The night came on. The dark summits of the great mountains were heavily
defined against the sky. Here and there along those steep slanting lines
that mark the ravines a mist hung, vaguely perceived. A point of red
light might gleam in the dusky depths of Piomingo Cove where the flare
of a hearth-stone flickered out. All the drowsy nocturnal voices joined
in iterative unison, broken only when the marauding wolf of the Great
Smoky howled upon the bald. The herders ruefully thought of the roaming
yearlings, and presaged calamity. All the world was sunk in gloom, till
gradually a rayonnant heralding halo, of a pallid and lustrous green,
appeared above the deeply purple summits; in its midst the yellow moon
slowly revealed itself, and with a visible tremulousness rose solemnly
into the ascendency of the night.
It was high in the sky when Mink Lorey rode along the wild mountain ways.
More than once he looked up earnestly at it, not under the spell of
lunar splendors, but with a prosaic calculation of the hour. Suddenly he
drew up the mare. He lifted his head, listening. Voices sounded in the
depths of the woods,—faint, far, hilarious voices; then absolute silence.
He struck the mare with his heels. The animal pushed on unwillingly,
breaking through the brush, stumbling over the stones, scrambling up
and down steep slopes. All at once, with a burst of laughter, there was
disclosed an opening in the forest. A glory of pale moonlight suffused
the mountains in the distance and the shimmering mists in the valley. In
the flecking shadow of the great trees were half a dozen figures, with
hairy moonlit faces and shining eyes, seated on logs or rocks, or lying
upon the ground.
Not fauns nor satyrs; not Bacchus come again with all his giddy rout.
Only the malcontents because of the bonded still.
“Hy’re, Mink!” exclaimed Jerry Price. “We fund the jug hyar ’cordin’ ter
promise, hid in a hollow tree.”
“I hope,” said Mink with sudden apprehension, as he dismounted, “thar be
some lef’ fur me.”
“A leetle, I reckon. Hyar, Mink, wet yer whistle.”
Mink sat down on the roots of a tree draped from its summit to its lowest
bough with the rank luxuriance of a wild grapevine. The pendent ends
swayed in the wind. The dew was upon the bunches of green fruit and the
delicate tendrils, and the moonlight slanted on them with a glistening
sheen.
Mink took the jug, which gurgled alluringly. He removed the cob that
served as stopper, and smelled it with the circumspect air of those who
drink from jugs. Then he turned it up to his mouth. A long bubbling
sound, and he put it down with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Ye don’t ’pear ez riled ez ye did when ye rid out’n Piomingo Cove,”
suggested Pete Rood.
He had a swaggering, triumphant manner, although he was lying on the
ground.
Mink, leaning back against the bole of the tree, the moonlight full on
his wild dark eyes, his clear-cut face, and tousled hair, gave no sign of
anger or even of attention.
“Whar hev ye been all this time?” asked Jerry Price.
“Waal,” said Mink leisurely, “ye know that thar coon ez Tad gin me,—I won
it at ‘five corn:’ arter I hed rid out’n Piomingo Cove an’ hed started
up the mounting, I hearn suthin’ yappin’ arter me, an’ thar war Tad
a-fetchin’ his coon. That thar idjit hed run mighty nigh three miles
ter fetch me his coon! Waal, I hedn’t no ’casion fur a cap, an’ the
coon war a powerful peart leetle consarn,—smiled mighty nigh ekal ter a
possum,—an’ I ’lowed Elviry Crosby mought set store by sech fur a pet,
an’ so I rid over thar an’ gin the coon ter her. She war mos’ pleased ter
death ter git the critter.”
“Ye ain’t been thar ever sence!” exclaimed Jerry.
“Yes,” said Mink demurely. “I bided ter supper along of ’em,—the old
folks bein’ powerful perlite an’ gin me an invite.”
Jerry poked him in the ribs. “Ye air a comical cuss! Ye hev got all the
gals in the mountings crazy ’bout’n ye.”
Mink laughed lightly, and stayed the fleet jug, which was agile
considering its bulk, and once more drank deeply. If he had needed zest
for his draught, he might have found it in the expression of Pete Rood’s
face. He had already revenged himself, but he must needs push the matter
further. He smiled with reminiscent relish, as he leaned against the tree.
“Elviry axed mighty p’inted ef I war a-goin’ right straight up ter
the herders’ cabin ter-night, an’ I tole her ez I hed a job on hand
with a man named Tobias Winkeye ez I hed ter look arter fust. But she
suspicioned suthin’, ’count o’ the name, I reckon, though she never
drempt ’twar jes’ whiskey. She ’lowed she hed never hearn o’ nobody named
sech. An’ I tole her she hed: her dad used ter like old Winkeye mightily,
though _she_ didn’t know him ez well ez some. She ’lowed I war a-goin’
off a-courtin’ some other gal. It war toler’ble hard ter pacify her,”
with a covert glance at Rood. “I hed ter talk sixteen ter the dozen.”
“Waal, we hed better look out how our tongues wag so slack with that thar
name,” said Price. “I lef’ old man Griff settin’ outside the mill door
a-waitin’ fur old Winkeye ter ride by,—bein’ ez I hed gin the word he
lives in Eskaqua Cove,—’kase he wanted ter warn him not ter let no job o’
work go ter Mink Lorey. He ’lowed he war goin’ ter gin Mink a bad name.”
Mink’s blood, fired by the liquor, burned at fever heat. His roving eyes
were distended and unnaturally bright as the moonlight flashed into them.
His cheek was deeply flushed. Despite the rare chill air of the heights,
he was hot; often he took off his hat to let the wind play in his long
tangled hair that hung down to his shoulders, and lay in heavy moist
rings on his forehead. Every fibre was strained to the keenest tension
of excitement. He was equally susceptible to any current of emotion, to
anger or mirth. He broke out indignantly:—
“Old man Griff hed better quit tryin’ ter spite me. I’ll fix him fur it.
I’m goin’ by thar this very night an’ lift the mill gate an’ set the
wheel a-runnin’. It’ll be ez good ez a coon-fight ter see him kem out’n
his house an’ cuss!”
He burst into sudden laughter.
“Oh, ah! Oh, ah!” he sang,—
“The wind blows brief, the moon hangs high;
Oh, listen, folks!—the dead leaves fly.
The witch air out with a broom o’ saidge,
Ter sweep ’em up an’ over the aidge
O’ the new-made grave, ‘ter hide,’ she said,
‘The prints o’ my fingers buryin’ the dead;
Fur how he died—oh, ah! oh, ah!
I’d tell ef ’twarn’t fur the mornin’ star.’”
His mellow, rich baritone voice, hilarious and loud, echoed far and wide,
and incongruously filled the solemn solitudes.
“Who air a-goin’ ter hear?” he demanded, when caution was suggested. “The
herders on the mounting? Too fur off! Too high up! Asleep, besides.”
“They’d think ’twar a wolf,” said Peter Rood, still lying at length on
the ground.
Mink had his sensibilities. On these harmonious numbers he piqued
himself. He felt affronted.
“A leetle mo’, an’ I’ll break this jug over yer head. Nobody ain’t
a-goin’ ter think ez my singin’ air a wolf.”
“Ye hand it hyar,” said Pete; “nobody gits a fair show at that jug but
you-uns.” As he rose to his knees one foot caught in a grapevine, in his
haste.
“Wait till it be empty,” said Mink, making a feint of lifting it to his
mouth. Then turning suddenly, he faced Pete Rood as he staggered to his
feet, and dealt a blow which sent that worthy once more prone upon the
ground.
There was a jumble of excited protest from the others, each vociferously
trying to quiet his companions. Mink was squaring off with clenched fists.
“Kem on,” he observed, “thar’s ground enough hyar fur ez many ez kin
kiver it.”
“Look-a-hyar,” exclaimed Jerry Price, whose grief that the placidities
of the festivity should be frustrated very nearly resembled a regard for
law and order, “ye two boys hev jes’ got ter quit fightin’ an’ sech, an’
spilin’ the enjyement o’ the rest o’ we-uns. Quit foolin’, Mink. Ye ain’t
hurt no-ways, air ye, Pete?”
“Laws-a-massy, naw,” said Pete unexpectedly. “Mink never knocked me down
nohow. I jes’ cotched my foot in a grapevine. That’s all.”
But he lifted himself heavily, and he limped as he walked to a rock at a
little distance and sat down.
Mink with his sudden change of temper let the encounter pass as a bit of
fun. He referred to the jug frequently afterward, and again burst into
song:—
“Oh, ah! Oh, ah!
The weevil’s in the wheat, the worm’s in the corn,
The moon’s got a twist in the eend o’ her horn;
Fur the witch, she grinned and batted her eye,
An’ gin ’em an ail ez she went by
Ter fresk in the frost, ‘an’ show,’ she said,
‘I kin dance on my ankle-j’ints an’ swaller my head,
An’ how I do it, oh, ah! oh, ah!
I’d tell ef ’twarn’t fur the mornin’ star.’”
The others joined tumultuously in the chorus. One sprang up, dancing a
clumsy measure and striking his feet together with an uncouth deftness
worthy of all praise in the estimation of his comrades. They broke
into ecstatic guffaws, in the midst of which Mink’s “Oh, ah! Oh, ah!”
heralding the next verse, seemed a voice a long way off. Down the ravine
was visible a collection of great white trees, girdled and dead long ago,
standing in some field, all so tiny in the distance that it was as if the
fingers of a ghostly hand had pointed upward at the group of revelers on
the ridge.
The shadows had shifted, slanted. The moon was westering fast. Every
gauzy effect of vapor had its fascination in the embellishing beam,
and shone vaguely iridescent All were drifting down the valley toward
Chilhowee. Above them rose that enchanted mountain’s summit, with its
long irregular horizontal line, purple and romantic, suggestive of its
crags, its caves, its forests, and its wild unwritten poetry. A star was
close upon it. Peace brooded on its heights.
The prophecy of dawn was momently reiterated with fuller phrase, with
plainer significance. Even Mink, reluctant to recognize it, yielded at
last to Jerry Price’s insistence. And indeed the jug was empty.
“Put the jug in the hollow tree, then, like we promised, an’ let’s go,”
said Mink. “Mos’ day, ennyhow. ‘Oh, ah! Oh, ah! The daylight’s apt ter
break,’ said the witch.”
The jug was thrust in the hollow of the tree, and the drunken fellows, in
the securities of their fancied quiet, went whooping through the woods.
The owl’s hoot ceased as their meaningless clamor rose from under the
boughs. Now and then that crisp, matutinal sound, the vibrant chirp of
half-awakened nestlings, jarred the air.
The group presently began to separate, some going down to Eskaqua Cove,
where they would find their several homes if they could, but would at
all hazards lay down their neighbors’ fences. Rood lingered for a time
with Mink and one or two others who cherished the design of seeing old
man Griff’s mill started before day. He turned off, however, when they
had reached the open spaces of Piomingo Cove. It lay quiet, pastoral,
encircled by the solemn mountains, with the long slant of the moonbeams
upon it and the glister of the dew. The fields had all a pearly, luminous
effect, marked off by the zigzag lines of the rail fences and the dark
bushes that stood in corners. The houses, indicated by clumps of trees
among which they nestled, were dark and silent. Not even a dog barked.
When a cock crew the sudden note seemed clear and resonant as a bugle.
“Crowin’ fur fower o’clock.” said Mink.
The road ran among woods much of the distance; through the trees could
be caught occasional glimpses of the illuminated world without. But
presently they gave way. A wide, deep notch in the summit of a mountain
revealed the western sky. The translucent amber moon swung above these
purple steeps, all suffused with its glamourous irradiation. Below,
the shining breadth of the Scolacutta River swept down from the vague
darkness. It was still night, yet one could see how the pawpaw and the
laurel crowded the banks. The oblique line of the roof of the mill was
drawn against the purple sky; its windows were black; its supports were
reflected in the stream with a distinct reduplication; the water trickled
down from crevices in the race with a lace-like effect, seeming never
to fall, but to hang as if it were some gauzy fragment of a fabric.
Beneath the great wheel, motionless, circular, shadowy, was a shoaling
yellow light, pellucid and splendid,—the moon among the shallows. The
natural dam, a glassy cataract, bursting into foam and spray, was whitely
visible, with surging rapids below. The sound seemed louder than usual;
it deadened the snap when Mink cut a pole from a pawpaw tree and hastily
trimmed the leaves. He climbed gingerly upon the timbers of the race,
then paused, looked back, and hesitated.
The others had reined in their horses, and stood, ill-defined equestrian
shadows, on the bank watching him.
He placed the pole beneath the lever by which the gate was raised, its
other end being within the building. There was no sound but the monotone
of the river. Then with a great creak the gate was lifted. The imprisoned
water came through with a tumultuous rush. Mink felt the stir beneath as
the wheel began to revolve. There was a sudden jar, a jerk, the structure
swayed beneath him, a crash among the timbers, a harsh, wrenching sound
as they tore apart. He saw the faint stars reel as in some distraught
vision. He heard the wild exclamations of the men on the bank. He could
not distinguish what they said, but with an instinct rather than any
appreciation of cause and effect he tried to draw away the pole to let
the gate down.
Too late. Through the sunken wreck of the race the water still poured
over the madly plunging wheel. Mink sprang upon the bank, fell upon his
hands and knees, and as he struggled to his feet he saw beneath the race
the grotesque distortions of the simple machinery. Some villain’s hand
had adroitly contrived a series of clogs, each of insufficient weight to
stop the wheel with the water still pouring over it, but as it crushed
them—first an empty barrel, then a pole, then a fence-rail—giving it a
succession of shocks that were fast breaking it in pieces. Thus what
was designed for jest should result in destruction. The mill itself was
a rotten old structure at best. Jarring with every convulsive wrench
and jerk of the bewitched wheel, its supports tottered feebly in the
water, and when all at once the race came down, and the wheel and the
heavy beams were driven against its walls, for an instant it quivered,
then careened, crashed. There was a great cloud of dust rising from the
tumbled wreck on the bank. In the water, floating away on the swollen
floods, were timbers, and barrels, and boards, and parts of the clapboard
roof.
And then, from their midst, as if the old building had an appreciated
agony in its dissolution, a great cry of pain went up. Mink turned
with a white face, as he put his foot in the stirrup, to stare over
his shoulder. Surely he was drunk, very drunk. Had the others heard? A
twinkling light sprang up beyond the orchard boughs. The house had taken
the alarm. His companions were getting away in haste. Sober enough for
flight and flapping their elbows, they crowed in mockery. Mink leaped
into his saddle to ride as ride he must, still looking with a lingering
fear over his shoulder, remembering that quavering cry.
Was he drunk, or did he hear? Could any creature have been in the mill,
undisturbed,—for they were so craftily quiet,—asleep till awakened by
those death throes of the little building? Could it have been a pet fawn
bleating with almost a human intonation in that common anguish of all
life, the fear of death,—a pet cub? What! his heart ached for it,—he, the
hardy hunter? Oh, was his conscience endowed with some subtle discernment
more acute than his senses? It seemed a surly fate that had crept up on
the unwitting creature in the dark, in the humble peace of its slumbers.
And he was sorry, too, for the old man’s mill; and then a vague terror
possessed him when he thought of the trickery with the wheel. Surely the
hand of another had compassed its destruction, yet when or why he could
not understand, could not guess; or was he himself the miscreant? He
could not remember what he had done; he had been so very drunk.
Ah, should he ever again see Chilhowee thus receive the slant of the
sunrise, and stand revealed in definite purple heights against the pale
blue of the far west? Should he ever again mark that joyous matutinal
impulse of nature as the dawn expanded into day? The note of a bird,
sweet, thrilling with gladness, came from the woods, so charged with the
spirit of the morning that it might have been the voice of the light.
And the dew was rich with the fragrance of flowers, and as he galloped
along the bridle-path they stretched their rank growth across his way,
sometimes smiting him lightly in the face, like a challenge to mirth.
When he climbed the steep ridge from which were visible the domes of the
Great Smoky, all massive and splendid against the dispersing roseate
tints in the sky, the sunlight gushing down in a crimson flood while
the dazzling focus rose higher than the highest bald, he cared less to
look above than into the shadowed depths of Piomingo Cove. Did he fancy,
or could he see a stir there? An atom slowly moved down the lane, and
across the red clay slope of a hill,—another, and yet one more. Was the
settlement already roused with the news of the disaster to the mill? He
turned and pressed his mare along the rocky road, up slopes and down
again, still ascending and descending the minor ridges that lie about
the base of the Smoky. Sometimes he wondered at himself with a harsh,
impersonal reprehension, as if his deed were another’s. “How’s the old
man goin’ ter make out ter barely live ’thout his mill?” he demanded of
himself; “an’ them gran’chil’n ter keer fur, an’ Tad, an’ all.”
Then would come again the recollection of that strange muffled scream,
and though the sun was warm he shivered.
Often he drew up the mare and listened with a vague sense of pursuit.
Stillness could hardly be more profound. Not the stir of a leaf, never a
stealthy tread. Then as he started again down the rocky way, some vagrant
echo, or a stone rolling under his mare’s hoof, would bring to him again
that sudden affright, and he would swiftly turn to see who dogged him.
There were many curves in the path, and once in its opening vista he saw
before him a girl with yellow hair outlined against the green and gold
foliage of the sunlit woods, clad in brown homespun, partly leading and
partly driving a dun-colored ox, with a rope knotted about his long horns.
She paused, swaying hard on it to check the animal, when she beheld the
horseman, and her brown eyes were full of surprised recognition.
Mink gravely nodded in response to her grave salutation. He seemed at
first about to pass without stopping, but when it was evident that she
intended to let the ox trudge on he drew up the mare.
“Howdy, Lethe,” he said.
“Howdy,” returned Alethea.
“Enny news?”
She shook her head without speaking.
“Whar be ye a-goin’ with Buck?” he asked.
“Arter the warpin’ ars. They war loaned ter aunt Dely, an’ she hain’t got
but one steer ter haul ’em home. So Buck hed ter go.”
The ox had reached up his dun-colored head for the leaves, all green and
flecked with golden light. She had loosed her hold upon the rope, and
seriously gazed at Mink.
“I war down ter Crosby’s yestiddy evenin’,” he observed, watching her.
“I hopes ye enjyed yerse’f,” she said, with tart self-betrayal.
He laughed a little, and turned the reins in his hands. He relished
infinitely the sight of the red and angry spot on either cheek, the spark
in her eye.
“I did,” he said jauntily, noting the effect of his words. “I seen
Elviry.”
She made an effort at self-control.
“Waal,” she returned, calmly, although her voice trembled a little, “I
hope ye kin agree with her better ’n ye ever done with me. We warn’t made
fur one another, I reckon, no-ways.”
“Oh, I hain’t never axed Elviry; ’tain’t never gone ez fur ez that. I
’lowed ez mebbe ye an’ me mought make it up some day.”
He was only trying her, but the vaunted feminine intuition did not detect
this. Her cheek crimsoned. Her eyes were full of liquid lights. She
laughed, a low gurgling laugh of happiness, that, nevertheless, broke
into a sob.
“I dunno ’bout that,” she said, evasively, belying the rapture in her
face.
She was very beautiful at the moment A cultivated man, versed in the
harmonies of line and color, tutored to discriminate expressions and
gauge feelings and recognize types, might have perceived something
innately noble in her, foolish though the affection was which embellished
her.
Even he was impressed by it. “I hev never axed nobody but ye,” he said.
“Not even arter we quar’led.”
He was not bound by this, which he knew full well, and it promised
nothing. But it held her love and loyalty for him, if ever he should want
them.
Nevertheless, while he piqued himself on his domination, he was under
her influence at the fleeting moment when he was with her. Perhaps her
presence induced some tender affinity for the better things. He said
with a sigh, “I hev done gone an’ got in a awful scrape, Lethe. I reckon
nobody never hed sech a pack o’ troubles in this worl’.”
With a sort of pitying deprecation of the wiles of old Tobias Winkeye she
gravely listened. Once she unconsciously put up her hand and stroked his
mare. He was petulant, like a spoiled child, when he told how he only
meant a jest and such woful destruction had ensued. “An’ me so boozy
I dunno _what_ I done. An’ that thar pore old man! An’ his mill plumb
ruined! An’ all his gran’chillen an’ Tad ter keer fur!”