The events of the day were peculiarly edifying to Broomsedge Cove. That
moralizing tendency rife among rural gossips did not fail to utilize
so promising a theme. One might have culled choice apothegms as to
the sterility of ambition, failing oft in the very moment of seeming
fruition, suggested by the fate of Eli Strobe, lying at the point of
death in the flush of success. Others evolved reflections upon the
overbearing spirit that would brook not even the control of the law, and
certain nice points of ethics arose as to how far a man is warranted in
holding his own conscience as monitor, or in subjugating his prerogative
to judge of right and wrong.
Nevins still lingered amongst the group about the door of the forge,
chewing a straw the while, and seeking to maintain the air of genial
acceptance of defeat, and a certain indifference, which all candidates,
who have come to grief, more or less successfully attempt to achieve.
His face, however, betokened the relaxation of suspense, for the nervous
strain that he had undergone was telling upon him now. There were vague
blue circles and a flabby fullness under his eyes, which looked hot and
were restless, but they held a distinct expression of resentment, and
his face was covertly cynical, albeit his replies to the bluff and not
altogether good-natured banter were couched in a conciliatory and still
politic spirit.
“Plenty o’ comp’ny, Nevins,” suggested one. “Candidates fur jedge,
’torney-gineral, sher’ff, an’ mo’ besides mus’ hev got the go-by, too,
this day.”
For to-day was held the general midsummer election of civil officers
throughout the judicial circuit.
Another strolled up, and observed, “Hain’t seen ye, Nevins, sence the
woods war burnt.”
“It mus’ seem powerful hard,” commented a Job’s comforter, “ez ye
couldn’t hev the office, sence Eli can’t hold it now he hev got it.”
“Leastwise, Josh,” said another, with a grin, “yer hide be whole yit.”
“Josh wouldn’t keer how his hide war chipped or tore, ef it hed a
constable inside o’ it,” chimed in an adverse elector.
The defeated candidate, thus rallied, made shift to smile, although
somewhat grimly. He was evidently bent on keeping up his reputation
for pluck, but he might have found it far more difficult if Eli
Strobe, robust, and florid, and hilarious, had been lingering too at
the voting-place, shaking hands with his supporters, receiving the
congratulations of his friends, and crowing over his enemies. The aspects
of defeat were sufficiently abashing and depressing, and he knew that
much was spared him in that the Gorgon face of his competitor’s success
was withheld. Although the physician, who resided some fourteen miles
distant, had not yet arrived, and no professional opinion had been
pronounced, there was no doubt expressed that Eli Strobe would not
live to enjoy the honors and discharge the duties of the office he had
so hardly won, for by reason of the rigors of his previous incumbency
the race had been extremely close. More than one of the gossips, full
of gloomy forebodings, animadverted upon the lack of “spunk” in the
Settlement that it had permitted Teck Jepson to ride by unmolested, and
take his way up to the impenetrable fastnesses of the mountain, to issue
thence when it should suit his pleasure.
“He oughter hev been arrested,—yes, sir!” said Jethro Peake, who, having
concluded his duties as judge of the election, now entered upon the
larger field of censor of the community in general. His round face was
red with the influence of a certain beverage innocently believed to be
neither sold nor given away on election day; his fat cheeks shook with
the energy of his discourse. “An’ ef I hedn’t hev been inside the forge
I’d hev done it ez he rid by! Laws-a-massy! ter ride by a blacksmith
shop, whar the three jedges appinted by the county court air jes’
finished a-countin’ out the ballots ’cordin’ ter law,—ride by in the open
light o’ day, an’ nobody arrest him! Ef I hed been hyar!” He shook his
head threateningly, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked a few
short steps hither and thither; manifesting now a prideful elation in his
authority that had not been apparent throughout the day, and was probably
“set free,” chemically speaking, by the action of the whiskey.
“Then we’d hev hed another cracked head ’round hyar,” observed Bassett,
“’Twar tryin’ ter arrest Teck fur racin’ ez got Eli hurt. I don’t reckon
nobody air goin’ ter meddle with Teck ez ain’t ’bleeged ter.”
“I reckon Marcelly would hev liked ter hev hed Teck arrested,” said Dake.
“Teck ’peared skeered ter go inside o’ the cabin ’count o’ Marcelly.
Laws-a-massy! that gal looked like she hed two live coals fur eyes,
whenst somebody spoke up his name, tellin’ Eli’s mother how it happened.
Marcelly looked plumb like a painter I seen up ter the mounting wunst. I
hed got the critter’s kittens out’n a hollow tree, an’ ’lowed I’d take
’em home an’ see ef they’d tame an’ pet. An’ I looked round whilst kemin’
down the mounting, an’ thar war that painter crouchin’ on a high rock
over my head, sleek, an’ strong, an’ light, an’ supple, sir, ready ter
spring. I hed no gun, an’ I jes’ tuk one look at her eyes, an’ I knowed
that thar beastis hed grit enough ter foller me ter hell. I jes’ sot them
two leetle painters on a flat rock, an’ I fund out what the Lord gin me
feet fur. I put ’em ter right smart use fur ’bout a mile.” He paused for
a moment, in silent reminiscence of this speedy descent from the great
steeps above. Then he resumed, “I ain’t thunk ’bout that thar painter in
I dunno when, till Marcelly’s eyes reminded me o’ hern.”
“Waal, now, I reckon that’ll put an e-end ter Teck Jepson a-settin’ up
ter Marcelly,” said Clem Sanders, hopefully. He was within the forge,
leaning against the elevated hearth, feeling a certain inhospitable
relief that the shop had been restored to its normal uses, and the judges
and the ballot-box, the clerk and the table, and all the paraphernalia of
suffrage, animate and inanimate, had been removed. He was not ill-natured
nor malicious, but the disaster augured demolition of his rival’s hopes,
and his own sprang up revivified by the prospect. His heart had not
been so light for many a day,—not since he had played cards gayly and
victoriously with Mose Hull, all unconscious that Satan perched on the
anvil behind him to overlook his hand, while the window-shutter was
drawn ajar, and an uncomprehended entity looked in, solemn, dismayed,
aghast. Since then the forge had been deserted after nightfall. No
longer the mountain youth congregated here. No longer the cliffs echoed
the hilarious songs and outbursts of rotund and rollicking laughter. No
longer athwart the solemn obscurity of the brooding night were flung
fluctuating shafts of red and yellow light, summoning out a trembling
glimpse of the gigantic trees, or broad, lucent stretches of the river,
and making the grim, immovable old crags seem to advance and retreat at
the whimseys of the breathing bellows. Parson Donnard himself could not
have desired the shop to be more solitary and silent than it was now
since its admonished frequenters were fain to be dull and quiet about the
domestic hearth.
“From all I hev hearn, she war jes’ a-foolin’ Jepson, ter git him ter
work fur her dad in the ’lection,” Nevins observed; he cast the merest
suggestion of a glance at Clem Sanders as he lifted his eyes, adding,
“I reckon thar war a good many in the same boat with Teck, too. I never
hearn afore of a gal takin’ the ’lection ter heart same ez men folks.
Ginerally gals dunno what thar kinfolks air runnin’ fur, an’ pays mo’
’tention ef the hen-house war blowed over in a high wind, or a mink
hed throttled the fow-_els_,’n ef thar dad air ’lected or beat. Wimmen
ginerally dunno ef jedge air higher ’n sher’ff, or sher’ff ’n constable.
I never hearn tell o’ sech a gal ez this hyar Marcelly Strobe.”
He spoke with acerbity, recognizing her as a potent and perhaps decisive
adverse influence, the majority being so small.
“Marcelly dunno nuthin’,” Clem Sanders remarked loyally, defending her
against the imputation of a knowledge of politics. “She jes’ ’lows ez
her dad air the biggest man in the Newnited States. Laws-a-massy, I
don’t wonder Teck Jepson war afeard o’ her.” He strove to adjust his
countenance to a proper sense of calamity, but he was a simple fellow,
and frank with himself, and albeit he deplored the misfortunes and
distresses of his friends, he saw his own gain, and its prospect of cheer
was in his square face and his bright and narrow eyes. “I hed no sheer in
it,” he observed half aloud, recognizing his own state of mind, “an’ I
know I hope an’ pray to God ez Eli won’t die.”
No; matters should remain as they were now,—adapted to the best interests
of those most worthily concerned. Eli Strobe should recover, but with
this breach between the handsome Jepson and Marcella, Clem Sanders felt
that no grass should grow beneath his feet while he put his fate to the
test.
“I useter be sorter ’feard o’ Marcelly, but ef I war gin jes’ one mo’
chance I’d do some sech all-fired quick courtin’ ’twould ’stonish the
kentry.”
It was not often that Parson Donnard figured as an apologist. But in
common with all the country-side, as well as Teck Jepson himself, he had
mistaken the Biblical enthusiasm of the young man for religion, and had
often felt moved to publicly rejoice in the gracious outpourings of the
spirit so strikingly manifested here. As he and his son stood amongst
the group, he was accosted by Nevins, whose uncharacteristic causticity
was sharpening with his sense of loss; for the shock of the first
realization of the result had resolved itself into a continuous ache,
that would always stir and thrill again so long as his memory might rouse
his pride.
“This hev been a toler’ble hard day fur the saints, pa’son,” he ventured.
His once pleasant smile was a politician’s sneer, that did not match the
obvious meaning of the words he spoke. “Seems sorter ’stonishin’ fur one
o’ the Lord’s elect ter git ter bettin’, an’ horse-racin’, an’ resistin’
arrest, an’ run down an’ crack the skull o’ the off’cer o’ the law, ez
kem a-bulgin’ an’ a-runnin’ out in the road afore the horses’ huffs, mad
ez a bull o’ Bashan, though he war a shinin’ light hisself.”
The thin ascetic face flushed slightly, thus attesting that the parson’s
blood was red and warm. But he proved equal to the emergency.
“Thar’s a lesson in it, brother,” he returned fervently. “The best
’mongst us kin only lean on the Strong Arm. An’ when we lose our hold,
brother, ef it’s only fur a minit, ah! then, brother, we fall,—saint or
sinner, brother, we fall! Lean on the Strong Arm, brother, an’ be upheld!”
There was a reverential attention accorded him while he spoke, his rotund
voice rising into the elocutionary effects of rural exhortation, and
ringing out into the quiet evening air. Silence succeeded in the group,
and when presently one of the men coughed and cleared his throat, and a
slight motion made itself apparent amongst them, it was like that gradual
recall to mundane sentiments and stir which follows with a jarring
impression after praise or united prayer.
Parson Donnard, not unmindful of effect, was not slow to take advantage
of this opportunity of leaving the field with all his colors flying. And
indeed there were evidences of disintegration in the crowd momentarily
becoming more marked. Gaps in the row of horses intimated how many had
already gone; continually the tramp of fresh departures rose on the
air, and the hoof-beats sounded hollow and with cavernous echoes from
the little bridge beyond the forge. Here and there in the valley, or
where the winding road up the mountain-side became visible amongst the
dense leafage, a great canvas-covered wagon lumbered along, catching the
roseate glow of the sunset. Certain lively youths, not to be subdued by
any contemplation of tragedy, spiritual, political, or material, could
be heard a long way, although out of sight, whooping and hilariously
shouting to one another, while all the solemn gray crags assumed a
spurious note of jocose and boisterous flippancy, and called back and
forth across the valley with a weird mockery. Jube, the parson’s son,
shambling home a half hour later, perhaps, than his father, his hands
in his pockets, his hat askew, paused ever and anon to listen to this
mingled fantastic outcry; discerning familiar tones sometimes in the
voices of his friends themselves, sometimes in the frenzied mimicry of
the crags. He would stand motionless till the sound died away for the
nonce, judging from its _bizarre_ fluctuations how far the process of
inebriation had gone; then shake his head reprehensively,—for Jube was
a man of sober theory,—and pursue his way, brought to a halt again only
when all the peaceful valley and all the staid and rigid rocks were again
declaiming in drunken mirth.
This dual possibility of standpoint enabled Jube to dwell in great
amity and unity of spirit with his solemn and ascetic parents, and yet
continue the cherished soul of mirth amongst the wild young mountaineers
whose society was so dear to him. In one sense he devoutly believed and
had formally accepted all those wise saws condemnatory of levity and
threatening retribution. He could listen with an impersonal conviction
to prophecies of impending wrath for those who were merry without cause
now, and who should presently gnash their teeth with ample cause.
“_Yes_, sir!” he would often cry out with animated confirmation, and in
a voice rendered even more emphatic by a sort of chronic hoarse wheeze,
when his father sat by the fire, and shook his head, and foretold
vengeance already poised to alight on those who cared not to hear, and
who would not repent while yet there was time.
“Dander on, sing sir, do they, play kyerds, an’ da-ance! An’ Satan have
gyirded him up, an’ air kemin’ up the valley, sir,—kemin’ up the valley
like a black cloud in which thar be no promise o’ peace; like a whurlwind
ez holds no pity; like the yearthquake, when men may turn this-a-way an’
that-a-way, an’ find no escape!”
“Yes, _sir_,” Jube would filially echo, his eyes distended with some
mental vision of Satan expressed in these natural terrors.
The trouble with Jube was a singular lack of pliability in application.
It never occurred to him to look upon himself as one of the hopeless
and the possibly damned. On the contrary, there are few people in this
world who take so much pleasure in it as did Jube Donnard, despite
all the restrictions of his narrow circumstances. Few people can walk
on their heads and hands with such joy in sheer inversion. Few people
can sing so hilariously false, old songs, so oft sung, antedating,
perhaps, Broomsedge Cove itself, and still find them fresh and full of
delight. Few people can lose their little all at play with such cheerful
equanimity. “I never see sech a comical run o’ kyerds, noways,” he would
console himself, with a laugh at some ludicrous sequences. Few people can
on occasion drink so deeply, and yet be consciously so little drunk.
If the parson suspected his son’s occupations and amusements to be vain
and frivolous, and unbeseeming mortality endowed with that large contract
of preparing for immortality, and, with a desire to induce him to look
upon himself as among those spiritually threatened, spoke with a secret
admonitory intent, his finesse was poorly rewarded by the adaptable Jube,
who would straightway respond with plastic, earnest sincerity, “_Yes_,
sir! Yes, _sir_!”
In one sense they were a family set apart. For Mrs. Donnard, too,
unconsciously held herself in some sort as one exempt. She had come to
consider religion only as it affected the congregation. The promises of
the Bible were for those members who heeded the parson’s righteous words.
Its threats and monitions were for those who yielded him not the due meed
of reverence, spiritual and secular. Somehow, the unpropitious aspects
of religion were predominant in Mrs. Donnard’s contemplation of the
congregation. Like the wives of many preachers of larger pastorates and
ampler opportunities, she thought the flock got more out of the parson in
many ways than they paid for. The battle of life represented for her the
congregation on one side and the parson on the other, and she proved a
stanch partisan, a host in herself. “They _say_ so,” she would sometimes
observe sarcastically, when he would detail an improvement in morals or
manners resolved upon amongst them, or some great awakening within his
bailiwick. “Now let’s see the _doin’_ of it.”
The parson was far more enthusiastic, eloquent, and able than his
helpmeet, but it may be doubted if he were endowed with so accurate a
gauge of the efficacy of the good intentions of poor human nature.
Sometimes she would merely remark, “I hev been hearin’ sech ez that
thar from old Squair Bynum fur fifty year. Mebbe ef the Lord grants him
Methus’lah’s age he may make out ter mend his ways,—leastwise some few o’
’em.” Then she would burst out singing as she went about her household
avocations, “The day o’ jedgmint’s on the way!”
In this acrimony between herself and her husband’s charge, she must have
experienced a great satisfaction to be so sure that all their misdeeds
and shortcomings would be so severely visited upon them, and so actively
rued in fire and brimstone,—for Mrs. Donnard’s faith was very complete.
Somehow it had strangely discharged itself of personality. She thought
no more of her own soul than if she had none to be saved. Salvation was
not on her lips. Religion was an engine chiefly valuable in keeping the
congregation strung up to properly perform its duties toward the parson.
And yet her eye was single to what she conceived to be her duty. She
zealously devoted herself to his interests, merging her identity in his;
resenting his griefs, rejoicing in his pleasures, and entertaining his
views. Jube was the only surviving child of a goodly number, and the
unanimity of opinion which subsisted between the old couple suffered no
lapse in their mutual persuasion of his perfection. The capacity for
believing what one desires to believe is in itself a source of perennial
pleasure, and the two took unimpeached joy and comfort in their colt, who
nimbly demonstrated his capacity to pace despite the sober trot of his
parents, who had never given themselves over to any such erratic gait.
As Jube came up the path to the log cabin they were sitting together on
the porch, and welcomed him with sparse words, indeed, but with a solemn
pleasure in him which their eyes betokened.
“Enny mo’ news from the Settle_mint_, Jubal?” asked his mother. They
lived a considerable distance higher on the mountain, and a bulging slope
hid from them the little hamlet. So Mrs. Donnard felt at times afar off,
and exhibited that avidity for the news of the day natural to a woman in
the country, oppressed by the sense that, without extreme vigilance, she
is in a position to be debarred a choice bit of gossip some day.
Jube had that reluctance to detail often manifested by the favored mortal
who has been “to town,” what he has heard having ceased to be a novelty.
To be sure, Mrs. Donnard might seem to have been feasted with news
to-day, and Jube had naught to add to the narrative of the proceedings
already given by his father; but she took a long time to fairly assure
herself of this, and the revived reference to the subject impaired the
parson’s cheerfulness.
“I hev labored an’ I hev labored in this field,” he remarked, “an’ it
’pears ter do no good.”
He had both his knotted hands clasped on his stick, and rested his long
chin on them.
“A set o’ hard-hearted, stiff-necked half-livers!” said the parson’s wife
uncompromisingly.
“Fightin’ an’ quar’lin’ whar thar ought ter be peace,—peace in the fold.”
“Ginerally less peace in the fold ’n ennywhar else,” affirmed his
helpmeet.
“Eli Strobe,—an old-time member an’ a settled married man.”
“Wife been dead ten year or more,” said Mrs. Donnard, domestically
accurate.
“An’ Teck Jepson, what actially ’peared ter be gifted with visions! Kin
tell ’bout folks in the Bible till ye kin mos’ see ’em a-walkin’ out
afore ye.”
“But Teck Jepson hev a prideful walk _hisself_,—’pears ter know all the
folks air a-starin’ at him, ’specially wimmin. I dunno ez I b’lieve in
the savin’ grace o’ enny men folks ez sets up ter be better lookin’ n’
the angel Gabriel, ef the truth war knowed,” objected the discerning Mrs.
Donnard.
“Teck Jepson gone an’ c’mitted murder,—laws-a-massy! I jes’ feel how the
members o’ the church in Piomingo Cove ez be always a-laffin’ an’ gibin’
at we-uns, will crack thar heels tergether an’ shout whenst they hear
’bout’n it.”
“That thar smooth-faced, fat, jokified Brother ’Zekiel Johns always tuk
every chance ter gin a dab at the ‘Brumsaidge brethren,’ ez he say it.”
Mrs. Donnard drawled her mimicry in good clerical fashion.
Even the placid Jube was touched by this prophecy of the rejoicing of
the opposite religious faction. He shifted his position as he sat on the
step, and frowned in perplexed discomfiture, looking even more like his
father with these solemn corrugations. It seemed to him at the moment
worth while saving one’s soul to spite the folks in Piomingo Cove.
“I’d hev ’lowed,” he observed, “ez arter Satan hisself kem hyar an’ sot
hisself up thar in public in the forge, squattin’ on the anvil, ez them
fellers, Eli Strobe an’ Teck Jepson, mought hev knowed ez bad luck would
hev got inter thar fightin’. Eli jes’ a-boundin’ out in the road under
the mare’s huffs, an’ Teck ridin’ the off’cer o’ the law down!—they
knowed the devil hev been viewed in Brumsaidge wunst, ennyways, ef they
didn’t know ’bout his workin’s sence.”
The old man lifted his chin from the hands clasped upon his stick. The
nostrils of his long, thin, bony nose dilated like those of a frightened
horse; his eyes widened and brightened, showing a lighter tint than their
usual gray.
“What workin’s, son?” he demanded.
Jube looked at him in the closing dusk, and mysteriously shook his head.
Mrs. Donnard had not observed the allusion nor the look.
“Racin’ an’ bettin’ air sinful,” she declared, “an’ that thar
tearin’-down, good-lookin’ Teck Jepson hev got mighty little religion ef
he don’t know it.”
The old man had a sudden monition of the discipline seemly in his own
family. “Warn’t ye one o’ them a-racin’, son?” he asked, although he had
had the evidence of his own eyes to the fact. There was a momentary pause.
“Jes’ sorter runnin’ the horse-critter along the road,” said the parson’s
son, as if defining a material difference.
The old man in a manner accepted the distinction.
“Waal, sonny, ye mus’n’t do sech. ’Tain’t right, an’ it air agin the law.”
“Yes, sir,” said the dutiful Jube.
“Though ye wouldn’t hev run nobody down,” said the mother.
“Naw’m.” Jube found it very easy to coincide.
Mrs. Donnard, convinced that there was no more news from the Settlement
to be gleaned, rose presently, and went indoors to “dish up” supper. The
two men, left alone upon the porch, grew more confidential.
“Jube,” said the parson eagerly, lowering his voice, “what d’ ye mean
’bout the devil’s workin’s in Brumsaidge sence?”
Jube looked, cogitating and silent, down the slope, where the great dark
trees rose, dense, and heavy, and glooming. The sky was far lighter than
the earth, and here only was color distinguishable,—the pallid blue tint
that barely permitted to be seen the fluctuating glitter of a timorous
star. Above Chilhowee, far away, the sickle of the moon was reaping the
shadowy mists, gray and crimson, touched with an afterglow of the sun; a
vague swath of light was left behind her keen and glistening blade. The
voice of a nighthawk sounded raucous and sudden, and once more the heavy
silence brooded.
“Waal, dad, I dunno ef I hev enny call ter say nuthin’ ’bout it; I
promised I wouldn’t tell.”
“Laws-a-massy, Jube, who tole ye?” demanded the parson, agitated.
Jube stirred uneasily. His unlucky allusion to the matter had escaped
him unwittingly. He was beginning to understand that he should be urged
to explain, and his tact and invention were deplorably inadequate to the
emergency.
“I promised Clem Sanders I wouldn’t tell,” he said desperately.
“Waal, Jubal, I’ll gin ye ter onderstand ez this ain’t no matter fur ye
an’ Clem Sanders ter keep ter yerse’fs,” said the old man severely. “I
war gin ter view the Enemy in that thar forge, an’ ef ennythin’ hev kem
o’ sech I hev got the right ter know it.”
This logic freed Jube’s conscience, and absolved him, as it were, from
his broken promise.
“He hev been thar agin!”
The stick fell from Parson Donnard’s grasp, and rolled noisily along the
puncheon floor.
“Who?” he gasped, with trembling lips and starting eyes, expectant of the
answer that came suppressed—
“Satan!”
Parson Donnard sat as one petrified.
“He kem thar,” said Jube, with lowered voice and many furtive glances
toward those glooming woods, “one night whenst Clem didn’t know nuthin’
’bout’n it, bein’ at home an’ asleep; but Dake, he see the forge alight
an’ hearn the hammers a-strikin’, an’ he ’lowed ’twar Clem. He tole
Clem arterward, an’ it like ter skeered Clem ter death, kase he ’lowed
mebbe ’twar that thar _dead Clem Sanders_,—what ye seen lookin’ through
the winder at him whenst he played kyerds,—a-hammerin’, with the devil
a-strikin’ fur him!”
“My stars!” exclaimed the trembling parson.
“Yes, sir!” said Jube, flattered by the extreme interest with which
his narrative was received, its intensity being altogether unexpected.
“Yes, sir, Clem ’lowed ez ’twar Satan ez mus’ do the strikin’, an’ not
the smith work; kase Clem ’lows ez sech takes a heap o’ ’speriunce, an’
dealin’ in metals air a mighty partic’lar business, an’ Satan air a heap
too smart ez ter ’low he kin do reg’lar smith work ’thout he hed a power
o’ teachin’. Strikin’ air all Satan would be ekal ter round a forge,
Clem say. Waal, sir, two or three nights arterward Clem hears suthin’,
an’ looks out’n the roof-room winder; an’ thar he see the forge lit up
an’ hearn the hand-hammer an’ the sledge, clink-clank, clink-clank, jes’
ez nat’ral! Clem ’lowed it made him feel powerful bad ter hev his harnt
a-walkin’ ’bout his own forge ’fore he air dead; he tuk it fur a sign,
an’ it went so ter his heart ez he got off’n his feed fur a few days.
But that night, ez he got closer an’ closer ter the forge”—
“Did—did Clem go thar?” demanded the old man breathlessly.
“_Yes_, sir!” said Jube. He paused to look at the sky, dark and fully
instarred now; all its scintillating splendors were suddenly quenched
into neutral monotony, while a ghastly quiver of sheet lightning broadly
fluctuated through the infinite spaces of the firmament, and over the
long, lonely stretches of wood and mountain. Then it died away, leaving
the constellations supreme in the night, and the dark stillness brooding
in the woods.
“He got plumb up ter the winder, sir, ’cordin ter Clem,” Jube continued
cautiously.
“An’—an’—what did he see?” interrupted the parson.
“He stumbled an’ fell right at the winder, an’ they hearn the noise
inside, an’ in a minit it war all dark an’ still in the forge, ’ceptin’
that the doors they shut with a bang. Clem went in; he fund nuthin’
an’ nobody. A leetle fire smouldered on the h’ath, but the anvil war
a-ringin’ like all possessed.”
Parson Donnard sat with a rigid face, but half revealed by the dull light
that came from the fire within, and all unnoted by his careless son. He
had possessed himself anew of his stick, and had resumed his accustomed
attitude, his hands clasped upon the head of the stout cane, and his
chin resting upon them. But these hands were unsteady, and now and again
his lips trembled. He was secretly aware, as he gazed out into the blank
darkness, that the vision he had seen was revealed in a manner merely to
his spiritual sight. It was rather suggested to his own insulted moral
perceptions by the future possibilities to the jocund group. In fact,
he had not intended his description of it literally; he had given it in
some sort as a parable, the version of the actual scene translated by an
acute and anxious discernment. He had never gauged the limits of his own
credulity in the visions of others, and he did not at the time realize
that he overstepped the bounds of verity when he construed the tableau
according to the moral needs of his hearers. It was salutary that Satan
should sit upon the anvil amidst that merry crew, and visibly rejoice in
their wicked sports. And who knows but that he did! The parson claimed
the benefit of the doubt, and the vision of his spiritual eye was thereby
improved. The idea was eminently restrictive and calculated to impress
Clem Sanders that he himself, in some future reflective mood, should
gaze back through the windows of memory, solemn and regretful, upon the
futile wasted hours of a riotous youth. The parson’s figurative language
had unforeseen possibilities, and had set the “harnt” of a living man
a-walking before its time. He had not concerned himself greatly with the
misapprehension when it first came to his notice. He had not dreamed of
strange consequences astir. Despite the natural strength of his mind,
his uncultivated instinctive knowledge of human nature, his gift of rude
eloquence, he was densely ignorant, saturated in superstition, and even
his religion held alternating elements of terror and of bliss. He began
to fear that thus unguardedly speaking a judgment was to be sent upon
him. His hasty figurative words, unjustifiably used, were forthwith made
true. He thought, poor soul, that he had conjured up the devil, to stalk
abroad in Broomsedge Cove, where, as well he knew, the denizens were
ill prepared to meet him! Not in the guise of a ravening wolf, nor a
black dog, but “bat-wise,” gigantic and weird, a creature of the night,
accompanied by that familiar, yet horribly unfamiliar, presentment of the
blacksmith. “I hev gin Clem over. I hev los’ my sheep.” He groaned aloud
in the misery of his reflections.
Perhaps it was the courage of desperation, the unrecognized hope that
never dies till every vital spark be extinct, perhaps only the stanch and
adventurous spirit of the old mountaineer,—woodsman and hunter as well as
parson,—that nerved him to say, “It air some human critter, mebbe, bent
on no good.” Then he presently observed, “Jube, I be goin’ ter watch that
thar forge this night, an’ every night till I see who it air ez kems.”
Jube recoiled. “Lord A’mighty, dad, _I_ wouldn’t fur nuthin’. ’Pears like
ye oughtn’t ter resk it.” Then gathering reassurance with the reflection,
“Mam won’t let ye, nohow.”
“Thar ain’t no need for her to know it.” And after a pause, “I ain’t
a-goin’ ter tell her,” added the parson.
Mrs. Donnard, the best of wives, would willingly have sacrificed the
whole congregation rather than let the parson risk an encounter with the
enemy. Parson Donnard knew it was necessary to sedulously hold his tongue
in order to be able to keep his own resolution, and thus her devotion,
making his cause her own, cherishing enmities for his sake, tolerating
friendships, sharing alike haps and mishaps—at last resulted in exclusion
from his confidence! It was a lesson of doubtful expediency for Jube to
observe the disingenuousness of the parson, as like unto other men as if
he had felt no outpouring of the spirit, while he ate the good supper
that she had cooked, and wore a placid and incidental countenance, and
lighted his pipe after the meal was concluded, and established himself
upon the porch in a definite and settled manner as if a fixture for the
evening. And how, with his own practice to the contrary, should he preach
to Jube, and young people generally, upon the beauty of confidence in the
family relations, of the dangers of secrecy, of the necessity of setting
good examples, and of amply and quickly returning the blessings that one
enjoys of fine traits in others by double measure to them, pressed down
and running over!
The unconscious Mrs. Donnard, almost pathetic in her unconsciousness,
scoured the skillet with ashes, and now and again lifted her voice
and sang a fragmentary measure, broken by leaning down and rising up,
and mounting upon chairs to place plates and sundry other table ware
upon the high shelf, otherwise beyond her reach. Once the hiatus was
occasioned by the parson, who put his head into the door to say he was
“obligated” to go down to the Settlement to see how Eli Strobe was, when
she placidly assented, and went on singing as before. It was Jube who,
looking in at her cheerful industry, felt the pang of remorse,—he the
good-for-naught; not the worthy parson, plodding off, feeling that she
knew as much as was good for her.
Jube went too, having volunteered in an unguarded moment—repenting of it
immediately afterward, but unable to extricate himself—to show his father
a certain choice coigne of vantage on the mountain above, where one could
easily overlook the road and the forge, and yet be at a considerable
distance. “It’s so steep a body mought slip spang down onto the roof,
ef ye didn’t scotch yerse’f with a bowlder. Git ahint one o’ them
bowlders,—that’s the dinctum.”
The moon had sunk in the unknown world behind Chilhowee. The blackness on
the earth was dense and unbroken, save that here and there the flare from
some cabin that they passed revealed the vague outline of the building,
the dully illuminated oblong space of the open doorway, a few zigzag
lines of the rail fence close at hand thus suggesting the features of the
familiar scenes which the night had annulled. Above, the stars blazed in
great glory and a scintillating multiplicity, but gave little appreciable
light, and the parson was glad that Jube, with his younger eyes and
his active step, was with him, when they began to toil up a rugged and
brambly pathless ascent. The old man struggled valiantly along,—they had
passed through the Settlement, the father observing to the son, by way of
keeping his word to Mrs. Donnard, that they would stop and inquire for
Eli Strobe upon their homeward way, if it were not then too late,—and he
was beset by the terror of meeting some one of his flock here and now,
where his errand would be inexplicable. He plunged boldly among the
briers; he toiled through steep stony passes; he puffed, and tugged, and
made every hearty effort to swiftly betake himself out of the way of any
accidental encounter. Once a sudden stir in the bushes hard by caused his
heart to spring into his throat, and his quick mind to anxiously canvass
some hobbling methods of explaining his position,—the next moment, the
mellow clangor of a cow-bell; the creature was lying belated, perhaps, on
the slope, and had moved her head, hearing their steps, and no more.
He was indefinably perplexed and embarrassed by an odd, unrecognizable
change in Jube. A sort of half-subdued hilarity grated on him, sundry
smothered guffaws, gleeful allusions to previous capers, of which the
parson had never heard and vaguely understood. Only now and then did Jube
subside, with a returning realization of the identity of his companion.
For the night air, the mountain wind, the secrecy, the excitement, the
quivering expectancy of their errand, had begun to make themselves felt
in Jube’s blood, —a rapid current, and susceptible of considerable
elation and exhilaration. The spirit of adventure was astir within him,
and only at times was dashed by the remembrance that the parson was—the
parson.
When they reached their objective point, Parson Donnard sank down upon a
ledge of rock that his son indicated to him, his knees against a bowlder
lying hard by, that he might not slide down the steep incline upon the
very roof of the forge. He noted how he seemed to face the great concave
of the sky, how definite the western mountains stood against the starry
expanse, and how distinct certain objects had become even in the pitchy
blackness, now that his eyes were in some sort accustomed to it.
“Thar’s the forge, right down yander under this laidge,” observed Jube,
with that wild gayety in his tone which bewildered the old man, who
deprecated it. “Ef ye war ter lean over, dad, an’ stretch out yer arm,
yer hand would be plumb over the chimbly. Laws-a-massy”—Jube rocked
himself in the joy of his reminiscence—“don’t I ’member how me an’
some o’ them t’other boys got up hyar one night, an’ drapped a leetle
gunpowder down into the chimbly. An’ Clem say, ‘Lord A’mighty what’s
that?’ An’ then I drapped a leetle mo’ yit, an’ Clem hollered, skeered,
till suddint he smelt it, an’ out he kem with a bar o’ red-hot iron in
his hand, a-dustin’ up the mounting. ’Twar a dark night, an’ he jes’
looked plumb like the devil hisself.”
“Hesh, Jube, hesh! ye air talkin’ mighty loud.” The old man shrank from
the sound of his voice.
“An’ I seen him,” continued Jube, “an’ durned ef I warn’t so full o’ laff
that I los’ my balance, an’ fell right down thar plumb onter the roof.
Clem clomb up an’ got me, he did! But the t’others hed runned off through
the woods.”
“Jube, jes’ see ef ye can’t shet up fur awhile,” said the poor parson.
“Waal,” remonstrated Jube, “I jes’ want ter tell ye how I kep’ Clem from
bastin’ me ’count o’ that trick. Oh, ho! ’twar the funniest joke on Clem;
liked ter never hearn the e-end o’ it, an’”—
“I don’t want ter hear no joke,” said Parson Donnard sternly and ill at
ease; perhaps he felt a personified joke himself, perched on the beetling
ledges of the mountain in the middle of the night, in imminent danger
of rheumatism, and in the society of his rollicking son. It would be a
gay day for the flock of Brother Ezekiel Johns, in Piomingo Cove, if his
enterprise and position should be discovered, and, failing, should become
ridiculous. Draw as he might on his large resources of explanation, his
license of metaphor and spiritual phrasing, he could not justify the
facts with the frivolous Jube in company.
“This air a solemn ’casion, an’ we hev kem out, it may be, ter meet the
Enemy. ’Pears ter me ye air a mighty junketin’ an’ jiggetty sort o’ boy
fur a pa’son’s son, gigglin’ an’ jokin’ all the time.”
The parson spoke with acrimony; perhaps at that moment he himself would
have administered with right good will “the bastin’” that Clem had spared.
“No use ter take arter me kase the devil kems a-lopin’ ’round in
Brumsaidge,” retorted Jube, surlily. “I hain’t hed no dealin’s with the
devil.” He spoke of the Enemy familiarly; he was accustomed to hear so
much of him. “Ef I war a-talkin’, ’twouldn’t hender him none from kemin’;
_he_ ain’t afeard o’ _me_, I reckon.”
He relapsed, however, into silence, preserving a wounded manner which was
of great avail generally with his parents, and which advertised that some
one had been “tromplin’ on his feelin’s,” as he was wont to phrase it.
The night was wearing on: once the glittering dart of a falling star shot
swiftly athwart the dark expanse. They could hear the pensive night sigh
in its reverie. Jube now and again shifted his position, a few loose
stones rolling beneath his feet. The tedium of the delay wore heavily
upon him. Once as the clarion note of a cock rang out, with its response
from the echoing crags, he ventured to say in a low voice, “Thar now!” as
a reproach for the lateness of the hour. And more than once afterward he
yawned with ostentatious fatigue. Differently, indeed, had the time been
beguiled when he and his cronies awaited the propitious moment to throw
gunpowder into the smith’s forge fire. But then the bellows was at work,
with its noisy respirations, and the anvil clamored, and the behests of
secrecy were not inconsistent with sound. Now the forge in the black
abyss below was as silent as the grave,—as dark. No stir save that of
the torrent in the deep obscurity of its channel, its current throbbing
like the pulse of the night. No light in all the world,—not even at Eli
Strobe’s cabin, where the watchers’ candle by the bedside had burned
late; no light save the glister of the great stars.
Suddenly—the parson’s hand falls with a light touch on Jube’s; a step
along the road, was it? The wind—a vagrant blast—comes a-rustling down
and stirs the dust; the dry, arid scent of it rises to their perch; and
again a step. Distinct now, a regular advancing footfall along the road,
so dark, so dark under that glittering array of all the hosts of heaven.
An approach, a sound—no more! But was the echo so strong, so keen, or was
the step followed closely by another?
The parson’s breath came in quick gasps through his half-parted dry
lips. He trembled throughout all his gaunt frame. For the footfalls had
followed the road at the base of the mountain, and had paused at the door
of the forge.
All at once the old man, quivering on the ledge, started violently, and
came near falling into the depths below, rescuing himself only by the
strong clutch of his sinewy hands at the jagged rock on which he sat.
For a sound had issued into the null silence,—a long, terrible, jarring
sound. A wild, fantastic mimicry of a crowing cock, ending in a sonorous
wail, profaned the solemn stillness, and was strident in all the echoes.
The next moment his angry blood was throbbing in his temples. Jube’s arms
were still flapping in his grotesque mockery, and his gay, inadvertent
laugh rang out, forgetful of all in the ecstatic opportunity,—of his
father, their solemn mission, the purpose of the invaders of the forge,
the spiritual enemy; boisterously joying in the sudden exclamation of
fear below and the quick retreating footfalls.
“Stop! Stop! Who be that down thar?” exclaimed the parson’s authoritative
voice. “War ye a-wantin’ ter get in the forge?”
A momentary silence below,—seemingly a whisper; then, “Whar’s that thar
rooster? Naw; I war jes’ a-goin’ ter turn roun’. I kem down hyar ter
inquire arter Eli Strobe, ’lowin’ they’d watch all night, an’ I wouldn’t
hev time ter-morrer; but I see the house air dark.”
“Who be ye? What’s yer name?” asked the parson.
Again a momentary hesitation. Then, “Ain’t that Pa’son Donnard?”
The old man writhed under the cumbrous dignity of his identity. How much
easier and happier just now to be Jube, burdened with no veneration of
the community to live up to! He had never tasted the bitterness of such
humility as he experienced now.
“I be Pa’son Donnard,” he said as sonorously as he might, “a sarvent of
the Lord.”
Another vague whisper. Then, aloud, “Laws-a-massy, pa’son, what be ye
a-doin’ of up in the mounting in the middle of the night?—nigh day, ef
the truth war knowed.”
“I kem out,” said the parson slowly, “ter wrastle with the sperit.” He
did not think it needful to say in what sense.
“Yes, sir,” said the voice below, with an intonation of deep respect. “I
never would hev ’lowed ’twar you-uns, though. I never war so skeered!”
The parson stuttered in his haste. Whatever construction might be
placed upon his intentions and the hour, he would repudiate that wild
vocalization of the crowing Jube’s.
“I hev brung my son along; I hev got Jube up hyar.”
“Edzac’ly,” said Jube, with a facetiously accurate hiccough.
“Air Jube a-wrastlin’ with the sperit, too?” demanded the unknown from
below; the intention of the scoffer was in his tone.
“Ye shet up,” said Jube, promptly. “I know ye. I know yer voice. Ye be
Jake Baintree. I’ll kem down an’ wrastle with you-uns, fust thing ye
know.”
In the interval a sudden faint flicker of sheet lightning wavered across
the dark world. Jube’s eyes were young and very keen.
“Who be that thar with ye?” he cried out in a changed tone.
An interval—was it cogitation? was it consultation?
“Nobody,” said Jake Baintree sturdily,—“nobody be with me.”
“I ’lowed I seen somebody jes’ now,” urged Jube.
“Shadder, I reckon,” said the voice unconcernedly. “Good-night.”
He moved off into the obscurity, and Jube sank down beside his father,
laying an excited clutch on his arm. “Thar war another man with him, a
strange man, dressed diff’ent, ez I never see afore.” He listened to the
retreating footfalls. “Thar air two of ’em,—two of ’em, keeping step
keerful, and walking like one man!”
The parson rose, his stiff joints creaking.
“I don’t keer ef thar be forty, or a hunderd. An’ ef Satan hev got a
mind, he kin set on the anvil down yander or work at the forge ez a
constancy ’fore I’ll be fool enough agin ter kem out in the dark an’
roost up on a laidge on the mounting ter spy him out, alongside o’ sech a
turrible, turrible, disobejient miser’ble critter ez ye hev kem ter be.
They ’lowed ’twar me a-crowin’,—_me_, the pa’son!”
“I plumb forgot, dad,” said the contrite Jube.
“An’ Jake Baintree, what I refused ter baptize! This tale will go the
rounds o’ the kentry!”