class="pagenum">[181]</span> of the stipulated per cent.—which Tobe Gryce had +paid, the receipt for which he produced.</p> + +<p>The gossips complained, however, that after all this was settled +according to law, Tobe wouldn't keep the mare, and insisted that Luke +should return to him the money he had paid into the treasury, half her +value, "bein' so brigaty he wouldn't own Luke Todd's beast. An' Luke +agreed ter so do; but he didn't want ter be outdone, so fur the keep o' +the filly he gin the Cunnel a heifer. An' Tobe war mighty nigh tickled +ter death fur the Cunnel ter hev a cow o' her own."</p> + +<p>And now when December skies darken above Lonesome Cove, and the snow in +dizzying whirls sifts softly down, and the gaunt brown leafless heights +are clothed with white as with a garment, and the wind whistles and +shouts shrilly, and above the great crag loom the distant mountains, and +below are glimpsed the long stretches of the valley, the two men +remember the vision that illumined the cavernous solitudes that night, +and bless the gracious power that sent salvation 'way down to Lonesome +Cove, and cherish peace and good-will for the sake of a little Child +that lay in a manger.</p> <p><span class="pagenum">[185]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[184]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[183]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[182]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_MOONSHINERS_AT_HOHO-HEBEE_FALLS" id="THE_MOONSHINERS_AT_HOHO-HEBEE_FALLS"></a>THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>If the mission of the little school-house in Holly Cove was to impress +upon the youthful mind a comprehension and appreciation of the eternal +verities of nature, its site could hardly have been better chosen. All +along the eastern horizon deployed the endless files of the Great Smoky +Mountains—blue and sunlit, with now and again the apparition of an +unfamiliar peak, hovering like a straggler in the far-distant rear, and +made visible for the nonce by some exceptional clarification of the +atmosphere; or lowering, gray, stern; or with ranks of clouds hanging on +their flanks, while all the artillery of heaven whirled about them, and +the whole world quaked beneath the flash and roar of its volleys. The +seasons successively painted the great landscape—spring, with its +timorous touch, its illumined haze, its tender, tentative green and gray +and yellow; summer, with its flush of completion, its deep, luscious, +definite verdure, and the golden richness of fruition; autumn, with a +full brush and all chromatic splendors; winter, in melancholy sepia +tones, black and brown and many<span class="pagenum">[186]</span> sad variations of the pallors of +white. So high was the little structure on the side of a transverse +ridge that it commanded a vast field of sky above the wooded ranges; and +in the immediate foreground, down between the slopes which were cleft to +the heart, was the river, resplendent with the reflected moods of the +heavens. In this deep gorge the winds and the pines chanted like a Greek +chorus; the waves continuously murmured an intricate rune, as if conning +it by frequent repetition; a bird would call out from the upper air some +joyous apothegm in a language which no creature of the earth has learned +enough of happiness to translate.</p> + +<p>But the precepts which prevailed in the little school-house were to the +effect that rivers, except as they flowed as they listed to confusing +points of the compass, rising among names difficult to remember, and +emptying into the least anticipated body of water, were chiefly to be +avoided for their proclivity to drown small boys intent on swimming or +angling. Mountains, aside from the desirability of their recognition as +forming one of the divisions of land somewhat easily distinguishable by +the more erudite youth from plains, valleys, and capes, were full of +crags and chasms, rattlesnakes and vegetable poisons, and a further +familiarity with them was liable to result in the total loss of the +adventurous—to see friends, family, and home no more.</p> + +<p>These dicta, promulgated from the professorial chair, served to keep the +small body of callow humanity, with whose instruction Abner Sage +was<span class="pagenum">[187]</span> intrusted by the State, well within call and out of harm's way +during the short recesses, while under his guidance they toddled along +the rough road that leads up the steeps to knowledge. But one there was +who either bore a charmed life or possessed an unequalled craft in +successfully defying danger; who fished and swam with impunity; who was +ragged and torn from much climbing of crags; whose freckled face bore +frequent red tokens of an indiscriminate sampling of berries. It is too +much to say that Abner Sage would have been glad to have his warnings +made terrible by some bodily disaster to the juvenile dare-devil of the +school, but Leander Yerby's disobedient incredulity as to the terrors +that menaced him, and his triumphant immunity, fostered a certain grudge +against him. Covert though it was, unrecognized even by Sage himself, it +was very definitely apparent to Tyler Sudley when sometimes, often, +indeed, on his way home from hunting, he would pause at the school-house +window, pulling open the shutter from the outside, and gravely watch his +protégé, who stood spelling at the head of the class.</p> + +<p>For Leander Yerby's exploits were not altogether those of a physical +prowess. He was a mighty wrestler with the multiplication table. He had +met and overthrown the nine line in single-handed combat. He had +attained unto some interesting knowledge of the earth on which he lived, +and could fluently bound countries with neatness and precision, and was +on terms of intimacy with sundry seas, volcanoes, islands, and other +sizable objects. The glib certainty of his contemptuous<span class="pagenum">[188]</span> +familiarity with the alphabet and its untoward combinations, as he flung +off words in four syllables in his impudent chirping treble, seemed +something uncanny, almost appalling, to Tyler Sudley, who could not have +done the like to save his stalwart life. He would stare dumfounded at +the erudite personage at the head of the class; Leander's bare feet were +always carefully adjusted to a crack between the puncheons of the floor, +literally "toeing the mark"; his broad trousers, frayed out liberally at +the hem, revealed his skinny and scarred little ankles, for his out-door +adventures were not without a record upon the more impressionable +portions of his anatomy; his waistband was drawn high up under his +shoulder-blades and his ribs, and girt over the shoulders of his +unbleached cotton shirt by braces, which all his learning did not +prevent him from calling "galluses"; his cut, scratched, calloused hands +were held stiffly down at the side seams in his nether garments in +strict accordance with the regulations. But rules could not control the +twinkle in his big blue eyes, the mingled effrontery and affection on +his freckled face as he perceived the on-looking visitor, nor hinder the +wink, the swiftly thrust-out tongue, as swiftly withdrawn, the egregious +display of two rows of dishevelled jagged squirrel teeth, when once +more, with an offhand toss of his tangled brown hair, he nimbly spelled +a long twisted-tailed word, and leered capably at the grave intent face +framed in the window.</p> + +<p>"Why, Abner!" Tyler Sudley would break out, addressing the teacher, all +unmindful of scholastic etiquette, a flush of pleasure rising to his +swarthy<span class="pagenum">[189]</span> cheek as he thrust back his wide black hat on his long +dark hair and turned his candid gray eyes, all aglow, upon the +cadaverous, ascetic preceptor, "ain't Lee-yander a-gittin' on powerful, +<i>powerful</i> fas' with his book?"</p> + +<p>"Not in enny ways so special," Sage would reply in cavalier +discouragement, his disaffected gaze resting upon the champion scholar, +who stood elated, confident, needing no commendation to assure him of +his pre-eminence; "but he air disobejient, an' turr'ble, turr'ble bad."</p> + +<p>The nonchalance with which Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism +intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this +world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the +English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on +his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along +behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to the +teacher's reproof.</p> + +<p>"Lee-yander," he would gently drawl, "ye mustn't be so bad, honey; ye +<i>mustn't</i> be so turr'ble bad."</p> + +<p>"Naw, ma'am, I won't," Leander would cheerily pipe out, and so the +procession would wend its way along.</p> + +<p>For he still confused the gender in titles of respect, and from force of +habit he continued to do so in addressing Tyler Sudley for many a year +after he had learned better.</p> + +<p>These lapses were pathetic rather than ridiculous in the hunter's ears. +It was he who had taught Leander every observance of verbal humility +toward<span class="pagenum">[190]</span> his wife, in the forlorn hope of propitiating her in the +interest of the child, who, however, with his quick understanding that +the words sought to do honor and express respect, had of his own accord +transferred them to his one true friend in the household. The only +friend he had in the world, Sudley often felt, with a sigh over the +happy child's forlorn estate. And, with the morbid sensitiveness +peculiar to a tender conscience, he winced under the knowledge that it +was he who, through wrongheadedness or wrongheartedness, had contrived +to make all the world besides the boy's enemy. Both wrongheaded and +wronghearted he was, he sometimes told himself. For even now it still +seemed to him that he had not judged amiss, that only the perversity of +fate had thwarted him. Was it so fantastically improbable, so hopeless a +solace that he had planned, that he should have thought his wife might +take comfort for the death of their own child in making for its sake a +home for another, orphaned, forlorn, a burden, and a glad riddance to +those into whose grudging charge it had been thrown? This bounty of hope +and affection and comfort had seemed to him a free gift from the dead +baby's hands, who had no need of it since coming into its infinite +heritage of immortality, to the living waif, to whom it was like life +itself, since it held all the essential values of existence. The idea +smote him like an inspiration. He had ridden twenty miles in a snowy +night to beg the unwelcome mite from the custody of its father's +half-brothers, who were on the eve of moving to a neighboring county +with all their kin and belongings.<span class="pagenum">[191]</span></p> + +<p>Tyler Sudley was a slow man, and tenacious of impressions. He could +remember every detail of the events as they had happened—the +palpable surprise, the moment of hesitation, the feint of denial which +successively ensued on his arrival. It mattered not what the season or +the hour—he could behold at will the wintry dawn, the deserted +cabin, the glow of embers dying on the hearth within; the white-covered +wagon slowly a-creak along the frozen road beneath the gaunt, bare, +overhanging trees, the pots and pans as they swung at the rear, the +bucket for water swaying beneath, the mounted men beside it, the few +head of swine and cattle driven before them. Years had passed, but he +could feel anew the vague stir of the living bundle which he held on the +pommel of his saddle, the sudden twist it gave to bring its inquiring, +apprehensive eyes, so large in its thin, lank-jawed, piteous little +countenance, to bear on his face, as if it understood its transfer of +custody, and trembled lest a worse thing befall it. One of the women +stopped the wagon and ran back to pin about its neck an additional +wrapping, an old red-flannel petticoat, lest it should suffer in its +long, cold ride. His heart glowed with vicarious gratitude for her +forethought, and he shook her hand warmly and wished her well, and hoped +that she might prosper in her new home, and stood still to watch the +white wagon out of sight in the avenue of the snow-laden trees, above +which the moon was visible, a-journeying too, swinging down the western +sky.</p> + +<p>Laurelia Sudley sat in stunned amazement when, half-frozen, but +triumphant and flushed and full<span class="pagenum">[192]</span> of his story, he burst into the +warm home atmosphere, and put the animated bundle down upon the +hearth-stone in front of the glowing fire. For one moment she met its +forlorn gaze out of its peakèd and pinched little face with a +vague hesitation in her own worn, tremulous, sorrow-stricken eyes. Then +she burst into a tumult of tears, upbraiding her husband that he could +think that another child could take the place of her dead +child—all the dearer because it was dead; that she could play the +traitor to its memory and forget her sacred grief; that she could do +aught as long as she should live but sit her down to bewail her loss, +every tear a tribute, every pang its inalienable right, her whole +smitten existence a testimony to her love. It was in vain that he +expostulated. The idea of substitution had never entered his mind. But +he was ignorant, and clumsy of speech, and unaccustomed to analyze his +motives. He could not put into words his feeling that to do for the +welfare of this orphaned and unwelcome little creature all that they +would have done for their own was in some sort a memorial to him, and +brought them nearer to him—that she might find in it a +satisfaction, an occupation—that it might serve to fill her empty +life, her empty arms.</p> + +<p>But no! She thought, and the neighbors thought, and after a time Tyler +Sudley came to think also, that he had failed in the essential duty to +the dead—that of affectionate remembrance; that he was recreant, +strangely callous. They all said that he had seemed to esteem one baby +as good as another, and that he was surprised that his wife was +not<span class="pagenum">[193]</span> consoled for the loss of her own child because he took it into +his head to go and toll off the Yerby baby from his father's +half-brothers "ez war movin' away an' war glad enough ter get rid o' one +head o' human stock ter kerry, though, <i>bein' human</i>, they oughter been +ashamed ter gin him away like a puppy-dog, or an extry cat, all hands +consarned."</p> + +<p>From the standpoint she had taken Laurelia had never wavered. It was an +added and a continual reproach to her husband that all the labor and +care of the ill-advised acquisition fell to her share. She it was who +must feed and clothe and tend the gaunt little usurper; he needs must be +accorded all the infantile prerogatives, and he exacted much time and +attention. Despite the grudging spirit in which her care was given she +failed in no essential, and presently the interloper was no longer gaunt +or pallid or apprehensive, but grew pink and cherubic of build, and +arrogant of mind. He had no sensitive sub-current of suspicion as to his +welcome; he filled the house with his gay babbling, and if no maternal +chirpings encouraged the development of his ideas and his powers of +speech, his cheerful spirits seemed strong enough to thrive on their own +stalwart endowments. His hair began to curl, and a neighbor, remarking +on it to Laurelia, and forgetting for the moment his parentage, said, in +admiring glee, twining the soft tendrils over her finger, that Mrs. +Sudley had never before had a child so well-favored as this one. From +this time forth was infused a certain rancor into his foster-mother's +spirit toward him. Her sense of martyrdom was complete when another +infant was born and died,<span class="pagenum">[194]</span> leaving her bereaved once more to watch +this stranger grow up in her house, strong and hearty, and handsomer +than any child of hers had been.</p> + +<p>The mountain gossips had their own estimate of her attitude.</p> + +<p>"I ain't denyin' but what she hed nat'ral feelin' fur her own chil'ren, +bein' dead," said the dame who had made the unfortunate remark about the +curling hair, "but Laurelia Sudley war always a contrary-minded, +lackadaisical kind o' gal afore she war married, sorter set in +opposition, an' now ez she ain't purty like she useter was, through +cryin' her eyes out, an' gittin' sallow-complected an' bony, I kin +notice her contrariousness more. Ef Tyler hedn't brung that chile home, +like ez not she'd hev sot her heart on borryin' one herself from +somebody. Lee-yander ain't in nowise abused, ez I kin see—ain't +acquainted with the rod, like the Bible say he oughter be, an' ennybody +kin see ez Laurelia don't like the name he gin her, yit she puts up with +it. She larnt him ter call Ty 'Cap'n,' bein' she's sorter proud of it, +'kase Ty war a cap'n of a critter company in the war: 'twarn't sech a +mighty matter nohow; he jes got ter be cap'n through the other off'cers +bein' killed off. An' the leetle boy got it twisted somehows, an' calls +<i>her</i> 'Cap'n' an' Ty 'Neighbor,' from hearin' old man Jeemes, ez comes +in constant, givin' him that old-fashioned name. 'Cap'n' 'bout fits +Laurelia, though, an' that's a fac'."</p> + +<p>Laurelia's melancholy ascendency in the household was very complete. It +was characterized by no turbulence, no rages, no long-drawn +argument<span class="pagenum">[195]</span> or objurgation; it expressed itself only in a settled +spirit of disaffection, a pervasive suggestion of martyrdom, silence or +sighs, or sometimes a depressing singing of hymn tunes. For her husband +had long ago ceased to remonstrate, or to seek to justify himself. It +was with a spirit of making amends that he hastened to concede every +point of question, to defer to her preference in all matters, and +Laurelia's sway grew more and more absolute as the years wore on. +Leander Yerby could remember no other surroundings than the ascetic +atmosphere of his home. It had done naught apparently to quell the +innate cheerfulness of his spirit. He evidently took note, however, of +the different standpoint of the "Captain" and his "Neighbor," for +although he was instant in the little manifestations of respect toward +her which he had been taught, his childish craft could not conceal their +spuriousness.</p> + +<p>"That thar boy treats me ez ef I war a plumb idjit," Laurelia said one +day, moved to her infrequent anger. "Tells me, 'Yes, ma'am, cap'n,' an' +'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' jes ter quiet me—like folks useter do ter old +Ed'ard Green, ez war in his dotage—an' then goes along an' does +the very thing I tell him not ter do."</p> + +<p>Sudley looked up as he sat smoking his pipe by the fire, a shade of +constraint in his manner, and a contraction of anxiety in his slow, dark +eyes, never quite absent when she spoke to him aside of Leander.</p> + +<p>She paused, setting her gaunt arms akimbo, and wearing the manner of one +whose kindly patience is beyond limit abused. "Kems in hyar, he +do,<span class="pagenum">[196]</span> a-totin' a fiddle. An' I says, 'Lee-yander Yerby, don't ye +know that thar thing's the devil's snare?' 'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' he says, +grinnin' like a imp; 'it's <i>my</i> snare, fur I hev bought it from Peter +Teazely fur two rabbits what I cotch in my trap, an' my big red rooster, +an' a bag o' seed pop-corn, an' the only hat I hev got in the worl'.' +An' with that the consarn gin sech a yawp, it plumb went through my +haid. An' then the critter jes tuk ter a-bowin' it back an' forth, +a-playin' 'The Chicken in the Bread-trough' like demented, a-dancin' off +on fust one foot an' then on t'other till the puncheons shuck. An' I +druv him out the house. I won't stan' none o' Satan's devices hyar! I +tole him he couldn't fetch that fiddle hyar whenst he kems home +ter-night, an' I be a-goin' ter make him a sun-bonnet or a nightcap ter +wear stiddier his hat that he traded off."</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>Her husband had risen, the glow of his pipe fading in his unheeding +hand, his excited eyes fixed upon her. "Laurely," he exclaimed, "ye +ain't meanin' ez that thar leetle critter could play a chune fust off on +a fiddle 'thout no larnin'!"</p> + +<p>She nodded her head in reluctant admission.</p> + +<p>He opened his mouth once or twice, emitting no sound. She saw how his +elation, his spirit of commendation, his pride, set at naught her +displeasure, albeit in self-defence, perchance, he dared not say a word. +With an eye alight and an absorbed face, he laid his pipe on the +mantel-piece, and silently took his way out of the house in search of +the youthful musician.<span class="pagenum">[197]</span></p> + +<p>Easily found! The racked and tortured echoes were all aquake within half +a mile of the spot where, bareheaded, heedless of the threatened +ignominy alike of sun-bonnet or nightcap, Leander sat in the flickering +sunshine and shadow upon a rock beside the spring, and blissfully +experimented with all the capacities of catgut to produce sound.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Neighbor!" he cried out, descrying Tyler Sudley, who, indeed, +could do naught else—"<i>listen</i>! Ye won't hear much better fiddlin' +this side o' kingdom come!" And with glad assurance he capered up and +down, the bow elongating the sound to a cadence of frenzied glee, as his +arms sought to accommodate the nimbler motions of his legs.</p> + +<p>Thus it was the mountaineers later said that Leander fell into bad +company. For, the fiddle being forbidden in the sober Laurelia's house, +he must needs go elsewhere to show his gift and his growing skill, and +he found a welcome fast enough. Before he had advanced beyond his +stripling youth, his untutored facility had gained a rude mastery over +the instrument; he played with a sort of fascination and spontaneity +that endeared his art to his uncritical audiences, and his endowment was +held as something wonderful. And now it was that Laurelia, hearing him, +far away in the open air, play once a plaintive, melodic strain, +fugue-like with the elfin echoes, felt a strange soothing in the sound, +found tears in her eyes, not all of pain but of sad pleasure, and +assumed thenceforth something of the port of a connoisseur. She said she +"couldn't abide a fiddle jes sawed helter-skelter by them ez hedn't +larned, but ter play saaft an' slow an' solemn,<span class="pagenum">[198]</span> and no dancin' +chune, no frolic song—she warn't set agin that at all." And she +desired of Leander a repetition of this sunset motive that evening when +he had come home late, and she discovered him hiding the obnoxious +instrument under the porch. But in vain. He did not remember it. It was +some vague impulse, as unconsciously voiced as the dreaming bird's song +in the sudden half-awake intervals of the night. Over and again, as he +stood by the porch, the violin in his arms, he touched the strings +tentatively, as if, perchance, being so alive, they might of their own +motion recall the strain that had so lately thrilled along them.</p> + +<p>He had grown tall and slender. He wore boots to his knees now, and +pridefully carried a "shootin'-iron" in one of the long legs—to +his great discomfort. The freckles of his early days were merged into +the warm uniform tint of his tanned complexion. His brown hair still +curled; his shirt-collar fell away from his throat, round and full and +white—the singer's throat—as he threw his head backward and +cast his large roving eyes searchingly along the sky, as if the missing +strain had wings.</p> + +<p>The inspiration returned no more, and Laurelia experienced a sense of +loss. "Some time, Lee-yander, ef ye war ter kem acrost that chune agin, +try ter set it in yer remembrance, an' play it whenst ye kem home," she +said, wistfully, at last, as if this errant melody were afloat somewhere +in the vague realms of sound, where one native to those haunts might +hope to encounter it anew.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am, cap'n, I will," he said, with his<span class="pagenum">[199]</span> facile assent. But +his tone expressed slight intention, and his indifference bespoke a too +great wealth of "chunes"; he could feel no lack in some unremembered +combination, sport of the moment, when another strain would come at +will, as sweet perchance, and new.</p> + +<p>She winced as from undeserved reproach when presently Leander's +proclivities for the society of the gay young blades about the +countryside, sometimes reputed "evil men," were attributed to this exile +of the violin from the hearth-stone. She roused herself to disputation, +to indignant repudiation.</p> + +<p>"They talk ez ef it war <i>me</i> ez led the drinkin', an' the gamin', an' +the dancin', and sech, ez goes on in the Cove, 'kase whenst Lee-yander +war about fryin' size I wouldn't abide ter hev him a-sawin' away on the +fiddle in the house enough ter make me deef fur life. At fust the racket +of it even skeered Towse so he wouldn't come out from under the house +fur two days an' better; he jes sot under thar an' growled, an' +shivered, an' showed his teeth ef ennybody spoke ter him. Nobody don't +like Lee-yander's performin' better'n I do whenst he plays them saaft, +slippin'-away, slow medjures, ez sound plumb religious—ef 'twarn't +a sin ter say so. Naw, sir, ef ennybody hev sot Lee-yander on ter evil +ways 'twarn't me. My conscience be clear."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless she was grievously ill at ease when one day there rode up +to the fence a tall, gaunt, ill-favored man, whose long, lean, sallow +countenance, of a Pharisaic cast, was vaguely familiar to her, as one +recognizes real lineaments in the contortions of<span class="pagenum">[200]</span> a caricature or +the bewilderments of a dream. She felt as if in some long-previous +existence she had seen this man as he dismounted at the gate and came up +the path with his saddle-bags over his arm. But it was not until he +mustered an unready, unwilling smile, that had of good-will and +geniality so slight an intimation that it was like a spasmodic grimace, +did she perceive how time had deepened tendencies to traits, how the +inmost thought and the secret sentiment had been chiselled into the face +in the betrayals of the sculpture of fifteen years.</p> + +<p>"Nehemiah Yerby!" she exclaimed. "I would hev knowed ye in the happy +land o' Canaan."</p> + +<p>"Let's pray we may all meet thar, Sister Sudley," he responded. "Let's +pray that the good time may find none of us unprofitable servants."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sudley experienced a sudden recoil. Not that she did not echo his +wish, but somehow his manner savored of an exclusive arrogation of piety +and a suggestion of reproach.</p> + +<p>"That's my prayer," she retorted, aggressively. "Day an' night, that's +my prayer."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, fur us an' our households, Sister Sudley—we mus' think o' +them c'mitted ter our charge."</p> + +<p>She strove to fling off the sense of guilt that oppressed her, the +mental attitude of arraignment. He was a young man when he journeyed +away in that snowy dawn. She did not know what changes had come in his +experience. Perchance his effervescent piety was only a habit of speech, +and had no significance as far as she was concerned. The suspicion, +however, tamed her in some sort. She<span class="pagenum">[201]</span> attempted no retort. With a +mechanical, reluctant smile, ill adjusted to her sorrow-lined face, she +made an effort to assume that the greeting had been but the conventional +phrasings of the day.</p> + +<p>"Kem in, kem in, Nehemiah; Tyler will be glad ter see ye, an' I reckon +ye will be powerful interested ter view how Lee-yander hev growed an' +prospered."</p> + +<p>She felt as if she were in some terrible dream as she beheld him slowly +wag his head from side to side. He had followed her into the large main +room of the cabin, and had laid his saddle-bags down by the side of the +chair in which he had seated himself, his elbows on his knees, his hands +held out to the flickering blaze in the deep chimney-place, his eyes +significantly narrowing as he gazed upon it.</p> + +<p>"Naw, Sister Sudley," he wagged his head more mournfully still. "I kin +but grieve ter hear how my nevy Lee-yander hev 'prospered,' ez ye call +it, an' I be s'prised ye should gin it such a name. Oh-h-h, Sister +Sudley!" in prolonged and dreary vocative, "I 'lowed ye war a godly +woman. I knowed yer name 'mongst the church-goers an' the +church-members." A faint flush sprang into her delicate faded cheek; a +halo encircled this repute of sanctity, she felt with quivering +premonition that it was about to be urged as a testimony against her. +"Elsewise I wouldn't hev gin my cornsent ter hev lef' the leetle lam', +Lee-yander, in yer fold. Precious, precious leetle lam'!"</p> + +<p>Poor Laurelia! Were it not that she had a sense of fault under the +scathing arraignment of her motives,<span class="pagenum">[202]</span> her work, and its result, +although she scarcely saw how she was to blame, that she had equally +with him esteemed Leander's standpoint iniquitous, she might have made a +better fight in her own interest. Why she did not renounce the true +culprit as one on whom all godly teachings were wasted, and, adopting +the indisputable vantage-ground of heredity, carry the war into the +enemy's country, ascribing Leander's shortcomings to his Yerby blood, +and with stern and superior joy proclaiming that he was neither kith nor +kin of hers, she wondered afterward, for this valid ground of defence +did not occur to her then. In these long mourning years she had grown +dull; her mental processes were either a sad introspection or +reminiscence. Now she could only take into account her sacrifices of +feeling, of time, of care; the illnesses she had nursed, the garments +that she had made and mended—ah, how many! laid votive on the +altar of Leander's vigor and his agility, for as he scrambled about the +crags he seemed, she was wont to say, to climb straight out of them. The +recollection of all this—the lesser and unspiritual maternal +values, perchance, but essential—surged over her with bitterness; +she lost her poise, and fell a-bickering.</p> + +<p>"'Precious leetle lam','" she repeated, scornfully. "Precious he mus' +hev been! Fur when ye lef' him he hedn't a whole gyarmint ter his back, +an' none but them that kivered him."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah Yerby changed color slightly as the taunt struck home, but he +was skilled in the more æsthetic methods of argument.<span class="pagenum">[203]</span></p> + +<p>"We war pore—mighty pore indeed, Sister Sudley."</p> + +<p>Now, consciously in the wrong, Sister Sudley, with true feminine +inconsistency, felt better. She retorted with bravado.</p> + +<p>"Needle an' thread ain't 'spensive nowhar ez I knows on, an' the +gov'mint hev sot no tax on saaft home-made soap, so far ez hearn from."</p> + +<p>She briskly placed her chair, a rude rocker, the seat formed of a +taut-stretched piece of ox-hide, beside the fire, and took up her +knitting. A sock for Leander it was—one of many of all sizes. She +remembered the first that she had measured for the bare pink toes which +he had brought there, forlorn candidates for the comfortable integuments +in which they were presently encased, and how she had morbidly felt that +every stitch she took was a renunciation of her own children, since a +stranger was honored in their place. The tears came into her eyes. It +was only this afternoon that she had experienced a pang of self-reproach +to realize how near happiness she was—as near as her temperament +could approach. But somehow the air was so soft; she could see from +where she sat how the white velvet buds of the aspen-trees in the +dooryard had lengthened into long, cream-tinted, furry tassels; the +maples on the mountain-side lifted their red flowering boughs against +the delicate blue sky; the grass was so green; the golden candlesticks +bunched along the margin of the path to the rickety gate were all +a-blossoming. The sweet appeal of spring had never been more insistent, +more coercive. Somehow peace, and a placid content, seemed as<span class="pagenum">[204]</span> +essential incidents in the inner life as the growth of the grass anew, +the bursting of the bud, or the soft awakening of the zephyr. Even +within the house, the languors of the fire drowsing on the hearth, the +broad bar of sunshine across the puncheon floor, so slowly creeping +away, the sense of the vernal lengthening of the pensive afternoon, the +ever-flitting shadow of the wren building under the eaves, and its +iterative gladsome song breaking the fireside stillness, partook of the +serene beatitude of the season and the hour. The visitor's drawling +voice rose again, and she was not now constrained to reproach herself +that she was too happy.</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, pore though we war then—an' we couldn't look forward ter +the Lord's prosperin' us some sence—we never would hev lef' the +precious leetle lam'"—his voice dwelt with unvanquished emphasis +upon the obnoxious words—"'mongst enny but them persumed ter be +godly folks. Tyler war a toler'ble good soldier in the war, an' hed a +good name in the church, but <i>ye</i> war persumed to be a plumb special +Christian with no pledjure in this worl'."</p> + +<p>Laurelia winced anew. This repute of special sanctity was the pride of +her ascetic soul. Few of the graces of life or of the spirit had she +coveted, but her pre-eminence as a religionist she had fostered and +cherished, and now through her own deeds of charity it seemed about to +be wrested from her.</p> + +<p>"Lee-yander Yerby hev larnt nuthin' but good in this house, an' all my +neighbors will tell you the same word. The Cove 'lows I hev been <i>too</i> +strict."<span class="pagenum">[205]</span></p> + +<p>Nehemiah was glancing composedly about the room. "That thar 'pears ter +be a fiddle on the wall, ain't it, Mis' Sudley?" he said, with an +incidental air and the manner of changing the subject.</p> + +<p>Alack, for the æsthetic perversion! Since the playing of those +melancholy minor strains in that red sunset so long ago, which had +touched so responsive a chord in Laurelia's grief-worn heart, the crazy +old fiddle had been naturalized, as it were, and had exchanged its +domicile under the porch for a position on the wall. It was boldly +visible, and apparently no more ashamed of itself than was the big +earthen jar half full of cream, which was placed close to the fireplace +on the hearth in the hope that its contents might become sour enough by +to-morrow to be churned.</p> + +<p>Laurelia looked up with a start at the instrument, red and lustrous +against the brown log wall, its bow poised jauntily above it, and some +glistening yellow reflection from the sun on the floor playing among the +strings, elusive, soundless fantasies.</p> + +<p>Her lower jaw dropped. She was driven to her last defences, and sore +beset. "It air a fiddle," she said, slowly, at last, and with an air of +conscientious admission, as if she had had half a mind to deny it. "A +fiddle the thing air." Then, as she collected her thoughts, "Brother +Pete Vickers 'lows ez he sees no special sin in playin' the fiddle. He +'lows ez in some kentries—I disremember whar—they plays on +'em in church, quirin' an' hymn chunes an' sech."</p> + +<p>Her voice faltered a little; she had never thought<span class="pagenum">[206]</span> to quote this +fantasy in her own defence, for she secretly believed that old man +Vickers must have been humbugged by some worldly brother skilled in +drawing the long bow himself.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah Yerby seemed specially endowed with a conscience for the +guidance of other people, so quick was he to descry and pounce upon +their shortcomings. If one's sins are sure to find one out, there is +little doubt but that Brother Nehemiah would be on the ground first.</p> + +<p>"Air you-uns a-settin' under the preachin' o' Brother Peter Vickers?" he +demanded in a sepulchral voice.</p> + +<p>"Naw, naw," she was glad to reply. "'Twar onderstood ez Brother Vickers +wanted a call ter the church in the Cove, bein' ez his relations live +hyar-abouts, an' he kem up an' preached a time or two. But he didn't git +no call. The brethren 'lowed Brother Vickers war too slack in his idees +o' religion. Some said his hell warn't half hot enough. Thar air some +powerful sinners in the Cove, an' nuthin' but good live coals an' a +liquid blazin' fire air a-goin' ter deter them from the evil o' thar +ways. So Brother Vickers went back the road he kem."</p> + +<p>She knit off her needle while, with his head still bent forward, +Nehemiah Yerby sourly eyed her, feeling himself a loser with Brother +Vickers, in that he did not have the reverend man's incumbency as a +grievance.</p> + +<p>"He 'pears ter me ter see mo' pleasure in religion 'n penance, ennyhow," +he observed, bitterly. "An' the Lord knows the bes' of us air +sinners."<span class="pagenum">[207]</span></p> + +<p>"An' he laughs loud an' frequent—mightily like a sinner," she +agreed. "An' whenst he prays, he prays loud an' hearty, like he jes +expected ter git what he axed fur sure's shootin'. Some o' the +bretherin' sorter taxed him with his sperits, an' he 'lowed he couldn't +holp but be cheerful whenst he hed the Lord's word fur it ez all things +work tergether fur good. An' he laffed same ez ef they hedn't spoke ter +him serious."</p> + +<p>"Look at that, now!" exclaimed Nehemiah. "An' that thar man ez good ez +dead with the heart-disease."</p> + +<p>Laurelia's eyes were suddenly arrested by his keen, pinched, lined face. +What there was in it to admonish her she could hardly have said, nor how +it served to tutor her innocent craft.</p> + +<p>"I ain't so sure 'bout Brother Vickers bein' so wrong," she said, +slowly. "He 'lowed ter me ez I hed spent too much o' my life +a-sorrowin', 'stiddier a-praisin' the Lord for his mercies." Her face +twitched suddenly; she could not yet look upon her bereavements as +mercies. "He 'lowed I would hev been a happier an' a better 'oman ef I +hed took the evil ez good from the Lord's hand, fur in his sendin' it's +the same. An' I know that air a true word. An' that's what makes me 'low +what he said war true 'bout'n that fiddle; that I ought never ter hev +pervented the boy from playin' 'round home an' sech, an' 'twarn't no sin +but powerful comfortable an' pleasurable ter set roun' of a cold winter +night an' hear him play them slow, sweet, dyin'-away chunes—" She +dropped her hands, and gazed with the rapt eyes of remembrance through +the window<span class="pagenum">[208]</span> at the sunset clouds which, gathering red and purple +and gold on the mountain's brow, were reflected roseate and amethyst and +amber at the mountain's base on the steely surface of the river. +"Brother Vickers 'lowed he never hearn sech in all his life. It brung +the tears ter his eyes—it surely did."</p> + +<p>"He'd a heap better be weepin' fur them black sheep o' his congregation +an' fur Lee-yander's shortcomin's, fur ez fur ez I kin hear he air about +ez black a sheep ez most pastors want ter wrestle with fur the turnin' +away from thar sins. Yes'm, Sister Sudley, that's jes what p'inted out +my jewty plain afore my eyes, an' I riz up an' kem ter be instant in +a-doin' of it. 'I'll not leave my own nevy in the tents o' sin,' I sez. +'I hev chil'n o' my own, hearty feeders an' hard on shoe-leather, ter +support, but I'll not grudge my brother's son a home.' Yes, Laurely +Sudley, I hev kem ter kerry him back with me. Yer jewty ain't been done +by him, an' I'll leave him a dweller in the tents o' sin no longer."</p> + +<p>His enthusiasm had carried him too far. Laurelia's face, which at first +seemed turning to stone as she gradually apprehended his meaning and his +mission, changed from motionless white to a tremulous scarlet while he +spoke, and when he ceased she retorted herself as one of the ungodly.</p> + +<p>"Ye mus' be mighty ambitious ter kerry away a skin full o' broken bones! +Jes let Tyler Sudley hear ez ye called his house the tents o' the +ungodly, an' that ye kem hyar a-faultin' me, an' tellin' me ez I 'ain't +done my jewty ennywhar or ennyhow!" she exclaimed, with a pride which, +as a pious saint, she had never expected to feel in her husband's +reputation<span class="pagenum">[209]</span> as a high-tempered man and a "mighty handy fighter," +and with implicit reliance upon both endowments in her quarrel.</p> + +<p>"Only in a speritchual sense, Sister Sudley," Nehemiah gasped, as he +made haste to qualify his asseveration. "I only charge you with havin' +sp'iled the boy; ye hev sp'iled him through kindness ter him, an' not +<i>ye</i> so much ez Ty. Ty never hed so much ez a dog that would mind him! +His dog wouldn't answer call nor whistle 'thout he war so disposed. <i>I</i> +never faulted ye, Sister Sudley; 'twar jes Ty I faulted. I know Ty."</p> + +<p>He knew, too, that it was safer to call Ty and his doings in question, +big and formidable and belligerent though he was, than his +meek-mannered, melancholy, forlorn, and diminutive wife. Nehemiah rose +up and walked back and forth for a moment with an excited face and a +bent back, and a sort of rabbit-like action. "Now, I put it to you, +Sister Sudley, air Ty a-makin' that thar boy plough ter-day—jes +<i>be-you-ti-ful</i> field weather!"</p> + +<p>Sister Sudley, victorious, having regained her normal position by one +single natural impulse of self-assertion, not as a religionist, but as +Tyler Sudley's wife, and hence entitled to all the show of respect which +that fact unaided could command, sat looking at him with a changed +face—a face that seemed twenty years younger; it had the +expression it wore before it had grown pinched and ascetic and +insistently sorrowful; one might guess how she had looked when Tyler +Sudley first went up the mountain "a-courtin'." She sought to assume no +other stand-point. Here she was intrenched.<span class="pagenum">[210]</span> She shook her head in +negation. The affair was none of hers. Ty Sudley could take ample care +of it.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah gave a little skip that might suggest a degree of triumph. +"Aha, not ploughin'! But <i>Ty</i> is ploughin'. I seen him in the field. An' +Lee-yander ain't ploughin'! An' how did I know? Ez I war a-ridin' along +through the woods this mornin' I kem acrost a striplin' lad a-walkin' +through the undergrowth ez onconsarned ez a killdee an' ez nimble. An' +under his chin war a fiddle, an' his head war craned down ter it." He +mimicked the attitude as he stood on the hearth. "He never looked up +wunst. Away he walked, light ez a plover, an' <i>a-ping</i>, <i>pang</i>, <i>ping</i>, +<i>pang</i>," in a high falsetto, "went that fiddle! I war plumb 'shamed fur +the critters in the woods ter view sech idle sinfulness, a ole ow<i>el</i>, +a-blinkin' down out'n a hollow tree, kem ter see what <i>ping</i>, <i>pang</i>, +<i>ping</i>, <i>pang</i> meant, an' thar war a rabbit settin' up on two legs in +the bresh, an' a few stray razor-back hawgs; I tell ye I war mortified +'fore even sech citizens ez them, an' a lazy, impident-lookin' dog ez +followed him."</p> + +<p>"How did ye know 'twar Lee-yander?" demanded Mrs. Sudley, recognizing +the description perfectly, but after judicial methods requiring strict +proof.</p> + +<p>"Oh-h! by the fambly favor," protested the gaunt and hard-featured +Nehemiah, capably. "I knowed the Yerby eye."</p> + +<p>"He hev got his mother's eyes." Mrs. Sudley had certainly changed her +stand-point with a vengeance. "He hev got his mother's +<i>be-you-ti-ful</i><span class="pagenum">[211]</span> <i>blue</i> eyes and her curling, silken brown +hair—sorter red; little Yerby in <i>that</i>, mebbe; but sech eyes, an' +sech lashes, an' sech fine curling hair ez none o' yer fambly ever hed, +or ever will."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe so. I never seen him more'n a minit. But he might ez well hev a +<i>be-you-ti-ful</i> curlin' nose, like the elephint in the show, for all the +use he air, or I be afeard air ever likely ter be."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Tyler Sudley's face turned gray, despite his belligerent efficiencies, +when his wife, hearing the clank of the ox-yoke as it was flung down in +the shed outside, divined the home-coming of the ploughman and his team, +and slipped out to the barn with her news. She realized, with a strange +enlightenment as to her own mental processes, what angry jealousy the +look on his face would have roused in her only so short a time +ago—jealousy for the sake of her own children, that any loss, any +grief, should be poignant and pierce his heart save for them. Now she +was sorry for him; she felt with him.</p> + +<p>But as he continued silent, and only stared at her dumfounded and +piteous, she grew frightened—she knew not of what.</p> + +<p>"Shucks, Ty!" she exclaimed, catching him by the sleeve with the impulse +to rouse him, to awaken him, as it were, to his own old familiar +identity; "ye ain't 'feared o' that thar snaggle-toothed skeer-crow in +yander; he would be plumb comical ef he didn't look so mean-natured an' +sech a hypercrite."</p> + +<p>He gazed at her, his eyes eloquent with pain.</p> + +<p>"Laurely!" he gasped, "this hyar thing plumb<span class="pagenum">[212]</span> knocks me down; it +jes takes the breath o' life out'n me!"</p> + +<p>She hesitated for a moment. Any anxiety, any trouble, seemed so +incongruous with the sweet spring-tide peace in the air, that one did +not readily take it home to heart. Hope was in the atmosphere like an +essential element; one might call it oxygen or caloric or vitality, +according to the tendency of mind and the habit of speech. But the heart +knew it, and the pulses beat strongly responsive to it. Faith ruled the +world. Some tiny bulbous thing at her feet that had impeded her step +caught her attention. It was coming up from the black earth, and the +buried darkness, and the chill winter's torpor, with all the impulses of +confidence in the light without, and the warmth of the sun, and the +fresh showers that were aggregating in the clouds somewhere for its +nurture—a blind inanimate thing like that! But Tyler Sudley felt +none of it; the blow had fallen upon him, stunning him. He stood silent, +looking gropingly into the purple dusk, veined with silver glintings of +the moon, as if he sought to view in the future some event which he +dreaded, and yet shrank to see.</p> + +<p>She had rarely played the consoler, so heavily had she and all her +griefs leaned on his supporting arm. It was powerless now. She perceived +this, all dismayed at the responsibility that had fallen upon her. She +made an effort to rally his courage. She had more faith in it than in +her own.</p> + +<p>"'Feard o' <i>him</i>!" she exclaimed, with a sharp tonic note of satire. +"Kem in an' view him."</p> + +<p>"Laurely," he quavered, "I oughter hev got it<span class="pagenum">[213]</span> down in writin' from +him; I oughter made him sign papers agreein' fur me ter keep the boy +till he growed ter be his own man."</p> + +<p>She, too, grew pale. "Ye ain't meanin' ter let him take the boy sure +enough!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"I moughtn't be able ter holp it; I dun'no' how the law stands. He air +kin ter Lee-yander, an' mebbe hev got the bes' right ter him."</p> + +<p>She shivered slightly; the dew was falling, and all the budding herbage +was glossed with a silver glister. The shadows were sparse. The white +branches of the aspens cast only the symmetrical outline of the tree +form on the illumined grass, and seemed scarcely less bare than in +winter, but on one swaying bough the mocking-bird sang all the joyous +prophecies of the spring to the great silver moon that made his gladsome +day so long.</p> + +<p>She was quick to notice the sudden cessation of his song, the alert, +downward poise of his beautiful head, his tense critical attitude. A +mimicking whistle rose on the air, now soft, now keen, with swift +changes and intricate successions of tones, ending in a brilliant +borrowed roulade, delivered with a wonderful velocity and <i>élan</i>. +The long tail feathers, all standing stiffly upward, once more drooped; +the mocking-bird turned his head from side to side, then lifting his +full throat he poured forth again his incomparable, superb, infinitely +versatile melody, fixing his glittering eye on the moon, and heeding the +futilely ambitious worldling no more.</p> + +<p>The mimicking sound heralded the approach of Leander. Laurelia's heart, +full of bitterness for his sake, throbbed tenderly for him. Ah, what +was<span class="pagenum">[214]</span> to be his fate! What unkind lot did the future hold for him in +the clutches of a man like this! Suddenly she was pitying his +mother—her own children, how safe!</p> + +<p>She winced to tell him what had happened, but she it was who, bracing +her nerves, made the disclosure, for Sudley remained silent, the end of +the ox-yoke in his trembling hands, his head bare to the moon and the +dew, his face grown lined and old.</p> + +<p>Leander stood staring at her out of his moonlit blue eyes, his hat far +back on the brown curls she had so vaunted, damp and crisp and clinging, +the low limp collar of his unbleached shirt showing his round full +throat, one hand resting on the high curb of the well, the other holding +a great brown gourd full of the clear water which he had busied himself +in securing while she sought to prepare him to hear the worst. His lips, +like a bent bow as she thought, were red and still moist as he now and +then took the gourd from them, and held it motionless in the interest of +her narration, that indeed touched him so nearly. Then, as she made +point after point clear to his comprehension, he would once more lift +the gourd and drink deeply, for he had had an active day, inducing a +keen thirst.</p> + +<p>She had been preparing herself for the piteous spectacle of his frantic +fright, his futile reliance on them who had always befriended him, his +callow forlorn helplessness, his tears, his reproaches; she dreaded +them.</p> + +<p>He was silent for a reflective moment when she had paused. "But what's +he want with me, Cap'n?" he suddenly demanded. "Mought know <span class="pagenum">[215]</span>I +warn't industrious in the field, ez he seen me off a-fiddlin' in the +woods whilst Neighbor war a-ploughin'."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i214" id="i214"></a> +<img src="images/i214.jpg" width="600" height="398" alt=""HE HAD +HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST"" +title=""HE HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST"" /> +<span class="caption">"HE +HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST"</span> </div> + +<p>"Mebbe he 'lows he mought <i>make</i> ye industrious an' git cornsider'ble +work out'n ye," she faltered, flinching for him.</p> + +<p>After another refreshing gulp from the gourd he canvassed this +dispassionately. "Say his own chil'n air 'hearty feeders an' hard on +shoe-leather?' Takes a good deal o' goadin' ter git ploughin' enough fur +the wuth o' feed out'n a toler'ble beastis like old Blaze-face thar, +don't it, Neighbor?—an' how is it a-goin' ter be with a human ez +mebbe will hold back an' air sot agin ploughin' ennyhow, an' air sorter +idle by profession? 'Twould gin him a heap o' trouble—more'n the +ploughin' an' sech would be wuth—a heap o' trouble." Once more he +bowed his head to the gourd.</p> + +<p>"He 'lowed ye shouldn't dwell no mo' in the tents o' sin. He seen the +fiddle, Lee; it's all complicated with the fiddle," she quavered, very +near tears of vexation.</p> + +<p>He lifted a smiling moonlit face; his half-suppressed laugh echoed +gurglingly in the gourd. "Cap'n," he said, reassuringly, "jes let's hear +Uncle Nehemiah talk some mo', an' ef I can't see no mo' likely work fur +me 'n ploughin', I'll think myself mighty safe."</p> + +<p>They felt like three conspirators as after supper they drew their chairs +around the fire with the unsuspicious Uncle Nehemiah. However, Nehemiah +Yerby could hardly be esteemed unsuspicious in any point of view, so +full of vigilant craft was his<span class="pagenum">[216]</span> intention in every anticipation, so +slyly sanctimonious was his long countenance.</p> + +<p>There could hardly have been a greater contrast than Tyler Sudley's +aspect presented. His candid face seemed a mirror for his thought; he +had had scant experience in deception, and he proved a most unlikely +novice in the art. His features were heavy and set; his manner was +brooding and depressed; he did not alertly follow the conversation; on +the contrary, he seemed oblivious of it as his full dark eyes rested +absently on the fire. More than once he passed his hand across them with +a troubled, harassed manner, and he sighed heavily. For which his +co-conspirators could have fallen upon him. How could he be so dull, so +forgetful of all save the fear of separation from the boy whom he had +reared, whom he loved as his own son; how could he fail to know that a +jaunty, assured mien might best serve his interests until at any rate +the blow had fallen; why should he wear the insignia of defeat before +the strength of his claim was tested? Assuredly his manner was +calculated to greatly reinforce Nehemiah Yerby's confidence, and to +assist in eliminating difficulties in the urging of his superior rights +and the carrying out of his scheme. Mrs. Sudley's heart sank as she +caught a significant gleam from the boy's eyes; he too appreciated this +disastrous policy, this virtual surrender before a blow was struck.</p> + +<p>"An' Ty ain't afeard o' bars," she silently commented, "nor wolves, nor +wind, nor lightning, nor man in enny kind o' a free fight; but bekase he +dun'no' how the <i>law</i> stands, an' air afeard the law<span class="pagenum">[217]</span> <i>mought</i> be +able ter take Lee-yander, he jes sets thar ez pitiful ez a lost kid, +fairly ready ter blate aloud."</p> + +<p>She descried the covert triumph twinkling among the sparse light lashes +and "crow-feet" about Nehemiah's eyes as he droned on an +ever-lengthening account of his experiences since leaving the county.</p> + +<p>"It's a mighty satisfyin' thing ter be well off in yearthly goods an' +chattels," said Laurelia, with sudden inspiration. "Ty, thar, is in +debt."</p> + +<p>For Uncle Nehemiah had been dwelling unctuously upon the extent to which +it had pleased the Lord to prosper him. His countenance fell suddenly. +His discomfiture in her unexpected disclosure was twofold, in that it +furnished a reason for Tyler's evident depression of spirits, +demolishing the augury that his manner had afforded as to the success of +the guest's mission, and furthermore, to Nehemiah's trafficking soul, it +suggested that a money consideration might be exacted to mollify the +rigors of parting.</p> + +<p>For Nehemiah Yerby had risen to the dignities, solvencies, and +responsibilities of opening a store at the cross-roads in Kildeer +County. It was a new and darling enterprise with him, and his mind and +speech could not long be wiled away from the subject. This abrupt +interjection of a new element into his cogitations gave him pause, and +he did not observe the sudden rousing of Tyler Sudley from his revery, +and the glance of indignant reproach which he cast on his wife. No man, +however meek, or however bowed down with sorrow,<span class="pagenum">[218]</span> will bear unmoved +a gratuitous mention of his debts; it seems to wound him with all the +rancor of insult, and to enrage him with the hopelessness of adequate +retort or reprisal. It is an indignity, like taunting a ghost with +cock-crow, or exhorting a clergyman to repentance. He flung himself all +at once into the conversation, to bar and baffle any renewed allusion to +that subject, and it was accident rather than intention which made him +grasp Nehemiah in the vise of a quandary also.</p> + +<p>"Ye say ye got a store an' a stock o' truck, Nehemiah. Air ye ekal ter +keepin' store an' sech?" he demanded, speculatively, with an inquiring +and doubtful corrugation of his brows, from which a restive lock of hair +was flung backward like the toss of a horse's mane.</p> + +<p>"I reckon so," Nehemiah sparely responded, blinking at him across the +fireplace.</p> + +<p>"An' ye say ye hev applied fur the place o' postmaster?" Tyler prosed +on. "All that takes a power o' knowledge—readin' an' writin' an' +cipherin' an' sech. How air ye expectin' to hold out, 'kase I know ye +never hed no mo' larnin' than me, an' I war acquainted with ye till ye +war thirty years old an' better?"</p> + +<p>The tenor of this discourse did not comport with his customary suavity +and tactful courtesy toward a guest, but he was much harassed and had +lost his balance. He had a vague idea that Mrs. Sudley hung upon the +flank of the conversation with a complete summary of amounts, dates, and +names of creditors, and he sought to balk this in its inception. +Moreover, his forbearance with Nehemiah,<span class="pagenum">[219]</span> with his presence, his +personality, his mission, had begun to wane. Bitter reflections might +suffice to fill the time were he suffered to be silent; but since a part +in the conversation had been made necessary, he had for it no honeyed +words.</p> + +<p>"I'd make about ez fit a postmaster, I know, ez that thar old ow<i>el</i> +a-hootin' out yander. I could look smart an' sober like him, but that's +'bout all the fur my school-larnin' kerried me, an' yourn didn't reach +ter the nex' mile-post—an' that I know."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah's thin lips seemed dry. More than once his tongue appeared +along their verges as he nervously moistened them. His small eyes had +brightened with an excited look, but he spoke very slowly, and to +Laurelia it seemed guardedly.</p> + +<p>"I tuk ter my book arterward, Brother Sudley. I applied myself ter +larnin' vigorous. Bein' ez I seen the Lord's hand war liberal with the +gifts o' this worl', I wanted ter stir myself ter desarve the good +things."</p> + +<p>Sudley brought down the fore-legs of his chair to the floor with a +thump. Despite his anxiety a slow light of ridicule began to kindle on +his face; his curling lip showed his strong white teeth.</p> + +<p>"Waal, by gum! ye mus' hev been a sight ter be seen! Ye, forty or fifty +years old, a-settin' on the same seat with the chil'n at the deestric' +school, an' a-competin' with the leetle tadpoles fur 'Baker an' Shady' +an sech!"</p> + +<p>He was about to break forth with a guffaw of great relish when Nehemiah +spoke hastily, forestalling the laughter.<span class="pagenum">[220]</span></p> + +<p>"Naw; Abner Sage war thar fur a good while las' winter a-visitin' his +sister, an' he kem an' gin me lessons an' set me copies thar at my +house, an' I larnt a heap."</p> + +<p>Leander lifted his head suddenly. The amount of progress possible to +this desultory and limited application he understood only too well. He +had not learned so much himself to be unaware how much in time and labor +learning costs. The others perceived no incongruity. Sudley's face was +florid with pride and pleasure, and his wife's reflected the glow.</p> + +<p>"Ab Sage at the cross-roads! Then he mus' hev tole ye 'bout Lee-yander +hyar, an' his larnin'. Ab tole, I know."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah drew his breath in quickly. His twinkling eyes sent out the +keenest glance of suspicion, but the gay, affectionate, vaunting laugh, +as Tyler Sudley turned around and clapped the boy a ringing blow on his +slender shoulder, expressed only the plenitude of his simple vainglory.</p> + +<p>"Lee-yander hyar <i>knows it all</i>!" he boasted. "Old Ab himself don't know +no mo'! I'll be bound old Ab went a-braggin'—hey, Lee-yander?"</p> + +<p>But the boy shrank away a trifle, and his smile was mechanical as he +silently eyed his relative.</p> + +<p>"Ab 'lowed he war tur'ble disobejient," said Nehemiah, after a pause, +and cautiously allowing himself to follow in the talk, "an' gi'n over +ter playin' the fiddle." He hesitated for a moment, longing to +stigmatize its ungodliness; but the recollection of Tyler Sudley's +uncertain temper decided him,<span class="pagenum">[221]</span> and he left it unmolested. "But Ab +'lowed ye war middlin' quick at figgers, Lee-yander—middlin' quick +at figgers!"</p> + +<p>Leander, still silent and listening, flushed slightly. This measured +praise was an offence to him; but he looked up brightly and obediently +when his uncle wagged an uncouthly sportive head (Nehemiah's anatomy +lent itself to the gay and graceful with much reluctance), thrust his +hands into his pockets, and, tilting himself back in his chair, +continued:</p> + +<p>"I'll try ye, sonny—I'll try ye. How much air nine times +seven?—nine times seven?"</p> + +<p>"Forty-two!" replied the boy, with a bright, docile countenance fixed +upon his relative.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. "Right!" exclaimed Nehemiah, to the relief of Sudley +and his wife, who had trembled during the pause, for it seemed so +threatening. They smiled at each other, unconscious that the examination +meant aught more serious than a display of their prodigy's learning.</p> + +<p>"An', now, how much air twelve times eight?" demanded Nehemiah.</p> + +<p>"Sixty-six!" came the answer, quick as lightning.</p> + +<p>"Right, sir, every time!" cried Nehemiah with a glow of genuine +exultation, as he brought down the fore-legs of the chair to the floor, +and the two Sudleys laughed aloud with pleasure.</p> + +<p>Leander saw them all distorted and grimacing while the room swam round. +The scheme was clear enough to him now. The illiterate Nehemiah, whose +worldly prosperity had outstripped his mental qualifications, had +bethought himself of filling<span class="pagenum">[222]</span> the breach with his nephew, given +away as surplusage in his burdensome infancy, but transformed into a +unique utility under the tutelage of Abner Sage. It was his boasting of +his froward pupil, doubtless, that had suggested the idea, and Leander +understood now that he was to do the work of the store and the +post-office under the nominal incumbency of this unlettered lout. Had +the whole transaction been open and acknowledged, Leander would have had +scant appetite for the work under this master; but he revolted at the +flimsy, contemptible sham; he bitterly resented the innuendoes against +the piety of the Sudleys, not that he cared for piety, save in the +abstract; he was daunted by the brutal ignorance, the doltish +inefficiency of the imposture that had so readily accepted his patently +false answers to the simple questions. He had a sort of crude reverence +for education, and it had seemed to him a very serious matter to take +such liberties with the multiplication table. He valued, too, with a +boy's stalwart vanity, his reputation for great learning, and he would +not have lightly jeopardized it did he not esteem the crisis momentous. +He knew not what he feared. The fraud of the intention, the groundless +claim to knowledge, made Nehemiah's scheme seem multifariously guilty in +some sort; while Tyler Sudley and his wife, albeit no wiser +mathematically, had all the sanctions of probity in their calm, +unpretending ignorance.</p> + +<p>"Ef Cap'n or Neighbor wanted ter run a post-office on my larnin', or ter +keep store, they'd be welcome; but I won't play stalkin'-horse fur +that<span class="pagenum">[223]</span> thar man's still-hunt, sure ez shootin'," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>The attention which he bent upon the conversation thenceforth was an +observation of its effect rather than its matter. He saw that he was +alone in his discovery. Neither Sudley nor his wife had perceived any +connection between the store, the prospective post-office, and the +desire of the illiterate would-be postmaster to have his erudite nephew +restored to his care.</p> + +<p>It may be that the methods of his "Neighbor" and the "Captain" in the +rearing of Leander, the one with unbridled leniency, the other with +spurious severity and affected indifference, had combined to foster +self-reliance and decision of character, or it may be that these +qualities were inherent traits. At all events, he encountered the +emergency without an instant's hesitation. He felt no need of counsel. +He had no doubts. He carried to his pallet in the roof-room no +vacillations and no problems. His resolve was taken. For a time, as he +listened to the movements below-stairs, the sound of voices still rose, +drowsy as the hour waxed late; the light that flickered through the +cracks in the puncheon flooring gradually dulled, and presently a harsh +grating noise acquainted him with the fact that Sudley was shovelling +the ashes over the embers; then the tent-like attic was illumined only +by the moonlight admitted through the little square window at the gable +end—so silent, so still, it seemed that it too slept like the +silent house. The winds slumbered amidst the mute woods; a bank of cloud +that he could see from<span class="pagenum">[224]</span> his lowly couch lay in the south becalmed. +The bird's song had ceased. It seemed to him as he lifted himself on his +elbow that he had never known the world so hushed. The rustle of the +quilt of gay glazed calico was of note in the quietude; the impact of +his bare foot on the floor was hardly a sound, rather an annotation of +his weight and his movement; yet in default of all else the sense of +hearing marked it. His scheme seemed impracticable as for an instant he +wavered at the head of the ladder that served as a stairway; the next +moment his foot was upon the rungs, his light, lithe figure slipping +down it like a shadow. The room below, all eclipsed in a brown and +dusky-red medium, the compromise between light and darkness that the +presence of the embers fostered, was vaguely revealed to him. He was +hardly sure whether he saw the furniture all in place, or whether he +knew its arrangement so well that he seemed to see. Suddenly, as he laid +his hand on the violin on the wall, it became visible, its dark red wood +richly glowing against the brown logs and the tawny clay daubing. A tiny +white flame had shot up in the midst of the gray ashes, as he stood with +the cherished object in his cautious hand, his excited eyes, dilated and +expectant, searching the room apprehensively, while a vague thrill of a +murmur issued from the instrument, as if the spirit of music within it +had been wakened by his touch—too vague, too faintly elusive for +the dormant and somewhat dull perceptions of Nehemiah Yerby, calmly +slumbering in state in the best room.</p> + +<p>The faint jet of flame was withdrawn in the ashes<span class="pagenum">[225]</span> as suddenly as +it had shot forth, and in the ensuing darkness, deeper for the contrast +with that momentary illumination, it was not even a shadow that deftly +mounted the ladder again and emerged into the sheeny twilight of the +moonlit roof-room. Leander was somehow withheld for a moment motionless +at the window; it may have been by compunction; it may have been by +regret, if it be possible to the very young to definitely feel either. +There was an intimation of pensive farewell in his large illumined eyes +as they rested on the circle of familiar things about him—the +budding trees, the well, with its great angular sweep against the sky, +the still sward, the rail-fences glistening with the dew, the river with +the moonlight in a silver blazonry on its lustrous dark surface, the +encompassing shadows of the gloomy mountains. There was no sound, not +even among the rippling shallows; he could hear naught but the pain of +parting throbbing in his heart, and from the violin a faint continuous +susurrus, as if it murmured half-asleep memories of the melodies that +had thrilled its waking moments. It necessitated careful handling as he +deftly let himself out of the window, the bow held in his mouth, the +instrument in one arm, while the other hand clutched the boughs of a +great holly-tree close beside the house. It was only the moonlight on +those smooth, lustrous leaves, but it seemed as if smiling white faces +looked suddenly down from among the shadows: at this lonely hour, with +none awake to see, what strange things may there not be astir in the +world, what unmeasured, unknown forces, sometimes felt through<span class="pagenum">[226]</span> the +dulling sleep of mortals, and then called dreams! As he stood breathless +upon the ground the wind awoke. He heard it race around the corner of +the house, bending the lilac bushes, and then it softly buffeted him +full in the face and twirled his hat on the ground. As he stooped to +pick it up he heard whispers and laughter in the lustrous boughs of the +holly, and the gleaming faces shifted with the shadows. He looked +fearfully over his shoulder; the rising wind might waken some one of the +household. His "Neighbor" was, he knew, solicitous about the weather, +and suspicious of its intentions lest it not hold fine till all the oats +be sown. A pang wrung his heart; he remembered the long line of seasons +when, planting corn in the pleasant spring days, his "Neighbor" had +opened the furrow with the plough, and the "Captain" had followed, +dropping the grains, and he had brought up the rear with his hoe, +covering them over, while the clouds floated high in the air, and the +mild sun shone, and the wind kept the shadows a-flicker, and the +blackbird and the crow, complacently and craftily watching them from +afar, seemed the only possible threatening of evil in all the world. He +hastened to stiffen his resolve. He had need of it. Tyler Sudley had +said that he did not know how the law stood, and for himself, he was not +willing to risk his liberty on it. He gazed apprehensively upon the +little batten shutter of the window of the room where Nehemiah Yerby +slept, expecting to see it slowly swing open and disclose him there. It +did not stir, and gathering resolution from the terrors that had +beset<span class="pagenum">[227]</span> him when he fancied his opportunity threatened, he ran like +a frightened deer fleetly down the road, and plunged into the dense +forest. The wind kept him company, rollicking, quickening, coming and +going in fitful gusts. He heard it die away, but now and again it was +rustling among a double file of beech-trees all up the mountain-side. He +saw the commotion in their midst, the effect of swift movement as the +scant foliage fluttered, then the white branches of the trees all +a-swaying like glistening arms flung upward, as if some bevy of dryads +sped up the hill in elusive rout through the fastnesses.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The next day ushered in a tumult and excitement unparalleled in the +history of the little log-cabin. When Leander's absence was discovered, +and inquiry of the few neighbors and search of the vicinity proved +fruitless, the fact of his flight and its motive were persistently +forced upon Nehemiah Yerby's reluctant perceptions, with the destruction +of his cherished scheme as a necessary sequence. With some wild craving +for vengeance he sought to implicate Sudley as accessory to the +mysterious disappearance. He found some small measure of solace in +stumping up and down the floor before the hearth, furiously railing at +the absent host, for Sudley had not yet relinquished the bootless quest, +and indignantly upbraiding the forlorn, white-faced, grief-stricken +Laurelia, who sat silent and stony, her faded eyes on the fire, heedless +of his words. She held in her lap sundry closely-rolled knitted +balls—the boy's socks that<span class="pagenum">[228]</span> she had so carefully made and +darned. A pile of his clothing lay at her feet. He had carried nothing +but his fiddle and the clothes he stood in, and if she had had more +tears she could have wept for his improvidence, for the prospective +tatters and rents that must needs befall him in that unknown patchless +life to which he had betaken himself.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah Yerby argued that it was Sudley who had prompted the whole +thing; he had put the boy up to it, for Leander was not so lacking in +feeling as to flee from his own blood-relation. But he would set the law +to spy them out. He would be back again, and soon.</p> + +<p>He may have thought better of this presently, for he was in great haste +to be gone when Tyler Sudley returned, and to his amazement in a +counterpart frame of mind, charging Nehemiah with the responsibility of +the disaster. It was strange to Laurelia that she, who habitually strove +to fix her mind on religious things, should so relish the aspect of Ty +Sudley in his secular rage on this occasion.</p> + +<p>"Ye let we-uns hev him whilst so leetle an' helpless, but now that he +air so fine growed an' robustious ye want ter git some work out'n him, +an' he hev runned away an' tuk ter the woods tarrified by the very sight +of ye," he averred. "He'll never kem back; no, he'll never kem back; fur +he'll 'low ez ye would kem an' take him home with you; an' now the Lord +only knows whar he is, an' what will become of him."</p> + +<p>His anger and his tumultuous grief, his wild, irrepressible anxiety for +Leander's safety, convinced<span class="pagenum">[229]</span> the crafty Nehemiah that he was no +party to the boy's scheme. Sudley's sorrow was not of the kind that +renders the temper pliable, and when Nehemiah sought to point a moral in +the absence of the violin, and for the first time in Sudley's presence +protested that he desired to save Leander from that device of the devil, +the master of the house shook his inhospitable fist very close indeed to +his guest's nose, and Yerby was glad enough to follow that feature +unimpaired out to his horse at the bars, saying little more.</p> + +<p>He aired his views, however, at each house where he made it convenient +to stop on his way home, and took what comfort there might be in the +rôle of martyr. Leander was unpopular in several localities, and +was esteemed a poor specimen of the skill of the Sudleys in rearing +children. He had been pampered and spoiled, according to general report, +and more than one of his successive interlocutors were polite enough to +opine that the change to Nehemiah's charge would have been a beneficent +opportunity for much-needed discipline. Nehemiah was not devoid of some +skill in interrogatory. He contrived to elicit speculations without +giving an intimation of unduly valuing the answer.</p> + +<p>"He's 'mongst the moonshiners, I reckon," was the universal surmise. +"He'll be hid mighty safe 'mongst them."</p> + +<p>For where the still might be, or who was engaged in the illicit +business, was even a greater mystery than Leander's refuge. Nothing more +definite could be elicited than a vague rumor that some<span class="pagenum">[230]</span> such work +was in progress somewhere along the many windings of Hide-and-Seek +Creek.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah Yerby had never been attached to temperance principles, and, +commercially speaking, he had thought it possible that whiskey on which +no tax had been paid might be more profitably dispensed at his store +than that sold under the sanctions of the government. These +considerations, however, were as naught in view of the paralysis which +his interests and schemes had suffered in Leander's flight. He dwelt +with dismay upon the possibility that he might secure the postmastership +without the capable assistant whose services were essential. In this +perverse sequence of events disaster to his application was more to be +desired than success. He foresaw himself browbeaten, humiliated, +detected, a butt for the ridicule of the community, his pretensions in +the dust, his pitiful imposture unmasked. And beyond these +æsthetic misfortunes, the substantial emoluments of "keepin' +store," with a gallant sufficiency of arithmetic to regulate prices and +profits, were vanishing like the elusive matutinal haze before the +noontide sun. Nehemiah Yerby groaned aloud, for the financial stress +upon his spirit was very like physical pain. And in this inauspicious +moment he bethought himself of the penalties of violating the Internal +Revenue Laws of the United States.</p> + +<p>Now it has been held by those initiated into such mysteries that there +is scant affinity between whiskey and water. Nevertheless, in this +connection, Nehemiah Yerby developed an absorbing interest in the +watercourses of the coves and adjacent<span class="pagenum">[231]</span> mountains, especially their +more remote and sequestered tributaries. He shortly made occasion to +meet the county surveyor and ply him with questions touching the +topography of the vicinity, cloaking the real motive under the pretence +of an interest in water-power sufficient and permanent enough for the +sawing of lumber, and professing to contemplate the erection of a +saw-mill at the most eligible point. The surveyor had his especial +vanity, and it was expressed in his frequent boast that he carried a +complete map of the county graven upon his brain; he was wont to esteem +it a gracious opportunity when a casual question in a group of loungers +enabled him to display his familiarity with every portion of his rugged +and mountainous region, which was indeed astonishing, even taking into +consideration his incumbency for a number of terms, aided by a strong +head for locality. Nehemiah Yerby's scheme was incalculably favored by +this circumstance, but he found it unexpectedly difficult to support the +figment which he had propounded as to his intentions. Fiction is one of +the fine arts, and a mere amateur like Nehemiah is apt to fail in point +of consistency. He was inattentive while the surveyor dilated on the +probable value, the accessibility, and the relative height of the "fall" +of the various sites, and their available water-power, and he put +irrelevant queries concerning ineligible streams in other localities. No +man comfortably mounted upon his hobby relishes an interruption. The +surveyor would stop with a sort of bovine surprise, and break out in +irritable parenthesis.<span class="pagenum">[232]</span></p> + +<p>"That branch on the t'other side o' Panther Ridge? Why, man alive, that +thread o' water wouldn't turn a spider web."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah, quaking under the glance of his keen questioning eye, would +once more lapse into silence, while the surveyor, loving to do what he +could do well, was lured on in his favorite subject by the renewed +appearance of receptivity in his listener.</p> + +<p>"Waal, ez I war a-sayin', I know every furlong o' the creeks once down +in the Cove, an' all their meanderings, an' the best part o' them in the +hills amongst the laurel and the wildernesses. But now the ways of sech +a stream ez Hide-an'-Seek Creek are past finding out. It's a 'sinking +creek,' you know; goes along with a good volume and a swift current for +a while to the west, then disappears into the earth, an' ain't seen fur +five mile, then comes out agin running due north, makes a tremenjious +jump—the Hoho-hebee Falls—then pops into the ground agin, +an' ain't seen no more forever," he concluded, dramatically.</p> + +<p>"How d'ye know it's the same creek?" demanded Nehemiah, sceptically, and +with a wrinkling brow.</p> + +<p>"By settin' somethin' afloat on it before it sinks into the +ground—a piece of marked bark or a shingle or the like—an' +finding it agin after the stream comes out of the caves," promptly +replied the man of the compass, with a triumphant snap of the eye, as if +he entertained a certain pride in the vagaries of his untamed mountain +friend. "Nobody knows how often it disappears, nor where it<span class="pagenum">[233]</span> rises, +nor where it goes at last. It's got dozens of fust-rate millin' sites, +but then it's too fur off fur you ter think about."</p> + +<p>"Oh no 'tain't!" exclaimed Nehemiah, suddenly.</p> + +<p>The surveyor stared. "Why, you ain't thinkin' 'bout movin' up inter the +wilderness ter live, an' ye jes applied fur the post-office down at the +cross-roads? Ye can't run the post-office thar an' a saw-mill thirty +mile away at the same time."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah was visibly disconcerted. His wrinkled face showed the flush of +discomfiture, but his craft rallied to the emergency.</p> + +<p>"Moughtn't git the post-office, arter all's come an' gone. Nothin' is +sartin in this vale o' tears."</p> + +<p>"An' ye air goin' ter take ter the woods ef ye don't?" demanded the +surveyor, incredulously. "Thought ye war goin' ter keep store?"</p> + +<p>"Waal, I dun'no'; jes talkin' round," said Nehemiah, posed beyond +recuperation. "I mus' be a-joggin', ennyhow. Time's a-wastin'."</p> + +<p>As he made off hastily in the direction of his house, for this +conversation had taken place at the blacksmith's shop at the +cross-roads, the surveyor gazed after him much mystified.</p> + +<p>"What is that old fox slyin' round after? He ain't studyin' 'bout no +saw-mill, inquirin' round about all the out-o'-the-way water-power in +the kentry fifty mile from where he b'longs. He's a heap likelier to be +goin' ter start a wild cat still in them wild places—git his +whiskey cheap ter sell in his store."</p> + +<p>He shook his head sagely once for all, for the surveyor's mind was of +the type prompt in reaching<span class="pagenum">[234]</span> conclusions, and he was difficult to +divert from his convictions.</p> + +<p>A feature of the development of craft to a certain degree is the +persuasion that this endowment is not shared. A fine world it would be +if the Nehemiah Yerbys were as clever as they think themselves, and +their neighbors as dull. He readily convinced himself that he had given +no intimation that his objects and motives were other than he professed, +and with unimpaired energy he went to work upon the lines which he had +marked out for himself. A fine chase Hide-and-Seek Creek led him, to be +sure, and it tried his enthusiasms to the uttermost. What affinity this +brawling vagrant had for the briers and the rocks and the tangled +fastnesses! Seldom, indeed, could he press in to its banks and look down +upon its dimpled, laughing, heedless face without the sacrifice of +fragments of flesh and garments left impaled upon the sharp spikes of +the budding shrubs. Often it so intrenched itself amidst the dense +woods, and the rocks and chasms of its craggy banks, that approach was +impossible, and he followed it for miles only by the sound of its wild, +sweet, woodland voice. And this, too, was of a wayward fancy; now, in +turbulent glee among the rocks, riotously chanting aloud, challenging +the echoes, and waking far and near the forest quiet; and again it was +merely a low, restful murmur, intimating deep, serene pools and a +dallying of the currents, lapsed in the fulness of content. Then +Nehemiah Yerby would be beset with fears that he would lose this +whisper, and his progress was slight; he would pause to listen, +hearing<span class="pagenum">[235]</span> nothing; would turn to right, to left; would take his way +back through the labyrinth of the laurel to catch a thread of sound, a +mere crystalline tremor, and once more follow this transient lure. As +the stream came down a gorge at a swifter pace and in a succession of +leaps—a glassy cataract visible here and there, airily sporting +with rainbows, affiliating with ferns and moss and marshy growths, the +bounding spray glittering in the sunshine—it flung forth +continuously tinkling harmonies in clear crystal tones, so penetrating, +so definitely melodic, that more than once, as he paced along on his +jaded horse, he heard in their midst, without disassociating the sounds, +the <i>ping, pang, ping, pang</i>, of the violin he so condemned. He drew up +at last, and strained his ear to listen. It did not become more +distinct, always intermingled with the recurrent rhythm of the falling +water, but always vibrating in subdued throbbings, now more acute, now +less, as the undiscriminated melody ascended or descended the scale. It +came from the earth, of this he was sure, and thus he was reminded anew +of the caves which Hide-and-Seek Creek threaded in its long course. +There was some opening near by, doubtless, that led to subterranean +passages, dry enough here, since it was the stream's whim to flow in the +open sunshine instead of underground. He would have given much to search +for it had he dared. His leathery, lean, loose cheek had a glow of +excitement upon it; his small eyes glistened; for the first time in his +life, possibly, he looked young. But he did not doubt that this was the +stronghold of the illicit distillers, of whom one<span class="pagenum">[236]</span> heard so much in +the Cove and saw so little. A lapse of caution, an inconsiderate +movement, and he might be captured and dealt with as a spy and informer.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless his discovery was of scant value unless he utilized it +further. He had always believed that his nephew had fled to the secret +haunts of the moonshiners. Now he only knew it the more surely; and what +did this avail him, and how aid in the capture of the recusant clerk and +assistant postmaster? He hesitated a moment; then fixing the spot in his +mind by the falling of a broad crystal sheet of water from a ledge some +forty feet high, by a rotting log at its base that seemed to rise +continually, although the moving cataract appeared motionless, by +certain trees and their relative position, and the blue peaks on a +distant skyey background of a faint cameo yellow, he slowly turned his +horse's rein and took his way out of danger. It was chiefly some +demonstration on the animal's part that he had feared. A snort, a +hoof-beat, a whinny would betray him, and very liable was the animal to +any of these expressions. One realizes how unnecessary is speech for the +exposition of opinion when brought into contradictory relations with the +horse which one rides or drives. All day had this animal snorted his +doubts of his master's sanity; all day had he protested against these +aimless, fruitless rambles; all day had he held back with a high head +and a hard mouth, while whip and spur pressed him through laurel almost +impenetrable, and through crevices of crags almost impassable. For were +there not all the fair roads<span class="pagenum">[237]</span> of the county to pace and gallop upon +if one must needs be out and jogging! Unseen objects, vaguely discerned +to be moving in the undergrowth affrighted the old plough-horse of the +levels—infinitely reassured and whinnying with joyful relief when +the head of horned cattle showed presently as the cause of the +commotion. He would have given much a hundred times that day, and he +almost said so a hundred times, too, to be at home, with the old +bull-tongue plough behind him, running the straight rational furrow in +the good bare open field, so mellow for corn, lying in the sunshine, +inviting planting.</p> + +<p>"Ef I git ye home wunst more, I'll be bound I'll leave ye thar," +Nehemiah said, ungratefully, as they wended their way along; for without +the horse he could not have traversed the long distances of his search, +however unwillingly the aid was given.</p> + +<p>He annotated his displeasure by a kick in the ribs; and when the old +equine farmer perceived that they were absolutely bound binward, and +that their aberrations were over for the present, he struck a sharp gait +that would have done honor to his youthful days, for he had worn out +several pairs of legs in Nehemiah's fields, and was often spoken of as +being upon the last of those useful extremities. He stolidly shook his +head, which he thought so much better than his master's, and bedtime +found them twenty miles away and at home.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah felt scant fatigue. He was elated with his project. He scented +success in the air. It smelled like the season. It too was suffused with +the urgent pungency of the rising sap, with the fragrance<span class="pagenum">[238]</span> of the +wild-cherry, with the vinous promise of the orchard, with the richness +of the mould, with the vagrant perfume of the early flowers.</p> + +<p>He lighted a tallow dip, and he sat him down with writing materials at +the bare table to indite a letter while all his household slept. The +windows stood open to the dark night, and Spring hovered about outside, +and lounged with her elbows on the sill, and looked in. He constantly +saw something pale and elusive against the blackness, for there was no +moon, but he thought it only the timid irradiation with which his tallow +dip suffused the blossoming wands of an azalea, growing lithe and tall +hard by. With this witness only he wrote the letter—an anonymous +letter, and therefore he was indifferent to the inadequacies of his +penmanship and his spelling. He labored heavily in its composition, now +and then perpetrating portentous blots. He grew warm, although the fire +that had served to cook supper had long languished under the bank of +ashes. The tallow dip seemed full of caloric, and melted rapidly in +pendulous drippings. He now and again mopped his red face, usually so +bloodless, with his big bandanna handkerchief, while all the zephyrs +were fanning the flying tresses of Spring at the window, and the soft, +sweet, delicately attuned vernal chorus of the marshes were tentatively +running over <i>sotto voce</i> their allotted melodies for the season. Oh, it +was a fine night outside, and why should a moth, soft-winged and +cream-tinted and silken-textured, come whisking in from the dark, as +silently as a spirit, to supervise Nehemiah Yerby's letter, and travel +up and down the<span class="pagenum">[239]</span> page all befouled with the ink? And as he sought +to save the sense of those significant sentences from its trailing +silken draperies, why should it rise suddenly, circling again and again +about the candle, pass through the flame, and fall in quivering agonies +once more upon the page? He looked at it, dead now, with satisfaction. +It had come so very near ruining his letter—an important letter, +describing the lair of the illicit distillers to a deputy marshal of the +revenue force, who was known to be in a neighboring town. He had good +reason to withhold his signature, for the name of the informer in the +ruthless vengeance of the region would be as much as his life was worth. +The moth had not spoiled the letter—the laborious letter; he was +so glad of that! He saw no analogies, he received not even a subtle +warning, as he sealed and addressed the envelope and affixed the +postage-stamp. Then he snuffed out the candle with great satisfaction.</p> + +<p>The next morning the missive was posted, and all Nehemiah Yerby's plans +took a new lease of life. The information he had given would result in +an immediate raid upon the place. Leander would be captured among the +moonshiners, but his youth and his uncle's representations—for he +would give the officers an inkling of the true state of the +case—would doubtless insure the boy's release, and his restoration +to those attractive commercial prospects which had been devised for +him.<span class="pagenum">[240]</span></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The ordering of events is an intricate process, and to its successful +exploitation a certain degree of sagacious prescience is a prerequisite, +as well as a thorough mastery of the lessons of experience. For a day or +so all went well in the inner consciousness of Nehemiah Yerby. The +letter had satisfied his restless craving for some action toward the +consummation of his ambition, and he had not the foresight to realize +how soon the necessity of following it up would supervene. He first grew +uneasy lest his letter had not reached its destination; then, when the +illimitable field of speculation was thus opened out, he developed an +ingenuity of imagination in projecting possible disaster. Day after day +passed, and he heard naught of his cherished scheme. The +revenuers—craven wretches he deemed them, and he ground his teeth +with rage because of their seeming cowardice in their duty, since their +duty could serve his interests—might not have felt exactly +disposed to risk their lives in these sweet spring days, when perhaps +even a man whose life belongs to the government might be presumed to +take some pleasure in it, by attempting to raid the den of a gang of +moonshiners on the scanty faith of an informer's word, tenuous guaranty +at best, and now couched in an anonymous<span class="pagenum">[241]</span> letter, itself synonym +for a lie. Oh, what fine eulogies rose in his mind upon the manly virtue +of courage! How enthusing it is at all times to contemplate the courage +of others!—and how safe!</p> + +<p>Then a revulsion of belief ensued, and he began to fear that they might +already have descended upon their quarry, and with all their captives +have returned to the county town by the road by which they +came—nearer than the route through the cross-roads, though far +more rugged. Why had not this possibility before occurred to him! He had +so often prefigured their triumphant advent into the hamlet with all +their guarded and shackled prisoners, the callow Leander in the midst, +and his own gracefully enacted rôle of virtuous, grief-stricken, +pleading relative, that it seemed a recollection—something that +had really happened—rather than the figment of anticipation. But +no word, no breath of intimation, had ruffled the serenity of the +cross-roads. The calm, still, yellow sunshine day by day suffused the +land like the benignities of a dream—almost too good to be true. +Every man with the heart of a farmer within him was at the +plough-handles, and making the most of the fair weather. The cloudless +sky and the auspicious forecast of fine days still to come did more to +prove to the farmer the existence of an all-wise, overruling Providence +than all the polemics of the world might accomplish. The furrows +multiplied everywhere save in Nehemiah's own fields, where he often +stood so long in the turn-row that the old horse would desist from +twisting his head backward in surprise, and start at last of his own +motion, dragging the plough,<span class="pagenum">[242]</span> the share still unanchored in the +ground, half across the field before he could be stopped. The vagaries +of these "lands" that the absent-minded Nehemiah laid off attracted some +attention.</p> + +<p>"What ails yer furrows ter run so crooked, Nehemiah?" observed a +passer-by, a neighbor who had been to the blacksmith-shop to get his +plough-point sharpened; he looked over the fence critically. "Yer +eyesight mus' be failin' some."</p> + +<p>"I dun'no'," rejoined Nehemiah, hastily. Then reverting to his own +absorption. "War it you-uns ez I hearn say thar war word kem ter the +cross-roads 'bout some revenuers raidin' 'round somewhar in the woods?"</p> + +<p>The look of surprise cast upon him seemed to his alert anxiety to +betoken suspicion. "Laws-a-massy, naw!" exclaimed his interlocutor. "Ye +air the fust one that hev named sech ez that in these diggin's, fur I'd +hev hearn tell on it, sure, ef thar hed been enny sech word goin' the +rounds."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah recoiled into silence, and presently his neighbor went +whistling on his way. He stood motionless for a time, until the man was +well out of sight, then he began to hastily unhitch the plough-gear. His +resolution was taken. He could wait no longer. For aught he knew the +raiders might have come and gone, and be now a hundred miles away with +their prisoners to stand their trial in the Federal court. His schemes +might have all gone amiss, leaving him in naught the gainer. He could +rest in uncertainty no more. He feared to venture further questions when +no rumor stirred the air. They rendered him doubly liable to +suspicion—to<span class="pagenum">[243]</span> the law-abiding as a possible moonshiner, to +any sympathizer with the distillers as a probable informer. He +determined to visit the spot, and there judge how the enterprise had +fared.</p> + +<p>When next he heard that fine sylvan symphony of the sound of the falling +water—the tinkling bell-like tremors of its lighter tones mingling +with the sonorous, continuous, deeper theme rising from its weight and +volume and movement; with the surging of the wind in the pines; with the +occasional cry of a wild bird deep in the new verdure of the forests +striking through the whole with a brilliant, incidental, detached +effect—no faint vibration was in its midst of the violin's string, +listen as he might. More than once he sought to assure himself that he +heard it, but his fancy failed to respond to his bidding, although again +and again he took up his position where it had before struck his ear. +The wild minstrelsy of the woods felt no lack, and stream and wind and +harping pine and vagrant bird lifted their voices in their wonted +strains. He could hardly accept the fact; he would verify anew the +landmarks he had made and again return to the spot, his hat in his hand, +his head bent low, his face lined with anxiety and suspense. No sound, +no word, no intimation of human presence. The moonshiners were doubtless +all gone long ago, betrayed into captivity, and Leander with them. He +had so hardened his heart toward his recalcitrant young kinsman and his +Sudley friends, he felt so entirely that in being among the moonshiners +Leander had met only his deserts in coming to the bar of Federal +justice, that he would have<span class="pagenum">[244]</span> experienced scant sorrow if the nephew +had not carried off with his own personality his uncle's book-keeper and +postmaster's clerk. And so—alas, for Leander! As he meditated on +the untoward manner in which he had overshot his target, this marksman +of fate forgot the caution which had distinguished his approach, for +hitherto it had been as heedful as if he fully believed the lion still +in his den. He slowly patrolled the bank below the broad, thin, crystal +sheet, seeing naught but its rainbow hovering elusively in the sun, and +its green and white skein-like draperies pendulous before the great dark +arch over which the cataract fell. The log caught among the rocks in the +spray at the base was still there, seeming always to rise while the +restless water seemed motionless.</p> + +<p>No trace that human beings had ever invaded these solitudes could he +discover. No vague, faint suggestion of the well-hidden lair of the +moonshiners did the wild covert show forth. "The revenuers war smarter'n +me; I'll say that fur 'em," he muttered at last as he came to a +stand-still, his chin in his hand, his perplexed eyes on the ground. And +suddenly—a footprint on a marshy spot; only the heel of a boot, +for the craggy ledges hid all the ground but this, a mere sediment of +sand in a tiny hollow in the rock from which the water had evaporated. +It was a key to the mystery. Instantly the rugged edges of the cliff +took on the similitude of a path. Once furnished with this idea, he +could perceive adequate footing all adown the precipitous way. He was +not young; his habits had been inactive, and were older even than his +age. He could<span class="pagenum">[245]</span> not account for it afterward, but he followed for a +few paces this suggestion of a path down the precipitous sides of the +stream. He had a sort of triumph in finding it so practicable, and he +essayed it still farther, although the sound of the water had grown +tumultuous at closer approach, and seemed to foster a sort of responsive +turmoil of the senses; he felt his head whirl as he looked at the +bounding, frothing spray, then at the long swirls of the current at the +base of the fall as they swept on their way down the gorge. As he sought +to lift his fascinated eyes, the smooth glitter of the crystal sheet of +falling water so close before him dazzled his sight. He wondered +afterward how his confused senses and trembling limbs sustained him +along the narrow, rugged path, here and there covered with oozing green +moss, and slippery with the continual moisture. It evidently was wending +to a ledge. All at once the contour of the place was plain to him; the +ledge led behind the cataract that fell from the beetling heights above. +And within were doubtless further recesses, where perchance the +moonshiners had worked their still. As he reached the ledge he could see +behind the falling water and into the great concave space which it +screened beneath the beetling cliff. It was as he had expected—an +arched portal of jagged brown rocks, all dripping with moisture and +oozing moss, behind the semi-translucent green-and-white drapery of the +cascade.</p> + +<p>But he had not expected to see, standing quietly in the great vaulted +entrance, a man with his left hand on a pistol in his belt, the mate of +which his<span class="pagenum">[246]</span> more formidable right hand held up with a steady finger +on the trigger.</p> + +<p>This much Nehemiah beheld, and naught else, for the glittering profile +of the falls, visible now only aslant, the dark, cool recess beyond, +that menacing motionless figure at the vanishing-point of the +perspective, all blended together in an indistinguishable whirl as his +senses reeled. He barely retained consciousness enough to throw up both +his hands in token of complete submission. And then for a moment he knew +no more. He was still leaning motionless against the wall of rock when +he became aware that the man was sternly beckoning to him to continue +his approach. His dumb lips moved mechanically in response, but any +sound must needs have been futile indeed in the pervasive roar of the +waters. He felt that he had hardly strength for another step along the +precipitous way, but there is much tonic influence in a beckoning +revolver, and few men are so weak as to be unable to obey its behests. +Poor Nehemiah tottered along as behooved him, leaving all the world, +liberty, volition, behind him as the descending sheet of water fell +between him and the rest of life and shut him off.</p> + +<p>"That's it, my leetle man! I thought you could make it!" were the first +words he could distinguish as he joined the mountaineer beneath the +crag.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah Yerby had never before seen this man. That in itself was +alarming, since in the scanty population of the region few of its +denizens are unknown to each other, at least by sight. The tone of +satire, the gleam of enjoyment in his keen blue eye, were<span class="pagenum">[247]</span> not +reassuring to the object of his ridicule. He was tall and somewhat +portly, and he had a bluff and offhand manner, which, however, served +not so much to intimate his good-will toward you as his abounding +good-humor with himself. He was a man of most arbitrary temper, one +could readily judge, not only from his own aspect and manner, but from +the docile, reliant, approving cast of countenance of his reserve +force—a half-dozen men, who were somewhat in the background, +lounging on the rocks about a huge copper still. They wore an attentive +aspect, but offered to take no active part in the scene enacted before +them. One of them—even at this crucial moment Yerby noticed it +with a pang of regretful despair—held noiseless on his knee a +violin, and more than once addressed himself seriously to rubbing rosin +over the bow. There was scant music in his face—a square +physiognomy, with thick features, and a shock of hay-colored hair +striped somewhat with an effect of darker shades like a weathering +stack. He handled the bow with a blunt, clumsy hand that augured little +of delicate skill, and he seemed from his diligence to think that rosin +is what makes a fiddle play. He was evidently one of those unhappy +creatures furnished with some vague inner attraction to the charms of +music, with no gift, no sentiment, no discrimination. Something faintly +sonorous there was in his soul, and it vibrated to the twanging of the +strings. He was far less alert to the conversation than the others, +whose listening attitudes attested their appreciation of the importance +of the moment.</p> + +<p>"Waal," observed the moonshiner, impatiently,<span class="pagenum">[248]</span> eying the tremulous +and tongue-tied Yerby, "hev ye fund what ye war a-huntin' fur?"</p> + +<p>So tenacious of impressions was Nehemiah that it was the violin in those +alien hands which still focussed his attention as he stared gaspingly +about. Leander was not here; probably had never been here; and the +twanging of those strings had lured him to his fate. Well might he +contemn the festive malevolence of the violin's influence! His letter +had failed; no raider had intimidated these bluff, unafraid, burly +law-breakers, and he had put his life in jeopardy in his persistent +prosecution of his scheme. He gasped again at the thought.</p> + +<p>"<i>Waal</i>," said the moonshiner, evidently a man of short patience, and +with a definite air of spurring on the visitor's account of himself, "we +'ain't been lookin' fur any spy lately, but I'm 'lowin' ez we hev fund +him."</p> + +<p>His fear thus put into words so served to realize to Yerby his immediate +danger that it stood him in the stead of courage, of brains, of +invention; his flaccid muscles were suddenly again under control; he +wreathed his features with his smug artificial smile, that was like a +grimace in its best estate, and now hardly seemed more than a +contortion. But beauty in any sense was not what the observer was +prepared to expect in Nehemiah, and the moonshiner seemed to accept the +smile at its face value, and to respect its intention.</p> + +<p>"Spies don't kem climbin' down that thar path o' yourn in full view +through the water"—for the landscape was as visible through the +thin falling sheet as if it had been the slightly corrugated glass<span class="pagenum">[249]</span> +of a window—"do they?" Yerby asked, with a jocose intonation. +"That thar shootin'-iron o' yourn liked ter hev skeered me ter death +whenst I fust seen it."</p> + +<p>His interlocutor pondered on this answer for a moment. He had an adviser +among his corps whose opinion he evidently valued; he exchanged a quick +glance with one of the men who was but dimly visible in the shadows +beyond the still, where there seemed to be a series of troughs leading a +rill of running water down from some farther spring and through the tub +in which the spiral worm was coiled. This man had a keen, white, lean +face, with an ascetic, abstemious expression, and he looked less like a +distiller than some sort of divine—some rustic pietist, with +strange theories and unhappy speculations and unsettled mind. It was a +face of subtle influences, and the very sight of it roused in Nehemiah a +more heedful fear than the "shootin'-iron" in the bluff moonshiner's +hand had induced. He was silent, while the other resumed the office of +spokesman.</p> + +<p>"Ye ain't 'quainted hyar"—he waved his hand with the pistol in it +around at the circle of uncowering men, although the mere movement made +Nehemiah cringe with the thought that an accidental discharge might as +effectually settle his case as premeditated and deliberate murder. "Ye +dun'no' none o' us. What air ye a-doin' hyar?"</p> + +<p>"Why, that thar war the very trouble," Yerby hastily explained. "<i>I +didn't know none o' ye!</i> I hed hearn ez thar war a still somewhars on +Hide-an'-Seek Creek"—once more there ensued a swift exchange of +glances among the party—"but nobody knew who run it nor whar +'twar. An' one day, consider'ble<span class="pagenum">[250]</span> time ago, I war a-passin' nigh +'bouts an' I hearn that fiddle, an' that revealed the spot ter me. An' I +kem ter-day 'lowin' ye an' me could strike a trade."</p> + +<p>Once more the bluff man of force turned an anxious look of inquiry to +the pale, thoughtful face in the brown and dark green shadows beyond the +copper gleam of the still. If policy had required that Nehemiah should +be despatched, his was the hand to do the deed, and his the stomach to +support his conscience afterward. But his brain revolted from the +discriminating analysis of Nehemiah's discourse and a decision on its +merits.</p> + +<p>"Trade fur what?" he demanded at last, on his own responsibility, for no +aid had radiated from the face which his looks had interrogated.</p> + +<p>"Fur whiskey, o' course." Nehemiah made the final plunge boldly. "I be +goin' ter open a store at the cross-roads, an' I 'lowed I could git +cheaper whiskey untaxed than taxed. I 'lowed ye wouldn't make it ef ye +didn't expec' ter sell it. I didn't know none o' you-uns, an' none o' +yer customers. An' ez I expec' ter git mo' profit on sellin' whiskey 'n +ennything else in the store, I jes took foot in hand an' kem ter see +'boutn it mysef. I never 'lowed, though, ez it mought look cur'ous ter +you-uns, or like a spy, ter kem ez bold ez brass down the path in full +sight."</p> + +<p>The logic of the seeming security of his approach, and the apparent +value of his scheme, had their full weight. He saw credulity gradually +overpowering doubt and distrust, and his heart grew light with relief. +Even their cautious demur, intimating a reserve of opinion to the effect +that they<span class="pagenum">[251]</span> would think about it, did not daunt him now. He +believed, in the simplicity of his faith in his own craft, now once more +in the ascendant, that if they should accept his proposition he would be +free to go without further complication of his relations with wild-cat +whiskey. He could not sufficiently applaud his wits for the happy +termination of the adventure to which they had led him. He had gone no +further in the matter than he had always intended. Brush whiskey was the +commodity that addressed itself most to his sense of speculation. For +this he had always expected to ferret out some way of safely +negotiating. He had gone no further than he should have done, at all +events, a little later. He even began mentally to "figger on the price" +down to which he should be able to bring the distillers, as he accepted +a proffered seat in the circle about the still. He could neither divide +nor multiply by fractions, and it is not too much to say that he might +have been throttled on the spot if the moonshiners could have had a +mental vision of the liberties the stalwart integers were taking with +their price-current, so to speak, and the preternatural discount that +was making so free with their profits. So absorbed in this pleasing +intellectual exercise was Nehemiah that he did not observe that any one +had left the coterie; but when a stir without on the rocks intimated an +approach he was suddenly ill at ease, and this discomfort increased when +the new-comer proved to be a man who knew him.</p> + +<p>"Waal, Nehemiah Yerby!" he exclaimed, shaking his friend's hand, "I +never knowed you-uns<span class="pagenum">[252]</span> ter be consarned in sech ez moonshinin'. I +hev been a-neighborin' Isham hyar," he laid his heavy hand on the tall +moonshiner's shoulder, "fur ten year an' better, but I won't hev nuthin' +ter do with bresh whiskey or aidin' or abettin' in illicit 'stillin'. I +like Isham, an' Isham he likes me, an' we hev jes agreed ter disagree."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah dared not protest nor seek to explain. He could invent no story +that would not give the lie direct to his representations to the +moonshiners. He felt that their eyes were upon him. He could only hope +that his silence did not seem to them like denial—and yet was not +tantamount to confession in the esteem of his upbraider.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," his interlocutor continued, "it's a mighty bad government +ter run agin." Then he turned to the moonshiner, evidently taking up the +business that had brought him here. "Lemme see what sorter brand ye hev +registered fur yer cattle, Isham."</p> + +<p>Yerby's heart sank when the suspicion percolated through his brain that +this man had been induced to come here for the purpose of recognizing +him. More fixed in this opinion was he when no description of the brand +of the cattle could be found, and the visitor finally went away, his +errand bootless.</p> + +<p>From time to time during the afternoon other men went out and returned +with recruits on various pretexts, all of which Nehemiah believed masked +the marshalling of witnesses to incriminate him as one of themselves, in +order to better secure his constancy to the common interests, and in +case he<span class="pagenum">[253]</span> was playing false to put others into possession of the +facts as to the identity of the informer. His liability to the law for +aiding and abetting in moonshining was very complete before the day +darkened, and his jeopardy as to the information he had given made him +shake in his shoes.</p> + +<p>For at any moment, he reflected, in despair, the laggard raiders might +swoop down upon them, and the choice of rôles offered to him was +to seem to them a moonshiner, or to the moonshiners an informer. The +first was far the safer, for the clutches of the law were indeed feeble +as contrasted with the popular fury that would pursue him unwearied for +years until its vengeance was accomplished. From the one, escape was to +the last degree improbable; from the other, impossible.</p> + +<p>Any pretext to seek to quit the place before the definite arrangements +of his negotiation were consummated seemed even to him, despite his +eagerness to be off, too tenuous, too transparent, to be essayed, +although he devised several as he sat meditative and silent amongst the +group about the still. The prospect grew less and less inviting as the +lingering day waned, and the evening shadows, dank and chill, +perceptibly approached. The brown and green recesses of the grotto were +at once murkier, and yet more distinctly visible, for the glow of the +fire, flickering through the crevices of the metal door of the furnace, +had begun to assert its luminous quality, which was hardly perceptible +in the full light of day, and brought out the depth of the shadows. The +figures and faces of the moonshiners showed against the deepening gloom. +The sunset<span class="pagenum">[254]</span> clouds were still red without; a vague roseate +suffusion was visible through the falling water. The sun itself had not +yet sunk, for an oblique and almost level ray, piercing the cataract, +painted a series of faint prismatic tints on one side of the rugged +arch. But while the outer world was still in touch with the clear-eyed +day, night was presently here, with mystery and doubt and dark presage. +The voice of Hoho-hebee Falls seemed to him louder, full of strange, +uncomprehended meanings, and insistent iteration. Vague echoes were +elicited. Sometimes in a seeming pause he could catch their lisping +sibilant tones repeating, repeating—what? As the darkness +encroached yet more heavily upon the cataract, the sense of its unseen +motion so close at hand oppressed his very soul; it gave an idea of the +swift gathering of shifting invisible multitudes, coming and +going—who could say whence or whither? So did this impression +master his nerves that he was glad indeed when the furnace door was +opened for fuel, and he could see only the inanimate, ever-descending +sheet of water—the reverse interior aspect of Hoho-hebee +Falls—all suffused with the uncanny tawny light, but showing white +and green tints like its diurnal outer aspect, instead of the colorless +outlines, resembling a drawing of a cataract, which the cave knew by +day. He did not pause to wonder whether the sudden transient +illumination was visible without, or how it might mystify the untutored +denizens of the woods, bear, or deer, or wolf, perceiving it aglow in +the midst of the waters like a great topaz, and anon lost in the gloom. +He pined to see it; the momentary cessation<span class="pagenum">[255]</span> of darkness, of the +effect of the sounds, so strange in the obscurity, and of the chill, +pervasive mystery of the invisible, was so grateful that its influence +was tonic to his nerves, and he came to watch for its occasion and to +welcome it. He did not grudge it even when it gave the opportunity for a +close, unfriendly, calculating scrutiny of his face by the latest comer +to the still. This was the neighboring miller, also liable to the +revenue laws, the distillers being valued patrons of the mill, and since +he ground the corn for the mash he thereby aided and abetted in the +illicit manufacture of the whiskey. His life was more out in the world +than that of his underground <i>confrères</i>, and perhaps, as he had +a thriving legitimate business, and did not live by brush whiskey, he +had more to lose by detection than they, and deprecated even more any +unnecessary risk. He evidently took great umbrage at the introduction of +Nehemiah amongst them.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," he observed, in response to the cordial greeting which he met; +"an' I'm glad ter see ye all too. I'm powerful glad ter kem ter the +still enny time. It's ekal ter goin' ter the settlemint, or plumb ter +town on a County Court day. Ye see <i>everybody</i>, an' hear <i>all</i> the news, +an' meet up with <i>interestin' strangers</i>. I tell ye, now, the mill's +plumb lonesome compared ter the still, an' the mill's always hed the +name of a place whar a heap o' cronies gathered ter swap lies, an' +sech."</p> + +<p>The irony of this description of the social delights and hospitable +accessibilities of a place esteemed the very stronghold of secrecy +itself—the liberty of<span class="pagenum">[256]</span> every man in it jeopardized by the +slightest lapse of vigilance or judgment—was very readily to be +appreciated by the group, who were invited by this fair show of words to +look down the vista of the future to possible years of captivity in the +jails of far-away States as Federal prisoners. The men gazed heavily and +anxiously from one to another as the visitor sank down on the rocks in a +relaxed attitude, his elbow on a higher ledge behind him, supporting his +head on his hand; his other hand was on his hip, his arm stiffly akimbo, +while he looked with an expression of lowering exasperation at Yerby. It +was impossible to distinguish the color of his garb, so dusted with +flour was he from head to foot; but his long boots drawn over his +trousers to the knee, and his great spurs, and a brace of pistols in his +belt, seemed incongruous accessories to the habiliments of a miller. His +large, dark hat was thrust far back on his head; his hair, rising +straight in a sort of elastic wave from his brow, was powdered white; +the effect of his florid color and his dark eyes was accented by the +contrast; his pointed beard revealed its natural tints because of his +habit of frequently brushing his hand over it, and was distinctly red. +He was lithe and lean and nervous, and had the impatient temper +characteristic of mercurial natures. It mattered not to him what was the +coercion of the circumstances which had led to the reception of the +stranger here, nor what was the will of the majority; he disapproved of +the step; he feared it; he esteemed it a grievance done him in his +absence; and he could not conceal his feelings nor wait a more fitting +time<span class="pagenum">[257]</span> to express them in private. His irritation and objection +evidently caused some solicitude amongst the others. He was important to +them, and they deprecated his displeasure. Isham Beaton listened to the +half-covert sneers of his words with perturbation plainly depicted on +his face, and the man whom Nehemiah had at first noticed as one whose +character seemed that of adviser, and whose opinion was valued, now +spoke for the first time. He handed over a broken-nosed pitcher with the +remark, "Try the flavor of this hyar whiskey, Alfred; 'pears like ter me +the bes' we-uns hev ever hed."</p> + +<p>His voice was singularly smooth; it had all the qualities of culture; +every syllable, every lapse of his rude dialect, was as distinct as if +he had been taught to speak in this way; his tones were low and even, +and modulated to suave cadences; the ear experienced a sense of relief +after the loud, strident voice of the miller, poignantly penetrating and +pitched high.</p> + +<p>"Naw, Hilary, I don't want nuthin' ter drink. 'Bleeged ter ye, but I +ain't wantin' nuthin' ter drink," reiterated the miller, plaintively.</p> + +<p>Isham Beaton cast a glance of alarm at the dimly seen, monastic face of +his adviser in the gloom. It was unchanged. Its pallor and its keen +outline enabled its expression to be discerned as he himself went +through the motions of sampling the rejected liquor, shook his head +discerningly, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and deposited the +pitcher near by on a shelf of the rock.</p> + +<p>A pause ensued. Nehemiah, with every desire<span class="pagenum">[258]</span> to be agreeable, +hardly knew how to commend himself to the irate miller, who would have +none of his very existence. No one could more eagerly desire him to be +away than he himself. But his absence would not satisfy the miller; +nothing less than that the intruder should never have been here. Every +perceptible lapse of the moonshiners into anxiety, every recurrent +intimation of their most pertinent reason for this anxiety, set Nehemiah +a-shaking in his shoes. Should it be esteemed the greatest good to the +greatest number to make safely away with him, his fate would forever +remain unknown, so cautious had he been to leave no trace by which he +might be followed. He gazed with deprecating urbanity, and with his lips +distended into a propitiating smile, at the troubled face powdered so +white and with its lowering eyes so dark and petulant. He noted that the +small-talk amongst the others, mere unindividualized lumpish fellows +with scant voice in the government of their common enterprise, had +ceased, and that they no longer busied themselves with the necessary +work about the still, nor with the snickering interludes and horse-play +with which they were wont to beguile their labors. They had all seated +themselves, and were looking from one to the other of the more important +members of the guild with an air which betokened the momentary +expectation of a crisis. The only exception was the man who had the +violin; with the persistent, untimely industry of incapacity, he twanged +the strings, and tuned and retuned the instrument, each time producing a +result more astonishingly off the key than before.<span class="pagenum">[259]</span> He was +evidently unaware of this till some one with senses ajar would suggest +that all was not as it should be in the drunken reeling catch he sought +to play, when he would desist in surprise, and once more diligently rub +the bow with rosin, as if that mended the matter. The miller's lowering +eyes rested on his shadowy outline as he sat thus engaged, for a moment, +and then he broke out suddenly:</p> + +<p>"Yes, this hyar still is the place fur news, an' the place ter look out +fur what ye don't expec' ter happen. It's powerful pleasant ter be +a-meetin' of folks hyar—this hyar stranger this evenin'"—his +gleaming teeth in the semi-obscurity notified Yerby that a smile of +spurious politeness was bent upon him, and he made haste to grin very +widely in response—"an' that thar fiddle 'minds me o' how +onexpected 'twar whenst I met up with Lee-yander hyar—'pears ter +me, Bob, ez ye air goin' ter diddle the life out'n his fiddle—an' +Hilary jes begged an' beseeched me ter take the boy with me ter help +'round the mill, ez he war a-runnin' away. Ye want me ter 'commodate +this stranger too, ez mebbe air runnin' from them ez wants him, hey +Hilary?"</p> + +<p>The grin was petrified on Nehemiah's face. He felt his blood rush +quickly to his head in the excitement of the moment. So here was the +bird very close at hand! And here was his enterprise complete and +successful. He could go away after the cowardly caution of the +moonshiners should have expended itself in dallying and delay, with his +negotiation for the "wild-cat" ended, and his accomplished young +relative in charge. He drew<span class="pagenum">[260]</span> himself erect with a sense of power. +The moonshiners, the miller, would not dare to make an objection. He +knew too much! he knew far too much!</p> + +<p>The door of the furnace was suddenly flung ajar, but he was too much +absorbed to perceive the change that came upon the keen face of Hilary +Tarbetts, who knelt beside it, as the guest's portentous triumphant +smile was fully revealed. Yerby did not lose, however, the glance of +reproach which the moonshiner cast upon the miller, nor the miller's air +at once triumphant, ashamed, and regretful. He had in petulant pique +disclosed the circumstance which he had pledged himself not to disclose.</p> + +<p>"This man's name is Yerby too," Hilary said, significantly, gazing +steadily at the miller.</p> + +<p>The miller looked dumfounded for a moment. He stared from one to the +other in silence. His conscious expression changed to obvious +discomfiture. He had expected no such result as this. He had merely +given way to a momentary spite in the disclosure, thinking it entirely +insignificant, only calculated to slightly annoy Hilary, who had made +the affair his own. He would not in any essential have thwarted his +comrade's plans intentionally, nor in his habitual adherence to the +principles of fair play would he have assisted in the boy's capture. He +drew himself up from his relaxed posture; his spurred feet shuffled +heavily on the stone floor of the grotto. A bright red spot appeared on +each cheek; his eyes had become anxious and subdued in the quick +shiftings of temper common to the red-haired gentry; his face of +helpless<span class="pagenum">[261]</span> appeal was bent on Hilary Tarbetts, as if relying on his +resources to mend the matter; but ever and anon he turned his eyes, +animated with a suspicious dislike, on Yerby, who, however, could have +snapped his fingers in the faces of them all, so confident, so +hilariously triumphant was he.</p> + +<p>"Yerby, I b'lieve ye said yer name war, an' so did Peter Green," said +Tarbetts, still kneeling by the open furnace door, his pale cheek +reddening in the glow of the fire.</p> + +<p>Thus reminded of the testimony of his acquaintance, Yerby did not +venture to repudiate his cognomen.</p> + +<p>"An' what did ye kem hyar fur?" blustered the miller. "A-sarchin' fur +the boy?"</p> + +<p>Yerby's lips had parted to acknowledge this fact, but Tarbetts suddenly +anticipated his response, and answered for him:</p> + +<p>"Oh no, Alfred. Nobody ain't sech a fool ez ter kem hyar ter this hyar +still, a stranger an' mebbe suspected ez a spy, ter hunt up stray +children, an' git thar heads shot off, or mebbe drownded in a mighty +handy water-fall, or sech. This hyar man air one o' we-uns. He air +a-tradin' fur our liquor, an' he'll kerry a barrel away whenst he goes."</p> + +<p>Yerby winced at the suggestion conveyed so definitely in this crafty +speech; he was glad when the door of the furnace closed, so that his +face might not tell too much of the shifting thoughts and fears that +possessed him.</p> + +<p>The miller's fickle mind wavered once more. If Yerby had not come for +the boy, he himself had<span class="pagenum">[262]</span> done no damage in disclosing Leander's +whereabouts. Once more his quickly illumined anger was kindled against +Tarbetts, who had caused him a passing but poignant self-reproach. +"Waal, then, Hilary," he demanded, "what air ye a-raisin' sech a row +fur? Lee-yander ain't noways so special precious ez I knows on. +Toler'ble lazy an' triflin', an' mightily gi'n over ter moonin' over a +readin'-book he hev got. That thar mill war a-grindin' o' nuthin' at all +more'n haffen ter-day, through me bein' a-nappin', and Lee-yander plumb +demented by his book so ez he furgot ter pour enny grist inter the +hopper. Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though +I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose +out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his +hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be goin' +ter hide his book."</p> + +<p>"No need," thought Nehemiah, scornfully. Book and scholar and it might +be fiddle too, so indulgent had the prospect of success made him, would +by to-morrow be on the return route to the cross-roads. He even ventured +to differ with the overbearing miller.</p> + +<p>"I dun'no' 'bout that; books an' edication in gin'ral air toler'ble +useful wunst in a while;" he was thinking of the dark art of dividing +and multiplying by fractions. "The Yerbys hev always hed the name o' +bein' quick at thar book."</p> + +<p>Now the democratic sentiment in this country is bred in the bone, and +few of its denizens have so diluted it with Christian grace as to +willingly acknowledge a superior. In such a coterie as this<span class="pagenum">[263]</span> +"eating humble-pie" is done only at the muzzle of a "shootin'-iron."</p> + +<p>"Never hearn afore ez enny o' the Yerbys knowed B from bull-foot," +remarked one of the unindividualized lumpish moonshiners, shadowy, +indistinguishable in the circle about the rotund figure of the still. He +yet retained acrid recollections of unavailing struggles with the +alphabet, and was secretly of the opinion that education was a painful +thing, and, like the yellow-fever or other deadly disease, not worth +having. Nevertheless, since it was valued by others, the Yerbys should +scathless make no unfounded claims. "Ef the truth war knowed, nare one +of 'em afore could tell a book from a bear-trap."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah's flush the darkness concealed; he moistened his thin lips, and +then gave a little cackling laugh, as if he regarded this as pleasantry. +But the demolition of the literary pretensions of his family once begun +went bravely on.</p> + +<p>"Abner Sage larnt this hyar boy all he knows," another voice took up the +testimony. "Ab 'lows ez his mother war quick at school, but his +dad—law! I knowed Ebenezer Yerby! He war a frien'ly sorter cuss, +good-nachured an' kind-spoken, but ye could put all the larnin' he hed +in the corner o' yer eye."</p> + +<p>"An' Lee-yander don't favor none o' ye," observed another of the +undiscriminated, unimportant members of the group, who seemed to the +groping scrutiny of Nehemiah to be only endowed with sufficient identity +to do the rough work of the still, and to become liable to the Federal +law. "Thar's<span class="pagenum">[264]</span> Hil'ry—he seen it right off. Hil'ry he tuk a +look at Lee-yander whenst he wanted ter kem an' work along o' we-uns, +'kase his folks wanted ter take him away from the Sudleys. Hil'ry opened +the furnace door—jes so; an' he cotch the boy by the +arm"—the great brawny fellow, unconsciously dramatic, suited the +action to the word, his face and figure illumined by the sudden red +glow—"an' Hil'ry, he say, 'Naw, by God—ye hev got yer +mother's eyes in yer head, an' I'll swear ye sha'n't larn ter be a sot!' +An' that's how kem Hil'ry made Alf Bixby take Lee-yander ter work in the +mill. Ef ennybody tuk arter him he war convenient ter disappear down +hyar with we-uns. So he went ter the mill."</p> + +<p>"An' I wisht I hed put him in the hopper an' ground him up," said the +miller, in a blood-curdling tone, but with a look of plaintive anxiety +in his eyes. "He hev made a heap o' trouble 'twixt Hil'ry an' me fust +an' last. Whar's Hil'ry disappeared to, ennyways?"</p> + +<p>For the flare from the furnace showed that this leading spirit amongst +the moonshiners had gone softly out. Nehemiah, whose courage was +dissipated by some subtle influence of his presence, now made bold to +ask, "An' what made him ter set store on Lee-yander's mother's eyes?" +His tone was as bluffly sarcastic as he dared.</p> + +<p>"Shucks—ye mus' hev hearn that old tale," said the miller, +cavalierly. "This hyar Malviny Hixon—ez lived down in Tanglefoot +Cove then—her an' Hil'ry war promised ter marry, but the revenuers +captured him—he war a-runnin' a still in Tanglefoot then—an' +they kep' him in jail somewhar in<span class="pagenum">[265]</span> the North fur five year. Waal, +she waited toler'ble constant fur two or three year, but Ebenezer Yerby +he kem a-visitin' his kin down in Tanglefoot Cove, an' she an' him met +at a bran dance, an' the fust thing I hearn they war married, an' 'fore +Hil'ry got back she war dead an' buried, an' so war Ebenezer."</p> + +<p>There was a pause while the flames roared in the furnace, and the +falling water desperately dashed upon the rocks, and its tumultuous +voice continuously pervaded the silent void wildernesses without, and +the sibilant undertone, the lisping whisperings, smote the senses anew.</p> + +<p>"He met up with cornsider'ble changes fur five year," remarked one of +the men, regarding the matter in its chronological aspect.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah said nothing. He had heard the story before, but it had been +forgotten. A worldly mind like his is not apt to burden itself with the +sentimental details of an antenuptial romance of the woman whom his +half-brother had married many years ago.</p> + +<p>A persuasion that it was somewhat unduly long-lived impressed others of +the party.</p> + +<p>"It's plumb cur'us Hil'ry ain't never furgot her," observed one of them. +"He hev never married at all. My wife says it's jes contrariousness. Ef +Malviny hed been his wife an' died, he'd hev married agin 'fore the year +war out. An' I tell my wife that he'd hev been better acquainted with +her then, an' would hev fund out ez no woman war wuth mournin' 'bout fur +nigh twenty year. My wife says she can't make out ez how Hil'ry 'ain't +got pride<span class="pagenum">[266]</span> enough not ter furgive her fur givin' him the mitten +like she done. An' I tell my wife that holdin' a gredge agin a woman fur +bein' fickle is like holdin' a gredge agin her fur bein' a woman."</p> + +<p>He paused with an air, perceived somehow in the brown dusk, of having +made a very neat point. A stir of assent was vaguely suggested when some +chivalric impulse roused a champion at the farther side of the worm, +whose voice rang out brusquely:</p> + +<p>"Jes listen at Tom! A body ter hear them tales he tells 'bout argufyin' +with his wife would 'low he war a mighty smart, apt man, an' the pore +foolish 'oman skeercely hed a sensible word ter bless herself with. When +everybody that knows Tom knows he sings mighty small round home. Ye +stopped too soon, Tom. Tell what yer wife said to that."</p> + +<p>Tom's embarrassed feet shuffled heavily on the rocks, apparently in +search of subterfuge. The dazzling glintings from the crevices of the +furnace door showed here and there gleaming teeth broadly agrin.</p> + +<p>"Jes called me a fool in gineral," admitted the man skilled in argument.</p> + +<p>"An' didn't she 'low ez men folks war fickle too, an' remind ye o' yer +young days whenst ye went a-courtin' hyar an' thar, an' tell over a +string o' gals' names till she sounded like an off'cer callin' the +roll?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es," admitted Tom, thrown off his balance by this preternatural +insight, "but all them gals war a-tryin' ter marry me—not me +tryin' ter marry them."</p> + +<p>There was a guffaw at this modest assertion, but<span class="pagenum">[267]</span> the disaffected +miller's tones dominated the rude merriment.</p> + +<p>"Whenst a feller takes ter drink folks kin spell out a heap o' reasons +but the true one—an' that's 'kase he likes it. Hil'ry 'ain't never +named that 'oman's name ter me, an' I hev knowed him ez well ez ennybody +hyar. Jes t'other day whenst that boy kem, bein' foolish an' maudlin, he +seen suthin' oncommon in Lee-yander's eyes—they'll be mighty +oncommon ef he keeps on readin' his tomfool book, ez he knows by heart, +by the firelight when it's dim. Ef folks air so sot agin strong drink, +let 'em drink less tharsefs. Hear Brother Peter Vickers preach agin +liquor, an' ye'd know ez all wine-bibbers air bound fur hell."</p> + +<p>"But the Bible don't name 'whiskey' once," said the man called Tom, in +an argumentative tone. "Low wines I'll gin ye up;" he made the +discrimination in accents betokening much reasonable admission; "but +nare time does the Bible name whiskey, nor yit peach brandy, nor +apple-jack."</p> + +<p>"Nor cider nor beer," put in an unexpected recruit from the darkness.</p> + +<p>The miller was silent for a moment, and gave token of succumbing to this +unexpected polemic strength. Then, taking thought and courage together, +"Ye can't say the Bible ain't down on 'strong drink'?" There was no +answer from the vanquished, and he went on in the overwhelming miller's +voice: "Hil'ry hed better be purtectin' hisself from strong drink, +'stiddier the boy—by makin' him stay up thar at the mill whar he +knows thar's no drinkin' goin' on—ez will git chances at it +other<span class="pagenum">[268]</span> ways, ef not through him, in the long life he hev got ter +live. The las' time the revenuers got Hil'ry 'twar through bein' ez +drunk ez a fraish-biled owl. It makes me powerful oneasy whenever I know +ye air all drunk an' a-gallopadin' down hyar, an' no mo' able to act +reasonable in case o' need an' purtect yersefs agin spies an' revenuers +an' sech 'n nuthin' in this worl'. The las' raid, ye 'member, we hed the +still over yander;" he jerked his thumb in the direction present to his +thoughts, but unseen by his coadjutors; "a man war wounded, an' we +dun'no' but what killed in the scuffle, an' it mought be a hangin' +matter ter git caught now. Ye oughter keep sober; an' ye know, Isham, ye +oughter keep Hil'ry sober. I dun'no' why ye can't. I never could abide +the nasty stuff—it's enough ter turn a bullfrog's stomach. Whiskey +is good ter sell—not ter drink. Let them consarned idjits in the +flat woods buy it, an' drink it. Whiskey is good ter sell—not ter +drink."</p> + +<p>This peculiar temperance argument was received in thoughtful silence, +the reason of all the mountaineers commending it, while certain of them +knew themselves and were known to be incapable of profiting by it.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah had scant interest in this conversation. He was conscious of +the strain on his attention as he followed it, that every point of the +situation should be noted, and its utility canvassed at a leisure +moment. He marked the allusion to the man supposed to have been killed +in the skirmish with the raiders, and he appraised its value as coercion +in any altercation that he might have in seeking to<span class="pagenum">[269]</span> take Leander +from his present guardians. But he felt in elation that this was likely +to be of the slightest; the miller evidently found himself hampered +rather than helped by the employment of the boy; and as to the +moonshiner's sentimental partisanship, for the sake of an old attachment +to the dead-and-gone mountain girl, there was hardly anything in the +universe so tenuous as to bear comparison with its fragility. "A few +drinks ahead," he said to himself, with a sneer, "an' he won't remember +who Malviny Hixon was, ef thar is ennything in the old tale—which +it's more'n apt thar ain't."</p> + +<p>He began, after the fashion of successful people, to cavil because his +success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this +uncomfortable interlude! Why could he not have discovered Leander's +whereabouts earlier, and by now be jogging along the road home with the +boy by his side? Why had he not bethought himself of the mill in the +first instance—that focus of gossip where all the news of the +countryside is mysteriously garnered and thence dispensed bounteously to +all comers? It was useless, as he fretted and chafed at these untoward +omissions, to urge in his own behalf that he did not know of the +existence of the mill, and that the miller, being an ungenial and +choleric man, might have perversely lent himself to resisting his demand +for the custody of the young runaway. No, he told himself emphatically, +and with good logic, too, the miller's acrimony rose from the fact of a +stranger's discovery of the still and the danger of his introduction +into its charmed circle. And that reflection <span class="pagenum">[270]</span>reminded him anew of +his own danger here—not from the lawless denizens of the place, +but from the forces which he himself had evoked, and again he glanced +out toward the water-fall as fearful of the raiders as any moonshiner of +them all.</p> + +<p>But what sudden glory was on the waters, mystic, white, an opaque +brilliance upon the swirling foam and the bounding spray, a crystalline +glitter upon the smooth expanse of the swift cataract! The moon was in +the sky, and its light, with noiseless tread, sought out strange, lonely +places, and illusions were astir in the solitudes. Pensive peace, +thoughts too subtle for speech to shape, spiritual yearnings, were +familiars of the hour and of this melancholy splendor; but he knew none +of them, and the sight gave him no joy. He only thought that this was a +night for the saddle, for the quiet invasion of the woods, when the few +dwellers by the way-side were lost in slumber. He trembled anew at the +thought of the raiders whom he himself had summoned; he forgot his +curses on their laggard service; he upbraided himself again that he had +not earlier made shift to depart by some means—by any +means—before the night came with this great emblazoning bold-faced +moon that but prolonged the day; and he started to his feet with a +galvanic jerk and a sharp exclamation when swift steps were heard on the +rocks outside, and a man with the lightness of a deer sprang down the +ledges and into the great arched opening of the place.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't nobody but Hil'ry," observed Isham Beaton, half in reproach, +half in reassurance.</p> + +<p>The pervasive light without dissipated in some degree the gloom within +the grotto; a sort of gray<span class="pagenum">[271]</span> visibility was on the appurtenances and +the figures about the still, not strong enough to suggest color, but +giving contour. His fright had been marked, he knew; a sort of surprised +reflectiveness was in the manner of several of the moonshiners, and +Nehemiah, with his ready fears, fancied that this inopportune show of +terror had revived their suspicions of him. It required some effort to +steady his nerves after this, and when footfalls were again audible +outside, and all the denizens of the place sat calmly smoking their +pipes without so much as a movement toward investigating the sound, he, +knowing whose steps he had invited thither, had great ado with the +coward within to keep still, as if he had no more reason to fear an +approach than they.</p> + +<p>A great jargon in the tone of ecstasy broke suddenly on the air upon +this new entrance, shattering what little composure Nehemiah had been +able to muster; a wide-mouthed exaggeration of welcome in superlative +phrases and ready chorus. Swiftly turning, he saw nothing for a moment, +for he looked at the height which a man's head might reach, and the +new-comer measured hardly two feet in stature, waddled with a very +uncertain gait, and although he bore himself with manifest complacence, +he had evidently heard the like before, as he was jovially hailed by +every ingratiating epithet presumed to be acceptable to his infant mind. +He was attended by a tall, gaunt boy of fifteen, barefooted, with +snaggled teeth and a shock of tow hair, wearing a shirt of unbleached +cotton, and a pair of trousers supported by a single suspender drawn +across a sharp, protuberant shoulder-blade behind and a very narrow +chest in front.<span class="pagenum">[272]</span> But his face was proud and happy and gleeful, as +if he occupied some post of honor and worldly emolument in attending +upon the waddling wonder on the floor in front of him, instead of being +assigned the ungrateful task of seeing to it that a very ugly baby +closely related to him did not, with the wiliness and ingenuity of +infant nature, invent some method of making away with himself. For he +<i>was</i> an ugly baby as he stood revealed in the flare of the furnace +door, thrown open that his admirers and friends might feast their eyes +upon him. His short wisps of red hair stood straight up in front; his +cheeks were puffy and round, but very rosy; his eyes were small and +dark, but blandly roguish; his mouth was wide and damp, and had in it a +small selection of sample teeth, as it were; he wore a blue checked +homespun dress garnished down the back with big horn buttons, sparsely +set on; he clasped his chubby hands upon a somewhat pompous stomach; he +sidled first to the right, then to the left, in doubt as to which of the +various invitations he should accept.</p> + +<p>"Kem hyar, Snooks!" "Right hyar, Toodles!" "Me hyar, Monkey Doodle!" +"Hurrah fur the leetle-est moonshiner on record!" resounded fulsomely +about him. Many were the compliments showered upon him, and if his +flatterers told lies, they had told more wicked ones. The pipes all went +out, and the broken-nosed pitcher languished in disuse as he trotted +from one pair of outstretched arms to another to give an exhibition of +his progress in the noble art of locomotion; and if he now and again sat +down, unexpectedly to himself and to the spectator, he was promptly put +upon his feet again with spurious applause<span class="pagenum">[273]</span> and encouragement. He +gave an exhibition of his dancing—a funny little shuffle of +exceeding temerity, considering the facilities at his command for that +agile amusement, but he was made reckless by praise—and they all +lied valiantly in chorus. He repeated all the words he knew, which were +few, and for the most part unintelligible, crowed like a cock, barked +like a dog, mewed like a cat, and finally went away, his red cheeks yet +more ruddily aglow, grave and excited and with quickly beating pulses, +like one who has achieved some great public success and led captive the +hearts of thousands.</p> + +<p>The turmoils of his visit and his departure were great indeed. It all +irked Nehemiah Yerby, who had scant toleration of infancy and little +perception of the jocosity of the aspect of callow human nature, and it +seemed strange to him that these men, all with their liberty, even their +existence, jeopardized upon the chances that a moment might bring forth, +could so relax their sense of danger, so disregard the mandates of +stolid common-sense, and give themselves over to the puerile +beguilements of the visitor. The little animal was the son of one of +them, he knew, but he hardly guessed whom until he marked the paternal +pride and content that had made unwontedly placid the brow of the irate +miller while the ovation was in progress. Nehemiah greatly preferred the +adult specimen of the race, and looked upon youth as an infirmity which +would mend only with time. He was easily confused by a stir; the +gurglings, the ticklings, the loud laughter both in the deep bass of the +hosts and the keen treble of the guest had a befuddling effect upon him; +his<span class="pagenum">[274]</span> powers of observation were numbed. As the great, burly forms +shifted to and fro, resuming their former places, the red light from the +open door of the furnace illumining their laughing, bearded +countenances, casting a roseate suffusion upon the white turmoils of the +cataract, and showing the rugged interior of the place with its damp and +dripping ledges, he saw for the first time among them Leander's slight +figure and smiling face; the violin was in his hand, one end resting on +a rock as he tightened a string; his eyes were bent upon the instrument, +while his every motion was earnestly watched by the would-be fiddler.</p> + +<p>Nehemiah started hastily to his feet. He had not expected that the boy +would see him here. To share with one of his own household a secret like +this of aiding in illicit distilling was more than his hardihood could +well contemplate. As once more the contemned "ping-pang" of the process +of tuning fell upon the air, Leander chanced to lift his eyes. They +smilingly swept the circle until they rested upon his uncle. They +suddenly dilated with astonishment, and the violin fell from his +nerveless hand upon the floor. The surprise, the fear, the repulsion his +face expressed suddenly emboldened Nehemiah. The boy evidently had not +been prepared for the encounter with his relative here. Its only +significance to his mind was the imminence of capture and of being +constrained to accompany his uncle home. He cast a glance of indignant +reproach upon Hilary Tarbetts, who was not even looking at him. The +moonshiner stood filling his pipe with tobacco, and as he deftly +extracted a coal<span class="pagenum">[275]</span> from the furnace to set it alight, he shut the +door with a clash, and for a moment the whole place sunk into +invisibility, the vague radiance vouchsafed to the recesses of the +grotto by the moonbeams on the water without annihilated for the time by +the contrast with the red furnace glare. Nehemiah had a swift fear that +in this sudden eclipse Leander might slip softly out and thus be again +lost to him, but as the dull gray light gradually reasserted itself, and +the figures and surroundings emerged from the gloom, resuming shape and +consistency, he saw Leander still standing where he had disappeared in +the darkness; he could even distinguish his pale face and lustrous eyes. +Leander at least had no intention to shirk explanations.</p> + +<p>"Why, Uncle Nehemiah!" he said, his boyish voice ringing out tense and +excited above the tones of the men, once more absorbed in their wonted +interests. A sudden silence ensued amongst them. "What air ye a-doin' +hyar?"</p> + +<p>"Waal, ah, Lee-yander, boy—" Nehemiah hesitated. A half-suppressed +chuckle among the men, whom he had observed to be addicted to +horse-play, attested their relish of the situation. Ridicule is always +of unfriendly intimations, and the sound served to put Nehemiah on his +guard anew. He noticed that the glow in Hilary's pipe was still and +dull: the smoker did not even draw his breath as he looked and listened. +Yerby did not dare avow the true purpose of his presence after his +representations to the moonshiners, and yet he could not, he would not +in set phrase align himself with the illicit vocation. The boy was too +young, too irresponsible,<span class="pagenum">[276]</span> too inimical to his uncle, he reflected +in a sudden panic, to be intrusted with this secret. If in his +hap-hazard, callow folly he should turn informer, he was almost too +young to be amenable to the popular sense of justice. He might, too, by +some accident rather than intention, divulge the important knowledge so +unsuitable to his years and his capacity for guarding it. He began to +share the miller's aversion to the introduction of outsiders to the +still. He felt a glow of indignation, as if he had always been a party +in interest, that the common safety should not be more jealously +guarded. The danger which Leander's youth and inexperience threatened +had not been so apparent to him when he first heard that the boy had +been here, and the menace was merely for the others. As he felt the +young fellow's eyes upon him he recalled the effusive piety of his +conversation at Tyler Sudley's house, his animadversions on +violin-playing and liquor-drinking, and Brother Peter Vickers's mild and +merciful attitude toward sinners in those unspiced sermons of his, that +held out such affluence of hope to the repentant rather than to the +self-righteous. The blood surged unseen into Nehemiah's face. For shame, +for very shame he could not confess himself one with these outcasts. He +made a feint of searching in the semi-obscurity for the rickety chair on +which he had been seated, and resumed his former attitude as Leander's +voice once more rang out:</p> + +<p>"What air ye a-doin' hyar, Uncle Nehemiah?"</p> + +<p>"Jes a-visitin', sonny; jes a-visitin'."</p> + +<p>There was a momentary pause, and the felicity of<span class="pagenum">[277]</span> the answer was +demonstrated by another chuckle from the group. His senses, alert to the +emergency, discriminated a difference in the tone. This time the laugh +was with him rather than at him. He noted, too, Leander's dumfounded +pause, and the suggestion of discomfiture in the boy's lustrous eyes, +still widely fixed upon him. As Leander stooped to pick up the violin he +remarked with an incidental accent, and evidently in default of retort, +"I be powerful s'prised ter view ye hyar."</p> + +<p>Nehemiah smarted under the sense of unmerited reproach; so definitely +aware was he of being out of the character which he had assumed and worn +until it seemed even to him his own, that he felt as if he were +constrained to some ghastly masquerade. Even the society of the +moonshiners as their guest was a reproach to one who had always piously, +and in such involuted and redundant verbiage, spurned the ways and +haunts of the evil-doer. According to the dictates of policy he should +have rested content with his advantage over the silenced lad. But his +sense of injury engendered a desire of reprisal, and he impulsively +carried the war into the enemy's country.</p> + +<p>"I ain't in no ways s'prised ter view you-uns hyar, Lee-yander," he +said. "From the ways, Lee-yander, ez ye hev been brung up by them +slack-twisted Sudleys—ungodly folks 'ceptin' what little +regeneration they kin git from the sermons of Brother Peter Vickers, who +air onsartain in his mind whether folks ez ain't church-members air +goin' ter be damned or no—I ain't s'prised none ter view ye hyar." +He suddenly remembered poor Laurelia's arrogations of<span class="pagenum">[278]</span> special +piety, and it was with exceeding ill will that he added: "An' Mis' +Sudley in partic'lar. Ty ain't no great shakes ez a shoutin' Christian. +I dun'no' ez I ever hearn him shout once, but his wife air one o' the +reg'lar, mournful, unrejicing members, always questioning the decrees of +Providence, an' what ain't no nigher salvation, ef the truth war knowed, +'n a sinner with the throne o' grace yit ter find."</p> + +<p>Leander had not picked up the violin; this disquisition had arrested his +hand until his intention was forgotten. He came slowly to the +perpendicular, and his eyes gleamed in the dusk. A vibration of anger +was in his voice as he retorted:</p> + +<p>"Mebbe so—mebbe they air sinners; but they'd look powerful comical +'visitin' hyar!"</p> + +<p>"Ty Sudley ain't one o' the drinkin' kind," interpolated the miller, who +evidently had the makings of a temperance man. "He never sot foot hyar +in his life."</p> + +<p>"Them ez kem a-visitin' hyar," blustered the boy, full of the +significance of his observations and experience, "air either wantin' a +drink or two 'thout payin' fur it, or else air tradin' fur liquor ter +sell, an' that's the same ez moonshinin' in the law."</p> + +<p>There was a roar of delight from the circle of lumpish figures about the +still which told the boy that he had hit very near to the mark. Nehemiah +hardly waited for it to subside before he made an effort to divert +Leander's attention.</p> + +<p>"An' what air <i>you-uns</i> doin' hyar?" he demanded. "Tit for tat."</p> + +<p>"Why," bluffly declared Leander, "I be a-runnin' away from you-uns. An' +I 'lowed the still war one<span class="pagenum">[279]</span> place whar I'd be sure o' not meetin' +ye. Not ez I hev got ennything agin moonshinin' nuther," he added, +hastily, mindful of a seeming reflection on his refuge. "Moonshinin' <i>is +business</i>, though the United States don't seem ter know it. But I hev +hearn ye carry on so pious 'bout not lookin' on the wine whenst it be +red, that I 'lowed ye wouldn't like ter look on the still +whenst—whenst it's yaller." He pointed with a burst of callow +merriment at the big copper vessel, and once more the easily excited +mirth of the circle burst forth irrepressibly.</p> + +<p>Encouraged by this applause, Leander resumed: "Why, <i>I</i> even turns my +back on the still myself out'n respec' ter the family—Cap'n an' +Neighbor bein' so set agin liquor. Cap'n's ekal ter preachin' on it ef +ennything onexpected war ter happen ter Brother Vickers. An' when I +<i>hev</i> ter view it, I look at it sorter cross-eyed." The flickering line +of light from the crevice of the furnace door showed that he was +squinting frightfully, with the much-admired eyes his mother had +bequeathed to him, at the rotund shadow, with the yellow gleams of the +metal barely suggested in the brown dusk. "So I tuk ter workin' at the +mill. An' <i>I</i> hev got nuthin' ter do with the still." There was a pause. +Then, with a strained tone of appeal in his voice, for a future with +Uncle Nehemiah had seemed very terrible to him, "So ye warn't a-sarchin' +hyar fur me, war ye, Uncle Nehemiah?"</p> + +<p>Nehemiah was at a loss. There is a peculiar glutinous quality in the +resolve of a certain type of character which is not allied to +steadfastness of purpose, nor has it the enlightened persistence of +obstinacy. In view of his earlier account of his purpose he<span class="pagenum">[280]</span> could +not avow his errand; it bereft him of naught to disavow it, for Uncle +Nehemiah was one of those gifted people who, in common parlance, do not +mind what they say. Yet his reluctance to assure Leander that he was not +the quarry that had led him into these wilds so mastered him, the +spurious relinquishment had so the aspect of renunciation, that he +hesitated, started to speak, again hesitated, so palpably that Hilary +Tarbetts felt impelled to take a hand in the game.</p> + +<p>"Why don't ye sati'fy the boy, Yerby?" he said, brusquely. He took his +pipe out of his mouth and turned to Leander. "Naw, bub. He's jes tradin' +fur bresh whiskey, that's all; he's sorter skeery 'bout bein' a +wild-catter, an' he didn't want ye ter know it."</p> + +<p>The point of red light, the glow of his pipe, the only exponent of his +presence in the dusky recess where he sat, shifted with a quick, +decisive motion as he restored it to his lips.</p> + +<p>The blood rushed to Nehemiah's head; he was dizzy for a moment; he heard +his heart thump heavily; he saw, or he fancied he saw, the luminous +distention of Leander's eyes as this Goliath of his battles was thus +delivered into his hands. To meet him here proved nothing; the law was +not violated by Nehemiah in the mere knowledge that illicit whiskey was +in process of manufacture; a dozen different errands might have brought +him. But this statement put a sword, as it were, into the boy's hands, +and he dared not deny it.</p> + +<p>"'Pears ter me," he blurted out at last, "ez ye air powerful slack with +yer jaw."<span class="pagenum">[281]</span></p> + +<p>"Lee-yander ain't," coolly returned Tarbetts. "He knows all thar is ter +know 'bout we-uns—an' why air ye not ter share our per'ls?"</p> + +<p>"I ain't likely ter tell," Leander jocosely reassured him. "But I can't +help thinkin' how it would rejice that good Christian 'oman, Cap'n +Sudley, ez war made ter set on sech a low stool 'bout my pore old +fiddle."</p> + +<p>And thus reminded of the instrument, he picked it up, and once more, +with the bow held aloft in his hand, he dexterously twanged the strings, +and with his deft fingers rapidly and discriminatingly turned the +screws, this one up and that one down. The earnest would-be musician, +who had languished while the discussion was in progress, now plucked up +a freshened interest, and begged that the furnace door might be set ajar +to enable him to watch the process of tuning and perchance to detect its +subtle secret. No objection was made, for the still was nearly empty, +and arrangements tending to replenishment were beginning to be +inaugurated by several of the men, who were examining the mash in tubs +in the further recesses of the place. They were lighted by a lantern +which, swinging to and fro as they moved, sometimes so swiftly as to +induce a temporary fluctuation threatening eclipse, suggested in the +dusk the erratic orbit of an abnormally magnified fire-fly. It barely +glimmered, the dullest point of white light, when the rich flare from +the opening door of the furnace gushed forth and the whole rugged +interior was illumined with its color. The inadequate moonlight fell +away; the chastened white splendor on the foam of the cataract, the +crystalline glitter, timorously<span class="pagenum">[282]</span> and elusively shifting, were +annihilated; the swiftly descending water showed from within only a +continuously moving glow of yellow light, all the brighter from the +dark-seeming background of the world glimpsed without. A wind had risen, +unfelt in these recesses and on the weighty volume of the main sheet of +falling water, but at its verge the fitful gusts diverted its downward +course, tossing slender jets aslant, and sending now and again a shower +of spray into the cavern. Nehemiah remembered his rheumatism with a +shiver. The shadows of the men, instead of an unintelligible +comminglement with the dusk, were now sharp and distinct, and the light +grotesquely duplicated them till the cave seemed full of beings who were +not there a moment before—strange gnomes, clumsy and burly, slow +of movement, but swift and mysterious of appearance and disappearance. +The beetling ledges here and there imprinted strong black similitudes of +their jagged contours on the floor; with the glowing, weird illumination +the place seemed far more uncanny than before, and Leander, with his +face pensive once more in response to the gentle strains slowly elicited +by the bow trembling with responsive ecstasy, his large eyes full of +dreamy lights, his curling hair falling about his cheek as it rested +upon the violin, his figure, tall and slender and of an adolescent +grace, might have suggested to the imagination a reminiscence of Orpheus +in Hades. They all listened in languid pleasure, without the effort to +appraise the music or to compare it with other performances—the +bane of more cultured audiences; only the ardent amateur, seated close +at hand on a<span class="pagenum">[283]</span> bowlder, watched the bowing with a scrutiny which +betokened earnest anxiety that no mechanical trick might elude him. The +miller's half-grown son, whose ear for any fine distinctions in sound +might be presumed to have been destroyed by the clamors of the mill, sat +a trifle in the background, and sawed away on an imaginary violin with +many flourishes and all the exaggerations of mimicry; he thus furnished +the zest of burlesque relished by the devotees of horse-play and simple +jests, and was altogether unaware that he had a caricature in his shadow +just behind him, and was doing double duty in making both Leander and +himself ridiculous. Sometimes he paused in excess of interest when the +music elicited an amusement more to his mind than the long-drawn, +pathetic cadences which the violinist so much affected. For in sudden +changes of mood and in effective contrast the tones came showering forth +in keen, quick staccato, every one as round and distinct as a globule, +but as unindividualized in the swift exuberance of the whole as a drop +in a summer's rain; the bow was but a glancing line of light in its +rapidity, and the bounding movement of the theme set many a foot astir +marking time. At last one young fellow, an artist too in his way, laid +aside his pipe and came out to dance. A queer <i>pas seul</i> it might have +been esteemed, but he was light and agile and not ungraceful, and he +danced with an air of elation—albeit with a grave face—which +added to the enjoyment of the spectator, for it seemed so slight an +effort. He was long-winded, and was still bounding about in the +double-shuffle and the pigeon-wing, his shadow on the wall nimbly +following every motion,<span class="pagenum">[284]</span> when the violin's cadence quavered off in +a discordant wail, and Leander, the bow pointed at the water-fall, +exclaimed: "Look out! Somebody's thar! Out thar on the rocks!"</p> + +<p>It was upon the instant, with the evident intention of a surprise, that +a dozen armed men rushed precipitately into the place. Nehemiah, his +head awhirl, hardly distinguished the events as they were confusedly +enacted before him. There were loud, excited calls, unintelligible, +mouthing back in the turbulent echoes of the place, the repeated word +"Surrender!" alone conveying meaning to his mind. The sharp, succinct +note of a pistol-shot was a short answer. Some quick hand closed the +door of the furnace and threw the place into protective gloom. He was +vaguely aware that a prolonged struggle that took place amongst a group +of men near him was the effort of the intruders to reopen it. All +unavailing. He presently saw figures drawing back to the doorway out of +the <i>mêlée</i>, for moonshiner and raider were alike +indistinguishable, and he became aware that both parties were equally +desirous to gain the outer air. Once more pistol-shots—outside +this time—then a tumult of frenzied voices. Struck by a +pistol-ball, Tarbetts had fallen from the ledge under the weight of the +cataract and into the deep abysses below. The raiders were swiftly +getting to saddle again. Now and then a crack mountain shot drew a bead +upon them from the bushes; but mists were gathering, the moon was +uncertain, and the flickering beams deflected the aim. Two or three of +the horses lay dead on the river-bank, <span class="pagenum">[285]</span>and others carried +double, ridden by men with riddled hats. They were in full retreat, for +the catastrophe on the ledge of the cliff struck dismay to their hearts. +Had the man been shot, according to the expectation of those who resist +arrest, this would be merely the logical sequence of events. But to be +hurled from a crag into a cataract savored of atrocity, and they dreaded +the reprisals of capture.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i284" id="i284"></a> +<img src="images/i284.jpg" width="600" height="401" +alt=""'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'"" title=""'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'"" /> +<span class="caption">"'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'"</span> </div> + +<p>It was soon over. The whole occurrence, charged with all the +definitiveness of fate, was scant ten minutes in transition. A laggard +hoof-beat, a faint echo amidst the silent gathering of the moonlit +mists, and the loud plaint of Hoho-hebee Falls were the only sounds that +caught Nehemiah's anxious ear when he crept out from behind the empty +barrels and tremulously took his way along the solitary ledges, ever and +anon looking askance at his shadow, that more than once startled him +with a sense of unwelcome companionship. The mists, ever thickening, +received him into their midst. However threatening to the retreat of the +raiders, they were friendly to him. Once, indeed, they parted, showing +through the gauzy involutions of their illumined folds the pale moon +high in the sky, and close at hand a horse's head just above his own, +with wild, dilated eyes and quivering nostrils. Its effect was as +detached as if it were only drawn upon a canvas; the mists rolled over +anew, and but that he heard the subdued voice of the rider urging the +animal on, and the thud of the hoofs farther away, he might have thought +this straggler from the revenue party some wild illusion born of his +terrors.</p> + +<p>The fate of Hilary Tarbetts remained a mystery. When the stream was +dragged for his body it was<span class="pagenum">[286]</span> deemed strange that it should not be +found, since the bowlders that lay all adown the rocky gorge so +interrupted the sweep of the current that so heavy a weight seemed +likely to be caught amongst them. Others commented on the strength and +great momentum of the flow, and for this reason it was thought that in +some dark underground channel of Hide-and-Seek Creek the moonshiner had +found his sepulchre. A story of his capture was circulated after a time; +it was supposed that he dived and swam ashore after his fall, and that +the raiders overtook him on their retreat, and that he was now immured, +a Federal prisoner. The still and all the effects of the brush-whiskey +trade disappeared as mysteriously, and doubtless this silent flitting +gave rise to the hopeful rumor that Tarbetts had been seen alive and +well since that fateful night, and that in some farther recesses of the +wilderness, undiscovered by the law, he and like comrades continue their +chosen vocation. However that may be, the vicinity of Hoho-hebee Falls, +always a lonely place, is now even a deeper solitude. The beavers, +unmolested, haunt the ledges; along their precipitous ways the deer come +down to drink; on bright days the rainbow hovers about the falls; on +bright nights they glimmer in the moon; but never again have they glowed +with the shoaling orange light of the furnace, intensifying to the deep +tawny tints of its hot heart, like the rich glamours of some great +topaz.</p> + +<p>This alien glow it was thought had betrayed the place to the raiders, +and Nehemiah's instrumentality was never discovered. The post-office +appointment<span class="pagenum">[287]</span> was bestowed upon his rival for the position, and it +was thought somewhat strange that he should endure the defeat with such +exemplary resignation. No one seemed to connect his candidacy with his +bootless search for his nephew. When Leander chanced to be mentioned, +however, he observed with some rancor that he reckoned it was just as +well he didn't come up with Lee-yander; there was generally mighty +little good in a runaway boy, and Lee-yander had the name of being +disobejent an' turr'ble bad.</p> + +<p>Leander found a warm welcome at home. His violin had been broken in the +<i>mêlée</i>, and the miller, though ardently urged, never could +remember the spot where he had hidden the book—such havoc had the +confusion of that momentous night wrought in his mental processes. +Therefore, unhampered by music or literature, Leander addressed himself +to the plough-handles, and together that season he and "Neighbor" made +the best crop of their lives.</p> + +<p>Laurelia sighed for the violin and Leander's music, though, as she +always made haste to say, some pious people misdoubted whether it were +not a sinful pastime. On such occasions it went hard with Leander not to +divulge his late experiences and the connection of the pious Uncle +Nehemiah therewith. But he always remembered in time Laurelia's +disability to receive confidences, being a woman, and consequently +unable to keep a secret, and he desisted.</p> + +<p>One day, however, when he and Ty Sudley, ploughing the corn, now +knee-high, were pausing to rest in the turn-row, a few furrows apart, in +an ebullition<span class="pagenum">[288]</span> of filial feeling he told all that had befallen him +in his absence. Ty Sudley, divided between wrath toward Nehemiah and +quaking anxiety for the dangers that Leander had been constrained to +run—<i>ex post facto</i> tremors, but none the less acute—felt +moved now and then to complacence in his prodigy.</p> + +<p>"So 'twar <i>you-uns</i> ez war smart enough ter slam the furnace door an' +throw the whole place inter darkness! That saved them moonshiners and +raiders from killin' each other. It saved a deal o' bloodshed—ez +sure ez shootin'. 'Twar mighty smart in ye. But"—suddenly +bethinking himself of sundry unfilial gibes at Uncle Nehemiah and the +facetious account of his plight—"Lee-yander, ye mustn't be so +turr'ble bad, sonny; ye <i>mustn't</i> be so <i>turr'ble</i> bad."</p> + +<p>"Naw, ma'am, Neighbor, I won't," Leander protested.</p> + +<p>And he went on following the plough down the furrow and singing loud and +clear.</p> <p><span class="pagenum">[291]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[290]</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[289]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_RIDDLE_OF_THE_ROCKS" id="THE_RIDDLE_OF_THE_ROCKS"></a>THE RIDDLE OF THE ROCKS</h2> + +<p>Upon the steep slope of a certain "bald" among the Great Smoky Mountains +there lie, just at the verge of the strange stunted woods from which the +treeless dome emerges to touch the clouds, two great tilted blocks of +sandstone. They are of marked regularity of shape, as square as if hewn +with a chisel. Both are splintered and fissured; one is broken in twain. +No other rock is near. The earth in which they are embedded is the rich +black soil not unfrequently found upon the summits. Nevertheless no +great significance might seem to attach to their isolation—an +outcropping of ledges, perhaps; a fracture of the freeze; a trace of +ancient denudation by the waters of the spring in the gap, flowing now +down the trough of the gorge in a silvery braid of currents, and with a +murmur that is earnest of a song.</p> + +<p>It may have been some distortion of the story heard only from the lips +of the circuit rider, some fantasy of tradition invested with the +urgency of fact, but Roger Purdee could not remember the time when he +did not believe that these were the stone tables of the Law that Moses +flung down from the mountain-top in his wrath. In the dense ignorance of +the mountaineer, and his secluded life, he<span class="pagenum">[292]</span> knew of no foreign +countries, no land holier than the land of his home. There was no +incongruity to his mind that it should have been in the solemn silence +and austere solitude of the "bald," in the magnificent ascendency of the +Great Smoky, that the law-giver had met the Lord and spoken with Him. +Often as he lay at length on the strange barren place, veiled with the +clouds that frequented it, a sudden sunburst in their midst would +suggest anew what supernal splendors had once been here vouchsafed to +the faltering eye of man. The illusion had come to be very dear to him; +in this insistent localization of his faith it was all very near. And so +he would go down to the slope below, among the weird, stunted trees, and +look once more upon the broken tables, and ponder upon the strange signs +written by time thereon. The insistent fall of the rain, the incisive +blasts of the wind, coming again and again, though the centuries went, +were registered here in mystic runes. The surface had weathered to a +whitish-gray, but still in tiny depressions its pristine dark color +showed in rugose characters. A splintered fissure held delicate fucoid +impressions in fine script full of meaning. A series of worm-holes +traced erratic hieroglyphics across a scaling corner; all the varied +texts were illuminated by quartzose particles glittering in the sun, and +here and there fine green grains of glauconite. He knew no names like +these, and naught of meteorological potency. He had studied no other +rock. His casual notice had been arrested nowhere by similar signs. +Under the influence of his ignorant superstition, his cherished +illusion, the lonely wilderness,<span class="pagenum">[293]</span> what wonder that, as he pondered +upon the rocks, strange mysteries seemed revealed to him? He found +significance in these cabalistic scriptures—nay, he read inspired +words! With the ramrod of his gun he sought to follow the fine tracings +of the letters writ by the finger of the Lord on the stone tables that +Moses flung down from the mountain-top in his wrath.</p> + +<p>With a devout thankfulness Purdee realized that he owned the land where +they lay. It was worth, perhaps, a few cents an acre; it was utterly +untillable, almost inaccessible, and his gratulation owed its fervor +only to its spiritual values. He was an idle and shiftless fellow, and +had known no glow of acquisition, no other pride of possession. He +herded cattle much of the time in the summer, and he hunted in the +winter—wolves chiefly, their hair being long and finer at this +season, and the smaller furry gentry; for he dealt in peltry. And so, +despite the vastness of the mountain wilds, he often came and knelt +beside the rocks with his rifle in his hand, and sought anew to decipher +the mystic legends. His face, bending over the tables of the Law with +the earnest research of a student, with the chastened subduement of +devotion, with all the calm sentiments of reverie, lacked something of +its normal aspect. When a sudden stir of the leaves or the breaking of a +twig recalled him to the world, and he would lift his head, it might +hardly seem the same face, so heavy was the lower jaw, so insistent and +coercive his eye. But if he took off his hat to place therein his cotton +bandana handkerchief or (if he were in luck and burdened with game) the +scalp of a wild-cat—valuable<span class="pagenum">[294]</span> for the bounty offered by the +State—he showed a broad, massive forehead that added the +complement of expression, and suggested a doubt if it were ferocity his +countenance bespoke or force. His long black hair hung to his shoulders, +and he wore a tangled black beard; his deep-set dark blue eyes were +kindled with the fires of imagination. He was tall, and of a commanding +presence but for his stoop and his slouch. His garments seemed a trifle +less well ordered than those of his class, and bore here and there the +traces of the blood of beasts; on his trousers were grass stains deeply +grounded, for he knelt often to get a shot, and in meditation beside the +rocks. He spent little time otherwise upon his knees, and perhaps it was +some intuition of this fact that roused the wrath of certain brethren of +the camp-meeting when he suddenly appeared among them, arrogating to +himself peculiar spiritual experiences, proclaiming that his mind had +been opened to strange lore, repeating thrilling, quickening words that +he declared he had read on the dead rocks whereon were graven the +commandments of the Lord. The tumultuous tide of his rude eloquence, his +wild imagery, his ecstasy of faith, rolled over the assembly and awoke +it anew to enthusiasms. Much that he said was accepted by the more +intelligent ministers who led the meeting as figurative, as the finer +fervors of truth, and they felt the responsive glow of emotion and +quiver of sympathy. He intended it in its simple, literal significance. +And to the more local members of the congregation the fact was patent.</p> + +<p>"Sech a pack o' lies hev seldom been tole in the<span class="pagenum">[295]</span> hearin' o' +Almighty Gawd," said Job Grinnell, a few days after the breaking up of +camp. He was rehearsing the proceedings at the meeting partly for the +joy of hearing himself talk, and partly at the instance of his wife, who +had been prevented from attending by the inopportune illness of one of +the children. "Ez I loant my ear ter the words o' that thar brazen +buzzard I eyed him constant. Fur I looked ter see the jedgmint o' the +Lord descend upon him like S'phira an' An'ias."</p> + +<p>"<i>Who?</i>" asked his wife, pausing in her task of picking up chips. He had +spoken of them so familiarly that one might imagine they lived close by +in the cove.</p> + +<p>"An'ias an' S'phira—them in the Bible ez war streck by lightnin' +fur lyin'," he explained.</p> + +<p>"I 'member <i>her</i>," she said. "S'phia, I calls her."</p> + +<p>"Waal, A'gusta, <i>S'phira</i> do me jes ez well," he said, with the +momentary sulkiness of one corrected. "Thar war a man along, though. An' +'pears ter me thar war powerful leetle jestice in thar takin' off, ef +Roger Purdee be 'lowed ter stan' up thar in the face o' the meetin' an' +lie so ez no yearthly critter in the worl' could b'lieve +him—'ceptin' Brother Jacob Page, ez 'peared plumb out'n his head +with religion, an' got ter shoutin' when this Purdee tuk ter tellin' the +law he read on them rocks—Moses' tables, folks calls 'em—up +yander in the mounting."</p> + +<p>He nodded upward toward the great looming range above them. His house +was on a spur of the mountain, overshadowed by it; shielded. It was to +him the Almoner of Fate. One by one it doled out the days, dawning from +its summit; and<span class="pagenum">[296]</span> thence, too, came the darkness and the glooms of +night. One by one it liberated from the enmeshments of its tangled +wooded heights the constellations to gladden the eye and lure the fancy. +Its largess of silver torrents flung down its slopes made fertile the +little fields, and bestowed a lilting song on the silence, and took a +turn at the mill-wheel, and did not disdain the thirst of the humble +cattle. It gave pasturage in summer, and shelter from the winds of the +winter. It was the assertive feature of his life; he could hardly have +imagined existence without "the mounting."</p> + +<p>"Tole what he read on them rocks—yes, sir, ez glib ez swallerin' a +persimmon. 'Twarn't the reg'lar ten comman'ments—some cur'ous new +texts—jes a-rollin' 'em out ez sanctified ez ef he hed been called +ter preach the gospel! An' thar war Brother Eden Bates a-answerin' +'Amen' ter every one. An' Brother Jacob Page: 'Glory, brother! Ye hev +received the outpourin' of the Sperit! Shake hands, brother!' An' sech +ez that. Ter hev hearn the commotion they raised about that thar derned +lyin' sinner ye'd hev 'lowed the meetin' war held ter glorify him +stiddier the Lord."</p> + +<p>Job Grinnell himself was a most notorious Christian. Renown, however, +with him could never be a superfluity, or even a sufficiency, and he +grudged the fame that these strange spiritual utterances were acquiring. +He had long enjoyed the distinction of being considered a miraculous +convert; his rescue from the wily enticements of Satan had been +celebrated with much shaking and clapping of hands, and cries of +"Glory," and muscular ecstasy.<span class="pagenum">[297]</span> His religious experiences +thenceforth, his vacillations of hope and despair, had been often +elaborated amongst the brethren. But his was a conventional soul; its +expression was in the formulas and platitudes of the camp-meeting. They +sank into oblivion in the excitement attendant upon Purdee's wild +utterances from the mystic script of the rocks.</p> + +<p>As Grinnell talked, he often paused in his work to imitate the +gesticulatory enthusiasms of the saints at the camp-meeting. He was a +thickset fellow of only medium height, and was called, somewhat +invidiously, "a chunky man." His face was broad, prosaic, good-natured, +incapable of any fine gradations of expression. It indicated an +elementary rage or a sluggish placidity. He had a ragged beard of a +reddish hue, and hair a shade lighter. He wore blue jeans trousers and +an unbleached cotton shirt, and the whole system depended on one +suspender. He was engaged in skimming a great kettle of boiling sorghum +with a perforated gourd, which caught the scum and strained the liquor. +The process was primitive, instead of the usual sorghum boiler and +furnace, the kettle was propped upon stones laid together so as to +concentrate the heat of the fire. His wife was continually feeding the +flames with chips which she brought in her apron from the wood-pile. Her +countenance was half hidden in her faded pink sun-bonnet, which, +however, did not obscure an expression responsive to that on the man's +face. She did not grudge Purdee the salvation he had found; she only +grudged him the prestige he had derived from its unique method.<span class="pagenum">[298]</span></p> + +<p>"Why can't the critter elude Satan with less n'ise?" she asked, +acrimoniously.</p> + +<p>"Edzackly," her husband chimed in.</p> + +<p>Now and then both turned a supervisory glance at the sorghum mill down +the slope at some little distance, and close to the river. It had been a +long day for the old white mare, still trudging round and round the +mill; perhaps a long day as well for the two half-grown boys, one of +whom fed the machine, thrusting into it a stalk at a time, while the +other brought in his arms fresh supplies from the great pile of sorghum +cane hard by.</p> + +<p>All the door-yard of the little log cabin was bedaubed with the scum of +the sorghum which Job Grinnell flung from his perforated gourd upon the +ground. The idle dogs—and there were many—would find, when +at last disposed to move, a clog upon their nimble feet. They often sat +down with a wrinkling of brows and a puzzled expression of muzzle to +investigate their gelatinous paws with their tongues, not without +certain indications of pleasure, for the sorghum was very sweet; some of +them, that had acquired the taste for it from imitating the children, +openly begged.</p> + +<p>One, a gaunt hound, hardly seemed so idle; he had a purpose in life, if +it might not be called a profession. He lay at length, his paws +stretched out before him, his head upon them; his big brown eyes were +closed only at intervals; ever and again they opened watchfully at the +movement of a small child, ten months old, perhaps, dressed in pink +calico, who sat in the shadow formed by the protruding clay and stick +chimney, and played by<span class="pagenum">[299]</span> bouncing up and down and waving her fat +hands, which seemed a perpetual joy and delight of possession to her. +Take her altogether, she was a person of prepossessing appearance, +despite her frank display of toothless gums, and around her wide mouth +the unseemly traces of sorghum. She had the plumpest graces of dimples +in every direction, big blue eyes with long lashes, the whitest possible +skin, and an extraordinary pair of pink feet, which she rubbed together +in moments of joy as if she had mistaken them for her hands. Although +she sputtered a good deal, she had a charming, unaffected laugh, with +the giggle attachment natural to the young of her sex.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there sounded an echo of it, as it were—a shrill, nervous +little whinny; the boys whirled round to see whence it came. The +persistent rasping noise of the sorghum mill and the bubbling of the +caldron had prevented them from hearing an approach. There, quite close +at hand, peering through the rails of the fence, was a little girl of +seven or eight years of age.</p> + +<p>"I wanter kem in an' see you-uns's baby!" she exclaimed, in a high, +shrill voice. "I want to pat it on the head."</p> + +<p>She was a forlorn little specimen, very thin and sharp-featured. Her +homespun dress was short enough to show how fragile were the long lean +legs that supported her. The curtain of her sun-bonnet, which was +evidently made for a much larger person, hung down nearly to the hem of +her skirt; as she turned and glanced anxiously down the road, evidently +suspecting a pursuer, she looked like an<span class="pagenum">[300]</span> erratic sun-bonnet out +for a stroll on a pair of borrowed legs.</p> + +<p>She turned again suddenly and applied her thin, freckled little face to +the crack between the rails. She smiled upon the baby, who smiled in +response, and gave a little bounce that might be accounted a courtesy. +The younger of the boys left the cane pile and ran up to his brother at +the mill, which was close to the fence. "Don't ye let her do it," he +said, venomously. "That thar gal is one of the Purdee fambly. I know +her. Don't let her in." And he ran back to the cane.</p> + +<p>Grinnell had seemed pleased by this homage at the shrine of the family +idol; but at the very mention of the "Purdee fambly" his face hardened, +an angry light sprang into his eyes, and his gesture in skimming with +the perforated gourd the scum from the boiling sorghum was as energetic +as if with the action he were dashing the "Purdee fambly" from off the +face of the earth. It was an ancient feud; his grandfather and some +contemporary Purdee had fallen out about the ownership of certain +vagrant cattle; there had been blows and bloodshed, other members of the +connection had been dragged into the controversy; summary reprisals were +followed by counter-reprisals. Barns were mysteriously fired, hen-roosts +robbed, horses unaccountably lamed, sheep feloniously sheared by unknown +parties; the feeling widened and deepened, and had been handed down to +the present generation with now and then a fresh provocation, on the +part of one or the other, to renew and continue the rankling old +grudges.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i300" id="i300"></a> +<img src="images/i300.jpg" width="600" height="433" alt=""SHE +SMILED UPON THE BABY"" +title=""SHE SMILED UPON THE BABY"" /> +<span class="caption">"SHE SMILED UPON THE +BABY"</span> </div> <p><span class="pagenum">[301]</span></p> <p>And here stood the hereditary enemy, wanting to pat +their baby on the head.</p> + +<p>"Naw, sir, ye won't!" exclaimed the boy at the mill, greatly incensed at +the boldness of this proposition, glaring at the lean, tender, wistful +little face between the rails of the fence.</p> + +<p>But the baby, who had not sense enough to know anything about hereditary +enemies, bounced and laughed and gurgled and sputtered with glee, and +waved her hands, and had never looked fatter or more beguiling.</p> + +<p>"I jes wanter pat it wunst," sighed the hereditary enemy, with a lithe +writhing of her thin little anatomy in the anguish of denial—"<i>jes +wunst!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Naw, sir!" exclaimed the youthful Grinnell, more insistently than +before. He did not continue, for suddenly there came running down the +road a boy of his own size, out of breath, and red and angry—the +pursuer, evidently, that the hereditary enemy had feared, for she +crouched up against the fence with a whimper.</p> + +<p>"Kem along away from thar, ye miser'ble little stack o' bones!" he +cried, seizing his sister by one hand and giving her a +jerk—"a-foolin' round them Grinnells' fence an' a-hankerin' arter +thar old baby!"</p> + +<p>He felt that the pride of the Purdee family was involved in this +admission of envy.</p> + +<p>"I jes wanter pat it on the head <i>wunst</i>," she sighed.</p> + +<p>"Waal, ye won't now," said the Grinnell boys in chorus.</p> + +<p>The Purdee grasp was gentler on the little girl's arm. This was due not +to fraternal feeling so much<span class="pagenum">[302]</span> as to loyalty to the clan; "stack o' +bones" though she was, they were Purdee bones.</p> + +<p>"Kem along," Ab Purdee exhorted her. "A baby ain't nuthin' extry, +nohow"—he glanced scoffingly at the infantile Grinnell. "The +mountings air fairly a-roamin' with 'em."</p> + +<p>"We-uns 'ain't got none at our house," whined the sun-bonnet, +droopingly, moving off slowly on its legs, which, indeed, seemed +borrowed, so unsteady and loath to go they were.</p> + +<p>The Grinnell boys laughed aloud, jeeringly and ostentatiously, and the +Purdee blood was moved to retort: "We-uns don't want none sech ez that. +Nary tooth in her head!"</p> + +<p>And indeed the widely stretched babbling lips displayed a vast vacuity +of gum.</p> + +<p>Job Grinnell, who had listened with an attentive ear to the talk of the +children, had nevertheless continued his constant skimming of the scum. +Now he rose from his bent posture, tossed the scum upon the ground, and +with the perforated gourd in his hand turned and looked at his wife. +Augusta had dropped her apron and chips, and stood with folded arms +across her breast, her face wearing an expression of exasperated +expectancy.</p> + +<p>The Grinnell boys were humbled and abashed. The wicked scion of the +Purdee house, joying to note how true his shaft had sped, was again +fitting his bow.</p> + +<p>"An' ez bald-headed ez the mounting."</p> + +<p>The baby had a big precedent, but although no peculiar shame attaches to +the bare pinnacle of the <span class="pagenum">[303]</span>summit, she—despite the difference +in size and age—was expected to show up more fully furnished, and +in keeping with the rule of humanity and the gentilities of life.</p> + +<p>No teeth, no hair, no sign of any: the fact that she was so backward was +a sore point with all the family. Job Grinnell suddenly dropped the +perforated gourd, and started down toward the fence. The acrimony of the +old feud was as a trait bred in the bone. Such hatred as was inherent in +him was evoked by his religious jealousies, and the pious sense that he +was following the traditions of his elders and upholding the family +honor blended in gentlest satisfaction with his personal animosity +toward Roger Purdee as he noticed the boy edging off from the fence to a +safe distance. He eyed him derisively for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Kin ye kerry a message straight?" The boy looked up with an expression +of sullen acquiescence, but said nothing. "Ax yer dad—an' ye kin +tell him the word kems from me—whether he hev read sech ez this on +the lawgiver's stone tables yander in the mounting: 'An' ye shall claim +sech ez be yourn, an' yer neighbor's belongings shall ye in no wise +boastfully medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covetiousness, nor +yit git up a big name in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's.'"</p> + +<p>He laughed silently—a twinkling, wrinkling demonstration over all +his broad face—a laugh that was younger than the man, and would +have befitted a square-faced boy.</p> + +<p>The youthful Purdee, expectant of a cuffing, stood his ground more +doubtfully still under the insidious thrusts of this strange weapon, +sarcasm. He knew<span class="pagenum">[304]</span> that they were intended to hurt; he was wounded +primarily in the intention, but the exact lesion he could not locate. He +could meet a threat with a bold face, and return a blow with the best. +But he was mortified in this failure of understanding, and perplexity +cowed him as contention could not. He hung his head with its sullen +questioning eyes, and he found great solace in a jagged bit of cloth on +the torn bosom of his shirt, which he could turn in his embarrassed +fingers.</p> + +<p>"Whar be yer dad?" Grinnell asked.</p> + +<p>"Up yander in the mounting," replied the subdued Purdee.</p> + +<p>"A-readin' of mighty s'prisin' matter writ on the rocks o' the yearth!" +exclaimed Grinnell, with a laugh. "Waal, jes keep that sayin' o' mine in +yer head, an' tell him when he kems home. An' look a-hyar, ef enny mo' +o' his stray shoats kem about hyar, I'll snip thar ears an' gin 'em my +mark."</p> + +<p>The youth of the Purdee clan meditated on this for a moment. He could +not remember that they had missed any shoats. Then the full meaning of +the phrase dawned upon him—it was he and the wiry little sister +thus demeaned with a porcine appellation, and whose ears were +threatened. He looked up at the fence, the little low house, the barn +close by, the sorghum mill, the drying leaves of tobacco on the +scaffold, the saltatory baby; his eyes filled with helpless tears, that +could not conceal the burning hatred he was born to bear them all. He +was hot and cold by turns; he stood staring, silent and defiant, +motionless, sullen. He heard the melodic measure of the river, with +its<span class="pagenum">[305]</span> crystalline, keen vibrations against the rocks; the munching +teeth of the old mare—allowed to come to a stand-still that the +noise of the sorghum mill might not impinge upon the privileges of the +quarrel; and the high, ecstatic whinny of the little sister waiting on +the opposite bank of the river, having crossed the foot-bridge. There +the Grinnell baby had chanced to spy her, and had bounced and grinned +and sputtered affably. It was she who had made all the trouble yearning +after the Grinnell baby.</p> + +<p>He would not stay, however, to be ignominiously beaten, for Grinnell had +turned away, and was looking about the ground as if in search of a thick +stick. He accounted himself no craven, thus numerically at a +disadvantage, to turn shortly about, take his way down the rocky slope, +cross the foot-bridge, jerk the little girl by one hand and lead her +whimpering off, while the round-eyed Grinnell baby stared gravely after +her with inconceivable emotions. These presently resulted in rendering +her cross; she whined a little and rubbed her eyes, and, smarting from +her own ill-treatment of them, gave a sharp yelp of dismay. The old dog +arose and went and sat close by her, eying her solemnly and wagging his +tail, as if begging her to observe how content he was. His dignity was +somewhat impaired by sudden abrupt snaps at flies, which caused her to +wink, stare, and be silent in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Waal, Job Grinnell," exclaimed Augusta, as her husband came back and +took the perforated gourd from her hand—for she had been skimming +the<span class="pagenum">[306]</span> sorghum in his absence—"ye air the longest-tongued man, +ter be so short-legged, I ever see!"</p> + +<p>He looked a trifle discomfited. He had deported himself with unwonted +decision, conscious that Augusta was looking on, and in truth somewhat +supported by the expectation of her approval.</p> + +<p>"What ails ye ter say words ye can't abide by—ye 'low ye 'pear so +graceful on the back track?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He bent over the sorghum, silently skimming. His composure was somewhat +ruffled, and in throwing away the scum his gesture was of negligent and +discursive aim; the boiling fluid bespattered the foot of one of the +omnipresent dogs, whose shrieks rent the sky and whose activity on three +legs amazed the earth. He ran yelping to Mrs. Grinnell, nearly +overturning her in his turbulent demand for sympathy; then scampered +across to the boys, who readily enough stopped their work to examine the +wounded member and condole with its wheezing proprietor.</p> + +<p>"What ye mean, A'gusta?" Grinnell said at length. "Kase I 'lowed I'd cut +thar ears? I ain't foolin'. Kem meddlin' about remarkin' on our chill'n +agin, I'll show 'em."</p> + +<p>Augusta looked at him in exasperation. "I ain't keerin' ef all the +Purdees war deef," she remarked, inhumanly, "but what war them words ye +sent fur a message ter Purdee?—'bout pridin' on what ain't +theirn."</p> + +<p>Grinnell in his turn looked at her—but dubiously. However much a +man is under the domination of his wife, he is seldom wholly frank. It +is in this wise<span class="pagenum">[307]</span> that his individuality is preserved to him. "I war +jes wantin' ter know ef them words war on the rocks," he said with a +disingenuousness worthy of a higher culture.</p> + +<p>She received this with distrust. "I kin tell ye now—they ain't," +she said, discriminatingly; "Purdee's words don't sound like <i>them</i>."</p> + +<p>"Waal, now, what's the differ?" he demanded, with an indignation natural +enough to aspiring humanity detecting a slur upon one's literary style.</p> + +<p>"Waal—" she paused as she knelt down to feed the fire, holding the +fragrant chips in her hand; the flame flickered out and lighted up her +reflective eyes while she endeavored to express the distinction she +felt: "Purdee's words don't sound ter me like the words of a man sech ez +men be."</p> + +<p>Grinnell wrinkled his brows, trying to follow her here.</p> + +<p>"They sound ter me like the words spoke in a dream—the +pernouncings of a vision." Mrs. Grinnell fancied that she too had a gift +of Biblical phraseology. "They sound ter me like things I hearn whenst I +war a-hungered arter righteousness an' seekin' religion, an' bided alone +in the wilderness a-waitin' o' the Sperit."</p> + +<p>"'Gusta!" suddenly exclaimed her husband, with the cadence of amazed +conviction, "ye b'lieve the lie o' that critter, an' that he reads the +words o' the Lord on the rock!"</p> + +<p>She looked up a little startled. She had been unconscious of the +circuitous approaches of credence, and shared his astonishment in the +conclusion.</p> + +<p>"Waal, sir!" he said, more hurt and cast down<span class="pagenum">[308]</span> than one would have +deemed possible. "I'm willin' ter hev it so. I'm jes nuthin' but a +sinner an' a fool, ripenin' fur damnation, an' he air a saint o' the +yearth!"</p> + +<p>Now such sayings as this were frequent upon Job Grinnell's tongue. He +did not believe them; their utility was in their challenge to +contradiction. Thus they often promoted an increased cordiality of the +domestic relations and an accession of self-esteem.</p> + +<p>Augusta, however, was tired; the boiling sorghum and the September sun +were debilitating in their effects. There was something in the scene +with the youthful Purdee that grated upon her half-developed +sensibilities. The baby was whimpering outright, and the cow was lowing +at the bars. She gave her irritation the luxury of withholding the salve +to Grinnell's wounded vanity. She said nothing. The tribute to Purdee +went for what it was worth, and he was forced to swallow the humble-pie +he had taken into his mouth, albeit it stuck in his throat.</p> + +<p>A shadow seemed to have fallen into the moral atmosphere as the gentle +dusk came early on. One had a sense as if bereft, remembering that so +short a time ago at this hour the sun was still high, and that the +full-pulsed summer day throbbed to a climax of color and bloom and +redundant life. Now, the scent of harvests was on the air; in the +stubble of the sorghum patch she saw a quail's brood more than +half-grown, now afoot, and again taking to wing with a loud whirring +sound. The perfume of ripening muscadines came from the bank of the +river. The papaws hung globular among the leaves of the bushes, and the +persimmons were reddening.<span class="pagenum">[309]</span> The vermilion sun was low in the sky +above the purpling mountains; the stream had changed from a crystalline +brown to red, to gold, and now it was beginning to be purple and silver. +And this reminded her that the full-moon was up, and she turned to look +at it—so pearly and luminous above the jagged ridge-pole of the +dark little house on the rise. The sky about it was blue, refining into +an exquisitely delicate and ethereal neutrality near the horizon. The +baby had fallen asleep, with its bald head on the old dog's shoulder.</p> + +<p>After the supper was over, the sorghum fire still burned beneath the +great kettle, for the syrup was not yet made, and sorghum-boiling is an +industry that cannot be intermitted. The fire in the midst of the gentle +shadow and sheen of the night had a certain profane, discordant effect. +Pete's ill-defined figure slouching over it while he skimmed the syrup +was grimly suggestive of the distillations of strange elixirs and +unhallowed liquors, and his simple face, lighted by a sudden darting red +flame, had unrecognizable significance and was of sinister intent. For +Pete was detailed to attend to the boiling; the grinding was done, and +the old white mare stood still in the midst of the sorghum stubble and +the moonlight, as motionless and white as if she were carved in marble. +Job Grinnell sat and smoked on the porch.</p> + +<p>Presently he got up suddenly, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and +looked at it carefully before he stuck it into his pocket. He went, +without a word, down the rocky slope, past the old drowsing mare, and +across the foot-bridge. Two or three of the<span class="pagenum">[310]</span> dogs, watching him as +he reappeared on the opposite bank, affected a mistake in identity. They +growled, then barked outright, and at last ran down and climbed the +fence and bounded about it, baying the vista where he had vanished, +until the sleepy old mare turned her head and gazed in mild surprise at +them.</p> + +<p>Augusta sat alone on the step of the porch.</p> + +<p>She had various regrets in her mind, incipient even before he had quite +gone, and now defining themselves momently with added poignancy. A woman +who, in her retirement at home, charges herself with the control of a +man's conduct abroad, is never likely to be devoid of speculation upon +probable disasters to ensue upon any abatement of the activities of her +discretion. She was sorry that she had allowed so trifling a matter to +mar the serenity of the family; her conscience upbraided her that she +had not besought him to avoid the blacksmith's shop, where certain men +of the neighborhood were wont to congregate and drink deep into the +night. Above all, her mind went back to the enigmatical message, and she +wondered that she could have been so forgetful as to fail to urge him to +forbear angering Purdee, for this would have a cumulative effect upon +all the rancors of the old quarrels, and inaugurate perhaps a new series +of reprisals.</p> + +<p>"I ain't afeard o' no Purdee ez ever stepped," she said to herself, +defining her position. "But I'm fur peace. An' ef the Purdees will leave +we-uns be, I ain't a-goin' ter meddle along o' them."</p> + +<p>She remembered an old barn-burning, in the days when she and her husband +were newly married, at<span class="pagenum">[311]</span> his father's house. She looked up at the +barn hard by, on a line with the dwelling, with that tenderness which +one feels for a thing, not because of its value, but for the sake of +possession, for the kinship with the objects that belong to the home. A +cat was sitting high in a crevice in the logs where the daubing had +fallen out; the moon glittered in its great yellow eyes. A frog was +leaping along the open space about the rude step at Augusta's feet. A +clump of mullein leaves, silvered by the light, spangled by the dew, hid +him presently. What an elusive glistening gauze hung over the valley far +below, where the sense of distance was limited by the sense of +sight!—for it was here only that the night, though so brilliant, +must attest the incomparable lucidity of daylight. She could not even +distinguish, amidst those soft sheens of the moon and the dew, the +Lombardy poplar that grew above the door of old Squire Grove's house +down in the cove; in the daytime it was visible like a tiny finger +pointing upward. How drowsy was the sound of the katydid, now loudening, +now falling, now fainting away! And the tree-toad shrilled in the +dog-wood tree. The frogs, too, by the river in iterative fugue sent +forth a song as suggestive of the margins as the scent of the fern, and +the mint, and the fragrant weeds.</p> + +<p>A convulsive start! She did not know that she slept until she was again +awake. The moon had travelled many a mile along the highways of the +skies. It hung over the purple mountains, over the farthest valley. The +cicada had grown dumb. The stars were few and faint. The air was +chill.<span class="pagenum">[312]</span> She started to her feet; her garments were heavy with dew. +The fire beneath the sorghum kettle had died to a coal, flaring or +fading as the faint fluctuations of the wind might will. Near it Pete +slumbered where he too had sat down to rest. And Job—Job had never +returned.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>He had found it a lightsome enough scene at the blacksmith's shop, where +it was understood that the neighboring politicians collogued at times, +or brethren in the church discussed matters of discipline or more +spiritual affairs. In which of these interests a certain corpulent jug +was most active it would be difficult perhaps to accurately judge. The +great barn-like doors were flung wide open, and there was a group of men +half within the shelter and half without; the shoeing-stool, a broken +plough, an empty keg, a log, and a rickety chair sufficed to seat the +company. The moonlight falling into the door showed the great slouching, +darkling figures, the anvil, the fire of the forge (a dim ashy coal), +and the shadowy hood merging indistinguishably into the deep duskiness +of the interior. In contrast, the scene glimpsed through the low window +at the back of the shop had a certain vivid illuminated effect. A spider +web, revealing its geometric perfection, hung half across one corner of +the rude casement; the moonbeams without were individualized in fine +filar delicacy, like the ravellings of a silver skein. The boughs of a +tree which grew on a slope close below almost touched the lintel; the +leaves seemed a translucent green; a bird slept on a twig, its head +beneath its wing.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i312" id="i312"></a> +<img src="images/i312.jpg" width="600" height="500" alt="THE +BLACKSMITH'S SHOP" +title="THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP" /> +<span class="caption">THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP</span> </div> <p><span class="pagenum">[313]</span></p> +<p>Back of the cabin, which was situated on a limited terrace, the great +altitudes of the mountain rose into the infinity of the night.</p> + +<p>The drawling conversation was beset, as it were, by faint fleckings of +sound, lightly drawn from a crazy old fiddle under the chin of a gaunt, +yellow-haired young giant, one Ephraim Blinks, who lolled on a log, and +who by these vague harmonies unconsciously gave to the talk of his +comrades a certain theatrical effect.</p> + +<p>Grinnell slouched up and sat down among them, responding with a nod to +the unceremonious "Hy're, Job?" of the blacksmith, who seemed thus to do +the abbreviated honors of the occasion. The others did not so formally +notice his coming.</p> + +<p>The subject of conversation was the same that had pervaded his own +thoughts. He was irritated to observe how Purdee had usurped public +attention, and yet he himself listened with keenest interest.</p> + +<p>"Waal," said the ponderous blacksmith, "I kin onderstan' mighty well ez +Moses would hev been mighty mad ter see them folks a-worshippin' o' a +calf—senseless critters they be! 'Twarn't no use flingin' down +them rocks, though, an' gittin' 'em bruk. Sandstone ain't like metal; ye +can't heat it an' draw it down an' weld it agin."</p> + +<p>His round black head shone in the moonlight, glistening because of his +habit of plunging it, by way of making his toilet, into the barrel of +water where he tempered his steel. He crossed his huge folded bare arms +over his breast, and leaned back against the door on two legs of the +rickety chair.<span class="pagenum">[314]</span></p> + +<p>"Naw, sir," another chimed in. "He mought hev knowed he'd jes hev ter go +ter quarryin' agin."</p> + +<p>"They air always a-crackin' up them folks in the Bible ez sech powerful +wise men," said another, whose untrained mind evidently held the germs +of advanced thinking. "'Pears ter me ez some of 'em conducted tharselves +ez foolish ez enny folks I know—this hyar very Moses one o' 'em. +Throwin' down them rocks 'minds me o' old man Pinner's tantrums. Sher'ff +kem ter his house 'bout a jedgmint debt, an' levied on his craps. An' +arter he war gone old man tuk a axe an' gashed bodaciously inter the +loom an' hacked it up. Ez ef that war goin' ter do enny good! His wife +war the mos' outed woman I ever see. They 'ain't got nare nother loom +nuther, an' hain't hearn no advices from the Lord."</p> + +<p>The violinist paused in his playing. "They 'lowed Moses war a meek man +too," he said. "He killed a man with a brick-badge an' buried him in the +sand. Mighty meek ways"—with a satirical grimace.</p> + +<p>The others, divining that this was urged in justification and precedent +for devious modern ways that were not meek, did not pursue this branch +of the subject.</p> + +<p>"S'prised me some," remarked the advanced thinker, "ter hear ez them +tables o' stone war up on the bald o' the mounting thar. I hed drawed +the idee ez 'twar in some other kentry somewhar—I dunno—" He +stopped blankly. He could not formulate his geographical ignorance. "An' +I never knowed," he resumed, presently, "ez thar war enough gold in +Tennessee ter make a gold calf; they fund gold hyar, but 'twar mighty +leetle."<span class="pagenum">[315]</span></p> + +<p>"Mebbe 'twar a mighty leetle calf," suggested the blacksmith.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe so," assented the other.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe 'twar a silver one," speculated a third; "plenty o' silver they +'low thar air in the mountings."</p> + +<p>The violinist spoke up suddenly. "Git one o' them Injuns over yander ter +Quallatown right seasonable drunk, an' he'll tell ye a power o' places +whar the old folks said thar war silver." He bowed his chin once more +upon the instrument, and again the slow drawling conversation proceeded +to soft music.</p> + +<p>"Ef ye'll b'lieve me," said the advanced thinker, "I never war so +conflusticated in my life ez I war when he stood up in meetin' an' told +'bout'n the tables o' the law bein' on the bald! I 'lowed 'twar somewhar +'mongst some sort'n people named 'Gyptians."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe some o' them Injuns air named 'Gyptians," suggested Spears, the +blacksmith.</p> + +<p>"Naw, sir," spoke up the fiddler, who had been to Quallatown, and was +the ethnographic authority of the meeting. "Tennessee Injuns be named +Cher'kee, an' Chick'saw, an' Creeks."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. The moonlight sifted through the dark little shanty +of a shop; the fretting and foaming of a mountain stream arose from far +down the steep slope, where there was a series of cascades, a fine +water-power, utilized by a mill. The sudden raucous note of a night-hawk +jarred upon the air, and a shadow on silent wings sped past. The road +was dusty in front of the shop, and for a<span class="pagenum">[316]</span> space there was no +shade. Into the full radiance of the moonlight a rabbit bounded along, +rising erect with a most human look of affright in its great shining +eyes as it tremulously gazed at the motionless figures. It too was +motionless for a moment. The young musician made a lunge at it with his +bow; it sprang away with a violent start—its elongated grotesque +shadow bounding kangaroo-like beside it—into the soft gloom of the +bushes. There was no other traveller along the road, and the talk was +renewed without further interruption. "Waal, sir, ef 'twarn't fur the +testimony o' the words he reads ez air graven on them rocks, I couldn't +git my cornsent ter b'lieve ez Moses ever war in Tennessee," said the +advanced thinker. "I ain't ondertakin' ter say what State he settled in, +but I 'lowed 'twarn't hyar. It mus' hev been, though, 'count o' the +scripture on them broken tables."</p> + +<p>"I never knowed a meetin' woke ter sech a pint o' holiness. The saints +jes rampaged around till it fairly sounded like the cavortin's o' the +ungodly," a retrospective voice chimed in.</p> + +<p>"I raised thirty-two hyme chunes," said the musician, who had a great +gift in quiring, and was the famed possessor of a robust tenor voice. "A +leetle mo' gloryin' aroun' an' I'd hev kem ter the eend o' my row, an' +hev hed ter begin over agin." He spoke with acrimony, reviewing the +jeopardy in which his <i>répertoire</i> had been placed.</p> + +<p>"Waal," said the blacksmith, passing his hand over his black head, as +sleek and shining as a beaver's, "I'm a-goin' up ter the bald o' the +mounting some day soon, ef so be I kin make out ter<span class="pagenum">[317]</span> shoe that mare +o' mine"—for the blacksmith's mount was always barefoot—"I'm +afeard ter trest her unshod on them slippery slopes; I want ter read +some o' them sayin's on the stone tables myself. I likes ter git a tex' +or the eend o' a hyme set a-goin' in my head—seems somehow ter +teach itself ter the anvil, an' then it jes says it back an' forth all +day. Yestiddy I never seen its +beat—'Christ—war—born—in—Bethlehem.' The +anvil jes rang with that ez ef the actial metal hed the gift o' prayer +an' praise."</p> + +<p>"Waal, sir," exclaimed Job Grinnell, who had been having frequent +colloquies aside with the companionable jug, "ye mought jes ez well save +yer shoes an' let yer mare go barefoot. Thar ain't nare sign o' a word +writ on them rocks."</p> + +<p>They all sat staring at him. Even the singing, long-drawn vibrations of +the violin were still.</p> + +<p>"By Hokey!" exclaimed the young musician, "I'll take Purdee's word ez +soon ez yourn."</p> + +<p>The whiskey which Grinnell had drunk had rendered him more plastic still +to jealousy. The day was not so long past when Purdee's oath would have +been esteemed a poor dependence against the word of so zealous a brother +as he—a pillar in the church, a shining light of the congregation. +He noted the significant fact that it behooved him to justify himself; +it irked him that this was exacted as a tribute to Purdee's newly +acquired sanctity.</p> + +<p>"Purdee's jes a-lyin' an' a-foolin' ye," he declared. "Ever been up on +the bald?"</p> + +<p>They had lived in its shadow all their lives.<span class="pagenum">[318]</span> Even by the +circuitous mountain ways it was not more than five miles from where they +sat. But none had chanced to have a call to go, and it was to them as a +foreign land to be explored.</p> + +<p>"Waal, I hev, time an' agin," said Grinnell. "I dunno who gin them rocks +the name of Moses' tables o' the Law. Moses must hev hed a powerful +block an' tackle ter lift sech tremenjious rocks. I hev known 'em named +sech fur many a year. But I seen 'em not three weeks ago, an' thar ain't +nare word writ on 'em. Thar's the mounting; thar's the rocks; ye kin go +an' stare-gaze 'em an' sati'fy yerse'fs."</p> + +<p>Whether it were by reason of the cumulative influences of the continual +references to the jug, or of that sense of reviviscence, that more alert +energy, which the cool Southern nights always impart after the sultry +summer days, the suggestion that they should go now and solve the +mystery, and meet the dawn upon the summit of the bald, found instant +acceptance, which it might not have secured in the stolid daylight.</p> + +<p>The moon, splendid, a lustrous white encircled by a great halo of +translucent green, swung high above the duskily purple mountains. Below +in the valleys its progress was followed by an opalescent gossamer +presence that was like the overflowing fulness, the surplusage, of light +rather than mist. The shadows of the great trees were interlaced with +dazzling silver gleams. The night was almost as bright as the day, but +cool and dank, full of sylvan fragrance and restful silence and a +romantic liberty.</p> + +<p>The blacksmith carried his rifle, for wolves were<span class="pagenum">[319]</span> often abroad in +the wilderness. Two or three others were similarly armed; the advanced +thinker had a hunting-knife, Job Grinnell a pistol that went by the name +of "shootin'-iron." The musician carried no weapon. "I ain't 'feared o' +no wolf," he said; "I'll play 'em a chune." He went on in the vanguard, +his tousled yellow hair idealized with many a shimmer in the moonlight +as it hung curling down on his blue jeans coat, his cheek laid softly on +the violin, the bow glancing back and forth as if strung with moonbeams +as he played. The men woke the solemn silences with their loud mirthful +voices; they startled precipitate echoes; they fell into disputes and +wrangled loudly, and would have turned back if sure of the way home, but +Job Grinnell led steadily on, and they were fain to follow. They lagged +to look at a spot where some man, unheeded even by tradition, had dug +his heart's grave in a vain search for precious metal. A deep excavation +in the midst of the wilderness told the story; how long ago it was might +be guessed from the age of a stalwart oak that had sunk roots into its +depths; the shadows were heavy about it; a sense of despair brooded in +the loneliness. And so up and up the endless ascent; sometimes great +chasms were at one side, stretching further and further, and crowding +the narrow path—the herder's trail—against the sheer ascent, +till it seemed that the treacherous mountains were yawning to engulf +them. The air was growing colder, but was exquisitely clear and +exhilarating; the great dewy ferns flung silvery fronds athwart the way; +vines in stupendous lengths swung from the tops of gigantic<span class="pagenum">[320]</span> trees +to the roots. Hark! among them birds chirp; a matutinal impulse seems +astir in the woods; the moon is undimmed; the stars faint only because +of her splendors; but one can feel that the earth has roused itself to a +sense of a new day. And there, with such feathery flashes of white foam, +such brilliant straight lengths of translucent water, such a leaping +grace of impetuous motion, the currents of the mountain stream, like the +arrows of Diana, shoot down the slopes. And now a vague mist is among +the trees, and when it clears away they seem shrunken, as under a spell, +to half their size. They grow smaller and smaller still, oak and +chestnut and beech, but dwarfed and gnarled like some old orchard. And +suddenly they cease, and the vast grassy dome uprises against the sky, +in which the moon is paling into a dull similitude of itself; no longer +wondrous, transcendent, but like some lily of opaque whiteness, fair and +fading. Beneath is a purple, deeply serious, and sombre earth, to which +mists minister, silent and solemn; myriads of mountains loom on every +hand; the half-seen mysteries of the river, which, charged with the red +clay of its banks, is of a tawny color, gleams as it winds in and out +among the white vapors that reach in fantastic forms from heaven above +to the valley below. There is a certain relief in the mist—it +veils the infinities of the scene, on which the mind can lay but a +trembling hold.</p> + +<p>"Folks tell all sort'n cur'ous tales 'bout'n this hyar spot," said Job +Grinnell, his square face, his red hair hanging about his ears, and his +ragged red beard visible in the dull light of the coming day.<span class="pagenum">[321]</span> "I +hev hearn folks 'low ez a pa'tridge up hyar will look ez big ez a +Dominicky rooster. An' ef ye listens ye kin hear words from somewhar. +An' sometimes in the cattle-herdin' season the beastises will kem an' +crowd tergether, an' stan' on the bald in the moonlight all night."</p> + +<p>"I dunno," said the advanced thinker, "ez I be s'prised enny ef Purdee, +ez be huntin' up hyar so constant, hev got sorter teched in the head, +ter take up sech a cur'ous notion 'bout'n them rocks."</p> + +<p>He glanced along the slope at the spot, visible now, where Moses flung +the stone tables and they broke in twain. And there, standing beside +them, was a man of great height, dressed in blue jeans, his +broad-brimmed hat pushed from his brow, and his meditative dark eyes +fixed upon the rocks; a deer, all gray and antlered, lay dead at his +feet, and his rifle rested on the ground as he leaned on the muzzle.</p> + +<p>A glance was interchanged between the others. Their intention, the +promptings of curiosity, had flagged during the long tramp and the +gradual waning of the influence of the jug. The coincidence of meeting +Purdee here revived their interest. Grinnell, remembering the ancient +feud, held back, being unlikely to elicit Purdee's views in the face of +their contradiction. The blacksmith and the young fiddler took their way +down toward him.</p> + +<p>He looked up with a start, seeing them at some little distance. His +full, contemplative eyes rested upon them for a moment almost devoid of +questioning. It was not the face of a man who finds himself confronted +with the discovery of his duplicity<span class="pagenum">[322]</span> and his hypocrisy. There was a +strange doubt stirring in the blacksmith's heart. As he approached he +looked upon the storied rocks with a sort of solemn awe, as if they had +indeed been given by the hand of the Lord to his servant, who broke them +here in his wrath. He knew that the step of the musician slackened as he +followed. What holy mysteries were they not rushing in upon? He spoke in +a bated voice.</p> + +<p>"Roger," he said, "we'uns hearn ye tell 'bout the scriptures graven on +these hyar tables ez Moses flung down, an' we'uns 'lowed we'uns would +kem an' read some fur ourselves."</p> + +<p>Purdee did not speak nor hesitate; he moved aside that the blacksmith +might stand where he had been—as it were at the foot of the page.</p> + +<p>But what transcendent glories thronged the heavens—what august +splendors of dawn! Had the sun ever before risen like this, with the sky +an emblazonment of red, of gold, of darting gleams of light; with the +mountains most royally purple or most radiantly blue; with the prismatic +mists in flight; with the slow climax of the dazzling sphere ascending +to dominate it all?</p> + +<p>The blacksmith knelt down to read. The musician, his silent violin under +his chin, leaned over his comrade's shoulder. The hunter stood still, +expectant.</p> + +<p>Alas! the corrugations of time, the fissile results of the frost; the +wavering line of ripple-marks of seas that shall ebb no more; growth of +lichen; an army of ants in full march; a passion-flower trailing from a +crevice, its purple blooms lying upon <span class="pagenum">[323]</span>the gray stone near where +it is stamped with the fossil imprint of a sea-weed, faded long ago and +forgotten. Or is it, alas! for the eyes that can see only this?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 381px;"> <a name="i322" id="i322"></a> +<img src="images/i322.jpg" width="381" height="600" alt=""THE +TABLES OF THE LAW"" +title=""THE TABLES OF THE LAW"" /> +<span class="caption">"THE TABLES OF THE LAW"</span> </div> + +<p>The blacksmith looked up with a twinkling leer; the violinist recovered +his full height, and drew the bow dashingly across the strings; then let +his arm fall.</p> + +<p>"Roger," the blacksmith said, "dad-burned ef I kin read ennything hyar."</p> + +<p>The young musician looked over his brawny shoulder in silence.</p> + +<p>"Whar d'ye make out enny letters, Roger?" persisted Spears.</p> + +<p>Purdee leaned over and eagerly pointed with his ramrod to a curious +corrugation of the surface of the rock. Again the blacksmith bent down; +the musician craned forward, his yellow hair hanging about his bronzed +face.</p> + +<p>"I hev been toler'ble well acquainted with the alphabit," said Spears, +"fur goin' on thirty year an' better, an' I'll swar ter Heaven thar +ain't nare sign of a letter thar."</p> + +<p>Purdee stared at him in wild-eyed amazement for a moment. Then he flung +himself upon his knees beside the great rock, and guiding his ramrod +over the surface, he exclaimed, "Hyar, Spears; right hyar!"</p> + +<p>The blacksmith was all incredulous as he lent himself to a new posture, +and leaned forward to look with the languid indulgence of one who will +not again entertain doubt.</p> + +<p>"Nare A, nor B, nor C, nor none o' the fambly,"<span class="pagenum">[324]</span> he declared. +"These hyar rocks ain't no Moses' tables sure enough; Moses never war in +Tennessee. They be jes like enny other rock, an' thar ain't a word o' +writin' on 'em."</p> + +<p>He looked up with a curious questioning at Purdee's face—a strange +face for a man detected in a falsehood, a trick. The deep-set eyes were +wide as if straining for perception denied them. Despite the chill, rare +air, great drops had started on his brow, and were falling upon his +beard, and upon his hands. These strong hands were quivering; they +hovered above the signs on the rocks. The mystic letters, the inspired +words, where were they? Grope as he might, he could not find them. Alas! +doubt and denial had climbed the mountain—the awful limitations of +the more finite human creature—and his inspiration and the finer +enthusiasms of the truth were dead.</p> + +<p>Dead with a throe that was almost like a literal death. This—on +this he had lived; the ether of ecstasy was the breath of his life. He +clutched at the stained red handkerchief knotted about his throat as if +he were suffocating; he tore it open as he swayed backward on his knees. +He did not hear—or he did not heed—the laugh among the +little crowd on the bald—satirical, rallying, zestful. He was deaf +to the strains of the violin, jeeringly and jerkingly playing a foolish +tune. It was growing fainter, for they had all turned about to betake +themselves once more to the world below. He could have seen, had he +cared to see, their bearded grinning faces peering through the stunted +trees, as descending they came near the spot where he<span class="pagenum">[325]</span> had lavished +the spiritual graces of his feeling, his enthusiasm, his devotion, his +earnest reaching for something higher, for something holy, which had +refreshed his famished soul; had given to its dumbness words; had erased +the values of the years, of the nations; had made him friends with Moses +on the "bald"; had revealed to him the finger of the Lord on the stone.</p> + +<p>He took no heed of his gestures, of which, indeed, he was unconscious. +They were fine dramatically, and of great power, as he alternately rose +to his full height, beating his breast in despair, and again sank upon +his knees, with a pondering brow and a searching eye, and a hovering, +trembling hand, striving to find the clew he had lost. They might have +impressed a more appreciative audience, but not one more entertained +than the cluster of men who looked and paused and leered in amusement at +one another, and thrust out satirical tongues. Long after they had +disappeared, the strains of the violin could be heard, filling the +solemn, stricken, strangely stunted woods with a grotesquely merry +presence, hilarious and jeering.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Purdee found it possible to survive the destruction of illusions. Most +of us do. It wrought in him, however, the saturnine changes natural upon +the relinquishment of a dear and dead fantasy. This ethereal entity is a +more essential component of happiness than one might imagine from the +extreme tenuity of the conditions of its existence. Purdee's fantasy may +have been a poor thing, but, although he could calmly enough close its +eyes,<span class="pagenum">[326]</span> and straighten its limbs, and bury it decently from out the +offended view of fact, he felt that he should mourn it in his heart as +long as he should live. And he was bereaved.</p> + +<p>There is a certain stage in every sorrow when it rejects sympathy. +Purdee, always taciturn, grave, uncommunicative, was invested with an +austere aloofness, and was hardly to be approached as he sat, silent and +absent, brooding over the fire at his own home. When roused by some +circumstance of the domestic routine, and it became apparent that his +mood was not sullenness or anger, but simple and complete introversion, +it added a dignity and suggested a remoteness that were yet less +reassuring. His son, who stood in awe of him—not because of +paternal severity, but because no boy could refrain from a worshipping +respect for so miraculous a shot, a woodsman so subtly equipped with all +elusive sylvan instincts and knowledge—forbore to break upon his +meditations by the delivery of Grinnell's message. Nevertheless the +consciousness of withholding it weighed heavily upon him. He only +pretermitted it for a time, until a more receptive state of mind should +warrant it. Day by day, however, he looked with eagerness when he came +into the cabin in the evening to ascertain if his father were still +seated in the chimney-corner silently smoking his pipe. Purdee had +seldom remained at home so long at a time, and the boy had a daily fear +that the gun on the primitive rack of deer antlers would be missing, and +word left in the family that he had taken <span class="pagenum">[327]</span>the trail up the +mountain, and would return "'cordin' ter luck with the varmints." And +thus Job Grinnell's enigmatical message, that had the ring of defiance, +might remain indefinitely postponed.</p> + +<p>Abner had not realized how long a time it had been delayed, until one +evening at the wood-pile, in tossing off a great stick to hew into +lengths for the chimney-place, he noticed that thin ice had formed in +the moss and the dank cool shadows of the interstices. "I tell ye now, +winter air a-comin'," he observed. He stood leaning on his axe-handle +and looking down upon the scene so far below; for Purdee's house was +perched half-way up on the mountain-side, and he could see over the +world how it fared as the sun went down. Far away upon the levels of the +valley of East Tennessee a golden haze glittered resplendent, lying +close upon an irradiated earth, and ever brightening toward the horizon, +and it seemed as if the sun in sinking might hope to fall in fairer +spheres than the skies he had left, for they were of a dun-color and an +opaque consistency. Only one horizontal rift gave glimpses of a dazzling +ochreous tint of indescribable brilliancy, from the focus of which the +divergent light was shed upon the western limits of the land. Chilhowee, +near at hand, was dark enough—a purplish garnet hue; but the +scarlet of the sour-wood gleamed in the cove; the hickory still flared +gallantly yellow; the receding ranges to the north and south were blue +and more faintly azure. The little log cabin stood with small fields +about it, for Purdee barely subsisted on the fruits of the soil, and did +not seek to profit. It had only one room, with a loft above; the barn +was a makeshift of<span class="pagenum">[328]</span> poles, badly chinked, and showing through the +crevices what scanty store there was of corn and pumpkins. A +black-and-white work-ox, that had evidently no deficiency of ribs, stood +outside of the fence and gazed, a forlorn Tantalus, at these +unattainable dainties; now and then a muttered low escaped his lips. +Nobody noticed him or sympathized with him, except perhaps the little +girl, who had come out in her sun-bonnet to help her brother bring in +the fuel. He gruffly accepted her company, a little ashamed of her +because she was a girl; since, however, there was no other boy by to +laugh, he permitted her the delusion that she was of assistance.</p> + +<p>As he paused to rest he reiterated, "Winter air a-comin', I tell ye."</p> + +<p>"D'ye reckon, Ab," she asked, in her high, thin little voice, her hands +full of chips and the basket at her feet, "ez Grinnell's baby knows +Chris'mus air a-comin'?"</p> + +<p>He glowered at her as he leaned on the axe. "I reckon Grinnell's old +baby dunno B from Bull-foot," he declared, gruffly.</p> + +<p>The recollection of the message came over him. He had a pang of regret, +remembering all the old grudges against the Grinnells. They were +re-enforced by this irrepressible yearning after their baby, this +admission that they had aught which was not essentially despicable. +Nevertheless, he suddenly saw a reason for the Grinnell baby's +existence; he loaded up both arms with the sticks of wood, and, followed +by the peripatetic sun-bonnet, conscientiously weighed down with one +billet, he<span class="pagenum">[329]</span> strode into the house, and let his burden fall with a +mighty clatter in the corner of the chimney. The sun-bonnet staggered up +and threw her stick on the top of the pile of wood.</p> + +<p>Purdee, sitting silently smoking, glanced up at the noise. Abner took +advantage of the momentary notice to claim, too, the attention of his +mother. "I wish ye'd make Eunice quit talkin' 'bout the Grinnell's old +baby, like she war actially demented—uglies' bald-headed, +slab-sided, slobbery old baby I ever see—nare tooth in its head! I +do despise them Grinnells."</p> + +<p>As he anticipated, his father spoke suddenly: "Ye jes keep away from +thar," he said, sternly. "I trest them folks no furder 'n a +rattlesnake."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> ain't consortin' along o' 'em," declared the boy. "But I actially +hed ter take Eunice by the scalp o' her head an' lug her off one day +when she hung on thar fence a-stare-gazin' Grinnell's baby like 'twar +fitten ter eat."</p> + +<p>The child's mother, a cadaverous, pale woman, was listlessly stringing +the warping-bars with hanks of variegated yarn. The grandmother, who +conserved a much more active and youthful interest in life, took down a +brown gourd used as a scrap-basket that was on a protruding lath of the +clay-and-stick chimney, and hunted among the scraps of homespun and bits +of yarn stowed within it. The room was much like the gourd in its aged +brown tint; its indigenous aspect, as if it had not been made with +hands, but was some spontaneous production of the soil; with its bits of +bright color—the peppers hanging from the rafters, the +rainbow-hued<span class="pagenum">[330]</span> yarn festooning the warping-bars, the red coals of +the fire, the blue and yellow ware ranged on the shelf, the brown +puncheon floor and walls and ceiling and chimney—it might have +seemed the interior of a similar gourd of gigantic proportions. She +dressed a twig from the pile of wood in a gay scrap of cloth, casting +glances the while at the little girl, and handed it to her.</p> + +<p>"I hain't never seen ez good a baby ez this," she said, with the +convincing coercive mendacity of a grandmother.</p> + +<p>The little girl accepted it humbly; it was a good baby doubtless of its +sort, but it was not alive, which could not be denied of the Grinnell +baby, Grinnell though it was.</p> + +<p>"An' Job Grinnell he kem down ter the fence, an' 'lowed he'd slit our +ears, an' named us shoats," continued her brother. Purdee lifted his +head. "An' sent a word ter dad," said the boy, tremulously.</p> + +<p>"What word did he send ter—<i>me</i>?" cried Purdee.</p> + +<p>The boy quailed to tell him. "He tole me ter ax ye ef ye ever read sech +ez this on Moses' tables in the mountings—'An' ye shell claim sech +ez be yer own, an' yer neighbors' belongings shell ye in no wise +boastfully medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covetiousness, nor +yit git a big name up in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's,'" +faltered the sturdy Abner.</p> + +<p>The next moment he felt an infinite relief. He suddenly recognized the +fact that he had been chiefly restrained from repeating the words by an +<span class="pagenum">[331]</span>unrealized terror lest they prove true—lest something his +father claimed was not his, indeed.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> <a name="i330" id="i330"></a> +<img src="images/i330.jpg" width="600" height="394" +alt=""'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER—ME?'"" +title=""'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER—ME?'"" +/> <span class="caption">"'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER—ME?'"</span> </div> + +<p>But the expression of anger on Purdee's face was merged first in blank +astonishment, then in perplexed cogitation, then in renewed and +overpowering amazement.</p> + +<p>The wife turned from the warping-bars with a vague stare of surprise, +one hand poised uncertainly upon a peg of the frame, the other holding a +hank of "spun truck." The grandmother looked over her spectacles with +eyes sharp enough to seem subsidized to see through the mystery.</p> + +<p>"In the name o' reason and religion, Roger Purdee," she adjured him, +"what air that thar perverted Philistine talkin' 'bout?"</p> + +<p>"It air more'n I kin jedge of," said Purdee, still vainly cogitating.</p> + +<p>He sat for a time silent, his dark eyes bent on the fire, his broad, +high forehead covered by his hat pulled down over it, his long, tangled, +dark locks hanging on his collar.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he rose, took down his gun, and started toward the door.</p> + +<p>"Roger," cried his wife, shrilly, "I'd leave the critter be. Lord knows +thar's been enough blood spilt an' good shelter burned along o' them +Purdees' an' Grinnells' quar'ls in times gone. Laws-a-massy!"—she +wrung her hands, all hampered though they were in the "spun +truck"—"I'd ruther be a sheep 'thout a soul, an' live in peace."</p> + +<p>"A sca'ce ch'ice," commented her mother. "Sheep's got ter be butchered. +I'd ruther be the butcher, myself—healthier."<span class="pagenum">[332]</span></p> + +<p>Purdee was gone. He had glanced absently at his wife as if he hardly +heard. He waited till she paused; then, without answer, he stepped +hastily out of the door and walked away.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The cronies at the blacksmith's shop latterly gathered within the great +flaring door, for the frost lay on the dead leaves without, the stars +scintillated with chill suggestions, and the wind was abroad on nights +like these. On shrill pipes it played; so weird, so wild, so prophetic +were its tones that it found only a shrinking in the heart of him whose +ear it constrained to listen. The sound of the torrent far below was +accelerated to an agitated, tumultuous plaint, all unknown when its +pulses were bated by summer languors. The moon was in the turmoil of the +clouds, which, routed in some wild combat with the winds, were streaming +westward.</p> + +<p>And although the rigors of the winter were in abeyance, and the late +purple aster called the Christmas-flower bloomed in the sheltered grass +at the door, the forge fire, flaring or dully glowing, overhung with its +dusky hood, was a friendly thing to see, and in its vague illumination +the rude interior of the shanty—the walls, the implements of the +trade, the bearded faces grouped about, the shadowy figures seated on +whatever might serve, a block of wood, the shoeing-stool, a plough, or +perched on the anvil—became visible to Roger Purdee from far down +the road as he approached. Even the head of a horse could be seen thrust +in at the window, while the brute, hitched outside, beguiled<span class="pagenum">[333]</span> the +dreary waiting by watching with a luminous, intelligent eye the gossips +within, as if he understood the drawling colloquy. They were suffering +some dearth of timely topics, supplying the deficiency with +reminiscences more or less stale, and had expected no such sensation as +they experienced when a long shadow fell athwart the doorway,—the +broad aperture glimmering a silvery gray contrasted with the brown +duskiness of the interior and the purple darkness of the distance; the +forge fire showed Purdee's tall figure leaning on the door-frame, and +lighted up his serious face beneath his great broad-brimmed hat, his +intent, earnest eyes, his tangled black beard and locks. He gave no +greeting, and silence fell upon them as his searching gaze scanned them +one by one.</p> + +<p>"Whar's Job Grinnell?" he demanded, abruptly.</p> + +<p>There was a shuffling of feet, as if those members most experienced +relief from the constraint that silence had imposed upon the party. A +vibration from the violin—a sigh as if the instrument had been +suddenly moved rather than a touch upon the strings—intimated that +the young musician was astir. But it was Spears, the blacksmith, who +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Kem in, Roger," he called out, cordially, as he rose, his massive +figure and his sleek head showing in the dull red light on the other +side of the anvil, his bare arms folded across his chest. "Naw, Job +ain't hyar; hain't been hyar for a right smart while."</p> + +<p>There was a suggestion of disappointment in the attitude of the +motionless figure at the door. The<span class="pagenum">[334]</span> deeply earnest, pondering face, +visible albeit the red light from the forge-fire was so dull, was keenly +watched. For the inquiry was fraught with peculiar meaning to those +cognizant of the long and bitter feud.</p> + +<p>"I ax," said Purdee, presently, "kase Grinnell sent me a mighty cur'ous +word the t'other day." He lifted his head. "Hev enny o' you-uns hearn +him 'low lately ez I claim ennything ez ain't mine?"</p> + +<p>There was silence for a moment. Then the forge was suddenly throbbing +with the zigzagging of the bow of the violin jauntily dandering along +the strings. His keen sensibility apprehended the sudden jocosity as a +jeer, but before he could say aught the blacksmith had undertaken to +reply.</p> + +<p>"Waal, Purdee, ef ye hedn't axed me, I warn't layin' off ter say nuthin +'bout'n it. 'Tain't no consarn o' mine ez I knows on. But sence ye <i>hev</i> +axed me, I hold my jaw fur the fear o' no man. The words ain't writ ez I +be feared ter pernounce. An' ez all the kentry hev hearn 'bout'n it +'ceptin' you-uns, I dunno ez I hev enny call ter hold my jaw. The Lord +'ain't set no seal on my lips ez I knows on."</p> + +<p>"Naw, sir!" said Purdee, his great eyes glooming through the dusk and +flashing with impatience. "He 'ain't set no seal on yer lips, ter jedge +by the way ye wallop yer tongue about inside o' 'em with fool words. +Whyn't ye bite off what ye air tryin' ter chaw?"</p> + +<p>"Waal, then," said the admonished orator, bluntly, "Grinnell 'lows ye +don't own that thar lan'<span class="pagenum">[335]</span> around them rocks on the bald, no more'n +ye read enny writin' on 'em."</p> + +<p>"Not them rocks!" cried Purdee, standing suddenly erect—"the +tables o' the Law, writ with the finger o' the Lord—an' Moses +flung 'em down thar an' bruk 'em. All the kentry knows they air Moses' +tables. An' the groun' whar they lie air mine."</p> + +<p>"'Tain't, Grinnell say 'tain't."</p> + +<p>"Naw, sir," chimed in the young musician, his violin silent. "Job +Grinnell declars he owns it hisself, an' ef he war willin' ter stan' the +expense he'd set up his rights, but the lan' ain't wuth it. He 'lows his +line runs spang over them rocks, an' a heap furder."</p> + +<p>Purdee was silent; one or two of the gossips laughed jeeringly; he had +been proved a liar once. It was well that he did not deny; he was put to +open shame among them.</p> + +<p>"An' Grinnell say," continued Blinks, "ez ye hev gone an' tole big tales +'mongst the brethren fur ownin' sech ez ain't yourn, an' readin' of +s'prisin' sayin's on the rocks."</p> + +<p>He bent his head to a series of laughing harmonics, and when he raised +it, hearing no retort, the silvery gray square of the door was empty. He +saw the moon glimmer on the clumps of grass outside where the +Christmas-flower bloomed.</p> + +<p>The group sat staring in amaze; the blacksmith strode to the door and +looked out, himself a massive, dark silhouette upon the shimmering +neutrality of the background. There was no figure in sight; no faint +foot-fall was audible, no rustle of the sere leaves; only the voice of +the mountain torrent, far<span class="pagenum">[336]</span> below, challenged the stillness with its +insistent cry.</p> + +<p>He looked back for a moment, with a vague, strange doubt if he had seen +aught, heard aught, in the scene just past. "Hain't Purdee been hyar?" +he asked, passing his hand across his eyes. The sense of having dreamed +was so strong upon him that he stretched his arms and yawned.</p> + +<p>The gleaming teeth of the grouped shadows demonstrated the merriment +evoked by the query. The chuckle was arrested midway.</p> + +<p>"Ye 'pear ter 'low ez suthin' hev happened ter Purdee, an' that thar war +his harnt," suggested one.</p> + +<p>The bold young musician laid down his violin suddenly. The instrument +struck upon a keg of nails, and gave out an abrupt, discordant jangle, +startling to the nerves. "Shet up, ye durned squeech-owl!" he exclaimed, +irritably. Then, lowering his voice, he asked: "Didn't they 'low down +yander in the Cove ez Widder Peters, the day her husband war killed by +the landslide up in the mounting, heard a hoe a-scrapin' mightily on the +gravel in the gyarden-spot, an' went ter the door, an' seen him thar +a-workin', an' axed him when he kem home? An' he never lifted his head, +but hoed on. An' she went down thar 'mongst the corn, an' she couldn't +find nobody. An' jes then the Johns boys rid up an' 'lowed ez Jim Peters +war dead, an' hed been fund in the mounting, an' they war a-fetchin' of +him then."</p> + +<p>The horse's head within the window nodded violently<span class="pagenum">[337]</span> among the +shadows, and the stones rolled beneath his hoof as he pawed the ground.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Peters she knowed suthin' were a-goin' ter happen when she seen +that harnt a-hoein'."</p> + +<p>"I reckon she did," said the blacksmith, stretching himself, his nerves +still under the delusion of recent awakening. "Jim never hoed none when +he war alive. She mought hev knowed he war dead ef she seen him hoein'."</p> + +<p>"Waal, sir," exclaimed the violinist, "I'm a-goin' up yander ter +Purdee's ter-morrer ter find out what he died of, an' when."</p> + +<p>That he was alive was proved the next day, to the astonishment of the +smith and his friends. The forge was the voting-place of the district, +and there, while the fire was flaring, the bellows blowing, the anvil +ringing, the echo vibrating, now loud, now faint, with the antiphonal +chant of the hammer and the sledge, a notice was posted to inform the +adjacent owners that Roger Purdee's land, held under an original grant +from the State, would be processioned according to law some twenty days +after date, and the boundaries thereof defined and established. The +fac-simile of the notice, too, was posted on the court-house door in the +county town twenty miles away, for there were those who journeyed so far +to see it.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said the blacksmith, as he stood in the unfamiliar street +and gazed at it, his big arms, usually bare, now hampered with his coat +sleeves and folded upon his chest—"I wonder ef he footed it all +the way ter town at the gait he tuk when he lit out from the +forge?"<span class="pagenum">[338]</span></p> + +<p>It was a momentous day when the county surveyor planted his +Jacob's-staff upon the State line on the summit of the bald. His sworn +chain-bearers, two tall young fellows clad in jeans, with broad-brimmed +wool hats, their heavy boots drawn high over their trousers, stood ready +and waiting, with the sticks and clanking chain, on the margin of the +ice-cold spring gushing out on this bleak height, and signifying more +than a fountain in the wilderness, since it served to define the +southeast corner of Purdee's land. The two enemies were perceptibly +conscious of each other. Grinnell's broad face and small eyes laden with +fat lids were persistently averted. Purdee often glanced toward him +gloweringly, his head held, nevertheless, a little askance, as if he +rejected the very sight. There was the fire of a desperate intention in +his eyes. Looking at his face, shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, one +could hardly have doubted now whether it expressed most ferocity or +force. His breath came quick—the bated breath of a man who watches +and waits for a supreme moment. His blue jeans coat was buttoned close +about his sun-burned throat, where the stained red handkerchief was +knotted. He wore a belt with his powder-horn and bullet-pouch, and +carried his rifle on his shoulder; the hand that held it trembled, and +he tried to quell the quiver. "I'll prove it fust, an' kill him +arterward—kill him arterward," he muttered.</p> + +<p>In the other hand he held a yellowed old paper. Now and then he bent his +earnest dark eyes upon the grant, made many a year ago by the State +of<span class="pagenum">[339]</span> Tennessee to his grandfather; for there had been no subsequent +conveyances.</p> + +<p>The blacksmith had come begirt with his leather apron, his shirt-sleeves +rolled up, and with his hammer in his hand, an inopportune customer +having jeopardized his chance of sharing in the sensation of the day. +The other neighbors all wore their coats closely buttoned. Blinks +carried his violin hung upon his back; the sharp timbre of the wind, +cutting through the leafless boughs of the stunted woods, had a kindred +fibrous resonance. Clouds hung low far beneath them; here and there, as +they looked, the trees on the slopes showed above and again below the +masses of clinging vapors. Sometimes close at hand a peak would reveal +itself, asserting the solemn vicinage of the place, then draw its veil +slowly about it, and stand invisible and in austere silence. The +surveyor, a stalwart figure, his closely buttoned coat giving him a +military aspect, looked disconsolately downward.</p> + +<p>"I hoped I'd die before this," he remarked. "I'm equal to getting over +anything in nature that's flat or oblique, but the vertical beats me."</p> + +<p>He bent to take sight for a moment, the group silently watching him. +Suddenly he came to the perpendicular, and strode off down the rugged +slope over gullies and bowlders, through rills and briery tangles, his +eyes distended and eager as if he were led into the sylvan depths by the +lure of a vision. The chain-bearers followed, continually bending and +rising, the recurrent genuflections resembling the fervors of some +religious rite. The chain rustled sibilantly among the dead +leaves,<span class="pagenum">[340]</span> and was ever and anon drawn out to its extremest length. +Then the dull clank of the links was silent.</p> + +<p>"Stick!" called out the young mountaineer in the rear.</p> + +<p>"Stuck!" responded his comrade ahead.</p> + +<p>And once more the writhing and jingling among the withered leaves. The +surveyor strode on, turning his face neither to the right nor to the +left, with his Jacob's-staff held upright before him. The other men +trooped along scatteringly, dodging under the low boughs of the stunted +trees. They pressed hastily together when the great square +rocks—Moses' tables of the Law—came into view, lying where +it was said the man of God flung them upon the sere slope below, both +splintered and fissured, and one broken in twain. The surveyor was +bearing straight down upon them. The men running on either side could +not determine whether the line would fall within the spot or just +beyond. They broke into wild exclamations.</p> + +<p>"Ye may hammer me out ez flat ez a skene," cried the blacksmith, "ef I +don't b'lieve ez Purdee hev got 'em."</p> + +<p>"Naw, sir, naw!" cried another fervent amateur; "thar's the north. I jes +now viewed Grinnell's dad's deed; the line ondertakes ter run with +Purdee's line; he hev got seven hunderd poles ter the north; ef they air +a-goin' ter the north, them tables o' the Law air Grinnell's."</p> + +<p>A wild chorus ensued.</p> + +<p>"Naw!" "Yes!" "Thar they go!" "A-bearin' off that-a-way!" "Beats my +time!" as they<span class="pagenum">[341]</span> stumbled and scuttled alongside the acolytes of the +Compass, who bowed down and rose up at every length of the chain. +Suddenly a cry from the chain-bearers.</p> + +<p>"Out!"</p> + +<p>Stillness ensued.</p> + +<p>The surveyor stopped to register the "out." It was a moment of thrilling +suspense; the rocks lay only a few chains further; Grinnell, into whose +confidence doubt had begun to be instilled, said to himself, all +a-tremble, that he would hardly have staked his veracity, his standing +with the brethren, if he had realized that it was so close a matter as +this. He had long known that his father owned the greater part of the +unproductive wilderness lying between the two ravines; the land was +almost worthless by reason of the steep slants which rendered it utterly +untillable. He was sure that by the terms of his deed, which his father +had from its vendor, Squire Bates, his line included the Moses' tables +on which Purdee had built so fallacious a repute of holiness. He looked +once more at the paper—"thence from Crystal Spring with Purdee's +line north seven hundred poles to a stake in the middle of the river."</p> + +<p>Purdee too was all a-quiver with eagerness. He had not beheld those +rocks since that terrible day when all the fine values of his gifted +vision had been withdrawn from him, and he could read no more with eyes +blinded by the limitations of what other men could see—the +infinitely petty purlieus of the average sense. He had a vague idea that +should they say this was his land where those<span class="pagenum">[342]</span> strange rocks lay, +he would see again, he would read undreamed-of words, writ with a pen of +fire. He started toward them, and then with a conscious effort he held +back.</p> + +<p>The surveyor took no heed of the sentiments involved in processioning +Purdee's land. He stood leaning on his Jacob's-staff, as interesting to +him as Moses' rocks, and in his view infinitely more useful, and wiped +his brow, and looked about, and yawned. To him it was merely the +surveying for a foolish cause of a very impracticable and steep tract of +land, and the only reason it should be countenanced by heaven or earth +was the fees involved. And this was what he saw at the end of Purdee's +line.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he took up his Jacob's-staff and marched on with a long stride, +bearing straight down upon the rocks. The whole <i>cortége</i> started +anew—the genuflecting chain-bearers, the dodging, scrambling, +running spectators. On one of the strange stunted leafless trees a +colony of vagrant crows had perched, eerie enough to seem the denizens +of those weird forests; they broke into raucous laughter—Haw! haw! +haw!—rising to a wild commotion of harsh, derisive discord as the +men once more gave vent to loud, excited cries. For the surveyor, +stalking ahead, had passed beyond the great tables of the Law; the +chain-bearers were drawing Purdee's line on the other side of them, and +they had fallen, if ever they fell here from Moses' hand and broke in +twain, upon Purdee's land, granted to his ancestor by the State of +Tennessee.<span class="pagenum">[343]</span></p> + +<p>He could not speak for joy, for pride. His dark eyes were illumined by a +glancing, amber light. He took off his hat and smoothed with his rough +hand his long black hair, falling from his massive forehead. He leaned +against one of the stunted oaks, shouldering his rifle that he had +loaded for Grinnell—he could hardly believe this, although he +remembered it. He did not want to shoot Grinnell; he would not waste the +good lead!</p> + +<p>And indeed Grinnell had much ado to defend himself against the sneers +and rebukes with which the party beguiled the way through the wintry +woods. "Ter go a-claimin' another man's land, an' put him ter the +expense o' processionin' it, an' git his line run!" exclaimed the +blacksmith, indignantly. "An' ye 'ain't got nare sign o' a show at +Moses' tables!"</p> + +<p>"I dunno how this hyar line air a-runnin'," declared Grinnell, sorely +beset. "I don't b'lieve it air a-runnin' north."</p> + +<p>The surveyor was hard by. He had planted his staff again, and was once +more taking his bearings. He looked up for a second.</p> + +<p>"North<i>west</i>," he said.</p> + +<p>Grinnell stared for a moment; then strode up to the surveyor, and +pointed with his stubby finger at a word on his deed.</p> + +<p>The official looked with interest at it; he held up suddenly Purdee's +grant and read aloud, "From Crystal Spring seven hundred poles +north<i>west</i> to a stake in the middle of the river."</p> + +<p>He examined, too, the original plat of survey which he had taken to +guide him, and also the plat<span class="pagenum">[344]</span> made when Squire Bates sold to +Grinnell's father; "north<i>west</i>" they all agreed. There was evidently a +clerical error on the part of the scrivener who had written Grinnell's +deed.</p> + +<p>In a moment the harassed man saw that through the processioning of +Purdee's land he had lost heavily in the extent of his supposed +possessions. He it was who had claimed what was rightfully another's. +And because of the charge Purdee was the richer by a huge slice of +mountain land—how large he could not say, as he ruefully followed +the line of survey.</p> + +<p>But for this discovery the interest of processioning Purdee's land would +have subsided with the determination of the ownership of the limited +environment of the stone tables of the Law. Now, as they followed the +ever-diverging line to the northwest, the group was pervaded by a +subdued and tremulous excitement, in which even the surveyor shared. Two +or three whispered apart now and then, and Grinnell, struggling to +suppress his dismay, was keenly conscious of the glances that sought him +again and again in the effort to judge how he was taking it. Only Purdee +himself was withdrawn from the interest that swayed them all. He had +loitered at first, dallying with a temptation to slip silently from the +party and retrace his way to the tables and ascertain, perchance, if +some vestige of that mystic scripture might not reveal itself to him +anew, or if it had been only some morbid fancy, some futile influence of +solitude, some fevered condition of the blood or the brain, that had +traced on the <span class="pagenum">[345]</span>stone those gracious words, the mere echo of +which—his stuttered, vague recollections—had roused the +camp-meeting to fervid enthusiasms undreamed of before. And then he put +from him the project—some other time, perhaps, for doubts lurked +in his heart, hesitation chilled his resolve—some other time, when +his companions and their prosaic influence were all far away. He was +roused abruptly, as he stalked along, to the perception of the deepening +excitement among them. They had emerged from the dense growths of the +mountain to the lower slope, where pastures and fields—whence the +grain had been harvested—and a garden and a dwelling, with barns +and fences, lay before them all. And as Purdee stopped and stared, the +realization of a certain significant fact struck him so suddenly that it +seemed to take his breath away. That divergent line stretching to the +northwest had left within his boundaries the land on which his enemy had +built his home.</p> + +<p>He looked; then he smote his thigh and laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>The rocks on the river-bank caught the sound, and echoed it again and +again, till the air seemed full of derisive voices. Under their stings +of jeering clamor, and under the anguish of the calamity which his +reeling senses could scarcely measure, Job Grinnell's composure suddenly +gave way. He threw up his arms and called upon Heaven; he turned and +glared furiously at his enemy. Then, as Purdee's laughter still jarred +the air, he drew a "shooting-iron" from his pocket. The blacksmith +closed with him, struggling to disarm him. The weapon was discharged in +the turmoil, the ball<span class="pagenum">[346]</span> glancing away in the first quiver of +sunshine that had reached the earth to-day, and falling spent across the +river.</p> + +<p>Grinnell wrested himself from the restraining grasp, and rushed down the +slope to his gate to hide himself from the gaze of the world—his +world, that little group. Then remembering that it was no longer his +gate, he turned from it in an agony of loathing. And knowing that earth +held no shelter for him but the sufferance of another man's roof, he +plunged into the leafless woods as if he heavily dragged himself by a +power which warred within him with other strong motives, and disappeared +among the myriads of holly bushes all aglow with their red berries.</p> + +<p>The spectators still followed the surveyor and his Jacob's-staff, but +Purdee lingered. He walked around the fence with a fierce, gloating eye, +a panther-like, loping tread, as a beast might patrol a fold before he +plunders it. All the venom of the old feud had risen to the opportunity. +Here was his enemy at his mercy. He knew that it was less than seven +years since the enclosures had been made, acres and acres of tillable +land cleared, the houses built—all achieved which converted the +worthlessness of a wilderness into the sterling values of a farm. +He—he, Roger Purdee—was a rich man for the "mountings," +joining his little to this competence. All the cruelties, all the +insults, all the traditions of the old vendetta came thronging into his +mind, as distinctly presented as if they were a series of hideous +pictures; for he was not used to think in detail, but in the full +portrayal of scenes.<span class="pagenum">[347]</span> The Purdee wrongs were all avenged. This +result was so complete, so baffling, so ruinous temporally, so +humiliating spiritually! It was the fullest replication of revenge for +all that had challenged it.</p> + +<p>"How Uncle Ezra would hev rej'iced ter hev lived ter see this day!" he +thought, with a pious regret that the dead might not know.</p> + +<p>The next moment his attention was suddenly attracted by a movement in +the door-yard. A woman had been hanging out clothes to dry, and she +turned to go in, without seeing the striding figure patrolling the +enclosure. A baby—a small bundle of a red dress—was seated +on the pile of sorghum-cane where the mill had worked in the autumn; the +stalks were broken, and flimsy with frost and decay, and washed by the +rains to a pallid hue, yet more marked in contrast with the brown +ground. The baby's dress made a bright bit of color amidst the dreary +tones. As Purdee caught sight of it he remembered that this was +"Grinnell's old baby," who had been the cause of the renewal of the +ancient quarrel, which had resulted so benignantly for him. "I owe you a +good turn, sis," he murmured, satirically, glaring at the child as the +unconscious mother lifted her to go in the house. The baby, looking over +the maternal shoulder, encountered the stern eyes staring at her. She +stared gravely too. Then with a bounce and a gurgle she beamed upon him +from out the retirement of her flapping sun-bonnet; she smiled +radiantly, and finally laughed outright, and waved her hands and again +bounced beguilingly, and thus toothlessly coquetting, disappeared within +the door.<span class="pagenum">[348]</span></p> + +<p>Before Purdee reached home, flakes of snow, the first of the season, +were whirling through the gray dusk noiselessly, ceaselessly, always +falling, yet never seeming to fall, rather to restlessly pervade the air +with a vacillating alienation from all the laws of gravitation. Elusive +fascinations of thought were liberated with the shining crystalline +aerial pulsation; some mysterious attraction dwelt down long vistas +amongst the bare trees; their fine fibrous grace of branch and twig was +accented by the snow, which lay upon them with exquisite lightness, +despite the aggregated bulk, not the densely packed effect which the +boughs would show to-morrow. The crags were crowned; their grim faces +looked frowningly out like a warrior's from beneath a wreath. Nowhere +could the brown ground be seen; already the pine boughs bent, the +needles failing to pierce the drifts. On the banks of the stream, on the +slopes of the mountain, in wildest jungles, in the niches and crevices +of bare cliffs, the holly-berries glowed red in the midst of the +ever-green snow-laden leaves and ice-barbed twigs. When his house at +last came into view, the roof was deeply covered; the dizzying whirl had +followed every line of the rail-fence; scurrying away along the furthest +zigzags there was a vanishing glimpse of a squirrel; the boles of the +trees were embedded in drifts; the chickens had gone to roost; the sheep +were huddling in the broad door of the rude stable; he saw their heads +lifted against the dark background within, where the ox was vaguely +glimpsed. He caught their mild glance despite the snow that in-starred +with its ever-shifting crystals the dark space<span class="pagenum">[349]</span> of the aperture, +and intervened as a veil. They suddenly reminded him of the +season—that it was Christmas Eve; of the sheep which so many years +ago beheld the angel of the Lord and the glory of the great light that +shone about the shepherds abiding in the fields. Did they follow, he +wondered, the shepherds who went to seek for Christ? Ah, as he paused +meditatively beside the rail-fence—what matter how long ago it +was, how far away!—he saw those sheep lying about the fields under +the vast midnight sky. They lift their sleepy heads. Dawn? not yet, +surely; and they lay them down again. And one must bleat aloud, turning +to see the quickening sky; and one, woolly, white, white as snow, with +eyes illumined by the heralding heavens, struggles to its feet, and +another, and the flock is astir; and the shepherds, drowsing doubtless, +are awakened to good tidings of great joy.</p> + +<p>What a night that was!—this night—Christmas Eve. He wondered +he had not thought of it before. And the light still shines, and the +angel waits, and the eternal hosts proclaim peace on earth, good-will +toward men, and summon us all to go and follow the shepherds and +see—what? A little child cradled in a manger. The mountaineer, +leaning on his gun by the rail-fence, looked through the driving snow +with the lights of divination kindling in his eyes, seeing it all, +feeling its meaning as never before. Christ came thus, he knew, for a +purpose. He could have come in the chariots of the sun or on the wings +of the wind. But He was cradled as a little child, that men<span class="pagenum">[350]</span> might +revere humanity for the sake of Him who had graced it; that they, +thinking on Him, might be good to one another and to all little +children.</p> + +<p>As he burst into the door of his house the elations of his high +religious mood were rudely dispelled by shrill cries of congratulation +from his wife and her mother. For the news had preceded him. Ephraim +Blinks with his fiddle had stopped there on his way to play at some +neighboring merry-making, and had acquainted them with the result of +processioning Purdee's land.</p> + +<p>"We'll go down thar an' live!" cried his wife, with a gush of joyful +tears. "Arter all our scratchin' along like ten-toed chickens all this +time, we'll hev comfort an' plenty! We'll live in Grinnell's good house! +But ter think o' our trials, an' how pore we hev been!"</p> + +<p>"This air the Purdees' day!" cried the grandmother, her face flushed +with the semblance of youth. "Arter all ez hev kem an' gone, the +jedgmint o' the Lord hev descended on Grinnell, an' he air cast out. An' +his fields, an' house, an' bin, an' barn, air Purdee's!"</p> + +<p>The fire flared and faded; shadows of the night gloomed thick in the +room—this night of nights that bestowed so much, that imposed so +much on man and on his fellow-man!</p> + +<p>"Ain't the Grinnell baby got <i>no</i> home?" whimpered the hereditary enemy.</p> + +<p>The mountaineer remembered the Lord of heaven and earth cradled, a +little Child, in the manger. He remembered, too, the humble child +smiling its<span class="pagenum">[351]</span> guileless good-will at the fence. He broke out +suddenly.</p> + +<p>"How kem the fields Purdee's," he cried, leaning his back against the +door and striking the puncheon floor with the butt of the gun till it +rang again and again, "or the house, or the bin, or the barn? Did he +plant 'em? Did he build 'em? Who made 'em his'n?"</p> + +<p>"The law!" exclaimed both women in a breath.</p> + +<p>"Thar ain't no law in heaven or yearth ez kin gin an honest man what +ain't his'n by rights," he declared.</p> + +<p>An insistent feminine clamor arose, protesting the sovereign power of +the law. He quaked for a moment; dominant though he was in his own +house, he could not face them, but he could flee. He suddenly stepped +out of the door, and when they opened it and looked after him in the +snowy dusk and the whitened woods, he was gone.</p> + +<p>And popular opinion coincided with them when it became known that he had +formally relinquished his right to that portion of the land improved by +Grinnell. He said to the old squire who drew up the quit-claim deed, +which he executed that Christmas Eve, that he was not willing to profit +by his enemy's mistake, and thus the consideration expressed in the +conveyance was the value of the land, considered not as a farm, but as +so many acres of wilderness before an axe was laid to the trunk of a +tree or the soil upturned by a plough. It was the minimum of value, and +Grinnell came cheaply off.</p> + +<p>The blacksmith, the mountain fiddler, and the<span class="pagenum">[352]</span> advanced thinker, +who had been active in the survey, balked of the expected excitement +attendant upon the ousting of Grinnell, and some sensational culmination +of the ancient feud, were not in sympathy with the pacific result, and +spoke as if they had given themselves to unrequited labors.</p> + +<p>"Thar ain't no way o' settlin' what that thar critter Purdee owns +'ceptin' ez consarns Moses' tables o' the Law. He clings ter them," they +said, in conclave about the forge fire when the big doors were closed +and the snow, banking up the crevices, kept out the wind. "There ain't +no use in percessionin' Purdee's land."</p> + +<p>And indeed Purdee's possessions were wider far than even that divergent +line which the county surveyor ran out might seem to warrant; for on the +mountain-tops largest realms of solemn thought were open to him. He +levied tribute upon the liberties of an enthused imagination. He exulted +in the freedom of the expanding spaces of a spiritual perception of the +spiritual things. When the snow slipped away from the tables of the Law, +the man who had read strange scripture engraven thereon took his way one +day, doubtful, but faltering with hope, up and up to the vast dome of +the mountain, and knelt beside the rocks to see if perchance he might +trace anew those mystic runes which he once had some fine instinct to +decipher. And as he pondered long he found, or thought he found, here a +familiar character, and there a slowly developing word, and +anon—did he see it aright?—a phrase; and suddenly it was +discovered to him that, whether their origin were a sacred mystery +or<span class="pagenum">[353]</span> the fantastic scroll-work of time as the rock weathered, high +thoughts, evoking thrilling emotions, bear scant import to one who +apprehends only in mental acceptance. And he realized that the multiform +texts which he had read in the fine and curious script were but +paraphrases of the simple mandate to be good to one another for the sake +of that holy Child cradled in manger, and to all little children.</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">THE END</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p class="h2">IN THE "STRANGER PEOPLE'S" COUNTRY.</p> + +<p>By <span class="smcap">Charles Egbert Craddock</span>. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 +50.</p> + +<blockquote> <p>In this strong story Miss Murfree has shown better art than in any of +her other long novels. It is a romance of the Tennessee mountains, told +with singular effect. The mystery and the picturesqueness of it make it +notable. We have enjoyed it, and we recommend it to those who are hungry +and thirsty for a genuinely entertaining story.—<i>Independent</i>, N. +Y.</p> + +<p>Miss Murfree has never had a more fascinating field for a story.... She +continues to be a romancist of strong imagination and sustained dramatic +power.—<i>Literary World</i>, Boston.</p> + +<p>The extraordinary freshness and reality of the picture of the +hill-people's life in the mountainous regions of Tennessee make this one +of the most readable of the many readable American stories which abound +just now.—<i>Saturday Review</i>, London.</p> + +<p>A brilliant story, full of power, remarkably picturesque and vigorous in +the telling.... The author writes in the spirit of a thorough literary +artist, and this book in plot, character, drawing, vividness, and +interest is an advance even on the admirable stories that brought her +into notice and established her reputation.—<i>Saturday Evening +Gazette</i>, Boston.</p> + +<p>The author delineates the natural scenery of the region with graphic +power, and the actors in her stories are drawn to the life. This book is +equal to any of its predecessors in dramatic power.—<i>Observer</i>, N. +Y.</p> + +<p>This is, perhaps, the best story which Miss Murfree has published.... +Though Miss Murfree's pen has described the wonderful mountain scenery +over and over again in her previous volumes, yet here are found new, +fresh touches that are charmingly beautiful, strange, and +weird.—<i>Zion's Herald</i>, Boston.</p> </blockquote> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Published by</span> HARPER & BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">New York</span></p> + +<p><i>For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage +prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt +of the price.</i></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p class="h2">R. D. BLACKMORE'S NOVELS.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Perlycross</span>. A Novel. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75.</p> + +<blockquote> <p>Told with delicate and delightful art. Its pictures of rural English +scenes and characters will woo and solace the reader.... It is charming +company in charming surroundings. Its pathos, its humor, and its array +of natural incidents are all satisfying. One must feel thankful for so +finished and exquisite a story.... Not often do we find a more +impressive piece of work.—<i>N. Y. Sun.</i></p> </blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Springhaven</span>. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper, 25 cents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lorna Doone</span>. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 8vo, Paper, 40 cents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kit and Kitty</span>. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; Paper, 35 cents</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Christowell</span>. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Cradock Nowell</span>. 8vo, Paper, 60 cents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Erema</span>; or, My Father's Sin. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary Anerley</span>. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper, 15 cents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tommy Upmore</span>. 16mo, Cloth, 50 cents; Paper, 35 cts.; 4to, Paper, 20 +cents.</p> + +<blockquote> <p>His tales, all of them, are pre-eminently meritorious. They are +remarkable for their careful elaboration, the conscientious finish of +their workmanship, their affluence of striking dramatic and narrative +incident, their close observation and general interpretation of nature, +their profusion of picturesque description, and their quiet and +sustained humor.—<i>Christian Intelligencer</i>, N. Y.</p> </blockquote> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Published by</span> HARPER & BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">New York</span>.</p> + +<p><i>The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the +publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p class="h2"><span class="smcap">By GEORGE DU MAURIER</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Trilby</span>. A Novel. Illustrated by the Author. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1 75; Three-quarter Calf, $3 50; Three-quarter Crushed Levant, $4 50.</p> + +<blockquote> <p>Certainly, if it were not for its predecessor, we should assign to +"Trilby" a place in fiction absolutely companionless.... It is one of +the most unconventional and charming of novels.—<i>Saturday Review</i>, +London.</p> + +<p>It is a charming story told with exquisite grace and +tenderness.—<i>N. Y. Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. Du Maurier has written his tale with such originality, +unconventionality, and eloquence, such rollicking humor and tender +pathos, and delightful play of every lively fancy, all running so +briskly in exquisite English and with such vivid dramatic picturing, +that it is only comparable ... to the freshness and beauty of a spring +morning at the end of a dragging winter.... It is a thoroughly unique +story.—<i>N. Y. Sun</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Peter Ibbetson</span>. With an Introduction by his Cousin, Lady * * * * * +("Madge Plunket"). Edited and Illustrated by <span class="smcap">George Du Maurier</span>. Post +8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50.</p> + +<p>That it is one of the most remarkable books that have appeared for a +long time is, however, indisputable.—<i>N. Y. Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p>There are no suggestions of mediocrity. The pathos is true, the irony +delicate, the satire severe when its subject is unworthy, the comedy +sparkling, and the tragedy, as we have said, inevitable. One or two more +such books, and the fame of the artist would be dim beside that of the +novelist.—<i>N. Y. Evening Post</i>.</p> </blockquote> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Published by</span> HARPER & BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">New York</span>.</p> + +<p><i>The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the +publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p class="h2"><span class="smcap">By MARY E. WILKINS.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pembroke</span>. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jane Field</span>. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Young Lucretia</span>, and Other Stories. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1 25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A New England Nun</span>, and Other Stories. l6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Humble Romance</span>, and Other Stories. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Giles Corey, Yeoman</span>. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.</p> + +<blockquote> <p>We have long admired Miss Wilkins as one of the most powerful, +original, and profound writers of America; but we are bound to say that +"Pembroke" is entitled to a higher distinction than the critics have +awarded to Miss Wilkins's earlier productions. As a picture of New +England life and character, as a story of such surpassing interest that +he who begins is compelled to finish it, as a work of art without a +fault or a deficiency, we cannot see how it could possibly be +improved.—<i>N.Y. Sun</i>.</p> + +<p>The simplicity, purity, and quaintness of these stories set them apart +in a niche of distinction where they have no rivals.—<i>Literary +World</i>, Boston.</p> + +<p>Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, +sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures.—<i>N. Y. Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p>The charm of Miss Wilkins's stories is in her intimate acquaintance and +comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she feels and +makes her readers partake of, in the simple, common, homely people she +draws.—<i>Springfield Republican</i>.</p> </blockquote> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York</span>.</p> + +<p><i>The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the +publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, on receipt of the price</i>.</p> + +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and +Other Stories, by Charles Egbert Craddock + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTOMS *** + +***** This file should be named 36771-h.htm or 36771-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/7/36771/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton 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. 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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 Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and Other Stories + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock + +Release Date: July 17, 2011 [EBook #36771] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTOMS *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton 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.) + + + + + + + + [Illustration: "'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A + NEPHEW?'"] + + + + + The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge + + + And Other Stories + + BY + + CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK + + AUTHOR OF + + "IN THE 'STRANGER PEOPLE'S' COUNTRY" ETC. + + ILLUSTRATED + + + NEW YORK + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + + 1895 + + + Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS + + _All rights reserved._ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE + + HIS "DAY IN COURT" + + 'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE + + THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS + + THE RIDDLE OF THE ROCKS + + + + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A NEPHEW?'" + + THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE + + OLD JOEL QUIMBEY + + "'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'" + + "SHE FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD" + + "HE STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW" + + OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON + + "YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE" + + "HE HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST" + + "'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'" + + "SHE SMILED UPON THE BABY" + + THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP + + "THE TABLES OF THE LAW" + + "'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER--_ME_?'" + + + + +THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE + + +Across the narrow gorge the little foot-bridge stretched--a brace of +logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a cedar +pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the dark and +rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, swift +and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all ordinary +usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and elusive +travellers who by common report frequented it. + +"We ain't likely ter meet nobody. Few folks kem this way nowadays, +'thout it air jes' ter ford the creek down along hyar a piece, sence +harnts an' sech onlikely critters hev been viewed a-crossin' the +foot-bredge. An' it hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble onlucky, too," +said Roxby. + +His interlocutor drew back slightly. He had his own reasons to recoil +from the subject of death. For him it was invested with a more immediate +terror than is usual to many of the living, with that flattering +persuasion of immortality in every strong pulsation repudiating all +possibility of cessation. Then, lifting his gloomy, long-lashed eyes to +the bridge far up the stream, he asked, "Whose 'harnts'?" + +His voice had a low, repressed cadence, as of one who speaks seldom, +grave, even melancholy, and little indicative of the averse interest +that had kindled in his sombre eyes. In comparison the drawl of the +mountaineer, who had found him heavy company by the way, seemed imbued +with an abnormal vivacity, and keyed a tone or two higher than was its +wont. + +"Thar ain't a few," he replied, with a sudden glow of the pride of the +cicerone. "Thar's a graveyard t'other side o' the gorge, an' not more +than a haffen-mile off, an' a cornsider'ble passel o' folks hev been +buried thar off an' on, an' the foot-bredge ain't in nowise +ill-convenient ter them." + +Thus demonstrating the spectral resources of the locality, he rode his +horse well into the stream as he spoke, and dropped the reins that the +animal's impatient lips might reach the water. He sat facing the +foot-bridge, flecked with the alternate shifting of the sunshine and the +shadows of the tremulous firs that grew on either side of the high banks +on the ever-ascending slope, thus arching both above and below the +haunted bridge. His companion had joined him in the centre of the +stream; but while the horses drank, the stranger's eyes were +persistently bent on the concentric circles of the water that the +movement of the animals had set astir in the current, as if he feared +that too close or curious a gaze might discern some pilgrim, whom he +cared not to see, traversing that shadowy quivering foot-bridge. He was +mounted on a strong, handsome chestnut, as marked a contrast to his +guide's lank and trace-galled sorrel as were the two riders. A slender +gloved hand had fallen with the reins to the pommel of the saddle. His +soft felt hat, like a sombrero, shadowed his clear-cut face. He was +carefully shaven, save for a long drooping dark mustache and imperial. +His suit of dark cloth was much concealed by a black cloak, one end of +which thrown back across his shoulder showed a bright blue lining, the +color giving a sudden heightening touch to his attire, as if he were "in +costume." It was a fleeting fashion of the day, but it added a certain +picturesqueness to a horseman, and seemed far enough from the times that +produced the square-tailed frock-coat which the mountaineer wore, +constructed of brown jeans, the skirts of which stood stiffly out on +each side of the saddle, and gave him, with his broad-brimmed hat, a +certain Quakerish aspect. + +"I dun'no' why folks be so 'feared of 'em," Roxby remarked, +speculatively. "The dead ain't so oncommon, nohow. Them ez hev been in +the war, like you an' me done, oughter be in an' 'bout used ter +corpses--though I never seen none o' 'em afoot agin. Lookin' at a smit +field o' battle, arter the rage is jes' passed, oughter gin a body a +realizin' sense how easy the sperit kin flee, an' what pore vessels fur +holdin' the spark o' life human clay be." + +Simeon Roxby had a keen, not unkindly face, and he had that look of +extreme intelligence which is entirely distinct from intellectuality, +and which one sometimes sees in a minor degree in a very clever dog or a +fine horse. One might rely on him to understand instinctively everything +one might say to him, even in its subtler aesthetic values, although he +had consciously learned little. He was of the endowed natures to whom +much is given, rather than of those who are set to acquire. He had many +lines in his face--even his simple life had gone hard with him, its +sorrows unassuaged by its simplicity. His hair was grizzled, and hung +long and straight on his collar. He wore a grizzled beard cut broad and +short. His boots had big spurs, although the lank old sorrel had never +felt them. He sat his horse like the cavalryman he had been for four +years of hard riding and raiding, but his face had a certain gentleness +that accented the Quaker-like suggestion of his garb, a look of +communing with the higher things. + +"I never blamed 'em," he went on, evidently reverting to the spectres of +the bridge--"I never blamed 'em for comin' back wunst in a while. It +'pears ter me 'twould take me a long time ter git familiar with heaven, +an' sociable with them ez hev gone before. An', my Lord, jes' think what +the good green yearth is! Leastwise the mountings. I ain't settin' store +on the valley lands I seen whenst I went ter the wars. I kin remember +yit what them streets in the valley towns smelt like." + +He lifted his head, drawing a long breath to inhale the exquisite +fragrance of the fir, the freshness of the pellucid water, the aroma of +the autumn wind, blowing through the sere leaves still clinging red and +yellow to the boughs of the forest. + +"Naw, I ain't blamin' 'em, though I don't hanker ter view 'em," he +resumed. "One of 'em I wouldn't be afeard of, though. I feel mighty +sorry fur her. The old folks used ter tell about her. A young 'oman she +war, a-crossin' this bredge with her child in her arms. She war young, +an' mus' have been keerless, I reckon; though ez 'twar her fust baby, +she moughtn't hev been practised in holdin' it an' sech, an' somehows it +slipped through her arms an' fell inter the ruver, an' war killed in a +minit, dashin' agin the rocks. She jes' stood fur a second a-screamin' +like a wild painter, an' jumped off'n the bredge arter it. She got it +agin; for when they dragged her body out'n the ruver she hed it in her +arms too tight fur even death ter onloose. An' thar they air together in +the buryin'-ground." + +He gave a nod toward the slope of the mountain that intercepted the +melancholy view of the graveyard. + +"Got it yit!" he continued; "bekase" (he lowered his voice) "on windy +nights, whenst the moon is on the wane, she is viewed kerryin' the baby +along the bredge--kerryin' it clear over, _safe an' sound_, like she +thought she oughter done, I reckon, in that one minute, whilst she stood +an' screamed an' surveyed what she hed done. That child would hev been +nigh ter my age ef he hed lived." + +Only the sunbeams wavered athwart the bridge now as the firs swayed +above, giving glimpses of the sky, and their fibrous shadows flickered +back and forth. The wild mountain stream flashed white between the brown +bowlders, and plunged down the gorge in a succession of cascades, each +seeming more transparently green and amber and brown than the other. The +chestnut horse gazed meditatively at these limpid out-gushings, having +drunk his fill; then thought better of his moderation, and once more +thrust his head down to the water. The hand of his rider, which had made +a motion to gather up the reins, dropped leniently on his neck, as +Simeon Roxby spoke again: + +"Several--several others hev been viewed, actin' accordin' ter thar +motions in life. Now thar war a peddler--some say he slipped one icy +evenin', 'bout dusk in winter--some say evil ones waylaid him fur his +gear an' his goods in his pack, but the settlemint mostly believes he +war alone whenst he fell. His pack 'pears ter be full still, they +say--but ye air 'bleeged ter know he hev hed ter set that pack down fur +good 'fore this time. We kin take nuthin' out'n this world, no matter +what kind o' a line o' goods we kerry in life. Heaven's no place fur +tradin', I understan', an' I _do_ wonder sometimes how in the worl' them +merchants an' sech in the valley towns air goin' ter entertain tharse'fs +in the happy land o'Canaan. It's goin' ter be sorter bleak fur them, +sure's ye air born." + +With a look of freshened recollection, he suddenly drew a plug of +tobacco from his pocket, and he talked on even as he gnawed a piece from +it. + +"Durin' the war a cavalry-man got shot out hyar whilst runnin' 'crost +that thar foot-bredge. Thar hed been a scrimmage an' his horse war kilt, +an' he tuk ter the bresh on foot, hopin' ter hide in the laurel. But ez +he war crossin' the foot-bredge some o' the pursuin' party war fordin' +the ruver over thar, an' thinkin' he'd make out ter escape they fired on +him, jes' ez the feller tried ter surrender. He turned this way an' +flung up both arms--but thar's mighty leetle truce in a pistol-ball. +That minute it tuk him right through the brain. Seems toler'ble long +range fur a pistol, don't it? He kin be viewed now most enny moonlight +night out hyar on the foot-bredge, throwin' up both hands in sign of +surrender." + +The wild-geese were a-wing on the way southward. Looking up to that +narrow section of the blue sky which the incision of the gorge into the +very depths of the woods made visible, he could see the tiny files +deploying along the azure or the flecking cirrus, and hear the vague +clangor of their leader's cry. He lifted his head to mechanically follow +their flight. Then, as his eyes came back to earth, they rested again on +the old bridge. + +"Strange enough," he said, suddenly, "the skerriest tale I hev ever +hearn 'bout that thar old bredge is one that my niece set a-goin'. She +_seen_ the harnt _herself_, an' it shakes me wuss 'n the idee o' all the +rest." + +His companion's gloomy gaze was lifted for a moment with an expression +of inquiry from the slowly widening circles of the water about the +horse's head as he drank. But Roxby's eyes, with a certain gleam of +excitement, a superstitious dilation, still dwelt upon the bridge at the +end of the upward vista. He went on merely from the impetus of the +subject. "Yes, sir--she _seen_ it a-pacin' of its sorrowful way acrost +that bredge, same ez the t'others of the percession o' harnts. 'Twar my +niece, Mill'cent--brother's darter--by name, Mill'cent Roxby. Waal, +Mill'cent an' a lot o' young fools o' her age--little over fryin' +size--they 'tended camp-meetin' down hyar on Tomahawk Creek--'tain't so +long ago--along with the old folks. An' 'bout twenty went huddled up +tergether in a road-wagin. An', lo! the wagin it bruk down on the way +home, an' what with proppin' it up on a crotch, they made out ter reach +the cross-roads over yander at the Notch, an' thar the sober old folks +called a halt, an' hed the wagin mended at the blacksmith-shop. Waal, it +tuk some two hours, fur Pete Rodd ain't a-goin' ter hurry hisself--in my +opinion the angel Gabriel will hev ter blow his bugle oftener'n wunst at +the last day 'fore Pete Rodd makes up his mind ter rise from the dead +an' answer the roll-call--an' this hyar young lot sorter found it +tiresome waitin' on thar elders' solemn company. The old folks, whilst +waitin', set outside on the porches of the houses at the settlemint, an' +repeated some o' the sermons they hed hearn at camp, an' more'n one +raised a hyme chune. An' the young fry--they hed hed a steady diet o' +sermons an' hyme chunes fur fower days--they tuk ter stragglin' off down +the road, two an' two, like the same sorter idjits the world over, +leavin' word with the old folks that the wagin would overtake 'em an' +pick 'em up on the road when it passed. Waal, they walked several mile, +an' time they got ter the crest o' the hill over yander the moon hed +riz, an' they could look down an' see the mist in the valley. The moon +war bright in the buryin'-groun' when they passed it, an' the +head-boards stood up white an' stiff, an' a light frost hed fell on the +mounds, an' they showed plain, an' shone sorter lonesome an' cold. The +young folks begun ter look behind em' fur the wagin. Some said--I +b'lieve 'twar Em'ry Keenan--they could read the names on the boards +plain, 'twar so light, the moon bein' nigh the full: but Em'ry never +read nuthin' at night by the moon in his life; he ain't enny too capable +o' wrastlin' with the alphabet with a strong daytime on his book ter +light him ter knowledge. An' the shadows war black an' still, an' all +the yearth looked ez ef nuthin' lived nor ever would agin, an' they +hearn a wolf howl. Waal, that disaccommodated the gals mightily, an' +they hed a heap more interes' in that old wagin, all smellin' rank with +wagin-grease an' tar, than they did in thar lovyers; an' they hed ruther +hev hearn that old botch of a wheel that Pete Rodd hed set onto it +comin' a-creakin' an' a-complainin' along the road than the sweetest +words them boys war able ter make up or remember. So they stood thar in +the road--a-stare-gazin' them head-boards, like they expected every +grave ter open an' the reveilly ter sound--a-waitin' ter be overtook by +the wagin, a-listenin', but hearin' nuthin' in the silence o' the +frost--not a dead leaf a-twirlin', nor a frozen blade o' grass astir. +An' then two or three o' the gals 'lowed they hed ruther walk back ter +meet the wagin, an' whenst the boys 'lowed ter go on--nuthin' war likely +ter ketch 'em--one of 'em bust out a-cryin'. Waal, thar war the eend o' +that much! So the gay party set out on the back track, a-keepin' step +ter sobs an' sniffles, an' that's how kem _they_ seen no harnt. But +Mill'cent an' three or four o' the t'others 'lowed they'd go on. They +warn't two mile from home, an' full five from the cross-roads. So Em'ry +Keenan--he hev been waitin' on her sence the year one--so he put his +skeer in his pocket an' kem along with her, a-shakin' in his shoes, I'll +be bound! So down the hill in the frosty moonlight them few kem--purty +nigh beat out, I reckon, Mill'cent war, what with the sermonizin' an' +the hyme-singin' an' hevin' ter look continual at the sheep's-eyes o' +Em'ry Keenan--he wears my patience ter the bone! So she concluded ter +take the short-cut. An' Em'ry he agreed. So they tuk the lead, the rest +a followin', an' kem down thar through all that black growth"--he lifted +his arm and pointed at the great slope, dense with fir and pine and the +heavy underbrush--"keepin' the bridle-path--easy enough even at night, +fur the bresh is so thick they couldn't lose thar way. But the moonlight +war mightily slivered up, fallin' through the needles of the pines an' +the skeins of dead vines, an' looked bleached and onnatural, an' holped +the dark mighty leetle. An' they seen the water a-shinin' an' a-plungin' +down the gorge, an' the glistenin' of the frost on the floor o' the +bredge. Thar war a few icicles on the hand-rail, an' the branches o' the +firs hung ez still ez death; only that cold, racin', shoutin', jouncin' +water moved. Jes ez they got toler'ble nigh the foot-bredge a sudden +cloud kem over the face o' the sky. Thar warn't no wind on the yearth, +but up above the air war a-stirrin'. An' Em'ry he 'lowed Mill'cent +shouldn't cross the foot-bredge whilst the light warn't clar--I wonder +the critter hed that much sense! An' she jes' drapped down on that rock +thar ter rest"--he pointed up the slope to a great fragment that had +broken off from the ledges and lay near the bank: the bulk of the +mass was overgrown with moss and lichen, but the jagged edges of the +recent fracture gleamed white and crystalline among the brown and +olive-green shadows about it. A tree was close beside it. "Agin that +thar pine trunk Em'ry he stood an' leaned. The rest war behind, a-comin' +down the hill. An' all of a suddenty a light fell on the furder eend o' +the foot-bredge--a waverin' light, mighty white an' misty in the +darksomeness. Mill'cent 'lowed ez fust she thunk it war the moon. An' +lookin' up, she seen the cloud; it held the moon close kivered. An' +lookin' down, she seen the light war movin'--movin' from the furder eend +o' the bredge, straight acrost it. Sometimes a hand war held afore it, +ez ef ter shield it from the draught, an' then Mill'cent 'seen twar a +candle, an' the white in the mistiness war a 'oman wearin' white an' +carryin' it. Lookin' ter right an' then ter lef' the 'oman kem, with now +her right hand shieldin' the candle she held, an' now layin' it on the +hand-rail. The candle shone on the water, fur it didn't flare, an' when +the 'oman held her hand before it the light made a bright spot on the +foot-bredge an' in the dark air about her, an' on the fir branches over +her head. An' a thin mist seemed to hang about her white frock, but not +over her face, fur when she reached the middle o' the foot-bredge she +laid her hand agin on the rail, an' in the clear light o' the candle +Mill'cent seen the harnt's face. An' thar she beheld her own face; _her +own face_ she looked upon ez she waited thar under the tree watchin' the +foot-bredge; _her own face_ pale an' troubled; her own self dressed in +white, crossin' the foot-bredge, an' lightin' her steps with a corpse's +candle." He drew up the reins abruptly. He seemed in sudden haste to go. + +[Illustration: THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE] + +His companion looked with deepening interest at the bridge, although he +followed his guide's surging pathway to the opposite bank. As the two +dripping horses struggled up the steep incline he asked, "Did the man +with her see the manifestation also?" + +"He _'lows_ he did," responded Roxby, equivocally. "But when Mill'cent +fust got so she could tell it, 'peared ter me ez Em'ry Keenan fund it ez +much news ez the rest o' we-uns. Mill'cent jes' drapped stone-dead, +accordin' ter all accounts, an' he an' the t'other young folks flung +water in her face till she kem out'n her faint; an' jes' then they hearn +the wagin a-rattlin' along the road, an' they stopped it an' fetched her +home in it. She never told the tale till she war home, an' it skeered me +an' my mother powerful, fur Mill'cent is all the kin we hev got. +Mill'cent is gran'daddy an' gran'mammy, sons an' daughters, uncles an' +aunts, cousins, nieces, an' nephews, all in one. The only thing I ain't +pervided with is a nephew-in-law, an' I don't need him. Leastwise I +ain't lookin' fur Em'ry Keenan jes' at present." + +The pace was brisker when the two horses, bending their strength +sturdily to the task, had pressed up the massive slope from the deep +cleft of the gorge. As the road curved about the outer verge of the +mountain, the valley far beneath came into view, with intersecting +valleys and transverse ranges, dense with the growths of primeval +wildernesses, and rugged with the tilted strata of great upheavals, and +with chasms cut in the solid rock by centuries of erosion, traces of +some remote cataclysmal period, registering thus its throes and +turmoils. The blue sky, seen beyond a gaunt profile of one of the +farther summits that defined its craggy serrated edge against the +ultimate distances of the western heavens, seemed of a singularly suave +tint, incongruous with the savagery of the scene, which clouds and +portents of storm might better have befitted. The little graveyard, +which John Dundas discerned with recognizing eyes, albeit they had never +before rested upon it, was revealed suddenly, lying high on the opposite +side of the gorge. No frost glimmered now on the lowly mounds; the +flickering autumnal sunshine loitered unafraid among them, according to +its languid wont for many a year. Shadows of the gray unpainted +head-boards lay on the withered grass, brown and crisp, with never a +cicada left to break the deathlike silence. A tuft of red leaves, +vagrant in the wind, had been caught on one of the primitive monuments, +and swayed there with a decorative effect. The enclosure seemed, to +unaccustomed eyes, of small compass, and few the denizens who had found +shelter here and a resting-place, but it numbered all the dead of the +country-side for many a mile and many a year, and somehow the loneliness +was assuaged to a degree by the reflection that they had known each +other in life, unlike the great herds of cities, and that it was a +common fate which the neighbors, huddled together, encountered in +company. + +It had no discordant effect in the pervasive sense of gloom, of mighty +antagonistic forces with which the scene was replete; it fostered a +realization of the pitiable minuteness and helplessness of human nature +in the midst of the vastness of inanimate nature and the evidences of +infinite lengths of forgotten time, of the long reaches of unimagined +history, eventful, fateful, which the landscape at once suggested and +revealed and concealed. + +Like the sudden flippant clatter of castanets in the pause of some +solemn funeral music was the impression given by the first glimpse along +the winding woodland way of a great flimsy white building, with its many +pillars, its piazzas, its "observatory," its band-stand, its garish +intimations of the giddy, gay world of a summer hotel. But, alack! it, +too, had its surfeit of woe. + +"The guerrillas an' bushwhackers tuk it out on the old hotel, sure!" +observed Sim Roxby, by way of introduction. "Thar warn't much fightin' +hyar-abouts, an' few sure-enough soldiers ever kem along. But wunst in a +while a band o' guerrillas went through like a suddint wind-storm, an' I +tell ye they made things whurl while they war about it. They made a +sorter barracks o' the old place. Looks some like lightning hed struck +it." + +He had reined up his horse about one hundred yards in front of the +edifice, where the weed-grown gravelled drive--carefully tended ten +years agone--had diverged from the straight avenue of poplars, sweeping +in a circle around to the broad flight of steps. + +"Though," he qualified abruptly, as if a sudden thought had struck him, +"ef ye air countin' on buyin' it, a leetle money spent ter keerful +purpose will go a long way toward makin' it ez good ez new." + +His companion did not reply, and for the first time Roxby cast upon him +a covert glance charged with the curiosity which would have been earlier +and more easily aroused in another man by the manner of the stranger. A +letter--infrequent missive in his experience--had come from an ancient +companion-in-arms, his former colonel, requesting him in behalf of a +friend of the old commander to repair to the railway station, thirty +miles distant, to meet and guide this prospective purchaser of the old +hotel to the site of the property. And now as Roxby looked at him the +suspicion which his kind heart had not been quick to entertain was +seized upon by his alert brain. + +"The cunnel's been fooled somehows," he said to himself. + +For the look with which John Dundas contemplated the place was not the +gaze of him concerned with possible investment--with the problems of +repair, the details of the glazier and the painter and the plasterer. +The mind was evidently neither braced for resistance nor resigned to +despair, as behooves one smitten by the foreknowledge of the certainty +of the excess of the expenditures over the estimates. Only with pensive, +listless melancholy, void of any intention, his eyes traversed the long +rows of open doors, riven by rude hands from their locks, swinging +helplessly to and fro in the wind, and giving to the deserted and +desolate old place a spurious air of motion and life. Many of the +shutters had been wrenched from their hinges, and lay rotting on the +floors. The ball-room windows caught on their shattered glass the +reflection of the clouds, and it seemed as if here and there a wan face +looked through at the riders wending along the weed-grown path. Where so +many faces had been what wonder that a similitude should linger in the +loneliness! The pallid face seemed to draw back as they glanced up while +slowly pacing around the drive. A rabbit sitting motionless on the front +piazza did not draw back, although observing them with sedate eyes as he +poised himself upright on his haunches, with his listless fore-paws +suspended in the air, and it occurred to Dundas that he was probably +unfamiliar with the presence of human beings, and had never heard the +crack of a gun. A great swirl of swallows came soaring out of the big +kitchen chimneys and circled in the sky, darting down again and again +upward. Through an open passage was a glimpse of a quadrangle, with its +weed-grown spaces and litter of yellow leaves. A tawny streak, a red +fox, sped through it as Dundas looked. A half-moon, all a-tilt, hung +above it. He saw the glimmer through the bare boughs of the leafless +locust-trees here and there still standing, although outside on the lawn +many a stump bore token how ruthlessly the bushwhackers had furnished +their fires. + +"That thar moon's a-hangin' fur rain," said the mountaineer, commenting +upon the aspect of the luminary, which he, too, had noticed as they +passed. "I ain't s'prised none ef we hev fallin' weather agin 'fore +day, an' the man--by name Morgan Holden--that hev charge o' the hotel +property can't git back fur a week an' better." + +A vague wonder to find himself so suspicious flitted through his mind, +with the thought that perhaps the colonel might have reckoned on this +delay. "Surely the ruvers down yander at Knoxville mus' be a-boomin', +with all this wet weather," he said to himself. + +Then aloud: "Morgan Holden he went ter Colbury ter 'tend ter some +business in court, an' the ruvers hev riz so that, what with the bredges +bein' washed away an' the fords so onsartain an' tricky, he'll stay till +the ruver falls. He don't know ye war kemin', ye see. The mail-rider hev +quit, 'count o' the rise in the ruver, an' thar's no way ter git word +ter him. Still, ef ye air minded ter wait, I'll be powerful obligated +fur yer comp'ny down ter my house till the ruver falls an' Holden he +gits back." + +The stranger murmured his obligations, but his eyes dwelt lingeringly +upon the old hotel, with its flapping doors and its shattered windows. +Through the recurrent vistas of these, placed opposite in the rooms, +came again broken glimpses of the grassy space within the quadrangle, +with its leafless locust-trees, first of all to yield their foliage to +the autumn wind, where a tiny owl was shrilling stridulously under the +lonely red sky and the melancholy moon. + +"Hed ye 'lowed ter put up at the old hotel?" asked Roxby, some inherent +quickness supplying the lack of a definite answer. + +For the first time the stranger turned upon him a look more expressive +than the casual fragmentary attention with which he had half heeded, +half ignored his talk since their first encounter at the railway +station. + +"A simple fellow, but good as gold," was the phrase with which Simeon +Roxby had been commended as guide and in some sort guard. + +"Not so simple, perhaps," the sophisticated man thought as their eyes +met. Not so simple but that the truth must serve. "The colonel suggested +that it might be best," he replied, more alert to the present moment +than his languid preoccupation had heretofore permitted. + +The answer was good as far as it went. A few days spent in the old +hostelry certainly would serve well to acquaint the prospective +purchaser with its actual condition and the measures and means needed +for its repair; but as Sim Roxby stood there, with the cry of the owl +shrilling in the desert air, the lonely red sky, the ominous tilted +moon, the doors drearily flapping to and fro as the wind stole into the +forlorn and empty place and sped back affrighted, he marvelled at the +refuge contemplated. + +"I believe there is some of the furniture here yet. We could contrive to +set up a bed from what is left. The colonel could make it all right with +Holden, and I could stay a day or two, as we originally planned." + +"Ye-es. I don't mind Holden: a man ain't much in charge of a place ez +ain't got a lock or a key ter bless itself with, an' takes the owel an' +the fox an' the gopher fur boarders; but, ennyhow, kem with me home ter +supper. Mill'cent will hev it ready by now ennyhows, an' ye need +suthin' hearty an' hot ter stiffen ye up ter move inter sech quarters ez +these." Dundas hesitated, but the mountaineer had already taken assent +for granted, and pushed his horse into a sharp trot. Evidently a refusal +was not in order. Dundas pressed forward, and they rode together along +the winding way past the ten-pin alley, its long low roof half hidden in +the encroaching undergrowth springing up apace beneath the great trees; +past the stables; past a line of summer cottages, strangely staring of +aspect out of the yawning doors and windows, giving, instead of an +impression of vacancy, a sense of covert watching, of secret occupancy. +If one's glances were only quick enough, were there not faces pressed to +those shattered panes--scarcely seen--swiftly withdrawn? + +He was in a desert; he had hardly been so utterly alone in all his life; +yet he bore through the empty place a feeling of espionage, and ever and +anon he glanced keenly at the overgrown lawns, with their deepening +drifts of autumn leaves, at the staring windows and flaring doors, which +emitted sometimes sudden creaking wails in the silence, as if he sought +to assure himself of the vacancy of which his mind took cognizance and +yet all his senses denied. + +Little of his sentiment, although sedulously cloaked, was lost on Sim +Roxby; and he was aware, too, in some subtle way, of the relief his +guest experienced when they plunged into the darkening forest and left +the forlorn place behind them. The clearing in which it was situated +seemed an oasis of light in the desert of night in which the rest of +the world lay. From the obscurity of the forest Dundas saw, through the +vistas of the giant trees, the clustering cottages, the great hotel, +gables and chimneys and tower, stark and distinct as in some weird +dream-light in the midst of the encircling gloom. The after-glow of +sunset was still aflare on the western windows; the whole empty place +was alight with a reminiscence of its old aspect--its old gay life. Who +knows what memories were a-stalk there--what semblance of former times? +What might not the darkness foster, the impunity of desertion, the +associations that inhabited the place with almost the strength of human +occupancy itself? Who knows--who knows? + +He remembered the scene afterward, the impression he received. And from +this, he thought, arose his regret for his decision to take up here his +abiding-place. + +The forest shut out the illumined landscape, and the night seemed indeed +at hand; the gigantic boles of the trees loomed through the encompassing +gloom, that was yet a semi-transparent medium, like some dark but clear +fluid through which objects were dimly visible, albeit tinged with its +own sombre hue. The lank, rawboned sorrel had set a sharp pace, to which +the chestnut, after momentary lagging, as if weary with the day's +travel, responded briskly. He had received in some way intimations that +his companion's corn-crib was near at hand, and if he had not deduced +from these premises the probability of sharing his fare, his mental +processes served him quite as well as reason, and brought him to the +same result. On and on they sped, neck and neck, through the darkening +woods; fire flashed now and again from their iron-shod hoofs; often a +splash and a shower of drops told of a swift dashing through the +mud-holes that recent rains had fostered in the shallows. The dank odor +of dripping boughs came on the clear air. Once the chestnut shied from a +sudden strange shining point springing up in the darkness close at hand, +which the country-bred horse discriminated as fox-fire, and kept +steadily on, unmindful of the rotting log where it glowed. Far in +advance, in the dank depths of the woods, a Will-o'-the-wisp danced and +flickered and lured the traveller's eye. The stranger was not sure of +the different quality of another light, appearing down a vista as the +road turned, until the sorrel, making a tremendous spurt, headed for it, +uttering a joyous neigh at the sight. + +The deep-voiced barking of hounds rose melodiously on the silence, and +as the horses burst out of the woods into a small clearing, Dundas +beheld in the brighter light a half-dozen of the animals nimbly afoot in +the road, one springing over the fence, another in the act of climbing, +his fore-paws on the topmost rail, his long neck stretched, and his head +turning about in attitudes of observation. He evidently wished to assure +himself whether the excitement of his friends was warranted by the facts +before he troubled himself to vault over the fence. Three or four still +lingered near the door of a log-cabin, fawning about a girl who stood on +the porch. Her pose was alert, expectant; a fire in the dooryard, where +the domestic manufacture of soap had been in progress, cast a red flare +on the house, its appurtenances, the great dark forest looming all +around, and, more than the glow of the hearth within, lighted up the +central figure of the scene. She was tall, straight, and strong; a +wealth of fair hair was clustered in a knot at the back of her head, and +fleecy tendrils fell over her brow; on it was perched a soldier's cap; +and certainly more gallant and fearless eyes had never looked out from +under the straight, stiff brim. Her chin, firm, round, dimpled, was +uplifted as she raised her head, descrying the horsemen's approach. She +wore a full dark-red skirt, a dark brown waist, and around her neck was +twisted a gray cotton kerchief, faded to a pale ashen hue, the +neutrality of which somehow aided the delicate brilliancy of the blended +roseate and pearly tints of her face. Was this the seer of +ghosts--Dundas marvelled--this the Millicent whose pallid and troubled +phantom already paced the foot-bridge? + +He did not realize that he had drawn up his horse suddenly at the sight +of her, nor did he notice that his host had dismounted, until Roxby was +at the chestnut's head, ready to lead the animal to supper in the barn. +His evident surprise, his preoccupation, were not lost upon Roxby, +however. His hand hesitated on the girth of the chestnut's saddle when +he stood between the two horses in the barn. He had half intended to +disregard the stranger's declination of his invitation, and stable the +creature. Then he shook his head slowly; the mystery that hung about +the new-comer was not reassuring. "A heap o' wuthless cattle 'mongst +them valley men," he said; for the war had been in some sort an +education to his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him +ter stay. I ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent, +nohow. Em'ry Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble +well acquainted with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy +an' mammy, an' both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could +tell ye exac'ly which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from, +an' them lean sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every tone o' his voice. +Em'ry never thunk afore ez I set store on bein' acquainted with him. He +'lowed I knowed him _too_ well." + +He laughed as he glanced through the open door into the darkening +landscape. Horizontal gray clouds were slipping fast across the pearly +spaces of the sky. The yellow stubble gleamed among the brown earth of +the farther field, still striped with its furrows. The black forest +encircled the little cleared space, and a wind was astir among the +tree-tops. A white star gleamed through the broken clapboards of the +roof, the fire still flared under the soap-kettle in the dooryard, and +the silence was suddenly smitten by a high cracked old voice, which told +him that his mother had perceived the dismounted stranger at the gate, +and was graciously welcoming him. + +She had come to the door, where the girl still stood, but half withdrawn +in the shadow. Dundas silently bowed as he passed her, following his +aged hostess into the low room, all bedight with the firelight of a +huge chimney-place, and comfortable with the realization of a journey's +end. The wilderness might stretch its weary miles around, the weird wind +wander in the solitudes, the star look coldly on unmoved by aught it +beheld, the moon show sad portents, but at the door they all failed, for +here waited rest and peace and human companionship and the sense of +home. + +"Take a cheer, stranger, an' make yerself at home. Powerful glad ter see +ye--war 'feard night would overtake ye. Ye fund the water toler'ble high +in all the creeks an' sech, I reckon, an' fords shifty an' onsartain. +Yes, sir. Fall rains kem on earlier'n common, an' more'n we need. Wisht +we could divide it with that thar drought we had in the summer. Craps +war cut toler'ble short, sir--toler'ble short." + +Mrs. Roxby's spectacles beamed upon him with an expression of the utmost +benignity as the firelight played on the lenses, but her eyes peering +over them seemed endowed in some sort with independence of outlook. It +was as if from behind some bland mask a critical observation was poised +for unbiased judgment. He felt in some degree under surveillance. But +when a light step heralded an approach he looked up, regardless of the +betrayal of interest, and bent a steady gaze upon Millicent as she +paused in the doorway. + +And as she stood there, distinct in the firelight and outlined against +the black background of the night, she seemed some modern half-military +ideal of Diana, with her two gaunt hounds beside her, the rest of the +pack vaguely glimpsed at her heels outside, the perfect outline and +chiselling of her features, her fine, strong, supple figure, the look of +steady courage in her eyes, and the soldier's cap on her fair hair. Her +face so impressed itself upon his mind that he seemed to have seen her +often. It was some resemblance to a picture of a vivandiere, doubtless, +in a foreign gallery--he could not say when or where; a remnant of a +tourist's overcrowded impressions; a half-realized reminiscence, he +thought, with an uneasy sense of recognition. + +"Hello, Mill'cent! home agin!" Roxby cried, in cheery greeting as he +entered at the back door opposite. "What sorter topknot is that ye got +on?" he demanded, looking jocosely at her head-gear. + +The girl put up her hand with an expression of horror. A deep red flush +dyed her cheek as she touched the cap. "I forgot 'twar thar," she +murmured, contritely. Then, with a sudden rush of anger as she tore it +off: "'Twar granny's fault. She axed me ter put it on, so ez ter see +which one I looked most like." + +"Stranger," quavered the old woman, with a painful break in her voice, +"I los' fower sons in the war, an' Mill'cent hev got the fambly favor." + +"Ye _mought_ hev let me know ez I war a-perlitin' round in this hyar +men's gear yit," the girl muttered, as she hung the cap on a prong of +the deer antlers on which rested the rifle of the master of the house. + +Roxby's face had clouded at the mention of the four sons who had gone +out from the mountains never to return, leaving to their mother's +aching heart only the vague comfort of an elusive resemblance in a +girl's face; but as he noted Millicent's pettish manner, and divined her +mortification because of her unseemly head-gear in the stranger's +presence, he addressed her again in that jocose tone without which he +seldom spoke to her. + +"Warn't you-uns apologizin' ter me t'other day fur not bein' a nephew +'stiddier a niece? Looked sorter like a nephew ter-night." + +She shook her head, covered now only with its own charming tresses +waving in thick undulations to the coil at the nape of her neck--a +trifle dishevelled from the rude haste with which the cap had been torn +off. + +Roxby had seated himself, and with his elbows on his knees he looked up +at her with a teasing jocularity, such as one might assume toward a +child. + +"_Ye war_," he declared, with affected solemnity--"ye war 'pologizin' +fur not bein' a nephew, an' 'lowed ef ye war a nephew we could go +a-huntin' tergether, an' ye could holp me in all my quar'ls an' fights. +I been aging some lately, an' ef I war ter go ter the settlemint an' git +inter a fight I mought not be able ter hold my own. Think what 'twould +be ter a pore old man ter hev a dutiful nephew step up an'"--he doubled +his fists and squared off--"jes' let daylight through some o' them +cusses. An' didn't _ye say_"--he dropped his belligerent attitude and +pointed an insistent finger at her, as if to fix the matter in her +recollection--"ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye could fire a gun +'thout shettin' yer eyes? An' I told ye then ez that would mend yer aim +mightily. I told ye that I'd be powerful mortified ef I hed a nephew ez +hed ter shet his eyes ter keep the noise out'n his ears whenst he fired +a rifle. The tale would go mighty hard with me at the settlemint." + +The girl's eyes glowed upon him with the fixity and the lustre of those +of a child who is entertained and absorbed by an elder's jovial wiles. A +flash of laughter broke over her face, and the low, gurgling, +half-dreamy sound was pleasant to hear. She was evidently no more than a +child to these bereft old people, and by them cherished as naught else +on earth. + +"An' didn't _I_ tell _you-uns_," he went on, affecting to warm to the +discussion, and in reality oblivious of the presence of the +guest--"didn't I tell ye ez how ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye +wouldn't hev sech cattle ez Em'ry Keenan a-danglin' round underfoot, +like a puppy ye can't gin away, an' that _won't_ git lost, an' ye ain't +got the heart ter kill?" + +The girl's lip suddenly curled with scorn. "Yer nephew would be +obligated ter make a ch'ice fur marryin' 'mongst these hyar mounting +gals--Parmely Lepstone, or Belindy M'ria Matthews, or one o' the Windrow +gals. Waal, sir, I'd ruther be yer niece--even ef Em'ry Keenan _air_ +like a puppy underfoot, that ye can't gin away, an' won't git lost, an' +ye ain't got the heart ter kill." She laughed again, showing her white +teeth. She evidently relished the description of the persistent +adherence of poor Emory Keenan. "But which one o' these hyar gals would +ye recommend ter yer nephew ter marry--ef ye hed a nephew?" + +She looked at him with flashing eyes, conscious of having propounded a +poser. + +He hesitated for a moment. Then--"I'm surrounded," he said, with a +laugh. "Ez I couldn't find a wife fur myself, I can't ondertake ter +recommend one ter my nephew. Mighty fine boy he'd hev been, an' +saaft-spoken an' perlite ter aged men--not sassy an' makin' game o' old +uncles like a niece. Mighty fine boy!" + +"Ye air welcome ter him," she said, with a simulation of scorn, as she +turned away to the table. + +Whether it were the military cap she had worn, or the fancied +resemblance to the young soldiers, never to grow old, who had gone forth +from this humble abode to return no more, there was still to the guest's +mind the suggestion of the vivandiere about her as she set the table and +spread upon it the simple fare. To and from the fireplace she was +followed by two or three of the younger dogs, their callowness expressed +in their lack of manners and perfervid interest in the approaching meal. +This induced their brief journeys back and forth, albeit embarrassed by +their physical conformation, short turns on four legs not being +apparently the easy thing it would seem from so much youthful +suppleness. The dignity of the elder hounds did not suffer them to move, +but they looked on from erect postures about the hearth with glistening +eyes and slobbering jaws. + +Ever and anon the deep blue eyes of Millicent were lifted to the outer +gloom, as if she took note of its sinister aspect. She showed scant +interest in the stranger, whose gaze seldom left her as he sat beside +the fire. He was a handsome man, his face and figure illumined by the +firelight, and it might have been that he felt a certain pique, an +unaccustomed slight, in that his presence was so indifferent an element +in the estimation of any young and comely specimen of the feminine sex. +Certainly he had rarely encountered such absolute preoccupation as her +smiling far-away look betokened as she went back and forth with her +young canine friends at her heels, or stood at the table deftly slicing +the salt-rising bread, the dogs poised skilfully upon their hind-legs to +better view the appetizing performance; whenever she turned her face +toward them they laid their heads languishingly askew, as if to remind +her that supper could not be more fitly bestowed than on them. One, to +steady himself, placed unobserved his fore-paw on the edge of the table, +his well-padded toes leaving a vague imprint as of fingers upon the +coarse white cloth; but John Dundas was a sportsman, and could the +better relax an exacting nicety where so pleasant-featured and affable a +beggar was concerned. He forgot the turmoils of his own troubles as he +gazed at Millicent, the dreary aspect of the solitudes without, the +exile from his accustomed sphere of culture and comfort, the poverty and +coarseness of her surroundings. He was sorry that he had declined a +longer lease of Roxby's hospitality, and it was in his mind to +reconsider when it should be again proffered. Her attitude, her gesture, +her face, her environment, all appealed to his sense of beauty, his +interest, his curiosity, as little ever had done heretofore. Slice after +slice of the firm fragrant bread was deftly cut and laid on the plate, +as again and again she lifted her eyes with a look that might seem to +expect to rest on summer in the full flush of a June noontide without, +rather than on the wan, wintry night sky and the plundered, quaking +woods, while the robber wind sped on his raids hither and thither so +swiftly that none might follow, so stealthily that none might hinder. A +sudden radiance broke upon her face, a sudden shadow fell on the firelit +floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young +mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness, +was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was addressed to the +old woman. + +"Howdy, Mis' Roxby--howdy? Air yer rheumatics mendin' enny?" he +demanded, with the condolent suavity of the would-be son-in-law, or +grandson-in-law, as the case may be. And he hung with a transfixed +interest upon her reply, prolix and discursive according to the wont of +those who cultivate "rheumatics," as if each separate twinge racked his +own sympathetic and filial sensibilities. Not until the tale was ended +did he set his gun against the wall and advance to the seat which Roxby +had indicated with the end of the stick he was whittling. He observed +the stranger with only slight interest, till Dundas drew up his chair +opposite at the table. There the light from the tallow dip, guttering in +the centre, fell upon his handsome face and eyes, his carefully tended +beard and hair, his immaculate cuffs and delicate hand, the seal-ring +on his taper finger. + +"Like a gal, by gum!" thought Emory Keenan. "Rings on his fingers--yit +six feet high!" + +He looked at his elders, marvelling that they so hospitably repressed +the disgust which this effeminate adornment must occasion, forgetting +that it was possible that they did not even observe it. In the gala-days +of the old hotel, before the war, they had seen much "finicking finery" +in garb and equipage and habits affected by the _jeunesse doree_ who +frequented the place in those halcyon times, and were accustomed to such +details. It might be that they and Millicent approved such flimsy +daintiness. He began to fume inwardly with a sense of inferiority in her +estimation. One of his fingers had been frosted last winter, and with +the first twinge of cold weather it was beginning to look very red and +sad and clumsy, as if it had just remembered its ancient woe; he glanced +from it once more at the delicate ringed hand of the stranger. + +Dundas was looking up with a slow, deferential, decorous smile that +nevertheless lightened and transfigured his expression. It seemed +somehow communicated to Millicent's face as she looked down at him from +beneath her white eyelids and long, thick, dark lashes, for she was +standing beside him, handing him the plate of bread. Then, still +smiling, she passed noiselessly on to the others. + +Emory was indeed clumsy, for he had stretched his hand downward to offer +a morsel to a friend of his under the table--he was on terms of +exceeding amity with the four-footed members of the house hold--and in +his absorption not withdrawing it as swiftly as one accustomed to canine +manners should do, he had his frosted finger well mumbled before he +could, as it were, repossess himself of it. + +"I wonder what they charge fur iron over yander at the settlemint, +Em'ry?" observed Sim Roxby presently. + +"Dun'no', sir," responded Emory, glumly, his sullen black eyes full of +smouldering fire--"hevin' no call ter know, ez I ain't no blacksmith." + +"I war jes' wonderin' ef tenpenny nails didn't cost toler'ble high ez +reg'lar feed," observed Roxby, gravely. + +But his mother laughed out with a gleeful cracked treble, always a ready +sequence of her son's rustic sallies. "He got ye that time, Em'ry," she +cried. + +A forced smile crossed Emory's face. He tossed back his tangled dark +hair with a gasp that was like the snort of an unruly horse submitting +to the inevitable, but with restive projects in his brain. "I let the +dog hyar ketch my finger whilst feedin' him," he said. His plausible +excuse for the tenpenny expression was complete; but he added, his +darker mood recurring instantly, "An', Mis' Roxby, I hev put a stop ter +them ez hev tuk ter callin' me Em'ly, I hev." + +The old woman looked up, her small wrinkled mouth round and amazed. "_I_ +never called ye Emily," she declared. + +Swift repentance seized him. + +"Naw, 'm," he said, with hurried propitiation. "I 'lowed ye did." + +"I didn't," said the old woman. "But ef I war ter find it toothsome ter +call ye 'Emily,' I dun'no' how ye air goin' ter pervent it. Ye can't go +gunnin' fur me, like ye done fur the men at the mill, fur callin' ye +'Emily.'" + +"Law, Mis' Roxby!" he could only exclaim, in his horror and contrition +at this picture he had thus conjured up. "Ye air welcome ter call me +ennything ye air a mind ter," he protested. + +And then he gasped once more. The eyes of the guest, contemptuous, +amused, seeing through him, were fixed upon him. And he himself had +furnished the lily-handed stranger with the information that he had been +stigmatized "Em'ly" in the banter of his associates, until he had taken +up arms, as it were, to repress this derision. + +"It takes powerful little ter put ye down, Em'ry," said Roxby, with +rallying laughter. "Mam hev sent ye skedaddlin' in no time at all. I +don't b'lieve the Lord made woman out'n the man's rib. He made her out'n +the man's backbone; fur the man ain't hed none ter speak of sence." + +Millicent, with a low gurgle of laughter, sat down beside Emory at the +table, and fixed her eyes, softly lighted with mirth, upon him. The +others too had laughed, the stranger with a flattering intonation, but +young Keenan looked at her with a dumb appealing humility that did not +altogether fail of its effect, for she busied herself to help his plate +with an air of proprietorship as if he were a child, and returned it +with a smile very radiant and sufficient at close range. She then +addressed herself to her own meal. The young dogs under the table ceased +to beg, and gambolled and gnawed and tugged at her stout little shoes, +the sound of their callow mirthful growls rising occasionally above the +talk. Sometimes she rose again to wait on the table, when they came +leaping out after her, jumping and catching at her skirts, now and then +casting themselves on the ground prone before her feet, and rolling over +and over in the sheer joy of existence. + +The stranger took little part in the talk at the table. Never a question +was asked him as to his mission in the mountains, or the length of his +stay, his vocation, or his home. That extreme courtesy of the +mountaineers, exemplified in their singular abstinence from any +expressions of curiosity, accepted such account of himself as he had +volunteered, and asked for no more. In the face of this standard of +manners any inquisitiveness on his part, such as might have elicited +points of interest for his merely momentary entertainment, was tabooed. +Nevertheless, silent though he was for the most part, the relish with +which he listened, his half-covert interest in the girl, his quick +observation of the others, the sudden very apparent enlivening of his +mental atmosphere, betokened that his quarters were not displeasing to +him. It seemed only a short time before the meal was ended and the +circle all, save Millicent, with pipes alight before the fire again. The +dogs, well fed, had ranged themselves on the glowing hearth, lying prone +on the hot stones; one old hound, however, who conserved the air of +listening to the conversation, sat upright and nodded from time to time, +now and again losing his balance and tipping forward in a truly human +fashion, then gazing round on the circle with an open luminous eye, as +who should say he had not slept. + +It was all very cheerful within, but outside the wind still blared +mournfully. Once more Dundas was sorry that he had declined the +invitation to remain, and it was with a somewhat tentative intention +that he made a motion to return to the hotel. But his host seemed to +regard his resolution as final, and rose with a regret, not an +insistence. The two women stared in silent amazement at the mere idea of +his camping out, as it were, in the old hotel. The ascendency of +masculine government here, notwithstanding Roxby's assertion that Eve +was made of Adam's backbone, was very apparent in their mute +acquiescence and the alacrity with which they began to collect various +articles, according to his directions, to make the stranger's stay more +comfortable. + +"Em'ry kin go along an' holp," he said, heartlessly; for poor Emory's +joy in perceiving that the guest was not a fixture, and that his +presence was not to be an embargo on any word between himself and +Millicent during the entire evening, was pitiably manifest. But the +situation was still not without its comforts, since Dundas was to go +too. Hence he was not poor company when once in the saddle, and was +civil to a degree of which his former dismayed surliness had given no +promise. + +Night had become a definite element. The twilight had fled. Above their +heads, as they galloped through the dank woods, the bare boughs of the +trees clashed together--so high above their heads that to the town man, +unaccustomed to these great growths, the sound seemed not of the +vicinage, but unfamiliar, uncanny, and more than once he checked his +horse to listen. As they approached the mountain's verge and overlooked +the valley and beheld the sky, the sense of the predominance of darkness +was redoubled. The ranges gloomed against the clearer spaces, but a +cloud, deep gray with curling white edges, was coming up from the west, +with an invisible convoy of vague films, beneath which the stars, +glimmering white points, disappeared one by one. The swift motion of +this aerial fleet sailing with the wind might be inferred from the +seemingly hurried pace of the moon making hard for the west. Still +bright was the illumined segment, but despite its glitter the shadowy +space of the full disk was distinctly visible, its dusky field spangled +with myriads of minute, dully golden points. Down, down it took its way +in haste--in disordered fright, it seemed, as if it had no heart to +witness the storm which the wind and the clouds foreboded--to fairer +skies somewhere behind those western mountains. Soon even its vague +light would encroach no more upon the darkness. The great hotel would be +invisible, annihilated as it were in the gloom, and not even thus dimly +exist, glimmering, alone, forlorn, so incongruous to the wilderness that +it seemed even now some mere figment of the brain, as the two horsemen +came with a freshened burst of speed along the deserted avenue and +reined up beside a small gate at the side. + +"No use ter ride all the way around," observed Emory Keenan. "Mought jes +ez well 'light an' hitch hyar." + +The moon gave him the escort of a great grotesque shadow as he threw +himself from his horse and passed the reins over a decrepit +hitching-post near at hand. Then he essayed the latch of the small gate. +He glanced up at Dundas, the moonlight in his dark eyes, with a smile as +it resisted his strength. + +He was a fairly good-looking fellow when rid of the self-consciousness +of jealousy. His eyes, mouth, chin, and nose, acquired from reliable and +recognizable sources, were good features, and statuesque in their +immobility beneath the drooping curves of his broad soft hat. He was +tall, with the slenderness of youth, despite his evident weight and +strength. He was long-waisted and lithe and small of girth, with broad +square shoulders, whose play of muscles as he strove with the gate was +not altogether concealed by the butternut jeans coat belted in with his +pistols by a broad leathern belt. His boots reached high on his long +legs, and jingled with a pair of huge cavalry spurs. His stalwart +strength seemed as if it must break the obdurate gate rather than open +it, but finally, with a rasping creak, dismally loud in the silence, it +swung slowly back. + +The young mountaineer stood gazing for a moment at the red rust on the +hinges. "How long sence this gate must hev been opened afore?" he said, +again looking up at Dundas with a smile. + +Somehow the words struck a chill to the stranger's heart. The sense of +the loneliness of the place, of isolation, filled him with a sort of +awe. The night-bound wilderness itself was not more daunting than these +solitary tiers of piazzas, these vacant series of rooms and corridors, +all instinct with vanished human presence, all alert with echoes of +human voices. A step, a laugh, a rustle of garments--he could have sworn +he heard them at any open doorway as he followed his guide along the dim +moonlit piazza, with its pillars duplicated at regular intervals by the +shadows on the floor. How their tread echoed down these lonely ways! +From the opposite side of the house he heard Keenan's spurs jangling, +his soldierly stride sounding back as if their entrance had roused +barracks. He winced once to see his own shadow with its stealthier +movement. It seemed painfully furtive. For the first time during the +evening his jaded mind, that had instinctively sought the solace of +contemplating trifles, reverted to its own tormented processes. "Am I +not hiding?" he said to himself, in a sort of sarcastic pity of his +plight. + +The idea seemed never to enter the mind of the transparent Keenan. He +laughed out gayly as they turned into the weed-grown quadrangle, and the +red fox that Dundas had earlier observed slipped past him with +affrighted speed and dashed among the shadows of the dense shrubbery of +the old lawn without. Again and again the sound rang back from wall to +wall, first with the jollity of seeming imitation, then with an appalled +effect sinking to silence, and suddenly rising again in a grewsome +_staccato_ that suggested some terrible unearthly laughter, and bore but +scant resemblance to the hearty mirth which had evoked it. Keenan paused +and looked back with friendly gleaming eyes. "Oughter been a leetle +handier with these hyar consarns," he said, touching the pistols in his +belt. + +It vaguely occurred to Dundas that the young man went strangely heavily +armed for an evening visit at a neighbor's house. But it was a lawless +country and lawless times, and the sub-current of suggestion did not +definitely fix itself in his mind until he remembered it later. He was +looking into each vacant open doorway, seeing the still moonlight +starkly white upon the floor; the cobwebbed and broken window-panes, +through which a section of leafless trees beyond was visible; bits of +furniture here and there, broken by the vandalism of the guerillas. Now +and then a scurrying movement told of a gopher, hiding too, and on one +mantel-piece, the black fireplace yawning below, sat a tiny tawny-tinted +owl, whose motionless bead-like eyes met his with a stare of stolid +surprise. After he had passed, its sudden ill-omened cry set the silence +to shuddering. + +Keenan, leading the way, paused in displeasure. "I wisht I hed viewed +that critter," he said, glumly. "I'd hev purvented that screechin' ter +call the devil, sure. It's jes a certain sign o' death." + +He was about to turn, to wreak his vengeance, perchance. But the bird, +sufficiently fortunate itself, whatever woe it presaged for others, +suddenly took its awkward flight through sheen and shadow across the +quadrangle, and when they heard its cry again it came from some remote +section of the building, with a doleful echo as a refrain. + +The circumstance was soon forgotten by Keenan. He seemed a happy, +mercurial, lucid nature, and he began presently to dwell with interest +on the availability of the old music-stand in the centre of the square +as a manger. "Hyar," he said, striking the rotten old structure with a +heavy hand, which sent a quiver and a thrill through all the +timbers--"hyar's whar the guerillas always hitched thar beastises. Thar +feed an' forage war piled up thar on the fiddlers' seats. Ye can't do no +better'n ter pattern arter them, till ye git ready ter hev fiddlers an' +sech a-sawin' away in hyar agin." + +And he sauntered away from the little pavilion, followed by Dundas, who +had not accepted his suggestion of a room on the first floor as being +less liable to leakage, but finally made choice of an inner apartment in +the second story. He looked hard at Keenan, when he stood in the doorway +surveying the selection. The room opened into a cross-hall which gave +upon a broad piazza that was latticed; tiny squares of moonlight were +all sharply drawn on the floor, and, seen through a vista of gray +shadow, seemed truly of a gilded lustre. From the windows of this room +on a court-yard no light could be visible to any passer-by without. +Another door gave on an inner gallery, and through its floor a staircase +came up from the quadrangle close to the threshold. Dundas wondered if +these features were of possible significance in Keenan's estimation. The +young mountaineer turned suddenly, and snatching up a handful of slats +broken from the shutters, remarked: + +"Let's see how the chimbly draws--that's the main p'int." + +There was no defect in the chimney's constitution. It drew admirably, +and with the white and red flames dancing in the fireplace, two or three +chairs, more or less disabled, a table, and an upholstered lounge +gathered at random from the rooms near at hand, the possibility of +sojourning comfortably for a few days in the deserted hostelry seemed +amply assured. + +Once more Dundas gazed fixedly at the face of the young mountaineer, who +still bent on one knee on the hearth, watching with smiling eyes the +triumphs of his fire-making. It seemed to him afterwards that his +judgment was strangely at fault; he perceived naught of import in the +shallow brightness of the young man's eyes, like the polished surface of +jet; in the instability of his jealousy, his anger; in his hap-hazard, +mercurial temperament. Once he might have noted how flat were the spaces +beneath the eyes, how few were the lines that defined the lid, the +socket, the curve of the cheekbone, the bridge of the nose, and how +expressionless. It was doubtless the warmth and glow of the fire, the +clinging desire of companionship, the earnest determination to be +content, pathetic in one who had but little reason for optimism, that +caused him to ignore the vacillating glancing moods that successively +swayed Keenan, strong while they lasted, but with scanty augury because +of their evanescence. He was like some newly discovered property in +physics of untried potentialities, of which nothing is ascertained but +its uncertainties. + +And yet he seemed to Dundas a simple country fellow, good-natured in +the main, unsuspicious, and helpful. So, giving a long sigh of relief +and fatigue, Dundas sank down in one of the large arm-chairs that had +once done duty for the summer loungers on the piazza. + +In the light of the fire Emory was once more looking at him. A certain +air of distinction, a grace and ease of movement, an indescribable +quality of bearing which he could not discriminate, yet which he +instinctively recognized as superior, offended him in some sort. He +noticed again the ring on the stranger's hand as he drew off his glove. +Gloves! Emory Keenan would as soon have thought of wearing a petticoat. +Once more the fear that these effeminate graces found favor in +Millicent's estimation smote upon his heart. It made the surface of his +opaque eyes glisten as Dundas rose and took up a pipe and tobacco pouch +which he had laid on the mantel-piece, his full height and fine figure +shown in the changed posture. + +"Ez tall ez me, ef not taller, an', by gum! a good thirty pound +heavier," Emory reflected, with a growing dismay that he had not those +stalwart claims to precedence in height and weight as an offset to the +smoother fascinations of the stranger's polish. + +He had risen hastily to his feet. He would not linger to smoke +fraternally over the fire, and thus cement friendly relations. + +"I guided him hyar, like old Sim Roxby axed me ter do, an' that's all. I +ain't keerin' ef I never lay eyes on him again," he said to himself. + +"Going?" said Dundas, pleasantly, noticing the motion. "You'll look in +again, won't you?" + +"Wunst in a while, I reckon," drawled Keenan, a trifle thrown off his +balance by this courtesy. + +He paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder for a moment at +the illumined room, then stepped out into the night, leaving the tenant +of the lonely old house filling his pipe by the fire. + +His tread rang along the deserted gallery, and sudden echoes came +tramping down the vacant halls as if many a denizen of the once populous +place was once more astir within its walls. Long after Dundas had heard +him spring from the lower piazza to the ground, and the rusty gate clang +behind him, vague footfalls were audible far away, and were still again, +and once more a pattering tread in some gaunt and empty apartment near +at hand, faint and fainter yet, till he hardly knew whether it were the +reverberations of sound or fancy that held his senses in thrall. + +And when all was still and silent at last he felt less solitary than +when these elusive tokens of human presence were astir. + +Late, late he sat over the dwindling embers. His mind, no longer +diverted by the events of the day, recurred with melancholy persistence +to a theme which even they, although fraught with novelty and presage of +danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril +dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him +in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here, +defenceless so far from the specious wiles and ways of men. All the line +of provocations seemed slight, seemed naught, as he reviewed them and +balanced them against a human life. True, it was not in some mad quarrel +that his skill had taken it and had served to keep his own--a duel, a +fair fight, strictly regular according to the code of "honorable men" +for ages past--and he sought to argue that it was doubtless but the +morbid sense of the wild fastnesses without, the illimitable vastness of +the black night, the unutterable indurability of nature to the +influences of civilization, which made it taste like murder. He had +brought away even from the scene of action, to which he had gone with +decorous deliberation--his worldly affairs arranged for the possibility +of death, his will made, his volition surrendered, and his sacred honor +in the hands of his seconds--a humiliating recollection of the sudden +revulsion of the aspect of all things; the criminal sense of haste with +which he was hurried away after that first straight shot; the agitation, +nay, the fright of his seconds; their eagerness to be swiftly rid of +him, their insistence that he should go away for a time, get out of the +country, out of the embarrassing purview of the law, which was prone to +regard the matter as he himself saw it now, and which had an ugly trick +of calling things by their right names in the sincere phraseology of an +indictment. And thus it was that he was here, remote from all the usual +lines of flight, with his affectation of being a possible purchaser for +the old hotel, far from the railroad, the telegraph, even the postal +service. Some time--soon, indeed, it might be, when the first flush of +excitement and indignation should be overpast, and the law, like a +barking dog that will not bite, should have noisily exhausted the gamut +of its devoirs--he would go back and live according to his habit in his +wonted place, as did other men whom he had known to be "called out," and +who had survived their opponents. Meantime he heard the ash crumble; he +saw the lighted room wane from glancing yellow to a dull steady red, and +so to dusky brown; he marked the wind rise, and die away, and come +again, banging the doors of the empty rooms, and setting timbers all +strangely to creaking as under sudden trampling feet; then lift into the +air with a rustling sound like the stir of garments and the flutter of +wings, calling out weirdly in the great voids of the upper atmosphere. + +He had welcomed the sense of fatigue earlier in the evening, for it +promised sleep. Now it had slipped away from him. He was strong and +young, and the burning sensation that the frosty air had left on his +face was the only token of the long journey. It seemed as if he would +never sleep again as he lay on the lounge watching the gray ash +gradually overgrow the embers, till presently only a vague dull glow +gave intimation of the position of the hearth in the room. And then, +bereft of this dim sense of companionship, he stared wide-eyed in the +darkness, feeling the only creature alive and awake in all the world. +No; the fox was suddenly barking within the quadrangle--a strangely wild +and alien tone. And presently he heard the animal trot past his door on +the piazza, the cushioned footfalls like those of a swift dog. He +thought with a certain anxiety of the tawny tiny owl that had sat like +a stuffed ornament on the mantel-piece of a neighboring room, and he +listened with a quaking vicarious presentiment of woe for the sounds of +capture and despair. He was sensible of waiting and hoping for the fox's +bootless return, when he suddenly lost consciousness. + +How long he slept he did not know, but it seemed only a momentary +respite from the torture of memory, when, still in the darkness, +thousands of tremulous penetrating sounds were astir, and with a great +start he recognized the rain on the roof. It was coming down in steady +torrents that made the house rock before the tumult of his plunging +heart was still, and he was longing again for the forgetfulness of +sleep. In vain. The hours dragged by; the windows slowly, slowly defined +their dull gray squares against the dull gray day dawning without. The +walls that had been left with only the first dark coat of plaster, +awaiting another season for the final decoration, showed their drapings +of cobweb, and the names and pencilled scribblings with which the fancy +of transient bushwhackers had chosen to deface them. The locust-trees +within the quadrangle drearily tossed their branches to and fro in the +wind, the bark very black and distinct against the persistent gray lines +of rain and the white walls of the galleried buildings opposite; the +gutters were brimming, roaring along like miniature torrents; nowhere +was the fox or the owl to be seen. Somehow their presence would have +been a relief--the sight of any living thing reassuring. As he walked +slowly along the deserted piazzas, in turning sudden corners, again and +again he paused, expecting that something, some one, was approaching to +meet him. When at last he mounted his horse, that had neighed gleefully +to see him, and rode away through the avenue and along the empty ways +among the untenanted summer cottages, all the drearier and more forlorn +because of the rain, he felt as if he had left an aberration, some +hideous dream, behind, instead of the stark reality of the gaunt and +vacant and dilapidated old house. + +The transition to the glow and cheer of Sim Roxby's fireside was like a +rescue, a restoration. The smiling welcome in the women's eyes, their +soft drawling voices, with mellifluous intonations that gave a value to +each commonplace simple word, braced his nerves like a tonic. It might +have been only the contrast with the recollections of the night, with +the prospect visible through the open door--the serried lines of rain +dropping aslant from the gray sky and elusively outlined against the +dark masses of leafless woods that encircled the clearing; the dooryard +half submerged with puddles of a clay-brown tint, embossed always with +myriads of protruding drops of rain, for however they melted away the +downpour renewed them, and to the eye they were stationary, albeit +pervaded with a continual tremor--but somehow he was cognizant of a +certain coddling tenderness in the old woman's manner that might have +been relished by a petted child, an unaffected friendliness in the +girl's clear eyes. They made him sit close to the great wood fire; the +blue and yellow flames gushed out from the piles of hickory logs, and +the bed of coals gleamed at red and white heat beneath. They took his +hat to carefully dry it, and they spread out his cloak on two chairs at +one side of the room, where it dismally dripped. When he ventured to +sneeze, Mrs. Roxby compounded and administered a "yerb tea," a sovereign +remedy against colds, which he tasted on compulsion and in great doubt, +and swallowed with alacrity and confidence, finding its basis the easily +recognizable "toddy." He had little knowledge how white and troubled his +face had looked as he came in from the gray day, how strongly marked +were those lines of sharp mental distress, how piteously apparent was +his mute appeal for sympathy and comfort. + +"Mill'cent," said the old woman in the shed-room, as they washed and +wiped the dishes after the cozy breakfast of venison and corn-dodgers +and honey and milk, "that thar man hev run agin the law, sure's ye air +born." + +Millicent turned her reflective fair face, that seemed whiter and more +delicate in the damp dark day, and looked doubtfully out over the +fields, where the water ran in steely lines in the furrows. + +"Mus' hev been by accident or suthin'. _He_ ain't no hardened sinner." + +"Shucks!" the old woman commented upon her reluctant acquiescence. "I +ain't keerin' for the law! 'Tain't none o' my job. The tomfool men make +an' break it. Ennybody ez hev seen this war air obleeged to take note o' +the wickedness o' men in gineral. This hyer man air a sorter pitiful +sinner, an' he hev got a look in his eyes that plumb teches my heart. I +'ain't got no call ter know nuthin' 'bout the law, bein' a 'oman an' +naterally ignorunt. I dun'no' ez he hev run agin it." + +"Mus' hev been by accident," said Millicent, dreamily, still gazing over +the sodden fields. + +The suspicion did nothing to diminish his comfort or their cordiality. +The morning dragged by without change in the outer aspects. The noontide +dinner came and went without Roxby's return, for the report of the +washing away of a bridge some miles distant down the river had early +called him out to the scene of the disaster, to verify in his own +interests the rumor, since he had expected to haul his wheat to the +settlement the ensuing day. The afternoon found the desultory talk still +in progress about the fire, the old woman alternately carding cotton and +nodding in her chair in the corner; the dogs eying the stranger, +listening much of the time with the air of children taking instruction, +only occasionally wandering out-of-doors, the floor here and there +bearing the damp imprint of their feet; and Millicent on her knees in +the other corner, the firelight on her bright hair, her delicate cheek, +her quickly glancing eyes, as she deftly moulded bullets. + +"Uncle Sim hed ter s'render his shootin'-irons," she explained, "an' he +'ain't got no ca'tridge-loadin' ones lef'. So he makes out with his old +muzzle-loadin' rifle that he hed afore the war, an' I moulds his bullets +for him rainy days." + +As she held up a moulded ball and dexterously clipped off the surplus +lead, the gesture was so culinary in its delicacy that one of the dogs +in front of the fire extended his head, making a long neck, with a +tentative sniff and a glistening gluttonous eye. + +"Ef I swallered enny mo' lead, I wouldn't take it hot, Towse," she said, +holding out the bullet for canine inspection. "'Tain't healthy!" + +But the dog, perceiving the nature of the commodity, drew back with a +look of deep reproach, rose precipitately, and with a drooping tail went +out skulkingly into the wet gray day. + +"Towse can't abide a bullet," she observed, "nor nuthin' 'bout a gun. He +got shot wunst a-huntin', an' he never furgot it. Jes show him a gun an' +he ain't nowhar ter be seen--like he war cotch up in the clouds." + +"Good watch-dog, I suppose," suggested Dundas, striving to enter into +the spirit of her talk. + +"Naw; too sp'ilt for a gyard-dog--granny coddled him so whenst he got +shot. He's jest vally'ble fur his conversation, I reckon," she +continued, with a smile in her eyes. "I dun'no' what else, but he is +toler'ble good company." + +The other dogs pressed about her, the heads of the great hounds as high +as her own as she sat among them on the floor. With bright eyes and +knitted brows they followed the motions of pouring in the melted metal, +the lifting of the bullets from the mould, the clipping off of the +surplus lead, and the flash of the keen knife. + +Outside the sad light waned; the wind sighed and sighed; the dreary rain +fell; the trees clashed their boughs dolorously together, and their +turbulence deadened the sound of galloping horses. As Dundas sat and +gazed at the girl's intent head, with its fleecy tendrils and its +massive coil, the great hounds beside her, all emblazoned by the +firelight upon the brown wall near by, with the vast fireplace at hand, +the whole less like reality than some artist's pictured fancy, he knew +naught of a sudden entrance, until she moved, breaking the spell, and +looked up to meet the displeasure in Roxby's eyes and the dark scowl on +Emory Keenan's face. + + * * * * * + +That night the wind shifted to the north. Morning found the chilled +world still, ice where the water had lodged, all the trees incased in +glittering garb that followed the symmetry alike of every bough and the +tiniest twig, and made splendid the splintered remnants of the +lightning-riven. The fields were laced across from furrow to furrow, in +which the frozen water still stood gleaming, with white arabesques which +had known a more humble identity as stubble and crab-grass; the sky was +slate-colored, and from its sad tint this white splendor gained added +values of contrast. When the sun should shine abroad much of the effect +would be lost in the too dazzling glister; but the sun did not shine. + +All day the gray mood held unchanged. Night was imperceptibly sifting +down upon all this whiteness, that seemed as if it would not be +obscured, as if it held within itself some property of luminosity, when +Millicent, a white apron tied over her golden head, improvising a hood, +its superfluous fulness gathered in many folds and pleats around her +neck, fichu-wise, stood beside the ice-draped fodder-stack and essayed +with half-numbed hands to insert a tallow dip into the socket of a +lantern, all incrusted and clumsy with previous drippings. + +"I dun'no' whether I be a-goin' ter need this hyar consarn whilst +milkin' or no," she observed, half to herself, half to Emory, who, +chewing a straw, somewhat surlily had followed her out for a word apart. +"The dusk 'pears slow ter-night, but Spot's mighty late comin' home, an' +old Sue air fractious an' contrairy-minded, and feels mighty anxious an' +oneasy 'boutn her calf, that's ez tall ez she is nowadays, an' don't +keer no mo' 'bout her mammy 'n a half-grown human does. I tell her she +oughtn't ter be mad with me, but with the way she brung up her chile, ez +won't notice her now." + +She looked up with a laugh, her eyes and teeth gleaming; her golden hair +still showed its color beneath the spotless whiteness of her voluminous +headgear, and the clear tints of her complexion seemed all the more +delicate and fresh in the snowy pallor of the surroundings and the +grayness of the evening. + +"I reckon I'd better take it along," and once more she addressed herself +to the effort to insert the dip into the lantern. + +Emory hardly heard. His pulse was quick. His eye glittered. He breathed +hard as, with both hands in his pockets, he came close to her. + +"Mill'cent," he said, "I told ye the t'other day ez ye thunk a heap too +much o' that thar stranger--" + +"An' I tole ye, bubby, that I didn't think nuthin' o' nobody but +you-uns," she interrupted, with an effort to placate his jealousy. The +little jocularity which she affected dwindled and died before the +steady glow of his gaze, and she falteringly looked at him, her unguided +hands futilely fumbling with the lantern. + +"Ye can't fool me," he stoutly asseverated. "Ye think mo' o' him 'n o' +me, kase ye 'low he air rich, an' book-larned, an' smooth-fingered, an' +finified ez a gal, an' goin' ter buy the hotel. I say, _hotel_! Now +_I'll_ tell ye what he is--I'll tell ye! He's a criminal. He's runnin' +from the law. He's hidin' in the old hotel that he's purtendin' ter +buy." + +She stared wide-eyed and pallid, breathless and waiting. + +He interpreted her expression as doubt, denial. + +"It's gospel sure," he cried. "Fur this very evenin' I met a gang o' men +an' the sheriff's deputy down yander by the sulphur spring 'bout +sundown, an' he 'lowed ez they war a-sarchin' fur a criminal ez war +skulkin' round hyarabout lately--ez they wanted a man fur hevin' +c'mitted murder." + +"But ye didn't accuse _him_, surely; ye hed no right ter s'picion _him_. +Uncle Sim! Oh, my Lord! Ye surely wouldn't! Oh, Uncle Sim!" + +Her tremulous words broke into a quavering cry as she caught his arm +convulsively, for his face confirmed her fears. She thrust him wildly +away, and started toward the house. + +"Ye needn't go tattlin' on me," he said, roughly pushing her aside. +"I'll tell Mr. Roxby myself. I ain't 'shamed o' what I done. I'll tell +him. I'll tell him myself." And animated with this intention to +forestall her disclosure, his long strides bore him swiftly past and +into the house. + +It seemed to him that he lingered there only a moment or two, for Roxby +was not at the cabin, and he said nothing of the quarrel to the old +woman. Already his heart had revolted against his treachery, and then +there came to him the further reflection that he did not know enough to +justify suspicion. Was not the stranger furnished with the fullest +credentials--a letter to Roxby from the Colonel? Perhaps he had allowed +his jealousy to endanger the man, to place him in jeopardy even of his +life should he resist arrest. + +Keenan tarried at the house merely long enough to devise a plausible +excuse for his sudden excited entrance, and then took his way back to +the barnyard. + +It was vacant. The cows still stood lowing at the bars; the sheep +cowered together in their shed; the great whitened cone of the +fodder-stack gleamed icily in the purple air; beside it lay the lantern +where Millicent had cast it aside. She was gone! He would not believe it +till he had run to the barn, calling her name in the shadowy place, +while the horse at his manger left his corn to look over the walls of +his stall with inquisitive surprised eyes, luminous in the dusk. He +searched the hen-house, where the fowls on their perches crowded close +because of the chill of the evening. He even ran to the bars and looked +down across the narrow ravine to which the clearing sloped. Beyond the +chasm-like gorge he saw presently on the high ascent opposite footprints +that had broken the light frost-like coating of ice on the dead leaves +and moss--climbing footprints, swift, disordered. He looked back again +at the lantern where Millicent had flung it in her haste. Her mission +was plain now. She had gone to warn Dundas. She had taken a direct line +through the woods. She hoped to forestall the deputy sheriff and his +posse, following the circuitous mountain road. + +Keenan's lip curled in triumph. His heart burned hot with scornful anger +and contempt of the futility of her effort. "They're there afore she +started!" he said, looking up at the aspects of the hour shown by the +sky, and judging of the interval since the encounter by the spring. +Through a rift in the gray cloud a star looked down with an icy +scintillation and disappeared again. He heard a branch in the woods snap +beneath the weight of ice. A light sprang into the window of the cabin +hard by, and came in a great gush of orange-tinted glow out into the +snowy bleak wintry space. He suddenly leaped over the fence and ran like +a deer through the woods. + +Millicent too had been swift. He had thought to overtake her before he +emerged from the woods into the more open space where the hotel stood. +In this quarter the cloud-break had been greater. Toward the west a +fading amber glow still lingered in long horizontal bars upon the opaque +gray sky. The white mountains opposite were hung with purple shadows +borrowed from a glimpse of sunset somewhere far away over the valley of +East Tennessee; one distant lofty range was drawn in elusive snowy +suggestions, rather than lines, against a green space of intense yet +pale tint. The moon, now nearing the full, hung over the wooded valley, +and aided the ice and the crust of snow to show its bleak, wan, wintry +aspect; a tiny spark glowed in its depths from some open door of an +isolated home. Over it all a mist was rising from the east, drawing its +fleecy but opaque curtain. Already it had climbed the mountain-side and +advanced, windless, soundless, overwhelming, annihilating all before and +beneath it. The old hotel had disappeared, save that here and there a +gaunt gable protruded and was withdrawn, showed once more, and once more +was submerged. + +A horse's head suddenly looking out of the enveloping mist close to his +shoulder gave him the first intimation of the arrival, the secret silent +waiting, of those whom he had directed hither. That the saddles were +empty he saw a moment later. The animals stood together in a row, +hitched to the rack. No disturbance sounded from the silent building. +The event was in abeyance. The fugitive in hiding was doubtless at ease, +unsuspecting, while the noiseless search of the officers for his +quarters was under way. + +With a thrill of excitement Keenan crept stealthily through an open +passage and into the old grass-grown spaces of the quadrangle. Night +possessed the place, but the cloud seemed denser than the darkness. He +was somehow sensible of its convolutions as he stood against the wall +and strained his eyes into the dusk. Suddenly it was penetrated by a +milky-white glimmer, a glimmer duplicated at equidistant points, each +fading as its successor sprang into brilliance. The next moment he +understood its significance. It had come from the blurred windows of the +old ball-room. Millicent had lighted her candle as she searched for the +fugitive's quarters; she was passing down the length of the old house on +the second story, and suddenly she emerged upon the gallery. She +shielded the feeble flicker with her hand; her white-hooded head gleamed +as with an aureola as the divergent rays rested on the opaque mist; and +now and again she clutched the baluster and walked with tremulous care, +for the flooring was rotten here and there, and ready to crumble away. +Her face was pallid, troubled; and Dundas, who had been warned by the +tramp of horses and the tread of men, and who had descended the stairs, +revolver in hand, ready to slip away if he might under cover of the +mist, paused appalled, gazing across the quadrangle as on an +apparition--the sight so familiar to his senses, so strange to his +experience. He saw in an abrupt shifting of the mist that there were +other figures skulking in doorways, watching her progress. The next +moment she leaned forward to clutch the baluster, and the light of the +candle fell full on Emory Keenan, lurking in the open passage. + +A sudden sharp cry of "Surrender!" + +The young mountaineer, confused, swiftly drew his pistol. Others were +swifter still. A sharp report rang out into the chill crisp air, rousing +all the affrighted echoes--a few faltering steps, a heavy fall, and for +a long time Emory Keenan's life-blood stained the floor of the +promenade. Even when it had faded, the rustic gossips came often and +gazed at the spot with morbid interest, until, a decade later, an +enterprising proprietor removed the floor and altered the shape of that +section of the building out of recognition. + +The escape of Dundas was easily effected. The deputy sheriff, confronted +with the problem of satisfactorily accounting for the death of a man who +had committed no offence against public polity, was no longer +formidable. His errand had been the arrest of a horse-thief, well-known +to him, and he had no interest in pursuing a fugitive, however obnoxious +to the law, whose personal description was so different from that of the +object of his search. + +Time restored to Dundas his former place in life and the esteem of his +fellow-citizens. His stay in the mountains was an episode which he will +not often recall, but sometimes volition fails, and he marvels at the +strange fulfilment of the girl's vision; he winces to think that her +solicitude for his safety should have cost her her lover; he wonders +whether she yet lives, and whether that tender troubled phantom, on +nights when the wind is still and the moon is low and the mists rise, +again joins the strange, elusive, woful company crossing the quaking +foot-bridge. + + + + +HIS "DAY IN COURT" + + +It had been a hard winter along the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, +and still the towering treeless domes were covered with snow, and the +vagrant winds were abroad, rioting among the clifty heights where they +held their tryst, or raiding down into the sheltered depths of the Cove, +where they seldom intruded. Nevertheless, on this turbulent rush was +borne in the fair spring of the year. The fragrance of the budding +wild-cherry was to be discerned amidst the keen slanting javelins of the +rain. A cognition of the renewal and the expanding of the forces of +nature pervaded the senses as distinctly as if one might hear the grass +growing, or feel along the chill currents of the air the vernal pulses +thrill. Night after night in the rifts of the breaking clouds close to +the horizon was glimpsed the stately sidereal Virgo, prefiguring and +promising the harvest, holding in her hand a gleaming ear of corn. But +it was not the constellation which the tumultuous torrent at the +mountain's base reflected in a starry glitter. From the hill-side above +a light cast its broken image among the ripples, as it shone for an +instant through the bosky laurel, white, stellular, splendid--only a +tallow dip suddenly placed in the window of a log-cabin, and as suddenly +withdrawn. + +For a gruff voice within growled out a remonstrance: "What ye doin' that +fur, Steve? Hev that thar candle got enny call ter bide in that thar +winder?" + +The interior, contrary to the customary aspect of the humble homes of +the region, was in great disarray. Cooking utensils stood uncleaned +about the hearth; dishes and bowls of earthen-ware were assembled upon +the table in such numbers as to suggest that several meals had been +eaten without the ceremony of laying the cloth anew, and that in default +of washing the crockery it had been re-enforced from the shelf so far as +the limited store might admit. Saddles and spinning-wheels, an ox-yoke +and trace-chains, reels and wash-tubs, were incongruously pushed +together in the corners. Only one of the three men in the room made any +effort to reduce the confusion to order. This was the square-faced, +black-bearded, thick-set young fellow who took the candle from the +window, and now advanced with it toward the hearth, holding it at an +angle that caused the flame to swiftly melt the tallow, which dripped +generously upon the floor. + +"I hev seen Eveliny do it," he said, excitedly justifying himself. "I +noticed her sot the candle in the winder jes' las' night arter supper." +He glanced about uncertainly, and his patience seemed to give way +suddenly. "Dad-burn the old candle! I dunno _whar_ ter set it," he +cried, desperately, as he flung it from him, and it fell upon the floor +close to the wall. + +The dogs lifted their heads to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got +up with the nimbleness of expectation, and, with a prescient gratitude +astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped suddenly, +and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if suspecting a +practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young mountaineer's +face. He threw himself into his chair with a heavy sigh, and desisted +for a time from the unaccustomed duty of clearing away the dishes after +supper. + +"An' 'ain't ye got the gumption ter sense what Eveliny sot the candle in +the winder fur?" his brother Timothy demanded, abruptly--"ez a sign ter +that thar durned Abs'lom Kittredge." + +The other two men turned their heads and looked at the speaker with a +poignant intensity of interest. "I 'lowed ez much when I seen that light +ez I war a-kemin' home las' night," he continued; "it shined spang down +the slope acrost the ruver an' through all the laurel; it looked plumb +like a star that hed fell ter yearth in that pitch-black night. I dunno +how I s'picioned it, but ez I stood thar an' gazed I knowed somebody war +a-standin' an' gazin' too on the foot-bredge a mite ahead o' me. I +couldn't see him, an' he couldn't turn back an' pass me, the bredge +bein' too narrer. He war jes obligated ter go on. I hearn him breathe +quick; then--pit-pat, pit-pat, ez he walked straight toward that light. +An' he be 'bleeged ter hev hearn me, fur arter I crost I stopped. +Nuthin'. Jes' a whisper o' wind, an' jes' a swishin' from the ruver. I +knowed then he hed turned off inter the laurel. An' I went on, +a-whistlin' ter make him 'low ez I never s'picioned nuthin'. An' I kem +inter the house an' tole dad ez he'd better be a-lookin' arter Eveliny, +fur I b'lieved she war a-settin' her head ter run away an' marry Abs'lom +Kittredge." + +"Waal, I ain't right up an' down sati'fied we oughter done what we +done," exclaimed Stephen, fretfully. "It don't 'pear edzacly right fur +three men ter fire on one." + +Old Joel Quimbey, in his arm-chair in the chimney-corner, suddenly +lifted his head--a thin head with fine white hair, short and sparse, +upon it. His thin, lined face was clear-cut, with a pointed chin and an +aquiline nose. He maintained an air of indignant and rebellious grief, +and had hitherto sat silent, a gnarled and knotted hand on either arm of +his chair. His eyes gleamed keenly from under his heavy brows as he +turned his face upon his sons. "How could we know thar warn't but one, +eh?" + +He had not been a candidate for justice of the peace for nothing; he had +absorbed something of the methods and spirit of the law through sheer +propinquity to the office. "We-uns wouldn't be persumed ter _know_." And +he ungrudgingly gave himself all the benefit of the doubt that the law +accords. + +"That's a true word!" exclaimed Stephen, quick to console his +conscience. "Jes' look at the fac's, now. We-uns in a plumb black +midnight hear a man a-gittin' over our fence; we git our rifles; +a-peekin' through the chinkin' we ketch a glimge o' him--" + +"Ha!" cried out Timothy, with savage satisfaction, "we seen him by the +light she set ter lead him on!" + +[Illustration: "OLD JOEL QUIMBEY"] + +He was tall and lank, with a delicately hooked nose, high cheek-bones, +fierce dark eyes, and dark eyebrows, which were continually elevated, +corrugating his forehead. His hair was black, short and straight, and he +was clad in brown jeans, as were the others, with great cowhide boots +reaching to the knee. He fixed his fiery intent gaze on his brother as +the slower Stephen continued, "An' so we blaze away--" + +"An' one durned fool's so onlucky ez ter hit him an' not kill him," +growled Timothy, again interrupting. "An' so whilst Eveliny runs out +a-screamin', 'He's dead! he's dead!--ye hev shot him dead!' we-uns make +no doubt but he _is_ dead, an' load up agin, lest his frien's mought +rush in on we-uns whilst we hedn't no use o' our shootin'-irons. An' +suddint--ye can't hear nuthin' but jes' a owel hootin' in the woods, or +old Pa'son Bates's dogs a-howlin' acrost the Cove. An' we go out with a +lantern, an' thar's jes' a pool o' blood in the dooryard, an' bloody +tracks down ter the laurel." + +"Eveliny gone!" cried the old man, smiting his hands together; "my +leetle darter! The only one ez never gin me enny trouble. I couldn't hev +made out ter put up with this hyar worl' no longer when my wife died ef +it hedn't been fur Eveliny. Boys war wild an' mischeevious, an' folks +outside don't keer nuthin' 'bout ye--ef they _war_ ter 'lect ye ter +office 'twould be ter keep some other feller from hevin' it, 'kase they +'spise him more'n ye. An' hyar she's runned off an' married old Tom +Kittredge's gran'son, Josiah Kittredge's son--when our folks 'ain't +spoke ter none o' 'em fur fifty year--Josiah Kittredge's son--ha! ha! +ha!" He laughed aloud in tuneless scorn of himself and of this freak of +froward destiny and then fell to wringing his hands and calling upon +Evelina. + +The flare from the great chimney place genially played over the huddled +confusion of the room and the brown logs of the wall, where the gigantic +shadows of the three men mimicked their every gesture with grotesque +exaggeration. The rainbow yarn on the warping bars, the strings of +red-pepper hanging from the ceiling, the burnished metallic flash from +the guns on their racks of deer antlers, served as incidents in the +monotony of the alternate yellow flicker and brown shadow. Deep under +the blaze the red coals pulsated, and in the farthest vistas of the fire +quivered a white heat. + +"Old Tom Kittredge," the father resumed, after a time, "he jes' branded +yer gran'dad's cattle with his mark; he jes' cheated yer gran'dad, my +dad, out'n six head o' cattle." + +"But then," said the warlike Timothy, not willing to lose sight of +reprisal even in vague reminiscence, "he hed only one hand ter rob with +arter that, fur I hev hearn ez how when gran'dad got through with him +the doctor hed ter take his arm off." + +"Sartainly, sartainly," admitted the old man, in quiet assent "An' +Josiah Kittredge he put out the eyes of a horse critter o' mine right +thar at the court-house door--" + +"Waal, arterward, we-uns fired his house over his head," put in Tim. + +"An' Josiah Kittredge an' me," the old man went on, "we-uns clinched +every time we met in this mortal life. Every time I go past the +graveyard whar he be buried I kin feel his fingers on my throat. He had +a nervy grip, but no variation; he always tuk holt the same way." + +"'Pears like ter me ez 'twar a fust-rate time ter fetch out the rifles +again," remarked Tim, "this mornin', when old Pa'son Bates kem up hyar +an' 'lowed ez he hed married Eveliny ter Abs'lom Kittredge on his +death-bed; 'So be, pa'son,' I say. An' he tuk off his hat an' say, +'Thank the Lord, this will heal the breach an' make ye frien's!' An' I +say, 'Edzacly, pa'son, ef it _air_ Abs'lom's death-bed; but them +Kittredges air so smilin' an' deceivin' I be powerful feared he'll cheat +the King o' Terrors himself. I'll forgive 'em ennything--_over his +grave_.'" + +"Pa'son war tuk toler'ble suddint in his temper," said the literal +Steve. "I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he +put out." + +"Ye mus' keep up a Christian sperit, boys; that's the main thing," said +the old man, who was esteemed very religious, and a pious Mentor in his +own family. He gazed meditatively into the fire. "What ailed Eveliny ter +git so tuk up with this hyar Abs'lom? What made her like him?" he +propounded. + +"His big eyes, edzacly like a buck's, an' his long yaller hair," sneered +the discerning Timothy, with the valid scorn of a big ugly man for a +slim pretty one. "'Twar jes 'count o' his long yaller hair his mother +called him Abs'lom. He war named Pete or Bob, I disremember +what--suthin' common--till his hair got so long an' curly, an' he sot +out ter be so plumb all-fired beautiful, an' his mother named him agin; +this time Abs'lom, arter the king's son, 'count o' his yaller hair." + +"Git hung by his hair some o' these days in the woods, like him the +Bible tells about; that happened ter the sure-enough Abs'lom," suggested +Stephen, hopefully. + +"Naw, sir," said Tim; "when Abs'lom Kittredge gits hung it'll be with +suthin' stronger'n hair; he'll stretch hemp." He exchanged a glance of +triumphant prediction with his brother, and anon gazed ruefully into the +fire. + +"Ye talk like ez ef he war goin' ter live, boys," said old Joel Quimbey, +irritably. "Pa'son 'lowed he war powerful low." + +"Pa'son said he'd never hev got home alive 'thout she'd holped him," +said Stephen. "She jes' tuk him an' drug him plumb ter the bars, though +I don't see how she done it, slim leetle critter ez she be; an' thar she +holped him git on his beastis; an' then--I declar' I feel ez ef I could +kill her fur a-demeanin' of herself so--she led that thar horse, him +a-ridin' an' a-leanin' on the neck o' the beastis, two mile up the +mountain, through the night." + +"Waal, let her bide thar. I'll look on her face no mo'," declared the +old man, his toothless jaw shaking. "Kittredge she be now, an' none o' +the name kin come a-nigh me. How be I ever a-goin' 'bout 'mongst the +folks at the settlement agin with my darter married ter a Kittredge? How +Josiah an' his dad mus' be a-grinnin' in thar graves at me this night! +An' I 'low they hev got suthin' ter grin about." + +And suddenly his grim face relaxed, and once more he began to smite his +hands together and to call aloud for Evelina. + +Timothy could offer no consolation, but stared dismally into the fire, +and Stephen rose with a sigh and addressed himself to pushing the +spinning-wheels and tubs and tables into the opposite corner of the +room, in the hope of solving the enigma of its wonted order. + + * * * * * + +It seemed to Evelina afterward that when she climbed the rugged ways of +the mountain slope in that momentous night she left forever in the +depths of the Cove that free and careless young identity which she had +been. She did not accurately discriminate the moment in which she began +to realize that she was among her hereditary enemies, encompassed by a +hatred nourished to full proportions and to a savage strength long +before she drew her first breath. The fact only gradually claimed its +share in her consciousness as the tension of anxiety for Absalom's sake +relaxed, for the young mountaineer's strength and vitality were promptly +reasserted, and he rallied from the wound and his pallid and forlorn +estate with the recuperative power of the primitive man. By degrees she +came to expect the covert unfriendly glances his brother cast upon her, +the lowering averted mien of her sister-in-law, and now and again she +surprised a long, lingering, curious gaze in his mother's eyes. They +were all Kittredges! And she wondered how she could ever have dreamed +that she might live happily among them--one of them, for her name was +theirs. And then perhaps the young husband would stroll languidly in, +with his long hair curling on his blue jeans coat-collar, and an assured +smile in his dark brown eyes, and some lazy jest on his lips, certain of +a welcoming laugh, for he had been so near to death that they all had a +sense of acquisition in that he had been led back. For his sake they had +said little; his mother would busy herself in brewing his "yerb" tea, +and his brother would offer to saddle the mare if he felt that he could +ride, and they would all be very friendly together; and his alien wife +would presently slip out unnoticed into the "gyarden spot," where the +rows of vegetables grew as they did in the Cove, turning upon her the +same neighborly looks they wore of yore, and showing not a strange leaf +among them. The sunshine wrapped itself in its old fine gilded gossamer +haze and drowsed upon the verdant slopes; the green jewelled "Juny-bugs" +whirred in the soft air; the mould was as richly brown as in Joel +Quimbey's own enclosure; the flag-lilies bloomed beside the onion bed; +and the woolly green leaves of the sage wore their old delicate tint and +gave out a familiar odor. + +Among this quaint company of the garden borders she spent much of her +time, now hoeing in a desultory fashion, now leaning on the long handle +of the implement and looking away upon the far reaches of the purple +mountains. As they stretched to vague distances they became blue, and +farther on the great azure domes merged into a still more tender hue, +and this in turn melted into a soft indeterminate tint that embellished +the faint horizon. Her dreaming eyes would grow bright and wistful; her +rich brown curling hair, set free by the yellow sun-bonnet that slipped +off her head and upon her shoulders, would airily float backward in the +wind; there was a lithe grace in the slender figure, albeit clad in a +yellow homespun of a deep dye, and the faded purplish neckerchief was +caught about a throat fairer even than the fair face, which was +delicately flushed. Absalom's mother, standing beside Peter, the eldest +son, in the doorway, watched her long one day. + +"It all kem about from that thar bran dance," said Peter, a homely man, +with a sterling, narrow-minded wife and an ascetic sense of religion. +"Thar Satan waits, an' he gits nimbler every time ye shake yer foot. The +fiddler gin out the figger ter change partners, an' this hyar gal war +dancin' opposite Abs'lom, ez hed never looked nigh her till that day. +The gal didn't know _what_ ter do; she jes' stood still; but Abs'lom he +jes' danced up ter her ez keerless an' gay ez he always war, jes' like +she war ennybody else, an' when he held out his han' she gin him hern, +all a-trembly, an' lookin' up at him, plumb skeered ter death, her eyes +all wide an' sorter wishful, like some wild thing trapped in the woods. +An' then the durned fiddler, moved by the devil, I'll be bound, plumb +furgot ter change 'em back. So they danced haff'n the day tergether. An' +arter that they war forever a-stealin' off an' accidentally meetin' at +the spring, an' whenst he war a-huntin' or she drivin' up the cow, an' +a-courtin' ginerally, till they war promised ter marry." + +"'Twarn't the bran dance; 'twar suthin' ez fleetin' an' ez useless," +said his mother, standing in the door and gazing at the unconscious +girl, who was leaning upon the hoe, half in the shadow of the blooming +laurel that crowded about the enclosure and bent over the rail fence, +and half in the burnished sunshine; "she's plumb beautiful--thar's the +snare ez tangled Abs'lom's steps. I never 'lowed ter see the day ez +could show enny comfort fur his dad bein' dead, but we hev been spared +some o' the tallest cavortin' that ever war seen sence the Big Smoky war +built. Sometimes it plumb skeers me ter think ez we-uns hev got a +Quimbey abidin' up hyar along o' we-uns in _his_ house an' a-callin' o' +herse'f Kittredge. I looks ter see him a-stalkin' roun' hyar some night, +too outdone an' aggervated ter rest in his grave." + +But the nights continued spectreless and peaceful on the Great Smoky, +and the same serene stars shone above the mountain as over the Cove. +Evelina could watch here, as often before, the rising moon ascending +through a rugged gap in the range, suffusing the dusky purple slopes and +the black crags on either hand with a pensive glamour, and revealing the +river below by the amber reflection its light evoked. She often sat on +the step of the porch, her elbow on her knees, her chin in her hand, +following with her shining eyes the pearly white mists loitering among +the ranges. Hear! a dog barks in the Cove, a cock crows, a horn is +wound, far, far away; it echoes faintly. And once more only the sounds +of the night--that vague stir in the windless woods, as if the forest +breathes, the far-away tinkle of water hidden in the darkness--and the +moon is among the summits. + +The men remained within, for Absalom avoided the chill night air, and +crouched over the smouldering fire. Peter's wife sedulously held aloof +from the ostracized Quimbey woman. But her mother-in-law had fallen into +the habit of sitting upon the porch these moonlit nights. The sparse, +newly-leafed hop and gourd vines clambering to its roof were all +delicately imaged on the floor, and the old woman's clumsy figure, her +grotesque sun-bonnet, her awkward arm-chair, were faithfully reproduced +in her shadow on the log wall of the cabin--even to the up-curling smoke +from her pipe. Once she suddenly took the stem from her mouth. +"Eveliny," she said, "'pears like ter me ye talk mighty little. Thar +ain't no use in gittin' tongue-tied up hyar on the mounting." + +Evelina started and raised her eyes, dilated with a stare of amazement +at this unexpected overture. + +"I ain't keerin'," said the old woman, recklessly, to herself, although +consciously recreant to the traditions of the family, and sacrificing +with a pang her distorted sense of loyalty and duty to her kindlier +impulse. "I warn't born a Kittredge nohow." + +"Yes,'m," said Evelina, meekly; "but I don't feel much like talkin' +noways; I never talked much, bein' nobody but men-folks ter our house. +I'd ruther hear ye talk 'n talk myself." + +"Listen at ye now! The headin' young folks o' this kentry 'll never rest +till they make thar elders shoulder _all_ the burdens. An' what air ye +wantin' a pore ole 'oman like me ter talk about?" + +Evelina hesitated a moment, then looked up, with a face radiant in the +moonbeams. "Tell all 'bout Abs'lom--afore I ever seen him." + +His mother laughed. "Ye air a powerful fool, Eveliny." + +The girl laughed a little, too. "I dunno ez I want ter be no wiser," she +said. + +But one was his wife, and the other was his mother, and as they talked +of him daily and long, the bond between them was complete. + + * * * * * + +"I hev got 'em both plumb fooled," the handsome Absalom boasted at the +settlement, when the gossips wondered once more, as they had often done, +that there should be such unity of interest between old Joel Quimbey's +daughter and old Josiah Kittredge's widow. As time went on many rumors +of great peace on the mountain-side came to the father's ears, and he +grew more testy daily as he grew visibly older. These rumors multiplied +with the discovery that they were as wormwood and gall to him. Not that +he wished his daughter to be unhappy, but the joy which was his grief +and humiliation was needlessly flaunted into his face; the idlers about +the county town had invariably a new budget of details, being supplied, +somewhat maliciously, it must be confessed, by the Kittredges +themselves. The ceremony of planting one foot on the neck of the +vanquished was in their minds one of the essential concomitants of +victory. The bold Absalom, not thoroughly known to either of the women +who adored him, was ingenious in expedients, and had applied the +knowledge gleaned from his wife's reminiscences of her home, her +father, and her brothers to more accurately aim his darts. Sometimes +old Quimbey would fairly flee the town, and betake himself in a towering +rage to his deserted hearth, to brood futilely over the ashes, and +devise impotent schemes of vengeance. + +He often wondered afterward in dreary retrospection how he had survived +that first troublous year after his daughter's elopement, when he was so +lonely, so heavy-hearted at home, so harried and angered abroad. His +comforts, it is true, were amply insured: a widowed sister had come to +preside over his household--a deaf old woman, who had much to be +thankful for in her infirmity, for Joel Quimbey in his youth, before he +acquired religion, had been known as a singularly profane man--"a mos' +survigrus cusser"--and something of his old proficiency had returned to +him. Perhaps public sympathy for his troubles strengthened his hold upon +the regard of the community. For it was in the second year of Evelina's +marriage, in the splendid midsummer, when all the gifts of nature climax +to a gorgeous perfection, and candidates become incumbents, that he +unexpectedly attained the great ambition of his life. He was said to +have made the race for justice of the peace from sheer force of habit, +but by some unexplained freak of popularity the oft-defeated candidate +was successful by a large majority at the August election. + +"Laws-a-massy, boys," he said, tremulously, to his triumphant sons, when +the result was announced, the excited flush on his thin old face +suffusing his hollow veinous temples, and rising into his fine white +hair, "how glad Eveliny would hev been ef--ef--" He was about to say if +she had lived, for he often spoke of her as if she were dead. He turned +suddenly back, and began to eagerly absorb the details of the race, as +if he had often before been elected, with calm superiority canvassing +the relative strength, or rather the relative weakness, of the defeated +aspirants. + +He could scarcely have measured the joy which the news gave to Evelina. +She was eminently susceptible of the elation of pride, the fervid glow +of success, but her tender heart melted in sympathetic divination of all +that this was to him who had sought it so long, and so unabashed by +defeat. She pined to see his triumph in his eyes, to hear it in his +voice. She wondered--nay, she knew that he longed to tell it to her. As +the year rolled around again to summer, and she heard from time to time +of his quarterly visits to the town as a member of the worshipful +Quarterly County Court, she began to hope that, softened by his +prosperity, lifted so high by his honors above all the cavillings of the +Kittredges, he might be more leniently disposed toward her, might pity +her, might even go so far as to forgive. + +But none of her filial messages reached her father's fiery old heart. + +"Ye'll be sure, Abs'lom, ef ye see Joe Boyd in town, ye'll tell him ter +gin dad my respec's, an' the word ez how the baby air a-thrivin', an' I +wants ter fotch him ter see the fambly at home, ef they'll lemme." + +Then she would watch Absalom with all the confidence of happy +anticipation, as he rode off down the mountain with his hair flaunting, +and his spurs jingling, and his shy young horse curveting. + +But no word ever came in response; and sometimes she would take the +child in her arms and carry him down a path, worn smooth by her own +feet, to a jagged shoulder thrust out by the mountain where all the +slopes fell away, and a crag beetled over the depths of the Cove. Thence +she could discern certain vague lines marking the enclosure, and a tiny +cluster of foliage hardly recognizable as the orchard, in the midst of +which the cabin nestled. She could not distinguish them, but she knew +that the cows were coming to be milked, lowing and clanking their bells +tunefully, fording the river that had the sunset emblazoned upon it, or +standing flank deep amidst its ripples, the chickens might be going to +roost among the althea bushes; the lazy old dogs were astir on the +porch. She could picture her brothers at work about the barn; most often +a white-haired man who walked with a stick--alack! she did not fancy how +feebly, nor that his white hair had grown long and venerable, and tossed +in the breeze. "Ef he would jes lemme kem fur one haff'n hour!" she +would cry. + +But all her griefs were bewept on the crag, that there might be no tears +to distress the tenderhearted Absalom when she should return to the +house. + +The election of Squire Quimbey was a sad blow to the arrogant spirit of +the Kittredges. They had easily accustomed themselves to ascendency, and +they hotly resented the fact that fate had forborne the opportunity to +hit Joel Quimbey when he was down. They had used their utmost influence +to defeat him in the race, and had openly avowed their desire to see him +bite the dust. The inimical feeling between the families culminated one +rainy autumnal day in the town where the quarterly county court was in +session. + +A fire had been kindled in the great rusty stove, and crackled away with +grudging merriment inside, imparting no sentiment of cheer to the gaunt +bare room, with its dusty window-panes streaked with rain, its shutters +drearily flapping in the wind, and the floor bearing the imprint of many +boots burdened with the red clay of the region. The sound of slow +strolling feet in the brick-paved hall was monotonous and somnolent. + +Squire Quimbey sat in his place among the justices. Despite his pride of +office, he had not the heart for business that might formerly have been +his. More than once his attention wandered. He looked absently out of +the nearest window at the neighboring dwelling--a little frame-house +with a green yard; a well-sweep was defined against the gray sky, and +about the curb a file of geese followed with swaying gait the wise old +gander. "What a hand for fow-_els_ Eveliny war!" he muttered to himself; +"an' she hed luck with sech critters." He used the obituary tense, for +Evelina had in some sort passed away. + +He rubbed his hand across his corrugated brow, and suddenly he became +aware that her husband was in the room, speaking to the chairman of the +county court, and claiming a certificate in the sum of two dollars each +for the scalps of one wolf, "an' one painter," he continued, laying the +small furry repulsive objects upon the desk, "an' one dollar fur the +skelp of one wild-cat." He was ready to take his oath that these animals +were killed by him running at large in this county. + +He had stooped a little in making the transfer. He came suddenly to his +full height, and stood with one hand in his leather belt, the other +shouldering his rifle. The old man scanned him curiously. The crude +light from the long windows was full upon his tall slim figure; his +yellow hair curled down upon the collar of his blue jeans coat; his +great miry boots were drawn high over the trousers to the knee; his +pensive deer-like eyes brightened with a touch of arrogance and enmity +as, turning slowly to see who was present, his glance encountered his +father-in-law's fiery gaze. + +"Mr. Cheerman! Mr. Cheerman!" exclaimed the old man, tremulously, "lemme +examinate that thar wild-cat skelp. Thanky, sir; thanky, sir; I wanter +see ef 'tain't off'n the head o' some old tame tomcat. An' this air a +painter's"--affecting to scan it by the window--"two ears 'cordin' to +law; yes, sir, two; and this"--his keen old face had all the white light +of the sad gray day on its bleaching hair and its many lines, and his +eager old hands trembled with the excitement of the significant satire +he enacted--"an' this air a wolf's, ye say? Yes; it's a Kittredge's; +same thing, Mr. Cheerman, by a diff'ent name; nuthin' in the code +'bout'n a premium fur a Kittredge's skelp; but same natur'; coward, +bully, thief--_thief_!" + +The words in the high cracked voice rang from the bare walls and bare +floors as he tossed the scalps from him, and sat down, laughing silently +in painful, mirthless fashion, his toothless jaw quivering, and his +shaking hands groping for the arms of his chair. + +"Who says a Kittredge air a thief says a lie!" cried out the young man, +recovering from his tense surprise. "I don't keer how old he be," he +stipulated--for he had not thought to see her father so aged--"he lies." + +The old man fixed him with a steady gaze and a sudden alternation of +calmness. "Ye air a Kittredge; ye stole my daughter from me." + +"I never. She kem of her own accord." + +"Damn ye!" the old man retorted to the unwelcome truth. There was +nothing else for him to say. "Damn the whole tribe of ye; everything +that goes by the accursed name of Kittredge, that's got a drop o' yer +blood, or a bone o' yer bones, or a puff o' yer breath--" + +"Squair! squair!" interposed an officious old colleague, taking him by +the elbow, "jes' quiet down now; ye air a-cussin' yer own gran'son." + +"So be! so be!" cried the old man, in a frenzy of rage. "Damn 'em +all--all the Kittredge tribe!" He gasped for breath; his lips still +moved speechlessly as he fell back in his chair. + +Kittredge let his gun slip from his shoulder, the butt ringing heavily +as it struck upon the floor. "I ain't a-goin' ter take sech ez that +off'n ye, old man," he cried, pallid with fury, for be it remembered +this grandson was that august institution, a first baby. "He sha'n't sit +up thar an' cuss the baby, Mr. Cheerman." He appealed to the presiding +justice, holding up his right arm as tremulous as old Quimbey's own. "I +want the law! I ain't a-goin' ter tech a old man like him, an' my wife's +father, so I ax in the name o' peace fur the law. Don't deny it"--with a +warning glance--"'kase I ain't school-larned, an' dunno how ter get it. +Don't ye deny me the law! I _know_ the law don't 'low a magistrate an' a +jestice ter cuss in his high office, in the presence of the county +court. I want the law! I want the law!" + +The chairman of the court, who had risen in his excitement, turning +eagerly first to one and then to the other of the speakers, striving to +silence the colloquy, and in the sudden surprise of it at a momentary +loss how to take action, sat down abruptly, and with a face of +consternation. Profanity seemed to him so usual and necessary an +incident of conversation that it had never occurred to him until this +moment that by some strange aberration from the rational estimate of +essentials it was entered in the code as a violation of law. He would +fain have overlooked it, but the room was crowded with spectators. The +chairman would be a candidate for re-election as justice of the peace at +the expiration of his term. And after all what was old Quimbey to him, +or he to old Quimbey, that, with practically the whole town looking on, +he should destroy his political prospects and disregard the dignity of +his office. He had a certain twinge of conscience, and a recollection of +the choice and fluent oaths of his own repertory, but as he turned over +the pages of the code in search of the section he deftly argued that +they were uttered in his own presence as a person, not as a justice. + +And so for the first time old Joel Quimbey appeared as a law-breaker, +and was duly fined by the worshipful county court fifty cents for each +oath, that being the price at which the State rates the expensive and +impious luxury of swearing in the hearing of a justice of the peace, and +which in its discretion the court saw fit to adopt in this instance. + +The old man offered no remonstrance; he said not a word in his own +defence. He silently drew out his worn wallet, with much contortion of +his thin old anatomy in getting to his pocket, and paid his fines on the +spot. Absalom had already left the room, the clerk having made out the +certificates, the chairman of the court casting the scalps into the open +door of the stove, that they might be consumed by fire according to law. + +The young mountaineer wore a heavy frown, and his heart was ill at ease. +He sought some satisfaction in the evident opinion of the crowd which +now streamed out, for the excitements within were over, that he had done +a fine thing; a very clever thought, they considered it, to demand the +law of Mr. Chairman, that one of their worships should be dragged from +the bench and arraigned before the quarterly county court of which he +was a member. The result gave general satisfaction, although there were +those who found fault with the court's moderation, and complained that +the least possible cognizance had been taken of the offence. + +"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed an old codger in the street. "I jes knowed that +hurt old Joel Quimbey wuss 'n ef a body hed druv a knife through him; +he's been so proud o' bein' jestice 'mongst his betters, an' bein' +'lected at las', many times ez he hev run. Waal, Abs'lom, ye hev proved +thar's law fur jestices too. I tell ye ye hev got sense in yer +skull-i-bone." + +But Absalom hung his head before these congratulations; he found no +relish in the old man's humbled pride. Yet had he not cursed the baby, +lumping him among the Kittredges? Absalom went about for a time, with a +hopeful anxiety in his eyes, searching for one of the younger Quimbeys, +in order to involve him in a fight that might have a provocation and a +result more to his mind. Somehow the recollection of the quivering and +aged figure of his wife's father, of the smitten look on his old face, +of his abashed and humbled demeanor before the court, was a reproach to +him, vivid and continuously present with his repetitious thoughts +forever re-enacting the scene. His hands trembled; he wanted to lay hold +on a younger man, to replace this aesthetic revenge with a quarrel more +wholesome in the estimation of his own conscience. But the Quimbey sons +were not in town to-day. He could only stroll about and hear himself +praised for this thing that he had done, and wonder how he should meet +Evelina with his conscience thus arrayed against himself for her +father's sake. "Plumb turned Quimbey, I swear," he said, in helpless +reproach to this independent and coercive moral force within. His +dejection, he supposed, had reached its lowest limits, when a rumor +pervaded the town, so wild that he thought it could be only fantasy. It +proved to be fact. Joel Quimbey, aggrieved, humbled, and indignant, had +resigned his office, and as Absalom rode out of town toward the +mountains, he saw the old man in his crumpled brown jeans suit, mounted +on his white mare, jogging down the red clay road, his head bowed before +the slanting lines of rain, on his way to his cheerless fireside. He +turned off presently, for the road to the levels of the Cove was not the +shorter cut that Absalom travelled to the mountains. But all the way the +young man fancied that he saw from time to time, as the bridle-path +curved in the intricacies of the laurel, the bowed old figure among the +mists, jogging along, his proud head and his stiff neck bent to the +slanting rain and the buffets of his unkind fate. And yet, pressing the +young horse to overtake him, Absalom could find naught but the fleecy +mists drifting down the bridle-path as the wind might will, or lurking +in the darkling nooks of the laurel when the wind would. + + * * * * * + +The sun was shining on the mountains, and Absalom went up from the sad +gray rain and through the gloomy clouds of autumn hanging over the Cove +into a soft brilliant upper atmosphere--a generous after-thought of +summer--and the warm brightness of Evelina's smile. She stood in the +doorway as she saw him dismounting, with her finger on her lips, for the +baby was sleeping: he put much of his time into that occupation. The +tiny gourds hung yellow among the vines that clambered over the roof of +the porch, and a brave jack-bean--a friend of the sheltering eaves--made +shift to bloom purple and white, though others of the kind hung crisp +and sere, and rattled their dry bones in every gust. The "gyarden spot" +at the side of the house was full of brown and withered skeletons of the +summer growths; among the crisp blades of the Indian-corn a sibilant +voice was forever whispering; down the tawny-colored vistas the pumpkins +glowed. The sky was blue; the yellow hickory flaming against it and +hanging over the roof of the cabin was a fine color to see. The red +sour-wood tree in the fence corner shook out a myriad of white tassels; +the rolling tumult of the gray clouds below thickened, and he could hear +the rain a-falling--falling into the dreary depths of the Cove. + +All this for him: why should he disquiet himself for the storm that +burst upon others? + +Evelina seemed a part of the brightness; her dark eyes so softly alight, +her curving red lips, the faint flush in her cheeks, her rich brown +hair, and the purplish kerchief about the neck of her yellow dress. Once +more she looked smilingly at him, and shook her head and laid her finger +on her lip. + +"I oughter been sati'fied with all I got, stiddier hectorin' other folks +till they 'ain't got no heart ter hold on ter what they been at sech +trouble ter git," he said, as he turned out the horse and strode +gloomily toward the house with the saddle over his arm. + +"Hev ennybody been spiteful ter you-uns ter-day?" she asked, in an +almost maternal solicitude, and with a flash of partisan anger in her +eyes. + +"Git out'n my road, Eveliny," he said, fretfully, pushing by, and +throwing the saddle on the floor. There was no one in the room but the +occupant of the rude box on rockers which served as cradle. + +Absalom had a swift, prescient fear. "She'll git it all out'n me ef I +don't look sharp," he said to himself. Then aloud, "Whar's mam?" he +demanded, flinging himself into a chair and looking loweringly about. + +"Topknot hev jes kem off'n her nest with fourteen deedies, an' she an' +'Melia hev gone ter the barn ter see 'bout'n 'em." + +"Whar's Pete?" + +"A-huntin'." + +A pause. The fire smouldered audibly; a hickory-nut fell with a sharp +thwack on the clapboards of the roof, and rolled down and bounded to the +ground. + +Suddenly: "I seen yer dad ter-day," he began, without coercion. "He gin +me a cussin', in the court-room, 'fore all the folks. He cussed all the +Kittredges, _all_ o' 'em; him too"--he glanced in the direction of the +cradle--"cussed 'em black an' blue, an' called me a _thief_ fur marryin' +ye an kerry-in' ye off." + +Her face turned scarlet, then pale. She sat down, her trembling hands +reaching out to rock the cradle, as if the youthful Kittredge might be +disturbed by the malediction hurled upon his tribe. But he slept +sturdily on. + +"Waal, now," she said, making a great effort at self-control, "ye +oughtn't ter mind it. Ye know he war powerful tried. I never purtended +ter be ez sweet an' pritty ez the baby air, but how would you-uns feel +ef somebody ye despised war ter kem hyar an' tote him off from we-uns +forever?" + +"I'd cut thar hearts out," he said, with prompt barbarity. + +"Thar, now!" exclaimed his wife, in triumphant logic. + +He gloomily eyed the smouldering coals. He was beginning to understand +the paternal sentiment. By his own heart he was learning the heart of +his wife's father. + +"I'd chop 'em inter minch-meat," he continued, carrying his just +reprisals a step further. + +"Waal, don't do it right now," said his wife, trying to laugh, yet +vaguely frightened by his vehemence. + +"Eveliny," he cried, springing to his feet, "I be a-goin' ter tell ye +all 'bout'n it. I jes called on the cheerman fur the law agin him." + +"Agin _dad_!--the law!" Her voice dropped as she contemplated aghast +this terrible uncomprehended force brought to oppress old Joel Quimbey; +she felt a sudden poignant pang for his forlorn and lonely estate. + +"Never mind, never mind, Eveliny," Absalom said, hastily, repenting of +his frantic candor and seeking to soothe her. + +"I _will_ mind," she said, sternly. "What hev ye done ter dad?" + +"Nuthin'," he replied, sulkily--"nuthin'." + +"Ye needn't try ter fool me, Abs'lom Kittredge. Ef ye ain't minded ter +tell me, I'll foot it down ter town an' find out. What did the law do +ter him?" + +"Jes fined him," he said, striving to make light of it. + +"An' ye done that fur--_spite_!" she cried. "A-settin' the law ter +chouse a old man out'n money, fur gittin' mad an' sayin' ye stole his +only darter. Oh, I'll answer fur him"--she too had risen; her hand +trembled on the back of the chair, but her face was scornfully +smiling--"he don't mind the _money_; he'll never git you-uns _fined_ ter +pay back the gredge. He don't take his wrath out on folkses' _wallets_; +he grips thar throats, or teches the trigger o' his rifle. Laws-a-massy! +takin' out yer gredge that-a-way! It's _ye_ poorer fur them dollars, +Abs'lom--'tain't him." She laughed satirically, and turned to rock the +cradle. + +"What d'ye want me ter do? Fight a old man?" he exclaimed, angrily. + +She kept silence, only looking at him with a flushed cheek and a +scornful laughing eye. + +He went on, resentfully: "I ain't 'shamed," he stoutly asserted. "Nobody +'lowed I oughter be. It's him, plumb bowed down with shame." + +"The shoe's on the t'other foot," she cried. "It's ye that oughter be +'shamed, an' ef ye ain't, it's more shame ter ye. What hev he got ter be +'shamed of?" + +"'Kase," he retorted, "he war fetched up afore a court on a crim'nal +offence--a-cussin' afore the court! Ye may think it's no shame, but he +do; he war so 'shamed he gin up his office ez jestice o' the peace, what +he hev run fur four or five times, an' always got beat 'ceptin' wunst." + +"Dad!" but for the whisper she seemed turning to stone; her dilated +eyes were fixed as she stared into his face. + +"An' I seen him a-ridin' off from town in the rain arterward, his head +hangin' plumb down ter the saddle-bow." + +Her amazed eyes were still fastened upon his face, but her hand no +longer trembled on the back of the chair. + +He suddenly held out his own hand to her, his sympathy and regret +returning as he recalled the picture of the lonely wayfarer in the rain +that had touched him so. "Oh, Eveliny!" he cried, "I never war so beset +an' sorry an'--" + +She struck his hand down; her eyes blazed. Her aspect was all instinct +with anger. + +"I do declar' I'll never furgive ye--ter spite him so--an' kem an' tell +_me_! An' shame him so ez he can't hold his place--an' kem an' tell +_me_! An' bow him down so ez he can't show his face whar he hev been so +respected by all--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' all fur spite, fur he hev +got nuthin' ye want now. An' I gin him up an' lef him lonely, an' all +fur you-uns. Ye air mean, Abs'lom Kittredge, an' I'm the mos' fursaken +fool on the face o' the yearth!" + +He tried to speak, but she held up her hand in expostulation. + +"Nare word--fur I won't answer. I do declar' I'll never speak ter ye +agin ez long ez I live." + +He flung away with a laugh and a jeer. "That's right," he said, +encouragingly; "plenty o' men would be powerful glad ef thar wives would +take pattern by that." + +He caught up his hat and strode out of the room. He busied himself in +stabling his horse, and in looking after the stock. He could hear the +women's voices from the loft of the barn as they disputed about the best +methods of tending the newly hatched chickens, that had chipped the +shell so late in the fall as to be embarrassed by the frosts and the +coming cold weather. The last bee had ceased to drone about the great +crimson prince's-feather by the door-step, worn purplish through long +flaunting, and gone to seed. The clouds were creeping up and up the +slope, and others were journeying hither from over the mountains. A +sense of moisture was in the air, although a great column of dust sprang +up from the dry corn-field, with panic-stricken suggestions, and went +whirling away, carrying off withered blades in the rush. The first drops +of rain were pattering, with a resonant timbre in the midst, when Pete +came home with a newly killed deer on his horse, and the women, with +fluttering skirts and sun-bonnets, ran swiftly across from the barn to +the back door of the shed-room. Then the heavy downpour made the cabin +rock. + +"Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar +rain--they'll be drenched," said the old woman, when they were all +safely housed except the two. "Whar be she?" + +"A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she +always be," said the sister-in-law, tartly. + +Absalom ran out into the rain without his hat, his heart in the clutch +of a prescient terror. No; the summer was over for the garden as well as +for him; all forlorn and rifled, its few swaying shrubs tossed wildly +about, a mockery of the grace and bloom that had once embellished it. +His wet hair streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel boughs +as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet had +worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood, himself +enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the +dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the +valley and baffled his vision. He realized it with a sinking heart. She +was gone. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon--it was close upon nightfall--Stephen Quimbey, letting +down the bars for the cows, noticed through the slanting lines of rain, +serried against the masses of sober-hued vapors which hid the great +mountain towering above the Cove, a woman crossing the foot-bridge. He +turned and lifted down another bar, and then looked again. Something was +familiar in her aspect, certainly. He stood gravely staring. Her +sun-bonnet had fallen back upon her shoulders, and was hanging loosely +there by the strings tied beneath her chin; her brown hair, dishevelled +by the storm, tossed back and forth in heavy wave-less locks, wet +through and through. When the wind freshened they lashed, thong-like, +her pallid oval face; more than once she put up her hand and tried to +gather them together, or to press them back--only one hand, for she +clasped a heavy bundle in her arms, and as she toiled along slowly up +the rocky slope, Stephen suddenly held his palm above his eyes. The +recognition was becoming definite, and yet he could scarcely believe +his senses: was it indeed Evelina, wind-tossed, tempest-beaten, and with +as many tears as rain-drops on her pale cheek? Evelina, forlorn and +sorry, and with swollen sad dark eyes, and listless exhausted step--here +again at the bars, where she had not stood since she dragged her wounded +lover thence on that eventful night two years and more ago. + +Resentment for the domestic treachery was uppermost in his mind, and he +demanded surlily, when she had advanced within the sound of his words, +"What hev ye kem hyar fur?" + +"Ter stay," she responded, briefly. + +His hand in an uncertain gesture laid hold upon his tuft of beard. + +"Fur good?" he faltered, amazed. + +She nodded silently. + +He stooped to lift down the lowest bar that she might pass. Suddenly the +bundle she clasped gave a dexterous twist; a small head, with yellow +downy hair, was thrust forth; a pair of fawn-like eyes fixed an +inquiring stare upon him; the pink face distended with a grin, to which +the two small teeth in the red mouth, otherwise empty, lent a singularly +merry expression; and with a manner that was a challenge to pursuit, the +head disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, tucked with affected +shyness under Evelina's arm. + +She left Stephen standing with the bar in his hand, staring blankly +after her, and ran into the cabin. + +Her father had no questions to ask--nor she. + +As he caught her in his arms he gave a great cry of joy that rang +through the house, and brought Timothy from the barn, in astonishment, +to the scene. + +"Eveliny's _home_!" he cried out to Tim, who, with the ox-yoke in his +hand, paused in the doorway. "Kem ter stay! Eveliny's _home_! I knowed +she'd kem back to her old daddy. Eveliny's kem ter stay fur good." + +"They tole me they'd hectored ye plumb out'n the town an' out'n yer +office. They hed the insurance ter tell _me_ that word!" she cried, +sobbing on his breast. + +"What d'ye reckon I keer fur enny jestice's cheer when I hev got ye agin +ter set alongside o' me by the fire?" he exclaimed, his cracked old +voice shrill with triumphant gladness. + +He pushed her into her rocking-chair in the chimney-corner, and laughed +again with the supreme pleasure of the moment, although she had leaned +her head against the logs of the wall, and was sobbing aloud with the +contending emotions that tore her heart. + +"Didn't ye ever want ter kem afore, Eveliny?" he demanded. "I hev been +a-pinin' fur a glimge o' ye." He was in his own place now, his hands +trembling as they lay on the arms of his chair, a pathetic reproach was +in his voice. "Though old folks oughtn't ter expec' too much o' young +ones, ez be all tuk up naterally with tharse'fs," he added, bravely. He +would not let his past lonely griefs mar the bright present. "Old folks +air mos'ly cumberers--mos'ly cumberers o' the yearth, ennyhow." + +Her weeping had ceased; she was looking at him with dismayed surprise +in her eyes, still lustrous with unshed tears. "Why, dad I sent ye a +hundred messages ef I mought kem. I tole Abs'lom ter tell Joe +Boyd--bein' as ye liked Joe--I wanted ter see ye." She leaned forward +and looked up at him with frowning intensity. "They never gin ye that +word?" + +He laughed aloud in sorry scorn. "We can't teach our chil'n nuthin'," he +philosophized. "They hev got ter hurt tharse'fs with all the thorns an' +the stings o' the yearth. Our sperience with the sharp things an' bitter +ones don't do them no sarvice. Naw, leetle darter--naw! Ye mought ez +well gin a message o' kindness ter a wolf, an' expec' him ter kerry it +ter some lonesome, helpless thing a-wounded by the way-side, ez gin it +ter a Kittredge." + +"I never will speak ter one o' 'em agin ez long ez I live," she cried, +with a fresh gust of tears. + +"Waal," exclaimed the old man, reassuringly, and chirping high, "hyar we +all be agin, jes' the same ez we war afore. Don't cry, Eveliny; it's +jes' the same." + +A sudden babbling intruded upon the conversation. The youthful +Kittredge, as he sat upon the wide flat stones of the hearth, was as +unwelcome here in the Cove as a Quimbey had been in the cabin on the +mountain. The great hickory fire called for his unmixed approval, coming +in, as he had done, from the gray wet day. He shuffled his bare pink +feet--exceedingly elastic and agile members they seemed to be, and he +had a remarkable "purchase" upon their use--and brought them smartly +down upon their heels as if this were one of the accepted gestures of +applause. Then he looked up at the dark frowning faces of his mother's +brothers, and gurgled with laughter, showing the fascinating spectacle +of his two front teeth. Perhaps it was the only Kittredge eye that they +were not willing to meet. They solemnly gazed beyond him and into the +fire, ignoring his very existence. He sustained the slight with an +admirable cheerfulness, and babbled and sputtered and flounced about +with his hands. He grew pinker in the generous firelight, and he looked +very fat as he sat in a heap on the floor. He seemed to have threads +tightly tied about his bolster-shaped limbs in places where elder people +prefer joints--in his ankles and wrists and elbows--for his arms were +bare, and although his frock of pink calico hung decorously high on one +shoulder, it drooped quite off from the other, showing a sturdy chest. + +His mother took slight notice of him; she was beginning to look about +the room with a certain critical disfavor at the different arrangement +of the household furniture adopted by her father's deaf and widowed old +sister who presided here now, and who, it chanced, had been called away +by the illness of a relative. Evelina got up presently, and shifted the +position of the spinning-wheels, placing the flax-wheel where the large +wheel had been. She then pushed out the table from the corner. "What +ailed her ter sot it hyar?" she grumbled, in a disaffected undertone, +and shoved it to the centre of the floor, where it had always stood +during her own sway. She cast a discerning glance up among the strings +of herbs and peppers hanging from above, and examined the shelves where +the simple stores for table use were arranged in earthen-ware bowls or +gourds--all with an air of vague dissatisfaction. She presently stepped +into the shed-room, and there looked over the piles of quilts. They were +in order, certainly, but placed in a different method from her own; +another woman's hand had been at work, and she was jealous of its very +touch among these familiar old things to which she seemed positively +akin. "I wonder how I made out ter bide so long on the mounting," she +said; and with the recollection of the long-haired Absalom there was +another gush of tears and sobs, which she stifled as she could in one of +the old quilts that held many of her own stitches and was soothing to +touch. + +The infantile Kittredge, who was evidently not born to blush unseen, +seemed to realize that he had failed to attract the attention of the +three absorbed Quimbeys who sat about the fire. He blithely addressed +himself to another effort. He suddenly whisked himself over on +all-fours, and with a certain ursine aspect went nimbly across the +hearth, still holding up his downy yellow head, his pink face agrin, and +alluringly displaying his two facetious teeth. He caught the rung of +Tim's chair, and lifted himself tremulously to an upright posture. And +then it became evident that he was about to give an exhibition of the +thrilling feat of walking around a chair. With a truly Kittredge +perversity he had selected the one that had the savage Timothy seated in +it. For an instant the dark-browed face scowled down into his +unaffrighted eyes: it seemed as if Tim might kick him into the fire. +The next moment he had set out to circumnavigate, as it were. What a +prodigious force he expended upon it! How he gurgled and grinned and +twisted his head to observe the effect upon the men, all sedulously +gazing into the fire! how he bounced, and anon how he sank with sudden +genuflections! how limber his feet seemed, and what free agents! Surely +he never intended to put them down at that extravagant angle. More than +once one foot was placed on top of the other--an attitude that impeded +locomotion and resulted in his sitting down in an involuntary manner and +with some emphasis. With an appalling temerity he clutched Tim's great +miry boots to help him up and on his way round. Occasionally he swayed +to and fro, with his teeth on exhibition, laughing and babbling and +shrilly exclaiming, inarticulately bragging of his agile prowess, as if +he were able to defy all the Quimbeys, who would not notice him. And +when it was all over he went in his wriggling ursine gait back to the +hearth-stone, and there he was sitting, demurely enough, and as if he +had never moved, when his mother returned and found him. + +There was no indication that he had attracted a moment's attention. She +looked gravely down at him; then took her chair. A pair of blue yarn +socks was in her hand. "I never see sech darnin' ez Aunt Sairy Ann do +fur ye, dad; I hev jes tuk my shears an' cut this heel smang out, an' I +be goin' ter do it over." + +She slipped a tiny gourd into the heel, and began to draw the slow +threads to and fro across it. + +The blaze, red and yellow, and with elusive purple gleams, leaped up the +chimney. The sap was still in the wood; it sang a summer-tide song. But +an autumn wind was blowing shrilly down the chimney; one could hear the +sibilant rush of the dead leaves on the blast. The window and the door +shook, and were still, and once more rattled as if a hand were on the +latch. + +Suddenly--"Ever weigh him?" her father asked. + +She sat upright with a nervous start. It was a moment before she +understood that it was of the Kittredge scion he spoke. + +With his high cracked laugh the old man leaned over, his outspread hand +hovering about the plump baby, uncertain where, in so much soft fatness, +it might be practicable to clutch him. There were some large horn +buttons on the back of his frock, a half-dozen of which, gathered +together, afforded a grasp. He lifted the child by them, laughing in +undisguised pleasure to feel the substantial strain upon the garment. + +"Toler'ble survigrus," he declared, with his high chirp. + +His daughter suddenly sprang up with a pallid face and a pointing hand. + +"The winder!" she huskily cried--"suthin's at the winder!" + +But when they looked they saw only the dark square of tiny panes, with +the fireside scene genially reflected on it. And then she fell to +declaring that she had been dreaming, and besought them not to take down +their guns nor to search, and would not be still until they had all +seemed to concede the point; it was she who fastened the doors and +shutters, and she did not lie down to rest till they were all asleep and +hours had passed. None of them doubted that it was Absalom's face that +she had seen at the window, where the light had once lured him before, +and she knew that she had dreamed no dream like this. + + * * * * * + +It soon became evident that whenever Joe Boyd was intrusted with a +message he would find means to deliver it. For upon him presently +devolved the difficult duties of ambassador. The first time that his +honest square face appeared at the rail fence, and the sound of his +voice roused Evelina as she stood feeding the poultry close by, she +returned his question with a counter-question hard to answer. + +"I hev been up the mounting," he said, smiling, as he hooked his arms +over the rail fence. "Abs'lom he say he wanter know when ye'll git yer +visit out an' kem home." + +She leaned her elbow against the ash-hopper, balancing the wooden bowl +of corn-meal batter on its edge and trembling a little; the geese and +chickens and turkeys crowded, a noisy rout, about her feet. + +"Joe," she said, irrelevantly, "ye air one o' the few men on this yearth +ez ain't a liar." + +He stared at her gravely for a moment, then burst into a forced laugh. +"Ho! ho! I tell a bushel o' 'em a day, Eveliny!" He wagged his head in +an anxious affectation of mirth. + +"Why'n't ye gin dad them messages ez Abs'lom gin ye from me?" + +Joe received this in blank amaze; then, with sudden comprehension, his +lower jaw dropped. He looked at her with a plea for pity in his eyes. +And yet his ready tact strove to reassert itself. + +"I mus' hev furgot 'em," he faltered. + +"Did Abs'lom ever gin 'em ter ye?" she persisted. + +"_Ef he did_, I mus' hev furgot 'em," he repeated, crestfallen and +hopeless. + +She laughed and turned jauntily away, once more throwing the corn-meal +batter to the greedily jostling poultry. "Tell Abs'lom I hev f'und him +out," she said. "He can't sot me agin dad no sech way. This be my home, +an' hyar I be goin' ter 'bide." + +And so she left the good Joe Boyd hooked on by the elbows to the fence. + +The Quimbeys, who had heard this conversation from within, derived from +it no small elation. "She hev gin 'em the go-by fur good," Timothy said, +confidently, to his father, who laughed in triumph, and pulled calmly at +his pipe, and looked ten years younger. + +But Steve was surlily anxious. "I'd place heap mo' dependence in Eveliny +ef she didn't hev this hyar way o' cryin' all the time. She 'lows she's +glad she kem--_so glad_ she hev lef' Abs'lom fur good an' all--an' then +she busts out a-cryin' agin. I ain't able ter argufy on sech." + +"Shucks! wimmen air always a-cryin', an' they don't mean _nuthin_' by +it," exclaimed the old man, in the plenitude of his wisdom. "It air jes' +one o' thar most contrarious ways. I hev seen 'em set down an' cry fur +joy an' pleasure." + +[Illustration: "'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'"] + +But Steve was doubtful. "It be a powerful low-sperited gift fur them ez +hev ter 'bide along of 'em. Eveliny never useter be tearful in nowise. +Now she cries a heap mo' 'n that thar shoat"--his lips curled in +contempt as he glanced toward the door, through which was visible a +small rotund figure in pink calico, seated upon the lowest log of the +wood-pile--"ez she fotched down hyar with her. _He_ never hev hed a +reg'lar blate but two or three times sence he hev been hyar, an' them +war when that thar old tur-rkey gobbler teetered up ter him an' tuk his +corn-dodger that he war a-eatin' on plumb out'n his hand. _He_ hed +suthin' to holler fur--hed los' his breakfus." + +"Don't he 'pear ter you-uns to be powerful peegeon-toed?" asked Tim, +anxiously, turning to his father. + +"The gawbbler?" faltered the amazed old man. + +"Naw; him, _him_--_Kittredge_," said Tim, jerking his big thumb in the +direction of the small boy. + +"Law-dy Gawd A'mighty! _naw! naw!_" The grandfather indignantly +repudiated the imputation of the infirmity. One would have imagined that +he would deem it meet that a Kittredge should be pigeon-toed. "It's jes +the way _all_ babies hev got a-walkin'; he ain't right handy yit with +his feet--jes a-beginnin' ter walk, an' sech. Peegeon-toed! I say it, ye +fool!" He cast a glance of contempt on his eldest-born, and arrogantly +puffed his pipe. + +Again Joe Boyd came, and yet again. He brought messages contrite and +promissory from Absalom; he brought commands stern and insistent. He +came into the house at last, and sat and talked at the fireside in the +presence of the men of the family, who bore themselves in a manner +calculated to impress the Kittredge emissary with their triumph and +contempt for his mission, although they studiously kept silence, leaving +it to Evelina to answer. + +At last the old man, leaning forward, tapped Joe on the knee. "See hyar, +Joe. Ye hev always been a good frien' o' mine. This hyar man he stole my +darter from me, an' whenst she wanted ter be frien's, an' not let her +old dad die unforgivin', he wouldn't let her send the word ter me. An' +then he sot himself ter spite an' hector me, an' fairly run me out'n the +town, an' harried me out'n my office, an' when she f'und out--she +wouldn't take my word fur it--the deceivin' natur' o' the Kittredge +tribe, she hed hed enough o' 'em. I hev let ye argufy 'bout'n it; ye hev +hed yer fill of words. An' now I be tired out. Ye ain't 'lowin' she'll +ever go back ter her husband, air ye?" + +Joe dolorously shook his head. + +"Waal, ef ever ye kem hyar talkin' 'bout'n it agin, I'll be 'bleeged ter +take down my rifle ter ye." + +Joe gazed, unmoved, into the fire. + +"An' that would be mighty hard on me, Joe, 'kase ye be so pop'lar +'mongst all, I dunno _what_ the kentry-side would do ter me ef I war ter +put a bullet inter ye. Ye air a young man, Joe. Ye oughter spare a old +man sech a danger ez that." + +And so it happened that Joe Boyd's offices as mediator ceased. + +A week went by in silence and without result. Evelina's tears seemed to +keep count of the minutes. The brothers indignantly noted it, and even +the old man was roused from the placid securities of his theories +concerning lachrymose womankind, and remonstrated sometimes, and +sometimes grew angry and exhorted her to go back. What did it matter to +her how her father was treated? He was a cumberer of the ground, and +many people besides her husband had thought he had no right to sit in a +justice's chair. And then she would burst into tears once more, and +declare again that she would never go back. + +The only thoroughly cheerful soul about the place was the intruding +Kittredge. He sat continuously--for the weather was fine--on the lowest +log of the wood-pile, and swung his bare pink feet among the chips and +bark, and seemed to have given up all ambition to walk. Occasionally red +and yellow leaves whisked past his astonished eyes, although these were +few now, for November was on the wane. He babbled to the chickens, who +pecked about him with as much indifference as if he were made of wood. +His two teeth came glittering out whenever the rooster crowed, and his +gleeful laugh--he rejoiced so in this handsomely endowed bird--could be +heard to the barn. The dogs seemed never to have known that he was a +Kittredge, and wagged their tails at the very sound of his voice, and +seized surreptitious opportunities to lick his face. Of all his +underfoot world only the gobbler awed him into gravity and silence; he +would gaze in dismay as the marauding fowl irresolutely approached from +around the wood-pile, with long neck out-stretched and undulating gait, +applying first one eye and then the other to the pink hands, for the +gobbler seemed to consider them a perpetual repository of corn-dodgers, +which indeed they were. Then the head and the wabbling red wattles would +dart forth with a sudden peck, and the shriek that ensued proved that +nothing could be much amiss with the Kittredge lungs. + +One fine day he sat thus in the red November sunset. The sky, seen +through the interlacing black boughs above his head, was all amber and +crimson, save for a wide space of pure and pallid green, against which +the purplish-garnet wintry mountains darkly gloomed. Beyond the rail +fence the avenues of the bare woods were carpeted with the sere +yellowish leaves that gave back the sunlight with a responsive +illuminating effect, and thus the sylvan vistas glowed. The long +slanting beams elongated his squatty little shadow till it was hardly a +caricature. He heard the cow lowing as she came to be milked, fording +the river where the clouds were so splendidly reflected. The chickens +were going to roost. The odor of the wood, the newly-hewn chips, +imparted a fresh and fragrant aroma to the air. He had found among them +a sweet-gum ball and a pine cone, and was applying them to the +invariable test of taste. Suddenly he dropped them with a nervous start, +his lips trembled, his lower jaw fell, he was aware of a stealthy +approach. Something was creeping behind the wood-pile. He hardly had +time to bethink himself of his enemy the gobbler when he was clutched +under the arm, swung through the air with a swiftness that caused the +scream to evaporate in his throat, and the next moment he looked +quakingly up into his father's face with unrecognizing eyes; for he had +forgotten Absalom in these few weeks. He squirmed and wriggled as he was +held on the pommel of the saddle, winking and catching his breath and +spluttering, as preliminary proceedings to an outcry. There was a sudden +sound of heavily shod feet running across the puncheon floor within, a +wild, incoherent exclamation smote the air, an interval of significant +silence ensued. + +"Get up!" cried Absalom, not waiting for Tim's rifle, but spurring the +young horse, and putting him at the fence. The animal rose with the +elasticity and lightness of an uprearing ocean wave. The baby once more +twisted his soft neck, and looked anxiously into the rider's face. This +was not the gobbler. The gobbler did not ride horseback. Then the +affinity of the male infant for the noble equine animal suddenly +overbore all else. In elation he smote with his soft pink hand the +glossy arched neck before him. "Dul-lup!" he arrogantly echoed Absalom's +words. And thus father and son at a single bound disappeared into woods, +and so out of sight. + + * * * * * + +The savage Tim was leaning upon his rifle in the doorway, his eyes +dilated, his breath short, his whole frame trembling with excitement, as +the other men, alarmed by Evelina's screams, rushed down from the barn. + +"What ails ye, Tim? Why'n't ye fire?" demanded his father. + +Tim turned an agitated, baffled look upon him. "I--I mought hev hit the +baby," he faltered. + +"Hain't ye got no aim, ye durned sinner?" asked Stephen, furiously. + +"Bullet mought hev gone through him and struck inter the baby," +expostulated Tim. + +"An' then agin it moughtn't!" cried Stephen. "Lawd, ef _I_ hed hed the +chance!" + +"Ye wouldn't hev done no differ," declared Tim. + +"Hyar!" Steve caught his brother's gun and presented it to Tim's lips. +"Suck the bar'l. It's 'bout all ye air good fur." + +The horses had been turned out. By the time they were caught and saddled +pursuit was evidently hopeless. The men strode in one by one, dashing +the saddles and bridles on the floor, and finding in angry expletives a +vent for their grief. And indeed it might have seemed that the Quimbeys +must have long sought a choice Kittredge infant for adoption, so far did +their bewailings discount Rachel's mourning. + +"Don't cry, Eveliny," they said, ever and anon. "We-uns'll git him back +fur ye." + +But she had not shed a tear. She sat speechless, motionless, as if +turned to stone. + +"Laws-a-massy, child, ef ye would jes hev b'lieved _me_ 'bout'n them +Kittredges--Abs'lom in partic'lar--ye'd be happy an' free now," said the +old man, his imagination somewhat extending his experience, for he had +had no knowledge of his son-in-law until their relationship began. + +The evening wore drearily on. Now and then the men roused themselves, +and with lowering faces discussed the opportunities of reprisal, and +the best means of rescuing the child. And whether they schemed to burn +the Kittredge cabin, or to arm themselves, burst in upon their enemies, +shooting and killing all who resisted, Evelina said nothing, but stared +into the fire with unnaturally dilated eyes, her white lined face all +drawn and somehow unrecognizable. + +"Never mind," her father said at intervals, taking her cold hand, +"we-uns 'll git him back, Eveliny. The Lord hed a mother wunst, an' I'll +be bound He keeps a special pity for a woman an' her child." + +"Oh, great gosh! who'd hev dreamt we'd hev missed him so!" cried Tim, +shifting his position, and slipping his left arm over the back of his +chair. "Jes ter think o' the leetle size o' him, an' the great big gap +he hev lef' roun' this hyar ha'th-stone!" + +"An' yit he jes sot underfoot, 'mongst the cat an' the dogs, jes ez +humble!" said Stephen. + +"I'd git him back even ef he warn't no kin ter me, Eveliny," declared +Tim, and he spoke advisedly, remembering that the youth was a Kittredge. + +Still Evelina said not a word. All that night she silently walked the +puncheon floor, while the rest of the household slept. The dogs, in +vague disturbance, because of the unprecedented vigil and stir in the +midnight, wheezed uneasily from time to time, and crept restlessly about +under the cabin, now and again thumping their backs or heads against the +floor; but at last they betook themselves to slumber. The hickory logs +broke in twain as they burned, and fell on either side, and presently +there was only the dull red glow of the embers on her pale face, and the +room was full of brown shadows, motionless, now that the flames flared +no more. Once when the red glow, growing ever dimmer, seemed almost +submerged beneath the gray ashes, she paused and stirred the coals. The +renewed glimmer showed a fixed expression in her eyes, becoming momently +more resolute. At intervals she knelt at the window and placed her hands +about her face to shut out the light from the hearth, and looked out +upon the night. How the chill stars loitered! How the dawn delayed! The +great mountain gloomed darkling above the Cove. The waning moon, all +melancholy and mystic, swung in the purple sky. The bare, stark boughs +of the trees gave out here and there a glimmer of hoar-frost. There was +no wind; when she heard the dry leaves whisk she caught a sudden glimpse +of a fox that, with his crafty shadow pursuing him, leaped upon the +wood-pile, nimbly ran along its length, and so, noiselessly, away--while +the dogs snored beneath the house. A cock crew from the chicken-roost; +the mountain echoed the resonant strain. She saw a mist come stealing +softly along a precipitous gorge; the gauzy web hung shimmering in the +moon; presently the trees were invisible; anon they showed rigid among +the soft enmeshment of the vapor, and again were lost to view. + +She rose; there was a new energy in her step; she walked quickly across +the floor and unbarred the door. + +The little cabin on the mountain was lost among the clouds. It was not +yet day, but the old woman, with that proclivity to early rising +characteristic of advancing years, was already astir. It was in the +principal room of the cabin that she slept, and it contained another +bed, in which, placed crosswise, were five billet-shaped objects under +the quilts, which when awake identified themselves as Peter Kittredge's +children. She had dressed and uncovered the embers, and put on a few of +the chips which had been spread out on the hearth to dry, and had sat +down in the chimney corner. A timid blaze began to steal up, and again +was quenched, and only the smoke ascended in its form; then the light +flickered out once more, casting a gigantic shadow of her +sun-bonnet--for she had donned it thus early--half upon the brown and +yellow daubed wall, and half upon the dark ceiling, making a specious +stir amidst the peltry and strings of pop-corn hanging motionless +thence. + +She sighed heavily once or twice, and with an aged manner, and leaned +her elbows on her knees and gazed contemplatively at the fire. All at +once the ashes were whisked about the hearth as in a sudden draught, and +then were still. In momentary surprise she pushed her chair back, +hesitated, then replaced it, and calmly settled again her elbows on her +knees. Suddenly once more a whisking of the ashes; a cold shiver ran +through her, and she turned to see a hand fumbling at the batten shutter +close by. She stared for a moment as if paralyzed; her spectacles fell +to the floor from her nerveless hand, shattering the lenses on the +hearth. She rose trembling to her feet, and her lips parted as if to +cry out. They emitted no sound, and she turned with a terrified +fascination and looked back. The shutter had opened, there was no glass, +the small square of the window showed the nebulous gray mist without, +and defined upon it was Evelina's head, her dark hair streaming over the +red shawl held about it, her fair oval face pallid and pensive, and with +a great wistfulness upon it; her lustrous dark eyes glittered. + +"Mother," her red lips quivered out. + +The old crone recognized no treachery in her heart. She laid a warning +finger upon her lips. All the men were asleep. + +Evelina stretched out her yearning arms. "Gin him ter me!" + +"Naw, naw, Eveliny," huskily whispered Absalom's mother. "Ye oughter kem +hyar an' 'bide with yer husband--ye know ye ought." + +Evelina still held out her insistent arms. "Gin him ter me!" she +pleaded. + +The old woman shook her head sternly. "Ye kem in, an' 'bide whar ye +b'long." + +Evelina took a step nearer the window. She laid her hand on the sill. +"Spos'n 'twar Abs'lom whenst he war a baby," she said, her eyes softly +brightening, "an' another woman hed him an' kep' him, 'kase ye an' his +dad fell out--would ye hev 'lowed she war right ter treat ye like ye +treat me--whenst Abs'lom war a baby?" + +Once more she held out her arms. + +There was a step in the inner shed-room; then silence. + +"Ye hain't got no excuse," the soft voice urged; "ye know jes how I +feel, how ye'd hev felt, whenst Abs'lom war a baby." + +The shawl had fallen back from her tender face; her eyes glowed, her +cheek was softly flushed. A sudden terror thrilled through her as she +again heard the heavy step approaching in the shed-room. "Whenst Abs'lom +war a baby," she reiterated, her whole pleading heart in the tones. + +A sudden radiance seemed to illumine the sad, dun-colored folds of the +encompassing cloud; her face shone with a transfiguring happiness, for +the hustling old crone had handed out to her a warm, somnolent bundle, +and the shutter closed upon the mists with a bang. + +"The wind's riz powerful suddint," Peter said, noticing the noise as he +came stumbling in, rubbing his eyes. He went and fastened the shutter, +while his mother tremulously mended the fire. + +The absence of the baby was not noticed for some time, and when the +father's hasty and angry questions elicited the reluctant facts, the +outcry for his loss was hardly less bitter among the Kittredges than +among the Quimbeys. The fugitives were shielded from capture by the +enveloping mist, and when Absalom returned from the search he could do +naught but indignantly upbraid his mother. + +She was terrified by her own deed, and cowered under Absalom's wrath. It +was in a moral collapse, she felt, that she could have done this thing. +She flung her apron over her head, and sat still and silent--a +monumental figure--among them. Once, roused by Absalom's reproaches, she +made some effort to defend and exculpate herself, speaking from behind +the enveloping apron. + +"I ain't born no Kittredge nohow," she irrelevantly asseverated, "an' I +never war. An' when Eveliny axed me how I'd hev liked ter hev another +'oman take Abs'lom whenst he war a baby, I couldn't hold out no longer." + +"Shucks!" cried Absalom, unfilially; "ye'd a heap better be a-studyin' +'bout'n my good now 'n whenst I war a baby--a-givin' away _my_ child ter +them Quimbeys; a-h'istin' him out'n the winder!" + +She was glad to retort that he was "impident," and to take refuge in an +aggrieved silence, as many another mother has done when outmatched by +logic. + +After this there was more cheerfulness in her hidden face than might +have been argued from her port of important sorrow. "Bes' ter hev no +jawin', though," she said to herself, as she sat thus inscrutably +veiled. And deep in her repentant heart she was contradictorily glad +that Evelina and the baby were safe together down in the Cove. + + * * * * * + +Old Joel Quimbey, putting on his spectacles, with a look of keenest +curiosity, to read a paper which the deputy-sheriff of the county +presented when he drew rein by the wood-pile one afternoon some three +weeks later, had some difficulty in identifying a certain Elnathan +Daniel Kittredge specified therein. He took off his spectacles, rubbed +them smartly, and put them on again. The writing was unchanged. Surely +it must mean the baby. That was the only Kittredge whose body they could +be summoned to produce on the 24th of December before the judge of +the circuit court, now in session. He turned the paper about and looked +at it, his natural interest as a man augmented by his recognition as an +ex-magistrate of its high important legal character. + +[Illustration: "SHE FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD"] + +"Eveliny," he quavered, at once flattered and furious, "dad-burned ef +Abs'lom hain't gone an' got out a _habeas corpus_ fur the baby!" + +The phrase had a sound so deadly that there was much ado to +satisfactorily explain the writ and its functions to Evelina, who had +felt at ease again since the baby was at home, and so effectually +guarded that to kidnap him was necessarily to murder two or three of the +vigilant and stalwart Quimbey men. So much joy did it afford the old man +to air his learning and consult his code--a relic of his +justiceship--that he belittled the danger of losing the said Elnathan +Daniel Kittredge in the interest with which he looked forward to the day +for him to be produced before the court. + +There was a gathering of the clans on that day. Quimbeys and Kittredges +who had not visited the town for twenty years were jogging thither +betimes that morning on the red clay roads, all unimpeded by the deep +mud which, frozen into stiff ruts and ridges here and there, made the +way hazardous to the running-gear. The lagging winter had come, and the +ground was half covered with a light fall of snow. + +The windows of the court-house were white with frost; the weighted doors +clanged continuously. An old codger, slowly ascending the steps, and +pushing into the semi-obscurity of the hall, paused as the door slammed +behind him, stared at the sheriff in surprise, then fixed him with a +bantering leer. The light that slanted through the open court-room door +fell upon the official's burly figure, his long red beard, his big +broad-brimmed hat pushed back from his laughing red face, consciously +ludicrous and abashed just now. + +"Hev ye made a find?" demanded the new-comer. + +For in the strong arms of the law sat, bolt-upright, Elnathan Daniel +Kittredge, his yellow head actively turning about, his face decorated +with a grin, and on most congenial terms with the sheriff. + +"They're lawin' 'bout'n him in thar"--the sheriff jerked his thumb +toward the door. "_Habeas corpus_ perceedin's. Dunno ez I ever see a +friskier leetle cuss. Durned ef I 'ain't got a good mind ter run off +with him myself." + +The said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge once more squirmed round and settled +himself comfortably in the hollow of the sheriff's elbow, who marvelled +to find himself so deft in holding him, for it was twenty years since +his son--a gawky youth who now affected the company at the saloon, and +was none too filial--was the age and about the build of this infant +Kittredge. + +"They hed a reg'lar scrimmage hyar in the hall--them fool men--Quimbey +an' Kittredge. Old man Quimbey said suthin' ter Abs'lom Kittredge--I +dunno what all. Abs'lom never jawed back none. He jes made a dart an' +snatched this hyar leetle critter out'n his mother's arms, stiddier +waitin' fur the law, what he summonsed himself. Blest ef I didn't hev +ter hold my revolver ter his head, an' then crack him over the knuckles, +ter make him let go the child. I didn't want ter arrest him--mighty +clever boy, Abs'lom Kittredge! I promised that young woman I'd keep holt +o' the child till the law gins its say-so. I feel sorry fur her; she's +been through a heap." + +"Waal, ye look mighty pritty, totin' him around hyar," his friend +encouraged him with a grin. "I'll say that fur ye--ye look mighty +pritty." + +And in fact the merriment in the hall at the sheriff's expense began to +grow so exhilarating as to make him feel that the proceedings within +were too interesting to lose. His broad red face with its big red beard +reappeared in the doorway--slightly embarrassed because of the sprightly +manners of his charge, who challenged to mirth every eye that glanced at +him by his toothful grin and his gurgles and bounces; he was evidently +enjoying the excitement and his conspicuous position. He manfully gnawed +at his corn-dodger from time to time, and from the manner in which he +fraternized with his new acquaintance, the sheriff, he seemed old enough +to dispense with maternal care, and, but for his incomplete methods of +locomotion, able to knock about town with the boys. The Quimbeys took +note of his mature demeanor with sinking hearts; they looked anxiously +at the judge, wondering if he had ever before seen such +precocity--anything so young to be so old: "He 'ain't never afore +'peared so survigrus--so _durned_ survigrus ez he do ter-day," they +whispered to each other. + +"Yes, sir," his father was saying, on examination, "year old. Eats +anything he kin git--cabbage an' fat meat an' anything. _Could_ walk if +he wanted ter. But he 'ain't been raised right"--he glanced at his wife +to observe the effect of this statement. He felt a pang as he noted her +pensive, downcast face, all tremulous and agitated, overwhelmed as she +was by the crowd and the infinite moment of the decision. But Absalom, +too, had his griefs, and they expressed themselves perversely. + +"He hev been pompered an' fattened by bein' let ter eat an' sleep so +much, till he be so heavy ter his self he don't wanter take the trouble +ter git about. He _could_ walk ennywhar. He's plumb survigrus." + +And as if in confirmation, the youthful Kittredge lifted his voice to +display his lung power. He hilariously babbled, and suddenly roared out +a stentorian whoop, elicited by nothing in particular, then caught the +sheriff's beard, and buried in it his conscious pink face. + +The judge looked gravely up over his spectacles. He had a bronzed +complexion, a serious, pondering expression, a bald head, and a gray +beard. He wore a black broadcloth suit, somewhat old-fashioned in cut, +and his black velvet waist-coat had suffered an eruption of tiny red +satin spots. He had great respect for judicial decorums, and no +Kittredge, however youthful, or survigrus, or exalted in importance by +_habeas corpus_ proceedings, could "holler" unmolested where he +presided. + +"Mr. Sheriff," he said, solemnly, "remove that child from the presence +of the court." + +And the said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge went out gleefully kicking in the +arms of the law. + +The hundred or so grinning faces in the court-room relapsed quickly into +gravity and excited interest. The rows of jeans-clad countrymen seated +upon the long benches on either side of the bar leaned forward with +intent attitudes. For this was a rich feast of local gossip, such as had +not been so bountifully spread within their recollection. All the +ancient Quimbey and Kittredge feuds contrived to be detailed anew in +offering to the judge reasons why father or mother was the more fit +custodian of the child in litigation. + +As Absalom sat listening to all this, his eyes were suddenly arrested by +his wife's face--half draped it was, half shadowed by her sun-bonnet, +its fine and delicate profile distinctly outlined against the +crystalline and frosted pane of the window near which she sat. The snow +without threw a white reflection upon it; its rich coloring in contrast +was the more intense; it was very pensive, with the heavy lids drooping +over the lustrous eyes, and with a pathetic appeal in its expression. + +And suddenly his thoughts wandered far afield. He wondered that it had +come to this; that she could have misunderstood him so; that he had +thought her hard and perverse and unforgiving. His heart was all at once +melting within him; somehow he was reminded how slight a thing she was, +and how strong was the power that nerved her slender hand to drag his +heavy weight, in his dead and helpless unconsciousness, down to the bars +and into the safety of the sheltering laurel that night, when he lay +wounded and bleeding under the lighted window of the cabin in the Cove. +A deep tenderness, an irresistible yearning had come upon him; he was +about to rise, he was about to speak he knew not what, when suddenly her +face was irradiated as one who sees a blessed vision; a happy light +sprang into her eyes; her lips curved with a smile; the quick tears +dropped one by one on her hands, nervously clasping and unclasping each +other. He was bewildered for a moment. Then he heard Peter gruffly +growling a half-whispered curse, and the voice of the judge, in the +exercise of his discretion, methodically droning out his reasons for +leaving so young a child in the custody of its mother, disregarding the +paramount rights of the father. The judge concluded by dispassionately +recommending the young couple to betake themselves home, and to try to +live in peace together, or, at any rate, like sane people. Then he +thrust his spectacles up on his forehead, drew a long sigh of dismissal, +and said, with a freshened look of interest, "Mr. Clerk, call the next +case." + +The Quimbey and Kittredge factions poured into the hall; what cared they +for the disputed claims of Jenkins _versus_ Jones? The lovers of +sensation cherished a hope that there might be a lawless effort to +rescue the infant Kittredge from the custody to which he had been +committed by the court. The Quimbeys watchfully kept about him in a +close squad, his pink sun-bonnet, in which his head was eclipsed, +visible among their brawny jeans shoulders, as his mother carried him in +her arms. The sheriff looked smilingly after him from the court-house +steps, then inhaled a long breath, and began to roar out to the icy air +the name of a witness wanted within. Instead of a gate there was a +flight of steps on each side of the fence, surmounted by a small +platform. Evelina suddenly shrank back as she stood on the platform, for +beside the fence Absalom was waiting. Timothy hastily vaulted over the +fence, drew his "shooting-iron" from his boot-leg, and cocked it with a +metallic click, sharp and peremptory in the keen wintry air. For a +moment Absalom said not a word. He looked up at Evelina with as much +reproach as bitterness in his dark eyes. They were bright with the anger +that fired his blood; it was hot in his bronzed cheek; it quivered in +his hands. The dry and cold atmosphere amplified the graces of his long +curling yellow hair that she and his mother loved. His hat was pushed +back from his face. He had not spoken to her since the day of his +ill-starred confidence, but he would not be denied now. + +"Ye'll repent it," he said, threateningly. "I'll take special pains fur +that." + +She bestowed on him one defiant glance, and laughed--a bitter little +laugh. "Ye air ekal ter it; ye have a special gift fur makin' folks +repent they ever seen ye." + +"The jedge jes gin him ter ye 'kase ye made him out sech a fibble little +pusson," he sneered. "But it's jes fur a time." + +She held the baby closer. He busied himself in taking off his sun-bonnet +and putting it on hind part before, gurgling with smothered laughter to +find himself thus queerly masked, and he made futile efforts to play +"peep-eye" with anybody jovially disposed in the crowd. But they were +all gravely absorbed in the conjugal quarrel at which they were +privileged to assist. + +"It's jes fur a time," he reiterated. + +"Wait an' see!" she retorted, triumphantly. + +"I won't wait," he declared, goaded; "I'll take him yit; an' when I do +I'll clar out'n the State o' Tennessee--see ef I don't!" + +She turned white and trembled. "Ye dassent," she cried out shrilly. +"Ye'll be 'feared o' the law." + +"Wait an' see!" He mockingly echoed her words, and turned in his old +confident manner, and strode out of the crowd. + +Faint and trembling, she crept into the old canvas-covered wagon, and as +it jogged along down the road stiff with its frozen ruts and ever +nearing the mountains, she clasped the cheerful Kittredge with a +yearning sense of loss, and declared that the judge had made him no +safer than before. It was in vain that her father, speaking from the +legal lore of the code, detailed the contempt of court that the +Kittredges would commit should they undertake to interfere with the +judicial decision--it might be even considered kidnapping. + +"But what good would that do me--an' the baby whisked plumb out'n the +State? Ef Abs'lom ain't 'feared o' Tim's rifle, what's he goin' ter keer +fur the pore jedge with nare weepon but his leetle contempt o' +court--ter jail Abs'lom, ef he kin make out ter ketch him!" + +She leaned against the swaying hoop of the cover of the wagon and burst +into tears. "Oh, none o' ye'll do nuthin' fur me!" she exclaimed, in +frantic reproach. "Nuthin'!" + +"Ye talk like 'twar we-uns ez made up sech foolishness ez _habeas +corpus_ out'n our own heads," said Timothy. "I 'ain't never looked ter +the law fur pertection. Hyar's the pertecter." He touched the trigger of +his rifle and glanced reassuringly at his sister as he sat beside her on +the plank laid as a seat from side to side of the wagon. + +She calmed herself for a moment; then suddenly looked aghast at the +rifle, and with some occult and hideous thought, burst anew into tears. + +"Waal, sir," exclaimed Stephen, outdone, "what with all this hyar daily +weepin' an' nightly mournin', I 'ain't got spunk enough lef' ter stan' +up agin the leetlest Kittredge a-goin'. I ain't man enough ter sight a +rifle. Kittredges kin kem enny time an' take my hide, horns, an' tallow +ef they air minded so ter do." + +"I 'lowed I hearn suthin' a-gallopin' down the road," said Tim, +abruptly. + +Her tears suddenly ceased. She clutched the baby closer, and turned and +lifted the flap of the white curtain at the back of the wagon, and +looked out with a wild and terror-stricken eye. The red clay road +stretched curveless, a long way visible and vacant. The black bare trees +stood shivering in the chilly blast on either side; among them was an +occasional clump of funereal cedars. Away off the brown wooded hills +rose; snow lay in thin crust-like patches here and there, and again the +earth wore the pallid gray of the crab-grass or the ochreous red of the +gully-washed clay. + +"I don't see nuthin'," she said, in the bated voice of affrighted +suspense. + +While she still looked out flakes suddenly began to fly, hardly falling +at first, but poised tentatively, fluctuating athwart the scene, +presently thickening, quickening, obscuring it all, isolating the woods +with an added sense of solitude since the sight of the world and the +sound of it were so speedily annulled. Even the creak of the +wagon-wheels was muffled. Through the semicircular aperture in the front +of the wagon-cover the horns of the oxen were dimly seen amidst the +serried flakes; the snow whitened the backs of the beasts and added its +burden to their yoke. Once as they jogged on she fancied again that she +heard hoof-beats--this time a long way ahead, thundering over a little +bridge high above a swirling torrent, that reverberated with a hollow +tone to the faintest footfall. "Jes somebody ez hev passed we-uns, +takin' the short-cut by the bridle-path," she ruminated. No pursuer, +evidently. + +Everything was deeply submerged in the snow before they reached the dark +little cabin nestling in the Cove. Motionless and dreary it was; not +even a blue and gauzy wreath curled out of the chimney, for the fire had +died on the hearth in their absence. No living creature was to be seen. +The fowls were huddled together in the hen-house, and the dogs had +accompanied the family to town, trotting beneath the wagon with lolling +tongues and smoking breath; when they nimbly climbed the fence their +circular footprints were the first traces to mar the level expanse of +the door-yard. The bare limbs of the trees were laden; the cedars +bore great flower-like tufts amidst the interlacing fibrous foliage. The +eaves were heavily thatched; the drifts lay in the fence corners. + +[Illustration: "HE STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW"] + +Everything was covered except, indeed, one side of the fodder-stack that +stood close to the barn. Evelina, going out to milk the cow, gazed at it +for a moment in surprise. The snow had slipped down from it, and lay in +rolls and piles about the base, intermixed with the sere husks and +blades that seemed torn out of the great cone. "Waal, sir, Spot mus' hev +been hongry fur true, ter kem a-foragin' this wise. Looks ez ef she hev +been fairly a-burrowin'." + +She turned and glanced over her shoulder at tracks in the +snow--shapeless holes, and filling fast--which she did not doubt were +the footprints of the big red cow, standing half in and half out of the +wide door, slowly chewing her cud, her breath visibly curling out on the +chill air, her great lips opening to emit a muttered low. She moved +forward suddenly into the shelter as Evelina started anew toward it, +holding the piggin in one hand and clasping the baby in the other arm. + +Evelina noted the sound of her brothers' two axes, busy at the +wood-pile, their regular cleavage splitting the air with a sharp stroke +and bringing a crystalline shivering echo from the icy mountain. She did +not see the crouching figure that came cautiously burrowing out from the +stack. Absalom rose to his full height, looking keenly about him the +while, and stole noiselessly in the soft snow to the stable, and peered +in through a crevice in the wall. + +Evelina had placed the piggin upon the straw-covered ground, and stood +among the horned cattle and the huddling sheep, her soft melancholy face +half shaded by the red shawl thrown over her head and shoulders. A tress +of her brown hair escaped and curled about her white neck, and hung down +over the bosom of her dark-blue homespun dress. Against her shoulder the +dun-colored cow rubbed her horned head. The baby was in a pensive mood, +and scarcely babbled. The reflection of the snow was on his face, +heightening the exquisite purity of the tints of his infantile +complexion. His gentle, fawn-like eyes were full of soft and lustrous +languors. His long lashes drooped over them now, and again were lifted. +His short down of yellow hair glimmered golden against the red shawl +over his mother's shoulders. + +One of the beasts sank slowly upon the ground--a tired creature +doubtless, and night was at hand; then another, and still another. Their +posture reminded Absalom, as he looked, that this was Christmas Eve, and +of the old superstition that the cattle of the barns spend the night +upon their knees, in memory of the wondrous Presence that once graced +their lowly place. The boughs rattled suddenly in the chill blast above +his head; the drifts fell about him. He glanced up mechanically to see +in the zenith a star of gracious glister, tremulous and tender, in the +rifts of the breaking clouds. + +"I wonder ef it air the same star o' Bethlehem?" he said, thinking of +the great sidereal torch heralding the Light of the World. He had a +vague sense that this star has never set, however the wandering planets +may come and go in their wide journeys as the seasons roll. He looked +again into the glooming place, at the mother and her child, remembering +that the Lord of heaven and earth had once lain in a manger, and clung +to a humble earthly mother. + +The man shook with a sudden affright. He had intended to wrest the child +from her grasp, and mount and ride away; he was roused from his reverie +by the thrusting upon him of his opportunity, facilitated a hundredfold. +Evelina had evidently forgotten something. She hesitated for a moment; +then put the baby down upon a great pile of straw among the horned +creatures, and, catching her shawl about her head, ran swiftly to the +house. + +Absalom moved mechanically into the doorway. The child, still pensive +and silent, and looking tenderly infantile, lay upon the straw. A sudden +pang of pity for her pierced his heart: how her own would be desolated! +His horse, hitched in a clump of cedars, awaited him ten steps away. It +was his only chance--his last chance. And he had been hardly entreated. +The child's eyes rested, startled and dilated, upon him; he must be +quick. + +The next instant he turned suddenly, ran hastily through the snow, +crashed among the cedars, mounted his horse, and galloped away. + +It was only a moment that Evelina expected to be at the house, but the +gourd of salt which she sought was not in its place. She hurried out +with it at last, unprescient of any danger until all at once she saw the +footprints of a man in the snow, otherwise untrodden, about the +fodder-stack. She still heard the two axes at the wood-pile. Her +father, she knew, was at the house. + +A smothered scream escaped her lips. The steps had evidently gone into +the stable, and had come out thence. Her faltering strength could +scarcely support her to the door. And then she saw lying in the straw +Elnathan Daniel, beginning to babble and gurgle again, and to grow very +pink with joy over a new toy--a man's glove, a red woollen glove, +accidentally dropped in the straw. She caught it from his hands, and +turned it about curiously. She had knit it herself--for Absalom! + +When she came into the house, beaming with joy, the baby holding the +glove in his hands, the men listened to her in dumfounded amaze, and +with significant side glances at each other. + +"He wouldn't take the baby whenst he hed the chance, 'kase he knowed +'twould hurt me so. An' he never wanted ter torment me--I reckon he +never _did_ mean ter torment me. An' he did 'low wunst he war sorry he +spited dad. Oh! I hev been a heap too quick an' spiteful myself. I hev +been so terrible wrong! Look a-hyar; he lef this glove ter show me he +hed been hyar, an' could hev tuk the baby ef he hed hed the heart ter do +it. Oh! I'm goin' right up the mounting an' tell him how sorry I be." + +"Toler'ble cheap!" grumbled Stephen--"one old glove. An' he'll git +Elnathan Daniel an' ye too. A smart fox he be." + +They could not dissuade her. And after a time it came to pass that the +Quimbey and Kittredge feuds were healed, for how could the heart of a +grandfather withstand a toddling spectacle in pink calico that ran +away one day some two years later, in company with an adventurous dog, +and came down the mountain to the cabin in the Cove, squeezing through +the fence rails after the manner of his underfoot world, proceeding +thence to the house, where he made himself very merry and very welcome? +And when Tim mounted his horse and rode up the mountain with the +youngster on the pommel of the saddle, lest Evelina should be out of her +mind with fright because of his absence, how should he and old Mrs. +Kittredge differ in their respective opinions of his vigorous growth, +and grace of countenance, and peartness of manner? On the strength of +this concurrence Tim was induced to "'light an' hitch," and he even sat +on the cabin porch and talked over the crops with Absalom, who, the next +time he went to town, stopped at the cabin in the Cove to bring word how +Elnathan Daniel was "thrivin'." The path that Evelina had worn to the +crag in those first homesick days on the mountain rapidly extended +itself into the Cove, and widened and grew smooth, as the grandfather +went up and the grandson came down. + +[Illustration: OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON] + + + + +'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE + + +One memorable night in Lonesome Cove the ranger of the county entered +upon a momentous crisis in his life. What hour it was he could hardly +have said, for the primitive household reckoned time by the sun when it +shone, by the domestic routine when no better might be. It was late. The +old crone in the chimney-corner nodded over her knitting. In the +trundle-bed at the farther end of the shadowy room were transverse +billows under the quilts, which intimated that the small children were +numerous enough for the necessity of sleeping crosswise. He had smoked +out many pipes, and at last knocked the cinder from the bowl. The great +hickory logs had burned asunder and fallen from the stones that served +as andirons. He began to slowly cover the embers with ashes, that the +fire might keep till morning. + +His wife, a faded woman, grown early old, was bringing the stone jar of +yeast to place close by the hearth, that it might not "take a chill" in +some sudden change of the night. It was heavy, and she bent in carrying +it. Awkward, and perhaps nervous, she brought it sharply against the +shovel in his hands. + +The clash roused the old crone in the corner. She recognized the +situation instantly, and the features that sleep had relaxed into +inexpressiveness took on a weary apprehension, which they wore like a +habit. The man barely raised his surly black eyes, but his wife drew +back humbly with a mutter of apology. + +The next moment the shovel was almost thrust out of his grasp. A tiny +barefooted girl, in a straight unbleached cotton night-gown and a quaint +little cotton night-cap, cavalierly pushed him aside, that she might +cover in the hot ashes a burly sweet-potato, destined to slowly roast by +morning. A long and careful job she made of it, and unconcernedly kept +him waiting while she pottered back and forth about the hearth. She +looked up once with an authoritative eye, and he hastily helped to +adjust the potato with the end of the shovel. And then he glanced at +her, incongruously enough, as if waiting for her autocratic nod of +approval. She gravely accorded it, and pattered nimbly across the +puncheon floor to the bed. + +"Now," he drawled, in gruff accents, "ef you-uns hev all had yer fill o' +foolin' with this hyar fire, I'll kiver it, like I hev started out ter +do." + +At this moment there was a loud trampling upon the porch without. The +batten door shook violently. The ranger sprang up. As he frowned the +hair on his scalp, drawn forward, seemed to rise like bristles. + +"Dad-burn that thar fresky filly!" he cried, angrily. "Jes' brung her +noisy bones up on that thar porch agin, an' her huffs will bust spang +through the planks o' the floor the fust thing ye know." + +The narrow aperture, as he held the door ajar, showed outlined against +the darkness the graceful head of a young mare, and once more hoof-beats +resounded on the rotten planks of the porch. + +Clouds were adrift in the sky. No star gleamed in the wide space high +above the sombre mountains. On every side they encompassed Lonesome +Cove, which seemed to have importunately thrust itself into the darkling +solemnities of their intimacy. + +All at once the ranger let the door fly from his hand, and stood gazing +in blank amazement. For there was a strange motion in the void +vastnesses of the wilderness. They were creeping into view. How, he +could not say, but the summit of the great mountain opposite was +marvellously distinct against the sky. He saw the naked, gaunt, December +woods. He saw the grim, gray crags. And yet Lonesome Cove below and the +spurs on the other side were all benighted. A pale, flickering light was +dawning in the clouds; it brightened, faded, glowed again, and their +sad, gray folds assumed a vivid vermilion reflection, for there was a +fire in the forest below. Only these reactions of color on the clouds +betokened its presence and its progress. Sometimes a fluctuation of +orange crossed them, then a glancing line of blue, and once more that +living red hue which only a pulsating flame can bestow. + +"Air it the comin' o' the Jedgmint Day, Tobe?" asked his wife, in a meek +whisper. + +"I'd be afraid so if I war ez big a sinner ez you-uns," he returned. + +"The woods air afire," the old woman declared, in a shrill voice. + +"They be a-soakin' with las' night's rain," he retorted, gruffly. + +The mare was standing near the porch. Suddenly he mounted her and rode +hastily off, without a word of his intention to the staring women in the +doorway. + +He left freedom of speech behind him. "Take yer bones along, then, ye +tongue-tied catamount!" his wife's mother apostrophized him, with all +the acrimony of long repression. "Got no mo' politeness 'n a settin' +hen," she muttered, as she turned back into the room. + +The young woman lingered wistfully. "I wisht he wouldn't go a-ridin' off +that thar way 'thout lettin' we-uns know whar he air bound fur, an' when +he'll kem back. He mought git hurt some ways roun' that thar fire--git +overtook by it, mebbe." + +"Ef he war roasted 'twould be mighty peaceful round in Lonesome," the +old crone exclaimed, rancorously. + +Her daughter stood for a moment with the bar of the door in her hand, +still gazing out at the flare in the sky. The unwonted emotion had +conjured a change in the stereotyped patience in her face--even anxiety, +even the acuteness of fear, seemed a less pathetic expression than that +meek monotony bespeaking a broken spirit. As she lifted her eyes to the +mountain one might wonder to see that they were so blue. In the many +haggard lines drawn upon her face the effect of the straight lineaments +was lost; but just now, embellished with a flush, she looked young--as +young as her years. + +As she buttoned the door and put up the bar her mother's attention was +caught by the change. Peering at her critically, and shading her eyes +with her hand from the uncertain flicker of the tallow dip, she broke +out, passionately: "Wa'al, 'Genie, who would ever hev thought ez yer +cake would be _all_ dough? Sech a laffin', plump, spry gal ez ye useter +be--fur all the worl' like a fresky young deer! An' sech a pack o' men +ez ye hed the choice amongst! An' ter pick out Tobe Gryce an' marry him, +an' kem 'way down hyar ter live along o' him in Lonesome Cove!" + +She chuckled aloud, not that she relished her mirth, but the +harlequinade of fate constrained a laugh for its antics. The words +recalled the past to Eugenia; it rose visibly before her. She had had +scant leisure to reflect that her life might have been ordered +differently. In her widening eyes were new depths, a vague terror, a +wild speculation, all struck aghast by its own temerity. + +"Ye never said nuthin ter hender," she faltered. + +"I never knowed Tobe, sca'cely. How's ennybody goin' ter know a man ez +lived 'way off down hyar in Lonesome Cove?" her mother retorted, +acridly, on the defensive. "He never courted _me_, nohows. All the word +he gin me war, 'Howdy,' an' I gin him no less." + +There was a pause. + +Eugenia knelt on the hearth. She placed together the broken chunks, and +fanned the flames with a turkey wing. "I won't kiver the fire yit," she +said, thoughtfully. "He mought be chilled when he gits home." + +The feathery flakes of the ashes flew; they caught here and there in her +brown hair. The blaze flared up, and flickered over her flushed, pensive +face, and glowed in her large and brilliant eyes. + +"Tobe said 'Howdy,'" her mother bickered on. "I knowed by that ez he hed +the gift o' speech, but he spent no mo' words on me." Then, suddenly, +with a change of tone: "I war a fool, though, ter gin my cornsent ter +yer marryin' him, bein' ez ye war the only child I hed, an' I knowed I'd +hev ter live with ye 'way down hyar in Lonesome Cove. I wish now ez ye +bed abided by yer fust choice, an' married Luke Todd." + +Eugenia looked up with a gathering frown. "I hev no call ter spen' words +'bout Luke Todd," she said, with dignity, "ez me an' him are both +married ter other folks." + +"I never said ye hed," hastily replied the old woman, rebuked and +embarrassed. Presently, however, her vagrant speculation went recklessly +on. "Though ez ter Luke's marryin', 'tain't wuth while ter set store on +sech. The gal he found over thar in Big Fox Valley favors ye ez close ez +two black-eyed peas. That's why he married her. She looks precisely like +ye useter look. An' she laffs the same. An' I reckon _she_ 'ain't hed no +call ter quit laffin', 'kase he air a powerful easy-goin' man. +Leastways, he useter be when we-uns knowed him." + +"That ain't no sign," said Eugenia. "A saafter-spoken body I never seen +than Tobe war when he fust kem a-courtin' round the settlemint." + +"Sech ez that ain't goin' ter las' noways," dryly remarked the +philosopher of the chimney-corner. + +This might seem rather a reflection upon the courting gentry in general +than a personal observation. But Eugenia's consciousness lent it point. + +"Laws-a-massy," she said, "Tobe ain't so rampagious, nohows, ez folks +make him out. He air toler'ble peaceable, cornsiderin' ez nobody hev +ever hed grit enough ter make a stand agin him, 'thout 'twar the Cunnel +thar." + +She glanced around at the little girl's face framed in the frill of her +night-cap, and peaceful and infantile as it lay on the pillow. + +"Whenst the Cunnel war born," Eugenia went on, languidly reminiscent, +"Tobe war powerful outed 'kase she war a gal. I reckon ye 'members ez +how he said he hed no use for sech cattle ez that. An' when she tuk sick +he 'lowed he seen no differ. 'Jes ez well die ez live,' he said. An' +bein' ailin', the Cunnel tuk it inter her head ter holler. Sech +hollerin' we-uns hed never hearn with none o' the t'other chil'ren. The +boys war nowhar. But a-fust it never 'sturbed Tobe. He jes spoke out +same ez he useter do at the t'others, 'Shet up, ye pop-eyed buzzard!' +Wa'al, sir, the Cunnel jes blinked at him, an' braced herself ez stiff, +an' _yelled_! I 'lowed 'twould take off the roof. An' Tobe said he'd +wring her neck ef she warn't so mewlin'-lookin' an' peaked. An' he tuk +her up an' walked across the floor with her, an' she shet up; an' he +walked back agin, an' she stayed shet up. Ef he sot down fur a minit, +she yelled so ez ye'd think ye'd be deef fur life, an' ye 'most hoped ye +would be. So Tobe war obleeged ter tote her agin ter git shet o' the +noise. He got started on that thar 'forced march,' ez he calls it, an' +he never could git off'n it. Trot he must when the Cunnel pleased. He +'lowed she reminded him o' that thar old Cunnel that he sarved under in +the wars. Ef it killed the regiment, he got thar on time. Sence then the +Cunnel jes gins Tobe her orders, an' he moseys ter do 'em quick, jes +like he war obleeged ter obey. I b'lieve he air, somehows." + +"Wa'al, some day," said the disaffected old woman, assuming a port of +prophetic wisdom, "Tobe will find a differ. Thar ain't no man so headin' +ez don't git treated with perslimness by somebody some time. I knowed a +man wunst ez owned fower horses an' cattle-critters quarryspondin', an' +he couldn't prove ez he war too old ter be summonsed ter work on the +road, an' war fined by the overseer 'cordin' ter law. Tobe will git his +wheel scotched yit, sure ez ye air born. Somebody besides the Cunnel +will skeer up grit enough ter make a stand agin him. I dunno how other +men kin sleep o' night, knowin' how he be always darin' folks ter differ +with him, an' how brigaty he be. The Bible 'pears ter me ter hev Tobe in +special mind when it gits ter mournin' 'bout'n the stiff-necked ones." + + * * * * * + +The spirited young mare that the ranger rode strove to assert herself +against him now and then, as she went at a breakneck speed along the +sandy bridle-path through the woods. How was she to know that the +white-wanded young willow by the way-side was not some spiritual +manifestation as it suddenly materialized in a broken beam from a rift +in the clouds? But as she reared and plunged she felt his heavy hand and +his heavy heel, and so forward again at a steady pace. The forests +served to screen the strange light in the sky, and the lonely road was +dark, save where the moonbeam was splintered and the mists loitered. + +Presently there were cinders flying in the breeze, a smell of smoke +pervaded the air, and the ranger forgot to curse the mare when she +stumbled. + +"I wonder," he muttered, "what them no 'count half-livers o' town folks +hev hed the shiftlessness ter let ketch afire thar!" + +As he neared the brink of the mountain he saw a dense column of smoke +against the sky, and a break in the woods showed the little town--the +few log houses, the "gyarden spots" about them, and in the centre of the +Square a great mass of coals, a flame flickering here and there, and two +gaunt and tottering chimneys where once the court-house had stood. At +some distance--for the heat was still intense--were grouped the +slouching, spiritless figures of the mountaineers. On the porches of the +houses, plainly visible in the unwonted red glow, were knots of women +and children--ever and anon a brat in the scantiest of raiment ran +nimbly in and out. The clouds still borrowed the light from below, and +the solemn, leafless woods on one side were outlined distinctly against +the reflection in the sky. The flare showed, too, the abrupt precipice +on the other side, the abysmal gloom of the valley, the austere +summit-line of the mountain beyond, and gave the dark mysteries of the +night a sombre revelation, as in visible blackness it filled the +illimitable space. + +The little mare was badly blown as the ranger sprang to the ground. He +himself was panting with amazement and eagerness. + +"The stray-book!" he cried. "Whar's the stray-book?" + +One by one the slow group turned, all looking at him with a peering +expression as he loomed distorted through the shimmer of the heat above +the bed of live coals and the hovering smoke. + +"Whar's the stray-book?" he reiterated, imperiously. + +"Whar's the court-house, I reckon ye mean to say," replied the +sheriff--a burly mountaineer in brown jeans and high boots, on which the +spurs jingled; for in his excitement he had put them on as mechanically +as his clothes, as if they were an essential part of his attire. + +"Naw, I _ain't_ meanin' ter say whar's the court-house," said the +ranger, coming up close, with the red glow of the fire on his face, and +his eyes flashing under the broad brim of his wool hat. He had a +threatening aspect, and his elongated shadow, following him and +repeating the menace of his attitude, seemed to back him up. "Ye air +sech a triflin', slack-twisted tribe hyar in town, ez ennybody would +know ef a spark cotched fire ter suthin, ye'd set an' suck yer paws, an' +eye it till it bodaciously burnt up the court-house--sech a dad-burned +lazy set o' half-livers ye be! I never axed 'bout'n the court-house. I +want ter know whar's that thar stray-book," he concluded, +inconsequently. + +"Tobe Gryce, ye air fairly demented," exclaimed the register--a +chin-whiskered, grizzled old fellow, sitting on a stump and hugging his +knee with a desolate, bereaved look--"talkin' 'bout the _stray-book_, +an' all the records gone! What will folks do 'bout thar deeds, an' +mortgages, an' sech? An' that thar keerful index ez I had made--ez +straight ez a string--all cinders!" + +He shook his head, mourning alike for the party of the first part and +the party of the second part, and the vestiges of all that they had +agreed together. + +"An' ye ter kem mopin' hyar this time o' night arter the _stray-book_," +said the sheriff. "Shucks!" And he turned aside and spat disdainfully on +the ground. + +"I want that thar stray-book!" cried Gryce, indignantly. "Ain't nobody +seen it?" Then realizing the futility of the question, he yielded to a +fresh burst of anger, and turned upon the bereaved register. "An' did ye +jes set thar an' say, 'Good Mister Fire, don't burn the records; what'll +folks do 'bout thar deeds an' sech?' an' hold them claws o' yourn, an' +see the court-house burn up, with that thar stray-book in it?" + +Half a dozen men spoke up. "The fire tuk inside, an' the court-house war +haffen gone 'fore 'twar seen," said one, in sulky extenuation. + +"Leave Tobe be--let him jaw!" said another, cavalierly. + +"Tobe 'pears ter be sp'ilin' fur a fight," said a third, impersonally, +as if to direct the attention of any belligerent in the group to the +opportunity. + +The register had an expression of slow cunning as he cast a glance up at +the overbearing ranger. + +"What ailed the stray-book ter bide hyar in the court-house all night, +Tobe? Couldn't ye gin it house-room? Thar warn't no special need fur it +to be hyar." + +Tobe Gryce's face showed that for once he was at a loss. He glowered +down at the register and said nothing. + +"Ez ter me," resumed that worthy, "by the law o' the land my books war +obligated ter be thar." He quoted, mournfully, "'Shall at all times be +and remain in his office.'" + +He gathered up his knee again and subsided into silence. + +All the freakish spirits of the air were a-loose in the wind. In fitful +gusts they rushed up the gorge, then suddenly the boughs would fall +still again, and one could hear the eerie rout a-rioting far off down +the valley. Now and then the glow of the fire would deepen, the coals +tremble, and with a gleaming, fibrous swirl, like a garment of flames, a +sudden animation would sweep over it, as if an apparition had passed, +leaving a line of flying sparks to mark its trail. + +"I'm goin' home," drawled Tobe Gryce, presently. "I don't keer a frog's +toe-nail ef the whole settlemint burns bodaciously up; 'tain't nuthin +ter me. I hev never hankered ter live in towns an' git tuk up with town +ways, an' set an' view the court-house like the apple o' my eye. We-uns +don't ketch fire down in the Cove, though mebbe we ain't so peart ez +folks ez herd tergether like sheep an' sech." + +The footfalls of the little black mare annotated the silence of the +place as he rode away into the darkling woods. The groups gradually +disappeared from the porches. The few voices that sounded at long +intervals were low and drowsy. The red fire smouldered in the centre of +the place, and sometimes about it appeared so doubtful a shadow that it +could hardly argue substance. Far away a dog barked, and then all was +still. + +Presently the great mountains loom aggressively along the horizon. The +black abysses, the valleys and coves, show duncolored verges and grow +gradually distinct, and on the slopes the ash and the pine and the oak +are all lustrous with a silver rime. The mists are rising, the wind +springs up anew, the clouds set sail, and a beam slants high. + + * * * * * + +"What I want ter know," said a mountaineer newly arrived on the scene, +sitting on the verge of the precipice, and dangling his long legs over +the depths beneath, "air how do folks ez live 'way down in Lonesome +Cove, an' who nobody knowed nuthin about noways, ever git 'lected ranger +o' the county, ennyhow. I ain't s'prised none ter hear 'bout Tobe +Gryce's goin's-on hyar las' night. I hev looked fur more'n that." + +"Wa'al, I'll tell ye," replied the register. "Nuthin' but favoritism in +the county court. Ranger air 'lected by the jestices. Ye know," he +added, vainglorious of his own tenure of office by the acclaiming voice +of the sovereign people, "ranger ain't 'lected, like the register, by +pop'lar vote." + +A slow smoke still wreathed upward from the charred ruins of the +court-house. Gossiping groups stood here and there, mostly the +jeans-clad mountaineers, but there were a few who wore "store clothes," +being lawyers from more sophisticated regions of the circuit. Court had +been in session the previous day. The jury, serving in a criminal +case--still strictly segregated, and in charge of an officer--were +walking about wearily in double file, waiting with what patience they +might their formal discharge. + +The sheriff's dog, a great yellow cur, trotted in the rear. When the +officer was first elected, this animal, observing the change in his +master's habits, deduced his own conclusions. He seemed to think the +court-house belonged to the sheriff, and thence-forward guarded the door +with snaps and growls; being a formidable brute, his idiosyncrasies +invested the getting into and getting out of law with abnormal +difficulties. Now, as he followed the disconsolate jury, he bore the +vigilant mien with which he formerly drove up the cows, and if a juror +loitered or stepped aside from the path, the dog made a slow detour as +if to round him in, and the melancholy cortege wandered on as before. +More than one looked wistfully at the group on the crag, for it was +distinguished by that sprightly interest which scandal excites so +readily. + +"Ter my way of thinkin'," drawled Sam Peters, swinging his feet over the +giddy depths of the valley, "Tobe ain't sech ez oughter be set over the +county ez a ranger, noways. 'Pears not ter me, an' I hev been keepin' my +eye on him mighty sharp." + +A shadow fell among the group, and a man sat down on a bowlder hard by. +He, too, had just arrived, being lured to the town by the news of the +fire. His slide had been left at the verge of the clearing, and one of +the oxen had already lain down; the other, although hampered by the yoke +thus diagonally displaced, stood meditatively gazing at the distant blue +mountains. Their master nodded a slow, grave salutation to the group, +produced a plug of tobacco, gnawed a fragment from it, and restored it +to his pocket. He had a pensive face, with an expression which in a man +of wider culture we should discriminate as denoting sensibility. He had +long yellow hair that hung down to his shoulders, and a tangled yellow +beard. There was something at once wistful and searching in his gray +eyes, dull enough, too, at times. He lifted them heavily, and they had a +drooping lid and lash. There seemed an odd incongruity between this +sensitive, weary face and his stalwart physique. He was tall and well +proportioned. A leather belt girded his brown jeans coat. His great +cowhide boots were drawn to the knee over his trousers. His pose, as he +leaned on the rock, had a muscular picturesqueness. + +"Who be ye a-talkin' about?" he drawled. + +Peters relished his opportunity. He laughed in a distorted fashion, his +pipe-stem held between his teeth. + +"_You-uns_ ain't wantin' ter swop lies 'bout sech ez him, Luke! We war +a-talkin' 'bout Tobe Gryce." + +The color flared into the new-comer's face. A sudden animation fired his +eye. + +"Tobe Gryce air jes the man I'm always wantin' ter hear a word about. +Jes perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm with ye." And Luke Todd placed +his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with an air of attention. + +Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending this ebullition. It was not +what he had expected to elicit. No one laughed. His fleer was wide of +the mark. + +"Wa'al"--he made another effort--"Tobe, we war jes sayin', ain't fitten +fur ter be ranger o' the county. He be ez peart in gittin' ter own other +folkses' stray cattle ez he war in courtin' other folkses' sweetheart, +an', ef the truth mus' be knowed, in marryin' her." He suddenly twisted +round, in some danger of falling from his perch. "I want ter ax one o' +them thar big-headed lawyers a question on a p'int o' law," he broke +off, abruptly. + +"What be Tobe Gryce a-doin' of now?" asked Luke Todd, with eager +interest in the subject. + +"Wa'al," resumed Peters, nowise loath to return to the gossip, "Tobe, ye +see, air the ranger o' this hyar county, an' by law all the stray horses +ez air tuk up by folks hev ter be reported ter him, an' appraised by two +householders, an' swore to afore the magistrate an' be advertised by the +ranger, an' ef they ain't claimed 'fore twelve months, the taker-up kin +pay into the county treasury one-haffen the appraisement an' hev the +critter fur his'n. An' the owner can't prove it away arter that." + +"Thanky," said Luke Todd, dryly. "S'pose ye teach yer gran'mammy ter +suck aigs. I knowed all that afore." + +Peters was abashed, and with some difficulty collected himself. + +"An' I knowed ye knowed it, Luke," he hastily conceded. "But hyar be +what I'm a-lookin' at--the law 'ain't got no pervision fur a stray horse +ez kem of a dark night, 'thout nobody's percuremint, ter the ranger's +own house. Now, the p'int o' law ez I wanted ter ax the lawyers 'bout +air this--kin the ranger be the ranger an' the taker-up too?" + +He turned his eyes upon the great landscape lying beneath, flooded with +the chill matutinal sunshine, and flecked here and there with the +elusive shadows of the fleecy drifting clouds. Far away the long +horizontal lines of the wooded spurs, converging on either side of the +valley and rising one behind the other, wore a subdued azure, all unlike +the burning blue of summer, and lay along the calm, passionless sky, +that itself was of a dim, repressed tone. On the slopes nearer, the +leafless boughs, massed together, had purplish-garnet depths of color +wherever the sunshine struck aslant, and showed richly against the +faintly tinted horizon. Here and there among the boldly jutting gray +crags hung an evergreen-vine, and from a gorge on the opposite mountain +gleamed a continuous flash, like the waving of a silver plume, where a +cataract sprang down the rocks. In the depths of the valley, a field in +which crab-grass had grown in the place of the harvested wheat showed a +tiny square of palest yellow, and beside it a red clay road, running +over a hill, was visible. Above all a hawk was flying. + +"Afore the winter fairly set in las' year," Peters resumed, presently, +"a stray kem ter Tobe's house. He 'lowed ter me ez he fund her +a-standin' by the fodder-stack a-pullin' off'n it. An' he 'quired round, +an' he never hearn o' no owner. I reckon he never axed outside o' +Lonesome," he added, cynically. He puffed industriously at his pipe for +a few moments; then continued: "Wa'al, he 'lowed he couldn't feed the +critter fur fun. An' he couldn't work her till she war appraised an' +sech, that bein' agin the law fur strays. So he jes ondertook ter be +ranger an' taker-up too--the bangedest consarn in the kentry! Ef the +leetle mare hed been wall-eyed, or lame, or ennything, he wouldn't hev +wanted ter be ranger an' taker-up too. But she air the peartest little +beastis--she war jes bridle-wise when she fust kem--young an' spry!" + +Luke Todd was about to ask a question, but Peters, disregarding him, +persisted: + +"Wa'al, Tobe tuk up the beastis, an' I reckon he reported her ter +hisself, bein' the ranger--the critter makes me laff--an' he hed that +thar old haffen-blind uncle o' his'n an' Perkins Bates, ez be never +sober, ter appraise the vally o' the mare, an' I s'pose he delivered +thar certificate ter hisself, an' I reckon he tuk oath that she kem +'thout his procure_mint_ ter his place, in the presence o' the ranger." + +"I reckon thar ain't no law agin the ranger's bein' a ranger an' a +taker-up too," put in one of the bystanders. "'Tain't like a sher'ff's +buyin' at his own sale. An' he hed ter pay haffen her vally into the +treasury o' the county arter twelve months, ef the owner never proved +her away." + +"Thar ain't no sign he ever paid a cent," said Peters, with a malicious +grin, pointing at the charred remains of the court-house, "an' the +treasurer air jes dead." + +"Wa'al, Tobe hed ter make a report ter the jedge o' the county court +every six months." + +"The papers of his office air cinders," retorted Peters. + +"Wa'al, then," argued the optimist, "the stray-book will show ez she war +reported an' sech." + +"The ranger took mighty partic'lar pains ter hev his stray-book in that +thar court-house when 'twar burnt." + +There was a long pause while the party sat ruminating upon the +suspicions thus suggested. + +Luke Todd heard them, not without a thrill of satisfaction. He found +them easy to adopt. And he, too, had a disposition to theorize. + +"It takes a mighty mean man ter steal a horse," he said. "Stealin' a +horse air powerful close ter murder. Folkses' lives fairly depend on a +horse ter work thar corn an' sech, an' make a support fur em. I hev +knowed folks ter kem mighty close ter starvin' through hevin thar horse +stole. Why, even that thar leetle filly of our'n, though she hedn't been +fairly bruk ter the plough, war mightily missed. We-uns hed ter make out +with the old sorrel, ez air nigh fourteen year old, ter work the crap, +an' we war powerful disapp'inted. But we ain't never fund no trace o' +the filly sence she war tolled off one night las' fall a year ago." + +The hawk floating above the valley and its winged shadow disappeared +together in the dense glooms of a deep gorge. Luke Todd watched them as +they vanished. + +Suddenly he lifted his eyes. They were wide with a new speculation. An +angry flare blazed in them. "What sort'n beastis is this hyar mare ez +the ranger tuk up?" he asked. + +Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending his tremor of excitement. +"Seems sorter sizable," he replied, sibilantly, sucking his pipe-stem. + +Todd nodded meditatively several times, leaning his elbows on his knees, +his eyes fixed on the landscape. "Hev she got enny partic'lar marks, ez +ye knows on?" he drawled. + +"Wa'al, she be ez black ez a crow, with the nigh fore-foot white. An' +she hev got a white star spang in the middle o' her forehead, an' the +left side o' her nose is white too." + +Todd rose suddenly to his feet. "By gum!" he cried, with a burst of +passion, "she air _my_ filly! An' 'twar that thar durned horse-thief of +a ranger ez tolled her off!" + + * * * * * + +Deep among the wooded spurs Lonesome Cove nestles, sequestered from the +world. Naught emigrates thence except an importunate stream that forces +its way through a rocky gap, and so to freedom beyond. No stranger +intrudes; only the moon looks in once in a while. The roaming wind may +explore its solitudes; and it is but the vertical sunbeams that strike +to the heart of the little basin, because of the massive mountains that +wall it round and serve to isolate it. So nearly do they meet at the gap +that one great assertive crag, beetling far above, intercepts the view +of the wide landscape beyond, leaving its substituted profile jaggedly +serrating the changing sky. Above it, when the weather is fair, appear +vague blue lines, distant mountain summits, cloud strata, visions. Below +its jutting verge may be caught glimpses of the widening valley without. +But pre-eminent, gaunt, sombre, it sternly dominates "Lonesome," and is +the salient feature of the little world it limits. + +Tobe Gryce's house, gray, weather-beaten, moss-grown, had in comparison +an ephemeral, modern aspect. For a hundred years its inmates had come +and gone and lived and died. They took no heed of the crag, but never a +sound was lost upon it. Their drawling iterative speech the iterative +echoes conned. The ringing blast of a horn set astir some phantom chase +in the air. When the cows came lowing home, there were lowing herds in +viewless company. Even if one of the children sat on a rotting log +crooning a vague, fragmentary ditty, some faint-voiced spirit in the +rock would sing. Lonesome Cove?--home of invisible throngs! + +As the ranger trotted down the winding road, multitudinous hoof-beats, +as of a troop of cavalry, heralded his approach to the little girl who +stood on the porch of the log-cabin and watched for him. + +"Hy're, Cunnel!" he cried, cordially. + +But the little "Colonel" took no heed. She looked beyond him at the +vague blue mountains, against which the great grim rock was heavily +imposed, every ledge, every waving dead crisp weed, distinct. + +He noticed the smoke curling briskly up in the sunshine from the clay +and stick chimney. He strode past her into the house, as Eugenia, with +all semblance of youth faded from her countenance, haggard and +hollow-eyed in the morning light, was hurrying the corn-dodgers and +venison steak on the table. + +Perhaps he did not appreciate that the women were pining with curiosity, +for he vouchsafed no word of the excitements in the little town; and he +himself was ill at ease. + +"What ails the Cunnel, 'Genie?" he asked, presently, glancing up sharply +from under his hat brim, and speaking with his mouth full. + +"The cat 'pears ter hev got her tongue," said Eugenia, intending that +the "Colonel" should hear, and perhaps profit. "She ain't able ter talk +none this mornin'." + +The little body cast so frowning a glance upon them as she stood in the +doorway that her expression was but slightly less lowering than her +father's. It was an incongruous demonstration, with her infantile +features, her little yellow head, and the slight physical force she +represented. She wore a blue cotton frock, fastened up the back with +great horn buttons; she had on shoes laced with leather strings; one of +her blue woollen stockings fell over her ankle, disclosing the pinkest +of plump calves; the other stocking was held in place by an unabashed +cotton string. She had a light in her dark eyes and a color in her +cheek, and albeit so slight a thing, she wielded a strong coercion. + +"Laws-a-massy, Cunnel!" said Tobe, in a harried manner, "couldn't ye +find me nowhar? I'm powerful sorry. I couldn't git back hyar no sooner." + +But not in this wise was she to be placated. She fixed her eyes upon +him, but made no sign. + +He suddenly rose from his half-finished breakfast. "Look-a-hyar, +Cunnel," he cried, joyously, "don't ye want ter ride the filly?--ye knew +ye hanker ter ride the filly." + +Even then she tried to frown, but the bliss of the prospect overbore +her. Her cheek and chin dimpled, and there was a gurgling display of two +rows of jagged little teeth as the doughty "Colonel" was swung to his +shoulder and he stepped out of the door. + +He laughed as he stood by the glossy black mare and lifted the child to +the saddle. The animal arched her neck and turned her head and gazed +back at him curiously. "Hold on tight, Cunnel," he said as he looked up +at her, his face strangely softened almost beyond recognition. And she +gurgled and laughed and screamed with delight as he began to slowly lead +the mare along. + +The "Colonel" had the gift of continuance. Some time elapsed before she +exhausted the joys of exaltation. More than once she absolutely refused +to dismount. Tobe patiently led the beast up and down, and the "Colonel" +rode in state. It was only when the sun had grown high, and occasionally +she was fain to lift her chubby hands to her eyes, imperiling her safety +on the saddle, that he ventured to seriously remonstrate, and finally +she permitted herself to be assisted to the ground. When, with the +little girl at his heels, he reached the porch, he took off his hat, and +wiped the perspiration from his brow with his great brown hand. + +"I tell ye, jouncin' round arter the Cunnel air powerful hot work," he +declared. + +The next moment he paused. His wife had come to the door, and there was +a strange expression of alarm among the anxious lines of her face. + +"Tobe," she said, in a bated voice, "who war them men?" + +He stared at her, whirled about, surveyed the vacant landscape, and once +more turned dumfounded toward her. "What men?" he asked. + +"Them men ez acted so cur'ous," she said. "I couldn't see thar faces +plain, an' I dunno who they war." + +"Whar war they?" And he looked over his shoulder once more. + +"Yander along the ledges of the big rock. Thar war two of 'em, hidin' +ahint that thar jagged aidge. An' ef yer back war turned they'd peep out +at ye an' the Cunnel ridin'. But whenst ye would face round agin, they'd +drap down ahint the aidge o' the rock. I 'lowed wunst ez I'd holler ter +ye, but I war feared ye moughtn't keer ter know." Her voice fell in its +deprecatory cadence. + +He stood in silent perplexity. "Ye air a fool, 'Genie, an' ye never seen +nuthin'. Nobody hev got enny call ter spy on me." + +He stepped in-doors, took down his rifle from the rack, and went out +frowning into the sunlight. + +The suggestion of mystery angered him. He had a vague sense of impending +danger. As he made his way along the slope toward the great beetling +crag all his faculties were on the alert. He saw naught unusual when he +stood upon its dark-seamed summit, and he went cautiously to the verge +and looked down at the many ledges. They jutted out at irregular +intervals, the first only six feet below, and all accessible enough to +an expert climber. A bush grew in a niche. An empty nest, riddled by the +wind, hung dishevelled from a twig. Coarse withered grass tufted the +crevices. Far below he saw the depths of the Cove--the tops of the +leafless trees, and, glimpsed through the interlacing boughs, the rush +of a mountain rill, and a white flash as a sunbeam slanted on the foam. + +He was turning away, all incredulous, when with a sudden start he looked +back. On one of the ledges was a slight depression. It was filled with +sand and earth. Imprinted upon it was the shape of a man's foot. The +ranger paused and gazed fixedly at it. "Wa'al, by the Lord!" he +exclaimed, under his breath. Presently, "But they hev no call!" he +argued. Then once more, softly, "By the Lord!" + +The mystery baffled him. More than once that day he went up to the crag +and stood and stared futilely at the footprint. Conjecture had license +and limitations, too. As the hours wore on he became harassed by the +sense of espionage. He was a bold man before the foes he knew, but this +idea of inimical lurking, of furtive scrutiny for unknown purposes, +preyed upon him. He brooded over it as he sat idle by the fire. Once he +went to the door and stared speculatively at the great profile of the +cliff. The sky above it was all a lustrous amber, for the early sunset +of the shortest days of the year was at hand. The mountains, seen partly +above and partly below it, wore a glamourous purple. There were clouds, +and from their rifts long divergent lines of light slanted down upon the +valley, distinct among their shadows. The sun was not visible--only in +the western heavens was a half-veiled effulgence too dazzlingly white to +be gazed upon. The ranger shaded his eyes with his hand. No motion, no +sound; for the first time in his life the unutterable loneliness of the +place impressed him. + +"'Genie," he said, suddenly, looking over his shoulder within the cabin, +"be you-uns _sure_ ez they war--_folks_?" + +"I dunno what you mean," she faltered, her eyes dilated. "They _looked_ +like folks." + +"I reckon they war," he said, reassuring himself. "The Lord knows I hope +they war." + + * * * * * + +That night the wind rose. The stars all seemed to have burst from their +moorings, and were wildly adrift in the sky. There was a broken tumult +of billowy clouds, and the moon tossed hopelessly amongst them, a lunar +wreck, sometimes on her beam ends, sometimes half submerged, once more +gallantly struggling to the surface, and again sunk. The bare boughs of +the trees beat together in a dirge-like monotone. Now and again a leaf +went sibilantly whistling past. The wild commotion of the heavens and +earth was visible, for the night was not dark. The ranger, standing +within the rude stable of unhewn logs, all undaubed, noted how pale were +the horizontal bars of gray light alternating with the black logs of the +wall. He was giving the mare a feed of corn, but he had not brought his +lantern, as was his custom. That mysterious espionage had in some sort +shaken his courage, and he felt the obscurity a shield. He had brought, +instead, his rifle. + +The equine form was barely visible among the glooms. Now and then, as +the mare noisily munched, she lifted a hoof and struck it upon the +ground with a dull thud. How the gusts outside were swirling up the +gorge! The pines swayed and sighed. Again the boughs of the chestnut-oak +above the roof crashed together. Did a fitful blast stir the door? + +He lifted his eyes mechanically. A cold thrill ran through every fibre. +For there, close by the door, somebody--something--was peering through +the space between the logs of the wall. The face was invisible, but the +shape of a man's head was distinctly defined. He realized that it was no +supernatural manifestation when a husky voice began to call the mare, in +a hoarse whisper, "Cobe! Cobe! Cobe!" With a galvanic start he was about +to spring forward to hold the door. A hand from without was laid upon +it. + +He placed the muzzle of his gun between the logs, a jet of red light was +suddenly projected into the darkness, the mare was rearing and plunging +violently, the little shanty was surcharged with roar and reverberation, +and far and wide the crags and chasms echoed the report of the rifle. + +There was a vague clamor outside, an oath, a cry of pain. Hasty +footfalls sounded among the dead leaves and died in the distance. + +When the ranger ventured out he saw the door of his house wide open, and +the firelight flickering out among the leafless bushes. His wife met him +halfway down the hill. + +"Air ye hurt, Tobe?" she cried. "Did yer gun go off suddint?" + +"Mighty suddint," he replied, savagely. + +"Ye didn't fire it a-purpose?" she faltered. + +"Edzactly so," he declared. + +"Ye never hurt nobody, did ye, Tobe?" She had turned very pale. "I +'lowed it couldn't be the wind ez I hearn a-hollerin'." + +"I hopes an' prays I hurt 'em," he said, as he replaced the rifle in the +rack. He was shaking the other hand, which had been jarred in some way +by the hasty discharge of the weapon. "Some dad-burned horse-thief war +arter the mare. Jedgin' from the sound o' thar runnin', 'peared like to +me ez thar mought be two o' 'em." + +The next day the mare disappeared from the stable. Yet she could not be +far off, for Tobe was about the house most of the time, and when he and +the "Colonel" came in-doors in the evening the little girl held in her +hand a half-munched ear of corn, evidently abstracted from the mare's +supper. + +"Whar be the filly hid, Tobe?" Eugenia asked, curiosity overpowering +her. + +"Ax me no questions an' I'll tell ye no lies," he replied, gruffly. + +In the morning there was a fall of snow, and she had some doubt whether +her mother, who had gone several days before to a neighbor's on the +summit of the range, would return; but presently the creak of unoiled +axles heralded the approach of a wagon, and soon the old woman, bundled +in shawls, was sitting by the fire. She wore heavy woollen socks over +her shoes as protection against the snow. The incompatibility of the +shape of the hose with the human foot was rather marked, and as they +were somewhat inelastic as well, there was a muscular struggle to get +them off only exceeded by the effort which had been required to get them +on. She shook her head again and again, with a red face, as she bent +over the socks, but plainly more than this discomfort vexed her. + +"Laws-a-massy, 'Genie! I hearn a awful tale over yander 'mongst them +Jenkins folks. Ye oughter hev married Luke Todd, an' so I tole ye an' +fairly beset ye ter do ten year ago. _He_ keered fur ye. An' +Tobe--shucks! Wa'al, laws-a-massy, child! I hearn a awful tale 'bout +Tobe up yander at Jenkinses'." + +Eugenia colored. + +"Folks hed better take keer how they talk 'bout Tobe," she said, with a +touch of pride. "They be powerful keerful ter do it out'n rifle range." + +With one more mighty tug the sock came off, the red face was lifted, and +Mrs. Pearce shook her head ruefully. + +"The Bible say 'words air foolishness.' Ye dunno what ye air talkin' +'bout, child." + +With this melancholy preamble she detailed the gossip that had arisen at +the county town and pervaded the country-side. Eugenia commented, +denied, flashed into rage, then lapsed into silence. Although it did not +constrain credulity, there was something that made her afraid when her +mother said: + +"Ye hed better not be talkin' 'bout rifle range so brash, 'Genie, +nohows. They 'lowed ez Luke Todd an' Sam Peters kem hyar--'twar jes +night before las'--aimin' ter take the mare away 'thout no words an' no +lawin', 'kase they didn't want ter wait. Luke hed got a chance ter view +the mare, an' knowed ez she war his'n. An' Tobe war hid in the dark +beside the mare, an' fired at 'em, an' the rifle-ball tuk Sam right +through the beam o' his arm. I reckon, though, ez that warn't true, else +ye would hev knowed it." + +She looked up anxiously over her spectacles at her daughter. + +"I hearn Tobe shoot," faltered Eugenia. "I seen blood on the leaves." + +"Laws-a-massy!" exclaimed the old woman, irritably. "I be fairly feared +ter bide hyar; 'twouldn't s'prise me none ef they kem hyar an' hauled +Tobe out an' lynched him an' sech, an' who knows who mought git hurt in +the scrimmage?" + +They both fell silent as the ranger strode in. They would need a braver +heart than either bore to reveal to him the suspicions of horse-stealing +sown broadcast over the mountain. Eugenia felt that this in itself was +coercive evidence of his innocence. Who dared so much as say a word to +his face? + +The weight of the secret asserted itself, however. As she went about her +accustomed tasks, all bereft of their wonted interest, vapid and +burdensome, she carried so woe-begone a face that it caught his +attention, and he demanded, angrily, "What ails ye ter look so durned +peaked?" + +This did not abide long in his memory, however, and it cost her a pang +to see him so unconscious. + +She went out upon the porch late that afternoon to judge of the weather. +Snow was falling again. The distant summits had disappeared. The +mountains near at hand loomed through the myriads of serried white +flakes. A crow flew across the Cove in its midst. It heavily thatched +the cabin, and tufts dislodged by the opening of the door fell down upon +her hair. Drifts lay about the porch. Each rail of the fence was laden. +The ground, the rocks, were deeply covered. She reflected with +satisfaction that the red splotch of blood on the dead leaves was no +longer visible. Then a sudden idea struck her that took her breath away. +She came in, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, with an excited +dubitation. + +Her husband commented on the change. "Ye air a powerful cur'ous critter, +'Genie," he said: "a while ago ye looked some fower or five hundred year +old--now ye favors yerself when I fust kem a-courtin' round the +settlemint." + +She hardly knew whether the dull stir in her heart were pleasure or +pain. Her eyes filled with tears, and the irradiated iris shone through +them with a liquid lustre. She could not speak. + +Her mother took ephemeral advantage of his softening mood. "Ye useter be +mighty perlite and saaft-spoken in them days, Tobe," she ventured. + +"I hed ter be," he admitted, frankly, "'kase thar war sech a many o' +them mealy-mouthed cusses a-waitin' on 'Genie. The kentry 'peared ter me +ter bristle with Luke Todd; he 'minded me o' brumsaidge--_everywhar_ ye +seen his yaller head, ez homely an' ez onwelcome." + +"I never wunst gin Luke a thought arter ye tuk ter comin' round the +settlemint," Eugenia said, softly. + +"I wisht I hed knowed that then," he replied; "else I wouldn't hev been +so all-fired oneasy an' beset. I wasted mo' time a-studyin' 'bout ye an' +Luke Todd 'n ye war both wuth, an' went 'thout my vittles an' sot up o' +nights. Ef I hed spent that time a-moanin' fur my sins an' settin' my +soul at peace, I'd be 'quirin' roun' the throne o' Grace now! Young +folks air powerful fursaken fools." + +Somehow her heart was warmer for this allusion. She was more hopeful. +Her resolve grew stronger and stronger as she sat and knitted, and +looked at the fire and saw among the coals all her old life at the +settlement newly aglow. She was remembering now that Luke Todd had been +as wax in her hands. She recalled that when she was married there was a +gleeful "sayin'" going the rounds of the mountain that he had taken to +the woods with grief, and he was heard of no more for weeks. The gossips +relished his despair as the corollary of the happy bridal. He had had no +reproaches for her. He had only looked the other way when they met, and +she had not spoken to him since. + +"He set store by my word in them days," she said to herself, her lips +vaguely moving. "I misdoubts ef he hev furgot." + +All through the long hours of the winter night she silently canvassed +her plan. The house was still noiseless and dark when she softly opened +the door and softly closed it behind her. + +It had ceased to snow, and the sky had cleared. The trees, all the limbs +whitened, were outlined distinctly upon it, and through the boughs +overhead a brilliant star, aloof and splendid, looked coldly down. Along +dark spaces Orion had drawn his glittering blade. Above the snowy +mountains a melancholy waning moon was swinging. The valley was full of +mist, white and shining where the light fell upon it, a vaporous purple +where the shadows held sway. So still it was! the only motion in all the +world the throbbing stars and her palpitating heart. So solemnly silent! +It was a relief, as she trudged on and on, to note a gradual change; to +watch the sky withdraw, seeming fainter; to see the moon grow filmy, +like some figment of the frost; to mark the gray mist steal on apace, +wrap mountain, valley, and heaven with mystic folds, shut out all vision +of things familiar. Through it only the sense of dawn could creep. + + * * * * * + +She recognized the locality; her breath was short; her step quickened. +She appeared, like an apparition out of the mists, close to a fence, and +peered through the snow-laden rails. A sudden pang pierced her heart. + +For there, within the enclosure, milking the cow, she saw, all blooming +in the snow--herself; the azalea-like girl she had been! + +She had not known how dear to her was that bright young identity she +remembered. She had not realized how far it had gone from her. She felt +a forlorn changeling looking upon her own estranged estate. + +A faint cry escaped her. + +The cow, with lifted head and a muttered low of surprise, moved out of +reach of the milker, who, half kneeling upon the ground, stared with +wide blue eyes at her ghost in the mist. + +There was a pause. It was only a moment before Eugenia spoke; it seemed +years, so charged it was with retrospect. + +"I kem over hyar ter hev a word with ye," she said. + +At the sound of a human voice Luke Todd's wife struggled to her feet. +She held the piggin with one arm encircled about it, and with the other +hand she clutched the plaid shawl around her throat. Her bright hair was +tossed by the rising wind. + +"I 'lowed I'd find ye hyar a-milkin' 'bout now." + +The homely allusion reassured the younger woman. + +"I hev ter begin toler'ble early," she said. "Spot gins 'bout a gallon a +milkin' now." + +Spot's calf, which subsisted on what was left over, seemed to find it +cruel that delay should be added to his hardships, and he lifted up his +voice in a plaintive remonstrance. This reminded Mrs. Todd of his +existence; she turned and let down the bars that served to exclude him. + +The stranger was staring at her very hard. Somehow she quailed under +that look. Though it was fixed upon her in unvarying intensity, it had a +strange impersonality. This woman was not seeing her, despite that wide, +wistful, yearning gaze; she was thinking of something else, seeing some +one else. + +And suddenly Luke Todd's wife began to stare at the visitor very hard, +and to think of something that was not before her. + +"I be the ranger's wife," said Eugenia. "I kem over hyar ter tell ye he +never tuk yer black mare nowise but honest, bein' the ranger." + +She found it difficult to say more. Under that speculative, unseeing +look she too faltered. + +"They tell me ez Luke Todd air powerful outed 'bout'n it. An' I 'lowed +ef he knowed from me ez 'twar tuk fair, he'd b'lieve me." + +She hesitated. Her courage was flagging; her hope had fled. The eyes of +the man's wife burned upon her face. + +"We-uns useter be toler'ble well 'quainted 'fore he ever seen ye, an' I +'lowed he'd b'lieve my word," Eugenia continued. + +Another silence. The sun was rising; long liquescent lines of light of +purest amber-color were streaming through the snowy woods; the shadows +of the fence rails alternated with bars of dazzling glister; elusive +prismatic gleams of rose and lilac and blue shimmered on every +slope--thus the winter flowered. Tiny snow-birds were hopping about; a +great dog came down from the little snow-thatched cabin, and was +stretching himself elastically and yawning most portentously. + +"An' I 'lowed I'd see ye an' git you-uns ter tell him that word from me, +an' then he'd b'lieve it," said Eugenia. + +The younger woman nodded mechanically, still gazing at her. + +And was this her mission! Somehow it had lost its urgency. Where was its +potency, her enthusiasm? Eugenia realized that her feet were wet, her +skirts draggled; that she was chilled to the bone and trembling +violently. She looked about her doubtfully. Then her eyes came back to +the face of the woman before her. + +"Ye'll tell him, I s'pose?" + +Once more Luke Todd's wife nodded mechanically, still staring. + +There was nothing further to be said. A vacant interval ensued. Then, "I +'lowed I'd tell ye," Eugenia reiterated, vaguely, and turned away, +vanishing with the vanishing mists. + +Luke Todd's wife stood gazing at the fence through which the apparition +had peered. She could see yet her own face there, grown old and worn. +The dog wagged his tail and pressed against her, looking up and claiming +her notice. Once more he stretched himself elastically and yawned +widely, with shrill variations of tone. The calf was frisking about in +awkward bovine elation, and now and then the cow affectionately licked +its coat with the air of making its toilet. An assertive chanticleer was +proclaiming the dawn within the hen-house, whence came too an impatient +clamor, for the door, which served to exclude any marauding fox, was +still closed upon the imprisoned poultry. Still she looked steadily at +the fence where the ranger's wife had stood. + +"That thar woman favors me," she said, presently. And suddenly she burst +into tears. + +Perhaps it was well that Eugenia could not see Luke Todd's expression as +his wife recounted the scene. She gave it truly, but without, alas! the +glamour of sympathy. + +"She 'lowed ez ye'd b'lieve her, bein' ez ye useter be 'quainted." + +His face flushed. "Wa'al, sir! the insurance o' that thar woman!" he +exclaimed. "I war 'quainted with her; I war mighty well 'quainted with +her." He had a casual remembrance of those days when "he tuk ter the +woods ter wear out his grief." "She never gin me no promise, but me an' +her war courtin' some. Sech dependence ez I put on her war mightily +wasted. I dunno what ails the critter ter 'low ez I set store by her +word." + +Poor Eugenia! There is nothing so dead as ashes. His flame had clean +burned out. So far afield were all his thoughts that he stood amazed +when his wife, with a sudden burst of tears, declared passionately that +she knew it--she saw it--she favored Eugenia Gryce. She had found out +that he had married her because she looked like another woman. + +"'Genie Gryce hev got powerful little ter do ter kem a-jouncin' through +the snow over hyar ter try ter set ye an' me agin one another," he +exclaimed, angrily. "Stealin' the filly ain't enough ter sati'fy her!" + +His wife was in some sort mollified. She sought to reassure herself. + +"Air we-uns of a favor?" + +"I dunno," he replied, sulkily. "I 'ain't seen the critter fur nigh on +ter ten year. I hev furgot the looks of her. 'Pears like ter me," he +went on, ruminating, "ez 'twar in my mind when I fust seen ye ez thar +war a favor 'twixt ye. But I misdoubts now. Do she 'low ez I hev hed +nuthin ter study 'bout sence?" + +Perhaps Eugenia is not the only woman who overrates the strength of a +sentimental attachment. A gloomy intuition of failure kept her company +all the lengthening way home. The chill splendors of the wintry day +grated upon her dreary mood. How should she care for the depth and +richness of the blue deepening toward the zenith in those vast skies? +What was it to her that the dead vines, climbing the grim rugged crags, +were laden with tufts and corollated shapes wherever these fantasies of +flowers might cling, or that the snow flashed with crystalline +scintillations? She only knew that they glimmered and dazzled upon the +tears in her eyes, and she was moved to shed them afresh. She did not +wonder whether her venture had resulted amiss. She only wondered that +she had tried aught. And she was humbled. + +When she reached Lonesome Cove she found the piggin where she had hid +it, and milked the cow in haste. It was no great task, for the animal +was going dry. "Their'n gins a gallon a milkin'," she said, in rueful +comparison. + +As she came up the slope with the piggin on her head, her husband was +looking down from the porch with a lowering brow. "Why n't ye spen' the +day a-milkin' the cow?" he drawled. "Dawdlin' yander in the cow-pen till +this time in the mornin'! An' ter-morrer's Chrismus!" + +The word smote upon her weary heart with a dull pain. She had no +cultured phrase to characterize the sensation as a presentiment, but she +was conscious of the prophetic process. To-night "all the mounting" +would be riotous with that dubious hilarity known as "Chrismus in the +bones," and there was no telling what might come from the combined orgy +and an inflamed public spirit. + +She remembered the familiar doom of the mountain horse-thief, the men +lurking on the cliff, the inimical feeling against the ranger. She +furtively watched him with forebodings as he came and went at intervals +throughout the day. + +Dusk had fallen when he suddenly looked in and beckoned to the +"Colonel," who required him to take her with him whenever he fed the +mare. + +"Let me tie this hyar comforter over the Cunnel's head," Eugenia said, +as he bundled the child in a shawl and lifted her in his arms. + +"'Tain't no use," he declared. "The Cunnel ain't travellin' fur." + +She heard him step from the creaking porch. She heard the dreary wind +without. + +Within, the clumsy shadows of the warping-bars, the spinning-wheel, and +the churn were dancing in the firelight on the wall. The supper was +cooking on the live coals. The children, popping corn in the ashes, were +laughing; as her eye fell upon the "Colonel's" vacant little chair her +mind returned to the child's excursion with her father, and again she +wondered futilely where the mare could be hid. The next moment she was +heartily glad that she did not know. + +It was like the fulfillment of some dreadful dream when the door opened. +A man entered softly, slowly; the flickering fire showed his shadow--was +it?--nay, another man, and still another, and another. + +The old crone in the corner sprang up, screaming in a shrill, tremulous, +cracked voice. For they were masked. Over the face of each dangled a bit +of homespun, with great empty sockets through which eyes vaguely +glanced. Even the coarse fibre of the intruders responded to that +quavering, thrilling appeal. One spoke instantly: + +"Laws-a-massy! Mis' Pearce, don't ye feel interrupted none--nor Mis' +Gryce nuther. We-uns ain't harmful noways--jes want ter know whar that +thar black mare hev disappeared to. She ain't in the barn." + +He turned his great eye-sockets on Eugenia. The plaid homespun mask +dangling about his face was grotesquely incongruous with his intent, +serious gaze. + +"I dunno," she faltered; "I dunno." + +She had caught at the spinning-wheel for support. The fire crackled. The +baby was counting aloud the grains of corn popping from the ashes. "Six, +two, free," he babbled. The kettle merrily sang. + +The man still stared silently at the ranger's wife. The expression in +his eyes changed suddenly. He chuckled derisively. The others echoed his +mocking mirth. "Ha! ha! ha!" they laughed aloud; and the eye-sockets in +the homespun masks all glared significantly at each other. Even the dog +detected something sinister in this laughter. He had been sniffing about +the heels of the strangers; he bristled now, showed his teeth, and +growled. The spokesman hastily kicked him in the ribs, and the animal +fled yelping to the farther side of the fireplace behind the baby, where +he stood and barked defiance. The rafters rang with the sound. + +Some one on the porch without spoke to the leader in a low voice. This +man, who seemed to have a desire to conceal his identity which could not +be served by a mask, held the door with one hand that the wind might not +blow it wide open. The draught fanned the fire. Once the great bowing, +waving white blaze sent a long, quivering line of light through the +narrow aperture, and Eugenia saw the dark lurking figure outside. He had +one arm in a sling. She needed no confirmation to assure her that this +was Sam Peters, whom her husband had shot at the stable door. + +The leader instantly accepted his suggestion. "Wa'al, Mis' Gryce, I +reckon ye dunno whar Tobe be, nuther?" + +"Naw, I dunno," she said, in a tremor. + +The homespun mask swayed with the distortions of his face as he sneered: + +"Ye mean ter say ye don't 'low ter tell us." + +"I dunno whar he be." Her voice had sunk to a whisper. + +Another exchange of glances. + +"Wa'al, ma'am, jes gin us the favor of a light by yer fire, an' we-uns +'ll find him." + +He stepped swiftly forward, thrust a pine torch into the coals, and with +it all whitely flaring ran out into the night; the others followed his +example; and the terror-stricken women, hastily barring up the door, +peered after them through the little batten shutter of the window. + + * * * * * + +The torches were already scattered about the slopes of Lonesome Cove +like a fallen constellation. What shafts of white light they cast upon +the snow in the midst of the dense blackness of the night! Somehow they +seemed endowed with volition, as they moved hither and thither, for +their brilliancy almost cancelled the figures of the men that bore +them--only an occasional erratic shapeless shadow was visible. Now and +then a flare pierced the icicle-tipped holly bushes, and again there was +a fibrous glimmer in the fringed pines. + +The search was terribly silent. The snow deadened the tread. Only the +wind was loud among the muffled trees, and sometimes a dull thud sounded +when the weight of snow fell from the evergreen laurel as the men +thrashed through its dense growth. They separated after a time, and only +here and there an isolated stellular light illumined the snow, and +conjured white mystic circles into the wide spaces of the darkness. The +effort flagged at last, and its futility sharpened the sense of injury +in Luke Todd's heart. + +He was alone now, close upon the great rock, and looking at its jagged +ledges all cloaked with snow. Above those soft white outlines drawn +against the deep clear sky the frosty stars scintillated. Beneath were +the abysmal depths of the valley masked by the darkness. + +His pride was touched. In the old quarrel his revenge had been hampered, +for it was the girl's privilege to choose, and she had chosen. He cared +nothing for that now, but he felt it indeed a reproach to tamely let +this man take his horse when he had all the mountain at his back. There +was a sharp humiliation in his position. He felt the pressure of public +opinion. + +"Dad-burn him!" he exclaimed. "Ef I kin make out ter git a glimge o' +him, I'll shoot him dead--dead!" + +He leaned the rifle against the rock. It struck upon a ledge. A metallic +vibration rang out. Again and again the sound was repeated--now loud, +still clanging; now faint, but clear; now soft and away to a doubtful +murmur which he hardly was sure that he heard. Never before had he known +such an echo. And suddenly he recollected that this was the great +"Talking Rock," famed beyond the limits of Lonesome. It had traditions +as well as echoes. He remembered vaguely that beneath this cliff there +was said to be a cave which was utilized in the manufacture of saltpetre +for gunpowder in the War of 1812. + +As he looked down the slope below he thought the snow seemed broken--by +footprints, was it? With the expectation of a discovery strong upon him, +he crept along a wide ledge of the crag, now and then stumbling and +sending an avalanche of snow and ice and stones thundering to the foot +of the cliff. He missed his way more than once. Then he would turn +about, laboriously retracing his steps, and try another level of the +ledges. Suddenly before him was the dark opening he sought. No creature +had lately been here. It was filled with growing bushes and dead leaves +and brambles. Looking again down upon the slope beneath, he felt very +sure that he saw footprints. + +"The old folks useter 'low ez thar war two openings ter this hyar cave," +he said. "Tobe Gryce mought hev hid hyar through a opening down yander +on the slope. But _I'll_ go the way ez I hev hearn tell on, an' peek in, +an' ef I kin git a glimge o' him, I'll make him tell me whar that thar +filly air, or I'll let daylight through him, sure!" + +He paused only to bend aside the brambles, then he crept in and took his +way along a low, narrow passage. It had many windings, but was without +intersections or intricacy. He heard his own steps echoed like a +pursuing footfall. His labored breathing returned in sighs from the +inanimate rocks. It was an uncanny place, with strange, sepulchral, +solemn effects. He shivered with the cold. A draught stole in from some +secret crevice known only to the wild mountain winds. The torch flared, +crouched before the gust, flared again, then darkness. He hesitated, +took one step forward, and suddenly--a miracle! + +A soft aureola with gleaming radiations, a low, shadowy chamber, a beast +feeding from a manger, and within it a child's golden head. + +His heart gave a great throb. Somehow he was smitten to his knees. +Christmas Eve! He remembered the day with a rush of emotion. He stared +again at the vouchsafed vision. He rubbed his eyes. It had changed. + +Only hallucination caused by an abrupt transition from darkness to +light; only the most mundane facts of the old troughs and ash-hoppers, +relics of the industry that had served the hideous carnage of battle; +only the yellow head of the ranger's brat, who had climbed into one of +them, from which the mare was calmly munching her corn. + +Yet this was Christmas Eve. And the Child did lie in a manger. + +Perhaps it was well for him that his ignorant faith could accept the +illusion as a vision charged with all the benignities of peace on earth, +good-will toward men. With a keen thrill in his heart, on his knees he +drew the charge from his rifle, and flung it down a rift in the rocks. +"Chrismus Eve," he murmured. + +[Illustration: "YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE"] + +He leaned his empty weapon against the wall, and strode out to the +little girl who was perched up on the trough. + +"Chrismus gift, Cunnel!" he cried, cheerily. "Ter-morrer's Chrismus." + +The echoes caught the word. In vibratory jubilance they repeated it. +"Chrismus!" rang from the roof, scintillating with calc-spar; +"Chrismus!" sounded from the colonnade of stalactites that hung down to +meet the uprising stalagmites; "Chrismus!" repeated the walls incrusted +with roses that, shut in from the light and the fresh air of heaven, +bloomed forever in the stone. Was ever chorus so sweet as this? + +It reached Tobe Gryce, who stood at his improvised corn-bin. With a +bundle of fodder still in his arms he stepped forward. There beside the +little Colonel and the black mare he beheld a man seated upon an +inverted half-bushel measure, peacefully lighting his pipe with a bunch +of straws which he kindled at the lantern on the ash-hopper. + +The ranger's black eyes were wide with wonder at this intrusion, and +angrily flashed. He connected it at once with the attack on the stable. +The hair on his low forehead rose bristlingly as he frowned. Yet he +realized with a quaking heart that he was helpless. He, although the +crack shot of the county, would not have fired while the Colonel was +within two yards of his mark for the State of Tennessee. + +He stood his ground with stolid courage--a target. + +Then, with a start of surprise, he perceived that the intruder was +unarmed. Twenty feet away his rifle stood against the wall. + +Tobe Gryce was strangely shaken. He experienced a sudden revolt of +credulity. This was surely a dream. + +"Ain't that thar Luke Todd? Why air ye a-waitin' thar?" he called out in +a husky undertone. + +Todd glanced up, and took his pipe from his mouth; it was now fairly +alight. + +"Kase it be Chrismus Eve, Tobe," he said, gravely. + +The ranger stared for a moment; then came forward and gave the fodder to +the mare, pausing now and then and looking with oblique distrust down +upon Luke Todd as he smoked his pipe. + +"I want ter tell ye, Tobe, ez some o' the mounting boys air a-sarchin +fur ye outside." + +"Who air they?" asked the ranger, calmly. + +His tone was so natural, his manner so unsuspecting, that a new doubt +began to stir in Luke Todd's mind. + +"What ails ye ter keep the mare down hyar, Tobe?" he asked, suddenly. +"'Pears like ter me ez that be powerful comical." + +"Kase," said Tobe, reasonably, "some durned horse-thieves kem arter her +one night. I fired at 'em. I hain't hearn on 'em sence. An' so I jes hid +the mare." + +Todd was puzzled. He shifted his pipe in his mouth. Finally he said: +"Some folks 'lowed ez ye hed no right ter take up that mare, bein' ez ye +war the ranger." + +Tobe Gryce whirled round abruptly. "What war I a-goin' ter do, then? +Feed the critter fur nuthin till the triflin' scamp ez owned her kem +arter her? I couldn't work her 'thout takin' her up an' hevin her +appraised. Thar's a law agin sech. An' I couldn't git somebody ter toll +her off an' take her up. That ain't fair. What ought I ter hev done?" + +"Wa'al," said Luke, drifting into argument, "the town-folks 'low ez ye +hev got nuthin ter prove it by, the stray-book an' records bein' burnt. +The town-folks 'low ez ye can't prove by writin' an' sech ez ye ever +tried ter find the owner." + +"The town-folks air fairly sodden in foolishness," exclaimed the ranger, +indignantly. + +He drew from his ample pocket a roll of ragged newspapers, and pointed +with his great thumb at a paragraph. And Luke Todd read by the light of +the lantern the advertisement and description of the estray printed +according to law in the nearest newspaper. + +The newspaper was so infrequent a factor in the lives of the mountain +gossips that this refutation of their theory had never occurred to them. + +The sheet was trembling in Luke Todd's hand; his eyes filled. The cavern +with its black distances, its walls close at hand sparkling with +delicate points of whitest light; the yellow flare of the lantern; the +grotesque shadows on the ground; the fair little girl with her golden +hair; the sleek black mare; the burly figure of the ranger--all the +scene swayed before him. He remembered the gracious vision that had +saluted him; he shuddered at the crime from which he was rescued. Pity +him because he knew naught of the science of optics; of the bewildering +effects of a sudden burst of light upon the delicate mechanism of the +eye; of the vagaries of illusion. + +"Tobe," he said, in a solemn voice--all the echoes were bated to awed +whispers--"I hev been gin ter view a vision this night, bein' 'twar +Chrismus Eve. An' now I want ter shake hands on it fur peace." + +Then he told the whole story, regardless of the ranger's demonstrations, +albeit they were sometimes violent enough. Tobe sprang up with a snort +of rage, his eyes flashing, his thick tongue stumbling with the curses +crowding upon it, when he realized the suspicions rife against him at +the county town. But he stood with his clinched hand slowly relaxing, +and with the vague expression which one wears who looks into the past, +as he listened to the recital of Eugenia's pilgrimage in the snowy +wintry dawn. "Mighty few folks hev got a wife ez set store by 'em like +that," Luke remarked, impersonally. + +The ranger's rejoinder seemed irrelevant. + +"'Genie be a-goin' ter see a powerful differ arter this," he said, and +fell to musing. + +Snow, fatigue, and futility destroyed the ardor of the lynching party +after a time, and they dispersed to their homes. Little was said of this +expedition afterward, and it became quite impossible to find a man who +would admit having joined it. For the story went the rounds of the +mountain that there had been a mistake as to unfair dealing on the part +of the ranger, and Luke Todd was quite content to accept from the county +treasury half the sum of the mare's appraisement--with the deduction of +the stipulated per cent.--which Tobe Gryce had paid, the receipt for +which he produced. + +The gossips complained, however, that after all this was settled +according to law, Tobe wouldn't keep the mare, and insisted that Luke +should return to him the money he had paid into the treasury, half her +value, "bein' so brigaty he wouldn't own Luke Todd's beast. An' Luke +agreed ter so do; but he didn't want ter be outdone, so fur the keep o' +the filly he gin the Cunnel a heifer. An' Tobe war mighty nigh tickled +ter death fur the Cunnel ter hev a cow o' her own." + +And now when December skies darken above Lonesome Cove, and the snow in +dizzying whirls sifts softly down, and the gaunt brown leafless heights +are clothed with white as with a garment, and the wind whistles and +shouts shrilly, and above the great crag loom the distant mountains, and +below are glimpsed the long stretches of the valley, the two men +remember the vision that illumined the cavernous solitudes that night, +and bless the gracious power that sent salvation 'way down to Lonesome +Cove, and cherish peace and good-will for the sake of a little Child +that lay in a manger. + + + + +THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS + + +I + +If the mission of the little school-house in Holly Cove was to impress +upon the youthful mind a comprehension and appreciation of the eternal +verities of nature, its site could hardly have been better chosen. All +along the eastern horizon deployed the endless files of the Great Smoky +Mountains--blue and sunlit, with now and again the apparition of an +unfamiliar peak, hovering like a straggler in the far-distant rear, and +made visible for the nonce by some exceptional clarification of the +atmosphere; or lowering, gray, stern; or with ranks of clouds hanging on +their flanks, while all the artillery of heaven whirled about them, and +the whole world quaked beneath the flash and roar of its volleys. The +seasons successively painted the great landscape--spring, with its +timorous touch, its illumined haze, its tender, tentative green and gray +and yellow; summer, with its flush of completion, its deep, luscious, +definite verdure, and the golden richness of fruition; autumn, with a +full brush and all chromatic splendors; winter, in melancholy sepia +tones, black and brown and many sad variations of the pallors of white. +So high was the little structure on the side of a transverse ridge that +it commanded a vast field of sky above the wooded ranges; and in the +immediate foreground, down between the slopes which were cleft to the +heart, was the river, resplendent with the reflected moods of the +heavens. In this deep gorge the winds and the pines chanted like a Greek +chorus; the waves continuously murmured an intricate rune, as if conning +it by frequent repetition; a bird would call out from the upper air some +joyous apothegm in a language which no creature of the earth has learned +enough of happiness to translate. + +But the precepts which prevailed in the little school-house were to the +effect that rivers, except as they flowed as they listed to confusing +points of the compass, rising among names difficult to remember, and +emptying into the least anticipated body of water, were chiefly to be +avoided for their proclivity to drown small boys intent on swimming or +angling. Mountains, aside from the desirability of their recognition as +forming one of the divisions of land somewhat easily distinguishable by +the more erudite youth from plains, valleys, and capes, were full of +crags and chasms, rattlesnakes and vegetable poisons, and a further +familiarity with them was liable to result in the total loss of the +adventurous--to see friends, family, and home no more. + +These dicta, promulgated from the professorial chair, served to keep the +small body of callow humanity, with whose instruction Abner Sage was +intrusted by the State, well within call and out of harm's way during +the short recesses, while under his guidance they toddled along the +rough road that leads up the steeps to knowledge. But one there was who +either bore a charmed life or possessed an unequalled craft in +successfully defying danger; who fished and swam with impunity; who was +ragged and torn from much climbing of crags; whose freckled face bore +frequent red tokens of an indiscriminate sampling of berries. It is too +much to say that Abner Sage would have been glad to have his warnings +made terrible by some bodily disaster to the juvenile dare-devil of the +school, but Leander Yerby's disobedient incredulity as to the terrors +that menaced him, and his triumphant immunity, fostered a certain grudge +against him. Covert though it was, unrecognized even by Sage himself, it +was very definitely apparent to Tyler Sudley when sometimes, often, +indeed, on his way home from hunting, he would pause at the school-house +window, pulling open the shutter from the outside, and gravely watch his +protege, who stood spelling at the head of the class. + +For Leander Yerby's exploits were not altogether those of a physical +prowess. He was a mighty wrestler with the multiplication table. He had +met and overthrown the nine line in single-handed combat. He had +attained unto some interesting knowledge of the earth on which he lived, +and could fluently bound countries with neatness and precision, and was +on terms of intimacy with sundry seas, volcanoes, islands, and other +sizable objects. The glib certainty of his contemptuous familiarity +with the alphabet and its untoward combinations, as he flung off words +in four syllables in his impudent chirping treble, seemed something +uncanny, almost appalling, to Tyler Sudley, who could not have done the +like to save his stalwart life. He would stare dumfounded at the erudite +personage at the head of the class; Leander's bare feet were always +carefully adjusted to a crack between the puncheons of the floor, +literally "toeing the mark"; his broad trousers, frayed out liberally at +the hem, revealed his skinny and scarred little ankles, for his out-door +adventures were not without a record upon the more impressionable +portions of his anatomy; his waistband was drawn high up under his +shoulder-blades and his ribs, and girt over the shoulders of his +unbleached cotton shirt by braces, which all his learning did not +prevent him from calling "galluses"; his cut, scratched, calloused hands +were held stiffly down at the side seams in his nether garments in +strict accordance with the regulations. But rules could not control the +twinkle in his big blue eyes, the mingled effrontery and affection on +his freckled face as he perceived the on-looking visitor, nor hinder the +wink, the swiftly thrust-out tongue, as swiftly withdrawn, the egregious +display of two rows of dishevelled jagged squirrel teeth, when once +more, with an offhand toss of his tangled brown hair, he nimbly spelled +a long twisted-tailed word, and leered capably at the grave intent face +framed in the window. + +"Why, Abner!" Tyler Sudley would break out, addressing the teacher, all +unmindful of scholastic etiquette, a flush of pleasure rising to his +swarthy cheek as he thrust back his wide black hat on his long dark +hair and turned his candid gray eyes, all aglow, upon the cadaverous, +ascetic preceptor, "ain't Lee-yander a-gittin' on powerful, _powerful_ +fas' with his book?" + +"Not in enny ways so special," Sage would reply in cavalier +discouragement, his disaffected gaze resting upon the champion scholar, +who stood elated, confident, needing no commendation to assure him of +his pre-eminence; "but he air disobejient, an' turr'ble, turr'ble bad." + +The nonchalance with which Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism +intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this +world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the +English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on +his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along +behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to the +teacher's reproof. + +"Lee-yander," he would gently drawl, "ye mustn't be so bad, honey; ye +_mustn't_ be so turr'ble bad." + +"Naw, ma'am, I won't," Leander would cheerily pipe out, and so the +procession would wend its way along. + +For he still confused the gender in titles of respect, and from force of +habit he continued to do so in addressing Tyler Sudley for many a year +after he had learned better. + +These lapses were pathetic rather than ridiculous in the hunter's ears. +It was he who had taught Leander every observance of verbal humility +toward his wife, in the forlorn hope of propitiating her in the +interest of the child, who, however, with his quick understanding that +the words sought to do honor and express respect, had of his own accord +transferred them to his one true friend in the household. The only +friend he had in the world, Sudley often felt, with a sigh over the +happy child's forlorn estate. And, with the morbid sensitiveness +peculiar to a tender conscience, he winced under the knowledge that it +was he who, through wrongheadedness or wrongheartedness, had contrived +to make all the world besides the boy's enemy. Both wrongheaded and +wronghearted he was, he sometimes told himself. For even now it still +seemed to him that he had not judged amiss, that only the perversity of +fate had thwarted him. Was it so fantastically improbable, so hopeless a +solace that he had planned, that he should have thought his wife might +take comfort for the death of their own child in making for its sake a +home for another, orphaned, forlorn, a burden, and a glad riddance to +those into whose grudging charge it had been thrown? This bounty of hope +and affection and comfort had seemed to him a free gift from the dead +baby's hands, who had no need of it since coming into its infinite +heritage of immortality, to the living waif, to whom it was like life +itself, since it held all the essential values of existence. The idea +smote him like an inspiration. He had ridden twenty miles in a snowy +night to beg the unwelcome mite from the custody of its father's +half-brothers, who were on the eve of moving to a neighboring county +with all their kin and belongings. + +Tyler Sudley was a slow man, and tenacious of impressions. He could +remember every detail of the events as they had happened--the palpable +surprise, the moment of hesitation, the feint of denial which +successively ensued on his arrival. It mattered not what the season or +the hour--he could behold at will the wintry dawn, the deserted cabin, +the glow of embers dying on the hearth within; the white-covered wagon +slowly a-creak along the frozen road beneath the gaunt, bare, +overhanging trees, the pots and pans as they swung at the rear, the +bucket for water swaying beneath, the mounted men beside it, the few +head of swine and cattle driven before them. Years had passed, but he +could feel anew the vague stir of the living bundle which he held on the +pommel of his saddle, the sudden twist it gave to bring its inquiring, +apprehensive eyes, so large in its thin, lank-jawed, piteous little +countenance, to bear on his face, as if it understood its transfer of +custody, and trembled lest a worse thing befall it. One of the women +stopped the wagon and ran back to pin about its neck an additional +wrapping, an old red-flannel petticoat, lest it should suffer in its +long, cold ride. His heart glowed with vicarious gratitude for her +forethought, and he shook her hand warmly and wished her well, and hoped +that she might prosper in her new home, and stood still to watch the +white wagon out of sight in the avenue of the snow-laden trees, above +which the moon was visible, a-journeying too, swinging down the western +sky. + +Laurelia Sudley sat in stunned amazement when, half-frozen, but +triumphant and flushed and full of his story, he burst into the warm +home atmosphere, and put the animated bundle down upon the hearth-stone +in front of the glowing fire. For one moment she met its forlorn gaze +out of its peaked and pinched little face with a vague hesitation in her +own worn, tremulous, sorrow-stricken eyes. Then she burst into a tumult +of tears, upbraiding her husband that he could think that another child +could take the place of her dead child--all the dearer because it was +dead; that she could play the traitor to its memory and forget her +sacred grief; that she could do aught as long as she should live but sit +her down to bewail her loss, every tear a tribute, every pang its +inalienable right, her whole smitten existence a testimony to her love. +It was in vain that he expostulated. The idea of substitution had never +entered his mind. But he was ignorant, and clumsy of speech, and +unaccustomed to analyze his motives. He could not put into words his +feeling that to do for the welfare of this orphaned and unwelcome little +creature all that they would have done for their own was in some sort a +memorial to him, and brought them nearer to him--that she might find in +it a satisfaction, an occupation--that it might serve to fill her empty +life, her empty arms. + +But no! She thought, and the neighbors thought, and after a time Tyler +Sudley came to think also, that he had failed in the essential duty to +the dead--that of affectionate remembrance; that he was recreant, +strangely callous. They all said that he had seemed to esteem one baby +as good as another, and that he was surprised that his wife was not +consoled for the loss of her own child because he took it into his head +to go and toll off the Yerby baby from his father's half-brothers "ez +war movin' away an' war glad enough ter get rid o' one head o' human +stock ter kerry, though, _bein' human_, they oughter been ashamed ter +gin him away like a puppy-dog, or an extry cat, all hands consarned." + +From the standpoint she had taken Laurelia had never wavered. It was an +added and a continual reproach to her husband that all the labor and +care of the ill-advised acquisition fell to her share. She it was who +must feed and clothe and tend the gaunt little usurper; he needs must be +accorded all the infantile prerogatives, and he exacted much time and +attention. Despite the grudging spirit in which her care was given she +failed in no essential, and presently the interloper was no longer gaunt +or pallid or apprehensive, but grew pink and cherubic of build, and +arrogant of mind. He had no sensitive sub-current of suspicion as to his +welcome; he filled the house with his gay babbling, and if no maternal +chirpings encouraged the development of his ideas and his powers of +speech, his cheerful spirits seemed strong enough to thrive on their own +stalwart endowments. His hair began to curl, and a neighbor, remarking +on it to Laurelia, and forgetting for the moment his parentage, said, in +admiring glee, twining the soft tendrils over her finger, that Mrs. +Sudley had never before had a child so well-favored as this one. From +this time forth was infused a certain rancor into his foster-mother's +spirit toward him. Her sense of martyrdom was complete when another +infant was born and died, leaving her bereaved once more to watch this +stranger grow up in her house, strong and hearty, and handsomer than any +child of hers had been. + +The mountain gossips had their own estimate of her attitude. + +"I ain't denyin' but what she hed nat'ral feelin' fur her own chil'ren, +bein' dead," said the dame who had made the unfortunate remark about the +curling hair, "but Laurelia Sudley war always a contrary-minded, +lackadaisical kind o' gal afore she war married, sorter set in +opposition, an' now ez she ain't purty like she useter was, through +cryin' her eyes out, an' gittin' sallow-complected an' bony, I kin +notice her contrariousness more. Ef Tyler hedn't brung that chile home, +like ez not she'd hev sot her heart on borryin' one herself from +somebody. Lee-yander ain't in nowise abused, ez I kin see--ain't +acquainted with the rod, like the Bible say he oughter be, an' ennybody +kin see ez Laurelia don't like the name he gin her, yit she puts up with +it. She larnt him ter call Ty 'Cap'n,' bein' she's sorter proud of it, +'kase Ty war a cap'n of a critter company in the war: 'twarn't sech a +mighty matter nohow; he jes got ter be cap'n through the other off'cers +bein' killed off. An' the leetle boy got it twisted somehows, an' calls +_her_ 'Cap'n' an' Ty 'Neighbor,' from hearin' old man Jeemes, ez comes +in constant, givin' him that old-fashioned name. 'Cap'n' 'bout fits +Laurelia, though, an' that's a fac'." + +Laurelia's melancholy ascendency in the household was very complete. It +was characterized by no turbulence, no rages, no long-drawn argument or +objurgation; it expressed itself only in a settled spirit of +disaffection, a pervasive suggestion of martyrdom, silence or sighs, or +sometimes a depressing singing of hymn tunes. For her husband had long +ago ceased to remonstrate, or to seek to justify himself. It was with a +spirit of making amends that he hastened to concede every point of +question, to defer to her preference in all matters, and Laurelia's sway +grew more and more absolute as the years wore on. Leander Yerby could +remember no other surroundings than the ascetic atmosphere of his home. +It had done naught apparently to quell the innate cheerfulness of his +spirit. He evidently took note, however, of the different standpoint of +the "Captain" and his "Neighbor," for although he was instant in the +little manifestations of respect toward her which he had been taught, +his childish craft could not conceal their spuriousness. + +"That thar boy treats me ez ef I war a plumb idjit," Laurelia said one +day, moved to her infrequent anger. "Tells me, 'Yes, ma'am, cap'n,' an' +'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' jes ter quiet me--like folks useter do ter old +Ed'ard Green, ez war in his dotage--an' then goes along an' does the +very thing I tell him not ter do." + +Sudley looked up as he sat smoking his pipe by the fire, a shade of +constraint in his manner, and a contraction of anxiety in his slow, dark +eyes, never quite absent when she spoke to him aside of Leander. + +She paused, setting her gaunt arms akimbo, and wearing the manner of one +whose kindly patience is beyond limit abused. "Kems in hyar, he do, +a-totin' a fiddle. An' I says, 'Lee-yander Yerby, don't ye know that +thar thing's the devil's snare?' 'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' he says, grinnin' +like a imp; 'it's _my_ snare, fur I hev bought it from Peter Teazely fur +two rabbits what I cotch in my trap, an' my big red rooster, an' a bag +o' seed pop-corn, an' the only hat I hev got in the worl'.' An' with +that the consarn gin sech a yawp, it plumb went through my haid. An' +then the critter jes tuk ter a-bowin' it back an' forth, a-playin' 'The +Chicken in the Bread-trough' like demented, a-dancin' off on fust one +foot an' then on t'other till the puncheons shuck. An' I druv him out +the house. I won't stan' none o' Satan's devices hyar! I tole him he +couldn't fetch that fiddle hyar whenst he kems home ter-night, an' I be +a-goin' ter make him a sun-bonnet or a nightcap ter wear stiddier his +hat that he traded off." + +She paused. + +Her husband had risen, the glow of his pipe fading in his unheeding +hand, his excited eyes fixed upon her. "Laurely," he exclaimed, "ye +ain't meanin' ez that thar leetle critter could play a chune fust off on +a fiddle 'thout no larnin'!" + +She nodded her head in reluctant admission. + +He opened his mouth once or twice, emitting no sound. She saw how his +elation, his spirit of commendation, his pride, set at naught her +displeasure, albeit in self-defence, perchance, he dared not say a word. +With an eye alight and an absorbed face, he laid his pipe on the +mantel-piece, and silently took his way out of the house in search of +the youthful musician. + +Easily found! The racked and tortured echoes were all aquake within half +a mile of the spot where, bareheaded, heedless of the threatened +ignominy alike of sun-bonnet or nightcap, Leander sat in the flickering +sunshine and shadow upon a rock beside the spring, and blissfully +experimented with all the capacities of catgut to produce sound. + +"Listen, Neighbor!" he cried out, descrying Tyler Sudley, who, indeed, +could do naught else--"_listen_! Ye won't hear much better fiddlin' this +side o' kingdom come!" And with glad assurance he capered up and down, +the bow elongating the sound to a cadence of frenzied glee, as his arms +sought to accommodate the nimbler motions of his legs. + +Thus it was the mountaineers later said that Leander fell into bad +company. For, the fiddle being forbidden in the sober Laurelia's house, +he must needs go elsewhere to show his gift and his growing skill, and +he found a welcome fast enough. Before he had advanced beyond his +stripling youth, his untutored facility had gained a rude mastery over +the instrument; he played with a sort of fascination and spontaneity +that endeared his art to his uncritical audiences, and his endowment was +held as something wonderful. And now it was that Laurelia, hearing him, +far away in the open air, play once a plaintive, melodic strain, +fugue-like with the elfin echoes, felt a strange soothing in the sound, +found tears in her eyes, not all of pain but of sad pleasure, and +assumed thenceforth something of the port of a connoisseur. She said she +"couldn't abide a fiddle jes sawed helter-skelter by them ez hedn't +larned, but ter play saaft an' slow an' solemn, and no dancin' chune, +no frolic song--she warn't set agin that at all." And she desired of +Leander a repetition of this sunset motive that evening when he had come +home late, and she discovered him hiding the obnoxious instrument under +the porch. But in vain. He did not remember it. It was some vague +impulse, as unconsciously voiced as the dreaming bird's song in the +sudden half-awake intervals of the night. Over and again, as he stood by +the porch, the violin in his arms, he touched the strings tentatively, +as if, perchance, being so alive, they might of their own motion recall +the strain that had so lately thrilled along them. + +He had grown tall and slender. He wore boots to his knees now, and +pridefully carried a "shootin'-iron" in one of the long legs--to his +great discomfort. The freckles of his early days were merged into the +warm uniform tint of his tanned complexion. His brown hair still curled; +his shirt-collar fell away from his throat, round and full and +white--the singer's throat--as he threw his head backward and cast his +large roving eyes searchingly along the sky, as if the missing strain +had wings. + +The inspiration returned no more, and Laurelia experienced a sense of +loss. "Some time, Lee-yander, ef ye war ter kem acrost that chune agin, +try ter set it in yer remembrance, an' play it whenst ye kem home," she +said, wistfully, at last, as if this errant melody were afloat somewhere +in the vague realms of sound, where one native to those haunts might +hope to encounter it anew. + +"Yes, ma'am, cap'n, I will," he said, with his facile assent. But his +tone expressed slight intention, and his indifference bespoke a too +great wealth of "chunes"; he could feel no lack in some unremembered +combination, sport of the moment, when another strain would come at +will, as sweet perchance, and new. + +She winced as from undeserved reproach when presently Leander's +proclivities for the society of the gay young blades about the +countryside, sometimes reputed "evil men," were attributed to this exile +of the violin from the hearth-stone. She roused herself to disputation, +to indignant repudiation. + +"They talk ez ef it war _me_ ez led the drinkin', an' the gamin', an' +the dancin', and sech, ez goes on in the Cove, 'kase whenst Lee-yander +war about fryin' size I wouldn't abide ter hev him a-sawin' away on the +fiddle in the house enough ter make me deef fur life. At fust the racket +of it even skeered Towse so he wouldn't come out from under the house +fur two days an' better; he jes sot under thar an' growled, an' +shivered, an' showed his teeth ef ennybody spoke ter him. Nobody don't +like Lee-yander's performin' better'n I do whenst he plays them saaft, +slippin'-away, slow medjures, ez sound plumb religious--ef 'twarn't a +sin ter say so. Naw, sir, ef ennybody hev sot Lee-yander on ter evil +ways 'twarn't me. My conscience be clear." + +Nevertheless she was grievously ill at ease when one day there rode up +to the fence a tall, gaunt, ill-favored man, whose long, lean, sallow +countenance, of a Pharisaic cast, was vaguely familiar to her, as one +recognizes real lineaments in the contortions of a caricature or the +bewilderments of a dream. She felt as if in some long-previous existence +she had seen this man as he dismounted at the gate and came up the path +with his saddle-bags over his arm. But it was not until he mustered an +unready, unwilling smile, that had of good-will and geniality so slight +an intimation that it was like a spasmodic grimace, did she perceive how +time had deepened tendencies to traits, how the inmost thought and the +secret sentiment had been chiselled into the face in the betrayals of +the sculpture of fifteen years. + +"Nehemiah Yerby!" she exclaimed. "I would hev knowed ye in the happy +land o' Canaan." + +"Let's pray we may all meet thar, Sister Sudley," he responded. "Let's +pray that the good time may find none of us unprofitable servants." + +Mrs. Sudley experienced a sudden recoil. Not that she did not echo his +wish, but somehow his manner savored of an exclusive arrogation of piety +and a suggestion of reproach. + +"That's my prayer," she retorted, aggressively. "Day an' night, that's +my prayer." + +"Yes'm, fur us an' our households, Sister Sudley--we mus' think o' them +c'mitted ter our charge." + +She strove to fling off the sense of guilt that oppressed her, the +mental attitude of arraignment. He was a young man when he journeyed +away in that snowy dawn. She did not know what changes had come in his +experience. Perchance his effervescent piety was only a habit of speech, +and had no significance as far as she was concerned. The suspicion, +however, tamed her in some sort. She attempted no retort. With a +mechanical, reluctant smile, ill adjusted to her sorrow-lined face, she +made an effort to assume that the greeting had been but the conventional +phrasings of the day. + +"Kem in, kem in, Nehemiah; Tyler will be glad ter see ye, an' I reckon +ye will be powerful interested ter view how Lee-yander hev growed an' +prospered." + +She felt as if she were in some terrible dream as she beheld him slowly +wag his head from side to side. He had followed her into the large main +room of the cabin, and had laid his saddle-bags down by the side of the +chair in which he had seated himself, his elbows on his knees, his hands +held out to the flickering blaze in the deep chimney-place, his eyes +significantly narrowing as he gazed upon it. + +"Naw, Sister Sudley," he wagged his head more mournfully still. "I kin +but grieve ter hear how my nevy Lee-yander hev 'prospered,' ez ye call +it, an' I be s'prised ye should gin it such a name. Oh-h-h, Sister +Sudley!" in prolonged and dreary vocative, "I 'lowed ye war a godly +woman. I knowed yer name 'mongst the church-goers an' the +church-members." A faint flush sprang into her delicate faded cheek; a +halo encircled this repute of sanctity, she felt with quivering +premonition that it was about to be urged as a testimony against her. +"Elsewise I wouldn't hev gin my cornsent ter hev lef' the leetle lam', +Lee-yander, in yer fold. Precious, precious leetle lam'!" + +Poor Laurelia! Were it not that she had a sense of fault under the +scathing arraignment of her motives, her work, and its result, although +she scarcely saw how she was to blame, that she had equally with him +esteemed Leander's standpoint iniquitous, she might have made a better +fight in her own interest. Why she did not renounce the true culprit as +one on whom all godly teachings were wasted, and, adopting the +indisputable vantage-ground of heredity, carry the war into the enemy's +country, ascribing Leander's shortcomings to his Yerby blood, and with +stern and superior joy proclaiming that he was neither kith nor kin of +hers, she wondered afterward, for this valid ground of defence did not +occur to her then. In these long mourning years she had grown dull; her +mental processes were either a sad introspection or reminiscence. Now +she could only take into account her sacrifices of feeling, of time, of +care; the illnesses she had nursed, the garments that she had made and +mended--ah, how many! laid votive on the altar of Leander's vigor and +his agility, for as he scrambled about the crags he seemed, she was wont +to say, to climb straight out of them. The recollection of all this--the +lesser and unspiritual maternal values, perchance, but essential--surged +over her with bitterness; she lost her poise, and fell a-bickering. + +"'Precious leetle lam','" she repeated, scornfully. "Precious he mus' +hev been! Fur when ye lef' him he hedn't a whole gyarmint ter his back, +an' none but them that kivered him." + +Nehemiah Yerby changed color slightly as the taunt struck home, but he +was skilled in the more aesthetic methods of argument. + +"We war pore--mighty pore indeed, Sister Sudley." + +Now, consciously in the wrong, Sister Sudley, with true feminine +inconsistency, felt better. She retorted with bravado. + +"Needle an' thread ain't 'spensive nowhar ez I knows on, an' the +gov'mint hev sot no tax on saaft home-made soap, so far ez hearn from." + +She briskly placed her chair, a rude rocker, the seat formed of a +taut-stretched piece of ox-hide, beside the fire, and took up her +knitting. A sock for Leander it was--one of many of all sizes. She +remembered the first that she had measured for the bare pink toes which +he had brought there, forlorn candidates for the comfortable integuments +in which they were presently encased, and how she had morbidly felt that +every stitch she took was a renunciation of her own children, since a +stranger was honored in their place. The tears came into her eyes. It +was only this afternoon that she had experienced a pang of self-reproach +to realize how near happiness she was--as near as her temperament could +approach. But somehow the air was so soft; she could see from where she +sat how the white velvet buds of the aspen-trees in the dooryard had +lengthened into long, cream-tinted, furry tassels; the maples on the +mountain-side lifted their red flowering boughs against the delicate +blue sky; the grass was so green; the golden candlesticks bunched along +the margin of the path to the rickety gate were all a-blossoming. The +sweet appeal of spring had never been more insistent, more coercive. +Somehow peace, and a placid content, seemed as essential incidents in +the inner life as the growth of the grass anew, the bursting of the bud, +or the soft awakening of the zephyr. Even within the house, the languors +of the fire drowsing on the hearth, the broad bar of sunshine across the +puncheon floor, so slowly creeping away, the sense of the vernal +lengthening of the pensive afternoon, the ever-flitting shadow of the +wren building under the eaves, and its iterative gladsome song breaking +the fireside stillness, partook of the serene beatitude of the season +and the hour. The visitor's drawling voice rose again, and she was not +now constrained to reproach herself that she was too happy. + +"Yes'm, pore though we war then--an' we couldn't look forward ter the +Lord's prosperin' us some sence--we never would hev lef' the precious +leetle lam'"--his voice dwelt with unvanquished emphasis upon the +obnoxious words--"'mongst enny but them persumed ter be godly folks. +Tyler war a toler'ble good soldier in the war, an' hed a good name in +the church, but _ye_ war persumed to be a plumb special Christian with +no pledjure in this worl'." + +Laurelia winced anew. This repute of special sanctity was the pride of +her ascetic soul. Few of the graces of life or of the spirit had she +coveted, but her pre-eminence as a religionist she had fostered and +cherished, and now through her own deeds of charity it seemed about to +be wrested from her. + +"Lee-yander Yerby hev larnt nuthin' but good in this house, an' all my +neighbors will tell you the same word. The Cove 'lows I hev been _too_ +strict." + +Nehemiah was glancing composedly about the room. "That thar 'pears ter +be a fiddle on the wall, ain't it, Mis' Sudley?" he said, with an +incidental air and the manner of changing the subject. + +Alack, for the aesthetic perversion! Since the playing of those +melancholy minor strains in that red sunset so long ago, which had +touched so responsive a chord in Laurelia's grief-worn heart, the crazy +old fiddle had been naturalized, as it were, and had exchanged its +domicile under the porch for a position on the wall. It was boldly +visible, and apparently no more ashamed of itself than was the big +earthen jar half full of cream, which was placed close to the fireplace +on the hearth in the hope that its contents might become sour enough by +to-morrow to be churned. + +Laurelia looked up with a start at the instrument, red and lustrous +against the brown log wall, its bow poised jauntily above it, and some +glistening yellow reflection from the sun on the floor playing among the +strings, elusive, soundless fantasies. + +Her lower jaw dropped. She was driven to her last defences, and sore +beset. "It air a fiddle," she said, slowly, at last, and with an air of +conscientious admission, as if she had had half a mind to deny it. "A +fiddle the thing air." Then, as she collected her thoughts, "Brother +Pete Vickers 'lows ez he sees no special sin in playin' the fiddle. He +'lows ez in some kentries--I disremember whar--they plays on 'em in +church, quirin' an' hymn chunes an' sech." + +Her voice faltered a little; she had never thought to quote this +fantasy in her own defence, for she secretly believed that old man +Vickers must have been humbugged by some worldly brother skilled in +drawing the long bow himself. + +Nehemiah Yerby seemed specially endowed with a conscience for the +guidance of other people, so quick was he to descry and pounce upon +their shortcomings. If one's sins are sure to find one out, there is +little doubt but that Brother Nehemiah would be on the ground first. + +"Air you-uns a-settin' under the preachin' o' Brother Peter Vickers?" he +demanded in a sepulchral voice. + +"Naw, naw," she was glad to reply. "'Twar onderstood ez Brother Vickers +wanted a call ter the church in the Cove, bein' ez his relations live +hyar-abouts, an' he kem up an' preached a time or two. But he didn't git +no call. The brethren 'lowed Brother Vickers war too slack in his idees +o' religion. Some said his hell warn't half hot enough. Thar air some +powerful sinners in the Cove, an' nuthin' but good live coals an' a +liquid blazin' fire air a-goin' ter deter them from the evil o' thar +ways. So Brother Vickers went back the road he kem." + +She knit off her needle while, with his head still bent forward, +Nehemiah Yerby sourly eyed her, feeling himself a loser with Brother +Vickers, in that he did not have the reverend man's incumbency as a +grievance. + +"He 'pears ter me ter see mo' pleasure in religion 'n penance, ennyhow," +he observed, bitterly. "An' the Lord knows the bes' of us air sinners." + +"An' he laughs loud an' frequent--mightily like a sinner," she agreed. +"An' whenst he prays, he prays loud an' hearty, like he jes expected ter +git what he axed fur sure's shootin'. Some o' the bretherin' sorter +taxed him with his sperits, an' he 'lowed he couldn't holp but be +cheerful whenst he hed the Lord's word fur it ez all things work +tergether fur good. An' he laffed same ez ef they hedn't spoke ter him +serious." + +"Look at that, now!" exclaimed Nehemiah. "An' that thar man ez good ez +dead with the heart-disease." + +Laurelia's eyes were suddenly arrested by his keen, pinched, lined face. +What there was in it to admonish her she could hardly have said, nor how +it served to tutor her innocent craft. + +"I ain't so sure 'bout Brother Vickers bein' so wrong," she said, +slowly. "He 'lowed ter me ez I hed spent too much o' my life +a-sorrowin', 'stiddier a-praisin' the Lord for his mercies." Her face +twitched suddenly; she could not yet look upon her bereavements as +mercies. "He 'lowed I would hev been a happier an' a better 'oman ef I +hed took the evil ez good from the Lord's hand, fur in his sendin' it's +the same. An' I know that air a true word. An' that's what makes me 'low +what he said war true 'bout'n that fiddle; that I ought never ter hev +pervented the boy from playin' 'round home an' sech, an' 'twarn't no sin +but powerful comfortable an' pleasurable ter set roun' of a cold winter +night an' hear him play them slow, sweet, dyin'-away chunes--" She +dropped her hands, and gazed with the rapt eyes of remembrance through +the window at the sunset clouds which, gathering red and purple and +gold on the mountain's brow, were reflected roseate and amethyst and +amber at the mountain's base on the steely surface of the river. +"Brother Vickers 'lowed he never hearn sech in all his life. It brung +the tears ter his eyes--it surely did." + +"He'd a heap better be weepin' fur them black sheep o' his congregation +an' fur Lee-yander's shortcomin's, fur ez fur ez I kin hear he air about +ez black a sheep ez most pastors want ter wrestle with fur the turnin' +away from thar sins. Yes'm, Sister Sudley, that's jes what p'inted out +my jewty plain afore my eyes, an' I riz up an' kem ter be instant in +a-doin' of it. 'I'll not leave my own nevy in the tents o' sin,' I sez. +'I hev chil'n o' my own, hearty feeders an' hard on shoe-leather, ter +support, but I'll not grudge my brother's son a home.' Yes, Laurely +Sudley, I hev kem ter kerry him back with me. Yer jewty ain't been done +by him, an' I'll leave him a dweller in the tents o' sin no longer." + +His enthusiasm had carried him too far. Laurelia's face, which at first +seemed turning to stone as she gradually apprehended his meaning and his +mission, changed from motionless white to a tremulous scarlet while he +spoke, and when he ceased she retorted herself as one of the ungodly. + +"Ye mus' be mighty ambitious ter kerry away a skin full o' broken bones! +Jes let Tyler Sudley hear ez ye called his house the tents o' the +ungodly, an' that ye kem hyar a-faultin' me, an' tellin' me ez I 'ain't +done my jewty ennywhar or ennyhow!" she exclaimed, with a pride which, +as a pious saint, she had never expected to feel in her husband's +reputation as a high-tempered man and a "mighty handy fighter," and +with implicit reliance upon both endowments in her quarrel. + +"Only in a speritchual sense, Sister Sudley," Nehemiah gasped, as he +made haste to qualify his asseveration. "I only charge you with havin' +sp'iled the boy; ye hev sp'iled him through kindness ter him, an' not +_ye_ so much ez Ty. Ty never hed so much ez a dog that would mind him! +His dog wouldn't answer call nor whistle 'thout he war so disposed. _I_ +never faulted ye, Sister Sudley; 'twar jes Ty I faulted. I know Ty." + +He knew, too, that it was safer to call Ty and his doings in question, +big and formidable and belligerent though he was, than his +meek-mannered, melancholy, forlorn, and diminutive wife. Nehemiah rose +up and walked back and forth for a moment with an excited face and a +bent back, and a sort of rabbit-like action. "Now, I put it to you, +Sister Sudley, air Ty a-makin' that thar boy plough ter-day--jes +_be-you-ti-ful_ field weather!" + +Sister Sudley, victorious, having regained her normal position by one +single natural impulse of self-assertion, not as a religionist, but as +Tyler Sudley's wife, and hence entitled to all the show of respect which +that fact unaided could command, sat looking at him with a changed +face--a face that seemed twenty years younger; it had the expression it +wore before it had grown pinched and ascetic and insistently sorrowful; +one might guess how she had looked when Tyler Sudley first went up the +mountain "a-courtin'." She sought to assume no other stand-point. Here +she was intrenched. She shook her head in negation. The affair was none +of hers. Ty Sudley could take ample care of it. + +Nehemiah gave a little skip that might suggest a degree of triumph. +"Aha, not ploughin'! But _Ty_ is ploughin'. I seen him in the field. An' +Lee-yander ain't ploughin'! An' how did I know? Ez I war a-ridin' along +through the woods this mornin' I kem acrost a striplin' lad a-walkin' +through the undergrowth ez onconsarned ez a killdee an' ez nimble. An' +under his chin war a fiddle, an' his head war craned down ter it." He +mimicked the attitude as he stood on the hearth. "He never looked up +wunst. Away he walked, light ez a plover, an' _a-ping_, _pang_, _ping_, +_pang_," in a high falsetto, "went that fiddle! I war plumb 'shamed fur +the critters in the woods ter view sech idle sinfulness, a ole ow_el_, +a-blinkin' down out'n a hollow tree, kem ter see what _ping_, _pang_, +_ping_, _pang_ meant, an' thar war a rabbit settin' up on two legs in +the bresh, an' a few stray razor-back hawgs; I tell ye I war mortified +'fore even sech citizens ez them, an' a lazy, impident-lookin' dog ez +followed him." + +"How did ye know 'twar Lee-yander?" demanded Mrs. Sudley, recognizing +the description perfectly, but after judicial methods requiring strict +proof. + +"Oh-h! by the fambly favor," protested the gaunt and hard-featured +Nehemiah, capably. "I knowed the Yerby eye." + +"He hev got his mother's eyes." Mrs. Sudley had certainly changed her +stand-point with a vengeance. "He hev got his mother's _be-you-ti-ful_ +_blue_ eyes and her curling, silken brown hair--sorter red; little Yerby +in _that_, mebbe; but sech eyes, an' sech lashes, an' sech fine curling +hair ez none o' yer fambly ever hed, or ever will." + +"Mebbe so. I never seen him more'n a minit. But he might ez well hev a +_be-you-ti-ful_ curlin' nose, like the elephint in the show, for all the +use he air, or I be afeard air ever likely ter be." + + * * * * * + +Tyler Sudley's face turned gray, despite his belligerent efficiencies, +when his wife, hearing the clank of the ox-yoke as it was flung down in +the shed outside, divined the home-coming of the ploughman and his team, +and slipped out to the barn with her news. She realized, with a strange +enlightenment as to her own mental processes, what angry jealousy the +look on his face would have roused in her only so short a time +ago--jealousy for the sake of her own children, that any loss, any +grief, should be poignant and pierce his heart save for them. Now she +was sorry for him; she felt with him. + +But as he continued silent, and only stared at her dumfounded and +piteous, she grew frightened--she knew not of what. + +"Shucks, Ty!" she exclaimed, catching him by the sleeve with the impulse +to rouse him, to awaken him, as it were, to his own old familiar +identity; "ye ain't 'feared o' that thar snaggle-toothed skeer-crow in +yander; he would be plumb comical ef he didn't look so mean-natured an' +sech a hypercrite." + +He gazed at her, his eyes eloquent with pain. + +"Laurely!" he gasped, "this hyar thing plumb knocks me down; it jes +takes the breath o' life out'n me!" + +She hesitated for a moment. Any anxiety, any trouble, seemed so +incongruous with the sweet spring-tide peace in the air, that one did +not readily take it home to heart. Hope was in the atmosphere like an +essential element; one might call it oxygen or caloric or vitality, +according to the tendency of mind and the habit of speech. But the heart +knew it, and the pulses beat strongly responsive to it. Faith ruled the +world. Some tiny bulbous thing at her feet that had impeded her step +caught her attention. It was coming up from the black earth, and the +buried darkness, and the chill winter's torpor, with all the impulses of +confidence in the light without, and the warmth of the sun, and the +fresh showers that were aggregating in the clouds somewhere for its +nurture--a blind inanimate thing like that! But Tyler Sudley felt none +of it; the blow had fallen upon him, stunning him. He stood silent, +looking gropingly into the purple dusk, veined with silver glintings of +the moon, as if he sought to view in the future some event which he +dreaded, and yet shrank to see. + +She had rarely played the consoler, so heavily had she and all her +griefs leaned on his supporting arm. It was powerless now. She perceived +this, all dismayed at the responsibility that had fallen upon her. She +made an effort to rally his courage. She had more faith in it than in +her own. + +"'Feard o' _him_!" she exclaimed, with a sharp tonic note of satire. +"Kem in an' view him." + +"Laurely," he quavered, "I oughter hev got it down in writin' from him; +I oughter made him sign papers agreein' fur me ter keep the boy till he +growed ter be his own man." + +She, too, grew pale. "Ye ain't meanin' ter let him take the boy sure +enough!" she gasped. + +"I moughtn't be able ter holp it; I dun'no' how the law stands. He air +kin ter Lee-yander, an' mebbe hev got the bes' right ter him." + +She shivered slightly; the dew was falling, and all the budding herbage +was glossed with a silver glister. The shadows were sparse. The white +branches of the aspens cast only the symmetrical outline of the tree +form on the illumined grass, and seemed scarcely less bare than in +winter, but on one swaying bough the mocking-bird sang all the joyous +prophecies of the spring to the great silver moon that made his gladsome +day so long. + +She was quick to notice the sudden cessation of his song, the alert, +downward poise of his beautiful head, his tense critical attitude. A +mimicking whistle rose on the air, now soft, now keen, with swift +changes and intricate successions of tones, ending in a brilliant +borrowed roulade, delivered with a wonderful velocity and _elan_. The +long tail feathers, all standing stiffly upward, once more drooped; the +mocking-bird turned his head from side to side, then lifting his full +throat he poured forth again his incomparable, superb, infinitely +versatile melody, fixing his glittering eye on the moon, and heeding the +futilely ambitious worldling no more. + +The mimicking sound heralded the approach of Leander. Laurelia's heart, +full of bitterness for his sake, throbbed tenderly for him. Ah, what +was to be his fate! What unkind lot did the future hold for him in the +clutches of a man like this! Suddenly she was pitying his mother--her +own children, how safe! + +She winced to tell him what had happened, but she it was who, bracing +her nerves, made the disclosure, for Sudley remained silent, the end of +the ox-yoke in his trembling hands, his head bare to the moon and the +dew, his face grown lined and old. + +Leander stood staring at her out of his moonlit blue eyes, his hat far +back on the brown curls she had so vaunted, damp and crisp and clinging, +the low limp collar of his unbleached shirt showing his round full +throat, one hand resting on the high curb of the well, the other holding +a great brown gourd full of the clear water which he had busied himself +in securing while she sought to prepare him to hear the worst. His lips, +like a bent bow as she thought, were red and still moist as he now and +then took the gourd from them, and held it motionless in the interest of +her narration, that indeed touched him so nearly. Then, as she made +point after point clear to his comprehension, he would once more lift +the gourd and drink deeply, for he had had an active day, inducing a +keen thirst. + +She had been preparing herself for the piteous spectacle of his frantic +fright, his futile reliance on them who had always befriended him, his +callow forlorn helplessness, his tears, his reproaches; she dreaded +them. + +He was silent for a reflective moment when she had paused. "But what's +he want with me, Cap'n?" he suddenly demanded. "Mought know I warn't +industrious in the field, ez he seen me off a-fiddlin' in the woods +whilst Neighbor war a-ploughin'." + +[Illustration: "HE HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST"] + +"Mebbe he 'lows he mought _make_ ye industrious an' git cornsider'ble +work out'n ye," she faltered, flinching for him. + +After another refreshing gulp from the gourd he canvassed this +dispassionately. "Say his own chil'n air 'hearty feeders an' hard on +shoe-leather?' Takes a good deal o' goadin' ter git ploughin' enough fur +the wuth o' feed out'n a toler'ble beastis like old Blaze-face thar, +don't it, Neighbor?--an' how is it a-goin' ter be with a human ez mebbe +will hold back an' air sot agin ploughin' ennyhow, an' air sorter idle +by profession? 'Twould gin him a heap o' trouble--more'n the ploughin' +an' sech would be wuth--a heap o' trouble." Once more he bowed his head +to the gourd. + +"He 'lowed ye shouldn't dwell no mo' in the tents o' sin. He seen the +fiddle, Lee; it's all complicated with the fiddle," she quavered, very +near tears of vexation. + +He lifted a smiling moonlit face; his half-suppressed laugh echoed +gurglingly in the gourd. "Cap'n," he said, reassuringly, "jes let's hear +Uncle Nehemiah talk some mo', an' ef I can't see no mo' likely work fur +me 'n ploughin', I'll think myself mighty safe." + +They felt like three conspirators as after supper they drew their chairs +around the fire with the unsuspicious Uncle Nehemiah. However, Nehemiah +Yerby could hardly be esteemed unsuspicious in any point of view, so +full of vigilant craft was his intention in every anticipation, so +slyly sanctimonious was his long countenance. + +There could hardly have been a greater contrast than Tyler Sudley's +aspect presented. His candid face seemed a mirror for his thought; he +had had scant experience in deception, and he proved a most unlikely +novice in the art. His features were heavy and set; his manner was +brooding and depressed; he did not alertly follow the conversation; on +the contrary, he seemed oblivious of it as his full dark eyes rested +absently on the fire. More than once he passed his hand across them with +a troubled, harassed manner, and he sighed heavily. For which his +co-conspirators could have fallen upon him. How could he be so dull, so +forgetful of all save the fear of separation from the boy whom he had +reared, whom he loved as his own son; how could he fail to know that a +jaunty, assured mien might best serve his interests until at any rate +the blow had fallen; why should he wear the insignia of defeat before +the strength of his claim was tested? Assuredly his manner was +calculated to greatly reinforce Nehemiah Yerby's confidence, and to +assist in eliminating difficulties in the urging of his superior rights +and the carrying out of his scheme. Mrs. Sudley's heart sank as she +caught a significant gleam from the boy's eyes; he too appreciated this +disastrous policy, this virtual surrender before a blow was struck. + +"An' Ty ain't afeard o' bars," she silently commented, "nor wolves, nor +wind, nor lightning, nor man in enny kind o' a free fight; but bekase he +dun'no' how the _law_ stands, an' air afeard the law _mought_ be able +ter take Lee-yander, he jes sets thar ez pitiful ez a lost kid, fairly +ready ter blate aloud." + +She descried the covert triumph twinkling among the sparse light lashes +and "crow-feet" about Nehemiah's eyes as he droned on an +ever-lengthening account of his experiences since leaving the county. + +"It's a mighty satisfyin' thing ter be well off in yearthly goods an' +chattels," said Laurelia, with sudden inspiration. "Ty, thar, is in +debt." + +For Uncle Nehemiah had been dwelling unctuously upon the extent to which +it had pleased the Lord to prosper him. His countenance fell suddenly. +His discomfiture in her unexpected disclosure was twofold, in that it +furnished a reason for Tyler's evident depression of spirits, +demolishing the augury that his manner had afforded as to the success of +the guest's mission, and furthermore, to Nehemiah's trafficking soul, it +suggested that a money consideration might be exacted to mollify the +rigors of parting. + +For Nehemiah Yerby had risen to the dignities, solvencies, and +responsibilities of opening a store at the cross-roads in Kildeer +County. It was a new and darling enterprise with him, and his mind and +speech could not long be wiled away from the subject. This abrupt +interjection of a new element into his cogitations gave him pause, and +he did not observe the sudden rousing of Tyler Sudley from his revery, +and the glance of indignant reproach which he cast on his wife. No man, +however meek, or however bowed down with sorrow, will bear unmoved a +gratuitous mention of his debts; it seems to wound him with all the +rancor of insult, and to enrage him with the hopelessness of adequate +retort or reprisal. It is an indignity, like taunting a ghost with +cock-crow, or exhorting a clergyman to repentance. He flung himself all +at once into the conversation, to bar and baffle any renewed allusion to +that subject, and it was accident rather than intention which made him +grasp Nehemiah in the vise of a quandary also. + +"Ye say ye got a store an' a stock o' truck, Nehemiah. Air ye ekal ter +keepin' store an' sech?" he demanded, speculatively, with an inquiring +and doubtful corrugation of his brows, from which a restive lock of hair +was flung backward like the toss of a horse's mane. + +"I reckon so," Nehemiah sparely responded, blinking at him across the +fireplace. + +"An' ye say ye hev applied fur the place o' postmaster?" Tyler prosed +on. "All that takes a power o' knowledge--readin' an' writin' an' +cipherin' an' sech. How air ye expectin' to hold out, 'kase I know ye +never hed no mo' larnin' than me, an' I war acquainted with ye till ye +war thirty years old an' better?" + +The tenor of this discourse did not comport with his customary suavity +and tactful courtesy toward a guest, but he was much harassed and had +lost his balance. He had a vague idea that Mrs. Sudley hung upon the +flank of the conversation with a complete summary of amounts, dates, and +names of creditors, and he sought to balk this in its inception. +Moreover, his forbearance with Nehemiah, with his presence, his +personality, his mission, had begun to wane. Bitter reflections might +suffice to fill the time were he suffered to be silent; but since a part +in the conversation had been made necessary, he had for it no honeyed +words. + +"I'd make about ez fit a postmaster, I know, ez that thar old ow_el_ +a-hootin' out yander. I could look smart an' sober like him, but that's +'bout all the fur my school-larnin' kerried me, an' yourn didn't reach +ter the nex' mile-post--an' that I know." + +Nehemiah's thin lips seemed dry. More than once his tongue appeared +along their verges as he nervously moistened them. His small eyes had +brightened with an excited look, but he spoke very slowly, and to +Laurelia it seemed guardedly. + +"I tuk ter my book arterward, Brother Sudley. I applied myself ter +larnin' vigorous. Bein' ez I seen the Lord's hand war liberal with the +gifts o' this worl', I wanted ter stir myself ter desarve the good +things." + +Sudley brought down the fore-legs of his chair to the floor with a +thump. Despite his anxiety a slow light of ridicule began to kindle on +his face; his curling lip showed his strong white teeth. + +"Waal, by gum! ye mus' hev been a sight ter be seen! Ye, forty or fifty +years old, a-settin' on the same seat with the chil'n at the deestric' +school, an' a-competin' with the leetle tadpoles fur 'Baker an' Shady' +an sech!" + +He was about to break forth with a guffaw of great relish when Nehemiah +spoke hastily, forestalling the laughter. + +"Naw; Abner Sage war thar fur a good while las' winter a-visitin' his +sister, an' he kem an' gin me lessons an' set me copies thar at my +house, an' I larnt a heap." + +Leander lifted his head suddenly. The amount of progress possible to +this desultory and limited application he understood only too well. He +had not learned so much himself to be unaware how much in time and labor +learning costs. The others perceived no incongruity. Sudley's face was +florid with pride and pleasure, and his wife's reflected the glow. + +"Ab Sage at the cross-roads! Then he mus' hev tole ye 'bout Lee-yander +hyar, an' his larnin'. Ab tole, I know." + +Nehemiah drew his breath in quickly. His twinkling eyes sent out the +keenest glance of suspicion, but the gay, affectionate, vaunting laugh, +as Tyler Sudley turned around and clapped the boy a ringing blow on his +slender shoulder, expressed only the plenitude of his simple vainglory. + +"Lee-yander hyar _knows it all_!" he boasted. "Old Ab himself don't know +no mo'! I'll be bound old Ab went a-braggin'--hey, Lee-yander?" + +But the boy shrank away a trifle, and his smile was mechanical as he +silently eyed his relative. + +"Ab 'lowed he war tur'ble disobejient," said Nehemiah, after a pause, +and cautiously allowing himself to follow in the talk, "an' gi'n over +ter playin' the fiddle." He hesitated for a moment, longing to +stigmatize its ungodliness; but the recollection of Tyler Sudley's +uncertain temper decided him, and he left it unmolested. "But Ab 'lowed +ye war middlin' quick at figgers, Lee-yander--middlin' quick at +figgers!" + +Leander, still silent and listening, flushed slightly. This measured +praise was an offence to him; but he looked up brightly and obediently +when his uncle wagged an uncouthly sportive head (Nehemiah's anatomy +lent itself to the gay and graceful with much reluctance), thrust his +hands into his pockets, and, tilting himself back in his chair, +continued: + +"I'll try ye, sonny--I'll try ye. How much air nine times seven?--nine +times seven?" + +"Forty-two!" replied the boy, with a bright, docile countenance fixed +upon his relative. + +There was a pause. "Right!" exclaimed Nehemiah, to the relief of Sudley +and his wife, who had trembled during the pause, for it seemed so +threatening. They smiled at each other, unconscious that the examination +meant aught more serious than a display of their prodigy's learning. + +"An', now, how much air twelve times eight?" demanded Nehemiah. + +"Sixty-six!" came the answer, quick as lightning. + +"Right, sir, every time!" cried Nehemiah with a glow of genuine +exultation, as he brought down the fore-legs of the chair to the floor, +and the two Sudleys laughed aloud with pleasure. + +Leander saw them all distorted and grimacing while the room swam round. +The scheme was clear enough to him now. The illiterate Nehemiah, whose +worldly prosperity had outstripped his mental qualifications, had +bethought himself of filling the breach with his nephew, given away as +surplusage in his burdensome infancy, but transformed into a unique +utility under the tutelage of Abner Sage. It was his boasting of his +froward pupil, doubtless, that had suggested the idea, and Leander +understood now that he was to do the work of the store and the +post-office under the nominal incumbency of this unlettered lout. Had +the whole transaction been open and acknowledged, Leander would have had +scant appetite for the work under this master; but he revolted at the +flimsy, contemptible sham; he bitterly resented the innuendoes against +the piety of the Sudleys, not that he cared for piety, save in the +abstract; he was daunted by the brutal ignorance, the doltish +inefficiency of the imposture that had so readily accepted his patently +false answers to the simple questions. He had a sort of crude reverence +for education, and it had seemed to him a very serious matter to take +such liberties with the multiplication table. He valued, too, with a +boy's stalwart vanity, his reputation for great learning, and he would +not have lightly jeopardized it did he not esteem the crisis momentous. +He knew not what he feared. The fraud of the intention, the groundless +claim to knowledge, made Nehemiah's scheme seem multifariously guilty in +some sort; while Tyler Sudley and his wife, albeit no wiser +mathematically, had all the sanctions of probity in their calm, +unpretending ignorance. + +"Ef Cap'n or Neighbor wanted ter run a post-office on my larnin', or ter +keep store, they'd be welcome; but I won't play stalkin'-horse fur that +thar man's still-hunt, sure ez shootin'," he said to himself. + +The attention which he bent upon the conversation thenceforth was an +observation of its effect rather than its matter. He saw that he was +alone in his discovery. Neither Sudley nor his wife had perceived any +connection between the store, the prospective post-office, and the +desire of the illiterate would-be postmaster to have his erudite nephew +restored to his care. + +It may be that the methods of his "Neighbor" and the "Captain" in the +rearing of Leander, the one with unbridled leniency, the other with +spurious severity and affected indifference, had combined to foster +self-reliance and decision of character, or it may be that these +qualities were inherent traits. At all events, he encountered the +emergency without an instant's hesitation. He felt no need of counsel. +He had no doubts. He carried to his pallet in the roof-room no +vacillations and no problems. His resolve was taken. For a time, as he +listened to the movements below-stairs, the sound of voices still rose, +drowsy as the hour waxed late; the light that flickered through the +cracks in the puncheon flooring gradually dulled, and presently a harsh +grating noise acquainted him with the fact that Sudley was shovelling +the ashes over the embers; then the tent-like attic was illumined only +by the moonlight admitted through the little square window at the gable +end--so silent, so still, it seemed that it too slept like the silent +house. The winds slumbered amidst the mute woods; a bank of cloud that +he could see from his lowly couch lay in the south becalmed. The bird's +song had ceased. It seemed to him as he lifted himself on his elbow that +he had never known the world so hushed. The rustle of the quilt of gay +glazed calico was of note in the quietude; the impact of his bare foot +on the floor was hardly a sound, rather an annotation of his weight and +his movement; yet in default of all else the sense of hearing marked it. +His scheme seemed impracticable as for an instant he wavered at the head +of the ladder that served as a stairway; the next moment his foot was +upon the rungs, his light, lithe figure slipping down it like a shadow. +The room below, all eclipsed in a brown and dusky-red medium, the +compromise between light and darkness that the presence of the embers +fostered, was vaguely revealed to him. He was hardly sure whether he saw +the furniture all in place, or whether he knew its arrangement so well +that he seemed to see. Suddenly, as he laid his hand on the violin on +the wall, it became visible, its dark red wood richly glowing against +the brown logs and the tawny clay daubing. A tiny white flame had shot +up in the midst of the gray ashes, as he stood with the cherished object +in his cautious hand, his excited eyes, dilated and expectant, searching +the room apprehensively, while a vague thrill of a murmur issued from +the instrument, as if the spirit of music within it had been wakened by +his touch--too vague, too faintly elusive for the dormant and somewhat +dull perceptions of Nehemiah Yerby, calmly slumbering in state in the +best room. + +The faint jet of flame was withdrawn in the ashes as suddenly as it had +shot forth, and in the ensuing darkness, deeper for the contrast with +that momentary illumination, it was not even a shadow that deftly +mounted the ladder again and emerged into the sheeny twilight of the +moonlit roof-room. Leander was somehow withheld for a moment motionless +at the window; it may have been by compunction; it may have been by +regret, if it be possible to the very young to definitely feel either. +There was an intimation of pensive farewell in his large illumined eyes +as they rested on the circle of familiar things about him--the budding +trees, the well, with its great angular sweep against the sky, the still +sward, the rail-fences glistening with the dew, the river with the +moonlight in a silver blazonry on its lustrous dark surface, the +encompassing shadows of the gloomy mountains. There was no sound, not +even among the rippling shallows; he could hear naught but the pain of +parting throbbing in his heart, and from the violin a faint continuous +susurrus, as if it murmured half-asleep memories of the melodies that +had thrilled its waking moments. It necessitated careful handling as he +deftly let himself out of the window, the bow held in his mouth, the +instrument in one arm, while the other hand clutched the boughs of a +great holly-tree close beside the house. It was only the moonlight on +those smooth, lustrous leaves, but it seemed as if smiling white faces +looked suddenly down from among the shadows: at this lonely hour, with +none awake to see, what strange things may there not be astir in the +world, what unmeasured, unknown forces, sometimes felt through the +dulling sleep of mortals, and then called dreams! As he stood breathless +upon the ground the wind awoke. He heard it race around the corner of +the house, bending the lilac bushes, and then it softly buffeted him +full in the face and twirled his hat on the ground. As he stooped to +pick it up he heard whispers and laughter in the lustrous boughs of the +holly, and the gleaming faces shifted with the shadows. He looked +fearfully over his shoulder; the rising wind might waken some one of the +household. His "Neighbor" was, he knew, solicitous about the weather, +and suspicious of its intentions lest it not hold fine till all the oats +be sown. A pang wrung his heart; he remembered the long line of seasons +when, planting corn in the pleasant spring days, his "Neighbor" had +opened the furrow with the plough, and the "Captain" had followed, +dropping the grains, and he had brought up the rear with his hoe, +covering them over, while the clouds floated high in the air, and the +mild sun shone, and the wind kept the shadows a-flicker, and the +blackbird and the crow, complacently and craftily watching them from +afar, seemed the only possible threatening of evil in all the world. He +hastened to stiffen his resolve. He had need of it. Tyler Sudley had +said that he did not know how the law stood, and for himself, he was not +willing to risk his liberty on it. He gazed apprehensively upon the +little batten shutter of the window of the room where Nehemiah Yerby +slept, expecting to see it slowly swing open and disclose him there. It +did not stir, and gathering resolution from the terrors that had beset +him when he fancied his opportunity threatened, he ran like a frightened +deer fleetly down the road, and plunged into the dense forest. The wind +kept him company, rollicking, quickening, coming and going in fitful +gusts. He heard it die away, but now and again it was rustling among a +double file of beech-trees all up the mountain-side. He saw the +commotion in their midst, the effect of swift movement as the scant +foliage fluttered, then the white branches of the trees all a-swaying +like glistening arms flung upward, as if some bevy of dryads sped up the +hill in elusive rout through the fastnesses. + + * * * * * + +The next day ushered in a tumult and excitement unparalleled in the +history of the little log-cabin. When Leander's absence was discovered, +and inquiry of the few neighbors and search of the vicinity proved +fruitless, the fact of his flight and its motive were persistently +forced upon Nehemiah Yerby's reluctant perceptions, with the destruction +of his cherished scheme as a necessary sequence. With some wild craving +for vengeance he sought to implicate Sudley as accessory to the +mysterious disappearance. He found some small measure of solace in +stumping up and down the floor before the hearth, furiously railing at +the absent host, for Sudley had not yet relinquished the bootless quest, +and indignantly upbraiding the forlorn, white-faced, grief-stricken +Laurelia, who sat silent and stony, her faded eyes on the fire, heedless +of his words. She held in her lap sundry closely-rolled knitted +balls--the boy's socks that she had so carefully made and darned. A +pile of his clothing lay at her feet. He had carried nothing but his +fiddle and the clothes he stood in, and if she had had more tears she +could have wept for his improvidence, for the prospective tatters and +rents that must needs befall him in that unknown patchless life to which +he had betaken himself. + +Nehemiah Yerby argued that it was Sudley who had prompted the whole +thing; he had put the boy up to it, for Leander was not so lacking in +feeling as to flee from his own blood-relation. But he would set the law +to spy them out. He would be back again, and soon. + +He may have thought better of this presently, for he was in great haste +to be gone when Tyler Sudley returned, and to his amazement in a +counterpart frame of mind, charging Nehemiah with the responsibility of +the disaster. It was strange to Laurelia that she, who habitually strove +to fix her mind on religious things, should so relish the aspect of Ty +Sudley in his secular rage on this occasion. + +"Ye let we-uns hev him whilst so leetle an' helpless, but now that he +air so fine growed an' robustious ye want ter git some work out'n him, +an' he hev runned away an' tuk ter the woods tarrified by the very sight +of ye," he averred. "He'll never kem back; no, he'll never kem back; fur +he'll 'low ez ye would kem an' take him home with you; an' now the Lord +only knows whar he is, an' what will become of him." + +His anger and his tumultuous grief, his wild, irrepressible anxiety for +Leander's safety, convinced the crafty Nehemiah that he was no party to +the boy's scheme. Sudley's sorrow was not of the kind that renders the +temper pliable, and when Nehemiah sought to point a moral in the absence +of the violin, and for the first time in Sudley's presence protested +that he desired to save Leander from that device of the devil, the +master of the house shook his inhospitable fist very close indeed to his +guest's nose, and Yerby was glad enough to follow that feature +unimpaired out to his horse at the bars, saying little more. + +He aired his views, however, at each house where he made it convenient +to stop on his way home, and took what comfort there might be in the +role of martyr. Leander was unpopular in several localities, and was +esteemed a poor specimen of the skill of the Sudleys in rearing +children. He had been pampered and spoiled, according to general report, +and more than one of his successive interlocutors were polite enough to +opine that the change to Nehemiah's charge would have been a beneficent +opportunity for much-needed discipline. Nehemiah was not devoid of some +skill in interrogatory. He contrived to elicit speculations without +giving an intimation of unduly valuing the answer. + +"He's 'mongst the moonshiners, I reckon," was the universal surmise. +"He'll be hid mighty safe 'mongst them." + +For where the still might be, or who was engaged in the illicit +business, was even a greater mystery than Leander's refuge. Nothing more +definite could be elicited than a vague rumor that some such work was +in progress somewhere along the many windings of Hide-and-Seek Creek. + +Nehemiah Yerby had never been attached to temperance principles, and, +commercially speaking, he had thought it possible that whiskey on which +no tax had been paid might be more profitably dispensed at his store +than that sold under the sanctions of the government. These +considerations, however, were as naught in view of the paralysis which +his interests and schemes had suffered in Leander's flight. He dwelt +with dismay upon the possibility that he might secure the postmastership +without the capable assistant whose services were essential. In this +perverse sequence of events disaster to his application was more to be +desired than success. He foresaw himself browbeaten, humiliated, +detected, a butt for the ridicule of the community, his pretensions in +the dust, his pitiful imposture unmasked. And beyond these aesthetic +misfortunes, the substantial emoluments of "keepin' store," with a +gallant sufficiency of arithmetic to regulate prices and profits, were +vanishing like the elusive matutinal haze before the noontide sun. +Nehemiah Yerby groaned aloud, for the financial stress upon his spirit +was very like physical pain. And in this inauspicious moment he +bethought himself of the penalties of violating the Internal Revenue +Laws of the United States. + +Now it has been held by those initiated into such mysteries that there +is scant affinity between whiskey and water. Nevertheless, in this +connection, Nehemiah Yerby developed an absorbing interest in the +watercourses of the coves and adjacent mountains, especially their more +remote and sequestered tributaries. He shortly made occasion to meet the +county surveyor and ply him with questions touching the topography of +the vicinity, cloaking the real motive under the pretence of an interest +in water-power sufficient and permanent enough for the sawing of lumber, +and professing to contemplate the erection of a saw-mill at the most +eligible point. The surveyor had his especial vanity, and it was +expressed in his frequent boast that he carried a complete map of the +county graven upon his brain; he was wont to esteem it a gracious +opportunity when a casual question in a group of loungers enabled him to +display his familiarity with every portion of his rugged and mountainous +region, which was indeed astonishing, even taking into consideration his +incumbency for a number of terms, aided by a strong head for locality. +Nehemiah Yerby's scheme was incalculably favored by this circumstance, +but he found it unexpectedly difficult to support the figment which he +had propounded as to his intentions. Fiction is one of the fine arts, +and a mere amateur like Nehemiah is apt to fail in point of consistency. +He was inattentive while the surveyor dilated on the probable value, the +accessibility, and the relative height of the "fall" of the various +sites, and their available water-power, and he put irrelevant queries +concerning ineligible streams in other localities. No man comfortably +mounted upon his hobby relishes an interruption. The surveyor would stop +with a sort of bovine surprise, and break out in irritable parenthesis. + +"That branch on the t'other side o' Panther Ridge? Why, man alive, that +thread o' water wouldn't turn a spider web." + +Nehemiah, quaking under the glance of his keen questioning eye, would +once more lapse into silence, while the surveyor, loving to do what he +could do well, was lured on in his favorite subject by the renewed +appearance of receptivity in his listener. + +"Waal, ez I war a-sayin', I know every furlong o' the creeks once down +in the Cove, an' all their meanderings, an' the best part o' them in the +hills amongst the laurel and the wildernesses. But now the ways of sech +a stream ez Hide-an'-Seek Creek are past finding out. It's a 'sinking +creek,' you know; goes along with a good volume and a swift current for +a while to the west, then disappears into the earth, an' ain't seen fur +five mile, then comes out agin running due north, makes a tremenjious +jump--the Hoho-hebee Falls--then pops into the ground agin, an' ain't +seen no more forever," he concluded, dramatically. + +"How d'ye know it's the same creek?" demanded Nehemiah, sceptically, and +with a wrinkling brow. + +"By settin' somethin' afloat on it before it sinks into the ground--a +piece of marked bark or a shingle or the like--an' finding it agin after +the stream comes out of the caves," promptly replied the man of the +compass, with a triumphant snap of the eye, as if he entertained a +certain pride in the vagaries of his untamed mountain friend. "Nobody +knows how often it disappears, nor where it rises, nor where it goes at +last. It's got dozens of fust-rate millin' sites, but then it's too fur +off fur you ter think about." + +"Oh no 'tain't!" exclaimed Nehemiah, suddenly. + +The surveyor stared. "Why, you ain't thinkin' 'bout movin' up inter the +wilderness ter live, an' ye jes applied fur the post-office down at the +cross-roads? Ye can't run the post-office thar an' a saw-mill thirty +mile away at the same time." + +Nehemiah was visibly disconcerted. His wrinkled face showed the flush of +discomfiture, but his craft rallied to the emergency. + +"Moughtn't git the post-office, arter all's come an' gone. Nothin' is +sartin in this vale o' tears." + +"An' ye air goin' ter take ter the woods ef ye don't?" demanded the +surveyor, incredulously. "Thought ye war goin' ter keep store?" + +"Waal, I dun'no'; jes talkin' round," said Nehemiah, posed beyond +recuperation. "I mus' be a-joggin', ennyhow. Time's a-wastin'." + +As he made off hastily in the direction of his house, for this +conversation had taken place at the blacksmith's shop at the +cross-roads, the surveyor gazed after him much mystified. + +"What is that old fox slyin' round after? He ain't studyin' 'bout no +saw-mill, inquirin' round about all the out-o'-the-way water-power in +the kentry fifty mile from where he b'longs. He's a heap likelier to be +goin' ter start a wild cat still in them wild places--git his whiskey +cheap ter sell in his store." + +He shook his head sagely once for all, for the surveyor's mind was of +the type prompt in reaching conclusions, and he was difficult to divert +from his convictions. + +A feature of the development of craft to a certain degree is the +persuasion that this endowment is not shared. A fine world it would be +if the Nehemiah Yerbys were as clever as they think themselves, and +their neighbors as dull. He readily convinced himself that he had given +no intimation that his objects and motives were other than he professed, +and with unimpaired energy he went to work upon the lines which he had +marked out for himself. A fine chase Hide-and-Seek Creek led him, to be +sure, and it tried his enthusiasms to the uttermost. What affinity this +brawling vagrant had for the briers and the rocks and the tangled +fastnesses! Seldom, indeed, could he press in to its banks and look down +upon its dimpled, laughing, heedless face without the sacrifice of +fragments of flesh and garments left impaled upon the sharp spikes of +the budding shrubs. Often it so intrenched itself amidst the dense +woods, and the rocks and chasms of its craggy banks, that approach was +impossible, and he followed it for miles only by the sound of its wild, +sweet, woodland voice. And this, too, was of a wayward fancy; now, in +turbulent glee among the rocks, riotously chanting aloud, challenging +the echoes, and waking far and near the forest quiet; and again it was +merely a low, restful murmur, intimating deep, serene pools and a +dallying of the currents, lapsed in the fulness of content. Then +Nehemiah Yerby would be beset with fears that he would lose this +whisper, and his progress was slight; he would pause to listen, hearing +nothing; would turn to right, to left; would take his way back through +the labyrinth of the laurel to catch a thread of sound, a mere +crystalline tremor, and once more follow this transient lure. As the +stream came down a gorge at a swifter pace and in a succession of +leaps--a glassy cataract visible here and there, airily sporting with +rainbows, affiliating with ferns and moss and marshy growths, the +bounding spray glittering in the sunshine--it flung forth continuously +tinkling harmonies in clear crystal tones, so penetrating, so definitely +melodic, that more than once, as he paced along on his jaded horse, he +heard in their midst, without disassociating the sounds, the _ping, +pang, ping, pang_, of the violin he so condemned. He drew up at last, +and strained his ear to listen. It did not become more distinct, always +intermingled with the recurrent rhythm of the falling water, but always +vibrating in subdued throbbings, now more acute, now less, as the +undiscriminated melody ascended or descended the scale. It came from the +earth, of this he was sure, and thus he was reminded anew of the caves +which Hide-and-Seek Creek threaded in its long course. There was some +opening near by, doubtless, that led to subterranean passages, dry +enough here, since it was the stream's whim to flow in the open sunshine +instead of underground. He would have given much to search for it had he +dared. His leathery, lean, loose cheek had a glow of excitement upon it; +his small eyes glistened; for the first time in his life, possibly, he +looked young. But he did not doubt that this was the stronghold of the +illicit distillers, of whom one heard so much in the Cove and saw so +little. A lapse of caution, an inconsiderate movement, and he might be +captured and dealt with as a spy and informer. + +Nevertheless his discovery was of scant value unless he utilized it +further. He had always believed that his nephew had fled to the secret +haunts of the moonshiners. Now he only knew it the more surely; and what +did this avail him, and how aid in the capture of the recusant clerk and +assistant postmaster? He hesitated a moment; then fixing the spot in his +mind by the falling of a broad crystal sheet of water from a ledge some +forty feet high, by a rotting log at its base that seemed to rise +continually, although the moving cataract appeared motionless, by +certain trees and their relative position, and the blue peaks on a +distant skyey background of a faint cameo yellow, he slowly turned his +horse's rein and took his way out of danger. It was chiefly some +demonstration on the animal's part that he had feared. A snort, a +hoof-beat, a whinny would betray him, and very liable was the animal to +any of these expressions. One realizes how unnecessary is speech for the +exposition of opinion when brought into contradictory relations with the +horse which one rides or drives. All day had this animal snorted his +doubts of his master's sanity; all day had he protested against these +aimless, fruitless rambles; all day had he held back with a high head +and a hard mouth, while whip and spur pressed him through laurel almost +impenetrable, and through crevices of crags almost impassable. For were +there not all the fair roads of the county to pace and gallop upon if +one must needs be out and jogging! Unseen objects, vaguely discerned to +be moving in the undergrowth affrighted the old plough-horse of the +levels--infinitely reassured and whinnying with joyful relief when the +head of horned cattle showed presently as the cause of the commotion. He +would have given much a hundred times that day, and he almost said so a +hundred times, too, to be at home, with the old bull-tongue plough +behind him, running the straight rational furrow in the good bare open +field, so mellow for corn, lying in the sunshine, inviting planting. + +"Ef I git ye home wunst more, I'll be bound I'll leave ye thar," +Nehemiah said, ungratefully, as they wended their way along; for without +the horse he could not have traversed the long distances of his search, +however unwillingly the aid was given. + +He annotated his displeasure by a kick in the ribs; and when the old +equine farmer perceived that they were absolutely bound binward, and +that their aberrations were over for the present, he struck a sharp gait +that would have done honor to his youthful days, for he had worn out +several pairs of legs in Nehemiah's fields, and was often spoken of as +being upon the last of those useful extremities. He stolidly shook his +head, which he thought so much better than his master's, and bedtime +found them twenty miles away and at home. + +Nehemiah felt scant fatigue. He was elated with his project. He scented +success in the air. It smelled like the season. It too was suffused with +the urgent pungency of the rising sap, with the fragrance of the +wild-cherry, with the vinous promise of the orchard, with the richness +of the mould, with the vagrant perfume of the early flowers. + +He lighted a tallow dip, and he sat him down with writing materials at +the bare table to indite a letter while all his household slept. The +windows stood open to the dark night, and Spring hovered about outside, +and lounged with her elbows on the sill, and looked in. He constantly +saw something pale and elusive against the blackness, for there was no +moon, but he thought it only the timid irradiation with which his tallow +dip suffused the blossoming wands of an azalea, growing lithe and tall +hard by. With this witness only he wrote the letter--an anonymous +letter, and therefore he was indifferent to the inadequacies of his +penmanship and his spelling. He labored heavily in its composition, now +and then perpetrating portentous blots. He grew warm, although the fire +that had served to cook supper had long languished under the bank of +ashes. The tallow dip seemed full of caloric, and melted rapidly in +pendulous drippings. He now and again mopped his red face, usually so +bloodless, with his big bandanna handkerchief, while all the zephyrs +were fanning the flying tresses of Spring at the window, and the soft, +sweet, delicately attuned vernal chorus of the marshes were tentatively +running over _sotto voce_ their allotted melodies for the season. Oh, it +was a fine night outside, and why should a moth, soft-winged and +cream-tinted and silken-textured, come whisking in from the dark, as +silently as a spirit, to supervise Nehemiah Yerby's letter, and travel +up and down the page all befouled with the ink? And as he sought to +save the sense of those significant sentences from its trailing silken +draperies, why should it rise suddenly, circling again and again about +the candle, pass through the flame, and fall in quivering agonies once +more upon the page? He looked at it, dead now, with satisfaction. It had +come so very near ruining his letter--an important letter, describing +the lair of the illicit distillers to a deputy marshal of the revenue +force, who was known to be in a neighboring town. He had good reason to +withhold his signature, for the name of the informer in the ruthless +vengeance of the region would be as much as his life was worth. The moth +had not spoiled the letter--the laborious letter; he was so glad of +that! He saw no analogies, he received not even a subtle warning, as he +sealed and addressed the envelope and affixed the postage-stamp. Then he +snuffed out the candle with great satisfaction. + +The next morning the missive was posted, and all Nehemiah Yerby's plans +took a new lease of life. The information he had given would result in +an immediate raid upon the place. Leander would be captured among the +moonshiners, but his youth and his uncle's representations--for he would +give the officers an inkling of the true state of the case--would +doubtless insure the boy's release, and his restoration to those +attractive commercial prospects which had been devised for him. + + +II + +The ordering of events is an intricate process, and to its successful +exploitation a certain degree of sagacious prescience is a prerequisite, +as well as a thorough mastery of the lessons of experience. For a day or +so all went well in the inner consciousness of Nehemiah Yerby. The +letter had satisfied his restless craving for some action toward the +consummation of his ambition, and he had not the foresight to realize +how soon the necessity of following it up would supervene. He first grew +uneasy lest his letter had not reached its destination; then, when the +illimitable field of speculation was thus opened out, he developed an +ingenuity of imagination in projecting possible disaster. Day after day +passed, and he heard naught of his cherished scheme. The +revenuers--craven wretches he deemed them, and he ground his teeth with +rage because of their seeming cowardice in their duty, since their duty +could serve his interests--might not have felt exactly disposed to risk +their lives in these sweet spring days, when perhaps even a man whose +life belongs to the government might be presumed to take some pleasure +in it, by attempting to raid the den of a gang of moonshiners on the +scanty faith of an informer's word, tenuous guaranty at best, and now +couched in an anonymous letter, itself synonym for a lie. Oh, what fine +eulogies rose in his mind upon the manly virtue of courage! How +enthusing it is at all times to contemplate the courage of others!--and +how safe! + +Then a revulsion of belief ensued, and he began to fear that they might +already have descended upon their quarry, and with all their captives +have returned to the county town by the road by which they came--nearer +than the route through the cross-roads, though far more rugged. Why had +not this possibility before occurred to him! He had so often prefigured +their triumphant advent into the hamlet with all their guarded and +shackled prisoners, the callow Leander in the midst, and his own +gracefully enacted role of virtuous, grief-stricken, pleading relative, +that it seemed a recollection--something that had really +happened--rather than the figment of anticipation. But no word, no +breath of intimation, had ruffled the serenity of the cross-roads. The +calm, still, yellow sunshine day by day suffused the land like the +benignities of a dream--almost too good to be true. Every man with the +heart of a farmer within him was at the plough-handles, and making the +most of the fair weather. The cloudless sky and the auspicious forecast +of fine days still to come did more to prove to the farmer the existence +of an all-wise, overruling Providence than all the polemics of the world +might accomplish. The furrows multiplied everywhere save in Nehemiah's +own fields, where he often stood so long in the turn-row that the old +horse would desist from twisting his head backward in surprise, and +start at last of his own motion, dragging the plough, the share still +unanchored in the ground, half across the field before he could be +stopped. The vagaries of these "lands" that the absent-minded Nehemiah +laid off attracted some attention. + +"What ails yer furrows ter run so crooked, Nehemiah?" observed a +passer-by, a neighbor who had been to the blacksmith-shop to get his +plough-point sharpened; he looked over the fence critically. "Yer +eyesight mus' be failin' some." + +"I dun'no'," rejoined Nehemiah, hastily. Then reverting to his own +absorption. "War it you-uns ez I hearn say thar war word kem ter the +cross-roads 'bout some revenuers raidin' 'round somewhar in the woods?" + +The look of surprise cast upon him seemed to his alert anxiety to +betoken suspicion. "Laws-a-massy, naw!" exclaimed his interlocutor. "Ye +air the fust one that hev named sech ez that in these diggin's, fur I'd +hev hearn tell on it, sure, ef thar hed been enny sech word goin' the +rounds." + +Nehemiah recoiled into silence, and presently his neighbor went +whistling on his way. He stood motionless for a time, until the man was +well out of sight, then he began to hastily unhitch the plough-gear. His +resolution was taken. He could wait no longer. For aught he knew the +raiders might have come and gone, and be now a hundred miles away with +their prisoners to stand their trial in the Federal court. His schemes +might have all gone amiss, leaving him in naught the gainer. He could +rest in uncertainty no more. He feared to venture further questions when +no rumor stirred the air. They rendered him doubly liable to +suspicion--to the law-abiding as a possible moonshiner, to any +sympathizer with the distillers as a probable informer. He determined to +visit the spot, and there judge how the enterprise had fared. + +When next he heard that fine sylvan symphony of the sound of the falling +water--the tinkling bell-like tremors of its lighter tones mingling with +the sonorous, continuous, deeper theme rising from its weight and volume +and movement; with the surging of the wind in the pines; with the +occasional cry of a wild bird deep in the new verdure of the forests +striking through the whole with a brilliant, incidental, detached +effect--no faint vibration was in its midst of the violin's string, +listen as he might. More than once he sought to assure himself that he +heard it, but his fancy failed to respond to his bidding, although again +and again he took up his position where it had before struck his ear. +The wild minstrelsy of the woods felt no lack, and stream and wind and +harping pine and vagrant bird lifted their voices in their wonted +strains. He could hardly accept the fact; he would verify anew the +landmarks he had made and again return to the spot, his hat in his hand, +his head bent low, his face lined with anxiety and suspense. No sound, +no word, no intimation of human presence. The moonshiners were doubtless +all gone long ago, betrayed into captivity, and Leander with them. He +had so hardened his heart toward his recalcitrant young kinsman and his +Sudley friends, he felt so entirely that in being among the moonshiners +Leander had met only his deserts in coming to the bar of Federal +justice, that he would have experienced scant sorrow if the nephew had +not carried off with his own personality his uncle's book-keeper and +postmaster's clerk. And so--alas, for Leander! As he meditated on the +untoward manner in which he had overshot his target, this marksman of +fate forgot the caution which had distinguished his approach, for +hitherto it had been as heedful as if he fully believed the lion still +in his den. He slowly patrolled the bank below the broad, thin, crystal +sheet, seeing naught but its rainbow hovering elusively in the sun, and +its green and white skein-like draperies pendulous before the great dark +arch over which the cataract fell. The log caught among the rocks in the +spray at the base was still there, seeming always to rise while the +restless water seemed motionless. + +No trace that human beings had ever invaded these solitudes could he +discover. No vague, faint suggestion of the well-hidden lair of the +moonshiners did the wild covert show forth. "The revenuers war smarter'n +me; I'll say that fur 'em," he muttered at last as he came to a +stand-still, his chin in his hand, his perplexed eyes on the ground. And +suddenly--a footprint on a marshy spot; only the heel of a boot, for the +craggy ledges hid all the ground but this, a mere sediment of sand in a +tiny hollow in the rock from which the water had evaporated. It was a +key to the mystery. Instantly the rugged edges of the cliff took on the +similitude of a path. Once furnished with this idea, he could perceive +adequate footing all adown the precipitous way. He was not young; his +habits had been inactive, and were older even than his age. He could +not account for it afterward, but he followed for a few paces this +suggestion of a path down the precipitous sides of the stream. He had a +sort of triumph in finding it so practicable, and he essayed it still +farther, although the sound of the water had grown tumultuous at closer +approach, and seemed to foster a sort of responsive turmoil of the +senses; he felt his head whirl as he looked at the bounding, frothing +spray, then at the long swirls of the current at the base of the fall as +they swept on their way down the gorge. As he sought to lift his +fascinated eyes, the smooth glitter of the crystal sheet of falling +water so close before him dazzled his sight. He wondered afterward how +his confused senses and trembling limbs sustained him along the narrow, +rugged path, here and there covered with oozing green moss, and slippery +with the continual moisture. It evidently was wending to a ledge. All at +once the contour of the place was plain to him; the ledge led behind the +cataract that fell from the beetling heights above. And within were +doubtless further recesses, where perchance the moonshiners had worked +their still. As he reached the ledge he could see behind the falling +water and into the great concave space which it screened beneath the +beetling cliff. It was as he had expected--an arched portal of jagged +brown rocks, all dripping with moisture and oozing moss, behind the +semi-translucent green-and-white drapery of the cascade. + +But he had not expected to see, standing quietly in the great vaulted +entrance, a man with his left hand on a pistol in his belt, the mate of +which his more formidable right hand held up with a steady finger on +the trigger. + +This much Nehemiah beheld, and naught else, for the glittering profile +of the falls, visible now only aslant, the dark, cool recess beyond, +that menacing motionless figure at the vanishing-point of the +perspective, all blended together in an indistinguishable whirl as his +senses reeled. He barely retained consciousness enough to throw up both +his hands in token of complete submission. And then for a moment he knew +no more. He was still leaning motionless against the wall of rock when +he became aware that the man was sternly beckoning to him to continue +his approach. His dumb lips moved mechanically in response, but any +sound must needs have been futile indeed in the pervasive roar of the +waters. He felt that he had hardly strength for another step along the +precipitous way, but there is much tonic influence in a beckoning +revolver, and few men are so weak as to be unable to obey its behests. +Poor Nehemiah tottered along as behooved him, leaving all the world, +liberty, volition, behind him as the descending sheet of water fell +between him and the rest of life and shut him off. + +"That's it, my leetle man! I thought you could make it!" were the first +words he could distinguish as he joined the mountaineer beneath the +crag. + +Nehemiah Yerby had never before seen this man. That in itself was +alarming, since in the scanty population of the region few of its +denizens are unknown to each other, at least by sight. The tone of +satire, the gleam of enjoyment in his keen blue eye, were not +reassuring to the object of his ridicule. He was tall and somewhat +portly, and he had a bluff and offhand manner, which, however, served +not so much to intimate his good-will toward you as his abounding +good-humor with himself. He was a man of most arbitrary temper, one +could readily judge, not only from his own aspect and manner, but from +the docile, reliant, approving cast of countenance of his reserve +force--a half-dozen men, who were somewhat in the background, lounging +on the rocks about a huge copper still. They wore an attentive aspect, +but offered to take no active part in the scene enacted before them. One +of them--even at this crucial moment Yerby noticed it with a pang of +regretful despair--held noiseless on his knee a violin, and more than +once addressed himself seriously to rubbing rosin over the bow. There +was scant music in his face--a square physiognomy, with thick features, +and a shock of hay-colored hair striped somewhat with an effect of +darker shades like a weathering stack. He handled the bow with a blunt, +clumsy hand that augured little of delicate skill, and he seemed from +his diligence to think that rosin is what makes a fiddle play. He was +evidently one of those unhappy creatures furnished with some vague inner +attraction to the charms of music, with no gift, no sentiment, no +discrimination. Something faintly sonorous there was in his soul, and it +vibrated to the twanging of the strings. He was far less alert to the +conversation than the others, whose listening attitudes attested their +appreciation of the importance of the moment. + +"Waal," observed the moonshiner, impatiently, eying the tremulous and +tongue-tied Yerby, "hev ye fund what ye war a-huntin' fur?" + +So tenacious of impressions was Nehemiah that it was the violin in those +alien hands which still focussed his attention as he stared gaspingly +about. Leander was not here; probably had never been here; and the +twanging of those strings had lured him to his fate. Well might he +contemn the festive malevolence of the violin's influence! His letter +had failed; no raider had intimidated these bluff, unafraid, burly +law-breakers, and he had put his life in jeopardy in his persistent +prosecution of his scheme. He gasped again at the thought. + +"_Waal_," said the moonshiner, evidently a man of short patience, and +with a definite air of spurring on the visitor's account of himself, "we +'ain't been lookin' fur any spy lately, but I'm 'lowin' ez we hev fund +him." + +His fear thus put into words so served to realize to Yerby his immediate +danger that it stood him in the stead of courage, of brains, of +invention; his flaccid muscles were suddenly again under control; he +wreathed his features with his smug artificial smile, that was like a +grimace in its best estate, and now hardly seemed more than a +contortion. But beauty in any sense was not what the observer was +prepared to expect in Nehemiah, and the moonshiner seemed to accept the +smile at its face value, and to respect its intention. + +"Spies don't kem climbin' down that thar path o' yourn in full view +through the water"--for the landscape was as visible through the thin +falling sheet as if it had been the slightly corrugated glass of a +window--"do they?" Yerby asked, with a jocose intonation. "That thar +shootin'-iron o' yourn liked ter hev skeered me ter death whenst I fust +seen it." + +His interlocutor pondered on this answer for a moment. He had an adviser +among his corps whose opinion he evidently valued; he exchanged a quick +glance with one of the men who was but dimly visible in the shadows +beyond the still, where there seemed to be a series of troughs leading a +rill of running water down from some farther spring and through the tub +in which the spiral worm was coiled. This man had a keen, white, lean +face, with an ascetic, abstemious expression, and he looked less like a +distiller than some sort of divine--some rustic pietist, with strange +theories and unhappy speculations and unsettled mind. It was a face of +subtle influences, and the very sight of it roused in Nehemiah a more +heedful fear than the "shootin'-iron" in the bluff moonshiner's hand had +induced. He was silent, while the other resumed the office of spokesman. + +"Ye ain't 'quainted hyar"--he waved his hand with the pistol in it +around at the circle of uncowering men, although the mere movement made +Nehemiah cringe with the thought that an accidental discharge might as +effectually settle his case as premeditated and deliberate murder. "Ye +dun'no' none o' us. What air ye a-doin' hyar?" + +"Why, that thar war the very trouble," Yerby hastily explained. "_I +didn't know none o' ye!_ I hed hearn ez thar war a still somewhars on +Hide-an'-Seek Creek"--once more there ensued a swift exchange of glances +among the party--"but nobody knew who run it nor whar 'twar. An' one +day, consider'ble time ago, I war a-passin' nigh 'bouts an' I hearn +that fiddle, an' that revealed the spot ter me. An' I kem ter-day +'lowin' ye an' me could strike a trade." + +Once more the bluff man of force turned an anxious look of inquiry to +the pale, thoughtful face in the brown and dark green shadows beyond the +copper gleam of the still. If policy had required that Nehemiah should +be despatched, his was the hand to do the deed, and his the stomach to +support his conscience afterward. But his brain revolted from the +discriminating analysis of Nehemiah's discourse and a decision on its +merits. + +"Trade fur what?" he demanded at last, on his own responsibility, for no +aid had radiated from the face which his looks had interrogated. + +"Fur whiskey, o' course." Nehemiah made the final plunge boldly. "I be +goin' ter open a store at the cross-roads, an' I 'lowed I could git +cheaper whiskey untaxed than taxed. I 'lowed ye wouldn't make it ef ye +didn't expec' ter sell it. I didn't know none o' you-uns, an' none o' +yer customers. An' ez I expec' ter git mo' profit on sellin' whiskey 'n +ennything else in the store, I jes took foot in hand an' kem ter see +'boutn it mysef. I never 'lowed, though, ez it mought look cur'ous ter +you-uns, or like a spy, ter kem ez bold ez brass down the path in full +sight." + +The logic of the seeming security of his approach, and the apparent +value of his scheme, had their full weight. He saw credulity gradually +overpowering doubt and distrust, and his heart grew light with relief. +Even their cautious demur, intimating a reserve of opinion to the effect +that they would think about it, did not daunt him now. He believed, in +the simplicity of his faith in his own craft, now once more in the +ascendant, that if they should accept his proposition he would be free +to go without further complication of his relations with wild-cat +whiskey. He could not sufficiently applaud his wits for the happy +termination of the adventure to which they had led him. He had gone no +further in the matter than he had always intended. Brush whiskey was the +commodity that addressed itself most to his sense of speculation. For +this he had always expected to ferret out some way of safely +negotiating. He had gone no further than he should have done, at all +events, a little later. He even began mentally to "figger on the price" +down to which he should be able to bring the distillers, as he accepted +a proffered seat in the circle about the still. He could neither divide +nor multiply by fractions, and it is not too much to say that he might +have been throttled on the spot if the moonshiners could have had a +mental vision of the liberties the stalwart integers were taking with +their price-current, so to speak, and the preternatural discount that +was making so free with their profits. So absorbed in this pleasing +intellectual exercise was Nehemiah that he did not observe that any one +had left the coterie; but when a stir without on the rocks intimated an +approach he was suddenly ill at ease, and this discomfort increased when +the new-comer proved to be a man who knew him. + +"Waal, Nehemiah Yerby!" he exclaimed, shaking his friend's hand, "I +never knowed you-uns ter be consarned in sech ez moonshinin'. I hev +been a-neighborin' Isham hyar," he laid his heavy hand on the tall +moonshiner's shoulder, "fur ten year an' better, but I won't hev nuthin' +ter do with bresh whiskey or aidin' or abettin' in illicit 'stillin'. I +like Isham, an' Isham he likes me, an' we hev jes agreed ter disagree." + +Nehemiah dared not protest nor seek to explain. He could invent no story +that would not give the lie direct to his representations to the +moonshiners. He felt that their eyes were upon him. He could only hope +that his silence did not seem to them like denial--and yet was not +tantamount to confession in the esteem of his upbraider. + +"Yes, sir," his interlocutor continued, "it's a mighty bad government +ter run agin." Then he turned to the moonshiner, evidently taking up the +business that had brought him here. "Lemme see what sorter brand ye hev +registered fur yer cattle, Isham." + +Yerby's heart sank when the suspicion percolated through his brain that +this man had been induced to come here for the purpose of recognizing +him. More fixed in this opinion was he when no description of the brand +of the cattle could be found, and the visitor finally went away, his +errand bootless. + +From time to time during the afternoon other men went out and returned +with recruits on various pretexts, all of which Nehemiah believed masked +the marshalling of witnesses to incriminate him as one of themselves, in +order to better secure his constancy to the common interests, and in +case he was playing false to put others into possession of the facts as +to the identity of the informer. His liability to the law for aiding and +abetting in moonshining was very complete before the day darkened, and +his jeopardy as to the information he had given made him shake in his +shoes. + +For at any moment, he reflected, in despair, the laggard raiders might +swoop down upon them, and the choice of roles offered to him was to seem +to them a moonshiner, or to the moonshiners an informer. The first was +far the safer, for the clutches of the law were indeed feeble as +contrasted with the popular fury that would pursue him unwearied for +years until its vengeance was accomplished. From the one, escape was to +the last degree improbable; from the other, impossible. + +Any pretext to seek to quit the place before the definite arrangements +of his negotiation were consummated seemed even to him, despite his +eagerness to be off, too tenuous, too transparent, to be essayed, +although he devised several as he sat meditative and silent amongst the +group about the still. The prospect grew less and less inviting as the +lingering day waned, and the evening shadows, dank and chill, +perceptibly approached. The brown and green recesses of the grotto were +at once murkier, and yet more distinctly visible, for the glow of the +fire, flickering through the crevices of the metal door of the furnace, +had begun to assert its luminous quality, which was hardly perceptible +in the full light of day, and brought out the depth of the shadows. The +figures and faces of the moonshiners showed against the deepening gloom. +The sunset clouds were still red without; a vague roseate suffusion was +visible through the falling water. The sun itself had not yet sunk, for +an oblique and almost level ray, piercing the cataract, painted a series +of faint prismatic tints on one side of the rugged arch. But while the +outer world was still in touch with the clear-eyed day, night was +presently here, with mystery and doubt and dark presage. The voice of +Hoho-hebee Falls seemed to him louder, full of strange, uncomprehended +meanings, and insistent iteration. Vague echoes were elicited. Sometimes +in a seeming pause he could catch their lisping sibilant tones +repeating, repeating--what? As the darkness encroached yet more heavily +upon the cataract, the sense of its unseen motion so close at hand +oppressed his very soul; it gave an idea of the swift gathering of +shifting invisible multitudes, coming and going--who could say whence or +whither? So did this impression master his nerves that he was glad +indeed when the furnace door was opened for fuel, and he could see only +the inanimate, ever-descending sheet of water--the reverse interior +aspect of Hoho-hebee Falls--all suffused with the uncanny tawny light, +but showing white and green tints like its diurnal outer aspect, instead +of the colorless outlines, resembling a drawing of a cataract, which the +cave knew by day. He did not pause to wonder whether the sudden +transient illumination was visible without, or how it might mystify the +untutored denizens of the woods, bear, or deer, or wolf, perceiving it +aglow in the midst of the waters like a great topaz, and anon lost in +the gloom. He pined to see it; the momentary cessation of darkness, of +the effect of the sounds, so strange in the obscurity, and of the chill, +pervasive mystery of the invisible, was so grateful that its influence +was tonic to his nerves, and he came to watch for its occasion and to +welcome it. He did not grudge it even when it gave the opportunity for a +close, unfriendly, calculating scrutiny of his face by the latest comer +to the still. This was the neighboring miller, also liable to the +revenue laws, the distillers being valued patrons of the mill, and since +he ground the corn for the mash he thereby aided and abetted in the +illicit manufacture of the whiskey. His life was more out in the world +than that of his underground _confreres_, and perhaps, as he had a +thriving legitimate business, and did not live by brush whiskey, he had +more to lose by detection than they, and deprecated even more any +unnecessary risk. He evidently took great umbrage at the introduction of +Nehemiah amongst them. + +"Oh yes," he observed, in response to the cordial greeting which he met; +"an' I'm glad ter see ye all too. I'm powerful glad ter kem ter the +still enny time. It's ekal ter goin' ter the settlemint, or plumb ter +town on a County Court day. Ye see _everybody_, an' hear _all_ the news, +an' meet up with _interestin' strangers_. I tell ye, now, the mill's +plumb lonesome compared ter the still, an' the mill's always hed the +name of a place whar a heap o' cronies gathered ter swap lies, an' +sech." + +The irony of this description of the social delights and hospitable +accessibilities of a place esteemed the very stronghold of secrecy +itself--the liberty of every man in it jeopardized by the slightest +lapse of vigilance or judgment--was very readily to be appreciated by +the group, who were invited by this fair show of words to look down the +vista of the future to possible years of captivity in the jails of +far-away States as Federal prisoners. The men gazed heavily and +anxiously from one to another as the visitor sank down on the rocks in a +relaxed attitude, his elbow on a higher ledge behind him, supporting his +head on his hand; his other hand was on his hip, his arm stiffly akimbo, +while he looked with an expression of lowering exasperation at Yerby. It +was impossible to distinguish the color of his garb, so dusted with +flour was he from head to foot; but his long boots drawn over his +trousers to the knee, and his great spurs, and a brace of pistols in his +belt, seemed incongruous accessories to the habiliments of a miller. His +large, dark hat was thrust far back on his head; his hair, rising +straight in a sort of elastic wave from his brow, was powdered white; +the effect of his florid color and his dark eyes was accented by the +contrast; his pointed beard revealed its natural tints because of his +habit of frequently brushing his hand over it, and was distinctly red. +He was lithe and lean and nervous, and had the impatient temper +characteristic of mercurial natures. It mattered not to him what was the +coercion of the circumstances which had led to the reception of the +stranger here, nor what was the will of the majority; he disapproved of +the step; he feared it; he esteemed it a grievance done him in his +absence; and he could not conceal his feelings nor wait a more fitting +time to express them in private. His irritation and objection evidently +caused some solicitude amongst the others. He was important to them, and +they deprecated his displeasure. Isham Beaton listened to the +half-covert sneers of his words with perturbation plainly depicted on +his face, and the man whom Nehemiah had at first noticed as one whose +character seemed that of adviser, and whose opinion was valued, now +spoke for the first time. He handed over a broken-nosed pitcher with the +remark, "Try the flavor of this hyar whiskey, Alfred; 'pears like ter me +the bes' we-uns hev ever hed." + +His voice was singularly smooth; it had all the qualities of culture; +every syllable, every lapse of his rude dialect, was as distinct as if +he had been taught to speak in this way; his tones were low and even, +and modulated to suave cadences; the ear experienced a sense of relief +after the loud, strident voice of the miller, poignantly penetrating and +pitched high. + +"Naw, Hilary, I don't want nuthin' ter drink. 'Bleeged ter ye, but I +ain't wantin' nuthin' ter drink," reiterated the miller, plaintively. + +Isham Beaton cast a glance of alarm at the dimly seen, monastic face of +his adviser in the gloom. It was unchanged. Its pallor and its keen +outline enabled its expression to be discerned as he himself went +through the motions of sampling the rejected liquor, shook his head +discerningly, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and deposited the +pitcher near by on a shelf of the rock. + +A pause ensued. Nehemiah, with every desire to be agreeable, hardly +knew how to commend himself to the irate miller, who would have none of +his very existence. No one could more eagerly desire him to be away than +he himself. But his absence would not satisfy the miller; nothing less +than that the intruder should never have been here. Every perceptible +lapse of the moonshiners into anxiety, every recurrent intimation of +their most pertinent reason for this anxiety, set Nehemiah a-shaking in +his shoes. Should it be esteemed the greatest good to the greatest +number to make safely away with him, his fate would forever remain +unknown, so cautious had he been to leave no trace by which he might be +followed. He gazed with deprecating urbanity, and with his lips +distended into a propitiating smile, at the troubled face powdered so +white and with its lowering eyes so dark and petulant. He noted that the +small-talk amongst the others, mere unindividualized lumpish fellows +with scant voice in the government of their common enterprise, had +ceased, and that they no longer busied themselves with the necessary +work about the still, nor with the snickering interludes and horse-play +with which they were wont to beguile their labors. They had all seated +themselves, and were looking from one to the other of the more important +members of the guild with an air which betokened the momentary +expectation of a crisis. The only exception was the man who had the +violin; with the persistent, untimely industry of incapacity, he twanged +the strings, and tuned and retuned the instrument, each time producing a +result more astonishingly off the key than before. He was evidently +unaware of this till some one with senses ajar would suggest that all +was not as it should be in the drunken reeling catch he sought to play, +when he would desist in surprise, and once more diligently rub the bow +with rosin, as if that mended the matter. The miller's lowering eyes +rested on his shadowy outline as he sat thus engaged, for a moment, and +then he broke out suddenly: + +"Yes, this hyar still is the place fur news, an' the place ter look out +fur what ye don't expec' ter happen. It's powerful pleasant ter be +a-meetin' of folks hyar--this hyar stranger this evenin'"--his gleaming +teeth in the semi-obscurity notified Yerby that a smile of spurious +politeness was bent upon him, and he made haste to grin very widely in +response--"an' that thar fiddle 'minds me o' how onexpected 'twar whenst +I met up with Lee-yander hyar--'pears ter me, Bob, ez ye air goin' ter +diddle the life out'n his fiddle--an' Hilary jes begged an' beseeched me +ter take the boy with me ter help 'round the mill, ez he war a-runnin' +away. Ye want me ter 'commodate this stranger too, ez mebbe air runnin' +from them ez wants him, hey Hilary?" + +The grin was petrified on Nehemiah's face. He felt his blood rush +quickly to his head in the excitement of the moment. So here was the +bird very close at hand! And here was his enterprise complete and +successful. He could go away after the cowardly caution of the +moonshiners should have expended itself in dallying and delay, with his +negotiation for the "wild-cat" ended, and his accomplished young +relative in charge. He drew himself erect with a sense of power. The +moonshiners, the miller, would not dare to make an objection. He knew +too much! he knew far too much! + +The door of the furnace was suddenly flung ajar, but he was too much +absorbed to perceive the change that came upon the keen face of Hilary +Tarbetts, who knelt beside it, as the guest's portentous triumphant +smile was fully revealed. Yerby did not lose, however, the glance of +reproach which the moonshiner cast upon the miller, nor the miller's air +at once triumphant, ashamed, and regretful. He had in petulant pique +disclosed the circumstance which he had pledged himself not to disclose. + +"This man's name is Yerby too," Hilary said, significantly, gazing +steadily at the miller. + +The miller looked dumfounded for a moment. He stared from one to the +other in silence. His conscious expression changed to obvious +discomfiture. He had expected no such result as this. He had merely +given way to a momentary spite in the disclosure, thinking it entirely +insignificant, only calculated to slightly annoy Hilary, who had made +the affair his own. He would not in any essential have thwarted his +comrade's plans intentionally, nor in his habitual adherence to the +principles of fair play would he have assisted in the boy's capture. He +drew himself up from his relaxed posture; his spurred feet shuffled +heavily on the stone floor of the grotto. A bright red spot appeared on +each cheek; his eyes had become anxious and subdued in the quick +shiftings of temper common to the red-haired gentry; his face of +helpless appeal was bent on Hilary Tarbetts, as if relying on his +resources to mend the matter; but ever and anon he turned his eyes, +animated with a suspicious dislike, on Yerby, who, however, could have +snapped his fingers in the faces of them all, so confident, so +hilariously triumphant was he. + +"Yerby, I b'lieve ye said yer name war, an' so did Peter Green," said +Tarbetts, still kneeling by the open furnace door, his pale cheek +reddening in the glow of the fire. + +Thus reminded of the testimony of his acquaintance, Yerby did not +venture to repudiate his cognomen. + +"An' what did ye kem hyar fur?" blustered the miller. "A-sarchin' fur +the boy?" + +Yerby's lips had parted to acknowledge this fact, but Tarbetts suddenly +anticipated his response, and answered for him: + +"Oh no, Alfred. Nobody ain't sech a fool ez ter kem hyar ter this hyar +still, a stranger an' mebbe suspected ez a spy, ter hunt up stray +children, an' git thar heads shot off, or mebbe drownded in a mighty +handy water-fall, or sech. This hyar man air one o' we-uns. He air +a-tradin' fur our liquor, an' he'll kerry a barrel away whenst he goes." + +Yerby winced at the suggestion conveyed so definitely in this crafty +speech; he was glad when the door of the furnace closed, so that his +face might not tell too much of the shifting thoughts and fears that +possessed him. + +The miller's fickle mind wavered once more. If Yerby had not come for +the boy, he himself had done no damage in disclosing Leander's +whereabouts. Once more his quickly illumined anger was kindled against +Tarbetts, who had caused him a passing but poignant self-reproach. +"Waal, then, Hilary," he demanded, "what air ye a-raisin' sech a row +fur? Lee-yander ain't noways so special precious ez I knows on. +Toler'ble lazy an' triflin', an' mightily gi'n over ter moonin' over a +readin'-book he hev got. That thar mill war a-grindin' o' nuthin' at all +more'n haffen ter-day, through me bein' a-nappin', and Lee-yander plumb +demented by his book so ez he furgot ter pour enny grist inter the +hopper. Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though +I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose +out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his +hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be goin' +ter hide his book." + +"No need," thought Nehemiah, scornfully. Book and scholar and it might +be fiddle too, so indulgent had the prospect of success made him, would +by to-morrow be on the return route to the cross-roads. He even ventured +to differ with the overbearing miller. + +"I dun'no' 'bout that; books an' edication in gin'ral air toler'ble +useful wunst in a while;" he was thinking of the dark art of dividing +and multiplying by fractions. "The Yerbys hev always hed the name o' +bein' quick at thar book." + +Now the democratic sentiment in this country is bred in the bone, and +few of its denizens have so diluted it with Christian grace as to +willingly acknowledge a superior. In such a coterie as this "eating +humble-pie" is done only at the muzzle of a "shootin'-iron." + +"Never hearn afore ez enny o' the Yerbys knowed B from bull-foot," +remarked one of the unindividualized lumpish moonshiners, shadowy, +indistinguishable in the circle about the rotund figure of the still. He +yet retained acrid recollections of unavailing struggles with the +alphabet, and was secretly of the opinion that education was a painful +thing, and, like the yellow-fever or other deadly disease, not worth +having. Nevertheless, since it was valued by others, the Yerbys should +scathless make no unfounded claims. "Ef the truth war knowed, nare one +of 'em afore could tell a book from a bear-trap." + +Nehemiah's flush the darkness concealed; he moistened his thin lips, and +then gave a little cackling laugh, as if he regarded this as pleasantry. +But the demolition of the literary pretensions of his family once begun +went bravely on. + +"Abner Sage larnt this hyar boy all he knows," another voice took up the +testimony. "Ab 'lows ez his mother war quick at school, but his +dad--law! I knowed Ebenezer Yerby! He war a frien'ly sorter cuss, +good-nachured an' kind-spoken, but ye could put all the larnin' he hed +in the corner o' yer eye." + +"An' Lee-yander don't favor none o' ye," observed another of the +undiscriminated, unimportant members of the group, who seemed to the +groping scrutiny of Nehemiah to be only endowed with sufficient identity +to do the rough work of the still, and to become liable to the Federal +law. "Thar's Hil'ry--he seen it right off. Hil'ry he tuk a look at +Lee-yander whenst he wanted ter kem an' work along o' we-uns, 'kase his +folks wanted ter take him away from the Sudleys. Hil'ry opened the +furnace door--jes so; an' he cotch the boy by the arm"--the great brawny +fellow, unconsciously dramatic, suited the action to the word, his face +and figure illumined by the sudden red glow--"an' Hil'ry, he say, 'Naw, +by God--ye hev got yer mother's eyes in yer head, an' I'll swear ye +sha'n't larn ter be a sot!' An' that's how kem Hil'ry made Alf Bixby +take Lee-yander ter work in the mill. Ef ennybody tuk arter him he war +convenient ter disappear down hyar with we-uns. So he went ter the +mill." + +"An' I wisht I hed put him in the hopper an' ground him up," said the +miller, in a blood-curdling tone, but with a look of plaintive anxiety +in his eyes. "He hev made a heap o' trouble 'twixt Hil'ry an' me fust +an' last. Whar's Hil'ry disappeared to, ennyways?" + +For the flare from the furnace showed that this leading spirit amongst +the moonshiners had gone softly out. Nehemiah, whose courage was +dissipated by some subtle influence of his presence, now made bold to +ask, "An' what made him ter set store on Lee-yander's mother's eyes?" +His tone was as bluffly sarcastic as he dared. + +"Shucks--ye mus' hev hearn that old tale," said the miller, cavalierly. +"This hyar Malviny Hixon--ez lived down in Tanglefoot Cove then--her an' +Hil'ry war promised ter marry, but the revenuers captured him--he war +a-runnin' a still in Tanglefoot then--an' they kep' him in jail somewhar +in the North fur five year. Waal, she waited toler'ble constant fur two +or three year, but Ebenezer Yerby he kem a-visitin' his kin down in +Tanglefoot Cove, an' she an' him met at a bran dance, an' the fust thing +I hearn they war married, an' 'fore Hil'ry got back she war dead an' +buried, an' so war Ebenezer." + +There was a pause while the flames roared in the furnace, and the +falling water desperately dashed upon the rocks, and its tumultuous +voice continuously pervaded the silent void wildernesses without, and +the sibilant undertone, the lisping whisperings, smote the senses anew. + +"He met up with cornsider'ble changes fur five year," remarked one of +the men, regarding the matter in its chronological aspect. + +Nehemiah said nothing. He had heard the story before, but it had been +forgotten. A worldly mind like his is not apt to burden itself with the +sentimental details of an antenuptial romance of the woman whom his +half-brother had married many years ago. + +A persuasion that it was somewhat unduly long-lived impressed others of +the party. + +"It's plumb cur'us Hil'ry ain't never furgot her," observed one of them. +"He hev never married at all. My wife says it's jes contrariousness. Ef +Malviny hed been his wife an' died, he'd hev married agin 'fore the year +war out. An' I tell my wife that he'd hev been better acquainted with +her then, an' would hev fund out ez no woman war wuth mournin' 'bout fur +nigh twenty year. My wife says she can't make out ez how Hil'ry 'ain't +got pride enough not ter furgive her fur givin' him the mitten like she +done. An' I tell my wife that holdin' a gredge agin a woman fur bein' +fickle is like holdin' a gredge agin her fur bein' a woman." + +He paused with an air, perceived somehow in the brown dusk, of having +made a very neat point. A stir of assent was vaguely suggested when some +chivalric impulse roused a champion at the farther side of the worm, +whose voice rang out brusquely: + +"Jes listen at Tom! A body ter hear them tales he tells 'bout argufyin' +with his wife would 'low he war a mighty smart, apt man, an' the pore +foolish 'oman skeercely hed a sensible word ter bless herself with. When +everybody that knows Tom knows he sings mighty small round home. Ye +stopped too soon, Tom. Tell what yer wife said to that." + +Tom's embarrassed feet shuffled heavily on the rocks, apparently in +search of subterfuge. The dazzling glintings from the crevices of the +furnace door showed here and there gleaming teeth broadly agrin. + +"Jes called me a fool in gineral," admitted the man skilled in argument. + +"An' didn't she 'low ez men folks war fickle too, an' remind ye o' yer +young days whenst ye went a-courtin' hyar an' thar, an' tell over a +string o' gals' names till she sounded like an off'cer callin' the +roll?" + +"Ye-es," admitted Tom, thrown off his balance by this preternatural +insight, "but all them gals war a-tryin' ter marry me--not me tryin' ter +marry them." + +There was a guffaw at this modest assertion, but the disaffected +miller's tones dominated the rude merriment. + +"Whenst a feller takes ter drink folks kin spell out a heap o' reasons +but the true one--an' that's 'kase he likes it. Hil'ry 'ain't never +named that 'oman's name ter me, an' I hev knowed him ez well ez ennybody +hyar. Jes t'other day whenst that boy kem, bein' foolish an' maudlin, he +seen suthin' oncommon in Lee-yander's eyes--they'll be mighty oncommon +ef he keeps on readin' his tomfool book, ez he knows by heart, by the +firelight when it's dim. Ef folks air so sot agin strong drink, let 'em +drink less tharsefs. Hear Brother Peter Vickers preach agin liquor, an' +ye'd know ez all wine-bibbers air bound fur hell." + +"But the Bible don't name 'whiskey' once," said the man called Tom, in +an argumentative tone. "Low wines I'll gin ye up;" he made the +discrimination in accents betokening much reasonable admission; "but +nare time does the Bible name whiskey, nor yit peach brandy, nor +apple-jack." + +"Nor cider nor beer," put in an unexpected recruit from the darkness. + +The miller was silent for a moment, and gave token of succumbing to this +unexpected polemic strength. Then, taking thought and courage together, +"Ye can't say the Bible ain't down on 'strong drink'?" There was no +answer from the vanquished, and he went on in the overwhelming miller's +voice: "Hil'ry hed better be purtectin' hisself from strong drink, +'stiddier the boy--by makin' him stay up thar at the mill whar he knows +thar's no drinkin' goin' on--ez will git chances at it other ways, ef +not through him, in the long life he hev got ter live. The las' time the +revenuers got Hil'ry 'twar through bein' ez drunk ez a fraish-biled owl. +It makes me powerful oneasy whenever I know ye air all drunk an' +a-gallopadin' down hyar, an' no mo' able to act reasonable in case o' +need an' purtect yersefs agin spies an' revenuers an' sech 'n nuthin' in +this worl'. The las' raid, ye 'member, we hed the still over yander;" he +jerked his thumb in the direction present to his thoughts, but unseen by +his coadjutors; "a man war wounded, an' we dun'no' but what killed in +the scuffle, an' it mought be a hangin' matter ter git caught now. Ye +oughter keep sober; an' ye know, Isham, ye oughter keep Hil'ry sober. I +dun'no' why ye can't. I never could abide the nasty stuff--it's enough +ter turn a bullfrog's stomach. Whiskey is good ter sell--not ter drink. +Let them consarned idjits in the flat woods buy it, an' drink it. +Whiskey is good ter sell--not ter drink." + +This peculiar temperance argument was received in thoughtful silence, +the reason of all the mountaineers commending it, while certain of them +knew themselves and were known to be incapable of profiting by it. + +Nehemiah had scant interest in this conversation. He was conscious of +the strain on his attention as he followed it, that every point of the +situation should be noted, and its utility canvassed at a leisure +moment. He marked the allusion to the man supposed to have been killed +in the skirmish with the raiders, and he appraised its value as coercion +in any altercation that he might have in seeking to take Leander from +his present guardians. But he felt in elation that this was likely to be +of the slightest; the miller evidently found himself hampered rather +than helped by the employment of the boy; and as to the moonshiner's +sentimental partisanship, for the sake of an old attachment to the +dead-and-gone mountain girl, there was hardly anything in the universe +so tenuous as to bear comparison with its fragility. "A few drinks +ahead," he said to himself, with a sneer, "an' he won't remember who +Malviny Hixon was, ef thar is ennything in the old tale--which it's +more'n apt thar ain't." + +He began, after the fashion of successful people, to cavil because his +success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this +uncomfortable interlude! Why could he not have discovered Leander's +whereabouts earlier, and by now be jogging along the road home with the +boy by his side? Why had he not bethought himself of the mill in the +first instance--that focus of gossip where all the news of the +countryside is mysteriously garnered and thence dispensed bounteously to +all comers? It was useless, as he fretted and chafed at these untoward +omissions, to urge in his own behalf that he did not know of the +existence of the mill, and that the miller, being an ungenial and +choleric man, might have perversely lent himself to resisting his demand +for the custody of the young runaway. No, he told himself emphatically, +and with good logic, too, the miller's acrimony rose from the fact of a +stranger's discovery of the still and the danger of his introduction +into its charmed circle. And that reflection reminded him anew of his +own danger here--not from the lawless denizens of the place, but from +the forces which he himself had evoked, and again he glanced out toward +the water-fall as fearful of the raiders as any moonshiner of them all. + +But what sudden glory was on the waters, mystic, white, an opaque +brilliance upon the swirling foam and the bounding spray, a crystalline +glitter upon the smooth expanse of the swift cataract! The moon was in +the sky, and its light, with noiseless tread, sought out strange, lonely +places, and illusions were astir in the solitudes. Pensive peace, +thoughts too subtle for speech to shape, spiritual yearnings, were +familiars of the hour and of this melancholy splendor; but he knew none +of them, and the sight gave him no joy. He only thought that this was a +night for the saddle, for the quiet invasion of the woods, when the few +dwellers by the way-side were lost in slumber. He trembled anew at the +thought of the raiders whom he himself had summoned; he forgot his +curses on their laggard service; he upbraided himself again that he had +not earlier made shift to depart by some means--by any means--before the +night came with this great emblazoning bold-faced moon that but +prolonged the day; and he started to his feet with a galvanic jerk and a +sharp exclamation when swift steps were heard on the rocks outside, and +a man with the lightness of a deer sprang down the ledges and into the +great arched opening of the place. + +"'Tain't nobody but Hil'ry," observed Isham Beaton, half in reproach, +half in reassurance. + +The pervasive light without dissipated in some degree the gloom within +the grotto; a sort of gray visibility was on the appurtenances and the +figures about the still, not strong enough to suggest color, but giving +contour. His fright had been marked, he knew; a sort of surprised +reflectiveness was in the manner of several of the moonshiners, and +Nehemiah, with his ready fears, fancied that this inopportune show of +terror had revived their suspicions of him. It required some effort to +steady his nerves after this, and when footfalls were again audible +outside, and all the denizens of the place sat calmly smoking their +pipes without so much as a movement toward investigating the sound, he, +knowing whose steps he had invited thither, had great ado with the +coward within to keep still, as if he had no more reason to fear an +approach than they. + +A great jargon in the tone of ecstasy broke suddenly on the air upon +this new entrance, shattering what little composure Nehemiah had been +able to muster; a wide-mouthed exaggeration of welcome in superlative +phrases and ready chorus. Swiftly turning, he saw nothing for a moment, +for he looked at the height which a man's head might reach, and the +new-comer measured hardly two feet in stature, waddled with a very +uncertain gait, and although he bore himself with manifest complacence, +he had evidently heard the like before, as he was jovially hailed by +every ingratiating epithet presumed to be acceptable to his infant mind. +He was attended by a tall, gaunt boy of fifteen, barefooted, with +snaggled teeth and a shock of tow hair, wearing a shirt of unbleached +cotton, and a pair of trousers supported by a single suspender drawn +across a sharp, protuberant shoulder-blade behind and a very narrow +chest in front. But his face was proud and happy and gleeful, as if he +occupied some post of honor and worldly emolument in attending upon the +waddling wonder on the floor in front of him, instead of being assigned +the ungrateful task of seeing to it that a very ugly baby closely +related to him did not, with the wiliness and ingenuity of infant +nature, invent some method of making away with himself. For he _was_ an +ugly baby as he stood revealed in the flare of the furnace door, thrown +open that his admirers and friends might feast their eyes upon him. His +short wisps of red hair stood straight up in front; his cheeks were +puffy and round, but very rosy; his eyes were small and dark, but +blandly roguish; his mouth was wide and damp, and had in it a small +selection of sample teeth, as it were; he wore a blue checked homespun +dress garnished down the back with big horn buttons, sparsely set on; he +clasped his chubby hands upon a somewhat pompous stomach; he sidled +first to the right, then to the left, in doubt as to which of the +various invitations he should accept. + +"Kem hyar, Snooks!" "Right hyar, Toodles!" "Me hyar, Monkey Doodle!" +"Hurrah fur the leetle-est moonshiner on record!" resounded fulsomely +about him. Many were the compliments showered upon him, and if his +flatterers told lies, they had told more wicked ones. The pipes all went +out, and the broken-nosed pitcher languished in disuse as he trotted +from one pair of outstretched arms to another to give an exhibition of +his progress in the noble art of locomotion; and if he now and again sat +down, unexpectedly to himself and to the spectator, he was promptly put +upon his feet again with spurious applause and encouragement. He gave +an exhibition of his dancing--a funny little shuffle of exceeding +temerity, considering the facilities at his command for that agile +amusement, but he was made reckless by praise--and they all lied +valiantly in chorus. He repeated all the words he knew, which were few, +and for the most part unintelligible, crowed like a cock, barked like a +dog, mewed like a cat, and finally went away, his red cheeks yet more +ruddily aglow, grave and excited and with quickly beating pulses, like +one who has achieved some great public success and led captive the +hearts of thousands. + +The turmoils of his visit and his departure were great indeed. It all +irked Nehemiah Yerby, who had scant toleration of infancy and little +perception of the jocosity of the aspect of callow human nature, and it +seemed strange to him that these men, all with their liberty, even their +existence, jeopardized upon the chances that a moment might bring forth, +could so relax their sense of danger, so disregard the mandates of +stolid common-sense, and give themselves over to the puerile +beguilements of the visitor. The little animal was the son of one of +them, he knew, but he hardly guessed whom until he marked the paternal +pride and content that had made unwontedly placid the brow of the irate +miller while the ovation was in progress. Nehemiah greatly preferred the +adult specimen of the race, and looked upon youth as an infirmity which +would mend only with time. He was easily confused by a stir; the +gurglings, the ticklings, the loud laughter both in the deep bass of the +hosts and the keen treble of the guest had a befuddling effect upon him; +his powers of observation were numbed. As the great, burly forms +shifted to and fro, resuming their former places, the red light from the +open door of the furnace illumining their laughing, bearded +countenances, casting a roseate suffusion upon the white turmoils of the +cataract, and showing the rugged interior of the place with its damp and +dripping ledges, he saw for the first time among them Leander's slight +figure and smiling face; the violin was in his hand, one end resting on +a rock as he tightened a string; his eyes were bent upon the instrument, +while his every motion was earnestly watched by the would-be fiddler. + +Nehemiah started hastily to his feet. He had not expected that the boy +would see him here. To share with one of his own household a secret like +this of aiding in illicit distilling was more than his hardihood could +well contemplate. As once more the contemned "ping-pang" of the process +of tuning fell upon the air, Leander chanced to lift his eyes. They +smilingly swept the circle until they rested upon his uncle. They +suddenly dilated with astonishment, and the violin fell from his +nerveless hand upon the floor. The surprise, the fear, the repulsion his +face expressed suddenly emboldened Nehemiah. The boy evidently had not +been prepared for the encounter with his relative here. Its only +significance to his mind was the imminence of capture and of being +constrained to accompany his uncle home. He cast a glance of indignant +reproach upon Hilary Tarbetts, who was not even looking at him. The +moonshiner stood filling his pipe with tobacco, and as he deftly +extracted a coal from the furnace to set it alight, he shut the door +with a clash, and for a moment the whole place sunk into invisibility, +the vague radiance vouchsafed to the recesses of the grotto by the +moonbeams on the water without annihilated for the time by the contrast +with the red furnace glare. Nehemiah had a swift fear that in this +sudden eclipse Leander might slip softly out and thus be again lost to +him, but as the dull gray light gradually reasserted itself, and the +figures and surroundings emerged from the gloom, resuming shape and +consistency, he saw Leander still standing where he had disappeared in +the darkness; he could even distinguish his pale face and lustrous eyes. +Leander at least had no intention to shirk explanations. + +"Why, Uncle Nehemiah!" he said, his boyish voice ringing out tense and +excited above the tones of the men, once more absorbed in their wonted +interests. A sudden silence ensued amongst them. "What air ye a-doin' +hyar?" + +"Waal, ah, Lee-yander, boy--" Nehemiah hesitated. A half-suppressed +chuckle among the men, whom he had observed to be addicted to +horse-play, attested their relish of the situation. Ridicule is always +of unfriendly intimations, and the sound served to put Nehemiah on his +guard anew. He noticed that the glow in Hilary's pipe was still and +dull: the smoker did not even draw his breath as he looked and listened. +Yerby did not dare avow the true purpose of his presence after his +representations to the moonshiners, and yet he could not, he would not +in set phrase align himself with the illicit vocation. The boy was too +young, too irresponsible, too inimical to his uncle, he reflected in a +sudden panic, to be intrusted with this secret. If in his hap-hazard, +callow folly he should turn informer, he was almost too young to be +amenable to the popular sense of justice. He might, too, by some +accident rather than intention, divulge the important knowledge so +unsuitable to his years and his capacity for guarding it. He began to +share the miller's aversion to the introduction of outsiders to the +still. He felt a glow of indignation, as if he had always been a party +in interest, that the common safety should not be more jealously +guarded. The danger which Leander's youth and inexperience threatened +had not been so apparent to him when he first heard that the boy had +been here, and the menace was merely for the others. As he felt the +young fellow's eyes upon him he recalled the effusive piety of his +conversation at Tyler Sudley's house, his animadversions on +violin-playing and liquor-drinking, and Brother Peter Vickers's mild and +merciful attitude toward sinners in those unspiced sermons of his, that +held out such affluence of hope to the repentant rather than to the +self-righteous. The blood surged unseen into Nehemiah's face. For shame, +for very shame he could not confess himself one with these outcasts. He +made a feint of searching in the semi-obscurity for the rickety chair on +which he had been seated, and resumed his former attitude as Leander's +voice once more rang out: + +"What air ye a-doin' hyar, Uncle Nehemiah?" + +"Jes a-visitin', sonny; jes a-visitin'." + +There was a momentary pause, and the felicity of the answer was +demonstrated by another chuckle from the group. His senses, alert to the +emergency, discriminated a difference in the tone. This time the laugh +was with him rather than at him. He noted, too, Leander's dumfounded +pause, and the suggestion of discomfiture in the boy's lustrous eyes, +still widely fixed upon him. As Leander stooped to pick up the violin he +remarked with an incidental accent, and evidently in default of retort, +"I be powerful s'prised ter view ye hyar." + +Nehemiah smarted under the sense of unmerited reproach; so definitely +aware was he of being out of the character which he had assumed and worn +until it seemed even to him his own, that he felt as if he were +constrained to some ghastly masquerade. Even the society of the +moonshiners as their guest was a reproach to one who had always piously, +and in such involuted and redundant verbiage, spurned the ways and +haunts of the evil-doer. According to the dictates of policy he should +have rested content with his advantage over the silenced lad. But his +sense of injury engendered a desire of reprisal, and he impulsively +carried the war into the enemy's country. + +"I ain't in no ways s'prised ter view you-uns hyar, Lee-yander," he +said. "From the ways, Lee-yander, ez ye hev been brung up by them +slack-twisted Sudleys--ungodly folks 'ceptin' what little regeneration +they kin git from the sermons of Brother Peter Vickers, who air +onsartain in his mind whether folks ez ain't church-members air goin' +ter be damned or no--I ain't s'prised none ter view ye hyar." He +suddenly remembered poor Laurelia's arrogations of special piety, and +it was with exceeding ill will that he added: "An' Mis' Sudley in +partic'lar. Ty ain't no great shakes ez a shoutin' Christian. I dun'no' +ez I ever hearn him shout once, but his wife air one o' the reg'lar, +mournful, unrejicing members, always questioning the decrees of +Providence, an' what ain't no nigher salvation, ef the truth war knowed, +'n a sinner with the throne o' grace yit ter find." + +Leander had not picked up the violin; this disquisition had arrested his +hand until his intention was forgotten. He came slowly to the +perpendicular, and his eyes gleamed in the dusk. A vibration of anger +was in his voice as he retorted: + +"Mebbe so--mebbe they air sinners; but they'd look powerful comical +'visitin' hyar!" + +"Ty Sudley ain't one o' the drinkin' kind," interpolated the miller, who +evidently had the makings of a temperance man. "He never sot foot hyar +in his life." + +"Them ez kem a-visitin' hyar," blustered the boy, full of the +significance of his observations and experience, "air either wantin' a +drink or two 'thout payin' fur it, or else air tradin' fur liquor ter +sell, an' that's the same ez moonshinin' in the law." + +There was a roar of delight from the circle of lumpish figures about the +still which told the boy that he had hit very near to the mark. Nehemiah +hardly waited for it to subside before he made an effort to divert +Leander's attention. + +"An' what air _you-uns_ doin' hyar?" he demanded. "Tit for tat." + +"Why," bluffly declared Leander, "I be a-runnin' away from you-uns. An' +I 'lowed the still war one place whar I'd be sure o' not meetin' ye. +Not ez I hev got ennything agin moonshinin' nuther," he added, hastily, +mindful of a seeming reflection on his refuge. "Moonshinin' _is +business_, though the United States don't seem ter know it. But I hev +hearn ye carry on so pious 'bout not lookin' on the wine whenst it be +red, that I 'lowed ye wouldn't like ter look on the still whenst--whenst +it's yaller." He pointed with a burst of callow merriment at the big +copper vessel, and once more the easily excited mirth of the circle +burst forth irrepressibly. + +Encouraged by this applause, Leander resumed: "Why, _I_ even turns my +back on the still myself out'n respec' ter the family--Cap'n an' +Neighbor bein' so set agin liquor. Cap'n's ekal ter preachin' on it ef +ennything onexpected war ter happen ter Brother Vickers. An' when I +_hev_ ter view it, I look at it sorter cross-eyed." The flickering line +of light from the crevice of the furnace door showed that he was +squinting frightfully, with the much-admired eyes his mother had +bequeathed to him, at the rotund shadow, with the yellow gleams of the +metal barely suggested in the brown dusk. "So I tuk ter workin' at the +mill. An' _I_ hev got nuthin' ter do with the still." There was a pause. +Then, with a strained tone of appeal in his voice, for a future with +Uncle Nehemiah had seemed very terrible to him, "So ye warn't a-sarchin' +hyar fur me, war ye, Uncle Nehemiah?" + +Nehemiah was at a loss. There is a peculiar glutinous quality in the +resolve of a certain type of character which is not allied to +steadfastness of purpose, nor has it the enlightened persistence of +obstinacy. In view of his earlier account of his purpose he could not +avow his errand; it bereft him of naught to disavow it, for Uncle +Nehemiah was one of those gifted people who, in common parlance, do not +mind what they say. Yet his reluctance to assure Leander that he was not +the quarry that had led him into these wilds so mastered him, the +spurious relinquishment had so the aspect of renunciation, that he +hesitated, started to speak, again hesitated, so palpably that Hilary +Tarbetts felt impelled to take a hand in the game. + +"Why don't ye sati'fy the boy, Yerby?" he said, brusquely. He took his +pipe out of his mouth and turned to Leander. "Naw, bub. He's jes tradin' +fur bresh whiskey, that's all; he's sorter skeery 'bout bein' a +wild-catter, an' he didn't want ye ter know it." + +The point of red light, the glow of his pipe, the only exponent of his +presence in the dusky recess where he sat, shifted with a quick, +decisive motion as he restored it to his lips. + +The blood rushed to Nehemiah's head; he was dizzy for a moment; he heard +his heart thump heavily; he saw, or he fancied he saw, the luminous +distention of Leander's eyes as this Goliath of his battles was thus +delivered into his hands. To meet him here proved nothing; the law was +not violated by Nehemiah in the mere knowledge that illicit whiskey was +in process of manufacture; a dozen different errands might have brought +him. But this statement put a sword, as it were, into the boy's hands, +and he dared not deny it. + +"'Pears ter me," he blurted out at last, "ez ye air powerful slack with +yer jaw." + +"Lee-yander ain't," coolly returned Tarbetts. "He knows all thar is ter +know 'bout we-uns--an' why air ye not ter share our per'ls?" + +"I ain't likely ter tell," Leander jocosely reassured him. "But I can't +help thinkin' how it would rejice that good Christian 'oman, Cap'n +Sudley, ez war made ter set on sech a low stool 'bout my pore old +fiddle." + +And thus reminded of the instrument, he picked it up, and once more, +with the bow held aloft in his hand, he dexterously twanged the strings, +and with his deft fingers rapidly and discriminatingly turned the +screws, this one up and that one down. The earnest would-be musician, +who had languished while the discussion was in progress, now plucked up +a freshened interest, and begged that the furnace door might be set ajar +to enable him to watch the process of tuning and perchance to detect its +subtle secret. No objection was made, for the still was nearly empty, +and arrangements tending to replenishment were beginning to be +inaugurated by several of the men, who were examining the mash in tubs +in the further recesses of the place. They were lighted by a lantern +which, swinging to and fro as they moved, sometimes so swiftly as to +induce a temporary fluctuation threatening eclipse, suggested in the +dusk the erratic orbit of an abnormally magnified fire-fly. It barely +glimmered, the dullest point of white light, when the rich flare from +the opening door of the furnace gushed forth and the whole rugged +interior was illumined with its color. The inadequate moonlight fell +away; the chastened white splendor on the foam of the cataract, the +crystalline glitter, timorously and elusively shifting, were +annihilated; the swiftly descending water showed from within only a +continuously moving glow of yellow light, all the brighter from the +dark-seeming background of the world glimpsed without. A wind had risen, +unfelt in these recesses and on the weighty volume of the main sheet of +falling water, but at its verge the fitful gusts diverted its downward +course, tossing slender jets aslant, and sending now and again a shower +of spray into the cavern. Nehemiah remembered his rheumatism with a +shiver. The shadows of the men, instead of an unintelligible +comminglement with the dusk, were now sharp and distinct, and the light +grotesquely duplicated them till the cave seemed full of beings who were +not there a moment before--strange gnomes, clumsy and burly, slow of +movement, but swift and mysterious of appearance and disappearance. The +beetling ledges here and there imprinted strong black similitudes of +their jagged contours on the floor; with the glowing, weird illumination +the place seemed far more uncanny than before, and Leander, with his +face pensive once more in response to the gentle strains slowly elicited +by the bow trembling with responsive ecstasy, his large eyes full of +dreamy lights, his curling hair falling about his cheek as it rested +upon the violin, his figure, tall and slender and of an adolescent +grace, might have suggested to the imagination a reminiscence of Orpheus +in Hades. They all listened in languid pleasure, without the effort to +appraise the music or to compare it with other performances--the bane of +more cultured audiences; only the ardent amateur, seated close at hand +on a bowlder, watched the bowing with a scrutiny which betokened +earnest anxiety that no mechanical trick might elude him. The miller's +half-grown son, whose ear for any fine distinctions in sound might be +presumed to have been destroyed by the clamors of the mill, sat a trifle +in the background, and sawed away on an imaginary violin with many +flourishes and all the exaggerations of mimicry; he thus furnished the +zest of burlesque relished by the devotees of horse-play and simple +jests, and was altogether unaware that he had a caricature in his shadow +just behind him, and was doing double duty in making both Leander and +himself ridiculous. Sometimes he paused in excess of interest when the +music elicited an amusement more to his mind than the long-drawn, +pathetic cadences which the violinist so much affected. For in sudden +changes of mood and in effective contrast the tones came showering forth +in keen, quick staccato, every one as round and distinct as a globule, +but as unindividualized in the swift exuberance of the whole as a drop +in a summer's rain; the bow was but a glancing line of light in its +rapidity, and the bounding movement of the theme set many a foot astir +marking time. At last one young fellow, an artist too in his way, laid +aside his pipe and came out to dance. A queer _pas seul_ it might have +been esteemed, but he was light and agile and not ungraceful, and he +danced with an air of elation--albeit with a grave face--which added to +the enjoyment of the spectator, for it seemed so slight an effort. He +was long-winded, and was still bounding about in the double-shuffle and +the pigeon-wing, his shadow on the wall nimbly following every motion, +when the violin's cadence quavered off in a discordant wail, and +Leander, the bow pointed at the water-fall, exclaimed: "Look out! +Somebody's thar! Out thar on the rocks!" + +It was upon the instant, with the evident intention of a surprise, that +a dozen armed men rushed precipitately into the place. Nehemiah, his +head awhirl, hardly distinguished the events as they were confusedly +enacted before him. There were loud, excited calls, unintelligible, +mouthing back in the turbulent echoes of the place, the repeated word +"Surrender!" alone conveying meaning to his mind. The sharp, succinct +note of a pistol-shot was a short answer. Some quick hand closed the +door of the furnace and threw the place into protective gloom. He was +vaguely aware that a prolonged struggle that took place amongst a group +of men near him was the effort of the intruders to reopen it. All +unavailing. He presently saw figures drawing back to the doorway out of +the _melee_, for moonshiner and raider were alike indistinguishable, and +he became aware that both parties were equally desirous to gain the +outer air. Once more pistol-shots--outside this time--then a tumult of +frenzied voices. Struck by a pistol-ball, Tarbetts had fallen from the +ledge under the weight of the cataract and into the deep abysses below. +The raiders were swiftly getting to saddle again. Now and then a crack +mountain shot drew a bead upon them from the bushes; but mists were +gathering, the moon was uncertain, and the flickering beams deflected +the aim. Two or three of the horses lay dead on the river-bank, and +others carried double, ridden by men with riddled hats. They were in +full retreat, for the catastrophe on the ledge of the cliff struck +dismay to their hearts. Had the man been shot, according to the +expectation of those who resist arrest, this would be merely the logical +sequence of events. But to be hurled from a crag into a cataract savored +of atrocity, and they dreaded the reprisals of capture. + +[Illustration: "'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'"] + +It was soon over. The whole occurrence, charged with all the +definitiveness of fate, was scant ten minutes in transition. A laggard +hoof-beat, a faint echo amidst the silent gathering of the moonlit +mists, and the loud plaint of Hoho-hebee Falls were the only sounds that +caught Nehemiah's anxious ear when he crept out from behind the empty +barrels and tremulously took his way along the solitary ledges, ever and +anon looking askance at his shadow, that more than once startled him +with a sense of unwelcome companionship. The mists, ever thickening, +received him into their midst. However threatening to the retreat of the +raiders, they were friendly to him. Once, indeed, they parted, showing +through the gauzy involutions of their illumined folds the pale moon +high in the sky, and close at hand a horse's head just above his own, +with wild, dilated eyes and quivering nostrils. Its effect was as +detached as if it were only drawn upon a canvas; the mists rolled over +anew, and but that he heard the subdued voice of the rider urging the +animal on, and the thud of the hoofs farther away, he might have thought +this straggler from the revenue party some wild illusion born of his +terrors. + +The fate of Hilary Tarbetts remained a mystery. When the stream was +dragged for his body it was deemed strange that it should not be found, +since the bowlders that lay all adown the rocky gorge so interrupted the +sweep of the current that so heavy a weight seemed likely to be caught +amongst them. Others commented on the strength and great momentum of the +flow, and for this reason it was thought that in some dark underground +channel of Hide-and-Seek Creek the moonshiner had found his sepulchre. A +story of his capture was circulated after a time; it was supposed that +he dived and swam ashore after his fall, and that the raiders overtook +him on their retreat, and that he was now immured, a Federal prisoner. +The still and all the effects of the brush-whiskey trade disappeared as +mysteriously, and doubtless this silent flitting gave rise to the +hopeful rumor that Tarbetts had been seen alive and well since that +fateful night, and that in some farther recesses of the wilderness, +undiscovered by the law, he and like comrades continue their chosen +vocation. However that may be, the vicinity of Hoho-hebee Falls, always +a lonely place, is now even a deeper solitude. The beavers, unmolested, +haunt the ledges; along their precipitous ways the deer come down to +drink; on bright days the rainbow hovers about the falls; on bright +nights they glimmer in the moon; but never again have they glowed with +the shoaling orange light of the furnace, intensifying to the deep tawny +tints of its hot heart, like the rich glamours of some great topaz. + +This alien glow it was thought had betrayed the place to the raiders, +and Nehemiah's instrumentality was never discovered. The post-office +appointment was bestowed upon his rival for the position, and it was +thought somewhat strange that he should endure the defeat with such +exemplary resignation. No one seemed to connect his candidacy with his +bootless search for his nephew. When Leander chanced to be mentioned, +however, he observed with some rancor that he reckoned it was just as +well he didn't come up with Lee-yander; there was generally mighty +little good in a runaway boy, and Lee-yander had the name of being +disobejent an' turr'ble bad. + +Leander found a warm welcome at home. His violin had been broken in the +_melee_, and the miller, though ardently urged, never could remember the +spot where he had hidden the book--such havoc had the confusion of that +momentous night wrought in his mental processes. Therefore, unhampered +by music or literature, Leander addressed himself to the plough-handles, +and together that season he and "Neighbor" made the best crop of their +lives. + +Laurelia sighed for the violin and Leander's music, though, as she +always made haste to say, some pious people misdoubted whether it were +not a sinful pastime. On such occasions it went hard with Leander not to +divulge his late experiences and the connection of the pious Uncle +Nehemiah therewith. But he always remembered in time Laurelia's +disability to receive confidences, being a woman, and consequently +unable to keep a secret, and he desisted. + +One day, however, when he and Ty Sudley, ploughing the corn, now +knee-high, were pausing to rest in the turn-row, a few furrows apart, in +an ebullition of filial feeling he told all that had befallen him in +his absence. Ty Sudley, divided between wrath toward Nehemiah and +quaking anxiety for the dangers that Leander had been constrained to +run--_ex post facto_ tremors, but none the less acute--felt moved now +and then to complacence in his prodigy. + +"So 'twar _you-uns_ ez war smart enough ter slam the furnace door an' +throw the whole place inter darkness! That saved them moonshiners and +raiders from killin' each other. It saved a deal o' bloodshed--ez sure +ez shootin'. 'Twar mighty smart in ye. But"--suddenly bethinking himself +of sundry unfilial gibes at Uncle Nehemiah and the facetious account of +his plight--"Lee-yander, ye mustn't be so turr'ble bad, sonny; ye +_mustn't_ be so _turr'ble_ bad." + +"Naw, ma'am, Neighbor, I won't," Leander protested. + +And he went on following the plough down the furrow and singing loud and +clear. + + + + +THE RIDDLE OF THE ROCKS + + +Upon the steep slope of a certain "bald" among the Great Smoky Mountains +there lie, just at the verge of the strange stunted woods from which the +treeless dome emerges to touch the clouds, two great tilted blocks of +sandstone. They are of marked regularity of shape, as square as if hewn +with a chisel. Both are splintered and fissured; one is broken in twain. +No other rock is near. The earth in which they are embedded is the rich +black soil not unfrequently found upon the summits. Nevertheless no +great significance might seem to attach to their isolation--an +outcropping of ledges, perhaps; a fracture of the freeze; a trace of +ancient denudation by the waters of the spring in the gap, flowing now +down the trough of the gorge in a silvery braid of currents, and with a +murmur that is earnest of a song. + +It may have been some distortion of the story heard only from the lips +of the circuit rider, some fantasy of tradition invested with the +urgency of fact, but Roger Purdee could not remember the time when he +did not believe that these were the stone tables of the Law that Moses +flung down from the mountain-top in his wrath. In the dense ignorance of +the mountaineer, and his secluded life, he knew of no foreign +countries, no land holier than the land of his home. There was no +incongruity to his mind that it should have been in the solemn silence +and austere solitude of the "bald," in the magnificent ascendency of the +Great Smoky, that the law-giver had met the Lord and spoken with Him. +Often as he lay at length on the strange barren place, veiled with the +clouds that frequented it, a sudden sunburst in their midst would +suggest anew what supernal splendors had once been here vouchsafed to +the faltering eye of man. The illusion had come to be very dear to him; +in this insistent localization of his faith it was all very near. And so +he would go down to the slope below, among the weird, stunted trees, and +look once more upon the broken tables, and ponder upon the strange signs +written by time thereon. The insistent fall of the rain, the incisive +blasts of the wind, coming again and again, though the centuries went, +were registered here in mystic runes. The surface had weathered to a +whitish-gray, but still in tiny depressions its pristine dark color +showed in rugose characters. A splintered fissure held delicate fucoid +impressions in fine script full of meaning. A series of worm-holes +traced erratic hieroglyphics across a scaling corner; all the varied +texts were illuminated by quartzose particles glittering in the sun, and +here and there fine green grains of glauconite. He knew no names like +these, and naught of meteorological potency. He had studied no other +rock. His casual notice had been arrested nowhere by similar signs. +Under the influence of his ignorant superstition, his cherished +illusion, the lonely wilderness, what wonder that, as he pondered upon +the rocks, strange mysteries seemed revealed to him? He found +significance in these cabalistic scriptures--nay, he read inspired +words! With the ramrod of his gun he sought to follow the fine tracings +of the letters writ by the finger of the Lord on the stone tables that +Moses flung down from the mountain-top in his wrath. + +With a devout thankfulness Purdee realized that he owned the land where +they lay. It was worth, perhaps, a few cents an acre; it was utterly +untillable, almost inaccessible, and his gratulation owed its fervor +only to its spiritual values. He was an idle and shiftless fellow, and +had known no glow of acquisition, no other pride of possession. He +herded cattle much of the time in the summer, and he hunted in the +winter--wolves chiefly, their hair being long and finer at this season, +and the smaller furry gentry; for he dealt in peltry. And so, despite +the vastness of the mountain wilds, he often came and knelt beside the +rocks with his rifle in his hand, and sought anew to decipher the mystic +legends. His face, bending over the tables of the Law with the earnest +research of a student, with the chastened subduement of devotion, with +all the calm sentiments of reverie, lacked something of its normal +aspect. When a sudden stir of the leaves or the breaking of a twig +recalled him to the world, and he would lift his head, it might hardly +seem the same face, so heavy was the lower jaw, so insistent and +coercive his eye. But if he took off his hat to place therein his cotton +bandana handkerchief or (if he were in luck and burdened with game) the +scalp of a wild-cat--valuable for the bounty offered by the State--he +showed a broad, massive forehead that added the complement of +expression, and suggested a doubt if it were ferocity his countenance +bespoke or force. His long black hair hung to his shoulders, and he wore +a tangled black beard; his deep-set dark blue eyes were kindled with the +fires of imagination. He was tall, and of a commanding presence but for +his stoop and his slouch. His garments seemed a trifle less well ordered +than those of his class, and bore here and there the traces of the blood +of beasts; on his trousers were grass stains deeply grounded, for he +knelt often to get a shot, and in meditation beside the rocks. He spent +little time otherwise upon his knees, and perhaps it was some intuition +of this fact that roused the wrath of certain brethren of the +camp-meeting when he suddenly appeared among them, arrogating to himself +peculiar spiritual experiences, proclaiming that his mind had been +opened to strange lore, repeating thrilling, quickening words that he +declared he had read on the dead rocks whereon were graven the +commandments of the Lord. The tumultuous tide of his rude eloquence, his +wild imagery, his ecstasy of faith, rolled over the assembly and awoke +it anew to enthusiasms. Much that he said was accepted by the more +intelligent ministers who led the meeting as figurative, as the finer +fervors of truth, and they felt the responsive glow of emotion and +quiver of sympathy. He intended it in its simple, literal significance. +And to the more local members of the congregation the fact was patent. + +"Sech a pack o' lies hev seldom been tole in the hearin' o' Almighty +Gawd," said Job Grinnell, a few days after the breaking up of camp. He +was rehearsing the proceedings at the meeting partly for the joy of +hearing himself talk, and partly at the instance of his wife, who had +been prevented from attending by the inopportune illness of one of the +children. "Ez I loant my ear ter the words o' that thar brazen buzzard I +eyed him constant. Fur I looked ter see the jedgmint o' the Lord descend +upon him like S'phira an' An'ias." + +"_Who?_" asked his wife, pausing in her task of picking up chips. He had +spoken of them so familiarly that one might imagine they lived close by +in the cove. + +"An'ias an' S'phira--them in the Bible ez war streck by lightnin' fur +lyin'," he explained. + +"I 'member _her_," she said. "S'phia, I calls her." + +"Waal, A'gusta, _S'phira_ do me jes ez well," he said, with the +momentary sulkiness of one corrected. "Thar war a man along, though. An' +'pears ter me thar war powerful leetle jestice in thar takin' off, ef +Roger Purdee be 'lowed ter stan' up thar in the face o' the meetin' an' +lie so ez no yearthly critter in the worl' could b'lieve him--'ceptin' +Brother Jacob Page, ez 'peared plumb out'n his head with religion, an' +got ter shoutin' when this Purdee tuk ter tellin' the law he read on +them rocks--Moses' tables, folks calls 'em--up yander in the mounting." + +He nodded upward toward the great looming range above them. His house +was on a spur of the mountain, overshadowed by it; shielded. It was to +him the Almoner of Fate. One by one it doled out the days, dawning from +its summit; and thence, too, came the darkness and the glooms of night. +One by one it liberated from the enmeshments of its tangled wooded +heights the constellations to gladden the eye and lure the fancy. Its +largess of silver torrents flung down its slopes made fertile the little +fields, and bestowed a lilting song on the silence, and took a turn at +the mill-wheel, and did not disdain the thirst of the humble cattle. It +gave pasturage in summer, and shelter from the winds of the winter. It +was the assertive feature of his life; he could hardly have imagined +existence without "the mounting." + +"Tole what he read on them rocks--yes, sir, ez glib ez swallerin' a +persimmon. 'Twarn't the reg'lar ten comman'ments--some cur'ous new +texts--jes a-rollin' 'em out ez sanctified ez ef he hed been called ter +preach the gospel! An' thar war Brother Eden Bates a-answerin' 'Amen' +ter every one. An' Brother Jacob Page: 'Glory, brother! Ye hev received +the outpourin' of the Sperit! Shake hands, brother!' An' sech ez that. +Ter hev hearn the commotion they raised about that thar derned lyin' +sinner ye'd hev 'lowed the meetin' war held ter glorify him stiddier the +Lord." + +Job Grinnell himself was a most notorious Christian. Renown, however, +with him could never be a superfluity, or even a sufficiency, and he +grudged the fame that these strange spiritual utterances were acquiring. +He had long enjoyed the distinction of being considered a miraculous +convert; his rescue from the wily enticements of Satan had been +celebrated with much shaking and clapping of hands, and cries of +"Glory," and muscular ecstasy. His religious experiences thenceforth, +his vacillations of hope and despair, had been often elaborated amongst +the brethren. But his was a conventional soul; its expression was in the +formulas and platitudes of the camp-meeting. They sank into oblivion in +the excitement attendant upon Purdee's wild utterances from the mystic +script of the rocks. + +As Grinnell talked, he often paused in his work to imitate the +gesticulatory enthusiasms of the saints at the camp-meeting. He was a +thickset fellow of only medium height, and was called, somewhat +invidiously, "a chunky man." His face was broad, prosaic, good-natured, +incapable of any fine gradations of expression. It indicated an +elementary rage or a sluggish placidity. He had a ragged beard of a +reddish hue, and hair a shade lighter. He wore blue jeans trousers and +an unbleached cotton shirt, and the whole system depended on one +suspender. He was engaged in skimming a great kettle of boiling sorghum +with a perforated gourd, which caught the scum and strained the liquor. +The process was primitive, instead of the usual sorghum boiler and +furnace, the kettle was propped upon stones laid together so as to +concentrate the heat of the fire. His wife was continually feeding the +flames with chips which she brought in her apron from the wood-pile. Her +countenance was half hidden in her faded pink sun-bonnet, which, +however, did not obscure an expression responsive to that on the man's +face. She did not grudge Purdee the salvation he had found; she only +grudged him the prestige he had derived from its unique method. + +"Why can't the critter elude Satan with less n'ise?" she asked, +acrimoniously. + +"Edzackly," her husband chimed in. + +Now and then both turned a supervisory glance at the sorghum mill down +the slope at some little distance, and close to the river. It had been a +long day for the old white mare, still trudging round and round the +mill; perhaps a long day as well for the two half-grown boys, one of +whom fed the machine, thrusting into it a stalk at a time, while the +other brought in his arms fresh supplies from the great pile of sorghum +cane hard by. + +All the door-yard of the little log cabin was bedaubed with the scum of +the sorghum which Job Grinnell flung from his perforated gourd upon the +ground. The idle dogs--and there were many--would find, when at last +disposed to move, a clog upon their nimble feet. They often sat down +with a wrinkling of brows and a puzzled expression of muzzle to +investigate their gelatinous paws with their tongues, not without +certain indications of pleasure, for the sorghum was very sweet; some of +them, that had acquired the taste for it from imitating the children, +openly begged. + +One, a gaunt hound, hardly seemed so idle; he had a purpose in life, if +it might not be called a profession. He lay at length, his paws +stretched out before him, his head upon them; his big brown eyes were +closed only at intervals; ever and again they opened watchfully at the +movement of a small child, ten months old, perhaps, dressed in pink +calico, who sat in the shadow formed by the protruding clay and stick +chimney, and played by bouncing up and down and waving her fat hands, +which seemed a perpetual joy and delight of possession to her. Take her +altogether, she was a person of prepossessing appearance, despite her +frank display of toothless gums, and around her wide mouth the unseemly +traces of sorghum. She had the plumpest graces of dimples in every +direction, big blue eyes with long lashes, the whitest possible skin, +and an extraordinary pair of pink feet, which she rubbed together in +moments of joy as if she had mistaken them for her hands. Although she +sputtered a good deal, she had a charming, unaffected laugh, with the +giggle attachment natural to the young of her sex. + +Suddenly there sounded an echo of it, as it were--a shrill, nervous +little whinny; the boys whirled round to see whence it came. The +persistent rasping noise of the sorghum mill and the bubbling of the +caldron had prevented them from hearing an approach. There, quite close +at hand, peering through the rails of the fence, was a little girl of +seven or eight years of age. + +"I wanter kem in an' see you-uns's baby!" she exclaimed, in a high, +shrill voice. "I want to pat it on the head." + +She was a forlorn little specimen, very thin and sharp-featured. Her +homespun dress was short enough to show how fragile were the long lean +legs that supported her. The curtain of her sun-bonnet, which was +evidently made for a much larger person, hung down nearly to the hem of +her skirt; as she turned and glanced anxiously down the road, evidently +suspecting a pursuer, she looked like an erratic sun-bonnet out for a +stroll on a pair of borrowed legs. + +She turned again suddenly and applied her thin, freckled little face to +the crack between the rails. She smiled upon the baby, who smiled in +response, and gave a little bounce that might be accounted a courtesy. +The younger of the boys left the cane pile and ran up to his brother at +the mill, which was close to the fence. "Don't ye let her do it," he +said, venomously. "That thar gal is one of the Purdee fambly. I know +her. Don't let her in." And he ran back to the cane. + +Grinnell had seemed pleased by this homage at the shrine of the family +idol; but at the very mention of the "Purdee fambly" his face hardened, +an angry light sprang into his eyes, and his gesture in skimming with +the perforated gourd the scum from the boiling sorghum was as energetic +as if with the action he were dashing the "Purdee fambly" from off the +face of the earth. It was an ancient feud; his grandfather and some +contemporary Purdee had fallen out about the ownership of certain +vagrant cattle; there had been blows and bloodshed, other members of the +connection had been dragged into the controversy; summary reprisals were +followed by counter-reprisals. Barns were mysteriously fired, hen-roosts +robbed, horses unaccountably lamed, sheep feloniously sheared by unknown +parties; the feeling widened and deepened, and had been handed down to +the present generation with now and then a fresh provocation, on the +part of one or the other, to renew and continue the rankling old +grudges. + +[Illustration: "SHE SMILED UPON THE BABY"] + +And here stood the hereditary enemy, wanting to pat their baby on the +head. + +"Naw, sir, ye won't!" exclaimed the boy at the mill, greatly incensed at +the boldness of this proposition, glaring at the lean, tender, wistful +little face between the rails of the fence. + +But the baby, who had not sense enough to know anything about hereditary +enemies, bounced and laughed and gurgled and sputtered with glee, and +waved her hands, and had never looked fatter or more beguiling. + +"I jes wanter pat it wunst," sighed the hereditary enemy, with a lithe +writhing of her thin little anatomy in the anguish of denial--"_jes +wunst!_" + +"Naw, sir!" exclaimed the youthful Grinnell, more insistently than +before. He did not continue, for suddenly there came running down the +road a boy of his own size, out of breath, and red and angry--the +pursuer, evidently, that the hereditary enemy had feared, for she +crouched up against the fence with a whimper. + +"Kem along away from thar, ye miser'ble little stack o' bones!" he +cried, seizing his sister by one hand and giving her a jerk--"a-foolin' +round them Grinnells' fence an' a-hankerin' arter thar old baby!" + +He felt that the pride of the Purdee family was involved in this +admission of envy. + +"I jes wanter pat it on the head _wunst_," she sighed. + +"Waal, ye won't now," said the Grinnell boys in chorus. + +The Purdee grasp was gentler on the little girl's arm. This was due not +to fraternal feeling so much as to loyalty to the clan; "stack o' +bones" though she was, they were Purdee bones. + +"Kem along," Ab Purdee exhorted her. "A baby ain't nuthin' extry, +nohow"--he glanced scoffingly at the infantile Grinnell. "The mountings +air fairly a-roamin' with 'em." + +"We-uns 'ain't got none at our house," whined the sun-bonnet, +droopingly, moving off slowly on its legs, which, indeed, seemed +borrowed, so unsteady and loath to go they were. + +The Grinnell boys laughed aloud, jeeringly and ostentatiously, and the +Purdee blood was moved to retort: "We-uns don't want none sech ez that. +Nary tooth in her head!" + +And indeed the widely stretched babbling lips displayed a vast vacuity +of gum. + +Job Grinnell, who had listened with an attentive ear to the talk of the +children, had nevertheless continued his constant skimming of the scum. +Now he rose from his bent posture, tossed the scum upon the ground, and +with the perforated gourd in his hand turned and looked at his wife. +Augusta had dropped her apron and chips, and stood with folded arms +across her breast, her face wearing an expression of exasperated +expectancy. + +The Grinnell boys were humbled and abashed. The wicked scion of the +Purdee house, joying to note how true his shaft had sped, was again +fitting his bow. + +"An' ez bald-headed ez the mounting." + +The baby had a big precedent, but although no peculiar shame attaches to +the bare pinnacle of the summit, she--despite the difference in size +and age--was expected to show up more fully furnished, and in keeping +with the rule of humanity and the gentilities of life. + +No teeth, no hair, no sign of any: the fact that she was so backward was +a sore point with all the family. Job Grinnell suddenly dropped the +perforated gourd, and started down toward the fence. The acrimony of the +old feud was as a trait bred in the bone. Such hatred as was inherent in +him was evoked by his religious jealousies, and the pious sense that he +was following the traditions of his elders and upholding the family +honor blended in gentlest satisfaction with his personal animosity +toward Roger Purdee as he noticed the boy edging off from the fence to a +safe distance. He eyed him derisively for a moment. + +"Kin ye kerry a message straight?" The boy looked up with an expression +of sullen acquiescence, but said nothing. "Ax yer dad--an' ye kin tell +him the word kems from me--whether he hev read sech ez this on the +lawgiver's stone tables yander in the mounting: 'An' ye shall claim sech +ez be yourn, an' yer neighbor's belongings shall ye in no wise +boastfully medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covetiousness, nor +yit git up a big name in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's.'" + +He laughed silently--a twinkling, wrinkling demonstration over all his +broad face--a laugh that was younger than the man, and would have +befitted a square-faced boy. + +The youthful Purdee, expectant of a cuffing, stood his ground more +doubtfully still under the insidious thrusts of this strange weapon, +sarcasm. He knew that they were intended to hurt; he was wounded +primarily in the intention, but the exact lesion he could not locate. He +could meet a threat with a bold face, and return a blow with the best. +But he was mortified in this failure of understanding, and perplexity +cowed him as contention could not. He hung his head with its sullen +questioning eyes, and he found great solace in a jagged bit of cloth on +the torn bosom of his shirt, which he could turn in his embarrassed +fingers. + +"Whar be yer dad?" Grinnell asked. + +"Up yander in the mounting," replied the subdued Purdee. + +"A-readin' of mighty s'prisin' matter writ on the rocks o' the yearth!" +exclaimed Grinnell, with a laugh. "Waal, jes keep that sayin' o' mine in +yer head, an' tell him when he kems home. An' look a-hyar, ef enny mo' +o' his stray shoats kem about hyar, I'll snip thar ears an' gin 'em my +mark." + +The youth of the Purdee clan meditated on this for a moment. He could +not remember that they had missed any shoats. Then the full meaning of +the phrase dawned upon him--it was he and the wiry little sister thus +demeaned with a porcine appellation, and whose ears were threatened. He +looked up at the fence, the little low house, the barn close by, the +sorghum mill, the drying leaves of tobacco on the scaffold, the +saltatory baby; his eyes filled with helpless tears, that could not +conceal the burning hatred he was born to bear them all. He was hot and +cold by turns; he stood staring, silent and defiant, motionless, sullen. +He heard the melodic measure of the river, with its crystalline, keen +vibrations against the rocks; the munching teeth of the old +mare--allowed to come to a stand-still that the noise of the sorghum +mill might not impinge upon the privileges of the quarrel; and the high, +ecstatic whinny of the little sister waiting on the opposite bank of the +river, having crossed the foot-bridge. There the Grinnell baby had +chanced to spy her, and had bounced and grinned and sputtered affably. +It was she who had made all the trouble yearning after the Grinnell +baby. + +He would not stay, however, to be ignominiously beaten, for Grinnell had +turned away, and was looking about the ground as if in search of a thick +stick. He accounted himself no craven, thus numerically at a +disadvantage, to turn shortly about, take his way down the rocky slope, +cross the foot-bridge, jerk the little girl by one hand and lead her +whimpering off, while the round-eyed Grinnell baby stared gravely after +her with inconceivable emotions. These presently resulted in rendering +her cross; she whined a little and rubbed her eyes, and, smarting from +her own ill-treatment of them, gave a sharp yelp of dismay. The old dog +arose and went and sat close by her, eying her solemnly and wagging his +tail, as if begging her to observe how content he was. His dignity was +somewhat impaired by sudden abrupt snaps at flies, which caused her to +wink, stare, and be silent in astonishment. + +"Waal, Job Grinnell," exclaimed Augusta, as her husband came back and +took the perforated gourd from her hand--for she had been skimming the +sorghum in his absence--"ye air the longest-tongued man, ter be so +short-legged, I ever see!" + +He looked a trifle discomfited. He had deported himself with unwonted +decision, conscious that Augusta was looking on, and in truth somewhat +supported by the expectation of her approval. + +"What ails ye ter say words ye can't abide by--ye 'low ye 'pear so +graceful on the back track?" she asked. + +He bent over the sorghum, silently skimming. His composure was somewhat +ruffled, and in throwing away the scum his gesture was of negligent and +discursive aim; the boiling fluid bespattered the foot of one of the +omnipresent dogs, whose shrieks rent the sky and whose activity on three +legs amazed the earth. He ran yelping to Mrs. Grinnell, nearly +overturning her in his turbulent demand for sympathy; then scampered +across to the boys, who readily enough stopped their work to examine the +wounded member and condole with its wheezing proprietor. + +"What ye mean, A'gusta?" Grinnell said at length. "Kase I 'lowed I'd cut +thar ears? I ain't foolin'. Kem meddlin' about remarkin' on our chill'n +agin, I'll show 'em." + +Augusta looked at him in exasperation. "I ain't keerin' ef all the +Purdees war deef," she remarked, inhumanly, "but what war them words ye +sent fur a message ter Purdee?--'bout pridin' on what ain't theirn." + +Grinnell in his turn looked at her--but dubiously. However much a man is +under the domination of his wife, he is seldom wholly frank. It is in +this wise that his individuality is preserved to him. "I war jes +wantin' ter know ef them words war on the rocks," he said with a +disingenuousness worthy of a higher culture. + +She received this with distrust. "I kin tell ye now--they ain't," she +said, discriminatingly; "Purdee's words don't sound like _them_." + +"Waal, now, what's the differ?" he demanded, with an indignation natural +enough to aspiring humanity detecting a slur upon one's literary style. + +"Waal--" she paused as she knelt down to feed the fire, holding the +fragrant chips in her hand; the flame flickered out and lighted up her +reflective eyes while she endeavored to express the distinction she +felt: "Purdee's words don't sound ter me like the words of a man sech ez +men be." + +Grinnell wrinkled his brows, trying to follow her here. + +"They sound ter me like the words spoke in a dream--the pernouncings of +a vision." Mrs. Grinnell fancied that she too had a gift of Biblical +phraseology. "They sound ter me like things I hearn whenst I war +a-hungered arter righteousness an' seekin' religion, an' bided alone in +the wilderness a-waitin' o' the Sperit." + +"'Gusta!" suddenly exclaimed her husband, with the cadence of amazed +conviction, "ye b'lieve the lie o' that critter, an' that he reads the +words o' the Lord on the rock!" + +She looked up a little startled. She had been unconscious of the +circuitous approaches of credence, and shared his astonishment in the +conclusion. + +"Waal, sir!" he said, more hurt and cast down than one would have +deemed possible. "I'm willin' ter hev it so. I'm jes nuthin' but a +sinner an' a fool, ripenin' fur damnation, an' he air a saint o' the +yearth!" + +Now such sayings as this were frequent upon Job Grinnell's tongue. He +did not believe them; their utility was in their challenge to +contradiction. Thus they often promoted an increased cordiality of the +domestic relations and an accession of self-esteem. + +Augusta, however, was tired; the boiling sorghum and the September sun +were debilitating in their effects. There was something in the scene +with the youthful Purdee that grated upon her half-developed +sensibilities. The baby was whimpering outright, and the cow was lowing +at the bars. She gave her irritation the luxury of withholding the salve +to Grinnell's wounded vanity. She said nothing. The tribute to Purdee +went for what it was worth, and he was forced to swallow the humble-pie +he had taken into his mouth, albeit it stuck in his throat. + +A shadow seemed to have fallen into the moral atmosphere as the gentle +dusk came early on. One had a sense as if bereft, remembering that so +short a time ago at this hour the sun was still high, and that the +full-pulsed summer day throbbed to a climax of color and bloom and +redundant life. Now, the scent of harvests was on the air; in the +stubble of the sorghum patch she saw a quail's brood more than +half-grown, now afoot, and again taking to wing with a loud whirring +sound. The perfume of ripening muscadines came from the bank of the +river. The papaws hung globular among the leaves of the bushes, and the +persimmons were reddening. The vermilion sun was low in the sky above +the purpling mountains; the stream had changed from a crystalline brown +to red, to gold, and now it was beginning to be purple and silver. And +this reminded her that the full-moon was up, and she turned to look at +it--so pearly and luminous above the jagged ridge-pole of the dark +little house on the rise. The sky about it was blue, refining into an +exquisitely delicate and ethereal neutrality near the horizon. The baby +had fallen asleep, with its bald head on the old dog's shoulder. + +After the supper was over, the sorghum fire still burned beneath the +great kettle, for the syrup was not yet made, and sorghum-boiling is an +industry that cannot be intermitted. The fire in the midst of the gentle +shadow and sheen of the night had a certain profane, discordant effect. +Pete's ill-defined figure slouching over it while he skimmed the syrup +was grimly suggestive of the distillations of strange elixirs and +unhallowed liquors, and his simple face, lighted by a sudden darting red +flame, had unrecognizable significance and was of sinister intent. For +Pete was detailed to attend to the boiling; the grinding was done, and +the old white mare stood still in the midst of the sorghum stubble and +the moonlight, as motionless and white as if she were carved in marble. +Job Grinnell sat and smoked on the porch. + +Presently he got up suddenly, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and +looked at it carefully before he stuck it into his pocket. He went, +without a word, down the rocky slope, past the old drowsing mare, and +across the foot-bridge. Two or three of the dogs, watching him as he +reappeared on the opposite bank, affected a mistake in identity. They +growled, then barked outright, and at last ran down and climbed the +fence and bounded about it, baying the vista where he had vanished, +until the sleepy old mare turned her head and gazed in mild surprise at +them. + +Augusta sat alone on the step of the porch. + +She had various regrets in her mind, incipient even before he had quite +gone, and now defining themselves momently with added poignancy. A woman +who, in her retirement at home, charges herself with the control of a +man's conduct abroad, is never likely to be devoid of speculation upon +probable disasters to ensue upon any abatement of the activities of her +discretion. She was sorry that she had allowed so trifling a matter to +mar the serenity of the family; her conscience upbraided her that she +had not besought him to avoid the blacksmith's shop, where certain men +of the neighborhood were wont to congregate and drink deep into the +night. Above all, her mind went back to the enigmatical message, and she +wondered that she could have been so forgetful as to fail to urge him to +forbear angering Purdee, for this would have a cumulative effect upon +all the rancors of the old quarrels, and inaugurate perhaps a new series +of reprisals. + +"I ain't afeard o' no Purdee ez ever stepped," she said to herself, +defining her position. "But I'm fur peace. An' ef the Purdees will leave +we-uns be, I ain't a-goin' ter meddle along o' them." + +She remembered an old barn-burning, in the days when she and her husband +were newly married, at his father's house. She looked up at the barn +hard by, on a line with the dwelling, with that tenderness which one +feels for a thing, not because of its value, but for the sake of +possession, for the kinship with the objects that belong to the home. A +cat was sitting high in a crevice in the logs where the daubing had +fallen out; the moon glittered in its great yellow eyes. A frog was +leaping along the open space about the rude step at Augusta's feet. A +clump of mullein leaves, silvered by the light, spangled by the dew, hid +him presently. What an elusive glistening gauze hung over the valley far +below, where the sense of distance was limited by the sense of +sight!--for it was here only that the night, though so brilliant, must +attest the incomparable lucidity of daylight. She could not even +distinguish, amidst those soft sheens of the moon and the dew, the +Lombardy poplar that grew above the door of old Squire Grove's house +down in the cove; in the daytime it was visible like a tiny finger +pointing upward. How drowsy was the sound of the katydid, now loudening, +now falling, now fainting away! And the tree-toad shrilled in the +dog-wood tree. The frogs, too, by the river in iterative fugue sent +forth a song as suggestive of the margins as the scent of the fern, and +the mint, and the fragrant weeds. + +A convulsive start! She did not know that she slept until she was again +awake. The moon had travelled many a mile along the highways of the +skies. It hung over the purple mountains, over the farthest valley. The +cicada had grown dumb. The stars were few and faint. The air was chill. +She started to her feet; her garments were heavy with dew. The fire +beneath the sorghum kettle had died to a coal, flaring or fading as the +faint fluctuations of the wind might will. Near it Pete slumbered where +he too had sat down to rest. And Job--Job had never returned. + + * * * * * + +He had found it a lightsome enough scene at the blacksmith's shop, where +it was understood that the neighboring politicians collogued at times, +or brethren in the church discussed matters of discipline or more +spiritual affairs. In which of these interests a certain corpulent jug +was most active it would be difficult perhaps to accurately judge. The +great barn-like doors were flung wide open, and there was a group of men +half within the shelter and half without; the shoeing-stool, a broken +plough, an empty keg, a log, and a rickety chair sufficed to seat the +company. The moonlight falling into the door showed the great slouching, +darkling figures, the anvil, the fire of the forge (a dim ashy coal), +and the shadowy hood merging indistinguishably into the deep duskiness +of the interior. In contrast, the scene glimpsed through the low window +at the back of the shop had a certain vivid illuminated effect. A spider +web, revealing its geometric perfection, hung half across one corner of +the rude casement; the moonbeams without were individualized in fine +filar delicacy, like the ravellings of a silver skein. The boughs of a +tree which grew on a slope close below almost touched the lintel; the +leaves seemed a translucent green; a bird slept on a twig, its head +beneath its wing. + +[Illustration: THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP] + +Back of the cabin, which was situated on a limited terrace, the great +altitudes of the mountain rose into the infinity of the night. + +The drawling conversation was beset, as it were, by faint fleckings of +sound, lightly drawn from a crazy old fiddle under the chin of a gaunt, +yellow-haired young giant, one Ephraim Blinks, who lolled on a log, and +who by these vague harmonies unconsciously gave to the talk of his +comrades a certain theatrical effect. + +Grinnell slouched up and sat down among them, responding with a nod to +the unceremonious "Hy're, Job?" of the blacksmith, who seemed thus to do +the abbreviated honors of the occasion. The others did not so formally +notice his coming. + +The subject of conversation was the same that had pervaded his own +thoughts. He was irritated to observe how Purdee had usurped public +attention, and yet he himself listened with keenest interest. + +"Waal," said the ponderous blacksmith, "I kin onderstan' mighty well ez +Moses would hev been mighty mad ter see them folks a-worshippin' o' a +calf--senseless critters they be! 'Twarn't no use flingin' down them +rocks, though, an' gittin' 'em bruk. Sandstone ain't like metal; ye +can't heat it an' draw it down an' weld it agin." + +His round black head shone in the moonlight, glistening because of his +habit of plunging it, by way of making his toilet, into the barrel of +water where he tempered his steel. He crossed his huge folded bare arms +over his breast, and leaned back against the door on two legs of the +rickety chair. + +"Naw, sir," another chimed in. "He mought hev knowed he'd jes hev ter go +ter quarryin' agin." + +"They air always a-crackin' up them folks in the Bible ez sech powerful +wise men," said another, whose untrained mind evidently held the germs +of advanced thinking. "'Pears ter me ez some of 'em conducted tharselves +ez foolish ez enny folks I know--this hyar very Moses one o' 'em. +Throwin' down them rocks 'minds me o' old man Pinner's tantrums. Sher'ff +kem ter his house 'bout a jedgmint debt, an' levied on his craps. An' +arter he war gone old man tuk a axe an' gashed bodaciously inter the +loom an' hacked it up. Ez ef that war goin' ter do enny good! His wife +war the mos' outed woman I ever see. They 'ain't got nare nother loom +nuther, an' hain't hearn no advices from the Lord." + +The violinist paused in his playing. "They 'lowed Moses war a meek man +too," he said. "He killed a man with a brick-badge an' buried him in the +sand. Mighty meek ways"--with a satirical grimace. + +The others, divining that this was urged in justification and precedent +for devious modern ways that were not meek, did not pursue this branch +of the subject. + +"S'prised me some," remarked the advanced thinker, "ter hear ez them +tables o' stone war up on the bald o' the mounting thar. I hed drawed +the idee ez 'twar in some other kentry somewhar--I dunno--" He stopped +blankly. He could not formulate his geographical ignorance. "An' I never +knowed," he resumed, presently, "ez thar war enough gold in Tennessee +ter make a gold calf; they fund gold hyar, but 'twar mighty leetle." + +"Mebbe 'twar a mighty leetle calf," suggested the blacksmith. + +"Mebbe so," assented the other. + +"Mebbe 'twar a silver one," speculated a third; "plenty o' silver they +'low thar air in the mountings." + +The violinist spoke up suddenly. "Git one o' them Injuns over yander ter +Quallatown right seasonable drunk, an' he'll tell ye a power o' places +whar the old folks said thar war silver." He bowed his chin once more +upon the instrument, and again the slow drawling conversation proceeded +to soft music. + +"Ef ye'll b'lieve me," said the advanced thinker, "I never war so +conflusticated in my life ez I war when he stood up in meetin' an' told +'bout'n the tables o' the law bein' on the bald! I 'lowed 'twar somewhar +'mongst some sort'n people named 'Gyptians." + +"Mebbe some o' them Injuns air named 'Gyptians," suggested Spears, the +blacksmith. + +"Naw, sir," spoke up the fiddler, who had been to Quallatown, and was +the ethnographic authority of the meeting. "Tennessee Injuns be named +Cher'kee, an' Chick'saw, an' Creeks." + +There was a silence. The moonlight sifted through the dark little shanty +of a shop; the fretting and foaming of a mountain stream arose from far +down the steep slope, where there was a series of cascades, a fine +water-power, utilized by a mill. The sudden raucous note of a night-hawk +jarred upon the air, and a shadow on silent wings sped past. The road +was dusty in front of the shop, and for a space there was no shade. +Into the full radiance of the moonlight a rabbit bounded along, rising +erect with a most human look of affright in its great shining eyes as it +tremulously gazed at the motionless figures. It too was motionless for a +moment. The young musician made a lunge at it with his bow; it sprang +away with a violent start--its elongated grotesque shadow bounding +kangaroo-like beside it--into the soft gloom of the bushes. There was no +other traveller along the road, and the talk was renewed without further +interruption. "Waal, sir, ef 'twarn't fur the testimony o' the words he +reads ez air graven on them rocks, I couldn't git my cornsent ter +b'lieve ez Moses ever war in Tennessee," said the advanced thinker. "I +ain't ondertakin' ter say what State he settled in, but I 'lowed +'twarn't hyar. It mus' hev been, though, 'count o' the scripture on them +broken tables." + +"I never knowed a meetin' woke ter sech a pint o' holiness. The saints +jes rampaged around till it fairly sounded like the cavortin's o' the +ungodly," a retrospective voice chimed in. + +"I raised thirty-two hyme chunes," said the musician, who had a great +gift in quiring, and was the famed possessor of a robust tenor voice. "A +leetle mo' gloryin' aroun' an' I'd hev kem ter the eend o' my row, an' +hev hed ter begin over agin." He spoke with acrimony, reviewing the +jeopardy in which his _repertoire_ had been placed. + +"Waal," said the blacksmith, passing his hand over his black head, as +sleek and shining as a beaver's, "I'm a-goin' up ter the bald o' the +mounting some day soon, ef so be I kin make out ter shoe that mare o' +mine"--for the blacksmith's mount was always barefoot--"I'm afeard ter +trest her unshod on them slippery slopes; I want ter read some o' them +sayin's on the stone tables myself. I likes ter git a tex' or the eend +o' a hyme set a-goin' in my head--seems somehow ter teach itself ter the +anvil, an' then it jes says it back an' forth all day. Yestiddy I never +seen its beat--'Christ--war--born--in--Bethlehem.' The anvil jes rang +with that ez ef the actial metal hed the gift o' prayer an' praise." + +"Waal, sir," exclaimed Job Grinnell, who had been having frequent +colloquies aside with the companionable jug, "ye mought jes ez well save +yer shoes an' let yer mare go barefoot. Thar ain't nare sign o' a word +writ on them rocks." + +They all sat staring at him. Even the singing, long-drawn vibrations of +the violin were still. + +"By Hokey!" exclaimed the young musician, "I'll take Purdee's word ez +soon ez yourn." + +The whiskey which Grinnell had drunk had rendered him more plastic still +to jealousy. The day was not so long past when Purdee's oath would have +been esteemed a poor dependence against the word of so zealous a brother +as he--a pillar in the church, a shining light of the congregation. He +noted the significant fact that it behooved him to justify himself; it +irked him that this was exacted as a tribute to Purdee's newly acquired +sanctity. + +"Purdee's jes a-lyin' an' a-foolin' ye," he declared. "Ever been up on +the bald?" + +They had lived in its shadow all their lives. Even by the circuitous +mountain ways it was not more than five miles from where they sat. But +none had chanced to have a call to go, and it was to them as a foreign +land to be explored. + +"Waal, I hev, time an' agin," said Grinnell. "I dunno who gin them rocks +the name of Moses' tables o' the Law. Moses must hev hed a powerful +block an' tackle ter lift sech tremenjious rocks. I hev known 'em named +sech fur many a year. But I seen 'em not three weeks ago, an' thar ain't +nare word writ on 'em. Thar's the mounting; thar's the rocks; ye kin go +an' stare-gaze 'em an' sati'fy yerse'fs." + +Whether it were by reason of the cumulative influences of the continual +references to the jug, or of that sense of reviviscence, that more alert +energy, which the cool Southern nights always impart after the sultry +summer days, the suggestion that they should go now and solve the +mystery, and meet the dawn upon the summit of the bald, found instant +acceptance, which it might not have secured in the stolid daylight. + +The moon, splendid, a lustrous white encircled by a great halo of +translucent green, swung high above the duskily purple mountains. Below +in the valleys its progress was followed by an opalescent gossamer +presence that was like the overflowing fulness, the surplusage, of light +rather than mist. The shadows of the great trees were interlaced with +dazzling silver gleams. The night was almost as bright as the day, but +cool and dank, full of sylvan fragrance and restful silence and a +romantic liberty. + +The blacksmith carried his rifle, for wolves were often abroad in the +wilderness. Two or three others were similarly armed; the advanced +thinker had a hunting-knife, Job Grinnell a pistol that went by the name +of "shootin'-iron." The musician carried no weapon. "I ain't 'feared o' +no wolf," he said; "I'll play 'em a chune." He went on in the vanguard, +his tousled yellow hair idealized with many a shimmer in the moonlight +as it hung curling down on his blue jeans coat, his cheek laid softly on +the violin, the bow glancing back and forth as if strung with moonbeams +as he played. The men woke the solemn silences with their loud mirthful +voices; they startled precipitate echoes; they fell into disputes and +wrangled loudly, and would have turned back if sure of the way home, but +Job Grinnell led steadily on, and they were fain to follow. They lagged +to look at a spot where some man, unheeded even by tradition, had dug +his heart's grave in a vain search for precious metal. A deep excavation +in the midst of the wilderness told the story; how long ago it was might +be guessed from the age of a stalwart oak that had sunk roots into its +depths; the shadows were heavy about it; a sense of despair brooded in +the loneliness. And so up and up the endless ascent; sometimes great +chasms were at one side, stretching further and further, and crowding +the narrow path--the herder's trail--against the sheer ascent, till it +seemed that the treacherous mountains were yawning to engulf them. The +air was growing colder, but was exquisitely clear and exhilarating; the +great dewy ferns flung silvery fronds athwart the way; vines in +stupendous lengths swung from the tops of gigantic trees to the roots. +Hark! among them birds chirp; a matutinal impulse seems astir in the +woods; the moon is undimmed; the stars faint only because of her +splendors; but one can feel that the earth has roused itself to a sense +of a new day. And there, with such feathery flashes of white foam, such +brilliant straight lengths of translucent water, such a leaping grace of +impetuous motion, the currents of the mountain stream, like the arrows +of Diana, shoot down the slopes. And now a vague mist is among the +trees, and when it clears away they seem shrunken, as under a spell, to +half their size. They grow smaller and smaller still, oak and chestnut +and beech, but dwarfed and gnarled like some old orchard. And suddenly +they cease, and the vast grassy dome uprises against the sky, in which +the moon is paling into a dull similitude of itself; no longer wondrous, +transcendent, but like some lily of opaque whiteness, fair and fading. +Beneath is a purple, deeply serious, and sombre earth, to which mists +minister, silent and solemn; myriads of mountains loom on every hand; +the half-seen mysteries of the river, which, charged with the red clay +of its banks, is of a tawny color, gleams as it winds in and out among +the white vapors that reach in fantastic forms from heaven above to the +valley below. There is a certain relief in the mist--it veils the +infinities of the scene, on which the mind can lay but a trembling hold. + +"Folks tell all sort'n cur'ous tales 'bout'n this hyar spot," said Job +Grinnell, his square face, his red hair hanging about his ears, and his +ragged red beard visible in the dull light of the coming day. "I hev +hearn folks 'low ez a pa'tridge up hyar will look ez big ez a Dominicky +rooster. An' ef ye listens ye kin hear words from somewhar. An' +sometimes in the cattle-herdin' season the beastises will kem an' crowd +tergether, an' stan' on the bald in the moonlight all night." + +"I dunno," said the advanced thinker, "ez I be s'prised enny ef Purdee, +ez be huntin' up hyar so constant, hev got sorter teched in the head, +ter take up sech a cur'ous notion 'bout'n them rocks." + +He glanced along the slope at the spot, visible now, where Moses flung +the stone tables and they broke in twain. And there, standing beside +them, was a man of great height, dressed in blue jeans, his +broad-brimmed hat pushed from his brow, and his meditative dark eyes +fixed upon the rocks; a deer, all gray and antlered, lay dead at his +feet, and his rifle rested on the ground as he leaned on the muzzle. + +A glance was interchanged between the others. Their intention, the +promptings of curiosity, had flagged during the long tramp and the +gradual waning of the influence of the jug. The coincidence of meeting +Purdee here revived their interest. Grinnell, remembering the ancient +feud, held back, being unlikely to elicit Purdee's views in the face of +their contradiction. The blacksmith and the young fiddler took their way +down toward him. + +He looked up with a start, seeing them at some little distance. His +full, contemplative eyes rested upon them for a moment almost devoid of +questioning. It was not the face of a man who finds himself confronted +with the discovery of his duplicity and his hypocrisy. There was a +strange doubt stirring in the blacksmith's heart. As he approached he +looked upon the storied rocks with a sort of solemn awe, as if they had +indeed been given by the hand of the Lord to his servant, who broke them +here in his wrath. He knew that the step of the musician slackened as he +followed. What holy mysteries were they not rushing in upon? He spoke in +a bated voice. + +"Roger," he said, "we'uns hearn ye tell 'bout the scriptures graven on +these hyar tables ez Moses flung down, an' we'uns 'lowed we'uns would +kem an' read some fur ourselves." + +Purdee did not speak nor hesitate; he moved aside that the blacksmith +might stand where he had been--as it were at the foot of the page. + +But what transcendent glories thronged the heavens--what august +splendors of dawn! Had the sun ever before risen like this, with the sky +an emblazonment of red, of gold, of darting gleams of light; with the +mountains most royally purple or most radiantly blue; with the prismatic +mists in flight; with the slow climax of the dazzling sphere ascending +to dominate it all? + +The blacksmith knelt down to read. The musician, his silent violin under +his chin, leaned over his comrade's shoulder. The hunter stood still, +expectant. + +Alas! the corrugations of time, the fissile results of the frost; the +wavering line of ripple-marks of seas that shall ebb no more; growth of +lichen; an army of ants in full march; a passion-flower trailing from a +crevice, its purple blooms lying upon the gray stone near where it is +stamped with the fossil imprint of a sea-weed, faded long ago and +forgotten. Or is it, alas! for the eyes that can see only this? + +[Illustration: "THE TABLES OF THE LAW"] + +The blacksmith looked up with a twinkling leer; the violinist recovered +his full height, and drew the bow dashingly across the strings; then let +his arm fall. + +"Roger," the blacksmith said, "dad-burned ef I kin read ennything hyar." + +The young musician looked over his brawny shoulder in silence. + +"Whar d'ye make out enny letters, Roger?" persisted Spears. + +Purdee leaned over and eagerly pointed with his ramrod to a curious +corrugation of the surface of the rock. Again the blacksmith bent down; +the musician craned forward, his yellow hair hanging about his bronzed +face. + +"I hev been toler'ble well acquainted with the alphabit," said Spears, +"fur goin' on thirty year an' better, an' I'll swar ter Heaven thar +ain't nare sign of a letter thar." + +Purdee stared at him in wild-eyed amazement for a moment. Then he flung +himself upon his knees beside the great rock, and guiding his ramrod +over the surface, he exclaimed, "Hyar, Spears; right hyar!" + +The blacksmith was all incredulous as he lent himself to a new posture, +and leaned forward to look with the languid indulgence of one who will +not again entertain doubt. + +"Nare A, nor B, nor C, nor none o' the fambly," he declared. "These +hyar rocks ain't no Moses' tables sure enough; Moses never war in +Tennessee. They be jes like enny other rock, an' thar ain't a word o' +writin' on 'em." + +He looked up with a curious questioning at Purdee's face--a strange face +for a man detected in a falsehood, a trick. The deep-set eyes were wide +as if straining for perception denied them. Despite the chill, rare air, +great drops had started on his brow, and were falling upon his beard, +and upon his hands. These strong hands were quivering; they hovered +above the signs on the rocks. The mystic letters, the inspired words, +where were they? Grope as he might, he could not find them. Alas! doubt +and denial had climbed the mountain--the awful limitations of the more +finite human creature--and his inspiration and the finer enthusiasms of +the truth were dead. + +Dead with a throe that was almost like a literal death. This--on this he +had lived; the ether of ecstasy was the breath of his life. He clutched +at the stained red handkerchief knotted about his throat as if he were +suffocating; he tore it open as he swayed backward on his knees. He did +not hear--or he did not heed--the laugh among the little crowd on the +bald--satirical, rallying, zestful. He was deaf to the strains of the +violin, jeeringly and jerkingly playing a foolish tune. It was growing +fainter, for they had all turned about to betake themselves once more to +the world below. He could have seen, had he cared to see, their bearded +grinning faces peering through the stunted trees, as descending they +came near the spot where he had lavished the spiritual graces of his +feeling, his enthusiasm, his devotion, his earnest reaching for +something higher, for something holy, which had refreshed his famished +soul; had given to its dumbness words; had erased the values of the +years, of the nations; had made him friends with Moses on the "bald"; +had revealed to him the finger of the Lord on the stone. + +He took no heed of his gestures, of which, indeed, he was unconscious. +They were fine dramatically, and of great power, as he alternately rose +to his full height, beating his breast in despair, and again sank upon +his knees, with a pondering brow and a searching eye, and a hovering, +trembling hand, striving to find the clew he had lost. They might have +impressed a more appreciative audience, but not one more entertained +than the cluster of men who looked and paused and leered in amusement at +one another, and thrust out satirical tongues. Long after they had +disappeared, the strains of the violin could be heard, filling the +solemn, stricken, strangely stunted woods with a grotesquely merry +presence, hilarious and jeering. + + * * * * * + +Purdee found it possible to survive the destruction of illusions. Most +of us do. It wrought in him, however, the saturnine changes natural upon +the relinquishment of a dear and dead fantasy. This ethereal entity is a +more essential component of happiness than one might imagine from the +extreme tenuity of the conditions of its existence. Purdee's fantasy may +have been a poor thing, but, although he could calmly enough close its +eyes, and straighten its limbs, and bury it decently from out the +offended view of fact, he felt that he should mourn it in his heart as +long as he should live. And he was bereaved. + +There is a certain stage in every sorrow when it rejects sympathy. +Purdee, always taciturn, grave, uncommunicative, was invested with an +austere aloofness, and was hardly to be approached as he sat, silent and +absent, brooding over the fire at his own home. When roused by some +circumstance of the domestic routine, and it became apparent that his +mood was not sullenness or anger, but simple and complete introversion, +it added a dignity and suggested a remoteness that were yet less +reassuring. His son, who stood in awe of him--not because of paternal +severity, but because no boy could refrain from a worshipping respect +for so miraculous a shot, a woodsman so subtly equipped with all elusive +sylvan instincts and knowledge--forbore to break upon his meditations by +the delivery of Grinnell's message. Nevertheless the consciousness of +withholding it weighed heavily upon him. He only pretermitted it for a +time, until a more receptive state of mind should warrant it. Day by +day, however, he looked with eagerness when he came into the cabin in +the evening to ascertain if his father were still seated in the +chimney-corner silently smoking his pipe. Purdee had seldom remained at +home so long at a time, and the boy had a daily fear that the gun on the +primitive rack of deer antlers would be missing, and word left in the +family that he had taken the trail up the mountain, and would return +"'cordin' ter luck with the varmints." And thus Job Grinnell's +enigmatical message, that had the ring of defiance, might remain +indefinitely postponed. + +Abner had not realized how long a time it had been delayed, until one +evening at the wood-pile, in tossing off a great stick to hew into +lengths for the chimney-place, he noticed that thin ice had formed in +the moss and the dank cool shadows of the interstices. "I tell ye now, +winter air a-comin'," he observed. He stood leaning on his axe-handle +and looking down upon the scene so far below; for Purdee's house was +perched half-way up on the mountain-side, and he could see over the +world how it fared as the sun went down. Far away upon the levels of the +valley of East Tennessee a golden haze glittered resplendent, lying +close upon an irradiated earth, and ever brightening toward the horizon, +and it seemed as if the sun in sinking might hope to fall in fairer +spheres than the skies he had left, for they were of a dun-color and an +opaque consistency. Only one horizontal rift gave glimpses of a dazzling +ochreous tint of indescribable brilliancy, from the focus of which the +divergent light was shed upon the western limits of the land. Chilhowee, +near at hand, was dark enough--a purplish garnet hue; but the scarlet of +the sour-wood gleamed in the cove; the hickory still flared gallantly +yellow; the receding ranges to the north and south were blue and more +faintly azure. The little log cabin stood with small fields about it, +for Purdee barely subsisted on the fruits of the soil, and did not seek +to profit. It had only one room, with a loft above; the barn was a +makeshift of poles, badly chinked, and showing through the crevices +what scanty store there was of corn and pumpkins. A black-and-white +work-ox, that had evidently no deficiency of ribs, stood outside of the +fence and gazed, a forlorn Tantalus, at these unattainable dainties; now +and then a muttered low escaped his lips. Nobody noticed him or +sympathized with him, except perhaps the little girl, who had come out +in her sun-bonnet to help her brother bring in the fuel. He gruffly +accepted her company, a little ashamed of her because she was a girl; +since, however, there was no other boy by to laugh, he permitted her the +delusion that she was of assistance. + +As he paused to rest he reiterated, "Winter air a-comin', I tell ye." + +"D'ye reckon, Ab," she asked, in her high, thin little voice, her hands +full of chips and the basket at her feet, "ez Grinnell's baby knows +Chris'mus air a-comin'?" + +He glowered at her as he leaned on the axe. "I reckon Grinnell's old +baby dunno B from Bull-foot," he declared, gruffly. + +The recollection of the message came over him. He had a pang of regret, +remembering all the old grudges against the Grinnells. They were +re-enforced by this irrepressible yearning after their baby, this +admission that they had aught which was not essentially despicable. +Nevertheless, he suddenly saw a reason for the Grinnell baby's +existence; he loaded up both arms with the sticks of wood, and, followed +by the peripatetic sun-bonnet, conscientiously weighed down with one +billet, he strode into the house, and let his burden fall with a mighty +clatter in the corner of the chimney. The sun-bonnet staggered up and +threw her stick on the top of the pile of wood. + +Purdee, sitting silently smoking, glanced up at the noise. Abner took +advantage of the momentary notice to claim, too, the attention of his +mother. "I wish ye'd make Eunice quit talkin' 'bout the Grinnell's old +baby, like she war actially demented--uglies' bald-headed, slab-sided, +slobbery old baby I ever see--nare tooth in its head! I do despise them +Grinnells." + +As he anticipated, his father spoke suddenly: "Ye jes keep away from +thar," he said, sternly. "I trest them folks no furder 'n a +rattlesnake." + +"_I_ ain't consortin' along o' 'em," declared the boy. "But I actially +hed ter take Eunice by the scalp o' her head an' lug her off one day +when she hung on thar fence a-stare-gazin' Grinnell's baby like 'twar +fitten ter eat." + +The child's mother, a cadaverous, pale woman, was listlessly stringing +the warping-bars with hanks of variegated yarn. The grandmother, who +conserved a much more active and youthful interest in life, took down a +brown gourd used as a scrap-basket that was on a protruding lath of the +clay-and-stick chimney, and hunted among the scraps of homespun and bits +of yarn stowed within it. The room was much like the gourd in its aged +brown tint; its indigenous aspect, as if it had not been made with +hands, but was some spontaneous production of the soil; with its bits of +bright color--the peppers hanging from the rafters, the rainbow-hued +yarn festooning the warping-bars, the red coals of the fire, the blue +and yellow ware ranged on the shelf, the brown puncheon floor and walls +and ceiling and chimney--it might have seemed the interior of a similar +gourd of gigantic proportions. She dressed a twig from the pile of wood +in a gay scrap of cloth, casting glances the while at the little girl, +and handed it to her. + +"I hain't never seen ez good a baby ez this," she said, with the +convincing coercive mendacity of a grandmother. + +The little girl accepted it humbly; it was a good baby doubtless of its +sort, but it was not alive, which could not be denied of the Grinnell +baby, Grinnell though it was. + +"An' Job Grinnell he kem down ter the fence, an' 'lowed he'd slit our +ears, an' named us shoats," continued her brother. Purdee lifted his +head. "An' sent a word ter dad," said the boy, tremulously. + +"What word did he send ter--_me_?" cried Purdee. + +The boy quailed to tell him. "He tole me ter ax ye ef ye ever read sech +ez this on Moses' tables in the mountings--'An' ye shell claim sech ez +be yer own, an' yer neighbors' belongings shell ye in no wise boastfully +medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covetiousness, nor yit git a big +name up in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's,'" faltered the +sturdy Abner. + +The next moment he felt an infinite relief. He suddenly recognized the +fact that he had been chiefly restrained from repeating the words by an +unrealized terror lest they prove true--lest something his father +claimed was not his, indeed. + +[Illustration: "'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER--_ME_?'"] + +But the expression of anger on Purdee's face was merged first in blank +astonishment, then in perplexed cogitation, then in renewed and +overpowering amazement. + +The wife turned from the warping-bars with a vague stare of surprise, +one hand poised uncertainly upon a peg of the frame, the other holding a +hank of "spun truck." The grandmother looked over her spectacles with +eyes sharp enough to seem subsidized to see through the mystery. + +"In the name o' reason and religion, Roger Purdee," she adjured him, +"what air that thar perverted Philistine talkin' 'bout?" + +"It air more'n I kin jedge of," said Purdee, still vainly cogitating. + +He sat for a time silent, his dark eyes bent on the fire, his broad, +high forehead covered by his hat pulled down over it, his long, tangled, +dark locks hanging on his collar. + +Suddenly he rose, took down his gun, and started toward the door. + +"Roger," cried his wife, shrilly, "I'd leave the critter be. Lord knows +thar's been enough blood spilt an' good shelter burned along o' them +Purdees' an' Grinnells' quar'ls in times gone. Laws-a-massy!"--she wrung +her hands, all hampered though they were in the "spun truck"--"I'd +ruther be a sheep 'thout a soul, an' live in peace." + +"A sca'ce ch'ice," commented her mother. "Sheep's got ter be butchered. +I'd ruther be the butcher, myself--healthier." + +Purdee was gone. He had glanced absently at his wife as if he hardly +heard. He waited till she paused; then, without answer, he stepped +hastily out of the door and walked away. + + * * * * * + +The cronies at the blacksmith's shop latterly gathered within the great +flaring door, for the frost lay on the dead leaves without, the stars +scintillated with chill suggestions, and the wind was abroad on nights +like these. On shrill pipes it played; so weird, so wild, so prophetic +were its tones that it found only a shrinking in the heart of him whose +ear it constrained to listen. The sound of the torrent far below was +accelerated to an agitated, tumultuous plaint, all unknown when its +pulses were bated by summer languors. The moon was in the turmoil of the +clouds, which, routed in some wild combat with the winds, were streaming +westward. + +And although the rigors of the winter were in abeyance, and the late +purple aster called the Christmas-flower bloomed in the sheltered grass +at the door, the forge fire, flaring or dully glowing, overhung with its +dusky hood, was a friendly thing to see, and in its vague illumination +the rude interior of the shanty--the walls, the implements of the trade, +the bearded faces grouped about, the shadowy figures seated on whatever +might serve, a block of wood, the shoeing-stool, a plough, or perched on +the anvil--became visible to Roger Purdee from far down the road as he +approached. Even the head of a horse could be seen thrust in at the +window, while the brute, hitched outside, beguiled the dreary waiting +by watching with a luminous, intelligent eye the gossips within, as if +he understood the drawling colloquy. They were suffering some dearth of +timely topics, supplying the deficiency with reminiscences more or less +stale, and had expected no such sensation as they experienced when a +long shadow fell athwart the doorway,--the broad aperture glimmering a +silvery gray contrasted with the brown duskiness of the interior and the +purple darkness of the distance; the forge fire showed Purdee's tall +figure leaning on the door-frame, and lighted up his serious face +beneath his great broad-brimmed hat, his intent, earnest eyes, his +tangled black beard and locks. He gave no greeting, and silence fell +upon them as his searching gaze scanned them one by one. + +"Whar's Job Grinnell?" he demanded, abruptly. + +There was a shuffling of feet, as if those members most experienced +relief from the constraint that silence had imposed upon the party. A +vibration from the violin--a sigh as if the instrument had been suddenly +moved rather than a touch upon the strings--intimated that the young +musician was astir. But it was Spears, the blacksmith, who spoke. + +"Kem in, Roger," he called out, cordially, as he rose, his massive +figure and his sleek head showing in the dull red light on the other +side of the anvil, his bare arms folded across his chest. "Naw, Job +ain't hyar; hain't been hyar for a right smart while." + +There was a suggestion of disappointment in the attitude of the +motionless figure at the door. The deeply earnest, pondering face, +visible albeit the red light from the forge-fire was so dull, was keenly +watched. For the inquiry was fraught with peculiar meaning to those +cognizant of the long and bitter feud. + +"I ax," said Purdee, presently, "kase Grinnell sent me a mighty cur'ous +word the t'other day." He lifted his head. "Hev enny o' you-uns hearn +him 'low lately ez I claim ennything ez ain't mine?" + +There was silence for a moment. Then the forge was suddenly throbbing +with the zigzagging of the bow of the violin jauntily dandering along +the strings. His keen sensibility apprehended the sudden jocosity as a +jeer, but before he could say aught the blacksmith had undertaken to +reply. + +"Waal, Purdee, ef ye hedn't axed me, I warn't layin' off ter say nuthin +'bout'n it. 'Tain't no consarn o' mine ez I knows on. But sence ye _hev_ +axed me, I hold my jaw fur the fear o' no man. The words ain't writ ez I +be feared ter pernounce. An' ez all the kentry hev hearn 'bout'n it +'ceptin' you-uns, I dunno ez I hev enny call ter hold my jaw. The Lord +'ain't set no seal on my lips ez I knows on." + +"Naw, sir!" said Purdee, his great eyes glooming through the dusk and +flashing with impatience. "He 'ain't set no seal on yer lips, ter jedge +by the way ye wallop yer tongue about inside o' 'em with fool words. +Whyn't ye bite off what ye air tryin' ter chaw?" + +"Waal, then," said the admonished orator, bluntly, "Grinnell 'lows ye +don't own that thar lan' around them rocks on the bald, no more'n ye +read enny writin' on 'em." + +"Not them rocks!" cried Purdee, standing suddenly erect--"the tables o' +the Law, writ with the finger o' the Lord--an' Moses flung 'em down thar +an' bruk 'em. All the kentry knows they air Moses' tables. An' the +groun' whar they lie air mine." + +"'Tain't, Grinnell say 'tain't." + +"Naw, sir," chimed in the young musician, his violin silent. "Job +Grinnell declars he owns it hisself, an' ef he war willin' ter stan' the +expense he'd set up his rights, but the lan' ain't wuth it. He 'lows his +line runs spang over them rocks, an' a heap furder." + +Purdee was silent; one or two of the gossips laughed jeeringly; he had +been proved a liar once. It was well that he did not deny; he was put to +open shame among them. + +"An' Grinnell say," continued Blinks, "ez ye hev gone an' tole big tales +'mongst the brethren fur ownin' sech ez ain't yourn, an' readin' of +s'prisin' sayin's on the rocks." + +He bent his head to a series of laughing harmonics, and when he raised +it, hearing no retort, the silvery gray square of the door was empty. He +saw the moon glimmer on the clumps of grass outside where the +Christmas-flower bloomed. + +The group sat staring in amaze; the blacksmith strode to the door and +looked out, himself a massive, dark silhouette upon the shimmering +neutrality of the background. There was no figure in sight; no faint +foot-fall was audible, no rustle of the sere leaves; only the voice of +the mountain torrent, far below, challenged the stillness with its +insistent cry. + +He looked back for a moment, with a vague, strange doubt if he had seen +aught, heard aught, in the scene just past. "Hain't Purdee been hyar?" +he asked, passing his hand across his eyes. The sense of having dreamed +was so strong upon him that he stretched his arms and yawned. + +The gleaming teeth of the grouped shadows demonstrated the merriment +evoked by the query. The chuckle was arrested midway. + +"Ye 'pear ter 'low ez suthin' hev happened ter Purdee, an' that thar war +his harnt," suggested one. + +The bold young musician laid down his violin suddenly. The instrument +struck upon a keg of nails, and gave out an abrupt, discordant jangle, +startling to the nerves. "Shet up, ye durned squeech-owl!" he exclaimed, +irritably. Then, lowering his voice, he asked: "Didn't they 'low down +yander in the Cove ez Widder Peters, the day her husband war killed by +the landslide up in the mounting, heard a hoe a-scrapin' mightily on the +gravel in the gyarden-spot, an' went ter the door, an' seen him thar +a-workin', an' axed him when he kem home? An' he never lifted his head, +but hoed on. An' she went down thar 'mongst the corn, an' she couldn't +find nobody. An' jes then the Johns boys rid up an' 'lowed ez Jim Peters +war dead, an' hed been fund in the mounting, an' they war a-fetchin' of +him then." + +The horse's head within the window nodded violently among the shadows, +and the stones rolled beneath his hoof as he pawed the ground. + +"Mis' Peters she knowed suthin' were a-goin' ter happen when she seen +that harnt a-hoein'." + +"I reckon she did," said the blacksmith, stretching himself, his nerves +still under the delusion of recent awakening. "Jim never hoed none when +he war alive. She mought hev knowed he war dead ef she seen him hoein'." + +"Waal, sir," exclaimed the violinist, "I'm a-goin' up yander ter +Purdee's ter-morrer ter find out what he died of, an' when." + +That he was alive was proved the next day, to the astonishment of the +smith and his friends. The forge was the voting-place of the district, +and there, while the fire was flaring, the bellows blowing, the anvil +ringing, the echo vibrating, now loud, now faint, with the antiphonal +chant of the hammer and the sledge, a notice was posted to inform the +adjacent owners that Roger Purdee's land, held under an original grant +from the State, would be processioned according to law some twenty days +after date, and the boundaries thereof defined and established. The +fac-simile of the notice, too, was posted on the court-house door in the +county town twenty miles away, for there were those who journeyed so far +to see it. + +"I wonder," said the blacksmith, as he stood in the unfamiliar street +and gazed at it, his big arms, usually bare, now hampered with his coat +sleeves and folded upon his chest--"I wonder ef he footed it all the way +ter town at the gait he tuk when he lit out from the forge?" + +It was a momentous day when the county surveyor planted his +Jacob's-staff upon the State line on the summit of the bald. His sworn +chain-bearers, two tall young fellows clad in jeans, with broad-brimmed +wool hats, their heavy boots drawn high over their trousers, stood ready +and waiting, with the sticks and clanking chain, on the margin of the +ice-cold spring gushing out on this bleak height, and signifying more +than a fountain in the wilderness, since it served to define the +southeast corner of Purdee's land. The two enemies were perceptibly +conscious of each other. Grinnell's broad face and small eyes laden with +fat lids were persistently averted. Purdee often glanced toward him +gloweringly, his head held, nevertheless, a little askance, as if he +rejected the very sight. There was the fire of a desperate intention in +his eyes. Looking at his face, shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, one +could hardly have doubted now whether it expressed most ferocity or +force. His breath came quick--the bated breath of a man who watches and +waits for a supreme moment. His blue jeans coat was buttoned close about +his sun-burned throat, where the stained red handkerchief was knotted. +He wore a belt with his powder-horn and bullet-pouch, and carried his +rifle on his shoulder; the hand that held it trembled, and he tried to +quell the quiver. "I'll prove it fust, an' kill him arterward--kill him +arterward," he muttered. + +In the other hand he held a yellowed old paper. Now and then he bent his +earnest dark eyes upon the grant, made many a year ago by the State of +Tennessee to his grandfather; for there had been no subsequent +conveyances. + +The blacksmith had come begirt with his leather apron, his shirt-sleeves +rolled up, and with his hammer in his hand, an inopportune customer +having jeopardized his chance of sharing in the sensation of the day. +The other neighbors all wore their coats closely buttoned. Blinks +carried his violin hung upon his back; the sharp timbre of the wind, +cutting through the leafless boughs of the stunted woods, had a kindred +fibrous resonance. Clouds hung low far beneath them; here and there, as +they looked, the trees on the slopes showed above and again below the +masses of clinging vapors. Sometimes close at hand a peak would reveal +itself, asserting the solemn vicinage of the place, then draw its veil +slowly about it, and stand invisible and in austere silence. The +surveyor, a stalwart figure, his closely buttoned coat giving him a +military aspect, looked disconsolately downward. + +"I hoped I'd die before this," he remarked. "I'm equal to getting over +anything in nature that's flat or oblique, but the vertical beats me." + +He bent to take sight for a moment, the group silently watching him. +Suddenly he came to the perpendicular, and strode off down the rugged +slope over gullies and bowlders, through rills and briery tangles, his +eyes distended and eager as if he were led into the sylvan depths by the +lure of a vision. The chain-bearers followed, continually bending and +rising, the recurrent genuflections resembling the fervors of some +religious rite. The chain rustled sibilantly among the dead leaves, and +was ever and anon drawn out to its extremest length. Then the dull clank +of the links was silent. + +"Stick!" called out the young mountaineer in the rear. + +"Stuck!" responded his comrade ahead. + +And once more the writhing and jingling among the withered leaves. The +surveyor strode on, turning his face neither to the right nor to the +left, with his Jacob's-staff held upright before him. The other men +trooped along scatteringly, dodging under the low boughs of the stunted +trees. They pressed hastily together when the great square rocks--Moses' +tables of the Law--came into view, lying where it was said the man of +God flung them upon the sere slope below, both splintered and fissured, +and one broken in twain. The surveyor was bearing straight down upon +them. The men running on either side could not determine whether the +line would fall within the spot or just beyond. They broke into wild +exclamations. + +"Ye may hammer me out ez flat ez a skene," cried the blacksmith, "ef I +don't b'lieve ez Purdee hev got 'em." + +"Naw, sir, naw!" cried another fervent amateur; "thar's the north. I jes +now viewed Grinnell's dad's deed; the line ondertakes ter run with +Purdee's line; he hev got seven hunderd poles ter the north; ef they air +a-goin' ter the north, them tables o' the Law air Grinnell's." + +A wild chorus ensued. + +"Naw!" "Yes!" "Thar they go!" "A-bearin' off that-a-way!" "Beats my +time!" as they stumbled and scuttled alongside the acolytes of the +Compass, who bowed down and rose up at every length of the chain. +Suddenly a cry from the chain-bearers. + +"Out!" + +Stillness ensued. + +The surveyor stopped to register the "out." It was a moment of thrilling +suspense; the rocks lay only a few chains further; Grinnell, into whose +confidence doubt had begun to be instilled, said to himself, all +a-tremble, that he would hardly have staked his veracity, his standing +with the brethren, if he had realized that it was so close a matter as +this. He had long known that his father owned the greater part of the +unproductive wilderness lying between the two ravines; the land was +almost worthless by reason of the steep slants which rendered it utterly +untillable. He was sure that by the terms of his deed, which his father +had from its vendor, Squire Bates, his line included the Moses' tables +on which Purdee had built so fallacious a repute of holiness. He looked +once more at the paper--"thence from Crystal Spring with Purdee's line +north seven hundred poles to a stake in the middle of the river." + +Purdee too was all a-quiver with eagerness. He had not beheld those +rocks since that terrible day when all the fine values of his gifted +vision had been withdrawn from him, and he could read no more with eyes +blinded by the limitations of what other men could see--the infinitely +petty purlieus of the average sense. He had a vague idea that should +they say this was his land where those strange rocks lay, he would see +again, he would read undreamed-of words, writ with a pen of fire. He +started toward them, and then with a conscious effort he held back. + +The surveyor took no heed of the sentiments involved in processioning +Purdee's land. He stood leaning on his Jacob's-staff, as interesting to +him as Moses' rocks, and in his view infinitely more useful, and wiped +his brow, and looked about, and yawned. To him it was merely the +surveying for a foolish cause of a very impracticable and steep tract of +land, and the only reason it should be countenanced by heaven or earth +was the fees involved. And this was what he saw at the end of Purdee's +line. + +Suddenly he took up his Jacob's-staff and marched on with a long stride, +bearing straight down upon the rocks. The whole _cortege_ started +anew--the genuflecting chain-bearers, the dodging, scrambling, running +spectators. On one of the strange stunted leafless trees a colony of +vagrant crows had perched, eerie enough to seem the denizens of those +weird forests; they broke into raucous laughter--Haw! haw! haw!--rising +to a wild commotion of harsh, derisive discord as the men once more gave +vent to loud, excited cries. For the surveyor, stalking ahead, had +passed beyond the great tables of the Law; the chain-bearers were +drawing Purdee's line on the other side of them, and they had fallen, if +ever they fell here from Moses' hand and broke in twain, upon Purdee's +land, granted to his ancestor by the State of Tennessee. + +He could not speak for joy, for pride. His dark eyes were illumined by a +glancing, amber light. He took off his hat and smoothed with his rough +hand his long black hair, falling from his massive forehead. He leaned +against one of the stunted oaks, shouldering his rifle that he had +loaded for Grinnell--he could hardly believe this, although he +remembered it. He did not want to shoot Grinnell; he would not waste the +good lead! + +And indeed Grinnell had much ado to defend himself against the sneers +and rebukes with which the party beguiled the way through the wintry +woods. "Ter go a-claimin' another man's land, an' put him ter the +expense o' processionin' it, an' git his line run!" exclaimed the +blacksmith, indignantly. "An' ye 'ain't got nare sign o' a show at +Moses' tables!" + +"I dunno how this hyar line air a-runnin'," declared Grinnell, sorely +beset. "I don't b'lieve it air a-runnin' north." + +The surveyor was hard by. He had planted his staff again, and was once +more taking his bearings. He looked up for a second. + +"North_west_," he said. + +Grinnell stared for a moment; then strode up to the surveyor, and +pointed with his stubby finger at a word on his deed. + +The official looked with interest at it; he held up suddenly Purdee's +grant and read aloud, "From Crystal Spring seven hundred poles +north_west_ to a stake in the middle of the river." + +He examined, too, the original plat of survey which he had taken to +guide him, and also the plat made when Squire Bates sold to Grinnell's +father; "north_west_" they all agreed. There was evidently a clerical +error on the part of the scrivener who had written Grinnell's deed. + +In a moment the harassed man saw that through the processioning of +Purdee's land he had lost heavily in the extent of his supposed +possessions. He it was who had claimed what was rightfully another's. +And because of the charge Purdee was the richer by a huge slice of +mountain land--how large he could not say, as he ruefully followed the +line of survey. + +But for this discovery the interest of processioning Purdee's land would +have subsided with the determination of the ownership of the limited +environment of the stone tables of the Law. Now, as they followed the +ever-diverging line to the northwest, the group was pervaded by a +subdued and tremulous excitement, in which even the surveyor shared. Two +or three whispered apart now and then, and Grinnell, struggling to +suppress his dismay, was keenly conscious of the glances that sought him +again and again in the effort to judge how he was taking it. Only Purdee +himself was withdrawn from the interest that swayed them all. He had +loitered at first, dallying with a temptation to slip silently from the +party and retrace his way to the tables and ascertain, perchance, if +some vestige of that mystic scripture might not reveal itself to him +anew, or if it had been only some morbid fancy, some futile influence of +solitude, some fevered condition of the blood or the brain, that had +traced on the stone those gracious words, the mere echo of which--his +stuttered, vague recollections--had roused the camp-meeting to fervid +enthusiasms undreamed of before. And then he put from him the +project--some other time, perhaps, for doubts lurked in his heart, +hesitation chilled his resolve--some other time, when his companions and +their prosaic influence were all far away. He was roused abruptly, as he +stalked along, to the perception of the deepening excitement among them. +They had emerged from the dense growths of the mountain to the lower +slope, where pastures and fields--whence the grain had been +harvested--and a garden and a dwelling, with barns and fences, lay +before them all. And as Purdee stopped and stared, the realization of a +certain significant fact struck him so suddenly that it seemed to take +his breath away. That divergent line stretching to the northwest had +left within his boundaries the land on which his enemy had built his +home. + +He looked; then he smote his thigh and laughed aloud. + +The rocks on the river-bank caught the sound, and echoed it again and +again, till the air seemed full of derisive voices. Under their stings +of jeering clamor, and under the anguish of the calamity which his +reeling senses could scarcely measure, Job Grinnell's composure suddenly +gave way. He threw up his arms and called upon Heaven; he turned and +glared furiously at his enemy. Then, as Purdee's laughter still jarred +the air, he drew a "shooting-iron" from his pocket. The blacksmith +closed with him, struggling to disarm him. The weapon was discharged in +the turmoil, the ball glancing away in the first quiver of sunshine +that had reached the earth to-day, and falling spent across the river. + +Grinnell wrested himself from the restraining grasp, and rushed down the +slope to his gate to hide himself from the gaze of the world--his world, +that little group. Then remembering that it was no longer his gate, he +turned from it in an agony of loathing. And knowing that earth held no +shelter for him but the sufferance of another man's roof, he plunged +into the leafless woods as if he heavily dragged himself by a power +which warred within him with other strong motives, and disappeared among +the myriads of holly bushes all aglow with their red berries. + +The spectators still followed the surveyor and his Jacob's-staff, but +Purdee lingered. He walked around the fence with a fierce, gloating eye, +a panther-like, loping tread, as a beast might patrol a fold before he +plunders it. All the venom of the old feud had risen to the opportunity. +Here was his enemy at his mercy. He knew that it was less than seven +years since the enclosures had been made, acres and acres of tillable +land cleared, the houses built--all achieved which converted the +worthlessness of a wilderness into the sterling values of a farm. +He--he, Roger Purdee--was a rich man for the "mountings," joining his +little to this competence. All the cruelties, all the insults, all the +traditions of the old vendetta came thronging into his mind, as +distinctly presented as if they were a series of hideous pictures; for +he was not used to think in detail, but in the full portrayal of +scenes. The Purdee wrongs were all avenged. This result was so +complete, so baffling, so ruinous temporally, so humiliating +spiritually! It was the fullest replication of revenge for all that had +challenged it. + +"How Uncle Ezra would hev rej'iced ter hev lived ter see this day!" he +thought, with a pious regret that the dead might not know. + +The next moment his attention was suddenly attracted by a movement in +the door-yard. A woman had been hanging out clothes to dry, and she +turned to go in, without seeing the striding figure patrolling the +enclosure. A baby--a small bundle of a red dress--was seated on the pile +of sorghum-cane where the mill had worked in the autumn; the stalks were +broken, and flimsy with frost and decay, and washed by the rains to a +pallid hue, yet more marked in contrast with the brown ground. The +baby's dress made a bright bit of color amidst the dreary tones. As +Purdee caught sight of it he remembered that this was "Grinnell's old +baby," who had been the cause of the renewal of the ancient quarrel, +which had resulted so benignantly for him. "I owe you a good turn, sis," +he murmured, satirically, glaring at the child as the unconscious mother +lifted her to go in the house. The baby, looking over the maternal +shoulder, encountered the stern eyes staring at her. She stared gravely +too. Then with a bounce and a gurgle she beamed upon him from out the +retirement of her flapping sun-bonnet; she smiled radiantly, and finally +laughed outright, and waved her hands and again bounced beguilingly, and +thus toothlessly coquetting, disappeared within the door. + +Before Purdee reached home, flakes of snow, the first of the season, +were whirling through the gray dusk noiselessly, ceaselessly, always +falling, yet never seeming to fall, rather to restlessly pervade the air +with a vacillating alienation from all the laws of gravitation. Elusive +fascinations of thought were liberated with the shining crystalline +aerial pulsation; some mysterious attraction dwelt down long vistas +amongst the bare trees; their fine fibrous grace of branch and twig was +accented by the snow, which lay upon them with exquisite lightness, +despite the aggregated bulk, not the densely packed effect which the +boughs would show to-morrow. The crags were crowned; their grim faces +looked frowningly out like a warrior's from beneath a wreath. Nowhere +could the brown ground be seen; already the pine boughs bent, the +needles failing to pierce the drifts. On the banks of the stream, on the +slopes of the mountain, in wildest jungles, in the niches and crevices +of bare cliffs, the holly-berries glowed red in the midst of the +ever-green snow-laden leaves and ice-barbed twigs. When his house at +last came into view, the roof was deeply covered; the dizzying whirl had +followed every line of the rail-fence; scurrying away along the furthest +zigzags there was a vanishing glimpse of a squirrel; the boles of the +trees were embedded in drifts; the chickens had gone to roost; the sheep +were huddling in the broad door of the rude stable; he saw their heads +lifted against the dark background within, where the ox was vaguely +glimpsed. He caught their mild glance despite the snow that in-starred +with its ever-shifting crystals the dark space of the aperture, and +intervened as a veil. They suddenly reminded him of the season--that it +was Christmas Eve; of the sheep which so many years ago beheld the angel +of the Lord and the glory of the great light that shone about the +shepherds abiding in the fields. Did they follow, he wondered, the +shepherds who went to seek for Christ? Ah, as he paused meditatively +beside the rail-fence--what matter how long ago it was, how far +away!--he saw those sheep lying about the fields under the vast midnight +sky. They lift their sleepy heads. Dawn? not yet, surely; and they lay +them down again. And one must bleat aloud, turning to see the quickening +sky; and one, woolly, white, white as snow, with eyes illumined by the +heralding heavens, struggles to its feet, and another, and the flock is +astir; and the shepherds, drowsing doubtless, are awakened to good +tidings of great joy. + +What a night that was!--this night--Christmas Eve. He wondered he had +not thought of it before. And the light still shines, and the angel +waits, and the eternal hosts proclaim peace on earth, good-will toward +men, and summon us all to go and follow the shepherds and see--what? A +little child cradled in a manger. The mountaineer, leaning on his gun by +the rail-fence, looked through the driving snow with the lights of +divination kindling in his eyes, seeing it all, feeling its meaning as +never before. Christ came thus, he knew, for a purpose. He could have +come in the chariots of the sun or on the wings of the wind. But He was +cradled as a little child, that men might revere humanity for the sake +of Him who had graced it; that they, thinking on Him, might be good to +one another and to all little children. + +As he burst into the door of his house the elations of his high +religious mood were rudely dispelled by shrill cries of congratulation +from his wife and her mother. For the news had preceded him. Ephraim +Blinks with his fiddle had stopped there on his way to play at some +neighboring merry-making, and had acquainted them with the result of +processioning Purdee's land. + +"We'll go down thar an' live!" cried his wife, with a gush of joyful +tears. "Arter all our scratchin' along like ten-toed chickens all this +time, we'll hev comfort an' plenty! We'll live in Grinnell's good house! +But ter think o' our trials, an' how pore we hev been!" + +"This air the Purdees' day!" cried the grandmother, her face flushed +with the semblance of youth. "Arter all ez hev kem an' gone, the +jedgmint o' the Lord hev descended on Grinnell, an' he air cast out. An' +his fields, an' house, an' bin, an' barn, air Purdee's!" + +The fire flared and faded; shadows of the night gloomed thick in the +room--this night of nights that bestowed so much, that imposed so much +on man and on his fellow-man! + +"Ain't the Grinnell baby got _no_ home?" whimpered the hereditary enemy. + +The mountaineer remembered the Lord of heaven and earth cradled, a +little Child, in the manger. He remembered, too, the humble child +smiling its guileless good-will at the fence. He broke out suddenly. + +"How kem the fields Purdee's," he cried, leaning his back against the +door and striking the puncheon floor with the butt of the gun till it +rang again and again, "or the house, or the bin, or the barn? Did he +plant 'em? Did he build 'em? Who made 'em his'n?" + +"The law!" exclaimed both women in a breath. + +"Thar ain't no law in heaven or yearth ez kin gin an honest man what +ain't his'n by rights," he declared. + +An insistent feminine clamor arose, protesting the sovereign power of +the law. He quaked for a moment; dominant though he was in his own +house, he could not face them, but he could flee. He suddenly stepped +out of the door, and when they opened it and looked after him in the +snowy dusk and the whitened woods, he was gone. + +And popular opinion coincided with them when it became known that he had +formally relinquished his right to that portion of the land improved by +Grinnell. He said to the old squire who drew up the quit-claim deed, +which he executed that Christmas Eve, that he was not willing to profit +by his enemy's mistake, and thus the consideration expressed in the +conveyance was the value of the land, considered not as a farm, but as +so many acres of wilderness before an axe was laid to the trunk of a +tree or the soil upturned by a plough. It was the minimum of value, and +Grinnell came cheaply off. + +The blacksmith, the mountain fiddler, and the advanced thinker, who had +been active in the survey, balked of the expected excitement attendant +upon the ousting of Grinnell, and some sensational culmination of the +ancient feud, were not in sympathy with the pacific result, and spoke as +if they had given themselves to unrequited labors. + +"Thar ain't no way o' settlin' what that thar critter Purdee owns +'ceptin' ez consarns Moses' tables o' the Law. He clings ter them," they +said, in conclave about the forge fire when the big doors were closed +and the snow, banking up the crevices, kept out the wind. "There ain't +no use in percessionin' Purdee's land." + +And indeed Purdee's possessions were wider far than even that divergent +line which the county surveyor ran out might seem to warrant; for on the +mountain-tops largest realms of solemn thought were open to him. He +levied tribute upon the liberties of an enthused imagination. He exulted +in the freedom of the expanding spaces of a spiritual perception of the +spiritual things. When the snow slipped away from the tables of the Law, +the man who had read strange scripture engraven thereon took his way one +day, doubtful, but faltering with hope, up and up to the vast dome of +the mountain, and knelt beside the rocks to see if perchance he might +trace anew those mystic runes which he once had some fine instinct to +decipher. And as he pondered long he found, or thought he found, here a +familiar character, and there a slowly developing word, and anon--did he +see it aright?--a phrase; and suddenly it was discovered to him that, +whether their origin were a sacred mystery or the fantastic scroll-work +of time as the rock weathered, high thoughts, evoking thrilling +emotions, bear scant import to one who apprehends only in mental +acceptance. And he realized that the multiform texts which he had read +in the fine and curious script were but paraphrases of the simple +mandate to be good to one another for the sake of that holy Child +cradled in manger, and to all little children. + + + THE END + + + + +IN THE "STRANGER PEOPLE'S" COUNTRY. + +By CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 +50. + + + In this strong story Miss Murfree has shown better art than in + any of her other long novels. It is a romance of the Tennessee + mountains, told with singular effect. The mystery and the + picturesqueness of it make it notable. We have enjoyed it, and + we recommend it to those who are hungry and thirsty for a + genuinely entertaining story.--_Independent_, N. Y. + + Miss Murfree has never had a more fascinating field for a + story.... She continues to be a romancist of strong imagination + and sustained dramatic power.--_Literary World_, Boston. + + The extraordinary freshness and reality of the picture of the + hill-people's life in the mountainous regions of Tennessee make + this one of the most readable of the many readable American + stories which abound just now.--_Saturday Review_, London. + + A brilliant story, full of power, remarkably picturesque and + vigorous in the telling.... The author writes in the spirit of a + thorough literary artist, and this book in plot, character, + drawing, vividness, and interest is an advance even on the + admirable stories that brought her into notice and established + her reputation.--_Saturday Evening Gazette_, Boston. + + The author delineates the natural scenery of the region with + graphic power, and the actors in her stories are drawn to the + life. This book is equal to any of its predecessors in dramatic + power.--_Observer_, N. Y. + + This is, perhaps, the best story which Miss Murfree has + published.... Though Miss Murfree's pen has described the + wonderful mountain scenery over and over again in her previous + volumes, yet here are found new, fresh touches that are + charmingly beautiful, strange, and weird.--_Zion's Herald_, + Boston. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK + +_For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage +prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt +of the price._ + + + + +R. D. BLACKMORE'S NOVELS. + + +PERLYCROSS. A Novel. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75. + + Told with delicate and delightful art. Its pictures of rural + English scenes and characters will woo and solace the + reader.... It is charming company in charming surroundings. Its + pathos, its humor, and its array of natural incidents are all + satisfying. One must feel thankful for so finished and + exquisite a story.... Not often do we find a more impressive + piece of work.--_N. Y. Sun._ + +SPRINGHAVEN. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper, 25 cents. + +LORNA DOONE. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 8vo, Paper, 40 cents. + +KIT AND KITTY. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; Paper, 35 cents + +CHRISTOWELL. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. + +CRADOCK NOWELL. 8vo, Paper, 60 cents. + +EREMA; or, My Father's Sin. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. + +MARY ANERLEY. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper, 15 cents. + +TOMMY UPMORE. 16mo, Cloth, 50 cents; Paper, 35 cts.; 4to, Paper, 20 +cents. + + His tales, all of them, are pre-eminently meritorious. They are + remarkable for their careful elaboration, the conscientious + finish of their workmanship, their affluence of striking + dramatic and narrative incident, their close observation and + general interpretation of nature, their profusion of + picturesque description, and their quiet and sustained + humor.--_Christian Intelligencer_, N. Y. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the +publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + +BY GEORGE DU MAURIER + + +TRILBY. A Novel. Illustrated by the Author. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1 75; Three-quarter Calf, $3 50; Three-quarter Crushed Levant, $4 50. + + Certainly, if it were not for its predecessor, we should assign + to "Trilby" a place in fiction absolutely companionless.... It + is one of the most unconventional and charming of + novels.--_Saturday Review_, London. + + It is a charming story told with exquisite grace and + tenderness.--_N. Y. Tribune_. + + Mr. Du Maurier has written his tale with such originality, + unconventionality, and eloquence, such rollicking humor and + tender pathos, and delightful play of every lively fancy, all + running so briskly in exquisite English and with such vivid + dramatic picturing, that it is only comparable ... to the + freshness and beauty of a spring morning at the end of a + dragging winter.... It is a thoroughly unique story.--_N. Y. + Sun_. + +PETER IBBETSON. With an Introduction by his Cousin, Lady * * * * * +("Madge Plunket"). Edited and Illustrated by GEORGE DU MAURIER. Post +8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. + + That it is one of the most remarkable books that have appeared + for a long time is, however, indisputable.--_N. Y. Tribune_. + + There are no suggestions of mediocrity. The pathos is true, the + irony delicate, the satire severe when its subject is unworthy, + the comedy sparkling, and the tragedy, as we have said, + inevitable. One or two more such books, and the fame of the + artist would be dim beside that of the novelist.--_N. Y. Evening + Post_. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the +publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + +BY MARY E. WILKINS. + + +PEMBROKE. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. + +JANE FIELD. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. + +YOUNG LUCRETIA, and Other Stories. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1 25. + +A NEW ENGLAND NUN, and Other Stories. l6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. + +A HUMBLE ROMANCE, and Other Stories. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. + +GILES COREY, YEOMAN. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents. + + We have long admired Miss Wilkins as one of the most powerful, + original, and profound writers of America; but we are bound to + say that "Pembroke" is entitled to a higher distinction than + the critics have awarded to Miss Wilkins's earlier productions. + As a picture of New England life and character, as a story of + such surpassing interest that he who begins is compelled to + finish it, as a work of art without a fault or a deficiency, we + cannot see how it could possibly be improved.--_N.Y. Sun_. + + The simplicity, purity, and quaintness of these stories set them + apart in a niche of distinction where they have no + rivals.--_Literary World_, Boston. + + Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, + sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures.--_N. Y. Tribune_. + + The charm of Miss Wilkins's stories is in her intimate + acquaintance and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet + human interest she feels and makes her readers partake of, in + the simple, common, homely people she draws.--_Springfield + Republican_. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the +publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and +Other Stories, by Charles Egbert Craddock + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTOMS *** + +***** This file should be named 36771.txt or 36771.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/7/36771/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton 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. 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