White's cabin was better than the average Sand-Mountain house, but its surroundings were not so inviting as those where considerable farms, with orchards and garden plats, gave an air of frugal thrift, almost of comfort to the scene, at some points in the lower valleys. It was built of pine logs, split into halves, the flat side turned in, and the apertures between covered with long clap-boards of pine, rove with the grain, and smoothed with a drawing-knife. The chimneys, which were spacious, consisted of pens of split sticks, built from the ground to a little above the roof, and heavily daubed with red clay. An arid little clearing whose stumpy, rain-washed fields lay as if on edge, leaning against the mountain-side, showed that a light crop of tobacco or a doubtful yield of maize "nubbins" would be the best return that labor might hope for from the soilless clay and the dry, lifeless monotony of the mountain summers. This clearing was all on one side of the cabin, reaching down toward the little valley, whilst on the other three sides the forest was unbroken, saving that, further up the mountain, wind and fire had done their work for ages. The fences about the place were old and neglected, grown over by vines and shrubs of various kinds, and the little gate in front, made of wattled boards, hung askew on rude hinges of hickory withes. Just outside of this gate, between it and the road, was a small space which for many years, ever since the cabin was built, in fact, had been used for piling up, cutting and splitting the wood and pine knots used by the household, and upon which a moldy mass of chips, bark and woody fragments had slowly accumulated. All the native trees near the cabin had long ago been felled, and a few gnarled peach trees now grew in their stead. Standing on the rotten door-sill and looking out across the lower valley, one could have a fine view, over ill-shaped farm-plats and variegated woods, of the broken masses of mountains, near and far, with their beetling cliffs, their clustered foot-hills and their bare stony peaks, all over-canopied with a serene blue sky. But the scene was not one to inspire the beholder with any broad ideas of nature or of human life. It was a dry, cramped, desolate landscape, even in the first fresh colors of spring, when the tassels were on the trees and the wild flowers fairly carpeted the ground, for it lacked fertility, suggestion, promise.
Here Milly White had been born and here she had lived to grow from babyhood to womanhood, a wild growth, like that of the native trees, plants and birds. Physically she was beautiful to look upon, if in looking one could separate the physical from the other form of human beauty; but she was strictly a product of Sand Mountain, the last refinement of its productive forces, no doubt, approaching as near the perfect as nature, working within such limitations and under such hopeless restrictions, could get. It would be impossible to give in words any fair idea of her beauty or of her ignorance; to attempt either would appear like exaggeration. The painter would succeed no better, for his representation could reach no further than pathetic caricature. Her life, her condition and her surroundings composed an instance not far out of the common in Sand Mountain existence. Her beauty, it is true, was exceptional, as beauty is in all cases, her ignorance was somewhat denser than the average, and her experience on Reynolds' account, had compassed its utmost possibility of disturbing force. In so far as her vision could go, she peered into the paradise coveted by all girls, and dreamed the dreams of unselfish love. Every evening she went down to the little gate and leaned upon it, watching long and patiently for the coming of a man, as other women do, and every morning she renewed the vigil for a time, and the evening and the morning were a day. She had but a vague understanding of things too vaguely understood by all girls, and she made of Reynolds no more a god than most young women do of the men they love. She could not realize her danger and she felt but indefinitely how much she was risking. As days and weeks dragged by and John did not come, she showed signs of nervous restlessness; but she said little. Her health, instead of failing, as might have been expected, seemed to improve. Her face filled out to full womanly proportions, her cheeks gathering rich tints of rose and carmine, her eyes softening and dilating as if with the wonder of some sweet, strange discovery. She hovered, as a butterfly about a flower, over the things in Reynolds' room. For hours she would sit before the sketch on the easel and gaze dreamily, half forlornly at it. She arranged and re-arranged the books, the chairs, the little worn foot-stool, the slippers, the dressing-gown, creeping about as noiselessly as if she feared the least sound might break her reverie. She was lonely, despondent and nervous at times, but she did not complain. White exhausted over and over again his stock of ingenuity in inventing excuses for "thet ther Colonel," who, he insisted, was "a hevin' of sech a roarin' ole time, a shootin' of birds an' a drinkin' of liquor an' a playin' of them ther new-fangled games of keerds." White himself had grown strangely uneasy in his manner and his eyes had lost somewhat of their humorous light. It was beginning to confirm itself in his mind that his idol had clay feet. He gave up his confidence in Reynolds inch by inch, so to speak, clinging to it with the dogged stubbornness of his narrow nature.
Spring fell upon the mountains some weeks earlier than usual. The old peach-trees were loaded with pale pink bloom and along the ragged ravines a tender green ran in waving veins. Day after day was cloudless and warm, followed by nights of such starry splendor as are seen nowhere save in the Southern mountain regions.
One evening Milly was at the gate, as usual, leaning over its uneven slats, gazing down the stony road. Her father came out of the cabin, bare-headed, pipe in mouth, with his hands thrust into his trowsers pockets.
"Think he air a comin' to-night, do ye, Milly?" he asked, standing near her and looking aimlessly about. "I shedn't be s'prised ef he'd drop along one of these yer days purty soon. Hit air a gittin' most time for the bird-shootin' ter stop, anyhow."
"I dremp las' night 'at he wer' dead, an' 'at's a sign, ye know," she answered, without looking up. "I jes' know 'at he air a comin' purty soon."
"Ef ye do see 'im a comin' down the road ther', Milly, an' ye've a min' ter jump over thet gate ther', w'y I shed 'vise ye ter git back yer a leetle an' take a runnin' start so's to be shore not to trip er nothin'." White chuckled dryly at the end of his speech, as if enjoying the scene it suggested; but receiving no reply from the girl his face resumed its look of stolid repose, albeit his eyes wandered restlessly without seeming to see any thing.
The sun was down, an hour ago, and the stillness of night had fallen on the wide, rugged landscape. There was scarcely wind enough to bear away the light jets of tobacco smoke puffed sharply now and then from the man's mouth.
"I dremp las' night, too, 'at the Colonel he wer' dead, Milly," he presently said; but he did not add that he dreamed that the Colonel had been killed, and by his hand.
"I'm jest a lookin' for 'im now, an' a 'spectin' 'im ever' minute," she replied, her voice quavering sweetly, her limbs trembling.
White swallowed, as if something hurt his throat, and pressed a finger vigorously into his pipe. The muscles of his face twitched convulsively.
"Oh, I consider 'at we'd better go inter the house, Milly," he urged, "for hit air not 'tall s'posible 'at the Colonel he'll come to-night; but he air comin' shore ter-morrer, that's es sarting es gun's iron, Milly."
"Lis'n, pap, I yer somethin' like he wer' a walkin' up the road this yer way: lis'n!" She shook her hand at him in token of silence, but did not turn her head, leaning far over the gate.
"Hit ain't him, Milly, he'd be er singin' er song, ef hit wer' him. Don't ye 'member how he used ter warble them cur'us chunes when he wer' a comin'?"
"Keep still, I tell ye, pap, for I know 'at I jest do yer 'im a comin' down ther'."
"Mebbe ye do, s'pec ye do," said White with a shake of his head, "but hit air ter-morrer 'at ye yer 'im a comin'. He air dead shore to roll in ter-morrer. Don't ye fret, he air a comin' 'fore long, Milly."
"He air a comin' right now: oh!" she cried, and flinging open the gate, she slipped through like a bird and ran down the road.
"I knowed 'at ye'd come, John, oh, John! John!" White heard her say, her voice cutting with shrill sweetness through the still evening air.
He went through the gateway, and, stumbling over the wood-pile, walked rapidly after her. Sure enough, there was Reynolds in the middle of the road, with Milly clinging to him. They were in a place where the strong star-light dimly outlined them. White stopped short and actually reeled like a drunken man. He went no nearer to them, but turned and staggered rather than walked back into the cabin.
"Hit air all right, mother," he said to his wife as he entered. "He air out ther'—the Colonel air."
She looked up with a start, for his voice was thick with excitement.
"She—she—Milly'll be all right now. She won't go erstracted now, mother," he added, dropping into a chair and beginning to refill his pipe.
THE END.