The blossom had passed from the laurel and rhododendron and the June
freshness had freckled into rustiness before the day came when Dorothy
Harper and Cal Maggard were to be married, and as yet the man had not
been able to walk beyond the threshold of the house, and to the people
of the neighbourhood his face had not become familiar.
Once only had Cal been out of doors and that was when leaning on the
girl's arm he had gone into the dooryard. Dorothy did not wish the
simple ceremony of their marriage to take place indoors, but that when
Uncle Jase, the justice of the peace, joined their hands with the words
of the simple ritual, they should stand under the shade of the tree
which, already hallowed as a monument, should likewise be their altar.
So one afternoon, when the cool breath of evening came between sunset
and dusk, they had gone out together and for the first time in daylight
he stood by the broad-girthed base of the walnut's mighty bole.
"See thar, Cal," breathed the girl, as she laid reverent fingers upon
the trunk where initials and a date had been carved so long ago that now
they were sunken and seamed like an old scar.
"Them letters an' dates stands fer ther great-great-great gran'mammy
thet wrote ther book--an' fer ther fust Kenneth Thornton. They're our
fore-parents, an' they lays buried hyar. Hit's all in ther front pages
of thet book upsta'rs in ther chist."
The ground on which they stood was even now, for the mounds so long ago
heaped there had been levelled by generations of time. Later members of
that house who had passed away lay in the small thicket-choked burial
ground a hundred yards to the side.
"Hit's a right fantastic notion," complained old Caleb who had come out
to join them there, "ter be wedded outdoors under a tree, stid of
indoors under a roof," but the girl turned and laid a hand on his arm,
and her eyes livened with a glow of feeling and tenderness.
"Hit was right hyar thet we diskivered we loved one another," she said,
softly, "an' ef ye'd ever read thet book upstairs I reckon ye'd
onderstand. Our foreparents planted this tree hyar in days of sore
travail when they'd done come from nigh ter ther ocean-sea at Gin'ral
George Washington's behest, an' they plum revered hit from thet time
on."
She paused, looking up fondly into the magnificent fulness of branches
where now the orioles had hatched their brood and taught the fledglings
to fly, then her eyes came back and her voice grew rapt.
"Them revolutionary folk of our own blood bequeathed thet tree ter
us--an' we heired hit from 'em along with all thet's good in us. They
lays buried thar under hit, an' by now I reckon hits roots don't only
rest in ther ground an' rock thet's underneath hit--but in ther graves
of our people theirselves. Some part of them hes done passed inter thet
old tree, I reckon, ter give virtue ter hits sap an' stren'th. Thet's
why thar hain't no other place ter be married at."
The July morning of their wedding day dawned fresh and cloudless, and
from remote valleys and coves a procession of saddled mounts, ox-carts,
and foot travellers, grotesque in their oddly conceived raiment of
festivity, set toward the house at the river's bend. They came to look
at the bride, whose beauty was a matter of local fame, and for their
first inquisitive scrutiny of the stranger who had wooed with such
interest-provoking dispatch and upon whom, rumour insisted, was to
descend the mantle of clan leadership, albeit his blood was alien.
But the bridegroom himself lay on his bed, the victim of a
convalescent's set-back, and it seemed doubtful whether his strength
would support him through the ceremony. When he attempted to rise, after
a night of returned fever, his muscles refused to obey the mandates of
his will, and Uncle Jase Burrell, who had arrived early to make out the
license, issued his edict that Cal Maggard must be married in bed.
But at that his patient broke into defiant and open rebellion.
"I aims ter stand upright ter be wed," he scornfully asserted, "ef I
don't nuver stand upright ergin! Ask Dorothy an' her gran'pap an' Bas
Rowlett ter come in hyar. I wants ter hev speech with 'em all together."
Uncle Jase yielded grudgingly to the stronger will and within a few
minutes those who had been summoned appeared.
Bas Rowlett came last, and his face bore the marks of a sleepless night,
but he had undertaken a role and he purposed to play it to its end.
In after days, days for which Bas Rowlett was planning now, he meant
that every man who looked back on that wedding should remember and say
of him: "Bas, he war thar--plum friendly. Nobody couldn't be a man's
enemy an' act ther way Bas acted." In his scheme of conspiracy the art
of alibi building was both cornerstone and arch-key.
[Illustration: "_Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an
ordeal, started and almost let the leaning bridegroom fall_"]
Now it pleased Cal, even at a time when other interests pressed so close
and absorbingly, to indulge himself in a grim and sardonic humour. The
man who had "hired him killed" and whom in turn he meant to kill
stood in the room where he himself lay too weak to rise from his bed,
and toward that man he nodded his head.
"Good mornin', Bas," he accosted, and the other replied, "Howdy, Cal."
Then Maggard turned to the others. "This man, Bas Rowlett," he said,
"sought to marry Dorothy hisself. Ye all knows thet, yet deespite thet
fact when I come hyar a stranger he befriended me, didn't ye, Bas?"
"We spoke ther truth ter one another," concurred Rowlett, wondering
uneasily whither the conversational trend was leading, "an' we went on
bein' friends."
"An' now afore ye all," Maggard glanced comprehensively about the group,
"albeit hit don't need no more attestin', he's goin' ter prove his
friendship fer me afresh."
A pause followed, broken finally from the bed.
"I kain't stand up terday--an' without standin' up I couldn't hardly be
rightfully wedded--so Bas air agoin' ter support me, and holp me out
thar an' hold me upright whilst I says ther words ... hain't ye, Bas?"
The hardly taxed endurance of the conspirator for a moment threatened to
break in failure. A hateful scowl was gathering in his eyes as he
hesitated and Maggard went on suavely: "Anybody else could do hit fer
me--but I've got ther feelin' thet I wants ye, Bas."
"All right," came the low answer. "I'll aim ter convenience ye, Cal."
He turned hastily and left the room, and bending over the bed Uncle Jase
produced the marriage license.
"I'll jest fill in these blank places," he announced, briskly, "with
ther names of Dorothy Harper an' Cal Maggard an' then we'll be ready fer
ther signatures."
But at that Maggard raised an imperative hand in negation.
"No," he said, shortly and categorically, "I aims ter be married by my
rightful name--put hit down thar like hit is--Kenneth Parish
Thornton--all of hit!"
Caleb Harper bent forward with a quick gesture of expostulation.
"Ef ye does thet, boy," he pleaded, "ye won't skeercely be wedded afore
ther officers will come atter ye from over thar in Virginny."
"Then they kin come," the voice was obdurate. "I don't aim ter give
Almighty God no false name in my weddin' vows."
Uncle Jase, to whom this was all an inexplicable riddle, glanced
perplexedly at old Caleb and Caleb stood for the moment irresolute, then
with a sigh of relief, as though for discovery of a solution, he
demanded:
"Did ye ever make use of yore middle name--over thar in Virginny?"
"No. I reckon nobody don't skeercely know I've got one."
"All right--hit belongs ter ye jist as rightfully as ther other given
name. Write hit down Parish Thornton in thet paper, Jase. Thet don't
give no undue holt ter yore enemies, boy, an' es fer ther last name
hit's thicker then hops in these parts, anyhow."
In all the numbers of the crowd that stood about the dooryard that day
waiting for the wedding party to come through the door one absence was
recognized and felt.
"Old Jim Hewlett didn't come," murmured one observant guest, and the
announcement ran in a whisper through the gathering to find an echo that
trailed after it. "I reckon he didn't aim ter countenance ther matter,
atter all."
Then the door opened and Dorothy came out, with a sweet pride in her
eyes and her head high. At her side walked the man whose face they had
been curiously waiting to see.
They acknowledged at a glance that it was an uncommon face from which
one gained feeling of a certain power and mastery--yet of candour, too,
and fearless good nature.
But the crowd, hungry for interest and gossip, breathed deep in a sort
of chorused gasp at the dramatic circumstance of the bridegroom leaning
heavily on the arm of Bas Rowlett, the defeated lover. Already Uncle
Jase stood with his back to the broad, straight column whose canopy of
leafage spread a green roof between the tall, waving grass that served
as a carpet and the blue of a smiling sky.
Through branches, themselves as heavy and stalwart as young trees, and
through the myriads of arrow-pointed leaves that rustled as they sifted
and shifted the gold flakes of sunlight, sounded the low, mysterious
harping of wind-fingers as light and yet as profound as those of some
dreaming organist.
The girl, with her eyes fixed on that living emblem of strength and
tranquillity, felt as though instead of leaving a house, she were
entering a cathedral--though of man-built cathedrals she knew nothing.
It was the spirit which hallows cathedrals that brought to her deep
young eyes a serenity and thanksgiving that made her face seem ethereal
in its happiness--the spirit of benediction, of the presence of God and
of human sanctuary.
So she went as if she were treading clouds to the waiting figure of the
man who was to perform the ceremony.
When the clear voice of the justice of the peace sounded out as the
pair--or rather the trio--stood before him at the foot of the great
walnut, the astonishment which had been simmering in the crowd broke
into audible being again and with a rising tempo.
The tone with which old Jase read the service was full and sonorous and
the responses were clear as bell metal. On the fringe of the gathering
an old woman's whispered words carried to those about her:
"Did ye heer thet? Jase called him Parish Thornton--I thought he give
ther name of Cal Maggard!"
Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an ordeal, started and
almost let the leaning bridegroom fall.
The loft of old Caleb's barn had been cleared for that day, and through
the afternoon the fiddles whined there, alternating with the twang of
banjo and "dulcimore." Old Spike Crooch, who dwelt far up at the
headwaters of Little Tribulation, where the "trails jest wiggle an'
wingle about," and who bore the repute of a master violinist, had vowed
that he "meant ter fiddle at one more shin-dig afore he laid him down
an' died"--and he had journeyed the long way to carry out his pledge.
He had come like a ghost from the antique past, with his old bones
straddling neither horse nor mule, but seated sidewise on a brindle
bull, and to reach the place where he was to discourse music he had made
a "soon start" yesterday morning and had slept lying by the roadside
over night.
Now on an improvised platform he sat enthroned, with his eyes
ecstatically closed, the violin pressed to his stubbled chin, and his
broganned feet--with ankles innocent of socks--patting the spirited time
of his dancing measure.
Outside in the yard certain young folk who had been reared to hold
dancing ungodly indulged in those various "plays" as they called the
games less frowned upon by the strait-laced. But while the thoughtless
rollicked, their elders gathered in small clumps here and there and
talked in grave undertones, and through these groups old Caleb
circulated. He knew how mysterious and possibly significant to these
news-hungry folk had seemed the strange circumstance of the
bridegroom's answering, in the marriage service, to a name he had not
previously worn and he sought to draw, by his own strong influence, the
sting of suspicion from their questioning minds.
But Bas Rowlett did not remain through the day, and when he was ready to
leave, old Caleb followed him around the turn of the road to a point
where they could be alone, and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
"Bas," he said, feelingly, "I'd hate ter hev ye think I hain't a-feelin'
fer ye terday. I knows right well ye're sore-hearted, boy, an' thar
hain't many men thet could hev took a bitter dose like ye've done."
Rowlett looked gloomily away.
"I hain't complainin' none, Caleb," he said.
"No. But I hain't got master long ter live--an' when Jim an' me both
passes on, I fears me thar'll be stressful times ahead. I wants ye ter
give me yore hand thet ye'll go on standin' by my leetle gal an' her
fam'ly, Bas. Else I kain't die satisfied."
Bas Rowlett stood rigidly and tensely straight, his eyes fixed to the
front, his forehead drawn into furrows. Then he thrust out his hand.
"Ye've done confidenced me until now," he said simply, "ye kin go on
doin' hit. I gives ye my pledge."