WHICH GIVES A NEARER VIEW OF THE NEIGHBOR CALLED "SHIFLESS"
With the events which closed the last chapter the three soldiers had
been more than a year on the mountain. They had become thoroughly
settled in their delusion, and more contented in their way of living
than they would have thought it possible, in the beginning, ever to
become.
The long war had come to an end in a way of its own, and without any
regard for the messages flagged from Upper Bald. The soldiers of both
armies had been disbanded, and the good news had found its way into the
mountain settlements at about the time the bear had discovered the
bee-tree.
Far and near the Union outliers had come in from their hiding-places
among the rocks, and were gradually settling their differences with
their Confederate neighbors, in which delicate process there was just
enough shooting to prevent peace from settling too abruptly among the
mountains. In Cashiers valley there was scarcely any difference of
opinion, and the old postmaster in the Cove, who had attended strictly
to his duties and never spied on his neighbors, was not molested under
the new order of things, or even deprived of his office.
On the very evening when the fires were first lighted under the
charcoal pit, it happened that two men were driving along a stony road
which led into the valley over a spur of Little Terrapin. All day the
rain had been falling steadily, and the team showed unmistakable signs
of weariness, the sodden ears of the mule flapping dejectedly outward,
and the steer halting to rest on every shelf of the descent, as the
light wagon creaked and splashed down the mountain in full view of the
wooded face of old Whiteside, now relieved boldly against a twilight
sky which showed signs of clearing. The two men sat crouched on the
wet seat, with a border of sodden bedquilt showing under their rubber
coats, their wool hats dripping down their shining backs, and the
barrels of their guns pointing to right and left out of the dry embrace
in which the locks rested. As they mounted the next ridge, the major
was getting a little comfort out of a spluttering pipe, and Sandy was
looking hopefully between the horns of the steer at the patch of
clearing sky.
"There's some humans a-outlyin' on old Whiteside to-night," said Sandy.
"I 'lowed them critters had all come in."
"What yer talkin' 'bout?" growled the major.
"I'm a-sayin'," said the other, "that there's somebody campin' on the
mountain. It 'pears to be gone now, but I certainly seen a light up
thar."
The major only grunted as if the matter were of no consequence, and
then both relapse into silence as the creaking wheels jolt over the
rocks and grind down the mountain behind the bracing cattle. The form
of the steer grows whiter in the gathering darkness. The men are
evidently familiar with the country, for presently they turn off the
big road into a cart-track, the sides of the wagon brushing against the
dripping bushes as they push through the darkness with the fewest
possible words. Now and then they see a light in the settlement,
glimmering damply through the trees, and dancing and disappearing
before them, as the wagon lurches and rolls upon the weary animals
struggling for a foothold on the shelving rocks. At last they trot out
on a sandy level and pass a log barn, where a group of men are playing
cards by a fire. A little farther on a low line of lights becomes a
row of windows casting a ruddy glow under the dripping trees, and
shining out upon the very wood-pile where, according to Philip, the man
he had named "Shifless" was wont to sit and watch the milking.
"Hello, inside!" cried the major, hailing the house. "Is Elder Long to
home?"
"Well, he ain't fur off," replied a tall woman in a calico sunbonnet
and a homespun gown, who came out on the side porch, shading her eyes
with her hand. "Jest light out o' yer hack an' come in to the fire,
an' I'll carry the critters round to the stable."
Sandy and the major clambered out of the wagon upon the chip dirt, with
a polite inquiry after the news, to which the woman, as she seated
herself on the bedquilt and gathered up the reins, replied that "the
best news she knowed of was that the war was done ended."
The travelers walked stiffly into the house, carrying their guns,
besides which the major held a cow-skin knapsack by the straps, which
he dropped on the floor inside the door. Both men said "Howdy" as they
stalked over to the fireplace, peering from under their hats at the
shadowy forms of a number of women sitting in the uncertain light, who
answered "Howdy" in return; and then, while the men took off their
rubber coats, one woman, bolder than the others, stirred the fire and
thrust a pine-knot behind the backlog.
Presently the ruddy flames leaped up in the stone chimney and picked
out the brass buttons on two butternut-and-gray uniforms, and revealed
the faces of the women, evidently not over-pleased at what they saw.
There was an awkward silence in the room for a moment, and then a tall
man entered, followed by two others, and then a party of three. Each
man carried his gun, and each said "Howdy," to which the strangers
responded; but the conversation showed no signs of being general until
the elder came in, unarmed, as became his peaceful calling.
His gun and powder-horn, however, were handy in a rack over the door,
and as soon as his benevolent face appeared in the firelight the man
Sandy advanced from the corner behind the chimney and held out his hand.
"Ye may have disremembered me, elder, in three years' time," said
Sandy, rather sheepishly.
"I hain't forgot ye," said the elder, gravely, stepping back a pace and
crossing his hands behind his back. "I hain't forgot ye. Been in the
Confederate army, I reckon,"--at which remark there was a rustle among
the elder's friends and a murmur from the women.
"Jes so," said Sandy, not at all disturbed by his cold reception; "an'
likewise my friend the major--Major McKinney."
"Sir to you," said the major, with a wave of his hand.
"We're a-studyin'," said Sandy, "'bout campin' down in this yer
valley--"
"We're all o' one mind here, Sandy Marsh," exclaimed. Mrs. Long, who
had come in from the stable. "We're Union to a man."
"That's what we be in Cashiers," snapped one of the neighbors, who was
fondling his gun; and then there followed a little movement of boots
and rifle-stocks on the floor, which caused the major to get upon his
feet with the intention of making an explanation. There was a hostile
flash in his eye, however, which Elder Long observed, and stretching
out his long arm, he pointed to the major's chair.
"Now set down, comrade, do," said the elder, and then, to the others:
"These two men are my guests to-night. They'll have the best that the
house affords, an' ye'd better be layin' the supper-table, mother.
We'll feed them an' their critters, an' welcome, an' when day comes
they'll move on. Like mother put hit, we're of one way of thinkin' in
Cashiers. No offense, gentlemen, but hit's plumb certain we shouldn't
agree."
Under the advice of the elder, the men stacked their weapons together,
the long rifles with the army guns; and after supper was over the whole
party returned to the fire in an amiable and talkative mood, but with a
perfect understanding that the two Confederates would move on in the
morning.
This point having been settled, the travelers were listened to with the
interest the stranger always receives in remote settlements where new
faces and new ideas seldom come; and the men of the valley, who had
been sullen and suspicious before they had broken bread, now laughed at
the droll adventures of the major and vied with him in story-telling on
their own account.
The women had mostly been silent listeners up to the time when Sandy
mentioned the light he had seen on the crest of Whiteside Mountain, as
they came over Little Terrapin. The major hastened to express a doubt
of his companion having seen anything of the kind, which the other as
stoutly contended he had seen with his eyes open, and that the light
was not lightning or a stray star among the trees, but real fire.
"Ye needn't waste time studyin' 'bout that light, Sandy Marsh," said
Mrs. Long, throwing the last stick on the fire, which was only a heap
of glowing embers. "'T ain't worth the candle, since everybody in
Cashiers knows that mountain is harnted."
"And has been ever since the little old man died up thar all by
hisself," chimed in little Miss Bennett.
"I ain't a great believer in harnts," said the elder, "but if you
viewed anything like fire up thar, hit certainly wa'n't built by human
hands, for there ain't no possible way for a human to git there."
"There's the bridge Josiah Woodring built," Sandy ventured to say. "I
crossed over to hit myself once afore the war-time."
"Hit fell into the gorge of its own weight an' rottenness, more 'n a
year back," said the elder, "an' hit's certain that no man has set foot
on the top of Whiteside since."
The fresh stick, which was only a branch, burned up and threw a
flickering light on the grave faces about the shadowy room, in the
midst of a general silence which was broken by the harsh voice of the
mistress of the house.
"Hit's obleeged to be the harnts, an' comes 'long o' the bones o' the
little old man not havin' had Christian burial up yonder."
"You see," said the elder, "his takin' off wa'n't regular, bein'
altogether unbeknownst, otherwise I'd 'a' seen he had gospel service
said over him that would 'a' left him layin' easy in his grave."
"Which hit stands to reason he can't do now," put in Mrs. Long, "under
that heathen inscription they do say is writ on his headstone. If he
really wanted to be forgot, he'd better left word with Jo-siah to bury
him without so much as markin' the place; an' everybody knows that
unmarked graves holds uneasy spirits."
"Accordin' to that doctrine, Mis' Long," said the major, "whole
regiments of harnts 'u'd be marchin' an' counter-marchin' over some
battle-fields I know."
"'T ain't them that has plenty o' company that gits lonely an' uneasy,"
replied the woman, very promptly, "but such as lays by themselves on
the tops of the mountains or anywheres in the unknown kentry."
"Old Whiteside hain't never brought luck to anybody that owned hit,"
said a piping voice from a niche behind the fireplace, where Granny
White sat in her accustomed rocker. The old woman was the mother of
the mistress of the house, and an authority far and near on all things
supernatural. Her white frilled cap was just visible behind the stones
of the jamb, and even the strangers listened with respect to what she
had to say, in the ghostly silence and in the half-light of the dying
embers.
"I've lived in the shadder of hit for eighty year, an' ther' ain't many
that's been atop o' old Whiteside. Arter Josiah built the bridge, the
Hooper horned critters lay across the gorge one summer, an' two o' the
best cows lost their calves. That must 'a' been in '50. Hay, Larkin,
son--'50, wa'n't hit?"
"That's true, Aunt Lucy," said the elder; "an' a great mystery hit was
at the time. Some suspicioned that the little old man might 'a' killed
'em for meat, but such of us as went up found his cabin empty, an' we
could no more find him than if he had been a harnt hisself."
This statement was received in silence, which was presently broken by
the garrulous voice of the old woman.
"Woe! woe! unto them that ventures onto the dangerous mountains. The
last man knowed to have set foot on Whiteside was Hiram Kitchen, an'
let me tell ye the harnts had a hand in burnin' Hiram Kitchen's cabin
on Christmas day an' totin' him off along with his prisoners. Hit was
a plain judgment ag'in' disbelief. Hay, Larkin, son? You're l'arned
in Scripture."
The elder only gazed at the feathery embers.
"Wherever the old man o' the mountain is a-layin'," continued granny,
"he ain't restin' easy, an' ther' might be a reason for hit, too. He
had plenty o' silver--plenty o' silver." Her voice sank to a husky
whisper. "An' hit's a monstrous lonely place up yonder--somebody might
'a' murdered him. Hay, Larkin, son? Somebody might 'a' done that."
The old woman's words had a powerful effect on the simple crowd
assembled in the shadowy room. They were prone to superstitious
beliefs; and if the two strangers, who had seen more of the world and
had fought in real battles, were less impressed than the others, they
kept a discreet silence, in which the elder rose to his feet and
uttered the evening prayer, not forgetting to ask that they might be
guarded from unseen enemies and from invisible dangers.
In the morning, after the two Confederates had driven away with their
mule-and-ox team in search of a more congenial neighborhood, the elder
seated himself on the woodpile to smoke his morning pipe and watch the
milking.
"Mother," said he, after a while, when his wife came forward between
the well-filled pails, "I don't believe in harnts burnin' houses, but
thar must 'a' been some spirit information pre-ju-dicial to Hiram
Kitchen that I never could git through my head. The last thing I did
afore I rode off to preach Granny Taylor's funeral sermon was to go up
on the hill yonder an' satisfy myself that everything was quiet around
Hiram's. I never let on to the postmaster that there was any Yankee
prisoners around, an' if he knew of hit, he kept hit to hisself. Hit
certainly looks, mother, as if the spirits had a hand in hit, an' a bad
business hit was."
"That's hit, Larkin, son," said Aunt Lucy, who leaned on her staff by
the fence among the great purple cabbage-heads. "When there's mischief
goin' on ye can depend on hit the harnts has a hand in hit. An' hit's
a fair mountain, too," she continued, shading her eyes with her hand
and gazing up at the wooded mass of Whiteside, behind which the sun was
rising. "Hit's fair to view, an' innocent-appearin', but there's few
has set foot on the top o' hit."
The mountain, which harbored no spirits other than the guileless souls
of the three deluded soldiers, was indeed fair to look upon, towering
above its fellows and above the sweet valley of Cashiers. A curtain of
purple haze softened the rich greens of the forest which clothed the
mountain on the valley side, and now, after the rain, white clouds of
vapor were beginning to puff out as if huge concealed boilers were
generating steam behind the trees.