[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "Wonder ef John haint a comin', Pap?" _Page 8_.]
[Illustration: Title page]
MILLY:
_At Love's Extremes_
A Romance of the Southland
_By_ MAURICE THOMPSON
Author of "Alice of Old Vincennes"
_ILLUSTRATED_
Printed and Bound for the New Amsterdam Book
Company, New York City, Anno Domini Mcmi
Copyright, 1901
by
New Amsterdam Book Company
_Milly: At Love's Extremes_
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. MOUNTAIN DEW
CHAPTER II. MILLY
CHAPTER III. MR. HAWKINS NOBLE
CHAPTER IV. WHITE PLAYS "SEVING UP"
CHAPTER V. SOME LIGHT TALK
CHAPTER VI. AT THE GATE
CHAPTER VII. AN OLD PLANTATION HOUSE
CHAPTER VIII. WITH DOG AND GUN
CHAPTER IX. LUNCHEON AL FRESCO
CHAPTER X. MILLY INQUIRES
CHAPTER XI. DALLYING
CHAPTER XII. A BIT OF LOVE MAKING
CHAPTER XIII. AT THE RUIN
CHAPTER XIV. A WHISPER IN THE CABIN
CHAPTER XV. A DISCLOSURE
CHAPTER XVI. CONVALESCENT
CHAPTER XVII. DREAMS AND PLANS
CHAPTER XVIII. REALITIES
CHAPTER XIX. WHITHER
CHAPTER XX. AFTER ALL
MILLY:
AT LOVE'S EXTREMES
CHAPTER I.
MOUNTAIN DEW.
A man stood on the jutting shoulder of a mountain overlooking a long,
narrow valley, whose scattering houses and irregular farm-plats, seen
through the clear air of that high region, appeared scarcely a
gun-shot distant, when in fact they were miles away. It was early
morning; the sun had barely cleared the highest peaks in the east,
and the landscape, albeit a mid-winter one, was wonderfully rich in
colors. On the oak trees the leaves still clung in heavy brown,
green and russet masses; the hickory forests, though leafless, made
bits of tender gray along the lower valley-slopes, whilst high up
toward the mountain tops, the billowy wilderness of pines, cedars and
chestnut trees added their variegated patch-work that gradually rose
and shaded off into the blue of distance. In some places where
storms, or the needs of man, had removed the oak woods, a dense,
frondous mass of young pines had leaped up with a greenness full of a
soft yellow glow. The sunshine and the wind of the South were
flowing over this scene, and there were fragrant odors and balsamic
pungency in every wave.
The man, a tall, shapely fellow, was a young Englishman who had
lately come to the iron and coal region of Alabama to take charge of
extensive manufacturing and mining interests belonging to his family.
Just at present, with a true English faith in the value of outdoor
sports, he was hunting wild turkeys, or, for that matter, whatever
other wild game might chance to let him get within gun-shot of it.
He had left his hotel at Birmingham with the first hint of dawn, and
had steadily tramped over hills and mountain spurs and through wild
ravines and beautiful glades, without a sight of fur or feather. Now
he stood on this airy height, flushed with his healthful exercise, a
little disappointed and annoyed. But the mountain air of the South
has in it a tenderly exhilarating influence which affects the
imagination and lulls one into pleasant, though often rather vague
dreams. No matter if Edward Moreton was an intensely
practical-minded man of affairs, the kind of Englishman who is
willing to come to America and superintend iron works and coal mines,
he was, nevertheless, not wholly impervious to the poetry--the
lulling magnetism of the climate and the scene. For a while he
leaned on his gun, a long, heavy double-barreled piece; then he took
from his pocket a cigarette and match, seated himself on an old gray
stone and began smoking. In the midst of the valley below, ran a
rivulet, winding through the woods with a silvery shimmer, and out
across the farms and past one little mill, on into a deep gorge of
the stony hills.
Moreton had not found his surroundings in Birmingham quite
satisfactory, notwithstanding the fact that he had fallen in love,
after the old time fervid fashion, with a fair young Northern girl
living there. The little mining town, cramped between the hills,
full of rough folk, raw and new, could not be very attractive to a
man who, no matter how practical and matter of fact in his
disposition, had studied art and who still nursed the artist's
dreams. As he sat there with his blue-gray eyes slowly sweeping the
valley, he was not as blithe-looking as a model sportsman should be.
His dog, a small brown spaniel, sat down at his feet and eyed him
lazily. No sound, save the rustle of the wind in the trees and a
dull distant tapping of a woodpecker, was disturbing the broad
silence of the forest. The sky was intensely blue. Suddenly a short
puff of dampness came from the southwest, followed by a growl of
thunder, a thing not usual in winter, even in that latitude. Moreton
arose and saw a heavy line of black cloud overhanging some conical
peaks far away on the southwestern horizon.
"Come Nat," he said to his dog, "we must be going back; a nasty
squall is coming. We shall get our jackets wet."
Nat answered with divers canine antics and the two turned away from
the valley, the man walking with long firm strides and the dog
trotting perfunctorily at his side. Their way led among the flanking
spurs and foot-hills of the range, now over great fragmentary
bowlders, now through yawning clefts and down winding defiles,
sometimes on bare ridges of shale, anon under the dark odorous
brushes of the pines. The cloud came after them, sending in advance
its gusts of moist, fragrant air. A vast wing reached up to the
zenith and a few big drops of rain pattered down. A morning shower
in the mountains comes at race-horse speed. The swiftest birds are
caught by it. A flock of noisy crows went flapping across the
valley, striving in vain to outstrip the slanting flood that fell
with a broad, washing roar from that rushing cloud.
"We are in for a soaking, Nat," grumbled Moreton, as he plucked up
the collar of his shooting jacket; "a deuced bad outcome for our
first day's shooting in America!"
Nat's tail was down and so were his ears. He relished the signs of
the weather no more than did his stalwart master. A chilliness was
creeping into the air, foretelling how disagreeable the rain was sure
to be. The very trees shivered as the sunshine was shut off by the
overlapping cloud.
It was just as the storm was about to break that certain sharp cries
peculiar to the wild turkey reached the quick ears of sportsman and
dog. The man stopped short and cocked his gun, as the spaniel darted
away to a short distance and then began creeping through the low
underbrush, as a setter does when about to come to a point. In the
next instant four large birds were flushed, breaking from cover at
about forty yards, their wings making the woods resound with their
loud flapping. Almost at the same moment, the "bang--pang!" of
Moreton's gun, fired right and left, went echoing across the valley
and battling amongst the hills. A cock and hen were stopped short
and fell heavily. The dog sprang forward to lead his master to the
game, and then came a blinding down-gush of rain with a roar like
that of a cyclone.
Moreton with great difficulty got the birds, and, after tying them
together by the feet, slung them across his shoulder. This
additional load and the hindering force of the rain made his further
progress quite laborious. Nat resumed his drooping, mechanical
jog-trot at his master's side. The young man leaned over and almost
shut his eyes as he pressed on, catching quick breaths as the cold
streams trickled down his back. His shooting jacket and trowsers
were meant to be impervious to water, but the chilling liquid was
dashed by the force of the wind against his neck and thence found its
way down to his heels. He did not hesitate, under such stress of ill
luck, to rush boldly against the door of a low, rambling mountain
cabin and demand admission. His knock on the rough planks was heard
by the inmates of the place, despite the heavy roar of the rain, and
the response was immediate.
"Kem in, kem in," spoke a rather pleasing voice, in the peculiar
accent and intonation of the mountaineers of the region, as the door
was opened, letting the hunter and his dog in, along with a dash of
slanting rain. "Le' me take them birds, strenger, an' ye jest git
ther' by the fire. Hit's purty outdacious rainy all of a suddent;
purty near drownd a feller." The speaker was a slender, almost
slight, man, near fifty years old, flaxen-haired, thin-faced, with a
sharp nose and a straggling beard, still lighter than his hair. He
took the brace of birds off Moreton's shoulder and threw them aside
on the clean white floor. "I'll jest put yer gun up fur ye," he
continued, taking the weapon and leaning it against the wall in a
corner of the room. Then he quickly fetched a chair. "Set down an'
mek yerself at home, I'll punch up the fire, hit's got sorty low;
I'll git some light'ood knots."
Moreton found himself in a place whose features at once interested
him. Glancing around the room he saw two low beds, a few plain
split-bottomed chairs, an old queer "bureau," or chest of drawers,
with glass knobs, some rude shelves with ironstone dishes on them, a
long flint-lock rifle, hanging in buck-horn forks over the door, one
of which forks also held a coon-skin bullet-pouch and curiously
carved powder-horn. The fire-place before which he sat was broad and
deep, roughly lined with jagged stones picturesquely black with
fleecy accumulations of soot from pine smoke; it was crossed by a
heavy charred wooden crane and on its broad jambs rested a curious
collection of cob-pipes, clay-pipes, wooden pipes and soft-stone
pipes, along with sundry ragged twists of brown home-raised tobacco.
There was a low, wide window on one side of the room, and beside it
Moreton's eyes rested for a moment on a slim girl's form in a
half-cowering position. She was so turned from him that he could see
no more of her face than a rounded line of one cheek. There was a
heavy brush of long, bright, yellowish flaxen hair, a very delicate
ear and a glimpse of a brown throat and neck. One hand, rather large
but shapely, lay along her lap, on the scant folds of a homespun
cotton dress, the skirt of which could not quite hide her
coarsely-shod feet. There was something curiously striking in this
crumpled little figure that held Moreton's gaze for a time. Through
an open door that gave into a smaller room, the intermittent hum of a
spinning-wheel made itself heard, distinct from the clash and swash
of the storm, and a tall angular woman walked back and forth, drawing
out and reeling up the coarse thread she was twisting. The man had
soon fetched wood and pine knots for the fire, and presently a
liberal flame wavered up to the mouth of the great old chimney. He
turned to Moreton and said:
"Lay off yer coat, strenger, an' git yer shirt dry; hit's outdacious
onagreeable fur to hev on a wet shirt."
Moreton smiled pleasantly.
"Thank you, I will," he said, rising and stripping off the stiff
jacket. "You are very kind. I am covering your floor with water."
"Shaw, that's nothin'," replied the man, in a tone of gentle
contempt; "ef ye'd see hit sometimes when I come in ye mought talk.
Them little puddles haint nothin' 'tall. The Colonel an' me jest
floods the whole house when we gits wet."
"Wonder ef John haint a comin', Pap?"
This sudden inquiry came in a sweet, half-shy voice from the girl at
the window.
"She calls him John, I calls him Colonel," explained the man. Then
turning to answer the question:
"Oh, ther's no 'countin' fur him; he's as like to stay out all day
and night es any way; hit don't make no differ'nce 'bout rain es to
him, do it, Milly?"
The girl had turned her face toward the man when she spoke, but now
she averted it again, a little flush gathering on the brown cheek.
"He don't mind no weather, strenger, the Colonel don't, rain er
sunshine hit's all the same to him, hain't hit, Milly?" continued the
host.
"I wush he'd come on back home," exclaimed the girl, "that's what I
wush." Moreton had turned his back to the fire. He was astride of
the chair and the steam was rising vigorously from his wet garments.
Out of the corners of his eyes he kept glancing at that lithe, plump
little figure by the window. He had the taste of an artist, and here
was a model for brush or chisel to imitate. He was a genuine man,
too, and here was a bit of rare feminine beauty, no matter how
coarsely clad or how hopelessly uncultured. She had the grace of
outline common to wild things, and there was that half-pathetic,
half-glad beam in her face that appeals to a man's love of the
innocent and his pity of the weak. Her head was small and
well-poised above plump shoulders, her bust was full, yet girlish,
giving just a hint of that early ripeness so common in southern
countries, and her waist and limbs were perfect. At rare intervals
one sees such a girl among the hardy peasants of most mountain
regions, but not so often in America as elsewhere.
"Do ye ever smoke a pipe, stranger?" inquired the host, offering
Moreton a cob pipe and a twist of tobacco.
"Thank you, yes, I will take some of your tobacco; I have a pipe,"
said the young man, drawing from his vest pocket a small meerschaum,
old and dark as mahogany. He had heard of the excellence of this
mountain home-grown tobacco.
"Hit air purty good, ef I do say hit myself. Most of 'em roun'
here's glad to git Tom White's 'backer to chaw an' smoke, hain't
they, Milly?" Mr. White thus introduced himself and his tobacco at
the same time.
At this point Mrs. White quit her wheel and came into the room. She
spoke to Moreton pleasantly, as if she had long known him, smiling
cordially.
"Ef you menfolks don't care, I'll jest jine ye for a whiff er two,"
she said, going to the chimney-jamb and selecting a pipe.
They formed a strange group around that cabin fire. Moreton felt the
democratic force of the situation and enjoyed it to the full.
"Hain't ye goin' to have a hand in this here gineral smoke, Milly?"
said Mr. White, chuckling jocosely and looking, under comically-drawn
eyebrows, at the girl.
"Now, Pap, you know I don't smoke at all," she quickly answered,
getting up and leaving the room. Her movement was as light and
nimble as that of a hare.
"Course she don't smoke, ye know," said White to Moreton,
confidentially lowering his voice; "I wus jest a yankin' at her fur
greens; she knows when I'm a greenin' of her, an' she gits tiffy at
me in a minute. She's es sharp es a darnin'-needle, Milly is."
"Thomas, ye ortn't ter plague Milly so much, ye'll spile her temper.
Milly's a mighty good gal," said Mrs. White in a tone half entreaty
and half command. It was easy to see that Mrs. White ruled the
cabin. After a moment of silence, "She's oneasy 'bout the Colonel,
now, but then hit's no use, he's all right, rain er shine," responded
the man.
Moreton, whose eyes furtively followed the girl as she left the room,
saw that the apartment into which she passed was neatly carpeted and
furnished with well-worn easy-chairs, a table and a desk. Between
the opening and closing of the door he caught sight, also, of long
shelves of books and some pictures. The room appeared quite large
and arranged as if for a gentleman's study. The contrast between its
almost elegant appointments and the arid blankness of the one in
which Moreton sat was so pronounced that, despite his patrician
self-control, a wave of surprise passed over his face. The quick
eyes of the mountaineer saw this.
"That there air the Colonel's part of the house," he hastily said, a
trace of apology and disclaimer in his voice; "hit jest suits him.
He's got a outdacious sight o' larnin' an' plenty o' money. He kin
buy whatever he wants."
"Yes," said Mrs. White, rather sharply, "an' jest es like es not he's
right now a stan'in' under some tree er rock a waitin' fur the rain
to quit an' a readin' of a book. Seems powerful quare to me."
Moreton was almost tempted to ask questions, so quick an interest had
been generated by this gossip about the Colonel. Certainly this was
a strange home for a man of wealth and education. Possibly the
Colonel was some sport-loving gentleman from New Orleans, Mobile or
Montgomery, who had taken these apartments in the cabin as a sort of
shooting-box, he thought, for he had heard much of the peculiarities
and extravagances of rich Southerners. But his mental discussion of
this subject was cut short by a sudden movement on the part of White,
who sprang to his feet and elevated his hands.
"Well, hit's jest too outdacious, Sarah," he cried, as if utterly
chagrined; "jest to think, the strenger kem in wet an' soaked an'
haint hed no liquor!"
"'Bout like sech as we'ns to furgit what we're 'bout," responded Mrs.
White; "ye'll find the dim'jon under the tother bed behind the sack
o' 'taters."
White dived under the bed in question and drew forth a large earthen
bottle.
"Hit air peach liquor," he said, advancing upon Moreton; "the best
they air in these parts. Ye must parding us, strenger, fur we clean
furgot hit."
Mrs. White fetched a large, heavy tumbler and handed it to Moreton.
"Le' me pour fur ye, stranger," said White, uncorking the bottle.
"Ye'll find 'at hit air liquor wo'th a-drinkin'. Hit ain't pizened
with no revenue postage, ye may set thet down solid."
Moreton, with no light inward protest, submitted his lips to the
proffered glass. His English taste for excellent drinks was never
more deliciously surprised. What began as a formal, carefully
guarded sip, crept on into a series of slow quaffs, ending in a final
hearty gulp. White grinned delightedly.
"Haint hit good, strenger? Don't hit hev the outdaciousest way o'
gittin' to the very marrer of a feller's neck, of any liquor ye ever
tasted? Ef hit don't git ther', none don't. The Colonel sez hit's
the best liquor 'at he ever tasted! an' _he's_ traveled, _he_ hes.
_He's_ been in furren parts, Rome an' France an' them air places."
Moreton was quick to acknowledge that the brandy was surpassingly
fine. It had the bouquet of old wine, the body of cognac and the
mellow fire of Scotch whisky, along with a faint trace of peach
kernels. He thought of a certain London club in which he would like
to introduce this Sand Mountain nectar.
White partook sparingly of the precious beverage, and then carefully
replaced the bottle in its hiding-place under the bed.
Meantime the heavy throbs of wind and rain shook the cabin to its
foundation.
When the mountaineer returned to his chair by the fire, Moreton
inquired of him where the brandy was made.
"Oh, I dunno jest wher' hit air made, nohow. We calls hit the
mounting jew," said White, glancing furtively at his wife. By "jew"
he meant dew. The peach brandy made in the sly little stills,
scattered among the mountains from North Carolina to Alabama, is
sometimes locally called mountain dew, or rather, "mounting jew." It
is not the drink of drunkards. In fact the mountaineers, with now
and then an exception, are remarkably temperate in the matter of
tippling; but the jug of "jew" is the special implement of their
hospitality.