The mists continued to press close about the little cabin. The sunless
day hardly gave evidence how it was wearing on, so imperceptibly did the
shadows grow less gray. Some movement there was in the dense folds of
the opaque vapors, for now even the vines on the porch were invisible,
and anon all their leaves were abnormally definite on the blank white
surface of the background. A continuous drip sounded from the eaves, but
otherwise the world seemed strangely silent, until the mincing footfalls
of a pacing nag came dull and muffled along the dank turn-row, and
announced to Mrs. Strobe the approach of old Dr. Boyce.
“Now, ain’t it a blessin’,” she observed to her granddaughters, “ez that
thar perverse old man never tuk it inter that head o’ his’n—an’ it’s full
o’ notions—ter kem no earlier. He mought hev met the t’ other feller,
an’ thar’s nuthin’ in this worl’ one doctor hates like another one. An’
ef ’twarn’t fur the law ez keeps ’em off’n one another, thar’d be mo’
scatterin’ o’ brains, an’ hair, an’ bones round graveyards ’n thar be
now. Ef ye want ter see one o’ ’em take a fit, jes’ let him know some
other doctor hev been meddlin’ with his patient, ez he calls it. A mighty
good word fur it, too. Patient he air,—the feller hev got ter learn
patience, sure! This hyar old man can’t abide it, ef he ain’t allowed ter
pizen folks his own way; an’ ef ye don’t foller his directions edzac’ly,
he’ll gin the case up. An’ then ye mought git well, stiddier dyin’
respectably, ’cordin’ ter the doctor’s prescriptions.”
She rose, with her speciously grave expression puckering her thin lips,
and went to meet him on the porch, as he came up the path, with his
saddle-bags over his arm. “Good-mornin’, doctor,” she observed, with
great suavity.
“Good-morning, madam,” he said with a cheerful note. He was propitiated
by a certain up-all-night aspect in the three feminine members of
the household, which his discerning eye could well distinguish from
the activity of the habitual early riser. It implied due anxiety and
attention to any possible or probable want of his patient. He had scant
interest in people whose lungs, liver, heart, and stomach were in a
normal condition. They were merely unindividualized cumberers of the
ground, except as they ministered to that genus whom he sought to exalt
into a tyrant of absolute sway, his patient. He himself bowed down before
it with an unswerving devotion and an unchanging assiduity, despite its
protean aspect, whether it were only two feet long, and writhing with
the colic, or as big as Eli Strobe, with a dignified fracture of the
skull; and he saw to it that every possible knee was also crooked in
subservience. It was a favorite formula with him, “If my patient can’t
sleep, not a soul in the house shall bat an eye all night.” And thus
there were always powders or drops to be administered with appalling
frequency, if the sufferer should chance to awake.
Therefore he looked with approving eyes at Mrs. Strobe, and dismissed as
gratuitous certain anxieties that had harassed him since parting from her
yesterday, because of her earnest advocacy of “yerb tea,” and her evident
reluctance to defer to his judgment.
“How’s my patient, madam?” he asked, as he lumbered up the steps.
He was not, properly speaking, a fat man; he might better be described
as merely ample. He was not muscular; he seemed flabbily large. His face
had sundry deep dimples, visible even when not smiling, and he had a
fair, fresh complexion, and was close-shaven. He was perhaps some sixty
years old, and he was ostentatious in the use of his spectacles, after
the manner of one who regards age as a sort of gradual promotion. He
was quite bald, and wore a dark wig, or what is known as a “scratch.”
It hardly served any purpose of deception, for often he thrust it far
back on his head, showing his broad, full-fronted brow; and sometimes,
in his office, on a warm day, he hung it on the door-knob or the back
of a chair, contracting thereby many an influenza and neuralgia, which
he would have considered of serious interest had it been the choice
possession of one of his patients.
“Not awake yet?” he said, glancing at the pillow as he entered. He sat
down beside the bed, and, motioning to Marcella to open the shutter, he
adjusted his spectacles, and bent forward to scrutinize the sleeping face.
Mrs. Strobe, secretly scornful as she watched him, was amazed to see
him draw back, with an expression of doubting surprise, and with his
soft, deft fingers feel the pulse of the wounded man. His eyes with a
suspicious gleam sought hers.
“How did he spend the night?” he asked curtly.
“Waal,” cautiously admitted Mrs. Strobe, “the fust o’ the night he war
sorter rampagious. Arter that he slept.”
The doctor rose slowly, looking very large and limp as he stood solemnly
confronting the little dame. “Mrs. Strobe,” he demanded, “what was done
to this man?”
“Why, law, doctor, you-uns know!” she cried. “Teck Jepson jes’ rid him
down, an’ bust his head open, an’”—
“Woman,” he thundered, “this man has been drugged!”
Mrs. Strobe quailed. She would not have believed the discovery possible
to his vaunted science.
“Jes’ a leetle yerb tea,” she faltered.
He stared at her, baffled, and doubting if it were possible to elicit
the truth from her. He knitted his bare brows, for his wig was far back
on his bald poll. The mystery of it all stemmed for the time the rising
tide of his tumultuous indignation. “Why didn’t you give him the powders
I left, as directed?” he demanded.
“Law, doctor, they couldn’t make no diff’unce,—that thar leetle trash
stuff.”
The doctor’s bald head flushed to the nape of his neck. Despite his
scanty consideration of people who were in the enjoyment of full health,
he could not strike Mrs. Strobe. There was only one course open to him,
professionally speaking.
“I give up the case. I will not be responsible,” he sputtered, stooping
down to pick up his saddle-bags. Suddenly he caught sight of the wan,
haggard, sleeping face on the pillow, and the loyalty of a whole life
flamed up anew toward its object. “No, I won’t,—I won’t, neither! I
won’t leave my patient to be murdered amongst you. Yes, murdered!”
he vociferated; “for if my directions and my medicines are tampered
with again, and my patient dies, I’ll have you every one indicted for
murder; you hear me,—for _murder_! Poisoning my patient!” He wagged his
half-draped head with a knowing look. He had not lived in this world so
long as not to be aware of the terror that the ignorant have of that
unknown, unmeasured force, the law. Even the doughty Mrs. Strobe seemed
very small and wizened, as she contemplated the prospect. He followed up
his advantage: “Come here!”—he turned to Marcella; “you look like you
have some sense. I’ll leave my directions with you, and you see you carry
them out. Do just as I say. Think I won’t know it if you don’t, as soon
as I get here?”
“Mighty apt, sure,” Mrs. Strobe conceded, in a conciliatory tone.
But the big doctor, who seemed, as he stood about, to occupy more than
his share of the little cabin, only gave a snort of derisive rage at this
overture, and prepared his medicines in stern and puffing silence. He was
still breathless when he gathered up his saddle-bags and started toward
the door. He came back, and looked in again to say, with a threatening
air, when he would repeat his visit; and they presently heard the
ambling hoof-beats of his horse that took him up the turn-row, and so
away.
It might seem that Mrs. Strobe could not easily recover from the stress
of this interview, but her elasticity was altogether unstrained, and she
rebounded from her humiliating detection with the alert grace of one who,
from good-nature, ignores a defiance, having ample resources at call.
“Gin up the case!” she cried scornfully. “An’ what do we-uns keer, with
a doctor-man o’ our own, what Jake Baintree fotched! I hed a great mind
ter tell ’bout’n him, an’ how peart he war, but I war ’feard o’ hurtin’
the old man’s feelin’s. Murderin’ Eli,—I say! I war so mad wunst I hed
a great mind ter throttle the old man;” which the doctor would have
esteemed a terrible intention in a woman of Mrs. Strobe’s size, had
he known she entertained it. “But how did he find out Eli hed tuk the
t’other doctor’s medicine? I tell ye, now, Marcelly, that thar old man
hev got eyes in the back o’ his head, an’ kin see fourteen mile off
through a thunder-storm in the night-time ’thout strainin’ his sight.”
Mrs. Strobe affected to hope that he would continue angry, and fail to
keep his engagement; but her relief was very patent when he reappeared
with his saddle-bags the next day, and the next, and still again. He
took little note of her except to treat her remarks with a sedulous
show of unconcern. He asked Marcella keen and searching questions as
to his patient during his absence, and strained to the uttermost their
every capacity and all the resources of the little cabin to subserve the
invalid’s comfort. All was ungrudgingly and submissively accorded, but,
nevertheless, he began to look very grave as the days wore on, and now
and then he solemnly shook his bald head.
“What makes him shake his head that-a-way, Marcelly?” the old woman
demanded. “Ter make sure thar’s nuthin’ in it? He needn’t look so
disappointed. I could hev tole him ez much ez that, an’ kep’ him from
expectin’ ter hear it rattle.”
Outside the world took its way, unheeding, down the oft-trodden course
of the year. The dank mists clung long to range and valley. They lifted
at last, and then the torrents of the recent storm seemed to have been
charged with pigments, for bold dashes of color, of red, of a luminous
yellow, accented yet tempered by intervals of purplish and bronze
intimations, emblazoned the mountain-side, where a monotony of summer
greenth had lately held sway. The sun, coming again with a fluctuating
brilliancy, with far-reaching misty refractions, and anon diaphanous
veilings, to displace the surly usurpations of the grimmer gray elements,
found a responsive glow in the sudden enrichment of the world. The
far-away ranges had acquired a new charm of azure, an exquisitely pure
tone, but of a dull, unglossy softness, all unlike the enameled blue of
the great crystalline sky. The air was pervaded by a fine aroma. The
wind had wings: one could sometimes see the shadows of these subtle,
swift invisibilities flutter in the cloudless sunshine, so vaguely that
before a glance might seek to measure an airy pinion the fleet thing
was gone. Enchantment boldly wandered forth into the broad daylight,
and all lavish splendors were vagrant. In every fence corner, the lush
grasses and weeds, heavy with seeds, were bepainted with a brush full of
color,—amber, and brown, and red; even the cobwebs, gossamer and silver
in the sun, hung from rail to rail upon the old fences, and bedizened
their gaunt homeliness with a delicate fibrous grace. Oh, gone was the
summer, and it would come no more, however the recurrent season might
wear its similitude. Marcella was living her life out; she was not the
light-hearted creature that the spring had found her. She felt that she
was older by many summers, and she did not need Andy Longwood to tell her
so.
“Ye hev got ter be ez solemn ez—I dunno what all. An’ ye used ter laff,
an’ laff, an’ laff. Now ye can’t crack a joke ter save yer life. An’ ef
ennybody else gits ter funnin’, ye don’t pay no ’tention ter what they
say.”
The young fellow sat, as was his wont in his frequent visits, on the step
of the porch, his head, with its tousled curls and its big hat, leaning
back against the post and the thinning yellow vines. His expression was
slightly sullen, and implied a despondent appeal, although his muscles
asserted a cheerful habit, altogether independent of his mind and heart,
and he mechanically laid a clasp-knife upon one closed fist, and with a
dextrous twist of the wrist flung it to the ground, piercing the moist
earth with its point, after the manner of the expert mumble-the-peg
player. Now and then he looked up at Marcella, who sat spinning,
spinning, ceaselessly at her little flax-wheel, until it seemed to
him—the whir ringing in his ears, the sight of the wheel whirling until
it was only a dazzling spokeless circle—that they were his heartstrings
which she was thus drawing out into these attenuated threads, and that
there would not be enough hope, or courage, or any of the essential
endowments left for him to live upon by the time she had wound these
intimate fibres into balls. So forlorn was this “frequent visitor.”
“Ye don’t never notice nobody nor nuthin’, nowadays,” he said, a trifle
hampered in his complaint by the presence of the wiry Isabel, who sat at
the other end of the step, and of his own dog, who looked, as he took
up his position between the two, intelligent enough to understand the
conversation, and independent enough to repeat it. “Got nuthin’ ter say
ter nobody, nor nuthin’.”
He meant himself by this negative description, and the sharp-eyed Isabel
understood as much. Despite her precocity she had the lamentable lack of
tact characteristic of her age, and her mind was a blank as to matters
amatory. She intended to be very agreeable when she said, with a toss of
her tangled hair, “Marcelly air a-gittin’ too old fur ye an’ me, Andy;
she’s jes’ gittin’ mighty settled an’ old.”
A quick expression of apprehension, even dismay, flitted across his face.
“What air ye a-talkin’ ’bout, Is’bel?” he cried, in a loud, reprehensive
voice. “I be four year older ’n Marcelly. ‘Gittin’ too old fur ye an’
me’!” he mimicked ungraciously. “Puttin’ we-uns tergether, ez ef _we-uns_
war of an age, whenst I be old enough ter be yer gran’dad, chile!” He
made another active throw with the knife, holding one ear with one hand,
and flinging the blade from the other ear with a marked dexterity.
When he glanced up Isabel had risen, and waited to catch his eye. “I’m
goin’ in the house,” she remarked, with sour dignity. “I be ’feard ye
mought bite me.”
He would have been glad of the riddance had it been vouchsafed, but
it was an empty threat, or rather promise, for the little girl still
lingered, leaning against a post of the porch; nevertheless, it served
him for another ground of complaint.
“Ye hev all done got sot agin me hyar,” he said, “even Is’bel. Ez ter
Mis’ Strobe, she never war hurt with perliteness, nohow; leastways not
ter me. An’ you-uns all think heap o’ Clem Sanders, I reckon, don’t ye?”
He looked up appealingly.
A smile rippled across Marcella’s face; her red lips parted. Had she
indeed grown so very old, after all? But the alert Isabel answered:—
“I dunno what ye ’low we-uns be so admirin? o’ Clem fur, ’thout we wanted
him fur a ornamint, like that thar plaster rooster what dad brung granny
from Colb’ry ter set on the mankle-shelf. Clem sets ez still an’ ’pears
ez good-lookin’ ez he kin, jes’ like the rooster do. Both o’ ’em seem
like they mought crow toler’ble loud ef they would, but nare one of ’em
do.”
The “frequent visitor” was in a measure appeased. He laughed mightily at
this ridicule of his rival, and then sighed deeply, partly for relief and
partly for self-pity.
Isabel caught the approving expression in his eyes as they met hers, and
she relented from her intention of leaving the young people together, and
once more kindly sat down between them. She seemed, however, disposed
to earn her welcome, for as she clasped her lithe, sunburned hands over
her knees, and turned her pointed chin reflectively upwards, and cast
a glance toward the forge, the preternatural wisdom of her expression
intensified by the two sharp eyes set so close together, she continued:
“Las’ time Clem kem a-visitin’,”—she made no doubt it was partly to see
herself and partly her “granny,” as well as Marcella,—“he jes’ sot up
ez mum ez ye ever see ennybody, like he war ’feard o’ we-uns,”—her lips
curled in relish,—“an’ said ‘Yes’m,’ an’ ‘Ma’am,’ an’ ‘No’m’, ter _me_,
ez well ez ter granny; ez respec’ful, an’ humble, an’ ’feard o’ me ez ef
_I_ war eighty year old.”
“Oh, ho! ho!” laughed the merry “frequent visitor.”
“Shet up, Is’bel,” the elder sister mechanically admonished her.
“’Feard o’ gals,” pursued Isabel, in the pleasing consciousness of
making herself very agreeable. “An’ he say nuthin’ ’ceptin’ ter agree
with everybody, an’ look so mild an’ meek. An’ granny, she talked, an’ I
talked; an’ Marcelly, she talked some, too. An’ Clem, he say, ‘Yes’m’ an’
‘Naw’m.’ An’ he stayed, an’ stayed, an’ stayed, mighty late; till whenst
he war a-goin’ away, granny, she say ter him, ‘Ye mus’ kem agin, Clem. Me
an’ the gals hev mighty nigh ez interestin’ a time a-settin’ up with ye
ez ef ye war a corpse. We’ll watch with ye whenst ye air dead, Clem. Ye
needn’t be ’feard. We will hev got so used ter settin’ alongside o’ ye
an’ yer dumb ways ez we will be plumb trained ter it. Kem up agin soon,
Clem, else we-uns will git our hands out.’”
It was pleasant to hear the “frequent visitor’s” laughter, so jovial a
sound it was. And how his heart warmed to Mrs. Strobe!
“Ain’t she smart, though! My stars! she’s ez smart ez enny man!” he
exclaimed, in the hyperbole of his enthusiasm. “What did Clem say?”
“He say ‘Yes’m,’” cried Isabel, with a jocund outburst. She was in high
feather because of her success. Andy Longwood was far more entertaining
to her when he was in this hilarious humor, instead of the pathetic
sentimental moods which he had of late affected. She was evidently going
on to improve her advantage, when Marcella remonstrated.
“I can’t abide,” she said, “ter hear ennybody laffed at ahint thar backs.
It don’t ’pear right ter me.”
Longwood’s hair was tossed backward, like the mane of an angry horse; he
looked up, with a flushing cheek. “Ye mean ter say, Marcelly, ez I be
’feard ter laff at Clem Sanders ter his face? Now I ain’t, fur I hev done
it a many a time.”
“An’ me, too,” protested Isabel, with arrogant temerity, as if this were
important. “I laffed at him las’ time he war hyar.”
“I ain’t sayin’ ye war afeard, Andy.” Marcella sought to soothe his
wounded feelings. “It jes’ ’pears ter me sorter deceitful.”
“Shucks!” cried the capable Isabel. “Clem’s powerful deceitful hisse’f.
So mealy-mouthed hyar ye’d think he war a lam’, or jes’ a mild deedie or
suthin’; but pass by that thar forge, sir, an’ ye kin hear him hollerin’
a mile off, an’ talkin’ like a plumb coffee-mill,—elbowin’ an’ jostlin’
the men about, the headin’est one o’ the lot! Tuk Jube, the pa’son’s son,
one day, sir, an’ put him in a sack, an’ with all them foolish fellers
a-followin’ he kerried sack, Jube, an’ all down ter the shallow spread o’
the ruver, an’ flung him in. But Clem’s hollerin’ that time warn’t ekal
ter Jube’s ez he kem out the bag an’ waded ashore. Then Clem, he kerns
up hyar lookin’ like—like pie, he’s so good an’ desirable. Can’t tell me
nuthin’ ’bout that thar gamesome Clem, an’ I’ll laff at him all I’m a
mind ter.”
Andy Longwood’s variable spirits had again declined. He was moodily
appreciative of the fact that these robust pranks were not subject for
ridicule in the same degree as the burly blacksmith’s quaking humility
and tongue-tied meekness in the presence of his lady-love and her
feminine relations. The bluff, blustery fun which he relished was not
without its fascinations to the boy-lover, and induced an emulative
grudging. He realized, too, the possibility that Clem’s bold freedom
among men might contrast favorably, in Marcella’s estimation, with
the solicitous cowardice that she alone could inspire in that doughty
heart, and he looked with lowering antagonism at Isabel, as if she had
recited some noble exploit of his rival’s, calculated to put him at a
disadvantage and destroy his prospects.
“Oh, yes, Is’bel, ye saw it, I reckon,” he sneered, with a sudden gust of
temper. “Ye kin see mos’ ennythin’, ef ye be jes’ willin’ ter take half
on trest. I’ll be bound he hed a dog or suthin’ in that sack, an’ ye saw
Jube arterward. Clem couldn’t tote Jube. Ye jes’ saw Jube wadin’.”
“Naw, ’twar jes’ ez I say,” Isabel hastily insisted.
“Waal, hev it so,—hev it so.” Longwood waved off the discussion. “Look
out right smart enny clear night, an’ ye’ll see the man in the moon
wadin’ down in them shallows.”
“Shucks!” said Isabel, discarding the consideration, as it were, of the
man in the moon, and thinking that Longwood was disposed to talk to her
as if she were a very small child.
He sat quite silent then, the light wind blowing his long hair back
amongst the sere and yellow vines. There was no serenity, as of yore, in
his eyes, and Marcella was moved to vaguely pity him. She glanced down
at him once or twice as she spun, and then away to the purple mountains
beyond the hazy valley, rich with golden drapings, tissues of the
sunshine that seemed some splendid textile thing, so palpable was its
effect. The lilac aster trembled in the stir of the wind. The wild turkey
called from the woods. All the burrs of the great chestnut by the gate
had opened to the summons of the frost, and now and again as the branches
shook, the glossy nuts fell to the roots of the tree. She saw adown the
moist, dank path a garter-snake, lying, half torpid, lured out by the
treacherous sun and chilled by the autumn blast. Somewhere a cricket
shrilled and shrilled.
“Air the season for’ard over ter Chilhowee, Andy?” she asked.
“Dunno. Don’t keer. Wisht Chilhowee war leveled with the ground.”
“Dell-law!” exclaimed Isabel, astonished by this ebullition of
perversity, and disposed to comment profusely. Mrs. Strobe, however,
opportunely called her from within to some domestic duty, and the
suffering Longwood felt it a release.
“Marcelly,” he said earnestly, making the most of his opportunity, “ye
an’ me useter be powerful friendly, an’ I hed ruther kem hyar a-visitin’
than in the courts o’ heaven. An’ ye useter laff an’ be glad ter see me.
An’ me an’ ye, an’ sometimes Is’bel,”—alas, how often Isabel, for all he
put it thus politely,—“useter sit in the orcherd an’ eat apples, an’ go
fishin’, an’ sometimes jes’ talk on the porch; an’ now all them times air
gone!”
“Ain’t we talkin’ on the porch now?” demanded Marcella.
“Not like in them days: ye sca’cely notice now whether I kem or don’t
kem; ye pay jes’ ez much ’tention ter me ez ef I war that thar old dog o’
mine. G’way Watch!” he broke off suddenly, “I ain’t talkin ter you-uns. I
wisht yer throat war cut!” He held back with one stalwart hand his canine
follower, who upon the mention of the word “dog” had come up and offered
to lick his face. “Ye air lookin’ over my head, Marcelly, an’ ye ’low I
be sech a fool ez not ter know it. Yit we hev been raised tergether. An’
I remembers how I hev listened, a-comin’ down the turn-row, ter hear ye
call out, sweeter ’n a mocking-bird’s singin’, ‘Look, Is’bel, yander’s
Andy.’ I’d ruther hear it ’n the voice o’ the Lord! Ye needn’t look at me
like that. I’d jes’ ez soon go ter hell ez not—I hev done gone ter hell,
ef ye ain’t goin’ ter keer nuthin’ ’bout’n me. Oh, Lord, I can’t learn
nuthin’ mo’ ’bout brimstone an’ fire in the next worl’. I hev felt ’em in
this.”
“I ain’t goin’ ter keer nuthin’ ’bout onchristian folks,” remarked
Marcella, “an’ none ez use cuss words an’ talk ’bout ‘hell.’”
She spoke stiffly and with an averted eye, but when he had turned his
head away she looked down kindly and leniently at him.
He suddenly glanced up. “Air it this all-fired Christian, Teck Jepson, ez
hev sot ye agin me?” he asked suspiciously.
“Him ez flung my father down, an’ rid over him, an’ bruk his skull,
an’”—She could say no more; the sobs were in her throat, her eyes were
full of tears.
“Don’t cry, Marcelly,” he said sympathetically, and he was silent for a
moment in respect for her grief. Then he renewed his insistent pleas.
“Marcelly,” he demanded, “air thar ennybody ez ye know ez I ain’t
’quainted with?” Who could say how Fate might play the trickster? He felt
his hands were feeble as he sought to control the possibilities. It might
have been that his words recalled the stranger who had brought such peace
and ease to her father, that night of storm and trial. It might have been
that he was already in her thoughts. His image in the vicissitudes of
that night, now in the lurid and fluctuating illumination of the forge,
now as he quelled the frenzy of the wounded man, distinct in the white
gleams of the lighted cabin, became vividly present with her. She did not
hesitate. She believed he was a fugitive from the law, but whether he had
done ill, or whether he was falsely suspected, he should not be hurt by
aught that she might say. She sought, however, to summon as innocent a
duplicity as she might, for was she not a “perfessin’ member”?
“What makes ye ask sech a question ez that, Andy? Ye ’pear bereft.”
“I know,” cried the young fellow wildly, “ez ye think ’bout somebody
nowadays in the time whenst ye useter think ’bout’n me!”
“Why, Andy!” exclaimed Marcella, laughing, and blushing for the
arrogations of his woe. “I never did think ’bout you-uns, ef the truth
war knowed.”
“Ye did! Ye did! I useter know it ’way over yander ter Chilhowee, kase
I’d feel so happy, so happy, whilst a plowin’, or choppin’ wood, or
a-pullin’ fodder. I wouldn’t hev swapped places with a n’angel. Ye used
ter think ’bout _me_ then, an’ now ye think ’bout somebody else.”
She said nothing, and he leaned back against the post of the porch,
looking up at the far crystalline sky, deeply blue; but one scant cloud
was visible, of a dazzling opaque whiteness in its central mass, and with
tenuous trailing cirrus effects upon its verges. It pained his eyes, and
he pulled his hat-brim over his brow as he lowered his head.
“I tell you what,—I wisht I war a Injun.” He glanced up at her, in the
hope that she would ask why. But her wheel still whirled, her little
foot, with its low-cut shoe, visible on the treadle. Her bright, downcast
eyes were fixed upon the thread that her deft fingers drew out in
endless attenuations. “I wisht I war a Injun,” he reiterated, “so ez I
wouldn’t know ’twar murder an’ a scandalous sin ter kem down hyar from
Chilhowee in the night-time an’ scalp every hearty single man in the
Settlemint,—scalp ’em an’ stab ’em, I would. I wisht I didn’t know no
better ’n that. I wisht I war a Injun.”
Her thread broke. The wheel ceased to revolve. She looked at him with
reprehensive eyes.
“Andy Longwood,” she remonstrated, “ye air gittin’ ter be gredgin’ an’
mean,—an’ ye ain’t tellin’ the truth, nuther. Ye don’t wish no sech
foolishness, an’ ye wouldn’t scalp nobody. Ye air jes’ gredgin’ an’ mean.”
“I gredge you-uns ter enny o’ ’em,” he replied. Then, after a moment,
“Look-a-hyar, Marcelly Strobe,”—he adopted in turn the solemnity of the
full name in addressing her,—“how often hev ye promised ter marry me?”
“Not lately,” she declared.
“No, not lately, an’ that’s jes’ what I’m a-talkin’ ’bout. Lord! Lord! I
kin ’member jes’ ez well how ye useter look when ye fust tuk ter toddlin’
round, an’ folks useter tell me then ez how ye an’ me would marry some
day; an’ I b’lieved ’em, pore fool! An’ so did you-uns, though. Ye useter
promise ez soon ez ye could talk ez ye would marry me. Ye useter promise
even arter ye war ez old ez Is’bel, an’ arterward, too.”
“Waal, Is’bel ain’t so very old,” observed her sister calmly.
“An’ all of a suddint,” continued the young lover, “ye got tongue-tied,
an’ wouldn’t say it yerse’f, an’ wouldn’t let nobody say it ter you-uns.”
“Waal, Andy, I hev fund out better sence then. Promisin’ ter marry air a
mighty serious matter.”
“’Tain’t; promisin’ ter marry me air a mighty cheerful, safe thing!
Knowin’ me like ye do! Ef ye war a-promisin’ ter marry some o’ these
deceitful folks ez kem hyar in thar saaft comp’ny manners, an’ then go
cavortin round the Cove like a demented blacksmith; or folks ez hev got
Christian talk fairly a-wobblin’ all ’round ’em, an’ yit all Brumsaidge
air afeard ter say a word whilst they air ridin’ folks down,—off’cers
o’ the law an’ sech,—’twould be a mighty serious matter, an’ a heap mo’
serious ter keep enny sech promise.”
He looked at her triumphant in the fullness of his logic; but alas! what
has love to do with logic?
The futility of all his fine reasoning was borne in upon him with a
dreary accession of heartache and a determination of energy to his temper.
“But ye air in love with some o’ ’em, Marcelly, an’ ye air jes’ foolin’
me. Naw, ye won’t even take the trouble ter try ter fool me,—I ain’t wuth
it. Ye air in love with some o’ ’em, else why air ye so solemn? It’s
enough ter make ye solemn, though the Lord knows.”
She had not recommenced her spinning; she was looking at him with a
remonstrant, smiling expression, as if she might thus coax him from his
boyish wrath, when suddenly her eyes filled, her lips trembled.
He rose, quivering at the sight of her agitation. “I’ll find out which
one of ’em ’tis that ye air goin’ ter marry, Marcelly, an’ I’ll go down
yander inter the Settlemint an’ scatter what he calls his brains all
’round his anvil. Air it Clem Sanders? Air ye goin’ ter marry Clem?”
“I ain’t solemn fur Clem Sanders,” she sobbed, half laughing; then, with
a gush of tears, “I hev got a heap besides ter make me solemn.”
“Tell me who it is that ye air goin’ ter marry,”—he touched the trigger
of his rifle, with a fierce elation in his eye; “it’s loaded fur _him_.”
Marcella suddenly lifted her head, as if listening. She rose
precipitately. “Jes’ go ’long, now, Andy. Ye hev been hyar a long time.
Go home, an’ I’ll tell ye ennythin’ ye want ter know nex’ time ye kem.
Jes’ g’long, like a good boy.”
He stared, motionless, amazed at her pale face and agitated manner. Then
he too heard a step within. “He’s in the house,” he exclaimed, “a-talkin’
’long o’ Mis’ Strobe an’ Is’bel! An’ ye wanted me ter go ’way ’thout
seein’ him. I know ye now, Marcelly, an’ I’ll stay. I won’t be druv off;
I’ll stay, an’”—His hand once more sought the trigger of his rifle,
as his blazing eyes fixed upon the door whence the sound of the step
proceeded. A hesitating step it was, and slow.
And then Eli Strobe appeared, and Longwood saw him for the first time
since his illness. The young man recoiled from the shock, his angry
insistent face smitten with a sudden gravity, even awe. So forlorn
and spectral was Eli Strobe, with his pallid, lantern-jawed face; his
half-shaven head, still bandaged; his clothes, his very skin, hanging
loosely on his big bones. He cast his old familiar sidelong glance at the
young fellow, freighted with evident but surly recognition, and he had
the dumb, pathetic, shambling dignity that one sometimes discerns in a
wounded animal, as with frequent halts he tottered up to an armchair on
the porch, in which his deft-handed daughters made haste to prop him with
pillows and wrap him with blankets. He muttered something vaguely about
“them leetle darters,” and then he sat quite still, looking off at the
purple mountains, and the golden sunshine on the red and amber woods hard
by, the aspect of the whole world changed since he saw it last.
The young fellow, still staring, had sunk down upon the porch in his
former attitude, wondering if indeed there were no one else within; why,
then, had Marcella sought to hurry him away? She had settled herself
again at her spinning-wheel, watching with a tremulous smile the clumsy
antics of Longwood’s dog, courtier enough to display great joy upon the
reappearance of the master of the house, and leaping about his chair, now
and then emitting a short, shrill bark.
“Fust time I hev been out, Andy,” observed Eli Strobe.
Marcella stopped her wheel to listen. She seemed to hang with doubt
and anxiety upon his every word. Longwood, summoning a show of
self-possession and cordiality, remarked that the air was likely to do
him good. “Ye ’pear ter be gittin’ well now,” he added encouragingly.
“Yes,” assented Eli Strobe good-humoredly. “Mam an’ Marcelly an’ Is’bel,
though, hev mighty near killed me with kindness. ’Twar mighty hard fur me
ter start out ter git well. I felt like I’d fairly enjye stayin’ sick fur
a livin’. An’ that thar old doctor,—I actially b’lieves he hev gin me all
the med’cine he hev got. The rest of ’em in the Cove hed better not git
sick soon; no mo’ doctor-stuff whar that kem from.”
Andy Longwood laughed in an embarrassed fashion, by way of making an
appropriate response. Some crows—they seemed very black—were cawing
loudly from the top of a full-leaved hickory-tree, that blazed a
resplendent, illuminated yellow down by the fence; all the breadth of the
sere cornfield hard by was doubly pallid in tint, in contrast with this
flaring ochreous splendor; the sky was an intenser blue where the foliage
was imposed upon its expanse, the farthest mountains duskily purple,
while below the branches of the tree, near to the great dark bole, the
roofs of the Settlement showed, the glimmer of the frost on the eaves not
altogether spent, albeit the sun was high, the curling tendrils of smoke,
blue, and misty, and timorous, as they crept out of the clay-and-stick
chimneys.
Eli Strobe’s eyes dwelt on the little hamlet for a moment. “What’s the
folks in the Settlemint a-sayin’ ’bout me; Andy?” he asked unexpectedly.
“I ain’t seen nobody but the gals an’ mam, ez dunno nuthin’ ’bout folks,
an’ politics, an’ sech things ez a body wants ter hear ’bout; an’ the
old doctor, ez seems ter be a good, useful kind o’ consarn, but ’pears
ter think a man oughter set still all day an’ study ’bout’n his liver,
stiddier politics an’ his office what he hev done been ’lected ter
hold, an’ will de-strac’ his mind ef he gits ter thinkin’ ’bout enny
sech ez them. Actially, I b’lieve that old man would hev hed me darnin’
stockin’s, ef I hedn’t made a stan’ agin him. I tried ter spound a pint
o’ law ter him t’other day, an’ he seemed ter take a fit till he got me
ter talkin’ ’bout craps an’ gyardin truck,—turnips, an’ inguns, an’ sech,
ez I don’t keer nuthin’ ’bout. I hain’t hearn nuthin’ ’bout the returns
o’ the ’lection ’n’ nuthin’. What air they sayin’ ’bout’n me in the
Settlemint, Andy?”
The young man was about to respond, when Marcella precipitately
forestalled him:—
“They don’t say nuthin’ nor do nuthin’ in this Settlemint. Brumsaidge air
the lonesomest place in these hyar mountings. Sech kerryin’s-on they hev,
though, in Piomingo Cove! An’ t’other night they hed a dancin’party over
on Chilhowee.”
“Whar’bouts?” cried Andy Longwood, with a poignant note of surprise,
deprivation, and despair. “I never hearn nuthin’ ’bout’n it. I dunno why
they never invited me,” he added, with surly resentment. As he gazed up
at her, he could not interpret the glance of scorn and reproach that
she cast upon him. Then she did not lift her eyes again, but busied
herself in her spinning, while Eli Strobe, catching at the subject,
logically descanted upon the sin of dancing, and described with a fervid
imagination the experiences which its votaries would encounter in the
next world as retribution. The “frequent visitor” hardly listened, so
mystified was he by the taunt of Marcella’s glance and the news of the
airy pleasuring on Chilhowee, in his own neighborhood, in which he had
been, for some unimagined reason, debarred from participating. If it were
not so inexplicable, he might have believed that she had invented the
circumstance, and relied upon his tact to confirm her statement, and thus
set Eli Strobe off on a theological hobby. He wondered, hearing vaguely
of fiery furnaces and furious brimstone, if the doctor considered this
a pleasing and wholesome subject of contemplation. It might have lasted
longer if the polemic had had a stronger opposition. Marcella sought to
furnish this, but paternal tenderness rendered her effort of no avail.
“Of course I ain’t talkin’ ’bout ye dancin’ at the party las’ Christmus,
Marcelly. Did ye think I meant that fur you-uns? That war wunst in a
while,—a leetle dancin’ an’ fun, jes’ wunst in a while.”
For there are exceptions to every zealot’s cherished theory of damnation,
and the imminent terrors of hell must be abrogated in favor of one’s own.
And thus the discourse came to an end. “Andy,” he said, breaking off
abruptly, “hev ye hearn ennybody in the Cove ’low ez I war ter blame?”
Once more Marcella looked at her youthful lover, her eyes dilated,
pleading. He began to understand that there was more here than appeared
upon the surface, and he wished that he had been guided by her monitions
and had taken his leave. He gazed at her earnestly, desirous of saying
what she wanted him to say; but he could read naught in her eyes save her
remonstrance, fear, and reproach. And yet he must answer.
“I hev hearn some,” he faltered, dolorously truthful.
“Waal, they hain’t got no right ter blame me,” retorted Eli Strobe. His
color had risen; his eyes flashed. “I’ll be bound, though,—cowardly
curs!—they don’t dare ter do nuthin’ but talk; they ain’t got the grit
ter try ter set the law onter _me_! They jes’ set ’round at the store an’
the forge, an’ bob thar hats tergether, an’ whisper, an’ talk, an’ talk.”
He grimaced with a mimicry of secrecy and malice, and bobbed his own
head with an alacrity that made the young fellow wince, remembering the
reports of how variously his skull was fractured, and seeing the way in
which it was presumably bound together.
Marcella was spinning again with feverish industry; the wheel whirled
fast,—so fast, and its whir was continuous and loud.
“Naw, sir; they don’t dare call _me_ ter account ter the law fur killin’
Teck Jepson. _Naw, sir!_” Eli Strobe reiterated, with a deep, rotund
voice. Suddenly, with an incidental manner and a clear, casual glance,
“Whar did they bury him, Andy?”
The young man sat mute and dumfounded. The blood rushed violently to his
head, and the landscape reeled before him. He had scant time to realize
the emergency, as the recognition of the state of affairs dawned upon his
bewildered intelligence, and to canvass within himself what answer he had
best make.
“I dunno,” he faltered. “I be so constant over ter Chilhowee,” he added,
gathering his faculties.
“Ain’t ye never hearn, though, whar they buried him?” Eli persisted,
with growing pertinacity. “I didn’t ’low ez ’twar you-uns ez preached
the fun’ral sermon,” with an angry sneer and his side-glance of bovine
surliness.
“Why,” said Marcella, with a matter-of-course manner, “I’ll tell ye: they
buried him up yander in that thar leetle buryin’-groun’ by his old cabin,
whar his folkses’ graves be.”
Her father fixed a keen, suspicious eye on her.
“Ye didn’t know yestiddy,” he commented severely.
Not even the crafty watchfulness of mania, not Andy Longwood’s sanity,
could detect aught amiss or unnatural in her tones and manner as she drew
out her thread, and once more set the wheel a-whirling before she replied.
“Naw; Clem Sanders ’twar ez told it ter me, when he kem ter inquire arter
ye, las’ night. I axed him.”
Andy Longwood understood now that the family systematically agreed with
Eli Strobe and humored his strange delusion, lest they might excite him
to his detriment, and that these were the directions of the physician. He
did not fail to note that it was with his rival’s name that she sought
to aid her forlorn enterprise, and that she no longer turned to him for
help. “I reckon Clem an’ nobody else would hev been sech a fool ez me,”
he angrily reproached himself. He was eager enough to go now, but his
liberty had fled. The invalid had fixed earnest eyes upon him, and showed
a continuous desire to talk; he could only sit and listen, with the cruel
consciousness of how every distraught word grated upon the tender heart
of Marcella. He realized now how she had sought to shield from notice the
calamity of her father’s loss of mind, and how he had thwarted her.
“Waal—waal! buried him thar, did they? Teck’s gone!” A shade—a symptom
of remorse—crossed his face. “He’s in the grave whar he tried ter put
me. Mighty narrer place, folks, mighty narrer, fur ennybody ez hev
lived in the worl’ an’ got used ter seein’ the sky.” He drew a long
sigh, and mournfully shook his head. “An’ he war a good man in the
main—Look-a-hyar, Marcelly,” he broke off abruptly, her half-repressed
sob catching his attention, “what ye cryin’ fur? It’s whar he tried
ter put me! An’ ye see, Andy, they can’t do nuthin’ ter me, kase I war
a off’cer o’ the law in the discharge o’ my jewty. I war obligated
ter arrest Teck, an’ I pulled him out’n his saddle an’ bruk his neck.
Ye don’t b’lieve it, Marcelly?” He looked at her with a flashing,
challenging eye, the red and angry blood rushing suddenly over his pale
face. “Ye said ye didn’t, yestiddy.”
“Waal, that war yestiddy,” the girl urged soothingly.
“Ye see, Andy, ef Teck hed killed me whenst he rid me down, ’twould be
murder, kase I war off’cer o’ the law, arrestin’ him whilst gamblin’.
Hoss-racin’ on a public road air gamblin’, though ye mightn’t think it,
Andy. Ye young folks air so sodden in sin ye dunno right from wrong.
Buried him up yander on the mounting-side, ’mongst his folkses’ graves.
Waal—waal! They needn’t try ter hold me ’sponsible, kase they can’t. Hev
ye hearn ennythin’ ’bout his harnt bein’ viewed, an’ sech? Fraish-buried
folks walk sometimes, they say; leastwise till they git used ter bein’
under the groun’, or wharever they hev gone ter. But I hev never hearn
tell o’ none o’ them ez hev been dead a cornsider’ble time gittin’
a-goin’,—none o’ the old folks, dead fifty year ago an’ better, an’
none o’ them Injuns now out’n that thar Injun buryin’-groun’ way up on
Sing-Song Creek. Whoever see a Injun harnt? Shucks! ’twould make me laff.
I reckon them folks hed no souls, ef the truth war knowed. Ye ever see a
Injun harnt?”
“Naw, sir,” replied Andy. “Them Injuns over ter Quallatown air plenty
dead enough fur me!” He laughed constrainedly as he made the admission,
for the sight of Eli Strobe, lean, and pale, and grizzly, with his
overgrown beard, and his tangled hair, and bandaged head, was not
reassuring, as he sat and discussed his ghastly subject.
“I jes’ study ’bout Teck Jepson all the time. I kin jes’ see how he
looked whenst I got him down on the road under his horse’s hoofs. He bled
a heap.” He said this with a certain relish. Then he looked curiously at
a dark stain on his coat-sleeve, and was silent for a moment. “I wisht
I knowed what he said whenst he got ter Torment.” He winked feebly at
Longwood, unnoticing that the young man winced. “I wisht I knowed ef he
walks.”
It was waxing close upon noon. The shadows had gradually dwindled. The
world was so still. The sunshine lay on the splendid slopes in languorous
reverie. Here and there some winged thing whisked about in the fine soft
radiance, miraculously escaping the frost, or gallantly withstanding it,
like certain human antiques, prolonging the sentiment and fervor of a
summertide, albeit they cannot stay it.
Marcella’s attention pensively followed the airy zigzags of those
unconquered wings; the little wheel was still; her hands had fallen
passive at last in her lap. Andy was once more meditating departure. He
straightened out his limbs as he sat, and he lifted his head and looked
about him. The next moment he glanced up at Marcella with an expression
of startled, anxious inquiry. Her eyes were already riveted upon the
turn-row, where amidst the pallid corn Teck Jepson was slowly coming
toward the house.