with a definite air of spurring on the visitor's account of himself, "we
'ain't been lookin' fur any spy lately, but I'm 'lowin' ez we hev fund
him."
His fear thus put into words so served to realize to Yerby his immediate
danger that it stood him in the stead of courage, of brains, of
invention; his flaccid muscles were suddenly again under control; he
wreathed his features with his smug artificial smile, that was like a
grimace in its best estate, and now hardly seemed more than a
contortion. But beauty in any sense was not what the observer was
prepared to expect in Nehemiah, and the moonshiner seemed to accept the
smile at its face value, and to respect its intention.
"Spies don't kem climbin' down that thar path o' yourn in full view
through the water"--for the landscape was as visible through the thin
falling sheet as if it had been the slightly corrugated glass of a
window--"do they?" Yerby asked, with a jocose intonation. "That thar
shootin'-iron o' yourn liked ter hev skeered me ter death whenst I fust
seen it."
His interlocutor pondered on this answer for a moment. He had an adviser
among his corps whose opinion he evidently valued; he exchanged a quick
glance with one of the men who was but dimly visible in the shadows
beyond the still, where there seemed to be a series of troughs leading a
rill of running water down from some farther spring and through the tub
in which the spiral worm was coiled. This man had a keen, white, lean
face, with an ascetic, abstemious expression, and he looked less like a
distiller than some sort of divine--some rustic pietist, with strange
theories and unhappy speculations and unsettled mind. It was a face of
subtle influences, and the very sight of it roused in Nehemiah a more
heedful fear than the "shootin'-iron" in the bluff moonshiner's hand had
induced. He was silent, while the other resumed the office of spokesman.
"Ye ain't 'quainted hyar"--he waved his hand with the pistol in it
around at the circle of uncowering men, although the mere movement made
Nehemiah cringe with the thought that an accidental discharge might as
effectually settle his case as premeditated and deliberate murder. "Ye
dun'no' none o' us. What air ye a-doin' hyar?"
"Why, that thar war the very trouble," Yerby hastily explained. "_I
didn't know none o' ye!_ I hed hearn ez thar war a still somewhars on
Hide-an'-Seek Creek"--once more there ensued a swift exchange of glances
among the party--"but nobody knew who run it nor whar 'twar. An' one
day, consider'ble time ago, I war a-passin' nigh 'bouts an' I hearn
that fiddle, an' that revealed the spot ter me. An' I kem ter-day
'lowin' ye an' me could strike a trade."
Once more the bluff man of force turned an anxious look of inquiry to
the pale, thoughtful face in the brown and dark green shadows beyond the
copper gleam of the still. If policy had required that Nehemiah should
be despatched, his was the hand to do the deed, and his the stomach to
support his conscience afterward. But his brain revolted from the
discriminating analysis of Nehemiah's discourse and a decision on its
merits.
"Trade fur what?" he demanded at last, on his own responsibility, for no
aid had radiated from the face which his looks had interrogated.
"Fur whiskey, o' course." Nehemiah made the final plunge boldly. "I be
goin' ter open a store at the cross-roads, an' I 'lowed I could git
cheaper whiskey untaxed than taxed. I 'lowed ye wouldn't make it ef ye
didn't expec' ter sell it. I didn't know none o' you-uns, an' none o'
yer customers. An' ez I expec' ter git mo' profit on sellin' whiskey 'n
ennything else in the store, I jes took foot in hand an' kem ter see
'boutn it mysef. I never 'lowed, though, ez it mought look cur'ous ter
you-uns, or like a spy, ter kem ez bold ez brass down the path in full
sight."
The logic of the seeming security of his approach, and the apparent
value of his scheme, had their full weight. He saw credulity gradually
overpowering doubt and distrust, and his heart grew light with relief.
Even their cautious demur, intimating a reserve of opinion to the effect
that they would think about it, did not daunt him now. He believed, in
the simplicity of his faith in his own craft, now once more in the
ascendant, that if they should accept his proposition he would be free
to go without further complication of his relations with wild-cat
whiskey. He could not sufficiently applaud his wits for the happy
termination of the adventure to which they had led him. He had gone no
further in the matter than he had always intended. Brush whiskey was the
commodity that addressed itself most to his sense of speculation. For
this he had always expected to ferret out some way of safely
negotiating. He had gone no further than he should have done, at all
events, a little later. He even began mentally to "figger on the price"
down to which he should be able to bring the distillers, as he accepted
a proffered seat in the circle about the still. He could neither divide
nor multiply by fractions, and it is not too much to say that he might
have been throttled on the spot if the moonshiners could have had a
mental vision of the liberties the stalwart integers were taking with
their price-current, so to speak, and the preternatural discount that
was making so free with their profits. So absorbed in this pleasing
intellectual exercise was Nehemiah that he did not observe that any one
had left the coterie; but when a stir without on the rocks intimated an
approach he was suddenly ill at ease, and this discomfort increased when
the new-comer proved to be a man who knew him.
"Waal, Nehemiah Yerby!" he exclaimed, shaking his friend's hand, "I
never knowed you-uns ter be consarned in sech ez moonshinin'. I hev
been a-neighborin' Isham hyar," he laid his heavy hand on the tall
moonshiner's shoulder, "fur ten year an' better, but I won't hev nuthin'
ter do with bresh whiskey or aidin' or abettin' in illicit 'stillin'. I
like Isham, an' Isham he likes me, an' we hev jes agreed ter disagree."
Nehemiah dared not protest nor seek to explain. He could invent no story
that would not give the lie direct to his representations to the
moonshiners. He felt that their eyes were upon him. He could only hope
that his silence did not seem to them like denial--and yet was not
tantamount to confession in the esteem of his upbraider.
"Yes, sir," his interlocutor continued, "it's a mighty bad government
ter run agin." Then he turned to the moonshiner, evidently taking up the
business that had brought him here. "Lemme see what sorter brand ye hev
registered fur yer cattle, Isham."
Yerby's heart sank when the suspicion percolated through his brain that
this man had been induced to come here for the purpose of recognizing
him. More fixed in this opinion was he when no description of the brand
of the cattle could be found, and the visitor finally went away, his
errand bootless.
From time to time during the afternoon other men went out and returned
with recruits on various pretexts, all of which Nehemiah believed masked
the marshalling of witnesses to incriminate him as one of themselves, in
order to better secure his constancy to the common interests, and in
case he was playing false to put others into possession of the facts as
to the identity of the informer. His liability to the law for aiding and
abetting in moonshining was very complete before the day darkened, and
his jeopardy as to the information he had given made him shake in his
shoes.
For at any moment, he reflected, in despair, the laggard raiders might
swoop down upon them, and the choice of roles offered to him was to seem
to them a moonshiner, or to the moonshiners an informer. The first was
far the safer, for the clutches of the law were indeed feeble as
contrasted with the popular fury that would pursue him unwearied for
years until its vengeance was accomplished. From the one, escape was to
the last degree improbable; from the other, impossible.
Any pretext to seek to quit the place before the definite arrangements
of his negotiation were consummated seemed even to him, despite his
eagerness to be off, too tenuous, too transparent, to be essayed,
although he devised several as he sat meditative and silent amongst the
group about the still. The prospect grew less and less inviting as the
lingering day waned, and the evening shadows, dank and chill,
perceptibly approached. The brown and green recesses of the grotto were
at once murkier, and yet more distinctly visible, for the glow of the
fire, flickering through the crevices of the metal door of the furnace,
had begun to assert its luminous quality, which was hardly perceptible
in the full light of day, and brought out the depth of the shadows. The
figures and faces of the moonshiners showed against the deepening gloom.
The sunset clouds were still red without; a vague roseate suffusion was
visible through the falling water. The sun itself had not yet sunk, for
an oblique and almost level ray, piercing the cataract, painted a series
of faint prismatic tints on one side of the rugged arch. But while the
outer world was still in touch with the clear-eyed day, night was
presently here, with mystery and doubt and dark presage. The voice of
Hoho-hebee Falls seemed to him louder, full of strange, uncomprehended
meanings, and insistent iteration. Vague echoes were elicited. Sometimes
in a seeming pause he could catch their lisping sibilant tones
repeating, repeating--what? As the darkness encroached yet more heavily
upon the cataract, the sense of its unseen motion so close at hand
oppressed his very soul; it gave an idea of the swift gathering of
shifting invisible multitudes, coming and going--who could say whence or
whither? So did this impression master his nerves that he was glad
indeed when the furnace door was opened for fuel, and he could see only
the inanimate, ever-descending sheet of water--the reverse interior
aspect of Hoho-hebee Falls--all suffused with the uncanny tawny light,
but showing white and green tints like its diurnal outer aspect, instead
of the colorless outlines, resembling a drawing of a cataract, which the
cave knew by day. He did not pause to wonder whether the sudden
transient illumination was visible without, or how it might mystify the
untutored denizens of the woods, bear, or deer, or wolf, perceiving it
aglow in the midst of the waters like a great topaz, and anon lost in
the gloom. He pined to see it; the momentary cessation of darkness, of
the effect of the sounds, so strange in the obscurity, and of the chill,
pervasive mystery of the invisible, was so grateful that its influence
was tonic to his nerves, and he came to watch for its occasion and to
welcome it. He did not grudge it even when it gave the opportunity for a
close, unfriendly, calculating scrutiny of his face by the latest comer
to the still. This was the neighboring miller, also liable to the
revenue laws, the distillers being valued patrons of the mill, and since
he ground the corn for the mash he thereby aided and abetted in the
illicit manufacture of the whiskey. His life was more out in the world
than that of his underground _confreres_, and perhaps, as he had a
thriving legitimate business, and did not live by brush whiskey, he had
more to lose by detection than they, and deprecated even more any
unnecessary risk. He evidently took great umbrage at the introduction of
Nehemiah amongst them.
"Oh yes," he observed, in response to the cordial greeting which he met;
"an' I'm glad ter see ye all too. I'm powerful glad ter kem ter the
still enny time. It's ekal ter goin' ter the settlemint, or plumb ter
town on a County Court day. Ye see _everybody_, an' hear _all_ the news,
an' meet up with _interestin' strangers_. I tell ye, now, the mill's
plumb lonesome compared ter the still, an' the mill's always hed the
name of a place whar a heap o' cronies gathered ter swap lies, an'
sech."
The irony of this description of the social delights and hospitable
accessibilities of a place esteemed the very stronghold of secrecy
itself--the liberty of every man in it jeopardized by the slightest
lapse of vigilance or judgment--was very readily to be appreciated by
the group, who were invited by this fair show of words to look down the
vista of the future to possible years of captivity in the jails of
far-away States as Federal prisoners. The men gazed heavily and
anxiously from one to another as the visitor sank down on the rocks in a
relaxed attitude, his elbow on a higher ledge behind him, supporting his
head on his hand; his other hand was on his hip, his arm stiffly akimbo,
while he looked with an expression of lowering exasperation at Yerby. It
was impossible to distinguish the color of his garb, so dusted with
flour was he from head to foot; but his long boots drawn over his
trousers to the knee, and his great spurs, and a brace of pistols in his
belt, seemed incongruous accessories to the habiliments of a miller. His
large, dark hat was thrust far back on his head; his hair, rising
straight in a sort of elastic wave from his brow, was powdered white;
the effect of his florid color and his dark eyes was accented by the
contrast; his pointed beard revealed its natural tints because of his
habit of frequently brushing his hand over it, and was distinctly red.
He was lithe and lean and nervous, and had the impatient temper
characteristic of mercurial natures. It mattered not to him what was the
coercion of the circumstances which had led to the reception of the
stranger here, nor what was the will of the majority; he disapproved of
the step; he feared it; he esteemed it a grievance done him in his
absence; and he could not conceal his feelings nor wait a more fitting
time to express them in private. His irritation and objection evidently
caused some solicitude amongst the others. He was important to them, and
they deprecated his displeasure. Isham Beaton listened to the
half-covert sneers of his words with perturbation plainly depicted on
his face, and the man whom Nehemiah had at first noticed as one whose
character seemed that of adviser, and whose opinion was valued, now
spoke for the first time. He handed over a broken-nosed pitcher with the
remark, "Try the flavor of this hyar whiskey, Alfred; 'pears like ter me
the bes' we-uns hev ever hed."
His voice was singularly smooth; it had all the qualities of culture;
every syllable, every lapse of his rude dialect, was as distinct as if
he had been taught to speak in this way; his tones were low and even,
and modulated to suave cadences; the ear experienced a sense of relief
after the loud, strident voice of the miller, poignantly penetrating and
pitched high.
"Naw, Hilary, I don't want nuthin' ter drink. 'Bleeged ter ye, but I
ain't wantin' nuthin' ter drink," reiterated the miller, plaintively.
Isham Beaton cast a glance of alarm at the dimly seen, monastic face of
his adviser in the gloom. It was unchanged. Its pallor and its keen
outline enabled its expression to be discerned as he himself went
through the motions of sampling the rejected liquor, shook his head
discerningly, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and deposited the
pitcher near by on a shelf of the rock.
A pause ensued. Nehemiah, with every desire to be agreeable, hardly
knew how to commend himself to the irate miller, who would have none of
his very existence. No one could more eagerly desire him to be away than
he himself. But his absence would not satisfy the miller; nothing less
than that the intruder should never have been here. Every perceptible
lapse of the moonshiners into anxiety, every recurrent intimation of
their most pertinent reason for this anxiety, set Nehemiah a-shaking in
his shoes. Should it be esteemed the greatest good to the greatest
number to make safely away with him, his fate would forever remain
unknown, so cautious had he been to leave no trace by which he might be
followed. He gazed with deprecating urbanity, and with his lips
distended into a propitiating smile, at the troubled face powdered so
white and with its lowering eyes so dark and petulant. He noted that the
small-talk amongst the others, mere unindividualized lumpish fellows
with scant voice in the government of their common enterprise, had
ceased, and that they no longer busied themselves with the necessary
work about the still, nor with the snickering interludes and horse-play
with which they were wont to beguile their labors. They had all seated
themselves, and were looking from one to the other of the more important
members of the guild with an air which betokened the momentary
expectation of a crisis. The only exception was the man who had the
violin; with the persistent, untimely industry of incapacity, he twanged
the strings, and tuned and retuned the instrument, each time producing a
result more astonishingly off the key than before. He was evidently
unaware of this till some one with senses ajar would suggest that all
was not as it should be in the drunken reeling catch he sought to play,
when he would desist in surprise, and once more diligently rub the bow
with rosin, as if that mended the matter. The miller's lowering eyes
rested on his shadowy outline as he sat thus engaged, for a moment, and
then he broke out suddenly:
"Yes, this hyar still is the place fur news, an' the place ter look out
fur what ye don't expec' ter happen. It's powerful pleasant ter be
a-meetin' of folks hyar--this hyar stranger this evenin'"--his gleaming
teeth in the semi-obscurity notified Yerby that a smile of spurious
politeness was bent upon him, and he made haste to grin very widely in
response--"an' that thar fiddle 'minds me o' how onexpected 'twar whenst
I met up with Lee-yander hyar--'pears ter me, Bob, ez ye air goin' ter
diddle the life out'n his fiddle--an' Hilary jes begged an' beseeched me
ter take the boy with me ter help 'round the mill, ez he war a-runnin'
away. Ye want me ter 'commodate this stranger too, ez mebbe air runnin'
from them ez wants him, hey Hilary?"
The grin was petrified on Nehemiah's face. He felt his blood rush
quickly to his head in the excitement of the moment. So here was the
bird very close at hand! And here was his enterprise complete and
successful. He could go away after the cowardly caution of the
moonshiners should have expended itself in dallying and delay, with his
negotiation for the "wild-cat" ended, and his accomplished young
relative in charge. He drew himself erect with a sense of power. The
moonshiners, the miller, would not dare to make an objection. He knew
too much! he knew far too much!
The door of the furnace was suddenly flung ajar, but he was too much
absorbed to perceive the change that came upon the keen face of Hilary
Tarbetts, who knelt beside it, as the guest's portentous triumphant
smile was fully revealed. Yerby did not lose, however, the glance of
reproach which the moonshiner cast upon the miller, nor the miller's air
at once triumphant, ashamed, and regretful. He had in petulant pique
disclosed the circumstance which he had pledged himself not to disclose.
"This man's name is Yerby too," Hilary said, significantly, gazing
steadily at the miller.
The miller looked dumfounded for a moment. He stared from one to the
other in silence. His conscious expression changed to obvious
discomfiture. He had expected no such result as this. He had merely
given way to a momentary spite in the disclosure, thinking it entirely
insignificant, only calculated to slightly annoy Hilary, who had made
the affair his own. He would not in any essential have thwarted his
comrade's plans intentionally, nor in his habitual adherence to the
principles of fair play would he have assisted in the boy's capture. He
drew himself up from his relaxed posture; his spurred feet shuffled
heavily on the stone floor of the grotto. A bright red spot appeared on
each cheek; his eyes had become anxious and subdued in the quick
shiftings of temper common to the red-haired gentry; his face of
helpless appeal was bent on Hilary Tarbetts, as if relying on his
resources to mend the matter; but ever and anon he turned his eyes,
animated with a suspicious dislike, on Yerby, who, however, could have
snapped his fingers in the faces of them all, so confident, so
hilariously triumphant was he.
"Yerby, I b'lieve ye said yer name war, an' so did Peter Green," said
Tarbetts, still kneeling by the open furnace door, his pale cheek
reddening in the glow of the fire.
Thus reminded of the testimony of his acquaintance, Yerby did not
venture to repudiate his cognomen.
"An' what did ye kem hyar fur?" blustered the miller. "A-sarchin' fur
the boy?"
Yerby's lips had parted to acknowledge this fact, but Tarbetts suddenly
anticipated his response, and answered for him:
"Oh no, Alfred. Nobody ain't sech a fool ez ter kem hyar ter this hyar
still, a stranger an' mebbe suspected ez a spy, ter hunt up stray
children, an' git thar heads shot off, or mebbe drownded in a mighty
handy water-fall, or sech. This hyar man air one o' we-uns. He air
a-tradin' fur our liquor, an' he'll kerry a barrel away whenst he goes."
Yerby winced at the suggestion conveyed so definitely in this crafty
speech; he was glad when the door of the furnace closed, so that his
face might not tell too much of the shifting thoughts and fears that
possessed him.
The miller's fickle mind wavered once more. If Yerby had not come for
the boy, he himself had done no damage in disclosing Leander's
whereabouts. Once more his quickly illumined anger was kindled against
Tarbetts, who had caused him a passing but poignant self-reproach.
"Waal, then, Hilary," he demanded, "what air ye a-raisin' sech a row
fur? Lee-yander ain't noways so special precious ez I knows on.
Toler'ble lazy an' triflin', an' mightily gi'n over ter moonin' over a
readin'-book he hev got. That thar mill war a-grindin' o' nuthin' at all
more'n haffen ter-day, through me bein' a-nappin', and Lee-yander plumb
demented by his book so ez he furgot ter pour enny grist inter the
hopper. Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though
I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose
out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his
hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be goin'
ter hide his book."
"No need," thought Nehemiah, scornfully. Book and scholar and it might
be fiddle too, so indulgent had the prospect of success made him, would
by to-morrow be on the return route to the cross-roads. He even ventured
to differ with the overbearing miller.
"I dun'no' 'bout that; books an' edication in gin'ral air toler'ble
useful wunst in a while;" he was thinking of the dark art of dividing
and multiplying by fractions. "The Yerbys hev always hed the name o'
bein' quick at thar book."
Now the democratic sentiment in this country is bred in the bone, and
few of its denizens have so diluted it with Christian grace as to
willingly acknowledge a superior. In such a coterie as this "eating
humble-pie" is done only at the muzzle of a "shootin'-iron."
"Never hearn afore ez enny o' the Yerbys knowed B from bull-foot,"
remarked one of the unindividualized lumpish moonshiners, shadowy,
indistinguishable in the circle about the rotund figure of the still. He
yet retained acrid recollections of unavailing struggles with the
alphabet, and was secretly of the opinion that education was a painful
thing, and, like the yellow-fever or other deadly disease, not worth
having. Nevertheless, since it was valued by others, the Yerbys should
scathless make no unfounded claims. "Ef the truth war knowed, nare one
of 'em afore could tell a book from a bear-trap."
Nehemiah's flush the darkness concealed; he moistened his thin lips, and
then gave a little cackling laugh, as if he regarded this as pleasantry.
But the demolition of the literary pretensions of his family once begun
went bravely on.
"Abner Sage larnt this hyar boy all he knows," another voice took up the
testimony. "Ab 'lows ez his mother war quick at school, but his
dad--law! I knowed Ebenezer Yerby! He war a frien'ly sorter cuss,
good-nachured an' kind-spoken, but ye could put all the larnin' he hed
in the corner o' yer eye."