come off 'n that thar T'other Mounting. It's a mighty place fur bad
folks ter make thar eend. Thar's that thar horse thief I war a-tellin'
'bout, an' that dapple-gray mare,--her name 'twar Luce. An' folks ez
is a-runnin' from the sheriff jes' takes ter the T'other Mounting ez
nateral ez ef it war home; an' ef they don't git cotched, they is
never hearn on no more." He paused impressively. "The rocks falls on
'em, an' kills 'em; an' I'll tell ye jes' how I knows," he resumed,
oracularly. "'Twar sixty year ago, nigh about, an' me an' them Jeemes
boys war a-burnin' of lime tergether over on the T'other Mounting. We
hed a lime-kiln over thar, jes' under Piney Notch, an' never hed no
luck, but jes' stuck ter it like fools, till Hiram Jeemes got one of
his eyes put out. So we quit burnin' of lime on the T'other Mounting,
'count of the place bein' witched, an' kem over hyar ter Old Rocky-Top,
an' got along toler'ble well, cornsiderin'. But one day, whilst we war
a-workin on the T'other Mounting, what d' ye think I fund in the rock?
The print of a bare foot in the solid stone, ez plain an' ez nateral
ez ef the track hed been lef' in the clay yestiddy. Waal, I knowed it
war the track o' Jeremiah Stubbs, what shot his step-brother, an' gin
the sheriff the slip, an' war las' seen on the T'other Mounting, 'kase
his old shoe jes' fit the track, fur we tried it. An' a good while
arterward I fund on that same T'other Mounting--in the solid stone,
mind ye--a fish, what he had done br'iled fur supper, jes' turned ter a
stone."
"So thar's the Bible made true," said an elderly woman, who had come
to the door to hear this reminiscence, and stood mechanically stirring
a hoe-cake batter in a shallow wooden bowl. "Ax fur a fish, an' ye 'll
git a stone."
The secret history of the hills among which they lived was indeed as a
sealed book to these simple mountaineers.
"The las' time I war ter Colbury," said Nathan White, "I hearn the
sheriff a-talkin' 'bout how them evil-doers an' sech runs fur the
T'other Mounting fust thing; though he 'lowed ez it war powerful foxy
in 'em ter try ter hide thar, kase he said, ef they wunst reaches it,
he mought ez well look fur a needle in a hay-stack. He 'lowed ef he hed
a posse a thousand men strong he couldn't git 'em out."
"He can't find 'em, 'kase the rocks falls on 'em, or swallers 'em in,"
said the old man. "Ef Tony Britt is up ter mischief he'll never come
back no more. He'll git into worser trouble than ever he see afore."
"He hev done seen a powerful lot of trouble, fust one way an' another,
'thout foolin' round the T'other Mounting," said Nathan White. "They
tells me ez he got hisself indicted, I believes they calls it, or
suthin', down yander ter the court at Colbury,--that war year afore
las',--an' he hed ter pay twenty dollars fine; 'kase when he war
overseer of the road he jes' war constant in lettin' his friends, an'
folks ginerally, off 'thout hevin' 'em fined, when they didn't come an'
work on the road,--though that air the way ez the overseers hev always
done, without nobody a-tellin' on 'em an' sech. But them ez warn't
Tony Britt's friends seen a mighty differ. He war dead sure ter fine
Caleb Hoxie seventy-five cents, 'cordin' ter the law, fur every day
that he war summonsed ter work an' never come; 'kase Tony an' Caleb
hed some sort 'n grudge agin one another 'count of a spavined horse
what Caleb sold ter Tony, makin' him out to be a sound critter,--though
Caleb swears he never knowed the horse war spavined when he sold him
ter Tony, no more 'n nuthin'. Caleb war mightily worked up 'bout this
hyar finin' business, an' him an' Tony hed a tussle 'bout it every
time they kem tergether. But Caleb war always sure ter git the worst
of it, 'kase Tony, though he air toler'ble spindling sort o' build, he
air somehow or other sorter stringy an' tough, an' makes a right smart
show in a reg'lar knock-down an' drag-out fight. So Caleb he war beat
every time, an' fined too. An' he tried wunst ter shoot Tony Britt, but
he missed his aim. An' when he war a-layin' off how ter fix Tony, fur
treatin' him that way, he war a-stoppin', one day, at Jacob Green's
blacksmith's shop, yander, a mile down the valley, an' he war a-talkin'
'bout it ter a passel o' folks thar. An' Lawyer Rood from Colbury war
thar, an' Jacob war a-shoein' of his mare; an' he heard the tale, an'
axed Caleb whyn't he report Tony ter the court, an' git him fined
fur neglect of his duty, bein' overseer of the road. An' Caleb never
knowed before that it war the law that everybody what war summonsed an'
didn't come must be fined, or the overseer must be fined hisself; but
he knowed that Tony hed been a-lettin' of his friends off, an' folks
ginerally, an' he jes' 'greed fur Lawyer Rood ter stir up trouble fur
Tony. An' he done it. An' the court fined Tony twenty dollars fur them
ways o' his'n. An' it kept him so busy a-scufflin' ter raise the twenty
dollars that he never hed a chance ter give Caleb Hoxie more'n one or
two beatin's the whole time he war a-scrapin' up the money."
This story was by no means unknown to the little circle, nor did its
narrator labor under the delusion that he was telling a new thing.
It was merely a verbal act of recollection, and an attentive silence
reigned as he related the familiar facts. To people who live in lonely
regions this habit of retrospection (especially noticeable in them) and
an enduring interest in the past may be something of a compensation for
the scanty happenings of the present. When the recital was concluded,
the hush for a time was unbroken, save by the rush of the winds,
bringing upon their breath the fragrant woodland odors of balsams and
pungent herbs, and a fresh and exhilarating suggestion of sweeping over
a volume of falling water. They stirred the fringed shadow of a great
pine that stood, like a sentinel, before Nathan White's door and threw
its colorless simulacrum, a boastful lie twice its size, far down the
sunset road. Now and then the faint clangor of a cow-bell came from out
the tangled woods about the little hut, and the low of homeward-bound
cattle sounded upon the air, mellowed and softened by the distance.
The haze that rested above the long, narrow valley was hardly visible,
save in the illusive beauty with which it invested the scene,--the
tender azure of the far-away ranges; the exquisite tones of the gray
and purple shadows that hovered about the darkening coves and along
the deep lines marking the gorges; the burnished brilliance of the
sunlight, which, despite its splendor, seemed lonely enough, lying
motionless upon the lonely landscape and on the still figures clustered
about the porch. Their eyes were turned toward the opposite steeps,
gorgeous with scarlet oak and sumac, all in autumnal array, and their
thoughts were busy with the hunter on the T'other Mounting and vague
speculations concerning his evil intent.
"It 'pears ter me powerful strange ez Tony goes a-foolin' round that
thar T'other Mounting, cornsiderin' what happened yander in its
shadow," said the woman, coming again to the door, and leaning idly
against the frame; the bread was baking over the coals. "That thar wife
o' his'n, afore she died, war always frettin' 'kase way down thar on
the backbone, whar her house war, the shadow o' the T'other Mounting
laid on it fur an hour an' better every day of the worl'. She 'lowed ez
it always put her in mind o' the shadow o' death. An' I thought 'bout
that thar sayin' o' hern the day when I see her a-lyin' stiff an' cold
on the bed, an' the shadow of the T'other Mounting drapping in at
the open door, an' a-creepin' an' a-creepin' over her face. An' I war
plumb glad when they got that woman under ground, whar, ef the sunshine
can't git ter her, neither kin the shadow. Ef ever thar war a murdered
woman, she war one. Arter all that hed come an' gone with Caleb Hoxie,
fur Tony Britt ter go arter him, 'kase he war a yerb-doctor, ter
git him ter physic his wife, who war nigh about dead with the lung
fever, an' gin up by old Dr. Marsh!--it looks ter me like he war plumb
crazy,--though him an' Caleb hed sorter made friends 'bout the spavined
horse an' sech afore then. Jes' ez soon ez she drunk the stuff that
Caleb fixed fur her she laid her head back an' shet her eyes, an' never
opened 'em no more in this worl'. She war a murdered woman, an' Caleb
Hoxie done it through the yerbs he fixed fur her."
A subtile amethystine mist had gradually overlaid the slopes of the
T'other Mounting, mellowing the brilliant tints of the variegated
foliage to a delicious hazy sheen of mosaics; but about the base the
air seemed dun-colored, though transparent; seen through it, even the
red of the crowded trees was but a sombre sort of magnificence, and
the great masses of gray rocks, jutting out among them here and there,
wore a darkly frowning aspect. Along the summit there was a blaze
of scarlet and gold in the full glory of the sunshine; the topmost
cliffs caught its rays, and gave them back in unexpected gleams of
green or grayish-yellow, as of mosses, or vines, or huckleberry bushes,
nourished in the heart of the deep fissures.
"Waal," said Nathan White, "I never did believe ez Caleb gin her
ennythink ter hurt,--though I knows thar is them ez does. Caleb is the
bes' yerb-doctor I ever see. The rheumatiz would nigh on ter hev killed
me, ef it warn't fur him, that spell I hed las' winter. An' Dr. Marsh,
what they hed up afore the gran' jury, swore that the yerbs what Caleb
gin her war nuthin' ter hurt; _he_ said, though, they couldn't holp nor
hender. An' but fur Dr. Marsh they would hev jailed Caleb ter stand his
trial, like Tony wanted 'em ter do. But Dr. Marsh said she died with
the consumption, jes' the same, an' Caleb's yerbs war wholesome, though
they warn't no 'count at all."
"I knows I ain't a-goin' never ter tech nuthin' he fixes fur me no
more," said his wife, "an' I'll be bound nobody else in these hyar
mountings will, nuther."
"Waal," drawled her son, "I knows fur true ez he air tendin' now on old
Gideon Croft, what lives over yander in the valley on the t'other side
of the T'other Mounting, an' is down with the fever. He went over thar
yestiddy evening, late; I met him when he war goin', an' he tole me."
"He hed better look out how he comes across Tony Britt," said Nathan
White; "fur I hearn, the las' time I war ter the Settlemint, how
Tony hev swore ter kill him the nex' time he see him, fur a-givin'
of pizenous yerbs ter his wife. Tony air mightily outdone 'kase the
gran' jury let him off. Caleb hed better be sorter keerful how he goes
a-foolin' round these hyar dark woods."
The sun had sunk, and the night, long held in abeyance, was coming
fast. The glooms gathered in the valley; a soft gray shadow hung over
the landscape, making familiar things strange. The T'other Mounting was
all a dusky, sad purple under the faintly pulsating stars, save that
high along the horizontal line of its summit gleamed the strange red
radiance of the dead and gone sunset. The outline of the foliage was
clearly drawn against the pure lapis lazuli tint of the sky behind it;
here and there the uncanny light streamed through the bare limbs of an
early leafless tree, which looked in the distance like some bony hand
beckoning, or warning, or raised in horror.
"_Anythink_ mought happen thar!" said the woman, as she stood on
night-wrapped Rocky-Top and gazed up at the alien light, so red in
the midst of the dark landscape. When she turned back to the door of
the little hut, the meagre comforts within seemed almost luxury, in
their cordial contrast to the desolate, dreary mountain yonder and the
thought of the forlorn, wandering hunter. A genial glow from the hearth
diffused itself over the puncheon floor; the savory odor of broiling
venison filled the room as a tall, slim girl knelt before the fire and
placed the meat upon the gridiron, her pale cheeks flushing with the
heat; there was a happy suggestion of peace and unity when the four
generations trooped in to their supper, grandfather on his grandson's
arm, and a sedate two-year-old bringing up the rear. Nathan White's
wife paused behind the others to bar the door, and once more, as she
looked up at the T'other Mounting, the thought of the lonely wanderer
smote her heart. The red sunset light had died out at last, but a
golden aureola heralded the moon-rise, and a gleaming thread edged the
masses of foliage; there was no faint suggestion now of mist in the
valley, and myriads of stars filled a cloudless sky. "He hev done gone
home by this time," she said to her daughter-in-law, as she closed the
door, "an' ef he ain't, he'll hev a moon ter light him."
"Air ye a-studyin' 'bout Tony Britt yit?" asked Nathan White. "He hev
done gone home a good hour by sun, I'll be bound. Jes' ketch Tony
Britt a-huntin' till sundown, will ye! He air a mighty pore hand ter
work. 'Stonishes me ter hear he air even a-huntin' on the T'other
Mounting."
"I don't believe he's up ter enny harm," said the woman; "he hev jes'
tuk ter the woods with grief."
"'Pears ter me," said the daughter-in-law, rising from her kneeling
posture before the fire, and glancing reproachfully at her
husband,--"'pears ter me ez ye mought hev brought him hyar ter eat his
supper along of we-uns, stiddier a-leavin' him a-grievin' over his dead
wife in them witched woods on the T'other Mounting."
The young fellow looked a trifle abashed at this suggestion. "I never
wunst thought of it," he said. "Tony never stopped ter talk more'n a
minit, nohow."
The evening wore away; the octogenarian and the sedate two-year-old
fell asleep in their chairs shortly after supper; Nathan White and his
son smoked their cob-pipes, and talked fitfully of the few incidents
of the day; the women sat in the firelight with their knitting, silent
and absorbed, except that now and then the elder, breaking from her
reverie, declared, "I can't git Tony Britt out'n my head nohow in the
worl'."
The moon had come grandly up over the T'other Mounting, casting long
silver lights and deep black shadows through all the tangled recesses
and yawning chasms of the woods and rocks. In the vast wilderness
the bright rays met only one human creature, the belated hunter
making his way homeward through the dense forest with an experienced
woodman's craft. For no evil intent had brought Tony Britt to the
T'other Mounting; he had spent the day in hunting, urged by that strong
necessity without which the mountaineer seldom makes any exertion. Dr.
Marsh's unavailing skill had cost him dear; his only cow was sold to
make up the twenty dollars fine which his revenge on Caleb Hoxie had
entailed upon him; without even so much as a spavined horse tillage
was impossible, and the bounteous harvest left him empty-handed,
for he had no crops to gather. The hardships of extreme poverty had
reinforced the sorrows that came upon him in battalions, and had
driven him far through long aisles of the woods, where the night fell
upon him unaware. The foliage was all embossed with exquisite silver
designs that seemed to stand out some little distance from the dark
masses of leaves; now and then there came to his eyes that emerald
gleam never seen upon verdure in the daytime,--only shown by some
artificial light, or the moon's sweet uncertainty. The wind was strong
and fresh, but not cold; here and there was a glimmer of dew. Once,
and once only, he thought of the wild traditions which peopled the
T'other Mounting with evil spirits. He paused with a sudden chill; he
glanced nervously over his shoulder down the illimitable avenues of
the lonely woods. The grape-vines, hanging in festoons from tree to
tree, were slowly swinging back and forth, stirred by the wind. There
was a dizzy dance of shadows whirling on every open space where the
light lay on the ground. The roar and fret of Wild-Duck River, hidden
there somewhere in the pines, came on the breeze like a strange, weird,
fitful voice, crying out amid the haunted solitudes of the T'other
Mounting. He turned abruptly, with his gun on his shoulder, and pursued
his way through the trackless desert in the direction of his home. He
had been absorbed in his quest and his gloomy thoughts, and did not
realize the distance he had traversed until it lay before him to be
retraced; but his superstitious terror urged him to renewed exertions.
"Ef ever I gits off'n this hyar witched mounting," he said to himself,
as he tore away the vines and brambles that beset his course, "I'll
never come back agin while I lives." He grew calmer when he paused on
a huge projecting crag, and looked across the narrow valley at the
great black mass opposite, which he knew was Old Rocky-Top; its very
presence gave him a sense of companionship and blunted his fear, and
he sat down to rest for a few minutes, gazing at the outline of the
range he knew so well, so unfamiliar from a new stand-point. How low it
seemed from the heights of the T'other Mounting! Could that faint gleam
be the light in Nathan White's house? Tony Britt glanced further down
the indistinct slope, where he knew his own desolate, deserted hut was
crouched. "Jes' whar the shadow o' the T'other Mounting can reach it,"
he thought, with a new infusion of bitterness. He averted his eyes;
he would look no longer; he threw himself at full length among the
ragged clumps of grass and fragments of rock, and turned his face to
the stars. It all came back to him then. Sometimes, in his sordid cares
and struggles for his scanty existence, his past troubles were dwarfed
by the present. But here on the lonely cliff, with the infinite spaces
above him and the boundless forest below, he felt anew his isolation.
No light on earth save the far gleam from another man's home, and in
heaven only the drowning face of the moon, drifting slowly through the
blue floods of the skies. He was only twenty-five; he had youth and
health and strength, but he felt that he had lived his life; it seemed
long, marked as it was by cares and privation and persistent failure.
Little as he knew of life, he knew how hard his had been, even meted by
those of the poverty-stricken wretches among whom, his lot was cast.
"An' sech luck!" he said, as his sad eyes followed the drifting dead
face of the moon. "Along o' that thar step-mother o' mine till I war
growed; an' then when I war married, an' we hed got the house put up,
an' war beginnin' ter git along like other folks kin, an' Caroline's
mother gin her that thar calf what growed ter a cow, an' through
pinchin' an' savin' we made out ter buy that thar horse from Caleb
Hoxie, jes' ez we war a-startin' ter work a crap he lays down an' dies;
an' that cussed twenty dollars ez I hed ter pay ter the court; an'
Car'line jes' a-gittin' sick, an' a-wastin' an' a-wastin' away, till I,
like a fool, brung Caleb thar, an' he pizens her with his yerbs--God
A'mighty! ef I could jes' lay my hands wunst on that scoundrel I
wouldn't leave a mite of him, ef he war pertected by a hundred lyin',
thievin' gran' juries! But he can't stay a-hidin' forevermo'. He's got
ter 'count ter me, ef he ain't ter the law; an' he'll see a mighty
differ a-twixt us. I swear he'll never draw another breath!"
He rose with a set, stern face, and struck a huge bowlder beside him
with his hard clenched hand as he spoke. He had not even an ignorant
idea of an impressive dramatic pose; but if the great gaunt cliff had
been the stage of a theatre his attitude and manner at that instant
would have won him applause. He was all alone with his poverty and his
anguished memories, as men with such burdens are apt to be.
The bowlder on which, in his rude fashion, he had registered his oath
was harder than his hard hand, and the vehemence of the blow brought
blood; but he had scarcely time to think of it. His absorbed reverie
was broken by a rustling other than that of the eddying wind. He raised
his head and looked about him, half expecting to see the antlers of a
deer. Then there came to his ears the echo of the tread of man. His
eyes mechanically followed the sound. Forty feet down the face of the
crag a broad ledge jutted out, and upon it ran a narrow path, made by
stray cattle, or the feet of their searching owners; it was visible
from the summit for a distance of a hundred yards or so, and the white
glamour of the moonbeams fell full upon it. Before a speculation had
suggested itself, a man walked slowly into view along the path, and
with starting eyes the hunter recognized his dearest foe. Britt's
hand lay upon the bowlder; his oath was in his mind; his unconscious
enemy had come within his power. Swifter than a flash the temptation
was presented. He remembered the warnings of his lawyer at Colbury
last week, when the grand jury had failed to find a true bill against
Caleb Hoxie,--that he was an innocent man, and must go unscathed, that
any revenge for fancied wrongs would be dearly rued; he remembered,
too, the mountain traditions of the falling rocks burying evil-doers
in the heart of the hills. Here was his opportunity. He would have a
life for a life, and there would be one more legend of the very stones
conspiring to punish malefactors escaped from men added to the terrible
"sayin's" of the T'other Mounting. A strong belief in the supernatural
influences of the place was rife within him; he knew nothing of Gideon
Croft's fever and the errand that had brought the herb-doctor through
the "witched mounting;" had he not been transported thither by some
invisible agency, that the rocks might fall upon him and crush him?
The temptation and the resolve were simultaneous. With his hand upon
the bowlder, his hot heart beating fast, his distended eyes burning
upon the approaching figure, he waited for the moment to come. There
lay the long, low, black mountain opposite, with only the moon beams
upon it, for the lights in Nathan White's house were extinguished;
there was the deep, dark gulf of the valley; there, forty feet below
him, was the narrow, moon-flooded path on the ledge, and the man
advancing carelessly. The bowlder fell with a frightful crash, the
echoes rang with a scream of terror, and the two men--one fleeing from
the dreadful danger he had barely escaped, the other from the hideous
deed he thought he had done--ran wildly in opposite directions through
the tangled autumnal woods.
Was every leaf of the forest endowed with a woful voice, that the echo
of that shriek might never die from Tony Britt's ears? Did the storied,
retributive rocks still vibrate with this new victim's frenzied cry?
And what was this horror in his heart! Now,--so late,--was coming a
terrible conviction of his enemy's innocence, and with it a fathomless
remorse.
All through the interminable night he fled frantically along the
mountain's summit, scarcely knowing whither, and caring for nothing
except to multiply the miles between him and the frightful object
that he believed lay under the bowlder which he had dashed down the
precipice. The moon sank beneath the horizon; the fantastic shadows
were merged in the darkest hour of the night; the winds died, and
there was no voice in all the woods, save the wail o' Wild-Duck
River and the forever-resounding screams in the flying wretch's ears.
Sometimes he answered them in a wild, hoarse, inarticulate cry;
sometimes he flung his hands above his head and wrung them in his
agony; never once did he pause in his flight. Panting, breathless,
exhausted, he eagerly sped through the darkness; tearing his face upon
the brambles; plunging now and then into gullies and unseen quagmires;
sometimes falling heavily, but recovering himself in an instant, and
once more struggling on; striving to elude the pursuing voices, and to
distance forever his conscience and his memory.