and Ruby Fallon, to the cooking classes, her little brother always on
her arm; but she did not go to the play-parties in the afternoons,
keeping this precious time and privacy for work on her white dress and
Madison's. Saturday she finished both, the result, so far as her own
was concerned, being pathetic; and Sunday she dressed herself and the
baby in them, and waited for Fult to come for her again.
Instead, however, she was a little shocked to see him riding down
Troublesome, with Isabel on a nag beside him.
She did not feel at all hurt or angry--in her eyes Fult was perfect;
what he did must be all right. Gulping down a few tears, she hugged and
kissed little Madison, took off her finery and his, and went to work
doing some extra cooking for dinner.
Fult and Isabel were riding down to Aunt Ailsie's to hear the devil's
ditties, Uncle Lot having gone to a funeral meeting fourteen miles
away. It was the first time they had been alone together since the day
Fult had brought Isabel in behind him. Meanwhile, she had heard fully
about the "war" and Fult's part in it, had seen him play in the same
game with his archenemy, Darcy Kent, had watched both impassive faces
with fascinated eyes, and had developed a consuming curiosity to know
just how feudists feel on the inside.
They had ridden only a short distance past the village when Isabel
said, suddenly: "Why didn't you tell me that day you brought me in that
you were one of the leaders of the 'war'?"
Fult started, flushed slightly, and replied: "I allowed you'd hear hit
soon enough anyhow."
"But you knew how excited I was to hear from Uncle Adam that there
was a feud right here on Troublesome. Of course, I had heard and read
of them all my life,--my father had always taken a special interest
in them--but to walk right into one as I did seemed too wonderful for
words."
"But you walked into perfect peace," smiled Fult.
"Oh, yes, I know--the truce," said Isabel. "But that's just a temporary
thing, isn't it? Just for the summer?"
"Yes."
"And then?"
Fult paused a moment before answering, deliberately: "I allow one or
t'other of us will have to die before there's any lasting peace."
"Oh, why?" exclaimed Isabel; "why keep up the enmity and hatred? Why
not let it die out forever?"
Fult was gazing straight ahead with drawn brows at a spot in the road.
"It hain't possible," he said, in a low voice. "But I can't talk about
hit--never could, not even to my best friend, Charlie Lee. The onliest
way is for me to keep hit all pinned right down inside me."
Suddenly he put out a hand, seized Isabel's bridle, and turned both the
nags sharply aside into the creek.
"Right there, in the road," he said, in a choked voice, "is where they
kilt my paw--come on him unexpected from them spruce-pines. I allus
turn out of the road here."
"Oh, horrible!" exclaimed Isabel. "Oh, what you must have suffered!
Can you forgive me for speaking lightly as I did about the war? For
speaking of it at all? I can hardly forgive myself!"
Her blue eyes gazed insistently into his dark ones.
He was silent a moment. Then he said, gently: "Hit's all right." Then,
in a still lower, deeper voice: "If there was anybody I could talk to
about hit, hit would be you."
The color sprang into Isabel's face as she replied: "Oh, I'm only a
stranger; I couldn't expect you to."
Ten minutes later, he said: "All the land this side of Troublesome, for
a mile or more, was my paw's, and my part, four or five hundred acres,
lays along here, from the creek to the top of the ridge. My house,
hit's just out of sight up yander. Me and Charlie and t'other boys
stays down here a lot in crap time, and this summer they aim to help me
get out a lot of timber--yellow poplar. See them tall trees that lifts
their heads so high above t'others, along the ridge and all down the
sides? There's a sight of 'em. And them hills are full of coal, too,
five or six veins of hit."
When they arrived at Aunt Ailsie's, Isabel was much taken with the
ancient log house--the great fireplace, with its pots, spiders, and
kettles; the loom, the reel, and the spinning-wheels and "kivers." But
Aunt Ailsie would not let her spend much time looking. She set them
down to a half-past-ten o'clock dinner, in order, as she said, that
they might have a "full evening" before them. By eleven-thirty the
three were starting up the mountain in the rear of the house.
Cornfields extended halfway up, and were so steep and crumbly that
Isabel had to be pulled up much of the way by Fult. He and Aunt Ailsie
took the ascent like goats, but had to stop frequently for Isabel to
recover her breath.
Up in the timber, it was equally steep, but there were bushes and limbs
to hang on to, and also the ground was solid beneath their feet. At
last, after many rests, they reached the high rocks, a hard formation
giving a castellated appearance to this ridge and others that billowed
away in the distance. Through a cleft in the rocks, Fult led the
way, and, emerging on the far side, they found themselves under an
overhanging shelf,--a "rock-house," Aunt Ailsie called it,--which was
dry and comfortable, with some flat stones to sit on, and from which
there was a glorious view.
Aunt Ailsie was pretty nervous. "Get out on top and take a far look
around afore I begin," she said to Fult.
When he returned, she removed her black sunbonnet, laid it on her lap,
and inquired: "What'll I start with?"
"I already sung 'Turkish Lady' and 'Barbary Allen' and one or two more
for her," he said. "The older they are, the better she likes them--them
old way-back ones that come over from old England and Scotland long
time ago."
"Yes," said Isabel, with enthusiasm; "think of finding one eight
hundred years old, like 'Turkish Lady'!"
"Well, I'll sing you them my old granny teached me," said Aunt Ailsie.
"I ricollect one has your name in hit; 'Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight'
is hits name."
She began in a high-pitched voice, to a weird minor tune:--
"Lady Isabel sets in her bower a-sewing,
All as the gowans grow gay,
Then she hears an Elf Knight his horn a-blowing,
The first morning in May."
Enchanted by the magic strains, Lady Isabel makes a wish that she might
possess both the horn and its blower. Whereupon the Elf Knight leaps
into her window, seizes her, and takes her on his horse far away into
the deep greenwood, only to inform her on arriving there that he has
already slain seven king's daughters on that spot, and that she shall
be the eighth.
She pleads for a moment of happiness first, begging him to sit down and
rest his head on her knee for a little while before she dies. He does
so; she strokes his head, weaves a spell over him, and lulls him to
sleep; then binds him with his sword-belt and plunges a "dag-dirk" into
his heart, bidding him lie there and be a husband to the seven slain
women.
The next ballad was a many-stanzaed one, "Lord Thomas and Fair
Ellender":--
"'O mother, O mother, come riddle my sport,
Come riddle it all as one,
Must I go marry Fair Ellender,
Or bring the Brown Girl home?'
"'The Brown Girl she has houses and lands,
Fair Ellender she has none;
I charge you on my blessing, Lord Thomas,
Go bring the Brown Girl home.'
"'Go saddle up my milk-white steed,
Go saddle him up for me;
I'll go and invite Fair Ellender
My wedding for to see.'
"He rode, he rode, till he came to the Hall;
He tingled all on the ring;
Nobody so ready as Fair Ellender herself
To rise and bid him come in.
"'What news, what news?' Fair Ellender cried;
'What news have you fetched to me?'
'I've come to invite thee to my wedding;
Is that good news for thee?'
"'Bad news, bad news,' Fair Ellender cried,
'Bad news have you fetched to me;
I once did think I would be your bride,
And you my bridegroom would be.'
"'O mother, O mother, come riddle my sport,
Come riddle it all as one;
Must I go to Lord Thomas's wedding,
Or tarry with thee at home?'
"'Oh, enemies, enemies, you have there;
The Brown Girl she has none;
I charge you on my blessing, fair daughter,
To tarry this day at home.'
"'There may be few of my friends, mother,
And many more of my foes;
But if I never return again,
To Lord Thomas's wedding I'll go.'
"She dressed herself in scarlet-red,
Her maidens she dressed in green,
And every town that she rode through
They took her to be some queen.
"She rode, she rode, till she came to the Hall;
She tingled all on the ring;
Nobody so ready as Lord Thomas himself
To rise and bid her come in.
"He took her by the lily-white hand,
He led her through the hall,
And set her down in a golden chair,
Among the ladies all.
"'Is this your bride,' Fair Ellender cried,
'That looks so wonderful brown?
You once could have married as fair a ladie
As ever the sun shone on!'
"'Despise her not, Fair Ellen,' he cried,
'Despise her not to me;
I'd rather have your little finger
Than her whole bodye.'
"The Brown Girl had a little pen-knife,
It was both keen and sharp;
Between the long ribs and the short,
She pierced Fair Ellender's heart.
"'Oh, what is the matter?' Lord Thomas, he cried.
'Oh, are you blind?' said she,
'And don't you see my own heart's blood
Come trinkling down my knee?'
"He seized the Brown Girl by the hand,
And dragged her across the hall;
He took a bright sword and cut off her head
And flung it again' the wall.
"'O mother, O mother, go dig my grave,
Go dig hit both wide and deep,
And lay Fair Ellender in my arms,
And the Brown Girl at my feet.'
"He placed the butt again' the wall,
The p'int again' his heart.
Did you ever see three true-lovers meet
That had so soon to part?"
Then followed many another ancient ballad, passed down through the
centuries by word of mouth in England and Scotland; brought across
the seas, to be cherished in the rough pioneer days as reminders of
the old home; and, later, forgotten in the stress of American life
by the more fortunately placed, to become to the mountaineer, in his
isolation, the sole outlet for imagination and fancy, the chief source
of inspiration and ideals.
The tunes themselves were invariably minor, and weird beyond credence,
harking back, most of them, to a time before the development of the
present musical scale, when the primitive one then in use possessed
only five notes.
All afternoon Isabel sat spellbound, listening to one long-buried
tragedy after another, living back into the lives of her remote
ancestors, when feeling was less restrained, love more ardent, hate and
vengeance more swift and sure; when, also, the world was inhabited by
more picturesque beings--lords, ladies, kings and queens.
Often Isabel had sighed for the days of romance and chivalry; believed
she had been born out of time into a world prosaic, spiritless,
commercial-minded; felt an impatience with the men she knew--Thomas
Vance, for instance, who could be content to spend nine or ten hours of
every day in his cashier's cage at the bank. She knew now that the old
world of the ballads was the one to which she truly belonged.
Many times during the afternoon she glanced at Fult's face, impassive
always, save for the smouldering eyes. Only once, when news of the
cruel killing of a Douglas is brought to his castle, and his "baby son,
on the nourice's knee," miraculously speaks up: "Gin I live to be a
man, revenged I'll be," did she see a spasm of feeling pass over it.
Frequently, between ballads, Aunt Ailsie opened her closed eyes and
sent Fult to the top of the rocks. During one of his absences on
sentinel duty in the late afternoon, she surprised Isabel by saying:
"But there's jest as good song-ballats made nowadays as there was in
them old ancient times."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, there's men that follers making song-ballats about things that
happens now, and does naught but set in chimley-corners and sing 'em,
and nobody is welcomer wherever they go. There's two blind Beverly
boys--but they hain't boys now no longer--that never did nothing else.
They are kindly kin to the Fallons. I'll sing you some of theirn some
day, about the wars in this country. After Fulty kilt Rafe Kent and was
sont down to Frankfort, they made up one about the Fallon-Kent war and
him."
Isabel was thrilled. "I must hear it," she said.
"I'd never dairst to sing hit in his hearing," replied Aunt Ailsie;
"the onliest chanct would be to get him away a while."
"Oh, please do!" entreated Isabel, as Fult stepped back into the
rock-house.
After another old ballad, Aunt Ailsie said:--
"Fulty, your grandpaw's been ailing a right smart with the rheumatiz in
his j'ints, like you know, and I been a-wishing for some yaller-root
to bile down for him. In the days when we follered digging sang
through these hills, there was a sight of hit growed on this here
mountain--beyand that next spur was a good place. There's time a-plenty
yet,--Lot he won't never get back afore dark,--and if you feel to, you
might go down and dig a few roots."
Fult rose with alacrity. "I will," he said, "if Miss Isabel will go
with me."
He turned his handsome eyes upon her.
"She hain't hardly equal to sech a ja'nt yet a while. You go down-along
by yourself, and me'n' her'll set and wait for you."
"Oh, come," pleaded Fult, insistently, with both voice and eyes.
"I suppose your grandmother is right--I had better not attempt too much
climbing the first day," smiled Isabel.
Very reluctantly, Fult departed; and when he was at a safe distance,
Aunt Ailsie began, in a low voice, the "Ballad of the Fallon-Kent
War":--
"Come all young men and maidens fair
And hear a tale of trouble.
Take warning, boys, shun packing guns,
And likewise liquor's bubble.
"Red Rafe and Fighting Fult, when young,
Both follered driving cattle
Down to the level land; a word
Did plunge them into battle.
"Both being drunk, a brindle steer
Hit sarved as cause for quarrel;
The lie was give, then weepons drawed,
Then two smoking gun-bar'ls.
"Both being wounded bad, hate kept
A-working like slow pizen:
Each vowed that t'other he would kill
The minute he laid eyes on.
"Fult's friends was quick to take his part,
The Kent clan strong did rally,
And War hit fell on Troublesome
Like a land-slip down a valley.
"O Lord, I hate to tell the tale
Of all the woes that followed.
Twenty-five year in troubles sore
The county hit was swallowed.
"For both was men of high degree,
With office in the county;
Fult to the Jail-house held the key,
Rafe drawed the Sheriff's bounty.
"And more and more, as years went by,
Outsiders in hit mingled;
And worse and worse, each day, the war
With politics got tangled.
"See at the Forks the two sides meet,
At Christmas or Election.
The nags they plunge, the bullets whiz,
The guns they bark destruction.
"Beneath the beds the women-folks
And babes they go a-diving,
And all the folks that follers peace
In corners dark are hiving.
"Oh, hear the wounded yell, and see
The nags in franzy tromping
All on the dying men beneath,
Their foamy bits a-chomping.
"And now the battle's over, see
The dead lay cold and torn there,
And hear the women's shrieks and prayers
Upon the breezes borne there.
"Again, Rafe's crew besiege the Jail,
With many a shot and shell, sir;
Fult and his fighting men within,
They shorely give 'em hell, sir.
"Or maybe in the courthouse, when
The proof one side again' goes,
The war busts forth, and jury, judge,
And lawyers seek the windows.
"The years pass on, but not the hate;
Death keeps his toll a-taking;
Rafe's brothers two, and brothers' sons
And many more in-raking.
"And Fult his kin and friends sees die
For him, but still he lingers,
A rifle ever on his arm,
Three pistols nigh his fingers.
"They cannot whip him in fair fray,
So strategy they hatch up.
Rafe feigns to go a journey far,
A bad man for to catch up.
"Him and his men ride off by day,
But back by night they crawl, oh,
And hide away by the main road,
All in a spruce-pine hollow.
"Fult, breathing free at last, rides out,
His thoughts removed from danger;
Both mind and body take the rest
To which they are a stranger.
"He listens at the little birds
That sing the fair day's dawning.
O Fult, you better look around--
The grave for you is yawning!
"Too late, too late; unseen they dash
Upon him from the hollow;
A flash, a cry, and Fighting Fult
All in his gores doth wallow.
"The jury never dairst to bring
Again' Red Rafe a sentence;
On 'self-defense' he triumphed through,
Nor felt the first repentance.
"But where's Young Fult? By day and night
He's practising on gun-play,
And on his eighteenth birth, he rides
To meet Rafe, on a Sunday.
"He takes his life all in his hand;
He cares not for the danger,
All set upon the holy task
To be his paw's revenger.
"There in the open road they met,
All honest, fair and just, oh;
But Heaven aimed the bullet swift
That laid Rafe in the dust low.
"O Fulty, you've revenged your paw,
You've done your utmost duty;
No man can curl the lip of scorn
At you, in your young beauty.
"I know hit's hard on you to lay
And pine in Frankfort prison;
I'd ruther be there, though, admired,
Than safe home, in derision.
"The hearts of all is turnt to you
In love and fond affection;
And here we sing this ballad true
To keep you in recollection."
When, a moment later, Fult, alert, graceful, perfect in physical
beauty, came in sight, moving rapidly up through the thick timber
below, Isabel felt as if, in his person, Romance itself, beloved of the
ages, wept, honored, and sung, was advancing swiftly toward her from
out the veils and shadows of bygone centuries.
VII
THE FUNERAL OCCASION
After the first month of the women's stay on Troublesome, there was a
change in their daily programme, on account of the beginning of the
public-school term the fourth week in July.
The school at The Forks was taught by Giles Kent, Uncle Ephraim's
grandson and Darcy's cousin--a quiet, studious young man, who had been
all along the most voracious reader of the brought-on books. When his
school opened, with nearly two hundred scholars of all ages, and grades
from first to eighth, to instruct in the three _R's_, and only one
pupil-assistant to help him, he was only too glad to have the women
continue their singing, sewing, and cooking classes in connection with
his work. Cynthia Fallon offered the use of two rooms in her hotel,
opposite the schoolhouse; various citizens lent tables, chairs, a
stove, and tinware; and the cooking teacher established herself in one
hotel room, while in the other Amy, assisted by Isabel, taught sewing,
Isabel also going over to the schoolhouse every morning for an opening
half-hour of singing. The kindergarten was still held on the hill all
morning; and after school the young folks still gathered there for the
play-hour, and often came up again after supper for a "sing."
This left the heads of the work--Amy and Virginia--with their
afternoons free for their cherished plan of visiting every home in the
county within a radius of ten or twelve miles. They intended, first,
walking to all not farther than six miles; and, later, riding to more
distant ones.
The only disadvantage about the new arrangement was that it provided no
occupation for the young men, Fult and his crowd, and Darcy and his,
who had been so assiduous in their attendance upon cooking, sewing, and
singing classes on the hill.
Uncle Ephraim was troubled. "Hit is bad," he said; "the onliest way
to keep them boys civil is to keep 'em busy. They won't go to school,
where they need to be, with their sorry store of larning; and soon as
time gets to laying heavy on their hands, they'll likely go back to
stilling and drinking and shooting. I hain't so afeared for Darcy--he's
got his mind so sot on the cook, he's aiming to keep peace if he sees
any chanct; but hit's ontelling what Fult's crowd may do."
Amy spoke to Fult on the subject the evening he brought Isabel back
from hearing Aunt Ailsie sing the devil's ditties.
"It would distress us deeply," she said, "if you young men got into bad
ways just because after to-day there's nothing more going on up here to
keep you interested."
"Don't have no fears," he replied; "there'll be no drinking or
shooting long as you women stay with us. As for me and Charlie and
t'other boys, we have us a job of getting out timber down on my land;
but we'll be in here reg'lar of an evening for the play-parties, and of
a night for the sings, you can depend."
He was true to his word. In mid-afternoon he and his friends rode in
from his farm a mile down Troublesome, and stayed on the hill until
supper-time, coming up again an hour later for the singing; and when
the rest of the crowd left at eight, Fult always made some excuse to
remain for an additional half hour--usually it was to teach Isabel a
new ballad. Darcy Kent often lingered a while, too, talking with the
cooking teacher; but the two enemies apparently never saw each other at
such times.
There was a period in mid-morning when Amy taught the old folks on
the shady hotel-porch, and when Isabel had nothing to do. On Thursday
of the first week, she was in the sewing-room, writing letters home.
She was in the midst of one to Thomas Vance, giving a graphic account
of the young feud leader and his dash and charm,--she always told
Thomas everything,--when voices on the back porch penetrated to her
consciousness. Cynthia Fallon was saying, in her sharp tones:--
"No, Lethie don't never go up the hill to the play-parties no more, and
hit's no wonder!"
Aunt Ailsie, who had evidently finished her primer lesson and joined
her daughter for a while, replied: "She allowed to me, that day I
started on my A B C's, that hit was her clothes--she said they looked
so quare atter the singing gal come in, she didn't aim to shame Fulty
by playing pardners with him no more. She said she'd give nigh her life
to have some clothes that sot as good on her as the singing gal's."
"Clothes!" jeered Cynthia. "The reason she hain't been on that hill
for nigh two weeks is because Fulty hain't never seed her nor heared
her nor thought of her sence that air singing gal come in. He's pure
franzied about her--hain't got eyes nor years for nobody else, and done
forgot Lethie time out of mind. Man-like," she added, bitterly; "hit's
allus the newest face with them. Hit was with his paw. And, of course,
there's allus females laying wait to take 'em from their rightful
women."
"The singing gal hain't one of 'em," spoke up Aunt Ailsie, with warmth;
"I'll be bound she hain't got no idee Fulty and Lethie been a-talking
for nigh two year, and would have married afore now if Lethie'd a-been
minded to leave her paw's young-uns. Or else she don't see Fulty's
manœuvres. Not that he likely means anything by hit; and I don't know
as a body can blame him for liking pretty people--I like 'em myself.
And as for Fighting Fult, Cynthy, if you had a-just helt yourself in,
and been kindly blind-like, and not give him a tongue-lash every time
he cast a seeing eye on a fair-looker, hit's my opinion life would have
run a sight smoother for both, and he wouldn't have done the wandering
he done. Faulting a man kindly aggs him on, 'pears like."
"Yes, lay hit all on me!" exclaimed Cynthia, angrily.
Isabel, shocked at what she had heard,--for though she had seen Lethie
on the hill the first day or two, noticed her devotion to her baby
brother, and been struck by her beauty, she had not known that Lethie
and Fult were sweethearts, or been aware of her later absence,--rose at
once, and went straight across the street to Madison Lee's store, and
up the stairway on the outside.
A startled, but smiling Lethie, with little Madison in her arms,
answered her knock and invited her in.
"I can't stay just now," said Isabel; "I ran over just between classes,
to ask why you don't come over to our sewing lessons? The older girls
are learning to make simple dresses now, and I believe you would like
that, wouldn't you? And I would so gladly help you, not only in class
but at other times; for I know how busy you must be kept with your
father's house and all the children on your hands. Suppose we run down
right now to your father's store and pick out a dress, and maybe I'll
have time to cut it out before I leave."
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Lethie, her large gray eyes starry; "oh, nobody
knows how I have pined for pretty frocks; but I never knowed how to
make 'em."
She looked down apologetically at her faded blue cotton dress.
"And another thing," smiled Isabel: "you must have not only sewing
lessons, but singing lessons--special ones, all by yourself. For since
you and Fult are sweethearts, and to be married some day, and he is
so very fond of music,--of course that is why he has been on the hill
so much,--it is your duty to learn the things that will give him
happiness. And now let's go down and find the dress."