Externally James Hoag had changed. He was a heavier man; his movements were more sluggish, his hair was turning white, his face was wrinkled and had the brown splotches indicative of a disordered liver. There was on him, at times, a decided nervousness which he more or less frankly, according to mood, attributed to his smoking too much at night and the habit of tippling. He had grown more irritable and domineering. Beneath the surface, at least, he had strongly objected to his mother-in-law's continuing to look to him for support after her daughter's death. But Mrs. Tilton had told him quite firmly that she now had only one duty in life, and that was the care of her grandchild, Jack; and Hoag, quick, harsh, and decided in his dealings with others, knew no way of refusing.
He had really thought of marrying again; but the intimate presence of the mother-in-law and his inability to quite make up his mind as to which particular woman of his acquaintance could be trusted not to have motives other than a genuine appreciation of himself had delayed the step. Indeed, he had given the subject much thought, but objections more or less real had always arisen. The girl was too young, pretty, and spoiled by the attention of younger and poorer men, or the woman was too old, too plain, too settled, or too wise in the ways of the world. So Hoag had all but relinquished the thought, and if he had any heart he gave it to Jack, for whom he still had a remarkable paternal passion, as for his son Henry he still had little love or sympathy. For the last three or four years he had regarded Henry as an idle fellow who would never succeed in anything.
The “klan” of which Hoag was still the leader continued to hold its secret meetings, framed crude laws under his dictation, and inflicted grim and terrible punishment. And these men honestly believed their method to be more efficacious than the too tardy legal courts of the land.
Hoag had been to one of these meetings in a remote retreat in the mountains one moonlit night, and about twelve o'clock was returning. He was just entering the gate of his stable-yard when his attention was attracted to the approach along the road of a man walking toward Grayson, a traveler's bag in his hand. It was an unusual thing at that hour, and, turning his horse loose in the yard, Hoag went back to the gate and leaned on it, curiously and even officiously eying the approaching pedestrian. As the man drew nearer, lightly swinging his bag, Hoag remarked the easy spring in his stride, and noted that he was singing softly and contentedly. He was sure the man was a stranger, for he saw nothing familiar in the figure as to dress, shape, or movement.
“Must be a peddler in some line or other,” he said to himself; “but a funny time o' night to be out on a lonely road like this.”
It would have been unlike Hoag to have let the pedestrian pass without some sort of greeting, and, closing the gate, he stepped toward the center of the road and stood waiting.
“Good evening,” he said, when the man was quite close to him.
“Good evening.” The stranger looked up suddenly, checking his song, and stared at Hoag steadily in apparent surprise. Then he stopped and lowered his bag to the ground. “I wonder,” he said, “if this is—can this possibly be Mr. Jim Hoag?”
“That's who it is,” was the calm reply; “but I don't know as I've ever laid eyes on you before.”
“Oh yes, you have.” The stranger laughed almost immoderately. “You look closely, Mr. Hoag, and you'll recognize a chap you haven't seen in many a long, long year.”
Hoag took the tall, well-built young man in from head to foot. He was well and stylishly dressed, wore a short, silky beard, and had brown eyes and brown hair. Hoag dubiously shook his head.
“You've got the best o' me,” he said, slowly. “I'm good at recollectin' faces, as a rule, too; but my sight ain't what it used to be, an' then bein' night-time—”
“It was after dark the last time you saw me, Mr. Hoag.” The stranger was extending his hand and smiling. “Surely you haven't forgotten Ralph Rundel's son Paul?”
“Paul Rundel—good Lord!” Hoag took the extended hand clumsily, his eyes dilating. “It can't be—why, why, I thought you was dead an' done for long ago. I've thought many a time that I'd try to locate you. You see, after advisin' you—after tellin' you, as I did that night, that I thought you ought to run away, why, I sort o' felt—”
Hoag seemed unable to voice his train of thought and slowed up to an awkward pause.
“Yes, I know—I understand,” Paul Rundel said, his face falling into seriousness, his voice full and earnest. “I know I'm late about it; but it is better to be late than never when you intend to do the right thing. I committed a crime, Mr. Hoag, and the kind of a crime that can't be brushed out of a man's conscience by any sort of process. I've fought the hardest battle that any man of my age ever waged. For years I tried to follow your advice, and live my life in my own way, but I failed utterly. I started out fair, but it finally got me down. I saw I had to do the right thing, and I am here for that purpose.”
“You don't mean—you can't mean,” Hoag stammered, “that you think—that you actuallybelieve—”
“I mean exactly what I say.” The young, bearded face was all seriousness. “I stood it, I tell you, as long as I could in my own way, and finally made up my mind that I'd let God Almighty take me in hand. It was like sweating blood, but I got to it. In my mind, sleeping and waking, I've stood on the scaffold a thousand times, anyway, and now, somehow, I don't dread it a bit—not a bit. It would take a long time to explain it, Mr. Hoag, but I mean what I say. There is only one thing I dread, and that is a long trial. I'm going to plead guilty and let them finish me as soon as possible. I want to meet the man I killed face to face in the Great Beyond and beg his pardon in the presence of God. Then I will have done as much of my duty as is possible at such a late day.”
“Oh, I see!” Hoag fancied he understood. One of his old shrewd looks stoic into his visage. If Paul Rundel thought he was as easily taken in as that, he had mistaken his man, that was certain. Hoag put his big hand to his mouth and crushed out an expanding smile, the edge of which showed itself' in his twinkling eyes. “Oh, I see,” he said, with the sort of seduction he used in his financial dealings; “you hain't heard nothin' from here since you went off—nothin' at all?”
“Not a word, Mr. Hoag, since I left you down there seven years ago,” was the reply. “I must have walked thirty miles that night through the worst up-and-down country in these mountains before day broke. I struck a band of horse-trading gipsies at sun-up in the edge of North Carolina, and they gave me breakfast. They were moving toward the railroad faster than I could walk. I was completely fagged out, and they took pity on me and let me lie down on some straw and quilts in one of their vans. I slept soundly nearly all day. I wasn't afraid of being caught; in fact, I didn't care much one way or the other. I was sick at heart, blue and morbid. I suppose conscience was even then getting in its work.”
“I see.” Hoag was studying the young man's face, voice, and manner in growing perplexity. There was something so penetratingly sincere about the fellow. Hoag had heard of men being haunted by conscience till they would, of their own volition, give themselves up for punishment, but he had never regarded such things as possible, and he refused to be misled now. “Then you took a train?” he said, like a close cross-questioner. “You took the train?”
“Yes, I left the gipsies at Randal's Station, on the B: A. & L., and slipped into an unlocked boxcar bound for the West. It was an awful trip; but after many ups and downs I reached Portland in about as sad a plight as a boy of my age could well be in. I found work as a printer's devil on a newspaper. From that I began to set type. I studied hard at night, and finally got to be an editorial writer. You see, I kept myself out of view as much as possible—stayed at my boardinghouse from dark till morning, and, having access to a fine library, I read to—to kill time and keep my mind off my crime.”
“Yourcrime?Oh, you mean that you thought—”
“I couldn't possibly get away from it, Mr. Hoag.” Paul's voice quivered, and he drew his slender hand across his eyes. “Night or day, dark or light, Jeff Warren was always before me. I've seen him reel, stagger, and fall, and heard him groan millions and millions of times. It would take all night to tell you about those awful years of sin and remorse—that soul-racking struggle to defy God, which simply had to end, and did end, only a few days ago. When I left here I believed as you did about spiritual things, Mr. Hoag, and I thought I could live my life out as I wished, but I know better now. My experience during those seven years would convince any infidel on earth that God is in every atom of matter in the universe. The human being does not live who will not, sooner or later, bow down under this truth—if not here, he will in the Great Beyond.”
“Bosh!” Hoag growled, his heavy brows meeting in a fierce frown of displeasure.
“Oh, I see you still think as you used to think,”
Paul went on, regretfully; “but you'll come to it some day—you'll come to it in God's own good time. It is a satisfaction to me to know that I am giving you a proof ofmyreformation, anyway. You know, if you will stop to think about it, Mr. Hoag, that I am giving vital proof that I, at least, am convinced or I would not be willing to give my life up like this. It isn't hard to die when you know you are dying to fulfil a wonderful divine law; in fact, to mend a law which you yourself have broken!”
“I don't know what you are trying to git at, an' I don't care,” Hoag blustered. “I don't know what your present object is, what sort of an ax you got to grind; but I'll tell you what I think, Paul, an' you kin smoke it in your pipe if you want to. Somebody round here has kept you posted. You know how the land lays, an' have made up your mind to turn preacher, I reckon—if you ain't already one—an' you think it will be a fine card to make these damn fools here in the backwoods think you reallywasready to go to the scaffold, an' the like o' that. But the truth will leak out. Sooner or later folks—even the silliest of 'em—will git onto your game. You can't lookmesquare in the eye, young man, an' tellmethat you don't know Jeff Warren didn't die, an' that when he married your mammy an' moved away the case ag'in' you was dismissed. Huh, I ain't as green as a gourd!”
Paul started, stared incredulously at the speaker, his mouth falling open till his white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. He leaned forward, his breath coming and going audibly, his broad chest swelling. He laid his hand on Hoag's shoulder and bore down on it heavily. Hoag felt it quivering as if it were charged with an electric current. Paul was trying to speak, trying to be calm. He swallowed; his lips moved automatically; he put his disengaged hand on Hoag's other shoulder and forced him to look at him. He shook him. In his face was the light of a great nascent joy.
“Don't say he's alive unless—my God, unless it's true!” he cried, shaking Hoag again. “That would be the act of a fiend in human shape. I couldn't stand it. Speak, speak, speak, man! Don't you understand? Speak! Is it true—is it possible that—” Paul's voice broke in a great welling sob of excitement and his quivering head began to sink.
Hoag was quite taken aback. This was genuine; of that he was convinced. “Thar's no use gittin' so worked up,” he said. “Jeff is sound an' well. I'm sorry I talked like I did, for I see you must 'a' been in the dark, an'—”
He went no further. Paul had removed his hands. A light was on his face that seemed superhuman. He raised his eyes to the sky. He swerved toward the side of the road like a man entranced till he reached the fence, and there he rested his head on his arms and stood bowed, still, and silent.
“Huh, this is a purty pickle!” Hoag said to himself. He stood nonplussed for several minutes, and then advanced to Paul, treading the ground noiselessly till he was close to him. And then he heard the young man muttering an impassioned prayer.
“I thank thee, O God, I thank thee! O, blessed Father! O, merciful Creator, this—this is thy reward!”
Hoag touched him on the shoulder, and Paul turned his eyes upon him, which were full of exultant tears. “Say,” Hoag proposed, kindly enough, “thar ain't no need o' you goin' on to Grayson to-night. The hotel ain't runnin' this summer, nohow. Pete Kerr an' his wife closed it for a month to go off on a trip. I've got a big, cool room in my house that ain't occupied. Stay with me as long as you like. We are sort o' old friends, an' you are entirely welcome. I'd love the best in the world to have you.”
“It is very good of you.” Paul was calmer now, though his countenance was still aglow with its supernal light. “I really am very tired. I've walked ten miles—all the way from Darby Crossroads. The hack broke down there a little after dark, and as I wanted to give myself up before morning—before meeting anybody—I came on afoot. The driver was a new man, and so he had no idea of who I was or what my intentions were. Oh, Mr. Hoag, you can't imagine how I feel. You have given me such a great joy. I know I am acting like a crazy man, but I can't help it. It is so new, so fresh—so glorious!”
“Thewhole thingseems crazy to me,” said Hoag, with a return of his old bluntness; “but that's neither here nor thar. You seem to be in earnest. Pick up yore valise an' let's go in the house.”
“Are you sure you have room for me?” Paul asked, as he went for his bag.
“Plenty, plenty. My sister, Mrs. Mayfield, an' Ethel, from Atlanta—you remember them—they are spending the summer here, as they always do now. They went to Atlanta yesterday—some o' their kin is sick—Jennie Buford. They will be back tomorrow by dinner-time. But when they come you needn't stir. We've got plenty o' room. You are welcome to stay as long as you like. I want to talk to you about the West.”
HOAG led the way through the gate and up the walk toward the house.
“Do you think you'll be likely to settle down here again?” he inquired.
“Oh, I shall now—I shall now,” Paul returned, eagerly. “I've been so homesick for these old mountains and valleys that I shall never want to leave them. It is that way with most men; they never find any spot so attractive as the place where they were brought up.”
“The reason I asked,” Hoag said, with a touch of pride, “was this. I've increased my interests here a powerful sight since you went away. I've added on two more good-sized farms. My tannery is double what it was, an' my flour-mill's a new one with the patent-roller process. Then I run a brickyard t'other side o' town, and a shingle-mill and a little spoke an' hub factory. I tell you this so you'll understand the situation. I'm gittin' too stiff an' heavy to ride about much, an' I've got to have a general superintendent. The fellow that was with me for the last four years left me high an' dry a week ago, after a row me an' him had over a trifle, when you come to think about it. It just struck me that you might want to think it over an' see how you'd like the job.”
“I should like it, I am sure,” Paul said, gratefully.
“I am going to stay here, and I'll have to keep busy.”
“Well, we'll talk it over to-morrow,” Hoag said, in quite a tone of satisfaction. “I reckon we'll agree on the price. If you are as hard a worker as you used to be I'll be more 'an pleased.”
They were now at the veranda steps. The front door was locked; Hoag opened it with a key which was fastened to his suspenders by a steel chain, and the two went into the unlighted hall. The owner of the house fumbled about in the dark until he found a couple of candles on a table, and, scratching a match on his thigh, he lighted them.
“Now we are all hunky-dory,” he chuckled. “I'm goin' to give you a good room, an' if I don't live on the fat of the land as to grub nobody else does. If we come to terms, I'll want you to stay right here, whar I can consult you at a moment's notice.”
“That would be nice indeed,” Paul returned, as he followed his host up the uncarpeted stairs to a hall, which was the counterpart of the one below.
At the front end of the hall Hoag pushed a door open and entering a large bedroom, put one of the candles on the mantelpiece. “Here you are,” he said, pleasantly, waving his heavy hand over the furniture, which consisted of a table, a couple of chairs, a bureau, wardrobe, and a fully equipped wash-stand. “You 'll have to admit”—Hoag smiled at this—“that it is better than the place you was headed for. The last time I peeped in that jail thar wasn't any beds that I could see—niggers an' tramps was lyin' on iron bars with nothin' under 'em but scraps o' blankets.”
Just then there was the sound of a creaking bed in the room adjoining.
Hoag put his own candle down on the table. “It's Henry,” he explained. “He's been poutin' all day. Me'n him had some hot words at supper. He wants me to furnish some money for him to go in business on. Him an' another man want to start a produce store in Grayson, but I won't put hard cash in inexperienced hands. It would be the same as stickin' it in a burnin' brush-heap. He's quit drinkin' an' gamblin', but he won't work.”
“I've seen young men like him,” Paul said. “Henry wasn't brought up to work, and he may be helpless. He ought to be encouraged.”
“Well, I'll not encourage him by puttin' a lot o' cash in his clutches,” Hoag sniffed. “If he'd set in an' work like you used to do, for instance, thar's no tellin' what I would do for him in the long run. Well, I'm keepin' you up. I'll see you in the mornin'. Good night.”
“Good night,” Paul said.
With his lighted candle in his hand Hoag went down-stairs and turned into his own room, adjoining the one in which Jack and his grandmother slept. Putting his candle on a table, he began to undress. He had finished and was about to lie down when he heard a light footfall in the next room. A connecting door was pushed open and a tall, slender boy in a white nightgown stood in the moonlight which streamed through a vine-hung window and fell on the floor.
“Is that you, Daddy?”
“Yes, son.” There was an odd note of affection in Hoag's welcoming tone. “Do you want anything?”
The boy crept forward slowly. “I got scared. I woke and heard you talkin' up-stairs like you was still quarreling with Henry.”
“You must have been dreaming.” The father held out his arms and drew the boy into a gentle embrace. “Do you want to sleep with your old daddy?”
“Oh yes!” Jack crawled from his father's arms to the back part of the bed and stretched out his slender white legs against the plastered wall. “May I sleep here till morning, and get up when you do?”
“Yes, if you want to. Do you railly love to sleep in my bed?”
Hoag was now lying down, and Jack put his arm under his big neck and hugged him. “Yes, I do; I don't like my little bed; it's too short.”
“Thar, kiss daddy on the cheek and go to sleep,” Hoag said, under the thrill of delight which the boy's caresses invariably evoked. “It's late—awful late fer a chap like you to be awake.”
Jack drew his arm away, rolled back against the cool wall, and sighed.
“Daddy,” he said, presently, just as Hoag was composing himself for sleep, “I don't want Grandma to tag after me so much. She watches me like a hawk, an' is always saying if I don't look out I'll grow up and be good for nothing like Henry. Daddy, what makes Henry that way?”
“I don't know; he's just naturally lazy. Now go to sleep.”
“Some folks like Henry very, very much,” the boy pursued, getting further and further from sleep. “Grandma says he really is trying to be good, but don't know how. Was you like him when you was young, Daddy?”
“No—I don't know; why, no, I reckon not. Why do you ask such silly questions?”
“Grandma told Aunt Dilly one day that you always did drink, but that you didn't often show it. She said Henry had quit, and that was wonderful for any one who had it in his blood like Henry has. Is it in my blood, too, Daddy?”
“No.” Hoag's patience was exhausted. “Now go to sleep. I've got to rest, I'm tired, and must work to-morrow.”
“Are you a soldier, Daddy?” Jack pursued his habit of ignoring all commands from that particular source.
“No, I'm not. Now go to sleep; if you don't, I'll send you back to your own bed.”
“Then why does Mr. Trawley call you 'Captain'?”
“Who said—who told you he called me that?” Hoag turned his massive head on his pillow and looked at the beautiful profile of his son, as it was outlined against the wall.
“Oh, I heard him the other day, when he rode up after you to go somewhere. I was in the loft at the barn fixing my pigeon-box and heard him talking to you down at the fence. Just as he started off he said, 'Captain, your men will wait for you at the usual place. They won't stir without your commands.'”
Hoag's head moved again; his eyes swept on to the ceiling; there was a pause; his wit seemed sluggish.
“Are you really a captain, Daddy?” Jack raised himself on his elbow and leaned over his father's face, “No; lie down and go to sleep,” Hoag said, sternly. “Some people call me that just out of—out of respect, just as a sort o' nickname. The war is over; thar ain't no real captains now.”
“I think I know why they call you that.” Jack's delicate face was warm with pride, and his young voice was full and round. “It is because you are the bravest an' richest and best one. That's why Mr. Trawley said they wouldn't stir till you told them. I asked Grandma about it, and she looked so funny and acted so queer! She wouldn't say anything tome, but she went straight to Aunt Dilly, and they talked a long time, and Grandma looked like she was bothered. That was the night the White Caps rode along the road after that runaway negro. I saw Grandma watching from the window. She thought I was asleep, but I got up and looked out of the other window and she didn't know it. Oh, they looked awful in their long, white things. Aunt Dilly was down in the yard, and she told Grandma that God was going to have revenge, because the Bible said so. She said Cato had left his cabin and was hiding in the woods for fear they might gethim. She said Cato was a good nigger, and that it was a sin to scare him and all the rest like that. Daddy, whatarethe White Caps? Where do they come from?”
“Oh, from roundabout in the mountains!” Hoag returned, uneasily. “Now go to sleep. You are nervous; you are shaking all over; those men won't hurt you.”
“But theydoget white folks sometimes, and take them out and whip them,” Jack said, tremulously. “Aunt Dilly said one day to Cato that they begun on the blacks, but they had sunk so low that they were after their own race now. What would we do if they was to come here after—” The little voice trailed away on the still air, and glancing at the boy's face Hoag saw that the pretty, sensitive lips were quivering.
“After who?” he asked, curious in spite of his caution.
“After Henry,” Jack gulped. “They might, you know, to whip him for not working. They did whip a poor white man last summer because he let his wife and children go hungry. Daddy, if they was—reallywasto ride up here and call Henry out, would you shoot them? What would be the use, when there are so many and every one has a gun?”
“They—they are not coming after Henry.” Hoag was at the end of his resources. “Git all that rubbish out o' your head an' go to sleep!”
“How do you know they won't come, Daddy? Oh, Daddy, Henry really is my only brother an' I love 'im. You don't know how good he is to me sometimes. He mends my things, and makes toys for me with his knife, and tells me stories about sailors and soldiers and Indians.”
Hoag turned on his side and laid a caressing hand on the boy's brow. “Now, now,” he said, soothingly, “let's both go to sleep.”
“All right, Daddy.” Jack leaned over his father's face and kissed him. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Hoag rolled over to the front side of the bed, straightened himself out and closed his eyes.
ON finding himself alone in his room, Paul began to realize the full import of the startling information Hoag had imparted to him. He stood before an open window, and with the sense of being afloat on a sea of actual ecstasy he gazed into the mystic moonlight. Northward lay the village, and to the left towered the mountains for which he had hungered all the years of his absence. How restful, God-blessed seemed the familiar meadows and fields in their drowsy verdure! He took deep draughts of the mellow air, his broad chest expanding, his arms extended wide, as if to clasp the whole in a worshiping embrace.
“Thank God,” he cried, fervently, “I am not a murderer! My prayers are answered. The Lord is showing me the way—andsucha way—such a glorious, blessed way!”
And to-morrow—his thoughts raced madly onward—to-morrow the dawn would break. The land he loved, the hills and vales he adored, would be flooded with the blaze of his first day of actual life. Ethel would be there—little Ethel, who, of course, was now a young woman—there, actually there, in that very house! Would she remember him—the ragged boy whom she had so unselfishly befriended? What must she think of him—if she thought of him at all—for acting as he had? Oh yes, that was it—if she thought of him at all! He had treasured her every word. Her face and voice, in all their virginal sympathy, had been constantly with him during the terrible years through which he had struggled.
The dawn was breaking. Paul lay sleeping; his bearded face held a frown of pain; his lips were drawn downward and twisted awry. He was dreaming. He saw himself seated at his desk in the editorial room of the paper on which he had worked in the West. He seemed to be trying to write an article, but the sheets of paper before him kept fluttering to the floor and disappearing from sight. There was a rap on the door, the latch was turned, and an officer in uniform entered and stood beside him.
“I'm sorry,” he said, “but you'll have to come with me. You are wanted back in Georgia. We've been looking for you for years, but we've landed you at last.”
Paul seemed to see and hear the jingle of a pair of steel handcuffs. A dead weight bore down on his brain as the metal clasped his wrists. Dense darkness enveloped him, and he felt himself being jerked along at a mad pace.
“I intended to give myself up,” he heard himself explaining to his captor. “I'm guilty. I did it. Day after day I've told myself that I would go back and own it, but I put it off.”
“That's the old tale.” The officer seemed to laugh out of the darkness. “Your sort are always intending to do right, but never get to it. They are going to hang you back there in the mountains, young man, hang you till you are dead, dead, dead! Ethel Mayfield's there—she is the same beautiful girl—but she will be ashamed to acknowledge she ever knew you. She used to pray for you—silly young thing!—and this is the answer. You'll die like a dog, young man, with a rope around your neck.”
Paul waked slowly; his face was wet with cold perspiration. At first he fancied he was in a prison cell lying on a narrow cot. Such queer sounds were beating into his consciousness—the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, the gladsome twittering of birds! Then he seemed to be a boy again, lying in his bed in the farm-house. His father was calling him to get up. The pigs were in the potato-field. But how could Ralph Rundel call to him, for surely he was dead? Yes, he was dead, and Jeff Warren—Jeff Warren—Why, Hoag had said that he had—recovered. Recovered!
Paul opened his eyes and looked about him in a bewildered way. The room, in the gray light which streamed in at the windows, was unfamiliar. He sat up on the edge of his bed and tried to collect his thoughts; then he rose to his feet and sprang to the window.
“Thank God, thank God!” he cried, as he stared out at the widening landscape and the truth gradually fastened itself upon him. “Thank God, I'm free—free—free!”
He told himself that he could not possibly go to sleep again, and hurriedly and excitedly he began to put on his clothes.
When he had finished dressing he crept out into the silent hall and softly tiptoed down the stairs. The front door was ajar, and, still aglow with his vast new joy, he passed out into the yard. The dewy lawn had a beauty he had never sensed before. The great trees, solemn and stately, lifted their fronded tops into the lowering mist. The air held the fragrance of flowers. Red and white roses besprent with dew bordered the walks, bloomed in big beds, and honeysuckles and morning-glories climbed the lattice of the veranda. Down the graveled walk, under the magnolias, the leaves of which touched his bare head, Paul strode, his step elastic, his whole being ablaze with mystic delight. Reaching the road, he took the nearest path up the mountain. He waved his arms; he ran; he jumped as he had jumped when a boy; he whistled; he sang; he wept; he prayed; he exulted. Higher and higher he mounted in the rarefied air, his feet slipping on the red-brown pine-needles and dry heather till he reached an open promontory where a flat ledge sharply jutted out over the gray void below. Like a fearless, winged creature he stood upon the edge of it. The eastern sky was taking on a tinge of lavender. Slowly this warmed into an ever-expanding sea of pink, beneath the breathless waves of which lay the palpitating sun. Paul stretched out his arms toward the light and stood as dumb and still as the gray boulders and gnarled trees behind him. He was athrob with a glorious sense of the Infinite, which seemed to enter his being like a flood at its height.
“Free! Free!” he shouted, as the tears burst from his eyes and streamed down his cheeks. “Forgiven, forgiven! I was blind and now I see! I stand on the fringe of the eternal and see with the eyes of truth. All is well with God and every created thing, vast and infinitesimal! O Lord, I thank Thee; with my whole being, which is spirit of Thy spirit and flesh of Thy flesh, I thank Thee! Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty! He is in me, and I am in Him!”
Paul covered his face with his hands and the hot tears trickled through his fingers. His body shook with sobs. Presently he became calmer, uncovered his face, and looked again toward the east. The day, like a blazing torrent, was leaping into endless space, lapping up with tongues of fire islands and continents of clouds. Raising his hands heavenward, Paul cried out, in a clear, firm voice that rebounded from the cliffs behind him:
“O God, my blessed Creator, Thou hast led me through the agony of travail, through the pits and caverns of sin and remorse to the foot of Thy throne. Dimly I see Thy veiled face. I hear the far-off hosts of eternal wisdom chanting the deathless song of Love. Take me—command me, body, mind, and soul! Burden me again, and yet again; torture me, afflict me; grind me as a filthy worm beneath the heel of Thy Law; but in the end give me this—this wondrous sense of Thee and transcendent knowledge of myself. Here, now and forever, I consecrate myself to Thy cause. O blessed God, who art love and naught but love. I thank Thee, I thank Thee!”
The sun, now a great, red disk, had burst into sight. The golden light lay shimmering on hill and vale. Every dewy blade of grass, stalk of grain, and dripping leaf seemed to breathe afresh. From the lower boughs of the trees night-woven cobwebs hung, the gauzy snares of creatures as wise as Napoleon and materially as cruel. The scattered houses of Grayson were now in view. Paul feasted his eyes on the Square, and the diverging streets which led into the red-clay mountain roads. The hamlet was almost devoid of life. He saw, or thought he saw, his old friend, Silas Tye, go out to the public pump in front of his shop, fill a pail with water, and disappear. In the wagon-yard were two canvas-covered wagons and a camp-fire, over which men, women, and children were cooking breakfast. Paul's glance swept down the rugged slope to Hoag's house. Cato was feeding the horses and cattle in the stable-yard. Aunt Dilly, in a red linsey frock, was chopping stove-wood close to the kitchen, the thwacks of her dull ax sharply audible. Paul suddenly had a desire to speak to these swarthy toilers, to take them by the hand and make them feel his boundless friendliness to them, and so, with a parting look at the view below, he turned and began to retrace his steps.
Cato was near the kitchen door helping Dilly take in the wood when Paul went up the front walk, turned the corner of the house, and approached him. The negro stared in astonishment, then laid down his burden and held out his hands.
“My Gawd, Mister Paul, is dis you? Lawd, Law'd 'a' mussy!”
“Yes, it is I,” the young man answered; “I've got back at last.”
“It's a wonder I knowed you wid dat beard, an' dem fine riggin's on.” Cato was eying Paul's modern raiment with a slow, covetous glance. “But it was dem eyes o' your'n I knowed you by. Nobody ain't gwine ter forgit dem peepers. Somehow dey look as saft as 'er woman's. What yer been done ter yo'se'f—you ain't de same. My Gawd, you ain't de same po' boy dat tried yo' level best ter kill dat white man wid er gun.”
Paul was saved the embarrassment of a reply by the sudden appearance of Aunt Dilly, who was literally running down the steps from the kitchen porch.
“Don't tell me dat is Marse Paul Rundel?” she cried. “I ain't gwine believe it. De gen'man's er foolin' you, you blockhead idiot!”
“That's who it is, Aunt Dilly.” Paul held out his hand cordially and clasped her rasping, toil-stiffened fingers. “I've got back, never to leave again.”
“Lawd, Lawd, it is—it sho is dat ve'y boy!” Dilly cried. “You right, Cato, he got de eyes en de voice. I'd know 'em anywhar. My, my, my, but you sho is changed er sight! I ain't never expect ter see dat raggety white boy turn inter er fine gen'man lak dis. Lawd, what gwine ter happen next?”
Paul conversed with the two for several minutes, and then went up to his room on a hint from Dilly that breakfast would soon be served. Paul had been in his room only a short while when he heard the door of Henry Hoag's room open and Henry appeared.
“Hello, Paul!” he said, cordially extending his hand. “I wouldn't have known you from a side of sole-leather if I hadn't heard you talking to Cato and Dilly down there. I didn't know you were back. I thought you'd cut this section off your map. I'm goin' to do it some day, if I can get up enough money to start on. What you ever came back here for is one on me. It certainly is the jumpin'-off place.”
“It is the only home I ever knew,” Paul returned. “You know it is natural for a man to want to see old landmarks.”
“I reckon so, I reckon so.” Henry's roving glance fell on. Paul's valise. “I suppose you've seen a good deal of the world. I certainly envy you. I am tired of this. I am dying of the dry-rot. I need something to do, but don't know how to find it. I tried life insurance, but every man I approached treated it as a joke. I made one trip as a drummer for a fancy-goods firm in Baltimore. I didn't sell enough to pay my railroad fare. The house telegraphed me to ship my sample trunks back. My father had advanced me a hundred to start on, and when I came home he wanted to thrash me. I'll give you a pointer, Paul; if you are lookin' for a job, you can land one with him. He's crazy to hire an overseer, but he wouldn't trust it to me. The chap that left 'im wouldn't stand his jaw and the old man can't attend to the work himself. Take a tip from me. If you accept the job, have a distinct understandin' that he sha'n't cuss you black an' blue whenever he takes a notion. He's worse at that than he used to be, an' the only way to git along with him is to knock 'im down and set on him right at the start. He hasn't but one decent trait, an' that is his love for little Jack. He'd go any lengths for that kid. Well, so would I. The boy is all right—lovely little chap. He hasn't a jill of the Hoag blood in him.”
“I haven't seen Jack yet,” Paul said. “He was a baby when I left.”
There was the harsh clanging of a bell below; Cato was vigorously ringing it on the back porch.
“That's breakfast now.” Henry nodded toward the door. “Don't wait for me—I usually dodge the old man. We've got summer boarders—kin folks. Cousin Eth' and her mammy are here with all their finicky airs. Eth's a full-fledged young lady now of the Atlanta upper crust, and what she don't know about what's proper and decent in manners never was written in a book of etiquette. She begun to give me lessons last year about how and when to use a fork—said I made it rattle between my teeth. I called her down. She knows I don't ask her no odds. There is a swell fellow in Atlanta, a banker, Ed Peterson, that comes up to spend Sunday with her now and then. I never have been able to find out whether Eth' cares for him or not. The old man likes him because he's got money, and he's trying to make a match of it. I think Aunt Harriet leans that way a little, too, but I'm not sure. Oh, he's too dinky-dinky for anything—can't drive out from town without a nigger to hold his horse, and wears kid gloves in hot weather, and twists his mustache.”
Glad to get away from the loquacious gossip, Paul descended the stairs to the dining-room. Here nothing had been changed. The same old-fashioned pictures in veneered mahogany frames were hanging between the windows. The same figured china vases stood on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, which was filled with evergreens, and the hearth was whitewashed as when he had last seen it. Mrs. Tilton, looking considerably older, more wrinkled, thinner, and bent, stood waiting for him at the head of the table.
“I'm glad to see you ag'in, Paul,” She extended her hand and smiled cordially. “I've wondered many and many a time if you'd ever come back. Jim was telling me about you just now. How relieved you must feel to find things as they are! Set down at the side there. Jim's out among the beehives with Jack. They have to have a romp every momin'. Jack is a big boy now, and powerful bright. There, I hear 'em coming.”
“Get up! Get up! Whoa!” the child's voice rang out, and Hoag, puffing and panting, with Jack astride his shoulders, stood pawing like a restive horse at the edge of the porch.
“Jump down now,” Hoag said, persuasively. “One more round!” the boy cried, with a merry laugh.
“No; off you go or I'll dump you on the porch.”
“You can't!” Jack retorted. “You ain't no Mexican bronco. I'll dig my heels in your flanks and stick on till you are as tame as a kitten.”
“No; get down now, I'm hungry,” Hoag insisted; “besides, we've got company, an' we mustn't keep 'im waiting.”
That seemed to settle the argument, and in a moment Jack entered, casting shy glances at the visitor, to whom he advanced with a slender hand extended.
“You can't remember me, Jack,” Paul said. “You were a little tot when I left.”
Jack said nothing. He simply withdrew his hand and took a seat beside his father, against whom he leaned, his big brown eyes, under long lashes, studiously regarding the visitor. The boy was remarkably beautiful. His golden-brown hair was as fine as cobwebs; his forehead was high and broad; his features were regular; his limbs slender and well-shaped. An experienced physiognomist would have known that he possessed a sensitive, artistic temperament.
Paul heard little of the casual talk that was going on. His elation clung to him like an abiding reality. The sunshine lay on the grass before the open door. The lambent air was full of the sounds peculiar to the boyhood which had seemed so far behind him and yet had returned. Hens were clucking as they scratched the earth and made feints at pecking food left uncovered for their chirping broods. Waddling ducks and snowy geese, with flapping wings, screamed one to another, and innumerable bird-notes far and near, accompanied by the rat-tat of the woodpecker, were heard. A donkey was braying. A peacock with plumage proudly spread stalked majestically across the grass, displaying every color of the rainbow in his dazzling robe.
Breakfast over, Hoag led Paul into the old-fashioned parlor and gave him a cigar. “I've got to ride out in the country,” he said, “an' so I may not see you again till after dark. I've been thinkin' of that proposition I sorter touched on last night. Thar ain't no reason why me'n you can't git on. We always did, in our dealin's back thar, an' I need a manager powerful bad. I paid t'other man a hundred a month an' his board throwed in, an' I'm willin' to start out with you on the same basis, subject to change if either of us ain't satisfied. It's the best an' easiest job in this county by long odds. What do you say? Is it a go?”
“I'm very glad to get it,” Paul answered. “I shall remain here in the mountains, and I want to be busy. I'll do my best to serve you.”
“Well, that's settled,” Hoag said, in a tone of relief. “Knock about as you like to-day, and tomorrow we'll ride around an' look the ground over.”