MILLY.
That was a rain long to be remembered by the dwellers in the Sand
Mountain country. The thunder with which the storm had been heralded
soon ceased, and the masses of black clouds spread themselves wide,
softening into a smooth, leaden-colored sheet from horizon to
horizon, whilst the rain, driven by a throbbing wind, trailed in a
wavering flood over the rugged landscape. Every ravine and rocky
gully became a torrent of muddy water. The noises of the storm
united into a wide bellowing that throbbed heavily around the house
whose friendly shelter Moreton was but too glad to retain.
The inmates of the place were not over-talkative, sitting for most of
the time listening with rather solemn attention to the heavy beating
of the wind and rain.
After an hour had passed and Moreton's clothes had dried somewhat, he
was glad to accept his host's invitation to go into the Colonel's
part of the house. The glimpse he had caught of this
sumptuous-looking room--sumptuous as compared with the rest of the
uncouth, scantily furnished house--had set him to wondering what it
could mean. As he passed through the low door-way the girl sprang up
from a stool in front of an easel that stood near the middle of the
floor. Her face was burning with the flush of one surprised in an
act of the most furtive nature. Moreton paused, feeling with quick
certainty how deeply he was embarrassing her. She turned her large
eyes on him with a startled, momentary stare, and letting fall a
charcoal pencil, fairly ran out of the room, carrying with her what
appeared to be a small block of drawing paper. On the easel was an
unfinished but powerful sketch of a large pointer dog. The room was
littered with evidences of artistic and literary labor and
recreation. The walls were lined with books. In the corners stood
guns, fishing rods and other implements of sport by flood and field.
On a table was a fine microscope, a tiny crucible and a blow-pipe. A
pair of slippers sat on the broad hearth, and a sober-looking
dressing-gown lay across a chair. Evidently the Colonel was a man
who knew how to take his ease in his inn.
Moreton passed along by the book-shelves, glancing at the titles of
the books, finding side by side the works of Stuart Mill and the
poems of Andre Chenier, the novels of George Eliot and the rhymes of
Jasmin the Troubadour, volumes of La Place, Goethe and Newton set
among the stories of Thomas Hardy and William Black, whilst the poems
of Longfellow and Tennyson and Keats were shoulder to shoulder with
the latest fictions of Zola and Daudet. Copies of magazines and
weekly literary and art journals were scattered promiscuously about
in the room.
"The Colonel he air a outdacious quare man," said White, who had
followed Moreton into the room, "but what he don't know hit ain't
wo'th a knowin', though I can't jest see what good hit's a doin' of
him. S'pose hit's fun for 'im, mebbe, to set here a drawin' of
picters an' a writin' an' a paintin' an' all that air sort o' doin's.
But then ef he wants to, an' he pays me for the use o' my house,
hit's all proper I s'pect. Then he's all over a gentleman, the
Colonel air, a perfect gentleman, with a heart es big es a
fodder-stack."
"Does the Colonel make this his permanent home?" inquired Moreton,
taking up a volume bound in old black leather, and glancing at its
title page, on a space of which was written in a rather small but
decidedly masculine hand, the name: John Mercer Reynolds.
"Fur more'n six years he's been right here constant, 'ceptin' when
he'd go off for a while seein' to 'is business an' sich. Thet's 'is
name ther' wher'yer a readin' in the book. I can't read no writin',
but I know 'at hit's 'is name, though; Colonel John M. Reynolds,
haint hit?"
Moreton made no reply; he was looking at the name in a musing way,
his brows slightly contracted. Presently he turned to White and said:
"Where is Mr. Reynolds?"
"The Colonel he went out a huntin' this mornin' an' he haint come
back yet. He'll be in 'fore long, a drippin' like a ash-hopper an'
es wet es a swamp," answered White. Then, after a moment's pause he
looked quizzically at Moreton and added:
"Ye don't hev any 'quaintance of the Colonel, hev ye?"
"I am not sure. The name is that of a friend of mine whom I have not
seen for years. Is he tall and dark with deep gray eyes and--"
"Yes, sir, he air that kind of a man, an' he air fine-lookin' an'
handsome an' hes ben all over ever' wher' an' knows all about most
ever' thing an' ever' body. Yes, sir, that air Colonel he air a
outdacious fine man."
"Yes, yes, he is, no doubt," Moreton responded absently, really quite
unaware of what he was saying. His memory was busy with things of
the past. Was it possible that he had thus again accidentally
stumbled upon Reynolds? Of all the men he ever had met he liked
Reynolds best. The very name had its fascination, just as something
in the man himself had its mysterious charm, disconnected from any
social, moral or intellectual attractiveness.
"Where did Mr. Reynolds come from when he came here?" he demanded,
coming suddenly and wholly back to himself and looking at White who
had begun to move away.
"The Colonel he kem f'm--kem f'm--f'm--I couldn't say e'zactly wher'
the Colonel kem f'm; but som'ers in furren parts, I'm sartaing of
thet."
"Six years ago, I think you told me."
"Yes, a leetle the rise of six. The Colonel he kem yer in Septem'er."
"Sings well, the Colonel, does he?"
"Sing! dern, but ye orter heer 'im, strenger. He ken beat a
meth'dis' nigger all to striffins. He air a singer for ter mek yer
hair stan', the Colonel air."
"Plays superbly on the guitar?"
"On the git-tar? Yer may say he does, strenger. When he plays onto
the git-tar, I calls hit a pickin' onto the git ther', and the
Colonel he ken git ther' with the bes' chunes 'at ever split the
wind, dead sartaing."
White's sallow face betrayed, as he finished speaking, a perfect
faith in the legitimacy of his humor, and Moreton felt bound to laugh.
At this point the girl came shyly to the door and said:
"Pap, dinner air ready."
Moreton could not refrain from looking boldly, even searchingly, into
that sweet, innocent, half-vacant face. He felt an obscure pang
enter his breast, as if in some way her pathetic, hopeless prettiness
accused him. She was probably sixteen, and, though rather slight,
remarkably well-formed and graceful. Her scant, coarse drapery
served to indicate more than to hide her body's curves and the
outlines of her supple limbs. It was her face, however, that had in
it the power of leaving in Moreton's memory a haunting, elusive
impression that would not go out. She did not take a seat with her
parents and their guest at the table, but filled the place of serving
maid, passing silently behind their chairs, offering the dishes of
ill-cooked coarse food and anticipating with swift movements the
needs of each.
"Ef the Colonel wus here now," said White, poising a piece of fried
bacon between his plate and his mouth, "ye'd never git him to eat
this yere kind er victuals. Nary time, sir. He'd hev br'iled
chicken, er squir'l, an' white bread an' milk an' I don't know what
all. The Colonel he air high tony dinktom 'bout what he chaws, le'
me tell ye. He keeps a lot o' wine in 'is closet, 'an hit air
outdacious fine liquor, too."
Moreton, whose eyes followed Milly at every fair opportunity, saw her
lean over White's chair and heard her say in a low, earnest tone:
"Hush, Pap, John he wudn' like hit ef ye said so much 'bout his
doin's. I wush ye'd keep still 'bout him anyhow."
It was little more than a pretense of eating with Moreton. The corn
bread, collards, sweet potatoes and fat fried bacon, which were to be
washed down with bitter coffee, did not suit his English appetite.
Then, too, he was so busy with the thought of Reynolds and so
troubled by the wistful face of this strangely beautiful mountain
girl, that even the choicest dinner might not have tempted him.
The rain held on steadily until far along in the afternoon. Reynolds
did not come, and when Moreton saw the clouds breaking away in the
west, and heard the swash of the shower slowly sinking into a
desultory pattering on the cabin roof, he sat down at the Colonel's
desk and wrote a short note as follows:
"MY DEAR REYNOLDS:
"If I am not mistaken, I have at last found you again. If I am
mistaken you will pardon my blunder. If I were perfectly sure that
you are my old friend whom I lost so easily and would give so much to
see, I would not go from this house without having heard your voice
and held your hand. I am so sure that you are the very Reynolds to
whom I owe every thing and whose friendship is the warmest spot in my
life, that I am nearly on the point of staying at a venture; but the
rain seems over, and I have a very long walk and shall go at once. I
am at the ---- Hotel in Birmingham. Won't you come to see me at
once? If you are my Reynolds you know how you will be received; if I
have blundered and you are not the friend I have so long missed, you
shall have the humble apologies of
"EDWARD MORETON."
When this hasty epistle was finished, Moreton addressed it and placed
it on the table. A few minutes later the girl came into the room.
Moreton rose.
"Will you be kind enough," he said to her, "to hand Colonel Reynolds
this letter when he comes home?"
She looked sideways at him and blushed scarlet, but said nothing and
did not move from where she had stopped beside the door. A bright
strand of her hair had fallen forward across her shoulder and breast.
"I shall be greatly obliged," he continued, turning the envelope
about on the table with his finger. "You will be doing me a great
favor. Colonel Reynolds is a dear friend of mine."
Unconsciously he used a wheedling tone in speaking to her, as he
would have done in trying to coax a little child.
She moved one hand nervously, and a pallor encroached upon the flush
in her cheeks. Her sweet, strange eyes dilated with some sudden
emotion. It may have been mere bashfulness and the embarrassment of
ignorance and timidity. She appeared so helpless, so prettily
forlorn, so innocent and sweet, and yet she seemed so vulgar, uncouth
and hopelessly shallow, withal. Moreton, despite himself, felt the
infection of her timidity and shyness and became silent. She stood
for a time as if wavering between opposing impulses, then in a sudden
and breathless way she said:
"Does John know you? Where'd ye ever see John? He never told me
'bout ye." She was still glancing sideways at him over her shoulder,
and standing with one foot resting across the toe of the other, her
left elbow pressed against the wall.
Moreton smiled and shook his head.
"It was a long way off from here that I saw him. Beyond the sea,
across many countries. Ask him to tell you about Edward Moreton. He
will remember a great many things that we did. We had many
adventures together. He's a grand fellow."
"What air a grand feller? What d'ye mean by that there?" she slowly
asked.
"Oh, I mean a great deal, every thing that is worth meaning," said
Moreton. Then feeling that he had failed to satisfy her, he added in
a very gentle tone: "I mean that he is good and that I like him."
She smiled, and a sudden pleasure flashed from her eyes; but her face
quickly resumed its almost stolid repose and the vague trace of
helplessness and pathetic innocence returned.
The rain was over and Moreton got ready to go just as the sun, now
far down the west, swung free of the scattering cloud and flamed
against a space of intensely blue sky above the most distant purple
mountain peaks.
White refused to accept any pay for the shelter and food given to
Moreton, and, carrying his practical mountain generosity still
further, he slung the brace of turkeys across his shoulder and led
the way for more than a mile, to put his guest into a path which was
the shortest route over the mountain to a highway leading into
Birmingham. The two men shook hands at parting on the highest swell
of a heavy ridge, whence they could see the little city, with its
great columns of coal-smoke and its shining white houses, lying far
below amidst the gentle undulations of the valley. A long walk yet
remained for Moreton, with no companion save the little spaniel; but
his thoughts were of such a nature that he scarcely noted how rough
and tiresome was the way. The clouds were now all gone and the sky,
as night drew on, was filled with stars that, seen through the
purified air, appeared to flame and waver like the flare of sunlight
on ice. The temperature had fallen several degrees, giving a keen
edge to the breeze which was now out of the north-west; but there
still arose from the pine woods that resinous fragrance which is a
balm for every wound that occasional inclemencies of the mountain
weather may give. The streams had subsided as suddenly as they had
risen, and all nature seemed hastening to regain that tranquil
equilibrium for which the southern winters are noted.