Drifting Down Lost Creek

I.

HIGH above Lost Creek Valley towers a wilderness of pine. So dense is this growth that it masks the mountain whence it springs. Even when the Cumberland spurs, to the east, are gaunt and bare in the wintry wind, their deciduous forests denuded, their crags unveiled and grimly beetling, Pine Mountain remains a sombre, changeless mystery ; its clifty heights are hidden, its chasms and abysses lurk unseen. Whether the skies are blue, or gray, the dark, austere line of its summit limits the horizon. It stands against the west like a barrier. It seemed to Cynthia Ware that nothing which went beyond this barrier ever came back again. One by one the days passed over it, and in splendid apotheosis, in purple and crimson and gold, they were received into the heavens, and returned no more. She beheld love go hence, and many a hope. Even Lost Creek itself, meandering for miles between the ranges, suddenly sinks into the earth, tunnels an unknown channel beneath the mountain, and is never seen again. She often watched the floating leaves, a nettle here and there, the broken wing of a moth, and wondered whither these trifles were borne, on the elegiac current. She came to fancy that her life was like them, worthless in itself and without a mission ; drifting down Lost Creek, to vanish vaguely in the mountains.

Yet her life had not always been thus destitute of pleasure and purpose. There was a time — and she remembered it well — when she found no analogies in Lost Creek. Then she saw only a stream gayly dandering down the valley, with the laurel and the pawpaw close in to its banks, and the kildeer’s nest in the sand.

Before it takes that desperate plunge into the unexplored caverns of the mountain, Lost Creek lends its aid to divers jobs of very prosaic work. Further up the valley it turns a mill-wheel, and on Mondays it is wont to assist in the family wash. A fire of pineknots, kindled beside it on a flat rock, would twine long, lucent white flames about the huge kettle in which the clothes were boiled. Through the steam the distant landscape flickered, ethereal, dream-like. The garments, laid across a bench and beaten white with a wooden paddle, would flutter hilariously in the wind. Deep in some willowy tangle the water-thrush might sing. Ever and anon from the heights above vibrated the clinking of a hand-hammer and the clanking of a sledge. This iterative sound used to pulse like a lyric in Cynthia’s heart. But her mother, one day, took up her testimony against it.

“ I do declar’, it sets me plumb cat-awampus ter hev ter listen ter them blacksmiths, up yander ter thar shop, at thar everlastin’ chink-chank an’ chink-chank, considerin’ the tales I hearn ’bout ’em, when I war down ter the quiltin’ at M’ria’s house in the Cove.”

She paused to prod the boiling clothes with a long stick. She was a tall woman, fifty years of age, perhaps, but seeming much older. So gaunt she was, so toothless, haggard, and disheveled, that but for her lazy step and languid interest she might have suggested one of Macbeth’s witches, as she hovered about the great cauldron.

“ They ’lowed down yander ter M’ria’s house ez this hyar Evander Price hev kem ter be the headin’est, no ’count critter in the kentry! They ’lowed ez he hev been a-foolin’ round Pete Blenkins’s forge, a-workin’ fur him ez a striker, till he thinks hisself ez good a blacksmith ez Pete, an’ better. An’ all of a suddenty this same Evander Price riz up an’ made a consarn ter bake bread in, sech ez hed never been seen in the mountings afore. They ’lowed down ter M’ria’s ez they dunno what he patterned arter. The Evil One must hev revealed the contrivance ter him. But they say it did cook bread in less ’n haffen the time that the reg’lar oven takes ; leastwise his granny’s bread, ’kase his mother air a toler’ble sensible woman, an’ would tech no sech foolish fixin’. But his granny ’lowed ez how she did n’t hev long ter live, nohow, an’ mought ez well please the chil’ren whilst she war spared. So she resked a batch o’ her salt-risin’ bread on the consarn, an’ she do say it riz like all possessed, an’ eat toler’ble short. An’ that banged critter Evander war so proud o’ his contrivance that he showed it ter everybody ez kem by the shop. An’ when two valley men rid by, an’ one o’ thar beastis cast a shoe, ‘Vander hed ter take out his contraption fur them ter gape over, too. An’ they ups an’ says they hed seen the like afore a-many a time ; sech ovens war common in the valley towns. An’ when they fund out ez ‘Vander hed never hearn on sech, but jes’ got the idee out ’n his own foolishness, they jes’ stared at one another. They tole the boy ez he oughter take hisself an’ his peartness in workin’ in iron down yander ter some o’ the valley towns, whar he’d find out what other folks hed been doin’ in metal, an’ git a good hank on his knack fur new notions. But ‘Vander, he clung ter the mountings. They ’lowed down yander at M’ria’s quiltin’ ez’Vander fairly tuk ter the woods with grief through other folks hevin’ made sech contraptions ez his’n, afore he war born.”

The girl stopped short in her work of pounding the clothes, and, leaning the paddle on the bench, looked up toward the forge with her luminous brown eyes full of grave compassion. Her calico sun-bonnet was thrust half off her head. Its cavernous recesses made a background of many shades of brown for her auburn hair, which was of a brilliant, rich tint, highly esteemed of late years in civilization, but in the mountains still accounted a capital defect. There was nothing as gayly colored in all the woods, except perhaps a red-bird, that carried his tufted top-knot so bravely through shade and sheen that he might have been the transmigrated spirit of an Indian, still roaming in the old hunting-ground. The beech shadows, delicately green, imparted a more ethereal fairness to her fair face, and her sombre brown homespun dress heightened the effect by contrast. Her mother noted an unwonted flush upon her cheek, and recommenced with a deep, astute purpose.

“ They ’lowed down yander in the Cove, ter M’ria’s quiltin’, ez this hyar Evander Price hev kem ter be mighty difficult, sence he hev been so gin over ter pride in his oven an’ sech. They ’lowed ez even Pete Blenkins air fairly afeard o’ him. Pete hisself hev always been knowed ez a powerful evil man, an’ what ’twixt drink an’ deviltry mos’ folks hev been keerful ter gin him elbow-room. But this hyar ‘Vander Price hectors round an’ jaws back so sharp ez Pete hev got ter be truly mealy-mouthed where ‘Vander be. They ’lowed down yander at M’ria’s quiltin’ ez one day Pete an’ ’Vander hed a piece o’ iron a-twixt ‘em on the anvil, an’ Pete would tap, same ez common, with the hand-hammer on the hot metal ter show ’Vander whar ter strike with the sledge. An’ Pete got toler’ble bouncin’, an’ kep’ faultin’ ’Vander, — jes’ like he use ter quar’l with his t’other striker, till the man would bide with him no more. All at wunst ’Vander hefted the sledge, an’ gin Pete the ch’ice ter take it on his skull-bone, or show more manners. An’ Pete showed ‘em.”

There was a long pause. Lost Creek sounded some broken minor chords, as it dashed against the rocks on its headlong way. The wild grapes were blooming. Their fragrance, so delicate yet so pervasive, suggested some exquisite unseen presence — the dryads were surely abroad ! The beech-trees stretched down their silver branches and green shadows. Through rifts in the foliage shimmered glimpses of a vast array of sunny parallel mountains, converging and converging, till they seemed to meet far away in one long, level line, so ideally blue that it looked less like earth than heaven. The pine-knots flamed and glistered under the great wash-kettle. A tree-toad was persistently calling for rain, in the dry distance. The girl, gravely impassive, beat the clothes with the heavy paddle. Her mother shortly ceased to prod the white heaps in the boiling water, and presently took up the thread of her discourse.

“ An’ ’Vander hev got ter be a mighty suddint man. I hearn tell, when I war down ter M’ria’s house ter the quiltin’, ez how in that sorter fight an’ scrimmage they hed at the mill, las’ month, he war powerful ill-conducted. Nobody hed thought of hevin’ much of a fight, — thar hed been jes’ a few licks passed atwixt the men thar ; but the fust finger ez war laid on this boy, he jes’ lit out an’ fit like a catamount. Right an’ lef’ he lay about him with his fists, an’ he drawed his huntin’ knife on some of ’em. The men at the mill war in no wise pleased with him.”

“’Pears-like ter me ez ’Vander air a peaceable boy enough, ef he ain’t jawed at, an’ air lef’ be,” drawled Cynthia.

Her mother was embarrassed for a moment. Then, with a look both sly and wise, she made an admission, — a qualified admission. “Waal, wimmen — ef — ef — ef they air young an’ toler’ble hard-headed yit, air likely ter jaw some, ennyhow. An’ a gal ought n’t ter marry a man ez hev sot his heart on bein’ lef’ in peace. He’s apt ter be a mighty sour an’ disapp’inted critter.”

This sudden turn to the conversation invested all that had been said with new meaning, and revealed a subtle diplomatic intention. The girl seemed to deliberately review it, as she paused in her work. Then, with a rising flush, “ I ain’t studyin’ ’bout marryin’ nobody,” she asserted staidly. " I hev laid off ter live single.”

Mrs. Ware had overshot the mark, but she retorted, gallantly reckless, “That’s what yer aunt Malviny useter declar’ fur gospel sure, when she war a gal. An’ she hev got ten chil’ren an’ hev buried two husbands, an’ ef all they say air true she’s tollin’ in the third man now. She’s a mighty spry, good-featured woman an’ a fust-rate manager, yer aunt Malviny air, an’ both her husbands lef’ her su’thin’,— cows, or wagons, or land. An’ they war quiet men when they war alive, an’ stays whar they air put, now that they air dead; not like old Parson Hoodenpyle what his wife hears stumpin’ round the house an’ preachin’ every night, though she air ez deef ez a post, an’ he hev been in glory twenty year, — twenty year, an’ better. Yer aunt Malviny hed luck, so mebbe ’t ain’t no killin’ complaint fur a gal ter git ter talkin’ like a fool about marryin’ an’ sech. Leastwise, I ain’t minded ter sorrow.”

She looked at her daughter with a gay grin, which, distorted by her toothless gums and the wreathing steam from the kettle, enhanced her witch-like aspect and was spuriously malevolent. She did not notice the stir of an approach through the brambly tangles of the heights above until it was close at hand; as she turned, she thought only of the mountain cattle, — to see the red cow’s picturesque head and crumpled horns thrust over the sassafras bushes, or to hear the brindle’s clanking bell. It was certainly less unexpected to Cynthia when a young mountaineer, clad in brown jeans trousers and a checked homespun shirt, emerged upon the rocky slope. He still wore his blacksmith’s leather apron, and his powerful corded hammer-arm was bare beneath his tightly rolled sleeve. He was tall and heavily built; his sunburned face was square, with a strong lower jaw, and his features were accented by fine lines of charcoal, as if the whole were a clever sketch. His black eyes held fierce intimations, but there was mobility of expression about them that suggested changing impulses, strong but fleeting. He was like his forge fire : though the heat might be intense for a time, it fluctuated with the breath of the bellows. Just now he was meekly quailing before the old woman, whom he evidently had not thought to find here. It was as apt an illustration as might be, perhaps, of the inferiority of strength to finesse. She seemed an inconsiderable adversary, as haggard, lean, and prematurely aged she swayed on her prodding-stick about the huge kettle ; but she was as a veritable David to this big young Goliath, though she too flung hardly more than a pebble at him.

“ Laws-a-me ! ” she cried, in shrill, toothless glee; “ ef hyar ain’t ’Vander Price ! What brung ye down hyar along o’ we-uns, ’Vander ? ” she continued, with simulated anxiety. “ Hev that thar red heifer o’ our’n lept over the fence agin, an’ got inter Pete’s corn? Waal, sir, ef she ain’t the headin’est heifer! ”

“ I hain’t seen none o’ yer heifer, ez I knows on,” replied the young blacksmith, with gruff, drawling deprecation. Then he tried to regain his natural manner. “ I kem down hyar,” he remarked in an off-hand way, “ ter git a drink o’ water.” He glanced furtively at the girl ; then looked quickly away at the gallant red-bird, still gayly parading among the leaves.

The old woman grinned with delight. “ Now, ef that ain’t s’prisin’,” she declared. “ Ef we hed knowed ez Lost Creek war a-goin’dry over yander a-nigh the shop, so ye an’ Pete would hev ter kem hyar thirstin’ fur water, we-uns would hev brung su’thin’ down hyar ter drink out’n. We-uns hain’t got no gourd hyar, hev we, Cynthy ? ”

“ ’Thout it air the little gourd with the saft soap in it,” said Cynthia, confused and blushing.

Her mother broke into a high, loud laugh. “ Ye ain’t wantin’ ter gin Vander the soap-gourd ter drink out’n, Cynthy! Leastwise, I ain’t goin’ ter gin it ter Pete. Fur I s’pose ef ye hev ter kem a haffen mile ter git a drink, ’Vander, ez surely Pete ’ll hev ter kem, too. Waal, waal, who would hev b’lieved ez Lost Creek would go dry nigh the shop, an’ yit be a-scuttlin’ along like that, hyar - abouts ! ” and she pointed with her bony finger at the swift flow of the water.

He was forced to abandon his clumsy pretense of thirst. “ Lost Creek ain’t gone dry nowhar, ez I knows on,” he admitted, mechanically rolling the sleeve of his hammer-arm up and down as he talked. “It air toler’ble high, — higher ’n I ever see it afore. ’T war jes’ night afore las’ ez two men got a kyart sunk in a quicksand, whilst fordin’ the creek. An’ one o’ thar wheels kem off, an’ they hed right smart scufflin’ ter keep thar load from washin’ out’n the kyart an’ driftin’ clean away. Leastwise, that was how they telled it ter me. They war valley men, I ’m a-thinkin’. They ’lowed ter me ez they hed ter cut thar beastis out ’n the traces. They loaded him up with the goods an’ fotched him ter the shop.”

Mrs. Ware forbore her ready gibes in her interest in the countryside gossip. She ceased to prod the boiling clothes. She hung motionless on the stick. “ I s’pose they ’lowed, mebbe, ez what sort’n goods they hed,” she hazarded, seeing a peddler in the dim perspective of a prosaic imagination.

“ They lef’ some along o’ we-uns ter keep till they kem back agin. They ’lowed ez they could travel better ef thar beastis war eased some of his load. They hed some o’ all sorts o’ truck. They ’lowed ez they war aimin’ ter sot up a store over yander ter the Settlemint on Milksick Mounting. They lef’ right smart o’ truck up yander in the shed ahint the shop ; ’pears like ter me it air a kyart-load itself. I promised ter keer fur it till they kem back agin.”

Certainly, so far as Cynthia was concerned, the sharpness of wits and the acerbity of temper ascribed generally to the red-haired gentry could be accounted no slander. The flame-colored halo about her face, emblazoned upon the dusky depths of her old brown bonnet, was not more fervid than an angry glow overspreading her delicate cheek, and an intense fiery spark suddenly alight in her brown eyes.

“ Pete Blenkins mus’ be sodden with drink. I’m a-thinkin’ ! ” she cried impatiently. “ Like ez not them men will ’low ez the truck ain’t all thar, when they kem back. An’ then thar ’ll be a tremenjious scrimmage ter the shop, an’ somebody ’ll git hurt, an’ mebbe killed.”

“ Waal, Cynthy,” exclaimed her mother, in tantalizing glee, “ air you-uns goin’ ter ache when Pete’s head gits bruk ? That’s powerful ’commodatin’ in ye, cornsiderin’ ez he hev got a wife an’ chil’ren ez old ez ye be. Waal, sorrow fur Pete, ef ye air so minded.”

The angry spark in Cynthia’s eyes died out as suddenly as it kindled. She began to beat the wet clothes heavily with the paddle, and her manner was that of having withdrawn herself from the conversation. The young blacksmith had flushed, too, and he laughed a little, but demurely. Then, as he still rolled and unrolled the sleeve of his hammer-arm, his wonted gravity returned.

“Pete hain’t got nuthin’ ter do with it, nohow,” he averred. “ Pete hev been away fur two weeks an’ better: he hev gone ter see his uncle Joshua, over yander on Caney Fork. He ’lowed ez apple-jack grows powerful fine in them parts.”

“ Then who war holpin’ at the forge ter-day?” asked Mrs. Ware, surprised. “ I ’lowed I hearn the hand-hammer an’ sledge too, same ez common.”

There was a change among the lines of charcoal that seemed to define his features. He looked humbled, ashamed. “I hed my brother a-strikin’ fur me,” he said at last.

“ Why, ’Vander,” exclaimed the old woman shrilly, “ that thar boy’s a plumb idjit! Ye ought n’t trust him along o’ that sledge ! He’d jes’ ez lief maul ye on the head with it ez maul the hot iron. Ye know he air ez strong ez a ox; an’ the critter’s fursaken in his mind.”

“ I knows that,” Evander admitted. “ I would n’t hev done it, ef I hed n’t been a-workin’ on a new fixin’ ez I hev jes’ thought up, an’ I war jes’ obligated ter hev somebody ter strike fur me. An’ laws-a-massy, ’Lijah would n’t harm nobody. The critter war ez peart an’ lively ez a June-bug, — so proud ter be allowed ter work around like folks ! ” He stopped short in sudden amazement: something stood in his eyes that had no habit there; its presence stupefied him. For a moment he could not speak, and he stood silently gazing at that long, level blue line, in which the converging mountains met, — so delicately azure, so ethereally suggestive, that it seemed to him like the Promised Land that Moses viewed. “ The critter air mighty aggervatin’ mos’ly ter the folks at our house,” he continued, “but they hectors him. He treats me well.”

“ An ill word is spoke ’bout him ginerally .round the mounting,” said the old woman, who had filled and lighted her pipe, and was now trying to crowd down the charge, so to speak, without scorching too severely her callous forefinger. “ I hev hearn folks ’low ez he hev got so turrible crazy ez he oughter be sent away an’ shet up in jail. An’ it ’pears like ter me ez that word air jestice. The critter’s fursaken.”

“ Fursaken or no fursaken, he ain’t goin’ ter be jailed fur nothin’, — ’ceptin’ that the hand o’ the Lord air laid too heavy on him. I can’t lighten its weight. I ’m mortial myself. The rider says thar’s some holp in prayer. I hain’t seen it yit, though I hev been toler’ble busy lately a-workin’ in metal, one way an’ another. What good air it goin’ ter do the mounting ter hev ’Lijah jailed, stiddier goin’ round the woods a-talkin’ ter the grasshoppers an’ squir’ls, ez seem ter actially know the critter, an’ bein’ ez happy ez they air, ’ceptin’ when he gits it inter his noodle, like he sometimes do, ez he ain’t edzactly like other folks be? ” He paused. Those strange visitants trembled again upon his smokeblackened lids. “ Fursaken or no,” he cried impulsively, “ the man ez tries ter git him jailed will ’low ez he air fursaken his own self, afore I gits done with him ! ”

“ ’Vander Price,” said the old woman rebukingly, “ye talk like ye hain’t got good sense yerself.” She sat down on a rock embedded in the ferns by Lost Creek, and pulled deliberately at her long cob-pipe. Then she too turned her faded eyes upon the vast landscape, in which she had seen no change, save the changing season and the waxing or the waning of the day, since first her life had opened upon it. That level line of pale blue in the poetic distance had become faintly roseate. The great bronzegreen ranges nearer at hand were assuming a royal purple. Shadows went skulking down the valley. Across the amber zenith an eagle was flying homeward. Her mechanical glance followed the sweeping, majestic curves, as the bird dropped to its nest in the wild fastnesses of Pine Mountain, that towered, rugged and severe of outline, against the crimson west. A cow-bell jangled in the laurel.

“ Old Suke’s a-comin’ home ez partic’lar an’ percise ez ef she hed her calf thar yit. I hev traded Suke’s calf ter my merried daughter M’ria,— her ez merried Amos Baker, in the Cove. The old brindle can’t somehow onderstan’ the natur’ o’ the bargain, an’ kems up every night moo-ing, mighty disapp’inted. ’T war n’t much shakes of a calf, nohow, an’ I stood toler’ble well arter the trade.”

She looked up at the young man with a leer of self-gratulation. He still lingered, but the unsophisticated mother in the mountains can be as much an obstacle to anything in the nature of lovemaking, when the youth is not approved, as the expert tactician of a drawingroom. He had only the poor consolation of helping Cynthia to carry in the load of stiff, dry clothes to the log cabin, ambushed behind the beech-trees, hard by in the gorge. The house had a very unconfiding aspect; all its belongings seemed huddled about it for safe-keeping. The beehives stood almost under the eaves ; the ash-hopper was visible close in the rear; the rain-barrel affiliated with the damp wall ; the chickens were going to roost in an althea bush beside the porch; the boughs of the cherry and plum and crab-apple trees were thickly interlaced above the path that led from the rickety rail fence, and among their roots flag-lilies, larkspur, and devil-in-the-bush mingled in a floral mosaic. The old woman went through the gate first. But even this inadvertence could not profit the loitering young people. “ Law, Cynthy,” she exclaimed, pointing at a loose-jointed elderly mountaineer, who was seated beneath the hop vines on the little porch, while a gaunt gray mare, with the plow-gear still upon her, cropped the grass close by, “ yander is yer daddy, ez empty ez a gourd, I ’ll be bound ! Hurry an’ git supper, child. Time’s a-wastin’, — time’s a-wastin’ ! ”

When Evander was half-way up the steep slope, he turned and looked down at the embowered little house, that itself turned its face upward, looking as it were to the mountain’s summit, How it nestled there in the gorge! He had seen it often and often before, but whenever he thought of it afterward it was as it appeared to him now : the darkling valley below it, the mountains behind it, the sunset sky still flaring above it, though stars had blossomed out here and there, and the sweet June night seemed full of their fragrance. He could distinguish for a good while the gate, the rickety fence, the path beneath the trees. The vista ended in the open door, with the broad flare of the fire illumining the puncheon floor and the group of boisterous tow-headed children ; in the midst was the girl, with her bright hair and light figure, with her round arms bare, and her deft hand stirring the batter for bread in a wooden bowl. She looked the very genius of home, and so he long remembered her.

The door closed at last, and he slowly resumed his way along the steep slope. The scene that had just vanished seemed yet vividly present before him. The gathering gloom made less impression. He took scant heed of external objects, and plodded on mechanically. He was very near the forge when his senses were roused by some inexplicable inward monition. He stood still to listen : only the insects droning in the chestnut-oaks, only the wind astir in the laurel. The night possessed the earth. The mountains were sunk in an indistinguishable gloom, save where the horizontal line of their summits asserted itself against an infinitely clear sky. But for a hunter’s horn, faintly wound and faintly echoed in Lost Creek Valley, he might have seemed the only human creature in all the vast wilderness. He saw through the pine boughs the red moon rising. The needles caught the glister, and shone like a golden fringe. They overhung dusky, angular shadows that he knew was the little shanty of a blacksmith shop. In its dark recesses was a dull red point of light, where the forge fire still smouldered. Suddenly it was momentarily eclipsed. Something had passed before it.

“ ’Lijah ! ” he called out, in vague alarm. There was no answer. The red spark now gleamed distinct.

“ Look-a-hyar, boy, what be you-uns a-doin’ of thar ? ” he asked, beset with a strange anxiety and a growing fear of he knew not what.

Still no answer.

It was a terrible weapon he had put into the idiot’s hand that day,—that heavy sledge of his. He grew cold when he remembered poor Elijah’s pleasure in useful work, in his great strength gone to waste, in the ponderous implement that he so lightly wielded. He might well have returned to-night, with some vague, distraught idea of handling it again. And what vague, distraught idea kept him skulking there with it ?

“ Foolin’ along o’ that new strawcutter ter-day will be my ruin, I’m afeard,” Evander muttered ruefully. Then the sudden drops broke out on his brow. “ I pray ter mercy,” he exclaimed fervently, “ the boy hain’t been a-sp’ilin’ o’ that thar new straw-cutter! ”

This fear dominated all others. He strode hastily forward. “ Come out o’ thar, ’Lijab ! ” he cried roughly.

There were moving shadows in the great barn-like door, — three — four — The moon was behind the forge, and he could not count them. They were advancing shadows. A hand was laid upon his arm. A drawling voice broke languidly on the night. “I’m up an’ down sorry ter hev ter arrest you-uns, ’Vander, bein’ ez we air neighbors an’ mos’ly toler’ble friendly; but law is law, an’ ye air my prisoner,” and the constable of the district paused in the exercise of his functions to gnaw off a chew of tobacco with teeth which seemed to have grown blunt in years of that practice ; then he leisurely resumed: “ I war jes’ sayin’ ter the sheriff an’ dep’ty hyar,” — indicating the figures in the doorway, — “ ez we-uns hed better lay low till we seen how many o’ you-uns war out hyar; else I would n’t hev kep’ ye waitin’ so long.”

The young mountaineer’s amazement at last expressed itself in words. “ Ye hev surely los’ yer senses, Jubal Tynes! What air ye arrestin’ of me fur?”

“ Fur receivin’ of stolen goods, — the shed back yander air full of ’em. I dunno whether ye holped ter rob the cross-roads store or no ; but yander’s the goods in the shed o’ the shop, ail’ Pete’s been away two weeks, an’ better; so ’t war obleeged ter be you-uns ez received ’em.”

Evander, in a tumult of haste, told his story. The constable laughed lazily, with his quid between his teeth. “ Mebbe so, — mebbe so ; but that’s fur the jedge an’ jury ter study over. Them men never tuk thar kyart no furder. ’T war never stuck in no quicksand in Lost Creek. They knowed the sheriff war on thar track, an’ they stove up thar kyart, an’ sent the spokes an’ shafts an’ sech a-driftin’ down Lost Creek, thinkin’ ‘t would be swallered inter the mounting an’ never be seen agin. But jes’ whar Lost Creek sinks under the mounting the drift war cotched. We fund it thar, an’ knowed ez all we hed ter do war to trace ’em up Lost Creek. An’ hyar we be ! The goods hev been identified this very hour by the man ez owns ’em. I hope ye never helped ter burglarize the store, too; but ’t ain’t fur me ter say. Ye hev ter kem along o’ we-uns, whether ye like it or no,” and he laid a heavy hand on his prisoner’s shoulder.

The next moment he was reeling from a powerful blow planted between the eyes. It even felled the stalwart constable, for it was so suddenly dealt. But Jubal Tynes was on his feet in an instant, rushing forward with a bulllike bellow. Once more he measured his length upon the ground, —close to the anvil this time, for the position of all the group had changed in the fracas. He did not rise again ; the second blow was struck with the ponderous sledge. As the men hastened to lift him, they were much hindered by the ecstatic capers of the idiot brother, who seemed to have been concealed in the shop. The prisoner made no attempt at flight, although, in the confusion, he was forgotten for the time by the officers, and had some chance of escape. He appeared frightened and very meek ; and when he saw that there was blood upon the sledge, and they said brains, too, he declared that he was very sorry he had done it.

“ I done it! ” cried the idiot joyfully. “ Jube sha’n’t fight ‘Vander ! I done it! ” and he was so boisterously grotesque and wild that the men lost their wits while he was about; so they turned him roughly out of the forge, and closed the doors upon him. At last he went away, although for a time he beat loudly upon the shutter, and called piteously for Evander.

It was a great opportunity for old Dr. Patton, who lived six miles down the valley, and zealously he improved it. He often felt that in this healthful country, where he was born, and where bucolic taste and local attachment still kept him, he was rather a medical theorist than a medical practitioner, so few and slight were the demands upon the resources of his science., He was as one who has long pondered the unsuggestive details of the map of a region, and who suddenly sees before him its glowing, vivid landscape.

“ A beautiful fracture ! ” he protested with rapture,— “a beautiful fracture ! ”

Through all the countryside were circulated his cheerful accounts of patients who had survived fracture of the skull. Among the simple mountaineers his learned talk of the trephine gave rise to the startling report that he intended to put a linchpin into Jubal Tynes’s head. It was rumored, too, that the unfortunate man’s brains had “ in an’ about leaked haffen out; ” and many freely prompted Providence by the suggestion that “ ef Jube war ready ter die it war high time he war taken,” as, having been known as a hasty and choleric man, it was predicted that he would “ make a most survigrus idjit.”

“ Cur’ous enough ter me ter find out ez Jube ever hed brains,” commented Mrs. Ware. “ ’T war well enough ter let some of ’em leak out ter prove it. He hev never showed he hed brains no other way, ez I knows on. Now,” she added, “somebody oughter tap ‘Vander’s head, an’ mebbe they ’ll find him per-vided. too. Wonders will never cease! Nobody would hev accused Jube o’ sech. Folks ‘ll hev ter respee’ them brains. ‘Vander done him that favior in splitting his head open.”

“ ’T war n’t ‘Vander’s deed ! ” Cynthia declared passionately. She reiterated this phrase a hundred times a day, as she went about her household tasks. “ ’T war n’t ‘Vander’s deed ! ” How could she prove that it was not, she asked herself as often, — and prove that against his own word ?

For she herself had heard him acknowledge the crime. The new day had hardly broken when, driving her cow, she came by the blacksmith’s shop, all unconscious as yet of the tragedy it had housed. A vague prescience of dawn was on the landscape; dim and spectral, it stood but half revealed in the doubtful light. The stars were gone; even the sidereal outline of the great Scorpio had crept away. But the gibbous moon still swung above the dark and melancholy forests of Pine Mountain, and its golden chalice spilled a dreamy glamour all adown the lustrous mists in Lost Creek Valley. Ever and anon the crags reverberated with the shrill clamor of a watch-dog at a cabin in the Cove ; for there was an unwonted stir on the mountain’s brink. The tramp of horses the roll of wheels, the voices of the officers at the forge, busily canvassing their preparations for departure, sounded far along the steeps. The sight of the excited group was as phenomenal to old Suke as to Cynthia, and the cow stopped short in her shambling run, and turned aside into the blooming laurel with a muttered low and with crouching horns. Early wayfarers along the road had been attracted by the unusual commotion. A rude slide drawn by a yoke of oxen stood beneath the great pine that overhung the forge, while the driver was breathlessly listening to the story from the deputy sheriff. A lad, mounted on a lank gray mare, let the sorry brute crop, unrebuked, the sassafras leaves by the wayside, while he turned half round in his saddle, with a white horror on his face, to see the spot pointed out on which Jubal Tynes had fallen. The wounded man had been removed to the nearest house, but the ground was still dank with blood, and this heightened the dramatic effects of the recital. The sheriff’s posse and their horses were picturesquely grouped about the open barn-like door, and the wagon laden with the plunder stood hard by. It had been discovered, when they were on the point of departure, that one of the animals had cast a shoe, and the prisoner was released that he might replace it.

When Evander kindled the forge fire he felt that it was for the last time. The heavy sighing of the bellows burst forth, as if charged with a conscious grief. As the fire alternately flared and faded, it illumined with long, evanescent red rays the dusky interior of the shop : the horseshoes hanging upon a rod in the window, the plowshares and bars of iron ranged against the wall, the barrel of water in the corner, the smoky hood and the anvil, the dark spot on the ground, and the face of the blacksmith himself, as he worked the bellows with one hand, while the other held the tongs with the red-hot horseshoe in the fire. It was a pale face. Somehow, all the old spirit seemed spent. Its wonted suggestions of a dogged temper and latent fierceness were effaced. It bore marks of patient resignation, that might have been wrought by a lifetime of self-sacrifice, rather than by one imperious impulse, as potent as it was irrevocable. The face appeared in some sort sublimated.

The bellows ceased to sigh, the anvil began to sing, the ringing staccato of the hammer punctuated the droning story of the deputy sheriff, still rehearsing the sensation of the hour to the increasing crowd about the door. The girl stood listening, half hidden in the blooming laurel. Her senses seemed strangely sharpened, despite the amazement, the incredulity, that possessed her. She even heard the old cow cropping the scanty grass at her feet, and saw every casual movement of the big brindled head. She was conscious of the splendid herald of a new day flaunting in the east. Against this gorgeous presence of crimson and gold, brightening and brightening till only the rising sun could outdazzle it, she noted the romantic outlines of the Cumberland crags and woody heights, and marveled how near they appeared. She was sensible of the fragrance of the dewy azaleas, and she heard the melancholy song of the pines, for the wind was astir. She marked the grimaces of the idiot, looking like a dim and ugly dream in the dark recesses of the forge. His face was filled now with strange, wild triumph, and now with partisan anger for his brother’s sake; for Evander was more than once harshly upbraided.

“ An’ so yer tantrums hev brung ye ter this e-end, at last, ’Vander Price ! ” exclaimed an old man indignantly. “ I misdoubted ye when I hearn how ye fit, that day, yander ter the mill ; an they do say ez even Pete Blenkins air plumb afeard ter jaw at ye, nowadays, on ’count o’ yer fightin’ an’ quar’lin’ ways. An’ now ye hev gone an’ bodaciously slaughtered pore Jubal Tynes! From what I hev hearn tell, I jedge he air obleeged ter die. Then nothin’ kin save ye ! ”

The girl burst suddenly forth from the flowering splendors of the laurel. “ ’T war n’t ’Vander’s deed ! ” she cried, perfect faith in every tone. “ ’Vander, ’Vander, who did it? Who did it?” she reiterated imperiously.

Her cheeks were aflame. An eager expectancy glittered in her wide brown eyes. Her auburn hair flaunted to the breeze as brilliantly as those golden harbingers of the sun. Her bonnet had fallen to the ground, and her milk-piggin was rolling away. The metallic staccato of the hammer was silenced. A vibratory echo trembled for an instant on the air. The group had turned in slow surprise. The blacksmith looked mutely at her. But the idiot was laughing triumphantly, almost sanely, and pointing at the sledge to call her attention to its significant stains. The sheriff had laid the implement carefully aside, that it might be produced in court in case Jubal Tynes should pass beyond the point of affording for Dr. Patton’s satisfaction a gratifying instance of survival from fracture of the skull, and die in a commonplace fashion, which is of no interest to the books or the profession.

“ ‘T war n’t ‘Vander’s deed ! It could n’t be ! ” she declared passionately.

For the first time he faltered. There was a pause. He could not speak.

“ I done it! ” cried the idiot, in shrill glee.

Then Evander regained his voice. “ ’T war me ez done it,” he said huskily, turning away to the anvil with a gesture of dull despair. “ I done it! ”

Fainting is not a common demonstration in the mountains. It seemed to the bewildered group as if the girl had suddenly dropped dead. She revived under the water and cinders dashed into her face from the barrel where the steel was tempered. But life returned enfeebled and vapid. That vivid consciousness and intensity of emotion had reached a climax of sensibility, and now she experienced the reaction. It was in a sort of lethargy that she watched their preparations to depart, while she sat upon a rock at the verge of the clearing. As the wagon trundled away down the road, laden with the stolen goods, one of the posse looked back at her with some compassion, and observed to a companion that she seemed to take it considerably to heart, and sagely opined that she and ’ Vander must “ hev been a-keepin’ company tergether some. But then,” he argued, “ she ’s a downright good-lookin’ gal, ef she do be so redheaded. An’ thar air plenty likely boys left in the mountings yit ; an’ ef thar ain’t, she kin jes’ send down the valley a piece fur me ! ” and he laughed, and went away quite cheerful, despite his compassion. The horsemen were in frantic impatience to be off, and presently they were speeding in single file along the sandy mountain road.

Cynthia sat there until late in the day, wistfully gazing down the long green vista where they had disappeared. She could not believe that Evander had really gone. Something, she felt sure, would happen to bring them back. Once and again she thought, she heard the beat of hoofs, — of distant hoofs. It was only the melancholy wind in the melancholy pines.

They were laden with snow before she heard aught of him. Beneath them, instead of the dusky vistas the summer had explored, were long reaches of ghastly white undulations, whence the boles rose dark and drear. The Cumberland range, bleak and bare, with its leafless trees and frowning cliffs, stretched out long, parallel spurs, one above another, one beyond another, tier upon tier, till they appeared to meet in one distant level line somewhat grayer than the gray sky, somewhat more desolate of aspect than all the rest of the desolate world. When the wind rose, Pine Mountain mourned with a mighty voice. Cynthia had known that voice since her birth. But what new meaning in its threnody! Sometimes the forest was dumb; the sun glittered frigidly, and the pines, every tiny needle encased in ice, shone like a wilderness of gleaming rays. The crags were begirt with gigantic icicles ; the air was crystalline and cold, and the only sound was the clinking of the hand-hammer and the clanking of the sledge from the forge on the mountain’s brink. For there was a new striker there, of whom Pete Blenkins did not stand in awe. He felt peculiarly able to cope with the world in general since his experience had been enriched by a recent trip to Sparta. He had been subpænaed by the prosecution; in the case of the State of Tennessee versus Evander Price, to tell the jury all he knew of the violent temper of his quondam striker, which he did with much gusto and self-importance, and pocketed his fee with circumspect dignity.

“ ’Vander looks toler’ble skimpy an’ jail-bleached, — so Pete Blenkins say,” remarked Mrs. Ware, as she sat smoking her pipe in the chimney corner, while Cynthia stood before the warping bars, winding the party-colored yarn upon the equidistant pegs of the great frame. “ Pete ’lowed ter me ez he hed tole you-uns ez ’Vander say he air powerful sorry he would never l’arn ter write, when he went ter the school at the Notch. ’Vander say he never knowed ez he would hev a use fur sech. But law! the critter hed better be studyin’ ’bout the opportunities he hev wasted fur grace ; fur they say now ez Jube Tynes air bound ter die. An’ he will fur true, ef old Dr. Patton air the man I take him fur.”

“ ‘T war n’t ’Vander’s deed,” said Cynthia, her practiced hands still busily investing the warping-bars with a homely rainbow of scarlet and blue and saffron yarn. It added an embellishment to the little room, which was already bright with the firelight and the sunset streaming in at the windows, and the festoons of red pepper and popcorn and peltry swinging from the rafters.

“ Waal, waal, hev it so,” said her mother, in acquiescent dissent, — “hev it so ! But’t war his deed receivin’ of the stolen goods ; leastwise, the jury b’lieved so. Pete say, though, ez they would n’t hev been so sure, ef it war n’t fur ’Vander’s resistin’ arrest an’ in an’ about haffen killin’ Jubal Tynes. Pete say ez ’Vander’s name fur fightin’ an’ sech seemed ter hev sot the jury powerful agin him.”

“ An’ thar war nobody thar ez would gin a good word fur him ! ” cried the girl, dropping her hands with a gesture of poignant despair.

“ ’T war n’t in reason ez thar could be,” said Mrs. Ware. “’Vander’s lawyer never summonsed but a few of the slack-jawed boys from the Settlemint ter prove his good character, an’ Pete said they ’peared awk’ard in thar minds an’ flustrated, an’ spoke more agin ’Vander ’n fur him. Pete ’lows ez they hed ter be paid thar witness-fee by the State, too, on account of ’Vander hevin’ no money ter fetch witnesses an’ sech ter Sparty. His dad an’ mam air mighty shiftless — always war, — an’ they hev got that hulking idjit ter eat ’em out ’n house an’ home. They hev been mightily put ter it this winter ter live along, ’thout ’Vander ter holp ’em, like he uster. But they war no ways anxious ‘bout his trial, ’kase Squair Bates tole ’em ez the jedge would app’int a lawyer ter defend ’Vander, ez he hed no money ter hire a lawyer fur hisself. An’ the jedge app’inted a young lawyer thar; an’ Pete ’lowed ez that young lawyer made the trial the same ez a gander pullin’ fur the ’torney-gineral. Pete say ez that young lawyer’s ways tickled the ’torneygineral haffen ter death. Pete say the ’torney-gineral jes’ sot out ter devil that young lawyer, an’ he done it. Pete say the young lawyer hed never hed more ’n one or two cases afore, an’ he acted so foolish that the ’torney-gineral kep’ all the folks laffin’ at him. The jury laffed, an’ so did the jedge. I reckon ’Vander thought ’t war mighty pore fun. Pete say ez ’Vander’s lawyer furgot a heap ez he oughter hev remembered, an’ fairly ruined ’Vander’s chances. Arter the trial the ’torney-gineral ’lowed ter Pete ez the State hed hed a mighty shaky case agin ’Vander. But I reckon he jes’ said that ter make his own smartness in winning it seem more s’prisin’. ’Vander war powerful interrupted by thar laffin’ an’ the game they made o’ his lawyer, an’ said he did n’t want no appeal. Hie ’lowed he hed seen enough o’ jestice. He ’lowed ez he’d take the seven years in the pen’tiary that the jury gin him, fur fear at the nex’ trial they’d gin him twenty-seven ; though the ’torney-gineral say ef Jube dies they will fetch him out agin, an’ try him fur that. The ’torney-gineral ’lowed ter Pete ez ’Vander war a fool not ter move fur a new trial an’ appeal, an’ sech. He ’lowed ez ’Vander war a derned ignorant man.’ An’ all the folks round the court-house gin thar opinion ez ’Vander hev got less gumption ’bout ’n the law o’ the land than enny man they ever see, ’cept that young lawyer he hed ter defend him. Pete air powerful sati’fied with his performin’ in Sparty. He ups an’ ’lows ez they paid him a dollar a day fur a witness-fee, an’ treated him mighty perlite,—the jedge an’ jury too.”

How Cynthia lived through that winter of despair was a mystery to her afterward. Often, as she sat brooding over the midnight embers, she sought to picture to herself some detail of the life that Evander was leading so far away. The storm would beat heavily on the roof of the log cabin, the mountain wind sob through the sighing pines; ever and anon a wolf might howl, in the sombre depths of Lost Creek Valley. But Evander had become a stranger to her imagination. She could not construct even a vague status that would answer for the problematic mode of life of the “ valley folks ” who dwelt in Nashville, or in the penitentiary hard by. She began to appreciate that it was a narrow existence within the limits of Lost Creek Valley, and that to its simple denizens the world beyond was a foreign world, full of strange habitudes and alien complications. Thus it came to pass that he was no longer even a vision. Because of this subtle bereavement she would fall to sobbing drearily beside the dreary, dying fire,— only because of this, for she never wondered if her image to him had also grown remote. How she pitied him, so lonely, so strange, so forlorn, as he must be ! Did he yearn for the mountains ? Could he see them in the spirit ? Surely in his dreams, surely in some kindly illusion, he might still behold that fair land which touched the sky : the golden splendors of the sunshine sifting through the pines ; flying shadows of clouds as fleet racing above the distant ranges ; untrodden woodland nooks beside singing cascades ; or some lonely pool, whence the gray deer bounded away through the red sumach leaves.

Sombre though the present was, the future seemed darker still, clouded by the long and terrible suspense concerning the wounded officer’3 fate and the crime that Evander had acknowledged.

“ He could n’t hev done it,” she argued futilely. “ ’T war n’t his deed.”

She grew pale and thin, and her strength failed with her failing spirit, and her mother querulously commented on the change.

“ An’ sech a hard winter ez we-uns air a-tusslin’ with; an’ that thar ewe a-dyin’ ez M’ria traded fur my little calf, ez war wuth forty sech dead critters ; an’ hyar be Cynthy lookin’ like she hed fairly pegged out forty year ago, an’ been raised from the grave, — an’ all jes’ ’kase ’Vander Price hev got ter be a evil man, an’ air locked up in the pen’tiary. It beats my time ! He never said nothin’ ’bout marryin’, nohow, ez I knows on. I never would hev b’lieved ez you-un would hev turned off Jeemes Blake, ez hev got a good grist-mill o’ his own an’ a mighty desirable widder-woman fur a mother, jes’ account of ’Vander Price. An’ ’Vander will never kem back ter Pine Mounting no more ’n Lost Creek will.”

Cynthia’s color flared up for a moment. Then she sedately replied, “ I hev tole Jeemes Blake, and I hev tole you-uns, ez I count on livin’ single.”

“ I ’ll be bound ye never told ’Vander that word ! ” cried the astute old woman. " Waal, waal, waal ! ” she continued, in exclamatory disapproval, as she leaned to the fire and scooped up a live coal into the bowl of her pipe, “ a gal is a aggervatin’ contrivance, ennyhow, in the world! But I jes’ up an’ tole Jeemes ez ye hed got ter lookin’ so peaked an’ mournful, like some critter ez war shot an’ creepin’ away ter die somewhar, an’ he hed n’t los’ much, arter all.” She puffed vigorously at her pipe; then, with a change of tone, “ An’ Jeemes air mighty slack-jawed ter his elders, too ! He tuk me up ez sharp. He ’lowed ez he hed no fault ter find with yer looks. He said ye war pritty enough fur him. Then my dander riz, an’ I spoke up, an’ says, ’ Mebbe so, Jeemes, mebbe so, fur ye air in no wise pritty yerself.’ An’ then he gin me no more of his jaw, but arter he hed sot a while longer he said, ‘ Far’well,’ toler’ble perlite, an’ put out.”

After a long time the snow slipped gradually from the mountain top, and the drifts in the deep abysses melted, and heavy rains came on. The mists clung, shroud-like, to Pine Mountain. The distant ranges seemed to withdraw themselves into indefinite space, and for weeks Cynthia was bereft of their familiar presence. Myriads of streamlets, channeling the gullies and swirling among the bowlders, were flowing down the steeps to join Lost Creek, on its way to its mysterious sepulchre beneath the mountains.

And at last the spring opened. A vivid green tipped the sombre plumes of the pines. The dull gray mists etherealized to a silver gauze, and glistened above the mellowing landscape. The wild cherry was blooming far and near. From the summit of the mountain could be seen for many a mile the dirt-road in the valley, — a tawny streak of color on every hill-top, or winding by every fallow field and rocky slope. A wild, new hope was suddenly astir in Cynthia’s heart ; a new energy fired her blood. It may have been only the recuperative power of youth asserting itself. To her it was as if she had heard the voice of the Lord ; and she arose and followed it.

Charles Egbert Craddock.