of going home; indeed, they talked of breaking camp day after
to-morrow, and saying a long adieu to wood and mountain and stream.
They had had an abundance of good sport and a surfeit of roughing it.
They would go back to town and town avocations invigorated by their
holiday, and taking with them a fresh and exhilarating recollection of
the forest life left so far behind.
It was near dusk, on a dull, cold evening, when Chevis dismounted
before the door of the blacksmith's little log-cabin. The chestnut-tree
hung desolate and bare on the eaves of the forge; the stream rushed by
in swift gray whirlpools under a sullen gray sky; the gigantic wall of
broken rocks loomed gloomy and sinister on the opposite side of the
road,--not so much as a withered leaf of all their vines clung to their
rugged surfaces. The mountains had changed color: the nearest ranges
were black with the myriads of the grim black branches of the denuded
forest; far away they stretched in parallel lines, rising tier above
tier, and showing numberless gradations of a dreary, neutral tint,
which grew ever fainter in the distance, till merged in the uniform
tone of the sombre sky.
Indoors it was certainly more cheerful. A hickory fire dispensed alike
warmth and light. The musical whir of a spinning-wheel added its
unique charm. From the rafters depended numberless strings of bright
red pepper-pods and ears of pop-corn; hanks of woolen and cotton yarn;
bunches of medicinal herbs; brown gourds and little bags of seeds. On
rude shelves against the wall were ranged cooking utensils, drinking
vessels, etc., all distinguished by that scrupulous cleanliness which
is a marked feature of the poor hovels of these mountaineers, and in
striking contrast to the poor hovels of lowlanders. The rush-bottomed
chairs, drawn in a semicircle before the rough, ill-adjusted stones
which did duty as hearth, were occupied by several men, who seemed to
be making the blacksmith a prolonged visit; various members of the
family were humbly seated on sundry inverted domestic articles, such as
wash-tubs, and splint-baskets made of white oak. There was circulating
among Jerry Shaw's friends a flat bottle, facetiously denominated
"tickler," readily emptied, but as readily replenished from a keg in
the corner. Like the widow's cruse of oil, that keg was miraculously
never empty. The fact of a still near by in the wild ravine might
suggest a reason for its perennial flow. It was a good strong article
of apple-brandy, and its effects were beginning to be distinctly
visible.
Truly the ethereal woodland flower seemed strangely incongruous with
these brutal and uncouth conditions of her life, as she stood at a
little distance from this group, spinning at her wheel. Chevis felt
a sudden sharp pang of pity for her when he glanced toward her; the
next instant he had forgotten it in his interest in her work. It was
altogether at variance with the ideas which he had hitherto entertained
concerning that humble handicraft. There came across him a vague
recollection from his city life that the peasant girls of art galleries
and of the lyric stage were wont to sit at the wheel. "But perhaps
they were spinning flax," he reflected. This spinning was a matter
of walking back and forth with smooth, measured steps and graceful,
undulatory motion; a matter, too, of much pretty gesticulation,--the
thread in one hand, the other regulating the whirl of the wheel. He
thought he had never seen attitudes so charming.
Jerry Shaw hastened to abdicate and offer one of the rush-bottomed
chairs with the eager hospitality characteristic of these
mountaineers,--a a hospitality that meets a stranger on the threshold
of every hut, presses upon him, ungrudgingly, its best, and follows
him on his departure with protestations of regret out to the rickety
fence. Chevis was more or less known to all of the visitors, and
after a little, under the sense of familiarity and the impetus of the
apple-brandy, the talk flowed on as freely as before his entrance.
It was wilder and more antagonistic to his principles and prejudices
than anything he had hitherto heard among these people, and he looked
on and listened, interested in this new development of a phase of
life which he had thought he had sounded from its lowest note to the
top of its compass. He was glad to remain; the scene had impressed
his cultivated perceptions as an interior by Teniers might have done,
and the vehemence and lawlessness of the conversation and the threats
of violence had little reality for him; if he thought about the
subject under discussion at all, it was with a reassuring conviction
that before the plans could be carried out the already intoxicated
mountaineers would he helplessly drunk. Nevertheless, he glanced
ever and anon at the young girl, loath that she should hear it, lest
its virulent, angry bitterness should startle her. She was evidently
listening, too, but her fair face was as calm and untroubled as one of
the pure white faces of those flower-stars of his early stay in the
mountains.
"Them Peels oughtn't ter be let live!" exclaimed Elijah Burr, a
gigantic fellow, arrayed in brown jeans, with the accompaniments of
knife, powder-horn, etc., usual with the hunters of the range; his gun
stood, with those of the other guests, against the wall in a corner of
the room. "They oughtn't ter be let live, an' I'd top off all three of
'em fur the skin an' horns of a deer."
"That thar is a true word," assented Jerry Shaw. "They oughter be run
down an' kilt,--all three o' them Peels."
Chevis could not forbear a question. Always on the alert to add to his
stock of knowledge of men and minds, always analyzing his own inner
life and the inner life of those about him, he said, turning to his
intoxicated host, "Who are the Peels, Mr. Shaw,--if I may ask?"
"Who air the Peels?" repeated Jerry Shaw, making a point of seizing the
question. "They air the meanest men in these hyar mountings. Ye might
hunt from Copperhead Ridge ter Clinch River, an' the whole spread o'
the valley, an' never hear tell o' no sech no 'count critters."
"They oughtn't ter be let live!" again urged Elijah Burr. "No man ez
treats his wife like that dad-burned scoundrel Ike Peel do oughter be
let live. That thar woman is my sister an' Jerry Shaw's cousin,--an' I
shot him down in his own door year afore las'. I shot him ter kill; but
somehow 'nother I war that shaky, an' the cussed gun hung fire a-fust,
an' that thar pore wife o' his'n screamed an' hollered so, that I never
done nuthin' arter all but lay him up for four month an' better for
that thar pore critter ter nuss. He'll see a mighty differ nex' time I
gits my chance. An' 'tain't fur off," he added threateningly.
"Wouldn't it be better to persuade her to leave him?" suggested Chevis
pacifically, without, however, any wild idea of playing peace-maker
between fire and tow.
Burr growled a fierce oath, and then was silent.
A slow fellow on the opposite side of the fire-place explained: "Thar's
whar all the trouble kem from. She wouldn't leave him, fur all he
treated her awful. She said ez how he war mighty good ter her when he
warn't drunk. So 'Lijah shot him."
This way of cutting the Gordian knot of domestic difficulties might
have proved efficacious but for the shakiness induced by the thrill of
fraternal sentiment, the infusion of apple-brandy, the protest of the
bone of contention, and the hanging fire of the treacherous gun. Elijah
Burr could remember no other failure of aim for twenty years.
"He won't git shet of me that easy agin!" Burr declared, with another
pull at the flat tickler. "But ef it hedn't hev been fur what happened
las' week, I mought hev let him off fur awhile," he continued,
evidently actuated by some curiously distorted sense of duty in the
premises. "I oughter hev kilt him afore. But now the cussed critter is
a gone coon. Dad-burn the whole tribe!"
Chevis was desirous of knowing what had happened last week. He did not,
however, feel justified in asking more questions. But apple-brandy is
a potent tongue-loosener, and the unwonted communicativeness of the
stolid and silent mountaineers attested its strength in this regard.
Jerry Shaw, without inquiry, enlightened him.
"Ye see," he said, turning to Chevis, "'Lijah he thought ez how ef he
could git that fool woman ter come ter his house, he could shoot Ike
fur his meanness 'thout botherin' of her, an' things would all git
easy agin. Waal, he went thar one day when all them Peels, the whole
lay-out, war gone down ter the Settlemint ter hear the rider preach,
an' he jes' run away with two of the brats,--the littlest ones, ye
onderstand,--a-thinkin' he mought tole her off from Ike that thar way.
We hearn ez how the pore critter war nigh onter distracted 'bout 'em,
but Ike never let her come arter 'em. Leastways, she never kem. Las'
week Ike kem fur 'em hisself,--him an' them two cussed brothers o'
his'n. All 'Lijah's folks war out'n the way; him an' his boys war off
a-huntin', an' his wife hed gone down ter the spring, a haffen mile
an' better, a-washin' clothes; nobody war ter the house 'ceptin' them
two chillen o' Ike's. An' Ike and his brothers jes' tuk the chillen
away, an' set fire ter the house; an' time 'Lijah's wife got thar,
'twar nuthin' but a pile o' ashes. So we've determinated ter go up
yander ter Laurel Notch, twenty mile along the ridge of the mounting,
ter-night, an' wipe out them Peels,--'kase they air a-goin' ter move
away. That thar wife o' Ike's, what made all the trouble, hev fretted
an' fretted at Ike till he hev determinated ter break up an' wagon
across the range ter Kaintucky, whar his uncle lives in the hills
thar. Ike hev gin his cornsent ter go jes' ter pleasure her, 'kase she
air mos' crazed ter git Ike away whar 'Lijah can't kill him. Ike's
brothers is a-goin', too. I hearn ez how they'll make a start at noon
ter-morrer."
"They'll never start ter Kaintucky ter-morrer," said Burr, grimly.
"They'll git off, afore that, fur hell, stiddier Kaintucky. I hev been
a-tryin' ter make out ter shoot that thar man ever sence that thar gal
war married ter him, seven year ago,--seven year an' better. But what
with her a-foolin' round, an' a-talkin', an' a-goin' on like she war
distracted--she run right 'twixt him an' the muzzle of my gun wunst,
or I would hev hed him that time fur sure--an' somehow 'nother that
critter makes me so shaky with her ways of goin' on that I feel like I
hain't got good sense, an' can't git no good aim at nuthin'. Nex' time,
though, thar'll be a differ. She ain't a-goin' ter Kaintucky along of
him ter be beat fur nuthin' when he's drunk."
It was a pitiable picture presented to Chevis's open-eyed
imagination,--this woman standing for years between the two men she
loved: holding back her brother from his vengeance of her wrongs by
that subtle influence that shook his aim; and going into exile with
her brute of a husband when that influence had waned and failed, and
her wrongs were supplemented by deep and irreparable injuries to
her brother. And the curious moral attitude of the man: the strong
fraternal feeling that alternately nerved and weakened his revengeful
hand.
"We air goin' thar 'bout two o'clock ter-night," said Jerry Shaw, "and
wipe out all three o' them Peels,--Ike an' his two brothers."
"They oughtn't ter be let live," reiterated Elijah Burr, moodily. Did
he speak to his faintly stirring conscience, or to a woful premonition
of his sister's grief?
"They'll all three be stiff an' stark afore daybreak," resumed Jerry
Shaw. "We air all kin ter 'Lijah, an' we air goin' ter holp him top
off them Peels. Thar's ten of us an' three o' them, an' we won't hev
no trouble 'bout it. An' we'll bring that pore critter, Ike's wife,
an' her chillen hyar ter stay. She's welcome ter live along of us till
'Lijah kin fix some sort'n place fur her an' the little chillen. Thar
won't be no trouble a-gittin' rid of the men folks, ez thar is ten of
us an' three o' them, an' we air goin' ter take 'em in the night."
There was a protest from an unexpected quarter. The whir of the
spinning-wheel was abruptly silenced. "I don't see no sense," said
Celia Shaw, her singing monotone vibrating in the sudden lull,--"I
don't see no sense in shootin' folks down like they war nuthin' better
nor bear, nor deer, nor suthin' wild. I don't see no sense in it. An' I
never did see none."
There was an astonished pause.
"Shet up, Cely! Shet up!" exclaimed Jerry Shaw, in mingled anger and
surprise. "Them folks ain't no better nor bear, nor sech. They hain't
got no right ter live,--them Peels."
"No, that they hain't!" said Burr.
"They is powerful no 'count critters, I know," replied the little
woodland flower, the firelight bright in her opaline eyes and on the
flakes of burnished gold gleaming in the dark masses of her hair. "They
is always a-hangin' round the still an' a-gittin' drunk; but I don't
see no sense in a-huntin' 'em down an' a-killin' 'em off. 'Pears ter
me like they air better nor the dumb ones. I don't see no sense in
shootin' 'em."
"Shet up, Cely! Shet up!" reiterated Shaw.
Celia said no more. Reginald Chevis was pleased with this indication
of her sensibility; the other women--her mother and grandmother--had
heard the whole recital with the utmost indifference, as they sat
by the fire monotonously carding cotton. She was beyond her station
in sentiment, he thought. However, he was disposed to recant this
favorable estimate of her higher nature when, twice afterward, she
stopped her work, and, filling the bottle from the keg, pressed it
upon her father, despite her unfavorable criticism of the hangers-on
of stills. Nay, she insisted. "Drink some more," she said. "Ye hain't
got half enough yit." Had the girl no pity for the already drunken
creature? She seemed systematically trying to make him even more
helpless than he was.
He had fallen into a deep sleep before Chevis left the house, and
the bottle was circulating among the other men with a rapidity that
boded little harm to the unconscious Ike Peel and his brothers at
Laurel Notch, twenty miles away. As Chevis mounted Strathspey he
saw the horses of Jerry Shaw's friends standing partly within and
partly without the blacksmith's shop They would stand there all
night, he thought It was darker when he commenced the ascent of the
mountain than he had anticipated. And what was this driving against
his face,--rain? No, it was snow. He had not started a moment too
soon. But Strathspey, by reason of frequent travel, knew every foot
of the way, and perhaps there would only be a flurry. And so he went
on steadily up and up the wild, winding road among the great, bare,
black trees and the grim heights and chasms. The snow fell fast,--so
fast and so silently, before he was half-way to the summit he had lost
the vague companionship of the sound of his horse's hoofs, now muffled
in the thick carpet so suddenly flung upon the ground. Still the snow
fell, and when he had reached the mountain's brow the ground was deeply
covered, and the whole aspect of the scene was strange. But though
obscured by the fast-flying flakes, he knew that down in the bosom of
the white valley there glittered still that changeless star.
"Still spinning, I suppose," he said to himself, as he looked toward it
and thought of the interior of the log-cabin below. And then he turned
into the tent to enjoy his cigar, his æsthetic reveries, and a bottle
of wine.
But the wheel was no longer awhirl. Both music and musician were gone.
Toiling along the snow-filled mountain ways; struggling with the
fierce gusts of wind as they buffeted and hindered her, and fluttered
derisively among her thin, worn, old garments; shivering as the driving
flakes came full into the pale, calm face, and fell in heavier and
heavier wreaths upon the dappled calico sun-bonnet; threading her
way through unfrequented woodland paths, that she might shorten the
distance; now deftly on the verge of a precipice, whence a false
step of those coarse, rough shoes would fling her into unimaginable
abysses below; now on the sides of steep ravines, falling sometimes
with the treacherous, sliding snow, but never faltering; tearing her
hands on the shrubs and vines she clutched to help her forward, and
bruised and bleeding, but still going on; trembling more than with
the cold, but never turning back, when a sudden noise in the terrible
loneliness of the sheeted woods suggested the close proximity of a wild
beast, or perhaps, to her ignorant, superstitious mind, a supernatural
presence,--thus she journeyed on her errand of deliverance.
Her fluttering breath came and went in quick gasps; her failing limbs
wearily dragged through the deep drifts; the cruel winds untiringly
lashed her; the snow soaked through the faded green cotton dress to the
chilled white skin,--it seemed even to the dull blood coursing feebly
through her freezing veins. But she had small thought for herself
during those long, slow hours of endurance and painful effort. Her pale
lips moved now and then with muttered speculations: how the time went
by; whether they had discovered her absence at home; and whether the
fleeter horsemen were even now ploughing their way through the longer,
winding mountain road. Her only hope was to outstrip their speed. Her
prayer--this untaught being!--she had no prayer, except perhaps her
life, the life she was so ready to imperil. She had no high, cultured
sensibilities to sustain her. There was no instinct stirring within
her that might have nerved her to save her father's, or her brother's,
or a benefactor's life. She held the creatures that she would have
died to warn in low estimation, and spoke of them with reprobation and
contempt. She had known no religious training, holding up forever the
sublimest ideal. The measureless mountain wilds were not more infinite
to her than that great mystery. Perhaps, without any philosophy, she
stood upon the basis of a common humanity.
When the silent horsemen, sobered by the chill night air and the cold
snow, made their cautious approach to the little porch of Ike Peel's
log-hut at Laurel Notch, there was a thrill of dismayed surprise
among them to discover the door standing half open, the house empty
of its scanty furniture and goods, its owners fled, and the very dogs
disappeared; only, on the rough stones before the dying fire, Celia
Shaw, falling asleep and waking by fitful starts.
"Jerry Shaw swore ez how he would hev shot that thar gal o'
his'n,--that thar Cely," Hi Bates said to Chevis and Varney the next
day, when he recounted the incident, "only he didn't think she hed
her right mind; a-walkin' through this hyar deep snow full fifteen
mile,--it's fifteen mile by the short cut ter Laurel Notch,--ter git
Ike Peel's folks off 'fore Lijah an' her dad could come up an' settle
Ike an' his brothers. Leastways, 'Lijah an' the t'others, fur Jerry hed
got so drunk he couldn't go; he war dead asleep till ter-day, when they
kem back a-fotchin' the gal with 'em. That thar Cely Shaw never did
look ter me like she hed good sense, nohow. Always looked like she war
queer an' teched in the head."
There was a furtive gleam of speculation on the dull face of the
mountaineer when his two listeners broke into enthusiastic commendation
of the girl's high heroism and courage. The man of ledgers swore that
he had never heard of anything so fine, and that he himself would
walk through fifteen miles of snow and midnight wilderness for the
honor of shaking hands with her. There was that keen thrill about
their hearts sometimes felt in crowded theatres, responsive to the
cleverly simulated heroism of the boards; or in listening to a poet's
mid-air song; or in looking upon some grand and ennobling phase of life
translated on a great painter's canvas.
Hi Bates thought that perhaps they too were a little "teched in the
head."
There had fallen upon Chevis a sense of deep humiliation. Celia Shaw
had heard no more of that momentous conversation than he; a wide
contrast was suggested. He began to have a glimmering perception
that despite all his culture, his sensibility, his yearnings toward
humanity, he was not so high a thing in the scale of being; that he had
placed a false estimate upon himself. He had looked down on her with a
mingled pity for her dense ignorance, her coarse surroundings, her low
station, and a dilettante's delight in picturesque effects, and with
no recognition of the moral splendors of that star in the valley. A
realization, too, was upon him that fine feelings are of most avail as
the motive power of fine deeds.
He and his friend went down together to the little log-cabin. There had
been only jeers and taunts and reproaches for Celia Shaw from her own
people. These she had expected, and she had stolidly borne them. But
she listened to the fine speeches of the city-bred men with a vague
wonderment on her flower-like face,--whiter than ever to-day.
"It was a splendid--a noble thing to do," said Varney, warmly.
"I shall never forget it," said Chevis, "it will always be like a
sermon to me."
There was something more that Reginald Chevis never forgot: the look
on her face as he turned and left her forever; for he was on his way
back to his former life, so far removed from her and all her ideas
and imaginings. He pondered long upon that look in her inscrutable
eyes,--was it suffering, some keen pang of despair?--as he rode down
and down the valley, all unconscious of the heart-break he left behind
him. He thought of it often afterward; he never penetrated its mystery.
He heard of her only once again. On the eve of a famous day, when
visiting the outposts of a gallant corps, Reginald Chevis happened to
recognize in one of the pickets the gawky mountaineer who had been his
guide through those autumnal woods so far away. Hi Bates was afterward
sought out and honored with an interview in the general's tent; for the
accidental encounter had evoked many pleasant reminiscences in Chevis's
mind, and among other questions he wished to ask was what had become of
Jerry Shaw's daughter.
"She's dead,--long ago," answered Hi Bates. "She died afore the winter
war over the year ez ye war a-huntin' thar. She never hed good sense
ter my way o' thinkin', nohow, an' one night she run away, an' walked
'bout fifteen mile through a big snow-storm. Some say it settled on her
chist. Anyhow, she jes' sorter fell away like afterward, an' never held
up her head good no more. She always war a slim little critter, an'
looked like she war teched in the head."
There are many things that suffer unheeded in those mountains: the
birds that freeze on the trees; the wounded deer that leaves its
cruel kind to die alone; the despairing, flying fox with its pursuing
train of savage dogs and men. And the jutting crag whence had shone
the camp-fire she had so often watched--her star, set forever--looked
far over the valley beneath, where in one of those sad little rural
graveyards she had been laid so long ago.
But Reginald Chevis has never forgotten her. Whenever he sees the
earliest star spring into the evening sky, he remembers the answering
red gleam of that star in the valley.
ELECTIONEERIN' ON BIG INJUN MOUNTING.
"An' ef ye'll believe me, he hev hed the face an' grace ter come
a-prowlin' up hyar on Big Injun Mounting, electioneerin' fur votes, an'
a-shakin' hands with every darned critter on it."
To a superficial survey the idea of a constituency might have seemed
incongruous enough with these rugged wilds. The July sunshine rested
on stupendous crags; the torrent was bridged only by a rainbow
hovering above the cataract; in all the wide prospect of valley and
far-stretching Alleghany ranges the wilderness was broken by no field
or clearing. But over this gloomy primeval magnificence of nature
universal suffrage brooded like a benison, and candidates munificently
endowed with "face an' grace" were wont to thread the tangled mazes of
Big Injun Mounting.