situation instantly, and the features that sleep had relaxed into
inexpressiveness took on a weary apprehension, which they wore like a
habit. The man barely raised his surly black eyes, but his wife drew
back humbly with a mutter of apology.
The next moment the shovel was almost thrust out of his grasp. A tiny
barefooted girl, in a straight unbleached cotton night-gown and a quaint
little cotton night-cap, cavalierly pushed him aside, that she might
cover in the hot ashes a burly sweet-potato, destined to slowly roast by
morning. A long and careful job she made of it, and unconcernedly kept
him waiting while she pottered back and forth about the hearth. She
looked up once with an authoritative eye, and he hastily helped to
adjust the potato with the end of the shovel. And then he glanced at
her, incongruously enough, as if waiting for her autocratic nod of
approval. She gravely accorded it, and pattered nimbly across the
puncheon floor to the bed.
"Now," he drawled, in gruff accents, "ef you-uns hev all had yer fill o'
foolin' with this hyar fire, I'll kiver it, like I hev started out ter
do."
At this moment there was a loud trampling upon the porch without. The
batten door shook violently. The ranger sprang up. As he frowned the
hair on his scalp, drawn forward, seemed to rise like bristles.
"Dad-burn that thar fresky filly!" he cried, angrily. "Jes' brung her
noisy bones up on that thar porch agin, an' her huffs will bust spang
through the planks o' the floor the fust thing ye know."
The narrow aperture, as he held the door ajar, showed outlined against
the darkness the graceful head of a young mare, and once more hoof-beats
resounded on the rotten planks of the porch.
Clouds were adrift in the sky. No star gleamed in the wide space high
above the sombre mountains. On every side they encompassed Lonesome
Cove, which seemed to have importunately thrust itself into the darkling
solemnities of their intimacy.
All at once the ranger let the door fly from his hand, and stood gazing
in blank amazement. For there was a strange motion in the void
vastnesses of the wilderness. They were creeping into view. How, he
could not say, but the summit of the great mountain opposite was
marvellously distinct against the sky. He saw the naked, gaunt, December
woods. He saw the grim, gray crags. And yet Lonesome Cove below and the
spurs on the other side were all benighted. A pale, flickering light was
dawning in the clouds; it brightened, faded, glowed again, and their
sad, gray folds assumed a vivid vermilion reflection, for there was a
fire in the forest below. Only these reactions of color on the clouds
betokened its presence and its progress. Sometimes a fluctuation of
orange crossed them, then a glancing line of blue, and once more that
living red hue which only a pulsating flame can bestow.
"Air it the comin' o' the Jedgmint Day, Tobe?" asked his wife, in a meek
whisper.
"I'd be afraid so if I war ez big a sinner ez you-uns," he returned.
"The woods air afire," the old woman declared, in a shrill voice.
"They be a-soakin' with las' night's rain," he retorted, gruffly.
The mare was standing near the porch. Suddenly he mounted her and rode
hastily off, without a word of his intention to the staring women in the
doorway.
He left freedom of speech behind him. "Take yer bones along, then, ye
tongue-tied catamount!" his wife's mother apostrophized him, with all
the acrimony of long repression. "Got no mo' politeness 'n a settin'
hen," she muttered, as she turned back into the room.
The young woman lingered wistfully. "I wisht he wouldn't go a-ridin' off
that thar way 'thout lettin' we-uns know whar he air bound fur, an' when
he'll kem back. He mought git hurt some ways roun' that thar fire--git
overtook by it, mebbe."
"Ef he war roasted 'twould be mighty peaceful round in Lonesome," the
old crone exclaimed, rancorously.
Her daughter stood for a moment with the bar of the door in her hand,
still gazing out at the flare in the sky. The unwonted emotion had
conjured a change in the stereotyped patience in her face--even anxiety,
even the acuteness of fear, seemed a less pathetic expression than that
meek monotony bespeaking a broken spirit. As she lifted her eyes to the
mountain one might wonder to see that they were so blue. In the many
haggard lines drawn upon her face the effect of the straight lineaments
was lost; but just now, embellished with a flush, she looked young--as
young as her years.
As she buttoned the door and put up the bar her mother's attention was
caught by the change. Peering at her critically, and shading her eyes
with her hand from the uncertain flicker of the tallow dip, she broke
out, passionately: "Wa'al, 'Genie, who would ever hev thought ez yer
cake would be _all_ dough? Sech a laffin', plump, spry gal ez ye useter
be--fur all the worl' like a fresky young deer! An' sech a pack o' men
ez ye hed the choice amongst! An' ter pick out Tobe Gryce an' marry him,
an' kem 'way down hyar ter live along o' him in Lonesome Cove!"
She chuckled aloud, not that she relished her mirth, but the
harlequinade of fate constrained a laugh for its antics. The words
recalled the past to Eugenia; it rose visibly before her. She had had
scant leisure to reflect that her life might have been ordered
differently. In her widening eyes were new depths, a vague terror, a
wild speculation, all struck aghast by its own temerity.
"Ye never said nuthin ter hender," she faltered.
"I never knowed Tobe, sca'cely. How's ennybody goin' ter know a man ez
lived 'way off down hyar in Lonesome Cove?" her mother retorted,
acridly, on the defensive. "He never courted _me_, nohows. All the word
he gin me war, 'Howdy,' an' I gin him no less."
There was a pause.
Eugenia knelt on the hearth. She placed together the broken chunks, and
fanned the flames with a turkey wing. "I won't kiver the fire yit," she
said, thoughtfully. "He mought be chilled when he gits home."
The feathery flakes of the ashes flew; they caught here and there in her
brown hair. The blaze flared up, and flickered over her flushed, pensive
face, and glowed in her large and brilliant eyes.
"Tobe said 'Howdy,'" her mother bickered on. "I knowed by that ez he hed
the gift o' speech, but he spent no mo' words on me." Then, suddenly,
with a change of tone: "I war a fool, though, ter gin my cornsent ter
yer marryin' him, bein' ez ye war the only child I hed, an' I knowed I'd
hev ter live with ye 'way down hyar in Lonesome Cove. I wish now ez ye
bed abided by yer fust choice, an' married Luke Todd."
Eugenia looked up with a gathering frown. "I hev no call ter spen' words
'bout Luke Todd," she said, with dignity, "ez me an' him are both
married ter other folks."
"I never said ye hed," hastily replied the old woman, rebuked and
embarrassed. Presently, however, her vagrant speculation went recklessly
on. "Though ez ter Luke's marryin', 'tain't wuth while ter set store on
sech. The gal he found over thar in Big Fox Valley favors ye ez close ez
two black-eyed peas. That's why he married her. She looks precisely like
ye useter look. An' she laffs the same. An' I reckon _she_ 'ain't hed no
call ter quit laffin', 'kase he air a powerful easy-goin' man.
Leastways, he useter be when we-uns knowed him."
"That ain't no sign," said Eugenia. "A saafter-spoken body I never seen
than Tobe war when he fust kem a-courtin' round the settlemint."
"Sech ez that ain't goin' ter las' noways," dryly remarked the
philosopher of the chimney-corner.
This might seem rather a reflection upon the courting gentry in general
than a personal observation. But Eugenia's consciousness lent it point.
"Laws-a-massy," she said, "Tobe ain't so rampagious, nohows, ez folks
make him out. He air toler'ble peaceable, cornsiderin' ez nobody hev
ever hed grit enough ter make a stand agin him, 'thout 'twar the Cunnel
thar."
She glanced around at the little girl's face framed in the frill of her
night-cap, and peaceful and infantile as it lay on the pillow.
"Whenst the Cunnel war born," Eugenia went on, languidly reminiscent,
"Tobe war powerful outed 'kase she war a gal. I reckon ye 'members ez
how he said he hed no use for sech cattle ez that. An' when she tuk sick
he 'lowed he seen no differ. 'Jes ez well die ez live,' he said. An'
bein' ailin', the Cunnel tuk it inter her head ter holler. Sech
hollerin' we-uns hed never hearn with none o' the t'other chil'ren. The
boys war nowhar. But a-fust it never 'sturbed Tobe. He jes spoke out
same ez he useter do at the t'others, 'Shet up, ye pop-eyed buzzard!'
Wa'al, sir, the Cunnel jes blinked at him, an' braced herself ez stiff,
an' _yelled_! I 'lowed 'twould take off the roof. An' Tobe said he'd
wring her neck ef she warn't so mewlin'-lookin' an' peaked. An' he tuk
her up an' walked across the floor with her, an' she shet up; an' he
walked back agin, an' she stayed shet up. Ef he sot down fur a minit,
she yelled so ez ye'd think ye'd be deef fur life, an' ye 'most hoped ye
would be. So Tobe war obleeged ter tote her agin ter git shet o' the
noise. He got started on that thar 'forced march,' ez he calls it, an'
he never could git off'n it. Trot he must when the Cunnel pleased. He
'lowed she reminded him o' that thar old Cunnel that he sarved under in
the wars. Ef it killed the regiment, he got thar on time. Sence then the
Cunnel jes gins Tobe her orders, an' he moseys ter do 'em quick, jes
like he war obleeged ter obey. I b'lieve he air, somehows."
"Wa'al, some day," said the disaffected old woman, assuming a port of
prophetic wisdom, "Tobe will find a differ. Thar ain't no man so headin'
ez don't git treated with perslimness by somebody some time. I knowed a
man wunst ez owned fower horses an' cattle-critters quarryspondin', an'
he couldn't prove ez he war too old ter be summonsed ter work on the
road, an' war fined by the overseer 'cordin' ter law. Tobe will git his
wheel scotched yit, sure ez ye air born. Somebody besides the Cunnel
will skeer up grit enough ter make a stand agin him. I dunno how other
men kin sleep o' night, knowin' how he be always darin' folks ter differ
with him, an' how brigaty he be. The Bible 'pears ter me ter hev Tobe in
special mind when it gits ter mournin' 'bout'n the stiff-necked ones."
* * * * *
The spirited young mare that the ranger rode strove to assert herself
against him now and then, as she went at a breakneck speed along the
sandy bridle-path through the woods. How was she to know that the
white-wanded young willow by the way-side was not some spiritual
manifestation as it suddenly materialized in a broken beam from a rift
in the clouds? But as she reared and plunged she felt his heavy hand and
his heavy heel, and so forward again at a steady pace. The forests
served to screen the strange light in the sky, and the lonely road was
dark, save where the moonbeam was splintered and the mists loitered.
Presently there were cinders flying in the breeze, a smell of smoke
pervaded the air, and the ranger forgot to curse the mare when she
stumbled.
"I wonder," he muttered, "what them no 'count half-livers o' town folks
hev hed the shiftlessness ter let ketch afire thar!"
As he neared the brink of the mountain he saw a dense column of smoke
against the sky, and a break in the woods showed the little town--the
few log houses, the "gyarden spots" about them, and in the centre of the
Square a great mass of coals, a flame flickering here and there, and two
gaunt and tottering chimneys where once the court-house had stood. At
some distance--for the heat was still intense--were grouped the
slouching, spiritless figures of the mountaineers. On the porches of the
houses, plainly visible in the unwonted red glow, were knots of women
and children--ever and anon a brat in the scantiest of raiment ran
nimbly in and out. The clouds still borrowed the light from below, and
the solemn, leafless woods on one side were outlined distinctly against
the reflection in the sky. The flare showed, too, the abrupt precipice
on the other side, the abysmal gloom of the valley, the austere
summit-line of the mountain beyond, and gave the dark mysteries of the
night a sombre revelation, as in visible blackness it filled the
illimitable space.
The little mare was badly blown as the ranger sprang to the ground. He
himself was panting with amazement and eagerness.
"The stray-book!" he cried. "Whar's the stray-book?"
One by one the slow group turned, all looking at him with a peering
expression as he loomed distorted through the shimmer of the heat above
the bed of live coals and the hovering smoke.
"Whar's the stray-book?" he reiterated, imperiously.
"Whar's the court-house, I reckon ye mean to say," replied the
sheriff--a burly mountaineer in brown jeans and high boots, on which the
spurs jingled; for in his excitement he had put them on as mechanically
as his clothes, as if they were an essential part of his attire.
"Naw, I _ain't_ meanin' ter say whar's the court-house," said the
ranger, coming up close, with the red glow of the fire on his face, and
his eyes flashing under the broad brim of his wool hat. He had a
threatening aspect, and his elongated shadow, following him and
repeating the menace of his attitude, seemed to back him up. "Ye air
sech a triflin', slack-twisted tribe hyar in town, ez ennybody would
know ef a spark cotched fire ter suthin, ye'd set an' suck yer paws, an'
eye it till it bodaciously burnt up the court-house--sech a dad-burned
lazy set o' half-livers ye be! I never axed 'bout'n the court-house. I
want ter know whar's that thar stray-book," he concluded,
inconsequently.
"Tobe Gryce, ye air fairly demented," exclaimed the register--a
chin-whiskered, grizzled old fellow, sitting on a stump and hugging his
knee with a desolate, bereaved look--"talkin' 'bout the _stray-book_,
an' all the records gone! What will folks do 'bout thar deeds, an'
mortgages, an' sech? An' that thar keerful index ez I had made--ez
straight ez a string--all cinders!"
He shook his head, mourning alike for the party of the first part and
the party of the second part, and the vestiges of all that they had
agreed together.
"An' ye ter kem mopin' hyar this time o' night arter the _stray-book_,"
said the sheriff. "Shucks!" And he turned aside and spat disdainfully on
the ground.
"I want that thar stray-book!" cried Gryce, indignantly. "Ain't nobody
seen it?" Then realizing the futility of the question, he yielded to a
fresh burst of anger, and turned upon the bereaved register. "An' did ye
jes set thar an' say, 'Good Mister Fire, don't burn the records; what'll
folks do 'bout thar deeds an' sech?' an' hold them claws o' yourn, an'
see the court-house burn up, with that thar stray-book in it?"
Half a dozen men spoke up. "The fire tuk inside, an' the court-house war
haffen gone 'fore 'twar seen," said one, in sulky extenuation.
"Leave Tobe be--let him jaw!" said another, cavalierly.
"Tobe 'pears ter be sp'ilin' fur a fight," said a third, impersonally,
as if to direct the attention of any belligerent in the group to the
opportunity.
The register had an expression of slow cunning as he cast a glance up at
the overbearing ranger.
"What ailed the stray-book ter bide hyar in the court-house all night,
Tobe? Couldn't ye gin it house-room? Thar warn't no special need fur it
to be hyar."
Tobe Gryce's face showed that for once he was at a loss. He glowered
down at the register and said nothing.
"Ez ter me," resumed that worthy, "by the law o' the land my books war
obligated ter be thar." He quoted, mournfully, "'Shall at all times be
and remain in his office.'"
He gathered up his knee again and subsided into silence.
All the freakish spirits of the air were a-loose in the wind. In fitful
gusts they rushed up the gorge, then suddenly the boughs would fall
still again, and one could hear the eerie rout a-rioting far off down
the valley. Now and then the glow of the fire would deepen, the coals
tremble, and with a gleaming, fibrous swirl, like a garment of flames, a
sudden animation would sweep over it, as if an apparition had passed,
leaving a line of flying sparks to mark its trail.
"I'm goin' home," drawled Tobe Gryce, presently. "I don't keer a frog's
toe-nail ef the whole settlemint burns bodaciously up; 'tain't nuthin
ter me. I hev never hankered ter live in towns an' git tuk up with town
ways, an' set an' view the court-house like the apple o' my eye. We-uns
don't ketch fire down in the Cove, though mebbe we ain't so peart ez
folks ez herd tergether like sheep an' sech."
The footfalls of the little black mare annotated the silence of the
place as he rode away into the darkling woods. The groups gradually
disappeared from the porches. The few voices that sounded at long
intervals were low and drowsy. The red fire smouldered in the centre of
the place, and sometimes about it appeared so doubtful a shadow that it
could hardly argue substance. Far away a dog barked, and then all was
still.
Presently the great mountains loom aggressively along the horizon. The
black abysses, the valleys and coves, show duncolored verges and grow
gradually distinct, and on the slopes the ash and the pine and the oak
are all lustrous with a silver rime. The mists are rising, the wind
springs up anew, the clouds set sail, and a beam slants high.
* * * * *
"What I want ter know," said a mountaineer newly arrived on the scene,
sitting on the verge of the precipice, and dangling his long legs over
the depths beneath, "air how do folks ez live 'way down in Lonesome
Cove, an' who nobody knowed nuthin about noways, ever git 'lected ranger
o' the county, ennyhow. I ain't s'prised none ter hear 'bout Tobe
Gryce's goin's-on hyar las' night. I hev looked fur more'n that."
"Wa'al, I'll tell ye," replied the register. "Nuthin' but favoritism in
the county court. Ranger air 'lected by the jestices. Ye know," he
added, vainglorious of his own tenure of office by the acclaiming voice
of the sovereign people, "ranger ain't 'lected, like the register, by
pop'lar vote."
A slow smoke still wreathed upward from the charred ruins of the
court-house. Gossiping groups stood here and there, mostly the
jeans-clad mountaineers, but there were a few who wore "store clothes,"
being lawyers from more sophisticated regions of the circuit. Court had
been in session the previous day. The jury, serving in a criminal
case--still strictly segregated, and in charge of an officer--were
walking about wearily in double file, waiting with what patience they
might their formal discharge.
The sheriff's dog, a great yellow cur, trotted in the rear. When the
officer was first elected, this animal, observing the change in his
master's habits, deduced his own conclusions. He seemed to think the
court-house belonged to the sheriff, and thence-forward guarded the door
with snaps and growls; being a formidable brute, his idiosyncrasies
invested the getting into and getting out of law with abnormal
difficulties. Now, as he followed the disconsolate jury, he bore the
vigilant mien with which he formerly drove up the cows, and if a juror
loitered or stepped aside from the path, the dog made a slow detour as
if to round him in, and the melancholy cortege wandered on as before.
More than one looked wistfully at the group on the crag, for it was
distinguished by that sprightly interest which scandal excites so
readily.
"Ter my way of thinkin'," drawled Sam Peters, swinging his feet over the
giddy depths of the valley, "Tobe ain't sech ez oughter be set over the
county ez a ranger, noways. 'Pears not ter me, an' I hev been keepin' my
eye on him mighty sharp."
A shadow fell among the group, and a man sat down on a bowlder hard by.
He, too, had just arrived, being lured to the town by the news of the
fire. His slide had been left at the verge of the clearing, and one of
the oxen had already lain down; the other, although hampered by the yoke
thus diagonally displaced, stood meditatively gazing at the distant blue
mountains. Their master nodded a slow, grave salutation to the group,
produced a plug of tobacco, gnawed a fragment from it, and restored it
to his pocket. He had a pensive face, with an expression which in a man
of wider culture we should discriminate as denoting sensibility. He had
long yellow hair that hung down to his shoulders, and a tangled yellow
beard. There was something at once wistful and searching in his gray
eyes, dull enough, too, at times. He lifted them heavily, and they had a
drooping lid and lash. There seemed an odd incongruity between this
sensitive, weary face and his stalwart physique. He was tall and well
proportioned. A leather belt girded his brown jeans coat. His great
cowhide boots were drawn to the knee over his trousers. His pose, as he
leaned on the rock, had a muscular picturesqueness.
"Who be ye a-talkin' about?" he drawled.
Peters relished his opportunity. He laughed in a distorted fashion, his
pipe-stem held between his teeth.
"_You-uns_ ain't wantin' ter swop lies 'bout sech ez him, Luke! We war
a-talkin' 'bout Tobe Gryce."
The color flared into the new-comer's face. A sudden animation fired his
eye.
"Tobe Gryce air jes the man I'm always wantin' ter hear a word about.
Jes perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm with ye." And Luke Todd placed
his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with an air of attention.
Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending this ebullition. It was not
what he had expected to elicit. No one laughed. His fleer was wide of
the mark.
"Wa'al"--he made another effort--"Tobe, we war jes sayin', ain't fitten
fur ter be ranger o' the county. He be ez peart in gittin' ter own other
folkses' stray cattle ez he war in courtin' other folkses' sweetheart,
an', ef the truth mus' be knowed, in marryin' her." He suddenly twisted
round, in some danger of falling from his perch. "I want ter ax one o'
them thar big-headed lawyers a question on a p'int o' law," he broke
off, abruptly.
"What be Tobe Gryce a-doin' of now?" asked Luke Todd, with eager
interest in the subject.
"Wa'al," resumed Peters, nowise loath to return to the gossip, "Tobe, ye
see, air the ranger o' this hyar county, an' by law all the stray horses
ez air tuk up by folks hev ter be reported ter him, an' appraised by two
householders, an' swore to afore the magistrate an' be advertised by the
ranger, an' ef they ain't claimed 'fore twelve months, the taker-up kin
pay into the county treasury one-haffen the appraisement an' hev the
critter fur his'n. An' the owner can't prove it away arter that."
"Thanky," said Luke Todd, dryly. "S'pose ye teach yer gran'mammy ter
suck aigs. I knowed all that afore."
Peters was abashed, and with some difficulty collected himself.
"An' I knowed ye knowed it, Luke," he hastily conceded. "But hyar be
what I'm a-lookin' at--the law 'ain't got no pervision fur a stray horse
ez kem of a dark night, 'thout nobody's percuremint, ter the ranger's
own house. Now, the p'int o' law ez I wanted ter ax the lawyers 'bout
air this--kin the ranger be the ranger an' the taker-up too?"
He turned his eyes upon the great landscape lying beneath, flooded with
the chill matutinal sunshine, and flecked here and there with the
elusive shadows of the fleecy drifting clouds. Far away the long
horizontal lines of the wooded spurs, converging on either side of the
valley and rising one behind the other, wore a subdued azure, all unlike
the burning blue of summer, and lay along the calm, passionless sky,
that itself was of a dim, repressed tone. On the slopes nearer, the
leafless boughs, massed together, had purplish-garnet depths of color
wherever the sunshine struck aslant, and showed richly against the
faintly tinted horizon. Here and there among the boldly jutting gray
crags hung an evergreen-vine, and from a gorge on the opposite mountain
gleamed a continuous flash, like the waving of a silver plume, where a
cataract sprang down the rocks. In the depths of the valley, a field in
which crab-grass had grown in the place of the harvested wheat showed a
tiny square of palest yellow, and beside it a red clay road, running
over a hill, was visible. Above all a hawk was flying.