Theold man struck a match and held it to his pipe and then as he turned to leave the room Maggard halted him.
"I kain't suffer ye ter go away without I tells ye suthin'," he said, "an' I fears me sorely when ye hears hit ye're right like ter withhold yore blessin' atter all."
The patriarch wheeled and stood listening, and Dorothy, too, caught her breath anxiously as the young man confessed.
For a time old Caleb stood stonily immovable while the story, which the girl had already heard, had its second telling. But as the narration progressed the gray-haired mountaineer bent interestedly forward, and by the time it had drawn to its close his eyes were no longer wrathful but soberly and judicially thoughtful.
He ran his fingers through his gray hair, and incredulously demanded, "Who did ye say yore grandsire was?"
"His name was Caleb Thornton—he went ter Virginny sixty ya'rs back."
"Caleb Thornton!" Through the mists of many years the old man was tracking back along barefoot trails of boyhood.
"Caleb Thornton! Him an' me hunted an' fished tergither and worked tergither when we wasn't nothin' but small shavers. We was like twin brethren an' folks called us Good Caleb an' Bad Caleb. I was ther bad one!" The old lips parted in a smile that was tenderly reminiscent.
"Why boy, thet makes ye blood-kin of mine ...hit makes yore business my business ... an' yore trouble my trouble. I'm ther head of ther house now—an' ye're related ter me."
"I hain't clost kin," objected Cal, quickly. "Not too clost ter wed with Dorothy."
"Ey God, no, boy, ye hain't but only a distant cousin—but a hundred an' fifty y'ars back our foreparent war ther same man. An' ef ye've got ther same heart an' the same blood in ye thet them old-timers hed, mebby ye kin carry on my work better than any Rowlett—an' stand fer peace and law!" Here spoke the might of family pride and mountain loyalty to blood.
"Then ye kin give us yore blessin' atter all—despite ther charge thet hangs over me?"
"My blessin'? Why, boy, hit's like a dead son hed done come back ter life—an' false charges don't damn no man!"
The aged face had again become suffused with such a glow as might have mantled the brow of a prophet who had laboured long and preached fierily for his belief, until the hoar-frost of time had whitened his head. It was as if when the hour approached for him to lay down his scrip and staff he had recognized the strength and possible ardour of a young disciple to come after him.
But after a little that emotional wave, which had unconsciously straightened his bent shoulders and brought his head erect, subsided into the realization of less inspiriting facts.
"Atter all," he said, thoughtfully, "I've got ter hev speech with old Jim Rowlett afore this matter gits published abroad. He's done held ther same notions I have—about Dorothy an' Bas—an' I owes hit ter him ter make a clean breast of what's come ter pass."
The wounded man in the chair was gazing off through the window, and he was deeply disturbed. He stood sworn to kill or be killed by the man whom these two custodians of peace or war had elected in advance as aclan head and a link uniting the factions. If he himself were now required to assume the mantle of leadership, it was hard to see how that quarrel could be limited to a private scope.
"When I come over hyar," he said, steadily and deliberately, "I sought ter live peaceable—an' quiet. I didn't aim, an' I don't seek now, ter hold place as head of no feud-faction."
"Nuther did I seek ter do hit." The old man's voice was again the rapt and fiery utterance of the zealot. "Thar wasn't nuthin' I wouldn't of chose fust—but when a man's duty calls ter him, ef he's a true man in God's eyes, he hain't got no rather in the matter which ner whether. He's beholden ter obey! Besides—" the note of fanatical exaltation diminished into a more placid evenness—"besides, I've done told ye I only sought ter hev ye lead toward peace an' quiet—not ter mix in no warfarin'."
So a message went along the waterways to the house where old Jim Rowlett dwelt, and old Jim, to whose ears troubling rumours had already come stealing, mounted his "ridin'-critter" and responded forthwith and in person.
He came, trustful as ever of his old partner, in the task of shepherding wild flocks, yet resentful of the girl's rumoured rebellion against what was to have been, in effect, a marriage of state.
Before starting he had talked long and earnestly with his kinsman, Bas Rowlett, and as a result he saw in Bas a martyr nobly bearing his chastening, and in the stranger a man unknown and tinged with a suspicious mystery.
Jim Rowlett listened in silent politeness to the announcement of the betrothal and presently he rose after a brief, unbending visit.
"Caleb," he said, "through a long lifetime me an'you hev been endurin' friends. We aims ter go on bein', an albeit I'd done sot my hopes on things thet hain't destined ter come ter pass, I wishes these young folks joy."
That interview was in the nature of a public announcement, and on the same day at Jake Crabbott's store the conclave discussed it. It was rumoured that the two old champions of peace had differed, though not yet in open rupture, and that the stranger, whose character was untested, was being groomed to stand as titular leader of the Thorntons and the Harpers. Many Rowlett and Doane faces darkened with foreboding.
"What does Bas say?" questioned some, and the answer was always the same: "Bas hain't a-talkin' none."
But Sim Squires, who was generally accredited with a dislike of Bas Rowlett, was circulating among those Harpers and Thorntons who bore a wilder repute than did old Caleb, and as he talked with them he was stressing the note of resentment that an unknown man from the hated state of Virginia should presume to occupy so responsible a position when others of their own blood and native-born were being overlooked.
* * *
One afternoon the girl and her lover sat together in the room where she had nursed him as the western ridges turned to ashy lilac against a sky where the sun was setting in a fanfare of delicate gorgeousness.
That evening hush that early summer knows, between the day's full-throated orchestration and the night song of whippoorwills, held the world in a bated stillness, and the walnut tree stood as unstirring as some age-crowned priest with arms outstretched in evening prayer.
Hand in hand the two sat in the open window. They had been talking of those little things that are such great things to lovers, but over them a silence had fallen through which their hearts talked on without sound.
Slowly the sunset grew brilliant—then the foregrounds gave up their detail in a soft veiling of purple dusk, and the tree between the house and the road became a dark ghost-shape, etched in the unmoving majesty of spread and stature.
"Hit hain't jest a tree," whispered the girl with an awe-touched voice, "hit'shuman—but hit's bigger an' wiser an' stronger then a human body."
The man nodded his head for so it seemed to him, a woodsman to whom trees in their general sense were common things. In this great growth he felt a quality and a presence. Its moods were as varied as those of life itself—as it stood triumphing over decades of vicissitude, blight, and storm.
"I wonder ef hit knows," said the girl, abruptly, "who hit war thet shot ye, Cal?"
The man shook his head and smiled.
"Mebby hit don't jedgmaticallyknow," he made answer, seeking as he had often sought before to divert her thoughts from that question and its secret answer: "But so long es hit stands guard over us, I reckon no enemy won't skeercelysucceed."
Theblossom had passed from the laurel and rhododendron and the June freshness had freckled into rustiness before the day came when Dorothy Harper and Cal Maggard were to be married, and as yet the man had not been able to walk beyond the threshold of the house, and to the people of the neighbourhood his face had not become familiar.
Once only had Cal been out of doors and that was when leaning on the girl's arm he had gone into the dooryard. Dorothy did not wish the simple ceremony of their marriage to take place indoors, but that when Uncle Jase, the justice of the peace, joined their hands with the words of the simple ritual, they should stand under the shade of the tree which, already hallowed as a monument, should likewise be their altar.
So one afternoon, when the cool breath of evening came between sunset and dusk, they had gone out together and for the first time in daylight he stood by the broad-girthed base of the walnut's mighty bole.
"See thar, Cal," breathed the girl, as she laid reverent fingers upon the trunk where initials and a date had been carved so long ago that now they were sunken and seamed like an old scar.
"Them letters an' dates stands fer ther great-great-great gran'mammy thet wrote ther book—an' fer ther fust Kenneth Thornton. They're our fore-parents, an' they lays buried hyar. Hit's all in ther front pages of thet book upsta'rs in ther chist."
The ground on which they stood was even now, forthe mounds so long ago heaped there had been levelled by generations of time. Later members of that house who had passed away lay in the small thicket-choked burial ground a hundred yards to the side.
"Hit's a right fantastic notion," complained old Caleb who had come out to join them there, "ter be wedded outdoors under a tree, stid of indoors under a roof," but the girl turned and laid a hand on his arm, and her eyes livened with a glow of feeling and tenderness.
"Hit was right hyar thet we diskivered we loved one another," she said, softly, "an' ef ye'd ever read thet book upstairs I reckon ye'd onderstand. Our foreparents planted this tree hyar in days of sore travail when they'd done come from nigh ter ther ocean-sea at Gin'ral George Washington's behest, an' they plum revered hit from thet time on."
She paused, looking up fondly into the magnificent fulness of branches where now the orioles had hatched their brood and taught the fledglings to fly, then her eyes came back and her voice grew rapt.
"Them revolutionary folk of our own blood bequeathed thet tree ter us—an' we heired hit from 'em along with all thet's good in us. They lays buried thar under hit, an' by now I reckon hits roots don't only rest in ther ground an' rock thet's underneath hit—but in ther graves of our people theirselves. Some part of them hes done passed inter thet old tree, I reckon, ter give virtue ter hits sap an' stren'th. Thet's why thar hain't no other place ter be married at."
The July morning of their wedding day dawned fresh and cloudless, and from remote valleys and coves a procession of saddled mounts, ox-carts, and foot travellers, grotesque in their oddly conceived raiment of festivity, set toward the house at the river's bend. They came to look at the bride, whose beauty was amatter of local fame, and for their first inquisitive scrutiny of the stranger who had wooed with such interest-provoking dispatch and upon whom, rumour insisted, was to descend the mantle of clan leadership, albeit his blood was alien.
But the bridegroom himself lay on his bed, the victim of a convalescent's set-back, and it seemed doubtful whether his strength would support him through the ceremony. When he attempted to rise, after a night of returned fever, his muscles refused to obey the mandates of his will, and Uncle Jase Burrell, who had arrived early to make out the license, issued his edict that Cal Maggard must be married in bed.
But at that his patient broke into defiant and open rebellion.
"I aims ter stand upright ter be wed," he scornfully asserted, "ef I don't nuver stand upright ergin! Ask Dorothy an' her gran'pap an' Bas Rowlett ter come in hyar. I wants ter hev speech with 'em all together."
Uncle Jase yielded grudgingly to the stronger will and within a few minutes those who had been summoned appeared.
Bas Rowlett came last, and his face bore the marks of a sleepless night, but he had undertaken a role and he purposed to play it to its end.
In after days, days for which Bas Rowlett was planning now, he meant that every man who looked back on that wedding should remember and say of him: "Bas, he war thar—plum friendly. Nobody couldn't be a man's enemy an' act ther way Bas acted." In his scheme of conspiracy the art of alibi building was both cornerstone and arch-key.
"Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an ordeal, started and almost let the leaning bridegroom fall""Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an ordeal, started and almost let the leaning bridegroom fall"
Now it pleased Cal, even at a time when other interests pressed so close and absorbingly, to indulge himself in a grim and sardonic humour. The man who had "hired him killed" and whom in turn he meant to killstood in the room where he himself lay too weak to rise from his bed, and toward that man he nodded his head.
"Good mornin', Bas," he accosted, and the other replied, "Howdy, Cal."
Then Maggard turned to the others. "This man, Bas Rowlett," he said, "sought to marry Dorothy hisself. Ye all knows thet, yet deespite thet fact when I come hyar a stranger he befriended me, didn't ye, Bas?"
"We spoke ther truth ter one another," concurred Rowlett, wondering uneasily whither the conversational trend was leading, "an' we went on bein' friends."
"An' now afore ye all," Maggard glanced comprehensively about the group, "albeit hit don't need no more attestin', he's goin' ter prove his friendship fer me afresh."
A pause followed, broken finally from the bed.
"I kain't stand up terday—an' without standin' up I couldn't hardly be rightfully wedded—so Bas air agoin' ter support me, and holp me out thar an' hold me upright whilst I says ther words ... hain't ye, Bas?"
The hardly taxed endurance of the conspirator for a moment threatened to break in failure. A hateful scowl was gathering in his eyes as he hesitated and Maggard went on suavely: "Anybody else could do hit fer me—but I've got ther feelin' thet I wants ye, Bas."
"All right," came the low answer. "I'll aim ter convenience ye, Cal."
He turned hastily and left the room, and bending over the bed Uncle Jase produced the marriage license.
"I'll jest fill in these blank places," he announced, briskly, "with ther names of Dorothy Harper an' Cal Maggard an' then we'll be ready fer ther signatures."
But at that Maggard raised an imperative hand in negation.
"No," he said, shortly and categorically, "I aims terbe married by my rightful name—put hit down thar like hit is—Kenneth Parish Thornton—all of hit!"
Caleb Harper bent forward with a quick gesture of expostulation.
"Ef ye does thet, boy," he pleaded, "ye won't skeercely be wedded afore ther officers will come atter ye from over thar in Virginny."
"Then they kin come," the voice was obdurate. "I don't aim ter give Almighty God no false name in my weddin' vows."
Uncle Jase, to whom this was all an inexplicable riddle, glanced perplexedly at old Caleb and Caleb stood for the moment irresolute, then with a sigh of relief, as though for discovery of a solution, he demanded:
"Did ye ever make use of yore middle name—over thar in Virginny?"
"No. I reckon nobody don't skeercely know I've got one."
"All right—hit belongs ter ye jist as rightfully as ther other given name. Write hit down Parish Thornton in thet paper, Jase. Thet don't give no undue holt ter yore enemies, boy, an' es fer ther last name hit's thicker then hops in these parts, anyhow."
In all the numbers of the crowd that stood about the dooryard that day waiting for the wedding party to come through the door one absence was recognized and felt.
"Old Jim Hewlett didn't come," murmured one observant guest, and the announcement ran in a whisper through the gathering to find an echo that trailed after it. "I reckon he didn't aim ter countenance ther matter, atter all."
Then the door opened and Dorothy came out, with a sweet pride in her eyes and her head high. At her side walked the man whose face they had been curiously waiting to see.
They acknowledged at a glance that it was an uncommon face from which one gained feeling of a certain power and mastery—yet of candour, too, and fearless good nature.
But the crowd, hungry for interest and gossip, breathed deep in a sort of chorused gasp at the dramatic circumstance of the bridegroom leaning heavily on the arm of Bas Rowlett, the defeated lover. Already Uncle Jase stood with his back to the broad, straight column whose canopy of leafage spread a green roof between the tall, waving grass that served as a carpet and the blue of a smiling sky.
Through branches, themselves as heavy and stalwart as young trees, and through the myriads of arrow-pointed leaves that rustled as they sifted and shifted the gold flakes of sunlight, sounded the low, mysterious harping of wind-fingers as light and yet as profound as those of some dreaming organist.
The girl, with her eyes fixed on that living emblem of strength and tranquillity, felt as though instead of leaving a house, she were entering a cathedral—though of man-built cathedrals she knew nothing. It was the spirit which hallows cathedrals that brought to her deep young eyes a serenity and thanksgiving that made her face seem ethereal in its happiness—the spirit of benediction, of the presence of God and of human sanctuary.
So she went as if she were treading clouds to the waiting figure of the man who was to perform the ceremony.
When the clear voice of the justice of the peace sounded out as the pair—or rather the trio—stood before him at the foot of the great walnut, the astonishment which had been simmering in the crowd broke into audible being again and with a rising tempo.
The tone with which old Jase read the service was full and sonorous and the responses were clear as bellmetal. On the fringe of the gathering an old woman's whispered words carried to those about her:
"Did ye heer thet? Jase called him Parish Thornton—I thought he give ther name of Cal Maggard!"
Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an ordeal, started and almost let the leaning bridegroom fall.
The loft of old Caleb's barn had been cleared for that day, and through the afternoon the fiddles whined there, alternating with the twang of banjo and "dulcimore." Old Spike Crooch, who dwelt far up at the headwaters of Little Tribulation, where the "trails jest wiggle an' wingle about," and who bore the repute of a master violinist, had vowed that he "meant ter fiddle at one more shin-dig afore he laid him down an' died"—and he had journeyed the long way to carry out his pledge.
He had come like a ghost from the antique past, with his old bones straddling neither horse nor mule, but seated sidewise on a brindle bull, and to reach the place where he was to discourse music he had made a "soon start" yesterday morning and had slept lying by the roadside over night.
Now on an improvised platform he sat enthroned, with his eyes ecstatically closed, the violin pressed to his stubbled chin, and his broganned feet—with ankles innocent of socks—patting the spirited time of his dancing measure.
Outside in the yard certain young folk who had been reared to hold dancing ungodly indulged in those various "plays" as they called the games less frowned upon by the strait-laced. But while the thoughtless rollicked, their elders gathered in small clumps here and there and talked in grave undertones, and through these groups old Caleb circulated. He knew how mysterious and possibly significant to these news-hungry folk hadseemed the strange circumstance of the bridegroom's answering, in the marriage service, to a name he had not previously worn and he sought to draw, by his own strong influence, the sting of suspicion from their questioning minds.
But Bas Rowlett did not remain through the day, and when he was ready to leave, old Caleb followed him around the turn of the road to a point where they could be alone, and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
"Bas," he said, feelingly, "I'd hate ter hev ye think I hain't a-feelin' fer ye terday. I knows right well ye're sore-hearted, boy, an' thar hain't many men thet could hev took a bitter dose like ye've done."
Rowlett looked gloomily away.
"I hain't complainin' none, Caleb," he said.
"No. But I hain't got master long ter live—an' when Jim an' me both passes on, I fears me thar'll be stressful times ahead. I wants ye ter give me yore hand thet ye'll go on standin' by my leetle gal an' her fam'ly, Bas. Else I kain't die satisfied."
Bas Rowlett stood rigidly and tensely straight, his eyes fixed to the front, his forehead drawn into furrows. Then he thrust out his hand.
"Ye've done confidenced me until now," he said simply, "ye kin go on doin' hit. I gives ye my pledge."
Amongthe men who danced at that party were Sim Squires and Pete Doane, but when they saddled and mounted at sunset, they rode divergent ways.
Each of the two was acting under orders that day, and each was spreading an infection whose virus sought to stir into rebirth the war which the truce had so long held in merciful abeyance.
Aaron Capper, who was as narrow yet as religious as an Inquisition priest, had always believed the Thorntons to be God's chosen and the Doanes to be children of Satan. The bonds of enforced peace had galled him heavily. Three sons had been killed in the battle at Claytown and he felt that any truce made before he had evened his score left him wronged and abandoned by his kinsmen.
Now Sim Squires, mounted on a swift pacing mare, fell in beside Aaron, his knee rubbing the knee of the grizzled wayfarer, and Sim said impressively:
"Hit looks right bodaciously like es ef ther war's goin' ter bust loose ergin, Aaron."
The other turned level eyes upon his informant and swept him up and down with a searching gaze.
"Who give ye them tidin's, son? I hain't heered nothin' of hit, an' I reckon ef ther Harpers war holdin' any council they wouldn't skeercely pass me by."
"I don't reckon they would, Aaron." Sim now spoke with a flattery intended to placate ruffled pride. "Ther boys thet's gittin' restive air kinderly lookin' teryouter call thet council. Caleb Harper hain't long fer this life—an' who's goin' ter take up his leadership—onless hit be you?"
Aaron laughed, but there was a grim complaisance in the tone that argued secret receptiveness for the idea.
"'Peared like hit war give out ter us terday thet this hyar young stranger war denoted ter heir thet job."
"Cal Maggard!" Sim Squires spat out the name contemptuously and laughed with a short hyena bark of derision. "Thet woods-colt from God-knows-whar? Him thet goes hand in glove with Bas Rowlett an' leans on his arm ter git married? Hell!"
Aaron took refuge in studied silence, but into his eyes had come a new and dangerously smouldering darkness.
"I'll ponder hit," he made guarded answer—then added with humourless sincerity, "I'll ponder—an' pray fer God's guidin'."
And as Sim talked with Aaron that afternoon, so he talked to others, even less conservative of tendency, and Pete Doane carried a like gospel of disquiet to those whose allegiance lay on the other side of the feud's cleavage—yet both talked much alike. In houses remote and widely scattered the security of the longstanding peace was being insidiously undermined and shaken and guns were taken furtively out and oiled.
But in a deserted cabin where once two shadowy figures had met to arrange the assassination of Cal Maggard three figures came separately now on a night when the moon was dark, and having assured themselves that they had not been seen gathering there, they indulged themselves in the pallid light of a single lantern for their deliberations.
Bas Rowlett was the first to arrive, and he sat for a time alone smoking his pipe, with a face impatiently scowling yet not altogether indicative of despair.
Soon he heard and answered a triple rap on the barreddoor, and though it seemed a designated signal he maintained the caution of a hand on his revolver until a figure entered and he recognized the features of young Peter Doane.
"Come in, Pete," he accosted. "I reckon ther other feller'll git hyar d'reck'ly."
The two sat smoking and talking in low tones, yet pausing constantly to listen until again they heard the triple rap and admitted a third member to their caucus.
Here any one not an initiate to the mysteries of this inner shrine would have wondered to the degree of amazement, for this newcomer was an ostensible enemy of Bas Rowlett's whom in other company he refused to recognize.
But Sim Squires entered unhesitatingly and now between himself and the man with whom he did not speak in public passed a nod and glance of complete harmony and understanding.
When certain subsidiary affairs had been adjusted—all matters of upbuilding for Rowlett's influence and repute—Bas turned to Sim Squires.
"Sim," he said, genially, "I reckon we're ready ter heer what ye've got onyoremind now," and the other grinned.
"Ther Thorntons an' Harpers—them thet dwells furthest back in ther sticks—air a doin' a heap of buzzin' an' talkin'. They're right sim'lar ter bees gittin' ready ter swarm. I've done seed ter that. I reckon when this hyar stranger starts in ter rob ther honey outen thet hive he's goin' ter find a tol'able nasty lot of stingers on his hands."
"Ye've done cautioned 'em not ter make no move afore they gits ther word, hain't ye—an' ye've done persuaded 'em ye plum hates me, hain't ye?"
Again Sim grinned.
"Satan hisself would git rightfully insulted ef anybody cussed an' damned him like I've doneyou, Bas."
"All right then. I reckon when ther time comes both ther Doanes and Harpers'll be right sick of Mr. Cal Maggard or Mr. Parish Thornton or Mr. Who-ever-he-is."
They talked well into the night, and Peter Doane was the first to leave, but after his departure Sim Squires permitted a glint of deep anxiety to show in his narrow and shifty eyes.
"Hit's yore own business ef ye confidences Pete Doane in yore own behalf, Bas," he suggested, "but ye hain't told him nuthin' erboutme, hes ye?"
Bas Rowlett smiled.
"I hain't no damn fool, Sim," he reassured. "Thar don't nobody but jest me an' you know thet ye shot Cal Maggard—but ye war sich a damn disable feller on ther job thet rightly I ought ter tell yore name ter ther circuit-rider."
"What fer?" growled the hireling, sulkily, and the master laughed.
"So's he could put hit in his give-out at meetin' an shame ye afore all mankind," he made urbane explanation.
* * *
July, which began fresh and cool, burned, that year, into a scorching heat, until the torrid skies bent in a blue arch of arid cruelty and the ridges stood starkly stripped of their moisture.
Forests were rusted and freckled and roads gave off a choke of dust to catch the breath of travellers as the heat waves trembled feverishly across the clear, hot distances.
Like a barometer of that scorched torpor, before the eyes of the slowly convalescing Thornton stood thewalnut tree in the dooryard. A little while ago it had spread its fresh and youthful canopy of green overhead in unstinted abundance of vigour.
Now it stood desolate, with its leaves drooping in fever-hot inertia. The squirrel sat gloomily silent on the branches, panting under its fur, and the oriole's splendour of orange and jet had turned dusty and bedraggled.
When a dispirited wisp of breeze stirred in its head-growth its branches gave out only the flat hoarseness of rattling leaves.
One morning before full daylight old Caleb left the house to cross the low creek bed valley and join a working party in a new field which was being cleared of timber. He had been away two hours when without warning the hot air became insufferably close and the light ghost of breeze died to a breathless stillness. The drought had lasted almost four weeks, and now at last, though the skies were still clear, that heat-vacuum seemed to augur its breaking.
An hour later over the ridge came a black and lowering pall of cloud moving slowly and bellying out from its inky centre with huge masses of dirty fleece at its margin—and in the little time that Dorothy stood in the door watching, it spread until the high sun was obscured.
The distant but incessant rumbling of thunder was a chorussed growling of storm voices against a background of muffled drum-beat, and the girl said, a shade anxiously, "Gran'pap's goin' ter git drenched ter ther skin."
While the inky pall spread and lowered until it held the visible world in a gray-green corrosion of gloom the stillness became more pulseless. Then with a crashing salvo of suddenness the tempest broke—and it was as though all the belated storms of the summer had merged into one armageddon of the elements.
A rending and splintering of timber sounded with the shriek of the tornado that whipped its lash of destruction through the woods. The girl, buffeted and almost swept from her feet, struggled with her weight thrown against the door that she could scarcely close. Then the darkness blotted midday into night, and through the unnatural thickness clashed a frenzy of detonations.
Out of the window she and her husband seemed looking through dark and confused waters which leaped constantly into the brief and blinding glare of such blue-white instants of lightning as hurt the eyes. The walnut tree appeared and disappeared—waving arms like a high-priest in transports of frenzy, and adding its wind-song to the mighty chorus.
The sturdily built old house trembled under that assaulting, and when the first cyclonic sweep of wind had rushed by the pelting of hail and rain was a roar as of small-arms after artillery.
"Gran'pap," gasped Dorothy. "I don't see how a livin' soul kin endure—out thar!"
Then came a concussion as though the earth had broken like a bursted emery wheel, and a hall of white fire seemed to pass through the walls of the place. Dorothy pitched forward, stunned, to the floor and at the pit of his stomach Cal Maggard felt a sudden sickness of shock that passed as instantly as it had come. He found himself electrically tingling through every nerve as the woman rose slowly and dazedly, staring about her.
"Did hit strike ... ther house?" she asked, faintly, and then with the same abruptness as that with which darkness had come, the sky began to turn yellowish again and they could see off across the road through the amber thickness of returning daylight.
"No," her husband said, hesitantly, "hit warn't ther house—but hit was right nigh!"
The girl followed his startled gaze, and there about the base of the walnut tree lay shaggy strips of rent bark.
Running down the trunk in the glaring spiral of a fresh scar two hand-breadths wide went the swath along which the bolt had plunged groundward.
For a few moments, though with a single thought between them, neither spoke. In the mind of Dorothy words from a faded page seemed to rewrite themselves: "Whilst that tree stands ... and weathers the thunder and wind ... our family also will wax strong and robust ... but when it falls——!"
Cal rose slowly to his feet, and the girl asked dully, "Where be ye goin'?"
"I'm goin'," he said as their eyes met in a flash of understanding, "ter seek fer yore gran'pap."
"I fears me hit's too late...." Her gaze went outward and as she looked the man needed no explanation.
"Ef he's—still alive," she added, resolutely, with a return of self-control, "ther danger's done passed now. Hit would kill ye ter go out in this storm, weak as ye be. Let's strive ter be patient."
Ten minutes later they heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a man drenched with rain standing there, whose face anticipated their questions.
"Me and old Caleb," he began, "was comin' home tergither ... we'd got es fur as ther aidge of ther woods ..." he paused, then forced out the words, "a limb blew down on him."
"Is he ... is he...?" The girl's question got no further, and the messenger shook his head. "He's dead," came the simple reply. "The other boys air fotchin' him in now."
Intothe grave near the house the rough pine coffin, which had been knocked together by neighbour hands, was lowered by members of both factions whose peace the dead man had impartially guarded.
No circuit-rider was available, but one or two godly men knelt there and prayed and over the green valley, splendidly resurrected from the scorch and thirst of the drought, floated untrained voices raised in the old hymns.
Then as the crowd scattered along its several ways a handful of men delayed their departure, and when the place had otherwise emptied itself they led Cal Maggard to his front door where, without realization that they were selecting a spot of special significance, they halted under the nobly spread shade of the tree.
The walnut, with the blight of dry weeks thrown off, had freshened its leafage into renewed vigour—and though its scar was fresh and raw, its vital stalwartness was that of a veteran who has once more triumphed over his wounding.
The few men who had remained were all Doanes, in clan affiliation if not in name, and they stood as solemnly silent as they had been by the open grave but with heads no longer uncovered and with a grimmer quality in their sober eyes.
It was Hump Doane, the man with the twisted back, who broke the silence as spokesman for the group, and his high, sharp voice carried the rasping suggestion of a threat.
"Afore we went away from here," he said with a noteof embarrassment, "we 'lowed thet we hed need ter ask ye a few questions, Mr. Thornton."
"I'm hearkenin' ter ye," came the non-committal rejoinder, and the hunchback went on:
"Ther man we've jest laid ter rest was ther leader of ther Harpers an' ther Thorntons but over an' above thet he was ther friend of every man thet loved peace-abidin' and human betterment."
That tribute Cal acknowledged with a grave inclination of his head, but no word.
"So long as he lived ther truce thet he'd done made endured. Now thet he's dead hit would be a right distressful thing ef hit collapsed."
Maggard's candid eyes engaged those of the others in level glance as he inquired, "Is thar any self-respectin' man thet feels contrariwise, Mr. Doane?"
"Thet's what we seeks ter find out. With Caleb dead an' gone, no man kin handily foretell what ther Thorntons aims ter do—an' without we knows we kain't breathe free."
"Why does ye come ter me?"
"Because folks tells hit thet ther old man named ye ter stand in his stead—an' ef ye does thet we hev need ter put some questions up ter ye."
"I hain't said I sought no leadership—but speak right out fer yoreselves," invited Maggard.
"All right. We knows thet ye come hyar fromsomewharselse—an' we don't know whar from. Because ye're old Caleb's heir, what ye does an' what ye says gets ter be mighty pithy an' pertinent ter us."
"I've done come ter kinderly reelize that, myself, hyar of late."
"Ye comes from Virginny, folks says; air thet true?"
"Thet's true."
"An' ye give one name when ye come an' tuck another atter ye'd been hyar a while, air thet true likewise?"
Maggard stiffened but he bowed his head in assent.
"All right, then—I reckon ye kin see fer yorself thet ef we've got ter trust our business in yore hands tor'ds keepin' ther truce, we've jedgmatically got ter confidence ye. We seeks ter hev ye ter tell us why ye left Virginny an' why ye changed yore name. We wants ter send a man of our own pick an' choosin' over thar an' find out fer ourselves jest what yore repute war in yore own home afore ye come hyar."
Cal could feel the tingling of antagonism in a galvanic current along his spine. He knew that his eyes had flashed defiance before he had quelled their impulse and controlled his features, but he held his lips tight for a rebellious moment and when he opened them he asked with a velvety smoothness:
"Ye says nobody didn't mistrust Caleb Harper. Why didn't ye ask him, whilst he war still a-livin', whether he'd made an heir outen a man thet couldn't be confidenced?"
"So long es he lived," came the hunchback's quick and stingingly sharp retort, "we didn't need ter ask no questions atall an' thar warn't no prophets amongst us ter foresay he was goin' ter die suddent-like, without tellin' us what we needed ter know. Will ye give us them facts thet we're askin' fer—or won't ye?"
"I won't," said Maggard, shortly. "I stand ter be jedged by ther way I demeans myself—an' I don't suffer no man ter badger me with questions like es ef I war some criminal in ther jail-house."
The grotesque face of the hunchback hardened to the stony antagonism of an issue joined. His dwarfed and twisted body seemed to loom taller and more shapely as if the power of the imprisoned spirit were expanding its ugly shell from within, and an undeniable dignity showed itself flashingly through the caricatured features.
Back of him, his silent colleagues stiffened, too, and though they were all tall men, with eyes flaming in unspoken wrath, they seemed smaller in everything but bodily stature than he.
After a brief pause, Hump Doane wheeled and addressed himself to his companions. "I reckon thet's all, men," he said, briefly, and Cal Maggard recognized that the silence with which they turned away from him was more ominous than if they had berated him.
Yet before he reached the stile Doane halted and stood irresolute with his gaze groundward and his chin on his breast, then summoning his fellows with a jerk of the thumb, he turned back to the spot where Cal Maggard had remained unmoving at the base of the great tree, and his face though still solemn was no longer wrathful.
"Sometimes, Mr. Thornton," he said with a slow weighing of his words, "men thet aims at accord fails ter comprehend each other—an' gits ther seemin' of cavillin'. Mebby we kinderly got off on ther wrong foot an' I kain't go away from hyar satisfied without I'm plum sartain thet ye onderstands me aright."
Maggard had learned to read the type of human features and human contact clearly enough to place this man in his rightful page and column of life. He recognized an honesty and sincerity that might be trusted under the test of torture itself, purposes undeviatingly true—and the narrow intensity of fanaticism. He would have liked to make an ally of this man, and a friend, yet the question that had been raised could not be answered.
"I hain't only willin' but plum anxious ter hear all ye've got ter say, Mr. Doane," he made serious reply, and the other after a judicial pause went on:
"Hit hain't no light an' frivolous sperit of meddlin' thet brings me hyar askin' ye questions thet seems imp'dentan' nosy. Hit's a dire need of safeguardin' ther peace of our folks—aye, an' thar lives, too, like es not."
He paused, leaving room for an answer that would make easier his approach to an understanding, but no answer came, and he continued:
"Ye hain't got no handy way of knowin' like me an' some of these other men thet's always lived hyarabouts, what a ticklish balance things rests on in this section. A feller mout reasonably surmise thet a peace what hes stood fer twenty y'ar an' more would go on standin'—but mebby in yore time ye've done seed a circus-show—hev ye?"
Maggard nodded, wondering what moral was to be drawn from tan-bark ring and canvas top, and his interviewer continued:
"Then like es not ye've seed one of them fellers in tights an' tin spangles balancin' a ladder on his chest with a see-saw atop hit—an' a human bein' settin' on each eend of thet see-saw. Hit looks like he does hit plum easy—but ef he boggles or stumbles, them folks up thar falls down, sure as hell's hot."
"I reckon thet's right."
"Wa'al, thar's trouble-makin' sperits amongst both ther Doanes an' ther Harpers—an' they seeks ter start all thet hell up a-bilin' ergin like ther devil's own cauldron.... Ef we've done maintained peace 'stid of war fer upwards of twenty y'ars hit's because old Caleb an' a few more like him hes been balancin' thet ladder till th'ar hearts was nigh ter bustin' with ther weight of hit. Peace hain't nuver stood upright amongst us by hits own self—an' hit won't do hit now. Ef ye stands in old Caleb's shoes, Mr. Thornton, ye've got ter stand balancin' thet ladder, too."
"We hain't hed no disagreement es ter thet, Mr. Doane. I craves law-abidin' life an' friendly neighbours as master strong esyoudoes."
"An' yit," continued the cripple, earnestly, "ef thet old-time war ever busts loose afresh hit'll make these hyar numerous small streams, in a manner of speakin', run red with men's blood an' salty with women's tears, too, I fears me. I've done dream't of a time when all thet pizen blight would be swep' away from ther hills like a fog—an' I sought ter gain yore aid in hastenin' thet day. A man kain't skeercely plead with his enemy but he kin with his friend—an' that's how I hoped I'd be met."
"Yore friend is what I'd love ter be." Maggard stood with his hand resting on the bark of the tree, as though out of it he might hope to draw some virtue from the far past which it commemorated or from the dust of those wiser men whose graves its roots penetrated. His eyes were darkly clouded with the trouble and perplexity of his dilemma. To refuse still was to stand on a seeming point either of over-stubborn pride or of confessed guilt. To accede was to face the court that wanted him for murder and that would prostitute justice to hang him.
"Them things ye dreams of an' hopes fer," he went on in a voice thrilling with earnestness and sincerity, "air matters thet I've got heart an' cravin' ter see come erbout. An' yit—I kain't answer yore question. Hit's ther only test ye could seek ter put me ter—thet I wouldn't enjoy ter meet outright——"
"Then, even atter what I've told ye, ye still refuses me?"
"Even atter what ye've told me, an' deespite thet I accords with all ye seeks ter compass hyarabouts, I'vegotter refuse ye. I hain't got no other choice."
This time Hump Doane and his delegation did not turn back, but crossed the stile and passed stiffly on.
Thornton, for now it was useless to think of himself longer as Cal Maggard, stood straight-shouldered untilthe turn of the road took them beyond sight, then his head came down and his eyes clouded into a deep misery.
That night the moon rode in a sky where the only clouds were wisps of opal-fleece and the ranges were flat-toned and colossal ramparts of cobalt. Down in the valley where the river looped its shimmering thread the radiance was a wash of platinum softly broken by blue-gray islands of shadow.
Dorothy Thornton stood, a dim and ghostly figure of mute distress, by the grave in the thicketed burial ground where the clods had that day fallen and the mound still stood glaringly raw with its freshly spaded earth, and Parish Thornton stood by her side.
But while she mourned for the old man who had sought to be father and mother to her, he thought, too, of the sagacious old shepherd without whose guidance the flocks were already showing tendencies to stampede in panic.
Parish Thornton would have given much for a word of counsel to-night from those silent lips, and hardly realizing what impulse prompted him he raised his eyes to the great gray-purple shadow-shape of the tree. Its roots lay in those Revolutionary graves and its top-most plumes of foliage seemed to brush the starry sky, where the spirits of the dead might be having their longer and serener life.
Half comprehended yet disquieting with its vague portent, a new element of thought was stirring in the mind of the young man. By nature he was an individualist whose inherent prompting was to walk his own way neither interfering with his neighbour nor permitting his neighbour to encroach unduly upon him. Had he been a quoter of Scripture his chosen text might have been, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
And if that had been the natural colour of his mindand nature it was deepened and intensified by his circumstance. The man whom the law seeks and whom it charges with murder must keep to himself and within himself if he would escape notice and capture. Yet now the older impulses that had driven and urged his pioneering ancestors were beginning to claim voice, too, and this voice demanded of him "can any man live alone?"
Somehow that plea from the hunchbacked Doane had, with its flaming sincerity, left its unforgettable mark upon him. His own affairs included a need of hiding from Virginia sheriffs and of reckoning with Bas Rowlett, and yet he began to wonder if his own private affairs were not after all only part of a whole, and as such smaller than the whole. If a man is born to play a part greater in its bearings than the merely personal he cannot escape his destiny, and to-night some stirring of that cloudy realization was troubling Thornton.
"Let's get some leaves offen ther old tree," suggested the girl in a hushed voice, "an' make a kind of green kiverlet over him." She shuddered as she added, "Ther ground's plum naked!"
When they had performed their whimsical service—these two representatives of a grimly unimaginative race of stoics—they went again and stood together under the tree and into the girl's grief and the man's forebodings crept an indefinable anodyne of quiet and consolation.
That tree had known death before, and always after death it had known rebirth. It could stand serene and placid over hearts bruised as was her own because it had heard the echoes of immortality and seen the transient qualities of human grief.
Now she could realize only death and death's wounding, but to it the seasons came and went as links in an unbroken chain. Beneath it slept the first friends whohad loved it. Somewhere in the great, star-strewn spaces above it perhaps dwelt the souls of unborn men and women who would love it hereafter. Somehow its age-old and ever-young message seemed to come soothingly to her heart. "All end is but beginning, and no end is final. The present is but hesitation between past and future. Shadows and sunlight are abstract things until you see them side by side—filtered through my branches. Winds are silent until they find voice through my leaves.... My staunch column gives you your standard of uprightness ... beneath me red men and white have fought and whispered of love ... as my bud has come to leaf and in turn fallen so generation has followed generation. For the present I bear the word of steadfastness and courage. For the future, I bear the promise of hope."
Dorothy's lissome beauty took on a touch of something supernatural from the magic of moonlight and soft shadow and the man slipped his arm about her, while they looked off across the tempered nocturne of the hills and heard the lullaby of the night breeze in the branches overhead.
"I war thinkin', Cal," said the girl in a hushed voice, "of what would of happened ter me ef ye hedn't come. I'd be ther lonesomest body in ther mountings of Kaintuck—but, thank God, yedidcome."
* * *
An agency for disturbing the precarious balance of peace was at work, and the mainspring of its operation was the intriguing mind of Bas Rowlett.
Bas had had nothing to gain and everything to lose by weakening the pacific power of old Caleb, whose granddaughter he sought to wed, but with a successful rival, whom he must kill or be killed by, usurping the authority to which he had himself expected to succeed,his interests were reversed. If he could not rule, he could wreck, and the promiscuous succession of tragedies that would follow in the wake of such an avalanche had no terrors to give Bas pause. Many volunteers would arise to strike down his enemy and leave him safe on the outskirts of the conflict. He could stand apart unctuously crying out for peace and washing his hands after the fashion of Pontius Pilate.
Manifestly the provocation must seem to come from the Harper-Thornton faction in order that their Doane-Rowlett adversaries might righteously take the path of reprisal.
The device upon which the intriguer decided was one requiring such delicate handling in both strategy and marksmanship that he dared not trust it to either young Pete Doane or the faithful Sim Squires.
Indeed, he could trust no one but himself, and so one evening he lay in the laurel back of the house where dwelt his universally respected kinsman, old Jim Rowlett.
Bas had no intention of harming the old man who sat placidly smoking, yet he was bent on making it seem evident and certain that someone had sought to assassinate him, and so it was not at the breast that he aimed his rifle but at the peak of the tall-crowned slouch hat.
The sights of his rifle showed clean as the rustless barrel rested on a log. Bas himself lay stretched full-length in that position which gives the greatest surety of marksmanship.
His temples were moist with nervous sweat, and once he took the rifle down from his shoulder and flexed his muscles in rest. Then he aimed again and pressed the trigger.
He could not tarry now, but he paused long enough to see the punctured hat spin downward from the agedhead and the old man rise, bewildered but unhurt, with a dazed hand experimentally rubbing his white crown. Then Bas grinned, and edging backward through the brush as a woman rushed screaming out, he made his way to the house of Parish Thornton. The first gun had been fixed in the new Harper-Doane war.
Bas knew that the tidings of the supposed attempt on the patriarch's life would go winging rapidly through the community, and it pleased his alibi instinct to be at his enemy's house at a time which would seem almost contemporaneous with the shooting. To have reached his own place would have taken longer.
But when he arrived Thornton was not indoors. He was strong enough now to move about the place a little, though he still fretted under a weakness that galled him, so Bas found Dorothy alone.
"I reckon, leetle gal," he made a sympathetic beginning, "yore heart's right sore these days since yore gran'pap died. My own heart's sore fer ye, too."
"He was mighty devoted ter ye, Bas," said the girl, and the man who had just come from an act of perfidy nodded a grave head.
"I don't know whether he ever named hit ter ye, Dorothy," came his slow words, "but thet day when ye war wedded he tuck me off ter one side an' besought me always ter stand by ye—an' befriend ye."
"Ye acted mouty true-hearted thet day, Bas," she made acknowledgment and the conspirator responded with a melancholy smile.
"I reckon I don't hev ter tell ye, I'd do most anything fer ye, leetle gal. I'd hed hopes thet didn't turn out—but I kin still be a friend. I'd go through hell fer ye any time."
He rose suddenly from his seat on the kitchen threshold, and into his eyes came a flash of feeling. She thought it love, but there was an unexpectedly greedyquality in it that frightened her. Then at once the man recovered himself, and turned away, and the girl breathed easy again.
"I'm beholden ter ye fer many things," she said, softly.
Suddenly and with no reason that she could explain, his recent words, "I'd do most anything fer ye," set her thoughts swirling into a new channel ... thoughts of things men do, without reward, for the women they love.
This man, she told herself in her ignorance of the truth, had sacrificed himself without complaint. She knew of only one greater sacrifice, and of that she could never think without a cloud of dread shutting off the sunlight of her happiness.
Even Bas would hardly have done what her husband had done for his sister: assumed a guilt of murder which made of himself an exile and a refugee whom the future always threatened.
Then somehow, as Bas sat silent, she saw again that hunger in his eyes, a hunger so wolf-like that it was difficult to harmonize it with his record of generous self-effacement; a hunger so avidly rapacious that a dim and unacknowledged uneasiness stirred in her heart.
But at that moment they heard a shout from the front, and Peanuts Causey came hurriedly around the corner of the house. His great neck and fat face were fiery red with heat and excitement, and he panted as he gave them his news.
"Old Jim Rowlett's done been shot at from ther bresh!" he told them. "He escaped death, but men says ther war's like ter bust, loose ergin because of hit."
"My God!" exclaimed Bas Rowlett in a tone of shocked incredulity; "old Jim hain't got no enemies. A man would hev need ter be a fiend ter harm him! I've got ter git over thar straightway."
Yet the crater did not at once burst into molten up-blazing. For a while yet it smouldered—held from eruption by the sober counsel of the man who had been fired on and who had seemingly escaped death by a miracle.
Adherents of the two factions still spoke as they met on the road, but when they separated each turned his head to watch the other out of sight and neither trusted an unprotected back to the good faith of any possible adversary.
To the house of Aaron Capper, unobtrusively prompted by Sim Squires, went certain of the Harper kin who knew not where else to turn—ignoring Parish Thornton as a young pretender for whom they had little more liking than for the enemy himself.
The elderly clansman received them and heard their talk, much of which was wild and foolish. All disclaimed, and honestly disclaimed, any knowledge of the infamy that had been aimed at old Jim Rowlett, but even in their frothy folly and yeasty clamour none was so bereft as to deny that the Harpers must face accountability. If war were inevitable, argued the hotheads, it were wisdom to strike the first blow.
Yet Aaron, who had during the whole long truce been fretting for a free hand, listened now with a self-governed balance that astonished his visitors.
"Men," said he with a ring of authority in his voice, "thar hain't no profit in headlong over-hastiness. I've been foreseein' this hour an' prayin' fer guidance. We've got ter hev speech with young Parish Thornton afore we turns a wheel."
Sim Squires had not been enlisting his recruits from the ranks of those who wished to turn to Thornton, and from them rose a yelping clamour of dissent, but Aaron quelled that mutiny aborning and went evenly on.
"Ef warfare lays ahead of us we hev need ter standtergether solid—an' thar's good men amongst us thet wouldn't nuver fergive affrontin' old Caleb's memory by plum lookin' over his gal's husband. Thet's my counsel, an' ef ye hain't a-goin' ter heed hit——"
The quiet voice ripped abruptly into an explosiveness under which some of them cowered as under a lash.
"Then I reckon thar'll be Thorntons an' Harpers thetwill—an they'll fight both ther Doanes an' your crowd alike."
Parish Thorntonsat on the doorstep of the house gazing abstractedly upward where through soft meshes of greenery the sunlight filtered.
Here, he told himself, he ought to be happy beyond any whisper of discontent—save for the fret of his lingering weakness. Through the open door of the house came the voice of Dorothy raised in song, and the man's face softened and the white teeth flashed into a smile as he listened. Then it clouded again.
Parish Thornton did not know all the insidious forces that were working in the silences of the hills, but he divined enough to feel the brewing of a storm, which, in its bursting, might strike closer and with more shattering force than the bolt that had scarred the giant tree trunk.
Two passions claimed his deep acknowledgment of allegiance and now they stood in conflict. One was as clear and flawlessly gracious as the arch of blue sky above him—and that was his love; the other was as wild and impetuous as the tempests which sprang to ungoverned life among these crags—and that was his hate.
When he had sworn to Bas Rowlett that the moon should not "full again" before he avenged his betrayal with death, he had taken that oath solemnly and, he sincerely believed, in the sight of God. It was, therefore, an oath that could be neither abandoned nor modified.
The man who must die knew, as did he himself and the heavenly witness to the compact, that his physical incapacity had been responsible for his deferred action—butnow with returning strength he must make amends of promptness.
He would set out to-day on that enterprise of cleansing his conscience with performance. In killing Bas Rowlett he would be performing a virtuous act. As to that he had no misgiving, but an inner voice spoke in disturbing whispers. He could not forget Hump Doane's appeal—and prophecy of tribulation. By killing Bas now he might even loose that avalanche!
"An' yit ef I tarries a few days more," he argued stubbornly within himself, "hit's ergoin' ter be even wusser. I'm my own man now—an' licensed ter ack fer myself." He rose and stiffened resolutely, against the tide of doubt, and his fine face darkened with the blood malignity of his heritage.
He went silently into the house and began making his preparations. His pistol holster should have fitted under his left arm-pit but it was useless there now with no right hand to draw or use it. So Parish Thornton thrust it into his coat pocket on the left-hand side, and then at the door he halted in a fresh perplexity.
He could not embark on a mission that might permit of no returning without bidding Dorothy good-bye—and as he thought of that farewell his face twitched and the agate hardness wavered.
So he stood for awhile in debate with himself, the relentlessness of the executioner warring obdurately with the tenderness of the lover—and while he did so a group of three horsemen came into view on the highway, moving slowly toward his house.
When the trio of visitors had dismounted, an elderly man, whose face held a deadly sort of gravity, approached, introducing himself as Aaron Capper and his companions as Sim Squires and Lincoln Thornton.
"Albeit we hain't well beknowest ter one another," Aaron reminded him, "we're all kinfolks more or less—an'we've done rid over ter hev speech with ye cons'arnin' right sober matters."
"Won't ye come inside an' sot ye cheers?" invited Parish, but the elder man shook his head as he wiped his perspiring and dust-caked face on the sleeve of his shirt.
"Ther breeze is stirrin' tol'able fresh out hyar," suggested Aaron, "an thet old walnuck tree casts down a right grateful shade. I'd jest es lieve talk out hyar—ef hit suits ye."
So under the tree, where a light breeze stirred with welcome tempering across the river, the four men squatted on their heels and lighted their pipes.
"Thar hain't no profit in mincin' matters none," began old Aaron, curtly. "I lost me three boys when they fit ther battle of Claytown twenty y'ars back—an' now hit looks powerful like ther war's fixin' ter bust out afresh. Ef hit does I aims ter take me full toll fer tha'r killin'."
Parish Thornton—who had ten minutes before been planning a death infliction of his own—raised his brows at this unsoftened bluntness of announcement, but he inquired of Aaron Capper as he had done of Hump Doane: "Why does ye come ter me?"
"We comes ter ye," Aaron gave him unambiguous answer, "because ef ther Harpers hev got ter fight, that hain't no health in divided leaderships ner dilatary delays.... Some men seems ter hold thet because ye wed with Old Caleb's gal, ye're licensed ter stand in Old Caleb's shoes ... whilst others seems plum resolved not ter tolerate ye atall an' spits ye outen thar mouths."
"Which of them lots doesyoumen stand with?"
The question came soberly, yet something like a riffle of cynical amusement glinted in the eyes of Parish Thornton as he put it.
"I hain't made up my mind yit. All I knows is thet some fellers called on me ter head ther Harpers ... an' afore I give 'em any answer, I 'lowed thet hit become us ter hev speech with ye fust. We owed ye thet much because ther Doanes'll pint-blank deem thet ther trouble started when ye wed Bas Rowlett's gal—an' whateverwedoes,they'llhold ye accountable."
The heir to Caleb Harper's perplexities stood leaning against the tree. There were still moments when his strength seemed to ebb capriciously and leave him giddy. After a moment, though, he smiled quietly and glanced about the little group.
"When I come over hyar," he said, "I didn't ask nothin' but ter be left alone. I married Dorothy, an' old Caleb confidenced me. I've got my own affairs ter tend an' I'm satisfied ter tend 'em. So fur es frayin' an' fightin' goes"—his voice mounted suddenly and the half-whimsical humour died instantly in his eyes—"I've got some of my own ter study erbout—an' I don't have ter meddle with other folkses' quarrels."
"Then ye aims ter stand aside an' let things take thar own course?"
"Thet's what I 'lowed ter do, but ye've jest done told me thet the Doanes don't aim terletme stand aside. S'pose ye tells me some more."
"All right," said Aaron, brusquely. "Ef thet's what ye wants I'll tell ye a lavish."
Dorothy had come to the front door and looked out, and seeing the men still mopping hot faces, she had brought out a pitcher of cool buttermilk and a pewter mug.
The backs of the three visitors were turned toward the house, and her feet on the grass had made no sound so that only Parish himself had known of her coming and he had, with a lifting of the brows, signalled her to wait until old Aaron finished speaking.
"I've done sought by prayer an' solemn ponderin' ter take counsel with Almighty God," declared the spokesman. "Ther blood of them three boys of mine hes been cryin' out ter me fer twenty y'ars but yet I knows thet ef ther war does come on again hit's goin' ter bring a monstrous sum of ruination an' mischief. So I comes ter ye—es Caleb Harper's heir—ter heer what ye've got ter say."
Dorothy Thornton's eyes widened as, standing with the pitcher and the ancient mug in her hands, she listened to that speech. Then as the full import of its feudal menace broke upon her understanding the blossom colour flowed out of her smooth cheeks and neck, leaving them ivory white.
She saw herself as the agency which had drawn her husband into this vortex, and bitterly reflected that this had been her dowry and the gift of her love!
Parish's glance held by that stunned fixety in her expression attracted the attention of the others and old Aaron Capper, turning his head, saw her and let a low oath of exasperation escape him.
"Send her away!" he snapped, angrily. "This hyar hain't no woman's business. How much did she hyar?"
Parish Thornton went forward and took the pitcher and pewter mug from his wife's hand, then he shook his head, and his voice altered to a new ring, quiet, yet electrically charged with dominance.
"No," he ripped out, shortly. "I hain't ergoin' ter send her away. Ye says hit hain't no woman's business, and yit she's Caleb Harper's gran'daughter—an' because of her weddin' with me—Harpers an' Doanes alike—ye won't suffer me ter foller out my own affairs in my own fashion, onmolested!"
Aaron came to his feet, bristling indignantly and with new protests rising to his lips, but an imperious gesture of command from Parish silenced him into a bewilderedobedience. It had become suddenly impossible to brow-beat this man.