Owen Haines spent many a lonely hour, in these days, at the foot of a
great tree in the woods, riving poplar shingles. Near by in the green
and gold glinting of the breeze-swept undergrowth another great tree
lay prone on the ground. The space around him was covered with the
chips hewn from its hole,--an illuminated yellow-hued carpet in the
soft wavering emerald shadows. The smooth shingles, piled close at
hand, multiplied rapidly as the sharp blade glided swiftly through the
poplar fibres. From time to time he glanced up expectantly, vainly
looking for Absalom Tynes; for it had once been the wont of the young
preacher to lie here on the clean fresh chips and talk through much
of the sunlit days to his friend, who welcomed him as a desert might
welcome a summer shower. He would talk on the subject nearest the
hearts of both, his primitive theology,--a subject from which Owen
Haines was otherwise debarred, as no other ministerial magnate would
condescend to hold conversation on such a theme with the laughing-stock
of the meetings, whose aspirations it was held to be a duty in the
cause of religion to discourage and destroy if might be. Only Tynes
understood him, hoped for him, felt with him. But Tynes was now at
the schoolhouse in the Cove, listening in fascinated interest to the
juggler as he recited from memory, and himself reading in eager and
earnest docility, copying his master’s methods.
Therefore, when the step of a man sounded along the bosky path which
Haines had worn to his working-place, and he looked up with eager
anticipation, he encountered only disappointment at the sight of Peter
Knowles approaching through the leaves.
Knowles paused and glanced about him with withering disdain. “Tynes
ain’t hyar,” he observed. “I dunno ez I looked ter view him, nuther.”
He dropped down on the fragrant carpet of chips, and for the first time
Haines noticed that he carried, after a gingerly fashion, on the end of
a stick, a bundle apparently of clothes, and plentifully dusted with
something white and powdery. Even in the open air and the rush of the
summer wind the odor exhaled by quicklime was powerful and pungent, and
the scorching particles came flying into Haines’s face. As he drew back
Knowles noticed the gesture, and adroitly flung the bundle and stick to
leeward, saying, “Don’t it ’pear plumb cur’ous ter you-uns, the idee
o’ a minister o’ the gorspel a-settin’ out ter l’arn how ter read the
Bible from a onconverted sinner? I hearn this hyar juggler-man ’low
ez he warn’t even a mourner, though he said he hed suthin’ ter mourn
over. An’ I’ll sw’ar he hev,” he added significantly, “an’ he may look
ter hev more.”
The poplar slivers flew fast from the keen blade, and the workman’s
eyes were steadfastly fixed on the shingle growing in his hand.
Peter Knowles chewed hard on his quid of tobacco for a moment; then
he broke out abruptly, “Owen Haines, I knows ye want ter sarve the
Lord, an’ thar’s many a way o’ doin’ it besides preachin’, else I’d be
a-preachin’ myself.”
Such was the hold that his aspiration had taken upon Haines’s mind that
he lifted his head in sudden expectancy and with a certain radiant
submissiveness on his face, as if his Master’s will could come even by
Peter Knowles!
“I brung ye yer chance,” continued Knowles. Then, with a quick change
from a sanctimonious whine to an eager, sharp tone full of excitement,
“What ye reckon air in that bundle?”
Haines, surprised at this turn of the conversation, glanced around at
the bundle in silence.
“An’ whar do ye reckon I got it?” asked Knowles. Then, as Owen Haines’s
eyes expressed a wondering question, he went on, mysteriously lowering
his voice, “I fund it in my rock-house,--that big cave o’ mine whar I
stored away the lime I burned on the side o’ the mounting--this bundle
war flung in thar an’ kivered by quicklime!”
Haines stared in blank amazement for a moment. “I ’lowed ye hed plugged
up the hole goin’ inter yer cave, ter keep the lime dry, with a big
boulder.”
“Edzac’ly, edzac’ly!” Knowles assented, his close-set eyes so intent
upon Haines as to put him out of countenance in some degree.
Haines sought to withdraw his glance from their baleful significant
expression, but his eyelids faltered and quivered, and he continued to
look wincingly at his interlocutor. “I ’lowed ’twar too heavy for enny
one man ter move,” he commented vaguely, at last.
“’Thout he war helped by the devil,” Knowles stipulated.
There was a pause. The young workman’s hand was still. His companion’s
society did not accord with his mood. The loneliness had been soft and
sweet, and of peaceful intimations. His frequent disappointments were
of protean guise. Where was that work for the Master that Peter Knowles
had promised him?
“Owen Haines,” cried Peter Knowles suddenly, “hev that thar man what
calls hisself a juggler-man done ennythin’ but harm sence he hev been
in the Cove an’ the mountings?”
Haines, the color flaring to his brow, laid quick hold on his
shingle-knife and rived the wood apart; his breath came fast and his
hand shook, although his work was steady. He was all unnoting that
Peter Knowles was watching him with an unguarded eye of open amusement,
and a silent sneer that left long tobacco-stained teeth visible below
the curling upper lip. But a young fool’s folly is often propitious for
the plans of a wiser man, and Knowles was not ill pleased to descry the
fact that the relations between the two could not admit of friendship,
or tolerance, or even indifference.
“Fust,” he continued, “he gin that onholy show in the church-house,
what I never seen, but it hev set folks powerful catawampus an’
hendered religion, fur the devil war surely in it.”
Owen Haines took off his hat to toss his long fair hair back from his
brow, and looked with troubled, reflective eyes down the long aisles of
the gold-flecked verdure of the woods.
“Then he tricked you-uns somehows out’n yer sweetheart, what ye hed
been keepin’ company with so long.”
Haines shook his head doubtfully. “We-uns quar’led,” he said. “I dunno
ef he hed nuthin’ ter do with it.”
“Did Phemie an’ you-uns ever quar’l ’fore he kem ter Sims’s?” demanded
the sly Knowles.
They had never quarreled before Haines “got religion” and took to
“prayin’ fur the power.” He had never thought the juggler chargeable
with these differences, but the fallacy now occurred to him that they
might have been precipitated by Royce’s ridicule of him as a wily
device to rid her of her lover. His face grew hot and angry. There was
fire in his eyes. His lips parted and his breath came quick.
“He hev toled off Tynes too,” resumed Knowles, with a melancholy
intonation. “He hev got all the lures and witchments of the devil at
command. I kem by the church-house awhile ago, an’ I hearn him an’
Tynes in thar, speakin’ an’ readin’. An’ I sez ter myself, sez I, ‘Pore
Owen Haines, up yander in the woods, hev got nuther his frien’, now,
nor his sweetheart. Him an’ Phemie keeps company no mo’ in this worl’.’”
There was a sudden twitch of Haines’s features, as if these piercing
words had been with some material sharpness thrust in amongst sensitive
tissues. It was all true, all true.
The iron was hot, and Peter Knowles struck. “That ain’t the wust,” he
said, leaning forward and bringing his face with blazing eyes close to
his companion. “This hyar juggler hev killed a man, an’ flung his bones
inter the quicklime in my rock-house.”
Haines, with a galvanic start, turned, pale and aghast, upon his
companion. He could only gasp, but Knowles went on convulsively and
without question: “I s’picioned him from the fust. He stopped thar at
the cave whar I war burnin’ lime the night o’ the show, an’ holped ter
put it in outer the weather bein’ ez the rain would slake it. An’ he
axed me ef quicklime would sure burn up a dead body. An’ when I told
him, he turned as he went away an’ looked back, smilin’ an’ sorter
motionin’ with his hand, an’ looked back agin, an’ looked back.”
He reached out slowly for the stick with the bundle tied at the end,
and dragged it toward him, the breath of the scalding lime perceptible
as it was drawn near.
“Las’ week, one evenin’ late,” he said in a lowered voice and with his
eyes alight and glancing, “hevin’ kep’ a watch on this young buzzard,
an’ noticin’ him forever travelin’ the New Helveshy road what ain’t no
business o’ his’n, I ’lowed I’d foller him. An’ he kerries a bundle.
He walks fast an’ stops short, an’ studies, an’ turns back suddint,
an’ stops agin, an’ whirls roun’, an’ goes on. An’ his face looks like
death! An’ sometimes he stops short to sigh, ez ef he couldn’t get his
breath. But he don’t go ter New Helveshy. He goes ter my cave. An’
he hev got breath enough ter fling away that tormented big boulder,
an’ toss in these gyarmints, an’ churn the lime over ’em with a stick
till he hed ter hold his hand over his eyes ter keep his eyesight, an’
fling back the boulder, an’ run off faster ’n a fox along the road ter
Sims’s.”
There was a long silence as the two men looked into each other’s eyes.
“What air ye tellin’ this ter me fur?” said Haines at last, struggling
with a mad impulse of hope--of joy, was it? For if this were true,--and
true it must be,--the spurious supplantation in Euphemia’s affections
might soon be at an end. If her love could not endure ridicule, would
it condone crime? All might yet be well; justice tardily done, the law
upheld; the intruder removed from the sphere where he had occasioned
such woe, and the old sweet days of love’s young dream to be lived anew.
“Fur the Marster’s sarvice,” said the wily hypocrite. “I sez ter
myself, ‘Owen Haines won’t see the right tromped on. He won’t see the
ongodly flourish. He won’t see the wolf a-lopin’ through the fold. He
won’t hear in the night the blood o’ Abel cryin’ from the groun’ agin
the guilty Cain, an’ not tell the sher’ff what air no furder off, jes’
now, ’n ‘Possum Cross-Roads.’”
“Why don’t you-uns let him know yerse’f?” demanded Haines shortly.
“Waal, I be a-settin’ up nights with my sick nephews: three o’ them
chil’n down with the measles, an’ my sister an’ brother-in-law bein’
so slack-twisted I be ’feared they’d gin ’em the wrong med’cine ef I
warn’t thar ter gin d’rections.” His eye brightened as he noted Haines
reaching forward for the end of the stick and slowly drawing the bundle
toward him.
It is admitted that a leopard cannot change his spots, and, without
fear of successful contradiction, one may venture to add to the
illustrations of immutability that a coward cannot change his
temperament. Now the fact that Peter Knowles was a coward had been
evinced by his conduct on several occasions within the observation of
his compatriots. His craft, however, had served to adduce mitigating
circumstances, and so consigned the matter to oblivion that it did not
once occur to Haines that it was fear which had evolved the subterfuge
of enlisting his well-known enthusiasm for religion and right, and
his natural antagonism against the juggler, in the Master’s service.
On the one hand, Knowles dreaded being called to account for whatever
else might be found unconsumed by the lime in the grotto, did he
disclose naught of his discovery. On the other hand, the character of
informer is very unpopular in the mountains, owing to the revelations
of moonshining often elicited by the rewards offered for the detection
of the infringement of the revenue laws. Persons of this class indeed
sometimes receive a recompense in another metal, which, if not so
satisfactory as current coin, is more conclusive and lasting. It was
the recollection of leaden tribute of this sort, should the matter
prove explicable, or the man escape, or the countryside resent the
appeal to the law, which induced Peter Knowles to desire to shift upon
Haines the active responsibility of giving information: his jealousy in
love might be considered a motive adequate to bring upon him all the
retributions of the recoil of the scheme if aimed amiss.
Knowles watched the young man narrowly and with a glittering eye as,
with a trembling hand and a look averse, Haines began to untie the cord
which held the package together.
“He killed the man, Owen, ez sure ez ye air livin’, an’ flunged his
bones in the quicklime, an’ now he flunged in his clothes,” Knowles was
saying as the bundle gave loose in the handling.
Drawing back with a sense of suffocation as a cloud of minute particles
of quicklime rose from the folds of the material, Owen Haines
nevertheless recognized upon the instant the garments which the juggler
himself had worn when he first came to the Cove, the unaccustomed
fashion of which had riveted the young mountaineer’s attention for the
time at the “show” at the church-house.
With a certain complex duality of emotion, he experienced a sense of
dismay to note how his heart sank with the extinguishment of his hope
that the man might prove a criminal and that this discovery might rid
the country of him. How ill he had wished him! Not only that the fierce
blast of the law might consume him, but, reaching back into the past,
that he might have wrought evil enough to justify it and make the
retribution sure! With a pang as of sustaining loss he gasped, “Why,
these hyar gyarmints air his own wear. I hev viewed him in ’em many a
time whenst he fust kem ter the Cove!”
Knowles glared at him in startled doubt, and slowly turned over one of
the pointed russet shoes. “He hed ’em on the night he gin the show in
the Cove,” said Haines.
“I seen him that night,” said Knowles conclusively. “He hed on no sech
cur’ous clothes ez them, else I’d hev remarked ’em, sure!”
“Ye ’lowed ’twar night an’ by the flicker o’ the fire, an’ ye war in a
cornsider’ble o’ a jigget ’bout’n yer lime.”
“Naw, sir! naw, sir! he hed on no sech coat ez that, ennyhow,”
protested Knowles. Then, with rising anger, “Ye air a pore shoat fur
sense, Owen Haines! Ef they air his gyarmints, what’s the reason he
hid ’em so secret an’ whar the quicklime would deestroy ’em; bein’
so partic’lar ter ax o’ me ef ’twould burn boots an’ clothes an’
bone,--_bone_, too?”
“I dunno,” said Haines, at a loss, and turning the black-and-red blazer
vaguely in his hands.
“I do; them folks over ter New Helveshy wears sech fool gear ez these,”
Knowles insisted, from his superior knowledge, for in the interest of
his lime-trade he had visited New Helvetia more than once,--a rare trip
for a denizen of Etowah Cove.
“Thar ain’t nobody missin’ at New Helveshy!” Haines argued, against his
lingering hope.
“How do you-uns know?” exclaimed Knowles hurriedly, and with a certain
alert alarm in his face. “Somebody comin’ ez never got thar! Somebody
goin’ ez never got away!” He had risen excitedly to his feet. What
ghastly secret might be hidden beneath the residue of quicklime in that
dark cavern, the responsibility possibly to be laid at his door!
Owen Haines, looking up at him with childlike eyes, was slowly studying
his face,--a fierce face, with the savagery of his cowardice as
predatory an element as the wantonness of his malice.
“These hyar air his clothes,” Haines reiterated; “I ’members ’em well.
This hyar split buttonhole at the throat”--
“That’s whar he clutched the murdered one,” declared Knowles
tumultuously.
--“an’ these water-marks on these hyar shoes,--they hed been
soaked,--an’ this hyar leather belt, whar two p’ints hed been teched
through with a knife-blade, stiddier them round holes, ter draw the
belt up tighter ’n it war made ter be wore,--I could swar ter ’em,--an’
this hyar”--
Knowles looked down at him in angry doubt. “Shucks,” he interrupted,
“ye besotted idjit! I dunno what ailed me ter kem ter you-uns. I ’lowed
ye war so beset ter do--yer--Marster’s--work!” with a mocking whine.
“But ye ain’t. Ye seek yer own chance! The Lord tied yer tongue with a
purpose, an’ he wasted no brains on a critter ez he didn’t ’low ter hev
gabblin’ round the throne. Ye see ter it ye say nuthin’ bout’n this,
else jestice’ll take arter you-uns, too, an’ ye won’t be much abler ter
talk ter the court o’ law ’n the court o’ the Lawd.” He wagged his head
vehemently at the young man, while kneeling to make up anew the bundle
of garments, until the scorching vapor compelled him to turn aside.
When he arose, he stood erect for one doubtful instant. Then, satisfied
by the reflection that for the sake of his own antagonism toward the
juggler the jealous and discarded lover would do naught to frustrate
the vengeance that menaced Royce, he turned suddenly, and, with the
bundle swaying as before on the end of the stick, started without a
word along the path by which he had come, leaving Owen Haines gazing
after him till he disappeared amongst the leaves.
How long Haines sat there staring at the vanishing point of that bosky
perspective he could hardly have said. When he leaped to his feet,
it was with a repentant sense of the waste of time and the need of
haste. His long, lank, slouching figure seemed incompatible with any
but the most languid rate of progression; and indeed it was not his
habit to get over the ground at the pace which he now set for himself.
This was hardly slackened through the several miles he traversed until
he reached the schoolhouse, which he found silent and empty. After a
wild-eyed and hurried survey, he set forth anew, tired, breathless, his
shoulders bent, his head thrust forward, his gait unequal; for he was
not of the stalwart physique common amongst the youth of the Cove. He
reached the Sims cabin, panting, anxious-eyed, and hardly remembering
his grievances against Phemie when he saw her in the passage. She
looked at him askance over her shoulder as she rose in silent disdain
to go indoors.
“I ain’t kem hyar ter plague you-uns, Phemie,” he called out, divining
her interpretation of his motive. “I want ter speak ter that thar
juggler-man,”-- he could not bring himself to mention the name.
She paused a moment, and he perceived in surprise that her proud and
scornful face bore no tokens of happiness. Her lips had learned a
pathetic droop; her eyelids were heavy, and the long lashes lifted
barely to the level of her glance. The words in a low voice, “He ain’t
hyar,” were as if wrung from her by the necessity of the moment, so
unwilling they seemed, and she entered the house as Mrs. Sims flustered
out of the opposite door.
“Laws-a-massy, Owen Haines,” she exclaimed, “ye better lef’ be that
thar juggler-man, ez ye calls him! He could throw you-uns over his
shoulder. Ye’ll git inter trouble, meddlin’. Phemie be plumb delighted
with her ch’ice, an’ a gal hev got a right ter make a ch’ice wunst in
her life, ennyhows.”
He sought now and again to stem the tide of her words, but only when a
breathless wheeze silenced her he found opportunity to protest that he
meant no harm to the juggler, and he held no grudge against Euphemia;
that he was the bearer of intelligence important to the juggler, and
she would do her guest a favor to disclose his whereabouts.
There were several added creases--they could hardly be called
wrinkles--in Mrs. Sims’s face of late, and a certain fine network
of lines had been drawn about her eyes. She was anxious, troubled,
irritated, all at once, and entertained her own views touching the
admission of the fact of the juggler’s frequent and lengthened absence
from his beloved. Euphemia’s fascinations for him were evidently on the
wane, and although he was gentle and considerate and almost humble
when he was at the house, he seemed listless and melancholy, and had
grown silent and unobservant, and they had all marked the change.
“We-uns kin hardly git shet o’ the boy,” said Mrs. Sims easily, lying
in an able-bodied fashion. “But I do b’lieve ter-day ez he hev tuk
heart o’ grace an’ gone a-huntin’.”
Owen Haines’s countenance fell. Of what avail to follow at haphazard
in the vastness of the mountain wilderness? There was naught for him
to do but return to his work, and wait till nightfall might bring
home the man he sought. Meantime, the sheriff was as near as ’Possum
Cross-Roads, only twelve miles down the valley. Peter Knowles would
probably give the information which he had tried to depute to the
supplanted lover. Haines did not doubt now the juggler’s innocence, but
he appreciated the cruel ingenuity of perverse circumstances, and he
had felt the venom of malice. Thus it was that he had sought to warn
the man of the discovery which Peter Knowles had made, and of the very
serious construction he was disposed to place upon the facts.