The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains

XIII.

THERE came a change in the weather. A vagueness fell upon the landscape. The farthest mountains receded into invisibility, and the horizon was marked by an outline of summits hitherto familiar in the middle distance. The sunshine was languid, slumberous. A haze clothed the air in a splendid visible garb of translucent, gold-tinted folds, and trailing across the dim blue of the ranges invested them with many a dreamy illusion. Athwart the sky were long sweeps of fibrous white clouds presaging rain. Since dawn they were thickening ; silent in the intense stillness of the noontide, they gathered and overspread the heavens and quenched the sun, and bereaved the vapors hanging in the ravines of all the poetic glamours of reflection. A raincrow was huskily cawing on the trough by the roadside where he had perched. Dorinda heard the guttural note, and went out to gather up the fruit spread to dry on boards that were stretched from stone to stone. Dark clouds were rolling up from the west. She paused to see them submerge Chilhowee, its outline stark and hard beneath their turbulent whirl ; toward the south their heavy folds broke into sudden commotion, and they were torn into fringes as the rain began to fall. The mist followed and isolated the Great Smoky from all the rest of the world.

And now the little house was as lonely as the ark on Ararat. The mists possessed the universe. They filled the forests and lay upon the corn and hid the “ gyarden-spot,” and came skulking about the porch, peering through the vines in a ghostly fashion. Presently they sifted through, and whenever the door was opened it showed them lurking there as if wistfully waiting or with some half humanized curiosity. Night stole on, and the ruddy flare of the fire

had heightened suggestions of good cheer and comfort, because of these waifs of the rain and the air shivering in chilly guise about the door. The men came to supper and all went again, except Pete. He was ailing, he declared, and betook himself to bed betimes. The house grew quiet. The grandmother nodded over her knitting, with a limp falling of the lower jaw, occasional spasmodic gestures, and an absorbed, unfamiliar expression of countenance. Dorinda in her low chair sat in the glow of the fire. As it rose and fell it cast a warm light or a dreamy shadow on her delicately rounded cheek and her shining eyes. One disheveled tress of her dense black hair fell over the red kerchief twisted around her neck. Her blue homespun dress lay in lusterless folds about her. The shadowy and rude interior of the room — the dark brown of the logs of the wall and the intervening yellow clay daubing; the great clumsy warping-bars ; the pendent peltry and pop-corn and strings of red pepper swaying from the rafters; the puncheon floor gilded by the firelight; the deep yawning chimney with its heaps of ashes and its pulsating coals — all formed in the rich colors and soft blending of detail an harmonious setting for her vivid, definite face, as she settled herself to work at her evening “ stent.”Her reel was before her ; the spokes, worn smooth and dark and glossy by age and use, reflected with polished lustre the glimmer of the fire. She had a broche in her hand, just taken from the spindle. For the lack of the more modern broche-holder she thrust a stick through the tunnel of the shuck on which the yarn was wound, placing the end of it, to hold it steady, in her low shoe; catching the thread between her deft fingers she threw it with a fine free gesture across the periphery of the reel. And then the whirling spokes were only a rayonnant suggestion, so swiftly they sped round and round in the light of the fire, and a musical low whir broke forth. Now and then the reel ticked and told off another cut, and she would bend forward to tie the thread with a practiced, dextrous hand.

The downpour of the rain had a dreary, melancholy persistence, beating upon the roof and splashing from the eaves into the puddles beneath. At intervals a drop fell down the wide chimney and hissed upon the coals.

Suddenly there was another splash, differing in its abrupt energy; a foot had slipped outside and groping hands were laid upon the wall. Dorinda sprang up with a white face and tense muscles. The old woman was Suddenly bolt upright in her corner, although not recognizing the sound.

“ Hurry ’long, D’rindy,” she said peremptorily, “ you-uns ain’t goin’ ter reel a hank ef ye don’t mosey. What ails the gal ? ” she broke off, her attention attracted to her granddaughter’s changed expression.

“ Thar’s suthin’ out o’ doors,” said Dorinda, in a tremulous whisper. “ I hearn ’em step whenst ye war asleep.”

“ I ain’t batted my eye this night,” said her grandmother, with the force of conviction. “ I ain’t slep’ a wink. An’ ye never hearn nuthin’.”

There was a bolder demonstration outside ; a toot-fall sounded on the porch and a hand tried the latch.

“ Massy on us ! Raiders ! ” shrieked the old woman, rising precipitately, her knitting falling from her lap, the ball of yarn rolling away and the kitten springing after it.

Dorinda ran to the door — perhaps to put up the bar. But with sudden courage she lifted the latch. Outside were the ghostly vapors, white and visible in the light from within. She peered out doubtfully for a moment. A sudden rush of color surged into her face; she made a feint of closing the door and ran back to her work, looking over her shoulder with radiant eyes; she caught up the broche, sticking it deftly in her shoe, seated herself in her low chair, and with her light free gesture led the thread across the reel.

“ Massy on us ! ” shrilled the old woman aghast. “ D’rindy, shet the door ! Be ye a-lettin’ the lawless ones in on us ! raiders an’ sech, scoutin’ ’roun’ in the forg — an’ nobody hyar but Pete, ez could n’t be waked up right handy with nuthin’ more wholesome ’n a bullet — a ” —

There was a man’s figure in the doorway — a slow, hesitating figure, and Rick Tyler, his face grave and dubious, embarrassed by the complicated effort to look at Dorinda and yet seem to ignore her, trod heavily in, and with a soft and circumspect manner closed the door.

“ I kem over hyar, Mis’ Cayce,” he remarked, “ ez I ’lowed mebbe the boys war at the still an’ ye felt lonesome, bein’ ez it war rainin’ right smart, an’ ” — he hesitated.

“Howdy, Rick — howdy ! ” she exclaimed, cordially. He had the benefit of her relief in finding the visitor not a raider. “ Jes’ sot yer bones down hyar by the fire. Airish out o’ doors, ain’t it? I’m powerful glad ter see ye. D’rindy ain’t much company when she air busy, an’ the weavin’ ain’t done yit.”

“ I ’lowed ez I mought resk comin’ up hyar wunst in a while now,” he said, with a covert glance at Dorinda. “ I ain’t keerin’ much fur the new sher’ff, kase he air a town man, an’ don’t know me; an’ the new constable, he ’lowed over yander ter the store ez he war a off’cer o’ the law, an’ not a shootin’ mark fur folks ez war minded ter hide out; an’ Gid Fletcher hev been told ez he’d hev others ter deal with ef he ondertook ter fool along arrestin’ me agin. So I hev got no call ter stay ez close in the bresh ez I hev been, though I ain’t a-goin’ ter furgit these hyar consarns, nuther.” He glanced dowm at the glimmer of steel in his belt, where Dorinda recognized her father’s pistols.

“ Bes’ be on the safe side,” said the old woman approvingly, her nimble needles quivering in the light. “ But law ! I useter know a man over yander on Chilhowee Mounting, whar I lived afore I war merried, an’ he hed killed fower men, — though I b’lieve one o’ ’em war a Injun, — an’ he hed no call ter aggervate hisse’f with sher’ffs, nor shootin’-irons, nuther. lie walked ’round ez favored an’ free ez my old tur-r-key gobbler. Though some said he hed bad dreams. But ez he war a hearty feeder they mought hev kem from the stummick stiddier the heart. ”

The young man listened with a doubtful mien. He was thrown back at his ease in the splint-bottomed chair. One stalwart leg, the boot reaching over his trowsers to the knee, was stretched out to the fire; from the damp sole the steam was starting in the warm air. On his other knee one of the shooting irons in question rested ; he held it lightly with one hand. The other hand was thrust into the belt that girded his brown jeans coat. His tawny yellow hair, the ends of a deeper tint, being wet hung to his coat collar. His hat, from the broad brim of which rain-drops were still trickling, was deposited beneath the chair, and the kitten was investigating it with a dainty, scornful white mitten. He bore the marks of his trials in his sharpened features; his face took on readily a lowering expression, and a touch of anger kindled the smouldering fire in his brown eyes.

“ But I hev killed no man,” he said, with emphasis. “ I hev hurt nobody. Ef I hed, ’t would n’t be no mere ’n I oughter do ter g’long with the sher’ff an’ leave it ter men. But I ain’t done no harm. An’ I don’t want ter stay in jail, an’ be tried, an’ kem ter jedgmint, an’ sech, an’ mebbe hev them buzzardy lawyers fix suthin’ on me ennyways.”

All through this speech the old woman tried to interrupt.

“ Laws-a-massy, Rick,” she said at length, “ye hev got mighty tetchy sence ye hev been hid out. I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’ agin you-uns, ez I knows on — nor agin that man that lived on Chilhowee Mounting, nuther. I can’t sot myself ter jedge o’ him. He war a perfessin’ member, an’ he hed a powerful gift in ’quirin’; useter raise the chune reg’lar at all the meetin’s ez fur back ez I kin remember.”

Her interest in the visit was impaired in some degree by this collision ; she would have rejoiced to express her mental estimate of Rick as the “ headin’-est critter in the kentry,” but her hospitable instincts constrained her, and she nobly swallowed her vexation. His presence, however, “ hectored her,” and she seized an excuse to absent herself presently, saying that she had to get her clean plaid coat to mend, “bein’ ez when it last hung on the clothes-line that thar fresky young hound named Bose stood on his hind legs ter gnaw it, an’ actially chawed a piece out’n it, an’ I hev ter put a wedge in it afore I kin wear it.”

She creaked away into the next room, and as the door shut he turned his eyes for the first time on Dorinda. The firelight played on the reel, whirling in a lustrous circle before her, on the broche stuck in the rough little shoe, on her arm, uplifted in a graceful curve as she held the thread. Her brilliant eyes were grave and intent; her dense black hair and her dark blue dress heightened the fairness of her face, and the crimson kerchief about her throat was hardly more vivid than the flush on her cheeks.

The knowledge that her embarrassment was greater than his own made him bolder. They sat, however, some time in silence. Then, his heart waxing soft in the coveted domestic atmosphere and the contemplation of the picture before him, he said, gently,—

“They air all agin me, D’rindy.”

She forgot herself instantly. She looked full at him with soft melancholy deprecation.

“ They don’t hender ye none,” she said.

“ You-uns don’t sot no store by me nuther, these days, D’rindy,” he went on, with a thrill of elation in his heart belying the doubt and despair in his speech.

The reel ticked and told off another cut. She leaned forward to tie the thread. She could not lift her eyelids now ; still he saw the vivid sapphire iris, half eclipsed by the long black lash.

He patted the pistol on his knee.

“ Would ye be afeard, D’rindy, ter marry a man ez would hev ter keep his life, and yourn, mebbe, with this pistol? Would ye be afeard ter live in his house along o’ him, a hunted critter, — an’ set an’ sing in his door, when the muzzle of a rifle or the sher’ffs revolver mought peek through the rails of the fence ? Would ye be afeard ? ”

He put the weapon slowly into his belt. “ Would ye be afeard ? ” he reiterated.

The reel stopped. She turned her eyes, dilated with a splendid boldness, full upon him. How they flouted fear !

Such audacity of courage seemed to him gallant in a man ; in a woman, expressing faith in his valiance, it was enchanting. He lost his slow decorum. He caught the hand that held the thread. She could not withdraw it from that strong ecstatic clutch, and as she started, protesting, to her feet, he rose too, overturning the reel; and the kitten made merry confusion in the methodical cuts.

“ D’rindy,” he exclaimed, catching her in his arms, “ thar ain’t no need ter be afeared! Word kem up the mounting—I got it from Steve Byers — ez when Abednego Tynes war tried he plead guilty, an’ axed ter go on the stand an’ make a statement. An’ he told the truth at last — at last! An’ he war sentenced, an’ the case war nolle prosequied agin me ! An’ ye war n’t afeard! Ye would hev married me an’ resked it. Ye war n’t afeard ! ”

She was tall, and her agitated upturned face was close to his shoulder. He knew it was simply unpardonable, according to the rigid decorums of their code of manners, but the impetuosity of his joy overbore him, and he bent down and kissed her lips.

Dorinda’s courage ! — it was gone. She looked so frightened and amazed that he relaxed his clasp. “Ye know, D’rindy,” he said apologetically, “ I’m fairly out’n my head with joy.”

She stood trembling, her hand pressed to her beating heart, her head whirling. And then, he never forgot it, of her own accord she laid her other hand on his breast. “ I always believed ye war good, good, good !”

And the wild winds whirled around the Great Smoky, and the world was given over to the clouds and the night, and the rain fell, and the drops splashed with a dreary sound down from the eaves of the house.

They did not hear. How little they heeded. Within, all the atmosphere was suffused by that wonderful irradiation of love, and happiness, and hope that was confidence. The fire might flare if it listed. The shadows might flicker if they would. It seemed to them at the moment each would never see aught, care for aught, save what was expressed in the other’s eyes.

The kitten had waxed riotous in the unprecedented opportunities of the reel, still lying with all its tangled yellow yarn upon the floor. As it sprang tigerishly in the air and fell, fixing its predatory claws in another cut, Dorinda looked down with a startled air.

“Granny’ll be axin’ mighty p’inted how that thar spun-truck kem ter be twisted so,” she said, crestfallen and prescient. “ It looks like a hurrah’s nest.”

“ Tell her ez how ’t war the cat,” suggested Rick.

Dorinda shook her head dubiously.

“ The cat could n’t hev got it ef the reel hed n’t been flunged on the floor.”

“ Let’s wind it inter balls, then,” suggested Rick, quick at expedients. “ She ’ll never know it war tangled. I ’ll hold it fur ye.”

It was no great hardship for Rick. She lightly slipped the skeins over the wrists that had known sterner shackles. The task required her to sit near him; her face and head were bent toward him as she absorbed herself in the effort to find the end of the thread ; sometimes she lifted her eyes and looked radiantly at him. He had not known how beautiful she was, — because he saw her face more closely, he thought, not averted, nor coy, as always before, — or was it embellished by that ineffable joy that filled her heart ? Well for them both, perhaps, that those few moments were so happy, — or is it well to remember a supreme felicity, for this is fleeting. Yellow yarn ! she was winding threads of gold. How his pulses thrilled at the lightest flying touch of her fleet hands! He looked at her, — into her eyes if he might, — at her round crimson cheek, at her clearly cut chin, at the long lashes, at the black hair drawn back from her brow, where a curling tendril drooped over the temple. And he held the yarn all awry.

It was no first class job, for this reason and her haste.

“ What ails ye ter hustle ’long so, D’rindy ? ” he asked at last. “ Ye ain’t so mighty afeard o’ yer granny.”

“ Naw,” Dorinda admitted, “ but brother Pete, he be at home ter-night, an’ he air toler’ble fractious ef he sees his chance, an’ I don’t want him a-laffin’ at we-uns ; kase I hev hearn him say ez when young folks gits ter windin’ yarn tergether ’t ain’t fur love o’ the spun-truck, but jes’ fur one another.”

Rick laughed a little, slowly. Then growing grave, “ Ef ye ’ll b’lieve me, Pete told the word yander ter the still ez Amos Jeemes — a mis’able addled aig he be ! — ’lowed ter the men at the mill ez he b’lieved ez’t war the Cayces ez rescued me, the day o’ the gaynder pullin’, from the sher’ff.”

She paused, the bright thread in her motionless hand, her fire-lit face bent upon him.

“ Amos Jeemes hed better be keerful how he tries ter fix it on we-uns ! ” she cried, with the tense vibration of anger, “ tellin’ the mill an’ sech ! I hev hearn the boys ’low ez ’t war ten year in the pen’tiary fur rescuing a man from the sher’ff, ef it got fund out.”

“ Pete say ez how he jes laffed at him an’ named him a fool.”

“ Pete air ekal ter that,” she returned, with some sarcasm.

She was deftly winding the yarn once more, the fire showing a deeper thoughtfulness upon her face. Its flicker gave the room a sense of motion ; the festoons of scarlet pepper-pods, the long yellow and red strings of pop-corn, the peltry hanging from the rafters, apparently swayed as the light rose and fell; and the warping-bars, with their rainbow of spun-truck stretched from peg to peg, seemed to be dancing a clumsy measure in the corner. The rockingchair where granny was wont to sit was occupied now by a shadow, and now was visibly vacant.

She looked up into his face with an absorbed unnoting eye. He was pierced by the knowledge that though she saw him, she was thinking of something else.

“ Won’t the Court let the pa’son go free now, sence they know ye done no crime ? ” she asked.

“ Naw. The pa’son air accused of a rescue, an’ whether the man he rescued air convicted or no it air jes’ the same ter the law ez agin him. The rescue air the thing he hev got ter answer fur.”

She dropped her hands in her lap and threw herself back in her chair.

“ Ten year in prison ! ” she exclaimed. Her face was all the tenderest pity ; her voice was full of yearning sympathy; she cast her eyes upward with a look that was reverence itself.

“ How good he war ! I s’pose he knowed ye never done no harm, an’ he war willin’ ter suffer stiddier you-uns. I never hearn o’ sech a man ! ’Pears ter me them old prophets don’t tech him ! I never hearn o’ them showin’ sech love o’ God an’ thar feller-man. He rescued ye jes’ fur that! ”

Rick Tyler looked at her for a moment with a kindling eye. He sprang to his feet, throwing the golden skein — it was only yarn after all, a coarse yellow yarn — upon the floor. He strode across the ample rude hearth and leaned against the mantel-piece, which was as high as his head. The light fell upon his changed face, the weapons in his belt, his long tawny hair, the flashing fire in his eye. He raised his right hand with an importunate gesture.

“ D’rindy Cayce, ye air in love with that man ! ” he said, in a low passionate voice and between his set teeth. “ I hev seen it afore — long ago ; but sence ye hev promised ter marry me, ef ye say his name agin, I ’ll kill him — I ’ll shoot him through the heart — dead — dead — do ye hear me — dead ! ”

She was shaken by the spectacle of his sudden anger, and she was angered in turn by his jealous rage. There was a dull aching in her heart in the voids left by the ebbing of her ecstatic happiness. This was too precious to lightly let go. She walked over to him and took hold of his right arm, although his hand was toying nervously with his pistol.

“ Ye don’t b’lieve no sech word, Rick,” she said, “ deep down in yer heart, ye don’t b’lieve it. An’ how kin ye grudge me from thinkin’ well o’ the man, an’ feelin’ frien’ly, — oh, mighty frien’ly, — when he will hev ter take ten year in the pen’tiary fur givin’ ye yer freedom ? He rescued ye ! An’ I’ll thank him an’ praise him fur it ev’y day I live. My love, ef ye call it love, will foller him fur that all through the prison, an’ the bolts an’ bars, an’ gyards. An’ yer pistols can’t holp it.”

He put her from him with a mechanical gesture and a perplexed brow. He sat down in the chair he had occupied at first; his hat was still under it, one leg was stretched out to the fire, on the other knee his hand rested ; he looked exactly as when he first came into the room, but she had a vague idea, as she stood opposite on the hearth, that it was long ago, so much had happened since.

“ D’rindy,” he said, “ he never done it. The pa’son never rescued me.”

She stood staring at him in wideeyed amaze.

He was silent for a moment, and then he broke into a bitter laugh. “ I do declar,” he said, “ it fairly tickles me ter hear o’ one man bein’ arrested fur rescuin’ me, an’ another set bein’ s’pected o’ the same thing, when not one of ’em in all the Big Smoky, not one, lifted a hand ter holp me. Whether the gallus or a life sentence, ’t war all the same ter them. Accusin’ yer dad an’ the boys at the still — shucks ! Old Groundhog loant me a rifle, an’ ter hear him talk saaft sawder ’bout’n it ter Amos Jeemes ye’d hev thunk he war the author o’ my salvation ! An’ arrest the pa’son ! he war a likely one ter rescue a-body ! — too ’feard o’ Satan ! An’ ef all they say air true’ bout’n the word he spoke yander at the meetin’ ’fore they tuk him off, he hev got cornsider’ble call ter be afeard o’ Satan. Naw, sir! he never rescued nuthin’ but the gaynder ! Nobody holped me ! Nobody on the Big Smoky held out a hand! I ain’t goin’ ter furgit it nuther ! ”

She stood looking intently at his face, with its caustic laugh upon it and his eyes full of bitterness. She knew that he secretly upbraided her as well as her people that they had made no move to save him from the clutches of the sheriff. She involuntarily turned her eyes to the gun-rack where the barrel of “ Old Betsy ” gleamed, and she remembered the mark it bore to commemorate the foregone conclusion of Micajah Green’s death. For this she had held her hand. She felt humble and guilty, since she had acted in the interests of peace. And yet that shrewd sense, that true conscience, which coexisted with the idealistic tendencies of her nature, demanded how could she justify herself in asking the sacrifice of ten years of other men’s liberty that her lover might escape the consequences of his own act; how could she dare to precipitate a collision with the sheriff, while their grievance was still fresh in their minds? Fortunately she did not lay this train of thought bare before Rick Tyler. Natures like his foster craft in the most pellucid candor.

“ How’d ye git away, Rick ? ” she said instead.

“I won’t tell ye,” he replied rudely; “ it don’t consarn ye ter know.” Then suddenly softening, “ I take that back, D’rindy. I ain’t goin’ ter furgit ez ye owned up ye war willin’ ter marry me an’ live all yer life along with a hunted man in a house that mought be fired over yer head enny time, or a rifle ball whiz in at the winder. I ain’t goin’ ter furgit that.” Alas! he could not divine how he should remember it!

He fixed his eyes on the fire, as if moodily recalling the scene. She noted that desperate hunted look in his face which it had not worn to-night.

“ I war a-settin’ thar,” he began abruptly, “ my feet tied with ropes, and with handcuffs on,” — he held his hands together as if manacled; she shuddered a little, — “ an’ I hearn the hurrahin’ an’ fuss outside whilst they was all a-rowin’ over the gaynder. An’ then I hearn a powerful commotion ’mongst the dogs, ez ef they hed started some sorter game or suthin’. An’ the fust I knowed thar war a powerful scuttlin’ ’round the back o’ the blacksmith’s shop, an’ a rabbit squez in a hole ’twixt the lowes’ log an’ the groun’, — ’t warnt bigger ’n a gopher’s hole. An’ I never thunk nuthin’ ’ceptin’ them boys outside would be mighty mad ef they knowed thar hounds hed run a rabbit same ez a deer.”

Dorinda had sunk into her chair ; her hands trembled, her face was pale.

“ An’ the cur’us part of it,” he continued, now in the full swing of narrative, “ war that the hounds would n’t gin it up. They jes’ kep’ a-nosin’ an’ yappin’ roun’ that thar little hole. Thar sot the rabbit — she ’minded me o’ myse’f, got in an’ could n’t git out. Thar war nowhar else fur her ter sneak, though. She sot thar ez upright an’ trembly ez me; jes’ ez skeered, an’ jes’ about ez little chance. The only diff’ence ’twixt us wuz I hed a soul, an’ that did n’t do me enny good, an’ the lack o’ it did n’t do her enny harm ; both o’ we - uns war more pertic’lar ’bout keepin’ a skin full o’ whole bones ‘n ennything else. An’ then them nosin’ hounds began ter scratch an’ claw up dirt. Bless yer soul, D’rindy, they hed a hole ez big ez that thar piggin, afore I thunk ennything ’bout’n it. It makes me feel the cold shakes when I ’members ez I mought not hev thunk ’bout’n it till ’t war too late. Lord ! how slow them hounds seemed ! though the rabbit she fund ’em fast enough, I reckon. Ev’y now an’ then she’d hop along this way an’ that, an’ the hounds would git her scent agin — an’ the way they’d yap ! The critter would hop along an’ look up at me, — I never will furgit the look in the critter’s eyes ez she sot thar an’ waited fur the dogs. They war in a hurry an’ toler’ble lively, I reckon, but ’peared ter me ez slow ez ef ev’y one war weighted with a block an’ chain. Waal, the hole got bigger an’ they yapped louder, an’ I got so weak waitin’, an’ fearin’ somebody would hear ’em, an’ kem ter see ’bout what they hed got up fur game, an’ find that hole, I did n’t know how I could bide it. The hole got big enough fur the hounds ter squeeze through, an’ here they kem bouncin’ in. They lept round the forge, an’ flopped up agin the door so, that ef thar hed n’t been all that fuss outside ’bout takin’ the gaynder down, somebody would hev been boun’ ter notice it. I hed ter wait fur the dogs ter ketch the rabbit an’ shake the life out’n her ’fore I darst move a paig, they kep’ up sech a commotion. An’ when they hed dragged the critter’s little carcass outside an’ got ter fightin’ over it, I got up. I jes’ could sheffle along a leetle bit; that eternally cussed scoundrel, Gid Fletcher” — he paused. It was beyond the power of language to express the deep damnation he desired for the blacksmith. His face grew scarlet, the tears started to his angry eyes. How he pitied himself, remembering his hard straits and his cruel indignities ! And how she pitied him !

He caught his breath, and went on.

“ That black-hearted devil hed tied my feet so close I could sca’cely hobble, an’ my hands an’ wrists hed all puffed an’ swelled up, whar the cords hed been — ‘t war the sher’ff ez gin me the handcuffs. Waal, I tuk steps ’bout two inches long till I got ’crost the shop ter the hole. Then I jes’ flopped down an’ croped through. I did n’t stan’ up outside, though ’t war at the back o’ the shop an’ nobody could see me. Ye know the aidge o’ the bluff ain’t five feet from the shop ; the cliff’s ez sheer ez a wall, but thar’s a ledge ’bout twenty feet down. It looked mighty narrer, an’ thar war n’t no vines ter swing by ; but I jes’ hed ter think o’ them devils on t’other side the forge ter make me willin’ ter resk it. Waal, thar war a clump o’ sass’fras, — ye know the bark ’s tough, — near the aidge, I jes’ bruk one o’ the shoots ter the root an’ turned it down over the aidge o’ the bluff an’ swung on ter the e-end o’ it. Waal, it tore off in my hands, but I did n’t fall more ’n a few feet, an’ lighted on the ledge. An’ I tossed the saplin’ away, an’ then I walked, — steps ’bout’n two inches long, ef that — ez fur ez the ledge went, cornsider’ble way from the Settlemint, an’ ’t war two or three hundred feet ter the bottom, whar I stopped. An’ thar war a niche thar whar I could sit an’ lay down, sorter. Thar I bided all night. I hearn ’em huntin’, an’ it made me laff. I knowed they war n’t a-goin’ ter find me, but I did n’t know how I war a-goin’ ter git away from thar with them handcuffs on, an’ ropes ’roun’ my legs ; they war knotted so ez I could n’t reach ’em fur the irons. I waited all nex’ day, though I never hed nuthin’ ter eat but some jew-berries ez growed ’mongst the rocks thar. An’ the nex’ morn’n’,” — his eye dilated with triumph, — “ the swellin’ o’ my wrists hed gone down, an’ I could draw my hands out ’n the handcuffs ez easy ez lyin’.”

He held up his hands; they were small for his size, and bore little token of hard work; the wrists were supple.

“ An’ then,” he said, with brisk conclusiveness, “I jes’ ontied the ropes ’roun’ my feet an’ clumb up ter the top o’ the mounting by vines an’ sech, an’ struck inter the laurel, an’ never stopped a-travelin’ till I got ter Cayce’s still.”

He drew a long sigh, not unmixed with pleasure, He had a sense of achievement. It gave, perhaps, a certain value to his harsh experience to recount his triumphs to so fair an audience. He was looking at her with a dawning smile in his eyes, and she was silently looking at him. Suddenly she burst into sobs.

“ Shucks, D’rindy, it’s all over an’ done now,” he said, appropriating the soft sympathy of her tears.

“ An’ I’m so glad, Rick ; so glad fur that. I’d hev bartered my hope o’ heaven fur it,” she sobbed. “ But I war thinkin’ that minit o’ the pa’son. They ’rested him in his pulpit, an’ they would n’t gin him bail, an’ they kerried him ’way from the mountings, an’ jailed him, an’ he ’ll go ter the pen’tiary, ten year mebbe, fur a crime ez he never done. Ye would n’t let him do that ef ye could holp it, would ye, Rick?”

She looked up tearfully at him. His eyes gleamed ; his nostrils were quivering ; every fibre in him responded to his anger.

“ Ef I could, D’rindy Cayce, I’d hev that man chained in the lowest pits o’ hell fur all time ter kem, so ye mought never see his face agin. An’ ef I could, I’d wipe his mem’ry off ’n the face o’ the yearth, so ye mought never speak his name.”

“ Law, Rick, don’t! ” protested the girl, aghast. “ I’ve seen ye ez jealous o’ Amos Jeemes ” —

“ I don’t keer that fur Amos Jeemes,” he cried, snapping his fingers. “ I hev n’t seen ye sit an’ cry over Amos Jeemes, an’ sech cattle, an’ say he war like a prophet. I thought ye war thinkin’ ’bout me, an’ — an’” — he paused in mortification.

“ D’rindy,” he said, suddenly calm, though his eye was excited and quickly glancing, “ did ye ax him ef he would do ennything fur me when I war in cust’dy ? ”

“ Naw,” said Dorinda, “ nobody could do nuthin’ fur you-uns, ’kase they’d hev ter resk tharse’fs an’ run agin the law. But what I want ye ter do fur pa’son air fur jestice. He never done what he war accused of. An’ ye war along o’ Abednego Tynes, though innercent. Law, Rick, ef the murderer would say the word ter sot ye free, can’t ye do ez much fur the pa’son, ez hev seen so much trouble a’ready ? ”

“ In the name o’ Gawd, D’rindy, what air you-uns a-wantin’ me ter do? ” he asked, in sheer amazement.

She mistook the question for relenting. She caressed his coat sleeve as she stood beside him. All her beauty was overcast; her face was stained with weeping ; tears dimmed her eyes, and her pathetic gesture of insistence seemed forlorn, He looked down dubiously at her.

“ What I want ye ter do, Rick, fur him, air right, an’ law, an’ jestice. Nobody could hev done that fur ye, ’cept Abednego Tynes. I want ye ter go ter pa’son’s trial fur the rescue, an’ gin yer testimony, an’ tell the jedge an’ jury the tale ye hev tole me — the truth — an’ they ’ll be obleeged ter acquit.”

He flung away in a tumult of rage. It was exhausting to witness how his frequent gusts of passion shook him.

“ D’rindy,” he thundered, “ ye want me ter gin myse’f up fur the pa’son ; ye don’t keer nuthin’ fur me, so he gits back ter the Big Smoky an’ you-uns. I mought be arrested yit on the same indictment; the nolle prosequi don’t hender, — it jes’ don’t set no day fur me ter be tried. An’ mebbe Steve Byers hev been foolin’ me some. Ye jes’ want ter trade me off ter the State fur the pa’son.”

“ Ye shan’t go ! ” cried the girl. “ I didn’t know that about the nolle prosequi. Ye shan’t go ! ”

He was mollified for a moment. He noticed again how pale she was. “ Law, D’rindy,” he said, “ ye fairly wear yerse’f out with yer tantrums. Why n’t ye do like other folks; the pa’son never holped me none, an’ I ain’t got no call ter holp him.”

“ Ef ye war ter go afore the squair an’ swear bout’n the rescue an’ sech, an’ git him ter write it ter the Court fur the pa’son ” —

“ The constable o’ the deestric’ ez hangs ’roun’ thar at the jestice’s house mought be thar an’ arrest me,” he said, speciously. “ The gov’nor haint withdrawn that reward yit, ez I knows on.”

“ Naw,” she said, quickly, “ I ’ll make the boys toll the constable down ter the still till ye git through. The jestice air lame, an’ aint able ter arrest ye, an’ I’d be thar an gin ye the wink, ef thar war ennything oncomnion ennywhar, or enny men aroun’.”

He could hardly refuse. He could not affect fear. He hesitated.

“ Ez long ez I thunk he hed rescued ye, I did n’t hev no call ter move. But now I know how ’twar, I’d fairly die ef he war lef’ ter suffer in jail, knowin’ he hev done nuthin’ agin the law.”

Her lip quivered. The tears started to her eyes. The sight of them, shed for another man’s sake, excited again the vigilant jealousy in his breast.

“ I ’ll do nuthin’ fur Hi Kelsey,” he declared. “ Ef ye ain’t in love with him, ye would be ef he war ter git back ter the Big Smoky. He done nuthin’ fur me, an’ I hev no call ter do nuthin’ fur him.”

He looked furiously at her, holding her at arm’s length. “ Ye hev tole me ye love me, an’ I expec’ ye ter live up ter it. Ye hev promised ter marry me, an’ I claim ye fur my wife. Say that man’s name another time, an’ I ’ll kill him ef ever he gits in rifle range agin. I ’ll kill him ! I ’ll kill him ! ” his right hand was once more mechanically toying with the pistol, while he held her arm with the other, “an’ I’ll kill you, too ! ”

He had gone too far; he had touched the dominant impulse of her nature. Her cheeks were flaring. Her courage blazed in her eyes.

“ An’ I tell ye, Rick Tyler, that I am not afeard o’ ye ! An’ ef ye let a man suffer fur a word ez ye kin say in safety, an’ an act ez ye kin do in ease, ye ain’t the Rick Tyler I knowed,—ye air suthin’ else. I ’lowed ye war good, but mebbe I hev been cheated in ye, an’ ef I hev, I ’ll gin ye up. I ain’t a-goin’ ter marry no man ez I can’t look up ter, an’ say ‘ he air good !’ An’ ef ye’ll meet me a hour ’fore sundown, at the squair’s house, ter-morrow evenin’, I ’ll b’lieve in ye, an’ I ’ll marry ye. An’ ef ye don’t, I won’t.”

She caught up his hat and gave it to him. Then she opened the door. The white mists stood shivering in the little porch. He turned and looked in angry dismay at her resolute face. But he did not say a word, though he knew her heart yearned for it beneath her inflexible mask. He walked slowly out, and the door closed upon him, and upon the shivering white mists. He paused for a moment, hesitating. He heard nothing within — not even her retreating step. He knew as well as if he had seen her that she was leaning against the door, silently sobbing her heart out.

“ D’rindy needs a lesson,” he said, sternly. And so he went out into the night.

XIV.

The rain ceased the next day, but the clouds did not vanish. Their folds, dense, opaque, impalpable, filled the vastness. The landscape was lost in their midst. The horizon had vanished. Distance was annihilated. Only a yard or so of the path was seen by Dorinda, as she plodded along through the white vagueness that had absorbed the familiar world. And yet for all essentials she saw quite enough; in her ignorant fashion she deduced the moral, that if the few immediate steps before the eye are taken aright, the long lengths of the future will bring you at last where you would wish to be. The reflection sustained her in some sort as she went. She was reluctant to acknowledge it even to herself; but she had a terrible fear that she had imposed a test that Rick would not endure. “ Ef he air so powerful jealous ez that, ter not holp another man a leetle bit, when he knows it can’t hurt him none, he air jes’ selfish, an’ nuthin’ shorter.”

She paused for a moment, looking about her mechanically. The few blackberry-bushes, almost leafless, stretching out on either hand, were indistinct in the mist, and against the dense vapor they had the meagre effect of a hasty sketch on a white paper. The trees overhung her, she knew, in the invisible heights above ; she heard the moisture dripping monotonously from their leaves. It was a dreary sound as it invaded the solemn stillness of the air.

“ An’ I’m boun’ ter try ter holp him, ef I kin. I know too much, sence Rick spoke las’ night, ter let me set an’ fold my hands in peace. ’Pears like ter me ez that thar air all the diff’ence ’twixt humans an’ the beastis, ter holp one another some. An’ ef a human won’t, ’pears like ter me ez the Lord hev wasted a soul on that critter.”

Despite her logic she stood still; her blue eyes were surcharged with shadows as they were wistfully turned upward to the sad and sheeted day ; her lips were grave and pathetic ; her blue dress had gleams of moisture here and there, and a plaid woolen shawl, faded to the faintest hues, was drawn over her dense black hair. She stood and hesitated. She thought of the man she loved, and she thought of the word he denied the man in prison. Poor Dorinda! to hold the scales of Justice unblinded.

“ I dunno what ails me ter be ’feard he won’t kem ! ” she said, striving to reassure herself ; “ an’ ennyhow” — she remembered the few immediate steps before her taken aright, and went along down the clouded curtained path that was itself an allegory of the future.

The justice’s gate loomed up like fate, — the poor little palings to be the journey’s end of hope or despair! A pig, without any appreciation of its subtler significance, had in his frequent wallowings at its base impaired in a measure its stability. He grunted at the sound of a footfall, as if to warn the newcomer that she might step on him. Dorinda took heed of the imperative caution, opened the gate gingerly, and it only grazed his back. He grunted again, whether in meagre surly approval, or reproof that she had come at all, was hardly to be discriminated in his gruff disaffected tone.

She noticed that the locust leaves, first of all to show the changing season, were yellow on the ground ; a half denuded limb was visible in the haze. There were late red roses, widely a-bloom, by the doorstep of the justice’s house, — a large double cabin of hewn logs, with a frame-inclosed passage between the two rooms, which, but for the lack of light, might have served for another. There was glass in each of the two windows, for the justice was a man of some means for these parts; and she saw behind one of the tiny panes his bald polished head and his silver rimmed spectacles gleaming in animated curiosity. He came limping, with the assistance of a heavy cane, to the door.

“ Howdy, D’rindy,” he exclaimed, cheerfully, “ come in, child. What sort o’ weather is this ! ” In abrupt digression he looked over her head into the blank vagueness of the world. But for the dim light, it might have suggested the empty inexpressiveness of the periods before the creation, when “ the earth was without form and void.”

“ It air tol’erble airish in the fog,” said Dorinda, finding her voice with difficulty.

The room into which she was ushered seemed to her limited experience a handsome apartment. But somehow the passion of covetousness is an untouched spring in the nature of these mountaineers. The idea of ownership did not enter into Dorinda’s mind as she gazed at the green plaster parrot that perched in state on the high mantelpiece. She was sensible of its merits as a feature of the domestic landscape at the “jestice’s house,” precisely as the sight of the distant Chilhowee was company in her lonely errands about the mountain. To be deprived of either would be like a revulsion of nature. She did not grudge the justice his possession, nor did she desire it for herself. She entertained a simple admiration for the image, and always looked to see it on its lofty perch when she first entered the room. There were several books piled beside it, which the justice valued more. There was, too, a little square looking-glass, in which one might behold a distortion of physiognomy. Above all hung a framed picture of General Washington crossing the Delaware. The mantelpiece was to the girl a museum of curiosities. A rag carpet covered the floor; there was a spinningwheel in the corner; a bed, too, draped with a gay quilt, — a mad disportment of red and yellow patchwork, which was supposed to represent the rising sun, and was considered a triumph of handicraft. The justice’s seat was a splintbottomed chair, which stood near a pine table where ink was always displayed — of a pale green variety — writing-paper, and a pile of books. The table had a drawer which it was difficult to open or shut, and now and then “the squair ” engaged in muscular wrestling with it.

He sat down, with a sigh, and drew forth his red bandanna handkerchief from the pocket of his brown jeans coat, and polished the top of his head, and stared at Dorinda, much marveling as to her mission. She had not, in her primitive experience, attained to the duplicity of a subterfuge; she declined the invitation to go into the opposite room, where his wife was busy cooking supper, by saying she was waiting for a man who had promised to meet her here to explain something to the justice.

“ Is it a weddin’, D’rindy ? ” exclaimed the old fellow, waggishly.

“ ’T ain’t a weddin’,” said Dorinda, curtly.

“Ye air foolin’ me!” he declared, with a jocose affectation of inspecting his attire. “ I hev got another coat I allus wears ter marry a couple, an’ ye don’t want ter gimme a chance ter spruce up, fur fear I ’ll take the shine off ‘n the groom. It’s a weddin’ ! Who is the happy man, D’rindy ? ”

This jesting, as appropriate, according to rural etiquette, to a young and pretty woman as the compliments of the season, seemed a dreary sort of fun to Dorinda, so heavy had her presaging heart become. There was a trifle of sensibility in the old squire, perhaps induced by much meditation in his inactive indoor life, and he recognized something appealing in the girl’s face and attitude, as she sat in a low chair before the dull fire that served rather to annul the chilliness of the day than to diffuse a perceptible warmth. The shawl had dropped from her head and loosely encircled her throat; her hand twisted its coarse fringes; she was always turning her face toward the window where only the pallid mists might be seen — the pallid mists and a great glowing crimson rose, that, motionless, touched the pane with its velvet petals. The old justice forbore his jokes, his dignities might serve him better. He entertained Dorinda by telling her how many times he had been elected to office. And he said he would n’t count how many times he expected to be, for it was his firm persuasion that “ when Gabriel blew that thar old horn o’ his’n, he’d find the squair still a-settin’ in jedgment on the Big Smoky.” He showed her his books, and told her how the folks at Nashville were constrained by the law of the State to send him one every time they made new laws. And she understood this as a special and personal compliment, and was duly impressed.

Out-doors the still day was dying silently, like the gradual sinking from a comatose state, that is hardly life, to the death it simulates. How did the gathering darkness express itself in that void whiteness of the mists, still visibly white as ever! Night was sifting through them ; the room was shadowy ; yet still in the glow of the fire she beheld their pallid presence close against the window. And the red rose was shedding its petals ! — down dropping, with the richness of summer spent in their fleeting beauty, their fragrance a memory, the place they had embellished, bereft. She did not reflect; she only felt. She saw the rose fade, the sad night steal on apace; the hour had passed, and she knew he would not come. She burst into sudden tears.

The old man, whether it was in curiosity or sympathy, had his questions justified by her self-betrayal, and his craft easily drew the story from her simplicity. He got up suddenly, with an expression of keen interest. She followed his motions dubiously, as he took from the mantelpiece a tallow dip in an old pewter candlestick, and with slow circumspection lighted the sputtering wick. “ I want ter look up a p’int o’ law, D’rindy,” he said, impressively. “Ye jes’ set thar an’ I ’ll let ye know d’rec’ly how the law stands.”

It seemed to Dorinda a long time that he sat with his book before him on the table, his spectacles gleaming in the light of the tallow dip, close at hand, his lips moving as he slowly read beneath his breath, now and then clutching his big red handkerchief, and polishing off the top of his round head and his wrinkled brow. Twice he was about to close the book. Twice he renewed his search.

And now at last it was small comfort to Dorinda to know that the affidavit would not, in the justice’s opinion, have been competent testimony. He called it an ex parte statement, and said that unless Rick Tyler’s deposition were taken in the regular way, giving due notice to the attorney-general, it could not be admitted, and in almost all criminal cases witnesses were compelled to testify viva voce. Small comfort to Dorinda to know that the effort was worthless from the beginning, and that on it she had staked and lost the dearest values of her life. As he read aloud the prosy, prolix sentences, they were annotated by her sobs.

“ Dell-law ! Dorindy, ‘t warn’t no good, nohow ! ” he exclaimed, presently breaking off with an effort from his reading, for he relished the rotund verbiage, — the large freedom of legal diction impressed him as a privilege, accustomed as he was only to the simple phrasings of his simple neighbors He could not understand her disappointment. Surely Rick Tyler’s defection could not matter, he argued, since the affidavit would have been worthless.

She did not tell him more. All the world was changed to her. Nothing — not her lover himself — could ever make her see it as once it was. She declined the invitation to stay and eat supper, and soon was once more out in the pallid mist and the contending dusk. The scene that she had left was still vivid in her mind, and she looked back once at the lucent yellow square of the lighted window gleaming through the white vapors. The rose-bush showed across the lower panes, and she remembered the melancholy fall of the flower.

Alas, the roses all were dead !

Charles Egbert Craddock.