Locked in the stony grasp of the mountains was Broomsedge Cove. Rugged
with sudden deep depressions and abrupt declivities, heavily wooded here
and anon broken by crags and defying cultivation, this limited basin was
all unlike the neighboring coves, those fair nooks of the ranges, fertile
and smiling, and level as a floor. The road, dry in summer, was the bed
of a stream in winter, and the denizens of Broomsedge then cared little
to rove abroad. Certain stretches of abandoned land, once cultivated, had
given the place its name, and down their slopes flourished the graceless
broomsedge,—pest, poverty-bitten, blight. It seemed to seek the manner of
the worthier growths, to bear itself like wheat, or rye, or oats; it wore
the semblance of a crop, as it shared with them the bounty of the sun and
the benediction of the rain. It waved in the wind, half defiant, half
forlorn. Wherever it encroached upon the fields, the grace of utility and
the guerdon of labor were gone, and this flout of nature, this perversity
of herbage, prospered unwelcome in their stead. But Broomsedge Cove could
still boast a considerable acreage of grain, fair and thrifty enough, the
unripe green tint contrasting with the red-brown tones of the sedge.
By daylight the Settlement was hardly so apparent to the casual eye as at
night, when each red light was the exponent of a fireside. The houses,
some of them a quarter of a mile apart, nestling amidst their orchards,
were quite invisible while the foliage lasted. The inequalities of the
ground further masked the extent of the hamlet; occasionally a blue curl
of smoke from beyond a jagged hill gave the only intimation that its
further slopes were preëmpted as a home. The blacksmith’s shop was on
the extreme outskirts, beyond the fields and the abandoned spaces where
the broomsedge grew. The massive wooded mountain rose close behind it;
the gorge narrowed just beyond it, and between the cliffs a stream, with
a swift arrowy motion, and now and then a white flash, shot down the
steeps. The smith made it useful in his simple art, and its song was a
solace to his idle hours. But this was not the only chant flung forth
upon the air. Loud and long were the sounds of revelry often issuing from
the forge, and in a diminuendo reaching even the ears of the far-away
neighbors, who thanked their stars that they were no nearer. The elders,
constrained alike by dignity and religion, were wont to shake their
heads, and sourly marvel what could be going on at the forge; and the
younger men frequently found themselves obliged to go over at once and
investigate. The forge was the resort of certain hilarious spirits,
among whom the smith himself was chief. Concerning these roisterers
grim reports were bruited abroad. It was averred that a greasy pack of
“playin’-kyerds” was cherished there, and that a “streak o’luck” seemed
to be more desired than light on salvation. A jug of a portly grace
had been descried, one day, lurking behind the elevated hearth of the
forge,—quite empty, it is true, but an aroma lingered about its corn-cob
stopper that was fresh and strong and unmistakable. They often sang;
the blacksmith’s burly bass voice could be heard with the supplementing
echoes over many a furlong of his native wilds. They pitched horse-shoes
in lieu of “quates,” and wrestled and measured their strength in many
good-humored combats. When the great barn-like doors were open and the
forge fire flickered out into the night, the place under the overhanging
ledge of the mountain was like the mouth of some vast cavern. To those
chancing to look in from the glooms without, while the white light fell
here and there in a brilliant gleam upon the faces within, and anon
fluctuated, and then sank to a red glow, and so to darkness, the hearty
mortal fellows at their turbulent sports were vaguely unfamiliar, and as
uncanny as goblins, or gnomes, or troglodytes. And the Settlement seemed
wise in wishing them no nearer.
It was a weird and isolated place, and with these impressions astir about
it, there was little wonder that a wilder fantasy should presently gain a
circulation.
Teck Jepson heard it for the first time one momentous August day. As
he rode slowly along the circuitous ways of Broomsedge Cove he was
conscious that he surveyed the scene with an interest which it had
never before elicited. The porch of Eli Strobe’s cabin was vacant, but
as he dismounted from his horse, and hitched him to the rack beside
the door of the blacksmith’s shop, he glanced from time to time across
the fields at the house. The hop and gourd vines hung motionless about
it, for no wind stirred. Through their screen his sharp eyes descried
a spinning-wheel—idle and motionless. No face at the tiny window, no
flutter of a blue dress among the poultry in the door-yard. The place
might have seemed deserted save for the tendril of smoke slowly curling
out of the clay-and-stick chimney, and the dog of the “frequent visitor,”
standing in the door, wagging his tail, which he had a call to do,
Teck remembered, being “purty well treated.” He momentarily canvassed
the dwellers on and about Chilhowee with a vague desire to identify
the owner, but the dog in no respect resembled his master, and Teck’s
musings were vain. Then he turned away, and sat down upon a log beside
the blacksmith’s shop, and silently gazed at the blue mountains, against
which, in an oblique line, the roof of Strobe’s cabin was drawn.
There were half a dozen men lounging about the forge, for it was seldom
that Clem Sanders was alone; and besides his special cronies, the
mountain gossips were wont to congregate here. The forge was silent;
the smith himself was leaning against the anvil, his brawny arms folded
across his chest, his pipe between his teeth, his languid eyes fixed
on the majestic mountains without, dome on dome and range on range,
stretching far away into the distance; while below, the sunlit valley
smiled, with only the shadow of a flying bird or an uncertain mist, vague
and vagrant, to mar the sheen. He was a tall, bluff fellow, with reddish
brown hair, straight dark eyebrows, and a broad low forehead. He had many
wrinkles in the corners of his eyes; not from age, for he was only some
twenty-four or five, but from persistent twinkling. They were brown eyes
and bright ones, not large, but long and narrow. He had a square face and
a flexible mouth with merry curves, the better revealed since he wore no
beard. His checked homespun shirt was open at his throat; the sleeve was
rolled up, showing his great hammer-arm; its muscles were a source of
perpetual pride to its possessor.
He took little part in the conversation, the twinkling wrinkles about
his eyes expressing his interest when it waxed facetious. Eli Strobe
was leaning back against the door in a rickety chair; two men who were
sitting on the log moved slightly, to give Jepson more room. A tall,
slim, jeans-clad young mountaineer, booted to the knee and accoutred with
shot-pouch and powder-horn, and having long light hair showing a tendency
to tousled ringlets, lay at length on the grass outside of the door.
“Howdy,” said Jepson, succinctly and comprehensively, to the group. Then
suddenly addressing the two men on the log, “I seen ye two bucks thar on
yer hoss-critters, at the baptizin’. Ye hain’t got no right ter mighty
nigh ride down the saints that-a-way, ’mongst the congregation, an’ ef I
hed noticed in time I’d hev made ye ’light an’ hitch.”
There was a momentary hesitation. Then one of them, Gideon Dake, a
languid, lank, loose-jointed fellow, observed, with as little animation
as if he were an automaton, “Oh, shet up, Teck! Ye air too robustious. Ye
’low ter fairly rule the Cove!”
The other, Joe Bassett, spoke more briskly. “I ain’t afeard ter be a
sorter sinner, now, Teck. The devil’s got his hands so full a-lookin’
arter Clem Sanders hyar ez he ain’t goin’ ter stop jes’ fur me. Hev ye
hearn ez he war viewed right hyar in the forge?”
“Shucks!” said Jepson, incredulously. Then leaning forward to look at the
burly blacksmith within the shop, “That ain’t a true word, air it, Clem?”
“Dunno,” said the blacksmith cavalierly. “Let them say ez seen him.”
“Ef I do ride down the saints, I ain’t never hed Satan ter kem a-bulgin’
ter the Settlemint ter look arter me,” protested Bassett.
Jepson glanced about him doubtfully. “Who say they seen him?”
“Old Pa’son Donnard,” said Bassett, beginning to narrate the old story
to a new listener with a relish proportionate to the rarity of the
opportunity. “Old man war comin’ from Piomingo Cove, whar he hed hed
preachin’ the day before. ’Twar toler’ble late. Thar warn’t no moon,
an’ the dark, it overtuk him. Waal, sir, he kem nigh hyar along o’ the
water-side. An’ he say all of a suddint he seen this blacksmith shop like
a yawnin’ mouth o’ hell, ez ef the mounting hed opened. An’ the flames
o’ the forge fire, they le’pt up, an’ sunk down, an’ flared out, kase
Clem, he’d let one o’ them fool boys caper with the bellows. An’ pa’son,
he see two o’ them boys a-wrastlin’ in that unholy light; an’ Jim Crane
war a-dancin’ an’ a-shufflin’, an’ a-cuttin’ the pidgeon-wing; an Buck
Blake war a-playin’ a reg’lar dancin’-chune on the fiddle; an’ Clem hyar
an’ Mose Hull war a-playin’ kyerds, an’ a-bettin’. Clem war a-settin’ on
the shoein’ stool, an’ Mose on a plow, an’ they laid thar kyerds on the
top o’ a bar’l. An’ Clem war a-beatin’ Mose. An’ wunst in a while he’d
fling back his head an’ holler, bein’ so glad! An’ suddint Pa’son Donnard
say his eyes war opened. He seen settin’ in the midst, propped up on
the anvil, Satan hisself. He hed horns, an’ he hed wings, suthin’ like a
bat’s, looked sorter bat-wise, only big ez a man. An’ Pa’son Donnard say
he knowed ’twar Satan even before he tuk notice o’ his feet,—one war a
huff, an’ the t’other war a club-foot! An’ he hed ’em both propped up on
the stump what the anvil sets on. An’ the devil war a-lookin’ over Clem’s
shoulder at sech kyerds ez Clem held. An’ when Clem would beat, Satan
would jes’ hug hisself, an’ rock back’ards an for’ards, an’ laff till
his teeth flashed fire. An’ sometimes Satan would lean over and mighty
nigh p’int out ter Clem which kyerd ter play. An’ pa’son say his eyes war
opened agin.”
“’Pears ter me they war stretched toler’ble wide a-fust,” grumbled Clem.
Although this graphic detail was no news to him, he was beginning to look
much disaffected. He mechanically moved away from the anvil upon which
Satan had made himself so much at home. He came and stood outside, with
arms still folded, leaning against the door.
“An’ pa’son’s eyes war opened anew,” Bassett drawled on. “An’ thar, he
say, whilst the wrastlin’ war a-goin’ on, an’ the dancer war a-dancin’
an’ a-shakin’ his foot all around the floor, an’ the fiddler war
a-playin’ an’ the fire war a-flarin’ red an’ a-flamin’ white over ’em
all, an’ Clem war a-laffin’ an’ a-hollerin’, tickled ter death, an’
a-playin’ his kyerds, an Satan war a-lookin’ over his shoulder an’
grinnin’ till the smoke shot out’n his nose, an’ eyes, an’ ears, an’ ye
could see him spit fire wunst in a while, the back winder o’ the forge
opened slow. An’ thar stood on the outside—who d’ye reckon?”
“Oh, shucks!” said Clem uneasily.