An interval of silence succeeded. The heavy, black shadows of the great
trees hard by did not stir. The mute moonlight lay all down the vacant
road, and rested unbroken upon the rude floor of the loft. The man at the
square window stood motionless, his hand still uplifted, his illumined
face questioning, intent. The only sound was the vague, lingering stir
communicated through all the fibres of the hay when Bassett, half
rising upon one knee in its midst, had shifted his weight. Suddenly an
acorn from a chestnut-oak fell upon the roof, with a loud, imperative
accent in the tense, expectant moment. It cracked upon the clapboards,
that reverberated with the ready resonance of the void spaces of the
interior, rebounded with a rattle, rolled deliberately down the eaves,
and dropped thence to the ground. It was a slight thing, but if aught
more significant had sounded in the interval, this trivial clamor had
nullified it. The opportunity to continue to listen and identify the
mysterious voice was lost, for one of the cows, below, had begun to low
fitfully, and the rocks close at hand prolonged and reduplicated the
lingering, melancholy note.
A half-articulate curse, and here and there a long-drawn respiration,
intimated that the breathless tension of expectation had given way.
“’Twarn’t nuthin’ but a ow-_el_,” said one of the mountaineers, who
had paused, as if petrified, in the middle of the floor, his hands
in his pockets, his hat on the back of his head. He had a sedulously
unimaginative aspect, as if determined to belittle the occurrence and
denude it of consequence; and yet there was something in his tone that
intimated a hope of contradiction.
“Ow-_el_! Waal, mebbe ’twar,” ejaculated the man at the window perversely
divining his desire.
“Waal, then, what did it sound like ter you-uns?” demanded the first
speaker, frustrated in argument, and realizing that he would first have
to foster a sensation in order to assume his favorite iconoclastic
_rôle_. It is an old saying that two are required to make a quarrel, and
it is not worn out yet.
“Sounded ter me,” put in the simple Clem, “like a woman a-callin’.”
“Else a wild-cat, or suthin’,” suggested the first speaker. He was
Peter Bryce, Mrs. Bowles’s former lover; and although he had survived
her cruelty, his disposition had succumbed to the souring influences of
disappointment, and his estimate of women had suffered.
“Naw, sir!” said Clem, with a definite accession of acerbity, and
becoming communicative under its stress. “I ’lowed ’twar _my mother_
a-callin’ me. Mought hev been mistaken, though,” he qualified.
Bassett, still half kneeling in the billowy hay, in the shadow save for
a slender moonbeam falling upon him from a crevice in the roof above,
skein-like and fibrous, turned a suspicious eye upon the stalwart young
blacksmith, who was indistinct in the semi-obscurity.
“Clem Sanders,” he said sternly, “hev ye been fool enough ter tell her
’bout we-uns, an’ sech ez we air lookin’ ter do?”
There was no striding to and fro now; all the burly armed figures
were still and silent for a moment, their eyes, whether distinct and
shining in the moonlight, or barely discerned in the shadow, fixed with
one accord upon Clem Sanders, who needed all his courage to face the
suspicion of treachery that they expressed.
“Of course I never. What would I be a-tellin’ mam sech ez that fur, in
the name o’ common sense? She be a-callin’ me, I reckon, ter feed some
apple-parin’s ter the peegs, fur all I know.”
There was a momentary silence; then discerning the distinctly sullen note
in his reply, Bassett found the tact to say:—
“Ye know, Clem, we hain’t got no objection ter Mis’ Sanders, ’ceptin’ her
bein’ a woman; bes’ one in the worl’, though. But ye know, Clem, ’tain’t
safe ter trest ’em with sech. They tell everythin’ they know, an’ they
hain’t got no sense ter reason on jestice an’ sech; ’twould jes’ let them
men plumb off, ef enny woman war ter git a-holt o’ it. ’Twon’t do ter
trest ’em with sech.”
“Nor with nuthin’ else,” said the cynical Peter Bryce, speaking from the
fullness of his own experience, but with an abstract application to the
whole sex that gave Clem Sanders no offense for his mother’s sake, and
left him at liberty to suffer sundry pangs of regret that beset him at
the recollection of his disclosure to Marcella. He threw himself down on
the hay, close to the wall, his hat pulled far over his brooding eyes,
his elbow upon the elastic masses, and resting his head in his hand.
The cat, in a crevice between the unchinked logs, looked around at him
with lustrous, recognizing eyes, and, kitten-like, she put out a white,
velvety paw with a feint of touching his sunburned hand, falling short by
an inch. Then she once more gazed calmly out, drawing her tail about her,
and seeming always to rise slightly, as she purringly closed and unclosed
the nails of her fore-paws. Her shadow on the floor, above that of the
prostrate man, was like a crouching tiger, ready to spring.
“Can’t trest wimmen with nuthin’,” asseverated Peter Bryce loudly, for
the cynic is rarely ready to enjoy alone his discoveries in human nature.
He calls in all his world to help him make merry over the distortions of
the poor, warped thing before it can get itself away.
“Waal, now, the Lord made ’em,” expostulated an elderly, grizzled fellow.
It was not altogether piety which animated him. His threatening, lowering
mien bespoke a personal interest. He had seven daughters, when he would
have infinitely preferred seven sons. He had, in each instance, absolved
himself from all obligation to feel any special affection for these young
people, who persisted in being so great a shock to his prejudices; he
had sought to steel himself in indifference, and in his judgment that
each was an affliction and a dead weight. But poor human nature is weak
at best. His seven afflictions, all unabashed, proceeded to entwine
themselves about his rude heartstrings as valiantly as could any seven
sons. When he became conscious of this, he applied such simple philosophy
as his untutored brain could evolve to devising excuses for them, as it
were; and thence he advanced to insistence upon their equality — nay,
superiority to any seven sons that could be mustered in Broomsedge Cove.
“The Lord made wimmen,” he solemnly declared.
“By accident, I’m thinkin’,” said Bassett.
“’Twarn’t no job ter be proud of,” echoed Dake.
“War they made a-purpose so durned changeable?” demanded Bryce.
“An’ so onreasonable?” said Bassett.
“An’ sech a tongue onto all of ’em?” Dake suggested.
“An’ no answer but ‘Bekase ’tis,’ ter every why?” said Peter Bryce.
The father of the seven afflictions looked from one to the other,
his eyes vigilant, like a creature at bay. He seemed to have a large
contract on his hands, but he was inured, in his paternal charge, to
large contracts, and thus he was not altogether dismayed. Perhaps in
the exclusively feminine association at home he had learned something
of the potency of feminine logic, and of the futility of imposing upon
one’s capacities the devising of answers to categorical posers. He took
refuge in a broad, unimpeachable proposition, which he delivered with all
the impressiveness of refutation. “The Lord made wimmen,” he solemnly
asseverated anew, as if piety forbade any criticism of the supreme
handiwork, and on this ground defying contradiction.
“An’ what diff’ence is that?” demanded Bassett, with a sneer that the
moonlight accented, glittering on his teeth.
“Who hev said contrariwise?” echoed Dake.
“The Lord made ’em,” the paterfamilias again averred, with an arrogation
of originality in his attitude as he advanced into the square of
moonlight, which showed his bronzed face, with his short beard broadening
its effect, his mild eye assuming belligerent intimations, as of a
peaceful soul, who will, nevertheless, fight for his own, his long, thin
lips firmly compressed beneath his bristly mustache. “The Lord made ’em,
an’ I ain’t goin’ ter hear nuthin’ said agin ’em.”
There was a pause. The frolicsome filly down in the stall below, kept
awake, perchance, by the noise above, frisked about on two or three
boards, upon which her small hoofs clattered noisily, doubtless to the
admiration of her slower, wide-eyed friend the calf, and sent forth a
shrill, gleeful little whinny, all head tones, indescribably callow.
The mother responded with a note of maternal remonstrance; there was a
sound of a scampering gallopade to her side, and the stall was still.
The setting hen, close in to the wall, amidst the hay, stretched her
long neck with its panting open bill, and emitted a sort of hysterical
clucking of apprehension when the whole great mass trembled, as Bassett
flung himself at length into its midst. His head was pillowed high
amongst the fragrant billows, but his feet hung down unsupported,
dangling to and fro with a disparaging gesture, as he demanded, “Hev ye
tole yer wife an’ that thar congregation o’ small gals o’ yourn ’bout
sech ez air goin’ for’ard ter-night ’mongst we-uns?”
The grizzled head, held askew as its owner listened, gave an angry jerk.
“Course I hain’t,” the paterfamilias rejoined, in surly but succinct
denial.
There was a sort of suppressed snort of indignation amongst the
vigilantes, prophetic of the fury that would await the supposititious
betrayal; it seemed, indeed, that the very hypothesis was not a safe
subject. Clem Sanders stirred uneasily.
“Waal, now,” said the crafty Bassett, “why _don’t_ ye tell ’em?”
The elderly champion of the fair stood helpless and at a hopeless
disadvantage; he laid hold of his square-cut beard, and held it
meditatively as he gazed silently at his interlocutor.
“Why _don’t_ ye tell ’em?” repeated Bassett, half-chuckling at his
own cleverness, the trend of his argument seeming hardly less than
inspiration. “Ye know wimmen-folks never talk none; ’twarn’t one o’
them, surely, ez tuk ter gossipin’ in the very Gyardin o’ Eden with the
Evil One hisse’f. They _never_ talk none an’ spread the news, an’ when
thar ain’t no news air plumb ekal ter makin’ it. Then they _never_ sets
tharse’fs ter frustratin’ the men on principle, jes’ fur the enjyemint o’
the thing, though _some_ folks, ez don’t know ’em ez well ez ye an’ me,
hev ’lowed wunst or twict sence the worl’ began ez they air always ekal
ter _that_. A leetle spindlin’ snip o’ a gal kin fool a man six feet high
an’ a two hunderd pounder ’bout ennythin’ she gins her mind ter.”
“That she kin!” sourly exclaimed Peter Bryce, whose infelicitous love
affairs had been so widely bruited abroad, at the time when he and Maria
White, subsequently Mrs. Bowles, quarreled, that reserve on the subject
would have been but an empty formality.
“Oh, Pete, he’s jes’ funnin’; he ain’t hed no ’sperience o’ thar
onreliability,” resumed Bassett, enraptured by the extent of his own
satiric capacities when fairly tested, and having no mind to relinquish
the floor of which he was so conspicuous an ornament. “Then they air so
reasonable,—that’s what makes ’em so easy ter git along with. Ef enny
one o’ them war ter know ’bout what we air aimin’ ter do, an’ ez we
air ready ter hang them men ef we find Jake Baintree air arter enny mo’
devilmint—sence he killed Sam’l Keale, an’ got off from the court through
the jedge an’ jury bein’ so all-fired weak kneed,—what would that woman
say? She’d say, ‘Don’t hang ’em; it mought hurt ’em.’”
There was a smothered guffaw from the younger men, and the father of the
seven reasonless beings stood mute and without a word of contradiction.
“Don’t hang ’em; it mought hurt ’em,—that air what every sistren of ’em
in this broad land would say,” the speaker continued, in high feather,
gratified by the flattering coincidence of the majority. “Now, Clem,
ye kin bear me out,” he said, turning unexpectedly toward the young
blacksmith, who gave so abrupt a start that the cat in the moonlit
crevice rose up suddenly, with a back bowed high and an angry hiss;
then, with her tail aloft and stiff she ran off with an unprecedented
nimbleness, up the mound of hay, and composed herself to watch studiously
a certain beam high out of reach, on which she had seen a lithe whisking
shadow of rodent-like action. Clem heavily turned himself in the hay;
he was swift to indorse mentally any plausible proposition, and he
remembered anew with anxious self-reproach and many twinges of conscience
his disclosures to Marcella. She had disapproved, as Bassett had urged
that any woman would. Was it possible that she would act upon this
disapproval? But after all, would she dare, and what could she do? He
sought to solace his fears, and to shake off his overpowering sense
of treachery and guilt, by arguing within himself the futility of any
scheme she might devise; even circumstance seemed to favor him. He felt
ashamed to experience a certain gratulation that her father, so vehement
a stickler for the maintenance of the law, was not available in this
emergency. “Eli be too sick fur her ter resk excitin’ him ’bout sech.
_She_ ain’t goin’ ter ’sturb Eli ef Jake Baintree war ter git hung, like
he oughter hev been a year ago an’ better, an’ would hev been ef Teck
Jepson hed hed his way.”
He was summarily roused from these absorptions by Bassett’s raucous
drawl:—
“Whyn’t ye answer, Clem? Air ye a-snoozin’ thar, ye sleepy-headed
sorrel-top?”
“I hearn ye,” replied Clem gruffly. “I dunno how _I_ kin bear ye out. I
dunno all the wimmen in the mountings, an’ I don’t wanter. Some will do
one way an’ some another; ennythin’ ez air onexpected an’ suddint.”
“That’s jes’ it!” exclaimed Bassett. “The Bible ’lows ez the woman war
made from one o’ Adam’s ribs, an’ I’ll be bound, though the Bible don’t
say so, ez her brains war jes’ the odds and e-ends lef’ over from Adam’s
brains, an’ that’s why her thoughts air jes’ higglety-picklety; a leetle
o’ this, an’ a tech o’ that, an’ none ter las’ more ’n a minit. An’ she
didn’t shine on that ’casion in the Gyardin as an adviser, an’ that’s
how it happens men ever sence hev been glad ter git shet o’ thar wife’s
advice.”
“I ain’t never seen one woman ez larnt enny lesson from Eve,” remarked
Peter Bryce. “They gin thar advice yit ez ef ’twar one o’ the
precious things o’ the yearth, an’ air always powerful ’stonished an’
conflusticated every time ez the men folks ain’t willin’ ter break thar
necks ter profit by it.”
The sentinel had left the discussion, and reverted to the window; he
beckoned to one of the other mountaineers presently, and pointed down the
long avenue of the great oaks. Here and there were broad open spaces,
where the moonlight fell in unbroken effulgence; the autumn winds had
left the trees but scantily leaved; bough and bole were often distinct
through the foliage, and even amidst the shadows, which duplicated each
leaf and twig; the white frost lent an accentuation of brilliancy. Upon
the sere grass a hoofbeat was falling, and an equestrian figure rode into
full view; a mounted shadow beside him now lurked among the trees; now
skulked strangely foreshortened, on the ground; now rose suddenly upon
the vertical surface of a crag into the full stature of a man and the
complete equipment of a horse, with a definiteness that had an uncanny
effect, somehow, in the solitude. So brilliant was the moon that it
seemed to seek out and reveal vague, spectral, half-realized things,
affinities of the night and the unknown.
“Edzac’ly,—jes’ ez I said. Teck ridin’ ’long like some great captain,”
exclaimed Bassett, whom the faint jingle of spurs in the frosty air had
brought to the window.
The mounted figure passed close to the building, never lifting his head
nor making a sign, although he must have been conscious of the men
looking down at him. The horse whickered gleefully upon nearing the
barn, and the rocks echoed and reëchoed the sound, until it simulated
the distant, neighing of a squadron of cavalry. Even when it had sunk to
silence, some seeming charger far away again broke the quiet, neighing in
the solitary defiles of the mountain. The men looked at one another; here
and there a spark of irritation, perceptible the moment that the horseman
had first been glimpsed through the aisles of the woods, began to flare
definitely into anger.
“Teck ain’t keerin’ how much n’ise he lets them men hear.”
“He don’t mind sech ez we-uns say; he air jes’ sot an’ sodden in his own
way.”
“He oughter be tuk down somehow. He air too robustious an’ domineerin’
ter live.”
The scattered comments subsided the moment a step sounded upon the rungs
of the ladder. As Teck Jepson emerged through the aperture in the floor,
glancing up at the silent figures grouped about, watching his ascent,
there seemed something in his eye which coerced apparent acquiescence,
and in this fostered a sort of subservient dissimulation toward him.
His grave “Howdy, neighbors,” in his low, melancholy drawl, evoked a
friendly “Howdy, Teck,” which seemed to express all the good-fellowship
of approving welcome. Only Dake stood silent and morose, retaining in his
manner something of the sentiment which had animated the coterie before
Jepson’s entrance. He could not have expressed a categorical opinion
of Jepson’s character, but was aware of his acute observation and his
alert divination of motive, and felt sure that he could not have failed
to notice the chill protest and displeasure in the single exception to
the cordiality of the greetings. Thus Jepson’s lofty indifference and
serenity impressed him as in the nature of a triumphant retort, and
presently Dake broke forth angrily:
“What air yer notion, Teck Jepson, ter kem ter a secret meetin’,
a-tromplin’ an’ a-jinglin’ with spurs through the woods, an’ ridin’ of
yer horse ez goes whinnyin’ fur corn inter the stable. Ef I war Clem, I
wouldn’t give him nare grain. Ef them men hev enny ears, they air bound
ter hear ye an’ take a warnin’. I b’lieve ye air in league with ’em.”
Jepson turned slowly upon him. “I b’lieve I’ll throw ye out’n that
winder,” he said deliberately.
There was a hasty cry of protest from the group, and several interposed
between the two. “Naw, Teck, naw; ye mustn’t git a-fightin’, ye an’ Gid!”
exclaimed the father of the seven, with a patriarchal air which became
him well at home, and in view of his seniority did not seem out of place
here. “Ye know, boys, we-uns hev got tergether ter hold up the right,
whether the law will tote its e-end or no. It air fur the good an’ the
peace o’ the kentry. We can’t gin our cornsent ter wickedness goin’ on
an’ dodgin’ its due, but we’ll meet up with it an’ medjure it, sure.
’Twon’t do, ter git ter quar’lin’, so jestice will be frustrated both
in the courts an’ out’n ’em. Ef the arm o’ the law be got so spindlin’
an’ puny ez it can’t take holt an’ deal jestice, but flops par’lytic in
the empty air, the people air strong yit, an’ ain’t goin’ ter suffer no
wrong-doin’. Naw, sir!”
He uttered this with a sing-song delivery, reminiscent of the pulpit
of the circuit rider, his voice rising and falling in alternate waves
and with rhythmical cadences; then he suddenly assumed an indescribably
coaxing tone, that had often proved exceedingly efficacious with
recalcitrant small girls.
“Don’t ye git ter quar’lin’ with Gid, Teck! An’ Gid, ye oughter be
’shamed! Teck’s our main man; he’s a plumb ringleader, an’ ye know we
air all bound ter b’lieve in Teck, wharfore or what not. I notice we-uns
all do his bid, whether we aim ter or no. Teck ain’t goin’ ter git up
no commotion ez them men kin hear. An’ ez ter Teck bein’ in league with
’em, we-uns all know—everybody knows—ez he hev been plumb down on Jake
Baintree ever sence the jury let him off; Teck ’lowed ez Jedge Lynch
ought ter take his case up. Teck’s our main man!”
A frown had gathered on Jepson’s face, distinctly seen in the moonlight
which sifted through the dark shadows from the crannies of the high
peaked roof. The peace-maker had touched some false note, and the jarring
discord was instantly manifested. Jepson deliberately drew his arm from
the grasp of the elder man.
“I ain’t a-aimin’ ter be a leader,” he said. “I ain’t sech ez covets the
fust place. I hev no wish fur words of praise. I look within fur the
testimony an’ the voice o’ the Lord ez sounds in the silences. Sech ez my
steps air, they air tuk in His path.”
He half turned from his well-meaning exhorter, who stood, a trifle
crestfallen but deeply impressed, still staring, the ligaments of his
strong bare neck tense as he thrust his head forward.
Jepson paused, looking over his shoulder his luminous handsome eyes
rested upon Dake with a more familiar and worldly expression than they
had worn a moment ago.
“Ez ter Gid Dake, he air welcome ter his thoughts; his wust enemy
wouldn’t gredge him sech pore leetle things ez he kin think. But ye
air in an’ about right ter gin rebukes fur quar’lin’,—we ain’t met fur
sech ez that. An’ I won’t throw Gid out’n the winder jes’ yit; but,” he
sneered, “let him think his thoughts. A body ought ter be sorry fur a man
condemned ter pass his life in sech comp’ny ez Gid an’ his thoughts.”
The elderly peace-maker received the intimation that his interference
was praiseworthy and well timed with a distinct and grateful glow. Dake,
with his hands in his pockets and a flouting shrug of his shoulders,
ejaculated, “Shucks!” and walked away amongst the others, quick enough,
however, and sensitive enough to note the glances askance and the
half-veiled contempt which marked the degree to which they considered him
defeated, and the consequent depths to which he had sunk in their opinion.
“I rid, but I tuk a short cut through the woods, an’ never teched the
road nowhar,” continued Jepson, standing in the middle of the floor,
taller than them all, very distinct in the moonlight, “I rid bekase I
war so all-fired late.” It was unusual that he deigned to explain his
motives, and this betokened an unwonted geniality and sense of nearness
and oneness with them all. “It takes me mighty nigh the whole evenin’ ter
cook a leetle dab o’ supper. My mother war the bes’ cook ez ever seen
a fire, but I don’t ’pear ter take arter her. I actially can’t turn a
hoe-cake over.” He smiled slightly at the laughter that this revelation
of his domestic difficulties evoked. Then he went on: “Mos’ folks rej’ice
mightily when meal-times come, but it air a season o’ hardship an’ labor
fur me. The skillets an’ the pans ’pear ter hide, somehows, an’ I can’t
find nuthin’; though I aim ter put everythin’ in its place, ’tain’t thar
whenst I want it agin.”
“Ye miss Mis’ Bowles cornsider’ble, don’t ye?” suggested Bassett, with a
leer,—“specially meal times.”
“I never hearn Mis’ Bowles war ennythin’ so tremenjious s’prisin’ ez
a cook,” sneered Peter Bryce, nettled at the very mention of her
name, and resolved not to indorse any presumable merits and culinary
accomplishments.
But Teck Jepson had a sentiment of loyalty to the hospitable board,
although it was self-interest that had spread it. “She never let me go
hongry,” he averred heartily, “an’ that’s more ’n I kin say fur myself.”
“Ye oughter git married, Teck,” said the champion of the fair. “A man
’thout a wife air like a house ’thout a h’a’th-stone: thar ain’t no
chances for comfort, nor cheerfulness, nor light, nor nuthin’, ’thout it;
it’s jes’ the heart o’ a home.”
“Yes; an’ ye kin make mighty sure thar ain’t a skillet in Brumsaidge Cove
spry enough ter hide from Marcelly Strobe,” broke in Dake irreverently,
glad to touch upon a tender point; having heard and believed Andy
Longwood’s representations of Marcella’s preference for Clem Sanders, and
knowing that Teck Jepson had also been an aspirant for favor.
Jepson, with an angry start, was about to retort, when Clem Sanders,
growling an oath, rose up from the hay, stamping heavily first one foot
and then the other, to rouse them from the premature slumbers in which
they had been surreptitiously indulging while the rest of his system was
broad awake. “Air we-uns a-goin’ ter stay hyar all night, a-colloguin’
’bout skillets an’ sech, an’ not even peekin’ out o’ the winder ter keep
watch on them men at the forge? They could hev been at thar evil works,
an’ a-doin’ a dunno-what-all in secret an’ agin the law, an’ we-uns
air sech all-fired drivilin’ idjits we can’t ketch ’em, though we sets
up night arter night a-watchin’, kase we gits ter jawin’ ’bout Eve an’
Adam, an’ skillets, an’ Marcelly Strobe! Them men air mighty safe. I
wisht I knowed I war a-goin’ ter be ez fur off from harm an’ hurt all my
days. Them men air mighty safe, no matter what they air a-aim-in’ an’
a-plottin’; mighty safe from sech vengeance ez we-uns kin git tergether
in Brumsaidge Cove.”
It was seldom that Teck Jepson was affected by the speech of others, but
the coercive influence of this logical outburst was very apparent in his
manner, as he turned abruptly away, evidently terminating and casting
off the whole previous train of thought, and strode to the window. As
he stood there, the moonlight upon his clearly chiseled features, his
full, deep eyes fixed with a searching intentness upon the dark little
shanty of the forge down the road, his hand resting upon the handle of
the pistol that he wore thrust in his belt, his high boots drawn over his
trousers to the knee, his spurs catching the light and scintillating,
albeit they were as motionless as if they had been the accoutrements of
some sculptured soldier, there was so much agile strength suggested in
his pose, so much fire and force in his face, earnest of the vassalage of
circumstance to this full-pulsed spirit, that Clem Sanders, dolorously
gazing, felt his heart sink within him. Teck Jepson had forgotten his
enterprise, for the moment, and he himself had reminded him of it,
forgetful in his turn of the horror that Marcella had expressed, and
of his own protestations that no task she could impose would be too
onerous for him to show his wish to please her. And now he had had but
to hold his tongue, and the intruders might have come and gone while
the vigilantes wrangled together in the loft; no bloodshed would darken
this silver night, and Marcella’s tender heart would be unwrung. “Me, ez
’lowed I’d shoot all these fellers an’ run ’em off from hyar ter keep ’em
from harmin’ Jake Baintree an’ that thar slouch of a blacksmith ez he hev
got along with him!” he said, aghast at the rift between his performance
and his protestations. He began to be appalled by the significance
and consequence that now seemed to attend his hap-hazard speech and
actions. He was not reflective, he had no habits of forecast and serious
intention, and he felt enmeshed in troublous toils in the knowledge that
he secretly wished to hinder that which he apparently sought to help
forward. He would have given much to recall his words. He had lost
all desire to assist in adjudicating public affairs in the courts of
Judge Lynch, to investigate the mystery of the intrusion into his own
forge, even to punish the bungling smith that surreptitiously broke and
mended; these things had become repugnant to him, under the knowledge
of Marcella’s disapproval. He stood for a few moments in the shadow,
silently regarding Teck Jepson in the mellow splendor of the moonlight,
that added its indefinite idealization to those advantages of symmetry
and pose which Clem considered constituted a “powerful fine-built man.”
The blacksmith turned, slouching forward his heavy shoulders, a manner he
affected when displeased and out of sorts, and which had an oddly aging
effect, making him appear like some burly fellow of fifty or sixty, bent
with toil and trouble. He flung himself, with a short sigh, into his
former nest in the hay, and upheld his head on one hand. The moonlight
had shifted since he last lay there. The hay that in the semi-obscurity
retained its dull amber tint, tending here and there to a dusky brown or
the nullity of invisibility, was in the light a fine and fibrous silver;
it gleamed with lustrous reflections as he moved, and threw his head and
face into distinct relief, despite the shadow of his hat-brim.
“Clem looks like ez ef he hed been a-feedin’ on ten-penny nails as his
daily fare,” suggested Jube, the parson’s son, who had lately come in,
and who sat upon an inverted half-bushel measure. He was amusing himself
by shelling an ear of corn, and dropping the grains through the cracks in
the ill-laid flooring upon the little filly in the stall below, which he
could see quite distinctly; the surprise of the little animal was varied
by periodic panic and flight; she would return, however, to reëxamine
the phenomenon, until, finally, Jube forced the empty cob through the
crevice, hitting her fairly upon the head, when, with a terrified snort
and an elastic bound, she disappeared, to come back no more.
Clem made no retort. He did not fail, however, so sharpened were his
blunt perceptions, to notice that Teck Jepson, despite his preoccupation,
glanced round at the sound of his name; he remembered, with an irritated
sense of the grotesqueness of the mistake, that Jepson fancied him
an accepted lover, and there was no relish in masquerading in this
triumphant guise with so dreary and hopeless an identity within.
“What’s the news from the forge, Teck?” demanded Jube, reaching out to
the pile of corn for an ear to hold in readiness in case the filly should
venture out again. Jepson once more turned to the window.
“All dark thar,” he replied.
“Shucks!” said Jube easily, craning over the crevice in the floor in an
effort to see the filly again, as if badgering the small denizen of the
stall below were the praiseworthy errand which had brought him hither; he
even broke off a bit of the ear of corn, and cast it down the cranny, in
the hope that it might prove a lure. But the filly, though slow to learn,
learned thoroughly, and his craft was in vain.
There was a sensation among the others that savored more of angry
disappointment than their disinterested professions of seeking to promote
the welfare and the peace of the community might justify. They became
more sensible of the hardship of their long restraint, and manifestly
chafed at being thus balked of the expected excitement. More than one was
restively striding back and forth upon the quaking flooring, and between
Dake and Bassett arose a somewhat clamorous controversy concerning the
number of times that they had thus fruitlessly watched and waited.
“I ain’t half awake in the daytime, stumblin’ along arter the plow-tail
or huntin’ like somebody walkin’ in thar sleep!” Bassett angrily
exclaimed. “An’ ef we-uns war the men we-uns purtend ter be, we’d go in
the daytime, an’ git Baintree off ter the woods, an’ hang him then.”
“Oh, shet up, Joe!” called out Clem from where he lay half buried in the
hay. He had scant imagination or sensitiveness, but his pulses had come
to beat in sympathy with Marcella’s sentiments, and he felt as it were
by proxy the cold thrill of horror at the murderous words; his nerves
were tense with a sense of resistance to the bloody-minded cruelty of the
careless proposition. “Ye fairly make me hone ter git up an’ beat that
empty cymblin’ o’ a head off’n them narrer, spindlin’ shoulders o’ yourn.”
He had not gauged the effect of his words. Before Bassett could reply
Jepson whirled round, with a flash of the eye that was fiery even in the
pallid moonlight.
“An’ what ails _you-uns_ ter take this suddint turn, Clem Sanders?” he
demanded, his voice vibrant with scorn. “The las’ time I hearn from
you-uns ye war plumb crazed ’bout yer leetle tongs,—not kase they war
bruk, but kase they hed been _mended_. ’Peared like ’twould kill ye kase
ye couldn’t approve o’ that thar job. _I_ war ’feard we couldn’t find a
rope long enough nor a tree high enough ter hang the man ez war so gin
ter pernicious ways ez ter fool with them leetle tongs. An’ now ye ’pear
not ter keer nuthin’ ’t all ’bout them desolated leetle tongs. Ye can’t
hold ter nuthin’, Clem Sanders, an’ ennybody ez puts thar ’pendence in ye
air leanin’ on a broken reed,—even ter shoein’ a horse-critter, ef the
truth war knowed.”
Clem Sanders had palpably winced under this arraignment, despite his
bluff courage, fearing that he had too definitely evinced his changed
feeling, and that in some way it might result in eliciting the fact that
he had divulged their plans to Marcella Strobe. He detected the influence
of her fancied preference in the evident acrimony of Teck Jepson’s
sentiment toward him, but he was not moved to reply until the slur was
cast upon his capacities as a blacksmith. Even in this moment of supreme
emotion his simple art was dear to him.
“Whar’ll ye find a better blacksmith?” he cried, springing to his feet,
and holding both arms outspread. “Whar’ll ye find him? Tell me, an’ I’ll
walk a hunderd mile ter see him!”
The dignity of the worker who loves his craft and does his utmost in its
service was in his face and manner, as he stood, and served to neutralize
his over-weening vanity.
“Ef he war ter tell ye, ye wouldn’t b’lieve him,” said Dake discerningly,
as Jepson turned slightingly away, and Clem sank back once more into the
deep, elastic meshes of the hay.
“Waal,” Bassett resumed his objections, “air we-uns a-goin’ ter keep
this up till Christmus? An’ what did we begin it fur? Ef it air perlite
an’ agreeable ter hang Baintree down hyar, why ain’t it jes’ ez perlite
an’ agreeable ter go git him up in the mountings? ’Twould save time an’
sleep, an’ be jes’ edzac’ly the same ter him.”
“Hang him fur what?” demanded Teck Jepson succinctly.
Clem Sanders, with a galvanic start, turned his head as he lay in the
masses of the hay, and stared at the speaker.
“Fur—fur—a-doin’ of whatever he air a-doin’ of,” said Bassett, to whom a
reputation for a logical, level head was by no means a cherished ambition.
Jepson shook his own head with an imperatively negative gesture. “We
hev got ter find out ez he air arter some harm fust,—some wickedness ez
air agin the interus’ o’ the kentry. He mought hev done nothin’ wuss ’n
fool with them leetle tongs; an’ ef Clem’s half the blacksmith he makes
hisself out ter be, he ought ter be able ter fix ’em agin.”
“Hang him fur a-killin’ of Sam’l Keale, o’ course,” said Bassett
casually, his unthinking face repulsive in its lack of any expression
that might attest some protest of humanity, some reluctant though urgent
and distorted sense of justice, as he paused in his striding to and fro,
and stood in the illumined square of the window. “Ye always ’lowed ’twar
jestice.”
“Not now!” cried Jepson vehemently,—“not now.” He lifted a convincing
forefinger, and laid it in the palm of the other hand at every point he
made, as if telling it off. The other men, great, lumbering, massive
figures in the silver-shotted dusk, gathered about him, watching with
pondering intentness his gesture as he spoke, and slowly deliberating
upon the subject-matter. “At fust, when the courts let him go, I ’pealed
ter Jedge Lynch. But now he hev ez good ez got the promise o’ the kentry
on it. He hev been let ter go free an’ ’thout fear, an’ Brumsaidge hev
’peared ter cornsent ter the verdict o’ the jury. An’ arter six month an’
better Brumsaidge can’t turn around now an’ say, ‘I b’lieve I’ll change
my mind, bubby, an’ hang ye arter all.’ Naw; ’thout he hev done somethin’
fraish, he’ll hev ter go scot-free. An’ ’tain’t likely he hev done
ennythin’ agin ekal ter killin’ Sam’l Keale.”
Clem Sanders had slowly drawn himself into a sitting posture in the
hay. He gazed at the speaker with startled, dilated eyes, his suddenly
formed conviction taking fast hold upon his mind. In this reasoning,
inconclusive though it was, he thought he saw that trait of mercy, of
humanity, which Marcella had urged half heartedly upon him, and then let
fall, since he could do naught, she said. Could Teck Jepson do more?
He wondered if this were her decision. Had she thought Jepson more
powerful? Had she appealed to him for the men she chose to befriend in
the name of sheer humanity? How else could be explained this sudden
elaborate construction of the acquiescence of Broomsedge Cove in the
verdict of the jury? What careful argument was this for the delectation
of lynchers, assembled for the purpose of defying quirks and palliations,
and administering condign punishment for the deed done? He scanned the
half-seen moonlit faces grouped about; there was on more than one a
flouting indignation, and here and there a disappointed, bloodthirsty
lower that he remembered to have seen in the unguarded look of a
sheep-killing dog glimpsing a distant flock on a hill. But one trait
made them all alike,—an expression of suspicious surprise. Had not Gideon
Dake spoken more truly than he knew when he said that Teck Jepson was in
league with those men? And if this were so, it was for Marcella’s sake;
and these words were almost trembling into sound upon the blacksmith’s
quivering, angry lips, as he rose up slowly and confronted Teck Jepson,
still standing in the centre of the circle. There was something so
significant in Clem Sanders’s manner that they all turned expectantly
toward him.
Keen, keen on the frosty air, incisive, iterative, metallic, fell the
sudden stroke of a hammer on the anvil, and every pulse thrilled to the
sound.