The "falling weather" came hard upon its prophecy. All that day the
clouds mustered. Films, lace-like and fretting the roseate heavens,
thickened as the light gradually dawned, and were dense before the sun
rose--dense, but white and semi-translucent, and a certain focus of
opaque glister, slowly mounting and mounting the sky, gave token how
the great chariot of the sun fared along the celestial highways to the
zenith. No fierce monitions in this noiseless eclipse of the diurnal
splendors of the rich summertide; the landscape lay in a lethargic
shadow, and time seemed to wait somewhere and to drowse dully, so
long the hours loitered, so little did they change; the leaves hung
still; a breathless, sultry pause bated the pulses of the world. In the
afternoon--one who judged of time by the sun might hardly know were it
the impending cloud or the approach of night--this long monotony of the
atmosphere was broken by a gradual darkening, and presently an almost
imperceptible rain was gently falling. The air was dank, the lungs
expanded to longer and longer respirations, and the clouds were coming
down the mountain-side--coming in fleecy ranks along the dark purple
indentations which marked the ravines, the vanguard with broken flakes
that suggested woolly leaders of flocks.
"Look yander at the sheep, Moses," Letitia adjured the infant as he
sat on the floor of the porch--"look yander at the flocks o' the old
man ez herds the clouds on the bald o' the mounting."
Moses stared with inconceivable impressions at the fictitious sheep,
and more than once looked up with a contemplative eye and a sensitive
lip at Letitia to hear again of the fabled herder whose flocks wore
this tenuous guise. How much he believed, how much he understood,
must ever remain a matter of conjecture. He hearkened to all that was
told to him which trenched upon the wonderful lore of the nursery,
but maintained the while the inscrutable, impenetrable reticence of
the infant who can but who will not talk. And now all similitude of
flocks was lost in a sudden precipitation of the cloud masses toward
the valley. Gullies, abysses, the river, every depression seemed to
exude vapors, that hung suspended in the air, till they were met by the
downward rush. All at once a louder patter was on the little slanting
roof of the porch, and upon its floor the drops, glittering in their
elastic rebound, multiplied till Letitia, catching Moses under the
arms, bore him within, his feet sticking straight out, conserving his
sitting posture, and placed him on the broad hearth before the fire.
And at last--whether the night or only its dull simulacrum--darkness
descended. Letitia, looking forth from the open door, could see the
pale shifting mists rather by the glow from the hearth than by the
aid of such gray and sombre twilight as might linger without. The
rain fell invisibly in the midst of the vapors; only the detached
drops that pattered upon the edge of the floor of the porch gave out a
steely gleam as they smartly rebounded and fell again. The room was
all the cheerier for the dull and dank aspect of the world outside.
The spinning-wheel drawn up to one corner of the hearth promised an
evening full of quiet industry and a musical whirring pleasant to
hear. The warping bars, on the opposite side of the brown wall, were
full of color, much red predominating in many shades, for Moses had
early seemed to notice the rich, brilliant tint, and it had won his
rare approval. Indeed, so much Turkey red went into the fashioning of
his garments that the hanks of yarn and cotton designed for them and
hanging from the ceiling served to brighten the room, as if a bizarre
decorative effect had been intentionally sought. The fire blazed
merrily, and the light flashed back from the barrel of the rifle that
rested on its rack of deer antlers against the chimney.
Letitia, in her faint-blue dress, moved deftly about, giving a touch
here and there to set things in their eventide order, murmuring as she
went a little song, scarcely a tune--more like the fragmentary melodies
that the mountain brooks sing on their way to the valley. "A cur'ous
sort'n psalmin' what she makes up out'n her own head," her mother used
to say, with that rural distrust of all out of the usual experience.
An ash cake was baking under the clean silver-gray mounds at one side
of the great fire, which was too large for comfort--for the air was
not chilly, albeit both doors and windows stood open--and too hot even
for its purpose of cooking supper, for now and again the eggs, also
roasting under the ashes, gave token by a sharp crack that one had
succumbed unduly to the heat, had burst and spilled its yolk. On each
occasion Moses, sitting after his lowly habit on the floor before the
fire, gave a nervous little jerk, and looked with a certain anxiety at
his mother, aware that all was not well in the domestic administration.
Adelaide, kneeling by the hearth, frowned almost mechanically, and
forgot the mishap the next moment. Presently she looked up at the
grayish blackness that filled the door and window.
"I dun'no' whether it air night or no," she said, the red live coals
that she had raked out upon the hearth casting a dull reflection upon
her oval face and large dark eyes. "I mought be _too_ forehanded
a-gittin' supper fur aught I kin tell."
"Ye'll find out whenst it air supper-time by the comin' o' Baker
Anderson," remarked Letitia. "That boy air wound up ter the very
minute. His folks never kin need a clock ter find out what's
meal-times, nor ter look at the sun. Mus' be a great comfort ter
ennybody ter hev sech a punctual stommick in the house. My mother would
dote on feedin' him."
And, sure enough, presently here was Baker, a great thumping boy of
sixteen, with a man's frame and a callow, square, beardless, sheepish
face, as conscious of his feet as if he were a centipede, as conscious
of his big hands as if he had a hundred. All the grace and the strength
of his muscles deserted him at the door, where he hesitated as if he
doubted how he should before all these spectators ever reach the chair
by the fireside which he usually occupied. Then he made a tremulous
rush, deposited himself sidelong upon it, and, looking up from under
his straight eyebrows, said, with a gasp, "G'evenin', Mis' Yates."
He did not dare to address Letitia, so conscious was he of her latent
mockery, and of her knowledge of the criticism upon the household
which he had made in his innocent confidences to his aunt, who had
ruthlessly repeated it to the parties in interest: he had said that
he had no objection to Mis' Yates, but that Letitia eyed him ez ef
she could sca'cely keep from laffin' at him, an' Moses eyed him ez if
he could sca'cely keep from smackin' his jaws; an' 'twixt 'em both he
hardly knew whether he stood on his head or his heels; an' ef 'twarn't
fur Mis' Yates, he an' his rifle would make tharselves sca'ce at Steve
Yates's cabin.
To the manners of Moses, indeed, one far less sensitive than the guest
might readily have taken exceptions. From time to time he angrily
surveyed Baker, knitting his scanty brows, and always crooking his
fat dimpled arm above his forehead whenever he renewed his gaze; and
although this gesture is not among the generally accepted expressions
of contumely, it had especial capacities to convey a flout. Poor Baker
had expected gambols with the infant to be a means of lessening the
awkwardness of his self-consciousness, and to put him on a more easy
basis with the household. Mrs. Yates often felt herself obliged to
apologize for the unfriendly conduct of Moses, and even to expostulate
with the great Dagon, and beg him to mitigate his severity. He seemed
instigated to this course in some sort by the malice of an old dog,
brindled a bluish-gray and white, who had adopted a senile vagary
that the visitor harbored wicked intentions against the household
hero, which he evidently felt delegated to frustrate. He always came,
upon the boy's entrance, and placed himself between the guest and
the precious "leetle Mose," who found the animal's side, cushioned
with fat, a sufficiently soft and comfortable pillow, and was wont to
lean upon it, resting his downy head and fine pink cheek on the dark
tigerish hair of the thick neck--the formidable fangs of the brute's
half-open mouth, the fiery eye and rising bristles, bearing fierce
contrast to the delicate infantile curves and coloring of the child's
face. Here nightly, until Baker Anderson was led off to his slumbers
in the roof-room, the dog sat immovable, now and then emitting a growl
if he so much as glanced at Moses. Mrs. Yates could only redouble her
suavity to the household defender, and add some soothing dainty to the
supper. "I made this johnny-cake express fur _you-uns_, Baker," she
would say. And when he could no longer be fed, she exerted herself to
entertain him in the brief interval before the young fellow, tired out
with the day's ploughing or hunting, would succumb to the heat and the
stillness, and nod before the fire. Doubtless this talk was a salutary
necessity for Adelaide, for the days were full of tears, and the
nights of sighs and wakeful hours, and dreams of vague unhappiness and
discordant, half-realized terrors. Letitia's smiling assurance, "How ye
an' Steve air a-goin' ter laff an' laff over this some o' these days!"
she could not accept, although it was grateful to hear, and she would
still her sobs to listen to its iteration. But poor Baker, when awake,
called for all her sympathy and countenance, thus helpless amongst his
enemies, and so sorrow must needs be forgotten for a time.
They all sat thus this evening, the supper cleared away, the hearth
swept, one of Moses's red stockings for winter wear growing under
the needles in Adelaide's hand, the little flax spinning-wheel awhirl
as Letitia drew out the long thread, the baby half drowsing on the
fierce old dog's neck, the doors all aflare, when a sudden chill wind
sprang up. They heard it rising far, far away--a deep, hollow murmur,
all unlike the throbbing of the cataract, which was ceaseless in the
darkness, beating like the heart of the night; it came stealthily
down through the gap in the mountain, and the trees, hitherto silent
and motionless above the little house, suddenly fell to trembling and
clashed their boughs, and long-drawn sibilant sighs pervaded all their
rustling foliage.
"Listen!" Letitia said, her foot pausing on the treadle, as she turned
her brilliant azure eyes to the night, all black without. "Thar's the
last o' the rain and the fog."
The drops were redoubled on the roof, but presently they grew fewer,
discursive, and now sounded only the fitful patter of those shed by the
foliage where they had lodged.
A more turbulent gust banged the batten shutters and shook the door,
then went screaming, screaming through the black night, with a voice so
dolorous and wild that more than once Adelaide put down her knitting,
and looked up with a face pallid and agitated, as if she realized in
the sound the utterance of the dreary grief that rent her heart.
"Shet the door an' bar it up, Baker," observed Letitia. "Ye air
younger'n me"--with a mimicry of age--"or I'd wait on you-uns."
The boy's manner of shuffling to the door and window and securing them
kindled a smile in her eyes. He could not encounter them when he was
once more ensconced in the corner, so he chanced to glance at the old
dog, which instantly growled, and then he was fain to stare sedulously
into the fire. "I wouldn't be s'prised none ef the coals war ter hop up
an' scorch me," he said bitterly to himself, for the inner man, or boy,
was by no means the submissive, humble entity which the outward shy,
awkward cloddishness might intimate. The gusts had sprung after him
upon the door, and shook it as if a hundred beasts had lain in ambush
there, baffled by his forethought.
"Oh!" cried Adelaide, all her distraught nerves a-jarring. "What do
that sound like?"
"Like the wind," said Letitia, bending her smiling face to the
spinning-wheel, "the wind ez air stoppin' the rain, an' the corn
crap'll be short. Don't ye see Baker thar drappin' a tear, like a good
farmer, 'count o' the drought that this leetle rain don't break?"
Baker turned scarlet and shuffled his big feet and moistened his lips
with his tongue, his traduced dry eyes, hot and angry, staring steadily
at the fire.
"One tear, Baker, shed fur sins mought go further than that leetle tear
o' yourn will go with the country's corn crap."
Letitia spoke solemnly, and looked with affected gravity at the boy,
who was so lugubrious under her teasing that she could not resist,
and burst into a peal of laughter. His lips mechanically distended,
exhibiting two great unbroken arches of strong teeth.
"Don't, _don't_ show all them teeth ter Moses, Baker," she adjured
him, in pretended alarm. "Think how bent on gittin' teeth he be now,
an' ef he war ter set his heart on havin' _yourn too_, how lonesome
ye'd be 'thout 'em at meal-times!"
Moses, hearing his name, roused himself with an effort, looking over
his shoulder frowningly, with a shrill little ill-tempered squeal, for
he did not permit her to speak of him, and rarely to address him.
"Oh, oh, listen to the wind!" cried Adelaide, unheeding them all. "It
sounds like the voice o' suthin' that can't rest in its grave."
"Waal," said Litt, sturdily, "I ain't 'quainted with that kind o'
harnts myself, ez 'ain't got no better manners 'n ter go screechin'
like the bad boys in the cove arter a day at the still--'thout the
excuse o' bein' in liquor, too. We'd better make mo' stir ourselves,
then we can't hear 'em. Baker, mebbe ye mought gin us a song--" she
bent a beguiling smile upon him--he, who could not even talk, to be
asked to sing! "I hev got a notion ez you-uns be a plumb sweet singer."
Her air of coquetry and the implied compliment were of that phase of
her manners far more formidable to the callow youth than even her open
ridicule. He could have sunk through the floor. He knew, however, that
his blushes, his abashed and downcast eyes, were delightful to her. The
indignation and resentment kindled by this reflection roused that more
stalwart personality of self-respect within him, and gave him courage
to mumble, a trifle surlily, that she had better sing a song herself
if she hankered for singing. To this she replied, with a sudden swift
transition to patently mocking glee:
"I think so myself, Baker, I _do_ think so; but I didn't s'pose _ye_
war so smart ez ter know it too."
And then, with the accompaniment of the musical whir of her wheel,
and the sibilant fugue of the wind in the trees, and the blare of the
fluctuating flames in the chimney, she began to sing in a voice low and
sweet; and while she sang a strange thing happened.
As she drew the thread along, holding the end out in her hand with a
graceful sweep of her arm, her blue eyes full of pensive lights, her
lips parted, her tiny foot marking time on the treadle, she noted
that one of the batten shutters, which had so regularly beaten in the
blast against the window-frame, as the other did even now, had grown
steady. All at once the fire-light leaped up with a keen glitter, and
at the long narrow crevice between the shutter and the window she
saw a face peering in so stealthily, a face so long and white and
unrecognizable--seeming hardly human in the narrow section which the
rift showed--that a sudden terror smote her heart, the words of the
song rose to a scream, and, the wheel still whirling, the thread in her
hand, she pointed to the window, exclaiming: "The face! the face! I'm
feared o' the face!"
Adelaide had sprung wide-eyed and pale to her feet; the dog, vaguely
apprehending the commotion, was fiercely growling. The clumsy boy had
risen, overturning the chair with the motion, and at that instant the
shutter slammed freely back and forth against the window-frame at the
whim of the wayward gusts, and naught was there when the rifle was
thrust to the crevice.
"Let him look down the muzzle o' that now," cried Baker Anderson, "ef
he's so fond o' peekin'!"
"Don't shoot, Baker; don't shoot!" exclaimed Adelaide, her face still
drawn and white. "I reckon Litt didn't see nuthin', nohow."
"My eyesight bein' sorter poorly, through agin' so much lately," the
girl said, in her characteristic tone; but her own face was pallid, and
as she leaned back in the chair she panted heavily.
"Don't fool me, Litt," the other adjured her, with heart-break in her
voice. "War it Steve?"
"I never admired Steve," Litt gasped, "but I never thunk he war ugly
enough ter be tarrified at the sight o' him."
Moses, who had turned his head upward, and looked bewildered from
one to the other, now burst into a piteous wail with tears and sobs,
imagining, from the excited talk, that an altercation was in progress,
for, singularly enough for one of his stern and belligerent character,
he deprecated a quarrel, and resented all interchange of loud words.
His mother knelt by him to pat him on the back; the old dog licked his
bare pink foot. Letitia still leaned back in the chair, her frightened
face all at variance with her usual gay bravado.
"Who did it look like, Litt?" demanded Adelaide, not lifting her voice,
and the peace-loving Moses, tolerating no quarrel that was not of his
own making, turned his face, where the tears still lodged on the curves
and in the dimples, to supervise the pacific answer.
"Like nuthin' I ever see afore; like nuthin' livin'," Litt barely
whispered.
Adelaide's face blanched even in the red fire-light. The hand that
patted Moses trembled as she knelt beside him.
Baker Anderson's blood was merely slightly stirred. The bluff courage
with which he was endowed--no less sturdy because callow--enabled him
to regard the odd incident as a welcome and exciting break in the
monotony. He had considered his stay here with his rifle as rather
the result of a senile whim on the part of his uncle than because any
danger might menace the deserted Yates household. He was glad to have
his presence and that of his weapon justified by some simulacrum of
fear and trouble. Litt fancied that she detected in his manner a relish
of her terrors. At all events, he evidently suddenly thought well
enough of himself to venture an observation.
"Ye needn't be 'sturbed none, Mis' Yates. 'Twarn't nobody, mebbe. Ef
ye'd like fur me, I'd take my rifle an' sorter tramp round the yard a
leetle an' look out."
"No; no; bide whar ye air," cried Mrs. Yates. "Litt say," she faltered,
"it moughtn't--be--alive," her voice quavered to silence.
"Oh, thar ain't nobody buried close enough round hyar ter git ter
'sturbin' we-uns, Mis' Yates," Baker reassured her with a capable
swagger.
So fully had his sense of superiority been restored by the
demonstration of the imperviousness of his courage that it seemed
impossible that he should ever have quaked before that small bully in
blue, even with her beautiful and bewildering eyes and her smiling
lips and the keen whetted edge of her ridicule; he glanced hardily at
her as she still leaned back in her chair, limp and prostrated by the
fright, the overturned spinning-wheel at her feet. Oh, it was a great
thing to be a man--or a boy who thought himself a man--even burdened
with a pair of big clumsy feet, and several superfluous hands, and a
tongue tied in the presence of small bright-eyed bullies in blue! He
was emboldened to evolve a theory of his own concerning the conduct of
ghosts, which was doubtless as worthy of respect as any such theories
ever are.
"Harnts don't wander much ginerally," he said. "They hang round thar
own buryin'-groun' mainly. Ye kin see 'em of a moonlight night, they
say, a-settin' on thar graves, an' lookin' through the palin's o' the
church-house yard--though I 'ain't viewed none, _myse'f_. An' sometimes
whenst fraish-buried they walk in thar kin-folkses' house."
"Oh, Baker!" interpolated Mrs. Yates.
"But _ye_ ain't got no fraish-buried kin, Mis' Yates," Baker hastened
to stipulate. "Steve air alive an' hearty, else ye'd hev hearn 'bout
him, bad news bein' a fast rider. An' thar ain't no graves in the
neighborhood, an' so thar ain't no harnts o' course."
"He hev tuk a census o' sperits lately," cried Letitia, with a
tremulous laugh.
"Thar air the Leetle People's buryin'-groun' nigh hyar," faltered
Adelaide.
But Baker Anderson had never heard of the "Leetle People." He looked
mystified, and a trifle startled, despite the resources of his courage;
and, after she explained, he presently spoke with an insistent desire,
most plainly to be observed, to exclude the Little People from the
possibilities.
"Mos' likely it air jes' some lazy loon a-goin' home from the still
or suthin', an' hearin' the singin', stopped to listen. Ez ter the
_Leetle People_"--his voice drawled the words lingeringly, his eyes
dwelt meditatingly on the fire, he was evidently falling under a morbid
mysterious fascination--"I reckon ez they hev been lef' be all these
years mebbe they won't git a-goin' at this late day."
The wind came and went in mighty surges; the trees groaned. Amongst it
all one could hear the melancholy roar of the falls, and now and again
a gust with a stealthy touch tried the door or the shutter, and went
skurrying around the house with a rustle of the grass and the bushes to
simulate a human flight.
"I wonder," said Letitia, suddenly--she had lifted the spinning-wheel,
had placed it before her, and was bending her face above it, still
white from the nervous shock, as she righted the confusion of the
tangled thread--"I wonder, Adelaide, ef ye ever hearn that thar Mr.
Shattuck talkin' much 'bout them Stranger People?"
"No--but I hev hearn Stephen tell 'bout'n it, an' how he wants thar
pearls on thar necks an' thar leetle jugs an' dishes, ez they thunk
enough of ter hev buried with 'em, 'lowin' they'd be thar at the las'
day."
She paused in surprise. Letitia's pale face had turned a vivid scarlet.
"Adelaide!" she cried. "Do ye actially b'lieve that? Ye 'pear plumb
bereft, an' ye talk like a fool. He ain't wantin' thar pearls an'
sech. They 'ain't got none wuth hevin'!"
"Why don't he let 'em stay in thar peaceful graves, then, till the
light shines in the east?" retorted the other, with spirit.
"I axed him 'bout'n it," Letitia went on; "he say he wants ter know
ef they air small people sure enough, or whether they air jes' common
Injun chil'n; he 'lows he kin tell suthin' o' what nation they war by
thar skulls an' jugs an' ornamints." She paused, her eyes bright with a
sort of bewildered surprise. How she had remembered this strange talk
of his! How she had laid it to heart!
"Mr. Shattuck told about one man," she resumed, "that seen the
skeletons of some Tennessee pygmies, an' he writ in a book ez they war
all grown up, but leetle, _leetle_ folks, with thar teeth all separate
an' sharp at the p'ints, like a dog's or a wolf's fangs."
Adelaide uttered an exclamation of horror.
"An' thar air lots o' cur'ous leavin's in Tennessee--bones o' big
animals sech ez thar ain't none of now; an' old forts with trees many
hundred year old growin' over 'em, an' built out'n stones; an' strange
paintings on high cliffs, what some say war done by folks in a boat
whenst a flood war in the lan'; an' cur'ous images an' weepons, an'
cups an' jugs sech ez can't be fund nowadays nowhar. An' of all the
queer things an' cur'ous tales in Tennessee, the Leetle People take the
lead."
"What do he want ter know thar nation fur?" demanded Adelaide, stonily.
"They lived, and they air dead. Let him take God's grace for the wisdom
of it, an' ax no questions."
"Oh, ye think he air a common thief ez be arter the value o' thar
truck, like the ignorant folks round hyar!" cried Letitia, repudiating
kinship and the community in the pride of her new scientific
acquisitions.
"Ye l'arnt _that_ from him, too, I reckon--a-girdin' at yer own home
folks!" said Adelaide, reproachfully.
Letitia's face was dyed even a deeper scarlet. "Oh, he be some smarter
'n folks in gineral," she protested, nevertheless. "An' Steve tole ye
so, too, I'll be bound."
This allusion struck home.
"Waal, thar's been enough an' too much quar'lin' over him now, Litt,"
Adelaide said, sadly. "Don't let's ye an' me fall out 'bout'n him. Sing
some mo'--yer singin' air powerful clear an' sweet--sing some mo'."
Letitia, only half appeased, shook her head. "My singin' 'pears ter
raise harnts, or the devils, or suthin', ter-night. I can't sing no mo'
with sech white queer faces ter peek through the window at me."
All her sparkle seemed quenched somehow; the airy wings of her wit were
folded and trailing, and she was afoot, as it were, in the dust.
This perception, subtly realized, emboldened Baker Anderson to
perpetrate in his turn a small jest at the expense of his late
tormentor.
"Oh, ye mought ez well sing," he said, in a humorous, callow growl,
and with an awkward wag of his square head. "I reckon ye never see
nobody at the winder, 'ceptin' mebbe 'twar Fee Guthrie, 'shamed ter
kem a-visitin' ye _every_ night, so he mus' hev a look at ye whilst
singin', through the winder--he 'lows ye be so powerful pritty." And
he grinned broadly in the pride of this achievement.
For Felix Guthrie had repeatedly made one of the small party, talking
chiefly about his obdurate soul, resistant to conversion, much as
if it were an obstinate mule, until a late bedtime turned his steps
from the door. But Letitia was neither discomfited nor roused by this
unprecedented conversational effort on the part of the shy Baker. She
only replied, in a dull, spiritless tone, "'Twarn't Fee."
Her eyes, their fine color still asserted in the glow of the red
embers, had in them a certain wonder, a sentiment of pain, a touch
of fear. The boy's words had given direction to her thoughts. Felix
Guthrie would not have lingered to see her sing--he knew but vaguely
that her face charmed him. He had no adequate sense of its beauty.
She herself had learned it only in another man's eyes--so loath they
were to leave it, so fired with some subtle enthusiasm for it. He
could look at her silently for hours; but surely, she thought, she
could not have fancied in that sinister apparition at the window any
resemblance to him. And why should he linger without and peer in at the
fireside group when the door would have opened willingly? It was not
he; but who was it? And this mystery bore her company into the dull,
dead hours. She could not sleep; her eyes were open, and staring into
the darkness long, long after slumber had enwrapped all others of the
household. She was not restless, only wakeful, as if she should never
sleep again. She marked all the successive changes of the night. A long
time a cricket shrilled and shrilled in some cranny of the room, and
at last was weary, and so grew mute. An owl screamed once without, and
was heard no more. Occasionally the dogs, who slept under the house,
stirred and wheezed and changed their posture, bumping their heads
against the floor as they moved, and were still again. The wind roved
for a while listlessly about the garden bushes, and at last was lulled
amongst them. And then ensued a hush so intense, so prolonged, that
it weighed upon her senses, alert to catch and distinguish some sound
that might break it. Naught. Not even the ashes crumbled in the wide
chimney-place, where they covered the embers. So deep was the slumber
of Adelaide beside her, of Moses in his crib, that they hardly seemed
to breathe. Darkness unbroken and silence absolute. Thus might she
feel, she thought, without sound or light, if perchance she should
wake some time in her grave, after she had lain five centuries, say,
quite dead; as the Little People might feel, stirred to some merely
mechanical sensation of falling to dust, in those quaint coffins that
had become a curiosity, bereft of human significance, of fraternal
sanctity, so old, so queer they were. Thus they felt, no doubt, in the
long pauses of the centuries while they waited for the judgment.
And with a sudden fear of a dull numbness stealing over her, she roused
herself to a sitting posture, and slipped from the high piles of the
thick feather-bed to the floor. Her bare feet were noiseless as she
crossed the room and sat down in a rocking-chair. The stones of the
hearth were warm yet, and pleasant to the touch. She heard the dogs
stir once again, and a young horse that was at liberty without trot
slowly around the cabin.
What sort of lives did those Little People lead here? she began to
wonder anew. Was the grass so fine and soft and green in their day as
now? Did the flowers bloom, and the sun shine, and the earth grow so
fair of face in the long summer-time that the thought of death became
inexpressibly repugnant, and one might wish it afar off, long, long to
wait on this sweet existence? O Little People, that it should have come
at last! O Little People, to lie so long and wait in gloom!
Somehow the thought of the eventless passing of centuries to them gave
her a more adequate idea of the quietus of death--its insoluble change.
She felt stifling. She rose to her feet, opened the batten shutter near
at hand, and looked out upon the night. The moon had risen; she had
hardly expected to see it there, hanging in the gorge of the mountains
above the falls. Melancholy and waning it was. She had never heard that
it was a dead, burnt-out world of spent fires; she thought it of this
life, and she welcomed the sight. Stars were out, and the clouds all
gone. The dank breath of herbage, sodden with rain, came to her; the
mists were barely visible, hovering above the dark ravines. The shadows
were long. She saw the horse whose hoof-beats she had heard, not
drowsing, but standing beside a clump of bushes, his ears alert, his
motionless head turned intently toward the mountains. The sound of the
cataract was only a dull monotone, as if it slept in the dead midnight.
And suddenly, as she stood there, with the moonlight on her white gown
and her disordered hair and in her lustrous eyes, another sound smote
her ear--the sound of a pickaxe striking suddenly upon stone. It came
from the pygmy burying-ground. She heard it only once, for it came no
more.