"'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER—ME?'""'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, beguiledthe 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. Thedeeply 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 yehevaxed 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, farbelow, 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 violentlyamong 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 ofTennessee 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 theystumbled 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 thosestrange 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 wholecortégestarted 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."Northwest," 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 northwestto 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 platmade when Squire Bates sold to Grinnell's father; "northwest" 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 thestone 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 ballglancing 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 spaceof 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 menmight 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 gotnohome?" 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 itsguileless 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 theadvanced 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 orthe 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 ENDIN THE "STRANGER PEOPLE'S" COUNTRY.ByCharles 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 byHARPER & BROTHERS,New YorkFor 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. 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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 byHARPER & 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 MAURIERTrilby. 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 byGeorge 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 byHARPER & 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. 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"'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER—ME?'""'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, beguiledthe 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. Thedeeply 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 yehevaxed 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, farbelow, 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 violentlyamong 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 ofTennessee 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 theystumbled 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 thosestrange 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 wholecortégestarted 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.
"Northwest," 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 northwestto 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 platmade when Squire Bates sold to Grinnell's father; "northwest" 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 thestone 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 ballglancing 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 spaceof 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 menmight 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 gotnohome?" 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 itsguileless 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 theadvanced 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 orthe 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.
ByCharles 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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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 byGeorge 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.
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 byGeorge 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.
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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.
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.
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