“Mad? What hev I got to be mad ’bout, Marcelly?”
“Nuthin’,” she began.
“That don’t hender, Andy,” interrupted Eli Strobe, unable to refrain from
taking a hand in the little game. “The maddest folks air always them ez
hev got no call ter git mad.”
“I war ’feard ye _mought mebbe_ be mad with me,” said Marcella, still
provokingly smiling, and stepping down from the porch and slowly
approaching him.
The sunshine was on her bare head. The rich chestnut-brown of her hair
showed such lustre and depth of color in the broad light, such gloss and
fineness. And how it waved and curled as it fell down on her shoulders,
with an electrical isolation of filaments toward the ends, where they
seemed to lose the expression of color, and gave only cloudy, indefinite
effects that left no opportunity for strong, crude lines about her head.
Her fair skin was fairer still in the radiance. Her eyes were dazzled;
she held one hand above them, and their expression, as she looked at him
from the shadow, might have mollified aught less wrapped in self than
this very young man. To him it all meant that Marcella knew that she
had given cause for offense, and was wishing to make it up by laughing
him out of his just indignation; for a half laugh curved her lips, and
brought out a dimple in her cheek, to fluctuate there with her effort
to ridicule him. She came silently, looking tall and slight, fit to be
swayed even by a gentle wind, and stood beside him in the narrow path;
glancing at him for a moment, then turning and gazing casually from under
her hand, that still shielded her smiling eyes, now at one and then
another of the great ranges, shimmering azure through the sun, save when
a white cloud in the sky set a dimly purple image of itself a-scudding as
impalpably over the mountains. He was impelled to speak first. He did so
in a tone of grave and measured constraint, as one who will not resent,
though feeling offense.
“What favior did ye wanter ax me, Marcelly?”
Her eyes rested still longer on the mountains; then she fixed them on
his face, altogether unmoved by his grave tone, except, perchance, to
laughter. She took hold of the barrel of his rifle with her left hand.
“I want ye ter loan me this rifle o’ yourn, Andy. I want ter shoot a old
hawk ez hev been a-flusterin’ round the hens an’ chickens lately.”
He stood, blankly astonished, for a moment.
“Whyn’t ye borry yer dad’s?” he demanded, in surly suspicion of her
motives.
Once more she turned her shaded eyes upon the mountains.
“Oh, kase,” she said, altogether unembarrassed by the expression of stern
and serious inquiry in his eyes, “ye gin me mos’ o’ the chickens I hev
got, an’ mebbe it mought be good luck ef I war ter shoot the hawk with
yer own gun.”
This seemed to him perfectly reasonable, but his distrust of her was so
great at the moment that he subjected the possibility of occult motives
to a searching mental scrutiny. He failed to evolve anything more
plausible, or indeed anything beyond what she had said. He looked at her
hard for a moment, still bitterly resenting her undimmed brightness under
his displeasure, and he secretly thought she had ill chosen her time to
ask of him a favor. Still maintaining his gravely offended aspect, he
said, “Ye kin hev it, Marcelly, ez long ez ye want it.” He released his
hold upon it, leaving it in her hand, and went his way without another
word. At the gate he did not look back, but pursued the turn-row until he
was half through the field. Under some impulse then which he did not seek
to discriminate, he glanced over his shoulder.
Marcella was standing in the path where he had left her, still gazing
after him. She held the long rifle in one hand, leaning her soft cheek
against its surly ramrod at one side of the barrel, her hair touching it
She smiled radiantly at him through the sunshine, and called out with
joyous sweetness, “Good-by, Andy.”
If he said aught in response, she did not hear it. Her charming smile,
intent on mollification, failed of effect; it was too much, however, to
expect even of feminine tact that she should appreciate that frowns might
have served better, or null seriousness, inexpressive and impenetrable.
The flash of light from her eyes set a-flaring his intelligence,—a
sufficiently good endowment, but lacking those traits of divination
and imagination characteristic of more finely furnished brains. Without
its impetus he could never have experienced an abrupt illumination
concerning Marcella’s motive, which opened before him by the time he had
ponderingly approached the verge of the cornfield. Its contemplation
almost took his breath away. He stood motionless, staring vaguely
before him, realizing why she had wanted his rifle,—how strange that
he had not instantly known! Had he so soon forgotten his idle threats?
He had a vivid mental picture of himself as he must have looked as he
stood on the porch this morning, significantly tapping the trigger of
the loaded rifle. She had not thought those threats idle! His foolish
courage flared up to match the estimation in which he thought she held
him. She knew him for a dangerous man!—and the blood pulsed fast through
his veins as this flattering idea impelled it. She was afraid he would
indeed wreak woe upon the man whom she was to marry. Her father had
said that she was to marry Clem Sanders, and she had not denied it. He
had unconsciously disbelieved this at the time, as one cannot at first
realize a misfortune, which stuns the finer sensibilities by the weight
of its fall. Only now he was beginning to appreciate what her loss meant
to him; it almost unmanned him for a moment, thinking as he did that it
was her solicitude for the safety of her lover that devised the clever
ruse to win his rival’s rifle.
“’Feard I’d hurt Clem,” he said with a sneer, despite his quivering lip.
Perhaps it was the idea that violence was expected of him, which her
precautions first suggested to him,—for the bravado and bloody-mindedness
of his conversation had been utterly without intention,—that determined
him upon his course.
“Naw, naw, Marcelly,” he said, half aloud and mournfully shaking his
head, “ef not me—nobody.” He leaned down as he spoke, and drew from his
boot-leg a glittering steely flash; he looked around with a quick,
apprehensive glance; but the sere stalks of the corn, which were
straggling here, so near the end of the field, would nevertheless serve
to shield him from the observation of any one in the yard or the porch
of the cabin. He examined the knife with fierce eyes, his teeth set hard
together: the handle was strong, the metal excellently well tempered. He
passed his fingers gingerly along the edge,—keen, how keen! Clem Sanders
himself had sharpened it! He sheathed it and thrust it back into his long
boot-leg, and went on taking his way down the road toward the forge,
nerved by the fact that bloodshed was expected of him.
A drought had succeeded the wet weather, and the deep ruts formed by the
wagon wheels in the red clay mire of the road were still stiff and hard,
mementos of their slow, creaking progress; and although here and there
a thin crust crumbled under his heel, his steps left no other trace. He
heard a thrush whistle from the weeds as he went. He looked up at the
spaces of the broad blue sky, infinite elsewhere, but here with bounds
and barriers, for the mountains limited it and made it local. He was
vaguely conscious that his dog, with an affectation of loyalty to his
true owner, as one might seek to cultivate a fine trait to wear as a
graceful accomplishment, knowing it to be exotic to the soil, trotted
at his heels, with a long, lithe stride and a sinuously moving body,
a wagging tail and a nose that pretended to snuff the ground, as if
solicitous for some trail of fox, or rabbit, or other gentry. His master
was presently made aware of his defection by seeing the canine shadow,
cast a little in advance, suddenly swerve aside, and with a deft pace and
a drooping tail the hound set out swiftly for his adopted home.
“The very dog hev gin me up,” his master muttered bitterly. Sorrow at his
age is not all bitterness; it had an element of satisfaction to be so
very adequate to his sufferings and his wrongs. He mechanically turned
his head to glance after the creature, who had paused, gazing back with
regret, rent with inward dissension, his poor dog-conscience struggling
between his sense of duty and preference. He looked a trifle handsomer
than his wont, with the animation of his emotion expressed in his
slender, alert head and his bright eyes. Then, with a sudden sharp yelp
that seemed to cadence the pang of decision, he betook himself swiftly
away from temptation, resolved to persevere in desertion, and was soon
lost to view as the turn-row swallowed him amongst the corn. The next
moment Andy had forgotten that he existed. The music of the forge was on
the air, the clinking of the hand-hammer and the clanking of the sledge.
How the distant sound assimilated with the mountain voices, as the echoes
came lilting forth to meet it! The ear might hardly distinguish the
repetitions of the rock from the vibrations of the metal. Presently he
could hear the anvil sing, and then the strokes seemed only marking the
rhythm of this fine, tremulous, high-pitched monody. Clem Sanders was
there at his work, all unsuspicious of the fate coming with long strides
down the road. What strange, untimely thought was this! The muscles below
Longwood’s knee were suddenly sensitive to the pressure of the knife
in his boot, and he was reminded of a grisly old story of a cruel man
whose hand was palsied on his weapon in the moment when he would have
taken a fellow-man’s life. An old woman’s story this, told in the dusk
at the fireside, to sap away with mystery and weird lights and artful
words a man’s courage when he should resent his wrongs like a man; for
were they not all afraid of bloodshed, these women, and cowards to their
heart’s core? He was dragging his left leg, for all his logic and his
scorn of a pusillanimous peace. How the anvil sang,—how it sang! And why
need he wonder would it be silent to-morrow,—would it ever again give
forth that sonorous melody under the hand of the man who now wielded the
hammer? Who talks of to-morrow? Poor fool, let him mind to-day. Was the
knife turning around in his boot? Every fibre of the limb was oppressed
with its significant presence. His courage, however, did not wait upon
his nerves; he saw altogether unmoved that half a dozen idle men were
standing about the door of the forge, or loitering within. His pace had
grown slower since that fancy about the knife had taken hold upon him,
but as he made his way up the slight ascent to the door of the forge he
stooped down and boldly drew out the weapon; a man in the doorway fixed
a meditative eye upon him, thinking, doubtless, he had only brought the
blade to have an edge put on it. Longwood could see through the dusky
little place, for the window at the rear was open, and he marveled to
find his senses so alert. In such a moment he thought it strange to
recognize Teck Jepson, leaning against the wall, his face white since the
summer sunburn had worn away, and thoughtful, and with imperative lines
even in silent reverie; his hands were thrust in his leather belt; his
eyes were fixed on the leafless autumn woods. Nay, Longwood took note
even of the bare brambles of the wild rose outside of the window, its
profuse pods glowing scarlet amongst the gray rocks and the brown moss,
and the fine-webbed witchery of the hoarfrost lying on the sere leaves in
the shadow.
Clem Sanders’s massive figure was the focus of the group, with his
leather apron girded about him, his sleeves rolled back from his muscular
arms, the light of the fire—a steady red glow, for the bellows was
idle—upon his square, good-humored face, which was refined by that look
of earnest attention and grave content characteristic of the good workman
at his chosen task. One hand held with the tongs the metal upon the
anvil; the other wielded the hand-hammer with deft precision, and the
sledge came crashing down, as Jube, the parson’s son, grasped it with
both hands. The brown shadows clustered about them, and the figure of the
striker with the sledge was only dimly suggested in the rich depths of
the picture. Each detail grew more distinct as the young man advanced;
the apartment gradually seemed lighter than it did at a distance, seen
through the brilliant crisp air, and with the contrast of the sunshine
and the high color of the autumnal world without. As the cinders, which
were mingled with the earth, at the door, began to grate beneath his
feet, he wondered that none of those within took note of his deadly
intention; that the smith should stand undefended, unwarned, for Clem’s
unnoting head was bent over his work, and the yellow sparks flew from the
red-hot iron as the hammer and the sledge alternately fell. Longwood did
not realize how much the habitual imperturbable aspect characteristic
of the mountaineer cloaked his agitation and his design. Even when he
strode into the place, his drawn knife in his hand, calling out, “Clem
Sanders, stand up ter fight! I be a-goin’ ter kill ye!” the idler in the
doorway, chewing his quid of tobacco, merely shifted his eyes again to
the new-comer, and an elongation in the stiff wrinkles about his mouth
betokened preparation to smile. Teck Jepson withdrew slowly his attention
from the forest wilds without, and the smith responded cheerily, his head
still bent over the anvil, “Kill away!” while the painstaking blows of
the forging alternated with the precision of machinery and the sparks
flew.
Longwood hesitated for a moment; then, with a swift fear that his
resolution might fail him, he rushed impetuously forward. The sharp knife
in his hand struck the blacksmith beneath the shoulder blade; it was long
and keen enough to have pierced his heart. There was no fault in the
weapon,—a good strong knife; the hand had faltered,—no sincere hatred
had nerved it. The blade fell clanking to the ground, as the blacksmith
tapped the face of the anvil as a signal that the blows of the sledge
should cease. He turned around slowly, his straight eyebrows lifted.
“What air ye doin’ of, Andy?” he demanded.
“I stabbed ye. I wanter kill ye,” Longwood muttered, doubtful of himself
and bereft of his weapon, for Clem Sanders had casually stooped and
picked up the knife.
The movement had possibly caused the slight wound to gape.
“Look-a-yander how Clem’s a-bleedin’!” exclaimed Jube Donnard, in the
excited falsetto of a born sensationalist.
“Great Molly Har!” cried the smith, showing emotion for the first time,
“did he cut a hole in this hyar brand-new shirt? Mam hev jes’ done
wove it, an’ she ’lowed ef these hyar shirts didn’t las’ me no longer
’n common, I’d hev ter git the trash cloth at the store, ready wove,
or else marry a wife ter do the weavin’. Kase she ’lows it’s through
gamesomeness, an’ not work, I git my clothes so tore up. Look-a-hyar,
Andy,”—he fixed a severe, threatening eye on his assailant,—“ye boys air
gittin’ too rough in yer playin’, kemin’ an’ a-cuttin’ other folkses
clothes. Mighty pore fun.”
He shook his head reprehensively, and turned excitedly toward Jube who
again cried out, “Look how Clem’s a-bleedin’!”
“I ain’t a-keerin’ fur that!” exclaimed the doughty blacksmith. “It will
stop bleedin’ d’rectly. An’ my skin will do its own repairin’ ’thout mam
ter talk a bushel medjure ’bout the sadness o’ hevin’ ter patch. What
I’m tormented ’bout air this hyar tear in this new shirt. Air it sizable
much?”
He crooked his neck dexterously and sought to look over his shoulder to
see the rent, but for all his muscle he could not accomplish the feat.
“What air ye ondertakin’ ter stab folks fur, Andy Longwood?” Teck Jepson
had ceased to lean against the window, and his tone was stern and
inquisitorial. “What do ye want ter kill Clem fur? Do ye s’pose I’d hev
stood by an’ seen ye done sech?”
The young fellow, aghast at what he had done, and still more aghast at
what he had sought to do, experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling upon
hearing Jepson’s words; his fluctuating anger, that had failed to bear
him through his enterprise, flared up anew. His pride, too, was touched
that Clem had held his rage and the wound he had dealt as so slight a
thing,—offering not even a blow in return; he was nettled that in no way
could he impress a commensurate idea of the intention and the spirit that
had animated him, and he resented infinitely Jepson’s tone, upbraiding
him as if he were a boy. The wish for adequate reprisal, to deal him
a blow that he would surely feel to the quick, broke down what slight
reserves his boyish nature had.
“Ye hev got the same reason ter want him dead ez me!” he cried out.
“Marcelly Strobe air a-goin’ ter marry him. Her dad said so,—an’ she did,
too.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing Teck Jepson palpably recoil. He was
all at once very pale. He did not look at Clem Sanders, nor seem to see
anything very definitely. He gazed blankly into space, or perhaps into
the vistas of memory for corollary data to confirm this thing. His hand
was on the window-sill, and it trembled visibly.
Andy Longwood watched these symptoms of pain, each pang of which he could
well divine, with a sort of gloating relish, and once or twice his quick
breathing was so pronounced as to seem a snort of victory.
“Now! _Now!_” he said, nodding his head triumphantly.
Clem Sanders had stood as one petrified, turning over these significant
words in his mind, with a rampant doubt on his face. Suddenly he regained
his faculty of motion and his easy credulity. He tore off his leather
apron, leaving the iron cooling on the anvil. As he plunged his dark red
head into the barrel of cold water, where he usually tempered steel, his
intention of making a toilet began to be manifest to the idlers about
the place. Their rallying laughter and gibes gave Andy Longwood food for
meditation anew. Evidently this was news to Clem, and the others seemed
to readily appreciate it.
“Take another souse, Clem, ef ye air goin’ a-visitin’,” observed the
grinning Bassett; “then she can’t tell how red yer head be.”
Clem stared at him credulously, and obediently thrust again his red head
into the water, in the midst of renewed merriment.
Andy Longwood experienced a sudden terror, which showed that his hope was
not dead, as he had accounted it, but merely comatose.
“Don’t tell her ’twar _me_ ez stabbed ye, Clem,” he pleaded, every
vestige of the desperado gone. “Don’t tell on me.”
“G’long, Andy!” replied the good-natured fellow. “I hev got suthin’
better ’n you-uns ter talk about.”
He put on his coat, and strode briskly out of the forge and up the hill.
They could hear him whistling a long way. Before he had reached Eli
Strobe’s cabin, however, the blithe tones were checked. He in his turn
heard music,—a vague, fitful lilting; now striking out with some full,
rich tone, then trailing away to a meditative murmur, as if the lips
whence it issued were closed save for this dream of a sound. He looked
about for a moment, uncertain in the silence; and then the song came
again, clear and serene, and mellow as the day itself, seeming a part of
the fine and full culminations that the yellow sunshine, and the violet
haze, and the deeply blue sky, and the calm of the season expressed. It
was Marcella, singing like a dryad in the woods, fragments and fitful
impulses stirring the sylvan solitudes with sweet and vagrant accords,
and making the echo timorous to try so elusive a strain.