It seemed to Mink Lorey, trudging on toward the mountains, as if they
had been suddenly caught up in the clouds. The horizon had fallen from
their invisible summits to the levels of the cove, and where the flat
stretches of the perspective met the nullities of the enveloping vapors
the scene had all the prosaic, denuded desolation of prairie distances.
Yearning for the sight of the blue peaks, he felt as if it were in
rebuke, in alienation, that they had hidden their faces from him, had
drawn the tissues of the air about them and veiled their heads. As the
day unfolded hour by hour, as the distance lessened mile by mile, he
sought if perchance in a rent of the mist he might not glimpse some dome,
the familiar of his early life, unchanged through all the vicissitudes
that time had wrought for him. Once he was not sure if it were mountain
or cloud outlined in individual symmetry amongst the indeterminate,
shapeless masses of vapor. Then the haze thickened, and he lost the
semblance, whether of earth or air.
It was before dawn that he had escaped from the haven he had found,
and Mrs. Purvine, throughout the day, keeping watch over these snug
quarters, guarded an empty nest. After the first deep, dreamless slumber
of exhaustion he had silently slipped out, taking his way toward the
Great Smoky, the thought of Alethea heavier than all his calamities. He
knew naught of the report of his pardon; he hardly cared now what might
betide him. He would see her and tax her with her fickle heart, and then
he would flee whither he might. Sometimes, as he toiled along, he would
raise his arm with a frantic gesture, and again and again his lips moved
unconsciously as he forecast in sibilant mutters the words that he would
say.
There was little danger at this early hour of meeting any traveler along
the deserted road, but he hardly felt safe until he reached the base
of the Great Smoky, and was amongst the dense laurel of those mighty
forests, still veiled with the mists and effaced from the day. He turned
back often, despite the numbing clutch of despair in his heart and the
turbulence of his rage, hoping that he might see again Chilhowee with
the sunshine on it; with the circuit of birds in the adjacent domains
of the sky; with detached flakes of mist, like stole-clad figures, in
airy processional pacing the summit to elusive evanescences; with its
colors of bronze-green, and anon purple, and, stretching far away, more
finely, softly azure than the heaven it touched. Alas, no,—this he might
remember. And yet he had chance rencontres with old familiars. A torrent,
gray-green, glassy, whitely foaming, darted out from the vapors suddenly,
and was suddenly withdrawn into the blank spaces. And was he akin to the
balsam firs; could he have met brethren with more joy? Even when they
towered undistinguishably above him, they whispered to him a word now and
then, and filled the air with the cordial, inspiriting sense of their
presence. And what was this? He stood still to listen, staring into the
white vagueness of the invisible woods. A fitful, metallic tinkling. Was
he so high up the great steeps that already he could distinguish the
bells of the herds, or was this a stray? He heard a hoof struck upon the
ground presently, the sound of munching teeth, and suddenly a horse’s
head was thrust forward amongst the mists, showing a black mane and wide
brilliant eyes and the arch of a clay-bank neck.
“Thar ye be, Grasshopper! At it agin, air ye?” Mink called out, with the
rancorous formula of an old reproach.
It was a horse that he knew, and knew well,—one of the charges of the
herders during the previous summer,—a wild young creature, with a
proclivity for breaking bounds and straying. The animal pricked up his
ears at the sound of his name, and his eyes met Mink’s with seeming
recognition. The young mountaineer reflected that it was he who had
usually salted the animals. With a hope of bettering his plight he held
out his hand.
“Cobe! Cobe!” he called seductively. The horse looked dubiously at him,
as he stood, one hand thrust in his leather belt, his white hat—an old
one belonging to Jerry Price, which Mrs. Purvine had loaned him—perched
on the back of his head, his red hair limp with the moisture of the damp
day. The creature approached gingerly, snuffing at the empty hand. He
moved back abruptly, detecting the deception; but Mink had caught him by
the halter which he wore, and sprung upon his back.
“Gimme a lift up the mounting, Grasshopper,” suggested Mink placidly.
The stray reared and plunged and kicked, striving to unhorse the rider,
who, although without saddle or bridle, contrived to maintain his seat,
but could neither govern nor guide the animal, that at last bolted off
through the woods, running as rapidly as the nature of the ground would
permit. On he went, invading the mists; piercing the invisibilities of
the wilderness; up hill and down; among bowlders and gigantic trees,
dimly looming; fording streams and standing pools and morasses; pausing
to kick and rear and plunge anew, and away once more. Mink waited calmly
till the stray should exhaust his energies. This proved longer than he
had anticipated. But after several delusive intimations of abating speed
the horse fell into a canter, then into a trot, and as Mink pulled on
the halter the comity with his rider was renewed once more, and he lent
himself to guidance. Looking about him, the young mountaineer could
hardly say where he had been carried. Once as the mist shifted he saw
through the limbs of stunted trees a great peak, a mile away perhaps,
appearing and disappearing elusively among the rifts. He began to
understand that he was on the summit of the ridge in the interval between
two great uprising domes. Often he must needs lie flat on the horse’s
back, lest the low boughs of the ancient dwarfed trees sweep him to
the ground; as it was, they played cruel havoc with his old jeans coat,
and once snatched his hat away. He drew up with difficulty, and as he
clapped it on his head he heard again, in the momentary silence of his
horse’s hoofs, the tinkling of bells other than the one which the nomadic
Grasshopper wore at his neck. He rode toward the sound. It led him into a
limited open space where the trees, struck and burned by the lightnings,
had fallen charred upon the earth: two or three cows were pausing to crop
in the lush grass, despite the crack of a whip and the call of a herder.
Mink recognized the voice of his old comrade, Doaks.
The mounted figure of the fugitive loomed, half discerned, gigantic in
the mist, as Ben Doaks stood and stared. The horse, restive, freakish,
rose upon his hind feet, pawing the air. The young mountaineer, half
doubting the policy of revealing himself, his prudent fears returning,
hesitated, then leaned forward and waved his hand. He did not speak, for
Doaks suddenly, with a wild shrill cry of terror, turned and fled.
Mink sat his horse motionless, staring in amazement. An angry flush rose
to the roots of his hair.
“Ben’s ’feared ter hev enny dealin’s with law-breakers an’ sech,” he
sneered. “’Feared the law mought take arter him.”
He rode along for a few moments, pondering his jeopardy and the long
imprisonment to which he was sentenced. If this demonstration were any
indication of the feeling against him, he would be taken again here
amongst the herders, or at his home in Hazel Valley, or in Wild-Cat
Hollow.
“I oughtn’t ter go ter see Lethe,” he said to himself. “I ought jes’ ter
hustle over inter North Carliny, whar they dunno me, an’ git in with
some o’ them folks ez lives lonesome, the herders, or them Injuns at
Quallatown, till the sher’ff gits tired o’ huntin’ fur me. Nobody ’lows
but what I’m dead ’cept Mis’ Purvine, an’ she ain’t a-goin’ ter tell on
me. I dunno ’bout Lethe; mebbe she’ll ’low ’tain’t right, ’specially
sence she air so powerful pleased with the jedge. I’ll git cotched sure
ef I keep a-roamin’ ’round hyar like a painter, or that thar harnt o’ a
herder ez rides on Thunderhead.”
With the words there flashed upon him a new interpretation of Ben Doaks’s
sudden flight. He recollected the significance of an equestrian figure
here, strangely silent, looming in the mist. As he looked about him,
catching vague glimpses of the neighboring peaks, he recognized the
slopes of Thunderhead.
“Ben mus’ hev been over ter s’arch fur strays, an’ I reckon ye air one of
’em, Grasshopper,” he said.
His lips were curving, and his eyes brightening beneath the brim of the
old wool hat. His prudent resolves vanished. He leaned forward and deftly
divested the horse of the bell. He tossed his head gayly as he struck his
heels against the flanks of the animal with an admonition to get up.
“Ef I don’t ride up thar an’ skeer them herders on Thunderhead inter
fits, I’m the harnt Ben takes me fur, that’s all.”
That misty morning was long remembered on Thunderhead. To the herders,
busy with their simple, leisurely, bucolic avocation on the great
elevated pastures, as aloof from the world, as withdrawn from mundane
influence, as if they herded on lunar mountains, there appeared, veiled
with the mist and vague with a speedy gait, the traditional phantom
horseman: more distinct than they could have imagined, more personally
addressing its presence to the spectators, silently waving its hand, and
once leaning forward and clutching at the empty air, as if it would fain
reach them, and once assuming an aggressive aspect and leveling an unseen
weapon.
The cattle had not all arrived at their summer pastures from the coves
and the “flat woods.” To-day young Bylor, whose father was a farmer
on the slopes below, had driven up a “bunch” of cows, and while he
was standing quite alone at some distance from the cabin, engaged in
readjusting a brass tag which had been lost from the horn of one of the
animals, he heard the sound of an approach, and glanced about him in
the fleecy white nullity that had taken the place of the erased world.
He did not recognize in the dim figure of the horseman the terrible
ghostly herder, the steed rearing and plunging, the erect figure
looming gigantic, merging with no distinct outlines into the enveloping
uncertainty of the mist. He stood stolidly gazing for a moment; then he
hailed it.
“Howdy, stranger!” he cried.
The figure paused; the horse fell upon his haunches and pawed the air
with his forefeet, while the rider leaned forward, beckoning slowly as
Bylor approached. What monition induced him to pause he could hardly have
said. The significance of the insistently beckoning apparition flashed
upon him in the moment. He turned precipitately, stumbling over the roots
of a tree and falling prone upon the ground; then recovering himself, he
ran at full speed through the blinding fog toward the cabin. He swore
afterward that he heard behind him the tramp of a horse’s hoofs and a
voice laughing mockingly.
At the herders’ cabin he found Ben Doaks and his partner from Piomingo
Bald, pallid and shaken, among the other herders who had gathered
there, all panic-stricken, and each arguing to shift to his partner the
responsibility of the care of the cattle, that he might leave the weird,
haunted summits, and find rest and peace and reassuring human comradeship
in the prosaic depths of the cove.
“From what I hev hearn tell ’bout that thar herder,” said Doaks, with his
facile credulity, “none o’ we-uns air a-goin’ ter hev sense enough ter
keer fur cattle ’n’ nuthin’ else fur a year an’ a day. Leastwise that hev
been the ’speriunce o’ other folks ez hev viewed the harnt.”
He laid on another stick of wood, for the day was chill, and the great
fire crackled and sparkled, and the red and yellow flames darted up
the rude and tremulous chimney, and gave the one bright element of
illuminated color to the dark interior. The bearded men grouped about the
fire were seated one upon a keg of salt, three on a log, and Ben Doaks
had dropped on a saddle flung down upon the hearth. The door was closed;
once it came unbuttoned, and every face turned quickly to scan the
shivering mists, pallid and cold and opaque, crowding to the entrance, to
be shut out summarily into the vast vagueness of the outer world.
“I dunno ez I feel ennywise lackin’,” observed another, after a long
introspective pause. He rubbed his hand meditatively over his beard. “I
never ’lowed ez I war special gifted, but I ain’t a spang fool yit.”
“I reckon we hain’t hed time ter ’speriunce it,” said Doaks, as he
settled himself to wait for the dreaded doom, a little astonished,
subacutely, to be conscious of no diminution of mental power.
“I seen him so close!” cried Bylor. “I wish ter goodness I hed shot at
him!”
“Bullet would jes’ hev gone through him,” said Doaks, “’thout
interruptin’ him none.”
“Waal,” rejoined Bylor, “I hev hearn some folks ’low ef ye shoots at a
harnt they don’t like it, an’ sorter makes tharse’fs sca’ce arter that.
I dunno what ailed him ter take arter me. I never herded with him on
Thunderhead. I ain’t no herder, an’ never war. I hate powerful ter go
down inter the cove ter drivel fur a year an’ a day. I never done no work
sca’cely las’ year, through feelin’ sorter keerless ’bout’n it. An’ ef I
hed drempt bout’n’ this hyar harnt a-takin’ arter me I’d hev put in my
work then.”
“Waal, ye can’t git the time back,” said Ben Doaks; and many an idler
before and since Bylor has learned this melancholy truth.
He sat silent for a time, ruefully pondering upon his blasted industrial
prospects. Then he broke forth fretfully once more:—
“I war fool enough ter go so close. I seen the very hat he wore,”—his
tones were full of a despairing regret,—“a big white hat sot onto the
back o’ his head.”
“That war jes’ Josh Nixon,” said the elder of the herders, gravely
shaking his head. “That war the very kind o’ hat he wore, an’ set the
same.”
Three of the five hats in the room were of that exact description; in
fact, it was a fashion common enough in the region for Jerry Price to
have two alike, and the old one which Mrs. Purvine had lent the fugitive
was hardly distinguishable from Mink’s own, floating down the Tennessee
River.
It did not shadow a face altogether appreciative of his own pranks, as
Mink drew it down over his brow and rode away in the mist, when convinced
that the herders were likely to come out no more for the present.
“I can’t take no sure enough enjyemint in nuthin’,” he complained. “I
feel so badgered an’ hunted.”
He looked about him doubtfully. A few strides of his horse and he would
be across the state line, and safer than for many a day. He stood
drearily contemplating the vacancy of the clouds above the Carolina side,
as unresponsive to the imagination as his future, which in vain he sought
to forecast. He suddenly wheeled.
“I’m bound ter see Lethe, though! I’m bound ter tell her I hev fund her
out. She’ll know what I think o’ her afore I’m done.”
He pressed the horse, broken now to a steady gait, into the elusive ways
of the herders’ trail through the weird, stunted woods along the ridge to
the great Piomingo Bald; thence into a path that led down into Wild-Cat
Hollow. He noted its well-worn and smooth curves.
“Ben Doaks hev made a reg’lar turnpike, a-travelin’ ter see Lethe
Sayles,” he said, with some half scornful pity that would not bestir
itself to be jealous.
He made a wide detour of the little house, nestling in the great cleft
of the mountain, occasionally becoming dimly visible as the mist shook
out its gauzy folds in long pervasive shivers, and anon obliterated as it
dropped its denser curtain. Over the valley it was torn into fringes, a
slant of sunlight gilding it, the blue of the sky showing through.
One of the sudden precipitous ascents from the deep depression of the
hollow was distinctly imposed against the horizon. There were great
rocks, with herbs and grasses growing in niches, on either side of a
narrow gorge. Two splintered cliffs amongst them were like a rude and
gigantic gateway giving access to the higher verdant slopes of the
mountain. His eyes, turning mechanically toward the opening vista, were
arrested by the sight of Alethea high up the gorge, standing in the
clifty gateway. Her sun-bonnet, still tied under her chin, had fallen
on her shoulders; her yellow hair was like the golden sunlight denied
to the dreary heights; her familiar brown homespun dress was distinct
against the tender green of the slope; a basket of herbs was on her
arm. Now and then she moved a step and plucked a sprig from a niche,
and again she would pause looking down upon the valley, where the white
glister of the mist united with the suffusion of yellow sunshine beyond
in a gauzy, splendid sheen that now and then parted to reveal the purple
mountains, the blue sky, the silver river, the fields as radiantly green
as the meadows of the blest. His heart beat with emotions he hardly
comprehended, as he noted her luminous, grave, undimmed eyes, her fair,
delicately tinted face.
He dismounted and hitched the horse by the halter to a tree. She did not
see him; she heard nothing; she silently looked about her, and plucked
the herb she sought. He took his way softly up the gorge among the fallen
fragments of rock; he was standing still in the great rift that simulated
a gateway when she turned slowly, and her eyes, widening with fear, with
surprise, with rapture, fell upon him.
His heart could but thrill at her loud, wild cry of joy. He had meant to
upbraid her. She was sobbing on his shoulder, and he held her in his arms.
The mists flickered and faded about them; the sunshine slanted down
through the clouds. The wind lifted its wings, for they heard the flutter
of the breeze, and beside some hidden nest amongst the gray old rocks a
mocking-bird was suddenly singing—singing!
“Ye war pardoned! I know it!” she cried. “I know it!”
He had for once a thought for her,—a vain regret to annul her joy. When
had Alethea looked thus?—the radiant spirit of love, the triumphant
delight of the spring.
He delayed replying. He stooped to gather up the herbs that had fallen on
the ground; for the old hound that followed her had smelt the basket, and
was thrusting his intrusive muzzle among them.
“What be ye a-doin’ of, Lethe?” asked Mink, restoring them, and setting
the basket up on a bowlder.
To detail the simple domestic errand relaxed the tense agitation of their
meeting, and it was a relief to him to listen.
“A-getherin’ wild sallet fur dinner,” she drawled, her happy smiles
and tears together in her eyes. “Our turnip patch never done nuthin’,
sca’cely, an’ ez we-uns ain’t got no turnip-greens I ’lowed I’d gether a
mess o’ wild sallet. The chillen hone so fur suthin’ green.”
There was no quivering sense of deprivation in her voice; the hardships
of poverty would wear to-day the guise of triumphant expedient.
“I hev got about enough,” she said, smiling up at him. “Ye kem on ter the
house an’ I’ll gin ye a soon dinner. Ye mus’ be tired an’ hongry with yer
travels. They’ll all make ye welcome.”
He hesitated. In the supreme happiness of the moment, his face had in a
measure lost the lines that anxiety and suffering had drawn. But now, as
he stood doubtful of what he should say, she noted his changed expression.
“Reuben,” she cried, in tender commiseration, laying her hand on his arm,
“what makes ye look like that? What hev happened ter you-uns?”
“Waal,” said Mink, leaning against the wall of rock behind him, “right
smart o’ different things,—fust an’ last.”
The simple heart’s-ease in being near her again,—he had not realized how
dear he held it,—in hearing her voice, full of solicitude for him, in the
renewing of his unconscious reliance upon her love, had begun to give way
to the antagonism inevitable between them, with their widely opposing
views of life and duty, their uncongenial characters and aims.
He laughed satirically. “Ye talk ’bout pardon! I hain’t got no pardon. I
’low ye wimmin-folks hev got no feelin’ nor pride nuther. I wouldn’t hev
no pardon off’n Gwinnan. I wouldn’t take a favior from him,—not ter save
him from hell, nor me nuther. But I hev got no pardon.”
“Ye air foolin’ me, Reuben, ain’t ye?” she exclaimed, hopefully.
He shook his head.
She gazed gravely at him. “How’d ye git away?”
“Bruk an’ run.”
She stood still; her heart sank; her eyes filled with tears. “Oh,”
she cried, with all the despair of a relinquished hope, “I couldn’t
but b’lieve yestiddy, when Jacob Jessup kep’ a-lookin’ so secret an’
m’licious, ez thar war good news ez he wouldn’t lemme hear,—more ’n he
told ’bout what Jedge Gwinnan said when he rid up ter the cabin, whilst
we war all away ter the church-house ter the revival. An’ I b’lieved
’twar ez you-uns war pardoned. I hev drempt of it! I hev prayed fur it!
I’d hev died fur it!”
“Look hyar, Lethe Sayles!” he exclaimed, tense and erect again. “That
thar ain’t a true word ez ye air a-tellin’ me,—ez that thar man hev kem
ter Wild-Cat Hollow!” His eyes blazed upon her.
She was deprecating and downcast. Her intuition warned her that it
behooved her to be careful. She was too deliberate. He broke out
vehemently:
“He hev! An’ ’twar ter see you-uns.”
“I know ’twar, Reuben, but”—
“I swear ter Heaven,” he cried, lifting his clenched right hand, “ez
the Lord never afore built sech a fool ez me!” His self-pity and
self-contempt were pathetic. “Ain’t I jes’ now been down yander ter Mis’
Purvine’s, an’ hear her tell how that man—oh, curse him, curse him!—air
nigh dead in love with ye, an’ ye hed promised ter marry him!”
“No, Reuben, no! ’Tain’t true. It air jes’ one o’ aunt Dely’s notions.”
“An’ I kem hyar fit in mind ter kill ye dead,” he went on. “An’ the minit
I see ye I furgit it all, an’ ye twist me round yer finger the same ez
ef I war a bit o’ spun truck! G’way, Lethe!”—his voice broke; “don’t ye
tech me.” He moved away, that she might not lay her remonstrant hand
on his shoulder. “I wait on yer word like a child. Ye got me inter all
this trouble through heedin’ yer wisdom ez turned out folly fur me. The
foolishness o’ them ez air bereft air wise ter me! Ye done it!”
He struck his hands despairingly together as he thought of his forlorn
past. Perhaps he was the happier that his reflective moods were so rare.
“I know, Reuben,—I know I did. But I never meant it. I jes’ wanted ye ter
do what war right.”
“Yes, but I hev got ter abide by the consequences o’ what _ye_ think air
right,—don’t ye know it?” he demanded.
“Ef I could hev suffered fur it, stiddier you-uns,” she declared, in
tears, “I’d hev gone ter jail happy—happy.”
His manner changed suddenly. He was at once shocked and displeased. “What
air ye talkin ’bout, Lethe?” he said, in stern rebuke. “Don’t ye know
thar ain’t no ’spectable wimmin in jail?”
This had not occurred to her. She only sighed, and looked away at the
shifting mist over the sunlit valley at the heavier masses of cloud
dropping down upon the mountain above. A great eagle, near enough to
show the gallant spread of his broad wings, swept from their midst,
poised in the sunlight high above the cove, and swooped to the slopes
below. Mink’s gaze followed the bird, his easily diverted interest
quickening. Alethea strove to take advantage of the moment. “I jes’ want
ter tell ye, Reuben”—she began.
“I don’t want ye ter tell me nuthin’!” he cried, fixing on her his brown
fiery eyes, with a bright red spark in their pupils. “Ye make a fool
out’n me. Ye don’t let me hev no mind o’ my own. I reckon it air ’kase
I be in love with ye,—an’ nobody else. All the t’other gals war in love
with me.”
There was none of his jaunty self-sufficiency as he said this,—only a
dreary recognition of the fact.
“Ye hev cut me out’n a heap, Lethe; enny one o’ ’em would hev been mighty
willin’ ter put up with me an’ my ways. They never harried me none, ez ef
I couldn’t do nuthin’ right. I reckon I’d hev been happy an’ peaceable
married ter enny o’ them.”
“I know, Reuben, an’ that’s the reason I wanter tell ye”—She paused,
expecting to be interrupted. But he was looking at her coolly and calmly,
waiting and listening. He was saying to himself that he might safely
hear; it was best that he should know. He would be on his guard. He
would not blindly fall again under her influence. He felt with secret
elation, stern and savage, the handle of a pistol in his pocket. He had
thought it no harm to borrow Jerry Price’s for the purpose of resisting
arrest, finding it on the shelf in the spare room at Mrs. Purvine’s, the
less because it was he who had given it to his friend, with his wonted
free-handedness,—but indeed he had won it lightly, shooting for it at a
match.
He stood with one hand on his hip, the other laid against the rock. His
head was a little thrown back, his hair tossing slightly in the renewing
breeze; he looked at her with dissent and doubt in every line of his face.
“Ye see, he kem hyar ter ax me ’bout Sam Marvin. Ye know I tole on the
trial ’bout him moonshinin’.”
Mink nodded. The thought of those terrible alternations of hope and
despair and remorse was very bitter to him still.
“An’ he ’lowed I knowed whar Marvin be now.”
“What’s he want along o’ Marvin?” demanded Mink, surprised.
“He wanted Marvin, but mostly Jeb Peake, ter testify fur him, ’kase he
’lows thar air goin’ ter be some sort’n trial agin him. Mr. Harshaw got
it up, Jacob Jessup said. Jacob ’lowed the jedge war powerful outed
ter find out ez Jeb war s’pected o’ hevin’ kilt a man, ’kase he war
feared nare one o’ ’em could be tolled out ter testify fur him. An’
Jacob tole him ez Marvin hed quit this mounting, but he hed hearn ez
down on one o’ them ridges nigh Thunderhead thar war a strange man ez
war a-moonshinin’,—Jacob’s mighty apt ter know sech ez that,—an’ he hed
tuk old man Craig’s house, what he hed lef’ ter go ter North Car’liny
ter live with his son. An’ from the account Jacob hearn o’ these folks
he wouldn’t be s’prised none ef them war Sam an’ Jeb. An’ the jedge
knowed the house an’ whar it be. An’ he jes’ lit out ter ride over thar
an’ see. He went yestiddy evenin’, an’ he air kemin’ back hyar ter-day.
’Kase he tole Jacob ef he couldn’t toll Sam or Jeb ter testify thar’d be
no witnesses but his enemies. He ’lowed he’d stay all night at Bylor’s
house, though Jake tole him ter be mighty keerful how he talked about
Sam an’ Jeb thar, fur old man Bylor air runnin’ fur office,—sher’ff, or
constable, or jestice, or suthin’,—an’ wouldn’t ax no better ’n ter git
a chance ter harry law-breakers. An’ the jedge ’lowed ez things hed come
ter a pretty pass with him, an’ rid off.”
She looked up at Mink gravely, earnestly. She had sat down on one of the
rocks beside the basket; her hand toyed with a sprig of the herbs within;
her dense golden hair, heavily undulating, was all the brighter for the
contrast with the dark green vine that draped the gray rocks behind and
above her, the delicate coloring of her face the finer, the tint of the
saffron kerchief, knotted beneath her chin, the more intense. Her brown
gown lay in straight, simple folds about her lithe figure; the gaunt old
hound sat down at her feet and leaned his head on her knee.
Mink had not always been definitely aware of her beauty,—it was not
of the type which most appeals to the rural admirer; but its subtle,
unrealized fascinations had swayed him unconsciously. Now he looked at
her critically, speculatively, striving to behold her as she appeared to
Gwinnan, to adjust his estimate to Mrs. Purvine’s report of the florid
judicial compliments. He cared naught for the rumor of the impending
trial. He felt no gratulation that Harshaw had been able to compass the
jeopardy, if not the disgrace, of the man he hated. He gazed at her with
sedulous attention, to see her with Gwinnan’s eyes.
“Lethe,” he said, suddenly,—he had dropped down upon the ground near her
feet, and leaned back against the rock,—“did Jedge Gwinnan say ennything
ter you-uns ’bout me?”
She was in a tremor instantly.
He did not seem to notice. He was affecting to offer the dog a morsel in
a deceptive bit of stone, and as the creature, with a dubiously wrinkling
and sniffing nose, would attempt to take it he would snatch it away. “Did
he?” he persisted, looking up at her from under the brim of the old white
hat.
“Whenst I talked ter him an’ begged him ter git ye a pardon or suthin’,”
she said. She was not without the tact to avail herself of discreet
ellipses; but she forecast with dread that with these he would not be
content.
“What did he say?” He was suffering the hound to lick the stone in
baffled reproach, and turn away disdainful. Mink’s lip was curling with
fierce sarcasm as he reiterated, “What did he say?”
“I couldn’t ondertake ter remember all he said, Reuben. ’Twar down yander
at the post-office at Locust Levels. Me an’ Jerry Price rid thar in the
wagin ter see ef thar war enny letter fur Mis’ Purvine.”
“I’ll be bound I kin tell ye suthin’ _ye_ said!” exclaimed Mink. “Ye tole
him ez he war powerful good ter hold no gredge agin me.”
She turned her despairing eyes upon him. He could read the truth in their
clear depths.
“An’ he tole ye ez ye war too good ter marry me.”
There was no need to answer.
“An’ ye b’lieved him!”
“Oh, Reuben, ye know better ’n that!” she exclaimed, reassured to speak
freely. “He jes’ talked ’bout’n ye like my step-mother, an’ aunt Dely,
an’ Jake Jessup’s wife; none o’ them air gamesome, an’ they don’t set
store on gamesome ways. ’Twar jes’ sech talk ez theirn.”
He listened, his chin in his hand, his elbow on the rock. She should not
delude him again; he would not succumb to her influence. He felt the
handle of the pistol in his pocket. There was affirmation in its very
touch.
“Gamesome ain’t what _he_ said. He ’lowed I war m’licious.”
Once more he glanced up to read the truth in her eyes.
He slowly pulled himself to his feet. He stood for a moment, erect
and jaunty, his hand thrust in his leather belt, his eyes bright and
confident, his hair tossing back as he moved his head.
“Ye tole him how good he war,” his merciless divinations went on.
She cowered beneath his serene and casual glance.
“Ye don’t deny it, an’ yit ye expec’ me ter not b’lieve what the whole
kentry air a-sayin’,—ez ye hev promised ter marry him an’ hev gin me the
go-by.”
He turned abruptly away. “Reuben,” she cried, “air ye goin’ agin, when
ye hev jes’ kem back?” She laid her importunate hands upon his arm. His
resolution was strong now; he could afford to be lenient and to humor her.
“’Bleeged ter, Lethe,” he said softly, looking down upon her with
the calmness of finality. She did not loose her hold. “Ef ye keep me
a-foolin’ hyar longer ’n I oughter stay, I mought git cotched agin,” he
warned her—“fur twenty year! Jake Jessup would ez soon arrest me ez not.”
She relaxed her grasp, looking fearfully about her in the mist and at the
summit of the great rocks. She followed him, the old hound by her side,
down to the spot where the horse still stood hitched.
“But ye’ll kem back agin, Reuben?” she said, her heart-break in her
voice, her eyes full of tears.
“Laws-a-massy, yes; times an’ times. I kin whistle plumb like a
mocking-bird, an’ whenever ye hear one a-singin’ the same chune three
times ye kem out ’mongst the rocks an’ ye’ll find me.”
Once more he held her at arm’s length and looked searchingly at her
tearful face. Suddenly he mounted his horse and rode away.