light she set ter lead him on!"
[Illustration: "OLD JOEL QUIMBEY"]
He was tall and lank, with a delicately hooked nose, high cheek-bones,
fierce dark eyes, and dark eyebrows, which were continually elevated,
corrugating his forehead. His hair was black, short and straight, and he
was clad in brown jeans, as were the others, with great cowhide boots
reaching to the knee. He fixed his fiery intent gaze on his brother as
the slower Stephen continued, "An' so we blaze away--"
"An' one durned fool's so onlucky ez ter hit him an' not kill him,"
growled Timothy, again interrupting. "An' so whilst Eveliny runs out
a-screamin', 'He's dead! he's dead!--ye hev shot him dead!' we-uns make
no doubt but he _is_ dead, an' load up agin, lest his frien's mought
rush in on we-uns whilst we hedn't no use o' our shootin'-irons. An'
suddint--ye can't hear nuthin' but jes' a owel hootin' in the woods, or
old Pa'son Bates's dogs a-howlin' acrost the Cove. An' we go out with a
lantern, an' thar's jes' a pool o' blood in the dooryard, an' bloody
tracks down ter the laurel."
"Eveliny gone!" cried the old man, smiting his hands together; "my
leetle darter! The only one ez never gin me enny trouble. I couldn't hev
made out ter put up with this hyar worl' no longer when my wife died ef
it hedn't been fur Eveliny. Boys war wild an' mischeevious, an' folks
outside don't keer nuthin' 'bout ye--ef they _war_ ter 'lect ye ter
office 'twould be ter keep some other feller from hevin' it, 'kase they
'spise him more'n ye. An' hyar she's runned off an' married old Tom
Kittredge's gran'son, Josiah Kittredge's son--when our folks 'ain't
spoke ter none o' 'em fur fifty year--Josiah Kittredge's son--ha! ha!
ha!" He laughed aloud in tuneless scorn of himself and of this freak of
froward destiny and then fell to wringing his hands and calling upon
Evelina.
The flare from the great chimney place genially played over the huddled
confusion of the room and the brown logs of the wall, where the gigantic
shadows of the three men mimicked their every gesture with grotesque
exaggeration. The rainbow yarn on the warping bars, the strings of
red-pepper hanging from the ceiling, the burnished metallic flash from
the guns on their racks of deer antlers, served as incidents in the
monotony of the alternate yellow flicker and brown shadow. Deep under
the blaze the red coals pulsated, and in the farthest vistas of the fire
quivered a white heat.
"Old Tom Kittredge," the father resumed, after a time, "he jes' branded
yer gran'dad's cattle with his mark; he jes' cheated yer gran'dad, my
dad, out'n six head o' cattle."
"But then," said the warlike Timothy, not willing to lose sight of
reprisal even in vague reminiscence, "he hed only one hand ter rob with
arter that, fur I hev hearn ez how when gran'dad got through with him
the doctor hed ter take his arm off."
"Sartainly, sartainly," admitted the old man, in quiet assent "An'
Josiah Kittredge he put out the eyes of a horse critter o' mine right
thar at the court-house door--"
"Waal, arterward, we-uns fired his house over his head," put in Tim.
"An' Josiah Kittredge an' me," the old man went on, "we-uns clinched
every time we met in this mortal life. Every time I go past the
graveyard whar he be buried I kin feel his fingers on my throat. He had
a nervy grip, but no variation; he always tuk holt the same way."
"'Pears like ter me ez 'twar a fust-rate time ter fetch out the rifles
again," remarked Tim, "this mornin', when old Pa'son Bates kem up hyar
an' 'lowed ez he hed married Eveliny ter Abs'lom Kittredge on his
death-bed; 'So be, pa'son,' I say. An' he tuk off his hat an' say,
'Thank the Lord, this will heal the breach an' make ye frien's!' An' I
say, 'Edzacly, pa'son, ef it _air_ Abs'lom's death-bed; but them
Kittredges air so smilin' an' deceivin' I be powerful feared he'll cheat
the King o' Terrors himself. I'll forgive 'em ennything--_over his
grave_.'"
"Pa'son war tuk toler'ble suddint in his temper," said the literal
Steve. "I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he
put out."
"Ye mus' keep up a Christian sperit, boys; that's the main thing," said
the old man, who was esteemed very religious, and a pious Mentor in his
own family. He gazed meditatively into the fire. "What ailed Eveliny ter
git so tuk up with this hyar Abs'lom? What made her like him?" he
propounded.
"His big eyes, edzacly like a buck's, an' his long yaller hair," sneered
the discerning Timothy, with the valid scorn of a big ugly man for a
slim pretty one. "'Twar jes 'count o' his long yaller hair his mother
called him Abs'lom. He war named Pete or Bob, I disremember
what--suthin' common--till his hair got so long an' curly, an' he sot
out ter be so plumb all-fired beautiful, an' his mother named him agin;
this time Abs'lom, arter the king's son, 'count o' his yaller hair."
"Git hung by his hair some o' these days in the woods, like him the
Bible tells about; that happened ter the sure-enough Abs'lom," suggested
Stephen, hopefully.
"Naw, sir," said Tim; "when Abs'lom Kittredge gits hung it'll be with
suthin' stronger'n hair; he'll stretch hemp." He exchanged a glance of
triumphant prediction with his brother, and anon gazed ruefully into the
fire.
"Ye talk like ez ef he war goin' ter live, boys," said old Joel Quimbey,
irritably. "Pa'son 'lowed he war powerful low."
"Pa'son said he'd never hev got home alive 'thout she'd holped him,"
said Stephen. "She jes' tuk him an' drug him plumb ter the bars, though
I don't see how she done it, slim leetle critter ez she be; an' thar she
holped him git on his beastis; an' then--I declar' I feel ez ef I could
kill her fur a-demeanin' of herself so--she led that thar horse, him
a-ridin' an' a-leanin' on the neck o' the beastis, two mile up the
mountain, through the night."
"Waal, let her bide thar. I'll look on her face no mo'," declared the
old man, his toothless jaw shaking. "Kittredge she be now, an' none o'
the name kin come a-nigh me. How be I ever a-goin' 'bout 'mongst the
folks at the settlement agin with my darter married ter a Kittredge? How
Josiah an' his dad mus' be a-grinnin' in thar graves at me this night!
An' I 'low they hev got suthin' ter grin about."
And suddenly his grim face relaxed, and once more he began to smite his
hands together and to call aloud for Evelina.
Timothy could offer no consolation, but stared dismally into the fire,
and Stephen rose with a sigh and addressed himself to pushing the
spinning-wheels and tubs and tables into the opposite corner of the
room, in the hope of solving the enigma of its wonted order.
* * * * *
It seemed to Evelina afterward that when she climbed the rugged ways of
the mountain slope in that momentous night she left forever in the
depths of the Cove that free and careless young identity which she had
been. She did not accurately discriminate the moment in which she began
to realize that she was among her hereditary enemies, encompassed by a
hatred nourished to full proportions and to a savage strength long
before she drew her first breath. The fact only gradually claimed its
share in her consciousness as the tension of anxiety for Absalom's sake
relaxed, for the young mountaineer's strength and vitality were promptly
reasserted, and he rallied from the wound and his pallid and forlorn
estate with the recuperative power of the primitive man. By degrees she
came to expect the covert unfriendly glances his brother cast upon her,
the lowering averted mien of her sister-in-law, and now and again she
surprised a long, lingering, curious gaze in his mother's eyes. They
were all Kittredges! And she wondered how she could ever have dreamed
that she might live happily among them--one of them, for her name was
theirs. And then perhaps the young husband would stroll languidly in,
with his long hair curling on his blue jeans coat-collar, and an assured
smile in his dark brown eyes, and some lazy jest on his lips, certain of
a welcoming laugh, for he had been so near to death that they all had a
sense of acquisition in that he had been led back. For his sake they had
said little; his mother would busy herself in brewing his "yerb" tea,
and his brother would offer to saddle the mare if he felt that he could
ride, and they would all be very friendly together; and his alien wife
would presently slip out unnoticed into the "gyarden spot," where the
rows of vegetables grew as they did in the Cove, turning upon her the
same neighborly looks they wore of yore, and showing not a strange leaf
among them. The sunshine wrapped itself in its old fine gilded gossamer
haze and drowsed upon the verdant slopes; the green jewelled "Juny-bugs"
whirred in the soft air; the mould was as richly brown as in Joel
Quimbey's own enclosure; the flag-lilies bloomed beside the onion bed;
and the woolly green leaves of the sage wore their old delicate tint and
gave out a familiar odor.
Among this quaint company of the garden borders she spent much of her
time, now hoeing in a desultory fashion, now leaning on the long handle
of the implement and looking away upon the far reaches of the purple
mountains. As they stretched to vague distances they became blue, and
farther on the great azure domes merged into a still more tender hue,
and this in turn melted into a soft indeterminate tint that embellished
the faint horizon. Her dreaming eyes would grow bright and wistful; her
rich brown curling hair, set free by the yellow sun-bonnet that slipped
off her head and upon her shoulders, would airily float backward in the
wind; there was a lithe grace in the slender figure, albeit clad in a
yellow homespun of a deep dye, and the faded purplish neckerchief was
caught about a throat fairer even than the fair face, which was
delicately flushed. Absalom's mother, standing beside Peter, the eldest
son, in the doorway, watched her long one day.
"It all kem about from that thar bran dance," said Peter, a homely man,
with a sterling, narrow-minded wife and an ascetic sense of religion.
"Thar Satan waits, an' he gits nimbler every time ye shake yer foot. The
fiddler gin out the figger ter change partners, an' this hyar gal war
dancin' opposite Abs'lom, ez hed never looked nigh her till that day.
The gal didn't know _what_ ter do; she jes' stood still; but Abs'lom he
jes' danced up ter her ez keerless an' gay ez he always war, jes' like
she war ennybody else, an' when he held out his han' she gin him hern,
all a-trembly, an' lookin' up at him, plumb skeered ter death, her eyes
all wide an' sorter wishful, like some wild thing trapped in the woods.
An' then the durned fiddler, moved by the devil, I'll be bound, plumb
furgot ter change 'em back. So they danced haff'n the day tergether. An'
arter that they war forever a-stealin' off an' accidentally meetin' at
the spring, an' whenst he war a-huntin' or she drivin' up the cow, an'
a-courtin' ginerally, till they war promised ter marry."
"'Twarn't the bran dance; 'twar suthin' ez fleetin' an' ez useless,"
said his mother, standing in the door and gazing at the unconscious
girl, who was leaning upon the hoe, half in the shadow of the blooming
laurel that crowded about the enclosure and bent over the rail fence,
and half in the burnished sunshine; "she's plumb beautiful--thar's the
snare ez tangled Abs'lom's steps. I never 'lowed ter see the day ez
could show enny comfort fur his dad bein' dead, but we hev been spared
some o' the tallest cavortin' that ever war seen sence the Big Smoky war
built. Sometimes it plumb skeers me ter think ez we-uns hev got a
Quimbey abidin' up hyar along o' we-uns in _his_ house an' a-callin' o'
herse'f Kittredge. I looks ter see him a-stalkin' roun' hyar some night,
too outdone an' aggervated ter rest in his grave."
But the nights continued spectreless and peaceful on the Great Smoky,
and the same serene stars shone above the mountain as over the Cove.
Evelina could watch here, as often before, the rising moon ascending
through a rugged gap in the range, suffusing the dusky purple slopes and
the black crags on either hand with a pensive glamour, and revealing the
river below by the amber reflection its light evoked. She often sat on
the step of the porch, her elbow on her knees, her chin in her hand,
following with her shining eyes the pearly white mists loitering among
the ranges. Hear! a dog barks in the Cove, a cock crows, a horn is
wound, far, far away; it echoes faintly. And once more only the sounds
of the night--that vague stir in the windless woods, as if the forest
breathes, the far-away tinkle of water hidden in the darkness--and the
moon is among the summits.
The men remained within, for Absalom avoided the chill night air, and
crouched over the smouldering fire. Peter's wife sedulously held aloof
from the ostracized Quimbey woman. But her mother-in-law had fallen into
the habit of sitting upon the porch these moonlit nights. The sparse,
newly-leafed hop and gourd vines clambering to its roof were all
delicately imaged on the floor, and the old woman's clumsy figure, her
grotesque sun-bonnet, her awkward arm-chair, were faithfully reproduced
in her shadow on the log wall of the cabin--even to the up-curling smoke
from her pipe. Once she suddenly took the stem from her mouth.
"Eveliny," she said, "'pears like ter me ye talk mighty little. Thar
ain't no use in gittin' tongue-tied up hyar on the mounting."
Evelina started and raised her eyes, dilated with a stare of amazement
at this unexpected overture.
"I ain't keerin'," said the old woman, recklessly, to herself, although
consciously recreant to the traditions of the family, and sacrificing
with a pang her distorted sense of loyalty and duty to her kindlier
impulse. "I warn't born a Kittredge nohow."
"Yes,'m," said Evelina, meekly; "but I don't feel much like talkin'
noways; I never talked much, bein' nobody but men-folks ter our house.
I'd ruther hear ye talk 'n talk myself."
"Listen at ye now! The headin' young folks o' this kentry 'll never rest
till they make thar elders shoulder _all_ the burdens. An' what air ye
wantin' a pore ole 'oman like me ter talk about?"
Evelina hesitated a moment, then looked up, with a face radiant in the
moonbeams. "Tell all 'bout Abs'lom--afore I ever seen him."
His mother laughed. "Ye air a powerful fool, Eveliny."
The girl laughed a little, too. "I dunno ez I want ter be no wiser," she
said.
But one was his wife, and the other was his mother, and as they talked
of him daily and long, the bond between them was complete.
* * * * *
"I hev got 'em both plumb fooled," the handsome Absalom boasted at the
settlement, when the gossips wondered once more, as they had often done,
that there should be such unity of interest between old Joel Quimbey's
daughter and old Josiah Kittredge's widow. As time went on many rumors
of great peace on the mountain-side came to the father's ears, and he
grew more testy daily as he grew visibly older. These rumors multiplied
with the discovery that they were as wormwood and gall to him. Not that
he wished his daughter to be unhappy, but the joy which was his grief
and humiliation was needlessly flaunted into his face; the idlers about
the county town had invariably a new budget of details, being supplied,
somewhat maliciously, it must be confessed, by the Kittredges
themselves. The ceremony of planting one foot on the neck of the
vanquished was in their minds one of the essential concomitants of
victory. The bold Absalom, not thoroughly known to either of the women
who adored him, was ingenious in expedients, and had applied the
knowledge gleaned from his wife's reminiscences of her home, her
father, and her brothers to more accurately aim his darts. Sometimes
old Quimbey would fairly flee the town, and betake himself in a towering
rage to his deserted hearth, to brood futilely over the ashes, and
devise impotent schemes of vengeance.
He often wondered afterward in dreary retrospection how he had survived
that first troublous year after his daughter's elopement, when he was so
lonely, so heavy-hearted at home, so harried and angered abroad. His
comforts, it is true, were amply insured: a widowed sister had come to
preside over his household--a deaf old woman, who had much to be
thankful for in her infirmity, for Joel Quimbey in his youth, before he
acquired religion, had been known as a singularly profane man--"a mos'
survigrus cusser"--and something of his old proficiency had returned to
him. Perhaps public sympathy for his troubles strengthened his hold upon
the regard of the community. For it was in the second year of Evelina's
marriage, in the splendid midsummer, when all the gifts of nature climax
to a gorgeous perfection, and candidates become incumbents, that he
unexpectedly attained the great ambition of his life. He was said to
have made the race for justice of the peace from sheer force of habit,
but by some unexplained freak of popularity the oft-defeated candidate
was successful by a large majority at the August election.
"Laws-a-massy, boys," he said, tremulously, to his triumphant sons, when
the result was announced, the excited flush on his thin old face
suffusing his hollow veinous temples, and rising into his fine white
hair, "how glad Eveliny would hev been ef--ef--" He was about to say if
she had lived, for he often spoke of her as if she were dead. He turned
suddenly back, and began to eagerly absorb the details of the race, as
if he had often before been elected, with calm superiority canvassing
the relative strength, or rather the relative weakness, of the defeated
aspirants.
He could scarcely have measured the joy which the news gave to Evelina.
She was eminently susceptible of the elation of pride, the fervid glow
of success, but her tender heart melted in sympathetic divination of all
that this was to him who had sought it so long, and so unabashed by
defeat. She pined to see his triumph in his eyes, to hear it in his
voice. She wondered--nay, she knew that he longed to tell it to her. As
the year rolled around again to summer, and she heard from time to time
of his quarterly visits to the town as a member of the worshipful
Quarterly County Court, she began to hope that, softened by his
prosperity, lifted so high by his honors above all the cavillings of the
Kittredges, he might be more leniently disposed toward her, might pity
her, might even go so far as to forgive.
But none of her filial messages reached her father's fiery old heart.
"Ye'll be sure, Abs'lom, ef ye see Joe Boyd in town, ye'll tell him ter
gin dad my respec's, an' the word ez how the baby air a-thrivin', an' I
wants ter fotch him ter see the fambly at home, ef they'll lemme."
Then she would watch Absalom with all the confidence of happy
anticipation, as he rode off down the mountain with his hair flaunting,
and his spurs jingling, and his shy young horse curveting.
But no word ever came in response; and sometimes she would take the
child in her arms and carry him down a path, worn smooth by her own
feet, to a jagged shoulder thrust out by the mountain where all the
slopes fell away, and a crag beetled over the depths of the Cove. Thence
she could discern certain vague lines marking the enclosure, and a tiny
cluster of foliage hardly recognizable as the orchard, in the midst of
which the cabin nestled. She could not distinguish them, but she knew
that the cows were coming to be milked, lowing and clanking their bells
tunefully, fording the river that had the sunset emblazoned upon it, or
standing flank deep amidst its ripples, the chickens might be going to
roost among the althea bushes; the lazy old dogs were astir on the
porch. She could picture her brothers at work about the barn; most often
a white-haired man who walked with a stick--alack! she did not fancy how
feebly, nor that his white hair had grown long and venerable, and tossed
in the breeze. "Ef he would jes lemme kem fur one haff'n hour!" she
would cry.
But all her griefs were bewept on the crag, that there might be no tears
to distress the tenderhearted Absalom when she should return to the
house.
The election of Squire Quimbey was a sad blow to the arrogant spirit of
the Kittredges. They had easily accustomed themselves to ascendency, and
they hotly resented the fact that fate had forborne the opportunity to
hit Joel Quimbey when he was down. They had used their utmost influence
to defeat him in the race, and had openly avowed their desire to see him
bite the dust. The inimical feeling between the families culminated one
rainy autumnal day in the town where the quarterly county court was in
session.
A fire had been kindled in the great rusty stove, and crackled away with
grudging merriment inside, imparting no sentiment of cheer to the gaunt
bare room, with its dusty window-panes streaked with rain, its shutters
drearily flapping in the wind, and the floor bearing the imprint of many
boots burdened with the red clay of the region. The sound of slow
strolling feet in the brick-paved hall was monotonous and somnolent.
Squire Quimbey sat in his place among the justices. Despite his pride of
office, he had not the heart for business that might formerly have been
his. More than once his attention wandered. He looked absently out of
the nearest window at the neighboring dwelling--a little frame-house
with a green yard; a well-sweep was defined against the gray sky, and
about the curb a file of geese followed with swaying gait the wise old
gander. "What a hand for fow-_els_ Eveliny war!" he muttered to himself;
"an' she hed luck with sech critters." He used the obituary tense, for
Evelina had in some sort passed away.
He rubbed his hand across his corrugated brow, and suddenly he became
aware that her husband was in the room, speaking to the chairman of the
county court, and claiming a certificate in the sum of two dollars each
for the scalps of one wolf, "an' one painter," he continued, laying the
small furry repulsive objects upon the desk, "an' one dollar fur the
skelp of one wild-cat." He was ready to take his oath that these animals
were killed by him running at large in this county.
He had stooped a little in making the transfer. He came suddenly to his
full height, and stood with one hand in his leather belt, the other
shouldering his rifle. The old man scanned him curiously. The crude
light from the long windows was full upon his tall slim figure; his
yellow hair curled down upon the collar of his blue jeans coat; his
great miry boots were drawn high over the trousers to the knee; his
pensive deer-like eyes brightened with a touch of arrogance and enmity
as, turning slowly to see who was present, his glance encountered his
father-in-law's fiery gaze.
"Mr. Cheerman! Mr. Cheerman!" exclaimed the old man, tremulously, "lemme
examinate that thar wild-cat skelp. Thanky, sir; thanky, sir; I wanter
see ef 'tain't off'n the head o' some old tame tomcat. An' this air a
painter's"--affecting to scan it by the window--"two ears 'cordin' to
law; yes, sir, two; and this"--his keen old face had all the white light
of the sad gray day on its bleaching hair and its many lines, and his
eager old hands trembled with the excitement of the significant satire
he enacted--"an' this air a wolf's, ye say? Yes; it's a Kittredge's;
same thing, Mr. Cheerman, by a diff'ent name; nuthin' in the code
'bout'n a premium fur a Kittredge's skelp; but same natur'; coward,
bully, thief--_thief_!"
The words in the high cracked voice rang from the bare walls and bare
floors as he tossed the scalps from him, and sat down, laughing silently
in painful, mirthless fashion, his toothless jaw quivering, and his
shaking hands groping for the arms of his chair.
"Who says a Kittredge air a thief says a lie!" cried out the young man,
recovering from his tense surprise. "I don't keer how old he be," he
stipulated--for he had not thought to see her father so aged--"he lies."
The old man fixed him with a steady gaze and a sudden alternation of
calmness. "Ye air a Kittredge; ye stole my daughter from me."
"I never. She kem of her own accord."
"Damn ye!" the old man retorted to the unwelcome truth. There was
nothing else for him to say. "Damn the whole tribe of ye; everything
that goes by the accursed name of Kittredge, that's got a drop o' yer
blood, or a bone o' yer bones, or a puff o' yer breath--"