Gid Fletcher burst into a sudden laugh, almost as metallic, as inexpressive of any human emotion, as if it had issued from the anvil. His face flushed, not the reflection from the iron, which had cooled, but with his own angry red blood; his figure, visible in the sullen illumination of the dull forge fire, was tense and motionless.
'Ye never knew, 'Cajah Green!' he cried. 'Ye don't take nare one o' the forks o' the road. Ye ain't a-goin' ter know, nuther, from me. I ain't a-hankerin' ter be fund dead in the road some mornin', with a big bullet in my skull-bone, an' nobody ter know how sech happened. Ef ye hev a mind ter spy out the Cayces fur the raiders, ye air on a powerful cold scent; thar ain't nobody on this mounting ez loves lead well enough ter tell whar old Groundhog holds forth. Them ez he wants ter know—knows 'thout bein' told. Ye ain't smart enough, 'Cajah Green, ter match yer meanness!'
It is difficult for a man, without the hope of deceiving, to maintain a deception, and it was with scant verisimilitude that Micajah Green denied the detection of his clumsy ruse, and swore that he only wanted to come up with Rick Tyler. He went through the motions, however, while the blacksmith looked at him with uncovered teeth, and a demonstration that in a man might be described as a smile, but in a wild cat would be called a snarl. The fierce, surprised glare of the eyes added the complement of expression. Now and then he growled indignant interpolations:
'Naw; ye 'lowed ez I'd tell ye, an' ye'd tell the raiders, an' then somehow ye'd hev shifted the blame on me, an' them Cayces—five of 'em an' all thar kin—would hev riddled me with thar bullets till folks wouldn't hev knowed which war metal an' which war man.'
Still Micajah Green maintained his feint of denial, and the blacksmith presently ceased to contradict.
It was Fletcher's privilege to entertain this visitor at the Settlement, and the behests of hospitality could hardly be served without ignoring the disagreement that had arisen between them. Little, however, was said while the waggon axle and skene were in process of completion, and then adjusted to the vehicle by the light of a lantern.
Jer'miah came over from the store, and presided after the manner of small boys, regarding each phase of the operation with an interest for which a questioner would have found no corresponding fulness of information—a sort of spurious curiosity, satisfying the eye, but having no connection with the brain. Euralina, who was small for her sun-bonnet, a grotesque and top-heavy little figure, stood in the door of the forge—also a wide-eyed and impressed spectator.
The blacksmith was a very good illustration of a rural Hercules, as he riveted his bolts, and lifted the body of the ponderous vehicle, and went lightly in and out of the forge. He did his work well and quickly too, for a mountaineer, and he had the artisan's satisfaction in his handicraft, as, with his hammer still in his hand, he watched the slow vehicle creak along the road between the corn-field and the woods, and disappear gradually from view.
The wheels still sounded assertively on the air; the katydids' iteration rose in vibrant insistence; the long, vague, pervasive sighing of the woods added to the night its deep melancholy. The golden burnished blade of the new moon was half sheathed in invisibility behind a dark mountain's summit.
The blacksmith's house was on the elevated slope beyond the forge, and as he turned on his porch and looked back, he noted the one salient change in the landscape as seen from the higher level—above the distant mountain-summit the moon showed its glittering length, as if withdrawn from the scabbard. He glanced at it and shut the door.
Micajah Green had the best that the humble log cabin could afford, and no dearth of fair words as a relish to the primitive feast. It was only the next morning, when his foot was in the stirrup, that his host recurred to the theme of the evening before.
'Look-a-hyar, 'Cajah Green, you-uns jes' let old Groundhog Cayce be. Ye ain't a-goin' ter find out whar his still air a-workin', an' ef he war ter hear ez ye had been 'quirin' 'round 'bout'n it 'twould be ez much ez yer life air wuth.'
Micajah Green renewed his hollow protestations, discredited as before, and the blacksmith, shading his eyes from the sun with his broad blackened right hand, watched him ride away.
Even when he was out of sight, Gid Fletcher stood for a time silently looking at the spot where horse and man had disappeared. Then he shook his head, and went into the forge.
'Zeke,' he said to his humble striker, 'ye air a fool, an' ye know it. But ye air a smart man ter that loon, fur the hell of it air he dunno he air a loon.'
His warnings, nevertheless, had more effect than he realized. They served as a check on Micajah Green's speech with the few men that he met—all surly enough, however, to repel confidence, were there no other motive to withhold it.
He saw in this another confirmation of the Cayces' enmity, and their activity in weakening his hold on the people. He began to think it hard that he should be thus at their mercy; that his office should be wrested from him; that they should impose unexampled indignities of defeat; that he should not dare to raise his hand against them—nay, his voice, for even the reckless Gid Fletcher had cautions for so much as a word.
Some trifling errand which he had used as a pretext for his journey brought him several miles along the range, and when he was actually starting down the mountain, his vengeance still muzzled, his ingenuity at fault, his courage faltering, all the intention of his journey merged in its subterfuge, he found himself upon the road which led past the Cayces' house, and in many serpentine windings down the long jagged slopes to the base. Noontide was near. The shadows were short. He heard the bees droning. The far-away mountains were of an exquisite ethereal azure, discrediting the opaque turquoise blue of the sky. The dark wooded coves had a clear distinctness of tone and definiteness of detail, despite the distance. The harmonies of colour that filled the landscape culminated in a crimson sumach growing hard by in a corner of a rail fence. The little house was still. The muffled tread of his horse's hoofs in the deep, dry sand did not rouse the sleeping hounds under the porch. The vines clambering to its roof were full of tiny yellow gourds; he could see through the gaps Dorinda's spinning-wheel against the wall. A hazy curl of smoke wreathed upward from the chimney with a deliberate grace in the sunshine. He smelled the warm fragrance of the apples in the orchard at the rear, stretching along the mountain side. The corn that Dorinda had ploughed on the steep slope was high, and waved above the staked and ridered fence. There were wild blue morning glories among it, the blossom still open here and there under a sheltering canopy of blades; and there were trumpet flowers, too, boldly facing the blazing sun with a beauty as ardent.
He looked up at this still picture more than once, as he paused for his horse to drink at the wayside trough, and then he rode on down the mountain, speculating on his baffled mission.
He hardly knew how far he had gone when he heard voices in loud altercation. He could not give immediate attention, for he was in a rocky section of the road, so full of boulders and out-cropping ledges that it was easy to divine that the overseer had a lenient interpretation of the idea of repair.
Once his horse fell, and after pulling the animal up, with an oath of irritation, he came, suddenly, turning sharply around a jutting crag, upon another rider and a recalcitrant steed. This rider was a child, carried on the shoulders of a girl of twelve or so, who had a peculiarly wiry and alert appearance, with long legs, a precipitate and bounding action, a tousled mane, the forelock hanging in her wild, excited eyes.
He recognised at once the filly-like Miranda Jane, before either caught a glimpse of him, and he heard enough of her remonstrance to acquaint him with Jacob's tyranny in insisting that his unshod steed should keep straight up the rocky 'big road,' as he ambitiously called it, in lieu of turning aside in the sandy byways of a cow-path.
The expedient flashed through Micajah Green's mind in an instant. He drew up his horse. 'I'll give ye a lift, bubby,' he said; then, with a mighty effort at recollection, 'Howdy, Mirandy Jane!' he cried jubilantly.
His success in recalling the name affected him like an inspiration.
The girl had shied off, according to her custom with a visible tremour, looking at him with big eyes and a quivering nostril, instantly accounting him a raider. As he called her name she stopped and stared dubiously at him.
'How's granny?' he asked familiarly, 'and D'rindy?'
'She's well,' Miranda Jane returned, lumping them in the singular number.
Had he inquired for the men folks, she would have been alarmed. As it was, she began to be at ease. She could not at once remember him, it was true, but he was evidently a familiar of the family.
'Come, bubby,' he said to Jacob, who had been peering over Miranda Jane's head, sharing her doubts, but sturdily repudiating her fears, 'I'll gin ye a ride ter the trough.'
Jacob held up his arms, he was swung to the pommel, and the cortege started, Miranda Jane nimbly following in the rear.
Such simple things Jacob said, elicited by questions the craft of which he could not divine. Where had he been? He and Mirandy Jane had gone with the apples in the waggon, but the waggon had afterward been driven to the mill, and Mirandy Jane had been charged by D'rindy to 'tote' him on the way home if he got tired, and Mirandy Jane wanted to tote him in the cow-path, 'mongst the briars. And where did he say he went with the apples? To the cave.
'To the cave!' exclaimed the querist, astonished.
'Over yander on the backbone,' returned the guileless Jacob, reinforcing the information with a stubby forefinger, pointing toward the base of the mountain.
And here was the trough. And Miranda Jane and Jacob stood by the roadside to regretfully watch the big grey horse trot slowly away.
There came a change in the weather. A vagueness fell upon the landscape. The farthest mountains receded into invisibility, and the horizon was marked by an outline of summits hitherto familiar in the middle distance. The sunshine was languid, slumberous. A haze clothed the air in a splendid garb of translucent, gold-tinted folds, and trailing across the dim blue of the ranges invested them with many a dreamy illusion. Athwart the sky were long sweeps of fibrous white clouds presaging rain. Since dawn they were thickening; silent in the intense stillness of the noontide, they gathered and overspread the heavens and quenched the sun, and bereaved the vapours hanging in the ravines of all the poetic glamours of reflection.
A rain-crow was huskily cawing on the trough by the roadside where he had perched. Dorinda heard the guttural note, and went out to gather up the fruit spread to dry on boards that were stretched from stone to stone. Dark clouds were rolling up from the west. She paused to see them submerge Chilhowee, its outline stark and hard beneath their turbulent whirl; toward the south their heavy folds broke into sudden commotion, and they were torn into fringes as the rain began to fall. The mist followed and isolated the Great Smoky from all the rest of the world.
And now the little house was as lonely as the ark on Ararat. The mists possessed the universe. They filled the forests and lay upon the corn and hid the 'gyarden-spot,' and came skulking about the porch, peering through the vines in a ghostly fashion. Presently they sifted through, and whenever the door was opened it showed them lurking there as if wistfully waiting or with some half-humanized curiosity.
Night stole on, and the ruddy flare of the fire had heightened suggestions of good cheer and comfort, because of these waifs of the rain and the air shivering in chilly guise about the door.
The men came to supper and all went again, except Pete. He was ailing, he declared, and betook himself to bed betimes. The house grew quiet. The grandmother nodded over her knitting, with a limp falling of the lower jaw, occasional spasmodic gestures, and an absorbed, unfamiliar expression of countenance.
Dorinda, in her low chair, sat in the glow of the fire. As it rose and fell it cast a warm light or a dreamy shadow on her delicately rounded cheek and her shining eyes. One dishevelled tress of her dense black hair fell over the red kerchief twisted round her neck. Her blue homespun dress lay in lustreless folds about her. The shadowy and rude interior of the room—the dark brown of the logs of the wall and the intervening yellow clay daubing; the great clumsy warping-bars; the pendent peltry and pop-corn and strings of red pepper swaying from the rafters; the puncheon floor gilded by the firelight; the deep yawning chimney with its heaps of ashes and its pulsating coals—all formed in the rich colours and soft blending of detail an harmonious setting for her vivid, definite face, as she settled herself to work at her evening 'stent.' Her reel was before her; the spokes, worn smooth and dark and glossy by age and use, reflected with polished lustre the glimmer of the fire. She had a broche in her hand, just taken from the spindle. For the lack of the more modern broche-holder she thrust a stick through the tunnel of the shuck on which the yarn was wound, placing the end of it, to hold it steady, in her low shoe; catching the thread between her deft fingers she threw it with a fine free gesture over the periphery of the reel. And then the whirling spokes were only a rayonnant suggestion, so swiftly they sped round and round in the light of the fire, and a musical low whirr broke forth. Now and then the reel ticked and told off another cut, and she would bend forward to tie the thread with a practised dextrous hand.
The downpour of the rain had a dreary, melancholy persistence, beating upon the roof and splashing from the eaves into the puddles beneath. At intervals a drop fell down the wide chimney and hissed upon the coals.
Suddenly there was another splash, differing in its abrupt energy; a foot had slipped outside, and groping hands were laid upon the wall.
Dorinda sprang up with a white face and tense muscles. The old woman was suddenly bolt upright in her corner, although not recognising the sound.
'Hurry 'long, D'rindy,' she said peremptorily, 'you-uns ain't goin' ter reel a hank ef ye don't mosey. What ails the gal?' she broke off, her attention attracted to her grand-daughter's changed expression.
'Thar's suthin' out o' doors,' said Dorinda, in a tremulous whisper. 'I hearn 'em step whenst ye war asleep.'
'I ain't batted my eye this night,' said her grandmother, with the force of conviction. 'I ain't slep' a wink. An' ye never hearn nuthin'.'
There was a bolder demonstration outside; a footfall sounded on the porch, and a hand tried the latch.
'Massy on us! Raiders!' shrieked the old woman, rising precipitately, her knitting falling from her lap, the ball of yarn rolling away and the kitten springing after it.
Dorinda ran to the door—perhaps to put up the bar. But with sudden courage she lifted the latch. Outside were the ghostly vapours, white and visible in the light from within.
She peered out doubtfully for a moment. A sudden rush of colour surged into her face; she made a feint of closing the door and ran back to her work, looking over her shoulder with radiant eyes; she caught up the broche, sticking it deftly in her shoe, seated herself in her low chair, and with her light free gesture led the thread over the reel.
'Massy on us!' shrilled the old woman aghast. 'D'rindy, shet the door! Be ye a-lettin' the lawless ones in on us! raiders an' sech, scoutin' 'roun' in the fog—an' nobody hyar but Pete, ez couldn't be waked up right handy with nuthin' more wholesome'n a bullet—a——'
There was a man's figure in the doorway—a slow, hesitating figure, and Rick Tyler, his face grave and dubious, embarrassed by the complicated effort to look at Dorinda and yet seem to ignore her, trod heavily in, and with a soft and circumspect manner closed the door.
'I kem over hyar, Mis' Cayce,' he remarked, 'ez I 'lowed mebbe the boys war at the still an' yer felt lonesome, bein' ez it air rainin' right smart, an''—he hesitated.
'Howdy, Rick—howdy!' she exclaimed cordially. He had the benefit of her relief in finding the visitor not a raider. 'Jes' sot yer bones down hyar by the fire. Airish out o' doors, ain't it? I'm powerful glad to see ye. D'rindy ain't much company when she air busy, an' the weavin' ain't done yit.'
'I 'lowed ez I mought resk comin' up hyar wunst in a while now,' he said, with a covert glance at Dorinda. 'I ain't keerin' much fur the new sher'ff, 'kase he air a town man, an' don't know me; an' the new constable, he 'lowed over yander ter the store ez he war a off'cer o' the law, an' not a shootin' mark fur folks ez war minded ter hide out; an' Gid Fletcher hev been told ez he'd hev others ter deal with ef he ondertook ter fool along arrestin' me agin. So I hev got no call ter stay ez close in the bresh ez I hev been, though I ain't a-goin' ter furgit these hyar consarns, nuther.'
He glanced down at the glimmer of steel in his belt, where Dorinda recognised her father's pistols.
'Bes' be on the safe side,' said the old woman approvingly, her nimble needles quivering in the light. 'But law! I useter know a man over yandar on Chilhowee Mounting, whar I lived afore I war married, an' he hed killed fower men—though I b'lieve one o' 'em war a Injun—an' he hed no call ter aggervate hisself with sher'ffs nor shootin'-irons, nuther. He walked 'round ez favoured an' free ez my old tur-r-key gobbler. Though some said he hed bad dreams. But ez he war a hearty feeder they mought hev kem from the stummick stiddier the heart.'
The young man listened with a doubtful mien. He was thrown back at his ease in the splint-bottomed chair. One stalwart leg, the boot reaching over his trousers to the knee, was stretched out to the fire; from the damp sole the steam was starting in the warm air. On his other knee one of the shooting-irons in question rested; he held it lightly with one hand. The other hand was thrust into the belt that girded his brown jeans coat. His tawny yellow hair, the ends of a deeper tint, being wet, hung to his coat collar.
His hat, from the broad brim of which raindrops were still trickling, was deposited beneath the chair, and the kitten was investigating it with a dainty, scornful white mitten. He bore the marks of his trials in his sharpened features; his face took on readily a lowering expression, and a touch of anger kindled the smouldering fire in his brown eyes.
'But I hev killed no man,' he said, with emphasis. 'I hev hurt nobody. Ef I hed, 'twouldn't be no more'n I oughter do ter g'long with the sher'ff an' leave it ter men. But I ain't done no harm. An' I don't want ter stay in jail, an' be tried, an' kem ter jedgment, an' sech, an' mebbe hev them buzzardy lawyers fix suthin' on me ennyways.'
All through this speech the old woman tried to interrupt.
'Laws-a-massy, Rick,' she said at length, 'ye hev got mighty tetchy sence ye hev been hid out. I ain't sayin' nuthin' agin you-uns, ez I knows on—nor agin that man that lived on Chilhowee Mounting, nuther. I can't sot myself ter jedge o' him. He war a perfessin' member, an' he hed a powerful gift in 'quirin'; useter raise the chune reg'lar at all the meetin's ez fur back ez I kin remember.'
Her interest in the visit was impaired to some degree by this collision; she would have rejoiced to express her mental estimate of Rick as the 'headin'est critter in the kentry,' but the hospitable instincts constrained her, and she nobly swallowed her vexation. His presence, however, 'hectored' her, and she seized an excuse to absent herself presently, saying that she had to get her clean plaid coat to mend, 'bein' ez when it last hung on the clothes-line that thar fresky young hound named Bose stood on his hind legs ter gnaw it, an' actially chawed a piece out'n it, and I hev ter put a wedge in it afore I kin wear it.'
She creaked away into the next room, and as the door shut he turned his eyes for the first time on Dorinda. The firelight played on the reel, whirling in a lustrous circle before her, on the broche stuck in the rough little shoe, on her arm, uplifted in a graceful curve as she held the thread. Her brilliant eyes were grave and intent; her dense black hair and her dark blue dress heightened the fairness of her face, and the crimson kerchief about her throat was hardly more vivid than the flush on her cheeks.
The knowledge that her embarrassment was greater than his own made him bolder. They sat, however, some time in silence. Then, his heart waxing soft in the coveted domestic atmosphere and the contemplation of the picture before him, he said gently:
'They air all agin me, D'rindy.'
She forgot herself instantly. She looked full at him with soft melancholy deprecation.
'They don't hender ye none,' she said.
'Ye don't sot no store by me nuther, these days, D'rindy,' he went on, with a thrill of elation in his heart belying the doubt and despair in his speech.
The reel ticked and told off another cut. She leaned forward to tie the thread. She could not lift her eyelids now; still he saw the vivid sapphire iris, half eclipsed by the long black lash.
He patted the pistol on his knee.
'Would ye be afeared, D'rindy, ter marry a man ez would hev ter keep his life, and yourn, mebbe, with this pistol? Would ye be afeard ter live in his house along o' him, a hunted critter—an' set an' sing in his door, when the muzzle of a rifle or the sher'ff's revolver mought peek through the rails of the fence? Would ye be afeared?'
He put the weapon slowly into his belt.
'Would ye be afeared?' he reiterated.
The reel stopped. She turned her eyes, dilated with a splendid boldness, full upon him. How they flouted fear!
Such audacity of courage seemed to him gallant in a man; in a woman, expressing faith in his valiance, it was enchanting. He lost his slow decorum. He caught the hand that held the thread. She could not withdraw it from that strong, ecstatic clutch, and as she started, protesting, to her feet, he rose too, overturning the reel; and the kittens made merry confusion in the methodical cuts.
'D'rindy,' he exclaimed, catching her in his arms, 'thar ain't no need ter be afeard! Word kem up the mounting—I got it from Steve Byers—ez when Abednego Tynes war tried he plead guilty, an' axed ter go on the stand an' make a statement. An' he told the truth at last—at last! An' he war sentenced, an' the case war nolle prosequied agin me! An' ye warn't afeared! Ye would hev married me an' resked it. Ye warn't afeard!'
She was tall, and her agitated, upturned face was close to his shoulder. He knew it was simply unpardonable, according to the rigid decorums of their code of manners, but the impetuosity of his joy overbore him, and he bent down and kissed her lips.
Dorinda's courage!—it was gone. She looked so frightened and amazed that he relaxed his clasp.
'Ye know, D'rindy,' he said apologetically, 'I'm fairly out'n my head with joy.'
She stood trembling, her hand pressed to her beating heart, her head whirling. And then, he never forgot it, of her own accord she laid her other hand on his breast.
'I always believed ye wargood—good—good!'
And the wild winds whirled around the Great Smoky, and the world was given over to the clouds and the night, and the rain fell, and the drops splashed with a dreary sound down from the eaves of the house.
They did not hear. How little they heeded. Within, all the atmosphere was suffused by that wonderful irradiation of love, and happiness, and hope that was confidence. The fire might flare if it listed. The shadows might flicker if they would. It seemed to them at the moment each would never see aught, care for aught, save what was expressed in the other's eyes.
The kitten had waxed riotous in the unprecedented opportunities of the reel, still lying with all its tangled yellow yarn upon the floor. As it sprang tigerishly in the air and fell, fixing its predatory claws in another cut, Dorinda looked down with a startled air.
'Granny'll be axin' mighty p'inted how that thar spun-truck kem ter be twisted so,' she said, crestfallen and prescient. 'It looks like a hurrah's nest.'
'Tell her ez how 'twar the cat,' said Rick.
Dorinda shook her head dubiously.
'The cat couldn't hev got it ef the reel hedn't been flunged on the floor.'
'Let's wind it inter balls, then,' suggested Rick, quick at expedients. 'She'll never know it war tangled. I'll hold it fur ye.'
It was no great hardship for Rick. She lightly slipped the skeins over the wrists that had known sterner shackles. The task required her to sit near him; her face and head were bent toward him as she absorbed herself in the effort to find the end of the thread; sometimes she lifted her eyes and looked radiantly at him.
He had not known how beautiful she was—because he saw her face more closely, he thought, not averted, nor coy, as always before—or was it embellished by that ineffable joy that filled her heart? Well for them both, perhaps, that those few moments were so happy—or is it well to remember a supreme felicity, for this is fleeting. Yellow yarn! she was winding threads of gold. How his pulses thrilled at the lightest flying touch of her fleet hands!
He looked at her—into her eyes if he might—at her round crimson cheek, at her clearly cut chin, at the long lashes, at the black hair drawn back from her brow, where a curling tendril drooped over the temple. And he held the yarn all awry.
It was no first-class job, for this reason and her haste.
'What ails ye ter hustle 'long so, D'rindy?' he asked at last. 'Ye ain't so mighty afeared o' yer granny.'
'Naw,' Dorinda admitted; 'but brother Pete, he be at home ter-night, an' he air toler'ble fractious ef he sees his chance, an' I don't want him a-laffin' at we-uns; kase I hev hearn him say ez when young folks gits ter windin' yarn tergether 'tain't fur love o' the spun-truck, but jes' fur one another.'
Rick laughed a little, slowly. Then, growing grave:
'Ef ye'll b'lieve me, Pete told the word yander ter the still ez Amos Jeemes—a mis'able addled aig he be!—'lowed ter the men at the mill ez he b'lieved ez 'twar the Cayces ez rescued me, the day o' the gaynder-pullin', from the sher'ff.'
She paused, the bright thread in her motionless hand, her fire-lit face bent upon him.
'Amos Jeemes hed better be keerful how he tries ter fix it on we-uns!' she cried, with the tense vibration of anger, 'tellin' the mill an' sech! I hev hearn the boys 'low ez 'twar ten year in the pen'tiary fur rescuing a man from the sher'ff, ef it got fund out.'
'Pete say ez how he jes' laffed at him an' named him a fool.'
'Pete air ekal ter that,' she returned with some sarcasm.
She was deftly winding the yarn once more, the fire showing a deeper thoughtfulness upon her face. Its flicker gave the room a sense of motion; the festoons of scarlet pepper-pods, the long yellow and red strings of pop-corn, the peltry hanging from the rafters, apparently swayed as the light rose and fell; and the warping-bars, with their rainbow of spun-truck stretched from peg to peg, seemed to be dancing a clumsy measure in the corner. The rocking-chair where granny was wont to sit was occupied now by a shadow, and now was visibly vacant.
She looked up into his face with an absorbed un-noting eye. He was pierced by the knowledge that though she saw him, she was thinking of something else.
'Won't the Court let the pa'son go free now, sence they know ye done no crime?' she asked.
'Naw. The pa'son air accused of a rescue, an' whether the man he rescued air convicted or no it air jes' the same ter the law ez agin him. Therescueair the thing he hev got ter answer fur.'
She dropped her hands in her lap and threw herself back in her chair.
'Ten year in prison!' she exclaimed.
Her face was all the tenderest pity; her voice was full of yearning sympathy; she cast her eyes upward with a look that was reverence itself.
'How good he war! I s'pose he knowed ye never done no harm, an' he war willin' ter suffer stiddier you-uns. I never hearn o' sech a man! 'Pears ter me them old prophets don't tech him! I never hearn o'themshowin' sech love o' God an' thar feller man. He rescued ye jes' fur that!'
Rick Tyler looked at her for a moment with a kindling eye. He sprang to his feet, throwing the golden skein—it was only yarn after all, a coarse yellow yarn—upon the floor. He strode across the rude hearth and leaned against the mantelpiece, which was as high as his head. The light fell upon his changed face, the weapons in his belt, his long tawny hair, the flashing fire in his eye. He raised his right hand with an importunate gesture.
'D'rindy Cayce, ye air in love with that man!' he said, in a low passionate voice and between his set teeth. 'I hev seen it afore—long ago; but sence ye hev promised ter marry me, ef ye say his name agin, I'll kill him—I'll shoot him through the heart—dead—dead—do ye hear me—dead!'
She was shaken by the spectacle of his sudden anger, and she was angered in turn by his jealous rage. There was a dull aching in her heart in the voids left by the ebbing of her ecstatic happiness.
This was too precious to lightly let go. She walked over to him and took hold of his right arm, although his hand was toying nervously with his pistol.
'Ye don't b'lieve no sech word, Rick,' she said, 'deep down in yer heart, ye don't b'lieve it. An' how kin ye grudge me from thinkin' well o' the man, an' feelin' frien'ly—oh, mighty frien'ly—when he will hev ter take ten year in the pen'tiary fur givin' ye yer freedom? He rescued ye! An' I'll thank him an' praise him fur it ev'y day I live. My love, ef ye call it love, will foller him fur that all through the prison, an' the bolts an' bars, an' gyards. An' yer pistols can't holp it.'
He put her from him with a mechanical gesture and a perplexed brow. He sat down in the chair he had occupied at first; his hat was still under it, one leg was stretched out to the fire, on the other knee his hand rested; he looked exactly as when he first came into the room, but she had a vague idea, as she stood opposite on the hearth, that it was long ago, so much had happened since.
'D'rindy,' he said, 'he never done it. The pa'son never rescued me.'
She stood staring at him in wide-eyed amaze.
He was silent for a moment, and then he broke into a bitter laugh.
'I do declar,' he said, 'it fairy tickles me ter hear o' one man bein' arrested fur rescuin' me, an' another set bein' s'pected fur rescuin' me, an another set bein' s'pected o' the same thing, when not one of 'em in all the Big Smoky, not one, lifted a hand ter holp me. Whether the gallus or a life sentence 'twar all the same ter them. Accusing' yer dad an' the boys at the still—shucks! Old Groundhog loant me a rifle, an' ter hear him talk saaft sawder 'bout'n it ter Amos Jeemes ye'd hev thunk he war the author o' my salvation! An' arrest the pa'son! he war a likely one ter rescue a body!—too 'feared o' Satan! An' ef all they say air true 'bout'n the word he spoke yander at the meetin' 'fore they tuk him off, he hev got cornsider'ble call ter be afeard o' Satan. Naw, sir! he never rescued nuthin' but the gaynder! Nobody holped me! Nobody on the Big Smoky held out a hand! I ain't goin' ter furgit it, nuther!'
She stood looking intently at his face, with its caustic laugh upon it and his eyes full of bitterness. She knew that he secretly upbraided her as well as her people that they had made no move to save him from the clutches of the sheriff. She involuntarily turned her eyes to the gun-rack where the barrel of 'Old Betsy' gleamed, and she remembered the mark it bore to commemorate the foregone conclusion of Micajah Green's death. For this she had held her hand. She felt humble and guilty, since she had acted in the interests of peace. And yet that shrewd sense, that true conscience, which coexisted with the idealistic tendencies of her nature, demanded how could she justify herself in asking the sacrifice of ten years of other men's liberty that her lover might escape the consequences of his own act; how could she dare to precipitate a collision with the sheriff, while their grievance was still fresh in their minds? Fortunately she did not lay this train of thought bare before Rick Tyler. Natures like his foster craft in the most pellucid candour.
'How'd ye git away, Rick?' she said instead.
'I won't tell ye,' he replied rudely; 'it don't consarn ye ter know.' Then suddenly softening, 'I take that back, D'rindy. I ain't goin' ter furgit ez ye owned up ye war willin' ter marry me an' live all yer life along with a hunted man in a house that mought be fired over yer head enny time, or a rifle-ball whiz in at the winder. I ain't goin' ter furgit that.'
Alas! he could not divine how he should remember it!
He fixed his eyes on the fire, as if moodily recalling the scene. She noted that desperate, hunted look in his face which it had not worn to-night.
'I war a-settin' thar,' he began abruptly, 'my feet tied with ropes, and with handcuffs on'—he held his hands together as if manacled; she shuddered a little—'an' I hearn the hurrahin' an' fuss outside whilst they was all a-rowin' over the gaynder. An' then I hearn a powerful commotion 'mongst the dogs, ez ef they hed started some sorter game or suthin'. An' the fust I knowed thar war a powerful scuttlin' 'round the back o' the blacksmith's shop, an' a rabbit squez in a hole 'twixt the lowes' log an' the groun'—'twarn't bigger 'n a gopher's hole. An' I never thunk nuthin' 'ceptin' them boys outside would be mighty mad ef they knowed thar hounds hed run a rabbit same ez a deer.'
Dorinda had sunk into her chair; her hands trembled, her face was pale.
'An' the cur'ous part of it,' he continued, now in the full swing of narrative, 'war that the hounds wouldn't gin it up. They jes' kep' a-nosin' an' yappin' roun' that thar little hole. Thar sot the rabbit—she 'minded me o' myself, got in an' couldn't git out. Thar war nowhar else fur her ter sneak through. She sot thar ez upright an' trembly ez me; jes' ez skeered, an' jes' about ez little chance. The only diff'ence 'twixt us war I hed a soul, an' that didn't do me enny good, an' the lack o' it didn't do her enny harm; both o' we-uns war more pertic'lar 'bout keepin' a skin full o' whole bones 'n ennything else. An' then them nosin' hounds began ter scratch an' claw up dirt. Bless yer soul, D'rindy, they hed a hole ez big ez that thar piggin, afore I thunk ennything 'bout'n it. It makes me feel the cold shakes when I 'members ez I mought not hev thunk 'bout'n it till 'twar too late. Lord! how slow them hounds seemed! though the rabbit she fund 'em fast enough, I reckon. Ev'y now an' then she'd hop along this way an' that, an' the hounds would git her scent agin—an' the way they'd yap! The critter would hop along an' look up at me—I never will furgit the look in the critter's eyes ez she sot thar an' waited fur the dogs. They war in a hurry an' toler'ble lively, I reckon, but they 'peared ter me ez slow ez ef ev'y one war weighted with a block an' chain. Waal, the hole got bigger an' they yapped louder, an' I got so weak waitin', an' fearin' somebody would hear 'em, an' kem ter see 'bout what they hed got up fur game, an' find that hole, I didn't know how I could bide it. The hole got big enough fur the hounds ter squeeze through, an' hyar they kem bouncin' in. They lept round the shop, an' flopped up agin the door, so that ef thar hedn't been all that fuss outside 'bout takin' the gaynder down, somebody would hev been boun' ter notice it. I hed ter wait fur the dogs ter ketch the rabbit an' shake the life out'n her 'fore I darst move a paig, they kep' up sech a commotion. An' when they hed dragged the critter's little carcass outside an' begun fightin' over it, I got up. I jes' could sheffle along a leetle bit; that eternally cussed scoundrel, Gid Fletcher——'
He paused.
It was beyond the power of language to express the deep damnation he desired for the blacksmith. His face grew scarlet, the tears started to his angry eyes. How he pitied himself, remembering his hard straits, and his cruel indignities! And how she pitied him!
He caught his breath, and went on:
'That black-hearted devil hed tied my feet so close I could sca'cely hobble, an' my hands an' wrists hed all puffed an' swelled up, whar the cords had been—'twar the sher'ff ez gin me the handcuffs. Waal, I tuk steps 'bout two inches long till I got 'crost the shop ter the hole. Then I jes' flopped down an' croped through. I didn't stan' up outside, though 'twar at the back o' the shop an' nobody could see me. Ye know the aidge o' the bluff ain't five feet from the shop; the cliff's ez sheer ez a wall, but thar's a ledge 'bout twenty feet down. It looked mighty narrer, an' thar warn't no vines ter swing by; but I jes' hed ter think o' them devils on t'other side the shop ter make me willin' ter resk it. Waal, thar war a clump o' sass'fras—ye know the bark's tough—near the aidge. I jes' bruk one o' the shoots ter the root an' turned it down over the aidge o' the bluff an' swung on ter the e-end o' it. Waal, it tore off in my hands, but I didn't fall more'n a few feet, an' lighted on the ledge. An' I tossed the saplin' away, an' then I walked—steps 'bout'n two inches long, ef that—ez fur ez the ledge went, cornsider'ble way from the Settlemint, an' 'twar two or three hundred feet ter the bottom, whar I stopped. An' thar war a niche thar whar I could sit an' lay down, sorter. Thar I bided all night. I hearn 'em huntin', an' it made me laff. I knowed they warn't a-goin' ter find me, but I didn't know how I war a-going' ter git away from thar with them handcuffs on, an' ropes 'roun' my legs; they war knotted so ez I couldn't reach 'em fur the irons. I waited all nex' day, though I never hed nuthin' ter eat but some jew-berries ez growed 'mongst the rocks thar. An' the nex' morn'n','—his eye dilated with triumph—'the swellin' o' my wrists hed gone down, an' I could draw my hands out'n the handcuffs ez easy ez lyin'.'
He held up his hands; they were small for his size, and bore little token of hard work; the wrists were supple.
'An' then,' he said, with brisk conclusiveness, 'I jes' ontied the ropes 'roun' my feet an' clumb up ter the top o' the mounting by vines an' sech, an' struck inter the laurel, an' never stopped a-travellin' till I got ter Cayce's still.'
He drew a long sigh not unmixed with pleasure. He had a sense of achievement. It gave, perhaps, a certain value to his harsh experience to recount his triumph to so fair an audience. He was looking at her with a dawning smile in his eyes, and she was silently looking at him. Suddenly she burst into sobs.
'Shucks, D'rindy, it's all over an' done now,' he said, appropriating the soft sympathy of her tears.
'An' I'm so glad, Rick; so glad fur that. I'd hev bartered my hope o' heaven fur it,' she sobbed. 'But I war thinkin' that minit o' the pa'son. They 'rested him in his pulpit, an' they wouldn't gin him bail, an' they kerried him 'way from the mountings, an' jailed him, an' he'll go ter the pen'tiary, ten year mebbe, fur a crime ez he never done. Ye wouldn't let him do that ef ye could holp it, would ye, Rick?'
She looked up tearfully at him. His eyes gleamed; his nostrils were quivering; every fibre in him responded to his anger.
'Ef I could, D'rindy Cayce, I'd hev that man chained in the lowest pits o' hell fur all time, so ye mought never see his face agin. An' ef I could, I'd wipe his mem'ry off'n the face o' the yearth, so ye mought never speak his name.'
'Law, Rick Tyler, don't!' protested the girl, aghast. 'I've seen ye ez jealous o' Amos Jeemes——'
'I don't keerthatfur Amos Jeemes!' he exclaimed, snapping his fingers. 'I hevn't seen ye sit an' cry over Amos Jeemes, an' sech cattle, an' say he war like a prophet. I thought ye war thinkin' 'boutme, an'—an'——'
He paused in mortification.
'D'rindy,' he said, suddenly calm, though his eye was excited and quickly glancing, 'did ye ax him ef he would do ennything fur me when I war in cust'dy?'
'Naw,' said Dorinda, 'nobody could do nuthin' fur you-uns, 'kase they'd hev ter resk tharselfs an' run agin the law. But what I want ye ter do fur pa'son air fur jestice. He never done what he war accused of. An' yewaralong o' Abednego Tynes, though innercent. Law, Rick, ef the murderer would say the word ter set ye free, can't ye do ez much fur the pa'son, ez hev seen so much trouble a'ready?'
'In the name o' Gawd, D'rindy, what air you-uns a-wantin' me ter do?' he asked, in sheer amazement.
She mistook the question for relenting. She caressed his coat sleeve as she stood beside him. All her beauty was overcast; her face was stained with weeping; tears dimmed her eyes, and her pathetic gesture of insistence seemed forlorn. He looked down dubiously at her.
'What I want ye ter do, Rick, fur him, air right, an' law, an' jestice. Nobody could hev done that fur ye, 'cept Abednego Tynes. I want yer ter go ter pa'son's trial fur the rescue, an' gin yer testimony, an' tell the jedge an' jury the tale ye hev tole me—the truth—an' they'll be obleeged ter acquit.'
He flung away in a tumult of rage. It was exhausting to witness how his frequent gusts of passion shook him.
'D'rindy,' he thundered, 'ye want me ter gin myself up fur the pa'son; ye don't keer nuthin' fur me, so he gits back ter the Big Smoky an' you-uns. I mought be arrested yit on the same indictment; the nolle prosequi don't hender—it jes' don't set no day fur me ter be tried. An' mebbe Steve Byers hev been foolin' me some. Ye jes' want ter trade me off ter the State fur the pa'son.'
'Ye shan't go!' cried the girl. 'I didn't know that about the nolle prosequi. Ye shan't go!'
He was mollified for a moment. He noticed again how pale she was.
'Law, D'rindy,' he said, 'ye fairly wear yerself out with yer tantrums. Whyn't ye do like other folks; the pa'son never holped me none, an' I ain't got no call ter holp him.'
'Ef ye war ter go afore the Squair an' swear 'bout'n the rescue an' sech, an' git him ter write it ter the Court fur the pa'son——'
'The constable o' the deestric' ez hangs 'roun' thar at the jestice's house mought be thar an' arrest me,' he said speciously. 'The gov'nor hain't withdrawn that reward yit, ez I knows on.'
'Naw,' she said quickly, 'I'll make the boys toll the constable down ter the still till ye git through. The jestice air lame, an' ain't able ter arrest ye, an' I'd be thar an' gin ye the wink, ef thar war ennything oncommon ennywhar, or enny men aroun'.'
He could hardly refuse. He could not affect fear. He hesitated.
'Ez long ez I thunk he hed rescued ye, I didn't hev no call ter move. But now I know how 'twar, I'd fairly die ef he war lef' ter suffer in jail, knowin' he hev done nuthin' agin the law.'
Her lip quivered. The tears started to her eyes. The sight of them, shed for another man's sake, excited again the vigilant jealousy in his breast.
'I'll do nuthin' fur Hi Kelsey,' he declared. 'Ef ye ain't in love with him, ye would be ef he war ter git back ter the Big Smoky. He done nuthin' fur me, an' I hev no call ter do nuthin' fur him.'
He looked furiously at her, holding her at arm's length.
'Ye hev tole me ye loveme, an' I expec' ye ter live up ter it. Ye hev promised ter marry me, an' I claim ye fur my wife. Say that man's name another time, an' I'll kill him, ef ever he gits in rifle range agin. I'll kill him! I'll kill him!' his right hand was once more mechanically toying with the pistol, while he held her arm with the other, 'an' I'll kill ye, too!'
He had gone too far; he had touched the dominant impulse of her nature. Her cheeks were flaring. Her courage blazed in her eyes.
'An' I tell ye, Rick Tyler, that I am not afeard o' ye! An' if ye let a man suffer fur a word ez ye can say in safety, an' an act ez ye kin do in ease, ye ain't the Rick Tyler I knowed—ye air suthin' else. I 'lowed ye war good, but mebbe I hev been cheated in ye, an' ef I hev, I'll gin ye up. I ain't a-goin' ter marry no man ez I can't look up ter, an' say "he airgood!" An' ef ye'll meet me a hour 'fore sundown, at the Squair's house, ter-morrow evenin', I'll b'lieve in ye, an' I'll marry ye. An' ef ye don't, I won't.'
She caught up his hat and gave it to him. Then she opened the door. The white mists stood shivering in the little porch.
He turned and looked in angry dismay at her resolute face. But he did not say a word, though he knew her heart yearned for it beneath her inflexible mask.
He walked slowly out, and the door closed upon him, and upon the shivering white mists. He paused for a moment, hesitating.
He heard nothing within—not even her retreating step. He knew as well as if he had seen her that she was leaning against the door, silently sobbing her heart out.
'D'rindy needs a lesson,' he said sternly. And so he went out into the night.
The rain ceased the next day, but the clouds did not vanish. Their folds, dense, opaque, impalpable, filled the vastness. The landscape was lost in their midst. The horizon had vanished. Distance was annihilated.
Only a yard or so of the path was seen by Dorinda, as she plodded along through the white vagueness that had absorbed the familiar world. And yet for all essentials she saw quite enough; in her ignorant fashion she deduced the moral, that if the few immediate steps before the eye are taken aright, the long lengths of the future will bring you at last where you would wish to be.
The reflection sustained her in some sort as she went. She was reluctant to acknowledge it even to herself; but she had a terrible fear that she had imposed a test that Rick would not endure.
'Ef he air so powerful jealous ez that, ter not holp another man a leetle bit, when he knows it can't hurt him none, he air jes' selfish, an' nuthin' shorter.'
She paused, looking about her mechanically. The few blackberry bushes, almost leafless, stretching out on either hand, were indistinct in the mist, and against the dense vapour they had the meagre effect of a hasty sketch on a white paper. The trees overhung her, she knew, in the invisible heights above; she heard the moisture dripping monotonously from their leaves. It was a dreary sound as it invaded the solemn stillness of the air.
'An'I'mboun' ter try ter holp him, ef I kin. I know too much, sence Rick spoke las' night, ter let me set an' fold my hands in peace. 'Pears like ter me ez that thar air all the diff'ence 'twixt humans an' the beastis, ter holp one another some. An' ef a human won't, 'pears like ter me ez the Lord hev wasted a soul on that critter.'
Despite her logic she stood still; her blue eyes were surcharged with shadows as they wistfully turned upward to the sad and sheeted day; her lips were grave and pathetic; her blue dress had gleams of moisture here and there, and a plaid woollen shawl, faded to the faintest hues, was drawn over her dense black hair. She stood and hesitated. She thought of the man she loved, and she thought of the word she denied the man in prison. Poor Dorinda! to hold the scales of justice unblinded.
'I dunno what ails me ter be 'feared he won't kem!' she said, striving to reassure herself; 'an' ennyhow'—she remembered the few immediate steps before her taken aright, and went along down the clouded, curtained path that was itself an allegory of the future.
The justice's gate loomed up like fate—the poor little palings to be the journey's end of hope or despair! A pig, without any appreciation of its subtler significance, had in his frequent wallowings at its base impaired in a measure its stability. He grunted at the sound of a footfall, as if to warn the new-comer that she might step on him. Dorinda took heed of the imperative caution, opened the gate gingerly, and it only grazed his back. He grunted again, whether in meagre, surly approval, or reproof that she had come at all, was hardly to be discriminated in his gruff, disaffected tone.
She noticed that the locust leaves, first of all to show the changing season, were yellow on the ground; a half-denuded limb was visible in the haze. There were late red roses, widely a-bloom, by the doorstep of the justice's house—a large double cabin of hewn logs, with a frame-inclosed passage between the two rooms. There was glass in the windows, for the justice was a man of some means for these parts; and she saw behind one of the tiny panes his bald polished head and his silver-rimmed spectacles gleaming in animated curiosity. He came limping, with the assistance of a heavy cane, to the door.
'Howdy, D'rindy,' he exclaimed cheerfully; 'come in, child. What sort o' weather is this?'
In abrupt digression, he looked over her head into the blank vagueness of the world. But for the dim light, it might have suggested the empty inexpressiveness of the periods before the creation, when 'the earth was without form and void.'
'It air toler'ble airish in the fog,' said Dorinda, finding her voice with difficulty.
The room into which she was ushered seemed to her limited experience a handsome apartment. But somehow the passion of covetousness is an untouched spring in the nature of these mountaineers. The idea of ownership did not enter into Dorinda's mind as she gazed at the green plaster parrot that perched in state on the high mantelpiece. She was sensible of its merits as a feature of the domestic landscape at the 'jestice's house,' precisely as the sight of the distant Chilhowee was company in her lonely errands about the mountain. To be deprived of either would be like a revulsion of nature. She did not grudge the justice his possession, nor did she desire it for herself. She entertained a simple admiration for the image, and always looked to see it on its lofty perch when she first entered the room.
There were several books piled beside it, which the justice valued more. There was, too, a little square looking-glass, in which one might behold a distortion of physiognomy. Above all hung a framed picture of General Washington crossing the Delaware. The mantelpiece was to the girl a museum of curiosities. A rag-carpet covered the floor; there was a spinning-wheel in the corner; a bed, too, draped with a gay quilt—a mad disportment of red and yellow patchwork, which was supposed to represent the rising sun, and was considered a triumph of handicraft. The justice's seat was a splint-bottomed chair, which stood near a pine table where ink was always displayed—of a pale green variety—writing-paper, and a pile of books. The table had a drawer which it was difficult to open or shut, and now and then 'the Squair' engaged in muscular wrestling with it.
He sat down, with a sigh, and drew forth his red bandana handkerchief from the pocket of his brown jeans coat, and polished the top of his head, and stared at Dorinda, much marvelling as to her mission. She had not, in her primitive experience, attained to the duplicity of a subterfuge; she declined the invitation to go into the opposite room, where his wife was busy cooking supper, by saying she was waiting for a man whom she expected to meet here to explain something to the justice.
'Is it a weddin', D'rindy?' exclaimed the old fellow waggishly.
''Tain't a weddin',' said Dorinda curtly.
'Ye air foolin' me!' he declared, with a jocose affectation of inspecting his attire. 'I hev got another coat I always wears ter marry a couple, an' ye don't want ter gimme a chance to spruce up, fur fear I'll take the shine off'n the groom. It's a weddin'! Who is the happy man, D'rindy?'
This jesting, as appropriate, according to rural etiquette, to a young and pretty woman as the compliments of the season, seemed a dreary sort of fun to Dorinda, so heavy had her presaging heart become. There was a trifle of sensibility in the old Squire, perhaps induced by much meditation in his inactive indoor life, and he recognised something appealing in the girl's face and attitude, as she sat in a low chair before the dull fire that served rather to annul the chilliness of the day than to diffuse a perceptible warmth. The shawl had dropped from her head and loosely encircled her throat; her hand twisted its coarse fringes; she was always turning her face toward the window where only the pallid mists might be seen—the pallid mists and a great glowing crimson rose, that, motionless, touched the pane with its velvet petals. The old justice forbore his jokes, his dignities might serve him better. He entertained Dorinda by telling her how many times he had been elected to office. And he said he wouldn't count how many times he expected to be, for it was his firm persuasion that, 'when Gabriel blew that thar old horn o' his'n, he'd find the Squair still a-settin' in jedgment on the Big Smoky.' He showed her his books, and told her how the folks at Nashville were constrained by the law of the State to send him one every time they made new laws. And she understood this as a special and personal compliment, and was duly impressed.
Outdoors the still day was dying silently, like the gradual sinking from a comatose state, that is hardly life, to the death it simulates. How did the gathering darkness express itself in that void whiteness of the mists, still visibly white as ever! Night was sifting through them; the room was shadowy; yet still in the glow of the fire she beheld their pallid presence close against the window. And the red rose was shedding its petals!—down dropping, with the richness of summer spent in their fleeting beauty, their fragrance a memory, the place they had embellished, bereft. She did not reflect; she only felt. She saw the rose fade, the sad night steal on apace; the hour had passed, and she knew he would not come. She burst into sudden tears.
The old man, whether it was in curiosity or sympathy, had his questions justified by her self-betrayal, and his craft easily drew the story from her simplicity. He got up suddenly with an expression of keen interest. She followed his emotions dubiously, as he took from the mantelpiece a tallow dip in an old pewter candlestick, and with slow circumspection lighted the sputtering wick.
'I want ter look up a p'int o' law, D'rindy,' he said impressively. 'Ye jes' set thar an' I'll let ye know d'rec'ly how the law stands.'
It seemed to Dorinda a long time that he sat with his book before him on the table, his spectacles gleaming in the light of the tallow dip, close at hand, his lips moving as he slowly read beneath his breath, now and then clutching his big red handkerchief, and polishing off the top of his round head and his wrinkled brow. Twice he was about to close the book. Twice he renewed his search.
And now at last it was small comfort to Dorinda to know that the affidavit would not, in the justice's opinion, have been competent testimony. He called it anex partestatement, and said that unless Rick Tyler's deposition were taken in the regular way, giving due notice to the attorney-general, it could not be admitted, and that in almost all criminal cases witnesses were compelled to testifyvivâ voce. Small comfort to Dorinda to know that the effort was worthless from the beginning, and that on it she had staked and lost the dearest values of her life. As he read aloud the prosy, prolix sentences, they were annotated by her sobs.
'Dell-law! D'rindy, 'twarn't no good, nohow!' he exclaimed, presently, breaking off with an effort from his reading, for he relished the rotund verbiage—the large freedom of legal diction impressed him as a privilege, accustomed as he was only to the simple phrasings of his simple neighbours. He could not understand her disappointment. Surely Rick Tyler's defection could not matter, he argued, since the affidavit would have been worthless.
She did not tell him more. All the world was changed to her. Nothing—not her lover himself—could ever make her see it as once it was. She declined the invitation to stay and eat supper, and soon was once more out in the pallid mist and the contending dusk. The scene that she had left was still vivid in her mind, and she looked back once at the lucent yellow square of the lighted window gleaming through the white vapours. The rose-bush showed across the lower panes, and she remembered the melancholy fall of the flower.
Alas, the roses all were dead!
It was not so dreary in the dark depths of the cavern as in the still white world without; and the constable of the district, one Ephraim Todd, found the flare of the open furnace and the far-reaching lights, red among the glooms, and a perch on an empty barrel, and the warm generosities of the jug, a genial transition. Nevertheless he protested.
'You-uns oughter be plumb 'shamed, Pete,' he said, 'ter toll me hyar, an' me a off'cer o' the law.'
'Ye hev been hyar often afore, the Lord above knows,' asseverated Pete, 'an' ye needed mighty little tollin'.'
'But I warn't a off'cer o' the law then,' said the constable, wrestling with his official conscience. 'An' I hev tuk a oath an' am under bonds. An' hyar I be a-consortin' with law-breakers, an' 'tain't becomin' in a off'cer o' the law.'
'Ye ain't tuk no oath, nor entered into no bonds ter keep yer throat ez dry ez a limekiln,' retorted Pete. 'Jes' take a swig at that thar jug an' hand it over hyar, will ye, an' hold yer jaw.'
Thus readily the official conscience, never rampant, was pacified. The constable had formerly been, as Pete said, anhabituéof the place, but since his elevation to office he had made himself scarce, in deference to the promptings of that newly acquired sense of dignity and propriety.
Should some chemical process obliterate for a time a leopard's spots, consider the satisfaction of the creature to find himself once more restored to his natural polka-dots; and such was the complacence of the constable, with his artificial conscience evaporated and his heart mottled with its native instincts of good and evil. He was glad to be back in the enjoyment of the affluent hospitalities of the moonshiner's jug.
He was a big, portly fellow, hardly more symmetrical than the barrel upon which he was seated. He had an inexhaustible fund of good humour, and was not even angry when Pete, in sheer contrariety, told him the reason for his enticement to the still.
He said he would be glad enough if Rick Tyler could swear out anything that would benefit the parson, and declared that he believed only Micajah Green's malice could have compassed his incarceration.
''Cajah inquired o' me whar this place war, Pete,' he said, 'a-purtendin' like he hed been hyar wunst. But I jes' tole him 'twar ez safe ez a unhatched deedie in a aig—an' I batted my eye, jes' so, an' he shet up purty quick.'
The gleam from the furnace door showed Pete's own light grey eyes intently staring at the visitor, but he said nothing and the matter passed.
When the constable's heart was warmed by the brush whisky he understood the sensation as happiness, and he translated happiness as a religious excitement.
He seemed maudlin as he talked about the parson, who, he declared, had led him to grace, and he recited some wonderful stories of religious experience, tending to illustrate his present righteousness and the depths of iniquity from which he had been redeemed.
Pete's perversity operated to curtail these.
'That's a fac'!' he would heartily assent; 'ye useter be one o' the meanes' men on these hyar mountings!' Or 'Grace hed a mighty wrastle with Satan in yer soul. I dunno whether he air cast outyit!'
The constable—his big owlish head askew—was embarrassed by these manœuvres, and presently the talk drifted to the subject of the parson's spiritual defection. This he considered a mental aberration.
'Hi Kelsey,' he said, 'war always more or less teched in the head. I hev noticed—an' ye may sot it down ez a true word—ez ev'y man es air much smarter'n other men in some ways, in other ways air foolisher. He mought prophesy one day, an' the nex' ye wouldn't trest him ter lead a blind goose ter water. He air smarter'n enny man I ever see—Pa'son Kelsey air. Thar's Brother Jake Tobin ain't got haffen his sense; an' yit nobody can't say ez Brother Jake ain't sensible.'
The philosopher upon the barrel, as he made this nice distinction, gazed meditatively into the bed of live coals that flung its red glare on his broad flushed countenance and wide blinking eyes.
It revealed the others, too: the old man's hard, lined, wrinkled visage and his stalwart supple frame; Pete, with his long tangled hair, his pipe between his great exposed teeth; Ab, filling the furnace with wood, his ragged beard moved by the hot breath of the fire; the big-boned, callow Sol, with his petulant, important face; and Ben, in the dim background tossing the sticks over to Ab from the gigantic wood pile.
They fell with a sharp sound, and the cave was full of their multiplied echoes. The men as they talked elevated their voices so as to be heard.
Ab was rising from his kneeling posture. He closed the furnace door, and as it clashed he thought for an instant he was dreaming. In that instant he saw Pete start up suddenly with wild, distended eyes, and with a levelled pistol in his hand.
The next moment Ab knew what it meant. A sharp report—and a jet of red light, projected from the muzzle of the weapon, revealed a group of skulking, unfamiliar figures stealthily advancing upon them.
The return fire was almost instantaneous, and was followed by multitudinous echoes and a thunderous crash that thrilled every nerve. The darkness was filled with the clamours of pandemonium, for the concussion had dislodged from the roof a huge fragment of rock, weighing doubtless many tons.
The revenue raiders lagged for a moment, confused by the overwhelming sound, the clouds of stifling dust, and the eerie aspect of the place. They distinguished a sharp voice presently, crying out some imperative command, and after that there was no more resistance from the moonshiners. They had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them.
The intruders were at a loss. They could not pursue and capture the men in the dark. If the furnace door were opened they would be targets in the glare for the lurking moonshiners in the glooms beyond. It did not occur to them that the cave had another outlet, until, as the echoes of the fallen fragment grew faint, they heard far away a voice crying out, 'Don't leave me!' and the mocking rocks repeating it with their tireless mimicry.
It was the constable. He never forgot that agonized retreat down those unknown black depths. He was hardly able to keep pace with his swifter fellows, falling sometimes, and being clutched to his feet rudely enough, as they pressed on in a close squad; feeling now and then the sudden wing of a bat against his face and interpreting it as the touch of a human pursuer; sometimes despairing, as they scrambled through a long, low, narrow passage, scarcely wide enough for the constable's comfortable fatness. Then it was that fear descended upon him with redoubled force, and he would exclaim in pity of his plight, 'An' me a off'cer o' the law!'
He impeded their flight incalculably, but to their credit be it said the lighter weights had never a thought of deserting their unfortunate guest despite the danger of capture and the distress of mind induced by the loss of their little 'all.' The poor constable fitted some of the tube-like passages like the pith in the bark, and as he was at last drawn, pallid, struggling, his garments in shreds, from an aperture of the cave in a dense untrodden jungle of the laurel, he again piteously exclaimed, 'An' me a off'cer o' the law!'
There was little leisure, however, to meditate upon his degraded dignity. He followed the example of the moonshiners, and ran off through the laurel as fleetly as a fat man well could.
The raiders showed excellent judgment. They offered no pursuit down those dark and devious underground corridors. Acquiring a sense of security from the echoes growing ever fainter and indicative of lengthening distances, they presently opened the furnace door, and by the aid of the flare cut the tubs and still to pieces, destroyed the worm, demolished the furnace, and captured in triumph sundry kegs and jugs of the illicit whisky. There was a perfunctory search for the distillers at the log cabin on the mountain slope. But the officers made haste to be off, for the possibility of rally and recapture is not without parallel facts in the annals of moonshining.
Perhaps the mountain wilds had never sheltered a fiercer spirit than old Groundhog Cayce when he ventured back into his den and stood over the ruins of his scanty fortunes—the remnants of the still; the furnace, a pile of smoking stones and ashes and embers; the worm in spiral sections; the tubs half burnt, riven in pieces, lying about the ground. The smoke was still dense overhead and the hot stones were sending up clouds of steam. It was as well, perhaps, since the place would never again be free from inspection, that it could not be used as it once was. The great fragment of rock, fallen from the roof, lay in the course of the subterranean stream, and the water, thus dammed, was overflowing its channel and widely spreading a shallow flood all along the familiar ground. It was rising. He made haste to secure the few articles overlooked by the raiders: a rifle, a powder-horn on one of the ledges that served as shelf, a bag of corn, the jovial jug. And for the last time he crept through the narrow portal and left the cavern to the dense darkness, to the floating smoke, to the hissing embers, and the slow rising of the subterranean springs.
For days he nursed his wrath as he sat upon the cabin porch beneath the yellow gourds and the purple blooms of the Jack-bean, and gazed with unseeing eyes at the wide landscape before him. The sky was blue in unparalleled intensity. The great 'balds' towered against it in sharp outlines, in definite symmetry, in awful height. The forests were aflame with scarlet boughs. The balsams shed upon the air their perfumes, so pervasive, so tonic, that the lungs breathed health and all the benignities of nature. The horizon seemed to expand, and the exquisite lucidity of the atmosphere revealed vague lines of far-away mountains unknown to the limitations of less favoured days.
In the woods the acorns were dropping, dropping, all the long hours. The yellow sunshine was like a genial enthusiasm, quickening the pulses and firing the blood. The hickory trees seemed dyed in its golden suffusions, and were a lustrous contrast to the sombre pine, or the dappled maple, or the vivid crimson of the black-gum. But the future of the year was a narrowing space; the prospects it had brought were dwarfed in the fulfilment, or were like an empty clutch at the empty air. And winter was afoot; ah, yes, the tenderest things were already dead—the flowers and the hopes—and the splendid season cherished in its crimson heart a woeful premonition. And thus the winds, blowing where they listed, sounded with a melancholy cadence; and the burnished yellow sheen was an evanescent light; and the purple haze, vaguely dropping down, had its conclusive intimations in despite that it loitered.
Dorinda, with her hands folded too, sat much of the time in dreary abstraction on the step of the porch, looking down at the yellowed corn-field which she and Rick ploughed on that ecstatic June morning. How long ago it seemed! Sometimes above it, among the brown tassels, there hovered in the air a cluster of quivering points of light against the blue mountain opposite, as some colony of gossamer-winged insects disported themselves in the sunshine. And the crickets were shrilling yet in the grass. She saw nothing, and it would be hard to say what she thought. In the brilliancy of her youthful beauty—a matter of linear accuracy and delicate chiselling and harmonious colouring, for Nature had been generous to her—it might seem difficult to descry a likeness to the wrinkled and weather-beaten features of her father's lowering face, as he sat in his chair helplessly brooding upon his destroyed opportunities. But there was a suggestion of inflexibility in both: she had firm lines about her mouth that were hard in his; the unflinching clearness of her eyes was a reflection of the unflinching boldness of his. Her expression in these days was so set, so stern, so hopeless, that one might have said she looked like him. He beheld his ruined fortunes; she, her bereft heart.
Amos James, one day, as he stood on the porch, saw this look on her face. She was leaning on her folded arms in the window hard by. She had spoken to him as absently and with as mechanical courtesy as the old moonshiner at the other end of the porch. He came up close to her. It was a wonderful contrast to the face she had worn when they talked, that day at the spring, of Rick Tyler's escape. With the quickened intuition of a lover's heart he divined the connection.
'Ye hain't kep' yer promise, D'rindy,' he said in a low tone.
'What promise?' she demanded, rousing herself and knitting her brows as she looked at him.
'Ye 'lowed ye'd let me know ef ever ye kem ter think less o' Rick Tyler.'
Her eyes, definitely angry, flashed upon him.
'Ye shan't profit by it,' she declared.
And so he left her, still leaning in the vine-framed window, the lilac blossoms of the Jack-bean drooping until they touched her black hair.
Rick Tyler was dismayed by the result of his jealousy and the strange 'lesson' that Dorinda had learned. He found her inflexible. She reminded him sternly of the conditions of her promise and that he had failed. And when he protested that he was jealous because he loved her so, she said she valued no love that for her sake grudged a word, not in generosity, but in simple justice, to liberate an innocent man in the rigours of a terrible doom. And when at this man's very name he was seized with his accustomed impetuous anger, she looked at him with a cool aloof scrutiny that might have expressed a sheer curiosity. It bewildered and tamed him. He had never heard of a Spartan. He only thought of her as immovable, and as infinitely remote from his plane as the great dome of the mountain. He remembered that she had always softened to his misfortunes, and he talked of how he had suffered. But she said that was all over now, and he had been 'mighty lucky.' He sought to appeal to her in her own behalf, and reminded her how she had loved him through it all, how she would have married him, despite the fierce pursuit of the law. She had loved him; he would not forget that.