XIV.

Lillian, at her home in Glaston, replied by wire in that tumult of

emotion which each new lure was potent to excite, despite the quicksands

of baseless hope that had whelmed its many precursors. Still, she

expected only another instance of deliberate and brazen fraud, or crafty

and sleek imposture, or, worse still, honest mistake. The little

suit-case, packed with all that the child might need, which had journeyed

through so many vicissitudes, so many thousand miles, was once more in

her hand as she took the train. She never forgot that long night of

travel, more poignant than all her anguished journeyings that had

preceded it. Hurtling through the air, it seemed, with a sense of fierce

speed, the varied clangors of the train, the ringing of the rails, the

frequent hoarse blasts of the whistle, the jangling of the metallic

fixtures, the jarring of the window-panes, all were keenly differentiated

by her exacerbated and sensitive perceptions, and each had its own

peculiar irritation. She scarcely hoped that she might sleep, and it was

only with a dutiful sense of conserving her strength and exerting the

utmost power of her will in the endeavor, that she lay down when her

berth was prepared. But the seclusion, the darkness within the curtains,

oppressed her, for unwittingly the sights and sounds of the outer world

had an influence to make her quit of herself, in a measure, and to focus

her mind on some trivial object of the immediate present. She drew the

blind at the window that she might see the scurrying landscape--the

fields, the woods, the river--and now and again the sparkling lights of a

city, looking in the distance as if some constellation, richly instarred

with golden glamours, had fallen and lay amidst the purple glooms of the

hills. For these elevations, and the frequent tunnels as the dawn drew

near, gave token that the mountains were not distant; the great central

basin of Tennessee lay far to the west; the engine was often climbing a

steep grade, as she noted from the sound. She was going to the mountains,

to the mountains--to meet what? Sometimes she clasped her hands and

prayed aloud in her fear and heart-ache and woe. Then she blessed the

many clamors of the train that had lacerated her tenderest fibres, for

they deadened the sound of her piteous plaints, and she was a proud woman

who would fain that none heard these heart-throbs of anguish but the

pitying God Himself.

She must have slept from time to time, she thought, for she was refreshed

and calmer when she looked forth from the window and beheld the

resplendent glories of the sunrise amidst the Great Smoky Mountains.

Vast, far-stretching, lofty, as impressive as the idea of eternity, as

awesome as the menace of doom, as silent as the unimagined purposes of

creation, they lifted their august summits. They showed a deep, restful

verdure in the foreground, and in more distant reaches assumed the

blandest enrichments of blue, fading and fading to mere illusions of

ranges, and finally dreaming away to the misty mirages of the horizon.

Lillian was ready, erect, tense, waiting, for miles and miles before her

destination could be reached, when suddenly the conductor appeared, his

face alive with the realization of sensation. The sheriff of the county

had flagged the train. He had a vehicle in waiting for Mrs. Royston, in

order that she might curtail the distance, as the house where the child

was held was on the verge of the Qualla Boundary, and the nearest station

was still some miles further. There were few words spoken on that hasty

morning drive under the vast growths of the dense and gigantic valley

woods. The freshness of the forest air, the redundant bloom of the

rhododendron, the glimpse now and again of a scene of unparalleled

splendor of mountain range and the graces of the Oconalufty River,

swirling and dandering through the sunshine as if its chant in praise of

June must have a meaning translated to the dullest ear--all was for

Lillian as if it had not been. The officers had cast but one glance at

her tense, pale face, then turned their eyes away. The suspense, the

pain, the torture of fear could end only with that signal moment of

identification. Though the group respected her sorrow in silence, they

themselves experienced the rigors of uncertainty and agitation when the

log cabin came into view amidst the laurel, and every man of them trooped

in, following her, when the door opened and she was ushered into the

little, low-ceiled room, so mean, so rough, so dingy of hue. But for her

it held the wealth of the universe, the joy of all the ages. There upon

the bed lay her sleeping child, larger, more vigorous, than she

remembered him, garbed in a quaint little garment of blue gingham; his

blond hair clipped close, save for two fine curls on top, worn indeed

like a scalp-lock; his long lashes on his cheeks, rosy ripe; his red lips

slightly parted; his fine, firm-fleshed, white arms tossed above his

head; his long, bare legs and plump, dimpled feet stretched out at their

full length. His lips moved with an unformulated murmur as her

hysterical, quavering scream of joyful recognition rang through the room.

Then he opened his big blue eyes to find his mother bending over him. He

did not recognize her at once, and after a peevish sleepy stare he pushed

her aside, calling plaintively for his precious "Polly Hopkins."

"Oh, bring Polly Hopkins, whoever she is!" cried the poor rebuffed

mother. "And Heaven bless her if she has been good to him."

But when the dismal old squaw blundered into the room, more blinded by

grief and tears than infirmity, the identity of his visitor came back

suddenly to him with the recollections of the past, and in all the

transcendent joy of an invaluable possession he called out, "Look, mamma!

Ain't her pretty? So-o pretty! Me s-sweet Polly Hopkins!" And sitting up

in bed, he threw his arms around both as they knelt beside it, and all

three wept locked in the same tender embrace.

For Lillian would not hear of the implication of "Polly Hopkins" in the

suspicion of the abduction, and the rigors of the law were annulled so

far as she was concerned. On the contrary, Mrs. Royston's first effort

was to ameliorate the old woman's condition, to take her at once to their

home to be cherished there forever. When the ancient sibyl, affrighted at

the idea of removal and change, positively refused, the mother tenderly

begged that she would tell then what could be done for her.

"Polly Hopkins" asked but one boon: the boy. That was the limit of her

demand.

Lillian was fain to solace her earnest desire to bestow rich reward by

settling a comfortable annuity on her and contracting for a snug, stanch

house to be built here, with every appliance that could add to her

comfort, and for this "Polly Hopkins" cared not at all; for her poor home

had been full of joy with "Alchie Loyston."

"I am glad I can afford it," said Lillian, with a gush of tears--how long

it had been since she could say she was glad of aught! "Though she will

not come with me, I shall have the best specialist in the United States

to leave everything and come here and take the cataracts from her eyes.

At least, she shall have her sight restored."

But alack, it was not "Alchie Loyston" whom she should see!

As for Lillian, she would scarcely consent to be separated from the

child for one moment. The authorities conceived it necessary to take

his statement in private--but allowed her to stand just outside the

door--before his mind could be influenced by the comments of others or

the involuntary assimilation of their views with his knowledge of the

facts, for there was still a large reward for any information leading

to the apprehension of the murderers of Edward Briscoe. Little Archie

had obviously been a witness of that catastrophe and kidnapped to prevent

his revealing the identity of its perpetrators. Indeed, this was a

well-founded fear, for he was very glib with the details of that

momentous occasion, and he had no sooner mentioned the name of Phineas

Copenny, or "Phinny 'Penny," in his infantile perversion, than the North

Carolina official turned aside and indited a telegram to the sheriff of

the county in Tennessee where the crime had been committed.

None of his capacity to make himself understood had the boy lost by the

craft of the moonshiners in placing him where he would never hear an

English word and was likely to forget the language. A very coherent story

he told still later when he was brought into the criminal court at

Shaftesville, being the capital of the county in Tennessee where the deed

was perpetrated, and confronted by Copenny. One of the moonshiners,

arrested on suspicion of complicity with the murder, had turned State's

evidence and had given testimony as to the details of the plot to ambush

the revenue officer, and the delegation of Phineas Copenny and two others

to execute it. Another testified that he had afterward heard of the

murderous plan and of the mistake in the identity of the victim; but as

neither of these parties was present at the catastrophe, the story of the

child was relied on as an eye-witness to corroborate this proof. The

admission of his testimony was hotly contested because of his tender

years, despite the wide inclusiveness of the statute, and its inadequacy

would possibly have resulted in a reversal of the case had an appeal been

taken. But Phineas Copenny made no motion for a new trial and desired no

appeal. He had feared, throughout, the possible capture and conclusive

testimony of Drann and Holvey, and, lest a worse thing befall him, he

accepted a sentence of a long term in the penitentiary. In view of the

turpitude of "lying in wait," though a matter of inference and not proof,

he doubted the saving grace of that anomaly of the Tennessee law that in

order to constitute murder in the first degree the victim of a

premeditated slaughter must be the person intended to be slain.

There was scant doubt as to his guilt in the minds of the jury. The boy

singled out Copenny from a crowd in which he had been placed to test his

recognition by the little witness. He remembered the man's name, and

called him by it. He gave an excited account of the shooting, although

this was the least intelligible part of his testimony, for he often

interrupted himself to exclaim, "Pop-gun--_bang!_" disconnectedly, as

the scene renewed itself in his memory. He explained the disappearance

of Mr. Briscoe and the mare by the statement that "Phinny runned

out--pop-gun--_bang!_--an' bofe felled over the bluff." He called the

moonshiners' cave a cellar, however, and declared that he went hunting

for his mamma in a boat, and the counsel for the defence made the most of

such puerilities and contradictions. But the child was very explicit

concerning the riving from him of his coat by Phineas Copenny, and the

plan to throw it over the bluff, and it made a distinct impression on the

jury when he added that Copenny took his hat also--for no mention had

been made of the discovery of the hat in the quagmire in the valley--and

that Copenny had broken the elastic that held it under his chin and this

snapped his cheek. He could, nevertheless, give no account how he reached

the Qualla Boundary, and he broke off suddenly, dimpling, bright-eyed,

and roseate, to ask the judge if he knew "Polly Hopkins."

"Her is so-o pretty!" he cried out in tender regret.

Mrs. Royston was nettled by the laughter elicited by this query, with its

obvious fervor of enthusiasm, for she divined that the merriment of the

crowd was charged with ridicule of the incongruous object of his callow

adoration, the forlorn old fortune-teller, who had been so gentle and so

generous, albeit so alien to the civilization of the present day. Lillian

could but realize that the ministering angel is of no time or

nationality, and the transcendent beauty of its apparition may well be a

matter of spiritual and not merely visual perception. The heart of a

woman is no undecipherable palimpsest for the successive register of

fleeting impressions. Here was written in indelible script the tenderest

thought of affection, the kindest charity, and all the soft graces of

fostering sentiment, with no compensatory values of reciprocal loyalty,

or the imposing characters of authority. For the old squaw could not even

understand the justice of the dispensation; it seemed to her that with

impunity she was deserted, denied; her plea was a jest to right reason;

her love, in which the child had once rejoiced, was superfluous,

worthless, now that he had come to his own; her poor hearth, which his

bright infantile smiles had richly illumined, was dark, desolate; the

inexorable logic of law and worldly advantages was beyond her ken, and

she felt that she had only rescued and cherished the little waif that she

herself might be lacerated by grief and bereaved for his sake, and fain

to beat her breast and to heap ashes on her head. Poor, poor, "pretty

Polly Hopkins!"

Cheering news of her, however, now and again came from the mountains. The

noted oculist, after his final visit to her, stopped over in Glaston to

report to Mrs. Royston the complete success of the treatment, knowing the

gratification the details would afford. He brought, too, the intelligence

that she was free of her old torture from rheumatism, which had been of

the muscular sort, resulting from exposure and deprivation, and had

yielded to the comforts of the trig, close house that Mrs. Royston had

built for her, and the abundance of warm furnishings and nutritious food,

a degree of luxury indeed which was hardly known elsewhere in the

Boundary. Her prosperity had evolved the equivocal advantage of restoring

her prestige as a sibyl, and she had entered upon a new lease of the

practice of the dark arts of fortune-telling and working charms and

spells. He gave a humorous account of her expressions of gratitude to him

for the restoration of her sight, which facetiousness Bayne, who chanced

to be present, perceived did not add to Mrs. Royston's pleasure; for she

regarded "Polly Hopkins" very seriously indeed. Before the physician

quitted the "Boundary," the old squaw bestowed upon him, through the

interpreter, certain secret magic formulæ for working enchantments on his

city patients, and thereby effecting rapid cures and filling his coffers.

Knowing of Bayne's hobby for linguistics, the oculist jocularly turned

these archaic curios over to him. In that connection Bayne recounted that

after the child had departed with his mother from the mountains, he

himself being detained by final arrangements with the authorities, his

interest in researches into the arcana of old Cherokee customs had been

revived by seeing the sibyl seated on the ground, swaying and wailing and

moaning, and casting ashes on her head as if making her mourning for the

dead. At the time he had marked the parity of the observance with the

Hebraic usage, and he intended to make an examination into the origin of

the curious tradition of the identity of the American Indians with the

lost tribes of Israel.

Train-time forced the oculist to a hasty leave-taking, and it was only

after he was gone that Bayne noticed the evidence of restrained emotion

in Lillian's face. Bayne had been about to conclude his own call, which

concerned a matter of business, the claim of a reward which he considered

fraudulent, but he turned at the door, his hat in his hand and came back,

leaning against the mantel-piece opposite her. He noted that the tears

stood deep in her eyes.

"I can't bear to think of her unhappiness," she said, "when I consider

all I owe to her."

"You had better consider what you owe to me," Bayne gayly retorted,

seeking to effect a diversion.

"Oh, you, you! But for _you_! When I think of what you have done for

Archie, and for me, I could fall down at your feet and worship you!" she

exclaimed with tearful fervor.

"Oh, oh, this is so sudden!" he cried, with a touch of his old

whimsicality.

"Don't--don't make fun of me!" she expostulated.

"Bless you, I am serious indeed! I expected something like this, but not

so soon; and, in fact, I expected to say it _myself_--but I could not

have done it better!"

"Did you really intend to say it, to come back to me?" She gazed

appealingly at him.

"As soon as we had time for such trifles." He would not enter into her

saddened mood.

"But one thing I want to know: did you _really_ intend it, or was it

only my cruel affliction that brought you back to me--motives of sheer

humanity--because no one else would help me, because they thought I was

the prey of frenzied fancies to believe that Archie still lived?"

Julian was silent for a moment, obviously hesitating. Then he reluctantly

admitted, "No, I should never have come back."

She threw herself back in the chair with a little pathetic sigh. He

looked at her with a smile at once tender and whimsical. She too smiled

faintly, then took up the theme anew.

"But, Julian," she persisted, "it is very painful to reflect that you had

deliberately shut me out of your heart forever; that when you saw me

again you had no impulse to renew the past. Had you none, really?"

The temptation was strong to give her the reassurance she craved. She had

suffered so bitterly that a pang of merely sentimental woe seemed a

gratuitous cruelty. Yet he was resolved that there should never come the

shadow of falsehood between them. He was glad--joyous! The future should

make brave amends for the past. He sought to cast off the bitter

retrospection with which she had invested the situation. His gay laughter

rang out. "Madam, I will not deceive you! I intended that you should

_never_ get another shot at me; but circumstances have been too much

for me--and I have ceased to struggle against them."