a group of teamsters, who had stopped at the wayside spring that the
oxen might drink, and in the interval of waiting had given themselves
over to the interest of local politics and the fervor of controversy.
"Waal, they tells me ez he made a powerful good 'torney-gineral las'
time. An' it 'pears ter me ez the mounting folks oughter vote fur him
agin them town cusses, 'kase he war born an' raised right down hyar on
the slope of Big Injun Mounting. He never lef' thar till he war twenty
year old, when he went ter live yander at Carrick Court House, an'
arter a while tuk ter studyin' of law."
The last speaker was the most uncouth of the rough party, and
poverty-stricken as to this world's goods. Instead of a wagon, he
had only a rude "slide;" his lean oxen were thrust from the water
by the stronger and better fed teams; and his argument in favor
of the reëlection of the attorney for the State in this judicial
circuit--called in the vernacular "the 'torney-gineral"--was received
with scant courtesy.
"Ye're a darned fool ter be braggin' that Rufus Chadd air a mounting
boy!" exclaimed Abel Stubbs, scornfully. "He hev hed the insurance
ter git ez thick ez he kin with them town folks down thar at Ephesus,
an' he hev made ez hard speeches agin everybody that war tuk ter jail
from Big Injun ez ef he hed never laid eyes on 'em till that minit;
an' arter all that the mounting folks hev done fur him, too! 'Twar
thar vote that elected him the fust time he run, 'kase the convention
put up that thar Taylor man, what nobody knowed nuthin' about an'
jes' _de_spised; an' the t'other candidates wouldn't agree ter the
convention, but jes' went before the people ennyhow, an' the vote war
so split that Big Injun kerried Rufe Chadd in. An' what do he do? Ef it
hedn't hev been fur his term a-givin' out he would hev jailed the whole
mounting arter a while!"
The dwellers on Big Injun Mounting are not the first rural community
that have aided in the election of a prosecuting officer, and afterward
have become wroth with a fiery wrath because he prosecutes.
"An' them town folks," Abel Stubbs continued, after a pause,--"at
fust they war mightily interrupted 'bout the way that the election hed
turned out, an' they promised the Lord that they would never butt agin
a convention no more while they lived in this life. Hevin' a mounting
lawyer over them town folks in Colbury an' Ephesus war mighty humbling
ter thar pride, I reckon; nobody hed never hearn tell o' sech a thing
afore. But when these hyar horse-thieves an' mounting fellers ginerally
got ter goin' in sech a constancy ter the pen'tiary, them town folks
changed thar tune 'bout Rufe Chadd. They 'lowed ez they hed never hed
sech a good 'torney-gineral afore. An' now they air goin' ter hev a new
election, an' hyar is Rufe a-leadin' off at the head of the convention
ez graceful ez ef he hed never butted agin it in his life."
"Waal," drawled a heavy fellow, speaking for the first time,--a rigid
soul, who would fain vote the straight ticket,--"I won't support Rufe
Chadd; an' yit I dunno how I kin git my cornsent ter vote agin the
nominee."
"Rufe Chadd air goin' ter be beat like hell broke loose," said Abel
Stubbs, hopefully.
"He will ef Big Injun hev enny say so 'bout 'n it," rejoined the rigid
voter. "I hev never seen a man ez onpopular ez he is nowadays on this
mounting."
"I hev hearn tell that the kin-folks of some of them convicts, what he
made sech hard speeches agin, hev swore ter git even with him yit,"
said Abel Stubbs. "Rufe Chadd hev been shot at twice in the woods sence
he kem up on Big Injun Mounting. I seen him yestiddy, an' he tole me
so; an' he showed me his hat whar a rifle ball hed done gone through.
An' I axed him ef he warn't afeard of all them men what hed sech a
grudge agin him. 'Mister Stubbs,' he say, sorter saft,--ye know them's
the ways he hev l'arned in Ephesus an' Colbury an' sech, an' he hed,
afore he ever left Big Injun Mounting, the sassiest tongue that ever
wagged,--'Mister Stubbs,' Rufe say, mighty perlite, 'foolin' with me
is like makin' faces at a rattlesnake: it may be satisfying to the
feelin's, but 't ain't safe.' That's what Rufe tole ter me."
"'T would pleasure me some ter see Rufe Chadd agin," said the driver of
the slide. "Me an' him air jes' the same age,--thirty-three year. We
used ter go huntin' tergether some. They tells me ez he hev app'inted
ter speak termo-rrer at the Settlemint along of them t'other five
candidates what air a-runnin' agin him. I likes ter hear him speak; he
knocks things up somehow."
"He did talk mighty sharp an' stingin' the fust time he war
electioneerin' on Big Injun Mounting," the rigid voter reluctantly
admitted; "but mebbe he hev furgot how sence he hev done been livin'
with them town folks."
"Ef ye wants ter know whether Rufe Chadd hev furgot how ter talk, jes'
take ter thievin' of horses an' sech, will ye!" exclaimed Abel Stubbs,
with an emphatic nod. "Ye oughter hev hearn the tale my brother brung
from the court-house at Ephesus when Josh Green war tried. He said Rufe
jes' tuk that jury out 'n tharselves; an' he gits jes' sech a purchase
on every jury he speaks afore. My brother says he believes that ef
Rufe hed gin the word, that jury would hev got out 'n thar cheers an'
throttled Josh. It's a mighty evil sort 'n gift,--this hyar way that
Rufe talks."
"Waal, his tongue can't keep the party from bein' beat. I hates ter see
it disgraced agin," said the rigid voter. "But law, I can't stand hyar
all day jowin' 'bout Rufus Chadd! I hev got my wheat ter thrash this
week, though I don't expec' ter make more 'n enough fur seed fur nex'
year,--ef that. I must be joltin' along."
The ox-carts rumbled slowly down the steep hill, the slide continued
its laborious ascent, and the forest was left once more to the fitful
stir of the wind and the ceaseless pulsations of the falling torrent.
The shadows of the oak leaves moved to and fro with dazzling effects of
interfulgent sunbeams. Afar off the blue mountains shimmered through
the heated air; but how cool was this clear rush of emerald water and
the bounding white spray of the cataract! The sudden flight of a bird
cleft the rainbow; there was a flash of moisture on his swift wings,
and he left his wild, sweet cry echoing far behind him. Beetling high
above the stream, the crags seemed to touch the sky. One glance up
and up those towering, majestic steeps,--how it lifted the soul! The
Settlement, perched upon the apparently inaccessible heights, was not
visible from the road below. It cowered back affrighted from the verge
of the great cliff and the grimly yawning abysses. The huts, three or
four in number, were all silent, and might have been all tenantless, so
lonely was their aspect. Behind them rose the dense forest, filling the
background. In a rush-bottomed chair before the little store was the
only human creature to be seen in the hamlet,--a man whose appearance
was strangely at variance with his surroundings. He had the long, lank
frame of the mountaineer; but instead of the customary brown jeans
clothes, he wore a suit of blue flannel, and a dark straw hat was drawn
over his brow. This simple attire and the cigar that he smoked had
given great offense to the already prejudiced dwellers on Big Injun
Mounting. It was not deemed meet that Rufe Chadd should "git tuk up
with them town ways, an' sot hisself ter wearin' of store-clothes."
His face was a great contrast to the faces of the stolid mountaineers.
It was keenly chiseled; the constant friction of thought had worn away
the grosser lines, leaving sharply defined features with abrupt turns
of expression. The process might be likened to the gradual denudation
of those storied strata of his mountains by the momentum of their
torrents.
And here was no quiet spirit. It could brook neither defeat nor
control; conventional barriers went down before it; and thus some years
ago it had come to pass that a raw fellow from the unknown wildernesses
of the circuit was precipitated upon it as the attorney for the State.
A startling sensation had awaited the dull court-rooms of the villages.
The mountaineer seemed to have brought from his rugged heights certain
subtle native instincts, and the wily doublings of the fox, the sudden
savage spring of the catamount, the deadly sinuous approach of the
copperhead, were displayed with a frightful effect translated into
human antagonism. There was a great awakening of the somnolent bar;
counsel for the defense became eager, active, zealous, but the juries
fell under his domination, as the weak always submit to the strong.
Those long-drawn cases that hang on from term to term because of
faint-hearted tribunals, too merciful to convict, too just to acquit,
vanished as if by magic from the docket. The besom of the law swept the
country, and his name was a terror and a threat.
His brethren of the bar held him in somewhat critical estimation. It
was said that his talents were not of a high order; that he knew no
law; that he possessed only a remarkable dexterity with the few broad
principles familiar to him, and a certain swift suppleness in their
application, alike effectual and imposing. He was a natural orator,
they admitted. His success lay in his influence on a jury, and his
influence on a jury was due to a magnetic earnestness and so strong
a belief in his own powers that every word carried conviction with
it. But he did not see in its entirety the massive grandeur of that
greatest monument of human intellect known as the common law of England.
In the face of all detraction, however, there were the self-evident
facts of his success and the improvement in the moral atmosphere
wrought during his term of office. He was thinking of these things as
he sat with his absorbed eyes fastened upon the horizon, and of the
change in himself since he had left his humble home on the slope of
Big Injun Mounting. There he had lived seventeen years in ignorance of
the alphabet; he was the first of his name who could write it. From an
almost primitive state he had overtaken the civilization of Ephesus
and Colbury,--no great achievement, it might seem to a sophisticated
imagination; but the mountains were a hundred years behind the progress
of those centres. His talents had burst through the stony crust of
circumstance, like the latent fires of a volcano. And he had plans
for the future. Only a short while ago he had been confident when
he thought of them; now they were hampered by the great jeopardy of
his reëlection, because of the egregious blindness that could not
distinguish duty from malice, justice from persecution. He had felt
the strength of education and civilization; he was beginning to feel
the terrible strength of ignorance. His faith in his own powers was on
the wane. He had experienced a suffocating sense of impotence when, in
stumping Big Injun Mounting, he had been called upon by the meagre but
vociferous crowd to justify the hard bearing of the prosecution upon
Josh Green "fur stealin' of Squire Bibb's old gray mare, that ye knows,
Rufe,--fur ye hev plowed with her,--warn't wuth more 'n ten dollars. Ef
Josh hedn't been in the dark, he wouldn't hev teched sech a pore old
critter. Tell us 'bout 'n seven year in the pen'tiary fur a mare wuth
ten dollars." What possibility--even with Chadd's wordy dexterity--of
satisfying such demands as this! He found that the strength of
ignorance lies in its blundering brutality. And he found, too, that
mental supremacy does not of its inherent nature always aspire, but
can be bent downward to low ends. The opposing candidates made capital
of these illogical attacks; they charged him with his most brilliant
exploits as ingenious perversions of the law and attempts upon the
liberties of the people. Chadd began to despair of dissipating the
prejudice and ignorance so readily crystallized by his opponents, and
the only savage instinct left to him was to die game. He justified
his past conduct by the curt declaration that he had done his duty
according to the law, and he asked the votes of his fellow-citizens
with an arrogant _hauteur_ worthy of Coriolanus.
The afternoon was wearing away; the lengthening shadows were shifting;
the solitary figure that had been motionless in the shade was now
motionless in the golden sunshine. A sound broke upon the air other
than the muffled thunder of the falls and the droning reiteration of
the katydid. There came from the rocky path threading the forest the
regular beat of horses' hoofs, and in a few moments three men rode
into the clearing that sloped to the verge of the cliff. The first
faint footfall was a spell to wake the Settlement to sudden life:
sundry feminine faces were thrust out of the rude windows; bevies of
lean-limbed, tow-headed, unkempt children started up from unexpected
nooks; the store-keeper strolled to the door, and stood with his pipe
in his mouth, leaning heavily against the frame; and Rufus Chadd
changed his position with a slow, lounging motion, and turned his eyes
upon the road.
"Waal," said the store-keeper, with frank criticism, as the trio came
in sight, "Isaac Boker's drunk agin. It's the natur' of the critter,
I'm a-thinkin'. He hev been ter the still, ez sure ez ye air born.
I hopes 't ain't a dancin'-drunk he hev got. The las' time he hed a
dancin'-drunk, he jes' bounced up an' down the floor, an' hollered an'
sung an' sech, an' made sech a disturbament that the Settle_mint_ war
kep' awake till daybreak, mighty nigh. 'T war mighty pore enjoymint
for the Settle_mint_. 'T war like sittin' up with the sick an' dead,
stiddier along of a happy critter like him. I'm powerful sorry fur
his wife, 'kase he air mighty rough ter her when he air drunk; he
cut her once a toler'ble bad slash. She hev hed ter do all the work
fur four year,--plowin', an' choppin' wood, an cookin', an' washin',
an' sech. It hev aged her some. An' all her chillen is gals,--little
gals. Boys, now, mought grow some help, but gals is more no 'count the
bigger they gits. She air a tried woman, surely. Isaac is drunk ez a
constancy,--dancin'-drunk, mos'ly. Nuthin' kin stop him."
"A good thrashing would help him a little, I'm thinking," drawled
the lawyer. "And if I lived here as a constancy I'd give it to him
the first sober spell he had." His speech was slow; his voice was
spiritless and languid; he still possessed the tone and idiom of the
mountaineer, but he had lost the characteristic pronunciation, more
probably from the influence of other associations than an appreciation
of its incorrectness.
"That ain't the right sort o' sawder fur a candidate, Rufe," the
store-keeper admonished him. "An' 'tain't safe no how fur sech a slim,
stringy boy ez ye air ter talk that way 'bout'n Isaac Boker. He air a
tremenjous man, an' ez strong ez an ox."
"I can thrash any man who beats his wife," protested the officer of the
law. "I don't see how the Settlement gets its own consent to let that
sort of thing go on."
"She air his wife," said the store-keeper, who was evidently of
conservative tendencies. "An' she air powerful tuk up with him. I hev
hearn her 'low ez he air better dancin'-drunk than other men sober. She
could hev married other men; she didn't suffer with hevin' no ch'ice."
"He ought to be put under lock and key," said Chadd. "That would
sober him. I wish these dancin'-drunk fellows could be sent to the
state-prison. I could make a jury think ten years was almost too good
for that wife-beating chap. I'd like to see him get away from me."
There was a certain calculating cruelty in his face as he said this.
He was animated by no chivalric impulse to protect the weak and
helpless; the spirit roused within him was rather the instinct of the
beast of prey. The store-keeper looked askance at him. In his mental
review of the changes wrought in the past few years there was one
that had escaped Rufus Chadd's attention. The process was insinuating
and gradual, but the result was bold and obvious. In the constant
opposition in which he was placed to criminals, in the constant
contemplation of the worst phases of human nature, in the active effort
which his duty required to bring the perpetrators of all foul deeds to
justice, he had grown singularly callous and pitiless. The individual
criminal had been merged in the abstract idea of crime. After the first
few cases he had been able to banish the visions of the horrors brought
upon other lives than that of the prisoner by the verdict of guilty.
Mother, wife, children,--these pale, pursuing phantoms were exorcised
by prosaic custom, and his steely insensibility made him the master of
many a harrowing court-room scene.
"That would be a mighty pore favor ter his wife," said the
store-keeper, after a pause. "She hed ruther be beat."
The three men had dismounted, hitched their horses, and were now
approaching the store. Rufus Chadd rose to shake hands with the
foremost of the party. The quick fellow was easily schooled, and the
store-keeper's comment upon his lack of policy induced him to greet
the new-comers with a greater show of cordiality than he had lately
practiced toward his constituents.
"I never looked ter find ye hyar this soon, Rufe," said one of the
arrivals. "What hev ye done with the t'other candidates?"
"I left them behind, as I always do," said Chadd, laughing, "and as I
expect to do again next Thursday week, if I can get you to promise to
vote for me."
"I ain't a-goin' ter vote fur ye,--nary time," interpolated Boker, as
he reeled heavily forward.
"Well, I'm sorry for that," said Chadd, with the candidate's
long-suffering patience. "Why?"
Isaac Boker felt hardly equal to argument, but he steadied himself as
well as he could, and looked vacantly into the eyes of his interlocutor
for some pointed inspiration; perhaps he caught there an intimation
of the contempt in which he was held. He still hesitated, but with a
sudden anger inflaming his bloated face. Chadd waited a moment for a
reply; then he turned carelessly away, saying that he would stroll
about a little, as sitting still so long was fatiguing.
"Ef ye war whar ye oughter be, a-follerin' of the plow," said Isaac
Boker, "ye wouldn't git a chance ter tire yerself a-sittin' in a cheer."
"I don't hold myself too high for plowing," replied Chadd, in a
conciliatory manner. "Plowing is likely work for any able-bodied man."
This speech was unlucky. There was in it an undercurrent of suggestion
to Isaac Boker's suspicious conscience. He thought Chadd intended a
covert allusion to his own indolence in the field, and his wife's
activity as a substitute. "It was only an accident that took me out of
the furrow," Chadd continued.
"'Twar a killin' accident ter the country," said Isaac Boker. "Fur they
tells me that ye don't know no more law than a mounting fox." Chadd
laughed, but he sneered too. His patience was evaporating. Still he
restrained his irritation by an effort, and Boker went on: "Folks ez is
bred ter the plow ain't got the sense an' the showin' ter make peart
lawyers. An' that's why I ain't a-goin' ter vote fur ye."
This plain speaking was evidently relished by the others; they said
nothing, but their low acquiescent chuckle demonstrated their opinion.
"I haven't asked you for your vote," said Chadd, sharply.
The burly fellow paused for a moment, in stupid surprise; then his
drunken wrath rising, he exclaimed, "An' whyn't ye ax me fur my vote,
then? Ye're the damnedest critter in this country, Rufe Chadd, ter come
electioneerin' on Big Injun Mounting, an' a-makin' out ez I ain't good
enough ter be axed ter vote fur ye! Ye hed better not be tryin' ter sot
me down lower 'n other folks. I'll break that empty cymlin' of a head
of yourn," and he raised his clenched fist.
"If you come a step nearer I'll throw you off the bluff," said Chadd.
"That'll be a powerful cur'ous tale ter go the rounds o' the mounting,"
remarked one of the disaffected by-standers. "Ye hev done all ye kin
ter torment yer own folks up hyar on Big Injun Mounting what elected ye
afore; an' then ye comes up hyar agin, an' the fust man that says he
won't vote fur ye must be flunged off'n the bluff."
"'Pears ter me," said Isaac Boker, surlily, and still shaking his fist,
"ez thar ain't all yit in the pen'tiary that desarves ter go thar.
Better men than ye air, Rufe Chadd, hev been locked up, an' hung too,
sence ye war elected ter office."
There was a sudden change in the lawyer's attitude; a strong tension
of the muscles, as of a wild-cat ready to spring; the quickening of
his blood showed in his scarlet face; there was a fiery spark in his
darkening eyes.
"Oh, come now, Rufe," said one of the lookers-on hastily. "Ye oughtn't
ter git ter fightin' with a drunken man. Jes' walk yerself off fur a
while."
"Oh, he can _say_ what he likes while he's drunk," replied Chadd, with
a short, scornful laugh. "But I tell you, now, he had better keep his
fists for his wife."
The others gathered about the great, massive fellow, who was violently
gesticulating and incoherently asserting his offended dignity. Chadd
strolled away toward the gloomy woods, his hands in his pockets,
and his eyes bent upon the ground. Glances of undisguised aversion
followed him,--from the group about the store, from the figures in
the windows and doors of the poor dwellings, even from the half-clad
children who paused in their spiritless play to gaze after him. He was
vaguely conscious of these pursuing looks of hatred, but only once he
saw the universal sentiment expressed in a face. As the long shadows
of the forest fell upon his path, he chanced to raise his eyes, and
encountered those of a woman, standing in Boker's cabin. He went on,
feeling like a martyr. The thick foliage closed upon him; the sound
of his languid footsteps died in the distance, and the figures on
the cliff stood in the sunset glow, watching the spot where he had
disappeared, as silent and as motionless as if they had fallen under
some strange, uncanny spell.
The calm of the woodland, the refreshing aromatic odors, the rising
wind after the heat of the sultry day, exerted a revivifying influence
upon the lawyer's spirits, as he walked on into the illimitable
solitudes of the forest. Night was falling before he turned to retrace
his way; above the opaque, colorless leaves there was the lambent
glinting of a star; the fitful plaint of a whip-poor-will jarred the
dark stillness; grotesque black shadows had mustered strong among the
huge boles of the trees. But he took no note of the gathering gloom;
somehow, his heart had grown suddenly light. He had forgotten the
drunken wrangler and all the fretting turmoils of the canvass; once
he caught himself in making plans, with his almost impossible success
in the election as a basis. And yet, inconsistently enough, he felt a
dismayed astonishment at his unaccountable elation. The workings of his
own mind and their unexpected developments were always to him strange
phenomena. He was introspective enough to take heed of this inward
tumult, and he had a shrewd suspicion that more activity was there
than in all the mental exercitations of the combined bench and bar of
the circuit. But he harbored a vague distrust of this uncontrollable
power within, so much stronger than the untutored creature to whom
it appertained. A harassing sense of doubleness often possessed him,
and he was torn by conflicting counsels,--the inherent inertia and
conservatism of the mountaineer, who would fain follow forever the
traditional customs of his ancestry, and an alien overwhelming impetus,
which carried him on in spite of himself, and bewildered him with his
own exploits. He was helpless under this unreasonable expectation of
success, and regarded the mental gymnastic of joyous anticipation with
perplexed surprise. "I'm fixing a powerful disappointment for myself,"
he said.