The day proved of variable mood. The mists clung sullenly to slope
and ravine for a time; the clouds hung low, full of menace; even a
muttering of thunder afar off now and again stirred their dense gray
masses. The veiled mountains were withdrawn into invisibility. Below,
the earth lay as if it consisted only of dull levels, limited, silent,
comatose, for the dank, drowsy influence pervaded all energies alike of
the animate and the inanimate; there was no sound of beast or bird, no
stir of wind or rustle of leaf, and a lethargy dulled pulse and muscle
and brain.
The sunburst came with the effect of revelation. A vague tremor
pervaded the tissues of the gray mists, and all at once a great white
glory was on the green mountain sides. The vast spaces to the blue
zenith were filled with radiant flying fleecy forms as the transfigured
vapor took wing. Far in the south the gray cloudage still held its
consistency, and trembled with thunder and sudden elusive palpitating
veins of yellow lightning. But the lithe arc of a rainbow presently
sprang athwart it, and the wind came gayly piping down the gorge. In
the actual perceptible jubilance of the earth, it might seem that the
miracles of the goodness and the gladness of the sun were no common
thing. There was a visible joy among the leaves as they fluttered
together, and lifted up their dank fibres, and lustrously reflected the
pervasive sheen, and tremulously murmured and chanted in elfin wise
beneath the breath. How was it that the plaining river should suddenly
find its melodies again as if light and song were interdependent? A
tumultuous, rollicking stave it flung upon the air; and so, faster
to the valley! The benignant revivification was on the very flocks;
the dull, submissive sheep, huddled drowsily together in the gray
menace of the morning, were astir once more, and dispersed here and
there as they browsed. Even Luther was singing in the barn as he
mended his ploughgear. All day the swift upward flights of the sheeny
white figures continued at intervals, and when Adelicia set forth to
drive the cows home, in the afternoon, only the more radiant aspects
of the world gave token of the storm of the night. She hardly left
the print of her shoe in the wild woodland ways through which she
wandered, so had the warmth and the light dried the dank herbage. She
was out betimes. There was something in the long, meditative strolls
that harmonized with certain moods, and Cap'n Lucy sometimes sourly
commented, "Ad'licia gone ter fotch home the cows? Waal, who be a-goin'
ter fotch home Ad'licia?"
It might be an hour before Spot would think of turning her crumpled
horns homeward. The sun shone aslant through the vast forests, but
still hung well up in the western sky. Through the deeper gloom
amongst the gigantic trees the rays hardly penetrated. She stopped
once to gaze from the midst of the dark green shade of the umbrageous
tangle at the strange effects of the light where it fell into an
open space cleared long ago by "girdling" the trees, which betokened
collapsed agricultural intentions, for the ground had never been
broken by the plough. The enormous dead trees were still standing, and
time and rain and wind had worn them to a pallid whiteness. She could
see the successive clusters of columns, one after another, rising in
the sunlight, until the roofing foliage nearer at hand cut off the
view. To Kenniston's cultured experience they were reminiscent of the
colonnades of some great cathedral, when he had observed the place and
the same effect. She had naught in mind to which she could compare
them, but those white, silent, columnated aisles in the midst of the
savage fastnesses of the great wilderness always impressed her with a
certain solemnity as she passed, and she was wont to pause to gaze at
the spot in awe and with a vague sinking of the heart; for, despite her
optimism, Adelicia's heart was not always light. She was sensible of
its weight this evening, as she wandered on, leaving the still, white
sanctuary in the midst of the forest glooms. Her face was wistful and
pale. Her dark gray lustrous eyes were dreamy. She walked slowly and
aimlessly, her brown dress brushing the undergrowth aside with a gentle
murmur, her yellow calico sunbonnet hanging on her shoulders and
leaving her auburn head bare. Her errand was far from her mind. She did
not even bethink herself to call the cow, until suddenly she noticed
how high upon the great boles of the trees the slanting sunlight
registered the waning of the day. Then, as she set the echoes vibrating
with the long-drawn cry of "Soo, cow! soo!" she turned at right angles,
following the trend of the mountain stream, invisible in the labyrinth
of the woods, but not far distant she knew by the vague murmur of
waters borne by the wind. She had looked for no other listener than the
somewhat arbitrary Spot, who would heed or not as she listed, and who
might now be standing knee-deep in the limpid ripples near at hand,
hearkening, but making no response, intending to fare home at her own
good pleasure. But the long, musical, mellow call, with its trailing
echoes, attracted other and more receptive attention, and as Adelicia
turned suddenly into a straighter section of the path she saw at the
end of the vista, before it curved again, standing beneath a tree and
with his face toward her, a man apparently listening and waiting for
her.
He had dismounted from his horse, a light-tinted yellow roan, who stood
as still as if he were of bronze, while his master leaned against the
saddle, with his hand on the bridle. He held the other arm akimbo, with
his hand on the belt which supported a knife and a pair of pistols.
They were unconcealed by a coat; he wore a blue shirt and blue jeans
trousers, with heavy boots drawn to the knees; and she recognized him
rather by his accoutrements than his face, for his wide white wool hat
was pulled far over it. From under the broad brim he gazed at her with
sullen, lowering eyes.
"I hearn ye callin' the cow, an' I knowed yer voice," he said. "I been
waitin' fur ye."
She faltered for a moment; then, with an evident effort, quickened her
step and went forward to meet him. She apprehended the anger in his
face, apparently, for there was a disarming, deprecating look in her
clear dark eyes as she cast them up at him. Her yellow sunbonnet hardly
served more for shelter than an aureola might have done,--a background
for her auburn head; her dark brown dress and the green shadows of the
trees added a pallor to her white oval face with its small delicate
chin. He did not heed her appealing gaze. It was with a stern, hard
voice that he spoke, and a fiery eye.
"I hev got a word ter say ter ye, Ad'licia," he began, walking slowly
by her side and leading his horse, the reins thrown over his arm and
his uplifted hand near the bit.
The animal's head was close above his shoulder, and as Adelicia met the
creature's large-eyed and liquid gaze it seemed to her as if she were
doubly arraigned before them both.
"Ye needn't ter try ter fool me," said Jack Espey between his teeth.
"I ain't tryin' ter fool ye," protested Adelicia.
He looked at her narrowly, taking note of her evident discomposure, and
placing disastrous construction upon it.
"Ye 'low ye kin fool me 'thout tryin', I reckon," he said, with a
sarcastic smile.
"I ain't a-foolin' ye," gasped Adelicia. "Ye know--why, _ye know_
I ain't!"
He hesitated, half constrained to believe her. He still gazed
searchingly at her from under the broad brim of his hat. Her wild,
agitated look made him doubtful.
"Now, ye jes' ondertake ter fool me," he continued, with an accession
of angry jealousy, "an'"--he laid his hand on the pistol in his
belt--"I'll ondertake ter shoot ye dead on the spot."
The color surged to her face. The tears rushed to her eyes. A sharp
conflict waged in her heart for a moment, and then she walked on beside
him, pale, composed, silent, as if she were alone in the depths of the
primeval wilderness.
Only the sound of the stir of the saddle with the breathing of the
horse as the animal tramped on behind them, their muffled footfalls
barely perceptible on the thick herbage of the cattle path, the light
whisper of the wind in the leaves, broke the pause, while Jack Espey's
touch trembled on the handle of the pistol as he walked beside her.
Her calmness shook his own composure.
"Ad'licia!" he exclaimed petulantly, but with an evident softening of
his fierce mood, "whyn't ye say suthin'? Whyn't ye say suthin' ter me?"
"I dunno what ter say," she responded coolly.
"Ye know what I want ter hear," he declared passionately.
"'Tain't no use ter say it agin." She turned upon him her eyes, soft
and lustrous, like some brownish-greenish moss in the depths of a
crystal spring. "I done said it an' said it."
His hand released the pistol, and pushed his hat far back on his dark
hair with a hasty gesture of impatience. Then, with a sudden calmness,
"Ad'licia, ye oughtn't ter git mad with me! Ye oughtn't ter git mad so
dad-burned easy!"
"Mebbe I oughtn't," she said, with a note of sarcasm in her vibrant
voice. Her eyes were bright, her cheek flushed.
"'Tain't right," he continued didactically. "'Tain't religious." He
looked at her with grave, admonitory eyes.
"Mebbe 'tain't," she responded. She laughed a little, unmirthfully, and
her lip quivered.
He strode on a few steps in silence, at a loss for words for
explanation. He dreaded and deferred it, and yet he longed for its
possible reassurance. As his thoughts canvassed its probabilities, he
broke out tumultuously once more:--
"I hev got good reason ter b'lieve ye air foolin' me,--good reason, I
tell ye, now, Ad'licia!"
"Good reason agin my word?" she demanded, her pride in her eyes.
He stared at her. "A gal's word!" he said lightly, and then he laughed.
As a guaranty it struck him humorously. "I reckon thar ain't many men
ez would be willin' ter stand or fall by sech."
"Ye set store by it wunst," she said humbly.
"'Twar when ye promised ter marry me," he declared precipitately,
unconsciously showing that it was the prospect which he had valued
without trusting the promise. "An' I want ye ter 'bide by it, too," he
sternly added, suddenly perceiving that it was not policy to adduce too
freely precedents as to the friability of feminine promises.
She shook her head, regardless of his keen, fiery eye. "I ain't goin'
ter marry nobody, I reckon," she said slowly. "Ye'll shoot me dead
fust, some day, in one o' yer tantrums."
"Ye ain't a-goin' ter marry 'Renzo Taft, an' that I tell ye, now. I'll
shoot ye fust, sure!" he cried furiously, his eyes blazing upon her.
The look in her face checked his passionate rage. An utter wonderment,
a deep bewilderment, overspread it as she echoed, "_'Renzo Taft!_
The man over yander at Lost Time mine? War ye a-talkin' 'bout
_him_?"
He controlled himself instantly, although his eyes were all ashine and
alertly restless.
"Who war you-uns a-thinkin' 'bout, Ad'licia?" he asked gently and
incidentally.
"Jasper Larrabee, o' course," she answered innocently.
He could only grind a curse between his teeth, and then he was
speechless for a moment.
"I dunno nare nuther good-lookin' young man in the Cove," continued
Adelicia, girlishly talking on, oblivious of the significance of her
disclosures. "Though I b'lieve Jasper ain't studyin' 'bout sech ez
marryin'. He jes' kems thar toler'ble frequent ter read out'n his
book ter uncle Lucy. He kin read powerful well. Uncle Lucy 'lows he
senses the Gorspel better from Jasper's readin' 'n the rider's, 'kase
whenst he don't onderstan' he kin make Jasper stop an' spell it out
an' read it over. An' sometimes"--she broke into a little dimpling
laugh--"whenst the Gorspel goes agin uncle Lucy's policy an' practice,
he makes Jasper spell an' _spell_, an' yit them times he can't
spell it out to suit uncle Lucy. But it's plumb heartsome ter hear
Jasper read of a stormy night," she added, recalling the one spiritual
pleasure of her stunted, starveling spiritual life.
As she glanced at his face, there was something so gruesome, so
strange, in its expression that she was fain to remonstrate. "Ye 'pear
powerful techy, Jack," she said. "Ez ter 'Renzo Taft, it's jes' old
uncle Lucy's foolishness; an' I wish he 'd quit it, too! Though 'tain't
no harm, nuther. Uncle Lucy jes' makes out ez 'Renzo Taft air arter me
or Julia fur a step-mammy fur his leetle gal, an' it tickles him ter
talk 'bout'n it,--it's so foolish! Why, Jack, 'Renzo Taft is old enough
purty nigh ter be _my_ dad; an'--he ain't ugly, edzac'ly--but,
but--nowise desirable. Uncle Lucy air always peckin' at me fur
puttin' myself out ter obligate other folks, but I ain't so powerful
meek-tempered ez ter marry 'Renzo Taft ter be a step-mammy. Though he
ain't axed me, nor nobody else ez I knows on. An' I ain't got nuthin'
agin him."
He walked on beside her, hardly listening, and scarcely caring what
she said or thought of Taft. For him, at the moment, Jasper Larrabee,
and his gift of reading the Scriptures and interpreting them to Cap'n
Lucy's satisfaction and her humble and incidental pleasure, filled all
the horizon. His jealousy had taken a new lease on life with this more
promising object, and with the surer foundation of what she said of
Larrabee rather than of what Taft said of her. He hardly heeded her
presence as he sought to gather together his faculties. He did not
even feel the clumsy caress of the horse now and again rubbing his
head against his master's shoulder, as he minced along behind him,
accommodating his long stride to the shorter compass of the human step.
The young man's eyes were hot; they seemed to burn the dry lids, as he
gazed down through the cool leafy vistas of the forest; but his voice
was calm enough when he suddenly said to her:--
"Ad'licia, ef ye keered ennything 'bout me wuth talkin' 'bout, ye'd
marry me now."
The placidity which her face had resumed as she had talked disappeared
abruptly. She was once more anxious, disquieted, on the brink of tears.
"Ye know, Jack," she expostulated, "I can't marry agin uncle Lucy's
word."
"Ye would ef ye keered a straw, a bare straw."
"Uncle Lucy jes' say, 'Wait awhile.' It's jes' 'awhile,' else I would
go agin his cornsent."
"Ye don't keer," he reiterated dolorously, for her protest was welcome
to him.
"Uncle Lucy jes' say," she went on very fast, "jes' wait till that man
ez you-uns shot in Tanglefoot Cove gits well. He'll git well, I reckon.
Ye said he war powerful hearty an' big. Uncle Lucy say he ain't goin'
ter lemme marry a man ez mought be tried fur his life, ef he kin holp
it."
"Ef ye keered fur me, ye wouldn't gin _that_ fur Cap'n Lucy's
word!" he asseverated, as he lifted his arm high in the air and snapped
his fingers resonantly.
The horse shied suddenly at the sound, and pulled heavily on the hand
that held the bit.
Her eyes were full of tears.
"Jack," she said in deep humiliation, "I can't 'low at this time o' day
ez I don't keer fur uncle Lucy's word. I never eat none o' my own bread
in my life."
She knew that he had turned and was staring at her, although she
could not distinguish him through her tears. If she had never loved
him, her heart might have warmed to him now, for the vehemence, the
partisanship, with which he protested her independence.
"Eat yer own bread!" he cried in a ringing voice that made her shrink.
"Ye never eat nuthin' else! Who churns, an' sweeps, an' mends, an'
cooks, an' milks cows, this many an' many a day? That thar dough-faced
Julia?"
To his amazement she burst out laughing, but the next moment she was
sobbing in good earnest, and he hardly knew whether she was glad or
sorry.
He scarcely paused to wonder. He went tumultuously on to repudiate the
obligations that so lowered her pride and her title to self-respect.
"Who hoes, an' sews, an' weaves, an' spins, an' raises the chickens
an' tur-rkeys an' sech, an' answers old Cap'n Lucy's call 'Ad'licia!
Ad'licia!' all day long? That thar long, lank, limp Julia? Ef I war
ter marry ye an' take ye away from thar, that house would fall down, I
reckon, an' old Cap'n Lucy knows it."
His well-set bluish-gray eyes had brightened as he spoke; he smiled
genially; his face was handsome and intelligent with this expression.
The next moment it clouded heavily. He could not do this as almost any
other man might,--marry a wife and take her home. He was a fugitive
and an exile by reason of the jeopardy of the man whom he had shot in
Tanglefoot Cove, and who still hung between life and death, his own
fate involving that of his enemy. Jack Espey felt sure that he could
have proven self-defense, had he permitted himself to be apprehended at
the time. But from the circumstance of his hasty flight, uncertain what
he had done and animated by ignorant terrors of the law, the lapse of
time, the dispersion of witnesses, he feared to submit his action to a
legal arbitrament now.
The suspense was in itself a terrible retribution, but it is safe
to say that Espey had hardly appreciated its rigors till now, when
it hampered his every prospect in life. He had been a man of some
substance in his native place, according to the humble rating of
the mountaineers, and the lowering of pride involved in his present
situation was very bitter to him. He could not ask to be received
under Cap'n Lucy's roof, and its hospitalities certainly would not be
offered. He repented of his candor in making known his circumstances
when he had "asked for" Adelicia, for in the probation on which he had
been placed he recognized the crafty hope of her uncle that the affair
would soon blow over. He felt it a poor reward for his frankness, and
he determined that it should not go without requital in turn. "Jes'
lemme fix up that cussed bother in Tanglefoot, an' durned ef Cap'n Lucy
ever shell see Ad'licia's face agin!" he often said to himself.
Meanwhile he hung around as best he might, fraternizing secretly with
the moonshiners; for here was the best opportunity of earning enough to
provide for his simple wants, and to keep him out of the observation of
the law, while awaiting the result in Tanglefoot, whence the news had
lately become more hopeful.
He had fallen in with Jasper Larrabee at the blacksmith's shop at the
cross-roads, where he had paused in his flight for his horse to be
shod; the two had "struck up" a mutual liking, and Espey had come
with Larrabee to the Cove, where he divided his time pretty equally
between his new friend's home and the Lost Time mine. His frankness had
not extended to these acquaintances, who knew no reason why he should
shun observation except that which they shared with him concerning the
still. His utility there and its financial advantages were ample to
justify the continuation of his stay in the Cove; and thus, but for his
own attack of conscientiousness in revealing his true circumstances to
Adelicia and Cap'n Lucy, he might have seemed as advantageously placed
as any of his compeers.
"Waal," said Adelicia, unaccountably brightened, "we-uns hev ter 'bide
by uncle Lucy's word an' wait awhile, bein' ez he hev tuk keer o' me
all my days, mighty nigh. An' ye better be toler'ble perlite ter Julia,
too," she added, with a radiant smile. "Julia's cornsider'ble apt ter
take notice o' slights."
He promised humbly, swallowing his pride with a mighty gulp; and as
they came out from the woods into the more open spaces shelving to
the great crags, they encountered Kenniston, a cigar in his mouth, a
memorandum in his hand of the boundaries of his land, taken from the
calls of his title-deed, a good-humored triumph on his face, and a gay,
kind voice as he instantly recognized and greeted Adelicia.
He called her to come and observe the splendor of the view from a
certain craggy point where there would be an observatory, and his
enthusiasm was not dashed even when she gazed off wonderingly into
space, seeing nothing to which she was unaccustomed, and evidently
apprehending naught of what he said. He wondered a trifle, subacutely,
how much the perception of beauty may be promoted by the sense of
contrast. Since she knew no dull levels or discordant scenes, the
sublime was merely the natural daily presentment of creation, no more
a marvel than the rising of the sun, and thus she was bereft of its
appreciation. He wondered, too, if the converse of the proposition
were true,--if those to whom nature is expressed in a meadow, or a
series of knobs, or a pond, can have no mental conception of the
austere splendors of the craggy heights or the stupendous area of
infinite detail spread before the eye within a wide horizon piled
with mountains. He showed her, too, a small drawing of the projected
hotel, which she held awry and almost reversed to gaze upon it. His
good humor extended to her companion, whom he had never before seen.
Although usually aloof and averse to strangers, Espey found the
suave words a salve to his sore heart. He did not know how much less
pleasant Kenniston could be when not pleased. Just now even this new
acquaintance harmonized most aptly with his gracious mood. Artistically
viewed, poor Espey might have graced the romantic stage, as he stood,
in his dark blue shirt and trousers and great spurred boots, defined
against the yellow-bronze horse which he held by the bit, his belt
full of weapons, his broad white hat far back on his black hair, and
his defiant face at once wild and eager and wistful. The man of the
alert pencil was moved to wish that he had the art to do him justice.
Kenniston's kind and ingratiating manner as he explained his plans and
expectations, which could not interest the mountaineer, who was as
foreign to such considerations as deer or bear, secured nevertheless
Espey's attention and respectful silence. He looked now and again with
a sort of reluctant liking at Kenniston's face as he talked, regretting
that, since he attached so much hope and consequence to the project,
it would be necessary to burn the buildings down as fast as they were
erected.
In the plenitude of his access of amiability, Kenniston lagged behind
and let them stroll away homeward together,--as pretty a pair of rustic
lovers, he thought, as one could wish to see.
The sun was well down; the sky was red; the evening star was in a
saffron haze; the nearest mountains had turned a deep purple, with a
vague, translucent, overlaying gray hue like the bloom on a ripe grape;
the distant ranges had vanished in the mystery of night. It was not
dark, but the flare of the fire within the door of Cap'n Lucy's cabin
was visible as it rose and fell on the puncheon floor in transitory
flickers. It was a poor place, but it was home, and to the exile it
looked like paradise. Julia had come to the door, and stood there half
in the soft outer light, and half in the firelight within. Schooled
and docile, Espey remembered his monitor's bidding, and roused his
unwilling, flagging energies and his tired, sad heart to evolve some
pleasantry as he called out a greeting from the bars. She turned her
sleek head and smiled at him. There had never been such eyes in the
Cove, except perhaps those which Cap'n Lucy had opened there first some
sixty years before, nor such long, dark, curling lashes. She might,
however, have been no more comely, for all Jack Espey cared, than old
"T'bithy," Adelicia's cat, who arched her plebeian scantily furred
back in the door, and surveyed the landscape with her yellow eyes, and
yawned from sheer mental vacuity. He got through the interview with
what poor grace he could, and from a sense of duty; and as he was about
to mount, he offered, unobserved by the others, to take Adelicia's
hand. To his amazement, she looked him full in the face with hard,
angry eyes, struck down his hand with a petulant gesture, passed him
like a flash, and disappeared within the door.
Jack Espey, who had no more recognition of the aspect of jealousy than
if he had never felt its power, could but mount and ride away in angry
bewilderment; and Kenniston, hearing the furious speed of his horse's
hoofs as he went headlong down the dark, rocky road, looked wonderingly
after him.
"He'll break his neck, at that rate," he said.