XIII.

Cap'n Lucy enjoyed in his own family an immunity from interference,

criticism, and filial insurgency that was truly patriarchal. His word

was law; his every thought was wisdom; all his dealings embodied the

fullest expression of justice. Until his unlucky disclosure to Luther

of his discovery of the strange removal of the Big Hollow Boulder,

and the interpretation he placed upon it, imputing to Kenniston a

crime of such importance, involving consequences so grave, his son had

never entertained a moment's doubt of the sufficiency of his prudence,

the absolute infallibility of his judgment, the integrity of all his

prejudices, notwithstanding his arbitrary temper, his high-handed

methods, and his frequent precipitancy. Such remonstrance as ever was

ventured upon usually emanated from Adelicia, in the interest of her

pacific proclivities; or to sue uncle Lucy's clemency for some object

of his most righteous displeasure; or to prevail upon him to blindly

consider some untoward chance a blessing in disguise. Now and then,

too, she indulged in some solicitude lest the affluence of his courage

should lead him into danger. But to his own children "dad" had always

seemed more than capable of coping with all the forces of nature,

animate and inanimate; and as the day of the processioning of the land

wore on, Julia listened, with her silent smile of sarcastic comment,

to Adelicia's monologue of argument of alternate fears and reassurance

for uncle Lucy's sake. First, lest Mr. Kenniston succeed in unjustly

wresting some of his land from him. "But," she declared buoyantly, "the

surveyor won't let him!" Then, lest a personal collision ensue, to her

bellicose relative's injury. "But uncle Lucy ain't been often tackled;

ennybody kin see he'd hev a mighty free hand in a fight." And again she

was reduced to fear simply that things in general might fall out to the

magnate's dissatisfaction. "But uncle Lucy's been mighty mad a heap o'

times before, an' 'tain't set him back none," she argued blithely. And

so the atmosphere within cleared as the sky without darkened, and the

domestic industries went forward apace.

It was during one of the deceptive withdrawals of the lowering

storm-cloud, revealing great expanses of blue sky, when the sunshine

was a-flicker once more over the landscape, albeit somewhat wan and

tremulous, and a wind had sprung up, faint and short of breath, and

disposed to lulls and sighs, but still setting mists and clouds astir,

that Julia went forth upon an errand some distance up the Cove. It had

chanced that a hen, with the preposterous hopefulness of the species,

had gone to "setting" in the orchard upon an unremunerative assemblage

of fallen apples, in default of more appropriate material; for, in

ignorance of the fowl's intention, Adelicia had fried the last eggs

for breakfast. Her momentary dismay was dispelled by the recollection

that Mrs. Larrabee had promised her a "settin' of special an percise

tur-r-key aigs," and, equipping Julia with a basket, she sent her forth

to claim this pledge.

But in lieu of the hospitable welcome and the eager fulfillment of

the promise, the reminder of which Mrs. Larrabee would have regarded

in the light of a courtesy and a favor, Julia encountered at the door

of the queer little house Henrietta Timson, her snuffbrush, her small

unlighted eyes, her narrow discontented face, and her little brief

authority oppressively in evidence.

"Waal, I do declar'," she said, regarding Julia sourly, when the errand

was made known. "I dunno what Sist' Lar'bee means,"--for Mrs. Timson

was unfailing in the appellation of church-membership, and enjoyed no

closer relation to Mrs. Larrabee. "She done gone off a-pleasurin' an'

a-jauntin', an' lef' me hyar with this whole houseful ter 'tend ter,

an' ter work fur, an' ter feed, an' ter mend, an' the neighbors ter

pervide with aigs--an' tur-r-key aigs at that!"

Julia Tems's experience of life had been crude and scanty and

monotonous. She had lived the successive uneventful years since her

infancy at the little cabin down in the Cove in the humble domestic

routine, without education of any sort, except perchance such as might

be gleaned from the sermon of a stray circuit rider; without the

opportunity of observation; with the simplest, most untutored, most

limited association. It was to be doubted if she knew a score of people

in the world. But this was her first encounter with discourtesy.

She flushed scarlet under the shade of her brown sunbonnet, not with

anger, but with shame: she was ashamed for Mrs. Timson. She hardly

felt the affront to herself at first; the flout at the proprieties

in the abstract nullified for the moment all personal consideration.

She was not conscious of a retrograde movement, for her instinct was

to terminate the interview. She found herself murmuring, "It's jes'

ez well,--jes' ez well," in an apologetic cadence which would have

befitted Mrs. Timson's voice, and moving backward continuously, in her

eager haste to be gone. Rather than prolong the ordeal for a moment she

could with philosophy have beheld every hen that had ever owned the

Tems sway in the grotesque catastrophe of patiently seeking to hatch

apples.

But Henrietta Timson had hardly anticipated routing the invader so

promptly. Noting Julia's eagerness to be gone, she perversely thwarted

it by stepping briskly down out of the door, remembering to put her

hand to her side, with a suffering look and an affected limp.

"I 'lowed ez I hed _hed_ tribulation, but I never seen none sech

ez now. Sist' Lar'bee gone,--tuck one o' my chil'n with her!" She shook

her head with a dolorous accusation that might have become her if

"Sist' Lar'bee" had been a kidnapper, and if the hero of the rickets

had gone for aught but to insure being properly fed and provided for.

"Jasper Lar'bee's disappeared; an' old man Haight I do b'lieve hev gone

deranged,--sets an' cusses the Lost Time mine all day; an' Jerushy's

husband's drunk,--'pears like a rat-hole, ye can't fill him up;

an'--hev ye seen Jasper Lar'bee down yer ways?"

"Not fur a long time," faltered Julia, still retreating a few steps at

intervals down the rocky, ledgy dooryard.

"Waal, I'll tell him ez ye war hyar, an' 'lowed it 'peared like a long

time sence ye seen him," said Mrs. Timson perversely, with the air

of taking a message. "An'"--her small eyes narrowed--"ef I find enny

tur-r-key aigs, I'll let ye know."

She looked with a sour smile after the girl's light figure, for Julia

was now fairly routed.

"I'll let ye know, too," she muttered, "ez we ain't got none o' Mis'

Lar'bee's slack-twisted ways hyar now,--givin' away a settin' of

tur-r-key aigs, I say! Ef I find enny tur-r-key aigs, I'll send 'em

down ter the store ter trade. I be mos' out o' snuff now."

Then she meditated swiftly upon her theory that Mrs. Larrabee had

reasons of her own for all her good works; that they were subtle

investments, as it were, sure of a return in better kind, and

quadrupled in value. She could evolve no view in which the promised

"settin' of tur-r-key aigs" could figure as assets save for a general

conciliatory purpose; and then she remembered that Cap'n Lucy was

a widower. A sneering smile stole over her face, arrested suddenly

by a grave afterthought; if for this reason the family were worth

conciliating for Mrs. Larrabee's sake, surely more for her own. "Lord

knows, I need a house, an' home, an' land, an' horse critters, an'

cows, an' sheep, an' hawgs--he hev jes' two childern, an' them growed,

an' that niece gal could be turned out" (she hastily went over the list

of Cap'n Lucy's earthly gear, omitting only that important possession,

himself)--"a sight more 'n Mis' Lar'bee do, ennyhows."

With a sudden change of heart, she ran to the road, holding her hand

to the level of her eyes to shade them from the glare of the sun; but

look as she might, there was not a flitting vestige to be seen of the

dark brickdust red, the color of the dress which Julia wore. She called

again and again without response. She thought the girl must surely have

heard; then she reassured herself by the reflection that the wind was

blowing a gale, and doubtless the sound of her voice went far afield.

Its shrill pipe might have been easily enough distinguishable to ears

that would heed, although the surges of the wind beat loud on every

rock and slope. Julia took angry note as she went swiftly on and on,

her skirts flying, her bonnet blown back, her heart hot with wrath

against Mrs. Timson, against herself, against Adelicia who had sent her

on so ill starred an errand. Her eyes and her gesture were singularly

like Cap'n Lucy's, as, threading the narrow path above the precipice,

she paused and flung the empty basket into the wilderness below,

and then walked on less swiftly, her tense nerves relaxed by this

ebullition of rage. Like Cap'n Lucy, too, she felt the better for it,

albeit she realized as he never would have done that the basket would

be sorely missed at home. With the riddance she somehow discharged her

mind of the thought of the Larrabee threshold, of her inhospitable

reception there, of the whole ignoble episode. She looked out with a

sort of enjoyment at the muster of the clouds, the gathering of rank

after rank; ever and again her unaffrighted eyes followed the swift

yellow lightnings darting through the gray masses, and she seemed to

be just opposite them as she stood on the verge of the precipice on

the mountain side. Lower down on the wooded slope across the narrow

valley, she could see the track of the wind, which never touched those

silent, vaporous congregations, motionless, or coming with contrary

currents from opposite directions. The trees below bent and sprang

back into place, and she could hear the sibilant shouting of the

leaves. It was like a myriad of shrill tiny voices, but they combined

into a massive chorus. The growths hard by were adding a refrain; the

wind was winning new territory as it came up the mountain. She could

see far away a cloud torn into fringes, and presently the rain was

falling. It was coming nearer and nearer; she would meet it long

before she could reach home. She quickened her steps at the thought.

Sometimes the growths intervened on both sides of the path, and shut

out the observation of the coming storm. Whenever she emerged, she

noted the darkening aspect. More than once the thunder shook the very

mountains. Suddenly, a searching, terrible illumination, the rising

of the tumultuous wind, a frightful succession of peals, brought her

to a pause. She hardly dared to face a storm like this, shelterless,

and the store at the Lost Time mine was close at hand. Nevertheless

she hesitated for a moment. Cap'n Lucy's well-worn jest as to the

"perfessional widower" was hardly so funny to her as to him. She stood,

disconcerted, conscious, averse, in the teeth of the storm, her dress

fluttering, her bonnet tossed back from her shining coiled hair, her

eyes bright and wide and wistful, and the breath almost blown back

from her lips. Then she noted suddenly the portal of the Lost Time

mine. She did not pause to reflect; to dread the long, darkening,

solitary afternoon in its dim recesses; to remember the terrors of

its traditions, and what ghastly presence she might meet, and what

sepulchral voices she might hear, in the awful isolations of the coming

storm, when all the laws that govern the outside world seemed set at

naught; for if ever the supernatural should break bounds, it might be

at a place like this. She ran against the wind as swiftly as she might;

skirted the water on the stones in the channel at the mouth of the

cave, now more deeply submerged than their wont, for the stream was

rising visibly, its underground tributaries already fed by the rains

falling elsewhere; felt with a shiver the chill of the place, as the

high, grim, rough-hewn rocks towered above her head; climbed up on the

inner ledges; and as the first floodlike outbreak of the torrents came

down with a crash of thunder, and a glare of lightning, and a wild

shrieking of swirling winds, she sat down, high and dry, and drew a

breath of relief.

The next instant her heart gave a great plunge, and then seemed to

stand still. She was not alone. A man in a further recess appeared

suddenly, approaching cautiously. He evidently had not seen her. Her

entrance into the place had preceded his appearance only by a few

seconds. He was watching the rain with intense interest. She would have

said that he had been apprised of it by the rise of the water within.

He bestowed an eager, careful, calculating scrutiny upon the stream

below the high shadowy point where he stood; then he looked toward

the portal where the descending sheets of rain cut off all glimpse of

the world without. He was turning away, with the furtive, skulking,

cautious air that had characterized his approach, when his eyes fell

upon her. He dropped out of sight as if he had been shot.

She sat there, silent, trembling, her eyes fixed upon the spot where

he had disappeared, her heart beating wildly. She heard the flow of

the stream below, its volume and momentum continually increasing, and

the foaming turmoil where the currents met the dash of the rain at the

outlet of the mine; now and again she was conscious that lightning

flashed through the gray and white descending torrents without, and lit

up this dreary subterranean recess with its uncanny glare for a space,

till distance annulled its power, and she heard the thunder roar. But

she did not withdraw her eyes, and she wondered if he had known her in

that short moment as she had recognized him. For it was Jack Espey.

It seemed so long while she sat there, waiting for some sign, or token,

or further intimation, that she might have thought the apparition

a mere illusion, had she ever heard enough of the tricks of the

imagination to learn to doubt her senses. She was trembling still,

although her voice was calm enough as at last she called his name.

"Jack Espey!" the echoes cried out, as promptly as if it were a

familiar sound and long ago conned. They fell to silence gradually. She

did not call again, but, with her slow and composed manner, she waited

for him to answer.

When he finally approached, apparently ascending an incline from depths

below, he met her intent gaze fixed upon him; but she seemed to him as

impassive and as unmoved of aspect as if this were a daily occurrence

in her life.

"I war in hopes ye didn't know me, Julia," he said, dully sad, as he

came up near her.

He stood leaning his elbow on one of the shelves of rock, looking up

at her, mechanically shielding himself behind the jagged ledges from

observation without, although it might seem naught could stand in the

storm that raged beyond.

His plight was forlorn. His clothes were worn and torn, and miry with

clay; it adhered in flakes and smears to his long boots, incongruously

spurred. His face was lined and white. His hat was pushed far back on

his black hair, as of yore, and his long-lashed grayish-blue eyes had

an appealing look which she had not seen before.

"What fur ye wished I wouldn't know ye?"

He looked hard at her. "'Kase it's dangersome. I'm a man hunted fur my

life, I reckon. It's dangersome fur me, an' fur ye too, ter know I be

hyar."

"It's jes' ez well I ain't one of the skeery kind, then," said Julia

hardily. "I be powerful glad I seen ye hyar."

She seemed curiously unfamiliar to him in some sort. So alert had his

faculties become in the suspense of jeopardy that this slight point

perturbed him, until he bethought himself that he had hitherto heard

her speak so seldom, and had observed her so little, that the very

inflections of her voice were strange. It was of a different timbre

from Adelicia's. It did not vibrate. It had a conclusive, flutelike

quality, without a trailing sequence of resonance.

"Waal, I 'lowed ez mos' ennybody mought be sorry ter see me in sech a

fix as this," he said dolorously.

The deliberate, impassive Julia was almost in haste to avert this

apparent misconstruction. "Oh, I war glad ter view ye, 'kase a heap o'

folks 'lowed ye couldn't hev got away 'thout yer horse, him bein' kilt,

an' ez ye war a-lyin' in the laurel somewhar, dead, yit."

She turned her head, and looked steadily at him. Her deep, dark,

translucent eyes were full of shoaling lights of variant blue, like

the heart of some great sapphire. The long, curling lashes flung a

fibrous shadow on her cheek; its texture, as the light fell upon it,

was so fine, so soft, its tints so fair, its curve so delicate. Her

lips, chiseled like some triumph of ideal beauty, but that no sculpture

could express their mobile sweetness, parted suddenly in her rare and

brilliant smile.

Many a man, under its glamours, might have taken heart of grace to be

glad that he was alive; but Espey's face hardened.

"'T would be jes' ez well, jes' ez well, lying dead in the laur'l,"

he said bitterly. Then, with an afterthought, "Let them folks stay

'feared. They won't spile thar health quakin' an' shudderin' 'bout

me," he added cynically. As he marked her expression change, her smile

vanish, he realized the necessity to please, to propitiate. He knew

her so slightly; his temper must not be too savage and surly with so

complete a stranger, and perhaps earn her antagonism, especially since

he and his refuge were at her mercy.

"Course," he went on, with a clumsy effort at amends, "I don't mean

Ad'licia. Ye knowed we-uns war keepin' comp'ny?"

She nodded gravely.

"I know Ad'licia hev quaked an' shuddered 'bout me a heap mo' 'n I be

wuth," he added.

Was the day darker outside, or how was quenched that subtle brightness

of aspect that had made the girl's face radiant? It was beautiful

still, that statuesque contour, but as chill and unresponsive as if

indeed its every line had been wrought with a chisel. The smooth

hair, with its sheen of silken fineness, caught the light on its

coiled and plaited chestnut-tinted strands. One hand rested on her

brown sunbonnet, laid on the ledge of the gray rock, and she leaned

her weight upon it. Her head and her fair complexion--so fair that it

transmitted to the surface an outline of the blue veins in her temple

and throat, and even her eyelids--and the roseate fluctuations in her

cheek were very distinct against the yellow clay of the bank of earth

behind her. Her little rough low-quarter shoes and the brown stockings

showed a trifle beneath the skirt of the brick-dust-colored homespun

dress she wore, as they were placed on a boulder that stood out of the

tawny rushing stream below.

He noted the change. He could not account for it other than as a

vicarious resentment.

"I ain't faultin' Ad'licia," he said, more emphatically. "She war

tormented powerful 'bout me, warn't she?"

"A-fust," said Julia veraciously. Her voice was as inexpressive as her

eyes. "But Ad'licia is one ez always hopes fur the best."

He drew back with a sudden recoil. "Waal, now, by the Lord!" he cried

furiously, "she's welcome ter her hope! Settin' thar in the house,

warm, an' dry, an' fed, an' clean,"--he looked down with a sort of

repulsion upon his miry garments,--"a-hopin' fur the bes', an' makin'

herself mighty comfort'ble an' contented, an' _me_ hyar, freezin'

in this cold hole, an' mighty nigh starvin', in rags an' mis'ry, an'

sick, an' sorry, an' lonesome enough ter die, an' shet out o' the

light! My God, ef I warn't 'feared o' my life, I'd let the off'cer take

me! The State hain't got no sech term o' imprisonment ez this!"

Julia was leaning forward, each line of her impassive face replete with

meaning, reflecting his every sentiment, but with the complement of

sympathy and acquiescence and responsive anger in his anger.

He turned suddenly, lifting his arm with a scornful gesture toward

the low vault with its dank, earthy odor, the ledges of barren,

inhospitable rock, the cold stream rushing forth from the darkness

within, seen in an appalling blackness adown the tunnel, against which

his white-lined face looked whiter, his form taller in his closely

belted garb and with his long boots drawn up to the knees. He waved his

arm as if to include it all. "An' Ad'licia,--she hopes for the bes'."

He broke out into a harsh laugh, which the echoes repeated so

promptly, and with apparently so malignant an intent, that he checked

it hastily, and the sound died on his colorless lips; but far down the

black tunnel something uncanny seemed to fall to laughing suddenly, and

as suddenly to break off; and again a further voice still was lifted in

weird mirth, and the laughter failed midway.

He waited for silence, and then he leaned against a higher ledge near

which she was sitting, and, resting his elbow on it, looked at her once

more, wondering how he might best revert to his object of propitiation.

He was remembering that Adelicia had told him how prone was Julia to

notice slights, and how quick to take offense. He felt hardly equal

to the effort of repairing the damage of his outbreak against her

relative, so spent was his scanty strength by the violence of his anger

and his agitation. He could only look at her silently, more forlorn,

more pallid, more appealing, than before.

"I oughtn't ter think hard o' Ad'licia," he said at last. "Nobody else

would, I know. Would they?" he added.

For, with Julia's silent habit, conversation was somewhat difficult

without a direct appeal. It was a direct appeal. She liked to remember

that afterward.

"Waal," she said, slowly and judicially, as if weighing matters

submitted for arbitrament, "I 'low Ad'licia treated ye right mean, fust

an' las'."

"Why?" he rejoined, in genuine interest, his face resuming its normal

expression before flight and hardship and darkness and loneliness and

fear and privation had so marked it.

"'Kase," she went on in that soft, unfamiliar voice that the echoes

seemed hardly to follow, so complete, so indivisible, was every

flutelike tone, "she oughter married ye whenst ye axed her--ef she

liked ye."

A faint surprise was dawning in his eyes.

"Cap'n Lucy wouldn't gin his cornsent," he said succinctly.

"I reckon he 'lowed 't war his jewty ter say no. But ef Ad'licia hed

married ye ennyhows, do ye reckon dad would hev let that leetle fice

o' the law, 'Dolphus Ross, jail _his_ nephew-in-law 'kase a man

he fought in Tanglefoot Cove _mought_ die ef he didn't hev the

industry ter git well? Naw, sir: ye'd hev hed dad an' Luther fur

backers, an' they air toler'ble stiff backers, fur enny man. Dad would

hev fixed a way out'n it fur ye, fur sure, count o' Ad'licia. She war a

turr'ble fool not ter marry ye, an' I tole her so."

The surprise, the doubt, and at last the conviction successively

expressed in Espey's face might have been easily discriminated by one

skilled in reading the human physiognomy. But Julia possessed no such

craft, and when he spoke she appreciated no change in his manner,

albeit it was not guarded; for he did not conceive it necessary to

closely screen the discovery of a secret of which he perceived that

Julia was herself unconscious.

"Julia," he said appealingly, "ye see how I be hunted an' harried, an'

nobody keers fur me. Jes' let the folks shudder an' quake fur a while

longer 'thout knowin' what's kem o' me. Don't tell nobody ez ye hev

seen me hyar."

She was gazing out at the steely lines of the rain curtain, so dense as

to be like a veritable fabric, as it swayed in the wind at the rugged

mouth of the mine, and its foaming white fringes that seemed to trail

upon the brown water where the continuous downfall splashed into its

currents. The peculiarly clear, colorless light of a gray day, which,

in its adequacy for all the purposes of mere vision, would seem to

point the munificence and splendid lavishness of the sun's bestowals

in the interests of beauty and growths and the gladdening of the heart

of man, was upon her face, which responded with a sort of subdued

glister like marble. Her eyes and the shadowy long black lashes were

meditatively downcast. She was evidently reviewing the course of action

which she had just sketched for him, for Adelicia, for Cap'n Lucy. He

did not hold her undivided attention, and he realized that it was only

a mechanical assent as she nodded, her face still reflective, absorbed.

"Not even Cap'n Lucy," he urged eagerly. "Not Jasper Lar'bee"--He

paused suddenly.

The word seemed to arrest, to enchain, her elusive attention. The

delicate roseate tints of her fair complexion deepened from throat

to brow; her cheek was vividly red. She was remembering the Larrabee

threshold, the greeting she had encountered there, the grotesque

indignity of Henrietta Timson's affronts. But hers was a reticent

habit, and she had a reserved nature. She only said, conclusively,

slowly, "Ye may be sure I won't tell Jasper Lar'bee."

Somehow Espey felt a sense of loss; and he had so little to lose,

poor fellow, that albeit her affection was unsought, uncared for,

unsuspected till a moment ago, the doubt of it afflicted him as if his

heart were cruelly rifled. That flush at Larrabee's name! To him it

was conclusive. He had no other indication by which to judge. He had

mistaken her sympathy, her idle talk; she was wont to talk so seldom

that it was not surprising that he hardly knew how to take her words;

he knew so little of her and her mental processes. She cared for

Larrabee, not for him. Nobody cared for him. And Adelicia was hoping

for the best.

"This be a mighty pore shelter an' home an' hope," he said, grimly

looking about him. "I hed prayed I mought crope inter a hole ter hide

or die, like a hunted fox or bar or painter be 'lowed ter do sometimes.

That didn't 'pear ter me much fur a man ter ax of the Lord."

He stood off from the rock for an instant, his big white wool hat in

one hand, the other in his leather belt where that formidable array of

weapons still gleamed. His head was thrown back from the loose collar

of his blue-checked shirt; his straight hair was tossed from his brow;

his gray eyes, scornfully bitter, surveyed the dripping walls,--so

dark that in the recesses here and there clusters of bats hung head

downward, dimly descried, awaiting the night,--the rugged obtrusion

of rock through the clay, the chill, chill flowing of the brown

water in the channel below, as ceaseless, as cold, as heedless, as

relentless, as in the days of yore when it broke its allotted bounds,

rose into alien hewn-out caverns, and flooded the mine, wrecking the

humble industry of man, wresting away with its grasping currents two

struggling human lives, and carrying not even a gruesome memory or

token of its deeds upon its sleek waves out into the sunshine, and the

free air, and the genial warmth of the upper world.

"'Tain't much I hev axed,--this hole ter starve an' die in,--but mebbe

it's too much!" Then, turning, with an eye alight, and a furious flush

that made him look all at once well and strong and alert and reckless

again, "But tell whar I be hid out--tell--tell who ye want! Tell

ennybody--everybody! Cap'n Lucy! the sher'ff! Taft! Jasper Lar'bee!"

And what miracle was this! The silent, impassive, reserved, reticent

Julia fixed her eyes upon him for a moment, amazed, troubled, and then,

as she suddenly comprehended, full of a keen but tender reproach. And

until that moment he had not known how beautiful those much-vaunted

eyes could be. The next they were full of tears, and Julia, leaning

back against the wall behind her, had burst into sobs.

"Tell! Why, Jack Espey, how kin ye think I could be made to tell whar

ye be hid out?" She turned her head to look at him again with hurt and

indignant amazement. "I'd die first! Powder an' lead"--she hesitated

for hyperbole that might express this impossibility--"all the powder

and lead the men shot away in the war times couldn't git a word from me

o' what I hev fund out this evenin'!"

"I know it!" he protested, coming up close to her, as she sat on the

ledge. "I oughtn't ter hev said that, but ye see, Julia, I feel so

s'picious, sometimes; I be so hunted an' harried, an' nobody keers fur

me or whar I be--'ceptin' the sher'ff." He lifted his eyebrows, with a

fleering laugh at his own forlorn estate.

"I keer," said Julia stoutly. "I won't tell nobody whar ye be hid

out,--not even dad, nor Luther, nor nobody, 'ceptin' Ad'licia."

He gasped in haste for utterance. He caught at her hand as if he were

drowning,--as if she might be gone before he could stay her for a word.

"Not Ad'licia! Oh my Lord, no! Jes' leave her a-hopin' fur the bes'!"

He had hardly realized how deeply he had resented Adelicia's optimistic

resignation to his fate. His sarcastic laugh was broken off halfway in

his eager resumption of his argument. "Ad'licia mought feel obligated

ter tell Cap'n Lucy, an' 'bide by his word. With her a-hopin' fur

the bes', an' Cap'n Lucy's foolin' long o' his jewty ter his orphin

niece, I'll git the sher'ff's bracelets locked round my wrists; an'

the jail ain't ez sightly a place ez this beautisome spot. I be a man

fur myself, an' I can't ondertake ter cut out all my cloth with Cap'n

Lucy's scissors. Ad'licia's contented. Leff her be! She'll hope fur the

bes' with a twenty horse power."

He did not remember Mrs. Larrabee's astute remark in the advice she

had given him to the effect that "perlitin' round the t'other gal

wouldn't go so hard with him," if she were really a "gyardin lily" for

beauty. He only felt vaguely that he had not heretofore appreciated the

radiance of the face that Julia bent upon him; he did not understand

that it was the moment, the unrealized thought, which so embellished

it, as she said cogitatingly, "Naw, 't won't do ter tell Ad'licia. I

won't tell her."

"See ter it that ye don't," he sternly urged her. And once more he

was impressed with the idea that he really had not before known how

singularly beautiful she was.

"Ye see, Julia," he said, lowering his voice confidentially, "I can't

git away, 'kase I got no horse; an' ef I hed one, I hev got no money,

an' I'd jes' be tuk somewhar, now that the folks hev got sot onto

the trail of me. So I 'lowed I'd hide hyarabout till I git news from

Tanglefoot ez that man hev got better. Ye see I be hopin' fur the bes',

too," he added, with a pathetic smile. "It's all I kin do."

"How do ye git suthin' ter eat?" she asked suddenly.

Espey looked embarrassed. "Oh, I makes out," he said evasively. "I gits

out at night sometimes."

She assumed that he hunted or trapped at night for provisions. He noted

that she did not argue nor contend, as Adelicia was wont to do. She

accepted his arrangements as intrinsically the best.

"I could fetch ye suthin' wunst in a while," she suggested.

He looked aghast at the idea.

"Don't ye do that, Julia," he said warningly. "It mought git ye or

Cap'n Lucy liable ter the law. Don't ye do it. I'll make out somehows."

Then seeing her reluctance, "Ef I need ennything, or want ter git

communication with folks outside, I'll let ye know. I'll--I'll put this

hyar pipe in a nick in them rocks, jes' west, clost inter the freestone

spring nigh yer dad's house."

She listened, breathless, and beamed with delight at the feasibility of

this plan.

"An' whenever I pass hyar," she said, with wide, illumined eyes and a

flickering flush of excitement,--"an' I'll kem frequent,--I'll drap

wild flowers in the road. An' ye will see 'em, an' know I hev been by

an' been a-studyin' 'bout you-uns. An' that will be plumb comp'ny fur

ye."

"'Twill that!" he cried. His eyes were soft and bright and dewy.

Somehow it seemed to bind him--that chain of flowers--to the fair world

without, which had been slipping away, away forever.

He turned, and looked out toward the rocky egress of the cave as if he

almost expected to see already a cardinal flower flaming in the sun on

the gray rock.

There was no sun. The rain fell, dense still,--dense enough, doubtless,

to preclude all observation from without; but from among the shadows

within his practiced eyes descried through the shifting, shimmering

veil, now white and gray in shoaling effects, all blown aslant by the

wind, a canvas-covered wagon lumbering by, albeit for the rush of the

stream and the fall of the torrent she could not hear the slow creak of

its wheels. His heart was a-flutter, although he knew that the danger

of observation was past, as the swaying white hood had disappeared.

"That's 'Renzo Taft," he remarked. "He's gittin' back late from the

cross-roads. I reckon the storm cotch him an' kep' him."

He hesitated. Then, with a sort of falter of humiliation, "I reckon I'd

better go back ter my hidin' place, Julia. The rain's slackening so

somebody passin' mought view me. Ye jes' set hyar right quiet an' wait

fur the rain ter hold up."

He turned away; then looked back over his shoulder.

"Good-by," he said.

The girl's luminous eyes dwelt smilingly upon him.

"Good-by," she answered softly.

He took his way along the ledges above the treacherous stream to that

blacker recess where the way deflected and the light failed; he turned

once more.

"I'll be a-watchin' fur them flowers," he said.

Her smile itself was like a bloom; he, unaware, treasured the

recollection. He seemed to reflect it in some sort. He was smiling

himself, as he went down into those sunless depths.

He could not forbear partly retracing his way once, and looking at

her as she sat, quite still, gazing out with her eyes of summer and

sunshine upon the rain, and the dreary, sad, tear-stained aspect of the

world without, whence sounded the sobbing of the troubled wind.

When he came yet another time, the rain had ceased, and she was gone.