Clotilda Pinnott had not been very definitely sensitive to the
dull disfavour with which the public had received hitherto her
song-and-dance. In her own mind she accorded it scarcely more
appreciation. She perceived, of course, that the other artists enjoyed
a boisterous enthusiasm of applause, the snake-eater, the winged lady,
the high diver, and their confrères, but their meed of praise seemed
but just, since the merits of their respective turns were so great in
her primitive estimation. Singing and dancing in her rustic garb were
but everyday matters, and she sustained no great mortification that
her turn should be regarded with scant interest. She had not lost her
relish for the performance, however; the praise that Lloyd accorded it
was sweet in her ears, though she secretly thought him a fool to care
for such folly. It brought him near to her the only moments in the day
when he had been accessible. And this had been both a surprise and a
grief; she could only see him at a distance, coming and going, absorbed
with a thousand anxious details, she knew not what, nor wherefore; she
had fancied that at the street fair he would be continually at her
side, for the love of the beauty of that face and form he extolled
so enthusiastically, that joy in the endowment of voice and motion he
had found so poetic. Only a few moments before the turn did he appear,
stepping lightly on the stage behind the drawn curtain, his hat on the
back of his head, his face, of which she dimly appreciated the beauty
of contour and chiselling, hot and moist, flushed and a bit anxious;
giving a word of direction here and there to the "supes," charged
with the management of the simple scene; critically surveying her as
she stood ready for the rising of the curtain. He always spoke gently
to her; she vaguely realised that he was sharply disappointed by the
public reception of the attraction, and that he sympathised with her
in the downfall of her presumable hopes. She cared for naught else,
when his eyes kindled as he surveyed her in the rising glow of the lime
light.
"You're a peach!" he would exclaim, "and don't you forget it! The fools
out there don't know their heads from a hole in the ground!"
The joy of his approbation surged through her whole being as she looked
shyly at him while he stood at gaze, his hands in his pockets, and his
hat on the back of his head. Her cheeks blazed under the rouge, laid on
for the broad effects of the lime-light; her eyes shone with a radiance
that embellished and vitalised her youthful beauty; she trembled from
head to foot in a quiver of humble adoration, of gratified vanity, of
the ecstasy of loving and believing herself beloved. Once he noticed
her agitation.
"I thought you were going to pull through without a touch of stage
fright," he said casually. "Don't think of the house--soon over."
"Reg'lar buck ager," Tom Pinnott remarked. One or another, sometimes
several of the Pinnott men made a point of being present at the
performance, and there were persons at the street fair unsophisticated
enough to believe that it was the discovery of the Thespian genius in
their household, and their pride and solicitude in her achievements,
that had brought the Pinnott family as a unit down from their mountain
fastnesses to attend the fair. But these credulous wights hailed from
the furthest coves, and had never indeed heard that whisky could be
procured by any means save by placing in a designated hollow tree a
jug, with a half dollar mortised into a corn-cob stopper, and after an
interval returning to find the money absorbed and the jug gurgling with
tipsy delight. That the ardent could be found in a store or a saloon,
or dispensed at a lunch stand was an idea that, unassisted, could never
have entered their minds.
"Fust time," continued Tom Pinnott vivaciously, "I ever tuk sight at
a buck running on a deer path, by a stand, my finger shuk so on the
trigger, an' my aim war so contrarious that the bullet glanced out to
the middle of the ruver, an' the beastis war humpin' hisself along so
fast that he beat it thar, an' it tuk him right a-hint the ear, and
killed him. Left ear, 'twar."
"Skiddoo!" said Lloyd, laughing slightly at this veracious chronicle.
"Clear the stage! The public is too well used to liars to want to hear
you. Now, Heart's Delight! listen for the orchestra, and mind you go
on at the third beat of the fourth measure, or you'll get thrown out.
Count! Count!"
On this immemorial day, when in the storm of applause that thundered
upon her disappearance and clamoured for her return, she stood in
the little nook that served as wings, stunned, stolidly surprised,
overwhelmed, forgetful of all she had been taught to observe for
this contingency, she did not shiver, nor tremble, nor sob half
hysterically, till he found her there.
"What did I tell you?" he exclaimed, elated, full of pride in the
success of the unique attraction he had devised. But she apprehended a
reproach.
"I furgot--I furgot! An', oh, I'd ruther die than spite you so!
Lis'n--lis'n----" as the gusts of applause came with a roar. "They
sound like painters an' wolves of a stormy night in the woods."
"I told you they'd catch on! I told you how 'twould be. Now look out.
The third beat of the fourth bar--count--count--now go'n!"
When, still recalled, and she was to go on for her simple bow of
thanks, she cared naught for the audience; she saw only him, the man
who had found her fair and gifted, had opened vistas of undreamed-of
splendours, and had brought an undiscovered world to her feet; she saw
not the world, only him, and the pleasure in his eyes, and the pride
and success to which she had ministered.
It was indeed a strange transition for the mountain girl, whose
vicissitudes had been hitherto the incidents of the wood-pile and the
cow pen. Perhaps only the physical freshness and vigour appurtenant to
a life so stagnantly calm enabled her to sustain now the strenuous rush
of sudden excitement. She felt more sensibly the dull reaction when
all was at an end for the day. Lloyd had quickly left the tent when
the experiment in photography was concluded, and the party from New
Helvetia had returned to the hotel. Clotilda, looking after him with
a keen jealous pang, was surprised and somehow consoled to perceive
that he had not followed them thither. A check on the inrush of pride
and gratification in her heart had ensued on the appearance of the
two young ladies with the camera; but he had indifferently gone his
way, and they had retraced their footsteps. Gradually as she slowly
strolled along the road leading out of town and toward the encampment
of the family, these two fluttering, flouncing white butterflies were
less insistently in her mind than the details of her own great triumph,
so tardily, so hardly won. "Heart's Delight!"--he had never before
called her this and it seemed so apt, so dear a phrase; that it was
slang, and absolutely without meaning, never occurred to her for a
minute. She felt a great glow of satisfaction. How she had justified
his faith in her--his admiration of her talents, her beauty and grace.
The echo of the applause--no longer suggestive of the howling of
wolves--sounded anew in sweetest flattery through the spaces of memory.
Those elegant strangers, the sojourners of New Helvetia Springs, were
as naught before the crowd in comparison with her, the central figure,
dancing to dulcet music on the stage, all illumined with a burnished
golden glow. Her lips curled as she remembered the sudden pang of
jealous prescience she had experienced--so fair they were, so daintily
bedight, holding themselves with such delicate hauteur and distance,
embodying a superiority which she could not imagine and only vaguely
felt. But how should she fear a contrast with aught? She remembered
his descriptive phrases, not one of which she understood, but they
were words of poesy and music on his lips, applied in enthusiastic
admiration of her. An oread she was now, fresh from unimagined heights;
and now a dryad, escaped from a tree; and once more the most ethereal
bacchante that ever wreathed a vine. She conned them again and again
as she strolled on. Sometimes she lifted shining, happy eyes to the
river, red with the sunset, and here and there white with foam where
a half-submerged boulder or a ledge of rock broke the currents into
silver. Sunset lingered along the mountain tops and she hardly needed
to mend her pace to be sure to reach the encampment before dark.
Nevertheless, she looked sharply about her now and then, with vague
apprehension. She met few wayfarers, now making their way into town;
most of the inebriates, prominent last evening at the street fair,
were sobered by this time, and the effects of strong liquor would not
again be apparent until later. There was an interregnum in the sway of
the Bacchus of the "moonshine." She could not formulate the uneasiness
that possessed her, and once again she resolutely turned her mind to
the recollection of her triumph, the manager's delight, the poetic
justice that had so amply overtaken the cavillers who had derided and
belittled the stunt. And still--suddenly she turned and looked behind
her. It was an instinct, nothing more; the vigilance of an unnamed,
causeless fear. The long red clay road stretched out here straight by
the riverside for nearly a quarter of a mile. Silent, still it was,
overhung on either hand by the heavily foliaged boughs of great forest
trees. A waggon that had passed her a moment since was yet creaking
its lumbering course toward the town, and the odour of tar on the hubs
was discernible on the soft air. Nearer was the solitary figure of
a pedestrian, an old man, to judge by the thick stick with which he
supported his steps. At the distance she only noted the long grey coat
and a limp broad-brimmed white hat. Turning, reassured, she walked on,
conscious of the suave air, redolent of the scent of the forest, the
freshness of the river and the pungency of the mint and water-side
weeds; a bird--it was a thrush--was singing in the drooping boughs of
a great beech; a star was whitely scintillating in the blue sky, seen
in the space limited by the tops of the rows of tall trees on either
side of the avenue. Suddenly a step sounded just behind her and a hand
fell on her arm.
The scream on her lips was framed only in dumb show; her voice was
paralysed by sudden terror. It was hardly annulled when her wondering
gaze recognised the face--the young eyes under the flapping brim of the
old white wool hat; the alert, trig, young mountaineer in the semblance
of a slovenly, unkempt, hirpling old vagrant. There was something very
sinister in the metamorphosis, and it may be doubted if ever heretofore
she had heard of a man in disguise, still less found occasion to
discern the traits of the fraud. She gazed with a fascinated horror
at him, her cheeks blanched, her white lips still trembling, her eyes
dilated and wildly shifting.
"I tole ye ez how I'd see you uns at the Fair, Puddin' Pie," Eugene
Binley said, essaying a smile, but it was rather a grimace, for his
mood was rancorous. He was ill at ease, too, agitated, suspicious,
ever and anon looking over his shoulder, as if he feared an unheralded
approach.
"But ye said _I_ wouldn't see you uns," she gasped, finding it still
difficult to breathe. "And," she spoke slowly and significantly, "I
wisht I hadn't--I wisht I hadn't."
The solemnity of her voice evidently increased his discomposure. But
he laughed in a husky, raucous undertone--a sarcastic, unpleasant laugh.
"Ye'd feel freer to go flyin' round with a strange man, ye never heard
tell on, ef ye 'lowed thar warn't an eye spyin' on ye."
She flushed indignantly. "I ain't been flyin' roun' with no men. An'
I'll take Tom ter witness ter it," she said defiantly. Five brothers
are a small standing army, if occasion should require. She was ashamed
of the threat, and even more ashamed of him, as she noted its salutary
effect. There was a distinct change of policy in his tone; he would
avoid recourse to disparaging insinuation.
"Wa-al, what hev ye been doin'?" he demanded, and quickly again glanced
around.
"Dancin' an' singin'--what I kem fur," she replied sullenly.
"And, oh, Lord, what a fool ye let them showmen make o' you uns," he
groaned. "I wuz ter the tent an' seen ye--an' my sakes! I blushed ter
the soles o' my boots fur ye!"
Her face flushed. "Let go my arm," she said in parenthesis.
He released his hold and stood in his old man attitude, leaning on his
stick and looking at her with those dismaying young eyes that had a
strangely daunting effect in their incongruity, like some frightful
thing in a dream, trivial and all devoid of terror to the waking sense.
"If you uns hed been ter the tent terday," she continued, "ye mought
hev saved some o' them blushes fur yer own misdoin's--ye need 'em." And
she tossed her head with a bitter smile.
"Gosh, gal--warn't I thar! I sot right in front o' them town gals an'
men from New Helveshy an' hearn 'em plottin' an' plannin' ter make a
puffeck laughin' stock o' you uns, by clappin' an' stampin' an' makin'
a c'mmotion, ez ef ye war doin' wonders. My cracky, Clotildy, what ails
ye not ter sense that thar couldn't be sech a power o' diff'unce 'twixt
terday an' yistiddy. Ain't the turn, as ye calls it, the same?"
Her satisfaction suddenly wilted. The logic of his proposition appealed
to her solid sense. It was indeed a sudden, causeless, and most radical
change. Her heart sank; her nerves, strong, normal, unstrained as they
were, vibrated under this heavy stress; the tears welled up suddenly
into her beautiful eyes, a moment ago so happy and lucently clear. Was
the ovation indeed a burlesque, a scheme to try her foolish capacity
for vainglory to the utmost; she remembered with a keen pain at the
heart a certain light tinge of satire in the tone and manner of the
young lady they called Ruth.
Then she remembered Lloyd, and his satisfaction.
"Wa-al--ef they all wuz ter make game o' hit, an' me, till they draps
dead, every one, I'd think 'twar smart an' fine an' a good turn, kase
that thar showman tole me so, an' I b'lieve him, every word."
He looked at her intently for a moment, as if he was minded to wring
her neck, and canvassed within himself how to most effectively lay
hold. Then he flung back his head with his mouth open in the dumb show
of laughing extravagantly, the youthful demonstration seeming a great
lapse from the personality of the old man, causing her to step back
with a gesture of repellent distrust. She recognised him perfectly, yet
she was constrained to look at him as at something uncouth, uncanny,
strange.
"Wa-al, that's one o' the dernedest enjyments the town air gittin'
out'n the street fair--the way that man makes you uns puffawm, 'lowin'
ye air doin' so fine, an' till terday they didn't hev the heart ter
jine in makin' game o' you uns."
Again that stricken look on her face--the facts so bore out the
semblance of the interpretation his malignity had devised. And of
herself she had no art to judge. It seemed indeed to her a slight
thing to so arouse enthusiasm, ardour--the humble sporting beneath the
orchard tree. But even against her own conviction she could not doubt
Lloyd.
"He hev gin his word on it, an' it air a true word. An' I b'lieve him."
Binley was raging inwardly, but he controlled the surging tempest for a
time. He could hardly have mastered his emotions in a good cause, but
enmity prevailed mightily within him. And he loved the girl in his
way, and jealousy consumed him like a fire.
"When a gal wants ter be fooled, it's powerful easy ter make a lie
seem like the truth," he moralised. "Look hyar, Clotildy; every woman
that man hires, but you uns, air dressed up finer than a fiddle, the
flying lady, an' the fat lady, an' all. But ye dances in yer shabby old
everyday clothes! Lord, child, they talked all over town an' the cove
bout'n it."
Again the cogent reasoning, the recurrent shock to her faith! And this
she knew was the fact, for Lloyd himself had come to the camp and
detailed the gossip; had expressed the doubt he had, lest his ardour
for the fitness of the rustic turn had rendered her liable to criticism.
Still she believed in Lloyd against the confirmation of her own
knowledge. "I know that man ain't a liar," she averred. "He's good an'
he's true. He wouldn't fool a--a--frawg! He hev gin his word, an' I
b'lieves him. Ef 'tain't a good stunt it's kase he dunno what a good
stunt air."
There was a momentary silence of tremendous import to him. Both felt
that the forces of the crisis were accumulated to an outburst.
"Look-a-hyar, Clotildy," he said in a low, tense voice, "you uns
hev done fell in love with that thar showman." He brought out the
asseveration with the force of an accusation.
It was not maidenly, and she blushed for the scandalous candour which
she felt an admission involved, but she had contended and refuted and
denied till the unwonted mental exertion had taxed her endurance--she
was glad to be rid of sophisms--to stand on plain fact.
"Yes, I be in love with him, ef that's what you want to know," she said.
"But ye air promised ter me!"
"That war afore I seen him," she declared.
"An' ye'll keep that promise, by Gawd," he vociferated, "else that thar
showman'll find out what sorter stunt the trigger o' my pistol can do."
The significance of the threat steadied her nerves and roused her
flagging faculties. This was a desperate man. By blood already his hand
was stained. In the rude experiences of the primitive mountain folk
she knew that often one such crime was followed by another, a sort
of desperate precedent rendering facile the consecutive deeds, till
here and there a man could be found proud of his record of slain foes,
the deeds, more or less foul and unprovoked. The law was slow; the
place was remote; time wrought continual changes; and at length public
sentiment accepted the criminal and in a measure condoned the crime--as
if, when matters went awry, another murder might be expected as one of
his little peculiarities.
She cared for naught now but to divert Binley's mind, to regain her
sway, such as it was, to obliterate her confession of love for the
showman. She broke out laughing suddenly with so natural a tone that
it might have passed for genuine mirth with any but a jealous lover.
"Wa-al, sir, Eujeemes Binley!" she exclaimed--at the mention of his
name in her clear, vibrant young voice he glanced apprehensively over
his shoulder, reminding her of the cause he had to seek and to maintain
disguise--"ye air too easy fooled yerself ter be laffin' at me fur
bein' made game of. Do you reckon ef I was in love with the showman I'd
bleat it out like that!"
In his turn logic played a deceptive part. But for his ever-vigilant
jealousy he might have been convinced.
"That thar showman ain't never said a word o' love ter me,"--she noted
the incredulity in his face,--"barrin' complimints on the stunt, an'
sech. I ain't goin' ter dance fur nothin'--got ter hev sa-aft sawder
from the public, or somebody."
Still he was silent, standing in the middle of the red clay road,
leaning on his stick like an old man, with his fiery young eyes looking
up at her from under the flapping brim of his old white hat.
"But that don't mean I be in love with you uns, Eujeemes," she said
severely. "I ain't thinkin' much o' you uns, like I uster do. I be in
no wise pleased with you uns."
He was doubtful; influenced, but not overcome.
"I dunno why," he said sullenly.
"Kase ye 'lowed ter me whenst we uns fust took ter courtin' ez when ye
killed that man ye shot 'twar plumb desperation--else he'd hev killed
you uns in another minit."
The crisis, the emergency had sharpened her wits. Heretofore he could
never bear unmoved a reference to this incident, that had changed
all the currents of his life. She noted that he did not wince now.
Her heart sank as she drew the obvious conclusion--he was no longer
sensitive to the imputation of crime, the terror of conscience. He only
lowered at her and stolidly listened.
"You used ter say you even wisht it had been you uns, 'stead o' him; it
was jest an accident you got the drap on him fust."
His silence was inexpressive; he waited the application of these
reminiscences.
"Ye useter say ye war no hardened crim'nal; ye acted in self-defence,
as the law allows."
He did not even nod his head in acquiescence. He silently stared at
her, as she stood very definitely outlined against a thicket of young
willows on the bank, in the soft evening glow which was so golden on
the river, so deep a daffodil tint in the sky, that she might have
suggested to a cultivated imagination some bit of emblazonment or
brilliant enamel painting, in her saffron gown and red petticoat,
and with her rich auburn hair piled high on her delicate head. She
had not the great clusters of fruits, for these were daily renewed,
but now she plucked at the artistic draped folds of the yellow skirt
in nervous embarrassment, keeping silence as a great hooded waggon
rolled by, coming into town, laden with a farmer's household, frantic
to see the fair, and reaching their journey's end with the dusk. The
passengers looked curiously at the ill-assorted pair as they jolted
past, but the team consisted of two strong mules who mended their pace
as they approached town and fodder, and they were soon dwindling in the
distance.
"You uns useter say ye was so sure ye war clear o' the sin o' murder in
the sight o' God an' the eye o' the law that ye war willin' ter leave
it ter men--ef only ye could be sure they'd act fair by ye!"
Still he awaited the gist of her recollections.
"An' I believed ye--else I'd never hev allowed ye ter talk love ter
me. I know some folks see a differ in brawlin' an' slayin', an' ain't
keerin' fur sech. But ter my mind blood is hard ter wash out."
"I dunno what you uns is drivin' at?" he said at last, goaded to seek
to stimulate the climax.
"Ye'd know mighty well, ef yer mind warn't so perverted. They war lies
ye tole me. Ye shot a man in a quar'l, for puer spite; an' hyar ye air
ready ter shoot another fur puer spite with no quar'l. Ye hev got a
crim'nal heart an' a bloodstained hand, an' they will never be jined
with mine on no weddin' day, that we uns useter look to see in the good
time comin'."
She tossed her head resolutely more than once as she sounded this knell
to his hopes, but her dilated eyes were fixed eagerly upon him, as if
she doubted the policy of so stringent a measure. She knew the man even
better than she had thought. He stood unsteadily, shifting his weight
from one to the other of the great slit boots he wore on his shapely
feet; he hesitated, fumbling dully for a protest, while his thoughts
evidently reviewed the successive reminders which had culminated in
this untoward declaration.
"Ye knowed all the facts whenst ye promised ter marry me, Clotildy," he
reproached her. "I never hid nuthin'."
"Ye couldn't hide it; the talk o' the mountings, like the buzzards o'
the air, war a-peckin' an' a-circling 'bout yer crime. A body jes'
needs ter look out'n the winder to know suthin's foul an' rotten, an'
thar's death an' a bad deed."
His eyes shrank from meeting her stern gaze.
"I dunno what ails you uns ter go ter railin' at me that-a-way,
Clotildy. I ain't no wuss'n I was whenst ye promised ter marry me, ef
we could git yer dad ter agree ter it ennywise."
"I 'lowed the killin' war a plumb misfortin', an' no willin' fault. But
hyar ye air, willin' ter dip yer hands in human blood the minit ye air
crost--oh, the devil's grinnin' at ye from out his home in hell!"
She held up her hands at arms' length and drooped her head toward
her shoulder, as if to evade the view of the frightful image she had
suggested. He was insensibly, perhaps, more moved by her dramatic pose
and the subtle influence of her agitation than repentance or fear or
even credence in her crude personification of evil potency.
"'Twar jes' fur love o' you uns, Clotildy. I jes' said the word," he
averred, quite conquered. His voice dropped to a dulcet cadence; his
eyes plead with her.
"But ye meant the word; ye meant murder!" she shrilled out. "The deed
was done in yer heart, a'ready--a'ready! Cain! Cain!"
"I swar it warn't, Clotildy," he urged vehemently, coming close to her.
But she fended him off with both hands outstretched, with face averted,
as she had evaded the grisly sight of the leering Satan she had limned
in a word. His eagerness to recover her favour, his ardour, were
redoubled by the obstacles she interposed. It was all that was left,
to him,--so had his world narrowed,--hunted, proscribed, endangered,
doomed as he was. He felt its value more in being thus dramatically
snatched away from his grasp than if absence had dulled it, or it had
grown chill in the lapse of time. He was moved to protest, to clutch at
it anew, to stay the ethereal winged joy before it might rise beyond
his reach.
"I swear ter you I was jes' talkin' ter be a-talk-in'," he declared. "I
never meant him harm. I--I----" he could scarcely find words to frame
the lie, so ready were his lips for threats and cursing at the very
thought of his rival.
"The truth is far from yer heart," she declared. "Now, _now_, this
minit, yer shootin' iron is in yer boot leg, an' it's loaded with every
ca'tridge it can kerry."
She pointed down at his left foot, and its uneasy movement was like a
confession of discovery.
"Why, Clotildy," he lowered his voice mysteriously, "that's kase I
mought meet up with--" he glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting
to view an apparition of far greater terror to his quaking senses than
the materialised horror of the principle of evil--"the sher'ff, ye
know----"
"No sech fool ez ter use it, ef ye did," she sneered. "Ye know ye'd
only make matters worse."
"Then I mought meet some o' that man's kin," he suggested.
"Air you uns layin' fur 'em?" she asked, "an' they don't even live in
the county."
"Naw--naw," he muttered, at a loss for a subterfuge.
"What did ye kem hyar fur, in them scarecrow clothes?" she gazed
contemptuously at him, her disgust for their unkempt condition, their
rags, their dirt, which was suggested rather than seen, delineated in
high disdain in every feature of her face.
He was pitiably conscious of his unpicturesque plight, and yet he had
been proud of the completeness and efficiency of his disguise.
"You uns know I couldn't come lookin' like myself, Clotildy,
though I'd mighty nigh ruther be drowned 'n let you see me 'pear
so--so--common."
His humility might have been expected to disarm her.
"You kem hyar never expectin' me ter view you uns," she said sternly.
"I 'member yer words an' how secret ye looked whenst ye said 'em. Ye
kem hyar ter spy on me an' him--an' ef ye 'lowed I liked him most, ye'd
draw that shootin' iron out yer boot that ye loaded a-purpose. That's
what ye kem hyar fur, lookin' like the scum o' the yearth--ez ye air."
He flushed to the roots of his hair, shame for his poor habiliments so
mastered him. He felt all in fault that he had revealed himself. He had
not that control of his faculties, the possession of the situation,
the normal ascendency of the man's mind over the woman's that he would
have grasped under any other circumstances. He had only acquainted her
with the dangerous secret of his presence here; with his jealousy, and
his fell determination of revenge for the heart reft from him; with
the fact that he went armed in search of the sweet opportunities of
vengeance; with the identity of the malefactor in the event of a deed
of violence, of some mystery of disaster. And for what? To receive her
faint-hearted denials of her fickle faith; to be rated and upbraided
as never before had he heard her--heard any of the submissive mountain
women--lift her voice in arraignment of a man's deeds; to have her
deliberately take back her promise, or as an alternative dictate terms;
he felt that some hard compact was in contemplation. Yet this was his
only resource to retrieve his mistake in revealing his identity, and
if her terms did not suit him he too could keep or break a bargain.
Nevertheless he did not dream of the condition when he said:
"Clotildy, believe me fur wunst. I jes' kem ter see you uns,
honey-sweet. I pined so fur the sight o' ye--the sound o' yer voice. I
resked all--the sher'ff, the jail, the man's kin--all, ter kem ter view
ye, as all mought--but me--hid out in the wilderness. Believe me fur
wunst, sweetheart. I only said it bekase I love ye so."
She hesitated, he thought, in a relenting mood. She came close to him
and laid her hand on his ragged coat sleeve. She gazed up into his eyes
under the drooping hat brim.
"I will--I will believe you uns," she said, "ef ye will do one thing."
He looked a keen, eager inquiry.
"Take that loaded shootin' iron outn' yer boot leg, an' leave it hyar
with me," she hissed between her set teeth.
It was little the demonstration of a languishing, love-sick girl,
seeking to protect her lover's safety against his own impulsive
imprudence. But her histrionic intuitions, great as they were, had yet
their hampering limitations. She was a presentation, rather, of some
warlike feminine spirit, a Bellona, who, having conquered in a hard
fight, inexorably dictates the sacrifices of the capitulation.
For a moment, so taken by surprise he was, he could find no words for
answer. Then he broke out with oaths so crowding on his tongue that his
utterance was for a time but an inarticulate mouthing of profanity.
Still close beside him she eyed him threateningly. "I hed hoped
never ter lay my tongue ter sech a word," she declared, her eyelids
narrowing. "But ef ye won't abide by my proof I'll believe the wust o'
ye. I'll b'lieve ye threatened him in dead earnest. An' I'll gin the
word who ye air to the sher'ff afore that star draps a-hint the rim o'
the mountings." She lifted her eyes to the lucent splendours of the
evening star, just slipping from a roseate haze to the tips of the firs
darkly cut and finial-like against the clear horizon. Then once more
she gazed sternly at him.
He cast one furtive glance up and down the vacant road. Then he stooped
and drew a long glittering weapon from the leg of his shapeless boot,
pulled high over his baggy trousers. But he did not place it in the
hand she held out eagerly. His eyes blazed with a light far more
dangerous than the stern, steady, menacing gleam of hers, for it was
the intemperate rage of a jealous lover, of a desperate gamester,
losing all on the turn of the dice, of a duped and overreached schemer.
He had hardly space for a step before him, to be taken of his own free
will; he was driven, hounded, pursued, brought to bay.
"I'd be justified ter shoot ye dead, hyar in the road, Clotildy, an'
before Gawd, I'll do it," she heard him gasp.
The dusk was deepening about them. She could scarcely discern the
expression of his face, but she could see that it shone with thick
drops of moisture that had sprung from every pore; he was in a cold
sweat of excitement; his hand trembled as he held the weapon. There
was a moment of intense suspense; the low rune of the river sounded
its rhythmic measures through the solitude; the mighty forests did not
stir, save once there came that strange, long-drawn breath, the sylvan
sigh of the dreaming woods. A bat on noiseless wing went by with its
sudden, shrill, mouse-like cry, as it almost brushed against the two
still, silent figures; the star dropped down out of sight. Then she
heard the metallic click once and again as the hammer of the pistol was
drawn to full cock.
"Say yer pray'rs, gal," he hissed. "Before Gawd, ye hev goaded me ter
this! Say yer pray'rs!"
She saw the weapon flash in his hand; there hardly seemed so much
reserve of light in all the landscape, with the blurred sheen of the
river, and the cloister pallor of the pure, aloof sky, and the deep
glooms of the encompassing woods. "Say yer pray'rs," he growled again.
She could hardly imagine such terror as possessed her; her heart
had dissolved; her hands, her feet were numb; her brain seemed as if
paralysed; the roof of her mouth was dry and her stiff tongue clove to
it; to her it was as if other lips framed the words, but she noted the
thick falter of the voice when she said in tones near to tears:
"God will purtect me, 'thout waitin' ter be asked. The spar's don't
pray, an' he heeds thar fall. But 'tain't the time fur prar'r now,
nor murder, nuther. Ye dassent shoot me, Eujeemes Binley--it's too
nigh the camp on one side, an the town on t'other. The crack of your
pistol would help my blood to cry from the yearth till the neighbours,
ez would roam the woods this night, would git ye fast an' sure by the
scruff of yer neck. Hurt me, ef you dare! Ever'body would know who done
the deed--an' why!"
The words seemed inspired, so definitely they broke the power of the
threat. She was not helpless; she was not alone. That infinitely
potent and turbulent force, the rage of a roused community, that she
had prefigured as her avenger, terrified him as no other possibility
might. He had skulked from the deliberate law, and from the busy
officers, charged with its many behests, but he could never evade the
neighbours, when every man was ready to usurp the functions of justice
and the appointed minister of vengeance in the feuds of the community.
He began to realise his precipitancy; the noose was drawing about his
own neck. He regretted infinitely his outbreak; his ill-considered,
intemperate threats against Lloyd; could he not have worked his will
without even revealing his presence here? The man could have been
shot in a crowd as if by accident, presumably by some silly, drunken
lout among the spectators, or even by the accidental discharge of a
weapon, he argued within himself. His alibi could have been easy to
prove by the Pinnotts, themselves, if indeed his agency could have
been suspected, for they had left him in the cave in the mountain,
afraid, because of his previous troubles, to come to the Fair. Some
less obvious fate might have been devised for the interloper--something
that would better perplex and disconcert investigation. He had relied
too implicity on his hold on this girl's heart; he had loved her with
too confiding a devotion. But since he had lost her--yet perchance with
this inter-meddler out of the way she might turn anew to him, as of
yore--he would not sacrifice himself gratuitously.
He suddenly broke into a hollow, raucous peal of laughter, so at
variance with his look, his attitude, his threats, that the girl
nervously set both hands against her ears to shut out the sinister
dissonance.
"Lawk-a-day, Clotildy," he mocked at her, "yer head is in an' about
turned with yer play-actin', an' song an' dance, an' stunts, an' sech.
I'm jes' a-funnin', seein' ez how I kin play-act, an' do stunts,
an' sech, too. Toler'ble well, I reckon, seein' ez ye thunk the
demonstration war genuyine. I wouldn't git myself tangled up in a
snarl with shootin' that thar showman fur ten dozen sech flimsy leetle
cattle ez you uns. An' I wouldn't harm a hair o' yer head fur a whole
county o' sech ez him. Ye hev got a right ter a ch'ice 'mongst men.
Make it ter suit yerse'f. Gawd knows I don't want no gal ez ain't
powerful glad ter git me. I kem ter the Fair kase I war so dad-burned
lonesome in the mountings, an' I war sure ez nobody would know me in
this hyar rig--all the old clothes I could find in yer dad's roof-room.
But you uns 'pear ter be a toler'ble long-headed leetle trick, an' I do
b'lieve I be safer 'thout the pistol, like ye say, than with it. Hyar,
take it--take it--ef ye want it! Wait--it's full cocked." His face
changed visibly, even in the dusk, at this evidence of the deadliness
of his pretended jocosity. "Thar now, it's half cocked. But handle it
keer-ful, an' keep it out o' sight. Ef enny war ter ask ye whar ye got
it 'pears like 'twould be a toler'ble awkward lie ye would hev ter
tell!"
The revulsion of feeling, her astonishment at this sudden change, the
amazing transition from mortal terror to the assurance of safety, so
overwhelmed her faculties that for a moment in the reaction she was
not far from fainting. She seemed more overwrought than in the instant
of the immediate expectation of death. She leaned back against the
bole of the great beech tree above her head; she was glad to brace her
feet against the projecting roots; her face was white in the dusk;
she could even feel the cold as the chill quivers ran over it. Yet
never did she lose the grasp upon the pistol. She felt as if she had
the whole earth in her hands, so dominant was her sense of power. Not
for a moment did she credit her scheming lover's protest of innocent
intention--he had meant to slyly, treacherously kill the man, and now
it was impossible. He could not with his bare hands slay the stalwart
athlete; he could not buy a weapon, he had neither the money, nor the
courage to dare the suspicion this might provoke; he could not borrow
it, for who would trust aught of value to so irresponsible an old
vagrant as he seemed. Lloyd was safe, and she felt a sudden revivifying
joy in the fact that it was she who had saved him.
There is no more invincible persuasion in the mind of a man than the
overestimate of his hold on a woman's affection. With Lloyd out of the
way, Binley argued, she would soon forget the showman, and her old
lover would easily find his place anew.
"'Member, Dumplin'," he said with a tender intonation, odious now to
her sensitive nerves, "ye promised ye'd b'lieve me ef I'd leave the
shootin' iron. I kem hyar fur nuthin on yearth, precious dear, but ter
see yer sweet eyes, an' kiss the hem o' yer frock."
He reached out his hand as if to lay hold on a plait of the draped
skirt, but she shrank back in disgust and repulsion.
"Don't--don't," she said sharply. Then, to mask her aversion,
"Somebody's kemin' now. Thar will be travellers soon, to an' fro to the
town, an' it'll be remarked how long I stood hyar talkin' ter a ole
rag'muffin. Somebody might suspect 'twould be more natchural ef he war
a peart lookin' young man. 'Twould be better ef we war ter part."
She began to walk slowly along--she was languid, feeble--holding the
pistol hidden in a fold of her dress.
"Time's slow, till I see you agin, Honey-sweet," he called after her,
as he stood and watched her progress in the chasm-like rift the red
clay road made in the midst of the dense forest.
"Time's forever, till I see you agin," she declared. Her gait suddenly
gathered speed, and she fled like a deer, like the wind through the
shadows, and was lost in their midst.
He stood, his face still looking toward the spot where she had
disappeared, even after the iteration of the impact of her swift feet
upon the ground had ceased to sound. He was silent as he listened, but
at length he turned with a contemptuous laugh that yet partook of the
characteristics of a malignant snarl. He shook his head to and fro
with the prophetic triumph of an unspoken thought. Then he began to
retrace his way toward the town, and though there were none to observe
him, he leaned heavily on his thick stick, after the manner of an old
man, walking with one step longer than the other, apparently feebler
in one limb. He kept his head bowed as he approached Colbury, only
now and then lifting it to gaze out from beneath the flapping brim of
the old white hat, as the town gradually came into view, nestled--as
it were--in the heart of the great hills. They loomed darkly,
indistinguishably, above it at this hour, and the grey and purple mists
were vaguely visible, outlining ravines. The courthouse tower arose
with an impressive architectural effect in the dim night. Stars in the
vague sky struck indefinite glimmers from the long shining steeples
of the churches. Below trees interposed, but he could discern a sort
of halo of illumination among the roofs that was the exponent of the
kindling lights heralding the evening attractions of the Street Fair.