For the look with which John Dundas contemplated the place w

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[Illustration: "'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A

NEPHEW?'"]

The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge

And Other Stories

BY

CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK

AUTHOR OF

"IN THE 'STRANGER PEOPLE'S' COUNTRY" ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1895

Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS

_All rights reserved._

CONTENTS

THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE

HIS "DAY IN COURT"

'WAY DOWN IN LONESOME COVE

THE MOONSHINERS AT HOHO-HEBEE FALLS

THE RIDDLE OF THE ROCKS

ILLUSTRATIONS

"'WARN'T YOU-UNS APOLOGIZIN' TER ME FUR NOT BEIN' A NEPHEW?'"

THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE

OLD JOEL QUIMBEY

"'WHY'N'T YE GIN DAD THEM MESSAGES?'"

"SHE FLUNG HER APRON OVER HER HEAD"

"HE STOLE NOISELESSLY IN THE SOFT SNOW"

OLD QUIMBEY AND HIS GRANDSON

"YET THIS WAS CHRISTMAS EVE"

"HE HAD HAD AN ACTIVE DAY, INDUCING A KEEN THIRST"

"'LOOK OUT! SOMEBODY'S THAR!'"

"SHE SMILED UPON THE BABY"

THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP

"THE TABLES OF THE LAW"

"'WHAT WORD DID HE SEND TER--_ME_?'"

THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE

Across the narrow gorge the little foot-bridge stretched--a brace of

logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a cedar

pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the dark and

rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, swift

and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all ordinary

usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and elusive

travellers who by common report frequented it.

"We ain't likely ter meet nobody. Few folks kem this way nowadays,

'thout it air jes' ter ford the creek down along hyar a piece, sence

harnts an' sech onlikely critters hev been viewed a-crossin' the

foot-bredge. An' it hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble onlucky, too,"

said Roxby.

His interlocutor drew back slightly. He had his own reasons to recoil

from the subject of death. For him it was invested with a more immediate

terror than is usual to many of the living, with that flattering

persuasion of immortality in every strong pulsation repudiating all

possibility of cessation. Then, lifting his gloomy, long-lashed eyes to

the bridge far up the stream, he asked, "Whose 'harnts'?"

His voice had a low, repressed cadence, as of one who speaks seldom,

grave, even melancholy, and little indicative of the averse interest

that had kindled in his sombre eyes. In comparison the drawl of the

mountaineer, who had found him heavy company by the way, seemed imbued

with an abnormal vivacity, and keyed a tone or two higher than was its

wont.

"Thar ain't a few," he replied, with a sudden glow of the pride of the

cicerone. "Thar's a graveyard t'other side o' the gorge, an' not more

than a haffen-mile off, an' a cornsider'ble passel o' folks hev been

buried thar off an' on, an' the foot-bredge ain't in nowise

ill-convenient ter them."

Thus demonstrating the spectral resources of the locality, he rode his

horse well into the stream as he spoke, and dropped the reins that the

animal's impatient lips might reach the water. He sat facing the

foot-bridge, flecked with the alternate shifting of the sunshine and the

shadows of the tremulous firs that grew on either side of the high banks

on the ever-ascending slope, thus arching both above and below the

haunted bridge. His companion had joined him in the centre of the

stream; but while the horses drank, the stranger's eyes were

persistently bent on the concentric circles of the water that the

movement of the animals had set astir in the current, as if he feared

that too close or curious a gaze might discern some pilgrim, whom he

cared not to see, traversing that shadowy quivering foot-bridge. He was

mounted on a strong, handsome chestnut, as marked a contrast to his

guide's lank and trace-galled sorrel as were the two riders. A slender

gloved hand had fallen with the reins to the pommel of the saddle. His

soft felt hat, like a sombrero, shadowed his clear-cut face. He was

carefully shaven, save for a long drooping dark mustache and imperial.

His suit of dark cloth was much concealed by a black cloak, one end of

which thrown back across his shoulder showed a bright blue lining, the

color giving a sudden heightening touch to his attire, as if he were "in

costume." It was a fleeting fashion of the day, but it added a certain

picturesqueness to a horseman, and seemed far enough from the times that

produced the square-tailed frock-coat which the mountaineer wore,

constructed of brown jeans, the skirts of which stood stiffly out on

each side of the saddle, and gave him, with his broad-brimmed hat, a

certain Quakerish aspect.

"I dun'no' why folks be so 'feared of 'em," Roxby remarked,

speculatively. "The dead ain't so oncommon, nohow. Them ez hev been in

the war, like you an' me done, oughter be in an' 'bout used ter

corpses--though I never seen none o' 'em afoot agin. Lookin' at a smit

field o' battle, arter the rage is jes' passed, oughter gin a body a

realizin' sense how easy the sperit kin flee, an' what pore vessels fur

holdin' the spark o' life human clay be."

Simeon Roxby had a keen, not unkindly face, and he had that look of

extreme intelligence which is entirely distinct from intellectuality,

and which one sometimes sees in a minor degree in a very clever dog or a

fine horse. One might rely on him to understand instinctively everything

one might say to him, even in its subtler aesthetic values, although he

had consciously learned little. He was of the endowed natures to whom

much is given, rather than of those who are set to acquire. He had many

lines in his face--even his simple life had gone hard with him, its

sorrows unassuaged by its simplicity. His hair was grizzled, and hung

long and straight on his collar. He wore a grizzled beard cut broad and

short. His boots had big spurs, although the lank old sorrel had never

felt them. He sat his horse like the cavalryman he had been for four

years of hard riding and raiding, but his face had a certain gentleness

that accented the Quaker-like suggestion of his garb, a look of

communing with the higher things.

"I never blamed 'em," he went on, evidently reverting to the spectres of

the bridge--"I never blamed 'em for comin' back wunst in a while. It

'pears ter me 'twould take me a long time ter git familiar with heaven,

an' sociable with them ez hev gone before. An', my Lord, jes' think what

the good green yearth is! Leastwise the mountings. I ain't settin' store

on the valley lands I seen whenst I went ter the wars. I kin remember

yit what them streets in the valley towns smelt like."

He lifted his head, drawing a long breath to inhale the exquisite

fragrance of the fir, the freshness of the pellucid water, the aroma of

the autumn wind, blowing through the sere leaves still clinging red and

yellow to the boughs of the forest.

"Naw, I ain't blamin' 'em, though I don't hanker ter view 'em," he

resumed. "One of 'em I wouldn't be afeard of, though. I feel mighty

sorry fur her. The old folks used ter tell about her. A young 'oman she

war, a-crossin' this bredge with her child in her arms. She war young,

an' mus' have been keerless, I reckon; though ez 'twar her fust baby,

she moughtn't hev been practised in holdin' it an' sech, an' somehows it

slipped through her arms an' fell inter the ruver, an' war killed in a

minit, dashin' agin the rocks. She jes' stood fur a second a-screamin'

like a wild painter, an' jumped off'n the bredge arter it. She got it

agin; for when they dragged her body out'n the ruver she hed it in her

arms too tight fur even death ter onloose. An' thar they air together in

the buryin'-ground."

He gave a nod toward the slope of the mountain that intercepted the

melancholy view of the graveyard.

"Got it yit!" he continued; "bekase" (he lowered his voice) "on windy

nights, whenst the moon is on the wane, she is viewed kerryin' the baby

along the bredge--kerryin' it clear over, _safe an' sound_, like she

thought she oughter done, I reckon, in that one minute, whilst she stood

an' screamed an' surveyed what she hed done. That child would hev been

nigh ter my age ef he hed lived."

Only the sunbeams wavered athwart the bridge now as the firs swayed

above, giving glimpses of the sky, and their fibrous shadows flickered

back and forth. The wild mountain stream flashed white between the brown

bowlders, and plunged down the gorge in a succession of cascades, each

seeming more transparently green and amber and brown than the other. The

chestnut horse gazed meditatively at these limpid out-gushings, having

drunk his fill; then thought better of his moderation, and once more

thrust his head down to the water. The hand of his rider, which had made

a motion to gather up the reins, dropped leniently on his neck, as

Simeon Roxby spoke again:

"Several--several others hev been viewed, actin' accordin' ter thar

motions in life. Now thar war a peddler--some say he slipped one icy

evenin', 'bout dusk in winter--some say evil ones waylaid him fur his

gear an' his goods in his pack, but the settlemint mostly believes he

war alone whenst he fell. His pack 'pears ter be full still, they

say--but ye air 'bleeged ter know he hev hed ter set that pack down fur

good 'fore this time. We kin take nuthin' out'n this world, no matter

what kind o' a line o' goods we kerry in life. Heaven's no place fur

tradin', I understan', an' I _do_ wonder sometimes how in the worl' them

merchants an' sech in the valley towns air goin' ter entertain tharse'fs

in the happy land o'Canaan. It's goin' ter be sorter bleak fur them,

sure's ye air born."

With a look of freshened recollection, he suddenly drew a plug of

tobacco from his pocket, and he talked on even as he gnawed a piece from

it.

"Durin' the war a cavalry-man got shot out hyar whilst runnin' 'crost

that thar foot-bredge. Thar hed been a scrimmage an' his horse war kilt,

an' he tuk ter the bresh on foot, hopin' ter hide in the laurel. But ez

he war crossin' the foot-bredge some o' the pursuin' party war fordin'

the ruver over thar, an' thinkin' he'd make out ter escape they fired on

him, jes' ez the feller tried ter surrender. He turned this way an'

flung up both arms--but thar's mighty leetle truce in a pistol-ball.

That minute it tuk him right through the brain. Seems toler'ble long

range fur a pistol, don't it? He kin be viewed now most enny moonlight

night out hyar on the foot-bredge, throwin' up both hands in sign of

surrender."

The wild-geese were a-wing on the way southward. Looking up to that

narrow section of the blue sky which the incision of the gorge into the

very depths of the woods made visible, he could see the tiny files

deploying along the azure or the flecking cirrus, and hear the vague

clangor of their leader's cry. He lifted his head to mechanically follow

their flight. Then, as his eyes came back to earth, they rested again on

the old bridge.

"Strange enough," he said, suddenly, "the skerriest tale I hev ever

hearn 'bout that thar old bredge is one that my niece set a-goin'. She

_seen_ the harnt _herself_, an' it shakes me wuss 'n the idee o' all the

rest."

His companion's gloomy gaze was lifted for a moment with an expression

of inquiry from the slowly widening circles of the water about the

horse's head as he drank. But Roxby's eyes, with a certain gleam of

excitement, a superstitious dilation, still dwelt upon the bridge at the

end of the upward vista. He went on merely from the impetus of the

subject. "Yes, sir--she _seen_ it a-pacin' of its sorrowful way acrost

that bredge, same ez the t'others of the percession o' harnts. 'Twar my

niece, Mill'cent--brother's darter--by name, Mill'cent Roxby. Waal,

Mill'cent an' a lot o' young fools o' her age--little over fryin'

size--they 'tended camp-meetin' down hyar on Tomahawk Creek--'tain't so

long ago--along with the old folks. An' 'bout twenty went huddled up

tergether in a road-wagin. An', lo! the wagin it bruk down on the way

home, an' what with proppin' it up on a crotch, they made out ter reach

the cross-roads over yander at the Notch, an' thar the sober old folks

called a halt, an' hed the wagin mended at the blacksmith-shop. Waal, it

tuk some two hours, fur Pete Rodd ain't a-goin' ter hurry hisself--in my

opinion the angel Gabriel will hev ter blow his bugle oftener'n wunst at

the last day 'fore Pete Rodd makes up his mind ter rise from the dead

an' answer the roll-call--an' this hyar young lot sorter found it

tiresome waitin' on thar elders' solemn company. The old folks, whilst

waitin', set outside on the porches of the houses at the settlemint, an'

repeated some o' the sermons they hed hearn at camp, an' more'n one

raised a hyme chune. An' the young fry--they hed hed a steady diet o'

sermons an' hyme chunes fur fower days--they tuk ter stragglin' off down

the road, two an' two, like the same sorter idjits the world over,

leavin' word with the old folks that the wagin would overtake 'em an'

pick 'em up on the road when it passed. Waal, they walked several mile,

an' time they got ter the crest o' the hill over yander the moon hed

riz, an' they could look down an' see the mist in the valley. The moon

war bright in the buryin'-groun' when they passed it, an' the

head-boards stood up white an' stiff, an' a light frost hed fell on the

mounds, an' they showed plain, an' shone sorter lonesome an' cold. The

young folks begun ter look behind em' fur the wagin. Some said--I

b'lieve 'twar Em'ry Keenan--they could read the names on the boards

plain, 'twar so light, the moon bein' nigh the full: but Em'ry never

read nuthin' at night by the moon in his life; he ain't enny too capable

o' wrastlin' with the alphabet with a strong daytime on his book ter

light him ter knowledge. An' the shadows war black an' still, an' all

the yearth looked ez ef nuthin' lived nor ever would agin, an' they

hearn a wolf howl. Waal, that disaccommodated the gals mightily, an'

they hed a heap more interes' in that old wagin, all smellin' rank with

wagin-grease an' tar, than they did in thar lovyers; an' they hed ruther

hev hearn that old botch of a wheel that Pete Rodd hed set onto it

comin' a-creakin' an' a-complainin' along the road than the sweetest

words them boys war able ter make up or remember. So they stood thar in

the road--a-stare-gazin' them head-boards, like they expected every

grave ter open an' the reveilly ter sound--a-waitin' ter be overtook by

the wagin, a-listenin', but hearin' nuthin' in the silence o' the

frost--not a dead leaf a-twirlin', nor a frozen blade o' grass astir.

An' then two or three o' the gals 'lowed they hed ruther walk back ter

meet the wagin, an' whenst the boys 'lowed ter go on--nuthin' war likely

ter ketch 'em--one of 'em bust out a-cryin'. Waal, thar war the eend o'

that much! So the gay party set out on the back track, a-keepin' step

ter sobs an' sniffles, an' that's how kem _they_ seen no harnt. But

Mill'cent an' three or four o' the t'others 'lowed they'd go on. They

warn't two mile from home, an' full five from the cross-roads. So Em'ry

Keenan--he hev been waitin' on her sence the year one--so he put his

skeer in his pocket an' kem along with her, a-shakin' in his shoes, I'll

be bound! So down the hill in the frosty moonlight them few kem--purty

nigh beat out, I reckon, Mill'cent war, what with the sermonizin' an'

the hyme-singin' an' hevin' ter look continual at the sheep's-eyes o'

Em'ry Keenan--he wears my patience ter the bone! So she concluded ter

take the short-cut. An' Em'ry he agreed. So they tuk the lead, the rest

a followin', an' kem down thar through all that black growth"--he lifted

his arm and pointed at the great slope, dense with fir and pine and the

heavy underbrush--"keepin' the bridle-path--easy enough even at night,

fur the bresh is so thick they couldn't lose thar way. But the moonlight

war mightily slivered up, fallin' through the needles of the pines an'

the skeins of dead vines, an' looked bleached and onnatural, an' holped

the dark mighty leetle. An' they seen the water a-shinin' an' a-plungin'

down the gorge, an' the glistenin' of the frost on the floor o' the

bredge. Thar war a few icicles on the hand-rail, an' the branches o' the

firs hung ez still ez death; only that cold, racin', shoutin', jouncin'

water moved. Jes ez they got toler'ble nigh the foot-bredge a sudden

cloud kem over the face o' the sky. Thar warn't no wind on the yearth,

but up above the air war a-stirrin'. An' Em'ry he 'lowed Mill'cent

shouldn't cross the foot-bredge whilst the light warn't clar--I wonder

the critter hed that much sense! An' she jes' drapped down on that rock

thar ter rest"--he pointed up the slope to a great fragment that had

broken off from the ledges and lay near the bank: the bulk of the

mass was overgrown with moss and lichen, but the jagged edges of the

recent fracture gleamed white and crystalline among the brown and

olive-green shadows about it. A tree was close beside it. "Agin that

thar pine trunk Em'ry he stood an' leaned. The rest war behind, a-comin'

down the hill. An' all of a suddenty a light fell on the furder eend o'

the foot-bredge--a waverin' light, mighty white an' misty in the

darksomeness. Mill'cent 'lowed ez fust she thunk it war the moon. An'

lookin' up, she seen the cloud; it held the moon close kivered. An'

lookin' down, she seen the light war movin'--movin' from the furder eend

o' the bredge, straight acrost it. Sometimes a hand war held afore it,

ez ef ter shield it from the draught, an' then Mill'cent 'seen twar a

candle, an' the white in the mistiness war a 'oman wearin' white an'

carryin' it. Lookin' ter right an' then ter lef' the 'oman kem, with now

her right hand shieldin' the candle she held, an' now layin' it on the

hand-rail. The candle shone on the water, fur it didn't flare, an' when

the 'oman held her hand before it the light made a bright spot on the

foot-bredge an' in the dark air about her, an' on the fir branches over

her head. An' a thin mist seemed to hang about her white frock, but not

over her face, fur when she reached the middle o' the foot-bredge she

laid her hand agin on the rail, an' in the clear light o' the candle

Mill'cent seen the harnt's face. An' thar she beheld her own face; _her

own face_ she looked upon ez she waited thar under the tree watchin' the

foot-bredge; _her own face_ pale an' troubled; her own self dressed in

white, crossin' the foot-bredge, an' lightin' her steps with a corpse's

candle." He drew up the reins abruptly. He seemed in sudden haste to go.

[Illustration: THE PHANTOM OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE]

His companion looked with deepening interest at the bridge, although he

followed his guide's surging pathway to the opposite bank. As the two

dripping horses struggled up the steep incline he asked, "Did the man

with her see the manifestation also?"

"He _'lows_ he did," responded Roxby, equivocally. "But when Mill'cent

fust got so she could tell it, 'peared ter me ez Em'ry Keenan fund it ez

much news ez the rest o' we-uns. Mill'cent jes' drapped stone-dead,

accordin' ter all accounts, an' he an' the t'other young folks flung

water in her face till she kem out'n her faint; an' jes' then they hearn

the wagin a-rattlin' along the road, an' they stopped it an' fetched her

home in it. She never told the tale till she war home, an' it skeered me

an' my mother powerful, fur Mill'cent is all the kin we hev got.

Mill'cent is gran'daddy an' gran'mammy, sons an' daughters, uncles an'

aunts, cousins, nieces, an' nephews, all in one. The only thing I ain't

pervided with is a nephew-in-law, an' I don't need him. Leastwise I

ain't lookin' fur Em'ry Keenan jes' at present."

The pace was brisker when the two horses, bending their strength

sturdily to the task, had pressed up the massive slope from the deep

cleft of the gorge. As the road curved about the outer verge of the

mountain, the valley far beneath came into view, with intersecting

valleys and transverse ranges, dense with the growths of primeval

wildernesses, and rugged with the tilted strata of great upheavals, and

with chasms cut in the solid rock by centuries of erosion, traces of

some remote cataclysmal period, registering thus its throes and

turmoils. The blue sky, seen beyond a gaunt profile of one of the

farther summits that defined its craggy serrated edge against the

ultimate distances of the western heavens, seemed of a singularly suave

tint, incongruous with the savagery of the scene, which clouds and

portents of storm might better have befitted. The little graveyard,

which John Dundas discerned with recognizing eyes, albeit they had never

before rested upon it, was revealed suddenly, lying high on the opposite

side of the gorge. No frost glimmered now on the lowly mounds; the

flickering autumnal sunshine loitered unafraid among them, according to

its languid wont for many a year. Shadows of the gray unpainted

head-boards lay on the withered grass, brown and crisp, with never a

cicada left to break the deathlike silence. A tuft of red leaves,

vagrant in the wind, had been caught on one of the primitive monuments,

and swayed there with a decorative effect. The enclosure seemed, to

unaccustomed eyes, of small compass, and few the denizens who had found

shelter here and a resting-place, but it numbered all the dead of the

country-side for many a mile and many a year, and somehow the loneliness

was assuaged to a degree by the reflection that they had known each

other in life, unlike the great herds of cities, and that it was a

common fate which the neighbors, huddled together, encountered in

company.

It had no discordant effect in the pervasive sense of gloom, of mighty

antagonistic forces with which the scene was replete; it fostered a

realization of the pitiable minuteness and helplessness of human nature

in the midst of the vastness of inanimate nature and the evidences of

infinite lengths of forgotten time, of the long reaches of unimagined

history, eventful, fateful, which the landscape at once suggested and

revealed and concealed.

Like the sudden flippant clatter of castanets in the pause of some

solemn funeral music was the impression given by the first glimpse along

the winding woodland way of a great flimsy white building, with its many

pillars, its piazzas, its "observatory," its band-stand, its garish

intimations of the giddy, gay world of a summer hotel. But, alack! it,

too, had its surfeit of woe.

"The guerrillas an' bushwhackers tuk it out on the old hotel, sure!"

observed Sim Roxby, by way of introduction. "Thar warn't much fightin'

hyar-abouts, an' few sure-enough soldiers ever kem along. But wunst in a

while a band o' guerrillas went through like a suddint wind-storm, an' I

tell ye they made things whurl while they war about it. They made a

sorter barracks o' the old place. Looks some like lightning hed struck

it."

He had reined up his horse about one hundred yards in front of the

edifice, where the weed-grown gravelled drive--carefully tended ten

years agone--had diverged from the straight avenue of poplars, sweeping

in a circle around to the broad flight of steps.

"Though," he qualified abruptly, as if a sudden thought had struck him,

"ef ye air countin' on buyin' it, a leetle money spent ter keerful

purpose will go a long way toward makin' it ez good ez new."

His companion did not reply, and for the first time Roxby cast upon him

a covert glance charged with the curiosity which would have been earlier

and more easily aroused in another man by the manner of the stranger. A

letter--infrequent missive in his experience--had come from an ancient

companion-in-arms, his former colonel, requesting him in behalf of a

friend of the old commander to repair to the railway station, thirty

miles distant, to meet and guide this prospective purchaser of the old

hotel to the site of the property. And now as Roxby looked at him the

suspicion which his kind heart had not been quick to entertain was

seized upon by his alert brain.

"The cunnel's been fooled somehows," he said to himself.

For the look with which John Dundas contemplated the place was not the

gaze of him concerned with possible investment--with the problems of

repair, the details of the glazier and the painter and the plasterer.

The mind was evidently neither braced for resistance nor resigned to

despair, as behooves one smitten by the foreknowledge of the certainty

of the excess of the expenditures over the estimates. Only with pensive,

listless melancholy, void of any intention, his eyes traversed the long

rows of open doors, riven by rude hands from their locks, swinging

helplessly to and fro in the wind, and giving to the deserted and

desolate old place a spurious air of motion and life. Many of the

shutters had been wrenched from their hinges, and lay rotting on the

floors. The ball-room windows caught on their shattered glass the

reflection of the clouds, and it seemed as if here and there a wan face

looked through at the riders wending along the weed-grown path. Where so

many faces had been what wonder that a similitude should linger in the

loneliness! The pallid face seemed to draw back as they glanced up while

slowly pacing around the drive. A rabbit sitting motionless on the front

piazza did not draw back, although observing them with sedate eyes as he

poised himself upright on his haunches, with his listless fore-paws

suspended in the air, and it occurred to Dundas that he was probably

unfamiliar with the presence of human beings, and had never heard the

crack of a gun. A great swirl of swallows came soaring out of the big

kitchen chimneys and circled in the sky, darting down again and again

upward. Through an open passage was a glimpse of a quadrangle, with its

weed-grown spaces and litter of yellow leaves. A tawny streak, a red

fox, sped through it as Dundas looked. A half-moon, all a-tilt, hung

above it. He saw the glimmer through the bare boughs of the leafless

locust-trees here and there still standing, although outside on the lawn

many a stump bore token how ruthlessly the bushwhackers had furnished

their fires.

"That thar moon's a-hangin' fur rain," said the mountaineer, commenting

upon the aspect of the luminary, which he, too, had noticed as they

passed. "I ain't s'prised none ef we hev fallin' weather agin 'fore

day, an' the man--by name Morgan Holden--that hev charge o' the hotel

property can't git back fur a week an' better."

A vague wonder to find himself so suspicious flitted through his mind,

with the thought that perhaps the colonel might have reckoned on this

delay. "Surely the ruvers down yander at Knoxville mus' be a-boomin',

with all this wet weather," he said to himself.

Then aloud: "Morgan Holden he went ter Colbury ter 'tend ter some

business in court, an' the ruvers hev riz so that, what with the bredges

bein' washed away an' the fords so onsartain an' tricky, he'll stay till

the ruver falls. He don't know ye war kemin', ye see. The mail-rider hev

quit, 'count o' the rise in the ruver, an' thar's no way ter git word

ter him. Still, ef ye air minded ter wait, I'll be powerful obligated

fur yer comp'ny down ter my house till the ruver falls an' Holden he

gits back."

The stranger murmured his obligations, but his eyes dwelt lingeringly

upon the old hotel, with its flapping doors and its shattered windows.

Through the recurrent vistas of these, placed opposite in the rooms,

came again broken glimpses of the grassy space within the quadrangle,

with its leafless locust-trees, first of all to yield their foliage to

the autumn wind, where a tiny owl was shrilling stridulously under the

lonely red sky and the melancholy moon.

"Hed ye 'lowed ter put up at the old hotel?" asked Roxby, some inherent

quickness supplying the lack of a definite answer.

For the first time the stranger turned upon him a look more expressive

than the casual fragmentary attention with which he had half heeded,

half ignored his talk since their first encounter at the railway

station.

"A simple fellow, but good as gold," was the phrase with which Simeon

Roxby had been commended as guide and in some sort guard.

"Not so simple, perhaps," the sophisticated man thought as their eyes

met. Not so simple but that the truth must serve. "The colonel suggested

that it might be best," he replied, more alert to the present moment

than his languid preoccupation had heretofore permitted.

The answer was good as far as it went. A few days spent in the old

hostelry certainly would serve well to acquaint the prospective

purchaser with its actual condition and the measures and means needed

for its repair; but as Sim Roxby stood there, with the cry of the owl

shrilling in the desert air, the lonely red sky, the ominous tilted

moon, the doors drearily flapping to and fro as the wind stole into the

forlorn and empty place and sped back affrighted, he marvelled at the

refuge contemplated.

"I believe there is some of the furniture here yet. We could contrive to

set up a bed from what is left. The colonel could make it all right with

Holden, and I could stay a day or two, as we originally planned."

"Ye-es. I don't mind Holden: a man ain't much in charge of a place ez

ain't got a lock or a key ter bless itself with, an' takes the owel an'

the fox an' the gopher fur boarders; but, ennyhow, kem with me home ter

supper. Mill'cent will hev it ready by now ennyhows, an' ye need

suthin' hearty an' hot ter stiffen ye up ter move inter sech quarters ez

these." Dundas hesitated, but the mountaineer had already taken assent

for granted, and pushed his horse into a sharp trot. Evidently a refusal

was not in order. Dundas pressed forward, and they rode together along

the winding way past the ten-pin alley, its long low roof half hidden in

the encroaching undergrowth springing up apace beneath the great trees;

past the stables; past a line of summer cottages, strangely staring of

aspect out of the yawning doors and windows, giving, instead of an

impression of vacancy, a sense of covert watching, of secret occupancy.

If one's glances were only quick enough, were there not faces pressed to

those shattered panes--scarcely seen--swiftly withdrawn?

He was in a desert; he had hardly been so utterly alone in all his life;

yet he bore through the empty place a feeling of espionage, and ever and

anon he glanced keenly at the overgrown lawns, with their deepening

drifts of autumn leaves, at the staring windows and flaring doors, which

emitted sometimes sudden creaking wails in the silence, as if he sought

to assure himself of the vacancy of which his mind took cognizance and

yet all his senses denied.

Little of his sentiment, although sedulously cloaked, was lost on Sim

Roxby; and he was aware, too, in some subtle way, of the relief his

guest experienced when they plunged into the darkening forest and left

the forlorn place behind them. The clearing in which it was situated

seemed an oasis of light in the desert of night in which the rest of

the world lay. From the obscurity of the forest Dundas saw, through the

vistas of the giant trees, the clustering cottages, the great hotel,

gables and chimneys and tower, stark and distinct as in some weird

dream-light in the midst of the encircling gloom. The after-glow of

sunset was still aflare on the western windows; the whole empty place

was alight with a reminiscence of its old aspect--its old gay life. Who

knows what memories were a-stalk there--what semblance of former times?

What might not the darkness foster, the impunity of desertion, the

associations that inhabited the place with almost the strength of human

occupancy itself? Who knows--who knows?

He remembered the scene afterward, the impression he received. And from

this, he thought, arose his regret for his decision to take up here his

abiding-place.

The forest shut out the illumined landscape, and the night seemed indeed

at hand; the gigantic boles of the trees loomed through the encompassing

gloom, that was yet a semi-transparent medium, like some dark but clear

fluid through which objects were dimly visible, albeit tinged with its

own sombre hue. The lank, rawboned sorrel had set a sharp pace, to which

the chestnut, after momentary lagging, as if weary with the day's

travel, responded briskly. He had received in some way intimations that

his companion's corn-crib was near at hand, and if he had not deduced

from these premises the probability of sharing his fare, his mental

processes served him quite as well as reason, and brought him to the

same result. On and on they sped, neck and neck, through the darkening

woods; fire flashed now and again from their iron-shod hoofs; often a

splash and a shower of drops told of a swift dashing through the

mud-holes that recent rains had fostered in the shallows. The dank odor

of dripping boughs came on the clear air. Once the chestnut shied from a

sudden strange shining point springing up in the darkness close at hand,

which the country-bred horse discriminated as fox-fire, and kept

steadily on, unmindful of the rotting log where it glowed. Far in

advance, in the dank depths of the woods, a Will-o'-the-wisp danced and

flickered and lured the traveller's eye. The stranger was not sure of

the different quality of another light, appearing down a vista as the

road turned, until the sorrel, making a tremendous spurt, headed for it,

uttering a joyous neigh at the sight.

The deep-voiced barking of hounds rose melodiously on the silence, and

as the horses burst out of the woods into a small clearing, Dundas

beheld in the brighter light a half-dozen of the animals nimbly afoot in

the road, one springing over the fence, another in the act of climbing,

his fore-paws on the topmost rail, his long neck stretched, and his head

turning about in attitudes of observation. He evidently wished to assure

himself whether the excitement of his friends was warranted by the facts

before he troubled himself to vault over the fence. Three or four still

lingered near the door of a log-cabin, fawning about a girl who stood on

the porch. Her pose was alert, expectant; a fire in the dooryard, where

the domestic manufacture of soap had been in progress, cast a red flare

on the house, its appurtenances, the great dark forest looming all

around, and, more than the glow of the hearth within, lighted up the

central figure of the scene. She was tall, straight, and strong; a

wealth of fair hair was clustered in a knot at the back of her head, and

fleecy tendrils fell over her brow; on it was perched a soldier's cap;

and certainly more gallant and fearless eyes had never looked out from

under the straight, stiff brim. Her chin, firm, round, dimpled, was

uplifted as she raised her head, descrying the horsemen's approach. She

wore a full dark-red skirt, a dark brown waist, and around her neck was

twisted a gray cotton kerchief, faded to a pale ashen hue, the

neutrality of which somehow aided the delicate brilliancy of the blended

roseate and pearly tints of her face. Was this the seer of

ghosts--Dundas marvelled--this the Millicent whose pallid and troubled

phantom already paced the foot-bridge?

He did not realize that he had drawn up his horse suddenly at the sight

of her, nor did he notice that his host had dismounted, until Roxby was

at the chestnut's head, ready to lead the animal to supper in the barn.

His evident surprise, his preoccupation, were not lost upon Roxby,

however. His hand hesitated on the girth of the chestnut's saddle when

he stood between the two horses in the barn. He had half intended to

disregard the stranger's declination of his invitation, and stable the

creature. Then he shook his head slowly; the mystery that hung about

the new-comer was not reassuring. "A heap o' wuthless cattle 'mongst

them valley men," he said; for the war had been in some sort an

education to his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him

ter stay. I ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent,

nohow. Em'ry Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble

well acquainted with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy

an' mammy, an' both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could

tell ye exac'ly which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from,

an' them lean sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every tone o' his voice.

Em'ry never thunk afore ez I set store on bein' acquainted with him. He

'lowed I knowed him _too_ well."

He laughed as he glanced through the open door into the darkening

landscape. Horizontal gray clouds were slipping fast across the pearly

spaces of the sky. The yellow stubble gleamed among the brown earth of

the farther field, still striped with its furrows. The black forest

encircled the little cleared space, and a wind was astir among the

tree-tops. A white star gleamed through the broken clapboards of the

roof, the fire still flared under the soap-kettle in the dooryard, and

the silence was suddenly smitten by a high cracked old voice, which told

him that his mother had perceived the dismounted stranger at the gate,

and was graciously welcoming him.

She had come to the door, where the girl still stood, but half withdrawn

in the shadow. Dundas silently bowed as he passed her, following his

aged hostess into the low room, all bedight with the firelight of a

huge chimney-place, and comfortable with the realization of a journey's

end. The wilderness might stretch its weary miles around, the weird wind

wander in the solitudes, the star look coldly on unmoved by aught it

beheld, the moon show sad portents, but at the door they all failed, for

here waited rest and peace and human companionship and the sense of

home.

"Take a cheer, stranger, an' make yerself at home. Powerful glad ter see

ye--war 'feard night would overtake ye. Ye fund the water toler'ble high

in all the creeks an' sech, I reckon, an' fords shifty an' onsartain.

Yes, sir. Fall rains kem on earlier'n common, an' more'n we need. Wisht

we could divide it with that thar drought we had in the summer. Craps

war cut toler'ble short, sir--toler'ble short."

Mrs. Roxby's spectacles beamed upon him with an expression of the utmost

benignity as the firelight played on the lenses, but her eyes peering

over them seemed endowed in some sort with independence of outlook. It

was as if from behind some bland mask a critical observation was poised

for unbiased judgment. He felt in some degree under surveillance. But

when a light step heralded an approach he looked up, regardless of the

betrayal of interest, and bent a steady gaze upon Millicent as she

paused in the doorway.

And as she stood there, distinct in the firelight and outlined against

the black background of the night, she seemed some modern half-military

ideal of Diana, with her two gaunt hounds beside her, the rest of the

pack vaguely glimpsed at her heels outside, the perfect outline and

chiselling of her features, her fine, strong, supple figure, the look of

steady courage in her eyes, and the soldier's cap on her fair hair. Her

face so impressed itself upon his mind that he seemed to have seen her

often. It was some resemblance to a picture of a vivandiere, doubtless,

in a foreign gallery--he could not say when or where; a remnant of a

tourist's overcrowded impressions; a half-realized reminiscence, he

thought, with an uneasy sense of recognition.

"Hello, Mill'cent! home agin!" Roxby cried, in cheery greeting as he

entered at the back door opposite. "What sorter topknot is that ye got

on?" he demanded, looking jocosely at her head-gear.

The girl put up her hand with an expression of horror. A deep red flush

dyed her cheek as she touched the cap. "I forgot 'twar thar," she

murmured, contritely. Then, with a sudden rush of anger as she tore it

off: "'Twar granny's fault. She axed me ter put it on, so ez ter see

which one I looked most like."

"Stranger," quavered the old woman, with a painful break in her voice,

"I los' fower sons in the war, an' Mill'cent hev got the fambly favor."

"Ye _mought_ hev let me know ez I war a-perlitin' round in this hyar

men's gear yit," the girl muttered, as she hung the cap on a prong of

the deer antlers on which rested the rifle of the master of the house.

Roxby's face had clouded at the mention of the four sons who had gone

out from the mountains never to return, leaving to their mother's

aching heart only the vague comfort of an elusive resemblance in a

girl's face; but as he noted Millicent's pettish manner, and divined her

mortification because of her unseemly head-gear in the stranger's

presence, he addressed her again in that jocose tone without which he

seldom spoke to her.

"Warn't you-uns apologizin' ter me t'other day fur not bein' a nephew

'stiddier a niece? Looked sorter like a nephew ter-night."

She shook her head, covered now only with its own charming tresses

waving in thick undulations to the coil at the nape of her neck--a

trifle dishevelled from the rude haste with which the cap had been torn

off.

Roxby had seated himself, and with his elbows on his knees he looked up

at her with a teasing jocularity, such as one might assume toward a

child.

"_Ye war_," he declared, with affected solemnity--"ye war 'pologizin'

fur not bein' a nephew, an' 'lowed ef ye war a nephew we could go

a-huntin' tergether, an' ye could holp me in all my quar'ls an' fights.

I been aging some lately, an' ef I war ter go ter the settlemint an' git

inter a fight I mought not be able ter hold my own. Think what 'twould

be ter a pore old man ter hev a dutiful nephew step up an'"--he doubled

his fists and squared off--"jes' let daylight through some o' them

cusses. An' didn't _ye say_"--he dropped his belligerent attitude and

pointed an insistent finger at her, as if to fix the matter in her

recollection--"ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye could fire a gun

'thout shettin' yer eyes? An' I told ye then ez that would mend yer aim

mightily. I told ye that I'd be powerful mortified ef I hed a nephew ez

hed ter shet his eyes ter keep the noise out'n his ears whenst he fired

a rifle. The tale would go mighty hard with me at the settlemint."

The girl's eyes glowed upon him with the fixity and the lustre of those

of a child who is entertained and absorbed by an elder's jovial wiles. A

flash of laughter broke over her face, and the low, gurgling,

half-dreamy sound was pleasant to hear. She was evidently no more than a

child to these bereft old people, and by them cherished as naught else

on earth.

"An' didn't _I_ tell _you-uns_," he went on, affecting to warm to the

discussion, and in reality oblivious of the presence of the

guest--"didn't I tell ye ez how ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye

wouldn't hev sech cattle ez Em'ry Keenan a-danglin' round underfoot,

like a puppy ye can't gin away, an' that _won't_ git lost, an' ye ain't

got the heart ter kill?"

The girl's lip suddenly curled with scorn. "Yer nephew would be

obligated ter make a ch'ice fur marryin' 'mongst these hyar mounting

gals--Parmely Lepstone, or Belindy M'ria Matthews, or one o' the Windrow

gals. Waal, sir, I'd ruther be yer niece--even ef Em'ry Keenan _air_

like a puppy underfoot, that ye can't gin away, an' won't git lost, an'

ye ain't got the heart ter kill." She laughed again, showing her white

teeth. She evidently relished the description of the persistent

adherence of poor Emory Keenan. "But which one o' these hyar gals would

ye recommend ter yer nephew ter marry--ef ye hed a nephew?"

She looked at him with flashing eyes, conscious of having propounded a

poser.

He hesitated for a moment. Then--"I'm surrounded," he said, with a

laugh. "Ez I couldn't find a wife fur myself, I can't ondertake ter

recommend one ter my nephew. Mighty fine boy he'd hev been, an'

saaft-spoken an' perlite ter aged men--not sassy an' makin' game o' old

uncles like a niece. Mighty fine boy!"

"Ye air welcome ter him," she said, with a simulation of scorn, as she

turned away to the table.

Whether it were the military cap she had worn, or the fancied

resemblance to the young soldiers, never to grow old, who had gone forth

from this humble abode to return no more, there was still to the guest's

mind the suggestion of the vivandiere about her as she set the table and

spread upon it the simple fare. To and from the fireplace she was

followed by two or three of the younger dogs, their callowness expressed

in their lack of manners and perfervid interest in the approaching meal.

This induced their brief journeys back and forth, albeit embarrassed by

their physical conformation, short turns on four legs not being

apparently the easy thing it would seem from so much youthful

suppleness. The dignity of the elder hounds did not suffer them to move,

but they looked on from erect postures about the hearth with glistening

eyes and slobbering jaws.

Ever and anon the deep blue eyes of Millicent were lifted to the outer

gloom, as if she took note of its sinister aspect. She showed scant

interest in the stranger, whose gaze seldom left her as he sat beside

the fire. He was a handsome man, his face and figure illumined by the

firelight, and it might have been that he felt a certain pique, an

unaccustomed slight, in that his presence was so indifferent an element

in the estimation of any young and comely specimen of the feminine sex.

Certainly he had rarely encountered such absolute preoccupation as her

smiling far-away look betokened as she went back and forth with her

young canine friends at her heels, or stood at the table deftly slicing

the salt-rising bread, the dogs poised skilfully upon their hind-legs to

better view the appetizing performance; whenever she turned her face

toward them they laid their heads languishingly askew, as if to remind

her that supper could not be more fitly bestowed than on them. One, to

steady himself, placed unobserved his fore-paw on the edge of the table,

his well-padded toes leaving a vague imprint as of fingers upon the

coarse white cloth; but John Dundas was a sportsman, and could the

better relax an exacting nicety where so pleasant-featured and affable a

beggar was concerned. He forgot the turmoils of his own troubles as he

gazed at Millicent, the dreary aspect of the solitudes without, the

exile from his accustomed sphere of culture and comfort, the poverty and

coarseness of her surroundings. He was sorry that he had declined a

longer lease of Roxby's hospitality, and it was in his mind to

reconsider when it should be again proffered. Her attitude, her gesture,

her face, her environment, all appealed to his sense of beauty, his

interest, his curiosity, as little ever had done heretofore. Slice after

slice of the firm fragrant bread was deftly cut and laid on the plate,

as again and again she lifted her eyes with a look that might seem to

expect to rest on summer in the full flush of a June noontide without,

rather than on the wan, wintry night sky and the plundered, quaking

woods, while the robber wind sped on his raids hither and thither so

swiftly that none might follow, so stealthily that none might hinder. A

sudden radiance broke upon her face, a sudden shadow fell on the firelit

floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young

mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness,

was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was addressed to the

old woman.

"Howdy, Mis' Roxby--howdy? Air yer rheumatics mendin' enny?" he

demanded, with the condolent suavity of the would-be son-in-law, or

grandson-in-law, as the case may be. And he hung with a transfixed

interest upon her reply, prolix and discursive according to the wont of

those who cultivate "rheumatics," as if each separate twinge racked his

own sympathetic and filial sensibilities. Not until the tale was ended

did he set his gun against the wall and advance to the seat which Roxby

had indicated with the end of the stick he was whittling. He observed

the stranger with only slight interest, till Dundas drew up his chair

opposite at the table. There the light from the tallow dip, guttering in

the centre, fell upon his handsome face and eyes, his carefully tended

beard and hair, his immaculate cuffs and delicate hand, the seal-ring

on his taper finger.

"Like a gal, by gum!" thought Emory Keenan. "Rings on his fingers--yit

six feet high!"